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st_aurafinaTitle: A Rattling of Cages
Fandom: James Bond - Casino Royale
Rating: PG
Summary: On the trail of a bioterrorist, James Bond makes more than one regrettable decision.
Notes: Originally posted here, for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bozaloshtsh, in Yuletide 2007. Thank you to lilacsigil, penknife and wizefics for beta reading.
Sometimes Bond dreams of Vesper's death in that eerie weightless place, feels the twists of wrought iron cut into his palms as he wrenches the elevator door from side to side. The dream unspools differently each time and the tiny inaccuracies chafe at him even while he sleeps: his mind is trained for accurate recall. Sometimes, with a swell of vertigo and a leaden feeling in his chest, it's him trapped behind the mesh of scrolls and iron leaves; in her place, he follows the script in his mind carefully: now press against the back of the cage, now reach out for her between the bars of the door. When he wakes from this dream with a desperate gasp for breath, he expects to see the imprint of the tiny key where it was pressed against his palm. Not in any permutation is Vesper allowed to live. This is how Bond knows his mind has accepted her loss.
He's on assignment right now, an imperative that sinks into his subconscious, leaving him alert enough to control that first hungry inhalation, letting the air slide in slowly with a low hiss so that it doesn't wake the man sleeping on the bunk below him. Wandsworth prison has a sickly glow that contradicts the lights-out order, and the wire-caged sodium globe outside the window throws sallow light on the cheery, naked women plastered on the walls of his cell. Bond eases himself up on his elbows and slides silently to the ground. The cheap, thin mattress doesn't betray him. Crouching on the floor beside the lower bunk, he examines the man sleeping uneasily under the prickly wool blanket, plump and pasty after too many starchy meals and only one hour a day in the yard.
Their first meeting had been a cautious sizing up. Blount, the smaller, softer man, inured by now to the social pre-requisites of prison life, waited to see what was demanded of him by his new cell mate. He eyed Bond with a grim expression, nervously taking in the muscled form and the broken nose.
"Don't worry," Bond had said, with a comforting Northern burr, letting his eyes crinkle up in a friendly smile, "I like 'em with bigger tits." They'd both had a bit of a laugh, then settled into the cheerless drear of the prisoner's life, leaving Bond free to carefully unwrap his assignment. What Bond found, under those layers of soft, white flesh would determine whether Blount lived or died. There is a valuable piece of intelligence on the loose, and an outside chance that Blount may have had a whiff of it. Bond's orders are clear: if Blount is compromised, he is to be eliminated, but not before Bond can determine where the information trail leads next.
He liked a chat, did Blount, liked to smooth his way through prison life with tidbits of gossip and amusing stories from his nouveau-riche lifestyle on the outside: famous people with whom he'd brushed shoulders, and the one time he'd met Prince Charles. Bond, playing the gruff working class thug, was happy to let the man prattle on, gently guiding the conversation towards Blount's pretentious, less-than-stellar public school, and the people he'd associated with in those happy years of toast and buggery.
Bond is out of patience, tonight, after clawing out of his desperate, breathless dream. He breathes slowly, though he wants to gasp for breath, then fills the shared plastic tumbler at the tiny sink, and lets the chlorinated water wash away the brackish aftertaste of the canals of Venice. Blount sleeps on, oblivious to the threat looming over him. Bond lifts the pillow from his own bed, testing the tired rubber foam in his hands, folding it in half to give him the best seal.
It galls him, that after he had been tested and proven in the field, M would assign him to take care of this contemptible creature. Bond knows that there is a crisis on hand, can see the strain in M's face and can hear Villiers in the outer office nimbly juggling calls from a dozen officials. If he rested his head against the rubbery painted wall of this cell, he'd almost be able to hear the rumble of movement as his peers spread out across the country to halt the spread of this dangerous piece of information. Meanwhile, he is consigned to a cell, instructed to flirt facts out of this cockroach.
It's easy enough for Bond to slip a leg across the mattress of the lower bunk and position himself astride the sleeping man's torso. Blount doesn't even stir until the slab of foam that served as Bond's pillow is pressing against his mouth and nose. For a small man, he puts up quite a fight for air, bucking under Bond's body weight, arms flailing and beating against Bond's chest. Bond counts the minutes down; when four have elapsed, and Blount's movements are getting feeble, he removes the pillow, and drags the gasping prisoner to the floor. He presses his bare foot against the man's chest, just hard enough to prevent him from drawing a full breath. Blount gasps and sputters, with his hands wrapped around Bond's ankle, but he can't inflate his lungs enough to shout for help.
"I want you to tell me a story, Blount." The cheerful Northern accent is gone, and Blount's eyes, weeping and streaming, widen in confusion. "Tell me everything you know about Freddie Nevilles." He presses down a little harder, and air rushes out of Blount like a deflating tire. "There's three hours till morning roll call, so feel free to start from the very beginning."
It's a long story, beginning with a shared desk at prep school. The light from the wire-covered window gradually thins and brightens, and Blount remains on his back on the rubber-painted concrete floor, gasping his story out.
"I haven't seen him since I went away. Thirteen months, and he never even sends me a bloody letter. All I know is gossip from our friends, you know." Even under the weight of Bond's foot, Blount finds the energy to whine. "He's seeing this bird, a model. Famous. It's all very hush-hush, she's supposed to be with that cricketer." A loud metal clunk comes from further down the corridor, and Blount's eyes light up with hope – the guards have started early morning cell checks. The key hasn't even turned in the lock before Blount is screaming a whispery cry of terror. There's a brouhaha, with guards calling more guards, and Bond is dragged off to solitary, and Blount too, for good measure.
Bond knows the situation is dire when he's extracted inside the day under the pretext of a transfer to a higher security prison. In any other circumstance, M would have left him there for a week for acting so hastily. His suspicions are confirmed when it's Villiers who meets him in the afternoon at the open double doors of the prisoner transport vehicle.
"You were unexpectedly swift – were you compromised?"
Bond considers the question as he steps from the van into the company car. It's vital that Nevilles isn't alerted to the fact that he's the subject of a nation-wide manhunt and Bond wasn't exactly subtle in his interrogation of Blount. It's a calculated risk: Blount will be in solitary for at least twenty four hours, which will give Bond a chance to wrap up the mission first. He dissembles, knowing that he can fool Villiers where he would never be able to convince M.
"Not compromised, no. A little rough, but nothing suspicious for Wandsworth." He looks sideways at Villiers, and twists his mouth into a flirtatious smirk. Villiers is an exceptionally competent secretary, but never meant for field work. He blushes, and shuffles the papers in his file nervously, then drops them across the back seat of the discreet company car in confusion. The question is forgotten as he struggles to collect them.
"Oh, for heaven's sake," Bond gathers them up and reads them himself, while Villiers frets ineffectually about inappropriate clearance. Bond sorts through the files, gives the pages he's not supposed to have seen back to Villiers once he's scanned them for relevance, and slides the photo of the woman onto the leather upholstery between them. Annoyed at himself for having to quell a sudden unease that she might look like Vesper, Bond forces himself to examine the woman's features clinically: that very fashionable and carefully constructed combination of stick-thin limbs and large breasts. He pushes the photo aside, and shrugs out of his prison-issue tracksuit, unzipping the suit bag that hangs from the seat in front of him and ignoring Villiers' discomfort.
"There's been no sign of Nevilles, then?" The crisp shirt feels cool against his skin after the cheap fleece.
Villiers is pretending to watch the countryside fly past as the car speeds silently along the motorway. "No, nothing yet. He's slipped underground completely. He must have been planning this for a while – he hasn't accessed bank accounts or used a mobile phone." Villiers' gaze rests for a moment on Bond's hands buttoning the shirt with neat movements, and he blushes again. "We know what he's been keeping in his warehouses now – aerolising agents, propellants. Nobody thought anything of it at the time: on their own, those things are harmless. And now they're gone."
The fact – the extremely dangerous piece of truth that would have ended Edwin Blount's life if he had been exposed to it - sits between them, an unmentionable thing. Britain's nasty little secret, the WWII weapon it just couldn't bring itself to throw away, Winston Churchill's cache of anthrax. It has been rifled through, and not all the canisters can be accounted for. The responsibility for the security breach was being hand-balled between agency heads wishing to avoid being left with a PR nightmare on their doorstep. MI6 had stepped up to take responsibility, as it was a direct descendent of the war effort that originally created the weapon. Bond rather liked M's cheek – if she pulled this off, she'd garner huge esteem, and every agency in the country would court her favour. If she failed, she'd sink the Service forever, taking everyone down with her. Perhaps not the incredibly useful Villiers, Bond thinks, taking a comb from the secretary's outstretched hand and dragging it through his own hair. He ponders for a moment what life would be like without the Service, and draws a blank. His fingers twitch, remembering the resignation letter of some months ago, and he reaches for something to distract his memory from the smell of sea-salt and varnish.
"Who's top of the office pool at the moment, Villiers?" Bond flips open the wallet that Villiers gave him just a moment ago, and slides a large note out.
Villiers raises his eyebrows at the blatant misuse of Government funds, "009 at the moment. M sent him to Cambridge, he's been working over Nevilles' university chums."
"And who did you bet on?"
"006. She's with the parents, she's very convincing." Villiers hands Bond a gun and holster with the same unconcerned efficiency with which he had passed over the comb. He takes the crisp note from Bond's hand with a snap. "Backing yourself, I expect? I'm afraid your odds are rather long."
Bond raises an eyebrow. "The longer the odds, the bigger the return." He rests his hand on the holster for a moment, then smooths the line of his jacket down as the car pulls into the access driveway of a large hotel. The car barely pauses between two delivery vans being loaded with the remains of food ignored by starving fashionistas, and Bond is out and moving through the crowd of organisers.
The chaos of a fashion show works both ways: because he walks with purpose and a flat, bored expression, Bond is able to march straight past the security guard at the kitchen door. Once he's left the militant organisation of the delivery bay, though, he is quickly mired in a flailing pandemonium of short men and cadaverous Amazons. Nothing is where it is meant to be, and everyone is shouting about it, even though the show finished an hour ago. Bond finally locates the dressing rooms. A spindly child of no more than thirteen sits on a folding chair against the open door, holding the leash of a black and white goat that sways dizzily from side to side.
The model looks at him with huge eyes of cornflower blue. She is wearing a sequinned shift with transparent panels over the breasts. "They gave him a drug to calm him down for the show." She speaks with a heavy Russian accent. "I do not think it is good for a goat."
On the other side of the door, a blue haze of smoke drifts above the racks of clothes, and the models feed the cloud, smoking in rows like factory chimneys. Bond weaves between the clusters of make-up artists hovering around each model, avoiding camera lenses as much as possible. He doesn't want to be remembered. The strobing of camera flashes lend a surreal slowness to the bustle backstage, and the long-legged women look as though they are floating. One looks at him, skull-like face with dark, hollow eyes, and he feels the burn of canal water in the back of his throat. He looks away and finds the woman he is searching for.
She is having her pale hair unbraided from an elaborate architecture of basket cane and diamond pendants. She watches her own reflection lazily, indifferent to the bustling activity of her attendants who lower each pendant into a case held by a bored security guard who counts them off, then snaps the case closed and melts into the crowd. When Bond moves into view behind the hairdressing chair, the model's gaze fixes upon him through the low swoop of the cane headdress, and beneath the make-up she pales. With a flick of her hand, her attendants are dismissed.
"I know Freddie sent you." Her accent could cut glass, but underneath the received pronunciation, Bond can hear a tremor. He draws close enough to see the goose-bumps raised on her skin under the layers of cosmetic shimmer that have been applied to her shoulders.
"How do you know that?"
She stares at him in the mirror, lets her gaze fall on the discreet bump of the holstered pistol. "He knows people," she searches for a polite way to describe him, "who dress like you."
Bond leans further down so that she will feel his breath on the back of her neck. "Why would he send someone like me for someone like you?"
She twists her mouth into a sardonic smile. "Because he likes it when I am afraid."
"Are you afraid?"
"I don't know." She rests her fingers against her chin – a manufactured gesture stolen from movie stars in the fifties. "I suppose that would depend on what you're going to do." Everything about her is a fiction: her body reconstructed, her face painted on, her body language pilfered from the silver screen. Bond wonders how long it had been since she had looked in a mirror and seen her own face, and whether she would recognise it if she did.
"What do you think I'm going to do?"
"Well, I would expect that you're going to escort me back to Windermere." She turns her head to look at him directly, peering through the woven cane that encircles her head. "I said I'd never go back there again. Are you going to twist my arm?" Her eyes narrow; she is sizing him up, deciding on the best way to manipulate him.
"I don't think I'll have to. I think you want to go back."
He stands up straight, crossed his hands in front of him in the universal posture that said 'hired muscle'. "And when you do decide to go back, I'm here to make sure you arrive safely." It isn't exactly a lie.
Bond hands her a pot of cold cream, and she removes her make-up, then there is a quick pass through the crowd of celebrities hovering in the dressing room.
Bond is automatically accepted as part of her entourage. Nobody notices him standing silently beside her – the faceless bodyguard. When she has made polite contact with the barest minimum of people, and he is certain that she has not been able to access a telephone, nor pass any messages, he walks with his hand at her elbow to an alternative exit, away from the paparazzi, escorted by a flock of gushing organisers whom she studiously ignores. There is a limousine waiting, and Bond holds the door open for her. When she is comfortably arranged, he slides in beside her, and the car pulls silently away from the kerb.
She looks at him, obviously waiting for him to direct the driver. Bond looks back at her, unruffled, and she sighs dramatically, and leans forward to speak through the glass window that separates them from the front of the car.
"To Windermere, please."
She says nothing else as the car moves slowly through the evening traffic, and Bond considers the decision he has made. He ought to have reported in immediately once he had the name Windermere, a potential location for Nevilles and the missing samples of anthrax, M would be able to identify the location, surround it and secure it. But this was his victory, and damned if he wasn't to have every portion of it. He settles back against the comfortable leather upholstery, and let the car carry them towards his prize.
"Do you like working for him?"
Bond realises that she has been surreptitiously examining him from her corner of the back seat. He raises an eyebrow. "Do you?"
"I suppose you would see it that way."
"There's another way to see it?" Bond is curious about what magnetism draws her to Nevilles.
She shrugs one shoulder. "He's very persuasive. And honest, I suppose, in a brutal way. I met him at a party, and he said 'You are the most beautiful woman here, and I will have you.' It was refreshing." She looks across at him and shrugs again; elegant, gamine. "I imagine you think it's because of the money."
"It isn't?"
"Money isn't everything, you know. Neither is beauty."
Bond curls his lip a little. "Easy enough for you to say, when you have both in abundance."
"So you think I'm beautiful?" She smiles triumphantly, happy to have this small victory over him.
"Beauty is as beauty does, or so I've been told."
She makes a moue with her perfect lips, but she does not disagree.
It's past midnight when they arrive at Windermere, after following narrower and narrower roads until the limousine is lumbering down muddy country lanes. Windermere, as it eventuates , is built on the grounds of Nevilles' old preparatory school. It makes a certain kind of sense; this was a place where Nevilles the social climber had first had found security and success, learning how to use bullying tactics on sycophants like Edwin Blount. There had been no record of the property's purchase in Nevilles' financial records,, but he could just have likely finagled or blackmailed the property from the owners when the school went bankrupt. There is no security at the gates, which sit open on the manicured lawn. The limousine pulls up outside the ivy-covered main building. In the doorway, leaning against the open double doors is the squat figure of Freddie Nevilles, loosening the tie around his neck and peering suspiciously at the driver who hurries to open the limousine door. When his eyes fall upon the woman who steps from the limousine, his round face crinkles in anger.
"What the fuck are you doing here? This is not a good time. Get the hell back to London, you dozy cow."
Every shred of self-possession falls away from the woman, and she hurls her bag at him. "Well, if I'd known that, I'd have stayed in London and fucked your goon instead; at least he's got some fucking manners!" Her accent slips a little in her anger, and for the first time, Bond sees a glimpse of the woman she pretends not to be. He rather thinks he prefers her without the disguise. He uses their argument as a diversion, and slips out the other door, moving in a crouch around the nose of the limousine with his gun held low.
"What the hell are you talking about? I didn't send anyone to collect you!" Nevilles' face, shiny with perspiration, suddenly grows wary. Bond is already moving when Nevilles spins and pelts inside the house. Bond is close enough on his heel that he gets a foot between the double doorsand kicks them open. Inside the well-lit hallway, Nevilles leans against the wall, and gasps into an intercom. "They're here, go, go, get the fuck away!"
Two strides more and Bond collides soundly with the solid mass of Nevilles' body, intending only to stop any further communication. The impact drives air out of Nevilles' body with a wheeze, and he slides down the wall, unconscious. Bond presses his hand against the man's neck with narrowed eyes, but the pulse pounds away merrily; Nevilles is only stunned. There is a soft gasp behind him, and he swings around, leading with his weapon. It is the woman, her hand raised to her mouth, but her eyes greedily take in the unconscious form of her lover, Bond's gun and finally his face. They stare at each other for a moment, then the sound of a lorry grinding through gears makes her jump and look away.
A breathless chuckle comes from the floor. Nevilles has regained consciousness, and though his eyes are glazed, he laughs and gestures towards the front door with one clumsy arm. "You're too late. It's on its way now."
Bond listens to the lorry engine strain and moan as it accelerates, pulling against a heavy load, wending its way through the country lanes towards London. It doesn't take long to lug Nevilles into the passenger seat of the limousine. Bond pulls the surprised driver from his seat, and slides in behind the wheel. As the unwieldy vehicle lumbers through the gravel, in the rear-vision mirror he sees that the woman has obtained a champagne bottle and two glasses, and is sitting on the stone steps, pouring a drink for herself and the abandoned driver. Then all his attention is required to nimbly guide the limousine back around the twisting, narrow lanes at a much faster speed than they had travelled them earlier. As he hefts the car around corners, his hands quickly learn the measure of the large and powerful engine, and very quickly he is clipping corners, using the weight of the vehicle to steer its bulk more accurately.
Slumped low in the passenger seat, Freddy Nevilles watches him with a detached curiosity, pressing a handkerchief to the wound above his eyebrow that is still trickling blood. "Blount said you were a vicious bastard."
"Blount wasn't supposed to be talking to anyone." Bond still has his weapon drawn; he drives with it in his hand, his palm wrapped around both the rough grip of the gun and the smooth surface of the steering wheel. He can see the tail-lights of the lorry now, still far away, but perfectly visible on the dark country lanes, without street lights to diffuse the red glow. That's good, he tells himself – isolation is much better, the chance of contamination lower. He wishes absurdly that he had a third hand, so he could pick up the phone and dial for back-up. For now, he dare not stop the chase. There is no time to think.
"Oh, darling Edwin would never pass up the opportunity to have me in his debt." Nevilles is still slouched over in his seat, his shoulders hunched forward like a jogger at the end of his run. "He must have sucked off half the fucking guards to get a message out of solitary to me."
Bond realises that the man's shirt is plastered with perspiration, despite the chill night air. "Have you been exposed?" He puts the symptoms together in his head: sweating, shortness of breath – anxiety? Flu? Anthrax?
Nevilles gives a shrug. "It's possible. We had to pack it all up rather suddenly, you see." He brushes imaginary specks of dust from his shoulders. "It's a bit of a gamble, isn't it? Did I breathe in a spore? Will I survive to spend my riches? Will you?"
Bond presses his foot to the floor, and feels the great weight of the limousine glide smoothly forward. He cannot banish the image of leaking canisters hastily crammed into the trailer of the lorry, leaking airborne particles all the way to London. The red tail-lights suddenly grow in size as the limousine bears down on the trailer; the lorry has decelerated rapidly to negotiate a hair-pin bend. There is time for one decision. Bond's foot hovers briefly over the brake then pushes home on the accelerator, sending the limousine surging into the point where the lorry is pivoting on the hitched trailer.
The impact comes slower than he expected, and he lets his body go limp as the air bag balloons around his face. The front of the limousine crumples up in front of him like a wave of sleek, black metal, and then there is nothing but ringing silence, punctuated by the creaks and groans of the mangled engine block that is almost sitting in his lap. Bond checks arms and legs, fingers and toes, and finds that all are functioning, though he suspects he has cracked ribs on the steering wheel. Beside him, Nevilles has been less fortunate; Bond hears the hiss and gurgle of a punctured lung, and sees the man's chest is horribly wrong, livid and tight as a drum. Certain that Nevilles won't be moving for a while, Bond clears the mosaic of glass on the driver's side with his elbow, and wriggles out of the window to track down the driver of the lorry.
The lorry cab is intact, and a man scrambles hastily to the ground. Bond catches him before he can flee, and slams his head against the fender. He takes a few moments to secure the site – no more accomplices, no obvious signs that the trailer has ruptured - then he digs in the unconscious driver's pocket for a cell phone, and calls the situation in to base. Once he has made contact, he clambers onto the roof of the cab, gun in hand, and waits for the cavalry to arrive.
Dawn creeps over the hills and meadows slowly but inevitably, exposing a beehive of activity around the crash site. Under the protection of a white canopy, the lorry is being taken apart panel by panel by an army of scientists clad in unwieldy biohazard gear. The media have been told of a chemical spill, and the press hover at a safe distance, with vans and cameras and well-groomed journalists. Still damp from endless passes through decontamination showers, Bond stands on a little rise outside of the tent, and watches the helicopters pass overhead. The air is misty still, but there is a glow to the morning that says it will be a clear day once the sun comes up. All field agents are routinely vaccinated against anthrax, but he will not be rejoining the general population until the medicos are sure that his vaccination has done its job. For the first time since he can remember, he hopes he will live. This is probably an endorphin-based euphoria, he tells himself, a chemical residue from the energy he has burned to get to reach this hill on this day; it is not a moment of clarity charged with significance. But still, he wants to live. He thinks for a moment he can hear the muted chime of iron doors swinging open underwater, but it is the mechanics carefully laying one panel levered from the trailer atop another.
A technician climbs awkwardly up the small hill in protective clothing and hands Bond a telephone. At the same time that he raises it to his ear, his eyes discern a neat figure that stands away from the crowd of observers and journalists at the end of the field. Bond straightens his posture in response to the crisp voice in his ear.
"Look at you, 007. Standing astride your tiger, as clever as you like." Suddenly the distance doesn't seem at all safe. "You've made rather a mess of it all, haven't you?"
"I got the job done." Bond restrains the urge to stick his chin out defensively: she wouldn't see it, and if she could, it would mean nothing anyway.
"You did, though I would have preferred that you had kept your ego out of the way. It would have saved so much bother." M's voice is clipped , but she cannot hide the triumph ringing in it. Her gambit has played out, and she is successful. Bond pushes his advantage while he can.
"Winning is winning. I won." I won this for you – Bond doesn't say the words, but leaves them hanging between the two of them.
"Watch how you gloat, 007. It was in no way a perfect success. Most of your time was spent correcting damage caused by your earlier errors in judgment."
"You don't win big without taking some risks." Bond regrets the words almost immediately, as a cold wave of fury washes across the field.
"Don't think I haven't noticed how neatly you pulled the wool over Villiers' eyes. It's all very well to rely on arrogance and luck when it's your neck on the line, but you endangered every agent I had in the field through your own ambition." She snaps the words down the phone line; Bond can see her bristling from a mile away. "Think about that, on your new assignment. As soon as you get the all clear, since you have such talent for extracting truth from prisoners, I'm sending you to Kerobokan Prison, in Bali. The Australians need some assistance with an inmate there."
Bond can see Villiers picking his way across the field with a file in his hand that he foists upon a worker in a biohazard suit, gesturing to the place where Bond is standing on the hill. "Are you transporting me?" He is a little outraged – he's hardly convict material.
"In all honesty, Bond, I'm hoping to reform you. Don't prove me wrong." The phone snaps shut, and he's left alone on the hill, as the figure of M vanishes into the crowd of observers again. He takes a deep breath, relishing the clean country air while he can, and then walks briskly down the hill with his hands in his pockets. He has just remembered that Villiers owes him a large amount of money, and he intends to claim it before he's sent into exile.
Fandom: James Bond - Casino Royale
Rating: PG
Summary: On the trail of a bioterrorist, James Bond makes more than one regrettable decision.
Notes: Originally posted here, for
bozaloshtsh, in Yuletide 2007. Thank you to lilacsigil, penknife and wizefics for beta reading.Sometimes Bond dreams of Vesper's death in that eerie weightless place, feels the twists of wrought iron cut into his palms as he wrenches the elevator door from side to side. The dream unspools differently each time and the tiny inaccuracies chafe at him even while he sleeps: his mind is trained for accurate recall. Sometimes, with a swell of vertigo and a leaden feeling in his chest, it's him trapped behind the mesh of scrolls and iron leaves; in her place, he follows the script in his mind carefully: now press against the back of the cage, now reach out for her between the bars of the door. When he wakes from this dream with a desperate gasp for breath, he expects to see the imprint of the tiny key where it was pressed against his palm. Not in any permutation is Vesper allowed to live. This is how Bond knows his mind has accepted her loss.
He's on assignment right now, an imperative that sinks into his subconscious, leaving him alert enough to control that first hungry inhalation, letting the air slide in slowly with a low hiss so that it doesn't wake the man sleeping on the bunk below him. Wandsworth prison has a sickly glow that contradicts the lights-out order, and the wire-caged sodium globe outside the window throws sallow light on the cheery, naked women plastered on the walls of his cell. Bond eases himself up on his elbows and slides silently to the ground. The cheap, thin mattress doesn't betray him. Crouching on the floor beside the lower bunk, he examines the man sleeping uneasily under the prickly wool blanket, plump and pasty after too many starchy meals and only one hour a day in the yard.
Their first meeting had been a cautious sizing up. Blount, the smaller, softer man, inured by now to the social pre-requisites of prison life, waited to see what was demanded of him by his new cell mate. He eyed Bond with a grim expression, nervously taking in the muscled form and the broken nose.
"Don't worry," Bond had said, with a comforting Northern burr, letting his eyes crinkle up in a friendly smile, "I like 'em with bigger tits." They'd both had a bit of a laugh, then settled into the cheerless drear of the prisoner's life, leaving Bond free to carefully unwrap his assignment. What Bond found, under those layers of soft, white flesh would determine whether Blount lived or died. There is a valuable piece of intelligence on the loose, and an outside chance that Blount may have had a whiff of it. Bond's orders are clear: if Blount is compromised, he is to be eliminated, but not before Bond can determine where the information trail leads next.
He liked a chat, did Blount, liked to smooth his way through prison life with tidbits of gossip and amusing stories from his nouveau-riche lifestyle on the outside: famous people with whom he'd brushed shoulders, and the one time he'd met Prince Charles. Bond, playing the gruff working class thug, was happy to let the man prattle on, gently guiding the conversation towards Blount's pretentious, less-than-stellar public school, and the people he'd associated with in those happy years of toast and buggery.
Bond is out of patience, tonight, after clawing out of his desperate, breathless dream. He breathes slowly, though he wants to gasp for breath, then fills the shared plastic tumbler at the tiny sink, and lets the chlorinated water wash away the brackish aftertaste of the canals of Venice. Blount sleeps on, oblivious to the threat looming over him. Bond lifts the pillow from his own bed, testing the tired rubber foam in his hands, folding it in half to give him the best seal.
It galls him, that after he had been tested and proven in the field, M would assign him to take care of this contemptible creature. Bond knows that there is a crisis on hand, can see the strain in M's face and can hear Villiers in the outer office nimbly juggling calls from a dozen officials. If he rested his head against the rubbery painted wall of this cell, he'd almost be able to hear the rumble of movement as his peers spread out across the country to halt the spread of this dangerous piece of information. Meanwhile, he is consigned to a cell, instructed to flirt facts out of this cockroach.
It's easy enough for Bond to slip a leg across the mattress of the lower bunk and position himself astride the sleeping man's torso. Blount doesn't even stir until the slab of foam that served as Bond's pillow is pressing against his mouth and nose. For a small man, he puts up quite a fight for air, bucking under Bond's body weight, arms flailing and beating against Bond's chest. Bond counts the minutes down; when four have elapsed, and Blount's movements are getting feeble, he removes the pillow, and drags the gasping prisoner to the floor. He presses his bare foot against the man's chest, just hard enough to prevent him from drawing a full breath. Blount gasps and sputters, with his hands wrapped around Bond's ankle, but he can't inflate his lungs enough to shout for help.
"I want you to tell me a story, Blount." The cheerful Northern accent is gone, and Blount's eyes, weeping and streaming, widen in confusion. "Tell me everything you know about Freddie Nevilles." He presses down a little harder, and air rushes out of Blount like a deflating tire. "There's three hours till morning roll call, so feel free to start from the very beginning."
It's a long story, beginning with a shared desk at prep school. The light from the wire-covered window gradually thins and brightens, and Blount remains on his back on the rubber-painted concrete floor, gasping his story out.
"I haven't seen him since I went away. Thirteen months, and he never even sends me a bloody letter. All I know is gossip from our friends, you know." Even under the weight of Bond's foot, Blount finds the energy to whine. "He's seeing this bird, a model. Famous. It's all very hush-hush, she's supposed to be with that cricketer." A loud metal clunk comes from further down the corridor, and Blount's eyes light up with hope – the guards have started early morning cell checks. The key hasn't even turned in the lock before Blount is screaming a whispery cry of terror. There's a brouhaha, with guards calling more guards, and Bond is dragged off to solitary, and Blount too, for good measure.
Bond knows the situation is dire when he's extracted inside the day under the pretext of a transfer to a higher security prison. In any other circumstance, M would have left him there for a week for acting so hastily. His suspicions are confirmed when it's Villiers who meets him in the afternoon at the open double doors of the prisoner transport vehicle.
"You were unexpectedly swift – were you compromised?"
Bond considers the question as he steps from the van into the company car. It's vital that Nevilles isn't alerted to the fact that he's the subject of a nation-wide manhunt and Bond wasn't exactly subtle in his interrogation of Blount. It's a calculated risk: Blount will be in solitary for at least twenty four hours, which will give Bond a chance to wrap up the mission first. He dissembles, knowing that he can fool Villiers where he would never be able to convince M.
"Not compromised, no. A little rough, but nothing suspicious for Wandsworth." He looks sideways at Villiers, and twists his mouth into a flirtatious smirk. Villiers is an exceptionally competent secretary, but never meant for field work. He blushes, and shuffles the papers in his file nervously, then drops them across the back seat of the discreet company car in confusion. The question is forgotten as he struggles to collect them.
"Oh, for heaven's sake," Bond gathers them up and reads them himself, while Villiers frets ineffectually about inappropriate clearance. Bond sorts through the files, gives the pages he's not supposed to have seen back to Villiers once he's scanned them for relevance, and slides the photo of the woman onto the leather upholstery between them. Annoyed at himself for having to quell a sudden unease that she might look like Vesper, Bond forces himself to examine the woman's features clinically: that very fashionable and carefully constructed combination of stick-thin limbs and large breasts. He pushes the photo aside, and shrugs out of his prison-issue tracksuit, unzipping the suit bag that hangs from the seat in front of him and ignoring Villiers' discomfort.
"There's been no sign of Nevilles, then?" The crisp shirt feels cool against his skin after the cheap fleece.
Villiers is pretending to watch the countryside fly past as the car speeds silently along the motorway. "No, nothing yet. He's slipped underground completely. He must have been planning this for a while – he hasn't accessed bank accounts or used a mobile phone." Villiers' gaze rests for a moment on Bond's hands buttoning the shirt with neat movements, and he blushes again. "We know what he's been keeping in his warehouses now – aerolising agents, propellants. Nobody thought anything of it at the time: on their own, those things are harmless. And now they're gone."
The fact – the extremely dangerous piece of truth that would have ended Edwin Blount's life if he had been exposed to it - sits between them, an unmentionable thing. Britain's nasty little secret, the WWII weapon it just couldn't bring itself to throw away, Winston Churchill's cache of anthrax. It has been rifled through, and not all the canisters can be accounted for. The responsibility for the security breach was being hand-balled between agency heads wishing to avoid being left with a PR nightmare on their doorstep. MI6 had stepped up to take responsibility, as it was a direct descendent of the war effort that originally created the weapon. Bond rather liked M's cheek – if she pulled this off, she'd garner huge esteem, and every agency in the country would court her favour. If she failed, she'd sink the Service forever, taking everyone down with her. Perhaps not the incredibly useful Villiers, Bond thinks, taking a comb from the secretary's outstretched hand and dragging it through his own hair. He ponders for a moment what life would be like without the Service, and draws a blank. His fingers twitch, remembering the resignation letter of some months ago, and he reaches for something to distract his memory from the smell of sea-salt and varnish.
"Who's top of the office pool at the moment, Villiers?" Bond flips open the wallet that Villiers gave him just a moment ago, and slides a large note out.
Villiers raises his eyebrows at the blatant misuse of Government funds, "009 at the moment. M sent him to Cambridge, he's been working over Nevilles' university chums."
"And who did you bet on?"
"006. She's with the parents, she's very convincing." Villiers hands Bond a gun and holster with the same unconcerned efficiency with which he had passed over the comb. He takes the crisp note from Bond's hand with a snap. "Backing yourself, I expect? I'm afraid your odds are rather long."
Bond raises an eyebrow. "The longer the odds, the bigger the return." He rests his hand on the holster for a moment, then smooths the line of his jacket down as the car pulls into the access driveway of a large hotel. The car barely pauses between two delivery vans being loaded with the remains of food ignored by starving fashionistas, and Bond is out and moving through the crowd of organisers.
The chaos of a fashion show works both ways: because he walks with purpose and a flat, bored expression, Bond is able to march straight past the security guard at the kitchen door. Once he's left the militant organisation of the delivery bay, though, he is quickly mired in a flailing pandemonium of short men and cadaverous Amazons. Nothing is where it is meant to be, and everyone is shouting about it, even though the show finished an hour ago. Bond finally locates the dressing rooms. A spindly child of no more than thirteen sits on a folding chair against the open door, holding the leash of a black and white goat that sways dizzily from side to side.
The model looks at him with huge eyes of cornflower blue. She is wearing a sequinned shift with transparent panels over the breasts. "They gave him a drug to calm him down for the show." She speaks with a heavy Russian accent. "I do not think it is good for a goat."
On the other side of the door, a blue haze of smoke drifts above the racks of clothes, and the models feed the cloud, smoking in rows like factory chimneys. Bond weaves between the clusters of make-up artists hovering around each model, avoiding camera lenses as much as possible. He doesn't want to be remembered. The strobing of camera flashes lend a surreal slowness to the bustle backstage, and the long-legged women look as though they are floating. One looks at him, skull-like face with dark, hollow eyes, and he feels the burn of canal water in the back of his throat. He looks away and finds the woman he is searching for.
She is having her pale hair unbraided from an elaborate architecture of basket cane and diamond pendants. She watches her own reflection lazily, indifferent to the bustling activity of her attendants who lower each pendant into a case held by a bored security guard who counts them off, then snaps the case closed and melts into the crowd. When Bond moves into view behind the hairdressing chair, the model's gaze fixes upon him through the low swoop of the cane headdress, and beneath the make-up she pales. With a flick of her hand, her attendants are dismissed.
"I know Freddie sent you." Her accent could cut glass, but underneath the received pronunciation, Bond can hear a tremor. He draws close enough to see the goose-bumps raised on her skin under the layers of cosmetic shimmer that have been applied to her shoulders.
"How do you know that?"
She stares at him in the mirror, lets her gaze fall on the discreet bump of the holstered pistol. "He knows people," she searches for a polite way to describe him, "who dress like you."
Bond leans further down so that she will feel his breath on the back of her neck. "Why would he send someone like me for someone like you?"
She twists her mouth into a sardonic smile. "Because he likes it when I am afraid."
"Are you afraid?"
"I don't know." She rests her fingers against her chin – a manufactured gesture stolen from movie stars in the fifties. "I suppose that would depend on what you're going to do." Everything about her is a fiction: her body reconstructed, her face painted on, her body language pilfered from the silver screen. Bond wonders how long it had been since she had looked in a mirror and seen her own face, and whether she would recognise it if she did.
"What do you think I'm going to do?"
"Well, I would expect that you're going to escort me back to Windermere." She turns her head to look at him directly, peering through the woven cane that encircles her head. "I said I'd never go back there again. Are you going to twist my arm?" Her eyes narrow; she is sizing him up, deciding on the best way to manipulate him.
"I don't think I'll have to. I think you want to go back."
He stands up straight, crossed his hands in front of him in the universal posture that said 'hired muscle'. "And when you do decide to go back, I'm here to make sure you arrive safely." It isn't exactly a lie.
Bond hands her a pot of cold cream, and she removes her make-up, then there is a quick pass through the crowd of celebrities hovering in the dressing room.
Bond is automatically accepted as part of her entourage. Nobody notices him standing silently beside her – the faceless bodyguard. When she has made polite contact with the barest minimum of people, and he is certain that she has not been able to access a telephone, nor pass any messages, he walks with his hand at her elbow to an alternative exit, away from the paparazzi, escorted by a flock of gushing organisers whom she studiously ignores. There is a limousine waiting, and Bond holds the door open for her. When she is comfortably arranged, he slides in beside her, and the car pulls silently away from the kerb.
She looks at him, obviously waiting for him to direct the driver. Bond looks back at her, unruffled, and she sighs dramatically, and leans forward to speak through the glass window that separates them from the front of the car.
"To Windermere, please."
She says nothing else as the car moves slowly through the evening traffic, and Bond considers the decision he has made. He ought to have reported in immediately once he had the name Windermere, a potential location for Nevilles and the missing samples of anthrax, M would be able to identify the location, surround it and secure it. But this was his victory, and damned if he wasn't to have every portion of it. He settles back against the comfortable leather upholstery, and let the car carry them towards his prize.
"Do you like working for him?"
Bond realises that she has been surreptitiously examining him from her corner of the back seat. He raises an eyebrow. "Do you?"
"I suppose you would see it that way."
"There's another way to see it?" Bond is curious about what magnetism draws her to Nevilles.
She shrugs one shoulder. "He's very persuasive. And honest, I suppose, in a brutal way. I met him at a party, and he said 'You are the most beautiful woman here, and I will have you.' It was refreshing." She looks across at him and shrugs again; elegant, gamine. "I imagine you think it's because of the money."
"It isn't?"
"Money isn't everything, you know. Neither is beauty."
Bond curls his lip a little. "Easy enough for you to say, when you have both in abundance."
"So you think I'm beautiful?" She smiles triumphantly, happy to have this small victory over him.
"Beauty is as beauty does, or so I've been told."
She makes a moue with her perfect lips, but she does not disagree.
It's past midnight when they arrive at Windermere, after following narrower and narrower roads until the limousine is lumbering down muddy country lanes. Windermere, as it eventuates , is built on the grounds of Nevilles' old preparatory school. It makes a certain kind of sense; this was a place where Nevilles the social climber had first had found security and success, learning how to use bullying tactics on sycophants like Edwin Blount. There had been no record of the property's purchase in Nevilles' financial records,, but he could just have likely finagled or blackmailed the property from the owners when the school went bankrupt. There is no security at the gates, which sit open on the manicured lawn. The limousine pulls up outside the ivy-covered main building. In the doorway, leaning against the open double doors is the squat figure of Freddie Nevilles, loosening the tie around his neck and peering suspiciously at the driver who hurries to open the limousine door. When his eyes fall upon the woman who steps from the limousine, his round face crinkles in anger.
"What the fuck are you doing here? This is not a good time. Get the hell back to London, you dozy cow."
Every shred of self-possession falls away from the woman, and she hurls her bag at him. "Well, if I'd known that, I'd have stayed in London and fucked your goon instead; at least he's got some fucking manners!" Her accent slips a little in her anger, and for the first time, Bond sees a glimpse of the woman she pretends not to be. He rather thinks he prefers her without the disguise. He uses their argument as a diversion, and slips out the other door, moving in a crouch around the nose of the limousine with his gun held low.
"What the hell are you talking about? I didn't send anyone to collect you!" Nevilles' face, shiny with perspiration, suddenly grows wary. Bond is already moving when Nevilles spins and pelts inside the house. Bond is close enough on his heel that he gets a foot between the double doorsand kicks them open. Inside the well-lit hallway, Nevilles leans against the wall, and gasps into an intercom. "They're here, go, go, get the fuck away!"
Two strides more and Bond collides soundly with the solid mass of Nevilles' body, intending only to stop any further communication. The impact drives air out of Nevilles' body with a wheeze, and he slides down the wall, unconscious. Bond presses his hand against the man's neck with narrowed eyes, but the pulse pounds away merrily; Nevilles is only stunned. There is a soft gasp behind him, and he swings around, leading with his weapon. It is the woman, her hand raised to her mouth, but her eyes greedily take in the unconscious form of her lover, Bond's gun and finally his face. They stare at each other for a moment, then the sound of a lorry grinding through gears makes her jump and look away.
A breathless chuckle comes from the floor. Nevilles has regained consciousness, and though his eyes are glazed, he laughs and gestures towards the front door with one clumsy arm. "You're too late. It's on its way now."
Bond listens to the lorry engine strain and moan as it accelerates, pulling against a heavy load, wending its way through the country lanes towards London. It doesn't take long to lug Nevilles into the passenger seat of the limousine. Bond pulls the surprised driver from his seat, and slides in behind the wheel. As the unwieldy vehicle lumbers through the gravel, in the rear-vision mirror he sees that the woman has obtained a champagne bottle and two glasses, and is sitting on the stone steps, pouring a drink for herself and the abandoned driver. Then all his attention is required to nimbly guide the limousine back around the twisting, narrow lanes at a much faster speed than they had travelled them earlier. As he hefts the car around corners, his hands quickly learn the measure of the large and powerful engine, and very quickly he is clipping corners, using the weight of the vehicle to steer its bulk more accurately.
Slumped low in the passenger seat, Freddy Nevilles watches him with a detached curiosity, pressing a handkerchief to the wound above his eyebrow that is still trickling blood. "Blount said you were a vicious bastard."
"Blount wasn't supposed to be talking to anyone." Bond still has his weapon drawn; he drives with it in his hand, his palm wrapped around both the rough grip of the gun and the smooth surface of the steering wheel. He can see the tail-lights of the lorry now, still far away, but perfectly visible on the dark country lanes, without street lights to diffuse the red glow. That's good, he tells himself – isolation is much better, the chance of contamination lower. He wishes absurdly that he had a third hand, so he could pick up the phone and dial for back-up. For now, he dare not stop the chase. There is no time to think.
"Oh, darling Edwin would never pass up the opportunity to have me in his debt." Nevilles is still slouched over in his seat, his shoulders hunched forward like a jogger at the end of his run. "He must have sucked off half the fucking guards to get a message out of solitary to me."
Bond realises that the man's shirt is plastered with perspiration, despite the chill night air. "Have you been exposed?" He puts the symptoms together in his head: sweating, shortness of breath – anxiety? Flu? Anthrax?
Nevilles gives a shrug. "It's possible. We had to pack it all up rather suddenly, you see." He brushes imaginary specks of dust from his shoulders. "It's a bit of a gamble, isn't it? Did I breathe in a spore? Will I survive to spend my riches? Will you?"
Bond presses his foot to the floor, and feels the great weight of the limousine glide smoothly forward. He cannot banish the image of leaking canisters hastily crammed into the trailer of the lorry, leaking airborne particles all the way to London. The red tail-lights suddenly grow in size as the limousine bears down on the trailer; the lorry has decelerated rapidly to negotiate a hair-pin bend. There is time for one decision. Bond's foot hovers briefly over the brake then pushes home on the accelerator, sending the limousine surging into the point where the lorry is pivoting on the hitched trailer.
The impact comes slower than he expected, and he lets his body go limp as the air bag balloons around his face. The front of the limousine crumples up in front of him like a wave of sleek, black metal, and then there is nothing but ringing silence, punctuated by the creaks and groans of the mangled engine block that is almost sitting in his lap. Bond checks arms and legs, fingers and toes, and finds that all are functioning, though he suspects he has cracked ribs on the steering wheel. Beside him, Nevilles has been less fortunate; Bond hears the hiss and gurgle of a punctured lung, and sees the man's chest is horribly wrong, livid and tight as a drum. Certain that Nevilles won't be moving for a while, Bond clears the mosaic of glass on the driver's side with his elbow, and wriggles out of the window to track down the driver of the lorry.
The lorry cab is intact, and a man scrambles hastily to the ground. Bond catches him before he can flee, and slams his head against the fender. He takes a few moments to secure the site – no more accomplices, no obvious signs that the trailer has ruptured - then he digs in the unconscious driver's pocket for a cell phone, and calls the situation in to base. Once he has made contact, he clambers onto the roof of the cab, gun in hand, and waits for the cavalry to arrive.
Dawn creeps over the hills and meadows slowly but inevitably, exposing a beehive of activity around the crash site. Under the protection of a white canopy, the lorry is being taken apart panel by panel by an army of scientists clad in unwieldy biohazard gear. The media have been told of a chemical spill, and the press hover at a safe distance, with vans and cameras and well-groomed journalists. Still damp from endless passes through decontamination showers, Bond stands on a little rise outside of the tent, and watches the helicopters pass overhead. The air is misty still, but there is a glow to the morning that says it will be a clear day once the sun comes up. All field agents are routinely vaccinated against anthrax, but he will not be rejoining the general population until the medicos are sure that his vaccination has done its job. For the first time since he can remember, he hopes he will live. This is probably an endorphin-based euphoria, he tells himself, a chemical residue from the energy he has burned to get to reach this hill on this day; it is not a moment of clarity charged with significance. But still, he wants to live. He thinks for a moment he can hear the muted chime of iron doors swinging open underwater, but it is the mechanics carefully laying one panel levered from the trailer atop another.
A technician climbs awkwardly up the small hill in protective clothing and hands Bond a telephone. At the same time that he raises it to his ear, his eyes discern a neat figure that stands away from the crowd of observers and journalists at the end of the field. Bond straightens his posture in response to the crisp voice in his ear.
"Look at you, 007. Standing astride your tiger, as clever as you like." Suddenly the distance doesn't seem at all safe. "You've made rather a mess of it all, haven't you?"
"I got the job done." Bond restrains the urge to stick his chin out defensively: she wouldn't see it, and if she could, it would mean nothing anyway.
"You did, though I would have preferred that you had kept your ego out of the way. It would have saved so much bother." M's voice is clipped , but she cannot hide the triumph ringing in it. Her gambit has played out, and she is successful. Bond pushes his advantage while he can.
"Winning is winning. I won." I won this for you – Bond doesn't say the words, but leaves them hanging between the two of them.
"Watch how you gloat, 007. It was in no way a perfect success. Most of your time was spent correcting damage caused by your earlier errors in judgment."
"You don't win big without taking some risks." Bond regrets the words almost immediately, as a cold wave of fury washes across the field.
"Don't think I haven't noticed how neatly you pulled the wool over Villiers' eyes. It's all very well to rely on arrogance and luck when it's your neck on the line, but you endangered every agent I had in the field through your own ambition." She snaps the words down the phone line; Bond can see her bristling from a mile away. "Think about that, on your new assignment. As soon as you get the all clear, since you have such talent for extracting truth from prisoners, I'm sending you to Kerobokan Prison, in Bali. The Australians need some assistance with an inmate there."
Bond can see Villiers picking his way across the field with a file in his hand that he foists upon a worker in a biohazard suit, gesturing to the place where Bond is standing on the hill. "Are you transporting me?" He is a little outraged – he's hardly convict material.
"In all honesty, Bond, I'm hoping to reform you. Don't prove me wrong." The phone snaps shut, and he's left alone on the hill, as the figure of M vanishes into the crowd of observers again. He takes a deep breath, relishing the clean country air while he can, and then walks briskly down the hill with his hands in his pockets. He has just remembered that Villiers owes him a large amount of money, and he intends to claim it before he's sent into exile.