If Night Falls, Use Stars for Streetlights | FOUR
Title: If Night Falls, Use Stars for Streetlights
By: revenant_scribe
Chapter FOUR:
Fandom: Bond Pairing: Bond/Q
Rating: PG-13 | Word Count: 5,008
Russia stands tonight on the brink of second revolution. With the number of deaths from freezing increases, hundred of thousands of angry, frightened citizens are tonight gathering outside the Kremlin in Red Square. But this is not another political rally, these people have come on the promise of a revelation, as Russian President Victor Karpov offers a mysterious solution to a crippling heating and oil shortage. Troops opposed to the elected government, led by General Leo Sklarov, have begun to ring the Russian capital city. You can see behind me, the tanks and soldiers already in place.
Angry, frightened citizens are gathering outside the Kremlin in Red Square, but they're not braving the bitter cold for yet another political rally, they've been drawn here on the promise of a revelation, whatever that may be, in what's become a life and death struggle for the future of democracy in Russia. This has been Melinda Clark reporting live, from the Red Square in Moscow.
-BBC World News
The explosion lights up the street, the black SUV rocketing toward the sky on a plume of fire, somersaulting midair as it falls back to earth. The sound is deafening, the spectacle startling and everyone close enough to see it ducks or screams; everyone reacts.
Everyone except for Q, who stands by the gates of the Embassy squinting in the blaze, his eyes straining to see even as the two soldiers bracketing him reach out to grab him round the shoulders and drag him down to his knees, to block him from the blast with their own bodies, as if his life is somehow more important than their own.
The instinct of the soldier, he thinks to himself, protect the civilian. Not unlike what Bond has just done, shoving him off into safety while he goes haring off after gun-toting lunatics.
Across the way, like a mirage standing at the edge of the fire, Q catches a glimpse of blond hair and that familiar figure. Bond catches his eye, standing still amidst a panicking crowd. "Are you alright?" someone is asking Q. One of his soldier-protectors. "Sir?"
"I'm fine." Bond pivots on his foot, flashing a cheeky salute in the general direction of the embassy gate before disappearing: a shadow returning to the dark. "I'm fine," Q says again, more strongly.
It hadn't even occurred to Q how cold he was until he walked into the embassy and remembered what it was to be warm. He has to recount his story several times to various officials but he doesn't even mind that his whole body is thawing out, and he is slowly recalling what it feels like to be safe. "And how long have you been in Moscow, Doctor Russell?" he is asked somewhere in the middle of his first recitation of his story.
Q has to think about it for a moment. "A day?" It feels like more than that, a week, at the very least. He's exhausted and exhilarated, feeling strangely accomplished and impossibly alive.
It takes him two hours to realize that he has acquired two extra shadows; two soldiers who follow him everywhere, one on either side of him at all times. He might have gone even longer before noticing, except he's allowed a moment's respite in front of the fire and someone places a cup of tea in his hands. Q takes a sip and scrunches his face automatically, and a voice pipes up helpfully from beside him, "More sugar, sir?"
"Please, " Q says, and realizes, when the cup is removed temporarily from his grasp, that what he had previously assumed was a large number of British soldiers wandering about was actually just the same two. "I'm sorry," he says once he has had another sip of tea, perfectly prepared now that a dash more sugar has been added to the cup. "I've forgotten your names. That's terribly rude of me."
"That's quite alright, sir. We never gave them," says the one on the right, dark hair and dark eyes and a teasing smile. "I'm Corporal Edwards. This is Corporal Weir." Weir has light blond hair and a boyish face. They both carry a sidearm and hold themselves with stiff competency, as if perpetually ready for brawl or enemy attack. Q finishes his tea and lets his eyes fall closed.
"Sorry, sir," Weird says some time later. "There's a phone call for you."
It's on the tip of his tongue to say that no one knows where he is, and he experiences a brief, irrational moment of panic where he wonders if the Russian mafia has rung him up and is about blackmail him: his help with cold fusion in exchange for Bond's life, perhaps.
"Hello?" he says when he picks up the phone. He hopes that he sounds suitably calm and unyielding, and not like someone who was moments ago having a kip by the fire.
"I trust you're not going to turn away protection now," Inspector Moneypenny says over the line, her voice strangely teasing. Q would have thought an inspector from the Yard would be perpetually concerned about professional conduct. Moneypenny doesn't seem to bother with that sort of thing. "Well?" she prompts.
"No," Q says. "No, it's appreciated. I suppose you're the reason I'm tripping over helpful soldiers?"
"Naturally." Her voice is smooth. The tone implies that she expects him to thank her at any moment. "Since you disappeared from London we've been keeping an eye out for you. Imagine our surprise when you turn up in Moscow of all places. Something you'd like to share, Doctor?"
Q rubs a tired hand across his brow. "Really? Again? Can't you just have one of the seven people here I've told it to fax you a copy of their report?"
"I'm looking at the reports," Moneypenny says. "I want to hear you tell it, darling."
He knows what part of the story has aroused her curiosity, because it's the same part of the story that has made everyone curious, thus far. Q is not an international art thief and has been, for the greater part of his life, an entirely normal and upstanding citizen of the United Kingdom, which means that when he got it into his head to go haring off to Moscow he booked his ticket with his own passport. What other option was there?
Of course, he was never explicitly told to stay in the country and since he used his own passport, and paid with his own money he's done nothing wrong. He's done something suspicious, there's no arguing with that, but there are no laws that he knows of in place that punish a person for behaving suspiciously. Anyway, there are hotel staff who staff who describe the burly Russian men who forcefully escorted Q out, which supports his claim that he was abducted.
As for the unexpected trip to Moscow, it's a simple matter of devising a plausible lie: an unforeseen opportunity regarding his work that was impossible to resist. It's not a stretch for Moneypenny to believe that Russia might be interested in a new source of energy, given their present situation. She even posits that it might have been an elaborate trap for Q from the start.
"Are you certain you're alright, Doctor Russell?" she asks, and he's touched that she sounds so genuinely concerned.
Despite her best intentions; she can't help him now that he's stuck in Russia. Her primary interest in all of this is Bond. Q says, "I'm fine. Though, I'd prefer to get out of this country before the bloody mob has me gunned down in the middle of the street."
"You'll be on the first available flight out, and you have your bodyguards for the rest of your time in Russia. They'll look after you."
He has a brief, bitter moment where he wonders if she's concerned more for the fate of a potential witness in a career-making case, or for him personally. Then he promptly feels ashamed of his ingratitude. "Thank you," he says, sheepishly, and then hangs up the phone.
There is a distressing amount of paperwork to fill out. It occurs to him, as he is sat at a desk pen in hand and filling out a form to explain his heart medication that since the two pills he took in the back of the truck he hasn't needed another dose. He's been running around Moscow, trudging through sewers, shimmying down drainpipes, being shot at and hunted, and freezing cold for all of it, and he's not needed another pill.
"How are we getting to the airport?" he asks as he completes yet another form only to discover there is not another waiting for him. Double-checking, Q is relieved to discover he has at last completed all of the required paperwork.
"There's been some difficulties with de-icing the plane, sir," Weir tells him. "It might take some time, but when it's sorted, we'll travel to the airport by car."
"We're driving there?" The angry shouts are audible from outside, mobs of freezing Russians huddled over fires lit in metal drums, to say nothing about the men with guns undoubtedly lurking out there. Waiting.
"Don't worry, sir," Edwards says. "We'll be by your side, all the way to the plane."
_______________________________________________________
With Q safely ensconced at the embassy Bond's next priority is finding some way out of this mess. It's not a question of simply getting out of the country. Tretiak is the sort of man who holds a grudge; he's also got all of Q's research and whether he knows what to make of it or not, Q has made it more than clear that this is unacceptable.
He takes a room at the Moscow Hotel under the name August Christopher, and then he sets about getting some necessary items: warm clothes and surveillance equipment. It's a simple enough thing to infiltrate Tretiak's home and plant a few bugs in key positions, such as the man's office.
Reconnaissance: the foundation of any truly successful operation. Bond sits on his hotel bed bent over his newly acquired laptop with his Bluetooth hooked over his ear, listening.
Already he's heard enough to have a general idea of Tretiak's intentions. Cold fusion was meant to transform Ivan Tretiak into the savior of his countrymen. In their joy at finally being warm again, Russians would embrace a revolution gladly, putting their hero at the head of their government, overthrowing their current President.
Now that cold fusion has failed, Tretiak, ever adaptable, has created a new plan. Through the microphone Bond managed to place on a cufflink he was able to overhear every second of the negotiated sale of cold fusion to President Karpov. Bond had been having a warm shower at the time, the Bluetooth on full volume sitting beside the sink, but he hadn't needed to hear the specifics to know what it meant. "The people will love you for this, Mister President," Tretiak had said.
The people of Russia are too cold and too terrified to tolerate dashed hope. Whether Q is able to prove his theory later or not, the damage will have been done when Tretiak exposes the sale and Karpov has only a malfunctioning machine to show for it. The Russian people will demand that Karpov step-down, and Tretiak will meet with little resistance as he steps in. Bond has no idea what the man intends to do as President, but can only surmise that it will not work out well for anyone except Ivan Tretiak.
"Moscow must be ringed with tanks by early evening. Your troops will depose the President and install me as their new leader," the man is saying. He is in his private office, hosting a little get-together with the other members of his coup. Bond has been listening to a lot of pompous, self-congratulatory monologuing, but has at least managed to learn the names of some of the significant players, including the general spearheading the military aspect of the coup.
Lowering the volume, Bond deletes several messages waiting in his inbox. Over the wire he hears Yuri Gretkin, Tretiak's right-hand man, chuckling. "No one has guessed the simple truth of where the oil has gone. An entire sea of it hidden beneath our feet."
A subject line catches his attention, makes use of a familiar code and Bond opens the message, curious: "Godwin, I've heard on the grapevine that you're brokering a revolutionary new energy source. If it’s as good as it's cracked up to be, I have friends who can double your best offer, on deposit in Zurich within one hour of delivery and confirmation. I'll be waiting."
Carefully, Bond closes his laptop and shifts it aside, Tretiak chuckling all the while in his ear.
_______________________________________________________
Q is standing in the line at the makeshift canteen, amusing himself with increasingly absurd methods of de-icing an airplane. Corporal Weir has assured him that everything will be fine, and that a plane is being made ready, but Q is doubtful.
Not that he entirely regrets his adventure. He's finally managed to leave England, which was nice, and meeting Bond was, well it was a bit of a mixed bag but mostly it was good. The shooting was a definite downside, as well as the whole being hunted by the Russian mob. Q would like to return home and pretend that he is perfectly safe. Actually, he'd prefer to return home and actually be perfectly safe. Either way, putting some distance between himself and this country seems like a very good idea, and it can't possibly happen soon enough for his tastes.
"This queue is barely even moving, is it?" Corporal Edwards says.
Q's shoulders slump as he looks at the far table, where there is a whole spread of fresh coffee and boiled water and a selection of teas. "Go on," Edwards tells him. "I'll hold your spot."
"Oh god, you're brilliant," Q says, infinitely grateful. Weir has already volunteered to save them a table, and Q figures his guards are getting a little lax only because they are in an enclosed room currently filled with vetted embassy staff and a priest who has been polishing off most of the coffee singlehandedly. He's staked out a table to himself conveniently close to the refreshments table and is sipping from his mug as he reads through what can only be a Bible, splayed open on the tabletop.
Q ignores the man as he picks up a mug, filling it with boiling water as he eyes the selection of teas: all herbal, no black teas whatsoever. Not even a lovely Darjeeling.
"You look lost, child. May I help you?" the priest offers, his voice lilting and his accent strange: possibly American, though why an American priest would be in the British Embassy, Q has no idea. He glances over his shoulder at the horrible too-small round glasses the man is wearing and the sizable, incredibly bushy blond-grey beard. "Allow me to introduce myself. My name is August Christopher. I was named after Saint Augustine, who coined my favorite phrase: give me chastity and give me constancy, but do not give it yet."
"Oh, good lord," Q mutters under his breath, quickly turning back to the refreshments table and trying to look inconspicuous. "How the bloody hell did you manage to break in to the British Embassy?"
Bond scratches at his bristly beard and when he speaks, his voice is softer but he has at least let the accent drop. "What do you mean 'break in'. I'm British." He actually manages to sound offended.
"You're a lunatic," Q corrects. "Scotland Yard called and briefed everyone here about my apparent situation. I have bodyguards, as in, more than one. Also, that beard is hideous."
"Thank you." The bastard goes so far as to preen for a moment before he sobers. "Listen, they have you scheduled on the six o'clock flight out of Moscow."
"Six o'clock?" Q checks his watch. They must have finally managed to de-ice the plane. "How do you know this? They haven't even told me about it."
"I need you to develop a sudden fear of flying," Bond says. Q is incredibly unimpressed with this request and it must show on his face, because raises his eyebrows pointedly and elaborates by saying, "Tretiak has men on that plane who have orders to return you to him at any cost. I need you to finish the formula and fax it to me, the number is on the back."
The papers Bond passes over a plain computer white computer-grade pages, folded neatly three times. The fax number is written in neat black ink. Q unfolds the pages carefully and glances them over. Then he fixes the thief with what he hopes is a cold and unimpressed stare. "Why are you keeping my cards?" He trusts Bond, even if common sense cautions him against it. The idea of his life's work being out there, available to people who intend to misuse it, makes him feel faintly nauseous. It's clear Bond still has the cards, as the edges are visible on the Xeroxed pages Q is holding. As far as he is concerned there should be nothing stopping Bond from at least handing over the hard copy, even if it is not presently possible to remove it from the clutches of the Russian mafia.
"I have to make a deal with Tretiak or you won't ever be safe," Bond says flatly. Then, half-mocking, he asks, "Don’t you trust me?"
Q crosses his arms. "Of course I trust you, August Christopher. I mean, Vincent Ferrer, Thomas More …"
Bond's features close off completely, and Q catches the way the man's pale blue eyes skitter about the room, undoubtedly noting the position of Q's erstwhile shadows. Then he stands form his table swiftly, wraps a hand around Q's elbow and shifts him off to the side, to a quiet spot by the wall. "Really? You're doing this now?"
"Don't be an idiot, of course I trust you," Q huffs, rolling his eyes. He flashes the other man a sly grin. "After all, you are my own personal saint."
Gently, Bond leans forward, resting their foreheads together. "You have to be a very good, and generally a very dead person to become a saint. More importantly, you have to work three miracles." Stepping back, Bond raises his ridiculously bushy false eyebrows up comically high. "Get to work," then he's gone, disappearing into the crowd.
_______________________________________________________
Q estimated a little over two hours of uninterrupted work would be all it would take for him to resolve his sequencing difficulties. One hour and fifteen minutes after leaving the embassy, however, Bond receives a fax. It's strange to realize as he checks it over, that somehow the formula for cold fusion has actually become familiar to him. Enough that he could recognize, if not actually understand what any of the calculations mean.
With Q's work stowed safely in his coat pocket, and a plain black hat pulled over his hair, Bond makes his way to Tretiak Industries, past the guards caught up in a shift-change, and up four flights of stairs to the small windowless room where the scientist tasked with making sense of cold fusion is still hard at work.
Doctor Lev Botvin is a small man, with frazzled grey-white hair that's tangled and standing on end, five days of facial hair stippling his cheeks and a pair of frameless glasses perched on his nose, the prescription strong enough that his eyes are magnified, making him look like a startled cat when Bond deigns to step out of the shadows.
"What are you doing here?" Doctor Botvin asks, his eyes comically wide. "The work area is out there. Go away."
Bond spares a glance to the closed door, and then takes another step closer. "The work could be here, though. Couldn't it? This machine, it could work."
"What are you…?"
There is a panic button beneath the lab counter; Bond catches the Doctor's hand before he can press it. "Listen to me before you do anything rash. I'm a friend of Doctor Russell's."
"Doctor Russell?" Botvin's shoulders slump slightly and he runs a frustrated hand through his hair. "This formula is unlike anything I've ever seen. I've been working, I have, but it makes no sense. Pieces that don't fit, and other pieces that …"
Bond holds out Q's fax. It takes a moment, but Botvin eventually stops tugging at his hair long enough to realize that he is being offered something. As he reads the pages he doesn't once stop shaking his head, amazing lighting his face. "But this…" he says, mostly to himself. "This is so simple… this unlocks the entire formula. I can't believe…"
It's a revelation, it’s a breakthrough, it's world-changing, but Bond doesn't have the time to stand around and marvel at it. "Can you make it work?"
"I don't understand…" Botvin says, reaching out to catch at the fabric of Bond's sleeve, like he expects Bond might go haring off before he has bothered to explain. "This work does not belong to me. Doctor Russell should…"
"I need a miracle."
Finally, Botvin seems to comprehend. "But the rally, Tretiak's rally is tonight. That's only twelve hours."
"Then you have twelve hours," Bond raises his eyebrows. "Make it work."
_______________________________________________________
Bond is improvising. He's calling in favors where he can, and building a plan as he goes along. Q has done his bit, and hopefully Doctor Botvin will come through. If he doesn't then Bond will be shot or tossed into a Russian prison, the Russian government will collapse and the country will be overtaken by a greedy dictator. To say nothing of people freezing to death all over Russia, and Q and Botvin invariably being murdered.
Botvin failing is not something that Bond enjoys dwelling on.
Instead, he busies himself with contacting Alexa Frankeivitch, from whom he manages to procure a detailed map of KGB-built tunnels that lead directly into the Kremlin, and an additional map that shows the location of the President's personal suite. In exchange, he gives her a neat stack of cash and a handful of stolen jewels. She throws in a uniform coat belonging to one of the President's guards for free. "Because I like you," she says, with a smile. Later he discovers it has less to do with any fondness she might have for him, and more to do with the fact that she has picked his pocket.
A thief himself, Bond was prepared for this contingency and subsequently removed anything of family or significance from his wallet. He left a hastily drawn frowny-face there because it amused him to do so.
The last piece of his plan involves a long trek through Russian storm drains, and then up into the Kremlin. Speed is of the essence. If he doesn't reach President Karpov before Tretiak does, then the ensuing scenario bares a marked resemblance to the results of Botvin failing to get the device working. Actually, most of Bond's plan involves a significant reliance on details working out exactly right in order to avoid bloody revolution, imprisonment, death, and/or murder.
His luck, what little he has of it, holds. Bond strides into the President's private suite to be bombarded with angry accusations of impertinence and lack of Russian courtesy from the President's wife, who sees only a man in the uniform worn by men sworn to protect her and her husband. Karpov, however, seems to be anticipating an uprising.
When Bond tosses his hat and coat aside, the President seems almost relieved. What little hesitation he might have retained is lost the moment Bond speaks in his own voice, British accent and all, "I want to help you destroy Ivan Tretiak."
Karpov has soft grey eyes and a soft face. He looks careworn and tired. "How do you propose to do that?"
There are shouts in the hallway, sounds of gunfire. "Dorogoy Bog," Karpov's wife gasps. She looks at Bond and says, in perfect English, "Is it a revolution?"
He shakes his head. "Not yet."
Karpov moves to stand by his wife, wrapping a comforting arm around her shoulder. "What is your plan?"
"You're going to stand trial in Red Square. Whatever Tretiak accuses you of, I need you to admit to it."
"Are you mad?" Karpov wonders aloud.
"Molchaniye," his wife tells him, ordering him to silence. There's desperation in her eyes but she fixes Bond with a resolute stare. "He will do it."
A second later the door comes crashing open and soldiers stream into the space, hauling out the President and his wife. "Who are you?" one soldier demands of Bond. "Speak!"
"Take him," another says, and a bag is shoved over Bond's head and a moment later somebody knocks him out.
_______________________________________________________
The soldiers at the embassy have a little break room in the basement with a gaming table and microwave and, most importantly, a television. Weir and Edwards both insist that it's all right, which is how Q finds himself crammed onto a lumpy couch with a bunch of soldiers.
On the screen, Ivan Tretiak is standing on a large outdoor stage made-up in Red Square, complete with a ridiculous light display and giant television screens that are currently showing the man's trimmed beard and balding head from two different sides, as the main camera focuses on him from the front. "Friends, countrymen, Russians!" he shouts, raising his hands up above his head.
"Oh god, really?" Q asks no one in particular as around him several of the soldiers start snickering.
"Surely you have heard by now of this morning's sensational events," Tretiak continues. "Many shocking documents were recovered from President's Karpov secret files, locked in his private safe." The giant screens are rolling footage of people marching through the President's office and pulling out papers from an open safe. "The documents, which will be published in tomorrow's papers, prove traitor Karpov was about to steal over 40 trillion of our precious Russian rubles, in a reckless scheme to save his own hide."
The crowd gathered in the Square are all shouting and booing. The camera pans backward, capturing the mob and in doing so, brings President Karpov into frame. The man is standing tall, staring out at his angry citizens without any sign of remorse and, beside him, Q immediately recognizes the man clad all in black. He can't even muster any proper surprise because where else would Bond be but right there in the middle of an absolute clusterfuck?
As the mob's shouts quieten, Tretiak nodding his agreement with their outrage, he says, "To add to this insult, millions of dollars were to be paid to this international criminal," and here Tretiak gestures to his left, to where Bond is standing and, just to be helpful, the camera zooms in close to capture Bond's face, sans make-up or wig, sans any sort of disguise whatsoever, there on television for anyone to see. "This criminal!" Tretiak repeats, when people start booing again. "To buy a fairytale called cold fusion. Our President was prepared to bankrupt our national treasury for a device that does not work!"
The device in question is sitting at the foot of the stage, in front of Tretiak so the man can gesture at it dramatically. Q shifts forward in his seat, trying to see it better. "You pass an electric current into this machine," Tretiak is saying. "And there is supposed to be a chemical reaction! Do you deny this?"
President Karpov steps forward, as much as the soldiers flanking him will allow, and shouts, "Not at all! I proudly admit to it!"
The crowd has gone entirely silent and Tretiak notices this. "This machine does not work! It can't even light up a tiny light bulb!" he tells them firmly. Then he "Watch!" Tretiak makes a jerky motion and a soldier steps out of line and presses the button.
Nothing happens. For a stretch of time that feels to Q like an eternity, there is nothing but darkness. "You see?" Tretiak asks. "I say, enough to this failure! Failure is behind us!"
"It's working," Q gasps, because at the bottom of the stage, the bulb that is perched atop the machine is beginning, just faintly, to glow. In the Square, people are noticing as well, whispering and murmuring that gets louder as the light begins to increase. "Yes, yes, god yes!" Q thinks, then realizes he's saying it out loud.
"You did it!" Weir is shouting from beside him, people are clapping and hooting and pounding on his back, and all Q can think as the light bulb shatters and light comes pouring out of the contraption, is how many people along the way called him an idiot and idealist, told him he had no right to call himself a scientist.
"Congratulations, Doctor Russell!" Edwards is shouting.
At the top left corner of the screen, Q catches sight of Bond. He's grinning.
_______________________________________________________
Light floods the Red Square and everywhere people are cheering. "Miracle one," Bond says to himself.
"Thank you, my friend," President Karpov is saying, shaking his hand firmly. Tretiak is bustling his way off the stage, Ilya is running toward the row of black SUVs, but recognizing that a coup is no longer imminent, the General who had, moments before, been prepared to arrest the President of his country now shouts out, "All troops loyal to Mother Russia must seize the traitor Tretiak!" It's satisfying to see so many soldiers descending on that bastard.
"I'm so sorry, mister President," the general is saying. "There was a miscommunication in the chain of command."
Bond stays long enough to see Ilya and Ivan Tretiak being handcuffed. Miracle two.
Then he escapes the chaos, taking one last look over his shoulder at cold fusion in action. That is one miracle he can't lay claim to. Smiling, Bond heads into the darkness.
___________________________________________________
|<< END PART FOUR >>|
MASTERPOST
By: revenant_scribe
Chapter FOUR:
Fandom: Bond Pairing: Bond/Q
Rating: PG-13 | Word Count: 5,008
Russia stands tonight on the brink of second revolution. With the number of deaths from freezing increases, hundred of thousands of angry, frightened citizens are tonight gathering outside the Kremlin in Red Square. But this is not another political rally, these people have come on the promise of a revelation, as Russian President Victor Karpov offers a mysterious solution to a crippling heating and oil shortage. Troops opposed to the elected government, led by General Leo Sklarov, have begun to ring the Russian capital city. You can see behind me, the tanks and soldiers already in place.
Angry, frightened citizens are gathering outside the Kremlin in Red Square, but they're not braving the bitter cold for yet another political rally, they've been drawn here on the promise of a revelation, whatever that may be, in what's become a life and death struggle for the future of democracy in Russia. This has been Melinda Clark reporting live, from the Red Square in Moscow.
-BBC World News
The explosion lights up the street, the black SUV rocketing toward the sky on a plume of fire, somersaulting midair as it falls back to earth. The sound is deafening, the spectacle startling and everyone close enough to see it ducks or screams; everyone reacts.
Everyone except for Q, who stands by the gates of the Embassy squinting in the blaze, his eyes straining to see even as the two soldiers bracketing him reach out to grab him round the shoulders and drag him down to his knees, to block him from the blast with their own bodies, as if his life is somehow more important than their own.
The instinct of the soldier, he thinks to himself, protect the civilian. Not unlike what Bond has just done, shoving him off into safety while he goes haring off after gun-toting lunatics.
Across the way, like a mirage standing at the edge of the fire, Q catches a glimpse of blond hair and that familiar figure. Bond catches his eye, standing still amidst a panicking crowd. "Are you alright?" someone is asking Q. One of his soldier-protectors. "Sir?"
"I'm fine." Bond pivots on his foot, flashing a cheeky salute in the general direction of the embassy gate before disappearing: a shadow returning to the dark. "I'm fine," Q says again, more strongly.
It hadn't even occurred to Q how cold he was until he walked into the embassy and remembered what it was to be warm. He has to recount his story several times to various officials but he doesn't even mind that his whole body is thawing out, and he is slowly recalling what it feels like to be safe. "And how long have you been in Moscow, Doctor Russell?" he is asked somewhere in the middle of his first recitation of his story.
Q has to think about it for a moment. "A day?" It feels like more than that, a week, at the very least. He's exhausted and exhilarated, feeling strangely accomplished and impossibly alive.
It takes him two hours to realize that he has acquired two extra shadows; two soldiers who follow him everywhere, one on either side of him at all times. He might have gone even longer before noticing, except he's allowed a moment's respite in front of the fire and someone places a cup of tea in his hands. Q takes a sip and scrunches his face automatically, and a voice pipes up helpfully from beside him, "More sugar, sir?"
"Please, " Q says, and realizes, when the cup is removed temporarily from his grasp, that what he had previously assumed was a large number of British soldiers wandering about was actually just the same two. "I'm sorry," he says once he has had another sip of tea, perfectly prepared now that a dash more sugar has been added to the cup. "I've forgotten your names. That's terribly rude of me."
"That's quite alright, sir. We never gave them," says the one on the right, dark hair and dark eyes and a teasing smile. "I'm Corporal Edwards. This is Corporal Weir." Weir has light blond hair and a boyish face. They both carry a sidearm and hold themselves with stiff competency, as if perpetually ready for brawl or enemy attack. Q finishes his tea and lets his eyes fall closed.
"Sorry, sir," Weird says some time later. "There's a phone call for you."
It's on the tip of his tongue to say that no one knows where he is, and he experiences a brief, irrational moment of panic where he wonders if the Russian mafia has rung him up and is about blackmail him: his help with cold fusion in exchange for Bond's life, perhaps.
"Hello?" he says when he picks up the phone. He hopes that he sounds suitably calm and unyielding, and not like someone who was moments ago having a kip by the fire.
"I trust you're not going to turn away protection now," Inspector Moneypenny says over the line, her voice strangely teasing. Q would have thought an inspector from the Yard would be perpetually concerned about professional conduct. Moneypenny doesn't seem to bother with that sort of thing. "Well?" she prompts.
"No," Q says. "No, it's appreciated. I suppose you're the reason I'm tripping over helpful soldiers?"
"Naturally." Her voice is smooth. The tone implies that she expects him to thank her at any moment. "Since you disappeared from London we've been keeping an eye out for you. Imagine our surprise when you turn up in Moscow of all places. Something you'd like to share, Doctor?"
Q rubs a tired hand across his brow. "Really? Again? Can't you just have one of the seven people here I've told it to fax you a copy of their report?"
"I'm looking at the reports," Moneypenny says. "I want to hear you tell it, darling."
He knows what part of the story has aroused her curiosity, because it's the same part of the story that has made everyone curious, thus far. Q is not an international art thief and has been, for the greater part of his life, an entirely normal and upstanding citizen of the United Kingdom, which means that when he got it into his head to go haring off to Moscow he booked his ticket with his own passport. What other option was there?
Of course, he was never explicitly told to stay in the country and since he used his own passport, and paid with his own money he's done nothing wrong. He's done something suspicious, there's no arguing with that, but there are no laws that he knows of in place that punish a person for behaving suspiciously. Anyway, there are hotel staff who staff who describe the burly Russian men who forcefully escorted Q out, which supports his claim that he was abducted.
As for the unexpected trip to Moscow, it's a simple matter of devising a plausible lie: an unforeseen opportunity regarding his work that was impossible to resist. It's not a stretch for Moneypenny to believe that Russia might be interested in a new source of energy, given their present situation. She even posits that it might have been an elaborate trap for Q from the start.
"Are you certain you're alright, Doctor Russell?" she asks, and he's touched that she sounds so genuinely concerned.
Despite her best intentions; she can't help him now that he's stuck in Russia. Her primary interest in all of this is Bond. Q says, "I'm fine. Though, I'd prefer to get out of this country before the bloody mob has me gunned down in the middle of the street."
"You'll be on the first available flight out, and you have your bodyguards for the rest of your time in Russia. They'll look after you."
He has a brief, bitter moment where he wonders if she's concerned more for the fate of a potential witness in a career-making case, or for him personally. Then he promptly feels ashamed of his ingratitude. "Thank you," he says, sheepishly, and then hangs up the phone.
There is a distressing amount of paperwork to fill out. It occurs to him, as he is sat at a desk pen in hand and filling out a form to explain his heart medication that since the two pills he took in the back of the truck he hasn't needed another dose. He's been running around Moscow, trudging through sewers, shimmying down drainpipes, being shot at and hunted, and freezing cold for all of it, and he's not needed another pill.
"How are we getting to the airport?" he asks as he completes yet another form only to discover there is not another waiting for him. Double-checking, Q is relieved to discover he has at last completed all of the required paperwork.
"There's been some difficulties with de-icing the plane, sir," Weir tells him. "It might take some time, but when it's sorted, we'll travel to the airport by car."
"We're driving there?" The angry shouts are audible from outside, mobs of freezing Russians huddled over fires lit in metal drums, to say nothing about the men with guns undoubtedly lurking out there. Waiting.
"Don't worry, sir," Edwards says. "We'll be by your side, all the way to the plane."
_______________________________________________________
With Q safely ensconced at the embassy Bond's next priority is finding some way out of this mess. It's not a question of simply getting out of the country. Tretiak is the sort of man who holds a grudge; he's also got all of Q's research and whether he knows what to make of it or not, Q has made it more than clear that this is unacceptable.
He takes a room at the Moscow Hotel under the name August Christopher, and then he sets about getting some necessary items: warm clothes and surveillance equipment. It's a simple enough thing to infiltrate Tretiak's home and plant a few bugs in key positions, such as the man's office.
Reconnaissance: the foundation of any truly successful operation. Bond sits on his hotel bed bent over his newly acquired laptop with his Bluetooth hooked over his ear, listening.
Already he's heard enough to have a general idea of Tretiak's intentions. Cold fusion was meant to transform Ivan Tretiak into the savior of his countrymen. In their joy at finally being warm again, Russians would embrace a revolution gladly, putting their hero at the head of their government, overthrowing their current President.
Now that cold fusion has failed, Tretiak, ever adaptable, has created a new plan. Through the microphone Bond managed to place on a cufflink he was able to overhear every second of the negotiated sale of cold fusion to President Karpov. Bond had been having a warm shower at the time, the Bluetooth on full volume sitting beside the sink, but he hadn't needed to hear the specifics to know what it meant. "The people will love you for this, Mister President," Tretiak had said.
The people of Russia are too cold and too terrified to tolerate dashed hope. Whether Q is able to prove his theory later or not, the damage will have been done when Tretiak exposes the sale and Karpov has only a malfunctioning machine to show for it. The Russian people will demand that Karpov step-down, and Tretiak will meet with little resistance as he steps in. Bond has no idea what the man intends to do as President, but can only surmise that it will not work out well for anyone except Ivan Tretiak.
"Moscow must be ringed with tanks by early evening. Your troops will depose the President and install me as their new leader," the man is saying. He is in his private office, hosting a little get-together with the other members of his coup. Bond has been listening to a lot of pompous, self-congratulatory monologuing, but has at least managed to learn the names of some of the significant players, including the general spearheading the military aspect of the coup.
Lowering the volume, Bond deletes several messages waiting in his inbox. Over the wire he hears Yuri Gretkin, Tretiak's right-hand man, chuckling. "No one has guessed the simple truth of where the oil has gone. An entire sea of it hidden beneath our feet."
A subject line catches his attention, makes use of a familiar code and Bond opens the message, curious: "Godwin, I've heard on the grapevine that you're brokering a revolutionary new energy source. If it’s as good as it's cracked up to be, I have friends who can double your best offer, on deposit in Zurich within one hour of delivery and confirmation. I'll be waiting."
Carefully, Bond closes his laptop and shifts it aside, Tretiak chuckling all the while in his ear.
_______________________________________________________
Q is standing in the line at the makeshift canteen, amusing himself with increasingly absurd methods of de-icing an airplane. Corporal Weir has assured him that everything will be fine, and that a plane is being made ready, but Q is doubtful.
Not that he entirely regrets his adventure. He's finally managed to leave England, which was nice, and meeting Bond was, well it was a bit of a mixed bag but mostly it was good. The shooting was a definite downside, as well as the whole being hunted by the Russian mob. Q would like to return home and pretend that he is perfectly safe. Actually, he'd prefer to return home and actually be perfectly safe. Either way, putting some distance between himself and this country seems like a very good idea, and it can't possibly happen soon enough for his tastes.
"This queue is barely even moving, is it?" Corporal Edwards says.
Q's shoulders slump as he looks at the far table, where there is a whole spread of fresh coffee and boiled water and a selection of teas. "Go on," Edwards tells him. "I'll hold your spot."
"Oh god, you're brilliant," Q says, infinitely grateful. Weir has already volunteered to save them a table, and Q figures his guards are getting a little lax only because they are in an enclosed room currently filled with vetted embassy staff and a priest who has been polishing off most of the coffee singlehandedly. He's staked out a table to himself conveniently close to the refreshments table and is sipping from his mug as he reads through what can only be a Bible, splayed open on the tabletop.
Q ignores the man as he picks up a mug, filling it with boiling water as he eyes the selection of teas: all herbal, no black teas whatsoever. Not even a lovely Darjeeling.
"You look lost, child. May I help you?" the priest offers, his voice lilting and his accent strange: possibly American, though why an American priest would be in the British Embassy, Q has no idea. He glances over his shoulder at the horrible too-small round glasses the man is wearing and the sizable, incredibly bushy blond-grey beard. "Allow me to introduce myself. My name is August Christopher. I was named after Saint Augustine, who coined my favorite phrase: give me chastity and give me constancy, but do not give it yet."
"Oh, good lord," Q mutters under his breath, quickly turning back to the refreshments table and trying to look inconspicuous. "How the bloody hell did you manage to break in to the British Embassy?"
Bond scratches at his bristly beard and when he speaks, his voice is softer but he has at least let the accent drop. "What do you mean 'break in'. I'm British." He actually manages to sound offended.
"You're a lunatic," Q corrects. "Scotland Yard called and briefed everyone here about my apparent situation. I have bodyguards, as in, more than one. Also, that beard is hideous."
"Thank you." The bastard goes so far as to preen for a moment before he sobers. "Listen, they have you scheduled on the six o'clock flight out of Moscow."
"Six o'clock?" Q checks his watch. They must have finally managed to de-ice the plane. "How do you know this? They haven't even told me about it."
"I need you to develop a sudden fear of flying," Bond says. Q is incredibly unimpressed with this request and it must show on his face, because raises his eyebrows pointedly and elaborates by saying, "Tretiak has men on that plane who have orders to return you to him at any cost. I need you to finish the formula and fax it to me, the number is on the back."
The papers Bond passes over a plain computer white computer-grade pages, folded neatly three times. The fax number is written in neat black ink. Q unfolds the pages carefully and glances them over. Then he fixes the thief with what he hopes is a cold and unimpressed stare. "Why are you keeping my cards?" He trusts Bond, even if common sense cautions him against it. The idea of his life's work being out there, available to people who intend to misuse it, makes him feel faintly nauseous. It's clear Bond still has the cards, as the edges are visible on the Xeroxed pages Q is holding. As far as he is concerned there should be nothing stopping Bond from at least handing over the hard copy, even if it is not presently possible to remove it from the clutches of the Russian mafia.
"I have to make a deal with Tretiak or you won't ever be safe," Bond says flatly. Then, half-mocking, he asks, "Don’t you trust me?"
Q crosses his arms. "Of course I trust you, August Christopher. I mean, Vincent Ferrer, Thomas More …"
Bond's features close off completely, and Q catches the way the man's pale blue eyes skitter about the room, undoubtedly noting the position of Q's erstwhile shadows. Then he stands form his table swiftly, wraps a hand around Q's elbow and shifts him off to the side, to a quiet spot by the wall. "Really? You're doing this now?"
"Don't be an idiot, of course I trust you," Q huffs, rolling his eyes. He flashes the other man a sly grin. "After all, you are my own personal saint."
Gently, Bond leans forward, resting their foreheads together. "You have to be a very good, and generally a very dead person to become a saint. More importantly, you have to work three miracles." Stepping back, Bond raises his ridiculously bushy false eyebrows up comically high. "Get to work," then he's gone, disappearing into the crowd.
_______________________________________________________
Q estimated a little over two hours of uninterrupted work would be all it would take for him to resolve his sequencing difficulties. One hour and fifteen minutes after leaving the embassy, however, Bond receives a fax. It's strange to realize as he checks it over, that somehow the formula for cold fusion has actually become familiar to him. Enough that he could recognize, if not actually understand what any of the calculations mean.
With Q's work stowed safely in his coat pocket, and a plain black hat pulled over his hair, Bond makes his way to Tretiak Industries, past the guards caught up in a shift-change, and up four flights of stairs to the small windowless room where the scientist tasked with making sense of cold fusion is still hard at work.
Doctor Lev Botvin is a small man, with frazzled grey-white hair that's tangled and standing on end, five days of facial hair stippling his cheeks and a pair of frameless glasses perched on his nose, the prescription strong enough that his eyes are magnified, making him look like a startled cat when Bond deigns to step out of the shadows.
"What are you doing here?" Doctor Botvin asks, his eyes comically wide. "The work area is out there. Go away."
Bond spares a glance to the closed door, and then takes another step closer. "The work could be here, though. Couldn't it? This machine, it could work."
"What are you…?"
There is a panic button beneath the lab counter; Bond catches the Doctor's hand before he can press it. "Listen to me before you do anything rash. I'm a friend of Doctor Russell's."
"Doctor Russell?" Botvin's shoulders slump slightly and he runs a frustrated hand through his hair. "This formula is unlike anything I've ever seen. I've been working, I have, but it makes no sense. Pieces that don't fit, and other pieces that …"
Bond holds out Q's fax. It takes a moment, but Botvin eventually stops tugging at his hair long enough to realize that he is being offered something. As he reads the pages he doesn't once stop shaking his head, amazing lighting his face. "But this…" he says, mostly to himself. "This is so simple… this unlocks the entire formula. I can't believe…"
It's a revelation, it’s a breakthrough, it's world-changing, but Bond doesn't have the time to stand around and marvel at it. "Can you make it work?"
"I don't understand…" Botvin says, reaching out to catch at the fabric of Bond's sleeve, like he expects Bond might go haring off before he has bothered to explain. "This work does not belong to me. Doctor Russell should…"
"I need a miracle."
Finally, Botvin seems to comprehend. "But the rally, Tretiak's rally is tonight. That's only twelve hours."
"Then you have twelve hours," Bond raises his eyebrows. "Make it work."
_______________________________________________________
Bond is improvising. He's calling in favors where he can, and building a plan as he goes along. Q has done his bit, and hopefully Doctor Botvin will come through. If he doesn't then Bond will be shot or tossed into a Russian prison, the Russian government will collapse and the country will be overtaken by a greedy dictator. To say nothing of people freezing to death all over Russia, and Q and Botvin invariably being murdered.
Botvin failing is not something that Bond enjoys dwelling on.
Instead, he busies himself with contacting Alexa Frankeivitch, from whom he manages to procure a detailed map of KGB-built tunnels that lead directly into the Kremlin, and an additional map that shows the location of the President's personal suite. In exchange, he gives her a neat stack of cash and a handful of stolen jewels. She throws in a uniform coat belonging to one of the President's guards for free. "Because I like you," she says, with a smile. Later he discovers it has less to do with any fondness she might have for him, and more to do with the fact that she has picked his pocket.
A thief himself, Bond was prepared for this contingency and subsequently removed anything of family or significance from his wallet. He left a hastily drawn frowny-face there because it amused him to do so.
The last piece of his plan involves a long trek through Russian storm drains, and then up into the Kremlin. Speed is of the essence. If he doesn't reach President Karpov before Tretiak does, then the ensuing scenario bares a marked resemblance to the results of Botvin failing to get the device working. Actually, most of Bond's plan involves a significant reliance on details working out exactly right in order to avoid bloody revolution, imprisonment, death, and/or murder.
His luck, what little he has of it, holds. Bond strides into the President's private suite to be bombarded with angry accusations of impertinence and lack of Russian courtesy from the President's wife, who sees only a man in the uniform worn by men sworn to protect her and her husband. Karpov, however, seems to be anticipating an uprising.
When Bond tosses his hat and coat aside, the President seems almost relieved. What little hesitation he might have retained is lost the moment Bond speaks in his own voice, British accent and all, "I want to help you destroy Ivan Tretiak."
Karpov has soft grey eyes and a soft face. He looks careworn and tired. "How do you propose to do that?"
There are shouts in the hallway, sounds of gunfire. "Dorogoy Bog," Karpov's wife gasps. She looks at Bond and says, in perfect English, "Is it a revolution?"
He shakes his head. "Not yet."
Karpov moves to stand by his wife, wrapping a comforting arm around her shoulder. "What is your plan?"
"You're going to stand trial in Red Square. Whatever Tretiak accuses you of, I need you to admit to it."
"Are you mad?" Karpov wonders aloud.
"Molchaniye," his wife tells him, ordering him to silence. There's desperation in her eyes but she fixes Bond with a resolute stare. "He will do it."
A second later the door comes crashing open and soldiers stream into the space, hauling out the President and his wife. "Who are you?" one soldier demands of Bond. "Speak!"
"Take him," another says, and a bag is shoved over Bond's head and a moment later somebody knocks him out.
_______________________________________________________
The soldiers at the embassy have a little break room in the basement with a gaming table and microwave and, most importantly, a television. Weir and Edwards both insist that it's all right, which is how Q finds himself crammed onto a lumpy couch with a bunch of soldiers.
On the screen, Ivan Tretiak is standing on a large outdoor stage made-up in Red Square, complete with a ridiculous light display and giant television screens that are currently showing the man's trimmed beard and balding head from two different sides, as the main camera focuses on him from the front. "Friends, countrymen, Russians!" he shouts, raising his hands up above his head.
"Oh god, really?" Q asks no one in particular as around him several of the soldiers start snickering.
"Surely you have heard by now of this morning's sensational events," Tretiak continues. "Many shocking documents were recovered from President's Karpov secret files, locked in his private safe." The giant screens are rolling footage of people marching through the President's office and pulling out papers from an open safe. "The documents, which will be published in tomorrow's papers, prove traitor Karpov was about to steal over 40 trillion of our precious Russian rubles, in a reckless scheme to save his own hide."
The crowd gathered in the Square are all shouting and booing. The camera pans backward, capturing the mob and in doing so, brings President Karpov into frame. The man is standing tall, staring out at his angry citizens without any sign of remorse and, beside him, Q immediately recognizes the man clad all in black. He can't even muster any proper surprise because where else would Bond be but right there in the middle of an absolute clusterfuck?
As the mob's shouts quieten, Tretiak nodding his agreement with their outrage, he says, "To add to this insult, millions of dollars were to be paid to this international criminal," and here Tretiak gestures to his left, to where Bond is standing and, just to be helpful, the camera zooms in close to capture Bond's face, sans make-up or wig, sans any sort of disguise whatsoever, there on television for anyone to see. "This criminal!" Tretiak repeats, when people start booing again. "To buy a fairytale called cold fusion. Our President was prepared to bankrupt our national treasury for a device that does not work!"
The device in question is sitting at the foot of the stage, in front of Tretiak so the man can gesture at it dramatically. Q shifts forward in his seat, trying to see it better. "You pass an electric current into this machine," Tretiak is saying. "And there is supposed to be a chemical reaction! Do you deny this?"
President Karpov steps forward, as much as the soldiers flanking him will allow, and shouts, "Not at all! I proudly admit to it!"
The crowd has gone entirely silent and Tretiak notices this. "This machine does not work! It can't even light up a tiny light bulb!" he tells them firmly. Then he "Watch!" Tretiak makes a jerky motion and a soldier steps out of line and presses the button.
Nothing happens. For a stretch of time that feels to Q like an eternity, there is nothing but darkness. "You see?" Tretiak asks. "I say, enough to this failure! Failure is behind us!"
"It's working," Q gasps, because at the bottom of the stage, the bulb that is perched atop the machine is beginning, just faintly, to glow. In the Square, people are noticing as well, whispering and murmuring that gets louder as the light begins to increase. "Yes, yes, god yes!" Q thinks, then realizes he's saying it out loud.
"You did it!" Weir is shouting from beside him, people are clapping and hooting and pounding on his back, and all Q can think as the light bulb shatters and light comes pouring out of the contraption, is how many people along the way called him an idiot and idealist, told him he had no right to call himself a scientist.
"Congratulations, Doctor Russell!" Edwards is shouting.
At the top left corner of the screen, Q catches sight of Bond. He's grinning.
_______________________________________________________
Light floods the Red Square and everywhere people are cheering. "Miracle one," Bond says to himself.
"Thank you, my friend," President Karpov is saying, shaking his hand firmly. Tretiak is bustling his way off the stage, Ilya is running toward the row of black SUVs, but recognizing that a coup is no longer imminent, the General who had, moments before, been prepared to arrest the President of his country now shouts out, "All troops loyal to Mother Russia must seize the traitor Tretiak!" It's satisfying to see so many soldiers descending on that bastard.
"I'm so sorry, mister President," the general is saying. "There was a miscommunication in the chain of command."
Bond stays long enough to see Ilya and Ivan Tretiak being handcuffed. Miracle two.
Then he escapes the chaos, taking one last look over his shoulder at cold fusion in action. That is one miracle he can't lay claim to. Smiling, Bond heads into the darkness.
___________________________________________________
|<< END PART FOUR >>|
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