If Night Falls, Use Stars for Streetlights | ONE
Title: If Night Falls, Use Stars for Streetlights
By: revenant_scribe
Chapter ONE:
Fandom: Bond | Pairing: Bond/Q
Rating: PG-13 | Word Count: 6,336
Russia is experiencing its harshest winter to date, with temperatures in Moscow falling as low as -50 degrees Celsius yesterday. "This is the effect of Global Warming," Sergei Dolzhikov, the Russian Minister for Environment said. "In Russia we have one or two weeks of very cold, and then it is mild. We go swimming in January. Russians do not complain because it is chilly. This entire situation is outside the norm."
Meteorologists report that the country has not experienced such a prolonged cold spell since 1938, with temperatures dropping 16 to 20 degrees below the seasonal norm all over the country. The death toll is steadily rising, and the number of people hospitalized as a result of freezing temperatures is now over three hundred. In Moscow, concerns are high as this is only the start of winter and there are several months until January, typically the coldest month. President Karpov has not volunteered any insight into how his government intends to cope with this crisis, saying only "this is not a state of emergency. These are unusual temperatures, but we expect this cold spell to end soon."
-BBC World News
In his dream there is a little girl and she is screaming.
Her eyes are open wide, cornflower blue and caught in surprise. Her brown hair floats upward around her face, hands reaching up to him, still straining to catch hold. Bond wakes when she hits the ground. Breath hitching, he sits upright in a claustrophobic little flat with neutral walls the color of sun-bleached granite and one window covered by beige curtains that do not quite match. It’s a bolt-hole, a place with a bed and a lock on the door, and even though he has not once cooked a meal in it the entire space smells of boiled cabbage.
As he slides out of bed his left foot jostles a leaning tower of books, sending them toppling onto the stained grey-brown rug. The subject of the books is all the same, "Ivan Tretiak: The Man, The Millionaire, The Legend", one proclaims in blood-red font, Bond's right foot is balanced on its cover, obscuring a black-and-white photograph of the man himself, high-forehead, greasy-black hair that hangs to his shoulders, well-tended beard, and dark eyes that stare out, empty as a shark's gaze. Bond pushes the book under the bed with his foot and stands.
When he pushes back the drab, mismatched curtains he can see the ornate spires of Saint Basil's Basilica, towering like a colorfully decorated gingerbread house. The rest of the city looks grey and icy, washed-out and faded. Any other time and Bond would feel indifferent about Moscow. It's just a place and he's traveled most of the globe. Like any place Moscow has its secrets, its dangers, but it has its beauty as well.
With the weather being what it is, however, Bond finds himself wishing he had taken a different job. He'd been lucky to find a flat that accepted cash upfront, rented by the month and included heat. He'd paid handsomely for the privilege of warmth, and it's taking a bite out of his profits but he doesn't take it for granted, feels only marginally bitter about being here of all places rather enduring the relatively temperate London climate. He'd take rain over stiff biting winds and ice any day.
Not that he would have ever considered passing on this particular job. The payout makes the discomfort, which he reminds himself is temporary, well worth it, even considering what the heat in his flat is costing him. It's high payout for relatively simple work, and if the job brings him uncomfortably close to the Russian mafia that only makes things more interesting.
Bond is in Moscow to steal a microchip. What the microchip does, who invented it or why is irrelevant. The only thing that interests him is the fact that someone is willing to pay quite a bit of money for him to steal it. Currently the chip is in the secure vault at Tretiak Industries, which is why, when Bond washes up in the cramped bathroom so small it is impossible to use the sink if the door is closed, he's looking as much at his own reflection in the mirror as he is a myriad of surveillance photographs he has collected since his arrival in the city.
That's his third rule: never walk into a lion's den without familiarizing yourself with the lion.
In this case the lion is Ivan Tretiak, who is not a terribly interesting individual as far as corrupt Russian billionaires go. He became the sole owner of an oil and gas empire after his partner died suddenly in 2011. Two months later there was an assassination attempt on Tretiak's wife that prompted her to relocate permanently to Geneva. As no one followed her there with the intent to kill Bond suspects it was a simple way of getting her out of the way so Ivan could get about with his philandering and money-making without having to include her. Most people would probably have just gotten a divorce. To each their own, Bond supposes.
Ivan's first son, Simpkin, was killed in a car crash five years ago. Ivan's youngest and only remaining son, Ilya, was driving. Bond supposes there's a story there, but it has no bearing on his job so he doesn't dwell on it overmuch.
Washed and shaved, Bond steps out of the bathroom and sits at the vanity where he selects a trimmed, bushy moustache - steel-grey with lines of silver - and settles it into place above his upper lip. There's a short-cropped wig that accompanies the facial hair, new eyebrows as well, and slowly James Bond begins to disappear, replaced by Ivan Ivanovitch, a character of Bond's own devising, created for expediency and entirely disposable.
He layers the dark security uniform over his black bodysuit, finishes it off with a fur-lined cap and he is ready. Today, Tretiak is hosting a political rally to invigorate the Russian populous and to raise votes because, as he announced several weeks ago, Ivan Tretiak would like nothing more than to be made president of his country. People will be streaming through the opened doors of Tretiak Industries, the guards will have their eyes focused on the guests, not each other, and Bond intends to walk through the front doors, up the stairs, steal the microchip and then vanish.
After all, that's his forte.
_______________________________________________________
It is not coincidence that has Bond arriving at the front steps of Tretiak Industries at the same moment the black limousine bearing Ivan and Ilya Tretiak pulls to the curb. Bond's timing is never anything short of impeccable. Amidst the chaos of personal bodyguards, frenzied news reporters and photographers, shouting protestors and frazzled security Bond, dressed in his security uniform, walks up the front steps and through the door without garnering a second glance from anyone.
The front entrance hall is smooth green-marble tile and high-reaching colonnades, a wide staircase wraps elegantly along the left and directly in the center of the space is a large circular security booth where a cluster of guards hunch in front of tiny televisions flickering through the surveillance feeds from the entire building. All five of the guards hop to their feet as Ivan Tretiak strides like a puffed-up peacock through the halls of his building, and Bond takes the opportunity to jog up the staircase, away from the rally that he has no intention of attending.
Midway up the stairs is a ten foot bronze statue of man standing, his chest bare with a cloth hanging about his hips. It seems a strange sort of thing to have in the front entrance of a business establishment, but Bond likes to think the message the artist intended is this: because of oil and gas this bronze man can stand about with no shoes and no shirt and not be bothered. It's something he imagines the Russian public might feel very strongly about considering most of them are freezing to death these days. Likely why there are so many angry protestors just out-front.
Bond's interest in the statue is this: the right bronze fist is at just the right height to offer the perfect angle and view of the live security feeds cycling through the televisions at the desk on the main floor. It's a simple matter of sticking a miniature camera into place as he walks by, and then he is set.
With the elevators closely monitored there is no other choice than to make his way to the service staircase. His destination is on the twenty-sixth floor, but on the fifteenth Bond finds himself confronted with a red-bricked wall barring further progress. Health and safety would certainly have a thing or two to say about an emergency exit being walled-off, but Bond has an abundance of faith. When God closes a door he opens a window or more aptly, when a greedy billionaire oil magnate walls off a staircase he neglects to put an adequate lock on the window not two feet away.
The lock is outmatched by Bond's skill with a set of picklocks and the brisk wind eagerly pushes its way in through the opened window. Hastily, he sheds his heavy coat and the rest of security uniform, until he is in the close-fitting black body-suit. Pulling the face-mask into place over his false moustache, Bond pulls out the gadget of his own design: a retracting silver ladder that, when fully extended, resembles a drainpipe, and makes his way to the window.
It takes less than one minute for the ladder to reach the twenty-sixth floor and another four minutes for Bond to climb it. Since his suit is carefully designed to regulate body temperature the only effect the rushing wind has on him is a slight deafening effect, as well as a general slowing of his movements.
When he slips onto the wide stone balcony he spots half-erected scaffolding, a tarpaulin and a case of tools. He steps over the mess, readying his picklocks to make quick work on the door only to find that it is already unlocked. It's marginally disappointing because the number of opportunities for him to use his skills with lock picks is rapidly decreasing. Most everything these days worth stealing are kept safe behind elaborate electronic mechanisms, or fingerprint scanners or keypads that require Bond to invent code-breaking gadgets.
Still, an open door is an open door, so he walks through it.
The twenty-sixth floor is abandoned. No security patrols and no employees, the floor is closed-off. Everyone's attention is on the rally, which means the crisscrossing security beams that bar his progress through the ornate atrium are all active. Bond's goggles make the beams visible, shining bright and white-blue like distant starlight. Bond crouches just out of range and checks his digital and highly modified watch to find that the temperature of the room is 21.2 degrees. Not entirely uncomfortable. Pulling out the monitor clipped to his belt, Bond lowers the temperature of his suit and waits a moment. Two faint beeps declare that his temperature has been suitably decreased and, as simple as that, he is able to stand up and jog across the atrium, security beams in place, and not set off any alarms.
Just in case, he leaves the suit's temperature settings in place. Generally, he is very good at improvising and at thinking on his feet, but as Bond has no wish to be murdered, or to spend the rest of his life in prison, he prefers to take as few chances as possible. In his experience, even with thorough planning, there is always a good chance of something going wrong, of something unexpected happening.
For this reason, the first thing he does when he reaches the vault is to mount a laser-triggered flash bomb on the wall to the right of the safe door. Then he picks up his modified mobile phone and checks the video feed he is getting on the security desk at the front hall. All the guards are accounted for, and the screens show nothing but clear hallways. He has twelve point eight seconds to crack the safe, get the microchip and get out before the security feed cycles back to the vault. Wasting no time he rigs up his code-breaker and gets to work.
In just under five seconds, two beeps and a flashing green light indicate the safe has been unlocked and Bond steps forward spinning the handle that looks rather like the helm of a ship and opening the door. Inside is a wall of little lockboxes, important documents and devices kept safe behind little locked doors. Bond's microchip is inside box forty-eight and he liberates it quickly from its metal prison, ignoring all the other numbered doors and their potential treasures. Greed makes people sloppy. Greed makes thieves take unacceptable and foolish risks.
Just as he is pocketing the microchip there is a high-pitched metal wrapping sound, a perfect rendition of 'shave-and-a-haircut', followed by a voice speaking Russian, ordering him to turn around. Bond has done enough reconnaissance prior to this job to recognize Ilya Tretiak's voice.
Even with the best planning, there's always something.
"I don't speak Russian," he lies, masking his voice with a thick Australian accent.
"Stand up," Ilya repeats, this time in English. "Turn around, and put your hands behind your head. Slowly."
Bond complies, turning to find Ilya's narrow, sneering face and dark-black eyes fixed on him. The man has long wavy hair, glistening as it hangs limply around his face. He's holding a black cane topped with the golden head of a snarling animal. "Take off the mask," Ilya says, and again Bond cooperates.
The fake hair is still in place, the makeup he used to make him appear older and careworn, draining the color from him and aging him by at least a decade is there as well. Still, Bond feels exposed. With the Australian accent still in place he says, "Listen. If I give this to you, you're gonna give it to your daddy, and what's he gonna give you? Not even a Christmas bonus. The guy I'm stealing this for will give me one million. If we go in partners we can split that, fifty-fifty. That's a half million hard currency. Think of the drugs you could buy with that. You'll be discoing for a decade in Moscow, mate."
Ilya's sneer only grows. "I am not your mate, and I don't need your small change. That's your first problem. Here is your second." The other man pulls a gun from beneath his suit jacket, cocking it as he takes aim at Bond's chest. He hooks his cane on the railing of the stairs and extends his free hand, flexing his fingers in a beckoning motion as he says, "Microchip, please."
Keeping his movements slow, Bond reaches into his pocket and removes a small black button, which he proceeds to fumble and then drop onto the floor. When Ilya snarls at him, Bond offers an unrepentant shrug. "Guns make me nervous."
"Stay there!" the Russian growls, cautiously crouching down and groping his free hand across the floor. Bond waits for the exact moment when Ilya shifts his gaze to look for the microchip and then he kicks out, knocking the gun out of the younger man's hand, sending it skittering across the floor out of reach.
He makes it two steps towards the exit before Ilya realizes what is happening, stretching his leg out across the floor and managing to trip Bond mid-stride, sending him off-course. Bond staggers into the railing with enough force that Ilya is up and raining punches down onto his back before he can recover his footing. Bond might have more muscle than Ilya, but the Russian has training and a sadistic streak a mile wide. The security alarm has started ringing at this point, and Bond is keenly aware that their skirmish has been spotted on the security monitors. He can't afford to linger.
With a sharp jab of his elbow, Bond knocks Ilya back. As the younger man staggers, Bond pulls his laser pointer from his pocket and targets the flash-bomb he stuck into place, squeezing his own eyes shut just as the crackle-hiss of the device becomes a boom of sound. Ilya cries out, momentarily blinding, and Bond takes off sprinting, back down the steps and along the hallways, through the atrium and onto the balcony.
He makes it all the way to the edge before the exploding roar of a gun going off and the crack of a bullet hitting stone just to his left brings him to a halt. Bond raises his hands and turns around to face Ilya. "You have nowhere to go." The dark hair man has Bond in his sights, and he speaks with so much malicious glee that Bond can't help but to offer a defiant smirk as he takes one step backward and falls off the side of the building.
_______________________________________________________
The impact of landing on his back directly onto the tarpaulin-covered inflatable that Bond delivered via truck to this alley the other night does a better job of knocking the air out of his lungs than the punch Ilya landed moments before. He stays still long enough that, should anyone peer over the roof after him he would present a rather convincing corpse.
Then he slides down onto the ground, fishes a bottle of Vodka and a ratty brown coat he stashed in the unlocked cabin of the truck and hunches forward, shuffling toward the mouth of the alley as he wraps a scarf over his head.
When the guards charge past him he's jostled but otherwise ignored: they are searching for a black-clad corpse, not a stumbling drunkard. Bond is free to head west toward Red Square where he offers his Vodka to an appreciative homeless man who calls Bond a 'saint' and raises the bottle high in a toast, "Spasiba, spasiba!"
Bond says, "Pazhaluysta," and keeps walking.
He sheds the coat and scarf around the next corner, as well as his moustache and wig. An alternate disguise is waiting just where he stashed it the other night, in a backpack behind a skip. Bond transforms from an old homeless drunk to a young tourist. He steps out of the alley into Red Square where he spends fifteen minutes snapping photos of the Kremlin, trying not to laugh when Ilya's goons swoop down on the homeless man carrying Bond's Vodka and are subsequently accused of liquor-theft. "It's my bottle!" the man shouts out. "Fuck off!"
No one spares Bond a second glance.
_______________________________________________________
With the microchip safely in hand Bond returns to his flat long enough to strip it down, everything from photographs to the books carefully disposed of. The few things he brought with him to Moscow all fit neatly into his black carry-on luggage, and his gadgets, the ones that he hasn't been forced to leave behind, are mailed to a post box he keeps in Australia. He can retrieve them later. Since the flat was paid in full, in cash, and in advance, there is nothing left to do, nothing tying him to this place and no traces of him left behind.
Bond showers and then applies a fake tan. At the mirror he obscures his blue eyes with brown colored contacts, hides his hair beneath a brown-haired wig, then he dresses in a expensive suit, fine black with a hint of green, and a dark green tie accompanied by polished shoes and an expensive gold watch. James Bond, briefly resurrected after the shower, becomes Martin de Porres, a thoroughly respectable traveler with three seats reserved on the right side of the plane just above the wing of the seven o'clock flight from Moscow to London. He takes the middle one.
A well-crafted escape plan doesn't end at the door. Ilya Tretiak will have Bond's face, or at least some half-disguised version of it, at the forefront of his mind. Then there is always the Yard to consider. They've been ineffectually tracking him for quite a while, and Bond has no intention of being caught.
As ever, Bond has a plan. Her name is Galina Boytsov and she is also on the seven o'clock flight to Heathrow airport. Her husband has decided it is best for her to be in London, and thought she doesn't know it, she is going to help Bond return home.
Galina used to work in antiquities before she married. When she gets up to stretch her legs midway through the three-hour flight, her eyes catch hold of the ornate gold cross swinging idly in Bond's left hand and her steps falter. "It's beautiful," she says. "The workmanship."
He looks at her, holding the necklace out in a silent offer and Galina accepts it carefully. "Ah, Cloisonné," she says, smiling fondly at the piece and holding it reverently for a moment before she offers it back. "It is old."
In point of fact, the necklace is a skillful forgery that Bond created himself. "It belonged to my grandmother," he tells her, making certain to add traces of a Spanish accent to his voice. Martin de Porres is Spanish, after all. "Would you like to sit down?"
Conversation about the necklace veers into more personal terrain with very little effort on Bond's part. Galina is unhappy and she is alone, he has only to offer a sympathetic ear with the excitement of something foreign and exotic, a bond established through necklace and the snatches of false personal history Bond has alluded to, and Galina confides in him about her reason for being on the flight.
"You've been married not even a year, and already this bastard has a girlfriend?" Bond's outrage startles her but he shakes his head quickly enough, waves a dismissive hand as he says, "I'm sorry. It's none of my business."
She smiles a little sadly. "I don't mind. I've been thinking it myself ever since he gave me my plane ticket. What's your name?"
"My name is Martin de Porres," Bond says. "I'm from Spain, but I was named for a Peruvian saint who could cure the sick or the injured by the laying of hands." Gently, he rests his hand lightly on hers. This time there is no sadness in her smile.
_______________________________________________________
The customs agent stops him with a hand on his upper arm. "Step over here please, sir."
Bond is the same height and build that the Russians will have, put out in the description of their thief. There's not much he can do to alter either of those attributes so instead he endures the intrusion and the delay, hyper aware of the two inspectors from Scotland Yard who are peering at him closely. A man and a woman, always the same two, and he assumes these are the people driving the search. It's difficult to imagine that bits of his life have been an open file on their desk, but flattering as well.
They still haven't caught him, after all.
The woman wears her hair short with tight curls. She has glinting dark eyes that she fixes on him as she turns slightly to her partner, holding up a sheet of paper between them as she says in a hushed voice, "Same eyes as the Van Gogh theft last year in the Netherlands. Different chin, though. What do you think?"
Her partner shakes his head. "He's the same height and build as the Russians gave us, but he doesn't sound like an Aussie."
"He could be faking it," Bond hears the woman say as he puts a little extra effort into his Spanish-accented grumblings about the inconvenience of being stopped by customs agents. At another desk down the way, Galina accepts her passport from the customs agent with a smile, striding through to collect her baggage.
"I'm sorry, sir," Bond is told. "If you don't mind stepping into the room just over here?" He's patted down at least three separate times, prodded and x-rayed and generally delayed and for all of it he maintains a near-constant stream of accented-grumbling, just enough to be believable and never so much that he runs the risk of rubbing anyone the wrong way.
In the end, when no microchip is found anywhere in his luggage or on his person, and it can be proved that he hasn't swallowed it, Bond is sent on his way with his carry-on and a brisk apology for the inconvenience. No one takes even a second glance at the folded square of paper in his wallet with a hotel address written out. He's a tourist; of course he would need a place to stay.
_______________________________________________________
She has a top floor suite at the Dorchester and when Bond knocks Galina opens the door wearing nothing but a silk robe tied loosely at the waist, with the gold cross he gave her hanging round her neck. There is an open bottle of champagne chilling on a table beside two glasses.
They fuck on her king sized bed, lights off and curtains open wide, the streetlights and the moon giving them all the light they need. Her smile loses all traces of sadness, and even after they've finished and she falls asleep her lips are still curling upward.
Bond leaves her the necklace but removes the microchip he hid on it. He pulls a rose from the fresh flowers set out by the hotel staff and leaves one lying on rumpled sheets beside her, then he disappears out the door, hailing a cab at the curb. He asks to be taken home.
_______________________________________________________
'Home' for Bond is 81 Holland Park, a once-great London hotel that sheltered Hollywood starlets and rock stars in its heyday. Now it's merely his, a place to hang his coat and kick off his boots; a place that's as good as any other but ultimately, a place that he can walk away from easily enough, if it comes to that. In his line of work Bond cannot afford to become attached to anything.
The security measures are in place and nothing has been disturbed, so Bond heads up the stairs for a shower, ridding himself of every last vestige of Martin de Porres, including the tan. When he steps out onto his soft white bathmat he is himself again. In the master suite he swaps his damp towel for a pair of sweatpants before stretching his legs out across his covers with his laptop, his back propped on a mound of pillows as it boots up and chimes its readiness.
There is an encrypted message waiting for him. The microchip has been successfully delivered and his money has been released. Bond checks his Swiss bank account to verify that everything is in order, and then deletes the message. He never writes 'thank-you' messages. With the job finally, successfully completed, he powers down his laptop and sets it aside and, after a moment of staring up at the familiar ceiling of his bedroom, he flicks off the bedside lamp.
Home sweet home.
_______________________________________________________
When he is not working a job Bond always has the sense that his life is on pause. He orders groceries online to be delivered to his door because he doesn't like to be bothered with trifles, and he doesn't own a car. Unlike houses, which merely accrue dust over time, a car needs attention, needs to be taken out every now and again and properly cared for, and Bond is so rarely in London there doesn't seem to be any point. His days are spent reading, fiddling with his computer, exercising in the room he has made up in what used to be the garage. Sometimes at night he goes out to a restaurant or a club and meets someone. A temporary distraction: Bond doesn't keep in touch with anyone he sleeps with, and he certainly doesn't have any friends.
James Bond does not exist. The various characters he plays on a job have more paperwork than 'James Bond'. Without a name he can never be identified, and so how can he ever be caught? The Yard can search for Ivan Ivanovitch, or Martin de Porres but there isn't anything to tie them to Bond except perhaps a certain similarity in their faces, their height and build.
Years ago he set a goal for himself: a private Swiss bank account totaling over fifty million pounds of liquid assets. At this moment, he is only three million dollars shy of that mark. Three million pounds away from retirement, and then maybe he'll try his hand at being 'James Bond'.
Fifty million. When he'd been a kid reciting rosaries as penance kneeling on the cold stone floors of the chapel it had seemed like an inordinate amount of money, almost impossible to attain. Even in his early twenties he had imagined he'd be doing jobs up until he was too old to physically be capable of it. Then maybe it could be his consolation, that he was retiring because he had achieved his goal and not simply because he was too old to continue. Still, here he is. Not even in his forties and only three million short.
Arguably, the goal was arbitrary. It was a contract he had made only with himself and so the terms might easily be renegotiated. A part of him wonders if it isn’t simply time. He's cynical now; tired and jaded, and he doesn't pretend anymore that what he's doing is helping anyone but himself. He's a thief, and the people who hire him are always bad men motivated by greed. As much as the jobs are an exciting challenge, it never feels like enough.
The one thing Bond never imagined was that the priests at the orphanage might be right: doing this sort of thing, stealing, pilfering, thieving, whatever you called it, wears on the soul. You lose parts of yourself and, over time, perhaps he has lost too much of himself to ever be whole again.
With that in mind he opens his laptop and pulls up the page he uses to accept jobs. It is a simple travel website available to anyone interested in learning about Timor: geographical facts about its regions, its climate, vegetation and so on. When viewed with the correct decoding program in place, however, the simple articles about the northern python, the iris lorikeet or the green pigeon, as well as the comments attached to the articles, are revealed to be brimming with the sort of information organizations such as MI6, or the CIA would very much like to get their hands on.
One such article regarding pest control, for instance, reveals a very interesting offer when Bond decodes it: "To the human fly, would you like to earn more flypaper? Give me a buzz, Boris the spider."
There is nothing to indicate that the message is from Ivan Tretiak, but Bond knows that it is. A simple scan with some the programs he has purchased and modified confirms this. Naturally that means the entire job is a trap. Perhaps there is a slight chance that Tretiak was genuinely impressed with his first-hand experience with Bond's abilities and wishes to put those abilities to use for his own personal gain, but those odds are very slim, and not in keeping with what Bond knows of the man's character. Tretiak's morals exist on a sliding scale that is not weighted in Bond's favor. Better to avoid this job altogether. Stay alive and fight another day.
Play it smart.
Bond types: "One million US dollars, nonrefundable reserves you a quiet table at a romantic little spot in Berlin called Schönefeld, which has a cozy transit lounge. To get inside you walk through the metal detectors, and I walk through the metal detectors, and since you know that I'm not armed, and I know you're not armed, we can both fall in love and nobody gets hurt."
Bond has never gotten anywhere by playing things safe.
_______________________________________________________
Bond chooses the airport because there is nothing cozy and quiet about it. That Ivan Tretiak will bring his son goes without saying, Ilya is the only one who has some sense of what Bond looks like. A large part of Bond wants to simply stride through the airport without any disguise whatsoever, but he has long-since learned the advantage that being underestimated can offer. Better to maintain the pretense that they are all strangers, and that this is simply another job.
He arrives at Schönefeld dressed in a dark blue suit, with rose-tinted glasses and wearing a strawberry blond wig. His accent is German because he doesn't want either of the men to associate him with his country of origin. In a pinch, Bond could easily pick up and live just about anywhere, but he has his preferences.
"You have a long and beautiful cane," Bond purrs, his English smoothed out by the thick, lilting German accent. Leaning purposely into Ilya's space he finishes, "Along with your beautiful eyes."
The dark haired man skims a brief, irritated glance at him, hesitating on Bond's hair, which he chose especially for its resemblance to the younger Tretiak's own hair. "Go away," Ilya snarls. His father doesn't even glance up from his newspaper. The front-page headline reads: "Tretiak calls for Russian rearmament".
With an exaggerated yawn, Bond turns his attention to Ivan, and nods at the paper. "That photograph doesn't do you justice."
"Who are you?" Ivan demands imperiously, folding the paper carefully.
"My name is Bruno Hautenfaust," Bond drawls obligingly, still with his German accent in place, speaking slightly higher than his own natural tenor. "I was named for a saint who had everything a man could possibly want: wealth, women, the whole bit, and then - inexplicably -- he took a vow of poverty and became a hermit and went off to live in the forest." He casts a pointed, leering glance to Ilya and adds, "In the nude."
Ilya jerks out of his chair. "This is ridiculous. Go away."
"I represent the professional you hired," Bond continues, ignoring the younger man. "I'm his business manager. I speak for him."
Ivan keeps his assessing gaze fixed on Bond. "Who does this thief work for? CIA? MI6?"
Bond shrugs. "He's not a race-car, nobody runs him. He's an independent contractor."
"Then no one will notice if I kill him," Ivan says, dropping his voice low as he leans forward. There's a gleam in his dark eyes, and Ilya looks almost eager. "Yes, I can do that. Even in this place with its metal detectors and its crowds. I can kill you and walk away."
Bond yawns, making certain to convey his complete lack of concern with this threat. He prefers to be direct, but Bruno Hautenfast, Bond decides, is far more cavalier. "It's so early. D'you guys want to get a coffee or something?"
As Bond strides over to the café just beside the gate lounge, Ilya engages his father in a whispered discussion, undoubtedly having recognized Bond as being the same man from Russia. Ivan hushes his son harshly and shoos him away to a different table before he joins Bond.
The tables are just slightly too small for two grown men to sit at comfortably. Ivan pushes his chair to the side, sitting sideways to avoid bumping their knees together. They both stay silent until a young waitress comes over to take their orders. "Kaffee?" she asks in German, pausing by their table.
"Klein bitte," Bond answers. Ivan holds up one finger and she makes a note on a pad and disappears.
"What do you know about cold fusion?" Ivan asks, settling more comfortably in his chair.
Bond takes a moment to mull over the question. "It ranks only slightly above astrology. Scientists who claimed to have achieved the experiment have never been able to duplicate it."
"Hm. Until now." The Russian takes a dark folder from out of his briefcase and tosses it onto the table.
Inside, Bond finds news clippings about the experiments in cold fusion being undertaken by a scientist, Doctor Quentin Russell. There are printouts of several scholarly articles written by Russell, and a few other pages, all of them relating to or making some mention of Doctor Quentin Russell.
"There is an electrochemist working out of Oxford," Ivan explains. "We believe that this Doctor Russell is on the verge of making a breakthrough in cold fusion."
"And?"
"And," Ivan Tretiak says, "I want your employer to obtain the formula for me."
Bond takes a sip of his coffee as he considers. "My employer is very busy, and you are very boring. Your offer must inspire him."
"This doctor has repeatedly thwarted my agents' attempts to find the formula. He's cagey. Difficult."
"Maybe your agents are stupid." Tapping his fingers on the table, Bond pretends to mull all of this over. "Three million."
Ivan snorts. "That is ridiculous."
"Why? If this Doctor Russell has done what you say he has, and I bring the formula to you, then you'll have the corner on the world energy market. At three million dollars, this job will cost you a nickel for every million you stand to make."
"This is not about me," Ivan insists, putting on a plaintive expression that looks hideously false. "This is about Mother Russia."
"She's not my mother, Mister Tretiak," Bond says, smiling cheekily. "Three million in a bank in Zurich. Agreed?"
Ivan leans back in his chair and sighs. "Okay. How long will it take to get your employer's agreement?"
"Just a moment." Bond drains off the rest of his coffee and jots something down on a napkin. Then he checks his watch and, still keeping his German accent in place, he says, "I'll do it. Here is the account number. Auf wiedersehen!"
___________________________________________________
|| END PART ONE >>|
MASTERPOST
By: revenant_scribe
Chapter ONE:
Fandom: Bond | Pairing: Bond/Q
Rating: PG-13 | Word Count: 6,336
Russia is experiencing its harshest winter to date, with temperatures in Moscow falling as low as -50 degrees Celsius yesterday. "This is the effect of Global Warming," Sergei Dolzhikov, the Russian Minister for Environment said. "In Russia we have one or two weeks of very cold, and then it is mild. We go swimming in January. Russians do not complain because it is chilly. This entire situation is outside the norm."
Meteorologists report that the country has not experienced such a prolonged cold spell since 1938, with temperatures dropping 16 to 20 degrees below the seasonal norm all over the country. The death toll is steadily rising, and the number of people hospitalized as a result of freezing temperatures is now over three hundred. In Moscow, concerns are high as this is only the start of winter and there are several months until January, typically the coldest month. President Karpov has not volunteered any insight into how his government intends to cope with this crisis, saying only "this is not a state of emergency. These are unusual temperatures, but we expect this cold spell to end soon."
-BBC World News
In his dream there is a little girl and she is screaming.
Her eyes are open wide, cornflower blue and caught in surprise. Her brown hair floats upward around her face, hands reaching up to him, still straining to catch hold. Bond wakes when she hits the ground. Breath hitching, he sits upright in a claustrophobic little flat with neutral walls the color of sun-bleached granite and one window covered by beige curtains that do not quite match. It’s a bolt-hole, a place with a bed and a lock on the door, and even though he has not once cooked a meal in it the entire space smells of boiled cabbage.
As he slides out of bed his left foot jostles a leaning tower of books, sending them toppling onto the stained grey-brown rug. The subject of the books is all the same, "Ivan Tretiak: The Man, The Millionaire, The Legend", one proclaims in blood-red font, Bond's right foot is balanced on its cover, obscuring a black-and-white photograph of the man himself, high-forehead, greasy-black hair that hangs to his shoulders, well-tended beard, and dark eyes that stare out, empty as a shark's gaze. Bond pushes the book under the bed with his foot and stands.
When he pushes back the drab, mismatched curtains he can see the ornate spires of Saint Basil's Basilica, towering like a colorfully decorated gingerbread house. The rest of the city looks grey and icy, washed-out and faded. Any other time and Bond would feel indifferent about Moscow. It's just a place and he's traveled most of the globe. Like any place Moscow has its secrets, its dangers, but it has its beauty as well.
With the weather being what it is, however, Bond finds himself wishing he had taken a different job. He'd been lucky to find a flat that accepted cash upfront, rented by the month and included heat. He'd paid handsomely for the privilege of warmth, and it's taking a bite out of his profits but he doesn't take it for granted, feels only marginally bitter about being here of all places rather enduring the relatively temperate London climate. He'd take rain over stiff biting winds and ice any day.
Not that he would have ever considered passing on this particular job. The payout makes the discomfort, which he reminds himself is temporary, well worth it, even considering what the heat in his flat is costing him. It's high payout for relatively simple work, and if the job brings him uncomfortably close to the Russian mafia that only makes things more interesting.
Bond is in Moscow to steal a microchip. What the microchip does, who invented it or why is irrelevant. The only thing that interests him is the fact that someone is willing to pay quite a bit of money for him to steal it. Currently the chip is in the secure vault at Tretiak Industries, which is why, when Bond washes up in the cramped bathroom so small it is impossible to use the sink if the door is closed, he's looking as much at his own reflection in the mirror as he is a myriad of surveillance photographs he has collected since his arrival in the city.
That's his third rule: never walk into a lion's den without familiarizing yourself with the lion.
In this case the lion is Ivan Tretiak, who is not a terribly interesting individual as far as corrupt Russian billionaires go. He became the sole owner of an oil and gas empire after his partner died suddenly in 2011. Two months later there was an assassination attempt on Tretiak's wife that prompted her to relocate permanently to Geneva. As no one followed her there with the intent to kill Bond suspects it was a simple way of getting her out of the way so Ivan could get about with his philandering and money-making without having to include her. Most people would probably have just gotten a divorce. To each their own, Bond supposes.
Ivan's first son, Simpkin, was killed in a car crash five years ago. Ivan's youngest and only remaining son, Ilya, was driving. Bond supposes there's a story there, but it has no bearing on his job so he doesn't dwell on it overmuch.
Washed and shaved, Bond steps out of the bathroom and sits at the vanity where he selects a trimmed, bushy moustache - steel-grey with lines of silver - and settles it into place above his upper lip. There's a short-cropped wig that accompanies the facial hair, new eyebrows as well, and slowly James Bond begins to disappear, replaced by Ivan Ivanovitch, a character of Bond's own devising, created for expediency and entirely disposable.
He layers the dark security uniform over his black bodysuit, finishes it off with a fur-lined cap and he is ready. Today, Tretiak is hosting a political rally to invigorate the Russian populous and to raise votes because, as he announced several weeks ago, Ivan Tretiak would like nothing more than to be made president of his country. People will be streaming through the opened doors of Tretiak Industries, the guards will have their eyes focused on the guests, not each other, and Bond intends to walk through the front doors, up the stairs, steal the microchip and then vanish.
After all, that's his forte.
_______________________________________________________
It is not coincidence that has Bond arriving at the front steps of Tretiak Industries at the same moment the black limousine bearing Ivan and Ilya Tretiak pulls to the curb. Bond's timing is never anything short of impeccable. Amidst the chaos of personal bodyguards, frenzied news reporters and photographers, shouting protestors and frazzled security Bond, dressed in his security uniform, walks up the front steps and through the door without garnering a second glance from anyone.
The front entrance hall is smooth green-marble tile and high-reaching colonnades, a wide staircase wraps elegantly along the left and directly in the center of the space is a large circular security booth where a cluster of guards hunch in front of tiny televisions flickering through the surveillance feeds from the entire building. All five of the guards hop to their feet as Ivan Tretiak strides like a puffed-up peacock through the halls of his building, and Bond takes the opportunity to jog up the staircase, away from the rally that he has no intention of attending.
Midway up the stairs is a ten foot bronze statue of man standing, his chest bare with a cloth hanging about his hips. It seems a strange sort of thing to have in the front entrance of a business establishment, but Bond likes to think the message the artist intended is this: because of oil and gas this bronze man can stand about with no shoes and no shirt and not be bothered. It's something he imagines the Russian public might feel very strongly about considering most of them are freezing to death these days. Likely why there are so many angry protestors just out-front.
Bond's interest in the statue is this: the right bronze fist is at just the right height to offer the perfect angle and view of the live security feeds cycling through the televisions at the desk on the main floor. It's a simple matter of sticking a miniature camera into place as he walks by, and then he is set.
With the elevators closely monitored there is no other choice than to make his way to the service staircase. His destination is on the twenty-sixth floor, but on the fifteenth Bond finds himself confronted with a red-bricked wall barring further progress. Health and safety would certainly have a thing or two to say about an emergency exit being walled-off, but Bond has an abundance of faith. When God closes a door he opens a window or more aptly, when a greedy billionaire oil magnate walls off a staircase he neglects to put an adequate lock on the window not two feet away.
The lock is outmatched by Bond's skill with a set of picklocks and the brisk wind eagerly pushes its way in through the opened window. Hastily, he sheds his heavy coat and the rest of security uniform, until he is in the close-fitting black body-suit. Pulling the face-mask into place over his false moustache, Bond pulls out the gadget of his own design: a retracting silver ladder that, when fully extended, resembles a drainpipe, and makes his way to the window.
It takes less than one minute for the ladder to reach the twenty-sixth floor and another four minutes for Bond to climb it. Since his suit is carefully designed to regulate body temperature the only effect the rushing wind has on him is a slight deafening effect, as well as a general slowing of his movements.
When he slips onto the wide stone balcony he spots half-erected scaffolding, a tarpaulin and a case of tools. He steps over the mess, readying his picklocks to make quick work on the door only to find that it is already unlocked. It's marginally disappointing because the number of opportunities for him to use his skills with lock picks is rapidly decreasing. Most everything these days worth stealing are kept safe behind elaborate electronic mechanisms, or fingerprint scanners or keypads that require Bond to invent code-breaking gadgets.
Still, an open door is an open door, so he walks through it.
The twenty-sixth floor is abandoned. No security patrols and no employees, the floor is closed-off. Everyone's attention is on the rally, which means the crisscrossing security beams that bar his progress through the ornate atrium are all active. Bond's goggles make the beams visible, shining bright and white-blue like distant starlight. Bond crouches just out of range and checks his digital and highly modified watch to find that the temperature of the room is 21.2 degrees. Not entirely uncomfortable. Pulling out the monitor clipped to his belt, Bond lowers the temperature of his suit and waits a moment. Two faint beeps declare that his temperature has been suitably decreased and, as simple as that, he is able to stand up and jog across the atrium, security beams in place, and not set off any alarms.
Just in case, he leaves the suit's temperature settings in place. Generally, he is very good at improvising and at thinking on his feet, but as Bond has no wish to be murdered, or to spend the rest of his life in prison, he prefers to take as few chances as possible. In his experience, even with thorough planning, there is always a good chance of something going wrong, of something unexpected happening.
For this reason, the first thing he does when he reaches the vault is to mount a laser-triggered flash bomb on the wall to the right of the safe door. Then he picks up his modified mobile phone and checks the video feed he is getting on the security desk at the front hall. All the guards are accounted for, and the screens show nothing but clear hallways. He has twelve point eight seconds to crack the safe, get the microchip and get out before the security feed cycles back to the vault. Wasting no time he rigs up his code-breaker and gets to work.
In just under five seconds, two beeps and a flashing green light indicate the safe has been unlocked and Bond steps forward spinning the handle that looks rather like the helm of a ship and opening the door. Inside is a wall of little lockboxes, important documents and devices kept safe behind little locked doors. Bond's microchip is inside box forty-eight and he liberates it quickly from its metal prison, ignoring all the other numbered doors and their potential treasures. Greed makes people sloppy. Greed makes thieves take unacceptable and foolish risks.
Just as he is pocketing the microchip there is a high-pitched metal wrapping sound, a perfect rendition of 'shave-and-a-haircut', followed by a voice speaking Russian, ordering him to turn around. Bond has done enough reconnaissance prior to this job to recognize Ilya Tretiak's voice.
Even with the best planning, there's always something.
"I don't speak Russian," he lies, masking his voice with a thick Australian accent.
"Stand up," Ilya repeats, this time in English. "Turn around, and put your hands behind your head. Slowly."
Bond complies, turning to find Ilya's narrow, sneering face and dark-black eyes fixed on him. The man has long wavy hair, glistening as it hangs limply around his face. He's holding a black cane topped with the golden head of a snarling animal. "Take off the mask," Ilya says, and again Bond cooperates.
The fake hair is still in place, the makeup he used to make him appear older and careworn, draining the color from him and aging him by at least a decade is there as well. Still, Bond feels exposed. With the Australian accent still in place he says, "Listen. If I give this to you, you're gonna give it to your daddy, and what's he gonna give you? Not even a Christmas bonus. The guy I'm stealing this for will give me one million. If we go in partners we can split that, fifty-fifty. That's a half million hard currency. Think of the drugs you could buy with that. You'll be discoing for a decade in Moscow, mate."
Ilya's sneer only grows. "I am not your mate, and I don't need your small change. That's your first problem. Here is your second." The other man pulls a gun from beneath his suit jacket, cocking it as he takes aim at Bond's chest. He hooks his cane on the railing of the stairs and extends his free hand, flexing his fingers in a beckoning motion as he says, "Microchip, please."
Keeping his movements slow, Bond reaches into his pocket and removes a small black button, which he proceeds to fumble and then drop onto the floor. When Ilya snarls at him, Bond offers an unrepentant shrug. "Guns make me nervous."
"Stay there!" the Russian growls, cautiously crouching down and groping his free hand across the floor. Bond waits for the exact moment when Ilya shifts his gaze to look for the microchip and then he kicks out, knocking the gun out of the younger man's hand, sending it skittering across the floor out of reach.
He makes it two steps towards the exit before Ilya realizes what is happening, stretching his leg out across the floor and managing to trip Bond mid-stride, sending him off-course. Bond staggers into the railing with enough force that Ilya is up and raining punches down onto his back before he can recover his footing. Bond might have more muscle than Ilya, but the Russian has training and a sadistic streak a mile wide. The security alarm has started ringing at this point, and Bond is keenly aware that their skirmish has been spotted on the security monitors. He can't afford to linger.
With a sharp jab of his elbow, Bond knocks Ilya back. As the younger man staggers, Bond pulls his laser pointer from his pocket and targets the flash-bomb he stuck into place, squeezing his own eyes shut just as the crackle-hiss of the device becomes a boom of sound. Ilya cries out, momentarily blinding, and Bond takes off sprinting, back down the steps and along the hallways, through the atrium and onto the balcony.
He makes it all the way to the edge before the exploding roar of a gun going off and the crack of a bullet hitting stone just to his left brings him to a halt. Bond raises his hands and turns around to face Ilya. "You have nowhere to go." The dark hair man has Bond in his sights, and he speaks with so much malicious glee that Bond can't help but to offer a defiant smirk as he takes one step backward and falls off the side of the building.
_______________________________________________________
The impact of landing on his back directly onto the tarpaulin-covered inflatable that Bond delivered via truck to this alley the other night does a better job of knocking the air out of his lungs than the punch Ilya landed moments before. He stays still long enough that, should anyone peer over the roof after him he would present a rather convincing corpse.
Then he slides down onto the ground, fishes a bottle of Vodka and a ratty brown coat he stashed in the unlocked cabin of the truck and hunches forward, shuffling toward the mouth of the alley as he wraps a scarf over his head.
When the guards charge past him he's jostled but otherwise ignored: they are searching for a black-clad corpse, not a stumbling drunkard. Bond is free to head west toward Red Square where he offers his Vodka to an appreciative homeless man who calls Bond a 'saint' and raises the bottle high in a toast, "Spasiba, spasiba!"
Bond says, "Pazhaluysta," and keeps walking.
He sheds the coat and scarf around the next corner, as well as his moustache and wig. An alternate disguise is waiting just where he stashed it the other night, in a backpack behind a skip. Bond transforms from an old homeless drunk to a young tourist. He steps out of the alley into Red Square where he spends fifteen minutes snapping photos of the Kremlin, trying not to laugh when Ilya's goons swoop down on the homeless man carrying Bond's Vodka and are subsequently accused of liquor-theft. "It's my bottle!" the man shouts out. "Fuck off!"
No one spares Bond a second glance.
_______________________________________________________
With the microchip safely in hand Bond returns to his flat long enough to strip it down, everything from photographs to the books carefully disposed of. The few things he brought with him to Moscow all fit neatly into his black carry-on luggage, and his gadgets, the ones that he hasn't been forced to leave behind, are mailed to a post box he keeps in Australia. He can retrieve them later. Since the flat was paid in full, in cash, and in advance, there is nothing left to do, nothing tying him to this place and no traces of him left behind.
Bond showers and then applies a fake tan. At the mirror he obscures his blue eyes with brown colored contacts, hides his hair beneath a brown-haired wig, then he dresses in a expensive suit, fine black with a hint of green, and a dark green tie accompanied by polished shoes and an expensive gold watch. James Bond, briefly resurrected after the shower, becomes Martin de Porres, a thoroughly respectable traveler with three seats reserved on the right side of the plane just above the wing of the seven o'clock flight from Moscow to London. He takes the middle one.
A well-crafted escape plan doesn't end at the door. Ilya Tretiak will have Bond's face, or at least some half-disguised version of it, at the forefront of his mind. Then there is always the Yard to consider. They've been ineffectually tracking him for quite a while, and Bond has no intention of being caught.
As ever, Bond has a plan. Her name is Galina Boytsov and she is also on the seven o'clock flight to Heathrow airport. Her husband has decided it is best for her to be in London, and thought she doesn't know it, she is going to help Bond return home.
Galina used to work in antiquities before she married. When she gets up to stretch her legs midway through the three-hour flight, her eyes catch hold of the ornate gold cross swinging idly in Bond's left hand and her steps falter. "It's beautiful," she says. "The workmanship."
He looks at her, holding the necklace out in a silent offer and Galina accepts it carefully. "Ah, Cloisonné," she says, smiling fondly at the piece and holding it reverently for a moment before she offers it back. "It is old."
In point of fact, the necklace is a skillful forgery that Bond created himself. "It belonged to my grandmother," he tells her, making certain to add traces of a Spanish accent to his voice. Martin de Porres is Spanish, after all. "Would you like to sit down?"
Conversation about the necklace veers into more personal terrain with very little effort on Bond's part. Galina is unhappy and she is alone, he has only to offer a sympathetic ear with the excitement of something foreign and exotic, a bond established through necklace and the snatches of false personal history Bond has alluded to, and Galina confides in him about her reason for being on the flight.
"You've been married not even a year, and already this bastard has a girlfriend?" Bond's outrage startles her but he shakes his head quickly enough, waves a dismissive hand as he says, "I'm sorry. It's none of my business."
She smiles a little sadly. "I don't mind. I've been thinking it myself ever since he gave me my plane ticket. What's your name?"
"My name is Martin de Porres," Bond says. "I'm from Spain, but I was named for a Peruvian saint who could cure the sick or the injured by the laying of hands." Gently, he rests his hand lightly on hers. This time there is no sadness in her smile.
_______________________________________________________
The customs agent stops him with a hand on his upper arm. "Step over here please, sir."
Bond is the same height and build that the Russians will have, put out in the description of their thief. There's not much he can do to alter either of those attributes so instead he endures the intrusion and the delay, hyper aware of the two inspectors from Scotland Yard who are peering at him closely. A man and a woman, always the same two, and he assumes these are the people driving the search. It's difficult to imagine that bits of his life have been an open file on their desk, but flattering as well.
They still haven't caught him, after all.
The woman wears her hair short with tight curls. She has glinting dark eyes that she fixes on him as she turns slightly to her partner, holding up a sheet of paper between them as she says in a hushed voice, "Same eyes as the Van Gogh theft last year in the Netherlands. Different chin, though. What do you think?"
Her partner shakes his head. "He's the same height and build as the Russians gave us, but he doesn't sound like an Aussie."
"He could be faking it," Bond hears the woman say as he puts a little extra effort into his Spanish-accented grumblings about the inconvenience of being stopped by customs agents. At another desk down the way, Galina accepts her passport from the customs agent with a smile, striding through to collect her baggage.
"I'm sorry, sir," Bond is told. "If you don't mind stepping into the room just over here?" He's patted down at least three separate times, prodded and x-rayed and generally delayed and for all of it he maintains a near-constant stream of accented-grumbling, just enough to be believable and never so much that he runs the risk of rubbing anyone the wrong way.
In the end, when no microchip is found anywhere in his luggage or on his person, and it can be proved that he hasn't swallowed it, Bond is sent on his way with his carry-on and a brisk apology for the inconvenience. No one takes even a second glance at the folded square of paper in his wallet with a hotel address written out. He's a tourist; of course he would need a place to stay.
_______________________________________________________
She has a top floor suite at the Dorchester and when Bond knocks Galina opens the door wearing nothing but a silk robe tied loosely at the waist, with the gold cross he gave her hanging round her neck. There is an open bottle of champagne chilling on a table beside two glasses.
They fuck on her king sized bed, lights off and curtains open wide, the streetlights and the moon giving them all the light they need. Her smile loses all traces of sadness, and even after they've finished and she falls asleep her lips are still curling upward.
Bond leaves her the necklace but removes the microchip he hid on it. He pulls a rose from the fresh flowers set out by the hotel staff and leaves one lying on rumpled sheets beside her, then he disappears out the door, hailing a cab at the curb. He asks to be taken home.
_______________________________________________________
'Home' for Bond is 81 Holland Park, a once-great London hotel that sheltered Hollywood starlets and rock stars in its heyday. Now it's merely his, a place to hang his coat and kick off his boots; a place that's as good as any other but ultimately, a place that he can walk away from easily enough, if it comes to that. In his line of work Bond cannot afford to become attached to anything.
The security measures are in place and nothing has been disturbed, so Bond heads up the stairs for a shower, ridding himself of every last vestige of Martin de Porres, including the tan. When he steps out onto his soft white bathmat he is himself again. In the master suite he swaps his damp towel for a pair of sweatpants before stretching his legs out across his covers with his laptop, his back propped on a mound of pillows as it boots up and chimes its readiness.
There is an encrypted message waiting for him. The microchip has been successfully delivered and his money has been released. Bond checks his Swiss bank account to verify that everything is in order, and then deletes the message. He never writes 'thank-you' messages. With the job finally, successfully completed, he powers down his laptop and sets it aside and, after a moment of staring up at the familiar ceiling of his bedroom, he flicks off the bedside lamp.
Home sweet home.
_______________________________________________________
When he is not working a job Bond always has the sense that his life is on pause. He orders groceries online to be delivered to his door because he doesn't like to be bothered with trifles, and he doesn't own a car. Unlike houses, which merely accrue dust over time, a car needs attention, needs to be taken out every now and again and properly cared for, and Bond is so rarely in London there doesn't seem to be any point. His days are spent reading, fiddling with his computer, exercising in the room he has made up in what used to be the garage. Sometimes at night he goes out to a restaurant or a club and meets someone. A temporary distraction: Bond doesn't keep in touch with anyone he sleeps with, and he certainly doesn't have any friends.
James Bond does not exist. The various characters he plays on a job have more paperwork than 'James Bond'. Without a name he can never be identified, and so how can he ever be caught? The Yard can search for Ivan Ivanovitch, or Martin de Porres but there isn't anything to tie them to Bond except perhaps a certain similarity in their faces, their height and build.
Years ago he set a goal for himself: a private Swiss bank account totaling over fifty million pounds of liquid assets. At this moment, he is only three million dollars shy of that mark. Three million pounds away from retirement, and then maybe he'll try his hand at being 'James Bond'.
Fifty million. When he'd been a kid reciting rosaries as penance kneeling on the cold stone floors of the chapel it had seemed like an inordinate amount of money, almost impossible to attain. Even in his early twenties he had imagined he'd be doing jobs up until he was too old to physically be capable of it. Then maybe it could be his consolation, that he was retiring because he had achieved his goal and not simply because he was too old to continue. Still, here he is. Not even in his forties and only three million short.
Arguably, the goal was arbitrary. It was a contract he had made only with himself and so the terms might easily be renegotiated. A part of him wonders if it isn’t simply time. He's cynical now; tired and jaded, and he doesn't pretend anymore that what he's doing is helping anyone but himself. He's a thief, and the people who hire him are always bad men motivated by greed. As much as the jobs are an exciting challenge, it never feels like enough.
The one thing Bond never imagined was that the priests at the orphanage might be right: doing this sort of thing, stealing, pilfering, thieving, whatever you called it, wears on the soul. You lose parts of yourself and, over time, perhaps he has lost too much of himself to ever be whole again.
With that in mind he opens his laptop and pulls up the page he uses to accept jobs. It is a simple travel website available to anyone interested in learning about Timor: geographical facts about its regions, its climate, vegetation and so on. When viewed with the correct decoding program in place, however, the simple articles about the northern python, the iris lorikeet or the green pigeon, as well as the comments attached to the articles, are revealed to be brimming with the sort of information organizations such as MI6, or the CIA would very much like to get their hands on.
One such article regarding pest control, for instance, reveals a very interesting offer when Bond decodes it: "To the human fly, would you like to earn more flypaper? Give me a buzz, Boris the spider."
There is nothing to indicate that the message is from Ivan Tretiak, but Bond knows that it is. A simple scan with some the programs he has purchased and modified confirms this. Naturally that means the entire job is a trap. Perhaps there is a slight chance that Tretiak was genuinely impressed with his first-hand experience with Bond's abilities and wishes to put those abilities to use for his own personal gain, but those odds are very slim, and not in keeping with what Bond knows of the man's character. Tretiak's morals exist on a sliding scale that is not weighted in Bond's favor. Better to avoid this job altogether. Stay alive and fight another day.
Play it smart.
Bond types: "One million US dollars, nonrefundable reserves you a quiet table at a romantic little spot in Berlin called Schönefeld, which has a cozy transit lounge. To get inside you walk through the metal detectors, and I walk through the metal detectors, and since you know that I'm not armed, and I know you're not armed, we can both fall in love and nobody gets hurt."
Bond has never gotten anywhere by playing things safe.
_______________________________________________________
Bond chooses the airport because there is nothing cozy and quiet about it. That Ivan Tretiak will bring his son goes without saying, Ilya is the only one who has some sense of what Bond looks like. A large part of Bond wants to simply stride through the airport without any disguise whatsoever, but he has long-since learned the advantage that being underestimated can offer. Better to maintain the pretense that they are all strangers, and that this is simply another job.
He arrives at Schönefeld dressed in a dark blue suit, with rose-tinted glasses and wearing a strawberry blond wig. His accent is German because he doesn't want either of the men to associate him with his country of origin. In a pinch, Bond could easily pick up and live just about anywhere, but he has his preferences.
"You have a long and beautiful cane," Bond purrs, his English smoothed out by the thick, lilting German accent. Leaning purposely into Ilya's space he finishes, "Along with your beautiful eyes."
The dark haired man skims a brief, irritated glance at him, hesitating on Bond's hair, which he chose especially for its resemblance to the younger Tretiak's own hair. "Go away," Ilya snarls. His father doesn't even glance up from his newspaper. The front-page headline reads: "Tretiak calls for Russian rearmament".
With an exaggerated yawn, Bond turns his attention to Ivan, and nods at the paper. "That photograph doesn't do you justice."
"Who are you?" Ivan demands imperiously, folding the paper carefully.
"My name is Bruno Hautenfaust," Bond drawls obligingly, still with his German accent in place, speaking slightly higher than his own natural tenor. "I was named for a saint who had everything a man could possibly want: wealth, women, the whole bit, and then - inexplicably -- he took a vow of poverty and became a hermit and went off to live in the forest." He casts a pointed, leering glance to Ilya and adds, "In the nude."
Ilya jerks out of his chair. "This is ridiculous. Go away."
"I represent the professional you hired," Bond continues, ignoring the younger man. "I'm his business manager. I speak for him."
Ivan keeps his assessing gaze fixed on Bond. "Who does this thief work for? CIA? MI6?"
Bond shrugs. "He's not a race-car, nobody runs him. He's an independent contractor."
"Then no one will notice if I kill him," Ivan says, dropping his voice low as he leans forward. There's a gleam in his dark eyes, and Ilya looks almost eager. "Yes, I can do that. Even in this place with its metal detectors and its crowds. I can kill you and walk away."
Bond yawns, making certain to convey his complete lack of concern with this threat. He prefers to be direct, but Bruno Hautenfast, Bond decides, is far more cavalier. "It's so early. D'you guys want to get a coffee or something?"
As Bond strides over to the café just beside the gate lounge, Ilya engages his father in a whispered discussion, undoubtedly having recognized Bond as being the same man from Russia. Ivan hushes his son harshly and shoos him away to a different table before he joins Bond.
The tables are just slightly too small for two grown men to sit at comfortably. Ivan pushes his chair to the side, sitting sideways to avoid bumping their knees together. They both stay silent until a young waitress comes over to take their orders. "Kaffee?" she asks in German, pausing by their table.
"Klein bitte," Bond answers. Ivan holds up one finger and she makes a note on a pad and disappears.
"What do you know about cold fusion?" Ivan asks, settling more comfortably in his chair.
Bond takes a moment to mull over the question. "It ranks only slightly above astrology. Scientists who claimed to have achieved the experiment have never been able to duplicate it."
"Hm. Until now." The Russian takes a dark folder from out of his briefcase and tosses it onto the table.
Inside, Bond finds news clippings about the experiments in cold fusion being undertaken by a scientist, Doctor Quentin Russell. There are printouts of several scholarly articles written by Russell, and a few other pages, all of them relating to or making some mention of Doctor Quentin Russell.
"There is an electrochemist working out of Oxford," Ivan explains. "We believe that this Doctor Russell is on the verge of making a breakthrough in cold fusion."
"And?"
"And," Ivan Tretiak says, "I want your employer to obtain the formula for me."
Bond takes a sip of his coffee as he considers. "My employer is very busy, and you are very boring. Your offer must inspire him."
"This doctor has repeatedly thwarted my agents' attempts to find the formula. He's cagey. Difficult."
"Maybe your agents are stupid." Tapping his fingers on the table, Bond pretends to mull all of this over. "Three million."
Ivan snorts. "That is ridiculous."
"Why? If this Doctor Russell has done what you say he has, and I bring the formula to you, then you'll have the corner on the world energy market. At three million dollars, this job will cost you a nickel for every million you stand to make."
"This is not about me," Ivan insists, putting on a plaintive expression that looks hideously false. "This is about Mother Russia."
"She's not my mother, Mister Tretiak," Bond says, smiling cheekily. "Three million in a bank in Zurich. Agreed?"
Ivan leans back in his chair and sighs. "Okay. How long will it take to get your employer's agreement?"
"Just a moment." Bond drains off the rest of his coffee and jots something down on a napkin. Then he checks his watch and, still keeping his German accent in place, he says, "I'll do it. Here is the account number. Auf wiedersehen!"
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|| END PART ONE >>|
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