CHAPTER 1

Having paid penance to the gods of MI6, so to speak, James Bond, 007, had been, finally, called into the opulent, though bureaucratic, office of M.

The sandy-haired, blue-eyed, square-jawed, well-dressed agent couldn't help but feel it might be yet another maneuver at extending unspoken punishment regarding his conduct as a newly-elevated 00, not to mention unauthorized use of the Aston Martin DB5, which he had won off a man named Dimitrios in Nassau and which Q, as James Bond referred to Major Boothroyd, had modified into a veritable army on expensive wheels.

"Good morning, M," said James after several tension filled minutes of silence, with him again sitting in the elegant straight-backed chair situated before the ornate wooden desk behind which sat the short-cut, white-haired lady in direct charge of all 00s. He waited patiently, a smug half-smile on his ruggedly handsome face, while M finished with the open folders currently demanding her ready attention. Until…

"How long has it been, 007?" M finally asked while leaning back in her ergonomically comfortable leather office chair with her hands folded and her hooded eyes glaring headlong into the steely gaze of James Bond. "How long since you were last given a true assignment?"

"Three months, six days, eighteen hours, M," said James with a sardonic smile and a devilish twinkling in his often cruel eyes. "Not that I'm counting."

"Oh, of course not," M said sarcastically as she slowly leaned forward to tap a random button on her computer's keyboard to activate it and direct it away from its constant screensaver display of the MI6 shield. "I think I finally have something that you can handle without getting 'personal', as you did with your last official mission as a 00."

Although, inwardly, James Bond felt as if he could literally jump for joy over the thought of, finally, being allowed to carry out, single-handedly, a true MI6-sanctioned assignment, outwardly he remained poised and nonplussed, as he said with a single nod, "Certainly, M. It wouldn't have anything to do with the leads I provided you after interrogating the late Mr. White, would it?"

Scowling intensely, her eyes narrowed while locked onto 007's cool blue eyes with the severity of twin lasers, M said by way of clarification, "You mean the information you were forced to give up after you assassinated an important link to SPECTRE without official sanction? I would hardly say that qualifies as a 'good deed' deserving of reward, Mr. Bond. Would you?"

Not wishing to trade cultivated insults with his immediate superior, James finally asked seriously, "What's the mission, M?", and let lay the rest of the sticky situation regarding his feelings connected with the quasi-suicidal death of Vesper Lynd.

Shifting mental gears as easily as one might expect from a person of power within the secretive community of espionage and assassination, M picked up a closed folder, from amongst all the others on her desk, and handed it across to James, who half-stood in order to take possession of it before reseating himself.

"His name is Aidan Daryl and, like you, he is one of the newer members of the 00s. 009, to be exact. And we have reason to suspect that he has gone 'rogue'. Perhaps even a double-agent working with North Korea as well as certain terrorist groups."

"Selling state secrets?" asked a suddenly dead-serious James Bond as he looked over the multi-page documents regarding an active secret British agent with a 00's license to kill.

"We believe so," answered M guardedly, "perhaps much, much worse."

"I presume, M, that you need me to do more than follow 009 around," said James as his cruel blue eyes once again sought out the hooded gaze of the grand dame in direct charge of such operations and operatives. "Otherwise you wouldn't be assigning this to a 00."

Leaning all the way forward, forearms on her desk's neatly arranged top, hands tensely clasped, facial affectation as sternly somber as James had seen since breaking into her supposedly secret flat, M at last said, "After you learn all you can about 009's contacts, Mr. Bond, I want you to terminate him with extreme prejudice."

Closing the folder, after he'd committed its copious contents to a near-photographic memory, James Bond stood, setting the folder back onto M's impeccable escritoire, and finally sarcastically saying, with a bemused smirk, "Is there any other way to terminate?"

Having swept out of the office with the self-assured strides of an extremely self-sufficient man, the only kind capable of carrying a 00 classification, M couldn't help but smile ever-so-slightly. She knew, even though she'd never vocalize it, that no one but James Bond could both learn all there was to know regarding a rogue MI6 agent, as well as being able to coldly execute someone he knew to be a fellow operative out of London.

END OF CHAPTER 1