Q flexed his fingers before placing them on his keyboard. A few keystrokes later and his screen held the footage from the about 4 different cameras and a dialogue box was open in the top corner of the screen. His surveillance sorted, the dark haired man reached up and tapped his ear, turning on the communication device.
"007, how can I help you?" he asked, eyes scanning the footage for the agent.
"Hello Q," Bond replied cheerfully, "I've got eyes on our man, only he's too far away for me to hear what he's saying."
"Then why don't you get closer?" The other man replied, eyes scanning the footage for the target. He found him, standing in a corner of the piazza talking to another man. Q made an annoyed sound.
"Ah, I see your problem," he commented.
"Yes, this table was the closest I could get without actually approaching them," Bond commented, "Unfortunately they picked a rather empty section to stand in. It'd be a little conspicuous to get any closer."
The dark haired handler hummed his agreement before tapping some keys.
"You've got the glasses that I gave you?" He asked the agent.
Bond responded in the affirmative and slips them on, a new camera stream opening up on Q's screen.
"Alright, keep your eyes on the target," Q instructs him before tapping way on his computer. The feed zoomed in on their target, as did the projection into the lenses if Bond's glasses.
The agent blinked a few times, trying to adjust his eyes to the new perspective. This had given him a much better view of their target and Bond was able to lip read.
Without looking away he picked up the pen on the table and started writing down what he was seeing. On the other end of the feed, a couple of Q-branch minions had also stared transcribing the lip reading, Q having put the feed on the central screen. The head of the branch was busy flicking through the feeds from the security cameras around the piazza. Having Bond's glasses on the target was incredibly useful, but it did mean that the agent was now effectively blind to anything else that might be occurring. So it was Q's job to look out for any threats to the mission and his agent.
Just as the exchange was finishing and the two were parting ways, Q noticed movement headed towards the agent. He checked again and confirmed the person was heading towards Bond.
"007, you have incoming," he said over the comms.
The agent tapped the table twice, non-verbal confirmation that he'd heard Q's message. Q kept an eye on the person, while adjusting the glasses back to ordinary clear glass.
"Were you expecting to meet with anyone, 007?" Q asks him, "Particularly a woman."
"Not this time Q?" he replied seriously.
"Your 3 o'clock, if you haven't noticed her already."
James Bond turned slightly, so that he could get a better look at the woman approaching him.
He saw strawberry blonde hair, a white shirt and tan coloured pants. James didn't quite supress a groan at what he saw.
"Will this be an issue?" Q asked over the comms.
"No," came the decided reply. "Just a woman I met on the plane."
"Are you sure?" Q asked. A random meeting on a plane and now finding Bond in the piazza? It was setting off alarm bells for Q.
"Very sure," the agent replied. "I got a look at her passport and had our minions check her out. She was showing off her passport photo, I don't think she's a criminal mastermind."
Just then Q noticed the woman had slowed down her pace and started sashaying towards Bond's table, her heels clicking on the stones.
"A jilted lover, then?" Q asked drily.
"No," Bond ground out, "Just a lonely, infatuated woman."
The woman had now reached his table, effectively ending the conversation between Q and the agent. He couldn't well reply to Q with the woman standing in from of him. Most people thought you were crazy when you talked to thin air.
"James, how lovely to see you again!" She trilled.
"Good afternoon ma'am," the agent replied calmly.
"Ma'am. Oh you make me sound so old," she giggled. "I told you before, call me Camille."
Her grin was slightly predatory as she stared at the 00.
"Is this seat taken? The weather is simply gorgeous."
Bond begrudgingly admitted that the seat wasn't taken and Camille sat down opposite him. At least this way if the target had noticed him then he had a cover for sitting there.
"I'm rather sorry Camille, but I'll have to be leaving shortly." He told her. "Finishing up some paperwork and then I have to call the office. You know how it is."
She pouted at him. "Surely you could stay a little longer. It's 2.30am back in England, no one will be in the office will they?"
Bond bit back a curse. He was so used to Q branch being online all hours of the day that he forgot about the time difference.
"For a double 0 agent, you're a very ineffective liar," Q told him over the earpiece. "Also, you won't need to report for another 3 hours so you're free to enjoy her company."
Bond could hear the snicker in his quartermaster's voice. As his new companion had just pointed out, it was 2.30am in London, so what was Q even doing still at Vauxhall Cross? He should be home sleeping. Bond wanted to frown.
"They have someone who stays overnight to monitor overseas transactions," Bond ended up telling the blonde sitting on front of him.
"Oh, well that's a shame. You will have to leave. Perhaps we could catch up over dinner?" she batted overly long eyelashes at him, looking saddened.
Bond wasn't quite sure what there was to catch up on, they barely knew each other outside of some polite conversation in the airport lounge and a little bit more small talk on the plane. That was before the agent made his excuses and feigned sleep. Despite his unwillingness , the agent found himself agreeing to dinner just to be polite. It wouldn't be the most distasteful thing he had done, though this time it wasn't actually for a mission.
James Bond was lying on the bed of his hotel room, shoes and jacket off and the top few buttons of his shirt undone. He was going over the transcription of the earlier conversation between their target and his contact. The warm air was floating through the room and Bond suddenly remembered his appointment for dinner later than night. It spoiled the good mood he was feeling and he jabbed at his tablet screen.
"007, are you there?" Q's prim voice floated into Bond's brain.
"Here Q," he responded.
"Good, I've got some new information for you. Your target is meeting with the contact to finalise the deal tonight. A small café just off the piazza. Your lady friend might just come in useful after all. I have booked you a table at 8pm, same time as the target. Please wear your glasses again."
"Certainly Q," the agent replied. "Shame I have to keep dinner with that nattering blonde though."
"For Queen and Country, 007," Q teased him. "Besides, I thought she was just your type."
"Not particularly," the agent muttered. "My type and who I find on missions aren't usually the same."
Q hummed thoughtfully before signing off and reminding Bond of when and where the reservations were.
It was later that night that James and Camille sat in a small Italian restaurant. They had a table by the window, with Bond's back to the wall. This way he could see what was going on outside and inside, due to the reflections and no one would be able to surprise him. Three or so tables over was the agent's target, facing towards Bond. James had his glasses and comms on, but it was loud in the restaurant and he doubted the comms would pick up anything other than Camille's inane high pitched chattering.
They had got through entrée without anything occurring, it seemed the target actually wanted to enjoy his meal before getting down to business. Normally Bond would have been thrilled with this, but he really wanted to escape Camille sooner rather than later.
"Does this woman ever shut up?" Q spoke in his ear.
"No, I don't think so," the agent replied both to Camille and Q.
Q was well aware he couldn't reply to him, but that didn't stop the tech genius from talking to his agent.
"You know, we could do with someone like her," Q mused.
Bond hummed in question.
"Well, she's talking so much without actually saying anything. Useful trick under torture." He paused for a moment. "Actually, she'd be quite useful for torture. I'll mark that off your eval 007."
Bond choked on the sip of wine he'd been taking, barely managing not to spit of out. As he coughed Camille poured him a glass of water while Q chuckled in his ear.
"Thank you," he ground out.
"You're quite welcome. All in the name of Queen and Country remember." Q told him. Camille giggled and started on a new topic of how she knew these people at this hospital and they had said that she…. Well, Bond wasn't really sure, he was dividing his attention between the meeting at the other table and Q in his ear. There wasn't anything important being said by the woman in front of him.
"You know, 007, I think this is the longest you've gone without breaking or losing an earpiece."
Before the agent could find a way to reply, their main meals arrived. Bond scanned the room, focusing on their target yet again. The briefcase, which supposedly contained the formula and tubes of chemicals, was still by the target's feet so the exchange hadn't taken place yet. A waiter was presenting the two men with their own meals and they started to eat. Relaxing a little, Bond also took a mouthful of his own pasta.
The rest of the meal went peacefully, which was starting to unnerve the 00 agent a little bit. Q was still making comments in his ear, mercifully drowning out his dull dinner companion.
"I'm starting to wonder if our intel was wrong," Q muttered. "So far all they've done is have a pleasant meal."
Bond agreed with him there. He had hoped however, that they might have been able to wrap this up tonight. The sooner he could head back to London, and away from Camille, the happier he would be. The woman was actually starting to get on his nerves. She had barely stopped talking even to eat.
"Not going to bed this one?" Q asked blandly.
For the second time that night Bond nearly choked. This time he recovered without actually having a coughing fit, though he did fake one to cover up the growled expletives he directed at his quartermaster.
"This must be some sort of record then. No broken equipment, no 'Bond Girl' for you to sleep with, and nothing has exploded or been shot to smithereens yet."
Just as Q said that, there came the rattle of gun fire over his comms and the quartermaster sighed.
"Three hostiles to your 10 o'clock," he told Bond, who was crouched beside an overturned table.
They had shot dead the potential buyer and the restaurant was in chaos. Diners were either hiding or had runs creaming from the establishment. Bond spared a glance at Camille, or where she had been. The glass window they were seated beside had been shattered by a stray bullet and she had obviously decided to get out while she could.
'At least she has some self-preservation,' Bond thought.
His comms came back alive as Q took stock of the situation.
"007, in the chaos our target has lost grip of the briefcase. It's at your 8 o'clock, about 5 metres from you and clear of the target by 2 and a half metres. If you crawled from your current position to the briefcase, you will remain unseen and I can direct you out through the kitchen, or back the way you came and out the conveniently shattered window."
"Crawl Q? You do know there's shattered glass and plates all over the floor?" The agent replied incredulously.
"Yes, and your suit is woven with Kevlar. Now get to it."
With a sigh, Bond did just what he was asked, commando crawling to the briefcase and deciding to go back to the table for cover. He then carefully exited thought the window. Once out on the street, he cautiously removed the larger pieces of glass from his suit and walked back to the hotel he was staying at.
When he made it to his room he breathed a sigh of relief, partially because he was back in his (relatively) secure hotel room uninjured and partly because he hadn't crossed paths with Camille again. He removed the recording glasses and made sure they were switched off before changing out of the suit and putting a glass free one on.
"I've got you a ticket on the train to Rome, then a flight back to London. M wants that briefcase on our hands at Vauxhall as soon as possible." Q told him.
"Affirmative," Bond replied, tugging his cuff links into place.
"Your train leaves in an hour, please ensure you're on it." With that he switched the link to standby.
Bond shook his head and gathered up his things from the room. It wasn't long before he had everything on his suitcase and the briefcase was secured around his wrist with a locking device Q branch had created.
Soon he was on the train into Rome, a compartment to himself where he could start to decompress. Overall this had been a successful mission, despite his possible stalker. He hadn't even broken any equipment. Q would be suitably impressed. He'll probably have more fun with the formula though.