He sat pensively in the old maroon chair that didn't match his conservative style lounge but fit in just right. He stared at the ugly disfigured cuts and marks that ran up his arm and across his shoulder. He wondered to himself. Was it worth it? Mutilated in Murmansk, tortured in Adelaide and almost getting killed in Calcutta, he winced, he had nothing on this earth, money and many, many beautiful women but nothing to make his mother proud if she lived. He was on the brink of deciding to resign when the shrill ring of his office phone cursed through the air. The little dark haired woman James employed as a cleaner and maid hurried into the office and answered with a thick Irish accent, James could tell by the slight change in the tone of her voice that it was his boss M. M was the very back bone of the SIS, she took no nonsense and was a very efficient assassin, she was queen in our establishment; and she knew it.

'It's M Mr Bond.'

'Thank you Grainne.'

'Hello?'

'Get down to HQ immediately.'

'Hello to you too M'

'No funny business Bond. It's urgent.'

'You know you love me'

To that James was greeted with the monotony of a dialling tone, he smiled this was how it was with him and M.

He burst into M's office chest forward he was the knight in this place, after the demise of the former 007, Michael Cormack in Calcutta.

'You wanted to see me?'

'You know Rra Badule, founder and owner of Badule Enterprise? We have reason to believe he is trading blood diamonds in Sierra Leone for Russian Uranium.'

'Anton Nikolaevsky?'

M smiled and nodded. We'd seen him before a really disgusting little thing, does everything from selling drugs to children to owning numerous brothels; we've brought him down before but haven't put him away yet. One seems to have VERY powerful girlfriends, second he's the nephew of the current prime minister.

'We need you to go to Sierra Leone and find out what Badule is using the uranium for and report back'

'Yes M'

'And James'

He turned to stare at M she never referred to him by his name.

'Do not try to take Badule's guards, he has extensive machinery and he is well within the law to shoot you for trespassing.'

He nodded and turned to the door, preparing himself for the mental abuse coming when he viewed the awful, generic hotel Miss Money-Penny always picked when M cleared her throat.

'Yes?' James asked, slightly irritated at this point.

'You can't believe I'm sending you alone?!'