A Short Story By Douglas Paterson Based On The Ian Fleming Character & Novels
The man looked like the devil. The goatee, the slicked back - jet-black - hair. The eyes. They were inhuman, the eyes of a madman. It all added up to the devil. A man who didn't think twice about killing. Bond keeps his eyes on the man, allowing the superstition to amuse him for a moment, but the devil-man is not why he was here. He is just the way in, a necessary part of the plan. Bond sips from his whisky glass, savouring the flavour of the alcohol, the burn on the back of the throat as it slides down. He pulls a cigarette from his case, lighting it as he watches the man walk over to the target - the girl. Bond inhales the life-giving smoke, then looks back at his target.
Bond notes her beauty immediately, the dark eyes, the kind of eyes any other man would get lost in, her long, shining, black hair coming half-way down her back. Her lips were dark with her lipstick, voluptuous and beautiful. He closes his eyes, breathing in the smoke deeply, shutting himself away from these thoughts. She was the target, and he had to remove all emotion towards her. She had to be just another target on the firing range.
Bond was the latest recruit to the small section of MI6 with a licence to kill. A Double-Oh, earned when you had to kill in cold blood over the course of a mission. Bond had killed many times before on active duty, but when you had to kill an unarmed man, when they didn't pose a threat... That's when you earned the number. He had killed two, men selling secrets. One had been a Japanese cipher, Bond had fought him to the death in New York. The second was a double-agent. Bond had stabbed that man in his sleep. Looking back on it, he hated himself from taking the cowards way out of that kill. He'd never had to look into the mans eyes.
He had been drinking steadily since arriving at the ballroom. Normally as a rule he would never allow himself to become drunk on a mission, but the prospect of his first kill as Commander James Bond, 007, made him nervous, sick to his stomach. She would be looking at him, he would see the fear in her eyes. Could he handle it? He could feel the alcohol beginning to creep into his brain, but he didn't care. Not this time.
She moved over to the bar now, and took a glass of wine from the barman. She sipped it gently, and stopped to laugh at whatever the devil-man had told her. He was leaning in close to her. Her protector and lover, probably, Bond thought. He looks away from them for a moment, checking his watch. He had five minutes till he had to initiate his part of the operation, he puts the drink down on the bar. He looks around the room, the best of the best were in this room. The richest of the rich of French Society, getting together to celebrate some engagement. M had secured Bond a place personally, his own. M was a personal friend of the hosts.
The girl was a Russian set up here, from what he had had been told by M. she had managed to get herself... Intertwined... With some French agents, slowly extracting information from them, and feeding it back to the "motherland". That was, till one of them had got wise to her. Bond was to be the man to do the job, as the latest member of the Secret Service she wouldn't know his face yet, none of the Russians did. Why the French couldn't do it themselves was beyond him.
The room was not to Bonds taste, far too gaudy, bright purple. Thankfully he had other things to think about. He takes a last draw of his cigarette, removes it from his mouth and stubs it out in the ash tray on the bar. Bond looks up to the balcony, his cold blue-grey eyes searching for something. He sees 003. He does not make eye contact. The pulls a gun from it's holster and fires once. It has the affect that could be expected. Everyone in the room is immediately in a panic, people running around screaming. Chaos. Bond chances a glance at the woman, screaming at the bloody dead body of the devil man, her eyes filled with panic, she glances up at the shooter, and stands there. Waiting to be shot...
Bond quickly has his berretta out of it's holster, and aims it at 003. A single shot rings out, and the agent stumbles back, and falls down dead. Bond drops the gun and runs over to the woman, grabbing her arm. He speaks to her for the first time in, his accent brilliantly disguised, Russian.
"Come with me." She does not question him, Bond has expected, that in the madness of the assassination her head has gone, but she was calm now, after the initial shock. As if she had expected it. The run through the room, against the stream of still rushing French aristocrats. Bond almost drags the girl up a grand stair-case, and they are soon in the lift, heading up to the roof. She has a chance to think, in the silence.
"Who are you." Bond notes her accent is French, no wonder she was able to get herself on the inside.
"KGB sent me, they knew the hit would happen tonight. They sent me to stop it, or take you to safety if I failed." The elevator door opens with a ping, and the two step out. In front of them there is only a door, Bond walks over to it and opens it, revealing the staircase to the roof. The two walk up in, Bond behind the girl, his stomach turning as he watches her climb the steps. What he has to do...
They open the final door and step out onto the roof, the girl turns to him, unsure what to do. "I knew they would send someone tonight," she says, "I didn't care. I'm ready to die." Bond feels his heart tighten, he has to remain distant, get the information then force himself to do what needs to be done.
"We just need to wait a moment up here till the panic dies down. The Police will come, we've arranged that they will take you to safety"
"You trust them?" she asks him.
"We've bought their services for tonight." Bond answers in his Russian accent.
The girl sighs, sitting on the ledge of the building. She looks up at Bond, and smiles, a weak smile.
"I am not an idiot. I know you're not here to protect me. You want information." Bond doesn't move, his expression doesn't change. He looks at her as what she is, a mission. Surveying her like a mortician surveys a corpse. Not a person, a job. "I'm afraid I have none to give, no names, nothing. They contact me for the information, not the other way around. Now do what you're going to do." She stands up, facing away from Bond, out into the lights of Paris. He pulls his Berretta from his belt, hidden away in the back - his second gun. He aims it at her back.
"Just..." her voice breaks. She's beginning to feel it, her impending death. "Just tell me the name of my killer". She looks round at Bond, and Bond fires. He watches the girl fall to the ground, her dead body landing in a heap. Nothing glamorous, no surreal beauty in her dead body. Ugly, bloody death. Bond holsters the gun, and looks down at the Body. He wouldn't have shot her if she hadn't turned to face him. No more shooting people in the back. He stands alone for a few moments, in silence until 003 walks out onto the roof.
"God thing you shot at me with the blank 007. Picked the wrong gun and I'd be like her right now." He says, smiling, nodding his head at the body. Bond looks up at the man, disgusted by how casual he is about the death.
"She knew we were coming. She asked me my name." 003 nods, he knows that what Bond has done will haunt him for some time. He himself still haunted by his first murders.
"You didn't tell her"
"No," answers Bond, "no, she didn't need to know. She was a target on the firing range," he looks up at the other Double-Oh, "why would I tell her?". Bond walks to the door on the roof, opening it and disappearing down the stairs and into the darkness. 003 bends down to look at the body, and he wonders if Bond has already lost his humanity...
It's what this job does to you.