THE BOND IDENTITY
FILE HB007/004
Grey's residence. Room 443.
Yep, still here. And still neck deep in it. 'It' being, an impossibly bad situation gone considerably worse. A situation I'm stumped to see an kind of exit out of. I'm tired, beaten and tired of being beaten, strapped to a chair and circled like shark-bait by four of Grey's overgrown stooges. All the while anticipating the inevitable arrival of the man himself.
The only ace in my favour being the genius kid on the outside listening in, who is hopefully working double-time to come up with a plan of escape.
"It's no use, Holly, without an extraction approval, you're chances of coming out of this one, are slimmer than an anorexic needle on a low-fat diet." he tells me. What can I say, he's a born pessimist.
"But then" he continues. "I say that every mission, and we always manage to find a way out in time, right H!"
"Shut up, will you? You might jinx it." I tell him.
"You shut up! Crazy woman, stop talking to self! You wait for boss man in silence." grunts the big guy, almost cryptically. I guess somebody skipped an English class or two during school. No wonder he never spoke earlier.
"What my considerably large friend is trying to tell you, is that it's better you save your voice for when Mr Grey arrives." explains my friend from the front door. "Trust me, when I say 'you will need it!"
"Why, what's he going to do, audition me for X-Factor?"
"Ha! That's funny. You see, I, on the other hand, am more than happy to just... well... torture the answers out of you." he smiles, "But maybe you want to save me the effort, no? And tell me who you are, who you work for, and what you are doing here?"
"Told you already... needed the bathroom and took a wrong turn! I still need to go, by the way. So if i were you I'd grab the nearest bucket and mop cause it's gonna get rather messy up in here."
"'Bathroom' huh? And how do you explain... all of this?" he motions towards the destruction of Greys once immaculately furnished office.
"Feng Shui!" I answer. "Or at least, my poor attempt at Feng Shui. A little heavy-handed, I agree, but my heart was in the right place. You can practically feel the energy shifting freely from wall to wall...!"
The big guy glances around, and nods his head approvingly, before 'Tweedle' slaps the back of his head and orders him to stand by the door.
I'd have a good old giggle, but my ribs are still aching from the pounding they took earlier.
Enter Grey, and immediately the room temperature appears to drop a few degrees.
"Game time, Nerd." I whisper. "Grey's in the room. Think fast."
"Trying, Holly. Hang in there." he tells me. Like I have a choice.
Meanwhile, Grey silently removes his jacket and gently rests it on the nearby sofa, before calmly unbuttoning the cuffs of his shirt, rolling the sleeves all the way up to his upper arms. It's all for effect, naturally. To raise anticipation, enhance fear and dread. But all it's doing is buying me more time. Which I cannot have enough of.
Finally, he strolls towards me and leans in, looking me dead in the eye.
"My apologies for being late, my dear." he tells me, with unnerving sincerity.
"That's... alright." I reply. "Glad you could make it."
He glances around the room. "Did you find what you were looking for?"
"Ah, that would be a 'toilet'." I respond. "And no, still looking and still very much in need."
"Need!" he says. "Ah... 'There is enough in this world for everyone's needs, yet not enough for certain peoples greed!'"
"Mahatma Gandhi."
"Who gives a crap. Point is, we all have a need. Its primary, instinctive. Question is, what is yours? Why have you come here? And the answer to that question lies in a telephone conversation I had with an associate of mine in Moscow, not too long ago, would you care to geuss what he told me?"
"The test results came back positive'?"
One of his men breaks out into a fit of giggles. Can't say I blame him, it was a killer line. But Grey doesn't see the funny side, and, walking towards him, begins violently slapping him across the face repeatedly, before opening the door and literally kicking his ass out of the room. He slams the door, straightens his hair, and turns calmly back towards me, smiling.
"Keep up with these jokes of yours, I'm gonna have no men left." he shrugs.
"Look, Mr Grey, I have no idea what this is all about. Really. I came here to ask you for a jo-"
"Mikhail Doliński. You enquired of him, no?"
Okay, who? Just when things couldn't get any weirder. Need to buy Q more time to run a check on that name.
"Way ahead of you, H!" he whispers.
"Can't say I do." I say. "Well, I could say it, of course, but I'd be lying. And going by the whole sinisterly serious tone we've all now adopted, I'd be remiss in saying anything that was even remotely less than the tru-"
Suddenly he grabs my jaw in a vice-like grip that belies his age.
"You think you can mock me? Here, in my own house?" he barks.
The veins in his neck and forehead pulsate like they're about to explode. His cigar-stained breath, seeps into the skin on my face as a nervous twitch dominates his right eye.
A clear shot at a head-butt presents itself. It would take him down or, at the very least, blind him momentarily, but they'd still be three more of these clowns to contend with. And I'd still be strapped to this bloody chair.
Eventually he releases his hold and stands back, wringing his hands in an effort to calm himself.
"Forgive me, my dear. I can be quite... highly strung at times."
"Yeah, me too..." I gasp. "Especially when my sugar level's in the red."
Cue Q, with a timely update. "Dollinski, Mikhail; born 1948, in the city of Samara. Russia. Political activist with suspected ties to the Russian Mob. A big player on both sides of the field. If he's involved in something, you can be sure that 'thing', whatever it is, isn't good!"
"Look, I have no idea who this 'Mikhail' person is, I swear! Only time I was ever in Moscow was at the club you and I met at a year ago! As I told your pet monkeys earlier, this is all just a huge misunderstanding."
He pauses for a second. "'Pet... monkeys? It's funny you should say that."
He leans towards one of his men and whispers something into his ear in Spanish. I only manage to catch the last three words 'Go get it.', but it's more than enough to reinforce the very bad feeling I already have.
"Dollinski is an important part of our plan." he explains. "Any attempted 'affiliation' with him, immediately jeopardises that plan at a great expense."
"We? Who's we?" I ask. But he goes silent on me, momentarily glancing at his watch.
"It's your very last opportunity to speak, my dear." he urges. "I advise using the time wisely. Remember, I know all about you... special agent... Alexia... Bourne."
"Who?" whispers Q in my ear, echoing my own confused thoughts. "Stall him while I run a background check on that name."
Stall him. Right. No problem.
"Don't look so surprised." continues Grey, rather smugly, as he slowly circles me.
"Born Alyssa Marie Webb, the daughter of US marine, David Webb, who was, at the time, stationed in a small village somewhere in Cambodia.
At age three, due to an unfortunate bombing during the Vietnam war, you were presumed dead along with your mother and brother only to inexplicably resurface, many years later in Kansas, Nebraska, suffering heavily from short-term memory loss but possessing a wide range of extraordinarily advanced combat skills.
Eventually arrested and charged with GBH, having beating over a dozen gang members to a pulp armed with only a screw driver and a handful of bolts. You were subsequently inducted into a top secret black ops programme code named: Operation Blackbriar. An off book Wetworks division created for high-target unsanctioned assassinations."
"Ah, Holly, not sure where homeboy got his intel, but I'm coming up with nothing but air." offers Q apologetically.
It's the brunette. It's got to be her.
"So, now you know that I know who you are, we can dispense with the games, yes? It was you who killed my guest downstairs, was it not?"
"How, when I was talking to you at the time...?" I say.
"You had something to do with it!" he insists.
"Are you even listening to me?"
"Tell me, who hired you to assassinate me?"
"No-one, because you got the wrong girl! The girl you want is a brunette..."
"A brunette, huh? ."
He pauses for a moment, before reaching into his back pocket and producing a mobile phone, 18 carrot limited edition with all the bells and whistles, typical of a guy like him. But he only needs one standard feature, the photo gallery, with which to cement his accusations. And as he flips the phone around for me to gaze upon the screen, I begin... doubting my own sanity... in this entire matter.
"I dunno, looks like a blonde to me!" he comments, revealing a retina-tingling HD image of... me. A picture I have no recollection of ever taking.
"Okay, that girl... is me." I confess. "But Im not the one your looking for."
"And yet, the one Im looking for... is this girl." he says.
"Holly, this doesn't make any sense!" whispers Q, anxiously.
"You see Miss Bourne, your 'informant' in Russia, Anton Deveskii, is in fact an old acquaintance of mine. And it was he who warned me about the beautiful yet deadly blonde who single-handedly stormed into his office, taking down a dozen of his men in a heartbeat, in an effort to extract formation about... me. And my organisation. Well, here I am."
"Yes, here you are! In the flesh! Larger than flipping life! And STILL TALKING TO THE WRONG BLOODY PERSO-"
Pain.
The only way to describe what I'm feeling from the right cross he delivers, 1st class. Even worse, the blow knocks my earring, along with it's transmitter, clean off and onto the floor. Now I really am on my own. Now all really is lost.
"You see? There I go again! Now look what you made me do." he tells me, dabbing the corners of my mouth with a handkerchief like a father who'd just served his baby daughter supper."
Enter his henchman, cautiously carrying a large red box. I note a beed of sweat streaming down the side of his face and feel a faint tightening in my stomach.
"Ah, here we are, right on cue. Tell me, Miss Bourne, you mentioned 'pets' earlier on. Are you a lover of pets?"
"Well, I... once had a Chihuahua named Lucky. But he got crushed under a parked car."
Cue a big belly laugh from the big guy once more, only this time he's joined by the rest of the gang. Even Grey manages a faint smirk. Something's wrong.
"A man of my considerable wealth acquires many pets throughout the years, as you can imagine. My favourite of which, is Vincent. Named after the great painter. I'm a lover of art, you see."
"Gotcha! Though I was always more of a Jim Lee fan myself." I say.
"Can't say I'm familiar...?" he tells me as he reaches over and lifts the lid. I continue yapping.
"Seriously? Wild Cats, Deathblow, not to mention killer runs on everything from Batman to-"
And that's when he takes out Vincent. A snake. A 5ft frigging snake!
"Vincent is a Thamnohis Siritalis." he kindly informs me.
"Really?" I say. "Funny, cause it... kinda looks like a snake to me."
"Eastern Garter Snake, to be precise." he says. "Did you know the male garter snake is known to, at times, produce both male and female pheromones? During mating season, this ability tricks other males into attempting to copulate with him. Fascinating."
"I'm sorry, did you say something? I kind of drifted off for a moment there. I think I may have inadvertently left the oven on."
Grey smiles. Well, grimaces, anyway. Then nods to his footmen to walk over and restrain me.
"Oh I get it. Trying to scare me, right? But if I remember, Garter snakes aren't even venomous, so nice try. But hey, if you really want to scare me, you could always have your hideous wife show her face again, right?"
He's not taking the bait. Ignoring me completely as his cronies retrain my already pretty restrained behind. Oh, this is bad, Holly. With not even a barrel in sight to scrape for options.
As for the snake, it's merely millimetres from my face, it's piercing eyes casting my own reflection upon its surface, as it stares deep into my very soul.
"Did you also know the Eastern Garter Snake gives birth to up to 50 live young at any given moment? Contemplate these wonderful facts as you choke on it, as it borrows itself deep into your stomach. And pray you don't survive that journey."
"Told you, Grey, I've got nothing to say! Damn it, you're wasting your time if you expect me to talk!"
"Talk?" he asks, with a furrowed brow, as the big guy wrenches my mouth wide open. "No Miss Bourne. I expect you to die!"
To be continued...
