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Dinosaur.

James hadn't really known how to take the new M. He had dealt with a couple of them, they tended to come and go, but this new M was something new. Unlike some of the others in MI6, James had not derided her simply because she was a woman, as she might believe. No, he wasn't the type to deride a woman, he had worked with enough women over the years to know what they were capable of, and he didn't treat them as toys to put away whenever the heat was on.

So James felt it was quite arrogant for M to bluntly believe and state she believed he was no different from any of the other agents and operatives.

But what he disliked about M was how she had this habit of putting words into people's mouths. The woman didn't seem to be aware of the fact analysts could be wrong.

Hadn't she realised the analysts were wrong about the helicopter which could resist electromagnetic flux was not a threat? The result; two pilots dead and the helicopter stolen, only to turn up again outside a station destroyed by the Goldeneye weapon.

Ah, the Goldeneye.

Bond, like most experienced agents, had learnt how to pay attention to rumours. Most of the time they turned out to the true; the trick was to simply take a step back and just acknowledge them without believing them to a massive conspiracy. Life was infinitely better if you concentrated on the here and now.

Alright, so he had not bothered hiding his contempt of M's political analysts after the brief on Janus and the latest on Ourumov; somehow M's statement of him being the next Iron Man of Russia didn't surprise him. It was typical of so many military officers, not just Russians but from all over the planet to believe themselves to be the next Napoleon Bonaparte or William the Conqueror, and she pinned him with a dark stare.

The analysts got so much wrong, and yet she was putting so much stock in what they believed without looking further afield.

Who knew what Ourumov's ambitions were? He wasn't likely to sprout them out, not unless he wanted to die. He certainly wasn't going to let MI6 political analysts know, was he?

"Are these the same analysts who said the Goldeneye couldn't exist?" James countered a moment later. "Who said the helicopter could pose no immediate and wasn't worth following?"

James' intentions weren't to antagonise M. Far from it. She was new to her job, but if there was one thing you learnt in this business it was you needed to stop depending on one source of information.

M, who had been drinking from her glass, lowered it as she continued to stare at Bond. "You don't like me, Bond. You don't like my methods. You think I'm an accountant, a bean counter more interested in numbers than in your instinct."

The thought had occurred to me, James had considered replying in his usual cool manner, but he decided against it. "Actually, M. I don't care about your methods. You're the new head of MI6, you have the authority and the right to come up with your own methodologies. But I do have a problem with how you choose to listen to a bunch of pencil pushers who have a limited view on intelligence gathering. Sure, they could claim Ourumov isn't politically ambitious enough to become a traitor to Mother Russia, but that doesn't mean he doesn't have something buried deep in his mind. Most military officers living in the kind of environment similar to what you'd find in the Russian Army or in China, or North Korea would know better than to open their mouths. How would your precious analysts know what's really in their minds if he has learnt to keep his mouth shut?"

"Don't speak to me in that manner, Bond!" M's voice cracked like a whip, despite her calm and mild manner. "Although, I do take your point and you're right; the loss of the helicopter and the activation of the Goldeneye is worrying, and I can see there is a connection between the two events. I agree with you that they should be investigated, and they will. Thoroughly. However, if we're being blunt and getting things out into the open… I think you're a sexist, misogynist dinosaur, a relic lost from the Cold War, whose boyish charms though more than wasted on me obviously appeal to the young woman I sent out to evaluate you."

Bond rubbed the bridge of his nose, offended by M's description of him but too clever and cool to acknowledge it. "Point taken."

"Not quite, 007," M's voice once more cracked like a whip. "If you think for one moment I don't have the balls to send out one man out to die, your instincts are dead wrong. I have no compunction of sending you to your death, but I won't do it on a whim, even with your cavalier attitude to life."

"Actually I care a great deal about life, M. A great deal. I make the odd quip to put aside whatever residual guilt I may feel towards those I kill unless they did something that means they didn't deserve it," James had been tempted to remain silent in the face of M's statement on the facts of life.

He had been trying like everyone else to discover what she would do, but with her icy demeanour, it had been impossible for anyone to know what she could do. It was good to finally see her true worth.

"I had no problems with Dr No, Blofeld, Stromberg, and all the others; they all planned to cause the deaths of millions, some of them in the name of some kind of 'greater good,'" he added, thinking of Stromberg and Drax in a way which didn't extend to their use of Jaws (Bond wondered for a brief moment what had happened to the giant metal mouthed criminal who'd turned over a new leaf thanks to that tiny girl) but their desire to create a new world after wiping away the old one clean. "And the only quips I made to them were made to show them they were dead."

If he had expected M to say anything in response to that, he was mistaken. Instead, she gave him his new orders on the Goldeneye investigation.