A.N. Obviously, I own none of the characters, vehicles, gadgets or locations of this fanfic unless I say otherwise in an A.N. like this one. Kudos to MGM and Ian Fleming for inventing them and bringing them all to life.
Beijing, China
In the end, Bond's maniacal driving style got them there in just eleven minutes and six seconds. Miranda looked ready to throw up, and even Alec, who was capable of beating Bond in a straight race, was slightly pale. When they pulled up outside the Huangshan Corporation skyscraper, the passenger door couldn't have been flung open fast enough, nor could the seat have been pushed forward any quicker.
Bond got out, locked the car and stretched. "Ah, nothing like a spirited ride to wake you up at night."
Alec muttered something indecipherable, while Miranda didn't pass comment, and the trio set off for the building.
Miranda unsteadily indicated a high-up balcony. "If we all use our watches, we could grapple up there and gain entry."
Bond scanned the tower even higher up. "According to Chang, Xiang's desk was on the seventy-ninth floor. Provided there are enough balconies, it would be faster to grapple from balcony to balcony until we get near that level."
He himself went first, and the piton cord on his Omega Seamaster watch fired out, the grappling hook on the end folding outwards, and passed the balcony, catching on a guardrail on the way back. Bond activated the motor, and was drawn quickly up to the balcony, where he climbed over the guardrail and waited. Next came Alec, who didn't get a hook on the balcony first time around but tried again, and then Miranda, who went one better by hooking onto a strut above the balcony door, and dropping nimbly to the floor.
Bond smiled sarcastically. "Very impressive. Like to pick our next destination?"
Miranda didn't rise to the bait, and aimed at a distant balcony, hooking onto the guardrail there, and rising up into the darkness.
They all repeated this move twice more, until, by Trevelyan's counting, they were around the seventy-fifth floor. The next balcony was another twenty away.
Miranda glanced at the glass door. "Sonic agitator time?"
Bond shook his head. "No, I have a better idea. If we use the watch lasers to melt away the rubber seal holding the glass in place, we can carefully lower the glass pane to the floor, go through, then put the glass back in place and let the rubber set again. A guard looking in on the room will never see any difference whatsoever."
Bond melted the top of the seal, Trevelyan melted the left-hand side and half of the bottom, and Frost meted the right-hand side and half of the bottom. Carefully, they prized the glass free, and stepped into the warmer skyscraper. Bond pushed the glass back up, and waited for ten seconds, after which the rubber had re-hardened and the door was indistinguishable from its previous state.
Stepping out into the corridors, they noticed that the building was still dimly lit, meaning that there must be night guards around. Sure enough, Alec rounded the first corner, and collided with one. Quickly, he incapacitated him with a quick blow to the head.
Miranda inspected a floor plan hung on the wall. "You two? This is the seventy-seventh floor. We need to find the stairs and go up two flights, then find Xiang's desk."
Alec frowned. "How will we know which one that is?"
Bond answered. "Chang said it's in Room 23B. We'll have to find that."
Miranda traced a route to the stairs on the floor plan with her finger, and then saw a movement out of the corner of her eye.
A night guard, peering around a corner at the three spies.
Cursing, she ran after the guard, who bolted for the nearest alarm panel. He turned to the right, dashed through an office, turned to the right again, passed through another office, and ran down a corridor which bent to the right. Hurtling through another office, he slammed through the door on the other side, and…
Tripped over Alec's outstretched foot.
Sliding across the floor, the guard hit the wall with a muffled thump, and fell still. Miranda was bemused. "What? How…" she panted.
Alec shook his head, smiling. "Think about it. We could see you from here, through various windows and corridors. He kept turning right in his panic, and made a full circle. Obviously a newbie."
Bond turned from inspecting the same floor plan that Miranda had left, and grinned. "Well, now we know that not every guard here is first-class. They shouldn't pose many problems. This way to the stairs."
Annoyingly, every office door number was written in Chinese, so upon the discovery of every new office on the seventy-ninth floor, Bond had to laboriously translate for the other two. They passed 22A, 22B (twice), 23D, 24A, 25C and 25D (twice) before finally coming across 23B.
Entering, they spread out, and entered each computer cubicle, reading the name tags, which were in English symbols, thankfully.
It was Alec who found Mao Xiang's desk, after five minutes of silent searching.
"It's here!" The other two looked up and hurried over, to have a look at the contents.
"I'll keep watch," Bond volunteered, going over to the only door to the big room. Once, a guard passed, but Bond stepped out and knocked him quickly out, dragging the senseless form into a corner of the office and resuming guard duty.
Miranda and Alec grabbed every single piece of paper in Xiang's desk and stuffed it into a satchel belonging to another employee.
"Memory Stick," Alec quickly suggested.
"Come again?"
"You know; those little USB sticks that hold loads of data. Have a hunt around and see if you can find one in here. Then we can fire up Xiang's PC and copy all of his personal stuff to it, and take it away for a look."
Miranda nodded, and quietly searched the office for any USB sticks. Alec obtained a second satchel while Bond simultaneously obtained a second senseless guard, and began stuffing more of Xiang's papers into the pockets. Most looked like useless work documents, but something private might be tucked away in there somewhere…
"Alec!" Miranda hissed from the other side of the room. He looked up. "Catch!"
A large USB stick landed in his hands. He smiled, and gave Miranda a thumbs-up. Booting up Xiang's PC, he inserted and cleared the stick of data, then left Miranda to copy as much as possible to it, and resumed taking papers from drawers.
From the doorway, a muffled cry sounded, and Bond dragged a third guard into the dark corner. "Hurry up," he warned quietly. "These men will start to be missed soon."
Alec filled the second satchel and quickly found another rucksack, and stuffed the last few papers in. He glanced up at Miranda.
"How are you doing?"
"Great," she replied. "All of Mao Xiang's personal stuff is on this USB stick, and I'm just topping it up with e-mail records, deleted items and so on. Are we ready?"
"Yeah. Disconnect and let's get out of here."
Miranda shut the PC down, removed and sealed the USB stick, and zipped it safely in her pocket. Shouldering a satchel each, they handed the rucksack to Bond on the way out, and quickly hurried down the corridors.
"So, how do we get out?" Alec asked.
Bond answered. "We get to the stairs, fix our watch rappel cords to the rail, and jump down the gap in the middle of the stairwell. We should be able to drop about thirty floors before the cable runs out, and then swing onto the stairs and so the same again. Then break out of the front."
Miranda reached the stairs first and wrenched open the door. Looking down, she stopped dead.
A team of armed men was ascending, about five floors below. Evidently, the guards had been missed sooner than expected.
Alec swore. "If we can't go down, we need to go up!"
The three MI6 agents dashed up the stairs. Harsh Chinese cries and a few shots rang out. Bond saw the guards begin running upwards, too, and they were catching slowly up, already only four floors below. Floor after floor passed in a whirling blur. Slowly, the armed guards were relentlessly catching up with them.
The stairs seemed to have no end, but as they finally saw the roof door approaching, Miranda had an idea, and pushed the second-top-floor door with all her might. Then she quietly ascended the final floor. The roof door closed quietly behind her, while the door below clanged noisily. The guards took the bait and checked out that floor, which was lucky since they were only two floors below by now, and would easily have gunned the three double-0 agents down on the exposed rooftop.
Bond breathed a sigh of relief. As he had hoped, there was a helipad with a helicopter sitting idle. Important guests with business near the top of the building were never expected to wait for a lift to rise ninety floors in China. It was unthinkable. The trio ran over to it.
Alec smashed one of the chopper windows, then climbed in. Rummaging around briefly, he gave an audible "Ah-ha!" and tossed out a bunch of parachutes from the emergency kit. Clambering back out, he strapped it on, and then helped the other two.
Behind, the roof door clanged, and shots were fired their way. The trick hadn't worked for long.
Bond made sure he had his rucksack tightly secured to him, as well as the parachute, then grabbed his comrades' hands, and without a second thought or any words, dashed to the edge of the roof and leapt off.
Pulling the ripcords at twenty floors up, the descent took under ten seconds in total.
Miranda landed first, and was quick to cast off her parachute and run towards the DB9, leaping into the back with her satchel and valuable USB stick safely tucked in her closed pocket.
Bond headed for the driver's door, but was pulled back.
"Wait your turn," Alec playfully admonished, despite the dangerous situation, and took the car keys off Bond, leaping into the driver's seat himself. Bond shook his head, and took one final glance back before getting into the passenger's side.
Silhouetted against the sky, the team of armed guards watched from afar as the silver DB9 roared off into the night, carrying all of Mao Xiang's precious digital and written work from the last two years.