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.
Due to an impending holiday, there won't be any new chapters of "An Unlikely Alliance" until next week at the earliest. But I've given you six to start with, so you can't say that's bad!
Beijing, China
Alec pulled the DB9 into a deserted corner, on the middle floor of a multi-storey car park. As he did so, he just couldn't resist pulling a handbrake turn to slide neatly into a parking space.
Miranda sighed, muttering, "Men."
They were about seven miles from the Huangshan Corporation office block, and although the streets had been clear of cars, Alec had driven quickly and had made Miranda remotely control the rear machine guns by a little control panel on top of the boot, to either encourage pursuers to back off, or force them to. However, they hadn't seen anyone, and had turned into this empty multi-storey car park to find a space to examine the data they had taken from Xiang's workplace.
"USB stick?" Bond asked.
Miranda rummaged around in a pocket, and drew it out. Bond plugged it into a slot on the side of the DB9's onboard computer. The screen lit up, and loaded the data.
"What have we here…" Alec murmured, using the touchpad under the computer screen to navigate the menus.
"Oh, great…"
Everything was in Chinese.
Bond sighed. "Here." He retraced a few menus, set the language of the whole system to English, and waited a moment while Xiang's files were flawlessly translated.
Alec took control of the touchpad back, and scanned the list of stuff they had taken from the office PC.
"Contacts? Let's have a look."
What followed was a very long list of Chinese names.
"Lin Tong, Xi Huang, Tan Kasaki…"
The list continued like this for some time.
"Shan Hu'an, Shi Lang, Wai Lin…"
"Stop!" Bond held up a hand. "Wai Lin. I know her; she was with me on the Carver mission. This must be a list of Chinese Intelligence operatives."
"Hmm… You're right; they all have the same telephone number, so unless they share a huge flat or something…"
Miranda indicated another option. "Try addresses."
Alec did so, but then realised one crucial thing. "This data will probably have the names and addresses of every Chinese Intelligence employee from here to Hong Kong - except one."
Bond slumped. "Of course. Mao Xiang won't bother to put himself in his address book, will he?"
Miranda shook her head determinedly. "It can't be as simple as that. Somewhere, his details must be on here. When he logs on, or checks his e-mail, or…"
Alec returned to the screen. "E-mail. Let's give that a go."
Trawling through Xiang's seemingly massive inbox, several messages stood out as odd.
"Here, look; the identity of the sender is withheld, and the message is just a weird stream of letters." It read, "meealeapafetlttttahwmhzao." Alec frowned. "Perhaps the translator cocked up. Let's try again." He re-translated the whole system into English, and then checked the e-mail.
It was still the same.
Bond frowned. "It's some kind of code."
Miranda remarked acidly, "Perhaps you should consider asking someone who was in cryptology for two years."
Alec brightened. "Good idea. Know anyone?"
Miranda sighed. "Me?"
"Ah. Well, Miss Cryptologist, see anything in this?"
"How many letters are there?"
"Er, 10...15...20…25, exactly."
Miranda took a blank sheet out of the satchel. Splitting the stream into five rows of five, she made a neat 5 letters by 5 letters box. Then she read down the columns, from left to right.
meeal
eapaf
etltt
ttahw
mhzao
"The stream of "meealeapafetlttttahwmhzao" becomes "meet me at the plaza at half two"." Miranda sat back triumphantly.
Alec glanced at Bond. "Is she usually this annoyingly clever?"
Bond nodded. "Most of the time."
Miranda shook her head. "It's a really basic code. One of the first I learnt."
Alec turned to her again. "Can you do the same with the other…" he checked the list, "six coded messages?"
Miranda shrugged. "I should be able to. Read them all out, and I'll get going while you follow up some other lead."
Alec did so, and while Miranda busied herself sorting the garbled messages out, he and Bond checked out the rest of Xiang's stuff. Namely, the paperwork.
They sat in silence for the next few minutes, Miranda occasionally passing Alec a decoded message, until Bond found something.
"Another code." It was handwritten on a piece of notepaper, as opposed to the company documents, which were all typed on clean, white A4 sheets. "36 letters. One of your square codes, Miranda."
She took it, and put it to one side, passing a decoded one back.
It took a long time, but after nearly an hour of sifting through papers and cracking codes, the three double-0 agents were finished.
Gathering around the centre of the cabin, Bond reviewed what they had found.
"Right. We have two possible addresses to check out, for this Mao Xiang. Apparently, he's pretty rich, and has big connections, apart from the obvious Chinese Intelligence ones. Firstly, there's one right here, on the outskirts of Beijing. That's his home address; the chances that he'll be there are minimal. However, there might be stuff to pick up, provided the Chinese haven't already taken it."
"And the other one?" Alec asked.
"Well, the other one relates to some kind of old warehouse, on the outskirts of an industrial park twenty miles from Beijing. We've got no idea what that's for, as we've got home and work covered already."
"Secret meetings with his criminal associates?" Miranda suggested.
Bond was thoughtful. "Perhaps… Anyway, we'll check out the house first, and then move on to the warehouse."
Miranda brightened. "My turn to drive!"
Bond and Trevelyan groaned.
By the time they reached their destination, it was raining. The DB9 slowed to a stop in a deserted lane, near the gates to Mao Xiang's apparently big house. Climbing out, Bond half-heartedly tried the gates, but they were locked, which wasn't surprising.
What was surprising were the layers of razor-sharp glass shards covering every inch of the top of the perimeter walls, jammed into some kind of gel clamped to the top of the wall and immovable.
Alec leapt back down from the top, drying his hands off, and shook his head. "This guy really doesn't want anyone getting in."
Miranda examined the tall gates, and replied, "Well, I doubt he expected Q-Branch to try."
Pulling out the fountain pen, she twisted the bottom to one side, and drew a big circle on the damp wooden gates. There was a faint hissing sound, and the wood around the line blackened and dissolved. A large circular piece of wood fell into a puddle on the driveway with a splash and a clunk. Miranda put the top back on the pen, and climbed through the gap, followed by Bond, then Trevelyan.
Standing on the gravelly driveway of Xiang's house, the agents studied the house. It was quite tall, with a steep pagoda roof. There were several lanterns lit, hanging around the porch and decking circling the walls, and swinging in the light breeze. However, there were only a few windows. Bond quietly paced up the steps, and tried the sliding front door.
"Locked," he hissed back to the others. However, he drew his wallet out, and removed the credit card. Sliding the top back, a small lockpick folded out, and he inserted it into the door lock. After a bit of wiggling it around, the door clicked, and Bond slid it back.
They were in.
The three agents entered, glancing cautiously around. However, apart from the numerous lanterns dotted around the house, which cast a soft glow throughout the corridors, there were no signs of life, as all of the overhead lights were off.
Alec looked closely at one of the lanterns. "Thick wax, and a long taper. These things could stay lit for days without relighting."
Miranda took a quick look down two corridors leading off into the big house. "He mustn't be here."
Bond turned, and jogged out of the door, down the driveway. "Hang on, I'll just go check something."
He returned within the minute, brushing the water from his clothes. "I used the DB9's thermal imaging to scan the house. Apart from the lanterns and you two, there's no heat whatsoever. He's not here."
Alec nodded, satisfied. "Good. Split up, and let's check the house for any evidence. Take a bag each, and meet up back here in about ten minutes? Good."
The three agents went their separate ways, and checked all of the numerous rooms for anything useful.
Outside, in the rain, there was a slight movement as a cloaked shape with powder-white face and hands climbed through the hole in the gates, and ran silently off into the darkness of the garden.
Bond searched an interesting-looking study that he came across. Opening the drawers, he did what the others had done at the Huangshan Corporation building, and stuffed every file and piece of paper in to examine later on. There was still plenty of room left. He opened the study door again, and walked back out, to try the next door. He opened it, and took a step back.
In the lantern-light, metal teeth glinted as Bond was thrown backwards into the opposite wall.
Over at the other side of the house, Alec heard the thump, and stood up from his inspection of a desk, frowning.
"James probably fell off a balcony or something," he muttered. Still, best to go and check. Leaving his empty satchel tucked in a corner, 006 jogged off into the house to investigate.
Meanwhile, Miranda was bored. She had found nothing so far, except bedroom upon bedroom, all untouched. Coming to a sliding door, she opened it, and was about to step out when she saw the ornate plants and small stream. Great. She had found the back door.
Miranda just had time to see a grinning albino man step out of the shadows of the porch before she was hit and blacked out.
Alec paced through the deserted hallways. "James? James? Look, if this is some kind of practical joke, you're leaving here strapped to the roof of the DB9. I promise you that…"
Alec tailed off when he saw the dent in the wall, the unconscious form of 007 slumped at the bottom, and the looming giant with metal teeth standing over him.
"Ah…"
Suddenly, there was a noise behind, and Alec turned in time to block a karate chop from a thin albino man swathed in a cloak. Delivering a swift punch to the albino's stomach, Alec kicked him in the groin. However, the man recovered, and grasped Alec's throat with surprising force. Alec held on, but quickly felt dizzy, and purple spots exploded in front of his eyes. He was running out of breath fast. The albino smirked as he tightened his grip.
There was a loud, hollow bang, and suddenly the pressure on Alec's throat was released. He reeled, and gasped for breath, sucking oxygen into his starved lungs. The albino slumped to the floor, revealing Miranda, massaging her aching head and brandishing a metal pole from the lantern stand in the garden. She dropped it, and gazed upwards, at the metal-toothed giant standing over the unconscious Bond. Strangely, he hadn't moved throughout the tussle.
"Who is he?" Miranda whispered to Alec.
Alec shrugged, breathing deeply in. "I don't know, but he seems tough."
Miranda considered, then picked up the metal pole and threw it at the man's stomach as if she was throwing a sword or knife.
It bounced off with a clang.
Alec frowned. "Okay, so he is tough."
Miranda asked cautiously, "What do you want from us?"
The metal-toothed man stayed silent, but pointed at them, then at Bond's satchel.
"He wants our satchels of paperwork. He must be retrieving them for Xiang," Alec hissed to Miranda.
Miranda reached down to open her satchel, then rummaged around, pulled out a bunch of papers and tossed them on the floor in front of the towering man. He looked at them, then slowly bent to pick them up.
As he did so, Alec grabbed a lantern and smashed it over his head.
The man reeled back blindly, spreading the papers around with his foot. Two or three sheets floated into the lantern, and quickly caught fire. The flames spread to the other sheets, as well as the cloak of the senseless albino man, and crawled up the wooden beams on the walls and roof. Soon the whole corridor was ablaze, and with the whole house predominantly made of dry wood, the flames were rapidly starting to spread out into the house.
Alec coughed in the smoke starting to fill the room, and said urgently, "Help me get Bond out of here!"
Between Miranda and Alec, they managed to heft Bond and stagger out of the blazing room with him, heading for the open front doorway. Behind, the huge metal-toothed man staggered around blindly in the flames, until he hit a low roof beam, which collapsed on top of him, along with a large portion of the upstairs and the roof. He was completely buried. The unconscious albino was consumed by flames, and only woke up briefly to give a short cry of agony before he met his death.
Out in the pouring rain, Bond was revived by the water splashing on his face. "What? Who? Where… Jaws! I saw Jaws!"
Alec rolled his eyes. "Really? So did we, funnily enough."
Bond spluttered and stood unsteadily up. "Where is he?"
Miranda indicated Mao Xiang's burning house. As she did so, the whole west wing caved in, and a large shower of sparks burst from the rubble. "Under a large portion of the roof and a heavy wooden beam. He's dead."
Bond laughed humourlessly. "Yeah, right. Trust me, a tank couldn't stop Jaws. Let's get out of here before he climbs out of the wreckage."
Alec and Miranda looked doubtful, but they climbed out of the hole in the gates, and sped away in the DB9 immediately, leaving Mao Xiang's home burning brightly in the night.