Two
MI6 Headquarters
8 November, 1968
Bond. James Bond.
That was his name.
Walther PPK.
He held it in his right hand. His gun.
007.
His identity.
Fast cars and faster women.
A grin was concealed in his mind. Perhaps that should be his slogan? He holstered the gun.
He smiled at the passing people, a quiet throng of residents working day and night for MI6. He wondered if his counterparts, men and women of SMERSH, were doing the same thing back in the USSR, even though his recent escapade from one of their bases had cost them quite a few people.
Not to mention the building they were in.
M waited for him at the end of the hall, but Bond absentmindedly thought of other things. He wondered if he should buy a new car. His Aston-Martin suited him well, for the moment, but there was nothing wrong with having a second one in case his first was lost during an operation.
Miss Moneypenny walked past him, her high heels and miniskirt a bit too colorful for his eyes. He was wearing a conservative dark suit. "Feeling groovy today, Moneypenny?" He commented dryly, sweeping her body with his eyes.
"Don't get caught up in the current culture James," she retorted, in an equally dry voice. "I'd hate to see your hair turn into an Afro." The tone of her voice suggested she would be delighted to see that.
The spy smiled and said nothing. He was still young, but not young enough to let "current culture" turn into a shagedelic spy.
He knocked on M's door, mentally groaning at the prospect of another assignment. Not now, so soon, when things were going so well with the girl at the hotel. Damn, what was her name? Well, the girl didn't know his name last night either. He shrugged, in his mind of course. Keep it calm and relaxed, 007. That was the first thing about being a spy. Never let anyone see your cards, emotionally or otherwise.
"Come in," M said, from his desk.
He came, nodding his head respectfully. "Good afternoon sir."
M smiled as he got to his feet, ignoring the pains that were arcing from his legs. After this assignment I'll retire for my replacement, he thought.
"Afternoon James. A little tea, perhaps? Coffee? We'll be here for some time, mind you."
"I'm fine, thank you. Can we start on the briefing? I'm a bit sore about last night."
M smiled mysteriously. "Whose the girl?"
Bond frowned. He had not known M for a long time; he was newly arrived at MI6, a replacement for an aging 007. Surely M cannot know...
M laughed at Bond's quietness. "James, I might not have known you well, but I know 007's identity. Fast cars and faster women. Surely you didn't think you would exclude yourself from this?"
James gave him a thin smile. "The briefing, please?"
"Not now James...we are waiting for someone."
Bond stifled his annoyance. Bloody hell, another agent was working with him. The last mission he had worked with another had turned out badly. His American counterpart of the DIA had gotten himself wasted in Japan at a seedy opium den. He had literally smoked himself to death before SMERSH agents lifted his body and dumped it into a nearby river.
"Another American agent?" he asked, hopeful it was not. He would be nothing more than a baby-sitter.
M appeared to know what he was thinking. "A fellow countryman. Excuse me, countrywoman."
A female agent? Perhaps this mission won't be as bad as I thought.
Cate Archer knew she had one weakness. Her sense of fashion would always be irrevocably be with the current taste. And the current taste suggested she was a groovy shagdelic spy. Her dress was a swirl of exotic colours mixed together in a psychedelic fashion. It exposed her shoulders and barely covered her thighs, but high boots made up for this, covering most of her creamy skin. A sash covered her silky neck. Her hair was arranged in the current taste as well, and her eyes covered with dark, oversized glasses.
As she walked down the halls of the MI6 headquarters, she ignored the stares. The men stopped with their ruffling of papers and watched her knee-high white boots click-clack on the bare floor. Their eyes followed her as she walked down the corridor. The women of MI6, most of them in dark pants with high heels and an appropriate blouse, stared at her dress with eyebrows arched.
Like Bond, she met Moneypenny at the end of the hall. A look passed between them, and Moneypenny smiled warmly. Archer returned the smile, as if they were reuniting sisters ready to chat nonchalantly.
"You must be Cate Archer," Moneypenny said, holding out a hand. "A delight to meet you. You can call me Moneypenny, by the way. I'm M's personal secretary."
Archer took Moneypenny's hand and shook it firmly. "I like your skirt. It's pretty."
"As is your dress, though perhaps a little too flamboyant for MI6 tastes. Is Bruno coming today?"
"No, I'm afraid not. The poor old man has a dreadful head cold."
Moneypenny nodded. "Send my regards. M is waiting for you down that room."
"Alright. I'll see you later perhaps? Shopping down in the Hensington district is one of my pastimes. I'd be delighted to go with you sometime."
"That would be lovely."
Archer gave a parting nod, then continued down the hall. Moneypenny had been alright. But she looked forward to meeting 007...
Behind the blinds Bond was chatting with M. Archer paused for a moment, looking at her fellow agent. He was tall, well built, his suit fitting him well. Dark eyes, sad and somber, seemed to be always on alert. His hair too, was a dark brown, neatly combed. Any woman would have found Bond immediately attractive, not to mention bed-worthy, but not Archer. Perhaps unconsciously, the man reminded her a bit too much of someone she knew. And she didn't like it. Those eyes held a immaturity to them, an overly confident boastfulness that could get someone killed. She had heard Bond liked womanizing, and she held a particular disgust for men who made it their hobby to lure as many women in bed as possible.
Archer opened the door and stepped in. Bond hid his surprise, M calmly set down his tea cup and got up with a wince.
"007, may I introduce you do UNITY agent Catherine Archer?"
Bond's eyes, like a radar scanner, swept over the other agent's body with one look. He was very interested in bed tonight. The girl's clothes were a bit...flamboyant for his tastes, but he enjoyed looking at her green sapphire eyes and creamy skin. Her hair, in the trendy flip hairstyle, accentuated her dazzling and elegant face. Suddenly, being an MI6 agent was fun again.
James Bond smiled as he held out his hand.
"Bond. James Bo-"
"James Bond?" Archer said dryly, taking his hand and shaking it firmly. "Didn't you recently return from the Dublin assignment? How was that?"
Taken by surprise, 007 looked again at the other spy's face. It was impassive, a mask, but also deadly, hawk-like, so fierce that he was taken aback. The tone she had spoken with him to was icy and formal, without the soft melodious tones he had expected from such a voluptuous a woman.
"It was... breathtaking," he said finally, remembering the IRA terrorist who he had to throw off the top of a fifteen story building.
Archer gave a faint semblance of a smile, and then turned to M.
"I'm sorry sir, but Mr. Lawrie cannot attend today, he has a slight cold."
"On the contrary, Ms. Archer, he will be with us today. He pressed a button near his phone. "Bruno, old chap, can you hear me alright?"
A cough filled the speaker near the telephone, and then Bruno's sharp, precise voice spoke. "Good afternoon, M, 007. How is Cate treating you James?"
"Splendid, sir," James replied, without any irony. The girl might have a few rough edges, but that could be smoothed out.
"Right, well, let's get to the bottom of things, shall we?"
M handed Archer and Bond files.
"As you may have known, there have been several recent deaths of agents of both agencies. All of them were agents in place in the Soviet bloc."
Bond opened his file to see the black and white photo of 009, Sasha Krusinsky, an older, experienced field agent who had served with a Polish volunteer squadron during the Battle of Britain in the second world war. He had recently been "liquidated" in his native Poland, a colonel in the Soviet controlled People's Air Force.
Archer opened hers and found the data and photo of Lili Ming, a Chinese born UNITY operative working in Mongolia probing H.A.R.M's underground installation. She too, had suffered a "brain hemorrhage" after her detention by Soviet forces. Cate grimaced, wondering what killed her first: the exotic poisons administered by H.A.R.M scientists or the shot in the head by an interrogations officer.
"The Soviets and this agency H.A.R.M. have built quite a relationship," Bond murmured, flipping through the files to see more murdered agents.
"Do you think there's a mole in both of our agencies?" Cate asked.
M shook his head. "We know whose having these agents' death warrants signed," Lawrie said quietly over the speaker.
Bond's mouth tightened. "Who?"
M answered. "Remember 003, James?"
007 nodded. "Mark Teller." He noticed out of the corner of his eye Cate giving a start. She recognizes the name. He continued. "He disappeared after the Volga assignment. MI6 presumed he was either captured and shot or had taken his own life because extraction was impossible."
Bruno spoke up. "Cate, is there anything you like to add?"
"Mark Teller's nickname was FOXHOUND for UNITY. He was what we called a 'sniffer,' someone who could find the trail left by H.A.R.M agents when the trail seemed to grow cold. On one assignment he tracked H.A.R.M to Turkey but then disappeared. We presumed he was either...captured and shot or had taken his own life because extraction was impossible."
Bond and Archer stared at each other for the slightest of moments, each feeling the bewildering array of emotions conflicting through them.
M spoke quietly. "Teller is not dead. He defected and now is part of SMERSH and H.A.R.M. who both are pooling their resources together to eliminate the agents of MI6 and UNITY. He passed information along from both agencies to them, leading to the deaths of some of our top agents working inside the Soviet bloc."
"Your job, 007 and Cate," Bruno said, precise voice now with a firm edge, "is ultimately to kill Mark Teller, and help the remaining agents in place be extracted. For now, you are to meet with a French agent who had last contact with Teller in Lafolier, France, 25 hours from now." He paused. "MI6 and UNITY will work together for this mission, pooling our resources against those of our counterparts, SMERSH and H.A.R.M. Therefore, cooperation between our two most able agents is important. Good luck."
As they walked out of the MI6 headquarters to the parking lot, Bond couldn't help noticing the discord he felt walking with Archer. Were all UNITY agents as cold as her?
007 had only remotely heard of UNITY, but that was more than most people. The shadowy, international organization had been formed shortly after the war as the invisible intelligence group to the United Nations, aiming for international cooperation against terrorism, especially against the new organization H.A.R.M., made up of drug kingpins, former Axis soldiers, and others. But the group slowly severed its ties from the increasingly argumentative and belligerent UN, while secretly maintaining peace in the world by combating H.A.R.M. So Cate Archer was their top agent...Bond thought. He wondered how she compared to 007. But business could wait...they could have a little fun before this trip. It might be their last.
"Would you mind joining me at the Rouge restaurant tonight, Ms. Archer? They have some excellent wines, and we could practice on our French." Bond's suave smile never broke under the icy stare Archer gave her.
"I already know French quite well, James...and I do not drink." Men, she thought bitterly. Men like Bond made her want to slip a banana under their feet so she could have the joy of watching them slip while she pummeled them with a crossbow bolt.
She got into her Austin Mini and left.
Bond casually slipped into his Aston-Martin. Hard to catch, eh? He would bloody well catch her and bring her under him...quite literally, he thought.
The light on the dashboard of his car lit up. He flicked on a secret switch and spoke into his radio's speaker. "Bond here."
M spoke. "I forgot to mention James...do keep bedtime pleasures after the mission's over?"
"Yes sir."
Both of them knew 007 would not wait for that.