M watched London go by vacantly as the silence in the car stretched on. A small part of his brain catalogued the surroundings and turnings the vehicle took through the capital, his view was limited to the skyline from his uncomfortable position. The more active part of his mind kept all his attention on R. He had long given up on finding any give in the zip tie and there wasn't anything useful on the back seat to cut the bindings so he was stuck for now. He observed his captor become more relaxed the further away they got from HQ without any sign of pursuit; the man was fidgeting less and his driving was noticeably less erratic.

Mallory wrestled with the idea of trying to talk down R again his instincts were telling him it was the wrong move. Doing so would probably just serve to irritate the traitor again and put him on edge. A relaxed captor was far better than a volatile one. The internal battle was taken out of the equation as Gareth felt the car take a sharp turn then pull to a gentle stop.

He watched R's hand tremble on the steering wheel before moving to switch the engine off. M tensed involuntarily as the traitor picked up the pistol and jumped out of the front seat. Mallory heard the crunch of gravel underfoot as R made his way round to the door by M's head. A few seconds later sun-light flooded the backseat of the car as R yanked the door open.

"Out." He demanded harshly.

M was about to ask how exactly he was going to manage that from his awkward position when a strong grip took hold of his arm and started pulling; his legs scrambled desperately as his upper body was dragged out of the car. Mallory stumbled when his legs dropped from the back seat and would have crashed to the gravel surface had R not caught him; M breathed a sigh of relief after he realised his ribs had escaped another punishing assault.

R grunted as he took M's weight and had to use both arms to steady his captive, Mallory could hardly help with the situation with his hands bound as they were. Soon M was steady enough on his feet so R took the opportunity to push his captive away from him as if suddenly disgusted with the contact. Mallory stumbled forward a few steps but managed to retain his balance.

His keen gaze quickly surveyed their surroundings and came to the conclusion that they were on some kind of construction site, it was deserted. He realised it must be getting close to late evening because the sky was starting to darken, he hadn't envisaged so much time had passed.

Satisfied that they were the only ones in the immediate vicinity, M turned his attention back to his main threat. R had collected the backpack containing the stolen data and was strolling over to Mallory's side gun held loosely at his side.

M recognised a handover when he saw one; curiosity got the better of him so he finally broke the silence. "Seeing as we're going to meeting them soon, can I least know who is behind this."

R scuffed the ground with his feet leading M to think that he was just going to ignore his question entirely. Just as Mallory was going to give up R answered. "Their name is Imperium."

Mallory drew a blank as he mulled the name over, and he was sure he had never heard of it. He glanced back at R and saw the man had started to tremble. "You're scared of them."

R laughed grimly. "You would be too if you knew what they could do."

M realised that was probably why he had laughed in the face of a deal. He was more scared of the mysterious organisation than MI6, in light of the revelation it was no surprise that he had been willing to blow himself up. It had to have been a complete success or he might as well have killed himself.

"It's not too late you know." Mallory whispered earnestly playing on the traitor's fears.

Their attention snapped to the other side of the yard when a van pulled up, dust swirling round the ominous black vehicle as it pulled to a stop. M gulped as he spotted a masked man in the drivers seat no doubt armed to the teeth.

"I rather think it is." R gripped M's arm harshly and his hold on the pistol tightened.

They both waited in tense silence when the van side door opened and two men wearing masks exited; Mallory spied the pistols in the men's grip immediately. He was very quickly becoming completely outnumbered, for the life of him he couldn't see a way out of the oncoming nightmare. Crippling anxiety gripped him as his mind unhelpfully flew back to his kidnapping; he felt the echoes of pain flare through his body and shuddered involuntarily. M shook the thoughts away viscously and resigned himself to his fate, he was about to spend some more quality time with the enemy so he desperately needed to get a bloody grip.

Without any warning a deafening shot rang out across the yard the crack echoing harshly around the confined yard. Mallory's heart leapt into his mouth as the arm holding him was ripped away. He was spun round as a result and watched dazed as R fell to the ground silently. The traitor's lifeless body impacted with a small thump and was still; blood trickled slowly from a point directly between the man's eyes. A perfect head shot.

Sniper…

Mallory's mind raced and he tried to catch up to what the hell had just happened, what his eyes were telling him had happened. M forgot to breathe and stumbled backwards from the body a few steps, he wanted to get far away from the corpse. Another shot halted his movements all together, the round ricocheted off the ground less than a meter from his foot. The warning was quite clear; don't move.

He looked around wildly for the sniper's position before his eyes landed on the approaching men, they had almost covered the ground between the van and M. One of the masked men held his gun up and Mallory kept his body rigid when he found himself staring down the barrel of a pistol again. He fought to regulate his breathing as the shock set in, he hadn't expected such a brutal end for the mole. R may have been a traitor but it didn't make it any easier to see him cut down in cold-blooded murder.

The goon not covering Mallory strolled over to R's corpse and picked the dropped bag up from the floor, he then checked the contents efficiently. The pistol in M's face never wavered and he noted the man kept his distance, even if Mallory's hands were free he wouldn't be able to disarm the man quickly enough. The other man was clearly happy with the contents because he walked over to Mallory and pushed him forward away from the body. Gareth noted that both men didn't lay eyes on R's body, not even once.

M allowed himself to be turned around; then hands were patting him down efficiently. The group had always been careful and their actions here proved it, ruthless and professional. He tried to keep his features stoic as he held the masked man's gaze, the events were bringing up far too many painful memories and it was growing hard to resist the panic attack his mind wanted to give into.

The pat down was completed and his bindings checked, without hesitancy the man grabbed his arm and started dragging him forward. The other grabbed his other arm and he was soon frogmarched towards the van. Mallory sadly accepted the turn of events and started to shut his mind off; that was the only way he had any chance of getting though this and not talking.

"We're very excited to show you our hospitality once again M." One of the men whispered when they were half way back to the van. M felt numb, he refused to let the demons in his mind win.

The entourage stopped abruptly as they all heard the revving engine of a motorbike approaching, M watched as the men's hands went to their ears which was when he noticed the earwigs.

He looked over his shoulder to see what the commotion was all about not wanting to give himself any false hope. A wide grin spread across his face when he saw the bike speeding towards them with haste, the rider crashing the party at the perfect moment. 007 had always had good timing.

Mallory observed his two would-be kidnappers exchange a worried look, and then suddenly one of his arms was free as one man ran back towards the van. M heard the driver start the engine and felt confused, how did these guys think they were going to outrun a motorbike?

M was unexpectedly shoved away from the second man. He managed to stay upright and shot the masked man a bewildered look, was this guy giving up? M's confusion ended when the pistol was suddenly brought up and Mallory had less than a second to process the fatal action before the trigger was pulled.

He felt a searing pain tear through his neck and then he fell.

007 raced into the construction yard on his recently acquired motorbike and his quick mind assessed the scene before him. R's body was on the floor unmoving, dead. M was in the hands of 2 masked men who were dragging him towards a van and the missing data was on said men's back. It took only a few seconds for Bond to take in all the details and acquire his targets, in those seconds he had closed the gap between the men to a couple of hundred yards.

One of the men let go of Mallory and sprinted towards the getaway vehicle. Bond was just reaching for his pistol and applying the brakes, preparing to take out the threat when he saw something unexpected. The last remaining masked man pushed M away from him raised his pistol and fired.

"No!" Bond yelled as he saw the blood splatter and watched M fall to the ground heavily. No, no this couldn't be happening. He couldn't lose another M.

James reached Mallory's fallen body and threw the bike aside, distantly he heard the van's door closing harshly and then gravel flying as the vehicle accelerated off fast. He crouched took aim and fired several shots at the van; cursing as the vehicle quickly sped out of view without taking any lasting damage.

He growled at the retreating van and looked down in dismay at M's body; he quickly saw that M was still alive and identified that the shot had gone straight through Mallory's neck leaving a bloody mess in it's wake. James made a split second decision and rushed over to his boss, pulling his jacket off as he went before clamping the material down onto the neck wound firmly. He watched as M tried to groan, his wild eyes met Bond's and James recognised pain and panic in M's eyes. Mallory was really struggling to breath and he was losing too much blood at an alarming rate.

"Q, I need medics here now!" Bond yelled knowing Q would pick up the desperate request.

He could feel M slipping away beneath his hands no matter how hard he tried to staunch the wound, the bullet must have nicked an artery and god help them if it had damaged the windpipe. Bond was pretty sure it had based on Mallory's continuing struggle to get enough oxygen, and he was gasping now which only served to increase the blood pouring through Bond's fingers.

"On their way, status?"

Bond ignored the way Q's voice shook, the quartermaster had stubbornly refused to go to medical until M was found. Eve had assured him that Q's wounds weren't fatal but that didn't mask the pain he heard in Q's voice.

"M's down, been shot through the neck." He winced as the blood continued to trickle through his fingers, his jacket already soaked through. He applied as much pressure as he dared, knowing that M was already struggling to breathe. "There's a lot of blood Q."

He applied more pressure which caused M to groan and shut his eyes finally, the agony overcoming his battle with consciousness. Bond watched Mallory's chest rise and fall and let out a sigh of relief. He needed M to keep breathing.

"Suspects leaving in black van." Bond felt torn, what was more important M's life or the data? He knew what Mallory would say and he was quite glad the man was unconscious. "If I let go of his neck Q, he'll bleed out."

"Then I suggest you don't let go. 006 is 2 minutes out and we're tracking their vehicle."

Bond felt relieved as he heard the information, he trusted Alec to track down the enemy and retrieve what was theirs. It was in good hands and if Q branch were tracking the vehicle then there was hope. He knew they weren't up to their usual standards after R's internal cyber attack but Q was more than a match for the traitor, another annoying reason why Q refused medical help until the crisis was over.

The agent watched Mallory grow paler and paler and the rise and fall of his chest grow shallower; M was in real trouble.

"Q where's the bloody medics? M hasn't got time for this." He tried to keep the panic out of his voice but was clearly unsuccessful.

Q's calm voice helped to ground him a little. "Chopper is 1 minute out Bond, just keep him holding on."

James swore. "He's not conscious."

"Shit." Q's worry finally seeped through and it drove Bond onwards to keep his friend alive.

Bond finally heard a helicopter approaching and watched it's flight path like a hawk, every second dragged out in that moment as M slipped away beneath his hands. He kept one hand pressed against the wound and used his other to search for a pulse in M's wrist; he eventually found one although it felt erratic.

"I can see the helicopter." His tone was far more clipped than he intended; he was getting over the shock of the situation and allowing anger to cloud his thoughts.

"Good. Also 006 is catching up so don't worry about the data."

The data wasn't James' main concern. He was more pleased that the bastards that did this weren't going to get away even after their desperate tactic to fatally shoot Mallory. 007 released the dark thoughts swirling around his mind as the helicopter landed quickly and medics swarmed out. Bond felt M's pulse start to weaken beneath his fingers and felt panic creep through his defences.

"Hurry up!" He yelled at the men.

The next few moments were a blur as a medic took over his position and continued to apply pressure to the wound, he was then pushed out the way completely by the medics. He watched silently as the team transferred Mallory to a board, inserted IV and blood lines efficiently and picked him up. The whole transfer is over in less than a minute and soon M was on board the helicopter being poked and prodded by multiple sets of hands.

Bond watched the chopper take off with a distant look in his eyes, he imagined he was displaying a few symptoms of shock and strove to pull himself together. He pushed away another unwelcome emotion, failure, guilt. He hadn't felt like this since the old M had died in his arms, he should have done more to protect both of them.

The agent shook the dangerous thoughts away and turned his attention to R's corpse. He walked over to the pale man and stared down at the bullet wound with as much detachment as he could muster. Bond felt enraged that the traitor behind all this pain got off so easily. A quick death was not what the bastard deserved after what he did to Q, to M, to all of them.

He was interrupted by Q's quiet voice in his ear, a voice that sounded exhausted and in considerable pain. "James."

"Yes." He replied immediately and absent-mindedly looked down at all the blood on his hand's, M's blood.

"We've got the data, but the suspects are all dead."

Shit, the data was good but they really needed to question the people. They had no leads on this mystery puppet master.

"Couldn't Alec control himself?" James asked bitterly.

"They shot themselves." Q responded with a sigh and James noted again how tired the quartermaster sounded.

The news shocked James. Whoever their employer was they would rather die than risk giving anything away. "Well shit."

"Indeed." Q replied.

"Q?" Bond growled. He'd had enough with hearing people in pain today.

"Yes James." The tone was innocent as if Q thought he could fool anyone that he wasn't seconds away from collapsing.

"Get to medical or I'll kill you myself." The threat held no heat which Q recognised immediately as he chuckled.

They were both interrupted by Eve. "I've already sedated him."

"Hey what?…" Q's voice trailed off followed by a dull thud. Bond grinned as he imagined the scene taking place in Q branch, he would have to look over the CCTV later.

"Thanks Eve, I owe you one." What would he do without Moneypenny?

She laughed. "Yes you do." There was a pause and James sobered as he recognised the apprehension and worry accompanying her next words. "How was he James?"

Bond glanced down at the blood covering his hands and relived the panic in M's eyes, the desperate gasps for breath. He shut his eyes and obliterated the unhelpful memories. He decided he would not lie to Eve; he knew she had grown fond of their boss.

"It's bad Eve." His heart clenched as he heard a minute sob over the earpiece. "He's with the right people though."

Eve sniffed and quickly composed herself switching back to professional employee in no time at all. "Come home 007."

James made no comment at the approach, he knew it was what they both needed to make it through this nightmare. They both fell back on their training and became simply agents again. "Yes ma'am."

He switched off the comms channel and observed the clean up crew arrive. They busied themselves with sealing off the area and began to collect evidence and cover up R's body. Content that the operation was in able hands, James picked up the bike and headed back to HQ ignorant to the blood that was still dripping from his fingers.