2. "We have people everywhere"
The British agent and his captive arrived in Siena at around a quarter-to-three in the afternoon. The town was ready for the annual Palio horse race, sort of like the Kentucky derbies in the United States. It was a town tradition that stretched back more than 200 years. Flags were draped over balconies and joyful crowds were mingling about in the streets on the way to the horse track, and Bond had to honk the horn to shoo them from the car. Siena, Bond thought, retained enough Renaissance essence than any other city in Italy. As he turned the vehicle away from the crowd, Bond entered a passageway and stopped the car about hallway through. He got out of the car, went around to the back, and unlocked the trunk.
Mr. White was a mess, his face was bruised and cut from bouncing around in the car. The trunk also smelled of vomit, piss, and fecal matter. He looked up at Bond with relief, that the hellish ride was finally over.
"Time to get out." Bond told him.
Two MI6 suits came out from the passageway and helped Bond haul a dazed Mr. White from the vehicle and carry him into the Siena safe house. M was already waiting for him. Alongside her was her bodyguard, a ten-year man named Mitchell, who remained stoic and calm like the guards outside Buckingham Palace.
Bond entered the antechamber where M was. "Mitchell." Bond greeted.
"Bond."
Bond then turned to M. "Afternoon, ma'am."
"What happened in Venice, Bond? Why did you have to go out of your way to maliciously wound a man, cause a traffic stir with two police being killed, allow that to be collateral damage, and have myself being whisked off from London on a last-minute flight to Italy without even being given a clear explanation? Can you sum that up for me, Bond?"
Bond was surprised. He was in hot water with M at the beginning of the Montenegro assignment, and he was certainly in hot water now, given the circumstances that M pointed out.
"I just found your man. The man in the organization that was pulling Le Chieffe's strings. The trail's just got warmer."
"That doesn't explain why I'm here?"
"What do you have on Vesper? What about her lover?" He held up the Algerian love knot to send his point across. M got a folder from the table and passed it to Bond. "Vesper's boyfriend: Yusuf Karbira. Abducted in Morocco June 2006 and was found on a beach in Ibiza two weeks later." A photograph of a dead Yusuf with his face badly chewed up, his lips hanging by strings of skin, his eyeballs gone. "We believe the fish did that to his face. His wallet and his ID were in his pocket."
Bond wasn't satisfied, even with this information given to him. "Who abducted him?"
M pointed to the one-way window where Mr. White was sitting in a chair, his bloody leg being attended to by the two MI6 suits. "Ask him."
Bond pulled up a chair as M and Mitchell came up behind him. Bond turned on a bright desk lamp and tilted it so that the light shown in Mr. White's face. He squinted and groaned as the two MI6 suits backed away from him, after bandaging his leg and fixing an IV drip to the wound.
"You're going to tell us who you work for."
Mr. White seemed calm and collected, not worrying about his bad leg. He talked with Bond as if he was an old friend. "I'm very interested to meet you, Mr. Bond." Mr. White said coolly. "I've heard so much about you from Vesper." Then Mr. White looked down at the stone floor, then up at M. "Of course, if she hadn't killed herself, we would've had you too. I think you would've done anything for her."
The images of Vesper succumbing to her horrible drowning death in the elevator of the sinking house flashed before Bond's eyes. He tried not to cry, trying not to show Mr. White that agent Double-O Seven was emotionally traumatized.
M spoke now. "Mr. White, you're not in Britain and God knows where you'll be tomorrow. Eventually you will tell us about the people you work with. If you make it difficult, we'll resort to unconventional solutions to obtaining the answer."
Mr. White laughed. In between giggles he said, "You really don't know anything about us? You're on the other side, thinking: 'The MI6, the CIA, they're always looking over their shoulders, feeling safe knowing that they can trust their own people'-and the fact is—they don't really know that we exist?"
"We know now, Mr. White." M replied smugly. "We're quick learners."
"Then," Mr. White composed himself, taking a deep breath before continuing. "Perhaps you should know this, that we have people everywhere." He then looked towards Mitchell, the stoic, nonchalant agent next to M. "Am I right?"
Bond never expected it. Mitchell became alive as if he was suddenly woken up. He drew his service weapon, a .357 SIG-Sauer and fired three rounds into one of the MI6 suits. He then put two more rounds into the other's face.
Bond tried to grab Mitchell, but he kicked him aside, turned around, and shot M in the chest. As she turned around, she was shot again in the back. She collapsed to the floor.
Bond jumped on Mitchell, grabbing his gun hand and wrestling for control of the SIG. Mitchell kneed Bond in the stomach and pistol-whipped him. As Bond fell to the floor, Mitchell aimed the SIG at Bond's head. Bond kicked Mitchell, causing him to fall backwards, as well as dropping his gun. Mitchell then righted himself and took off down the passageway to the old Roman-era cistern.
M was withering in pain and Bond went to her. "Are you alright, ma'am?"
M pulled away her blouse, revealing a bulletproof vest. The .357 FMJ round was embedded in the fabric. She plucked the bullet out and threw it across the room. "I'm fine, Bond. Get him!"
Bond drew his P99 and took off after him.
Mitchell ran down the watery steps with Bond hot on his heels. He tried to grab his other weapon hidden on the small of his back, but he kept running, hoping that every step would take him farther away from Bond. Mitchell grabbed hold of a ladder that led up to the street and climbed it as fast as he could. "You're a dead man, Bond!" he called out.
Bond grabbed the ladder and started to climb. Mitchell made it out and vanished. Bond reached the top of the ladder, grabbed the outer ring of the manhole, and pulled himself up. Two men in ties and sports coats were at ease, reading the newspapers in a street side café. When Mitchell ran past them, the men stood up and pulled out guns. One of them had an H&K machine pistol set on full-automatic. He smiled and lifted his gun.
But that didn't slow Bond down. Grabbing the P99 with his other hand, he whipped it out and shot the man in the head. The other man's pistol spat twice, but Bond dove behind a car, got his pistol over the hood, aimed, and fired. The other man fell back onto the small café table.
Bond then saw Mitchell scaling a fence, and took off after him. It became clear where he was headed—the old Casa de Siena Luna dome. There was probably a car waiting and who knows how many bad guys. Bond climbed over the obstacles in his way, darting left and right to avoid stray dogs and people who were tardy to the Palio.
Bond ran up a flight of steps, jumped onto a drainpipe, climbed it, and reached the roof. He saw Mitchell running towards the dome. Bond tried to chase after him, but the tiles slipped out from under his feat, causing him to falter. He climbed up the roof, jumped onto a balcony and climbed down onto a stalled bus. He ran across the bus's roof and jumped onto another balcony. Bond's heart was pounding and sweat broke out on his face, getting into his eyes and blurring his vision.
But this mangy bastard had tried to kill M. And anyone who tries to shoot the head of MI6 would shoot at anybody, even James Bond. He hoped to catch up to Mitchell, who was the latest clue in unlocking the mystery of Vesper's past.
The dome was under construction, and the workmen were watching the Palio from the street. That made Bond's job easier, as people were away from the roofs and where Mitchell was headed. As Bond leapt across another rooftop, he heard Mitchell taunting him as he climbed up a flight of steps to the dome. "You are a skilled agent, Mr. Bond. But you're no match for me and Quantum!"
Bond remembered the word "Quantum"—another clue. This was starting to come together quickly. Bond was trying to keep his cool and his emotions in check as he climbed the steps after Mitchell.
As he got to the top, he looked around. Bond saw nothing but heard the cheers of the crowd below.
Where did that bastard go?
A gun was pressed against Bond's head. He turned around to see Mitchell holding his backup piece: a SIG Sauer P232 pistol.
"Mr. Bond, your time is up."
"What's Quantum?" Bond asked, as if he didn't notice the gun.
"Maybe you'll ask that when I'm done with you."
"Drop the gun, Mitchell. It's over."
"And what, go to the Old Bailey for shooting an old woman? Chill out, James."
"No, I'll put in a good word for you at Scotland Yard."
"Greene wouldn't like that."
"Who?"
"Gree—"
Bond grabbed Mitchell's arm and the gun went off. Bond chopped at the man's wrist and the gun dropped to the floor. Bond then used the man's weight to throw him onto the ground.
Bond had put a hand over Mitchell's neck and squeezed hard, asking, "Who's Quantum? Greene?"
But the turncoat had thwarted Bond by wriggling out from under him. He tried to go for the SIG, but Bond kicked it away from him, down into the construction site. Mitchell took a running start to try to charge Bond, but 007 had butted the man off the ledge, crashing through the glass atrium. Mitchell landed on a wooden catwalk, Bond's foot was caught in a rope and he dangled upside down. As Bond tried to free himself, Mitchell was going for his gun.
Bond got his foot free and crashed onto the ground, diving away as Mitchell fired at him. Bond then reached for the backup Walther PPK/S he kept strapped to his ankle. Wrenching it loose, he saw Mitchell climb down the catwalk and onto a scaffold in an attempt to get a better firing position. As Mitchell landed on the scaffold, just twenty yards from Bond, his face broke into an evil grin as he raised the SIG. Bond fired twice, both rounds slamming into Mitchell's chest. The traitor cried out and toppled over the scaffold onto the ground, dead.
As Bond surveyed the crime scene, he felt no remorse. He didn't need to bring Mitchell in for questioning. He just gave him two new pieces to the puzzle. "Quantum" and "Greene".
The return to the safe house was a somber and lukewarm walk. Bond's sense of smell whiffed perfume of a lovely woman drinking coffee in a café across the street. Chanteuse—the same kind of perfume Vesper used to wear. He was blinded by memories of them together at the beach, the touch and sounds of their orgasms while making love. He was so blinded, that he didn't notice where he was walking, right into another woman, this one with back hair.
"Watch yourself, du bastardo!" The woman cursed.
Black hair—Vesper.
Bond cleared his thoughts as he entered the safe house's secret entrance. M was escorted to a medical unit, hurt from the bullet's impact from where the vest had saved her life. MI6 and Italian police were scouring the room for clues. Bond noticed that Mr. White wasn't in the room. He approached one of the MI6 agents. "Where's Mr. White?"
The agent simply shook his head in disbelief. "We found the agent by the exit murdered, two bullets in his skull. The car in which M arrived in was gone. Mitchell probably had done it. Speaking of which, where is he?"
"Murdered." Bond replied. "He died a traitor's death."
"The two men who were in the café are being taken to the morgue." The agent explained. "We'll have their names and photographs from the Italian police by tomorrow."
"Tell M about 'Quantum', and 'Greene'." Bond told him. "Can you do that for me?"
The agent nodded.
"M wants you in London for a full debrief once she's cleared by medical. She means it this time."
Bond nodded and walked away. I could use a martini right now.