Chapter 11
"We have the names of a dozen members of Spectre leadership from the list your man recovered," Tanner was saying. "Since yesterday morning, agents have tracked down and detained nine, and Mallory is not pleased that you let White walk."
"So besides Blofeld, who's unaccounted for?" James asked. The view from his plane window was a frustrating black tarmac, soaked with rain. They'd been stuck on the runway for over twenty minutes because of some confusion or delay at the gate.
"Uh… Hang on a second, I've lost the last name somewhere. Ah! There it is. Carver. Elliot Carver." He sounded far too pleased for a man who'd just forgotten the name of someone he was calling about.
"Last known location?" James asked, even though he had no plan of leaving London before he found Q.
"According to the data on the drive, he's somewhere in the United Kingdom, but the last thing any of our searches came up with was him living in China. It's stumped us." He sighed in aggravation. "006 is checking out his city back in China, but so far there's not even a whisper about him."
"We'll find him," James assured. The plane was moving into the gate now. "Any word from Moneypenny?"
Another sigh, this time more tired than aggravated. "Yes. She's out there on the streets, apparently. Checks in every hour so we know she's not dead. Good of her and all, but I don't know what she expects to find out in Haringey. Nothing about Carver suggests he's in London. I think she's starting to crack under pressure."
"She's not looking for Carver," James corrected just as the seatbelt sign turned off. "And she's not cracking. She's looking for the branch of Spectre Mr. White claims operates out of London. I'm joining her as soon as I get off this bloody plane."
"You believe Mr. White?" Tanner asked. James grabbed his carry-on bag, his only bag, and began the awkward shuffle to get off the plane.
"For now, yes I do."
Eve answered the next time he called. She was on a bench by the river, and she sounded like she'd been crying, or was about to break down at any moment. She'd been to Q's house, to his work, to Prufrock, and she had found no trace of where Q had gone.
"God, I shouldn't have let him go home alone," she said, self-hatred dripping from her words. "I should have taken him out for coffee or tea or something. I should have gotten him to talk to me."
James could see her from his spot on the sidewalk, but he didn't approach. The building where Q worked was just past her, and James had been headed there when he finally gotten through to her. But now he waited. Her best friend was missing, and he wasn't sure how to console her.
"This isn't your fault, Eve," he said. "This is Riley and Blofeld. You should head back to the office and start a search into Riley and his son."
She took a long, shuddering breath before nodding. "You're right. I'm not doing any good sitting out here, wallowing. I'll get R and her team to search traffic cameras and see if we can't follow Q's trail."
"While you're at it, see how many of Riley's properties could be safe houses. See how many are empty." James crossed the street as she stood and hid himself behind a tree. "If Riley has Q, it'll be in one of his properties."
"Good thinking. I'll use the cameras to track those two as well. But what are you going to do?" she asked.
James smiled and left his tree to keep walking down the sidewalk, in the opposite direction of Eve. "I'm heading to Riley's office to see if I can find any clues. Call me when you find anything. Together we're gonna catch this bastard and find Q."
"I'll admit, you're brimming confidence and simmering rage fill me with quite a bit of hope, James."
"Anytime, Miss Moneypenny," he replied with a smile and ended the call.
The entrance to Riley's place of business was unassuming. In a word, it could even be called boring. But, James supposed, if you were trying to covertly use a place as a front for an international kidnapping operation, boring is what you'd desire. No one looks twice at a boring storefront.
When he walked in, there was beep in the back office on the alarm system and a lovely looking woman walked out to greet him. Her radically short hair was dyed blonde, and her roots were starting to show. Spectre must not pay as well as James thought.
"Good morning," she greeted briskly, but not altogether unkindly. Her voice was hinted with a Dutch accent. "Do you have an appointment?"
"Afraid not," James said with a smile. Then he pointed at a photo markup on the wall of a handsome couple in front of a brand new house. "Was in the market for a new house, actually. I have some cargo to move in from up north and I heard this was the place to inquire about getting some help in that area."
The Dutch woman's eyes narrowed just a hair, but then she was smiling again, although it was a tad tight. "Have a seat. I'll check on Mr. Cane and see if we can fit you in."
"Thank you." He bowed his head but did not sit down in one of the orange plastic chairs along the wall.
As soon as she stepped out of view, he walked the perimeter of the room, glancing down the hall where she'd come from and down the one she left through. Her desk was technically in another room, but there was no door and only glass was between her and the entrance.
Keeping an ear out for her footsteps, James entered the office and moved straight for her computer. From his pocket, he pulled a thumb drive. In a move that was out of character, R had met him at the airport, and she'd handed him the small device with a disapproving look.
"I'm not doing this because I forgive you," she said, "But put this in a computer on their mainframe and I can help you find Q."
Maybe it was tracking information. Maybe it was a virus. James didn't know. James didn't care. As soon as he put the drive in, the computer screen flickered, but then all appeared normal. Assuming it was doing its job, James took the time to leaf through the folders on the desk. Nothing said Q or mentioned a Daniel. But he did see several papers with the S.P.E.C.T.R.E. logo on them.
Down the hall, a door opened and James quickly made his way back to the waiting room and pretended to be admiring a painting hung on the wall opposite the propaganda. The Dutch woman's smile was forced when she spotted him.
"Mr. Cane apologizes, but he's got meetings all day. I can schedule you for tomorrow if you'd like," she said.
"That would be lovely," James agreed. "The name is Richard Sterling."
She disappeared around the corner and then he watched her typing on her computer for a short moment. If she looked behind the screen and at the actual computer, she'd notice the flash drive, but unless she had to plug in something of her own, James doubted she would. After a few tense moments, she reappeared and handed him a business card with an appointment on it.
"So tomorrow morning at ten: One meeting with Riley Cane. You're all set, Mr. Sterling. And I hope we can help you with your cargo." The way she stressed the last word told James everything he needed to know about Riley. Ex-con or not, Mr. White was on to something. Riley was part of Spectre and helping smuggle things out of the country.
"I sincerely hope so," James said, taking the card. "Tomorrow then." And he stepped outside.
Back at MI-6, Eve and James both ended up in the R&D department. R was standing near a row of computers when they entered, and she was drinking a can of some fruit drink through a straw. Despite not calling ahead to say they were coming, R's eyes were watching the two of them from the moment they stepped into the room.
"About time," she said and held up two folders full of papers. After they'd each taken one, she said, "There's a list of all the properties owned by Cane in there, plus some shots from the camera footage you put us on. Cane has been at his office all day today, but his son was out checking on a few properties. I've highlighted the addresses on the list."
"Wonderful. Thank you so much," Eve said, but she didn't raise her eyes up. She was looking through the photos. The last known appearance of Q was in the file, along with a few others. There was the shot of him leaving the tube, one of him on the street with his mobile up to his ear, and one of him turning onto the street where Riley's office was, but there were no cameras closer.
James looked at the time stamp on the second one and knew that was a photo of Q leaving James his last voicemail. His stomach clenched uncomfortably.
"Did you gather anything else interesting from their computers or just a list of their properties?" he asked.
"Oh you have no idea," R said and her usually stoic face broke into an actual grin. "For starters, Cane has regular contact with a man named Oberhauser. Did a little digging there, and it's a verified codename used by Blofeld back before we ever heard of SPECTRE. So I did some looking into Cane as well, and don't you know it? He didn't even exist a decade ago. As far as I can tell, he just popped into existence the same time as his building company – six years ago."
"That doesn't make any sense," Eve murmured, finding pages in the file that detailed emails between Blofeld and Riley.
"No it doesn't. Not on its own. But I had an idea, so I cross checked." She looked and sounded pleased with herself, but James wished she'd skip the dramatic pauses and go straight for the punch line. "Remember that one rogue SPECTRE agent no one can find?"
"You're not suggesting Riley Cane is Elliot Carver," Eve interrupted.
"I am. Carver disappeared a month before Cane appears in any documentation." R poked Eve's file definitely. "The facts don't lie, Miss Moneypenny."
Pulling the file away, Eve countered with, "But facts can be misread and twisted."
But James didn't doubt R's conclusion. He held his file firmly and nodded. "Thank you," he said. "Come on, Miss Moneypenny."
For once, it was not James that gave R a curt nod and a disapproving stare before taking their leave. Not that the treatment seemed to bother the head of R&D in the slightest. She was probably so used to it from James that Eve's attempt felt like flattery.
In the elevator to return to the main lobby, Eve finally spoke. "You don't believe that, do you?" she asked.
"I think it's a valid conclusion, actually," James responded and then inclined his head toward her. "But aren't you focusing on the wrong puzzle piece right now? Does it matter if Riley Cane is Elliot Carver or just some real estate mogul that happened to get involved with a crime syndicate? Or is it more important to focus on the fact that Riley Cane, member of Spectre, has kidnapped your best friend and done God knows what to him?"
Perhaps she only pouted in return, but James knew the answer. It mattered very little who Riley was. For now, he was just the asshole standing between James and Q. As soon as they reached ground level, James would be heading out to search the Cane properties. He would find Q and rescue him if need be, and then the whole of MI-6 could burn Cane to the ground or decide he wasn't worth their trouble. At that point, James honestly couldn't care.
But first he had to find Q.
"I'll coordinate from here," Eve spoke up just as the elevator hit the lobby floor. She motioned up toward M's office on a higher floor, up where her desk was waiting. "And be careful."
"Always," James lied with a tight smile and stepped off the elevator.
Even without the special circumstances, James was rarely considered careful. Reckless and rude, absolutely, but never careful. Given what was at stake this time – Q's life and a promised plethora of other kidnapped victims – James found that not only was he going to be his usual level of reckless, but he would probably risk even more than normal.
Despite knowing what would happen, James pulled out his mobile and dialed Q. It went straight to voicemail, but James didn't hang up.
After the beep, he took a soft breath and said, "Whatever they've done, Q, don't give in. Never give in."
He wanted to promise to find Q and save him, but in his mind he just heard the words of previous marks and agents reminding him that promises were very difficult to keep in his line of work. A flimsy promise was arguably worse than no promise at all. So he didn't promise to find Q and rescue him, because there was such a looming possibility that there would be no one to find, that the worst had happened and-
So he didn't promise that.
But he could promise one thing, so before the beep cut him off he said, "I'm coming for you." Because nothing on Earth was going to stop James Bond from searching until he found the answers, whether he liked them or not.
A/N: Sorry for the delay in posting today. If you liked the chapter, please consider leaving a comment. ^_^
