Cold Light of Day
Chapter Text
The dream came to him again, but this time he didn't enter it during some brutality or humiliation. Instead, he was in his cell, a damp, concrete box with a cold sleeping mat stuffed into one corner to avoid the constant dripping of fetid water from the ceiling. Bond sat, knees pulled to his chest, his arms wrapped around them to marshal his body heat and waited for what came next. In life, when he was there, he would roll the various possibilities through his mind—the ice-water tank, electrical shocks, scorpions—familiarizing himself with them so that when the time came, whatever torture they'd decided on would have lost its power. He waited. Even without a means to tell time, he could tell that it was too long. They should have come by now. More time went by. He wondered if they had forgotten about him, or if they had something else to occupy their time. Finally, the view slat in his steel door slid aside, revealing Jechul's eyes. He knew them as intimately as any lover's he'd ever had. She said nothing, just stared at him. Bond stared back. He'd long ago stopped taunting the guards, deciding silence was a better course. So, he just met her gaze and waited for what came next. But nothing did. They just stayed that way, staring into each other's eyes with a steel door between them, until the dream faded into wakefulness.
The next day-the day of the operation-came wan and cold with a pale sun struggling in vain against a caul of sodden, grey clouds and the city is brushed over in a dull patina. It was the sort of day that makes a person mark time until dusk, and Bond spent his day alternately making a series of domestic and international phone calls and exercising at the hotel fitness center. It was a garishly-lit, heavily mirrored expanse filled with pristine equipment, which appeared never to have been used. Bond had the entirety of it to himself and alternately worked his arms and his shoulders—rebuilding the muscles he'd lost while a prisoner—and sprinting on a treadmill to build his stamina.
In the early evening, he found a good Greek restaurant nearby and had a grilled octopus appetizer that was tender with the perfect amount of char on the flesh, followed by an order ofpaidakia—spring lamb chops, which made a nice contrast with the seafood appetizer. He had a single cocktail to brace his nerves, then paid the bill, and returned to the snowswept streets and back to his hotel.
For the evening, he chose a simple, single-breasted navy wool suit with a light blue shirt from Turnbull & Asser, and a black tie with a pebbled pattern. Then he slithered into his shoulder holster and checked the action of his Walther P99 and secured the extra magazines in their pouches. Judy had been in his room and could have conceivably tampered with the gun somehow, but he doubted it and wasn't going to discard his primary weapon on a hunch. He loaded up his pockets with all the encumbrances of the early 21st-century: cell phone, PDA, wallet, and then secreted the various pieces of equipment Peart and Judy had given him. He took one last look at himself –not in the mirror, but as an indistinct reflection in the window filled with the glittering lights of the city and the sparkling snow flurries that buffeted it, a ghost-and left his room.
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