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A Fan Fic; The assassin's psychology.
Prologue; Red Indians
A Russian had once accused James Bond of
Edited by Qwerty, 10 February 2005 - 08:53 PM.
The Assassin's Psychology
Started by
Mr_Incognito
, Feb 08 2005 10:43 AM
1 reply to this topic
#1
Mr_Incognito
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- Crew
- 78 posts
Midshipman
Posted 08 February 2005 - 10:43 AM
A Fan Fic; The assassin's psychology.
Prologue; Red Indians
A Russian had once accused James Bond of
#2
Mr_Incognito
-
- Crew
- 78 posts
Midshipman
Posted 09 February 2005 - 12:21 PM
Chapter Two; The anatomy of a secret
Bond’s flight home had been long. Too long. The first leg had been aboard an America West Airlines craft; a torturous journey lasting 5 hours and 1 minute (according to a captain whose voice rivalled anaesthetic for potency) before finally the plane had hit the tarmac of JFK in New York. Of all the cities in America, Bond cherished New York above others; a varied metropolis veering intermittently between grandeur and honesty in whose company he would have enjoyed spending more time. The stopover had lasted ninety minutes in which Bond had changed and washed, a privilege afforded by first class travel, and slowly took in a cup of the strongest coffee he could find. Prompted by a soft, vaguely seductive voice, Bond had boarded the leviathan British Airways A380 waiting at Terminal 7; feeling obliged to admit how impressed he was with the aircraft, and how pleased he had been that the airline with who he regularly flew had added a number to their fleet. Half expecting the massive aircraft to fail in its struggle to achieve take-off, Bond had ordered a drink and nestled himself into the plush leather seat, secure within the expansive first class upper deck of the aircraft. Two hours into a flight predicted to last seven, Bond learned of the assassin’s attack in London and M impressed upon his top agent’s mind that no-one was in fact beyond the reach of MI6. The pretty, thin-fingered stewardess conveyed another drink in Bond’s direction.
“Your drink, Mr. Bond,” and set it down atop a pure white napkin.
“But I didn’t…” Bond protested, simultaneously admiring her dedication to customer service; that she should know his name.
“It’s complimentary,” she smiled and retreated swiftly. Damned nuisance, Bond thought, her running off like that. His desire to someday marry a stewardess had not diminished in these last few years. He knocked the drink back, it had been a short martini not mixed to Bond’s ordinary requirements. He would have to teach the girl a few lessons; certainly a few notes spread liberally about Heathrow should reveal her name. Smiling at the possibilities he hoped to exploit, Bond patted his lips with the napkin. There was writing; an old trick Bond had thought relegated to the realms of poorly written detective novels.
Mr. Bond, message from Mr. Robinson;
Zone 1 FLASH on the N-7.
Your presence required direct your arrival in London.
The thin curves of her handwriting conveyed a grim occurrence, a code ripped from a thick volume; a huge mass of paper bound together that is priceless should one hope to understand the official communications of Britain’s more secret services. As the hot metal casings escaped the assassin’s rifle and clattered to cobbled stone, this same signal had fled transmitters all over Britain. The ‘Zone 1 FLASH’ detailed within this signal denoted an event within the London Metropolitan Area; GCHQ (the General Communications Headquarters) has divided the British Isles in 512 ‘Zones’ for such communications and Zone 1 is predictably London Metropolitan. A ‘FLASH’ is the most serious of Military transmissions; an order for all other communications to cease and signal operators across the country to await details of the momentous incident that has befallen England. In the instance of the assassin’s slaughter they did not have to wait long. Soon the second signal invaded their ears through expensive earpieces; it was simply ‘N7.’ An attack. An attack that has claimed lives. Within minutes, members of Parliament were dragged from whatever preoccupations they had been engaged in and before the first police vehicle of ambulance had left station for the site of the assassin’s attack, the Prime Minister found himself pushed into a cramped briefing room. Upon his own receipt of this signal, probably conveyed by Robinson of Tanner, M would have ripped his red telephone from its cradle and demanded he be put through to the head of MI5, the Minister of Defence and the chief Constable respectively. What the nature of the attack had been, how Bond fit into his superiors’ plans and why they’d been so desperate as to contact Bond on the plane itself were all particulars lost to him. What was not lost to him, however, was that the remaining hours of his flight were to be consumed with incessant imaginings and insatiable curiosity. Perhaps his fantasies of the stewardess could provide occasional relief.
When he arrived in London, he had been travelling non-stop for some thirteen hours; an ordeal after which Bond ordinarily required a cold shower and two day’s dreamless sleep. A courier sent by MI6, a man who ordinarily busiest himself with ferrying papers and dignitaries about, was to deposit Bond’s bags in his Chelsea flat and 007 himself had a taxi take him to an address supplied by Robinson; the sniper’s nest. A cheap newspaper purchased in the airport lobby revealed to Bond the extent of the tragedy; twenty-five people murdered in less than two minutes. Arriving at the perimeter of the police barricades and paying the driver, Bond walked along the cobbles and past the shattered windows, the splintered wood and the bloodstained chrome to the open door beneath the balcony. Police officers, Bond understood that two of their number had been among the dead, busied themselves with sterilising these surroundings; extracting evidence from all surfaces and recovering bullets that had penetrated through their victims from the objects that had stopped them. The bodies had been removed the day before.
“David Somerset, Special Branch,” it was a name the black hatted bobby had been told to expect; a simple subterfuge arranged by Vauxhall Cross. Bond’s watch revealed the time to be eleven o’clock; nearly two days, though Bond’s body told him it had been less than one, since the American West Airline plane had lifter from the tarmac. The room was, however, almost exactly the same. Forensics experts clad in white plastic scoured the tabletops, pulled fibres from the carpet. The body, thank god, was gone. Like all cruel, cold professionals, James Bond was easily dragged into sentimentality; the sight of a woman’s broken, vacated body would do his tired frame of mind no good. The forensics men, with stronger stomachs that Bond’s, would examine the body and seek to derive from it indications of her killer’s identity. Sex left its trace. He brushed silk aside and stepped onto the balcony where a discarded rifle was propped and a ballistics expert shot Bond a suspicious glance. Bond requested and received a pair of gloves then picked up the rifle. It was a HK in pristine condition; he lifted it to his eye and peered through the scope which was inaccurate. The stock also sat uncomfortably at his shoulder. An expensive rifle in pristine condition; modified? Adapted? Then abandoned. Across the street policemen milled about in the windows of buildings, one watched Bond accusingly. A new figure presented itself on the cobbles.
M greeted Bond with a brisk handshake.
“Good morning, 007,” the head of MI6 returned his hands into the deep pockets of his overcoat, “you had a good flight?” Bond affirmed his journey’s length and the two men sat on a bench whose green paint flayed too easily. With M’s permission, Bond propped a cigarette between his teeth and lit it.
“What’s the official story? What have you slapped onto the front of the papers?” The smoke contrasted comfortably with the November air.
“Madman with a high-powered rifle. An indiscriminate shooting. Terrible misfortune.” M’s way was simplistic; short sharp statements revealing what he deemed necessary and nothing more. To some it seemed brisk and rude but Bond knew it to be the tone of professionalism.
“Not so,” Bond replied, “when you plan the shot, you consider the mechanics of where you find yourself. Assuming that the primary objective here was to inflict maximum causalities, it’s a pitiful choice of site; there are one hundred and one places in this city where you could kill more people with greater ease and less risk of capture.”
“What if he’s an amateur? What if he doesn’t think things out?”
“He used a HK MSG-90, sir; it’s a professional rifle. I’ve fired one and, what’s more, the shooter had his modified with a custom stock and a calibrated sight. It says to me ‘professional.’ At least one person died not because of where they were but who they were. Targeted assassination behind a red smoke screen. But you knew that already.” It was a sweeping statement to which Bond dropped his cigarette and crushed it beneath his heel. “MI6 has no jurisdiction over affairs on British soil and yet you call me out here. Why?”
“I appreciate that you’re tired, 007. We are pushing this affair beneath the carpet, disavowing any connection to terrorism and proceeding along the ordinary lines of investigation. Occasionally, though, these official lines present our superiors with difficult decisions. Occasionally they lack the ‘political will’ to make the right choice.” His tone was conspiratorial and hushed; revealing the lie and peeling layers from the secret. “It has been suggested that a number of people stand to profit, professionally at least, in the aftermath of this attack. It has been decided that, should our investigation incriminate anyone of high station, there should be nothing to prevent us from doing the right thing.” Bond understood now. It was about deniability. M feared duplicity within the government; that some may be running parallel agendas. Bond was invisible if he chose to be. He would fear no official punishment for following his orders. “I can’t order you to take this on, Bond; I don’t have the authority but I will ask you. The head of MI5 and I have agreed upon this course, you are my top double-oh and the man I trust most.” This was the extent of M’s respect for Bond; 007 had proven his worth over countless assignments and M knew he would pursue the allotted course until success of death. His mentality made him the perfect tool of Queen and Country.
“Who’s my first port of call?” The decision made in a split second; Bond would do as M asked, as he had earned the old Admiral’s respect, the old Admiral had earned Bond’s. It was the silent respect that men who understood implicitly their respective strains shared.
“An arms dealer turned information broker in Prague. We’ve used him before and he seems trustworthy. Apply whatever pressure you must.” Bond nodded his understanding. “I took the liberty of putting you on a plane; you’ve four hours so pack, get some sleep and get cleaned up. I’ll allot you two weeks leave and have the relevant files delivered to your flat. Self-destructor bags. Good luck, 007.”
“Sir.” The two men stood and walked to opposite ends of the street. The policemen saw them, including the one whose attention had stayed on Bond throughout. Another assignment, another flight, another subterfuge. The life of a spy and the anatomy of a secret.
Bond’s flight home had been long. Too long. The first leg had been aboard an America West Airlines craft; a torturous journey lasting 5 hours and 1 minute (according to a captain whose voice rivalled anaesthetic for potency) before finally the plane had hit the tarmac of JFK in New York. Of all the cities in America, Bond cherished New York above others; a varied metropolis veering intermittently between grandeur and honesty in whose company he would have enjoyed spending more time. The stopover had lasted ninety minutes in which Bond had changed and washed, a privilege afforded by first class travel, and slowly took in a cup of the strongest coffee he could find. Prompted by a soft, vaguely seductive voice, Bond had boarded the leviathan British Airways A380 waiting at Terminal 7; feeling obliged to admit how impressed he was with the aircraft, and how pleased he had been that the airline with who he regularly flew had added a number to their fleet. Half expecting the massive aircraft to fail in its struggle to achieve take-off, Bond had ordered a drink and nestled himself into the plush leather seat, secure within the expansive first class upper deck of the aircraft. Two hours into a flight predicted to last seven, Bond learned of the assassin’s attack in London and M impressed upon his top agent’s mind that no-one was in fact beyond the reach of MI6. The pretty, thin-fingered stewardess conveyed another drink in Bond’s direction.
“Your drink, Mr. Bond,” and set it down atop a pure white napkin.
“But I didn’t…” Bond protested, simultaneously admiring her dedication to customer service; that she should know his name.
“It’s complimentary,” she smiled and retreated swiftly. Damned nuisance, Bond thought, her running off like that. His desire to someday marry a stewardess had not diminished in these last few years. He knocked the drink back, it had been a short martini not mixed to Bond’s ordinary requirements. He would have to teach the girl a few lessons; certainly a few notes spread liberally about Heathrow should reveal her name. Smiling at the possibilities he hoped to exploit, Bond patted his lips with the napkin. There was writing; an old trick Bond had thought relegated to the realms of poorly written detective novels.
Mr. Bond, message from Mr. Robinson;
Zone 1 FLASH on the N-7.
Your presence required direct your arrival in London.
The thin curves of her handwriting conveyed a grim occurrence, a code ripped from a thick volume; a huge mass of paper bound together that is priceless should one hope to understand the official communications of Britain’s more secret services. As the hot metal casings escaped the assassin’s rifle and clattered to cobbled stone, this same signal had fled transmitters all over Britain. The ‘Zone 1 FLASH’ detailed within this signal denoted an event within the London Metropolitan Area; GCHQ (the General Communications Headquarters) has divided the British Isles in 512 ‘Zones’ for such communications and Zone 1 is predictably London Metropolitan. A ‘FLASH’ is the most serious of Military transmissions; an order for all other communications to cease and signal operators across the country to await details of the momentous incident that has befallen England. In the instance of the assassin’s slaughter they did not have to wait long. Soon the second signal invaded their ears through expensive earpieces; it was simply ‘N7.’ An attack. An attack that has claimed lives. Within minutes, members of Parliament were dragged from whatever preoccupations they had been engaged in and before the first police vehicle of ambulance had left station for the site of the assassin’s attack, the Prime Minister found himself pushed into a cramped briefing room. Upon his own receipt of this signal, probably conveyed by Robinson of Tanner, M would have ripped his red telephone from its cradle and demanded he be put through to the head of MI5, the Minister of Defence and the chief Constable respectively. What the nature of the attack had been, how Bond fit into his superiors’ plans and why they’d been so desperate as to contact Bond on the plane itself were all particulars lost to him. What was not lost to him, however, was that the remaining hours of his flight were to be consumed with incessant imaginings and insatiable curiosity. Perhaps his fantasies of the stewardess could provide occasional relief.
When he arrived in London, he had been travelling non-stop for some thirteen hours; an ordeal after which Bond ordinarily required a cold shower and two day’s dreamless sleep. A courier sent by MI6, a man who ordinarily busiest himself with ferrying papers and dignitaries about, was to deposit Bond’s bags in his Chelsea flat and 007 himself had a taxi take him to an address supplied by Robinson; the sniper’s nest. A cheap newspaper purchased in the airport lobby revealed to Bond the extent of the tragedy; twenty-five people murdered in less than two minutes. Arriving at the perimeter of the police barricades and paying the driver, Bond walked along the cobbles and past the shattered windows, the splintered wood and the bloodstained chrome to the open door beneath the balcony. Police officers, Bond understood that two of their number had been among the dead, busied themselves with sterilising these surroundings; extracting evidence from all surfaces and recovering bullets that had penetrated through their victims from the objects that had stopped them. The bodies had been removed the day before.
“David Somerset, Special Branch,” it was a name the black hatted bobby had been told to expect; a simple subterfuge arranged by Vauxhall Cross. Bond’s watch revealed the time to be eleven o’clock; nearly two days, though Bond’s body told him it had been less than one, since the American West Airline plane had lifter from the tarmac. The room was, however, almost exactly the same. Forensics experts clad in white plastic scoured the tabletops, pulled fibres from the carpet. The body, thank god, was gone. Like all cruel, cold professionals, James Bond was easily dragged into sentimentality; the sight of a woman’s broken, vacated body would do his tired frame of mind no good. The forensics men, with stronger stomachs that Bond’s, would examine the body and seek to derive from it indications of her killer’s identity. Sex left its trace. He brushed silk aside and stepped onto the balcony where a discarded rifle was propped and a ballistics expert shot Bond a suspicious glance. Bond requested and received a pair of gloves then picked up the rifle. It was a HK in pristine condition; he lifted it to his eye and peered through the scope which was inaccurate. The stock also sat uncomfortably at his shoulder. An expensive rifle in pristine condition; modified? Adapted? Then abandoned. Across the street policemen milled about in the windows of buildings, one watched Bond accusingly. A new figure presented itself on the cobbles.
M greeted Bond with a brisk handshake.
“Good morning, 007,” the head of MI6 returned his hands into the deep pockets of his overcoat, “you had a good flight?” Bond affirmed his journey’s length and the two men sat on a bench whose green paint flayed too easily. With M’s permission, Bond propped a cigarette between his teeth and lit it.
“What’s the official story? What have you slapped onto the front of the papers?” The smoke contrasted comfortably with the November air.
“Madman with a high-powered rifle. An indiscriminate shooting. Terrible misfortune.” M’s way was simplistic; short sharp statements revealing what he deemed necessary and nothing more. To some it seemed brisk and rude but Bond knew it to be the tone of professionalism.
“Not so,” Bond replied, “when you plan the shot, you consider the mechanics of where you find yourself. Assuming that the primary objective here was to inflict maximum causalities, it’s a pitiful choice of site; there are one hundred and one places in this city where you could kill more people with greater ease and less risk of capture.”
“What if he’s an amateur? What if he doesn’t think things out?”
“He used a HK MSG-90, sir; it’s a professional rifle. I’ve fired one and, what’s more, the shooter had his modified with a custom stock and a calibrated sight. It says to me ‘professional.’ At least one person died not because of where they were but who they were. Targeted assassination behind a red smoke screen. But you knew that already.” It was a sweeping statement to which Bond dropped his cigarette and crushed it beneath his heel. “MI6 has no jurisdiction over affairs on British soil and yet you call me out here. Why?”
“I appreciate that you’re tired, 007. We are pushing this affair beneath the carpet, disavowing any connection to terrorism and proceeding along the ordinary lines of investigation. Occasionally, though, these official lines present our superiors with difficult decisions. Occasionally they lack the ‘political will’ to make the right choice.” His tone was conspiratorial and hushed; revealing the lie and peeling layers from the secret. “It has been suggested that a number of people stand to profit, professionally at least, in the aftermath of this attack. It has been decided that, should our investigation incriminate anyone of high station, there should be nothing to prevent us from doing the right thing.” Bond understood now. It was about deniability. M feared duplicity within the government; that some may be running parallel agendas. Bond was invisible if he chose to be. He would fear no official punishment for following his orders. “I can’t order you to take this on, Bond; I don’t have the authority but I will ask you. The head of MI5 and I have agreed upon this course, you are my top double-oh and the man I trust most.” This was the extent of M’s respect for Bond; 007 had proven his worth over countless assignments and M knew he would pursue the allotted course until success of death. His mentality made him the perfect tool of Queen and Country.
“Who’s my first port of call?” The decision made in a split second; Bond would do as M asked, as he had earned the old Admiral’s respect, the old Admiral had earned Bond’s. It was the silent respect that men who understood implicitly their respective strains shared.
“An arms dealer turned information broker in Prague. We’ve used him before and he seems trustworthy. Apply whatever pressure you must.” Bond nodded his understanding. “I took the liberty of putting you on a plane; you’ve four hours so pack, get some sleep and get cleaned up. I’ll allot you two weeks leave and have the relevant files delivered to your flat. Self-destructor bags. Good luck, 007.”
“Sir.” The two men stood and walked to opposite ends of the street. The policemen saw them, including the one whose attention had stayed on Bond throughout. Another assignment, another flight, another subterfuge. The life of a spy and the anatomy of a secret.
Edited by Mr_Incognito, 09 February 2005 - 02:05 PM.