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CAPTAIN TIGHTPANTS presents DANIEL CRAIG
as IAN FLEMING'S JAMES BOND 007
in
A KIND WORD ALONE
"You can get much further with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone"
~ Quote attributed to Al Capone
1 – Narcokleptocracy
Somewhere in the English Channel
With a spray of white foam, the hull of the MV Spica easily carved its way through the surging seas, unfazed by the angry swell that surged about it. Built at the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries shipyard in Nagasaki, Japan some eleven years previously, she had at one stage of her life been the world’s largest container ship, with the capacity to carry eight thousand twenty-foot steel containers across the world at any one time. She was now registered out of Zeebrugge in Belgium, serving the majority of Europe’s sea-going freight needs. This particular voyage, however, was connecting Naples with London.
The English Channel seemed a reluctant host to the Spica, presenting as a roiling sea capped with breakers and sprayed with intermittent rain that fell almost horizontally in a temperamental rain. It was hardly enough to dislodge one of the containers stacked on her deck, much less capsize the ship; the bark of the Channel was far worse than its bite. But it seemed to sense that the Spica did not belong. The Channel played host to as many as four hundred ships per day, but at this early hour, the Spica was the only one that was moving, and at its current rate it would arrive in London long before the docks would be ready to receive it.
As the deck was assailed with another burst of rain, a lone figure could be seen slipping through the narrow gaps between the large blocks of containers. Most of the crew would be in the comfort of their quarters at this time of night, and most of the crew certainly were, for the man inching his way down the main deck, protected from the elements by the steel canyons of the containers was not one of them. He moved cautiously, for the whistle of the wind was echoed again and again in the narrow corridor, and without warning a burst of lightning illuminated the face of James Bond.
Reaching the end of the row, he broke from his cover and hurried across the short section of exposed deck between the containers and the main tower at the rear of the ship. The wet deck was slippery, but his rubber-soled shoes provided plenty of grip as he darted into a door set at the very base of the tower. The inside was well-lit, smelling faintly of sea water and some industrial cleaner, as if someone had simply flooded the interior with soap and water to clean it out. He started climbing a wide set of stairs, intending to find the bridge of the ship. His objective was simple: to find the cargo manifest and alert the Coast Guard if he found anything suspicious. Under normal circumstance it would hardly be an assignment for a Double-Oh Agent, but MI6 suspected that the notorious ‘Ndrangheta, Italy’s fastest-growing and most violent organised crime family, was attempting to smuggle several million pounds’ worth of recreation drugs into England with this shipment.
Bond reached the top of the stairs without incident, taking care to tread as lightly as possible; with each passing step he felt more and more like the intruder that he was. The door to the bridge was slightly ajar and he could see shadows moving about within. Someone was there to make sure the ship stayed on course; he had been expecting as much. In one fluid motion he crossed the hallway to the open door and slipped into the bridge with his gun drawn. Whoever had drawn the proverbial short straw and had been tasked with guiding the ship had his back turned, seemingly involved with whatever he was doing. Bond started towards him, but halfway across the man turned and presented Bond with the ugly barrel of a shotgun. His mind barely had time to register the appearance of the gun before he was forced to dive away, the deafening shot blasting into the wide window that ran the length of the bridge. The glass spider-webbed, obscuring the view of the horizon, but Bond had other problems: the blast of the shot gun had probably awoken every single person aboard the boat. At least it confirmed that something was happening aboard the Spica and that Bond’s presence was not a waste of time.
As his attacked stopped to reload, Bond took the initiative and pounced on the man. Caught unawares, he fired at random, blasting another hole in the window. Bond crouched and drove his shoulder into the man’s torso, forcing him backwards like a rugby player until they slammed up against the back wall of the bridge. The shotgun fell to the ground as the attacker brought his elbows down hard against Bond’s back, looking to break a rib or three. Bond countered with a pair of quick punches designed to shock the kidneys, and then followed through with a knee to the groin. He was about to continue when the room was bathed in light from outside, and Bond dropped to the ground instinctively, just in time to avoid a devastating hail of fire that blasted the wide window to shards. Someone – most likely one of the other sailors – had summoned a helicopter for help, which had had not heard over the sounds of the shotgun and the ensuing fight. It had most likely been following the Spica at a distance, but that did not matter now.
The helicopter made another pass, sweeping its searchlight across the room for Bond, and he had to make a decision. Outside in the tower proper, the sounds of footsteps could be heard storming up the stairwell like a bass line to the staccato sounds of the helicopter passing by. Bond rose and ran to the ajar door, throwing his weight against it until it closed and bolting it shot. A second door sat directly opposite on the other side of the bridge, but it was already closed. Bond did not know how much time it would buy him, but he assumed that it would provide little – if any – obstacle to his pursuers, even if it only bolted from the inside.
Seeing the shotgun lying on the floor, Bond quickly gained an idea. It was a Benelli M4 ‘Super 90’, an Italian-made semi-automatic shotgun that held several rounds. He scooped it up and crouched on the floor of the bridge, checking to make sure it was loaded and waiting for the helicopter to come back again. As if on cue, it swept past a moment again, shining its spotlight into the room. Bond steadily took aim and fired, the second shot blasting the spotlight apart in a shower of sparks. The helicopter slowed instantly and steadied itself, allowing Bond to see the shooter. He was sitting on the edge of an open door, protected by a safety harness that was anchored inside the helicopter. Devoid of the spotlight, the helicopter had to slow down to give the shooter the opportunity to spot Bond.
For his part, Bond had been hoping they would use a setup like this. He picked himself up again and started firing the few remaining shells at the shooter before throwing the empty gun away. The shooter slumped forward and then fell, dead, from his perch, held in place by the safety tether. Without its shooter, the helicopter started to pull away, lifting up and out of sight and leaving Bond with a single chance. He surged forward, scrambling over the controls of the bridge and through the remnants of the destroyed window, using his momentum to propel himself out over nearly fifty feet of nothingness as the door burst open behind him. His outstretched hands grasped the dangling safety tether and he swung across the void like a pendulum. He let go as the swing reached its zenith, falling a few metres down onto the stacks of containers on the deck and rolling across them, their iron ribs bruising his own.
But the ordeal was not over yet. Bond barely had time to catch his breath before the helicopter was back, someone having cut the tether and letting the dead shooter fall. It started circling him, strafing around and trying to get its rotor blades as close to Bond as possible. He was forced to dodge back and forth with each run, the blades seeming to get closer with every passing run. Bond could not keep this up forever; the helicopter seemed to be shepherding him in the direction of the edge of the container ship, and all it would take was one mistimed lunge for him to fall into the sea or meet his end at the hands of the helicopter. He needed a way out, and he needed one soon.
Strangely enough, he got it almost straight away.
As the helicopter was making its near-suicidal runs at Bond, the crew of the Spica had been furiously working to turn the ship’s prow around, and in a momentary respite, Bond saw why. The lights of a second, much larger ship, were directly in front of the Spica, and judging by the four hemispherical constructs that ran its length, it was loaded with natural gas. It was too close for the Spica to slow down in time, and so the crew had taken to accelerating in an effort to turn as quickly as possible, which was no mean feat given its size. The MV Alexia II, on the other hand – it was close enough for Bond to see the enormous letters painted along its bow – was attempting to reverse in time, but as it had been at a standstill until it had sighted the Spica and gauged what it was attempting to do, it was moving very slowly.
The helicopter swung around again, this time attempting to mow Bond down by flying at him head-on and banking away so that the rotor blades were tilted over once more, and the pilot made his fatal mistake. The Spica and the Alexia II were now so close that he had to fly out over both ships to line them up, and in the bright lights from the larger Alexia II, he misjudged the position of a taut cable that had been stretched its length to hang lights from, and flew straight into it. The lighting gantry was torn from its supports as the cable became wrapped up in the rotor blades and the pilot instantly lost control, nosediving on a path that would lead straight to the containers stacked aboard the Spica. It hit them as a slight angle that was enough to pitch it into a wild roll, its momentum carrying it the length of the Spica’s deck. Or, more accurately, across the top of the iron-ribbed containers before coming to rest on the deck proper after running out of containers to bounce across. Bond was forced to throw himself into the narrow corridor that ran down the very centre of the deck, stretching his arms across its width to support his weight as the helicopter rolled harmlessly overhead.
He was considering shimmying down between the stacks of containers when he saw nothing but the hull of the Alexia II directly in front of him. Collision was inevitable, and to stay in the corridor would most likely result in Bond being crushed if the stacks of containers fell. It would take an incredible impact to dislodge on, but the Alexia II was an incredible ship. Bond hauled himself back up onto the slick surface of the containers and braced himself for the impact.
When it came, it sounded like the end of the world, a resounding boom followed by a rending shriek of metal upon metal. The crew of the Spica had turned the ship enough so that the hull of the Alexia II would guide its course without damaging its body, but that only meant that the sound went on container ship mated with supertanker. Bond had other problems, as the impact was enough to overbalance the stacks of containers aboard the Spica, and he felt them slowly but surely starting to tip over. He started scrambling across the surface of the collapsing stack, half-running and half-sliding his way down. When he felt that the drop was survivable, he jumped down onto the deck, rolling to break his fall, and with a lurch the Spica came to a halt; the collision with the Alexia II had steadily shaved its speed off. The sudden stop was enough to dislodge one of the containers that had not toppled over the side of the Spica, and it came crashing down a few feet behind Bond, splitting open like an over-ripe melon and spilling its contents across the deck.
Separated from the crew of the Spica by a jungle of fallen containers, Bond took a moment to observe the containers contents. Thousands of small plastic bottles were strewn across the wet deck, the kind one would expect to find in a pharmacy. None of them bore their prescription labels as yet, Bond noted as he cracked one open. A handful of small white tablets landed in his hand. Sifting through the broken ones, he studied them closely. Not one pill carried the inscription that marked it as the type of it was, whether paracetamol for a headache, pseudoephedrine for influenza, or any one of the thousands of medications Britons took daily. The inscriptions were mandatory and were found all over the world, and as the bottle had been sealed before Bond opened it, he doubted they were going to be carved once the ship docked. His mind quickly settled on two possibilities: that these were either counterfeit medications or, more likely, recreational drugs. Counterfeiters would know about the markings and would be careful to include them. Whoever had sent the drugs had been clever, but not careful enough.
Scooping up several of the undamaged bottles, Bond started looking for a way out. The crew of the Spica were steadily picking their way over the forest of fallen containers, and so Bond took the opportunity to disappear into the small tunnel that had once been the corridor between the stacks of containers. He had to stoop slightly to fit in, and the fallen containers had made something of a maze running between them, but he steadily made progress towards the stern of the boat. He was hoping to board the Alexia II somehow; the crew would no doubt have reported the incident and the Port Authority would send an aerial team out to ensure there were no casualties. He could catch a ride with them and fly back to London in time to stop the Spica from unloading its cargo, though it was unlikely the ship would be allowed to unload anything until the crew explained the incident.
Bond emerged back out from under the precarious mound to see that the Spica had not passed the Alexia II in its entirety, and that the anchor of the second ship was still on the sea floor. It was wet and understandably slimy, but Bond was able to start using it as an improvised ladder of sorts, climbing up to the deck of the Alexia II. Several crew members were leaning against the railing, doubt watching the Spica with concern. They gave a start as Bond appeared, bruised, bloodied, and dressed in something that was hardly a seaman’s attire, but he ignored them, instead scanning the horizon for signs of the Port Authority’s presence and his ticket back to London.