Maybe it was the shock of 9/11 that caused Mater and Pater Bond to fall off a Swiss mountain?
"I'd never have sold weapons to the Afghanistanians if I'd known things would turn out this way!" Andrew Bond shouted. "But, you see, at the time they were trying to kick the Russians out!"
James Bond smiled sympathetically at his father. Talk of the Russians in Afghanistan made him remember a childhood memory of watching Rambo III, starring his boyhood hero Sylvester Stallone.
Now, though, his blood was running cold. It seemed that these former freedom fighters now hated freedom, and also hated the free world. Why, at this very moment, there might be men in caves in rogue states like Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, ready to unleash nuclear weapons and even weapons of mass destruction on America and her allies. As well as freedom-loving and friendly countries like Saudi Arabia, America's allies included England.
Bond's cold blue eyes became colder. Suddenly, he knew what he had to do.
"I say, Pater," he remarked, "I've decided not to take that gap year teaching English in Japan. Neither do I have any interest in being a merchant banker any more."
"Judging by the sounds that were emanating from your bedroom last night, you could have fooled me!" his childhood friend Pritpal Nandra interjected drily. "It strikes me that you're still very keen on, shall we say, keeping your hand in when it comes to merchant banking!"
Bond ignored Pritpal. Pritpal was using England's famous Cockney Rhyming Slang to call him a wanker, or someone who masturbated. He was used to his teasing and didn't mind it - in fact, he quite enjoyed it. He knew that Pritpal was a good egg, which is a term of affection used among English people. Pritpal would soon succeed his father as King of India, but he had promised to introduce democracy. Bond loved democracy. He also loved freedom and thought that freedom and democracy were the foundations of all the great nations he admired, such as the United States, Germany and China.
"You're not.... You're not planning to get involved in one of those 'dot com start-up' things?" Andrew Bond asked his son.
"Have no fear, Pater," came the reply. "What I have in mind involves saving the planet."
"You're becoming an 'environmentalist'? What, like that fellow from that band you like, Coldplay? When I was your age, music was all about anarchy - you know, The Sex Pistols and so on. 'Get pissed! Destroy!' Ha ha! So, you're going to work for an NGO? It's all the rage, isn't it? I dare say that the government will one day have a 'climate change minister', what? I'll be long gone by then, thank God. Well, I suppose you could do worse. People at the top of those organisations can make a couple of hundred thou a year, I'm told."
"No," James Bond responded. "I don't plan on saving the world in that sense. I have decided to join---- well, actually, I can't tell you. I can't tell anyone, in fact - it's one of the rules. When one applies to this organisation, one is not allowed even to mention to one's family or friends that one is applying."
"Ha!" Andrew Bond ejaculated. "You almost make it sound as though you're considering MI6!"
They all laughed at the absurdity of this idea, and then James Bond and Pritpal made their excuses and walked off down the mountain path. They were going to check their Hotmail accounts and perhaps listen to some music. At the time, James Bond's favourite band was Bush - they were wildly popular in England, and indeed second only to Garth Brooks in terms of being universally loved all over England from Cardiff to Penzance and from London to Glasgow. And then suddenly there came a scream - two screams, in fact. His parents had fallen off the mountain!
