HOSTILE TAKEOVER

THREE

He bent low to aid his line of sight, but the rider was gone. Bond could now see that the tunnel was quite long before it curved to the left maybe three hundred meters in the distance. Bond sprinted as fast as he could through the long straight corridor until he approached the bend in the tunnel and was dismayed to see that it now branched out into three other tunnels. The echoed sound of the Bike came from one of them? But which one?

It was foolish to run after the Rider, even if they had a damaged bike, Bond would still not be able to keep up with it, and what if he went down the wrong tunnel?

Bond had been taught to think outside the box in any situation, but this situation was futile.

Bond knew that there would be no Cell phone reception down here so he didn’t even bother making a call.

He took up a light jog back along the corridor and he could now see that the entire wall was made from off white colored human skulls and bones.

Hundreds, thousands, millions of lives buried here.

He stopped up ahead as a plaque explained that in over 200 miles of tunnel, over 6 million bodies had been used to create this spectacle of death-The Paris Catacombs.

In the 1700’s, human bodies were piled up and left to rot in the street so the Parisian government decided that all the bodies should be removed to a quarry which was just on the outskirts of Paris. As more and more bodies began to be dumped there, the people began to expand the quarry into tunnels which led directly under the City.

This is the reason that some areas of Paris have small buildings as there is no way to build adequate foundations due to the tunnels.

The French resistance also used the tunnels back in double you double you two.

The ancient silent cries of pain and suffering, the chaos of murder and the stench of death was forever marked in this grizzly tomb.

A sign read Arrête! C’est ici L’empire de la Morte – Stop! This is the Empire of the dead, but Bond was more concerned with adding someone else to that ever growing empire as he ran back towards the main entrance.

As he neared the opening, his cell phone began to vibrate in his pocket and he quickly asked a question knowing who it was who had called.

“Q. I’ve lost the Assassin. He’s in the subterranean levels. Is there any way at all we can find him?”

The calm and relaxed voice of the Quartermaster answered.

“Where are you? It doesn’t matter. I’ve got you on GPS now. Tanner has informed me what’s happened.”

“Look I’m outside an entranced to the Catacombs. There must be a way to track him. He was riding a black motorbike.” said Bond.

As he waited for a reply from Q a small group of people began to walk towards where he had abandoned the Smart car and were the Rider had smashed through the door.

“Just a moment; I’m linking into the French police CCTV system.”

Bond walked back to the Smart car and climbed inside. He still had his Walther in his hand and as people who were genuinely concerned as to what had happened saw the weapon, they backed away, calling the authorities as they did.

“Bond. Got it! It’s a Hayabusa. One of the fastest production bikes in the world. A recorded top speed of…”

“Damn it Q!” snapped Bond. “Just tell me where he is?”

“I can’t. It will take hours to go through the CCTV footage, and even then he could walk out with a group of tourists. I’ve actually been there. There are miles and miles of tunnels, it’s impossible. He’s gone.”