Silhouettes: A James Bond Story

Silhouettes Part 3

The sight of the young Quartermater fussing about in his workshop in the dead hours of the night would have been noteworthy if he didn't look similarly disheveled on any given day. It was only the comically large bottle of Mountain Dew wedged between a half-disassembled radio repeater and a Sterling submachine gun that indicated this visit was anything other than normal.

"Well," Q said with no small amount of peevishness, "at least one of us dressed in our eveningwear. Your life must be even more charmed than I suspected, Double-Oh Seven."

"I'm sure M greatly regrets pulling you away from..." Bond let his gaze slide over Q's fraying sweater and rumpled slacks, "whatever it was you were doing tonight, Q. Please don't take that as an invitation to share it with me."

"I highly doubt you'd be interested in hearing about my podcast, anyway." The wiry Quartermaster opened a large padded field kit. "Your equipment. I'm sorry this had to be assembled in such a rush. If I'd been given more lead time I could have put together a proper field package, but I suppose this will have to do."

"Well, no one wants to travel heavily when they're trying to avert a war."

"Yes," Q said, stiffly, clearly taken off guard by the mention of war. Bond wondered how much he'd been read in on the emerging situation or if it had been kept secret even from him. "Well, I suppose we'll just stick with the standard tools, shall we?" He handed Bond a small plastic box.

"Compact concussion charges, pressed to look like ordinary coins. The yield varies by size, but the largest ones are approximately comparable to half the impact of a standard flash-bang. The charges are held in a polymer matrix, so EOD dogs won't hit on them. Itemizers won't either."

Bond looked over the dozen or so coins in the box. "Very inconspicuous," he said admiringly.

"Yes, since he world has yet to embrace a cashless economy." Q sounded personally offended by the fact. "Do be careful with them. They're impact-triggered, so a drop from, say, a half-meter will set them off. Makes them easier to deploy."

"And they're even Malaysian ringgits," Bond noted.

"Naturally," Q said. "We've got them in over a hundred different currencies in the back."

"Is this what you do in your down periods? Collect currencies of the world to make into explosives? "

"We mostly put the interns on that," Q said. "Now, your watch," he handed Bond a heavy Omega Seamaster Planet Ocean with a black NATO strap. "I'm afraid we didn't have time to customize that for your mission, but it does still has the standard radio transponder built in. Just twist the bezel 90 degrees clockwise to activate. The satellites should be able to pick up the signal, provided you're not in a faraday cage or the belly of a volcano or the like."

"In which case I would probably have more pressing concerns than the satellites," Bond remarked dryly. "I assume it has the standard explosive charge as well?"

"Actually, it doesn't."

Bond raised an eyebrow.

"Procurement put a stop to that. Threw a fuss about blowing up luxury watches and all that."

"Please tell me you're joking."

"You've still got the coins," Q protested defensively.

Bond sighed and slid the watch into his hip pocket and felt its weight pull at the fabric of his trousers. "What else do we have?"

"Bluetooth earbuds," Q said with no small amount of excitement, holding out a white, plastic case. Bond took it from him.

"So I can listen to your podcast on the flight to Malaysia, I assume?"

Q gave him a withering look. "I doubt you're a fan of Legion. No, these are actually highly-sensitive directional microphones. Simply touch the sensor on the back of the earbud to adjust the volume."

"Handy," Bond admitted. "Range?"

"About one-hundred and fifty meters. Your phone is downloading an app that will filter ambient noise, bit you can use them independently if need be."

"Good," Bond said, pocketing the case. "What about the standards?"

Q handed over a cardboard document envelope. "Travel documents for you and Agent Manyam. You'll be husband and wife, traveling under the Boldman cover to include visas to all ASEAN countries as well as India, Pakistan, and a half dozen others—whatever templates we had on hand. The biometric chips have been programed with a scrubber virus that will allow us to manipulate any facial recognition software used by that country's border security computers, so you should be able to travel with a relative degree of anonymity. We can also use it to eliminate any record of your travel, which will be implemented on M's order..."

"Of course."

"Right," Q said and walked over to his shooting range bench. "Now, your sidearm. We're field-testing a new polymer semi-automatic..."

"No," Bond said sharply, causing Q to look up, startled. "The PPK." Then he added, "For this mission, I need to make a personal statement."