Silhouettes: A James Bond Story

Silhouettes Part 15

Breckinridge, as it happened, had a taste for the easy life when he was away from his cover as a street-level NGO. His key card took Bond and Indira to a spacious suite in the Centara Grand Hotel-a multicolored dagger of a building that anchored Bangkok's tony Ratchaprasong shopping district. One full wall was curved glass that overlooked the glittering mega-shopping malls, and the turgid red slough of taillights weaving between them.

"He made that bloody well easy," Indira commented upon spying his open laptop.

"I doubt that," Bond said reproachfully as the screen woke up beneath Indira's touch and displayed a prompt for a biometric login.

"Damn!" Indira fumed. "A password I could have dealt with. I have password-cracking software in my phone. What are we going to do now? We can't very well retrieve one of his fingers or eyeballs from the mess he left at the Skytrain station. Have you got any suggestions?"

Bond help up a finger in a shushing gesture. His phone was already at his ear with the line ringing. It was answered on the third ring.

"I truly wish I didn't have to take this call, Double-Oh Seven, but the phones will have your phone profile logged, so M will know regardless."

"As it happens I need your expertise, Q," he said easily. "I need you to break through the biometric encryption on a laptop."

"You realize even if I do this you really are going to have to check in with M? The past day or so he's been, well...I'm not sure the word, but 'apoplectic' is a good start."

"I'll soothe his troubled brow once we're done here, Q. But we need what's on this laptop, first."

"You're not going to call him, are you?"

"Q!" Bond was getting irritated.

"All right, all right..." there was an exasperated sigh that Bond guessed could have been heard all the way on the firing range. "Hold the phone up to the computer. Let me see it."

"Right." Bond panned the phone's camera over the laptop.

"What are you doing?" Indira asked. "Who is that you're talking to."

"Tech support," Bond said before bringing the phone up again. "Did you get that?"

"Yes," Q's voice had a brittle undercurrent to it. "Should be rather easy to crack, seeing as how I developed the security system for it. Do I even want to know about this?"

"Do you?"

"I'll get the summary from M, later. Hold on a moment..."

Bond held. A few seconds later, the screen flickered and showed the desktop. "That's it," Bond said. "You're a genius, Q."

"Spare me the flattery, Double-Oh Seven. Call M." And he rang off.

Indira was already sifting through the laptop's files.

"Anything of note?" Bond asked, peering over her shoulder.

"Well, well, well," she said softly. "You may find this of interest." She tapped the laptop's touchpad and the bio-page of an MI6 Hostile Subject Dossier expanded to fit the screen. In the photograph field on the right-hand side Bond saw two full-on facial shots of a severe-looking Asian woman in a headscarf. A moment later the features coalesced in Bond's mind he could see Liyani Fazura. "It seems we found your mystery conquest," Indira said tartly.

"Shanti Ernawati," Bond read. "Malaysian--well, she didn't lie about that--connected to Jemaah Islamiyah..." he read further. "When that group got smashed she seems to have linked up with Abu Sayef. Connected to seven successful terrorist attacks, and multiple thwarted or aborted attacks in the past twelve years."

"Taylor had interesting taste in women. At least you weren't aware she was a terrorist when you slept with her."

"In fairness, it did become clear pretty immediately afterward."

"I'm not sure I want to know...now what's this?" She sifted around in a sheaf of .pdf documents. "They're in Russian."

"Bring that one up," Bond pointed to the screen. Indira expanded it, revealing another, older Hostile Subject report. The picture in the file showed a round, slightly flabby face with broad, Slavic features in the center of which rested small, mean, piggy eyes.

"I recognize him," Bond said. "Nicolai Butavsky. I was sent to Monrovia to smash a criminal network trafficking in stolen Russian plutonium two months ago. He was in the briefing dossier, but he never showed in Monrovia. Got delayed in Moscow. It was the only thing that saved him."

Indira looked at him, the blood draining from her face. "Was he...was he an enforcer? The muscle, or..."

"He was the technician," Bond answered. "For the device that would take the plutonium. Former explosives expert with Spetznaz."

Indira let out a long breath. "Breckinridge has his contact information...there are chat logs..."

"Breckinridge was putting a dirty-bomb technician in touch with a South Asian terrorist," Bond said grimly.

"My god..." Indira said softly as she sifted through more files on the computer. Bond drifted off and inspected the rest of the hotel room. Breckinridge had traveled lightly, with only a small overnight bag as luggage. There were a few light, button-down shirts laid out on the bed and sock pairs folded into balls in the bag nestled around carefully-rolled boxer shorts. Bond snorted derisively: he had no time for men who wore boxer shorts. They were too much like a child's pajamas.

"There are shipping bills in here, too," Indira said.

"What was being shipped?"

"It's not...I think it's a travel plan. Yes, these are a ship's travel route. The Bayangan Hitam...looks like it's flagged out of Indonesia. Owned by Palco Shipping out of Sohar, Oman."

"That must be how they're smuggling the bomb, " Bond said as he looked through the bathroom and checked out Breckinridge's toiletries. Like the baggage, his toilet kit was light and spare: toothbrush, toothpaste, deodorant, razor, cologne. No medications that might identify him. Very professional. "What's the travel schedule?"

"It's still in Sohar, I think..." Bond heard her tapping the more keys. He moved to the closet. Nothing was hung, so he went to work on the safe. Hotel safes were notoriously easy to crack-most had a master key slot in case the guest forgot what number he programmed into the lock--but Breckinridge would have had no reason to fear someone searching his room this thoroughly. The lockpick multi-tool sewn into his belt made short work of the safe's master-key lock and he opened up the small door. "Looks like it puts off in about two days."

"That doesn't give us much time," Bond said as he sifted through the safe's contents. He found Breckinridge's passport, a .380 Sig/Sauer pistol which Bond unloaded, and some assorted jewelry.

"But none of this make sense!" Indira pushed away from the laptop and turned to Bond. "Breckinridge may be be a venal, sexist, prig..."

"Been," Bond corrected. "Past tense."

Indira gave him an exasperated look. "But it doesn't explain why he's assisting with a nuclear attack. That's not simply treason, it's...I don't even have the words. And it doesn't explain why he framed me. What does that have to do with detonating a dirty bomb? What does he get out of any of it? And where is he getting the resources for any of this? I'd know he was misusing funds or establishing a black budget. There must be someone else. Someone behind him."

"There is," Bond said darkly, as he inspected the silver ring he'd found. It was unremarkable except for one feature.

The small engraving of an octopus.