Silhouettes: A James Bond Story

Silhouettes Part 17

Bond came to on a plastic sleeping mat in a cold room, and that was the extent of what he could ascertain for several moments. The world was shifting as if on a gimbal and pain ran in a cold line from one temple to the other. His cheek throbbed. Groaning, slightly, Bond managed to sit up. The world shifted again, and the headache subsided. He massaged his temples, and then surveyed his surroundings.

He was in a plain, stone room. There were no amenities or fixtures that might suggest it was designed to be a prison cell, aside from the steel door and the bars embedded in the window at the opposite wall. Sunlight sifted through the bars, and Bond realized he could hear the faint roil of surf. He slowly got up, less shaky than he'd expected, thankfully, and walked over to that window.

Beyond the crosshatching of the bars, Bond saw turrets and minarets, all encompassed by the embrace of fortified walls. In the center of the fort was a large, new-looking structure, a series of blocky segments with long corridors branching off around the compound. In the center of the structure was a large glass dome, like a greenhouse or aviary. Bond wondered what was important enough to desecrate a hundreds-of-years-old fort to build. Beyond the far wall, past the pointed emplacements that ran along its top, he could see the Gulf of Oman in a swirl of white and cerulean blue. The air smelled of salt, and he felt strangely revitalized, taking it in.

The door clanged behind him, and Bond spun, crouched slightly, prepared or whatever punishment came next. Butavsky stood in the doorway, in a pair of 5.11 tactical pants and lightweight shirt. He held a long-barreled Walther automatic casually, at hip level, but still pointed at Bond. Behind him were a couple of bearded, thick-armed man similar to the ones Bond had tangled with in Kuala Lumpur. They carried what appeared to be compact AK-47 variants at the low-ready position: buttstocks in the pockets of their shoulders, but the barrels pointed downward in a safe direction. Bond knew better than to think that he had any advantage--it would take only a second to raise them into firing position.

"You come," Butavsky barked through a thick Slavic accent. "You come with us now." Bond regarded him and the men flanking him and shrugged.

"If you're going to insist."

Butavsky led the way, while the two other men trailed at a great enough distance to make it impossible for Bond to make any kind of move for escape before they cut him down with small arms fire. As it was, Bond was curious where they were taking and him and what it would reveal.

They walked through a spiraling stone corridor that wound its way down to the base of building, and finally to a sturdy set of doors that had clearly been built into the stone of the fort recently. There were still traces of powder flecked on the hinges. Butavsky threw the doors open with a flourish that seemed disproportionate to the bland, almost sterile, conference room that was beyond. The walls had been painted a plain white, and the center of the room was devoted to an oblong conference table that looked to have been plucked from a web site that sold overpriced office furniture for international corporations. Bond felt a rush of relief at the sight of Indira Manyam sitting near the head of the table.

"James!" It was something between a sigh and an exclamation, and she stood up. Bond saw a set of hands push her back into her chair, and when he entered the room, he saw that they belonged to Shanti Ernawati. The woman had traded the sheath of an evening gown for the beige utility of BDUs and thick-soled desert boots. No wonder she'd put him out with one kick, Bond thought ruefully.

"Put him there," Shanti gestured to the chair opposite Indira. Butavsky gestured to it with his gun, and Bond sat without resisting. Escape was about opportunity, and this situation—the automatic weapons, the confined space—didn't afford any. Instead he settled in as if he was in M's office to receive a mission briefing, and gave Indira a wan smile.

"I hope your check-in went smoother than mine."

She shrugged slightly. "No one kicked me unconscious."

"Shut up!" Shanti snapped, her face devoid of any of the grace, beauty or seduction she had once deployed to great effect. Now it was just a mask of disdain and contempt, twisted and ugly. She thrust a finger at the large LED screen bolted to the stone wall. "This is for you. It's probably the last courtesy anyone will ever grant you, so you should pay attention. Also, Nicolai will shoot you in one of your joints if you don't. Won't you, Nicolai?"

The big Russian grinned with unsuppressed bloodlust and waved his gun in their direction like a child's cap pistol. "Bang bang!"

"Do I have your attention now?"

"Undivided," Bond said, and was rewarded with a poisonous look from Shanti. Then she stabbed at a long remote control. The screen flashed to life, and a cylindrical camera mounted beneath the screen abruptly swung around to face them like a well-trained pet. The high-resolution signal showed a dramatically-lit room accented by stainless steel and sleek, black computer terminals. Slowly, a figure stepped from the shadows and into a shaft of harsh, fluorescent light. The man Bond had been expecting.

"Hello James," Blofeld said.