Silhouettes: A James Bond Story

Silhouettes Part 18

"I was so worried that I'd miss you," Blofeld said with his characteristic hollow avuncularity that barely concealed the menace beneath, smiling his equally empty smile that stretched like an unfamiliar exercise beneath eyes that held only hatred. "I had them set this up. It was wasn't easy, James, running all that fiber-optic line to a fourteenth-century fort. But I think if we have the opportunity to chat just one more time, then all that difficulty will have been worth it."

"You might have just sent a card, Franz," Bond said. "Saved yourself a bit of trouble. After all, it must be busy work, engineering a war between India and Pakistan."

Blofeld's eyes went black as a shark's, and the smile collapsed like a flimsy banner. "I told you that's not my name anymore!"

"Very well, Ernst," Bond said making a mental note that he'd gotten under the man's skin.

"That's better. We should address each other like the men we've become, and not the boys we were."

"What's he talking about?" Indira whispered. "You know him?"

"It's a long story," Bond said. "And a rather improbable one. Indira Manyam, meet Ernst Stavro Blofeld: founder, feared leader, and Chief Executive Officer of Spectre--the most powerful and dangerous criminal you've never heard of."

Bond saw Indira's face slowly brighten with understanding. "You were the High-Value Target who escaped from Belmarsh prison last fall."

Blofeld beamed a genuine smile this time. "The same, dear lady." He looked at Bond with a reproaching gaze. "It was such a mistake for MI6 not to remand me to a black site somewhere—I'm sure the Americans must have a few they've kept around. I suppose you just didn't know who you could trust."

Bond felt a light sting of humiliation. Of course MI6 had agitated for dumping Blofeld in one of the Americans' foreign hells—they'd even considered Guantanamo Bay—but in the end, such a move was considered too politically controversial by the luminaries who comprised the particular subcommittee that dealt with this issue. When Belmarsh went up in flames, they called it an epic failure on the part of Britain's Incarceration Services, and not their own lack of foresight. "We caught you once, Blofeld," Bond said easily, tamping down his irritation. "We'll catch you again."

"I don't think so," Blofeld mocked. "My personal vendetta with you is behind me, James. It was a silly indulgence to begin with. Distracted me from the work at hand. I won't be letting you get that close to me again."

"What work at hand," Indira demanded. "What's the meaning of this? Of all this?"

"The work," Blofeld explained, "is the work of my organization: transnational crime, facilitating terrorism, thwarting the efforts of espionage agencies that seek to expose us, extorting governments and world leaders... our tentacles are dipped in illicit enterprises around the globe."

"Tentacles," Bond said. "That explains the logo." Blofeld gave Bond a poisonous look, then continued.

"Unfortunately, one of our major sources of revenue became imperiled recently. It seems the West is increasingly placing strings upon the mountains of cash they've been handing out in anti-terrorism assistance. One of those strings is that they expect governments to crack down on the trafficking of opiates. I understand they have quite an epidemic in the US.

"We had thought that we'd found a partner of like minds in Foreign Minister Muqam, and that the supply routes for the heroin we move out of Afghanistan would be secure. Alas, like all Pakistanis, his alliances proved a bit too flexible for our comfort. And so he had to be removed."

"And you framed me to do it!" Indira spat.

"Oh, don't be upset, dear. You were only a piece in a larger game. We could ensure Muqam's replacement would be more amenable to our offers of partnership, but we needed to be certain that he didn't prove as fickle in his commitment to us as Muqam. We needed some way to ensure that the promise of the West's billions in aid wouldn't sway the assets we have in place in the Pakistani government."