Silhouettes: A James Bond Story

Silhouettes Part 21

Vilamendhoo Island

The Maldives

Shanti Ernawati stepped out of her ocean villa and onto the pier, feeling a vague sense of satisfaction at the sharp crack of her spiked heel against the pressure-treated wood. Her two guards—still vaguely punchy from their activities with her in the villa's wide bed—followed obediently. In all, things hadn't been so bad since Operation Blue Sky had collapsed. She'd evaded the majority of the blame, as Number One had chosen instead to make an example of his Chief of Security—a taciturn Afrikaaner who'd been responsible for the hiring and training of the various criminals, rogues, and mercenaries Spectre used to carry guns. The rest of the Executive Board had been horrified by the man's fate, but Shanti had already seen the monitor lizards devour a half dozen people at the fort, so it didn't faze her too much.

She did wonder if she still had use to the organization, though, or if she was simply too unimportant for Number One to eliminate right way. Perhaps her death was like the lowest item on a grocery list. She didn't know, and to a large extent she didn't care. She'd lived most of her life anticipating death—from Detachment 88, Indonesia's elite anti-terrorism team, or their American and Australian puppeteers, and now from Spectre.

It had made her appreciate what time she had and make the most of it. So when they'd been forced to flee Oman, she'd grabbed two handsome guards and lit out for the resort, which she'd discovered when she studied the British spy. If she was going to lie low, best to do it in one of the most breathtakingly beautiful places on Earth in the company of two young, fit, and very willing men.

"Some dancing before the night," she said as she walked past the drinks cart left outside the villa—they'd wanted no distractions during their activities. "Best dancer wins a special prize from me. I think you'll like it. And the other will like—" She stopped as suddenly as if she'd walked into a wall. Standing before her was the British spy.

"You bitch," the spy whispered. "You took my fucking life away from me."

"Kill her!" Shanti barked, but she'd barely finished saying it when she heart the two sharp cracks—so similar to the sound of her heel on the wood—and then the unmistakable sound of bodies falling. She turned and saw the crumpled heaps of her bodyguards, and, beyond them, the man Number One hated so much holding a silenced pistol. She turned back to the woman. 

"I guess I should finish the job then."

She slipped her dagger from its place strapped to her thigh and lunged.

********

Bond holstered the Walther and stepped over to the abandoned drinks cart. The ice was melting, but still serviceable enough to make a martini. He scowled at the selection of vodka and gin. Shanti Ernawati clearly didn't know much about alcohol.

He could have killed her. Even now, as she and Indira circled and lunged, circled and parried, he had a clear shot. But this was Indira's mission. This was her closure. Instead, he sipped his drink and watched as the two of them performed their deadly dance before the setting sun, two silhouettes against the scarlet.

EPILOGUE

When it was over they deposited the bodies on a dive boat and bribed the dive-master to dump them someplace far from the popular diving areas and, ideally, teeming with sharks. The leather-skinned old dive master said he knew just the place. Then they went back to the villa they'd booked under the name of one of Indira's covers and spent the rest of the evening together in the voluminous bed.

Indira didn't take the lead this time. Bond, having learned the topography of her body, knew how to bring her to her sweetest destination time and time again. Instead she gave herself over to him, surrendered to him in ways that were each more intimate and exciting, and by the time they were done, he owned her sexually as thoroughly as any man could.

She woke from a doze to see him standing by the window tapping his phone.

"Reporting in?" she asked.

"Making flight arrangements," he replied. "I'll report in person. M prefers mission details not be broadcast in any way that can be intercepted."

She nodded. "I think my superiors will want to hear from me as soon as possible."

"The capture-or-kill order had been rescinded," Bond told her. "I just got the flash traffic on my encrypted app. And the news is reporting an emergency round of meetings between the UK, Pakistan, and India. That means that they've been given the evidence on Spectre and they're just performing the necessary dance to explain why diplomatic relations have improved so suddenly." He snapped the phone off and put it down.

"But I'm still done, aren't I?" Indira asked. "With the field work anyway."

"I can't see any way they can send you back out."

She looked at the bed—the white sheets now blue-black in the darkness, and saw the life flowing out of Shanti Ernawati and into the pristine waters below the pier. "I think I've had enough for a lifetime anyway," she sighed. "It's all so exciting, but if I had to do it regularly I don't know what it would do to me." She looked up at Bond, now just a shape against the sliding glass door of the villa, barely given some form by the lights of the fishing boats in the distance. "And you? I suppose there will just be another assignment after this. And another after that?"

He didn't answer, just took a sip of his drink. She waited, not long, but long enough for the fishing boats to drift away and take the light with them, and his outline became indistinguishable from the darkness.