Bond Movies 07 - Die Another Day

by Raymond Benson

  Bond rarely thought about the past and, unlike most people, did not normally treasure memories. Those jewels of the human mind had always been anathema to his soul. But in the dark and damp cell where he had nothing but time, Bond embraced what recollections he still possessed. The exercise kept him sane: going back over his life, recounting various significant events and re-imagining the sight and sound and smell of various individuals whose paths had crossed his. It was almost like outlining an autobiography in his head. He remembered the early years when his parents were alive and how his father had taught him a love for mountain climbing. His early childhood was a distant memory of love, warmth and security. When he was eleven, his parents had died in a climbing accident. He never knew what had really happened. He was sent to live with his aunt, a charming and elderly woman who doted on him and tried to give the boy the love he now so sadly lacked.

  Bond recalled his teenage years at school and how he had chosen isolation over friendships. His aunt had worried that he was becoming anti-social and she was probably right. He had not cared. Bond had immersed himself in physical discipline. He did enough to get by so that he could have time to himself. He finally found his calling in the Royal Navy.

  He had great fondness for Sir Miles Messervy, the former M, the man who had recruited him into the secret service. They hadn’t always agreed, but most of the time their relationship was warm and filled with mutual respect There were others in London who meant a great deal to him: the loyal and lovely Moneypenny, good old Q, Tanner, the new M ...

  The strongest recollections from his life were centred on his work as a Double-O agent in Her Majesty’s government. That first assignment, the one in which he had to assassinate an enemy operative in New York City, was his introduction to a life of great adventure and serious danger. Since then he had killed other human beings in the line of duty. He had trained himself to slough it off, bury the guilt and pretend it didn’t exist He had hardened himself to the facts of life and death, taking each day as it came with a devil-may-care attitude. This code had kept him alive all these years.

  Many faces floated through his fevered hallucinations: some of them friendly such as Felix Leiter, Darko Kerim Bey, his friend Tiger Tanaka... others not so friendly such as Ernst Stavro Blofeld, Auric Goldfinger, Dr Julius No, Hugo Drax ... It was important to remember them so that he could draw the line between what was good and what was evil. And then there were the beautiful and passionate women who had shared his bed: Domino, Solitaire, Tatiana, Tiffany, Honey, Kissy ... and Tracy. They had all left their mark.

  Bond’s senses recalled the tastes and smells of various locations around the world, places that had left an indelible stamp an on him. There was Jamaica, the island he loved more than any other; the exotic and mysterious Japan; France and its very special hideaway resort, Royale-les-Eaux; and areas in upstate New York that were stunningly beautiful in the autumn when the leaves changed colour.

  The memories kept him lucid and they kept him strong. He hadn’t talked. He hadn’t given his interrogators the satisfaction of winning. He still knew who he was, why he was there and what he stood for.

  That was all that mattered for now.

  Bond had grown accustomed to the sound of boots outside the cell door. The noise automatically set his mind to work preparing his body for the day’s ordeal. First came the steps, then the rattle of keys and finally the screech of the door opening. The light from outside the cell was always blinding, nearly as painful as what Bond knew he was about to endure.

  It was how he measured the passing of the days. Bond sat in the comer of the cell, knees folded to his chest. He was barefoot, dirty, hungry and dazed. He looked up to see the same two guards who had come for him every day. Two more stood behind them in the corridor.

  ‘Something different today,’ one of them said in Korean.

  Bond didn’t move. The guard who spoke nodded to the other one. They walked over to Bond and pulled him up. One man held him from behind while the other bound his wrists. Bond didn’t resist. He was beyond that now.

  Once he was secure, the guards escorted him out of the cell and down the familiar hallway to the room where a little bit of him died, day after day. How much more could he take? How long would they continue to do this? What could he possibly know at this point that would be of any use to them? He wasn’t sure that they wanted him to talk at all. They probably just enjoyed watching him suffer.

  The guards shoved him into the torture chamber, a cold and spartan room that smelled of blood. The door slammed behind him and Bond was alone. He glanced over at the bathtub in the shadows and was surprised to find it empty. Odd. He looked to the table and saw the cage full of scorpions, but it had been set back against the wall, apparently forgotten. What was going on?

  The door opened again and General Moon entered. A guard came in behind him and shut the door. Bond had not seen the general since the day he had been captured. Studying him now, Bond could see the grief for his lost son etched in his face. Somewhere behind those eyes, Bond thought he saw a trace of humanity, an inkling of compassion. Finally Moon spoke in English.

  ‘I don’t condone what they do here.'

  Faint memories of past defiance swam into Bond's mind. ‘It’s not exactly five star.’

  ‘Still you jest,’ Moon sighed. ‘Defiant to the last.’ Bond said nothing.

  ‘Your people have abandoned you,’ the general continued. ‘Your very existence denied. Why stay silent? It doesn’t matter any more. Things are out of my hands now.’

  Bond, with tremendous effort, managed to muster a look of resilience and slight contempt. The general waited for Bond to say something, anything. At last he turned to the guard and nodded. The guard opened the door and gestured for Bond to go through.

  What? Bond thought. No scorpions today? No beatings?

  They led him outside, the first real daylight he had seen in what must have been months. The brightness seared his retinas, making him squint painfully. The guard jabbed him with the barrel of an AK-47, ushering him into a waiting military transport truck.

  They rode for an hour. He was alone with the general and the guard in the back of the truck. Old habits die hard, so Bond weighed his options but was forced to conclude that they had run out He did not know why the general wanted to go to this effort before executing him and realised that he no longer cared. He allowed himself a brief, sad smile of self-congratulation. He had not been broken. Death would be his reward - and his release.

  The truck stopped beside an iron bridge on the outskirts of an abandoned village. The North Korean flag flew on a large pole erected on the near side of a deep gully at the edge of which stood the burnt-out shell of a Russian T55 tank. A thick mist had settled over the land and obscured most landmarks, but Bond could make out silhouettes of tall gun towers, barbed wire and tanks in the distance.

  They made him get out and stand beside the bridge. Bond looked into the gully below and saw that it was scarred with landmines and the remains of military vehicles. The Demilitarized Zone. The fog completely screened what was beyond the bridge on the other side of the gully.

  He stood complacently as six armed soldiers marched out of the mist and lined up ten feet away from him.

  So that was his retirement present. A firing squad.

  The general stepped out of the truck and regarded Bond grimly. ‘We reach the end, Mister Bond. Of my patience ... and your life.’

  ‘Spare me the unpleasantries,’ Bond said, eyeing the six soldiers.

  ‘I had moved us so close to peace, to unification; fifty years after the Superpowers carved Korea in two,’ Moon said. ‘Then you arrive. A British spy, an assassin. Now the hardliners have their proof that we cannot trust the West.’ He took a breath and continued, You ... took my son.’

  Your firing squad should have done the job for me,’ Bond replied. ‘He was working against you, General.’

  ‘I hoped that a Western education would help him become a bridge between our
worlds. But all it did was corrupt him.’

  Bond shook his head and said, ‘Let’s get this over with.’

  ‘My son had a great ally in the West, a spy like yourself. You know it. Now for the last time, who was it? Who made him betray his country and his name?’

  ‘The same person who betrayed me.’

  Moon paused to see if Bond would reveal more. Then he said, ‘You choose the hard way.’

  ‘What’s hard about dying, General?’

  ‘Start walking, Mister Bond.’ Moon gestured to the mist-shrouded bridge.

  He had no choice. Bond set his jaw and walked resolutely into the fog. Behind him he heard the guns cock. At last, he thought, his time had come ...

  He kept walking, waiting for the crack of gunfire, waiting to fall in a hail-of bullets. But there was nothing.

  Halfway across the bridge, a figure loomed out of the mist. Another man was walking towards him. His hands were tied as well. The two figures grew closer together until finally Bond was able to see the other man’s face. It was Zao, the henchman.

  A voice on a loudspeaker ordered, ‘Keep walking. Please keep walking.’

  Bond glanced back at the firing squad but saw that they were boarding the truck. Now he understood. It had been a trick to try and get him to talk. This was an exchange.

  He returned his gaze to Zao, whose face still bore the scars made by the diamond shrapnel. From his otherwise healthy outward appearance, it was obvious which of the two men had been doing the harder time They passed each other, eyes locked.

  ‘So we’re being traded,’ Bond said.

  ‘It seems we are equal - in the eyes of spies,’ Zao acknowledged.

  ‘Equal but not even. Your time will come.’

  The loudspeaker blasted again. ‘Keep moving!’

  Zao said confidently, ‘Not as soon as yours...’ He moved on, shaking his head. Bond turned slightly and watched him disappear into the fog and then he kept walking to the other side of the gully.

  Charles Robinson, MI6 special assistant to M, stood at the open border post, peering through binoculars at the bridge that spanned the Demilitarized Zone. Several military and medical personnel, including some dark-suited National Security Agency men flanked him.

  ‘See him?’ asked the man in charge of the NSA group. His sardonic New Jersey attitude was a perfect expression of his contempt.

  ‘Not yet, Mister Falco,’ Robinson said, still scanning the bridge.

  Falco was a no-nonsense security advisor to the South Koreans and had had no problem speaking his mind regarding the prisoner exchange that had been brokered between Britain and North Korea. Robinson had had just about enough of him his men. He wondered why the NSA was involved at all. It was an organisation that dealt mostly with cryptology, information security and analysing foreign signals.

  ‘There.’ Robinson focused the lenses and saw Bond emerge through the swirling mist. His first thought was that the man looked like Robinson Crusoe. Double-O Seven had long hair, a beard, was covered in bruises and blisters and was wearing rags.

  Falco lifted his own binoculars to get a look and disdainfully commented, ‘Look at him. You’d think he was some kind of hero.’

  Robinson ignored the American and walked towards the bridge. Bond saw him, recognised him and smiled through the beard. But before the two could meet, four figures in silver protective suits appeared and swarmed over Bond. One of them pressed a syringe into his arm.

  Bond gladly fell into unconsciousness.

  04 - Impatient Patient

  Bond lay unconscious and naked in the Da Vinci Machine, an ingenious device that allowed medics to scan for internal injuries, check blood chemistry and perform other diagnostic tests without invasive procedures. It was located in a mobile robotic operating theatre that the British armed forces could deliver to any base in the world. The one in South Korea was just outside of Seoul.

  As the blue light travelled along the length of Bond’s body and the table to which he was strapped slowly revolved, medics followed the results on computer screens from an observation booth.

  ‘Widespread tissue scarring consistent with localised bums on feet and hands.’

  ‘Partial frostbite to fingers and toes.’

  ‘Extensive bruising.’

  ‘Looks like he sustained a serious injury to his left shoulder. A dislocation?’

  ‘Yes, that occurred three years prior to his imprisonment. It’s in his chart.’

  At one point during the examination, robotic fingers opened one of Bond’s eyes and measured the dilation of his pupil with a pencil-sized beam of light. Artificial hands withdrew blood from his arm with a hypodermic.

  ‘Strong neurotoxic traces. Probably from a venom antiserum - either Parubuthus or Death Stalker scorpion.’

  ‘My God. If it wasn’t Bond, this would be an autopsy.’

  Test tubes spun in little machines located around the table. Thermal images of Bond’s internal organs were projected onto the medics’ screens.

  ‘Blood pressure is excellent.’

  ‘Internal organs in extremely good shape, consider? | ing.’

  ‘Liver not so great.’

  ‘Well, it’s definitely him, then!’

  Bond didn’t hear the laughter. He was dead to the world and would be for a couple more days.

  Still, his heart pumped strong and steadily.

  White ceiling.

  Low light.

  The blurry image slowly focused. His eyes darted around and saw that he was lying in a hospital bed. The room was bare, with walls of stainless steel. A single chair was fixed to the floor next to a door on the opposite wall. A man in a white coat sat there, watching him. Bond did not recognise him.

  When the doctor noticed that Bond’s eyes were open, he pressed a button on the wall.

  Bond sat up. The grogginess went away with surprising swiftness. He felt refreshed. What had they done for him? His hands explored his body and felt no bandages or casts. He touched his face and felt the beard, but it was clean now and not matted with grime and blood.

  He kicked off the sheet, swung his feet out of the bed and sat for a moment, waiting to see if he’d lost his balance. The room didn’t spin. He was fine.

  The door beside the doctor opened and M stepped in. To Bond’s eyes, she looked wonderful. Her bright eyes examined him and he smiled. He got to his feet and started to walk towards her when he suddenly saw a reflection of himself between the bed and where she was standing.

  The room was divided by a seamless wall of reinforced, bulletproof glass.

  The smile dropped from his face.

  M continued to look him up and down, pausing slightly beneath his waist. Bond had forgotten that he was naked. He looked around and found a towel draped over the rail at the end of the bed. He took it and wrapped it around his lower half.

  ‘Welcome back,’ M said. Her voice was filtered, relayed over a speaker.

  ‘Such hospitality,’ Bond replied with some irony. He tapped the glass wall and asked, ‘Watching for biological agents - or double agents?’

  ‘I take it they didn’t let you have a razor?’

  He fingered his stubble with distaste. ‘Remind me to take it up with Geneva.’

  The tension was palpable. It was a strange, strained situation.

  ‘How long ... how long was I in there?’ he asked. ‘Fourteen months, two weeks and three days.’ Bond felt his heart sink. How could that be? Was it really that long?

  ‘I lost track after the fourteen months,’ he said wryly. M continued to study him, betraying no emotion. ‘You don’t seem too pleased to see me,’ Bond said.

  ‘If I’d had my way you’d still be in North Korea," she said bluntly. ‘Your freedom came at too high a price.’

  ‘Zao?’

  She nodded. ‘He tried to blow up a summit between; South Korea and China. Took out three Chinese agents before he was caught. And now . . . he’s free.’

  ‘I didn’t ask to be traded. I
’d rather die in prison than let him loose.’

  ‘You had your cyanide pill,’ she said pointedly.

  ‘Threw it away years ago. What the hell is this about?’

  ‘The top American agent in the North Korean High Command was discovered and executed a week ago.’

  She waited for a reaction, but he refused to give her one.

  ‘And?’

  ‘The Americans intercepted a signal from your prison naming him.’

  This news hit Bond like a blow to the chest.

  ‘And they think it was me.’

  There was a moment’s silence before she answered. ‘You were the only inmate.’

  He stared at her as she related the bitter facts. ‘They concluded you cracked under torture and were haemorrhaging information. We had to get you out.’ Now he was angry. ‘What do you think?’

  M studied him for a few seconds and then turned to the doctor and said something that Bond couldn’t hear. The man shook his head, but M apparently insisted. The doctor moved to the wall and pressed more buttons. A portion of the glass wall opened and M stepped through the airlock to his side.

  ‘James,’ she said. ‘With the drugs they were giving you, you wouldn’t know what you did or didn’t say.’

  ‘To hell with that! I know the rules. And number one is - No Deals. Get caught, you’re given up. Well, I played my part. Not talking was all that kept me alive.’ He paused, his mind racing. ‘The mission was compromised, ma’am. Moon got a call exposing me. He had a partner in the West. Even his father knew it.’

  M considered this and replied, ‘Whether that’s true or not, it’s irrelevant.’

  ‘No it isn’t. The same person who set me up then has done it again - to get Zao out. So I’m going after him.’