Fan Fiction: it’s all the rage these days. Hell, FIFTY SHADES OF GREY even started AS fan fiction about TWILIGHT! Countless online platforms can give you speculative what ifs and alternate timelines and filled in blanks. Did you know that Captain Jack Sparrow was a commissioned officer with the Royal Navy and resigned his commission because he refused to transport some slaves? No. Neither did I. Because it’s fan fiction! And easily swapped for similar theories about Han Solo (thankfully the new Star Wars anthology films might just clarify matters?). But really GOOD fan fiction? VERY hard to find. Well at Movie Viral, we tried and I think succeeded.
We present JACK WALTER CHRISTIAN’s very own ‘what if': when Sherlock Holmes is in fact a fictional construct, but ‘The Woman’ (Irene Adler) is not..she needs a real man to help redefine adventure for her. Take it away, Jack with JAMES BOND and IRENE ADLER in COLD LIGHT OF DAY..
Part I: Cold Front
The cold winter on the Alps in wardship of France have never been sharper at this time of the year than the razor blade of a blunt instrument made out of sword, with an ability to cut the hardest of tangibles, that would have defied the worst of the wrath it could get, precisely in half, providing the extant underneath in its presence with utter unpleasantry. The tiredly arduous drops of snow was enough of a discontent for anyone standing tall against the havoc that is pushed through the blow of a severe attack of a wind into the eyes of the entity, only to turn the healthiest of the sights into a blindfold, buried in a whiteout with no guidance around.
At the local gondola station heading to Chateau Bramard, a castle dedicated to an Austrian admiral named Francois Dejean-Bramard who had helped the French resistance in wars with the rivalry of Napoleon Bonaparte’s fanatics in the midst of the nineteenth century, a man dressed in a sophisticated tone, white suit in company and a cigarette holder hanging out of the rims of his mouth that merely touched his greying beard had stepped into the cable car awaiting him, handing over the ticket in his hand reserved only for two attendants to the conductor, carrying a newspaper with him to wait until his guest in company would have arrived for a rendezvous, if such thing was the intention.
Unfolding the pages of the newspaper, the man delved deep into the paragraphs of the articles printed on the white paper, swinging his eyes throughout the angles of the pages printed to feed the public knowledge in half-made lies of secrecy, helping the regulars on the planet to sleep better not knowing what the cabals of the darkest societies would perform to keep the planet in shape however they would have preferred, to which the man scoffed at the headline of an article alone and turned the page in search for a more interesting and colorful novelty to find.
But, it didn’t take long enough for the sound of a step to capture his attention and make him rise his head above the newspaper in his hands, coming in notice of another man in a rather large shape dressed in black, with a bowler hat on his head, and a trimmed mustache around his mouth, who, by the appearance enough was enough of a snob to judge without letting out a word out of his own. “Ah, good morning, my dear fellow,” the large man greeted the other man in white suit with the tip of a hat, holding a briefcase in hand as he stepped into the cable car and took a seat opposite the grey owl, “Sorry about the delay, Zurich is not close, you know?” He continued, taking a deep breath to exhale a steam produced out of the vapor coldness, “And besides, you know how treacherous the roads can be around these very mountains.”
“No worries, old chap.” The man in the white suit replied and smiled to his company, elevating the hold of his attache case up to the side of him on the seat, hearing the sound of the electric mechanism of the doors close, which was merely an indication to the gondola itself taking off from the station to the castle, “As long as you’re here, we can begin.”
“I’d rather we wait when we’re actually moving,” The fat man responded, turning his head around the place to check if he ever was followed, “You’d be surprised to see how sharp the ears of the walls around us are.” His speech was only interrupted by the movement of the platform on the cable away from the station, feeling the gondola transport itself into the travel of a long distance of a good ten minutes to the extraction point. “Aha! I think we’re off.”
Just as the platform had begun rolling its copper wheels on the cable forward, the informant who was the large sized and circularly shaped man in the gondola took his bowler hat off and placed it on the leather couch he was seating on and captured the gaze of the other man in white suit staring at him through his egg-shaped baron-esque sunglasses. “As I’ve discovered, Mister Arlington,” he spoke, addressing the company by his last name, “I’ve come to the conclusion, along with my associates in business, that the Eastern Trade Corporation is in no way connected to Lewis Loizou, or any of his subsidiary organizations he only himself alone gives the final word towards.”
Arlington, to unveil some of his profile, a British agent in the employ of MI-6 sent to acquire information from the Swiss banking management regarding a recent incident, has been brought to rendezvous with the man, provided his reply with a supposed conclusion of his own, biting on his cigarette holder as he reached for the lighter in his pocket, “That sounds a bit off to me,” his thumb pushed the cap of the instrument up to reveal a roll of mechanism that would activate a flame a usually paper-rolled tobacco in a white cover that produced nicotine, and lit the front end of his cigarette attached to its own holder, “How else would a Swiss bank account fill up with so many US dollars from the far East if it’s not down to arms dealing?”
“Well,” the Swiss banker pronounced, straightening his tie to be adjusted to his collar, “I’ve been looking into it and there seems to be a reputable concern. But, mainly it is because of an engineering process that…” His speech was interrupted by the British agent who seemed to be looking out the window, his jaw half dropped in the notion, examining as if he had seen the world fall off the shores of its height from the peak into the valley, asking, “Sorry for interrupting but…” he stood up, and stared at the object coming across them in light for a sharper look, “Sorry to break it off, but am I out of my mind or is that a beam of light heading towards us?”
“Huh?” The Swiss man turned his neck to the same direction Arlington was laying an eye onto and opened both of his eyes in return wide, gasping in sheer horror. “Oh dear!” He let a suppressed shout of his lungs. But, of course. It was coming from across the ridge on the other side of the mountains, its starting point unknown. “What in the bloody name of…?!” The British agent expressed his raging fascination after realizing it was a threat that placed them both in the shoes of flashing all the pacing of their lives before their eyes, right before hitting the gondola with fierce and detaching it from the cable that resulted in an explosion and fell off the precipice down into thousands of feet height a valley underneath, that crashed into the snow below covered in avalanche where no one would have seen nor found a trace of the fallen.
From afar, a man stood in a ski gear, his eyes covered with wind goggles, holding a rocket launcher in a grip of one hand, resting the weight of the weapon on his arm. As he watched the gondola lose its rails and drop down into the valley of death, a humming voice played its tune from his throat as he smirked at the view to a kill, holstered the weapon onto his back and walked away, fading into the snowstorm.
***
A morning in London, a lovely sun that doesn’t turn up that often, beaming on the bridge of Vauxhall, had brought James Bond into the workplace, passing through the gates of secrecy and confidentiality that MI-6 itself would only have afforded to set up, just in case a security breach might have conflicted with the discretion of the espionage committee that dedicated itself to protecting the human life and the world itself from a wide range of threats in constant lie on a web of death and destruction.
Hand confidently in his hip pocket, strutting with supreme confidence, a trait that only came to him with a sense of nature, making his way through the halls at the highest of the floors guarded by weight lifting men in intelligent uniforms, Bond stepped against the padded door at the end of the main hall, turned the knob and pushed the object blocking his way gently open, allowing himself in as a gentleman strolling into the center of his own home as if he owned the place, staring at the beautiful female secretary seating at her desk, who only had lifted her head to gaze at the entity on her doorstep to recognize, which she smiled them off, and called the man with his name.
“James, darling.”
“Miss Moneypenny,” Bond nodded with a smirk on his face, a cigarette in between his fingers, “You’ve no idea how good it is to see you, again.” He stepped closer to her desk, until he stopped right in front of it, leaned his hands against the desk and bent his back slight towards the secretary, “I was beginning to feel as I’ve been left out in the cold.”
Jane Moneypenny let out a chortle at his words and leaned closer to Bond’s direction, holding a pen in her hand as she advanced forward, “I’m afraid, dear, that’s exactly where you’ll be heading.” She replied. “Oh?” Bond pronounced in expressive but teasing concern, “Was that some kind of a dismissal?” He lifted an eyebrow, smirking extensively “Or do you know something that I don’t?”
“Only that you’d better be prepared to go on the piste, James.” She replied, her seductive grin unescaping the expressions on her face. “I take it, then, that you have a bottle of Dom Perignon ‘53 put on ice.” Bond made his playful guess, even though knowing it was nothing but a mere flirtation between the two as the usual encounters of them occur. “Only thoughts of romance, darling.” She replied, expanding the ends of her smile. Bond, always lacking resistance to women, leaned across her cheek to head down to her neck for a frolicsome bite, or a kiss however one would define, only to be interrupted by the voice of an intercom next to Moneypenny’s hand, buzzing loudly in a male voice.
“Miss Moneypenny,” the male voice spoke in a loud tone through the intercom, “Would you be kind enough to send 007 in, and then send yourself into the file room to acquire that report from the French Alps? I do need the dossier awfully at this very moment. Thank you.” Bond backed away, a template of disappointment making an appearance on his face as he restored himself back to his former stretch. “What a bitter old man.” He spoke jokingly to the secretary who scoffed the notion off, and headed out of the door to the file room, letting the agent find his way to the inner office of his superior where he was expected, rotating the door handle to open it and march inside.
There he was, the bitter old man, M, sitting at his desk, his head buried in paperwork, pipe held by the brim of his flanges, exhaling the smoke of the fume away. “Good afternoon, sir.” Bond greeted his superior, kindly closing the door from behind. “Do come in.” M replied, his voice ever as mean, “You took your time getting here. No good in wasting more, 007. Do sit down.” He gestured for the agent to take a seat in one of the padded armchairs before his desk, and took off his glasses, placing them open beside the dossiers filed up on one another. “Two days ago, we’ve lost one of our greatest men, Roger Arlington…” He stopped, “That is, if you have to ask, 002, who was on his way into the French Alps to meet a Swiss banking official we’ve cultivating for quite sometime.”
Straight into business, the old man rested against the support, puffing the smoke of his pipe away as his speech progressed, only to be cut off by the arrival of Moneypenny, holding the file in her hands, respectfully walking inside the office to hand-over the dossier to the secret agent sitting opposite the superior of both. Bond took a hold of the dossier and nodded reverentially at her, granting the exchange, unfolding the dossier soon thereafter to have a look at the words in composure.
“I want you to read the print-out carefully, Bond.” The old man continued, “for you’re booked to be off on your way to Lyon’s in a few hours to meet our station chief, Rear-Admiral Rattray there, who will give you the proper instruction from which the operation made its birth out of the hole.” He rose from his seat and walked beside the window from which the beam of the sun was invading into the room, “You’d be coming to a surprise when you meet one of our own in the middle of your mission, so I would suggest you to be The Chessmaster and organize your pieces on the board carefully with this one.”
“Sir?” Bond wondrously left a marveled notion.
“You’ll be meeting Irene Adler.” The old man turned around, his pipe still hanging through the rims of his mouth, “The very same woman… Or [i]the[/i] Woman, you’ve put into a supposed retirement sometime ago.”
“Adler?” Bond raised a skeptical eyebrow, the file in his hand remaining incomplete in its own examine. “The last time I saw her was taking off with a private jet to Jamaica. I thought she had promised to stay out of this game we play with numerous villains in exchange of her safety and international pardoning of the crimes she had committed.”
“She’s working for us, now, Bond.” The pipe-owner responded insistently and walked back to his former post. “She offered her services to us a few weeks ago after a friend of hers was assassinated. So, that would be a stronger opportunity for us to take in vein and put a stop to this madness that has been hiding in a ghost cell for Lord knows how long.”
“I see.” Bond himself let out a skeptical response to the man’s choice and delved his eyes back to the file, examining the paragraphs from one end to another, until he stood back on his feet and folded the dossier close after finishing it, gently placing the object on the man’s desk. “Is that all, sir?”
“That’ll be all.” The old man replied, his voice ever as bitter, maintaining his professionalism, “Good luck.”
“Thank you, sir.” Bond replied and headed out the door, concerned that the woman he will encounter again would result in a disaster, yet his mind was planning on how to leap out of the worst case scenarios in confrontation alongside the easier ones. For when one has to have female viper around whose methods of extortion were criminally frightening, one had to become the grandmaster in the game of chess to defeat her piece known as The King if such threats had arisen.
Exiting the office, Bond closed the padded door behind him and there he spotted the world’s loveliest secretary, who, with the pencil’s rear end reaching the rims of her lips, was smirking at the agent that walked out with an assignment on his shoulders. “Heading to Paris, I heard.” she said, “La ville de l’amour… You’re not intending to get married anytime soon, darling, are you?”
Bond chuckled at the words she had dropped, adjusted his cufflinks and walked over to her desk, rested his knuckles on top of it and leaned closer to her. “Miss Moneypenny,” he called her name flirtatiously, albeit humorously, “You know I would never look at another woman when there is the Valiant’s last line of defense available and in stock for the market of love.”
“Cheeky and beautiful liar.” Moneypenny forwarded an answer with the same vein of humor the agent had injected into the conversation amidst, and she sighed playfully to capture his ‘attention’, “Some women have all the luck.”
Bond rolled his eyes rather comically, indicating to his dissatisfaction with whoever he was going to deal with. “Yes, well…” He muttered with annoyance in his tone, “This one isn’t of the kind I’d risk my neck out for. She offers nothing but treachery, which I despise.”
“You mean ‘Irene’?” She grinned, slowly and teasingly rolling the pencil in the hold of her index and thumb fingers, almost embraced in between her teeth. Bond lifted his eyebrow, leaned closer to the secretary and gazed at her with a deviant smirk on his face, “So, you’ve been eavesdropping, haven’t you?” He asked with a supposed act of realization, his voice ever as low and the tease high, “You naughty little minx.”
“Will you spank me for it?” Her voice dropped ever as low as her attitude has been lifting up, speaking in tone as if she were to impersonate the stereotypical Marilyn Monroe, “Darling?” And the nickname she had given was prolonged enough to attempt and provoke the inner manhood of a womanizer like James Bond, to which he produced a bit of resistance, leaned across her ear and whispered, “I would, you know?” He said, playfully sliding his flanges on her soft skin,
“But, only the bitter old man will have me court-martialed for er… Illegal use of property belonging to the agency confidentials.” Bond backed away as both of them laughed at the joke, he straightened his tie and headed for the door, ready to tackle his assignment.
“James, darling?” The British-sounding secretary called his name, making the man turn around for one last time, “Bon Chance!”
“Au revoir, madame.” He responded with a grin and left the premises of MI-6.
***
A few hours later, Bond was already in Lyons, breaking no sweat in his Saville Row suit, strutting around the halls of the French station of the organization he works for, heading to the main entrance to his directive. Having been led to the office of ‘The Gentleman’, a nickname given to Rear-Admiral Frederick Rattray for his rather diplomatic actions during the first Gulf War, Bond steps in to the room, which was decorated classically as if it was indeed a gentleman’s own study, and advanced further inside.
“Evening, Rattray.” Bond greeted his superior by his last name, rather informally, of course, since they have been good friends for quite sometime, unlike his higher-up back in the main headquarters in London. “Ah, Bond, my dear fellow!” The elderly stood up from his seat, smiling profoundly in return upon seeing his old friend and extended his hand for a shake, to which Bond himself walked into, and shook his hand firmly.
“Good to see you, again.”
“Likewise!”
Both men took their respective seats, Bond crossed his legs in the masculine posture and entwined his fingers into one another, resting his elbows on the arms of his seat.
“How’s life treating you, old chap?” Rattray asked, folding the dossiers on his desk and pushing them away with the back of his hand, “Enjoying the perks of being in the field and assuming the title of ‘man of action’, I presume?”
“More or less,” Bond replied admittedly, smiling at the jocular atmosphere. “But, I bet I won’t be staying long enough to suffer through the standard intelligence duties of what’s called ‘Paperwork’.” He stated, “Christ! I wouldn’t survive conducting a single paragraph of a report submitted by someone else for me to review.”
“It’s all a matter of age,” Rattray responded, “I suppose when you’re bored and there’s nothing else to do, you’d still enjoy the perks of the income and settle for a job offering less of a danger and more of a chance of survival.”
“Good thing I am not that old, yet.” Bond answered in short, which led both the men laugh at the notion. Rattray, on the other hand, picked up a formally and classically decorated marble-plated box and lifted an expensive cigarette to place on the brims of his mouth and flamed it up with his, Lord knows how much of a cost would it have brought, lighter. “I am sorry for cutting to short, Rattray, but time, I’m afraid is not on our side, and we are indeed running out of them. But, regarding the information Arlington had delivered…”
“Oh, no worries. Proceed.” Rattray replied, holstering his lighter into his pocket.
“You don’t think we might be jumping the gun in presuming ‘Russia’ for conducting this ‘murder’, so to speak?” Bond asked.
Rattray exhaled the smoke of his unfiltered nicotine in flames away and installed himself into the conversation with the secret agent, “Well, as far as I am concerned, there was something about an agricultural corporation based in Germany. Financial irregularities… that sort of thing.” He continued, leaning back to his seat as he briefed the man before him, “And no, our primary concern is with the Loizou chap and his arms deals with Moscow, Beijing and some other of the rivals in governmental sense.” Before realizing he hadn’t performed his hospitality well, Rattray jumped forward from his seat, grabbed the marble cigarette box and opened it in front of Bond. “Cigarette?”
By that time, Bond already reached to his gunmetal cigarette case where he kept his custom-made tobaccos in roll lined up in twenty like an army, lifting it up from his pocket, he opened the case and picked up one he longed to smoke. “No, thank you.” He told the elderly, “I don’t smoke Gauloises.”
“Ah yes, you were more of a Morland man.” Rattray replied, “Anyways, we’ve been investigating the traces of whatever was left in result of the use of a mysterious WMD in Serbia and other former Yugoslav-based countries, only to discover that the discover we’ve had all along have led into the most frightening of the revelations.” He unveiled, “I suppose you know about the Red Mercury, Bond?”
Bond lit his cigarette with his Dunhill lighter and folded its cap back to its former post, placing it inside his breast pocket on the right after the job was done, and capturing the Rear-Admiral’s attention once again, “Yes, I have.” He answered, “A myth so far, invented during the second World War by the Russians, whereas in originality, a claim was made that a man called Professor Stephen Norak has developed it, which, one of the British agents back in the day retrieved the blueprints of, only to be proved useless as it was only a first draft.”
“Right!” Rattray nodded, “We’ve kept the Interpol in the dark about our findings. It’s always better keeping a tight-ship! That way, there’s more likelihood of it being an open and shut case.”
“And where does this mayhem begin?” Bond asked.
“For further investigation, Commander, I’m afraid you’ll be on your own.” Rattray replied, puffing the smoke of his cigarette, drawing an atmosphere in the scene, “The French Alps is where you’ll start. That was the place where the misfortune had occurred. Investigate the remains and conceal any left-over you see of 002’s.”
“I see.” Bond responded and rose from his seat, “Well, I better rush into it and you better inform our chaps at Chamonix, where the lead of the event had took off that they should be resting their cast. Lyons will take over.”
“Understood perfectly well.” The Rear-Admiral also tapped his feet on the ground and stretched to a full standee, extending his hand to Bond for one last shake. “Remember, 007. Pick the right battles.” To which Bond answered with a friendly notion. “Always.” They shook hands again, and the secret agent left the premises to fly to Switzerland.
***
Snow blind. One of the things James Bond had thoroughly despised.
The recent avenue of the travels business has put the secret agent on the route to the peak of the French Alps, driving in his look-wise outdated, but mechanic-wise modernized English Aston Martin DB5 roaring its engine on the sound of V12, an upgrade neatly installed by the Q-Branch, upon the icy roads of the mountains, using the trackers on the wheels thanks to the development the genius mind of the quartermaster had placed onto his wheels, to avoid the slippery that would have resulted in a chaotic fate of a life if gone wrong. Bond drove his way to an edge of a suspicious point of extraction where the deduction of various intelligence detectives of his league had proved a rocket was launched into the gondola earlier from the place.
Stopping the car for one last resort on the side of a safe road next to the woods, locking it firmly for any trespasser who would try and steal it would find the matter to be an impossibility. Bond acquired his ski gear and walked over the edge a height next to a drop of a valley where the gondola had fallen into three days ago, he attached the boot binding underneath the step of his shoes (he never wore boots in any case), picked up the sticks and stepped onto the edge, overseeing the whole drop-down of the cold fall.
“Here goes the sports spirit.” He told himself and hit the sharp ends of the ski sticks onto the ground zero covered with snow, which led him to descend down into the valley, fastening the speed of the placement. While he had reached the vehicle of what was left of the destructed and destroyed cable car, he felt the sudden noises of secondary slip of ski tails swiping on the white snow, to which he turned around and noticed several of goons dressed in orange have been racing towards him, rifles in hand as they progressed. “One spy too many!” Bond talked to himself in sarcasm, and heard the first shot of a gunfire, hitting the blades of the ends of the sticks against the snow to flee the gang that was heading to obliterate him.
The wind was getting heavier, speeding down the cliff at eighty miles per hour, luckily for him to wear goggles on his eyes in order not to weaken his vision, he could feel a hurricane in pursuit from behind, unusually so for a lone man in the field at one. But, of course. He was being chased by many armed goons on skis, charging at him in order to bury him behind the curtains. Shots were fired at his feet, swinging around on roll and curve with the traces his skis were leaving behind, Bond dodged and avoided catching bullets as much as he could, narrowing his back in a bend to upgrade the speed further, travelling ninety miles per hour down the cliff.
The whole cliff was surrounded with gunshots, almost alerting the alps in their meltdown, living the danger. And there Bond was, merely circulating himself in the route, missing a fall down the valley by the skin of his teeth, his heart racing as he progressed.
Heading down to the village nearby, which was kilometers away to be precise, Bond found himself on the brink of threat and risk as three guards have neared by, preparing their aim at his entity. Luckily for him, however, with the use of his witticism as usual, he dragged them with him into the forests, speeding at hundred miles per hour, only a madman would have performed such lunacy in the woods, one hit at that kind of approach would have resulted in an immediate death. Dodging as much of trees as he could, being a highly skilled in the sport equal to that of an Olympics champion, Bond had managed to place five guards into natural subdues, as they have found themselves struck at the wrong turn of directions against the thick trees, dispatching them for good.
And here were the other five, approaching their prey with fierce, aiming their rifles at the man for a substantial takedown. “Well,” Bond calmly reached for his stainless steel flask stored next to the handle of his belt, detached it from the latter object, removed its cap and looked at the other assailants, “This certainly calls for a stiff drink!” The flask in fact was merely what appeared to be naturally, in its actuality it was a grenade of a high rate explosion, ticking its countdown to the send-off. He stopped beside a cliff that oversaw the valley of a fatal nosedive, smirked cockily at the faces of those who were after him, and threw the flask away, just as he rushed circularly to the other side of the precipice.
Here goes nothing…
BOOM!
A small amount of avalanche led the guards’ now-turned corpses in the result of the massive explosion and the eventual injury to be buried deep down the whiteout. But, Bond had already raced away from it, miles ahead from the incidental fraternity of hazard to come and embrace him, which was not bound to happen any time soon. Bond looked back and smirked at what ever the gadget in his former possession had produced. “Apparently, they don’t like the hard stuff!” A pun-rich indications from his dangerous mind never stopped to cease the moment from being raided with humor.
Having safely descended down to a valley only half a kilometer short of the supposed village, and another set of woods in the way, Bond was surprised by the silhouette of a woman standing before him. She was dressed in a fur coat, her body unbelievably sexy in its shape, tight leather pants bracing her legs, with the knee-high boots helped the former tuck themselves into the latter twins. She, also, was in a ski gear, harmlessly advancing forward to stop right before the man, her lips ever as grinning as wide, sunglasses covering her eyes.
But, of course…
“James, darling!” She announced, taking a pace of closure to the man as her arms expanded at all of sudden, sneaking them instantly through the hips of his. She was ever as sexually aggressive as he had remembered her, holding him as if she was holding one of her own women lovers. “Oh that face!” She slipped her leather gloves on his cheeks, “Those hard cheekbones of yours… I could cut myself slapping them.” She leaned closer to his lips, willing to kiss them in the cold, “Would you like me to give it another try? Harder, this time?”
Bond, always on alert whenever she was around, slipped an arm of his own and aggressively, in tandem, wrapped it around her hip, his palm sliding down to her perfectly rounded ‘figure’, gazing at her with a rather dominant look. “Miss Adler,” he announced with a deep and commanding voice in the most masculine of the tones, “Having you around is a candy for my sore eyes,” he pulled her close, almost squeezing her back in his brace, “but fortunately I have my intelligence to employ holding hands with logistics rather than the foolish animal instincts who are more of imbeciles like lambs led to slaughter.”
“Oh my,” Irene Adler cried with sarcasm, her grin worn well on the impeccable beauty of her face, “How I’ve missed that attitude of yours, Mr. Bond!” She lifted her hands and placed them on his cheeks and pulled them close to her lips with aggression and kiss his dry and cold flanges thoroughly, to which he responded with the same demeanor, never had he collided with anyone who made the fight feel like a clash of two titans than ‘The Woman’. Regardless of her likability, she has always been a treacherous woman to the plateau of gaining the title of the most untrustworthy person on the planet.
Backing away from the kiss, she gazed into his goggle-covered eyes, placed the old grin back on her face and bit her bottom lip, studying the man’s very own facial features. “Always on point, darling.” She said. And if anything, her provocative voice with that cunning Received Pronunciation of a posh English accent was enough to drive anyone mad. Men and women.
Well… Women experienced them more, as that’s how she had preferred it, with Bond being one of the few, if not the only man she was fiercely in love with, in both romantic and sexual sense. Secretly, that’s how Bond preferred his women. Even though, Irene was never a reliable one. But, sadly, the romantic and sexual tensions that developed their way into the scene have been cut short once Bond’s eyes notice as he slowly lets go of her and takes his arm back to where it belongs; his own side.
His face ever as suspicious, as if he was staring death in the eyes. “What is it?” Irene asked, her voice slowly fading from a proud to a concerned one. “You’ll be surprised to see that a human gang of mercenaries are certainly not the only ones in our pursuit, Miss Adler.” Bond replied with a calm, but ever as sarcastic tone of voice, pointing at the direction of woods behind her with his index finger. “What do you know? A pack of wolves, a species other than the mankind, also seem to be attracted to you.” He continued, “I can’t say I blame them.”
She turned around to have a look, her eyes flashing in a troubled concern, a brow arched underneath her furry hat, and without moving she stayed close to Bond. “Well?” She asked in a demanding tone, “Any plans on how to get us out of this little problem, Super-Spy?” Her attention turned back to the man she was speaking to, only to find out that he already was way ahead of her in methodical execution of an escape plan, slipping a high explosive capsule inside an open barrel of a custom-made MI-6 issue flare gun, locked the ends of the pistol afterwards and gazed back at her. “One of those phantoms, who were formerly after me, left a snowmobile a few steps back,” He told her, “have a close look and you’ll see. Hop on it and race away to the village. I’ll distract the bunch.”
“Alright,” she responded calmly and slowly walked past Bond, approaching the snowmobile carefully in order not to provoke any of the wolves, who thought they were surrounding their preys. She climbs on the snowmobile and ignites the engine, ready to leave. “James?” She called on him, to which he slightly turned his head towards, “Be careful, darling.”
And she raced away instantly, leaving the spy out in the cold.
The cold front.
One of the wolves were cringing, their sharp teeth and fangs visible, which had only reminded him of all the horror motion pictures with werewolves in the primary spotlight as the antagonists of the subject. “This’ll do me nicely,” he talked to himself, smirking ever as cockily as it was a devious one glaring at the pack of wolves, and his desire to kill as violently and gorily as possible, in satisfaction for all the victims in the tragic stories of the aforementioned genre of tales. He gripped the ski poles, leaving the flare gun hang strapped to his wrist and on counting to three, he instantly hit the end of the sticks on the snow and leaped forward, charging into the woods, where he was going lure each of the wolves into their own death-traps.
The chase was already due, with the wolves barking as they pursue their prey, while Bond was descending down the valley, dodging as much of trees in the way as it could have gotten, noticing how fast of runners the wolves were, with one of them just a few trees behind. He switched his hold of the hand grip from a ski pole to the flare gun, blindly pointed back, because he knew as he was taught in Tibet, to use his mind blindly for detection of the threat and its live movement rather than use his eyes for them to see, which could have been misleading.
He pulled the trigger, the barrel released the grenade, charging at its target and instantly hit the closest wolf, blowing it up in pieces, blood all over the snow-covered woods, with a few of the trees, from the impact, catching fire. That, alone, had trapped all the pack in a circle whose whimpers were being heard. Bond let a menacing laughter out of his lungs, and had his route drawn into the exit, departing the woods, and as conveniently was said about him, leaving the villain lair in sheer death and destruction.
***
It was almost thirty minutes later that James Bond, already dressed neatly, once again, in the manliest and the most sophisticated of the tailored suits, brought himself to knock on the wooden door of Irene Adler’s suite in Hotel Splendide, five-star quality convenient only for the richest of the people in the world. Three knocks, one second of a pause, then two knocks in the follow. That was the code phrase.
The door, after a few blinks of eyes, opened, revealing Irene herself in her winter clothing: A velvet burgundy turtleneck, dark grey tight pants, and of course, her knee-high leather boots, which he noticed she changed from the previously flat-heeled pair to a high heeled one. All the things that made a woman attractive in his eyes. She leaned beside the door, smirking all along, her ocean blue eyes piercing into his and vice versa. A tension in between them, regardless of the kind, was present.
“It appears you carried out my wish.” She said, crossing her arms amidst.
“Which is?” He asked, raising an eyebrow.
“You’ve been careful.” A reply came out of her lips, and she abandoned her post to step closer to the man before him, smiling as her eyes never left his, her fingers (along with the burgundy-colored nails) attached to the Windsor knot of his tie as she fondly held it, “You came back to me. Safe. Sound. Unharmed.”
“Hadn’t I had known you any better, Miss Adler, I would have said ‘You know how to turn a man on.’” Bond gave her the answer, a smirk making an appearance on the expressionist actions of his face, “Then again, your intentions are only the bad ones.”
Irene awed playfully, her smile still visible, if not expanded, as she pulled Bond gently inside the suite, who, after breaching the doorstep, pushed the door close with his foot from behind, following wherever she had led him, albeit carefully. “You know I would hate to see anyone hurt you, don’t you?” She told him, sneaking her arms around his back, her eyes still fixated onto his, “Other than me ‘hurting’ you, of course.”
But, of course, like any man, like any of the red blooded male of the species, Bond’s jaw was dropping, almost losing his resistance to the seductive behaviour of The Woman’s, whose thumb elevated onto the collar of his formal shirt, and swept over his throat to his jaw.
What a woman. “I er…” Bond was left speechless, lost for words, only for his dry flanges that longed to touch her soft lips were instantly touched by the latter, held in custody of her lips who feasted on his courtesy of flesh. As a man, the resistance was lost, and Bond embraced Irene instantly, squeezing her into his arms and carried her light figure up on his waist, fiercefully kissing her, stealing the air out of her lungs.
Provoked like a madman, he carried her firmly and rushed against a wall, holding her imprisoned in his clutches, feasting on her like there was no tomorrow. Breaking away from the lip-lock, he descended down to her neck, breathing her scent that he had been missing, which he would never confess, and gripped the most sensitive of the nerves with his flanges and serenaded them with the soft and rough play, his reactions ever as insane with more in the wake of their blossom as her moans and groans infiltrated the peak of his ears. She was precisely the kind of woman he liked. Wild, dominant towards everyone other than him, always using her sexuality to achieve her goals, and beautiful beyond imagination.
And at all of sudden, his secret agent instincts has kicked in, and Bond backed away, inhaling and exhaling powerfully, his eyes catching hers who looked enraged and disappointed at the same time when he had left her, slowly placing her feet down on the solid ground. “Let’s not get carried away, shall we?” He spoke with arrogance, and walked a few steps back, adjusting his cufflinks and straightening his tie. “You, Miss Adler,” he continued, taking a seat on one of the sofas beside the fireplace, crossing his legs in the most masculine of the postures, “how have you been tied to this business and where do you fit in?”
Irene, still disappointed, her reactions indicating to her being upset, walked opposite Bond and sat down in an armchair, staring down at him. “A blast from the past,” she told the man, “Lewis Loizou, the British-Cypriot industrialist…”
“Aren’t they all?” Bond interrupted upon hearing the word ‘Industrialist’ with a scoff. All of them had dark connections and secrets attached to their tails.
“Let me finish,” she insisted, “Loizou, being an international businessman whose competitors were never successful in wrestling down his power in a fair play, is the key that ties to all of our questions that’ll solve the mystery we both tend to crack open. Last week, it has been reported by the Chinese and Russian authorities that several of high ranking military officers and those in arms trading business have been assassinated. They were found dead in different sort of ways in their private quarters, all of them, obviously to those who know the trick, staged. None of the deaths were of natural causes but murders one after another.” She paused, crossing her arms altogether, “And the only lead to this piece of puzzle is none other than Loizou himself, who, I believe, is burying his secrets in preparation for some kind of an anarchy he will unleash soon.”
“Red Mercury?” He asked.
“Precisely.” She replied.
“But, if I may ask, how did he manage to get his hands or if he did, create a weapon of sorts?” Bond forwarded a question, in wonder, “Where did he get the blueprints from to build that bomb?”
“The Kremlin, of course.” She replied in a tone as if she were to say ‘obviously’, “Using a Russian Marshall of military rank to gain access to the Kremlin vaults, anything can be due to happen. Don’t you remember the Kurt Hendricks incident a few years back?”
“Yes, the nuclear missile launch codes.” He nodded, and leaned forward to her direction, his expressions indicating to what appears to be in progress of developing a separate question for her. “But, that still doesn’t explain where do you come in all this.”
“Loizou hired me to blackmail one of his rivals in the business, once.” She replied, “I know all his secrets. Standard operating procedure.”
“Of course! I should’ve known!” Bond responded rather mockingly this time, smiling in the irony as he adopting his former posture back, resting against the support of the sofa, legs still crossed.
But, Irene was not pleased with the gesture. Her face saddened at all of sudden, her eyes slowly moving away from him, looking down on the floor without any intentions. “And after that, only a week ago, an attempt was made for my extermination.” She added, “And Katherine…” She closed her eyes, “My Kate took the bullet for me.”
Kate was her lover. Her personal assistant. And her partner in crime later on.
“My sympathies.” Bond replied indifferently, trying to be emotionally detached from the mission as much as possible.
“Sympathies, James?” She asked with a mocking tone, coming from her this time, “from you?” She scoffed, “And how the hell would you know the feeling?”
The answer was left in blank, with Bond neither confirming nor denying anything, despite his share of tragedy deep in the past. Silent, he rose from his seat, unbuttoned his jacket for further freedom of movement and walked over the phone.
“What are you doing?” She asked, wondering what was the fuss he was onto at all of sudden.
But, Bond did what he had to do, anyway, without taking or listen to the words of anyone in the matter. He picked up the phone and spoke, “Hello, room service?” He called in, “I’d like two cocktail glasses and one big mixer filled in a dry martini, combined with three measures of Gordon’s gin, one of vodka’s, half of Kinna Lillet. Shaken, not stirred, on ice. And a bowl of sliced lemon peels would do.” He ordered, “Oh, and additionally, for a meal, I’d request large-sized Royal Beluga Caviar. North of the Caspian, that is.”
After hanging up the phone, Bond captured Irene’s attention once again, and smiled ironically, “When one’s assigned on a hard case, one should enjoy the privileges and perks on the house.”
Irene offered him a forced but mere smile, still saddened at the loss of her lover after she had opened up to Bond, to which he sympathetically approached her and stood firm beside a seating Irene, gently stroking her hair. “Don’t worry,” he told her in a comforting voice, “Evildoers always pay.” His words made her turn her gaze onto his, questioning his metaphor, yet he understandably insisted, “They always do.”
She slowly stood up on her feet and joined him on point, her embrace tightened around him as she rested her head on his chest, to which he hugged her equally in return, leaving the sun go down into the snowy night as displayable out the window.
***
End of Part I: Cold Front.
***
DISCLAIMER: No Copyright Infringement intended; James Bond and all related properties, likenesses, spin off rights, merchandising licences etc property of The Ian Fleming Foundation /Glidrose and his cinematic incarnation by Danjaq/EON/MGM. Sherlock Holmes is in the ‘public domain’, though specific likenesses from BBC ‘SHERLOCK‘ copyright BBC 2010 – Present / Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss. James Bond created by Ian Fleming. Sherlock Holmes created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. This is non canonical, speculative fan fiction and not for direct profit. All rights reserved. Plus it’s very good fan-fic!
About The Author:
Jack Walter Christian is primarily a hobbyist, specializing in an average amount of knowledge in the American Cinema History as well as some of the British and the Europeans in minor. Graduated from UCLA, holding a bachelor’s degree in International relations in general, Christian took his interests elsewhere where his hobbies had a large role in display, expressing fondness in cinema as well as bearing fascination in the world of espionage, particularly in the form of fiction.
Ever since he was four years old, Christian embraced the exploits and adventure-driven saga’s of Ian Fleming’s cinematic interpretation of the super-spy, that being the indomitable James Bond, and labeled himself as a fan. Now, with almost twenty years in his pocket, a growing expert in spy thrillers all thanks to Agent 007 and its creator, Christian tends to explore the cornerstones of every spy fiction written in every format in a variation of franchises he knows better than the back of his hand.
An ambitious amateur writer who’s looking forward into leaving his mark in the film industry, one day, as well as in the field of prose novels and graphic. He also has the ability to draw and illustrate, although not professionally (as of yet), and on the side note, knowing how to speak six languages fluently, with three of them having learned from his ancestors. Christian is also an avid fanatic of Jazz Music which influenced his writing more or less, providing the concept and structure of his significant heroes at their prime.