The Man Who Died Twice 3

He'd aged into haggardness. There was the shock of seeing him so different than he had been, the unstoppable avalanche of time. The tax time took of both White and Bond. And the awareness that White had lived to pay that tax. A decade with no trace of White or Quantum. Bond had liked to think that White was dead, stabbed in the back and buried in a shallow grave. The thought that for so many days after Vesper's death he'd been alive, healthy, happy or at least having a chance at happiness… so many chances when all Vesper had was a single cold definite.

One hour of life for the man who'd facilitated her death was unbearable. So much life given to the murderer, all in one moment, made Bond feel he'd suddenly been stricken by an incurable disease. A fatal rage…

“I have eyes on Mr. White,” he forced out, a hoarse whisper into his mic. 

“Mr. White? The Quantum fixer?” Q asked.

“Confirm.”

“We would run across him on an op like this. No satellite coverage, no additional assets… one capture and we find out what Quantum's been up to for the last ten years.”

Bond gritted his teeth. He liked thinking of the rest of White's existence being sweated out in a blacksite. But he also quite liked the idea of blowing White's brains out once and for all. And it was a lot more doable than pulling off an extraction with no prep on an unwilling target.

Bond was set. Killing White would take a powerful enemy piece off the board. That was a good day's work. Not everything M wanted, but when had Bond ever pleased him overmuch?

“Request permission to engage,” Bond transmitted. “Kill mission.”

“Good Lord,” Q muttered. Bond supposed it was a little shocking how easily a kill could be approved. But he didn't shock easily.

“Granted,” M said. “Full discretion given to 007.”

“Going dark,” Bond said, and snapped off the channel. The time for checking in with mum was over. Now it was just him and the job.

Bond instantly concluded that his best move was a full court press. Take out the guards, the cartel representatives, confirm White's death up close. Leave no one alive to tell the tale. Be overseas before anyone knew the operation had happened.

Too many variables in a sniper job. He didn't want to have a gunfight from across the street. And he wanted to look White in the eyes as his light left. 

So. Go downstairs. Cross the street. Enter lobby, exactly like they'd be guarding against, and hope he could fight his way through to White. An even chance, which was more than he wanted to give to anyone in Quantum, let alone him. And a waste of some sublime work he'd put into Estrella’s seduction. His instincts were weighted against that. Bond preferred a certain amount of kismet in his dealings, owing to his French mother no doubt.

Of course, he also had Scottish ancestry, so when a solution nakedly presented itself to him, he seized upon it. As Bond’s mind, well trained to the point of mechanization, strategized, the top hat of a skeletal parade float lofted past his position. The balloon was so big it nearly bridged the gap between his building and that of Mr. White.

Bond chambered the drill round into his Walther. A plan had occurred to him. He had a good feeling about it—there was a sense of luck to it. No sooner did Bond think through the plan then he embarked on it.

There was no point in lingering on the thing until his nerves gave. Better to be swept up in the fervor of the action and reserve his sangfroid for executing the deed. A blunt knife still made a better cut than one that was never brandished.

As ably as he'd bet a single chip at a roulette wheel, Bond trained the Walther on White's visage and drew the trigger noose tight. An interminable pause, then the rifle erupted. Bullet whistling through the air. It struck the bulletproof glass, bored into it like a burrowing tick…

And even as the impact put a start through the room, Bond had slung the rifle over his shoulder. He lunged forward, gaining the parapet before throwing himself onto the broad shoulders of the monstrous skeleton floating by. The landing didn't break his momentum. He continued at a run, crossing the skeleton at a sprint…

The rifle bullet exploded, the shaped charge within directing its blast into the surrounding glass. Even the reinforced material had to shatter, and as the protective glass fell away, Bond was there. Launching his body from the edge of the float to go through the entrance he'd just made for himself. He landed in a roll, came up in a crouch, and fired into targets still cringing away from flying shards of glass.

First shot took a bodyguard in the forehead. His head jerked back. The second bullet Bond had fired as insurance hit under the chin and ensured the corpse would not get an open casket funeral.

Bond swiveled until his PPK was trained on the second bodyguard. His gunsight found the man going for his sidearm. Bond jabbed the trigger into the back of its guard three times. The trio of bullets blew the soldato backwards like a gale force wind. He collided with the wall and slid down it, his suit becoming more blood than anything else.

Five shots. Two left for White. Bond trained the PPK on him. Advanced. White gave ground.

“Mr. White. How lovely to come across a familiar face while abroad.”

White backed past Armando, still in shock from the invasion. Bond chopped the PPK into his temple. The cartel man fell to his knees. When Bond pistol-whipped him again, he heard a skull shatter.

White’s voice had become a rasp in his old age. “My compliments to your training, Mr. Bond. You're as implacable as ever, even this deep into your career.”

“And you're as polite as ever, even at the end of yours.”

The door burst open. Bond’s gunhand leapt in that direction. As soon as his arm was at full extension, he fired. White's guard took the hit through his heart. He staggered, right hand grasping his left pinky as death tightened its grip on him.

A blink later, the PPK was back on Mr. White. One bullet to punish all his crimes.

“You're not here with the blessings of the Mexicans. I would've heard,” White continued, no more put out by his man's death than he would be at hearing a car honk. “You haven't gone off the reservation again, have you Mr. Bond? Or is all this sanctioned by M?”

“Do you really think it matters one way or another? I ripped apart an embassy just to get to a bombmaker. You I'd beat to death in front of the Queen.”

“It's good to know I can inspire such passion after all this time.”

“Not for much longer,” Bond promised. “Do you know how many times I've been held at gunpoint by men like you, who can't help but air out all their issues like I'm some sort of therapist? I get chance after chance to turn the tables. It's appreciated, but there's a part of me that wishes just one of them would be smart enough…”

Bond fired. He gave White no time to brace himself. The bullet punched into his belly, lancing his aging fat like a boil.

White went down moaning, his hands clasped to the blood bubbling over his belt buckle.

“To do that,” Bond concluded. He popped out the empty magazine and racked a new one in. “I'm not done killing you, Mr. White, but I have started. A bad way to die for a man who picked a bad way to live.”

White gnashed yellowed teeth in his suffering. His voice emptied of its congeniality. “Such smugness! You think this is a victory, Bond? You think you've even landed a blow?”

Bond fired again. Took White's left elbow. “I don't care about Quantum's little game of disaster capitalism. The rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and you won't be around to see any of it.”

Tears were ferreted from White's bloodshot eyes. “You think Quantum just wants money? Wealth is just a means to an end. The end is coming, Bond!”

“Not for another few hours.” One more shot and one less elbow. “Give me something real, I'll spare the hospital some overcrowding. It'll take a lot less patience on your part.”

“A quick death… that's all you have to offer me?”

“Bluster and doomsday prophecies are all you have to bargain with?”

Unable to move his arms, White picked at his wedding band with the fingers of the hand he wore it on. “My wife. When I was alive, I could protect her. Without me, they won't take the risk. Find her. Save her. She'll tell you everything… all about Vesper–“