Ian Fleming's James Bond
in
THE CORNERS OF HER MIND

By Frostbitten

Part 3

"Mal, let me out of here! If this is Mikael's idea of a joke, you can tell him that it's not funny any more!", Nikki yelled, while pounding on the door with her fists.

Ten minutes ago, she had been led by Maldinho down to the basement of the house. He had, with great fanfare, opened the door to the large room and declared: "Your surprise is waiting for you in here, Miss Le!"

She had stepped into the room, a huge space about the size of a football field, with a gleaming hardwood floor. It was also totally empty. Surprised, Nikki had scanned the room with her eyes, but couldn't see any gift.

"Well, where is it? Is this present not only a surprise, but also invisible as well?"

Instead of giving her an answer, Maldinho had slammed the door shut in her face and left. He had not returned since, despite Nikki's banging on the door and demanding to be let out.

Now, her voice hoarse and quivering with a growing fear, Nikki cried out once more: "Mal, let me out, please! Why are you doing this to me?"

The only response she got was the echo of her voice, bouncing off the walls of the cavernous room, as if taunting her.

            **************************************************

Bond had been led back into the living room. He was now seated on a wingback chair, facing Geffen across a low cocktail table. Priest was standing in a corner near the fireplace, and he continued to cover Bond with his Glock.
 
"Have you ever heard of Anita Krull, Mr. Bond?", Geffen asked casually.

The name sent chills down Bond's spine, as it must have done to many other people around the world, people who didn't get scared easily. For a while in the nineties, Anita Krull had been the most celebrated, and feared, assassin in the world. The few photographs of her that Bond had seen on Interpol's database had shown a six-foot tall, striking blonde, with perfect, but cold, facial features. Born of a German father and a Swedish mother, Anita possessed the cool beauty of the stereotypical Viking goddess, something which she had used to her advantage in several of her hits. Some of her victims had been lovers of hers; she had used sex to make them lower their guards, then killed them with a variety of exotic methods, involving poison, nerve gas, knives, and even a piano wire. However, Anita had not always relied on the honey trap approach. Sometimes, she would just take the more conventional route, coming in with guns blazing.

"I have read her dossier." Bond replied. "Was she one of your patients too? Another self-delusional, homicidal lunatic?"

"Oh no, Mr. Bond," Geffen laughed. "Anita was a very healthy woman, mentally and physically. She had no need for my services as a psychiatrist. She did, however, need my assistance in achieving her professional success."

"I see. So you were her accomplice. It was always suspected that she had one, considering how many of her hits were extremely well-planned. The thing that elevated her above her competition was not her physical prowess, or ruthlessness, but the fact that she always seemed to have the best information with which to plan and carry out her attacks."

"You are quite right in that regard," Geffen was obviously pleased. "It was the homework that I did for her, the impeccable quality of the pieces of intelligence that I provided to her, that enabled Anita to become the most successful and feared assassin of her time. I was the Controller, and she was the Trigger. My code name was Wolfgang. You see, Mr. Bond, I have been blessed with a great intellect, and I can usually master any field of study if I really apply myself. When I was young, I wanted very much to become a psychiatrist, because the human mind, with its complexity and surprising frailty, always fascinated me. I thought that there was nothing more challenging than curing a sick mind. However, a few years after opening up my own practice, during which time I was tremendously successful, I grew bored with my profession. Delving into the sordid details of people's lives, their past, their childhoods, trying to find the cause of their mental sicknesses, didn't seem like  such fun and rewarding work any more. I was growing weary of absorbing other people's miseries, and felt that I needed some kind of outlet, or I would go insane myself. It was then that I met Anita. That was quite an epiphany, let me tell you.

She was a mysterious, wild woman, completely uninhibited in love-making, and in the way she lived her life in general. At first, I didn't know what she did for a living. We lived together, and yet, there were times that she would just take off for a few days without telling me where she was going. Then, she would come home, full of adrenaline and nervous excitement, and the sex would always be great on those occasions. I wasn't blind or stupid, so I began to suspect that whatever she did during those unannounced trips would be quite dangerous, and illegal. I confronted her with that suspicion, and she looked at me for a while, then finally said: "Do you want to know what a real rush is?" I didn't know what I was getting myself into, but I said yes anyway. She took me along with her on her next assignment. It was a hit on a Colombian drug dealer, ordered by one of his competitors. It was incredible. She knew that he was going to be having dinner in this Mexican restaurant, acc ompanied by his girlfriend and a couple of bodyguards. So we went there, like a couple on a date. We sat at a table just a few yards away from the Colombian and his entourage. Anita was so calm. We ate dinner, chatted, as if nothing was about to happen. Then, just as the house lights dimmed and a mariachi band started to play on a small stage, she got up, walked over to the Colombian's table, and put a bullet in each of the people there: the drug dealer, his date, and his bodyguards. People started to scream and run out the front doors. Anita and I simply went through the kitchen and escaped out the back. I tell you, Mr. Bond, after that evening, I knew that I have found my true calling, and there was no turning back. I asked to become Anita's partner. She was skeptical at first, but I quickly gained her respect by proving to her how useful I was. You see, Mr. Bond, during my previous life as a psychiatrist, I've had quite a few very important patients, people who I could bl ackmail because I knew things about them that they would not even confess to a priest. I used those connections to open doors for Anita, to get information that was vital to her in executing her hits. With my help, she was able to take on more and more ambitious jobs. We went after not only the drug dealers, the Mafia bosses, but also high-ranking government officials, and business magnates. Meanwhile, in my work as a psychiatrist, I continued to cultivate and grow the network of connections that would make me a useful and powerful ally to Anita. I also learned to hack into governments' secret databases because information was my weapon, and I needed to find any way possible to gain access to more of it. Also, computer hacking became a new challenge for me, and once I focused my mind on it, I became very good, very quickly. We made the perfect team, Anita and I.  She was a killing machine. I scouted out the targets, and gave her the access and information she needed. For a w hile, Wolfgang and Anita were the best team of assassins in the world."

"Apparently, you two were not good enough to prevent her death. Quite a messy affair, from what I've heard." Bond's comment had the desired effect, as a flash of anger appeared in Geffen's eyes.

"In our profession, a sudden and violent death is always a possibility. It can happen to the best of us. We were going after a Japanese member of the Yakuza who had been captured during an arms deal gone bad, and had decided to testify against the organization's leaders in exchange for freedom and a new life abroad. He was held captive in the penthouse suite of a seedy hotel in Okinawa. I didn't like the assignment from the beginning. Our regular driver was unavailable, so we had to rely on the local help to drive the get-away vehicle. I told Anita that we should abort the mission, but she wouldn't listen. I dropped her off from a plane about a mile away from the hotel, and she hang-glided down onto the roof. Then, she infiltrated the suite, killed four Japanese Secret Service agents, and shot the witness at point-blank range. The job went off like clockwork, and Anita almost escaped, but the incompetent get-away driver couldn't make the rendezvous because he got trapped in a  traffic jam, and then drove like a maniac to make up the time, and got caught by the cops. That idiot killed Anita. Trapped in the hotel, surrounded by dozens of Secret Service agents and local policemen, she put up a fierce firefight, and was finally gunned down after a long and bloody siege."

"So, the better half of Wolfgang & Anita went down in a blaze of glory. What happened to poor Wolfie after that?", Bond asked mockingly, trying to further provoke Geffen into losing his cool.

"I am the brain of the operation, Mr. Bond. Anita was very good, but she was not irreplaceable. Did you know that there was a kind of fraternity between the top assassins in the world? We kept track of one another's successes and failures, and maintained a secret worldwide ranking system. Anita and I held the top spot in that list for a couple of years before she was killed. I intend to return to that position again, and it's just a matter of finding the right partner."

"Well," Bond said with malice, "I guess you were too much of a coward to carry out the hits, so you had to rely on someone else to do  the dirty work for you. You are nothing but a useless, powerless, balding middle-aged man padding his fragile self-esteem by murdering others, but the worst part is you actually lack the guts to pull the trigger yourself."

Geffen's eyes flared with hatred, and he seemed on the verge of lunging across the table and hitting Bond. However, he quickly regained his self-control, and once again flashed Bond one of his icy smiles.

"You have a poisonous tongue, Mr. Bond. I will enjoy your coming death very much. However, first I will show you a glimpse of my power, so that when you die, you will know that you have been beaten by a better man."

Geffen stood up, and gave a signal to Priest, who yanked Bond to his feet and forced him to follow Geffen as the latter turned and walked out of the room. He led the way down a narrow corridor, toward a stone staircase that wound its way down to the basement of the house.

They came into a small, darkened room that stank of cigarette smoke. Except for a few metal chairs, the room was bare. However, what attracted Bond's attention were not the room's furnishings, but the wall opposite the entrance. Half of the wall was taken up by a huge window, which was, curiously enough, blocked out by a brick wall beyond.

"Have a seat, Mr. Bond. The show is about to begin." When Bond failed to follow Geffen's command, Priest pushed him roughly down into one of the metal chairs. Geffen went up to the window, and pressed a small switch next to it. The rumbling sound of heavy machinery was heard, as the brick wall on the other side of the glass started to glide to the right, giving a view into the room beyond. Bond's eyes opened wide with surprise as he saw the sole figure in the empty space. Standing just a few feet away from the glass, with her eyes looking straight at him through the window, was Nikki Le.

Her face was strained, pinched by fear and fatigue. She had been standing by the door when the sound of the wall moving made her turn around. Seeing the huge window revealed, she walked hesitantly up to it. Seemingly unaware of the men looking at her through the glass, she pressed her palms and face against the window, trying to peer into the room where Bond, Geffen and Priest were in. She called out, her voice a thin and frightened sound: "Mikael, are you there? What are you trying to do? Let me out of here, please! I'm very tired. Let me out!"

Geffen smiled as he saw a look of deep concern crossed Bond's face as he gazed at Nikki, who looked as helpless as a butterfly caught in a glass jar.

"It's a one-way window, Mr. Bond," Geffen explained. "We can see her, but she can't see us. Perfect for the little experiment coming up."

"Why do you have her locked up in there?", Bond asked. "She looks scared and exhausted. Do whatever you want with me, but let her go!"

"Oh I can't do that," Geffen replied amiably. "You see, she is the central character in the next act. Let me enlighten you."

            ***************************************************

"While I was studying psychiatry, I became fascinated with the powerful technique of hypnotherapy. Hypnotism is so powerful because it allows the psychiatrist access to the patient's unconscious. Do you know that the unconscious serves many important purposes in helping a person live his daily life? It is the storage of memories, the source of emotions, the seat of impulse and creativity, and the controller of the basic functions. Without the unconscious, there would be no Art. Even worse yet, people would have a hard time doing simple but vital things like breathing, for example.

The unconscious, however, is an uninhibited beast, held in check by the conscious mind. If people's actions are controlled only by their unconscious, they would probably end up killing one another over trivial matters such as parking spaces, and society would crumble. When you see a hypnotist able to make a normally reserved person walk around almost naked on stage, or cluck like a chicken, it is because he has been able to bypass that person's conscious mind by putting him in a trance, and is communicating with his unconscious directly, telling it what to do.

However, a hypnotist can't bring something out of a person that wasn't already there in the first place. All he can do is to rummage around in the warehouse of a person's unconscious, find a repressed emotion, impulse, or fantasy, and bring it to the surface, allow it expression, amplify it.

That was my thinking when I went looking for Anita's replacement. I needed someone who looked capable physically, and possessed one important psychological trait: she must, unconsciously at least, want to become somebody else. This combination is actually quite rare, since women who even come close to being the physical specimen that Anita was usually are too busy admiring themselves, let alone yearn to be someone else.

My search went on fruitlessly for a while, until a chance meeting with a long-time friend, another psychiatrist, back in 1998. His name is Karl Mueller, and during that period, he was working as a volunteer in a refugee camp on a remote Malaysian island. I met him when he came back to Stuttgart for vacation. He told me of this beautiful refugee girl who could play the piano like Horowitz himself. She gave a recital during the Mid-Autumn Festival on the island that completely dazzled him. Knowing Karl and his excellent taste in music, I found this to be very high praise indeed, and decided to go to the island and check the girl out for myself. I was able to attend Nikki's next recital, and saw that, if anything, Karl's praise for her had been an understatement. I immediately knew that, given the proper tutelage, she had the potential to become the next Ashkenazy or Rubinstein. However, the real revelation came during the conversation that I had with her the day after the recit al. Karl brought her to me, and throughout our talk, I found her to be an extremely shy and timid girl, something quite unusual for someone so talented. It was as if she was unaware of her gift, of how special she really was. Becoming quite curious, I met with her several more times, and realized that she suffered from a very low self-esteem, bordering on self-loathing. It was only much later that I discovered that this feeling stemmed from some rejections she had suffered during her childhood and young adulthood, apparently due to her mixed heritage. But even back then, on that tiny island, I knew that I had finally found what I had been searching for: the next Anita.

On the surface, Nikki may not resemble the formidable Anita at all. She is much smaller, and consequently weaker. However, there's one thing that I have learned, namely that strength can be compensated for with technique, and smarts. Furthermore, there's something that Nikki has in common with Anita: her beauty. Such attractive women don't really need much physical power, because their feminine charms are powerful enough.

I knew that I had to get Nikki off that island, and bring her back to Germany, where I could work on transforming her for my purpose. It was an easy process. She had no relative left, so when I volunteered to sponsor her and take care of her, the camp authorities were only too happy to let me take her away. We came back to Stuttgart in November 1998, and I immediately began working on her.

I told Nikki that to become a successful concert pianist (which was her dream), she would need to develop a great deal of self-confidence. I said that through sessions of hypnotherapy, I would be able to help her achieve that goal much more rapidly. She was quite trusting, the poor child, so she agreed to let me try out this technique on her. I started to hypnotize her, but when I got her in a trance state, instead of working on her self-confidence, I began to lay the foundation for cultivating an alter ego, namely that of Anita Krull, inside Nikki's unconscious. I started by implanting memories from Anita's past into Nikki's memory bank. Then, I would make her watch endless hours of Anita's training tapes, so that some of Anita's determination, and mannerisms, would rub off on her. Finally, I created a trigger mechanism, basically a phrase that I can use to bring the Anita persona, normally submerged, to the front any time I wish.

After each session, Nikki would awake and not remember a thing about what had been done to her. She truly believed that I had been helping her improve her self-esteem. Then, something unexpected, but quite beneficial, happened. She did begin to show more and more self-confidence, becoming more extroverted and outgoing. I gradually began to understand that this was a side effect of what I was doing to her. Since Anita's personality was so strong, even when I had submerged it, parts of it still broke through the barrier between the conscious and unconscious inside Nikki's mind, slowly altering Nikki's personality itself. It was like killing two birds with one stone. Nikki and I both got what we wanted out of the "therapy" sessions. I began to develop a routine where, twice a week, I would transform Nikki into Anita, using my embedded trigger. During those times, I brought special "tutors" in to start training her in the skills needed to truly become Anita: handling of firearms  and explosives, foreign languages, martial arts, and even the art of being a seductive woman. As time passed by, as "Anita", Nikki became more and more proficient in mastering the tools of the hitman's trade. As herself, Nikki also blossomed into not only a great pianist, but a great performer as well, empowered by Anita's indomitable cockiness, which seeped through into her own consciousness by osmosis.
 
During my sessions with her, I also discovered that Nikki harbored a lot of suppressed rage against those who had tormented her and discriminated against her in the past. I tapped into those hidden, violent emotions and impulses, combined them with those brought over from the Anita persona, and amplified them. So, if you really think about it, I didn't transform Ms. Le, but merely let her get in touch with a dark part within herself. Some might even call what I did brilliant psychotherapy."

"Is that how you rationalize your sick, twisted manipulation of a troubled young woman?", Bond spat out. "I've heard some pathetic excuses before, but yours is truly an all-time low."

Geffen laughed. "That's what I like about you. So much bravado. Such moral righteousness. If I had more time, I would enjoy stripping all of that veneer away from you, little by little. Unfortunately, time is a luxury that I am in short supply of at the moment. Therefore, I would just have to satisfy myself with having you killed. But first, I will let you witness something that will, as the popular phrase goes, blow your mind."

Geffen went to the window looking into the room where Nikki was held, and pressed a button. A control panel with multiple switches and a microphone slid out noiselessly from the wall. His fingers moved quickly over the panel, flipping a number of switches. The lighting in the other room began to change, dimming considerably, while the whirring sound of heavy machinery moving could be heard through the thick glass of the window. Startled by this sound, Nikki turned around, and asked in a trembling voice: "Where's that sound coming from? What's happening?"

She got her answer, as sections of the ceiling opened up, and concrete partitions started to slowly descend. When they finally touched the floor, the partitions had divided the huge room up into a myriad of short, intersecting hallways, creating a maze-like structure.

Now, Geffen took the microphone, and spoke into it: "Arise, Anita!"

His voice was processed, transformed, and amplified, so that when it was projected into the other room, it became a booming, subhuman thing that sounded like the voice of the Devil from a well-known horror movie.

The effect of the short command was immediate. Nikki straightened herself up from her previous fearful, cowed posture, so that she appeared to have suddenly gained a few inches in height.

Geffen spoke again: "Anita, this is Wolfgang speaking."

Nikki turned back to face the glass, and Bond was startled by the subtle, but terrifying, changes on her face. Her eyes, which had always gleamed playfully when they were at the club, now stared forward with a mocking intensity, while her lips curled up in a smile that seemed more evil than charming.

"What kind of game are we playing now, Wolfgang? You know I don't like to be kept in the dark." Her voice had also changed, lowered by about an octave.

"It's a test, Anita. Like one of those one-on-one training exercises, except that you are allowed to use lethal force this time. The guns will be loaded with real bullets."

"Oh good! The game is always more fun when the stakes are high. When do we start?" Nikki was clearly eager to get going.

"In a minute, my dear. Your adversary this evening is Mr. James Bond, aka Agent 007, a British spy who is also considered one of the best assassins in the world. To be truly recognized as the best in our business, we will have to take care of him. Or rather, you will have to take care of him. Are you up to it?"

"Just let him in. Then, we will see who is the best," Nikki replied, her eyes shining with bad intentions.

Geffen turned off the microphone, and addressed Bond: "Well, Mr. Bond, I hope that you'll provide my Anita with a bit of a challenge. However, you'll understand if I tell you that I have to stack the deck slightly in her favor. She knows where the weapons are hidden inside that maze, having gone through some training exercises there, but you don't. Still, with an adversary of your calibre, I can't take any chances. I have to make sure that my champion will be the one standing at the end."

"I don't know about your champion, but I can assure you that you won't be standing at the end," Bond said, with malice.

"I see that you're an eternal optimist. In truth, I don't think we'll be seeing each other again after this meeting," Geffen replied dryly. Then, he turned toward Priest: "After Anita is done with him, dispose of the body. Make sure nobody can find Mr. Bond's remains."

"My pleasure, boss." Priest's voice, guttural and unpleasant, matched his appearance perfectly.

"Now, I'm afraid I have to leave you in the loving hands of "Anita" and Priest. I can't afford to keep the lovely ladies at the Mayor's ball waiting any longer." Geffen gave a little theatrical bow, and turned to leave.

"Just one question, Geffen," Bond interrupted him.

"Yes? I hope it's a quick one." Geffen was irritated to be delayed.

"Why did you order Nikki to kill Eric Houghton?"

"Oh, the poor boy's killing was just the first in a series of hits that will announce to the world that Wolfgang & Anita are back. He had the audacity to claim, among his many romantic conquests, one Mrs. Hagan, wife of the biotech magnate Carleton Hagan. It was inevitable, really, that the twenty-something Mrs. Hagan would betray her septuagenarian husband for a dashing young man of her age, but old Carleton sure took offense when he found out about the affair. He wanted the boy dead, and although this kind of hit is normally below the usual Wolfgang & Anita standards, I took it because it fit in with my plan to work our way back to the top spot among assassins of the world. You see, Mr. Bond, I plan to have Nikki recreate all of Anita's greatest hits, thus dropping "calling cards", so to speak, that would announce to our colleagues that we are back."

"I see. That's why you chose the cyanide gas. To recreate the Tarlov murder. Happened in the early nineties, if I'm not mistaken." That was one of the more famous hits performed by Anita Krull. It was the first thing that Bond had thought of when Heather showed him the video of Eric Houghton's murder.

"I'm impressed. It would seem that you are quite familiar with our work. Indeed, the Houghton murder was designed to match the Tarlov case in every detail, to make the right people sit up and take notice. I plan to follow it up with several more hits that will be carbon copies of some of the most sensational assignments Anita ever carried out. By the end of next year, we will once again be the number one team in the world, Nikki and I. It's too bad that you won't be around to see it."

Geffen walked over to a combination CD player/intercom panel hanging on the wall, and made a selection. Gradually, the sound of music could be heard, permeating the room they were in, and the maze beyond.

"Just to set the mood for your demise. I thought you might enjoy listening to Nikki's best recording, Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto in C Minor, while you face her in the maze. For you, though, I'm afraid this piece will actually sound like Death in C Minor."

With that, Geffen gave another one of his theatrical bows, and left the room.


Danse Macabre

"Come on, move it!", Priest ordered, while waving his gun toward the door leading into the maze. As Bond came to the door, Priest casually walked up to him, and hit him with a vicious punch to the solar plexus. The force of the blow made Bond double up and drop to his knees, breathless.

"How do you like this guard dog's bite?", Priest asked tauntingly.

Slowly, Bond got back up on his feet. Looking at the other man squarely in the eyes, he said in a calm, even voice: "I have a confession to make, Priest. Before this night is over, I will repay you, with interest."

Priest laughed dismissively. "Oh, I doubt that very much. You won't survive your encounter with "Anita", but even if you do, you won't be in a condition to pose much of a threat to me."

"We'll see about that," Bond replied, before he was roughly shoved through the door, which was slammed shut behind him.

Bond took a quick look around him. In front of him, three branches of the maze beckoned, and there was no sight of Nikki. Bond decided to take the central aisle. As he walked, he carefully scanned the walls on both sides, looking for any niche that might serve as a hiding place for weapons. He knew that he would have to find one quickly. From what Geffen had told him, there were loaded guns scattered about the maze, and he had no doubt that Nikki, knowing exactly where they were hidden, had picked up at least one.

The music was still playing, pouring out from speakers built into the walls and ceiling. Bond guessed that it was Geffen's twisted sense of humor that had prompted him to choose the Rachmaninoff Second Piano Concerto, one of the most romantic pieces in the classical music repertoire, as the accompaniment to the dance of death that was now being played out by Nikki and himself.

Still, Bond didn't want to take Nikki's life. She had been merely a pawn in Geffen's sick, deadly scheme to regain the fame that he and Anita had once enjoyed. If at all possible, he would try to get her out of Geffen's grasp, and help her get rid of the murderous alter ego that had been implanted within her.

"Nikki, can you hear me?", Bond called out. There was no answer.

He tried again. "Nikki, we don't have to do this. You are being manipulated by Geffen. Let's talk about it, instead of trying to kill each other."

After a few seconds, Nikki's voice came back from somewhere nearby.

"Who is this Nikki that you keep calling? There's no one here but us, Mr. Bond."

"It's you. You are Nikki. Anita is just someone that Geffen wants you to become, to serve his own purposes."

Silence. Then, a short laugh.

"I see what you are trying to do, Mr. Bond. You are trying to distract me, so that you can make the preemptive strike. Well, you'll have to try harder than that."

"No, Nikki, listen to me. Try to remember who you really are. The child of a Vietnamese doctor and a French nurse. A gifted and famous pianist. Not a murderess, a puppet under the control of some crazed psychiatrist."

There was no response this time. Bond reached the end of the aisle, and found himself looking into a sort of hub, from which no less than six different corridors branched off. He carefully looked into each dark hallway, but some veered off at such sharp angles that he could see no more than the first few yards beyond their entrances. Nikki could be hiding in any one of them, waiting to pick him off as he walked out into the empty hub. The last time that she had replied to him, her voice had sounded very close, no more than ten yards away.

Bond had to make a decision: stay where he was, and wait for her to come to him, or venture out into the open, in the hope of drawing her out. After a pause to weigh his options, Bond slowly walked out to the center of the hub.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then, Bond detected a slight change in the air current that he had felt ever since he entered the hub, a current which flowed from his left to his right. It was as though someone had just moved across the mouth of one of the tunnels on his left, temporarily blocking the air flow. Acting almost purely out of instinct, Bond threw himself on the ground, just a split second before a shuriken, the infamous ninja throwing star, sliced through the air and impaled itself on the wall in front of him. If he had remained standing, it would have pierced his throat.

Bond spun around, but couldn't see his attacker. Then, he heard her laugh, which seemed to come from the tunnel directly in front of him. "You have good reflexes, Mr. Bond. Certainly better than those of the thugs that Wolfgang normally puts me up against," she told him.

Bond picked the shuriken off the wall and, while holding it in the throwing position, cautiously approached the dark opening. As he entered the hallway, he flattened himself against one wall, and waited a few seconds to let his eyes get used to the darkness. Then, he moved forward, keeping his body close to the wall.

The hallway curved slightly to the right, leading to a four-way intersection. Wary of walking into another ambush, Bond stopped just short of the intersection. Once again, he pondered his options. Perhaps he should make a quick dash across the empty junction, hopefully drawing some fire that would reveal Nikki's position while not exposing himself for too long.

As Bond tensed his muscles and prepared to launch himself forward, a metallic object came flying out of the darkness, bounced off a wall with a loud clang, then landed right in front of him. It exploded. The sound was not much louder than that of a firecracker going off, and the force of the blast was not strong enough to do any damage, but the flash of white light that accompanied the explosion was tremendously bright, as if dozens of cameras with powerful flashbulbs had clicked simultaneously. Caught by surprise, Bond didn't close his eyes in time, and was totally blinded by the flash grenade. His vision was gone, replaced by bluish white fireworks that kept exploding in the back of his eyeballs long after the grenade had gone off.

Nikki stepped out of the shadow of the hallway where she had been standing, walked up to Bond in a few quick strides, and hit him across the face with the butt of an ASP 9mm. Bond didn't see the attack coming, but only felt the lightning bolt of pain going through his head as the hard metal came into contact with his skull. He fell to the ground, where he remained, dazed, while the throwing star fell out of his hand and rolled away somewhere. He could taste his own blood as it trickled out of the gash that had just been opened up right above his left eye, down the side of his face and into the corner of his mouth. The worst part of the whole situation was that he was still as blind as a bat, and even more defenseless, because unlike a bat, he didn't have the capability for echolocation.

"Do you know that the victim of a flash grenade attack wouldn't start to get his vision back for at least a full minute?", Nikki asked mockingly. She slowly circled Bond, like a tiger circling the prey that it had mortally wounded, before moving in for the kill. "A minute is an eternity, Mr. Bond. I can do so many things to you in one minute, including killing you."

As soon as she said that, Nikki stepped forward and kicked Bond viciously in the ribs. He rolled over on his back, his hands clutching at the place where the pointed end of her shoe had brought a fresh burst of agony that was now spreading throughout his whole body. He had difficulty breathing, and when he did draw a breath, the pain in his side was so great that he knew that his ribs were at least deeply bruised, and could even be broken.

Bond knew that he couldn't afford to take another kick in the ribs, because then they would be broken for sure, and worse yet, he would probably pass out from the pain, and be totally helpless. Think, damn it, he thought desperately. Must somehow anticipate her next attack, or it would all be over. What happened before the kick actually landed on him? Bond struggled to recall every little detail that his senses, other than his vision, had picked up right before the pain came. Oh yes, he had heard two clicking sounds in rapid succession as she had taken two quick steps in her high heels on the shiny hardwood floor. Then, a silent beat as her lead leg had lifted off the ground to begin tracing the arc that would end at his ribs.

Bond realized that his only chance was to lure her into performing the same attack again, and hopefully this time, he would be able to react quickly enough. He lowered his arm, exposing the wounded side, and moaned, feigning more agony that he actually felt. Nikki took the bait. She closed in quickly on him to deliver another kick to the injured ribs. Bond listened for the clicks of her quick setup steps, and when the silent beat came, indicating her lead leg was up, he spun his body on the floor and lashed out with his right leg, sweeping her support leg off the floor. Nikki came crashing down awkwardly on the wooden surface. While she was temporarily stunned, with the wind knocked out of her, Bond launched his own attack. By the sound of her fall, he was able to guess where her head would be. He jumped on top of her, and landed a hard, open-handed blow to the back of her head, behind and slightly below her ear, instantly knocking her unconscious. This blow could potentially  kill a person by causing massive internal hemorrhage, but he had been careful to apply just enough force to disable her without causing any permanent damage.

"You'll have to take away more than just my vision, my dear," Bond muttered, as he sat back, resting against the wall, trying to catch his breath and wait for his eyes to clear up. About thirty seconds later, the blue-white mist in front of his eyes started to lift, and the world came swimming back into view. Gradually, Bond was able to see the hallway he was in, and then the dark form of Nikki's body on the ground came into focus. She was still unconscious.

Suddenly, a heavily computerized voice came through the concealed speakers: "Anita, what happened? Did you kill him?"

Bond realized that where he and Nikki were was probably out of the line of sight of cameras that he was sure Geffen would have mounted on the walls of this training labyrinth. That was fortunate, because it meant he would have a little more time to recuperate and plan out his next course of action, since without knowing what had happened, Priest would be hesitant about coming into the maze to go after Bond himself.

He took the ASP out of Nikki's hand, and held it up. The gun felt nicely weighted and comforting in his hand. He had used the ASP several times before, and knew it to be a very reliable semi-automatic, with decent stopping power. It would do fine when he went up against Priest.

Back in the control room, Priest was furious. He had tracked Bond's and Nikki's progress as they moved closer and closer to each other through the maze. However, the system of cameras that had been installed inside the maze didn't give total coverage, and was due to be upgraded soon. Unfortunately, the confrontation between Bond and Nikki had taken place in one of the few "blind spots", so Priest couldn't see what had happened. However, after waiting a few minutes and not seeing Nikki emerge from any of the tunnels, he realized that the fight must have ended in Bond's favor.

"Did she fail? This has never happened before," observed Maldinho, who had come into the control room to watch the fight.

"She has never gone up against top-notch competition before," Priest replied sourly. "The second-rate guns for hire that Geffen put in there previously were just sacrificial lambs, hand-picked to give her a good exercise and nothing more. He shouldn't have made her fight Bond. She was not ready."

At that moment, Bond was picked up by one of the cameras inside. He was seen walking up to within a few feet of the lens, then pointing a gun straight at it. In the next instant, the picture disappeared into a mass of static as the camera was obliterated by Bond's shot. Then, one after another, the cameras were systematically taken out by Bond in a similar way, until he was no longer visible to those in the control room.

"What are we going to do?", Maldinho asked. He couldn't keep a trace of panic from creeping into his voice.

"Well, you are going to go in there and finish the job that she started. Didn't Geffen say that you used to do some wet work for him years ago?", Priest asked a surprised Maldinho.

"Yes, but ... that was a long time ago."

"It's just like riding a bicycle. Once you've killed professionally, you never forget how. Now go on." Priest nodded toward the door. Maldinho didn't look too thrilled about the task at hand, but he also knew Priest well enough to know that he'd better not disobey the man. He pulled out a Glock, similar to the one that Priest used, and stepped into the maze.

Priest watched him go. He didn't really think that Maldinho could handle Bond, but he was just hoping that the Brazilian might get in a lucky shot that would cause some injury to Bond, thus softening him up further for Priest to come in and do the mop-up work.

Several minutes passed, and still no sign of either Bond or the Brazilian. Priest paced back and forth in the small control room, furious because he could no longer see what was taking place inside the maze. When you need something done right, you always have to do it yourself, he thought angrily.

"Priest, are you there?"

Bond's voice made Priest whip around. He saw, through the one-way glass, Bond emerging from one of the tunnels of the maze, holding the muscular Brazilian in front of him like a shield. Bond had his left arm around Maldinho's neck, and with his right hand, he kept the ASP pressed to the Brazilian's temple.

"Don't do anything foolish, Priest, or your friend here gets his brain splattered all over the floor. Do you hear me?" As Bond talked, he gradually moved himself and his human shield toward the door leading to the control room. Priest pulled out the Glock and took aim, but realized that he didn't have a clear shot at Bond. He had to decide what to do quickly, because Bond was already at the door.

As he manhandled the big Brazilian, Bond's wounded ribs screamed in pain to protest the stress that he was placing on them. On top of that, his vision out of his left eye was hampered by a layer of dried blood that had partially shut the eye by pulling down its corner. Still, Bond knew that he had to press on and take care of Priest now, before the latter could lock him in and go look for reinforcements.

Bond kicked the door open with his right foot. Immediately there came the sounds of two loud gunshots from the Glock, and Maldinho's body jerked violently twice in Bond's arm. Blood spurted from the Brazilian's chest and shoulder. Bond winced, and felt grateful that Priest's gun was a Glock, whose bullets were designed to spend most of their energy in the first object that they hit. Another gun might have bullets that were designed to cause the most damage as they exited the target, in which case they would retain enough velocity to go into Bond as well.

Within a fraction of a second, Bond's eyes located Priest, crouched behind a chair in the center of the room. The ASP barked once, as Bond shot at the man in the black suit while holding the gun above the dead Maldinho's shoulder. The awkward position spoiled his aim, and instead of killing Priest, his bullet only slammed into the man's left shoulder, spinning him around. Before Bond could shoot again, Priest bolted out of the control room through a door directly opposite the one that Bond had just come through. Bond let go of Maldinho's body, which slumped to the floor, and took off after Geffen's personal bodyguard.

As he rounded a corner of the hallway outside the control room, he briefly glimpsed Priest standing at the far end of the corridor, with his legs apart and both arms extended in front of him in the classic shooter's stance. Bond quickly ducked back around the corner before the Glock boomed and a bullet zipped past him. He waited a couple of seconds, then jumped out into the open, throwing his body on the ground and squeezing off two shots toward where Priest had been standing. However, the other man had disappeared, and his footsteps could be heard as he rushed up a stairway toward the main floor of the house.

Bond came up the stairs carefully, keeping his gun ready. He thought that Priest would take a shot at him as he came to the top of the stairs, but when he reached the main floor, his adversary was nowhere in sight. Bond's eyes scanned the room in front of him, a large space that held both a sitting area and a dining area. The room was dimly lit by an ornate chandelier above the dining table. Bond slowly walked around the huge space, checking behind the large pieces of 19th Century French furniture. Priest was not in the room.

Bond moved to the only other doorway, beyond which was a hallway that led to the back of the house. There were two doors along the hallway, one close to the dining room, and the other all the way at the end. He drew a deep breath, then kicked open the door closest to him and jumped in. He found himself standing in an empty study. There was only one place left that Priest could be hiding in, and that was the room at the end of the hall. Bond walked up to it, then flattened himself against the right wall. Gingerly, he reached out with his left hand and turned the doorknob, while keeping his body clear of the doorway. He twisted the knob half a circle in the counterclockwise direction, then pushed it open, and withdrew his hand just as another bullet came zinging through.

Bond dipped his head in for a quick peek, then pulled back. He saw a large, king-size poster bed, and Priest crouching behind the headboard. The next time he leaned forward, Bond got off only one wild round before having to jump back away from the door again as Priest's bullet blew some wood splinters out of the door frame. It would be almost impossible to get at Priest this way, because he would simply not have enough time to line up a quality shot. Then, an idea came to him. During his last hurried look into the room, he had noticed a large mirror that covered the ceiling above the bed, apparently installed to let Geffen enjoy watching his own debaucheries as they were being played out. For Bond's idea to work, he would have to be very fast, and a bit lucky, with his next rounds. He took a few deep breaths to calm himself down and steady his hands. Then, holding the ASP in a two-handed grip, he swung his body out into the line of fire once again and shot twice at the mirror . He hit it at just the right place, and the back half of the mirror shattered, raining glass shards like twinkling, razor-sharp daggers down on Priest. The latter instinctively covered his head with both hands to prevent his face from being cut into shreds. When the glass stopped falling, Priest withdrew his bloody arms, only to feel the hot muzzle of the ASP against his forehead.

"Checkmate," Bond said, and pulled the trigger. The roar of the gun was deafening, and he didn't look away.