Raymond Benson - The World Is Not Enough

The MI6 operatives had stormed the Maiden’s Tower after the submarine had exploded. M was rescued and immediately put on an aircraft back to London. At first she had refused to go until Bond was found, but the Prime Minister had ordered that she return without delay.

Prior to her arrival, Tanner had a chance to sleep for a good ten hours for the first time in at least two days. Feeling fresh, he got the Briefing Room looking as if nothing untoward had occurred in the meantime.

When M finally walked in, looking as efficient and steely as ever, all eyes turned to her. She looked at everyone and made the briefest of nods - all the sentiment that was allowed - and the work resumed.

Approaching Tanner, she asked, ‘Any word?’

‘Not yet,’ he replied. ‘All we know is that Bond and Doctor Jones were picked up by a tourist boat. We have no idea where they are now.’

James Bond had persuaded the captain of the tourist boat to drop them off with the other passengers so that he and Christmas could slip away surreptitiously and not have to deal with a de-briefing — just yet. They took a taxi to where Q’s Deputy had delivered the Aston Martin, a testament to the man’s foresight in providing Bond with a back-up car. Bond drove it to a guest villa that he knew; he paid cash for two nights' rental, with the option of extending the stay. Exhausted, they had spent the rest of the day sleeping in each other’s arms, then awoke to have a luxurious dinner in a nearby restaurant: patlican kebap, made of aubergine and lamb.

Now he held the good doctor close to him as they stood against the rail of the villa’s magnificent rooftop garden that overlooked the sparkling night-time fights of Istanbul. It was a beautiful sight, very romantic, and James Bond had no intention of letting it go to waste.

‘What’s the occasion?’ Christmas asked when fireworks unexpectedly exploded in the distance.

‘I'm not sure,’ Bond said. ‘It’s lovely, though.’

‘I can’t remember what month we’re in, much less what day this is.’

Bond opened a bottle of Bollinger and poured two glasses.

‘I always wanted to have Christmas in Turkey,’ he said.

She looked at him suspiciously. ‘Was that a Christinas joke?’

‘From me? Never.’

They clinked glasses and drank. The champagne was bubbly, matching their mood.

‘So, isn’t it time you unwrapped your present?’ she asked with a wicked smile on her lips. She reclined on pillows that she had spread on the rooftop earlier.

‘Have you got something?’ Tanner asked the Q Branch Deputy. The tall man had been sitting at a monitor for half an hour, producing strange colours and shapes until finally the picturc began to be recognisable.

‘A satellite thermal image of Istanbul,’ he explained. ‘There is a minute radioactive filament in Double-0 Seven’s Aston Martin. I’ve attempted to get a fix on that.’

M stood behind them, expectantly.

The Deputy zoomed in on the car, which was parked somewhere near the Golden Horn.

‘He must be nearby,’ Tanner said.

‘Where?’ M asked.

The Deputy manoeuvred the image away from the DB5 to the villa it was parked in front of. The camera scanned the place until it focused on the garden balcony, and then on to a mass of what appeared to be cushions.

‘This picks up body heat,’ the Deputy said. ‘Humans should be orange.’ He searched the area and pointed. ‘There.’

One orange figure was lying on the rooftop.

‘I thought you said he was with Doctor Jones?’ M asked Tanner.

The image began to glow darker and was moving rhythmically.

‘It’s getting redder,’ M observed. And then she realised . . . It was, of course, the image of two people, one on top of the other.

The Deputy switched the screen off and cleared his throat. ‘Uhm, it could be a premature form of the Millennium Bug.’

Over a thousand miles away, in the historic cradle of civilisation that sat between Europe and Asia, the man and woman didn’t give a second thought to who might be watching them. Instead, they were lost in each other’s passion, releasing the pent-up tensions they had acquired over the last few days.

‘I suppose I was wrong about you,’ Bond said.

She moaned softly and asked, ‘How so?’

‘I thought Christmas came only once a year.’

Their bodies melded once again into a perfect cadence, inspired by the crackling explosions of the fireworks above them.