James Bond rolled along the edge of the dark pool in the middle of Lyutsifer Safin's garden of poisonous flowers and plants. DNA targeting nanobots laced the rippling water as Bond came within inches of it touching his skin. Safin had the capability of engineering the nano poison to kill anyone based on their genetic makeup. He had designed this deadly pool to kill someone specifically. If Bond had come into contact with the water, a single touch would mean the end of Madeleine Swann, the woman he loved, and the mother of his only child. It would also kill his five-year-old daughter, Mathilde. He avoided the pool at all costs.

As he came out of the roll and jumped to his feet, Safin charged toward him, intent on slamming into him and driving him into the garden pool. But Bond took aim and squeezed the trigger, firing a round into Safin's shoulder. The man spun backwards from the impact and fell into the pool. Before he could rise, Bond fired twice more. Point blank.

Safin was dead, just like that. A fitting end for a man bent on killing billions.

But Bond wasn't out of danger yet. The Royal Navy had fired a hailstorm of missiles to destroy Safin's compound and stop him from launching a special blend of his nano poison into the upper atmosphere, intended to kill everyone on the planet except for a select few chosen by Safin to live in a newly repopulated Eden.

The missiles were coming, and Bond was supposed to have already made his escape, but Safin had gotten in the way and slowed him down. Now, with alarm klaxons blaring, he had to flee or die in a torrential hellfire of missiles.

Seconds before the missiles reached the island, he sprinted as hard and fast as his legs could carry him... toward the cliff... toward the ocean, away from Safin's lair.

He jumped and plummeted toward the ocean, striking the water with enough force to turn daylight to dark. As he kicked toward the surface, a supercharged fireball filled the sky above him. Each impact shook the earth, and the closer Bond got to breaking the surface, he felt his lungs exploding, desperate for air, and his vision darkening around the edges.

If he didn't contact Q soon, everyone would think he had died in the annihilation of Safin's lair. Everyone probably already thought he was dead.

He should have died. He would have, if not for the hands that pulled his body from the waves and tossed him into the back of the speedboat.

His vision swirled and faded, passing out and coming to again as they left Kalsoy behind. Kalsoy was one of the Faroe Islands in the North Atlantic between Norway and Iceland.

He watched through the slits of his eyelids as a beastly man steered the sleek craft to a destination unknown. From behind the man, he could only see his bulky shoulders, enormous arms and the back of his closely shaved head. The man seemed familiar, but a name escaped Bond's scattered mind. At the moment, it didn't matter who the man was, only that Bond stayed awake. Stayed alive. He hoped this wasn't a good day to die.

And that was a distinct possibility, given his fall, the way his head had smacked the water. Of course, he was lucky to have these few moments of vague awareness.

But as the seconds marched on, fate seeking to claim its prize, he felt himself slipping, floating away. He couldn't hold on any longer. Powerless, he watched as the daylight casting on the surrounding water shimmered like diamonds and then turned to an inky blackness. Just before unconsciousness overtook him, his mind queued a strange sauntering music that could only be played in the dark, heard only by tortured souls. It wasn't long before silence prevailed.

He didn't have a clue what came after that.