On particularly complex assignments in foreign countries, MI6 sometimes set up small cells to support their agents. Normally they were based in inconspicuous location, close to major transit lines, and had staff ranging from techs to additional agents. In some cases, it was with the consent of the local intelligence, but more often than not these outposts were intended to blend in with the local scenery.
James Bond was the primary operative on an assignment in South America. The agent and his small entourage had moved through several cities in several countries in pursuit of a major drug cartel. Everywhere they had gone, they had discovered that the roots of the group were broader and deeper than they had thought before; it seemed as though they has infiltrated almost every aspect of the criminal and political network. The smugglers and their alliances were woven seamlessly into human trafficking rings, arms smuggling groups, and money laundering organizations.
Such an extensive organization would eventually have to take notice of the small, mobile lab and the trained agents that hopped country to country. Their visibility wasn't helped by the fact that their 00-agent was not always subtle, never had been, and was accumulating a body count as he methodically dug deeper and severed entire branches of their infrastructure.
They were far from shutting them down, but Bond was getting closer to their core and he had done enough damage already to become a nuisance. That sort of action required retaliation.
That came in a violent explosion that rocked a residential block in Santos, Brazil. Fortunately for the Q branch techs who had been analyzing currency samples and hacking CCTV on-site, their attackers had mistaken the building over for their makeshift base. However, the blast was suitable to level the building question and blow through the wall of their rented house; the rooms closest to the explosion were destroyed as the wall was ripped away and the roof collapsed inward.
The civilian casualties were immediate and obvious, but the damage caused by the fire and smoking ruin of the MI6 base was less apparent from the outside.
Bond, who had only left that morning for a meeting downtown with a potential lead, was on his way back to their base with a jump drive of encoded files to deliver to his team when the blast hit. He heard the explosion rather than saw it. Felt it shake the ground beneath the floor in the corner market where he had stopped to pick up bottled water at the behest of one of the agents guarding the location. With his flimsy bag in hand, he ran out on to the street to see the flames just a block away.
He took off at a run for the house that had until moments before been an outpost of MI6.
