Bond looked gingerly over the rim of the active volcano through twin lenses of his powerful binoculars. The magma below boiled and frothed, launching great plumes of angry fire into the air.
"Damn, I thought Ivana was telling the truth when she told me Dr Sinister's lair was under this volcano."
Bond winced slightly as he remembered the unfortunate circumstances of Miss Koch's recent and grisly death.
"But nothing could possibly be built so close to a site as active as this."
Reaching into his pocket, he extracted the flannel Q had given him earlier on, twisted it slightly and held it to his ear.
"M? Yes, Bond. I'm afraid the information I extracted from Miss Koch appears to be incorrect."
"Bond! I'm disappointed, first we lost that vast shipment of industrial solvent, now this! Return to London, immediately."
Bond untwisted the flannel-phone and dabbed his magma-scorched brow with it before replacing it back in his pocket.
"I - I'm at a total loss, maybe I'm just not cut out for this line of work anymore."
Shaking his head, and with a puzzled and worried look on his face, Bond made his way gingerly back down the smoking slope of the fiery mountain...
Deep in the ground below, a cat purred. A ringed hand played over the feline's thick white fur, while it's owner began to laugh.
"So, ve hev eluded Mr Bond's attentionz vonce again hmm? It iz a shame you vere not zo lucky, nein?"
Ivana Koch stepped out of the shadows. Her recently reconstructed body a curvaceous testament to Dr Sinister's masterful surgical ability.
She pressed a recessed button in the rocky wall, and a scale model of the volcano descended from the roof.
"Yes, a brilliant plan, constructing an entire base out of your thermally-resistant-material-that-is-readily dissolved-in-the-presence-of-commercially-available-solvents."
Ivana indicated the model, pointing out a tangled arrangement of boxes, domes and connecting tubes nestling at the bottom of the volcano.
"Ja, unt zen ve simply vait..."
"...For the volcano to erupt, burying the construction under tons of molten lava."
Dr Sinister pressed a button built into his large swiveling chair.
A faint noise could be heard from the scale-model, and slowly a rich, transparent orange substance began oozing out from the tip of the volcano, down the side, engulfing the construction below. The volcano stopped, and a high-pressure blast of near-liquid nitrogen was sprayed over the whole model, freezing it instantly. The model base could still be seen, encased in solid lava.
"Ja, ja, zat iz correct my dear. Unt vat is ze most sinister part of ze plan?"
"Returning once the lava has cooled and removing the...Sorry, how did you name that material?"
"Constyrene. Ja, you also forgot to mention zat it is also auto-zeeded viz sousands ov tiny canisters ov ze solvent."
"Yes, that was it, Constyrene. So we remove the solvent-seeded constyrene by triggering the solvent-release mechanism on the cannisters, which dissolves the constyrene, leaving behind only the imprint of the base within the rock."
She pressed another button, and below the transparent lava, the base-structure appeared to melt away into nothing.
"Zen ve move in unt plot our schemes ov ze domination ov zee vorld wizout any furzer interruptionz, jes?"
Dr Sinister pressed a final button. Below the lava, a small rodent could be seen navigating the corridors, vaults and rooms of the underground base. His cat, on seeing the hamster, leapt from Dr Sinister’s lap to the scale-model and pawed at the lava, frustrated at being unable to catch it's prey.
"Did ve inshtall ze auto base-explosion devices zat I ordered?"
"Well, er. No. You see, after what happened last time, we thought it might be best not to build an exploding base of operation."
"Ah yes, zat is not zuch a bad idea. Vell done. I'm parched. Do ve have any tea?"