Dr. Perseus Friend is a fictional German National Socialist biologist, who first appeared in the premiere novel of the Young Bond prequels to the main James Bond series: 2005's SilverFin by Charlie Higson, and later reappeared in his final Young Bond book, By Royal Command in 2008.
History[]
Early Life[]
Between 1902-03[1], Perseus was born to an Irish father and a Russian Mother, but he was born and raised in Germany. In the Great War, his father helped Germany to develop toxic gasses for warfare. After the war ended, Professor Friend's work was banned, and so he travelled the world, and worked in Japan, Argentina, and finally Russia.[2] Perseus learned all he could from his father, and the two eventually worked together in Saratov, where they created weapons for the Soviet government. Perseus pursued biology instead of chemistry, and investigated germs and biological warfare. The two were eventually approached with a job offer from Lord Randolph Hellebore, but in an attempt to keep them from telling their secrets, the Soviet government gassed the scientists with their own projects. Perseus however, was lucky enough to have been outside of the laboratory, and moved quietly to Scotland.
SilverFin[]
Hellebore employed Friend on to work on a project codenamed "SilverFin" - a hormone-based serum capable of enhancing strength and stamina. They were able to synthesize a pill form, which had few negative side effects aside from increased aggression and decreased intelligence. However, further experimentation with an injectable serum were less successful - producing disfigured mutants like Algar Hellebore (who had experimented on himself). Unemotional and obsessive, Perseus had no interest in anything but his work and National Socialism, whose views on eugenics he found tantalising. In early 1933[1], a local boy named Alfie Kelly was injured whilst fishing in Hellebore's eel-infested loch. Dr. Friend used him as a guinea pig for the serum; but his heart gave out on the first injection. Later, at Easter[1], James Bond broke into the castle to search for Kelly and was captured. They chose to use the healthy boy as a test subject and injected him with the serum - a decision which would backfire when Bond used his newfound stamina to escape from his cell. He returned with Randolph's son, George Hellebore, to destroy the laboratory. Perseus ran into the burning room to desperately recover his life's work.
By Royal Command[]
Dr. Friend was severely burned by the fire and survived by taking what remained of the, ironically perfected, SilverFin serum. He was flown to safety by Hellebore's pilot; first to Iceland, then to Norway, and finally down to Switzerland where he underwent months of painful treatment. While he was there he met a National Socialist spy named Vladimir Wrangel, who sought out the doctor due to his experience working with the Russians, Germans and British. Perseus went to the very top of the National Socialist intelligence apparatus, and together they formed a plan to stage a far right coup in the United Kingdom - replacing King George V with his more sympathetic son, Edward. Code-named "Operation Snow-Blind", the scheme would be conducted using a compromised Communist cell in Lisbon - dispatching zealous revolutionaries Roan and Sean Cullinan to carry out the deed during the monarch's visit to Eton College's Fourth of June celebrations. To confirm Edward's suitability, it was decided that Friend ("Obsidian") would need to get close to the prince by replacing Graf von Schlick, a distant relative.
After severely burning Graf von Schlick in a fake car accident in Spring 1934[1], he and Dr. Friend were brought to a clinic above Westendorf wrapped in bandages. It was whilst he was there that von Schlick caught the attention of James Bond. His screaming - divulging in German Dr. Friend's scheme to kill his cousin Jürgen (George) as part of operation "Schneeblind" - had drawn the vacationing boy to their hospital room. Bond was shooed away and the Graf was subsequently murdered, along with his wife. Dr. Friend stole his identity and kept Von Schlick's mistress with him at the late man's castle, Schloss Donnerspitze in Austria, to keep up appearances. Dr. Friend would later visit a society ball at the Langton-Herring estate, where Edward and James were in attendance. They spoke together, but James continued to fail to recognise his old adversary. Operation Snow-Blind would ultimately fail because of James' intervention - disarming a large fertilizer bomb under Eton's chapel. Feeling sorry for her (and romantically attracted to her), Bond would flee with Roan across Europe during June 1934.[1]
In early July[1] she betrayed him - leading him into an ambush by Dr. Friend's men. The pair were taken to the Schloss Donnerspitze, where they discovered the truth of Operation Snow-Blind. In grotesque revenge for what happened in Scotland, the doctor planned to have Bond skinned alive to complete his own skin-grafts. The pair were thrown in the castle's cells to await surgery the following day. However, James managed to escape by taking a pistol from a deceased Secret Intelligence Service climber outside his window. During the break-out, the party encountered Dr. Friend and his men in a makeshift surgery-room; escaping the standoff by shooting a gas canister, which exploded and impaled the doctor with numerous surgical items. As the castle fell under attack by the Soviet secret police, the OGPU, they fled outside, pursued by the wounded villain. Shooting from a distance, Dr. Friend managed to graze Bond - but as he prepared to deliver the coup de grâce, he was put down by a single shot to the head from Colonel Irina Sedova.
Images[]
.jpg "Graf von Schlick (by Kev Walker).jpg (194 KB)")
Trivia[]
- The trope of a bandaged imposter swapping places with an important figure harks back to Bond's encounter with SPECTRE agent Angelo Palazzi in EON Productions' 1965 film, Thunderball. It also featured previously in John Peel's third James Bond Jr. novelisation, Live and Let Dance (1992).