Carte Blanche

by Jeffery Deaver

  ‘“Term”… terms of the deal, I’d guess. Payment or down payment of five million for the attack or whatever it’s to be. That suggests Noah’s doing it for money, not for the sake of politics or ideology.’

  She nodded. ‘About the Serbian connection: my Hungarian ploy didn’t work. The folk in Belgrade are really quite cross with you, James. But I had your I Branch set me up as somebody from the EU – the head of the Directorate of Transportation Safety Investigations.’

  ‘What the hell’s that?’

  ‘I made it up. I did a pretty good Swiss-French accent, though I say it myself. The Serbs are dying to do anything they can to keep the European Union happy so they’re scurrying to get back to me about haz-mats on the train and more details about Karic.’

  Philly was truly golden.

  ‘And Eastern Demolition have headquarters in Slough. They were low bidders for the demolition project at the British Army base in March.’

  ‘Is it a public limited company?’

  ‘Private. And owned by a holding company, also private: Green Way International. It’s quite big and operates in half a dozen countries. One man owns all the shares. Severan Hydt.’

  ‘That’s really his name?’

  She laughed. ‘At first I wondered what his parents were thinking. But it seems he changed it by deed poll when he was in his twenties.’

  ‘What was his birth name?’

  ‘Maarten Holt.’

  ‘Holt to Hydt,’ Bond mused. ‘I don’t see the point – though it’s hardly remarkable – but Maarten to Severan? Why, in heaven’s name?’

  She shrugged. ‘Green Way is a huge rubbish-collection and recycling operation. You’ve seen their lorries but probably haven’t thought much about them. I couldn’t find a great deal because they’re not public and Hydt stays clear of the press. Article in The Timesdubbed him the world’s richest rag-and-bone man. The Guardian ran a profile of him a few years ago and was fairly complimentary but he gave them only a few generic quotes and that was it. I found out he was Dutch-born, kept dual citizenship for a time and is now just British.’

  Philly’s body language and the hunter’s sheen in her eyes hinted that she hadn’t revealed all.

  ‘And?’ Bond asked.

  She smiled. ‘I found some online references to when he was a mature student at the University of Bristol, where he did rather well, by the way.’ She explained that Hydt had been active in the university’s sailing club, captaining a boat in competitions. ‘He not only raced but built his own. It earned him a nickname.’

  ‘And what was it?’ Bond asked, though he had a feeling he knew.

  ‘Noah.’

  16

  The time was now half past five. Since it would be several hours before Philly received the intelligence she was waiting for, Bond suggested they meet for dinner.

  She agreed and returned to her work station, while Bond composed an encrypted email to M, copying in Bill Tanner, saying that Noah was Severan Hydt and including a synopsis of his background and what had happened in March. He added that Hydt referred to the attack involved in Incident Twenty as the ‘Gehenna plan’. More would be forthcoming.

  He received a terse reply:

  007 -

  Authorised to proceed. Appropriate liaison with domestic organisations expected.

  M

  My carte grise…

  Bond left his office, took the lift to the second floor and entered a large room filled with more computers than an electronics shop. A few men and women laboured at monitors, or at the type of work stations to be found in a university chemistry laboratory. Bond walked to a small, glass-walled office at the far end and tapped on the window.

  Sanu Hirani, head of the ODG’s Q Branch, was a slim man of forty or so. His complexion was sallow and his luxuriant black hair framed a face handsome enough to get him roles in Bollywood. A brilliant cricketer, known for his fast bowling, he had degrees in chemistry, electrical engineering and computer science from top universities in the UK and America (where he had been successful in everything except introducing his sport to the Yanks, who could neither grasp the game’s subtleties, nor tolerate the length of a Test match).

  Q Branch was the technical support enclave within the ODG and Hirani oversaw all aspects of the gadgetry that has always been used in tradecraft. Wizards for departments like Q Branch and the CIA’s Science and Technology Division spent their time coming up with hardware and software innovations, like miniature cameras, improbable weapons, concealments, communications devices and surveillance equipment – such as Hirani’s latest: a hypersensitive omnidirectional microphone mounted within a dead fly. (‘A bug in a bug,’ Bond had commented wryly to its creator, who had replied that he was the eighteenth person to make the joke and, by the way, a fly was not, biologically speaking, a bug.)

  Since the ODG’s raison d’êtrewas operational, much of Hirani’s work lay in ensuring he had sufficient monoculars, binoculars, camouflage, communications devices, specialised weapons and counter-surveillance gear to hand. In this regard he was like a librarian who made sure the books were checked out appropriately and returned on time.

  But Hirani’s particular genius was his ability to invent and improvise, coming up with devices like the iQPhone. The ODG was, of all things, the patent holder on dozens of his inventions. When Bond or other O Branch agents were in the field and found themselves in a tight spot, one call to Hirani, at any time of day or night, and he would find a solution. He or his people might put something together in the office and pop it into the FCO diplomatic pouch for overnight delivery. More often, though, time was critical and Hirani would enlist one of his many wily innovators and scroungers around the world to build, find or modify a device in the field.

  ‘James.’ The men shook hands. ‘You’ve bought Incident Twenty, I hear.’

  ‘Seems so.’

  Bond sat down, noticing a book on Hirani’s desk: The Secret War of Charles Fraser-Smith. It was one of his own favourites on the history of gadgetry in espionage.

  ‘How serious is it?’

  ‘Rather,’ Bond said laconically, not sharing that he’d nearly been killed twice already in pursuing the assignment, which he’d had for less than forty-eight hours.

  Sitting beneath pictures of early IBM computers and of Indian cricketers, Hirani asked, ‘What do you need?’

  Bond lowered his voice so that the closest Q Branch worker, a young woman raptly staring at her screen, could not hear. ‘What kind of surveillance kits do you have that one man could put in place? I can’t get to the subject’s computer or phone but I may be able to plant something in his office, vehicle or home. Disposable. I probably can’t retrieve it later.’

  ‘Ah, yes…’ Hirani’s luminescent eyes dimmed.

  ‘Some problem, Sanu?’

  ‘Well, I must tell you, James. Not ten minutes ago I had a call from upstairs.’

  ‘Bill Tanner?’

  ‘No – farther upstairs.’

  M. Dammit, Bond thought. He could see where this was going.

  Hirani went on: ‘And he said that if anyone from O Branch wished to check out a surveillance kit I was to let him know immediately. A touch coincidental.’

  ‘A touch,’ Bond said sourly.

  ‘So,’ Hirani said, with a qualified smile, ‘shall I tell him that someone from O Branch wishes to check out a surveillance kit?’

  ‘Perhaps you could hold off for a bit.’

  ‘Well, get it sorted,’ he said, the gleam in his face restored. ‘I have some wonderfulpackages for you to choose from.’ He sounded like a car salesman. ‘A microphone that’s powered by induction. You only have to place it near a power cord, no battery needed. It’ll pick up voices from fifty feet away and adjust the volume automatically so there’s no distortion. Oh, and another thing we’ve been having great success with is a two-pound coin – the ’ninety-four tercentenary of the Bank of England commemorative. It’s relatively rare so a target tends to keep it for good
luck but not so rare that he would sell it. Battery lasts for four months.’

  Bond sighed. The off-limits devices sounded so damn perfect. He thanked the man and told him he’d be in touch. He returned to his office, where he found Mary Goodnight at her desk. He saw no reason for her to stay. ‘Scoot on home now. Good evening, Goodnight.’

  She glanced at his latest injuries and forewent the opportunity for mothering him, which from past experience she knew would be deflected. She settled for ‘See to those, James,’ then gathered up her handbag and coat.

  Sitting back, Bond was suddenly aware of the stench of his sweat and the crescents of brick dust under his nails. He wanted to get home and shower. Have his first drink of the day. Yet there was something he had to sort out first.

  He turned to his screen and entered the Golden Wire’s general information database, from which he learnt where Severan Hydt’s business and home were located, the latter, curiously, in a low-income area of East London known as Canning Town. Green Way’s main premises were on the Thames near Rainham, abutting the Wildspace Conservation Park.

  Bond peered at satellite maps of Hydt’s home and Green Way’s operation. It was vitally important to set up surveillance on the man. But there was no legitimate way to conduct it without enlisting Osborne-Smith and the A Branch snoop teams from MI5 – and the instant the Division Three man learnt Hydt’s identity he’d move in to ‘detain’ him and the Irishman. Bond considered the risk again. How realistic was his concern that if the two were pulled in, other co-conspirators would accelerate the carnage, or vanish until they struck again next month or next year?

  Evil, James Bond had learnt, can be tirelessly patient.

  Surveillance or not?

  He debated. After a moment’s hesitation, he reluctantly picked up the phone.

  17

  At half past six, Bond drove to his flat and, in the garage, reversed into the spot beside his racing-green Jaguar. He climbed the stairs to the first floor, unlocked the door, disarmed the alarm and confirmed with a separate security function – a fast-framed video – that only May, his housekeeper, had been there. (Feeling somewhat embarrassed, he’d told her when she’d started working for him that the security camera was a requirement of his government employer’s; the flat had to be monitored when he was away, even if she was working there. ‘Considering what you must do for the country, being a patriot and all, it’s no bother’s,’ the staunch woman had said, using the fragment of ‘sir’, a mark of respect reserved for him alone.)

  He checked messages on his home phone. He had only one. It was from a friend who lived in Mayfair, Fouad Kharaz, a wily, larger-than-life Jordanian, who had all manner of business dealings, involving vehicles mostly: cars, planes and the most astonishing yachts Bond had ever seen. Kharaz and he were members of the same gaming club in Berkeley Square, the Commodore.

  Unlike many such clubs in London, where membership could be had with twenty-four hours’ notice and five hundred pounds, the Commodore was a proper establishment, requiring patience and considerable vetting to join. Once you were a member, you were expected to adhere strictly to a number of rules, such as the dress code, and behave impeccably at the tables. It also boasted a fine restaurant and cellar.

  Kharaz had called to invite Bond to dine there tonight. ‘A problem, James. I have fallen heir to two beautiful women from Saint-Tropez – how it happened is too long, and delicate, a story to leave as a message. But I can’t be charming enough for both of them. Will you help?’

  Smiling, Bond rang him back and told him he had another engagement. A rain check was arranged.

  Then he went through his shower ritual – steaming hot, then icy cold – and dried himself briskly. He ran his fingers over his cheeks and chin and decided to maintain a lifelong prejudice against shaving twice in one day. Then he chided himself: why were you even thinking about it? Philly Maidenstone’s pretty and clever and she rides a hell of a fine motorcycle – but she’s a colleague. That’s all.

  The black leather jumpsuit, however, made an unbidden appearance in his mind.

  In a towelling robe Bond stepped into the kitchen and poured two fingers of bourbon, Basil Hayden’s, into a glass, dropped in one ice cube and drank half, enjoying the sharp nutty flavour. The first sip of the day was invariably the best, especially coming as this one did – after a harrowing excursion against an enemy and ahead of an evening with a beautiful woman…

  He caught himself again. Stop.

  He sat in an old leather chair in the living room, which was sparsely furnished. The majority of the items in it had been his parents’, inherited when they had died and kept in storage near his aunt’s in Kent. He’d bought a few things: some lamps, a desk and chairs, a Bose sound system he rarely had a chance to listen to.

  On the mantelpiece there were silver-framed photos of his parents and grandparents – on his father’s side in Scotland, his mother’s in Switzerland. Several showed his aunt Charmian with the young Bond in Kent. On the walls were other photographs, taken by his mother, a freelance photojournalist. Mostly black and white, the photos depicted a variety of images: political gatherings, labour union events, sports competitions, panoramic scenes of exotic locations.

  There was also a curious objet d’artin the mantelpiece’s centre: a bullet. It had nothing to do with Bond’s role as an agent in the 00 Section of the ODG’s O Branch. Its source was a very different time and place of Bond’s life. He walked to the fireplace and turned the solid piece of ammunition in his hand once or twice, finally replacing it and returning to his chair.

  Then, despite his protest that he keep affairs with Philly – that he keep matters relating to Agent Maidenstonepurely professional, he couldn’t stop thinking of her as a woman.

  And one no longer betrothed.

  Bond had to admit that what he felt for Philly was more than pure physical lust. And he now asked himself a question that had arisen at other times, about other women, albeit rarely: could something serious develop between them?

  Bond’s romantic life was more complicated than most. The barriers to his having a partner were to some degree his extensive travelling, the demands of his job and the constant danger that surrounded him. But more fundamental was the tricky matter of admitting who he really was and, more tellingly, his duties within the 00 Section, which some, perhaps most, women would find distasteful, if not abhorrent.

  He knew that at some point he would have to admit to at least part of it to any woman who became more than a casual lover. You can keep secrets from those you’re close to for only so long. People are far more clever and observant than we think and, between romantic partners, one’s fundamental secrets stay hidden only because the other chooses to let them remain so.

  Plausible deniability might work in Whitehall but it didn’t last between lovers.

  Yet with Philly Maidenstone this was not a problem. There would be no confessions about his profession over dinner or amid tousled morning bedclothes; she knew his CV and his remit – knew them intimately.

  And she’d suggested a restaurant near her flat.

  What sort of message lay in that choice?

  James Bond glanced at his watch. It was time to dress and attempt to decipher the code.

  18

  At eight fifteen the taxi dropped Bond at Antoine’s in Bloomsbury and he immediately approved of Philly’s choice. He hated crowded, noisy restaurants and bars and on more than one occasion had walked out of upmarket establishments when the decibel level had proved to be too irritating. Upscale pubs were more ‘ghastly’ than ‘gastro’, he’d once quipped.

  But Antoine’s was quiet and dimly lit. An impressive wine selection was visible at the back of the room and the walls were filled with muted portraits from the nineteenth century. Bond asked for a small booth not far from the wall of bottles. He settled into the plush leather, facing the front, as always, and studied the place. Business people and locals, he judged.

  ‘Something to drink?’ aske
d the waiter, a pleasant man in his late thirties, with a shaved head and pierced ears.

  Bond decided on a cocktail. ‘Crown Royal, on ice, a double, please. Add a half-measure of triple sec, two dashes of bitters and a twist of orange peel.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Interesting drink.’

  ‘Based on an Old Fashioned. My own creation, actually.’

  ‘Does it have a name?’

  ‘Not yet,’ he said. ‘I’ve been looking for the right one.’

  A few moments later it arrived and he took a sip – it was constructed perfectly and Bond said so. He’d just set the glass down when he saw Philly coming through the door, radiant with a smile. It seemed that her pace quickened when she saw him.

  She was in close-fitting black jeans, a brown leather jacket and, under it, a tight dark green sweater, the colour of his Jaguar.

  He half rose as she joined him, sitting to his side, rather than across. She was carrying a briefcase.

  ‘You all right?’ she said.

  He’d half expected something a bit more personal than this rather casual greeting. But then he asked himself sternly, Why?

  She had barely taken off her jacket before she’d caught the eye of the waiter, who greeted her with a smile. ‘Ophelia.’

  ‘Aaron. I’ll have a glass of the Mosel Riesling.’

  ‘On its way.’

  Her wine arrived and Bond told Aaron they’d wait to order. Their glasses nodded at one another but did not clink.

  ‘First,’ Bond murmured, edging a little closer, ‘Hydt. Tell me about him.’

  ‘I checked with Specialist Operations at the Yard, Six, Interpol, NCIC and CIA in America and the AIVD in the Netherlands. I made some discreet enquiries at Five too.’ She’d obviously deduced the tension between Bond and Osborne-Smith. ‘No criminal records. No watchlists. More Tory than Labour but doesn’t have much interest in politics. Not a member of any church. Treats his people well – no labour unrest of any kind. No problems with the Inland Revenue or Health and Safety. He just seems to be a wealthy businessman. Verywealthy. All he’s ever done professionally is rubbish collection and recycling.’