Carte Blanche

by Jeffery Deaver

  Bond’s expression of disgust closely matched hers.

  ‘If he surfaces or leaves Mozambique, their security people will let me know. But until then he’s out of our reach.’

  It was then that Nkosi appeared, pushing a large cart filled with boxes – the documents and laptop computers from the Green Way Research and Development department.

  The warrant officer and Bond followed Jordaan to an empty office where Nkosi put the boxes on the floor around the desk. Bond started to lift off a lid, but Jordaan said quickly, ‘Put these on. I won’t have you ruining evidence.’ She handed him blue latex gloves.

  Bond gave a wry laugh but took them. Jordaan and Nkosi left him to the job. Before he opened the boxes, though, he placed a call to Bill Tanner.

  ‘James,’ the chief of staff said. ‘We’ve got the signals. Sounds like all hell’s broken loose down there.’

  Bond laughed at his choice of words and explained in detail about the shootout at Green Way, Hydt’s fate and Dunne’s escape. He explained too about the drug company president who had hired Hydt; Tanner would ask the FBI in Washington to open an investigation of their own and arrest the man.

  Bond said, ‘I need a rendition team to capture Dunne – if we can find out where he is. Any of our double-one agents nearby?’

  Tanner sighed. ‘I’ll see what I can do, James, but I don’t have a lot of people to spare, not with the situation in eastern Sudan. We’re helping the FCO and the marines with security. I might be able to get you some special forces – SAS or SBS? Would that suit?’

  ‘Fine. I’m going to look through everything we’ve collected from Hydt’s headquarters. I’ll call back when I’ve finished and brief M.’

  They rang off and Bond started to lay out the Gehenna documents on the large desk in the office Jordaan had provided. He hesitated. Then, feeling ridiculous, he slipped on the blue gloves, deciding that at least they would provide an amusing story for his friend Ronnie Vallance of the Yard. Vallance often said that Bond would make a terrible detective-inspector, given his preference for beating up or shooting perpetrators, rather than marshalling evidence to see them in the dock.

  He leafed through the documents for almost an hour. Finally, when he felt well enough informed to discuss the situation he telephoned London again.

  M said gruffly, ‘It’s a nightmare here, 007. That fool in Division Three pushed a very big button. Got all of Whitehall closed up. Downing Street too. If there’s anything that plays badly with the tabloids, it’s an international security meeting being cancelled because of a bloody security alert.’

  ‘Was it groundless?’ Bond had been convinced that York was the site of the attack but that didn’t mean London wasn’t at some risk, as he’d told Tanner during his satellite call from Jessica Barnes’s office.

  ‘Nothing. Green Way had its legitimate side, of course. The company’s engineers were working with the police to make sure the refuse-removal tunnels around Whitehall were safe. No dangerous radiation, no explosives, no Guy Fawkes. There was a spike in Afghan SIGINT traffic, but that was because we and the CIA descended on the place last Monday. And everybody was wondering what the hell we were doing there.’

  ‘And Osborne-Smith?’

  ‘Inconsequential.’

  Bond didn’t know whether the word referred to the man himself or meant that his fate was not worth discussing.

  ‘Now, what’s been going on down there, 007? I want details.’

  Bond explained first about Hydt’s death and the arrest of his three main partners. He also described Dunne’s escape and Bond’s plan to execute the Level 2 project order from Sunday, which was still valid, for the Irishman’s rendition when they found him.

  Then Bond detailed Gehenna – Hydt’s stealing and assembling classified information – the blackmail and extortion, adding the cities where most of his efforts had taken place: ‘London, Moscow, Paris, Tokyo, New York and Mumbai, and there are smaller operations in Belgrade, Washington, Taipei and Sydney.’

  There was silence for a moment and Bond imagined M chomping on his cheroot as he took it all in. The man said, ‘Damn clever, putting all that together from rubbish.’

  ‘Hydt said nobody ever sees dustmen and it’s true. They’re invisible. They’re everywhere and yet you look right through them.’

  M gave a rare chuckle. ‘I happened to be thinking much the same myself yesterday.’ Then he grew serious. ‘What’re your recommendations, 007?’

  ‘I’d get our embassy people and Six to roll up all the Green Way operations as fast as they can before the actors start disappearing. Freeze their assets and trace all incoming monies. That’ll lead us to the rest of the Gehenna clients.’

  ‘Hmm,’ M said, his voice uncharacteristically light. ‘I suppose we could.’

  What was the old man thinking?

  ‘Though I’m not sure we should be too hasty. Let’s arrest the principals in all the locations, yes, but what do you think about getting some double-one agents into their offices and keeping Gehenna going a bit longer in some places, 007? I’d love to see what GRS Aerospace outside Moscow throws away. And I wonder what the Pakistani consulate in Mumbai is shredding. Be interesting to find out. We’d have to pull in some favours with the press to stop them reporting what Hydt was really up to. I’ll have the misinformation chaps at Six leak word that he was mixed up with organised crime or some such. We’ll keep it vague. Word will get out at some point but by then we’ll have scooped up some valuable finds.’

  The old fox. Bond laughed to himself. So the ODG was going into the recycling business. ‘Brilliant, sir.’

  ‘Get all the details to Bill Tanner and we’ll go from there.’ M paused, then barked, ‘Osborne-bloody-Smith has brought traffic in London to a complete standstill. It’ll take me ages to get home. I’ve neverunderstood why they couldn’t run the M4 all the way in to Earl’s Court.’

  The line went dead.

  64

  James Bond found Felicity Willing’s business card and called her at her office to break the news that one of her donors was a criminal… and had died in an operation to arrest him.

  But she’d heard. Already reporters had been on to her and asked for a statement, in light of the fact that Green Way was heavily involved with the Mafia and the Camorra (Bond reflected that the grass did not grow beneath the feet of the ‘misinformation chaps at Six’).

  Felicity was furious that some journalists were suggesting she’d known there was something disreputable about him but that she’d been happy to take his donations anyway. ‘How the bloody hell could they ask that, Gene? For heaven’s sake, Hydt gave us fifty or sixty thousand pounds a year, which was generous but nothing compared to what a lot of people donate. I’d drop anyone in an instant if I thought they were up to something illegal.’ Her voice softened. ‘But you’re all right, aren’t you?’

  ‘I wasn’t even there when they raided the place. The police rang me and asked a few questions. That’s all. Hell of a shock, though.’

  ‘I’m sure it was.’

  Bond asked how the deliveries were going. She told him that the tonnage was even higher than had been pledged. Distribution was already under way to ten different countries in sub-Saharan Africa. There was enough food to keep hundreds of thousands of people fed for months.

  Bond congratulated her, then said, ‘You’re not too busy for Franschhoek?’

  ‘If you think you’re getting out of our weekend in the country, Gene, you’d better think again.’

  They made plans to meet in the morning. He reminded himself to find someone to wash and polish the Subaru, for which he’d formed some affection, despite the flashy colour and the largely cosmetic spoiler on the boot.

  After they’d disconnected, he sat back, relishing the cheer in her voice. Relishing, too, the memory of the time they’d spent together. And thinking of the future.

  If you do go to some dark places, could you promise me not to go to the … worst?

  Smil
ing, he flicked her card, then put it away and pulled on the gloves once more to continue ploughing through the documents and computers, jotting notes about Green Way’s offices and the Gehenna operation for M and Bill Tanner. He laboured for an hour or so until he decided it was time for a drink.

  He stretched luxuriously.

  He then paused and slowly lowered his arms. At that moment he had felt a jolt deep within him. He knew the sensation. It arose occasionally in the world of espionage, that great landscape of subtext where so little is as it seems. Often the source for such an unsettling stab was a suspicion that a basic assumption had been wrong, perhaps disastrously so.

  Staring at his notes, he heard himself breathing fast, his lips dry. His heartbeat quickened.

  Bond flipped through hundreds of documents again, then grabbed his mobile and emailed Philly Maidenstone a priority request. As he waited for her reply he rose and paced in the small office, his mind inundated with thoughts, hovering and swooping like the frantic seagulls over Disappearance Row at Green Way.

  When Philly responded he snatched up his mobile and read the message, sitting back slowly in the uncomfortable chair.

  A shadow fell over him. He looked up and found Bheka Jordaan standing there. She was saying, ‘James, I brought you some coffee. In a proper mug.’ It was decorated with the smiling faces of the players from Bafana Bafana in all their football finest.

  When he said nothing and didn’t take it, she set it down. ‘James?’

  Bond knew his face betrayed the alarm burning within him. After a moment he whispered, ‘I think I got it wrong.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Everything. About Gehenna, about Incident Twenty.’

  ‘Tell me.’

  Bond sat forward. ‘The original intelligence we had was that someone named Noah was involved in the event today – the event that would result in all those deaths.’

  ‘Yes.’ She sat next to him. ‘Severan Hydt.’

  Bond shook his head. He waved at the boxes of documents from Green Way. ‘But I’ve been through nearly every damn piece of paper and most of the mobiles and computers. There isn’t a single reference to Noah in any of it. And in all my meetings with Hydt and Dunne there was no reference to the name. If that washis nickname, why didn’t it turn up in something? An idea occurred to me so I contacted an associate at MI6. She knows computers rather well. Are you familiar with metadata?’

  Jordaan said, ‘Information embedded in computer files. We convicted a government minister of corruption because of it.’

  He nodded at his phone. ‘My colleague looked at the half-dozen Internet references we found that mentioned Hydt’s nickname was Noah. The metadata in every one of them showed they were written and uploaded this week.’

  ‘Just like weuploaded data about Gene Theron to create your cover.’

  ‘Exactly. The real Noah did that to keep us focused on Hydt. Which means Incident Twenty – the thousands of deaths – wasn’tthe bombing in York. Gehenna and Incident Twenty are two entirely different plans. Something else is going to happen. And soon – tonight. That’s what the original email said. Those people, whoever they are, are still at risk.’

  Despite the success at Green Way, he was back to the vital questions once more: who was his enemy and what was his purpose?

  Until he answered those enquiries, he couldn’t form a response.

  Yet he had to. There was little time left.

  confirm incident friday night, 20th, estimated initial casualties in the thousands…

  ‘James?’

  Fragments of facts, memories and theories spiralled through his mind. Once again, as he’d done in the bowels of Green Way’s research facility, he began to assemble all the bits of information he possessed, trying to put back together the shredded blueprint of Incident Twenty. He rose and, hands clasped behind his back, bent forward, as he looked over the papers and notes covering the desk.

  Jordaan had fallen silent.

  Finally he whispered, ‘Gregory Lamb.’

  She frowned. ‘What about him?’

  Bond didn’t answer immediately. He sat down again. ‘I’ll need your help.’

  ‘Of course.’

  65

  ‘What’s the matter, Gene? You said it was urgent.’

  They were alone in Felicity Willing’s office at the charity in downtown Cape Town, not far from the club where they’d met at the auction on Wednesday night. Bond had interrupted a meeting involving a dozen men and women, aid workers instrumental in the food deliveries, and asked to see her alone. He now swung her door closed. ‘I’m hoping you can help me. There aren’t many people in Cape Town I can trust.’

  ‘Of course.’ They sat on her cheap sofa. In black jeans and a white shirt, Felicity moved closer to Bond. Their knees touched. She seemed even more tired than yesterday. He recalled she’d left his room before dawn.

  ‘First, I have to confess something to you. And, well, it may affect our plans for Franschhoek – it may affect a lot of plans.’

  Frowning, she nodded.

  ‘And I have to ask you to keep this to yourself. That’s very important.’

  Her keen eyes probed his face. ‘Of course. But tell me, please. You’re making me nervous.’

  ‘I’m not who I said I was. From time to time I do some work for the British government.’

  A whisper: ‘You’re a… spy?’

  He laughed. ‘No, nothing as grand as that. The title is security and integrity analyst. Usually it’s as boring as can be.’

  ‘But you’re one of the good guys?’

  ‘You could put it like that.’

  Felicity lowered her head to his shoulder. ‘When you said you were a security consultant, in Africa that usually means a mercenary. You said you weren’t but I didn’t quite believe it.’

  ‘It was a cover. I was investigating Hydt.’

  Her face flooded with relief. ‘And I was asking if you could change a little bit. And… now you’ve changed completelyfrom who I thought you were. A hundred and eighty degrees.’

  Bond said wryly, ‘How often does a man do that?’

  She smiled briefly. ‘That means… you’re not Gene? And you’re not from Durban?’

  ‘No. I live in London.’ And discarding the faint Afrikaans accent, he extended his hand. ‘My name’s James. It’s good to meet you, Miss Willing. Are you going to throw me out?’

  She hesitated only briefly, then flung her arms around him, laughing. She sat back. ‘But you said you needed my help.’

  ‘I wouldn’t involve you if there was any other way but I’ve run out of time. Thousands of lives are at stake.’

  ‘My God! What can I do?’

  ‘Do you know anything about Gregory Lamb?’

  ‘Lamb?’ Felicity’s sharp eyebrows drew together. ‘He comes over as a rather high roller so I’ve approached him for donations several times. He always said he’d give us something but he never did. He’s rather a queer man. A boor.’ She laughed. ‘B-O-O-R. Not Afrikaner.’

  ‘I have to tell you he’s a bit more than that.’

  ‘We heard rumours that he was in the pay of somebody. Though I can’t imagine anybody taking him seriously as a spy.’

  ‘I think that’s an act. He plays the fool to put people at ease around him so they don’t suspect he’s up to some pretty rough business. Now, you’ve been down at the docks for the past few days, right?’

  ‘Yes, quite a bit.’

  ‘Did you hear anything about a big ship charter that Lamb’s putting together tonight?’

  ‘I did, but I don’t know any details.’

  Bond was silent for a moment. Then: ‘Have you ever heard anyone refer to Lamb as Noah?’

  Felicity thought about it. ‘I can’t say for certain but… wait, yes, I think so. A nickname somebody once used for him. Because of the shipping business. But what did you mean when you said, “Thousands of lives are at stake”?’

  ‘I’m not sure exactly what h
e has in mind. My guess is he’s going to use the cargo ship to sink a cruise liner, a British one.’

  ‘My God, no! But why on earth would he do that?’

  ‘With Lamb, it has to be money. Hired by Islamists, warlords or pirates. I’ll know more soon. We’ve tapped his phone. He’s meeting somebody in an hour or so at a deserted hotel south of town, the Sixth Apostle Inn. I’ll be there to find out what he’s up to.’

  Felicity said, ‘But… James, why do you have to go? Why not call the police and have him arrested?’

  Bond hesitated. ‘I can’t really use the police for this.’

  ‘Because of your job,’ she asked evenly, ‘as a “security analyst”?’

  He paused. ‘Yes.’

  ‘I see.’ Felicity Willing nodded. Then she leant forward fast and kissed him full on the lips. ‘In answer to your question, whatever you do, James, whatever you’re goingto do, it won’t affect our plans for Franschhoek one bit. Or our plans for anything else, as far as I’m concerned.’

  66

  In May the sun sets in Cape Town around half past five. As Bond sped south on Victoria Road the scenery grew surreal, bathed in a glorious sunset. Then dusk descended, streaked by slashes of purple cloud over the turbulent Atlantic.

  He’d left Table Mountain behind, Lion’s Head too, and was now motoring parallel to the solemn craggy rock formations of the Twelve Apostles mountain chain to his left, dotted with grasses, fynbos and splashes of protea. Defiant cluster pines sprouted in incongruous places.

  Half an hour after leaving Felicity Willing’s office, he spotted the turning to the Sixth Apostle Inn, to the left, east. Two signs marked the drive: the name of the place in peeling, faded paint, and below that, brighter and newer, a warning about construction in progress, prohibiting trespass.