by William Boyd
‘Does he know you’re with the CIA?’
‘No. I just represent interested parties with money and influence. He’s convinced – even though I wasn’t specific.’
But Bond wasn’t convinced. Breed may be a psychopath but he wasn’t stupid, he thought. He and Denga would be aware that there was a government agency working here, or something similar – too much money, too much power – and recognise it and exploit it. One thing nagged at him: in all their contacts during the final days at Port Dunbar Breed had never told him Blessing had survived the firefight in the forest. He was impressed with Breed’s ability to keep that information to himself. It seemed untypical . . .
He lit another cigarette. ‘So – the big surveillance at Milford Plaza is to try and nail Linck.’
‘Yes.’
‘Why? What’s so important about Linck for the CIA?’
‘I told you – I don’t know. Linck must have something we want. Information – some secret. In the end I don’t know. Honestly.’
Bond frowned. He had always had his doubts about Linck. ‘I never really thought he was just some crazy romantic millionaire who likes lost causes.’
‘I think that’s what he wants people to think. But there’s something more,’ Blessing added. ‘There’s a lot of pressure on me. Too much. It’s not normal and it’s not fair, to be honest. I’m right in the heart of AfricaKIN. I’m secure. But Brig and the others can’t understand why I can’t tell them where Hulbert Linck is – or if he’s even alive. Sometimes I think that maybe Breed killed him.’
‘It’s entirely possible,’ Bond said.
Blessing stood up. ‘Look, I’m going to have a shower. Maybe we can order up some room service, or something.’
‘Let’s go out and have a proper meal,’ Bond said.
Blessing smiled cynically. ‘I don’t think I should risk being seen dining out with you, James. What if Kobus Breed got to hear about it?’
‘Yes – you’re right. It’s just that I don’t fancy the room-service food in this motel.’
She went into the bedroom and soon Bond heard the shower running. He drank another bourbon while he waited, trying to see how the disparate pieces of this puzzle might fit together. And failed. AfricaKIN, Gabriel Adeka, Hulbert Linck, the CIA . . . Kobus Breed had flown out of Janjaville with Linck. More and more Bond felt that Breed was the key to all this.
Blessing came back into the room. She was wearing a boldly printed orange and black cotton dressing gown – short, cut to mid-thigh and belted at the waist. Bond assumed she was naked underneath. Concentrate, he told himself, retrieve as much information as you can.
‘Where’s Gabriel Adeka?’ he asked.
‘He runs everything from a big house in Orange County, Virginia, called Rowanoak Hall. It’s a kind of clinic – a medical sorting office. A clearing house for the children.’
‘What children?’
‘The children that the AfricaKIN flights bring in.’ She poured herself a tiny bourbon and sipped at it. ‘Interestingly, Adeka pays for the big house, not us.’ She said. ‘We only pay for the office space at the plaza.’
‘Have you been there? To this house in Orange County?’
‘A couple of times for meetings with Denga. It’s almost like a small hospital – state of the art.’ She put her glass down. ‘I’m hungry.’
‘Is Breed there?’
‘He stays there. He and Denga seem to work closely together.’
‘Old military buddies. Where do these flights arrive?’
‘Not in DC. There’s a small airport not too far away – Seminole Field, forty minutes from the house. The kids arrive on the flights and they’re taken to the house in ambulances and medically assessed and then they’re sent to specialist hospitals in DC, Maryland, Virginia, depending on their problems. It’s quite an operation.’
She sat down on the sofa, being careful not to let the hem of her dressing gown ride up. Bond tried to stop himself looking at her slim brown thighs.
‘There’s a flight tomorrow, in fact,’ she said. ‘Quite a big deal. We’ve got someone from the State Department meeting it. It’s good cover for us – government participating, approving.’
‘Maybe I should check it out.’
‘I thought you were going back to London,’ she said.
‘I am. But there’s no tearing hurry. I’m on leave. Convalescing. Somebody shot me in the chest.’
‘I feel I owe you an apology,’ she said, reaching for her drink and letting the front of her dressing gown gape for an instant before she closed it with a hand.
Bond took a big gulp of his bourbon – remembering her body, that night at Lokomeji in the rest-house.
‘I should go,’ he said, his voice hoarser than he would have wished.
‘Let me say sorry first,’ she said and stood up – unbelting her dressing gown, freeing it to fall from her shoulders and crumple on the carpet.
She allowed Bond to study her for a moment then stooped, picked up her dressing gown, slung it over her arm and sauntered into the bedroom, Bond following. She hung the dressing gown on the hook on the back of the door and smiled at him.
‘I’m sorry I shot you,’ she said and slipped into the bed. ‘But I did it to save your life.’
Bond pulled off his tie and began to undo the buttons on his shirt.
8
CHELSEA
Bond and Blessing made love, then ordered food and drink – two omelettes and fries and a bottle of champagne – and, after they’d eaten and drunk, they made love again. She was eager and insisting, giving him precise instructions, at one stage rolling him on to his back and sitting astride him, her hands pressing hard on his chest as she rocked to and fro. Bond did as he was told, revelling in her slim brown body, her lissom youthfulness.
Later, when they lay in each other’s arms, she told him that she’d been with no one else since that night they’d been captured by Kobus Breed.
‘I thought about you a lot,’ she said. ‘And when I saw you in the restaurant I felt my heart jump, you know . . .’ She laughed quietly. ‘My first reaction was pleasure – not alarm. What does that tell you?’
‘That you’ve still got a lot to learn,’ Bond said.
She punched him gently on his shoulder and kissed him.
‘So teach me,’ she said.
Bond slipped out of her room in the small hours, having been given all the details about the AfricaKIN flight and the house in Orange County. He had dressed and kissed her goodbye and gave her naked body a final caress as she lay sleepily on the bed amidst the rumpled sheets.
‘I suppose we’d better not meet again,’ Bond said. ‘Until this is all over.’
‘I know what,’ she said. ‘I’ll ask to be posted to London.’ She sat up and put her arms round his neck. ‘That would be fun, wouldn’t it, James? You and me in London. Where do you live?’
‘You know where I live.’
‘No I don’t.’
‘Chelsea.’
‘You and me in Chelsea . . .’ She lay back on the pillows, touching herself. ‘Think about it, James . . .’
Bond was tempted to tear his clothes off and climb back in the bed.
‘There’s no harm in thinking,’ he said. He kissed her quickly on the lips and left before his resolve collapsed.
As he crossed from the annexe to the main block of the motel Bond paused, some sixth sense making him draw into the shadows of a doorway. He waited, looking about him. The parking lot was almost full, its corralled cars shining dewily in the glow of the arc lights, like some sort of sleeping mechanical herd in its vast paddock. Nobody moving, nobody to be seen. He waited a couple of minutes but there was nothing to worry him. He strode into the rear of the motel, with a wave to the night porter, and rode the elevator up to his room. He requested the motel operator to give him a wake-up call at 5 a.m., slept for a couple of hours then showered and shaved and, as dawn approached, he went down to the lobby and asked the sleepy doorman to ha
il him a taxi. Thirty minutes later he was breakfasting in the dining room of the Fairview.
After breakfast Bond took a taxi to the BOAC offices on Pennsylvania Avenue and confirmed his return flight to London for the evening of the following day. Now he was glad that he’d booked first class – he could rebook without any problem at the very last minute, and even not showing up was unlikely to be penalised as long as notice was given. He left the offices, hailed a cab and paid the driver $10 to take him round the corner and wait. From the shelter of a doorway he saw agent Massinette stroll into the BOAC offices, no doubt to confirm the flight that Bond was leaving on. The CIA would be reassured and Bond assumed that the surveillance of him would be less thorough. Wait and see. Massinette would acquire the necessary information with a flash of his badge and pass it on to Felix Leiter.
Bond climbed back into his taxi and asked to be returned to the Fairview. There was something about Massinette and his demeanour that troubled Bond – some shortfall in the routine CIA professionalism that Brig Leiter embodied. Bond hadn’t liked the sullen, aggressive way that Massinette had stared at him that first time they’d encountered each other. Brig Leiter had zeal, an ethic – that was obvious the minute you met him. Massinette was harder to gauge. Bond told himself to forget it. Maybe Massinette had personal troubles of his own that were souring his view of the world – even agents are human beings, after all.
When he arrived at the Fairview Bond went to the parking lot and sat in his Mustang for five minutes. As soon as he was confident no one was watching him he took a leisurely, roundabout route west to Seminole Field airport.
Seminole Field doubled as a commuting hub for small prop planes flying short journeys to Maryland, Virginia and Philadelphia and was also home to three Air National Guard squadrons of F-100 Super Sabres. Consequently the runway was long enough to service the largest transport planes and commercial jets. Bond parked his car and, taking his binoculars with him, joined the small crowd of plane-spotters on an elevated knoll outside the perimeter fence that gave a good view of the main runway, the apron and the small control tower and arrival and departure buildings. The Air National Guard hangars were on the far side of the airport. He checked his watch: according to Blessing the AfricaKIN flight was due in from Khartoum in an hour. Scanning the piste with his binoculars he could see that an area had been cordoned off with portable railings and there was a small row of bleachers to one side where a few journalists and photographers lounged, chatting and smoking.
After about thirty minutes a small motorcade of town cars arrived and assorted dignitaries emerged and were shown into the airport buildings. Bond spotted Colonel Denga and Blessing. There were men in suits and a few women in dresses and hats – AfricaKIN sponsors and officials from the Department of the Interior, Bond supposed. The welcome committee had arrived but clearly Gabriel Adeka wasn’t attending. Then three ambulances with ‘AfricaKIN’ logos drove on to the apron and parked in a row, waiting for the plane.
On time, a Boeing 707 swooped into the airport and touched down, causing a murmur of excitement among the plane-spotters. As it taxied in Bond saw that the words ‘Transglobal Charter’ were written on the side but there, stencilled on the nose, was the now-familiar AfricaKIN logo. The plane came to a halt, the dignitaries applauded and stairs were taken to the main doors. Gurneys were rolled in readiness from the ambulances and paramedics stood by.
Then the doors opened and the children appeared. First, those who could walk, some with their heads and limbs bandaged, some with little arm-crutches, then some very young and frail ones carried by male nurses, and finally those who were laid on the gurneys for the photo opportunity.
Bond focused his binoculars as the dignitaries briefly flanked the children and the flashbulbs popped. Denga was standing at one end of the group – immaculate in a beige seersucker suit – with a junior senator; an undersecretary of state at the other with Blessing. Hands were shaken, a short speech was made and there was a polite spatter of applause. Bond noticed that all the children who could walk were in a kind of uniform: peaked baseball caps, pale blue boiler suits and neat little rucksacks on their backs, all displaying the AfricaKIN Inc. logo. Charitable work and decent altruism marching hand in hand with very effective PR, Bond thought.
Within minutes the children were installed in the ambulances, which wheeled away to a gate in the perimeter fence, lights flashing. Bond loped to his car and drove round to the side entrance, where he was in time to see the last in the small convoy of ambulances turning on to the highway heading west into Orange County. Two police outriders led the way. Bond slowed, allowing some cars to overtake him – it was going to be an easy follow.
After twenty minutes the ambulances turned off the highway and the road and the countryside around it became noticeably more rural. They were barely an hour out of DC, Bond calculated, but already it felt very remote. They passed fewer and fewer houses. There were meadows with horses grazing, dense copses of wood – elm, walnut, ash – and a pleasing, gentle undulation to the landscape – valleys and streams, groups of small grassy hills. It was the country – but very civilised.
Eventually, after passing through a small village called Jackson Point, the ambulances swept through a gate between twin lodges that marked the driveway to Rowanoak Hall, the new headquarters of AfricaKIN Inc – a far cry from a grubby shop in Bayswater, Bond thought. Here in Rowanoak Hall, Blessing had told him, the children were fed, medicated, assessed and then despatched to the various hospitals in DC and surrounding areas that would best treat the children’s wounds, diseases or other ailments. Orphaned children, malnourished, suffering children, children wounded by landmines or ethnic violence, removed from harm’s way and brought to safety and succour in the United States of America, no expense spared. African kin indeed, Bond considered: nothing appeared better or more slickly organised or more sanctioned by authority. But what was really going on?
He drove slowly along the country lane that followed the ten-foot-high brick walls of the Rowanoak estate. The house was set in a thickly wooded park, carefully planted in the last century with red mulberry, spruce, cottonwood and hickory trees. There was no extra wiring or alarms fitted to the wall that Bond could see. He pulled into a muddy parking space and shinned up a yellow beech tree that would allow him a better view of the house itself.
Bond focused his binoculars and saw a large and rather ugly red-brick nineteenth-century house constructed in somewhat over-the-top Gothic-revival style. There were battlements, towers, buttresses and clustered crockets, pinnacles and finials and gingerbread trim wherever possible. On the wide gravelled sweep of the driveway in front of the carriage porch of the house the three ambulances were parked and, as Bond watched, they were joined by others sent by the affiliated AfricaKIN hospitals. An hour later, they were all gone, the children despatched. Bond wondered how many other staff remained in the house. From time to time burly men in black windcheaters with walkie-talkies wandered around the lawns and disappeared again. They seemed to be the only evidence of extra security. Bond supposed that they had to be discreet – AfricaKIN was a charity, after all. Was Gabriel Adeka inside? he wondered. And Kobus Breed? He imagined Breed would stay close to Adeka. As far as he could tell neither Blessing nor Denga had accompanied the convoy of ambulances.
Bond climbed stiffly down from his vantage point. Evening was coming on and the sky was darkening as he drove round to the main entrance and found a leafy lane where he could park out of sight but with a view of the gates themselves. As the working day ended, he watched as a small procession of private cars came down the drive from the house, some containing uniformed nurses. There was a man living in one of the lodges who emerged to open the gates and close them, chatting amiably to some of the staff as they departed.
When no more cars appeared Bond assumed that Rowanoak Hall was now empty, down to its core staff – just Adeka, perhaps, and Breed and their aides and bodyguards. He couldn’t know for sure without climbing in an
d doing a headcount himself. But not tonight, he thought. Once he entered those walled acres he had to be prepared for anything and anyone. Perhaps Blessing could tell him more about the personnel left behind once the gates closed for the night. He started his car and headed back to DC. He was hungry – he hadn’t eaten since breakfast.
9
BLESSING
Bond asked at the Fairview’s reception where the best steak restaurant in Washington was to be found and was told that the Grill on H Street was the place to go. So Bond took a taxi there and asked for a table for one. He knew exactly what he wanted and, while his vodka martini was being mixed at the bar, he consulted the maître d’ – slipping him the obligatory $20 – telling him the white lie that it was his birthday, and that he was a fussy eater – all to make sure things were arranged precisely as he desired them.
Ten minutes later Bond was led into the dining room to his corner table. The napery was thick white linen, the silverware heavy and traditional and the glasses gleamed, speck-free. The Grill on H Street replicated the clubby values of a Victorian steakhouse reimagined for America, a hundred years on: dark panelled walls, low-wattage sconces, gilt-framed oil paintings of sporting scenes and frontier battles, the odd stuffed animal trophy on the wall, a chequerboard marble floor and venerable, grey-haired men in long white aprons serving at table.
Bond’s preordered bottle of Chateau Lynch-Bages 1953 had already been decanted and, as he sat down, a small lacquered tray was brought to his table that contained all the ingredients necessary to make a vinaigrette to his own secret formula: a little carafe of olive oil and one of red-wine vinegar, a jar of Dijon mustard, a halved clove of garlic, a black-pepper grinder, a ramekin of granulated sugar, a bowl, a teaspoon and a small balloon whisk to mix the ingredients together.*