Carte Blanche

by Jeffery Deaver

  ‘We fooled them, I think,’ said Sergeant Mbalula.

  The trick indeed seemed to have been successful. Bond had been convinced that one of the men – the quick-minded Dunne, most likely – would want to see his branch in Cape Town. He believed that a good, solid set – a cover location – would be critical in seducing Hydt into believing he was an Afrikaner troubleshooter with a great many bodies to dispose of.

  While Bond had telephoned Hydt to talk his way into Green Way, Jordaan had found a small government office leased by the Ministry of Culture but presently unused. Nkosi had printed some business cards with the address, and before Bond had gone to meet Hydt and Dunne, the SAPS officers had moved in.

  ‘You’ll be my partner,’ Bond had told Jordaan, with a smile. ‘It’ll be a good cover for me to have a clever – and attractive – associate.’

  She had bristled. ‘To be credible, an office like this needs a secretary and she must be a woman.’

  ‘If you like.’

  ‘I don’t,’ she had said stiffly. ‘But that’s how it must be.’

  Bond had anticipated the men’s visit but not that Hydt would want to see pictures of the killing fields, though he supposed he should have. The minute he’d left Hydt’s office, he’d called Jordaan and told her to find photos of mass graves in Africa from military and law enforcement archives. Sadly, it had been all too easy and she’d downloaded a dozen by the time he’d returned from Hydt’s office.

  ‘Can you keep some people here for a day or two?’ Bond asked. ‘In case Dunne comes back.’

  ‘I can spare one officer,’ she said. ‘Sergeant Mbalula, you will stay for the time being.’

  ‘Yes, Captain.’

  ‘I’ll brief a patrolman on the situation and he will replace you.’ She turned back to Bond. ‘Do you think Dunne will return?’

  ‘No, but it’s possible. Hydt’s the boss but he gets distracted. Dunne is more focused and suspicious. To my mind, that makes him more dangerous.’

  ‘Commander.’ Nkosi opened a battered briefcase. ‘This came for you at Headquarters.’ He produced a thick envelope. Bond ripped it open. Inside he found ten thousand rand in used banknotes, a fake South African passport, credit cards and a debit card, all in the name of Eugene J. Theron. I Branch had worked its magic once more.

  There was also a note: Reservation for open stay at Table Mountain Hotel, waterfront room.

  Bond pocketed everything. ‘Now, the Lodge Club, where I’m meeting Hydt tonight. What’s it like?’

  ‘Too expensive for me,’ Nkosi said.

  ‘It’s a restaurant and venue for events,’ Jordaan told him. ‘I’ve never been either. It used to be a private hunting club. White men only. Then after the elections in ’ninety-four, when the ANC came to power, the owners chose to dissolve the club and sell the building rather than open up membership. The board wasn’t concerned about admitting black or coloured men but they didn’t want women. I’m sure you have no clubs like that at home, James, do you?’

  He didn’t admit that there were indeed such establishments in the UK. ‘At my favourite club in London, you’ll see pure democracy at work. Anyone at all is free to join… and lose money at the gaming tables. Just like I do. With some frequency, I might add.’

  Nkosi laughed.

  ‘If you’re ever in London, I’d be delighted to show it to you,’ he added to Jordaan.

  She seemed to view this as yet more shameless flirting because she icily ignored the comment.

  ‘I will drive you to your hotel.’ The tall police officer’s face wore a serious look. ‘I think I shall quit the SAPS and see if you can get me a job in England, Commander.’

  To work for the ODG or MI6, you had to be a British citizen and the child of at least one citizen or someone with substantial ties to the UK. There was also a residency requirement.

  ‘After my great undercover work’ – Nkosi’s arm swept around the room – ‘I now know I am quite the actor. I will come to London and work in the West End. That’s where the famous theatres are – correct?’

  ‘Well, yes.’ Though Bond had not been to one voluntarily in years.

  The young man said, ‘I’m sure I will be quite successful. I’m partial to Shakespeare. David Mamet is quite good too. Without doubt.’

  Bond supposed that, working for a boss like Bheka Jordaan, Nkosi did not get much of a chance to exercise his sense of humour.

  37

  The hotel was near Table Bay in the fashionable Green Point area of Cape Town. It was an older building, six storeys, in classic Cape style, and could not quite disguise its colonial roots – though it didn’t try very hard; you could see them clearly in the meticulous landscaping presently being tended by a number of diligent workers, the delicate but firm reminder on placards about the dining-room dress code, the spotless white uniforms of the demure, ever-present staff, the rattan furniture on the sweeping veranda overlooking the bay.

  Another clue was the enquiry as to whether Mr Theron would like a personal butler for his stay. He politely declined.

  The Table Mountain Hotel – referred to everywhere as ‘TM’ in scrolling letters, from the marble floor to embossed napkins – was just the place where a well-heeled Afrikaner businessman from Durban would stay, whether a legitimate computer salesman or a mercenary with ten thousand bodies to hide.

  After checking in, Bond started towards the lift, but something outside caught his eye. He popped into the gift shop for shaving foam he didn’t need. Then he circled back to Reception to help himself to some complimentary fruit juice from a large glass tank surrounded by an arrangement of purple jacaranda and red and white roses.

  He wasn’t certain but someone might have been conducting surveillance. When he’d turned abruptly to get the juice, a shadow had vanished equally abruptly.

  With many opportunities come many operatives…

  Bond waited for a moment but the apparition didn’t reappear.

  Of course, operational life sows the seeds of paranoia and sometimes a passer-by is just a passer-by, a curious gaze signifies nothing more than a curious mind. Besides, you can’t protect yourself from every risk in this business; if somebody wants you dead badly enough, they’ll get their wish. Mentally Bond shrugged off the tail and took the lift to the first floor, where the rooms were accessed from an open balcony that overlooked the lobby. He stepped inside, closed and chained the door.

  He tossed the suitcase on to one of the beds, strode to the window and closed the curtains. He slipped everything that identified him as James Bond into a large carbon-fibre envelope with an electronic lock on the flap and sealed it. With his shoulder he tipped a chest of drawers and pushed the pouch underneath. It might be found and stolen, of course, but any attempt to open it without his thumbprint on the lock would send an encrypted message to the ODG’s C Branch, and Bill Tanner would send a Crash Divetext to alert him that his cover had been compromised.

  He rang room service and ordered a club sandwich and a Gilroy’s dark ale. Then he showered. By the time he’d dressed in a pair of battleship grey trousers and a black polo shirt, the food was at the door. He ran a comb through his damp hair, checked the peephole and let the waiter in.

  The tray was placed on the small table, the bill signed as E. J. Theron – in Bond’s own handwriting; that was one thing you never tried to fake, however deep your cover. The waiter pocketed his tip with overt gratitude. When Bond stepped back to the door to see the young man out and refix the chain, he automatically scanned the balcony and the lobby below.

  He squinted, gazing down, then shut the door fast.

  Damn.

  Glancing with regret at the sandwich – and even more regretfully at the beer – he stepped into his shoes and flung open his suitcase. He screwed the Gemtech silencer on to the muzzle of his Walther and, although he’d done so recently at SAPS headquarters, eased the slide of the pistol back a few millimetres to verify that a round was in the chamber.

  The gun went into
the folds of today’s edition of the Cape Times, which Bond then set on the tray between his sandwich and the beer. He lifted it one-handed over his shoulder and left the room, the tray obscuring his face. He was not dressed in a waiter’s uniform but he moved briskly, head down, and might have been mistaken by a casual observer for a harried member of staff.

  At the end of the corridor, he went through the fire doors of the stairwell, put the tray down and picked up the newspaper with its deadly contents. Then he descended a flight of stairs, quietly, to the ground floor.

  Looking out through a porthole in the swing door, he spotted his target, sitting in an armchair in the shadows of a far corner of the lobby, nearly invisible. Facing away from Bond, he was scanning from his newspaper to the lobby to the first-floor balcony. Apparently he had missed Bond’s escape.

  Bond gauged distances and angles, the location and number of guests, staff and security guards. He waited while a porter wheeled a cart of suitcases past, a waiter carried a tray bearing a silver coffee pot to another guest at the far end of the lobby, and a cluster of Japanese tourists moved en masse out of the door, taking with them his target’s attention.

  Bond thought clinically: now.

  He pushed out of the stairwell and walked fast towards the back of an armchair over which the crown of his target’s head could just be seen. He circled around it and dropped into the chair just opposite, smiling as if he’d run into an old friend. He kept his finger off the trigger of the Walther, which Corporal Menzies had fine-tuned to a feather-light pull.

  The freckled ruddy face glanced up. The man’s eyes flashed wide in surprise that he’d been duped. In recognition too. The look said, no, it wasn’t a coincidence. He hadbeen conducting surveillance on Bond.

  He was the man Bond had seen at the airport that morning, whom he’d originally taken for Captain Jordaan.

  ‘Fancy seeing you here!’ Bond said cheerfully, to allay the suspicions of anybody witnessing the rendezvous. He lifted the curled newspaper so that the muzzle of the silencer was focused on the bulky chest.

  But, curiously, the surprise in the milky green eyes was replaced not by fear or desperation but amusement. ‘Ah, Mr… Theron, is it? Is that who we are at the moment?’ The accent was Mancunian. His pudgy hands swung up, palms out.

  Bond cocked his head to one side. ‘These rounds are nearly subsonic. With this suppressor, you’ll be dead and I’ll be gone long before anybody notices.’

  ‘Oh, but you don’t want to kill me. That would go down rather badly.’

  Bond had heard plenty of monologues at moments like this when he’d got the draw on an opponent. Usually the bons motswere to buy time or for distraction as the target prepared himself for a desperate assault. Bond knew to ignore what the man was saying and watch his hands and body language.

  Still, he could hardly dismiss the next lines issuing from the flabby lips. ‘After all, what would M say if he heard you’d gunned down one of the Crown’s star agents? And in sucha beautiful setting.’

  38

  His name was Gregory Lamb, confirmed by the iris and fingerprint scan app – MI6’s man on the ground in Cape Town. The agent Bill Tanner had told him to avoid.

  They were in Bond’s room, sansbeer and sandwich; to his consternation, the tray containing his lunch had been whisked out of the stairwell by an efficient hotel employee by the time he and Lamb had returned to the first floor.

  ‘You could’ve got yourself killed,’ Bond muttered.

  ‘I wasn’t in any real danger. Your outfit doesn’t give out those double noughts to trigger-happy fools… Now, now, my friend, don’t get all ruffled. Some of us know what your Overseas Development outfit reallydoes.’

  ‘How did you know I was in town?’

  ‘Put it together, didn’t I? Heard about some goings-on and got in touch with friends at Lambeth.’

  One of the disadvantages in having to use Six or DI for intelligence was that more people knew about your affairs than you might prefer. ‘Why didn’t you just contact me through secure channels?’ Bond snapped.

  ‘I was going to, but just as I got here I saw somebody playing shadow.’

  Now Bond paid attention. ‘Male, slim, blue jacket? Gold earring?’

  ‘Well, now, didn’t see the earring, did I? Eyes aren’t what they used to be. But you’ve got the general kit right. Hovered about for a while, then vanished like the Tablecloth when the sun comes out. You know what I mean: the fog on Table Mountain.’

  Bond was in no mood for travelogues. Dammit, the man who killed Yusuf Nasad and who had nearly done the same to Felix Leiter had learned he was here. He was probably the man Jordaan had told him about, the one who’d slipped into the country that morning from Abu Dhabi on a fake British passport.

  Who the hell was he?

  ‘Did you get a picture?’ Bond asked.

  ‘Drat no. The man was fast as a waterbug.’

  ‘Spot anything else about him, type of mobile, possible weapons, vehicle?’

  ‘None. Gone. Waterbug.’ A shrug of the broad shoulders, which Bond supposed were as freckled and red as the face.

  Bond said, ‘You were at the airport when I landed. Why did you turn away?’

  ‘I saw Captain Jordaan. She never took to me, for some reason. Maybe she thinks I’m the great white hunter colonist here to steal back her country. She gave me a bloody tongue lashing a few months ago, didn’t she?’

  ‘My chief of staff said you were in Eritrea,’ Bond said.

  ‘I was indeed – there and across the border in Sudan for the past week. Looks like their hearts’re set on war so I tooled on up to make sure my covers would survive the gunplay. I got that sorted and heard about an ODG operation.’ His eyes dimmed. ‘Surprised nobody gave me a bell about it.’

  ‘The thinking was that you were involved in a rather serious op. Delicate,’ Bond said judiciously.

  ‘Ah.’ Lamb seemed to believe this. ‘Well, anyway, I thought I’d better race here to help out. You see, the Cape’s tricky. It looks neat and clean and touristy but there’s a lot more to it. I hate to blow my own trumpet, my friend, but you need somebody like me to weasel under the surface, tell you what’s really going on. I’m connected. You know any other Six agent who’s finagled local-government-development-fund money to finance his covers? I made the Crown a tidy profit last year.’

  ‘All went to Treasury coffers, did it?’

  Lamb shrugged. ‘I’ve got a role to play, haven’t I? To the world I’m a successful businessman. If you don’t live your cover for all it’s worth, well, a bit of sand gets into the works and the next thing you know there’s a big pearl yelling, “I’m a spy!”… Say, you mind if we hit that minibar of yours?’

  Bond waved at it. ‘Go ahead.’ Lamb helped himself to a miniature of Bombay Sapphire gin, then another. He poured them into a glass. ‘No ice? Pity. Well, never mind.’ He sloshed in a bit of tonic.

  ‘What isyour cover?’

  ‘Mostly I arrange cargo ship charters. Brilliant idea, if I say so myself. Gives me a chance to hobnob with the bad boys on the docks. I also do a spot of gold and aluminium exploration and road and infrastructure construction.’

  ‘And you still have time to spy?’

  ‘Good one, my friend!’ For some reason Lamb started telling Bond his life story. He was a British citizen, as was his mother, and his father was South African. He’d come down here with his parents and decided he liked it better than life in Manchester. After training at Fort Monckton he’d asked to be sent back. Station Z was the only one he’d ever worked for… and the only one he’d ever cared to. He spent most of his time in the Western Cape but travelled frequently around Africa, attending to his NOC operations.

  When he noticed Bond was not listening, he swigged at his drink and said, ‘So what exactly are you working on? Something about this Severan Hydt? Now there’s a name to conjure with. And Incident Twenty. Love it. Sounds rather like something from DI Fifty-five – you know, the character
s looking into UFOs over the Midlands.’

  Exasperated, Bond said, ‘I was attached to Defence Intelligence. Division Fifty-five was about missiles or planes breaching British airspace, not UFOs.’

  ‘Ah, yes, yes, I’m sure it was… Of course, that wouldbe the line they’d give the public, wouldn’t it?’

  Bond was close to throwing him out. Still, it might just be worth picking his brain. ‘You heard about Incident Twenty, then. Any thoughts on how it could relate to South Africa?’

  ‘I did get the signals,’ Lamb conceded, ‘but I didn’t pay much attention since the intercept said the attack was going to be on British soil.’

  Bond reminded him of the exact wording, which gave no location but said merely that British interests would be ‘adversely affected’.

  ‘Could be anywhere, then. I didn’t think of that.’

  Or you didn’t read it very carefully.

  ‘And now the cyclone has touched down on my pitch. Odd how fate can strike, isn’t it?’

  The app on Bond’s mobile that had verified Lamb’s identity had also indicated his security clearance, which was higher than Bond would have guessed. Now he felt more or less comfortable in talking about the Gehenna plan, Hydt and Dunne. He asked again, ‘So, have you any thoughts on a connection here? Thousands of people at risk, British interests threatened, the plan hatched in Severan Hydt’s office.’

  Eyes on his glass, Lamb said thoughtfully, ‘The fact is, I don’t know what kind of attack here would fit the bill. We’ve got plenty of British ex-pats and tourists and a lot of business interests with connections to London. But killing that many people in one fell swoop? Sounds like it’d have to be civil unrest. And I don’t see that happening in South Africa. We’ve got our troubles here, there’s no denying it – Zimbabwe asylum seekers, trade union unrest, corruption, AIDS… but we’re still the most stable country on the continent.’

  For once the man had provided Bond with some real insight, slight though it was. This reinforced his idea that, while buttons might be pushed in South Africa, Friday’s deaths could likely occur elsewhere.