Jeffery Deaver - Carte Blanche

Hydt frowned. ‘It’s-’

‘There is no such group,’ Dunne said calmly. ‘It had to be a private operation. There was no back-up, no central communications, no medics. The Westerner probably bribed the intelligence officers to help him. It is the Balkans, after all. May have been a competitor.’ He added, ‘Maybe one of your partners or a worker here let slip something about the plan.’

He was referring to Gehenna, of course. They did everything they could to keep the project secret but a number of people around the world were involved; it wasn’t impossible that there’d been a leak and some crime syndicate was interested in learning more about it.

Dunne continued, ‘I don’t want to minimise the risk – they were pretty clever. But it wasn’t a major co-ordinated effort. I’m confident we can go forward.’

Dunne handed Hydt a mobile phone. ‘Use this one for our conversations. Better encryption.’

Hydt examined it. ‘Did you get a look at the Westerner?’

‘No. There was a lot of smoke.’

‘And Karic?’

‘I killed him.’ The blank face registered the same emotion as if he’d said, ‘Yes, it’s cool outside today.’

Hydt considered what the man had told him. No one was more precise or cautious when it came to analysis than Niall Dunne. If he was convinced this was no problem, then Hydt would accept his judgement.

Dunne continued, ‘I’m going up to the facility now. Once I get the last materials up there the team say they can finish in a few hours.’

A fire flared within Hydt, ignited by an image of the woman’s body in the skip – and the thought of what awaited up north. ‘I’ll come with you.’

Dunne said nothing. Finally he asked in a monotone, ‘You think that’s a good idea? Might be risky.’ He offered this as if he’d detected the eagerness in Hydt’s voice – Dunne seemed to feel that nothing good could come out of a decision based on emotion.

‘I’ll chance it.’ Hydt tapped his pocket to make certain his phone was there. He hoped there’d be an opportunity to take some more photographs.

After leaving M’s lair, Bond walked up the corridor. He greeted a smartly dressed Asian woman keyboarding deftly at a large computer and stepped into the doorway behind her.

‘You’ve bought the duty,’ he said to the man hunched over a desk as loaded with papers and files as M’s was empty.

‘I have indeed.’ Bill Tanner looked up. ‘I’m now the grand overlord of Incident Twenty. Take a pew, James.’ He nodded to an empty chair – or, rather, the empty chair. The office boasted a number of seats, but the rest were serving as outposts for more files. As Bond sat, the ODG’s chief of staff asked, ‘So, most important, did you get some decent wine and a gourmet meal on SAS Air last night?’

An Apache helicopter, courtesy of the Special Air Service, had plucked Bond from a field south of the Danube and whisked him to a NATO base in Germany, where a Hercules loaded with van parts completed his journey to London. He said, ‘Apparently they forgot to stock the galley.’

Tanner laughed. The retired army officer, a former lieutenant colonel, was a solid man in his fifties, ruddy of complexion and upright – in all senses of the word. He was in his usual uniform: dark trousers and light blue shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Tanner had a tough job, running the ODG’s day-to-day operations, and by rights he should have had little sense of humour, though in fact, he had a fine one. He’d been Bond’s mentor when the young agent had joined and was now his closest friend within the organisation. Tanner was a devout golfer and every few weeks he and Bond would try to get out to one of the more challenging courses, like Royal Cinque Ports or Royal St George’s or, if time was tight, Sunningdale, near Windsor.

Tanner was, of course, generally familiar with Incident Twenty and the hunt for Noah, but Bond now updated him – and explained about his own downsized role in the UK operation.

The chief of staff gave a sympathetic laugh. ‘ Carte grise , eh? Must say you’re taking it rather well.’

‘Hardly have much choice,’ Bond allowed. ‘Is Whitehall still convinced that the threat’s out of Afghanistan?’

‘Let’s just say they hope it’s based there,’ Tanner said, his voice low. ‘For several reasons. You can probably work them out for yourself.’

He meant politics, of course.

Then he nodded towards M’s office. ‘Did you catch his opinion on that security conference he’s been shanghaied to attend this week?’

‘Not much room for interpretation,’ Bond said.

Tanner chuckled.

Bond glanced at his watch and stood up. ‘I’ve got to meet a man from Division Three. Osborne-Smith. You know anything about him?’

‘Ah, Percy.’ Bill Tanner raised a cryptic eyebrow and smiled. ‘Good luck, James,’ he said. ‘Perhaps it’s best just to leave it at that.’

O Branch took up nearly the entire fourth floor.

It was a large open area, ringed with agents’ offices. In the centre were work stations for PAs and other support staff. It might have been the sales department of a major supermarket, if not for the fact that every office door had an iris scanner and keypad lock. There were many flatscreen computers in the centre but none of the giant monitors that seemed de rigueur in spy outfits on TV and in movies.

Bond strode through this busy area and nodded a greeting to a blonde in her mid twenties, perched forward in her office chair, presiding over an ordered work space. Had Mary Goodnight worked for any other department, Bond might have invited her to dinner and seen where matters led from there. But she wasn’t in any other department: she was fifteen feet from his office door and was his human diary, his portcullis and drawbridge, and was capable of repelling the unannounced firmly and, most important in government service, with unimprovable tact. Although none were on view, Goodnight occasionally received – from office mates, friends and dates – cards or souvenirs inspired by the film Titanic , so closely did she resemble Kate Winslet.

‘Good morning, Goodnight.’

That play on words, and others like it, had long ago moved from flirtatiousness to affection. They had become like an endearment between spouses, almost automatic and never tiresome.

Goodnight ran through his appointments for the day but Bond told her to cancel everything. He’d be meeting a man from Division Three, coming over from Thames House, and afterwards he might have to be off at a minute’s notice.

‘Shall I hold the signals too?’ she asked.

Bond considered this. ‘I suppose I’ll plough through them now. Should probably clear my desk anyway. If I have to be away, I don’t want to come back to a week’s worth of reading.’

She handed him the top-secret green-striped folders. With approval from the keypad lock and iris scanner beside his door Bond entered his office and turned on the light. The space wasn’t small by London office standards, about fifteen by fifteen, but was rather sterile. His government-issue desk was slightly larger than, but the same colour as, his desk at Defence Intelligence. The four wooden bookshelves were filled with volumes and periodicals that had been, or might be, helpful to him and varied in subject from the latest hacking techniques used by the Bulgarians to Thai idioms to a guide for reloading Lapua.338 sniper rounds. There was little of a personal nature to brighten the room. The one object he might have had on display, his Conspicuous Gallantry Cross, awarded for his duty in Afghanistan, was in the bottom drawer of his desk. He’d accepted the honour with good grace, but to Bond, courage was simply another tool in a soldier’s kit and he saw no more point in displaying indications of its past use than in hanging a spent cipher pad on the wall.