Jeffery Deaver - Carte Blanche

Conflict regions, Hydt observed.

‘And these groups are concerned about the consequences that arise after, say, a terrible natural disaster – like drought or famine or storms – or, frankly, anywhere that a major loss of life has occurred and bodies have been buried. As in Cambodia or Isandlwana.’

Hydt said innocently, ‘Such cases have serious health implications. Water supply contamination, disease.’

‘No,’ Theron said bluntly. ‘I mean something else. Superstition.’

‘Superstition?’

‘Say, for instance, because of a lack of money or resources, bodies have been left in mass graves. A shame, but it happens.’

‘Indeed it does.’

‘Now, if a government or a charity wishes to build something for the good of the people – a hospital, a housing development or a road in that area – they would be reluctant to do so. The land is perfectly good, there is money to build and workers who wish to be employed but many people would fear ghosts or spirits and be afraid to go to that hospital or move into those houses. It’s absurd to me, and to you too, I’m sure. But that’s how many people feel.’ Theron shrugged. ‘How sad for the citizens of those areas if their health and safety were to suffer because of such foolish ideas.’

Hydt was riveted. He was tapping his nails on the desk. He forced himself to stop.

‘So. Here is my idea: I am thinking of offering a service to, well, those government agencies to remove the human remains.’ His face brightened. ‘This will allow more building of factories, hospitals, roads, farms, schools, and it will help the poor, the unfortunate.’

‘Yes,’ Hydt said. ‘Rebury the bodies somewhere else.’

Theron laid his hands on the desk. The gold initial ring glittered in a shaft of sunlight. ‘That’s one possibility. But it would be very expensive. And the problem might arise later at the new location.’

‘True. But are there other alternatives?’ Hydt asked.

‘Your speciality.’

‘Which is?’

In a whisper Theron said, ‘Perhaps… recycling.’

Hydt saw the scenario clearly. Gene Theron, a mercenary and obviously a very successful one, had supplied troops and weapons to various armies and warlords throughout Africa, men who’d secretly massacred hundreds or thousands of people and hidden the bodies in mass graves. Now they were growing worried that legitimate governments, peacekeeping forces, the press or human-rights groups would discover the corpses.

Theron had made money by providing the means of destruction. Now he wanted to make money by removing the evidence of their use.

‘It seemed to me an interesting solution,’ Theron continued. ‘But I wouldn’t know how to go about it. Your… interests in Cambodia and your recycling business here told me that perhaps this is something you had thought of, too. Or would be willing to consider.’ His cold eyes regarded Hydt. ‘I was thinking maybe concrete or plaster. Or fertiliser?’

Turning the bodies into products that ensured they couldn’t be recognised as human remains! Hydt could hardly contain himself. Utterly brilliant. Why, there must be hundreds of opportunities like this throughout the world – Somalia, the former Yugoslavia, Latin America… and there were killing fields aplenty in Africa. Thousands. His chest pounded.

‘So, that’s my idea. A fifty-fifty partnership. I provide the refuse and you recycle it.’ Theron seemed to find this rather amusing.

‘I think we may be able to do business.’ Hydt offered his hand to the Afrikaner.

The worst risk of James Bond assuming the NOC – nonofficial cover – of Gene Theron was that Niall Dunne had perhaps got a look at him in Serbia or the Fens, or had been given his description in Dubai – if the blue-jacketed man who’d been tailing him was in fact working for Hydt.

In which case when Bond walked brazenly into the Green Way office in Cape Town and sought to hire Hydt to dispose of bodies hidden in secret graves throughout Africa, Dunne would either kill him on the spot or spirit him to their own personal killing field, where the job would be done with cold efficiency.

But now, having shaken hands with an intrigued Severan Hydt, Bond believed his cover was holding. So far. Hydt had been suspicious at first, of course, but he had been willing to give Theron the benefit of the doubt. Why? Because Bond had tempted him with a dangle, a lure he couldn’t resist: death and decay.

That morning, at SAPS headquarters, Bond had contacted Philly Maidenstone and Osborne-Smith – his new ally – and they had data-mined Hydt’s and Green Way’s credit cards. They’d learnt that he’d not only travelled to the Killing Fields in Cambodia but to Krakow, Poland, where he’d taken several tours of Auschwitz. Among his purchases at the time were double-A batteries and a second flash chip for a camera.

Man’s got a whole new idea about porn…

Bond decided that to work his way into Hydt’s life he would offer a chance to satisfy that lust: access to secret killing fields throughout Africa and a proposal to recycle human remains.

For the past three hours Bond had struggled, under the tutelage of Bheka Jordaan, to become an Afrikaner mercenary from Durban. Gene Theron would have a slightly unusual background: he’d had Huguenot rather than Dutch forebears and his parents favoured English and French in the household of his youth, which explained why he didn’t speak much Afrikaans. A British education in Kenya would cover his accent. She had, however, made Bond learn something of the dialect; if Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon had mastered the subtle intonation for recent films – and they were American, for heaven’s sake – he could do so too.

While she’d coached him on facts that a South African mercenary might know, Sergeant Mbalula had gone to the evidence locker and found an incarcerated drug dealer’s gaudy Breitling watch, to replace Bond’s tasteful Rolex, and gold bracelet for the successful mercenary to wear. He’d then sped to a jeweller in the Gardens Shopping Centre in Mill Street, where he’d bought a gold signet ring and had it engraved with the initials EJT.

Meanwhile, Warrant Officer Kwalene Nkosi had worked feverishly with the ODG’s I Branch in London to create the fictional Gene Theron, uploading to the Internet biographical information about the hard-boiled mercenary, with Photoshopped pictures and details about his fictional company.

A series of lectures on cover identities at Fort Monckton could be summarised in the instructor’s introductory sentence: ‘If you don’t have a web presence, you’re not real.’

Nkosi had also printed business cards for EJT Services Ltd, and MI6 in Pretoria pulled in some favours to get the company registered in record time, the documents backdated. Jordaan was not happy about this – it was, to her, a breach of the sacred rule of law – but since she and SAPS were not involved, she let it go. I Branch also created a fake criminal investigation in Cambodia about Theron’s questionable behaviour in Myanmar, which mentioned shady activities in other countries too.

The faux Afrikaner was over the first hurdle. The second – and most dangerous – was close. Hydt was on the phone summoning Niall Dunne to meet ‘a businessman from Durban’.

After he’d hung up, Hydt said casually, ‘One question. Would you happen to have pictures of the fields? The graves?’

‘That can be arranged,’ Bond said.

‘Good.’ Hydt smiled like a schoolboy. He rubbed the back of his hand on his beard.

Bond heard the door behind him open. ‘Ah, here is my associate, Niall Dunne… Niall, this is Gene Theron. From Durban.’

Now for it. Was he about to be shot? Bond rose, turned and went up to the Irishman, looking straight into his eyes and offering the stiff smile of one businessman meeting another for the first time. As they shook hands, Dunne stared at him, a knife slash from the chill blue eyes.