Jeffery Deaver - Carte Blanche

‘Ah, but that’s the thing about discard, Theron. People throw away an innocent-looking anti-static machine… that just happens to contain polonium. But nobody knows that.’

He led Bond past a car park where several lorries stood, each about twenty feet long. On the side was the company name and logo, along with the words Secure Document Destruction Services.

Hydt followed Bond’s gaze and said, ‘Another of our specialities. We lease shredders to companies and government offices, but smaller outfits would rather hire us to do it for them. Did you know that when the Iranian students took over the American embassy in the 1970s, they were able to reassemble classified CIA documents that had been shredded? They learnt the identities of most of the covert agents there. Local weavers did the work.’

Everyone in the intelligence community knew this but Bond feigned surprise.

‘At Green Way we perform DIN industrial-standard level-six shredding. Basically our machines turn the documents to dust. Even the most secret government installations hire us.’

He then led Bond to the largest building on the plant, three storeys high and two hundred yards long. A continuous string of lorries rolled in through one door and came out through another. ‘The main recycling facility. We call this area “Resurrection Row”.’

They stepped inside. Three huge devices were being fed an endless stream of paper, cardboard, plastic bottles, polystyrene, scrap metal, wood and hundreds of other items. ‘The sorters,’ Hydt shouted. The noise was deafening. At the far end the separated materials were being packed into lorries for onward shipment – tins, glass, plastic, paper and other materials.

‘Recycling’s a curious business,’ Hydt yelled. ‘Only a few products – metals and glass mostly – can be recycled indefinitely. Everything else breaks down after a while and has to be burnt or go to landfill. Aluminium’s the only consistently profitable recyclable. Most products are far cheaper, cleaner and easier to make from raw materials than recycled ones. The extra lorries for transporting recycling materials and the recycling process itself add to fossil fuel pollution. And remanufacturing uses more power than the initial production, which is a drain on resources.’

He laughed. ‘But it’s politically correct to recycle… so people come to me.’

Bond followed his tour guide outside and noticed Niall Dunne approaching on his long legs, his gait clumsy and feet turned outward. The fringe of blond hair hung down above his blue eyes, which were as still as pebbles. Putting aside the memory of Dunne’s cruel treatment of the men in Serbia and his murder of al-Fulan’s assistant in Dubai, Bond smiled amiably and shook his wide hand.

‘Theron.’ Dunne nodded, his own visage not particularly welcoming. He looked at Hydt. ‘We should go.’ He seemed impatient.

Hydt motioned for Bond to get into a nearby Range Rover. He did so, sitting in the front passenger seat. He was aware of a sense of anticipation in the two men, as if some plan had been made and was now about to unfurl. His sixth sense told him something had perhaps gone awry. Had they discovered his identity? Had he given something away?

As the other men climbed in, with the unsmiling Dunne taking the driver’s seat, Bond reflected that if ever there was a place to dispose of a body clandestinely, this was it.

Disappearance Row…

The Range Rover bounded east along a wide dirt road, passing squat lorries with massive ribbed wheels, carrying bales or containers of refuse. It passed a wide chasm, at least eighty feet deep.

Bond looked down. The lorries were dropping their loads, and bulldozers were compacting them against the face of the landfill site. The bottom of the pit was lined with thick dark sheets. Hydt had been right about the seagulls. They were everywhere, thousands of them. The sheer number, the screams, the frenzy were unsettling and Bond felt a shiver trickle up his spine.

As they drove on, Hydt pointed to the flames Bond had seen earlier. Here, much closer, they were giant spheres of fire – he could feel their heat. ‘The landfill produces methane,’ he said. ‘We drill down and extract it to power the generators, though there’s usually too much gas and we have to burn some off. If we didn’t, the entire landfill site could blow up. That happened in America not too long ago. Hundreds of people were injured.’

After fifteen minutes, they passed through a dense row of trees and a gate. Bond barked an involuntary laugh. The wasteland of the rubbish tips had vanished. Surrounding them now was an astonishingly beautiful scene: trees, flowers, rock formations, paths, ponds, forest. The meticulously landscaped grounds extended for several miles.

‘We call it Elysian Fields. Paradise… after our time in hell. And yet it’s a landfill too. Underneath us there is nearly a hundred feet of discard. We’ve reclaimed the land. In a year or so I’ll open it to the public. My gift to South Africans. Decay resurrected into beauty.’

Bond was not an aficionado of botany – his customary reaction to the Chelsea Flower Show was irritation at the traffic problems it caused around his home – but he had to admit that these gardens were impressive. He found himself squinting at some tree roots.

Hydt noticed. ‘Do they seem a little odd?’

They were metal tubes, painted to look like roots.

‘Those pipes transport the methane generated under here to be burnt off or to the power plants.’

He supposed this detail had been thought up by Hydt’s star engineer.

They drove on into a grove of trees and parked. A blue crane, the South African national bird, stood regally in a pond nearby, perfectly balanced on one leg.

‘Come on, Theron. Let’s talk business.’

Why here? Bond wondered, as he followed Hydt down a path, along which small signs identified the plants. Again he wondered if the men had plans for him and he looked, futilely, for possible weapons and escape routes.

Hydt stopped and looked back. Bond did too – and felt a jolt of alarm. Dunne was approaching, carrying a rifle.

Bond outwardly remained calm. (‘You wear your cover to the grave,’ the lecturers at Fort Monckton would tell their students.)

‘You shoot long guns?’ Dunne displayed the hunting rifle, with its black plastic or carbon-fibre stock, brushed steel receiver and barrel.

‘I do, yes.’ Bond had been captain of the shooting team at Fettes and had won competitions in both small and full bore. He’d won the Queen’s Medal for Shooting Excellence when in the Royal Naval Reserve – the only shooting medal that can be worn in uniform. He glanced down at what Dunne held. ‘Winchester.270.’

‘Good gun, wouldn’t you agree?’

‘It is. I prefer that calibre to the.30-06. Flatter trajectory.’

Hydt asked, ‘Do you shoot game, Theron?’

‘Never had much opportunity.’

Hydt laughed. ‘I don’t hunt either… except for one species.’ The smile faded. ‘Niall and I have been discussing you.’

‘Have you now?’ Bond asked, his tone blasé.

‘We’ve decided you might be a valuable addition to certain other projects we’re working on. But we need a show of faith.’

‘Money?’ Bond was stalling; he believed he understood his enemy’s purpose here and needed a response. Fast.

‘No,’ Hydt said softly, his huge head tilting Bond’s way. ‘That’s not what I mean.’

Dunne stepped forward, the Winchester on his hip, muzzle skyward. ‘All right. Bring him out.’

Two workers in security uniforms led a skinny man in a T-shirt and shabby khaki trousers from behind a thick stand of jacaranda. The man’s face was a mask of terror.