Jeffery Deaver - Carte Blanche

Hydt regarded him with contempt. He said to Bond, ‘This man broke into our property and was trying to steal mobile phones from the e-waste operation. When he was approached he pulled a gun and shot at a guard. He missed and was overpowered. I’ve checked his records and he’s an escaped convict. In prison for rape and murder. I could turn him over to the authorities, but his appearance here today has given me – and you – an opportunity.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘You are being given a chance to make your first kill as a hunter. If you shoot this man-’

‘No!’ the captive cried.

‘If you kill him, that’s all the down-payment I need. We’ll proceed with your project and I’ll hire you to help me with others. If you choose not to kill him, which I would certainly understand, Niall will drive you back to the front gate and we will part ways. As tempting as your offer is, to cleanse the killing fields, I’ll have to decline.’

‘Shoot a man in cold blood?’

Dunne said, ‘The decision’s yours. Don’t shoot him. Leave.’ The brogue seemed harsher.

But what a chance this was to get into the inner sanctum of Severan Hydt! Bond could learn everything about Gehenna. One life versus thousands.

And how many more would die if, as seemed likely, the event on Friday was the first of other such projects?

He stared at the criminal’s dark face, eyes wide, hands shaking at his sides.

Bond glanced at Dunne. He strode forward and took the rifle.

‘No, please!’ the man cried.

The guards shoved him on to his knees and stepped away. The man stared at Bond, who realised for the first time that, in firing squads, the blindfold wasn’t for the condemned’s benefit; it was for the executioners , so they didn’t have to look into the prisoner’s eyes.

‘Please, no, sir!’ he cried.

‘There’s a round in the chamber,’ Dunne called. ‘Safety’s on.’

Had they slipped a blank in to test him? Or had Dunne not loaded the rifle at all? The thief clearly wasn’t wearing a bulletproof vest under the thin T-shirt. Bond hefted the gun, which had open sights only, not telescopic. He assessed the thief, forty feet away, and aimed at him. The man raised his hands to cover his face. ‘No! Please!’

‘You want to move closer?’ Hydt asked.

‘No. But I don’t want him to suffer,’ Bond said matter-of-factly. ‘Does the rifle shoot high or low at this range?’

‘I couldn’t tell you,’ Dunne said.

Bond aimed towards the right, at a leaf that was about the same distance as the captive. He squeezed the trigger. There was a sharp crack and a hole appeared in the centre of the leaf, just where he was aiming. Bond worked the bolt, ejecting the spent shell and chambering another. Still, he hesitated.

‘What’s it to be, Theron?’ Hydt whispered.

Bond lifted the gun, aiming steadily at the victim once again.

There was a moment’s pause. He pulled the trigger. Another stunning crack and a red dot blossomed in the middle of the man’s T-shirt as he fell backwards into the dust.

‘So,’ Bond snapped, opening the rifle’s bolt and tossing the weapon to Dunne. ‘Are you satisfied?’

The Irishman easily caught the weapon in his large hands. He remained as impassive as ever. He said nothing.

Hydt, however, seemed pleased.

He said, ‘Good. Now let us go to the office and have a drink to celebrate our partnership… and to allow me to apologise to you.’

‘For forcing me to kill a man.’

‘No, for forcing you to believe you were killing a man.’

‘What?’

‘William!’

The man Bond had shot leapt to his feet with a big grin on his face.

Bond spun towards Hydt. ‘I-’

‘Wax bullets,’ Dunne called. ‘Police use them in training, filmmakers use them in action scenes.’

‘It was a goddamn test?’

‘Which our friend Niall here devised. It was a good one and you passed.’

‘You think I’m a schoolboy? Go to hell.’ Bond turned and stormed towards the garden’s gate.

‘Wait – wait.’ Hydt was walking after him, frowning. ‘We’re business people. This is what we do. We must make certain.’

Bond spat an obscenity and continued down the path, his fists clenching and unclenching.

Urgently Hydt said, ‘You can keep going. But please know, Theron, you’re walking away not only from me but from one million dollars, which will be yours tomorrow if you stay. And there will be much more.’

Bond stopped. He turned.

‘Let us go back to the office and talk. Let us be professional.’

Bond looked at the man he’d shot, who was still grinning happily. Then he asked Hydt, ‘A million?’

Hydt nodded. ‘Yours tomorrow.’

Bond remained where he was for a moment, staring across the gardens, which were truly magnificent. He walked back to Hydt, casting a cool glance at Niall Dunne, who was unloading the rifle and cleaning it carefully, caressing the metal parts.

Bond tried to keep an indignant look on his face, playing the role of offended party.

And fiction it was, for he’d figured out about the wax bullets. Nobody who’s fired a gun with a normal load of gunpowder and a lead bullet would be fooled by a wax round, which produces far less recoil than a real slug (giving a blank round to a soldier in a firing squad is absurd; he clearly knows his bullet is not real the minute he shoots). A few moments ago Bond had been given the clue when the ‘thief’ covered his eyes. People about to be shot don’t shield anything with their hands. So, Bond had reflected, he’s afraid of being blinded, not killed. That suggested that the bullets were blank or wax.

He’d fired into the foliage to judge the recoil and learnt from the very light kick that these were non-lethal rounds.

He guessed that the man would earn hazard pay for his efforts. Hydt seemed to take care of his employees, whatever else one could say about him. This was confirmed now. Hydt peeled off some rand and gave them to the man, who walked up to Bond and pumped his hand. ‘Hey, mister, sir! You a good shot. You got me in a blessed spot. Look, right here!’ He tapped his chest. ‘One man shot me down below, you know where. He was bastard. Oh, that hurt and hurt for days. An’ my lady, she complain much.’

In the Range Rover once more, the three men drove in silence back to the plant, the beautiful gardens giving way to harrowing Disappearance Row, the cacophony of the gulls, the fumes.

Gehenna …

Dunne parked at the main building, nodded to Bond and told Hydt, ‘Our associates? I’ll meet the flights. They’re arriving around nineteen hundred hours. I’ll get them settled and then come back.’

So, Dunne and Hydt would be working into the night. Did that bode well or badly for any future reconnaissance at Green Way? One thing was clear: Bond had to get inside Research and Development now.

Dunne strode away, while Hydt and Bond continued to the building. ‘You going to give me a tour here?’ Bond asked Hydt. ‘It’s warmer… and there aren’t as many seagulls.’

Hydt laughed. ‘There isn’t much to see. We’ll just go to my office.’ He didn’t, however, spare his new partner the procedures at the back-door security post – though the guards missed the inhaler again. As they stepped into the main corridor, Bond noted again the sign to Research and Development. He lowered his voice. ‘Well, I wouldn’t mind a tour of the toilet.’

‘That way.’ Hydt pointed, then pulled out his mobile to make a call. Bond walked quickly down the corridor. He entered the empty men’s room, grabbed a large handful of paper towels and tossed them into one of the toilets. When he flushed, the paper jammed in the drain. He went to the door and looked towards where Hydt was waiting. The man’s head was down and he was concentrating on his call. There was no CCTV, Bond saw, so he walked away from Hydt, planning his cover story.