Jeffery Deaver: Carte Blanche

‘I’ve signed one-’

‘Of course you have – for Defence Intelligence,’ the man said briskly, revealing his impatience at stating the obvious. ‘This has a few more teeth. Read it.’

Bond did so. More teeth indeed, to put it mildly.

The Admiral said, ‘If you’re not interested in signing we’ll finish our lunch and discuss the recent election or trout fishing in the north or how those damn Kiwis beat us again last week and get back to our offices.’ He lifted a bushy eyebrow.

Bond hesitated only a moment, then scrawled his name across the line and handed it back. The document vanished.

A sip of wine. The Admiral asked, ‘Have you heard of the Special Operations Executive?’

‘I have, yes.’ Bond had few idols, but high on the list was Winston Churchill. In his young days as a reporter and soldier in Cuba and Sudan Churchill had formed a great respect for guerrilla operations and later, after the outbreak of the Second World War, he and the minister for economic warfare, Hugh Dalton, had created the SOE to arm partisans behind German lines and to parachute in British spies and saboteurs. Also called Churchill’s Secret Army, it had caused immeasurable harm to the Nazis.

‘Good outfit,’ the Admiral said, then grumbled, ‘They closed it down after the war. Inter-agency nonsense, organisational difficulties, in-fighting at MI6 and Whitehall.’ He took a sip of the fragrant wine and conversation slowed while they ate. The meal was superb. Bond said so. The Admiral rasped, ‘Chef knows what he’s about. No aspirations to cook his way on to American television. Are you familiar with how Five and Six got going?’

‘Yes, sir – I’ve read quite a lot about it.’

In 1909, in response to concerns about a German invasion and spies within England (concerns that had been prompted, curiously, by popular thriller novels), the Admiralty and the War Office had formed the Secret Service Bureau. Not long after that, the SSB split into the Directorate of Military Intelligence Section 5, or MI5, to handle domestic security, and Section 6, or MI6, to handle foreign espionage. Six was the oldest continuously operating spy organisation in the world, despite China’s claim to the contrary.

The Admiral said, ‘What’s the one element that stands out about them both?’

Bond couldn’t begin to guess.

‘Plausible deniability,’ the older man muttered. ‘Both Five and Six were created as cut-outs so that the Crown, the prime minister, the Cabinet and the War Office didn’t have to get their hands dirty with that nasty business of spying. Just as bad now. Lot of scrutiny of what Five and Six do. Sexed-up dossiers, invasion of privacy, political snooping, rumours of illegal targeted killings… Everybody’s clamouring for transparency . Of course, no one seems to care that the face of war is changing, that the other side doesn’t play by the rules much any more.’ Another sip of wine. ‘There’s thinking, in some circles, that we need to play by a different set of rules too. Especially after Nine-eleven and Seven-seven.’

Bond said, ‘So, if I understand correctly, you’re talking about starting a new version of the SOE, but one that isn’t technically part of Six, Five or the MoD.’

The Admiral held Bond’s eye. ‘I read those reports of your performance in Afghanistan – Royal Naval Reserve, yet still you managed to get yourself attached to forward combat units on the ground. Took some doing.’ The cool eyes regarded him closely. ‘I understand you also managed some missions behind the lines that weren’t quite so official. Thanks to you, some fellows who could have caused quite a lot of mischief never got the chance.’

Bond was about to sip from his glass of Puligny-Montrachet, the highest incarnation of the chardonnay grape. He set the glass down without doing so. How the devil had the old man learnt about those ?

In a low, even voice the man said, ‘There’s no shortage of Special Air or Boat Service chaps about who know their way around a knife and sniper rifle. But they don’t necessarily fit into other, shall we say subtler , situations. And then there are plenty of talented Five and Six fellows who know the difference between…’ he glanced at Bond’s glass ‘… a Côte de Beaune and a Côte de Nuits and can speak French as fluently as they can Arabic – but who’d faint at the sight of blood, theirs or anyone else’s.’ The steel eyes zeroed in. ‘You seem to be a rather rare combination of the best of both.’

The Admiral put down his knife and fork on the bone china. ‘Your question.’

‘My…?’

‘About a new version of the Special Operations Executive. The answer is yes. In fact, it already exists. Would you be interested in joining?’

‘I would,’ Bond said without hesitation. ‘Though I should like to ask: what exactly does it do?’

The Admiral thought for a moment, as if polishing burrs off his reply. ‘Our mission,’ he said, ‘is simple. We protect the Realm… by any means necessary.’

In the sleek, purring Bentley, Bond now approached the headquarters of this very organisation, near Regent’s Park, after half an hour of the zigzagging that driving in central London necessitates.

The name of his employer was nearly as vague as that of the Special Operations Executive: the Overseas Development Group. The director-general was the Admiral, known only as M.

Officially the ODG assisted British-based companies in opening or expanding foreign operations and investing abroad. Bond’s OC, or official cover, within it was as a security and integrity analyst. His job was to travel the world and assess business risks.

No matter that the moment he landed he assumed an NOC – a nonofficial cover – with a fictitious identity, tucked away the Excel spreadsheets, put on his 5.11 tactical outfit and armed himself with a.308 rifle with Nikon Buckmasters scope. Or perhaps he’d slip into a well-cut Savile Row suit to play poker with a Chechnyan arms dealer in a private Kiev club, for the chance to assess his security detail in a run-up to the evening’s main event: the man’s rendition to a black site in Poland.

Tucked away inconspicuously in the hierarchy of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the ODG was housed in a narrow, six-storey Edwardian building on a quiet road, just off Devonshire Street. It was separated from bustling Marylebone Road by lacklustre – but camouflaging – solicitors’ quarters, NGO offices and doctors’ surgeries.

Bond now motored to the entrance of the tunnel leading to the car park beneath the building. He glanced into the iris scanner, then was vetted again, this time by a human being. The barrier lowered and he eased the car forward in search of a parking bay.

The lift, too, checked Bond’s blue eyes, then took him up to the ground floor. He stepped into the armourer’s office, beside the pistol range, and handed the locked steel box to redheaded Freddy Menzies, a former corporal in the SAS and one of the finest firearms men in the business. He would make sure the Walther was cleaned, oiled and checked for damage, the magazines filled with Bond’s preferred loads.

‘She’ll be ready in half an hour,’ Menzies said. ‘She behave herself, 007?’

Bond had professional affection for certain tools of his trade but he didn’t personify them – and, if anything, a.40 calibre Walther, even the compact Police Pistol Short, would definitely be a ‘he’. ‘Acquitted itself well,’ he replied.

He took the lift to the third floor where he stepped out and turned left, walking down a bland, white-painted corridor, the walls a bit scuffed, their monotony broken by prints of London from the era of Cromwell to Victoria’s reign and of battlefields aplenty. Someone had brightened up the windowsills with vases of greenery – fake, of course; the real thing would have meant employing external maintenance staff to water and prune.