Jeffery Deaver - Carte Blanche

Bond drove round to the back and into the weed-filled car park. He hid the Subaru in a stand of brush and tall grass, climbed out and looked towards the darkened caravan used by the construction crews. He swept his torch over it. There were no signs of occupation. Then, drawing his Walther, he made his way silently to the inn.

The front door was unlocked and he walked inside, smelling mould, new concrete and paint. At the end of the lobby, the front desk had no counter. To the right he found sitting rooms and a library, to the left a large breakfast room and lounge, with french windows facing north, offering a view of the gardens and above them the Twelve Apostles, still faintly visible in the dusk. Inside this room the construction workers had left their drill presses, table saws and various other tools, all chained and padlocked. Behind that area there was a passage to the kitchen. Bond noticed switches for both work and overhead lights but he kept the place dark.

Tiny animal feet skittered beneath the floorboards and in the walls.

Bond sat down in a corner of the breakfast room, on a workman’s tool kit. There was nothing to do but wait until the enemy appeared.

Bond thought of Lieutenant Colonel Bill Tanner, who had said to him not long after he joined ODG, ‘Listen, 007, most of your job is going to involve waiting. I hope you’re a patient man.’

He wasn’t. But if his mission called for waiting, he waited.

Sooner than he had expected, a fragment of light hit the wall and he rose to look out of one of the front windows. A car bounded towards the inn, then stopped in the undergrowth near the front door.

Someone emerged from the vehicle. Bond’s eyes narrowed. It was Felicity Willing. She was clutching her belly.

Holstering his gun, Bond pushed through the front door and ran towards her. ‘Felicity!’

She struggled forward but fell to the gravel. ‘James, help me! I’m… Help me! I’m hurt.’

As he approached he saw a red stain on the front of her shirt. Her fingers, too, were bloodied. He dropped to his knees and cradled her. ‘What happened?’

‘I went to… I went to check on a shipment at the docks. There was a man there,’ she gasped. ‘He pulled out a gun and shot me! He didn’t say anything – just shot me and ran. I made it back into the car and drove here. You have to help me!’

‘The police? Why didn’t you-’

‘He was a policeman, James.’

‘ What? ’

‘I saw a badge on his belt.’

Bond lifted her and carried her into the breakfast room, laying her gently on some dust sheets that were stacked against the wall. ‘I’ll find a bandage,’ he murmured. Then he said angrily, ‘This is my fault. I should have worked it out! You ’re the target of Incident Twenty. Lamb’s not after a cruise liner; it’s the food ships. He was hired by one of those agribusiness companies in America and Europe you were telling me about to kill you and destroy the food. He must’ve paid someone in the police to help him.’

‘Don’t let me die!’

‘You’ll be fine. I’ll get some bandages and call Bheka. We can trust her.’

He started towards the kitchen.

‘No,’ Felicity said. Her voice was eerily calm and steady.

Bond stopped. He turned.

‘Throw your mobile away, James.’

He was staring at her sharp green eyes, focused on him like a predator’s. In her hand was his own weapon, the Walther PPS.

He slapped his holster, from which she’d slipped the gun as he’d whisked her inside.

‘The phone,’ she repeated. ‘Don’t touch the screen. Just hold it by the side and toss it into the corner of the room.’

He did as she instructed.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m so sorry.’

And James Bond believed that, in some very tiny part of her heart, she was.

‘What’s that?’ James asked, gesturing at her blouse.

It was blood, of course. Real blood. Hers. Felicity still felt the sting in the back of her hand where she’d pricked a vein with a safety-pin. It had bled sufficiently to stain her shirt and make a credible appearance of a bullet wound.

She didn’t answer him. But the agent’s eyes noted her bruised hand and revealed that he’d deduced as much. ‘There was no cop on the dock.’

‘I lied, didn’t I? Sit down. On the floor.’

When he had done so, Felicity worked the slide of the Walther, which ejected one round but made sure one was in the chamber, ready to fire. ‘I know you’re trained to disarm people. I’ve killed before and it has no effect on me. It’s not essential that you stay alive so I’m happy to shoot you now if you make any move.’

Her voice, though, almost caught on ‘happy’. What the hell is the matter with you? she asked herself angrily. ‘Put them on.’ She tossed handcuffs towards his lap.

He caught them. Good reflexes, she noted. She stepped back three feet or so.

Felicity smelt the pleasant scent from where he’d gripped her a moment ago. It would be soap or shampoo from the hotel. He was not an aftershave sort of man.

The anger again. Damn him!

‘The cuffs,’ she repeated.

A hesitation, then he ratcheted them on to his wrists. ‘So? Explain.’

‘Tighter.’

He squeezed the mechanism. She was satisfied.

‘Who exactly do you work for?’ she asked.

‘An outfit in London. We’ll have to leave it at that. So, you’re working with Lamb?’

She gave a laugh. ‘With that fat sweaty fool? No. Whatever he’s coming here for, it has nothing to do with my project tonight. It’s probably some ridiculous business venture he has in mind. Maybe buying this place. I was lying when I told you I’d heard him referred to as Noah.’

‘Then what are you doing here?’

‘I’m here because I’m sure you’ve briefed your bosses in London that Lamb’s your main suspect.’

A flicker in his eyes confirmed this.

‘What Captain Jordaan and her moderately competent officers will find in the morning here is a fight to the death. You and the traitor who was going to bomb a cruise liner, Gregory Lamb, and anybody he was meeting here. You found them and there was a gun fight. Everybody died. There’ll be loose ends but, on the whole, the matter will go away. Or, at least, go away from me.’

‘Leaving you free to do whatever it is you’re doing. But I don’t understand. Who the hell is Noah?’

‘It’s not a who, James, it’s a what. N-O-A-H.’

Confusion in his handsome face. Then understanding dawned. ‘My God… your group is the International Organisation Against Hunger. IOAH. At the fundraiser you said you’d recently expanded to make it international in scope. Which meant that it used to be National Organisation Against Hunger. NOAH.’

She nodded.

Frowning, he mused, ‘In the text we intercepted last weekend, ‘noah’ was typed all lower case. Everything else in the message was too. I just assumed it was a name.’

‘We were careless there. It hasn’t been NOAH for a while, but it was the original name and we still refer to it like that.’

‘We? Who sent that message?’

‘Niall Dunne. He’s my associate, not Hydt’s. He’s just on loan.’

‘Yours?’

‘Been working together for a few years now.’

‘And how did you get with Hydt?’

‘Niall and I work with a lot of warlords and dictators in sub-Saharan Africa. Nine, ten months ago Niall heard about Hydt’s plan, this Gehenna, through some of them. It was pretty far-fetched, but there was a good chance of a decent return on investment. I gave Dunne ten million to put into the pot. He told Hydt it was from an anonymous businessman. A condition for the money was that Dunne himself worked with Hydt to oversee how it was spent.’