Jeffery Deaver: Carte Blanche

He felt, but couldn’t see, Dunne moving in for the kill.

Felicity said, ‘I can stop this. Just let me go. I’ll call him. Give me a phone.’

A muzzle flash, and Bond shoved Jordaan’s head down as the wall beside them exploded. The slug actually tugged at the strands beside her ear. She gasped and pressed against him, shivering. The smell of burning hair wafted around them.

Felicity said, ‘Nobody’ll know you let me escape. Give me a phone. I’ll call Dunne.’

‘Oh, go to hell, bitch!’ came a voice from across the room and, staggering to his feet, gripping his bloody chest, Lamb rose and charged to the far wall. He swept his hand down on the light switch as he dropped once more to the floor. The inn went dark.

Instantly Bond was on his feet, kicking out one of the side doors. He plunged into the brush to pursue his prey.

Thinking: four rounds left, one more magazine.

Bond was sprinting through the brush that led to the base of the steep cliff, the Twelve Apostles ridge. He ran in an S pattern as Dunne fired towards him. The moon wasn’t full but there was light to shoot by, yet none of the slugs hit closer than three or four feet from him.

Finally the Irishman stopped targeting Bond – he must have assumed he’d hit him or that he’d fled to find help. Dunne’s goal, of course, wasn’t necessarily to kill his victims, but simply to keep them contained until his associates arrived. How soon would that be?

Bond huddled against a large rock. The night was now freezing cold and a wind had come up. Dunne would be about a hundred feet directly above him. His sniper’s eyrie was an outcrop of rock with a perfect view of the inn, the approaches to it… and of Bond himself in the moonlight, had Dunne simply leant over and looked.

Then a powerful torch was signalling from the rocks above. Bond turned to where it was pointed. Offshore a boat churned towards the beach. The mercenaries, of course.

He wondered how many were on board and what they were armed with. In ten minutes the vessel would land and he and Bheka Jordaan would be overrun – Dunne would have made sure that Victoria Road remained impassable for longer than that. Still, he pulled out his phone and texted Kwalene Nkosi about the impending beach landing.

Bond looked back up the mountain face.

Only two approaches would lead him to Dunne. To the right, the south, there was a series of steep but smooth traverses – narrow footpaths for hikers – that led from the back of the Sixth Apostle Inn past the outcrop where Dunne lay. But if Bond went that way, he’d be exposed to Dunne’s gunfire along much of the path; there was no cover.

The other option was to assault the castle directly: to climb straight up a craggy but steep rock face, one hundred vertical feet.

He studied this possible route.

Four years nearly to the day after his parents had died, fifteen-year-old James Bond had decided he’d had enough of the nightmares and fears that reared up when he looked at mountains or rock walls – even, say, the impressive but tame foundation of Edinburgh Castle as seen from the Castle Terrace car park. He’d talked a master at Fettes into setting up a climbing club, which made regular trips to the Highlands for the members to learn the sport.

It took two weeks, but the dragon of fear had died and Bond added rock climbing to his repertoire of outdoor activities. He now holstered the Walther and looked up, reiterating to himself the basic rules: use only enough strength for a sufficient grip, no more; use your legs to support your body, your arms for balance and shifting weight; keep your body close to the rock face; use momentum to peak at the dead point.

And so, with no ropes, no gloves, no chalk and in leather shoes – quite stylish but a fool’s footwear on a damp face like this – Bond began his ascent.

Niall Dunne was making his way down the face of the Twelve Apostles ridge, along the hiking trails that led to the inn. His Beretta pistol in hand, he carefully stayed out of sight of the man who’d masqueraded so cleverly as Gene Theron – the man Felicity had told him an hour or so ago was a British agent, first name James.

Although he couldn’t see him any longer, Dunne had spotted the man a few minutes ago ascending the rock cliff. James had taken the bait and was assaulting the citadel – while Dunne had slipped out of the back door, so to speak, and was moving carefully down the traverses. In five minutes he’d be at the inn, while the British agent would be fully occupied on the cliff face.

All according to the blueprint… well, the revised blueprint.

Now there was nothing for it but to get out of the country, fast and forever. Though not alone, of course. He would leave with the person he admired most in the world, the person he loved, the person who was the engine of all his fantasies.

His boss, Felicity Willing.

This is Niall. He’s brilliant. He’s my draughtsman…

She’d described him thus several years ago. His face had warmed with pleasure when he’d heard the words and now he carried them in his memory, like a lock of her hair, just as he carried the memory of their first job together, when she was a City investment banker and had hired him to inspect some works installations her client was lending money to complete. Dunne had rejected the shoddy job, saving her and the client millions. She’d taken him to dinner and he’d had too much wine and prattled on about how morality had no place in combat or business or, bloody hell, in anything . The beautiful woman had agreed. My God, he’d thought, here’s somebody who doesn’t care that my feet go in different directions, that I’m built out of spare parts, that I can’t tell a joke or turn on the charm to save my life.

Felicity was his perfect match at detachment. Her passion for making money was identical to his for creating efficient machines.

They’d ended up in her luxurious flat in Knightsbridge and made love. It had been, without question, the best night of his life.

They had begun to work together more frequently, making the transition into jobs that were, well, not to put too fine a point on it, a bit more profitable and a lot less legitimate than taking a percentage of a revolving credit construction loan.

The jobs had become bolder, darker and more lucrative, but the other thing – between them – well, that had changed… as he’d supposed all along it would. She didn’t, she finally confessed, think of him in that way. The night they were together, yes, it had been wonderful and she was sorely tempted, but she was worried that it would ruin their astonishing intellectual – no, spiritual - connection. Besides, she’d been hurt before, very badly. She was a bird with a broken wing that hadn’t yet mended. Could they simply remain partners and friends, oh, please? You can be my draughtsman…

The story rang a bit hollow but he had chosen to believe her, as one will do when a lover spins a tale less painful than the truth.

But their business soared with success – an embezzlement here, some extortion there – and Dunne bided his time, because he believed that Felicity would come round. He made it seem that he, too, was over the romance. He managed to keep his obsession for her buried, as hidden and as explosive as a VS-50 land mine.

Now, though, everything had changed. They were soon to be together.

Niall Dunne believed this in his soul.

Because he was going to win her love by saving her. Against all the odds, he’d save her. He’d spirit her away to safety on Madagascar, where he’d created an enclave for them to live very comfortably.

As he approached the inn, Dunne was recalling that James had caught out Hydt with his comment about Isandlwana – the Zulu massacre in the 1800s. Now he was thinking of the second battle that day in January, the one at Rorke’s Drift. There, a force of four thousand Zulus had attacked a small outpost and hospital manned by about 130 British soldiers. As impossible as it seemed, the British had successfully defended it, suffering minimal casualties.