Jeffery Deaver - Carte Blanche

What was significant about the battle to Niall Dunne, though, was the commander of the British troops, Lieutenant John Chard. He was with the Corps of Royal Engineers – a sapper, like Dunne. Chard had come up with a blueprint for the defence against overwhelming odds and executed it brilliantly. He’d earned the Victoria Cross. Niall Dunne was now about to win a decoration of his own – the heart of Felicity Willing.

Moving slowly through the autumn evening, he now arrived at the inn, staying well out of sight of the rock face and the British spy.

He considered his plan. He knew the fat agent was dead or dying. He remembered what he’d seen of the breakfast or dining room through the rifle scope before the man, irritatingly, had turned off the lights. The only other officer in the inn seemed to be the SAPS woman. He could easily take her – he would fling something through the window to distract her, then kill her and get Felicity out.

The two of them would sprint to the beach for the extraction, then speed to the helicopter that would take them to freedom in Madagascar.

Together…

He stepped silently to a window of the Sixth Apostle Inn. Looking in carefully, Dunne saw the British agent he’d shot, lying on the floor. His eyes were open, glazed in death.

Felicity sat on the floor nearby, her hands cuffed behind her, breathing hard.

Dunne was shaken by the sight of his love being so ill-treated. More anger. This time it did not go away. Then he heard the policewoman, in the kitchen, make a call on her radio and ask about back-up. ‘Well, how long is it going to be?’ she snapped.

Probably some time, Dunne reflected. His associates had overturned a large lorry and set it on fire. Victoria Road was completely blocked.

Dunne slipped round the back of the hotel into the car park, overgrown and filled with weeds and rubbish, and went to the kitchen door. His gun before him, he eased it open without a sound. He heard the clatter of the radio, a transmission about a fire engine.

Good, he thought. The SAPS officer was concentrating on the radio call. He’d take her from behind.

He stepped further inside and moved down a narrow corridor to the kitchen. He could-

But the kitchen was empty. On a counter sat the radio, the staticky voice rambling on and on. He realised that these were just random transmissions from SAPS’s central emergency dispatch, about fires, robberies, noise complaints.

The radio was set to scan mode, not communications.

Why had she done that?

This couldn’t be a trap to lure him inside. James wouldn’t possibly know that he’d left the sniper’s nest and was here. He stepped to the window and gazed up at the rock face, where he could see the man climbing slowly.

His heart stuttered. No… The vague form was exactly where it had been ten minutes ago. And Dunne realised that what he’d glanced at earlier on the rock face might not have been the spy at all, but perhaps his jacket, draped over a rock and moving in the breeze.

No, no…

Then a man’s voice said, in a smooth British accent, ‘Drop your weapon. Don’t turn round or you’ll be shot.’

Dunne’s shoulders slumped. He remained staring out at the Twelve Apostles ridge. He gave a brief laugh. ‘Logic told me you’d climb to the sniper’s nest. I was so certain.’

The spy replied, ‘And logic told me you’d bluff and come here. I just climbed high enough to leave my jacket in case you looked.’

Dunne glanced over his shoulder. The SAPS officer was standing beside the spy. Both were armed. Dunne could see the man’s cold eyes. The South African officer was just as determined. Through the doorway, in the lobby, Dunne could also see Felicity Willing, his boss, his love, straining to look into the kitchen. Felicity called, ‘What’s going on in there? Somebody answer me!’

My draughtsman…

The British agent said harshly, ‘I won’t tell you again. In five seconds I’ll shoot into your arms.’

There was no blueprint for this. And for once the inarguable logic of engineering and the science of mechanics failed Niall Dunne. He was suddenly amused, thinking that this would be perhaps the first wholly irrational decision he’d ever made. But did that mean it wouldn’t succeed?

Pure faith sometimes worked, he’d been told.

He leapt sideways on his long legs, dropping into a crouch, spinning about and aiming toward the woman officer first, his pistol rising.

Shattering the stillness, several guns sang, voices similar but differently pitched, in harmonies low and high.

The ambulances and SAPS cars were arriving. A Recces special-forces helicopter was hovering over the vessel containing the mercenaries who’d come to collect Dunne and Felicity. Glaring spotlights pointed downwards, as did the barrels of two 20mm cannon. One short burst over the bow was enough to force the occupants to surrender.

An unmarked police car screeched up amid a cloud of dust, directly in front of the hotel. Kwalene Nkosi leapt out and nodded to Bond. Other officers joined them. Bond recognised some from the raid earlier today at the Green Way plant.

Bheka Jordaan assisted Felicity Willing to her feet. She asked, ‘Is Dunne dead?’

He was. Bond and Jordaan had fired simultaneously before the muzzle of his Beretta could rise to the threat position. He’d died a moment later, blue eyes as flat in death as they had been in life, though his last glance had been towards the room where Felicity sat, not at the pair who had shot him.

‘Yes,’ Jordaan said. ‘I’m sorry.’ She spoke this with some sympathy, apparently having assumed a personal as well as professional connection between the two.

‘ You’re sorry,’ Felicity responded cynically. ‘What good is he to me dead?’

Bond understood that she wasn’t mourning the loss of a partner but of a bargaining chip.

Felicity Wilful…

‘Listen to me. You have no idea what you’re up against,’ she muttered to Jordaan. ‘I’m the Queen of Food Aid. I’m the one saving the starving babies. You may as well give up your badge right now if you try to arrest me. And if that doesn’t impress you, remember my partners. You’ve cost some very dangerous people millions and millions of dollars today. Here’s my offer. I’ll close down my operation here. I’ll move elsewhere. You’ll be safe. I guarantee it.

‘If you don’t agree, you won’t live out the month. Neither will your family. And don’t think you’re going to throw me into a secret prison somewhere. If there’s even a hint that the SAPS treated a suspect illegally, the press and the courts’ll crucify you.’

‘You’re not going to be arrested,’ Bond told her.

‘Good.’

‘The story everybody will hear is that you’re fleeing the country after embezzling five million dollars from the IOAH treasury. Your partners aren’t going to be interested in revenge on Captain Jordaan or anybody else. They’ll be interested in finding you… and their money.’

In reality, she’d be whisked off to a black site for extensive ‘discussions’.

‘You can’t do that!’ she raged, her green eyes fiery.

At that moment a black van pulled up. Two uniformed men got out and walked up to Bond. He recognised on their sleeves the chevron of the British Special Boat Service, depicting a sword over a motto Bond had always liked: ‘By Strength and Guile’.

This was the rendition team Bill Tanner had arranged.

One saluted. ‘Commander.’

The civilian Bond nodded. ‘Here’s the package.’ A glance at Felicity Willing.

‘What?’ the lioness cried. ‘No!’

He said to the soldiers, ‘I’m authorising you to execute an ODG Level Two project order dated Sunday last.’