mean. Dates, footwear, geographical locations, the chemist.’ Her mouth tightened again. She was displeased that her efforts had fallen short. ‘Nothing obvious, I’m afraid.’
He rose and pulled down several Ordnance Survey maps from the shelf. He flipped through one, scanning carefully.
Mary Goodnight appeared in the doorway. ‘James, someone downstairs to see you. From Division Three, he says. Percy Osborne-Smith.’
Philly must have caught the sea change in Bond’s expression. ‘I’ll make myself scarce now, James. I’ll keep on at the Serbs. They’ll crack. I guarantee it.’
‘Oh, one more thing, Philly.’ He handed her the signal he’d just been reading. ‘I need you to catch everything you can about a Soviet or Russian operation called Steel Cartridge. There’s a little in here, not much.’
She glanced down at the printout.
He said, ‘Sorry it’s not translated but you can probably-’
Bond smiled weakly. ‘And with a far better accent than mine.’ He told himself never to sell her short again.
Philly examined the printout closely. ‘This was hacked from an online source. Who has the original data file?’
‘One of your people would. It came out of Station R.’
‘I’ll contact the Russia Desk,’ she said. ‘I’ll want to look at the metadata coded in the file. That’ll have the date it was created, who the author was, maybe cross references to other sources.’ She slipped the Russian document into a manila folder and took a pen to tick off one of the boxes on the front. ‘How do you want it classified?’
He debated for a moment. ‘Our eyes only.’
‘“Our”?’ she asked. That pronoun was not used in official document classification.
‘Yours and mine,’ he said softly. ‘No one else.’
A brief hesitation and then, in her delicate lettering, she penned at the top:
At this question Bond did not hesitate at all. ‘Urgent.’
11
Bond was sitting forward at his desk, doing some research of his own in government databases, when he heard footsteps approaching, accompanied by a loud voice.
‘I’m fine, just great. You can peel off now, please and thank you – I can do without the sat-nav.’
With that, a man in a close-fitting striped suit strode into Bond’s office, having discarded the Section P security officer who’d accompanied him. He’d also bypassed Mary Goodnight, who had risen with a frown as the man stormed past, ignoring her.
He walked up to Bond’s desk, thrusting out a fleshy palm. Slim but flabby, unimposing, he nonetheless had assertive eyes and large hands at the end of his long arms. He seemed the sort to deliver a bone- crusher so Bond, darkening his computer screen and standing up, prepared to counter it, shooting his hand in close to deny him leverage.
In fact, Percy Osborne-Smith’s clasp was brief and harmless, though unpleasantly damp.
‘Bond. James Bond.’ He motioned the Division Three officer to the chair Philly had just occupied and reminded himself not to let the man’s coiffure – dark blond hair combed and apparently glued to the side of his head – pouting lips and rubbery neck deceive. A weak chin did not mean a weak man, as anyone familiar with Field Marshal Montgomery’s career could certify.
‘So,’ Osborne-Smith said, ‘here we are. Excitement galore with Incident Twenty. Who thinks up these names, do you wonder? The Intelligence Committee, I suppose.’
Bond tipped his head noncommittally.
The man’s eyes swept around the office, alighted briefly on a plastic gun with an orange muzzle used in close-combat training and returned to Bond. ‘Now, from what I hear Defence and Six are firing up the boilers to steam down the Afghan route, looking for baddies in the hinterland. Makes you and me the awkward younger brothers, left behind, stuck with this Serbian connection. But sometimes it’s the pawns that win the game, isn’t it?’
He dabbed his nose and mouth with a handkerchief. Bond couldn’t recall the last time he’d seen anyone under the age of seventy employ this combination of gesture and accessory. ‘Heard about you, Bond…
Rather unskilfully inserted, Bond reflected.
‘So, it’s Percy and James. Sounds like a stand-up act at a Comic Relief show. Anyway, I’ve heard about you, James. Your reputation precedes you. Not “exceeds”, of course. At least, not from what I hear.’
Oh, God, Bond thought, his patience already worn thin. He pre-empted a continuation of the monologue and explained in detail what had happened in Serbia.
Osborne-Smith took it all in, jotting notes. Then he described what had happened on the British side of the Channel, which wasn’t particularly informative. Even enlisting the impressive surveillance skills of MI5’s A Branch – known as the Watchers – no one had been able to confirm more than that the helicopter carrying the Irishman had landed somewhere north-east of London. No MASINT or other trace of the chopper had been found since.
‘So, our strategy?’ Osborne-Smith said, though not as a question. Rather, it was a preface to a directive: ‘While Defence and Six and everybody under the sun are prowling the desert looking for Afghans of mass destruction, I want to go all out here, find this Irishman and Noah, wrap them up in tidy ribbons and bring them in.’
‘Arrest them?’
‘Well, “detain” might be the happier word.’
‘Actually, I’m not sure that’s the best approach,’ Bond said delicately.
‘Why not? We don’t have time to surveille.’ Bond noticed a faint lisp. ‘Only to interrogate.’
‘If thousands of lives are at risk, the Irishman and Noah can’t be operating alone. They might even be pretty low in the food chain. All we know for sure is that there was a meeting at Noah’s office. Nothing ever suggested he was in charge of the whole operation. And the Irishman? He’s a triggerman. Certainly knows his craft but basically he’s muscle. I think we need to identify them and keep them in play until we get more answers.’
Osborne-Smith was nodding agreeably. ‘Ah, but you’re not familiar with my background, James, my curriculum vitae.’ The smile and the smarminess vanished. ‘I cut my teeth grilling prisoners. In Northern Ireland. And Belmarsh.’
The infamous so-called ‘Terrorists’ Prison’ in London.
‘I’ve sunned myself in Cuba too,’ he continued. ‘Guantanamo. Yes, indeed. People end up talking to me, James. After I’ve been going at them for a few days, they’ll hand me the address where their brother’s hiding, won’t they? Or their son. Or daughter. Oh, people talk when I ask them… ever so politely.’
Bond wasn’t giving up. ‘But if Noah has partners and they learn he’s been picked up, they might accelerate whatever’s planned for Friday. Or disappear – and we’ll lose them until they strike again in six or
