Bond assessed the situation. From the echo of the footsteps Bond knew the tall man’s partner was far enough away that his initial move could only neutralise one of them instantly. The shorter man would have to shed Bond’s suitcase and laptop bag, which would give Bond a few seconds to get to him but he would still have a chance to draw his weapon. The man could be taken down but not before shots were fired.
No, Bond reflected, too many innocents. It was best to wait until they were outside.
‘Through the door on your left. I said you are not to look back.’
They walked out into stark sunlight. Here it was autumn, the temperature crisp, the sky a stunning azure. As they approached the kerb in a deserted construction site, a battered black Range Rover sped forward and squealed to a stop.
More hostiles, but no one as yet was getting out of the vehicle.
Purpose… response.
Their purpose was to kidnap him. His response would be textbook protocol in an attempted rendition: disorient and then attack. Casually working his Rolex over his fingers to act as a knuckleduster, he turned abruptly to confront the pair with a disdainful smile. They were young, deadly serious men, their skin contrasting sharply with the brilliant white of their starched shirts. They wore suits – one brown, the other navy – and narrow dark ties. They were probably armed, but overconfidence, perhaps, had led them to keep their weapons holstered.
As the Range Rover door swung open behind him, Bond stepped aside so that he couldn’t be attacked from behind and judged angles. He decided to break the jaw of the tallest first and use his body as a shield as he pushed forward towards the shorter man. He looked calmly into the man’s eyes and laughed. ‘I think I’ll report you to the tourist bureau. I’ve heard a lot about the friendliness of South Africans. I was expecting rather more in the way of hospitality.’
Just before he lunged, he heard from behind him, inside the vehicle, a woman’s flinty voice: ‘And we would have offered some if you hadn’t made yourself so obvious a target by enjoying a leisurely coffee in plain view with a hostile loose in the airport.’
Bond relaxed his fist and turned. He looked into the vehicle and tried unsuccessfully to mask his surprise. The beautiful woman he’d seen just moments ago in Arrivals was sitting in the back seat.
‘I’m Captain Bheka Jordaan, SAPS, Crime Combating and Investigation Division.’
‘Ah.’ Bond looked at her full lips, untouched by cosmetics, and her dark eyes. She wasn’t smiling.
His mobile buzzed. The screen showed he had a message from Bill Tanner, along with, of course, an MMS picture of the woman in front of him.
The tall abductor said, ‘Commander Bond, I am SAPS Warrant Officer Kwalene Nkosi.’ He reached out his hand and their palms met in the traditional South African way – an initial grip, as in the West, followed by a vertical clasp and back to the original. Bond knew it was considered impolite to let go too quickly. Apparently he timed the gesture right; Nkosi grinned warmly, then nodded to the shorter man, who was taking Bond’s suitcase and laptop bag to the rear of the Range Rover. ‘And that is Sergeant Mbalula.’
The stocky man nodded unsmilingly and, after stowing Bond’s belongings, vanished fast, presumably to his own vehicle.
‘You will please forgive our brusqueness, Commander,’ Nkosi said. ‘We thought it best to get you out of the airport as quickly as possible, rather than spend the time to explain.’
‘We should not waste more time on pleasantries, Warrant Officer,’ Bheka Jordaan muttered impatiently.
Bond eased himself into the back beside her. Nkosi got into the passenger seat in the front. A moment later Sergeant Mbalula’s black saloon, also unmarked, pulled up behind them.
‘Let’s go,’ Jordaan barked. ‘Quickly.’
The Range Rover peeled away from the kerb and skidded brazenly into the traffic, earning the driver a series of energetic hoots and lethargic curses, and accelerated to more than ninety k.p.h. in a zone marked forty.
Bond pulled his mobile off his belt. He typed into the keyboard, read the responses.
‘Warrant Officer?’ Jordaan asked Nkosi. ‘Anything?’
He had been staring into the wing mirror and answered in what seemed to be Zulu or Xhosa. Bond did not speak either language but it was clear from the tone of the answer, and the woman’s reaction, that there was no tail. When they were outside the airport grounds and making their way towards a cluster of low but impressive mountains in the distance, the vehicle slowed somewhat.
Jordaan thrust her hand forward. Bond reached out to shake it, smiling, then stopped. She was holding a mobile phone. ‘If you don’t mind,’ she said sternly, ‘you will touch the screen here.’
So much for warming international relations.
He took the phone, pressed his thumb into the centre of the screen and handed it back. She read the message that appeared. ‘James Bond. Overseas Development Group, Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Now, you’ll want to confirm my identity.’ She held out her hand, fingers splayed. ‘You have an app that can take my prints too, I assume.’
‘There’s no need.’
‘Why?’ she asked coolly. ‘Because I’m what passes for a beautiful woman in your mind and you have no need to check further? I could be an assassin. I could be an al-Qaeda terrorist wearing a bomb vest.’
He decided not to mention that his earlier perusal of her figure had revealed no evidence of explosives. He answered, perhaps a bit glibly, ‘I don’t need your prints because, in addition to the photo of you that my office just sent me, my mobile read your iris a few minutes ago and confirmed to me that you are indeed Captain Bheka Jordaan, Crime Combating and Investigation Division, South African Police Service. You’ve worked for them for eight years. You live in Leeuwen Street in Cape Town. Last year you received a Gold Cross for bravery. Congratulations.’
He had also learnt her age, thirty-two, her salary and that she was divorced.
Warrant Officer Nkosi twisted round in his seat, glanced at the mobile and said, with a broad smile, ‘Commander Bond, that is a nice toy. Without doubt.’
Jordaan snapped, ‘Kwalene!’
The young man’s smile vanished. He turned back to his wing mirror sentry duty.
She glanced with disdain at Bond’s phone. ‘We will go to my headquarters and consider how to approach the situation with Severan Hydt. I worked with your Lieutenant Colonel Tanner when he was with MI6 so I agreed to help you. He is intelligent and very devoted to his job. Quite a gentleman too.’
The implication being that Bond himself probably was not. He was irritated that she’d taken such umbrage at what had been an innocent –
‘That’s correct,’ Nkosi said. ‘He and Niall Dunne are both in Cape Town. Sergeant Mbalula and I followed them from the airport. There was a woman with them too.’
‘You have surveillance on them?’
‘That’s right,’ the lean man said. ‘We based our CCTV plan on London’s so there are cameras everywhere downtown. He is in his office and being monitored from a central location. We can track him anywhere if he leaves. We ourselves are not completely free of toys, Commander.’
Bond smiled at him, then said to Jordaan, ‘You mentioned a hostile at the airport.’
‘We learnt from Immigration that a man arrived from Abu Dhabi around the time you did. He was travelling on a fake British passport. We discovered this only after he cleared Customs and disappeared.’
The bearish man he’d mistaken for Jordaan? Or the man in the blue jacket at the shopping centre on Dubai Creek? He described them.
‘I don’t know,’ Jordaan offered curtly. ‘As I said, our only information was documentary. Because he was unaccounted for, I thought it best not to meet you in person in the arrivals hall. I sent my officers instead.’ She leant forward suddenly and asked Nkosi, ‘Anyone now?’
