Carte Blanche

and turned me into a clown.’

‘Doesn’t let you… What do you mean?’

The confession died on her lips. ‘Nothing,’ Jessica whispered.

‘Was it something I said? I’m sorry if I’ve upset you. I was just making conversation.’

‘No, no, it’s nothing you’ve done, Gene.’

‘Tell me what’s wrong.’ His eyes locked with hers.

She debated a moment. ‘I wasn’t being honest with you. I put on a good show but it’s all a facade. We don’t have a connection. We never have. He wants me…’ She raised her hand. ‘Oh, you don’t want to hear this.’

Bond touched her arm. ‘Please, I’m responsible in some way. I was just blundering along. I feel the fool. Tell me.’

‘Yes, he loves the old… the used, the discarded. Me.’

‘My God, no. I didn’t mean-’

‘I know you didn’t. But that iswhat Severan wants me for – because I’m part of the downward spiral too. I’m his laboratory for fading, for ageing, for decay.

‘That’s all I mean to him. He hardly talks to me, ever. I’ve got almost no idea what goes on in that mind of his and he has no interest in finding out who I am. He gives me credit cards, takes me nice places, provides for me. In return he… well, he watches me age. I’ll catch him staring at me, a new wrinkle here, an age-spot there. That’s why I can’t wear make-up. He leaves the lights on when… you know what I mean. Do you know how humiliating that is for me? He knows it too. Because humiliation is another form of decay.’

She laughed bitterly, dabbing her eyes with the tissue. ‘And the irony, Gene? The goddamn irony? When I was young I lived for beauty pageants. Nobody cared about who I was inside, the judges, my fellow contestants… even my mother. Now I’m old and Severan doesn’t care about who I am inside either. There are times when I hate being with him. But what can I do? I’m powerless.’

Bond applied a bit more pressure to her arm. ‘That’s not true. You’re not powerless at all. Being older is strength. It’s experience, judgement, discernment, knowing your resources. Youth is mistake and impulse. Believe me, I know that quite well.’

‘But without him what could I do – where would I go?’

‘Anywhere. You could do whatever you wanted. You’re obviously clever. You must have some money.’

‘Some. But it’s not about money. It’s about finding someone at my age.’

‘Why do you need someone?’

‘Spoken like a young man.’

‘And that’s spoken like someone who believes what she’s been told, rather than thinking for herself.’

Jessica gave a faint smile. ‘ Touche , Gene.’ She patted his hand. ‘You’ve been very kind and I can’t believe I had a meltdown with a total stranger. Please, I’ve got to get inside. He’ll be calling to check up on me.’ She gestured at the house.

Bond drove forward and pulled up to the gate, under the watchful eye of a security guard – which put to rest his plan to get inside the house and see what secrets lay there.

Jessica gripped his hand in both of hers, then climbed out.

‘I will see you tomorrow?’ he asked. ‘At the plant?’

A faint smile. ‘Yes, I’ll be there. My leash is pretty short.’ She turned and walked quickly through the opening gate.

Then Bond shoved the car into first and skidded away, Jessica Barnes vanishing instantly from his thoughts. His attention was on his next destination and what would greet him there.

Friend or foe?

In his chosen profession, though, James Bond had learnt that those two categories were not mutually exclusive.

49

All Thursday morning, all afternoon there had been talk of threats.

Threats from the North Koreans, threats from the Taliban, threats from al-Qaeda, the Chechnyans, the Islamic Jihad Brotherhood, eastern Malaysia, Sudan, Indonesia. There’d been a brief discussion about the Iranians; despite the surreal rhetoric issuing from their presidential palace, nobody took them too seriously. M almost felt sorry for the poor regime in Tehran. Persia had once been such a great empire.

Threats…

But the actual assault, he thought wryly, was occurring only now, during a tea break at the security conference. M disconnected from Moneypenny and sat back stiffly in the well-worn, gilt drawing room of a building in Richmond Terrace, between Whitehall and the Victoria Embankment. It was one of those utterly unremarkable fading structures of indeterminate age in which the sweat work of governing the country was done.

The impending assault involved two ministers who sat on the Joint Intelligence Committee. Their heads were now poking through the door, side by side, bespectacled faces scanning the room until they spotted their target. Once an image of television’s Two Ronnies had sidled into his head, M could not dislodge it. As they strode forward, however, there was nothing comedic about their expressions.

‘Miles,’ the older one greeted him. ‘Sir Andrew’ prefaced the man’s surname and those two words were in perfect harmony with his distinguished face and silver mane.

The other, Bixton, tipped his head, whose fleshy dome reflected light from the dusty chandelier. He was breathing hard. In fact, they both were.

M didn’t invite them to do so but they sat anyway, upon the Edwardian sofa across from the tea tray. He longed to remove a cheroot from his attache case and chew on it but decided against the prop.

‘We’ll come straight to the point,’ Sir Andrew said.

‘We know you have to get back to the security conference,’ Bixton interjected.

‘We’ve just been with the foreign secretary. He’s in the Chamber at the moment.’

That explained their heaving chests. They couldn’t have driven up from the House of Commons, since Whitehall, from Horse Guards Avenue to just past King Charles Street, had been sealed, like a submarine about to dive, so that the security conference might meet, well, securely.

‘Incident Twenty?’ M asked.

‘Just so,’ Bixton said. ‘We’re trying to track down the DG of Six, as well, but this bloody conference…’ He was new to Joint Intelligence and appeared suddenly to realise perhaps he shouldn’t be quite so bluntly birching the rears of those who paid him.

‘… is bloody disruptive,’ M grumbled, filling in. He had no problem whipping anyone or anything when it was deserved.

Sir Andrew took over. He said, ‘Defence Intelligence and GCHQ are reporting a swell of SIGINT in Afghanistan over the past six hours.’

‘General consensus is that it’s to do with Incident Twenty.’

M asked, ‘Anything specific to Hydt – Noah – or thousands of deaths? Niall Dunne? Army bases in March? Improvised explosive devices? Engineers in Dubai? Rubbish and recycling facilities in Cape Town?’ M read every signal that crossed his desk or arrived in his mobile phone.

‘We can’t tell, can we?’ Bixton answered. ‘The Doughnut hasn’t broken the codes yet.’ GCHQ’s headquarters in Cheltenham was built in the shape of a fat ring. ‘The encryption packages are brand