Carte Blanche

Hans. He wanted a smoke… I know.’

He was probably speaking to Hydt.

Dunne continued, ‘We’re on schedule. I just had an email. The lorry left March for York. Should be there any minute. The device is already armed.’

So, this was Incident Twenty! The attack would take place in York.

‘The target’s confirmed. Detonation’s still scheduled for ten thirty, their time.’

Dismayed, Bond noted the time of the attack. They’d assumed ten thirty at night but every time Dunne had referred to a time he’d used the twenty-four-hour clock. Had it been half past ten in the evening he would have said, ‘Twenty-two thirty.’

Dunne looked at Bond’s car and said into the phone, ‘Theron’s here… Right, then.’ He disconnected and called to Eberhard that the meeting would start soon. Then he turned to Bond. He seemed impatient.

Bond dialled a number. Please, he whispered silently. Answer.

Then: ‘Osborne-Smith.’

Thank God. ‘Percy. It’s James Bond. Listen carefully. I have about sixty seconds. I’ve got the answer to Incident Twenty. You’ll have to move fast. Mobilise a team. SOCA, Five, local police. The bomb’s in York.’

‘York?’

‘Hydt’s people’re driving the device in a lorry from March to York. It’s going to detonate later this morning. I don’t know where they’ll plant it. Maybe a sporting event – there was that reference to “course”, so try the racecourse. Or somewhere there’s a big crowd. Check all the CCTVs in and around March, get the number plates of as many lorries as you can. Then compare them to the plates of any lorries arriving in York about now. You need to-’

‘Hold on there, Bond,’ Osborne-Smith said coolly. ‘It has nothing to do with March or Yorkshire.’

Bond noted the use of his last name and the imperious tone in Osborne-Smith’s voice. ‘What are you talking about?’

Dunne gestured to him. Bond nodded, struggling to smile amiably.

‘Did you know Hydt’s companies reclaim dangerous materials?’

‘Well, yes. But-’

‘Remember I told you he was digging tunnels for some fancy new rubbish collection system under London, including around Whitehall?’ Osborne-Smith sounded like a barrister before a witness.

Bond was sweating now. ‘But that’s not what this is about.’

Dunne was acting increasingly impatient, his eyes focusing on Bond.

‘I beg to differ,’ Osborne-Smith said prissily. ‘One of the tunnels isn’t far from the security meeting today in Richmond Terrace. Your boss, mine, senior CIA, Six, Joint Intelligence Committee – it’s a veritable Who’s Whoof the security world. Hydt was going to release something nasty that his hazardous-materials operation had recovered. Kill everybody. His people have been hauling bins in and out of the tunnels and buildings near Whitehall for the past several days. Nobody’s thought to check them out.’

Bond said evenly, ‘Percy, that’s not what’s going on. He’s not going to use Green Way people directly for the attack. It’s too obvious. He’d be implicated himself.’

‘Then how do you explain our little find in the tunnels? Radiation.’

‘How much?’ Bond asked bluntly.

A pause. Osborne-Smith replied in his petulant lisp, ‘About four millirems.’

‘That’s nothing, Percy.’ All O Branch agents were well versed in nuclear exposure statistics. ‘Every human being on earth gets hit with sixty millirems from cosmic rays alone each year. Add an X-ray or two and you’re up to two hundred. A dirty bomb’s going to leave more trace than four.’

Ignoring him, Osborne-Smith said brightly, ‘Now, about York, you misheard. It must be the Duke of York pub or the theatre in London. Could be a staging area. We’ll check it. In the event, I cancelled the security meeting, moved everyone to secure locations. Bond, I’ve been thinking about what makes Hydt tick ever since I saw he was living in Canning Town and you told me all about his obsession with thousand-year-old dead bodies. He revels in decay, cities crumbling.’

Dunne was now walking slowly forward, making directly for the Subaru.

Bond said, ‘I know, Percy, but-’

‘What better way to promote social decay than to take down the security apparatus of half the Western powers?’

‘Dammit, fine. Do what you want in London. But have SOCA or some teams from Five follow up in York.’

‘We don’t have the manpower, do we? Can’t spare a soul. Maybe this afternoon but for now, afraid not. Nothing’s going to happen till tonight, anyway.’

Bond explained that the time of the operation had been moved forward.

A chuckle. ‘Your Irishman prefers the twenty-four-hour clock, does he?… Bit fine-tuned, that. No, we’ll stick with my plan.’

This was why Osborne-Smith had backed M’s stand to have Bond remain in South Africa; he hadn’t in fact believed Bond was on to anything. He had simply wanted to steal the thunder. Bond disconnected and started to dial Bill Tanner.

But Dunne was at the door, yanking it open. ‘Come on, Theron. You’re keeping your new boss waiting. You know the drill. Leave the phone and the gun in the car.’

‘I thought I’d check them in with your smiling concierge.’

If it came down to a fight, he hoped to be able to pick up his weapon and to communicate with the outside world.

But Dunne said, ‘Not today.’

Bond didn’t argue. He secured his phone and the Walther in the car’s glove box, joined Dunne and locked the car with the key fob.

As he once again endured the rituals at the security post, Bond happened to glance at a clock on the wall. It was nearly eight a.m. in York. He had just over two and a half hours to find out where the bomb was planted.

55

The Green Way lobby was deserted. Bond supposed Hydt – or, more likely, Dunne – had arranged for the staff to have the day off so that the meeting and the Gehenna plan’s maiden voyage could go forward without interruption.

Severan Hydt strode up the hall, greeting Bond warmly. He was in good spirits, ebullient even. His dark eyes shone. ‘Theron!’

Bond shook his hand.

‘I’ll want you to make a presentation to my associates about the killing-fields project. It’ll be their money too that’ll fund it. Now, you don’t need to do anything formal. Just outline on a map where the major graves are, how many corpses roughly are in each one, how long they’ve been in the ground and what you think your clients will be willing to pay. Oh, by the way, one or two of my partners are in lines of work similar to yours. You might know each other.’

The alarming thought now occurred to Bond that these men might wonder the opposite: why they had notheard of the ruthless Durban-based mercenary Gene Theron, who’d seeded the African earth with so many bodies.

As they walked through the Green Way building, Bond asked where he could work, hoping