Carte Blanche

Bond started to walk away, then turned back as if he’d just remembered something. ‘Oh, I need to ask Ms Barnes about lunch. Do you know where she is?’

The guard hesitated, then pointed to another corridor. ‘Her office is down there. The double doors on the left. Number one oh eight. You will knock first.’

Bond moved off in the direction indicated. In a few minutes he arrived and glanced back. No one was in the corridor. He knocked on the door. ‘Jessica, it’s Gene. I need to talk to you.’

There was a pause. She’d said she’d be here but she might be ill or have felt too tired to come in, notwithstanding her ‘short leash’.

Then, the click of a lock. The door opened and he stepped inside. Jessica Barnes, alone, blinked in surprise. ‘Gene. What’s the matter?’

He swung the door shut and his eyes fell on her mobile phone, lying on her desk.

She sensed immediately what was happening. Her dark eyes wide, she went to the desk, grabbed the mobile and backed away from him. ‘You…’ She shook her head. ‘You’re a policeman. You’re after him. I should’ve known.’

‘Listen to me.’

‘Oh, I get it now. Yesterday, in the car… you were, what do the Brits say? Chatting me up? To get on my good side.’

Bond said, ‘In forty-five minutes Severan’s going to kill a lot of people.’

‘Impossible.’

‘It’s true. Thousands are at risk. He’s going to blow up a university in England.’

‘I don’t believe you! He’d never do that.’ But she hadn’t sounded convinced. She’d probably seen too many of Hydt’s pictures to deny her partner’s obsession with death and decay.

Bond said, ‘He’s selling secrets and blackmailing and killing people because of what he reconstructs from their rubbish.’ He stepped forward, his hand out for the phone. ‘Please.’

She backed further away, shaking her head. Just outside the open window there was a puddle from a recent storm. She thrust her hand out and held the mobile over it. ‘Stop!’

Bond did. ‘I’m running out of time. Please help me.’

Interminable seconds passed. Finally her narrow shoulders slumped. She said, ‘He has a dark side. I used to think it involved just pictures of… well, terrible pictures. His sick love of decay. But I’ve always suspected there was more. Something worse. In his heart he doesn’t want to be just a witness to destruction. He wants to causeit.’ She stepped away from the window and handed him the phone.

He took it. ‘Thank you.’

Just then the door flew open. The guard who’d given Bond directions stood there. ‘What is this? There are no phones for visitors here.’

Bond said, ‘I have an emergency at home. There’s an illness in my family. I wanted to see about it. I asked to borrow Ms Barnes’s mobile and she was kind enough to say yes.’

‘That’s right,’ she confirmed.

‘Well, I think I will take it.’

‘I think you won’t,’ Bond replied.

There was a heavy pause. The man launched himself at Bond, who tossed the phone on to the desk and went into a systemadefence position. The fight began.

The man had three or four stones on Bond and he was talented – very talented. He’d studied kick-boxing and aikido. Bond could counter his moves but it took a lot of effort, and manoeuvring was difficult because the office, though large, was cluttered with furniture. At one point the massive guard backed up fast, slamming into Jessica, who screamed and fell to the floor. She lay stunned.

For sixty seconds or so they sparred fiercely, Bond realising that systema’s evasive moves would not be enough. His opponent was strong and showed no sign of tiring.

His eyes focused and fierce, the man judged angles and distances and came in with a kick – or so it seemed. The move was a feint. Bond had anticipated this, though, and when the huge man twisted away, Bond delivered a powerful thrust of his elbow into his kidney, a blow that would not only be excruciatingly painful but could permanently damage the organ.

But, Bond realised too late, the guard had feinted again; he’d taken the hit intentionally so that now he could do as he’d planned and launch himself sideways towards the table where the phone lay. He grabbed the Nokia, snapped it in half and flung the pieces out of the window. One skipped across the surface of the water before it sank.

By the time the man righted himself, however, Bond was on him. He dropped systema and went into a classic boxer’s stance, swung a left fist into his opponent’s solar plexus, doubling him over, then drew back his right and brought it arching down to a spot below and behind the man’s ear. The strike was perfectly aimed. The guard shivered and went down, unconscious. He wouldn’t be out for long, though, even with a solid hit like that. Bond quickly trussed him with lamp cord and gagged him with napkins from a breakfast tray.

As he did so he turned to Jessica, who was getting to her feet. ‘Are you all right?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ she whispered breathlessly. She ran to the window. ‘The phone is gone. What are we going to do? There aren’t any others. Only Severan and Niall have one. And he’s closed the switchboard today because the employees are off.’

Bond said, ‘Turn round. I’m going to tie you up. It’ll be tight – we have to make them believe you didn’t try to help me.’

She held her hands behind her back, and he bound her wrists. ‘I’m sorry. I tried.’

‘Sssh,’ Bond whispered. ‘I know you did. If someone comes in, tell them you don’t know where I went. Just act scared.’

‘I won’t have to act,’ she said. Then: ‘Gene…’

He glanced at her.

‘My mother and I prayed before every one of my beauty contests. I won a lot. We must’ve prayed pretty well. I’ll pray for you now.’

57

Bond was hurrying down the dim corridor, passing photographs of the reclaimed land that Hydt’s workers had turned into Elysian Fields, the beautiful gardens covering Green Way’s landfills to the east.

It was nine fifty-five in York. The detonation would take place in thirty-five minutes.

He had to get out of the plant immediately. He was sure there’d be an armoury of some kind, probably near the front security post. That was where he was headed now, walking steadily, head down, carrying the maps and the yellow pad. He was about fifty yards from the entrance, thinking tactically. Three men at the security post in front. Was the rear door guarded too? Presumably it was; although there were no employees in the business office, Bond had seen workers throughout the grounds. Three guards had been there yesterday. How many other security personnel would be present? Had any of the visitors handed weapons in, or had they all been told to leave them in their cars? Maybe-

‘There you are, sir!’

The voice startled him. Two beefy guards appeared and walked in front of him, barring his way. Their faces revealed no emotion. Bond wondered if they’d discovered Jessica and the man he’d trussed up. Apparently not. ‘Mr Theron, Mr Hydt is looking for you. You were not in your office so he sent us to bring you to the conference room.’