The smaller one regarded him with eyes as hard as a black beetle’s carapace.
There was nothing for it but to go with them. They arrived at the conference room a few minutes later. The larger guard knocked on the door. Dunne opened it, examined Bond with a neutral face and beckoned the men inside. Hydt’s three partners sat around a table. The huge dark-suited security man who’d escorted Bond into the plant yesterday stood near the door, arms crossed.
Hydt called, with the excitement he’d exhibited earlier, ‘Theron! How have you been getting on?’
‘Very well. But I’ve not quite finished. I’d say I need another fifteen or twenty minutes.’ He glanced at the door.
But Hydt was like a child. ‘Yes, yes, but first let me introduce you to the people you’ll be working with. I’ve told them about you and they’re eager to meet you. I have about ten investors altogether but these are the three main ones.’
As introductions were made, Bond wondered if anyone of the three would be suspicious that they had not heard of Mr Theron. But Mathebula, Eberhard and Huang were distracted by the day’s business and, contrary to Hydt’s comment, apart from brief nods they ignored him.
It was five past ten in York.
Bond tried to leave. But Hydt said, ‘No, stay.’ He nodded at the TV, which Dunne had turned on to Sky News in London. He lowered the volume.
‘You’ll want to see this, our first project. Let me tell you what’s going on here.’ Hydt sat down and explained to Bond what he already knew: that Gehenna was about the reconstruction or scanning of classified material, for sale, extortion and blackmail.
Bond lifted an eyebrow, pretending to be impressed. Another glance at the exits. He decided he could hardly bolt for the door; the huge security man in the black suit was inches from it.
‘So you see, Theron, I was not quite honest with you the other day when I described the Green Way document-shredding operation. But that was before we had our little test with the Winchester rifle. I apologise.’
Bond shrugged it off and measured distances and assessed the strength of the enemy. His conclusions were not good.
With his long, yellowing nails, Hydt raked at his beard. ‘I’m sure you’re curious about what’s happening today. I started Gehenna merely to steal and sell classified information. But then I grasped there was a more lucrative… and, for me, more
‘Some months ago I met with the head of a drug company I’d been selling reconstructed trade secrets to – R and K Pharmaceuticals, in Raleigh, North Carolina. He was pleased with that but he had another proposition for me, something a bit more extreme. He told me of a brilliant researcher, a professor in York, who was developing a new cancer drug. When it came to market, my client’s company would go out of business. He was willing to pay millions to make sure that the researcher died and his office was destroyed. That was when Gehenna truly blossomed.’
Hydt then confirmed Bond’s other deductions – about using a prototype of a Serbian bomb they’d constructed from reassembled plans and blueprints that people in Hydt’s Belgrade subsidiary had managed to piece together. This would make it appear that the intended target was another professor at the same university in York – a man who’d testified at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. He was teaching a course in Balkan history in the room next to the cancer researcher’s. Everyone would think that the Slav was the intended target.
Bond glanced at the time on the TV programme crawl. It was ten fifteen in England.
He had to get out now. ‘Brilliant, absolutely brilliant,’ he said. ‘But let me get my notes so I can tell you all about my idea.’
‘Stay and watch the festivities.’ A nod towards the television. Dunne turned the volume up. Hydt said to Bond, ‘We were originally going to detonate the device at ten thirty in England, but since we’ve got confirmation that both classes are in session, I think we can do it now. Besides,’ Hydt confessed, ‘I’m rather eager to see if our device works.’
Before Bond could react, Hydt had dialled a number on his phone. He looked at the screen. ‘Well, the signal’s gone through. We shall see.’
Silent, everyone turned to stare at the television. A recorded item about the royal family was in progress. A few minutes later the screen went blank, then flashed to a stark red-and-black logo.
The screen went to a smartly dressed South-Asian woman sitting at a desk in the newsroom. Her voice was shaking as she read the story. ‘We’re interrupting this programme to report that there has been an explosion in York. Apparently a car bomb… the authorities are saying a car bomb has detonated and destroyed a large part of a university building… We’re just learning… yes, the building is on the grounds of Yorkshire-Bradford University… We have a report that lectures were in progress at the time of the explosion and the rooms nearest the bomb were thought to be full… No one has yet claimed responsibility.’
Bond’s breath hissed through his set teeth as he stared at the screen. But Severan Hydt’s eyes shone in triumph. And everyone else in the room applauded as heartily as if their favourite striker had just scored a goal at the World Cup.
58
Five minutes later, a local news crew had arrived and was beaming pictures of the tragedy to the world. The video footage showed a half-destroyed building, smoke, glass and wreckage covering the ground, rescue workers running, dozens of police cars and fire engines pulling up. The crawler said, ‘Massive explosion at university in York.’
In this era we’ve become inured to terrible images on television. Scenes appalling to an eyewitness are somehow tame when observed in two dimensions on the medium that brings us
But this picture of tragedy – a university building in ruins, enveloped by smoke and dust, and people standing about, confused, helpless – was gripping beyond words. It would have been impossible for anybody in the rooms closest to the bomb to survive.
Bond could only stare at the screen.
Hydt did, too, but he, of course, was enraptured. His three partners were chatting among themselves, boisterous, as one might expect of people who had made millions of pounds in a thousandth of a second.
The presenter now reported that the bomb had been loaded with metal shards, like razor blades, which had shot out at thousands of miles per hour. The explosive had ripped apart most of the lecture theatres and the teaching staff’s offices on the ground and first floors.
The presenter reported that a newspaper in Hungary had just found a letter, left in its reception area, from a group of Serbian military officers claiming responsibility. The university, the note stated, was ‘harbouring and giving succour’ to a professor described as ‘a traitor to the Serbian people and his race’.
Hydt said, ‘That was our doing too. We collected some Serbian army letterhead from a rubbish bin. That’s what the statement’s printed on.’ He glanced at Dunne, and Bond understood that the Irishman had incorporated this fillip into the master blueprint.
Hydt said, ‘Now, we need to plan a celebratory lunch.’
Bond glanced once more at the screen and started to make for the door.
Just then, though, the presenter cocked her head and said, ‘We have a new development in York.’ She sounded confused. She was touching her earpiece, listening. ‘Yorkshire Police Chief Superintendent Phil
