Carte Blanche

32

As the Air Emirates Boeing taxied smoothly over the tarmac towards the gate in Cape Town, James Bond stretched, then slipped his shoes back on. He felt refreshed. Soon after take-off in Dubai he’d administered to himself two Jim Beams with a little water. The nightcap had done the trick famously and he’d had nearly seven hours of blessedly uninterrupted sleep. He was now reviewing texts from Bill Tanner.

Contact: Capt. Jordaan, Crime Combating & Investigation, SA Police Service. Jordaan to meet you landside @ airport. Surveillance active on Hydt.

A second followed.

MI6’s Gregory Lamb reportedly still in Eritrea. Opinion here all around, avoid him if possible.

There was a final one.

Happy to hear you and Osborne-Smith have kissed and made up. When’s the stag do?

Bond had to smile.

The plane eased to a stop at the gate and the purser ran through the liturgy of landing with which Bond was all too familiar. ‘Cabin crew, doors to manual, and crosscheck. Ladies and gentlemen, please take care when opening the overhead lockers; the contents may have shifted during the flight.’

Bless you, my child, for Fate has decided to bring you safely back to earth… at least for a little longer.

Bond pulled down his laptop bag – he’d checked in his suitcase, which contained his weapon – and proceeded to Immigration in the busy hall. He received a pro forma stamp in his passport. Then he went into the Customs hall. To a stocky, unsmiling officer he displayed the firearms permit so he could collect his suitcase. The man stared at him intently. Bond tensed and wondered if there was going to be a problem.

‘Okay, okay,’ the man said, his broad, glistening face inflated with the power of small officialdom. ‘Now you will tell me the truth.’

‘The truth?’ Bond asked calmly.

‘Yes… How do you get close enough to a kudu or springbok to use a handgun when you hunt?’

‘That’s the challenge,’ Bond replied.

‘I must say it would be.’

Then Bond frowned. ‘But I never hunt springbok.’

‘No? It makes the best biltong.’

‘Perhaps so, but shooting a springbok would be very bad luck for England on the rugby pitch.’

The Customs agent laughed hard, shook Bond’s hand and nodded him to the exit.

The arrivals hall was packed. Most people were in Western clothing, though some wore traditional African garb: men’s dashikis and brocade sets and, for the women, kentekaftans and head wraps, all brightly coloured. Muslim robes and scarves were present as well and a few saris.

As Bond made his way through the passenger meeting point he detected several distinct languages and many more dialects. He had always been fascinated by the clicking in African languages; in some words, the mouth and tongue create that very sound for consonants. Khoisan – spoken by the original inhabitants of this part of Africa – made the most use of it, although Zulus and Xhosas also clicked. Bond had tried and found the sound impossible to replicate.

When his contact, Captain Jordaan, did not immediately appear he went into a café, dropped on to a stool at the counter and ordered a double espresso. He drank it down, paid and stepped outside, eyeing a beautiful businesswoman. She was in her mid-thirties, he guessed, with exotically high cheekbones. Her thick, wavy black hair contained a few strands of premature grey, which added to her sensuality. Her dark-red suit, over a black shirt, was cut close and revealed a figure that was full yet tautly athletic.

I believe I shall enjoy South Africa, he thought, and smiled as he let her pass in front of him on her way to the exit. Like most attractive women in transitory worlds like airports, she ignored him.

He stood for several moments in the centre of Arrivals, then decided that perhaps Jordaan was waiting for him to approach. He texted Tanner to ask for a photograph. But just after he hit send he spotted the police officer: a large, bearded redhead in a light-brown suit – a bear of a man – glanced at Bond once, with a hint of reaction, but he turned away rather quickly and went to a kiosk to buy cigarettes.

Tradecraft is all about subtext: cover identities masking who you really are, dull conversations filled with code words to convey shocking facts, innocent objects used for concealment or as weapons.

Jordaan’s sudden diversion to buy cigarettes was a message. He hadn’t approached Bond because hostiles were present.

Glancing behind him, he saw no immediate sign of a threat. Instinctively he followed prescribed procedure. When an agent waves you off, you circle casually out of the immediate area as inconspicuously as possible and contact a third-party intermediary who co-ordinates a new rendezvous in a safer location. Bill Tanner would be the cut-out.

Bond started to move towards an exit.

Too late.

As he saw Jordaan slipping into the Gents, pocketing cigarettes he would probably never smoke, he heard an ominous voice close to his ear, ‘Do not turn around.’ The English was coated with a smooth layer of a native accent. He sensed that the man was lean and tall. From the corner of his eye, Bond was aware of at least one partner, shorter but stockier. This man moved in quickly and relieved him of his laptop bag and the suitcase containing his useless Walther.

The first assailant said, ‘Walk straight out of the hall – now.’

There was nothing for it but to comply. He turned and went where the man had told him, down a deserted corridor.

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 – relativelyinnocent – smile in the arrivals hall. She was attractive and he couldn’t have been the first man to lob a flirt her way. ‘Is Hydt in his office?’ he asked.

‘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?’

‘No, Captain. We are not being followed.’

Bond said to her, ‘You seem concerned about surveillance.’

‘South Africa is like Russia,’ she said. ‘The old regime has fallen and it is a whole new world here. This draws people who wish to make money and involve themselves in politics and all manner of affairs. Sometimes legally, sometimes not.’

Nkosi said, ‘We have a saying. “With many opportunities come many operatives.” We keep that always in mind at the SAPS and look over our shoulder often. You would be wise to do the same, Commander Bond. Without doubt.’

33

The central police station in Buitenkant Street, central Cape Town, resembled a pleasant hotel more than a government building. Two storeys high, with walls of scrubbed red brick and a red-tiled roof, it overlooked the wide, clean avenue, which was dotted with palms and jacaranda.

The driver paused at the front to let them out. Jordaan and Nkosi stepped on to the pavement and looked around. When they saw no signs of surveillance or threat the warrant officer gestured Bond out. He went to the back for his laptop bag and suitcase, then followed the officers inside.

As they entered the building Bond blinked in surprise at what he saw. There was a plaque that read ‘ Servamus et Servimus ’, the motto of the SAPS, he assumed. ‘We protect and we serve.’

What gave him pause, though, was that the two principal words were eerie, and ironic, echoes of Severan Hydt’s first name.

Without waiting for the lift, Jordaan climbed the stairs to the first floor. Her modest office was lined with books and professional journals, present-day maps of Cape Town and the Western Cape, and a framed 120-year-old map of the eastern coast of South Africa, showing the region of Natal, with the port of D’Urban and the town of Ladysmith mysteriously circled in ancient fading ink. Zululand and Swaziland were depicted to the north.

There were framed photographs on Jordaan’s desk. A blond man and a dark-skinned woman held hands in one – they appeared in several others. The woman bore a vague resemblance to Jordaan, and Bond assumed they were her parents. Prominent also were pictures of an elderly woman in traditional African clothing and several featuring children. Bond decided that they weren’t Jordaan’s. There were no shots of her with a partner.

Divorced, he recalled.

Her desktop was graced with fifty or so case folders. The world of policing, like espionage, involves far more paperwork than firearms and gadgets.

Despite the late autumn season in South Africa, the weather was temperate and her office warm. After a moment of debate, Jordaan removed her red jacket and hung it up. Her black blouse was short sleeved and he saw a large swath of make-up along the inside of her right forearm. She didn’t seem like the tattoo sort but perhaps she was concealing one. Then he decided that, no, the cream covered a lengthy and wide scar.

Gold Cross for Bravery…

Bond sat across from her, beside Nkosi, who unbuttoned his jacket and remained stiffly upright. Bond asked them both, ‘Did Colonel Tanner tell you about my mission here?’

‘Just that you were investigating Severan Hydt on a matter of national security.’

Bond ran through what they knew of Incident Twenty – a.k.a. Gehenna – and the impending deaths on Friday.

Nkosi frowned ridges into his high forehead. Jordaan took in the information with still eyes. She pressed her hands together – modest rings encircled the middle fingers of both hands. ‘I see. And the evidence is credible?’

‘It is. Does that surprise you?’

She said evenly, ‘Severan Hydt is an unlikely evil. We are aware of him, of course. He opened Green Way International here two years ago and has contracts for much of the refuse collection and recycling in the major cities in South Africa – Pretoria, Durban, Port Elizabeth, Joburg and, of course, throughout the west here. He’s done many good things for our nation. Ours is a country in transition, as you know, and our past has led to problems with the environment. Gold and diamond mining, poverty and lack of infrastructure have taken their toll. Refuse collection was a serious problem in the townships and squatters’ settlements. To make up for the displacement caused by the Group Areas Act under apartheid, the government built residences – lokasies, or locations, they are called – for the people to live in instead of shacks. But even there the population was so high that refuse collection could not be performed efficiently, or sometimes at all. Disease was a problem. Severan Hydt has reversed much of that. He also donates to AIDS and hunger-relief charities.’

Most serious criminal enterprises have public-relations specialists on board, Bond reflected; being an ‘unlikely evil’ did not exempt you from diligent investigation.

Jordaan seemed to note his scepticism. She continued, ‘I’m simply saying that he does not much fit the profile of a terrorist or master criminal. But if he is, my department stands ready to do all it can to help.’

‘Thank you. Now, do you know anything about his associate, Niall Dunne?’

She said, ‘I had never heard the name until this morning. I’ve looked into him. He comes and goes here on a legitimate British passport and has been doing so for several years. We’ve never had any problem with him. He’s not on any watchlists.’

‘What do you know of the woman with them?’

Nkosi consulted a file. ‘American passport. Jessica Barnes. She’s a cipher to us, I’d say. No police record. No criminal activity. Nothing. We have some photos.’

‘That’s not her,’ Bond said, looking at the images of a young, truly beautiful blonde.

‘Ah, I am sorry, I should have said. These are old shots. I got them off the Internet.’ Nkosi turned the picture over. ‘This was from the ’70s. She was Miss Massachusetts and competed in the Miss America contest. She is now sixty-four years old.’

Bond could see the resemblance, now that he knew the truth. Then he asked, ‘Where is the Green Way office?’

‘There are two,’ Nkosi said. ‘One nearby and one about twenty miles north of here – Hydt’s major refuse disposal and recycling plant.’

‘I need to get inside them, find out what he’s up to.’

‘Of course,’ Bheka Jordaan said. There came a lengthy pause. ‘But you are speaking of legal means, correct?’

‘“Legal means”?’

‘You can follow him on the street, you can observe him in public. But I cannot get a warrant for you to place a bug in his home or office. As I said, Severan Hydt has done nothing wrong here.’

Bond nearly smiled. ‘In my job I don’t generally ask for warrants.’

‘Well, I do. Of course.’

‘Captain, this man has twice tried to kill me, in Serbia and the UK, and yesterday he engineered the death of a young woman and possibly a CIA asset in Dubai.’

She frowned, sympathy evident in her face. ‘That’s very unfortunate. But those crimes did not happen on South African soil. If I’m presented with extradition orders from those jurisdictions, approved by a magistrate here, I will be happy to execute them. But barring that…’ She lifted her palms.

‘We don’t want him arrested,’ Bond said, with exasperation. ‘We don’t want evidence for trial. The point of my coming here is to find out what he has planned for Friday and stop it. I intend to do that.’

‘And you may, provided you do so legally. If you’re thinking of breaking into his home or office, that would be trespass, subjecting youto a criminal complaint.’ She turned her eyes, like black granite, towards him, and Bond had absolutely no doubt that she would enjoy ratcheting the shackles on to his wrists.

34

‘He has to die.’

Sitting in his office at the Green Way International building in the centre of Cape Town, Severan Hydt was holding his phone tightly as he listened to Niall Dunne’s chilly words. No, he reflected, that wasn’t accurate. There was neither chill nor heat. His comment had been completely neutral.

Which was chilling in its own way.

‘Explain,’ Hydt said, absently tracing a triangle on the desktop with a long, yellowing fingernail.

Dunne told him that a Green Way worker had very likely learnt something about Gehenna. He was one of the legitimate workers in the Cape Town disposal plant to the north of the city, who had known nothing of Hydt’s clandestine activities. He’d accidentally got into a restricted area in the main building and might have seen some emails about the project. ‘He wouldn’t know what they meant at this point but when the incident makes the news later in the week – which it’s going to, of course – he might realise we were behind it and tell the police.’

‘So what do you suggest?’

‘I’m looking into it now.’

‘But if you kill him, won’t the police ask questions? Since he’s an employee?’

‘I’ll take care of him where he lives – a squatters’ camp. There won’t be many police, probably none at all. The taxis’ll look into it, most likely, and they won’t cause us any problems.’

In the townships, squatters’ settlements and even the new lokasies, the minibus companies were more than just transport providers. They had taken on the role of vigilante judge and jury, hearing cases and tracking down and punishing criminals.

‘All right. Let’s move fast, though.’

‘Tonight, after he gets home.’

Dunne disconnected and Hydt returned to his work. He’d spent all morning since their arrival making arrangements for the manufacture of Mahdi al-Fulan’s new hard-drive destruction machines and for Green Way’s sales people to start hawking them to clients.

But his mind wandered and he kept imagining the body of the young woman, Stella, now in a grave somewhere beneath the restless sands of the Empty Quarter south of Dubai. While her beauty in life hadn’t aroused him, the picture in his mind’s eye of her in a few months or years certainly did. And in a thousand, she’d be just like the bodies he’d viewed at the museum last night.

He rose, slipped his suit jacket on to a hanger and returned to his desk. He took and placed a string of phone calls, all relating to Green Way’s legitimate business. None was particularly engaging… until the company’s head of sales for South Africa, who was on the floor just below Hydt’s, called.

‘Severan, I’ve got some Afrikaner from Durban on the line. He wants to talk to you about a disposal project.’

‘Send him a brochure and tell him I’ll be tied up till next week.’ Gehenna was the priority and Hydt had no interest in taking on new accounts at the moment.

‘He doesn’t want to hire us. He’s talking about some arrangement between Green Way and his company.’

‘Joint venture?’ Hydt asked cynically. Entrepreneurs always emerged when you started to enjoy success, and got publicity, in your chosen field. ‘Too much going on now. I’m not interested. Thank him, though.’

‘All right. Oh, but I was supposed to mention one thing. Something odd. He said to tell you that the problem he’s got is the same as at Isandlwana in the 1870s.’

Hydt looked away from the documents on his desk. A moment later he realised he was gripping the phone hard. ‘You’re sure that’s what he said?’

‘Yes. “The same as at Isandlwana”. No idea what he meant.’

‘He’s in Durban?’

‘His company’s headquarters are there. He’s at his Cape Town office for the day.’

‘See if he’s free to come in.’

‘When?’ the sales manager asked.

A fractional pause, then Hydt said, ‘Now.’

In January 1879, the war between Great Britain and the Zulu Kingdom kicked off in earnest with a stunning defeat for the British. At Isandlwana, overwhelming forces (twenty thousand Zulus versus fewer than two thousand British and colonial troops) and some bad tactical decisions resulted in a complete rout. It was there that the Zulus broke the British Square, the famous defensive formation in which one line of soldiers fired while another, directly behind, reloaded, offering the enemy a nearly unremitting volley of bullets – in that instance, with the deadly Martini-Henry breech-loading rifles.

But the tactic hadn’t worked; thirteen hundred British soldiers and allied forces died.

The ‘disposal’ problem that the Afrikaner had referred to could mean only one thing. The battle had occurred in January, the fiercely hot dog days of summer in the region of what was now KwaZulu-Natal; removing the bodies quickly was a necessity… and a major logistical issue.

The disposal of remains was also one of the major problems that Gehenna would present in future projects and Hydt and Dunne had been discussing it over the past month.

Why on earth would a businessman from Durban have a problem along these lines that required Hydt’s assistance?

Ten lengthy minutes later his secretary stepped into his doorway. ‘A Mr Theron is here, sir. From Durban.’

‘Good, good. Show him in. Please.’

She vanished and returned a moment later with a tough-looking, edgy man, who glanced around Hydt’s office cautiously, yet with an air of challenge. He was dressed in the business outfit common to South Africa: a suit and smart shirt, but no tie. Whatever his line he must have been successful; a heavy gold bracelet encircled his right wrist and his watch was a flashy Breitling. A gold initial ring too, which was a touch brash, Hydt thought.

‘Morning.’ The man shook Hydt’s hand. He noticed the long yellowing fingernails but did not recoil, as had happened on more than one occasion. ‘Gene Theron,’ he said.

‘Severan Hydt.’

They exchanged business cards.

Eugene J. Theron

President, EJT Services, Ltd

Durban, Cape Town and Kinshasa

Hydt reflected: an office in the capital of Congo, one of the most dangerous cities in Africa. This was interesting.

The man glanced at the door, which was open. Hydt rose and closed it, returned to his desk. ‘You’re from Durban, Mr Theron?’

‘Yes, and my main office is there. But I travel a lot. And you?’ The faint accent was melodious.

‘London, Holland and here. I get to the Far East and India too. Wherever business takes me. Now, “Theron”. The name’s Huguenot, isn’t it?’

‘Yes.’

‘We forget Afrikaners are not always Dutch.’

Theron lifted an eyebrow as if he’d heard such comments since he was a child and was tired of them.

Hydt’s phone trilled. He looked at the screen. It was Niall Dunne. ‘Excuse me a moment,’ he said to Theron, who nodded. Then: ‘Yes?’ Hydt asked, pressing the phone close to his ear.

‘Theron’s legit. South African passport. Lives in Durban and has a security company with headquarters there, with branches here and in Kinshasa. Father’s Afrikaner, mother’s British. Grew up mostly in Kenya.’

Dunne continued, ‘He’s been suspected of supplying troops and arms to conflict regions in Africa, South East Asia and Pakistan. No active investigations. The Cambodians detained him in a human trafficking and mercenary investigation because of what he’d been up to in Shan, Myanmar, but let him go. Nothing in Interpol. And he’s pretty successful, from what I can tell.’

Hydt had deduced that himself; the man’s Breitling was worth around five thousand pounds.

‘I just texted a picture to you,’ Dunne added.

It appeared on Hydt’s screen and showed the man in front of him. Dunne went on, ‘But… whatever he’s proposing, are you sure you want to think about it now?’

Hydt thought he sounded jealous – perhaps that the mercenary might have a project that would deflect attention from Dunne’s plans for Gehenna. He said, ‘Those sales figures are better than I thought. Thank you.’ He disconnected. Then he asked Theron, ‘How did you hear about me?’

Although they were alone Theron lowered his voice as he turned hard, knowing eyes on Hydt: ‘Cambodia. I was doing some work there. Some people told me of you.’

Ah. Hydt understood now and the realisation gave him a thrill. Last year on business in the Far East he’d stopped to visit several gravesites of the infamous Killing Fields, where the Khmer Rouge had slaughtered millions of Cambodians in the 1970s. At the memorial at Choeung Ek, where nearly nine thousand bodies had been buried in mass graves, Hydt had spoken to several veterans about the slaughter and taken hundreds of pictures for his collection. One of the locals must have mentioned his name to Theron.

‘You had business there, you say?’ Hydt asked, thinking of what Dunne had learnt.

‘Nearby,’ Theron replied with a suitable brush of evasion.

Hydt was intensely curious but, a businessman first and foremost, he tried not to appear too enthusiastic. ‘And what do Isandlwana and Cambodia have to do with me?’

‘They are places where there was a great loss of life. Many bodies were interred where they fell in battle.’

Choeung Ek was genocide, not a battle, but Hydt did not correct him.

‘They’ve become sacred areas. And that’s good, I suppose. Except…’ The Afrikaner paused. ‘I’ll tell you about a problem I have become aware of and about a solution that has occurred to me. Then you can tell me if that solution is possible and if you have an interest in helping me achieve it.’

‘Go on.’

Theron said, ‘I have many connections to governments and companies in various parts of Africa.’ He paused. ‘Darfur, Congo, Central African Republic, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, a few others.’

Conflict regions, Hydt observed.

‘And these groups are concerned about the consequences that arise after, say, a terrible natural disaster – like drought or famine or storms – or, frankly, anywhere that a major loss of life has occurred and bodies have been buried. As in Cambodia or Isandlwana.’

Hydt said innocently, ‘Such cases have serious health implications. Water supply contamination, disease.’

‘No,’ Theron said bluntly. ‘I mean something else. Superstition.’

‘Superstition?’

‘Say, for instance, because of a lack of money or resources, bodies have been left in mass graves. A shame, but it happens.’

‘Indeed it does.’

‘Now, if a government or a charity wishes to build something for the good of the people – a hospital, a housing development or a road in that area – they would be reluctant to do so. The land is perfectly good, there is money to build and workers who wish to be employed but many people would fear ghosts or spirits and be afraid to go to that hospital or move into those houses. It’s absurd to me, and to you too, I’m sure. But that’s how many people feel.’ Theron shrugged. ‘How sad for the citizens of those areas if their health and safety were to suffer because of such foolish ideas.’

Hydt was riveted. He was tapping his nails on the desk. He forced himself to stop.

‘So. Here is my idea: I am thinking of offering a service to, well, those government agencies to remove the human remains.’ His face brightened. ‘This will allow more building of factories, hospitals, roads, farms, schools, and it will help the poor, the unfortunate.’

‘Yes,’ Hydt said. ‘Rebury the bodies somewhere else.’

Theron laid his hands on the desk. The gold initial ring glittered in a shaft of sunlight. ‘That’s one possibility. But it would be very expensive. And the problem might arise later at the new location.’

‘True. But are there other alternatives?’ Hydt asked.

‘Your speciality.’

‘Which is?’

In a whisper Theron said, ‘Perhaps… recycling.’

Hydt saw the scenario clearly. Gene Theron, a mercenary and obviously a very successful one, had supplied troops and weapons to various armies and warlords throughout Africa, men who’d secretly massacred hundreds or thousands of people and hidden the bodies in mass graves. Now they were growing worried that legitimate governments, peacekeeping forces, the press or human-rights groups would discover the corpses.

Theron had made money by providing the means of destruction. Now he wanted to make money by removing the evidence of their use.

‘It seemed to me an interesting solution,’ Theron continued. ‘But I wouldn’t know how to go about it. Your… interests in Cambodia and your recycling business here told me that perhaps this is something you had thought of, too. Or would be willing to consider.’ His cold eyes regarded Hydt. ‘I was thinking maybe concrete or plaster. Or fertiliser?’

Turning the bodies into products that ensured they couldn’t be recognised as human remains! Hydt could hardly contain himself. Utterly brilliant. Why, there must be hundreds of opportunities like this throughout the world – Somalia, the former Yugoslavia, Latin America… and there were killing fields aplenty in Africa. Thousands. His chest pounded.

‘So, that’s my idea. A fifty-fifty partnership. I provide the refuse and you recycle it.’ Theron seemed to find this rather amusing.

‘I think we may be able to do business.’ Hydt offered his hand to the Afrikaner.

35

The worst risk of James Bond assuming the NOC – nonofficial cover – of Gene Theron was that Niall Dunne had perhaps got a look at him in Serbia or the Fens, or had been given his description in Dubai – if the blue-jacketed man who’d been tailing him was in fact working for Hydt.

In which case when Bond walked brazenly into the Green Way office in Cape Town and sought to hire Hydt to dispose of bodies hidden in secret graves throughout Africa, Dunne would either kill him on the spot or spirit him to their own personal killing field, where the job would be done with cold efficiency.

But now, having shaken hands with an intrigued Severan Hydt, Bond believed his cover was holding. So far. Hydt had been suspicious at first, of course, but he had been willing to give Theron the benefit of the doubt. Why? Because Bond had tempted him with a dangle, a lure he couldn’t resist: death and decay.

That morning, at SAPS headquarters, Bond had contacted Philly Maidenstone and Osborne-Smith – his new ally – and they had data-mined Hydt’s and Green Way’s credit cards. They’d learnt that he’d not only travelled to the Killing Fields in Cambodia but to Krakow, Poland, where he’d taken several tours of Auschwitz. Among his purchases at the time were double-A batteries and a second flash chip for a camera.

Man’s got a whole new idea about porn…

Bond decided that to work his way into Hydt’s life he would offer a chance to satisfy that lust: access to secret killing fields throughout Africa and a proposal to recycle human remains.

For the past three hours Bond had struggled, under the tutelage of Bheka Jordaan, to become an Afrikaner mercenary from Durban. Gene Theron would have a slightly unusual background: he’d had Huguenot rather than Dutch forebears and his parents favoured English and French in the household of his youth, which explained why he didn’t speak much Afrikaans. A British education in Kenya would cover his accent. She had, however, made Bond learn something of the dialect; if Leonardo DiCaprio and Matt Damon had mastered the subtle intonation for recent films – and they were American, for heaven’s sake – he could do so too.

While she’d coached him on facts that a South African mercenary might know, Sergeant Mbalula had gone to the evidence locker and found an incarcerated drug dealer’s gaudy Breitling watch, to replace Bond’s tasteful Rolex, and gold bracelet for the successful mercenary to wear. He’d then sped to a jeweller in the Gardens Shopping Centre in Mill Street, where he’d bought a gold signet ring and had it engraved with the initials EJT.

Meanwhile, Warrant Officer Kwalene Nkosi had worked feverishly with the ODG’s I Branch in London to create the fictional Gene Theron, uploading to the Internet biographical information about the hard-boiled mercenary, with Photoshopped pictures and details about his fictional company.

A series of lectures on cover identities at Fort Monckton could be summarised in the instructor’s introductory sentence: ‘If you don’t have a web presence, you’re not real.’

Nkosi had also printed business cards for EJT Services Ltd, and MI6 in Pretoria pulled in some favours to get the company registered in record time, the documents backdated. Jordaan was not happy about this – it was, to her, a breach of the sacred rule of law – but since she and SAPS were not involved, she let it go. I Branch also created a fake criminal investigation in Cambodia about Theron’s questionable behaviour in Myanmar, which mentioned shady activities in other countries too.

The fauxAfrikaner was over the first hurdle. The second – and most dangerous – was close. Hydt was on the phone summoning Niall Dunne to meet ‘a businessman from Durban’.

After he’d hung up, Hydt said casually, ‘One question. Would you happen to have pictures of the fields? The graves?’

‘That can be arranged,’ Bond said.

‘Good.’ Hydt smiled like a schoolboy. He rubbed the back of his hand on his beard.

Bond heard the door behind him open. ‘Ah, here is my associate, Niall Dunne… Niall, this is Gene Theron. From Durban.’

Now for it. Was he about to be shot? Bond rose, turned and went up to the Irishman, looking straight into his eyes and offering the stiff smile of one businessman meeting another for the first time. As they shook hands, Dunne stared at him, a knife slash from the chill blue eyes.

There was, however, no suspicion in the gaze. Bond was confident he had not been recognised.

Closing the door behind him, the Irishman shot a quizzical glance at his boss, who handed him the EJT Services business card. The men sat down. ‘Mr Theron has a proposition,’ Hydt said enthusiastically. He ran through the plan in general terms.

Bond could see that Dunne, too, was intrigued. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘This could be good. Some logistics to consider, of course.’

Hydt continued, ‘Mr Theron’s going to arrange for us to see pictures of the locations. Give us a better idea of what would be involved.’

Dunne shot him a troubled glance – the Irishman wasn’t suspicious, but seemed put off by this. He reminded Hydt, ‘We have to be at the plant by fifteen thirty. That meeting?’ He turned his eyes on Bond again. ‘Your office is just round the corner.’ He’d memorised the address at a glance, Bond noted. ‘Why don’t you get them now? Those pictures?’

‘Well… I suppose I could,’ Bond said, stalling.

Dunne eyed him levelly. ‘Good.’ As he opened the door for Bond, his jacket swung open, revealing the Beretta pistol on his belt, probably the one he’d used to murder the men in Serbia.

Was it a message? A warning?

Bond pretended not to see it. He nodded to both men. ‘I’ll be back in thirty minutes.’

But Gene Theron had been gone only five when Dunne said, ‘Let’s go.’

‘Where to?’ Hydt frowned.

‘To Theron’s office. Now.’

Hydt noted that the gangly man had one of thoseexpressions on his face, challenging, petulant.

That bizarre jealousy again. What went on in Dunne’s soul?

‘Why, don’t you trust him?’

‘It’s not a bad idea, mind,’ Dunne said off-handedly. ‘We’ve been talking about disposal of the bodies. But it doesn’t matter for Friday. It just seems a bit dodgy to me that he shows up out of the blue. Makes me nervous.’

As if such an emotion would ever register with the icy sapper.

Hydt relented. He needed somebody to keep his feet on the ground and it was true that he’d been seduced by Theron’s proposition. ‘You’re right, of course.’

They picked up their jackets and left the office. Dunne directed them up the street, to the address printed on the man’s business card.

The Irishman was right, but Severan Hydt prayed that Theron was legitimate. The bodies, the acres of bones. He wanted to see them so badly, to breathe in the air surrounding them. And he wanted the pictures too.

They came to the office building where Theron’s Cape Town branch was located. It was typical of the city’s business district, functional metal and stone. This particular structure seemed half deserted. There was no guard in the lobby, which was curious. The men took the lift to the fourth floor and found the office door, number 403.

‘There’s no company name,’ Hydt observed. ‘Just the number. That’s odd.’

‘This doesn’t look right,’ Dunne said. He listened. ‘I don’t hear anything.’

‘Try it.’

He did so. ‘Locked.’

Hydt was fiercely disappointed, wondering if he’d given anything away to Theron, anything incriminating. He didn’t think so.

Dunne said, ‘We should get some of our security people together. When Theron comes back, if he does, we’ll take him down to the basement. I’ll find out what he’s about.’

They were about to leave when Hydt, desperate to believe Theron was legitimate, said, ‘Knock – see if anybody’s in there.’

Dunne hesitated, then drew aside his jacket, exposing the Beretta’s grip. The man’s large knuckles rapped on the wooden door.

Nothing.

They turned to the lift.

Just then the door swung open.

Gene Theron blinked in surprise. ‘Hydt… Dunne. What are you doing here?’

36

The Afrikaner hesitated for a moment then bluntly gestured the two men inside. They entered. There had been no sign outside but here on the wall was a modest plaque: EJT Services Ltd, Durban, Cape Town, Kinshasa.

The office was small and staffed with only three employees, their desks covered with files and the paperwork that is the mainstay of such entrepreneurial dens throughout the world, however noble or dark their products or services.

Dunne said, ‘We thought we’d save you the trouble.’

‘Did you now?’ Theron responded.

Hydt knew that the mercenary understood that they had made their surprise visit because they didn’t trust him completely. On the other hand, Theron was in a line of work where trust was as dangerous as unstable explosives, so his displeasure was minimal. After all, Theron must have done much the same, checking out Hydt’s credentials with the Cambodians and elsewhere before coming to him with his proposal. That was how business worked.

Scuffed walls and windows offering a bleak view of a courtyard reminded Hydt that even illegal activity such as Theron plied was not necessarily as lucrative as the movies and news portrayed it. The biggest office, at the back, was Theron’s but even that was modest.

One employee, a tall young African, was scrolling through an online catalogue of automatic weapons. Some were flagged with bold stars, indicating a 10 per cent discount. Another employee was typing urgently on a computer keyboard, using only his index fingers. Both men were in white shirts and narrow ties.

A secretary sat at a desk outside Theron’s office. Hydt saw she was attractive but she was young and therefore of no interest to him.

Theron glanced at her. ‘My secretary was just printing out some of the files we were talking about.’ A moment later pictures of mass graves began easing from the colour printer.

Yes, these are good, Hydt thought, staring down at them. Very good indeed. The first images had been taken not long after the killings. Men, women and children had been gunned down or hacked to death. Some had suffered earlier amputations – hands or arms above the elbow – a popular technique used by warlords and dictators in Africa to punish and control the people. About forty or so lay in a ditch. The setting was sub-Saharan but it was impossible to say exactly where. Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ivory Coast, Central African Republic. There were so many possibilities on this troubled continent.

Other pictures followed, showing different stages of decay. Hydt lingered on those particularly.

‘LRA?’ Dunne asked, looking them over clinically.

It was the tall, skinny employee who answered. ‘Mr Theron does not work with the Lord’s Resistance Army.’

The rebel group, operating out of Uganda, the Central African Republic and parts of Congo and Sudan, had as its philosophy, if you could call it that, religious and mystical extremism – a violent Christian militia of sorts. It had committed untallied atrocities and was known, among other things, for employing child soldiers.

‘There’s plenty of other work,’ Theron said.

Hydt was amused by his sense of morality.

Another half-dozen pictures rolled from the printer. The last few showed a large field from which protruded bones and partial bodies with desiccated skin.

Hydt showed the pictures to Dunne. ‘What do you think?’ He turned to Theron. ‘Niall is an engineer.’

The Irishman studied them for a few minutes. ‘The graves look shallow. It’s easy to get the bodies out. The trick is to cover up the fact that they were there in the first place. Depending on how long they’ve been in the ground, once we remove them there’d be measurable differences in the soil temperature. That lasts for many months. It’s detectable with the right equipment.’

‘Months?’ Theron asked, frowning. ‘I had no idea.’ He glanced at Dunne, then said to Hydt, ‘He’s good.’

‘I call him the man who thinks of everything.’

Dunne said thoughtfully, ‘Fast-growing vegetation could work. And there are some sprays that will eliminate DNA residue too. There’s a lot to consider but nothing seems impossible.’

The technical issues fell away and Hydt focused again on the images. ‘May I keep these?’

‘Of course. Do you want digital copies too? They’d be sharper.’

Hydt gave him a smile. ‘Thank you.’

Theron put them on a flash drive and handed it to Hydt, who looked at his watch. ‘I’d like to discuss this further. Are you free later?’

‘I can be.’

But Dunne was frowning. ‘You’re at the meeting this afternoon and there’s the fundraiser tonight.’

Hydt scowled. ‘One of the charities I donate to is having an event. I have to be present. But… if you’re free why don’t you meet me there?’

‘Do I have to give money?’ Theron asked.

Hydt couldn’t tell if he was joking. ‘Not necessarily. You’ll have to listen to a few speeches and drink some wine.’

‘All right. Where is it?’

Hydt looked at Dunne, who said, ‘At the Lodge Club. Nineteen hundred hours.’

Hydt added, ‘You should wear a jacket but don’t bother with a tie.’

‘See you then.’ Theron shook their hands.

They left his offices and made their way outside.

‘He’s legitimate,’ Hydt said, half to himself.

They were en route to the Green Way office when Dunne took a phone call. After a few minutes he rang off and said, ‘That was about Stephan Dlamini.’

‘Who?’

‘The worker we need to eliminate in the maintenance department. He’s the one who might’ve seen the emails about Friday.’

‘Oh. Right.’

‘Our people found his shanty in Primrose Gardens, east of town.’

‘How are you going to handle it?’

‘It seems that his teenage daughter complained about a local drug dealer. He threatened to kill her. We’ll set it up to make it seem that he’s behind Dlamini’s death. He’s firebombed people before.’

‘So Dlamini has a family.’

‘A wife and five children,’ Dunne explained. ‘We’ll have to kill them too. He could have told his wife what he saw. And if he’s in a shanty town, the family will live in only one or two rooms, so anybody could have heard. We’ll use grenades before the firebomb. I think suppertime is best – everybody will be in one room together.’ Dunne shot a glance toward the tall man. ‘They’ll die fast.’

Hydt replied, ‘I wasn’t worried about them suffering.’

‘I wasn’t either. I just meant that it’ll be a pretty easy way to kill them all quickly. Convenient, you know.’

After the men had left, Warrant Officer Kwalene Nkosi rose from the desk where he’d been scrolling through price lists for automatic weapons and nodded at the screen. ‘It is truly amazing what you can buy online, isn’t it, Commander Bond?’

‘I suppose so.’

‘If we buy nine machine guns, we can get one for free,’ he joked to Sergeant Mbalula, the relentless two-finger typist.

‘Thanks for that fast thinking about the LRA, Warrant Officer,’ Bond said. He hadn’t recognised the abbreviation for the Lord’s Resistance Army – a group that any mercenary in Africa would have been familiar with. The operation might have ended there and then in disaster.

Bond’s ‘secretary’, Bheka Jordaan, peered out of the window. ‘They’re heading away. I don’t see any other security people.’

‘We fooled them, I think,’ said Sergeant Mbalula.

The trick indeed seemed to have been successful. Bond had been convinced that one of the men – the quick-minded Dunne, most likely – would want to see his branch in Cape Town. He believed that a good, solid set – a cover location – would be critical in seducing Hydt into believing he was an Afrikaner troubleshooter with a great many bodies to dispose of.

While Bond had telephoned Hydt to talk his way into Green Way, Jordaan had found a small government office leased by the Ministry of Culture but presently unused. Nkosi had printed some business cards with the address, and before Bond had gone to meet Hydt and Dunne, the SAPS officers had moved in.

‘You’ll be my partner,’ Bond had told Jordaan, with a smile. ‘It’ll be a good cover for me to have a clever – and attractive – associate.’

She had bristled. ‘To be credible, an office like this needs a secretary and she must be a woman.’

‘If you like.’

‘I don’t,’ she had said stiffly. ‘But that’s how it must be.’

Bond had anticipated the men’s visit but not that Hydt would want to see pictures of the killing fields, though he supposed he should have. The minute he’d left Hydt’s office, he’d called Jordaan and told her to find photos of mass graves in Africa from military and law enforcement archives. Sadly, it had been all too easy and she’d downloaded a dozen by the time he’d returned from Hydt’s office.

‘Can you keep some people here for a day or two?’ Bond asked. ‘In case Dunne comes back.’

‘I can spare one officer,’ she said. ‘Sergeant Mbalula, you will stay for the time being.’

‘Yes, Captain.’

‘I’ll brief a patrolman on the situation and he will replace you.’ She turned back to Bond. ‘Do you think Dunne will return?’

‘No, but it’s possible. Hydt’s the boss but he gets distracted. Dunne is more focused and suspicious. To my mind, that makes him more dangerous.’

‘Commander.’ Nkosi opened a battered briefcase. ‘This came for you at Headquarters.’ He produced a thick envelope. Bond ripped it open. Inside he found ten thousand rand in used banknotes, a fake South African passport, credit cards and a debit card, all in the name of Eugene J. Theron. I Branch had worked its magic once more.

There was also a note: Reservation for open stay at Table Mountain Hotel, waterfront room.

Bond pocketed everything. ‘Now, the Lodge Club, where I’m meeting Hydt tonight. What’s it like?’

‘Too expensive for me,’ Nkosi said.

‘It’s a restaurant and venue for events,’ Jordaan told him. ‘I’ve never been either. It used to be a private hunting club. White men only. Then after the elections in ’ninety-four, when the ANC came to power, the owners chose to dissolve the club and sell the building rather than open up membership. The board wasn’t concerned about admitting black or coloured men but they didn’t want women. I’m sure you have no clubs like that at home, James, do you?’

He didn’t admit that there were indeed such establishments in the UK. ‘At my favourite club in London, you’ll see pure democracy at work. Anyone at all is free to join… and lose money at the gaming tables. Just like I do. With some frequency, I might add.’

Nkosi laughed.

‘If you’re ever in London, I’d be delighted to show it to you,’ he added to Jordaan.

She seemed to view this as yet more shameless flirting because she icily ignored the comment.

‘I will drive you to your hotel.’ The tall police officer’s face wore a serious look. ‘I think I shall quit the SAPS and see if you can get me a job in England, Commander.’

To work for the ODG or MI6, you had to be a British citizen and the child of at least one citizen or someone with substantial ties to the UK. There was also a residency requirement.

‘After my great undercover work’ – Nkosi’s arm swept around the room – ‘I now know I am quite the actor. I will come to London and work in the West End. That’s where the famous theatres are – correct?’

‘Well, yes.’ Though Bond had not been to one voluntarily in years.

The young man said, ‘I’m sure I will be quite successful. I’m partial to Shakespeare. David Mamet is quite good too. Without doubt.’

Bond supposed that, working for a boss like Bheka Jordaan, Nkosi did not get much of a chance to exercise his sense of humour.

37

The hotel was near Table Bay in the fashionable Green Point area of Cape Town. It was an older building, six storeys, in classic Cape style, and could not quite disguise its colonial roots – though it didn’t try very hard; you could see them clearly in the meticulous landscaping presently being tended by a number of diligent workers, the delicate but firm reminder on placards about the dining-room dress code, the spotless white uniforms of the demure, ever-present staff, the rattan furniture on the sweeping veranda overlooking the bay.

Another clue was the enquiry as to whether Mr Theron would like a personal butler for his stay. He politely declined.

The Table Mountain Hotel – referred to everywhere as ‘TM’ in scrolling letters, from the marble floor to embossed napkins – was just the place where a well-heeled Afrikaner businessman from Durban would stay, whether a legitimate computer salesman or a mercenary with ten thousand bodies to hide.

After checking in, Bond started towards the lift, but something outside caught his eye. He popped into the gift shop for shaving foam he didn’t need. Then he circled back to Reception to help himself to some complimentary fruit juice from a large glass tank surrounded by an arrangement of purple jacaranda and red and white roses.

He wasn’t certain but someone might have been conducting surveillance. When he’d turned abruptly to get the juice, a shadow had vanished equally abruptly.

With many opportunities come many operatives…

Bond waited for a moment but the apparition didn’t reappear.

Of course, operational life sows the seeds of paranoia and sometimes a passer-by is just a passer-by, a curious gaze signifies nothing more than a curious mind. Besides, you can’t protect yourself from every risk in this business; if somebody wants you dead badly enough, they’ll get their wish. Mentally Bond shrugged off the tail and took the lift to the first floor, where the rooms were accessed from an open balcony that overlooked the lobby. He stepped inside, closed and chained the door.

He tossed the suitcase on to one of the beds, strode to the window and closed the curtains. He slipped everything that identified him as James Bond into a large carbon-fibre envelope with an electronic lock on the flap and sealed it. With his shoulder he tipped a chest of drawers and pushed the pouch underneath. It might be found and stolen, of course, but any attempt to open it without his thumbprint on the lock would send an encrypted message to the ODG’s C Branch, and Bill Tanner would send a Crash Divetext to alert him that his cover had been compromised.

He rang room service and ordered a club sandwich and a Gilroy’s dark ale. Then he showered. By the time he’d dressed in a pair of battleship grey trousers and a black polo shirt, the food was at the door. He ran a comb through his damp hair, checked the peephole and let the waiter in.

The tray was placed on the small table, the bill signed as E. J. Theron – in Bond’s own handwriting; that was one thing you never tried to fake, however deep your cover. The waiter pocketed his tip with overt gratitude. When Bond stepped back to the door to see the young man out and refix the chain, he automatically scanned the balcony and the lobby below.

He squinted, gazing down, then shut the door fast.

Damn.

Glancing with regret at the sandwich – and even more regretfully at the beer – he stepped into his shoes and flung open his suitcase. He screwed the Gemtech silencer on to the muzzle of his Walther and, although he’d done so recently at SAPS headquarters, eased the slide of the pistol back a few millimetres to verify that a round was in the chamber.

The gun went into the folds of today’s edition of the Cape Times, which Bond then set on the tray between his sandwich and the beer. He lifted it one-handed over his shoulder and left the room, the tray obscuring his face. He was not dressed in a waiter’s uniform but he moved briskly, head down, and might have been mistaken by a casual observer for a harried member of staff.

At the end of the corridor, he went through the fire doors of the stairwell, put the tray down and picked up the newspaper with its deadly contents. Then he descended a flight of stairs, quietly, to the ground floor.

Looking out through a porthole in the swing door, he spotted his target, sitting in an armchair in the shadows of a far corner of the lobby, nearly invisible. Facing away from Bond, he was scanning from his newspaper to the lobby to the first-floor balcony. Apparently he had missed Bond’s escape.

Bond gauged distances and angles, the location and number of guests, staff and security guards. He waited while a porter wheeled a cart of suitcases past, a waiter carried a tray bearing a silver coffee pot to another guest at the far end of the lobby, and a cluster of Japanese tourists moved en masse out of the door, taking with them his target’s attention.

Bond thought clinically: now.

He pushed out of the stairwell and walked fast towards the back of an armchair over which the crown of his target’s head could just be seen. He circled around it and dropped into the chair just opposite, smiling as if he’d run into an old friend. He kept his finger off the trigger of the Walther, which Corporal Menzies had fine-tuned to a feather-light pull.

The freckled ruddy face glanced up. The man’s eyes flashed wide in surprise that he’d been duped. In recognition too. The look said, no, it wasn’t a coincidence. He hadbeen conducting surveillance on Bond.

He was the man Bond had seen at the airport that morning, whom he’d originally taken for Captain Jordaan.

‘Fancy seeing you here!’ Bond said cheerfully, to allay the suspicions of anybody witnessing the rendezvous. He lifted the curled newspaper so that the muzzle of the silencer was focused on the bulky chest.

But, curiously, the surprise in the milky green eyes was replaced not by fear or desperation but amusement. ‘Ah, Mr… Theron, is it? Is that who we are at the moment?’ The accent was Mancunian. His pudgy hands swung up, palms out.

Bond cocked his head to one side. ‘These rounds are nearly subsonic. With this suppressor, you’ll be dead and I’ll be gone long before anybody notices.’

‘Oh, but you don’t want to kill me. That would go down rather badly.’

Bond had heard plenty of monologues at moments like this when he’d got the draw on an opponent. Usually the bons motswere to buy time or for distraction as the target prepared himself for a desperate assault. Bond knew to ignore what the man was saying and watch his hands and body language.

Still, he could hardly dismiss the next lines issuing from the flabby lips. ‘After all, what would M say if he heard you’d gunned down one of the Crown’s star agents? And in sucha beautiful setting.’

38

His name was Gregory Lamb, confirmed by the iris and fingerprint scan app – MI6’s man on the ground in Cape Town. The agent Bill Tanner had told him to avoid.

They were in Bond’s room, sansbeer and sandwich; to his consternation, the tray containing his lunch had been whisked out of the stairwell by an efficient hotel employee by the time he and Lamb had returned to the first floor.

‘You could’ve got yourself killed,’ Bond muttered.

‘I wasn’t in any real danger. Your outfit doesn’t give out those double noughts to trigger-happy fools… Now, now, my friend, don’t get all ruffled. Some of us know what your Overseas Development outfit reallydoes.’

‘How did you know I was in town?’

‘Put it together, didn’t I? Heard about some goings-on and got in touch with friends at Lambeth.’

One of the disadvantages in having to use Six or DI for intelligence was that more people knew about your affairs than you might prefer. ‘Why didn’t you just contact me through secure channels?’ Bond snapped.

‘I was going to, but just as I got here I saw somebody playing shadow.’

Now Bond paid attention. ‘Male, slim, blue jacket? Gold earring?’

‘Well, now, didn’t see the earring, did I? Eyes aren’t what they used to be. But you’ve got the general kit right. Hovered about for a while, then vanished like the Tablecloth when the sun comes out. You know what I mean: the fog on Table Mountain.’

Bond was in no mood for travelogues. Dammit, the man who killed Yusuf Nasad and who had nearly done the same to Felix Leiter had learned he was here. He was probably the man Jordaan had told him about, the one who’d slipped into the country that morning from Abu Dhabi on a fake British passport.

Who the hell was he?

‘Did you get a picture?’ Bond asked.

‘Drat no. The man was fast as a waterbug.’

‘Spot anything else about him, type of mobile, possible weapons, vehicle?’

‘None. Gone. Waterbug.’ A shrug of the broad shoulders, which Bond supposed were as freckled and red as the face.

Bond said, ‘You were at the airport when I landed. Why did you turn away?’

‘I saw Captain Jordaan. She never took to me, for some reason. Maybe she thinks I’m the great white hunter colonist here to steal back her country. She gave me a bloody tongue lashing a few months ago, didn’t she?’

‘My chief of staff said you were in Eritrea,’ Bond said.

‘I was indeed – there and across the border in Sudan for the past week. Looks like their hearts’re set on war so I tooled on up to make sure my covers would survive the gunplay. I got that sorted and heard about an ODG operation.’ His eyes dimmed. ‘Surprised nobody gave me a bell about it.’

‘The thinking was that you were involved in a rather serious op. Delicate,’ Bond said judiciously.

‘Ah.’ Lamb seemed to believe this. ‘Well, anyway, I thought I’d better race here to help out. You see, the Cape’s tricky. It looks neat and clean and touristy but there’s a lot more to it. I hate to blow my own trumpet, my friend, but you need somebody like me to weasel under the surface, tell you what’s really going on. I’m connected. You know any other Six agent who’s finagled local-government-development-fund money to finance his covers? I made the Crown a tidy profit last year.’

‘All went to Treasury coffers, did it?’

Lamb shrugged. ‘I’ve got a role to play, haven’t I? To the world I’m a successful businessman. If you don’t live your cover for all it’s worth, well, a bit of sand gets into the works and the next thing you know there’s a big pearl yelling, “I’m a spy!”… Say, you mind if we hit that minibar of yours?’

Bond waved at it. ‘Go ahead.’ Lamb helped himself to a miniature of Bombay Sapphire gin, then another. He poured them into a glass. ‘No ice? Pity. Well, never mind.’ He sloshed in a bit of tonic.

‘What isyour cover?’

‘Mostly I arrange cargo ship charters. Brilliant idea, if I say so myself. Gives me a chance to hobnob with the bad boys on the docks. I also do a spot of gold and aluminium exploration and road and infrastructure construction.’

‘And you still have time to spy?’

‘Good one, my friend!’ For some reason Lamb started telling Bond his life story. He was a British citizen, as was his mother, and his father was South African. He’d come down here with his parents and decided he liked it better than life in Manchester. After training at Fort Monckton he’d asked to be sent back. Station Z was the only one he’d ever worked for… and the only one he’d ever cared to. He spent most of his time in the Western Cape but travelled frequently around Africa, attending to his NOC operations.

When he noticed Bond was not listening, he swigged at his drink and said, ‘So what exactly are you working on? Something about this Severan Hydt? Now there’s a name to conjure with. And Incident Twenty. Love it. Sounds rather like something from DI Fifty-five – you know, the characters looking into UFOs over the Midlands.’

Exasperated, Bond said, ‘I was attached to Defence Intelligence. Division Fifty-five was about missiles or planes breaching British airspace, not UFOs.’

‘Ah, yes, yes, I’m sure it was… Of course, that wouldbe the line they’d give the public, wouldn’t it?’

Bond was close to throwing him out. Still, it might just be worth picking his brain. ‘You heard about Incident Twenty, then. Any thoughts on how it could relate to South Africa?’

‘I did get the signals,’ Lamb conceded, ‘but I didn’t pay much attention since the intercept said the attack was going to be on British soil.’

Bond reminded him of the exact wording, which gave no location but said merely that British interests would be ‘adversely affected’.

‘Could be anywhere, then. I didn’t think of that.’

Or you didn’t read it very carefully.

‘And now the cyclone has touched down on my pitch. Odd how fate can strike, isn’t it?’

The app on Bond’s mobile that had verified Lamb’s identity had also indicated his security clearance, which was higher than Bond would have guessed. Now he felt more or less comfortable in talking about the Gehenna plan, Hydt and Dunne. He asked again, ‘So, have you any thoughts on a connection here? Thousands of people at risk, British interests threatened, the plan hatched in Severan Hydt’s office.’

Eyes on his glass, Lamb said thoughtfully, ‘The fact is, I don’t know what kind of attack here would fit the bill. We’ve got plenty of British ex-pats and tourists and a lot of business interests with connections to London. But killing that many people in one fell swoop? Sounds like it’d have to be civil unrest. And I don’t see that happening in South Africa. We’ve got our troubles here, there’s no denying it – Zimbabwe asylum seekers, trade union unrest, corruption, AIDS… but we’re still the most stable country on the continent.’

For once the man had provided Bond with some real insight, slight though it was. This reinforced his idea that, while buttons might be pushed in South Africa, Friday’s deaths could likely occur elsewhere.

The man had finished most of his gin. ‘You’re not drinking?’ When Bond didn’t answer, he added, ‘We miss the old days, don’t we, my friend?’

Bond didn’t know what the old days were and decided it was unlikely he would miss them, whatever they had been. He also decided too that he quite disliked the phrase ‘my friend’. ‘You said you didn’t get on with Bheka Jordaan.’

Lamb grunted.

‘What do you know about her?’

‘She’s damn good at her job, I’ll give her that. She was the officer who ran that investigation of the NIA – the South African National Intelligence Agency – for conducting illegal surveillance on politicians here.’ Lamb chuckled darkly. ‘Not that that’d ever happen in ourcountry, would it?’

Bond recalled that Bill Tanner had chosen to use an SAPS liaison rather than National Intelligence.

Lamb continued, ‘They gave her the job hoping she’d fumble. But not Captain Jordaan. Oh no. That would neverdo.’ His eyes gleamed perversely. ‘She started to make headway in the case and everybody at the top got scared. Her boss at SAPS told her to lose the evidence against the NIA agents.’

‘So she arrested him?’

‘And hisboss too!’ Lamb roared with laughter and knocked back the last of his drink. ‘She earned herself a big commendation.’

The Gold Cross for Bravery? ‘Did she get roughed up in the investigation?’

‘Roughed up?’

He mentioned her scarred arm.

‘In a way. Afterwards she was promoted. Had to happen – politically. You know how thatworks. Well some of the SAPS men who were passed over didn’t take too kindly to it. She got threats – women shouldn’t be taking men’s jobs, that sort of thing. Somebody chucked a Molotov cocktail under her squad car. She’d gone into the station, but there was a prisoner in the back seat, drunk and sleeping it off. None of the attackers saw him. She ran outside and saved him but got burnt in the process. They never found out who did it – the perpetrators were masked. But everybody knows it was people she was working with. Maybe still is.’

‘God.’ Now Bond believed he understood Jordaan’s attitude towards him – perhaps she’d thought his flirtatious glance at the airport had meant he, too, didn’t take a woman seriously as a police officer.

He explained to Lamb his next step: meeting Hydt tonight.

‘Oh, the Lodge Club. It’s all right. Used to be exclusive but now they let in everybody… Hey, I saw that look. I didn’t mean what you think. I just have a low opinion of the general public. I do more business with blacks and coloureds than whites… There’s that look again!’

‘“Coloureds”?’ Bond said sourly.

‘It just means mixed-race and it’s perfectly acceptable here. No one would take offence.’

Bond’s experience, however, was that people using such terms weren’t the ones likely to be offended by them. But he wasn’t going to debate politics with Gregory Lamb. Bond looked at the Breitling. ‘Thanks for your thoughts,’ he said, without much enthusiasm. ‘Now, I’ve got work to do before my meeting with Hydt.’ Jordaan had sent him some material on Afrikaners, South African culture and conflict regions that Gene Theron might have been active in.

Lamb rose and hovered awkwardly. ‘Well, I stand ready to assist. I’m at your service. Really, anything you need.’ He seemed painfully sincere.

‘Thanks.’ Bond felt the urge, absurdly, to slip him twenty rand.

Before he left, Lamb returned to the minibar and relieved it of two miniatures of vodka. ‘You don’t mind, do you? M’s got a positively massive budget; everyone knows that.’

Bond saw him out.

Good riddance, he thought, as the door closed. Percy Osborne-Smith was a charmer by comparison with this fellow.

39

Bond sat at the expansive desk in the hotel suite, booted up his computer, logged on via his iris and fingerprint and scrolled through the information Bheka Jordaan had uploaded. He was ploughing through it when an encrypted email arrived.

James:

For your eyes only.

Have confirmed Steel Cartridge was a major active measure by KGB/SVR to assassinate clandestine MI6 and CIA agents and local assets, so that the extent of Russian infiltration would not be learnt, in attempt to promote détente during fall of Soviet Union and improve relations with the West.

The last Steel Cartridge targeted killings occurred late ’80s or early ’90s. Found only one incident so far: the victim was a private contractor working for MI6. Deep cover. No other details, except that the active measures agent made the death appear to be an accident. Actual steel cartridges were sometimes left at the scenes of the deaths as warning to other agents to keep quiet.

Am continuing investigation.

Your other eyes,

Philly

Bond slouched back in the chair, staring at the ceiling. Well, what do I do with this? he asked himself.

He read the message again, then sent a brief email thanking Philly. He rocked back and, in the mirror across the room, caught a glimpse of his eyes, hard and set like a predator’s.

He reflected: so, the KGB active measures agent killed the MI6 contract op in the late eighties, early nineties.

James Bond’s father had died during that period.

It had happened in December, not long after his eleventh birthday. Andrew and Monique Bond had dropped young James off with his aunt Charmian in Pett Bottom, Kent, leaving behind the promise that they would return in plenty of time for Christmas festivities. They had then flown to Switzerland and driven to Mont Blanc for five days of skiing and rock and ice climbing.

His parents’ assurance, however, had been hollow. Two days later they were dead, having fallen from one of the astonishingly beautiful cliff faces of the Aiguilles Rouges, near Chamonix.

Beautiful cliffs, yes, impressive… but not excessively dangerous, not where they had been climbing. As an adult, Bond had looked into the circumstances of the accident. He’d learnt that the slope they’d fallen from did not require advanced climbing techniques; indeed, no one had ever been injured, let alone died, there. But, of course, mountains are notoriously fickle and Bond had taken at face value the story the gendarme had told his aunt: that his parents had fallen because a rope frayed at the same time as a large boulder had given way.

‘Mademoiselle, je suis désolé de vous dire…’

When he was young, James Bond had enjoyed travelling with his parents to the foreign countries where Andrew Bond’s company sent him. He’d enjoyed living in hotel suites. He’d enjoyed the local cuisines, very different from that served in the pubs and restaurants in England and Scotland. He’d been captivated with the exotic cultures – the dress, the music, the language.

He also enjoyed spending time with his father. His mother would hand James over to carers and friends when one of her freelance photojournalism assignments arose, but his father would occasionally take him to business meetings in restaurants or hotel lobbies. The boy would perch nearby, with a volume of Tolkien or an American detective novel, while his father talked to unsmiling men named Sam or Micah or Juan.

James was happy to be included – what son doesn’t like to tag along with his dad? He had always been curious, though, as to why sometimes Andrew insisted that he join him while at others he said no quite firmly.

Bond had thought nothing more of this… until the training sessions at Fort Monckton.

It was there, in the lessons on clandestine operations, that one instructor had said something that caught his attention. The round, bespectacled man from MI6’s tradecraft training section had told the group, ‘In most clandestine situations, it’s not advisable for an agent or an asset to be married or have children. If they happen to, it’s best to make sure the family is kept far removed from the agent’s operational life. However, there’s one instance in which it’s advantageous to have a quote “typical” life. These agents will be operating in deepest cover and handling the most critical assignments, where the intelligence to be gathered is vital. In these cases a family life is important to remove the enemy’s suspicions that they’re operatives. Typically their official cover will be working for a company or organisation that interests enemy agents: infrastructure, information, armaments, aerospace or government. They will be posted to different locations every few years and take their families with them.’

James Bond’s father had worked for a major British armaments company. He had been posted to a number of international capitals. His wife and son had accompanied him.

The instructor had continued, ‘And in certain circumstances, on the most critical assignments – whether a brush pass or a face-to-face meeting – it’s useful for the operative to take his child with him. Nothing proclaims innocence more than having a youngster with you. Seeing this, the enemy will almost always believe that you’re the real deal – no parent would want to endanger his or her child.’ He regarded the agents sitting before him in the classroom, their faces registering varying reactions at his passionless message. ‘Combating evil sometimes requires a suspension of accepted values.’

Bond had thought: his father a spy? Impossible. Absurd.

Still, after he had left Fort Monckton he spent some time looking into his father’s past, but found no evidence of a clandestine life. The only evidence was a series of payments made to his aunt for her and James’s benefit, over and above the proceeds from his parents’ insurance policy. These were made annually until James had turned eighteen by a company that must have had some affiliation with Andrew’s employer, though he could never find out exactly where it was based or what the nature of the payments had been.

Eventually he convinced himself that whole idea was mad and forgot about it.

Until the Russian signal about Steel Cartridge.

Because one other aspect of his parents’ death had been largely overlooked.

In the accident report that the gendarmes had prepared, it was mentioned that a steel rifle cartridge, 7.62mm, had been found near his father’s body.

Young James had received it among his parents’ effects and, since Andrew had been an executive with an arms company, it was assumed that the bullet had been a sample of his wares to show to customers.

On Monday, two days ago, after he had read the Russian report, Bond had gone into the online archives of his father’s company. He’d learnt that it did not manufacture ammunition. Neither had it ever sold any weapons that fired a 7.62mm round.

This was the bullet that sat now in a conspicuous place on the mantelpiece of his London flat.

Had it been dropped accidentally by a hunter? Or left intentionally as a warning?

The KGB’s reference to Operation Steel Cartridge had solidified within Bond the desire to learn whether or not his father had been a secret agent. He had to. He did not need to reconcile himself to the possibility that his father had lied to him. All parents deceive their children. In most cases, though, it’s for the sake of expedience or through laziness or thoughtlessness; if hisfather had lied it was because the Official Secrets Act had compelled him to.

Neither did he need to know the truth so that he could – as a TV psychiatrist might suggest – revisit his youthful loss and mourn somehow more authentically. What nonsense.

No, he wanted to know the truth for a much simpler reason, one that fitted him like a Savile Row bespoke suit: the person who had killed his parents might still be at large in the world, enjoying the sun, sitting down to a pleasant meal or even conspiring to take other lives. If such were the case, Bond knew he would make certain that his parents’ assassin met the same fate as they had, and he would do so efficiently and in accordance with his official remit: by any means necessary.

40

At close to five p.m. on Wednesday, Bond’s mobile emitted the ringtone reserved for emergency messages. He hurried from the bathroom, where he’d just showered, and read the encrypted email. It was from GCHQ, reporting that Bond’s attempt to bug Severan Hydt had been somewhat successful. Unknown to Captain Bheka Jordaan, the flash drive that Bond had given Hydt, holding digital pictures of the killing fields in Africa, also contained a small microphone and transmitter. What it lacked in audio resolution and battery life, it made up for in range. The signal was picked up by a satellite, amplified and beamed down to one of the massive receiving antennae at Menwith Hill in the beautiful Yorkshire countryside.

The device had transmitted fragments of a conversation Hydt and Dunne had had just after they’d left the fictional EJT Services office in downtown Cape Town. The words had finally made their way through the decryption queue and been read by an analyst, who had flagged them as critical and shot the missive to Bond.

He now read the CX – the raw intelligence – and the analysed product. It seemed that Dunne was planning to kill one of Hydt’s workers, Stephan Dlamini, and his family, because the employee had seen something in a secure part of Green Way that he shouldn’t have, perhaps information that related to Gehenna. Bond’s goal was clear: save him at all costs.

Purpose… response.

The man lived outside Cape Town. The death would be made to look like a gang attack. Grenades and firebombs would be used. And the attack would occur at suppertime.

After that, though, the battery died and the device had stopped transmitting.

At suppertime. Perhaps any moment now.

Bond hadn’t managed to rescue the woman in Dubai. He wasn’t going to let this family die now. He needed to find out what Dlamini had learnt.

But he could hardly contact Bheka Jordaan and tell her what he’d found out via illegal surveillance. He picked up the phone and called the concierge.

‘Yes, sir?’

‘I have a question for you,’ Bond said casually. ‘I had a problem with my car today and a local fellow helped me out. I didn’t have much cash with me and I wanted to give him something for his trouble. How would I go about finding his address? I have his name and the town he lives in, but nothing more.’

‘What’s the town?’

‘Primrose Gardens.’

There was silence. Then the concierge said, ‘It’s a township.’

A squatters’ camp, Bond recalled, from the briefing material Bheka Jordaan had given him. The shacks rarely had standard postal addresses. ‘Well, could I go there, ask if anyone knew him?’

Another pause. ‘Well, sir, it might not be very safe.’

‘I’m not too worried about that.’

‘I think it would not be practical, either.’

‘Why is that?’

‘The population of Primrose Gardens is around fifty thousand.’

At 17:30 hours, as autumn dusk descended, Niall Dunne watched Severan Hydt leave the Green Way office in Cape Town, striding tall and with a certain elegance to his limousine.

Hydt’s feet didn’t splay, hisposture wasn’t hunched, hisarms didn’t swing from side to side. (‘Oi, lookit the tosser! Niall’s a bleedin’ giraffe!’)

Hydt was on his way home, where he would change, then take Jessica to the fundraiser at the Lodge Club.

Dunne was standing in the Green Way lobby, staring out of the window. His eyes lingered on Hydt as he vanished down the street, accompanied by one of his Green Way guards.

Watching him leave, en route to his home and his companion, Dunne felt a pang.

Don’t be so bloody ridiculous, he told himself. Concentrate on the job. All hell’s going to break loose on Friday and it’ll be your fault if a single cog or gear malfunctions.

Concentrate.

So he did.

Dunne left Green Way, collected his car and drove out of Cape Town towards Primrose Gardens. He would meet up with a security man from the company and proceed with the plan, which he now ran through his mind: the timing, the approach, the number of grenades, the firebomb, the escape.

He reviewed the blueprint with precision and patience. The way he did everything.

This is Niall. He’s brilliant. He’s my draughtsman…

But other thoughts intruded and his sloping shoulders slumped even more as he pictured his boss at the fundraising gala later that night. The pang stabbed him again.

Dunne supposed people wondered why he was alone, why he didn’t have a partner. They assumed the answer was that he lacked the ability to feel. That he was a machine. They didn’t understand that, according to the concept of classical mechanics, there were simplemachines – like screws and levers and pulleys – and complex machines, like engines, which by definition transferred energy into motion.

Well, he reasoned logically, calories were turned into energy, which moved the human body. So, yes, he wasa machine. But so were we all, every creature on earth. That didn’t preclude the capacity for love.

No, the explanation of his solitude was simply that the object of his desire didn’t, in turn, desire him.

How embarrassingly mundane, how common.

And bloody unfair, of course. God, it was unfair. No draughtsman would design a machine in which the two parts necessary to create harmonious movement didn’t work perfectly, each needing the other and in turn satisfying the reciprocal need. But that was exactly the situation in which he found himself: he and his boss were mismatched parts.

Besides, he thought bitterly, the laws of attraction were far riskier than the laws of mechanics. Relationships were messy, dangerous and plagued with waste and while you could keep an engine humming for hundreds of thousands of hours, love between human beings often sputtered and seized just after it caught.

It betrayed you too, far more often than machinery did.

Bollocks, he told himself with what passed for anger within Niall Dunne. Forget all this. You have a job to do tonight. He ran through his blueprint again and then once more.

As the traffic thinned he drove quickly east of the city, heading towards the township along dark roads gritty and damp as a riverside dock.

He pulled into a shopping-centre car park and killed the engine. A moment later a battered van stopped behind him. Dunne climbed from his car and got into the other vehicle, nodding to the security man, very large, wearing military fatigues. Without saying a word, they set off at once and, in ten minutes, were driving through the unmarked streets of Primrose Gardens. Dunne climbed into the back of the van, where there were no windows. He was, of course, distinctive here, with his height, his hair. More significant, he was white and would be extremely conspicuous in a South African township after dark. It was possible that the drug dealer who was threatening Dlamini’s daughter was white or had whites who worked for him, but Dunne decided it was better to stay hidden – at least until the time to throw the grenades and fire bombs through the windows of the shanty.

They drove along the endless paths that served as roads in the shanty town, past packs of running children, skinny dogs, men sitting on doorsteps.

‘No GPS,’ the huge security man said, his first words. He wasn’t smiling and Dunne didn’t know if he was making a joke. The man had spent two hours that afternoon tracking down Dlamini’s shack. ‘There it is.’

They parked across the road. The place was tiny, one storey, as were all the shacks in Primrose Gardens, and the walls were constructed of mismatched panels of plywood and corrugated metal, painted bold red, blue, yellow, as if in defiance of the squalor. A clothes-line hung in the yard to the side, festooned with laundry for a family ranging in age, it seemed, from five or six to adulthood.

This was an efficient location for a kill. The shack was opposite a patch of empty ground so there would be few witnesses. Not that it mattered – the van had no number plate, and white vehicles of this sort were as common in the Western Cape as sea gulls at Green Way.

They sat in silence for ten minutes, just on the verge of attracting attention. Then the security man said, ‘There he is.’

Stephan Dlamini was walking down the dusty road, a tall, thin man with greying hair, wearing a faded jacket, orange T-shirt and brown jeans. Beside him was one of his sons. The boy, who was about eleven, carried a mud-streaked football, and wore a Springboks rugby shirt, without a jacket, despite the autumn chill.

Dlamini and the boy paused outside to kick the ball back and forth for a moment or two. Then they entered their home. Dunne nodded to the security man. They pulled on ski masks. Dunne surveyed the shanty. It was larger than most, but the explosives and incendiary were sufficient. The curtains were drawn across the windows, the cheap fabric glowing with light from inside.

For some reason Dunne found himself thinking again about his boss, at the event that night. He put the image away.

He gave it five minutes more, to make sure that Dlamini had used the toilet – if there was one in the shack – and that the family was seated at the dinner table.

‘Let’s go,’ Dunne said. The security guard nodded. They stepped out of the van, each holding a powerful grenade, filled with deadly copper shot. The street was largely deserted.

Seven family members, Dunne reflected. ‘Now,’ he whispered. They pulled the pins on the grenades and flung them through each of the two windows. In the five seconds of silence that followed, Dunne grabbed the firebomb – a petrol can with a small detonator – and readied it. When stunning explosions shook the ground and blew out the remaining glass, he threw the incendiary through the window and the two men leapt into the van. The security man started the engine and they sped off.

Exactly five seconds later, flames erupted from the windows and, spectacularly, a stream of fire from the cooking stove chimney rose straight into the air twenty feet, reminding Dunne of the fireworks displays he’d so enjoyed as a boy in Belfast.

41

‘ Hayi! Hayi! ’

The woman’s wail filled the night, as she stared at the fiery shack, her home, tears lensing her eyes.

She and her five children were clustered behind the inferno. The back door was open, providing a wrenching view of the rampaging flames destroying all of the family’s possessions. She struggled to run inside and rescue what she could but her husband, Stephan Dlamini, gripped her hard. He spoke to her in a language James Bond took to be Xhosa.

A large crowd was gathering and an informal fire brigade had assembled, passing buckets of water in a futile attempt to extinguish the raging flames.

‘We have to leave,’ Bond said to the tall man standing beside him, next to an unmarked SAPS van.

‘Without doubt,’ said Kwalene Nkosi.

Bond meant that they should get the family out of the township before Dunne realised they were still alive.

Nkosi, though, had a different concern. The warrant officer had been eyeing the growing crowd, who were staring at the white man; the collective gaze was not friendly.

‘Display your badge,’ Bond told him.

Nkosi’s eyes widened. ‘No, no, Commander, that is not a wise idea. Let us leave. Now.’

They shepherded Stephan Dlamini and his family into the van. Bond got in with them and Nkosi climbed behind the wheel, gunned the engine and steered them away into the night.

They left behind the angry, confused crowd and the tumultuous flames… but not a single injury.

It had been a true race to the finish line to save the family.

After he’d learned that Dlamini was going to be targeted by Dunne and that he lived virtually anonymously in a huge township, Bond had struggled to come up with a way to locate him. GCHQ and MI6 could find no mobile in his name or any personal records in South African census or trade-union records. He had taken a chance and called Kwalene Nkosi. ‘I’m going to tell you something, Warrant Officer, and I hope I can rely on you to keep it to yourself. From everyone.’

There’d been a pause and the young man had said cautiously, ‘Go on.’

Bond had laid out the problem, including the fact that the surveillance had been illegal.

‘Your signal is breaking up, Commander. I missed that last part.’

Bond had laughed. ‘But we have to find where this Stephan Dlamini lives. Now.’

Nkosi had sighed. ‘It is going to be difficult. Primrose Gardens is huge. But I have an idea.’ The minibus taxi operations, it seemed, knew far more about the shanty towns and lokasiesthan the local government did. The warrant officer would begin calling them. He and Bond had met, then driven fast to Primrose Gardens, Nkosi continuing his search for the family’s shack via his mobile. At close to six p.m. they’d been cruising through the township when a taxi driver had reported that he knew where Dlamini lived. He’d directed Bond and Nkosi there.

As they’d approached, they’d seen another van at the front, a white face glancing out.

‘Dunne,’ Nkosi had said.

He and Bond had veered away and parked behind the shanty. They’d pushed through the back door and the family had panicked, but Nkosi had told them, in their own language, that the men had come to save them. They had to get out immediately. Stephan Dlamini was not at home yet, but soon would be.

A few minutes later he’d come through the door with his young son, and Bond, knowing the attack was imminent, had had no choice but to draw his gun and force them out of the back door. Nkosi had just finished explaining Bond’s purpose and the danger, when the grenades went off, followed by the petrol bomb.

Now they were on the N1, cruising west. Dlamini gripped Bond’s hand and shook it. Then he leant forward to the front passenger seat and hugged him. Tears stood in his eyes. His wife huddled in the back with her children, studying Bond suspiciously as the agent told him who’d been behind the attack.

Finally, after hearing the story, Dlamini asked in dismay, ‘Mr Hydt? But how can that be? He is best boss. He treat all of us good. Very good. I am not understanding this.’

Bond explained. It seemed that Dlamini had learnt something about illegal activities Hydt and Dunne were engaged in.

His eyes flashed. ‘I know what you are speaking of.’ His head bobbed up and down. He told Bond that he was a maintenance man at the Green Way plant north of town. That morning he’d found the door to the company’s Research and Development office left open for deliveries. The two employees inside were at the back of the room. Dlamini had seen an overflowing bin inside. The rubbish there was supposed to be handled by somebody else but he decided to empty it anyway. ‘I just was trying to do good job. That’s all.’ He shook his head. ‘I go inside and start to empty this bin when one of the workers sees me and starts screaming at me. What did I see? What was I looking at? I said, “Nothing.” He ordered me out.’

‘And didyou see anything that might’ve upset them?’

‘I don’t think so. On the computer beside the bin there was a message, an email, I think. I saw “Serbia” in English. But I paid no more attention.’

‘Anything else?’

‘No, sir.’

Serbia…

So, some of the secrets to Gehenna lay beyond the door to Research and Development.

Bond said to Nkosi, ‘We have to get the family away. If I give them money, is there a hotel where they can stay until the weekend?’

‘I can find some rooms for them.’

Bond gave them fifteen hundred rand. The man blinked as he stared at the sum. Nkosi explained to Dlamini that he would have to stay in hiding for a short while.

‘And have him call other family members and close friends. He should tell them that he and his family are all right but that they have to play dead for a few days. Can you plant a story in the media about their deaths?’

‘I think so.’ The warrant officer was hesitating. ‘But I’m wondering if…’ His voice faded.

‘We’ll keep this between ourselves. Captain Jordaan does not need to know.’

‘Without doubt, that is best.’

As the glorious vista of Cape Town rose before them, Bond glanced at his watch. It was time for the second assignment of the night – one that would require him to enlist a very different set of tradecraft skills from dodging grenades and firebombs, though he suspected that this job would be no less challenging.

42

Bond wasn’t impressed by the Lodge Club.

Perhaps back in the day, when it was the enclave of hunters in jodhpurs and jackets embellished with loops to hold ammunition for their big-five game rifles, it had been more posh but the atmosphere now was that of a function room hosting simultaneous wedding receptions. Bond wasn’t even sure if the Cape buffalo head, staring down at him angrily from near the front door, was real or had been manufactured in China.

He gave the name Gene Theron to one of the attractive young women at the door. She happened to be blonde and voluptuous and wearing a tight-fitting crimson dress with a lazy neckline. The other hostess was of Zulu or Xhosa ancestry but equally built and clad. Bond suspected that whoever ran the fundraising organisation knew how to tactically appeal to what was, of whatever race, predominantly a male donor pool. He added, ‘Guest of Mr Hydt.’

‘Ah, yes,’ the golden-haired woman said and let him into the low-lit room where fifty or so people milled about. Still wine, champagne and soft drinks were on offer and Bond went for the sparkling.

Bond had followed Hydt’s suggestions on dress and the Durban mercenary was in light grey trousers, a black sports jacket and a light blue shirt, no tie.

Holding his champagne flute, Bond looked around the plush hall. The group behind the event was the International Organisation Against Hunger, based in Cape Town. Pictures on easels showed workers handing out large sacks to happy recipients, women mostly, Hercules planes being unloaded and boats laden with sacks of rice or wheat. There were no pictures of starving emaciated children. A tasteful compromise all around. You wanted donors to feel slightly, but not too, uneasy. Bond guessed that the world of altruism had to be as carefully navigated as Whitehall politics.

From speakers in the ceiling, the harmonies of Ladysmith Black Mambazo and the inspirational songs of the Cape Town singer Verity provided an appealing soundtrack to the evening.

The event was a silent auction – tables were filled with all sorts of items donated by supporters of the group: a football signed by players from Bafana Bafana, the South African national football team, a whale-watching cruise, a weekend getaway in Stellenbosch, a Zulu sculpture, a pair of diamond earrings and much more. The guests would circulate and write their bids for each item on a sheet of paper; the one who’d put down the highest amount when the auction closed would win the article. Severan Hydt had donated a dinner for four, worth eight thousand rand – about seven hundred pounds, Bond calculated – at a first-class restaurant.

The wine flowed generously and waiters circulated with silver trays of elaborate canapés.

Ten minutes after Bond had arrived, Severan Hydt appeared with his female companion on his arm. Niall Dunne was nowhere to be seen. He nodded to Hydt, who was in a nicely cut navy-blue suit, probably American, if he read the sloping shoulders right. The woman – her name, he recalled, was Jessica Barnes – was in a simple black dress and heavily bejewelled, all diamonds and platinum. Her stockings were pure white. Not a hint of colour was to be found on her; she didn’t even wear a touch of lipstick. His earlier impression held: how gaunt she was, despite her attractive figure and face. Her austerity aged her considerably, giving her a ghostly look. Bond was curious; every other woman here of Jessica’s age had clearly spent hours dolling herself up.

‘Ah, Theron,’ Hydt boomed and marched forward, detaching himself from Jessica, who followed. As Bond shook his hand, the woman regarded him with a noncommittal smile. He turned to her. Tradecraft requires constant, often exhausting effort. You must maintain an expression of faint curiosity when meeting a person you’re familiar with only through surveillance. Lives have been lost because of a simple slip: ‘Ah, good to see you again,’ when in fact you’ve never met face to face.

Bond kept his eyes neutral as Hydt introduced her. ‘This is Jessica.’ He turned to her. ‘Gene Theron. We’re doing business together.’

The woman nodded and, though she held his eye, took his hand tentatively. It was a sign of insecurity, Bond concluded. Another indication of this was her handbag, which she kept over her shoulder and pinned tight between arm and ribcage.

Small-talk ensued, Bond reciting snippets from Jordaan’s lessons about the country, taking care to be accurate, assuming that Jessica might report their conversation to Hydt. In a low voice he offered that the South African government should busy itself with more important things than renaming Pretoria Tshwane. He was glad the trade union situation was calming. Yes, he enjoyed life on the east coast. The beaches near his home in Durban were particularly nice, especially now that the shark nets were up, though he’d never had any problems with the Great Whites, which occasionally took bites out of people. They talked then about wildlife. Jessica had visited the famed Kruger game reserve again recently and seen two adolescent elephants tear up trees and bushes. It had reminded her of the gangs in Somerville, Massachusetts, just north of Boston – teenagers vandalising public parks. Oh, yes, he’d thought her accent was American.

‘Have you ever been there, Mr Theron?’

‘Call me, Gene, please,’ Bond said, scrolling mentally through the biography written by Bheka Jordaan and I Branch. ‘No,’ he said. ‘But I hope to some day.’

Bond looked at Hydt. His body language had shifted; he was giving out signs of impatience. A glance at Jessica suggested he wished her to leave them. Bond thought of the abuse Bheka Jordaan had endured at the hands of her co-workers. This was different only in degree. A moment later the woman excused herself to ‘powder her nose’, an expression Bond had not heard in years. He thought it ironic that she used the term, considering that she probably wouldn’t be doing so.

When they were alone, Hydt said to him, ‘I’ve thought more about your proposal and I’d like to move forward.’

‘Good.’ They took refills of champagne from an attractive young Afrikaner woman. Bond said, ‘ Dankie ,’ and reminded himself not to overdo his act.

He and Hydt retired to a corner of the room, the older man waving to and shaking hands with people on the way. When the men were alone, beneath the mounted head of a gazelle or antelope, Hydt peppered Bond with questions about the number of graves, the acreage, the countries they were in, and how close the authorities were to discovering some of the killing fields. As Bond ad-libbed the answers, he couldn’t help but be impressed with the man’s thoroughness. It seemed he’d spent all afternoon thinking about the project. He was careful to remember what he told Hydt and made a mental note to write it down later so that he would be consistent in the future.

After fifteen minutes Bond said, ‘Now, there are things I would like to know. First, your operation here. I’d like to see it.’

‘I think you should.’

When he didn’t suggest a time, Bond said, ‘How about tomorrow?’

‘That might be difficult, with my big project on Friday.’

Bond nodded. ‘Some of my clients are eager to move forward. You are my first choice but if there’ll be delays I’ll have to…’

‘No, no. Please. Tomorrow will be fine.’

Bond began to probe more but just then the lights dimmed and a woman ascended the raised platform near where Hydt and Bond were standing. ‘Good evening,’ she called out, her low voice glazed with a South African accent. ‘Welcome, everyone. Thank you for coming to our event.’

She was the managing director of the organisation and Bond was amused by her name: Felicity Willing.

She wasn’t, to Bond’s eye, cover-girl beautiful, as was Philly Maidenstone. However, her face was intense, striking. Expertly made up, it exuded a feline quality. Her eyes were a deep green, like late summer leaves caught in the sun, and her hair dark blonde, pulled back severely and pinned up, accentuating the determined angles of her nose and chin. She wore a close-fitting navy-blue cocktail dress that was cut low at the front and lower still at the back. Her silver shoes sported thin straps and precarious heels. Faintly pink pearls shone at her throat and she wore one ring, also a pearl, on her right index finger. Her nails were short and uncoloured.

She scanned the audience with a penetrating, almost challenging gaze and said, ‘I must warn you all…’ Tension swelled. ‘At university I was known as Felicity Wilful- an appropriate name, as you’ll find out later when I make the rounds. I advise you all, for your own safety, to keep your chequebooks at the ready.’ A smile replaced the fierce visage.

As the laughter died down, Felicity began to talk about the problems of hunger. ‘Africa must import twenty-five per cent of its food… While the population has soared, crop yields today are no higher than they were in 1980… In places like the Central African Republic, nearly a third of all households are food insecure… In Africa iodine deficiency is the number-one cause of brain damage, vitamin A deficiency is the number-one cause of blindness… Nearly three hundred million people in Africa do not have enough to eat – that number equals the entire population of the United States…’

Africa, of course, was not alone in the need for food aid, she continued, and her organisation was attacking the plague on all fronts. Thanks to the generosity of donors, including many here, the group had recently expanded its charter from being a purely South African charity to an international one, opening offices in Jakarta, Port-au-Prince and Mumbai, with others planned.

And, she added, the biggest shipment of maize, sorghum, milk powder and other high-nutrient staples ever to arrive in Africa was soon to be delivered in Cape Town for distribution across the continent.

Felicity acknowledged the applause. Then her smile vanished and she gazed at the crowd with piercing eyes once more, speaking in a low, even menacing, voice about the need to make poorer countries independent of Western ‘agropolies’. She railed against the prevailing approach of America and Europe to end hunger: foreign-owned megafarms forcing their way into third-world nations and squeezing out the local farmers – the people who knew how to get the best yield from the land. Those enterprises were using Africa and other nations as laboratories to test untried methods and products, like synthetic fertilisers and genetically engineered seeds.

‘The vast majority of international agribusiness cares only about profit, not about relieving the suffering of the people. And this is simply not acceptable.’

Finally, having delivered her assault, Felicity smiled and singled out the donors, Hydt among them. He responded to the applause with a wave. He was smiling too, but his whisper to Bond told a different story: ‘If you want adulation, just give away money. The more desperate they are, the more they love you.’ He clearly didn’t want to be here.

Felicity stepped off the platform to circulate as the guests continued their silent bidding.

Bond said to Hydt, ‘I don’t know if you have plans but I was thinking we could go for some dinner. On me?’

‘I’m sorry, Theron, but I have to meet an associate who’s just arrived in town for that project I mentioned.’

Gehenna… Bond certainly wanted to meet whoever this man was. ‘I’d be happy to take everyone out, your associate too.’

‘Tonight’s no good, I’m afraid,’ Hydt said absently, pulling his iPhone out and scrolling through messages or missed calls. He glanced up and spotted Jessica standing by herself awkwardly in front of a table on which items were being offered for auction. When she looked at him he beckoned her over impatiently.

Bond tried to think of some other way to conjure an invitation but decided to back off before Hydt became suspicious. Seduction in tradecraft is like seduction in love; it works best if you make the object of your desire come to you. Nothing ruins your efforts faster than desperate pursuit.

‘Tomorrow then,’ Bond said, seemingly distracted and glancing at his own phone.

‘Yes – good.’ Hydt looked up. ‘Felicity!’

With a smile, the charity’s managing director detached herself from a fat, balding man in a dusty dinner jacket. He’d been gripping her hand for far longer than courtesy dictated. She joined Hydt, Jessica and Bond.

‘Severan. Jessica.’ They brushed cheeks.

‘And an associate, Gene Theron. He’s from Durban, in town for a few days.’

Felicity gripped Bond’s hand. He asked obvious questions about her organisation and the shipments of food arriving soon, hoping Hydt would change his mind about dinner.

But the man looked once more at his iPhone and said, ‘I’m afraid we have to be going.’

‘Severan,’ Felicity said, ‘I don’t think my remarks really conveyed our gratitude. You’ve introduced some important donors to us. I really can’t thank you enough.’

Bond took note of this. So she knew the names of some of Hydt’sassociates. He wondered how best to exploit this connection.

Hydt said, ‘I’m delighted to help. I’ve been lucky in life. I want to share that good fortune.’ He turned to Bond. ‘See you tomorrow, Theron. Around noon, if that’s convenient. Wear old clothes and shoes.’ He brushed his curly beard with an index finger whose nail reflected a streak of jaundiced light. ‘You’ll be taking a tour of hell.’

After Hydt and Jessica had left, Bond turned to Felicity Willing. ‘Those statistics were disturbing. I might be interested in helping.’ Standing close, he was aware of her perfume, a musky scent.

‘Might be interested?’ she asked.

He nodded.

Felicity kept a smile on her face but it didn’t reach her eyes. ‘Well, Mr Theron, for every donor who actually writes a cheque, two others say they’re “interested” but I never see a rand. I’d rather somebody told me up front they don’t want to give anything. Then I can get on with my business. Forgive me if I’m blunt, but I’m fighting a war here.’

‘And you don’t take prisoners.’

‘No,’ she said, smiling sincerely now. ‘I don’t.’

Felicity Wilful…

‘Then I’ll most certainly help,’ Bond said, wondering what A Branch would say when they encountered a donation on his expense account back in London. ‘I’m not sure I’m able to rise to Severan’s level of generosity.’

‘One rand donated is one rand closer to solving the problem,’ she said.

He paused a judicious moment, then said, ‘Just had a thought: Severan and Jessica couldn’t make it for dinner and I’m alone in town. Would you care to join me after the auction?’

Felicity considered this. ‘I don’t see why not. You look reasonably fit.’ And turned away, a lioness preparing to descend on a herd of gazelles.

43

At the conclusion of the event, which raised the equivalent of £30,000 – including a modest donation on the credit card of Gene Theron – Bond and Felicity Willing walked to the car park behind the Lodge Club.

They approached a large van, beside which were dozens of large cardboard cartons. She tugged up her hem, bent down, like a stevedore on a dock, and muscled a heavy box through the open side door of the vehicle.

The reference to his physical well-being was suddenly clear. ‘Let me,’ he said.

‘We’ll both do it.’

Together they began to transfer the cartons, which smelt of food. ‘Left-overs,’ he said.

‘Didn’t you think it was rather ironic that we were serving gourmet finger food at a campaign to raise money for the hungry?’ Felicity asked.

‘I did, yes.’

‘If I’d offered tinned biscuits and processed cheese, they’d have devoured the lot. But with fancier stuff – I extorted some three-star restaurants to donate it – they didn’t dare take more than a bite or two. I wanted to make sure there was plenty left over.’

‘Where are we delivering the excess?’

‘A food bank not far away. It’s one of the outlets my organisation works with.’

When they had finished loading, they got into the van. Felicity climbed into the driver’s seat and slipped off her shoes to drive barefoot. Then they sped into the night, bounding assertively over the uneven tarmac as she tormented the clutch and gearbox.

In fifteen minutes they were at the Cape Town Interdenominational Food Bank Centre. Her shoes back on, Felicity opened the side door and together they offloaded the scampi, crab cakes and Jamaican chicken, which the staff carried inside the shelter.

When the van was empty, Felicity gestured to a large man in khaki slacks and T-shirt. He seemed impervious to the May chill. He hesitated, then joined them, eyeing Bond curiously. Then he said, ‘Yes, Miss Willing? Thank you, Miss Willing. Lot of good food for everyone tonight. Did you see inside the shelter? It’s crowded.’

She ignored his questions, which to Bond had sounded like diversionary chatter. ‘Joso, last week a shipment disappeared. Fifty kilos. Who took it?’

‘I didn’t hear anything-’

‘I didn’t ask whether you heard anything. I asked who took it.’

His face was a mask, but then it sagged. ‘Why you asking me, Miss Willing? I didn’t do nothing.’

‘Joso, do you know how many people fifty kilos of rice will feed?’

‘I-’

‘Tell me. How many people.’ He towered over her but Felicity held her ground. Bond wondered if thiswas what she had meant with her assessment of his fitness – she had wanted someone to back her up. But her eyes revealed that, to her, Bond wasn’t even present. This was between Felicity and a transgressor who’d stolen food from those she’d pledged to protect, and she was entirely capable of taking him on alone. Her eyes reminded him of his when he confronted an enemy. ‘How many people?’ she repeated.

Miserably, he lapsed into Zulu or Xhosa.

‘No,’ she corrected. ‘It will feed more than that, many more.’

‘It was an accident,’ he protested. ‘I forgot to close the door. It was late. I was working-’

‘It was no accident. Someone saw you unlock the door before you left. Who has the rice?’

‘No, no you must believe me.’

‘Who?’ she persisted coolly.

He was defeated. ‘A man from the Flats. In a gang. Oh, please, Miss Willing, if you tell the SAPS, he’ll find out it was me. He’ll know I told you. He will come for me and he will come for my family.’

Her jaw tightened and Bond couldn’t dislodge the impression he’d had earlier, of a feline – now about to strike. There was no sympathy in her voice as she said, ‘I won’t go to the police. Not this time. But you’ll tell the director what you did. And he’ll decide whether to keep you on or not.’

‘This is my only job,’ he protested. ‘I have a family. My only job.’

‘Which you were happy to endanger,’ she responded. ‘Now, go and tell Reverend van Groot. And if he keeps you on and another theft occurs, I willtell the police.’

‘It will not happen again, Miss Willing.’ He turned and vanished inside.

Bond couldn’t help but be impressed with her cool, efficient handling of the incident. He noted too it made her all the more attractive.

She caught Bond’s eye and her face softened. ‘The war I’m fighting? Sometimes you’re never quite sure who the enemy is. They might even be on your side.’

How well do I know that? thought Bond.

They returned to the van. Felicity bent down to remove her shoes again but Bond said quickly, ‘I’ll drive. Save you unstrapping.’

She laughed. They got in and set off. ‘Dinner?’ she asked.

He almost felt guilty, after all he’d heard about hunger. ‘If you’re still up for it.’

‘Oh, I most certainly am.’

As they drove, Bond asked, ‘Would he really have been killed if you’d gone to the police?’

‘The SAPS would have laughed at the idea of investigating fifty kilos of stolen rice. But the Cape Flats aredangerous, that’s true, and if anyone there thought Joso betrayed them, he very likely would be killed. Let’s hope he’s learnt his lesson.’ Her voice grew cool again as she added, ‘Leniency can win you allies. It can also be a cobra.’

Felicity guided him back to Green Point. Since the restaurant she’d suggested was near the Table Mountain Hotel, he left the van there and they walked on. Several times, Bond noted, Felicity glanced behind her, her face alert, shoulders tensed. The road was deserted. What did she feel threatened by?

She relaxed once they were in the front lobby of the restaurant, which was decorated with tapestry, the fixtures dark wood and brass. The large windows overlooked the water, which danced with lights. Much of the illumination inside came from hundreds of cream-coloured candles. As they were escorted to the table, Bond noticed that her clinging dress glistened in the light and seemed to change colour with every step, from navy to azure to cerulean. Her skin glowed.

The waiter greeted her by name, then smiled at Bond. She ordered a Cosmopolitan, and Bond, in the mood for a cocktail, ordered the drink he had had with Philly Maidenstone. ‘Crown Royal whisky, a double, on ice. Half a measure of triple sec, two dashes of Angostura. Twist of orange peel, not a slice.’

When the waiter left, Felicity said, ‘I’ve never heard of that before.’

‘My own invention.’

‘Have you named it?’

Bond smiled to himself, recalling that the waiter at Antoine’s in London had wondered about the drink too. ‘Not yet.’ He had a flash of inspiration from his conversation with M several days earlier. ‘Though I think I will now. I’ll call it the Carte Blanche. In your honour.’

‘Why?’ she asked, her narrow brow furrowed.

‘Because if your donors drink enough of them, they’ll give you complete freedom to take their money.’

She laughed and squeezed his arm, then picked up the menu.

Sitting closer to her now, Bond could see how expertly she’d applied her make-up, accentuating the feline eyes and the thrust of her cheeks and jaw. A thought came to him. Philly Maidenstone was perhaps more classically attractive, but hers was a passive beauty. Felicity’s was far more assertive, forceful.

He upbraided himself for dwelling on the comparison, reached for the menu and began to study it. Scanning the extensive card he learnt that the restaurant, Celsius, was famed for its special grill, which reached 950 degrees centigrade.

Felicity said, ‘You order for us. Anything to start but I must have a steak for my main course. There’s nothing like the grilled meat at Celsius. My God, Gene, you’re not a vegan, are you?’

‘Hardly.’

When the waiter arrived Bond ordered fresh grilled sardines to be followed by a large rib-eye steak for two. He asked if the chef could grill it with the bone in – known in America as the ‘cowboy cut’.

The waiter mentioned that the steaks were typically served with exotic sauces: Argentinian Chimichurri, Indonesian Coffee, Madagascan Peppercorn, Spanish Madeira or Peruvian Anticuchos. But Bond declined them all. He believed that steaks had flavour enough of their own and should be eaten with only salt and pepper.

Felicity nodded that she was in agreement.

Bond then selected a bottle of South African red wine, the Rustenberg Peter Barlow Cabernet 2005.

The wine came and was as good as he’d expected. They clinked glasses and sipped.

The waiter brought the first course and they ate. Bond, deprived of his lunch by Gregory Lamb, was starving.

‘What do you do for a living, Gene? Severan didn’t say.’

‘Security work.’

‘Ah.’ A faint chill descended. Felicity was obviously a tough, worldly businesswoman and recognised the euphemism. She would guess he was in some way involved with the many conflicts in Africa. War, she’d said during her speech, was one of the main causes for the plague of hunger.

He said, ‘I have companies that install security systems and provide guards.’

She seemed to believe this was at least partly true. ‘I was born in South Africa and have been living here now for four or five years. I’ve seen it change. Crime is less of a problem than it used to be, but security staff are still needed. We have a number of them at the organisation. We must. Charitable work doesn’t exempt us from risk.’ She added darkly, ‘I’m happy to give food away. I won’t have it stolen from me.’

To divert her from asking more questions about him Bond enquired about her life.

She’d grown up in the bush, in the Western Cape, the only child of English parents, her father a mining company executive. The family had moved back to London when she was thirteen. She was an outsider at boarding school, she confessed. ‘I might have fitted in a bit better if I’d kept my mouth shut about how to field-dress gazelles – especially in the dining hall.’

Then it had been the London Business School and a stint at a major City investment bank, where she’d done ‘all right’; her dismissive modesty suggested she’d done extremely well.

But the work had proved ultimately unsatisfying. ‘It was too easy for me, Gene. There was no challenge. I needed a steeper mountain. Well, four or five years ago I decided to reassess my life. I took a month off and spent some time back here. I saw how pervasive hunger was. And I decided to do something about it. Everybody told me not to bother. It was impossible to make a difference. Well, that was like waving a red flag at a bull.’

‘Felicity Wilful.’

She smiled. ‘So, here I am, bullying donors to give us money and taking on the American and European megafarms.’

‘“Agropoly”. Clever term.’

‘I coined it,’ she said, then burst out, ‘They’re destroying the continent. I’m not going to let them get away with it.’

The serious discussion was cut short when the waiter appeared with the steak sizzling on an iron platter. It was charred on the outside and succulent within. They ate in silence for a time. At one point he sliced off a crusty piece of meat, but took a sip of wine before he put it into his mouth. When he returned to his plate the morsel was gone and Felicity was chewing mischievously. ‘Sorry. I tend to go after things that appeal to me.’

Bond laughed. ‘Very clever, stealing from under the nose of a security expert.’ He waved to the sommelier, and a second bottle of the cabernet appeared. Bond steered the conversation to Severan Hydt.

He was disappointed to find that she didn’t seem to know much about the man that might be helpful to his mission. She mentioned the names of several of his partners who’d donated money to her group and he memorised them. She had not met Niall Dunne but she knew Hydt had some brilliant assistant who performed all sorts of technical wizardry. She lifted an eyebrow and said, ‘I just realised – you’re the one he uses.’

‘Sorry?’

‘For his security at the Green Way operation north of town. I’ve never been but one of my assistants collected a donation from him. All those metal detectors and scanners. You can’t get inside the place with a paperclip, let alone a mobile phone. You have to check everything at the door. Like in those old American westerns – you leave your guns outside when you go into the bar.’

‘He awarded that contract to somebody else. I do other jobs.’ This intelligence worried Bond; he’d intended to get into the Green Way building with far more than a paperclip and a mobile phone, despite Bheka Jordaan’s disdain for illegal surveillance. He’d have to consider the implications.

The meal wound down and they finished the wine. They were the last patrons in the restaurant. Bond called for the bill and settled it. ‘The second of my donations,’ he said.

They returned to the entrance, where he collected her black cashmere coat and draped it over her shoulders. They started down the pavement, the narrow heels of her shoes tapping on the concrete. Again she surveyed the streets. Then, relaxing, she took his arm and held it tightly. He was keenly aware of her perfume and of the occasional pressure of her breast against his arm.

They approached his hotel, Bond fishing the van key from his pocket. Felicity slowed. The night sky was clear above them, encrusted with a plenitude of stars.

‘A very nice evening,’ Felicity said. ‘And thank you for your help in delivering the leftovers. You’re even fitter than I thought.’

Bond found himself asking, ‘Another glass of wine?’

The green eyes were looking up and into his own. ‘Would youlike one?’

‘Yes,’ he said firmly.

In ten minutes they were in his room in the Table Mountain Hotel sitting on the sofa, which they had turned and slid close to the window. Glasses of a Stellenbosch pinotage were in their hands.

They looked out over the flickering lights in the bay, muted yellow and white, like benign insects hovering in anticipation.

Felicity turned to him, perhaps to say something, perhaps not, and he bent forward and pressed his lips gently to hers. Then he eased back a little, gauging her reaction, and moved forward and kissed her again, harder, losing himself in the contact, the taste, the heat. Her breath on his cheek, Felicity’s arms snaked around his shoulders as her mouth held his. Then she kissed his neck and teasingly bit the base where it met his firm shoulder. Her tongue slid along a scar that arced down to his upper arm.

Bond’s fingers slipped up her neck into her hair and pulled her closer. He was lost in the pungent musk of her perfume.

A parallel to this moment is skiing: when you pause on the ridge atop a beautiful but perilous downhill run. You have a choice to go or not. You can always snap free the bindings and walk down the mountain. But in fact, for Bond, there never was such a choice; once on the edge, it was impossible not to give in to the seduction of gravity and speed. The only true choice left is how to control the accelerating descent.

The same now, here.

Bond whisked her dress off, the insubstantial blue cloth spilling leisurely to the floor. Felicity then eased back, pulling him with her, until they were lying on the couch, she beneath him. She began tugging at his lower lip with her teeth. He cupped her neck again and pulled her face to his, while her hands rested on the small of his back, kneading hard. Felicity shuddered and inhaled sharply and he understood that, for whatever reason, she liked touching him there. He knew too that she wanted his hands to curl firmly behind her waist. Such is the way lovers communicate, and he would remember that place, the delicate bones of her spine.

For his part, Bond found rapture throughout her body, all its aspects: her hungry lips, her strong, flawless thighs, breasts encased in taut black silk, her delicate neck and throat, from which a whispered moan issued, the dense hair framing her face, the softer strands elsewhere.

They kissed endlessly and then she broke away and locked onto his fierce eyes with her own, whose lids, dusted with faint green luminescence, halfway lowered. Mutual surrender, mutual victory.

Bond lifted her easily. Their lips met once more, briefly, and he carried her to the bed.