He awoke with a start from a nightmare he could not remember. Curiously James Bond’s first thought was of Philly Maidenstone. He felt – absurdly – that he’d been unfaithful, yet his most intimate contact with her had been a brief brush of cheeks that had lasted half a second.
He rolled over. The other side of the bed was empty. He looked at the clock. It was half past seven. He could smell Felicity’s perfume on the sheets and pillows.
The previous evening had begun as an exercise in learning about his enemy and his enemy’s purpose but had become something more. He had felt a strong empathy with Felicity Willing, a tough woman who’d conquered the City and was now turning her resources to a nobler battle. He reflected that, in their own ways, they were both knights errant.
And he wanted to see her again.
But first things first. He got out of bed and pulled on a towelling dressing-gown. He hesitated for a moment then told himself: has to be done.
He went to his laptop in the suite’s living area. The device had been modified by Q Branch to incorporate a motion-activated, low-light camera. Bond booted up the machine and looked over the replay. It had been pointed only at the front door and the chair, where Bond had tossed his jacket and trousers, containing his wallet, passport and mobile. At around five thirty a.m., according to the time stamp, Felicity, dressed, had walked past his clothing, showing no interest in his phone, pockets or the laptop. She paused and looked back towards the bed. With a smile? He believed so but couldn’t be sure. She put something on the table by the door and let herself out.
He stood up and strode to the table. Her business card lay next to a lamp. She had penned a mobile number underneath her organisation’s main phone line. He slipped the card into his wallet.
He cleaned his teeth, showered and shaved, then dressed in blue jeans and a loose black Lacoste shirt, chosen to conceal his Walther. Laughing to himself, he donned the gaudy bracelet and watch and slipped on his finger the initial ring, EJT.
Checking his texts and emails, he found one from Percy Osborne-Smith. The man was staying true to his reformed ways and gave a succinct update on the investigation in Britain, though little headway had been made. He concluded:
Our friends in Whitehall are positively obsessed with Afghanistan. I say, all the better for us, James. Looking forward to sharing a George Cross with you, when we see Hydt in shackles.
While he had breakfast in his room, he considered his impending trip to Hydt’s Green Way plant, thinking back to last night, to all he’d seen and heard, especially about the super-tight security. When he finished, he called Q Branch and got through to Sanu Hirani. He could hear children’s voices in the background and supposed he had been patched through to the branch director’s mobile at home. Hirani had six children. They all played cricket, and his eldest daughter was a star batswoman.
Bond told him of his communications and weapons needs. Hirani had some ideas but was uncertain that he could come up quickly with a solution. ‘What’s your time frame, James?’
‘Two hours.’
There followed a thoughtful exhalation from down the line seven thousand miles away. Then: ‘I’ll need a cut-out in Cape Town. Somebody with knowledge of the area and top clearance. Oh, and a solid NOC. Do you know anybody who fits the bill?’
‘I’m afraid I do.’
At ten thirty a.m. Bond, in a grey windcheater, made his way to the central police station and was escorted to the Crime Combating and Investigation Division office.
‘Morning, Commander,’ Kwalene Nkosi said, smiling.
‘Warrant Officer.’ Bond nodded. Their eyes met conspiratorially.
‘You see the news this morning?’ Nkosi asked, tapping the Cape Times. ‘Tragic story. A family was killed in a firebombing in Primrose Gardens township last night.’ He frowned rather obviously.
‘How terrible,’ Bond said, reflecting that, despite his West End ambitions, Nkosi was not a very good actor.
‘Without doubt.’
He glanced into Bheka Jordaan’s office and she waved him inside. ‘Morning,’ he said, spotting a pair of well-worn trainers in the corner of the office. He hadn’t noticed them yesterday. ‘You run much?’
‘Now and then. It’s important to stay in shape for my job.’
When he was in London, Bond spent at least an hour a day exercising and running, using the ODG’s gym and jogging along the paths in Regent’s Park. ‘I enjoy it too. Maybe if time permits you could show me some running trails. There must be some beautiful ones in town.’
‘I’m sure the hotel will have a map,’ she said dismissively. ‘Was your meeting at the Lodge Club successful?’
Bond gave her a rundown of what had happened at the fundraiser.
Jordaan then asked, ‘And afterwards? Ms Willing proved… useful to you?’
Bond lifted an eyebrow. ‘I thought you didn’t believe in unlawful surveillance.’
‘Making certain someone is safe on the public sidewalks and streets is hardly illegal. Warrant Officer Nkosi told you of our CCTV cameras in the centre of town.’
‘Well, in answer to your question, yes, she washelpful. She gave me some information about the enhanced security at Green Way.’ He added stiffly, ‘I was lucky she did. No one else seemed to be aware of it. Otherwise my trip there today might have been disastrous.’
‘That’s fortunate, then,’ Jordaan said.
Bond told her the names of the three donors Felicity had mentioned last night – the men Hydt had introduced her to.
Jordaan knew of two as successful legitimate businessmen. Nkosi conducted a search and learnt that neither they nor the third had any criminal record. In any event, all three were out of town. Bond assessed they would not be of any immediate help.
Bond was looking at the policewoman. ‘You don’t like Felicity Willing?’
‘You think I’m jealous?’ Her face said: just what a man would believe.
Nkosi turned away. Bond glanced toward him but he was offering no allegiance to Britain in this international dispute.
‘That idea couldn’t have been further from my mind. Your eyes told me you don’t like her. Why?’
‘I’ve never met her. She’s probably a perfectly nice woman – I don’t like what she represents.’
‘Which is?’
‘A foreigner who comes here to pat us on the head and dispense alms. It’s twenty-first-century imperialism. People used to exploit Africa for diamonds and slaves. Now it’s exploited for its ability to purge the guilt of wealthy Westerners.’
‘It seems to me,’ Bond said evenly, ‘that no one can progress when they’re hungry. It doesn’t matter where the food comes from, does it?’
‘Charity undermines. You need to fight your way out of oppression and deprivation. We can do it ourselves. Perhaps more slowly but we will do it.’
‘You have no problem when Britain or America imposes arms embargoes on warlords. Hunger’s as dangerous as rocket-propelled grenades and land mines. Why shouldn’t we help stop that too?’
‘It’s different. Obviously.’
‘I don’t see how,’ he said coolly. ‘Besides, Felicity might be more on your side than you give her credit for. She’s made some enemies among the big corporations in Europe, America and Asia. She thinks they’re meddling in African affairs and that more should be left to the people here.’ He remembered her ill ease on the short walk to the restaurant last night. ‘My take is that she’s put herself at quite some risk saying so. If you’re interested.’
But Jordaan clearly wasn’t. How completelyirritating this woman was.
Bond looked at his huge Breitling watch. ‘I should leave for Green Way soon. I need a car. Can someone arrange a hire in Theron’s name?’
Nkosi nodded enthusiastically. ‘Without doubt. You like to drive, Commander.’
‘I do,’ Bond said. ‘How did you know?’
‘On the way from the airport yesterday you looked with some interest at a Maserati, a Moto Guzzi and a left-hand-drive Mustang from America.’
‘You notice things, Warrant Officer.’
‘I try to. That Ford – it was a very nice set of wheels. Some day I will own a Jaguar. It is my goal.’
Then a loud voice was calling a greeting from the corridor. ‘Hallo, hallo!’
Bond wasn’t surprised it belonged to Gregory Lamb. The MI6 agent strode into the office, waving to everyone. It was obvious that Bheka Jordaan didn’t care for him, as Lamb had admitted yesterday, though he and Nkosi seemed to get on well. They had a brief conversation about a recent football match.
Casting a cautious glance at Jordaan, the big, ruddy man turned to Bond. ‘Came through for you, my friend. Got a signal from Vauxhall Cross to help you out.’
Lamb was the cut-out whom Bond had reluctantly mentioned to Hirani earlier that morning. He couldn’t think of anybody else to use on such short notice and at least the man had been vetted.
‘Leapt into the fray, even missed breakfast, my friend, I’ll have you know. Talked to that chap in your office’s Q Branch. Is he always so bloody cheerful that early in the morning?’
‘Actually he is,’ said Bond.
‘Got talking to him. I’m having some navigation problems on my ship charters. Pirates’ve been jamming signals. Whatever happened to the eye patches and peg legs, hmm? Well, this Hirani says there are devices that will jam the jammers. He wouldn’t ship me any, though. Any chance you could put in a word?’
‘You know our outfit doesn’t officially exist, Lamb.’
‘We’re all part of the same team,’ he said huffily. ‘I’ve got a huge charter coming up in a day or so. Massive.’
Helping Lamb’s lucrative cover career was the last thing on Bond’s mind at the moment. He asked sternly, ‘And your assignment today?’
‘Ah, yes.’ Lamb handed Bond the black satchel he was carrying as if it contained the Crown Jewels. ‘Must say in all modesty the morning’s been a smashing success. Positively brilliant. I’ve been running hither and yon. Had to tip rather heavily. You’ll reimburse me, of course?’
‘I’m sure it’ll get sorted.’ Bond opened the satchel and regarded the contents. He examined one item closely. It was a small plastic tube labelled, ‘Re-Leef. For Congestion Problems Caused by Asthma’.
Hirani was a genius.
‘An inhaler. You have lung problems?’ Nkosi asked. ‘My brother too. He is a gold miner.’
‘Not really.’ Bond pocketed it, along with the other items Lamb had delivered.
Nkosi took a call. When he hung up he said, ‘I have a nice car for you, Commander. Subaru. All-wheel drive.’
A Subaru, thought Bond, sceptical. A suburban estate wagon. But Nkosi was beaming so he said graciously, ‘Thank you, Warrant Officer. I’ll look forward to driving it.’
‘The petrol mileage is very good,’ Nkosi said enthusiastically.
‘I’m sure it is.’ He started out of the door.
Gregory Lamb stopped him. ‘Bond,’ he said softly. ‘Sometimes I’m not sure the powers that be in London take me all that seriously. I was exaggerating a bit yesterday – about the Cape, I mean. Fact is, the worst that happens down here is a warlord coming in from Congo to take the waters. Or a Hamas chap in transit at the airport. Just want to thank you for including me, my friend. I-’
Bond interrupted, ‘You’re welcome, Lamb. But how’s this: let’s just assume I’m your friend. Then you won’t have to keep repeating it. How’s that?’
‘Fair enough, my… fair enough.’ A grin spread over the fat face.
Then Bond was out the door, thinking: next stop, hell.
James Bond enjoyed Kwalene Nkosi’s little joke.
Yes, the car he’d procured for the agent’s use was a small Japanese import. It wasn’t, however, a staid family saloon but a metallic blue Subaru Impreza WRX, the STI model, which boasted a turbocharged 305-horsepower engine, six gears and a high spoiler. The jaunty little vehicle would be far more at home on rally courses than in some Asda car park and, settling into the driver’s seat, Bond couldn’t restrain himself. He laid twin streaks of rubber as he sped up Buitenkant Street, heading for the motorway.
For the next half-hour he made his way north of Cape Town proper, guided by sat-nav, and finally skidded the taut little Subaru off the N7 and proceeded east along an increasingly deserted road, past a vast bottomless quarry and then into a grubby landscape of low hills, some green, some brown with autumn tint. Sporadic stands of trees broke the monotony.
The May sky was overcast and the air was humid but dust rose from the road, churned up by the Green Way lorries carting their refuse in the direction Bond was going. In addition to the typical dustcarts, there were much larger ones, painted with the Green Way name and distinctive green leaf – or dagger – logo. Signs on the sides indicated that they came from company operations throughout South Africa. Bond was surprised to see one lorry was from a branch in Pretoria, the administrative capital of the country, many miles away – why would Hydt go to the expense of bringing rubbish to Cape Town when he could open a recycling depot where it was needed?
Bond changed down and blew past a series of the lorries at speed. He was enjoying this sprightly vehicle very much. He’d have to tell Philly Maidenstone about it.
A large road sign, stark in black and white, flashed past.
Gevaar!!!
Danger!!!
Privaat Eiendom
Private Property
He’d been off the N7 for several miles when the road divided, with the lorries going to the right. Bond steered down the left fork, with an arrowed sign:
Hoofkantoor
Main Office
Motoring fast through a dense grove of trees – they were tall but looked recently planted – he came to a rise and shot over it, ignoring the posted limit of forty k.p.h., and braked hard as Green Way International loomed. The rapid stop wasn’t because of obstruction or a sharp curve but the unnerving sight that greeted him.
An endless expanse of the waste facility filled his view and disappeared into a smoky, dusty haze in the distance. The orange fires of some burn-off operation could been seen from at least a mile away.
Hell indeed.
In front of him, beyond a crowded car park, was the headquarters building. It was eerie, too, in its own way. Though not large, the structure was stark and bleakly imposing. The unpainted concrete bunker, one storey high, had only a few windows, small ones – sealed, it seemed. The entire grounds were enclosed by two ten-foot metal fences, both topped with wicked razor wire, which glinted even in the muted light. The barriers were thirty feet apart, reminding Bond of a similar perimeter: the shoot-to-kill zone surrounding the North Korean prison from which he’d successfully rescued a local MI6 asset last year.
Bond scowled at the fences. One of his plans was ruined. He knew from what Felicity had told him that there’d be metal detectors and scanners and, most likely, an imposing security fence. But he’d assumed a single barrier. He’d planned to slip some of the equipment Hirani had provided – a weatherproof miniature communications device and weapon – through the fence into grass or bushes on the other side for him to retrieve once he had entered. That wasn’t going to work with two fences and a great distance between them.
As he drove forward again, he saw that the entrance was barred by a thick steel gate, on top of which was a sign.
R EDUCE, R EUSE, R ECYCLE
The Green Way anthem chilled Bond. Not the words themselves but the configuration: a crescent of stark black metal letters. It reminded him of the sign over the entrance to the Nazi death camp Auschwitz, the horrifically ironic assurance that work would set the prisoners free: Arbeit Macht Frei.
Bond parked. He climbed out, keeping his Walther and mobile with him so that he could find out how effective the security really was. He also had in his pocket the asthma inhaler Hirani had provided; he had hidden under the front seat the other items Lamb had delivered that morning: the weapon and com device.
He approached the first guardhouse at the outer fence. A large man in uniform greeted him with a reserved nod. Bond gave his cover name. The man made a call and a moment later an equally large, equally stern fellow in a dark business suit came up and said, ‘Mr Theron, this way, please.’
Bond followed him through the no man’s land between the two fences. They entered a room where three armed guards sat about, watching a football match. They stood up immediately.
The security man turned to Bond. ‘Now, Mr Theron, we have very strict rules here. Mr Hydt and his associates do most of the research and development work for his companies on these premises. We must guard our trade secrets carefully. We don’t allow any mobiles or radios of any kind in with you. No cameras or pagers either. You’ll have to hand them in.’
Bond was looking at a large rack, like the cubbyholes for keys behind the front desk in old-fashioned hotels. There were hundreds and most of them had phones in them. The guard noticed. ‘The rule applies to all our employees too.’
Bond recalled that René Mathis had told him the same thing about Hydt’s London operation – that there was virtually no SIGINT going into or coming out of the company. ‘Well, you have landlines I can use, I assume. I’ll have to check my messages.’
‘There are some, but all the lines go through a central switchboard in the security department. A guard could make the call for you but you wouldn’t have any privacy. Most visitors wait until after they leave. The same is true for email and Internet access. If you wish to keep anything metal on you, we’ll have to X-ray it.’
‘I should tell you I’m armed.’
‘Yes.’ As if many people coming to visit Green Way were. ‘Of course-’
‘I’ll have to hand in my weapon too?’
‘That’s right.’
Bond silently thanked Felicity Willing for filling him in on Hydt’s security. Otherwise he would have been caught with one of Q Branch’s standard-issue video or still surveillance cameras in a pen or jacket button, which would have shattered his credibility… and probably led to a full-on fight.
Playing the tough mercenary, he scoffed at the inconvenience, but handed over his gun and phone, programmed to reveal only information about his Gene Theron cover identity, should anyone try to crack it. Then he stripped off his belt and watch, placed them and his keys in a tray for the X-ray.
He strode through quickly and was reunited with his possessions – after the guard had checked that the watch, keys and belt held no cameras, weapons or recording devices.
‘Wait here, please, sir,’ the security man said. Bond sat where indicated.
The inhaler was still in his pocket. If they had frisked him, found and dismantled the device, they would have discovered it was in fact a sensitive camera, constructed without a single metal part. One of Sanu Hirani’s contacts in Cape Town had managed to find or assemble the device that morning. The shutter was carbon fibre, as were the springs operating it.
The image-storage medium was quite interesting – unique nowadays: old-fashioned microfilm, the sort spies had used during the Cold War. The camera had a fixed-focus lens and Bond could snap a picture by pressing the base, then twisting it to advance the film. It could take thirty pictures. In this digital age, the cobwebbed past occasionally offered an advantage.
Bond looked for a sign to Research and Development, which he knew from Stephan Dlamini contained at least some information about Gehenna, but there was none. He sat for five minutes before Severan Hydt appeared, in silhouette but unmistakable: the tall stature, the massive head framed with curly hair and beard, the well-tailored suit. He paused, looming, in the doorway. ‘Theron.’ His black eyes bored into Bond’s.
They shook hands and Bond tried to ignore the grotesque sensation he experienced as Hydt’s long nails slid across his palm and wrist.
‘Come with me,’ Hydt said and led him into the main office building, which was much less austere than the outside suggested. Indeed, the place was rather nicely appointed, with expensive furniture, art, antiques, and comfortable work spaces for the staff. It seemed like a typical medium-sized company. The front lobby was furnished with the obligatory sofa and chairs, a table with trade magazines and a Cape Town newspaper. On the walls there were pictures of forests, rolling fields of grain and flowers, streams and oceans.
And everywhere, that eerie logo – the leaf that looked like a knife.
As they walked along the corridors, Bond kept an eye open for the Research and Development department. Finally, towards the rear of the building, he saw a sign pointing to it and he memorised the location.
But Hydt turned the other way. ‘Come along. We’re going for the fifty-rand tour.’
At the back of the building Bond was handed a dark-green hard hat. Hydt donned one too. They walked to a rear door, where Bond was surprised to see a second security post. Curiously, workers coming intothe building from the rubbish yard were checked. Hydt and he stepped outside on to a patio overlooking scores of low buildings. Lorries and forklift trucks moved in and out of each one like bees at a hive. Workers in hard hats and uniforms were everywhere.
The sheds, in neat rows like barracks, reminded Bond again of a prison or concentration camp.
ARBEIT MACHT FREI…
‘This way,’ Hydt called loudly, striding through a landscape cluttered with earth-moving equipment, skips, oil drums, pallets holding bales of paper and cardboard. Low rumblings filled the air, and the ground seemed to quiver, as if huge underground furnaces or machines were at work, a counterpoint to the high-pitched shrieks of the seagulls that swooped in to pick up scraps in the wake of the lorries entering through a gate a quarter-mile to the east. ‘I’ll give you a brief lesson in the business,’ he offered.
Bond nodded. ‘Please.’
‘There are four ways to rid ourselves of discard. Dump it somewhere out of the way – in tips or landfill now mostly, but the ocean’s still popular. Did you know that the Pacific has four times as much plastic in it as zooplankton? The biggest rubbish tip in the world is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, circulating between Japan and North America. It’s at least twice the size of Texas and could be as big as the entire United States. Nobody actually knows. But one thing iscertain: it’s getting bigger.
‘The second way is to burn discard, which is very expensive and can produce dangerous ash. Third, you can recycle it – that’s Green Way’s area of expertise. Finally, there’s minimising, which means making sure that fewer disposable materials are created and sold. You’re familiar with plastic water bottles?’
‘Of course.’
‘They’re a lot thinner now than they used to be.’
Bond took his word for it.
‘It’s called “lightweighting”. Much easier to compact. You see, generally the products themselves aren’t the problem when it comes to discard. It’s packagingthat causes most of the volume. Discard was easily handled until we shifted to a consumer manufacturing society and started to mass-produce goods. How to get the products into the hands of the people? Encase it in polystyrene foam, put that in a cardboard box and then, for God’s sake, put thatin a plastic carrier bag to take home with you. Ah, and if it’s a present, let’s wrap it up in coloured paper and ribbon! Christmas is an absolute hurricane of discard.’
Standing tall, looking over his empire, Hydt continued, ‘Most waste plants extend over fifty to seventy-five acres. Ours here is a hundred. I have three others in South Africa and dozens of transfer stations, where the carters – the lorries you see on the streets – take all the discard for compacting and shipment to treatment depots. I was the first to set up transfer stations in the South African squatters’ camps. In six months the countryside was sixty to seventy per cent cleaner. Plastic carrier bags used to be called “South Africa’s national flower”. Not any more. I’ve dealt with that.’
‘I saw the lorries bringing rubbish from Pretoria and Port Elizabeth to the yard here. Why from so far away?’
‘Specialised material,’ Hydt said dismissively.
Were those substances particularly dangerous? Bond wondered.
His host continued, ‘But you must get your vocabulary right, Theron. We call wet discard “garbage” – left-over food, for instance. “Trash” means dry materials, like cardboard and dust and tins. What the bin collectors pick up from in front of homes and offices is “municipal solid waste”, or “MSW”. That’s also called “refuse” or “rubbish”. “C and D” is construction and demolition debris. Institutional, commercial and industrial waste is “ICI”. The most inclusive term is “waste” but I prefer “discard”.’
He pointed east to the rear of the plant. ‘Everything that’s not recyclable goes there, to the working face of the landfill, where it’s buried in layers of plastic lining to keep bacteria and pollution from leaching into the ground. You can spot it by looking for the birds.’
Bond followed his gaze towards the swooping gulls.
‘We call the landfill “Disappearance Row”.’
Hydt led Bond to the doorway of a long building. Unlike the other work sheds here, this one had imposing doors, which were sealed. Bond peered through the windows. Workers were disassembling computers, hard drives, TVs, radios, pagers, mobile phones and printers. There were bins overflowing with batteries, light bulbs, computer hard drives, printed circuit boards, wires and chips. The staff were wearing more protective clothing than any other employees – respirators, heavy gloves and goggles or full face masks.
‘Our e-waste department. We call this area “Silicon Row”. E-waste accounts for more than ten per cent of the deadly substances on earth. Heavy metals, lithium from batteries. Take computers and mobiles. They have a life expectancy of two or three years at most, so people just throw them out. Have you ever read the warning booklet that comes with your laptop or phone, “Dispose of properly”?’
‘Not really.’
‘Of course not. No one does. But pound for pound computers and phones are the most deadly waste on earth. In China, they just bury or burn them. They’re killing their population by doing that. I’m starting a new operation to address this situation – separating the components of computers at my clients’ companies and then disposing of them properly.’ He smiled. ‘In a few years that will be my most lucrative operation.’
Bond recalled the device he’d seen demonstrated at al-Fulan’s, the one near to the compactor that had taken Yusuf Nasad’s life.
Hydt pointed, with a long, yellow fingernail. ‘And at the back of this building there is the Dangerous-materials Recovery department. One of our biggest money-making services. We handle everything from paint to motor oil to arsenic to polonium.’
‘Polonium?’ Bond gave a cool laugh. This was the radioactive material that had been used to kill the Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko, an expatriate in London, a few years ago. It was one of the most toxic substances on earth. ‘It’s just thrown out? That has to be illegal.’
‘Ah, but that’s the thing about discard, Theron. People throw away an innocent-looking anti-static machine… that just happens to contain polonium. But nobody knows that.’
He led Bond past a car park where several lorries stood, each about twenty feet long. On the side was the company name and logo, along with the words Secure Document Destruction Services.
Hydt followed Bond’s gaze and said, ‘Another of our specialities. We lease shredders to companies and government offices, but smaller outfits would rather hire us to do it for them. Did you know that when the Iranian students took over the American embassy in the 1970s, they were able to reassemble classified CIA documents that had been shredded? They learnt the identities of most of the covert agents there. Local weavers did the work.’
Everyone in the intelligence community knew this but Bond feigned surprise.
‘At Green Way we perform DIN industrial-standard level-six shredding. Basically our machines turn the documents to dust. Even the most secret government installations hire us.’
He then led Bond to the largest building on the plant, three storeys high and two hundred yards long. A continuous string of lorries rolled in through one door and came out through another. ‘The main recycling facility. We call thisarea “Resurrection Row”.’
They stepped inside. Three huge devices were being fed an endless stream of paper, cardboard, plastic bottles, polystyrene, scrap metal, wood and hundreds of other items. ‘The sorters,’ Hydt shouted. The noise was deafening. At the far end the separated materials were being packed into lorries for onward shipment – tins, glass, plastic, paper and other materials.
‘Recycling’s a curious business,’ Hydt yelled. ‘Only a few products – metals and glass mostly – can be recycled indefinitely. Everything else breaks down after a while and has to be burnt or go to landfill. Aluminium’s the only consistently profitable recyclable. Most products are far cheaper, cleaner and easier to make from raw materials than recycled ones. The extra lorries for transporting recycling materials and the recycling process itself add to fossil fuel pollution. And remanufacturing uses morepower than the initial production, which is a drain on resources.’
He laughed. ‘But it’s politically correct to recycle… so people come to me.’
Bond followed his tour guide outside and noticed Niall Dunne approaching on his long legs, his gait clumsy and feet turned outward. The fringe of blond hair hung down above his blue eyes, which were as still as pebbles. Putting aside the memory of Dunne’s cruel treatment of the men in Serbia and his murder of al-Fulan’s assistant in Dubai, Bond smiled amiably and shook his wide hand.
‘Theron.’ Dunne nodded, his own visage not particularly welcoming. He looked at Hydt. ‘We should go.’ He seemed impatient.
Hydt motioned for Bond to get into a nearby Range Rover. He did so, sitting in the front passenger seat. He was aware of a sense of anticipation in the two men, as if some plan had been made and was now about to unfurl. His sixth sense told him something had perhaps gone awry. Had they discovered his identity? Had he given something away?
As the other men climbed in, with the unsmiling Dunne taking the driver’s seat, Bond reflected that if ever there was a place to dispose of a body clandestinely, this was it.
Disappearance Row…
The Range Rover bounded east along a wide dirt road, passing squat lorries with massive ribbed wheels, carrying bales or containers of refuse. It passed a wide chasm, at least eighty feet deep.
Bond looked down. The lorries were dropping their loads, and bulldozers were compacting them against the face of the landfill site. The bottom of the pit was lined with thick dark sheets. Hydt had been right about the seagulls. They were everywhere, thousands of them. The sheer number, the screams, the frenzy were unsettling and Bond felt a shiver trickle up his spine.
As they drove on, Hydt pointed to the flames Bond had seen earlier. Here, much closer, they were giant spheres of fire – he could feel their heat. ‘The landfill produces methane,’ he said. ‘We drill down and extract it to power the generators, though there’s usually too much gas and we have to burn some off. If we didn’t, the entire landfill site could blow up. That happened in America not too long ago. Hundreds of people were injured.’
After fifteen minutes, they passed through a dense row of trees and a gate. Bond barked an involuntary laugh. The wasteland of the rubbish tips had vanished. Surrounding them now was an astonishingly beautiful scene: trees, flowers, rock formations, paths, ponds, forest. The meticulously landscaped grounds extended for several miles.
‘We call it Elysian Fields. Paradise… after our time in hell. And yet it’s a landfill too. Underneath us there is nearly a hundred feet of discard. We’ve reclaimed the land. In a year or so I’ll open it to the public. My gift to South Africans. Decay resurrected into beauty.’
Bond was not an aficionado of botany – his customary reaction to the Chelsea Flower Show was irritation at the traffic problems it caused around his home – but he had to admit that these gardens were impressive. He found himself squinting at some tree roots.
Hydt noticed. ‘Do they seem a little odd?’
They were metal tubes, painted to look like roots.
‘Those pipes transport the methane generated under here to be burnt off or to the power plants.’
He supposed this detail had been thought up by Hydt’s star engineer.
They drove on into a grove of trees and parked. A blue crane, the South African national bird, stood regally in a pond nearby, perfectly balanced on one leg.
‘Come on, Theron. Let’s talk business.’
Why here? Bond wondered, as he followed Hydt down a path, along which small signs identified the plants. Again he wondered if the men had plans for him and he looked, futilely, for possible weapons and escape routes.
Hydt stopped and looked back. Bond did too – and felt a jolt of alarm. Dunne was approaching, carrying a rifle.
Bond outwardly remained calm. (‘You wear your cover to the grave,’ the lecturers at Fort Monckton would tell their students.)
‘You shoot long guns?’ Dunne displayed the hunting rifle, with its black plastic or carbon-fibre stock, brushed steel receiver and barrel.
‘I do, yes.’ Bond had been captain of the shooting team at Fettes and had won competitions in both small and full bore. He’d won the Queen’s Medal for Shooting Excellence when in the Royal Naval Reserve – the only shooting medal that can be worn in uniform. He glanced down at what Dunne held. ‘Winchester.270.’
‘Good gun, wouldn’t you agree?’
‘It is. I prefer that calibre to the.30-06. Flatter trajectory.’
Hydt asked, ‘Do you shoot game, Theron?’
‘Never had much opportunity.’
Hydt laughed. ‘I don’t hunt either… except for one species.’ The smile faded. ‘Niall and I have been discussing you.’
‘Have you now?’ Bond asked, his tone blasé.
‘We’ve decided you might be a valuable addition to certain otherprojects we’re working on. But we need a show of faith.’
‘Money?’ Bond was stalling; he believed he understood his enemy’s purpose here and needed a response. Fast.
‘No,’ Hydt said softly, his huge head tilting Bond’s way. ‘That’s not what I mean.’
Dunne stepped forward, the Winchester on his hip, muzzle skyward. ‘All right. Bring him out.’
Two workers in security uniforms led a skinny man in a T-shirt and shabby khaki trousers from behind a thick stand of jacaranda. The man’s face was a mask of terror.
Hydt regarded him with contempt. He said to Bond, ‘This man broke into our property and was trying to steal mobile phones from the e-waste operation. When he was approached he pulled a gun and shot at a guard. He missed and was overpowered. I’ve checked his records and he’s an escaped convict. In prison for rape and murder. I could turn him over to the authorities, but his appearance here today has given me – and you – an opportunity.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘You are being given a chance to make your first kill as a hunter. If you shoot this man-’
‘No!’ the captive cried.
‘If you kill him, that’s all the down-payment I need. We’ll proceed with your project and I’ll hire you to help me with others. If you choose not to kill him, which I would certainly understand, Niall will drive you back to the front gate and we will part ways. As tempting as your offer is, to cleanse the killing fields, I’ll have to decline.’
‘Shoot a man in cold blood?’
Dunne said, ‘The decision’s yours. Don’t shoot him. Leave.’ The brogue seemed harsher.
But what a chance this was to get into the inner sanctum of Severan Hydt! Bond could learn everything about Gehenna. One life versus thousands.
And how many more would die if, as seemed likely, the event on Friday was the first of other such projects?
He stared at the criminal’s dark face, eyes wide, hands shaking at his sides.
Bond glanced at Dunne. He strode forward and took the rifle.
‘No, please!’ the man cried.
The guards shoved him on to his knees and stepped away. The man stared at Bond, who realised for the first time that, in firing squads, the blindfold wasn’t for the condemned’s benefit; it was for the executioners, so they didn’t have to look into the prisoner’s eyes.
‘Please, no, sir!’ he cried.
‘There’s a round in the chamber,’ Dunne called. ‘Safety’s on.’
Had they slipped a blank in to test him? Or had Dunne not loaded the rifle at all? The thief clearly wasn’t wearing a bulletproof vest under the thin T-shirt. Bond hefted the gun, which had open sights only, not telescopic. He assessed the thief, forty feet away, and aimed at him. The man raised his hands to cover his face. ‘No! Please!’
‘You want to move closer?’ Hydt asked.
‘No. But I don’t want him to suffer,’ Bond said matter-of-factly. ‘Does the rifle shoot high or low at this range?’
‘I couldn’t tell you,’ Dunne said.
Bond aimed towards the right, at a leaf that was about the same distance as the captive. He squeezed the trigger. There was a sharp crack and a hole appeared in the centre of the leaf, just where he was aiming. Bond worked the bolt, ejecting the spent shell and chambering another. Still, he hesitated.
‘What’s it to be, Theron?’ Hydt whispered.
Bond lifted the gun, aiming steadily at the victim once again.
There was a moment’s pause. He pulled the trigger. Another stunning crack and a red dot blossomed in the middle of the man’s T-shirt as he fell backwards into the dust.
‘So,’ Bond snapped, opening the rifle’s bolt and tossing the weapon to Dunne. ‘Are you satisfied?’
The Irishman easily caught the weapon in his large hands. He remained as impassive as ever. He said nothing.
Hydt, however, seemed pleased.
He said, ‘Good. Now let us go to the office and have a drink to celebrate our partnership… and to allow me to apologise to you.’
‘For forcing me to kill a man.’
‘No, for forcing you to believeyou were killing a man.’
‘What?’
‘William!’
The man Bond had shot leapt to his feet with a big grin on his face.
Bond spun towards Hydt. ‘I-’
‘Wax bullets,’ Dunne called. ‘Police use them in training, filmmakers use them in action scenes.’
‘It was a goddamn test?’
‘Which our friend Niall here devised. It was a good one and you passed.’
‘You think I’m a schoolboy? Go to hell.’ Bond turned and stormed towards the garden’s gate.
‘Wait – wait.’ Hydt was walking after him, frowning. ‘We’re business people. This is what we do. We must make certain.’
Bond spat an obscenity and continued down the path, his fists clenching and unclenching.
Urgently Hydt said, ‘You can keep going. But please know, Theron, you’re walking away not only from me but from one million dollars, which will be yours tomorrow if you stay. And there will be much more.’
Bond stopped. He turned.
‘Let us go back to the office and talk. Let us be professional.’
Bond looked at the man he’d shot, who was still grinning happily. Then he asked Hydt, ‘A million?’
Hydt nodded. ‘Yours tomorrow.’
Bond remained where he was for a moment, staring across the gardens, which were truly magnificent. He walked back to Hydt, casting a cool glance at Niall Dunne, who was unloading the rifle and cleaning it carefully, caressing the metal parts.
Bond tried to keep an indignant look on his face, playing the role of offended party.
And fiction it was, for he’d figured out about the wax bullets. Nobody who’s fired a gun with a normal load of gunpowder and a lead bullet would be fooled by a wax round, which produces far less recoil than a real slug (giving a blank round to a soldier in a firing squad is absurd; he clearly knows his bullet is not real the minute he shoots). A few moments ago Bond had been given the clue when the ‘thief’ covered his eyes. People about to be shot don’t shield anything with their hands. So, Bond had reflected, he’s afraid of being blinded, not killed. That suggested that the bullets were blank or wax.
He’d fired into the foliage to judge the recoil and learnt from the very light kick that these were non-lethal rounds.
He guessed that the man would earn hazard pay for his efforts. Hydt seemed to take care of his employees, whatever else one could say about him. This was confirmed now. Hydt peeled off some rand and gave them to the man, who walked up to Bond and pumped his hand. ‘Hey, mister, sir! You a good shot. You got me in a blessed spot. Look, right here!’ He tapped his chest. ‘One man shot me down below, you know where. He was bastard. Oh, that hurt and hurt for days. An’ my lady, she complain much.’
In the Range Rover once more, the three men drove in silence back to the plant, the beautiful gardens giving way to harrowing Disappearance Row, the cacophony of the gulls, the fumes.
Gehenna …
Dunne parked at the main building, nodded to Bond and told Hydt, ‘Our associates? I’ll meet the flights. They’re arriving around nineteen hundred hours. I’ll get them settled and then come back.’
So, Dunne and Hydt would be working into the night. Did that bode well or badly for any future reconnaissance at Green Way? One thing was clear: Bond had to get inside Research and Development now.
Dunne strode away, while Hydt and Bond continued to the building. ‘You going to give me a tour here?’ Bond asked Hydt. ‘It’s warmer… and there aren’t as many seagulls.’
Hydt laughed. ‘There isn’t much to see. We’ll just go to my office.’ He didn’t, however, spare his new partner the procedures at the back-door security post – though the guards missed the inhaler again. As they stepped into the main corridor, Bond noted again the sign to Research and Development. He lowered his voice. ‘Well, I wouldn’t mind a tour of the toilet.’
‘That way.’ Hydt pointed, then pulled out his mobile to make a call. Bond walked quickly down the corridor. He entered the empty men’s room, grabbed a large handful of paper towels and tossed them into one of the toilets. When he flushed, the paper jammed in the drain. He went to the door and looked towards where Hydt was waiting. The man’s head was down and he was concentrating on his call. There was no CCTV, Bond saw, so he walked away from Hydt, planning his cover story.
Oh, one cubicle was occupied and the other was jammed so I went for another one. Didn’t want to bother you when you were on the phone.
Plausible deniability…
Bond remembered where he’d seen the sign when he’d entered. He now hurried down a deserted hallway.
RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT. RESTRICTED
The metal security door was operated by a number pad, in conjunction with a key card reader. Bond palmed the inhaler and took several pictures, including close-ups of the pad.
Come on, he urged an unsuspecting confederate inside the room – someone must be thinking about a visit to the loo or fetching some coffee from the canteen.
But no one co-operated. The door remained shut and Bond decided he had to get back to Hydt. He turned on his heel and hurried down the corridor again. Thank God, Hydt was still on his mobile. He looked up when Bond was past the bathroom door; to Hydt’s mind he had just exited.
He disconnected. ‘Come this way, Theron.’
He led Bond down a corridor and into a large room that seemed to serve as both an office and living quarters. A huge desk faced a picture window, with a view of Hydt’s wasteland empire. A bedroom, curiously, was off to the side. Bond noticed that the bed was unmade. Hydt diverted him away from it and closed the door. He gestured Bond to a sofa and coffee-table in a corner.
‘Drink?’
‘Whisky. Scotch. Not a blend.’
‘Auchentoshan?’
Bond knew the distillery, outside Glasgow. ‘Good. A drop of water.’
Hydt tipped a generous quantity into a glass, added the water and handed it to him. He poured himself a glass of South African Constantia. Bond knew the honey-sweet wine, a recently revived version of Napoleon’s favourite drink. The deposed emperor had had hundreds of gallons shipped to St Helena, where he spent his last years in exile. He had sipped it on his deathbed.
The gloomy room was filled with antiques. Mary Goodnight was forever reporting excitedly on bargains she’d found in London’s Portobello Road market, but none of the items in Hydt’s office looked as if they’d fetch much money there; they were scuffed, battered, lopsided. Old photographs, paintings and bas-reliefs hung on the walls. Slabs of stone showed fading images of Greek and Roman gods and goddesses, though Bond couldn’t tell who they were supposed to be.
Hydt sat and they tipped their glasses towards one another. Hydt gazed affectionately at the walls. ‘Most of these have come from buildings my companies demolished. To me, they’re like relics from the bodies of saints. Which also interest me, by the way. I own several – though that is a fact no one in Rome is aware of.’ He caressed the wineglass. ‘Whatever is old or discarded gives me comfort. I couldn’t tell you why. Nor do I care to know. I think, Theron, most people waste far too much time wondering why they are as they are. Accept your nature and satisfy it. I love decay, decline… the things others shun.’ He paused, then asked, ‘Would you like to know how I got started in this business? It’s an informative story.’
‘Yes, please.’
‘I had some difficult times in my youth. Ah, who didn’t, of course? But I was forced to start work young. It happened to be at a rubbish collection company. I was a London binman. One day my mates and I were having tea, taking a break, when the driver pointed to a flat over the road. He said, “That’s where one of those blokes with the Clerkenwell crowd lives.”’
Clerkenwell: perhaps the biggest and most successful organised-crime syndicate in British history. It was now largely dismantled but for twenty years its members had brutally ruled their turf around Islington. They were reportedly responsible for twenty-five murders.
Hydt continued, his dark eyes sparkling, ‘I was intrigued. After tea we continued on our rounds, but without the others knowing I hid the rubbish from thatflat nearby. I went back at night and collected the bag, brought it home and went through it. I did that for weeks. I examined every letter, every tin, every bill, every condom wrapper. Most of it was useless. But I found one thing that was interesting. A note with an address in East London. “Here,” was all it said. But I had an idea what it meant. Now, in those days I was supplementing my income as a detectorist. You know about them? Those folks who walk along the beach at Brighton or Eastbourne and find coins and rings in the sand after the tourists have gone for the day. I had a good metal detector and so the next weekend I went to the property mentioned in the note. As I’d expected, it was a vacant lot.’ Hydt was animated, enjoying himself. ‘It took me ten minutes to find the buried gun. I bought a fingerprint kit and, though I was no expert, it seemed that the prints on the gun and the note matched. I didn’t know exactly what the gun had been used for but-’
‘But why bury it if it hadn’t been used to murder somebody?’
‘Exactly. I went to see the Clerkenwell man. I told him that my solicitor had the gun and the note – there was no solicitor, of course, but I bluffed well. I said if I didn’t call him in an hour he would send everything to Scotland Yard. Was it a gamble? Of course. But a calculated one. The man blanched and immediately asked me what I wanted. I named a figure. He paid in cash. I was on my way to opening a small collection company of my own. It eventually became Green Way.’
‘That gives a whole new meaning to the word “recycling”, doesn’t it?’
‘Indeed.’ Hydt seemed amused by the comment. He sipped his wine and gazed out at the grounds, the spheres of the burn-off flames glowing in the distance. ‘Did you know that there were three man-made phenomena you could see from outer space? The Great Wall of China, the Pyramids… and the old Fresh Kills landfill in New Jersey.’
Bond did not.
‘To me discard is more than a business,’ Hydt said, ‘It’s a window on to our society… and into our souls.’ He sat forward. ‘You see, we may acquiresomething in life unintentionally – through a gift, neglect, inheritance, fate, error, greed, laziness – but when we discard something, it’s almost always with cold intent.’
He took a judicious sip of wine. ‘Theron, do you know what entropy is?’
‘No, I don’t.’
‘Entropy,’ said Hydt, clicking his long, yellow nails, ‘is the essential truth of nature. It’s the tendency towards decay and disorder – in physics, in society, in art, in living creatures… in everything. It’s the path to anarchy.’ He smiled. ‘That sounds pessimistic, but it isn’t. It’s the most wonderful thing in the world. You can never go wrong by embracing the truth. And truth it is.’
His eyes settled on a bas-relief. ‘I changed my name, you know.’
‘I didn’t,’ Bond said, thinking: Maarten Holt.
‘I changed it because my surname was my father’s and my given name was selected by him. I wished to have no more connection with him.’ A cool smile. ‘That childhood I mentioned. I chose “Hydt” because it echoed the dark side of the protagonist in Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, which I’d read at school and enjoyed. You see, I believe we all have a public side and a dark side. The book confirmed that.’
‘And “Severan”? It’s unusual.’
‘You wouldn’t think so if you’d lived in Rome in the second and third centuries AD.’
‘No?’
‘I read history and archaeology at university. Mention ancient Rome, Theron, and most people think of what? The Julio-Claudian line of emperors. Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius and Nero. At least they think so if they read I, Claudiusor saw Derek Jacobi in brilliant form on the BBC. But that whole line lasted a pathetically short time – slightly over a hundred years. Yes, yes, mare nostrum, Praetorian guards, films staring Russell Crowe… all very decadent and dramatic. “My God, Caligula, that’s your sister!” But for me, the truth of Rome was revealed much later in a different family line, the Severan emperors, founded by Septimius Severus many years after Nero killed himself. You see, they presided over the decayof the Empire. Their reign culminated in what historians called the Period of Anarchy.’
‘Entropy,’ Bond said.
‘ Exactly .’ Hydt beamed. ‘I’d seen a statue of Septimius Severus and I look a bit like him so I took his family name.’ He focused on Bond. ‘Are you feeling uneasy, Theron? Don’t worry. You haven’t signed on with Ahab. I’m not mad.’
Bond laughed. ‘I wasn’t thinking you were. Honestly. I was thinking about the million dollars you mentioned.’
‘Of course.’ He studied Bond closely. ‘Tomorrow the first of a number of projects I’m engaged in will come to fruition. My main partners will be here. You will come too. Then you’ll see what we’re about.’
‘For a million, what do you want me to do?’ He frowned. ‘Shoot somebody with realbullets?’
Hydt fondled his beard again. He did indeed resemble a Roman emperor. ‘You don’t need to do anything tomorrow. That project is finished. We’ll just be watching the results. And celebrating, I hope. We’ll call your million a signature bonus. After that, you’ll be very busy.’
Bond forced himself to smile. ‘I’m pleased to be included.’
Just then Hydt’s mobile rang. He looked at the screen, rose and turned away. Bond guessed there was some difficulty. Hydt didn’t get angry but his stillness indicated he wasn’t happy. He disconnected. ‘I’m sorry. A problem in Paris. Inspectors. Trade unions. It’s a Green Way issue, nothing to do with tomorrow’s project.’
Bond didn’t want to make the man suspicious so he backed off. ‘All right. What time do you want me?’
‘Ten a.m.’
Recalling the original intercept that GCHQ had decrypted and the clues he’d found up in March about the time the attack would take place, Bond understood he would have about twelve hours to find out what Gehenna was about and stop it.
A figure appeared in the doorway. It was Jessica Barnes. She wore what seemed to be her typical garb – a black skirt and modest white shirt. Bond had never liked women to wear excessive make-up but he wondered again why she didn’t use even the minimum.
‘Jessica, this is Gene Theron,’ Hydt said absently. He’d forgotten they’d met last night.
The woman didn’t remind him.
Bond took her hand. She returned a timid nod. Then she said to Hydt, ‘The ad proofs didn’t come in. They won’t be here till tomorrow.’
‘You can review them then, can’t you?’
‘Yes, but there’s nothing more to do here. I was thinking I’d like to go back to Cape Town.’
‘Something’s come up. I’ll be a few hours, maybe more. You can wait…’ His eyes strayed to the door behind which Bond had seen the bed.
She hesitated. ‘All right.’ A sigh.
Bond said, ‘I’m going back into town. I can drive you if you like.’
‘Really? It’s not too much trouble?’ Her question, however, was not directed towards Bond but to Hydt.
The man was scrolling through his mobile. He looked up. ‘Good of you, Theron. I’ll see you tomorrow.’
They shook hands.
‘ Totsiens .’ Bond gave the Afrikaans farewell, which he knew courtesy of the Captain Bheka Jordaan School of Language.
‘What time will you be home, Severan?’ Jessica asked Hydt.
‘When I get there,’ he responded absently, punching a number into his phone.
Five minutes later Jessica and Bond were at the front security post, where he again passed through the metal detector. But before he was reunited with his gun and mobile, a guard walked up and said, ‘What is that, sir? I see something in your pocket.’
The inhaler. How the hell had he spotted the slight bulge in the windcheater? ‘It’s nothing.’
‘I’ll see it, please.’
‘I’m not stealing anything from a junkyard,’ he snapped, ‘if that’s what you’re thinking.’
Patiently the man said, ‘Our rules are very clear, sir. I’ll see it or I have to call Mr Dunne or Mr Hydt.’
Follow your cover to the grave…
With a steady hand Bond withdrew the black plastic tube and displayed it. ‘It’s medicine.’
‘Is it now?’ The man took the device and examined it closely. The camera lens was recessed but, to Bond, seemed all too obvious. The guard was about to hand it back but then changed his mind. He lifted the hinged cap, exposed the plunger and put his thumb on it.
Bond eyed his Walther, sitting in one of the cubbyholes. It was ten feet away and separated from him by the two other guards, both armed.
The guard pressed the plunger… and released a fine mist of denatured alcohol into the air near his face.
Sanu Hirani, of course, had created the toy with typical forethought. The spray mechanism was real, even if the chemical inside was not; the camera was located in the lowerpart of the base. The smell of the alcohol was strong. The guard wrinkled his nose and his eyes were watering as he handed back the device. ‘Thank you, sir. I hope you need not take that medicine often. It seems quite unpleasant.’
Without replying, Bond pocketed the inhaler and received his weapon and phone.
He headed towards the front door, which opened on to the no man’s land between the two fences. He was almost outside when an alarm klaxon blared fiercely and lights began to flash.
Bond was a split second away from spinning around, dropping into a combat shooting stance and drawing down on priority targets.
But instinct told him to hold back.
It was a good thing he did. The guards weren’t even looking at him. They had gone back to watching the TV.
Bond glanced casually around. The alarm had gone off because Jessica, exempt from security procedures, had come through the metal detector with her handbag and jewellery. A guard casually flicked a switch to reset the unit.
His heartbeat returning to normal, Bond and Jessica continued outside, through the next security post and out into the car park, filled with curled brown leaves blowing in the light wind. Bond opened the passenger door of the Subaru for her, then got into the driver’s seat and started the engine. They drove along the dusty road towards the N7, amid the ever-present Green Way lorries.
For a while Bond said nothing, but then, subtly, he went to work. He started with innocuous questions, easing her into talking to him. Did she like to travel? Which were her favourite restaurants here? What was her job at Green Way?
Then he asked, ‘I’m curious – how did you two meet?’
‘You really want to know?’
‘Tell me.’
‘I was a beauty queen when I was young.’
‘Really? I’ve never met one before.’ He smiled.
‘I didn’t do too badly. I was in the Miss America Pageant once. But what really…’ She blushed. ‘No, it’s silly.’
‘Please. Go on.’
‘Well, once I was competing in New York, at the Waldorf-Astoria. It was before the pageant and a lot of us girls were in the lobby. Jackie Kennedy saw me and she came up to me and said how pretty she thought I was.’ She glowed with a pride he had not seen in her face. ‘That was one of the high points of my life. She was my idol when I was a little girl.’ The smile tempered. ‘You don’t really want to know this, do you?’
‘I asked.’
‘Well, you can only go on for so long, of course, in the pageant world. After I stopped the circuit, I did some commercials and then infomercials. Then, well, those jobs dried up too. A few years later my mother passed away – I was very close to her – and I went through a rough time. I got a job as a hostess in a restaurant in New York. Severan was doing some business nearby and he’d come in to meet clients. We got to talking. He was so fascinating. He loves history and he’s travelled everywhere. We talked about a thousand different things.
‘We had such a connection. It was very… refreshing. In the pageants, I used to joke that life isn’t even skin deep; it’s make-up deep. That’s all people see. Make-up and clothes. Severan saw some depth in me, I guess. We hit it off. He asked for my number and kept calling. Well, I wasn’t a stupid woman. I was fifty-seven years old, no family, very little money. And here was a handsome man… a vital man.’
Bond wondered if that meant what he suspected it might.
Sat-nav instructed him to leave the highway. He drove carefully along a congested road. The minibus taxis were everywhere. Tow trucks waited at intersections, apparently to be the first at the site of an accident. People sold drinks by the roadside; impromptu businesses operated from the backs of lorries and vans. Several were doing a booming trade selling batteries and performing alternator repairs. Why did that malady plague South African vehicles in particular?
Now that he had broken yet more ice, Bond asked casually about the meeting tomorrow, but she said she knew nothing about it and he believed her. Frustratingly to Bond, it seemed that Hydt kept her in the dark about Gehenna and any other illegal activities he, Dunne or the company were involved in.
They were five minutes from their destination, the sat-nav reported, when Bond said, ‘I have to be honest. It’s odd.’
‘What is?’
‘Just how he surrounds himself with it all.’
‘All of what?’ Jessica asked, her eyes on him closely.
‘Decay, destruction.’
‘Well, it’s his business.’
‘I don’t mean his work with Green Way. That I understand. I’m speaking of his personalinterest with the old, the used… the discarded.’
Jessica said nothing for a moment. She pointed ahead to a large wooden private residence, surrounded by an imposing stone fence. ‘That’s it, the house. That’s-’
Her voice choked and she began to cry.
Bond pulled to the kerb. ‘Jessica, what’s the matter?’
‘I…’ Her breathing was coming fast.
‘Are you all right?’ He reached down and pulled the adjustment lever, moving the seat back, so he could turn to face her.
‘It’s nothing, oh, nothing. How embarrassing is this?’
Bond took her handbag and dug around inside for a tissue. He found one and handed it to her.
‘Thank you.’ She tried to speak, then surrendered to her sobs. When she had calmed, she tilted the rear-view mirror towards herself. ‘He doesn’t let me wear make-up – so at least my mascara hasn’t run and turned me into a clown.’
‘Doesn’t let you… What do you mean?’
The confession died on her lips. ‘Nothing,’ Jessica whispered.
‘Was it something I said? I’m sorry if I’ve upset you. I was just making conversation.’
‘No, no, it’s nothing you’ve done, Gene.’
‘Tell me what’s wrong.’ His eyes locked with hers.
She debated a moment. ‘I wasn’t being honest with you. I put on a good show but it’s all a façade. We don’t have a connection. We never have. He wants me…’ She raised her hand. ‘Oh, you don’t want to hear this.’
Bond touched her arm. ‘Please, I’m responsible in some way. I was just blundering along. I feel the fool. Tell me.’
‘Yes, he loves the old… the used, the discarded. Me.’
‘My God, no. I didn’t mean-’
‘I know you didn’t. But that iswhat Severan wants me for – because I’m part of the downward spiral too. I’m his laboratory for fading, for ageing, for decay.
‘That’s all I mean to him. He hardly talks to me, ever. I’ve got almost no idea what goes on in that mind of his and he has no interest in finding out who I am. He gives me credit cards, takes me nice places, provides for me. In return he… well, he watches me age. I’ll catch him staring at me, a new wrinkle here, an age-spot there. That’s why I can’t wear make-up. He leaves the lights on when… you know what I mean. Do you know how humiliating that is for me? He knows it too. Because humiliation is another form of decay.’
She laughed bitterly, dabbing her eyes with the tissue. ‘And the irony, Gene? The goddamn irony? When I was young I lived for beauty pageants. Nobody cared about who I was inside, the judges, my fellow contestants… even my mother. Now I’m old and Severan doesn’t care about who I am inside either. There are times when I hate being with him. But what can I do? I’m powerless.’
Bond applied a bit more pressure to her arm. ‘That’s not true. You’re not powerless at all. Being older is strength. It’s experience, judgement, discernment, knowing your resources. Youth is mistake and impulse. Believe me, I know that quite well.’
‘But without him what could I do – where would I go?’
‘Anywhere. You could do whatever you wanted. You’re obviously clever. You must have some money.’
‘Some. But it’s not about money. It’s about finding someone at my age.’
‘Why do you need someone?’
‘Spoken like a young man.’
‘And that’s spoken like someone who believes what she’s been told, rather than thinking for herself.’
Jessica gave a faint smile. ‘ Touché , Gene.’ She patted his hand. ‘You’ve been very kind and I can’t believe I had a meltdown with a total stranger. Please, I’ve got to get inside. He’ll be calling to check up on me.’ She gestured at the house.
Bond drove forward and pulled up to the gate, under the watchful eye of a security guard – which put to rest his plan to get inside the house and see what secrets lay there.
Jessica gripped his hand in both of hers, then climbed out.
‘I will see you tomorrow?’ he asked. ‘At the plant?’
A faint smile. ‘Yes, I’ll be there. My leash is pretty short.’ She turned and walked quickly through the opening gate.
Then Bond shoved the car into first and skidded away, Jessica Barnes vanishing instantly from his thoughts. His attention was on his next destination and what would greet him there.
Friend or foe?
In his chosen profession, though, James Bond had learnt that those two categories were not mutually exclusive.
All Thursday morning, all afternoon there had been talk of threats.
Threats from the North Koreans, threats from the Taliban, threats from al-Qaeda, the Chechnyans, the Islamic Jihad Brotherhood, eastern Malaysia, Sudan, Indonesia. There’d been a brief discussion about the Iranians; despite the surreal rhetoric issuing from their presidential palace, nobody took them too seriously. M almost felt sorry for the poor regime in Tehran. Persia had once been such a great empire.
Threats…
But the actual assault, he thought wryly, was occurring only now, during a tea break at the security conference. M disconnected from Moneypenny and sat back stiffly in the well-worn, gilt drawing room of a building in Richmond Terrace, between Whitehall and the Victoria Embankment. It was one of those utterly unremarkable fading structures of indeterminate age in which the sweat work of governing the country was done.
The impending assault involved two ministers who sat on the Joint Intelligence Committee. Their heads were now poking through the door, side by side, bespectacled faces scanning the room until they spotted their target. Once an image of television’s Two Ronnies had sidled into his head, M could not dislodge it. As they strode forward, however, there was nothing comedic about their expressions.
‘Miles,’ the older one greeted him. ‘Sir Andrew’ prefaced the man’s surname and those two words were in perfect harmony with his distinguished face and silver mane.
The other, Bixton, tipped his head, whose fleshy dome reflected light from the dusty chandelier. He was breathing hard. In fact, they both were.
M didn’t invite them to do so but they sat anyway, upon the Edwardian sofa across from the tea tray. He longed to remove a cheroot from his attaché case and chew on it but decided against the prop.
‘We’ll come straight to the point,’ Sir Andrew said.
‘We know you have to get back to the security conference,’ Bixton interjected.
‘We’ve just been with the foreign secretary. He’s in the Chamber at the moment.’
That explained their heaving chests. They couldn’t have driven up from the House of Commons, since Whitehall, from Horse Guards Avenue to just past King Charles Street, had been sealed, like a submarine about to dive, so that the security conference might meet, well, securely.
‘Incident Twenty?’ M asked.
‘Just so,’ Bixton said. ‘We’re trying to track down the DG of Six, as well, but this bloody conference…’ He was new to Joint Intelligence and appeared suddenly to realise perhaps he shouldn’t be quite so bluntly birching the rears of those who paid him.
‘… is bloody disruptive,’ M grumbled, filling in. He had no problem whipping anyone or anything when it was deserved.
Sir Andrew took over. He said, ‘Defence Intelligence and GCHQ are reporting a swell of SIGINT in Afghanistan over the past six hours.’
‘General consensus is that it’s to do with Incident Twenty.’
M asked, ‘Anything specific to Hydt – Noah – or thousands of deaths? Niall Dunne? Army bases in March? Improvised explosive devices? Engineers in Dubai? Rubbish and recycling facilities in Cape Town?’ M read every signal that crossed his desk or arrived in his mobile phone.
‘We can’t tell, can we?’ Bixton answered. ‘The Doughnut hasn’t broken the codes yet.’ GCHQ’s headquarters in Cheltenham was built in the shape of a fat ring. ‘The encryption packages are brand spanking new. Which has stymied everyone.’
‘SIGINT is cyclical over there,’ M muttered dismissively. He had been very, very senior at MI6 and had earned a reputation for unparalleled skill at mining intelligence and, more important, refiningit into something useful.
‘True,’ Sir Andrew agreed. ‘Rather too coincidental, though, that all these calls and emails have popped up just now, the day before Incident Twenty, wouldn’t you think?’
Not necessarily.
He continued, ‘And nobody’s turned up anythingthat specifically links Hydt to the threat.’
‘Nobody’ translated to ‘007’.
M looked at his wristwatch, which had been his son’s, a soldier with the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers. The security meeting was set to resume in a half hour. He was exhausted and Friday, tomorrow, would be an even longer session, culminating in a tiresome dinner followed by a speech by the home secretary.
Sir Andrew noted the less-than-subtle glance at the battered timepiece: ‘Long story short, Miles, the JIC is of the opinion that this Severan Hydt fellow in South Africa’s a diversion. Maybe he’s involved but he’s not a key player in Incident Twenty. Five and Six’s people think the real actors are in Afghanistan and that’s where the attack will happen: military or aid workers, contractors.’
Of course, that was what they would say- whatever they actually thought. The adventure in Kabul had cost billions of pounds and far too many lives; the more evil that could be found there to justify the incursion, the better. M had been aware of this from the beginning of the Incident Twenty operation.
‘Now, Bond-’
‘He’s good, we know that,’ Bixton interrupted, eyeing the chocolate biscuits M had asked not to be brought with the tea but had arrived anyway.
Sir Andrew frowned.
‘It’s just that he hasn’t actually found much,’ Bixton went on. ‘Unless there’ve been details that haven’t yet circulated.’
M said nothing, merely regarding both men with equal frost.
Sir Andrew said, ‘Bond isa star, of course. So the thinking is that it would be good for everybody if he deployed to Kabul post haste. Tonight, if you could make that work. Put him in a hot zone along with a couple of dozen of Six’s premier-league lads. We’ll tap the CIA too. We don’t mind spreading the glory.’
And the blame, thought M, if they get it wrong.
Bixton said, ‘Makes sense. Bond was stationed in Afghanistan.’
M said, ‘Incident Twenty’s supposed to happen tomorrow. It’ll take him all night to get to Kabul. How can he stop anything happening?’
‘The thinking is…’ Sir Andrew fell silent, realising, M supposed, that he’d repeated his own irritating verbal filler. ‘We aren’t sure it canbe stopped.’
Silence washed in unpleasantly, like a tide polluted with hospital waste.
‘Our approach would be for your man and the others to head up a post-mortem analysis team. Try to find out for certain who was behind it. Put together a response proposal. Bond could even head it up.’
M knew, of course, what was happening here: the Two Ronnies were offering the ODG a face-saving measure. Your organisation could be a star ninety-five per cent of the time, but if you erred even once, with a big loss, you might appear at the office on Monday morning and find your whole outfit disbanded or, worse, turned into a vetting agency.
And the Overseas Development Group was on thin ice to start with, hosting as it did the 00 Section, to which many people objected. To stumble on Incident Twenty would be a big stumble indeed. By getting Bond to Afghanistan forthwith, at least the ODG would have a player in the game, even if he arrived on the pitch a bit late.
M said evenly, ‘Your point is noted, gentlemen. Let me make some phone calls.’
Bixton beamed. But Sir Andrew hadn’t quite finished. His persistence, infused with shrewdness, was one of the reasons M believed that future audiences with him might take place at 10 Downing Street. ‘Bond will be all-hands-on-deck?’
The threat implicit in the question was that if 007 remained in South Africa in defiance of M’s orders, Sir Andrew’s protection of Bond, M and the ODG would cease.
The irony in giving an agent like 007 carte blanchewas that he was supposed to exercise it and act as he saw fit – which sometimes meant he would notbe on deck with all of the other hands. You can’t have it both ways, M reflected. ‘As I said, I’ll make some calls.’
‘Good. We’d better be off.’
As they departed, M stood up and went through the french doors on to the balcony, where he noted a Metropolitan Police Specialist Protection officer, armed with a machine gun. After an examination of and a nod to the new arrival on his turf, the man returned to looking down over the street, thirty feet below. ‘All quiet?’ M asked.
‘Yes, sir.’
M walked to the far end of the balcony and lit a cheroot, sucking the smoke in deep. The streets were eerily quiet. The barricades were not just the tubular metal fences you saw outside Parliament; they were cement blocks, four feet high, solid enough to stop a speeding car. The pavements were patrolled by armed guards and M noted several snipers on the roofs of nearby buildings. He gazed absently down Richmond Terrace towards Victoria Embankment.
He took out his mobile and called Moneypenny.
Only a single ring before she answered. ‘Yes, sir?’
‘I need to talk to the chief of staff.’
‘He’s popped down to the canteen. I’ll connect you.’
As he waited, M squinted and gave a gruff laugh. At the intersection, near the barricade, there was a large lorry and a few men were dragging bins to and from it. They were employees of Severan Hydt’s company, Green Way International. He realised he’d been watching them for the past few minutes yet not actually noticing them. They’d been invisible.
‘Tanner here, sir.’
The dustmen vanished from M’s thoughts. He plucked the cheroot from between his teeth and said evenly, ‘Bill, I need to talk to you about 007.’
Guided by sat-nav, Bond made his way through central Cape Town, past businesses and residences. He found himself in an area of small, brightly coloured houses, blue, pink, red and yellow, tucked under Signal Hill. The narrow streets were largely cobbled. It reminded him of villages in the Caribbean, with the difference that here careful Arabic designs patterned many homes. He passed a quiet mosque.
It was six thirty on this cool Thursday evening and he was en route to Bheka Jordaan’s house.
Friend or foe…
He wound the car through the uneven streets and parked nearby. She met him at the door and greeted him with an unsmiling nod. She had shed her work clothing and wore blue jeans and a close-fitting dark red cardigan. Her shiny black hair hung loose and he was taken by the rich aura of lilac scent from a recent shampooing. ‘This is an interesting area,’ he said. ‘Nice.’
‘It’s called Bo-Kaap. It used to be very poor, mostly Muslim, immigrants from Malaysia. I moved here with… well, with someone years ago. It was poorer then. Now the place is becoming very chic. There used to be only bicycles parked outside. Now it’s Toyotas but soon it’ll be Mercedes. I don’t like that. I’d rather it was as it used to be. But it’s my home. Besides, my sisters and I take turns to have Ugogo living with us, and they’re close so it’s convenient.’
‘Ugogo?’ Bond asked.
‘It means “grandmother”. Our mother’s mother. My parents live in Pietermaritzburg, in KwaZulu-Natal, some way east of here.’
Bond recalled the antique map in her office.
‘So we look after Ugogo. That’s the Zulu way.’
She didn’t invite him in, so, on the porch, Bond gave her an account of his trip to Green Way. ‘I need the film in this developed.’ He handed her the inhaler. ‘It’s eight-millimetre, ISO is twelve hundred. Can you sort it?’
‘Me? Not your MI6 associate?’ she asked acerbically.
Bond felt no need to defend Gregory Lamb. ‘I trust him but he raided my minibar of two hundred rands’ worth of drink. I’d like somebody with a clear head to handle it. Developing film can be tricky.’
‘I’ll take care of it.’
‘Now, Hydt has some associates coming into town tonight. There’s a meeting at the Green Way plant tomorrow morning.’ He thought back to what Dunne had said. ‘They’re arriving at about seven. Can you find out their names?’
‘Do you know the airlines?’
‘No, but Dunne’s meeting them.’
‘We’ll put a stake-out in place. Kwalene is good at that. He jokes, but he’s very good.’
He certainly is. Discreet, too, Bond reflected.
A woman’s voice called from inside.
Jordaan turned her head. ‘ Ize balulekile.’
Some more Zulu words were exchanged.
Jordaan’s face was still. ‘Will you come in? So Ugogo can see you’re not someone in a gang. I’ve told her it’s no one. But she worries.’
No one?
Bond followed her into the small flat, which was tidy and nicely furnished. Prints, hangings and photos decorated the walls.
The elderly woman who’d spoken to Jordaan was sitting at a large dining table set with two places. The meal had largely concluded. She was very frail. Bond recognised her as the woman in many of the pictures in Jordaan’s office. She wore a loose orange and brown frock and slippers. Her grey hair was short. She started to rise.
‘No, please,’ Bond said.
She stood anyway and, hunched, shuffled forward to shake his hand with a firm, dry grip.
‘You are the Englishman Bheka spoke of. You don’t look so bad to me.’
Jordaan glared at her.
The older woman introduced herself: ‘I’m Mbali.’
‘James.’
‘I am going to rest. Bheka, give him some food. He’s too thin.’
‘No, I must be going.’
‘You are hungry. I saw how you looked at the bobotie. It tastes even better than it looks.’
Bond smiled. He hadbeen looking at the pot on the stove.
‘My granddaughter is a very good cook. You will like it. And you will have some Zulu beer. Have you ever had any?’
‘I’ve had Birkenhead and Gilroy’s.’
‘No, Zulu beer is the best.’ Mbali shot a look at her granddaughter. ‘Give him some beer and he will have some food too. Bring him a plate of bobotie. And sambalsauce.’ She looked critically at Bond. ‘You like spice?’
‘I do, yes.’
‘Good.’
Exasperated, Jordaan said, ‘Ugogo, he said he has to be going.’
‘He said that because of you. Give him some beer and some food. Look how thin he is!’
‘Honestly, Ugogo.’
‘That’s my granddaughter. A mind of her own.’
The old woman picked up a ceramic crock of beer and walked into a bedroom. The door closed.
‘Is she well?’ Bond asked.
‘Cancer.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘She’s doing better than expected. She’s ninety-seven.’
Bond was surprised. ‘I would have thought she was in her seventies.’
As if afraid of the silence that might engender the need for conversation, Jordaan strode to a battered CD player and loaded a disc. A woman’s low voice, buoyed by hip-hop rhythms, burst from the speakers. Bond saw the CD cover: Thandiswa Mazwai.
‘Sit down,’ Jordaan said, gesturing at the table.
‘No, it’s all right.’
‘What do you mean, no, it’s all right?’
‘You don’t have to feed me.’
Jordaan said shortly, ‘If Ugogo learns I haven’t offered you any beer or bobotie, she won’t be happy.’ She produced a clay pot with a rattan lid and poured some frothy pinkish liquid into a glass.
‘So that’s Zulu beer?’
‘Yes.’
‘Homemade?’
‘Zulu beer is always homemade. It takes three days to brew and you drink it while it’s still fermenting.’
Bond sipped. It was sour yet sweet and seemed low in alcohol.
Jordaan then served him a plate of bobotieand spooned on some reddish sauce. It was a bit like shepherd’s pie, with egg instead of potato on top, but better than any pie Bond had ever had in England. The thick sauce was well flavoured and indeed spicy.
‘You’re not joining me?’ Bond nodded towards an empty chair. Jordaan was standing, leaning against the sink, arms folded across her voluptuous chest.
‘I’ve finished eating,’ she said, the words clipped. She remained where she was.
Friend or foe…
He finished the food. ‘I must say you’re quite talented – a clever policewoman who also makes marvellous beer and,’ a nod at the cooking pot, ‘ bobotie . If I’m pronouncing that right.’
He received no response. Did he insult her with every remark he made?
Bond tamped down his irritation and found himself regarding the many photographs of the family on the walls and mantelpiece. ‘Your grandmother must have seen a great deal of history in the making.’
Glancing affectionately at the bedroom door, she said, ‘Ugogo isSouth Africa. Her uncle was wounded at the battle of Kambula, fighting the British – a few months after the battle I told you about, Isandlwana. She was born just a few years after the Union of South Africa was formed from the Cape and Natal provinces. She was relocated under apartheid’s Group Areas Act in the fifties. And she was wounded in a protest in 1960.’
‘What happened?’
‘The Sharpeville Massacre. She was among those protesting against the dompas- the “dumb pass”, it was called. Under apartheid people were legally classified as white, black, coloured or Indian.’
Bond recalled Gregory Lamb’s comments.
‘Blacks had to carry a passbook signed by their employer allowing them to be in a white area. It was humiliating, it was horrible. There was a peaceful protest but the police fired on the demonstrators. Nearly seventy people were killed. Ugogo was shot. Her leg. That’s why she limps.’
Jordaan hesitated and at last poured herself some beer, then sipped. ‘Ugogo gave me my name. That is, she told my parents what they would call me and they did. One usually does what Ugogo says.’
‘“Bheka”,’ Bond said.
‘In Zulu it means “one who watches over people”.’
‘A protector. So you were destined to become a policewoman.’ Bond was quite enjoying the music.
‘Ugogo is the old South Africa. I’m the new. A mix of Zulu and Afrikaner. They call us a rainbow country, yes, but look at a rainbow and you still see different colours, all separate. We need to become like me, blended together. It will be a long time before that happens. But it will.’ She glanced coolly at Bond. ‘Then we’ll be able to dislike people for who they really are. Not for the colour of their skin.’
Bond returned her gaze evenly and said, ‘Thank you for the food and the beer. I should be going.’
She walked with him to the door. He stepped outside.
Which was when he caught his first clear glimpse of the man who’d pursued him from Dubai. The man in the blue jacket and the gold earring, the man who had killed Yusuf Nasad and had very nearly killed Felix Leiter.
He was standing across the road, in the shadows of an old building covered with Arabic scrolls and mosaics.
‘What is it?’ Jordaan asked.
‘A hostile.’
The man had a mobile but wasn’t making a call; he was taking a picture of Bond with Jordaan – proof that Bond was working with the police.
Bond snapped, ‘Get your weapon and stay inside with your grandmother.’
He sprinted hard across the street as the man fled up a narrow alley leading towards Signal Hill, through the deepening dusk.
The man had a ten-yard lead, but Bond began closing the distance as they pounded up the alley. Angry cats and scrawny dogs fled, a child with round Malaysian features stepped out of a door into Bond’s path and was instantly jerked back by a parental hand.
He was nearly fifteen feet from the assailant when operational instinct kicked in. Bond realised that the man might have prepared a trap to aid his escape. He glanced down. Yes! The attacker had strung a piece of wire across the alley, a foot off the ground, nearly invisible in the darkness. The man himself had known where it was – a shard of broken crockery marked the spot – and had stepped over it smoothly. Bond wasn’t able to stop in time but he could prepare himself for the fall.
He twisted his shoulder forward and when his own momentum swept his legs out from under him, he half somersaulted on to the ground. He landed hard and lay dazed for a moment, cursing himself for letting the man get away.
Except that he wasn’t escaping.
The wire hadn’t been intended to hinder pursuit but to render Bond vulnerable.
In an instant the man was on him, exuding the stench of beer, stale cigarette smoke and unwashed flesh, and ripping Bond’s Walther from the holster. Bond launched himself upwards, gripping the man’s right arm in a lock and twisting his wrist until the weapon fell to the ground. The attacker kicked the gun, which flew far from Bond’s reach. Gasping, Bond kept hold of the man’s right arm and dodged vicious blows from his other fist.
He glanced back, wondering if Bheka Jordaan had ignored his advice and come after him, armed with her own weapon. The empty alley gaped at him.
Now his assailant eased back to deliver a forehead blow. But, as Bond twisted to avoid it, the man rolled away, in a virtual backward somersault, like a gymnast. It was a brilliant feint. Bond recalled Felix Leiter’s words.
Man, the SOB knows some martial arts crap…
Then Bond was on his feet, facing the man, who stood in a fighter’s stance, a knife in his hand, blade protruding downwards, sharp edge facing out. His left hand, open and palm down, floated distractingly, ready to grab Bond’s clothing and pull him in to be stabbed to death.
On the balls of his feet, Bond circled.
Ever since his days at Fettes in Edinburgh, he had practised various types of close combat, but the ODG taught its agents a rare style of unarmed fighting, borrowed from a former (or not so former) enemy – the Russians. An ancient martial art of the Cossacks, systemahad been updated by the Spetsnaz, the special forces branch of GRU military intelligence .
Systemapractitioners rarely use their fists. Open palms, elbows and knees are the main weapons. The goal, though, is to strike as infrequently as possible. Rather, you tire out your adversary, then catch him in a come-on or take-down hold on the shoulder, wrist, arm or ankle. The best systemafighters never come into contact with their opponent at all… until the final moment, when the exhausted attacker is largely defenceless. Then the victor takes him to the ground and drops a knee into his chest or throat.
Instinctively falling into systemachoreography, Bond now dodged the man’s assault.
Evade, evade, evade… Use his energy against him.
Bond was largely successful but twice the knife blade swept inches from his face.
The man moved in fast, swinging his massive hands, testing Bond, who stepped aside, sizing up his opponent’s strengths (he was very muscular and experienced in hand-to-hand combat and was psychologically prepared to kill) and his weaknesses (alcohol and smoking seemed to be taking their toll).
The man grew frustrated at Bond’s defence. Now he gripped the knife for thrusting and began to move in, almost desperate. He was grinning demonically, sweating despite the chill in the air.
Presenting a vulnerable target, his lower back, Bond stepped towards his Walther. But the move was a feint. And even before the man lunged, Bond reared back, pushed the knife blade away with his forearm and delivered a fierce open-palm slap to the man’s left ear. He cupped his hand as he made contact and felt the pressure that would damage if not burst the attacker’s ear drum. The man howled in pain, infuriated, and lunged carelessly. Bond easily lifted the knife arm away and up, then stepped in, gripping the wrist in both hands, a solid compliance hold, and bent backwards until the knife fell to the ground. He assessed the assailant’s strength and his mad determination. He made a decision… and he twisted further until the wrist cracked.
The man cried out and sank to his knees, then dropped into a sitting position, face pale. His head lolled to the side and Bond kicked the knife away. He frisked the man carefully and took a small automatic pistol from his pocket, along with a roll of duct tape. A pistol? Why didn’t he just shoot me? Bond wondered.
He slipped the gun into his pocket and collected his Walther. He grabbed the man’s phone – to whom had he texted the photo of him and Jordaan? If it had been to Dunne alone, could Bond find and incapacitate the Irishman before he reported to Hydt?
He scrolled through the call and text logs. Thank God, he had sent nothing. He’d simply been videoing Bond.
What was the point of that?
Then he had his answer.
‘ Jebi ti! ’ his attacker spat.
The Balkan obscenity explained everything.
Bond went through the man’s papers and confirmed he was with the JSO, the Serbian paramilitary group. His name was Nicholas Rathko.
He was moaning now, cradling his arm. ‘You let my brother die! You abandoned him! He was your partner on that assignment. You neverabandon your partner.’
Rathko’s brother had been the younger of the BIA agents with Bond on Sunday night near Novi Sad.
My brother, he smokes all time he is out on operations. Looks more normal thannot smoking in Serbia…
Bond knew now how the man had found him in Dubai. To secure the BIA’s co-operation in Serbia, the ODG and Six had given the senior security people in Belgrade Bond’s real name and mission. After his brother had died, Rathko and his comrades at the JSO would have put together a full-scale operation to find Bond, using contacts through NATO and Six. They’d learnt Bond was bound for Dubai. Of course, Bond now realised, it had been Rathko, not Osborne-Smith, who’d been making those subtle inquiries at MI6 about Bond’s plans earlier in the week. Among Rathko’s papers he now found authorisation for a flight by military jet from Belgrade to Dubai. Which explained how he’d beaten Bond to the emirate. A local mercenary, the documents revealed, had put an untraceable car – the black Toyota – at the JSO agent’s disposal.
And the purpose?
Probably not arrest and rendition. Rathko had most likely been planning to video Bond confessing or apologising – or perhaps to record his torture and death.
‘You call yourself Nicholas or Nick?’ Bond asked, crouching.
‘ Yebie se ,’ was the only response.
‘Listen to me. I’m sorry your brother lost his life. But he had no business being in the BIA. He was careless and he wouldn’t follow orders. He was the reason we lost the target.’
‘He was young.’
‘That’s no excuse. It wouldn’t be an excuse for me and it wasn’t an excuse for you when you were with Arkan’s Tigers.’
‘He was only a boy.’ Tears glistened in the man’s eyes, whether from the pain of the broken wrist or the sorrow he felt for his dead brother, Bond couldn’t tell.
Bond looked down the alleyway and saw Bheka Jordaan and some SAPS officers sprinting towards him. He bent down, picked up the man’s knife and sliced through the trip wire.
He squatted beside the Serb. ‘We’ll get you to a doctor.’
Then he heard a woman’s voice call sharply, ‘Stop!’
He glanced at Bheka Jordaan. ‘It’s all right. I have his weapons.’
But then he realised that her pistol was aimed at himself. He frowned and stood up.
‘Leave him alone!’ she snapped.
Two SAPS officers stepped between Bond and Rathko. One hesitated, then carefully took the knife from his hand.
‘He’s a Serbian intelligence agent. He was trying to kill me. He’s the one who murdered that CIA asset in Dubai the other day.’
‘That doesn’t mean you can cut his throat.’ Her dark eyes were narrow with anger.
‘What are you talking about?’
‘You are in my country. You will obey the law!’
The other officers were staring at him, Bond saw, some angrily. He glanced at Jordaan and stepped away, gesturing to her to follow.
Jordaan did so and when they were out of earshot, she continued harshly, ‘You won. He was down, he wasn’t a threat. Why were you going to kill him?’
‘I wasn’t,’ he said.
‘I don’t believe you. You told me to stay in the house with my grandmother. You didn’t ask me to call my officers because you didn’t want witnesses while you tortured and killed him.’
‘I assumed you’d call for back-up. I didn’t want you to leave your grandmother in case he wasn’t working alone.’
But Jordaan wasn’t listening. She raged, ‘You come here, to our country, with that double-0 number of yours. Oh, I know all about what you do!’
Finally Bond understood the source of her anger with him. It had nothing to do with any attempted flirtation, nothing to do with the fact that he represented the oppressive male. She despised his shameless disregard for the law: the Level 1 missions – assassinations – for the ODG.
He stepped forward and said in a low murmur, barely able to control his anger, ‘In a few instances when there’s been no other way to protect my country, yes, I’ve taken a life. And only if I’ve been ordered to. I don’t do it because I want to. I don’t enjoy it. I do it to save people who deserve to be saved. You may call it a sin – but it’s a necessary sin.’
‘There was no need to kill him,’ she spat back.
‘I wasn’t going to.’
‘The knife… I saw-’
‘He left a trap. The trip wire.’ He gestured. ‘I cut it so nobody would fall. As for him,’ he nodded towards the Serb, ‘I was just telling him we’d get him to a doctor. Ask him. I rarely take someone to hospital when I’m about to murder them.’ He turned and pushed past the two police officers blocking his way. His eyes defied them to try and stop him. Without looking back, he called, ‘I’ll need that film developed as soon as possible. And the IDs of everyone coming to Hydt’s tomorrow.’ He strode away from them down the alley.
Soon he was in the Subaru, streaking past the colourful houses of Bo-Kaap, driving far faster than was safe through the winding, picturesque streets.
A restaurant featuring local cuisine beckoned and James Bond, still angry from his run-in with Bheka Jordaan, decided he needed a strong drink.
He’d enjoyed the stew at Jordaan’s house but the portion was rather small, as if doled out with the intent that the diner finish quickly and depart. Bond now ordered a hearty meal of sosaties- grilled meat skewers – with yellow rice and marogspinach (having politely declined an offer to try the house speciality of mopaneworms). He downed two vodka martinis with the food, then returned to the Table Mountain Hotel.
Bond had a shower, dried himself and dressed. There was a knock on the door. A porter delivered a large envelope. Whatever else, Jordaan had not let her personal view that he was a cold-blooded serial killer interfere with the job. Inside he found black-and-white prints of the images he’d taken with the inhaler camera. Some were blurred and others had missed their mark but he had managed a clear series of what he was most interested in: the door to Research and Development at Green Way and its alarm and locking mechanisms. Jordaan had also been professional enough to provide a flash drive of the scanned pictures, and his anger diminished further. He loaded them on to his laptop, encrypted them and sent them to Sanu Hirani, with a set of instructions.
Thirty seconds after he’d hit send, he received a message back. We never sleep.
He smiled, and texted an acknowledgement.
A few minutes later he took a call from Bill Tanner in London.
‘I was just about to ring you,’ Bond said.
‘James…’ Tanner sounded grave. There was a problem.
‘Go ahead.’
‘There’s a bit of a flap on here. Whitehall’s come round to thinking that Incident Twenty doesn’t have much of a connection with South Africa.’
‘What?’
‘They think Hydt’s a diversion. The killings in Incident Twenty are going to be in Afghanistan, aid workers or contractors, they reckon. The Intelligence Committee voted to pull you out and send you to Kabul – since, frankly, you haven’t found much of anything concrete where you are.’
Bond’s heart was pounding. ‘Bill, I’m convinced the key-’
‘Hold on,’ Tanner interrupted. ‘I’m just telling you what they wanted. But M dug his heels in and insisted you stay. It turned into Trafalgar, big and loud. We all went to the foreign secretary and pitched the case. There’s some talk the PM was involved, though I can’t confirm that. Anyway, M won. You’re to stay in place. And you’ll be interested to know there was a witness for the defence – in your support.’
‘Who?’
‘Your new friend Percy.’
‘Osborne-Smith?’ Bond nearly laughed.
‘He said if you had a lead you ought to be allowed to follow it up.’
‘Did he now? I’ll buy him a pint when all this is over. You too.’
‘Well, things aren’t as rosy as they seem,’ Tanner said glumly. ‘The old man put the ODG’s reputation on the line to keep you there. Yourreputation too. If it turns out Hydt isa diversion, there’ll be repercussions. Serious ones.’
Was the very future of the ODG riding on his success?
Politics, Bond reflected cynically. He said, ‘I’m sure Hydt’s behind it.’
‘And M’s going with that judgement.’ Tanner asked what his next steps would be.
‘I’ll be at Hydt’s plant tomorrow morning. Depending on what I find, I’m going to have to move fast, and communications could be a problem. If I can’t learn anything by late afternoon, I’ll get Bheka Jordaan to raid the place, interrogate the hell out of Hydt and Dunne and find out what’s planned for tomorrow night.’
‘All right, James. Keep me informed. I’ll brief M. He’ll be in that security meeting all day.’
‘Night, Bill. And thank him for me.’
After they had rung off, he poured a generous amount of Crown Royal into a crystal glass, added two ice cubes and turned off the lights. He flung wide the curtains, sat on the sofa and gazed out over the snowflake lights on the harbour. A massive British-flag cruise ship was easing up to the dock.
His phone trilled and he glanced at the screen.
‘Philly.’ He took another sip of the fragrant whisky.
‘Are you in the middle of dinner?’
‘It’s après-cocktail cocktail hour here.’
‘You area man after my own heart.’ As she said this, Bond’s eyes happened to be on the bed he’d shared last night with Felicity Willing. Philly continued, ‘I didn’t know if you wanted more updates on the Steel Cartridge operation…’
He sat forward. ‘Yes, please. What’ve you found?’
‘Something interesting, I think. Seems the whole point of the operation wasn’t to kill just anyof our agents and contractors. The Russians were killing their moles within MI6 and the CIA.’
Bond felt something detonate inside him. He put his glass down.
‘With the fall of the Soviet Union, the Kremlin wanted to solidify ties with the West. It would’ve been awkward politically if their doubles were exposed. So active KGB agents killed the most successful moles in Six and the CIA and made the murders look like accidents – but left a steel cartridge at the scene as a warning to the others to keep quiet. That’s all I know at this point.’
My God, Bond thought. His father… his father had been a double – a traitor?
‘Are you still there?’
‘Yes – just a bit distracted by what’s going on here. But that’s good work, Philly. I’ll be incommunicado for most of tomorrow but text me or email what you find.’
‘I will. Take care of yourself, James. I worry.’
They rang off.
Bond lifted the cold crystal glass, wet with condensation, and pressed it against his forehead. He now scrolled mentally through his family’s past, trying to find clues about Andrew Bond that might shed light on this appalling theory. Bond had been quite fond of his father, who was a collector of stamps and photographs of cars. He’d owned several vehicles but took more pleasure in repairing and cleaning them than in fast driving. When older, Bond had asked his aunt about the man. Charmian had thought for a moment and said, ‘He was a good man, of course. Solid, dependable. A rock. But quiet. Andrew was never one to stand out.’
Qualities of the best covert intelligence agents.
Could he have been a mole for the Russians?
Another jarring thought: his father’s duplicity – if the story were true – had resulted in the death of his wife, Bond’s mother, too.
Not just the Russians but his father’s betrayal had orphaned young Bond.
He started as his phone buzzed with an incoming text.
Late night getting ready for food shipments. Just left office. Interested in some company? Felicity.
James Bond hesitated a moment. Then he typed Yes.
Ten minutes later, after slipping his Walther under the bed beneath a towel, he heard a soft knock. He opened the door and let in Felicity Willing. Any doubt he might have had about whether or not they would pick up where they left off yesterday was dashed when she flung her arms around him and kissed him hard. He smelt her perfume, radiating from behind her ear, and she tasted of mint.
‘I’m a mess,’ she said, laughing. She wore a blue cotton shirt, tucked into designer jeans, which were crumpled and dusty.
‘I won’t hear of it,’ he said and kissed her again.
‘You’re sitting in the dark, Gene,’ she said. And for the first time in the operation he was jarred by the reminder of his Afrikaner cover.
‘I like the view.’
They stepped apart and in the dim light from outside Bond took in her face and thought it as intensely sensual as last night, but she was clearly tired. He supposed the logistics of marshalling the largest shipment of food ever to arrive on the African continent were daunting, to say the least.
‘Here.’ A wine bottle appeared from her shoulder bag – vintage Three Cape Ladies, a red blend from Muldersvlei on the Cape. Bond knew its reputation. He took out the cork and poured. They sat on the sofa and sipped.
‘Wonderful,’ he said.
She worked her boots off. Bond slipped his arm around her shoulders and struggled to put aside thoughts of his father.
Felicity slumped, and rested her head against him. On the horizon there were even more ships than there had been last night. ‘Our food ships. Look at them all,’ she said. ‘You hear so many bad things about people but that’s not the complete truth. There’s a lot of good out there. You can’t always count on it, it’s never certain, but at least-’
Bond interrupted, ‘At least someone’s… willingto help.’
She laughed. ‘You nearly made me spill my wine, Gene. I could’ve ruined my shirt.’
‘I have a solution.’
‘Stop drinking the wine?’ She pouted playfully. ‘But it’s so nice.’
‘Another solution, a better one.’ He kissed her and slowly began to undo the buttons of the garment.
An hour later, they lay in bed, on their sides, Bond behind Felicity. His arm was curled around her and his hand cupped her breast. Her fingers were entwined in his.
Unlike last night, however, in the after-moment, Bond was wholly awake.
His mind was racing furiously, past all assortment of topics. Exactly how much was the future of the ODG resting on him? What secrets did the Research and Development department of Green Way hold? What exactly was Hydt’s goal with Gehenna and how could Bond craft a suitable countermeasure?
Purpose… response.
And what of his father?
‘You’re thinking about something serious,’ Felicity said drowsily.
‘What makes you say that?’
‘Women know.’
‘I’m thinking how beautiful you are.’
She lifted his hand to her face and gently bit his finger. ‘The first lie you’ve told me.’
‘My job,’ he said.
‘Then I’ll forgive you. It’s the same with me. Co-ordinating the help on the docks, paying the pilots’ fees, working on the ship charters and lorry leases, the trade unions.’ Her voice took on the edge he’d heard before, as she said, ‘And then yourspeciality. We’ve already had two attempted break-ins at the dock. And no food has even been offloaded yet. Odd.’ Silence for a moment. Then: ‘Gene?’
Bond knew something significant was coming. He grew alert and receptive. The intimacy of bodies comes prepacked with an intimacy of mind and spirit, and you ought not seek the first if you’re unwilling to take delivery of the second. ‘Yes?’
She said evenly, ‘I have a feeling there’s more to your work than you’ve told me. No, don’t say anything. I don’t know how you feel but if it turns out we can keep seeing each other, if…’ She trailed off.
‘Go on,’ he whispered.
‘If it turns out we see each other again, do you think that maybe you could change just a bit? I mean, if you do go to some dark places, could you promise me not to go to the… worst?’ He felt the tension that rippled through her. ‘Oh, I don’t know what I’m saying. Ignore me, Gene.’
Although she was speaking to a security expert-cum-mercenary soldier from Durban, in a way she was also talking to him, James Bond, a 00 Section agent.
And, ironically, he took her acknowledgement that she could live with a certain degree of darkness in Theron as indication that she might accept Bond as he was.
He whispered, ‘I think that’s very possible.’
She kissed his hand. ‘Don’t say any more. That’s all I wanted to hear. Now, I have an idea. I don’t know what your plans are for this weekend…’
Neither do I, Bond thought sourly.
‘… but we’ll have finished the food shipments tomorrow night. There’s an inn I know in Franschhoek – have you been to that area?’
‘No.’
‘It’s the most beautiful spot on the Western Cape. A wine district. The restaurant has a Michelin star and the most romantic deck in the world, overlooking the hills. Come with me on Saturday?’
‘I’d love to,’ he said and kissed her hair.
‘You really mean that?’ The tough warrior who seemed so at ease fighting the world’s agropolies now sounded vulnerable and unsure.
‘Yes, I do.’
In five minutes she was asleep.
Bond, however, remained awake, staring out at the lights of the harbour. His thoughts were no longer on his father’s possible betrayal, nor on his promise to Felicity Willing to consider changing his darkest nature nor on the anticipation of the time they might spend together this weekend. No, James Bond was focusing on one thing only: the indistinct faces of those, somewhere in the world, whose lives – despite Whitehall’s belief – he knew that he alone could save.