Carte Blanche Part 17

Bond relaxed his fist and turned. He looked into the vehicle and tried unsuccessfully to mask his surprise. The beautiful woman he'd seen just moments ago in Arrivals was sitting in the back seat.

'I'm Captain Bheka Jordaan, SAPS, Crime Combating and Investigation Division.'

'Ah.' Bond looked at her full lips, untouched by cosmetics, and her dark eyes. She wasn't smiling.

His mobile buzzed. The screen showed he had a message from Bill Tanner, along with, of course, an MMS picture of the woman in front of him.

The tall abductor said, 'Commander Bond, I am SAPS Warrant Officer Kwalene Nkosi.' He reached out his hand and their palms met in the traditional South African way an initial grip, as in the West, followed by a vertical clasp and back to the original. Bond knew it was considered impolite to let go too quickly. Apparently he timed the gesture right; Nkosi grinned warmly, then nodded to the shorter man, who was taking Bond's suitcase and laptop bag to the rear of the Range Rover. 'And that is Sergeant Mbalula.'

The stocky man nodded unsmilingly and, after stowing Bond's belongings, vanished fast, presumably to his own vehicle.

'You will please forgive our brusqueness, Commander,' Nkosi said. 'We thought it best to get you out of the airport as quickly as possible, rather than spend the time to explain.'

'We should not waste more time on pleasantries, Warrant Officer,' Bheka Jordaan muttered impatiently.

Bond eased himself into the back beside her. Nkosi got into the pa.s.senger seat in the front. A moment later Sergeant Mbalula's black saloon, also unmarked, pulled up behind them.

'Let's go,' Jordaan barked. 'Quickly.'

The Range Rover peeled away from the kerb and skidded brazenly into the traffic, earning the driver a series of energetic hoots and lethargic curses, and accelerated to more than ninety k.p.h. in a zone marked forty.

Bond pulled his mobile off his belt. He typed into the keyboard, read the responses.

'Warrant Officer?' Jordaan asked Nkosi. 'Anything?'

He had been staring into the wing mirror and answered in what seemed to be Zulu or Xhosa. Bond did not speak either language but it was clear from the tone of the answer, and the woman's reaction, that there was no tail. When they were outside the airport grounds and making their way towards a cl.u.s.ter of low but impressive mountains in the distance, the vehicle slowed somewhat.

Jordaan thrust her hand forward. Bond reached out to shake it, smiling, then stopped. She was holding a mobile phone. 'If you don't mind,' she said sternly, 'you will touch the screen here.'

So much for warming international relations.

He took the phone, pressed his thumb into the centre of the screen and handed it back. She read the message that appeared. 'James Bond. Overseas Development Group, Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Now, you'll want to confirm my ident.i.ty.' She held out her hand, fingers splayed. 'You have an app that can take my prints too, I a.s.sume.'

'There's no need.'

'Why?' she asked coolly. 'Because I'm what pa.s.ses for a beautiful woman in your mind and you have no need to check further? I could be an a.s.sa.s.sin. I could be an al-Qaeda terrorist wearing a bomb vest.'

He decided not to mention that his earlier perusal of her figure had revealed no evidence of explosives. He answered, perhaps a bit glibly, 'I don't need your prints because, in addition to the photo of you that my office just sent me, my mobile read your iris a few minutes ago and confirmed to me that you are indeed Captain Bheka Jordaan, Crime Combating and Investigation Division, South African Police Service. You've worked for them for eight years. You live in Leeuwen Street in Cape Town. Last year you received a Gold Cross for bravery. Congratulations.'

He had also learnt her age, thirty-two, her salary and that she was divorced.

Warrant Officer Nkosi twisted round in his seat, glanced at the mobile and said, with a broad smile, 'Commander Bond, that is a nice toy. Without doubt.'

Jordaan snapped, 'Kwalene!'

The young man's smile vanished. He turned back to his wing mirror sentry duty.

She glanced with disdain at Bond's phone. 'We will go to my headquarters and consider how to approach the situation with Severan Hydt. I worked with your Lieutenant Colonel Tanner when he was with MI6 so I agreed to help you. He is intelligent and very devoted to his job. Quite a gentleman too.'

The implication being that Bond himself probably was not. He was irritated that she'd taken such umbrage at what had been an innocent relatively innocent smile in the arrivals hall. She was attractive and he couldn't have been the first man to lob a flirt her way. 'Is Hydt in his office?' he asked.

'That's correct,' Nkosi said. 'He and Niall Dunne are both in Cape Town. Sergeant Mbalula and I followed them from the airport. There was a woman with them too.'

'You have surveillance on them?'

'That's right,' the lean man said. 'We based our CCTV plan on London's so there are cameras everywhere downtown. He is in his office and being monitored from a central location. We can track him anywhere if he leaves. We ourselves are not completely free of toys, Commander.'

Bond smiled at him, then said to Jordaan, 'You mentioned a hostile at the airport.'

'We learnt from Immigration that a man arrived from Abu Dhabi around the time you did. He was travelling on a fake British pa.s.sport. We discovered this only after he cleared Customs and disappeared.'

The bearish man he'd mistaken for Jordaan? Or the man in the blue jacket at the shopping centre on Dubai Creek? He described them.

'I don't know,' Jordaan offered curtly. 'As I said, our only information was doc.u.mentary. Because he was unaccounted for, I thought it best not to meet you in person in the arrivals hall. I sent my officers instead.' She leant forward suddenly and asked Nkosi, 'Anyone now?'

'No, Captain. We are not being followed.'

Bond said to her, 'You seem concerned about surveillance.'

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

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

33.

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

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

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

What gave him pause, though, was that the two princ.i.p.al words were eerie, and ironic, echoes of Severan Hydt's first name.

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

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

Divorced, he recalled.

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

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

Gold Cross for Bravery . . .

Bond sat across from her, beside Nkosi, who unb.u.t.toned his jacket and remained stiffly upright. Bond asked them both, 'Did Colonel Tanner tell you about my mission here?'

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

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

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

'It is. Does that surprise you?'

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

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

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

'Thank you. Now, do you know anything about his a.s.sociate, Niall Dunne?'

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

'What do you know of the woman with them?'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'"Legal means"?'

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

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

'Well, I do. Of course.'

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

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

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

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

34.

'He has to die.'

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

Which was chilling in its own way.

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

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

'So what do you suggest?'

'I'm looking into it now.'

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

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

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

'All right. Let's move fast, though.'

'Tonight, after he gets home.'

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

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

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

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

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

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

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