Carte Blanche Read online

  With Bond and Leiter in the American’s Alfa, and Nasad in his Ford bringing up the rear, they’d started to follow the Lincoln Town Car from the Intercontinental but both agents immediately recognised that the Arab driver was starting evasion techniques. Worried that they’d be spotted, Bond used an app in his mobile to paint the car with a MASINT profile and took its co-ordinates with a laser, then uploaded the data to the GCHQ tracking centre. Leiter eased off the accelerator and let the satellites follow the vehicle, beaming the results to Bond’s mobile.

  ‘Damn,’ Leiter had drawled, looking at the phone in Bond’s hand. ‘I want one of them.’

  Bond had followed the Town Car’s progress on his map and directed Leiter, with Nasad following, in the general direction that Hydt was going, which was proving to be a very circuitous route. Finally the Lincoln headed back to the Deira, the old part of town. A few minutes later Bond, Leiter and his asset arrived, left the cars in an alleyway between two dusty warehouses and sliced their way through the chain-link fence for a closer view of what Hydt and the Irishman were up to. The driver of the Lincoln had remained in the car park.

  Bond plugged in an earpiece and trained his phone’s camera eye on the foursome, eavesdropping with an app that Sanu Hirani had developed. The Vibra-Mike reconstructed conversation observed through windows or transparent doors by reading vibrations on glass or other nearby smooth surfaces. It combined what it detected sonically with visual input of lip and cheek movement, eye expression and body language. In circumstances like this it could reconstruct conversations with about 85 per cent accuracy.

  After listening to the conversation, Bond told the others, ‘They’re talking about equipment for the Green Way facilities, his legitimate company. Dammit.’

  ‘Look at the bastard,’ the American whispered. ‘He knows that around ninety people are going to die in a half-hour and it’s like he’s talking to a store clerk about pixels on big-screen TVs.’

  Nasad’s phone buzzed. He took the call, speaking in staccato Arabic, some of which Bond could decipher. He was getting information about the factory. He disconnected and explained to the agents that the place was owned by a Dubai citizen, Mahdi al-Fulan. A picture confirmed he was the man Hydt and the Irishman were with. He was not suspected of having any terrorist ties, had never been to Afghanistan and seemed to be merely an engineer and businessman. He did, however, design and sell his products to, among others, warlords and arms dealers. He had recently developed an optical scanner on a land mine that could differentiate between enemies’ and friendlies’ uniforms or badges.

  Bond recalled notes he’d found up in March: blast radius…

  As conversation in the warehouse resumed, Bond cocked his head and listened once more. Hydt was saying to the Irishman, ‘I want to leave for the… event. Mahdi and I will go there now.’ He turned to his Arab associate with eerie, almost hungry, eyes. ‘It’s not far, is it?’

  ‘No, we can walk.’

  Hydt said to his Irish partner, ‘Maybe you and Stella could work out some of the technical details.’

  The Irishman turned to the woman as Hydt and the Arab vanished into the warehouse.

  Bond closed down the app and glanced at Leiter. ‘Hydt and al-Fulan are going to the site where the attack is to take place. They’re walking. I’ll follow them. See if you can find out anything more here. The woman and the Irishman are going to stay. Get closer if you can. I’ll call you when I find out what’s going on.’

  ‘You bet,’ the Texan said.

  Bay-at…

  Nasad nodded.

  Bond checked his Walther and slipped it back into the holster.

  ‘Wait, James,’ Leiter said. ‘You know, saving these people, the ninety or whatever, well, it could tip your hand. If he thinks you’re on to him, Hydt could rabbit – he’ll disappear – and you’ll never find him, until he comes up with a new Incident Twenty. And he’ll be a lot more careful about keeping it secret then. If you let him go ahead with whatever he’s about to do here, he’ll stay in the dark about you.’

  ‘Sacrifice them, you mean?’

  The American held Bond’s eyes. ‘It’s a tough call. I don’t know that I could do it. But it’s something to think about.’

  ‘I already have. And, no, they’re not dying.’

  He spotted the two men making their way out of the compound.

  Crouching, Leiter ran to the building and hauled himself through a small window, disappearing silently on the other side. He reappeared and gestured. Nasad joined him.

  Bond slipped back through the breach in the fence and made his way after his two targets. After several blocks of meandering through industrial alleys, Hydt and al-Fulan entered the Deira Covered Souk: hundreds of outdoor stalls, as well as more conventional shops, where you could buy gold, spices, shoes, TV sets, CDs, videos, Mars bars, souvenirs, toys, Middle Eastern and Western clothing… virtually anything imaginable. Only a portion of the population here seemed to be Emirates-born; Bond heard bits of conversation in Tamil, Malayalam, Urdu and Tagalog, but relatively little Arabic. Shoppers were everywhere, hundreds of them. Intense negotiations were going on at every stall and in every shop, hands gesticulating feverishly, brows furrowed, clipped words flying back and forth.

  Do Buy…

  Bond was following at a discreet distance, looking for any sign of their target: the people who were going to die in twenty-five minutes.

  What could the Rag-and-bone Man possibly have in mind? A trial run in anticipation of the carnage on Friday, which would be ten or twenty times as bad? Or was this unrelated? Perhaps Hydt was using his role as an international businessman as a cover. Were he and the Irishman just hired killers? State-of-the-art hitmen?

  Bond dodged through the log-jam of merchants, shoppers, tourists and dock workers loading the dhows with cargo. It was very crowded now, just before Maghrib, the sunset prayer. Were the markets to be the site of the attack?

  Then Hydt and al-Fulan left the souk and continued to walk for half a block. They stopped and gazed up at a modern structure, three storeys high, with large glass windows, overlooking Dubai Creek. It was a public building, filled with men, women and children. Bond moved closer and saw a sign in Arabic and English. The Museum of the Emirates.

  So this was the target. And it was a damn good one. Bond scanned it. At least a hundred people meandered through the ground floor alone and there would surely be many more on the floors above. The building was close to the Creek with only a narrow road in front, which meant that emergency vehicles would have a difficult time getting close to the scene of the carnage.

  Al-Fulan looked around uneasily but Hydt pushed through the front door. They vanished into the crowd.

  I’m not letting those people die. Bond plugged his earpiece in and called up the eavesdropping app on his phone. He followed the two men inside, paid a small admission fee and eased closer to his targets, blending with a group of Western tourists.

  He couldn’t help but think about what Felix Leiter had said. Saving these people might indeed alert Hydt that someone was on to him.

  What would M do under these circumstances?

  He supposed the old man would sacrifice the ninety to save thousands. He’d been an active-duty admiral in the Royal Navy. Officers at that level had to make hard decisions like this all the time.

  But, dammit, Bond thought, I have to do something. He saw children scampering around, saw men and women gazing at and talking animatedly about the exhibits, people laughing, people nodding with rapt interest as a tour guide lectured.

  Hydt and al-Fulan moved further into the building. What were they doing? Had they planned to leave an explosive device? Perhaps it was what had been constructed in the hospital basement in March.

  Or perhaps the industrial designer al-Fulan had made something else for Hydt.

  Bond circled through the large marble lobby, filled with Arabic art and antiquities. A massive chandelier, in gold, dominated the room. Bond casually pointed the
microphone towards the men. He caught dozens of scraps of conversation from others but none between Hydt and al-Fulan. Angry with himself, he adjusted his aim more carefully and finally heard Hydt’s voice: ‘I’ve been looking forward to this for a long time. I must thank you again for making it happen.’

  Al-Fulan: ‘I am pleased to do what I can. It is good we are in business together.’

  Distracted, Hydt whispered, ‘I would like to take pictures of the bodies.’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course. Anything you want, Severan.’

  How close can I get to the bodies?

  Hydt then said, ‘It’s almost seven. Are we ready?’

  What should I do? Bond thought desperately. People are about to die.

  Your enemy’s purpose will dictate your response…

  On the wall, he noted a fire alarm. He could pull it, evacuate the building. But he also saw CCTVs and security guards. He’d be identified immediately as the man who’d pulled the lever and, though he’d try to flee, the guards and police might stop him, find his weapon. Hydt might see him. He’d easily deduce what had happened. The mission would collapse.

  Was there any better response?

  He couldn’t think of one and edged close to the fire-alarm panel.

  Six fifty-five.

  Hydt and al-Fulan were walking quickly to a door at the rear of the lobby. Bond was at the alarm now. He was in full view of three security cameras.

  And a guard was no more than twenty feet away. He had noticed Bond now and perhaps registered that his behaviour wasn’t quite what you’d expect of a casual Western tourist in an arcane museum of this sort. The man bent his head and spoke into a microphone attached to his shoulder.

  In front of Bond a family stood before a diorama of a camel race. The little boy and his father were laughing at the comical models.

  Six fifty-six.

  The squat guard turned towards Bond. He wore a pistol. And the protective flap covering it had been unsnapped.

  Six fifty-seven.

  The guard started forward, his hand near his gun.

  Still, with Hydt and al-Fulan merely twenty feet away, Bond reached for the fire-alarm lever.

  29

  At that moment an announcement in Arabic came over the public-address system.

  Bond paused to listen. He understood most of it. The English translation a moment later confirmed his take on the words.

  ‘Gentlemen. Will ticket holders for the seven o’clock show now proceed through the North Wing door.’

  That was the entrance Hydt and al-Fulan were now approaching, at the back of the main hall. They weren’t leaving the museum; if this was the location where the people would die, why weren’t the two men fleeing?

  Bond left the alarm panel and stepped to the door. The guard eyed him once more, then turned away, fixing his holster flap.

  Hydt and his colleague stood at the entrance to a special show the museum was hosting. Bond exhaled slowly as he understood at last. The title of the exhibition was ‘Death in the Sand’. A notice at the entrance explained that last autumn archaeologists had discovered a mass grave dating back a thousand years, located near Abu Dhabi’s Liwa oasis, about a hundred kilometres inland from the Persian Gulf. An entire nomadic Arab tribe, ninety-two people, had been attacked and slaughtered. Just after the battle, a sandstorm had buried the bodies. When the village had been discovered last year the remains were found perfectly preserved in the hot dry sands.

  The exhibition was of the desiccated bodies laid out exactly as they were found, in a re-creation of the village. For the general public, it seemed, the bodies were modestly covered. The special exhibition tonight, at seven – which included only men – was for scientists, doctors and professors. The corpses were not covered. Al-Fulan had apparently managed to get Hydt a ticket.

  Bond nearly laughed out loud, and relief flooded over him. Misunderstandings – and even outright errors – are not uncommon in the nuanced business of espionage, where operatives have to make plans and execute them with only fragments of information at their disposal. Often the results of such mistakes are disastrous; Bond couldn’t recall an instance in which the opposite was true, as here, when a looming tragedy turned into an evening’s innocuous cultural excursion. His first thought was that he’d enjoy telling Philly Maidenstone the story.

  His amusement dimmed, however, as he reflected soberly: he’d almost destroyed the mission for the sake of ninety people who had been dead for nearly a millennium.

  Then his mood grew more sombre yet as he looked into the large exhibition room and caught glimpses of the panorama of death: the bodies, some retaining much of the skin, like leather. Others were mostly skeletons. Hands reaching out, perhaps in a last plea for mercy. Emaciated forms of mothers cradling their children. Eye sockets empty, fingers mere twigs and more than a few mouths twisted into horrific smiles by the ravages of time and decay.

  Bond looked at Hydt’s face as the Rag-and-bone Man stared down at the victims. He was enraptured; an almost sexual lust glowed in his eyes. Even al-Fulan seemed troubled at the pleasure his business associate was displaying.

  I’ve never heard that kind of joy at the prospect of killing…

  Hydt was taking picture after picture, the repeated flash from his mobile bathing the corpses in brilliant light and making them all the more supernatural and horrific.

  What a bloody waste of time, Bond reflected. All he’d learnt from the trip was that Hydt had some fancy new machinery for his recycling operations and that he got a sick high from images of dead bodies. Was Incident Twenty, whatever it might be, a similar misreading of the intercept? He thought back to the phrasing of the original message and concluded that whatever was planned for Friday was a real threat.

  … estimated initial casualties in the thousands, british interests adversely affected, funds transfers as discussed.

  That clearly described an attack.

  Hydt and al-Fulan were moving deeper into the exhibition hall and, without a special ticket, Bond couldn’t pursue them further. But Hydt was speaking again. Bond lifted the phone.

  ‘I do hope you understand about that girl of yours. What’s her name again?’

  ‘Stella,’ al-Fulan said. ‘No, we don’t have any choice. When she finds out I’m not leaving my wife she’ll be a risk. She knows too much. And, frankly,’ he added, ‘she’s been quite a nuisance lately.’

  Hydt continued, ‘My associate’s handling everything. He’ll take her out to the desert, make her disappear. Whatever he does, though, will be efficient. He’s quite amazing at planning… well, everything.’

  That was why the Irishman had remained at the warehouse.

  If he was going to kill Stella, there wassomething more to this trip than legitimate business. He’d have to assume it involved Incident Twenty. Bond hurried from the museum, calling Felix Leiter. They had to save the woman and learn what she knew.

  Leiter’s mobile, however, rang four times, then stepped into voicemail. Bond tried again. Why the hell wasn’t the American picking up? Were he and Nasad trying to save Stella at this moment, perhaps fighting with the Irishman or the chauffeur? Or both of them?

  Another call. Voicemail again. Bond broke into a run, weaving through the souks as haunting voices calling the faithful to prayer filled the sunset sky.

  Sweating hard, gasping, he arrived at al-Fulan’s warehouse five minutes later. Hydt’s Town Car was gone. Bond slipped through the hole they’d cut earlier in the fence. The window Leiter had climbed through was now closed. Bond ran to the warehouse and used a lock pick to open a side door. He slipped inside, drawing the Walther.

  The place seemed to be deserted, though he could hear the loud whining of machinery from somewhere nearby.

  No sign of the girl.

  And where were Leiter and Nasad?

  Just a few seconds later Bond learnt the answer to that question, part of it, at least. In the room Leiter had entered, he found bloodstains on the floor, fresh. There were
signs of a struggle, with several tools lying nearby… along with Leiter’s pistol and phone.

  Bond summoned a scenario of what might have happened. Leiter and Nasad had separated, with the American hiding here. He must have been watching the Irishman and Stella when the Arab chauffeur had slipped up behind and hit him with a spanner or pipe. Had Leiter been dragged off, thrown into the boot of the Town Car and taken to the desert with the girl?

  Gun in his hand, Bond headed for the doorway where he heard the sound of the machine.

  He froze at what he saw ahead of him.

  The man in the blue jacket – his tail from earlier – was rolling the barely conscious form of Felix Leiter into one of the massive rubbish-compacting machines. The CIA agent lay sprawled, feet first, on the conveyor-belt, which wasn’t moving, though the machine itself was running; in the centre two huge metal plates on either side of the belt pressed forward, nearly meeting, then withdrawing to accept a new batch of junk.

  Leiter’s legs were a mere two yards from them.

  The assailant glanced up and, scowling, stared at the intruder.

  Bond steadied his weapon’s sights on the man and shouted, ‘Hands out to your sides!’

  The man did so but suddenly lunged to his right and slapped a button on the machine, then sprinted away, vanishing from sight.

  The conveyor-belt began rolling steadily forward, with Leiter easing towards the thick steel plates, which came within six inches of each other then shot back to allow more refuse into their path.

  Bond sped to the unit and slapped the red OFF button, then started after the attacker. But the heavy-duty motor didn’t stop immediately; the belt continued to carry his friend towards the deadly plates, pulsing relentlessly back and forth.

  Oh, God!… Bond holstered his Walther and turned back. He grabbed Leiter and struggled to pull him out of the machinery. But the conveyor-belt was dotted with pointed teeth, to improve its grip, and Leiter’s clothing was caught.