Part 14 (1/2)

Hydt, too, was pleased, very pleased. He began to ask a question. But then he looked at a clock on the wall. It was six thirty. He could concentrate on the machinery no longer.

28.

James Bond, Felix Leiter and Yusuf Nasad were fifty feet from the factory, crouching beside a large skip, observing Hydt, the Irishman, an Arab in a traditional white robe and an attractive dark-haired woman through a loading-bay window.

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.

'd.a.m.n,' 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 a.s.set 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 gla.s.s 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 circ.u.mstances 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 b.a.s.t.a.r.d,' 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 c.o.c.ked 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 a.s.sociate 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 antic.i.p.ation 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 gla.s.s 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 d.a.m.n 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 circ.u.mstances?

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 bas.e.m.e.nt 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 ma.s.sive chandelier, in gold, dominated the room. Bond casually pointed the microphone towards the men. He caught dozens of sc.r.a.ps 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.