Part 17 (1/2)

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 . . .