Part 37 (1/2)

'Hydt said n.o.body ever sees dustmen and it's true. They're invisible. They're everywhere and yet you look right through them.'

M gave a rare chuckle. 'I happened to be thinking much the same myself yesterday.' Then he grew serious. 'What're your recommendations, 007?'

'I'd get our emba.s.sy people and Six to roll up all the Green Way operations as fast as they can before the actors start disappearing. Freeze their a.s.sets and trace all incoming monies. That'll lead us to the rest of the Gehenna clients.'

'Hmm,' M said, his voice uncharacteristically light. 'I suppose we could.'

What was the old man thinking?

'Though I'm not sure we should be too hasty. Let's arrest the princ.i.p.als in all the locations, yes, but what do you think about getting some double-one agents into their offices and keeping Gehenna going a bit longer in some places, 007? I'd love to see what GRS Aeros.p.a.ce outside Moscow throws away. And I wonder what the Pakistani consulate in Mumbai is shredding. Be interesting to find out. We'd have to pull in some favours with the press to stop them reporting what Hydt was really up to. I'll have the misinformation chaps at Six leak word that he was mixed up with organised crime or some such. We'll keep it vague. Word will get out at some point but by then we'll have scooped up some valuable finds.'

The old fox. Bond laughed to himself. So the ODG was going into the recycling business. 'Brilliant, sir.'

'Get all the details to Bill Tanner and we'll go from there.' M paused, then barked, 'Osborne-b.l.o.o.d.y-Smith has brought traffic in London to a complete standstill. It'll take me ages to get home. I've never understood why they couldn't run the M4 all the way in to Earl's Court.'

The line went dead.

64.

James Bond found Felicity Willing's business card and called her at her office to break the news that one of her donors was a criminal . . . and had died in an operation to arrest him.

But she'd heard. Already reporters had been on to her and asked for a statement, in light of the fact that Green Way was heavily involved with the Mafia and the Camorra (Bond reflected that the gra.s.s did not grow beneath the feet of the 'misinformation chaps at Six').

Felicity was furious that some journalists were suggesting she'd known there was something disreputable about him but that she'd been happy to take his donations anyway. 'How the b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l could they ask that, Gene? For heaven's sake, Hydt gave us fifty or sixty thousand pounds a year, which was generous but nothing compared to what a lot of people donate. I'd drop anyone in an instant if I thought they were up to something illegal.' Her voice softened. 'But you're all right, aren't you?'

'I wasn't even there when they raided the place. The police rang me and asked a few questions. That's all. h.e.l.l of a shock, though.'

'I'm sure it was.'

Bond asked how the deliveries were going. She told him that the tonnage was even higher than had been pledged. Distribution was already under way to ten different countries in sub-Saharan Africa. There was enough food to keep hundreds of thousands of people fed for months.

Bond congratulated her, then said, 'You're not too busy for Franschhoek?'

'If you think you're getting out of our weekend in the country, Gene, you'd better think again.'

They made plans to meet in the morning. He reminded himself to find someone to wash and polish the Subaru, for which he'd formed some affection, despite the flashy colour and the largely cosmetic spoiler on the boot.

After they'd disconnected, he sat back, relis.h.i.+ng the cheer in her voice. Relis.h.i.+ng, too, the memory of the time they'd spent together. And thinking of the future.

If you do go to some dark places, could you promise me not to go to the . . . worst?

Smiling, he flicked her card, then put it away and pulled on the gloves once more to continue ploughing through the doc.u.ments and computers, jotting notes about Green Way's offices and the Gehenna operation for M and Bill Tanner. He laboured for an hour or so until he decided it was time for a drink.

He stretched luxuriously.

He then paused and slowly lowered his arms. At that moment he had felt a jolt deep within him. He knew the sensation. It arose occasionally in the world of espionage, that great landscape of subtext where so little is as it seems. Often the source for such an unsettling stab was a suspicion that a basic a.s.sumption had been wrong, perhaps disastrously so.

Staring at his notes, he heard himself breathing fast, his lips dry. His heartbeat quickened.

Bond flipped through hundreds of doc.u.ments again, then grabbed his mobile and emailed Philly Maidenstone a priority request. As he waited for her reply he rose and paced in the small office, his mind inundated with thoughts, hovering and swooping like the frantic seagulls over Disappearance Row at Green Way.

When Philly responded he s.n.a.t.c.hed up his mobile and read the message, sitting back slowly in the uncomfortable chair.

A shadow fell over him. He looked up and found Bheka Jordaan standing there. She was saying, 'James, I brought you some coffee. In a proper mug.' It was decorated with the smiling faces of the players from Bafana Bafana in all their football finest.

When he said nothing and didn't take it, she set it down. 'James?'

Bond knew his face betrayed the alarm burning within him. After a moment he whispered, 'I think I got it wrong.'

'What do you mean?'

'Everything. About Gehenna, about Incident Twenty.'

'Tell me.'

Bond sat forward. 'The original intelligence we had was that someone named Noah was involved in the event today the event that would result in all those deaths.'

'Yes.' She sat next to him. 'Severan Hydt.'

Bond shook his head. He waved at the boxes of doc.u.ments from Green Way. 'But I've been through nearly every d.a.m.n piece of paper and most of the mobiles and computers. There isn't a single reference to Noah in any of it. And in all my meetings with Hydt and Dunne there was no reference to the name. If that was his nickname, why didn't it turn up in something? An idea occurred to me so I contacted an a.s.sociate at MI6. She knows computers rather well. Are you familiar with metadata?'

Jordaan said, 'Information embedded in computer files. We convicted a government minister of corruption because of it.'

He nodded at his phone. 'My colleague looked at the half-dozen Internet references we found that mentioned Hydt's nickname was Noah. The metadata in every one of them showed they were written and uploaded this week.'

'Just like we uploaded data about Gene Theron to create your cover.'

'Exactly. The real Noah did that to keep us focused on Hydt. Which means Incident Twenty the thousands of deaths wasn't the bombing in York. Gehenna and Incident Twenty are two entirely different plans. Something else is going to happen. And soon tonight. That's what the original email said. Those people, whoever they are, are still at risk.'

Despite the success at Green Way, he was back to the vital questions once more: who was his enemy and what was his purpose?

Until he answered those enquiries, he couldn't form a response.

Yet he had to. There was little time left.

confirm incident friday night, 20th, estimated initial casualties in the thousands . . .

'James?'

Fragments of facts, memories and theories spiralled through his mind. Once again, as he'd done in the bowels of Green Way's research facility, he began to a.s.semble all the bits of information he possessed, trying to put back together the shredded blueprint of Incident Twenty. He rose and, hands clasped behind his back, bent forward, as he looked over the papers and notes covering the desk.

Jordaan had fallen silent.