Carte Blanche

in.”
    Bond was looking at a large rack, like the cubbyholes for keys behind the front desk in old-fashioned hotels. There were hundreds and most of them had phones in them. The guard noticed. “The rule applies to all our employees too.”
    Bond recalled that René Mathis had told him the same thing about Hydt’s London operation—that there was virtually no SIGINT going into or coming out of the company. “Well, you have landlines I can use, I assume. I’ll have to check my messages.”
    “There are some but all the lines go through a central switchboard in the security department. A guard could make the call for you but you wouldn’t have any privacy. Most visitors wait until after they leave. The same is true for e-mail and Internet access. If you wish to keep anything metal on you, we’ll have to X-ray it.”
    “I should tell you I’m armed.”
    “Yes.” As if many people coming to visit Green Way were. “Of course—”
    “I’ll have to hand in my weapon too?”
    “That’s right.”
    Bond silently thanked Felicity Willing for filling him in on Hydt’s security. Otherwise he would have been caught with one of Q Branch’s standard-issue video or still surveillance cameras in a pen or jacket button, which would have shattered his credibility . . . and probably led to a full-on fight.
    Playing the tough mercenary, he scoffed at the inconvenience but handed over his gun and phone, programmed to reveal only information about his Gene Theron cover identity, should anyone try to crack it. Then he stripped off his belt and watch, placed them and his keys in a tray for the X-ray.
    He strode through quickly and was reunited with his possessions—after the guard had checked that the watch, keys and belt held no cameras, weapons or recording devices.
    “Wait here, please, sir,” the security man said. Bond sat where indicated.
    The inhaler was still in his pocket. If they had frisked him, found and dismantled the device, they would have discovered it was in fact a sensitive camera, constructed without a single metal part. One of Sanu Hirani’s contacts in Cape Town had managed to find or assemble the device that morning. The shutter was carbon fiber, as were the springs operating it.
    The image-storage medium was quite interesting—unique nowadays: old-fashioned microfilm, the sort spies had used during the Cold War. The camera had a fixed-focus lens and Bond could snap a picture by pressing the base, then twisting it to advance the film. It could take thirty pictures. In this digital age, the cobwebbed past occasionally offered an advantage.
    Bond looked for a sign to Research and Development, which he knew from Stephan Dlamini contained at least some information about Gehenna, but there was none. He sat for five minutes before Severan Hydt appeared, in silhouette but unmistakable: the tall stature, the massive, regal head framed with curly hair and beard, the well-tailored suit. He paused, looming, in the doorway. “Theron.” His black eyes bored into Bond’s.
    They shook hands and Bond tried to ignore the grotesque sensation he experienced as Hydt’s long nails slid across his palm and wrist.
    “Come with me,” Hydt said and led him into the main office building, which was much less austere than the outside suggested. Indeed, the place was rather nicely appointed, with expensive furniture, art, antiques and comfortable work spaces for the staff. It seemed like a typical medium-size company. The front lobby was furnished with the obligatory sofa and chairs, a table with trade magazines and a Cape Town newspaper. On the walls there were pictures of forests, rolling fields of grain and flowers, streams and oceans.
    And everywhere, that eerie logo—the leaf that looked like a knife.
    As they walked along the corridors, Bond kept an eye open for the Research and Development department. Finally, toward the rear of the building, he saw a sign pointing to it. He memorized the location, noting landmarks nearby.
    But Hydt turned the other way. “Come along. We’re going for the fifty-rand tour.”
    At the back of the building Bond was handed a dark green hard hat. Hydt donned one too. They walked to a rear door, where Bond was surprised to see a second security post. Curiously, workers coming into the building from the rubbish yard were checked. Hydt and he stepped outside on to a patio overlooking scores of low buildings. Lorries and forklift trucks moved in and out of each one, like bees at a