Carte Blanche

wearing more protective clothing than any other employees—respirators, heavy gloves and goggles or full face masks.
    “Our e-waste department. We call this area ‘Silicon Row.’ E-waste accounts for more than ten percent of the deadly substances on earth. Heavy metals, lithium from batteries. Take computers and mobiles. They have a life expectancy of two or three years at most, so people just throw them out. Have you ever read the warning booklet that comes with your laptop or phone, ‘Dispose of properly’?” He smiled.
    “Not really.”
    “Of course not. No one does. But pound for pound computers and phones are the most deadly waste on earth. In China, they just bury or burn them. They’re killing their population by doing that. I’m starting a new operation to address this situation—separating the components of computers at my clients’ companies and then disposing of them properly.”
    Bond recalled the device he’d seen demonstrated at al-Fulan’s, the one near to the compactor that had taken Yusuf Nasad’s life.
    “In a few years that will be my most lucrative operation.” Hydt then pointed, with a long yellow fingernail. “And at the back of this building there is the Dangerous-Materials Recovery department. One of our biggest moneymaking services. We handle everything from paint to motor oil to arsenic to polonium.”
    “Polonium?” Bond gave a cool laugh. This was the radioactive material that had been used to kill the Russian spy Alexander Litvinenko, an expatriate in London, a few years ago. It was one of the most toxic substances on earth. “It’s just thrown out? That has to be illegal.”
    “Ah, but that’s the thing about discard, Theron. People throw away an innocent-looking antistatic machine . . . that just happens to contain polonium. But nobody knows that.”
    He led Bond past a car park where several lorries stood, each about twenty feet long. On the side was the company name and logo, along with the words S ECURE D OCUMENT D ESTRUCTION S ERVICES .
    Hydt followed Bond’s gaze and said, “Another of our specialties. We lease shredders to companies and government offices but smaller outfits would rather hire us to do it for them. Did you know that when the Iranian students took over the American embassy in the nineteen seventies, they were able to reassemble classified CIA documents that had been shredded? They learned the identities of most of the covert agents there. Local weavers did the work.”
    Everyone in the intelligence community knew this but Bond feigned surprise.
    “At Green Way we perform DIN industrial-standard level-six shredding. Basically, our machines turn the documents to dust. Even the most secret government installations hire us.”
    He then led Bond to the largest building on the plant, three stories high and two hundred yards long. A continuous string of lorries rolled in through one door and came out through another. “The main recycling facility. We call this area ‘Resurrection Row.’”
    They stepped inside. Three huge devices were being fed an endless stream of paper, cardboard, plastic bottles, polystyrene, scrap metal, wood and hundreds of other items. “The sorters,” Hydt shouted. The noise was deafening. At the far end, the separated materials were being packed into lorries for onward shipment—tins, glass, plastic, paper.
    “Recycling’s a curious business,” Hydt yelled. “Only a few products—metals and glass, mostly—can be recycled indefinitely. Everything else breaks down after a while and has to be burned or go to landfill. Aluminum’s the only consistently profitable recyclable. Most products are far cheaper, cleaner and easier to make from raw materials than recycled ones. The extra lorries for transporting recycling materials and the recycling process itself add to fossil fuel pollution. And remanufacturing uses more power than the initial production, which is a drain on resources.”
    He laughed. “But it’s politically correct to recycle . . . so people come to me.”
    Bond followed his tour guide outside and noticed Niall Dunne approaching on his long legs, his gait clumsy and feet turned outward. The fringe of blond hair hung down above his blue eyes, which were as still as pebbles. Putting aside the memory of Dunne’s cruel treatment of the men in Serbia and his murder of al-Fulan’s assistant in Dubai, Bond smiled amiably and shook his wide hand.
    “Theron.” Dunne nodded, his own visage not