Carte Blanche

carelessly. Bond easily lifted the knife arm away and up, then stepped in, gripping the wrist in both hands, a solid compliance hold, and bent it backward until the knife fell to the ground. He assessed the assailant’s strength and his mad determination. He made a decision . . . and twisted further until the wrist cracked.
    The man cried out and sank to his knees, then dropped into a sitting position, face pale. His head lolled to the side and Bond kicked the knife away. He frisked the man carefully and took a small automatic pistol from his pocket, along with a roll of duct tape. A pistol? Why didn’t he just shoot me? Bond wondered.
    He slipped the gun into his pocket and collected his Walther. He grabbed the man’s phone—to whom had he texted the photo of him and Jordaan? If it had been to Dunne alone, could Bond find and incapacitate the Irishman before he reported to Hydt?
    He scrolled through the call and text logs. Thank God, he had sent nothing. He’d simply been videoing Bond.
    What was the point of that?
    Then he had his answer.
    “ Jebi ti! ” his attacker spat.
    The Balkan obscenity explained everything.
    Bond went through the man’s papers and confirmed he was with the JSO, the Serbian paramilitary group. His name was Nicholas Rathko.
    He was moaning now, cradling his arm. “You let my brother die! You abandoned him! He was your partner on that assignment. You never abandon your partner!”
    Rathko’s brother had been the younger of the BIA agents with Bond on that Sunday night near Novi Sad.
    My brother, he smokes all time he is out on operations. Looks more normal than not smoking in Serbia . . .
    Bond knew now how the man had found him in Dubai. To secure the BIA’s cooperation in Serbia, the ODG and Six had given the senior security people in Belgrade Bond’s real name and mission. After his brother had died, Rathko and his comrades at the JSO would have put together a full-scale operation to find Bond, using contacts through NATO and Six. They’d learned Bond was bound for Dubai. Of course, Bond now realized, it had been Rathko, not Osborne-Smith, who’d been making those subtle inquiries at MI6 about Bond’s plans earlier in the week. Among Rathko’s papers he now found authorization for a flight by military jet from Belgrade to Dubai. Which explained how he’d beaten Bond to the emirate. A local mercenary, the documents revealed, had put an untraceable car—the black Toyota—at the JSO agent’s disposal.
    And the purpose?
    Probably not arrest and rendition. Rathko had most likely been planning to video Bond confessing or apologizing—or perhaps to record his torture and death.
    “You call yourself Nicholas or Nick?” Bond asked, crouching.
    “ Jebi ti, ” was the only response.
    “Listen to me. I’m sorry your brother lost his life. But he had no business being in the BIA. He was careless and he wouldn’t follow orders. He was the reason we lost the target.”
    “He was young.”
    “That’s no excuse. It wouldn’t be an excuse for me and it wasn’t an excuse for you when you were with Arkan’s Tigers.”
    “He was only a boy.” Tears glistened in the man’s eyes, whether from the pain of the broken wrist or the sorrow he felt for his dead brother, Bond couldn’t tell.
    Bond looked down the alleyway and saw Bheka Jordaan and some SAPS officers sprinting toward him. He bent down, picked up the man’s knife and sliced through the trip wire.
    He squatted beside the Serb. “We’ll get you to a doctor.”
    Then he heard a woman’s voice call sharply, “Stop!”
    He glanced at Bheka Jordaan. “It’s all right. I have his weapons.”
    But then he realized that her pistol was aimed at himself. He frowned and stood up.
    “Leave him alone!” she snapped.
    Two SAPS officers stepped between Bond and Rathko. One hesitated, then carefully took the knife from his hand.
    “He’s a Serbian intelligence agent. He was trying to kill me. He’s the one who murdered that CIA asset in Dubai the other day.”
    “That doesn’t mean you can cut his throat.” Her dark eyes were narrow with anger.
    “What are you talking about?”
    “You are in my country. You will obey the law!”
    The other officers were staring at him, Bond saw, some angrily. He glanced at Jordaan and stepped away, gesturing to her to follow.
    Jordaan did so and when they were out of earshot, she continued harshly, “You won. He was down, he wasn’t a threat. Why were you going to kill