Carte Blanche

wounds, and cradled her dead lover.
    Bond stepped forward, gripped her narrow, quivering shoulders and helped her up. “No, Jessica. Come over here with me.” Bond led her to cover behind a bulldozer. Bheka Jordaan joined them.
    “He’s dead, he’s dead. . . .” Jessica pressed her head against Bond’s shoulder.
    Bheka Jordaan lifted her handcuffs out of their holster.
    “She tried to help me,” Bond reminded her. “She didn’t know what Hydt was doing. I’m sure of it.”
    Jordaan put the cuffs away. “We’ll drive her down to the station, take a statement. I don’t think we’ll have to pursue it beyond that.”
    Bond detached himself from Jessica. He took her by the shoulders. “Thank you for helping me. I know it was hard.”
    She breathed in deeply. Then, calmer, she asked, “Who did it? Who shot him?”
    “Dunne.”
    She didn’t seem surprised. “I never liked him. Severan was passionate, impulsive. He never thought things through. Niall realized that and seduced him with all his planning and his intelligence. I didn’t think he could be trusted. But I never had the courage to say anything.” She closed her eyes momentarily.
    “You did a good job with the praying,” Bond told her.
    “Too good,” she whispered.
    On Jessica’s cheek and neck were stark patches of Hydt’s blood. It was the first time, Bond realized, that he’d seen any color on her.
    He looked her in the eye. “I know some people who can help when you get back to London. They’ll be in touch. I’ll see to it.”
    “Thank you,” Jessica murmured.
    A policewoman led her away.
    Bond was startled by a man’s voice nearby: “Is it clear?”
    He frowned, unable to see the speaker. Then he understood. Gregory Lamb was still in the skip. “It’s clear.”
    The agent scrambled out of his hiding place.
    “Mind the blood,” Bond told Lamb, as he nearly stepped in some.
    “Oh my God!” Lamb muttered and looked as if he was going to be sick.
    Ignoring him, Bond said to Jordaan, “I need to know how extensive Gehenna is. Can you get your officers to collect all the files and computers in Research and Development? And I’ll need your computer-crimes outfit to crack the passwords.”
    “Yes, of course. We’ll have them brought to the SAPS office. You can review them there.”
    Nkosi said, “I’ll do it, Commander.”
    Bond thanked him. The man’s round face seemed less wry and irrepressible than earlier. Bond supposed this had been his first firefight. He’d be changed forever by the incident but, from what Bond was seeing, the change would not diminish but rather would enhance the young officer. Nkosi gestured toward some SAPS Forensic Science Service officers and led them inside the building.
    Bond glanced at Jordaan. “Can I ask you a question?”
    She turned to him.
    “What did you say? After you climbed out of the ditch, you said something.”
    With her particular complexion, she might or might not have been blushing. “Don’t tell Ugogo.”
    “I won’t.”
    “The first was Zulu for . . . I guess you’d say, in English, ‘crap.’”
    “I have some variations on that myself. And the other word?”
    She squinted. “That, I think, I will not tell you, James.”
    “Why not?”
    “Because it refers to a certain part of the male anatomy . . . and I do not think it wise to encourage you in that regard.”

Chapter 63
    Late afternoon, the sun beginning to dip in the northwest, James Bond drove from the Table Mountain Hotel, where he’d showered and changed, to Cape Town’s central police station.
    As he entered and made for Jordaan’s office he noticed several pairs of eyes staring at him. The expressions were no longer wary or curious, as had been the case upon his first visit here, several days ago; they were admiring. Perhaps the story of his role in foiling Severan Hydt’s plan had circulated. Or the tale of how he’d taken out two adversaries and blown up a landfill with a single bullet, no mean accomplishment. (The fire, Bond had learned, was largely extinguished—to his immense relief. He would not have wanted to be known as the man who had burned a sizable area of Cape Town to its sandstone foundation.)
    He was met by Bheka Jordaan in the hall. She’d taken another shower to clean off the remnants of Severan Hydt and had changed into dark trousers and a yellow shirt, bright and cheerful, perhaps an antidote to the horror of the events at Green Way.
    She gestured him into her office.