Carte Blanche

from the burning car outside Novi Sad and his own sunglasses. “I’ll need identification fast—very fast—and anything else you dig up.”
    She lifted her phone and requested collection of the materials for analysis at the MI6 laboratory or, if that proved insufficient, Scotland Yard’s extensive forensic operation in Specialist Crimes. She rang off. “Runner’s on his way.” She found a pair of tweezers in her handbag and extracted the two slips of paper. One was a bill from a pub near Cambridge, the date recent. It had been settled in cash, unfortunately.
    The other slip of paper read: Boots—March. 17. No later than that. Was it code or merely a reminder from two months ago to pick up something at the chemist?
    “And the Oakleys?” She was gazing down into the bag.
    “There’s a fingerprint in the middle of the right lens. The Irishman’s partner. There was no pocket litter.”
    She made copies of the two documents, handed him a set, kept one for herself and replaced the originals in the bag with the glasses.
    Bond then explained about the hazardous material that the Irishman was trying to spill into the Danube. “I need to know what it was. And what kind of damage it could have caused. Afraid I’ve ruffled some feathers among the Serbs. They won’t want to cooperate.”
    “We’ll see about that.”
    Just then his mobile buzzed. He looked at the screen, though he knew this distinctive chirp quite well. He answered. “Moneypenny.”
    The woman’s low voice said, “Hello, James. Welcome back.”
    “M?” he asked.
    “M.”

Chapter 8
    The sign beside the top-floor office read D IRECTOR -G ENERAL .
    Bond stepped into the anteroom, where a woman in her midthirties sat at a tidy desk. She wore a pale cream camisole beneath a jacket that was nearly the same shade as Bond’s. A long face, handsome and regal, eyes that could flick from stern to compassionate faster than a Formula One gearbox.
    “Hello, Moneypenny.”
    “It’ll just be a moment, James. He’s on the line to Whitehall again.”
    Her posture was upright, her gestures economical. Not a hair was out of place. He reflected, as he often did, that her military background had left an indelible mark. She’d resigned her commission with the Royal Navy to take her present job with M as his personal assistant.
    Just after he’d joined the ODG, Bond had dropped into her office chair and flashed a broad smile. “Rank of lieutenant, were you, Moneypenny?” he’d quipped. “I’d prefer to picture you above me.” Bond had left the service as a commander.
    He’d received in reply not the searing rejoinder he deserved but a smooth riposte: “Oh, but I’ve found in life, James, that all positions must be earned through experience. And I’m pleased to say I have little doubt that my level of such does not begin to approach yours.”
    The cleverness and speed of her retort and the use of his first name, along with her radiant smile, instantly and immutably defined their relationship: She’d kept him in his place but opened the avenue of friendship. So it had remained ever since, caring and close but always professional. (Still, he harbored the belief that of all the 00 Section agents she liked him best.)
    Moneypenny looked him over and frowned. “You had quite a time of it over there, I heard.”
    “You could say so.”
    She glanced at M’s closed door and said, “This Noah situation’s a tough one, James. Signals flying everywhere. He left at nine last night, came in at five this morning.” She added, in a whisper, “He was worried about you. There were some moments last night when you were incommunicado. He was on the phone quite often then.”
    They saw a light on her phone extinguish. She hit a button and spoke through a nearly invisible stalk mic. “It’s 007, sir.”
    She nodded at the door, toward which Bond now walked, as the do-not-disturb light above it flashed on. This occurred silently, of course, but Bond always imagined the illumination was accompanied by the sound of a deadbolt crashing open to admit a new prisoner to a medieval dungeon.
    “Morning, sir.”
    M looked exactly the same as he had at the Travellers Club lunch when they’d met three years ago and might have been wearing the same gray suit. He gestured to one of the two functional chairs facing the large oak desk. Bond sat down.
    The office was carpeted and the walls were lined with bookshelves. The building was at the fulcrum where old London became