Carte Blanche

once more to continue plowing through the documents and computers, jotting notes about Green Way’s offices and the Gehenna operation for M and Bill Tanner. He labored for an hour or so until he decided it was time for a drink.
    He stretched luxuriously.
    And paused, slowly lowering his arms. At that moment he had felt a jolt deep within him. He knew the sensation. It arose occasionally in the world of espionage, that great landscape of subtext where so little is as it seems. Often the source for such an unsettling stab was a suspicion that a basic assumption had been wrong, perhaps disastrously so.
    Staring at his notes, he heard himself breathing fast, his lips dry. His heartbeat quickened.
    Bond flipped through hundreds of documents again, then grabbed his mobile and e-mailed Philly Maidenstone a priority request. As he waited for her reply, he rose and paced in the small office, his mind inundated with thoughts, hovering and swooping like the frantic seagulls over Disappearance Row at Green Way.
    When Philly responded he snatched up his mobile and read the message, sitting back slowly in the uncomfortable chair.
    A shadow fell over him. He looked up and found Bheka Jordaan standing there. She was saying, “James, I brought you some coffee. In a proper mug.” It was decorated with the smiling faces of the players from Bafana Bafana in all their football finest.
    When he said nothing and didn’t take it, she set it down. “James?”
    Bond knew his face betrayed the alarm burning within him. After a moment he whispered, “I think I got it wrong.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Everything. About Gehenna, about Incident Twenty.”
    “Tell me.”
    Bond sat forward. “The original intelligence we had was that someone named Noah was involved in the event today—the event that would result in all those deaths.”
    “Yes.” She sat next to him. “Severan Hydt.”
    Bond shook his head. He waved at the boxes of documents from Green Way. “But I’ve been through nearly every damn piece of paper and most of the mobiles and computers. There isn’t a single reference to Noah in any of it. And in all my meetings with Hydt and Dunne there was no reference to the name. If that was his nickname, why didn’t it turn up in something ? An idea occurred to me so I contacted an associate at MI6. She knows computers rather well. Are you familiar with metadata?”
    Jordaan said, “Information embedded in computer files. We convicted a government minister of corruption because of it.”
    He nodded at his phone. “My colleague looked at the half-dozen Internet references we found that mentioned Hydt’s nickname was Noah. The metadata in every one of them showed they were written and uploaded this week.”
    “Just like we uploaded data about Gene Theron to create your cover.”
    “Exactly. The real Noah did that to keep us focused on Hydt. Which means Incident Twenty—the thousands of deaths— wasn’t the bombing in York. Gehenna and Incident Twenty are two entirely different plans. Something else is going to happen. And soon—tonight. That’s what the original e-mail said. Those people, whoever they are, are still at risk.”
    Despite the success at Green Way, he was back to the vital questions once more: Who was his enemy and what was his purpose?
    Until he answered those inquries he couldn’t form a response.
    Yet he had to. There was little time left.
    confirm incident friday night, 20th, estimated initial casualties in the thousands . . .
    “James?”
    Fragments of facts, memories and theories spiraled through his mind. Once again, as he’d done in the bowels of Green Way’s research facility, he began to assemble all the bits of information he possessed, trying to put back together the shredded blueprint of Incident Twenty. He rose and, hands clasped behind his back, bent forward as he looked over the papers and notes covering the desk.
    Jordaan had fallen silent.
    Finally he whispered, “Gregory Lamb.”
    She frowned. “What about him?”
    Bond didn’t answer immediately. He sat down again. “I’ll need your help.”
    “Of course.”

Chapter 65
    “What’s the matter, Gene? You said it was urgent.”
    They were alone in Felicity Willing’s office at the charity in downtown Cape Town, not far from the club where they’d met at the auction on Wednesday night. Bond had interrupted a meeting involving a dozen men and women, aid workers instrumental in the food deliveries, and asked to see her