Carte Blanche

presenting a perfect target to Dunne.
    Bond tried but he was in the most vulnerable position and the instant he rose slugs slammed into a pillar and the tools beside him. He fell back to the floor.
    “I’ll go,” said Bheka Jordaan. She was gauging distances to the light switch, Bond saw. “I’m closest. I think I can make it. Did I tell you, James, I was a star rugby player at university? I moved very quickly.”
    “No,” Bond said firmly. “It’s suicide. We’ll wait for your officers.”
    “They won’t be here in time. He’ll be in position to kill us all in a few minutes. James, rugby is a wonderful game. Have you ever played?” She laughed. “No, of course not. I can’t see you on a team.”
    His smile matched hers.
    “You’re better placed to give covering fire,” Bond said. “That big Colt of yours’ll scare the hell out of him. I’m going on three. One . . . two—”
    Suddenly a voice called, “Oh, please!”
    Bond looked toward Lamb, who continued, “Those countdown scenes in movies are such dreadful clichés. Nonsense. In real life nobody counts. You just stand up and go!”
    Which was exactly what Lamb now did. He leaped to his meaty legs and lumbered toward the light switch. Bond and Jordaan both aimed into the blackness and fired covering rounds. They had no idea where Dunne was and it was unlikely that their slugs went anywhere near him. Yet whether they did or not, the rounds didn’t deter the Irishman from firing a spot-on burst when Lamb was ten feet from the switch. The bullets shattered the windows beside him and found their target. A spray of the agent’s blood painted the floor and wall and he lurched forward, collapsed and lay still.
    “No,” Jordaan cried. “Oh, no.”
    The casualty must have given Dunne some confidence, because the next shots were even closer to their mark. Finally Bond had to abandon his position. He crawled back to where Jordaan crouched behind a table saw, its blade dented by Dunne’s .223 rounds.
    Bond and the policewoman now pressed against each other. The black slits of windows glared at them. There was nowhere else to go. A bullet snapped over Bond’s head—it broke the sound barrier inches from his ear.
    He felt, but couldn’t see, Dunne moving in for the kill.
    Felicity said, “I can stop this. Just let me go. I’ll call him. Give me a phone.”
    A muzzle flash, and Bond shoved Jordaan’s head down as the wall beside them exploded. The slug actually tugged at the strands beside her ear. She gasped and pressed against him, shivering. The smell of burning hair wafted around them.
    Felicity said, “Nobody’ll know you let me escape. Give me a phone. I’ll call Dunne.”
    “Oh, go to hell, bitch!” came a voice from across the room and, staggering to his feet, gripping his bloody chest, Lamb rose and charged to the far wall. He swept his hand down on the light switch as he dropped once more to the floor. The inn went dark.
    Instantly Bond was on his feet, kicking out one of the side doors. He plunged into the brush to pursue his prey.
    Thinking: Four rounds left, one more magazine.
    Bond was sprinting through the brush that led to the base of the steep cliff, the Twelve Apostles ridge. He ran in an S pattern as Dunne fired toward him. The moon wasn’t full but there was light to shoot by, yet none of the slugs hit closer than three or four feet from him.
    Finally the Irishman stopped targeting Bond—he must have assumed he’d hit him or that he’d fled to find help. Dunne’s goal, of course, wasn’t necessarily to kill his victims but simply to keep them contained until his associates arrived. How soon would that be?
    Bond huddled against a large rock. The night was now freezing cold and a wind had come up. Dunne would be about a hundred feet directly above him. His sniper’s aerie was an outcrop of rock with a perfect view of the inn, the approaches to it . . . and of Bond himself in the moonlight, had Dunne simply leaned over and looked.
    Then a powerful torch was signaling from the rocks above. Bond turned to where it was pointed. Offshore a boat churned toward the beach. The mercenaries, of course.
    He wondered how many were on board and what they were armed with. In ten minutes the vessel would land and he and Bheka Jordaan would be overrun—Dunne would have made sure that Victoria Road remained impassable for longer than that. Still, he pulled out his phone and texted Kwalene Nkosi about the impending beach