Carte Blanche

before, very badly. She was a bird with a broken wing that hadn’t yet mended. Could they simply remain partners and friends, oh, please? You can be my draftsman. . . .
    The story rang a bit hollow but he had chosen to believe her, as one will do when a lover spins a tale less painful than the truth.
    But their business soared with success—an embezzlement here, some extortion there—and Dunne bided his time, because he believed that Felicity would come round. He made it seem that he, too, was over the romance. He managed to keep his obsession for her buried, as hidden and as explosive as a VS-50 land mine.
    Now, though, everything had changed. They were soon to be together.
    Niall Dunne believed this in his soul.
    Because he was going to win her love by saving her. Against all the odds, he’d save her. He’d spirit her away to safety on Madagascar, where he’d created an enclave for them to live very comfortably.
    As he approached the inn, Dunne was recalling that James had caught Hydt out with his comment about Isandlwana—the Zulu massacre in the 1800s. Now he was thinking of the second battle that day in January, the one at Rorke’s Drift. There, a force of four thousand Zulus had attacked a small outpost and hospital manned by about 130 British soldiers. As impossible as it seemed, the British had successfully defended it, suffering minimal casualties.
    What was significant about the battle to Niall Dunne, though, was the commander of the British troops, Lieutenant John Chard. He was with the Corps of Royal Engineers—a sapper, like Dunne. Chard had come up with a blueprint for the defense against overwhelming odds and executed it brilliantly. He’d earned the Victoria Cross. Niall Dunne was now about to win a decoration of his own—the heart of Felicity Willing.
    Moving slowly through the autumn evening, he now arrived at the inn, staying well out of sight of the rock face and the British spy.
    He considered his plan. He knew the fat agent was dead or dying. He remembered what he’d seen of the breakfast or dining room through the rifle scope before the man, irritatingly, had turned off the lights. The only other officer in the inn seemed to be the SAPS woman. He could easily take her—he would fling something through the window to distract her, then kill her and get Felicity out.
    The two of them would sprint to the beach for the extraction, then speed to the helicopter that would take them to freedom in Madagascar.
    Together . . .
    He stepped silently to a window of the Sixth Apostle Inn. Looking in carefully, Dunne saw the British agent he’d shot, lying on the floor. His eyes were open, glazed in death.
    Felicity sat on the floor nearby, her hands cuffed behind her, breathing hard.
    Dunne was shaken by the sight of his love being so ill treated. More anger. This time it did not go away. Then he heard the policewoman, in the kitchen, make a call on her radio and ask about backup. “Well, how long is it going to be?” she snapped.
    Probably some time, Dunne reflected. His associates had overturned a large lorry and set it on fire. Victoria Road was completely blocked.
    Dunne slipped round the back of the hotel into the car park, overgrown and filled with weeds and rubbish, and went to the kitchen door. His gun before him, he eased it open without a sound. He heard the clatter of the radio, a transmission about a fire engine.
    Good, he thought. The SAPS officer was concentrating on the radio call. He’d take her from behind.
    He stepped further inside and moved down a narrow corridor to the kitchen. He could—
    But the room was empty. On a counter sat the radio, the staticky voice rambling on and on. He realized that these were just random transmissions from the SAPS’s central emergency dispatch, about fires, robberies, noise complaints.
    The radio was set to scan mode, not communications.
    Why had she done that?
    This couldn’t be a trap to lure him inside. James wouldn’t possibly know that he’d left the sniper’s nest and was here. He stepped to the window and gazed up at the rock face, where he could see the man climbing slowly.
    His heart stuttered. No. . . . The vague form was exactly where it had been ten minutes ago. And Dunne realized that what he’d glanced at earlier on the rock face might not have been the spy at all but perhaps his jacket, draped over a rock and moving in the breeze.
    No, no . . .
    Then a man’s voice said, in a smooth British accent, “Drop