Carte Blanche

ignoring her.
    He walked up to Bond’s desk, thrusting out a fleshy palm. Slim but flabby, unimposing, he nonetheless had assertive eyes and large hands at the end of his long arms. He seemed the sort to deliver a bone-crusher so Bond, darkening his computer screen and standing up, prepared to counter it, shooting his hand in close to deny him leverage.
    In fact, Percy Osborne-Smith’s clasp was brief and harmless, though unpleasantly damp.
    “Bond. James Bond.” He motioned the Division Three officer to the chair Philly had just occupied and reminded himself not to let the man’s coiffure—dark blond hair combed and apparently glued to the side of his head—pouting lips and rubbery neck deceive. A weak chin did not mean a weak man, as anyone familiar with Field Marshal Montgomery’s career could certify.
    “So,” Osborne-Smith said, “here we are. Excitement galore with Incident Twenty. Who thinks up these names, do you wonder? The Intelligence Committee, I suppose.”
    Bond tipped his head noncommittally.
    The man’s eyes swept around the office, alighted briefly on a plastic gun with an orange muzzle used in close-combat training, and returned to Bond. “Now, from what I hear, Defense and Six are firing up the boilers to steam down the Afghan route, looking for baddies in the hinterland. Makes you and me the awkward younger brothers, left behind, stuck with this Serbian connection. But sometimes it’s the pawns that win the game, isn’t it?”
    He dabbed his nose and mouth with a handkerchief. Bond couldn’t recall the last time he’d seen anyone under the age of seventy employ this combination of gesture and accessory. “Heard about you, Bond . . . James . Let’s go with givens, shall we? My surname’s a bit of a mouthful. Crosses to bear. Just like my title—deputy senior director of field operations.”
    Rather unskillfully inserted, Bond reflected.
    “So, it’s Percy and James. Sounds like a stand-up act at a Comic Relief show. Anyway, I’ve heard about you, James. Your reputation precedes you. Not ‘exceeds,’ of course. At least, not from what I hear.”
    Oh God, Bond thought, his patience already worn thin. He preempted a continuation of the monologue and explained in detail what had happened in Serbia.
    Osborne-Smith took it all in, jotting notes. Then he described what had happened on the British side of the Channel, which wasn’t particularly informative. Even enlisting the impressive surveillance skills of MI5’s A Branch—known as the Watchers—no one had been able to confirm more than that the helicopter carrying the Irishman had landed somewhere northeast of London. No MASINT or other trace of the chopper had been found since.
    “So, our strategy?” Osborne-Smith said, though not as a question. Rather, it was a preface to a directive: “While Defense and Six and everybody under the sun are prowling the desert looking for Afghans of mass destruction, I want to go all out here, find this Irishman and Noah, wrap them up in tidy ribbons and bring them in.”
    “Arrest them?”
    “Well, detain might be the happier word.”
    “Actually, I’m not sure that’s the best approach,” Bond said delicately.
    For God’s sake, be diplomatic with the natives. . . .
    “Why not? We don’t have time for surveillance.” Bond noticed a faint lisp. “Only to interrogate.”
    “If thousands of lives are at risk, the Irishman and Noah can’t be operating alone. They might even be pretty low in the food chain. All we know for sure is that there was a meeting at Noah’s office. Nothing ever suggested he was in charge of the whole operation. And the Irishman? He’s a triggerman. Certainly knows his craft but basically he’s muscle. I think we need to identify them and keep them in play until we get more answers.”
    Osborne-Smith was nodding agreeably. “Ah, but you’re not familiar with my background, James, my curriculum vitae.” The smile and the smarminess vanished. “I cut my teeth grilling prisoners. In Northern Ireland. And Belmarsh.”
    The infamous so-called Terrorists’ Prison in London.
    “I’ve sunned myself in Cuba, too,” he continued. “Guantánamo. Yes, indeed. People end up talking to me, James. After I’ve been going at them for a few days, they’ll hand me the address where their brother’s hiding, won’t they? Or their son. Or daughter. Oh, people talk when I ask them . . . ever so politely.”
    Bond wasn’t giving up. “But if Noah has