Carte Blanche

I can’t get to the subject’s computer or phone but I may be able to plant something in his office, vehicle or home. Disposable. I probably can’t retrieve it later.”
    “Ah, yes . . .” Hirani’s luminescent eyes dimmed.
    “Some problem, Sanu?”
    “Well, I must tell you, James. Not ten minutes ago I had a call from upstairs.”
    “Bill Tanner?”
    “No—farther upstairs.”
    M. Dammit, Bond thought. He could see where this was going.
    Hirani went on: “And he said that if anyone from O Branch wished to check out a surveillance kit I was to let him know immediately. A touch coincidental.”
    “A touch,” Bond said sourly.
    “So,” Hirani said, with a qualified smile, “shall I tell him that someone from O Branch wishes to check out a surveillance kit?”
    “Perhaps you could hold off for a bit.”
    “Well, get it sorted,” the man offered, the gleam in his face restored. “I have some wonderful packages for you to choose from.” He sounded like a car salesman. “A microphone that’s powered by induction. You only have to place it near a power cord, no battery needed. It’ll pick up voices from fifty feet away and adjust the volume automatically so there’s no distortion. Oh, and another thing we’ve been having great success with is a two-pound coin—the ’ninety-four tercentenary of the Bank of England commemorative. It’s relatively rare, so a target tends to keep it for good luck, but not so rare that he would sell it. Battery lasts for four months.”
    Bond sighed. The off-limits devices sounded so damn perfect. He thanked the man and told him he’d be in touch. He returned to his office, where he found Mary Goodnight at her desk. He saw no reason for her to stay. “Scoot on home now. Good evening, Goodnight.”
    She glanced at his latest injuries and forewent the opportunity for mothering him, which from past experience she knew would be deflected. She settled for “See to those, James,” then gathered up her handbag and coat.
    Sitting back, Bond was suddenly aware of the stench of his sweat and the crescents of brick dust under his nails. He wanted to get home and shower. Have his first drink of the day. Yet there was something he had to sort out first.
    He turned to his screen and entered the Golden Wire’s general information database, from which he learned where Severan Hydt’s business and home were located, the latter, curiously, in a low-income area of East London known as Canning Town. Green Way’s main premises were on the Thames near Rainham, abutting the Wildspace Conservation Park.
    Bond peered at satellite maps of Hydt’s home and Green Way’s operation. It was vitally important to set up surveillance on the man. But there was no legitimate way to conduct it without enlisting Osborne-Smith and the A Branch snoop teams from MI5—and the instant the Division Three man learned Hydt’s identity he’d move in to “detain” him and the Irishman. Bond considered the risk again. How realistic was his concern that if the two were pulled in, other co-conspirators would accelerate the carnage or vanish until they struck again next month or next year?
    Evil, James Bond had learned, can be tirelessly patient.
    Surveillance or not?
    He debated. After a moment’s hesitation, he reluctantly picked up the phone.

Chapter 17
    At half past six, Bond drove to his flat and, in the garage, reversed into the spot beside his racing-green Jaguar. He climbed the stairs to the first floor, unlocked the door, disarmed the alarm and confirmed with a separate security function—a fast-framed video—that only May, his housekeeper, had been there. (Feeling somewhat embarrassed, he’d told her when she’d started working for him that the security camera was a requirement of his government employer’s; the flat had to be monitored when he was away, even if she was working there. “Considering what you must do for the country, being a patriot and all, it’s no bother’s,” the staunch woman had said, using the fragment of “sir,” a mark of respect reserved for him alone.)
    He checked messages on his home phone. He had only one. It was from a friend who lived in Mayfair, Fouad Kharaz, a wily, larger-than-life Jordanian, who had all manner of business dealings, involving vehicles mostly: cars, planes and the most astonishing yachts Bond had ever seen. Kharaz and he were members of the same gaming club in Berkeley Square, the Commodore.
    Unlike many such clubs in London,