Carte Blanche

it with his thumb, asked, “My associate? The man who came in with me? Did you see him?”
    “The tough one. He looked . . . tough.”
    “Very tough. Now, I will be leaving Dubai soon but he will be staying. He most sincerely hopes your information about Mr. Hydt is accurate.”
    The smile blew away like sand. “Yes, yes, sir, it is completely accurate, I swear to Allah. Praise be to Him.”

Chapter 30
    Bond went into the bar and took a table on the outdoor terrace overlooking Dubai Creek, a peaceful mirror dotted with swaying reflections of colored light, which utterly belied the horror he had witnessed at al-Fulan’s works.
    The waiter approached and asked what he would like. American bourbon was Bond’s favorite spirit but he believed vodka was medicinal, if not curative, when served bitingly cold. He now ordered a double Stolichnaya martini, medium dry, and asked that it be shaken very well, which not only chilled the vodka better than stirring but bruised—aerated—it as well, improving the flavor considerably.
    “Lemon peel only.”
    When the drink arrived, suitably opaque—evidence of a proper shaking—he drank half immediately and felt the oxymoronic burning chill flow from throat to face. It helped dull the frustration that he hadn’t been able to save either the young woman or Yusuf Nasad.
    It did nothing, however, to mitigate the memory of Hydt’s eerie expression as he gazed, lusting, at the petrified bodies.
    He sipped again, staring absently at the television above the bar, on whose screen the beautiful Bahraini singer Ahlam was swirling through a video edited in the jerky style fashionable on Arab and Indian TV. Her infectious, trilling voice floated from the speakers.
    He drained the glass, then called Bill Tanner. He explained about the false alarm at the history museum and the deaths and added that Hydt would head for Cape Town that night. Could T Branch arrange a ride for Bond? He could no longer hitchhike on his friend’s Grumman, which had gone back to London.
    “I’ll see what I can do, James. Probably have to be commercial. I don’t know if I can get you there ahead of Hydt, though.”
    “I just need a watcher to meet the flight and see where he goes. What’s the Six situation down there?”
    “Station Z’s got a covert operator on the Cape. Gregory Lamb. Let me check his status.” Bond heard typing. “He’s up in Eritrea at the moment—that saber-rattling on the Sudanese border’s gotten worse. But, James, we don’t want to get Lamb involved if we can avoid it. He doesn’t have an entirely irreproachable record. He went native, like some character out of a Graham Greene novel. I think Six have been meaning to hand him a redundancy package but haven’t got round to it. I’ll find somebody local for you. I’d recommend the SAPS, the police service, rather than National Intelligence—NIA’s been in the news lately and not in a good way. I’ll make some calls and let you know.”
    “Thanks, Bill. Can you patch me to Q?”
    “Will do. Good luck.”
    A thoughtful voice was soon on the line: “Q Branch. Hirani.”
    “It’s 007, Sanu. I’m in Dubai. I need something fast.”
    After Bond had explained, Hirani seemed disappointed at the simplicity of the assignment. “Where are you?” he asked.
    “Intercontinental, Festival City.”
    Bond heard typing.
    “All right. Thirty minutes. Just remember: flowers.”
    They rang off, just as Leiter arrived, sat down and ordered a Jim Beam, neat. “That means no ice, no water, no fruit salad, no nothing. But it does mean a double. And I could live with a triple.”
    Bond ordered another martini. When the waiter left he asked, “How’s the head?”
    “It’s nothing,” Leiter murmured. He didn’t seem badly injured and Bond knew that his subdued mood was due to the loss of Nasad. “You find out anything about Hydt?”
    “They’re leaving tonight. A couple of hours. Going to Cape Town.”
    “What’s down there?”
    “No idea. That’s what I have to find out.”
    And find out within three days, Bond reminded himself, if he wanted to save those thousands of people.
    They fell silent as the waiter brought their drinks. Both agents scanned the large room as they sipped. There was no sign of the dark-haired man with the earring or of watchers paying too much attention—or not enough—to the men in the corner.
    Neither man raised a toast to the memory of the asset who’d just died. As tempted as you were, you