Carte Blanche

condescending yesterday now sounded sincere.
    They rang off and Bond told Felix Leiter what Osborne-Smith had turned up.
    “So that scarecrow Dunne’s an engineer? We call ’em geeks in the States.”
    A hawker had entered the restaurant and was moving from table to table selling roses.
    Leiter saw the direction of Bond’s gaze. “Listen up, James, I’ve had a wonderful dinner but if you’re thinking of sealing the deal with a bouquet, it ain’t gonna happen.”
    Bond smiled.
    The hawker stepped up to the table next to Bond’s and extended a flower to a young couple seated there. “Please,” he said to the wife, “the lovely lady will have this for free, with my compliments.” He moved on.
    After a moment Bond lifted his napkin and opened the envelope he’d casually removed from the man’s pocket in a perfect brush pass.
    Remember: flowers . . .
    Discreetly he examined the forgery of a South African firearms permit, suitably franked and signed. “We should go,” he said, noting the time. He didn’t want to run into Hydt, Dunne and the woman on the way out of the hotel.
    “We’ll put this on Uncle Sam,” Leiter said and settled the bill. They left the bar and slipped out by a side door, heading for the car park.
    Within half an hour they were at the airport.
    The men gripped hands and Leiter offered in a low voice, “Yusuf was a great asset, sure. But more than that, he was a friend. You run across that son of a bitch in the blue jacket again and you have a shot, James, take it.”

Chapter 32
    As the Emirates Boeing taxied smoothly over the tarmac toward the gate in Cape Town, James Bond stretched, then slipped his shoes back on. He felt refreshed. Soon after takeoff in Dubai he’d administered to himself two Jim Beams with a little water. The nightcap had done the trick famously and he’d had nearly seven hours of blessedly uninterrupted sleep. He was now reviewing texts from Bill Tanner.
    Contact: Capt. Jordaan, Crime Combating & Investigation, SA Police Service. Jordaan to meet you landside @ airport. Surveillance active on Hydt.
    A second followed.
    MI6’s Gregory Lamb reportedly still in Eritrea. Opinion here all around, avoid him if possible.
    There was a final one.
    Happy to hear you and Osborne-Smith have kissed and made up. When’s the stag do?
    Bond had to smile.
    The plane eased to a stop at the gate and the purser ran through the liturgy of landing with which Bond was all too familiar. “Cabin crew, doors to manual and cross-check. Ladies and gentlemen, please take care when opening the overhead lockers; the contents may have shifted during the flight.”
    Bless you, my child, for Fate has decided to bring you safely back to earth . . . at least for a little longer.
    Bond pulled down his laptop bag—he’d checked in his suitcase, which contained his weapon—and proceeded to Immigration in the busy hall. He received a pro forma stamp in his passport. Then he went into the Customs hall. To a stocky, unsmiling officer he displayed the firearms permit so he could collect his suitcase. The man stared at him intently. Bond tensed and wondered if there was going to be a problem.
    “Okay, okay,” the man said, his broad, glistening face inflated with the power of small officialdom. “Now you will tell me the truth.”
    “The truth?” Bond asked calmly.
    “Yes. . . . How do you get close enough to a kudu or springbok to use a handgun when you hunt?”
    “That’s the challenge,” Bond replied.
    “I must say it would be.”
    Then Bond frowned. “But I never hunt springbok.”
    “No? It makes the best biltong.”
    “Perhaps so but shooting a springbok would be very bad luck for England on the rugby pitch.”
    The Customs agent laughed hard, shook Bond’s hand and nodded him to the exit.
    The arrivals hall was packed. Most people were in Western clothing, though some wore traditional African garb: men’s dashikis and brocade sets and, for the women, kente kaftans and head wraps, all brightly colored. Muslim robes and scarves were present as well and a few saris.
    As Bond made his way through the passenger meeting point he detected several distinct languages and many more dialects. He had always been fascinated by the clicking in African languages; in some words, the mouth and tongue create that very sound for consonants. Khoisan—spoken by the original inhabitants of this part of Africa—made the most use of it, although Zulus and Xhosas also clicked. Bond had tried