Carte Blanche

lunged, he heard from behind him, inside the vehicle, a woman’s flinty voice: “And we would have offered some if you hadn’t made yourself so obvious a target by enjoying a leisurely coffee in plain view with a hostile loose in the airport.”
    Bond relaxed his fist and turned. He looked into the vehicle and tried unsuccessfully to mask his surprise. The beautiful woman he’d seen just moments ago in Arrivals was sitting in the backseat.
    “I’m Captain Bheka Jordaan, SAPS, Crime Combating and Investigation Division.”
    “Ah.” Bond looked at her full lips, untouched by cosmetics, and her dark eyes. She wasn’t smiling.
    His mobile buzzed. The screen showed he had a message from Bill Tanner, along with, of course, an MMS picture of the woman in front of him.
    The tall abductor said, “Commander Bond, I am SAPS Warrant Officer Kwalene Nkosi.” He reached out his hand and their palms met in the traditional South African way—an initial grip, as in the West, followed by a vertical clasp and back to the original. Bond knew it was considered impolite to let go too quickly. Apparently he timed the gesture right; Nkosi grinned warmly, then nodded to the shorter man, who was taking Bond’s suitcase and laptop bag to the rear of the Range Rover. “And that is Sergeant Mbalula.”
    The stocky man nodded unsmilingly and, after stowing Bond’s belongings, vanished fast, presumably to his own vehicle.
    “You will please forgive our brusqueness, Commander,” Nkosi said. “We thought it best to get you out of the airport as quickly as possible, rather than spend the time to explain.”
    “We should not waste more time on pleasantries, Warrant Officer,” Bheka Jordaan muttered impatiently.
    Bond eased himself into the back beside her. Nkosi got into the passenger seat in the front. A moment later Sergeant Mbalula’s black saloon, also unmarked, pulled up behind them.
    “Let’s go,” Jordaan barked. “Quickly.”
    The Range Rover peeled away from the curb and skidded brazenly into the traffic, earning the driver a series of energetic hoots and lethargic curses, and accelerated to more than ninety kph in a zone marked forty.
    Bond pulled his mobile off his belt. He typed into the keyboard, read the responses.
    “Warrant Officer?” Jordaan asked Nkosi. “Anything?”
    He had been staring into the wing mirror and answered in what seemed to be Zulu or Xhosa. Bond did not speak either language but it was clear from the tone of the answer, and the woman’s reaction, that there was no tail. When they were outside the airport grounds and making their way toward a cluster of low but impressive mountains in the distance, the vehicle slowed somewhat.
    Jordaan thrust her hand forward. Bond reached out to shake it, smiling, then stopped. She was holding a mobile phone. “If you don’t mind,” she said sternly, “you will touch the screen here.”
    So much for warming international relations.
    He took the phone, pressed his thumb into the center of the screen and handed it back. She read the message that appeared. “James Bond. Overseas Development Group, Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Now, you’ll want to confirm my identity.” She held out her hand, fingers splayed. “You have an app that can take my prints too, I assume.”
    “There’s no need.”
    “Why?” she asked coolly. “Because I’m what passes for a beautiful woman in your mind and you have no need to check further? I could be an assassin. I could be an al-Qaeda terrorist wearing a bomb vest.”
    He decided not to mention that his earlier perusal of her figure had revealed no evidence of explosives. He answered, perhaps a bit glibly, “I don’t need your prints because, in addition to the photo of you that my office just sent me, my mobile read your iris a few minutes ago and confirmed to me that you are indeed Captain Bheka Jordaan, Crime Combating and Investigation Division, South African Police Service. You’ve worked for them for eight years. You live in Leeuwen Street in Cape Town. Last year you received a Gold Cross for Bravery. Congratulations.”
    He had also learned her age—thirty-two—her salary and that she was divorced.
    Warrant Officer Nkosi twisted round in his seat, glanced at the mobile and said, with a broad smile, “Commander Bond, that is a nice toy. Without doubt.”
    Jordaan snapped, “Kwalene!”
    The young man’s smile vanished. He turned back to his wing mirror sentry duty.
    She glanced with disdain at