Carte Blanche

Irishman leaped from the train, he let go half a dozen rounds toward Bond, who returned fire, aiming for the feet and ankles. But the haze and vapors were thick; he missed. The Irishman holstered his gun, shouldered the rucksack and dragged the younger agent toward the Mercedes. They disappeared.
    Bond sprinted back to the Jetta, jumped in and sped off. Five minutes later he soared over a hillock and landed, skidding, in the field behind Restoran Roštilj. The scene was one of complete chaos as diners and staff fled in panic. The Mercedes was gone. Glancing at the derailed train, he could see that the Irishman had killed not only the older agent but his own associate—the Serbian he’d dined with. He’d shot him as he’d lain on his belly, hands bound.
    Bond got out of the Jetta and frisked the body for pocket litter but the Irishman had stripped the man of his wallet and any other material. Bond pulled out his own Oakley sunglasses, wiped them clean, then pressed the dead man’s thumb and index finger against the lens. He ran back to the Jetta and sped after the Mercedes, urging the car to seventy miles an hour despite the meandering road and potholes pitting the tarmac.
    A few minutes later he glimpsed something light-colored in a lay-by ahead. He braked hard, barely controlling the fishtailing skid, and stopped, the car engulfed in smoke from its tires, a few yards from the younger agent. He got out and bent over the man, who was shivering, crying. The wound in his arm was bad and he’d lost a great deal of blood. One shoe was off and a toenail was gone. The Irishman had tortured him.
    Bond opened his folding knife, cut the man’s shirt with the razor-sharp blade and bound a wool strip round his arm. With a stick he found just off the lay-by he made a tourniquet and applied it. He leaned down and wiped sweat from the man’s face. “Where is he going?”
    Gasping, his face a mask of agony, he rambled in Serbo-Croatian. Then, realizing who Bond was, he said, “You will call my brother. . . . You must take me to the hospital. I will tell you a place to go.”
    “I need to know where he went.”
    “I didn’t say nothing. He tried. But I didn’t tell nothing about you.”
    The boy had spilt out everything he knew about the operation, of course, but that wasn’t the issue now. Bond said, “Where did he go?”
    “The hospital . . . Take me and I will tell you.”
    “Tell me or you’ll die in five minutes,” Bond said evenly, loosening the tourniquet on his right arm. Blood cascaded.
    The young man blinked away tears. “All right! You bastard! He ask how to get to E Seven-five, the fast road from Highway Twenty-one. That will take him to Hungary. He is going north. Please!”
    Bond tightened the tourniquet again. He knew, of course, that the Irishman wasn’t going north: The man was a cruel and clever tactician. He didn’t need directions. Bond saw his own devotion to tradecraft in the Irishman. Even before he had arrived in Serbia the man would have memorized the geography around Novi Sad. He’d go south on Highway 21, the only major road nearby. He’d be making for Belgrade or an evacuation site in the area.
    Bond patted the young agent’s pockets and pulled out his mobile. He hit the emergency call number, 112. When he heard a woman’s voice answer, he propped the phone beside the man’s mouth, then ran back to the Jetta. He concentrated on driving as fast as he could over the uneven road surface, losing himself in the choreography of braking and steering.
    He took a turn fast and the car skidded, crossing the white line. An oncoming lorry loomed, a big one, with a Cyrillic logo. It veered away and the driver hit the horn angrily. Bond swerved back into his lane, missing a collision by inches and continued in pursuit of the only lead they had to Noah and the thousands of deaths on Friday.
    Five minutes later, approaching Highway 21, Bond slowed. Ahead he saw a flicker of orange and, in the sky, roiling smoke, obscuring the moon and stars. He soon arrived at the accident site. The Irishman had missed a sharp bend and sought refuge in what seemed to be a wide grass shoulder but in fact was not. A line of brush masked a steep drop. The car had gone over and was now upside down. The engine was on fire.
    Bond pulled up, killed the Jetta’s motor and got out. Then, drawing the Walther, he half ran, half slid down the hill to where the vehicle lay, scanning for threats and seeing none. As he