Carte Blanche

subsonic. With this suppressor, you’ll be dead and I’ll be gone long before anybody notices.”
    “Oh, but you don’t want to kill me. That would go down rather badly.”
    Bond had heard plenty of monologues at moments like this when he’d got the draw on an opponent. Usually the bons mots were to buy time or for distraction as the target prepared himself for a desperate assault. Bond knew to ignore what the man was saying and watch his hands and body language.
    Still, he could hardly dismiss the next lines issuing from the flabby lips. “After all, what would M say if he heard you’d gunned down one of the Crown’s star agents? And in such a beautiful setting.”

Chapter 38
    His name was Gregory Lamb, confirmed by the iris and fingerprint scan app—MI6’s man on the ground in Cape Town. The agent Bill Tanner had told him to avoid.
    They were in Bond’s room, sans beer and sandwich; to his consternation, the tray containing his lunch had been whisked out of the stairwell by an efficient hotel employee by the time he and Lamb had returned to the first floor.
    “You could’ve got yourself killed,” Bond muttered.
    “I wasn’t in any real danger. Your outfit doesn’t give out those double oughts to trigger-happy fools . . . Now, now, my friend, don’t get all ruffled. Some of us know what your Overseas Development outfit really does.”
    “How did you know I was in town?”
    “Put it together, didn’t I? Heard about some goings-on and got in touch with friends at Lambeth.”
    One of the disadvantages in having to use Six or DI for intelligence was that more people knew about your affairs than you might prefer. “Why didn’t you just contact me through secure channels?” Bond snapped.
    “I was going to but just as I got here I saw somebody playing shadow.”
    Now Bond paid attention. “Male, slim, blue jacket? Gold earring?”
    “Well, now, didn’t see the earring, did I? Eyes aren’t what they used to be. But you’ve got the general kit right. Hovered about for a while, then vanished like the Tablecloth when the sun comes out. You know what I mean: the fog on Table Mountain.”
    Bond was in no mood for travelogues. Dammit, the man who killed Yusuf Nasad and who had nearly done the same to Felix Leiter had learned he was here. He was probably the man Jordaan had told him about, the one who’d slipped into the country that morning from Abu Dhabi on a fake British passport.
    Who the hell was he?
    “Did you get a picture?” Bond asked.
    “Drat no. The man was fast as a water bug.”
    “Spot anything else about him, type of mobile, possible weapons, vehicle?”
    “None. Gone. Water bug.” A shrug of the broad shoulders, which Bond supposed were as freckled and red as the face.
    Bond said, “You were at the airport when I landed. Why did you turn away?”
    “I saw Captain Jordaan. She never took to me, for some reason. Maybe she thinks I’m the great white hunter colonist here to steal back her country. She gave me a bloody tongue-lashing a few months ago, didn’t she?”
    “My chief of staff said you were in Eritrea,” Bond said.
    “I was indeed—there and across the border in Sudan for the past week. Looks like their hearts’re set on war so I tooled on up to make sure my covers would survive the gunplay. I got that sorted and heard about an ODG operation.” His eyes dimmed. “Surprised nobody gave me a bell about it.”
    “The thinking was that you were involved in a rather serious op. Delicate,” Bond said judiciously.
    “Ah.” Lamb seemed to believe this. “Well, anyway, I thought I’d better race here to help out. You see, the Cape’s tricky. It looks neat and clean and touristy but there’s a lot more to it. I hate to blow my own trumpet, my friend, but you need somebody like me to weasel under the surface, tell you what’s really going on. I’m connected . You know any other Six agent who’s finagled local-government-development-fund money to finance his covers? I made the Crown a tidy profit last year.”
    “All went to Treasury coffers, did it?”
    Lamb shrugged. “I’ve got a role to play, haven’t I? To the world I’m a successful businessman. If you don’t live your cover for all it’s worth, well, a bit of sand gets into the works and the next thing you know there’s a big pearl yelling, ‘I’m a spy!’ . . . Say, you mind if we hit that minibar of yours?”
    Bond waved at it. “Go ahead.” Lamb helped himself to a miniature of Bombay