Carte Blanche

Russian signal about Steel Cartridge.
    Because one other aspect of his parents’ death had been largely overlooked.
    In the accident report that the gendarmes had prepared, it was mentioned that a steel rifle cartridge, 7.62mm, had been found near his father’s body.
    Young James had received it among his parents’ effects and, since Andrew had been an executive with an arms company, it was assumed that the bullet had been a sample of his wares to show to customers.
    On Monday, two days ago, after he had read the Russian report, Bond had gone into the online archives of his father’s company. He’d learned that it did not manufacture ammunition. Neither had it ever sold any weapons that fired a 7.62mm round.
    This was the bullet that sat now in a conspicuous place on the mantelpiece of his London flat.
    Had it been dropped accidentally by a hunter? Or left intentionally as a warning?
    The KGB’s reference to Operation Steel Cartridge had solidified within Bond the desire to learn whether or not his father had been a secret agent. He had to. He did not need to reconcile himself to the possibility that his father had lied to him. All parents deceive their children. In most cases, though, it’s for the sake of expedience or through laziness or thoughtlessness; if his father had lied it was because the Official Secrets Act had compelled him to.
    Neither did he need to know the truth so that he could—as a TV psychiatrist might suggest—revisit his youthful loss and mourn somehow more authentically. What nonsense.
    No, he wanted to know the truth for a much simpler reason, one that fitted him like a Savile Row bespoke suit: The person who had killed his parents might still be at large in the world, enjoying the sun, sitting down to a pleasant meal or even conspiring to take other lives. If such were the case, Bond knew he would make certain that his parents’ assassin met the same fate as they had, and he would do so efficiently and in accordance with his official remit: by any means necessary.

Chapter 40
    At close to 5 P.M . on Wednesday, Bond’s mobile emitted the ringtone reserved for emergency messages. He hurried from the bathroom, where he’d just showered, and read the encrypted e-mail. It was from GCHQ, reporting that Bond’s attempt to bug Severan Hydt had been somewhat successful. Unknown to Captain Bheka Jordaan, the flash drive that Bond had given Hydt, holding digital pictures of the killing fields in Africa, also contained a small microphone and transmitter. What it lacked in audio resolution and battery life, it made up for in range. The signal was picked up by a satellite, amplified and beamed down to one of the massive receiving antennae at Menwith Hill in the beautiful Yorkshire countryside.
    The device had transmitted fragments of a conversation Hydt and Dunne had had just after they’d left the fictional EJT Services office in downtown Cape Town. The jumbled words had finally made their way through the decryption queue and been read by an analyst, who had flagged them as critical and shot the missive to Bond.
    He now read the CX—the raw intelligence—and the analyzed product. It seemed that Dunne was planning to kill one of Hydt’s workers, Stephan Dlamini, and his family, because the employee had seen something in a secure part of Green Way that he shouldn’t have, perhaps information that related to Gehenna. Bond’s goal was clear: Save him at all costs.
    Purpose . . . response.
    The man lived outside Cape Town. The death would be made to look like a gang attack. Grenades and firebombs would be used. And the attack would occur at suppertime.
    After that, though, the battery died and the device had stopped transmitting.
    At suppertime. Perhaps any moment now.
    Bond hadn’t managed to rescue the woman in Dubai. He wasn’t going to let this family die now. He needed to find out what Dlamini had learned.
    But he could hardly contact Bheka Jordaan and tell her what he’d found out via illegal surveillance. He picked up the phone and called the concierge.
    “Yes, sir?”
    “I have a question for you,” Bond said casually. “I had a problem with my car today and a local fellow helped me out. I didn’t have much cash with me and I wanted to give him something for his trouble. How would I go about finding his address? I have his name and the town he lives in but nothing more.”
    “What’s the town?”
    “Primrose Gardens.”
    There was silence. Then the concierge said,