Carte Blanche

and lower still at the back. Her silver shoes sported thin straps and precarious heels. Faintly pink pearls shone at her throat and she wore one ring, also a pearl, on her right index finger. Her nails were short and uncolored.
    She scanned the audience with a penetrating, almost challenging gaze and said, “I must warn you all. . . .” Tension swelled. “At university I was known as Felicity Willful —an appropriate name, as you’ll find out later when I make the rounds. I advise you all, for your own safety, to keep your checkbooks at the ready.” A smile replaced the fierce visage.
    As the laughter died down, Felicity began to talk about the problems of hunger. “Africa must import twenty-five percent of its food. . . . While the population has soared, crop yields today are no higher than they were in 1980. . . . In places like the Central African Republic, nearly a third of all households are food insecure. . . . In Africa iodine deficiency is the number one cause of brain damage, vitamin A deficiency is the number one cause of blindness. . . . Nearly three hundred million people in Africa do not have enough to eat—that number equals the entire population of the United States. . . .”
    Africa, of course, was not alone in the need for food aid, she continued, and her organization was attacking the plague on all fronts. Thanks to the generosity of donors, including many here, the group had recently expanded its charter from being a purely South African charity to an international one, opening offices in Jakarta, Port-au-Prince and Mumbai, with others planned.
    And, she added, the biggest shipment of maize, sorghum, milk powder and other high-nutrient staples ever to arrive in Africa was soon to be delivered in Cape Town for distribution across the continent.
    Felicity acknowledged the applause. Then her smile vanished and she gazed at the crowd with piercing eyes once more, speaking in a low, even menacing, voice about the need to make poorer countries independent of Western “agropolies.” She railed against the prevailing approach of America and Europe to end hunger: foreign-owned megafarms forcing their way into third-world nations and squeezing out the local farmers—the people who knew how to get the best yield from the land. Those enterprises were using Africa and other nations as laboratories to test untried methods and products, like synthetic fertilizers and genetically engineered seeds.
    “The vast majority of international agribusiness cares only about profit, not about relieving the suffering of the people. And this is simply not acceptable.”
    Finally, having delivered her assault, she grew more relaxed, smiled and singled out the donors, Hydt among them. He responded to the applause with a wave. He was smiling, too, but his whisper to Bond told a different story: “If you want adulation, just give away money. The more desperate they are, the more they love you.” He clearly didn’t want to be here.
    Felicity stepped off the platform to circulate as the guests continued their silent bidding.
    Bond said to Hydt, “I don’t know if you have plans but I was thinking we could go for some dinner. On me?”
    “I’m sorry, Theron, but I have to meet an associate who’s just arrived in town for that project I mentioned.”
    Gehenna. . . . Bond certainly wanted to meet whoever this man was. “I’d be happy to take everyone out, your associate too.”
    “Tonight’s no good, I’m afraid,” Hydt said absently, pulling his iPhone out and scrolling through messages or missed calls. He glanced up and spotted Jessica standing by herself awkwardly in front of a table on which items were being offered for auction. When she looked at him he beckoned her over impatiently.
    Bond tried to think of some other way to conjure an invitation but decided to back off before Hydt became suspicious. Seduction in tradecraft is like seduction in love; it works best if you make the object of your desire come to you. Nothing ruins your efforts faster than desperate pursuit.
    “Tomorrow then,” Bond said, seemingly distracted and glancing at his own phone.
    “Yes—good.” Hydt looked up. “Felicity!”
    With a smile, the charity’s managing director detached herself from a fat, balding man in a dusty dinner jacket. He’d been gripping her hand for far longer than courtesy dictated. She joined Hydt, Jessica and Bond.
    “Severan. Jessica.” They brushed cheeks.
    “And an associate, Gene