Carte Blanche - Jeffery Deaver [101]
‘Security work.’
‘Ah.’ A faint chill descended. Felicity was obviously a tough, worldly businesswoman and recognised the euphemism. She would guess he was in some way involved with the many conflicts in Africa. War, she’d said during her speech, was one of the main causes for the plague of hunger.
He said, ‘I have companies that install security systems and provide guards.’
She seemed to believe this was at least partly true. ‘I was born in South Africa and have been living here now for four or five years. I’ve seen it change. Crime is less of a problem than it used to be, but security staff are still needed. We have a number of them at the organisation. We must. Charitable work doesn’t exempt us from risk.’ She added darkly, ‘I’m happy to give food away. I won’t have it stolen from me.’
To divert her from asking more questions about him Bond enquired about her life.
She’d grown up in the bush, in the Western Cape, the only child of English parents, her father a mining company executive. The family had moved back to London when she was thirteen. She was an outsider at boarding school, she confessed. ‘I might have fitted in a bit better if I’d kept my mouth shut about how to field-dress gazelles – especially in the dining hall.’
Then it had been the London Business School and a stint at a major City investment bank, where she’d done ‘all right’; her dismissive modesty suggested she’d done extremely well.
But the work had proved ultimately unsatisfying. ‘It was too easy for me, Gene. There was no challenge. I needed a steeper mountain. Well, four or five years ago I decided to reassess my life. I took a month off and spent some time back here. I saw how pervasive hunger was. And I decided to do something about it. Everybody told me not to bother. It was impossible to make a difference. Well, that was like waving a red flag at a bull.’
‘Felicity Wilful.’
She smiled. ‘So, here I am, bullying donors to give us money and taking on the American and European megafarms.’
‘“Agropoly”. Clever term.’
‘I coined it,’ she said, then burst out, ‘They’re destroying the continent. I’m not going to let them get away with it.’
The serious discussion was cut short when the waiter appeared with the steak sizzling on an iron platter. It was charred on the outside and succulent within. They ate in silence for a time. At one point he sliced off a crusty piece of meat, but took a sip of wine before he put it into his mouth. When he returned to his plate the morsel was gone and Felicity was chewing mischievously. ‘Sorry. I tend to go after things that appeal to me.’
Bond laughed. ‘Very clever, stealing from under the nose of a security expert.’ He waved to the sommelier, and a second bottle of the cabernet appeared. Bond steered the conversation to Severan Hydt.
He was disappointed to find that she didn’t seem to know much about the man that might be helpful to his mission. She mentioned the names of several of his partners who’d donated money to her group and he memorised them. She had not met Niall Dunne but she knew Hydt had some brilliant assistant who performed all sorts of technical wizardry. She lifted an eyebrow and said, ‘I just realised – you’re the one he uses.’
‘Sorry?’
‘For his security at the Green Way operation north of town. I’ve never been but one of my assistants collected a donation from him. All those metal detectors and scanners. You can’t get inside the place with a paperclip, let alone a mobile phone. You have to check everything at the door. Like in those old American westerns – you leave your guns outside when you go into the bar.’
‘He awarded that contract to somebody else. I do other jobs.’ This intelligence worried Bond; he’d intended to get into the Green Way building with far more than a paperclip and a mobile phone, despite Bheka Jordaan’s disdain for illegal surveillance. He’d have to consider the implications.
The meal wound down and they finished the wine. They were the last patrons in the restaurant. Bond called for the bill and settled it. ‘The second of my donations,’ he said.
They