Carte Blanche - Jeffery Deaver [151]
The old fox. Bond laughed to himself. So the ODG was going into the recycling business. ‘Brilliant, sir.’
‘Get all the details to Bill Tanner and we’ll go from there.’ M paused, then barked, ‘Osborne-bloody-Smith has brought traffic in London to a complete standstill. It’ll take me ages to get home. I’ve never understood why they couldn’t run the M4 all the way in to Earl’s Court.’
The line went dead.
64
James Bond found Felicity Willing’s business card and called her at her office to break the news that one of her donors was a criminal . . . and had died in an operation to arrest him.
But she’d heard. Already reporters had been on to her and asked for a statement, in light of the fact that Green Way was heavily involved with the Mafia and the Camorra (Bond reflected that the grass did not grow beneath the feet of the ‘misinformation chaps at Six’).
Felicity was furious that some journalists were suggesting she’d known there was something disreputable about him but that she’d been happy to take his donations anyway. ‘How the bloody hell could they ask that, Gene? For heaven’s sake, Hydt gave us fifty or sixty thousand pounds a year, which was generous but nothing compared to what a lot of people donate. I’d drop anyone in an instant if I thought they were up to something illegal.’ Her voice softened. ‘But you’re all right, aren’t you?’
‘I wasn’t even there when they raided the place. The police rang me and asked a few questions. That’s all. Hell of a shock, though.’
‘I’m sure it was.’
Bond asked how the deliveries were going. She told him that the tonnage was even higher than had been pledged. Distribution was already under way to ten different countries in sub-Saharan Africa. There was enough food to keep hundreds of thousands of people fed for months.
Bond congratulated her, then said, ‘You’re not too busy for Franschhoek?’
‘If you think you’re getting out of our weekend in the country, Gene, you’d better think again.’
They made plans to meet in the morning. He reminded himself to find someone to wash and polish the Subaru, for which he’d formed some affection, despite the flashy colour and the largely cosmetic spoiler on the boot.
After they’d disconnected, he sat back, relishing the cheer in her voice. Relishing, too, the memory of the time they’d spent together. And thinking of the future.
If you do go to some dark places, could you promise me not to go to the . . . worst?
Smiling, he flicked her card, then put it away and pulled on the gloves once more to continue ploughing through the documents and computers, jotting notes about Green Way’s offices and the Gehenna operation for M and Bill Tanner. He laboured for an hour or so until he decided it was time for a drink.
He stretched luxuriously.
He then paused and slowly lowered his arms. At that moment he had felt a jolt deep within him. He knew the sensation. It arose occasionally in the world of espionage, that great landscape of subtext where so little is as it seems. Often the source for such an unsettling stab was a suspicion that a basic assumption had been wrong, perhaps disastrously so.
Staring at his notes, he heard himself breathing fast, his lips dry. His heartbeat quickened.
Bond flipped through hundreds of documents again, then grabbed his mobile and emailed Philly Maidenstone a priority request. As he waited for her reply he rose and paced in the small office, his mind inundated with thoughts, hovering and swooping like the frantic seagulls over Disappearance Row at Green Way.
When Philly responded he snatched up his mobile and read the message, sitting back slowly in the uncomfortable chair.
A shadow fell over him. He looked up and found Bheka Jordaan standing there. She was saying, ‘James, I brought you some coffee. In a proper mug.’ It was decorated with the smiling faces of the players from Bafana Bafana in all their football finest.
When he said nothing and didn’t take it, she set it down. ‘James?’
Bond knew his face betrayed the alarm burning within him. After a moment