Carte Blanche - Jeffery Deaver [155]
She didn’t answer him. But the agent’s eyes noted her bruised hand and revealed that he’d deduced as much. ‘There was no cop on the dock.’
‘I lied, didn’t I? Sit down. On the floor.’
When he had done so, Felicity worked the slide of the Walther, which ejected one round but made sure one was in the chamber, ready to fire. ‘I know you’re trained to disarm people. I’ve killed before and it has no effect on me. It’s not essential that you stay alive so I’m happy to shoot you now if you make any move.’
Her voice, though, almost caught on ‘happy’. What the hell is the matter with you? she asked herself angrily. ‘Put them on.’ She tossed handcuffs towards his lap.
He caught them. Good reflexes, she noted. She stepped back three feet or so.
Felicity smelt the pleasant scent from where he’d gripped her a moment ago. It would be soap or shampoo from the hotel. He was not an aftershave sort of man.
The anger again. Damn him!
‘The cuffs,’ she repeated.
A hesitation, then he ratcheted them on to his wrists. ‘So? Explain.’
‘Tighter.’
He squeezed the mechanism. She was satisfied.
‘Who exactly do you work for?’ she asked.
‘An outfit in London. We’ll have to leave it at that. So, you’re working with Lamb?’
She gave a laugh. ‘With that fat sweaty fool? No. Whatever he’s coming here for, it has nothing to do with my project tonight. It’s probably some ridiculous business venture he has in mind. Maybe buying this place. I was lying when I told you I’d heard him referred to as Noah.’
‘Then what are you doing here?’
‘I’m here because I’m sure you’ve briefed your bosses in London that Lamb’s your main suspect.’
A flicker in his eyes confirmed this.
‘What Captain Jordaan and her moderately competent officers will find in the morning here is a fight to the death. You and the traitor who was going to bomb a cruise liner, Gregory Lamb, and anybody he was meeting here. You found them and there was a gun fight. Everybody died. There’ll be loose ends but, on the whole, the matter will go away. Or, at least, go away from me.’
‘Leaving you free to do whatever it is you’re doing. But I don’t understand. Who the hell is Noah?’
‘It’s not a who, James, it’s a what. N-O-A-H.’
Confusion in his handsome face. Then understanding dawned. ‘My God . . . your group is the International Organisation Against Hunger. IOAH. At the fundraiser you said you’d recently expanded to make it international in scope. Which meant that it used to be National Organisation Against Hunger. NOAH.’
She nodded.
Frowning, he mused, ‘In the text we intercepted last weekend, ‘noah’ was typed all lower case. Everything else in the message was too. I just assumed it was a name.’
‘We were careless there. It hasn’t been NOAH for a while, but it was the original name and we still refer to it like that.’
‘We? Who sent that message?’
‘Niall Dunne. He’s my associate, not Hydt’s. He’s just on loan.’
‘Yours?’
‘Been working together for a few years now.’
‘And how did you get with Hydt?’
‘Niall and I work with a lot of warlords and dictators in sub-Saharan Africa. Nine, ten months ago Niall heard about Hydt’s plan, this Gehenna, through some of them. It was pretty far-fetched, but there was a good chance of a decent return on investment. I gave Dunne ten million to put into the pot. He told Hydt it was from an anonymous businessman. A condition for the money was that Dunne himself worked with Hydt to oversee how it was spent.’
‘Yes,’ Bond said, ‘he mentioned other investors. So Hydt knew nothing about you?’
‘Nothing at all. And it turned out that Severan was delighted to use Dunne as a tactical planner. Gehenna wouldn’t have got nearly so far without him.’
‘The man who thinks of everything.’
‘Yes, he was rather proud that Hydt described him like that.’
James said, ‘There was another reason Dunne stayed close to Hydt, though, right? He was your escape plan, a possible diversion.’
Felicity said, ‘If somebody got suspicious – just as you did – we’d sacrifice Hydt. Make him the fall-guy so nobody would look any further. That was why Dunne convinced Hydt that the bombing