Carte Blanche - Jeffery Deaver [36]
Philly was truly golden.
‘And Eastern Demolition have headquarters in Slough. They were low bidders for the demolition project at the British Army base in March.’
‘Is it a public limited company?’
‘Private. And owned by a holding company, also private: Green Way International. It’s quite big and operates in half a dozen countries. One man owns all the shares. Severan Hydt.’
‘That’s really his name?’
She laughed. ‘At first I wondered what his parents were thinking. But it seems he changed it by deed poll when he was in his twenties.’
‘What was his birth name?’
‘Maarten Holt.’
‘Holt to Hydt,’ Bond mused. ‘I don’t see the point – though it’s hardly remarkable – but Maarten to Severan? Why, in heaven’s name?’
She shrugged. ‘Green Way is a huge rubbish-collection and recycling operation. You’ve seen their lorries but probably haven’t thought much about them. I couldn’t find a great deal because they’re not public and Hydt stays clear of the press. Article in The Times dubbed him the world’s richest rag-and-bone man. The Guardian ran a profile of him a few years ago and was fairly complimentary but he gave them only a few generic quotes and that was it. I found out he was Dutch-born, kept dual citizenship for a time and is now just British.’
Philly’s body language and the hunter’s sheen in her eyes hinted that she hadn’t revealed all.
‘And?’ Bond asked.
She smiled. ‘I found some online references to when he was a mature student at the University of Bristol, where he did rather well, by the way.’ She explained that Hydt had been active in the university’s sailing club, captaining a boat in competitions. ‘He not only raced but built his own. It earned him a nickname.’
‘And what was it?’ Bond asked, though he had a feeling he knew.
‘Noah.’
16
The time was now half past five. Since it would be several hours before Philly received the intelligence she was waiting for, Bond suggested they meet for dinner.
She agreed and returned to her work station, while Bond composed an encrypted email to M, copying in Bill Tanner, saying that Noah was Severan Hydt and including a synopsis of his background and what had happened in March. He added that Hydt referred to the attack involved in Incident Twenty as the ‘Gehenna plan’. More would be forthcoming.
He received a terse reply:
007 —
Authorised to proceed. Appropriate liaison with domestic organisations expected.
M
My carte grise . . .
Bond left his office, took the lift to the second floor and entered a large room filled with more computers than an electronics shop. A few men and women laboured at monitors, or at the type of work stations to be found in a university chemistry laboratory. Bond walked to a small, glass-walled office at the far end and tapped on the window.
Sanu Hirani, head of the ODG’s Q Branch, was a slim man of forty or so. His complexion was sallow and his luxuriant black hair framed a face handsome enough to get him roles in Bollywood. A brilliant cricketer, known for his fast bowling, he had degrees in chemistry, electrical engineering and computer science from top universities in the UK and America (where he had been successful in everything except introducing his sport to the Yanks, who could neither grasp the game’s subtleties, nor tolerate the length of a Test match).
Q Branch was the technical support enclave within the ODG and Hirani oversaw all aspects of the gadgetry that has always been used in tradecraft. Wizards for departments like Q Branch and the CIA’s Science and Technology Division spent their time coming up with hardware and software innovations, like miniature cameras, improbable weapons, concealments, communications devices and surveillance equipment – such as Hirani’s latest: a hypersensitive omnidirectional microphone mounted within a dead fly. (‘A bug in a bug,’ Bond had commented wryly to its creator, who had replied that he was the eighteenth person to make the joke and, by the