Carte Blanche - Jeffery Deaver [38]
Bond peered at satellite maps of Hydt’s home and Green Way’s operation. It was vitally important to set up surveillance on the man. But there was no legitimate way to conduct it without enlisting Osborne-Smith and the A Branch snoop teams from MI5 – and the instant the Division Three man learnt Hydt’s identity he’d move in to ‘detain’ him and the Irishman. Bond considered the risk again. How realistic was his concern that if the two were pulled in, other co-conspirators would accelerate the carnage, or vanish until they struck again next month or next year?
Evil, James Bond had learnt, can be tirelessly patient.
Surveillance or not?
He debated. After a moment’s hesitation, he reluctantly picked up the phone.
17
At half past six, Bond drove to his flat and, in the garage, reversed into the spot beside his racing-green Jaguar. He climbed the stairs to the first floor, unlocked the door, disarmed the alarm and confirmed with a separate security function – a fast-framed video – that only May, his housekeeper, had been there. (Feeling somewhat embarrassed, he’d told her when she’d started working for him that the security camera was a requirement of his government employer’s; the flat had to be monitored when he was away, even if she was working there. ‘Considering what you must do for the country, being a patriot and all, it’s no bother’s,’ the staunch woman had said, using the fragment of ‘sir’, a mark of respect reserved for him alone.)
He checked messages on his home phone. He had only one. It was from a friend who lived in Mayfair, Fouad Kharaz, a wily, larger-than-life Jordanian, who had all manner of business dealings, involving vehicles mostly: cars, planes and the most astonishing yachts Bond had ever seen. Kharaz and he were members of the same gaming club in Berkeley Square, the Commodore.
Unlike many such clubs in London, where membership could be had with twenty-four hours’ notice and five hundred pounds, the Commodore was a proper establishment, requiring patience and considerable vetting to join. Once you were a member, you were expected to adhere strictly to a number of rules, such as the dress code, and behave impeccably at the tables. It also boasted a fine restaurant and cellar.
Kharaz had called to invite Bond to dine there tonight. ‘A problem, James. I have fallen heir to two beautiful women from Saint-Tropez – how it happened is too long, and delicate, a story to leave as a message. But I can’t be charming enough for both of them. Will you help?’
Smiling, Bond rang him back and told him he had another engagement. A rain check was arranged.
Then he went through his shower ritual – steaming hot, then icy cold – and dried himself briskly. He ran his fingers over his cheeks and chin and decided to maintain a lifelong prejudice against shaving twice in one day. Then he chided himself: why were you even thinking about it? Philly Maidenstone’s pretty and clever and she rides a hell of a fine motorcycle – but she’s a colleague. That’s all.
The black leather jumpsuit, however, made an unbidden appearance in his mind.
In a towelling robe Bond stepped into the kitchen and poured two fingers of bourbon, Basil Hayden’s, into a glass, dropped in one ice cube and drank half, enjoying the sharp nutty flavour. The first sip of the day was invariably the best, especially coming as this one did – after a harrowing excursion against an enemy and ahead of an evening with a beautiful woman . . .
He caught himself again. Stop.
He sat in an old leather chair in the living room, which was sparsely furnished. The majority of the items in it had been his parents’, inherited when they had died and kept in storage near his aunt’s in Kent. He’d bought a few things: some lamps, a desk and chairs, a Bose sound system he rarely had a chance to listen to.
On the mantelpiece there were silver-framed photos of his parents and grandparents – on his