Carte Blanche - Jeffery Deaver [57]
Nick considered his plan. There would be some logistical problems, of course – in this country everyone watched everyone else. He would have to get his target out of sight, into the car park or, better, the basement of the shopping centre, perhaps during prayer time, when the crowds thinned. Probably the simplest approach was the best. Nick could slip up behind him, shove the gun into his back and ‘escort’ him downstairs.
Then the knife work would begin.
Oh, the target – all right, maybe I will think of him as a bastard – would have many things to say when the blade began its leisurely journey across his skin.
Nick reached under his jacket and pushed up the safety lever of his pistol, moving smoothly from shadow to shadow.
26
James Bond had his coffee and water in front of him as he sat with the National newspaper, published out of Abu Dhabi. He considered it the best newspaper in the Middle East. You could find every sort of story imaginable, from a scandal about Mumbai firemen’s inefficient uniforms to pieces about women’s rights in the Arab world to a half-page exposé on a Cypriot gangster stealing the body of the island’s former president from his grave.
Excellent Formula One coverage too – important to Bond.
Now, however, he was paying no attention to the paper but was using it as a prop . . . though not with the cliché of an eyehole torn from the gutter between ads for Dubai’s Lulu Hypermarkets and the local news. The paper sat flat in front of him and his head was down. His eyes, however, were up, scanning.
It was at that moment that he heard a brief rasp of shoe leather behind him and was aware of someone moving quickly towards his table.
Bond remained completely still.
Then a large hand – pale and freckled – gripped the chair beside him and yanked it back.
A man dropped heavily into it.
‘Howdy, James.’ The voice was thick with a Texas accent. ‘Welcome to Dubai.’
Du-bah . . .
Bond turned to his friend with a grin. They shook hands warmly.
A few years older than Bond, Felix Leiter was tall and had a lanky frame, on which his suit hung loose. The pale complexion and mop of straw-coloured hair largely precluded most undercover work in the Middle East unless he was playing exactly who he was: a brash, savvy guy from the American South, who’d ridden into town for business, with no small amount of pleasure thrown in. His slow manners and easy-going speech were deceptive; he could react like a spring knife when the occasion demanded . . . as Bond had seen first hand.
When the pilot of Fouad Kharaz’s Grumman had reported that they weren’t going to beat Hydt’s to Dubai, it was Felix Leiter whom Bond had rung, calling in his Lehman Brothers favour. While Bond was uneasy using the MI6 connections here, because of Osborne-Smith’s inquiries earlier, he had no such reservations about enlisting the CIA, which had an extensive operation throughout the United Arab Emirates. Asking Leiter, a senior agent in the Agency’s National Clandestine Service, to help out was risky politically. Using a sister agency without clearance from the top might result in serious diplomatic repercussions and Bond had already done so once with René Mathis. He was certainly putting his newly reinstated carte blanche to the test.
Felix Leiter was more than willing to meet Hydt’s plane and follow the trio to their destination, which had turned out to be the Intercontinental Hotel – it was connected to the shopping centre where the two men now sat.
Bond had briefed him about Hydt, the Irishman and, ten minutes ago via text, about the man in the Toyota. Leiter had remained in surveillance positions at the shopping centre for a time to – literally – watch Bond’s back.
‘So, do I have a friend hanging about?’
‘Spotted him moving in, about forty yards to the south,’ said Leiter, smiling as if counter-surveillance was the last thing on his mind. ‘He was by the entrance, thataway. But the son-of-a-bitch