Carte Blanche by Jeffery Deaver Page B

cheek. She stopped her hand.
    But the point had been made. She proffered the ads. “Do you want to look at them?”
    “I’m sure they’re fine,” he said.
    “I’ll send them off.” She left his office, her destination not the marketing department, Hydt knew, but the cloakroom, where she would wash her face.
    Jessica was not a foolish woman; she’d learned her lesson.
    Then she was gone from his thoughts. He stared out of the window at his new destructor. He was very aware of the event coming up on Friday but at the moment he couldn’t get tomorrow out of his head.
    The number of dead . . . close to 100.
    His gut twisted pleasantly.
    It was then that his secretary announced on the intercom, “Mr. Dunne’s here, sir.”
    “Ah, good.”
    A moment later, Niall Dunne entered and swung the door shut so that the two were alone. The cumbersome man’s trapezoid face had rarely flickered with emotion in the nine months they’d known each other. Severan Hydt had little use for most people and no interest in social niceties. But Dunne chilled even him.
    “Now, what happened over there?” Hydt asked. After the incident in Serbia, Dunne had said they should keep their phone conversations to a minimum.
    The man turned his pale blue eyes to Hydt and explained in his Belfast accent that he and Karic, the Serbian contact, had been surprised by several men—at least two BIA Serbian intelligence officers masquerading as police and a Westerner, who’d told the Serbian agent he was with the European Peacekeeping and Monitoring Group.
    Hydt frowned. “It’s—”
    “There is no such group,” Dunne said calmly. “It had to be a private operation. There was no backup, no central communications, no medics. The Westerner probably bribed the intelligence officers to help him. It is the Balkans, after all. May have been a competitor.” He added, “Maybe one of your partners or a worker here let slip something about the plan.”
    He was referring to Gehenna, of course. They did everything they could to keep the project secret but a number of people around the world were involved; it wasn’t impossible that there’d been a leak and some crime syndicate was interested in learning more about it.
    Dunne continued: “I don’t want to minimize the risk—they were pretty clever. But it wasn’t a major coordinated effort. I’m confident we can go forward.”
    Dunne handed Hydt a mobile phone. “Use this one for our conversations. Better encryption.”
    Hydt examined it. “Did you get a look at the Westerner?”
    “No. There was a lot of smoke.”
    “And Karic?”
    “I killed him.” The blank face registered the same emotion as if he’d said, “Yes, it’s cool outside today.”
    Hydt considered what the man had told him. No one was more precise or cautious when it came to analysis than Niall Dunne. If he was convinced this was no problem, then Hydt would accept his judgment.
    Dunne continued: “I’m going up to the facility now. Once I get the last materials up there the team say they can finish in a few hours.”
    A fire flared within Hydt, ignited by an image of the woman’s body in the skip—and the thought of what awaited up north. “I’ll come with you.”
    Dunne said nothing. Finally he asked in a monotone, “You think that’s a good idea? Might be risky.” He offered this as if he’d detected the eagerness in Hydt’s voice—Dunne seemed to feel that nothing good could come out of a decision based on emotion.
    “I’ll chance it.” Hydt tapped his pocket to make certain his phone was there. He hoped there’d be an opportunity to take some more photographs.

Chapter 10
    After leaving M’s lair, Bond walked up the corridor. He greeted a smartly dressed Asian woman keyboarding deftly at a large computer and stepped into the doorway behind her.
    “You’ve bought the duty,” he said to the man hunched over a desk as loaded with papers and files as M’s was empty.
    “I have indeed.” Bill Tanner