carte blanche: the new james bond novel by jeffery deaver

8/6/2019 Carte Blanche: The new James Bond novel by Jeffery Deaver

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C h a p t e r 1

His hand on the dead-man throttle, the driver o the Serbian Rail diesel

elt the thrill he always did on this particular stretch o railway, headingnorth rom Belgrade and approaching Novi Sad.

This was the route o the amed Arlberg Orient Express, which ran

rom Greece through Belgrade and points north rom the 1930s until

the 1960s. O course, he was not piloting a glistening Pacic 231 steam

locomotive towing elegant mahogany-and-brass dining cars, suites and

sleepers, where passengers foated upon vapors o luxury and anticipa-

tion. He commanded a battered old thing rom America that tugged be-

hind it a string o more or less dependable rolling stock packed snugly

with mundane cargo.

But still he elt the thrill o history in every vista that the journey o-

ered, especially as they approached the river,his river.

And yet he was ill at ease.

Among the wagons bound or Budapest, containing coal, scrap metal,

consumer products and timber, there was one that worried him greatly.

It was loaded with drums o MICmethyl isocyanateto be used inHungary in the manuacture o rubber.

The drivera round, balding man in a well-worn cap and stained

overallshad been brieed at length about this deadly chemical by his

supervisor and some idiot rom the Serbian Saety and Well-being Trans-

portation Oversight Ministry. Some years ago this substance had killed

eight thousand people in Bhopal, India, within a ew days o leaking

rom a manuacturing plant there.

Hed acknowledged the danger his cargo presented but, a veteran


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Jeery Deaver4

railway man and union member, hed asked, What does that mean or

the journey to Budapest . . . specically?

The boss and the bureaucrat had regarded each other with the eyes oocialdom and, ater a pause, settled or Just be very careul.

The lights o Novi Sad, Serbias second-largest city, began to coalesce

in the distance, and ahead in the encroaching evening the Danube ap-

peared as a pale stripe. In history and in music the river was celebrated.

In reality it was brown, undramatic and home to barges and tankers, not

candlelit vessels lled with lovers and Viennese orchestrasor not here,

at least. Still, itwas the Danube, an icon o Balkan pride, and the railway

mans chest always swelled as he took his train over the bridge.His river . . .

He peered through the speckled windscreen and inspected the track

beore him in the headlight o the General Electric diesel. Nothing to be

concerned about.

There were eight notch positions on the throttle, number one being

the lowest. He was presently at ve and he eased back to three to slow

the train as it entered a series o turns. The 4,000-horsepower engine

grew soter as it cut back the voltage to the traction motors.

As the cars entered the straight section to the bridge the driver shited

up to notch ve again and then six. The engine pulsed louder and aster

and there came a series o sharp clangs rom behind. The sound was,

the driver knew, simply the couplings between wagons protesting at the

change in speed, a minor cacophony hed heard a thousand times in his

job. But his imagination told him the noise was the metal containers o

the deadly chemical in car number three, jostling against one another, atrisk o spewing orth their poison.

Nonsense, he told himsel and concentrated on keeping the speed

steady. Then, or no reason at all, except that it made him eel better, he

tugged at the air horn.


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C h a p t e r 2

Lying at the top o a hill, surrounded by obscuring grass, a man o seri-

ous ace and hunters demeanor heard the wail o a horn in the distance,miles away. A glance told him that the sound had come rom the train

approaching rom the south. It would arrive here in ten or teen min-

utes. He wondered how it might aect the precarious operation that was

about to unurl.

Shiting position slightly, he studied the diesel locomotive and the

lengthy string o wagons behind it through his night-vision monocular.

Judging that the train was o no consequence to himsel and his

plans, James Bond turned the scope back to the restaurant o the spa

and hotel and once again regarded his target through the window. The

weathered building was large, yellow stucco with brown trim. Apparently

it was a avorite with the locals, rom the number o Zastava and Fiat

saloons in the car park.

It was eight orty and the Sunday evening was clear here, near Novi

Sad, where the Pannonian Plain rose to a landscape that the Serbs called

mountainous, though Bond guessed the adjective must have beenchosen to attract tourists; the rises were mere hills to him, an avid skier.

The May air was dry and cool, the surroundings as quiet as an under-

takers chapel o rest.Bond shited position again. In his thirties, he was

six eet tall and weighed 170 pounds. His black hair was parted on one

side and a comma o loose strands ell over one eye. A three-inch scar

ran down his right cheek.

This evening hed taken some care with his outt. He was wearing

a dark green jacket and rainproo trousers rom the American company5.11, which made the best tactical clothing on the market. On his eet


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Jeery Deaver6

were well-worn leather boots that had been made or pursuit and sure

ooting in a ght.

As night descended, the lights to the north glowed more intensely:the old city o Novi Sad. As lively and charming as it was now, Bond

knew the place had a dark past. Ater the Hungarians had slaughtered

thousands o its citizens in January 1942 and fung the bodies into the

icy Danube, Novi Sad had become a crucible or partisan resistance.

Bond was here tonight to prevent another horror, dierent in nature but

o equal or worse magnitude.

Yesterday, Saturday, an alert had rippled through the British intelli-

gence community. GCHQ, in Cheltenham, had decrypted an electronicwhisper about an attack later in the week.

meeting at noahs ofce, confrm incident riday night,

20th, estimated initial casualties in the thousands, british

interests adversely aected, unds transers as discussed.

Not long ater, the government eavesdroppers had also cracked part

o a second text message, sent rom the same phone, same encryptionalgorithm, but to a dierent number.

meet me sunday at restaurant rostilj outside novi sad,

20:00. i am 6+ eet tall, irish accent.

Then the Irishmanwhod courteously, i inadvertently, supplied his

own nicknamehad destroyed the phone or ficked out the batteries, as

had the other text recipients.In London the Joint Intelligence Committee and members o

COBRA, the crisis management body, met into the night to assess the

risk o Incident 20, so called because o Fridays date.

There was no solid inormation on the origin or nature o the threat

but MI6 was o the opinion that it was coming out o the tribal regions

in Aghanistan, where al-Qaeda and its aliates had taken to hiring

Western operatives in European countries. Sixs agents in Kabul began a

major eort to learn more. The Serbian connection had to be pursued,too. And so at ten oclock last night the rangy tentacles o these events


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Carte Blanche 7

had reached out and clutched Bond, whod been sitting in an exclu-

sive restaurant o Charing Cross Road with a beautiul woman, whose

lengthy description o her lie as an underappreciated painter had growntiresome. The message on Bonds mobile had read, NIACT, Call COS.

The Night Action alert meant an immediate response was required,

at whatever time it was received. The call to his chie o sta had bless-

edly cut the date short and soon he had been en route to Serbia, under

a Level 2 project order, authorizing him to identiy the Irishman, plant

trackers and other surveillance devices and ollow him. I that proved

impossible, the order authorized Bond to conduct an extraordinary ren-

dition o the Irishman and spirit him back to England or to a black siteon the Continent or interrogation.

So now Bond lay among white narcissi, taking care to avoid the leaves

o that beautiul but poisonous spring fower. He concentrated on peer-

ing through the Restoran Rostiljs ront window, on the other side o

which the Irishman was sitting over an almost untouched plate and talk-

ing to his partner, as yet unidentied but Slavic in appearance. Perhaps

because he was nervous, the local contact had parked elsewhere and

walked here, providing no number-plate to scan.

The Irishman had not been so timid. His low-end Mercedes had ar-

rived orty minutes ago. Its plate had revealed that the vehicle had been

hired today or cash under a alse name, with a ake British driving li-

cense and passport. The man was about Bonds age, perhaps a bit older,

six oot two and lean. Hed walked into the restaurant in an ungainly

way, his eet turned out. An odd line o blond ringe dipped over a high

orehead and his cheekbones angled down to a square-cut chin.Bond was satised that this man was the target. Two hours ago he

had gone into the restaurant or a cup o coee and stuck a listening de-

vice inside the ront door. A man had arrived at the appointed time and

spoken to the headwaiter in Englishslowly and loudly, as oreigners

oten do when talking to locals. To Bond, listening through an app on

his phone rom thirty yards away, the accent was clearly mid-Ulster

most likely Belast or the surrounding area. Unortunately the meeting

between the Irishman and his local contact was taking place out o thebugs range.


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Jeery Deaver8

Through the tunnel o his monocular, Bond now studied his ad-

versary, taking note o every detailSmall clues save you. Small er-

rors kill, as the instructors at Fort Monckton were wont to remind.He noted that the Irishmans manner was precise and that he made no

unnecessary gestures. When the partner drew a diagram the Irishman

moved it closer with the rubber o a propelling pencil so that he let no

ngerprints. He sat with his back to the window and in ront o his part-

ner; the surveillance apps on Bonds mobile could not read either set o

lips. Once, the Irishman turned quickly, looking outside, as i triggered

by a sixth sense. The pale eyes were devoid o expression. Ater some

time he turned back to the ood that apparently didnt interest him.The meal now seemed to be winding down. Bond eased o the hill-

ock and made his way through widely spaced spruce and pine trees and

anemic undergrowth, with clusters o the ubiquitous white fowers. He

passed a aded sign in Serbian, French and English that had amused him

when hed arrived:

SPA AND RE STAURANT ROSTILJ

LOCATED IN A DECLARED THERAP EUTIC

REGION, AND IS RECOMMENDED BY ALL

FOR CONVALESCENCES AFTER SURGERIES,

ESPECIALLY HELPING FOR ACUTE AND

CHRONIC DISEASES OF RESPIRATION

ORGANS, AND ANEMIA. FULL BAR.

He returned to the staging area, behind a decrepit garden shed that

smelled o engine oil, petrol and piss, near the driveway to the restau-

rant. His two comrades, as he thought o them, were waiting here.

James Bond preerred to operate alone but the plan hed devised re-

quired two local agents. They were with the BIA, the Serbian Security

Inormation Agency, as benign a name or a spy outt as one could imag-

ine. The men, however, were undercover in the uniorm o local police

rom Novi Sad, sporting the golden badge o the Ministry o InternalAairs.


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Carte Blanche 9

Faces squat, heads round, perpetually unsmiling, they wore their hair

close-cropped beneath navy-blue brimmed caps. Their woolen uniorms

were the same shade. One was around orty, the other twenty-ve. De-spite their cover roles as rural ocers, theyd come girded or battle.

They carried heavy Beretta pistols and swaths o ammunition. In the

backseat o their borrowed police car, a Volkswagen Jetta, there were two

green-camoufaged Kalashnikov machine guns, an Uzi and a canvas bag

o ragmentation hand grenadesserious ones, Swiss HG 85s.

Bond turned to the older agent but beore he spoke he heard a erce

slapping rom behind. His hand moving to his Walther PPS, he whirled

roundto see the younger Serb ramming a pack o cigarettes into hispalm, a ritual that Bond, a ormer smoker, had always ound absurdly

sel-conscious and unnecessary.

What was the man thinking?

Quiet, he whispered coldly. And put those away. No smoking.

Perplexity sidled into the dark eyes. My brother, he smokes all time

he is out on operations. Looks more normal than not smoking in Ser-

bia. On the drive here the young man had prattled on and on about his

brother, a senior agent with the inamous JSO, technically a unit o the

state secret service, though Bond knew it was really a black-ops paramili-

tary group. The young agent had let slipprobably intentionally, or he

had said it with pridethat big brother had ought with Arkans Tigers,

a ruthless gang that had committed some o the worst atrocities in the

ghting in Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo.

Maybe on the streets o Belgrade a cigarette wont be noticed, Bond

muttered, but this is a tactical operation. Put them away.The agent slowly complied. He seemed about to say something to

his partner, then thought better o it, perhaps recalling that Bond had a

working knowledge o Serbo-Croatian.

Bond looked again into the restaurant and saw that the Irishman

was laying some dinars on the metal trayno traceable credit card, o

course. The partner was pulling on a jacket.

All right. Its time. Bond reiterated the plan. In the police car they

would ollow the Irishmans Mercedes out o the drive and along theroad until he was a mile or so rom the restaurant. The Serbian agents


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Jeery Deaver10

would then pull the car over, telling him it matched a vehicle used in a

drug crime in Novi Sad. The Irishman would be asked politely to get out

and would be handcued. His mobile phone, wallet and identity paperswould be placed on the boot o the Mercedes and hed be led aside and

made to sit acing away rom the car.

Meanwhile Bond would slip out o the backseat, photograph the doc-

uments, download what he could rom the phone, look through laptops

and luggage, then plant tracking devices.

By then the Irishman would have caught on that this was a shake-

down and oered a suitable bribe. Hed be reed to go on his way.

I the local partner let the restaurant with him, theyd execute es-sentially the same plan with both men.

Now, Im ninety percent sure hell believe you, Bond said. But i

not, and he engages, remember that under no circumstances is he to be

killed. I need him alive. Aim to wound in the arm he avors, near the

elbow, not the shoulder. Despite what one saw in the movies, a shoulder

wound was usually as atal as one to the abdomen or chest.

The Irishman now stepped outside, eet splayed. He looked around,

pausing to study the area. Was anything dierent? hed be thinking.

New cars had arrived since theyd entered; was there anything signi-

cant about them? He apparently decided there was no threat and both

men climbed into the Mercedes.

Its the pair o them, Bond said. Same plan.

Da.

The Irishman started the engine. The lights fashed on.

Bond oriented his hand on his Walther, snug in the D. M. Bullardleather pancake holster, and climbed into the backseat o the police car,

noticing an empty tin on the foor. One o his comrades had enjoyed a

Jelen Pivo, a Deer Beer, while Bond had been conducting surveillance.

The insubordination bothered him less than the carelessness. The Irish-

man might grow suspicious when stopped by a cop with beer on his

breath. Another mans ego and greed can be helpul, Bond believed, but

incompetence is simply a useless and inexcusable danger.

The Serbs got into the ront. The engine hummed to lie. Bondtapped the earpiece o his SRAC, the short-range agent communica-


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Carte Blanche 11

tion device used or cloaked radio transmissions on tactical operations.

Channel two, he reminded them.

Da, da. The older man sounded bored. They both plugged in ear-pieces.

And James Bond asked himsel yet again: Had he planned this prop-

erly? Despite the speed with which the operation had been put together,

hed spent hours ormulating the tactics. He believed hed anticipated

every possible variation.

Except one, it appeared.

The Irishman did not do what he absolutely had to.

He didnt leave.The Mercedes turned away rom the drive and rolled out o the car

park on to the lawn beside the restaurant, on the other side o a tall

hedge, unseen by the sta and diners. It was heading or a weed-riddled

eld to the east.

The younger agent snapped, Govno! What he is doing? The three

men stepped out to get a better view. The older one drew his gun and

started ater the car.

Bond waved him to a halt. No! Wait.

Hes escaping. He knows about us!

Noits something else. The Irishman wasnt driving as i he were

being pursued. He was moving slowly, the Mercedes easing orward, like

a boat in a gentle morning swell. Besides, there was no place to escape

to. He was hemmed in by clis overlooking the Danube, the railway em-

bankment and the orest on the Fruska Gora rise.

Bond watched as the Mercedes arrived at the rail track, a hundred yardsrom where they stood. It slowed, made a U-turn and parked, the bonnet

acing back toward the restaurant. It was close to a railway work shed and

switch rails, where a second track peeled o rom the main line. Both men

climbed out and the Irishman collected something rom the boot.

Your enemys purpose will dictate your responseBond silently re-

cited another maxim rom the lectures at Fort Moncktons Specialist

Training Center in Gosport. You must nd the adversarys intention.

But whatwas his purpose?Bond pulled out the monocular again, clicked on the night vision


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Jeery Deaver12

and ocused. The partner opened a panel mounted on a signal beside

the switch rails and began ddling with the components inside. Bond

saw that the second track, leading o to the right, was a rusting, disusedspur, ending in a barrier at the top o a hill.

So it was sabotage. They were going to derail the train by shunting it

on to the spur. The cars would tumble down the hill into a stream that

fowed into the Danube.

But why?

Bond turned the monocular toward the diesel engine and the wag-

ons behind it and saw the answer. The rst two cars contained only scrap

metal but behind them, a canvas-covered fatbed was marked OPASNOST-DANGER! He saw, too, a hazardous-materials diamond, the universal

warning sign that told emergency rescuers the risks o a particular ship-

ment. Alarmingly, this diamond had high numbers or all three categories:

health, instability and infammability. The Wat the bottom meant that

the substance would react dangerously with water. Whatever was being

carried in that car was in the deadliest category, short o nuclear materials.

The train was now three-quarters o a mile away rom the switch

rails, picking up speed to make the gradient to the bridge.

Your enemys purpose will dictate your response. . . .

He didnt know how the sabotage related to Incident 20, i at all, but

their immediate goal was clearas was the response Bond now instinc-

tively ormulated. He said to the comrades, I they try to leave, block

them at the drive and take them. No lethal orce.

He leaped into the drivers seat o the Jetta. He pointed the car to-

ward the elds where hed been conducting surveillance and jammeddown the accelerator as he released the clutch. The light car shot or-

ward, engine and gearbox crying out at the rough treatment, as it crashed

over brush, saplings, narcissi and the raspberry bushes that grew every-

where in Serbia. Dogs fed and lights in the tiny cottages nearby ficked

on. Residents in their gardens waved their arms angrily in protest.

Bond ignored them and concentrated on maintaining his speed as he

drove toward his destination, guided only by scant illumination: a partial

moon above and the doomed trains headlight, ar brighter and rounderthan the lamp o heaven.


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carte blanche: the new james bond novel by jeffery deaver

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