Read Online Carte Blanche by Jeffery Deaver - Free Book Online Page A

everything. He’d be meeting a man from Division Three, coming over from Thames House, and afterward he might have to be off at a minute’s notice.
    “Shall I hold the signals too?” she asked.
    Bond considered this. “I suppose I’ll plow through them now. Should probably clear my desk anyway. If I have to be away, I don’t want to come back to a week’s worth of reading.”
    She handed him the top-secret green-striped folders. With approval from the keypad lock and iris scanner beside his door Bond entered his office and turned on the light. The space wasn’t small by London office standards, about fifteen by fifteen, but was rather sterile. His government-issue desk was slightly larger than, but the same color as, his desk at Defense Intelligence. The four wooden bookshelves were filled with volumes and periodicals that had been, or might be, helpful to him and varied in subject from the latest hacking techniques used by the Bulgarians to Thai idioms to a guide for reloading Lapua .338 sniper rounds. There was little of a personal nature to brighten the room. The one object he might have had on display, his Conspicuous Gallantry Cross, awarded for his duty in Afghanistan, was in the bottom drawer of his desk. He’d accepted the honor with good grace but to Bond courage was simply another tool in a soldier’s kit and he saw no more point in displaying indications of its past use than in hanging a spent cipher pad on the wall.
    Bond now sat in his chair and began to read the signals—intelligence reports from Requirements at MI6, suitably buffed and packaged. The first was from the Russia Desk. Their Station R had managed to hack into a government server in Moscow and suck out some classified documents. Bond, who had a natural facility for language and had studied Russian at Fort Monckton, skipped the English synopsis and went to the raw intelligence.
    He got one paragraph into the leaden prose when two words stopped him in his tracks.The Russian words for “Steel Cartridge.”
    The phrase pinged deep inside him, just as sonar on a submarine notes a distant but definite target.
    Steel Cartridge appeared to be a code name for an “active measure,” the Soviet term describing a tactical operation. It had involved “some deaths.”
    But there was nothing specific on operational details.
    Bond sat back, staring at the ceiling. He heard women’s voices outside his door and looked up. Philly, holding several files, was chatting with Mary Goodnight. Bond nodded and the Six agent joined him, taking a wooden chair opposite his desk.
    “What’ve you found, Philly?”
    She sat forward, crossing her legs, and Bond believed he heard the appealing rustle of nylon. “First, your photo skills are fine, James, but the light was too low. I couldn’t get high enough resolution of the Irishman’s face for recognition. And there were no prints on the pub bill or the other note, except for a partial of yours.”
    So, the man would have to remain anonymous for the time being.
    “But the prints on the glasses were good. The local was Aldo Karic, Serbian. He lived in Belgrade and worked for the national railway.” She pursed her lips in frustration, which emphasized the charming dimple. “But it’s going to take a little longer than I’d hoped to get more details. The same with the hazmat on the train. Nobody’s saying anything. You were right—Belgrade’s not in the mood to cooperate.
    “Now for the slips of paper you found in the burning car. I got some possible locations.”
    Bond noted the printouts she was producing from a folder. They were of maps emblazoned with the cheerful logo of MapQuest, the online directions-finding service. “Are you having budget problems at Six? I’d be happy to ring the Treasury for you.”
    She laughed, a breathy sound. “I used proxies, of course. Just wanted an idea of where on the pitch we’re playing.” She tapped one. “The receipt? The pub is here.” It was just off the