Page 22 of The Bourne Legacy (Jason Bourne 4)

  The sight of the Buddha had caused the four-year-old Joshua to appear in his mind’s eye. It was twilight in Saigon, the sky saffron and greenish-gold. Joshua was running out of the house by the river as David Webb drew up on his return from work. Webb took Joshua up in his arms, swung him around, kissed his cheeks, though the boy shied away. He never did like being kissed by his father.

  Bourne now saw his son tucked into bed at night. The crickets and tree frogs were singing and lights from passing boats swept across the far wall of the room. Joshua was listening as Webb read him a story. On a Saturday morning Webb played catch with Joshua, using a baseball he had brought all the way from America. The light struck Joshua’s innocent face, turning it incandescent.

  Now Bourne blinked and despite himself he saw the small stone Buddha hanging around Khan’s neck. He leaped up, and with a guttural cry of utter despair flung the lamp, blotter, writing pad, crystal ashtray off the table. Hands balled into fists, he struck himself repeatedly in the head. With a moan of despair, he fell to his knees, rocking himself. Only the phone ringing brought him around.

  Viciously, he willed his head to clear. The phone kept on ringing and for a moment he had the urge to let it ring. Instead, he picked it up. “It’s János Vadas,” came a whispered, smoke-roughened voice. “Matthias Church. Midnight, not a moment later.” The line clicked dead before Bourne could utter a word.

  When Khan learned that Jason Bourne was dead, he felt as if he’d been turned inside out, as if all the nerves inside him had for one instant been exposed to the corrosive outside air. He touched the back of his hand to his forehead, certain that he was burning up from the inside out.

  He was in Orly Airport, talking with the Quai d’Orsay. It had been ridiculously easy to get information from them. He was posing as a reporter from Le Monde, the French newspaper, whose credentials he had obtained—for an obscene price—from his Parisian contact. Not that it mattered to him; he had more money than he knew what to do with, but the time involved waiting had somehow put him on edge. As the minutes dragged into hours, as the afternoon turned into evening, he had realized that his vaunted patience had been shredded. The moment he had seen David Webb—Jason Bourne—time had been turned inside out, the past had become the present. His hands clenched into fists and a pulse beat strongly in his temple; how many times since sighting Bourne had he felt as if he was losing his mind? The absolute worst moment had been sitting on the bench in Old Town Alexandria, speaking to him as if there was nothing between them, as if the past had been rendered moot and meaningless, as if it had been part of someone else’s life, someone Khan had only imagined. The unreality of it—a moment he had dreamed of, prayed for for years—had eviscerated him, leaving him feeling as if every nerve-ending had been rubbed raw, every emotion he had spent years trying to harness and suppress was now rebelling, rising to the surface, sickening him. And now came this news, like a hammerblow from heaven. He felt as if the void inside him he assumed would be filled had only become wider, deeper, threatening to swallow him whole. He could not bear to be here a moment longer.

  One moment he was talking, notepad in hand, with the Quai d’Orsay press liaison and the next moment he was hurtled back in time to the jungles of Vietnam, to the wood and bamboo house of Richard Wick, the missionary, a tall, slender man with a somber demeanor who had taken him from out of the wild after he’d escaped from the Vietnamese gunrunner he’d killed. Nevertheless, he was quick to laughter and there was a softness to his brown eyes that spoke of a great sympathy. Wick might have been a tough taskmaster in converting the heathen Khan into a child of Christ, but in the more intimate time of dinner and its quiet aftermath, he was kind and gentle and, in the end, provoked Khan’s trust.

  So much so, that one evening Khan made up his mind to tell Wick about his past, to lay bare his soul in order that he be healed. Khan desperately wanted to be healed, to vomit up the abscess that had been churning its poison inside him as it grew ever larger. He wanted to confess his rage at his abandonment, he wanted to be rid of it, for he had lately come to understand that he was being held prisoner by his extreme emotions.

  He longed to confide in Wick, to describe to him the roil of emotion churning in his guts, but the opportunity never arose. Wick was extremely busy bringing the Word of God to “this forlorn Godless backwater.” As such, he sponsored Bible study groups of which Khan was ordered to be a part. In fact, one of Wick’s favorite pastimes involved calling on Khan to rise in front of this group and recite from memory sections of the Bible, like some form of idiot savant shown off for money at a carnival side show.

  Khan hated it, felt humiliated by it. In fact, strange to say, the more proud of him Wick seemed the greater his humiliation. Until, one day, the missionary brought in another young boy. But because the boy was Caucasian, the orphan of a missionary couple of Wick’s acquaintance, Wick lavished the love and attention on him that Khan had craved and now saw that he’d never had and, worse, never would have. Still, his abominable recitations continued while the other boy sat and watched, silent, free of the humiliation that racked Khan.

  He could never get over the fact of Wick using him, and it was only on the day he ran away that he understood the depths of Wick’s betrayal of him. His benefactor, his protector, was not interested in him—in Khan—but rather in adding another convert, bringing another savage into the light of God’s love.

  At that moment, his cell phone rang, and he was dragged back into the awful present. He looked at his phone’s screen to see who was calling, then, excusing himself, stepped away from the Quai d’Orsay officer into the swirling anonymity of the concourse proper.

  “This is a surprise,” he said into his phone.

  “Where are you?” Stepan Spalko’s voice sounded curt, as if he had too many things on his mind.

  “Orly Airport. I’ve just learned from the Quai d’Orsay that David Webb is dead.”

  “Is that so?”

  “It seems he rode a motorcycle into the grille of an oncoming truck.” Khan paused for a moment, waiting for a reaction. “I must say you don’t sound happy. Isn’t that what you wanted?”

  “It’s premature to celebrate Webb’s death, Khan,” Spalko said dryly. “I’ve heard from my contact at the desk of the Danubius Grand Hotel here in Budapest that Alexander Conklin just checked in.”

  Khan was so shocked that he felt his knees begin to give out, and he walked to a wall, leaned against it. “Webb?”

  “It isn’t Alex Conklin’s ghost!”

  To his chagrin, he discovered that he’d broken out into a cold sweat. “But how can you be sure it’s him?”

  “I got a description from my contact. I’ve seen the composite drawing that’s been circulated.”

  Khan gritted his teeth. He knew the conversation would likely lead to a bad end, and yet he saw himself moving inexorably forward. “You knew David Webb was Jason Bourne. Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I don’t see why you needed to,” Spalko said blandly. “You asked about Webb and I delivered. I’m not in the habit of reading people’s minds. But I applaud your initiative.”

  Khan was gripped by a spasm of hatred so strong he felt himself shiver. He kept his voice calm, however. “Now that Bourne’s gotten all the way to Budapest, how long do you think it will take him to follow his leads back to you?”

  “I’ve already taken steps to ensure that doesn’t happen,” Spalko said. “But it occurs to me that I wouldn’t have needed to go through the trouble if you’d killed the sonuvabitch when you had the chance.”

  Khan, distrustful of a man who had lied to him, who had, furthermore, played him for a cat’s-paw, felt another devastating stab of anger. Spalko wanted him to kill Bourne, but why? He was going to find that out before he completed his own act of vengeance. When he spoke next, he’d lost a modicum of his icy self-control so that his voice took on a decidedly sharp edge. “Oh, I’ll kill Bourne,” he said. “But it’ll be on my terms, according to my timetable

, not yours.”

  Humanistas, Ltd. owned three hangars at Ferihegy Airport. In one of them, a container truck was backed up to a small jet on whose curving silver fuselage was painted the Humanistas logo: the green cross held in the palm of a hand. Uniformed men were loading the last of the weapons crates on board while Hasan Arsenov checked the manifest. When he went to talk to one of the workers, Stepan Spalko turned to Zina and in a conversational voice said, “In just a few hours I’m leaving for Crete. I want you to come with me.”

  Zina’s eyes opened wide in surprise. “Shaykh, I am scheduled to return with Hasan to Chechnya in order to make the last-minute preparations for our mission.”

  Spalko’s eyes did not leave hers. “Arsenov doesn’t need your help with the final touches. In fact, in my estimation he’ll be better off without the…distraction of having you around.”

  Zina, trapped by his gaze, opened her lips.

  “I want to make this absolutely clear, Zina.” Spalko saw Arsenov coming back toward them. “I’m not giving you an order. The decision’s entirely up to you.”

  Despite the urgency of the moment, he spoke slowly and distinctly, and the import of his words wasn’t lost on her. He was offering her an opportunity—for what she had no idea—but it was clear that this was a defining moment in her life. Either choice she made, there was no going back; by the manner in which he’d spoken to her, he’d made that quite clear. The decision might be up to her, but she was certain that if she said no, it would be the end for her in one way or another. The fact was, she didn’t want to say no.

  “I’ve always wanted to see Crete,” she whispered as Arsenov came up to them.

  Spalko nodded to her. Then turned to the Chechen terrorist leader. “Everything accounted for?”

  Arsenov looked up from his clipboard. “How could it be otherwise, Shaykh?” He checked his watch. “Zina and I will be taking off within the hour.”

  “Actually, Zina will be accompanying the arms,” Spalko said easily. “The shipment is due to rendezvous with my fishing boat in the Faeroe Islands. I want one of you there to oversee the transfer and the last leg of the trip to Iceland. You’re needed with your unit.” He smiled. “I’ve no doubt that you can spare Zina for a few days’ time.”

  Arsenov frowned, glanced at Zina, who smartly met his gaze with a neutral look, then nodded. “It will be as you wish, Shaykh, of course.”

  Zina found it interesting that the Shaykh had lied to Hasan about his plans for her. She found herself bound inside the little conspiracy he had woven, both excited and nervous with anticipation. She saw the look on Hasan’s face and part of her felt a pang, but then she thought of the mystery awaiting her, and the honey of the Shaykh’s voice, “I’m leaving for Crete. I want you to come with me.”

  Standing beside Zina, Spalko held out his arm and Arsenov gripped his forearm in the manner of warriors. “La illaha ill Allah.”

  “La illaha ill Allah,” Arsenov replied, bowing his head.

  “There’s a limousine waiting outside to take you to the passenger terminal. Until Reykjavík, my friend.” Spalko turned away, walked over to the pilot to speak with him a moment, leaving Zina to say her farewell to her current lover.

  Khan felt ravaged by unfamiliar emotions. Forty minutes later, waiting for the flight to Budapest to board, he still had not gotten over the shock he’d received on learning that Jason Bourne was, in fact, alive. He sat, elbows on knees, face in his hands, trying—and failing miserably—to make sense of the world. To someone like him, whose past informed every moment of his present, it was impossible to find a pattern that could make things understandable. The past was a mystery—and his memory of it was a whore that did the bidding of his subconscious, distorting facts, telescoping events or omitting them altogether, all in the service of the sac of poison growing inside him.

  But these emotions running rampant through him were even more devastating. He was enraged by the fact that he’d needed Stepan Spalko to tell him that Jason Bourne was still alive. Why hadn’t his normally finely tuned instincts told him to check a little deeper? Would an agent of Bourne’s skills run into the grille of an oncoming truck? And where was the body? Had there been a proper identification? He’d been told they were still sifting through the remains, that the explosion and subsequent fire had done so much damage that it would take hours more, if not days, to make sense of it all, and even then, there might not be enough found to give them a confirming ID. He should have been suspicious. It was a ploy he would use—in fact, he had employed a variant three years ago when he needed to make a very hot exit from the docks in Singapore.

  But there was another question running over and over in his mind, and though he’d been trying to block it out, he couldn’t. What had he felt at the precise moment of knowing that Jason Bourne was still alive? Elation? Fear? Rage? Despair? Or was it a melange of all of these—a sickening kaleidoscope that ran the gamut and back again?

  He heard his flight being called, and in a something of a daze, he joined the line to board.

  Spalko, walking past the entrance to the Eurocenter Bio-I Clinic at 75 Hattyu utca, was deep in thought. It appeared as if Khan was going to present a problem. Khan had his uses; he was better than anyone else at eliminating targets, there could be no debate on that score, but even that rare talent faded against the danger he felt Khan was becoming. This very question had been much on his mind ever since the first time Khan had failed to kill Jason Bourne. Something anomalous in the situation had stuck in his craw like a fish bone, and ever since, he’d been trying to cough it up or to swallow it. And yet, there it still sat, refusing to be dislodged. With this last conversation, he was acutely aware that he’d need to see to the final disposition of his former assassin-for-hire without delay. He couldn’t afford anyone getting close to his forthcoming operation in Reykjavík. Bourne or Khan, it didn’t matter now. In this regard, they were both equally dangerous.

  He entered the café around the corner from the ugly modernist structure of the clinic. He smiled into the bland face of the man, tilted slightly up at him now.

  “Sorry, Peter,” he said as he slid into a chair at their table.

  Dr. Peter Sido raised a hand equably. “It’s of no moment, Stepan. I know how busy you are.”

  “Not too busy to find Dr. Schiffer.”

  “And thank God for that!” Sido ladled whipped cream into his coffee cup. He shook his head. “Honestly, Stepan, I don’t know how I’d do without you and your contacts. When I discovered that Felix was missing, I was ready to lose my mind.”

  “Don’t worry, Peter. Every day we’re closer to finding him. Trust me.”

  “Oh, I do.” Sido was in all ways physically unremarkable. He was of middle height and weight with eyes the color of mud, magnified behind steel-rimmed spectacles, and short brown hair that seemed to fall across his scalp with no design or attention from him. He wore a brown herringbone tweed suit, slightly shabby at the cuffs, white shirt and a brown-and-black tie that was at least a decade out of date. He might have been a salesman or an undertaker, but he was not, for his unremarkable exterior concealed a most remarkable mind.

  “The question I have for you,” Spalko said now, “is whether you have the product for me.”

  Sido was apparently expecting the question because he nodded immediately. “It’s all synthesized and ready whenever you need it.”

  “Did you bring it?”

  “Just the sample. The rest is safely locked away in the Bio-I Clinic’s cold room. And don’t worry about the sample; it’s locked in a travel case I made myself. The product is extremely delicate. You see, up until the moment it’s to be used, it must be kept at minus thirty-two degrees Celsius. The case I constructed has its own integrated cooling unit that will last for forty-eight hours.” He reached beneath the table, brought up a small metal box more or less the size of two stacked paperback books. “Is that long enough?”

  “Quite enough, thank you.” Spalko took possession of the b

ox. It was heavier than it looked, no doubt owing to the refrigeration unit “It’s in the vial I specified?”

  “Of course.” Sido sighed. “I still don’t fully understand why you need such a lethal pathogen.”

  Spalko studied him for a moment. He took out a cigarette and lit it. He knew that to come up with an explanation too quickly would spoil the effect, and with Dr. Peter Sido effect was everything. Though he was a genius at creating airborne pathogens, the good doctor’s people skills left something to be desired. Not that he was much different from most scientists with their noses in their beakers, but in this case, Sido’s naïveté suited Spalko’s purposes perfectly. He wanted his friend back, nothing else much mattered, which was why he wouldn’t listen too carefully to Spalko’s explanation. It was his conscience that needed reassuring, nothing more.

  Spalko spoke at last. “As I said, I was contacted by the joint American–British Anti-Terrorist Task Force.”

  “Will they be at the summit next week?”

  “Of course,” Spalko lied. There was no joint American–British Anti-Terrorist Task Force except for the one he had concocted. “In any case, they’re on the verge of a breakthrough against the threat of bioterrorism, which, as you know better than most, includes lethal airborne pathogens as well as chemical substances. They need to test it, which is why they came to me, and why we’ve made this agreement. I find Dr. Schiffer for you and you provide the product the task force needs.”

  “Yes, I know all that. You explained…” Sido’s voice trailed off. He played nervously with his spoon, drumming it up and down against his napkin until Spalko asked him to stop.

  “Sorry,” he mumbled and pushed his spectacles back up the bridge of his nose. “But what I still don’t understand is what they’re going to do with the product. I mean, you mentioned a test of some sort.”