Page 32 of The Bourne Legacy (Jason Bourne 4)

  But there was smoke now in the monastery proper, great billowing wafts of it, and now a hail of machine-gun fire coming out of it. His men had no chance; they were mowed down before they had a chance even to identify their killers.

  Keegan didn’t wait to identify them either. Hauling on Dr. Schiffer, he took them through the warren of small, dark, stifling rooms, looking for a way out.

  As they had planned, Spalko and Zina separated the moment they emerged from the dense clouds of the smoke bomb they had tossed out the door at the head of the stairs they had climbed. Spalko went methodically through the rooms while Zina looked for a door to the outside.

  It was Spalko who saw Schiffer and Keegan first, and he called to them, only to be greeted with a burst of gunfire, obliging him to duck behind a heavy wooden chest.

  “You’ve no hope of getting out of this alive,” he called to the mercenary. “I don’t want you; I want Schiffer.”

  “It’s the same thing,” Keegan shouted back. “I was given a commission; I intend to carry it out.”

  “To what purpose?” Spalko said. “Your employer, László Molnar, is dead. So is János Vadas.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Keegan responded. Schiffer was whimpering and he shushed him.

  “How d’you think I found you?” Spalko went on. “I ground it out of Molnar. Come on. You know he’s the only one who knew you were here.”

  Silence.

  “They’re all dead now,” Spalko said, inching forward. “Who’ll pay the last of your commission? Hand over Schiffer and I’ll pay you whatever you’re owed, plus a bonus. How does that sound?”

  Keegan was about to answer, when Zina, having come at him from the opposite direction, put a bullet in the back of his head.

  The resulting explosion of blood and gore made Dr. Schiffer whimper like a whipped dog. Then, with his last protector pitched over, he saw Stepan Spalko advancing toward him. He turned and ran right into Zina’s arms.

  “There’s nowhere to go, Felix,” Spalko said. “You see that now, don’t you?”

  Schiffer stared wide-eyed at Zina. He began to gibber, and she put a hand to his head, stroking his hair back from his damp forehead as if he were a child ill with fever.

  “You were mine once,” Spalko said as he stepped over Keegan’s corpse. “And you’re mine again.” From out of his backpack he took two items. They were made of surgical steel, glass and titanium.

  “Oh, God!” The groan from Schiffer was as heartfelt as it was involuntary.

  Zina smiled at Schiffer, kissed him on both cheeks as if they were good friends reunited after a long absence. At once, he burst into tears.

  Spalko, enjoying the effect the NX 20 diffuser had on its inventor, said, “This is the way the two halves fit together, isn’t it, Felix?” Whole, the NX 20 was no larger than the automatic weapon slung across Spalko’s back. “Now that I’ve got a proper payload, you’ll teach me the proper use of it.”

  “No,” Schiffer said in a quavery voice. “No, no, no!”

  “Don’t you worry about a thing,” Zina whispered as Spalko took hold of the back of Dr. Schiffer’s neck, sending yet another spasm of terror through the scientist’s frame. “You’re in the best of hands now.”

  The flight of stairs was short, but, for Bourne, descending them was more painful than he had expected. With every step he took, the trauma he’d received from the blow above his ribs sent jolts of agony through him. What he needed was a hot bath and some sleep, two things he couldn’t yet afford.

  Back in Annaka’s apartment, he showed her the top of the piano bench and she swore under her breath. Together they moved it beneath the light fixture and he stood on it.

  “You see?”

  She shook her head. “I haven’t the slightest idea what’s going on.”

  He went to the escritoire, scribbled on a pad: Do you have a ladder?

  She looked at him oddly but nodded.

  Go get it, he wrote.

  When she brought it back into the living room, he climbed it high enough to look into the shallow frosted-glass bowl of the light fixture. And, sure enough, there it was. Carefully, he reached in, plucked up the tiny item between his fingertips. He climbed down and showed it to her in the palm of his hand.

  “What—?” She broke off at the emphatic shake of his head.

  “Do you have a pair of pliers?” he asked.

  Again, the curious look as she opened the door of a shallow closet. She handed him the pliers. He put the tiny square between the ribbed ends, squeezed. The square shattered.

  “It’s a miniature electronic transmitter,” he said.

  “What?” Curiosity had turned to bewilderment.

  “That’s why the man on the roof broke in here, to plant this in the light fixture. He was listening as well as looking.”

  She looked around the cozy room and shivered. “Dear God, I’ll never again feel the same way about this place.” Then she turned to Bourne. “What does he want? Why try to record our every move?” Then she snorted. “It’s Dr. Schiffer, isn’t it?”

  “It may be,” Bourne said, “I don’t know.” All at once, he became dizzy and, near to blacking out, half-fell, half-sat on the sofa.

  Annaka hurried to the bathroom to get him disinfectant and some bandages. He put his head back against the cushions, clearing his mind of everything that had just happened. He had to center himself, maintain his concentration, keeping his eye firmly fixed on what had to be done next.

  Annaka returned from the bathroom carrying a tray on which were a shallow porcelain bowl of hot water, a sponge, some towels, an ice pack, a bottle of disinfectant and a glass of water.

  “Jason?”

  He opened his eyes.

  She gave him the glass of water, and when he had drained it, she handed him the ice pack. “Your cheek is starting to swell.”

  He put the pack against his face, felt the pain slowly recede into numbness. But when he took a quick breath, his side seized up as he twisted to put the empty glass on a side table. He turned back slowly, stiffly. He was thinking of Joshua, who had been resurrected in his mind if not in reality. Maybe that was why he was so filled with blind rage at Khan, for Khan had raised the specter of the awful past, thrusting into the light a ghost so dear to David Webb he had haunted him in both his personalities.

  Watching Annaka as she cleaned his face of dried blood, he recalled their brief exchange at the café when he brought up the subject of her father and she had broken down, and yet he knew that he had to pursue it. He was a father who’d violently lost his family. She was a daughter who’d violently lost her father.

  “Annaka,” he began gently, “I know it’s a painful subject for you, but I’d very much like to know about your father.” He felt her stiffen, plowed on. “Can you talk about him?”

  “What d’you want to know? How he and Alexsei met, I suppose.”

  She concentrated on what she was doing, but he wondered whether she was deliberately not meeting his gaze.

  “I was thinking more along the lines of your relationship with him.”

  A shadow flickered across her face. “That’s an odd—and intimate—question to ask.”

  “It’s my past, you see…” Bourne’s voice trailed off. He was unable either to lie or to tell the full truth.

  “The one you remember only in glimmers.” She nodded. “I see.” When she wrung out the sponge, the water in the bowl turned pink. “Ah, well, János Vadas was the perfect father. He changed me when I was an infant, read to me at night, sang to me when I was ill. He was there for all my birthdays and special occasions. Honestly, I don’t know how he managed it.” She wrung out the sponge a second time; he’d begun bleeding again. “I came first. Always. And he never grew tired of telling me how much he loved me.”

  “What a lucky child you were.”

  “Luckier than any of my friends, luckier than anyone I know.” She was concentrating harder than ever, trying to get the bleeding to stop./>   Bourne had sunk into a state of semi-trance, thinking about Joshua—about the rest of his first family—and all the things he would never get to do with them, all the many tiny moments you noted and remembered as your child grew up.

  At length, she stanched the flow of blood and now took a peek under the ice pack. Her expression didn’t betray what she saw. She sat back on her haunches, hands resting in her lap.

  “I think you should take off your jacket and shirt.”

  He stared at her.

  “So we can take a look at your ribs. I saw you wince when you twisted to put the glass down.”

  She held out her hand and he dropped the ice pack into it. She juggled it a little. “This needs a refill.”

  When she returned, he was naked to the waist. A frighteningly large red welt on his left side was already puffed up and very tender as his fingertips probed it.

  “My God, you need an ice bath,” she exclaimed.

  “At least nothing’s broken.”

  She tossed him the ice pack. He gasped involuntarily as he put it against the swelling. She returned to her haunches, her gaze roving over him once again. He wished he knew what she was thinking.

  “I suppose you can’t help remembering the son who was killed so young.”

  He gritted his teeth. “It’s just that…The man on the roof—the one spying on us—has been following me all the way from the States. He says he wants to kill me, but I know he’s lying. He wants me to lead him to someone, that’s why he’s been spying on us.”

  Annaka’s expression darkened. “Who does he want to get to?”

  “A man named Spalko.”

  She registered surprise. “Stepan Spalko?”

  “That’s right. Do you know him?”

  “Of course I know of him,” she said. “Everyone in Hungary does. He’s the head of Humanistas, Ltd., the worldwide relief organization.” She frowned. “Jason, now I’m truly worried. This man’s dangerous. If he’s trying to get to Mr. Spalko, we should contact the authorities.”

  He shook his head. “What would we tell them? That we think a man we know only as Khan wants to contact Stepan Spalko? We don’t even know why. And what d’you think they’ll say? Why doesn’t this Khan just pick up the telephone and call him?”

  “Then we should at least call someone at Humanistas.”

  “Annaka, until I know what’s going on, I don’t want to contact anyone. It’ll only muddy waters that are already clouded with questions for which I don’t have any answers.”

  He rose, made his way to the escritoire, sat down in front of her laptop. “I told you I had an idea. Is it okay if I use your computer?”

  “By all means,” she said, rising.

  As Bourne turned on the machine, she gathered up the bowl, sponge and other paraphernalia, padded into the kitchen. He heard the sound of running water as he went online. He accessed the U.S. Government net, went from site to site, and by the time she returned, he’d found the one he needed.

  The Agency had a whole raft of public sites, accessible to anyone with an Internet connection, but there were a dozen other sites, encrypted, password protected, that were part of the CIA’s fabled intranet.

  Annaka registered his extreme concentration. “What is it?” She came around and stood behind him. In a moment, her eyes opened wide. “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Just what it looks like,” Bourne said, “I’m hacking into the CIA main database.”

  “But how d’you—”

  “Don’t ask,” Bourne said as his fingers flew over the keyboard. “Trust me, you don’t want to know.”

  Alex Conklin had always known the way through the front door, but that was because he’d had the updated ciphers delivered to him at six A.M. every Monday morning. It had been Deron, the artist and master forger, who’d taught Bourne the fine art of hacking into U.S Government databases. In his business, it was a necessary skill.

  The problem was that the CIA firewall—the software program designed to keep their data secure—was a particular bitch. In addition to its keyword changing every week, it had a floating algorithm tied into the keyword. But Deron had shown Bourne the way to fool the system into thinking you had the keyword when you didn’t, so that the program itself would supply it for you.

  The way to attack the firewall was through the algorithm, which was a derivation of the core algorithm that encrypted the CIA’s central files. Bourne knew this formula because Deron had made him memorize it.

  Bourne navigated to the CIA site, where a window popped up in which he was asked to type the current keyword. In this, he typed in the algorithm, which contained a much larger string of numbers and letters than the box was designed to take. On the other hand, after the first three sets of the components, the underlying program recognized it for what it was, and for a moment it was stymied. The trick, Deron had said, was to complete the algorithm before the program figured out what you were doing and shut down, denying you access. The formula string was very long; there was no room for error or even for an instant’s hesitation, and Bourne began to sweat because he couldn’t believe the software could remain frozen for this long.

  In the end, however, he finished entering the algorithm without the program shutting down. The window disappeared, the screen changed.

  “I’m inside,” Bourne said.

  “Pure alchemy,” Annaka whispered, fascinated.

  Bourne was navigating to the Tactical Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate site. He plugged in Schiffer’s name but was disappointed in the sparse material that came up. Nothing on what Schiffer was working on, nothing about his background. In fact, if Bourne didn’t know better, he could believe that Dr. Felix Schiffer was a minor scientist of no import whatsoever to the TNLWD.

  There was another possibility. He used the back-channel hack that Deron had made him memorize, the same one Conklin had used to keep tabs on events occurring behind the scenes at the Department of Defense.

  Once in, he went to the DARPA site and navigated to the Archives. Lucky for him the government computer jockeys were notoriously slow at cleaning out old files. There was Schiffer’s, which contained some background. He was MIT-trained, was given his own lab right out of grad school by one of the large pharmaceutical firms. He lasted there less than a year, but when he left, he took with him another of their scientists, Dr. Peter Sido, with whom he worked for five years before being recruited by the government and entering DARPA. No explanation was given for his giving up a private position to go into the public sector, but some scientists were like that. They were as unfit for living in society as many prisoners who, when they’d served their time, committed another crime the minute they hit the street, simply to be sent back into a clearly defined world where everything was taken care of for them.

  Bourne read on and discovered that Schiffer had been attached to the Defense Sciences Office which, ominously, trafficked in bio-weapons systems. In his time at DARPA, Dr. Schiffer had been working on a way to biologically “cleanse” a room infected with anthrax.

  Bourne paged through, but he couldn’t find any more details. What bothered Bourne was that this piece of information wouldn’t account for Conklin’s intense interest.

  Annaka looked over his shoulder. “Is there any clue we could use to find out where Dr. Schiffer might be hiding?”

  “I don’t think so, no.”

  “All right then.” She squeezed his shoulders. “The cupboard’s bare and we both need to eat something.”

  “I think I’d rather stay here, if you don’t mind, rest up a bit.”

  “You’re right. You’re in no shape to wander outside.” She smiled as she drew on her coat. “I’ll just pop around the corner, get us some food. Anything you particularly want?”

  He shook his head, watched her head for the door. “Annaka, be careful.”

  She turned, pulled her gun partway out of her bag. “Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.” She opened the door. “See you in a few minutes.”  He heard her depart, but he’d already returned his attention to the computer screen. He felt his heart rate increase and tried to calm himself, without success. Even full of intent, he hesitated. He knew he had to go on, but he also recognized that he was terrified.

  Watching his hands as if they belong to someone else, he spent the next five minutes hacking his way through the U.S. Army firewall. At one point, he hit a glitch. The military IT team had upgraded the firewall recently, adding a third layer Deron either hadn’t told him about or, more likely, hadn’t yet seen. His fingers rose up like Annaka’s over the piano keyboard and for a moment they hesitated. It was not too late to turn back, he told himself, there’d be no shame in doing that. For years he’d felt that anything to do with his first family, including the record of them held in the U.S. Army data-banks was for him strictly off-limits. He was already tortured enough by their deaths, haunted by the racking guilt that he’d been unable to save them, that he’d been safe at a meeting while the diving jet sent its killing bullets into them. He couldn’t help torturing himself anew, conjuring up their last terror-filled minutes. Dao, a child of war, would, of course, have heard the jet engines droning lazily in the hot summer sky. At first she wouldn’t have seen it coming out of the white sun, but when its roar grew closer, when its metal bulk became larger than the sun, she would’ve known. Even while horror gripped her heart, she would’ve tried to gather her children to her in a vain attempt to protect them from the bullets that would have already begun to pock the surface of the muddy river. “Joshua! Alyssa! Come to me!” she would’ve screamed, as if she could save them from what was to come.

  Bourne, sitting in front of Annaka’s computer, became aware that he was weeping. For a moment he allowed the tears to flow freely as they hadn’t done for so many years. Then he shook himself, wiped his cheeks with his sleeve and, before he had a chance to change his mind, got on with the business at hand.

  He found a work-around for the final level of the firewall, and five minutes after beginning the excruciating work, he was logged in. At once, before his nerve could fail again, he navigated to the Death Record Archives, typed in the names and date of death in the required data fields for Dao Webb, Alyssa Webb, Joshua Webb. He stared at the names, thinking, This was my family, flesh-and-blood human beings who laughed and cried, and who once held me, who called me “Darling” and “Daddy.” Now what were they? Names on a computer screen. Statistics in a databank. His heart was breaking and he felt again that touch of madness that had afflicted him in the first aftermath of their deaths. I can’t feel this again, he thought. It’ll tear me apart. Full of a sorrow he found unsupportable, he punched the “Enter” key. He had no other choice; he could not go back. Never go back, that had been his motto from the moment Alex Conklin had recruited him, turned him into another David Webb and then into Jason Bourne. Then why was it he could still hear their voices? “Darling, I’ve missed you!” “Daddy, you’re home!”