Page 20 of The Bourne Betrayal (Jason Bourne 5)

  “Neither,” Bourne said. He put his fingertip to his nose, inhaled noisily.

  “Ah, that trade is open year-round,” the waiter said. He was a thin man, stoop-shouldered, prematurely old. “How much do you need?”

  “More than you can get for me. I’m in wholesale.”

  “Another story entirely,” the waiter said warily.

  “Here’s all you have to know.” Bourne pushed over a roll of American money.

  Without hesitation, the waiter vacuumed up the bills. “You know the Privoz Market?”

  “I’ll find it.”

  “Egg Row, third stall from the east end. Tell Yevgeny Feyodovich you want brown eggs, only brown.”

  The Samarin, like all of old Odessa, was built in the neoclassical style, which meant it was Frenchified. This was hardly surprising, since one of the founding fathers of Odessa was the duc de Richelieu, who had been the city’s chief architect and designer during the eleven years he was governor in the early 1800s. It was the Russian poet Aleksander Pushkin, living in exile here, who said that he could smell Europe in Odessa’s shops and coffeehouses.

  On shadowy, linden-lined Primorskaya Street, Bourne was immediately greeted by a chill, damp wind that slapped his face and reddened his skin. To the south, far out on the water, low clouds hung dense and dark, dispensing a sleety rain onto goosefleshed waves.

  The salt tang from the sea brought memory back with breathless ferocity. Night in Odessa, blood on his hands, a life hanging in the balance, a desperate search for his target, leading to the kiosk where he’d found his target.

  His gaze turned inland, toward the terraced levels that rose into the hills guarding the scimitar-shaped harbor. Consulting a map he’d been given by the hotel’s ancient concierge, he leapt onto a slowing tram that would take him to the railway station on Italiansky Boulevard.

  The Privoz farmers’ market, a stone’s throw from the station, was a colossal array of live food and produce under a corrugated tin roof. The stalls were set up behind waist-high concrete slabs that made Bourne think of the antiterrorist blockades in D.C. Makeshift shanties and bedrolls surrounded the market. Farmers came from near and far, and those who were obliged to travel a great distance invariably slept here overnight.

  Inside, it was a riot of sounds, smells, cries in different languages—butchered Russian, Ukrainian, Romanian, Yiddish, Georgian, Armenian, Turkish. The scents of cheese mingled with those of fresh meat, root vegetables, pungent herbs, and plucked fowl. Bourne saw huge, linebacker-like women with moth-eaten sweaters and head scarves manning the booths at Turkey Row. For the uninitiated, the market presented a thoroughly bewildering array of stalls against which hordes of stout shoppers pressed their impressive bellies.

  After asking directions from several people, Bourne made his way through the clamor and throb to Egg Row. Orienting himself, he moved to the third stall from the east end, which was typically crowded. A red-faced woman and a burly man—presumably Yevgeny Feyodovich—were busily exchanging eggs for money. He waited on the man’s side of the stall, and when his turn came he said, “You are Yevgeny Feyodovich?”

  The man squinted at him. “Who wants to know?”

  “I’m looking for brown eggs, only brown. I was told to come here and ask for Yevgeny Feyodovich.”

  Yevgeny Feyodovich grunted, leaned over, said something to his female partner. She nodded without breaking her practiced rhythm of packing eggs and shoveling money into the outsize pockets of her faded dress.

  “This way,” Yevgeny said with a flick of his head. He pulled on a ratty wool peacoat, came out from behind the concrete barrier, led Bourne out the eastern side of the market. They crossed Srednefontanskaya Street and entered Kulikovo Pole Square. The sky was white now, as if a colossal cloud had come down from the heavens to blanket the city. The light, flat and shadowless, was a photographer’s dream. It revealed everything.

  “As you can see, this square is very Soviet, very ugly, retro, but not in a good way,” Yevgeny Feyodovich said with a good bit of ironic humor. “Still, it serves to remind us of the past—of starvation and massacres.”

  He kept walking until they arrived at a ten-meter-high statue. “My favorite place to transact business: at Lenin’s feet. In the old days, the communists used to rally here.” His meaty shoulders lifted and fell. “What better place, eh? Now Lenin watches over me like a bastard patron saint who, I trust, has been banished to the lowest fiery pit of hell.”

  His eyes squinted again. He smelled the way a baby smells, of curdled milk and sugar. He had a beetling brow below a halo of brown hair that curled every which way like a wad of used steel wool.

  “So it’s brown eggs you desire.”

  “A large amount,” Bourne said. “Also, a constant supply.”

  “That so?” Yevgeny parked a buttock on the limestone plinth of the Lenin statue, shook out a black Turkish cigarette. He lit it in a slow, almost religious ritual, drawing a goodly amount of smoke into his lungs. Then he held it there like a hippie enjoying a doobie of Acapulco Gold. “How do I know you’re not Interpol?” he said in the soft hiss of an exhale. “Or an undercover operative of SBU?” He meant the Security Service of Ukraine.

  “Because I’m telling you I’m not.”

  Yevgeny laughed. “You know the ironic thing about this city? It’s smack up against the Black Sea but has always been short of drinking water. That in itself wouldn’t be of much interest, except it’s how Odessa got its name. They spoke French in Catherine’s imperial court, see, and some wag suggested she name the city Odessa, because that’s what it sounds like when you say assez d’eau backward. ‘Enough water,’ see? It’s a fucking joke the French played on us.”

  “If we’re through with the history lesson,” Bourne said, “I’d like to meet Lemontov.”

  Yevgeny squinted up at him through the acrid smoke. “Who?”

  “Edor Vladovich Lemontov. He owns the trade here.”

  Yevgeny started, rose from the plinth, his eyes looking past Bourne. He led them around the plinth.

  Without turning his head, Bourne could see in the periphery of his vision a man walking a large Doberman pinscher. The dog’s long, narrow face swung around, its yellow eyes staring at Yevgeny as if sensing his fear.

  When they reached the other side of the statue of Lenin, Yevgeny said, “Now, where were we?”

  “Lemontov,” Bourne said. “Your boss.”

  “Are you telling me he is?”

  “If you work for someone else, tell me now,” Bourne said shortly. “It’s Lemontov I want to do business with.”

  Bourne sensed another man stealing up behind him but didn’t move, giving Yevgeny Feyodovich no sign that he knew until the frigid muzzle of the gun pressed the flesh just behind his right ear.

  “Meet Bogdan Illiyanovich.” Stepping forward, Yevgeny Feyodovich unbuttoned Bourne’s overcoat. “Now we’ll get at the truth, tovarich.” With minimum effort, his fingers lifted the wallet and passport from the inside pocket.

  Stepping back, Yevgeny opened the passport first. “Moldavian, are you? Ilias Voda.” He stared hard at the photo. “Yes, that’s you, all right.” He flipped a page. “Came here straight from Bucharest.”

  “The people I represent are Romanian,” Bourne said.

  Bourne watched Yevgeny Feyodovich paw through the wallet, sifting through three different kinds of identification, including a driver’s license and an import-export license. That last was a nice touch, Bourne thought. He’d have to thank Deron when he got back.

  At length, Yevgeny handed back the wallet and the passport. Keeping his eye on Bourne, he took out a cell phone, punched in a local number.

  “New business,” he said laconically. “Ilias Voda, representing Romanian interests, he says.” He put the cell phone aside for a moment, said to Bourne, “How much?”

  “Is that Lemontov?”

  Yevgeny’s face darkened. “How much?”

  “A hundred kilos now.”

Yevgeny stared at him, entranced.

  “Twice as much next month if everything pans out.”

  Yevgeny walked a bit away, putting his back to Bourne while he spoke again into the phone. A moment later, he came back. The cell was already in his pocket.

  Another flick of his head caused Bogdan Illiyanovich to remove the gun from Bourne’s head, stow it away beneath the long wool coat that flapped around his ankles. He was a thick-necked man with very black hair that was pomaded across his scalp from right to left in a style vaguely reminiscent of the one Hitler had favored. His eyes were like agates, glimmering darkly at the bottom of a well.

  “Tomorrow night.”

  Bourne looked at him steadily. He wanted to get on with it; time was of the essence. Every day, every hour brought Fadi and his cadre closer to unleashing their nuclear weapon. But he saw in Yevgeny’s face the cold expression of the hardened professional. It was no good trying to see Lemontov sooner. He was being tested to determine if he was as hardened as they were. Bourne knew that Lemontov wanted time to observe him before he allowed him an audience. Protesting that would be more than foolhardy; it would make him seem weak.

  “Give me the time and place,” Bourne said.

  “After dinner. Be ready. Someone will call your room. The Samarin, yes?”

  The waiter who had given him Yevgeny’s name, Bourne thought. “I needn’t give you my room number, then.”

  “Indeed not.”

  Yevgeny Feyodovich held out his hand. As Bourne gripped it, he said, “Gospadin, Voda, I wish you good fortune in your quest.” He did not immediately release his ferocious clamp on Bourne’s hand. “Now you are within our orbit. Now you are either friend or enemy. I beg you to remember that if you try to communicate with anyone by any means for any reason whatsoever, you are enemy. There will be no second chance.” His yellow teeth appeared as his lips drew back from them. “For such a betrayal, you will never leave Odessa alive, you have my assurance on this.”

  Fourteen

  MARTIN LINDROS, dossiers in hand, was on his way to the Old Man’s office for a hastily called briefing when his cell buzzed. It was Anne Held.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Lindros. There’s been a change of plan. Please meet the DCI down in the Tunnel.”

  “Thank you, Anne.”

  Lindros disconnected, punched the DOWN button. The Tunnel was the underground parking facility where the pool of agency cars was housed and maintained, and where service people on CI-approved lists came and went under the scrutiny of armed agents wearing body armor.

  He rode the elevator down to the Tunnel, where he showed his ID to one of the agents on duty. The place was in effect an enormous reinforced concrete bunker: both bomb- and fireproof. There was only one ramp that led up to the street, which could be sealed on both ends at a moment’s notice. The Old Man’s armored Lincoln limousine sat purring on the concrete, its rear door open. Lindros ducked as he entered, sitting beside the DCI on the plush leather seats. The door closed without his help, electronically locking itself. The driver and his shotgun nodded to him, then the privacy window slid up, sealing the passengers in the spacious rear compartment. The windows in the rear compartment were specially tinted so no one could see in, but the passengers could see out.

  “You’ve brought both dossiers?”

  “Yessir.” Lindros nodded as he handed over the folders.

  “That was good work, Martin.” The Old Man scrunched up his face. “I’ve been summoned by the POTUS.” POTUS was the preferred acronym among security people in the district for the president of the United States. “Judging by the crises we’re in—external and internal—the question is how bad this interview is going to be.”

  As it turned out, the meeting was very bad indeed. For one thing, the Old Man was conducted not to the Oval Office, but to the War Room, three floors underground. For another, the president was not alone. There were six people ranged around the oval table in the center of the concrete-reinforced room. It was lit solely by the giant screens that flickered on all four walls, showing shifting scenes of military bases, jet recon missions, digital war simulations in a dizzying array.

  The Old Man knew some of the players confronting him; the president introduced him to the others. From left to right, the group started with Luther LaValle, the Pentagon’s intelligence czar, a big, boxy man with a creased dome of a forehead and a thin bristle of gunmetal-gray hair. On his left, the president introduced Jon Mueller, a ranking official from the Department of Homeland Security, a gimlet-eyed specimen whose utter stillness spoke to the DCI of his extreme danger. The man to his left needed no introduction: Bud Halliday, secretary of defense. Then came the president himself, a slight, dapper man with silver hair, a forthright face, and a keen mind. To his left was the national security adviser, dark-haired, round-shouldered, with the restless and overly bright eyes, the Old Man had always thought, of a large rodent. The last person on the right was a bespectacled man by the name of Gundarsson, who worked for the International Atomic Energy Agency.

  “Now that we’re all assembled,” the president began without the usual protocol or oratory preamble, “let’s get down to it.” His eyes came to rest on the DCI. “We are in the midst of a crisis of unprecedented proportions. We’ve all been briefed on the situation, but as it’s in a highly fluid state, bring us up to date, would you, Kurt?”

  The Old Man nodded, opened the Dujja dossier. “Having Deputy Director Lindros back with us has brought us added intel on Dujja’s movements, as well as significantly boosting morale within the agency. We now have confirmation that Dujja was in the Simien mountain range of northwest Ethiopia, and that they were transporting uranium as well as the TSGs used to trigger a nuclear device. From analysis of the latest translations of Dujja’s phone traffic, we’re beginning to home in on the place where we believe they’re enriching uranium.”

  “Excellent,” LaValle said. “As soon as you confirm actual coordinates, we’ll order a surgical air strike that will bomb the sons-of-bitches back into the Stone Age.”

  “Director,” Gundarsson said, “how certain are we that Dujja possesses the capacity to enrich uranium? After all, it takes not only specialized know-how but also a facility stocked with, among other things, thousands of centrifuges to get the form of enriched uranium needed for even a single nuclear weapon.”

  “We’re not certain at all,” the director said crisply, “but we now have eyewitness accounts from both Deputy Director Lindros and the agent who brought him back that Dujja is trafficking in both uranium and TSGs.”

  “All well and good,” LaValle said, “but we all know that yellowcake uranium is both plentiful and inexpensive. It’s also a long, long way from weapons grade.”

  “I agree. Trouble is, the residual signature leads us to believe Dujja is transshipping uranium dioxide powder,” the DCI said. “Unlike yellowcake, UO2 is only one simple step removed from weapons-grade uranium. It can be converted to the metal in any decent lab. As a consequence, we have to take extremely seriously anything Dujja is planning.”

  “Unless it’s all disinformation,” LaValle said doggedly. He was a man who often used his undeniable power to rub people the wrong way. Worse, he appeared to enjoy it.

  Gundarsson cleared his throat portentously. “I agree with the director. The idea of a terrorist network possessing uranium dioxide is terrifying. When it comes to the direct threat of a nuclear device, we cannot afford to dismiss it as disinformation.” He reached into a briefcase at his side and took out a sheaf of papers, which he distributed to everyone. “A nuclear device, whether it’s a so-called dirty bomb or not, has a certain size, specifications, and unvarying components. I have taken the liberty of drawing up a list, along with detailed drawings showing size, specs, and possible markers for detection. I would suggest getting these out to all law enforcement entities in every large city in America.”

  The president nodded. “Kurt, I want you to coordinate the distribution.”

  “Right

away, sir,” the DCI said.

  “Just a moment, Director,” LaValle said. “I want to go back to that other agent you mentioned. That would be Jason Bourne. He was the agent involved in the debacle of the escaped terrorist. He was the one who took your prisoner out of his cell without proper authorization, correct?”

  “This is strictly an internal matter, Mr. LaValle.”

  “In this room, at least, I think the need to be candid outweighs any sense of interagency rivalry,” the Pentagon intelligence czar said. “Frankly, I question whether anything Bourne says can be believed.”

  “You’ve run into difficulty before with him, haven’t you, Director?” This from Secretary Halliday.

  The DCI looked as if he was half asleep. In fact, his brain was running at full speed. He knew the moment he’d been waiting for had arrived. He was under a carefully coordinated attack. “What of it?”

  Halliday smiled thinly. “With all due respect, Director, I’d submit that this man is an embarrassment to your agency, to the administration, to all of us. He allowed a high-level suspect to escape from CI custody and in the process endangered the lives of I don’t know how many innocent citizens. I submit that he needs to be dealt with, the sooner the better.”

  The DCI swiped the secretary’s words away with the back of his hand. “Can we get back to the issue at hand, Mr. President? Dujja—”

  “Secretary Halliday is right,” LaValle persisted. “We are at war with Dujja. We cannot afford to lose control of one of their assets. That being the case, kindly tell us what steps your agency is taking against Jason Bourne.”

  “Mr. LaValle’s point is well taken, Director,” Secretary Halliday said in his oiliest Texan imitation of Lyndon Johnson. “That very public screwup on the Arlington Memorial Bridge gave us all a black eye and our enemy a moral lift just when we can least afford it. Following the collateral death of one of your own—” He snapped his fingers. “What was his name?”