Page 11 of The Bourne Sanction (Jason Bourne 6)

  All the breath went out of Arkadin. He sat back, dazed, almost blacked out with pain. Mole-man scrabbled for his gun, found Arkadin’s instead, and swung it up. He was about to pull the trigger when Devra shot him in the back of the head with his own gun.

  Without a word, he pitched over onto his face. She stood, wide-legged, in the classic shooter’s stance, one hand supporting the other around the grips. Arkadin, on his knees, for the moment paralyzed with agony, watched her swing the gun around, point it at him. There was something in her eyes he couldn’t identify, let alone understand.

  Then, all at once, she let out the long breath she’d been holding inside, her arms relaxed, and the gun came down.

  “Why?” Arkadin said. “Why did you shoot him?”

  “He was a fool. Fuck me, I hate them all.”

  The rain beat down on them, drummed against the rooftop. The sky, utterly dark, muffled the world around them. They could have been standing on a mountaintop on the roof of the world. Arkadin watched her approach him. She put one foot in front of the other, walking stiff-legged. She seemed like a wild animal—angry, bitter, out of her element in the civilized world. Like him. He was tied to her, but he didn’t understand her, he couldn’t trust her.

  When she held out her hand to him he took it.

  Nine

  I HAVE this recurring nightmare,” Defense Secretary Ervin Reynolds “Bud” Halliday said. “I’m sitting right here at Aushak in Bethesda, when in comes Jason Bourne and in the style of The Godfather Part II shoots me in the throat and then between my eyes.”

  Halliday was seated at a table in the rear of the restaurant, along with Luther LaValle and Rob Batt. Aushak, more or less midway between the National Naval Medical Center and the Chevy Chase Country Club, was a favorite meeting place of his. Because it was in Bethesda and, especially, because it was Afghani, no one he knew or wanted to keep secrets from came here. The defense secretary felt most comfortable in off-the-beaten-path places. He was a man who despised Congress, despised even more its oversight committees, which were always mucking about in matters that didn’t concern them and for which they had no understanding, let alone expertise.

  The three men had ordered the dish after which the restaurant was named: sheets of pasta, filled with scallions, drenched in a savory meat-infused tomato sauce, the whole crowned by rich Middle Eastern yogurt in which flowered tiny bits of mint. The aushak, they all agreed, was a perfect winter meal.

  “We’ll soon have that particular nightmare laid to rest, sir,” LaValle said with the kind of obsequiousness that set Batt’s teeth on edge. “Isn’t that so, Rob?”

  Batt nodded emphatically. “Quite right. I have a plan that’s virtually foolproof.”

  Perhaps that wasn’t the correct thing to say. Halliday frowned. “No plan is foolproof, Mr. Batt, especially when it involves Jason Bourne.”

  “I assure you, no one knows that better than I do, Mr. Secretary.”

  Batt, as the seniormost of the seven directorate heads, did not care for being contradicted. He was a linebacker of a man with plenty of experience beating back pretenders to his crown. Still, he was aware that he was treading terra incognita, where a power struggle was raging, the outcome unknown.

  He pushed his plate away. In dealing with these people he knew he was making a calculated gamble; on the other hand, he felt the spark that emanated from Secretary Halliday. Batt had entered the nation’s true power grid, a place he’d secretly longed to be, and a powerful sense of elation shot through him.

  “Because the plan revolves around DCI Hart,” Batt said now, “my hope is that we’ll be able to bring down two clay pigeons with one shot.”

  “Not another word”—Halliday held up his hand—“to either of us. Luther and I must maintain plausible deniability. We can’t afford this operation coming back to bite us on the ass. Is that clear, Mr. Batt?”

  “Perfectly clear, sir. This is my operation, pure and simple.”

  Halliday grinned. “Son, those words are music to these big ol’ Texan ears.” He tugged at the lobe of his ear. “Now, I assume Luther here told you about Typhon.”

  Batt looked from the secretary to LaValle and back again. A frown formed on his face. “No, sir, he didn’t.”

  “An oversight,” LaValle said smoothly.

  “Well, no time like the present.” A smile continued to light Halliday’s expression.

  “We believe that one of CI’s problems is Typhon,” LaValle said. “It’s become too much for the director to properly rehabilitate and manage CI, and keep tabs on Typhon. As such, responsibility for Typhon will be taken off your shoulders. That section will be controlled directly by me.”

  The entire topic had been handled smoothly, but Batt knew he’d been deliberately sandbagged. These people had wanted control of Typhon from the beginning. “Typhon is home-grown CI,” he said. “It’s Martin Lindros’s brainchild.”

  “Martin Lindros is dead,” LaValle pointed out needlessly. “Another female is the director of Typhon now. That needs to be addressed, along with many other decisions that will affect Typhon’s future. You will also need to be making crucial decisions, Rob, about all of CI. You don’t want more on your plate than you can handle, do you.” It wasn’t a question.

  Batt felt himself losing traction on a slippery slope. “Typhon is part of CI,” he said as a last, feeble attempt to win back control.

  “Mr. Batt,” Halliday interjected. “We have made our determination. Are you with us or shall we recruit someone else for DCI?”

  The man whose call had drawn Professor Specter out into the street was Mikhail Tarkanian. Bourne suggested the National Zoo as a place to meet, and the professor had called Tarkanian. The professor then contacted his secretary at the university to tell her that he and Professor Webb were each taking a personal day. They got in Specter’s car, which had been driven to the estate by one of his men, and headed toward the zoo.

  “Your problem, Jason, is that you need an ideology,” Specter said. “An ideology grounds you. It’s the backbone of commitment.”

  Bourne, who was driving, shook his head. “As far back as I can remember I’ve been manipulated by ideologues. So far as I can tell, all ideology does is give you tunnel vision. Everything that doesn’t fit within your self-imposed limits is either ignored or destroyed.”

  “Now I know I’m truly speaking to Jason Bourne,” Specter said, “because I tried my best to instill in David Webb a sense of purpose he lost somewhere in his past. When you came to me you weren’t just cast adrift, you were severely maimed. I sought to help heal you by helping you turn away from whatever it was that hurt you so deeply. But now I see I was wrong—”

  “You weren’t wrong, Professor.”

  “No, let me finish. You’re always quick to defend me, to believe I’m always right. Don’t think I don’t appreciate how you feel about me. I wouldn’t want anything to change that. But occasionally I do make mistakes, and this was one of them. I don’t know what went into the making of the Bourne identity, and believe me when I tell you that I don’t want to know.

  “What seems clear to me, however, is that however much you don’t want to believe it, something inside you, something innate and connected with the Bourne identity, sets you apart from everyone else.”

  Bourne felt troubled by the direction of the conversation. “Do you mean that I’m Jason Bourne through and through—that David Webb would have become him no matter what?”

  “No, not at all. But I do think from what you’ve shared with me that if there had been no intervention, if there had been no Bourne identity, then David Webb would have been a very unhappy man.”

  This idea was not a new one to Bourne. But he’d always assumed the thought occurred to him because he knew so damnably little about who he’d been. David Webb was more of an enigma to him than Jason Bourne. That realization itself haunted Bourne, as if Webb were a ghost, a shadowing armature into which the Bourne identity had been hung, fleshed out, given

life by Alex Conklin.

  Bourne, driving up Connecticut Avenue, NW, crossed Cathedral Avenue. The entrance to the zoo appeared up ahead. “The truth is, I don’t think David Webb would have lasted to the end of the school year.”

  “Then I’m pleased I decided to involve you in my real passion.” Something seemed to have been settled inside Specter. “It’s not often a man gets a chance to rectify his mistakes.”

  The day was mild enough that the gorilla family had been let out. Schoolchildren clustered noisily at the end of the area where the patriarch sat, surrounded by his brood. The silverback did his level best to ignore them, but when their incessant chatter became too much for him, he walked to the other end of the compound, trailed by his family. There he sat while the same annoyances spiraled out of control. Then he plodded back to the spot where Bourne had first seen him.

  Mikhail Tarkanian was waiting for them beside the silverback gorilla area. He looked Specter up and down, clucking over his black eye. Then he took him in his arms, kissed him on both cheeks. “Allah is good, my friend. You are alive and well.”

  “Thanks to Jason here. He rescued me. I owe him my life.” Specter introduced the two men.

  Tarkanian kissed Bourne on both cheeks, thanking him effusively.

  There came a shuffling of the gorilla family as some grooming got under way.

  “Damn sad life.” Tarkanian hooked his thumb at the silverback.

  Bourne noted that his English was heavily accented in the manner of the tough Sokolniki slum of northeast Moscow.

  “Look at the poor bastard,” Tarkanian said.

  The gorilla’s expression was glum—resigned rather than defiant.

  Specter said, “Jason’s here on a bit of a fact-finding mission.”

  “Is he now?” Tarkanian was fleshy in the way of ex-athletes—neck like a bull, wary eyes sunk in yellow flesh. He kept his shoulders up around his ears, as if to ward off an expected blow. Enough hard knocks in Sokolniki to last a lifetime.

  “I want you to answer his questions,” Specter said.

  “Of course. Anything I can do.”

  “I need your help,” Bourne said. “Tell me about Pyotr Zilber.”

  Tarkanian, appearing somewhat taken aback, glanced at Specter, who had retreated a pace in order to center his man’s full attention on Bourne. Then he shrugged. “Sure. What d’you want to know?”

  “How did you find out he’d been killed?”

  “The usual way. Through one of our contacts.” Tarkanian shook his head. “I was devastated. Pyotr was a key man for us. He was also a friend.”

  “How d’you figure he was found out?”

  A gaggle of schoolgirls pranced by. When they had passed out of earshot, Tarkanian said, “I wish I knew. He wasn’t easy to get to, I’ll tell you that.”

  Bourne said casually, “Did Pyotr have friends?”

  “Of course he had friends. But none of them would betray him, if that’s what you’re asking.” Tarkanian pushed his lips out. “On the other hand…” His words trailed off.

  Bourne found his eyes, held them.

  “Pyotr was seeing this woman. Gala Nematova. He was head-over-heels about her.”

  “I assume she was properly vetted,” Bourne said.

  “Of course. But, well, Pyotr was a bit, um, headstrong when it came to women.”

  “Was that widely known?”

  “I seriously doubt it,” Tarkanian said.

  That was a mistake, Bourne thought. The habits and proclivities of the enemy were always for sale if you were clever and persistent enough. Tarkanian should have said, I don’t know. Possibly. As neutral an answer as possible, and closer to the truth.

  “Women can be a weak link.” Bourne thought briefly of Moira and the cloud of uncertainty that hovered over her from the CI investigation. The idea that Martin could have been seduced into revealing CI secrets was a bitter pill to swallow. He hoped when he read the communication between her and Martin that Soraya had unearthed, he could lay the question to rest.

  “We’re all sick about Pyotr’s death,” Tarkanian offered. Again the glance at Specter.

  “No question.” Bourne smiled rather vaguely. “Murder’s a serious matter, especially in this case. I’m talking to everyone, that’s all.”

  “Of course. I understand.”

  “You’ve been extremely helpful.” Bourne smiled, shook Tarkanian’s hand. As he did so, he said in a sharp tone of voice, “By the way, how much did Icoupov’s people pay you to call the professor’s cell this morning?”

  Instead of freezing Tarkanian seemed to relax. “What the hell kind of question is that? I’m loyal, I always have been.”

  After a moment, he tried to extricate his hand, but Bourne’s grip tightened. Tarkanian’s eyes met Bourne’s, held them.

  Behind them, the silverback made a noise, growing restive. The sound was low, like the sudden ripple of wind disturbing a field of wheat. The message from the gorilla was so subtle, Bourne was the only one who picked up on it. He registered movement at the extreme edge of his peripheral vision, tracked for several seconds. He leaned back to Specter, said in a low, urgent voice. “Leave now. Go straight through the Small Mammal House, then turn left. A hundred yards on will be a small food kiosk. Ask for help getting to your car. Go back to your house and stay there until you hear from me.”

  As the professor walked swiftly away, Bourne grabbed Tarkanian, pushed him in the opposite direction. They joined a Home Sweet Habitat scavenger hunt comprising a score of rowdy kids and their parents. The two men Bourne was tracking hurried toward them. It was this pair and their rushed anxiety that had aroused the suspicion of the silverback, alerting Bourne.

  “Where are we going?” Tarkanian said. “Why did you leave the professor unprotected?”

  A good question. Bourne’s decision had been instantaneous, instinct-driven. The men headed toward Tarkanian, not the professor. Now, as the group moved down Olmsted Walk, Bourne dragged Tarkanian into the Reptile Discovery Center. The lights were low here. They hurried past glass cases that held dozing alligators, slit-eyed crocodiles, lumbering tortoises, evil-looking vipers, and pebble-skinned lizards of all sizes, shapes, and dispositions. Up ahead, Bourne could see the snake cases. At one of them, a handler opened a door, prepared to set out a feast of rodents for the green tree pythons, which, in their hunger, had emerged from their stupor, slithering along the case’s fake tree branches. These snakes used infrared heat sensors to target their prey.

  Behind them, the two men wove their way through the crowd of children. They were swarthy but otherwise unremarkable in feature. They had their hands plunged into the pockets of their wool overcoats, surely gripping some form of weapon. They weren’t hurrying now. There was no point in alarming the visitors.

  Passing the European glass lizard, Bourne hauled Tarkanian into the snake section. It was at that moment that Tarkanian chose to make a move. Twisting away as he lunged back toward the approaching men, he dragged Bourne for a step, until Bourne struck him a dizzying blow to the side of the head.

  A workman knelt with his toolbox in front of an empty case. He was fiddling with the ventilation grille at the base. Bourne swiped a short length of stiff wire from the box.

  “The cavalry’s not going to save you today,” Bourne said as he dragged Tarkanian toward a door set flush in the wall between cases that led to the work area hidden from the public. One of the pursuers was closing in when Bourne jimmied the lock with the bit of wire. He opened the door, stepped through. He slammed it shut behind him, set the lock.

  The door began to shudder on its hinges as the men pounded on it. Bourne found himself in a narrow utility corridor, lit by long fluorescent tubes, that ran behind the cases. Doors and, in the cases of the venomous snakes, feeding windows appeared at regular intervals along the right-hand wall.

  Bourne heard a soft phutt! and the lock popped out of the door. The men were armed with small-caliber handguns fitted with suppressors. He pushed th

e stumbling Tarkanian ahead of him as one of the men stepped through. Where was the other one? Bourne thought he knew, and he turned his attention to the far end of the corridor, where any moment now he expected the second man to appear.

  Tarkanian, sensing Bourne’s momentary shift of attention, spun, slamming the side of his body into Bourne’s. Thrown off balance, Bourne skidded through the open doorway into the tree python case. With a harsh bark of laughter, Tarkanian rushed on.

  A herpetologist in the case to check on the python was already protesting Bourne’s appearance. Bourne ignored him, reached up, unwound one of the hungry pythons from the branch nearest him. As the snake, sensing his heat, wrapped itself around his outstretched arm, Bourne turned and burst out into the corridor just in time to drive a fist into the gunman’s solar plexus. When the man doubled over, Bourne slid his arm out of the python’s coils, wrapped its body around the gunman’s chest. Seeing the python, the man screamed. It began to tighten its coils around him.

  Bourne snatched the handgun with its suppressor from his hand, took off after Tarkanian. The gun was a Glock, not a Taurus. As Bourne suspected, these two weren’t part of the same team that had abducted the professor. Who were they then? Members of the Black Legion, sent to extract Tarkanian? But if that was the case, how had they known he’d been blown? No time for answers: The second man had appeared at the far end of the corridor. He was in a crouch, motioning to Tarkanian, who squeezed himself against the side of the corridor.

  As the gunman took aim at him Bourne covered his face with his folded forearms, dived headfirst through one of the feeding windows. Glass shattered. Bourne looked up to see that he was face-to-face with a Gaboon viper, the species with the longest fangs and highest venom yield of any snake. It was black and ocher. Its ugly, triangular head rose, its tongue flicked out, sensing, trying to determine if the creature sprawled in front of it was a threat.

  Bourne lay still as stone. The viper began to hiss, a steady rhythm that flattened its head with each fierce exhalation. The small horns beside its nostrils quivered. Bourne had definitely disturbed it. Having traveled extensively in Africa, he knew something of this creature’s habits. It was not prone to bite unless severely provoked. On the other hand, he couldn’t risk moving his body at all at this point.