Page 9 of The Bourne Sanction (Jason Bourne 6)

  LaValle seemed thoughtful. “How would you have handled her?”

  “I would have made nice, welcomed her to the fold, let her know you’re there for her whenever she needs your help.”

  “She’d never have bought it,” LaValle said. “She knows my agenda.”

  “It doesn’t matter. The idea is not to antagonize her. You don’t want her knives out when you come for her.”

  LaValle nodded, as if he saw the wisdom in this approach. “So how do you suggest we proceed from here?”

  “Give me some time,” Batt said. “Hart’s just getting started at CI, and because I’m her deputy I know everything she does, every decision she makes. But when she’s out of the office, shadow her, see where she goes, who she meets. Using parabolic mikes you can listen in to her conversations. Between us, we’ll have her covered twenty-four/seven.”

  “Sounds pretty vanilla to me,” Kendall said skeptically.

  “Keep it simple, especially when there’s so much at stake, that’s my advice,” Batt said.

  “What if she cottons on to the surveillance?” Kendall said.

  Batt smiled. “So much the better. It’ll only bolster the CI mantra that the NSA is run by incompetents.”

  LaValle laughed. “Batt, I like the way you think.”

  Batt nodded, acknowledging the compliment. “Coming from the private sector Hart’s not used to government procedure. She doesn’t have the leeway she enjoyed at Black River. I can already see that, to her, rules and regs are meant to be bent, sidestepped, even, on occasion, broken. Mark my words, sooner rather than later, Director Hart is going to give us the ammunition we need to kick her butt out of CI.”

  Seven

  HOW IS your foot, Jason?”

  Bourne looked up at Professor Specter, whose face was swollen and discolored. His left eye was half closed, dark as a storm cloud.

  “Yes,” Specter said, “after what just happened I’m compelled to call you by what seems like your rightful name.”

  “My heel is fine,” Bourne said. “It’s me who should be asking about you.”

  Specter put fingertips gingerly against his cheek. “In my life I’ve endured worse beatings.”

  The two men were seated in a high-ceilinged library filled with a large, magnificent Isfahan carpet, ox-blood leather furniture. Three walls were fitted floor-to-ceiling with books neatly arrayed on mahogany shelves. The fourth wall was pierced by a large leaded-glass window overlooking stands of stately firs on a knoll, which sloped down to a pond guarded by a weeping willow, shivering in the wind.

  Specter’s personal physician had been summoned, but the professor had insisted the doctor tend to Bourne’s flayed heel first.

  “I’m sure we can find you a pair of shoes somewhere,” Specter said, sending one of the half a dozen men in residence scurrying off with Bourne’s remaining shoe.

  This rather large stone-and-slate house deep in the Virginia countryside to which Specter had directed Bourne was a far cry from the modest apartment the professor maintained near the university. Bourne had been to the apartment numerous times over the years, but never here. Then there was the matter of the staff, which Bourne noted with interest as well as surprise.

  “I imagine you’re wondering about all this,” Specter said, as if reading Bourne’s mind. “All in good time, my friend.” He smiled. “First, I must thank you for rescuing me.”

  “Who were those men?” Bourne said. “Why did they try to kidnap you?”

  The doctor applied an antibiotic ointment, placed a gauze pad over the heel, taped it in place. Then he wrapped the heel in cohesive bandage.

  “It’s a long story,” Specter said. The doctor, finished with Bourne, now rose to examine the professor. “One I propose to tell you over the breakfast we were unable to enjoy earlier.” He winced as the doctor palpated areas of his body.

  “Contusions, bruises,” the doctor intoned colorlessly, “but no broken bones or fractures.”

  He was a small swarthy man with a mustache and dark slicked-back hair. Bourne made him as Turkish. In fact, all the staff seemed of Turkish origin.

  He gave Specter a small packet. “You may need these painkillers, but only for the next forty-eight hours.” He’d already left a tube of the antibiotic cream, along with instructions, for Bourne.

  While Specter was being examined, Bourne used his cell phone to call Deron, the art forger whom he used for all his travel documents. Bourne recited the license tag of the black Cadillac he’d commandeered from the professor’s would-be kidnappers.

  “I need a registration report ASAP.”

  “You okay, Jason?” Deron said in his sonorous London-accented voice. Deron had been Bourne’s backup through many hair-raising missions. He always asked the same question.

  “I’m fine,” Bourne said, “but that’s more than I can say for the car’s original occupants.”

  “Brilliant.”

  Bourne pictured him in his lab in the northeast section of DC, a tall, vibrant black man with the mind of a conjuror.

  When the doctor departed, Bourne and Specter were left alone.

  “I already know who came after me,” Specter said.

  “I don’t like loose ends,” Bourne replied. “The Cadillac’s registration will tell us something, perhaps something even you don’t know.”

  The professor nodded, clearly impressed.

  Bourne sat on the leather sofa with his leg up on the coffee table. Specter eased himself into a facing chair. Clouds chased each other across the windblown sky, setting patterns shifting across the Persian carpet. Bourne saw a different kind of shadow pass across Specter’s face.

  “Professor, what is it?”

  Specter shook his head. “I owe you a most sincere and abject apology, Jason. I’m afraid I had an ulterior motive in asking you to return to university life.” His eyes were filled with regret. “I thought it would be good for you, yes, that’s true enough, absolutely. But also I wanted you near me because…” He waved a hand as if to clear the air of deceit. “Because I was fearful that what happened this morning would happen. Now, because of my selfishness, I’m very much afraid that I’ve put your life in jeopardy.”

  Turkish tea, strong and intensely aromatic, was served along with eggs, smoked fish, coarse bread, butter, deep yellow and fragrant.

  Bourne and Specter sat at a long table covered with a white hand-finished linen cloth. The china and silverware were of the highest quality. Again, an oddity in an academic’s household. They remained mute while a young man, slim and sleek, served their perfectly cooked, elegantly presented breakfast.

  When Bourne began to ask a question, Specter cut him off. “First we must fill our stomachs, regain our strength, ensure our minds are working at full capacity.”

  The two men did not speak again until they were finished, the plates and cutlery were cleared, and a fresh pot of tea had been poured. A small bowl of gigantic Medjool dates and halved fresh pomegranates lay between them.

  When they were again alone in the dining room, Specter said without preamble, “The night before last I received word that a former student of mine whose father was a close friend was dead. Murdered in a most despicable fashion. This young man, Pyotr Zilber, was special. Besides being a former student he ran an information network that spanned several countries. After a number of difficult and perilous months of subterfuge and negotiation he had managed to obtain for me a vital document. He was found out, with the inevitable consequences. This is the incident I’ve been dreading. It may sound melodramatic, but I assure you it’s the truth: The war I’ve been engaged in for close to twenty years has reached its final stage.”

  “What sort of a war, Professor?” Bourne said. “Against whom?”

  “I’ll get to that in a moment.” Specter leaned forward. “I imagine you’re curious, shocked even, that a university professor should be involved in matters that are more the province of Jason Bourne.” He lifted both arms briefly to encompass the house. “

But as you’ve no doubt noted there is more to me than meets the eye.” He smiled rather sadly. “This makes two of us, yes?

  “As someone who also leads a double life I understand you better than most others. I need one personality when I step onto campus, but here I’m someone else entirely.” He tapped a stubby forefinger against the side of his nose. “I pay attention. I saw something familiar in you the moment I met you—how your eyes took in every detail of the people and things around you.”

  Bourne’s cell buzzed. He flipped it open, listened to what Deron had to say, then put the phone away.

  “The Cadillac was reported stolen a hour before it appeared in front of the restaurant.”

  “That is entirely unsurprising.”

  “Who tried to kidnap you, Professor?”

  “I know you’re impatient for the facts, Jason. I would be, too, in your place. But I promise they won’t have meaning without some background first. When I said there’s more to me than meets the eye, this is what I meant: I’m a terrorist hunter. For many years, from the camouflage and sanctuary my position at the university affords me, I have built up a network of people who gather intelligence just like your own CI. However, the intelligence that interests me is highly specific. There are people who took my wife from me. In the dead of night, while I was away, they snatched her from our house, tortured her, killed her, then dumped her on my doorstep. As a warning, you see.”

  Bourne felt a prickling at the back of his neck. He knew what it felt like to be driven by revenge. When Martin died all Bourne could think about was destroying the men who’d tortured him. He felt a new, more intimate connection with Specter, even as the Bourne identity rose inside him, riding a cresting wave of pure adrenaline. All at once the idea of him working at the university struck him as absurd. Moira was right: He was already chafing at the confinement. How would he feel after months of the academic life, bereft of adventure, stripped of the adrenaline rush for which Bourne lived?

  “My father was taken because he was plotting to overthrow the head of an organization. They call themselves the Eastern Brotherhood.”

  “Doesn’t the EB espouse a peaceful integration of Muslims into Western society?”

  “That’s their public stance, certainly, and their literature would have you believe it’s so.” Specter put down his cup. “In fact, nothing could be farther from the truth. I know them as the Black Legion.”

  “Then the Black Legion has finally decided to come after you.”

  “If only it were as simple as that.” He halted at a discreet knock on the door. “Enter.”

  The young man he’d sent on the errand strode in carrying a shoe box, which he set down in front of Bourne.

  Specter gestured. “Please.”

  Taking his foot off the table, Bourne opened the box. Inside were a pair of very fine Italian loafers, along with a pair of socks.

  “The left one is half a size larger to accommodate the pad that will protect your heel,” the young man said in German.

  Bourne pulled on the socks, slipped on the loafers. They fit perfectly. Seeing this, Specter nodded to the young man, who turned and, without another word, left the room.

  “Does he speak English?” Bourne asked.

  “Oh, yes. Whenever the need arises.” Specter’s face was wreathed in a mischievous smile. “And now, my dear Jason, you’re asking yourself why he’s speaking German if he’s a Turk?”

  “I assume it’s because your network spans many countries including Germany, which is, like England, a hotbed of Muslim terrorist activity.”

  Specter’s smile deepened. “You’re like a rock. I can always count on you.” He raised a forefinger. “But there is yet another reason. It has to do with the Black Legion. Come. I’ve something to show you.”

  Filya Petrovich, Pyotr’s Sevastopol courier, lived in an anonymous block of crumbling housing left over from the days the Soviets had reshaped the city into a vast barracks housing its largest naval contingent. The apartment, frozen in time since the 1970s, had all the charm of a meat locker.

  Arkadin opened the door with the key he’d found on Filya. He pushed Devra over the threshold, stepped in. Turning on the lights, he closed the door behind him. She hadn’t wanted to come, but she had no say in the matter, just as she’d had no say in helping him drag Filya’s corpse out the nightclub’s back door. They set him down at the end of the filthy alley, propped up against a wall damp with unknown fluids. Arkadin poured the contents of a half-empty bottle of cheap vodka over him, then pressed the man’s fingers around the bottle’s neck. Filya became one drunk among many other drunks in the city. His death would be swept away on an inefficient and overworked bureaucratic tide.

  “What’re you looking for?” Devra stood in the middle of the living room, watching Arkadin’s methodical search. “What d’you think you’ll find? The document?” Her laugh was a kind of shrill catcall. “It’s gone.”

  Arkadin glanced up from the mess his switchblade had made of the sofa cushions. “Where?”

  “Far out of your reach, that’s for sure.”

  Closing his knife, Arkadin crossed the space between the two of them in one long stride. “Do you think this is a joke, or a game we’re playing here?”

  Devra’s upper lip curled. “Are you going to hurt me now? Believe me, nothing you could do would be worse than what’s already been done to me.”

  Arkadin, the blood pounding in his veins, held himself in check to consider her words. What she said was probably the truth. Under the Soviet boot, God had forsaken many Ukrainians, especially the young attractive females. He needed to take another tack entirely.

  “I’m not going to hurt you, even though you’re with the wrong people.” He turned on his heel, sat down on a wood-framed chair. Leaning back, he ran his fingers through his hair. “I’ve seen a lot of shit—I’ve done two stints in prison. I can imagine the systematic brutalization you’ve been through.”

  “Me and my mother, God rest her soul.”

  The headlights of passing cars shone briefly through the windows, then dwindled away. A dog barked in an alleyway, its melancholy voice echoing. A couple passing by outside argued vehemently. Inside the shabby apartment the patchy light cast by the lamps, their shades either torn or askew, caused Devra to look terribly vulnerable, like a wisp of a child. Arkadin rose, stretched mightily, strolled over to the window, looked out onto the street. His eyes picked out every bit of shadow, every flare of light no matter how brief or tiny. Sooner or later Pyotr’s people were going to come after him; it was an inevitability that he and Icoupov had discussed before he left the villa. Icoupov had offered to send a couple of hard men to lie low in Sevastopol in the event they were needed, but Arkadin refused, saying he preferred to work alone.

  Having assured himself that the street was for the moment clear, he turned away from the window, back to the room. “My mother died badly,” he said. “She was murdered, brutally beaten, left in a closet for the rats to gnaw on. At least that’s what the coroner told me.”

  “Where was your father?”

  Arkadin shrugged. “Who knows? By that time, the sonovabitch could’ve been in Shanghai, or he could’ve been dead. My mother told me he was a merchant marine, but I seriously doubt it. She was ashamed of having been knocked up by a perfect stranger.”

  Devra, who had sat down on the ripped-apart arm of the sofa during this recitation, said, “It sucks not knowing where you came from, doesn’t it? Like always being adrift at sea. You’ll never recognize home even if you come upon it.”

  “Home,” Arkadin said heavily. “I never think of it.”

  Devra caught something in his tone. “But you’d like to, wouldn’t you?”

  His expression went sour. He checked the street again with his usual thoroughness. “What would be the point?”

  “Because knowing where we come from allows us to know who we are.” She beat softly at her chest with a fist. “Our past is part of us.”

  Arkadin f

elt as if she’d pricked him with a needle. Venom squirted through his veins. “My past is an island I’ve sailed away from long ago.”

  “Nevertheless, it’s still with you, even if you’re not aware of it,” she said with the force of having mulled the question over and over in her own mind. “We can’t outrun our past, no matter how hard we try.”

  Unlike him, she seemed eager to talk about her past. He found this curious. Did she think this subject was common ground? If so, he needed to stay with it, to keep the connection with her going.

  “What about your father?”

  “I was born here, grew up here.” She stared down at her hands. “My father was a naval engineer. He was thrown out of the shipyards when the Russians took it over. Then one night they came for him, said he was spying on them, delivering technical information on their ships to the Americans. I never saw him again. But the Russian security officer in charge took a liking to my mother. When he’d used her up, he started on me.”

  Arkadin could just imagine. “How did it end?”

  “An American killed him.” She looked up at him. “Fucking ironic, because this American was a spy sent to photograph the Russian fleet. When the American had completed his assignment he should’ve gone back home. Instead he stayed. He took care of me, nursed me back to health.”

  “Naturally you fell in love with him.”

  She laughed. “If I was a character in a novel, sure. But he was so kind to me; I was like a daughter to him. I cried when he left.”

  Arkadin found that he was embarrassed by her confession. To distract himself, he looked around the ruined apartment one more time.

  Devra watched him warily. “Hey. I’m dying for something to eat.”

  Arkadin laughed. “Aren’t we all?”

  His hawk-like gaze took in the street once more. This time the hairs on the back of his neck stirred as he stepped to the side of the window. A car he’d heard approaching had pulled up in front of the building. Devra, alerted by the sudden tension in his body, moved to the window behind him. What caught his attention was that though its engine was still running, all its lights had been extinguished. Three men exited the car, headed for the building entrance. It was past time to leave.