Page 23 of The Bourne Deception (Jason Bourne 7)

  Chalthoum shook his head. “Too long ago. Whoever they were, whatever they said, is of no interest to me.”

  Soraya stepped toward the young man. “What’s your name?”

  “Stephen.”

  She nodded. “My name is Soraya, Stephen. Tell me, were these divers Iranian?”

  “Look at him,” Chalthoum interrupted. “He wouldn’t know an Iranian from an Indian.”

  “The divers weren’t Arab,” Stephen said.

  Chalthoum snorted. “You see what I mean? Sonny, Iranians are Persians, descended from the Scythian-Sarmatian nomads of Central Asia. They’re Shi’a Muslims, not Arabs.”

  “What I mean…” Stephen swallowed hard. “What I meant to say was that they were white like me. Caucasians.”

  “Could you tell what nationality they were?” Soraya asked.

  “They were Americans,” Stephen said.

  “So what?” Chalthoum was losing patience.

  Soraya ventured closer still. “Stephen, what did you overhear? What were these divers talking about?”

  With a fearful glance at Chalthoum, Stephen said, “There were four of them. They were coming off a vacation, that was clear. Only they called it leave.”

  Soraya made eye contact with Chalthoum. “Military men.”

  “So he says,” he rumbled. “Continue.”

  “They’d just come up from the second dive of the day and they were kind of giddy. I was helping them off with their tanks, but they acted as if I wasn’t there. Anyway, they were grumbling about having their leave cut short. There was some kind of emergency—an assignment for them that came out of the air—that was what they said. It appeared out of thin air.”

  “This is nonsense,” Chalthoum said. “It’s clear he’s making this up to spare himself life imprisonment.”

  “Oh, God.” At the pronouncement of his mortal sentence, Stephen’s knees gave way and Chalthoum’s men were obliged to hold him tightly in order to keep him on his feet.

  “Stephen.” Soraya reached out, turned the young man’s face toward her. He was as pale as death, and she could see the whites all around his eyes. “Tell us the rest of what you overheard. Did the divers say what their assignment was?”

  He shook his head. “I got the impression they didn’t yet know.”

  “Enough!” Chalthoum cried. “Dispose of this rancid piece of meat!”

  Stephen was openly weeping now. “But they knew their destination.”

  Soraya held up her hand for Chalthoum’s men to stop dragging him away. “Where was it, Stephen? Where were the men headed?”

  “They were flying to Khartoum,” the young man said through his tears, “ ‘wherever that godforsaken place is.’ ”

  19

  THE PRESIDENT was met by Secretary of Defense Halliday as he was exiting the United Nations. Having sent the General Assembly into a frenzy by presenting the evidence against Iran in the bombing of the American airliner and the loss of 181 lives, the president had stopped for an impromptu press conference with the media, clustered around him like hens at feeding time. He obligingly gave them half a dozen choice sound bites to air or to carry back to their editors before his press secretary whispered in his ear that Secretary Halliday was waiting with urgent news.

  The president was on a high. It had been a long time since an American president could address that august body of the United Nations armed with evidence so damning it had shocked the representatives from Russia and China into silence. The world was changing, tilting against Iran in a way never before seen. The president, whose presence here was in no small part due to Bud Halliday, thought it fitting that the first person he speak with regarding his unqualified success was the defense secretary.

  “Break out the champagne!” the president called as he signaled to Halliday, and the two men entered the long bullet- and bombproof limousine.

  The vehicle took off the moment the pair were seated. Across from them was the press secretary, his cheeks as flushed with victory as the president’s, a bottle of chilled American sparkling wine in his hand.

  “Sir, if you don’t mind, let’s hold the celebration,” Bud Halliday said.

  “Mind?” the president said. “Of course I mind! Solly, open the damn champagne!”

  “Sir,” Halliday said, “there’s been an incident.”

  The president froze in mid-gesture, then slowly turned to his defense secretary. “What kind of an incident, Bud?”

  “Veronica Hart, the director of Central Intelligence, is dead.”

  At once the color drained from the president’s flushed cheeks. “Good Christ, what happened, Bud?”

  “A car bomb—we think. There’s an ongoing investigation, but that’s the most recent theory.”

  “But who—?”

  “Homeland Security, ATF, and the FBI are all coordinating their efforts under the NSA umbrella.”

  “Good.” The president, all business now, nodded curtly. “The sooner we clear up this car bomb mess, the better.”

  “As usual, we’re on the same page, sir.” Halliday glanced Solly’s way. “Speaking of which, we’re going to need a comprehensive press release, and spin control. After the plane incident, the last thing we need is speculation about terrorists and another bombing.”

  “Solly, get our talking heads on it right away,” the president said, “then get into overdrive on an official release. Coordinate it with Secretary Halliday’s office, would you?”

  “Right away, sir.” Solly slipped the sweating bottle back into its bucket of ice and started calling contacts on his cell phone.

  Halliday waited until the press secretary was engaged in his first conversation. “Sir, we’ve got to think about a replacement for DCI Hart.” And before the president could jump in, he continued: “It seems fair to say that the experiment with hiring from the private sector has run its course. In any event, we need to move quickly to fill the gap.”

  “Get me a list of the qualified senior people at CI.”

  “I will certainly do that.” Halliday texted a message to his office as they spoke. He looked up. “The list will be on your desk inside an hour.” But his face was still deeply troubled.

  “What is it, Bud?”

  “It’s nothing, sir.”

  “Oh, come on, Bud. We’ve known each other a long time, haven’t we? There’s something on your mind, now’s not the time to hold back.”

  “Okay.” Halliday exhaled deeply. “This is the perfect time to merge all the intelligence organizations into one organic whole that shares raw intel, makes coordinated decisions, and cuts through the bloated red tape that frustrates all of us.”

  “I’ve heard all this before, Bud.”

  With some effort Halliday stitched a grin on his face. “No one knows that better than I do, sir, and I understand. In the past you agreed with the DCI, whoever it was.”

  The president worried his lower lip. “There’s history to be observed, Bud. CI is the oldest, most venerable institution in the constellation of the intelligence communities. In many ways it’s the crown jewel. I can understand why you’d want to get your hands on it.”

  Rather than waste time in denial of the truth, Halliday decided to take another tack altogether. “The current crisis is another case in point. We’re having difficulty coordinating with CI—especially Typhon, which might very well have the intel we need to ensure that our retaliation against Iran doesn’t hit a snag.”

  The president stared out the smoked window at the monumental public buildings at the district’s heart. “You’ve received the money for—you know—for the—what have you named the operation?”

  The secretary of defense gave up trying to follow the train of the president’s thoughts. “Pinprick, sir.”

  “Who thinks of these names?”

  Halliday sensed his boss didn’t want an answer.

  The president turned back to him. “Who d’you have in mind?”

  With his choice in the forefront of his mind, Hall

iday was ready for that one. “Danziger, sir.”

  “Really? I thought you were going to propose your intelligence czar.”

  “Jaime Hernandez is a career office man. We need someone with a more—robust—background.”

  “Quite right,” the president agreed. “Who the hell is this Danziger?”

  “M. Errol Danziger. The NSA’s current deputy director of signals intelligence for analysis and production.”

  The president returned to his contemplation of the passing streetscape. “Have I met him?”

  “Yes, sir. Twice, the last time when you were at the Pentagon just last—”

  “Remind me, please.”

  “He brought in the printouts Hernandez distributed.”

  “I don’t recall the man.”

  “Hardly surprising, sir. There’s nothing remarkable about him.” Halliday chuckled. “That’s what made him so valuable during his stint in the field. He worked Southeast Asia before moving into the Operations Directorate.”

  “Wet work?”

  Halliday was startled by the question. Nevertheless, he saw no point in lying. “Indeed, sir.”

  “And returned home to tell the tale.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The president made an unintelligible sound deep in his throat. “Bring him to the Oval Office at—” He snapped his fingers for the press secretary’s attention. “Solly? Opening, today.”

  Solly put his call on hold, scrolled through a second PDA. “Five twenty-five, sir. But you only have ten minutes before the formal press conference. We need to make the six o’clock news.”

  “Of course we do.” The president lifted a hand, smiling. “Five twenty-five, Bud. Ten minutes is more than enough time for a yea or nay.”

  Then, abruptly, he turned to other matters, a crisis agenda packed with daunting security issues, at the end of which was not a hot bath and a good meal, but a phone conference with his director of protocol, deciding on who to invite to the state funeral for DCI Hart.

  Seconds after Bourne took the phone, Hererra’s young man had stolen into the room. Now he pressed the muzzle of a Beretta Px4 9mm pistol to Tracy’s left temple. She was wide-eyed, sitting painfully erect at the edge of the sofa.

  “My dear fellow,” Don Fernando Hererra said as he took the cell from Bourne, “I may not know who you are, but I know this much: My threatening you will avail me nothing.” His smile was sweet, almost soft. “Whereas if I tell you that I will have Fausto blow her brains out—pardon the crudeness of my words, Señorita Atherton—unless you tell me who you are, I feel certain that you will be more inclined to tell me the truth.”

  “I admit that I’ve underestimated you, Don Hererra,” Bourne said.

  “Adam, please tell him the truth.” Tracy was clearly terrified for her life.

  “I know that you’re a confidence man, just as I know you’ve come to swindle me out of my Goya, which, by the way, Professor Alonzo Pecunia Zuñiga—the real Don Alonzo—has confirmed to me is authentic.” He pointed. “He has also confirmed that Señorita Atherton is genuine. How you seduced her into going along with your scheme is between the two of you.” But his expression conveyed his dismay and disappointment at Tracy’s fall from grace. “My concern is who you are and which of my enemies hired you to con me.”

  Tracy shivered. “Adam, for God’s sake—”

  Hererra cocked his head. “Come, come, Señor Con Man, you have forfeited your right to scare the young lady.”

  It was time for him to act, Bourne knew that. He also knew that the situation was on a razor’s edge. Hererra was the wild card. On the surface it seemed unlikely that such a polished gentleman of Seville would actually direct the young man to pull the trigger. However, Hererra’s black-hands work in the oil fields of Colombia belied his current gentlemanly identity. At heart, he might still be that rough-and-tumble man who fought, finessed, and bullied his way to a fortune in the oil industry. A man didn’t successfully do business with the Tropical Oil Company without a heart as hard as mahogany, and without spilling some blood. In any event, it was not for Bourne to gamble with Tracy’s life.

  “You’re right, Don Hererra. My apologies,” Bourne said. “Now to the truth: I was hired by one of your enemies, but not to take the Goya from you.”

  Tracy’s eyes opened even wider.

  “I came up with this ruse to get in to see you.”

  Hererra’s eyes glittered as he drew up a chair to sit in front of Bourne. “Continue.”

  “My name is Adam Stone.”

  “Forgive me if I’m skeptical.” He snapped his fingers. “Passport. And use your left hand. You don’t want to alarm Fausto, believe me.”

  Bourne did. With the tips of the fingers on his left hand, he produced his passport, which Hererra scrutinized as if he were a special agent from immigration.

  As he handed back the document, he said, “All right, Señor Stone, what are you?”

  “I’m a freelance specialist in let us say hardware of a special nature.”

  Hererra shook his head. “Now you’ve lost me.”

  “Don Hererra, you know a Balinese merchant by the name of Wayan.”

  “I do not.”

  Bourne made a show of ignoring the lie. “I work for the people who supply Wayan.”

  “Adam, what is this?” Tracy said. “You told me you were interested in seed money for an e-commerce start-up.”

  At this, Hererra sat back, contemplating Bourne in, it seemed, an entirely new light. “It seems, Señorita Atherton, that Adam Stone lied to you as easily as he did to me.”

  Bourne knew he’d made a desperate gamble. He’d calculated that the only way to take control of the situation was to astonish the Colombian. In this, it appeared, he’d been successful.

  “The question is why?”

  Bourne saw his chance to tip the scales in his favor. “The people who hired me—the people who supply Wayan—”

  “I told you I don’t know anyone named Wayan.”

  Bourne shrugged. “The people I work for know better. They don’t like the way you’re doing business. In fact, they want you out of it completely.”

  Don Hererra laughed. “Fausto, do you hear this, do you hear this man?” He hunched forward so his face was close to Bourne’s. “Are you threatening me, Stone? Because the air in my house is vibrating in such a way.”

  Now there was a stiletto in his hand. The hilt was inlaid with jade, the long blade as tapered as Hererra’s own fingers. He tipped the blade forward until the point touched the skin above Bourne’s Adam’s apple.

  “You should know I don’t take kindly to threats.”

  “What happens to me is irrelevant,” Bourne said.

  “The señorita’s blood will be on your hands.”

  “Surely you know how powerful my employers are. Whatever is going to happen is going to happen.”

  “Unless I change my business practices.”

  Bourne felt the shift in Hererra’s thinking even before he said it. He was no longer denying his business in arms shipping. “That’s correct.”

  Don Hererra sighed and made a sign to Fausto, who removed the muzzle and holstered the Beretta at the small of his back. Then he threw the stiletto onto the sofa cushion and, slapping his thighs, said, “I think, Señor Stone, we both could do with a walk in the garden.”

  Fausto unlocked the French doors, and the two men stepped out onto the flagstone path. The garden was an octagon embraced by the sturdy arms of the house. There was a small grove of lemon trees and, in the center, a tiled fountain in the Moorish style shaded by a palm tree. Here and there stone benches were scattered, both in sunlight and in dappled shade. The air was perfumed by the lemon trees, whose new leaves were emerging like butterflies from their winter cocoons.

  Because it was cool out, Don Hererra indicated a bench in full sun. When they were seated side by side, he said, “I must admit Yevsen surprises me; he sends a man who is not only not a thug, but possesses uncommon wisdom.” Hi

s head inclined a fraction, as if he were tipping his hat to Bourne. “How much is that Russian sonovabitch paying you?”

  “Not enough.”

  “Yes, Yevsen is one cheap bastard.”

  Bourne laughed. His great gamble had paid off: He had his answer. Wayan was being supplied by Nikolai Yevsen. Scarface had been sent by Yevsen, following Bourne all the way from Bali where he’d first tried to kill him. He still didn’t know why Yevsen wanted him dead, but he knew he’d just moved a giant step closer to finding out. He had a line on who Don Fernando Hererra really was: Nikolai Yevsen’s competitor. And if he convinced Hererra Bourne could be turned, Hererra would give up everything he knew about Yevsen, which just might include what Bourne needed to know.

  “Certainly not enough for having a stiletto held to my throat.”

  “No one regrets that necessity more than I do.”

  The fissures in Hererra’s face were set in high relief as they were struck by the slanting rays of the sun. There was a fierce pride in that face he’d held in abeyance while he was playing the part of the gentleman, a granite toughness Bourne could appreciate.

  “I know about your history in Colombia,” he said. “I know how you took on the Tropical Oil Company.”

  “Ah, yes, well, that was a long time ago.”

  “Initiative never fades away.”

  “Listen to you.” The Colombian gave him a shrewd sideways look. “Tell me, should I sell my Goya to Señorita Atherton?”

  “She has nothing to do with me,” Bourne said.

  “A chivalrous thing to say, but not quite true.” Hererra held up an admonishing finger. “She was all too ready to take the Goya at an unfair price.”

  “That just makes her a good businessman.”

  Hererra laughed. “Indeed, it does.” He delivered another sidelong glance. “I suppose you won’t tell me your real name.”

  “You saw my passport.”

  “Now is not the time to insult me.”

  “What I meant is that one name is as good as another,” Bourne said, “especially in our line of work.”

  Hererra shivered. “Christ, it’s getting cold.”

  He stood up. The shadows had grown long during their talk. Only one sliver of sunlight remained on the top of the west-facing wall, while day turned into fugitive night.