Page 26 of The Bourne Deception (Jason Bourne 7)

  Bamber paced around the kitchen, rearranging items that didn’t need rearranging. “The anomalies kept piling up with each revision, I can see that quite clearly now.” He stopped talking abruptly.

  “But at the time?” she prompted.

  “I kept telling myself everything was okay,” he said with a good degree of anguish. “I put my head deeper into the increasingly complex algorithms of Bardem. At night, when doubts began to plague me, I focused on the two and a half mil I’d put to work in Treasury bills, my fuck-you money.” He leaned over the sink, his head down. “Then a couple of days ago I hit a tipping point and I knew I couldn’t let things go on the way they had been. I didn’t know what to do.”

  “So you told Steve about Bardem, and Steve did the search on Noah you’d failed to perform and discovered that he worked for Black River.”

  “And Steve being Steve, he couldn’t sit on the information. He was too frightened to go to his superiors, so he passed a thumb drive on to the man he’d gone to when his internal search at the DoD turned up nothing on Noah.”

  “Jay Weston,” Moira said. “Of course! I poached Jay from Hobart, another private contractor to the military. He’d have ID’d Noah right away.”

  “And now Steve is dead,” Bamber moaned, “because of my stupidity and my greed.”

  Flushed with rage, Moira got up and crossed the kitchen. “Dammit, Bamber, get a grip on yourself. The last thing I need from you is self-pity.”

  He turned on her. “What’s the matter with you, don’t you have even an ounce of humanity? My partner was just murdered.”

  “I don’t have time for sentiment or—”

  “And if I remember right a friend of yours was blown six ways from Sunday right in front of you. Don’t you have any remorse, any pity? Is there anything inside you except exacting your revenge on Noah?”

  “What?”

  “I mean that’s it, isn’t it? That’s what this is all about—you and Noah at each other’s throats and never mind the collateral damage. Well, fuck him and fuck you!”

  As he stalked out of the kitchen Moira grabbed on to the sink in order to keep her feet. All at once the kitchen began to tumble over, she seemed to lose her bearings, to have become unmoored so that she could no longer distinguish the floor from the ceiling.

  My God, she thought, what’s happening to me? And immediately an image of Ronnie Hart came to her, those lambent eyes watching her from inside the white Buick, Ronnie knowing the end had come and helpless to stop it. The explosion bloomed again in her mind, blotting out sight, sound, and thought.

  Why didn’t I save her? Because there wasn’t time. Why didn’t I try, anyway? Again, there was no time and Bamber had grabbed her. Why didn’t I break free? Because the wall of percussion had already hit her, hurling her backward, and if she had been any closer she would have been caught up in the conflagration, she’d be dead now or, worse, lying in a burn unit, her skin ripped and charred, covered in third-degree burns that would kill her slowly and painfully.

  Still. Ronnie was dead. She had survived. Where was the justice in that? The rational part of her brain told the grieving, irrational part that the world was chaos, it didn’t care about justice, which was, in any case, a human concept and, therefore, subject to its own form of irrationality. None of this interior debate could stem the tears that stung her eyes, ran down her cheeks, and set her to shivering as if she were ill.

  Bamber’s words came back to haunt her. Was this what it was all about, a blood feud between her and Noah? All at once she was back in Munich with Bourne, climbing the rolling stairs to the airplane bound to take them to Long Beach, California. Then Noah had appeared in the doorway and she recalled the poisonous look in his eye. Had it been jealousy? She’d been far too distracted then, far too intent on her immediate goal of getting to Long Beach. But now that curdled expression on his face recurred to her like the acrid taste of spoiled food. How could she be certain she wasn’t misinterpreting this remembered moment between them? Because, now she thought of it, his reaction to her leaving Black River was personal, as if he were her spurned lover. And so moving on from there, could her decision to start a rival company by poaching a select few of the best people from Black River have been in retaliation for Noah not making a play for her when he could have? All at once, she recalled the conversation she’d had with Jason that night in Bali when they’d been alone in the pool together. When she’d told him of her idea to start a rival company to Black River, he’d warned her that she would make an enemy of Noah, and he was right. Had he known then how Noah felt about her? And what had she felt about Noah? “I gave up trying to please him six months before I quit Black River. It was a fool’s game,” she’d told Jason that night. What precisely had she meant by that? Hearing it now reverberate in her mind, mixing with all the other subtle revelations, it sounded like something a hurt lover would say.

  God almighty, the collateral damage she and Noah had wrought!

  Slowly, like a punctured tire, the unreasoning anger went out of her, her grip loosened, and she slid to the floor. If her back hadn’t been braced against the wooden cabinets, she would have pitched over.

  It seemed a long time later—but surely it couldn’t have been—when she became aware that somebody was in the kitchen with her. In fact, two somebodies. They were crouched down beside her.

  “What happened?” Bamber asked. “Are you all right?”

  “I slipped and fell, that’s all.” Moira’s eyes were perfectly dry now.

  “I’ll fetch you a brandy.” Lamontierre, in a white unitard and ballet slippers, a towel draped around his neck, headed back into the living room.

  Moira, shrugging off Bamber’s proffered hand, levered herself to her feet. Lamontierre returned with a snifter half filled with an amber liquid, some of which she drank immediately. The fire worked its way down her throat and flooded her body, bringing her fully back to herself.

  “Mr. Lamontierre,” she said, “thank you for your hospitality, but to be honest I need to talk to Mr. Bamber in private.”

  “Of course. If you’re all right…”

  “I am.”

  “Excellent, then I’ll go shower. H, if you want to stay here for the time being…” He regarded Moira for a moment. “Actually, both of you are welcome here for as long as you need.”

  “That’s extremely generous of you,” Moira said.

  “It’s nothing.” He waved away her words. “I’m afraid I don’t have any fresh clothes for you.”

  Moira laughed. “I can take care of that easily enough.”

  “Well, then.” Lamontierre gave Bamber a brief hug, and left them alone.

  “He’s a good man,” Moira said.

  “Yes, he is,” Bamber acknowledged.

  By unspoken mutual consent, they returned to the living room, where they collapsed, exhausted, on the sofas.

  “What happens now?” Bamber said.

  “You help me find out exactly what Noah Perlis is using Bardem for.”

  “Really?” His entire body stiffened. “And how do you propose I do that?”

  “How about hacking into his computer?”

  “How easy for both of us that would be!” He shifted his position, perching himself on the edge of the cushion. “Unfortunately, it’s impossible. Noah uses a laptop. I know this because he has me send the updated versions of Bardem directly to it.”

  “Ugh!” Though Wi-Fi networks were notoriously porous, Black River’s was not. It had established its own worldwide network that was, as far as she knew, impenetrable. Of course, in theory no network was 100 percent secure, but it might take a platoon of hackers years to get through. Unless…

  “Wait a minute,” she said, suddenly excited. “If you had a laptop loaded with the Black River Wi-Fi encryption, would that help?”

  Bamber shrugged. “Probably, but how on earth are you going to get your hands on one?”

  “I used to work for Black River,” she said. “I cloned the ha

rd drive from my laptop before I sent it back.” She considered the remaining obstacle to this possible solution. “The only problem is every time a Black River agent leaves the company the encryption is updated.”

  “Doesn’t matter. If they’re using the same root algorithm, which I’m sure they are, I should be able to crack it.” He shook his head. “Not that it matters.” His voice had soured. “We can’t go back to our respective apartments, remember? Noah’s people are sure to be waiting for us in both places.”

  Moira stood, looked around for her coat. “Nevertheless,” she said, “I’ve got to try.”

  22

  ON THE ONE-HOUR FLIGHT from Seville to Madrid, Bourne realized that Tracy was no longer wearing her wedding band. When he asked her about it, she plucked it out of her handbag.

  “I usually wear it when I’m traveling to discourage unwanted conversations,” she said, “but there’s no reason to wear it now.”

  From Madrid they were booked on an Egyptair flight to Cairo. Once there, they were set to be taken to a military airfield just outside the Cairo International Airport, where a charter flight was waiting to fly them to Khartoum. She had already had her visas, and Don Hererra was kind enough to expedite Bourne’s—still under the name of Adam Stone, of course. He’d also provided Bourne with a satellite phone, because his cell would have only spotty coverage in Africa.

  As Tracy put the ring away, she brought her briefcase onto her lap. “I’m sorry about that call to Professor Zuñiga.”

  “Why? It wasn’t your fault.”

  She sighed. “I’m afraid it was.” With a sheepish look, she opened the briefcase. “I’m afraid I have a rather awful confession to make.” She took out the sheets Bourne had already seen: the X-rays of the Goya and the letter from the professor.

  As she handed them over, she said, “You see, I’d already met him. Those are the X-rays he took, that’s his letter authenticating the Goya. He was really very excited by the find—so much so, in fact, that he actually wept when I took it away from him.”

  Bourne turned his laser gaze on her. “Why didn’t you tell me this in the first place?”

  “I thought you were a rival. I was under strict orders to avoid a bidding war at all costs. So you can see why I didn’t want to reveal anything that would drive up the price.”

  “And later?”

  She sighed again, taking the sheets back and stowing them carefully away. “Later, it was already too late. I didn’t want to admit that I’d lied to you, especially after you’d saved us both at the corrida.”

  “That was my fault,” he said. “I should never have involved you in my dealings.”

  “It makes no difference now. As it turns out, I am involved.”

  That was hard to argue with. Still, he didn’t like her traveling with him to Khartoum, to the heart of Nikolai Yevsen’s arms empire, into what must certainly be the center of the web he’d been thrust into by the bullet that almost killed him. Khartoum was where Yevsen’s headquarters lay, at 779 El Gamhuria Avenue. According to Tracy, that was where Noah Perlis was going to accept the Goya. From what Don Hererra said it was also likely that Boris Karpov was there; last month, he’d told Bourne he’d just come back from Timbuktu, in Mali, and now Bourne had seen the photos, had heard the tape of Boris bartering a deal with Bud Halliday. Bourne still hadn’t figured out how he would handle a situation where a trusted friend was the man who was trying to kill him. The question of the Torturer still nagged at him. Why would Boris hire someone else when he could go after Bourne himself?

  “But speaking of lying,” Tracy said now, “why did you lie to me about why you really wanted to see Don Hererra?”

  “Would you have taken me to see him if I’d told you the truth?”

  “Probably not.” She smiled. “So now that we’ve admitted our mistakes, why don’t we start fresh?”

  “If you wish.”

  She gave him a pensive look. “Would you rather not?”

  He laughed. “All I meant was that lying comes easily to both of us.”

  It took a moment but color rose to her cheeks. “My line of work—and clearly yours—is infested with unscrupulous people, con men, swindlers, even violent criminals. Hardly surprising since, these days especially, artwork commands such astronomical prices. I’ve had to learn methods of protection against these dangers, one of which is becoming a convincing liar.”

  “I couldn’t have said it better myself,” Bourne said.

  They broke off the conversation as a flight attendant approached to ask them what they’d like to drink.

  When she’d brought what they’d ordered, Bourne said, “I have to wonder why you’re working for Noah Perlis.”

  She shrugged and sipped at her champagne. “He’s a paying client like any other.”

  “I wonder whether that’s the truth or a lie?”

  “It’s the truth. At this stage, I have nothing to gain by lying to you.”

  “Noah Perlis is a very dangerous individual who works for an ethically unsound company.”

  “Perhaps, but his money is as good as the next person’s. What Noah does is none of my business.”

  “It is if it brings you into the line of fire.”

  Tracy’s frown deepened. “But why should it? This is a straightforward job, pure and simple. I think you’re reacting to shadows that aren’t there.”

  When it came to Noah Perlis, no job was straightforward. Bourne had learned that from Moira. But he felt nothing would be served in continuing this topic with Tracy. If Noah was playing her, he’d find out soon enough. He was disturbed by the insertion of Noah Perlis’s name in the mix. Nikolai Yevsen was a top arms dealer, Dimitri Maslov, the head of the Kazanskaya mob; he could explain away even Boris’s tangential involvement. But what was Noah Perlis, a high-level operative of Black River, doing with these unsavory Russian criminals?

  “What is it, Adam, you look perplexed?”

  “I had no idea,” Bourne said, “that Noah Perlis was an art collector.”

  Tracy frowned. “Do you think I’m lying?”

  “Not necessarily,” he said. “But I’m willing to bet someone is.”

  Arkadin received the call from Triton right on schedule. The pestilential Noah might be arrogant, patronizing, disrespectful, possessive of his power and his influence, but at least he was punctual. A sad victory, really, because it was so minuscule to everyone but himself. He was a man for whom mystery was important enough that it had taken on mythic proportions. In the way Arkadin was a physical chameleon, having learned to remake his face, his gait, his very mien, depending on the role he was playing, so Noah was a vocal chameleon. He could be social and hearty, convincing and ingratiating, anything and everything in between, depending on the role he was playing. It took an actor, Arkadin thought, to mark another actor.

  “The president’s UN address had the desired effect,” Noah told Arkadin. Rather than listening, he was always telling Arkadin something. “Not only are the American allies on board, but most of the neutrals and even a couple of the normally antagonistic nations. You have eight hours to finalize the squad’s training. By then the plane will be on the landing strip, ready to take you to your drop point in the red zone. Are we clear?”

  “Never clearer,” Arkadin said automatically.

  He was no longer interested in the drivel Noah was spouting. He had his own plans to go over for the ten thousandth time, the crucial alteration to the joint American-Russian foray into Iran. He knew he’d only have one shot at victory, only one brief window while the chaos was at its height to implement his plan. Failure never entered his mind, because it would spell certain death for him and for every one of his men.

  He was fully prepared, unlike Mischa and Oserov when, on the fly, they’d created their straw man in an attempt to spring him from his basement prison in Nizhny Tagil.

  Word of the increasingly grisly and bizarre murders of Stas’s men had raced around Nizhny Tagil with such unstoppable virulence th

at it even filtered down to Arkadin, securely hidden like a rat in the basement of the gang’s headquarters. The news was disturbing to him, so much so, in fact, that it was the one thing that pried him from his dank and dreary haven. Who could be poaching on his territory? It was his job to make life for Stas’s gang a living hell; no one else had the right.

  So up he went into the thickly hellish atmosphere of Nizhny Tagil. Night shrouded him, along with a noxious ashy drizzle that did little to obscure the skyline’s fiery beacons: smokestacks belching ferrous sulfur into the air. Like church bells in some other, more salubrious town, the blinding searchlight beams emanating atop the walls of the high-security prisons that ringed the benighted city marked off time at regular, soul-destroying intervals.

  Arkadin still thought of it as the late Stas Kuzin’s gang, even though a moron named Lev Antonin had taken over by dint of brute force. Three men had died violently in his ascent to power—needlessly, as Arkadin well knew, because if you had a brain that worked it wasn’t difficult to figure out how to finesse your way to being Stas’s successor. Lev Antonin wasn’t one of those men, so in some sense he was the right man to lead Kuzin’s band of cutthroats, sadists, and homicidal dimwits.

  It was the death of the gang’s head enforcer, along with his family, that galvanized Arkadin: You didn’t need to be a rocket scientist to figure out that Lev Antonin was going to be the unknown killer’s next target. Whoever he was, he was going about his business in methodical fashion. With each victim he was moving up the ladder of the gang’s hierarchy, the surest way to instill fear even in those who considered themselves inured to fear.

  In the dead of night Arkadin approached Lev Antonin’s house, a large, unspeakably ugly two-story affair that equated brutal modern architecture with style. He spent a good forty minutes reconnoitering the block, checking out the house from all angles, calculating the risk factors involved in every vector of approach. All the security lights had been switched on; the stucco looked flat and two-dimensional in the blue-white glare.

  As it happened, there was a half-dead cherry tree on one side of the house. It was an elderly, twisted specimen, as if it were a proud but exhausted veteran of many wars. Halfway up its height, its intertwined branches made a Gordian knot sturdy enough to support several men. They were thick enough that the night caught in its web, repulsing in its sphere even the man-made glare.