Page 24 of The Bourne Dominion (Jason Bourne 9)

  The slam of the front door sent Don Fernando hurrying out of the living room.

  Kaja stood very close to Bourne, staring at their reflections in the French doors. Then she turned the lever and stepped outside. Bourne followed her. It was chilly and she shivered a little.

  “Let’s go back inside,” he said, but she made no move.

  The wind lifted her hair. It was odd to see her as a blonde, as she really was. Then Bourne realized that for a very long time no one had seen him as he really was, not even Moira. He was heavily defended, even from himself. Was that what he wanted? he wondered. Or were his defenses necessary in order for him to keep going? Though he couldn’t remember it, he was absolutely certain there had been a time he hadn’t felt the need to be like this.

  “I noticed Skara’s peculiarities early on,” Kaja said. Her arms were wrapped around herself. “There was no help for her. None at all. She freaked our mother out.”

  “I thought you said you were the black sheep of the family.”

  “I lied.” She gave him a wan smile. “Skara taught me. She said she had no choice, that in order to live a more or less normal school life, all her personalities had learned to lie convincingly.”

  “It must have been difficult for you,” Bourne said.

  “At first. I used to have nightmares about her turning into some kind of monster—a vampire or a succubus.” She turned to him. “But what stumped me was where the personalities went when they were dormant. And how did they cycle? By what mechanism was it decided which personality should pop up next?”

  “Did you ever get answers?”

  “Skara had no idea. She said it was like being on a roller-coaster ride that never ended.”

  “Did you ever worry that the same thing would happen to you?”

  “All the time.” Kaja shuddered. “Did you ever see High Noon? It’s like that. I’m waiting for the train with the killer to come.”

  The president of the United States picked up the phone and called his securities broker. “Bob, gimme a quote on NeoDyme.”

  “Sixty-seven and a quarter,” his broker said.

  “What?” The president sat up straight. “It came at twenty-three, if I remember right, and that was, what? Three days ago?”

  “There’s been a shitload of buying, sir,” Bob said. “The stock has gone vertical.”

  The president closed his eyes and rubbed his temples. “Jesus, I don’t know.”

  “If you don’t buy now, sir, you’ll kick yourself when it breaches a hundred.”

  “Okay, buy five hundred now through the usual shell corp, and another five when it pulls back to… what would be reasonable?”

  “With any other stock, I’d say it’d retrace a third, sir. But with NeoDyme, well, it’s acting like an IPO from the go-go Internet days. Simply astounding. Hold on.”

  The president could hear Bob working his keyboard. “I mean, every day since it came it’s been up on heavy volume. It might pull back ten per, but honestly I wouldn’t bet on a deeper dip.”

  “Then put the order in for the second five at sixty.”

  “Done,” Bob said. “Anything else, sir?”

  “Nothing else matters,” the president said sourly and hung up.

  His phone buzzed almost immediately. Checking his watch, he saw that he had seven minutes to manage this call and get to the john to pee before his next briefing. Sighing, he picked up the receiver.

  “Roy FitzWilliams for you, sir.”

  “Put him on,” the president said. The line clicked several times, then he said, “Fitz, d’you have an answer for me?”

  “I think I do, sir,” FitzWilliams said from his office in Indigo Ridge.

  “Tell me you found a method to get the rare earths out of the ground more quickly.”

  “I wish that were so, sir, but I think I’ve found the next best thing. As you know, all computer motherboards use rare earths. I think if we start a government-wide recycling program immediately, we might be able to scrape together enough of the elements to get the DoD its first weapons order in, say, eighteen months.”

  “Eighteen months!” The president literally sprang out of his chair. “The Joint Chiefs tell me DoD needed the first shipment yesterday, but it will settle for eight months.”

  “Eighteen is the best I can do,” FitzWilliams said, “unless the government makes wholesale upgrades on all its computers immediately.”

  Good Lord, the president thought, trying to calculate the cost. The Congressional Oversight Committees will have my ass in a sling. He knew he was between a rock and a hard place.

  “I’ll see what I can do, Fitz,” he said, “but you have to get Indigo Ridge up and running ASAP.”

  “I’ll go to the NeoDyme board and see about a massive hiring initiative.”

  The president grunted. “With the stock on a rocket ride to the moon money won’t be a problem.”

  FitzWilliams laughed. “Yes, sir. My fortune is already made.”

  Don Fernando reappeared. “Essai has returned, Jason, and is asking for you. He’s in the library. It’s on the east side of the house. Meanwhile, Kaja and I will go prepare dinner.”

  Bourne crossed the living room, went down a side hallway to the library. It was a square room, light and airy, unlike most libraries. A number of bookcases lined the walls on either side of the double windows. The room was furnished with a scattering of comfortable-looking chairs and throw pillows in Moroccan-patterned fabrics.

  Jalal Essai was standing in the center of the room, his fingers steepled in front of him. He turned just as Bourne stepped into the room.

  As usual, his mood was unreadable. “I imagine you have a number of questions to ask me.” He gestured to a pair of high-backed wing chairs. “Why not be comfortable while we talk?”

  The two men sat, facing each other.

  Bourne said, “Essai, there’s no point in talking if you continue to lie to me.”

  Essai folded his hands in his lap. He appeared completely at ease. “Agreed.”

  “Are you still working for Severus Domna?”

  “I am not; I haven’t for some time. I did not lie about that.”

  “And that sad tale about your daughter?”

  “Unfortunately, also true.” Essai lifted a forefinger. “But I did not tell you the whole story. She was killed, yes, but it wasn’t by agents of the Domna. They would never have condoned such a thing.” He took a breath and slowly exhaled. “My daughter was murdered by agents of Semid Abdul-Qahhar.” He cocked his head. “You have heard of this man?”

  Bourne nodded. “He’s the leader of the Mosque in Munich.”

  “Indeed.” He leaned forward slightly, a certain tension informing his torso. “It was Abdul-Qahhar who took advantage of circumstances to forge a deal with Benjamin El-Arian.”

  “What circumstances?”

  “Ah, now we arrive at the crux of the matter.” Essai jerked his head. “That woman in there. She told you her story?”

  Bourne nodded.

  “Her father is the key to the mystery of why the Domna allowed Abdul-Qahhar to invade their precincts.”

  “It wasn’t a deal?”

  “Oh, yes, but the question is what kind of deal,” Essai said. “The vulnerability the Domna felt when your old organization, Treadstone, targeted them led El-Arian to make his deal with the Mosque.”

  Bourne said nothing. This was the second time he’d heard about the Domna’s sense of vulnerability. The problem was he simply didn’t believe it. Either Essai was lying to him yet again, or Essai truly didn’t know the real reason Semid Abdul-Qahhar had been welcomed into the organization. What bothered Bourne the most was that from all he had been able to find out, the Domna had been set up to bridge the cultural and religious gap between East and West—a noble attempt to teach the two cultures to live in peace with each other. Why, then, would Semid Abdul-Qahhar, an Arab extremist masquerading as a benign Muslim, be allowed to upset Severus Domna’s carefully calibrated bala

nce? Nothing added up. Bourne stared hard at Essai. Once again he was at a loss to classify the man as friend or enemy.

  “You want to know who Christien Norén worked for, is that it?”

  “Everyone in this house wants to know,” Essai said, leaning back. “We thought Kaja would know, or at least be able to give us some clue, which is why Don Fernando wanted me to fetch her along with Vegas.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me all this back in Colombia?”

  “Her father went after your old boss. Word is the two of you were close. I couldn’t be sure you’d do what needed to be done if you knew who she really was.”

  This explanation sounded logical, and possibly it was true, but with Essai you never knew. Don Fernando had warned him about Essai’s pathological lying, not that Bourne hadn’t already suspected as much. On the other hand, it was helpful to get confirmation of his suspicion.

  “And if I hadn’t come along?”

  Essai shrugged. “I was negotiating with Roberto Corellos to help me when you fell into my life like a gift from Allah.” He smiled. “You make a habit of it.” His hand briefly lifted and fell. “But believe me, that’s all water under the bridge.”

  Holding a conversation with Essai was an exhausting experience, listening to him and trying to ferret out what he was really saying—or, more often, not saying. “Unfortunately, none of this brings us any closer to discovering what the Domna is up to.”

  “There’s something else.” He sat forward again and, as he did so, lowered his voice. “Benjamin El-Arian has been taking secret trips to Damascus. I discovered their existence purely by accident, through, of all people, Estevan Vegas. Going through Estevan’s bills of lading, I discovered a discrepancy in moneys that I traced to a round-trip first-class ticket from Paris to Damascus. Digging further, I turned up El-Arian’s name, along with the fact that this wasn’t his first trip to Damascus. El-Arian was paying for the trips by skimming off profits from the exports filtered through the oil fields in Colombia that Vegas manages for Don Fernando.”

  “Any idea what El-Arian was doing in Damascus?”

  Essai shook his head. “In that regard, I’ve hit a dead end. But I think it has something to do with the group Christien Norén worked for.”

  “That makes no sense,” Bourne said. “The men who came after Kaja and her sisters are Russian.”

  Essai rose. “Nevertheless, from what little my contacts in Damascus could glean, I think there’s a connection.”

  Bourne wondered why Essai was so keen on finding out the truth about Christien Norén’s affiliation. Then, like a flash of lightning, the answer came to him. Essai didn’t believe the story about how El-Arian had come to make a deal with the Mosque, either. He was as skeptical as Bourne himself. He was convinced that the true reason would become apparent only when the mystery of Christien Norén was solved.

  “Have you told Don Fernando any of this?”

  Essai gave him an enigmatic smile. “Only you and I know.”

  Boris stood very still. The alley stank of fish and stale frying oil. The noise of the traffic was like a hive of angry wasps. Zachek sauntered up as if he didn’t have a care in the world. His eyes were on Karpov all the time. He looked dapper in a long black cashmere coat, black kidskin gloves, and mirror-finish brogues with soles so thick Boris was certain they must contain a tongue of steel. This was an old trick dating back to the KGB: the steel useful for vicious stomping sessions. Some things, Boris thought, never went out of style, even among the Internet generation.

  When Zachek came up to where the two men stood at the mouth of the alley, he said, “Fuck, Karpov, maybe you wouldn’t make such a good mentor, after all.”

  Boris gestured with his chin. “Why not ask your comrade with a face full of metal for his opinion?”

  Zachek opened his mouth, threw his head back, and laughed. “You old guys,” he said.

  That was when Boris jammed his right elbow into the gunman’s Adam’s apple. At the same time, he shoved the gun away with his left hand. It went off, deafening all three of them. Boris shot the gunman point-blank with the Tokarev and the man arched back and slammed against the brick wall, where he left a mealy-looking Rorschach blood-blot.

  Zachek was just starting to come out of shock when Boris grabbed him by the back of his soft, pelt-like collar and smashed his face into the blood-blot.

  “What do you see there, Zachek, eh? Tell me, you little prick.” Boris dragged Zachek back. He switched to an upper-class-British–accented English. “I say Zachek, old bean, you’ve gotten blood all over your five-thousand-dollar cashmere overcoat. Not to mention those shiny shoes. What are they? John Lobb?”

  Zachek, clearly out of ideas, tried to kick Boris with one of his steel-soled shoes, but Karpov danced out of the way. “Uh-uh,” he said, delivering a mighty slap to the back of Zachek’s head. “Clearly, you need some lessons in how to behave.”

  Zachek had given up trying to extricate himself from Karpov’s grip and was wiping the blood off his face. He had a split upper lip and the flesh over his right eye was puffed up, rapidly turning a deep purple-blue.

  Boris shook him until his teeth rattled. “Any more of your SVR pals around?”

  Zachek shook his head.

  “Answer me when I speak to you!” he ordered.

  “There… was just the three of us.”

  “You figured that was more than enough to handle an old man like me, right, little prick? Don’t shake your head, I know exactly what’s in that pea brain of yours.”

  “You… you’ve got it all wrong. Oh shit.” Zachek snorted a clot of blood out of his nose. It stuck on the wall in the middle of the widening blot.

  “Okay, little prick, tell me how I’m wrong.” He shoved the Tokarev’s muzzle into the soft flesh where Zachek’s lower jaw met his neck. “But if I don’t like your answer—boom!”

  “I… I need to sit down.” Zachek was hyperventilating. Beneath the smears of blood, his face looked pale.

  Boris dragged him back down the alley, all the way to the other end, where a number of wooden crates that smelled of fresh oranges were stacked. Zachek collapsed gratefully onto one and sat slumped over, his hands crossed over his head, as if he was expecting Boris to beat him senseless.

  There was less vehicular traffic beyond this end of the alley, but the foot traffic was heavy. Luckily, it was rush hour. Everyone was hurrying home, lost in their own thoughts; no one so much as glanced into the alley. Nevertheless, Boris didn’t want to stay there any longer than he had to.

  “Pull yourself together, Zachek, and tell me what you have to say.”

  Zachek gave a little shudder, pulled his stained cashmere coat more tightly around himself, and said, “You think we set that ambush for you and the woman.”

  “Don’t pretend you don’t know who she was.”

  “The fact is I don’t.” Zachek’s ashen face looked like a battlefield. The man was spent. “I didn’t come here following you. I didn’t set that ambush, that’s what I was trying to tell you in the crowd back there.”

  Boris remembered Zachek shouting something at him, but in the roar of the mob and the screams of police sirens, he hadn’t been able to hear a word.

  “You’re making no sense,” Boris said. “You have precisely ten seconds to rectify that.”

  Zachek flinched. “Beria sent me here to keep an eye on Cherkesov.”

  All the blood drained out of Boris’s face. “Viktor is here?”

  Zachek nodded. “I had no knowledge of you being in Munich until I saw you in the street. Believe me, I was as shocked to see you as you were to see me.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Boris said.

  Zachek shrugged. “So, what can I expect?”

  “Give me a reason.”

  Zachek’s nose had begun to bleed and he tipped his head back. “I can get you an interview inside the Mosque.”

  “Tell me.”

  Zachek closed his eyes. “As easy as that? No, I don’

t think so. I want your word that I get out of this alive.”

  Boris watched Zachek’s body language, which he had found a virtually foolproof method of discovering whether or not a person was lying.

  “The only way you get out of this alley alive is if you become my eyes and ears in SVR.”

  “You want me to spy on Beria? If he finds out he’ll kill me.”

  Boris shrugged. “Make sure he doesn’t find out. For a smart little prick like you that shouldn’t be difficult.”

  “You don’t know Beria,” Zachek said sourly.

  Boris grinned. “That’s why I have you.”

  Zachek looked up at him as he licked his bruised and swollen lips. His right eye was almost completely closed. Boris crossed his arms over his barrel chest. “It seems, little prick, that we need each other.”

  Zachek rested his head against the building wall. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t call me that.”

  “I’d appreciate some answers. Are you in or out?”

  Zachek took a shuddering breath. “It looks as if you’ll be mentoring me, after all.”

  Boris grunted. “If you didn’t set the ambush, who did?”

  “Who knew you were coming to Munich?”

  “No one.”

  “Then ‘no one’ set the ambush.” Zachek’s lips twitched in a parody of a smile. “But of course, that’s not possible.”

  Of course it isn’t, Boris thought. All at once he had trouble breathing.

  Zachek must have seen the change on his face because he said, “Life’s more complicated than you thought, eh, General?”

  This time, could the little prick be right? Boris wondered. But it’s impossible. Absolutely unthinkable. Because there was only one other person who knew he was going to Munich: his old and trusted friend Ivan Volkin.

  21

  CHRISTOPHER HENDRICKS FOUND any face-to-face with M. Errol Danziger thoroughly unpleasant, but he had every confidence that this time would be different.

  Lieutenant R. Simmons Reade, Danziger’s sycophantic pilot fish, appeared first. He was a thin, weasel-eyed individual with a contemptuous demeanor and the manners of a demonic marine drill sergeant. The two spent so much time together that, behind their backs, they were known as Edgar and Clyde, a cutting reference to J. Edgar Hoover and Clyde Tolson, the Beltway’s most infamous closeted gays.