Page 36 of The Bourne Dominion (Jason Bourne 9)

  Alone at his desk, the image of Skara frozen on the screen in front of him, he felt an existential coldness creep over him. Maggie: Her face was now a matter of colored pixels, informed by a series of 0s and 1s. This was Maggie, a mirage, a dream, an electronic fantasy. Who, then, was Skara? How had she so successfully penetrated the government’s vetting process, how had she pierced his own armor, how had she grabbed hold of his heart? Even now, with the shock of her revelations still running through him, his heart beat on to the rhythm she had set for it.

  “I have never loved anyone before you.”

  He did not know whether to believe what she said in the video.

  “Something happened when we met, a mysterious current went through me and changed me.”

  At last, at the end, had she told him the truth, or was that wishful thinking? Was her last message another lie, one to keep him from sending his people after her?

  “I’m on my final journey.” What the hell did she mean by that? The words tolled in his head like funeral bells, sending a shiver down his spine.

  His head hurt, his thoughts frantically pinwheeling, getting nowhere. He no longer knew truth from fiction because he wanted what she said to be the truth, wanted it so badly it left a metallic taste like blood in his mouth.

  She was an agent, that was clear enough, and a demonically clever one. But who was she working for, and how did she know about Indigo Ridge? His mind raced backward, reliving in reverse their short but intense time together. He thought of their picnic, of what he had revealed to her—a helluva lot less than she already knew, as it turned out. It had been her idea for him to dump security for Indigo Ridge into Danziger’s lap, though he had, of course, not revealed names or places.

  Why had she made that suggestion? He ran a hand across his eyes, but at once he snatched it away. He felt magnetized to her eyes, pulled toward the image on the screen. He wanted so badly to reach out and touch her—no, not merely touch her, he ached to hold her.

  She had protected him, she said. What did that mean? “Remember me when you are protecting Indigo Ridge.”

  And then he understood. She had tried to protect him by taking him off Indigo Ridge. But how had she known he was on it? The depth and accuracy of her intel boggled his mind. No wonder she had been able to fool the vetting process. He made a mental note to overhaul the entire process.

  A setup. He was meant to take a fall via a video taken in Room 916 that she would disseminate. Disgraced, he would be summarily removed from Indigo Ridge and, momentarily, at least, the security would be in turmoil.

  That’s when the people she was working for were going to strike!

  He lunged for the phone and jabbed the red button.

  “Remember me when you are protecting Indigo Ridge.”

  I will, he thought as he waited for the president to come on the line. I swear I will.

  The two men were on Bourne even as he was turning to face them. The third man came through the door unimpeded. The three men converged on Bourne. They were big, grizzly men who stank of beer and fried corn.

  They might be big, but they were undisciplined—street fighters, rough and tumble. They were partial to roundhouse punches with brass knuckles and swipes with switchblades. Ripping the mirror off the wall, Bourne slammed its edge into a brass knuckle. The mirror cracked into a dozen shards, and Bourne grabbed one of the larger ones, unmindful of how it sliced into his palm, and jabbed the pointed end into one of the men’s arms. The man reeled backward into one of his compatriots.

  The third man rushed at Bourne, knife held in front of him, expecting Bourne to retreat. Instead Bourne moved into the attack, grabbed the man’s knife arm, pulling him into him, and embedded the mirror shard in the man’s throat. Blood gouted as the man reeled backward. Bourne grabbed his shirtfront and shoved him into the two oncoming attackers. One man used his brass knuckles to sweep aside his dead compatriot while the other drew an ice pick and hacked down with it. Bourne, dodging, slipped past the attack. Three straight punches brought Ice Pick to his knees. Bourne kicked him in the face, and he toppled onto his side.

  The third man, the largest of the three, leapt on Bourne, bouncing Bourne’s head off the wall. Bourne went down and Knuckles dropped onto him. He swung, the brass knuckles connecting painfully with Bourne’s left shoulder. Bourne kicked him, at the same time twisting his torso, slamming his elbow into Knuckles’s midsection. Bourne threw Knuckles off him and, in a crouch, rushed him, slammed him into the wall, wrapped one arm around his head, and, joining his hands, jerked powerfully, breaking his neck.

  As Knuckles collapsed, Bourne took a moment to check out a hunch. Going through the men’s pockets revealed Colombian passports. This was a death squad sent by Roberto Corellos, who hadn’t forgotten his vow of revenge against Bourne. How they had picked up his trail here in Damascus was anyone’s guess. In any event, he had no time to try to find an answer—that would come later.

  He was about to exit the room via the shattered window when he turned back, scooped the ice pick off the floor, and, stepping over bodies and through shattered glass, made his way out of the room, down the fire escape, and into the teeming twilight.

  Damascus’s Jewish Quarter, a warren of narrow ancient streets, scarred and twisted by time and cruelty, was filled with abandoned houses cordoned off by thick chains and brass padlocks. The place had an unmistakable air of sorrow and suffering, two things with which Boris was well acquainted.

  The rendezvous with Semid Abdul-Qahhar wasn’t until 10 PM, but Boris thought he’d better get the lay of the land before he tried what the late, unlamented Viktor Cherkesov had described as impossible. As he wandered the streets surrounding the old synagogue, he thought back to the vacant lot that had been his home last night. He could have left Cherkesov alive after his former boss had coughed up all his secrets, but that would have been foolish—worse, it would have been the height of sentimentality. When a man in his profession became sentimental, it was time to quit. And yet, not too many actually did quit or retire. Ivan was the latest example. Really, Boris thought now as he turned a corner, it was astonishing that he had fooled everyone into believing that he had retired, including Boris himself. But then Ivan’s sincerity was always one of his most admired traits. It was, after all, what had led him to be trusted by all the grupperovka families. And he had never betrayed confidences to any of them. But now, it seemed brutally clear that he had betrayed every family’s confidences to Severus Domna.

  Boris shook his head. If he lived to the age of Methuselah he would never understand what could possibly motivate Ivan and then Cherkesov to turn against the motherland.

  He had now made three complete circuits of the streets surrounding the old synagogue occupied by Semid Abdul-Qahhar and had set the map of the Jewish Quarter firmly in his head. Though his stomach was grumbling fiercely, he felt so encrusted with grime that he headed for Hammam Nureddin, at Souk el-Bzouriyeh, in another section of the Medina.

  He paid his fee, hung his clothes in a wooden locker, and took a moment to study the key Cherkesov had picked up at the Mosque in Munich, which he was due in three hours to put into Semid Abdul-Qahhar’s grubby little hand. It was gold, small, and oddly shaped. It looked ancient, but when he scratched at it with his thumbnail a thin line of patina came off. He examined his nail. It wasn’t only the patina that had come off, but the gold color itself.

  He looked at the key in a whole new way. Gold was soft, so it wasn’t surprising that the key was made of a harder metal. Boris had speculated that the key was made of iron with an outer layer of gold. He turned the key over and over between his fingers. There was something vaguely familiar about its shape. It seemed unlikely that he had seen it before, nevertheless he could have sworn he had.

  Standing in front of his locker, naked save for the towel wrapped around his waist, he set his mind to thinking about where he might have seen the key—perhaps in a book, a magazine article, or even an intel report at FSB-2. Nothing surfaced.

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  He secured the locker with an old-fashioned key on a red cotton wrist bracelet. The color indicated that he had paid for the full menu. He padded to the first of the many showers, steam rooms, and skylit massage facilities. What did the mysterious key open, and what made it so valuable that Cherkesov had to deliver it in person? And why Cherkesov? Surely the Domna and Semid Abdul-Qahhar had any number of trustworthy agents to handle the task.

  These questions swirled through his mind like a school of fish as he showered, was scrubbed by an attendant, then padded into one of the great tiled steam rooms. He sat, a towel draped across his loins, bent forward, forearms on thighs, and tried to free his mind of questions, doubts, and the myriad responsibilities he faced. His head hung, his vision going out of focus as his muscles slowly relaxed. He could feel the exhaustion oozing out of him with his sweat. His overactive mind eventually calmed.

  Suddenly his head snapped up. He opened his left hand and stared at the key lying in the center of his palm. A laugh bubbled up. He laughed so hard his eyes began to tear. Now he understood why Cherkesov had been chosen to go to the Mosque in Munich, even though he despised Muslims.

  Twenty minutes later he was lying facedown on a massage table, having his muscles reduced to quivering jelly. He closed his eyes, listening to the slap of the masseur’s hands on his back, humming to himself as his right hand played with the thick wooden peg under the tabletop that kept the parts together.

  A shadow fell across his face and he opened his eyes and looked up to see Zachek, his face raw and red as just-butchered meat, swollen on one side. Below the neck, his body was pale as milk. His torso was completely devoid of scars. Boris remembered when his own body had looked like that.

  “Fancy meeting you here, Boris.” Zachek’s smile was warm and ingratiating. “I saw what you did to Cherkesov.” He clucked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “A sorry end for a man of such power. But then, power is fleeting and life is short, eh?”

  “You look like a fucking bureaucrat, Zachek. Go home.”

  Zachek’s smile was lopsided, as if stitched there by a bad tailor. “What did Cherkesov tell you?”

  “Nothing,” Boris said. “He had bigger balls than I had imagined.”

  The smile froze. “I don’t believe you, Boris.”

  “I’m not surprised. You’re out of your league here in the field.”

  Zachek’s eyes narrowed. “Aren’t we partners now?”

  Boris lay his cheek against his folded arms. He was getting a crick in his neck from keeping his head up. “You’re supposed to be in Moscow, tending to your part of our bargain.”

  “To be honest, I didn’t trust you would keep your end.”

  “But I have.”

  “Astonishing, really.” Zachek flicked the key dangling from Boris’s right wrist. “What was Cherkesov doing in Munich? Why did he come here?”

  “I told you—”

  Zachek leaned over Boris. “He was a mule, wasn’t he? He was bringing something here. Was that it?”

  “I have no idea.”

  Zachek lunged for the locker key. When Boris tried to slide off the table, the masseur held him in place.

  “What the hell is this?” Boris said.

  “You know what this is.” Leaning over him, Zachek slid the wristband off. He held up the key. “Let’s see what’s in your locker.”

  As Zachek sauntered off, Boris tried again to rise, but the masseur, leaning in with all his muscled bulk, held him even more firmly in place.

  He was not alone with the masseur for long. He saw another man enter the room. His face was triangular, vulpine, the black eyes never alighting on one thing for long. He was not a tall man, but he was nevertheless imposing. His body was squat and wide, chest and shoulders thick with matted hair like a bear’s pelt. Despite his lack of uniform, Boris recognized him immediately.

  He forced a smile onto his face as the man approached him. “Konstantin Lavrentiy Beria, at last we meet.”

  30

  IN THE LONG Damascene twilight, Bourne walked down Straight Street, the main artery of Bab Touma, the oldest section of the Medina. Not knowing where it might be safe, he dug out the slip of paper Rebeka had given him and called her. He heard the pleasure in her voice when he identified himself.

  “I live in an alley off Haret Al-Azzarieh,” Rebeka said. “It’s very near the old Jewish synagogue, right around the corner, in fact. I’ll come down to meet you, otherwise, finding me the first time is pretty much impossible.”

  Bourne liked that, and told her so. He saw her at the head of Haret Al-Azzarieh, leaning against a crumbling brick wall that might have been a thousand years old. She was dressed in woven leather sandals, a long flowing cotton dress, and a brightly colored long-sleeved shirt in the Syrian style. She seemed perfectly at ease.

  “Are you hungry?” she asked, just as if they were old friends. “I know a small place with excellent food not far from here.”

  Bourne nodded, and they wended their way down crumbling alleys and narrow streets. Every city in the Middle East had a pervasive smell. In Tunis it was jasmine, in Fez, cumin; here in Damascus it was coffee mingled with cardmom.

  “What happened to your hotel reservation?”

  “The room was unacceptable.”

  “There’s no shortage of hotels in Damascus.”

  “But none as impossible to locate as your apartment.”

  She smiled as if she knew he wasn’t telling the truth. Perhaps she believed that he was simply taken with her; if so, he had no intention of setting her straight. On the other hand he was curious about her. She did not strike him as a typical flight attendant: slightly bored, reserved, interested in her passengers for only as long as they were on her plane.

  Walking along the streets of the Medina was like opening a pack of Advent cards. In each window, within each doorway, were a staggering array of artisans working in glass, silk, pottery, and upholstery. There were bakers and halal butchers, flower arrangers and tailors, basket weavers and dyers. On the street itself were vendors selling everything from steaming cups of thick Turkish coffee to cardamom ice cream dipped in almonds. Then there were the flamboyant water sellers, dressed in the ornate Ottoman style of the Umayyad Caliphate. The Umayyad caliphs had made Syria their home, even while their fierce armies were expanding their empire east to Baghdad and north across the Mediterranean into Spanish Andalusia.

  When Bourne remarked on the number of Iraqi accents he was hearing, Rebeka said, “For some years the Medina was declining in population. Iraqis—Sunni and Christian alike—fleeing the long war changed all that. Now the Old City is packed.”

  The restaurant she took him to was tucked into an outdoor patio, jam-packed, and full of flavorsome odors. Vines climbed the walls and filigreed iron and brass lamps threw moonbeams of light across the tables and checkered tile floor. Niches in the black and ocher walls contained brightly colored mosaics of Ottoman sultans and Umayyad warriors.

  The rotund chef bustled out from the kitchen. “Marhaba,” he said.

  “Marhabtayn,” Rebeka replied.

  He shook Bourne’s hand and said something Bourne couldn’t hear over the hubbub.

  After they were seated, she said, “No menus. Baltasar will make us special dishes, probably farooj, because he knows it’s my favorite. Do you know what this is?”

  “Chicken with chilies and onions,” Bourne said.

  A plate of stuffed grape leaves was delivered to their table. Rebeka ordered mate, an Argentinian drink that had recently become beloved by many Syrians.

  “So,” Bourne said as they ate, “why do you live in Bab Touma?”

  Rebeka licked olive oil off the fingertips of her right hand. “The history of the Jews is here. Of course there’s history everywhere in the Medina, but the history of the Jews is the most evocative—stalwart, sorrowful, brave.”

  “You must be sorry they’re mostly gone.”

  “I am, yes.”

  The mate appeare

d, a waiter pouring the beverage for them both. Bourne ignored it, waiting for it to cool, but Rebeka drank it hot through a silver straw.

  “It’s sad to see all the ruins,” Bourne said, “the abandoned buildings, padlocked and dark. The synagogue most of all.”

  “Oh, the synagogue, at least, is no longer empty. It’s been renovated recently.”

  “And worship has begun again?”

  “There’s an Arab living there now, not full-time, but still…” She shook her head. “Incredible, isn’t it?”

  “That’s sometimes the end of things,” Bourne said. “Sad and ironic.”

  She refilled her cup and shook her head again. “It shouldn’t be that way. It mustn’t.”

  The empty plate was whisked away, replaced by another piled with falafel.

  “Tell me about the synagogue. Who lives there now?”

  Rebeka frowned. “No one knows, really. At least, no one’s saying. But then this city thrives on secrets.”

  “You live near enough. You must have seen the Arab coming and going.”

  She smiled, tilting her head so her eyes caught the light. “Why are you so interested in the synagogue?”

  “I have business with the Arab who lives there.”

  She put down her cup. “You know his name?”

  “I do.”

  “What is it?”

  He popped a falafel ball into his mouth. “Why are you so interested in him?”

  Her laugh was like velvet. “You and I have a mutual interest.”

  “So it would seem.” Bourne swallowed some mate. “His name is Semid Abdul-Qahhar.”

  “Really? He’s rather famous, isn’t he?”

  “In certain circles, yes, he is.”

  They looked at each other, and Bourne saw knowledge in her eyes that she had not spoken of. The farooj came, steaming and looking luscious. The babble of voices around them seemed to have built into a crescendo, forcing them to lean across the table to hear each other.

  “Semid Abdul-Qahhar is a terrorist,” Rebeka said, “though he pretends to be otherwise.”