Page 4 of The Bourne Retribution (Jason Bourne 11)

  Turning from the window, she went through her father’s bedroom, opening closets and drawers, peering in, touching nothing, drifting from one intimate item to another like a wraith. And indeed, she felt like a ghost as she descended the stairs, silent as a breeze, returning to the living room where Wendell Marsh sat drinking strong black espresso, waiting patiently for her.

  “The house seems odd, doesn’t it,” he said, “without him in it?”

  Maricruz did not think so, not really. To her way of thinking, the house was always something of a museum; now it was fulfilling its purpose.

  “Sit,” Marsh said, indicating a chair beside the cocktail table. “Would you like an espresso, a beer, something stronger?”

  Maricruz declined everything. Perversely, she resented the fact that Marsh was more familiar with the house than she was. It wasn’t his house, she thought. It would never be his house.

  “Let’s get on with it, Wendell.”

  He inclined his head. “As you wish.” He set out three copies of half a dozen documents and produced a pen from his inside breast pocket.

  “You seem pale, Wendell. Are you feeling ill?”

  He looked up and smiled wanly, obliged to wipe his forehead and the back of his neck with a linen handkerchief. “You know me, Maricruz. I never was a big fan of Mexico. And especially these days when the gutters are running red with blood and people are being separated from their heads—” He broke off, shuddering. “My apologies. This is your country.”

  “Well, it was.” She took up the first set of papers but did not look at it. “Where is my father’s cook, Maria-Elena?”

  “Murdered, it would seem. Poisoned.”

  These people, Maricruz thought. The last vestige of civilization has been ground into Mexico’s bloodstained earth. “And her daughter?” she said. “She did have a daughter?”

  “Yes. The girl seems to have fallen off the face of the earth.”

  “No one can do that these days.”

  “Nevertheless…” Marsh spread his hands in a gesture of helplessness.

  “Have you spent any time or resources in looking for her?”

  He gestured at the papers spread out on the table. “I’ve had more important matters to attend to.”

  Maricruz nodded absently, at last glanced down at the sheaf she was holding. “Shall we begin?” She shuffled some pages, then paused to look up at Marsh, who waited patiently for, it seemed to her, the objections she was sure to voice.

  “Who the hell is Gavin Royce?”

  “He’s the new CEO of SteelTrap.”

  “Not until I give my approval.”

  “He’s your father’s handpicked successor.”

  “I don’t know him. I’ve never even met him.”

  “For the last eight years, he’s been running SteelTrap’s highly lucrative European operations. He knows the business inside and out, and he’s successful.”

  “Even so, he’s been based in London. Europeans do business differently than my father did.”

  “As I said, Gavin had your father’s trust.”

  “Am I or am I not the executrix of Maceo Encarnación’s estate?”

  “Indeed you are,” Marsh acknowledged. “But you’ve been in China for some time. In this, as in many matters of the estate, you must trust me, Maricruz.”

  She stared at Marsh—his open face, his thick body, his immaculately tailored suit. “You had my father’s trust,” she said at length. “Now you must earn mine.”

  Something hard entered Marsh’s amiable expression; his eyes grew dark. “What would you have me do?” These words seemed forced out of him, as if by a punch to the solar plexus.

  “I’ll talk to Royce myself. If I think he’s right for the job, offer him an eighteen-month contract.”

  For a moment Marsh seemed bewildered. “Eighteen months? He’ll never go for that.”

  “He will,” she said, “if he wants the job.”

  “But he’s—For God’s sake, Maricruz, be reasonable, the man is doing mammoth—He’s been working twenty-hour days ever since your father’s death.”

  “Then offer him incremental overrides tied to the success of the business. Use your powers of persuasion. Incentivize him, Wendell.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  “I trust you’ll do better than that.” She frowned. “I assume Royce doesn’t know about the other part of my father’s affairs.”

  “God, no. Your father was meticulous in keeping SteelTrap separate.”

  “Good enough.” Her eyes flicked down to the next document, scanning the dense paragraphs of legalese. “Now, what about these SteelTrap annual reports? Tell me what they’re really saying.”

  6

  As he crossed the arrivals hall, after passing through immigration as Lawrence Davidoff, Bourne paused at a kiosk to buy a pack of gum. It was a Chinese brand, a mix of obscure herbs that, according to the print on the pack, was guaranteed to clear the liver of impurities. Taking out a stick, Bourne began to chew, the bitter, acrid taste like burnt peat moss. When he threw away the wrapper, he also tossed out Davidoff’s passport.

  Outside in the heat and humidity, he joined a queue of people waiting for taxis. As he passed close to one, he dropped his pack of gum. Bending down to retrieve it, he removed the wad of gum from his mouth, pressed the Mossad tracking device into it, then affixed the wad to the undercarriage of the taxi.

  Rising, he resumed his spot in the queue and, soon enough, was on his way into the city.

  Bourne remembered Shanghai as if from a dream. Walking its streets, packed and teeming with riotous color and exotic smells, he could feel amnesiac memories shifting like frightening unseen beasts sunk in the depths of his unconscious, as if reacting to a sight or a smell.

  The air was densely perfumed with shouted Shanghainese, a language wholly different from either the broader, almost languid Cantonese or the spiky, more formal Mandarin. A dialect of Northern Wu Chinese, it used to be largely unintelligible to inhabitants of Beijing and its surrounds. Nowadays, however, the younger entrepreneurial inhabitants of Shanghai often peppered their speech with Mandarin terms. In this largest of China’s cities, the dialect among its over twenty-three million inhabitants had thus become the lingua franca of commerce, of quick wit, of youthful spirit, of the future.

  Once English and Dutch trading houses lined the Bund, the city’s famed harborside. Now beyond the promenade rose architectural marvels that formed the futuristic skyline of a post-modern city straight out of a science-fiction film. Bourne took public transportation to the edge of the old French Concession, then walked to Yu Yuan Road. The restaurant, a beautifully restored three-story villa, had been set for his rendezvous with Wei-Wei, the Director’s agent in place.

  Bourne was shown to the table reserved for Wei-Wei. It was on the second-floor veranda, which ran the entire length of the villa. From there he overlooked the tiny, immaculate garden, gently shaded by its central persimmon tree, and could see everyone who entered or exited the restaurant.

  While he waited, he ordered smoked carp and slices of pork belly in a Shanghainese sauce that promised to be both pungent and slightly sweet.

  He was almost finished with his meal when the hostess arrived, apologized profusely for interrupting his lunch, and with an elegant bow handed him a small, square envelope. Bourne looked around, noted nothing untoward, and slit open the envelope. On a small sheet of paper, folded in half, was a hastily written note.

  Detained unavoidably by business. Please come to my apartment. There followed an address telling Bourne that Wei-Wei lived in an area of the large Huangpu district, a warren of tumbledown buildings, across the river from the Bund, whose shoulders seemed the only thing keeping their neighbors from crumbling into rubble.

  Finished with his meal, Bourne threw some bills onto the table and left. On his way down the narrow wooden stairs to the garden entrance, he spotted a sleek-looking Shanghainese man in a gray suit, polished loafers, and an unnatural

interest in him. The Shanghainese had been in the garden, a pot of tea on the small octagonal table at which he sat. Bourne had noticed him because he never took a sip of the tea the waitress had poured for him. When he wasn’t looking at Bourne out of the corner of his eye, he was contemplating his nails, which were shining as if lacquered.

  The man rose just after Bourne walked past and went languorously after him as if he had all the time in the world. Bourne headed east, toward the rustling treetops of Zhongshan Park. He passed by the brilliant flower displays and under the ornate triple arches. When he entered the park the modern city seemed to fade away, replaced by graceful tree-lined walks, where couples and the elderly strolled; playful fountains, filled with giant colored fish spouting water, and human-size bubbles, surrounded by happy children; and dynastic pavilions, rising like storks from placid lakes.

  Bourne headed toward the largest of the pavilions, drifting into the crowds of tour groups. Attaching himself to a group of Swedes, he began talking to two sisters, pointing out the peculiarities of the families who had once lived in pavilions like these. The girls were soon giggling and asking for more stories. By this time, Bourne had come to the attention of the girls’ parents. He introduced himself as a visiting professor of comparative linguistics, and proceeded to enchant the family by speaking in Shanghainese and then translating what he had said into Swedish and then English.

  When the father asked Bourne to join the family for lunch, he thanked him but said he had an important appointment to get to.

  “But,” he went on, “you could do me a small favor.”

  “Of course,” the father said.

  “You see that suit over there with the slicked-back hair?” Bourne said. “He’s been following me all morning. He’s my girlfriend’s brother. He doesn’t want me dating his sister simply because I’m a Westerner, and I’m concerned he plans to do me some harm.”

  The father nodded sagely. “I’ve read about the ultra-conservative faction here.”

  “The Public Security Bureau.”

  “Right. Total xenophobes, aren’t they?”

  “Exactly,” Bourne said. “Now I wonder if you’d help me lose him so I can meet with my girlfriend in peace.”

  “Ah!” The father’s face broke out into a wide grin. “Your important appointment.” He tapped his thick forefinger against the side of his nose. “I understand a thousand percent.” His eyes twinkled. “You have a plan, yes?”

  “I do,” Bourne said. “It involves all of you.”

  “Oh, Father, can we, can we?” the girls pleaded.

  Their father, chuckling, pulled affectionately at their ears. “Helping true love is always a pleasure.” He turned to Bourne. “Tell us what we have to do.”

  From a discreet distance, Wu Lin watched Bourne talking to the Swedish family. The fact that they were all laughing confused him. Surely this wasn’t a professional rendezvous, not with children present. At one point, he wondered whether he was following the right foreigner, since they so often looked disconcertingly alike, but checking the photo sent to him on his mobile confirmed he did, indeed, have the right man.

  Now Bourne had taken the hands of the two girls, who were leading him deeper into the pavilion. The mother and father trailed behind, blocking Wu Lin’s view of his quarry. Spurred by a twinge of anxiety, he hurried forward, slipping into the current of tourists swirling through the myriad rooms and verandas, which branched and rebranched like the limbs of an ancient tree.

  Within moments he caught up with the mother and father, who were still laughing, no doubt at something their daughters said. Relieved to have picked them up so quickly, Wu Lin strolled after them, in no hurry now that he had the family in view.

  But ten minutes later, in another section of the pavilion, having realized that he hadn’t actually seen Bourne or the girls during that time, he pushed ahead. Coming up on the left flank of the mother and father, he discovered, to his dismay, that neither the girls nor Bourne were anywhere in sight.

  Rushing past them, he glimpsed the girls through a forest of legs, sitting cross-legged, side by side on the edge of one of the far verandas. There was no sign of Bourne. The mother and father joined their children, crouched down, speaking in a language Wu Lin could not understand.

  With a string of curses, Wu Lin broke away from the family, making his way through the previously unexplored sections of the pavilion. His progress was slow, constantly impeded by the press of people, shuffling like cattle through the endless rooms.

  Bourne watched his Shanghainese tail searching in vain for him. He could have exited the pavilion, and the park itself, leaving him lost and bewildered, but he had another goal in mind. The quarry had decided to become the hunter, tailing the man back to the people who had sent him. This was essential, because someone had latched onto him almost as soon as he had arrived in Shanghai. What made this tail even more disturbing was that only the Director, Ophir, and a select number of operatives in the Mossad legends department knew he had been sent here.

  For the next thirty minutes Bourne tailed the Shanghainese around the pavilion, and then in concentric circles radiating out through the park, moving farther and farther away from the pavilion. This methodical search pattern proved the man was a professional, which in China meant, more than likely, a federal agency.

  This was not a promising start to his mission, and Bourne had to stifle the urge to bring the man in off the street and interrogate him about his identity and that of his employer. In another country he might have done just that. But this was China. Here, a low profile meant no profile at all. Anything that would draw attention to himself was out of the question.

  The Shanghainese stopped at a crosswalk and checked his watch. Abruptly, he hurried off to the southwest. Bourne followed him for another fifteen or twenty minutes. The traffic was almost at a standstill; at this time of the day traveling on foot was the best way to get across town.

  Bourne watched from across the street as the Shanghainese paused in front of a school, went up the steps just as a spate of kids, all dressed identically, came trooping out the doors. One of them, obviously the man’s son, came up to him. He was accompanied by a teacher or an administrator—it was impossible to tell which. Bourne’s tail dismissed his son to play with his friends while he and the official spoke briefly. The official’s serious face grew darker the longer Bourne’s tail spoke. Then he nodded curtly, in obvious dismissal. Bourne’s tail called to his son and, together, the two went down the steps and walked away.

  In preparation for the official returning inside the school, Bourne crossed the street in time to see a gleaming white Mercedes sedan pull up to the curb. As if jabbed with a live electrical wire, the official hurried down the steps.

  From his angle, Bourne could see the smoked glass of the rear window slide down. The official bent down to speak to the car’s inhabitant. Bourne, changing his angle of view, peered into the interior. He recognized the man the school official was talking with, and a shock went through him. It was Colonel Sun.

  Colonel Sun was not, at the moment, a happy man.

  “Get in the car,” he snapped at Go Han. “Bent over like that you’re impersonating a street urchin.”

  The middle school teacher opened the door and dutifully slid in beside Colonel Sun.

  “How did Wu Lin lose Bourne?”

  “I don’t know, Colonel.” Go Han hung his head. “Bourne somehow ingratiated himself with a family of tourists. They shielded him as he made his escape.”

  Colonel Sun grunted as he sat back in the plush seat. “That means Bourne knew he was being followed.”

  “He might have simply been taking basic precautions.” Go Han immediately wilted beneath Colonel Sun’s withering gaze.

  “You don’t know this man,” Colonel Sun said. “You have no idea what he’s capable of, the lengths to which he’ll go to kill someone, the depravity of his actions.” He flicked a hand. “Get out! You’re of no further use to me.”  It was when Colonel Sun reached over to close the door that he caught a glimpse of Bourne out of the corner of his eye. Briefly, he considered whether this was deliberate, but quickly determined that it didn’t matter.

  Ordering the driver to start the car, Colonel Sun had him drive around the block. When the car, nosing slowly in the traffic, reached the place where he had seen Bourne, the foreign agent was no longer there. Naturally, Colonel Sun hadn’t expected him to be, but he also knew Bourne wouldn’t be far away. After their encounter in Rome, Bourne was not about to let Colonel Sun out of his sight. Colonel Sun used the car’s direct line to order his men to cordon off the area.

  “Begin with a six-block square, using my car’s position as the center,” he told his adjutant, “then on my order slowly move in. I want a house-to-house search. Make certain all the men have the same photo of Bourne I have.” Thinking about how Minister Ouyang had promised to reward him, he felt a hot surge of purpose grip him. “No mistakes, hear me?” he barked into the phone before hanging up.

  Over his driver’s objection, Colonel Sun exited the car while it was still moving. It was imperative now that Bourne not only see him but follow him. He had set himself as the bait in a trap that was about to close on his nemesis.

  And he thought, This time, I’ll have him.

  7

  When Bourne saw Colonel Sun emerge from the still-moving car, he knew Sun had taken the bait.

  Once he had identified Sun, his first objective was to lure him out of the car. He felt this would be best accomplished by allowing Sun to catch a glimpse of him. Then he had melted back into a place of temporary concealment to determine if his ruse would work.

  It amused him to see Colonel Sun looking around like a tourist while he, Bourne, stood still amid the shadows, and watched. Months ago, before Rebeka was murdered, Bourne had been with her in Rome. She had been abducted—not an easy thing to do to a Mossad agent, especially Rebeka. She had been taken to the Roman crypts below the Appian Way, the ancient highway to the imperial city.