The Bourne Betrayal Part 20

"All well and good," LaValle said, "but we all know that yellowcake uranium is both plentiful and inexpensive. It's also a long, long way from weapons grade."

"I agree. Trouble is, the residual signature leads us to believe Dujja is transshipping uranium dioxide powder," the DCI said. "Unlike yellowcake, UO2 is only one simple step removed from weapons-grade uranium. It can be converted to the metal in any decent lab. As a consequence, we have to take extremely seriously anything Dujja is planning."

"Unless it's all disinformation," LaValle said doggedly. He was a man who often used his undeniable power to rub people the wrong way. Worse, he appeared to enjoy it.

Gundarsson cleared his throat portentously. "I agree with the director. The idea of a terrorist network possessing uranium dioxide is terrifying. When it comes to the direct threat of a nuclear device, we cannot afford to dismiss it as disinformation." He reached into a briefcase at his side and took out a sheaf of papers, which he distributed to everyone. "A nuclear device, whether it's a so-called dirty bomb or not, has a certain size, specifications, and unvarying components. I have taken the liberty of drawing up a list, along with detailed drawings showing size, specs, and possible markers for detection. I would suggest getting these out to all law enforcement ent.i.ties in every large city in America."

The president nodded. "Kurt, I want you to coordinate the distribution."

"Right away, sir," the DCI said.

"Just a moment, Director," LaValle said. "I want to go back to that other agent you mentioned. That would be Jason Bourne. He was the agent involved in the debacle of the escaped terrorist. He was the one who took your prisoner out of his cell without proper authorization, correct?"

"This is strictly an internal matter, Mr. LaValle."

"In this room, at least, I think the need to be candid outweighs any sense of interagency rivalry," the Pentagon intelligence czar said. "Frankly, I question whether anything Bourne says can be believed."

"You've run into difficulty before with him, haven't you, Director?" This from Secretary Halliday.

The DCI looked as if he was half asleep. In fact, his brain was running at full speed. He knew the moment he'd been waiting for had arrived. He was under a carefully coordinated attack. "What of it?"

Halliday smiled thinly. "With all due respect, Director, I'd submit that this man is an embarra.s.sment to your agency, to the administration, to all of us. He allowed a high-level suspect to escape from CI custody and in the process endangered the lives of I don't know how many innocent citizens. I submit that he needs to be dealt with, the sooner the better."

The DCI swiped the secretary's words away with the back of his hand. "Can we get back to the issue at hand, Mr. President? Dujja-"

"Secretary Halliday is right," LaValle persisted. "We are at war with Dujja. We cannot afford to lose control of one of their a.s.sets. That being the case, kindly tell us what steps your agency is taking against Jason Bourne."

"Mr. LaValle's point is well taken, Director," Secretary Halliday said in his oiliest Texan imitation of Lyndon Johnson. "That very public screwup on the Arlington Memorial Bridge gave us all a black eye and our enemy a moral lift just when we can least afford it. Following the collateral death of one of your own-" He snapped his fingers. "What was his name?"

"Timothy Hytner," the DCI supplied.

"That's right. Hytner," the secretary continued as if confirming the DCI's response. "With all due respect, Director, if I were you, I'd be far more concerned with internal security than you seem to be."

This was what the DCI had been waiting for. He opened the thinner of the two dossiers that Martin Lindros had turned over to him in the Tunnel. "In point of fact, we have just concluded our internal investigation into those matters you just brought up, Mr. Secretary. Here is our irrefutable conclusion." He spun the top sheet across the tabletop, watched Halliday take cautious possession of it.

"While the Defense Secretary is reading, I'll summarize the conclusions for the rest of you." The DCI laced his fingers, bent forward like a professor addressing his students. "We discovered that we had a mole inside CI. His name? Timothy Hytner. It was Hytner who caught Soraya Moore's call informing him that the prisoner was being taken out of his cell. It was Timothy Hytner who called the prisoner's cohorts to effect his escape. Unfortunately for him, a shot meant for Ms. Moore struck him instead, killing him."

The DCI looked from face to face around the War Room. "As I said, our internal security is under control. Now we can direct our full attention to where it belongs: stopping Dujja in its tracks and bringing its members to justice."

His gaze fell upon Secretary Halliday last, lingered there significantly. Here was the origin of the attack, he was certain of it. He'd been warned that Halliday and LaValle wanted to move into the sphere traditionally controlled by CI, which was why he'd concocted the rumors about himself. Over the last six months, during meetings up on Capitol Hill, lunches and dinner with both colleagues and rivals, he'd put in some strenuous acting time, pretending bouts of vagueness, depression, momentary disorientation. He aim was to give the impression that his advanced age was taking its toll on him; that he wasn't the man he'd once been. That he was, at long last, vulnerable to political attack.

In response, as he had hoped, the cabal had come out of the shadows at last. One thing concerned him, however: Why hadn't the president intervened to stop the attack against him? Had he done too good a job? Had the cabal convinced the president that he was on the verge of becoming incompetent to continue as DCI?

The call came at precisely twelve minutes after midnight. Bourne picked up the phone and heard a male voice give him a street corner three blocks from the hotel. He'd had hours to prepare. He grabbed his overcoat and went out the door.

The night was mild, with very little breeze. Now and again, a wisp of cloud scudded across the three-quarter moon. The moon was quite beautiful: very white, very clear, as if seen through a telescope.

He stood at the corner, arms hanging loosely at his side. In the day and a half since his meeting with Yevgeny, he'd done nothing but sightsee. He'd walked endlessly, the activity allowing him the opportunity to check on who was following him, how many there were, how long their shifts were. He'd memorized their faces, could have picked them out of a crowd of a hundred or a thousand, if need be. He'd also had ample time to observe their methodology, as well as their habits. He could imitate any of them. With a different face, he could have been one of them. But that would have taken time, and time was in short supply. One thing disturbed him: There were times when he was certain his followers weren't around-they were between shifts or, as an amus.e.m.e.nt to pa.s.s the time, he'd given them the slip. During those intervals, animal instincts honed on stone and steel told him that he was being observed by someone else. One of Lemontov's bodyguards? He didn't know, since he could never catch a glimpse of him.

The throaty gurgle of a diesel engine rose from behind him. He didn't turn around. With an awful grinding of gears, a marshrutka-a routed minibus-pulled up in front of him. Its door opened from the inside, and he climbed in.

He found himself staring into the agate eyes of Bogdan Illiyanovich. He knew better than to ask him where they were going.

The marshrutka let them out at the foot of French Boulevard. They walked across the cobblestones beneath towering acacia trees, so familiar to him in memory. At the end of the cobbled street rose the terminus of a cable car that ran down to the beach. He'd been here before, he was certain of it.

Bogdan made his way toward the terminus. Bourne was about to follow him when some sixth sense caused him to turn. He noted that their driver hadn't backed away. He slouched in his seat with his cell phone to his cheek. His eyes flicked left and right, but never lit on either Bourne or Bogdan.

The cable car, like a ride in an amus.e.m.e.nt park, comprised candy-colored two-person gondolas that hung vertically from the creaking steel cable overhead. The cable was strung high above the green zone, trees and dense shrubbery through which narrow paths and steep steps zigzagged before giving out onto Otrada Beach. In the height of summer, this beach was filled with bronzed bathers and sun worshippers, but at this time of year, this time of day, with an onsh.o.r.e wind whipping up the damp sand, it was nearly deserted. Craning his neck over the iron railing, Bourne could see a large brindled boxer romping in the pale green moonlit foam while its master-a slim man, wide-brimmed hat on his head, hands jammed into the huge pockets of his oversize tweed coat-paced the dog along the beach. A blast of chaotic Russian pop blasted through a pair of tinny speakers, then abruptly was cut off.

"Turn around. Arms at shoulder height."

Bourne did as Bogdan ordered. He felt the other man's big hands patting him down, searching for weapons or a wire with which to tape the transaction, trap Lemontov. Bogdan grunted, stood back. He lit a cigarette and his eyes went dead.

As they entered the cable car terminus, Bourne saw a black car pull up. Four men got out. Businessmen dressed in cheap Eastern European suits. Except these men looked uncomfortable in their outfits. They looked around, stretched and yawned, then took another look around, during which time they all fastened their gaze on Bourne. Another shock of recognition raced through Bourne. This, too, had happened before.

One of the businessmen took out a digital camera and started snapping photos of the others. Laughter ensued, along with a certain amount of manly banter.

While the businessmen joked and made like sightseers, Bourne and Bogdan waited for the candy-apple-red gondola to reach the concrete terminus. Bourne stood with his back to the fist of men.

"Bodgan Illiyanovich, we're being followed."

"Of course we're being followed, I'm only surprised you mention it."

"Why?"

"Do you take me for a fool?" Bogdan took out his Mauser and aimed it casually at Bourne.

"They're your men. You were warned. No second chances. Here is the gondola. Climb in, tovarich. When we're out over the green zone, I will kill you."

At precisely 5:33 PM, the DCI was up in the Library, which was where Lerner found him. The Library was a large, roughly square room with double-height ceilings. It did not, however, contain any books. Not one volume. Every bit of data, history, commentary, strategy, tactic-in sum, the collected wisdom of CI directors and officers past and present-was digitized, housed on the enormous linked hard drives of a special computer server. Sixteen terminals were arrayed around the periphery of the room.

The Old Man had accessed the files on Abu Sarif Hamid ibn Ashef al-Wahhib, the mission inst.i.tuted by Alex Conklin, the only one in the DCI's knowledge that Bourne had failed to execute. Hamid was owner of a multinational conglomerate refining oil, manufacturing chemicals, iron, copper, silver, steel, and the like. The company, Integrated Vertical Technologies, was based in London, where the Saudi had emigrated when he'd married for the second time, an upper-cla.s.s Brit named Holly Cargill, who had borne him two sons and a daughter.

CI-specifically Conklin-had targeted Hamid ibn Ashef. In due course, Conklin had sent Bourne to terminate him. Bourne had run him down in Odessa, but there had been complications. Bourne had shot the Saudi but failed to kill him. With the vast network of operatives at Hamid ibn Ashef's disposal, he'd gone to ground; Bourne had barely made it out of Odessa alive.

Lerner cleared his throat. The Old Man turned around.

"Ah, Matthew, have a seat."

Lerner dragged over a chair, sat. "Dredging up old wounds, sir?"

"The Hamid ibn Ashef affair? I was trying to find out what happened to the family. Is the old man alive or dead? If he's alive, where is he? Soon after the Odessa hit cracked open, his younger son, Karim al-Jamil, took over the company. Some time after that, the elder son, Abu Ghazi Nadir al-Jamuh, vanished, possibly to take care of Hamid ibn Ashef. That would be in keeping with Saudi tribal tradition."

"What about the daughter?" Lerner asked. "Sarah ibn Ashef. She's the youngest of the siblings. As secular as her mother, so far as we know. For obvious reasons, she's never been on our radar."

Lerner inched forward. "Is there a reason you're looking at the family now?"

"It's a loose end that sticks in my craw. It's Bourne's lone failure, and in light of recent events failure is much on my mind these days." He sat for a moment, his eyes in the middle distance, ruminating. "I told Lindros to sever all ties with Bourne."

"That was a wise decision, sir."

"Was it?" The DCI regarded him darkly. "I think I made a mistake. One I want you to rectify. Martin is working night and day mobilizing Typhon in tracking down Fadi. You have a different mission. I want you to find Bourne and terminate him."

"Sir?"

"Don't play coy with me," the DCI said sharply. "I've watched you rise up the CI ladder. I know how successful you were in the field. You've done wet work. Even more important, you can get intel out of a stone."

Lerner said nothing, which was, in its way, an acknowledgment. His silence didn't mean his mind wasn't working a mile a minute. So this is the real reason he promoted me, he thought. The Old Man doesn't care about reorganizing CI. He wants my particular expertise. He wants an outsider to do the one piece of wet work he can't entrust to one of his own.

"Let's continue then." The Old Man held up a forefinger. "I've had a bellyful of this insolent sonovab.i.t.c.h. He's had his own agenda from the moment he first came to us. Sometimes I think we work for him. Witness his taking Cevik out of the cells. He had his reasons, you can bet on it, but he'll never willingly tell us what they were. Just like we know nothing of what happened in Odessa."

Lerner was taken aback. He was wondering whether he'd underestimated the Old Man.

"You can't mean that Bourne was never fully debriefed."

The DCI looked aggrieved. "Of course he was debriefed, along with everyone involved. But he claimed he could remember nothing-not a f.u.c.king thing. Martin believed him, but I never did."

"Give me the word. I can get the truth out of him, sir."

"Don't fool yourself, Lerner. Bourne will kill himself before he'll give up intel."

"One thing I learned in the field, anyone can be broken."

"Not Bourne. Trust me on this. No, I want him dead. That will have to suffice for my pound of flesh."

"Yessir."

"Not a word to anyone, including Martin. He's saved Bourne from the executioner more times than I can count. Not this time, dammit. He said he's severed Bourne. Now go find him."

"I understand." Lerner briskly rose.

The DCI lifted his head. "And Matthew, do yourself a favor. Don't come back without the intel."

Lerner met his gaze unflinchingly. "And when I do?"

The Old Man recognized a challenge better than the next man. He sat back, steepled his fingers, tapped the pads together as if in deep contemplation. "You may not get what you want," he said. "But you just might get what you need."

Bourne climbed into the narrow cabin, and Bogdan followed close behind. The gondola left the terminus and swung out over the steeply dropping limestone cliff.

Bourne said: "I a.s.sumed those men were yours."

"Don't make me laugh."

"I'm here alone, Bogdan Illiyanovich. I want only to make a deal with Lemontov."

The two men's eyes locked for a moment. Between them there was a kind of animus so strong it could actually be felt as a third party. Bogdan's woolen coat stank of mildew and cigarette smoke. There were dandruff flakes on his lapels.

The cable groaned as the steel wheels above the gondola ground along. At the last moment, the four men leapt into the last two gondolas. They continued to make noise, as if they were drunk.

"You wouldn't survive a fall from this height," Bogdan observed mildly. "No one would."

Bourne watched the men behind them.

The sea was restless. Tankers shambled across the harbor, but the ferries, like the gulls, were at rest. Farther out, moonlight frosted the tips of the waves.

On the beach, the boxer was scampering. As it made its way across the gray sand, it lifted its head. Its square muzzle was grizzled with foam and bits of sea kelp. It barked once and was hushed by its master, who patted its flank as they pa.s.sed under a wooden pier, its greenish pilings creaking in the tide. To the left was a skeletal labyrinth of wooden beams; they held up a part of the green area that at some time in the past had been undermined by the sea. Past that was the line of darkened kiosks, bars, and restaurants that serviced the summer crowds. Down the gentle curve of the beach, perhaps a kilometer to the south, was the yacht club, where lights were burning like the glow from a small village.

The four men from the cable car had arrived on the beach.

Bogdan said, "Something has to be done."

The moment he said it, Bourne knew this was another test. A glance told him that the men had disappeared, just like that. But of course he knew they must still be on the beach. Perhaps they were in the wooden framework that held up part of the hillside, or in one of the refreshment kiosks.

He held out his hand. "Give me the Mauser and I'll go after them."

"Do you imagine that I'd trust you with a gun? Or trust you to actually shoot them?" Bogdan spat. "If it's going to be hunting, we'll both do it."

Bourne nodded. "I've been here before, I know my way around. Just follow me." They were crossing the sand, moving diagonally away from the surf. He ducked into the labyrinth, picked up a length of wood, banged it against a pole to judge its st.u.r.diness. He looked at Bogdan to see if the other man would protest, but Bogdan only shrugged. He had the Mauser, after all.

They moved through the shadows in the labyrinth, ducking here and there so as not to hit their heads on low-bolted beams.

"How close are we to our rendezvous with Lemontov?" Bourne whispered.

Bogdan laughed silently. The suspicion hadn't left his eyes.

Bourne had a feeling it was to be on one of the boats anch.o.r.ed in the yacht basin. He returned his attention to peering into the shadows. Ahead of him, he knew, was the first of the kiosks-the place where he'd been before.

They crept ahead, Bourne a pace in front of Bogdan. Moonlight, reflected off the sand, stretched pale fingers into this subterranean world of four-square spars, ma.s.sive trusses, and crossbeams. They were more or less parallel with the pier, very close to the kiosk now, Bourne knew.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a movement, furtive and indistinct. He didn't change direction, didn't turn his head, only moved his eyes. At first, he saw nothing but a jumbled crisscross of shadows. Then, out of the architectural angles, he saw an arc-a curve that could only belong to a human. One, two, three. He identified them all. The men were waiting for them, spread like a spider web in the shadows, placed perfectly.

They knew he was heading here, just as if they could read his mind. But how? Was he going mad? It was as if his memories were leading him into making choices that led to mistakes and danger.

What could he do now? He stopped, started to back up, but at once felt the muzzle of Bogdan's gun in his side, urging him forward. Was Bogdan in on this? Was the Ukrainian part of the conspiracy meant to trap him?

All at once, Bourne broke to his left, toward the beach. He twisted his torso as he ran, threw the length of wood at Bogdan's head. Bogdan dodged it easily, but it delayed his firing, allowing Bourne to dodge behind a spar an instant before a bullet from the Mauser shredded a corner of it.

Bourne feinted right, sprinted left, taking longer strides with his right leg than with his left in order to keep Bogdan from predicting his pace. Another shot, this one a bit wider of the mark.

A third shot made a ragged hole in his overcoat, which was flared out by his flight. But then he'd reached the pier's first piling and he slipped into shadow.

Bogdan Illiyanovich's breathing increased as he raced after the man calling himself Ilias Voda. His lips were pulled back, baring teeth clenched with the effort of running through sand that became increasingly boggy as he neared the pier. His shoes were coated with sand inside and out, the ends of his overcoat blistered with clumps of it.

The water was frigid. He didn't want to go any deeper, but all at once he caught a glimpse of his prey, and he pressed on. The water rose to his knees, then slapped against his thighs. The tide was coming in, slowing his progress considerably. It was becoming a struggle to- A sudden sharp noise to his left caused him to wheel around. But the d.a.m.nable water clawed at his ankle-length woolen coat, slowing him, and at the same time the incoming tide threw him off balance. He stumbled and, in that moment of being physically out of control, he realized why Voda had run this way. It was to deliberately lure him into the water, where his coat would limit his maneuverability.

He began a string of curses, but bit it off as if it were his tongue. In the moonlight, he saw three of the businessmen, guns drawn, sprinting full-tilt toward him.

As he ran on, the lead man aimed and fired.