The Bourne Sanction Part 29

He heard the scuff of leather soles-two men, his ears told him.

Then General Kendall's voice, saying imperiously, "Set the food on the table, Willard. Right there, thank you. That will be all."

One set of shoe soles clacked across the floor, the sound of the door closing. Silence. Then the screech of a chair being hitched across the concrete. Kendall was sitting down, Tyrone surmised.

"What have we here?" Kendall said, clearly to himself. "Ah, my favorite: eggs over easy, bacon, b.u.t.tered grits, hot biscuits and gravy." The sound of cutlery being taken up. "You like grits, Tyrone? You like biscuits and gravy?"

Tyrone wasn't too far gone to be incensed. "On'y ting I like betta is watermelon, sah."

"That's a d.a.m.n fine imitation of one of your brethren, Tyrone." He was obviously talking while eating. "This is d.a.m.n fine chow. Would you like some?"

Tyrone's stomach growled so loudly he was sure Kendall heard it.

"All you gotta do is tell me everything you and the Moore woman were up to."

"I don't rat anyone out," Tyrone said bitterly.

"Um." The sounds of Kendall swallowing. "That's what they all say in the beginning." He chewed some more. "You do know this is just the beginning, don't you, Tyrone? Sure you do. Just like you know the Moore woman isn't going to save you. She's going to hang you out to dry, sure as I'm sitting here eating the most mouthwatering biscuits I ever had. You know why? Because LaValle gave her a choice: you or Jason Bourne. You know her history with Bourne. She might claim she didn't f.u.c.k him but you and I know better."

"She never slept with him," Tyrone said before he could stop himself.

"Sure. She told you that." Munch, munch, munch went Kendall's jaws, shredding the crisp bacon. "What'd you expect her to say?"

The sonovab.i.t.c.h was playing mind games with him, Tyrone knew that for a fact. Trouble was, he wasn't lying. Tyrone knew how Soraya felt about Bourne-it was written all over her face every time she saw him or his name came up. Though she'd said otherwise, the question Kendall had just raised had gnawed at him like an addict at a candy bar.

It was difficult not to envy Bourne with his freedom, his encyclopedic knowledge, his friendship as equals with Deron. But all these things Tyrone dealt with in his own way. It was Soraya's love for Bourne that was so hard to live with.

He heard the sc.r.a.pe of chair legs and then felt the presence of Kendall as he squatted down beside him. It was astonishing, Tyrone thought, how much heat another human being gave off.

"I have to say, Tyrone, you really have taken a beating," Kendall said. "I think you deserve a reward for how well you've held up. s.h.i.t, we've had suspects in here who were crying for their mamas after twenty-four hours. Not you, though." The quick click-clack click-clack of a metal utensil against a china plate. "How about some eggs and bacon? Man, this was some big plate of food, I surely can't finish it myself. So come on. Join me." of a metal utensil against a china plate. "How about some eggs and bacon? Man, this was some big plate of food, I surely can't finish it myself. So come on. Join me."

As the hood was raised high enough to expose his mouth Tyrone was conflicted. His mind told him to refuse the offer, but his severely shrunken stomach yearned for real food. He could smell the rich flavors of bacon and eggs, felt the food warm as a kiss against his lips.

"Hey, man, what're you waiting for?"

f.u.c.k it, Tyrone said to himself. The tastes of the food exploded inside his mouth. He wanted to moan in pleasure. He wolfed down the first few forkfuls fed to him, then forced himself to chew slowly and methodically, extracting every bit of flavor from the hickory-smoked meat and the rich yolk.

"Tastes good," Kendall said. He must have regained his feet because his voice was above Tyrone when he said, "Tastes real good, doesn't it?"

Tyrone was about to nod his a.s.sent when pain exploded in the pit of his stomach. He grunted when it came again. He'd been kicked before, so he knew what Kendall was doing. The third kick landed. He tried to hold on to his food, but the involuntary reaction had begun. A moment later he vomited up all the delicious food Kendall had fed him.

The Munich courier is the last one in the network," Devra said. "His name is Egon Kirsch, but that's all I know. I never met him; no one I know did. Pyotr made sure that link was completely compartmentalized. So far as I know Kirsch dealt directly with Pyotr and no one else."

"Who does Kirsch deliver his intel to?" Arkadin said. "Who's at the other end of the network?"

"I have no idea."

He believed her. "Did Heinrich and Kirsch have a particular meeting place?"

She shook her head.

On the Lufthansa flight from Istanbul to Munich he sat shoulder-to-shoulder with her and wondered what the h.e.l.l he was doing. She'd given him all the information he was going to get from her. He had the plans; he was on the last lap of his mission. All that remained was to deliver the plans to Icoupov, find Kirsch, and persuade him to lead Arkadin back to the end of the network. Child's play.

Which begged the question of what to do with Devra. He'd already made up his mind to kill her, as he'd killed Marlene and so many others. It was a fait accompli, a fixed point detailed in his mind, a diamond that only needed polishing to sparkle into life. Sitting in the jetliner he heard the quick report from the gun, leaves falling over her dead body, covering her like a blanket.

Devra, who was seated on the aisle, got up, made her way back to the lavatories. Arkadin closed his eyes and was back in the sooty stench of Nizhny Tagil, men with filed teeth and blurry tattoos, women old before their time, bent, swigging homemade vodka from plastic soda bottles, girls with sunken eyes, bereft of a future. And then the ma.s.s grave . . .

His eyes popped open. He was having difficulty breathing. Heaving himself to his feet, he followed Devra. She was the last of the pa.s.sengers waiting. The accordion door on the right opened, an older women bustled out, squeezed by Devra then Arkadin. Devra went into the lavatory, closed the door, and locked it. The OCCUPIED OCCUPIED sign came on. sign came on.

Arkadin walked to the door, stood in front of it for a moment. Then he knocked on it gently.

"Just a minute," her voice came to him.

Leaning his head against the door, he said, "Devra, it's me." And after a short silence, "Open the door."

A moment later, the door folded back. She stood in front of him.

"I want to come in," he said.

Their eyes locked for the s.p.a.ce of several heartbeats as each tried to gauge the intent of the other.

Then she backed up against the tiny sink, Arkadin stepped inside, with some difficulty shut the door behind him, and turned the lock.

Thirty.

IT'S STATE-OF-THE-ART," Gunter Muller said. "Guaranteed."

Both he and Moira were wearing hard hats as they walked through the series of semi-automated workshops of Kaller Steelworks Gesellschaft, where the coupling link that would receive the LNG tankers as they nosed into the NextGen Long Beach terminal had been manufactured.

Muller, the team leader on the NextGen coupling link project, was a senior vice president of Kaller, a smallish man dressed impeccably in a conservatively cut three-piece chalk-striped suit, expensive shoes, and a tie in black and gold, Munich's colors since the time of the Holy Roman Empire. His skin was bright pink, as if he'd just had his face steam-cleaned, and thick brown hair, graying at the sides. He talked slowly and distinctly in good English, though he was rather endearingly weak with modern American idioms.

At each step he explained the manufacturing process with excruciating detail, great pride. Spread out before them were the design drawings, along with the specs, to which Muller referred time and again.

Moira was listening with only one ear. How her situation had changed now that the Firm was out of the picture, now that NextGen was on its own with the security of its terminal operations in Long Beach, now that she had been rea.s.signed.

But the more things change, she thought, the more they stay the same the more they stay the same. The moment Noah had handed her the packet for Damascus she knew she wouldn't disengage herself from the Long Beach terminal project. No matter what Noah or his bosses had determined she couldn't leave NextGen or this project in jeopardy. Muller, like everyone else at Kaller and, for that matter, nearly everyone at NextGen, had no idea she worked for the Firm. Only she knew she should be on a flight to Damascus, not here with him. She had a grace period of mere hours before her contact at NextGen would begin to ask questions as to why she was still on the LNG terminal project. By then, she hoped to convince NextGen's president of the wisdom of her disobeying the Firm's orders.

Finally, they reached the loading bay where the sixteen parts of the coupling link were being packed for shipment by air to Long Beach on the NextGen 747 jet that had brought her and Bourne to Munich.

"As specified in the contract, our team of engineers will be accompanying you on the homeward journey." Muller rolled up the drawings, snapped a rubber band around them, and handed them to Moira. "They'll be in charge of putting the coupling link together on site. I have every confidence that all will go smoothly."

"It had better," Moira said. "The LNG tanker is scheduled to dock at the terminal in thirty hours." She shot Muller an unpleasant look. "Not much leeway for your engineers."

"Not to worry, Fraulein Trevor," he said cheerfully. "They're more than up to the task."

"For your company's sake, I sincerely hope so." She stowed the roll under her left arm, preparatory to leaving. "Shall we speak frankly, Herr Muller?"

He smiled. "Always."

"I wouldn't have had to come here at all had it not been for the string of delays that set your manufacturing process back."

Muller's smile seemed immovable. "My dear Fraulein, as I explained to your superiors, the delays were unavoidable-please blame the Chinese for the temporary shortage of steel, and the South Africans for the energy shortages that is forcing the platinum mines to work at half speed." He spread his hands. "We've done the best we could, I a.s.sure you." His smile widened. "And now we are at the end of our journey together. The coupling link will be in Long Beach within eighteen hours, and eight hours later it will be in one piece and ready to receive your tanker of liquid natural gas." He stuck out his hand. "All will have a happy ending, yes?"

"Of course it will. Thank you, Herr Muller."

Muller nearly clicked his heels. "The pleasure is all mine, Fraulein."

Moira walked back through the factory with Muller at her side. She said good-bye to him once more at the gates to the factory, walked across the gravel drive to where her chauffeured car sat waiting for her, its precisely engineered German engine purring quietly.

They pulled out of the Kaller Steelworks property, turned left toward the autobahn back to Munich. Five minutes later, her driver said, "There's a car following us, Fraulein."

Turning around, Moira peered out the back window. A small Volks-wagen, no more than fifty yards behind them, flashed its headlights.

"Pull over." She pushed aside the hem of her long skirt, took a SIG Sauer out of the holster strapped to her left ankle.

The driver did as he was told, and the car came to a stop on the shoulder of the road. The Volkswagen pulled in behind. Moira sat waiting for something to happen; she was too well trained to get out of the car.

At length, the Volkswagen drove off the shoulder, into the underbrush, where it disappeared from sight. A moment later a man became visible tramping out onto the side of the road. He was tall and narrow, with a pencil mustache and suspenders holding up his trousers. He was in his shirtsleeves, oblivious to the German winter chill. She could see that he had no weapons on him, which, she reasoned, was the point. When he came abreast of her car, she leaned across the backseat, opened the door for him, and he slipped inside.

"My name is Hauser, Fraulein Trevor. Arthur Hauser." His expression was morose, bitter. "I apologize for the incivility of this impromptu meeting, but I a.s.sure you the melodrama is necessary." As if to underscore his words, he glanced back down the road toward the factory, his expression fearful. "I do not have much time so I shall come straight to the point. There is a flaw in the coupling link-not, I hasten to add, in the hardware. That, I a.s.sure you, is absolutely sound. But there is a problem with the software. Nothing that will interfere with the operation of the link, no, not at all. It is, rather, a security flaw-a window, if you will. The chances are it might never be discovered, but all the same it's there."

When Hauser glanced again out the back window a car was coming toward them. He clamped his jaws shut, watched as the vehicle pa.s.sed by, then visibly relaxed as it drove on down the road.

"Herr Muller was not altogether truthful. The delays were caused by this software flaw, nothing else. I should know, since I was part of the software design team. We tried for a patch, but it's been devilishly difficult, and we ran out of time."

"Just how serious is this flaw?" Moira said.

"It depends on whether you're an optimist or a pessimist." Hauser ducked his head, embarra.s.sed. "As I said, it might never be discovered."

Moira glanced out the window for a time, thinking that she shouldn't ask the next question because, as Noah told her in no uncertain terms, the Firm was now out of ensuring the security of NextGen's LNG terminal.

And then she heard herself say, "What if I'm a pessimist?"

Peter Marks found Rodney Feir, chief of field support, in the CI caff, eating a bowl of New England clam chowder. Feir looked up, gestured to Marks to sit. Peter Marks had been elevated to chief of operations after the ill-starred Rob Batt was outed as an NSA rat.

"How's it going?" Feir said.

"How d'you think it's going?" Marks parked himself on the chair opposite Feir. "I've been vetting every one of Batt's contacts for any sign of NSA taint. It's daunting and frustrating work. You?"

"As exhausted as you, I expect." Feir sprinkled oyster crackers into the chowder. "I've been briefing the new DCI on everything from agents in the field to the cleaning firm we've used for the past twenty years."

"D'you think she'll work out?"

Feir knew he had to be careful here. "I'll say this for her: She's a stickler for detail. No stone unturned. She's not leaving anything to chance."

"That's a relief." Marks twiddled a fork between his thumb and fingers. "What we don't need is another crisis. I'd be happy with someone who can right this listing ship."

"My sentiments exactly."

"The reason I'm here," Marks said, "is I'm having a staffing problem. I've lost some people to attrition. Of course, that's inevitable. I thought I'd get some good recruits graduating from the program, but they went to Typhon. I'm in need of a short-term fix."

Feir chewed on a mouthful of gritty clam bits and soft potato cubes. He'd diverted those graduates to Typhon and had been waiting for Marks to come to him ever since. "How can I help?"

"I'd like some of d.i.c.k Symes's people to be a.s.signed to my directorate." d.i.c.k Symes was the chief of intelligence. "Just temporarily, you understand, until I can get some raw recruits through training and orientation."

"Have you talked to d.i.c.k?"

"Why bother? He'll just tell me to go to h.e.l.l. But you can plead my case to Hart. She's so snowed under that you're the one best suited to get her to listen to me. If she makes the call d.i.c.k can yell all he wants, it won't matter."

Feir wiped his lips. "What number of personnel are we talking here, Peter?"

"Eighteen, two dozen tops."

"Not inconsiderable. The DCI is going to want to know what you have in mind."

"I've got a brief detailing it all ready to go," Marks said. "I shoot it to you electronically, you walk it in to her personally."

Feir nodded. "I think that can be arranged."

Relief flooded Marks's face. "Thanks, Rodney."

"Don't mention it." He began to dig into what was left of the chowder. As Marks was about to rise, he said, "Do you by any chance know where Soraya is? She's not in her office and she's not answering her cell."

"Unh-unh." Marks resettled himself. "Why?"

"No reason."

Something in Feir's voice gave him pause. "No reason? Really?"

"Just, you know how office scuttleb.u.t.t can be."

"Meaning?"

"You two are tight, aren't you."

"Is that what you heard?"

"Well, yeah." Feir placed his spoon into the empty bowl. "But if it isn't true-"

"I don't know where she is, Rodney." Marks's gaze drifted off. "We never had that kind of thing going."

"Sorry, I didn't mean to pry."