Robert Ludlum's (TM) The Bourne Ascendancy (23 page)

T
here were two reasons
why the cadre didn’t head out of the valley in the morning. The first was that the wounded required a bit more time to recuperate. The second was that intel relayed to Borz through a method Bourne was yet to detect had put a spy drone in the vicinity, possibly sent to check on the aftermath of yesterday’s strike. In any event, Borz deemed it safer to travel by night, at least until they crossed the mountainous border into Afghanistan.

As he had promised Bourne, Khan Abdali had sent two of his best warriors. They were impossibly lean, tall and majestic as Maasai. In addition to the requisite automatic weapons and bandoliers of ammo, they carried at their waists broad swords that looked like scimitars. Bourne knew that the various Waziri tribes often settled their disputes with these swords, as had their fathers and grandfathers before them.

They were sun-fried and taciturn, always keeping to themselves. From time to time they drank water, but refused food; they carried their own: hard, unleavened bread, like the Jews, and chunks of cheese, white as chalk, harder than the bread. They made everyone, save Bourne, uneasy, especially Faraj, who viewed them as spies.

“I don’t like being watched,” he said to Bourne at one point. “These people are nothing but trouble.”

“No one likes to be cooped up inside all day,” Bourne said, “especially these boys.”

Because of the suspected American drone and its cameras, no one was allowed outside, in order to give the impression that everyone in the camp had been killed or had fled. Even the jeeps had been pulled into sheds.

Faraj didn’t care what the Waziri felt. “Keep a close eye on them,” he ordered as he stalked away.

At Aashir’s insistence, Bourne spent most of the day teaching him to shoot the L115A3 AWM. They crept out into the blinding sunlight, Bourne showing him how to keep himself hidden in the valley’s sparse vegetation.

“A sniper’s dead meat if he’s spotted,” Bourne said in a hushed tone. “You’ll be killed before you start.”

They crouched among a cluster of boulders Bourne had selected. Bourne kept one eye on the skyline access points to the valley. He no longer needed his theatrical makeup. The sun had darkened his skin, his beard was now full. He was Yusuf Al Khatib.

After he was certain they were in the clear, he displayed the AWM for his pupil. “Pay close attention,” he told Aashir. “You’re learning on the best weapon of its kind.”

Bourne shot a buzzard, showing Aashir how it was done. Then he handed over the AWM. Aashir missed with his first two shots. Bourne counseled patience. Once, he took the AWM from Aashir and pushed him down among the rocks. Moments later, a shadow, as from a gigantic bird, passed over them, but there was no sound—none at all. Only a deadly silence. The shadow passed over again, more slowly this time. The utter stillness was almost unbearable.

Bourne forced them to stay hunkered down and unmoving for a full twenty minutes after the shadow had passed for the last time. Afterward, there were no more buzzards to shoot at. Bourne picked out rocks of different sizes and set them up anywhere from five hundred to a thousand yards away for Aashir to practice on.

Later, back inside one of the metal huts as Bourne was putting the rifle away, Faraj sauntered up to him. His left arm was tied tightly to his chest. Tiny dots of blood had seeped through the bandages.

“You should not have gone outside,” Faraj said without preamble.

“I took Aashir shooting.”

“Were you going to shoot down the drone?” Faraj’s voice was withering. “You broke protocol. What if you had been seen and photographed? You would have jeopardized the entire cadre.”

“Snipers are invisible. That’s what makes them so deadly,” Bourne said pointedly.

Faraj ignored him. “You should not have taken him.”

“He wanted to go.”

Faraj stared hard at Bourne. “Believe me when I tell you, that boy doesn’t know what he wants.”

“It was a good day for him, Faraj. Let it go.”

Faraj’s eyes narrowed. “You seem to have much in common with him.”

Bourne glanced at him briefly. He knew Faraj was jealous of his relationship with Borz. “I don’t know about that. He seems a bit lost. I’m teaching him to shoot, that’s all.”

“He is lost,” Faraj observed, “but learning how to handle the long gun isn’t going to help his basic problem.”

Bourne wiped his hands on a rag, set it aside. “What is his basic problem?”

“I guess you’re not as close with him as I thought,” Faraj said, before walking away.

An electric atmosphere accompanied dinner. The knowledge that the cadre was going to move out at midnight had gripped everyone. It was a good night to begin their trek: Both moon and stars were hidden behind thick layers of clouds, dark, ominous, and heavy as metal. During dinner the wind off the mountains began to shriek like a creature in torment. Khan Abdali’s men ignored it, as did most of Borz’s Chechens, but Faraj and his cadre appeared ill at ease.

Aashir slipped onto Bourne’s bench, set his metal plate down, and began to eat, as if the two had done this night after night for years.

“How’s my skill—really?” he said.

“Anyone can learn to shoot accurately,” Bourne said, “but it takes certain instincts to become a sniper.”

“And I don’t have them.”

“I didn’t say that, and I didn’t mean it. We won’t know until there are live targets to shoot at—moving targets.”

“I shot down the buzzards.”

“Buzzards aren’t men.” Bourne pushed aside his plate; he had no appetite anyway. “You have to learn your target, then anticipate movement—up, down, left, right, fast or slow. But without true fieldwork we’ll know nothing.”

“Then we’re going to the right place.” Aashir’s fork clattered onto his plate. He seemed to have as little appetite for this food as Bourne.

“Afghanistan is never the right place,” Bourne said. “It’s the wrong place for everything—except death.”

He rose, and Aashir with him. They went outside. The wind had ceased its eerie howling, but the still air was icy, laden with moisture.

“The rain will slow our progress,” the young man pointed out.

“It won’t slow the Waziri,” Bourne pointed out. “We can’t let it slow us.”

Aashir opened his mouth, then closed it again, turning away, and again Bourne had the impression he was about to say something—something extremely difficult for him to get out. Whatever it was seemed lodged in his voice box, sticking there like a needle. He would get to it, Bourne knew, in his own time, at his own pace.

“Do you have a wife, Yusuf? Children?”

“I have no one,” Bourne said. “I have myself.”

They began to walk. They picked their way past the remnants of the C-17, then the mass grave of the American recruits—the cannon fodder for El Ghadan’s plan. The trembling anticipation of the pull-out was joined by the melancholy of death.

Aashir jammed his hands into his trouser pockets. “I’ve been trying to feel what it’s like to not remember your family, your childhood, your growing up.”

“Don’t,” Bourne said. “Consider yourself lucky.”

“You don’t understand.”

“No one ever understands another person.”

Aashir peered at him sideways. “Do you really believe that?”

The night was very dark; the encampment was in a mandatory blackout, no one allowed even to smoke outdoors. The two men could hardly see each other, but they felt each other’s presence, larger than life.

Aashir went on without waiting for a reply. Perhaps he already knew the answer. “I have three sisters—
had
three sisters, I should say. They’re dead now. Missiles, drones, I don’t know. I’m the only male—the only son—and I’m such a disappointment.”

“To your father,” Bourne said, “or to yourself?”

“Does it matter? To my father I am a nonperson.”

There was such a well of sorrow in Aashir’s voice, Bourne was compelled to reply. “I should think it matters to your mother. I would think it would matter even more to you.”

“My mother understands nothing except cooking and cleaning and raising her children. That’s the scope of her life, the same as her mother before her. Now she has no children to raise. She is completely lost.”

“You could go back.”

“I am not a child!” Aashir said hotly.

“But you seem to be the only one who understands her, who can help heal her pain.”

“And who will heal my pain?”

It was a cry from the heart rather than a self-pitying moan. Bourne had no answer for him; he had no answer for himself.

Vincent Terrier was with Marty Finnerman at the late morning meeting with Howard Anselm at Finnerman’s office in the Pentagon.

“We got the high-res photos back,” Finnerman said as soon as Anselm had seated himself on a cane-backed metal chair. The Pentagon did not go in much for creature comforts.

With a nod of his head, Finnerman deferred to Terrier, who immediately spilled a dozen 11-by-14 blowups onto Finnerman’s desk. As Anselm looked through them, Terrier provided the commentary.

“The drone made three passes over Faraj’s encampment. We got his C-17.”

Anselm tapped his forefinger on one blowup after another. “Blew it in two, I see.”

Terrier bobbed his head the way a praised dog might. “That’s right. Faraj’s command building was also completely destroyed. Hopefully with Faraj in it.”

“Mmm,” Anselm said. “No activity.”

“Abandoned,” Finnerman agreed emphatically. “Everyone else dead.”

Anselm glanced up. “Including the Americans.”

“The American traitors,” Terrier corrected him.

Anselm wagged a finger. “Wipe that smile off your face, Vincent.”

“Vinnie’s right, Howard,” Finnerman interjected. “The drone strike was a complete success.”

“I don’t see any bodies,” Anselm pointed out.

“Burned to a crisp,” Terrier said. “Inside Faraj’s command and control facility.”

“What’s this slight mound here? It looks like newly turned earth. There were survivors who took the damning photos, who buried the dead? I’d like eyes on the ground.” Anselm sat back. “Marty, why don’t you contact our friends at Mossad. You’ve told me they have a cadre not far from the valley.”

“Had.” Terrier seemed to make a habit of interrupting. “For some reason unknown to us, they’ve pulled out of Waziristan completely.”

Anselm frowned. “I don’t like that. What do they know that you guys don’t?”

Finnerman made a show of laughing, but from the look in his eyes it was clear he wasn’t pleased with the question. A moment later, Anselm understood why.

“I spoke to Eli Yadin this morning,” Finnerman said. “I asked him that same question. I wanted to know why we were being kept in the dark.” He put his hands flat on his desk as he leaned forward. “You know what he said? He told me there was nothing to interest them in Waziristan. At the moment, everything was quiet.”

“In other words,” Anselm said, “he lied to you.”

Finnerman looked like he had just smelled three-day-old fish. “It wouldn’t be the first time, and it won’t be the last.”

“But this is a crucial moment for us.” Terrier, eager as his namesake.

“Not a time for the director of Mossad to be dissembling to a purported ally,” Anselm added.

Terrier’s head came up. “Purported?”

Finnerman shook his head. “Not now, Howard.”

Anselm spread his hands. “Why not now?” His gaze moved to Terrier. “The Israeli Knesset has secretly okayed the expansion of settlements across the Green Line, the 1967 border, the latest of which is in the Jordan Valley, which the hard-liners are adamant to keep under its military control, arguing it’s Israel’s eastern security border. The prime minister has assured POTUS he won’t sign the bill into law, but meanwhile the expansion has begun, one more reason this so-called peace summit is a sham. The Orthodox segment of the population has for some time joined with the hard-line conservative pols, keeping a hammerlock on Knesset policy.”

Anselm leaned back, stared up at the ceiling. “You know, in a perfect world—”

“Humans don’t—and frankly, can’t—live in a perfect world,” Finnerman cut in. “You know better than most how
im
perfect our world is.”

“And getting more imperfect by the day,” Terrier muttered.

“What?” Finnerman said.

Terrier shook his head. “Nothing.”

“If we’re finished debating intangibles.” Anselm picked at a bit of imaginary lint on his trousers leg. “POTUS’s thesis has never been that well thought out; the Israeli prime minister said as much.”

Terrier looked from one to the other. “So now—what? How is this peace summit still happening?”

“It’s happening,” Anselm said, “because it has to happen.”

Terrier opened his mouth then closed it with a snap. “You mean…”

“Yes,” Anselm said, “it’s one enormous PR stunt. To keep the status quo alive, to save face for everyone.”

“And to keep the ‘peace process’ industries from imploding,” Finnerman said, “depriving thousands of people of their livelihoods and companies of profits.”

Including yourselves, Terrier thought bitterly, because you’re shareholders in any number of those Gravenhurst-directed companies making money off of this phony peace process. How I despise you all.

“The bottom line,” Anselm concluded, “is that this summit will benefit everyone involved. And when nothing substantial comes of it, the spin will be, ‘POTUS tried, he got farther than any other president in a decade. Kudos to the hero.’”

Finnerman laughed. “And then everyone can go back to hating one another.”

T
he Arab and Chechen cadre
moved out precisely at midnight. Black clouds roiled over their heads, fitful gusts of wind brought with them further hints of rain. The impending heavy weather actually bolstered their spirits, as the chances of their being spotted had been eliminated.

They could move freely, follow the two Waziri warriors with a complete freedom rarely afforded them. They were led toward the mountains, where a curious pale mist was creeping, as if to greet them or help shepherd them into eastern Afghanistan.

The time gave Bourne cause to think again of Soraya and Sonya. His mobile was of no use here, so he had no way of knowing whether El Ghadan had sent another proof-of-life video, no way to know whether Soraya and her daughter were indeed still alive. Despite El Ghadan’s assurances, he knew the timetable was working against all of them. The longer Soraya and Sonya remained in captivity the greater their chance of being killed, no matter what Bourne did.

That he had a plan, that there was still a glimmer of hope, was cold comfort to him. That he carried with him a corner of a plan from Singapore, the place he needed to be, was like a light in the darkness. But there was still a ways to go; how Borz, Faraj, and their men were going to get from Afghanistan to Singapore was anyone’s guess. And that was assuming they survived the Taliban.

For the moment, Bourne needed to put all his doubts aside. He was determined to keep his friend and her daughter from harm. He knew he would move heaven and earth to save them.

As they exited the valley, they also left level ground behind them. The way became rockier as the terrain rose steeply into the foothills, which all too soon morphed into a narrow, winding path, flanked on either side by stony ledges and imposing outcroppings.

Three hours after they left the valley, the path vanished altogether, and they found themselves at the complete mercy of Khan Abdali’s men. This disturbed Faraj, but it seemed to faze Borz not at all. He followed the two elongated skeletons with absolute confidence, an attitude that, from Bourne’s observations, appeared to annoy, then anger Faraj, who had been forced to cede control to the Chechen ever since the C-17 landed in Waziristan.

Now they were obliged to climb rather than march, grasping outcroppings, levering themselves along like lizards on a wall. The Waziri moved along the rock face as if wraiths, seeming to expend no effort as they mounted higher and higher, heading directly into the clouds.

The chilling rain came an hour later, drenching them at once. The Waziri appeared not to notice, and the Chechens took their cue from them. Faraj and his grim-faced men soldiered on without either complaint or comment. They were inured to hardship—it was the only way of life they knew. To a man, they were fixated on their mission, their target, and the angels in the Promised Land that awaited their deaths.

“Now I will tell you something, Yusuf, that Faraj would not understand. In fact, it would offend him,” Borz said to Bourne with the rain streaming down his face. “I love America. Yes, yes, it’s true. You know why I say this, Yusuf? Because America has developed the greatest war machine the world has ever seen. American businessmen have turned the ideology of war into a multibillion-dollar business.” He smiled. “Why do I love this? Well, that war machine is not wholly American. It has help from people like me.” His eyes twinkled through the rain. “Rest assured, Yusuf, when America goes to war I make money. Lots and lots of money.”

He would have gone on, but one of the Waziri warriors came up to Bourne, spoke to him in their strange dialect. Bourne nodded.

“What’s he saying?” Borz asked.

“Around the next bend is Afghanistan,” Bourne said. “The moment we cross over, we’ll be in enemy territory. He wants you to order your men to be on guard.”

The warning was duly passed from man to man, and weapons were brought to the ready. They continued on, around the curve in the rocks, clinging, slipping here and there, the rain ceaseless, the sky bearing down on them like a press.

And so into Afghanistan.

The terrain looked no different than it had for the last several hours, but then why should it? Western Waziristan flowed into eastern Afghanistan like a river to the sea.

Within a half hour, the Waziri had found a seam in the rock face. The path through it was narrow, with high walls looming on either side like giant sentinels. The rain struck the sheer rock and bounced off so that it came at the men both vertically and almost horizontally. The wealth of water had turned the path to runnels, racing streams through which the cadre waded.

Now the path pitched down at such a precipitous angle that they found themselves half sliding into what, in the almost hallucinatory light of the coming dawn, appeared to be a knifelike valley riddled on one side with caves that would afford them shelter from the incessant rain.

Though soaked, the men were forbidden to build fires, even in the depths of the caves. Though tired and hungry, they were restless, craving an enemy to attack and destroy. Finally, however, they hunkered down and ate in huge, voracious mouthfuls, like baby birds. The Waziri and Chechens sat with their backs against the wall, watching as the Arabs—Bourne among them—knelt facing Mecca and chanted their prayers in hushed voices.

“As I see these people praying,” Borz said to Bourne when the session had concluded, “I’m reminded not of the billions of Muslims—including Chechens—but of the officials in Washington, D.C., making decisions that affect the entire world. We are thrown back to the days when Rome ruled the world through its corrupt popes, when thousands of men were thrown into battle in God’s name.”

He looked hard at Bourne. “Imagine what this world would be like if there were no religion.” He laughed. “You and I, Yusuf, would be out of work. Whatever, then, would we do?”

Day had broken, sunlight was slowly prying its way through the thinning clouds. The rain was hardly more than a benign drizzle.

“Fetch the Waziri,” Borz said. “I need details about the next stage of our trek.”

Bourne was approaching them, at the mouth of one of the caves, when the shooting began. Automatic weapons fire shattered the dawn from multiple directions, and all around him Chechens and Arabs were spun around, fountaining blood and brains.