Robert Ludlum's (TM) The Bourne Ascendancy (35 page)

K
ettle’s dead,” Camilla said,
when she had returned to the stables and put Jessuetta in her stall.

“Kettle?” Ohrent’s cheeks became mottled with shock and emotion. “Are you all right?”

She made a face. “Of course I’m all right.”

He leaned on the stall door, arms crossed. “Well, you don’t look all right.”

“What are you, my daddy?”

Her irritation masked the horror of how quickly everything had happened. Thoughts and emotions eddied inside her, muddled and unnerving. She had never caused another person’s death. Though she had trained for it, tried her best to prepare herself mentally, how could she have really known its effects beforehand? She bore down, concentrating on the fact that he had come after her, would have killed her had she not stopped him. Yet still in the aftermath she had to admit she was feeling slightly queasy.

Apparently, Ohrent decided to take a different tack with her. “What happened?” he said in the crisp, terse tone of a control debriefing his fieldman. “Don’t tell me he was the man Jessuetta kicked to death.”

When she nodded, Ohrent said, “Well, fuck me dead!” Then, returning to his role as her local control, he said, “Details, please.”

So she told him. How he had appeared out of nowhere, taking her by surprise. The people who showed up first had called a doctor, who arrived shortly thereafter. As she suspected, the doctor found no breath, no pulse. Kettle was dead. Moments later, a security team arrived, asked a number of questions, which she answered calmly. No, she didn’t know the man. Yes, he had accosted her. Yes, she had tried to get away from him, but she didn’t want to leave her horse. When he came around behind the horse, the horse spooked and kicked him. That was all. Witnesses corroborated her story. No one had seen her strike Jessuetta. The security officers checked her passport, asked for her address in Singapore, then thanked her and said she was free to go.

“Afterward, I apologized to Jessuetta,” she said in conclusion.

Ohrent stared at her with a grief-stricken look.

“What?” she said. “Do I need to do more? I think she’s forgiven me.”

All his life he had wondered whether it was possible to laugh and cry at the same time. “Bugger all, I’ve failed you, Cam.”

She handed the knife back to him in a gesture that was almost ceremonial. “You were between a rock and a hard place.” Stepping forward, she kissed his cheek. “No worries, Jimmie, you did your best to protect me.”

“Trouble was, this time my best wasn’t very good.” Then a shy smile crept across his face. “And to think you didn’t even need protecting.”

“I was glad to have it, Jimmie, believe me. It lent me courage when I needed it most.”

At that moment, two men entered the stables. It was perfectly clear they did not belong among horses or jockeys. They were not owners, nor owners’ representatives. They were as far from tourists as Camilla was from D.C.

For an awful moment Camilla thought she was about to be arrested. Her heart pounded painfully against her rib cage.

“What can I do for you gentlemen?” she said.

“Please come with us,” the one on the left said, showing his Secret Service ID. He looked very much like the one on the right. She thought it curious that she did not recognize either man. They must have come on after she had begun her brief.

“Wait a minute.” Ohrent interjected himself between them. “What is this?”

“This doesn’t concern you,” the one on the right said, with absolutely no inflection in his voice.

“The hell it doesn’t!” Ohrent took a belligerent step toward them, which put them on alert.

“Jimmie, stop,” Camilla said. These were her people, after all. At least they were until she had taken the Black Queen brief.

“Please come with us, Ms. Stowe,” the one on the left said. “There’s not much time. POTUS requires your presence.”

Ms. Stowe. She was their boss, but not while undercover. She felt herself relax.

“‘He requires her presence,’” Ohrent mimicked with no little derision. “Does POTUS know she’s jockeying my horse in the next race?”

The one on the left gave him a jaundiced eye. “Cool your barbie, Matilda,” he said.

“Agent,” Camilla said, “what’s your name?”

“Morris, ma’am.”

“Shut it, Morris.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Morris looked properly abashed. “The thing is, ma’am, we’re in the sixty-minute interval between races. The sooner we bring you to POTUS the sooner you can get back here.”

“Bugger all!” Ohrent said, throwing up his hands. “Go on, then. What POTUS wants…” He let the rest of that sentence hang in the air as Camilla prepared to leave.

“I’ll be back in plenty of time, Jimmie,” she said as Morris and his partner took up position flanking her.

He glared at Morris. “Bollocks to you, sonny-Jim. You’d bloody well have her back in time or this
Matilda
will have your hide.” He turned away, stared at Jessuetta, who looked back at him, bobbed her head and snorted.

“You can say that again!” he muttered as he fingered the knife Camilla had returned to him. “They give me the shits too.”

POTUS, nervous as a fox at a hound convention, was waiting for Camilla in a bunkerlike room well below ground. It was the place his Secret Service detail had chosen as the most secure inside the Thoroughbred Club. There was no time to go anywhere outside it.

His heart turned over the moment he saw her; he felt like a teenager with his first real crush, when nothing else in the universe mattered except this girl, filling the room with her intoxicating beauty and sexuality. He was already hard, and forgot to be embarrassed by it.

No one else was in the room besides them. Somewhere close by, they heard the sound of water gurgling through pipes. The place smelled of mineral dust and disinfectant.

“Camilla,” he said softly.

He moved to take her in his arms, but she drew back.

“Bill, are you crazy? What part of ‘no’ don’t you understand?”

“None of it. I know when you say no you really mean yes.”

She recoiled as if he had slapped her. “Like hell I do!”

He reached out for her. He was still vibrating with the heady power he had exerted in his hotel room. He wanted everything, and he wanted it now. And why not? Was he not the most powerful man in the world?

She turned her head away as he lunged to kiss her. “Bill, you can’t—”

“I’m POTUS, Cam.” He pulled her, resisting, into his arms. “I can do anything I want.”

“Don’t I get any say in this?”

“Of course you do.” He began to wrestle with her to keep her in his embrace. “But I know you better than you know yourself.” He pressed his crotch against her. “You want this, I know you do.” He kissed her throat, the side of her neck. “You’re just scared is all.”

“You’re wrong, Bill.” She was still trying to twist away from him. “I admit I was scared, back at the White House.” It was like struggling with an octopus. “But that’s a million miles away. I’m different now.”

“Nonsense.” He was licking her ear. “People don’t change in the matter of a week.”

“
You
don’t, Bill.” She reared her head back, away from him. “You’re as immovable as a boulder. But other people—
I
do. I
have
. And I’m telling you I don’t want this—not anymore.”

“But I love you, Cam. I love you and no one else.”

She froze. She felt as if he were about to consume her, swallow her alive. She felt his erection, huge and thick as a cudgel, and she shuddered at the thought of it slamming up inside her.

Then he had his hands on her jeans, unsnapping them, pulling them down over her hips.

“No, Bill,” she said, trying to pull them up. “No, no, no!”

B
ourne had passed through
security and gained the interior of the Thoroughbred Club by the time a beautiful Thoroughbred was led into the orchid-bedecked winner’s circle by his owner. The jockey, clad in purple-and-cream-striped silks, was crouched atop his mount, waving his short crop in triumph.

Excited chatter filled the stands, and long lines had already formed in front of the betting windows for the second race. It looked like Percolate, the ruling family’s horse, was the clear favorite.

Bourne made the climb up to the rooftop light array, which at first looked deserted. Then he spotted someone—a Secret Service agent. He froze. Then he saw another and another. It was clear the cadre had not been here, possibly it had never intended to be here.

Borz had played him. Perhaps Nazyr had seen Bourne’s interest in the Thoroughbred Club when they had first met, and told Borz. Perhaps Borz had never really trusted him. In either case, at this very moment members of the cadre were planting a deadly bomb in another location—one where it would do the most damage to the dignitaries in the president’s box.

Before beginning his descent, Bourne looked across the oval. He spotted Aashir, but only because he knew where to look. Aashir’s attention appeared to be focused on the stands across the racetrack.

Climbing down from the aerie, Bourne brought to mind the blueprints of the club. If Borz wasn’t planting the bomb on the light array, where would be the best place to put it, the place most likely to kill as many people sitting in the stands as possible? The stands. Of course! The bomb was going to be placed
beneath
the stands.

Following the blueprint from memory, Bourne made his way down through the security and maintenance tunnels. Three times he was obliged to freeze, squeezing back into the shadows as security personnel passed by. But finally he found the correct tunnel that led underneath the stands. Above him roared the cheers and excited shouts of the patrons, and every once in a while the jostling mass caused what felt like a minor earthquake.

He pushed through a door and came face-to-face with the Chechen with the scar along his chin. The man was so surprised to see Bourne he was paralyzed for an instant. Bourne chopped down with the edge of his hand to render him unconscious, but Scarface shoved him back against the wall, using his assault rifle as a bar across Bourne’s chest. At once, Bourne slashed in on the sides of Scarface’s neck with both his fists. The Chechen’s eyes rolled up in his head as he collapsed. Stepping over his prone form, Bourne crept forward in a half crouch, and almost stumbled over a pair of security guards. He checked them. Both dead. He pressed on.

The passage was lit by a string of spiral fluorescent bulbs protected by steel cages. The concrete undersides of the tiers of seats rose above him, connected by a supporting network of steel beams and girders. Bourne looked up. Through the gloom he could make out a figure hunched over a black oblong the size and shape of an electrician’s toolbox. It was shiny, made out of metal or plastic, and as the man settled it into place on one of the lateral beams, it seemed very heavy. A tremor passed along Bourne’s spine. It was all too possible the bomb was loaded with high explosives in order to blast through the reinforced concrete underside of the stands.

Bourne knew where the presidential box was located. The spot mandated for the bomb looked to be directly under it. Reaching up, he swung onto one of the lateral beams over his head, then grabbed the next one up and so began his climb to the level where the bomb was sitting. He was moving through patches of shadow and light, but as he rose, the shadows deepened and the light dimmed to a sepia shade.

Above him, the bomber’s fingers were long, white, bony, spidery in their movements. Bourne’s approach was as silent as an owl’s. Nevertheless, the bomber sensed Bourne’s presence. In an instant, he had a switchblade out and had thrown it with deadly accuracy.

Bourne spun to the left. The blade shredded the cloth over his right arm, then continued on its way, its downward flight erratic now, slowed considerably. It cartwheeled into the gloom below.

In one leap, Bourne reached the bomber’s level. The Chechen rose, but not fully. His knees were bent, his arms cocked as Bourne closed with him. He expected Bourne to strike first and was prepared to counter. Only the span of an arm away, Bourne brought himself up short. The man, caught off balance, made a belated lunge that, had it not been awkward, might well have shattered two of Bourne’s ribs if he had not been wearing body armor. As it was, the blow landed heavily, below the ribs and in the armor’s seam. Bourne buckled. Sensing an opening, the Chechen lashed out at him. Bourne grasped his forearm and spun, using his own momentum against him, pulling him around and down in an aikido move.

The Chechen landed on his back, already half off the beam, and Bourne struck him twice on the sternum. But the man immediately drew up his knees, got his feet under him, levered himself up, throwing Bourne off and coming at him in a whirlwind of callused knuckles and steel-tipped boots. Bourne was driven back a step, then another. One foot slipped off the beam, hung for a moment in midair. The Chechen pressed his advantage, but Bourne swung so his left side was toward his adversary. The Chechen’s strikes missed their target, and Bourne, grasping his wrist, swung him around, using his body as a counterweight to bring himself fully back on the beam.

Now the two men squared off. The Chechen was not big, but his upper body was wide and well muscled, his arms like steel bands. He was wary now, having been suckered by the aikido move. Bourne knew he wouldn’t be able to get away with that surprise twice.

Feinting to his right, the Chechen struck at Bourne from the left. A ferocious gust of blows was delivered by both men. Then the struggle seemed to come to a standstill as the two men’s physical prowess locked together, like an inexorable force straining against an immovable object.

The Chechen broke free first, and immediately struck out, not realizing that this was what Bourne wanted. He overreached as Bourne slipped sideways, and, off balance, he stumbled. Bourne, bent, grabbed him, but the Chechen twisted over onto his back. His foot hooked behind Bourne’s knees, whipped forward, taking Bourne off his feet.

Bourne reached up, but the Chechen slapped his hands away, and Bourne fell. He grabbed the lateral beam just below, hung there, swinging precariously, watching as the Chechen began to climb back up to where he had left the bomb.

Kicking out, Bourne increased his swing until his momentum was such that his feet struck the vertical girder on his left. As they did so, he let go of the lateral beam and flexed his knees. With the power of his legs, he launched himself up to where the Chechen crouched over the bomb. He struck the Chechen, but the sole of one boot knocked the bomb out of the Chechen’s hands. The bomber managed to hold on to the beam, if just barely, but the bomb struck an adjacent girder, then arced down through the webwork of steel.

Camilla, deep in POTUS’s grip, did the only thing she could think of: She kneed him hard in the groin. With a groan, Magnus let her go as he slipped to his knees. He squatted there, rocking gently back and forth, his hands cupping his genitals.

He looked up at her. “Why are you doing this to me?” Both his face and his voice were stripped of the perfect photo-op expressions and inflections Howard Anselm and the mandarins at Gravenhurst had indoctrinated him in. The imperial mask had slipped off his face and, as at the end of a Greek tragedy, the sorrowful bare bones beneath were revealed. For the first time he was naked to her.

“Cam, I love you,” he said like a besotted Montague.

She crouched down in front of him. “Bill, you are the president of the United States. You’re married. You have two beautiful children.”

“One of whom knows about us,” he said miserably.

“What?” Camilla said, like a Capulet. “Who?”

“Who do you think? My genius daughter, Charlie.” He looked at her beseechingly. “She knows I’m a bad horse, Cam. She’s never going to bet on me again.”

Camilla shook her head. “You don’t know that, Bill. She’s young; you still have time to make things right.”

“But it’s you I want, Cam. Only you.”

“But your wife—”

He waved a hand dismissively. “Maggie and I haven’t said three meaningful words to each other in ten months. And as for sex—”

“That’s enough, Bill.”

This was more than Camilla had bargained for, more than she wanted to hear. For many reasons, she did not want to be embroiled in Magnus’s sexual angst. For one thing, she knew it would never end. In a week, a month or two, he’d become infatuated with someone else and cheat on her. For another, Camilla had made her decision to put as much space between her and the Washington Beltway as humanly possible. This was her last brief; she was damned if she was going to allow Bill to rope her into another.

To this end, she rose, twisting away from his outstretched arms and grasping fingers.

“Come on, Cam,” he pleaded. “You can’t leave me like this.”

Involuntarily, she glanced down. The long bulge of the presidential phallus was all too visible. As she stepped past him, Magnus’s hand almost grasped her ankle. But he had used that trick on her before, and she was ready for it, high-stepping like a horse at dressage. His fingers closed around air, and he groaned in his misery.

“Cam, where are you going? Don’t leave me. I need you. I can’t sleep, I can’t think. You’re all I want.”

“Bill, you don’t know what you’re saying.”

“You think not?” His voice had a belligerent edge to it, like a child who realizes he’s not getting what he wants. “I’ll give you anything you want. Anything. Just name it. I’m the president; I can do anything for you.”

With her hand on the doorknob, she turned and looked back over her shoulder. “I know you won’t believe this, Bill, but there’s nothing you have that I want.”

It was the perfect line, preparatory to the perfect exit. The only problem was when she opened the door she smelled a familiar odor. Her mind just had time to register POTUS’s three Secret Service agents on the corridor floor before she was struck in the chest.

She reeled back, lost her balance, and fell. Her heart and her mind seemed to beat a vicious tattoo like a war drum. Then she passed into unconsciousness.