Robert Ludlum's (TM) The Bourne Ascendancy (5 page)

“If not Qabbani, who betrayed you?”

“That’s what I have to find out. I need a back door into the Ministry of Interior.”

Zizzy grinned. “You know, I’ve been wanting to revisit Damascus.”

“The place is an out-and-out war zone, Zizzy.”

Zizzy winked. “That’s what I mean.” He took out his mobile. “I’ll have my pilot set out a flight plan and warm up the engines.”

Shortly after their meal had been served, Bourne noted a young man enter the restaurant and scan the interior with professional acuity before settling himself into a corner table, after which he never looked in Bourne’s direction.

“We have company,” Bourne said, and Zizzy nodded, not even bothering to query the acute left turn in the conversation. “At your four o’clock, corner table.”

“Alone?” Zizzy asked, without turning to take a look.

“In here, at least,” Bourne said.

“El Ghadan making good on his threats.” Zizzy said. “This is positive news; it means he’s predictable, which is more than you can say for most terrorists. If he’s predictable we can stay one step ahead of him.”

Bourne shook his head. “With the mobile he gave me he has no need to put eyes on me.”

Zizzy frowned. “Then who’s our friend over there working for?”

“We’ll find out before we leave,” Bourne said, “but right now I want to know why you want to put yourself in danger in Damascus.”

“You came to me, Jason, remember?”

“I’m asking for help, not for you.”

“Nevertheless…” Zizzy shrugged. “What can I say? I’m missing the old days. Listen, it’s my plane, Jason.”

“Okay, we’ll go to Damascus together,” Bourne said softly but firmly. “You’ll help me get into the ministry. Then you’re done.”

“Jason. I’ll miss out on all the fun.”

“I’m not going to endanger your life.”

“Am I mistaken in believing that decision is mine to make?”

Bourne said nothing.

“Well, as for my own situation, if you’ve been made, then I’ve already been linked to you. Better for both of us if we get out of Doha as quickly as possible.”

“I’m sorry about that.”

Zizzy snorted. “What are friends for, except to take a bullet for you?” Then, seeing Bourne’s expression, he laughed. “Come on. I have it on the highest authority I’m going to live to a ripe old age, dandling great-grandchildren on my arthritic knees.”

C
amilla, her well-packed
weekender in hand, presented herself at the Dairy, where she was photographed and fingerprinted by security personnel. The Dairy was only a mile or so away from the Farm, but its purpose was very different. Whereas the Farm trained new recruits, refreshed the skills of field agents, and periodically updated them on the newest surveillance hardware and weaponry, the Dairy prepared elite agents for specialized assignments.

Both the Farm and the Dairy were in rural Virginia, a short helicopter ride from Langley. In the Dairy’s case, it was set at an actual dairy, complete with a herd of milk-producing cows and a highly trained staff dedicated to the bovines. Needless to say, the director of the Company handpicked every member of the Dairy’s staff, whether in the service of the facility’s human guests or animal residents.

The Dairy’s setting, amid bucolic rolling hills, lush stands of hardwood trees, despoiled by few roads and even fewer vehicles, was idyllic, but only the cows had the leisure to appreciate it fully. The Company’s guests were kept far too busy to catch more than a glimpse now and again.

The Black Queen brief had instructed Camilla to report to someone named Hunter Worth. This resident turned out to be a woman with the face of an angel and the demeanor of a marine drill instructor. In fact, as Camilla quickly discovered, Hunter had been a marine herself, piloting jets just as Camilla’s mother had once done, until a shoulder injury had forced her to find another path.

“How did you injure your shoulder?” Camilla asked, that first day.

“I fell out of a tree.”

“What? You’re kidding.”

“I wish.”

“What happened?”

“I was stupid enough to accept a dare. It had rained overnight, the bark was slippery. Boom, end of story.”

“Sorry.”

“Don’t be. I love the Dairy.”

“Isn’t this kind of a”—she gestured with her arm—“closed-off life?”

“Not with Hulu Plus, Netflix, and iTunes.”

“You mean—?”

“Yeah,
Breaking Bad
,
NCIS
,
The Big Bang Theory
.”

“Fan, fan, fan,” Camilla said, laughing. “And music?”

“Lots and lots of it.”

“Lana del Rey, Artic Monkeys, Lorde.”

“Fan, fan, fan.”

They laughed simultaneously.

Camilla shook her head. “But you don’t miss flying?”

“You always miss flying,” Hunter said, sobering. “Didn’t your mother tell you that?”

In fact, she had.

“Anyway,” Hunter continued, “this is the next best thing, and, after all, you can’t fly forever. Better to get out while you’re still on top. Better for me, anyway.”

“You’re that competitive.”

“Aren’t you?”

Camilla thought about that for some time. “I suppose I must be. I never thought about it much.”

“You had to be,” Hunter said, “to wind up here.”

It was a compliment, Camilla knew, but whether it was directed at her, the Dairy, or Hunter herself was debatable.

“How are you around horses?” Hunter asked now. She had not taken Camilla inside, hadn’t shown her to her room, offered her a drink. She had been standing at the rim of the landing pad as the heli transport from Langley had touched down and Camilla had emerged bent over, half sprinting past the circumference of the still turning rotors.

“I’m not frightened of them, if that’s what you mean,” Camilla said.

Hunter was dressed in jeans, boots, and a denim shirt with the sleeves rolled up her sunbaked, freckled forearms. She wore her dark hair close-cropped, her gray eyes were hooded, and her grip when she had greeted Camilla was as dry and hard as firewood. “That’s precisely what I mean.”

They were walking across what looked like a college quad, a low, square space covered in well-mown grass. A gnarled crabapple tree rose from each corner. In the center was a mature rose bush. Camilla was still carrying her weekender.

Passing between two stone buildings, they emerged into a field of wildflowers, beyond which was a barn, a rack of high-end racing and mountain bikes, and two horse riding rings made of split logs, western-style. The rings were large. One of them was simply packed dirt, while the other had red-and-white jumping stanchions of various styles and heights placed at regulation intervals.

As they drew closer, Camilla noticed an enormous packed-dirt oval stretching away on the other side of the barn. She could smell the horses, hear the flies buzzing. Ignoring everything else, Hunter ushered her into the barn, where several workers stood, seemingly waiting for their arrival.

“Done any horseback riding?” Hunter asked.

“When I was a kid I used to bareback.”

Hunter raised one eyebrow. “You talking about riding or sex?”

Camilla laughed. “Both.”

“Riding at this level is no laughing matter.” She gestured. “Stash your bag over there beside the door.”

Hunter led her to the stalls. Each one held a horse. They went from stall to stall, Hunter making sure Camilla stood as close to each horse as possible. She watched the deportment of the horses as they reacted to Camilla.

Hunter said, “If you approach a horse from the front, it will shy away. If you approach from the rear, you’ll get kicked. If the kick gets you square in the chest, you’re dead.” She reached up, patted the horse on its muzzle. “Their eyes are on the sides of their heads. Not like ours. You have to remember that. Let the horse see you, then scent you. If you startle him you’ll never be able to control him.”

“This is crazy,” Camilla said suddenly. “I’ll never be able to do this in under a week.”

“But you must. As a jockey at the Singapore Thoroughbred Club you will have access to all the vulnerable areas. That will give you the chance you need to find Bourne before he can assassinate the president. Anyway, leave your horsemanship to me. I’ll get you up to speed and out to Singapore as ordered.” They had stopped at the second stall from the end. “Camilla, meet Starfall.” The horse was reddish brown with a white diamond-shaped blaze on its forehead.

Hunter stroked the horse’s muzzle. “The horse has seen you, has smelled you. Now replace my hand with yours.” Hunter lifted her hand away and Camilla placed hers on the muzzle, soft as velvet.

“Starfall,” Hunter said, “meet Camilla.”

The horse bobbed his head and snorted through huge nostrils. Camilla laughed in delight.

As Bourne and Zizzy wended their way between the tables on their way out of the restaurant, Bourne took a quick detour to the observer’s table. He was reading a paper. The front page was all about a French citizen who had been found on the doorstep of the French embassy in Doha, shot to death. According to the story, the victim’s identity was being withheld pending the family’s notification.

“How can I help you?” Bourne said.

The young man looked up over his paper, said, “Shalom, Mr. Bourne. My name is Levi Blum.”

Mossad, Bourne thought.

“What are you doing here, Mr. Blum?”

“Levi, please. I bring greetings from Eli Yadin.”

“You needn’t talk in Hebrew,” Bourne said.

Blum directed a significant glance Zizzy’s way.

“Zizzy, meet Levi.”

Zizzy grinned, said in Arabic, “I can wait outside.”

“No.” Bourne, switching to English, put a hand lightly on his arm. He turned to Blum. “Well?”

Blum folded the paper, placed it on the table. “I’m to bring you to a secure location in Doha.” He stubbornly kept to Hebrew.

Bourne shook his head. “I don’t have time.”

“Someone needs to see you, Mr. Bourne. A friend.”

“I told you—”

“It’s urgent.” When Bourne made no reply, Blum hesitated, then, with obvious reluctance, added, “It concerns…” And here he pointed to the front-page story.

Bourne looked at him, then nodded, and Blum rose, tossing some bills down on the tabletop.

Zizzy frowned. “What?”

Bourne turned to him. “I need to make a quick detour.”

“Jason, you can’t. Not with that accursed mobile tracking your every move.”

Bourne handed over to Zizzy the rucksack he’d taken from the hotel safe. “The mobile is inside. Go to the plane and wait there for me, will you?”

“Of course, but—”

“Don’t worry, my friend. I’ll be perfectly safe with Levi.”

“It’s not that.” Zizzy waggled a forefinger. “This clever bastard.” He meant El Ghadan.

Bourne smiled grimly. “Go on, Zizzy. I won’t be long.”

S
ara Yadin waited
for Bourne in the rear of a diamond cutter’s shop. The diamond cutter, a friend of her father’s, was another of Mossad’s occasionals, a stringer, a local man called on from time to time to deliver a message outside official channels or to provide a safe house for its agents.

Sara had entered Doha under deep cover. She was Martine Heur: a French Canadian, a diamond merchant from Quebec, and a devout Roman Catholic. Her gold Star of David, which she normally wore around her neck, was hidden on her person so well that no one else was going to find it.

While she waited, she watched the diamond cutter work. He was not a young man. His back was hunched, his hair white, his intelligent face as lined as tree bark. But his hands were rock steady. It was as if they moved of their own accord, as the master took up his tools and applied his loving touch to the diamond braced in its special vise.

“Madam,” the diamond cutter said, “your beauty outshines most of my gems.”

Sara laughed. “But not all?”

He smiled as the chisel came down, cutting the diamond so precisely it looked afterward as if nothing had happened.

“I am not in the business of inflating egos.” He put down his tools, unstrapped his prize. “I am, however, in the business of telling the truth.” He swiveled on his stool and faced her, the newly cut diamond held in his open palm. “When one buys and sells diamonds one learns that the truth is the one commodity one cannot do without. How many merchants have I seen fold their tents and fade away because they are cheats and thieves? The business does not suffer these people easily.” He shrugged. “Some even wind up dead.”

He handed her the diamond to look at. “But you, being a diamond merchant, know all this, yes?”

They grinned at each other.

“Stop over here. I’ll just be a moment,” Bourne said, and stepped out of the car. They had driven perhaps twenty minutes before he had Blum pull into a parking spot.

Bourne went down the block, into a mobile phone store, where he bought a prepaid mobile, already set up. Back out on the street, walking farther along, away from Blum and the car, he turned his back and dialed a long-distance number from memory, waited patiently for it to be answered.

“Deron.”

“Jason! I haven’t heard from you since…well, it’s been far too long.” Deron’s deep, Oxford-inflected voice hadn’t changed a bit. “Are you in D.C.? You should come on over.” Deron lived in the northeast quarter, that is to say, the black ghetto. Though he was wealthy enough to live in the poshest D.C. enclave, he had returned from art school in London to settle in the neighborhood where he grew up, using much of his money to help kids who had no hope, who would otherwise have turned to crime. He had made his first fortune by forging fine art. He had then hired himself out as an art expert to individuals and museums that had been sold his art as the real thing. Eternally restless, he had lately turned to manufacturing specialized weaponry for a select clientele, which included Bourne. He still painted, but now it was strictly for his own enjoyment. Bourne could recall with perfect clarity the astonishingly accurate copy of the
Mona Lisa
hanging over Deron’s living room fireplace. It was not only style that Deron could reproduce, but the artist’s inner fire.

“I’m not even on the continent,” Bourne said, then proceeded to tell Deron about the mobile El Ghadan had saddled him with. “What I need,” he said in conclusion, “is for you to find a way to fool the GPS. I want El Ghadan to think I’m somewhere I’m not.”

“No problem at all,” Deron said. “Recently, a bunch of students at the University of Texas built a unit that spoofed the GPS of an eighty-million-dollar super-yacht, sending it incrementally off course without the captain or any of the crew being the wiser.”

“Do you know how they did it?”

Deron laughed. “Please. I figured it out six months before they did. Okay, I need some info from you. Give me the mobile’s model number, the version of the operating system, along with the baseband, kernel version, and build number.”

Bourne recited the info he had memorized, having surmised that Deron would need it.

“Okay,” Deron said. “I’ll get right on it.”

“How long will it take?”

“It can’t be done all at once. I have to send out a series of weak civil GPS signals. Eventually they’ll overpower the original sat signal and I’ll be in. Once that happens, I’ll contact you and you can tell me where you want the mobile to tell your watchers you’re at. All told, it won’t take more than twelve hours.”

“Thanks, Deron,” Bourne said.

“You can thank me by taking me out to dinner when you get back here.”

“It’s a deal,” Bourne said.

“One caveat, Jason. This GPS switch has a half-life, after which it’s hackable and, if by an IT tech with up-to-date knowledge, can be defeated.”

“How much time will I have?”

“That, unfortunately, is impossible to determine. Too many variables. And of course, it may never lose its mojo.”

They said their goodbyes and he pocketed his new mobile. Then he went back to the car, where Blum was impatiently tapping the wheel.

“It’s beautiful,” Sara said, handing back the diamond.

“Beautiful?” the diamond cutter said in mock offense. “Why, it’s magnificent! Ten carats, flawless white. Please!”

“How much?” she inquired.

“This treasure will set you back a million-four American dollars. Then there’s the setting to consider.” He lifted a forefinger. “But for you, maybe a special deal can be secured.”

Sara laughed again. “What a charmer you are!”

He winked. “It’s how I make a living.”

At that moment, a knock at the back door precluded any more banter. Two longs, a short, three longs.

The diamond cutter rose. “It is past time I made sure my patrons are being treated well.” He took her hand, kissed it briefly. “It’s been a pleasure, madam. Come back and see me when you decide to get married.”

“You think I’m getting married soon?”

“I think you have come here for more than business.”

Sara’s pulse pounded in her ears. “How can you possibly know that?”

He smiled. “My dear, if I can hear the beating heart of this diamond, surely I can hear yours.”

Sara waited until he had vanished into the front of the shop before opening the back door. There was Levi with Bourne.

As the Mossad agent stepped in behind Bourne, she held out her hand. “My business is private.”

“Protocol dictates I don’t leave you alone with an outsider.”

“He’s not an outsider.”

Blum frowned. “Do you know something I don’t know, Rebeka?” This was the name by which Sara was known inside Mossad, where it was unknown that she was Eli Yadin’s daughter, who to the outside world was dead.

She leveled her gaze at him. “Guard the alley, Levi.”

Glumly he nodded as Bourne closed the door, stood with his back against it. She faced him, silent, waiting for him to speak. She had set up this rendezvous after hearing about the massacre at the Al-Bourah during her initial briefing with Blum.

When he remained mute, she said, “Aaron is dead.”

“You knew him?”

She nodded. “He was a friend. But he was also what we call an occasional.”

“You mean between your small talk about art and film and music he slipped you interesting tidbits of product.”

“Now and again. The arrangement suited us both.”

“Really? What did he get out of it?”

“You must know. Aaron was half Jewish. He despised the gathering French anti-Semitism. He always said that when he got married and his child was of age he’d move out of the country.”

Bourne watched her carefully. She had revealed another facet of herself: recruiting people she knew. Did he think she had done this with him? She could sense this made him wary. Time to return the subject to more familiar territory.

“Levi briefed me the moment I arrived. How did you escape the massacre?”

Bourne told her.

“You and Soraya—”

“Worked together,” he finished for her.

“And you were close.”

“That was a long time ago,” he said, “in another lifetime.”

“Are they hurt?”

“Not so far as I could see.” He had deliberately omitted telling of his torture at El Ghadan’s hands. She already had enough on her plate.

She stood no more than a hand’s breadth away from him. She could feel his breath on her cheek, that familiar masculine scent she so adored. She wanted to ask if El Ghadan had hurt him, but immediately she checked herself. They had had their two weeks’ reunion following her stint in the hospital, and a more kind and gentle man she could not imagine. But now, a year later, they were both at work in the field. Moreover, in a red zone, teeming with the enemy. It would not do to be running on emotion. She also knew that if he sensed any sign of personal emotion he would take it as a flaw in her character and be repelled. That was a thought too terrible to contemplate.

“Okay, then.” She nodded. “So we go from here.”

“The second lesson to learn about horses,” Hunter said as they walked Starfall out of the paddock toward the empty ring, “is just how stupid they are. Forget Trigger or whatever other ideas Hollywood has put into your head. Horses are herd animals. They need to be led. If they sense you’re afraid or reluctant to take charge, chaos will ensue.”

“Chaos?”

“They’ll do whatever the hell they want. Stop, crop the grass, amble along, anything but what you want them to do. They’re lazy beasts, at heart.” Hunter had a voice as hard and raspy as the callused palm of her hand, as if she smoked three packs a day or had had some surgical procedure on her throat. “So the idea is
intent
.” She smacked the small English saddle with the flat of her hand. “Before you mount the horse know what you want him to do, where you want him to go, and at what pace—walk, trot, canter, gallop.” Her gray eyes shot Camilla a look. They looked as if she had been through innumerable battles—not weary as much as wise. “Got that?”

Camilla nodded.

“This horse likes you. I felt it from the moment you two met,” Hunter said. “He’s a gelding, powerful, fast—not a workhorse. See by his sleekness, his long, well-formed legs? He’s a racer. Exactly the kind of horse you’ll be riding in the field.” She patted Starfall’s flank fondly. “We’ll start you off on him, then graduate you to a horse that won’t be so fond of you. You’ll need proficiency on all of ’em. Where you’re headed you won’t get to choose.”

Camilla felt her heart thudding wildly in her chest. “You’re going to teach me how to win? Really?”

Hunter looked at her in a way that made Camilla believe she could see right through her to the fear.

“First things first, darlin’. Now c’mon, mount this beast. And remember, from the left, always from the left.”

The moment the door closed in his face, Levi Blum looked left and right down the alley. Finding he was alone, he drew out a small black box, placed it against the door. He fitted himself with a wireless earbud, switched on the Bluetooth connection, and began to fiddle with the dial on the front of the box. It took only moments to get the electronic ear focused on the two voices in the room beyond the door. He switched on the recording device hidden within the electronic ear.

“The problem is El Ghadan. How the hell does he know so much about you?” Rebeka’s voice came through loud and clear.

“That’s what I have to find out.” Now Bourne’s voice.

Rebeka: “You have less than seven days to carry out the mission. How can you—?”

Bourne: “Let me worry about that.”

Rebeka: “About the mission: You’re not actually going to kill the president of the United States?”

Bourne: “What choice do I have? El Ghadan was all too clear about what he’ll do to Soraya and Sonya if I don’t.”

Silence for several long beats. Blum, feeling pins and needles in his left leg, shifted from one foot to the other.

Rebeka: “You have another choice, you know.”

Bourne: “I don’t.”

Rebeka: “You could find them and—”

Bourne: “El Ghadan has already taken care of that possibility.”

Rebeka: “I know, but…”

Another silence.

Bourne: “I know what you’re implying. Tell me this, if it was Aaron who was being held captive, what would you do?”

Rebeka: “I’d do what needs to be done. Mossad does not negotiate with terrorists.”

Bourne: “And if in the process he died?”

Rebeka: “Then so be it.”

Bourne: “There is a two-year-old child involved.”

Rebeka: “I understand that.”

Bourne: “You are as remorseless as the God of Abraham.”

Rebeka: “That was how I was raised. That is how I need to be. My people are given no choice. Are you surprised?”

Bourne: “Not in the least.”

A third silence. No, not quite a silence. Blum tried dialing in more closely, but all he seemed to hear was what might be the sliding of fabric against fabric, or possibly something else altogether. A hissing like the imagined conversation between two serpents.

Then, abruptly, Rebeka spoke: “That’s it, then.”

Her voice was louder, closer to the door, and Blum hurriedly detached the box, plucked the bud from his ear, jammed them both deep in the pocket of his trousers.

Not a moment too soon. The door swung open and Rebeka emerged, Bourne several paces behind her. Their business completed, they exchanged no words of farewell.

“This way,” Rebeka said, leading Blum down the alley in the opposite direction Bourne took.

“Do we have an assignment?” he said, hurrying to keep up with her.

“Yeah,” she said tersely. “Keep the fuck out of the way.”