The Bourne Betrayal (6 page)

On his way out of the DCI’s office, Bourne briefly stopped by Anne Held’s domain. Armed with the names of the two case officers who had eavesdropped on the conversation that had sent Martin Lindros halfway around the world on the trail of transshipped TSGs, he took the private elevator that shuttled between the DCI’s floor and the sub-basement.

As the elevator sighed to a stop, an
LCD
panel on the left-hand door activated, an electronic eye scanning the shiny black octagon Anne had affixed to the lapel of his jacket. It was encoded with a number invisible save to the scanner. Only then did the steel doors slide open.

Martin Lindros had reimagined the sub-basement as, basically, one gigantic space filled with mobile workstations, each with a braid of electronic leads spiraling up to the ceiling. The braids were on tracks so they could move with the workstations and the personnel as they relocated from assignment to assignment. At the far end, Bourne saw, was a series of conference rooms, separated from the main space by alternating frosted-glass and steel panels.

As befitted an agency named after a monster with two hundred eyes, the Typhon office was filled with monitors. In fact, the walls were a mosaic of flat-panel plasma screens on which a dizzying array of digital images were displayed: satellite chartings, closed-circuit television pictures of public spaces, transportation hubs such as airports, bus depots, train stations, street corners, cross sections of snaking highways and suburban rail lines, metropolitan underground platforms worldwide-Bourne recognized metros in New York, London, Paris, Moscow. People of all shapes, sizes, religions, ethnicities walking, milling mindlessly, standing undecided, lounging, smoking, getting on and off conveyances, talking to one another, ignoring one another, plugged into iPods, shopping, eating on the run, kissing, cuddling, exchanging bitter words, oblivious, cell phones slapped to their ears, accessing e-mail or porno, slouched, hunched, drunk, stoned, fights breaking out, first-date embarrassments, skulking, mumbling to themselves. A chaos of unedited video from which the analysts were required to find specific patterns, digital omens, electronic warning signs.

Lerner must have alerted the case officers to his arrival, because he saw a striking young woman whom he judged to be in her midthirties detach herself from a view screen and come toward him. He at once knew that she was or had been, at any rate, a field agent. Her stride was not too long, not too short, not too fast, not too slow. It was, to sum it up in one word, anonymous. Because an individual’s stride was as distinctive as his fingerprints, it was one of the best ways to cull an adversary out of a swarming pack of pedestrians, even one whose disguise was otherwise first-rate.

She had a face that was both strong and proud, the chiseled prow of a sleek ship knifing through seas that would capsize inferior vessels. The large, deep blue eyes were set like jewels in the cinnamon dusk of her Arabian face.

“You must be Soraya Moore,” he said, “the senior case officer.”

Her smile showed for a moment, then was quickly hidden behind a cloud of confusion and abrupt coolness. “That’s right, Mr. Bourne. This way.”

She led him down the length of the vast, teeming space to the second conference room from the left. Opening the frosted-glass door, she watched him pass with that same odd curiosity. But then considering his often adversarial relationship with CI, perhaps it wasn’t odd after all.

There was a man inside, younger than Soraya by at least several years. He was of middling height, athletic, with sandy hair and a fair complexion. He was sitting at an oval glass conference table working on a laptop. The screen was filled with what looked to be an exceptionally difficult crossword puzzle.

He glanced up only when Soraya cleared her throat.

“Tim Hytner,” he said without rising, When Bourne took a seat between the two case officers, he discovered that the crossword Hytner was trying to solve was, in fact, a cipher-and quite a sophisticated one at that.

“I have just over five hours until my flight to London departs,” Bourne said. “Triggered spark gaps-tell me what I need to know.”

“Along with fissionable material, TSGs are among the most highly restricted items in the world,”

Hytner began. “To be precise, they’re number two thousand six hundred forty-one on the government’s controlled list.”

“So the tip that got Lindros so excited he couldn’t help going into the field himself concerned a transshipment of TSGs.”

Hytner was back to trying to crack the cipher, so Soraya took over. “The whole thing began in South Africa. Cape Town, to be exact.”

“Why Cape Town?” Bourne asked.

“During the apartheid era, the country became a haven for smugglers, mostly by necessity.” Soraya spoke quickly, efficiently, but with an unmistakable detachment. “Now that South Africa is on our

‘white list,’ it’s okay for American manufacturers to export TSGs there.”

“Then they get ‘lost,’” Hytner chimed in without lifting his head from the letters on the screen.

“Lost is right.” Soraya nodded. “Smugglers are more difficult to eradicate than roaches. As you can imagine, there’s still a network of them operating out of Cape Town, and these days they’re highly sophisticated.”

“And the tip came from where?” Bourne said.

Without looking at him, Soraya passed over sheets of computer printouts. “The smugglers communicate by cell phone. They use ‘burners,’ cheap phones available in any convenience store on pay-as-you-go plans. They use them for anywhere from a day to, maybe, a week, if they can get their hands on another
SIM
card. Then they throw them away and use another.”

“Virtually impossible to trace, you wouldn’t believe.” Hytner’s body was tense. He was putting all he had into breaking the cipher. “But there is a way.”

“There’s always a way,” Bourne said.

“Especially if your uncle works in the phone company.” Hytner shot a quick grin at Soraya.

She maintained her icy demeanor. “Uncle Kingsley emigrated to Cape Town thirty years ago. London was too grim for him, he said. He needed a place that was still full of promise.” She shrugged. “Anyway, we got lucky. We caught a conversation regarding this particular shipment-the transcript is on the second sheet. He’s telling one of his people the cargo can’t go through the usual channels.”

Bourne noticed Hytner looking at him curiously. “And what was special about this ‘lost’ shipment,”

Bourne said, “was that it coincided with the specific threat to the U.S.”

“That and the fact that we have the smuggler in custody,” Hytner said.

Bourne ran his finger down the second page of the transcript. “Was it wise to bring him in?

Chances are you’ll alert his customer.”

Soraya shook her head. “Not likely. These people use a source once, then they move on.”

“So you know who bought the TSGs.”

“Let’s say we have a strong suspicion. That’s why Lindros went into the field himself.”

“Have you heard of Dujja?” Hytner said.

Bourne accessed the memory. “Dujja has been credited with at least a dozen attacks in Jordan and Saudi Arabia, the most recent being last month’s bombing that killed ninety-five people at the Grand Mosque in Khanaqin, 144 kilometers northeast of Baghdad. If I remember right, it was also allegedly responsible for the assassinations of two members of the Saudi royal family, the Jordanian foreign minister, and the Iraqi chief of internal security.”

Soraya took back the transcript. “It sounds implausible, doesn’t it, that one cadre could be responsible for so many attacks? But it’s true. One thing links them all: the Saudis. There was a secret business meeting going on in the mosque that included high-level Saudi emissaries. The Jordanian foreign minister was a personal friend of the royal family; the Iraqi security chief was a vocal supporter of the United States.”

“I’m familiar with the classified debrief material,” Bourne said. “Those were all sophisticated, highly engineered attacks. Most of them didn’t include suicide bombers, and none of the perpetrators has been caught. Who’s the leader of Dujja?”

Soraya put the transcript back in its folder. “His name is Fadi.”

“Fadi. The redeemer, in Arabic,” Bourne said. “A name he must have taken.”

“The truth is we don’t know anything else about him, not even his real name,” Hytner said sourly.

“But we do know some things,” Bourne said. “For one, Dujja’s attacks are so well coordinated and sophisticated, it’s safe to assume that Fadi either has been educated in the West or has had considerable contact with it. For another, the cadre is unusually well armed with modern-day weaponry not normally associated with Arab or Muslim fundamentalist terror groups.”

Soraya nodded. “We’re all over that angle. Dujja is one of the new generation of cadres that has joined forces with organized crime, drug traffickers out of South Asia and Latin America.”

“If you ask me,” Hytner chipped in, “the reason Deputy Director Lindros got the Old Man to approve Typhon so quickly was that he told him our first directive is to find out who Fadi is, flush him out, and terminate him.” He glanced up. “Each year, Dujja’s become stronger and more influential among Muslim extremists. Our intel indicates that they’re flocking to Fadi in unprecedented numbers.”

“Still, as of today no agency has been able to get to first base, not even us,” Soraya said.

“But then, we’ve only recently been organized,” Hytner added.

“Have you contacted the Saudi secret service?” Bourne asked.

Soraya gave him a bitter laugh. “One of our informants swears the Saudi secret service is pursuing a lead on Dujja. The Saudis deny it.”

Hytner looked up. “They also deny their oil reserves are drying up.”

Soraya closed her files, stacked them neatly. “I know there are people in the field who call you the Chameleon because of your legendary skill at disguising yourself. But Fadi-whoever he is-is a true chameleon. Though we have corroborating intel that he not only plans the attacks but is also actively involved in many of them, we have no photo of him.”

“Not even an Identi-Kit drawing,” Hytner said with evident disgust.

Bourne frowned. “What makes you think Dujja bought the TSGs from the supplier?”

“We know he’s holding back vital information.” Hytner pointed to the screen of his laptop. “We found this cipher on one of the buttons of his shirt. Dujja is the only terrorist cadre we know of that uses ciphers of this level of sophistication.”

“I want to interrogate him.”

“Soraya’s the AIC-the agent in charge,” Hytner said. “You’ll have to ask her.”

Bourne turned to her.

Soraya hesitated only a moment. Then she stood and gestured toward the door. “Shall we?”

Bourne rose. “Tim, make a hard copy of the cipher, give us fifteen, then come find us.”

Hytner glanced up, squinting as if Bourne were in a glare. “I won’t be near finished in fifteen minutes.”

“Yes, you will.” Bourne opened the door. “At least, you’ll sell it that way.”

The holding cells were accessed via a short, steep flight of perforated steel stairs. In stark contrast with Typhon’s light-drenched ops room, the space here was small, dark, cramped, as if the bedrock of Washington itself were reluctant to give up any more of its domain.

Bourne stopped her at the bottom of the stairs. “Have I done something to offend you?”

Soraya stared at him for a moment as if she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. “His name is Hiram Cevik,” she said, pointedly ignoring Bourne’s question. “Fifty-one, married, three children. He’s of Turkish descent, moved to Ukraine when he was eighteen. He’s been in Cape Town for the last twenty-three years. Owns an import-export firm. For the most part, the business is legit, but every once in a while, it seems, Mr. Cevik gets a whole other thing going.” She shrugged. “Maybe his mistress has a taste for diamonds, maybe it’s his Internet gambling.”

“It’s so hard to make ends meet these days,” Bourne said.

Soraya looked like she wanted to laugh, but didn’t.

“I rarely do things by the book,” he said. “But whatever I do, whatever I say, goes. Is that clear?”

For a moment she stared deep into his eyes. What was she looking for? he wondered. What was the matter with her?

“I’m familiar with your methods,” she said in an icy tone.

Cevik was leaning against one wall of his cage, smoking a cigarette. When he saw Bourne approaching with Soraya, he blew out a cloud of smoke and said, “You the cavalry or the inquisitor?”

Bourne watched him as Soraya unlocked the cage door.

“Inquisitor, then.” Cevik dropped the cigarette butt and ground it beneath his heel. “I should tell you that my wife knows all about my gambling-and about my mistress.”

“I’m not here to blackmail you.” Bourne stepped into the cage. He could feel Soraya behind him as if she were a part of him. His scalp began to tingle. She had a weapon and was prepared to use it on the prisoner before the situation got out of hand. She was a perfectionist, Bourne sensed that about her.

Cevik came off the wall and stood with his hands at his side, fingers slightly curled. He was tall, with the wide shoulders of a former rugby player and gold cat’s eyes. “Judging by your extreme fitness, it’s to be physical coercion, then.”

Bourne looked around the cage, getting a feel for what it was like to be pent up in it. A flare of something half remembered, a feeling of sickness in the pit of his stomach. “That would get me nowhere.” He used the words to bring himself out of it.

“Too true.”

It wasn’t a boast. The simple statement of fact told him more about Cevik than an hour of vigorous interrogation. Bourne’s gaze resettled on the South African.

“How to resolve this dilemma?” Bourne spread his hands. “You need to get out of here. I need information. It’s as simple as that.”

Cevik let a thin laugh escape his lips. “If it were that simple, my friend, I’d be long gone.”

“My name is Jason Bourne. You’re talking to me now. I’m neither your jailor nor your adversary.”

Bourne paused. “Unless you wish it.”

“I doubt I’d care for that,” Cevik said. “I’ve heard of you.”