The Bourne Retribution (45 page)

“Fine.” Liu made a dismissive gesture with the flat of his hand. “I always do as I’m told.” He regarded the adjutant, and said with an audible trace of sarcasm, “Any other last-minute orders?”

“No, sir.” The adjutant inclined his head. “Safe travels, sir.”

“I’ll give Minister Ouyang your regards.” This last was said with a heavier layer of sarcasm.

“That would be appreciated,” the adjutant said with the hint of a smirk.

Liu was so light-headed, he almost cracked his forehead on the gleaming side of the waiting SUV. Only the driver’s hand on the top of his head saved him, but he was too self-absorbed to thank the man or even to register his face.

On the way to the airport, he did not glance up once from the papers Deng Tsu had asked him to bring with him—his final report on Maricruz’s last known movements, whom she had been consorting with, and how a string of murders had been left in her wake, including that of Colonel Sun.

When Liu finally did glance up, he realized he did not recognize the driver. “Where’s Wen?” he said.

“Driver Wen fell ill last night,” the driver said. “I’m his replacement.”

“You’re not even Chinese,” Liu said without thinking.

“Half Chinese, actually,” the driver said. “My father.” He wove the car expertly through the traffic. “Do you find my Mandarin inadequate, Ambassador?”

“Not…not at all.” Embarrassed, Liu lowered his gaze to his report. “Carry on.”

Forty minutes later, the limo pulled into the airport’s VIP area and rolled to a stop. The driver jumped out, opened the door for the ambassador, then busied himself removing the ambassador’s luggage from the gaping rear of the SUV.

Ambassador Liu was welcomed aboard the diplomatic jet by a flight attendant, who tried to take the luggage from the driver. The driver refused, and the attendant shrugged—he was used to the unusual requests made by diplomats. Besides, it was less work for him. He took one last look around to make certain no one else was coming, then he trotted up the stairs and busied himself with stowing the food carts that had been loaded at the last minute.

“I’ll be staying on as bodyguard,” the driver said.

Startled, Liu glanced up from his reading. “I need a bodyguard on board Minister Ouyang’s plane?”

“For afterward,” the driver said. “In Beidaihe.”

The ambassador frowned. “What is Ouyang expecting?”

“I’m simply following orders,” the driver said.

“Oh, well.” Liu waved a hand. “Take a seat. You might as well make yourself comfortable. It’s a long flight.”

When the attendant went up and down the aisle, he saw the ambassador, his work spread out around him, and his driver sitting across from him. He approached the doorway and pulled the cord, swinging the stairs up, locking them in place. Then he went up to the cockpit to inform the flight crew that they were all set.

After fetching the ambassador a glass of sherry, he went to his seat, strapped himself in, leafed through a magazine on shopping in Beijing. Five minutes later the pilot released the brakes, the plane rolled to the head of the runway, turned, and, engines ramping up, raced midway between the tiny blinking lights. They lifted off dead on time, rising above the thick, brown industrial soup of Mexico City, heading for the same thick, brown industrial soup eight thousand miles away, on the other side of the world.

B
ourne sat back in the plane’s plush seat and, with eyes half closed, watched Ambassador Liu’s every move with hawk-like acuity. Maricruz had done an admirable job with the theatrical latex, face paint, and glue he had purchased at the actors’ supply store recommended by Anunciata. There was, of course, no way to make him look Asian, but mixed race was a different story altogether. What was needed was a deft hand and hints and racial cues here and there, especially around the eyes and nose. He himself was excellent with disguises but, as it turned out, Maricruz was a magician. During the process, he could see how much pleasure she was deriving from altering his appearance so that he could slip through the concentric rings of security guarding Beidaihe.

While she was working on him, she had told him everything she knew about Ouyang, Cho Xilan, and Deng Tsu, known as the Patriarch, the leader of the historic families, who still held so much sway in modern-day China.

“
There is one other man I must tell you about
,” she had said. “
The trouble is I know next to nothing about him. His name is Kai.
”

“
Is that his family name or given name?
”

“
I don’t know. I’ve only heard Jidan call him by that name.
”

“
Have you seen him?
”

“
Once, briefly. He came to the apartment. It was the dead of night. All the lights were off. I was asleep; I thought Jidan was, too, but when I turned over, he was gone. As I lay in bed, I heard voices, muffled and low. I rolled out of bed and, not even bothering to slip on a robe, I padded silently out of the bedroom.

“
A single lamp was on in the entryway. I stood in the darkened living room, willing myself to become just another piece of furniture. By the lamplight, I saw the outline of Jidan’s face in profile. He was speaking to a tall, thin man. From what I could see of his face it looked rich with Manchu blood. He used his hands when he spoke, which is not a typical Chinese trait. Anyway, they were extraordinary, those hands—impossibly narrow palms, long, delicate, spider-like fingers.
”

“
What were they talking about?
”

“
A man. I couldn’t hear his name. Maybe they never mentioned him by name. Kai said, ‘It’s done, neat and clean as ever.’ That was the only clear sentence I heard.
”

“
Anything else?
”

“
Nothing that made sense.
”

“
What was your takeaway?
”

“
That Kai had killed someone, that Jidan had ordered it.
”

D
uring the long flight, Bourne dreamed. He dreamed of swimming in the ocean in Caesarea. The water was as warm as blood and nearly the same color. As he moved farther and farther from shore the water changed, became less murky, turning the color of aquamarine, until it was as clear as glass.

Sand crabs scuttled across the floor of the ocean, small fish curled and snipped around his bare ankles. Seahorses hung on bits of coral, nibbling and slowly blinking at him. Gradually, he became aware that the blinking held a pattern. It was Morse code.

Follow on
, the seahorses blinked in unison.
Follow on
.

What did that mean?

He struck out, following the flow of the tide. A ribbon of ink passed by below him, like an arrow, its shape distorted beneath the waves.

He followed on.

And at length, he saw her. She was lying on the bottom of the sea, arms and legs spread like a starfish. Her eyes were closed, her hair swung about her, pushed and pulled by the tide. Her lips and nails were blue.

Follow on
.

He had followed on, and he had found her, not alive as he longed for her to be, but dead, as she had to be. Diving down, he unwound the necklace with the star of David he wore around his neck and gently locked it around hers. The gold six-pointed star gleamed and glittered like a real star in the night sky.

A sky that swallowed him whole.

B
ourne woke with a start, his heart pounding. The sweet taste of Rebeka’s breath was in his mouth, on his lips. He tried to breathe her in, but received instead the plane’s flat recycled air. Dead as a doornail. Just like Rebecca. He turned his head to stare out at the nothingness through which they were passing.

He rose, went back down the aisle to the restroom. His rage was so powerful, so concentrated, he felt he could break the necks of everyone on the plane within a matter of minutes and still not be satisfied.

He wanted to splash cold water on his face, as if that would help dissipate the tendrils of his dream in which he was still entangled, but he did not dare disturb his makeup. Instead, he stared at his altered countenance, wondering who he was, where he was going, and why.

49

B
eidaihe is a famous and scenic summer resort located at the southwest of Qinhuangdao Municipality a few hours by rail from bustling, overcrowded Beijing. A scenic coastal village providing a soothing change from the capital’s hectic pace, it encompasses both beaches and tidal woods home to an astonishing number of bird species. After the Mao Revolution in 1949, the Party leaders developed a love for the resort. Mao himself had a summer villa built there. The views of the sea are magnificent, the long stretches of beaches relaxing, and the proliferation of small coves offering perfect nesting places for any number of shorebirds.

Ouyang Jidan journeyed to Beidaihe by private train. He was accompanied in the plush car by Cho Xilan, Deng Tsu, and Kai. Naturally, there was also a large security contingent. The red silk seats, the tinkling miniature chandelier, the pair of cast-silver foo dogs all served to give the interior the appearance of a Party conference room or a hotel lobby.

These three men were the last people Ouyang had imagined as his traveling companions to the Party Congress, and after the confrontation in Deng Tsu’s limo, he made the 185-mile journey on edge, not knowing what to expect or whom to trust. Not that he wasn’t going to get his revenge on Cho and Deng for making him relinquish his hold on Maricruz. The agent of this revenge was even now on his way from Moscow.

Rageful though he was at his core, he showed none of his bitter enmity to the men in the train carriage. He was still coming to terms with the reality of never seeing his wife again. It seemed to him an absurd impossibility, an unimaginable loss that had altered his life forever. There would be hell to pay, of this he was absolutely certain.

“Now that we’re all together, snug as dung beetles in a rug,” Deng Tsu said, “I’d like to discuss the situation vis-à-vis Israel.” He crossed one leg over the other, Western-style. “Jidan, I believe you’re best qualified to start us off.”

So this is what it boils down to
, Ouyang thought.
This is what it’s all about: Israel
.

“What would you have me say, Patriarch?”

“Why don’t you start at the beginning?” Deng Tsu said easily.

“You remember Brigadier General Wadi Khalid, don’t you, Jidan?” Cho Xilan interjected.

“Khalid was my contact inside the Syrian government.”

“Oh, he was more than that,” Cho said, relishing each word. “You were the architect behind what came to be called the Torture Archipelago; you taught Khalid everything he knew about torture. And you know so much, Jidan, so very, very much.”

“I appreciate the compliment, Cho, but this is old news.”

“And yet it’s the genesis of your personal animus toward Israel and the Mossad, in particular.”

This from Deng Tsu, which caused Ouyang to listen carefully to not only the words but also the intonation.

“True enough,” Ouyang said, nodding. “But the Israelis were a thorn in our side even before that. Reuben Yadin, then the Director of Mossad, first spearheaded the electronic surveillance of entities in Africa and Southeast Asia controlled by us, then masterminded the first virus attacks on our military computer cores. His son, Eli, has only built upon the foundation his father put in place.”

Deng Tsu shifted uneasily in his seat. There were times when his aging bones discomfited him.

“Mossad has been using a more sophisticated form of the Stuxnet worm used to periodically shut down Iran’s nuclear project generators,” Ouyang concluded.

“And you can’t stop it,” Cho Xilan said smugly.

“On the contrary, we not only have stopped it, but we have launched our own cyber counterattack against Israel. We’re currently at a stalemate, but if history is any guide, that won’t last long. We need more programmers, which,” Ouyang emphasized, “is why I was in Shanghai.” He shook his head. “What puzzles me is why Cho Xilan did his best to impede my recruitment. Don’t you want us to succeed against the Israelis?”

There was silence between the men as the train rocketed along, the wheels
tick-tock
ing over the tracks like a clock, the carriage swaying gently. Ouyang noted Kai’s gaze flicking back and forth between Cho and himself. Was he trying to assess the winner in this battle, or had he already been ordered to take a side by Deng Tsu? Impossible to say.

“That question is unworthy of you,” Cho Xilan said. “So far as I know, we all want the same thing.”

“Then why send your people to Shanghai to spy on me?”