The Bourne Deception

13





FOR THE NEXT eighteen hours Arkadin did nothing but train his recruits. He did not allow them to eat, to sleep, or to do more than take breaks to urinate. Thirty seconds, thats all they had to empty their bladders into the red Azerbaijani dust. The first man who took longer received a solid whack from Arkadins baton behind his knee; the first man became the only man to disobey that or any other order, for that matter.

As Triton had warned him, he had five days to turn these killers into a platoon of shock troops. Easier said than done, true, but Arkadin had plenty of experience to draw from, because something similar had been done to him when he was a young man in Nizhny Tagil and on the run from having killed Stas Kuzin and a third of his gang.

Nizhny Tagil was more or less founded on iron ore so rich that an enormous quarry was immediately dug. This was in 1698. By 1722 the first copper-smelting plant was established and a town began to stretch its bones, groaning around the plant and the quarry, a vice- and crime-ridden machine to service and house exhausted workers. A hundred thirteen years later the first Russian steam locomotive was constructed there. Like most frontier towns ruled by industry and its money-hungry barons, there was a raw and lawless nature about the place that the semi-civilizing influence of the modern-day city never was able to tame, let alone eradicate. Possibly that was why the federal government had ringed the toxic site with high-security penitentiaries, blinding spotlights bleaching the night.

There were only lonely sounds in Nizhny Tagil, or else frightening, like the faraway hoot of the train whistle echoing off the Ural Mountains or the sudden shriek of one of the prison sirens; like the wail of a child lost in the filthy streets or the wet snap of bones breaking during a drunken brawl.

As Arkadin sought to evade the armada of gang members fanning out through the streets and slums of the city, he learned to follow the yellow curs slinking through shadowed alleyways, their tails curled between their legs. Then quite suddenly he ran across two men canvassing the very same network of exhausted backwaters that a moment before had seemed safe enough. Turning, he let them believe they were running him down. As he turned a corner, he snatched up a piece of splintered wood, part of a discarded bed set, and, crouching down, slammed it across the lead mans legs. The man shouted, toppling forward. Arkadin was prepared, grabbing hold of him, pitching him down so that his face slammed into the filthy concrete. The second man was on him, but Arkadin drove a cocked elbow into his Adams apple. As the man began to choke, Arkadin wrested the pistol from his hand and shot him point-blank. Then he turned the gun on the first man and put a bullet through the back of his head.

From that moment on he knew the streets were too dangerous for him; he needed to find a sanctuary. He thought of getting himself arrested and thrown into one of the nearby prisons as a way of protecting himself, but quickly discarded the notion. What might have worked in another part of the country was out of the question in Nizhny Tagil, where the cops were so corrupt it was often impossible to distinguish them from the citys criminals. Not that he was out of ideas; far from it. His experiences thus far had made clever thinking a way of life.

Continuing onward, he considered and rejected any number of possibilities, all of which were too public, too riddled with potential snitches whod be on the lookout for him in exchange for the promise of a bottle of real liquor or a night of free rutting with underage girls. Finally, he hit upon what he was certain was the perfect solution: Hed hole up in the basement of his own building, where the gang and its maniacal new boss, Lev Antonin, were still headquartered. Lev Antonins avowed goal was to find and destroy the murderer of the man hed succeeded. He wouldnt rest, wouldnt let his men rest until Arkadins severed head was brought to him.

Because Arkadin was the one who had bought it during the acquisition phase of his real estate business, he was intimately familiar with every square inch of the building. He knew, for instance, that an updated sewage system had been planned for the building, started, but never completed. Through a long-vacant municipal lot overgrown with weeds and refuse, he entered this dank and disused symbol of his birth city, a repellent underground conduit that stank of decomposition and death, emerging at length into the cavernous bowels of the building. He would have laughed at how easily this was accomplished had he not been acutely aware of his plight. He was a prisoner of the one place he wanted most desperately to leave.


The plane lurched sickeningly and Bourne woke with a start. Rain drummed hard against the Perspex window. Hed dozed off, dreaming of the conversation hed had with Tracy Atherton, the young woman seated beside him. In his dream, they were talking about Holly Marie Moreau instead of Francisco Goya.

He had slept deeply and without dreaming during the twenty-three-plushour trip from Bali, first to Bangkok, then Madrid on Thai Air. This flight, from Madrid to Seville on Iberia, was the shortest one, but now it had turned miserable. Sudden air pockets within a lashing storm caused the plane to lurch and dip. Tracy Atherton went quiet and still, staring straight ahead while her complexion turned ashen. Bourne held her head while she vomited twice into the airsick bag he pulled from the seat back.

She was a whisper-thin blonde with large blue eyes and a smile that seemed to wrap around her face. Her teeth were white and even, her nails cut straight across, her only bits of jewelry a gold wedding band and diamond stud earrings, large enough to be expensive but small enough to be discreet. She wore a flame-colored blouse under a lightweight silver silk suit with a pencil skirt and tapered jacket.

I work at the Prado in Madrid, shed said. A private collector hired me to authenticate a recently unearthed Goya that I think is a fake.

Why do you say that hed asked.

Because its purported to be one of Goyas Black Paintings, done later in life when he was already deaf and going mad with encephalitis. There are fourteen in the series. This collector believes he owns the fifteenth. She shook her head. Frankly, history isnt on his side.

As the weather calmed, she thanked Bourne and went off to the toilet to clean up.

He waited several seconds, then reached down, unzipped her slim attaché case, and rifled through the contents. To her, he was Adam Stone, the name on the passport Willard had given him before hed left Dr. Firths compound. According to the legend Willard had devised, he was a venture capitalist on his way to see a potential client in Seville. Ever mindful of the unknown assailant whod tried to kill him, he was wary of anyone sitting next to him, anyone striking up a conversation with him, anyone wanting to know where hed been and where he was going.

Inside the attaché case were photossome quite detailedof the Goya painting, a horrific study of a man being drawn and quartered by four rearing, snorting stallions while army officers lounged around, smoking, laughing, and playfully poking the victim with their bayonets.

Along with these photos was a set of X-rays, also of the painting, accompanied by a letter authenticating the painting as a genuine Goya, signed by a Professor Alonzo Pecunia Zuńiga, a Goya specialist at the Museo del Prado in Madrid. With nothing else of interest, Bourne returned the sheets to the attaché case and rezipped it. Why had the woman lied to him about not knowing if the painting was a genuine Goya Why had she lied about working for the Prado when, in his letter, Zuńiga addressed her as an outsider, not as an esteemed colleague of the museum Hed find out soon enough.



He stared out the window at the infinity of gray-white, turned his mind to his quarry. Hed used Firths computer to gather information on Don Fernando Hererra. For one thing, Hererra was Colombian, not Spanish. Born in Bogotá in 1946, the youngest child of four, he was shipped off to England for university studies, where he took a First in economics at Oxford. Then, inexplicably, for a time his life took another path entirely. He worked as a petrolero for the Tropical Oil Company, working his way up to cuńeroa pipe capperand beyond, moving from camp to camp, each time raising the output of barrels per day. Ever restless, he pushed on, buying a camp dirt-cheap because Tropical Oils experts were certain it was in decline. Sure enough, he turned it around and, within three years, sold it back to Tropical Oil for a tenfold profit.

Thats when he got into venture capital, using his outsize profits to move into the more stable banking sector. He bought a small regional bank in Bogotá, which had been on the verge of failing, changed its name, and spent the decade of the 1990s building it into a national powerhouse. He expanded into Brazil, Argentina, and, more recently, Spain. Two years ago hed vigorously resisted a buyout by Banco Santander, preferring to remain his own master. Now his Aguardiente Bancorp, named after the fiery local licorice-flavored liquor of his native country, had more than twenty branches, the last one opening five months before in London where, increasingly, all the international action was.

He had been married twice, had two daughters, both of whom lived in Colombia, and a son, Jaime, whom Don Fernando had installed as the managing director of Aguardientes London branch. He seemed to be clever, sober, and serious; Bourne could find not the remotest hint of anything sinister about either him or AB, as it was known inside international banking circles.

He felt Tracys return before her scent of fern and citrus reached him. With a whisper of silk, she slid into the seat beside him.

Feeling better

She nodded.

How long have you been working at the Prado he said.

About seven months.

But shed hesitated a moment too long and he knew she was lying. Again, why What did she have to hide

If I remember correctly, Bourne said, didnt some of Goyas later works come under a cloud of suspicion

In 2003, Tracy said, nodding. But since then the fourteen Black Paintings have been authenticated.

But not the one youre going to see.

She pursed her lips. No one has seen it yet, except for the collector.

And who is he

She looked away, abruptly uncomfortable. Im not at liberty to say.

Surely

Why are you doing this Turning back to him, she was abruptly angry. Do you think me a fool Color rose up her neck into her cheeks. I know why youre on this flight.

I doubt you do.

Please! Youre on your way to see Don Fernando Hererra, just like I am.

Don Hererra is your collector

You see The light of triumph was in her eyes. I knew it! She shook her head. Ill tell you one thing: Youre not going to get the Goya. Its mine; I dont care how much I have to pay.

That doesnt sound like you work at the Prado, Bourne said, or any museum for that matter. And why do you have an unlimited budget to buy a fake

She crossed her arms over her breasts and bit her lip, determined to keep her own counsel.

The Goya isnt a fake, is it

Still she said nothing.

Bourne laughed. Tracy, I promise Im not after the Goya. In fact, until you mentioned it, I had no idea it existed.

She shot him a look of fear. I dont believe you.

He took a packet out of his breast pocket, handed it over. Go on, read it, he said. I dont mind. Willard really did extraordinary work, he thought, as Tracy opened the document and scanned it.

After a moment, she glanced up at him. This is a prospectus for a start-up e-commerce company.

I need backing and I need it quickly, before our rivals get a jump on the market, Bourne lied. I was told Don Fernando Hererra was the man to cut through the red tape and get the balance of the seed money my group requires yesterday. He couldnt tell her the real reason he needed to see Hererra, and the sooner he convinced her he was an ally the faster shed take him where he needed to go. I dont know him at all. If you get me in to see him Id be grateful.

She handed back the document, which he put away, but her expression remained wary.

How do I know I can trust you

He shrugged. How do you know anything

She thought about this for a moment, then nodded. Youre right. Sorry, I cant help you.

But I can help you.

She raised an eyebrow skeptically. Really

Ill get you the Goya for a song.

She laughed. How could you possibly do that

Give me an hour when we get to Seville and Ill show you.


All leaves have been canceled, all personnel have been recalled from vacations, Amun Chalthoum said. Ive put my entire force to work on finding how the Iranians crossed my border with a ground-to-air missile.

This situation was bad for him, Soraya knew, even if he hadnt already been on shaky ground with some of his superiors. This breach of security had personal disaster written all over it. Or did it What if everything hed told her was disinformation meant to distract her from the truth: that with the knowledge either of the Egyptian government or of certain ministers too afraid of raising their own voice against Iran, al Mokhabarat had chosen to use the United States as a bellicose proxy

Theyd left Delia, left the crash site, driven through the phalanx of media vultures circling the perimeter, and were now racing along the road at top speed in Amuns four-wheel-drive vehicle. The sun was just above the horizon, filling the bowl of the sky with a pellucid light. Pale clouds lay across the western horizon as if exhausted from swimming through the darkness of the night. A wind blew the last of the mornings coolness against their faces. Soon enough, Amun would have to crank up the windows and put the air on.

After sifting through all the pieces of the blast site in the belly of the plane, the forensics team had put together a 3-D computer rendering of the last fifteen seconds of the flight. As Amun and Soraya huddled around a laptop inside a tent, the head of the team had begun the playback.

The modeling is still somewhat crude, hed cautioned, because of how fast we needed to put this together. When the streaking missile came into the frame, he pointed. Also, we cant be one hundred percent certain of the missiles actual trajectory. We could be off by a degree or two.

The missile struck the airliner, breaking it in two and sending it earthward in several fiery spirals. Despite what the leader had said the effect was realistic, and chilling.

What we do know is the Kowsars maximum range. He pressed a key on the laptop, and the imaging changed to a satellite topographic map of the area. He pointed to a red X. This is the crash site. Pressing another key caused a blue ring to be superimposed on the area around the site. The circle shows the missiles maximum range.

Meaning the weapon had to be fired within that space, Chalthoum said.

Soraya could see that he was impressed.

Thats right. The leader nodded. He was a beefy man, balding, with a typical American beer gut and too-small glasses he kept pushing back up the bridge of his nose. But we can narrow it down for you even more. His forefinger pressed still another key and a yellow cone appeared on the screen. The point at the top is where the missile impacted the plane. The bottom is wider because we factored in an error of three percent for our trajectory site.

Once again his finger depressed a key and the scene zoomed in on a square of nearby desert. As well as we can determine, the missile was launched from somewhere within this area.

Chalthoum took a closer look. Thats, what, a square kilometer

Just under, the leader had said with a small smile of triumph.

This relatively small section of the desert was where they were headed now, hoping to find some sign of the terrorists and their identities. They were part of a convoy, in fact, of five jeeps filled with al Mokhabarat personnel. Soraya found it strange and vaguely disquieting that she was getting used to having them around. She had a map unfolded on her lap. The area theyd seen on the laptop was marked off, and another zoomed image had grid lines through it. A navigator in each of the other jeeps had similar material. Chalthoums plan was to send a jeep to each corner of the section and work inward, while he and Soraya drove straight to the center and started their part of the search there.

As they rattled along at a breathtaking pace she looked over at Amun, whose face was grim and tight as a fist. But what was he leading her to Surely if al Mokhabarat was involved, he wouldnt allow her even the faintest glimmering of the truth. Were they on a wild goose chase

Well find them, Amun, she said, more to alleviate the tension than because of any strong conviction.

His laugh was as unpleasant as a jackals bark. Of course we will. His tone was dark, sardonic. But even if by some miracle we do, its already too late for me. My enemies will use this breach of security against me, theyll say Ive brought disgrace not only on al Mokhabarat, but on all of Egypt.

His uncharacteristic tone of self-pity rattled her, made her harden her own voice. Then why are you bothering with the investigation Why not simply turn tail and run

His dark face turned even darker with the sudden rush of blood to his cheeks. She felt him gathering himself, his muscles tensing, and for a moment she wondered if he was going to strike her. But then, just as quickly as it came, the storm of emotion passed, and now his laugh, when it presented itself, was bright and deep.

Yes, I should have you at my side always, azizti.

Once again she was rattled, this time by his use of the intimate endearment, and she felt a sudden rush of latent affection for him. She could not help wondering whether he was this good an actor, and with this thought came the flush of instant shame because she wanted him to be innocent of involvement in this heinous act. She wanted something from him she felt she couldnt have, certainly never would have if he was guilty. Her heart said he was innocent, but her mind remained dappled in the shadows of suspicion.

He turned to her for a moment, his dark eyes alighting on her. We will find these sons of camel turds, and I will bring them in front of my superiors shackled and on their knees, this I swear on the memory of my father.

Within fifteen minutes they had arrived at a patch of desert that looked not a bit different from the bleak countryside through which they had been traveling. The other four jeeps had peeled off some time ago, their drivers in constant radio contact with Amun and one another. They gave running commentaries as they began their respective searches.

Soraya took up a pair of binoculars and began to scan for any anomalous object, but she wasnt optimistic. The desert itself was their worst enemy because the winds would have shifted the sand, most likely burying anything the terrorists might have inadvertently left behind.

Anything Chalthoum said twenty minutes later.

Nowait! She took her eyes from the binocular cups and pointed off to their right. There, at two oclockabout a hundred yards.

Chalthoum turned in that direction and put on some speed. What do you see

I dont knowit looks like a smudge, she said as she trained the binoculars on the spot.

She jumped out of the jeep even as it reached the location. Staggering for two steps from the momentum and the softness of the sand, she pushed on. She was squatting down in front of the dark patch by the time Chalthoum reached her.

Its nothing, he said with obvious disgust, just a blackened branch.

Maybe not.

Reaching out, she used her cupped hands to excavate away from the branch, which was almost fully buried. As the hole widened, Chalthoum helped keep the sand from running back into the hole. About eighteen inches down, her fingertips found something cool and hard.

The stick is caught on something! she said excitedly.

But what she unearthed was an empty can of soda, the end of the stick lodged into its opened pop-top. When she pulled the stick out the can fell over, causing a shower of gray ash to scatter from the opening.

Someone made a fire here, she said. But theres no way to tell how long the ashes have been here.

Maybe there is a way.

Chalthoum was staring intently at the spill of ashes, which was more or less the shape of the cone of yellow on the laptops screen representing the margin of error for the missile launch site.

Did your father teach you about Nowruz

The Persian pre-revolutionary festival of the new year Soraya nodded. Yes, but we never celebrated it.

Its had a resurgence in Iran over the past couple of years. Chalthoum upended the can, shook out the contents, and nodded. There is more ash here than one could reasonably expect for a cooking fire. Besides, a terrorist cell would have pre-prepared food that wouldnt require heating.

Soraya was racking her brains for the rituals of Nowruz, but in the end she needed Chalthoum to give her a refresher course.

A bonfire is lit and each member of the family jumps over it while asking for the pale complexion winter breeds to be replaced by healthy red cheeks. Then a feast is consumed during which stories are told for the benefit of the children. As the festival passes from day into night, the fire dies out, then the ashes, which represent winters bad luck, are buried off in the fields.

I can hardly believe that Nowruz was observed here by Iranian terrorists, Soraya said.

Chalthoum used the stick to poke around in the ashes. That looks like a bit of eggshell and here is a piece of burned orange rind. Both an egg and an orange are used at the end of the festival.

Soraya shook her head. Theyd never risk someone seeing the fire.

True enough, Chalthoum said, but this would be a perfect place to bury the bad luck of winter. He looked at her. Do you know when Nowruz began

She thought a moment, then her pulse began to race. Three days ago.

Chalthoum nodded. And at the moment of Saat-I tahvil, when the old year ends and the new one begins, what happens

Her heart flipped over. Cannons are fired.

Or, Chalthoum said, a Kowsar 3 missile.