The Bourne Objective

11


OLIVER LISS, STRIDING down North Union Street in Alexandria’s Old Town, checked the time and, a moment later, stepped into one of those large chain drugstores that carried most everything. He went past the dental hygiene and foot care sections, picked out a cheap cell phone with thirty prepaid minutes, and took it up to the checkout counter where an Indian woman rang it up, along with a copy of The Washington Post. He paid cash.
Back out on the street, the paper tucked under one arm, he pulled apart the plastic blister pack and walked back beneath a dull and starless sky to where he’d parked his car. He got in and attached the phone to his portable charger, which would give it a full charge in less than five minutes. While he waited, he put his head back against the seat and closed his eyes. He hadn’t had much sleep last night or, for that matter, any night since he’d agreed to fund the resurrected Treadstone.
Not for the first time he wondered whether he had done the right thing, and then he tried to recall the last time he’d made a business decision of his own free will. More than a decade ago he’d been approached by a man who called himself Jonathan, though Liss soon enough surmised that wasn’t his name at all. Jonathan said that he was part of a large multinational group. If Liss played his cards right, if he pleased Jonathan and, therefore, the group, Jonathan would ensure that the group became Liss’s permanent client. Jonathan had then suggested to him that he found a private risk management firm under cover of which the business could become a private contractor for the US armed forces in overseas hot spots. That was how Black River had been formed. Jonathan’s group had provided the seed money, just as Jonathan had promised, and brought in the two partners. It was this same group that, through Jonathan, had given him advance warning of events taking place that would blow Black River out of the water sooner rather than later. The group had extricated him without him being implicated in any future investigation, congressional hearings, the filing of criminal charges, trials, and the inevitable incarcerations.
Then, only weeks after his parachute to safety, Jonathan had presented another suggestion, which wasn’t a suggestion at all, but an order: provide seed money for Treadstone. He hadn’t even heard of Treadstone, but then he’d been given an enciphered file detailing its creation and workings. That was when he’d learned that only one member of Treadstone remained alive: Frederick Willard. He contacted Willard and the rest had unfolded just as predicted.
Every once in a while he allowed himself the luxury of wondering how this group possessed such a staggering wealth of classified information. What were its sources? It seemed irrelevant whether the information was about American, Russian, Chinese, or Egyptian secret service agencies, to name just a few. The intelligence was always of the highest caliber and always correct.
The most mysterious aspect of this entire chapter of his life was that he’d never met any of these people face-to-face. Jonathan made suggestions, via the phone, to which he acceded without the faintest hint of a protest. He was not a man who enjoyed being enslaved—but he did savor every moment of being alive, and without these people he long ago would have been a dead man. He owed everything to Jonathan’s group.
Jonathan and his colleagues were hard taskmasters—utterly serious, intent on their goals—but they were generous with their rewards. Over the years the group had recompensed Liss beyond his wildest dreams—and that was another aspect of its existence that only added to the mystery: the group’s seemingly limitless wealth. Just as importantly, the group protected him, a promise Jonathan had made to him, a promise borne out when he had been extracted from the disaster that landed his two former Black River partners in federal penitentiaries for the rest of their lives.
A low beep alerted him that the cell phone was fully charged. Disconnecting it from the charger, he turned it on and punched in a local number. After two rings, the line connected and he said: “Delivery.” There was a short pause, then an automated female voice said, “Ecclesiastes three: six-two.”
It was always a book of the Bible, he had no idea why. He disconnected, picked up the paper. “Ecclesiastes” referred to the sports section. “Three: six-two” meant third column, sixth paragraph, second word.
Running his forefinger down the specified column he discovered today’s code word: steal.
He picked up his cell and punched in a ten-digit number. “Steal,” he said when the line engaged after one ring. Instead of a voice he heard a series of electronic clicks and pops as the complex network of servos and switchers rerouted his call again and again to a remote location that was God alone knew where. Then the icy sound of encrypting devices being engaged and, at last, a voice said:
“Hello, Oliver.”
“Good afternoon, Jonathan.”
The enciphering slowed the speech down, stripping it of emotion and tone, rendering it unrecognizable, closer to the voice of an automaton.
“Have you sent them on their way?”
“They took off an hour ago, they’ll be in London early tomorrow morning.” It was the voice that had sent him the dossier on the ring in the first place. “They have their orders, but…”
“Yes?”
“All Willard talks about is Arkadin and Bourne and the Treadstone program that created them. According to him, he’s discovered a method to make them even more… useful, I think was the term he used.”
Jonathan chuckled. At least Liss assumed it was a chuckle, though it came across to him as a dry rustle, as of a swarm of insects infesting high grass.
“I want you to stay out of his way, Oliver, is that clear?”
“Sure it’s clear.” Liss rubbed his forehead with his knuckles. What the hell was Jonathan’s purpose here? “But I’ve told him to put his plans on hold until the ring is found.”
“Just as you should have done.”
“Willard wasn’t happy.”
“You don’t say.”
“I have a feeling that he’s already plotting to bolt the farm.”
“And when he does,” Jonathan said, “you will do nothing to stop him.”
“What?” Liss was stunned. “But I don’t understand.”
“Everything is as it should be,” Jonathan said just before he disconnected.
Soraya, in the Dallas/Fort Worth airport, approached every rental-car agency with a photo of Arkadin. No one recognized him. She had something to eat, bought a paperback novel and a Snickers bar. While she ate the bar slowly, she strolled over to the desk of the airline Arkadin had flown in on and asked for the supervisor on duty.
This turned out to be a large man named Ted, who appeared to be an ex-football-lineman going to fat, as they all did sooner or later. He appraised her through the dusty lenses of his glasses and, after asking her name, suggested they go back into his office.
“I’m with Continental Insurance,” she said, snapping off a chunk of her Snickers. “I’m trying to locate a man named Stanley Kowalski.”
Ted sat back for a moment, laced his thick hands over his stomach, and said, “You’re kidding me, right?”
“No,” Soraya said, “I’m not.” She gave him the flight info on Kowalski.
Ted sighed and shrugged. Swiveling around, he checked his computer terminal. “Well, how about that,” he said, “there he is, just like you said.” He turned back to her. “Now, how can I help you?”
“I’d like to find out where he went from here.”
Ted laughed. “Now I know this is some kind of joke. This airport is one of the largest and busiest in the world. Your Mr. Kowalski could have gone anywhere, or nowhere at all.”
“He didn’t rent a car,” Soraya said. “And he didn’t make a connection to a national carrier because he went through Immigration right here in Dallas. Just to make sure, though, I checked the CCTV logs for that day.”
Ted frowned. “You sure are thorough, give you that.” He thought a moment. “But now I’m going to tell you something I bet you didn’t know. We have a number of regional carriers flying out of here.”
“I checked their CCTV logs as well.”
Ted smiled. “Well, I know you didn’t check the CCTV for our charter flights, ’cause they don’t have ’em.” He began to write on a slip of paper he tore off a pad. Then he handed it over. “These are their names.” He winked at her. “Good huntin’.”
She hit the jackpot at the fifth name Ted had given her. A pilot there remembered Arkadin’s face, though he didn’t give his name as Stanley Kowalski.
“Said his name was Slim Pickens.” The pilot screwed up his face. “Weren’t there an actor by that name?”
“Coincidence,” Soraya said. “Where did you take Mr. Pickens?”
“Tucson International Airport, ma’am.”
“Tucson, huh?”
Soraya thought, Why in hell would Arkadin want to go to Tucson? And then, as if a switch had been thrown in her head, she knew.
Mexico.
Having checked into a small hotel in Chelsea, Bourne stood under a hot shower, sluicing away the sweat and grime of his ordeal. The muscles in his neck, shoulders, and back throbbed with a deep-seated ache in the aftermath of the collision and his long run off the motorway.
Just thinking the words Severus Domna sent echoes through his mind. It was maddening not being able to pluck the memories out of his fogbound past. He was certain that he had once known about it. Why? Had the group been the target of a Treadstone mission Conklin had sent him on? He had obtained the Dominion ring somewhere, from someone, for some specific reason, but beyond those three vague facts was only an impenetrable mist. Why had Holly’s father stolen the ring from his brother? Why had he given it to Holly? Who was her uncle, what was the ring to him? Bourne couldn’t ask Holly. That left her uncle, whoever he was.
He turned off the water, stepped out of the stall, and vigorously rubbed himself down with a towel. Perhaps he should return to Bali. Were either of Holly’s parents still alive, still living there? Suparwita might know, but he had no phone, there was no way to contact him save to return to Bali and ask him in person. Then it came to him. There was a better way to get the information he needed, and the plan he was formulating would serve two purposes because it would trap Leonid Arkadin.
His mind still working at a fever clip, he put on clothes he had bought at Marks & Spencer in Oxford Street on his way to the hotel. These included a dark-colored suit and black turtleneck. He polished his shoes with the kit provided in the room, then took a taxi to Diego Hererra’s house in Sloane Square.
This proved to be a redbrick Victorian affair with a steeply pitched slate roof and a pair of conical turrets, sticking up into the night sky like horns. A brass door-knocker in the shape of a stag’s head looked stoically out on all visitors. Diego himself opened the door to Bourne’s knock.
He smiled thinly. “No worse for the wear and tear of yesterday’s adventure, I see.” He waved a hand. “Come in, come in.”
Diego wore dark trousers and an elegant evening jacket probably more appropriate to the Vesper Club. Bourne, however, still held the clothing instincts of an academic professor and was as uncomfortable in formal dress wear as he would have been in a medieval suit of armor.
He led Bourne through an old-fashioned parlor, lit by antique lamps with frosted-glass shades, into a dining room dominated by a polished mahogany table over which hung a crystal chandelier, now dimly lit, casting the light of a thousand stars across jewel-toned wallpaper and oak wainscoting. Two place settings beckoned. While Bourne sat, Diego poured them glasses of an excellent sherry to go with the small plates of grilled fresh sardines, papas fritas, paper-thin slices of rosy Serrano ham, small disks of fat-speckled chorizo, and a platter of three Spanish cheeses.
“Please help yourself,” Diego said when he joined Bourne at the table. “This is the custom in Spain.”
As they ate Bourne was aware of Diego watching him. At length, Diego said, “My father was very pleased that you came to see me.”
Pleased or interested? Bourne wondered. “How is Don Fernando?”
“As always.” Diego was eating like a bird, picking at his food. He either had no appetite or had something important on his mind. “He’s quite fond of you, you know.”
“I lied to him about who I was.”
Diego laughed. “You do not know my father. I’m quite sure he was interested only in whether you were friend or enemy.”
“I am Leonid Arkadin’s enemy, as he well knows.”
“Precisely.” Diego spread his hands. “Well, we all have that in common. This is the tie that binds.”
Bourne pushed away his plate. “Actually, I was wondering about that.”
“In what way, may I ask?”
“We’re all bound by our acquaintance with Noah Perlis. Your father knew Perlis, didn’t he?”
Diego didn’t miss a beat. “As a matter of fact he didn’t. Noah was my friend. We’d go to the casino—the Vesper Club—and gamble the night away. This is what Noah liked to do best when he was in London. The moment I knew he was coming I’d set it all up—his credit line, the chips.”
“And, of course, the girls.”
Diego grinned. “Of course the girls.”
“Didn’t he want to see Tracy—and Holly?”
“When they were here, but most times they weren’t.”
“You were a foursome.”
Diego frowned. “Why would you think that?”
“Judging by the photos in Noah’s flat.”
“What are you implying?”
Something almost imperceptible had crept into Diego’s demeanor. A tension akin to a subtle ripple emanating from the core of him. Bourne was pleased that his probing had struck a nerve.
Bourne shrugged. “Nothing, really, other than in those photos you all looked very close.”
“As I said, we were friends.”
“Closer than friends, I would think.”
At that moment Diego glanced down at his watch. “If you fancy a bit of a flutter, now’s the time to take ourselves to Knightsbridge.”
The Vesper Club was a very posh casino in London’s very posh West End. It was one of those discreet affairs, hardly noticeable from the street, the polar opposite of the exclusive velvet-rope nightclubs in New York and Miami Beach that revel in their crassness.
Inside it was all butter-soft leather banquettes at the restaurant, a long, snaking brass-and-glass, neon-lit bar, and a number of gaming rooms clad in marble, mirrors, and stone columns with Doric capitals. They passed among the slots. Off to one side was the electronic gaming room whose high-decibel rock music and neon lights seemed to blink Go! Bourne peered in, saw that it was patrolled by a guard. He guessed the club figured the younger clients were more apt to get rowdy than the older, more established ones.
They went down several steps into the more sedate but no less opulent main gaming area, featuring all the usual suspects: baccarat, roulette, poker, blackjack. The oval room was filled with the low buzz of bets being made, roulette wheels spinning, the calls of the croupiers, and the ubiquitous clink of glassware. They wound their way through this expanse to a green baize door guarded by a large man in a tuxedo. The moment he caught sight of Diego, he smiled and gave a small deferential nod.
“How are you this evening, Mr. Hererra?”
“Quite all right, Donald.” He gestured. “This is my friend Adam Stone.”
“Good evening, sir.” Donald opened the door, which swung inward. “Welcome to the Vesper Club’s Empire Suite.”
“This was where Noah liked to play poker,” Diego said over his shoulder. “Only high stakes, only expert players.”
Bourne looked around at the dark walls, the solid-marble floor, three kidney-shaped tables; the hunched shoulders and concentrated expressions of the men and women who sat around the green baize analyzing the cards, sizing up their opponents and placing their bets accordingly. “I wasn’t aware that Noah had the kind of money to be a high-roller.”
“He didn’t. I staked him to it.”
“Wasn’t that risky?”
“Not with Noah.” Diego grinned. “When it came to poker he was an expert’s expert. Before an hour went by I’d get my money back and then some. I’d go and play with the profit. It was a good deal for both of us.”
“Did the girls come here?”
“What girls?”
“Tracy and Holly,” Bourne said patiently.
Diego looked thoughtful. “Once or twice, I suppose.”
“You don’t remember.”
“Tracy liked to gamble, Holly didn’t.” Diego’s shrug was an attempt to conceal his growing discomfort. “But surely you know this already.”
“Tracy didn’t like to gamble.” Bourne kept any hint of accusation out of his voice. “She hated her job, which caused her to gamble almost every day.”
Diego turned back to him, a look of consternation on his face, or was it fear?
“She worked for Leonid Arkadin,” Bourne continued. “But surely you knew this already.”
Diego licked his lips. “Actually, I had no idea.” He looked as if he wanted to sit down. “But how… how is this possible?”
“Arkadin was blackmailing her,” Bourne said. “He had something on her, what was it?”
“I… I don’t know,” Diego said in a shaky voice.
“You need to tell me, Diego. It’s vitally important.”
“Why? Why is it vitally important? Tracy is dead—she and Holly are both dead. And now Noah, too. Shouldn’t they all be left in peace?”
Bourne took a step toward him. Though he lowered his voice, it was full of menace. “But Arkadin is still alive. He was responsible for Holly’s death. And it was your friend Noah who murdered Holly.”
“No!” Diego stiffened. “You’re wrong, he couldn’t possibly—”
“I was there when it happened, Diego. Noah pushed her off a flight of steps at the top of a temple in East Bali. That, my friend, is fact, not the fiction you’ve been feeding me.”
“Drink,” Diego said in a voice made thin and hoarse by his consternation.
Bourne took him by the elbow and walked him over to the small bar at the rear of the Empire Suite. Diego lurched on stiff legs as if he were already drunk. As soon as he collapsed on a stool he ordered a double whiskey—no refined sherry for him now. He drank the whiskey off in three long gulps, then asked for another. He would have downed all of that, as well, if Bourne hadn’t pulled the glass out of his unsteady hand and set it down on the black granite bartop.
“Noah killed Holly.” Diego was slumped over, staring into the depths of the whiskey, into a past that he’d thought he knew. “What a f*cking nightmare.”
Diego did not seem to be a man prone to foul language. He was clearly out of his element, which indicated that he wasn’t privy to his father’s illicit arms trafficking. Neither, apparently, did he know what Noah had done for a living.
Suddenly his head swung around and he looked at Bourne. “Why? Why would he do that?”
“He wanted something she had. Apparently she wouldn’t give it to him voluntarily.”
“So he killed her?” Diego looked incredulous. “What kind of man would do something like that?” He shook his head slowly and sadly. “I can’t conceive of anyone wanting to harm her.”
Bourne noticed that Diego hadn’t said, I can’t conceive of Noah wanting to harm her. “Clearly,” he said, “Noah was not who you thought he was.” He refrained from adding, Neither was Tracy.
Diego grabbed the glass and finished off the second double. “Good God,” he whispered.
Very gently Bourne said, “Tell me about the four of you, Diego.”
“I need another drink.”
Bourne ordered him a single this time. Diego lunged for the glass like a life jacket thrown to a drowning man. At one of the tables a woman in a glittery gown cashed in, rose, and walked out. Her place was taken by a man with the shoulders of a football player. A heavyish older woman with frosted hair, who had apparently just come in, sat down at the middle table. All three tables were full up.
Diego took two convulsive swallows of whiskey, then said in a voice bled dry, “Tracy and I had a thing, nothing serious, we saw other people—at least she did. It was very off-and-on, very casual. We had a few giggles, nothing more. We didn’t want it to disturb our friendship.”
Something in his voice alerted Bourne. “That’s not all of it, is it?”
Diego’s mournful expression deepened, and he looked away. “No,” he said. “I fell in love with her. I didn’t mean to, I didn’t even want to,” he added, as if it had been within his power to choose. “She was so nice about it, so kind. But still…” His voice drifted away on a tide of sad memories.
Bourne thought it time to move on. “And Holly?”
Diego seemed to snap out of his daze. “Noah seduced her. I saw it happening, I thought it was amusing, in a way, that no harm would come of it. Please don’t ask me why.”
“What happened?”
Diego sighed. “As it turned out Noah had a thing for Tracy, a very bad thing. For her part she wanted nothing to do with him, she told him flat-out.” He took another gulp of his whiskey. He was drinking it as if it were water. “The thing she wouldn’t say, even to me, was that she didn’t really like Noah, or at least she didn’t trust him.”
“Which meant?”
“Tracy was very protective of Holly, she saw Noah moving in on Holly because he couldn’t have her. She felt Noah was just being cynical and self-destructive while Holly was taking the liaison far more seriously. She believed it would end in tears—Holly’s tears.”
“Why didn’t she step in, tell Noah to back off?”
“She did. He told her—far too bluntly, if you ask me—to stay out of it.”
“Did you talk to him?”
Diego looked even more miserable than before. “I should have, I know, but I didn’t believe Tracy, or maybe I chose not to believe her because if I did, then the situation had already gotten so messy and I didn’t…”
“What, you didn’t want to get your hands dirty?”
Diego nodded, but he wouldn’t meet Bourne’s eyes.
“You must have had your own suspicions about Noah.”
“I don’t know, perhaps I did. But the fact is I wanted to believe in us, I wanted to believe that everything would work out all right, that we would make it all right because we cared about one another.”
“You cared about one another all right, but not in the right way.”
“Looking back now everything seems twisted, no one was who they said they were, or liked what they said they liked. I don’t even understand what drew us together.”
“That’s the point, isn’t it?” Bourne said, not unkindly. “Each one of you wanted something from someone else in the group; in one way or another all of you used your friendships as leverage.”
“Everything we did together, everything we said or confided to one another was a lie.”
“Not necessarily,” Bourne said. “You knew Tracy was working for Arkadin, didn’t you?”
“I told you I didn’t.”
“When I asked you what Arkadin had on her, do you remember what you said?”
Diego bit his lip, but said nothing.
“You said that Tracy was dead—that she and Holly were both dead, and shouldn’t they be left in peace?” He peered into Diego’s face. “That’s a response of a man who knows exactly what he’s been asked.”
Diego slapped the flat of his hand onto the bartop. “I promised her I wouldn’t tell anyone.”
“I understand,” Bourne said gently, “but keeping it a secret now doesn’t help her.”
Diego passed a hand across his face, as if trying to wipe away a memory. At the second table from them a man said, “I’m out,” pushed his chair back, rose, and stretched.
“All right.” Diego’s eyes met Bourne’s. “She said that Arkadin had helped get her brother out of terrible trouble and now he was using that against her.”
Bourne almost said, But Tracy didn’t have a brother. He caught himself and said, “What else?”
“Nothing. It was after… before we went to sleep. It was very late, she’d had too much to drink, she’d been depressed all evening and then as soon as we finished she couldn’t stop crying. I asked her if I’d done anything wrong, which only made her cry harder. I held her for a long time. When she calmed down she told me.”
Something was very wrong. Chrissie said they had no brother, Tracy told Diego they did. One of the two sisters was lying, but which one? What possible reason could Tracy have for lying to Diego, and what reason would Chrissie have to lie to him?
At that moment Bourne saw movement out of the corner of his eye. The man who had cashed in was making his way toward the bar, and within another two steps Bourne knew that he was heading straight for them.
Though the man wasn’t large he gave a formidable appearance. His black eyes seemed to smolder out of a face the color of tanned leather. His thick hair and close-cropped beard matched the color of his eyes. He had a hawk-like nose, a wide thick-lipped mouth, and cheeks like slabs of concrete. A small diagonal scar bisected one furry eyebrow. He moved with a low center of gravity, his arms loose and relaxed, though not swinging or even moving at all.
And it was this gait, this way of holding himself that marked him as a man of professional intent, a man with whom death walked from dusk until dawn. It was also these things that triggered a memory, causing it to pierce the maddening veils of Bourne’s amnesia.
A shiver of recognition passed down Bourne’s spine: This was the man who had helped him obtain the Dominion ring.
Bourne moved away from Diego. This man, whoever he was, didn’t know him as Adam Stone. As Bourne approached him, he extended his hand and a smile creased his face.
“Jason, at last I’ve caught up with you.”
“Who are you? How do you know me?”
The smile lost its luster. “It’s Ottavio. Jason, don’t you remember me?”
“Not at all.”
Ottavio shook his head. “I don’t understand. We worked together in Morocco, an assignment from Alex Conklin—”
“Not now,” Bourne said. “The man I’m with—”
“Diego Hererra, I recognize him.”
“Hererra knows me as Adam Stone.”
Ottavio nodded, at once focused. “I understand.” He glanced over Bourne’s shoulder. “Why don’t you introduce us?”
“I don’t think that would be wise.”
“Judging by Hererra’s expression, it will look odd if you don’t.”
Bourne saw that he had no choice. Turning on his heel, he led Ottavio back to the bar.
Bourne introduced them, “Diego Hererra, this is Ottavio—”
“Moreno,” Ottavio said, extending his hand for Diego to take.
As Diego did so his eyes opened wide in shock and his body slumped down onto the stool. That was when Bourne saw the scarred man pull out the slender, ceramic blade of the knife, which through sleight of hand he had palmed and slipped through Diego’s chest. Its tip was curved slightly upward, mimicking his smile, which now seemed ghastly.
Bourne grabbed him by the shirtfront and hauled him off his feet, but the scarred man would not let go of Diego’s hand. He was immensely powerful, his grip was like a vise. Bourne turned to Diego but saw that the life was already fleeing his body, the knife tip had probably pierced his heart.
“I’ll kill you for this,” Bourne whispered.
“No you won’t, Jason. I’m one of the good guys, remember?”
“I don’t remember a thing, not even your name.”
“Then you’ll just have to trust me. We’ve got to get out—”
“I’m not letting you go anywhere,” Bourne said.
“You have no choice but to trust me.” The scarred man glanced toward the door, which had just opened. “Regard the alternative.”
Bourne saw Donald the bouncer come into the Empire Suite. He was accompanied by two other brawny men in tuxedos. All of them, Bourne noted with an electric shock that passed clear through him, were wearing gold rings on the forefingers of their right hands.
“They’re Severus Domna,” the scarred man said.