The Bourne Objective

23


JALAL ESSAI WAS a marked man and he knew it. As he sat on a bridge chair he’d opened up in his darkened bedroom, he considered these factors: Breaking with Severus Domna had not been an easy decision—or rather, while the decision had been easy, the actual implementation had been difficult. But then it was always difficult, Essai thought, deliberately putting oneself in harm’s way. He had not acted on his decision until he had worked out the methods of implementation, drawing up a list in his mind of all the possible paths he could take, then eliminating them one by one until he reached the one with the fewest objections, the most acceptable level of risk, and the best odds of success. This methodical approach was how he arrived at every decision: The process was the most logical. Also, it had the added benefit of calming his mind, not unlike his prayers to Allah, or contemplating a Zen koan. The empty mind fills itself with possibilities unavailable to others.
So he sat, absolutely still, within the darkness of his apartment, the blackness of his bedroom where all the blinds were drawn against nighttime’s streetlights and the passing headlights of the occasional car or truck. Night, and the threat of night. Night was to him what a cup of espresso was to others, a calm and satisfying state of reflection. He could navigate his way through darkness, even nightmares, because Allah had blessed with the light of the true believer.
It was 3 AM. He knew what was coming, which was why he had chosen not to run. A runner makes an excellent target as he leaves his own territory. He stumbles—and he dies. Essai did not intend to stumble. Instead he had prepared his bedroom for the inevitable, and he was willing—content even—to remain in place until the enemy showed his face.
He heard the sound first. A tiny scratching, as if of mice, from the living room, in the direction of the front door. The sound very quickly ceased, but he knew the enemy must have picked the lock on his door, because someone was in the apartment. Still, he did not move. There was no reason to move. He cast his gaze on the bed, where a lump under the covers revealed to his enemy’s eyes the presence of a sleeping body.
The quality of the darkness changed, deepening, becoming thicker, dense with the pulse of another human being. Essai’s focus narrowed even more. His enemy, now in the kill zone, bent over the bed.
Essai felt the motion as a stirring of the air as his enemy drew out a dagger and plunged it into the figure sleeping in the bed. At once the plastic skin punctured, spraying the would-be killer with a geyser of battery acid with which Essai had filled the inflatable sex toy.
His enemy reacted in predictable fashion by falling backward, limbs pinwheeling. On the floor he tried and failed to wipe the acid off his face, neck, and chest. This action only served to smear the acid over more of his face, neck, and chest. He gasped, but because the acid was eating his lips and tongue he could not get out any words or even a scream. A nightmare scenario for him, Essai thought, as he rose from the chair at last.
Kneeling over the enemy—the man Severus Domna had sent to kill him for his disloyalty—he smiled the smile of the just, the righteous in Allah’s beneficent eyes, and putting a forefinger against his lips he whispered, “Shhhhh,” so low that only he and his enemy could hear.
Then he took up the assassin’s dagger and picked his way to the doorway into the hall. Pressing himself against the wall, he waited, emptying his mind of expectation. Into this divine emptiness came the most probable route the second man would take. He knew there was a second man, just as he knew his assassin would not use a pistol to kill him, because these were the two major methods of operation Severus Domna employed: stealth and backup. Methods he himself had used in going after Jason Bourne and the ring.
A diagonal shadow falling across the width of the hall bore out his thesis. Now he knew where the second assassin was, or rather had been, because he was on the move. His compatriot had had enough time to effect the kill, and now he was closing the gap between them to determine if anything was amiss.
Something certainly was amiss, a fact confirmed to him as the dagger, thrown with great accuracy by Essai, penetrated his chest between two ribs and pierced his heart. He fell heavily, like a wildebeest taken down by a lion. Essai approached him, knelt, and determined there was no pulse, no life left. Then he returned to his bedroom, where the first assassin was writhing on the floor with ever-more-uncoordinated movements.
Snapping on a lamp, he studied the man’s face. He did not recognize him, but then he didn’t expect to. Severus Domna would not have sent anyone he could identify on sight. Squatting down beside the man, he said, “My friend, I pity you. I pity you because I have chosen not to end your life and therefore your suffering. Instead, I will leave you as you are.”
Pulling out a cell phone burner, he dialed a local number.
“Yes?” Benjamin El-Arian said.
“Delivery for you to pick up,” Essai said.
“You must be mistaken. I didn’t order anything.”
Essai put the cell to the assassin’s mouth, and he made sounds like a cow in distress.
“Who is this?”
Something had changed in El-Arian’s voice, a febrile element that Essai, the cell to his ear again, was able to catch.
“I estimate you have thirty minutes before your assassin dies. His life is in your hands.”
Essai closed the cell and, standing, ground it to bits beneath his heel.
Then he addressed the assassin for the last time: “You will tell Benjamin El-Arian what happened here, and then he will deal with you as he sees fit. Tell him that the same fate awaits anyone he sends after me. That’s all you need to do now. His time—and yours—is over.”
Moira, standing on the starboard side of the yacht, watched the exchange of infrared signals through the night glasses the captain had handed her moments before. She could see the cigarette boat lying to as the yacht came up on it. Moving her field of vision slightly, she saw two figures in the cigarette besides the signaler. A man and a woman. The man was almost certainly Arkadin, but who was the woman and why would he have someone else on board? Berengária had told her Arkadin came out to meet her boats with just a mate, an old Mexican named El Heraldo.
The captain continued to keep the yacht’s engines idling as it slid through the black waves on its own momentum. Now Moira could make out Arkadin’s face, and beside him was—Soraya Moore!
She almost dropped the night glasses overboard. What the hell? she thought. For every plan there was a wrench that could jam up the works. Here was hers.
The quiet lapping of the water was all she heard as the cigarette came up alongside the yacht. A crewman tossed down a rope ladder; another manned the winch. Meanwhile two other crewmen were busy hauling up the cargo from belowdecks. Berengária had explained the routine in detail. A crate was loaded into the net to be winched down to the cigarette so Arkadin could inspect the contents.
As this was happening, Moira leaned over the rail, peering down at the people in the cigarette. Soraya saw her first, her mouth forming an O of silent surprise.
What the hell? she mouthed up to Moira, who had to laugh. They’d both had the same reaction on seeing each other.
Then Arkadin caught sight of her. Frowning, he climbed the ladder. The moment he swung aboard the yacht he drew out a Glock 9mm and aimed it at her midsection.
“Who the hell are you?” he said. “And what are you doing on board my boat?”
“It’s not your boat, it belongs to Berengária,” Moira said in Spanish.
Arkadin’s eyes narrowed. “And do you belong to Berengária also?”
“I belong to no one,” Moira said, “but I am looking out for Berengária’s interests.” She had thought about the possible answers to his questions during the entire trip up the coast of Mexico. What it boiled down to was this: Arkadin was a man first, a homicidal criminal second.
“Just like a woman to send a woman,” Arkadin said, as disdainful as Roberto Corellos.
“Berengária is convinced you no longer trust her.”
“This is true.”
“Perhaps she no longer trusts you.”
Arkadin gave her a dark look but said nothing.
“This is a poor state of affairs,” Moira acknowledged. “And no way to run a business.”
“And how does the woman who does not own you suggest we proceed?”
“For a start, you might lower the Glock,” Moira observed.
By this time Soraya had made her way up the ladder and now appeared, swinging her legs over the yacht’s brass railing. She seemed to size up the situation immediately, looking from Moira to Arkadin and back again.
“F*ck you,” Arkadin said. “And f*ck Berengária for sending you.”
“If she had sent a man, the chances are good the two of you would have killed each other.”
“I would have killed him, certainly,” Arkadin said.
“So sending a man would not have been the smart thing to do.”
Arkadin snorted. “F*ck, we’re not in the kitchen.” He shook his head in disbelief. “You’re not even armed.”
“Therefore, you won’t shoot me,” Moira said. “Therefore, you will be willing to listen when I talk, when I negotiate, when I propose a way to go forward without suspicion on either side.”
Arkadin watched her as a hawk watches a sparrow. Perhaps he no longer considered her a threat, or possibly what she said had gotten through to him. In any event, he lowered the Glock and tucked it away at the small of his back.
Moira looked pointedly at Soraya. “But I won’t talk or negotiate or propose anything with someone unfamiliar. Berengária told me about you and your boatman, El Heraldo, but now I see this woman here. I don’t like surprises.”
“That makes two of us.” Arkadin jerked his head in Soraya’s direction. “A new partner, on probation. She doesn’t work out, I put a hole in the back of her head.”
“Just like that.”
Arkadin walked to where Soraya stood and, cocking his thumb and forefinger as if they were a gun, he pressed its muzzle to the base of her skull. “Boom!” Then he turned and, smiling in the most charming manner, said, “So speak your mind.”
“There are too many partners,” Moira said bluntly.
This gave Arkadin pause. “For myself,” he said at length, “I don’t care for partners in the least.” He shrugged. “Unfortunately, they’re a part of doing business. But if Berengária wants out…”
“We were thinking more of Corellos.”
“She’s his lover.”
“This is business,” Moira said. “What she did with Corellos was to keep the peace between them.” Now she shrugged. “What better weapon does she have?”
Arkadin seemed to look at her in a new light. “Corellos is very powerful.”
“Corellos is in prison.”
“I doubt for much longer.”
“Which is why,” Moira said, “we hit him now.”
“Hit him?”
“Kill, terminate, murder, call it what you like.”
Arkadin paused a moment, then burst out laughing. “Where in the world did Berengária find you?”
Moira, glancing at Soraya, took a not-so-wild guess, thinking: Pretty much the same place you found your new partner.
Why would she do that?” Professor Atherton had his head in his hands. “Why would Tracy tell anyone that she had a brother?”
“Especially when that put her in Arkadin’s debt,” Chrissie added.
“She did more than mention her brother,” Bourne said. “She concocted an elaborate lie about him being alive and in debt over his head. It’s as if she wanted Arkadin to have something on her.”
Chrissie shook her head. “But that doesn’t make sense.”
It did, Bourne thought, if she had been sent to get close to Arkadin. To report on his deals and his whereabouts, for example. He was not, however, about to speculate with these people.
“That question can wait,” he said. “After the shots in the woods, we need to get out of here.” He turned to Professor Atherton. “I can carry Marks, can you maneuver on your own?”
The old man nodded curtly.
Chrissie gestured. “I’ll help you, Dad.”
“See to your daughter,” he said gruffly. “I can take care of myself.”
Chrissie packed up the first-aid kit. She carried it out the front door, holding Scarlett’s hand. Bourne picked Marks up, sliding him up onto his shoulder.
“Let’s go,” he said, herding the professor outside.
Chrissie took him around to his car, which was parked out back. Bourne packed Marks into the rental, which was miraculously unscathed. Chrissie pulled her father’s car around, and Scarlett clambered in.
Bourne approached her.
“What happens now?” she asked.
“You go back to your life.”
“My life.” Her laugh was uneasy. “My life—and my family’s life—will never be the same.”
“Maybe that’s a good thing.”
She nodded.
“In any case, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” She smiled wanly. “For a moment, I was Tracy, and now I know that I never wanted to be like her, I just thought I did.” She put a hand on his arm, briefly. “It was good she met you. You made her happy.”
“For a night or two.”
“More than many get in a lifetime.” Her hand dropped away. “Trace chose her life, it didn’t choose her.”
Bourne nodded. Turning away, he peered into her car. When he tapped on the glass, Scarlett opened the window. He placed something in her hand and closed her fingers around it.
“This is just between us,” Bourne said. “Don’t look at it until you’re home and alone.”
She nodded solemnly.
“Let’s go,” Chrissie said, not looking at Bourne.
Scarlett raised her window. She said something Bourne couldn’t hear. He put his hand flat against the window. On the other side, Scarlett pressed her hand over his.
Marks had left the key in the ignition and now Bourne started it up.
A combination of the noise and vibration as Bourne came out of the driveway and turned onto the road woke Marks from his stupor.
“Where the hell am I?” he mumbled thickly.
“On your way to London.”
Marks nodded in the manner of a drunk who is struggling to reacquaint himself with how the world works. “F*ck, my leg hurts.”
“You were shot, you lost some blood, but you’ll be fine.”
“Right.” Then something in his face changed and a shudder passed through him as if the memories of recent events had resurfaced. He turned to Bourne. “Listen, I’m sorry. I’ve acted like a shit.”
Bourne said nothing as he continued to drive.
“I was sent out to find you.”
“I figured that out.”
Marks rubbed his eyes with his knuckles in an effort to clear his head of the last cobwebs. “I work for Treadstone now.”
Bourne pulled the car over to the side of the road. “Since when has Treadstone re-formed?”
“Since Willard found a backer.”
“And who might that be?”
“Oliver Liss.”
Bourne had to laugh. “Poor Willard. Out of the frying pan.”
“That’s it exactly.” Marks’s tone was mournful. “The whole thing’s a total f*ckup.”
“And you’re part of the f*ckup.”
Marks sighed. “Actually, I’m hoping to be part of the solution.”
“Really? And how would that work?”
“Liss wants something you have—a ring.”
Everyone wants the Dominion ring, Bourne thought, but he remained silent.
“I was supposed to get it from you.”
“I’d be curious to know how you were going to do that.”
“To be honest, I don’t have a clue,” Marks said, “and I’m no longer interested in that.”
Bourne was silent.
Marks nodded. “You have a right to be skeptical. But I’m telling you the truth. Willard called just before I arrived at the house. He told me the mission had changed, that I was now to get you to Tineghir.”
“In southeast Morocco.”
“Ouarzazate, to be precise. Apparently, Arkadin is being brought there, too.”
Bourne was silent for so long Marks felt compelled to say, “What are you thinking?”
“That Oliver Liss is no longer calling the shots at Treadstone.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Liss would no more order you to get me to Ouarzazate than he would open a vein.” He looked at Marks. “No, Peter, something’s changed radically.”
“I felt that myself, but what?” Marks took out his PDA and went on a number of government news sites. “Jesus,” he said at last, “Liss was taken into custody by the Department of Justice pending an investigation into his role in illegal Black River dealings.” He looked up. “But he was cleared of those charges weeks ago.”
“I told you something’s radically changed,” Bourne said. “Willard is taking orders from another source.”
“It has to be someone very high up the food chain to get the investigation reopened.”
Bourne nodded. “And now you’re as much in the dark as I am. It looks like your boss sold you down the river without even a second’s thought.”
“Frankly, this comes as no surprise.” Marks rubbed his leg. His pain-filled exhale was a whistle of protest.
“There’s a doctor in London who’ll be discreet about the gunshot wound.” Bourne put the car in gear and, checking for traffic, pulled out onto the road. “Just so you know, Diego led me into a trap. There were enemies waiting for me at the club.”
“Did Moreno have to kill him?”
“We’ll never know now,” Bourne said. “But Ottavio saved my life back there. He didn’t deserve to be shot down like a dog.”
“Which brings me to who the hell was firing at us.”
Bourne told him about Severus Domna and Jalal Essai without going into detail about Holly.
“I was attacked in London. I pulled an odd gold ring off the forefinger of my assailant’s right hand.” He fished around in his pockets. “Shit, I seem to have lost it.”
“Scarlett found it. I gave it to her as a souvenir,” Bourne said. “Every member of Severus Domna carries one.”
“So this is all about an old Treadstone mission.” Marks seemed to consider the implications for a moment. “Do you know why Alex Conklin wanted the laptop?”
“No idea,” Bourne said, though he thought he did know now. Was there anyone besides Soraya and Moira he could trust? Though he knew Soraya and Peter were good friends he still didn’t know whether he could trust Marks.
Marks shifted uncomfortably. “There’s something I need to tell you. I’m afraid I roped Soraya into joining Treadstone.”
Bourne knew that Typhon could not run successfully without her, so he assumed that Danziger was systematically dismantling the old CI and remaking it in the image of Bud Halliday’s beloved NSA. Not that it was any of his concern. He hated and distrusted all espionage agencies. But he knew the good work that Typhon had accomplished under its original director, and later under Soraya. “What is Willard having her do?”
“You won’t like this.”
“Don’t let that stop you.”
“Her mission is to get close to Leonid Arkadin and the laptop.”
“The same laptop that Conklin had me steal from Jalal Essai?”
“That’s right.”
Bourne wanted to laugh, but then Marks would ask questions he wasn’t prepared to answer. Instead he said, “Was it your idea for Soraya to get close to Arkadin?”
“No, it was Willard’s.”
“Took him some time to come up with it?”
“He told me about it the day after I recruited her.”
“So chances are he had the assignment in mind for her when he asked you to recruit her.”
Marks shrugged, as if he couldn’t see how it mattered.
But it mattered very much to Bourne, who saw in Willard’s thinking a pattern. All the air went out of him. What if Soraya wasn’t the first female Treadstone had recruited to keep an eye on its first graduate? What if Tracy had been working for Treadstone? Everything fit. The only reason Tracy would lie, deliberately putting herself in Arkadin’s power, was so that he would hire her and keep her close, allowing her to pass on intel about both his whereabouts and his business ventures. A brilliant plan, which had worked until Tracy had been killed in Khartoum. Then Arkadin had vanished again. Willard needed a way to regain contact, so he had resorted to a tried-and-true Treadstone tactic. Arkadin used women like dish towels. They would be the last people he would suspect of keeping tabs on him.
“Soraya found him, I take it.”
“She’s with him now in Sonora and knows what to do,” Marks said. “Do you think she can get him to Tineghir?”
“No,” Bourne said. “But I can.”
“How?”
Bourne smiled, remembering the entry in Noah Perlis’s notebook. “I’ll need to text her the information. She’ll know what to do with it.”
They were in the outskirts of London now. Bourne got off the motorway at the next exit and pulled over in a side street. Marks handed him his PDA and recited Soraya’s number. Bourne punched it in, then pressed the SMS button, composed the text, and sent it.
After returning Marks’s PDA, he resumed driving. “I don’t know how it’s happened,” he said, “but Severus Domna is running Willard and Treadstone.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Jalal Essai is Amazigh. He comes from the High Atlas Mountains.”
“Ouarzazate.”
“So is Willard taking orders from Essai or Severus Domna?”
“For the moment it doesn’t matter,” Bourne said, “but my money’s on Severus Domna. I doubt Essai has the clout to get Justice to take Liss into custody.”
“Because Essai has broken away from Severus Domna, right?”
Bourne nodded. “Which makes the situation that much more interesting.” He made a left turn, then a right. They were now on a street of neat, white Georgian row houses. A Skye terrier, industriously sniffing at steps, led his master along the pavement. The doctor was three houses down. “It’s not often my enemies are at each other’s throats.”
“I take it you’re going to Tineghir, despite the danger. That couldn’t have been an easy decision.”
“You have your own tough decision to make,” Bourne said. “If you want to stay in this business, Peter, you’ll have to return to DC to take care of Willard. Otherwise, one way or another, he’ll wind up destroying you and Soraya.”