The Bourne Objective

31


DIDN’T I TELL YOU,” Peter Marks said crossly, “that I didn’t want to see anyone.”
It was a rebuke, not a question. Nevertheless, Elisa, the nurse who had been looking after him ever since he’d admitted himself to Walter Reed Army Medical Center, appeared unfazed. Marks lay in bed, his wounded leg bandaged and hurting like poison. He had refused all painkillers, which was his prerogative, but much to his annoyance his stoicism hadn’t endeared him to Elisa. This was a pity, Marks thought, because she was a looker as well as being whip-smart.
“I think you might want to make an exception for this one.”
“Unless it’s Shakira or Keira Knightley I’m not interested.”
“Just because you’re privileged enough to wind up here doesn’t give you the right to act like a petulant child.”
Marks cocked his head. “Yeah, why don’t you come over here and see what it’s like from my point of view?”
“Only if you promise not to molest me,” she said with a sly smile.
Marks laughed. “Okay, so who is it?” She had a gift of excavating him out of even his darkest mood.
She came over and plumped up his pillow before elevating the top half of the bed. “I want you to sit up for me.”
“Shall I beg, too?”
“Now, that would be nice.” Her smile deepened. “Just make sure you don’t drool on me.”
“I have so few pleasures here, don’t take that away from me.” He grimaced as he pushed himself farther up the bed. “Christ, my ass is sore.”
She made a show of biting her lip. “You make it so easy for me I can’t bring myself to humiliate you even more.” She came over and, taking a brush from a side table, neatened his hair.
“Who is it, for Christ’s sake?” Marks said. “The f*cking president?”
“Close.” Elisa went to the door. “It’s the defense secretary.”
Good God, Marks thought. What can Bud Halliday want with me?
But it was Chris Hendricks who walked through the door. Marks fairly goggled. “Where’s Halliday?”
“Good morning to you, too, Mr. Marks.” Hendricks shook his hand, pulled over a chair, and without taking off his overcoat sat down beside the bed.
“Sorry, sir, good morning,” Marks stammered. “I don’t… Congratulations are in order.”
“That’s the spirit.” Hendricks smiled. “So, how are you feeling?”
“I’ll be up and about in no time,” Marks said. “I’m getting the best of care.”
“I have no doubt.” Hendricks placed one hand over the other in his lap. “Mr. Marks, time is short so I’ll cut right to the point. While you were overseas Bud Halliday tendered his resignation. Oliver Liss is incarcerated and, frankly, I don’t see him getting out anytime soon. Your immediate boss, Frederick Willard, is dead.”
“Dead? My God, how?”
“A topic for another day. Suffice it to say that with all this sudden upheaval, a power vacuum has formed at the top of the pyramid, or one of them, anyway.” Hendricks cleared his throat. “Like nature, the clandestine services abhor a vacuum. I have been following the systematic dismantling of CI, your old bailiwick, with something of a jaundiced eye. I like what your colleague did with Typhon. In this day and age, a black-ops organization manned by Muslims focused on the extremist Muslim world seems a rather elegant solution to our most pressing ongoing problem.
“Unfortunately, Typhon belongs to CI. God alone knows how long it will take to right that ship and I don’t want to waste time.” He hunched forward. “Therefore, I’d like you to head up a revitalized Treadstone, which will take up Typhon’s mission. You will report directly to me and to the president.”
Marks frowned deeply.
“Is something the matter, Mr. Marks?”
“Everything’s the matter. First off, how on earth did you hear about Treadstone? And second, if you’re as enamored of Typhon as you claim, why haven’t you contacted Soraya Moore, Typhon’s former director?”
“Who said I haven’t?”
“Did she turn you down?”
“The relevant question,” Hendricks said, “is whether you’re interested.”
“Of course I’m interested, but I want to know about Soraya.”
“Mr. Marks, I trust you’re as impatient to get out of here as you are with your questions.” Hendricks rose, crossed to the door, and opened it. He nodded, and in walked Soraya.
“Mr. Marks,” Secretary Hendricks said, “it’s my pleasure to introduce you to your co-director.” As Soraya approached the bed, he added, “I’m quite certain the two of you have many matters, organizational and otherwise, to discuss, so if you’ll excuse me.”
Neither Marks nor Soraya paid him the least bit of attention as he stepped out of the room, closing the door softly behind him.
Well, look who the wind blew in!” Deron stepped out of his doorway as Bourne came in. As soon as Bourne was inside, Deron gave him a huge hug. “Dammit, man, you’re worse than a will-o’-the-wisp, first I see you, then I don’t.”
“That’s the idea, isn’t it?”
Then he glanced down at Bourne’s bandaged hands. “What the f*ck?”
“I had a run-in with something that tried to eat me.”
Deron laughed. “Well, you must be okay then. Come on in.” He led Bourne into his house in Northeast Washington. He was a tall, slim, handsome man with skin the color of light cocoa. He had a clipped British accent. “How about a drink or, better yet, something to eat?”
“Sorry, old friend, no time. I’m flying out to London tonight.”
“Well, then, I’ve got just the passport for you.”
Bourne laughed. “Not this time. I’m here to pick up the package.”
Deron turned and looked at him. “Ah, after all this time.”
Bourne smiled. “I’ve finally found the proper home for it.”
“Excellent. The homeless make me sad.” Deron took Bourne through the rambling house and into his enormous studio, fumey with oil paint and turpentine. There was a canvas on a wooden easel. “Take a look at my newest child,” he said before disappearing into another room.
Bourne came around and took a look at the painting. It was almost finished—enough, anyway, to take his breath away. A woman in white, carrying a parasol against a burning sun, walked in high grass, while a young boy, possibly her son, looked on longingly. The depiction of the light was simply extraordinary. Bourne stepped in, peering closely at the brushstrokes, which matched perfectly those of Claude Monet, who had painted the original La Promenade in 1875.
“What do you think?”
Bourne turned. Deron had returned with a hard-sided attaché case. “Magnificent. Even better than the original.”
Deron laughed. “Good God, man, I hope not!” He handed Bourne the case. “Here you are, safe and sound.”
“Thanks, Deron.”
“Hey, it was a challenge. I forge paintings and, for you, passports, visas, and the like. But a computer? To tell you the truth the composite housing was a bitch. I wasn’t sure I’d gotten it quite right.”
“You did a great job.”
“Another satisfied customer,” he said with a laugh.
They began to drift back through the house.
“How’s Kiki?”
“As ever. She’s back in Africa for six weeks working to improve the locals’ lot. It’s lonely here without her.”
“You two should get married.”
“You’ll be the first to know, old man.” They were at the front door. He shook Bourne’s hand. “Ever get up to Oxford?”
“As a matter of fact, yes.”
“Give the Grand Old Dame my regards.”
“I will.” Bourne opened the door. “Thanks for everything.”
Deron waved away his words. “Godspeed, Jason.”
Bourne, on the night flight to London, dreamed that he was back in Bali, at the top of Pura Lempuyang, peering through the gates that framed Mount Agung. In his dream he saw Holly Marie moving slowly from right to left. As she passed in front of the sacred mountain, Bourne began to run toward her and, as she was pushed, he caught her before she could fall down the steep, stone steps to her death. Holding her in his arms, he looked down on her face. It was Tracy’s face.
Tracy shuddered and he saw the jagged shard of glass impaling her. Blood inundated her and ran over his hands and arms.
“What’s happening, Jason? It’s not my time to die.”
It wasn’t Tracy’s voice that echoed in his dream; it was Scarlett’s.
London greeted him with an uncharacteristically brilliant, crisp, blue morning. Chrissie had insisted on picking him up at Heathrow. She was waiting for him just outside of security. She smiled as he kissed her on the cheek.
“Baggage?”
“Only what I’m carrying,” Bourne said.
Linking arms with him, she said, “How very nice to see you again so soon. Scarlett was so excited when I told her. We’ll have lunch up at Oxford and then pick her up from school.”
They walked to the car park and got into her battered Range Rover.
“Old times,” she said, laughing.
“How did Scarlett take the news about her aunt?”
Chrissie sighed as she pulled out. “About as well as could be expected. She was a complete wreck for twenty-four hours. I couldn’t go near her.”
“Children are resilient.”
“That, at least, is a godsend.” After winding her way out of the airport, she got on the motorway.
“Where is Tracy?”
“We buried her in a very old cemetery just outside Oxford.”
“I’d like to go straight there, if you don’t mind.”
She gave him a quick look. “No, not at all.”
The drive to Oxford was quick and silent, both Bourne and Chrissie lost in thought. In Oxford they stopped at a florist. At the cemetery, she turned in and parked the SUV. They got out and she led him through the ranks of headstones, some very old indeed, toward a spreading oak tree. A brisk wind was blowing from the east, ruffling her hair. She stood slightly back while Bourne approached Tracy’s grave.
He stood for a moment, then lay the bouquet of white roses at the foot of the stone. He wanted to remember her as she had been the night before her death. He wanted to remember only their intimate moments. But for better or for worse, her death had been the most intimate of moments between them. He didn’t think he’d ever forget the sensation of her blood on his hands and arms, a crimson silk scarf being drawn across them. Her eyes looking up at him. He had so wanted to hold on to the life that was draining out of her. He heard her voice whispering in his ear and his vision clouded. His eyes burned with tears that welled but would not spill over. How he wished he could feel her breathing beside him.
Then he felt Chrissie’s arm around him.
* * *
Scarlett, breaking away from a gaggle of her schoolmates, ran into his arms. He picked her up and whirled her around.
“I went to Aunt Tracy’s funeral,” Scarlett said with a child’s terrible gravity. “I wish I had known her better.”
Bourne hugged her tight. Then they all got into the Range Rover and, at his request, drove over to Chrissie’s office at All Souls College, a large, square room with windows that overlooked the ancient college grounds. It smelled of old books and incense.
While Bourne and Scarlett settled themselves on the sofa Chrissie used to grade papers, she made tea.
“What do you have in the briefcase?” Scarlett asked.
“You’ll see,” Bourne told her.
Chrissie came over with the tea service on an antique black japanned tray. Bourne waited patiently while she poured the tea, but Scarlett squirmed until her mother offered her a sweet biscuit.
“Now,” Chrissie said as she pulled up a chair, “what’s all this about?”
Bourne placed the attaché case on his lap. “I have a birthday present for you.”
Chrissie frowned. “My birthday is almost five months away.”
“Consider this an early gift.” He unlocked the case, opened the snaps, and removed a laptop computer, which he placed on the table beside the tea service. “Come sit beside me,” he said.
Chrissie rose and moved onto the sofa while Bourne opened the laptop and started it up. He had made sure to fully charge the battery on the flight over. Scarlett sat on the edge of the cushion to be closer to the screen.
The screen swelled with images as the computer finished booting up.
“Scarlett,” Bourne said, “do you have the ring I gave you?”
“I keep it with me.” Scarlett dug it out. “Do I have to give it back?”
Bourne laughed. “I gave it to you and I meant it.” He held out his hand. “Just for a moment.”
He took the ring and inserted it in the slot that had been built for it. This was the laptop he had stolen from Jalal Essai, Holly’s uncle, at Alex Conklin’s behest. He hadn’t delivered it because he had discovered what it contained and determined that it was too important a find to be given over to Treadstone, or anyone in the clandestine services. Instead he had asked Deron to make a fake laptop. Accompanying Holly on one of her trips to Sonora to stock a narcorrancho, he had been introduced to Gustavo Moreno. Bourne had allowed the fake laptop to fall into the drug lord’s hands because having it eventually come to light in Moreno’s possession would keep any suspicion on Conklin’s part from falling on him.
Similarly, he had switched the Solomon ring with the one Marks had taken off his London assailant. The fact that Scarlett had found Marks’s ring when Marks had been shot gave him a perfect cover for the switch. He had been correct to assume the Solomon ring would be far safer in her hands than in his own.
The two pieces fit together perfectly. The mysterious inscription engraved on the inside of the ring unlocked the ghost file on the laptop’s hard drive, a PDF file, a perfect replica of an ancient Hebrew text.
Chrissie hunched forward. “What is this? It looks like… directions?”
“You recall the discussion we had with Professor Giles.”
She glanced at him. “Funny you should mention him. A squad of MI6 came and took him away yesterday.”
“I’m afraid I had something to do with that,” Bourne said. “The good professor was part of the group that made so much trouble for us.”
“Do you mean—?” Her gaze returned to the ancient text. “Good Lord, Jason, you don’t mean to tell me—!”
“According to this file,” Bourne said, “King Solomon’s gold is buried in Syria.”
Chrissie’s excitement grew. “At Ugarit, somewhere on or around Mount Casius, where the god Baal was said to live.” She frowned as she came to the end of the text. “But where, exactly? The text is incomplete.”
“True,” Bourne said, thinking of the SD card Arkadin had found in the shattered statue of Baal. “The last bit is lost. I’m sorry about that.”
“No, don’t be.” She turned and hugged him tightly. “My God, what a fantastic gift.”
“If it’s the truth, if you find King Solomon’s gold.”
“No, in and of itself this text is invaluable. It provides a trove of research material that will help shed light on what’s fact and fiction about King Solomon’s court. I… I don’t know how to thank you.”
Bourne smiled. “Give it as a gift to the university in your sister’s name.”
“Why, I… Of course! What a wonderful idea! Now she’ll be closer to me, and a part of Oxford, too.”
He felt the memory of Tracy settling around him with a contented sigh. He could think of her now in all her incarnations and not be swamped in sorrow.
He put his arm around Scarlett. “You know, your aunt had a hand in this gift.”
The girl looked up at him, her eyes wide. “She did?”
Bourne nodded. “Let me tell you about it—and about how very courageous she was.”