Bourne 4 - The Bourne Legacy (14 page)

The hint of a smile curled the edges of the other's lips, as if he had scored a victory in dragging Bourne across the invisible barrier. "Not even when you married Marie? Not even when Jamie and Alison where born?" His tone was tightly wound now, as if he was struggling to keep something deep inside him held in check. "You tried to replicate Joshua and Alyssa. You even used the same first letters in their names." Bourne felt as if he'd been beaten senseless. There was an inchoate roaring in his ears.

"Who are you?" he repeated in a strangled voice.

"I'm known as Khan. But who are
you,
David Webb? A professor of linguistics might possibly be at home in the wilderness, but he surely doesn't know hand-to-hand combat; he doesn't know how to fashion a Viet Cong cage-net; he doesn't know how to hijack a car. Above all, he doesn't know how to successfully conceal himself from the CIA."

"It seems, then, that we're a mystery to one another." That same maddening enigmatic smile played around Khan's mouth. Bourne felt a prickling of the short hairs at the nape of his neck, the sense that something in his shattered memory was trying to surface.

"Keep telling yourself that. The fact is, I
could
kill you now, even in this public place," Khan said with a great deal of venom. The smile had vanished as quickly as a cloud changes its shape, and there was a small tremor in the smooth bronze column of his neck, as if some fury, long held in check, had briefly escaped to the surface. "I
should
kill you now. But such extreme action would expose me to the pair of CIA agents who have entered the park from the north entrance."

Without moving his head, Bourne directed his gaze in the indicated direction. Khan was quite right. Two Agency suits were scanning the faces of those in the immediate vicinity.

"I believe that it's time we left." Khan rose, looked down at Bourne for a moment.

"This is a simple situation. Either come with me or be taken." Bourne got up and, walking side by side with Khan, went out of the park. Khan was between Bourne and the agents, and he took a route that would keep him in that position. Again, Bourne was impressed with the young man's expertise as well as his thinking in extreme situations.

"Why are you doing this?" Bourne asked. He had not been immune to the other's significant flare of temper, an incandescence as enigmatic to Bourne as it was alarming. Khan didn't answer.

They entered the stream of pedestrians and were soon lost within the flow. Khan had witnessed the four agents heading into Lincoln Fine Tailors, and he had quickly memorized their faces. It hadn't been difficult; in the jungle where he had raised himself, the instant identification of an individual often meant the difference between life and death. In any event, unlike Webb, he knew where all four were and he was on the lookout for the other two now, because at this crucial juncture when he was leading his target to a place of his choosing, he did not want any intrusion.

Sure enough, up ahead in the crowd, he spotted them. They were in standard formation, one on either side of the street, heading directly toward them. He turned to Webb to alert him, only to find that he was alone in the throng. Webb had vanished into thin air.

Deep within the bowels of Humanistas, Ltd. was a sophisticated listening station that monitored the clandestine signals traffic from all the various major intelligence networks. No human ear heard the raw data because no human ear would be able to make sense of it. Since the signals were encrypted, the intercepted traffic was run through a series of sophisticated software programs made up of heuristic algorithms—that is to say, they had the ability to learn. There was a program for each intelligence network because each agency had selected a different encryption algorithm.

Humanistas' battery of programmers were more successful at breaking some codes than others, but the bottom line was that Spalko more or less knew what was going on all over the world. The American CIA code was one of the ones that had been broken, so within hours of the DCI ordering the termination of Jason Bourne, Stepan Spalko was reading about it.

"Excellent," he said. "Now everything is going according to plan." He set down the decryption, then pulled up a map of Nairobi on a monitor screen. He kept moving around the city until he found the area on the outskirts where President Jomo wanted the Humanistas medical team sent in to minister to the quarantined known AIDS patients. At that moment his cell phone rang. He listened to the voice on the other end of the line. He checked his watch, said, finally, "There should be enough time. You've done well." Then he took the elevator upstairs to Ethan Hearn's office. On the way up, he made a single call, achieving in minutes what many others in Budapest had tried in vain for weeks to get— an orchestra seat for that night's opera.

Humanistas, Ltd.'s newest young development officer was hard at work on his computer, but he stood up as soon as Spalko walked in. He looked as clean and neat as Spalko imagined he had when he had walked in to work this morning.

"No need to be formal around here, Ethan," Spalko said with an easy smile. "This isn't the army, you know."

"Yes, sir. Thank you." Hearn stretched his back. "I've been at it since seven this morning."

"How goes the fund-raising?"

"I have two dinners and a lunch with solid prospects set up for early next week. I've emailed you a copy of the pitch letters I want to give to them."

"Good, good." Spalko glanced around the room as if to make certain no one else was in hearing distance. "Tell me, do you own a tux?"

"Absolutely, sir. I couldn't do my job otherwise."

"Excellent. Go home and change into it."

"Sir?" The young man's brows had knitted together in surprise.

"You're going to the opera."

"Tonight? At such short notice? How did you manage to get tickets?" Spalko laughed. "You know, I like you, Ethan. I'm willing to bet you're the last honest man on earth."

"Sir, I have no doubt that would be you."

Spalko laughed again at the bewildered expression that had come over the young man.

"That was a joke, Ethan. Now, come on. There's no time to lose."

"But my work." Hearn gestured at the computer screen.

"In a way, tonight
will
be work. There'll be a man at the opera I want to recruit as a benefactor." Spalko's demeanor was so relaxed, so nonchalant that Hearn never suspected a thing. "This man—his name is László Molnar—"

"I've never heard of him."

"You wouldn't." Spalko's voice lowered, became conspiratorial. "Though he is quite wealthy, he is paranoid about anyone knowing. He's not on any donor list, that I can assure you, and if you make any allusion to his wealth, you might as well forget ever talking to him again."

"I understand completely, sir," Hearn said.

"He is a connoisseur of sorts, though nowadays it seems to me the word has lost much of its meaning."

"Yes, sir." Hearn nodded. "I think I know what you mean." Spalko was quite certain the young man had no idea what he meant, and a vague undertone of regret crept into his thoughts. He had once been as naive as Hearn, a hundred years ago, or so it now seemed. "In any event, Molnar loves opera. He has had a subscription for years."

"I know exactly how to proceed with difficult prospects like Laszl6 Molnar." Hearn deftly pulled on his suit jacket. "You can count on me." Spalko grinned. "Somehow I knew I could. Now, once you've hooked him, I want you to take him to Underground. Do you know the bar, Ethan?"

"Of course, sir. But it will be quite late. After midnight, surely." Spalko put his forefinger beside his nose. "Another secret. Molnar is something of a night owl. He'll resist, however. It seems he enjoys being persuaded. You must persevere, Ethan, do you understand?"

"Perfectly."

Spalko handed him a slip of paper with Molnar's seat number. "Then go on. Have a good time." He gave him a small shove. "And good luck."

The imposing Romanesque facade of Magyar Allami Operahaz, the Hungarian State Opera House, was ablaze with light. Inside, the magnificent, ornate gilt-and-red interior, three stories high, glittered with what seemed like ten thousand spearpoints of light from the elaborate cut-crystal chandelier that descended from the muraled domed ceiling like a giant bell.

Tonight, the company was presenting Zoltan Kodaly's
Hdryjdnos,
a traditional favorite that had been in its repertory since 1926. Ethan Hearn hurried into the vast marble lobby, echoing with the voices of Budapest society assembled for the evening's festivities. His tuxedo was of a fine worsted fabric and was well cut, but it was hardly a name brand. In his line of work, what he wore and how he wore it was extremely important. He tended toward elegant, muted clothes, never anything flashy or too expensive. Humility was the name of the game when one was asking for donations.

He did not want to be late, but he slowed himself down, reluctant to miss a moment of that peculiar electric time just before the curtain rose that made his heart thump. Having assiduously boned up on the hobbies of Hungarian society, he fancied himself something of an opera buff. He liked
Hdry Jdnos
both because of its music, which was derived from Hungarian folk music, and because of the tall tale the veteran soldier Janos spins of his rescue of the emperor's daughter, his promotion to general, his virtual singlehanded defeat of Napoleon and his eventual winning of the heart of the emperor's daughter. It was a sweet fable, drenched in the bloody history of Hungary. In the end, it was fortuitous that he had arrived late, because by consulting the slip of paper Spalko had given him, he was able to identify László Molnar, who, along with most others, was already seated. From what Hearn could determine at first sight, he was a middle-aged man of medium height, heavy around the gut, and, with a slicked-back mass of black hair, a head not unlike a mushroom. A forest of bristles sprouted from his ears and the backs of his blunt-fingered hands. He was ignoring the woman on his left, who, in any case, was speaking, rather too loudly, to her companion. The seat to Molnar's right was vacant. It appeared that he had come to the opera on his own. All the better, Hearn thought, as he took his seat near the rear of the orchestra. A moment later the lights dimmed, the orchestra struck up the prelude and the curtain slid smoothly up. Later, during the intermission, Hearn took a cup of hot chocolate and mingled with the soigne crowd. This was how humans had evolved. As opposed to the animal world, the female was definitely the more colorful of the species. The women were sheathed in long dresses of shantung silk, Venetian moire, Moroccan satin that just months ago had been displayed on the couturier runways of Paris, Milan and New York. The men, clad in designer tuxedos, appeared content to circle their mates, who gaggled in clusters, fetching them champagne or hot chocolate when needed but, for the most part, looking thoroughly bored.

Hearn had enjoyed the first half of the opera and was looking forward to the conclusion. He had not, however, forgotten his assignment. In fact, during the performance he had spent some time coming up with an approach. He never liked to lock himself into a plan; rather he used his first visual assessment of the prospect to figure out an approach. To the discerning eye, so much could be determined by visual cues. Did the prospect care about his appearance? Did he like food, or was he indifferent to it? Did he drink or smoke? Was he cultured or uncouth? All these factors and many more went into the mix.

So it was that by the time Hearn made his approach, he was confident he could strike up a conversation with László Molnar.

"Pardon me," Hearn said in his most deprecating tone of voice. "I'm a lover of opera. I was wondering if you were, too."

Molnar had turned. He wore an Armani tuxedo that emphasized his broad shoulders while cleverly hiding the bulk of his gut. His ears were very large and, this close up, even hairier than they had seemed at first glance. "I am a student of the opera," he said slowly and, to Hearn's attuned senses, warily. Hearn smiled his most charming smile and engaged Molnar's dark eyes with his own. "To be frank," Molnar continued, apparently mollified, "I'm consumed by it."

This fit in perfectly with what Spalko had told him, Hearn thought. "I have a subscription," he said in his effortless fashion. "I've had one for some years, and I couldn't help noticing that you have one also." He laughed softly. "I don't get to meet too many people with a love of opera. My wife prefers jazz." "Mine loved the opera."

"You're divorced?" "A widower." "Oh, I'm so sorry."

"It happened some time ago," Molnar said, warming a little now that he'd given up this intimate bit of knowledge. "I miss her so terribly that I've never sold her seat." Hearn held out a hand. "Ethan Hearn."

After the slightest hesitation, László Molnar gripped it with his hairy-backed paw.

"László Molnar. I'm pleased to make your acquaintance." Hearn gave a courtly little bow. "Would you care to join me in a hot chocolate, Mr. Molnar?"

This offer appeared to please the other, and he nodded. "I'd be delighted." As they walked together through the milling crowd, they exchanged lists of their favorite operas and opera composers. Since Hearn had asked Molnar to go first, he made certain they had many in common. Molnar was again pleased. As Spalko had noted, there was something open and honest about Hearn that even the most jaundiced eye could not help but appreciate. He possessed the knack of being natural even in the most artificial situations. It was this sincerity of spirit that caught Molnar, dissolving his defenses.

"Are you enjoying the performance?" he inquired as they sipped their hot chocolate.

"Very much," Hearn said. "But
Haryjdnos
is so full of emotion I confess I'd enjoy it all the more if I could see the expressions on the principals' faces. Sad to say, when I bought the subscription I couldn't afford anything closer, and now it's quite impossible to obtain a better seat."

For a moment, Molnar said nothing, and Hearn feared that he was going to let the opening pass. Then he said, as if he had just thought of it, "Would you care to sit in my wife's seat?"