Robert Ludlum's (TM) The Bourne Ascendancy (22 page)

“Okay,” she said, “then let’s do this.”

He nodded, paid for his coffee, and left via a side entrance that would let him out onto another street. Sara stayed put, slowly munching her almond cookies, and contemplating the death of Levi Blum.

D
inazade was lost
in a sea of stars,” Soraya said. Sonya was sitting on her lap, her drowsy head on her breast. “She had been lost for a very long time.”

“Like us, Mama?”

“Yes, muffin, just like us.” Soraya swallowed the lump in her throat.

“How did she get lost in the stars?”

“She was sent there by a wicked wizard who was jealous of Dinazade’s beauty. He wanted her beauty for himself. When Dinazade refused, he sent her into a prison he said she could never escape.”

“Did she escape, Mama?”

“Patience, darling. You’ll have to wait for the end of the story to find out.”

“Mama, I have to use the bathroom.”

Soraya picked her head up, called for Islam. She had formulated a plan, and it entailed a trip to the bathroom.

Several moments passed, then the door was unlocked and Islam came in, his dark eyes on her.

“Are you feeling more ill, Soraya?”

“I am,” she said. “Also, Sonya has to urinate.”

He helped her to her feet. The days of constant sitting had affected her legs as well as her balance. She had tried to exercise, to walk, but Islam had stopped her, as if knowing her purpose. This was the one thing that terrified her; if she couldn’t run with Sonya in her arms, how could she hope to escape?

Soraya took her daughter’s hand, and with Islam close beside her, she crossed the room, went out the door into a featureless corridor. The toilet was the first door on the right. As usual, Islam came in with them. But there was a Western-style stall, into which she took Sonya, closing the door behind them.

“Shall I call the doctor, Soraya?” Islam said from his position beside the sink and mirror. “How ill do you feel?”

Soraya made retching sounds, then said, “It’s just something I ate. A doctor isn’t necessary, but I could use your help.”

She heard him outside the door, and, signing to Sonya to turn around and press her face into a far corner of the stall, she opened the latch. The moment Islam entered, she hit him hard on the point of his chin. His head snapped back, slammed against the door. Dazed, he fell to his knees.

Soraya grabbed her daughter, stepped over Islam, and was about to cross the bathroom to the hallway when Sonya squirmed out of her arms and ran back to where Islam knelt, head bobbing.

“Sonya, what are you doing?” Soraya called in alarm. “Come back here!”

“Islam is hurt, Mama. We have to help him!”

Islam’s head came up, his arm snaked around the girl, and Soraya thought in despair, the innocence of children.

She froze, tasting the freedom of the hallway just beyond the door. But that taste turned out to be a mirage. Islam rose and, taking Sonya’s hand in his, led her out of the bathroom. He did not even look at Soraya, knowing that wherever Sonya went, Soraya would docilely follow.

Out in the hallway, two armed jihadists were waiting for them.

“You see how foolish you were,” Islam said, when they were back in the prison room.

Soraya, terrified because he still had hold of Sonya, sat back on her chair, her hands clasped in her lap like a disobedient schoolgirl. Islam stood in front of her, holding Sonya close against his leg.

“Mama?”

Sonya’s lip was quivering, and Soraya knew she was on the verge of tears. Her heart broke all over again. “Hush, muffin. Let Islam speak.”

Islam said, “Because I genuinely care about your welfare, and to show you I am not the animal you think I am, I will give you a choice. Promise you will not try to escape again.”

She looked at him defiantly. “And if I do not?”

“Then you will force me to take Sonya to another room. You will not see her again until this is all over.”

Lunging, Soraya took Sonya, held her to her breast. Islam made no move to stop her.

“Mama,” Sonya whispered in her ear, “are we lost in the stars?”

Soraya, tears trembling at the corners of her eyes, looked up at her captor. “I promise.” She could not say it fast enough.

“Here’s where you learn to fall.”

Hunter, astride Dagger, twisted in her saddle to meet Camilla’s gaze. It was a misty, windless morning, the eerie stillness seeming to be a harbinger of things to come. The boundaries of the Dairy were obscured and therefore an immense distance away. They were on the oval racetrack at last, with its low whitewashed fences and lanes for seven horses. Here was the final stage of Camilla’s training.

“It’s not necessary for you to win,” Hunter said. “In fact, winning is peripheral to your brief. Finding Bourne and killing him is your order of business. But you’ll be among professional jockeys. You need to be one of them, as good as they are—better, if I have anything to say about it.”

During a long and sleepless night, Camilla had tried to work out the web of lies in which she was enmeshed. Right now she was being pulled in different directions. Finnerman and Howard had sent her on a mission to stop Bourne, but if Hunter was telling the truth then on another, hidden level, they wanted her gone, killed in the line of duty. One thing was clear, however. Hunter wanted something entirely different from her. She had made up her mind to be the model pupil, to do whatever she was asked while she was at the Dairy. But after she was sent overseas, it was every woman for herself and devil take the hindmost. She had had her fill of being everyone’s pawn, from POTUS on down to Hunter. It was time to make her own decisions, and what better place to start than in the field where her own eyes and ears would lead her onto the right path. Her dedication and hard work, rising within the military and subsequently the public sector, all in aid of finding herself a free woman at the top of the food chain—it had all been nothing but a mirage. She saw at last the real truth: No matter how high she rose, men were always pulling the strings, making her dance to their personal tunes.

No more. This she vowed, as a fragile dawn shuffled over the fields and downs of the Dairy.

“I’m not going to fall,” Camilla said.

“Of course you’re not. But I’ve been delegated not only to train you but to keep you safe up on your mount.”

Camilla nodded slowly, unsurely.

“Okay, this is how you fall,” Hunter said, taking off at a gallop.

She was bent low over her mount, her butt slightly off the saddle, perfectly assuming the position of a professional racing jockey. As she came around the first turn, she went head over heels, landing on the packed dirt on her right shoulder. She rolled away from the horse, got her legs under her, and stood up, none the worse for wear.

She whistled, and Dagger turned, trotted back to where she stood against the rail. Camilla urged Dixon forward until she was close enough to smell the lemon of Hunter’s shampoo, mingled with the scents of the horses.

“Now it’s your turn.” Hunter leapt up onto Dagger’s back. “Your toes will be in the stirrups. First imperative: Tip them out just before you pitch yourself off the horse. Second imperative: You must wait until your horse is into a turn. He’ll be heading to your left, so you’ll pitch yourself over his neck to the
right
. That way you’ll be completely out of his way; he can’t possibly kick you or, worse, trample you to death. Third imperative: Relax your body. This is no doubt the easiest thing to do, since you have already had extensive training in hand-to-hand combat. Fourth imperative: Land on your right shoulder. You’ll simply tumble. Just let your momentum take you. You’ll be fine. Guaranteed.” She nodded. “Okay? Let’s try it.”

Camilla dug her heels into Dixon’s flanks, but the big stallion hardly needed urging. He was off in a flash, taking the second half of the turn and heading into the straightaway. Hunter kept Dagger several strides behind her in order to see the scenario clearly, as well as to be able to come to Camilla’s aid should something go wrong.

Halfway down the straightaway, Camilla set her mind on the precise moment she would take her fall. It would be just before the apex of the turn, so that Dixon would be pulling away from her at the maximum angle as she hit the ground.

The turn came up, she hit her mark, but her left toe got caught in the stirrup for just a split second. That was enough, however, to throw her off. Instead of falling, she was obliged to grab on to the saddle. There being no horn, her hand slipped off and she dropped. She grabbed the stirrup, but her feet were now dragging in the dirt. Her body began to twist as Dixon passed the apex of the turn, heading left into the homestretch straightaway.

Camilla tried to fold her legs up, but Dixon’s speed was too great. Then she felt a strong arm reaching around her waist and heard Hunter’s voice shouting, “Let go! Let go!”

Her terrified mind wanted to hold on for all she was worth, but she let go anyway, felt herself scooped off the ground, swung up and around until she was sitting uncomfortably behind Hunter, astride Dagger. Up ahead, Dixon had slowed, and now, seeing where she was, he turned back at a smart trot until she leaned over and took hold of his bridle.

As Camilla dismounted, Hunter said, “Not exactly how I drew it up. Next time, make sure your boots tips are square in the stirrups. Now mount up. Let’s go again. I’m not going to be the one responsible for you getting your brains kicked in. A horse can do that, you know. One kick. Wham!”

The curve of the Corniche, now as familiar as home, stretched out in front of Sara. She felt the cool weight concentrated at the small of her back. The snub-nosed .38 El Ghadan had given her was loaded with hollow-point bullets filled with mercury. You had to be close to your target, but you didn’t have to be accurate. The weapon and its ammo were tailor-made for Blum’s death.

It was after midnight. Clammy tendrils of fog, rising out of the water like a living creature, were driven onshore by an east wind. Up ahead, Camilla could see Blum silhouetted against the neon skyscrapers. Behind her, at a discreet distance, came the black SUV carrying El Ghadan, his driver, and two bodyguards.

This was a terminal rendezvous, without a fallback or any of the usual safeguards strewn as carefully as a minefield.

She smiled when she came up to him, but her smile was deliberately cold. They were being watched, possibly even recorded. This was play-acting of the highest level; it had to convince even the most hardened cynic.

“You really fucked up this time,” she said. “There was no good reason to order Khalifa’s death.”

“I hated that fucker,” Blum retorted, swinging into a rancorous mood from the get-go. “He made my life a living hell.”

“He could have supplied you with invaluable product. You were impatient; you allowed your personal feelings to get in the way of business. You’re supposed to be a trained fieldman, Blum.”

He assumed an aggressive posture. “How could you know?”

“How d’you think? Martine told me.”

“She had no business doing that.”

“Because of your foolish action, Martine is blown; she almost lost her life. Now I’m involved.”

As he took a step toward her, his stance moved from aggressive to belligerent.

“Careful!” she warned.

“Why don’t you just get the hell out of my face? It’s you who’s gumming up the works, not me.”

“I can’t, Blum. You blew up your brief.” Her fingers folded around the grip of the .38. “And now, you see, I have my own brief to complete.”

She brought the .38 out, squeezed the trigger. The force of the bullet caught him by surprise. Blood bloomed on the right side of his chest as he was thrown backward so hard he stumbled and then, arms pinwheeling frantically, fell into the water.

El Ghadan stepped out of the SUV even before it had fully stopped. He took the .38 out of her hand, checked the ammo to make sure she hadn’t replaced the live rounds with blanks, then gestured to his men.

They ran down the stone steps to the jetty, used gaffs to bring Blum’s body to the surface. They hauled him up onto the jetty, while above them El Ghadan and Sara peered down.

“So?” El Ghadan called down.

One of his men squatted down, pressed two fingers against Blum’s carotid artery. “He’s dead,” he said, glancing up.

“Roll him in with full pockets.”

El Ghadan watched as his men stuffed Blum’s trousers’ pockets with rocks and bits of concrete. Then they rose and kicked him back into the water.

He sank before Sara had time to say a prayer.

D
inazade was lost
in the sea of stars,” Soraya sang to her daughter, and then abruptly stopped.

“Islam,” she said, though her heart was thumping like mad in her chest. By now, she was used to the rhythms of her captivity; his visit was out of bounds. She pumped up her voice. “How good to see you.”

The jihadist grabbed the back of a wooden chair, dragged it over in front of her a good six feet away, and sat down.

“How are you feeling, Soraya?”

“I’m fine.” She was aware that her voice was overbright, and she struggled not to bite her lip in self-recrimination.

Islam seemed to smile. It was curious, she thought, how she could tell his expression even beneath the concealing headscarf.

“I know you wouldn’t tell me the truth even if your life depended on it.” He looked down at his hands with their cupped fingers, then back up again at her. “If you want anything—”

“You know what I want.”

“Anything I am able to provide.”

Sonya was squirming in her lap, but she remained silent, as she most often did when the two adults were speaking. Soraya knew their tones of voice disturbed her, but there was little she could do. “That’s why you came in here.”

“Yes.”

He stared at her intently. She could tell that his smile had dried up.

“I don’t think so.”

“No? What do you think, then?”

“It’s you who wants something from me, Islam. What could that be?” When he did not respond, she began a kind of singsong intoning: “‘Call me Ishmael. Some years ago—never mind how long precisely—having nothing in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world.’”

“I hate the sea,” Islam interrupted. “I don’t want to hear about the sea.”

“This is a story about Ishmael, a young man close in name to you, and his captain, a man named Ahab.”

“I said—”

“This Captain Ahab was obsessed, like El Ghadan. Ahab’s obsession is Moby-Dick, the great white whale that took Ahab’s leg and his first ship.”

“Not interested.”

“But surely you’ll be interested in how it ends. Ahab finally finds his white whale—although many people, myself included, believe it’s Moby-Dick who finds Ahab, in his new ship. The whale destroys the ship, Ahab, and all who are in it—except for Ishmael. He, alone, was the sane one on a ship manned by the insane. He, alone, is left to tell the tale.”

Islam seemed unmoved by her impromptu parable of his own situation. “This is a Western story—one that does not belong to me. I want to hear that song you were singing.”

“Not a song,” Soraya said, “a story, a myth.”

“What language were you singing it in?”

“Farsi. It’s a story about Dinazade, lost among the stars.”

So this is the reason for his unscheduled visit, Soraya mused. He heard me start to sing to Sonya. This is another step forward for us, she thought. I am drawing him closer and closer.

“Can you sing it in Arabic? I don’t know Farsi.”

“As you wish.” She nodded, and when she recommenced singing her voice changed, as if by magic, the subtle shadings of Arabic different from those of Farsi. She had of course taught Sonya both languages. “Dinazade was lost for a very long time, although in the sea of stars time did not exist. There was never a day or a night. The sun did not rise, nor did it set. The sun was as lost as was Dinazade, lost on another world, in another sky, far, far smaller than the one that held all these stars.

“Dinazade’s prison was beautiful, but it was a prison for all that, a prison without either walls or bars. The sea of stars was infinite. In all her wanderings, Dinazade had never come across another soul. Her prison was inhabited by no one else.

“Or so she thought.”

Soraya settled Sonya more comfortably in her lap. She did not look directly at Islam, but in the corner of her eye she noted his rapt attention.

She continued: “At some point—it was impossible to say when, since in this prison time did not exist—Dinazade became aware of a stirring beneath her. At first it was just a ripple, so faint she at first thought she had imagined it. But then a second ripple passed over her, stronger this time, like the exhalation of a djinn.

“Gradually, she became aware of something rising up from the infinite space below her. It blotted out the stars as it rose toward her. More and more stars winked out, until she could make out something glinting like metal in the starlight from above. It was not metal. It was the scale of a fish—a fish so vast her eyes could not take in more than an infinitesimal fraction of it.

“On it came, growing vaster until it seemed to Dinazade that the fish was larger than the infinite space through which it swam. The fish’s name was Bahamut, and he claimed that all of the world’s seven seas could fit into one of his nostrils, like a single grain of sand in the desert.

“On Bahamut’s back was a white bull, and on this bull was a ruby mountain, and at the peak of this mountain was a seraph. Do you know what a seraph is, muffin? A seraph is an angel.”

“I like angels, Mama.”

Soraya smiled, making sure it encompassed Islam as well as her daughter. “We all do, darling.”

She took a breath, let it out slowly and completely. “Dinazade spoke to the seraph, begging the seraph to free her from the prison into which she had been so wickedly cast. And do you know what the seraph said to Dinazade, muffin?”

“What, Mama?”

“The seraph said, ‘I see you are lost.’ The seraph hovered over Dinazade, its expression unfathomable. ‘Only you can free yourself, Dinazade.’ Then the seraph came closer, the beating of its wings like the murmur of a bee when it lands on a flower. Dinazade stared into the seraph’s eyes and saw only herself.

“The seraph whispered in a voice that made it clear it was revealing a secret, ‘When you find yourself you will be free.’”

The instant Blum hit the water, after being knocked in by the force of the blank hitting him, he bit down on the tiny ruby pebble that had been embedded at the top of the tube of toothpaste Rebeka had given him in the souq. Fear was a palpable thing, a beast writhing in the pit of his stomach. He did not want to die. Of course he didn’t. It was a natural reaction.

Intellectually, he knew that he was not going to die, but already his bodily functions were shutting down, his heart rate slowing, his blood pressure sinking. He thought of all the prep work Rebeka had done. He imagined how she must have walked down the Corniche, out of sight of the black SUV following a half mile behind, how she had extracted one bullet from the .38 El Ghadan had given her, thrown it into the restless, star-strewn sea. In its place, she had chambered a bullet from the several blanks of differing calibers she had made from the Mossad doctor’s stores. Replacing the .38 at the small of her back, she had walked on toward her terminal rendezvous with him.

All going to waste now.

The world closed in on him as death rose up from the black depths, enfolding him. He longed to cry out, but he would not open his mouth for fear of drowning. He wanted to cry out: I’m lost! Please find me, someone!

It was death that found him.

The Kidon divers were waiting for him. Their orders were explicit, precise, irrevocable. Everything depended on clockwork timing. When Blum hit the water for the second and final time, they kicked out with their fins, closed in on him, and, like a pair of seraphs, enfolded him in their arms, emptying his pockets of rocks and concrete chunks, swimming toward safety and, for Blum, a return to life.

Camilla, pitching herself off her horse at the apex of the turn, falling perfectly, her relaxed body rolling over on her right shoulder, felt no elation at her success. Becoming aware of Hunter’s applause, hearing her shouting, “Brava! Brava!” she felt no satisfaction.

Rather, she was plunged into a sense of loss so deep it seemed to cut her like a knife. She was alone. Alone and lost in a desert populated only by mirages. People who professed to help her, to be her friends, were nothing of the sort. They were merely kings, queens, bishops, and knights on a vast and unknowable chessboard where she was the pawn being shuttled between them in order for one or another of them to gain advantage.

For Camilla this was a familiar sensation. She and her sister had been passed back and forth between her warring parents like burning coals too hot to hold for long. She could vividly recall wandering through the many rooms of the countess’s villa, or attending dinners meticulously laid out by a platoon of servants, her teeth grinding at the phenomenal excesses of the super-rich that her father happily basked in as though bathed in Caribbean sunshine.

As she sat with her back against an upright post on the Dairy’s racetrack, it occurred to her that she had no one to blame but herself. She had put herself into the emotional position she knew best, the one she had endured as a child. And with this knowledge came the revelation of just how utterly and irrevocably lost she was.

Hunter dismounted, led Dixon back to where Camilla sat. Dixon lowered his head, snorted as she rubbed her palm against his velvet muzzle. She pushed herself up as he urged her on with his head.

Hunter, all smiles, held out her hand for Camilla to shake. “That was perfect,” she said, her enthusiasm seeming genuine. “Now we can concentrate on winning.”

Was everything Hunter had said to her a lie, even her avowal of protection? It must be, she thought. It must be. She’s just like my sister, my father. Another betrayal. POTUS, Howard Anselm, Marty Finnerman, Terrier, and Hunter. How was it, Camilla wondered, that these people could be so completely duplicitous? How had they successfully walled off parts of themselves, becoming who they were required to be as the situation dictated? In the military, and later in the Secret Service, she had trained to be a protector, not an actor, not a liar, not someone who seemed to revel in preying on people’s emotions.

As she gripped Hunter’s forceful hand, she had a vision of herself as a tasty fish that had been thrown into a sea filled with ravenous sharks.