Robert Ludlum's (TM) The Bourne Ascendancy (25 page)

Bourne pulled the hands away from his throat, bent the arms back. There was no resistance now. The Taliban was dying, drowning in his own blood. Bourne got to his feet. He wished he could take the head of this man back to Khan Abdali, to compensate him for the deaths of his warriors.

Taking up the fallen AR-15, he went in search of Aashir. As he went, he called the boy’s name, but there was no answer. Every minute that passed was a tick in the direction of Aashir being interrogated.

Bourne found him bound, gagged with a wad of filthy cloth. There was a nasty bump on the back of his head, matting down his hair with sticky blood, but he was otherwise unharmed.

“I’m sorry,” Aashir said when Bourne had pulled out the gag. “He caught me by surprise.”

“We’ll have to work on that.” Bourne severed the knots that bound the boy’s wrists.

“Thank you, Yusuf,” Aashir said as he scrambled to his feet. “No one has ever treated me…”

His words petered out, and Bourne nodded wordlessly.

Aashir ducked his head deferentially. “Now I suppose we’d best get back to the others.”

“I don’t think so.” Up ahead, Bourne could see a larger fissure of light, dazzling as a lightning bolt amid dark clouds. “I think we need to see how the Taliban got into the cave, where they came from, and if there are more of them.”

When Aashir looked at him questioningly, Bourne added. “Maybe that will tell us how they knew we were here. Are you up for it?”

“Lead the way,” Aashir said, shouldering his AWM.

T
hey dined in the night air
by the light of the kerosene lantern, ravenous as beasts. Camilla scarcely tasted the food, but between them they drained the bottle of wine. Camilla had felt lightheaded as they levered themselves out of the river, rinsed off what remained of the mud, and sat trembling a little as the western sky slowly lost its color.

When Hunter dried her off with her own shirt, Camilla was certain the other shoe was about to drop. She was mildly surprised when it didn’t, more surprised when Hunter didn’t bring up anything more serious than early-period Rolling Stones versus middle-period Rolling Stones. They dressed, ate their meal, guzzled their wine as if they both had things they wanted to forget, chatted some more about the state of pop music, their favorite films, even while they cleaned up.

Camilla carried the lantern, Hunter the basket. They turned back to the barn, accompanied by the swaying light. Under any other circumstances the walk would have been romantic, but Camilla was on edge. Her mind was filled with so many conflicting emotions she found it difficult to sort one from another. She was still waiting for Hunter to drop the bomb. What did they expect from her? What did they want her to do? There were less than two days left at the Dairy before she needed to be in Singapore. The suspense was just about killing her.

And yet nothing happened. They reached the barn. The horses were asleep. Camilla did not know the time, but it seemed late to her. The moon was up by the time they made the short trek to the main house. On the way, they passed the bank of bicycles, and Camilla was reminded of her frantic trip to Jake’s World, following Hunter.

Inside the main house, they said good night and parted as if nothing of an intimate nature had occurred. Camilla’s confusion was in full bloom. She could not quite grasp what had happened, let alone what was happening now.

She went to her room, performed her nightly ablutions, and got into bed. She was in the middle of John Le Carré’s
Absolute Friends
, and was engrossed not only in the characters but in the uncanny manner in which the underlying theme of the novel might have fit with the situation she now faced.

The lights were out in the room—only the bedside lamp illuminated a small oval encompassing the book and her hands, which held it open. She read five or six pages before her eyelids grew heavy and she found herself reading the same paragraph over and over.

She had just closed the book when she heard a soft knock on her door. She said nothing, but the door opened anyway and Hunter stepped silently in.

“Am I disturbing you?” It was almost a whisper.

Camilla honestly did not know what to say. Why was Hunter here at this hour? Did she want to crawl into Camilla’s bed, hold her as she had held her in the aftermath of their lovemaking while the stream flowed endlessly around their small island?

Misunderstanding her silence, Hunter said, “I need to speak with you.” The light from the hallway threw her into shadow. Nevertheless, her eyes glittered like an animal in the African bush.

Camilla patted the blanket. “Come sit beside me.”

Hunter glided across the room. She was wrapped in a thin robe, but her feet were bare, pink and nearly perfect, save for one toe on her left foot shorter than the others.

“I don’t want you to go,” Hunter said the moment she reached Camilla’s bedside.

Camilla was startled. “What?”

“To Singapore.” Hunter sat close to Camilla. Her body seemed to radiate heat. “Don’t go.”

“I have to,” Camilla said. “I was given a brief. I know my duty—”

“Jesus, who cares about duty?” Hunter took her hand. “Listen, these people have no loyalty to you. Why should you have any to them?”

“That’s the way I was made.”

“But if you go to Singapore you won’t come back.”

“You don’t know that, Hunter. I may be able to get to Bourne before he gets to Bill. I have to believe that. There’s always the chance—”

“No, you don’t understand.” Hunter’s voice had turned urgent. “You were never meant to leave Singapore alive. The Black Queen brief—the one you were given—was designed to fail. You and Bourne are going to be shot dead in Singapore. Finnerman has already sent a top-notch dinger—”

“A what?”

“A long-gun assassin.” Hunter’s tone had turned impatient. “Christ, don’t they teach you anything in the Secret Service?”

“We call them snipers.”

“By whatever name they’re sending in a professional in field wet work. Your presence at the Thoroughbred Club is merely a feint.” Hunter leaned in. “Don’t be pissed, Cam.”

“I’m not pissed,” Camilla lied. “I just don’t believe a word of what you’re saying.”

“When have I lied to you?”

“How could I possibly answer that?”

Hunter looked genuinely sorrowful. “Turn on your mobile.”

“Why? There’s no cell service inside the Dairy. Deliberately.”

“Indulge me. Please.”

Camilla sighed, plucked her mobile from the top drawer of the night table. She fired it up. Sure enough, the no-service icon popped up on the top row of the screen. And yet a moment later the new email message icon appeared.

“How the hell…?” Camilla looked up at Hunter.

“Open it,” Hunter said in a voice both soft and tender. “Trust me.”

Trust me
. Those words ricocheted like a pinball off the fresh wounds of betrayal in Camilla’s mind. Nevertheless, she opened the email. It had no subject line, no message either. However, two attachments had somehow already been downloaded. With no little trepidation, she opened the first one, discovered to her horror a PDF of an Eyes Only DOD file. The stamp across the covering page made it clear it came from Martin Finnerman’s office.

Heart pounding painfully in her throat, Camilla went on to the next page. There was the watermark that could not be duplicated, authenticating the file. It was a brief—a dinger brief. The dinger in question was Benjamin Landis, code name Kettle. Where did they come up with these work names? she asked herself, because she was too frightened to immediately read Kettle’s brief. But she couldn’t help looking at him. A head shot was included. He looked like any middle management drone. A nobody. Nevertheless, an unnatural chill invaded her body.

As of their own accord, her fingers turned the electronic page, and she saw laid out for her the entire brief. It was concise, succinct, and to the point. In fact, it consisted of only one sentence:
You are hereby directed to terminate Jason Bourne before his final preparations for the assassination of POTUS have been completed.

“Now the second,” Hunter said, as if it were a command.

The second attachment was an MP3—an audio file, which began to play the moment she opened it. She heard Finnerman and Howard Anselm talking about adding to Kettle’s brief. They had decided to have Kettle terminate her in a way that would look like she had been killed in the line of duty.

Camilla dropped her mobile as if it were white-hot. She put her hand to her mouth; she felt sick in the pit of her stomach. Pushing Hunter aside, she leaped out of bed, ran to the bathroom, barely made it before what was left of their riverside picnic spewed out as she knelt in front of the toilet.

T
he product is solid.”
El Ghadan handed over the second half of the money.

“I’ve got a second bit of intel,” Sara said.

“Well, aren’t you the wonder.”

She held out a small manila envelope. “This will cost you double.”

“Is it worth double?” But he was looking at the envelope, not her.

“It’s a map of Israeli missile deployments at the Syrian border.”

“Done.” He took the envelope, opened it, and scanned the intel before looking back up at her. “Now, how would you like to make even more?”

“How much more?”

“Leave this pittance in the dust.”

“That depends.” She looked at him steadily. “What do I have to do?”

He laughed. “Take a ride.”

They were strolling along Doha’s Corniche. She had quickly come to realize that this crescent was among his favorite places to talk. Out in the open and on the move, closely observed by his own team, he had nothing to fear from electronic ears. Besides, he was dressed in a summer-weight Dior suit, a Lanvin tie, and a Charvet shirt. Cuff links of gold knots gleamed at his cuffs. He was a walking advertisement for Western consumerism. Sara, as he had requested, was in Western clothes as well: a blue-green leaf-patterned dress with a wide belt, sensible flats that looked like ballet slippers.

The late morning was typically hot, the sunlight fierce, almost blinding. It winked off the windows and facets of the high-rises up ahead. At this hour, they were virtually alone on the Corniche, both tourists and locals preferring the shade and air-conditioning of the city’s cafés or malls.

“Where might this ride take me?” Sara asked.

Instead of answering her directly, he said, “You know, Ellie, I must admit to not liking Doha. It has embraced Western culture too fervidly.”

“And yet you spend time here.”

He shrugged. “Qatar is convenient. Also, the government is, shall we say, sympathetic to my cause.”

“Which is either ideological or mercenary,” Sara said. “I can’t make out which.”

He laughed. “I am rarely given such an astute compliment, especially from a woman.”

“I must have something between my legs other than a cunt.”

He stopped abruptly and turned to her. “Why must you be so crude?”

“It’s the only way to get your attention, to get you to understand that I will not be spoken to in that condescending manner.”

“Every other woman—”

“Every woman needs to speak up for herself,” Sara said flatly.

He watched her with his dark, predatory eyes. “Do you speak out of ideology or sanctimony?”

Sara’s eyes blazed. She no longer cared whether the ice under her feet was becoming too thin to support her. “If you think me disingenuous why are you wasting both our time?”

There was a long silence. She heard the waves slapping against the concrete bulkheads, gulls crying overhead. She thought of Hassim and Khalifa, whose bones by now surely had been picked clean by the sea life. She thought of how close she had come to death, and mentally embraced her gold Star of David, symbol of everything she loved—her family, her friends, her country, Jason.

“Do you know where Street Fifty-Two is?” El Ghadan asked.

“That’s in the Industrial Area, yes?”

He nodded. “First thing tomorrow.”

“And what am I supposed to do at Street Fifty-Two?”

“Be my emissary,” El Ghadan said.

She shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

His smile was cool and calculating, as befitting someone with the upper hand. “All will be made clear to you after you arrive.”

The fissure opened up before them, like a doorway into Aladdin’s world. They pressed themselves against the sheer rock walls and started their steep ascent. They did not have far to go. Bourne broke out of the cave first and stopped dead, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the sunlight. He allowed Aashir to come up beside him so he too could acclimate himself.

Bourne quartered the terrain. It wasn’t long before he whispered, “Look off to our right. The high tor.”

Aashir followed his direction.

“It’s an owl’s nest,” Bourne said. “A watchtower.”

It had a perfect view along the valley that led to Waziristan.

“That’s how they spotted us.”

“Two owls,” Bourne said. “Perfect targets for the long gun.”

Aashir unslung his AWM. Bourne put a hand on his forearm.

“Please,” Aashir said.

“Two targets, Aashir. Not one.”

“I know I can do this.”

Bourne nodded, but unslung his own AWM.

Aashir moved a bit to his left, set the barrel of the AWM on an outcropping. He settled his right eye against the rubber cup of the rifle’s scope.

“Take the one farther away first,” Bourne said in his ear.

Aashir adjusted the AWM accordingly. “Ready,” he said, and squeezed the trigger.

The report echoed over the mountains. A thousand yards away, the owl farthest from them threw up his hands and toppled over. Immediately, the second owl turned in their direction and began to fire with an assault rifle. Aashir moved the barrel of the AWM incrementally, squeezed off a second shot. He missed, and in missing, panicked. His third shot was wild.

Bourne brought his AWM up, but before he could get off a shot, the second owl launched something from the end of his rifle. It arced toward them.

“Down!” Bourne grabbed Aashir by the back of his robe, letting go of his hold on the rock. They plunged back through the fissure into the cave. Just in time, as the grenade struck the outcropping above and detonated, showering them in a cascade of rock shards.

Aashir, half blinded and coughing, staggered back against the vertical rock. Bourne was already moving upward, returning through the fissure, knowing the Taliban would be coming to make sure the grenade had done its work. His real fear was that the man had radioed his compatriots for reinforcements. Bourne’s only hope was that his first order of business would be to take care of the men who had killed his comrade.

Bourne was halfway up when the rock face on his left sheared away, leaving him dangling by one hand. He reached out across the fissure, taking hold of an outcropping exposed by the rockfall. He tested it with part of his weight, and then continued his ascent. A moment later the handhold gave way and he was left dangling again.

As he struggled to regain his balance, a shadow fell over the top of the fissure. He looked up to see the Taliban soldier squatting at the top. He grinned as he aimed his AK-47 at Bourne. Then a single report careened crazily up the fissure, doubled and redoubled as it rose.

The Taliban’s smile turned into a rictus, black lips drawn back from yellow teeth, eyes opened impossibly wide, giving him the appearance of a rabid animal. Then blood spurted from his chest, his eyes rolled up, and he vanished just as if he had been only a shadow.

Bourne glanced down, saw Aashir with the butt of the AWM jammed against his right shoulder, the long barrel raised, as if in a salute.

He extended a hand to Bourne. “I told you I’d get both,” he said.