Robert Ludlum's (TM) The Bourne Ascendancy (30 page)

K
nowing the target
of Borz’s attack and knowing what he planned to do were two separate issues. The Singapore Thoroughbred Club was to be ground zero, and yet El Ghadan had set in motion a dangerous and elaborate scheme forcing Bourne to kill the president. What was to happen at the Singapore Thoroughbred Club and why? Who was Borz’s target? Or was it to be the Thoroughbred Club itself, Southeast Asian symbol of consumerist fat cats? Anything was possible. Suddenly, everything was in play.

Bourne, sitting in the airplane just behind Borz, imagined a nightmare scenario where the peace process brokered by President Magnus was sabotaged beyond repair. The stability of the entire Middle East would be in jeopardy. Bourne recalled all too well how the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin had blown apart a nascent accord between the Israelis and the Palestinians that to this day had yet to be advanced. What had followed was bitterness, vengeance, war, and a reemergence of ancient enmity neither side could or would control. As a result, the Israelis had taken more land, the PLO was supplanted, replaced by the militant Hamas and worse. Hard-liners poured out of the woodwork, gaining power with every fresh incursion, every new death.

Borz was in constant discussion with the pilot, a youngish, dark-haired man with a triangular face, bright blue eyes, and a fringe of beard. Borz brusquely introduced him as Musa Kadyrov. For a time, Bourne watched Musa’s hands on the controls. When he determined he was an excellent pilot, he rose and went back to where Aashir was reclining across three seats.

“How are you feeling?” Bourne asked.

The young man stared up at him. “I wouldn’t be here without you.”

“Let’s make this about you.”

Aashir smiled. “The doctor gave me some pills for my headache. Don’t look so alarmed. They took the pain away. Apart from the soreness and the bump I feel fine.” He sat up, made a gesture. “Sit here next to me, Yusuf.”

“Where did you hear all those stories the Chechens liked so much?”

“My father. He used to tell us stories when we were little. The more fanciful the better I liked them.” He gave Bourne a shy smile. “I used to pretend I was far away in those mythical lands. How I would have loved to have been a djinn with a serpent to talk with. An animal, I thought, even a reptile, would understand how I felt, even if no one else could.”

“No friends.”

“Are you kidding? The day I had my first crush I knew I couldn’t allow myself to get close to any other boy, no matter how much I wanted to. My secret had to remain
my
secret.”

“Until you met your friend.”

“That was years later. Many years. And even then…” He looked away. “Even then it turned out to be a mistake.” He turned back to Bourne. “It was my fault he was killed.”

“You’ve left that all behind,” Bourne said. “It’s part of growing up.”

Aashir’s expression turned thoughtful. “I won’t be grown up until I go back home and see my father again.”

“I’m sure he wants to see you.”

“Desperately, so I hear. But he doesn’t know me, does he?”

“I wonder,” Bourne said, wanting to draw Aashir out, “how well you know him. What happened to the man who told you stories when you were a child?”

“International Zionism, the rabid dog of the region,” Aashir said. “And the American imperium.”

Bourne immediately recognized the rhetoric. So Aashir and his father were Iranians. That answered some questions, especially how Aashir stood out among Faraj’s Arabs. Iranians were Persian in origin, Muslims, but Shia, a minority, whose members were always, it seemed, on the defensive in their eternal war against the Sunni majority. This imbalance made them desperate, willing at all costs to strike out against their enemies. And their enemies were legion.

“You speak fine Yemeni Arabic for a Persian,” Bourne said.

“Adaptability. All part of my cover. I can change to other regional dialects. Which would you like to hear? Tunisian, Iraqi, Saudi, Omani—I can even do that Egyptian thing, where they put the ‘shhh’ sound at the end of their words.”

For a time, then, both men kept up a rapid-fire dialogue, switching dialects every few sentences, following which Aashir, slightly out of breath, laughed softly.

“We are like two grains of sand from the same desert, Yusuf. So alike and at the same time unlike, no two grains of sand being identical.”

“When you return home, your father will be proud of your accomplishments.”

“As long as I keep from him my secret heart.”

“I assume he doesn’t know where you are.”

“He’s been searching for me for a long time.” Aashir looked around to make sure no one else was in hearing distance. “No one here knows my real name.”

“Not even Borz?”

Aashir let out a breath. “
Especially
not him. He’s so venal he’d sell me out to my father in the blink of an eye.” He eyed Bourne. “You’re not curious?”

Bourne shrugged. “Either you’ll tell me or you won’t.” But he was elated. He had suspected who Aashir was almost from the moment the young man began to confide in him. Now he had no doubt; now he knew the path he had chosen was the right one. The way to saving Soraya and Sonya was like a blinking light finally observed on the far horizon.

“If I decide to tell you, Yusuf, I know you’ll keep it to yourself. I trust you.”

“I appreciate that, Aashir.”

The young man leaned toward Bourne, lowering his voice further. “Our family name is Sefavid. We were once a dynasty, the most powerful in Islamic Persia. We brought the Twelver school of Shia Islam to Iran, though our ancient descendants were actually Azerbajiani Sufis. Along with the Ottoman and Mughul, we were one of the so-called gunpowder empires. Our lands stretched from Iran, Iraq, Azerbaijan, of course, Georgia, Afghanistan, all the way to Turkey.” He made a helpless gesture. “And now look at what we have been reduced to. That is the well of bitterness from which my father drinks. It is his faith, his rage, his cause. He kills and, possibly, will be killed for it. This is his life.”

“But it isn’t yours,” Bourne said.

“I have no life,” Aashir replied. “I am adrift, a leaf allowing the river to take me where it may.”

“You can’t live your whole life like that.”

“But, Yusuf, isn’t that what you are doing?”

“Do as I say,” Bourne told him, “not as I do.”

“But why not? You are a good man. Down to your very core—your soul—you are a good man. You understand things the others do not—cannot. It seems to me I could do worse than to follow your lead.”

“Perhaps. But at some point, you must find your own way.”

“But, Yusuf, you of all people must know that I don’t trust myself to do that.”

And with that he pierced the final layer of Bourne’s armor, and found the place Bourne had so successfully hidden from the world.

Out on the pulsing twilight streets of Singapore, Howard Anselm was at last able to take a deep breath, something he had tried and failed to do during what had seemed to him the interminable flight from D.C. to Singapore. Scheduling POTUS’s necessary one-on-one press meetings, hurried meals, calls to the advance party, including Magnus’s Secret Service contingent, all the while revising the summit schedules and fielding requests and/or complaints from the press on board, had driven what humanity he still possessed deep underground.

The moment POTUS was settled in his suite at the Golden Palace Hotel, overlooking the river that snaked through the heart of the city, he knew he had to get out from under the crush of arrangements and responsibilities, at least briefly, or risk being buried alive.

He took one of the limousines at the presidential party’s disposal to the edge of the Chinese quarter, then, armed with the slip of paper one of the Secret Service agents had at his request palmed him, he took to the street on foot.

Now, as he picked his way through jam-packed Chinatown with its riot of bright colors, odd food smells, and myriad shouted voices, he searched for the large sweets stand at the all-night food market. The business he was looking for was well hidden within the sweetshop, an apt incorporation if ever there was one.

Anselm needed release, both emotional and physical, but the one would not be possible without the other. Which was why he had solicited the address from the Secret Service agent who had been to Singapore. The city-state was the most difficult place in Southeast Asia to find physical relief. It was also the most dangerous. Wickedly strict, the government was notorious for severely punishing even the comparatively minor sins of cursing or spitting in public. Paying for sex was a huge no-no, which didn’t stop Anselm in the slightest. He had an itch he was determined to scratch. Fuck Singapore and its dotty laws. In fact, fuck everyone who wasn’t American.

It was in this strange mood, an amalgam of lust and aggression, that Anselm came upon the sweetshop. He paused for a moment, stunned at the riotous display of tier upon tier of different types of candies, more than he could ever have imagined. He began to wonder what was waiting for him within.

The paper he was holding informed him that he should ask for Old Numby. The real name of the proprietor of both businesses was Nem-Pang, but no one had called him that since he was a child. Anselm was just about to ask for Old Numby when his mobile buzzed. He would have ignored it, especially in his current mood, but he recognized the vibration pattern he had set up. Finnerman was calling.

“POTUS has a problem,” Finnerman said without preamble. “Which means we have a problem.”

The familiar hollowness, which rendered all voices flat and toneless, meant that the under secretary of defense for policy was using a scrambled line.

Anselm closed his eyes for a moment, his body swaying slightly from the time change and lack of sleep. He did not want to know about another problem, especially not now.

“What?” he said because he had no other choice.

“The opposition have bum-rushed a major Senate hearing on the viability of POTUS’s drone program.”

Anselm’s eyes snapped open; he was suddenly on the alert. “Overnight? How the fuck did that happen?”

“Families of the kids killed in the drone strike have leaned hard on their senators and congressmen. And of course, they’ve been joined by the usual lefty suspects. But, Howard, the stink they made went viral—and I mean immediately. Congress had to scramble. And the worst part is there’s bipartisan support for dismantling the program.”

“Our own party is selling POTUS out?” It was virtually a howl of pain and rage.

“Elements within, yes.”

“POTUS will make those fuckers pay.”

“We all will, Howard,” Finnerman said. “Which is why it’s more vital than ever that we ensure the major incident occurs at the summit. POTUS comes home a hero and the drone problem goes away. You’re on-site. You have to make certain that no one interferes with the dinger. It’s vital Kettle makes his shot.”

“He will, Marty. You can count on me.” Anselm took a step toward the sweetshop’s promised land. “The plan will go down like clockwork tomorrow. Guaranteed.”

“It had better,” Finnerman said. “Otherwise, POTUS is going to suffer a most humiliating defeat, which means neither of us will get the war we want and need.”

Anselm severed the connection, walked into the sweetshop, where he was greeted by a blast of sugar, honey, and whatever the hell else the Chinese used in their candy. Melamine, probably, he thought sourly.

But then he encountered Old Numby and was determined not to let the dire implications of the call reverberate through his fun time. Old Numby was squat, goggle-eyed, and so comically bowlegged that when he walked he rocked back and forth like one of those bobbleheads you saw on car dashboards in Middle America.

There was nothing comical about his demeanor, however. Old Numby was all business. Anselm spoke the code words written on the slip of paper he had been given, and after sizing him up, Old Numby said, “Money. Let me see money.”

Anselm showed it to him.

Old Numby nodded, threaded him through gargantuan mountains of candies, into the dim rear of the space.

When they reached a padlocked door, Anselm said, “What kind of selection have you got back there?”

Old Numby grinned, revealing stumps of teeth the color of tea-stained ivory. “What is it you want?”

Borz came down the aisle to fetch Bourne. “You boys have a nice visit?” Without waiting for a reply, he beckoned to Bourne. “Let’s go, Yusuf.”

Bourne and Aashir exchanged a brief glance before Bourne rose and followed the Chechen up front, where the two sat together.

“Less than an hour before we land,” Borz said. “How are you feeling?”

“Fine.”

“No aftereffects from your encounter with the Taliban?”

“None.”

“And Aashir? Is he fit? Can I count on him?”

“Absolutely,” Bourne said. “He’s out to make a name for himself. It’s his way of becoming a man.”

“A fine way,” Borz said approvingly. “His skill level?”

“He’s a quick learner.”

Apparently satisfied, Borz spent a moment studying the back of the seat in front of him. “You ever been to Singapore?” he said at length.

“A number of times, yes.”

Borz nodded. “We’re down a lot of men, so I’ve enlisted Musa. Also, I’m going to need your help more than ever now.”

“Whatever I can do,” Bourne said, “if the pay is right.”

A knowing smirk informed Borz’s face. “How does fifty thousand sound?”

“Pounds, euros, Swiss francs, dollars, yen? No Russian or Chinese currency, please.”

Borz opened his right hand, and Bourne counted five diamonds.

“Perfect for transportation purposes,” Borz said. He let Bourne take one, hold it up to the light. “You know what you’re looking at?”

“This one’s too flawed.” Bourne dropped it back into Borz’s palm, took up another. “And this one’s a cubic zirconia.”

Borz studied him a moment. “You know, Yusuf, I do believe you’ve missed your calling. A sniper with your range of skills is being wasted.”

“I’m just a simple man.”

“And I’m just a tourist.” Borz laughed. “Will American dollars do you?”