The Bourne Betrayal (12 page)

“You forget that all of CI is still locked down. That includes data transfers.”

“You can get me what I want, Soraya. I have faith in you.”

The curious look came back into her eyes for a moment, then vanished as if it had never existed. She was on the phone to Typhon by the time they entered Deron’s workroom, an L-shaped space carved out of the old kitchen and pantry. His artist’s studio was upstairs, in the room that gathered the most daylight. As for Deron himself, he was bent over a worktable, poring over the
NET
.

No one in Typhon save its director had the clearance to upload sensitive data during lockdown. She knew she’d have to search elsewhere to get what Bourne needed.

She heard Anne Held’s voice and identified herself.

“Listen, Anne, I need your help.”

“Really? You won’t even tell me where you are.”

“It’s not important. I’m not in any danger.”

“Well, that’s a relief. Why did the beacon stop transmitting?”

“I don’t know.” Soraya was careful to keep her voice level. “Maybe it’s defective.”

“Since you’re still with Bourne, it shouldn’t be too difficult to find out.”

“Are you crazy? I can’t get that close to him.”

“And yet you need a favor. Tell me.”

Soraya did.

Silence. “Why is it you never ask for anything easy.”

“I can ask other people for those things.”

“Too true.” Then, “If I get caught . . .”

“Anne, I think we have a lead to Cevik, but we need the intel.”

“Okay,” Anne said. “But in return you’ve got to find out what happened to that beacon. I’ve got to tell the Old Man something that’ll satisfy him. He’s out for blood and I want to make certain it’s not mine.”

Soraya thought for a moment, but couldn’t come up with another alternative. She’d just have to come back to Anne with something more detailed, something plausible. “All right. I think I can work something out.”

“Good. By the way, Soraya, when it comes to the new
DDCI
, I’d watch my back if I were you. He’s no friend of Lindros, or of Typhon.”

“Thanks, Anne. Thanks very much.”

It’s done,” Soraya said. “The data’s been uploaded successfully.”

Bourne took her cell and handed it to Deron, who dragged himself away from his new toy to plug the phone into his computer network and download the files.

Cevik’s face popped up on one of the many monitors.

“Knock yourself out.” Deron went back to studying the
NET
.

Bourne sat down in a task chair and studied the photos for a long time. He could feel Soraya leaning over his right shoulder. He felt-what?-the ghost of a memory. He rubbed his temples, willing himself to remember, but the sliver of light eeled away into darkness. With some disquiet, he returned to his scrutiny of Cevik’s face.

There was something about it-not any single feature, but an overall impression-that swam in his memory like the shadow of a fish out of sight beneath the surface of a lake. He zoomed in on one area of Cevik’s face after another-mouth, nose, brow, temple, ears. But this only served to push the impressionistic memory farther into the unknown recesses of his mind. Then he came to the eyesthe golden eyes. There was something about the left one. Zooming in closer, he saw a minute crescent of light at the outer edge of the iris. He zoomed in again, but here the resolution failed him and the image began to blur. He zoomed out until the crescent of light sharpened. It was tiny. It could be nothing-a reflection of the illumination in the cell. But why was it at the edge of the iris?

If it was a reflection off the iris, the light would be a mote nearer the center, where the eyeball was most prominent, and therefore most likely to pick up the light. This was at the edge where . . .

Bourne laughed silently.

At that moment Soraya’s cell phone buzzed. He heard her on it briefly. Then she said: “The prelim from forensics indicates that the Hummer was packed with a shitload of C-Four.”

He turned to her. “Which is why they wouldn’t respond.”

“Cevik and his crew were suicide bombers.”

“Maybe not.” Bourne turned back to the photo, pointing at the tiny crescent of light. “See that? It’s a reflection off the edge of a contact lens, because it’s slightly raised above the surface of the iris and has caught the light. Now look here. Notice this tiny fleck of the gold intruding on the curving left edge of the pupil? The only way that’s possible is if Cevik was wearing colored contacts.”

He peered up into her face. “Why would Cevik disguise himself unless he wasn’t Cevik at all.” He waited for her response. “Soraya?”

“I’m thinking.”

“The disguise, the meticulous planning, the deliberate bomb attack.”

“In the jungle,” she said, “only a chameleon can spot another chameleon.”

“Yes,” Bourne said, staring at the photo. “I think we had Fadi under our thumb.”

Another pause, this one shorter. Her brain was working so fiercely he could hear it.

“Chances are, then, Cevik didn’t die in the blast,” she said at length.

“That would be a good bet.” Bourne thought a moment. “He wouldn’t have had much time to get out of the Hummer. The only time I didn’t have it in sight was when I was starting up the motorcycle. That means before the Twenty-third and Constitution intersection.”

“He might have had another car waiting.”

“Check it out, but, frankly, I doubt it,” Bourne said. Now he understood why Fadi had used the high-profile Hummer. He wanted it followed and, finally, surrounded by CI personnel. He wanted to inflict maximum damage. “There was no way for him to predict where he needed to bail.”

Soraya nodded. “I’ll grid it out from the point the Hummer picked Fadi up.” She was already dialing Typhon. “I’ll start a couple of teams canvassing right away.” She gave her instructions, listened gravely for a moment, then disconnected. “Jason, I have to tell you there’s a growing internal rift. The DCI’s gone ballistic over the Cevik fiasco. He’s blaming you.”

“Naturally.” Bourne shook his head. “If it wasn’t for Martin, I’d have nothing more to do with CI or Typhon. But he’s my friend-he believed in me, fought for me when the agency was out for my blood. I won’t turn my back on him. Still. I swear this is my last mission for CI.”

For Martin Lindros, the shadows resolved themselves into the undersides of clouds, reflected in the still waters of the lake. There was a vague sensation of pain-what you might feel if a dentist drilled into a partially Novocained tooth. The pain, far off on the horizon, failed to disturb him. He was far too concentrated on the trout at the business end of his fishing line. He reeled in, lifted the rod high so that it bent like a bow, then reeled in more line. Just as his father had taught him. This was the way to tire out a fish, even the most vigorous fighter. With discipline and patience, any hooked fish could be landed.

The shadows seemed to cluster right above him, blotting out the sun. The growing chill caused him to concentrate on this fish even harder.

Lindros’s father had taught him many other things besides how to fish. A man of singular talents, Oscar Lindros had founded Vaultline, turning it into the world’s foremost private security firm. Vaultline’s clients were the super-conglomerates whose businesses often took their personnel into dangerous parts of the world. Oscar Lindros or one of his personally trained operatives was there to protect them.

Lindros, bending over the side of the boat, could see the flashing rainbow-and-silver of the trout. It was a big one, all right. Bigger than any he’d caught to date. Despite the fish’s thrashing, Lindros could see the triangular head, the bony mouth opening and closing. He hauled up on the rod and the trout came halfway out of the water, spraying him with droplets.

Early on, Martin Lindros had developed an interest in being a spy. It went without saying that this desire had thrilled his father. And so Oscar Lindros had set about teaching his son everything he knew about the business of clandestine work. Chief among this knowledge was how to survive any form of capture or torture. It was all in the mind, Oscar Lindros told his son. You had to train your mind to withdraw from the outside world. Then you had to train it to withdraw from those sections of the brain that transmitted pain. To do this, you needed to conjure up a time and a place, you needed to make this place real-as real as anything you could experience with your five senses. You had to go there and you had to stay there for the duration. Otherwise, either your will would eventually be broken or you would go mad.

This was where Martin Lindros was, where he had been ever since he had been taken by Dujja, brought to this place where his body now lay twitching and bleeding.

Out on the lake, Lindros finally landed the trout. It flopped and gasped in the bottom of the boat, its eye fixed on him even as it grayed over. Bending down, he removed the barbed hook from the hard cartilage around the trout’s mouth. How many fish had he landed since he’d been out on the lake? It was impossible to know since they’d never stayed around long afterward; they were of no use to him once they were off the hook.

He baited the hook, cast out the line. He had to keep going, he had to keep fishing. Otherwise the pain, a dim cloudbank on the horizon, would rush at him with the fury of a hurricane.

Sitting in the business-class section of the overnight flight to London, Bourne put up the DO
NOT

DISTURB
sign and took out the Sony PS3 Deron had given him, modified with expanded memory and ultra-high-resolution screen. The hard drive was preloaded with a bunch of new goodies Deron had concocted. Art forgeries might pay the rent, but his real love was dreaming up new miniaturized gadgets-hence his interest in the
NET
, which Bourne now had safely tucked away in its case.

Deron had provided Bourne with three separate passports beyond his diplomatic-CI passport. In each of the photos Deron had on file, Bourne looked completely different. He had with him makeup, colored contact lenses, and the like, along with one of Deron’s new-generation guns made of rubber-wrapped plastic. According to Deron, the Kevlar-coated rubber bullets could bring down a charging elephant if put in the right spot.

Bourne brought up the photo of Hiram Cevik. Fadi. How many other identities had this mastermind assumed over the years? It seemed probable that surveillance cameras, closed-circuit TV cameras, in public places, had recorded his image, but he’d doubtless looked different every time. Bourne had advised Soraya to go over all the tapes or still photos available of the areas just before and after the Dujja attacks, comparing the faces etched there with this photo of Cevik, although he had little hope she’d find anything. He himself had had his photo taken by surveillance cameras and
CCTV
over the years. He had no worries because the Chameleon had looked different in every one. No one could spot any similarities; he’d made damn sure of that. So Fadi, the chameleon.

He stared at the face for a long time. Though he fought it, exhaustion overtook him, and he slept . .

.

. . . Marie comes to him, in a place of mature acacia trees and cobbled streets. There is a sharp mineral tang in the air, as of a restless sea. A humid breeze lifts her hair off her ears, and it streams behind her like a banner.

He speaks to her. “You can get me what I want. I have faith in you.”

There is fear in her eyes, but also courage and determination. She will do what he asks of her, no matter the danger, he knows it. He nods in farewell, and she vanishes . . .

He finds himself on the same street of looming acacias that he’s summoned up before. The black water is in front of him. And then he’s descending, floating through air as if from a parachute. He’s sprinting across a beach at night. On his left is a dark line of kiosks. He’s carrying . . . there is something in his arms. No, not something. Someone. Blood all over, a pounding in his veins. A pale face, eyes closed, one cheek on his left biceps. He sprints along the beach, feeling terribly exposed. He’s violated his covenant with himself and because of that they’ll all die: him, the figure in his arms . . . the young woman covered in blood. She’s saying something to him, but he can’t hear what. Running footsteps behind him, and the thought, clear as the moon riding low in the sky: We’ve been betrayed . . .

When Matthew Lerner walked into the outer office of the DCI’s suite, Anne Held took a moment before she looked up. She had been working on nothing special. Nothing, in fact, that required her attention, yet it was important that Lerner think so. Privately, Anne likened the Old Man’s outer office to a moat around a castle keep; she, the large-toothed carnivore that swam in it.

When she deemed that Lerner had waited long enough, she looked up, smiled coolly.

“You said the
DCI
wants to see me.”

“In point of fact, I want to see you.” Anne stood up, running her hands down her thighs to flatten any wrinkles that might have developed while she had been sitting. Pearly light spun off her perfectly manicured nails. “D’you fancy a cup of coffee?” she added as she crossed the room.

Lerner arched his eyebrows. “I thought it was tea you Brits liked.”

She held the door open for him to pass through. “Just one of the many misconceptions you have about me.”

In the metal-clad elevator going down to the CI commissary, silence reigned. Anne looked straight ahead while Lerner, no doubt, tried to figure out what this was all about.

The commissary was unlike that of any other governmental agency. Its atmosphere was hushed, the floors carpeted with deep pile in presidential blue. The walls were white, the banquettes and chairs red leather. The ceiling was constructed of a series of acoustic baffles that dampened all sound, especially voices. Waistcoated waiters glided expertly and soundlessly up and down the generous aisles between tables. In short, the CI dining room was more like a gentlemen’s club than a commissary.

The captain, recognizing Anne instantly, showed the pair to the DCI’s round corner table, almost entirely surrounded by one of the high-backed banquettes. She and Lerner slid in, coffee was served, then they were discreetly left alone.