The Bourne Betrayal (22 page)

But there were other nights-like this one-when she could not turn her thoughts away from her Lover. She missed the scent of him, the feel of his muscled limbs, the flutter of his flat belly against hers, the exquisite sensation as he took her-or she took him. The emptiness inside her his absence caused was a physical pain, the only anodyne more work or drugged sleep.

Her Lover. He had a name, of course. And a thousand love-names she had given him over the years. But in her mind, in her dreams, he was her Lover. She had met him in London, at a festive consular party-the ambassador of somewhere-or-other was celebrating his seventy-fifth birthday, and all of his six-hundred-odd friends had been invited, she among them. She had been working then for the director of MI6, an old and trusted friend of the
DCI
.

At once, she had grown dizzy and a little afraid. Dizzy at his proximity, afraid of his profound effect on her. She was, at twenty, not without experience when it came to the opposite sex. However, her experience had been with callow boys. Her Lover was a man. She missed him now with an ache that left a knot in her breast.

Her throat was parched. She crossed the entryway and entered the library, on the other side of which was the hallway to the kitchen. She had taken no more than three or four steps into the room when she stopped dead in her tracks.

Nothing was as she had left it. The sight snapped her out of the emotional pit she’d fallen into. Without taking her eyes from the scene, she opened her handbag and took out her Smith & Wesson J-frame. She was a good shot; she practiced twice a month at the CI firing range. Not that she was a big fan of guns, but the training was mandatory for all office personnel.

Thus armed, she took a closer look around. It wasn’t as if a sneak thief had broken in and rifled the place. This job was neat and tidy. In fact, if she hadn’t been such an anal retentive she might never have noticed the changes-that’s how minute most of them were. Papers on her desk not quite as neatly stacked as they had been, an old-fashioned chrome stapler at more of an angle than she had left it, her colored pencils in a slightly different order, the books on the shelves not precisely aligned as she had ordered them.

The first thing she did was go through every room and closet in the house to make sure she was alone. Then she checked all the doors and windows. None had been broken or damaged in any way. Which meant someone either had a set of keys or had picked the lock. Of the two possibilities, the second seemed far more probable.

Next, she returned to the library and slowly and methodically examined every single item there. It was important to her to get a sense of who had invaded her house. As she moved from shelf to shelf, she imagined him stalking her, poking, prodding in an attempt to ferret out her innermost secrets.

In a sense, considering the business she was in, it seemed inevitable that this would happen. However, that knowledge did not assuage the dread she felt at this rape of her private world. She was defended, of course, heavily so. And as scrupulously careful here as she was at the office. Whoever had been here had found nothing of value, of this she was certain. It was the act itself that gnawed at her. She had been attacked. Why? By whom? Questions without immediate answers.

Forget that glass of water now, she thought. Instead she poured herself a stiff single-malt scotch and, sipping it, went upstairs to her bedroom. She sat on the bed, kicked off her shoes. But the adrenaline still racing through her body would not allow her respite. She got up, padded over to her dresser, set her old-fashioned glass down. Standing before the mirror, she unbuttoned her blouse, shrugged it off. She went into the closet, swept a line of other blouses out of the way to get to the free hanger. Reaching up, she stopped in midmotion. Her heart beat like a trip-hammer and she felt a wave of nausea wash over her.

There, swinging from the chrome hanger rod, was a miniature hangman’s noose. And caught in that noose, pulled tight as if around the condemned’s neck, was a pair of her underpants.

They wanted to know what I knew. They wanted to know why I was following them.” Martin Lindros sat with his head against the specially configured airplane seat’s back, eyes half closed. “I could’ve kicked myself. They made me in Zambia, my interrogator told me. I never knew it.”

“No use beating yourself up,” Bourne said. “You aren’t used to fieldwork.”

Lindros shook his head. “No excuse.”

“Martin,” he said gently, “what’s happened to your voice?”

Lindros winced. “I must have been screaming for days. I don’t remember.” He tried to twist away from the memory. “I never saw what it was.”

His friend was still in a kind of post-rescue shock, that was clear enough to Bourne. He’d asked twice about the fate of Jaime Cowell, his pilot, as if he hadn’t heard Bourne the first time or had not been able to absorb the news. Bourne had chosen not to tell him about the second helicopter; time for that later. So much had happened so quickly, they’d hardly been able to say another word to each other, until now. The moment they’d taken off from Ras Dejen, Davis had radioed Ambouli airport in Djibouti for a CI physician. For that choppy flight, Lindros had been lying down on a stretcher, moving in and out of a fitful sleep. He was thinner than Bourne had ever seen him, his face haggard and gray. The beard altered his appearance in an unsettling way: It made him look like one of his captors.

Davis, a hotshot pilot if ever there was one, had wrestled the helicopter into the air, raced through the eye of a needle: a rent in the howling wind at the side edge of the front. He skillfully followed it down the mountain, out into clear weather. Beside him, Lindros lay, white-faced, the mask feeding him oxygen clamped firmly in place.

During the pulse-quickening flight, Bourne tried to keep the ruined, pitted face of Alem’s brother out of his mind. He wished he could have buried the boy himself. That had proved impossible, so he’d done the next best thing. Imagining the stone cairn Davis had erected, he said a silent prayer for the dead, as he’d done months ago over Marie’s grave.

In Djibouti, the CI physician had clambered aboard the moment they touched down. He was a young man with a stern countenance and prematurely graying hair. After spending close to an hour examining Lindros, he and Bourne stood outside the chopper and spoke.

“Clearly, he’s been badly mistreated,” the doctor had said. “Bruises, contusions, a cracked rib. And of course, dehydration. The good news is there’s no sign of internal bleeding. I have him on saline and antibiotic drips, so for the next hour or so he can’t be moved. Clean up, get yourself something proteinaceous to eat.”

He had given Bourne the ghost of a smile. “Physically, he’ll be fine. What I can’t quantify is what was done to him mentally and emotionally. The official evaluation will have to wait until we get back to D.C., but in the meantime you can do your bit. Engage his mind, when you can, during the trip back. I understand the two of you are good friends. Talk to him about the times you’ve spent together, see if you can get a sense of what changes-if any-have occurred.”

Who interrogated you?” Bourne said now to Lindros as they sat side by side in the CI jet.

His friend’s eyes closed briefly. “Their leader: Fadi.”

“So Fadi himself was there on Ras Dejen.”

“Yes.” A slight shudder went through Lindros like a gust of wind. “This shipment was too important to leave in the hands of a lieutenant.”

“So you found out before they captured you.”

“Uranium, yes. I had taken radiation detectors with me.” Lindros’s gaze slid away to the shrieking darkness outside the jet’s Perspex window. “I started out by thinking Dujja was after TSGs. But really, that didn’t make sense. I mean, why would they want triggered spark gaps unless . . .” His body was racked by another small spasm. “We have to assume they have it all, Jason. The TSGs and, far worse, the means to enrich the uranium. We have to assume they’re constructing a nuclear bomb.”

“That was my conclusion as well.”

“And it’s none of this ‘dirty bomb’ crap that would impact a couple of square blocks. This is the real thing, power enough to devastate a major city, irradiate the surrounding areas. For the love of God, we’re talking millions of lives!”

Lindros was right. In Djibouti, Bourne had called the Old Man while the doctor was assessing Martin’s condition, giving him an abbreviated briefing on Lindros, their current status, and, especially, what they’d discovered about Dujja’s threat and its capacity to carry it out. For now, however, all he could do was try to assess his friend’s mental condition. “Tell me about your time in captivity.”

“There’s not much to tell, really. Most of the time I had a hood over my head. Believe it or not, I came to dread the times it would be removed, because that was when Fadi interrogated me.”

Bourne knew he was now skating on thin ice. But he had to get at the truth, even if it wasn’t what he wanted to hear. “Did he know you were CI?”

“No.”

“Did you tell him?”

“I told him I was
NSA
, and he believed me. He had no reason not to. One American spy agency is like another to these people.”

“Did he want information on
NSA
personnel deployment or mission objectives?”

Lindros shook his head. “As I said, what interested him was how I came to be following him and how much I knew.”

Bourne hesitated fractionally. “Did he find that out?”

“I know what you’re getting at, Jason. I had a strong conviction that if I broke, he’d kill me.”

Bourne said nothing more for the moment. Lindros’s breathing was coming quick and fast, cold sweat breaking out across his forehead. The doctor had warned him that if he went too far, too fast with Lindros, a reaction might set in.

“Should I call the doctor?”

Lindros shook his head. “Give me a minute. I’ll be okay.”

Bourne went back to the galley, made plates of food for them both. There were no attendants on board, just the doctor, a CI pilot, and an armed copilot up front. Returning to his seat, he handed a plate to his friend, sat down with the other. For some time, Bourne ate in silence. Presently, he could see that Lindros had calmed down enough to begin picking at his food.

“Tell me what’s been happening while I’ve been gone.”

“I wish I had some good news. But the fact is your people caught that Cape Town dealer who sold the TSGs to Dujja.”

“Hiram Cevik, yes.”

Bourne produced the PS3, brought up the photo of Cevik, showed it to Lindros.

“This him?”

“No,” Lindros said. “Why?”

“This is the man picked up in Cape Town and brought to D.C. He escaped, but not before one of his people shot Tim Hytner to death.”

“Dammit all. Hytner was a good man.” Lindros tapped the PS3 screen. “So who is this?”

“I think it’s Fadi.”

Lindros was incredulous. “We had him, and lost him?”

“I’m afraid so. On the other hand, this is the first lead we have to what Fadi actually might look like.”

“Let me see that.” Lindros stared hard at the photo. After a long time, he said, “Christ, that is Fadi!”

“You’re sure?”

Lindros nodded. “He was there when they took us. He’s got a load of makeup on here, but I recognize the shape of the face. And those eyes.” He nodded, handing back the PS3. “That’s Fadi, all right.”

“Can you make a sketch of him for me?”

Lindros nodded. Bourne rose, then came back a moment later with a pad and a fistful of pencils he’d gotten from the copilot.

While Lindros went to work, Bourne spoke of something he had noticed in his friend. “Martin, you look like there’s something else you want to tell me.”

Lindros looked up from the sketch. “It’s probably nothing, but . . .” He shook his head. “When I was alone with another of my interrogators-a man named Abbud ibn Aziz, who by the way is Fadi’s right hand-a name kept coming up. Hamid ibn Ashef.”

“I don’t know him.”

“Really? I thought I saw his name in your file.”

“If so, it must have been a mission set up by Alex Conklin. But if it involved me, I have no memory of it.”

“I was just wondering why Abbud ibn Aziz wanted information on that particular mission. I guess now I’ll never know.” Lindros took a long drink of water. He was following the doctor’s orders to rest and rehydrate. “Jason, I may still be somewhat out of it, but I’m no longer in shock. I know the powers that be are going to run a complete battery of tests to determine my fitness.”

“You’re going to return to duty, Martin.”

“I hope you know you’re going to play a major role in that decision. After all, you know me best. CI will have to be guided by your opinion.”

Bourne couldn’t help laughing. “Now, that will be a switch.”

Lindros took a deep breath, let it out, along with a little whistle of pain. “Irrespective of all this, I want you to promise me something.”

Bourne searched his shadowed face for any sign that he knew what the powers that be would really be looking for: whether he had been brainwashed, turned into a ticking time bomb, a human weapon to be used against CI. It had always been in the back of Bourne’s mind as he’d gone after his friend. What would be the worse horror, he’d wondered. To find his friend dead, or to discover that he’d been turned into the enemy?

“Dujja’s rigid, almost businesslike, organization, its seemingly unending supply of modern armament, the fact that Fadi is obviously Western-educated-all these factors taken together make this cadre unlike any other terrorist network we’ve ever been up against,” Lindros continued. “The construction of a uranium enrichment plant is massively expensive. Who has that kind of money to throw around? My guess is a crime cartel. Drug money from crops in Afghanistan or Colombia. Turn off that spigot-the money men-and you cut off its ability to enrich uranium, to get more up-todate weapons. There’s no surer way of sending it all the way back into the Iron Age.” His voice lowered. “In Botswana, I unearthed what I believe to be Dujja’s money trail, which runs back to Odessa. I have a name: Lemontov. Edor Vladovich Lemontov. The intel I gathered in Uganda is that Lemontov is based there.”