The Bourne Betrayal (51 page)

She wondered whether he had gotten the goods on Defense Secretary Halliday. For a moment, she had been dead certain that he had, but then the Old Man had asked her to set up an appointment with Luther LaValle, the Pentagon intelligence czar, not Secretary Halliday. What was he up to?

She was in the dark, too, about Soraya’s fate. Had she been captured? Killed? She didn’t know because Jamil had cut her out of the loop. She didn’t share his confidence. She could no longer tuck herself into his body, hot as the desert wind. In her heart, she suspected that Soraya was still alive. If Jamil’s cell had caught Soraya, surely he would have forgiven her the sin of allowing her to get away. She felt chilled. Soraya’s knowledge was like a guillotine hovering over her neck. Anne’s whole life would be revealed as a lie. She’d be tried for treason.

Part of her mind went through the motions of her daily routine. She listened to the Old Man when he summoned her into his office; she input his memos and printed them out for him to sign. She made his calls, scheduled his long day with the precision of a military campaign. She protected his phone lines as fiercely as ever. But another part of her mind was frantically trying to figure out how she could reverse the fatal mistake she had made.

She needed to win Jamil back. And she had to have him, she knew that. Redemption came in many guises, but not for Jamil. He was Bedouin; his mind was locked in the ancient ways of the desert. Exile or death, those were the choices. She would have to find Soraya. Her bloodied hands were the only things that would bring him back to her. She would have to kill Soraya herself.

Bourne awoke. He tried to move, but found himself bound by ropes tied to two of the iron rings bolted to the asylum’s floor. A man was crouched over him, a Caucasian with a lantern jaw and eyes pale as ice. He was wearing a leather flight jacket and a cap with a silver pin in the shape of a pair of wings stuck on it.

The pilot of the jet. From the look of him, Bourne knew he was one of those flyboys who fancied himself a cowboy of the sky.

He grinned down at Bourne. “Whatcha doing here?” He spoke in very poor Arabic, reacting to Bourne’s disguise. “Checking out my flight plan. Spying on me.” He shook his head in a deliberately exaggerated fashion, like a nanny admonishing her charge. “That’s forbidden. Got that?

For-bid-den.” He pursed his lips. “You savvy?” he added in English.

Then he showed Bourne what he was holding: the
NET
transponder. “What the fuck is this, you rat bastard? Huh? Who the fuck are you? Who sent you?” He pulled a knife, bringing the long blade close to Bourne’s face. “Answer me, goddammit, or I’ll carve you up like a Christmas goose! You savvy Christmas? Huh?”

Bourne stared up at him with blank eyes. He opened his mouth, spoke a sentence very softly.

“What?” The pilot leaned closer to Bourne. “What did you say?”

Using the power in his lower belly, Bourne brought his legs straight up in the air, scissoring them so that his ankles crossed behind the pilot’s neck. His lower legs locked and he spun the pilot over and down. The side of the man’s head struck the marble floor with such force, his cheekbone shattered. Immediately he passed out.

Twisting his neck, Bourne could see the knife on the floor behind his head. It was on the other side of the iron rings. Drawing his legs up, his body rolled into a ball, he rocked back and forth, gaining momentum. When he judged that he had enough force, he rocked backward with all his might. Though anchored by the rings to which his wrists were tied, he flew through the air in a backflip, passing over the rings, landing on his knees on the other side.

Extending one leg, he hooked the knife with the top of his shoe, kicked it so that the hilt clacked against the ring to which his right hand was bound. By moving the ring down until it was almost parallel with the floor, he was able to grab the knife. Laying the edge of the blade against the rope, he began to saw through it.

It was hard, cramped work. He couldn’t apply the kind of pressure he’d have liked, so progress was frighteningly slow. From where he knelt, he couldn’t see the transponder’s screen; he had no idea where Muta ibn Aziz was. For all he knew, at any moment the messenger would walk in on him.

At length, he’d sawed through the rope. Quickly, he cut the rope binding his left hand, and he was free. Lunging for the transponder, he looked at the screen. Muta ibn Aziz’s blip was still some way distant.

Bourne rolled the pilot over and methodically stripped off his clothes, which he donned piece by piece, though the shirt was too small, the pants too big. When he had arranged the pilot’s outfit on his frame as best he could, he drew over his satchel and took out the various items he’d bought at the theatrical shop in Istanbul. Setting a small square mirror down on the floor where he could easily see the reflection of his face, he removed the prosthetics from his mouth. Then he began the process of transforming himself into the pilot.

Bourne trimmed and restyled his hair, changed the complexion of his face, added a pair of prosthetics to give his jaw a longer appearance. He had no colored lenses, but in the darkness of the night the disguise would have to do. Luckily, he could keep the pilot’s cap low on his forehead.

He took another glance at the transponder, then went through the pilot’s wallet and papers. His name was Walter B. Darwin. An American expat, with passports identifying him as a citizen of three different countries. Bourne could relate to that. He had a military tattoo on one shoulder, the words
FUCK
YOU
,
TOO
on the other. What he was doing ferrying terrorists around the globe was anyone’s guess. Not that it mattered now. Walter Darwin’s flyboy career was over. Bourne dragged his naked body into a back room, covered it in a dusty tarp.

Back in the main room, he went to the table, gathered up the flight plan. It was twenty minutes to eight. Keeping an eye on the blip on the transponder screen, he stuffed the plan in his satchel, took up one of the lamps, and went in search of the airstrip.

Anne knew that Soraya was too smart to come anywhere near her apartment. Pretending to be Kim Lovett, Soraya’s friend in the DCFD’s Fire Investigation Unit, she called both Tim Hytner’s mother and sister. Neither of them had seen or heard from Soraya since she had visited to break the news that Tim had been shot to death. If Soraya had gone there now, she would have warned them about a woman named Anne Held. But surely she’d want to talk to her best friend. Anne was about to call Kim Lovett herself when she thought better of it. Instead, when she left the office that evening, she took a taxi straight to the
FIU
labs on Vermont Avenue and 11th Street.

Finding her way to Kim’s lab, she went in.

“I’m Anne Held,” she said. “Soraya works with me.”

Kim rose from her work: two metal trays filled with ash, charred bits of bone, and half-burned cloth. She stretched like a cat, stripped off her latex gloves, held out her hand for a firm shake.

“So,” Kim said, “what brings you down to this grim place?”

“Well, actually, it’s Soraya.”

Kim was instantly alarmed. “Has something happened to her?”

“That’s what I’m trying to find out. I was wondering whether you’d heard from her.”

Kim shook her head. “But that’s hardly unusual.” She considered a moment. “It may be nothing, but a week or two ago there was a police detective who was interested in her. They met here at the lab. He wanted her to take him with her on some investigation or other, but Soraya said no. I had the feeling, though, that his interest in her was more than professional.”

“Do you remember the date, and the detective’s name?”

Kim gave her the date. “As for his name, I did write it down somewhere.” She rummaged through one of several stacks of files on the countertop. “Ah, here it is,” she said, pulled out a torn-off strip of paper. “Detective William Overton.”

How small the world is, Anne thought as she exited the
FIU
building. How full of coincidence. The cop who had been following her had been after Soraya as well. He was dead now, of course, but perhaps he could still tell her where to find Soraya.

Using her cell phone, Anne quickly found Detective William Overton’s precinct, its address, and the name of his commanding officer. Arriving there, she produced her credentials, told the desk sergeant she needed to see Captain Morrell on a matter of some urgency. When he balked, as she knew he would, she invoked the Old Man’s name. The desk sergeant picked up the phone. Five minutes later a young uniform was escorting her into Captain Morrell’s corner office.

He dismissed the uniform, offered Anne a seat, then closed the door. “What can I do for you, Ms. Held?” He was a small man with thinning hair, a bristling mustache, and eyes that had seen too much death and accommodation. “My desk sergeant said it was a matter of some urgency.”

Anne got right to the point. “CI is investigating Detective Overton’s disappearance.”

“Bill Overton? My Bill Overton?” Captain Morrell looked bewildered. “Why-?”

“It’s a matter of national security,” Anne said, using the surefire catchall phrase that no one could refute these days. “I need to see all his logs for the past month, also his personal effects.”

“Sure. Of course.” He stood. “The investigation’s ongoing, so we have everything here.”

“We’ll keep you personally informed every step of the way, Captain,” she assured him.

“I appreciate that.” He opened the door, bawled “Ritchie!” into the corridor. The same young uniform dutifully appeared. “Ritchie, give Ms. Held access to Overton’s effects.”

“Yessir.” Ritchie turned to Anne. “If you’ll follow me, ma’am.”

Ma’am. God, that made her feel old.

He led her farther along the corridor, down a set of metal stairs to a basement room guarded by a floor-to-ceiling fence with a locked door in it. Using a key, he unlocked the door, then took her down an aisle lined on both sides with utilitarian metal shelves. They were packed with cartons in alphabetical order, identified with typewritten labels.

He pulled down two boxes and carried them to a table pushed up against the back wall. “Official,”

he said, pointing to the carton on the left. “This other’s his personal stuff.”

He looked at her, expectant as a puppy. “Can I be of any help?”

“That’s all right, Officer Ritchie,” Anne said with a smile. “I can take it from here.”

“Right. Well, I’ll leave you to it, then. I’ll be in the next room, if you need me.”

When she was alone, Anne turned to the carton on the left, laying out everything in a grid. The files with Overton’s logs she put to one side. As soon as she had assured herself that there was nothing of value to her in the grid, she turned her attention to the logs. She examined each item carefully and methodically, giving special attention to entries on and after the date Kim Lovett had given her, when Overton had met Soraya at
FIU
. There was nothing.

“Bollocks!” she muttered, turned her attention to the carton on her right, filled with Overton’s personal effects. These turned out to be even more pathetic than she had expected: a cheap comb and brush sporting a thin mat of hairs; two packs of
TUMS
, one opened; a blue dress shirt, soiled down the placket with what looked like marinara sauce; a hideous blue-and-red-striped polyester tie; a photo of a goofily grinning young man in a football outfit, probably Overton’s son; a box of Raisinets, and another of nonpareils, both unopened. That was it.

“Merde!”

With a convulsive gesture, she swept the gutter leavings of Overton’s life off the table. She was about to turn away when she saw a bit of white sticking out of the breast pocket of the blue shirt. Bending down, she pulled it out with extended fingertips. It was a square of lined paper, folded in quarters. She opened it up, saw scribbled in blue ballpoint ink:

S. Moore-8 & 12 NE (ck)

Anne’s heart beat fast. This was what she was looking for. S. Moore was undoubtedly Soraya; (ck) could mean “check.” Of course, 8th Street didn’t cross 12th Street in Northeast-or in any quadrant of the district, for that matter. Still, it was clear that Overton had followed Soraya into Northeast. What the hell was she doing there? Whatever it was, she’d kept it secret from CI.

Anne stood staring at the memo Overton had made to himself, trying to work it out. Then it hit her, and she began to laugh. The twelfth letter of the alphabet was L. Eighth and L NE.

If Soraya was alive, it was more than likely she’d gone to ground there.

When Bourne passed between the two hulking chunks of stone, the lamplight revealed the path Muta ibn Aziz had taken. It went west for perhaps a kilometer before veering sharply to the northeast. He ascended a slight rise, after which the path headed almost directly north, down into a shallow swale that gradually rose onto the beginning of what appeared to be a plateau of considerable size.

All the while, he had been drawing closer to Muta ibn Aziz, who for the last minute or so hadn’t moved. The pine forest was still dense, the thatch of brown needles underfoot deeply aromatic, deadening sound.

Within five minutes, however, the forest simply ended. Clearly it had been cut down here to make room for a landing strip long enough to accommodate the jet he saw sitting at one end of the packed-dirt runway.

And there was Muta ibn Aziz, at the foot of the folding stairs. Bourne strode out from the path through the forest, heading directly for the plane, a Citation Sovereign. The pitch-black sky was strewn with stars, glittering coolly like diamonds on a jeweler’s velvet pad. A breeze, dense with sea minerals, played across the cleared hilltop.

“Time to leave,” Muta ibn Aziz said. “Everything in order?”

Bourne nodded. Muta ibn Aziz pressed a button on a small black object in his hand, and the runway lights flashed on. Bourne followed him up the stairway, retracting it as soon as he was inside. He went down the cabin to the cockpit. He was familiar with the Citation line. The Sovereign had a range of more than 4,500 kilometers and a top speed of 826 kph.