The Bourne Betrayal (54 page)

MUTA
IBN
AZIZ
had begun to stir during the latter part of the aerial dogfight. Now Bourne became aware that he had regained his feet. He couldn’t relinquish the controls in order to engage the terrorist, so he had to find another way to deal with Muta.

The Sovereign was nearing the end of the mountain chasm. As Muta ibn Aziz put the muzzle of the gun against his right ear, Bourne directed the Sovereign toward the mountain peak at the end of the chasm.

“What are you doing?” Muta said.

“Put the gun away,” Bourne said while focusing on the peak rising up in front of them.

Muta stared out the windshield, mesmerized. “Get us out of here.”

Bourne kept the nose of the Sovereign headed directly for the peak.

“You’re going to kill us both.” Muta licked his lips nervously. All at once he lifted the gun away from Bourne’s head. “All right, all right! Just-”

They were terrifyingly close to the mountain.

“Throw the gun across the cockpit,” Bourne ordered.

“You’ve left it too late,” Muta ibn Aziz cried. “We’ll never make it!”

Bourne kept his hands steady on the yoke. With a shout of disgust, Muta tossed his gun across the floor.

Bourne pulled back on the yoke. The Sovereign whooshed upward. The mountain rushed at them with appalling speed. It was going to be close, very close. At the last instant Bourne saw the gap in the right side, as if the hand of God had reached down and cracked off half the mountaintop. He banked a precise amount; any farther and the passing crag would snap off the right wingtip. They passed just above the mountaintop, then, still climbing, pulled free of the chasm, blasting into blue sky.

Muta, on hands and knees, went scrabbling after the gun. Bourne was ready for this. He’d already engaged the autopilot. Unstrapping himself, he leapt onto the terrorist’s back, delivered a savage kidney punch. With a muted scream, Muta collapsed onto the cockpit floor.

Quickly, Bourne took possession of the gun, then bound the terrorist in a coil of wire he found in the engineer’s locker. Dragging him back across the cockpit, he returned to the pilot’s chair, disengaged the autopilot, adjusted the heading a bit more south. They were halfway across Afghanistan now, heading for Miran Shah, just across the eastern border in Pakistan, the place circled on the pilot’s map Bourne had studied.

Muta ibn Aziz expelled a long string of Bedouin curses.

“Bourne,” he added, “I was right. You manufactured the story of your own death.”

Bourne grinned at him. “Shall we call everyone by their real name? Let’s start with Abu Ghazi Nadir al-Jamuh ibn Hamid ibn Ashef al-Wahhib. But Fadi is so much shorter and to the point.”

“How could you possibly know-?”

“I also know that his brother, Karim, has taken Martin Lindros’s place.”

The shock showed in Muta’s dark eyes.

“And then there’s the sister, Sarah ibn Ashef.” With grim satisfaction, Bourne watched the messenger’s expression. “Yes, I know about that, too.”

Muta’s face was ashen. “She told you her name?”

At once Bourne understood. “You were there that night in Odessa when we had the rendezvous set up with our contact. I shot Sarah ibn Ashef as she ran into the square. We barely managed to escape the trap with our lives.”

“You took her,” Muta ibn Aziz said. “You took Sarah ibn Ashef with you.”

“She was still alive,” Bourne said.

“Did she say anything?”

Muta said this so quickly, Bourne knew that he was desperate for the answer. Why? There was more here than Bourne knew. What was he missing?

He was at the very end of what was known to him. But it was vital that he keep his opponent believing that he knew more than he did. He decided the best course was to say nothing.

The silence worked on Muta, who became extremely agitated. “She said my name, didn’t she?”

Bourne kept his voice neutral. “Why would she do that?”

“She did, didn’t she?” Muta was frantic now, twisting this way and that in a vain attempt to free himself. “What else did she say?”

“I don’t remember.”

“You must remember.”

He had Muta ibn Aziz. All that remained was to reel him in. “I saw a doctor once who said that descriptions of things I’d forgotten-even fragments-could unlock those memories.”

They were nearing the border. He started the gradual descent that took them down to the hogback ridges of the mountain chain that did such an expert job at hiding many of the world’s most dangerous terrorist cadres.

Muta stared at him incredulously. “Let me get this straight. You want me to help you.” He gave a joyless laugh. “I don’t think so.”

“All right.” Bourne turned his full attention on the topography as it began to reveal its gross details. “It was you who asked. I don’t care one way or another, really.”

Muta’s face contorted first one way, then another. He was under some form of terrible pressure, and Bourne wondered what it was. Outwardly he gave no sign that he cared, but he felt he needed to up the ante, so he said, “Six minutes to landing, maybe a little less. You’d better brace yourself as best you can.” Glancing over at Muta ibn Aziz, he laughed. “Oh, yeah, you’re already strapped in.”

And then Muta said, “It wasn’t an accident.”

Unfortunately,” Karim said, “LaValle was right.”

The
DCI
flinched. Clearly he didn’t want to hear more bad news. “Typhon routinely piggybacks on CI transmissions.”

“True enough, sir. But after some backbreaking electronic spadework, I discovered three piggybacked communiquйs I can’t account for.”

They sat side by side in the sixth pew on the right arm of the arc inside the Foundry Methodist Church on 16th Street NW. Behind them, affixed to the back, was a plaque that read: IN
THIS
PEW
,
SIDE
BY
SIDE
,
SAT
PRESIDENT
FRANKLIN
D.
ROOSEVELT
AND
PRIME

MINISTER
WINSTON
CHURCHILL
AT
THE
NATIONAL
CHRISTMAS
SERVICE
IN 1941. Which meant that the service had taken place just three weeks after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor-dark days, indeed, for America. As for Britain, it had gained, through a painful disaster, an important ally. This spot, therefore, held great meaning for the Old Man. It was where he came to pray, to gain insight, the moral strength to do the dark and difficult deeds he was often required to do.

As he stared down at the dossier his second in command had handed him, he knew without a shadow of a doubt that another of those deeds lay dead ahead of him.

He let out a long breath, opened the dossier. And there it was in black and white: the fearsome truth. Still, he raised his head, said in an unsteady voice, “Anne?”

“I’m afraid so, sir.” Karim was careful to keep his hands palms up in his lap. He needed to seem as devastated as the Old Man clearly was. The news had shaken the
DCI
to his roots. “All three communiquйs came from a
PDA
in her possession. One not CI-authorized, one we had no knowledge of until now. It seems she was also able to replace and doctor intel, falsely implicating Tim Hytner.”

For a long time, the
DCI
said nothing. They had kept their voices down because of the church’s astoundingly fine acoustics, but when he spoke again his companion was obliged to lean forward in order to hear him.

“What was the nature of the three communiquйs?”

“They were sent via an encrypted band,” Karim said. “I have my best people working on a deciphering solution.”

The Old Man nodded absently. “Good work, Martin. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

Today, at this moment, he looked every year of his age and then some. With his trusted Anne’s terrible betrayal, a vital spark had gone out of him. He sat hunched over, his shoulders up around his ears, as if anticipating further psychic blows.

“Sir,” Karim said softly. “We have to take immediate action.”

The
DCI
nodded, but his gaze was lost in the middle distance, focused on thoughts and memories his companion could not imagine.

“I think this should be handled privately,” Karim continued. “Just you and me. What do you say?”

The Old Man’s rheumy eyes swung around to take in his second’s face. “Yes, a private solution, by all means.” His voice was whispery. It cracked on the word solution.

Karim stood. “Shall we go?”

The
DCI
looked up at him, a black terror swimming behind his eyes. “Now?”

“That would be best, sir-for everyone.” He helped the Old Man to his feet. “She’s not at headquarters. I imagine she’s home.”

Then he handed the
DCI
a gun.

Within several hours, Katya returned to the infirmary to check on the swelling of Lindros’s throat. She knelt by the side of the low cot on which he lay. Her fingers stumbled over her previous handiwork so badly that tears came to her eyes.

“I’m no good at this,” she said softly, as if to herself. “I’m no good at all.”

Lindros watched her, remembering the end of their last conversation. He wondered whether he should say something or whether opening his mouth would just push her farther away.

After a long, tense silence, Katya said, “I’ve been thinking about what you said.”

Her eyes found his at last. They were an astonishing shade of blue-gray, like the sky just before the onset of a storm.

“And now I believe that Costin wanted Fadi to hurt me. Why? Why would he want someone to do that? Because he was afraid I would leave him? Because he wanted me to see how dangerous the world outside his world was? I don’t know. But he didn’t have to . . .” She put a hand up to her cheek, winced at the touch of her own delicate fingertips. “He didn’t have to let Fadi hurt me.”

“No, he didn’t,” Lindros said. “He shouldn’t have. You know that.”

She nodded.

“Then help me,” Lindros went on. “Otherwise, neither of us is getting out of here alive.”

“I . . . I don’t know whether I can.”

“Then I’ll help you.” Lindros sat up. “If you let me, I’ll help you change. But it has to be what you want. You have to want it badly enough to risk everything.”

“Everything.” She gave him a smile so filled with remorse, it nearly broke his heart. “I was born with nothing. I grew up with nothing. And then, through a chance encounter, I was given everything. At least, that’s what I was told, and for a time I believed it. But in a way that life was worse than having nothing. At least the nothing was real. And then Costin came. He promised to take me away from the unreality. So I married him. But his world was just as false as the one I’d made for myself, and I thought, Where do I belong? Nowhere.”

Lindros was moved to briefly touch the back of her hand. “We’re both outsiders.”

Katya turned her head slightly to glance at the guards. “Do you know a way out of here?”

“Yes,” Lindros said, “but it will take both of us.” He saw the fear in her eyes, but also the spark of hope.

At length, she said, “What must I do?”

Anne was in the midst of packing when she heard a car’s large engine thrumming on the street outside her house. As she picked her head up, it stopped. She almost went back to her packing, but some sixth sense or paranoia caused her to cross her second-floor bedroom and peer out the window.

Below her, she saw the DCI’s long black armored car. The Old Man stepped out of it, followed by Jamil. Her heart skipped a beat. What was happening? Why had they come to her house? Had Soraya somehow got through to the Old Man, told him of her treachery? But no, Jamil was with him. Jamil would never let Soraya anywhere near CI headquarters, let alone allowing her access to the Old Man.

But what if . . . ?

Running purely on instinct now, she went to her dresser, opened the second drawer, scrabbled in it for the S&W she had returned to its customary hiding place when she’d returned home from the Northeast quadrant.

The bell rang downstairs, making her jump, even though she had been expecting it. Slipping the S&W into her waistband at the small of her back, she left her bedroom and descended the polished wood stairs to the front door. Through the diamonds of translucent yellow glass, she could see the silhouettes of the two men, both so important to her throughout her adult life.

With a slow exhalation of breath, she grabbed the brass handle, painted a smile on her face, opened the door.

“Hello, Anne.” The Old Man seemed to reflect her own lacquered smile back at her. “I’m sorry to disturb you at home, but something rather pressing . . .” At this point he faltered.

“It’s no bother at all,” Anne replied. “I could use the company.”

She stepped back, and they entered the small marble-floored vestibule. A spray of hothouse lilies rose from a slender cloisonnй vase on a small oval table with delicate cabriolet legs. She led them into the living room with its facing silk-covered sofas on either side of a red-veined white-stone fireplace, above which was a wooden mantelpiece. Anne offered them a seat, but everyone seemed inclined to remain standing. The men did not take off their coats.

She dared not look at Jamil’s face for fear of what she might find there. On the other hand, the Old Man’s face was no bargain. It was drained of blood, the skin hanging loosely on the bones. When had he grown so old? she wondered. Where had the time gone? It seemed like just yesterday that she had been a wild child at college in London, with nothing ahead of her but a bright, endless future.

“I expect you’d like some tea,” she said to his mummy’s face. “And I have a tin of your favorite ginger biscuits in the larder.” But her attempt to retain a degree of normalcy fell flat.

“Nothing, thank you, Anne,” the
DCI
said. “For either of us.” He looked truly pained now, as if he was fighting the effects of a kidney stone or a tumor. He took from his overcoat a rolled-up dossier. Spreading it out on one of the soft sofa backs, he said, “I’m afraid we’ve been presented with something of an unpleasant realization.” His forefinger moved over the computer printout as if it were a Ouija board. “We know, Anne.”