The Bourne Deception (6 page)

“Will he live?” She almost choked on the words. “Tell me he’ll live.”

Firth sat wearily on a canvas folding chair as he stripped off his bloody gloves. “The bullet went clear through him, which is good because I didn’t have to dig it out. It is my considered opinion that he’ll live, Ms. Trevor, with the important caveat that nothing in life is certain, especially in medicine.”

As Firth took the first drink of
arak
he’d had that day, Moira approached Bourne with a mixture of elation and trepidation. She’d been so terrified that for the last four and a half hours her heart had hurt as much as she had imagined Bourne’s had. Gazing down into his near-bloodless but peaceful face, she took his hand in hers, squeezing hard to reestablish the physical connection between them.

“Jason,” she said.

“He’s still well under,” Firth said, as if from a great distance. “He can’t hear you.”

Moira ignored him. She tried not to imagine the hole in Bourne’s chest beneath the bandage, but failed. Her eyes were streaming tears, as they had periodically while he was in surgery, but the abyss of despair along which she had been walking was folding in on itself. Still, her breathing was ragged and she had to struggle to feel the solid ground beneath her feet, because for hours she was certain it had been about to open up and swallow her whole.

“Jason, listen to me. Suparwita knew what would happen to you, and he prepared you as best he could. He fed you the
kencur
, he had me get the double
ikat
for you. They both protected you, I know it, even if you won’t ever believe it.”

Morning broke in the soft colors of pink and yellow against the pale blue sky. Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva rose as Bourne opened his eyes. Last night’s storm had scrubbed off the film of haze that had built up from the burning off of the rice stalks in the hillside paddies.

As Bourne sat up, his eyes fell upon the double
ikat
that Moira had bought for him in Tenganan. Holding its rough texture between his fingers he saw, like a flash of lightning, the silhouette standing between him and Mount Agung, framed by the temple gates, and wondered anew who it could possibly be.

THE
COCKPIT
of the American passenger airliner, Flight 891 out of Cairo, Egypt, hummed contentedly. The pilot and copilot, longtime friends, joked about the flight attendant they’d both like to take to bed. They were in the final stages of negotiating the terms of a thoroughly adolescent contest that would involve her as a prize when the radar picked up a blip rapidly closing on the plane. Responding in proper fashion, the pilot got on the intercom and ordered all seat belts fastened, then took the plane out of its pre-planned route in an attempt at an evasive maneuver. But the 767 was too large and ungainly; it wasn’t built for easy maneuverability. The copilot tried to get a visual fix on the object, even as he raised the Cairo airport control tower on the radio.

“Flight Eight-Niner-One, there are no scheduled flights that close to you,” the calm voice from the control tower said. “Can you get a visual fix?”

“Not yet. The object is too small to be another passenger plane,” the copilot responded. “Maybe it’s a private jet.”

“There are no flight plans posted. Repeat: There are no flight plans posted.”

“Roger that,” the copilot said. “But it’s still closing.”

“Eight-Niner-One, elevate to forty-five thousand feet.”

“Roger that,” the pilot said, making the necessary adjustments on the controls. “Elevating to forty-five thou—”

“I see it!” the copilot cut in. “It’s traveling too fast to be a private jet!”

“What is it?” There was a sudden urgency to the voice from Cairo.
“What’s
happening? Eight-Niner-One, please report!”

“Here it comes!” the copilot screamed.

An instant later disaster struck as the mighty metal fist hit the jetliner in a blinding flare. An immense explosion disjointed the fuselage as a beast pulls its prey limb from limb, and the twisted, blackened remains plummeted to earth with breathtaking speed.

Deep beneath the West Wing of the White House, in a spacious room made of steel-reinforced concrete eight feet thick, the president of the United States was in a high-level security meeting with Secretary of Defense Halliday;
DCI
Veronica Hart; Jon Mueller, head of the Department of Homeland Security; and Jaime Hernandez, the new intelligence czar, who had taken over the
NSA
in the wake of the illegal waterboarding scandal that brought down his predecessor.

Halliday, a ruddy-cheeked man with dark blond hair combed straight back, a politician’s sly eyes, and a perfect Crest smile, seemed as if he were reading from a script he might have prepared for a Senate subcommittee.

“After months of arduous prep work, judicious bribes, and discreet probing,”

he said, “Black River has at last made first contact with a group of dissident, pro-Western Iranis.” Ever the showman, he paused, looked around the highly polished table, making eye contact with each person in turn. “This is blockbuster news,” he added unnecessarily, and, with a nod to the president, “something this administration has been searching for for years, because the only known Iranian dissident group has so far proved impotent.”

Halliday was at his most eloquent, and Hart thought she knew why. Though his stock had risen because of the death of Jason Bourne, for which he had agitated and for which he’d taken credit, Hart knew Halliday needed another victory, one that was more wide ranging, that could be exploited by the president himself for political capital.

“At last a group we can work with,” Halliday continued with unbridled enthusiasm as he handed around the fact sheet prepared by Black River detailing dates and places of meeting, along with transcripts of clandestinely recorded conversations between Black River operatives and leading members of the dissident group, whose names had been redacted for security reasons. All the conversations, Hart saw, underscored both their militancy and their commitment to accept aid from the West.

“They’re unquestionably pro-Western,” the secretary of defense said, as if his audience required a verbal guide through the densely worded pages.

“Moreover, they’re preparing for an armed revolution and are eager for whatever support we can supply.”

“What are their real capabilities?” Jon Mueller asked. Mueller had that typical ex-
NSA
mien of a soldier with a thousand-yard stare. He looked like a man who could break a body with the same nonchalant ease he’d crack a wooden matchstick in two.

“Excellent question, Jon. If you turn to page thirty-eight, you’ll see Black River’s detailed assessment of the training preparedness and arms expertise of this particular group, which both rate eight out of ten on their proprietary rating scale.”

“You seem to be relying a great deal on Black River, Mr. Secretary,” Hart said drily.

Halliday didn’t even look at her; it was her people—Soraya Moore and Tyrone Elkins—who had brought his man, Luther LaValle, down. He hated her guts, but Hart knew he was too canny a politician to let his animosity show in front of the president, who now held her in high esteem.

Halliday nodded sagely, his voice carefully neutral. “I wish it were otherwise, Director. It’s no secret that our own resources are already at their limits due to the ongoing conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, and now that Iran is on our radar as a clear and present danger, we’re obliged to outsource more and more of our far-flung intelligence gathering.”

“You mean the
NSA
is. CI created Typhon last year specifically to handle more of the Middle East field intelligence,” Hart pointed out. “Every Typhon field agent is fluent in the various dialects of Arabic and Farsi. Tell me, Mr. Secretary, how many
NSA
agents are similarly trained?”

Hart could see the color rising up Halliday’s throat into his cheeks, and she leaned forward, further inflaming an intemperate outburst from him. Unluckily for her, the meeting was interrupted by the burr of the blue telephone at the president’s right elbow. The entire room fell into a tense silence so absolute that the discreet sound had the resonance of a pneumatic jackhammer. The blue telephone brought bad news, they all knew that.

With a grim expression, the president pressed the receiver to his ear, listened to the voice of General Leland over at the Pentagon who briefed him, even while he told his commander in chief that a more detailed document would be on its way to the White House by special courier within the hour.

The president took all this in with his usual equanimity. He was not a man to panic or to take precipitous action. As he cradled the receiver, he said, “There has been an air disaster. American Flight Eight-Nine-One, outward bound from Cairo, was taken out of the sky by an explosion.”

“A bomb?” Jaime Hernandez, the new intelligence czar, said. He was slim and handsome, with calculating eyes as dark as his thick hair. He looked like the kind of individual who counted the wontons in his soup to make sure he wasn’t being shortchanged.

“Are there any survivors?” Hart asked.

“We don’t know the answer to either question,” the president said. “What we do know is that there were one hundred eighty-one souls on that flight.”

“Good God.” Hart shook her head.

There was a moment of stunned silence while they all contemplated both the enormity of the calamity and the terrible repercussions that might very well ensue. No matter what the cause, a great many American civilians were dead, and if the worst-case scenario were to come true, if those American civilians proved to be the victims of a terrorist attack…

“Sir, I think we should send a joint
NSA-DHS
forensics team to the crash site,” Halliday said in a bid to take charge.

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Hart countered. Halliday’s words had energized them out of their initial shock. “This isn’t Iraq. We’ll need the permission of the Egyptian government to send our troops in.”

“Those are American citizens—our people blown out of the sky,” Halliday said. “Fuck the Egyptians. What’ve they done for us lately?”

Before the argument could escalate, the president held up his hand.

“First things first. Veronica is right.” He stood up. “We’ll reconvene this discussion in an hour after I’ve spoken to the Egyptian president.”

Precisely sixty minutes later, the president reentered the room, nodded to those present, and sat down before addressing them. “All right, it’s settled. Hernandez, Mueller, assemble a joint task force of your best people and get them on a plane to Cairo
ASAP
. First: survivors; second: identify casualties; third: for the love of God ascertain the cause of the explosion.”

“Sir, if I may,” Hart interjected, “I suggest adding Soraya Moore, the director of Typhon, to the team. She’s half Egyptian. Her intimate knowledge of Arabic and the local customs will prove invaluable particularly in liaising with the Egyptian authorities.”

Halliday shook his head, said emphatically, “This matter is already complicated enough without a third agency becoming involved. The
NSA
and the
DHS
have all the tools at their disposal to handle the situation.”

“I doubt that—”

“I needn’t remind you, Director Hart, that the press will be all over this incident like flies on shit,” Halliday overran her. “We’ve got to get our people over there, make our findings and take appropriate measures as quickly as possible, otherwise we risk turning this into a worldwide media circus.” He turned to the president. “Which is something the administration doesn’t need right now. The last thing you want, sir, is to look weak and ineffectual.”

“The real problem,” the president said, “is that the Egyptian national secret police—what are they called?”

“Al Mokhabarat,” Hart said, feeling like she was a contestant on
Jeopardy!

“Yes, thank you, Veronica.” The president made a note on his scratch pad. He’d never forget al Mokhabarat’s name again. “The problem,” he began again,

“is that a contingent of this al Mokhabarat will be accompanying the team.”

The secretary of defense groaned. “Sir, if I may say so, the Egyptian secret police are corrupt, vicious, and notorious for their sadistic human rights violations. I submit that we cut them out of the equation entirely.”

“Nothing would please me more, believe me,” the president said with some distaste, “but I’m afraid that’s the quid pro quo the Egyptian president insisted on in exchange for letting us help in the investigation.”

“Our help? What a joke!” Halliday gave a humorless laugh. “The damn Egyptians couldn’t find a mummy in a tomb.”

“That’s as may be, but they’re our allies,” the president said sternly.

“I expect everyone to keep that in mind in the difficult days and weeks ahead.”

When he looked around the room the
DCI
seized her chance. “Sir, may I remind you that Egyptian is Director Moore’s native language.”

“Precisely why she should be stricken from the list,” Halliday said at once. “She’s a Muslim, for God’s sake.”

“Secretary, that’s just the kind of ignorant remark we don’t need right now. Beside, how many men on that team are fluent in Egyptian Arabic?”

Halliday bristled. “The Egyptians speak damn fine English, thank you very much.”

“Not among themselves.” As the defense secretary had before her, Hart turned to address the president directly. “Sir, it’s important—no, vital—that at this juncture the team has as much information about the Egyptians—

especially the members of al Mokhabarat, because Secretary Halliday is correct about them—as is possible. That knowledge may well prove critical.”

The president pondered for no more than a moment. Then he nodded.

“Director, your proposal makes sense, let’s run with it. Get Director Moore up to speed.”

Hart smiled. Time to press her advantage. “She may have some people—”

The president nodded at once. “Whatever she needs. This is no time for half measures.”