The Bourne Dominion (39 page)

“Place de l’Iris,” he told his driver. “La Défense.”

It was where he would go if he were her.

J
ason, please step away,” Don Fernando said. “I won’t ask you again.”

“This is a mistake,” Bourne said.

Don Fernando shook his head, but the muzzle of the Magnum never wavered. Bourne took a step back and Don Fernando fired. The bullet struck Etana between the eyes. He was thrown back so hard he flipped over the railing, tumbling into the sea. The water darkened with the spread of his blood.

Bourne glanced over the side of the boat. “Like I said, a mistake.” He looked back at Don Fernando, who was advancing toward him across the dock. “He could have told us a lot.”

Don Fernando stepped onto the boat, the Magnum held at his side. “He would have told us nothing, Jason. You know these people as well as I do. They have no conception of pain. They have suffered all their lives; martyrdom is all they think about. They are only shadows in this life; they are dead men walking.”

“Essai?”

“Etana slit his throat before he leapt out the window.” Don Fernando
sat down on the wooden cowling. “Etana came to kill you, Jason, for what you did in Tineghir last year. Essai tried to talk him out of it, but Etana was a stubborn man. So Essai and I hit upon a plan. I’d keep you out of your room while he slipped in and waited.”

“He was waiting for Etana.”

“That’s right.”

“It’s a pity Essai is dead.”

Don Fernando passed a hand across his eyes. “There are too many deaths on my plate these days.”

Bourne thought about the shipment lying in the warehouse across the city waiting to be delivered to El-Gabal in Damascus. What was in those twelve crates, who was the real sender—the Domna or the organization Christien Norén had worked for—and was Don Fernando a member of that same group? It seemed the answers lay at Avenue Choukry Kouatly.

He tensed as a police cruiser appeared, heading down the dock as slowly and purposefully as a shark approaches a dead fish.

Don Fernando took out a cigar, bit off the end, and lit it. “Easy,” he said as the cruiser slowed to a halt. “I called them.”

Two uniforms and a detective in a suit piled out. Don Fernando directed them to Etana. While the uniforms went to inspect the corpse floating by the side of the boat, the detective headed straight to Don Fernando, who offered him a cigar.

The detective nodded, bit off the end, and lit up. He made no attempt to inspect the murder scene or glance Bourne’s way.

“The dead man’s a foreign national, you say.” The detective’s voice was deep and phlegmy, as if he was fighting a chest cold.

“In Spain illegally,” Don Fernando said. “A drug dealer.”

“We have very harsh penalties for drug dealers,” the detective said around a cloud of smoke. “As you know.”

Don Fernando inspected the end of his cigar. “I saved the state a lot of money, and you, Diaz, a great deal of time.”

Diaz nodded sagely. “True, Don Fernando, and for this service you have the gratitude of the state.” He let out another cloud of smoke and
stared up into the spangled sky. “Let me share my thoughts as I was driven here. Our precinct is a poor one, Don Fernando, and with the debt crisis, budgets are cut and then cut again.”

“A sad state of affairs. Please allow me.” Don Fernando reached into his breast pocket and drew out a folded wad of euros, which he pressed into the detective’s hand. “Leave the body to me.”

Diaz nodded. “As always, Don Fernando.” Then he turned on his heel and shouted to his men, “
¡Vámanos, muchachos!
” He strode off, the two uniforms in his wake.

When the cruiser had backed up and taken off down the sea road, Don Fernando gestured. “The way of the world never changes, eh, Jason?” He gestured. “Come, now we attend to Marlon Etana.”

“Not you,” Bourne said as he went back to the side of the boat. “I’ll do it.”

Reaching down, he removed a boat hook from the side of the cockpit, snagged the collar of Etana’s jacket, and hauled him up until his head, arms, and torso balanced on the gunwale. Don Fernando grabbed Etana’s belt and dragged him the rest of the way into the boat. For a moment he stared down at the corpse, which was spewing seawater out of its open mouth. Then he crouched down beside Etana, his knees creaking.

Bourne watched as Don Fernando’s hands pulled aside Etana’s jacket and went through all his pockets as skillfully as a sneak thief. Don Fernando handed Bourne Etana’s phone, wallet, and keys. Then he rose and hauled the anchor out of its compartment in the bow of the boat. Unhooking the chain from its attaching ring, he wrapped it around Etana’s corpse.

“Let’s get him over the side,” Don Fernando said.

“In a minute.” Crouching down, Bourne pried open Etana’s mouth and tested his teeth. A moment later he held up the false tooth that contained the cyanide capsule. When he rose, he produced the false tooth he had taken off the Russian in the warehouse. Holding one in each hand, he showed them to Don Fernando.

“Where did you get that?” the older man said.

“I went inside the warehouse, where I killed the gunman and his
driver,” Bourne said. “The gunman bit into his while I was questioning him. This one is from the driver.” When Don Fernando said nothing, Bourne added, “This hollow tooth is an old NKVD trick to keep its members from talking if they were captured.”

Don Fernando pointed to Etana. “I can’t get him over the side myself.”

“Only if I get answers.”

Don Fernando nodded.

Bourne pocketed the suicide capsules and they hoisted Etana up over the gunwale and into the water. He sank out of sight immediately.

Don Fernando sat on the gunwale, facing Bourne. He seemed very tired, and suddenly old, shrunken in on himself. “Marlon Etana was put in place to inform on the Domna.”

“In other words, he was Christien Norén’s replacement.”

“Precisely.” Don Fernando rubbed his hands down his trousers. “The problem was, Etana went rogue.”

“El-Arian turned him?”

Don Fernando shook his head. “He made a secret deal with Essai when Essai became a dissident.”

“Etana belonged to the same organization that Christien did, that you do.” Bourne dealt the older man a hard look. “It’s past time you told me about it.”

“You’re right, of course.” Don Fernando ran a hand across his eyes. “Maybe if I had, Essai would still be alive.” He waited for a moment, as if deciding how best to explain the next part. At length, he pushed himself off the gunwale. “It’s time for a drink and some serious talk.”

D
on Fernando chose a seaside café that looked closed, but wasn’t. Many of the chairs were overturned on the tabletops and a young boy with hair down to his shoulders was sweeping the floor in a desultory manner, as if he were already asleep.

The proprietor waddled out from behind the bar to shake Don Fernando’s hand and escort them to a table. Don Fernando ordered brandy but Bourne waved away the notion of alcohol. He wanted his head clear.

“When my father died, everything changed,” Don Fernando said. “You must understand: My father was everything to me. I cherished my mother, yes, but she was ill, bedridden much of my life.”

When the snifter was set upon the table, Don Fernando stared into the amber liquid. He wet his lips with it before he began. “My father was a big man in every way imaginable. He was tall, and powerful, both physically and in spirit. He dominated every room he walked into. People were frightened of him, I could see it very clearly in their eyes; when they shook hands with him, they trembled.”

The proprietor appeared with a glass of sherry and set it down in front of Bourne, even though he hadn’t ordered it. He shrugged, as if to say:
A man should not engage in serious conversation without proper fortification.

“Starting when I was seven, he took me hunting,” Don Fernando continued when the proprietor had returned to his place behind the bar. “This was in Colombia. I shot my first gray fox when I was eight. I had tried for a year but could not pull the trigger. I wept the first time I saw my father shoot one. My father took me over to it, dipped his fingertips into its blood, and smeared my lips with it. I recoiled, gagging. And then, under his stern gaze, I felt ashamed. So I screwed up my courage, returned to the fox, bloodied my own fingers, and stuck them in my mouth. My father smiled, then, and I never before or since felt such a sense of complete satisfaction.”

Bourne sensed that these memories unnerved Don Fernando, that he was privileged to be hearing them.

“As I said, when my father died everything changed. I took over his business, for which he had been training me for years. It was difficult to see him on his deathbed, so frail, laboring to take a breath, this man who had felled trees and enemies with equal ease and zeal. We all come to this point in our lives, I know, but with my father it was different because of what he had trained me for, what was waiting for me the moment he passed.”

Don Fernando had drained his glass. Now he signaled for more. The proprietor came with the bottle, filled the snifter, then left the bottle.

Don Fernando nodded his thanks before he went on. “In the last
years of his life, my father introduced me to a number of men. All of them were Russian, all of them frightened me on some”—he waved a hand—“I don’t know, some primitive level. In their eyes I saw a world filled with shadow, piled with death.” He shrugged. “I don’t know how else to explain their effect on me.

“Gradually, though, I grew used to them. The darkness that had fallen over me didn’t recede, rather it became understandable. I was introduced to death, and then I had cause to recall my first blooding, and I was never so grateful for how my father helped me. Because these men dealt in death—as, it turned out, did my father.”

Don Fernando held out his hand and when Bourne extended his, he gripped it tightly, clapping his other hand over them both.

“As I said, Jason, all of the men my father introduced me to were Russian—all, that is, save one. Christien Norén.”

“
I
NEED A CELL,”
Peter Marks said. He was sitting up in bed, though he was able to walk now without panting like an overtaxed engine.

Deron dug out a burner cell in a blister pack. “You may be surprised to know that whoever was after you is even more powerful than we thought.”

Peter cocked his head. “Nothing would surprise me now. How’s that?”

Deron slit open the blister pack, freeing the phone. “I sent Ty to the Metro police to find out about your kidnappers. They claim they have nothing. Someone did make a nine-one-one call, but by the time a patrol car arrived on the scene, there was nothing to see, no bodies, no ambulance, and obviously, no you.”

Peter sighed. “Back to square one.”

“Not exactly.” Deron handed over what appeared to be a human tooth. “Ty found this at the scene and grabbed it before he helped you onto his motorcycle. You must have knocked it out of one of your kidnappers.”

Peter turned the tooth over in his hands. “How does it help me?”

As he probed at it, Deron said, “Watch it!” and snatched it out of his hand. “This only looks like a tooth. It’s actually hollow, filled with liquid hydrogen cyanide.”

“A suicide pill?” Peter said. “I thought that went out with the NKVD.”

Deron rolled the tooth between his fingertips like a marble. “Apparently not.”

“But it
is
Russian in origin.”

Deron nodded. “So now we know the country of origin of your kidnappers. Does that help?”

Peter frowned. “I’m not sure yet.”

Deron activated the phone, added a package of minutes, and handed it to Peter. “You have twenty minutes of time, overseas included,” he said. “After that it’s trash.”

Peter nodded gratefully. Deron knew his security backward and forward. After Deron left the room, he punched in the cell number of Soraya’s contact in Damascus whom he’d called days ago when he first read about El-Gabal, the defunct mining company Roy FitzWilliams had consulted for before he was hired by Indigo Ridge.

“Ashur,” he said when the voice answered, “this is Peter—”

“Peter Marks? We thought you had been neutralized.”

A trickle like ice water rode down Peter’s spine. “Who is this? Where’s Ashur?”

“Ashur is dead. Or nearly so.”

Peter felt a prickle at the nape of his neck. Using the suicide tooth as a cue, he said, “
Kahk dyelayoot vlee znayetye menya?
” How do you know me?

“Ashur told us,” the voice replied in kind. An evil chuckle. “He didn’t want to, but in the end he really had no choice.”

What the hell are Russians doing in Damascus?
Peter asked himself. “Why did you try to kill me?”

“Why are you interested in El-Gabal? It’s been out of business for years.”

Peter’s anger kicked in, but he was careful to keep it in check. “If you kill Ashur—”

“His death is already assured,” the voice said with a maddening serenity.

With an enormous effort, Peter put Ashur aside and gathered his thoughts. As a stab in the dark, he said, “El-Gabal isn’t defunct. It’s of too much importance to you.”

Silence.

I’m right, El-Gabal still exists
. “I have the suicide tooth from one of your men. Once I pried it out of his mouth, he talked. I know El-Gabal is the center of everything.”

More silence, hollow and somehow eerie.

“Hello? Hello?”

Dead air pulsed in his ear. Peter hit
REDIAL
, but got nothing, not even Ashur’s voice mail. The tenuous line of communication had been cut.

Y
our friendship was with the girls’ father, not their mother,” Bourne said.

Don Fernando nodded.

“And you never told them.”

He took another sip. It might have been a trick of the light, but his eyes now seemed to be the precise color of the brandy. “I only know Kaja. The truth is far too complex for her to—”

“She’s been looking for answers to who her father was all her adult life,” Bourne said with some force. “You should have told her.”

“I couldn’t,” Don Fernando said. “The truth is far too dangerous for the girls to know.”