The Bourne Dominion (Jason Bourne 9)

All of a sudden his shoulders slumped and he shrugged. “So I tell you. What does it matter? You won’t get out of here alive.”

Soraya had had enough of him. Her desire to break him into little pieces became overwhelming. Taking his broken nose in her hand, she turned it like a water faucet until new tears sprang from his eyes and he was panting like a pack animal about to collapse. Then and only then did she loosen the flex sufficiently.

She stared hard into his eyes. “Five seconds, four, three—”

He jabbed upward, his fist connecting with her left breast. Soraya saw stars and, staggering back, almost pitched off the stairs. Seizing his moment, Marchand sprang at her, his face purple, his cheeks blotchy, and his breath sawed raggedly from his throat. His hands throttled her, bending her backward as he attempted to pitch her off the staircase down into the blackness at the bottom.

Also struggling for breath, Soraya cursed herself for letting down her guard, while working to spread his forearms and mitigate his attack. But Marchand was out for blood.

Soraya punched and punched, but she lacked leverage, so her blows were having a minimal effect. Lights were bursting behind her eyes and she was having trouble thinking. She struggled mightily, but that only seemed to worm her deeper into his grip. Slowly, inexorably, he pushed her backward against the railing, until her back was arched painfully.

Light and shadow danced spastically, eerily, as the bulb swung to her ever more desperate movements. She found herself staring at the light bulb, a miniature sun emanating from the coils. Then she blinked. She was at the tipping point and felt him marshaling his energy to heave her over the side. Her arm shot up. Grasping the base of the bulb, she slammed it into Marchand’s left eye.

He screamed as the glass shattered, piercing his eyeball. Soraya, feeling the pressure come off, shoved the broken base deeper in.

The corona of the electric shock spun her backward like a giant hand slap. She sucked in deep, shuddering breaths, desperate to return oxygen to her system. She felt harrowed, hollowed out.

Then she smelled burning flesh and almost gagged. She stood up straight, groaning, every muscle in her torso sore and aching. Marchand was on his knees. His hands were glued to the base of the bulb, which was buried in his eye socket. Muscles jumped and spasmed even as he fell over, his heart short-circuiting.

17

THE ONCOMING BLACK van was behind Bourne, the semi ready to scoop them up in front. To the right was a two-foot shoulder ending in a galvanized-steel guardrail, beyond which was a steep drop-off into an olive grove clinging to the side of a hill. On his left was a convertible Mercedes, the oblivious driver bobbing his head to the music pouring out of his speakers. There was no time for thought, only instinct forged by years of training and hard experience.

Bourne accelerated, closing the car’s-length distance between him and the ramp. Then he was on the ramp itself, the nose of the rental car pointed up.

“What the hell are you doing?” Vegas shouted.

Halfway up the ramp Bourne turned the wheel hard to his left and, at the same time, stamped the accelerator to the floor. The car shot up and off the ramp. Airborne, it passed over the Mercedes, the undercarriage clearing the driver’s head by inches even before he instinctively ducked. Horns blared, brakes screeched. Bourne clipped the rear end of the car in the far left lane, regained control, and kept going. Behind him, cars piled into one another in a chain reaction, but the rental car was free now, accelerating away from the semi and the black van, both of which were caught in the expanding chaos of a massive crash.

“¡Madre de Dios!” Vegas cried. “Is my poor heart still beating?”

Rosie released her grip on the handle above the door. “What Estevan means is thank you.”

“What I mean is I need a drink,” Vegas muttered from behind them.

The day was spent, the sun, yellow bordering on orange, pressed down against the hills in the west like a fried egg. Twilight swept across the olive groves, lending their tortured branches a spooky aspect. They were racing west, toward the darkness of night and a sprinkling of first-magnitude stars.

The atmosphere in the car had altered. Bourne could feel it as surely as you feel the onset of winter, a drop in the pressure, a tiny shiver of a premonition. Following their escape from the box, a subtle shift in the balance of his two charges had occurred. It was as if Vegas, the competent oil man, felt like a fish out of water away from his mountains and his oil fields. Whereas their journey away from Ibagué had caused Rosie to blossom like a flower in sunlight.

He thought about the elaborate box, which had the hand of the Domna all over it. The Domna had tracked him down. Had Jalal Essai told them? Bourne wouldn’t put it past him. Essai remained a complete mystery to Bourne.

Painful as it might be, everything Rosie had said was true: He was running away from everything and everyone. And of course, it was clear why. Once, he had cared deeply for a handful of people. Now all of them save Moira and Soraya were dead. Perhaps some of them, because of him. No more, an insistent voice inside of him cried. No more. His new philosophy, developed without his even being aware of it, was simple: Keep running. He knew he couldn’t get hurt running. But the downside, the collateral damage that Rosie had so cleverly pointed out to him, was that he felt nothing. Was that living? Was he even alive? And if he wasn’t, what was the state of being in which he found himself?

To distract himself, he turned to Rosie. “Why were you running away?”

“The usual reasons.”

She had a knack of answering questions as he would have, without revealing any pertinent information. “There are no usual reasons,” he shot back.

This made her laugh, a sound he found intriguing. It was deep and rich, launched from her stomach. There was nothing shallow or phony about that laugh. “Well, you’re right about that.”

She was silent for some time. Bourne caught a look at Vegas, asleep in the backseat. He looked drawn, exhausted, as if he’d traveled from the Cordilleras to just outside Cadiz on foot.

“I was not a good girl,” Rosie said, after a time. She was staring out her side window. “I was, what do you call it, the black sheep. Whatever I did made the people around me angry.”

“Your family.”

“Not just my family. There were friends affected, too. That was one of the things my family couldn’t forgive me for.”

They rode on in silence, the wind cracking and moaning through the car. Rosie pushed her hair back behind her ear, revealing a small tattoo on the inside of one of the whorls.

“I see you keep a serpent with you at all times,” Bourne said. The snake was striped orange and black.

She touched the pink shell of her ear. “It’s a skytale.”

“It looks mythical. Does it breathe fire?”

“Huh! I’ve yet to hear about a creature that breathes fire.”

“You haven’t met some of the Russians I have.”

That laugh again, filling the car as if with perfume.

Bourne hesitated only a moment. “But you have met some bad people.”

The wind floated her hair over her ear, obscuring the tiny dragon. “Pretty bad, yes.” Before he could follow up, she said, “Why are you running?”

“I pissed off some very powerful people. They had plans and I got in the way.”

Rosie gave Vegas a quick glance over her shoulder. “If it’s the Domna, then good for you.”

This brought a wry smile to Bourne’s face. “What do you know about Estevan’s involvement with them?”

Rosie hesitated, possibly considering whether or not to violate a confidence. Then she said, “His involvement wasn’t voluntary, I can tell you that.”

“How did they trap him?”

“His daughter.”

“I thought she ran off with a handsome Brazilian?”

“Who told you that? Suarez?” When Bourne said nothing, Rosie shrugged and went on grimly. “That is the story Estevan decided on.

It made sense, it was plausible. But the truth is the Domna kidnapped her. Where she is, I have no idea. Every week, Estevan received a photo of her holding a dated newspaper so he knew she was alive.”

“But Estevan rebelled,” Bourne said.

She ran her hands through her hair. “Essai told him that the Domna didn’t have his daughter. They had taken her, but long ago she escaped. No one knows how or where she is. The only thing that Essai could tell Estevan was that the two men who had kidnapped her were found dead, their throats slit. The rest is a complete mystery.”

“And the photo they sent him every week?”

“Photoshopped. They apparently used a girl built like her, then put Estevan’s daughter’s head onto her shoulders.” She shuddered. “Ghoulish.”

“I assume Estevan has never heard from her.”

“Not a word.”

Bourne turned off the highway at the exit for Cadiz. “Not long now.”

“Thank God,” Rosie said under her breath.

“She must have had help,” Bourne said thoughtfully.

“Estevan and I talked about that a lot.” She shrugged. “For all the good it did.”

Bourne could see the city up ahead, like a shining ball of Byzantine brass. He rolled down the window all the way and drew the rich scent of the sea into his lungs.

“How much does Estevan know about the Domna?” Bourne asked. He remembered Essai telling him that if Estevan couldn’t tell him what the Domna’s new plan was he would surely know someone who could.

Rosie shifted in her seat. “The fact that he had to be coerced into working for them should tell you all you need to know.”

“He was a cog in a wheel.”

“Everyone except the directors is a cog. It’s safer that way; compartmentalization provides complete security. In Estevan’s case, he provided an invaluable service.”

“Which was?”

“Oil rigs are under constant stress, parts wear out, clog, snap. New parts are always on order, the older ones being shipped back to the various manufacturers, you get the idea.”

Bourne did. “What was Estevan smuggling in and out of Colombia for them?”

Rosie shrugged. “Drugs, weapons—for all I know, human beings. Honestly, it could have been anything.”

“Estevan never told you?”

“He never knew. The sealed crates came and went. They were marked in a certain way. He was prohibited from opening them. He was simply the conduit.”

“Curiosity is part of the human condition,” Bourne said. “He never peeked?”

“They were sealed in a specific fashion. Anyway, if he found a way in, he never spoke about it.”

“Would he keep something like that from you?”

“As you have seen for yourself, Estevan is extremely protective of me. He would die rather than expose me to danger.”

When is a response not an answer? Bourne thought. When Rosie provides it.

They had entered the streets of old Cadiz, ablaze with light and sharp shadows. The filigreed architecture of North Africa was all around them. It was as if they had immigrated into another world, one suspended on the ocean, balanced between East and West, part of both, belonging to neither.

The light of day looked fatigued; the sharp odor of a storm was in the air. Night was already beginning to gather.

They drove on, down crooked streets, hearing the calls of street vendors in Spanish and Arabic, inhaling the incense of history.

Where did you learn to pilot a boat?” Marlon Etana said as he sat on the sailboat’s bench.

“I’m full of surprises,” Essai said. “Even to a man like you.”

“A man like me sent to kill a man like you.”

Essai laughed. “The best-laid plans.”

After meeting up at the café early in the morning, the two men had shared a coffee. They talked about home, about nothing at all. Then they went for a long walk, but even then nothing of consequence passed between them. This was how they wanted it, how it had to be. Theirs was a relationship so buried in conspiracy, deceit, and deepest cover they often had difficulty communicating simply as human beings.

Essai had reserved a sailboat at the rental dock, and they had set sail just after lunchtime, when the world of Cadiz was still drowsing in siesta. All the other boats had pushed off just after dawn, so they wouldn’t return until late afternoon. No one saw them; no one but the rental agent was around, and his sole interest was in the euros that crossed his greedy palm.

The day was clear, just some high clouds passing, the sun beating down, flattening the water to beaten brass. Still, the wind was up, and Essai maneuvered the small sailboat expertly, effortlessly, as if he had been born on the water. The edge of Cadiz slipped away, a Saracen’s massive scimitar, its hilt encrusted with jewels winking in the sunlight.

It wasn’t until the sun lowered, the western sky turning into a palette full of gaudy colors, that they got around to talking.

“El-Arian still thinks you hate me, yes?” Essai said.

“More than ever, I think.” Etana’s skull was gilded, but his thick beard extinguished the light. “I wanted to go after Bourne, but Benjamin assigned me to you.”

“The wily bastard recruited Viktor Cherkesov. Cherkesov has Boris Karpov in his back pocket; he’s the only one who does.”

From his seat in the cockpit, Etana stared down into the water, cobalt with streaks of orange interspersed with an inky black. “I don’t think that’s the only reason he recruited Cherkesov.”

Essai turned from checking the wind, one hand on the wheel. “Oh?”

Etana pulled into himself, elbows on stringy, muscular thighs. “Cherkesov’s first assignment wasn’t meeting with Karpov. El-Arian sent him to the Mosque.”

Essai felt a chill run through him. The light was wavering before his eyes, turning from gold to blue-black. “The Mosque in Munich?”

“The very same.”

“But why?”

Etana sighed. “I’d have to be a sorcerer to know that.”

“He sent a Russian ex–FSB director to the Mosque?” Essai shook his head. “El-Arian must be mad.”

Etana raised his eyes to Essai’s. “We need to come up with a better explanation, and quickly.”

“What about the plan?” Essai didn’t want to think about the Mosque. The Mosque and the people who now ran it were the reason for the hatred burning inside him.

“El-Arian briefed the directors before I left Paris, but of course I wasn’t part of the meeting. No one has said a word.”

“I wouldn’t expect them to.”

The wind changed and the sails were beginning to luff, rippling like a flag. Essai rose briefly, made an adjustment, then returned to the cockpit and tacked starboard.

“Careful,” he said.

With a crack of the sail, the boom swung past them.

Essai kept the boat close-hauled, the quartering wind pushing out the sails like a fat man’s cheek. They skimmed through the water, roughly paralleling the shore.

Etana steepled his brown fingers, long as a pianist’s. “I admit you were right, Jalal. There’s no doubt the Mosque’s influence over the Domna is increasing every day.”

“This is Abdul-Qahhar’s doing,” Essai said bitterly. “Servant of the Subduer, indeed!”

“But how did El-Arian come under their control?”

Essai kept the boat steady on its course. “One has to go back decades, to a man named Norén, a deep-cover operative who infiltrated the Domna. Now and again, the Domna required a bit of wet work, and they used Norén. He was a ghost—a reliable ghost—which is the most important thing. But all the while he was on assignments for the Domna he was compiling lists of names, dates, facts, and figures.”

“To use against the Domna.”

“They were used. We lost twenty-one operatives in the span of three weeks.”

“But who was he working for?”

“No one knows, though many people within the Domna

and under its control tried to find out.” Essai squinted off to the west, where thunderheads were building. The wind grew gusty, the water choppy, and he turned the wheel, heading for shore. “Norén was killed.”

“What happened?”

“He was overmatched on one of his assignments.”

Etana grunted. “Who was the target?”

Essai maneuvered the boat so that it was running before the wind, the hull cleaving the water, spray slapping them in the face with each wave crest.

“A man named Alexander Conklin shot him dead.” Essai gave his companion a glance. “Heard of him?”

Etana shook his head.

Essai kept one eye on the roiling thunderheads. “Conklin was the head of Treadstone. In fact, he created it. One of the primary missions of Treadstone was to take down the Domna hierarchy. That’s why Conklin became a target.”

“And after Norén?”

“The whole idea of terminating Conklin was deemed too risky,” Essai said. They were nearing the shore now, the gusty wind pushing them fast, so that he had to begin a long tack in order to slow them.

“Here, take the wheel and hold it steady.”

With Etana’s hands on the wheel, Essai stepped out of the cockpit, went forward, and reefed the jib in order to cut their speed even more. He could feel the storm’s damp slap on his face, though it hadn’t yet broken.

When he returned to the cockpit, he retook the wheel.

“Conklin and Treadstone scared the Domna,” he said. “That was when El-Arian reached out to Abdul-Qahhar.”

“Without getting the other directors’ prior consent?”

“Just like El-Arian. I have a strong suspicion that he and Abdul-Qahhar had a prior relationship when they were young men—though I haven’t been able to substantiate it yet.”

“That would make sense.”

“But what is clear is that Treadstone’s assault was the excuse El-Arian needed to forge an alliance between the Domna and the Mosque.” Essai shook his head. “That kind of Arab influence goes against the Domna’s charter of East-West cooperation. It was a watershed moment for the Domna; it was when everything changed.”