38
The product is solid.” El Ghadan handed over the second half of the money.
“I’ve got a second bit of intel,” Sara said.
“Well, aren’t you the wonder.”
She held out a small manila envelope. “This will cost you double.”
“Is it worth double?” But he was looking at the envelope, not her.
“It’s a map of Israeli missile deployments at the Syrian border.”
“Done.” He took the envelope, opened it, and scanned the intel before looking back up at her. “Now, how would you like to make even more?”
“How much more?”
“Leave this pittance in the dust.”
“That depends.” She looked at him steadily. “What do I have to do?”
He laughed. “Take a ride.”
They were strolling along Doha’s Corniche. She had quickly come to realize that this crescent was among his favorite places to talk. Out in the open and on the move, closely observed by his own team, he had nothing to fear from electronic ears. Besides, he was dressed in a summer-weight Dior suit, a Lanvin tie, and a Charvet shirt. Cuff links of gold knots gleamed at his cuffs. He was a walking advertisement for Western consumerism. Sara, as he had requested, was in Western clothes as well: a blue-green leaf-patterned dress with a wide belt, sensible flats that looked like ballet slippers.
The late morning was typically hot, the sunlight fierce, almost blinding. It winked off the windows and facets of the high-rises up ahead. At this hour, they were virtually alone on the Corniche, both tourists and locals preferring the shade and air-conditioning of the city’s cafés or malls.
“Where might this ride take me?” Sara asked.
Instead of answering her directly, he said, “You know, Ellie, I must admit to not liking Doha. It has embraced Western culture too fervidly.”
“And yet you spend time here.”
He shrugged. “Qatar is convenient. Also, the government is, shall we say, sympathetic to my cause.”
“Which is either ideological or mercenary,” Sara said. “I can’t make out which.”
He laughed. “I am rarely given such an astute compliment, especially from a woman.”
“I must have something between my legs other than a cunt.”
He stopped abruptly and turned to her. “Why must you be so crude?”
“It’s the only way to get your attention, to get you to understand that I will not be spoken to in that condescending manner.”
“Every other woman—”
“Every woman needs to speak up for herself,” Sara said flatly.
He watched her with his dark, predatory eyes. “Do you speak out of ideology or sanctimony?”
Sara’s eyes blazed. She no longer cared whether the ice under her feet was becoming too thin to support her. “If you think me disingenuous why are you wasting both our time?”
There was a long silence. She heard the waves slapping against the concrete bulkheads, gulls crying overhead. She thought of Hassim and Khalifa, whose bones by now surely had been picked clean by the sea life. She thought of how close she had come to death, and mentally embraced her gold Star of David, symbol of everything she loved—her family, her friends, her country, Jason.
“Do you know where Street Fifty-Two is?” El Ghadan asked.
“That’s in the Industrial Area, yes?”
He nodded. “First thing tomorrow.”
“And what am I supposed to do at Street Fifty-Two?”
“Be my emissary,” El Ghadan said.
She shook her head. “I don’t understand.”
His smile was cool and calculating, as befitting someone with the upper hand. “All will be made clear to you after you arrive.”
* * *
The fissure opened up before them, like a doorway into Aladdin’s world. They pressed themselves against the sheer rock walls and started their steep ascent. They did not have far to go. Bourne broke out of the cave first and stopped dead, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the sunlight. He allowed Aashir to come up beside him so he too could acclimate himself.
Bourne quartered the terrain. It wasn’t long before he whispered, “Look off to our right. The high tor.”
Aashir followed his direction.
“It’s an owl’s nest,” Bourne said. “A watchtower.”
It had a perfect view along the valley that led to Waziristan.
“That’s how they spotted us.”
“Two owls,” Bourne said. “Perfect targets for the long gun.”
Aashir unslung his AWM. Bourne put a hand on his forearm.
“Please,” Aashir said.
“Two targets, Aashir. Not one.”
“I know I can do this.”
Bourne nodded, but unslung his own AWM.
Aashir moved a bit to his left, set the barrel of the AWM on an outcropping. He settled his right eye against the rubber cup of the rifle’s scope.
“Take the one farther away first,” Bourne said in his ear.
Aashir adjusted the AWM accordingly. “Ready,” he said, and squeezed the trigger.
The report echoed over the mountains. A thousand yards away, the owl farthest from them threw up his hands and toppled over. Immediately, the second owl turned in their direction and began to fire with an assault rifle. Aashir moved the barrel of the AWM incrementally, squeezed off a second shot. He missed, and in missing, panicked. His third shot was wild.
Bourne brought his AWM up, but before he could get off a shot, the second owl launched something from the end of his rifle. It arced toward them.
“Down!” Bourne grabbed Aashir by the back of his robe, letting go of his hold on the rock. They plunged back through the fissure into the cave. Just in time, as the grenade struck the outcropping above and detonated, showering them in a cascade of rock shards.
Aashir, half blinded and coughing, staggered back against the vertical rock. Bourne was already moving upward, returning through the fissure, knowing the Taliban would be coming to make sure the grenade had done its work. His real fear was that the man had radioed his compatriots for reinforcements. Bourne’s only hope was that his first order of business would be to take care of the men who had killed his comrade.
Bourne was halfway up when the rock face on his left sheared away, leaving him dangling by one hand. He reached out across the fissure, taking hold of an outcropping exposed by the rockfall. He tested it with part of his weight, and then continued his ascent. A moment later the handhold gave way and he was left dangling again.
As he struggled to regain his balance, a shadow fell over the top of the fissure. He looked up to see the Taliban soldier squatting at the top. He grinned as he aimed his AK-47 at Bourne. Then a single report careened crazily up the fissure, doubled and redoubled as it rose.
The Taliban’s smile turned into a rictus, black lips drawn back from yellow teeth, eyes opened impossibly wide, giving him the appearance of a rabid animal. Then blood spurted from his chest, his eyes rolled up, and he vanished just as if he had been only a shadow.
Bourne glanced down, saw Aashir with the butt of the AWM jammed against his right shoulder, the long barrel raised, as if in a salute.
He extended a hand to Bourne. “I told you I’d get both,” he said.
39
Sonya was playing with the toys Islam had brought her gradually over the days: a rubber Arabian horse, a simple jigsaw puzzle in the shape of a dog, and a computer tablet on which she could learn prayer words from the Dua Surah Quran when either he or Soraya sounded them out for her.
Perhaps surprisingly, her favorite was the tablet, for then she could engage with Islam, whom she had come to like enormously. The feeling appeared mutual. When he brought their meals, he never failed to play with her, laugh with her, pray with her. Soraya would have liked to say that she hated this interaction, that she felt it a violation. After all, Islam could have been the one who had murdered her husband. That time was still jumbled in her mind, the ter
ror, shock, and anguish obscuring all detail no matter how hard she tried to recreate the event. Of course, part of her did not want to envision it again; anyone in his right mind would understand. And yet, as a trained agent, she was bound and determined to remember it all—every last horrific second.
But on the other hand, Sonya was bringing him closer to them. The repeated evocation of positive emotion was her greatest ally. It ate away at the chains of domination and subjugation that had bound her from the moment she and her family had been abducted. Just as important, it kept Sonya active, engaged, and happy. The child was far too young to dwell on the implications of their continuing incarceration.
Soraya heard Islam’s voice intoning the prayer word Sonya had selected on the tablet. She heard her daughter’s high-pitched voice repeating the word perfectly. And now that she thought about it, there was never a time when Islam had to repeat the word or correct her. That was how Sonya’s mind worked. She had inherited all the best traits of her mother and her father. What frightened Soraya was that when she had grown up she would not remember Aaron, would not recall how gentle and wise he was, how much he loved her. Soraya knew that it was up to her to provide the memories—her and Aaron’s many friends in Paris.
If they ever got back to Paris. But of course they would. Each hour of every day Islam’s compassion for her and love for Sonya strengthened. Soraya knew that the time was drawing near when she could count on him as an ally in her plan to escape.
* * *
“You’re all packed, Mr. President. Your bags are aboard Air Force One.”
POTUS, seated at his desk in the Oval Office, lifted his head from his one hundredth or so reading of his itinerary in Singapore, both before the summit and during it. Who knew there was so much to see in the tiny city-state?
“Howard,” he said, seeing his chief of staff standing in the doorway, “why so formal?”
“I have a surprise for you, Mr. President.”
Anselm stood aside and William Magnus’s two children entered the room. Teddy, his eight-year-old son, in his exuberance, actually burst in, running across the presidential seal on the carpet to throw himself into his father’s arms. Charlie, his sixteen-year-old daughter, was more sedate in her entry, stepping carefully, as if the soles of her chunky shoes would mar the carpet.
“Hullo, Dad,” Charlie muttered. She wore leather pants and a cropped sweater that clung to her no longer childish curves and left bare an inch of flesh at her waist.
“Well,” said a beaming POTUS, in his most presidential tone, “what brings you two rascals to your father’s inner sanctum?”
“God, Dad.” Charlie fairly shuddered.
“I brought them, Bill.”
And in walked Maggie, his wife of twenty-odd years—he could never remember the exact number. She was impeccably dressed, as always, today in a gray Chanel suit and shiny black Louboutin pumps. Her hair was as cropped as Charlie’s sweater.
She strode across the room as if she owned the West Wing, bent from the waist, and pecked him respectfully on the cheek. “They’re always badgering me to see you at work.”
“I’ve never badgered you,” Charlie said in her supercilious way.
Maggie raised one eyebrow. “About anything?”
“About coming here, anyway.” Charlie had the mannerism, annoying to the rest of the family, of emphasizing at least one word in each sentence she uttered, as if she were a character in a comic book.
“Unfortunately,” Anselm interceded, “the president has a full schedule today.”
“When doesn’t he?” Charlie muttered to no one in particular.
“Come on, crew.” Maggie spread her arms. “Onward.”
“You promised us sundaes,” Teddy protested as he slid off his father’s lap and went to the protective wing of his mother.
“And so you shall have,” Maggie said, kissing him on the top of his head. “Come along, Charlene.” She was already moving toward the door.
“In a minute, Mother.” Charlie had come around her father’s desk to stare out the window behind him. “What is it you see out there?”
The president swiveled around in his chair. “Are you asking me or telling me?”
Charlie turned to him. Her smile was as artificial as coffee creamer. “Who can see in?”
“What? No one.” Magnus shifted uneasily in his chair. When had she become a woman? he asked himself. When had she put her precious childhood behind her? “What are you looking at?”
“I’m wondering if your pants are stained.”
POTUS blinked. “I beg your pardon?” Could he have heard his daughter right? What on earth could she mean?
“I’ll make this simpler for you, Dad.” She leaned forward from the waist as his wife had done, but it wasn’t to kiss him respectfully on the cheek. “Are. Your. Pants. Stained.”
Magnus blinked. “Why should they be stained, Charlie?”
“A human stain, Dad.”
The degree of contempt in her voice confused and astonished him. He stared up at her, still not quite getting it. His brain was slowed by shock, as if it were encased in a block of ice.
“But of course—” She threw Anselm such a poisonous look that he immediately scuttled out into the hallway. She turned back to Magnus. “Of course, you have people to take care of that for you.”
Now Magnus was alarmed, but he still didn’t know why. “Dammit, Charlie, start making sense.”
Drawing closer, she whispered in his ear, “I know, Dad.”
Magnus blinked. “Know what?”
“Your affair. And now I wonder if you ever fucked Camilla in here, where you work at making the world a better place.” Seeing his stricken expression, she laughed softly, unpleasantly. “Don’t worry. Even Mom doesn’t know, though who’s to say whether she suspects?”
And then she was gone, skipped out before Howard could intervene, or Magnus himself, reeling as much from her coarseness as from her accusation, could fabricate a chastising denial.
* * *
Instead of taking Aashir’s hand and descending, Bourne went up into the sunlight, disappearing from sight. Shaking his head, Aashir slung his rifle over his shoulder and clambered up after him. There he found Bourne crouched over the second Taliban.
“He’s dead,” Bourne said.
“I made sure of that.” The pride in Aashir’s voice was evident.
“That was a mistake.” Bourne looked up at him. “You should have wounded him. Now we’ll never know whether he contacted a larger group, or whether we already dealt with them. He had important information to give us.”
“I didn’t think…” Aashir hung his head. “I was trying to make up for missing him the first time.”
“This is a lesson you can only learn in the field,” Bourne said. “Remember I told you that?”
Aashir nodded. Then he saw Bourne go completely still. “What is it?” he whispered.
“Third man,” Bourne said. “At your ten o’clock.”
“He’s been lying low.”
“Yes.”
“That’s the way of these people.” Aashir slowly unslung the AWM. “Let me make up for—”
Bourne’s hand clamped to his arm stopped him.
“Wait,” Bourne said. “Wait.”
Before Aashir could say a word, Bourne was off, scuttling to their right, over the rocks, moving in a deliberately noisy fashion. He was making himself a target, Aashir realized. Grasping the AWM, he slithered down, working his way slowly to the left in order to come around behind the third Taliban, whose focus must now be wholly on Bourne.
A shot rang out, and with it, movement up ahead and to Aashir’s right. He saw the enemy then: a flash of black beard and gray turban. He fought down his instinct to shoot to kill, and, observing Bourne’s warning, waited, patient as a spider. Waited until the Taliban showed enough of himself. Then he aimed the AWM, squeezed off a shot that caught the soldier in his right shoulder. The Taliban went down, tried to re-aim his r
ifle at the figure racing toward him. Aashir shot him in nearly the same spot. He went down and stayed down.
Aashir and Bourne reached the fallen Taliban at virtually the same time. The soldier was bleeding profusely. Bourne kicked away his weapon, went quickly and efficiently through his robes, relieving him of a handgun and a knife.
“Now,” Bourne said, squatting beside him, “we talk.”
The Taliban turned his head away, which brought Aashir into his line of vision.
“Where is your cadre?” Bourne said. “How many men?” He jammed the butt of the AWM into the wounded shoulder. The Taliban’s teeth ground together, but he said nothing.
Bourne stood up, signed to Aashir, and went out of the Taliban’s hearing. “We don’t have time for a prolonged interrogation. I want you to turn away.”
Aashir glanced over his shoulder at the wounded soldier. “I want to watch.”
“Believe me, you don’t.”
Bourne returned to where the Taliban lay. The soldier looked up at him with bloodshot eyes, no expression on his face. Then Bourne bent down and, after a minute or so, Aashir did look away. Was it the wind making his eyes tear? When he wiped them clear and turned back, the Taliban was talking.
“My cadre went into the cave.” The soldier licked his lips. “We’re an advance scouting party. That’s all there is.”
Curious now, Aashir came and crouched beside the Taliban.
Bourne ignored Aashir. “Within how many miles?” he said.
“Fifty,” the Taliban said. “Seventy. It’s impossible to say.” Even as he spoke, he took up a rock and, with a cry, drove it into the side of Aashir’s head.
Aashir fell back, bleeding. Stepping over him, Bourne slammed the heel of his boot into the Taliban’s throat, crushing it. The soldier gasped, gagging for air. Then his eyes lost their focus and his chest gave one last heave, then was still.
Aashir’s eyelids were fluttering as he moved in and out of consciousness. Stooping, Bourne gathered him, slung him over his shoulder, and began the process of descending the fissure into the cave, returning to what was left of Borz’s Chechen cadre.