The Bourne Initiative (Jason Bourne 14)

“After you,” Hornden said when they reached the foot of the stairs.

No more “Marsh,” Fulmer noted. For some reason, this gave him a sense of foreboding.

Stepping into the interior, he saw that it had been retrofitted, seats pulled out, replaced with lounges, desks, flatbed seats, and the like. There seemed to be only one person on the plane; where the crew was he had no idea. The man was slim, tall, saturnine, dark-eyed. Fulmer had seen enough bespoke Saville Row suits and John Lobb shoes to recognize them on the figure who came around from behind a desk and strode toward him with his hand extended.

“Mr. Marshall Fulmer, I have wanted to speak with you for some time, ever since you were a senior senator, in fact.” He spoke with a decided Russian accent. “But to be perfectly frank, this meeting was some while in the making.”

Fulmer’s foreboding ratcheted up to a nauseating level as he took the man’s cool, dry hand. The honey trap? he asked himself.

“And you are?”

“Oh, pardon me.” He gave a little bow from the waist that Fulmer took to be ironic. “Konstantin Ludmirovich Savasin, Federal’naya sluzhba bezopasnosti Rossiyskoy Federatsii.” Translation: Federal Security Service, Russian Federation—the successor to the KGB.

Blood drained from Fulmer’s face. He felt the floor slipping away from him. As bad as it had been before, he knew that his day had just fallen into the abyss. Now that he was confronted with the head of the FSB, he had no idea how deep the abyss went.

Freeing his hand from Konstantin’s grip, he pivoted toward Hornden. “Are you kidding me? You’re a Russian agent?”

The journo grinned. “The fun never stops today, does it, Marsh.”

Fulmer sank into a seat, head in his hands. “Jesus Christ.”

Konstantin gripped his shoulder. “Not to worry, old boy. We won’t be asking too much of you.”

“Jesus Christ,” Fulmer moaned.

“Marshall—may I call you Marshall? Marshall, look at me.” Konstantin sighed in a theatrical manner. “Come, come, stand up and take your medicine like a man.”

Still in shock, Fulmer slapped his thighs and stood up. His eyes were red-rimmed and there was a tic battering one eyelid as he looked Konstantin in the face.

“You work for me now, Marshall.”

Fulmer moaned like a child in pain.

“Please, look on the bright side.”

Fulmer’s brows knit together. “The bright side?”

“Yes, of course. You are national security advisor for a very different kind of president of the United States.”

It was only then that the full import of his situation hit him, and, doubling over, he vomited onto the pile carpet of the aisle.

With a look of distaste, Konstantin stepped back in order to keep his John Lobb shoes pristine. He snapped his fingers. “Mr. Hornden, please be kind enough to inform the crew. Their presence is required immediately to clean up the mess the national security advisor has made.”

“At once,” Hornden said crisply, pulling out his mobile.

“In the meantime.” Konstantin hooked his fingers inside Fulmer’s collar, hauling him to his feet. “There is a front cabin. Let us repair there so that we may get on with the business at hand.”

Fulmer trudged on feet made leaden by terror and shame. He was in the midst of a nightmare, he kept telling himself. At any moment he would awaken in his bed, the morning sun would be shining, the birds calling to one another.

Sadly, but predictably, that never happened. This was a nightmare, but a waking one. And so, without quite knowing how he got there, he found himself sitting opposite the saturnine man in his elegant suit and expensive shoes who just happened to be the head of Russia’s most feared security agency.

On the narrow table between them sat a slim notebook computer, a bottle of vodka, its surface already coated in frost, a bucket of ice, and two old-fashioned glasses. Without a word, Konstantin used a pair of silver tongs to transfer ice cubes from the bucket to the glasses, then poured them each three fingers of vodka. He lifted his glass in toast.

“Nasdarovje.” He cocked his head. “No? To a long and fruitful association. Still, no?” He shrugged. “Well, then, to your health, Marshall.” He clinked the rim of his glass against the one still sitting on the table, for Fulmer had not as yet touched his. He drank, then set his glass down.

“Take a sip, Marshall. This vodka is good—the best. It’ll calm your nerves, I guarantee it.” When Fulmer still made no move to touch the glass, Konstantin said, “As you wish. Now, down to business. What I want from you is simple. Well, we want to start out easy, don’t we? Your orders will get more complicated over time.”

Konstantin went at the vodka again. “You’re to tell the president and your Pentagon comrades that what you call the Bourne Initiative is nothing more than Russian disinformation.”

“But it isn’t.”

“Of course it isn’t, Marshall. Let’s not start being naïve this late in the game.”

Mention of the Initiative served to focus him. Fulmer’s mind was starting to thaw, to come unstuck from the deep freeze into which it had been hurled and held by the day’s back-to-back shitstorms—the video evidence of his dalliance; the knowledge that he had done it with…how could he have had such strong feeling for a madam; losing Bourne; and now this…

“Then…”

“This is the start of what you will do for me, Marshall—disseminate disinformation that will give us a leg up on foreign affairs, on alliances with other nations, with negotiations on currently thorny topics with your government.”

He lifted up a slim briefcase, snapped it open, laid a file with official Russian Federation, FSB, and, most tellingly, spetsnaz stamps on its cover. He laid his hand over the file. “In here are documents—genuine documents—from Unit 309, our cyber hacking and disinformation group, backing up your assertion that there is, in fact, no such thing as the Bourne Initiative under that designation or any other.”

He pushed the file over. Fulmer didn’t even look at it.

“No.”

“No?” Konstantin reared back. “What do you mean ‘no’? Those photos, that video will ruin you personally and professionally.”

Fulmer reached for the glass, tipped it to his lips, then decided against it, set the glass down with the vodka untouched. He needed his mind perfectly clear, not clouded by Russian vodka. Now that he had his wits about him again, his feet on the floor, as it were, he could see a path out of the abyss into which he had been cast. In fact, there was no abyss; it was a figment of the shock that had gripped him.

Pushing the glass away, Fulmer looked up at Konstantin. “No, they won’t. Not in this new era. I give it up to Jesus, and all will be well. Oh, some feathers will be ruffled, mainly my wife’s, but she’ll get over it. As for my new job, just look at the president—he gets away with anything and everything. The American public is different now; it gets its news from social media, it can and will forgive just about anything. Arrogance and repentance in equal measure is a formula they swallow hook, line, and sinker.”

He took up the frosty bottle, refilled Konstantin’s glass while leaving his own glass still untouched. “So come, gospodin, and let us come to—how to put it best?—a more equitable arrangement.”

“Boldly played, Marshall. Were I in your position—naturally, I wouldn’t be—but if I were, I imagine I’d do the same.”

Fulmer looked smug.

Konstantin extracted a manila envelope from his briefcase, slid it across the table.

Fulmer’s brows furrowed. “What’s this?”

“Open it, Marshall.”

Now everything was flipped; Savasin calling Fulmer by his Christian name was grating on him. He hesitated a moment, then snatched the envelope, turned it over, and opened it. Inside, he found a series of eight-by-ten photos. With a trembling hand, he spread them out. A ball of ice formed in the pit of his stomach. He was staring incredulously at a series of photos identic

al to the ones Hornden had shown him on his mobile device. Except for one terrifying difference: in these, he was making love to a young girl. Black as coal, and clearly under age.

“Tell me, Marshall, I assume you’ve heard of kompromat,” Konstantin said in a voice turned silky. “It’s an old KGB trick,” he went on without waiting for an answer. “We used to hire prostitutes—swallows, we called them—to seduce our targets in honey traps. But, as you have so eloquently pointed out, that methodology is old hat; it’s a broken wheel. Times change and so does methodology. We’ve updated kompromat, just as we’ve updated the KGB to the FSB.”

“A devil by any name,” Fulmer managed in a hoarse voice.

Konstantin laughed. His fingertip tapped the photos, one after the other. “Be it ever so humble, Marshall. This is your new home. And I—I am your new master. Your control, in the jargon of espiocrats.”

He continued to tap the photos. “Would you care to take these with you, Marshall? A clear and present reminder of your adjusted situation. No? All right then.” He gathered the photos up, slid them back into the envelope, which he deposited in his briefcase.

“Now, I told you that we had updated kompromat. I’ve just shown you one way. Here’s another. You are very important to our plans, long term as well as short term. We required an unbreakable lock for you, and Alyosha Orlova provided it.”

“What? Who?”

“You know her as Françoise Sevigne.” A slow smile spread across Konstantin’s face. “You’ve received some very bad advice lately, Marshall.” Opening the laptop, Konstantin brought it out of sleep, pressed several keys, then swiveled it around so Fulmer could see the screen. “Very bad, indeed.”

Fulmer was looking at the web site of Fellingham, Bodeys, the company to which Françoise had suggested he move his business. Which he had done forthwith.

He shrugged. “So?”

“So, this.” Reaching around, Konstantin pressed a key that brought up a list of Fellingham, Bodeys’ clients. Among them were the worst of the worst: Robert Mugabe; Viktor Bout, the former world’s number one arms trader, now in jail; three heads of the most powerful Mexican and Colombian drug cartels; two ISIS commanders; the Somalian Keyre, who took over after Bout was caught. The list of malefactors, criminals, and terrorists, though short, was as bitter and hard to take as a spoonful of castor oil. “These are very bad people, evil people that your money is keeping company with. Who knows what deals Fellingham, Bodeys is devising for their clients—you included, Marshall. And if you don’t comply, we’ll send this list and the details of your ill-gotten gains to Justin Farreng and LeakAGE. We’ll do to you what you did to General MacQuerrie, and you know what happened to him.”

Fulmer stared at the screen, transfixed by the ramifications of the ingenious trap the Russians had devised for him. The realization suddenly swept through him that the honey trap was merely a way to gain his attention while the real trap closed around him. Good God, Françoise was a Russian spy. Through his disgust and humiliation he felt a vague sense of admiration that they had found him deserving of such meticulous attention and planning.

Konstantin, who seemed to be following Fulmer’s thought process via his changing expressions, now said: “You will take the Unit 309 file and run with it, Marshall, convincing the administration to forget all about the Bourne Initiative, giving us time to find out just what the hell that sonuvabitch General Karpov had in mind.”

“Why?”

Konstantin’s voice was hard as iron. “Because I told you to.” Then his tone softened a bit. “But just this once, since you’re new to the game, I’ll tell you. You’re going to help us discredit and destabilize elements within your government and clandestine agencies.”

Fulmer went bone-white, as if his flesh had melted away, leaving only his skull. “I can’t—I won’t do that.”

“Oh, you most certainly will.” Konstantin smiled with his teeth. “You see, Marshall, you are completely compromised. You have no choice. No choice at all.” He raised his eyebrows. “Don’t look so downcast, Marshall. We know you harbor great ambitions. Am I on target? Bull’s-eye, I’d say. We can and will help you with that, Marshall. In four years you want to run for president. Capital idea, say I! We can imagine nothing better for you. We’re patient, you see, very patient. We can wait while you consolidate your power base—with our help, of course. And once you win the nomination, if you continue to play by our rules, we’ll win you the election. Triumphant, you will be swept into office like a conquering Caesar. What joy, no?”

He drank more vodka. “In the meantime, there’s another service you will do me. And this one is as urgent as the first. Perhaps more so. What I want from you are the Treadstone files on Jason Bourne.”

At Bourne’s name, Fulmer shook his head. “Impossible. All the Treadstone files were incinerated, as dictated by protocol.”

Konstantin sighed. “Marshall, the files weren’t destroyed. You know it and I know it. They were ferreted away from prying eyes.” He took another sip of the chilled vodka. “You don’t know what you’re missing.” He shrugged again. “Ah, well. Onward. Find the files, copy them, and send them to me via Mr. Hornden.” He leaned forward, tapped Fulmer on the knee. “All the files. I want to know everything there is to know about Bourne’s training, what he was subjected to, how well he stood up under interrogation techniques.”

Fulmer shook his head. “Why?”

“Because when I know what he resisted, I’ll be able to find that one, single method that will break him.”

Finally, Fulmer had something to laugh at.

Konstantin cocked his head. “You find this funny?”

“I do.” Fulmer could not stop laughing. He seemed to have lost all control of his emotions, just as he had lost control of his life, which was now in the hands of the enemy. “Do you know how many years it’s been we’ve been trying to catch that bastard, only to have him slip through our fingers time and time again?”

“Just today, as well. So?”

“So what good will the files do you when he can’t be caught?”

Konstantin finished off his vodka. “Oh, he can be caught, Marshall, I assure you.”

Fulmer shot him a sideways glance; the fog that was blurring his brain anew began to lift once more. “Really?”

“There were three partners in the cyber Initiative. Two of them are dead. The one who is left is named Dima. Dima Vladimirovich Orlov. It just so happens that I have a mole inside Dima’s organization. I know that’s where Bourne must be headed. To Dima. To find out about the Initiative set up by his friend, that sonuvabitch Karpov.”

Konstantin stood. “And when he arrives, you will have already handed over the Treadstone files. I will know how to deal with Jason Bourne, and I will accomplish what has eluded everyone else who has tried and failed to find and trap him.”

“Why do you want Bourne, anyway? What’s he to you?”

Konstantin peered down at Fulmer as if from Olympian heights. “Just get me the files, Marshall, and all will be well with you, your reputation, and your illegally amassed fortune.”

34

Can I help you, sir? Is there something wrong?” The flight attendant, well trained to keep any negative emotion off her face, smiled her plastic smile. “Something I can do for you, sir?” She pointed. “This toilet is free, if you—”

Bourne robed himself in his blandest smile. Move along. Nothing to see here. “It’s all good, thank you. My wife’s a bit indisposed. She needs a bit of help. I know exactly what to do.”

“Are you sure, sir? We have—”

“Absolutely sure.” His smile brightened. “Happens from time to time.” He shrugged. “What can you do.”

She nodded, then turned away, returning to the galley area where she and the other first class attendants were chatting, their rest period having begun.

“Mala…” Bourne jammed his fingertips around the edge of the door, hauled it open.

“Get in here,” sh

e said.

He stepped in, closed the door behind him. Then he took the shard of glass out of her hand—she hadn’t yet punctured herself—and dropped it back into the sink.

“What d’you think you’re doing?”

She stared at him, her eyes large and questing. “My mother called me Anjelica. I always hated that name—Mala. It was the name my father insisted on, my official name. My mother called me Anjelica,” she repeated, more softly now, her voice barely above a whisper. “In secret, when we were alone together. Before, when I was born, she tried to argue with my father, but he beat her for that, too.”

He beat her for that, too. There was no point in asking her to elaborate; that sentence said it all.

“Mala—”

“No, don’t.” She crossed her arms under her breasts. “You have no idea how much I despise myself.” She held up a hand to forestall any comment. “Listen to me now.” She was trembling slightly, her eyes enlarged with incipient tears. “I have no daughter. Giza doesn’t exist. As with all his girls, Keyre was sure to keep me from getting pregnant; the process would spoil our appearance, we would be less than perfect, and that would necessitate us being thrown in the trash, like a piece of rotten meat.”

She took a deep, shuddering breath, let it out. “The child—Giza—was his idea. He said I should use the imprisoned daughter card if you started to doubt me. It would, he said, bind you to me in a new and different way.”

She produced a rueful smile, tentative and, if he could believe anything about her anymore, frightened. “So, you see, my father was right. I’ve earned my name—a malediction, a curse.”

For a time, Bourne said nothing. Then he gestured at the sink. “Was this fake as well?”

“I…I don’t know. Maybe…maybe if you hadn’t broken in I would have. What is left of me? I no longer have substance. I no longer have the ability to make choices. And now…now I wonder whether I ever had it.”