The Bourne Initiative (Jason Bourne 14)

“Okay, let’s have a talk,” Bourne said through the cotton of his swollen lips. “There’s no reason to kill your brother.”

“Oh, there are any number of reasons, Bourne, but at the moment I have no time to enumerate them. The auction is almost upon us.” He removed the gun from the side of his brother’s head. “Go ahead. Tell me what Karpov left you regarding the workings of the cyber weapon.”

Of course, Bourne had nothing. He was playing for time in order to keep Timur alive. He was about to open his mouth, to tell Konstantin some nonsense that, knowing Boris’s MO as well as he did would make some sense, when the sound of a gunshot hammered them from the other side of the door.

Konstantin started. “Go see what the fuck is happening out there,” he told Vlad.

But before Vlad could get to the door, two more shots exploded. Then nothing. No one inside the room moved. The harsh noise of their breathing was the only sound. Then, a knock on the door, not urgent but relaxed, as if a neighbor had come to ask for a cup of sugar.

Konstantin gestured silently for Vlad to see who it was. Obediently, Vlad put his eye to the peephole, only to be hurled backward by the bullet that, having shattered the glass of the peephole, penetrated his eye and lodged itself in his brain. As he slammed against the rear wall, Timur took advantage of the shock to wrestle the handgun out of his brother’s hand. Konstantin punched him full in the face, and he staggered back. With a snarl of fury Konstantin launched himself after him, grabbing his gun hand, lifting it above their heads.

A fifth gunshot shattered the door’s lock, and the Angelmaker stepped inside the room.

“Jesus Christ,” she said, seeing Bourne, “what the hell did they do to you?”

Bourne gave her a lopsided grin. “Not enough.” He gestured with his head at the two antagonists. Konstantin and Timur were locked in a death grip, neither one giving any quarter.

“Now that’s what I call sibling rivalry.”

“Get me out of here,” he said.

“In a minute.” The Angelmaker appeared fascinated by the two brothers locking horns.

“They’ll kill each other,” Bourne said.

“That’s what I’m counting on.”

“Mala. Cut me loose.”

“You’ll stop them.”

“I will.”

“They’re like a pair of Siamese fighting fish.”

“Mala!”

She shrugged and, with a knife, cut through his bonds front and back.

Konstantin drove his fist into his brother’s solar plexus, doubling him over, and tried to wrest the gun from Timur. Bourne raised himself off the chair, got halfway to where the brothers were struggling, went down on one knee. He waved the Angelmaker back, rose of his own accord, closed with the two brothers. He wrenched the gun out of their shared grip. Reversing it, he smashed the butt into Konstantin’s face, shattering cheekbone and eye socket. Konstantin moaned, sank to his knees. Bourne dropped him with a massive blow to his right ear. He lay unmoving.

“Christ, that was close,” Timur said, the relief clear on his face. Then, as Bourne grabbed his arms, “Wait, what are you doing?”

Bourne pushed him into the chair he had occupied.

“Now that’s better.” Grinning, the Angelmaker bound his wrists and ankles.

“What is this?” Timur said. “I led you here, I gave you my trust, now you tie me up?”

“I’ve no intention of letting you get your hands on the Initiative,” Bourne told him.

“I’ll kill you for this!” he shouted. “Both of you!”

Bourne turned the gun on him. “Think hard, First Minister. Do you really want to threaten us?”

“He did kill your brother,” the Angelmaker pointed out.

“Now your path is clear,” Bourne said. “I suggest you make the most of it.” Before Timur could reply, he stuffed the rubber bung into his mouth.

“Someone’s sure to come by,” Bourne said.

“Sooner or later,” the Angelmaker added. “And if not?” She shrugged.

As they crossed the room, Bourne swept up the folder that contained his Treadstone file, slid it inside his shirt.

“What was that?” the Angelmaker asked.

Bourne had questions of his own. “What about Dima and Ekaterina?”

“What about them,” she said tersely.

“Dead or alive?”

“Do you really care?”

“Ekaterina told me she was running the auction.”

“That’s what she said, on the point of death,” the Angelmaker said with distaste. “It was a surprise. My money was on Dima. She told me that he was the one who made contact with Konstantin.”

Bourne reacted. “Then who has the Initiative?”

“Ekaterina wouldn’t have kept it here,” the Angelmaker said. “Too insecure.”

“That leaves Keyre.”

“It always comes back to him, doesn’t it?”

Bourne stood at the open doorway. He was never so happy to get out of anywhere. At that moment, the Angelmaker turned back to the curled body of Konstantin Savasin. She leaned over. “You dead yet? Well, just to make sure…” Flexing her right knee, she stamped down hard on his neck.

The sound of vertebrae cracking was not a pleasant one. Except, possibly, to her.

44

Somalia. The Horn of Africa. A gleaming citadel on the oceanic edge of a poverty-stricken, burnt-out landscape. Before, there had been nothing but fishermen and the maimed remnants of constant war, until hunters of another sort, led by the Yibir magus, Keyre, arrived. Pitching their tents, they set about creating a port, first of all, and then the warehouses to house the bounty brought in by Mexican and Colombian cartel drug money. Then the warlords of African and Mideast nations got wind and wanted to join the party. After them traipsed the Russian grupperovka, oligarchs, and elite Kremlin siloviki, the Eastern European mafiosi, the deeply corrupt politicos and greedy merchant bankers from Western Europe and, last and best of all, all manner of quick-buck merchants, including a smattering of crafty espiocrats from the United States. And like everything the United States stuck its snout into, the sky then became the limit—for Keyre and everyone else enjoying the fruits of his illegitimate labors. Now there was peace. Keyre’s peace. Now there was prosperity. Keyre’s prosperity. Now the war was exported all over the world. The killing, carpet-bombing, gassing continued, only not here in Keyre’s haven.

Bourne and the Angelmaker arrived very early in the morning. Bourne had slept the whole way. Under the names Arnold and Mary Winstead, the fictitious couple whose passports Deron had had made for them before leaving D.C., they had taken a commercial flight from Moscow to Istanbul. Before leaving Russia, Bourne had phoned Abdul Aziz, a longtime friend and importer-exporter with connections all over the Middle East and Africa.

Zizzy, as he was known to his friends and family, was more than happy to accommodate Bourne’s requests. In Istanbul, they had transferred to the private airstrip reserved for VIPs and visiting dignitaries, where Zizzy had one of his company’s jets standing by, along with a doctor and nurse to treat Bourne. When he heard that Bourne was injured, it was all Bourne could do to keep Zizzy from getting on the plane himself. But he did meet his friend and female companion at the private airstrip to see for himself that his friend wasn’t on death’s door. “Because,” he said, his usually sunny face an aggrieved mask, “then, my friend, I would have no choice but to take you straightaway to my home where both the doctor and my wife would nurse you back to health.”

By the time Zizzy’s plane touched down in Somalia, Bourne had been treated, filled with fluids of various sorts, shot full of antibiotics, and, with a shot of morphine, sent off to slumberland while doctor and nurse worked to patch him up.

A salmon-pink slash heralded the rising of the sun. Having danced across the Arabian Sea from the southern tip of Kerala Province in India, a warm onshore breeze ruffled their hair. Apart from a low bank to the west, the sky was almos

t cloudless. The sun was going to be merciless.

A jeep, battered and dusty but with a full tank of gas, was waiting for them, courtesy of one of Zizzy’s trading partners in Mogadishu. It took them just over an hour to reach the area. That left no more than two hours to get to Keyre and somehow stop the Bourne Initiative’s zero-day trigger from self-actualizing.

The perimeter of the citadel had expanded even since the last time they had been here. Cranes and earthmoving machinery were hard at work among the pyramids of sunbaked bricks, sandstone, sacks of dry concrete, and various tile roofing materials.

They were stopped at the main gates. As the Angelmaker negotiated with the guards, Bourne caught a glimmer in the corner of his eye, a quick shard of light from the rising sun glancing off a metallic or glass surface. He might have thought nothing of it, but it was out past the perimeter of the cyclone fencing and the Uzi-toting guards who patrolled ceaselessly, day and night. He might have mentioned this to the Angelmaker, but he didn’t. Instead, as they passed through the perimeter into the citadel itself, he said, “Keyre has done nothing but lie to me. He told me that the Maslovs were the ones he was doing business with.”

“They are.”

“But he also told me that Gora and Alyosha sent the thirteen men to infiltrate this village. In fact, it was Konstantin Savasin who sent the men. It was Konstantin he was at war with.”

“Who told you that?”

“Ekaterina Orlova.”

“And you believe her?”

“She had no reason to lie.”

“And Keyre does.”

“It’s a way of life with him.”

They passed supply depots with doors open as men on forklifts filled them with barrels of oil and other liquids used in construction and demolition. They passed immense generators housed in concrete structures, open-topped for venting, food halls, barracks, even a parade ground of earth pounded flat, with a flag flying from a forty-foot pole in the center and, where in more peaceful settings decorative fountains might be, four anti-aircraft weapons at the corners. Keyre’s quarters were, of course, in the center of the compound.

To her credit, the Angelmaker made no attempt at refutation, so Bourne continued. “Keyre also lied about not knowing anything about the Bourne Initiative. He knows almost everything about it, since he’s running the auction.”

“Again Ekaterina.”

“Yes.”

“She was quite the chatty Kathy with you, wasn’t she?”

Bourne gave her a grim smile. “She was trying to recruit me.”

“She was the easy way.”

He nodded. “And Konstantin was the hard way.”

“You survived both.”

“With your help.”

“Then bravo to both of us.” She turned off the ignition. “I don’t think Keyre was lying to you about one thing: he doesn’t know how real this thing he’s about to auction off is. If it’s the real deal or a bust.”

“He’d run an auction without knowing the real value of the item?”

The Angelmaker barked a short, unpleasant laugh. “For the right amount of money Keyre would sell anything to anyone.”

They arrived at the center of the citadel: a two-story building larger than any of the other residential structures, even though its sole occupant was Keyre. He required a good bit of room—for his offices, his library, his study, and, of course, the laboratory—the place, originally in a humble tent, where he had worked on Mala and would have on Liis if Bourne hadn’t violently intervened.

Bourne was concentrated on the coming confrontation with Keyre and, to some extent, on the enigmatic woman about to get out from behind the jeep’s steering wheel. But at the back of his mind hovered the sun-bright glimmer out beyond the citadel’s perimeter.

Inside, Keyre stood, arms folded across his chest, in a large, round room Bourne had not seen before, so modern Bourne couldn’t believe it existed in the bleak, war-scarred countryside of Somalia. Clad in pure white marble, it must have cost a fortune to build. A high, domed ceiled was pierced by an oculus through which sunlight moved during the course of the day. The room was centrally located. There were four doors, mirroring the placement of the four anti-aircraft guns around the parade ground. Through one open door, Bourne could see a table that looked suspiciously like the one he had seen in the tent where Keyre had worked on Mala years ago. Another, a solid mahogany door slightly ajar, led to a vast bedroom suite. The third was fully open, revealing a modern kitchen of white tile and stainless-steel appliances, gleaming beneath overhead lights. The fourth door was closed. It was made of metal, like that of a bank vault. Arrayed around the walls were flat-panel screens, showing various points around the perimeter of the compound. Below them were banks of terminals.

Keyre welcomed them like conquering heroes. Naturally, he was overjoyed when Bourne told him the good news. “So it’s for real!” He rubbed his hands together. “And even better, some of the Russian participants are out of the picture. I haven’t heard from either Gora or Alyosha.”

“You won’t be hearing from Ekaterina, either.” Bourne turned to the Angelmaker. “But then I’m thinking you already know this.”

“Yes,” Keyre acknowledged. “The Angelmaker told me that Ekaterina and her father are out of the picture completely.”

Bourne returned his attention to Keyre. “She shot them dead. Which, I’m assuming, was why you insisted she come along with me. You knew the path you set me on would lead to Ekaterina and Dima.”

Keyre raised a forefinger. “Knew, no. But I suspected as much. For some time now, my lines of communication with the Russians have been somewhat, how shall I put it, sketchy.”

“Which was why you needed me. You knew my close knowledge of Moscow and its people in certain circles.”

“Like Karpov.”

“Like Karpov,” Bourne acknowledged. “But I was right about Boris. He himself would never have conceived of such a cyber weapon as you described to me. It was meant instead to enrich him and his two partners. But after his death the Initiative was hijacked, its purpose redirected.” Bourne stared at Keyre. “Who could have done that, do you imagine?”

“If I’m to be honest, Bourne, I thought it was Konstantin.”

“The Russian silovik who ordered thirteen Somalis turned by spetsnaz to steal it from you?” Bourne shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

Keyre cocked his head and, without missing a beat, said, “Did you ask him?”

“I was too busy killing him.” Bourne flexed his hands at his sides. “So, let’s count the people who didn’t hijack the Initiative: Konstantin, his brother Timur, Dima Orlov, Ekaterina Orlova. I knew Gora Maslov—”

“I’d heard he was shot to death by one of his whores.”

“Gora was too stupid to think of it,” Bourne went on. “And as for Alyosha, she’s dead, too.”

Keyre raised his eyebrows. “Really? Now that is a surprise.”

Bourne refused to be sidetracked. “So that leaves who exactly, Keyre? You. Only you. You hijacked the Initiative. You’ve had it all the time. You just wanted me—and Mala—to avenge the insult the Russians—particularly Konstantin—visited on you.”

Keyre blew a contemplative puff of breath between his lips. “A fanciful tale, Bourne.” He gestured with the flat of his hand. “But just for the fun of it, let’s assume everything you’ve told me is true. What now?” His eyes sparked. “Will you attempt to wrest the Initiative away from me? Will you try to stop the auction?” He was almost laughing.

“You’re hoping for that,” Bourne said.

Keyre nodded. “Indeed I am.”

“Actually, those aren’t the first things on my mind,” Bourne said. “The Initiative has a zero-day trigger.”

Keyre’s eyes narrowed. His smile was gone now. “What do you mean?”

“Remember Morgana Roy, the cybersecurity expert you mentioned who worked for General MacQuerrie? When she told me that there’s a trigger built into the Ini

tiative’s root code it got me to thinking. Why would Boris want such a thing? I mean, if he was going to sell it—which I know he wasn’t—or if he was going to use it as a cyber weapon—which I know he wasn’t—a zero-day trigger would make no sense. In either case, it wouldn’t be needed. In fact, it would become a detriment. An unnecessary race against time. But if he had it designed to take down the cyber-infrastructure of international banks, a zero-day trigger is logical. Boris must have known that the banks initiate a certain number of the largest international transfers in bulk at a certain time each week. That’s when the theft on an unimaginable scale would take place.”

“So that’s what it was created for. Thievery.” Keyre laughed. “That Karpov. I’ve got to hand it to him. Brilliant man. But, you know, so am I. Yes, I hijacked the Initiative. And I also redesigned it. It wasn’t too difficult if, as I did, you had the entire coding. So. First, I set up the auction idea. But then the Sovereign contacted me. He wanted the Initiative because he had something big cooking. Something very big indeed. He offered me money, lots and lots of money. But he also offered me something even more valuable than money. Can you guess?” Keyre’s eyes danced merrily. “He offered me and my shipments safe passage in the ports beyond even my reach.” He shrugged. “It was an offer I couldn’t refuse, especially when he added that he wanted me to rid him of”—Keyre snapped his fingers—“what word did he use? Oh, yes. He wanted me to rid him of several ‘unstable’ individuals. You see, your friend Karpov’s betrayal of him hit home. The Sovereign no longer trusted anyone around him. He wanted them gone.”