“Got my cycle, so I gots t’sling him across my lap, that okay?”
Bourne nodded. “Treat him with respect, Tyrone, okay? Now take off. And don’t use the front entrance.”
“Never do.”
Bourne laughed. “I’ll see you on the other side.”
Tyrone looked at him. “The otha side a what?”
Forty
DRIVING INTO Virginia, Karim called Abd al-Malik at the mortuary.
“I need three men at the Sistain Labs location at once.”
“That will leave us with no one to spare.”
“Do it,” Karim said shortly.
“One moment, sir.” After a slight pause, “They’re on their way.”
“Is the DCI’s body prepared?”
“Forty minutes, possibly a bit more, sir. This isn’t your normal embalming job.”
“How does he look? That’s what’s most important.”
“Indeed, sir. His cheeks are rosy.” Abd al-Malik made a pleased sound in the back of his throat. “Believe me, security will be convinced he’s still alive.”
“Good. As soon as you’re finished, get him into the limo. The timetable has been accelerated. Fadi wants the CI building taken out as soon as humanly possible. Call me when you’re in position.”
“It will be done,” Abd al-Malik said.
Karim knew it would. Abd al-Malik, the most accomplished member of his sleeper cell in the district, and its leader, had never failed him.
Traffic was light. It took him thirty-eight minutes to arrive at the main entrance, on the western side of the Sistain Labs property. The place was deserted. He’d had to restrain himself twice on the drive down here—once when a kid in what the Americans called a muscle car cut him off; again when a trucker had come up behind him, sounding his air horn. Both times, he’d pulled out his Glock, was ready to pull the trigger, when he’d caught himself.
It was Bourne, not these poor fools, he wanted to kill. His rage—the Desert Wind he’d inherited from his grandfather—was running high, giving him hair-trigger responses to stimuli. But this wasn’t the desert; he wasn’t among Bedouins who would know better than to antagonize him.
It was Bourne; it was always Bourne. Bourne had murdered innocent Sarah, the pride of the family. Karim had forgiven her her impious views, her unexplained absences, her wanting her independence, putting those things down to the same English blood that pulsed through his veins. He’d overcome his Western blood, which was why he had embarked on a program to reeducate her in the ways of the desert, the Saudi ethos that was her true heritage.
Now Bourne had killed Fadi, the public figurehead. Fadi, who had relied so heavily on the planning and the funds of his older brother, just as Karim had counted on his younger brother to protect him. He’d forgiven Fadi his hot blood, his excesses, because these traits were vital to a public leader, who drew the faithful to him with both his fiery rhetoric and his incendiary exploits.
They were both gone now—the innocent and the commander, one the tower of moral strength, the other of physical. He, of all of Abu Sarif Hamid ibn Ashef al-Wahhib’s children, remained. Alive, but alone. All that was left were the memories he held close to him of Fadi and Sarah ibn Ashef. The same memories held by his father—maimed, paralyzed, helplessly bound to his bed, needing a special harness to get into the wheelchair he despised.
This was the end for Bourne, he vowed. This was the end for all the infidels.
He made his way through the long, curving drives that skirted the low, sleek green-glass and black-brick lab buildings. A final swing around to the left brought the airfield into sight. Just beyond the parked jet was the fat gray-blue crescent of water adjacent to Occoquan Bay.
Nearing the landing strip, he slowed, took a long, careful survey of the area. The jet sat alone on the tarmac, near the far end of the runway. No vehicles were in sight. No boat plied the wintry waters of Belmont Bay. No helicopters hovered anywhere in the vicinity. Yet Fadi was dead, and Bourne sat inside the jet in his place.
Of course there wouldn’t be anyone here. Unlike him, Bourne had no support to back him up. He pulled the car over out of sight of the jet, lit a cigarette, waited. Quite soon the black Ford carrying his men arrived, pulling up alongside him.
He got out and gave them their instructions, telling them what to expect and what they should do. Then he leaned against the front fender of the car, smoking still as the Ford drove onto the tarmac.
When it reached the plane, the door swung inward and the stairway was lowered. Two of the three men got out, trotted up the stairs.
Karim spat the butt from his mouth, ground it beneath the heel of his shoe. Then he climbed into the rental car and headed back along the drive to the lab building hunkered eerily alone, on the northern fringe of the property, hard against the waste dump.
I can help you, Soraya,” Peter Marks said, his cell to his ear, “but I think we should meet.”
“Why? You have to be my eyes and ears at HQ. I need you to keep track of the impostor.”
“I don’t know where Lindros is,” Peter said. “He isn’t in his office. In fact, he’s nowhere in the building. He didn’t check out with his assistant. Is this an epidemic?”
He heard the sharpness of Soraya’s indrawn breath. “What is it?”
“Okay,” Soraya said. “I’ll meet you, but I pick the place.”
“Whatever you want.”
She gave him the address of the mortuary on the northeast edge of Rock Creek Park. “Get there,” she said, “fast as you can.”
Marks checked out a CI vehicle, making the trip in record time. He pulled up across the street and down the block from the rear of the mortuary, then sat in his car as Soraya had directed. Before leaving headquarters, he’d toyed with the idea of contacting Rob Batt, of getting permission to take several agents with him, but the urgency of the meet made it imperative that he not take the time to persuade Batt to divert personnel.
Soraya tapping on the glass of the passenger window caused him to jump. He’d been so wrapped up in his thoughts that he hadn’t seen her approach. This made him doubly nervous, because he was out in the field where she had the distinct advantage over him. He’d been nothing but a desk jockey his entire career—which, he supposed, was the real reason he hadn’t wanted to take anyone with him. He had something to prove to his rabbi.
He unlocked the doors and she slipped into the passenger’s seat. She certainly didn’t look as if she’d cracked.
“I wanted you to come here,” she said a bit breathlessly, “because this is the mortuary where the Old Man is.”
He listened to these words as if they were part of a dream he was having. He had wrapped his hand around his gun when she was opening the door and he was out of sight to her. Now, as if he himself were in a dream, he brought the gun to her head and said, “Sorry, Soraya, but you’re coming back to headquarters with me.”
The two terrorists who boarded the jet blinked in the semidarkness. They looked stunned when they recognized him.
“Fadi,” the taller of the men said. “Where is Jason Bourne?”
“Bourne is dead,” Bourne said. “I killed him in Miran Shah.”
“But Karim al-Jamil said he would be on board.”
Bourne held up the briefcase with the nuclear device. “As you can see, he was mistaken. There’s been a change in plan. I need to see my brother.”
“At once, Fadi.”
They didn’t search the plane, didn’t see the pilot Bourne had tied and gagged.
As they led Bourne to the black Ford, the tall man said, “Your brother is nearby.”
They all got into the Ford, Bourne in the backseat with one of the men. Bourne kept his face averted from the runway lights, the only light source. As long as he kept his face in semi-shadow, he’d be fine. These men were reacting to a familiar voice, familiar body language. These were a mimic’s most powerful weapons. You needed to convince the mind, not the eye.
The driver l
eft the airfield, looped around to the north, stopped at the side of a black-brick building that stood some distance away from the others. Bourne could see the slag pit as they opened a huge corrugated-iron door and led him inside.
The interior was huge and empty. There were no interior walls. Oil stains on the concrete floor indicated that it was, in fact, an airplane hangar. Light came in through the door, as well as through square windows set high up in the walls, but it soon dissipated in the vastness, swallowed up by great swaths of shadow.
“Karim al-Jamil,” the tall man called, “it was your brother who was on the plane, not Jason Bourne. He’s with us, and he has the device.”
A figure appeared out of the shadows.
“My brother is dead,” Karim said.
Behind Bourne, the men tensed.
I’m not going anywhere with you,” Soraya said.
Marks was about to reply when the wall at the back of the mortuary loading bay slid down.
“What the hell—?” he said.
Soraya took advantage of his surprise and bolted out of the car. Marks was about to go after her when he saw the DCI’s limo emerge, then head down the street away from him. He forgot all about Soraya. He put his car in gear, peeling out after the limo. The Old Man was supposed to be away on personal business. What was he doing here?
As he raced after the limo, he dimly heard Soraya shouting for him to turn back. He ignored her. Of course she’d say that; she was sure the Old Man was dead.
Up ahead, the limo stopped at a red light. He pulled up alongside it, scrolled down his window.
“Hey!” he called. “Peter Marks, CI! Open up!”
The driver’s window remained in place. Marks put the car in PARK, got out, pounded on the window.
He pulled out his ID. “Open up, dammit! Open up!”
The window slid down. He caught an instant’s glimpse of the Old Man sitting bolt-upright in the back. Then the driver aimed a Luger P-08 at his face and pulled the trigger.
The detonation burst his eardrums. He flew backward, arms outstretched, dead before he hit the pavement.
The limo’s window slid back up and, as the light turned green, it rolled swiftly down the street.
Karim stood staring intently at Bourne. “It can’t be. Brother, I was told you were dead.”
Bourne raised the briefcase. “And yet,” he said in Fadi’s voice, “I come in the guise of destruction.”
“Let the infidel beware!”
“Truly.” Even though Bourne knew he was looking at Karim, it was unnerving to face this man who was a dead ringer for his best friend. “We’re together again, brother!”
Martin had warned him that Karim was the dangerous one. “He’s the chess player,” Martin had said, “the spider sitting at the center of the web.” Bourne held no illusions. The moment Karim asked him an intimate question, one only his brother would know, the masquerade would be over.
It didn’t take that long.
Karim beckoned. “Come into the light, brother, that I may once more look upon you after so many months.”
Bourne took a step forward; light flooded his face.
Karim stood stock-still. His head rocked a little, as if he had developed a palsy. “You’re as much a chameleon as Fadi was.”
“Brother, I’ve brought the device. How could you mistake me?”
“I overheard a CI agent say—”
“Not Peter Marks.” Bourne took a shot because it was all he had left. Marks was the only one in CI Soraya had contacted.
Confused again, Karim frowned. “What about him?”
“Marks is Soraya Moore’s conduit. He’s repeating the disinformation we fed her.”
Karim gave a wolfish grin; the doubt cleared from his eyes. “Wrong answer. CI believes my brother was killed in the raid on the false Dujja facility in South Yemen. But you wouldn’t have known that, Bourne, would you?”
He gave a sign and the three men behind Bourne grabbed him, then held his arms at his sides. Without taking his eyes from Bourne’s, Karim stepped forward, wrenched the briefcase out of his hand.
Soraya was running to where Peter Marks lay dead, spread-eagled on the curb, when she heard the deep-throated roar of a motorcycle approaching from behind. Pulling her gun, she swung around and saw Tyrone on his Ninja. He had just dropped Lindros’s corpse at the mortuary.
Slowing, he allowed her to climb aboard, then took off.
“You saw what happened. They killed Peter.”
“We gotta stop them.” Tyrone jumped a red light. “You put alla pieces t’gether—C-Four explosive, a replica of yo boss’s limo, yo boss hisself lyin’ flat-out on a embalming table, whattaya got?”
“That’s how they’re going to get in!” Soraya said. “Security will take one look at the Old Man in the backseat and wave the limo through into the underground parking lot.”
“Where the foundation of the building is.”
Tyrone, bending low over the Ninja’s handlebars, put on a burst of speed.
“We can’t shoot at the limo,” Soraya said, “without running the risk of setting off the C-Four and killing who knows how many bystanders.”
“An we can’t allow it t’get to CI headquarters,” Tyrone said. “So what d’we do?”
The answer was provided for them as one of the limo’s rear windows slid down and someone began firing at them.
Bourne stood without trying to move. He tried to clear his mind of the image of Martin Lindros’s ruined face, but in fact he found he didn’t want to. Martin was with him, speaking to him, demanding retribution for what had been done to him. Bourne felt him; Bourne heard him.
Patience, he whispered silently.
Centering himself, he felt where each of the three men was in relation to himself. Then he said: “My one regret is that I never finished what I started in Odessa. Your father is still alive.”
“Only you would call that kind of existence living,” Karim snapped. “Every time I’m in his presence, I vow anew that I’ll make you pay for what you did to him.”
“Too bad he can’t see you as you are today,” Bourne said. “He’d take a gun and shoot you himself. If only he was able.”
“I understand you, Bourne, better than you think.” Karim stood barely a pace away from Bourne. “Look at you. To everyone but ourselves you’re Fadi and I’m Lindros. We’re in our own separate world, locked in our circle of revenge. Isn’t that what you’re thinking? Isn’t that how you planned it? Isn’t that why you’ve made yourself up to look like my brother?”
He shifted the briefcase from one hand to the other. “It’s also why you’re trying to bait me. An angry man is easier to defeat, isn’t that how the Tao of Bourne goes?” He laughed. “But in fact, with this last chameleon act of yours you’ve done me an incalculable service. You think I’m going to shoot you dead, here and now. How wrong you are! Because after I detonate the nuclear device, after I destroy CI headquarters, I’m going to take you back to whatever is left of CI. I’ll shoot you there. And so, having killed Fadi, the world’s most notorious terrorist, Martin Lindros will become a national hero. And now that I’ve killed the DCI, who do you think a grateful president will elevate to the post?”
He laughed again. “I’ll be running the agency, Bourne. I’ll be able to remake it in my own image. How’s that for irony?”
At the mention of the fate of CI headquarters, Bourne felt Martin’s voice stirring inside him. Not yet, he thought. Not yet.
“What I find ironic,” he said, “is what happened to Sarah ibn Ashef.”
Fire leapt into Karim’s eyes. He backhanded Bourne across the face. “You who murdered her are not fit to speak my sister’s name!”
“I didn’t murder her,” Bourne said slowly and distinctly.
Karim spat in Bourne’s face.
“I couldn’t have shot her. Both Soraya and I were too far away. We both were using Glock 21s. Sarah ibn Ashef was all the way across the plaza when she was shot dead. As you we
ll know, the Glock is accurate up to twenty-five meters. Your sister was at least fifty meters away when she was killed. I didn’t realize it at the time; everything happened too quickly.”
His face a taut mask, Karim struck Bourne again.
Bourne, having expected the blow, shook it off. “Muta ibn Aziz refreshed my memory, however. He and his brother were in the right position that night. They were at the right distance.”
Karim grabbed Bourne by the throat. “You dare to make a mockery of my sister’s death?” He was fairly shaking with rage. “The brothers were like family. To even insinuate—”
“It’s precisely because they were like family that Abbud ibn Aziz shot your sister to death.”
“I’ll kill you for that!” Karim screamed as he began to strangle Bourne. “I’ll make you wish you’d never been born!”
Tyrone zigzagged the Ninja through the streets, following the limo. He could hear the bullets whizzing past them. He knew what it was like to be shot at; he knew the agony of having a loved one shot dead in a drive-by. His only defense was study. He knew bullets the way his crew knew gangsta rappers or porn stars. He knew the characteristics of every caliber, every Parabellum, every hollow-point. His own Walther PPK was loaded with hollow-cavity bullets—like hollow-points on steroids. When they impacted with a soft target—human flesh, for instance—they expanded to the point of disintegration. The target felt like he had been hit by an M-80. Needless to say, the internal damage was extreme.
The man was shooting .45s at them, but his range was limited, his accuracy low. Still, Tyrone knew he needed to find a way to stop the shooting altogether.
“Look up ahead,” Soraya urgently said into his ear. “See that black-glass building six blocks away? That’s CI headquarters.”
Putting on another burst of speed, Tyrone brought the Ninja up very fast on the limo’s left flank. This brought them within range of the Luger, but the distance was also of benefit to him.