The Bourne Initiative (Jason Bourne 14)

His previous reconnaissance had revealed the interrogation cells to be in the basement, where, in happier times, before the NSA got hold of it, the wine cellar had been; the air still held a whiff of wine must. In typical NSA fashion, the space had been recreated into a strictly utilitarian area with five “holding rooms”—like all government services, the NSA was hooked on euphemisms—all of which abutted observation chambers outfitted with one-way glass panels inserted into the common walls. Farther along was the “laboratory”—another euphemism for a very nasty section containing three rooms, each one equipped with the paraphernalia necessary for the kinds of articulated interrogation that was now illegal and which high-ranking members of the NSA swore before various Congressional subcommittees they absolutely, unconditionally no longer tolerated.

The NSA psych team assigned to Crowcroft had names for these three rooms: My First Experience, Nothing To See Here, and The Drowning Pool. In the first the uncooperative client, as the prisoners were called, was softened up with grueling sessions of incessant questions, interspersed with periods of unexpected explosions of static, a hundred voices talking over one another, death-metal rock shrieking, sudden bursts of blinding light or total darkness; in the second the client was subjected to sensory deprivation; in the third the waterboarding was the centerpiece, although by no means the only extreme measure available to the interrogator.

It was said that no one survived what was known as The Whole Nine Yards intact. Though that might well be the kind of hyperbole the NSA traded in, it was just as possible it came very near the truth.

Since the door was key-coded, there were no guards at the bottom of the stairs. Bourne did, however, have to be mindful of the psych staff, two members of which he spied on his way to the cells.

A quick recon revealed that General MacQuerrie had been graduated out of My First Experience. He must be in the sensory deprivation tank.

The connection corridor between the first and second interrogation chambers was so dimly lit Bourne had to pause to allow his eyes to adjust to the gloom. Once he did, he advanced to the closed door ahead of him and slid the key card through the reader. Opening the door, he hung back, waiting, looking for any movement of shadows, but there was nothing.

Stepping in, he closed the door behind him. Before him was a shallow float tank of perfectly calm water. He knew it would be set at precisely the same temperature as the client’s body temperature. Peering through the dimness into the water, he could just make out the outline of a figure floating in the center, tethered, unmoving. A mask was over the general’s face, fitted with a breathing tube. MacQuerrie looked like he’d already lost weight as a result of the shock tactics in My First Experience.

Shedding Baldy’s too-tight shoes and gabardine jacket, which contained Bourne’s sat phone in one pocket and a thick wad of hundred-dollar bills in the other, Bourne slipped into the water, untethered the client. His hand was on the breathing mask, but before he could pull it off, the overhead lights blazed on, momentarily blinding him. When he could focus he saw the third guard, built like a boxer, the one he and Lee had left behind at the front gate. He held his 9mm sidearm out in front of him, pointing it at Bourne.

“Ed and Marty are MIA and you’ve been using Ed’s key card all over the place, you miserable little shit.” When he spoke his voice had a weird dead sound, devoid of echo, due to the state-of-the-art soundproofing in all three rooms. His forefinger slipped inside the trigger guard, balanced on the trigger itself. “Now you’re gonna pay.”

26

He made a deal with the devil,” Dima said.

“Who?” Savasin asked. “Karpov?”

Ekaterina laughed, but her father’s hand slicing through the air cut her off.

“No, not Karpov,” Dima said with a glint in his eye. “Your brother, Konstantin.”

The three of them—four if one counted Cerberus—had repaired to Ekaterina’s large kitchen, where they sat around a central table while the moving mountain served them food and drink, silent as usual. The food was excellent and plentiful, the drink Iron Mountain black tea from the hinterlands far from Moscow. It was very strong and very good.

“My brother.” Savasin set down a forkful of karsky shashlik, marinated in red wine and crushed bay leaves. “Do tell.” The tender bits of lamb were bedded on wild rice, surrounded by baked tomatoes, string beans showered with slivered almonds. He steepled his hands. “Continue.”

“Konstantin is in bed with Gora Maslov.”

“The head of the Kazanskaya? That’s mad.”

Dima poured himself more tea out of the porcelain samovar. “It’s the truth.”

“Unlike his father, Gora is a weakling. Why in the world—?”

“Precisely because he’s a weakling. Konstantin can control him.”

“But that’s only the tip of the iceberg,” Ekaterina interjected.

This time, her father did not silence her.

“This also is true, Timur.” Dima sipped, watching Savasin from over the rim of the glass. “You are aware of an agent abroad with the legend Larry London, real name Nikolay Ivanovich Rozin.”

“Of course.” Savasin nodded. “As I told your daughter.”

“Little Niki,” Ekaterina said with the ghost of a smile.

Savasin’s brows knit together in growing annoyance. “What about him?”

“Has your brother mentioned Niki recently?” Dima asked.

Savasin hesitated a moment, then said, “You know he has. You just heard me tell Ekaterina that he’s appointed Rozin as the new head of spetsnaz.”

Ekaterina glanced at her father, then commenced laughing. She laughed so hard tears came to her eyes.

The first minister, glancing from one to the other, said, “What the hell is so amusing?”

Dima put down his glass. “Tell him, my dear.”

Ekaterina wiped her eyes. “Dear, dear Timur. Your brother is about to fuck you well and good. Guess whose payroll little Niki is on?”

Savasin gaped at her, swallowed, and said, “Not Gora’s. Tell me he’s not working for Gora.”

“Oh, but he is,” Dima said. “And from what you’ve just told me, Gora’s plans are further advanced than I had thought.”

“So.” Savasin stared down at his shashlik for a moment, trying to orient himself. Strange as it might seem, nothing that Dima or Ekaterina said surprised him all that much. He put nothing past his brother; his ambition, his lust for fame and fortune was unbounded. That’s why he had hated Boris Karpov so much. The general had blocked his way in every avenue.

He looked up at Dima and Katya. “The most interesting thing about my brother is this: he fancies himself faster, stronger, and cleverer than he is.” Savasin spoke slowly and thoughtfully. “But I now have to say this for General Karpov—he actually was faster, stronger, and cleverer than anyone else, including my brother, possibly even the Sovereign. And, unlike Konstantin, he knew his limits, and he never stepped across that line into the danger zone.”

Ekaterina frowned. “We were under the impression that you hated Boris Illyich.”

“Ah, well. It seems to me now that my hatred was merely a reflection of Konstantin’s. I took on his hatred without really knowing why.” Savasin placed his hands flat on either side of his plate. “But now you must tell me what the devil my brother is up to.”

Dima lifted a hand, and Cerberus cleared the plates, replaced them with small saucers of sweetmeats before retreating to see to the dirty dishes. It occurred to Savasin that the running water might be deliberate and wondered whether even in the Orlov sanctum sanctorum there loomed the specter of hostile ears, electronic or otherwise. He ought to know if there were, no? But then he realized that he knew absolutely nothing of Konstantin’s activities over the last year.

Savasin, in no mood for procrastination, said testily, “What about my brother?”

Dima’s face clouded over. “Yes, well, we’ll get to that in a moment. First, we must speak of Boris Illyich.”   “I admit I’ve had a hand in erasing him and all he’s done from the memory of the Russian Federation.”

Dima spread his hands. “Timur, this is the trajectory of Russian history, is it not? Who among us has not had the opportunity to erase that which we do not like or find objectionable.”

“But in General Karpov’s case—”

“In his case, perhaps it was a necessary evil.”

Savasin cocked his head. “How so?”

Dima held a saucer of sugar cookies out to the first minister, who silently declined. “Pity. Cerberus made them. They’re really quite excellent.” He plucked one, popped it into his mouth. “Circling back, we come to what you yourself said about Boris Illyich—that he never overstepped his limits.” He licked powdered sugar off his fingertips, wiped them on a napkin. “Now I will tell you why—well, one of the reasons, anyway. Boris had a stvol.”

“A weapon,” Ekaterina said. “A secret weapon.”

“Even more than that, First Minister.” For the first time Dima smiled. It was almost identical to his daughter’s smile—midway between that of a dolphin and the Mona Lisa.

“Boris Illyich had a secret weapon in plain sight.”

Savasin shook his head. “I don’t quite—”

“Bourne,” Ekaterina said, leaning forward to put added emphasis on her words. “His best friend, Jason Bourne.”

“You mean the general leveraged his friendship with Bourne to get things done he couldn’t do himself?”

“No.” Dima shook his head. “You misunderstand.”

“What do you expect, father,” Ekaterina said with open contempt. “He’s first minister.”

“I think it would behoove us all to be a bit more flexible in our thinking.”

It was a clever way to gently admonish his daughter without pointing a finger at her, Savasin thought. Then he realized that Dima must mean him as well.

Dima smiled to soften the rebuke. “Listen, Timur. I knew Boris Illyich better than you. And as for Katya, she knew him better than both of us put together.”

“He was a Russian, yes, loyal to Mother Russia,” Ekaterina said. She was perched on the edge of her chair, her body so tense it found its way into her voice. “But, at heart, he was a humanist.”

“Just as Bourne is a humanist,” Dima said. “For them, their friendship transcended both politics and ideology.”

“I don’t get it,” Savasin said truthfully; he felt that he had failed at something vital to what was happening now. “A Russian and an American—both spies. They should have been mortal enemies.”

Dima tried not to express his frustration. “First Minister, if nothing else, you must understand this about them: they both hated politicians and ideologues, of every stripe. That’s what brought them together; that’s what formed the bedrock of their extraordinary friendship.”

“Why must I understand this?”

“Konstantin wants everything,” Dima said tersely. “He craves the unprecedented power General Karpov wielded over the FSB and the FSB-2. In his hands, that power would be, well, destructive to all of us. I still maintain my ties with the grupperovka old guard.”

“And the money,” Savasin replied. “We mustn’t forget the money.”

“Your cynicism does you proud, First Minister.” Dima’s mouth twitched upward in a sardonic smile. “Nevertheless, we are talking about your brother. He has the ambition of a Caesar. He knows the Sovereign will never give him your position, just as he would never have given it to Boris Illyich—far too dangerous, considering the personalities involved. The Sovereign’s strategy with your brother is the same one he used with General Karpov—give him his head within a circumscribed area, keeping him happy and controlled at the same time.”

“It wasn’t working with Boris,” Savasin said with a distinctly sour intonation.

“Indeed not.” Dima nodded. “Boris Illyich had devised a number of work-arounds, none of which were known to the Sovereign and his minions.”

“I see. So my brother is seeking to do the same.”

Dima nodded. “But while Boris sought an equilibrium between east and west, Konstantin craves the opposite. Like the Sovereign, he wants to destroy the West—particularly America, whose presidents have time and again insulted him and Mother Russia. He bridles every time Russia is termed a ‘regional power’ in the Western press, while the United States is known as the only true ‘global power.’”

Savasin ran his hand across his forehead, finding it damp. “So he’s going to destroy America.”

“That is his goal, undoubtedly.”

Savasin shook his head. “But how, specifically? Gathering power clearly isn’t enough.”

“No, it isn’t,” Dima said. Perhaps it was the changing light, as the day began to die, but he suddenly looked ten years older.

“The problem is we don’t know what Konstantin is planning,” Ekaterina said.

“We’ve tried and failed,” Dima added. “What we need now—”

“Father,” Ekaterina interrupted, “can we trust him?”

“My dear,” he said mildly, “we have trusted him this far.” He shrugged. “Besides, he has a personal stake in siding with us now.”

Ekaterina took a deep breath, let it out slowly. Then, shooting Savasin a sideways glance, she nodded.

“What we need now,” Dima continued, “and by we I include you, First Minister, is Bourne. We need him to be the tip of the spear. We need him to be our stvol.

“As I said, we have failed. Bourne won’t. You, Tamerlane, are the only one who can get to him without your brother finding out and sending us straight into the bowels of the Lubyanka.”

“What do you say, First Minister?” Ekaterina regarded him coolly. “As it turns out, you need us as much as we need you.”

27

By the time we get through with you, I fucking guarantee you’ll wish you were dead.”

Bourne popped the face mask off MacQuerrie. The body began to thrash, and Boxer took his eye off Bourne just long enough for Bourne to grab the coping of the pool with one hand, grasp Boxer’s ankle with the other.

He jerked hard just as the gun went off, but Boxer was already on his way into the float tank, and his aim was high. Bourne grabbed Boxer’s wrist, twisted so hard he was forced to drop the gun. Boxer bent double, then straightened up, the crown of his head slamming into Bourne’s chin. His right hand balled into a fist, buried itself in Bourne’s solar plexus, sending Bourne to one knee. The water lapped at his nose.

Disengaging, Boxer groped in the water for the gun, but it was nowhere to be seen. Hadn’t it sunk to the bottom of the tank? Bourne blindsided him before he could hope to answer that question. Bourne jabbed him in the ribs, then smashed the edge of his hand into Boxer’s rib cage. He heard a satisfying crack, and Boxer grimaced. But he was far from done.

Breaking away, he kicked hard, his heel making hard contact with Bourne’s left shoulder. Had the water not slowed the kick Bourne’s shoulder would surely have been dislocated. As it was, the burst of pain was followed immediately by a terrible numbness that traveled down Bourne’s left arm, leaving a trail of pins and needles.

Taking immediate advantage, Boxer grasped Bourne’s head on either side, slammed the back of it against the coping. Again and again. And then his forefinger jabbed at Bourne’s eye. It never made it. Struck from behind with the butt of his own 9mm, Boxer fell to one side. Bourne could just make out a blurred shadow of MacQuerrie. He must not have had a lot of strength. He staggered backward in the water, the effort of the one blow having done him in.

Bourne, his head in a muddle, black spots crowding his vision, drove the edge of his hand into the side of Boxer’s neck. Boxer’s head rocked like a bobble-head. Spinning him, Bourne wrapped one arm around his neck, placed the heel of his other hand just below the ear. Boxer, frantic, struggled mightily, but Bourne kept his grip, gave a sharp twist that broke Boxer’s neck.

He lay back then against the

coping while Boxer’s body floated facedown in the water. Despite the shallowness, the chop was as frenzied as if from a school of feeding sharks. Gaining his equilibrium, Bourne waded past the body to the opposite side, where MacQuerrie sat in the shallow water, trying desperately to hold on to the coping. With the lights on he caught his first look at the client; it wasn’t General MacQuerrie.

Bourne, taken aback, said, “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Surprise!” the Angelmaker said weakly.

—

Bourne, arm around her shoulders, drew her away from the coping. Her face was pale, and there was a curious unfocused aspect to her eyes. “How long have you been under?”

“Long enough for it to make a difference.”

“You owe me an explanation,” he said. “But not now. We have very little time to get to General MacQuerrie and get out of here before we’re discovered.”

He pulled her out of the water, sat her on the coping before climbing out himself and snatching two towels from a pile in the corner. She swayed slightly as he dried her off. He’d been subjected to every form of interrogation technique during his Treadstone training. He knew what time in the floatation tank could do. At first you’re sure you can hold out, but then in the blink of an eye your nervous system goes numb, and you’ve slipped away from yourself. It doesn’t matter what other kinds of torture you’ve experienced, sensory deprivation is another animal entirely, one you cannot prepare for. Most methods of interrogation involve dealing with pain in one form or other. Techniques have been developed to handle pain, no matter how intense. They all involve carving out a private space for your consciousness that is inviolate and curling your essence inside that space while whatever is being done to your body goes on.

Sensory deprivation is different inasmuch as there’s no pain. Instead, there is a cessation of all feeling. You’re alone with yourself, and the lack of outside stimuli starts to distort your thoughts. Under these conditions, a private space is of no use, as your own thoughts make it porous.