Robert Ludlum's the Bourne Imperative (18 page)

“This is what we do, Harry.” Rebeka put a hand gently on his thigh. “The charade worked both ways. You fooled me. I had no idea you were a member of
Jihad bis saif
. Until the end.”

He licked his lips again. He could not take his eyes off her. “What happened? I was so careful. What gave me away?”

Her fingers moved on his thigh. She had seized on the pleading tone in his voice. “Tell me why Bourne is a threat to
Jihad bis saif
.”

“
Jihad bis saif
,” he repeated with a sneer. “You don’t know the first thing about
Jihad bis saif
.” Curiously, he was almost laughing.

“Then enlighten us,” Bourne said in Arabic, then Pashto. When Rowland didn’t respond, Bourne shook his head. “There is no
Jihad bis saif
, is there?”

“Oh, but there is.”

A hinted-at smile of self-satisfaction was wiped off Rowland’s face by Bourne’s fist as it connected with his cheek. A squeak came from him as his head snapped back on his neck. Bourne caught him before he could fully tumble over. He slapped Rowland until his eyes came back into focus.

“I guess I don’t believe you.” He gripped Rowland’s jaw hard. “Let’s put an end to this. Tell us what you know or—”

At that moment, a helicopter appeared over the rooftops, arcing across the sky.

“Cops?” Rebeka said, squinting up into the oyster-colored dawn.

“No insignias.” Bourne rose, jerked Rowland onto his feet.

The copter came swinging in toward them. Clearly, it was homing in on them.

“We’d best find cover,” Bourne said. But before they could move, the copter was overhead. The chattering of machine-gun fire ripped up the dirty snow. Chips of ice and clots of freshly turned earth flew in all directions. Bourne tried to pull Rowland along with them, but the fire, meant to separate them, was too intense. The men inside the copter left them no choice. He and Rebeka ran toward a stack of piled-up brick and stone from the razed building.

Bourne made one last attempt to reach Rowland, but the withering fire drove him back. The copter was moving, but instead of rising, it shot forward. The firing began again, this time clearly directed at Bourne. He dived under the cover of some wooden boards, which immediately began to splinter apart. He rolled, snaking away from where Rebeka had hidden, conscious of keeping the bullets away from her even while he sought to protect himself. Since it had explicitly targeted him, it was clear the copter belonged to Rowland’s network, that those inside had recognized him.

The copter stopped, hovering twenty feet off the ground. A door slid open and a rope ladder extended from it. Rowland was up and was running unsteadily toward it. As Bourne wriggled under more boards, Rowland grasped a rung.

Men inside the copter winched up the ladder, grabbing hold of Rowland as soon as he was within arm’s reach. The copter now closed with the area where Bourne was hiding. The firing continued in brief but ferocious bursts. The boards kept flying apart, making it necessary for him to move again and thus expose himself.

The gunfire continued to track him, moving closer and closer. That was when Bourne heard the sirens. Someone had called the cops. He saw the flashing lights as a string of police vehicles rounded a corner and raced down the street toward the lot.

The men in the copter saw them too. With a last burst of gunfire at the place where Bourne had been moments before, the copter rose, banked, and, as the sirens wailed ever louder, vanished into the rising sun.

MS. MOORE IS out of surgery and in recovery,” the doctor said.

There was a collective sigh of relief in the waiting room. “Is she okay?” Secretary Hendricks said.

“We relieved the pressure and stopped the bleeding. We’ll know more in the next twenty-four hours.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Thorne blurted.

Delia quickly placed herself between him and the surgeon. “How is the fetus?”

“We’re monitoring it. We’re hopeful.” The surgeon was pale. He looked wiped out. “But, again, the next number of hours are critical for both mother and child.”

Delia took a breath and let it out. “So you can’t rule out...intervention.”

“At this point,” the surgeon said, “nothing should be ruled out.” He looked at them. “When she wakes up, I think it would help if she saw a friendly face.”

Hendricks stepped forward. “I should—”

“With all due respect,” Delia said, “if she sees you, the first thing she’ll think of is Peter, and he’s not here, is he?”

“No.” Hendricks turned to the doctor. “I would like very much to see her, if you don’t mind.”

The surgeon nodded. He was clearly uncertain, but cowed by Hendricks’s position. “But only for a moment, Mr. Secretary.”

I’m so sorry,” Hendricks said, bent over Soraya’s supine form. “I fear I’ve asked far too much of you.”

Her huge, dark eyes regarded him woozily, running in and out of focus, and she mouthed two words:
My job.

He smiled, brushing damp hair off her forehead. There was a tube running out of the side of her head, surrounded by bandages. She was hooked up to multiple machines monitoring her heart rate, pulse, and blood pressure. She looked weak, a pallor beneath her skin, but otherwise sound enough.

“Your job is one thing,” Hendricks said. “But
this
—what has come about because of it, is quite another.”

Beneath the ebbing torpor of the anaesthesia, her eyes showed surprise. “You know.”

He nodded. “The doctors said not to worry. The baby’s fine.”

A tear welled out of her eye, rolling down her cheek.

“Soraya, I forced you to cross a line with Charles Thorne that should never be crossed.”

“I did,” she whispered, her voice paper-thin. “
I
did.”

He shook his head, his expression genuinely sorrowful. “Soraya. I—”

“No regrets,” she said, just before the surgeon came in and ordered an end to the interview.

At almost the very moment Hendricks returned to the waiting room, his mobile buzzed. He glanced down. “Ah, well. The president needs me.”

“How is she?” Delia’s anxiety was written all over her face.

“Weak, but she seems okay.” He looked around for his coat, but his bodyguard, stepping into the room, handed it to him. “Listen, you have my mobile number. Keep me posted.”

“Absolutely.”

“Well.” He shrugged on his coat. “I’m deeply relieved.”

As it had been doing all morning, Delia’s mind flashed back to her first meeting with Soraya. After the bomb had been defused and it had been delivered to a joint forensics team, the two women had returned to their respective offices. But late in the day, Delia’s phone had rung. Soraya asked if she would join her for a drink.

They met in a dim, smoky bar that smelled of beer and bourbon.

Soraya took her hand. “I never saw anything like that.” She looked up at Delia’s face. ‘You’ve got the fingers of an artist.”

Delia was dumbstruck. The instant Soraya took her hand, she felt a tingling that ran all the way up her arm. It entered her torso, and where it ended up made her realize that she wasn’t asexual after all. She could barely recall what they talked about as they drank, but as they moved to the restaurant next door, and the conversation turned to their backgrounds, Delia’s mind snapped back into focus. Both she and Soraya viewed themselves as outsiders: They didn’t hang in groups, they weren’t joiners, even though the fast track in any meaningful job in DC required joining as many clubs as possible.

“We all are,” Delia said now to Secretary Hendricks, though she was acutely aware that the stab of fear she had experienced when Hendricks had called her had not fully dissipated.

Silence, though somewhere a dog barked. Stasis, though somewhere a car started up.

“Well?”

Peter felt Brick’s gaze descend on him like a hammer blow.

“Act!”

Peter took Dick Richards’s chin in his hand, tilting his head up so that their eyes met. “Yes, it’s true—I want a position at your company.” Deep in Richards’s eyes he could see that the other had been listening closely to every word that had been spoken in his presence. He knew that Tom Brick knew Peter as Tony. If he had any sense at all, he’d know that Peter was undercover. But Peter was looking into the eyes of a presumed triple agent. Deep down, whose side did Dick Richards want to be on? He supposed it was time to find out.

He let go of Richards’s chin and, snapping free the Glock’s cartridge, found it to be empty. He checked the chamber: one bullet. Had he been expected to kill Richards with a single shot?

Looking up into Brick’s interested face, he said, “You’ve ordered me to act.” Turning the handgun around, he returned it to Bogdan, who seemed to be sunk deep into a sulk, possibly because he had been denied the prospect of physical mayhem. Like a retriever who needed daily running, this guy seemed like he required a daily dose of destruction.

Peter turned to Tom Brick, who stared at him for a moment. Suddenly, Brick broke out into a fit of laughter and, going into a deep cockney accent, said, “Crikey Moses, gov, you’ve got some pair a cobbler’s awls, you ’ave.”

Peter blinked. “What?”

“Cobbler’s awls. Balls,” Bogdan said unexpectedly. “Cockneys’re always street-rhyming. It’s in their nature.”

Brick pointed to Richards. “Bogs, untie the little bugger, yeah?” reverting to his normal refined accent. “Then have a bit of a dekko outside, make sure we’re comfy, cozy, and all on our onlys, there’s a good lad.”

Richards sat still as a statue as Bogdan untied him, kept sitting still as a statue as the hulking bodyguard loaded his Glock’s magazine and snapped it into place. It was only when Bogdan stalked out of the room and he heard the front door slam that he slowly rose. He was as unsteady as a newborn colt.

Seeing this, Brick crossed to the bar, poured him a stiff whiskey. “Ice, yeah?”

“Right, yeah.” Richards looked not at him, but at Peter. There was a kind of pleading in his eyes, a silent apology.

Peter, his back to Brick, mouthed:
Trust me.
To his immense relief, Richards gave a tiny nod. Did that mean he could trust Richards? Far too early to say. But his expression was confirmation of Peter’s suspicion. Richards was, in fact, a double agent, reporting both to the president and to Brick. Peter fought back an urge to wring his scrawny neck. He needed answers. Why was Richards playing this dangerous game? What did Brick hope to gain?

Brick returned, handed Richards the whiskey, and said cheerily, “Bottoms up, lad!”

Turning to Peter, he said, “You know, I never would have let you put a bullet through Dick’s head.” At this, Richards nearly choked on his whiskey. “Nah, the little bugger’s far too valuable.” He eyed Peter. “Know as what?”

Peter put an interested look on his face.

“He’s a stone-cold wizard at creating and cracking ciphers. Isn’t that right, Dick?”

Richards, eyes watering, nodded.

“That what he does for Core Energy?” Peter said. “Crack codes?”

“There’s a shitload of corporate spying, and at our level, it’s bloody serious, let me tell you.” Brick took another delicate sip of the Irish, which was first-rate. “We’re in need of a bugger with his skills.” He slapped Richards on the back. “Rare as hen’s teeth, lads like him are.”

Richards managed a watery smile.

“So, Anthony Dzundza, meet Richard Richards.”

The two men shook hands solemnly.

He gestured. “Righto, let’s get this little chin-wag started.”

As they were making their way to the low, angular sofas around the bend in the L, Bogdan returned from his dekko—his recon. He nodded to Brick, who from then on completely ignored him.

“I’d like an apology,” Richards said as the other two men sat down.

“Don’t be a wanker.” Brick waved a hand. “It’s so bloody tiresome.”

Richards, however, remained standing, fists clenched at his sides, glaring at his boss, or, Peter thought, one of them, anyway.

Brick snorted finally. “Oh, for fuck’s sake.” He turned to Peter in a theatrical stage aside. “What I won’t do to keep the staff happy.”

Turning back, he smiled up at Richards. “Sorry you had to undergo the Bogs Method, old thing, but I had to put Tony’s feet to the fire, as it were. All in a day’s work.”

“Not
my
work, dammit!”

“Now you
are
being tiresome.” He sighed. “There’ll be a bit extra in your monthly stipend, how’s that for compo?”

Richards did not reply, simply sat down as far away from the other two men as he dared.

“You know, it’s a curious thing,” Brick began, “but Dick has never disappointed me. Not once. That’s a serious achievement.” Now he looked directly into Peter’s eyes. “Something for you to ponder, Tony; something for you to strive for.” He smiled. “Everyone needs a goal.”

“I’m self-motivated, Tom.”

Brick scowled deeply. “No one calls me Tom.”

Peter said nothing. There ensued a silence, increasingly uncomfortable as it drew out.

At length, Peter said, “I don’t apologize unless I’ve made a mistake.”

“That was a mistake.”

“Only after the ground rules are set.”

Brick stared at him. “Shall we take them out and measure them?”

“I already know who’d win.”

This comment, meant to provoke, instead made Brick laugh. He shook a forefinger in Peter’s direction. “Now I know the reason I liked you from the get-go.” He paused for a moment, staring up at the high ceiling as if contemplating the infinite mystery of the stars in the night sky. When he looked at them again, his expression was altogether different. The British jokester was nowhere to be seen.

“Times have changed,” he began. “Well, times are always changing, but now they change to our advantage. Events have taken on an ironfisted certainty; there is no longer the will for compromise. In other words, society is made of tigers and lambs, so to speak. This has always been true, I suppose, but the change that moves in our favor is that the tigers are all weak. In times past, these tigers were vindictive—this was always true. You merely have to take a peek at mankind’s history of wars to understand that. Yet now, the tigers are both vindictive and obstinate. All of them have dug in their heels. Good for us. Their pigheadedness has made them brittle, easy to manipulate, to discredit. Which leaves all society’s sheep leaderless in the meadow, ready to be sheared.” He grinned. “By us.”