The Bourne Objective (30 page)

“I’m not police,” Moira said. “I’m federal.”

All the breath seemed to go out of Barbara. “Christ,” she said. “That’s how you got to Roberto.”

Moira said, “Berengária, I want you to take me to the place where the body was found. I want you to take me there now.”

B
ourne drove Ottavio Moreno’s gray Opel, following precisely the directions Coven had given him. Beside him, Ottavio was readying all the purchases Bourne had made. There was silence between them, just the thrumming of the tires on the road, the hiss of oncoming traffic working its way through the closed windows.

“Twenty minutes,” Bourne said finally.

“We’ll be ready,” Ottavio replied without lifting his head from his work. “Don’t worry.”

Bourne wasn’t worried, it wasn’t in his nature, or if it had once been, his Treadstone training had long since burned it out of him. He was thinking of Coven, the man with what was without doubt a CI field ops code name. He well knew that CI trained and directed a cadre of field operatives who specialized in wet work. He needed to know everything he could about Coven before their encounter, and there was only one person who could help him.

Taking out his cell, he punched in a number he hadn’t used in some time. When the familiar voice answered, he said, “Peter, it’s Jason Bourne.”

P
eter Marks was on his way to see Chief Inspector Lloyd-Philips, who was waiting for him at the Vesper Club, when the call came in. He fairly vibrated when he heard Bourne’s voice.

“Where the hell are you?” Marks, in the back of one of those huge London cabs, found himself shouting.

“I need your help,” Bourne said. “What do you know about Coven?”

“The CI field op?”

“You didn’t say
our field op.
Have you left CI, Peter?”

“Actually, I quit not so long ago.” Marks had to will his heart rate back down to acceptable levels. He needed to find out where Bourne was and get to him. “Danziger has created a toxic atmosphere that I wouldn’t tolerate. He’s slowly getting rid of anyone loyal to the Old Man.” He coughed as a sudden chill went through him, and he shivered briefly. “You know he canned Soraya.”

“I didn’t.”

“Jason, I want you to know… I’m damn glad you’re alive.”

“Peter, about Coven.”

“Right, Coven. He’s as dangerous—and as successful—as they get.” Marks thought for a moment. “Hard, remorseless, a real shit.”

“Would he harm a child?”

“What?”

“You heard me,” Bourne said.

“Jesus, I don’t think so. He’s a devoted family man, if you can believe it.” Marks took a breath. “Jason, what the hell is going on?”

“I don’t have time now—”

“Listen, I was sent to London to find out what the hell happened at the Vesper Club.”

“Peter, the incident at the Vesper Club happened last night. If you really are in London—”

“I am. I’m on my way to the Vesper Club now.”

“You were already on the plane when I was at the club, so cut the bullshit, Peter. Who are you working for now?”

“Willard.”

“You’re Treadstone.”

“That’s right. We’re working for the same—”

“I don’t work for Treadstone, or Willard. In fact,” Bourne went on, “when I see Willard again, I’m going to wring his neck. He sold me out. Why did he do that, Peter?”

“I don’t know.”

“Good-bye, Peter.”

“Wait! Don’t hang up, I need to see you.”

There was a brief pause. Marks found that his hand was sweating so badly, the phone almost slipped from his grip. “Jason, please. This is important.”

“Aren’t you going to ask me why I was with the man who knifed Diego Hererra?”

“You can tell me, if you want. But frankly, I don’t care. I know you must’ve had a good reason.”

“Good man. Willard is training you well.”

“You’re right, of course, Willard’s a perfect shit. He’ll do anything to resurrect Treadstone.”

“Why?”

Marks hesitated. He’d never liked hitching his star to Willard’s dream, but at the time he felt he’d had no choice. And of course, Willard had played him perfectly, working on his desire to get revenge against Danziger and his puppet master, Bud Halliday. When Willard had promised him that he’d find a way to take Halliday down, and Danziger with him, he was in. But Willard had made a mistake when he’d asked Marks to betray Bourne. Willard, having no loyalty except to the idea of Treadstone, couldn’t conceive of the idea of personal loyalty, let alone have an inkling of its power.

He took a deep breath and said, “Willard wants to get you and Arkadin together so he can determine once and for all which of Treadstone’s training protocols is superior. If Arkadin kills you, then he’ll go back to the original protocols, make some minor adjustments, and start training recruits.”

“And if I kill Arkadin?”

“Then, Jason, he says he’ll have to study you to find out how your amnesia has changed you, so he can alter the Treadstone training program accordingly.”

“A monkey in a cage.”

“I’m afraid so, yes.”

“And you’re meant to take me back to Washington?”

“No. It’s not that simple. But if you’ll meet me, I’ll explain everything.”

“Maybe, Peter. If I think I can trust you.”

“Jason, you can. You absolutely can.” Marks believed this fervently, with every fiber of his being. “When can we—?”

“Not now. Right now, what I need from you is everything you know about Coven—specifically his methodology, tendencies, and what, if it comes to it, he’s capable of.”

B
ourne listened to Peter Marks, filing away everything he said. Then he told him he’d be in touch and disconnected. For a time, he concentrated on the traffic piling up, allowing his subconscious to work on the problem at hand—that is, how to neutralize Coven without jeopardizing Chrissie and Scarlett.

Then he saw a sign for George Street and immediately recalled his afternoon in Oxford. And yet his thoughts were not of Chrissie and Professor Giles. As if it were yesterday, he recalled his visit to the Centre for the Study of Ancient Documents at the Old Boys’ School in Oxford’s George Street. He’d gone in the guise of David Webb, visiting professor of linguistics, but inside, the Bourne identity had asserted itself. He knew, but he didn’t know
how
he knew, that in this moment in time he’d still had in his possession the laptop he had stolen from Jalal Essai. He had taken time out from his classes at Oxford to enter the Centre for the Study of Ancient Documents. What had he done there, what was he researching? He couldn’t remember. But he did know that whatever he’d discovered there had led him to keep the laptop. What had he done with it? It was on the cusp of his memory, like the burning edge of the sun in eclipse. He almost had it, almost.

And then the turnoff Coven had described was coming up on the right, and he had to step away from the cusp, let it go, because it was time to confront Coven.

W
E’LL
HAVE
TO walk from here.” Barbara climbed out of the jeep. Despite the lingering heat, she had changed into jeans, cowboy boots, and a plaid shirt, the sleeves rolled up to her elbows.

Moira followed her. They had driven for perhaps a mile, due west of the hacienda but still well within the boundaries of the immense estancia. In the distance rose dusty blue hills, and the sweet, almost fermented scent of the blue agave thickened the air. The sun wallowed just above the horizon. The ground, storing the heat of the day, was baking. To the west, the sky was white and glaring.

“
Ai,
Narsico said this would all blow over, but I knew different.”

“Why is that?” Moira said.

“That’s the way things always happen.”

“What things?” Moira pressed.

“You get fucked by the smallest things.”

“Murder is a small thing?”

Barbara lifted her chin in a gesture of contempt. “You think I give a rat’s ass about someone I don’t even know?”

“What became of the police investigation?” she asked as they walked through the arid scrubland.

“The usual.” Barbara squinted into the sun. “An inspector from Tequila asked some questions, but there was no identification on the man, and no one claimed the body. He spent several weeks interviewing us and everyone on our staff. He made a complete nuisance of himself. He kept saying that there was a reason the victim was found on our estancia. We became prime suspects, but he and his kind are so inept that finally he was forced to give up spewing innuendos and speculation. Then, complete silence. So far as I knew, the case was closed.”

“That’s the Mexican perspective,” Moira said. “For us, the murder has taken on larger implications.”

The concern Moira had heard before crept back into Barbara’s voice. “Like what?”

“For one thing, we know that the victim worked for your late brother in his compound outside Mexico City, so a link has been established between you and the victim.”

“He worked for Gustavo? I had no idea. I had nothing to do with Gustavo’s business dealings.”

“Really? The fact that you’ve been sleeping with his supplier makes that difficult to believe.”

“And for another?”

Moira deliberately kept silent. It appeared that they were approaching the crime scene, or at least the spot where the body had been dumped, because Barbara slowed and began to look around.

“This is it.” Barbara pointed to a spot a few feet ahead of them. “That’s where the body was found.”

In this arid climate, footprints from several weeks ago were still visible, but they were inextricably overlaid with the boot prints of the police. Moira picked her way slowly around the periphery, scrutinizing the ground.

“The earth hasn’t been dug up, or even disturbed very much. It doesn’t look like the crime scene was scoured.”

“It wasn’t. They dragged us out here while they were here,” Barbara said.

Moira began her investigation in earnest. Snapping on a pair of latex gloves, she pawed through the dirt, dust, and scrub. By whatever mysterious means, Jalal Essai had obtained copies of the forensic photos of the victim, which showed him lying on his left side. His wrists were tied behind his back and his legs were bent at an angle, his head bent forward. From this, it could be deduced that he had been kneeling at the moment of his demise. Essai had tried to get the autopsy report, as well, but it had been lost by either the coroner’s office or the police, both of which seemed incompetent.

“Another thing,” she said, wanting to continue to heighten Barbara’s tension, “we know the victim left the compound less than thirty minutes before the raid during which your brother was killed.” She raised her gaze to peer into Barbara’s eyes. “Which means that he had advance warning of the raid.”

“Why are you looking at me?” Barbara said. “I told you I had nothing to do with Gustavo’s business.”

“Are you going to keep saying that until I believe you?”

Barbara folded her arms over her chest. “Damn you to hell, I had nothing to do with this man’s death.”

Moira was looking for a spent shell casing. The one curious thing about the photos was that it was clear the victim had been shot with a small-caliber handgun. One shot to the base of the skull. The lack of powder or flash burns on either the victim’s skin or his clothes indicated that the killer hadn’t shot at particularly close range, which you would certainly want to do if you meant to kill a man with one shot from a small-caliber weapon.

Forty minutes of sifting topsoil through her fingers produced nothing. By this time she had made one complete circuit of the crime scene at a calculated distance from where the body was found. Of course, it was possible that the victim had been killed elsewhere and dumped here, but she didn’t think so. If, as she suspected, the killer’s motivation was not only to silence the victim but also to implicate the Skydels, he would want the killing to occur on their property.

At a wider radius from the kill spot, more scrub grew, and Moira, once again down on her knees, began to excavate around the base of these gray-green plants. The sun was lowering, passing through a stray band of striated cloud. The landscape turned blue-gray in the false twilight. Moira sat back on her hams, waiting for more light. When the sun began to emerge, the crime scene was pierced with brilliant shards of red-gold, scattering across the ground at an acute angle. Their shadows stretched out behind them, attenuated giants.

Out of the corner of her eye Moira saw a bright flash, instantaneous, like the wink of a diamond facet, and then it was gone. She turned her head and quickly picked her way to the spot where she had seen the flash. Now there was nothing. Still, she drove her fingers into the ground, pushing them forward, turning over the dusty earth.

And there it was, suddenly, in the palm of her hand, as the granules of dirt fell away. Carefully, she plucked it up between thumb and forefinger and moved it into the sunlight. The flash came again, and she read the markings on the case, her heart beating hard and fast.

Barbara took a step closer. “What have you found?” Her voice was a little breathless.

Moira rose to her feet. “Has it ever occurred to you that the victim was deliberately shot on your estancia?”

“What? Why?”

“As I said, the victim worked for your brother, Gustavo. However, he was someone else’s creature. This someone tipped the victim to the raid, and the victim escaped. Why was he tipped off, only to be killed within hours of his escape?”

Barbara, mute, shook her head.

“When he left Gustavo’s compound he took with him your brother’s laptop, which contained all of Gustavo’s drug contacts.”

Barbara licked her lips. “The person who controlled him killed him?”

“Yes.”

“Shot him to death on my estancia.”

“Yes. To try to implicate you,” Moira said. “What saved you was luck in the form of the incompetence of the local police.”

“But why would this person want to implicate me in the murder?”

“I’m speculating here,” Moira said, “but I’d say he wanted to get you out of the picture.”

Again, Barbara shook her head, mutely.