The Bourne Sanction (29 page)

“It’ll loop the video images back on themselves endlessly,” she’d told them. “That was the easy part. In order to make the code a hundred percent invisible it’ll work for ten minutes, no more. At that point, it will, in essence, self-destruct, deforming into tiny packets of harmless code the system won’t pick up as anomalous.”

Everything now depended on timing. Since it was impossible to send an electronic signal from the
NSA
safe house without it being picked up and tagged as suspicious, they had worked out an external timing scheme, which meant that if anything went wrong-if Tyrone was delayed for any reason-the ten minutes would tick by and the plan would fail. This was the plan’s Achilles’ heel. Still, it was their only option and they decided to take it.

Besides, Deron had a number of goodies he’d concocted for them after consulting the architectural plans of the building he’d mysteriously conjured up. She had tried to get them herself and struck out;
NSA
had what she thought was a total lock on the property records.

Just before they stopped at the front gates, Soraya said, “Are you sure you want to go through with this?”

Tyrone nodded, stony-faced. “Let’s get on wid it.” He was pissed that she’d even thought to ask that question. When he was on the street, if one of his crew dared to question his courage or resolve that would’ve been the end of him. Tyrone had to keep reminding himself that this wasn’t the street. He knew all too well that she’d accepted a huge risk in taking him in off the street-civilizing him, as he sometimes thought of the process when he felt particularly hemmed in by the rules and regulations of white men he knew nothing about.

He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, wondering if he’d ever have stepped into the white man’s world were it not for his love of her. Here was a woman of color-a Muslim, no less-who was working for the Man. Not just the Man, but the Man squared, cubed into infinity, whatever. If she didn’t mind doing it, why should he? But his upbringing was about as different from hers as it could get. From what she’d told him her parents had given her everything she needed; he barely had parents, and they either didn’t want to give him anything or were incapable of giving it. She had the advantage of a firstclass education; he had Deron who, though he’d taught Tyrone many things, was no substitute for white man’s education.

What was ironic was that only months ago, he would have sneered at the kind of education she had. But once he’d met her he began to understand how ignorant he really was. He was street-smart, sure-more than she was. But he was intimidated around people who’d graduated high school and college. The more he observed them maneuvering through their world-how they talked, negotiated, interacted with one another-the more he understood just how stunted his life had been. Street smarts and nothing else was just what the doctor ordered for picking your way through the hood, but there was a whole fucking world beyond the hood. Once he realized that, like Deron, he wanted to explore the world beyond the borders of his neighborhood, he knew he’d have to remake himself from the toes up.

All this was on his mind when he saw the imposing stone-and-slate building within the high iron fence. As he knew from the plans he’d memorized at Deron’s it was perfectly symmetrical, with four high chimneys, eight gabled rooms. A spiky fistful of antennas, aerials, and satellite dishes was the only anomalous feature.

“You look very handsome in that suit,” Soraya said.

“It’s fuckin’ uncomfortable,” he said. “I feel stiff.”

“Just like every
NSA
agent.”

He laughed the way a Roman gladiator might as he entered the Colosseum.

“Which is the point,” she added. “You’ve got the tag Deron gave you?”

He patted a place over his heart. “Safe and sound.”

Soraya nodded. “Okay, here we go.”

He knew there was a chance he’d never come out of that house alive, but he didn’t care. Why should he? What had his life amounted to up until now? Shit-all. He’d stood up-just as Deron had-made his choice. That’s all a man asks for in this life. Soraya presented the credentials LaValle had sent her by messenger this morning. Nevertheless, both she and Tyrone were scrutinized by a bookend pair of suits with square jaws and standing orders not to smile. Finally, they passed muster, and were waved through.

As Tyrone drove down the snaking gravel drive Soraya pointed out the terrible gauntlet of surveillance systems an intruder would have to pass in order to infiltrate from beyond the property’s borders. This monologue reassured him that they’d already bypassed these risks by being LaValle’s guests. Now all they had to do was negotiate the interior of the house. Getting out again was another matter entirely. He drove up to the portico. Before he could turn off the engine, a valet came to relieve him of the car, yet another square-jawed military type who’d never look right in his civilian suit.

General Kendall, punctual as usual, was at the door to meet them. He gave Soraya’s hand a perfunctory shake, then eyeballed Tyrone as she introduced him.

“Your bodyguard, I presume,” Kendall said in a tone someone would use for a rebuke.

“But he doesn’t look like standard-issue CI material.”

“This isn’t a standard CI rendezvous,” Soraya returned tartly. Kendall shrugged. Another perfunctory handshake and he turned on his heel, leading them inside the hulking structure. Through the public rooms, gilt-edged, refined, expensive beyond modern-day imagining, along hushed corridors lined with martial paintings, past mullioned windows through which the January sunlight sparked in beams that stretched across the plush blue carpet. Without seeming to, Tyrone took note of every detail, as if he were casing the joint for a high-end robbery, which in fact he was. They passed the door down to the basement levels. It looked precisely as Soraya had drawn it from memory for him and Deron.

They went on another ten yards to the walnut doors leading to the Library. The fireplace contained a roaring blaze, a grouping had been set with four chairs in the same spot where Soraya said she had sat with Kendall and LaValle on her first visit. Willard met them just inside the door.

“Good afternoon, Ms. Moore,” he said with his customary half bow. “How very nice to see you again so soon. Would you care for your Ceylon tea?”

“That would be wonderful, thank you.”

Tyrone was about to ask for a Coke, but thought better of it. Instead he ordered another Ceylon tea, having not the faintest idea what it tasted like.

“Very good,” Willard said, and left them.

“This way,” Kendall said unnecessarily, leading them to the grouping of chairs where Luther LaValle was already seated, staring out the mullioned windows at the light gathered to an oval over the western hills.

He must have heard the whisper of their approach, because he rose and turned just as they came up. The maneuver seemed to Soraya artfully rehearsed, and therefore as artificial as LaValle’s smile. Dutifully, she introduced Tyrone, and they all sat down together.

LaValle steepled his fingers. “Before we begin, Director, I feel compelled to point out that our own archives department has unearthed some fragmentary history on the Black Legion. Apparently, they did exist during the time of the Third Reich. They were composed of Muslim prisoners of war who were brought back to Germany from the first putsches into the Soviet Union. These Muslims, mainly of Turkish descent from the Caucasus, detested Stalin so much they’d do anything to topple his regime, even becoming Nazis.”

LaValle shook his head like a history professor recounting evil days to a class of wideeyed students. “It’s a particularly unpleasant footnote in a thoroughly repugnant decade. But as for the Black Legion itself, there’s no evidence whatsoever that it survived the regime that spawned it. Besides which, its benefactor Himmler was a master of propaganda, especially when it came to advancing himself in the eyes of Hitler. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the role of the Black Legion on the Eastern Front was minimal, that it was in fact Himmler’s fantastic propaganda machine that gave it the feared reputation it enjoyed, not anything its members themselves did.”

He smiled, the sun emerging from behind storm clouds. “Now, in that light, let me take a look at the Typhon intercepts.”

Soraya tolerated this rather condescending introduction, meant to discredit the origin of the intercepts before she even handed them over. She allowed indignation and humiliation to pass through her so she could remain calm and focused on her mission. Pulling the slim briefcase onto her lap, she unlocked the coded lock, extracted a red file with a thick black stripe across its upper right-hand corner, marking it as
DIRECTOR

EYES
ONLY-material of the highest security clearance.

Staring LaValle in the face, she handed it over.

“Excuse me, Director.” Tyrone held out his hand. “The electronic tape.”

“Oh, yes, I forgot,” Soraya said. “Mr. LaValle, would you please hand the file to Mr. Elkins.”

LaValle checked the file more closely, saw a ribbon of shiny metal sealing the file.

“Don’t bother. I can peel this back myself.”

“Not if you want to read the intercepts,” Tyrone said. “Unless the tape is opened with this”
he held up a small plastic implement
“the file will incinerate within seconds.”

LaValle nodded his approval of the security measures Soraya had taken. As he gave the file to Tyrone, Soraya said, “Since our last meeting my people have intercepted more communication from the same entity, which increasingly seems to be the command center.”

LaValle frowned. “A command center? That’s highly unusual for a terrorist network, which is, by definition, made up of independent cadres.”

“That’s what makes the intercepts so compelling.”

“It also makes them suspect, in my opinion,” LaValle said. “Which is why I’m anxious to read them myself.”

By this time, Tyrone had slit the metallic security tape, handed the file back. LaValle’s gaze dropped as he opened the file and began to read.

At this point Tyrone said, “I need to use the bathroom.”

LaValle waved a hand. “Go ahead,” he said without looking up. Kendall watched him as he went up to Willard, who was on his way over with the drinks, to ask for directions. Soraya saw this out of the corner of her eye. If all went well, in the next couple of minutes Tyrone would be standing in front of the door down to the basement at the precise moment Kiki sent the virus to the
NSA
security system. Ivan Volkin was a hairy bear of a man, salt-and-pepper hair standing straight up like a madman, a full beard white as snow, small but cheerful eyes the color of a rainstorm. He was slightly bandy-legged, as if he’d been riding a horse all his life. His lined and leathery face lent him a certain dignified aspect, as if in his life he’d earned the respect of many.

He greeted them warmly, welcoming them into an apartment that appeared small because of the stacks of books and periodicals that covered every conceivable horizontal surface, including the kitchen stovetop and his bed.

He led them down a narrow, winding aisle from the vestibule to the living room, made room for them on the sofa by moving three teetering stacks of books.

“Now,” he said, standing in front of them, “how can I be of help?”

“I need to know everything you can tell me about the Black Legion.”

“And why are you interested in such a tiny footnote to history?” Volkin looked at Bourne with a jaundiced eye. “You don’t have the look of a scholar.”

“Neither do you,” Bourne said.

This produced a spraying laugh from the older man. “No, I suppose not.” Volkin wiped his eyes. “Spoken like one soldier to another, eh? Yes.” Reaching around behind him, he swung over a ladder-backed chair, straddled it with his arms crossed over the top. “So. What specifically do you want to know?”

“How did they manage to survive into the twenty-first century?”

Volkin’s face immediately shut down. “Who told you the Black Legion survives?”

Bourne did not want to use Professor Specter’s name. “An unimpeachable source.”

“Is that so? Well, that source is wrong.”

“Why bother to deny it?” Bourne said.

Volkin rose, went into the kitchen. Bourne could hear the refrigerator door open and close, the light clink of glassware. When Volkin returned, he had an iced bottle of vodka in one hand, three water glasses in the other.

Handing them the glasses, he unscrewed the cap, filled their glasses halfway. When he’d poured for himself, he sat down again, the bottle standing between them on the threadbare carpet.

Volkin raised his glass. “To our health.” He emptied his glass in two great gulps. Smacking his lips, he reached down, refilled it. “Listen to me closely. If I were to admit that the Black Legion exists today there would be nothing left of my health to toast.”

“How would anyone know?” Bourne said.

“How? I’ll tell you how. I tell you what I know, then you go out and act on that information. Where d’you think the shitstorm that ensues is going to land, hmm?” He tapped his barrel chest with his glass, slopping vodka onto his already stained shirt.

“Every action has a reaction, my friend, and let me tell you that when it comes to the Black Legion every reaction is fatal for someone.”

Since he’d already as much as admitted that the Black Legion had, in fact, survived the defeat of Nazi Germany, Bourne brought the subject around to what really concerned him. “Why would the Kazanskaya be involved?”

“Pardon?”

“In some way I can’t yet understand the Kazanskaya are interested in Mikhail Tarkanian. I stumbled across one of their contract killers in his apartment.”

Volkin’s expression turned sour. “What were you doing in his apartment?”

“Tarkanian’s dead,” Bourne said.

“What?” Volkin exploded. “I don’t believe you.”

“I was there when it happened.”

“And I tell you it’s impossible.”

“On the contrary, it’s a fact,” Bourne said. “His death was a direct result of him being a member of the Black Legion.”

Volkin crossed his arms over his chest. He looked like the silverback in the National Zoo. “I see what’s happening here. How many ways will you try to get me to talk about the Black Legion?”