Yes, he had a plan in mind, a map to dream of. And it had required patience. As it was, it had been excruciating for him to convince the president to go with his plan—the part the weakling was allowed to know—and it had taken long, almost too long. But he had finally succeeded.
And it had all looked so elegant, so perfect. So final. Until the message had come from the United States, admitting that they had found the ambassador’s plane and his dead crew, but not him. The first reaction had, of course, been disbelief, but the question could not be avoided—what if they were not lying? If that man and that elusive group of his had taken the ambassador, if he was not dead, if he were to turn up alive in the wrong moment . . . the implications were unthinkable.
True, so far the man had said nothing, asked for nothing. But he could. At a time of his choice, with the price of his choice. Money was not a problem, a hefty sum that would not embarrass a small country had already been paid. But there was no doubt in Rostovtsev’s mind that money was not the issue here.
It had all been a mistake. He should have used an insider, a Russian, a loyalist. Instead, he was now in the hands of some unknown group with—apparently—its own plans. All because he had wanted to make sure this would never be traced back to him or to his beloved country.
The door crushed open and Rostovtsev started. President Sizov entered the room. A slight man, age having taken a toll on his body earlier than it should have, he nevertheless shoved the soon-to-be former head of the Foreign Intelligence Service aside and approached Rostovtsev with a determined step, never taking his eyes off the defense minister’s. His gaze was angry, accusing. “This is unacceptable,” he said. “Find them!”
“We can’t.” It was the man cowering in the doorway who answered. Panic had him raising his voice, but he didn’t care, it didn’t matter anymore. For him it was over. “The way we had contacted him before, it is not there anymore. He is gone, they are gone.”
“Then find another way! We must have something!” Rostovtsev’s voice was dangerously low.
“We can’t.” The intelligence officer’s voice was feeble, defeated. “Minister, we can’t. We have tried everything. They are gone. We allowed anonymity. We . . .” We have been used, he wanted to say, you have been used, but he did not dare speak out.
A crash had everyone in the room turning away from him. This time it was President Sizov who had broken the delicate touch top of the table. Disregarding everyone else in the room, he took a step closer to Rostovtsev and jabbed a finger in the bigger man’s chest. “Fix this!”
He turned and left.
The room was silent. Rostovtsev stood motionless, thinking.
Finally, he turned to his advisers. “Move up the schedule.”
Chapter Nineteen
ARPA Director Richard Bourne sat in his office, its only screen showing and having shown nothing but the news since he came in that morning. He couldn’t focus on anything else, although if anyone happened to come into the room he feigned being busy at work, quickly getting rid of them. It was all over the news. None of the major networks had stopped talking about it. None of the minor ones, either, or the online media outlets. They were all showing endless footage of the disputed region, with field correspondents speaking dramatically about the dire situation in Bosnia and Republika Srpska, of what was sure to be another war between the two nations. And what if Russia’s forces crossed the borders? Would it succeed in taking over the two countries? What did it want—was it really just looking to help stop the war if it broke out, help the people, or did it have the same ulterior motive it had had in the past? And could its anticipated actions lead to a region-encompassing war? How would the free world react, would it move to protect Bosnia and Republika Srpska? Could it? Was there anyone left to help, with the growing internal mayhem in the only alliance of nations that had any power to do so?
Their futile speculations amused Bourne. The alliance was falling apart. The United States had offered its help and was blatantly rejected, and already there were voices from within it calling for it to perhaps rethink its support of the Internationals and their agenda. The Internationals’ peacekeepers near the Brčko District tri-border with Bosnia and Republika Srpska were suffering abuse. And even the Croatians, whose territory IDSD was apparently planning to launch the alliance’s defense forces from, forces that included also Croatia’s troops, were unsure if the Internationals were still friends or perhaps the new foes.
It was all going so well, better than he had expected. He was exhilarated. He wanted so much to contact his peers, his friends, wanted to be there with them in their meeting place in Pohnpei. But he must not. He wasn’t allowed to contact anyone lest he was being watched. He wasn’t worried about being caught, he had done so much over the years without ever being observed. Still, this was different. ARPA was at the center of a double investigation, the murder and the theft, and he could not risk drawing unwanted attention to himself.
Thinking about the murder clouded his mood. The theft of the technology had been easy, he had no compunction about it and had been in the perfect position to pull it off. But the murder, that was terrible. Terrible. He had not had a quiet moment since. He had never killed before, had never been required to do so himself, there had always been others far more suitable for it than him. But this, it was worth it.
It was all worth it.
He was basking in the news reports that foretold doom and blamed it on the wrong people when the door opened. He looked up with a carefully impassive expression, but it wasn’t his administrative assistant, nor any of the other people he had worked with for so many years now at ARPA.
USFID Special Agent in Charge Donovan Pierce walked in, other agents flocking into the office behind him. One of them approached Bourne, stood him up unceremoniously, and handcuffed him. The agent was saying something, but Bourne wasn’t listening. His gaze was locked on the steely blue-gray eyes that held his. His heart beat fast. No way. There was no way they had him.
As the arresting agent led him out, others positioned themselves around him. He looked back to see yet others with gloved hands walking into his office, beginning to tear it apart, keeping everyone else away. All the people who worked with him, for him, stood shocked, watching, whispering among themselves. He was urged forward and huffed indignantly. How dare they do this to him, parade him this way? A man in his position and with the kind of friends he had! He was good at politics, and the contacts he had in high places could attest to that. He would have their heads. Yes, he would destroy them, destroy that Pierce guy, destroy that arrogant USFID, as he and his friends had destroyed the Internationals.
He was placed in a small, claustrophobic interrogation room at USFID-SIRT. He had no idea how long he sat there, alone, deliberately visible cameras on him. He was being watched. Yes, of course he was. To make sure he would not hurt himself. Why should he? He had the upper hand. He would not let these puny people demean him into taking his own life. He had a future ahead of him, a brilliant future, with the elite group he was a part of. With what he had done, his crucial role in the events taking apart the Internationals and the alliance, he could expect prestige. Respect. Yes, respect.
Behind the wall that was, in fact, a holographically masked glass divide, Donovan watched him in silence. Every shift in position. Every gesture. Every small change in the man’s expression. When behind him Agent Emma Quinn came into the room and informed him that connection with Emero was established and that the IDSD agent was standing by to watch the interrogation remotely, Donovan exited the room. Emma remained in it. The interrogation would not be disturbed.
Donovan entered the interrogation room and sat down opposite Bourne, who looked at him with a seemingly confused, indignant look on his face.
“I don’t understand. Why are you doing this?”
Donovan remained silent, impassive.
“Have I not offered you my assistance in your investigation? This is about Joseph Berman, is it not? Why would you be
acting this way?”
Donovan watched him.
“You cannot do this!” Fear flared, and Bourne switched tactics. “I am a high-ranking official! I have the most important projects in the United States, in the world, under me!”
Donovan’s lips curved up a little. Just enough to remind the man before him that this was precisely why he was there.
The investigator’s silence, those cool eyes, disconcerted Bourne. He remembered their first meeting, the efficiency with which the investigator had dealt with the murder, the way he and his people had gone through ARPA without hesitation in their efforts to investigate first the murder and then the Sirion theft, not the least bit intimidated by ARPA’s status. The way the director of US Global Intelligence had gone around Bourne directly to Donovan, that first day.
Bourne fought to conceal sudden panic. Had he missed anything? Was there an omission somewhere, something that the investigator could have found? The killing had been clean. Berman had not questioned Bourne’s request to meet him and the deputy director of the Facilities and Logistics Directorate in the subbasement, to discuss getting rid of the obsolete equipment stored there, to make place, perhaps, for more usable rooms. Space, after all, was always needed, and Berman had thought he was being asked to assist in suggesting which current projects might warrant the musty subbasement’s conversion. He had been surprised that only Bourne was there, but it was easy to lie, tell him that the deputy director would be a few minutes late, delayed in traffic on his way to work. Nor did Berman think twice about turning his back to ARPA’s director. It had been a single shot, with a gun that no longer existed. And then it had simply been a matter of returning to his office, trying to appear as calm as he could, which wasn’t easy, granted, then waiting for the body to be found and for all evidence to be discovered that would lead to the major being implicated in the theft, which Bourne himself had so brilliantly laid.
No, they had nothing.
Bolstered by his own thoughts, his own logic, his arrogance returned. “I want a lawyer.”
“You have committed an act of treason.”
Bourne froze.
Donovan’s smile was as cold as his eyes. “It’s just you and me.”
“Wait. No. You mean you suspect me of an act of treason. A ridiculous allegation.” He was ARPA’s director. Did this man think he was a fool?
“No, you did it. You stole sensitive technology through Major Joseph Berman and then you killed him. And you gave what you stole to people who didn’t mind hurting your country,” Donovan said conversationally. It was, for him a given, and he went with what his gut had told him since day one. It was simple, really. There was no time to go around it, interrogate, give the suspect time to consider, then interrogate some more. This would end now.
Bourne struggled to feign disbelief, indignation. “What? Why would I do that?”
“To eventually use that technology to abduct Internationals Ambassador George Sendor.”
“Who?”
Donovan smiled again. Waited silently. The seconds ticked by, yet he did not move a muscle, never took his eyes off Bourne’s.
Bourne shifted in his seat. “You mean the man in the news? You think I had something to do with that? You are out of your mind!” He laughed. “Yes, of course. It was all me. I stole the Sirion specs, then I killed Joseph Berman to cover my tracks and point the finger at him, and then I built a copy of Sirion myself and used it to down that jet the ambassador was on.”
“Pretty much, yes.”
“You are out of your mind.” Bourne’s eyes were wide.
“Except that you gave the Sirion specs to your co-conspirators. Your ex-Yahna buddies. They’re the ones who completed it. They used it to down the jet.”
Bourne choked. How on earth did the investigator know all this, make all the connections? He had to think. No, Pierce had to be fishing. There was no proof, he had made no mistakes.
“You didn’t want to kill Joseph.” Donovan’s voice cut into Bourne’s thoughts. His tone was almost regretful. This made Bourne’s gaze waver.
“He was a good man. Reliable, committed. Everybody liked him,” Donovan continued, going for the one weakness he knew Bourne couldn’t overcome. This was, after all, why the director couldn’t keep from involving himself in the investigation. The profile Donovan had prepared for him had been clear. Remorse about the life he had taken would be the one thing he wouldn’t be able to deal with. His mistake was killing Berman himself, physically taking the gun and shooting the man at close range, seeing him die, seeing the life he himself had taken. The first time he had killed, Donovan had no doubt.
“Yes, he was a good man.” Bourne’s voice was barely audible.
“And you are not a killer, Richard.”
Bourne’s eyes lowered with regret he couldn’t hide. “No, I’m not,” he said, as the thin pretense of self-justification he had done his best to maintain to keep away the reality of what he had done finally fell apart and his mind betrayed him, replaying that horrible moment in the subbasement when he had shot the innocent man in the back of the head. In the back, of all things. His own involuntary intake of breath when had skirted the body and had seen the open eyes, staring lifelessly at nothing, surprise etched forever into the man’s face.
That was the last thing he had seen before falling asleep, then waking up again with a cold sweat, in the nights since.
“You didn’t want to kill him,” Donovan said again, his voice soft this time, almost tender.
“No, I didn’t, I never did,” Bourne said before he realized what he was saying. His head rose sharply, his eyes wide. But the eyes that met his weren’t victorious, none of the coldness was there. Just that same gentle tone the investigator had in his voice.
On-screen in the room behind the wall that only looked like a wall, Emero chuckled incredulously. “Damn, the guy knows his job.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” Emma, in the same room, said. Most outsiders learned quickly that Donovan had a way of making connections others couldn’t hope to make and following them without hesitation to his goal. Few got to see him breaking a suspect.
“You had to kill him. You had no choice, he found out,” Donovan said in the interrogation room, his voice quiet, sympathizing. Reilly had run the scenario, the one he had asked her to run for him, after she determined that Berman’s computer wasn’t used by anyone but him. With ARPA’s security and the Sirion project’s restricted access, the only way to steal Sirion remotely in a way that the theft was hidden was to access it through Berman’s ARPA account for the project when Berman was logged in. But then, ARPA kept track of all its personnel’s computers, and as its director, Bourne would know when that was. In her simulation, Reilly had found that all the director had to do was use his own overriding authorizations to get into the ARPA system, masking his entry, then enter the Sirion project piggybacking on Berman’s account, take what he wanted, and then remove all logs as he backed out of the system again. He could also easily set it up so that if Berman logged out this would immediately disconnect him, too, to avoid discovery. Who better to steal from an ARPA project than the person who had unlimited access to it all?
But Berman must have found out. The co-head of the Sirion project, Dr. Beinhart, had said something that caught Donovan’s attention—that Berman had returned early from the last testing site because he wanted to prepare the next one. But what if that wasn’t the real reason? It would explain the place he was killed in. After all, it wouldn’t make sense to kill him at ARPA, unless there was no choice.
Bourne’s eyes were still on him, something almost beseeching in them. Seeking justification, Donovan thought, and used it to get what he wanted.
“You accessed the project when he wasn’t in his account. Until then you only accessed it when he was logged in, you knew when that was because just as you could access his account, you could also access ARPA’s system that tracks its personnel’s use of its resources.” Between Bourne’s over
ride authorizations and the fact that he would have had the experts who replicated Sirion to provide him with the necessary technical guidance, this wasn’t far-fetched to assume. And then again, Reilly had ascertained it in her simulation. “But something happened and you had no choice but to access it when he wasn’t logged in, and he found out.”
Berman said nothing, but his eyes moved away from Donovan’s for a split second.
“Something was wrong with the Sirion copy. Your accomplices needed to use it, but, what, it didn’t work? A test they ran to check it failed maybe? And they needed the fix quickly because they knew when the ambassador was scheduled to leave the peace talks and planned to get him then.” This one, Emero was still looking at. Obviously, those who downed the ambassador’s jet knew where and when it would be, possibly through someone who knew enough about the negotiations or about the ambassador planning to attend the meeting in Brussels, or someone at the Split base the jet took off from. The extremist faction had a man at the top of ARPA, so why not elsewhere? Unfortunately, Emero and his people were not even close to finding whoever it was yet. But that didn’t matter now, not in this interrogation. “So you went in and took what they needed and Major Berman found out.”
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