The Bourne Betrayal

by Robert Ludlum

  Difficult as it was for a Westerner to understand, Sarah ibn Ashef embodied all of that. Of course her brothers would move heaven and earth to kill her murderer. This was why they had taken the time to weave Bourne’s utter destruction—first of mind, then of body. Because it would not be enough for them merely to seek him out and put a bullet through the back of his head. No, the plan was to break him, then to have Fadi kill him with bare hands. Nothing less would do.

  Bourne knew that the news of his death would send both brothers into a frenzy. In this unstable state they were more apt to make a mistake. All the better for him.

  He needed to tell Soraya the identity of the man who was pretending to be Martin Lindros. Pulling out his cell phone, he punched in the country and city code, then her number. The act of dialing brought home to him that he hadn’t heard from her. He glanced at his watch. Unless it had been badly delayed, her flight would have landed in Washington by now.

  Once again, she wasn’t answering, and now he began to worry. For security reasons he didn’t leave another message. After all, he was supposed to be dead. He prayed that she hadn’t fallen into enemy hands. But if the worst had happened, he had to protect himself from Karim, who would no doubt check her cell for incoming and outgoing calls. He made a mental note to try her again in an hour or so. That would be just after seven, less than an hour before Muta ibn Aziz was due to leave Büyükada to wherever Fadi was now.

  “The endgame has begun,” the messenger had told Hatun. Bourne felt a chill run down his spine. So little time to find Fadi, to stop him from detonating the nuclear device.

  According to the map he had purchased on the ferry, the island consisted of two hills separated by a valley. He was now climbing the southern hill, Yule Tepe, on top of which sat the twelfth-century St. George’s Monastery. As he rose in elevation, the road turned into a path. By this time, the palm trees had given way to thick, pine-forested swaths, shadowed, mysterious, deserted. The villas, too, had fallen away.

  The monastery consisted of a series of chapels over three levels, along with several outbuildings. The blip that represented Muta ibn Aziz’s position had remained stationary for some minutes. The way became too rocky and uneven for the bike. Plucking his satchel from the basket, Bourne set the bicycle aside, continuing on foot.

  He saw no tourists, no caretakers; no one at all. But then the hour was growing late; darkness had descended. Skirting the ramshackle main building itself, he made his way farther up the hillside. According to the transponder, Muta ibn Aziz was inside the small building dead ahead. Lamplight glowed through the windowpanes.

  As he approached, the blip started to move. Shrinking back under the protection of a towering pine, he watched as Fadi’s messenger, holding an old-fashioned oil lantern, came out of the building and headed off between two colossal chunks of stone into the thicket of the pine forest.

  Bourne made a quick recon of the area, assuring himself that no one was watching the building. Then he slipped in through the scarred wooden door into the cool interior. Oil lamps had been lit against the darkness. His map identified this building as having once been used as an asylum for the criminally insane. The interior was fairly bare; clearly it was unused now. However, evidence of its grisly past was evident. The stone floor was studded with iron rings, which presumably had been used to bind the inmates when they became violent. An open doorway to the left led into a small room, empty save for some tarps and various workers’ implements.

  He returned to the main room. Against a line of windows facing north toward the woods was a long refectory table of dark wood. On the table, within a generous oval of lamplight, lay unfolded a large sheet of thick paper. Going over to it, Bourne saw that it was a map with a flight plan plotted on it. He studied it, fascinated. The air route led southeast across almost the entire length of Turkey, the southernmost tip of Armenia and Azerbaijan, out over the Caspian Sea, then, transversing a section of Iran, diagonally across the width of Afghanistan, with a landing in the mountainous region just across the border, in terrorist-infested western Pakistan.

  So it wasn’t a boat Muta ibn Aziz was going to use to leave Büyükada. It was a private jet with permission to enter Iranian airspace and enough fuel capacity to make the thirty-five-hundred-kilometer trip without refueling.

  Bourne looked out the window at the dense pine forest into which Muta ibn Aziz had disappeared. He was wondering where in that mass a landing strip suitable for a jet could be hidden when he heard a noise. He was in the process of turning around when pain exploded in the back of his head. He had the sensation of falling. Then blackness.

  Twenty-nine

  ANNE HAD NEVER seen Jamil so angry. He was angry at the DCI. He was angry at her. He didn’t hit her or scream at her. He did something far worse: He ignored her.

  As she went about her work, Anne grieved inside with a desperation she had thought she had left behind. There was a certain mind-set to being a mistress, something you had to get used to, like the dull pain of a dying tooth. You had to learn to be without your lover on birthdays, Valentine’s Day, Christmas, the anniversary of your meeting, the first time you slept together, the first time he stayed the night, the first breakfast, eaten with the naked delight of children. All these things were denied a mistress.

  At first, Anne had found this peculiar aloneness intolerable. She tried to call him when he could not be with her on the days—and nights!—she craved him the most. Until he explained to her carefully but firmly that she could not. When he wasn’t physically with her, she was to forget he existed. How can I do that? she had wailed inside her head while she smiled, nodding her assent. It was vital, she knew, that he believe she understood. Instinct warned her that if he didn’t, he would turn away from her. If he did, she would surely die.

  So she pretended for him, for her own survival. And gradually she learned how to cope. She didn’t forget he existed, of course. That was impossible. But she came to see her time with him as if it were a movie she went to see now and again. In between, she could keep the movie in her head, as anyone does with the movies they adore, ones they long to see again and again. In this way, she was able to live her life in a more or less normal manner. Because deep down where she dared to look only infrequently, she knew that without him at her side her life was only half lived.

  And now, because she had allowed Soraya to escape, he wasn’t speaking to her at all. He passed by her desk on his way to and from meetings with the Old Man as if she didn’t exist, ignored the swelling of her left cheek where Soraya’s elbow had connected. The worst had happened, the one thing that had terrified her from the moment she had fallen deeply, madly, irretrievably in love with him: She had failed him.

  She wondered whether he had gotten the goods on Defense Secretary Halliday. For a moment, she had been dead certain that he had, but then the Old Man had asked her to set up an appointment with Luther LaValle, the Pentagon intelligence czar, not Secretary Halliday. What was he up to?

  She was in the dark, too, about Soraya’s fate. Had she been captured? Killed? She didn’t know because Jamil had cut her out of the loop. She didn’t share his confidence. She could no longer tuck herself into his body, hot as the desert wind. In her heart, she suspected that Soraya was still alive. If Jamil’s cell had caught Soraya, surely he would have forgiven her the sin of allowing her to get away. She felt chilled. Soraya’s knowledge was like a guillotine hovering over her neck. Anne’s whole life would be revealed as a lie. She’d be tried for treason.

  Part of her mind went through the motions of her daily routine. She listened to the Old Man when he summoned her into his office; she input his memos and printed them out for him to sign. She made his calls, scheduled his long day with the precision of a military campaign. She protected his phone lines as fiercely as ever. But another part of her mind was frantically trying to figure out how she could reverse the fatal mistake she had made.

  She needed to win Jamil back. And she had to have him, she knew t
hat. Redemption came in many guises, but not for Jamil. He was Bedouin; his mind was locked in the ancient ways of the desert. Exile or death, those were the choices. She would have to find Soraya. Her bloodied hands were the only things that would bring him back to her. She would have to kill Soraya herself.

  Bourne awoke. He tried to move, but found himself bound by ropes tied to two of the iron rings bolted to the asylum’s floor. A man was crouched over him, a Caucasian with a lantern jaw and eyes pale as ice. He was wearing a leather flight jacket and a cap with a silver pin in the shape of a pair of wings stuck on it.

  The pilot of the jet. From the look of him, Bourne knew he was one of those flyboys who fancied himself a cowboy of the sky.

  He grinned down at Bourne. “Whatcha doing here?” He spoke in very poor Arabic, reacting to Bourne’s disguise. “Checking out my flight plan. Spying on me.” He shook his head in a deliberately exaggerated fashion, like a nanny admonishing her charge. “That’s forbidden. Got that? For-bid-den.” He pursed his lips. “You savvy?” he added in English.

  Then he showed Bourne what he was holding: the NET transponder. “What the fuck is this, you rat bastard? Huh? Who the fuck are you? Who sent you?” He pulled a knife, bringing the long blade close to Bourne’s face. “Answer me, goddammit, or I’ll carve you up like a Christmas goose! You savvy Christmas? Huh?”

  Bourne stared up at him with blank eyes. He opened his mouth, spoke a sentence very softly.

  “What?” The pilot leaned closer to Bourne. “What did you say?”

  Using the power in his lower belly, Bourne brought his legs straight up in the air, scissoring them so that his ankles crossed behind the pilot’s neck. His lower legs locked and he spun the pilot over and down. The side of the man’s head struck the marble floor with such force, his cheekbone shattered. Immediately he passed out.

  Twisting his neck, Bourne could see the knife on the floor behind his head. It was on the other side of the iron rings. Drawing his legs up, his body rolled into a ball, he rocked back and forth, gaining momentum. When he judged that he had enough force, he rocked backward with all his might. Though anchored by the rings to which his wrists were tied, he flew through the air in a backflip, passing over the rings, landing on his knees on the other side.

  Extending one leg, he hooked the knife with the top of his shoe, kicked it so that the hilt clacked against the ring to which his right hand was bound. By moving the ring down until it was almost parallel with the floor, he was able to grab the knife. Laying the edge of the blade against the rope, he began to saw through it.

  It was hard, cramped work. He couldn’t apply the kind of pressure he’d have liked, so progress was frighteningly slow. From where he knelt, he couldn’t see the transponder’s screen; he had no idea where Muta ibn Aziz was. For all he knew, at any moment the messenger would walk in on him.

  At length, he’d sawed through the rope. Quickly, he cut the rope binding his left hand, and he was free. Lunging for the transponder, he looked at the screen. Muta ibn Aziz’s blip was still some way distant.

  Bourne rolled the pilot over and methodically stripped off his clothes, which he donned piece by piece, though the shirt was too small, the pants too big. When he had arranged the pilot’s outfit on his frame as best he could, he drew over his satchel and took out the various items he’d bought at the theatrical shop in Istanbul. Setting a small square mirror down on the floor where he could easily see the reflection of his face, he removed the prosthetics from his mouth. Then he began the process of transforming himself into the pilot.

  Bourne trimmed and restyled his hair, changed the complexion of his face, added a pair of prosthetics to give his jaw a longer appearance. He had no colored lenses, but in the darkness of the night the disguise would have to do. Luckily, he could keep the pilot’s cap low on his forehead.

  He took another glance at the transponder, then went through the pilot’s wallet and papers. His name was Walter B. Darwin. An American expat, with passports identifying him as a citizen of three different countries. Bourne could relate to that. He had a military tattoo on one shoulder, the words FUCK YOU, TOO on the other. What he was doing ferrying terrorists around the globe was anyone’s guess. Not that it mattered now. Walter Darwin’s flyboy career was over. Bourne dragged his naked body into a back room, covered it in a dusty tarp.

  Back in the main room, he went to the table, gathered up the flight plan. It was twenty minutes to eight. Keeping an eye on the blip on the transponder screen, he stuffed the plan in his satchel, took up one of the lamps, and went in search of the airstrip.

  Anne knew that Soraya was too smart to come anywhere near her apartment. Pretending to be Kim Lovett, Soraya’s friend in the DCFD’s Fire Investigation Unit, she called both Tim Hytner’s mother and sister. Neither of them had seen or heard from Soraya since she had visited to break the news that Tim had been shot to death. If Soraya had gone there now, she would have warned them about a woman named Anne Held. But surely she’d want to talk to her best friend. Anne was about to call Kim Lovett herself when she thought better of it. Instead, when she left the office that evening, she took a taxi straight to the FIU labs on Vermont Avenue and 11th Street.

  Finding her way to Kim’s lab, she went in.

  “I’m Anne Held,” she said. “Soraya works with me.”

  Kim rose from her work: two metal trays filled with ash, charred bits of bone, and half-burned cloth. She stretched like a cat, stripped off her latex gloves, held out her hand for a firm shake.

  “So,” Kim said, “what brings you down to this grim place?”

  “Well, actually, it’s Soraya.”

  Kim was instantly alarmed. “Has something happened to her?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to find out. I was wondering whether you’d heard from her.”

  Kim shook her head. “But that’s hardly unusual.” She considered a moment. “It may be nothing, but a week or two ago there was a police detective who was interested in her. They met here at the lab. He wanted her to take him with her on some investigation or other, but Soraya said no. I had the feeling, though, that his interest in her was more than professional.”

  “Do you remember the date, and the detective’s name?”

  Kim gave her the date. “As for his name, I did write it down somewhere.” She rummaged through one of several stacks of files on the countertop. “Ah, here it is,” she said, pulled out a torn-off strip of paper. “Detective William Overton.”

  How small the world is, Anne thought as she exited the FIU building. How full of coincidence. The cop who had been following her had been after Soraya as well. He was dead now, of course, but perhaps he could still tell her where to find Soraya.

  Using her cell phone, Anne quickly found Detective William Overton’s precinct, its address, and the name of his commanding officer. Arriving there, she produced her credentials, told the desk sergeant she needed to see Captain Morrell on a matter of some urgency. When he balked, as she knew he would, she invoked the Old Man’s name. The desk sergeant picked up the phone. Five minutes later a young uniform was escorting her into Captain Morrell’s corner office.

  He dismissed the uniform, offered Anne a seat, then closed the door. “What can I do for you, Ms. Held?” He was a small man with thinning hair, a bristling mustache, and eyes that had seen too much death and accommodation. “My desk sergeant said it was a matter of some urgency.”

  Anne got right to the point. “CI is investigating Detective Overton’s disappearance.”

  “Bill Overton? My Bill Overton?” Captain Morrell looked bewildered. “Why—?”

  “It’s a matter of national security,” Anne said, using the surefire catchall phrase that no one could refute these days. “I need to see all his logs for the past month, also his personal effects.”

  “Sure. Of course.” He stood. “The investigation’s ongoing, so we have everything here.”

  “We’ll keep you personally informed every step of the way, Captain,”
she assured him.

  “I appreciate that.” He opened the door, bawled “Ritchie!” into the corridor. The same young uniform dutifully appeared. “Ritchie, give Ms. Held access to Overton’s effects.”

  “Yessir.” Ritchie turned to Anne. “If you’ll follow me, ma’am.”

  Ma’am. God, that made her feel old.

  He led her farther along the corridor, down a set of metal stairs to a basement room guarded by a floor-to-ceiling fence with a locked door in it. Using a key, he unlocked the door, then took her down an aisle lined on both sides with utilitarian metal shelves. They were packed with cartons in alphabetical order, identified with typewritten labels.

  He pulled down two boxes and carried them to a table pushed up against the back wall. “Official,” he said, pointing to the carton on the left. “This other’s his personal stuff.”

  He looked at her, expectant as a puppy. “Can I be of any help?”

  “That’s all right, Officer Ritchie,” Anne said with a smile. “I can take it from here.”

  “Right. Well, I’ll leave you to it, then. I’ll be in the next room, if you need me.”

  When she was alone, Anne turned to the carton on the left, laying out everything in a grid. The files with Overton’s logs she put to one side. As soon as she had assured herself that there was nothing of value to her in the grid, she turned her attention to the logs. She examined each item carefully and methodically, giving special attention to entries on and after the date Kim Lovett had given her, when Overton had met Soraya at FIU. There was nothing.