The Bourne Objective

by Robert Ludlum

  “Mummy!” Scarlett leapt out of Bourne’s arms. “Mummy, wake up!”

  Bourne, noting the edge of terror in Scarlett’s voice, bent over Chrissie. Her pulse was good, her breathing even.

  “She’s okay, Scarlett.” He pinched Chrissie’s cheeks and her eyelids fluttered, then opened. She looked up into his face.

  “Scarlett.”

  “She’s right here, Chrissie.”

  “Coven?”

  “Adam flew through the window like Batman,” Scarlett said, proud of her new knowledge.

  Chrissie frowned, noticing Bourne’s shirt. “All that blood.”

  Scarlett gripped her mother’s hand tightly. “It’s fake, Mum.”

  “Everything’s fine now,” Bourne said. “No, don’t move yet.” He scooped the glass off her as best he could. “All right, unbutton your blouse.” But her fingers trembled too badly for her to grip the buttons properly.

  “My arms are killing me,” she said softly. She turned her head and smiled into her daughter’s face. “Thank God you’re safe, sugarplum.”

  Scarlett burst into fresh tears. Chrissie looked up at Bourne as he undid her buttons, shrugged her out of the blouse so that the last of the glass shards fell harmlessly on either side of her.

  Then he lifted her up. When he’d swung her away from the bed, he put her down. As they stepped over Coven’s lifeless body, Chrissie shuddered. They stopped in the room she had been using to get sweaters for her and Scarlett, who, in a kind of delayed reaction, was leaking tears as she knelt to put on her sweater, which was yellow with a pattern of pink bunnies eating ice-cream cones. Halfway down the stairs she began to whimper.

  Chrissie put an arm around her. “It’s all right, sugarplum. Everything’s all right, Mum has you now,” she whispered over and over.

  When they reached the ground floor, she said to Bourne, “Coven tied my father up, he’s here somewhere.”

  Bourne found him, bound and gagged, in one of the kitchen closets. He was unconscious, either from the blow that caused the bruised swelling on his left temple or from the lack of oxygen. Bourne laid him on the kitchen floor and untied him. It was dark with the power still off.

  “My God, is he dead?” Chrissie said as she and Scarlett ran in.

  “No. His pulse is strong.” He took his finger away from the carotid and began to free him from his bonds.

  Chrissie, her courage disintegrating at the sight of her father so helplessly incapacitated, began to soundlessly weep, but this caused Scarlett to sob, so she bit her lip, holding back more tears. She ran cold water in the sink, soaked a dishcloth, and filled up a glass. Crouching down beside her daughter, she placed the folded towel against Bourne’s cheek, which had started to swell and discolor.

  Her father was thin, in the manner of many older people. His face was time-ravaged and somewhat lopsided, so that Bourne guessed he’d had a stroke not so long ago. Bourne shook him gently, and his eyelids fluttered open, his tongue ran around his dry lips.

  “Can you sit him up?” Chrissie asked. “I’ll get some water into him.”

  Supporting her father’s back, Bourne sat him up slowly and carefully.

  “Dad, Dad?”

  “Where is that sonovabitch who hit me?”

  “He’s dead,” Bourne said.

  “Come on, Dad, drink some water.” Chrissie was observing her father closely, fearful that at any moment he would pass out again. “It’ll make you feel better.”

  But the old man paid her no mind. Instead he was staring intently at Bourne. He licked his lips again and accepted the glass his daughter held for him. His knobby Adam’s apple bobbed spastically as he drank. He choked.

  “Easy, Dad. Easy.”

  His hand fluttered up, and she took the rim of the glass away from his mouth. Then his forefinger unfurled, pointing at Bourne.

  “I know you.” His voice was like sandpaper over metal.

  Bourne said, “I don’t think so.”

  “No, no. You came into the Centre when I ran it. That was years ago, of course, when the Centre was in Old Boys’ School in George Street. But I’ll never forget it because I had to call an ex-colleague by the name of Basil Bayswater, a first-class wanker if ever there was one. He made a killing in the market and retired to Whitney. Spent all his time playing an ancient form of chess or something. Disgraceful waste of time.

  “But you.” His forefinger touched Bourne’s chest. “I never forget a face. I’ll be goddamned. You’re Professor Webb. That’s it! David Webb!”

  20

  PETER MARKS RECEIVED the call from Bourne, brief and succinct, and with mixed feelings agreed to come to the address Bourne gave him. In a way, he was surprised that Bourne had called him back. On the other hand, Bourne didn’t sound like himself, which caused Marks to wonder what sort of situation he was heading into. His relationship with Bourne was all one-way: through Soraya. He knew something of her history with Bourne, and he’d always wondered whether she had allowed her personal feelings to color her opinion of him.

  The official CI line was, and had been for some time, that Bourne’s amnesia had made him unpredictable, and therefore dangerous. He was a rogue agent, loyal to no one and nothing, least of all CI. Though CI had been forced to use him in the past, it was always through deception or coercion, because there seemed no other way to control him. And not even those methods had proved to be a sure thing. Though Marks was personally aware of Bourne’s recent work bringing down Black River and stopping an incipient war with Iran, he knew next to nothing about the man. He was a complete enigma. It was futile to predict his responses in any given situation. And then there was the fact that many people who had tried to get close to him had died sudden and violent deaths. Happily, Soraya wasn’t one of them, but Marks worried that it might be just a matter of time.

  “Bad news?” Don Fernando Hererra said.

  “Just more of the same,” Marks said. “I’ve a meeting to go to.”

  They were seated in the living room of Diego Hererra’s home, surrounded by photos of him. Marks wondered whether being here was painful or comforting for the father.

  “Señor Hererra, before I go, is there anything more you can tell me about your godson? Do you know why he was at the Vesper Club last night, or why he might have stabbed Diego? What sort of relationship did they have?”

  “None, to answer your last question first.”

  Hererra took out a cigarette and lit up but didn’t seem interested in smoking it. His eyes roved the room, as if afraid to alight on any one thing for long. Marks suspected that he was nervous. About what?

  Hererra contemplated Marks for some moments. The ash from his unsmoked cigarette toppled soundlessly to the carpet, where it lay between his feet. “Diego did not know of Ottavio’s existence, at least so far as his relationship to me was concerned.”

  “Then why would Ottavio kill Diego?”

  “He wouldn’t, therefore I refuse to believe that he did.”

  Hererra told his driver to take Marks to the nearest rental-car office. He insisted that he and Marks exchange phone numbers. Those words of disbelief resounded in Marks’s head as he punched the address Bourne had given him into the GPS program on his PDA.

  “I want to stay abreast of your investigation,” Hererra said. “You promised me that you would find my son’s killer. You should know that I take all promises made to me extremely seriously.”

  Marks saw no reason to doubt him.

  Fifteen minutes after he drove out of the rental-car lot, his PDA buzzed and he read a text message from Soraya. Within minutes Willard called him.

  “Progress.”

  “I’ve made contact,” Marks said, meaning Bourne.

  “You know where he is?” A slight quickening of Willard’s voice.

  “Not yet,” Marks lied. “But I will soon.”

  “Good, I’m in time.”

  “Time for what?” Marks asked.

  “The mission has changed somewhat. I need you to
facilitate a meeting between Bourne and Arkadin.”

  Marks searched for hidden meaning in Willard’s voice. Something back home had changed. He hated being out of the loop and felt at an immediate disadvantage. “What about the ring?”

  “Are you listening to me?” Willard snapped. “Just do as you’re ordered.”

  Now Marks was certain that he was being denied access to a major development. He felt the old anger against the machinations of his superiors rising up in his throat like bile.

  “Has Soraya Moore made contact?” Willard continued.

  “Yes. I just received the rearranged text message from her.”

  “Contact her,” Willard said. “Coordinate your efforts. You need to get the two men to the following place.” He gave Marks an address. “How you do it is up to you, but I do have some information Arkadin should find interesting.” He told Marks what El-Arian had told him about the missing piece of information without which the file on the laptop’s hard drive was useless. “You have seventy-two hours.”

  “Seventy-two—?” But he was talking to dead air. The conversation was over.

  At the next intersection, Marks checked the GPS map on his PDA to make sure that he hadn’t missed a turn while talking with Willard. The morning had started out sunny, but clouds had rolled in, turning everything to shades of gray. Now a light drizzle blurred the edges of even the sharpest angles on buildings and signs.

  The light turned green and, as he left the intersection behind, he noticed a white Ford moving into his lane right behind him. He knew a tail when he saw one. He’d seen the white Ford before, several vehicles behind him, though now and again he’d lost sight of it behind a large produce truck. The Ford was occupied by only the driver, who wore dark glasses. Stepping on the accelerator, he sent his rental car lurching forward as he ground the gearshift up from first to third more quickly than the transmission could easily handle. There was a moment between second and third when the car hesitated, and he was afraid he’d stripped the gears. Then it leapt forward so fast he almost slammed into the rear end of the truck in front of him. He swerved to the right-hand lane, accelerating further as the white Ford slid in behind him.

  He was in a section of London dense with traffic, boutiques, and larger stores. A sign for an underground garage came up so fast he had to swerve into its entrance at the last possible instant. He scraped the front left fender on the concrete wall, then corrected and hurtled down the ramp into the neon-lit concrete cavern.

  He pulled into a parking spot that was so tight, he had to roll down the window to slide out. By that time, he heard the squeal of tires and figured the white Ford was still hot on his trail. He saw the open stairwell next to the elevator, ducked into it just as a white car flashed by. The stairwell smelled of grease and urine. As he rushed up the stairs two and three at a time, he heard a car door slam and the fast slap of shoe soles against concrete, and then someone was running up the stairs behind him.

  As he was about to whip around a corner, he came upon a homeless man, so drunk he had passed out. Bending over, Marks held his breath as he dragged the drunk up the stairs, placing him across the tread just around the corner. Retreating into shadow on the stairs above, Marks waited, breathing deeply and easily.

  The sounds of pounding footsteps came closer, and Marks tensed himself into a half crouch. His tail raced around the corner and, as Marks had planned, didn’t see the drunk until it was too late. As he stumbled, pitching forward, Marks leapt down the stairs, driving his knee into the top of the man’s head. The tail lurched backward, stumbling again over the drunk and sprawling onto his back.

  Marks saw him pulling a Browning M1900 from beneath his jacket. Marks kicked it upward just before he fired a shot. The noise held and echoed so deafeningly in the confined space, the drunk opened his eyes and sat bolt upright. The man with the Browning grabbed the drunk by the collar and pressed the gun’s muzzle into the side of his head.

  “You’ll come with me now.” He had a heavy accent, Middle Eastern perhaps. “Or I shoot his brains out.” He jerked the drunk so hard, spittle flew from his slack lips.

  “Oi, yer wanker!” the drunk shouted, completely confused. “Piss off!”

  The gunman, as contemptuous as he was incensed, slammed the side of the drunk’s head with the barrel of the Browning. Marks launched himself across the gap. The heel of his hand made contact with the gunman’s chin, shoved it hard upward, exposing his neck. While he wrestled with the gun hand, he drove his fist into the gunman’s throat. The cartilage gave way and the gunman collapsed, gasping without getting oxygen into his system. His eyes were wide and rolling. He could only make animal gruntings, but soon enough even that ceased.

  The drunk whirled with astonishing agility and kicked the gunman in the crotch. “ ’Ow ’bout that now, yer bleedin’ pisspot!” Then, muttering to himself, he stumbled down the stairs without a backward glance.

  Quickly now Marks went through the gunman’s pockets, but all he found was keys to the white Ford and a wad of money. No passport, no identification of any kind. He had dark skin, black curling hair, and a full beard. One thing for sure, Marks thought, he’s not CI. So who was he working for and why the hell was he following me? He wondered who could know he was here except for Willard and Oliver Liss.

  Then he heard the whistle raised by foot police and knew he had to get out of there. Once more, he studied the dead man, wishing there was some identifier, like a tattoo or…

  That’s when he saw the gold ring on the third finger of his right hand and, stooping, worked it off. He hoped there might be a commemorative engraving on the inside.

  There wasn’t. There was something far more interesting.

  Soraya saw Leonid Arkadin again in the lone marina restaurant. Or, rather, he must have been searching for her, because engrossed in her fiery shrimp and yellow rice she didn’t see him enter. Her waiter brought her a drink—a tequini, he said—from the man at the bar. Soraya glanced up, and of course it was Arkadin. She looked into his eyes as she picked up the martini glass. She smiled. That was all the encouragement he needed.

  “You’re persistent, I’ll give you that,” she said when he’d sauntered over.

  “If I were your lover, I wouldn’t let you eat dinner alone.”

  “My ex pool boy? I sent him packing.”

  He laughed and gestured to the booth in which she sat. “May I?”

  “I’d prefer you didn’t.”

  He sat down anyway and put his drink on the table, as if marking out his territory. “If you let me order, I’ll pay for your dinner.”

  “I don’t need you to pay for my dinner,” she said flatly.

  “Need has nothing to do with it.” He lifted his hand and the waiter glided over. “I’ll have steak, bloody, and an order of tomatillos.” The waiter nodded and left.

  Arkadin smiled, and Soraya was astonished at how genuine it seemed. There was a deep warmth to it that frightened her.

  “My name is Leonardo,” he said.

  She snorted. “Don’t be ridiculous. No one in Puerto Peñasco is named Leonardo.”

  He seemed crestfallen, like a little boy caught with his hand in the cookie jar, and now she was beginning to make sense of his approach to women. She could see how magnetic he was, how compelling an impression he made, exuding the security of a powerful man with a softer core of vulnerability. What woman could resist that? She laughed silently to herself and felt better, as if at last she was standing on solid ground, in a place where she could confidently move forward with her assignment.

  “You’re right, of course,” Arkadin said. “It’s actually Leonard, just plain Leonard.”

  “Penny.” She held out a hand, which he held briefly. “What are you doing in Puerto Peñasco, Leonard?”

  “Fishing, sport racing.”

  “In your cigarette.”

  “Yes.”

  Soraya finished up her shrimp just as his steak and tomatillos arrived. The steak, bloody as ord
ered, was smothered in chilies. Arkadin dug in. He must have a cast-iron stomach, she thought.

  “And you?” he said around bites.

  “I came for the weather.” She pushed the tequini away from her.

  “You don’t like it?”

  “I don’t drink alcohol.”

  “Alcoholic?”

  She laughed. “Muslim. I’m Egyptian.”

  “I apologize for sending you an inappropriate gift.”

  “No need.” She waved away his words. “You couldn’t have known.” Then she smiled. “But you’re sweet.”

  “Ha! Sweet is one thing I’m not.”

  “No?” She cocked her head. “What are you, then?”

  He wiped the blood off his lips and sat back for a moment. “Well, to tell you the truth I’m something of a hard-ass. My partners thought so, especially when I bought them out. So did my wife, for that matter.”

  “She’s also in the past?”

  He nodded as he dug into his food again. “Nearly a year now.”

  “Children?”

  “Are you kidding?”

  Arkadin certainly had a gift for spinning yarns, she thought appreciatively. “I’m not much of a nurturer, either,” she said, somewhat truthfully. “I’m entirely focused on my business.”

  He asked her what that might be without looking up from his steak.

  “Import-export,” she said. “To and from North Africa.”

  His head came up slowly, but very deliberately. She felt her heart beating against her rib cage. It was, she thought, like coaxing a shark onto the hook. She didn’t want to make the slightest mistake now, and felt a little thrill pass through her. She was very close to the precipice, to the moment when her fictional self would fuse with her real self. This moment was why she chose to do what she did. It was why she hadn’t walked away from Peter when he’d recruited her for the assignment, why she had set aside the demeaning aspect of what she was expected to do. None of that mattered. What mattered was standing a hairbreadth from the precipice. This precise moment was what she lived for, and Peter had known this long before she did.