“This is the most advanced ordnance in the Russian arsenal,” Spalko said.
“But what price?” Arsenov said.
Spalko spread his hands. “What price would be appropriate if this weaponry helped you gain your freedom?”
“How do you put a price on freedom?” Arsenov said with a frown.
“The answer is you cannot. Hasan, freedom has no known price tag. It is bought with the blood and the indomitable hearts of people like yourselves.” He moved his eyes to Zina’s face. “These are yours—all of them—to use as you see fit to secure your borders, make those around you take notice.” At last, Zina looked up at him, through long lashes. Their eyes locked, sparked, though their expressions remained impassive.
As if responding to Spalko’s scrutiny, Zina said, “Even this weaponry won’t gain us entry to the Reykjavík Summit.”
Spalko nodded, the corners of his mouth turning up slightly. “True enough. The international security is far too comprehensive. An armed assault would result in nothing but our own deaths. However, I have a plan that will not only gain us access to the Oskjuhlid Hotel but will allow us to kill every person inside without exposing ourselves. Within hours of the event, everything you have dreamed of for centuries will be yours.”
“Khalid Murat was afraid of the future, afraid of what we, as Chechens, can accomplish.” The fever of righteousness colored Arsenov’s face. “We have been too long ignored by the world. Russia beats us into the ground while their comrades in arms, the Americans, stand by and do nothing to save us. Billions of American dollars flow into the Middle East but to Chechnya not a ruble!”
Spalko had assumed the self-satisfied air of a professor who sees his prize pupil perform well. His eyes glittered balefully. “That will all change. Five days from now all the world will be at your feet. Power will be yours, as well as the respect of those who have spit on you, abandoned you. Russia, the Islamic world and all of the West, especially the United States!”
“We’re speaking here of changing the entire world order, Zina,” Arsenov fairly shouted.
“But how?” Zina asked. “How is this possible?”
“Meet me in Nairobi in three days’ time,” Spalko replied, “and you’ll see for yourself.”
The water, dark, deep, alive with an unnameable horror, closes over his head. He is sinking. No matter how hard he struggles, how desperately he strikes out for the surface, he feels himself spiraling down, as if weighted with lead. Then he looks down, sees a thick rope, slimy with weed, tied around his left ankle. He cannot see what is at the end of the rope because it disappears into the blackness below him. But whatever it is must be heavy, must be dragging him down, because the rope is taut. Desperately, he reaches down, his bloated fingers scrabbling to free himself, and the Buddha drifts free, spinning slowly, falling away from him into the unfathomable darkness….
Khan awoke with a start, as always, racked by a horrible sense of loss. He lay amid the humid tangle of sheets. For a time, the recurring nightmare still pulsed evilly in his mind. Reaching down, he touched his left ankle as if to reassure himself that the rope was not tied to him. Then, gingerly, almost reverently, he moved his fingers up the taut, slick muscles of his abdomen and chest until he touched the small carved stone Buddha that hung around his neck by a thin gold chain. He never took it off, even when he slept. Of course it was there. It was always there. It was a talisman, even though he had tried to convince himself that he didn’t believe in talismans.
With a small sound of disgust, he rose, then padded into the bathroom, splashed cold water over his head. He turned on the light, blinking for a moment. Thrusting his head close to the mirror, he inspected his reflection, looking at himself as if for the first time. He grunted, relieved himself, then, turning on a table lamp, sat on the edge of the bed, read again the sparse dossier Spalko had given him. Nothing in it gave the slightest hint that David Webb possessed the abilities Khan had seen. He touched the black-and-blue mark on his throat, thought of the net Webb had fashioned out of vines and cleverly set. He tore up the single sheet of the dossier. It was useless, less than useless, since it had led him to underestimate his target. And there were other implications, just as immediate. Spalko had given him information that was either incomplete or incorrect.
He suspected that Spalko knew precisely who and what David Webb was. Khan needed to know if Spalko had set some gambit in motion that involved Webb. He had his own plans for David Webb and he was quite determined that no one—not even Stepan Spalko—got in the way.
With a sigh, he turned off the light and lay back down, but his mind was unprepared for sleep. He found his entire body abuzz with speculation. Up until making the deal for his last assignment with Spalko, he had had no idea David Webb even existed, much less was still alive. He doubted he would have taken the assignment had not Spalko dangled Webb in front of his face. He must have known that Khan would find the prospect of finding Webb irresistible. For some time now, working for Spalko had made Khan uncomfortable. Increasingly, Spalko seemed to believe that he owned Khan, and Spalko, Khan was sure, was a megalomaniac.
In the jungles of Cambodia, where he had been forced to make his way as a child and teenager, he had had more than a little experience with megalomaniacs. The hot, humid weather, the constant chaos of war, the uncertainty of daily life all combined to drive people to the edge of madness. In that malevolent environment, the weak died, the strong survived; everyone was in some elemental fashion changed.
As he lay in bed, Khan fingered the scars on his body. It was a form of ritual, a superstition, perhaps, a method of keeping him safe from harm—not from the violence one adult perpetrates on another, but from the creeping, nameless terror a child feels in the dead of night. Children, waking from such nightmares, run to their parents, crawl into the warmth and comfort of their bed and are soon fast asleep. But Khan had no parents, no one to comfort him. On the contrary, he had been constantly obliged to free himself from the clutches of addle-brained adults who thought of him only as a source of money or sex. Slavery was what he had known for many years, from both the Caucasians and the Asians he had had the misfortune to stumble across. He belonged to neither world and they knew it. He was a half-breed and, as such, reviled, cursed at, beaten, abused, laid low in every manner a human being can be degraded.
And still he had persevered. His goal, from day to day, had devolved simply to surviving. But he had learned from bitter experience that escape was not enough, that those who had enslaved him would come after him, punish him severely. Twice, he had almost died. That was when he understood that more was required of him if he was to survive. He would have to kill or, eventually, he would be killed.
It was just before five when the Agency assault team stole into the motel from their position at the highway roadblock. They had been alerted to the presence of Jason Bourne by the night manager, who had awakened from a Xanax-induced doze to see Bourne’s face staring at him from the TV screen. He had pinched himself to make sure he wasn’t dreaming, had taken a shot of cheap rye, and made his call.
The team leader had called for the motel’s security lights to be switched off so the team could make their approach in darkness. As they began to move into position, however, the refrigerated truck at the opposite end of the motel started up and switched on its headlights, catching some of the team in its powerful beams. The team leader waved frantically to the hapless driver, then ran to his side of the truck, told him to haul ass out of there. The driver, goggle-eyed at the sight of the team, did as he was requested, turning out his lights until he was clear of the parking lot and rolling down the highway.
The team leader signed to his men and they headed directly toward Bourne’s room. At his silent command two broke off, headed around the back. The leader gave them twenty seconds to position themselves before he gave the order for them to don gas masks. Two of his men knelt, fired canisters of tear gas through the front window of the room. The leader’s extended arm came
down and his men rushed the room, slamming open the door. Gas whooshed out as they scuttled in, machine guns at the ready. The TV was on, the sound muted. CNN was showing the face of their quarry. The remains of a hasty meal were strewn on the stained, worn carpet and the bed was stripped. The room was abandoned.
Inside the refrigerated truck hastening away from the motel, Bourne, wrapped in the bedding, lay amid wooden cases containing plastic baskets of strawberries stacked up almost to the ceiling. He had managed to get himself into a position above floor level, the crates on either side holding him in place. When he had entered the rear of the truck, he had locked the door behind him. All such refrigeration trucks had a safety mechanism that could open and lock the rear door from the inside to ensure no one inadvertently got trapped. Switching on his flashlight for a moment, he had made out the center aisle, wide enough for a man to pass through. On the upper right-hand wall was the exhaust grille for the refrigeration compressor.
All at once, he tensed. The truck was slowing now as it approached the roadblock, then it stopped completely. The flashpoint of extreme danger had arrived.
There was utter silence for perhaps five minutes, then, abruptly, the harsh sound of the rear door being opened. Voices came to him. “You pick up any hitchhikers?” a cop said.
“Uh-uh,” Guy, the truck driver, answered.
“Here, look at this photo. Seen this fella on the side of the road maybe?”
“No, sir. Never seen the man. What’d he do?”
“What you got in there?” Another cop’s voice.
“Fresh strawberries,” Guy said. “Listen, Officers, have a heart. It ain’t good for them to have the door open like this. What rots comes outta my pay.”
Someone grunted. A powerful flashlight beam played along the center aisle, swept across the floor just beneath the spot where Bourne lay suspended amid the strawberries.
“Okay,” the first cop said, “close it up, buddy.”
The flashlight beam snapped off and the door slammed shut.
Bourne waited until the truck was in gear, rolling at speed down the highway to D.C., before extricating himself. His mind was buzzing. The cops must have shown Guy the same photo of David Webb that was being broadcast on CNN.
Within a half hour, the smooth highway driving had given way to the constant stop and start of urban streets with traffic lights. It was time to exit. Bourne went to the door, pushed on the safety lever. It wouldn’t move. He tried again, this time with more force. Cursing under his breath, he snapped on the flashlight he’d taken from Conklin’s house. In the bright circle of the beam, he saw that the mechanism had jammed. He was locked in.
Chapter Five
The Director of Central Intelligence was in a dawn conference with Roberta Alonzo-Ortiz, the National Security Advisor. They met in the president’s Situation Room, a circular space in the bowels of the White House. Many floors above them were the wood-paneled, beautifully dentiled rooms most people associated with this storied, historical building, but down here the full muscle and might of the Pentagon oligarchs held sway. Like the great temples of the ancient civilizations, the Sit Room had been built to last for centuries. Carved out of the old subbasement, its proportions were intimidating, as befitted such a monument to invincibility.
Alonzo-Ortiz, the DCI and their respective staffs—as well as select members of the Secret Service—were going over, for the hundredth time, the security plans for the terrorism summit in Reykjavík. Detailed schematics for the Oskjuhlid Hotel were up on a projection screen, along with notes on security issues regarding entrances, exits, elevators, roof, windows and the like. A direct video hook-up to the hotel had been established, so that Jamie Hull, the DCI’s emissary-in-place, could participate in the briefing.
“No margin for error will be tolerated,” Alonzo-Ortiz said. She was a formidable-looking woman with jet-black hair and bright, keen eyes. “Every aspect of this summit must go off like clockwork,” she continued. “Any breach of security no matter how minuscule will have disastrous effects. It would destroy what coin the president has spent eighteen months building up with the principal Islamic states. I don’t have to tell any of you that beneath the facade of cooperation lurks an innate distrust of Western values, the Judeo-Christian ethic and all that stands for. Any hint that the president has deceived them will have the most dire and immediate consequences.” She looked slowly around the table. It was one of her special gifts that when addressing a group she made each and every member believe that she was speaking only to him. “Make no mistake, gentlemen. We are talking about nothing less than a global war here, a massed jihad such as we have never before seen and, quite possibly, cannot imagine.”
She was about to turn the briefing over to Jamie Hull when a young, slim man entered the room, went silently over to the DCI, handed him a sealed envelope.
“My apologies, Dr. Alonzo-Ortiz,” he said as he slit open the envelope. He read the contents impassively, though his heart rate had doubled. The National Security Advisor did not like her briefings interrupted. Aware that she was glaring at him, he pushed back his chair and rose.
Alonzo-Ortiz directed at him a smile so compressed her lips fairly disappeared. “I trust you have sufficient cause to leave us so abruptly.”
“I do, indeed, Dr. Alonzo-Ortiz.” The DCI, though an old hand and, therefore, a wielder of his own power, knew better than to butt heads with the one person the president relied on most. He remained on his best behavior even though he deeply resented Roberta Alonzo-Ortiz both because she had usurped his traditional role with the president and because she was a woman. For these reasons, he employed what little power was at his command—the withholding of what she wanted most to know: the nature of the emergency dire enough to take him away.
The National Security Advisor’s smile tightened further. “In that event, I would appreciate a full briefing of the crisis, whatever it may be, as soon as is practicable.”
“Absolutely,” the DCI said, beating a hasty retreat. As the thick door to the Sit Room swung shut behind him, he added, dryly, “Your Highness,” eliciting a gust of laughter from the field agent his office had employed as a messenger.
It took the DCI less than fifteen minutes to return to HQ where a meeting of Agency directorate heads was awaiting his arrival. The subject: the murders of Alexander Conklin and Dr. Morris Panov. The prime suspect: Jason Bourne. These were whey-faced men in impeccably tailored conservative suits, rep ties, polished brogues. Not for them striped shirts, colored collars, the passing fads of fashion. Used to striding the corridors of power inside the Beltway, they were as immutable as their clothes. They were conservative thinkers from conservative colleges, scions from the correct families who, early on, had been directed by their fathers to the offices, and thence the confidences, of the right people—leaders with vision and energy who knew how to get the job done. The nexus in which they now sat was a tightly held secret world, but the tentacles that fanned out from it stretched far and wide.
As soon as the DCI entered the conference room, the lights were dimmed. On a screen appeared the forensic photos of the bodies in situ.
“For the love of God, take those down!” the DCI shouted. “They’re an obscenity. We shouldn’t be viewing these men like that.”
Martin Lindros, the DDCI, pressed a button and the screen went blank. “To bring everyone up to date, yesterday we confirmed that it was David Webb’s car in Conklin’s driveway.” He paused as the Old Man cleared his throat.
“Let’s call a spade a spade.” The DCI leaned forward, fists upon the gleaming table. “The world at large may know this…this man as David Webb but here he is known as Jason Bourne. We will use that name.”
“Yessir,” Lindros said, determined not to run afoul of the DCI’s exceedingly black mood. He barely needed to consult his notes, so fresh and vivid in his mind were the findings. “W—Bourne was last seen on the Georgetown campus approximately an hour before the murders. A witness observed him hurry
ing toward his car. We can assume he drove directly to Alex Conklin’s house. Bourne was definitely in the house at or around the time of the murders. His fingerprints are on a glass of half-finished Scotch found in the media room.”
“What about the gun?” the DCI asked. “Is it the murder weapon?”
Lindros nodded. “Absolutely confirmed by ballistics.”
“And it’s Bourne’s, you’re certain, Martin?”
Lindros consulted a photocopied sheet, spun it across the table to the DCI. “Registration confirms that the murder weapon belongs to David Webb. Our David Webb.”
“Sonuvabitch!” The DCI’s hands were trembling. “Are the bastard’s fingerprints on it?”
“The gun was wiped clean,” Lindros said, consulting another sheet. “No fingerprints at all.”
“The mark of a professional.” The DCI looked abruptly weary. It wasn’t easy to lose an old friend.
“Yessir. Absolutely.”
“And Bourne?” the DCI growled. It appeared painful for him even to utter the name.
“Early this morning we received a tip that Bourne was holed up in a Virginia motel near one of the roadblocks,” Lindros said. “The area was immediately cordoned off, an assault team sent into the motel. If Bourne was in fact there, he’d already fled, slipped through the cordon. He’s vanished into thin air.”
“Goddammit!” Color had risen to the DCI’s cheeks.
Lindros’ assistant came silently in, handed him a sheet of paper. He scanned it for a moment, then looked up. “Earlier, I sent a team to Webb’s home, in the event he turned up there or contacted his wife. The team found the house locked up and empty. There’s no sign of Bourne’s wife or two children. Subsequent investigation revealed that she appeared at their school and pulled them out of class with no explanation.”
The Bourne Legacy Page 8
