Bourne 7 – The Bourne Deception jb-7

by Robert Ludlum

  — We did take you in, one of the agents said in his clipped Midwestern accent. Then the two of them walked out, leaving her confused and not a little alarmed.

  Her alarm escalated significantly when she called four different people at the Department of Defense and State, all of whom were either — in a meeting, — out of the building, or, even more ominously, simply

  — unavailable.

  She had just finished putting on her makeup when her cell buzzed with a text message from Steve Stevenson, the undersecretary for acquisition, technology and logistics at the DoD who‘d recently hired her.

  PERRY 1HR, she read off her screen. Quickly erasing it, she applied lipstick, gathered up her handbag and checked out of the hospital.

  It was twenty-three miles from the Bethesda Naval Hospital to the Library of Congress. Google Maps claimed the ride would take thirty-six minutes, but that had to have been at two in the morning. At 11 AM, when Moira took the trip by taxi, it was twenty minutes longer, which meant she got to her destination with almost no time to spare. On the way, she had phoned her office, asked for a car to meet her, giving an address three blocks from her current destination.

  — Bring a laptop and a burner, she said before flipping her phone closed.

  It was only when she exited the taxi that she felt aches and pains spring up in all parts of her body. She felt a massive post-trauma headache coming on. Digging in her handbag, she took three Advil, swallowing them dry. The day was mild but overcast and dull, no break in the gunmetal sky, no wind to speak of. The pale pink cherry blossoms were already trampled underfoot, tulips were blooming, and there was an unmistakable earthy scent in the air as spring advanced.

  Stevenson‘s text message, PERRY, referred to Roland Hinton Perry who, at the tender age of twenty-seven, had created the Fountain of the Court of Neptune sculpture on the far west side of the entrance to the Library of Congress. It was on the pavement level, rather than at the elevated level of the porte-cochere main entrance. Set into three niches of the stone retaining wall that was flanked by the entryway staircases, the fountain-with its twelve-foot bronze sculpture of the Roman god of the sea as a fearsome centerpiece-emitted a raw and restless energy that contrasted dramatically with the sedate exterior of the building itself. Most visitors to the library never even knew it existed. Moira and Stevenson did, however. It was one of the half a dozen meeting places scattered in and around the district they had agreed upon.

  She saw him right away. He was in a navy-blue blazer and gray lightweight wool trousers, his shoulders hunched up around his brick-red ears. He was facing away from her, staring at the rather violent countenance of Neptune, which meant that his head was slightly thrown back, his bald spot coming into prominence.

  He didn‘t move when she came up and stood beside him. They might have been two totally unconnected tourists, not the least because he displayed an open copy of Fodor‘s guidebook to Washington, DC, the way a pheasant announces its presence by spreading its tail.

  — Not a happy day for you, is it? he said without turning in her direction or even seeming to move his lips.

  — What the hell is going on? Moira asked. -No one in DoD, including you, is taking my calls.

  — It seems, my dear, that you‘ve stepped in a great steaming pile of shit. Stevenson flipped a page of the guidebook. He was one of those oldschool government functionaries who went to a barber for a shave every day, had a manicure once a week, belonged to all the right clubs, and made sure his opinions were held by the majority before he voiced them. -No one wants to be contaminated with the stink.

  — Me? I haven‘t done a damn thing. Except piss off my former bosses, she said to herself.

  She thought about the trouble Noah had gone to in order to get Jay‘s cell phone and to have her detained. Because she worked that part out on the way over here. The only reason for the NSA agents to say they were taking her in for tampering at the accident site and then let her go without charging her was that for some reason Noah needed her out of commission overnight. Why?

  Maybe she‘d find out once she downloaded the files on the thumb drive she‘d found sewn into the lining of Jay‘s jacket, but for now her best strategy was to pretend she knew absolutely nothing.

  — No. Stevenson shook his head. -What we have here is something more. I think someone at your company trod on a nerve. The late Jay Weston, perhaps?

  — Do you know what Weston dug up?

  — If I did, Stevenson said slowly and carefully, — I‘d be roadkill by now.

  — That big?

  He rubbed his immaculate red cheek. -Bigger.

  — What the hell is going on between the NSA and Black River? she said.

  — You‘re a Black River ex-employee, you tell me. He pursed his lips. -No, on second thought, I don‘t want to know anything, not even speculation. Ever since the news of the jetliner explosion hit the wires, the atmosphere at DoD

  and the Pentagon has been shrouded in a toxic fog.

  — Meaning?

  — Nobody‘s talking.

  — Nobody ever talks up there.

  Stevenson nodded. -True enough, but this is different. Everyone‘s walking around on eggshells. Even the secretaries seem terrified. In my twenty years of government service I‘ve never experienced anything like it. Except-

  Moira felt a ball of ice form in her stomach. -Except what?

  — Except right before we invaded Iraq.

  9

  WILLARD WATCHED Ian Bowles as he exited Firth‘s surgery. He‘d marked him the second time he‘d showed up at the compound and, as with every other of the doctor‘s patients, he‘d made inquiries. Bowles was the only one about whom nothing was known locally. Willard hadn‘t spent the last three months simply training Bourne. Like all good agents, he‘d immediately begun to acquaint himself with his environment. He‘d become friendly with all the key people in the area who, de facto, became his eyes and ears. The advantage of being in Manggis was that neither the village nor the surrounding area was highly populated. Unlike Kuta and Ubud, only a smattering of tourists found their way to the area, so it wasn‘t difficult to identify the patients who came to see the doctor. By this homespun method, Ian Bowles stood out like a sore thumb. However, Willard wouldn‘t act until Bowles revealed himself one way or the other.

  Ever since he‘d been released from his undercover duties at the NSA safe house in rural Virginia, Willard had pondered long and hard how he could be of best use to the clandestine service, which functioned as his mother, father, sister, and brother. Treadstone had been Alexander Conklin‘s dream. Only Conklin and Willard himself knew Treadstone‘s ultimate purpose.

  He went about this work with extreme caution because he was laboring under a handicap Conklin never had to deal with. In Alex‘s day the Old Man had signed off on Treadstone. All Conklin had to do was to fly below the CI radar, to make good on the goals he‘d promised the Old Man, while working on his own agenda deep in the shadows. Willard did not have the advantage of such support. As far as Veronica Hart and CI were concerned Treadstone was as dead and buried as Conklin himself. Willard was far too canny to believe Hart would allow him a restart, which meant that he had to work clandestinely within one of the world‘s largest clandestine organizations. The irony wasn‘t lost on him.

  As he followed Bowles out of the compound and down a deserted lane he reflected on how fortuitous Moira Trevor‘s phone call had been, since this remote island off the CI grid was the perfect place to begin the resurrection of Treadstone.

  Up ahead of him, Bowles had stopped beside a motor scooter, parked beneath the shade of a frangipani tree. Bowles took out his cell phone. As he pressed the SPEED DIAL key, Willard unfurled a thin metal wire with wooden handles on either end. Stepping quickly up behind Bowles, he whipped the wire around the other‘s throat and pulled so hard on the handles Bowles was lifted onto the tips of his toes.

  The New Zealander dropped his cell, reaching around behind him to make a grab at his
unseen assailant. Dancing out of the way, Willard maintained the lethal pressure on the wire. Bowles‘s gestures became more frantic. He tore into the flesh of his own neck in his frenzy to breathe, his eyes bulged in their sockets, red threads mottling the whites. Then there was a sudden foul stench and he collapsed.

  Unwinding the wire, Willard scooped up the cell and, as he walked briskly away, checked the number Bowles had been dialing. He recognized the first digits as those of a Russian cell phone. The call had failed, and he walked into Manggis to a spot he knew to be cell-receptive and hit REDIAL. A moment later a familiar male voice answered.

  Willard, momentarily stunned, nevertheless gathered himself and said,

  — Your man Bowles is dead. Don‘t send another, then hung up before Leonid Danilovich Arkadin could say a word.

  When Moira left Stevenson she walked opposite the direction she needed to go. She spent twenty minutes following circuitous routes, checking in car side-mirrors and plate-glass windows, looking for a tail, and when she had assured herself that she wasn‘t being followed, she walked back to where the car was waiting for her three blocks west of the Fountain of Poseidon.

  The driver saw her coming and got out of the car. Not looking at her or acknowledging her in any way, he walked toward her. They passed each other close enough for him to hand off the keys without stopping or even breaking stride.

  She went past the parked car, crossed the street, and stood looking around as if unsure which way to go. In fact, she was scrutinizing the environment, breaking it down into vectors, which she inspected for anyone in the least bit suspicious. A boy and a girl, presumably his sister, played with a golden Lab under the watchful eye of their father. A mother wheeled her baby carriage; two sweaty joggers dodged in and out, listening through in-ear plugs to iPods attached to armbands.

  Nothing seemed out of place, which was precisely what worried her. NSA agents on the street or even in passing cars she could deal with. It was the people who might be placed behind building windows or on rooftops that concerned her. Well, there was no help for it, she thought. She‘d done the best she could, now it was put one foot in front of the other and pray that she‘d slipped any surveillance that might have been attached to her once the two NSA agents had left her at Bethesda Naval Hospital.

  As an added precaution, she pried the SIM chip out of her phone and ground it beneath the heels of her shoe. She kicked it into a storm drain in the gutter, then chucked her cell in after it. She had the key in her hand as she approached the car from across the street. She crossed in front of it and dropped her handbag. Kneeling down, she dug out her compact, used the mirror inside to check the underside of the car as best she could. She checked under the rear as well. What was she expecting to find? Nothing, hopefully. But there was always a chance that a passing NSA agent had left a bug on the under chassis.

  Spotting nothing suspicious, she unlocked the car and slid behind the wheel. It was a late-model silver Chrysler that her own mechanics had customized with a muscular turbocharged engine. Finding the laptop and the burner beneath the seat, she ripped off the burner‘s pristine plastic wrap. Burners were disposable cell phones loaded with pre-paid minutes. As long as you didn‘t use them for too long, you were safe talking on them, and no one could use the SIM to triangulate your position as they could with a registered cell.

  Fighting an urge to fire up the computer right there, she turned the key in the ignition, put the car in gear, and nosed out into traffic. She was no longer comfortable staying in one place too long; neither did she feel safe going back to the office or even her home.

  Heading back across into Virginia, she drove aimlessly for close to an hour, after which time she could no longer control her curiosity. She had to find out what was on the thumb drive she‘d lifted off Jay‘s corpse. Did it hold the key to what was going on between NSA and Black River that, according to Stevenson, held all of the DoD in thrall? Why else would Noah and the NSA come after Jay and now her. She had to assume the DC motorcycle cop was bogus-that he was, in fact, either NSA or Black River. Stevenson had been terrified. The whole scenario chilled her to the marrow.

  Passing through Rosslyn, she suddenly became aware that she was famished. She couldn‘t remember the last time she‘d eaten, apart from whatever they‘d given her this morning in the hospital. Who could eat that stuff? More to the point, what kind of chef could concoct such tasteless, overcooked mush?

  She turned onto Wilson Boulevard, drove past the Hyatt, and pulled over into a parking space several car-lengths from the entrance to the Shade Grown Café, a place she knew inside and out and thus felt safe in. Taking the laptop and the burner with her, she got out, locked the car, and hurried into the steamy interior. The smells of bacon and toast made her mouth water. Slipping into a well-worn cherry-colored vinyl booth, she gave the plasticwrapped menu a cursory once-over before ordering three eggs over easy, a double portion of bacon, and wheat toast. When the waitress asked if she wanted coffee, she said, — Please. Cream on the side.

  Alone at the Formica table, she opened the notebook so that the screen faced her and the wall behind her. While it was booting up, she bent down and extracted the thumb drive from the underwire section of her bra. The tiny electronic rectangle was warm and seemed to beat like a second heart. Using her thumb on the special reader, she logged in, then answered her three security questions. Finally on, she plugged the thumb drive into one of the USB ports on the left side of the computer. Switching to My Computer, she navigated to the portable drive that had appeared there, then double-clicked on it.

  The screen went black, and for a moment she thought the drive had crashed the operating system. But then the screen started scrolling in lines of what looked like gibberish. There were no folders, no files, just this everscrolling series of letters, numbers, and symbols. The information was encrypted. That was just like the careful Jay.

  At once she hit the ESCAPE key and was back at the My Computer screen. Accessing the C drive, she opened the wireless access connections wizard. Either the coffee shop was Wi-Fi-enabled or someplace close was because the wizard detected an open network. That was both good and bad. It meant she could get on the Web, but there were no network encryption safeguards. Luckily, she‘d had all the Heartland laptops fitted with their own mobile encryption package among a host of other security measures, which in this case meant that even if someone hacked her ISP address they wouldn‘t be able to read the packets of information she sent and received; nor would they be able to locate her.

  She pushed the laptop aside when her breakfast arrived. It would take some time for the proprietary Heartland deciphering software to analyze the data on the thumb drive. She uploaded the encrypted data and pressed the ENTER key, which started the program.

  By the time she‘d mopped up the last of the third egg yolk with a wedge of buttered toast and the last of the bacon, she heard a soft chime. Almost choking on her final bite, she swigged down a mouthful of coffee and stacked her plates at the edge of the table.

  Her forefinger hovered over the ENTER key for the tiniest of moments before depressing it. At once words began to flood across her screen, then marched down as the entire contents of the drive were revealed.

  PINPRICKBARDEM, she read.

  She couldn‘t believe it. Her eyes traveling over the scrolling lines read PINPRICKBARDEM over and over. The lines came to an end and she checked again. The entire drive had been filled up with these fourteen letters. She broke down the letters into the most obvious words: Pin Prick Bar Dem. Then another: PinP Rick Bar Dem. She wrote down: Picture in Picture (on a digital TV?), Rick’s Bar (?), Democrat.

  Online, she ran a quick Google check. There was a Rick‘s Bar in Chicago and one in San Francisco, an Andy amp; Rick‘s Bar in Truth Or Consequences, New Mexico, but there was no Rick‘s Bar anywhere in the district or the environs. She scratched out what she had written. What on earth could those letters mean? she wondered. Were they yet another code? She was about to run
them through the Heartland software program again when the sudden presence of a shadow at the periphery of her vision caused her to glance up.

  Two NSA agents were staring at her through the window. As she slammed down the laptop‘s screen one of them opened the door to the coffee shop.

  Benjamin Firth was riding his bottle of arak with a vengeance when Willard strode into the surgery. Firth was up on the table, head bowed, swigging great mouthfuls of the fermented palm liquor with grim precision.

  Willard stood looking at the doctor for a moment, remembering his father who drank himself into dementia and, finally, liver failure. It hadn‘t been pretty, and along the way there were serious bouts of the kind of lightning Jekyll-and-Hyde personality split that afflicted some alcoholics. After his father had bounced his head off a wall during one of these fits Willard, who was eight at the time, taught himself not to be afraid. He kept his baseball bat under his bed and the next time his father, stinking of booze, lunged at him, he swung the bat in a perfectly level arc and broke two of his ribs. After that, his father never touched him again, neither in anger nor in affection. At the time, Willard thought he‘d gotten what he wanted, but later, after the old man died, he began to wonder whether he‘d injured himself along with his father.