The Bourne Retribution

by Eric Van Lustbader

  That would be either Felipe Matamoros or Raul Giron, Bourne thought. His money was on Matamoros, by far the more powerful of the cartel bosses.

  “A difficult man.”

  She looked at him curiously. “Abusive would be a more accurate adjective.”

  “He beat you?”

  “There was a misunderstanding, you might say, and this is the result.”

  “Some result.”

  “Some misunderstanding.”

  Looking into her eyes, it seemed to him that she knew he didn’t believe her. But she was not yet ready to tell him the truth. He could understand that.

  He filled a plastic cup from the jug on the rolling tray and handed it to her. Angél was still between them, a kind of bridge, the first green shoots of trust emerging between them.

  “Gracias, Javvy,” she said. She drank deeply, then put the empty cup aside.

  She smiled, the first sign of true warmth he had seen in her. It seemed clear to him that slowly but surely she was letting her defenses down.

  “Maricruz, are you in some kind of trouble?”

  At once, something in her retracted. “I told you. It was a misunderstanding, that’s all.”

  But the flicker of anxiety that crossed her face told Bourne she was lying.

  29

  Seven minutes after Carlos arrived at his office, Lieutenant Rios entered with a slim file, which he placed in his boss’s hand.

  “According to our forensics, the bomb was sophisticated, C-4—a professional job, for certain, and nothing like the cartels would cook up.”

  “Not even Los Zetas?”

  “It’s nothing we’ve ever seen before from them.”

  A worm of dread crawled through Carlos’s belly. “A foreign import,” he said.

  “That’s the only logical conclusion,” Rios said, nodding. “Which fits with the hit we got on the fingerprint. Our own files had nothing, but we struck gold through the American database.”

  “Excellent.”

  Outside, the streets and rooftops had been scrubbed clean by the night’s storm. The sky was a clear, piercing blue, the city’s perpetual haze being kept at bay at least until the sun rose high enough to raise the temperature and resurrect the smog.

  “It wasn’t easy,” Rios continued. “Initially, we came up against increasingly higher-level security clearances.”

  “But you got through.”

  “Our friends at the CIA eventually provided access,” Rios said. “They seemed keen on helping once I told them the circumstances that led to the inquiry.”

  Carlos opened the folder, which contained a single sheet of computer printout, including a grainy head shot taken with a surveillance telephoto lens.

  “Bourne,” he said. “The bomb was made and set by Jason Bourne.”

  No wonder it was sophisticated, Carlos thought.

  “He seems to terrify them,” Rios continued. “They want him dead.”

  “So do I.” Carlos handed the folder back to his lieutenant. “Get this photo out to everyone—all branches of the police and military. I want it in the hands of all airport, train and bus station, taxi depot, and rental car personnel within the hour. Find this fucker, Lieutenant. And when you do, shoot to kill.”

  When Lieutenant Rios left his boss’s office, he went down the hall, called to Sergeant Rivera. When he poked his head out of his cubicle, Rios handed him the photo of Bourne. “See that this is distributed to everyone—and I mean everyone.” He detailed the order as Carlos had recited to him. “The boss wants this in their hands within the hour.”

  “Right on it, sir.”

  Rios watched Rivera hustle off, then he went into the stairwell, trotting down the stairs to the lobby. Outside, he crossed the street, went into a vest-pocket park. The only inhabitants around this early were a couple of vagrants, whom he kicked out, and a flock of pigeons, which followed him around, believing he was about to feed them.

  Taking out a burner mobile—he bought a new one three times a week—he pressed a SPEED DIAL button and waited for the familiar voice to answer.

  “News?”

  “Big news. Jason Bourne’s fingerprint was found inside a bomb he affixed to Carlos’s SUV last night.”

  “I don’t believe it,” Felipe Matamoros said. “Bourne wouldn’t be that careless.”

  Rios was curious as to why Matamoros wasn’t surprised that Bourne was in Mexico City, but he stifled his curiosity, which was a dangerous thing when dealing with Matamoros. “Still,” he said, “this is the evidence we have. The boss has us handing out his photo to everyone—”

  “How the hell did you get a photo of him?”

  “CIA.”

  “Of course. The CIA has wanted him dead for years. Now they’re letting Carlos do their wet work for them.”

  Rios looked around furtively, always on guard during his short phone sessions with the man paying him a small fortune to inform on Carlos. “Any instructions?”

  “Just keep me informed on your progress with Bourne.”

  Maricruz worried her lower lip. “I want to trust you, but I don’t think I can.”

  “Then you are in trouble.”

  Her expression told Bourne she was.

  “I would help you if you asked.”

  She eyed him skeptically. “Why? I’m only a patient, one of many—”

  “But Angél isn’t,” Bourne said.

  That seemed to give her pause.

  “She needs an advocate here,” Bourne went on. “She’s formed an attachment to you, true enough. But you’re a foreigner now; there’s only so much you can do on Mexican soil.”

  Maricruz drew the girl to her, wrapped her arms around her. “I can’t let anything happen to her. I won’t.”

  “Who understands that better than me?”

  She studied him long and hard.

  “What is it?”

  “I’m trying to figure out what your angle might be.”

  He laughed. “I live in a different world than you, Maricruz. I calculate rates of survival, not angles.”

  Maricruz put her head alongside Angél’s. “What d’you think, guapa?” she whispered in the girl’s ear.

  Angél grinned at Bourne. He grinned back. Silently, they spoke to each other.

  Maricruz lifted her head, nodded in a kind of surrender. “The beating I received,” she said slowly, almost painfully, “was deliberate.”

  “Of course it was deliberate. This man in San Luis Potosí was a pro. He knew what he was doing.”

  She offered him a bleak smile. “I’m afraid I ordered it done.”

  Bourne wasn’t easily surprised, but this revelation rocked him. “Why would you have such a terrible thing done to yourself?”

  “To gain someone’s trust—someone who had reason to be suspicious of me.”

  Bourne stood up. “I think you should stop before you say something you’ll regret.”

  “Javvy, you said I could trust you.”

  “Of course you can trust me, Maricruz. I’d not reveal a word of our conversations, but it seems to me we’re heading in a direction I don’t feel comfortable—”

  “Javvy, sit down.” She gestured. “Please.”

  Bourne remained standing. She needed more incentive to keep coming toward him. “Back to the subject at hand, perhaps you’re wise not to be more specific about the source of your beating.”

  “You don’t really believe that,” she said.

  “I’m going to go now.”

  As he turned to leave, she said with some force, “It’s Carlos I need to get close to.”

  He turned back. “Why are you telling me this?”

  “I don’t know.”

  He regarded her critically. “I think you do. By confessing you’re making me complicit.”

  “Yes.”

  “That’s what you wanted all along.”

  She hesitated a moment. “It would seem so, yes.”

  “Why?”

  She had thought about this
ever since waking with the sense, if not the form, of her dream hanging ripely in her mind. “Do you want the truth?”

  “Always.”

  “Because you seem fearless,” she said. “Because as I said, I need help.”

  “Help with what?”

  “Not what,” Maricruz said. “Who.”

  “Carlos.”

  “Yes,” she said. “Carlos.”

  “Maricruz, since you’ve opened us up to sedition, why did you return to Mexico?”

  “I needed to speak with Felipe Matamoros and Raul Giron.”

  “Drug business. How do you know I won’t report you to the Federales?”

  She smiled sweetly. “What would you tell them?”

  “What, indeed?” He laughed, and in that laugh was the certain knowledge that he had won her over.

  She likes winning, Bourne thought. No, she loves it. She lives for it. And therein lay the weakness embedded in her strength.

  “What do you know about Carlos Danda Carlos?”

  Bourne shrugged. “Only what I read in the papers. He’s a hero, according to el presidente.”

  “El presidente appointed Carlos. What else is he going to say?”

  “Political expediency, okay.”

  “That’s all?”

  “There’s more?”

  “Under the guise of ridding Mexico of the cartels, Carlos benefits from their profits,” Maricruz said.

  “You have proof of this?”

  “When I met with Matamoros and Giron in San Luis Potosí a few days ago, Carlos was with Giron. In fact, it was he, not Giron, who acted as the Sinaloa mouthpiece.”

  “I read that Giron and his lieutenants have been found executed in San Luis Potosí,” Bourne said. “But I don’t believe everything I read in the papers.”

  “This story’s true,” Maricruz said. “I was there. Los Zetas had had enough of their double dealing.”

  “But they didn’t touch Carlos.”

  “Carlos was clever enough to fly back here to the capital during the night,” she said ruefully.

  “Fled the scene.”

  Maricruz nodded in accord. “Like the coward he is.”

  “And then you had Matamoros’s people beat you up,” Bourne said.

  “I am a Trojan horse.”

  “And now what?”

  “Now,” Maricruz said, “you help me kill Carlos Danda Carlos.”

  30

  You can’t be serious,” Bourne said, after the nurse had taken away the breakfast tray. Despite Maricruz’s urging, Angél had eaten very little, though it was more than she had consumed the day before. “I’m a doctor. What makes you think I’d help you kill anyone?”

  Angél whispered something in Maricruz’s ear.

  “Claro, sí, guapa,” Maricruz said, kissing her cheek.

  The girl hopped off the bed and, with one backward look at Maricruz, crossed to the toilet and went in.

  “Believe it or not,” Maricruz said, “that’s a big advance for her.”

  “I see you had a second bed put in for her.”

  “Yes, but so far she refuses to use it. It’s all right, I like the company.”

  There was a small silence, cut finally by Maricruz. “As to what you said, Carlos Danda Carlos isn’t just anyone.”

  “Granted, but I’ve taken an oath to save life, not take it.”

  Maricruz shot him a speculative look. “Extreme circumstances call for extreme measures.”

  “Okay,” he said, “what am I missing?”

  “Someone has to expose Carlos for what he is and what he’s done. Would you be against doing that?”

  “Of course not.”

  “That’s fine, but this is Mexico, Javvy. Neither you nor I nor anyone else, for that matter, will ever be able to successfully expose Carlos. And even if by some miracle we managed to gather enough hard evidence against him, that evidence would be incinerated before it got out, and we’d be killed.” She cocked her head. “Am I wrong?”

  “No.”

  “Nevertheless, you agree that Carlos must be stopped masquerading as a champion of the Mexican people while he stuffs his pockets with cartel blood money.”

  “Of course. Nothing could be clearer.”

  “Well then, the only path open to us is to kill him, isn’t that right?”

  “Come on, Maricruz. People like us don’t just go around killing other people.”

  She crossed her arms over her breasts. “Then please provide an alternative.”

  Bourne had to admire her powers of reasoning. He could imagine a real surgeon—the one who had actually worked on her shoulder—being persuaded by her argument. Of course, he had been ready to jump right in, but in order to maintain his cover he’d had to rely on her to provide a compelling argument. She had not disappointed him.

  “I can’t, but that doesn’t mean—”

  “Are you a coward, like Carlos Danda Carlos?”

  “I think you know the answer to that.”

  She swung her legs out of bed, held out her hand, which he took, though it didn’t seem as if she required help to stand. “Let’s walk around the suite. I need the exercise.”

  Angél emerged to find her with her arm slung through Bourne’s. She stared at them both, blinking hard. At that moment, Tigger poked his head inside the room, and the girl scampered back into the bed, pulling the covers over her.

  “Perdóname, señora. I’ve just now heard from Señor Carlos. He sends his regrets, but pressing business has kept him from visiting you today.” He smiled. “But tomorrow’s another day, eh?”

  “Thank you, Tigger,” she said, but Bourne, catching the guard’s eye, knew this piece of information was as much for him as it was for her.

  They began their circumnavigation of the suite, skirting the second bed.

  “How are your legs feeling?” Bourne asked.

  “Like tree trunks.” She laughed softly, and Angél poked her head out from the covers. Maricruz laughed again for her benefit. The girl responded with the ghost of a smile.

  Bourne didn’t believe Maricruz. Her gait was sure and strong.

  Maricruz waited until they were as far away from the door as they could get. “You know, Javvy, I’ve put a lot of faith in you—telling you all these things.”

  “Your secrets are safe with me, Maricruz.”

  “I’m glad of that because you’ve seen me at my worst.”

  “Surely your husband has seen you—”

  “Not like this. Not bruised and in pain. Not without makeup and my hair unwashed for days.”

  “Not even in the morning when you wake up?”

  “He’s up at four in the morning, working. By the time we see each other I’m as I always appear to him. As far as he’s concerned I’m perfect.”

  “And what would he think if he saw you like this?”

  “Weak and vulnerable? It’d be a fatal loss of face. He thinks of me in a certain way. I work very hard to keep it that way.”

  “That can’t be fun.”

  “Who says marriage is fun?”

  “I know it’s work, but—”

  “Believe it or not, sometimes it’s just a job,” she said.

  “Don’t let Angél hear you say that.”

  Maricruz snorted. “Right.”

  At that moment his mobile vibrated. It couldn’t be Tigger warning about Carlos; he would have popped his head in as he had done before.

  “Excuse me, I have to take this.”

  “Of course,” Maricruz said, turning back to Angél while Bourne went out of the room.

  He strode down the corridor to the public toilet, locked himself inside. The call was from Anunciata.

  “Trouble,” she said without preamble. “An urgent BOLO has gone out from Carlos’s office to all police and public transportation personnel including rental car companies.”

  Bourne frowned. “What about?”

  “A bomb went off last night outside Carlos’s residence, destroying his SUV and killing
three of his men. You didn’t—”

  “Of course not.”

  “Well, the BOLO claims you did. The entire city’s looking for you. You’re wanted for terrorism and murder.”

  Bourne was surprised that the Federales knew he was in-country. “Why are they fingering me?”

  “Apparently, your fingerprint was found on a bomb fragment,” she said. “It was a sophisticated bomb, Jason, not anything the cartels use.”

  “Even Los Zetas?”

  “Even the deserters don’t have that expertise.” She took a breath. “You’re going to need help now, more than ever.”

  “Not from you.”

  “What? Why?”

  “I’m not going to involve you any more than you are. As of this moment I’m toxic to be around. I don’t want you anywhere near me.”

  “But no one knows who I really am or where I live.”

  “And it’s going to stay that way. I’ll be fine. I know how to deal with these people.”

  “But—”

  “Stop!”

  “Okay, okay. How are things going with Maricruz?”

  “She’s not what I had imagined.”

  “I know she hasn’t gotten under your skin. In your current state, you won’t allow it.”

  Bourne knew she was speaking of his rejection of her physical advances. “She isn’t flirting,” he said. “She’s too busy plotting Carlos’s murder.”

  “That sounds like her.”

  “Does she know she has a half sister?” Bourne asked.

  “Who would’ve told her? Not our father, and certainly not my mother. Apart from you, no one else knows.”

  “There’s something else,” Bourne said.

  “Dígame.”

  He told her about Angél.

  “I wouldn’t have believed it of her,” Anunciata said. “The child really has no family?”

  “No one’s come to claim her, and Maricruz isn’t one to adopt her.”

  There was a slight hesitation before Anunciata said, “You know, when it comes to children you never can tell with women. I had a friend—a hard, fierce girl—who claimed she’d never have kids. ‘I’m just not cut out to be a mother,’ she told me more than once. Then she got pregnant, and when the baby was born she melted like butter in the sun.”