The Bourne Retribution

by Eric Van Lustbader

  “It’s a good day for a sail. Of course, you always think that when you set out, but how can you really know? An unexpected storm might be lurking just over the horizon, for the moment out of sight, but moving in so quickly it catches you unawares, vigilant though you might be, as accomplished a sailor as you are.”

  The Director returned to his sandwich, dredging the corner of it in the shallow bowl of hummus that sat between them. “You’re not eating, Dani. Have you no appetite?”

  “I have no appetite for the secrets—”

  “Find another occupation, Dani.”

  “—for the secrets you withhold from me.”

  “We all have secrets that have no business seeing the light of day,” the Director said, “let alone being shared, even among colleagues.”

  Amit paused a moment, gathering his thoughts. At last, trying not to make a hash of the conversation, he said, “Everything seemed to change when Rebeka was killed.” He waited a moment, hoping for a reply, even a word of encouragement, but when none was forthcoming he plowed on, thinking, In for a penny…“Then everything changed again when Bourne showed up on our doorstep.”

  “Can you blame him?” The Director took another swig of iced tea. “He was with Rebeka when she died.”

  “I never figured him as a sentimentalist.”

  “He’s not—so far as I can tell. But he is human. It was a very human reaction for him to come here, to attend her funeral, to mourn her passing.”

  “And then, even while the funeral was in progress, you figured out a way to use him.”

  “You make me out to be so cold.”

  “Well, how would you characterize your thought process, Director?”

  “Is that a rebuke, Dani? Because my job, as I understand it, is to safeguard the State of Israel. That’s the job we’ve all undertaken—it’s why we’ve committed ourselves—our lives—to Mossad. Am I wrong?”

  “No, Director.”

  “Then let us proceed accordingly.”

  “Well, that’s the problem,” Amit said. “In this instance, there is no we. There is only you.” He spread his hands. “I simply want to help, Memune. We’ve been like brothers.”

  Yadin’s gaze drifted to his boat, to the broad, round-shouldered back of the man who was methodically sluicing the deck.

  “Ophir and I have been like brothers also, Dani. Should I tell him all my secrets?” His eyes slid back, gripped Amit’s. “Do you think that wise?”

  “To be truthful, I’ve never gotten along with Ophir. You know that, Director.”

  “Of course. As you say, I know everything.” He sighed, pushing his plate away. “In fact, I did, once upon a time. But the world changes. Every day brings new puzzles to be solved, but now the complications are of such a magnitude that I often feel lost inside the forest of enemies that seek to rip from us their pound of flesh.”

  Amit leaned forward. “All the more reason to accept my offer of help, Memune.”

  “I made the mistake of confiding in Eden,” the Director mused, “and now he’s dead.”

  “I’m not afraid of death, Memune.”

  “Nor are any of us.” The Director finished off his tea, then he nodded. “Perhaps you’re right, after all, Dani.”

  For the next ten minutes, he spoke in a soft, low voice. Not once did Amit think to stop him or ask a question. He was far too dumbfounded to utter a word.

  Later, after Amit had left to return to the office, Eli Yadin paid the check. Then, baseball cap on his head, hands in the pockets of his trousers, he strolled down to the harbor and went out onto the dock where his sailboat was berthed. The afternoon had turned hot. Despite the breeze, the sun burned down from the top of the vault of heaven. Clouds seemed to flee from it, as if terrified.

  The man who had been preparing the boat turned the moment Yadin stepped aboard.

  “It’s done?” he said.

  “It’s done, abi.”

  Yadin’s father was a bear of a man, his barrel chest a mat of white hair. In his mideighties, he had the energy of a man twenty years younger. He had a wide face, with large ears and open features. He looked like a Greek sailor. Yadin often imagined him as Odysseus, setting sail for a life at sea, defeating every challenge the jealous, resentful, covetous gods threw at him. He also thought of him as the unnamed fisherman in Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea.

  Though his father was more than a decade removed from his retirement as Mossad Director, he had not let the years get the better of him. He was as up-to-date as any of Yadin’s people. He was also the only human being Yadin confided in, despite his false confession to Dani Amit.

  “You’re sure it was the right move to make?” the old man said as, together, they made ready to cast off.

  “It was the only move to make.”

  Yadin’s father nodded, and the Director started the engine.

  “Truly, I don’t envy you,” his father said. “When I was Director I had friends inside Mossad.”

  “Another time,” Yadin said, “another place.”

  The old man came up and put his hand across his son’s shoulders. “You’ll beat them, Eli. You’ll beat all of them.”

  “Im Yirtzeh Hashem,” the Director said, guiding the boat out into open water. If God wills it.

  His father expertly let the sails full out to get the boat running before the wind. “God has nothing to do with it,” he said. “Jason Bourne does.”

  But his words were lost to the quickening wind.

  Book Three

  33

  The gun went off, the recoil jolting Angél’s arms and shoulder, even though she was prepared for it. Colonel Sun arched up, blood, bone, and brain matter sprayed from the side of his head, and he fell back, cold-fish eyes staring into whatever lay beyond life.

  Leaping up, Bourne crossed the room. He was sliding the bed toward the closed door when the clamor being raised in the corridor outside rose to a fever pitch. The door burst open and Estefan, Tigger’s partner, bulled his way through, gun drawn.

  In the split second before it happened, Bourne shouted to Angél, but it was already too late. The child, traumatized both by threats and by the death of her family, swung the muzzle around and squeezed the trigger.

  The resulting shot tore through Estefan’s chest, took him off his feet, and launched him backward into the corridor. Bourne slammed the door shut, then finished sliding the bed against it as a makeshift barrier against more intruders.

  By this time Maricruz had taken the weapon from the child’s hand. Angél was shivering and sobbing with great gasps of breath. Picking her off her feet, Maricruz pressed the girl against her breast.

  In the bathroom Bourne grabbed a towel and, wrapping it around his right hand, went back across the room, smashed the window, and quickly picked out the remaining shards of glass.

  “Okay,” he said to Maricruz and Angél, “let’s go.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Three men are dead,” Bourne said.

  “Carlos will protect me.”

  “Angél shot two of the men—one of them a foreign national with diplomatic credentials.”

  “I’ll tell the authorities you shot them.”

  “Multiple witnesses saw me in the corridor when the first shot went off. It’s more than likely you’ll be blamed for the murders. Even Carlos won’t be able to protect you from that.” There came more shouts and a pounding on the door. “You’re out of options.” He gestured with his head. “Now let’s go.”

  “Through the window?” Maricruz said.

  “Can you think of another way to get out of here?”

  “Who are you?” she said as she picked her way to the open window. “Sun said something about getting his revenge. How could he possibly know you?”

  Someone on the other side of the door was shouting questions.

  “You in there! The police have been called! They’re on their way!”

  Then the hammering started up again, more urgent
ly this time, precluding any more talk. Bourne grabbed Angél from Maricruz, climbed up on the sill, and leapt to the lawn below. The child opened her mouth in a silent howl. Tears streamed down her cheeks. She shook like a victim of malaria. Setting her down beyond the ring of glass shards, he looked up and, seeing Maricruz balanced on the sill, held out his arms.

  “Jump!” he called. “Jump now!”

  But just as she was poised to leap, Bourne caught a glimpse of two Federal soldiers running full-tilt toward them. As the soldiers approached, they drew handguns. Bourne scooped up a dagger-shaped shard of glass, and, in the same motion, flung it at the leading soldier. It slashed through his uniform, pierced his chest like a fist to the sternum. He fell to his knees, then toppled face-first onto the ground.

  The second soldier fired a shot, but he was running so fast it went wide, the bullet burying itself in the side of the hospital. Bourne launched himself at the soldier. The soldier took a swipe at him with his gun, but Bourne was already prone, rolling hard into the soldier’s lower legs. As the soldier fell forward, Bourne twisted, slammed his fist into the man’s spine. The soldier hit the ground hard, and Bourne delivered a blow to the back of his head.

  Stripping him of weapons, he turned to see that Maricruz had made the jump. Her bare feet were already bleeding from landing on the glass shards. Striding toward her, Bourne lifted her up, depositing her alongside Angél outside the glittering periphery of strewn glass.

  The mayhem had driven the child’s personality inward again. She was curled into a fetal position, and when Maricruz picked her up, she was all but unresponsive. Maricruz began to rock her, crooning softly into her ear.

  The gunshot had rendered the area around the hospital devoid of people. The citizens of Mexico City knew all too well when to seek shelter from the crime-ridden streets. Therefore, Bourne found no witnesses, let alone resistance, as he rushed Maricruz and Angél to the empty police cruiser the soldiers had commandeered. Its front doors hung open in its occupants’ haste to race to the scene of the supposed crime.

  Bourne herded the two in, got behind the wheel, and fired the ignition. But when they were a dozen blocks away, Maricruz, sitting beside him, said, “Pull over.”

  Ignoring her, Bourne continued to drive, intent on putting as much real estate between them and the hospital as possible.

  She pressed the muzzle of the handgun she had taken from Angél against the side of his head. “I said, pull over.”

  When Bourne had complied, she said, “You’re not Dr. Francisco Javier. You’re not even a doctor. Now who the fuck are you?”

  “The man who got you out of an increasingly difficult situation.”

  “And into another one. So don’t expect a thank-you.” Maricruz tapped the muzzle against his temple. “Tell me who you are.”

  In a blur of motion Bourne took the weapon away from her. “Next time, don’t get so close to your target,” he said as he laid the gun aside. “My name varies, depending on who you ask. Carlos Danda Carlos knows me as Jason Bourne.”

  At the sound of his name, the color dropped out of Maricruz’s face.

  “That’s how my father knew you.”

  “Yes.”

  “You were his downfall.”

  “And not the life he chose?”

  “Rationalize it any way you want.”

  “It’s not a rationalization, Maricruz. Who better than you to understand that?”

  “Nothing matters except that he’s dead.”

  “And did you mourn? I knew him better than you did.”

  Lunging at him, she tried to scratch his eyes out. But he was prepared for her and grabbed her wrists, pinioning them together as she raged at him.

  “No one could help your father, Maricruz,” he said. “Least of all you, parking yourself on the other side of the world. How could you mourn a man you ran all the way to China to get away from?”

  “Whatever else he was,” she said, “he was my father.”

  “A man totally unequipped to be one.”

  “And you would know.”

  “Anyone who met him would understand that, you didn’t even have to know him well.”

  She didn’t want to cry, Bourne could see that. Still, several tears squeezed out, forced themselves down her cheeks because she was unable to wipe them away. Seeing how humiliated she was, he released her wrists.

  In the backseat, the girl, Angél, had absorbed all of the sometimes confusing conversation. But tears she understood absolutely, and now she poured herself over the seat back and into Maricruz’s arms.

  “Don’t cry,” she said into Maricruz’s hair. “Don’t cry.”

  Maricruz, who had roughly wiped her cheeks, now laughed. “Listen to this child.” She sat back against the seat and closed her eyes. “God in heaven.”

  “We need to get you both some clothes,” Bourne said, putting the cruiser in gear.

  Maricruz opened her eyes and looked down at her bare feet as if seeing them for the first time.

  “Jesus,” she said, “I’m bleeding like a stuck pig.”

  It was Amir Ophir who met J. J. Hale at the appointed café he had designated for Bourne.

  Hale was seated at an outdoor table, beneath a white umbrella. He was sipping a cup of espresso and reading the current La Jornada newspaper on his tablet. He looked up when Ophir slipped onto a chair facing him. Ophir set a small nylon carry-bag down beside him.

  “To say I’m surprised would be an understatement,” Hale said.

  “Has Bourne made contact?”

  Hale put his cup onto its saucer. “I’m trying to remember the last time you were in Mexico City, let alone graced me with your exalted presence.”

  “Cut the antics.” Ophir raised a hand, snapped his fingers to gain the attention of a passing waiter. “Triple espresso,” he said to the man, who nodded and went off into the bowels of the café’s interior.

  Ophir occupied himself with examining the patrons at the surrounding tables until his triple arrived. He downed it in one shot, then shoved the cup and saucer away.

  “I’m looking for Bourne,” he said.

  “So I gather.”

  “What did I just tell you?”

  Hale shrugged his shoulders, spreading his hands in a helpless gesture. “He hasn’t made contact. My ass is getting sore. What else can I tell you?”

  “Something I can use.”

  Hale tapped the electronic newspaper. “There’s a BOLO out on Bourne for the bomb he planted under Carlos’s car.”

  “Isn’t that a shame.”

  Hale gave him a crooked grin. “Sure is. But that means he’s gone to ground. He’ll be hard to find.”

  “On the contrary. Now more than ever he’s going to need your services.”

  Hale’s grin expanded. “Said the spider to the fly.” He tapped his tablet. “Another bit of news you’ll enjoy. Our friend Carlos Danda Carlos has been relieved of all official duties.”

  This did surprise Ophir. It also filled him with a fierce joy. “What happened?”

  “The Chinese happened.” Hale briefly recounted the incident at the hospital where Maricruz had been recuperating. “Colonel Sun’s murder has set off countless reverberations that have el presidente tearing his hair out. I can tell you Minister Ouyang is no one to piss off. The Chinese government, in the person of Ouyang himself, has called for a criminal investigation of Carlos’s conduct, since it was he who put himself in charge of Ouyang’s wife’s safety.”

  “And where is Maricruz Ouyang, at this moment?”

  Hale shrugged again.

  “Well, she’s no concern of mine,” Ophir said. “Let’s concentrate on Bourne.” He studied the café again, gauging sight lines. He pointed to an empty table lost in the shadows of the interior. “I’ll be over there. Just make sure he sits where I’m sitting now.” Leaning over, he unzipped the carry-bag, briefly pulled out a Ruger .22 Charger rimfire and an NC silencer. “I’m not going near the fucker. I’ll take him down with o
ne shot to the head. At this range it won’t be a problem, and with the silencer on the noise won’t be more than a pellet gun would make.”

  Hale appeared nettled. “Are you reduced to telling me my business now?”

  “Just do as you’re told and don’t fidget.” Ophir grinned. “I wouldn’t want to take your ear off.”

  Bourne drove toward Coyoacán. He kept an eye out for passing military vehicles. The two-way radio in their stolen cruiser kept crackling, staticky voices raised, calling out the stolen cruiser’s license plate number, along with the repeated BOLO. He knew he’d have to switch vehicles sooner rather than later.

  Spotting a pharmacy, he pulled over. It was an ancient place with a coyote lovingly painted above the doorway. The coyote, its long, thirsty tongue out, was the official symbol of Coyoacán. To the right of the pharmacy, a vacant lot filled with debris and old, rotting furniture looked like the gap between teeth in an old man’s mouth.

  “Stay put,” he told Maricruz as he climbed out. “I’ll be right back.”

  Inside, he bought an anti-bacterial spray, a box of cotton pads, rolls of gauze, and surgical tape. Returning to the cruiser, he saw that the passenger’s door was open. Maricruz’s legs and feet were sticking out. Angél, crouched on the pavement, was pulling out shards of glass from the soles of Maricruz’s feet with the meticulousness of a nurse.

  Bourne kicked the small pile of glass into the gutter, then crouched beside the child. He let her finish plucking the last pieces of glass from Maricruz’s flesh, then began to spray her soles and wipe clean the tiny dozen or so incisions with the cotton balls.

  When he started to bind her feet with the gauze, Angél stood up and whispered in Maricruz’s ear.

  “In the lot over there,” she said.

  As the child crossed the sidewalk, Bourne looked up at her.

  Maricruz shrugged. “She has to pee. I couldn’t think of a better place.” She kept her eye on Angél as the child entered the lot.

  “Maricruz, have you thought about Angél?”