The Bourne Sanction

by Eric Van Lustbader

  Three women came in, chatting animatedly. The manager greeted them like old friends, showed them to a round table near the window, where they settled in.

  “First, we have an immediate time frame, that is to say within a week, ten days at the outside. However, we have almost nothing on the target, except from the intercepts we know it’s large and complex, so we’re thinking a building. Again, because of our Muslim expertise we believe it will be a structure of both economic and symbolic importance.”

  “But no specific location?”

  “East Coast, most probably New York.”

  “Nothing’s crossed my desk, which means none of our sister agencies has a clue about this intel.”

  “That’s what I’m telling you,” Soraya said. “This is ours alone. Typhon’s. This is why we were created.”

  “You haven’t yet told me why I shouldn’t inform Homeland Security and mobilize CI.”

  “Because the source of this intel is entirely new. Do you seriously think HS or NSA would take our intel at its face value? They’d need corroboration—and A, they wouldn’t get it from their own sources, and, B, their mucking about in the bush would jeopardize the inroads we’ve made.”

  “You’re right about that,” Hart said. “They’re about as subtle as an elephant in Manhattan.”

  Soraya hunched forward. “The point is the group planning the attack is unknown to us. That means we don’t know their motivation, their mind-set, their methodology.”

  Two men came in, one after the other. They were dressed as civilians, but their military bearing gave them away. They were seated at separate tables on opposite sides of the restaurant.

  “NSA,” Hart said.

  Soraya frowned. “Why would NSA be shadowing us?”

  “I’ll tell you in a minute. Let’s continue with what’s most immediately pressing. You mean we’re dealing with a complete unknown, an unaffiliated terrorist organization that is capable of planning a large-scale attack? That sounds far-fetched.”

  “Imagine how it’ll sound to your directorate heads. Plus, our operatives have determined that keeping our information secret is the only way to get more intel. The moment this group catches wind of our mobilizing they’ll postpone the operation for another time.”

  “Assuming the current time frame is correct, could they abort or postpone at this late stage?”

  “We couldn’t, that’s for sure.” Soraya gave her a sardonic smile. “But terrorist networks have no infrastructure or bureaucracy to slow them down, so who knows? Part of the difficulty in locating them and taking them down is their infinite flexibility. This superior methodology is what Martin wanted for Typhon. That’s my mandate.”

  The waiter took their half-eaten salads away. A moment later, their main courses arrived. Hart asked for another bottle of mineral water. Her mouth was dry. Now she had NSA on one side, an off-the-grid terrorist organization about to carry out an attack on a large East Coast building on the other. Scylla and Charybdis. Either one could wreck her career at CI before it even began. She couldn’t allow that to happen. She wouldn’t.

  “Excuse me a moment,” she said, getting up.

  Soraya scanned the restaurant, but kept at least one of the agents in her peripheral vision. She saw him tense when the DCI went off to the ladies’ room. He had risen and was making his way toward the rear when Hart returned. He reversed course, sat back down.

  When the DCI had settled herself in her chair she looked Soraya in the eye. “Since you decided to deliver this intel here instead of the office I assume you have a specific idea as to how to proceed.”

  “Listen,” Soraya said, “we have a red-hot situation, and we don’t have enough intel to mobilize, let alone act. We have less than a week to find out everything on this terrorist organization based God only knows where with who knows how many members.

  “This isn’t the time or place for the usual protocols. They’re not going to avail us anything.” She glanced down at her fish as if it were the last thing she wanted to put in her mouth. When her gaze rose again, she said, “We need Jason Bourne to find this terrorist group. We’ll take care of the rest.”

  Hart looked at her as if she were out of her mind. “Out of the question.”

  “Given the urgency of the mission,” Soraya said, “he’s the only one who has a chance of finding them and stopping them.”

  “I wouldn’t last a day in the job once it got out that I was using Jason Bourne.”

  “On the other hand,” Soraya said, “if you don’t follow through on this intel, if this group executes their attack, you’ll be out of CI before you can catch your breath.”

  Hart sat back, produced a short laugh. “You really are a piece of work. You want me to authorize the use of a rogue agent—a man who’s unstable at best, who many powerful people in this organization feel is dangerous to CI in particular—for a mission that could have dire consequences for this country, for the continuation of CI as you and I know it?”

  A jolt of anxiety ran down Soraya’s spine. “Wait a minute, back that up. What do you mean the continuation of CI as we know it?”

  Hart glanced from one of the NSA agents to the other. Then she expelled a deep breath and told Soraya everything that had happened from the moment she’d been summoned into the Oval Office to meet with the president and had found herself confronting Luther LaValle and General Kendall.

  “After I managed to prevail with the president, LaValle accosted me outside for a chat,” Hart concluded. “He told me that if I didn’t play nice with him he’d come after me with everything he has. He wants to take over CI, Soraya, wants it as part of his ever-enlarging intelligence services domain. But it isn’t just LaValle we’re fighting, it’s his boss, the secretary of defense. The plan is Bud Halliday’s through and through. Black River had some dealings with him when I was there, none of them pleasant. If he succeeds in bringing CI into the Pentagon fold, you can be sure the military will come in, ruin everything with their usual war-like mentality.”

  “Then there’s even more reason to let me bring Jason in for this.” Soraya’s voice had taken on added urgency. “He’ll get the job done where a company of agents can’t. Believe me, I’ve worked with him in the field twice. Whatever’s said about him within CI is totally false. Sure, lifers like Rob Batt hate his guts, why wouldn’t they? Bourne’s got a freedom they wish they had. Plus, he’s got abilities they never dreamed of.”

  “Soraya, it’s been implied in several evaluations that you once had an affair with Bourne. Please tell me the truth—I need to know if you’re being swayed by anything other than what you think will be best for the country and for CI.”

  Soraya knew this was coming and was prepared. “I thought Martin had laid that office scuttlebutt to rest. There’s absolutely no truth to it. We became friends when I was chief of station in Odessa. That was a long time ago; he doesn’t remember. When he came back last year to rescue Martin he had no idea who I was.”

  “Last year you were in the field with him again.”

  “We work well together. That’s all,” Soraya said firmly.

  Hart was still clandestinely watching the NSA agents. “Even if I thought what you were proposing would work, he’d never consent. From everything I’ve read and heard since coming to CI, he hates the organization.”

  “True enough,” Soraya said. “But once he understands the nature of the threat I think I can convince him to sign on one more time.”

  Hart shook her head. “I don’t know. Even talking to him is a damn huge gamble, one I’m not sure I’m willing to take.”

  “Director, if you don’t seize this opportunity, you’ll never be able to. It’ll be too late.”

  Still, Hart was unsure which direction to take: the tried and true or the unorthodox. No, she thought, not unorthodox, insane.

  “I think this place has outlived its usefulness,” she said abruptly. She signaled the waiter. “Soraya, I believe you have to powder your nose. And while you�
�re there, please call the Metro DC Police. Use the pay phone; it’s in working order, I checked. Tell Metro that there are two armed men at this restaurant. Then come right back to the table and be ready to move quickly.”

  Soraya gave her a small conspiratorial smile, then rose, threading her way back to the ladies’ room. The waiter approached the table, frowning.

  “Is there something wrong with the brook trout, ma’am?”

  “It’s fine,” Hart said.

  As the waiter gathered up the plates Hart took out five twenty-dollar bills, slipped them in his pocket. “You see that man over there, the one with the wide face and football player’s shoulders?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “How about you trip when you get to his table.”

  “If I do that,” the waiter said, “I’m liable to dump these brook trouts in his lap.”

  “Precisely,” Hart said with a winning smile.

  “But it could mean my job.”

  “Don’t worry.” Hart took out her ID, showed it to him. “I’ll square things with your boss.”

  The waiter nodded, turned away. Soraya reappeared, made her way to the table. Hart threw some bills onto their table but didn’t stand up until the waiter bumped into a busboy. He staggered, the plates tipped. As the NSA shadow leapt up, Hart rose. Together she and Soraya walked to the door. The NSA shadow was berating the waiter, who was brushing him down with several napkins; everyone was looking, gesticulating. A couple of people closest to the accident were shouting their versions of what happened. Amid the escalating chaos, the second NSA shadow had gotten up to come to his compatriot’s aid, but when he saw his target heading toward him he changed his mind.

  Hart and Soraya had reached the door, were stepping out into the street. The second NSA shadow began to follow them, but a pair of burly Metro cops burst into the restaurant detaining him. “Hey! What about them!” he shouted at the two women.

  Two more patrol cars screeched to a halt, cops raced out. Hart and Soraya already had their IDs out. The cops checked them.

  “We’re late for a meeting,” Hart said briskly and authoritatively. “National security.”

  The phrase was like open sesame. The cops waved them on.

  “Sweet,” Soraya said, impressed.

  Hart nodded her head in acknowledgment, but her expression was grim. Winning such a small skirmish meant nothing to her, save a bit of immediate gratification. It was the war she had her gaze set on.

  When they were several blocks away and had determined that they were clean of LaValle’s tags, Soraya said, “At least let me set up a meet with Bourne so we can pick his brain.”

  “I very much doubt this will work.”

  “Jason trusts me. He’ll do the right thing,” Soraya said with absolute conviction. “He always does.”

  Hart considered for some time. Scylla and Charybdis still loomed large in her thought process. Death by water or fire, which was it to be? But even now she didn’t regret taking the director’s position. If there was anything she was up for at this stage in her life it was a challenge. She couldn’t imagine a bigger one than this.

  “As you no doubt know,” she said, “Bourne wants to see the files on the conversations between Lindros and Moira Trevor.” She paused in order to judge Soraya’s reaction to the woman Bourne was now linked with. “I agreed.” There wasn’t even a tremor in Soraya’s face. “I’m meeting him this evening at five,” she said slowly, as if still chewing the idea over. Then, all at once, she nodded decisively. “Join me. We’ll hear his take on your intel then.”

  Eleven

  SPLENDIDLY DONE,” Specter said to Bourne. “I can’t tell you how impressed I am with how you handled the situations at the zoo and at the hospital.”

  “Mikhail Tarkanian is dead,” Bourne said. “I never meant that to happen.”

  “Nevertheless it did.” Specter’s black eye wasn’t quite as swollen, but it was beginning to turn lurid colors. “Once again I’m deeply in your debt, my dear Jason. Tarkanian was quite clearly the traitor. If not for you, he would have been the instigator of my torture and eventual death. You’ll pardon me if I don’t grieve for him.”

  The professor clapped Bourne on the back as the two men walked down to the weeping willow on Specter’s property. Out of the corner of his eye, Bourne could see several young men, armed with assault rifles, flanking them. Following the events of today, Bourne didn’t begrudge the professor his armed guards. In fact, they made him feel better about leaving Specter’s side.

  Under the nebula of delicate yellow branches the two men gazed out at the pond, its surface as perfectly flat as if it were a sheet of steel. A brace of skittish grackles lifted up from the willow, cawing angrily. Their feathers gleamed in brief rainbow hues as they banked away from the swiftly lowering sun.

  “How well do you know Moscow?” Specter asked. Bourne had told him what Tarkanian had said, and they’d agreed that Bourne should start there in his search for Pyotr’s killer.

  “Well enough. I’ve been there several times.”

  “Still and all, I’ll have a friend, Lev Baronov, meet you at Sheremetyevo. Whatever you require, he’ll provide. Including weapons.”

  “I work alone,” Bourne said. “I don’t want or need a partner.”

  Specter nodded understandingly. “Lev will be there for support only, I promise he won’t be a hindrance.”

  The professor paused a moment. “What worries me, Jason, is your relationship with Ms. Trevor.” Turning so that he faced away from the house, he spoke more softly. “I have no intention of prying into your personal life, but if you’re going overseas—”

  “We both are. She’s off to Munich this evening,” Bourne said. “I appreciate your concern, but she’s as tough a woman as I’ve come across. She can take care of herself.”

  Specter nodded, clearly relieved. “All right, then. There’s just the matter of the information on Icoupov.” He drew out a packet. “In here are your plane tickets to Moscow, along with the documentation you’ll need. There’s money waiting for you. Lev has the details as to which bank, the account number attached to the safe-deposit box, and a false identity. The account has been established in that name, not in yours.”

  “This took some planning.”

  “I had it done last night, in the hope that you’d agree to go,” Specter said. “All that remains is for us to take a picture of you for the passport.”

  “And if I’d said no?”

  “Someone else had already volunteered.” Specter smiled. “But I had faith, Jason. And my faith was rewarded.”

  They turned back and were heading for the house when the professor paused.

  “One more thing,” he said. “The situation in Moscow vis-à-vis the grupperovka—the criminal families—is at one of its periodic boiling points. The Kazanskaya and the Azeri are vying for sole control of the drug trade. The stakes are extraordinarily high—in the billions of dollars. So don’t get in their way. If there is any contact with you, I beg you not to engage them. Instead, turn the other cheek. It’s the only way to survive there.”

  “I’ll remember that,” Bourne said, just as one of Specter’s men came hurrying out of the back of the house.

  “A woman, Moira Trevor, is here to see Mr. Bourne,” he said in German-inflected Turkish.

  Specter turned to Bourne, his eyebrows raised in either surprise or concern, if not both.

  “I had no other choice,” Bourne said. “I need to see her before she leaves, and after what happened today I wasn’t about to leave you until the last moment.”

  Specter’s face cleared. “I appreciate that, Jason. Indeed, I do.” His hand swept up and away. “Go see your lady friend, and then we’ll make our last preparations.”

  I’m on my way to the airport,” Moira said when Bourne met her in the hallway. “The plane takes off in two hours.” She gave him all the pertinent information.

  “I’m on another flight,” he said. “I have some work to
do for the professor.”

  A flicker of disappointment crossed her face before vanishing in a smile. “You have to do what you think is best for you.”

  Bourne heard the slight distance in her voice, as if a glass partition had come down between them. “I’m out of the university. You were right about that.”

  “Another bit of good news.”

  “Moira, I don’t want my decision to cause any problems between us.”

  “That could never happen, Jason, I promise you.” She kissed him on the cheek. “I have some interviews lined up when I get to Munich, security people I’ve been able to contact through back channels—two Germans, an Israeli, and a German Muslim, who may be the most promising of the lot.”

  As two of Specter’s young men came through the door, Bourne took Moira into one of the two sitting rooms. A ship’s brass clock on the marble mantel chimed the change in watch.

  “Quite a grand palace for the head of a university.”

  “The professor comes from money,” Bourne lied. “But he’s private about it.”

  “My lips are sealed,” Moira said. “By the way, where’s he sending you?”

  “Moscow. Some friends of his have gotten into a bit of trouble.”

  “The Russian mob?”

  “Something like that.”

  Best that she believe the simplest explanation, Bourne thought. He watched the play of lamplight reveal her expression. He was certainly no stranger to duplicity, but his heart constricted at the thought that Moira might be playing him as she was suspected of playing Martin. Several times today he had considered bypassing the meet with the new DCI, but he had to admit to himself that seeing the questioned communication between her and Martin had become important to him. Once he saw the evidence he’d know how to proceed with Moira. He owed it to Martin to discover the truth about his relationship with her. Besides, it was no use fooling himself: He now had a personal stake in the situation. His newly revealed feelings for her complicated matters for everyone, not the least himself. Why was there a price to pay for every pleasure? he wondered bitterly. But now he stood committed; there was no turning back, either from Moscow or from discovering who Moira really was.