Bourne would buy their tickets as soon as he received their passports. The first leg was to Frankfurt. After a ninety-minute layover they would be booked on a two-hour, forty-minute Lufthansa flight into St. Petersburg. Even with their false identities, Bourne did not want to risk entering Russia through Moscow, where surveillance was always uncompromising. So they would take a train from St. Petersburg to Moscow. It was a long trip, but it couldn’t be helped.
Their flight out didn’t leave until after ten p.m.; there was time to kill, so to speak. They had a bite to eat and then, exhausted, they went up to their room and, sprawled side by side on the bed, slept like the dead.
—
The rain continued to beat against the window, the lights from the airport control tower flickered in and out of the room like a serpent’s tongue. Someone in an adjacent room turned on the TV, a punch line followed by canned laughter seeping through the thin walls. Bourne, awake but unmoving for some time, slammed his fist against the wall, and the sounds ceased.
All at once in this shabby hotel room on the edge of everything, he felt his isolation, something he had lived with and grown used to, as keenly as a knife blade to his throat. He missed Sara more than he had missed anyone for a very long time. Once again, he wondered where she was, hated that he was unable to contact her while she was on assignment for Mossad. He understood as no one else the need for absolute security in the field, but that didn’t—couldn’t—stop his desire to be with her, to feel her body warm against his.
The phone ringing broke the train wreck of his thoughts, and he snatched the receiver off the console. It was the front desk.
“Yes.”
“This is Carolyn, Mr. Winstead. A messenger is here from Tiffany’s, sir. He insists on delivering his package to you in person.”
“Send him up, Carolyn.” A messenger from Tiffany’s was the code phrase he and Deron had decided on. “Thank you.”
“My pleasure, sir.”
He woke Mala, the Angelmaker. It was time to go.
—
“We’ve found a passenger manifest listing,” Ellison said into his mobile. “It’s one of the names Bourne’s been using since his Treadstone days. Paid cash, as expected.” He grunted. “The twist is this time it’s a mister and missus.”
“You’re all in place?” Marshall Fulmer said.
“At Dulles International, yes, sir,” Ellison replied. “The team is deployed.”
“Excellent,” Fulmer said. “I’m on my way.”
Dirk Ellison put away his mobile, signaled to his team to take their places. He glanced at his watch: 9:45. The international flight that Bourne and his female companion were booked on was scheduled to depart at 10:45; it would begin boarding in fifteen. There was no way Bourne and the woman were getting on that plane. Personally, he thought the woman might very well be that Mossad agent Bourne had been seen with, but, really, it didn’t matter to him. Fulmer had been quite explicit: Bourne was the target; nothing else mattered.
Ellison watched the passengers at the gate in the departures lounge with his trained eagle eye—two young people of indeterminate gender sharing everything, a Coke, a burger, and whatever racket that passed for music those people listened to; an elderly threesome of yakking women, gray hair aflutter, hyped up for their first trip abroad; a couple with their three kids, reminding Ellison of the vast hole where his personal life began and ended.
But, hey, he was CIA through and through; second generation, in fact. His father was twice decorated in one of those so very desired secret ceremonies inside HQ that Ellison himself had yet to be invited to. But once he captured Jason Bourne, that would change in a heartbeat. He’d make his father proud of him. As a dedicated CIA agent, he hated taking orders from anyone other than his boss, or his boss, but times were changing, cross-agency missions, though despised by all the various mandarins, were now becoming more numerous. He didn’t like it, but having made his case to his superior, he knew unequivocally that he had no say in the matter.
However, he had plenty of say in this matter right here, right now, and he was bound and determined to make the most of it. That’s why, when he spied the couple coming down from the first class lounge, heading toward the gate as the door opened and the flight was called, he and his team closed in on them from all sides, trapping them in a move from which there was no escape.
32
Much to his chagrin, Fulmer was obliged to take Harry Hornden, the freelance journo he had climbed into bed with, on his trip to the airport. Like it or not, Hornden was now a de facto part of Fulmer’s entourage, sitting in the place of honor, beside Fulmer. Fulmer’s nostrils flared. Was it his imagination or was there a whiff of sulfur coming off the web scribe
Fulmer sighed, working his butt into the backseat of his custom Cadillac Escalade in a fruitless attempt to make himself more comfortable. Time was when journalism was a profession to be proud of. He recalled the era when the CBS News of Douglas Edwards and Walter Cronkite was the crown jewel of Bill Paley’s so-called Tiffany Network. The news division was an advertising loss leader, but so widely respected and prize-winning it was worth it. No more. In this day and age, networks could no longer afford loss leaders. Plus, the advent of Rupert Murdoch’s brand of shock-value news upended that American applecart forever.
Now, Fulmer thought sourly, the so-called news was a joke, made up of people like Harry Hornden, who had opinions in the place of a journalistic background. And he wasn’t even among the worst of them. But they all inhabited their own ring of hell, pulling breaking stories out of their butt holes.
“Marsh,” Hornden said now.
Fulmer hated when anyone called him “Marsh,” let alone this shmuck, so he grunted by way of reply. Anyway, his mind was elsewhere, already at Dulles, seeing Bourne in a small, windowless room with cuffs on his wrists and ankles. What a story that would be, and, like it or not, Hornden was the perfect journo to break it.
“So there are two men walking down the street,” Hornden continued with a certain gleam in his eye. “It’s the week before Christmas, bells are ringing, carols coming from outdoor speakers, the scent of free-cut pine trees in the air. One man says to the other, ‘I sure don’t like this talk of racism all of a sudden.’ ‘Me, neither,’ says the second guy. ‘You’re not a racist, are you?’ the first guy asks. ‘Hell, no,’ second one says. ‘You?’ ‘Not a bit of it.’ “Good,’ the second guy says, ‘Let’s go get drunk.’ ‘Capital idea,’ the first one says, ‘and we can catch us a faggot and roast his chestnuts over an open fire!’”
Hornden laughed so hard tears came to his eyes. At some point, he became aware that Fulmer wasn’t joining in his merriment. Wiping his eyes, he nudged Fulmer. “What? You think you’re too pure to get a laugh out of that joke?”
“It’s not funny. It’s not even a joke.” Fulmer was straining to look past the building traffic choking the off ramp to Dulles. “Can it now, Hornden. As soon as we get to the airport I’ve serious business to transact.”
Leaning forward, he tapped the new head of his security detail, sitting up front, on the shoulder. Max, his betrayer, had been arraigned and was now sitting in a federal facility, awaiting interrogation. “Louis, please get on the horn and find out what the fuck is going on. I can’t afford to be late.”
“Already on it, sir.” Louis had his mobile to one ear. Now he spoke into it so softly no one could hear what he was saying.
Temporarily mollified, but still on edge, Fulmer sat back in the seat.
“So,” Hornden said, “you’re as pure as the driven snow. No warts on you, right?”
Fulmer hardly heard him. Whatever Louis had done was working. The traffic was breaking up, and they were pushing their way forward. He caught glimpses of the gleaming shell of the international departure terminal’s exterior now.
“Marsh, you’re not listening to me.” Hornden’s voice had turned plaintive, reaching up the scale to unbecoming heights.
Fulmer brushed his wo
rds away as he would a bothersome fly. “I told you to can it and I meant it.”
“You’re choice, Marsh. I mean, you’re running the show, right?”
“Right as shit,” Fulmer said distractedly.
“But then of course you’ll miss out on all the fun.”
Fulmer’s brow furrowed as he glanced over. “What fun? What are you babbling on about, man?”
Hornden had extracted his mobile from his coat pocket. It was one of those oversize jobbies that people obsessed with selfies were so fond of, Fulmer observed with distaste.
“Well, this, for instance.” On the screen of the journo’s mobile was a photo of Fulmer in flagrante delicto. Fulmer was nude, his flabby buttocks high in the air between Gwyneth’s widely spread legs. Fulmer’s reddened face was visible in the mirrored tabletop, and, to make matters even worse, the lovely and lubricious Gwyneth was grinning lewdly at the camera.
“Where…where did you get that?” Fulmer said stupidly. His mind seemed to have frozen solid, encased in a block of ice.
“This still frame is only the icing,” Hornden said with a malicious grin. “Take a gander at the cake, Marsh. I’ve titled it ‘Corpus Delicti,’ or ‘Caught in the Act.’” And then the video began to play, the whole sordid sexual encounter from smoldering beginning to mortifying end.
—
“How did you do it?” the Angelmaker said, comfortably ensconced in her first class seat.
Bourne was looking out the Perspex window at the passing clouds far below. “Do what?”
“Get us out of the country without a hitch?”
When he turned to her, his smile was lacquer thin. He could not see her the same way, not anymore. “I created a diversion.”
She frowned. “What kind of a diversion?”
“I bought two tickets to Istanbul in the name of one of my old Treadstone aliases and his wife. That sent up red flags in all the right quarters, I have no doubt. That flight was leaving twenty minutes after ours.”
She laughed. “Brilliant.”
Over their indifferent meal, he said, “Tell me what else you know about Dima Orlov.”
She frowned at the piece of unidentifiable meat speared on the tines of her fork. “It isn’t much.”
“Nevertheless. Everything you know.”
The atmosphere between them had subtly altered, as if a breeze from the east had cleared away a cloudbank that had lingered far too long in one place. He heard everything she said through this clear lens. He was no longer obliged to scrutinize every move and expression she made; he already knew what lay beneath her tough reptilian armor.
“Everything I know,” she said reflectively while she chewed her bit of meat.
“Your information is all third-hand, I take it.”
“No. Not at all. I was friends with Dima’s daughter, Katya.”
“Past tense.”
“Well, yes.” She put down her fork; she hadn’t eaten much. “Once, we were close—close as mother and daughter. But like many mothers and daughters we had a falling out.”
“About what?”
She laughed softly, bitterly. “She accused me of using her to get close to her father.”
“How far off the mark was she?”
“Huh. That’s the pity of it,” the Angelmaker said. “She wasn’t off at all.”
“You felt nothing for her.”
It wasn’t a question; she didn’t take it as such. “Well, you know me.” She gave him a glancing sideways look. “Nice woman, though. Smart, strong-willed. And yet she was inextricably tied to her father.”
“Why did you want to get close to Dima Orlov?”
“Keyre sent me. He wanted to do a deal with Dima.”
Bourne waited a moment for everything to sink in. “You do realize the irony of that situation.”
Another lightning sideways glance. “You mean the ‘inextricably tied’ bit.”
The flight attendant rolled her cart parallel to their seats, took their trays, asked if they wanted dessert, coffee, or perhaps an after-dinner drink. The Angelmaker wanted a brandy; Bourne wanted nothing more than to hear the end of the story.
After the brandy was poured and they were alone again, Bourne said, “It seems to me that in some ways Katya is an older version of yourself.”
“I can see how you’d make that mistake.” The Angelmaker took a sip of her brandy, set it down on her tray-table. Bourne had already stowed away his.
“Clarify it for me, then.”
“Mmm.” The Angelmaker bit her lower lip. “Well, for one thing Katya loves her father. For another, she loves him maybe a little too much.”
“And you?”
“You’re joking, right? You’ve met my father.”
“And your mother?” Bourne asked. “In all the time I’ve known you, neither you nor your sister ever mentioned her.”
There ensued a long silence. The Angelmaker sipped her brandy. The plane began to shudder and the FASTEN SEAT BELTS lights flashed, but they were already buckled up. The turbulence grew worse, and she held onto her glass to keep it from tumbling over.
“My mother. You want to know about my mother?” She knocked back the rest of her brandy, looked around for the flight attendant to get a refill, but they were all sitting down because of the turbulence. “Okay, for the record, she taught me how to say ‘Fuck you.’”
“But you were just a little girl.”
“There you go, then.”
The turbulence departed as quickly as it had arrived. The lights had been lowered, seats had been reclined to the horizontal, mattresses placed, along with quilts covering the passengers. A few read or watched a film, but most were taking advantage of the seat turned bed.
“One sentence can’t be the sum and substance of your mother,” Bourne said.
“Why are you so interested?” she said sharply.
“I can’t remember mine.”
She was staring at the blank TV screen ahead of her. “Did it ever occur to you that’s a blessing?”
“Not for a moment.”
Without another word the Angelmaker unbuckled herself and strode back toward the toilets.
It was several seconds before Bourne realized she had taken her brandy glass with her. Why would she do that? The glass was empty. She could simply be returning it to one of the crew, or…
Unbuckling, he followed her down the aisle. She opened the accordion door to the right-hand toilet; she was still gripping the glass. He launched himself along the aisle, at the last minute plucking a fork off a food tray the attendant had yet to clear.
Jamming it into the door, he stopped it from closing completely, kept the Angelmaker from sliding the lock all the way across.
“What are you doing?” he said softly, leaning against the door.
As an answer, he heard the sound of the glass shattering. Any moment now the blood would be spurting out of the opened vein in her wrist.
“Stop it, Mala. Stop it.”
Using the tines of the fork as a lever, he worked at prying open the door. He could tell that she had thrown her full weight against him.
“I’ve no other choice.” Her voice was dull, mechanical, as if in her mind she was already dead.
Then, in the sliver of open space, he saw her lift a shard of glass out of the sink, turn it inward. The pale skin of the inside of her wrist rested just below it.
The tines of the fork snapped off.
33
For Marshall Fulmer, a day he’d anticipated being filled like a piñata with all kinds of bright, shiny toys, chief among them having Jason Bourne finally, finally taken into custody had been, in a painful heartbeat, stood on its head, turned 180 degrees toward the dark side.
First, Hornden shows him the hard evidence of his dalliance with a madam, then even before he has a chance to digest that clusterfuck, that idiot Ellison calls to tell him that, no, the couple he took into custody weren’t Bourne and his companion, after all, but a couple about to set off on their tw
entieth anniversary celebration, of all things! And now where was Bourne—who, Fulmer knew, worked alone? No one knew, certainly not Ellison or any of his crew. Had Bourne even been at Dulles at all?
And Fulmer wouldn’t even be thinking of all the ways he could crucify Ellison had it not been for the fact that, considering what Hornden had on him, a major coup like capturing Jason Bourne would have almost made up for him quite stupidly falling into a honey trap.
Running a shaking hand across his face, he told the driver to return to the office. But Hornden said, “Hold on.”
He gave the journo a withering look. “What? Why?”
“We need to go to the VIP airstrip.” Hornden pointed. “It’s that way.”
“Fuck you,” was all Fulmer could manage, but there was no force, no venom behind it. He sat back in the seat. All the air, all the exhilaration of the now-distant morning had gone out of him.
“Sir?”
He became aware of the driver looking at him in the rearview mirror. “What?” He waved a hand as if the matter were of no import to him. “Oh, do as Mr. Hornden suggests.”
Beside him Hornden chuckled. “‘Suggests,’” he repeated under his breath.
Fulmer considered asking Hornden what they were going to do at the VIP airstrip, but he didn’t want to give him the satisfaction. With Hornden, these small, petty victories were all that were left him. Pathetic.
With Fulmer’s credentials they passed through the manned gates. Hornden told the driver to pull over to the left and park.
“Okay,” he said, opening the rear door, “let’s take a walk.”
In the darkness of near midnight, the overbright lights on the tarmac elongated their shadows eastward. A light breeze ruffled Fulmer’s hair, but Hornden’s stayed in place, as if it had been plasticized. Ahead of them, a private aircraft with Dutch insignia crouched, its door open wide in welcome, a rolling staircase set in front of it.
The Bourne Initiative Page 26
