Robert Ludlum's (TM) the Bourne Enigma

by Eric Van Lustbader

  Several thick bars of moonlight slanted in between the jalousies. A bullet from a noise-suppressed handgun would have to first pierce the plastic safety sheet sandwiched between the double-hung glass, making a poor-percentage shot. Whoever was on his terrace would have to expose themselves to the moonlight in order to get to the bed. On the other hand, if he pressed himself against the far wall, he had a route to the sliders that was completely in darkness.

  He was at the slider when it opened ever so slowly from the outside. Still, the jalousies prevented him from seeing who was trying to gain access. He stood very still, watching as a hawk will the last movements of its prey before the strike. The slider was now open enough for a slender person to enter sideways. An arm entered his field of vision, briefly rippling a bar of moonlight. In a lightning-like move, Bourne reached out, grabbed the wrist, jerking the arm in toward him. An instant later, a hand closed around his throat, he drew the intruder through the gap, clamped the throat in a reciprocal strike, locking them together in what could only be a mutual death grip.

  And stood face-to-face with Sara.

  —

  A peal of laughter so clear and pure it might have come from a bell emerged from Sara’s throat, surrounded Bourne with a warmth he hadn’t felt since they’d said their silent good-byes what seemed like both an age ago, and at the same time no more than hours.

  They took their hands away from each other’s throats, but Bourne kept hold of her wrist, pulled her tight against him. Feeling the contours of her body mold themselves to his delivered back to him a sense of reality, which had begun to slip away from the moment he had recognized Mala on the beach.

  “How did you find me? How did you get here?”

  Sara told him what had happened to her at Borz’s camp. How she had captured Borz, tortured him, and was beginning to interrogate him only to have Amira’s rogue brother, El-Amir, shoot him dead. How she was in turn captured by El-Amir, thrown into a cell with the British lieutenant Southern, and how she managed to kill El-Amir so they could escape and, ultimately, be rescued by helo.

  “I thought you were dead,” she said now. “I saw the helo you were flying hit by a missile. I didn’t know until we were taken across the border into Turkey that you had escaped. My boss found out where you had gone and rounded up transport to take me here to Nicosia.

  “Now tell me what you’re doing here. What trail are you following?”

  “The one laid out for me by Boris.”

  Talk of his mission here brought him out of the parallel track he had been revisiting, a rare occurrence, for so many reasons. The Somali who had worked his despicable magic on Mala, as he had so many other young woman, girls, and children, as a supposed means of keeping himself young and virile, haunted the dark recesses of his mind only infrequently. Bourne had lied to Mala; he hadn’t killed the Somali. When he had destroyed the encampment, he had had to make a choice: save her or go after the Somali. He had made his choice without a moment’s conscious thought. Preserving lives—including those far younger than Mala—was far more preferable than taking one, even if it meant also lying to his Treadstone masters, who had ordered the Somali’s termination. Thankfully, he had slunk off into the shadowy underbelly of his war-torn country, never to be heard of again. Still, encountering Mala again had stirred the darkness in which the Somali lay slumbering, and the question of what had happened to him, where he was, rankled Bourne’s consciousness.

  Sara must have picked up on his mood, for she laid a hand along his cheek. “Jason, what is it?” she whispered. “What’s happened?”

  Instantly, he knew he couldn’t tell her about his history with Mala; it would set up too many alarm bells for her, both personally and professionally. He remembered only a fraction of his time as a Treadstone assassin, but of one thing he was certain: though he could not recall a name or time period, he could picture himself in Jerusalem, shooting dead a Treadstone target, who he was fairly certain was a Mossad field agent.

  Instead, he went with another facet of the truth, refusing to lie to her. “The Russian first minister is here.”

  “Timur Savasin?”

  He nodded. “Savasin was Boris’s sworn enemy. He was jealous of Boris’s power—a power all the more solid because it wasn’t built on lies, deceit, and corruption, as Savasin’s is.”

  “Speaking of the first minister, Boris’s widow has disappeared.”

  “She called me from Amsterdam. She was certain she was being followed; she was afraid for her life.”

  “She made it to Cairo, according to Dov. Outside the airport, she vanished.”

  “They got her.” Bourne’s heart sank. “Savasin had her killed.”

  “Supposition?”

  “More than that,” Bourne said grimly. “She found material Boris had left in his dacha. Material that the first minister would not want discovered.”

  “So Savasin had both Boris and his wife murdered.”

  Bourne nodded. “Which means that Borz has been working both sides of the street: the Sovereign and Savasin.”

  “Borz is working for the Sovereign as well?”

  Bourne nodded, told Sara about how the Russian president had hired Borz to recruit for ISIS, all the while stealing from him through Mik, the man who made money disappear from one place only to reappear in another as if out of thin air.

  The fires of rage he had so painstakingly banked while trying to complete the mission Boris had set out for him now flared up. Like paper burning, his fingers curled up into fists.

  Sara could not help but notice the change that had come over him. “Does the first minister know you’re here?”

  Bourne nodded again. “He’s brought along his personal bodyguard.”

  “You know him, this bodyguard?”

  “Her,” Bourne said. “She’s known as the Angelmaker.”

  Sara laughed uncertainly. “You’re joking, yes?”

  His answering smile was not a pleasant one, and Sara sobered at once. “I wish I were. The Angelmaker is exceptionally formidable.”

  “So he’s here to stop you.”

  “That’s who I thought you were, the Angelmaker.”

  She watched him thoughtfully. “Why has Boris led you here?”

  “There’s a bank that belongs to the Sovereign. It holds the vast sum he’s using to fund his aggression both in Ukraine and in Syria, underwriting ISIS.”

  “Which bank?”

  “You’ll like this,” Bourne said. “The Omega and Gulf Bank.”

  “Full circle,” Sara said. “So really it’s all one immense ball of wax.” She told him about Vankor. “Do you know what it refers to?”

  Bourne nodded. “A highly lucrative oil field owned by Vankorneft, a subsidiary of Rosneft, the Federation’s largest oil company.” He thought for a moment.

  “What is it?”

  “I’m not sure. Something Boris’s widow said to me, about a secret deal the Sovereign had made with CNCP, the Chinese energy company. She said it was the start of a formerly unthinkable change in the Federation energy policy.”

  “You mean the Chinese government is basically funding the Sovereign’s new wars.”

  “That’s precisely what I mean,” Bourne said. “The amount needed was astronomical, far exceeding what could be skimmed off of Borz’s accounts. And all of that vast fortune is turned on and off at one spigot: the Omega and Gulf Bank.”

  This would be the point where he would reach for her. That he didn’t disturbed him in a way he could not fathom.

  58

  The day dawned cloudless and preternaturally warm, the last gasp of Mediterranean late summer before the invasion of winter. In stark contrast to its neighbors, the Omega + Gulf Bank stood out, as all new construction will. But there was something different, something anomalous that hadn’t been apparent at night. Even in the raking morning light, the anomaly was difficult to pinpoint, until Bourne was close enough to see that the building was constructed of steel-reinforced concrete. Either t
he builder had neglected to add an outer facade or it hadn’t been part of the architectural plan. Either way, the bank was unlike any other building in its immediate vicinity, possibly in all of Nicosia.

  “Are you armed?” Bourne had said just before dawn.

  Sara shook her head. “I came direct from the airport. There was no time to find a local dealer. You?”

  “Same as you. No time.”

  Sara smiled. “There are those who say man cannot live by wits alone.”

  “They never met us,” Bourne had said.

  Now they stood deep in the shadow of a doorway across the street from the Omega + Gulf Bank.

  “Not a creature is stirring,” Sara said, “not even a mouse.”

  “Or a car.”

  “So I noticed.”

  Sometime in the dead of night, the street had been swept clean of parked vehicles. There was no traffic whatsoever, though neither of them had seen barriers anywhere along the street.

  “Savasin’s already here,” Sara said.

  Bourne nodded. “It would seem so.”

  “Are you sure he brought only the Angelmaker with him?”

  “Right now, I’m not sure of anything.” Bourne was staring hard at the bank’s rough facade. “But it would be prudent to assume he’s hired local talent.”

  “Well,” Sara said, “it’s clear we can’t simply waltz in through the front door.”

  “I can’t,” Bourne said. “But Savasin doesn’t know you’re here. He might not even know who you are.”

  “I was made leaving Sheremetyevo. My face is now known to the Russians.”

  “That’s why I cut your hair short, why you’re wearing lipstick, a sundress, and sandals.”

  “Praise God for hotel gift shops that open early.” She made a face. “But I hate this straw hat.”

  He gave her a crooked smile as he glanced at her. “You know what to do.”

  She tossed her head. “Jason, we’ve been over it a hundred times.”

  “Okay, then. Give me ten minutes, then walk directly across the street and—”

  “Enough!” She was impatient to reach the mission’s end-game, but she was also confused and a bit put out that they hadn’t made love in the hours before dawn. What was up with that? she wondered, then immediately stifled the thought; they had so much on their plates. She cleared her mind of negative thoughts. “Get going.”

  He left her, then, went left to the end of the block, crossed over, and vanished down the street that ran perpendicular to the one they had been on. A quarter of a block in, he reached the stained and garbage-strewn alleyway he had discovered during last night’s reconnoiter.

  As he had seen, the bank’s rear door was composed of reinforced steel. It was also alarmed—an expensive bleeding-edge system, which he saw no quick way to disable from the outside. No matter; he hadn’t planned to enter that way.

  Several mature date palms rose up from the garden he had noticed the night before. He climbed the one closest to the bank until he reached the roof, which was flat, made of corrugated steel. Apart from a dense copse of antennae, it was bare. Bourne swung across, landing silently on the steel. The moment he did so, two men appeared from behind the antennae cluster.

  They ran at him very fast, crouched over, scimitar-blade dirks held in front of them. Their hard plastic eyes reflected his image; there was nothing in their universe but him. Clearly, they were fanatics. Halfway to him, they split up, to come from him from two sides simultaneously. Instead of retreating, Bourne held his ground until they were committed to their respective paths, then he launched himself, not at them, but as if they were coming at him head-on. He sprinted so fast and surprised them so thoroughly, they were obliged to change direction so abruptly that when he reached first the one on his right, then the one on his left, they were both off balance.

  His forearm knocked their knife hands away from him while, at the same time, he drove a fist into first one, then the other. As the breath rushed out of both of them, he kneed one in the forehead, slashed a kite with the edge of his hand into the side of other’s neck. Two well-placed kicks drove them both deep into unconsciousness. Grabbing their dirks, he moved past them.

  Circling around the antennae display, he came upon a service hatch, which the mercenaries Timur Savasin had hired had used to gain access to the roof. He grasped the recessed handle, turned it, then pulled back the hatch. A quick glimpse revealed a metal ladder straight down to what might be the monitoring room. His glimpse afforded him no sign of life, but he didn’t feel comfortable climbing down. If anyone was in the room waiting for him, that was what they’d expect him to do.

  Instead, he positioned himself over the open hatch, grasped the side railings and slid down, using the insides of his shoes against the edges as a kind of brake. Someone inside the room fired at him.

  —

  The street was the epitome of calm, but the lack of movement, of the small, quotidian activities endemic to any city or town struck Sara as downright eerie. She didn’t trust what she saw at all. Nevertheless, she had no choice but to stride purposefully across the street, her stupid straw hat shading her eyes—indeed, the entire upper half of her face—from view. The Omega + Gulf Bank’s massive front door seemed to be composed of vertical slabs of rosewood, until she got close enough to see that the slabs were bolted onto a brushed metal door, studded between the slabs like the door of a medieval castle keep.

  To her surprise the door opened easily when she pulled on the handle, as if it were set on a complex set of gimbals. Inside, the bank was like nothing she had ever seen before. There were no stands on which to write out deposit or withdrawal slips, no ATMs against the wall. There were no tellers, no place for inquiries, no sitting area in which to wait for an officer’s attention. That was because there were no officers. In fact, there was no one, and the sound of her sandals against the marble floor was the only sound, echoing off columns with an aching loneliness.

  Off to the left, a door stood open. Upon close inspection, this led into a short corridor off which were a series of offices—all deserted. They contained identical desks, rotary phones, bulky intercoms, IBM Selectric typewriters, stacked in- and out-boxes, paper cutters, blotters, pencil sharpeners, a round container of freshly sharpened pencils. Black metal file cabinets stood against one wall, the others were blank. The offices looked time-warped, beamed in from the sixties and seventies. The carpeting, lush and expensive, smelled new.

  Stepping into the first one, she went immediately to the file cabinet. The three drawers were locked. Working her hand along the top of the cabinet, she encountered the key. She unlocked the top drawer: empty, did the same with the middle and bottom ones: empty, empty.

  The same held true for the drawers in the desk, none of which were locked. Not even a speck of dust lay within. Her hands roamed over the desktop, upended the holder, spilling the pencils out onto the desk. She peered into the holder: nothing there, either.

  Unfathomable, Sara thought.

  That was when she heard the quickening sound from behind her.

  —

  Because of the swiftness of Bourne’s descent, the bullet from the noise-silenced pistol passed just over his head.

  An instant later, he was on the floor, turning into a crouch, as the second shot was fired. The ricochet almost caught his left cheek, chips of plaster flicked past his eye. Then he had loosed one of the dirks, which, owing to its curved blade, wasn’t ideal for throwing. Nevertheless, because he had calculated for its shape, the tip struck home, the dirk burying itself above the man’s sternum.

  Now he was alone in the comm room, with a dead man bleeding out, two more men on the roof over his head. Only it wasn’t a comm room; it was nothing at all. Whatever data was being fed into the bank from the antennae array wasn’t here. “Here” wasn’t even finished; it looked like a mock-up of a room. Iron beams and joists made a jigsaw puzzle of the space. Below: blackness of the place between floors, where nothing but mice and ro
aches would want to live.

  He went out of the room, into a hallway of sorts: a circular space, bare plywood that, like in the room he had just left, seemed to serve no purpose save to fill up the interior so that from the outside, the structure looked like a two-story building. A casual observer might very well think that he was in a partially built floor, but there was no sawdust, no power tools, no generator or stacked cans of paint waiting to be opened. The lack of even a grain of dust or soot was almost pathological.

  If it wasn’t a two-story building housing a working staff, then what was it? But then, if the Omega + Gulf Bank was for the sole benefit of the Sovereign of the Russian Federation, what need had it of a second story? Where were the funds kept? How were they disbursed when needed, often at a moment’s notice? The antennae array on the roof had to lead somewhere in the bank.

  He went down a circular staircase with a sinuous, polished cherrywood handrail, gilt balusters, as grand as any in an eight-figure mansion. It was carpeted, but the carpet had no imprints on it. Bourne might have been the first person to walk on it after it had been set in place. Black-and-white photographs of what appeared to be oil fields and refineries hung at regular intervals on the curving wall. Gouts of gas-fed flame, blackened, cindered ground lent them an atmosphere of the apocalyptic.

  He was halfway down when he heard the first cry of pain. It wasn’t the last.

  59

  No time for thought. Instinct was what saved Sara. Instinct and training. Whipping off her straw hat, she threw it, whirling, at the figure rushing toward her. His forward momentum was momentarily arrested as he swatted the hat away from his face. That was all the time she needed. Scooping up one of the pencils she stepped into his attack, inside his Taser-holding hand, jammed the pencil point first into his left eye. As he reared back, roaring in stunned agony, she slammed the eraser end with the heel of her hand, driving the point through the viscous back of his eye, the optic nerve, into his brain. He screamed. She stepped back to avoid his flailing arms, his fingers clawing at the foreign object. But before he could remove it, he was dead, collapsing onto the carpet as if he were a marionette with its strings cut.