Robert Ludlum's the Bourne Imperative

by Eric Van Lustbader

  “He did say it to me, dammit!” Peter said heatedly.

  Hendricks let Peter expend himself. “A court of law will rule against you,” he said, after a time. “We’ve tried to follow a money trail, but if Richards is being paid by Core Energy or any of its subsidiaries, we have yet to find any evidence of it. Anderson knew this, which was why he put a keylogger onto the terminal he set Richards up at.”

  “Don’t tell me,” Peter said sourly. “It didn’t work.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “I assume you have Richards in custody.”

  For the first time, Hendricks appeared chagrined. “He’s gone, disappeared.”

  “Find Brick,” Peter said. “That’s where Richards went, guaranteed.”

  Hendricks spoke softly into his mobile. When the conversation concluded, he said, “For some reason Brick wants the Treadstone system down. Why?”

  “Assuming you’re right,” Soraya said, “it’s likely our overseas monitoring he wants to go silent.”

  Peter snapped his fingers. “You’re right! But what is he afraid of us finding out?” He gnawed on his thumb for a moment.

  Hendricks shifted from one foot to the other. “Peter...” He looked suddenly uncomfortable. When Peter looked up, he continued. “Considering everything that’s happened to you—the serious nature of your current injury, I think it’s best if you’re relieved of duties as codirector of Treadstone.”

  “What?” Peter said.

  Soraya took a step forward. “You can’t.”

  “I can,” Hendricks said. “And I am.”

  “It’s my legs that are paralyzed,” Peter said, “not my brain.”

  “I’m very sorry, Peter, but my mind’s made up.”

  As he turned to go, Soraya said, “If Peter goes, so do I.”

  Hendricks swiveled back, leveling his heavy gaze at her. “Don’t be foolish, Soraya. Don’t throw away your career for—”

  “For what? My loyalty to my friend?” she countered. “Peter and I have served together from the beginning. We’re a team, end of story.”

  Hendricks shook his head. “You’re confusing dedication with loyalty. That’s a terrible mistake, one you’re not likely to recover from.”

  “It’s Treadstone that won’t recover from losing its co-directors,” she said with all the force she could muster.

  The secretary appeared shocked. “You talk about Treadstone as if it’s a family. It’s not, Soraya. It’s a business.”

  “With all due respect, Mr. Secretary, Treadstone is a family,” she said. “Every one of its contacts overseas belongs to me. If I leave, they’ll leave with me—”

  “They won’t.”

  “—just as they did when I was let go from CI during the regime change.” She stood toe to toe with Hendricks, unafraid because, really, she had nothing to lose. She had no desire to remain at Treadstone without Peter. “I told you at the time that regime change was a mistake and that’s turned out to be true. CI is a shell of its former self. It’s dysfunctional, and morale is far worse than it was in the weeks following nine-eleven.”

  “I don’t react well to being threatened,” Hendricks said.

  “I don’t think I’m the one doing the threatening here.”

  “Look, Anderson’s in the field, even as we speak. Peter put him in charge and—”

  “I like Sam as much as the next guy,” Peter said, “but he’s not seasoned enough to run field ops for Treadstone for any length of time.”

  “Are either of you going to do it?” Hendricks gestured. “Look at you. Neither of you could walk out of here under your own power.”

  “There’s nothing to stop us setting up a temporary HQ right here in Peter’s room,” Soraya said. “In fact, given that the Treadstone servers have been rendered useless, a substitute network seems like the best possible course of action right now.”

  Peter, who had been watching the dispute like a spectator at a tennis match, now said, “Wait a minute! Soraya, that thirty million I found. I assumed it was drug money, but what if it’s not?”

  She turned, frowning. “What d’you mean?”

  “What if it was being used to pay for something else?”

  “The money’s proved to be counterfeit,” Hendricks said dismissively.

  “What?” Peter’s head turned. “Really?”

  Hendricks nodded. “Uh-huh.”

  “But that doesn’t make sense. The guy who almost killed me—” “Tulio Vistoso,” Hendricks said. “Aka the Aztec. A top-line Mexican drug lord.”

  “I don’t understand,” Soraya said.

  “We think it was a feint,” the Secretary said. “Classic misdirection on Maceo Encarnación’s part. When he’s in Mexico City, the two are practically joined at the hip.”

  Peter shook his head. “I’m not so sure. The Aztec went to extreme lengths to protect that money.”

  Another short silence ensued.

  “Is it possible,” Soraya mused, “that Vistoso didn’t know the money was counterfeit?”

  Peter was intrigued. “That would mean he’d been scammed.”

  “That doesn’t track,” Hendricks said. “Vistoso was one of the Mexican Big Three. Who would dare to scam him?”

  “Someone with more juice.” Peter looked from one to the other. “Someone like Maceo Encarnación.”

  Soraya turned to Hendricks. “Have you been tracking him?”

  “Encarnación was in Washington several days ago, giving an interview for Politics As Usual.”

  “I’m still back on the counterfeit thirty mil,” Peter said. “Something about it is totally off.” He snapped his fingers. “There must be an expert we can get hold of who might be able tell us who the counterfeiter is.”

  “It’s already being worked on,” Hendricks said. “But why should we be interested?”

  “Thirty million is an enormous amount,” Peter mused. “It had to be very, very good work. A master forger was involved. Maybe we can use him to implicate Maceo Encarnación.”

  Soraya crossed her arms over her swollen breasts, noticing how tender they had become. “Speaking of Maceo Encarnación, do we know where he went after his interview?”

  “He flew back to his headquarters in Mexico City,” Hendricks said.

  “Is he there now?” Peter said.

  Hendricks was already on his mobile, barking orders. He waited, staring at Peter. A moment later, he got his reply. “He’s in Paris now, but has yet to disembark, which is odd because his plane has been on the ground for a good six hours.”

  “So okay,” Peter said, “because Vistoso was Maceo Encarnación’s prime lieutenant and because thirty million, even in counterfeit money, is a helluva sum, we’ve speculated that Encarnación must be involved.”

  “I’m thinking of Brick wanting the Treadstone system down,” Soraya said. “Could there be a connection between him and Maceo Encarnación?”

  “That system,” Peter said, “is our best listening post in the Middle East.”

  “And Paris,” Soraya said, “is a helluva lot closer to the Middle East than Mexico City.”

  Hendricks gave a quick nod. “Maceo Encarnación’s pilot will have to file a flight plan out of Paris.”

  “We get that,” Peter nodded, “we know precisely where he’s going. If it’s to the Middle East we have our proof of Encarnación’s involvement.”

  Hendricks, the mobile to his ear, started giving them orders.

  “Hold on,” Soraya said. “You forget we don’t work for you anymore.”

  “Who the fuck said that?” Hendricks gave them a hint of a smile just before he stepped through the door.

  25

  THINK OF IT AS a troika,” Bourne said as he scanned the information on Martha Christiana’s micro-SD chip. “Maceo Encarnación, Tom Brick, the Chinese.”

  Don Fernando shook his head. “What I don’t understand is why Martha had this material in the first place.”

  “It was her fuck-you stash,�
�� Bourne said. “She amassed this information to use as leverage.”

  Don Fernando was silent for some time. He stared at the screen of his laptop with a melancholy sorrow. At last he heaved a great sigh. “But, in the end, she didn’t use it.” He turned to look at Bourne. “Why?”

  “This was a way out, but only one of several. It would still leave her a life of constantly looking over her shoulder.”

  “She wouldn’t have wanted that,” Don Fernando said.

  “From what you’ve told me about her, no. But, on the other hand, I doubt that she wanted out at all. That was her essential dilemma. She could no longer go forward, and, for her, there was no way back. There was no other way, no other life that she could conceive of.”

  “I told her about it,” Don Fernando lamented. “I laid it all out for her.”

  “She couldn’t hear it, or she couldn’t believe it.”

  Don Fernando sighed and nodded with a kind of finality. “You’re a good friend, Jason. There aren’t many like you.”

  Traffic rolled endlessly by outside. The amplified voice of the guide aboard a passing Bateau Mouche rolled up the stone walls to them, then drifted away as if on a watery tide. The bare trees whipped in the wind off the Seine. Downstairs, on the Quai de Bourbon, there were still gawkers, murmuring among themselves about last night’s suicide. The circus hadn’t died down.

  Bourne pointed to the screen. “According to Martha’s information, the Chinese have been laundering money through Maceo Encarnación.”

  “They’re going to use the thirty million to buy something from an unknown entity in the Middle East—something very important,” Don Fernando said. “But Martha didn’t know what it was or from whom it was to be bought.”

  Bourne did know, however, because Rebeka had whispered the name to him just before she bled out in the backseat of the taxi in Mexico City.

  Don Fernando sat back. “What I don’t understand is what Maceo Encarnación gets out of this deal. A ten percent laundering fee? That’s hardly worth the risk he’s taking.”

  Bourne scrolled through Martha’s information again. Something he had seen before had stuck in his mind. Then his forefinger stabbed out as he pointed. “There! Tom Brick’s involvement.” He turned to Don Fernando. “What does Core Energy stand to gain in a deal with Maceo Encarnación and the Chinese?”

  Don Fernando thought a moment. “That depends on what the Chinese are buying.”

  “It’s energy-related,” Bourne said. “Don’t you see? Energy is the element that ties all these people together.”

  “Yes. With their huge upsurge in economic expansion, production, infrastructure, and population, the Chinese are always after alternative forms of energy. I can see how Brick and Core Energy would want a piece of whatever technology the Chinese are after.” He shook his head. “But Maceo Encarnación?”

  “The troika only makes sense if Maceo Encarnación and Core Energy are somehow allied.”

  “What? But Christien and I would know about that, surely?”

  “Would you?”

  “We’ve had our eye on both Maceo Encarnación and Core Energy, Jason. We could find no money trail between the two.”

  “If Brick and Maceo Encarnación went about the alliance in the right way, there wouldn’t be one. A money trail would be the first thing they’d conceal. From what I’ve read, Core Energy has more than enough subsidiaries worldwide to conceal a money trail.”

  “Not from us,” Don Fernando insisted. “Christien has developed a proprietary software program that drills down through any mare’s nest of shell corporations and holding companies. I’m telling you there’s no money trail.”

  Bourne laughed. “Of course! That’s where Maceo Encarnación’s drug lords come in. They’re the ones who reverse-launder the money flowing between Maceo Encarnación and Core Energy.”

  “Reverse-launder?”

  Bourne nodded. “Instead of funneling dirty money through legitimate sources, Brick and Maceo Encarnación have done the reverse. They’ve taken the legitimate money that flows between their two companies and funneled it through the drug lords, making it dirty, and therefore, untraceable. It’s all cash, back and forth. No matter how clever and sophisticated Christien’s software program is, it isn’t going to pick up those kinds of transactions. No one else is, either.”

  “It’s brilliant.” Don Fernando passed a hand across his forehead. “I wish to God I had thought of it.”

  “Don Fernando,” Bourne said, “Maceo Encarnación and the thirty million are going to Lebanon to consummate a deal.”

  The older man brightened considerably. It was clear Martha Christiana’s death had hit him hard. “Then we need to get there as quickly as possible.”

  Bourne regarded him warily. “We’re not going anywhere until we take care of Nicodemo. You told me you went to a lot of trouble to prove to Maceo Encarnación that you died when your private jet crashed. But if Nicodemo was at your door earlier, then chances are he saw you outside the building. Encarnación knows you’re alive. Nicodemo won’t allow you to leave Paris alive.”

  "So many things can go wrong.”

  Minister Ouyang, a tiny, translucent teacup balanced between his fingertips, stood in the large central chamber of the magnificent Chonghuagong, the private suite of Qianlong, emperor of the Qing dynasty, buried in the secret center of the Forbidden City. Few people were allowed into the chambers, which gleamed with the emperor’s jaw-dropping collection of precious jade figurines and historic calligraphic scrolls, and none but Minister Ouyang and several others of the Central Committee at such a late hour. The flames from tiers of thick yellow candles threw off flickering, glimmering light that both illuminated and shadowed the array of the Middle Kingdom’s treasures.

  The woman to whom Ouyang had directed his concern was curled like a cat on a Mandarin divan brought in for the occasion and followed him with her coffee-colored eyes. Even in this position, the power in her long legs was apparent. Cloaked in a gleaming orange shantung silk robe, she looked like the emissary of the sun. “If you think that way, darling, you will make it so.”

  Ouyang turned sharply enough for the hot tea to sting one fingertip. He ignored the pain to stare at his wife. “I will never understand you, Maricruz.”

  She bowed her head slightly, her thick waterfall of hair covering one eye, acknowledging the compliment in the restrained manner of the high-caste Chinese with whom she had lived since coming to Beijing a decade ago. “This is as it should be.”

  Ouyang, in a long, traditional Mandarin’s robe, took a step toward her. “But, really, you are not like a Westerner at all.”

  “If I had been,” she said in a voice of stillness and depth, “you never would have married me.”

  Ouyang studied her the way a painter eyes the model for his most important work of art. Transformation was the painter’s skill; it was also Ouyang’s. “Do you want to know what ultimately attracted me to you?”

  Maricruz opened her eyes slightly.

  “Your patience.” Ouyang took a sip of his tea, held it in his mouth for a moment, then swallowed. “Patience is the greatest of virtues. It is almost wholly unknown in the West. The Arabs understand the value of patience, but they are primitives compared to us.”

  Maricruz laughed. “I think that’s what I like most about you Chinese—your incredibly high opinion of yourselves.” She laughed again. “The Middle Kingdom.”

  Ouyang took another sip of tea, savoring it much as he savored these intellectual boxing matches with his wife. No one else had the guts to talk to him in this blunt manner. “You’re living in the Middle Kingdom, Maricruz.”

  “And loving every minute of it.”

  Ouyang crossed to a narrow niche and took up a small jade box, exquisitely engraved with rampant dragons on a field of stylized clouds. He held this box in his two hands.

  “The Middle Kingdom has always been a rich source of mythology. I think you know this, Maricruz. Your own civilization i
s steeped in myth and legend.” Ouyang’s obsidian eyes glittered. “However, our history is so long and twisted that we have had several setbacks, all of them egregious. The first one occurred many centuries ago, in two thirteen bc, when Emperor Shi Huangdi of the Qin dynasty ordered the burning of all books on subjects other than medicine, prophecy, and farming. Thus were lost many of the Middle Kingdom’s root mythological sources.

  “As often happens here, Shi Huangdi’s order was reversed in one ninety-one bc, and much of the literature was reconstructed. However, it was rewritten to support ideas popular with the then current emperor. Mythological history was rewritten, as it is over and over again, by the victor. Valuable information was lost forever.”

  He came toward her with the box held like an object of infinite value. “Rarely, however, a piece of the precious past is somehow discovered, either by fate or by the desire to find it.”

  Standing in front of her, he held out the box.

  Maricruz eyed the jade warily. “What is this?”

  “Please,” Ouyang said, bending down to her.

  Maricruz took the box, which weighed far more than she had expected. It was cool to the touch, smooth as glass. With one hand, she opened the top. Her fingers trembled. Inside was a folded square of paper. She looked up at Ouyang.

  “The name of your mother, Maricruz.”

  Her mouth opened but no sound emerged.

  “Should you wish to find her.”

  “She’s alive?” Maricruz breathed.

  Ouyang watched her, eyes alight. “She is.”

  Very slowly, she closed the box and set it down on the settee beside her. She uncoiled with a lithe strength he found intoxicating. She reminded him of the American movie stars of the 1940s. As she rose, her robe parted. How did she manage that magician’s sleight of hand? he wondered. The inner hemispheres of her firm breasts revealed themselves like beautiful bronze bowls. She pressed her body against him.

  “Thank you, Ouyang,” she said formally.