The Bourne Treachery

by Brian Freeman

  “The end game is tomorrow. Once Cafferty is gone, it’s over.”

  “You may be right, but Cafferty’s smart. So are Holly Schultz and Dixon Lewis. And so is Cain. Believe me, I found that out years ago.”

  “So are you. As you’re always telling me.”

  “Well, there’s that.”

  “Then what’s the problem? I see no problems. Unless you think you’ve missed something. Have you missed something?”

  Inside the telephone box, Lennon frowned. He didn’t frown often. Life was too short to think depressing thoughts. “If I have, I’ll deal with that tomorrow. Plans change. Trust me, I have a backup ready if we’re being played. No, I’m bothered by something else entirely. It’s a piece in the puzzle that I can’t make fit.”

  “What is it?”

  “Tati Reznikova is in London, too.”

  “Yes, I saw her name. Her invitation came through the UN’s climate change panel.”

  “She’s on the list to attend Cafferty’s speech. She’ll be at the Naval College.”

  “So? Tati is one of our most accomplished scientists.”

  “That’s true,” Lennon replied, “but we both know what else she is, too. I find that an unusual coincidence. And I’ve never been fond of coincidences.”

  13

  Bourne, using his identity as Thomas Gillette, Assistant Secretary for Energy Resources in the U.S. Department of State, made his way through the elegant space of the Painted Hall. At eleven-thirty on Monday morning, half an hour before Clark Cafferty’s speech was set to begin, the room was already filled with nearly three hundred people. More visitors continued to stream through the vestibule. They clustered in small groups, talking, laughing, and arguing. Some had taken seats in the rows of chairs set up in the main hall. The mood was upbeat, and the Naval College was distant enough from the Greenwich streets that no one could hear the protesters chanting outside.

  On the north side of the room, a podium and microphone had been positioned on a riser for Cafferty. Two security guards in dark suits stood on either side of the platform. There was more security at each door to scan the name tags of everyone entering the hall, and Bourne recognized other agents—CIA, Interpol, MI-5—politely rechecking credentials around the room against their own databases.

  It was a solid, safe protection regimen, comprehensive and well organized. And none of it, he knew, would deter Lennon.

  Jason registered each face one by one and ran the attendees through a mental checklist. Among the women, he looked for the telltale physical structure of the operative known as Yoko, although he doubted that Lennon would make the mistake of allowing her anywhere near him again. Among the men, he looked for any indication of disguise. Hair. Makeup. Prosthetics. Clay. He matched the voice, the accent, the teeth, to the man’s ethnic and geographic background. He compared the body, the stoop, the walk, the skin, the hands, to the age of the man listed in the file. When anything stopped him, he murmured the name to Nova, who was housed in the security office in the basement of the building. She called up the individual’s profile on her computer and rattled off data in Jason’s earpiece, so he could target the man with more questions.

  Ah, Dr. Barrett! I read your article in Climatic Change last month. Impressive insights!

  Thank you, but my article was actually published in Climate Dynamics.

  Minister Lundberg? I collaborated on a paper with one of your colleagues. You work with Hans Felkinov in Oslo, don’t you?

  Actually, his name is Felikov. Hans Felikov.

  Oh, yes, of course!

  “Anything?” Nova asked. He knew she had a dozen camera feeds in front of her, covering the entire space.

  “No.”

  “Maybe he’s not here.”

  “He’s here.”

  Bourne stood at a window near the front of the hall. He assessed the podium where Cafferty would speak, which was shielded by heavy glass. No one could take a shot at him, but Bourne didn’t think that Lennon would risk trying to get a gun past the metal detectors. No, the real risk was later. After his speech, Cafferty would mingle with the audience, shake hands, tell jokes. If the assault was going to come, it would come then.

  One little friendly pat on the shoulder.

  One prick from a hidden needle.

  He examined the men who were sitting in the aisle seats up and down the length of the hall. From there, it was easy to say hello before security could intervene. Mr. Cafferty? Outstanding speech!

  There were young men. Old men. Americans, Brits, Asians, Europeans. He recognized their names and faces from the files, but somewhere in those files was a lie. A stranger.

  I know you! Who are you?

  Jason cast his mind back to places it didn’t want to go. Into the fog. Somewhere in the part of his memory that had been erased, he knew Lennon. He’d met him before. He’d seen his face. He couldn’t even explain to himself how he knew that was true, but he was certain that they had a history together. A single glimpse in a blurry video feed had brought it back. Just the glimpse of that walk—the distinctive way the man’s shoulders seemed to float above his hips—made Jason’s chest tighten with—what?

  He wasn’t even sure what emotion he should feel. Somehow he knew Lennon well, but he didn’t know whether he loved him, hated him, or feared him.

  Who was he? What did he look like behind all of his disguises?

  What was his real name?

  Jason squeezed his eyes shut as he heard the roaring in his head again. Pain throbbed like a vise crushing the bone of his skull. That was what always happened when he faced his past and tried to remember things that weren’t there anymore. If he let it continue, it would explode into a full-blown panic attack. He had to shut it down.

  Forget who you were! The man you were is gone!

  You’re Jason Bourne. That’s your identity now.

  His breathing slowed. The fog cleared, and all that was left was the present day. He was back in the Painted Hall. The faces took shape in front of his eyes again.

  That was when he spotted the man in the tenth row.

  The man was not young, not old, maybe forty. He looked bored, leaning his chin on a redwood walking stick with a brass handle shaped like an alligator. His shoulders slumped, but his legs were long. He had brown hair that curled below his ears. His forehead was high and lined with a couple of wrinkles. He wore wire-rimmed glasses over dark eyes and had a trimmed goatee. He wore a slightly shabby suit coat over a black mock turtleneck, and the clothes looked loose for the lean man that he was.

  When Bourne stared at him, the man stared back. Then, as if completely disinterested, he looked away. Jason tried to listen to what his mind was telling him. Did he know this man? Did he feel something? Anything?

  The chair in front of the man was empty. Bourne went over and sat down. His eyes grazed across the man’s name tag, and he said it out loud so Nova could hear.

  “Dr. Russel Amundsen.”

  The man lifted his chin from his cane and adjusted his glasses. When he spoke, his English had a pronounced Norwegian accent. “Do I know you?”

  “Tom Gillette with the U.S. State Department. You look familiar, Dr. Amundsen. We must have met at an energy conference at some point.”

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t remember you.”

  “He lives in Bergen,” Nova told him through the radio.

  “I think the conference was at NTNU in Trondheim,” Jason said with a smile.

  “Well, I teach at HVL in Bergen, so I suppose that’s possible,” Amundsen replied. “However, I haven’t been to Trondheim in some time. Perhaps you’re thinking of someone else.”

  “Perhaps. I’m looking forward to the speech today.”

  “As am I.”

  “Do you know Clark Cafferty?”

  “Know him? No. But my department has a grant prop
osal in the hands of his foundation. Of course, nearly every scientist here could probably say the same thing.”

  “The proposal is legit,” Nova told Bourne. “The topic is numerical modeling in conjunction with cold climate wooden structure fire risk.”

  “What’s the area of focus in your proposal?” Jason asked.

  “We’re assessing the impact of weather conditions on fire risk in wooden buildings,” Amundsen said. “My own specialty is numerical modeling.”

  “The project stems from a thirty-building fire in Laerdal in 2014.”

  “Of course,” Jason replied. “There was that terrible fire in Laerdal in 2015, wasn’t there?”

  “2014,” Amundsen corrected him.

  “Oh, yes, that’s right.”

  There were no holes to be punched in his story. No flaws in his history or his disguise. He played the part of a sheltered Scandinavian academic perfectly. Maybe this was a backstory that Lennon had spent years building, and he and Russel Amundsen were the same man. Or maybe he’d taken that man’s place, and the real Russel Amundsen was at the bottom of a lake outside Bergen.

  Or maybe this scientist was exactly who he said he was.

  And yet.

  Bourne stood up and extended his hand. Amundsen responded with a limp handshake. “Good luck with your grant, Doctor.”

  “Thank you.”

  Jason continued down the length of the Painted Hall, but then he looked back at the bored academic in the chair. He waited. And waited. He let almost two minutes pass, his eyes drilling into the back of the scientist’s head. All it would take was one glance, one look over his shoulder, and he would know that Russel Amundsen was the man he was hunting. The man getting ready to kill Clark Cafferty. If Bourne knew Lennon, then Lennon certainly knew Bourne. He’d be suspicious of Jason’s interrogation. He’d wonder: Did Bourne see through the disguise? He’d look back to see if Jason was watching. Calling security. He’d have to know if he needed an immediate escape.

  But Amundsen simply slumped forward and leaned on his cane, as if pondering numbers in his head while he waited for the speech to begin.

  “Is it him?” Nova asked.

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “Maybe’s not good enough, Jason. Should we pull him out?”

  “Not yet. I can’t be sure.”

  But Jason had no more time to think about Russel Amundsen. He saw security politely moving people away from the vestibule entrance, creating a path through the crowd in the Painted Hall.

  “Cafferty’s here,” he told Nova. “Dixon’s with him.”

  Bourne exchanged a glance with Dixon as the two men got closer, but the CIA agent didn’t react. Cafferty smiled and waved with a politician’s charisma, but security kept him at a safe distance from the crowd. The handful of people who tried to approach were gently steered back to their seats, and Cafferty offered a silent apology and tapped his watch.

  “They’re not letting anyone near him,” Jason murmured.

  “That’s good.”

  “Amundsen’s not moving. He’s not getting up.”

  “So maybe it’s not him.”

  “Maybe not.” Then Bourne saw something that alarmed him. “Hang on, someone’s coming up to him. They’re letting her through.”

  Cafferty stopped near the podium, and Dixon stepped aside as a woman in the front row stood up. She was attractive, young, with straight blond hair streaked with purple highlights, and black glasses that slipped down her nose. Her long legs stretched below a short beige skirt. She wore a navy blazer over a low-cut white blouse.

  “Who is that?” Jason asked. “I don’t recognize her.”

  “Neither do I.”

  Jason marched toward the front of the Painted Hall, but a man that he recognized as CIA blocked him from getting closer. “Sorry, Mr. Secretary, there will be a meet-and-greet later. For now, no one talks to Mr. Cafferty.”

  “Someone’s talking to him right now,” Jason pointed out.

  “No visitors,” the agent repeated. “Step back, please.”

  “You know who I am,” Bourne hissed in a low voice. “Let me through.”

  “Orders from Mr. Lewis,” the agent replied coldly. “Nobody gets close to Cafferty without his clearance. Not even Cain.”

  Bourne stopped in frustration.

  The young woman was right in front of Cafferty now. He gave her a European double-kiss on her cheeks, and they shook hands. If she was working for Lennon, then it was all over. Cafferty was already dead.

  “That woman wasn’t on our list,” Bourne murmured.

  “Are you sure?” Nova replied through the radio. “We looked through a lot of files, Jason. And we were focused on men more than women.”

  Bourne shook his head. He watched Cafferty guide the woman to the north end of the hall. With Dixon trailing behind, the two of them disappeared beyond the elaborate mural. He couldn’t see them anymore.

  “No, she wasn’t on the list,” Jason repeated. “Dixon deliberately kept her file away from us. He gave us profiles on everyone but her. Who the hell is she?”

  * * *

  —

  “Ms. Reznikova,” Clark Cafferty said when the two of them were alone. “This really is a pleasure. I appreciate your willingness to meet with me.”

  “Well, I received your note when I arrived in the hall,” Tati replied. “I have to say, your invitation made me curious. I know who you are, of course, but I’m very surprised that you know who I am.”

  “Your credentials as a scientist precede you,” Cafferty told her.

  Tati didn’t look fooled. “That’s very flattering, but there are many, many scientists in this room with much more experience than me. Which suggests that whatever you wanted to talk to me about has nothing to do with science. So can you tell me what this is about?”

  Cafferty smiled. This woman was exactly as advertised. Extremely smart. And extremely easy on the eyes. “You’re right. This isn’t about science, not really. Although one of the benefits of the project I’m working on right now could be a profound long-term change in dealing with climate change in Russia. I’m sure that’s something you would find of interest.”

  “It is,” Tati agreed, “but we’re not likely to be leaders in renewable energy in my homeland. Not while there is so much money to be made from our fossil fuel resources. Change comes slowly.”

  “I’d like the change to come faster,” Cafferty told her.

  “How?”

  “How? With your help, Tati. I hope you don’t mind if I call you that.”

  “I don’t, but I cannot imagine what help I can offer someone like yourself, Mr. Cafferty.”

  “I have a meeting coming up. I’d like you to come to that meeting with me. In fact, your presence is vital. You may very well be the one person who can change the entire future of Russia.”

  She gave him a look of puzzlement and suspicion. “How can I possibly do that?”

  “For now, I’m asking you to be patient with me. I’ll explain everything in due time.”

  “Well, when is this meeting?” Tati asked.

  Cafferty gave her another smile and took her by the elbow. “Now.”

  14

  From where he stood on the south end of Waterloo Bridge, Vadik watched a train rattle across the Thames into the railway station. Farther down the river, he saw the wheel of the London Eye slowly turning, carrying tourists in its silver capsules. It was a cloudy, dark day, with a spatter of drizzle from the sky. Most of the Londoners crossing the bridge had umbrellas over their heads, but Vadik simply stood in the rain.

  He felt the gun pressing into the small of his back. It was already cocked and ready. Just pull the trigger. Start firing. He kept rehearsing how it would go in his mind, trying to steel himself. The convoy of vehicles would stop, cars to the front and back swo
oping in, the explosions of guns firing, the glass shattering in the windows, the people on the bridge screaming and running. In the midst of all of that, Vadik had to stay calm. He had to cross the pavement as the men dragged Gennady Sorokin out of the backseat of the limousine, and then he and Harry would execute him.

  First excruciating pain. And then the coup de grâce.

  Ten seconds.

  The whole operation would take ten seconds.

  Praise Gaia!

  The man who called himself Harry stood next to him. He had a cigarette between his fingers, his eyes following the teenage girls who passed back and forth in front of them. None of the tension of the day seemed to bother him. He didn’t look the way Vadik felt, like he wanted to bend over the bridge railing and vomit into the river.

  “Time?” Harry said.

  “Eleven fifty-five,” Vadik replied.

  “Our man in the hotel lobby just reported that Sorokin is downstairs. Are you ready?”

  “I am,” Vadik said, trying to sound more confident than he felt.

  “In a few minutes, Sorokin will be dead,” Harry told him. Then he shrugged. “Or we will be. You get that’s the trade-off, right?”

  “Yes, I get it.”

  Vadik knew very well that he wouldn’t survive this mission. Either he’d die on the bridge, or he’d die later when they caught him. Those were the risks. He’d known that from the beginning, but this was the mission of a lifetime. He and Tati were both scientists, but science meant nothing if the world wouldn’t listen.

  Well, they would listen now.

  He hadn’t slept last night. He’d lain next to Tati with his eyes open. He’d tried to make love to her, knowing it might be their last time, but his body had betrayed him. All he could do was roll off her in frustration and blame it on too much vodka. The minders watching and listening in the flat probably laughed when they saw that, but they wouldn’t be laughing when word came that one of Moscow’s filthiest polluters was dead.

  Sorokin was only the first. Others would follow. No one was safe, and money was no protection.