The Bourne Imperative

by Robert Ludlum

  Soraya: “I have it on good authority that Nicodemo is connected with Core Energy.”

  Richards: “Where did you hear that?”

  Peter was playing the taped conversation again, homing in on the question that must have so shaken Dick Richards. “Where did you hear that?” The question had given him away. He had already known about Core Energy, but he had withheld that information. Peter was following him to find out why. According to Soraya, Bourne strongly suspected a connection between Nicodemo and Core Energy. From where Peter sat now, it looked as if he was right on the money. As usual.

  Richards’s car turned into the driveway, stopped at the guardhouse that sat as ominous as a military installation just outside the front gate, which remained closed to the uninitiated and the uninvited alike.

  Peter was not a member of Blackfriar, which, in any event, would not have him. Nevertheless, he needed to gain entrance. Showing his credentials to the guards was out of the question; he might as well announce his presence via loudspeaker.

  Driving farther along until he was out of sight of the guardhouse, he pulled over, off the road, and onto the mowed grass strip that separated the wall from the tarmac. The brick wall was thick, topped by a wide, decorative concrete band in which were set, at precise intervals, a series of black wrought-iron spikes whose tips were fashioned in the shape of a fleur-de-lys.

  Peter got out, clambered onto his car’s roof, and from there scrambled up onto the concrete top of the wall. Turning himself sideways so as to slip between the spikes, he leaped down onto the other side, landing in a crouch behind a spindly-limbed Eastern rosebud, harbinger of spring, the first to bloom at winter’s end.

  Being inside Blackfriar made him profoundly uneasy. It was a place to which he had no desire to belong, but whose deep-seated contempt for people like him made it hostile and alien territory.

  These thoughts passed through his mind as he rose and began to head back toward the area where Richards would drive in. Passing a number of tennis players exiting the winter indoor courts, he saw the car almost immediately, which was a relief; it seemed as if it had been held up at the guardhouse, presumably because Richards wasn’t a member and hadn’t been expected by the president.

  He was close by the pro shop. Rows of golf carts crouched in neat rows, drowsing idly for the first taste of spring to bring out the duffers. Commandeering one, he jump-started the engine and paralleled Richards’s car as it drove slowly down the winding two-lane road that split the country club in two. When he was certain Richards was heading for the two-story colonial clubhouse, he veered off, taking a shortcut that got him onto the gravel surrounding the building like a moat. Ditching the cart, he strode into the clubhouse, nodding occasionally at the few who glanced his way.

  Inside, the clubhouse was more or less as expected: grand wood-beamed spaces with crystal chandeliers, deep masculine chairs and sofas in the great room that opened into a dining room to his left. Straight ahead, through a line of enormous French doors, the great room led out onto an enormous veranda filled with expensive wicker chairs, glass tables, and uniformed waiters ferrying highballs, gin and tonics, and mint juleps to lounging members who were chatting about their stock market calls, their Bentleys, their Citations. The overripe atmosphere made Peter want to gag.

  He saw Richards hurry in and stood back in the shadow of a potted palm, as if this were a scene from a 1940s Sydney Greenstreet potboiler. Glancing around the great room, Peter did not see the president, nor could he spot any of the Secret Service agents who, if he were there, would be discreetly scattered about the area, talking into the cuffs of their starched white shirts.

  He moved to keep Richards in sight and was rewarded to see his quarry head toward a small grouping of upholstered wing chairs. He seated himself in one of them, facing a man the crown of whose head was the only part visible. He had silver hair, but that was all Peter could tell from his position. He continued around the periphery of the great room in a counterclockwise direction, but just as the person Richards had come all this way to see was about to appear from behind a wing of the chair in which he was seated, someone tapped Peter on the shoulder. Turning, he found steel-gray eyes locked on his; the needle nose and thin lips below showed not a trace of bonhomie, let alone humor. As Peter tried to pull away, the man jabbed something sharp against Peter’s side—the point of a switchblade.

  “The atmosphere is toxic for you in here,” the man said. He had dark hair, long at the collar, and slicked back. Hardly a fashionable DC style. His English held a slight accent that Peter couldn’t place for the moment. “Let’s step outside, shall we?”

  “I’d rather not,” Peter said, then winced as the knife point slid through his clothes to prick his skin.

  The steel-gray eyes grew icy. “I’m afraid you have no choice in the matter.”

  6

  There are always two sides to a story,” Rebeka said.

  “Except,” Bourne said, “when there are three—or four.”

  She smiled. “Drink your hot toddy.”

  Bourne, in clean clothes, crouched by the fire and stared at Alef—or, according to Rebeka, Manfred Weaving. Weaving was lying on a mattress Rebeka had dragged in from a spare bedroom to lay by the fire. She had cut off his frozen clothes, as she had done, quickly and professionally, with Bourne. Then she had dressed him in shirt and trousers extracted from a large cedar chest at the foot of the bed she was using, then swaddled him in a woolly striped blanket. He was breathing normally, but he was unconscious, as he had been since Bourne had dragged him out of the water a second time. Before leaving the frozen lake, Rebeka had rolled Ze’ev off the ice, into the darkness of the frozen water. He sank as purposefully as if he were wearing a diver’s lead-weighted belt.

  “We should get him to a hospital.”

  Rebeka sat down cross-legged beside Bourne. “That wouldn’t be wise.”

  “At least let me call a friend of mine in Stockholm. He can send a—”

  “No.” She said it firmly, without fear of rebuke. She was in charge here, and she knew it.

  Bourne took a longer swig of the hot toddy. The Aquavit with which it was heavily laced burned a trail of fire down his throat and into his stomach. Instant warmth. He wished he could get some of it down Weaving’s throat. “We might lose him.”

  “I’ve given him antibiotics.” Leaning forward, she unwrapped the bottom half of him. “A couple of toes might have to come off.”

  “Who’s going to do that?”

  “I will.” She rewrapped Weaving, then turned her attention to him. “I have an enormous stake in keeping him alive.”

  “I’ve been meaning to ask you about that.”

  They were in a fisherman’s cottage a stone’s throw from the water. Rebeka had rented it for a month, using an unholy cash sum that guaranteed the owner’s silence, as well as his generosity. Every day, he restocked the refrigerator and the larder, made the bed, and swept the floors. Neither his wife nor his children knew a thing about her. That hadn’t stopped Ze’ev from finding her, and it surely wouldn’t stop the Babylonian from finding her, too.

  “We can’t stay here,” she said, handing him a plate of bread, cheese, and cold meat. “Only long enough for you to recover.”

  “And Weaving?”

  “He will take longer.” She looked at him almost longingly. “But if we wait until he regains consciousness, chances are all three of us will be dead.”

  Bourne stared at her while he ate. He was ravenous. “Who’s coming?”

  “Ben David has sent someone. According to Ze’ev, he’s already on his way.”

  “I see how much you trusted Ze’ev,” he said, nearly draining his mug.

  She gave a hollow chuckle. “Right. Ze’ev was totally full of shit.” She lifted a forefinger. “But it’s only logical that Ben David sent someone after me—and you. And if, in fact, it is the Babylonian, well, he’s the best Mossad has.”

  Bourne ate some more, taking several moments
to absorb this. “What did Ze’ev want?”

  “He said he wanted to help me, but from the first I suspected his real agenda was getting to Weaving. I thought he was dead, but…” She shook her head. “I made a mess of this, Jason. Weaving was getting away and I shot him. I aimed for his shoulder.”

  “You missed.” Bourne wiped his mouth and glanced over at the unconscious man. “I pulled him out of the water. I brought him back here because I thought it might jog his memory.”

  Rebeka’s head snapped up, her eyes alight. “What d’you mean?”

  “The shot you fired grazed the side of his head. That and the shock of falling into the water, of almost freezing to death, caused amnesia.”

  “Amnesia?” Rebeka looked stunned. “My God, how…how bad?”

  “He doesn’t remember anything, not even his name.” Bourne set the mug down. He shivered in the warmth. “He remembered the lake, running across it. I think he was beginning to remember you coming after him when Ze’ev began to fire.”

  He looked at her. “If Ze’ev wanted to find Weaving, why did he try to kill him?”

  “That’s a question I’ve been asking myself.”

  “Could that have been his aim all along?”

  Her brows knit together as she nodded slowly. “It’s possible, yes. But then, I’ve had all the pieces on the chessboard in the wrong places. People’s allegiances have been compromised.”

  “But you must know that to be true. You must have seen what I saw in Dahr El Ahmar.”

  A flash of fear crossed her face. “So you did see…?”

  “After I took off, after I evaded the missile and its explosion, I overflew the encampment.”

  “Have you told anyone?”

  Bourne shook his head. “I have no master, Rebeka, you know that.”

  “A Ronin, a masterless samurai. But surely you have friends, people you trust.”

  He rose abruptly, stood over Manfred Weaving. “What is so valuable about him?”

  “His mind.” Rebeka stood up and went to stand beside him. “His mind is a treasure-trove of invaluable intel.”

  Bourne looked at her. “What kind of intel?”

  She hesitated for just a moment, then said, “I think Weaving is part of a terrorist network called Jihad bis saif.”

  “Jihad by the sword,” Bourne said. “I never heard of it.”

  “Neither have I, but—”

  “What proof do you have?”

  She touched the figure, swaddled like a newborn, lying unconscious by the fire. “I spoke to him.”

  “When?”

  “After the lake, in the forest. I caught up with him, briefly. We spoke for a moment or two.” She touched her shoulder. “Before he stabbed me.”

  Bourne rose and took his empty plate into the kitchen, which was an area adjacent to the living room, and placed it in the sink. “Rebeka, all this is conjecture on your part.”

  “Weaving found out what Mossad is doing in Dahr El Ahmar.”

  “An excellent reason, then, for Ben David to send Ze’ev to kill him.”

  “But there’s far more in his head.”

  Bourne returned to her and to the fire. “None of this makes sense. Manfred Weaving may not even be his real name. It’s more than likely a legend.”

  “Like Jason Bourne.”

  “No. I am Jason Bourne now.”

  “And before?”

  Bourne thought of the monstrous sea snake, lying in the deepest recesses of his unconscious. “I was once David Webb, but I no longer know who he was.”

  As Peter was herded out of the Blackfriar clubhouse, he felt a trickle of blood snaking its way down his side, staining his shirt.

  “Pick up the pace,” the man with the steel-gray eyes said under his breath, “or more blood will be spilled.”

  Peter, who had in the past several months been almost blown up by a car bomb, kidnapped, and nearly killed, had had just about enough of being pushed around. Nevertheless, he went obediently with his captor, out the entrance of the clubhouse, down the wide stairs, past duffers in sweaters and caps, and around to the side of the building.

  He was prodded through a thick stand of sculpted azaleas and, behind them, a maze of dense boxwood as high as his head. Even at this time of year, the boxwood, only drowsing, gave off its peculiar scent of cat piss.

  When they were hidden from anyone who might somehow be in the vicinity, the man with the steel-gray eyes said in his peculiarly accented English, “What is it you want here?”

  Peter drew his head back as if staring at a serpent rising off the forest floor. “Do you know who I am?”

  “It is of no moment who you are.” The man with the steel-gray eyes twisted the knife point into Peter’s side. “Only what you are doing here.”

  “I’m looking for tennis lessons.”

  “I’ll walk you over to the pro shop.”

  “I would so appreciate that.”

  The man bared his teeth. “Fuck you. You are following Richards.”

  “I don’t know what—” Peter grimaced suddenly, as the knife point grazed a rib.

  “Soon enough you won’t need the pro shop,” the man said, close to his ear. “You’ll need a hospital.”

  “Don’t get excited.”

  “And if I puncture a lung, even a hospital won’t help you.” The knife point ground against bone. “Understand?”

  Peter grimaced and nodded.

  “Now, why are you following this man you say you don’t know?”

  Peter breathed in and out, slowly, deeply, evenly. His heart was racing, and adrenaline was pumping into his system. “Richards works for me. He left the office prematurely.”

  “And this prompts you to follow him?”

  “Richards’s work is classified, highly sensitive. It’s my job to—”

  “Not today,” the man said. “Not now, not with him.”

  “Whatever you say.” Peter prepared himself mentally while willing his body to relax. He slowed his breathing, turned his mind away from the pain, the increasing loss of blood. Instead, he fixed his thoughts on what needed to be done. And then he did it.

  Bringing his left arm down, he slammed his forearm into the man’s wrist. At the same time, he twisted his upper torso, driving his right elbow into the bridge of the man’s nose. Briefly, he felt the fire in his side as the knife point scraped along his rib, slashing open a horizontal wound. Then the full heat of battle rose up, and he forgot all about it.

  The man, forced to let go of the knife, drove the ends of his fingers into Peter’s solar plexus. Peter breathed out, then in, and stiff-armed his adversary. The man’s shattered nose spouted blood like a fountain, and he took an involuntary step backward. Peter moved into the breach, drove his knee into the man’s groin, then, as the man doubled over, smashed his fist into the back of his neck. The man went down and stayed down.

  Retrieving the knife from where it had fallen, Peter knelt down, put the bloody point to the man’s carotid as he rolled him over. He was unconscious. Quickly Peter rummaged through his pockets, found car keys, a thin metal-mesh wallet with almost $800 in cash, a driver’s license, two credit cards, all in the name of Owen Lincoln. He also found a Romanian passport in the name of Florin Popa. Peter had a good laugh at that one. Popa, which meant priest in Romanian, was by far the most popular surname, the Romanian equivalent of Smith.

  Staring down at the man with the steel-gray eyes, he knew only two things for certain: first, his name was neither Owen Lincoln nor Florin Popa. Second, whoever he was, he worked for the man Richards had come here to meet. Not enough, not nearly enough.

  Soraya found Secretary Hendricks in a briefing with Mike Holmes, the national security advisor, and the head of Homeland Security. High-level stuff. The highest, in fact. Her credentials got her into the White House grounds, through several layers of security with exponentially increasing scrutiny, and into the West Wing, where she sat in a tiny, exquisite Queen Anne chair opposite one of Holmes’s pres
s officers—a speechwriter, actually—whom she knew on a casual, nod-at-each-other, basis. The officer kept his head down, his fingers plucking away at his computer terminal. She rose once to get herself a cup of coffee from a heavily laden sideboard, then sat back down. Not a word was spoken.

  Forty minutes after she sat down, the door opened, and a clutch of suits marched out, glassy-eyed, still in the grip of the power of the Oval Office. Hendricks was talking in low tones to Holmes. Hendricks, who had himself ascended from the position Holmes now held and who had recommended Holmes to be his successor, was no doubt passing on a well-considered kernel of accumulated wisdom to his protégé. He saw Soraya when she stood up. He was almost abreast of her and appeared surprised to see her. He raised a forefinger, indicating that she should wait while he completed his conversation with Holmes.

  Soraya bent and put her coffee cup down on the sideboard. When she straightened up, she winced at the pain that lanced through her head. Immediately she broke out into a cold sweat, and, turning away from the men, wiped her brow and upper lip with the back of her hand. Her heart was pounding, whether in fear for her own life or for that of her unborn baby, she could not say. Instinct drove her to place one hand on her belly, as if to protect the fetus from whatever was happening inside her skull. But there was no protection, she knew, not really. Every option available to her was fraught with dire peril.

  “Soraya?”

  She started at the sound of Hendricks’s voice so close to her, and when she turned, she was afraid that her face was ashen, that her boss would see what was happening to her. But his smile seemed unclouded with doubt. He projected only mild surprise and a certain curiosity.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Waiting for you.”

  “You could have called.”

  “No,” she said. “I couldn’t.”

  His brow furrowed. “I’m not following.”