The Bourne Imperative

by Robert Ludlum

  “Come in,” she said. “Please.”

  So, old thing.” Brick took a bite out of a colossal olive, sucked the pimiento between his lips like a second tongue, and chomped down, grinding it to orange paste. “I have a bit of work for you. Ready to have a go?”

  “Sure,” Peter said, “now’s as good a time as any.”

  “That’s the lad.”

  His heart rate spiked. He had no idea what Brick was going to ask of him, but it wasn’t going to be good. In for a penny, in for a pound. And continuing that thought, There’s a damn good reason clichés were born.

  The two men sat in the kitchen of Brick’s Virginia safe house. Between them were several plates of food—rounds of Italian salami and mortadella, crumbles of pecorino cheese, a deep-green glass container of olive oil, handfuls of crusty bread, a dish of olives, and four oversized bottles of dark Belgian beer, two of them empty. Dick Richards had left an hour ago with Bogs, who was taking him back to within three blocks of the Treadstone headquarters.

  Wiping his lips, Brick rose and crossed to a drawer, rummaged around in it until he found what he wanted, then returned and sat across from Peter.

  “So,” Peter said, “where d’you want me to go?”

  “Nowhere.”

  “What?”

  “You’re staying right here.” Brick slid a small packet across the table.

  “What’s this?”

  “Double-edged shaving blades.”

  Peter picked up the packet and opened it. Sure enough, he discovered four double-edged blades. Plucking one up carefully, he said, “I can’t remember when I last saw one of these.”

  “Yeah,” Brick said, “they’re from the last century.”

  Peter laughed.

  “No joke, mate. Those there’ll take off your finger if you look at them wrong. Specially honed, they are.”

  Peter dropped the blade back on top of the others. “I don’t understand.”

  “Easy-peasy, old thing. You stay here. You wait. Bogs’ll be bringing someone here. He’ll make the intros, you chat the mark up, all nice’n’larky-like. Wait for Bogs’s signal, then…” He tilted his head toward the box of blades.

  “What?” Peter felt the gorge rise into his throat. “You mean you want me to kill this person with one of these blades?”

  “Use all four of ’em, if that’s your cuppa.”

  Peter swallowed. “I don’t think—”

  Brick’s torso shot forward, his hand imprisoning Peter’s right wrist in an iron grip. “I don’t give a fuck what you think. Just get it done.”

  “Jesus.” Peter fought down the panic that threatened to undo him. Think fast, he berated himself. “We’re isolated here. Wouldn’t a gun be simpler?”

  “Any shite-arse off the street can pop a bloke at close range.” He made a gun of his free hand, pushed the end of his finger-barrel into Peter’s temple. Then, in a dizzying shift, he broke out into a grin, letting go. “I want to see what you’re made of, old thing. See what lurks beneath, see if I can trust you to go on to bigger’n’better.” He rose. “You wanted to work for me. This is the path you chose. Your chance to grab the gold ring.” He winked, his grin evaporating. “Don’t make a fucking hash of it, yeah?”

  The one society Soraya did belong to was a weekly poker game at the mayor’s townhouse. But that, too, was something that bound her and Delia together: both women were naturally shy, but fiercely competitive, especially when it came to poker. Being ushered into the high-stakes game was one of Delia’s great joys, and the incident that cemented her friendship with Soraya. It was at these intimate sessions, sitting around a green baize table with the elite of Washington politics, that Delia came to know Soraya best, and to sort out her feelings toward her. Gradually, the sexual charge resolved itself into the warm glow of a deep and abiding friendship. She realized that she was attracted to Soraya, but not as a lover. She soon discovered an acute relief that Soraya was neither gay nor bi. No possibility of complications to get in the way of their friendship. As for her friend, Soraya accepted Delia for who she was. For the first time in her life, Delia felt no hesitation, no shame, no obstinacy in revealing herself to another human being. She never felt judged, and in return she opened her heart and her mind to Soraya.

  Now, having pulled up a chair, Delia sat beside her friend’s bed and took her hand. Soraya’s eyes fluttered open. Her lids were blue, bruised-looking. In fact, she had the dazed look of someone who had just received a thorough thrashing.

  “Hello, Raya.”

  “Deel—”

  Tubes ran in and out of both arms. There was still a drain poking through the bandages on the side of her head. Hideous thing, Delia thought, trying to avert her gaze without being conspicuous about it. She failed.

  “I guess you shouldn’t show me a mirror.” Soraya tried for a smile and just missed. It looked lopsided, grotesque, and for a breathless moment Delia was terrified that the operation had done something to the nerves on that side of her face. Then, as Soraya started to talk more, she realized it was merely fatigue combined with the remnants of the anaesthesia.

  “How d’you feel, Raya?”

  “Bad as I look. Maybe worse.”

  Now it was Delia’s turn to smile. “It’s fine now. Everything’s fine.”

  “Hendricks told me the baby’s okay.”

  Delia nodded. “That’s right. No problems.”

  Soraya sighed, visibly relaxing. “When can I get out of here, did the doctors say?”

  Delia laughed. “Why? You itching to get back to work already?”

  “I have a job to do.”

  Delia bent over her. “Right now your job is to get better—for yourself and for the baby.” She took her friend’s hand. “Listen, Raya, I did something…something you warned me not to do. But under the circumstances, I thought…I told Charles about the baby.”

  Soraya, overwhelmed with guilt, closed her eyes. But she knew she had to continue on down this path, step by ugly step.

  “I’m sorry, Raya. Truly. But I was so afraid for you. I thought he had a right to know.”

  “It’s your basic decency, Deel,” Soraya said. “I wasn’t thinking clearly. I should have known.” In fact, she had known. She had been banking on Delia’s basic decency.

  “Where’s Charlie now?”

  “He’s been here for a while,” her friend said. “I’m kind of surprised he’s stayed so long.”

  “Does his wife know he’s here?”

  Delia made a face. “Ann Ring is up on the Hill, engulfed day and night in her senatorial legislative package on next year’s Homeland Security procurements and expenditures.”

  “How d’you know that?”

  “I read Politico. They don’t like her, either.”

  “Who does, except her constituents? And, of course, The Beltway Journal.”

  “Now you’re going to say you can’t understand why he married her.”

  Soraya’s lips curled in the semblance of a smile. “She married him. She was like an unstoppable force. He couldn’t say no.”

  “Any adult can say no and mean it, Raya.”

  “But not Charlie. He was bedazzled.”

  “Senator Ring has that effect on a lot of conservative Republicans. She could do a spread in Playboy.”

  “If only,” Soraya said. “Then we’d all be rid of her.”

  “I don’t know. I have a feeling she’d be able to somehow spin it to her advantage.”

  Soraya laughed and squeezed her friend’s hand. “What would I do without you, Deel?”

  Delia squeezed back. “Heaven only knows.”

  “Listen, Deel. I want to see Charlie.”

  Delia’s face clouded over. “Raya, do you think that’s such a good idea?”

  “It’s important. I—”

  All at once, her eyes opened wide, and she gasped. Her hand turned into a claw and her torso arched off the bed. The monitors to which she was hooked up started to go crazy. Delia started screaming
, and Thorne pushed open the door, his face white and drawn.

  “What is it?” He looked from her to Soraya. “What’s happened?”

  Delia could hear the soft slap of running rubber-soled shoes, voices raised in alarm, and she shouted, “Help! She needs help! Now!”

  Bourne and Rebeka silently entered the apartment she had rented on Sankt Eriksgatan in Kungsholmen. It was on the third floor, a block and a half from the water. Christien was waiting for them downstairs in the Volvo, along with a bodyguard-messenger from his office he had picked up on a prearranged street corner in Gamla Stan.

  The pair went stealthily through all the rooms, checking the shallow closets, even under the bed, and behind the shower curtain. When they had assured themselves that the apartment was secure, Rebeka knelt down on the tile floor of the bathroom.

  “How much money have you stowed away?” Bourne said.

  “I always establish a private vault in a secure location. It’s not safe to carry so much on my person.”

  Bourne, kneeling beside her, helped her carefully peel up two thin lines of grout, making certain they wouldn’t crumble. This left an island tile, which she plucked up. Beneath lay a thick wad of bills—krona, euros, American dollars.

  Stuffing the wad into her pocket, she stood up. “Come on,” she said. “This place gives me the creeps.”

  They left the apartment, hurrying down the twilit stairs.

  Ilan Halevy, code name the Babylonian, sat behind the wheel of the rental car he had parked in a strategic spot across the street and down the block from the entrance to the building in which Rebeka had rented her apartment. He had been waiting for hours, but for him those hours felt like minutes. It seemed as if he had been waiting for something to happen all his life. As a boy of ten, he had waited for his parents to divorce; as an adolescent of fourteen, he had waited for the bully he had put into the hospital to die; shortly afterward, he had found himself waiting for a train to take him out of the heartland of his country into the capital, the busiest, shiniest, most confusing place he could think of in which to get lost. He had killed again, but this time on his own terms. He chose well—a wealthy American businessman, with whom he had struck up a conversation in the bar of the capital’s poshest hotel. Now, with money in his pocket and an alternate identity, he shaved his beard, bought himself two sets of the best Western clothes from the Brioni boutique in the selfsame hotel, charging it to one of the businessman’s credit cards. Before that moment, he had never before seen a credit card in the flesh, let alone handled one.

  Soon after, he had slid quite naturally into Tel Aviv’s criminal underbelly, making a name for himself quickly, ruthlessly, remorselessly. He supposed that was how he had come to the attention of Colonel Ben David. In any event, when Ben David had approached him, he was properly wary. But, in time, the two men established a relationship. Despite its undisputed closeness, no one would mistake it for friendship, especially the two principals.

  Halevy sighed, longing for a shwarma whose delicious muttony grease he could dribble over a pile of Israeli couscous. He hated the Nordic countries—Sweden in particular. He hated their women, blond, blue-eyed, upholding the abhorrent Aryan ideal of the superman. There wasn’t a Swedish runway model he didn’t feel compelled to kick in her perfect, chiseled face. Give him a dark-skinned, dark-haired Amazon with Mediterranean features any day.

  He was still enmeshed in these sour thoughts when he saw the late-model Volvo draw up to the building under his surveillance. Rebeka stepped out, crossing the pavement to the front door. He was about to emerge from his car when he saw Bourne striding after her.

  Why the hell are they still together? he asked himself. She’s working with him? He ground his teeth in fury and sat back against the seat, forcing himself to wait. A familiar state for him, but sometimes, as now, it maintained its power to drive him crazy.

  Along the E4 motorway, Christien turned off into a fast-food and gas lay-by. Since stopping off briefly at Rebeka’s apartment, they had been heading steadily north out of Gamla Stan, where Christien had picked them up. Bourne wondered where they were going.

  Sovard, the bodyguard-messenger, handed a slim packet to his boss as soon as he had parked in a spot away from other cars.

  “Two tickets,” Christien said, handing the packet to Bourne.

  Rebeka accepted hers with a certain reluctance. “Where to?”

  Fishing an iPad out of Sovard’s briefcase, Christien used the touch screen to access a video. “In this instance, Sweden’s fetish for surveillance has served us well,” he observed.

  The three of them watched a video that had obviously been quickly and roughly spliced together from several fixed CCTV cameras at various locations. In the beginning there was nothing of much interest: a swath of tarmac, overalled workers with ear-dampening headphones in small motorized carts heading back and forth. Arlanda airport.

  Then, in a flurry of activity, a sudden backwash sent people scurrying. A moment later, the disguised SteelTrap copter descended into view, settling onto the ground. Almost immediately, the side door slid back and three men clambered down. One of them was clearly Harry Rowland. He hustled between the two men, moving left to right, vanishing out of camera range.

  Jump-cut to another camera in another area of the airport. Three men were seen hustling across the tarmac. Though the view was from farther away, it was clear from their gait that these were the same three men from the SteelTrap copter. A long-range private jet was waiting for them. An immigration official checked their passports, stamped them, and nodded them up the mobile stairs.

  Another jump-cut, this time a different angle on the same scene, closer up, probably through a telephoto lens, judging by the jittery images. One by one, the men bent down, disappearing into the belly of the jet.

  A final jump-cut to the jet rolling down the runway, gathering speed. When it lifted off out of the frame, Christien stopped the video and stowed the iPad.

  “The pilot was required to file a flight plan with the tower at Arlanda. The plane is headed to Mexico City via Barcelona.” Christien smiled. “It so happens that Maceo Encarnación, the president of SteelTrap, has his main residence in Mexico City.”

  “Nice work,” Bourne acknowledged.

  Christien nodded. “Your AeroMexico flight will be following virtually the same route as the SteelTrap jet, but they’ll have a two-hour head start. Jason, I know you have a passport. Rebeka?”

  “Don’t leave home without it,” she said with a wry smile.

  He nodded. “Good. We’re set then.”

  Putting the Volvo in gear, he rolled out of the lay-by, back onto the E4, heading for the Arlanda airport.

  Sovard was on his way back from security, to which he had accompanied Christien’s VIP guests when a man asked him for the time. The moment he glanced at his watch, he felt an immense pain at the nape of his neck. As he pitched forward, the man caught him under the arms and half-dragged him into an airline lost-luggage office. It was currently unlighted and unmanned, beyond its hours of operation. In his current semi-paralyzed state, Sovard had no idea how he had gotten into the locked office. In any event, he was set down against a pile of suitcases, duffel bags, and backpacks. His equilibrium shot, he teetered. As he did so, he caught a glimpse of the livid scars on the man’s neck. When he tried to right himself, the man delivered a massive blow to both ears that caused Sovard’s eyes to roll up in their sockets. He felt sick, incapable of stringing two thoughts together, let alone trying to figure a way out of his imprisonment.

  “I have little time.” The man touched Sovard on a nerve bundle behind his right ear, and a firework of pain exploded in Sovard’s brain. “Where are they going?”

  Sovard stared up at him blankly. A sliver of drool escaped the corner of his mouth, discolored his shirt. It was pinkish with his own blood.

  “I will only ask you one more time.” Again, the Babylonian used only one finger, this time stopping the flow of blood through Sovard’s car
otid artery, then released it. “You have ten seconds to answer my question. After that, I will bring you to the point of unconsciousness, over and over until you beg me to kill you. Frankly, I’d like that, but I’m thinking altruistically, I’m thinking of you.”

  He repeated the procedure twice more before Sovard lifted a trembling hand. He’d had enough. The Babylonian leaned forward. Sovard opened his mouth and spoke two words.

  Eighty minutes later, Bourne and Rebeka were settling into their first-class seats, accepting hot towels and flutes of champagne from the flight attendant.

  “Feel nostalgic?” Bourne said, his gaze following the attendant back down the aisle.

  Rebeka laughed. “Not at all. My life as a flight attendant seems like a lifetime ago.”

  Bourne stared out the window as the crew made its last-minute preparations, then they strapped themselves in. The massive engines revved as the jet taxied toward the head of the runway. Over the intercom the captain announced that the plane was number two for takeoff.

  “Jason,” she said softly, “what are you thinking?”

  It was the first time she had called him anything but Bourne. That made him turn toward her. There was a softness—almost a vulnerability—in her eyes he hadn’t seen before.

  “Nothing.”

  She watched him for a moment. “Do you ever ask yourself whether it’s time to get out?”

  “Get out of what?”

  “Don’t do that. You know. The great game.”

  “And do what?”

  “Find an island in the sun, kick back, drink a beer, eat fresh-caught fish, make love, sleep.”

  The plane slowed, turning onto the runway, strings of yellow lights running away in front of it.

  “And then?”

  “Then,” she said, “do it all over again the next day.”

  “You’re joking.”