He rose, crossed the director"s office, and opened the door. There he was greeted by the sight of Martin Lindros being surrounded by the members of his Typhon cadre, all of whom were smiling, laughing, and pumping his hand enthusiastically when they weren"t egging him on with their applause.
Lerner could scarcely believe his eyes. Here comes Caesar, he thought bitterly. And why didn"t the DCI see fit to tell me he"d returned? With a mixture of repulsion and envy, he watched the prodigal general making his slow, triumphal way toward him. Why are you here? Why aren"t you dead?
With no small pain, he screwed a smile onto his face and held out his hand.
"All hail the returning hero."
Lindros reflected back the smile in all its steel-clad irony. "Thanks for keeping my chair warm, Matthew."
He swept by Lerner and into his office. There he stood stock-still, taking inventory. "What, no new coat of paint?" As Lerner followed him in, he added: "A verbal debriefing will do, before you go upstairs."
Lerner did as he was asked while he went about gathering his personal items. When he was finished, Lindros said, "I"d appreciate getting the office back as I left it, Matthew."
Lerner glared at him for a microsecond, then carefully put back all the photos, prints, and memorabilia he had put away, hoping never to see again. As an accomplished commander, he knew when to leave the field of battle. It was with the certain knowledge that this was a war, and it had just begun.
Three minutes after Lerner had left the Typhon offices, Lindros"s phone rang. It was the Old Man.
"I bet it feels good to be sitting behind that desk."
"You have no idea," Lindros said.
"Welcome back, Martin. And I mean that most sincerely. The confirmation of Dujja"s intentions you obtained is invaluable."
"Yes sir. I"ve already worked up a step-by-step plan to interdict them."
"Good man," the DCI said. "a.s.semble your team and press forward with the mission, Martin. Until the crisis has been dealt with, your mission is CI"s mission. From this moment, you have unlimited access to all of CI"s resources."
"I"ll get the job done, sir."
"I"m counting on you, Martin," the DCI said. "You"ll be able to deliver your first briefing at dinner tonight. Eight sharp."
"I"ll look forward to it, sir."
The DCI cleared his throat. "Now, what do you propose to do about Bourne?"
"I don"t understand, sir."
"Don"t play games with me, Martin. The man"s a menace, we both know it."
"He brought me home, sir. I doubt anyone else could have done it."
The Old Man shook off Lindros"s words. "We"re in the midst of a national crisis of unprecedented proportion and gravity. The last thing we need is a loose cannon. I want you to get rid of him."
Lindros shifted in his chair, staring out the window at the silver pellets of freezing rain. He made a mental note to check whether Bourne"s flight would be delayed. Into the mounting silence, he said: "I"m going to need clarification on that."
"Oh, no, no, nothing like that. Anyway, the man is cursed with nine lives." The DCI paused a moment. "I know you two have formed some sort of bond, but it"s unhealthy. Trust me, I know. Consider that we buried Alex Conklin three years ago. It"s dangerous for anyone to get too close to him."
"Sir-"
"If it helps, I"m giving you one last loyalty test, Martin. Your continuation at Typhon depends on it. I don"t have to remind you there"s someone snapping at your heels. As of this moment, you are to sever all ties with Jason Bourne. He gets no information-none at all-from your office or any other in the building. Are we clear?"
"Yessir." Lindros severed the connection.
Carrying the cordless phone, he rose and stood by the window, resting his cheek against the pane, felt the cold wash over him. His bone-deep aches and pains remained, along with a headache he"d neglected to mention to the CI physicians, which never quite left him-all vivid reminders of what had happened to him, how long his journey here had been.
Dialing a number, he held the phone to his ear. "Is Bourne"s flight on time?" He nodded at the reply. "Good. He"s at Washington National? You"ve made visual contact? Excellent, come on home. That"s right." He severed the connection. Whatever might transpire here, Bourne was on his way to Odessa.
Returning to his desk, he opened the intercom and told his secretary to set up an immediate phone conference with all of Typhon"s overseas agents. When that had been accomplished, he activated the speakerphone in the conference room where he had a.s.sembled an emergency meeting of all D.C. Typhon personnel. There he gave them what details he had of the threat, then outlined his plan. Dividing his people into four-man teams, he meted out a.s.signments that, he told them, were to begin immediately.
"As of this moment, all other missions are frozen," he told them. "Finding and stopping Dujja is our first and only priority. Until that"s accomplished, all leaves are hearby canceled. Get used to these walls, folks. We"re going on a day-and-night emergency schedule."
Once he saw that his orders were being carried out to his satisfaction, he left to go to Soraya"s apartment to straighten out whatever it was Matthew Lerner had f.u.c.ked up with her. In the car, he opened his quad-band GSM cell phone and dialed a number in Odessa.
When the familiar male voice answered, Lindros said, "It"s done. Bourne will be arriving at 4:40 local time tomorrow afternoon, from Munich." He ran a red light, made a right turn. Soraya"s apartment building was three blocks ahead. "You will keep him on a short leash, as we discussed... No, I simply want to make sure you haven"t decided to make changes to the plan on the fly. All right, then. He"ll find his way to the kiosk because that"s where he"ll think Lemontov is headquartered. Before he can find out the truth, you"ll kill him."
Book Two
Twelve.
IN ODESSA, there is a kiosk, one among many on the beach fronting the Black Sea. It is weathered, gray as the water that rolls into the tide line. Bourne picks the lock of a side door in the kiosk, steals his way inside. Where is the person he was carrying? He doesn"t remember, but he sees that his hands are covered with blood. He smells violent death on himself. What happened? he wonders. No time, no time! Somewhere a clock is ticking; he has to move on.
The kiosk, which should be filled with life, is as still as a boneyard. At the back, a windowed kitchen, garishly lit by fluorescent tubes. He sees movement through the gla.s.s and, crouching, makes his way between the crates of beer and soda piled up like columns in a cathedral. He sees the silhouette of the man he was sent here to kill, who has done his best to confuse and elude him.
To no avail.
He"s about to make the final approach to his target when movement to his left causes him to spin around. A woman comes toward him out of the shadows-Marie! What is she doing in Odessa? How did she know where he was?
"Darling," she says. "Come with me, come away from here."
"Marie." He feels panic constrict his chest. "You can"t be here. It"s too dangerous."
"Marrying you was dangerous, darling. That didn"t stop me."
A high keening begins, reverberating through the empty s.p.a.ce inside him. "But now you"re dead."
"Dead? Yes, I suppose I am." A frown momentarily fractures the beauty of her face. "Why weren"t you there, darling? Why weren"t you protecting me and the children? I would be alive now if you hadn"t been halfway across the globe, if you hadn"t been with her."
"Her?" Bourne"s heart is beating like a trip-hammer, and his panic grows exponentially.
"You"re an expert at lying to everyone, except me, darling."
"What do you mean?"
"Look at your hands."
He stares down at the blood drying into the creva.s.ses of his palms. "Whose blood is this?"
Wanting-needing-an answer, he looks up. But Marie is gone. There is nothing but the lurid light spilling out onto the floor like blood from a wound.
"Marie," he calls softly. "Marie, don"t leave me!" Martin Lindros and his retinue of captors had been traveling for quite some time. He had flown in a helicopter and, after a short wait, on a small jet, which had stopped at least once for refueling. He wasn"t sure because either he had slept or they had given him something to make him sleep. Not that it mattered. He knew he was off Ras Dejen, out of northwest Ethiopia, out of the continent of Africa altogether.
Jason. What had happened to Jason? Was he dead or alive? Clearly Jason had failed to find him in time. He didn"t want to think about Jason being dead. He wouldn"t believe it even if Fadi himself told him so. He knew Bourne too well. He always had a way of turning over the newly shoveled earth to climb out of his grave. Jason was alive, Lindros knew it.
But he wondered whether it even mattered. Did Jason suspect that Karim al-Jamil had taken Lindros"s place? If he"d been fooled, then even if he"d survived the rescue attempt on Ras Dejen he"d have abandoned the rescue. An even worse scenario made him break out into a cold sweat. What if Jason had found Karim al-Jamil, brought him back to CI headquarters. G.o.d in heaven, was that what Fadi had planned all along?
His body swayed and juddered as the plane hit a pocket of turbulence. To steady himself, he leaned against the plane"s chill concave bulkhead. After a moment, he put his hand over the bandage that covered half his face. Underneath was the excavation where his right eye had been. This had become a habit of his. His head throbbed with an unspeakable pain. It was as if his eye were on fire-only his eye was no longer his. It belonged to Fadi"s brother, Karim al-Jamil ibn Hamid ibn Ashef al-Wahhib. At first, this thought had made him sick to his stomach; he would vomit often and rackingly, like a junkie going cold turkey. Now it simply made him sick at heart.
The violation of his body, the harvesting of his organ while he was still alive, was a horror from which he would never recover. At several points, while he was out on the silver lake fishing for rainbow trout, the thought of killing himself crossed his mind, but he had never actually considered it. Suicide was the coward"s way out.
Besides, he very much wanted to live, if only to exact his revenge on Fadi and Karim al-Jamil.
Bourne awoke with a violent twitch. He looked around him, momentarily disoriented. Where was he? He saw a bureau, a night table, curtains drawn against the light. Anonymous furniture, heavy, threadbare. A hotel room. Where?
Sliding out of bed, he padded across the mottled carpet, pulled back the thick curtains. A sudden glare struck him a clean blow across his face and chest. He squinted at the tiny scimitars of sunlight, gold against the deep gray of the water. The Black Sea. He was in Odessa.
Had he been dreaming of Odessa, or remembering Odessa?
He turned, his mind still filled with the dream-memory, stretched like taffy into the blue morning. Marie in Odessa? Never! Then what was she doing in his memory shard of...
Odessa!
It was in this city that his memory shard had been born. He"d been here before. He"d been sent to kill... someone. Who? He had no idea.
He sat back down on the bed, rubbing the heels of his hands against his eyes. He still heard Marie"s voice.
"I would be alive now if you hadn"t been halfway across the globe, if you hadn"t been with her." Not accusatory. Sad.
What did it matter where he was, what he was doing? He hadn"t been with her. Marie had phoned him. She thought she had a cold, that"s all. Then the second call, which had sent him half out of his mind with grief. And guilt.
He should have been there to protect his family, just as he should have been there to protect his first family. History had repeated itself, if not exactly, then tragically close enough. Ironically, this far away in kilometers from the scene of the disaster had brought him closer, to the very brink of the black void inside him. Staring into it, he felt that old, overwhelming despair well up inside him-a need to punish himself, or to punish someone else.
He felt totally, absolutely alone. For him, this was a deeply disturbing state, as if he had stepped outside himself, as one does in a dream. Only this was no dream; this was waking life. Not for the first time he wondered whether his judgment was being impaired by his current emotional turmoil. He could find no other logical explanation for certain anomalies: his bringing Hiram Cevik out of the CI cell; his waking up here and not knowing where he was. For a brief, despairing moment, he wondered if Marie"s death had ripped him completely asunder, if the delicate threads that held his multiple ident.i.ties together had snapped. Am I losing my mind?
His cell phone buzzed.
"Jason, where are you?" It was Soraya.
"In Odessa," he said thickly. His mouth felt wadded with cotton.
There was a quick catch to her breathing. Then: "What on earth are you doing there?"
"Lindros sent me here. I"m following up a lead he gave me. He thinks a man named Lemontov is funding Dujja. Edor Vladovich Lemontov. Criminal cartel-drugs, most likely. Does the name ring a bell?"
"No. But I"ll check the CI database."
Briefly, she told him about the events at the Hotel Const.i.tution. "The one true oddity is that a highly unusual accelerant was used-carbon disulfide. According to my friend, she"s never encountered it before."
"What"s it used in?"
"Mainly the manufacture of cellulose, carbon tet, all kinds of sulfur compounds. It"s also used in soil fumigants, a flotation agent in mineral processing. In the past, it was a component of refrigerants and fire extinguishers. She said she thought it was used because it has a low flashpoint."
Bourne nodded as he stared at an oil tanker chugging in empty from Istanbul. "Turning it into an explosive."
"Very effective. Blew out the suite. A complete firestorm. We were lucky with the prosthesis, which was protected by the bathtub catch basin. Nothing else of value was left, not even enough of a body to ID."
"Fadi"s luck seems to be going down the drain," Bourne said drily.
Soraya laughed. "The Lemontov lead interests me, because I thought of the old refrigerants and fire extinguishers that had been banned in the States, but probably not elsewhere, like Eastern Europe, Ukraine, Odessa."
"That"s a thought worth following up on," Bourne said, breaking the connection.
Although it was after 1 AM, Martin Lindros was at his computer terminal entering information. CI was still in Code Mesa. There was a crisis on, all leaves canceled. Sleep was a luxury none of them could afford.
A soft knock on the door, then Soraya poked her head in, gave him a questioning look. He raised a beckoning hand, and she shut the door behind her. Taking a seat in front of the desk, she placed something on the desktop.
"What"s this?" Lindros said.
"It"s a prosthetic. A friend of mine-an arson expert with the Fire Investigation Unit-called me in." Soraya had previously filled him in on the events at the Hotel Const.i.tution. "She found something in the Silvers" suite at the Const.i.tution she couldn"t explain. That. It"s used in highly sophisticated disguises."
He picked up the prosthetic. "Yes. Jason showed me something like this once. It"s meant to change your appearance."
Soraya nodded. "There"s enough evidence to conclude that Jakob Silver was, in fact, Fadi, that his brother was another terrorist, that they were responsible for the fire."
"Wasn"t there a body found in the suite? Wasn"t it Silver"s?"
"Yes, and no. It seems more than likely that the body was that of a Pakistani waiter. There never were a pair of Mr. Silvers."
"Ingenious," Lindros mused as he turned the prosthetic between his fingertips. "But not of much use to us now."
"On the contrary." Soraya took it back. "I"m going to see if I can find out who manufactured it."
Lindros was lost in thought for a moment.
"I talked to Bourne less than an hour ago," Soraya continued.
"Oh?"
"He wanted me to dig up whatever I can on a drug lord by the name of Edor Vladovich Lemontov."
Lindros set his elbows on his desk, steepled his fingers. This was a situation that could quickly spiral out of control if he let it. Keeping his voice neutral, he said, "And what have you discovered?"