"Nothing yet. I wanted to bring you up to date on the prosthetic first."
"You did well."
"Thanks, boss." She rose. "Now I"ve got hours of eyestrain ahead of me."
"Forget research. I couldn"t find anything on this sonovab.i.t.c.h. Whoever he is, he"s securely shielded. Just the sort Dujja would use as a money man." Lindros had already turned back to his computer screen. "I want you on the next plane to Odessa. I want you to back Bourne up."
Soraya was clearly surprised. "He won"t like that."
"He"s not required to," Lindros said shortly.
When Soraya reached for the prosthetic, Lindros swept it up in his hand. "I"ll take care of this myself."
"Sir, if you don"t mind my saying, you"ve got a lot on your plate as it is."
Lindros searched her face. "Soraya, I wanted to be the one to tell you this. We"ve had a mole inside Typhon." He could hear her sharply indrawn breath and was pleased. Opening a drawer, he spun across a thin dossier he"d prepared.
Soraya picked it up, flipped back the cover. As soon as she started reading, she felt hot tears distorting her vision. It was Tim Hytner. Bourne had been right, after all. Hytner had been working for Dujja.
She looked up at Lindros. "Why?" He shrugged. "Money. It"s all in there. The electronic trail back to an account in the Caymans. Hytner was born dirt-poor, wasn"t he? His father is in a long-term care medical facility his insurance won"t pay for, isn"t that right? His mother has no money to speak of. Everyone"s got a weakness, Soraya. Even your best friend."
He took the file from her. "Forget Hytner, he"s yesterday"s news. You"ve got work to do. I want you in Odessa ASAP."
When he heard the door sigh shut, Lindros stared after her as if he could see her walking away. Yes, indeed, he thought. In Odessa, you"ll be killed before you can find out who made this prosthetic.
Thirteen.
BOURNE WAS BOOKED into the Samarin Hotel, a rather shambling mammoth of a place on the seaport directly across from the Pa.s.senger Sea Terminal, where ferries went to and fro on a regular schedule. The sleek ultramodern Odessa Hotel had risen from the ma.s.sive sea terminal pier since the last time he"d been here. To him, it seemed as out of place as a Dolce & Gabbana suit on a homeless man.
Shaved, bathed, and dressed, he walked down to the vast somnolent lobby, which was as ornate as an early-nineteenth-century Easter bonnet. In fact, everything about the hotel reeked of early nineteenth century, from the ma.s.sive frayed velvet furniture to the floral-patterned wallpapered walls.
He ate breakfast amid florid-faced businessmen in the sun-filled dining room overlooking the harbor. It smelled vaguely of burned b.u.t.ter and beer. When his waiter brought the check, he said, "At this time of year, where does one go here to have a good time?"
Bourne spoke in Russian. Though this was Ukraine, Russian was Odessa"s official language.
"Ibitza is closed," the waiter said, "as are all the clubs in Arkadia." Arkadia was the beachside district; in summer the strands swarmed with young, affluent Russian women and male tourists on the prowl. "It depends. What is your preference, female or male?"
"Neither," Bourne said. He put his fingertip to his nose, inhaled noisily.
"Ah, that trade is open year-round," the waiter said. He was a thin man, stoop-shouldered, prematurely old. "How much do you need?"
"More than you can get for me. I"m in wholesale."
"Another story entirely," the waiter said warily.
"Here"s all you have to know." Bourne pushed over a roll of American money.
Without hesitation, the waiter vacuumed up the bills. "You know the Privoz Market?"
"I"ll find it."
"Egg Row, third stall from the east end. Tell Yevgeny Feyodovich you want brown eggs, only brown."
The Samarin, like all of old Odessa, was built in the neocla.s.sical style, which meant it was Frenchified. This was hardly surprising, since one of the founding fathers of Odessa was the duc de Richelieu, who had been the city"s chief architect and designer during the eleven years he was governor in the early 1800s. It was the Russian poet Aleksander Pushkin, living in exile here, who said that he could smell Europe in Odessa"s shops and coffeehouses.
On shadowy, linden-lined Primorskaya Street, Bourne was immediately greeted by a chill, damp wind that slapped his face and reddened his skin. To the south, far out on the water, low clouds hung dense and dark, dispensing a sleety rain onto goosefleshed waves.
The salt tang from the sea brought memory back with breathless ferocity. Night in Odessa, blood on his hands, a life hanging in the balance, a desperate search for his target, leading to the kiosk where he"d found his target.
His gaze turned inland, toward the terraced levels that rose into the hills guarding the scimitar-shaped harbor. Consulting a map he"d been given by the hotel"s ancient concierge, he leapt onto a slowing tram that would take him to the railway station on Italiansky Boulevard.
The Privoz farmers" market, a stone"s throw from the station, was a colossal array of live food and produce under a corrugated tin roof. The stalls were set up behind waist-high concrete slabs that made Bourne think of the ant.i.terrorist blockades in D.C. Makeshift shanties and bedrolls surrounded the market. Farmers came from near and far, and those who were obliged to travel a great distance invariably slept here overnight.
Inside, it was a riot of sounds, smells, cries in different languages-butchered Russian, Ukrainian, Romanian, Yiddish, Georgian, Armenian, Turkish. The scents of cheese mingled with those of fresh meat, root vegetables, pungent herbs, and plucked fowl. Bourne saw huge, linebacker-like women with moth-eaten sweaters and head scarves manning the booths at Turkey Row. For the uninitiated, the market presented a thoroughly bewildering array of stalls against which hordes of stout shoppers pressed their impressive bellies.
After asking directions from several people, Bourne made his way through the clamor and throb to Egg Row. Orienting himself, he moved to the third stall from the east end, which was typically crowded. A red-faced woman and a burly man-presumably Yevgeny Feyodovich-were busily exchanging eggs for money. He waited on the man"s side of the stall, and when his turn came he said, "You are Yevgeny Feyodovich?"
The man squinted at him. "Who wants to know?"
"I"m looking for brown eggs, only brown. I was told to come here and ask for Yevgeny Feyodovich."
Yevgeny Feyodovich grunted, leaned over, said something to his female partner. She nodding without breaking her practiced rhythm of packing eggs and shoveling money into the outsize pockets of her faded dress.
"This way," Yevgeny said with a flick of his head. He pulled on a ratty wool peacoat, came out from behind the concrete barrier, led Bourne out the eastern side of the market. They crossed Srednefontanskaya Street and entered Kulikovo Pole Square. The sky was white now, as if a colossal cloud had come down from the heavens to blanket the city. The light, flat and shadowless, was a photographer"s dream. It revealed everything.
"As you can see, this square is very Soviet, very ugly, retro, but not in a good way," Yevgeny Feyodovich said with a good bit of ironic humor. "Still, it serves to remind us of the past-of starvation and ma.s.sacres."
He kept walking until they arrived at a ten-meter-high statue. "My favorite place to transact business: at Lenin"s feet. In the old days, the communists used to rally here." His meaty shoulders lifted and fell. "What better place, eh? Now Lenin watches over me like a b.a.s.t.a.r.d patron saint who, I trust, has been banished to the lowest fiery pit of h.e.l.l."
His eyes squinted again. He smelled the way a baby smells, of curdled milk and sugar. He had a beetling brow below a halo of brown hair that curled every which way like a wad of used steel wool.
"So it"s brown eggs you desire."
"A large amount," Bourne said. "Also, a constant supply."
"That so?" Yevgeny parked a b.u.t.tock on the limestone plinth of the Lenin statue, shook out a black Turkish cigarette. He lit it in a slow, almost religious ritual, drawing a goodly amount of smoke into his lungs. Then he held it there like a hippie enjoying a doobie of Acapulco Gold. "How do I know you"re not Interpol?" he said in the soft hiss of an exhale. "Or an undercover operative of SBU?" He meant the Security Service of Ukraine.
"Because I"m telling you I"m not."
Yevgeny laughed. "You know the ironic thing about this city? It"s smack up against the Black Sea but has always been short of drinking water. That in itself wouldn"t be of much interest, except it"s how Odessa got its name. They spoke French in Catherine"s imperial court, see, and some wag suggested she name the city Odessa, because that"s what it sounds like when you say a.s.sez d"eau backward. "Enough water," see? It"s a f.u.c.king joke the French played on us."
"If we"re through with the history lesson," Bourne said, "I"d like to meet Lemontov."
Yevgeny squinted up at him through the acrid smoke. "Who?"
"Edor Vladovich Lemontov. He owns the trade here."
Yevgeny started, rose from the plinth, his eyes looking past Bourne. He led them around the plinth.
Without turning his head, Bourne could see in the periphery of his vision a man walking a large Doberman pinscher. The dog"s long, narrow face swung around, its yellow eyes staring at Yevgeny as if sensing his fear.
When they reached the other side of the statue of Lenin, Yevgeny said, "Now, where were we?"
"Lemontov," Bourne says. "Your boss."
"Are you telling me he is?"
"If you work for someone else, tell me now," Bourne said shortly. "It"s Lemontov I want to do business with."
Bourne sensed another man stealing up behind him but didn"t move, giving Yevgeny Feyodovich no sign that he knew until the frigid muzzle of the gun pressed the flesh just behind his right ear.
"Meet Bogdan Illiyanovich." Stepping forward, Yevgeny Feyodovich unb.u.t.toned Bourne"s overcoat. "Now we"ll get at the truth, tovarich." With minimum effort, his fingers lifted the wallet and pa.s.sport from the inside pocket.
Stepping back, Yevgeny opened the pa.s.sport first. "Moldavian, are you? Ilias Voda." He stared hard at the photo. "Yes, that"s you, all right." He flipped a page. "Came here straight from Bucharest."
"The people I represent are Romanian," Bourne said.
Bourne watched Yevgeny Feyodovich paw through the wallet, sifting through three different kinds of identification, including a driver"s license and an import-export license. That last was a nice touch, Bourne thought. He"d have to thank Deron when he got back.
At length, Yevgeny handed back the wallet and the pa.s.sport. Keeping his eye on Bourne, he took out a cell phone, punched in a local number.
"New business," he said laconically. "Ilias Voda, representing Romanian interests, he says." He put the cell phone aside for a moment, said to Bourne, "How much?"
"Is that Lemontov?"
Yevgeny"s face darkened. "How much?"
"A hundred kilos now."
Yevgeny stared at him, entranced.
"Twice as much next month if everything pans out."
Yevgeny walked a bit away, putting his back to Bourne while he spoke again into the phone. A moment later, he came back. The cell was already in his pocket.
Another flick of his head caused Bogdan Illiyanovich to remove the gun from Bourne"s head, stow it away beneath the long wool coat that flapped around his ankles. He was a thick-necked man with very black hair that was pomaded across his scalp from right to left in a style vaguely reminiscent of the one Hitler had favored. His eyes were like agates, glimmering darkly at the bottom of a well.
"Tomorrow night."
Bourne looked at him steadily. He wanted to get on with it; time was of the essence. Every day, every hour brought Fadi and his cadre closer to unleashing their nuclear weapon. But he saw in Yevgeny"s face the cold expression of the hardened professional. It was no good trying to see Lemontov sooner. He was being tested to determine if he was as hardened as they were. Bourne knew that Lemontov wanted time to observe him before he allowed him an audience. Protesting that would be more than foolhardy; it would make him seem weak.
"Give me the time and place," Bourne said.
"After dinner. Be ready. Someone will call your room. The Samarin, yes?"
The waiter who had given him Yevgeny"s name, Bourne thought. "I needn"t give you my room number, then."
"Indeed not."
Yevgeny Feyodovich held out his hand. As Bourne gripped it, he said, "Gospadin, Voda, I wish you good fortune in your quest." He did not immediately release his ferocious clamp on Bourne"s hand. "Now you are within our orbit. Now you are either friend or enemy. I beg you to remember that if you try to communicate with anyone by any means for any reason whatsoever, you are enemy. There will be no second chance." His yellow teeth appeared as his lips drew back from them. "For such a betrayal, you will never leave Odessa alive, you have my a.s.surance on this."
Fourteen.
MARTIN LINDROS, dossiers in hand, was on his way to the Old Man"s office for a hastily called briefing when his cell buzzed. It was Anne Held.
"Good afternoon, Mr. Lindros. There"s been a change of plan. Please meet the DCI down in the Tunnel."
"Thank you, Anne."
Lindros disconnected, punched the DOWN b.u.t.ton. The Tunnel was the underground parking facility where the pool of agency cars was housed and maintained, and where service people on CI-approved lists came and went under the scrutiny of armed agents wearing body armor.
He rode the elevator down to the Tunnel, where he showed his ID to one of the agents on duty. The place was in effect an enormous reinforced concrete bunker: both bomb- and fireproof. There was only one ramp that led up to the street, which could be sealed on both ends at a moment"s notice. The Old Man"s armored Lincoln limousine sat purring on the concrete, its rear door open. Lindros ducked as he entered, sitting beside the DCI on the plush leather seats. The door closed without his help, electronically locking itself. The driver and his shotgun nodded to him, then the privacy window slid up, sealing the pa.s.sengers in the s.p.a.cious rear compartment. The windows in the rear compartment were specially tinted so no one could see in, but the pa.s.sengers could see out.
"You"ve brought both dossiers?"
"Yessir." Lindros nodded as he handed over the folders.
"That was good work, Martin." The Old Man scrunched up his face. "I"ve been summoned by the POTUS." POTUS was the preferred acronym among security people in the district for the president of the United States. "Judging by the crises we"re in-external and internal-the question is how bad this interview is going to be."
As it turned out, the meeting was very bad indeed. For one thing, the Old Man was conducted not to the Oval Office, but to the War Room, three floors underground. For another, the president was not alone. There were six people ranged around the oval table in the center of the concrete-reinforced room. It was lit solely by the giant screens that flickered on all four walls, showing shifting scenes of military bases, jet recon missions, digital war simulations in a dizzying array.
The Old Man knew some of the players confronting him; the president introduced him to the others. From left to right, the group started with Luther LaValle, the Pentagon"s intelligence czar, a big, boxy man with a creased dome of a forehead and a thin bristle of gunmetal-gray hair. On his left, the president introduced Jon Mueller, a ranking official from the Department of Homeland Security, a gimlet-eyed specimen whose utter stillness spoke to the DCI of his extreme danger. The man to his left needed no introduction: Bud Halliday, secretary of defense. Then came the president, himself, a slight, dapper man with silver hair, a forthright face, and a keen mind. To his left was the national security adviser, dark-haired, round-shouldered, with the restless and overly bright eyes, the Old Man had always thought, of a large rodent. The last person on the right was a bespectacled man by the name of Gundarsson, who worked for the International Atomic Energy Agency.
"Now that we"re all a.s.sembled," the president began without the usual protocol or oratory preamble, "let"s get down to it." His eyes came to rest on the DCI. "We are in the midst of a crisis of unprecedented proportions. We"ve all been briefed on the situation, but as it"s in a highly fluid state, bring us up to date, would you, Kurt?"
The Old Man nodded, opened the Dujja dossier. "Having Deputy Director Lindros back with us has brought us added intel on Dujja"s movements, as well as significantly boosting morale within the agency. We now have confirmation that Dujja was in the Semien mountain range of northwest Ethiopia, and that they were transporting uranium as well as the TSGs used to trigger a nuclear device. From a.n.a.lysis of the latest translations of Dujja"s phone traffic, we"re beginning to home in on the place where we believe they"re enriching uranium."
"Excellent," LaValle said. "As soon as you confirm actual coordinates, we"ll order a surgical air strike that will bomb the sons-of-b.i.t.c.hes back into the Stone Age."
"Director," Gundarsson said, "how certain are we that Dujja possesses the capacity to enrich uranium? After all, it takes not only specialized know-how but also a facility stocked with, among other things, thousands of centrifuges to get the form of enriched uranium needed for even a single nuclear weapon."
"We"re not certain at all," the director said crisply, "but we now have eyewitness account from both Deputy Director Lindros and the agent who brought him back that Dujja is trafficking in both uranium and TSGs."