"Where is he?"
"On personal business, with Anne," Batt said, with what sounded like a yawn.
"Soraya"s also heard from Bourne."
"Bourne"s dead."
"He isn"t. He found the real nuclear facility. It"s in Miran Shah, on the border of-"
"I know where Miran Shah is, Peter," Batt snapped. "What is this c.r.a.p?"
"She said you can verify everything with Feyd al-Saoud."
"That"s just what I need, go crawling to the chief of Saudi security for our own intel."
"She also said Bourne killed Fadi. He"s on his way here in Fadi"s jet."
There was more to the conversation, but Karim had heard enough. His skin felt as if ants were crawling all over it. He wanted to scream, to tear himself limb from limb.
Bolting from the office, he took the elevator down. But instead of picking up a CI vehicle in the bas.e.m.e.nt parking area, for which he"d have to sign, he hurried out the front door and walked off the grounds.
The night was well advanced in the district. The low sky, full of glowering clouds, seemed to absorb the spangle of lights from the city. Shadows rose to monument height.
He stopped at the corner of 21st and Const.i.tution and called a taxi service. Seven agonizing minutes later, the cab pulled up and he got in.
Thirteen minutes after that, he alit in front of an Avis rental and began to walk away from it. When the taxi had disappeared, he reversed course, went into the Avis office, and rented a car, using false ID. He paid cash, took possession of the GM car, asked for directions to Dulles airport, then drove off.
In fact, he had no intention of going to Dulles. His destination was the Sistain Labs airstrip south of Annandale.
The jet, banking low over Occoquan Bay, turned north heading toward the airstrip on the fist-shaped peninsula that jutted out into the water. The pilot, following the glide path of the lights, brought the jet down in a whisper of a landing. As they taxied along the runway, losing speed with every meter, Bourne saw Tyrone astride his Ninja, a hard-sided black leather case strapped across his back. He glanced at his watch. They were right on time, which meant he had approximately thirty-five minutes to prepare himself for Karim.
En route, he"d spoken to Soraya several times. They had brought each other up to date with news that was both shocking and gratifying. Fadi was dead, Dujja"s nuclear threat thwarted, but Karim had killed the Old Man, consolidating his power inside CI. Now he was planning to destroy CI headquarters and everyone in it, coordinating the devastating attack with the detonation of the nuke. Soraya had one ally inside CI-the Typhon agent named Peter Marks, but Marks wasn"t a rebel by nature. She didn"t know how far he would bend the regs for her.
As for the Old Man"s death, Bourne had mixed feelings. He had been made to feel like the prodigal grandson, a wayward who, on returning home, was subject to his grandfather"s spiteful wrath. More than once, the DCI had tried to have him killed. But then he"d never understood Bourne, and so had been deeply frightened of him. Bourne could blame the Old Man for many things, but not for that. Bourne had never fit into the CI scheme-he"d been shoehorned into an agency that despised individualists. He"d never asked for the a.s.sociation, but there it was. Or rather, there it had been.
Now he turned his attention to Karim.
The plane had come to a stop on the tarmac; the engines whined down. Bourne, taking the pilot with him, went down the cabin aisle, opened the door, and lowered the stairs for Tyrone, who had driven up beside the jet.
Tyrone came up the stairway, dropping the black leather case at Bourne"s feet.
"Hey, Tyrone. Thanks."
"Yo, need some light in here, yo. Can"t see a thing."
"That"s the point."
Tyrone was peering at him. "Yo look like a f.u.c.kin" Arab."
Bourne laughed. He pulled the bag up, went over to a set of facing seats, opened it up. Tyrone became aware of the Arab pilot, a dark-skinned, bearded man who glowered at him, half defiant, half fearful.
"Who the f.u.c.k is this?"
"Terrorist," Bourne said simply. He paused in unloading the bag long enough to drink in the situation. "You want to get a taste?"
Tyrone laughed. "Killed two of "em was about to do for Miss Spook."
"Now, who would that be?"
Tyrone"s dark eyes flashed. "I know yo an Deron are close, but doan f.u.c.k wid me."
"I"m not f.u.c.king with you, Tyrone. Excuse me for this, but I"m on a deadline." Bourne turned on one of the overhead seat lights, opened his cell, and brought up the photos he"d taken of Fadi"s face. Then he set about opening small pots, jars, tubes, and various oddly shaped prosthetics. "Would you please tell me what you"re talking about?"
Tyrone hesitated for a minute, studying Bourne to see if he was still f.u.c.king with him. Apparently, he decided he"d been wrong. "Talkin" "bout Miss Spook. Soraya."
Bourne, glancing at the photos of Fadi, placed several prosthetics in his mouth and worked his jaws around experimentally. "Then I owe you a thank-you."
"Yo, what the f.u.c.k happened to yo voice, man?"
Bourne said: "As you can see, I"m becoming a new man." He continued with his transformation, finding a thick beard from the pile inside the case, shaping it with a scissors so that it was the exact replica of Fadi"s. He applied the beard, took a look at himself in the magnifying mirror he pulled from the case.
He handed his cell to Tyrone. "Do me a favor, would you? How much do I look like the man in these photos?"
Tyrone blinked, as if he couldn"t believe what Bourne had asked of him. Then he looked at the photos one by one. Before moving on to the next one, he studied Bourne"s face.
"f.u.c.k me," he said finally. "Yo, how yo do that s.h.i.t, man?"
"It"s a gift," Bourne said, meaning it. "Now, look. I need you to do me another favor." He glanced at his watch. "In just over eleven minutes, this b.a.s.t.a.r.d Soraya"s been after is going to be coming here. I want you out of the way. I need you to take care of something for me. Something important. In the next cabin is my friend, Martin Lindros. He"s dead. I want you to contact a mortuary. His remains need to be cremated. Okay? Will you do that for me?"
"Got my cycle, so I gots t"sling him across my lap, that okay?"
Bourne nodded. "Treat him with respect, Tyrone, okay? Now take off. And don"t use the front entrance."
"Never do."
Bourne laughed. "I"ll see you on the other side."
Tyrone looked at him. "The otha side a what?"
Forty.
DRIVING INTO Virginia, Karim called Abd al-Malik at the mortuary.
"I need three men at the Sistain Labs location at once."
"That will leave us with no one to spare."
"Do it," Karim said shortly.
"One moment, sir." After a slight pause. "They"re on their way."
"Is the DCI"s body prepared?"
"Forty minutes, possibly a bit more, sir. This isn"t your normal embalming job."
"How does he look? That"s what"s most important."
"Indeed, sir. His cheeks are rosy." Abd al-Malik made a pleased sound in the back of his throat.
"Believe me, security will be convinced he"s still alive."
"Good. As soon as you"re finished, get him into the limo. The timetable has been accelerated. Fadi wants the CI building taken out as soon as humanly possible. Call me when you"re in position."
"It will be done," Abd al-Malik said.
Karim knew it would. Abd al-Malik, the most accomplished member of his sleeper cell in the district, and its leader, had never failed him.
Traffic was light. It took him thirty-eight minutes to arrive at the main entrance, on the western side of the Sistain Labs property. The place was deserted. He"d had to restrain himself twice on the drive down here-once when a kid in what the Americans called a muscle car cut him off; again when a trucker had come up behind him, sounding his air horn. Both times, he"d pulled out his Glock, was ready to pull the trigger, when he"d caught himself.
It was Bourne, not these poor fools, he wanted to kill. His rage-the Desert Wind he"d inherited from his grandfather-was running high, giving him hair-trigger responses to stimuli. But this wasn"t the desert; he wasn"t among Bedouins who would know better than to antagonize him.
It was Bourne; it was always Bourne. Bourne had murdered innocent Sarah, the pride of the family. Karim had forgiven her her impious views, her unexplained absences, her wanting her independence, putting those things down to the same English blood that pulsed through his veins. He"d overcome his Western blood, which was why he had embarked on a program to reeducate her in the ways of the desert, the Saudi ethos that was her true heritage.
Now Bourne had killed Fadi, the public figurehead. Fadi, who had relied so heavily on the planning and the funds of his older brother, just as Karim had counted on his younger brother to protect him. He"d forgiven Fadi his hot blood, his excesses, because these traits were vital to a public leader, who drew the faithful to him with both his fiery rhetoric and his incendiary exploits.
They were both gone now-the innocent and the commander, one the tower of moral strength, the other of physical. He, of all of Abu Sarif Hamid ibn Ashef al-Wahhib"s children, remained. Alive, but alone. All that was left were the memories he held close to him of Fadi and Sarah ibn Ashef. The same memories held by his father-maimed, paralyzed, helplessly bound to his bed, needing a special harness to get into the wheelchair he despised.
This was the end for Bourne, he vowed. This was the end for all the infidels.
He made his way through the long, curving drives that skirted the low, sleek green-gla.s.s and black-brick lab buildings. A final swing around to the left brought the airfield into sight. Just beyond the parked jet was the fat gray-blue crescent of water adjacent to Occoquan Bay.
Nearing the landing strip, he slowed, took a long, careful survey of the area. The jet sat alone on the tarmac, near the far end of the runway. No vehicles were in sight. No boat plied the wintry waters of Belmont Bay. No helicopters hovered anywhere in the vicinity. Yet Fadi was dead, and Bourne sat inside the jet in his place.
Of course there wouldn"t be anyone here. Unlike him, Bourne had no support to back him up. He pulled the car over out of sight of the jet, lit a cigarette, waited. Quite soon the black Ford carrying his men arrived, pulling up alongside him.
He got out and gave them their instructions, telling them what to expect and what they should do. Then he leaned against the front fender of the car, smoking still as the Ford drove onto the tarmac.
When it reached the plane, the door swung inward and the stairway was lowered. Two of the three men got out, trotted up the stairs.
Karim spat the b.u.t.t from his mouth, ground it beneath the heel of his shoe. Then he climbed into the rental car and headed back along the drive to the lab building hunkered eerily alone, on the northern fringe of the property, hard against the waste dump.
"I can help you, Soraya," Peter Marks said, his cell to his ear, "but I think we should meet."
"Why? You have to be my eyes and ears at HQ. I need you to keep track of the impostor."
"I don"t know where Lindros is," Peter said. "He isn"t in his office. In fact, he"s nowhere in the building. He didn"t check out with his a.s.sistant. Is this an epidemic?"
He heard the sharpness of Soraya"s indrawn breath. "What is it?"
"Okay," Soraya said. "I"ll meet you, but I pick the place."
"Whatever you want."
She gave him the address of the mortuary on the northeast edge of Rock Creek Park. "Get there," she said, "fast as you can."
Marks checked out a CI vehicle, making the trip in record time. He pulled up across the street and down the block from the rear of the mortuary, then sat in his car as Soraya had directed. Before leaving headquarters, he"d toyed with the idea of contacting Rob Batt, of getting permission to take several agents with him, but the urgency of the meet made it imperative that he not take the time to persuade Batt to divert personnel.
Soraya tapping on the gla.s.s of the pa.s.senger window caused him to jump. He"d been so wrapped up in his thoughts that he hadn"t seen her approach. This made him doubly nervous, because he was out in the field where she had the distinct advantage over him. He"d been nothing but a desk jockey his entire career-which, he supposed, was the real reason he hadn"t wanted to take anyone with him. He had something to prove to his rabbi.
He unlocked the doors and she slipped into the pa.s.senger"s seat. She certainly didn"t look as if she"d cracked.
"I wanted you to come here," she said a bit breathlessly, "because this is the mortuary where the Old Man is."
He listened to these words as if they were part of a dream he was having. He had wrapped his hand around his gun when she was opening the door and he was out of sight to her. Now, as if he himself were in a dream, he brought the gun to her head and said, "Sorry, Soraya, but you"re coming back to headquarters with me."
The two terrorists who boarded the jet blinked in the semidarkness. They looked stunned when they recognized him.
"Fadi," the taller of the men said. "Where is Jason Bourne?"
"Bourne is dead," Bourne said. "I killed him in Miran Shah."
"But Karim al-Jamil said he would be on board."
Bourne held up the briefcase with the nuclear device. "As you can see, he was mistaken. There"s been a change in plan. I need to see my brother."
"At once, Fadi."
They didn"t search the plane, didn"t see the pilot Bourne had tied and gagged.
As they led Bourne to the black Ford, the tall man said, "Your brother is nearby."
They all got into the Ford, Bourne in the backseat with one of the men. Bourne kept his face averted from the runway lights, the only light source. As long as he kept his face in semi-shadow, he"d be fine. These men were reacting to a familiar voice, familiar body language. These were a mimic"s most powerful weapons. You needed to convince the mind, not the eye.
The driver left the airfield, looped around to the north, stopped at the side of a black-brick building that stood some distance away from the others. Bourne could see the slag pit as they opened a huge corrugated-iron door and led him inside.
The interior was huge and empty. There were no interior walls. Oil stains on the concrete floor indicated that it was, in fact, an airplane hangar. Light came in through the door, as well as through square windows set high up in the walls, but it soon dissipated in the vastness, swallowed up by great swaths of shadow.
"Karim al-Jamil," the tall man called, "it was your brother who was on the plane, not Jason Bourne. He"s with us, and he has the device."
A figure appeared out of the shadows.