The Bourne Betrayal Part 48

Like a momentary loss of electricity through a power grid, something flickered across Lindros's face-a window to a dark, cold place. He began to s.h.i.+ver.

"Jason, listen, when this... is all... over, I want you to send a dozen red roses to Moira. You'll find her address in... my cell phone at home. Cremate my body. Take my ashes to the Cloisters in New York City."

Bourne felt a burning behind his eyes. "Of course, I'll do whatever you want."

"I'm glad you're... here."

"You're my best friend, Martin. My only friend."

"It's sad, then, for... both of us." Lindros tried to smile again, gave up, exhausted. "You know... the thing... between us, Jason... what bound us? You... can't remember your past and... I can't... bear to remember... mine."

The moment came, then, and Bourne could feel it. An instant ago Martin's good eye was regarding him with grave intelligence; now it was fixed in the middle distance, staring at something Bourne had sensed many times, but never seen.

Soraya, horrified not only by what she saw but also by its implications, stood transfixed, staring at the half-embalmed corpse of the Old Man. It was like seeing your father dead, she thought. You knew it had to happen someday, but when that day came you couldn't wrap your mind around it. To her, as to everyone else at CI, he had seemed indestructible as well as invincible. He had been their moral compa.s.s, the font of their worldwide power for so long that now with him gone she felt naked and horribly vulnerable.

In the wake of the first shock, she felt a cold panic grip her. With the Old Man dead, who was running CI? Of course, there were the directorate chiefs, but everyone from the upper echelons on down knew that Martin Lindros was the DCI's anointed successor.

Which meant that the false Lindros was heading up CI. G.o.d in heaven, she thought. He's going to take CI down-this was part of the plan all along. What a coup for Fadi and Dujja to be able to destroy America's most effective espionage agency just before they detonated a nuclear bomb on American soil.

In the blink of an eye, she saw it all. The barrels of C-4 Tyrone had seen were meant for CI headquarters. But how on earth was Dujja going to get the explosives past security? She knew Fadi had devised a method to do so. Perhaps it would be easy now that the false Lindros had effected a coup.

All at once Soraya snapped back into the here and now. Given the Old Man's murder, it was imperative she gain access to CI headquarters. She had to inform the seven directorate chiefs of the truth, her own safety be d.a.m.ned. But how? The false Lindros would have her picked up the moment she showed her ID to CI security. And there was absolutely no way to sneak into HQ undetected.

As the helicopter descended through the clouds toward the private airstrip in Mazar-i-Sharif, Bourne sat beside Martin Lindros, his head bowed. His mind was filled with connections, some to memories, others that went nowhere because the memories were lost to him. In that very important respect, connections were of paramount importance to him. Now a key one was gone. It was only now, in the aftermath, that Bourne understood how important Martin had been to him. Amnesia could engender many things in the mind, including insanity-or at least the semblance of it, which more or less amounted to the same thing.

Being able to connect with Martin after Conklin was murdered had been a lifeline. Now Martin was dead. He no longer had Marie to come home to. When the stress level became too great, what would prevent him from slipping into the madness that came from the forest of broken connections within his brain?

He held on to the briefcase as the pilot set the helicopter down on the tarmac.

"You're coming with us," Bourne said to the pilot. "I need your help for a bit longer."

The pilot rose and, together with Bourne, picked up Lindros's body. With some difficulty, they maneuvered it off the helicopter. A larger high-speed jet was sitting on the tarmac, fueled and ready. The two men made the transfer, and Bourne spoke with the jet's pilot. Then Bourne ordered the copter pilot to ferry the surgeon back to Miran Shah. Bourne warned him that Feyd al-Saoud's team would be monitoring both his flight progress and his communications.

Ten minutes later, with the two men and the corpse on board, the jet rolled down the runway. Gathering speed, it lifted off into the slate-gray clouds of an oncoming storm.

Ever since he'd taken the call from Soraya, Peter Marks had found it impossible to concentrate on his work. The encrypted communications from Dujja seemed like so much Martian to him. Feigning a migraine, he finally had to hand them off to a colleague.

For some time, he sat at his desk, brooding. He couldn't help but examine every aspect of that call, as well as his response to it. At first, he'd had to get over his anger. How dare Soraya try to get him involved in whatever mess she had made for herself? That was the moment he'd almost picked up the phone and punched Lindros's extension, to report her call.

But with his hand halfway to the receiver, something had stopped him. What was it? On the face of it, Soraya's story was so outlandish that it didn't even rate considering. First, they all knew that the Dujja nuclear threat had been averted. Second, Lindros himself had warned everyone that Soraya had been unhinged by Jason Bourne's death. And she certainly had sounded nuts on the phone.

But then there was her warning about the danger to the CI headquarters building. With all his years of training, it would be remiss of him to ignore that part of her story. For the second time, he almost punched Lindros's extension. What stopped him was the hole in his reasoning. Namely, why would one part of her story be true and the other made up? He couldn't believe anyone-let alone Soraya-would be that unhinged.

Which meant that he was back to square one. What to do about her call? His fingers drummed a tattoo on the desktop. Of course, he could do nothing, simply forgetting the conversation had ever taken place. But then if something did happen to headquarters, he'd never be able to forgive himself. a.s.suming, of course, he was still alive to feel the insupportable guilt.

Before he could second-guess himself into inaction, he grabbed the receiver and dialed his contact at the White House.

"Hey, Ken. Peter here," he said when the other answered. "I've got an urgent message for the DCI. Could you scare him up for me? He's in with the POTUS."

"No, he's not, Peter. The POTUS is meeting with the Joint Chiefs."

Peter's heart skipped a very small beat. "When did the DCI leave?"

"Hold on, I'll access the log." A moment later, Ken said, "You sure about your intel? The DCI hasn't been here today, and he isn't on the POTUS's or anyone else's schedule."

"Thanks, Ken," Peter said in a strangled voice. "My mistake."

Oh, dear G.o.d, he thought. Soraya is as sane as I am. He looked through the open door to his cubicle. He could just see a corner of Lindros's office. If it isn't Lindros, who the h.e.l.l is running Typhon?

He lunged for his cell phone. As soon as he could get his fingers to work properly, he punched in Soraya's number.

Thirty-nine.

TYRONE WAS WAITING patiently for Soraya when she poked her head out of the gla.s.s-paned door. As she did so, she felt her cell phone vibrate. Tyrone signaled to her and she ran silently into the shadows at the ramp's mouth.

"The two s.h.i.+tbirds finished," he said in a low voice. "They upstairs now wit they peeps."

"We'd better go," she said.

But before she could move back up the ramp, he took hold of her arm. "We ain't finished here, girl." He pointed. "See that past the Ford?"

"What is it?" She craned her neck. "A limo?"

"Not jus' any limo. This one got government plates on her."

"Government plates?"

"Not ony that, they's CI plates."

Catching her sharp glance, he said, "Deron taught me t'look out for 'em." He motioned with his head. "Yo, check it out, yo."

Soraya stole around the flank of the Ford. Immediately she saw the gleaming expanse of the limo and its license plates. She almost gasped out loud. Not only were they CI plates, they were the plates on the Old Man's limo. All at once she understood why they had taken the trouble to embalm the DCI. They needed the body, which meant two things: It had to be malleable, and it must not stink.

Her cell buzzed again. She pulled it out, looked at the screen. It was Peter Marks. What the h.e.l.l did he want? Crab-walking her way back to Tyrone, she said, "They've killed the director of CI. That's his limo."

"Yeah, but what they doing wit it?"

"Maybe that's where they killed him."

"Mebbe." Tyrone scratched his chin. "But I seen 'em foolin' wit the inside."

For the third time her cell buzzed. This time, it was Bourne. She needed desperately to tell him what was going on, but she couldn't risk a prolonged conversation now. "We've got to get out of here now, Tyrone."

"Mebbe you," he said, his eye on the limo. "But I'm gonna stay here awhile longer."

"It's too dangerous," Soraya said. "We're both leaving now."

Tyrone raised his gun. "Doan give me no orders. I done tol yo what I was doin'. You make yo own choice."

Soraya shook her head. "I'm not leaving you here. I don't want you any more involved than you already are."

"Yo, I killed two men fo yo, girl. How much more involved could I get?"

She had to admit he had a point. "What I don't get is why you got involved in the first place."

He gave her a grin because he knew she was done fighting him. "Yo mean what in it fo me? Hood where Deron an I brought up, homeboys only do things f'two reasons: t'make money or t'f.u.c.k sumbody over. Hopefully both. Now I watch Deron for a while. He pull hisself outta the s.h.i.+t; he make sumpin of his bad self. I admire that, but I always thought: That him, not me. Now wit this s.h.i.+t, I see I got a shot at a future."

"You've also got a shot at getting killed."

Tyrone shrugged. "Yo, ain't no more than every day inna hood, yo."

At that moment, he pulled out a PDA.

"I didn't know you had anything but a burner," she said, referring to the throwaway cell phones she'd seen him carry.

"Only one person knows bout this PET. One who give it t'me."

"PET?"

"Yeah. Personal Electronic Thingy."

He checked the PET, obviously reading an e-mail. "s.h.i.+t." Then he glanced up. "What a we waitin' fo? Let's get the f.u.c.k outta Dodge."

They walked back up the ramp to the panel they'd found for the lights and the automatic door opener. "What changed your mind?"

Tyrone put a disgusted expression on his face. "Deron say I gotta split right this f.u.c.kin' minute. I got yo man Bourne's back."

Peter Marks, lurking in the corridor near the elevator, caught Rob Batt's eye as the Seven emerged from the conference room. Marks had worked for Batt before being chosen by Martin Lindros for Typhon. In fact, metaphorically speaking, he'd cut his eyeteeth on Batt's methodology; he still considered the chief of operations his rabbi within CI.

So it was not surprising that Marks, having caught the older man's eye, got his attention immediately. Batt peeled off from the others and turned a corner into the corridor where Marks stood.

"What are you doing here, Peter?"

"Waiting for you, actually." Marks glanced nervously around. "We need to talk."

"Can it wait?"

"No, sir, it can't."

Batt frowned. "Okay. My office."

"Outside would be best, sir."

The chief of operations gave him a curious glance, then shrugged.

They took the elevator down together and walked across the lobby, then out the front door. There was a rose garden on the east side of the property, which is where Marks led them. When they were a reasonably safe distance from the building, he told Batt word for word what Soraya Moore had told him.

"I didn't believe it, either, sir," he said, seeing the look on Batt's face. "But then I called a buddy of mine at the White House. The Old Man isn't there, never was there today."

Batt rubbed his blued jowls with one hand. "Then where the f.u.c.k is he?"

"That's just the thing, sir." Marks, already ill at ease, was getting more nervous with every moment that pa.s.sed. "I've spent the last forty minutes on the phone. I don't know where he is, and neither does anyone else."

"Anne?"

"Also AWOL."

"Christ Jesus."

Marks rechecked their immediate environment. "Sir, incredible as it might seem on the face of it, I think we have to take Soraya's story seriously."

"Incredible is right, Peter. Not to mention insane. Don't tell me you believe this-" Batt shook his head as words failed him. "Where the h.e.l.l is she?"

"That I don't know," Marks conceded. "I've put in a couple of calls to her cell, but she hasn't gotten back to me. She's terrified of Lindros finding her."

"I should hope to f.u.c.k she is. We need to get her in here, p.r.o.nto, process this c.r.a.p out of her before she causes a panic inside the agency."

"If she's wrong, then where's the Old Man and Anne?"

Batt headed back out of the rose garden. "That's what I'm going to find out," he said over his shoulder.

"What about Soraya-?"

"When she calls you, make her believe you're on her side. Get her in here, p.r.o.nto."

As the chief of operations disappeared inside headquarters, Marks's phone sang. He checked the incoming call. Punching a b.u.t.ton, he said, "Hi, Soraya. Look, I was thinking about what you said, and I checked at the White House. Both the Old Man and Anne are missing."

"Of course they are," he heard her say in his ear. "I've just seen the Old Man. He's laid out on a mortuary slab with a bullet hole in his heart."

Along with the Seven, Karim sat in the conference room adjacent to the Old Man's suite. They were all listening to the message from the Saudi secret service informing them of the takeover of the Dujja nuclear facility in Miran Shah. Unlike the others, however, he received the communique with equal parts confusion and trepidation. Was this a ploy by his brother because of the heightened terror alert, or had something gone horribly wrong?

He knew there was only one way to find out. He left the conference room, but on the way to the elevator he glimpsed Peter Marks out of the corner of his eye. This was the second time he'd noticed Marks up here where he didn't belong. A warning bell went off in his head and, instead of entering the elevator with some of the other chiefs, he turned to his left. The corner behind which he stood gave him a view of the conference room door. As Rob Batt emerged, Marks approached him. They spoke for a moment. Batt, initially cool, nodded, and together they walked back into the conference room, shutting the door behind them.

Karim walked very quickly into the DCI's suite, past the desk where a young man from Signals was filling in for Anne. The man nodded to him as he went into the Old Man's office.

Once behind the desk, he toggled on a switch. Two voices from the conference room became audible.

"... from Soraya," Marks was saying. "She claims to have seen the DCI's body in a morgue with a bullet hole through his heart."

"What is this woman on? I spoke to Martin. He's heard from the Old Man."