The Bourne Deception

5





THE JOINT NSA-DHS forensics team arrived in Cairo and, to the consternation of everyone except Soraya, was met at the airport by an elite contingent of al Mokhabarat, the national secret police. Team members and their belongings were poured into military vehicles and driven through the blistering heat, blazing sun, and urban chaos of Cairo. Heading southwest out of the city, they traveled toward the desert in glum and silent single file.

Our destination is near Wadi AlRayan, Amun Chalthoum, the head of al Mokhabarat, said to Soraya. He had spotted her immediately, culled her out of the team to sit beside him in his vehicle, which was second behind a heavily armored halftrack that Chalthoum was doubtless using to flex his muscles in the face of the Americans.

For Chalthoum time seemed to have stood still. His hair was still thick and dark, his wide copper-colored forehead still unlined. His black crows eyes deeply set above the hawk-beak of his nose still smoldered with suppressed emotion. He was large and muscular with the narrow hips of a swimmer or a climber. By contrast, he had the long, tapered fingers of a pianist or a surgeon. And yet something important had changed, because there was about him the sense of a fire barely banked. The nearer one got to him, the more one felt the quivering of his leashed rage. Now that she was sitting beside him, now that she felt the once familiar stirrings inside her, she realized why she hadnt told Veronica Hart the whole truth: because she wasnt at all certain that she could handle Amun.

So quiet. Are you not stirred by being back home

Actually, I was thinking about the last time you took me to Wadi AlRayan.

That was eight years ago and I was simply trying to get at the truth, he said with a shake of his head. Admit it, you were in my country passing secrets

I admit nothing.

which by right belonged to the state. He tapped his chest. And I am the state.

Le Roi le Veut, she murmured.

The king wills it. Chalthoum nodded. Precisely. And momentarily he took his hands off the wheel and spread his arms wide to encompass the desert into which they were just now driving. This is the land of absolutism, Umm al-Dunya, the Mother of the Universe, but Im not telling you anything you dont already know. After all, youre Egyptian, like me.

Half Egyptian. She shrugged. Anyway, it doesnt matter. Im here to help my people find out what happened to the airliner.

Your people. Chalthoum spat out the words as if even the thought of them left a bitter taste in his mouth. What about your father What about his people Has America so thoroughly destroyed the wild Arabian inside you

Soraya put her head back against the seat and closed her eyes. She knew shed better get her own feelings under control and soon, otherwise the entire mission could spiral out of control. Then she felt Amuns arm brush up against hers and the hair at the back of her neck stirred. Good God, she thought, I cant feel this way about him. And then she broke out in a cold sweat. Was this why I withheld the truth from Veronicabecause I knew that if I told her everything shed never have allowed me to come back here And all at once she felt herself in jeopardy, not because of Amun but because of herself, her own runaway emotions.

In an effort to regain some form of equilibrium she said, My father never forgot he was Egyptian.

So much so he changed his family name from Mohammed to Moore, Chalthoum said bitterly.

He fell in love with America when he fell in love with my mother. The deep appreciation I have of it comes from him.

Chalthoum shook his head. Why hide it It was your mothers doing.

Like all Americans, my mother took for granted everything her country had to offer. She couldnt have cared less about the Fourth of July; it was my father who took me to the fireworks celebrations on the Mall in Washington, DC, where he spoke to me about freedom and liberty.

Chalthoum bared his teeth. I have to laugh at his navetéand yours. Frankly, I assumed you had a more shall we say pragmatic outlook on America, the country that exports Mickey Mouse, war, and occupying armed forces with equal abandon.

How convenient of you to forget that were also the country that keeps you safe from extremists, Amun.

Chalthoum clenched his teeth and was about to respond when the jouncing vehicle rolled through a cordon of his men, armed with submachine guns, keeping the mass of clamoring international press at a safe remove from the crash site, and ground to a halt. Soraya was the first out, settling her sunglasses more firmly on the bridge of her nose and the lightweight hat on her head. Chalthoum had been right about one thing: The airliner had fallen out of the sky not six hundred yards from the southeastern tip of the wadi, a body of water, complete with waterfalls, all the more spectacular because it was surrounded by desert.

Dear God, Soraya murmured as she began a tour of the crash site, which had already been cordoned off, presumably by Amuns people. The fuselage was in two main chunks, embedded in the sand and rock like grotesque monuments to an unknown god, but other pieces, violently disjointed from the body, were scattered about in a widening circle, along with one wing, bent in half like a green twig.

Notice the number of fuselage sections, Chalthoum said, as he watched the American task force deploy. He pointed as they moved around the periphery of the site. See here, and here. Its also clear that the plane broke up in midair, not on impact, which, considering the composition of the ground, caused minimal further damage.

So the plane looks more or less the way it did directly after the explosion.

Chalthoum nodded. Thats correct.

Say what you wanted about him, when it came to his trade he was a first-rate practitioner. The trouble was that too often his trade included methods of interrogation and torture that would make even those running Abu Ghraib sick to their stomachs.

The destruction is terrible, he said.

He wasnt kidding. Soraya watched as the forensics team put on plastic suits, slipped shoe coverings on. Kylie, the explosives-sniffing golden Lab, went in first with her handler. Then the task force split in two, the first group heading into the burned-out interior of the plane while the second began its examination of the ripped-open edges in an attempt to determine whether the explosion had been internal or external. Among this latter group was Delia Trane, a friend of Sorayas and an explosives expert from ATF, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. Though Delia was only thirty-four, her abilities were such that she was often on loan to various federal law enforcement agencies desperate for her expertise.

Dogged by Chalthoum, Soraya headed into the circle of death, skirting bits of metal so black and twisted it was impossible to determine what they had once been. Fist-size globs that looked like hail on closer inspection turned out to be plastic parts that had melted down in the fiery conflagration. When she came to a human head, she stopped and crouched down. Almost all the hair and most of the flesh had been scorched to ash, which pocked the partially revealed skull like gooseflesh.

Just beyond, a blackened forearm rose at an angle from the sand, the hand above it like a beckoning flag signifying a land where death ruled absolutely. Soraya was sweating, and not just from the brutal heat. She took a swig of water from a plastic bottle Chalthoum gave her, then proceeded on. Just before the yawning mouth of the fuselage, a team member handed her and Chalthoum plastic suits and shoe coverings that, despite the heat, they put on.

After her eyes adjusted to the gloom, she took off her sunglasses, peered around. The seat rows were canted at a ninety-degree angle; the floor was where the left bulkhead would have been when the jetliner was right-side up and everyone inside had been alive, chatting, laughing, holding hands, or foolishly arguing until the final moment before oblivion. Bodies lay everywhere, some still in their seats, others thrown clear on impact. The explosion had completely disintegrated another section of the aircraft and those in it.

She noticed that wherever a member of the American team went, he or she was shadowed by one of Amuns people. It would have been comical if it werent so sinister. Her companion was clearly determined that the forensics team would not make a move, including relieving themselves in the dizzying heat and fetid stench of the portable latrines, without him knowing about it immediately.

The lack of humidity works in your favor, of course, Chalthoum said, slowing the decomposition of those bodies not incinerated beyond recognition.

That will be a blessing to their families.

Naturally so. But really, lets not mince words, you havent given much thought to either the passengers or their families. Youre here to find out what happened to the aircraft: mechanical malfunction or an act of extremist terrorism.

He still had the utterly un-Egyptian knack of cutting directly to the quick. The country was a bureaucratic nightmare; nothing got done, not a single answer was forthcoming until at least fifteen people in seven different divisions were consulted and agreed on it. Soraya debated only a moment as to how to answer. It would be foolish to pretend otherwise.

Chalthoum nodded. Yes, because the world wants to know, needs to know. But my question to you is this: What then

A typically astute query, she thought. I dont know. What happens then is not up to me.

She spotted Delia, signaled to her. Her friend nodded, picked her way through the debris and hunched-over workers, with their bright task lamps, to where she and Chalthoum stood just inside the roasting gloom.

Anything to report Soraya said.

Were just beginning the prelim stages. Delias pale eyes flicked toward the Egyptian and back to her friend.

Its all right, Soraya assured her. If you have anything, even if its speculation, I need to know.

Okay. Delias mother was an aristocratic Colombian from Bogotá, and the daughter carried much of her maternal ancestors fiery blood. Her skin was as deep-toned as Sorayas, but there the similarity ended. She had a plain face and a boyish figure, with blunt-cut hair, strong hands, and a no-nonsense manner that was often interpreted as rudeness. Soraya thought it refreshing; Delia was someone with whom she could let her hair down. My sense is that it wasnt a bomb. The explosion very clearly didnt emanate from the luggage bay.

So, what, a mechanical failure

Kylie says no, Delia said. She meant the dog.

There was that hesitation again, and it made Soraya uneasy. She considered pressing her friend, but then thought better of it. Shed have to find a way to talk to her without Amun hanging on their every word. She nodded, and Delia went back to her work.

She knows more than shes telling, Chalthoum said. I want to know whats going on. When Soraya said nothing, he continued. Go talk to her. Alone.

Soraya turned to him. And then

He shrugged. Report back to me, what else


It was very late by the time Moira was ready to leave the office. With a weary hand she switched off CNN, which shed had on with the volume muted ever since the news of the airliner incident in Egypt broke. The incident unnerved her, as it had many people in the security field. No word on what had really happenednot even from her back-channel, not-for-attribution sources, whose terse responses were so brittle they set her teeth on edge. Meanwhile the press was having a typically monstrous field daytalking heads on TV speculating terrorist attack scenarios. And that didnt even count the more out-and-out fabrications posing as the truth they dont want you to know on thousands of Internet sites, including the toxic chestnut trotted out since 9/11 that the American government was behind the incident in order to advance its own casus belli, its case for war.

As she took the elevator down to the underground garage, Moiras mind was in two places at once: here with the new organization she was building and in Bali with Bourne. His grave wounds had made it more difficult to separate herself from him. What had seemed so simple when theyd discussed her future in the pool at the resort now seemed nebulous and vaguely anxiety producing. It wasnt that she felt the need to take care of himGod knows she would not have made a decent nursebut that within the eternity when his life had hung in the balance, shed been forced to reassess her feelings for him. The possibility that he would be snatched from her filled her with dread. At least, she assumed it was dread, since shed never before felt anything like it: a suffocating blackness that blotted out the sun at noon, the stars at midnight.

Was this love she wondered. Could love produce this madness that transcended time and space, that caused her heart to expand beyond its known limits, that turned her bones to jelly How many times during the night had she been roused out of a shallow and restless sleep, compelled to pad into the bathroom to stare at the reflection in the mirror she did not recognize. It was as if she had been unceremoniously thrust into someone elses life, a life she neither wanted nor understood.

Who are you she said over and over to that strange reflection. How did you get here What is it you want

Neither she nor her reflection had answers. In the stillness of the night she wept for the loss of who she had been, in despair of the new and incomprehensible future that had invaded her body like a transfusion.

But in the morning she was herself again: pragmatic, focused, ruthless both in her recruiting and in the stringent rules she set out for her operatives. She made each one swear allegiance to Heartland as if it were a sovereign nationwhich in many respects Black River, her main rival, already was.

And yet, the moment the sun fell from the sky, twilight and uncertainty crept through her, and her thoughts returned to Bourne with whom shed had no contact since she had left Bali three months ago with the body of a dead Australian drifter and the paperwork identifying it as Bournes. It was a recurring disease shed picked up on the island: The thought of his imminent death was enough to cause her to run, and keep running. Except that wherever she went she ended up at the terrifying place where shed started, at the moment hed fallen to the ground, at the moment her heart had stopped beating.

The elevator door opened onto the shadow-drenched concrete expanse of the garage, and she stepped out, her car key in her hand. She hated this late-night walk through the almost deserted garage. The smears of oil and gas, the stench of exhaust, the echoes of her heels ringing against the concrete made her feel sad and achingly lonely, as if there was no place in the world she could call home.

There were very few cars left; the parallel white lines painted on the unsealed concrete stretched away from her, ending where shed parked her car. She heard the cadence of her own strides, saw the movement of her crooked shadow as it passed across one square pillar after another.

She heard a car engine cough to life and came to a halt, standing still, her senses questing for the source. A dove-gray Audi pulled out from behind a pillar, turned on its headlights, and came toward her, gathering speed.

She drew her custom Lady Hawk 9mm from its thigh holster, moved to an expert sharpshooters crouch, thumbed off the safety. She was just about to pull the trigger when the passengers-side window slid down and the Audi screeched to a halt, rocking on its shocks.

Moira!

She bent her knees more to lower her line of vision.

Moira, its me, Jay!

Peering inside the Audi, she saw Jay Weston, an operative shed poached from Hobart, the largest government ODCoverseas defense contractorsix weeks ago.

At once she put up the Lady Hawk, holstered it. Jesus, Jay, you couldve gotten yourself killed.

I need to see you.

She squinted. Well, shit, you couldve called.

He shook his head. His face was pinched and tight with unaccustomed tension. Cell phones are too insecure. I couldnt take the risk, not with this.

Well, she said, leaning on the window frame, whats so important

Not here, he said, looking around furtively. Not anywhere where we can be overheard.

Moira frowned. Dont you think youre being a bit paranoid

Being paranoid is in my job description, isnt it

She nodded; she supposed it was. All right, how dyou

I need to show you something, he said, patting a pocket of an expensive-looking sapphire-blue suede jacket slung across the passengers seat, then took off toward the ramp up to the street before she had a chance to climb in or even answer him.

She sprinted to her car, starting it up with the remote as she ran. Hauling open the door, she slid behind the wheel, slammed the door shut behind her, and put the car in gear. Jays Audi was waiting for her at the top of the ramp. The moment he saw her approach in his rearview mirror, he took off, turning right out of the garage. Moira followed.

Late-night traffic with people returning home from the theater and movies was light, so there was no real reason for Jay to run the lights on P Street, but thats precisely what he continued to do. Moira put on speed to keep up with him; more than once she barely avoided being clipped by the cross-street traffic, tires squealing, horns blaring angrily.

Three blocks from her building they picked up a cop on a motorcycle. She flashed her high beams at Jay, but either he wasnt looking or he chose to ignore her because he kept running the red lights. All at once she saw the cop flash by her, heading toward the Audi in front of her.

Shit, she muttered, putting on some more speed.

She was thinking of how she was going to explain her operatives repeated infractions when the cop drew up alongside the Audi. An instant later hed drawn his service revolver, aimed it squarely at the drivers window, and pulled the trigger twice in close succession.

The Audi bucked and swerved. Moira had only seconds to avoid slamming into the car, but she was fighting the immoderate speed of her own vehicle. At the periphery of her vision she saw the motorcycle cop peel off and head north at a cross street. The Audi, in the middle of a series of sickening pendulum-like swings, smashed into her, sending her car spinning.

The collision flipped the Audi over like a beetle on its hard, shiny back. Then, as if a monstrous fingertip had flicked it, it continued to roll over, but Moira lost track of it as her car struck a streetlight and careened into a parked car, staving in the offside front fender and door. A blizzard of shattered glass covered her as she was jerked forward, hit the deployed air bag then dizzyingly was slammed back against her seat.

Everything went black.


Climbing carefully over the rows of seat backs was like wading into a sea frozen solid with reef-struck bodies. It was the small broken bodies of the children that were hardest to pass by without heartbreak. Soraya murmured a prayer for each of the souls deprived of the full flight of life.

By the time she reached Delias position, she realized that shed been holding her breath. She let it out now with a small hiss, the acrid odors of burned wiring, synthetic fabrics, and plastics invading her nostrils in full force.

She touched her friend on the shoulder and, mindful of her Egyptian observer, said softly, Lets take a walk.

The observer made to follow them, but stopped at a subtle hand sign from Chalthoum. Outside, the desert light was blinding, even with sunglasses, but the heat was clean, the arid spice of the desert, the murderous sun a welcome respite from the death pit into which theyd both sunk. Coming home to the desert, Soraya thought, was like returning to a longed-for lover: The sand whispered against your skin in intimate caress. In the desert you could see things coming at you. Which was why people like Amun lied, because the desert told the truth, always, in the history it covered and uncovered, in the bones of civilization from which the eternal sand had scoured away all lies. Too much truth, people like Amun believed, was a terrible thing, because it left you nothing to believe in, nothing to live for. She knew she understood him far better than he understood her. He believed otherwise, of course, but that was a useful delusion for him to hold close.

Delia, whats really going on Soraya asked when theyd plodded some distance away from the al Mokhabarat sentries.

Nothing I can substantiate at the moment. She looked around to make sure they were alone. Seeing Chalthoum staring after them, she said, That man is creeping me out.

Soraya moved them farther away from the Egyptians penetrating gaze. Dont worry, he cant overhear what we say. Whats on your mind

F*cking sun. Squinting behind her sunglasses, Delia used her hands to shadow her face. My lips are going to peel off before the night is over.

Soraya waited while the sun continued to throb in the sky and Delias lips continued to burn.

F*ck it, Delia said at last. Five to two the crash wasnt caused by something inside the aircraft. She was an inveterate poker player; every situation was a matter of odds. She often transformed nouns into verbs, too. I instinct a particular explosive.

So it was no accident. Sorayas blood ran cold. You ruled out a bomb so, what, an air-to-air missile

Delia shrugged. Could be, but you read the transcript of the flight crews last conversation with the tower at Cairo International. They saw no sign of a jet coming up on them.

What about from underneath or behind

Sure, but then the radar wouldve picked it up. Besides, according to the copilot, he saw something smaller even than a private jet coming up on them.

But only at the last possible instant. The explosion took place before he had time to describe what it was.

If youre right, that leads us toward a ground-to-air missile.

Delia nodded. If we get lucky the black box will be intact, and its recorder might tell us more.

When

You saw what a mess it is in there. Its going to take a while to ascertain whether its even retrievable.

Soraya said in the dry, ominous whisper of the hot wind that reshapes the dunes, A ground-to-air missile would bring an entire universe of very nasty possibilities into play.

I know, Delia said. Such as the involvement, either complicit or implicit, of the Egyptian government.

Soraya couldnt help but turn to look at Chalthoum. Or al Mokhabarat.