The Bourne Objective

24


FREDERICK WILLARD KNEW about the White Knights Lounge. He’d known about it for some time, ever since he had started compiling his own private dossier on Secretary of Defense Halliday. Bud Halliday possessed the kind of arrogance that all too often brings men of his lofty status down into the dust with the rest of the peons who painfully labor over their lives. These men—like Halliday—have become so inured to their power, they believe themselves above the law.
Willard had witnessed Bud Halliday’s meetings with the Middle Eastern gentleman whom Willard had subsequently identified as Jalal Essai. This was information he’d had when he met with Benjamin El-Arian. He didn’t know whether El-Arian was aware of the liaison, but in any event he wasn’t about to tell him. Some information was meant to be shared only with the right person.
And that person appeared now, right on time, flanked by his bodyguards like a Roman emperor.
M. Errol Danziger came over to where Willard sat and slid into the ancient banquette. Its stained and ripped Naugahyde skin spoke of decades’ worth of benders.
“This is a real shithole,” Danziger said. He looked like he wished he’d worn a full-body condom. “You’ve slid down in the world since you left us.”
They were sitting in an anonymously named rheumatic bar-and-grill off one of the expressways that linked Washington with Virginia. Only pub-crawlers of a certain age and liver toxicity found it inviting; everyone else ignored it as the eyesore it was. The place stank of sour beer and months-old frying oil. It was impossible to say what colors its walls were painted. An old nondigital juke played Willie Nelson and John Mellencamp, but no one was dancing or, by the looks of them, listening. Someone at the end of the bar groaned.
Willard rubbed his hands together. “What can I get you?”
“Out of here,” Danziger said, trying not to breathe too deeply. “The sooner the better.”
“No one we know or who’d recognize us would come within a country mile of this cesspit,” Willard said. “Can you think of a better place for us to meet?”
Danziger made a disagreeable face. “Get on with it, man.”
“You’ve got a problem,” Willard said without further preamble.
“I’ve got a lot of problems, but they’re none of your business.”
“Don’t be so hasty.”
“Listen, you’re out of CI, which means you’re nobody. I agreed to this meet out of—I don’t know what—acknowledgment of your past services. But now I see it was a waste of time.”
Willard, unruffled, would not be taken off topic. “This particular problem concerns your boss.”
Danziger sat back as if trying to get as far away from Willard as the banquette would allow.
Willard spread his hands. “Care to listen? If not, you’re free to leave.”
“Go ahead.”
“Bud Halliday has, shall we say, an off-the-reservation relationship with a man named Jalal Essai.”
Danziger bristled. “Are you trying to blackmail—?”
“Relax. Their relationship is strictly business.”
“What’s that to me?”
“Everything,” Willard said. “Essai is poison for him, and for you. He’s a member of a group known as Severus Domna.”
“Never heard of it.”
“Very few people have. But it was someone in Severus Domna who got Justice to take another look at Oliver Liss and incarcerate him while it’s investigating.”
A drunk began to wail, trying to duet with Connie Francis. One of Danziger’s gorillas went over to him and shut him up.
Danziger frowned. “Are you saying the US government takes orders from—what?—can I assume from this one name that Severus Domna is a Muslim organization?”
“Severus Domna has members in virtually every country around the globe.”
“Christian and Muslim?”
“And, presumably, Jewish, Hindu, Jain, Buddhist, whatever other religion you’d care to name.”
Danziger snorted. “Preposterous! It’s absurd to think of men from different religions agreeing on a day of the week to meet, let alone working together in a global organization. And for what?”
“All I know is that its objectives are not our objectives.”
Danziger reacted as if Willard had insulted him. “Our objectives? You’re a civilian now.” He made the word sound ugly and demeaning.
“The head of Treadstone can hardly be classified as a civilian,” Willard said.
“Treadstone, huh? Better to call it Headstone.” He laughed raucously. “You and Headstone are nothing to me. This meeting is terminated.”
As he began to slide out of the banquette, Willard played his ace. “Working with a foreign group is treason, which is punishable by execution. Imagine the ignominy, if you live that long.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Imagine you in a world without Bud Halliday.”
Danziger paused. For the first time since he walked in, he seemed unsure of himself.
“Tell me this,” Willard continued, “why would I waste our time on nonsense, Director? What would I have to gain?”
Danziger subsided back onto the banquette. “What do you have to gain by telling me this fairy tale?”
“If you thought it was a fairy tale, I would be talking to myself.”
“Frankly, I don’t know what to think,” Danziger said. “For the moment, however, I’m willing to listen.”
“That’s all I ask,” Willard said. But, of course, it wasn’t. He wanted much more from Danziger, and now he knew he was going to get it.
On the way back to the office, Karpov had his driver pull over. Out of sight of everyone, he vomited into a clump of tall grass. It wasn’t that he’d never killed anyone before. On the contrary, he’d shot a great many miscreants. What made his stomach rebel was the situation he was in, which felt like the underbelly of a rotting fish or the bottom of a sewer. There must be some way out of the coffin he found himself in. Unfortunately, he was caught between President Imov and Viktor Cherkesov. Imov was a problem all rising siloviks had to deal with, but now he was beholden to Cherkesov and he was certain that sooner or later Cherkesov would ask him for a favor that would curl his toes. Looking into the future, he could see those favors multiplying, taking a toll until they shredded him completely. Clever, clever Cherkesov! In giving him what he wanted, Cherkesov had found the one way around his, Karpov’s, incorruptibility. There was nothing to do but what good Russian soldiers had done for centuries: Put one foot in front of the other and move forward through the mounting muck.
He told himself this was all in a good cause—getting rid of Maslov and the Kazanskaya was surely worth any inconvenience to him. But that was like saying I was only following orders, and depressed him further.
He returned to the backseat of his car, brooding and murderous. Five minutes later his driver missed a turn.
“Stop the car,” Karpov ordered.
“Here?”
“Right here.”
His driver stared at him in the rearview mirror. “But the traffic—”
“Just do as you’re told!”
The driver stopped the car. Karpov got out, opened the driver’s door, and, reaching in, hauled the man out from behind the wheel. Unmindful of the honking horns and squealing brakes of the vehicles forced to detour around them, he bounced the driver’s head off the side of the car. The driver slid to his knees, and Karpov drove a knee into his chin. Teeth came flying out of the driver’s mouth. Karpov kicked him several times as he lay on the pavement, then he slid behind the wheel, slammed the door shut, and took off.
I should have been an American, he thought as he wiped his lips over and over with the back of his hand. But he was a patriot, he loved Russia. It was a pity Russia didn’t love him back. Russia was a pitiless mistress, heartless and cruel. I should have been an American. Inventing a melody, he sang this phrase to himself as if it were a lullaby, and in fact it made him feel marginally better. He concentrated on bringing down Maslov and how he would reorganize FSB-2 when Imov named him director.
His first order of business, however, was dealing with the three moles inside FSB-2. Armed with the names Bukin had vomited up, he parked the car in front of the nineteenth-century building housing FSB-2 and trotted up the steps. He knew the directorates that the moles worked in. On the way up in the elevator, he took out his pistol.
He ordered the first mole out of his office. When the mole balked, Karpov brandished the pistol in his face. Siloviks all over the floor emerged from their dens, their secretaries and assistants picked their heads up from their mind-numbing paperwork to follow this unfolding drama. A crowd formed, which was all the better, as far as Karpov was concerned. With the first mole in tow, he went into the second mole’s office. He was on the phone, turned away from the door. As he was swinging back, Karpov shot him in the head. The first mole flinched as the victim flew backward, his arms wide, the phone flying, and slammed into the plate-glass window. The victim fell to the floor, leaving behind an interesting abstract pattern of blood and bits of brain and bone on the glass. As stunned siloviks crowded into the doorway, Karpov snapped photos with his cell phone.
Pushing his way through the agitated throng, he frog-marched the now shivering first mole to his next stop, a floor up. By the time they appeared, news had spread and a crowd of siloviks greeted them in silent astonishment.
As Karpov was dragging his charge toward the office of the third mole, Colonel Lemtov shouldered his way to the front of the group.
“Colonel Karpov,” he shouted, “what is the meaning of this outrage?”
“Get out of my way, Colonel. I won’t tell you twice.”
“Who are you to—”
“I’m an emissary of President Imov,” Karpov said. “Call his office, if you like. Better yet, call Cherkesov himself.”
Then he used the mole to shove Colonel Lemtov aside. Dakaev, the third mole, was not in his office. Karpov was about to contact security when a terrified secretary informed him that her boss was chairing a meeting. She pointed out the conference room, and Karpov took his prisoner in there.
Twelve men sat around a rectangular table. Dakaev was at the head of the table. Being a directorate chief, he would be more valuable alive than dead. Karpov shoved the first mole against the table. Everyone but Dakaev pushed back their chairs as far as they could. For his part, Dakaev sat as he had when Karpov barged in, hands clasped in front of him on the tabletop. Unlike Colonel Lemtov, he didn’t express outrage or appear confused. In fact, Karpov saw, he knew perfectly well what was happening.
That would have to change. Karpov dragged the first mole along the table, scattering papers, pens, and glasses of water, until the man fetched up in front of Dakaev. Then, staring into Dakaev’s eyes, Karpov pressed the muzzle of his pistol into the back of the first mole’s head.
“Please,” the prisoner said, urinating down his leg.
Karpov squeezed the trigger. The first mole’s head slammed against the table, bounced up, and settled into a pool of his own blood. A Pollock-like pattern spattered across Dakaev’s suit, shirt, tie, and freshly shaven face.
Karpov gestured with the pistol. “Get up.”
Dakaev stood. “Are you going to shoot me, too?”
“Eventually, perhaps.” Karpov grabbed him by his tie. “That will be entirely up to you.”
“I understand,” Dakaev said. “I want immunity.”
“Immunity? I’ll give you immunity.” Karpov slammed the barrel of the pistol against the side of his head.
Dakaev reeled sideways, bouncing off a terrified silovik paralyzed in his chair. Karpov bent over Dakaev, who lay huddled half against the wall.
“You’ll tell me everything you know about your work and your contacts—names, places, dates, every f*cking thing, no matter how minute—then I’ll decide what to do with you.”
He hauled Dakaev to his feet. “The rest of you, get back to whatever the hell you were doing.”
Out on the floor he encountered absolute silence. Everyone stood like wooden soldiers, unmoving, afraid even to take a breath. Colonel Lemtov would not meet his eyes as he took the bleeding Dakaev over to the bank of elevators.
They went down, past the basement, into the bowels of the building where the holding cells had been hewn out of the naked rock. It was cold and damp. The guards wore greatcoats and fur hats with fur earflaps, as if it were the dead of winter. When anyone spoke, his breath formed clouds in front of his face.
Karpov took Dakaev to the last cell on the left. It contained a metal chair bolted to the raw concrete floor, an industrial-size stainless-steel sink, a toilet made of the same material, and a board projecting from one wall on which was a thin mattress. There was a large drain situated beneath the chair.
“Tools of the trade,” Karpov said as he pushed Dakaev into the chair. “I admit to being a little rusty, but I’m sure that won’t make a difference to you.”
“All this melodrama is unnecessary,” Dakaev said. “I have no allegiance, I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”
“Of that I have no doubt.” Karpov began to run the water in the sink. “On the other hand, a self-confessed man of no allegiance can hardly be trusted to tell the truth willingly.”
“But I—”
Karpov shoved the muzzle of the pistol into his mouth. “Listen to me, my agnostic friend. A man without allegiance to something or someone isn’t worth the beating heart inside him. Before I hear your confession, I will have to teach you the value of allegiance. When you leave here—unless you do so feet-first—you will be a loyal member of FSB-2. Never again will people like Dimitri Maslov be able to tempt you. You will be incorruptible.”
Karpov kicked his prisoner out of the chair onto his hands and knees. Grabbing him by his collar, he bent him over the sink, which was now filled with ice-cold water.
“Now we begin,” he said. And shoved Dakaev’s head under the water.
Soraya watched Arkadin dancing with Moira, presumably to make her jealous. They were in one of Puerto Pe?asco’s all-night cantinas, filled with shift workers coming and going from the nearby maquiladoras. A sad ranchera was bawling from a jukebox, luridly lit up like someone’s bad idea of the UFO in Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
Soraya, nursing a black coffee, watched Arkadin’s hips moving as if they were filled with mercury. The man could dance! Then she pulled out her PDA and studied the texts from Peter Marks. The last one contained instructions on how to lure Arkadin to Tineghir. How did Peter come up with this intel?
She had hidden her shock at seeing Moira behind her professional facade. The moment she had climbed aboard the yacht she’d felt the floor fall out from under her. The game had changed so radically that she had to play catch-up, and fast. Which was why she had hung on each word of the conversation between Moira and Arkadin not only for content but also for tonal nuance, any clue as to why Moira was actually here. What did she want from Arkadin? Surely the deal Moira was making with him was as bogus as her own.
Outside, the night was very dark, without moonlight. Because of the cloud cover, only a wan halo of stars toward the crown of the sky was visible. Inside, the cantina stank of beer and body odor. The room was raucous with a desperation tinged by hopelessness and despair. She felt surrounded by people for whom tomorrow didn’t exist.
She wished that she and Moira could talk to each other, if only for the briefest moment, but under Arkadin’s eye that was impossible. Even going to the ladies’ room at the same time would doubtless arouse his suspicion. She didn’t know Moira’s cell number, so texting her was out. There remained only a verbal conversation laced with coded messages. If they were on parallel paths, or even by chance the same one, it was essential they not get in each other’s way.
Arkadin and Moira were dripping sweat when they returned to the table. Arkadin ordered beers for them, and another coffee for Soraya. Whatever might happen tomorrow, he was clearly enjoying being with the two women tonight.
“Moira,” Soraya said, “do you know anything about the Middle East, or is your expertise strictly in the Americas?”
“Mexico, Colombia, Bolivia, and to some extent Brazil are my territories.”
“And you work alone?”
“I have a company, but right now I’m on special assignment to Berengária Moreno.” Moira gestured with her chin. “And you?”
“My own company, though there’s a conglomerate that’s looking for a hostile takeover.”
“Multinational?”
“Strictly American.”
Moira nodded. “Import-export, you said?”
Soraya stirred some sugar into her coffee. “That’s right.”
“You might be able to use my, ah, expertise against hostile bidders.”
“Thank you, but no.” Soraya sipped her coffee, then put the cup back in its saucer. “I have my own, ah, enforcers.”
“What do you call a thought in a woman’s head?” Arkadin leaned forward, looking from one to the other. “A tourist!” He laughed so hard he almost choked on his beer. Then, noting their somber expressions, “Shit, lighten up, ladies, we’re here to have fun, not talk business.”
Moira looked at him for a moment. “What do you get when you cross a Russian with a Vietnamese? A car thief that can’t drive.”
Soraya laughed. “Now we’re having fun.”
Arkadin smiled. “Have any more?”
“Let’s see.” Moira drummed her fingers on the table. “How about this? Two Russians and a Mexican are in a car. Who’s driving? The police.”
Arkadin laughed and shook his finger at Moira. “Where do you pick up these jokes?”
“In prison,” Moira said. “Roberto Corellos loves making Russians the butt of jokes.”
“Time to switch to tequila,” Arkadin said, signaling the waiter. “Bring a bottle,” he said to the young woman who came over. “Something fine. A reposado or a?ejo.”
Instead of another ranchera, the jukebox began to play “Twenty-four Hours from Tulsa.” Gene Pitney’s high twang rang out over the laughter and shouts of the drunken patrons. But morning was coming, and with it a change in the clientele. As the night owls slowly staggered out, the night-shift people from the maquiladora drifted in, heads aching, tails dragging. There were fewer of them, as well, most of them stumbling home to fall into bed without taking off their clothes.
Before the tequila got to the table, Arkadin had grabbed Moira’s hand and was swinging her onto the dance floor, which for the first time all night was larger than a postage stamp. He held her close while they swayed to the Burt Bacharach melody.
“You’re something of a smart-ass,” he said, smiling like a shark.
“It didn’t come easy,” she said.
He laughed. “I can only imagine.”
“Don’t bother.”
Arkadin swung her around. “You’re wasting your time in South America. You should come to work for me.”
“Before I set up Corellos’s murder?”
“Let that be your last assignment.” He stuck his nose into the side of her neck and inhaled deeply. “How are you going to do it?”
“I thought you said no business.”
“Just this one bit, then it’s all fun. I swear.”
“Corellos is addicted to women. I have a connection to his supplier. When is a man more vulnerable than after sex? I’ll find someone who’s good with a knife.”
Arkadin pulled her hips harder into him. “I like it. Set it up right away.”
“I want a bonus.”
He nuzzled her neck, licked her sweat. “I’ll give you anything you want.”
“Then I’m yours.”
Karpov’s cell phone rang while he was in the process of reprogramming Dimitri Maslov’s mole. Dakaev was drowning, or more precisely, he believed he was drowning, which was, after all, the point. But ten minutes later, when Dakaev was back in his stainless-steel chair and Karpov was pouring tea into a glass, his cell rang again. This time he answered it. A familiar voice was on the other end of the line.
“Jason!” Karpov cried. “How excellent to hear your voice.”
“Are you busy?”
Karpov glanced over at Dakaev, slumped over, his chin on his chest. He looked barely human, which was also the point. You couldn’t build something new without tearing down what had been there before.
“Busy? Yes. But never too busy for you. What can I do for you?”
“I assume you know Dimitri Maslov’s lieutenant, Vylacheslav Oserov.”
“You assume correctly.”
“Do you think you can find a way to get him somewhere?”
“If you mean somewhere like hell, yes I can.”
Bourne laughed in his ear. “I was thinking of something a little less terminal. A place, let us say, in Morocco.”
Karpov took a sip of tea, which was in desperate need of sugar. “May I ask why you need Oserov in Morocco?”
“He’s bait, Boris. I intend to catch Arkadin.”
Karpov thought of his sojourn in Sonora, his deal with Arkadin, and added him to the list of President Imov and Viktor Cherkesov. He had promised Arkadin his chance at Oserov, but f*ck that. I’m too old and too bloody-minded to owe so many dangerous people so much, he thought. One less is a step toward none.
Then he looked over at Dakaev, the conduit to Dimitri Maslov and, therefore, Vylacheslav Oserov. After what he had just been through, he had no doubt that the prisoner would jump at the chance to do what Karpov asked of him.
“Tell me in detail what you need done.” Listening, Karpov smiled contentedly. When Bourne was finished, he chuckled deeply. “Jason, my friend, what I wouldn’t give to be you!”
Just after sunrise they were all sweaty enough to want to go into the water. At the convent, Arkadin gave Moira and Soraya oversize T-shirts. He was in surfer trunks that came down to his knees. His upper body and limbs were a museum of tattoos that, if interpreted correctly, traced his career in the grupperovka.
The three of them waded through the surf, pulled and pushed by the waves rushing onto the golden sand. The sky was still pink, paling out to the color of butter. Gulls dipped and swooped over their heads and tiny fish nibbled at their feet and ankles. The water came up and slapped them in the face, making them laugh like children. The unalloyed joy of being let free in the ocean.
Out beyond the surf line, Moira thought it odd that Arkadin kept diving for seashells rather than stare at her breasts through the wet T-shirt, especially after the way he’d been dancing with her at the cantina. She had found out little enough information about Soraya’s mission from the coded conversation Soraya had started and Arkadin had nipped off with his misogynistic joke.
While Arkadin was still trolling for shells, she set off after Soraya to see if the two of them could speak briefly. Diving through an incoming wave, she began to swim out to where Soraya was drifting on her back, but something caught her left ankle, jerking her back.
Jackknifing her body, she looked behind her. Arkadin had hold of her. She pushed back at him, palms against his chest, but he only drew her more closely to him. She rose up, breaking the surface, and found herself face-to-face with him.
“What do you think you’re doing?” She scrubbed the sheeting water off her face. “I can’t stand properly.”
He let her go immediately. “I’ve had enough and I’m hungry.”
Moira turned and shouted to Soraya, who plunged down from her float and paddled over.
“We’re going to breakfast,” Moira said.
The two women waded out of the surf with Arkadin just behind them. They had reached the high-tide line, hillocks of dry sand ahead, when Arkadin bent over. Using the scythe-like edge of the seashell, he severed the tendons at the back of Moira’s left knee.