Robert Ludlum's the Bourne Imperative (21 page)

Bourne grunted. “Bleeding-edge, period.”

WHEN MARTHA CHRISTIANA saw the old woman sitting beside the large picture window, she saw herself.

The room was sparsely furnished and even more sparsely decorated. There were few personal items: a comb, a hairbrush with a silver handle. A small yellowed scrimshaw of a lighthouse standing alone on a promontory, a faded photo of a beautiful but frail-looking woman, holding against her shins a small girl. That was all. But the room was filled to brimming with a loneliness so profound it took Martha’s breath away.

The old woman did not turn as she crossed the room and picked up the photo of her and her mother. There was another photo, she saw now, placed behind the first. It showed a slim man in a peacoat, standing beside the cut-glass beacon of the lighthouse. Raking daylight streamed in, illuminating him, but also emphasizing his separation from anything except that fierce beacon.

Martha Christiana stared at the photo of her father, but she did not pick it up. She did not touch it at all. She felt, in her heart, that touching it would be a desecration, though she could not say why. At last, she put down the photo and walked over to the old woman. She was staring out at the view: a swath of lawn, a clutch of palms, and beyond, nondescript buildings across the street. Not much to look at, but her concentration was absolute, fearsome. Martha did not think she was looking at the grass, the trees, or the buildings, none of which would have any meaning for her. She was sitting slightly forward, tensed, peering, as if through a telescope, into the past.

“Mom,” Martha said in a shaky voice, “what do you see?”

At the sound of the voice, her mother began to rock back and forth. She was thin as a rail. In places her bones shone whitely beneath her tissue-thin skin. Her pallor gleamed like the sun in winter.

Martha moved around until she was standing in front of the old woman. Though her cheeks were deeply scored, her entire face ravaged by time, pain, and loss, still something inside her remained unchanged. Martha felt a pang deep inside her chest.

“Mom, it’s me, Martha. Your daughter.”

The old woman did not—or could not—look up. She seemed locked in the past. Martha hesitated, then reached out, took the skeletal hand in hers. It was as cool as marble. She stared at the raised veins, blue, seeming ready to burst through the skin. Then she looked up into her mother’s eyes, gray and gossamer as passing clouds shredded by conflicting wind currents.

“Mom?”

The eyes moved imperceptibly, but there was no recognition— none at all. It was as if she did not exist. For so many years, her parents had ceased to exist for her. Now, here, with her father already gone, at the end of her mother’s life, there was nothing for her. She was a stone thrown into the sea, sinking out of sight without even a ripple to mark its passing.

For some time, she stood as still as that great shoulder of rock at the edge of Gibraltar, holding her mother’s cool hand. Once, her mother’s lips parted, and she whispered something that Martha didn’t catch. It wasn’t repeated, even at Martha’s insistent urging. Silence settled over them both. The years had flown by and were now like fallen leaves, brittle and dead.

At last, when she could breathe again, Martha Christiana let her mother’s hand slip from hers. She crossed to the door, though she was barely aware of what she was doing. Opening the door, she found Don Fernando waiting patiently in the hallway. She opened the door wider.

“Come in,” she said. “Please.”

So, old thing.” Brick took a bite out of a colossal olive, sucked the pimiento between his lips like a second tongue, and chomped down, grinding it to orange paste. “I have a bit of work for you. Ready to have a go?”

“Sure,” Peter said, “now’s as good a time as any.”

“That’s the lad.”

His heart rate spiked. He had no idea what Brick was going to ask of him, but it wasn’t going to be good.
In for a penny, in for a pound.
And continuing that thought,
There’s a damn good reason clichés were born.

The two men sat in the kitchen of Brick’s Virginia safe house. Between them were several plates of food—rounds of Italian salami and mortadella, crumbles of pecorino cheese, a deep-green glass container of olive oil, handfuls of crusty bread, a dish of olives, and four oversized bottles of dark Belgian beer, two of them empty. Dick Richards had left an hour ago with Bogs, who was taking him back to within three blocks of the Treadstone headquarters.

Wiping his lips, Brick rose and crossed to a drawer, rummaged around in it until he found what he wanted, then returned and sat across from Peter.

“So,” Peter said, “where d’you want me to go?”

“Nowhere.”

“What?”

“You’re staying right here.” Brick slid a small packet across the table. “What’s this?”

“Double-edged shaving blades.”

Peter picked up the packet and opened it. Sure enough, he discovered four double-edged blades. Plucking one up carefully, he said, “I can’t remember when I last saw one of these.”

“Yeah,” Brick said, “they’re from the last century.”

Peter laughed.

“No joke, mate. Those there’ll take off your finger if you look at them wrong. Specially honed, they are.”

Peter dropped the blade back on top of the others. “I don’t understand.”

“Easy-peasy, old thing. You stay here. You wait. Bogs’ll be bringing someone here. He’ll make the intros, you chat the mark up, all nice’n’larky-like. Wait for Bogs’s signal, then...” He tilted his head toward the box of blades.

“What?” Peter felt the gorge rise into his throat. “You mean you want me to kill this person with one of these blades?”

“Use all four of ’em, if that’s your cuppa.”

Peter swallowed. “I don’t think—”

Brick’s torso shot forward, his hand imprisoning Peter’s right wrist in an iron grip. “I don’t give a fuck what you think. Just get it done.”

“Jesus.” Peter fought down the panic that threatened to undo him.
Think fast
, he berated himself. “We’re isolated here. Wouldn’t a gun be simpler?”

“Any shite-arse off the street can pop a bloke at close range.” He made a gun of his free hand, pushed the end of his finger-barrel into Peter’s temple. Then, in a dizzying shift, he broke out into a grin, letting go. “I want to see what you’re made of, old thing. See what lurks beneath, see if I can trust you to go on to bigger’n’better.” He rose. “You wanted to work for me. This is the path you chose. Your chance to grab the gold ring.” He winked, his grin evaporating. “Don’t make a fucking hash of it, yeah?”

The one society Soraya did belong to was a weekly poker game at the mayor’s townhouse.

But that, too, was something that bound her and Delia together: both women were naturally shy, but fiercely competitive, especially when it came to poker. Being ushered into the high-stakes game was one of Delia’s great joys, and the incident that cemented her friendship with Soraya. It was at these intimate sessions, sitting around a green baize table with the elite of Washington politics, that Delia came to know Soraya best, and to sort out her feelings toward her. Gradually, the sexual charge resolved itself into the warm glow of a deep and abiding friendship. She realized that she was attracted to Soraya, but not as a lover. She soon discovered an acute relief that Soraya was neither gay nor bi. No possibility of complications to get in the way of their friendship. As for her friend, Soraya accepted Delia for who she was. For the first time in her life, Delia felt no hesitation, no shame, no obstinacy in revealing herself to another human being. She never felt judged, and in return she opened her heart and her mind to Soraya.

Now, having pulled up a chair, Delia sat beside her friend’s bed and took her hand. Soraya’s eyes fluttered open. Her lids were blue, bruised-looking. In fact, she had the dazed look of someone who had just received a thorough thrashing.

“Hello, Raya.”

“Deel—”

Tubes ran in and out of both arms. There was still a drain poking through the bandages on the side of her head.
Hideous thing
, Delia thought, trying to avert her gaze without being conspicuous about it. She failed.

“I guess you shouldn’t show me a mirror.” Soraya tried for a smile and just missed. It looked lopsided, grotesque, and for a breathless moment Delia was terrified that the operation had done something to the nerves on that side of her face. Then, as Soraya started to talk more, she realized it was merely fatigue combined with the remnants of the anaesthesia.

“How d’you feel, Raya?”

“Bad as I look. Maybe worse.”

Now it was Delia’s turn to smile. “It’s fine now. Everything’s fine.”

“Hendricks told me the baby’s okay.”

Delia nodded. “That’s right. No problems.”

Soraya sighed, visibly relaxing. “When can I get out of here, did the doctors say?”

Delia laughed. “Why? You itching to get back to work already?”

“I have a job to do.”

Delia bent over her. “Right now your job is to get better—for yourself and for the baby.” She took her friend’s hand. “Listen, Raya, I did something...something you warned me not to do. But under the circumstances, I thought...I told Charles about the baby.”

Soraya, overwhelmed with guilt, closed her eyes. But she knew she had to continue on down this path, step by ugly step.

“I’m sorry, Raya. Truly. But I was so afraid for you. I thought he had a right to know.”

“It’s your basic decency, Deel,” Soraya said. “I wasn’t thinking clearly. I should have known.” In fact, she
had
known. She had been banking on Delia’s basic decency.

“Where’s Charlie now?”

“He’s been here for a while,” her friend said. “I’m kind of surprised he’s stayed so long.”

“Does his wife know he’s here?”

Delia made a face. “Ann Ring is up on the Hill, engulfed day and night in her senatorial legislative package on next year’s Homeland Security procurements and expenditures.”

“How d’you know that?”

“I read Politico. They don’t like her, either.”

“Who does, except her constituents? And, of course,
The Beltway Journal
.”

“Now you’re going to say you can’t understand why he married her.” Soraya’s lips curled in the semblance of a smile. “
She
married
him
.

She was like an unstoppable force. He couldn’t say no.” 

“Any adult can say no and mean it, Raya.”

“But not Charlie. He was bedazzled.”

“Senator Ring has that effect on a lot of conservative Republicans. She could do a spread in
Playboy
.”

“If only,” Soraya said. “Then we’d all be rid of her.”

“I don’t know. I have a feeling she’d be able to somehow spin it to her advantage.”

Soraya laughed and squeezed her friend’s hand. “What would I do without you, Deel?”

Delia squeezed back. “Heaven only knows.”

“Listen, Deel. I want to see Charlie.”

Delia’s face clouded over. “Raya, do you think that’s such a good idea?”

“It’s important. I—”

All at once, her eyes opened wide, and she gasped. Her hand turned into a claw and her torso arched off the bed. The monitors to which she was hooked up started to go crazy. Delia started screaming, and Thorne pushed open the door, his face white and drawn.

“What is it?” He looked from her to Soraya. “What’s happened?”

Delia could hear the soft slap of running rubber-soled shoes, voices raised in alarm, and she shouted, “Help! She needs help! Now!”

Bourne and Rebeka silently entered the apartment she had rented on Sankt Eriksgatan in Kungsholmen. It was on the third floor, a block and a half from the water. Christien was waiting for them downstairs in the Volvo, along with a bodyguard-messenger from his office he had picked up on a prearranged street corner in Gamla Stan.

The pair went stealthily through all the rooms, checking the shallow closets, even under the bed, and behind the shower curtain. When they had assured themselves that the apartment was secure, Rebeka knelt down on the tile floor of the bathroom.

“How much money have you stowed away?” Bourne said.

“I always establish a private vault in a secure location. It’s not safe to carry so much on my person.”

Bourne, kneeling beside her, helped her carefully peel up two thin lines of grout, making certain they wouldn’t crumble. This left an island tile, which she plucked up. Beneath lay a thick wad of bills— krona, euros, American dollars.

Stuffing the wad into her pocket, she stood up. “Come on,” she said. “This place gives me the creeps.”

They left the apartment, hurrying down the twilit stairs.

Ilan Halevy, code name the Babylonian, sat behind the wheel of the rental car he had parked in a strategic spot across the street and down the block from the entrance to the building in which Rebeka had rented her apartment. He had been waiting for hours, but for him those hours felt like minutes. It seemed as if he had been waiting for something to happen all his life. As a boy of ten, he had waited for his parents to divorce; as an adolescent of fourteen, he had waited for the bully he had put into the hospital to die; shortly afterward, he had found himself waiting for a train to take him out of the heartland of his country into the capital, the busiest, shiniest, most confusing place he could think of in which to get lost. He had killed again, but this time on his own terms. He chose well—a wealthy American businessman, with whom he had struck up a conversation in the bar of the capital’s poshest hotel. Now, with money in his pocket and an alternate identity, he shaved his beard, bought himself two sets of the best Western clothes from the Brioni boutique in the selfsame hotel, charging it to one of the businessman’s credit cards. Before that moment, he had never before seen a credit card in the flesh, let alone handled one.

Soon after, he had slid quite naturally into Tel Aviv’s criminal underbelly, making a name for himself quickly, ruthlessly, remorselessly. He supposed that was how he had come to the attention of Colonel Ben David. In any event, when Ben David had approached him, he was properly wary. But, in time, the two men established a relationship. Despite its undisputed closeness, no one would mistake it for friendship, especially the two principals.