Robert Ludlum's the Bourne Imperative (41 page)

He checked once more to be certain he was alone even though the rational part of his brain told him that he was. Padding silently into the bathroom, he knelt down on creaky joints and extracted Martha Christiana’s handbag from the narrow space between the claw-foot tub and the marble-tiled floor, where he had shoved it before the cops had asked for entrance.

Putting down the toilet seat cover, he sat, placing the handbag on his thighs. He stayed like that for long minutes, his fingers exploring the soft leather, his nostrils dilated to take in her scent, which rose from the handbag’s interior and caused tears to form in his eyes.

Though he had been acting out of self-preservation, he had genuinely liked Martha. He had also felt sorry for her, trapped as she was. But what good had his empathy done, except to drive her the last few yards to her destiny?

He sighed, and his head came up abruptly. He had heard a sound, and he listened, as if for her soft bare footfalls, as if she might still be alive, as if the last several hours had been a nightmare from which he had just this second awakened, her handbag in his lap. Then he looked down and knew with absolute clarity that what he held between his hands was all that was left of her.

Slowly, he opened the bag and, with a curious trepidation, peered inside. He encountered the usual tools of the female trade: lipstick, compact, eyeliner, a small pack of tissues, her wallet, astonishingly thin, as if what little was inside might evaporate as quickly as her life. He opened it briefly, then fished out her mobile phone.

It was locked, but he knew many of the things she liked, and he tried several of them on the keypad until he stumbled upon the right one, and the mobile opened to him as it had so many times to her. This door opening, as it were, moved him deeply. It was as if she were inviting him into the guarded part of herself.

“
Mea culpa
, Martha,” he said. “I wish you were here.”

Just outside the front door, Nicodemo heard these words as they wafted through the apartment, and he pressed his ear harder against the door. In doing so, he caused the old wooden panels to creak.

He froze, scarcely allowing himself to breathe.

Don Fernando’s head came up, and, like a dog on point, his body began to quiver. The creak from the front door had arrowed through the apartment, piercing his heart like a presentiment of death.

Placing Martha’s handbag aside, he rose and, leaving the bathroom, went through the bedroom to the living area. There he stood for a moment, immobile, scenting the air for a new spoor. He stared hard at the front door, which he had been careful to lock the moment the last of the detectives had vacated the premises. He watched the wooden boards, as if they might tell him what or who was on the other side of the door.

At length, he crept to the door and, with his back arched, bent to put his ear to the old wood. He heard breathing, but whether it was the building or someone standing on the other side of the door, he could not tell. He felt, if not frightened, then profoundly uneasy. He did not keep a handgun in the apartment, which was lucky for him. The cops would have confiscated it, and it might have aroused their suspicions that Martha Christiana’s death was murder rather than suicide. Now, though, he regretted not having stashed one somewhere. He did not feel safe.

After taking another fruitless listen through the door, he backed away, returning to the bathroom, where he took up Martha’s handbag and resumed his melancholy journey through its contents.

He checked her mobile’s call log first. The last incoming call had been made perhaps fifty minutes before she went out the window. Considering the hour it had been made, he thought that significant, especially because it was from a number in Martha’s phonebook. The name attached had been reduced to initials, but there was no doubt to whom “ME” belonged: Maceo Encarnación.

What had Maceo Encarnación said to her that had made her snap, caused her to decide to kill herself? There was no doubt in his mind that she had felt trapped between himself and Encarnación with no way out.

He checked her voicemails, texts, all the usual stuff that almost invariably clogged up people’s mobiles, but there was nothing. Martha Christiana had been too careful. As he was scrolling through her phonebook, his own mobile buzzed. He picked it up. Christien was calling.

“Are you still dead?” Christien said with a chuckle.

“Sadly, no.” Don Fernando took a breath. “But Martha Christiana is.”

“What happened?”

Don Fernando told him.

“Well, at least she won’t be a threat to you anymore. I’ll take care of the press release correcting the news of your death.” There was a slight pause. “Do you know where Bourne is?”

“I thought you were keeping track of him?”

“No one can keep track of him, Don Fernando. You know that better than anyone.”

Don Fernando grunted. Without thinking, he slid Martha’s mobile back into her handbag. His fingers found the compact, smooth and warm, as from contact with Martha’s skin. He found that circling his thumb over its lacquered surface gave him a measure of solace.

“Our enemies are on the move,” Christien said. “Maceo Encarnación and Harry Rowland have left Mexico City. They landed in Paris over an hour ago. I thought I’d better warn you.”

“Something’s happening.”

“Yes, but I hope it’s not what we have been afraid of.”

Don Fernando ran a hand across his face. “There’s only one way to find out.”

“With Maceo Encarnación in Paris, I’m concerned about you.”

“Maceo Encarnación knows better than to show his face in Paris. I have too many eyes and ears on the ground. Rowland is, however, another matter.”

“Jason and that Mossad woman, Rebeka, were following Rowland.”

Don Fernando stared at his bare feet on the bathroom tiles. Martha had liked his feet. She said they were sexy. “If that’s the case, then they’ve failed.”

“I don’t want to think about Jason failing.”

“Neither do I.” Don Fernando’s heart grew even heavier as he stared at the lapis face of Martha’s compact. “Listen, Christien, there must be something we can do for Jason.”

“It’s progressed too rapidly, gone too far. It’s out of our hands,” Christien said. “All we can do now is have faith that Bourne will come through.”

“If anyone can...”
Vaya con Dios, hombre
, Don Fernando thought as he disconnected.

He was tired—beyond tired. He rose and, still holding the compact, padded back to the bedroom. It was early morning, when the city, still wrapped in sleep, began to shudder with the rumble of the first of the day’s traffic, when people queued up at bakeries to buy breakfast baguettes and croissants, when bicyclists crossed the bridges, taking their owners to work.

He lay down on his bed, the covers rucked beneath him, but that only brought into view the window Martha Christiana had ruined on her way out of his life. Rolling over, he sat up, his gaze once again fixated on the compact. It was odd, he thought, that Martha carried a compact when he had never seen powder on her cheeks or forehead. She used lipstick and lash color; her natural beauty required nothing more. And yet...

He turned the compact over and over in his hand. Then, on a sudden impulse, he snapped it open. The thin puff was there, but, when he lifted it out, there was no powder underneath, just a tiny gold flange set into the base. Using a fingernail, he lifted the flange, and the base came up, revealing an eight-gigabyte micro-SD card.

Just then he stiffened, his head cocked to one side, trying to capture the tiny noise again. There was no doubt about it, someone was outside his front door. Rising silently, he crossed to the kitchen and slid out a large-bladed carving knife.

Back in the living room, he paused in front of the door, listening. He heard the sound again, as of the scrape of shoe soles against the hallway floor. Stepping closer, he grasped the lock and turned it over slowly and quietly.

Keeping the point of the knife at the ready for an instantaneous thrust, he grasped the doorknob, and, with a quick, efficient turn, pulled open the door.

DICK RICHARDS, WAITING TO be shown into Tom Brick’s palatial offices at the Core Energy headquarters on Sixteenth Street NW, felt like a fugitive not only from Treadstone, but from life itself. 

He had been waiting for what seemed like hours while a veritable parade of people were ushered in and out of the executive office suites.

For what seemed like the eighth or ninth time, he hauled himself up and reintroduced himself to the young woman behind the slab banc. She had the young person’s knack of wearing her wireless earpiece like jewelry, somehow making her look more human rather than like an alien. She smiled up at him with her bee-stung lips.

“Mr. Richards—” he was astonished that she remembered “—Mr. Lang would like a word with you.”

Stephen Lang was senior operations VP. Richards wondered why he wanted to see him. “I’m here to see Tom Brick.”

The receptionist smiled and touched the carapace of her earpiece. “He’s not in the office at the moment.”

“D’you know where he is?”

The smile stayed in place, another piece of postmodern jewelry. “I believe that’s what Mr. Lang wants to talk with you about.” She held out a shapely bare arm. “D’you know the way?”

Richards nodded. “I do.”

Passing through the pebbled translucent doors, he turned right to the end, then right again. Ahead of him lay Lang’s spacious corner office. He had been in there a handful of times when Brick had brought him in on the logistics of one project or another.

Stephen Lang was an ex-athlete running to fat. He still had the basic frame and musculature of a Michigan linebacker, but his face had broadened and his gut had deepened. The moment Richards entered his office, he came around from behind his desk, bouncing on the balls of his feet. He grinned, extended his hand in a brief, bonecrushing grip, and nodded at one of the upholstered chairs in front of his smoked-glass–topped postmodern desk.

“So I hear that the Treadstone computers are hopelessly snarled.” Perched on a corner of his desk, he nodded. “Good work, Richards.”

“Thanks. But I’m now fucked. I can’t go back there.”

“Not to worry. You’ve helped us achieve our goal at Treadstone. Time to move on.” Lang clapped his hands together. “Listen, Tom wants to congratulate you himself. He was called away at the last minute, so he’s arranged for a car and driver to take you to him.”

“Is he at the safe house?”

“Yeah, about that, the safe house is no longer safe.” Lang clapped his hands again. “As I said, time to move on.” He stood, indicating that the interview was at an end. Extending his hand again, he said, “Safe travels, Richards. You’ve become invaluable to us, so a significant bump in pay is waiting for you, not to mention a bonus.” He waved his hand. “Tom will explain it all.”

Richards, cheeks flushed, went out of the office suite. He barely felt his feet on the carpeting. Finally, he was getting the recognition he deserved. A chubby blonde greeted him with a smile on the elevator ride down to the lobby. He was so astonished when she said something to him that he scarcely heard a word she said. She looked vaguely familiar, but all he could muster was a stupid grin by way of reply. Watching her walk across the lobby, he thought,
Other women will smile at me—beautiful women
, because they existed—especially here inside the Beltway—to respond galvanically to money and power.

Outside, as Lang had said, a black Lincoln Navigator was waiting for him. It was a raw, gloomy late afternoon, with drizzle slanted by the wind. Richards hurried over. There was no need to introduce himself. Bogs, recognizing him, smiled and swung open the passenger door for him. Then he climbed in behind the wheel and peeled out, driving very fast through the congested streets of the city.

Richards sat back, luxuriating in the beginning moments of his new life. He had made the right choice. Government service was for fools who were content to work unconscionably long hours, take home their meager pay packets each week, and eventually retire into obscurity, worn out, beaten down by the endless bureaucracy.

They went over the Woodrow Wilson Memorial Bridge into Virginia, then turned north. Ten minutes later, the Navigator turned in to a side entrance to Founders Park in Alexandria, which fronted the water. The driver got out, opened the door for Richards, and guided him down a long wharf that jutted out into the Potomac. At the far end was a large weathered-wood gazebo under which he saw Tom Brick talking to a figure in shadow.

He turned when Richards and the driver entered the gazebo’s overhang. “Ah, you made it, Richards. Good deal.” He gestured toward the other figure with him, the chubby blonde who had accompanied Richards down in the elevator.

Richards had just a moment to register his surprise when he felt a ghastly pain in his side. He opened his mouth to shout, but the driver’s thick hand clamped hard over the lower half of his face. Blood ran out of him, and his knees sagged. The driver was half holding him up.

He looked at Tom Brick who, along with the blonde, was watching him without any apparent emotion.

“What?” he stammered. “Why?”

Tom Brick sighed. “The very fact that you’re asking these questions confirms that your usefulness to me is at an end.” He stepped toward Richards, grabbed his chin, and lifted his face to stare into his eyes. “You idiot, what did you think you were doing announcing yourself as the saboteur?”

“I...I...” Richards’s slowly freezing brain, already shutting down at its periphery, was desperately trying to grasp what was happening to him. And then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw the blonde grinning at him and he realized that she was a Treadstone employee— an assistant, someone in the unique position of watching everyone in the organization.
Jesus
, he thought.
Jesus Christ.

“This is the price you pay for having multiple masters, Richards.” Tom Brick’s voice was gentle, rueful, understanding. “There was no other ending possible.”

Richards’s brain, robbed of blood, was turning more sluggish by the second. But still, he got it. Finally. “You recognized Peter Marks right away.”