Robert Ludlum's (TM) The Bourne Objective

by Eric Van Lustbader

  “I’ll ask Mr. Marks when we get inside.” He pocketed the ring.

  At that moment Chrissie came up, out of breath not only from the all-out sprint but also from the terror of having her daughter exposed to more danger.

  “Scarlett,” she said.

  Bourne saw that she was prepared to scold her daughter until she glimpsed her examining Bourne’s superficial wounds with absolute concentration and she, like Bourne, shut her mouth to allow this mini-drama to play out.

  “If you let me put bandages on your cuts,” Scarlett said, “you’ll be fine.”

  “Then let’s go inside, Dr. Lincoln.”

  Scarlett giggled. Bourne stood up, and the three of them returned in silence to the house, where Bourne went directly to where they had sat Marks. Chrissie’s father was tending him with materials from an astonishingly well-stocked first-aid kit. Marks’s eyes were closed, his head back. Bourne guessed the professor had administered a sedative.

  “The first-aid kit’s from the trunk of Dad’s car,” Chrissie said as Scarlett rummaged around for bandages and Mercurochrome. “He’s been a hunter all his life.”

  Bourne sat cross-legged on the rug while Scarlett ministered to him.

  “The wound’s a clean one,” Professor Atherton said of his own patient. “Bullet went clear through, so the chance of infection is low, especially now that I’ve cleaned it out.” He took the Mercurochrome from Scarlett, applied it to two squares of sterile gauze, placed the gauze over the entrance and exit wounds, then expertly wrapped the whole in surgical tape. “Seen much worse in my day,” he said. “The only problem now is to make sure he rests and gets some fluids in him as soon as possible. He’s lost a lot of blood, though not nearly as much as if he didn’t have the tourniquet on.”

  Finished, he looked up from his patient to see Bourne. “You sure look like crap, whatever-the-hell-your-name-is.”

  “Professor, I need to ask you a question.”

  The old man snorted. “Is that all you do, son, ask questions?” He put a hand on the arm of Marks’s chair and levered himself up to a standing position. “Well, you can ask me anything you like, doesn’t mean I’ll answer you.”

  Bourne stood as well. “Did Tracy have a brother?”

  “What?”

  Chrissie frowned. “Adam, I already told you that Tracy was my only—”

  Bourne held up his hand. “I’m not asking your father whether you and your sister had a brother. I’m asking if Tracy had a brother.”

  A malevolent expression gathered on Professor Atherton’s face. “Bugger’n’blast, son, in days gone by I’d’ve boxed your ears for saying something so bloody-minded.”

  “You didn’t answer the question. Did Tracy have a brother?”

  The professor’s expression darkened further. “You mean a half brother.”

  Chrissie took a step toward the two men, who were now faced off like street fighters about to settle a grudge. “Adam, why are you—?”

  “Don’t get all gutted up over nothing.” Her father waved away her protest. And then to Bourne: “You’re asking me if I had sexual relations with another woman and something came of it?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Never did,” Professor Atherton said. “I loved the girls’ mother and I’ve been faithful to her for longer than I care to remember.” He shook his head. “I think you’ve made rather a hash of this.”

  Bourne was unfazed. “Tracy worked for a dangerous man. I had to ask myself why because it seemed doubtful that she would work for him willingly. Then Chrissie provided a partial answer. Tracy told this man she had a brother who was in trouble.”

  At once Professor Atherton’s demeanor altered radically. All color drained out of his face; he might have fallen if Chrissie hadn’t stepped to his side to support him. With some difficulty she got him to sit down in the chair opposite Marks.

  “Dad?” She knelt beside him, his clammy hand in hers. “What is this? Is there a brother I don’t know about?”

  The old man kept shaking his head. “I had no idea she knew,” he mumbled as if to himself. “How the bloody hell did she find out?”

  “So it’s true.” Chrissie shot Bourne a glance, then redirected her attention to her father. “Why didn’t you and Mum tell us?”

  Professor Atherton sighed deeply, then passed a hand across his sweating brow. He looked at his daughter blankly, as if he didn’t recognize her, or he was expecting to see someone else.

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “But you must.” She seemed to rise up, stiffening her spine, and she leaned in toward him as if to lend her words more weight. “You have no choice now, Dad. You have to tell me about him.”

  Her father remained silent, impassive now, as if free of a fever that had gripped him.

  “What’s his name?” she implored. “Can’t you tell me that much?”

  Her father’s eyes would not meet hers. “He had no name.”

  Chrissie sat back, as if he had slapped her across the face. “I don’t understand.”

  “And why would you?” Professor Atherton said. “Your brother was born dead.”

  23

  JALAL ESSAI WAS a marked man and he knew it. As he sat on a bridge chair he’d opened up in his darkened bedroom, he considered these factors: Breaking with Severus Domna had not been an easy decision—or rather, while the decision had been easy, the actual implementation had been difficult. But then it was always difficult, Essai thought, deliberately putting oneself in harm’s way. He had not acted on his decision until he had worked out the methods of implementation, drawing up a list in his mind of all the possible paths he could take, then eliminating them one by one until he reached the one with the fewest objections, the most acceptable level of risk, and the best odds of success. This methodical approach was how he arrived at every decision: The process was the most logical. Also, it had the added benefit of calming his mind, not unlike his prayers to Allah, or contemplating a Zen koan. The empty mind fills itself with possibilities unavailable to others.

  So he sat, absolutely still, within the darkness of his apartment, the blackness of his bedroom where all the blinds were drawn against nighttime’s streetlights and the passing headlights of the occasional car or truck. Night, and the threat of night. Night was to him what a cup of espresso was to others, a calm and satisfying state of reflection. He could navigate his way through darkness, even nightmares, because Allah had blessed with the light of the true believer.

  It was 3 AM. He knew what was coming, which was why he had chosen not to run. A runner makes an excellent target as he leaves his own territory. He stumbles—and he dies. Essai did not intend to stumble. Instead he had prepared his bedroom for the inevitable, and he was willing—content even—to remain in place until the enemy showed his face.

  He heard the sound first. A tiny scratching, as if of mice, from the living room, in the direction of the front door. The sound very quickly ceased, but he knew the enemy must have picked the lock on his door, because someone was in the apartment. Still, he did not move. There was no reason to move. He cast his gaze on the bed, where a lump under the covers revealed to his enemy’s eyes the presence of a sleeping body.

  The quality of the darkness changed, deepening, becoming thicker, dense with the pulse of another human being. Essai’s focus narrowed even more. His enemy, now in the kill zone, bent over the bed.

  Essai felt the motion as a stirring of the air as his enemy drew out a dagger and plunged it into the figure sleeping in the bed. At once the plastic skin punctured, spraying the would-be killer with a geyser of battery acid with which Essai had filled the inflatable sex toy.

  His enemy reacted in predictable fashion by falling backward, limbs pinwheeling. On the floor he tried and failed to wipe the acid off his face, neck, and chest. This action only served to smear the acid over more of his face, neck, and chest. He gasped, but because the acid was eating his lips and tongue he could not get out any words or
even a scream. A nightmare scenario for him, Essai thought, as he rose from the chair at last.

  Kneeling over the enemy—the man Severus Domna had sent to kill him for his disloyalty—he smiled the smile of the just, the righteous in Allah’s beneficent eyes, and putting a forefinger against his lips he whispered, “Shhhhh,” so low that only he and his enemy could hear.

  Then he took up the assassin’s dagger and picked his way to the doorway into the hall. Pressing himself against the wall, he waited, emptying his mind of expectation. Into this divine emptiness came the most probable route the second man would take. He knew there was a second man, just as he knew his assassin would not use a pistol to kill him, because these were the two major methods of operation Severus Domna employed: stealth and backup. Methods he himself had used in going after Jason Bourne and the ring.

  A diagonal shadow falling across the width of the hall bore out his thesis. Now he knew where the second assassin was, or rather had been, because he was on the move. His compatriot had had enough time to effect the kill, and now he was closing the gap between them to determine if anything was amiss.

  Something certainly was amiss, a fact confirmed to him as the dagger, thrown with great accuracy by Essai, penetrated his chest between two ribs and pierced his heart. He fell heavily, like a wildebeest taken down by a lion. Essai approached him, knelt, and determined there was no pulse, no life left. Then he returned to his bedroom, where the first assassin was writhing on the floor with ever-more-uncoordinated movements.

  Snapping on a lamp, he studied the man’s face. He did not recognize him, but then he didn’t expect to. Severus Domna would not have sent anyone he could identify on sight. Squatting down beside the man, he said, “My friend, I pity you. I pity you because I have chosen not to end your life and therefore your suffering. Instead, I will leave you as you are.”

  Pulling out a cell phone burner, he dialed a local number.

  “Yes?” Benjamin El-Arian said.

  “Delivery for you to pick up,” Essai said.

  “You must be mistaken. I didn’t order anything.”

  Essai put the cell to the assassin’s mouth, and he made sounds like a cow in distress.

  “Who is this?”

  Something had changed in El-Arian’s voice, a febrile element that Essai, the cell to his ear again, was able to catch.

  “I estimate you have thirty minutes before your assassin dies. His life is in your hands.”

  Essai closed the cell and, standing, ground it to bits beneath his heel.

  Then he addressed the assassin for the last time: “You will tell Benjamin El-Arian what happened here, and then he will deal with you as he sees fit. Tell him that the same fate awaits anyone he sends after me. That’s all you need to do now. His time—and yours—is over.”

  Moira, standing on the starboard side of the yacht, watched the exchange of infrared signals through the night glasses the captain had handed her moments before. She could see the cigarette boat lying to as the yacht came up on it. Moving her field of vision slightly, she saw two figures in the cigarette besides the signaler. A man and a woman. The man was almost certainly Arkadin, but who was the woman and why would he have someone else on board? Berengária had told her Arkadin came out to meet her boats with just a mate, an old Mexican named El Heraldo.

  The captain continued to keep the yacht’s engines idling as it slid through the black waves on its own momentum. Now Moira could make out Arkadin’s face, and beside him was—Soraya Moore!

  She almost dropped the night glasses overboard. What the hell? she thought. For every plan there was a wrench that could jam up the works. Here was hers.

  The quiet lapping of the water was all she heard as the cigarette came up alongside the yacht. A crewman tossed down a rope ladder; another manned the winch. Meanwhile two other crewmen were busy hauling up the cargo from belowdecks. Berengária had explained the routine in detail. A crate was loaded into the net to be winched down to the cigarette so Arkadin could inspect the contents.

  As this was happening, Moira leaned over the rail, peering down at the people in the cigarette. Soraya saw her first, her mouth forming an O of silent surprise.

  What the hell? she mouthed up to Moira, who had to laugh. They’d both had the same reaction on seeing each other.

  Then Arkadin caught sight of her. Frowning, he climbed the ladder. The moment he swung aboard the yacht he drew out a Glock 9mm and aimed it at her midsection.

  “Who the hell are you?” he said. “And what are you doing on board my boat?”

  “It’s not your boat, it belongs to Berengária,” Moira said in Spanish.

  Arkadin’s eyes narrowed. “And do you belong to Berengária also?”

  “I belong to no one,” Moira said, “but I am looking out for Berengária’s interests.” She had thought about the possible answers to his questions during the entire trip up the coast of Mexico. What it boiled down to was this: Arkadin was a man first, a homicidal criminal second.

  “Just like a woman to send a woman,” Arkadin said, as disdainful as Roberto Corellos.

  “Berengária is convinced you no longer trust her.”

  “This is true.”

  “Perhaps she no longer trusts you.”

  Arkadin gave her a dark look but said nothing.

  “This is a poor state of affairs,” Moira acknowledged. “And no way to run a business.”

  “And how does the woman who does not own you suggest we proceed?”

  “For a start, you might lower the Glock,” Moira observed.

  By this time Soraya had made her way up the ladder and now appeared, swinging her legs over the yacht’s brass railing. She seemed to size up the situation immediately, looking from Moira to Arkadin and back again.

  “Fuck you,” Arkadin said. “And fuck Berengária for sending you.”

  “If she had sent a man, the chances are good the two of you would have killed each other.”

  “I would have killed him, certainly,” Arkadin said.

  “So sending a man would not have been the smart thing to do.”

  Arkadin snorted. “Fuck, we’re not in the kitchen.” He shook his head in disbelief. “You’re not even armed.”

  “Therefore, you won’t shoot me,” Moira said. “Therefore, you will be willing to listen when I talk, when I negotiate, when I propose a way to go forward without suspicion on either side.”

  Arkadin watched her as a hawk watches a sparrow. Perhaps he no longer considered her a threat, or possibly what she said had gotten through to him. In any event, he lowered the Glock and tucked it away at the small of his back.

  Moira looked pointedly at Soraya. “But I won’t talk or negotiate or propose anything with someone unfamiliar. Berengária told me about you and your boatman, El Heraldo, but now I see this woman here. I don’t like surprises.”

  “That makes two of us.” Arkadin jerked his head in Soraya’s direction. “A new partner, on probation. She doesn’t work out, I put a hole in the back of her head.”

  “Just like that.”

  Arkadin walked to where Soraya stood and, cocking his thumb and forefinger as if they were a gun, he pressed its muzzle to the base of her skull. “Boom!” Then he turned and, smiling in the most charming manner, said, “So speak your mind.”

  “There are too many partners,” Moira said bluntly.

  This gave Arkadin pause. “For myself,” he said at length, “I don’t care for partners in the least.” He shrugged. “Unfortunately, they’re a part of doing business. But if Berengária wants out…”

  “We were thinking more of Corellos.”

  “She’s his lover.”

  “This is business,” Moira said. “What she did with Corellos was to keep the peace between them.” Now she shrugged. “What better weapon does she have?”

  Arkadin seemed to look at her in a new light. “Corellos is very powerful.”

  “Corellos is in prison.”

  “I doubt for much longer.”
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  “Which is why,” Moira said, “we hit him now.”

  “Hit him?”

  “Kill, terminate, murder, call it what you like.”

  Arkadin paused a moment, then burst out laughing. “Where in the world did Berengária find you?”

  Moira, glancing at Soraya, took a not-so-wild guess, thinking: Pretty much the same place you found your new partner.

  Why would she do that?” Professor Atherton had his head in his hands. “Why would Tracy tell anyone that she had a brother?”

  “Especially when that put her in Arkadin’s debt,” Chrissie added.

  “She did more than mention her brother,” Bourne said. “She concocted an elaborate lie about him being alive and in debt over his head. It’s as if she wanted Arkadin to have something on her.”

  Chrissie shook her head. “But that doesn’t make sense.”

  It did, Bourne thought, if she had been sent to get close to Arkadin. To report on his deals and his whereabouts, for example. He was not, however, about to speculate with these people.

  “That question can wait,” he said. “After the shots in the woods, we need to get out of here.” He turned to Professor Atherton. “I can carry Marks, can you maneuver on your own?”

  The old man nodded curtly.

  Chrissie gestured. “I’ll help you, Dad.”

  “See to your daughter,” he said gruffly. “I can take care of myself.”

  Chrissie packed up the first-aid kit. She carried it out the front door, holding Scarlett’s hand. Bourne picked Marks up, sliding him up onto his shoulder.

  “Let’s go,” he said, herding the professor outside.

  Chrissie took him around to his car, which was parked out back. Bourne packed Marks into the rental, which was miraculously unscathed. Chrissie pulled her father’s car around, and Scarlett clambered in.

  Bourne approached her.

  “What happens now?” she asked.

  “You go back to your life.”

  “My life.” Her laugh was uneasy. “My life—and my family’s life—will never be the same.”