The Bourne Retribution

by Eric Van Lustbader

  “I scrutinize the news from Mexico as thoroughly as you do.”

  “Jidan, I very much doubt it.”

  “Without Maceo Encarnación,” he said doggedly, “the war between Los Zetas and the Sinaloa cartels has escalated to such a pitch that, if not controlled, it will plunge the entire country into civil war.”

  “Nevertheless, I must go.”

  “I think you are underestimating the level of danger you’ll be walking into, Maricruz. I don’t think it wise to insert yourself between the two factions.”

  “You are afraid for me.”

  “Once you leave China I cannot protect you.”

  Maricruz showed her small white teeth as she smiled her tigerish smile. “I am my father’s daughter, Jidan.” She put her hand on his thigh. “Besides, you don’t want your lucrative connections severed, do you? Between the opium and the chemicals for meth production we ship to Mexico, we pull down over five billion dollars a year.”

  “What I don’t want, Maricruz, is for you to be separated from your head.”

  “I won’t forget that,” she said, laughing, as she spread her legs, the lemony shantung silk of her skirt riding up her powerful, burnished thighs, and mounted him. She wore no underwear, and her nimble fingers quickly unzipped him, freeing him. Then she lowered herself onto him. It was easy; she was already wet.

  Ouyang let out a puff of air. Hands flat against his chest, she could feel the fierce beating of his heart as if it were a minor seismic event.

  She rose and fell on him in a tide-like rhythm. Ouyang’s eyes half closed in pleasure.

  “You believe the Encarnación name will protect you.”

  “Jidan, please. I know Mexico; I know the cartels.”

  He struggled to keep his thoughts from dissolving in the swiftly rising pool of ecstasy. “Los Zetas are different,” he said thickly. “They’re defectors from the army’s special forces. They’re vicious and cruel.”

  “Mercenaries are, by definition, vicious and cruel—this has been true no matter how far you go back in history.” She smiled, as if at a memory. She seemed wholly unaffected by their intimate joining. “But the one thing they all have in common is their lust for money. I’m going in prepared. Trust me, Jidan. I will be fine.” Then she gave a little groan, her sole concession to the forces that crested in her. “Everything will be fine.”

  Ouyang sat staring after her, drinking in the last shred of her image—her erect, dancer’s carriage, her long, strong legs, her impossibly firm buttocks—as she walked through the door of the departures terminal. His heart constricted, collapsing in on itself. He felt her absence the way a freezing man feels the absence of fire. His mobile phone rang, but he left it unanswered, not trusting himself to speak.

  You screwed Ouyang six ways from Sunday,” the Director said, “and after that, Ouyang lost his chance to worm inside the Syrian government. He’s never forgotten that defeat. It’s why he’s after you now; he won’t stop until you’re dead.”

  Bourne fingered Rebeka’s gold star of David. “I don’t care.”

  “Remember that she—”

  “Rebeka was killed by Maceo Encarnación’s son. I killed him and Maceo, that’s over and done with.”

  “But it isn’t, Jason,” Yadin said. “Ouyang Jidan was Maceo Encarnación’s partner.”

  “This isn’t news to me.”

  “But the scope may be.” The Director produced a sheaf of onionskin papers from his breast pocket, unfolded them carefully, and handed them to Bourne. “See for yourself.”

  Bourne didn’t want to look; he wanted no more involvement with Yadin, Mossad, Ouyang, anyone from the short life he could remember, for that matter. If the future looked black, then the only patch of gray, the only way out for him, was to choose another path entirely. What that might be, he had no idea. He could return to Georgetown University, resume his professorship in comparative linguistics, of course, except he knew from experience he’d grow bored within the space of a semester. What else was there for him? His Treadstone training had made him uniquely qualified for only one thing.

  Reluctantly, with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, he looked down at the first sheet, began reading chapter and verse detailing Ouyang’s growing wealth from his periodic shipments of opium and chemicals that, taken together, could only be bound for the meth labs owned by Encarnación’s cartels.

  “Starting five years ago, Ouyang became Encarnación’s sole supplier,” the Director said. “And why not? As a senior Minister, Ouyang was one hundred percent reliable. As you can imagine, he was also a leakproof source. No wonder Encarnación not only bought exclusively from him, but kicked back twenty-five percent from the sales of the finished products.”

  By this time, Bourne had finished reading the pages. He now returned them to Yadin. He felt something old and dangerous stirring inside himself. “Have you been tracking Ouyang’s movements?”

  “For years,” Yadin said, nodding. “He’s currently in Shanghai.”

  “Has he ever traveled to Mexico?”

  “No.”

  “Anywhere close?”

  Yadin shook his head.

  Bourne gazed out at the somnolent sea, thinking about unfinished business. He couldn’t let Rebeka’s death go unavenged, and he had nowhere else to go. That thing inside himself sprang to life, and his mind began to shake off the blackness, to work again as it was meant to.

  “What doesn’t track,” he said, “is how the two men hooked up in the first place. They were on opposite sides of the world, they moved in entirely different spheres.”

  “Not entirely. Don’t forget, Encarnación was the CEO of SteelTrap, the world’s largest Internet security firm. It’s possible they met through the Chinese increasing involvement in cyber espionage.”

  Bourne shook his head. “I don’t buy it. I knew Encarnación. He was scrupulous in keeping his legitimate business separate from his criminal activities. For SteelTrap any hint of business with the Chinese would be pure poison. No, there has to be another connection we don’t know about, a connection it’s vital we find.”

  The Director carefully put away the papers. In their place, he handed Bourne a sealed packet. When Bourne opened it, he found ten thousand dollars, a first-class ticket from Tel Aviv to Shanghai, and a passport in the name of Lawrence Davidoff.

  “Welcome back,” Yadin said. “You leave tomorrow night.”

  He waited a moment, perhaps to see if Bourne would return the packet. When he didn’t, Yadin rose and, without another word, stepped out of the shadow of the stone arch, making his way toward his bodyguards, who waited patiently at the land end of the beach.

  4

  As soon as the plane taking him to Tel Aviv had reached cruising altitude, Bourne rose from his seat, went back up the aisle, and locked himself inside one of the two toilets. Taking out the passport Mossad had prepared for him, he slowly leafed through the pages, checking each one edge-on. He found nothing unusual, but when he looked at the back, he thought he spotted something.

  Holding the edge up to the light, he detected a tiny bud of glue. Using a fingernail, he picked off the bud, to discover, just beneath, a hairline slit. He looked around for something to use. Opening the trash bin, he saw that someone had stuffed in a plastic glass, cracking it in the process. He drew one half out, laid it on the metal counter, and smacked his fist against it.

  Plucking out a shard best suited to his purpose, he drew the tip against the edge of the back cover, over and over, until the slit opened. Slowly and carefully, he drew out what had been inserted between two layers of the board.

  He found himself staring at a tiny wafer-thin rectangle of silicon circuits.

  Having been in Tel Aviv for some weeks, as Director Yadin’s guest, Bourne had absorbed the bulk of the Director’s schedule. For that reason, he was surprised to see Yadin exit Mossad headquarters at lunchtime. He usually worked through the midday hours, occasionally consuming a premade sandwich one of his assistan
ts brought up to him from the underground canteen.

  Yesterday, though, Yadin, dressed oddly casually in a white guayabera shirt, shorts, and boating shoes, got into an unmarked Mossad vehicle. He was alone, no bodyguard in sight. His usual armored car sat vacant and guarded somewhere below the building.

  Firing up the motorcycle he had bought to get around the traffic-clogged city, Bourne followed Yadin as he nosed his car out into traffic. By the way he was dressed, Bourne guessed that he was headed for the marina and his beloved boat, but as soon as Yadin turned toward the center of the city, Bourne knew he was wrong.

  Twelve blocks away, the Director pulled into a parking spot near a bus stop. Bourne nosed his motorcycle in toward the curb. A Dan Line bus was slowing, its air brakes sighing as it headed for the stop. Bourne glimpsed Yadin standing in line. The Director looked like an old man as he shuffled along in line, a bent-backed pensioner on a too-meager income.

  Bourne followed the bus as it heaved its bulk out into traffic, waiting patiently at each successive stop to see if Yadin got off.

  He finally did, at the Weizmann Street stop. Bourne observed him cross the street, walk down to an enormous faceted glass-and-steel building with an immense circular structure on the roof. It looked like one of the CIA buildings in DC.

  Bourne gunned the motorcycle forward, parked it at the curb, then followed Yadin between pillars, up a pedestrian ramp. As Yadin entered the building, he was brought up short by the sign: TEL AVIV SOURASKY MEDICAL CENTER. Immediately he thought of the Director’s coughing fit on the Caesarea beach, his half-smoked cigar. From the evidence, it seemed possible that Yadin was ill and didn’t want anyone to know. If that was the case, Bourne decided he would honor that wish.

  Heading back down the ramp, he got on his motorcycle, wheeled around, and drove away.

  The Yemenite jewelry shop on one end of Mazal Dagim Street, in the Old Jaffa Bazaar in Tel Aviv, was an unprepossessing storefront, old by the looks of it, with an exquisite hand-painted sign hanging above the door. Inside, the silver jewelry sparkled with the intricate filigree work typical of Yemenite culture. The artistry was exquisite. The Ben Asher family had been working at this address for many years, their craft honed ages before Israel had come into existence.

  Apter Ben Asher, current patriarch of the family, was the man Rebeka had told Bourne to seek out should he need to purchase anything in secret.

  “Anything?” he had asked her.

  “Anything at all,” she had replied with the enigmatic smile he saw in his mind’s eye as he stepped across the threshold from late-​morning sun into the cool, dim interior. He had spent two restless nights in a Tel Aviv hotel, and early this morning, making certain no one was following him, either another of Ouyang’s men or handlers sent by the Director, he had at last proceeded to the silversmith’s.

  The shop was illuminated by spotlights strategically placed for viewing the array of jewelry in waist-high glass cases that ringed the rear and side walls. It was filled with customers bending over, peering at the wares, asking to try on a necklace or a bracelet. Straight ahead, behind the cases, was a narrow door that presumably led to the workshop.

  Bourne waited for an opening, then asked one of the young salesgirls for Apter Ben Asher.

  When she asked his name, he said, “Just tell him a friend of Rebeka’s is here to see him.”

  She gave him an odd look, before nodding perfunctorily. As she headed back to the rear door, she threw a quick glance at him over her shoulder. Bourne was sure he saw a flicker of fear cross her face like heat lightning.

  Several moments passed while Bourne admired the silver work. When he looked up a small, rather roly-poly man in a heavily scarred leather apron had appeared in the doorway. He sported a full beard, shot through with a shade of gray that matched his hooded eyes. He had a wide face and thick lips. Rather than step out into the shop proper, he beckoned to Bourne with one long finger.

  He said not a word of greeting as Bourne stepped past him into the workshop. Closing the door securely behind him, he crossed to a wooden stool and sat, studying Bourne, hands clasped in his lap.

  “So you are the man she spoke about,” he said at last. “What can I do for you?”

  Bourne handed him the passport the Director had given him.

  Ben Asher took it, flipped to the first page, swiveled around to peer at it under a bright light using a jeweler’s loupe. At length, he grunted, then turned back, holding out the passport.

  “It’s gratifying to see that Mossad’s expertise hasn’t slipped.”

  Bourne gave him a wry half smile. “You’ll have to repair the back cover.”

  Frowning, Ben Asher swiveled back around, placing the passport in the center of the circle of light. He found the slit right away.

  “What was in here?”

  “A tracking device.”

  “Ah.” Ben Asher swiveled back to Bourne. “So you want a new name and electronic code for this.”

  “No,” Bourne said, taking back the passport. “I want a new one.”

  “In other words, an entirely different identity.”

  “That’s right. It needs to look used—immigration stamps and so forth.”

  “Naturally.”

  “Including one for Shanghai that’s dated tomorrow.”

  Ben Asher stared at him for a moment. “What time is your flight?”

  “Eight thirty this evening.”

  “Doable, certainly.” Asher tapped his forefinger against his lower lip. “Now, what nationality should you be? Too bad you don’t have any Asian blood in you; a Malaysian businessman would pass unnoticed in Shanghai.” He studied Bourne’s face. “I could make you Syrian, but that would only stir up trouble.”

  “How about Canadian?”

  “Perfect! Bland as consommé. Do you want to choose the name, as well?”

  “Let’s make it Carl Halliday,” Bourne said. “How much?”

  “Now you offend me.”

  “All artists should be paid for their expertise.”

  Ben Asher smiled and shrugged. “Yes, but you see, you are the man Rebeka loved.”

  5

  It was a sad homecoming for Maricruz. She could not help thinking that the traffic-choked crawl from the airport to smog-shrouded Mexico City—slow, tedious, never ending—was like a funeral procession.

  The mansion on Castelar Street, in Colonia Polanco, overlooked Lincoln Park, where, she had been told, Jason Bourne had dragged the Mossad agent, whom her brother had knifed, after escaping from the house. She had never set eyes on Bourne, didn’t know what he looked like, though she had a clear picture of him in her mind’s eye. Bourne had killed her brother and her father, that much she knew—that much and no more. Her brother’s demise was no great loss, but her father—well, that was another matter entirely.

  She had expected the house of her childhood to look old and worn, cracks showing where it was in need of restuccoing, but the building that lay in front of her, surrounded by sparkling flower beds and riotous sprays of bougainvillea, gleamed in the wan sunlight as if just polished. The stone had been repointed and the stucco recently painted.

  Inside lay bigger surprises still. She was met at the front door by Wendell Marsh, SteelTrap’s lawyer, who had been handpicked by her father. More than that, Maceo Encarnación had put Marsh through school, sponsoring, then mentoring the orphan. He was now a de facto member of the family, though that would never occur to him.

  “Maricruz.” He embraced her. “So good to see you. It’s been, what—?”

  “Too long.” Maricruz stepped back to look at Marsh. He was a broad-shouldered man with stark features, thick, swept-back hair that was almost entirely white. Marsh had been born a pessimist, a quality he had never been able to shake.

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” Marsh said now as he led her through the foyer and into the densely furnished living room. “I expect you’d like to have a look around. Take your time. When you’re ready there are papers to
sign.”

  She nodded absently, barely aware of him fading away. She had always read that when you returned to your childhood home it looked far smaller than you remembered, possibly more shabby. She was, therefore, somewhat taken aback at how huge the rooms appeared, how dripping in expensive artwork, rugs, crystal chandeliers, and silver- and gold-worked pieces that, to her eye, belonged in a museum. Money was everywhere to be seen, but her father was not. Jason Bourne had erased him from the scene with the thoroughness of a professional. And yet so much of her father remained, calling to her as she went from room to room, then up the stairs to the second floor, down the hall to the right, at the far end of which was her father’s bedroom suite.

  Standing on the threshold, she pushed the door open but did not walk in. Staring at the round bed, she wondered how many women her father had fucked since the morning she had walked in to see him on top of some woman. A great many, she would imagine. As for her mother’s identity, Ouyang had gathered conclusive proof only several months ago. She was certain that, on the other side of the world, he was wondering if she was going to see Constanza Camargo. After all, her house was just on the other side of the park, at the corner of Alejandro Dumas and Luis G Urbina.

  Entering the room, she skirted the bed and stood by the window, gazing out at the trees of Lincoln Park. She thought she could see that house on the corner of Alejandro Dumas and Luis G Urbina, but possibly it was only her imagination. She conjured an image of her father, but almost immediately it vanished like a stone drowned in a lake. Unconsciously, through the shantung silk of her handbag, she touched a small jade box, precious as a Burmese pigeon-blood ruby. A gift from Ouyang, it contained a sheet of paper, folded twice into a small square. Written on the paper was the name and current address of Constanza, Maricruz’s mother, who, Ouyang assured her, was still alive. She carried the box with her, touching it periodically as if it were a talisman.