The Bourne Retribution

by Eric Van Lustbader

  The walls, painted a pale green, were covered with black-and-white photos of slim pearl divers swimming powerfully underwater, surfacing in glittering stop-motion sprays of water, grinning as they displayed their finds, as they dug pearls out of the tender, meaty flesh. Behind his simple desk was a wall safe and a filing cabinet. His swivel chair groaned as he lowered himself.

  He waved them to jute-seated chairs and, smiling, though his racing heart was increasingly troubled, said, “How can I help you, little sister?”

  “This afternoon Wei-Wei was killed, but I imagine you know this because you know everything that goes on in Shanghai.”

  Zhang did not contradict her with false modesty. He did know everything that went on in his city—everything of import. Instead he said, “Go on.”

  “Three days ago, Wei-Wei hired me to keep him safe.”

  Zhang nodded, studying her carefully.

  “I failed,” Yue said miserably. “He was killed by Amma. You know Amma.”

  “I do.” There was no point in denying the obvious.

  “You knew him,” Bourne corrected. “Yue shot him with a dart dipped in a cyanide derivative.”

  Zhang pressed his thumb and forefinger into his eyes, massaging a headache that was forming behind them.

  “Why did Colonel Sun send Amma to kill Wei-Wei?” Bourne asked.

  Zhang hesitated a moment. “You know who Sun works for?” he asked Bourne.

  “Ouyang Jidan.”

  Zhang nodded appreciatively. “So you know the players.”

  “Not all, I think.”

  “Allow me, then, to describe them to you.” The big man shifted his bulk. “Ouyang is in a battle to the death with his nemesis, Cho Xilan. Both men are in the Politburo, but that’s where any similarity ends. Cho is the secretary of the powerful Chongqing Party—stocked with reactionaries ready to set China back three decades or more. On the other hand, Ouyang is a progressive.”

  “He’s also up to his eyeballs in the drug trade out of Mexico,” Bourne said.

  Zhang raised a porky forefinger. “And therein lies the rub. For years now, Cho has been trying to catch Ouyang in this game, but Ouyang has always succeeded in outsmarting him. Now, however, because of the imminent Party Congress that will set new leaders in the Politburo and determine the direction of the country for the next decade, their feud is coming to a head.

  “Cho will do anything to uncover Ouyang’s illegitimate dealings with the Mexican cartels, and now, perhaps, he’s found the crack in Ouyang’s armor. Maceo Encarnación’s recent death has changed everything. Up until that point, Encarnación was acting as Ouyang’s shield; he made Ouyang invulnerable. Now he’s gone and, sensing victory, Cho is closing in for the kill. On the other hand, Cho is so desperate to get Ouyang he may have left himself open to an attack.”

  Yue shook her head. “How does this have anything to do with Wei-Wei’s murder?”

  “Ah, well,” Zhang said, “the largest of battles always begins at the margins, out of sight of the principals. It’s the way the principals want it.”

  He took out a bottle of whiskey and three glasses, pouring out dollops and handing over the glasses. He downed his drink in one gulp, then poured himself a double. “Wei-Wei is Ouyang’s creature.”

  “Wait a minute,” Bourne said. “He’s a Mossad asset.”

  Zhang smiled. “Welcome to Shanghai, dear sir.” He swallowed more whiskey, smacking his lips. “So now we have the first foray in the war’s endgame: Amma is controlled by Captain Lim, who reports to Colonel Sun. And you know who Colonel Sun reports to.”

  “Ouyang,” Bourne said. “But if what you say is correct, Ouyang ordered his own asset killed. Which means that Wei-Wei had become a liability.”

  At that moment the woman they had seen in the front of the shop entered the office, so clearly shaken that she did not even knock first. Hurrying around the side of the desk, she bent to whisper in Zhang’s ear.

  His eyes widened before he dismissed her. When they were alone again, he rolled his chair to one side and beckoned them. “Speaking of Captain Lim has summoned him from the precincts of hell.”

  “He’s here?” Bourne said.

  Zhang nodded. “With enough men to surround the shop.” He beckoned again. “Come, come! There’s no time to waste.”

  He pointed down to the small rug on which his chair had sat. Pulling it back on itself, Bourne discovered a cunningly fitted trapdoor.

  “It leads to the basement,” Zhang said as Bourne opened the door by pulling on a brass ring. “You’ll find a kerosene lamp and a box of wooden matches in a niche on the wall as you go down the ladder. An exit from the basement will lead you through a tunnel with many branchings. Keep always to the left. Just beyond the fourth branching you’ll find your way out.” He lifted a forefinger. “But have a care, the tunnels are old and crumbling.”

  They could hear a commotion from the front of the store—the insistent snap of Captain Lim’s voice and the answering wail of the woman who had delivered the news of his imminent arrival.

  “Quickly, now,” Zhang said. “Go, go! I’ll take care of our army friend.”

  Bourne went down a vertical wooden ladder, then, reaching up, took Yue in his arms. As they slowly descended, she pulled a cord that closed the door after them. A moment later they heard Captain Lim’s voice raised in anger and frustration seeping through the floorboards directly over their heads, then the sharp report of a handgun’s discharge.

  12

  Sam Zhang did not know that Retzach was Israeli, let alone a Kidon operative. He knew him as Jesse Long, and although he assumed that was a legend name he was not interested in his real one. He was not in the habit of digging into his clients’ private lives; any hint to them that he was snooping around would have caused his business to tank overnight.

  As a result, Captain Lim knew less about Retzach than Zhang did. Zhang did, however, know that Sun, through Lim, was looking for Bourne, which is why Zhang had contacted Lim and told him to meet “Jesse Long” at Dongbei Ren. There was a level of instant mutual dislike between the men, which only deepened for Lim when he discovered that Long was after the same man he had been tasked to capture.

  Long was properly vague when Lim asked him why he was trying to find Bourne, which led the captain to make the assumption—false though it was—that the Western operative was from the American Central Intelligence Agency.

  Lim, who had his men tracking Bourne since the incident in the Huangpu tunnel, had no intention of divulging to Long anything pertaining to Bourne. He feigned ignorance, but he was unsure whether or not Long believed him. His skepticism proved well founded when he discovered Long was shadowing him. Unluckily for him, he didn’t find this out until he had deployed his men around Sam Zhang’s pearl shop.

  Lim caught a glimpse of him in the crowd that was forming in the street along which The China Seas Pearl was located. Briefly, he thought about dispatching one of his men to detain Long, but decided that any hesitation on his part would give Bourne the chance he needed to escape.

  Striding into the shop, he ordered his men to clear out the customers in an orderly fashion, which proved more difficult than he had foreseen. The Western women who bought pearls from Zhang were all wealthy, their husbands powerful in business and politics. They weren’t used to being rounded up by cops—and Chinese ones, at that—and frog-marched out onto the street, there to be ogled like apes in a cage.

  Shouting matches arose. Then one woman shoved a cop who had gotten too close, and began to beat on him. A cry rose up from the surrounding crowd. As they began to surge forward, Lim knew the trouble was about to escalate. He sent his trusted lieutenant out the front door to deal with the crisis while he rushed through the now nearly deserted shop, pulled open the door to Zhang’s office, and roughly pushed his way through the opening.

  What he saw was this: Sam Zhang, massive as a whale, sitting behind his desk, drinking whiskey from a glass. A second glass sat beside the bott
le, and when Lim rushed in, Zhang leaned his bulk forward, chair loudly creaking in protest, filled a third of the glass, and pushed it across the desktop.

  “Welcome, Captain. This is a surprise.”

  “I’ll bet it is,” Lim said caustically.

  Zhang smiled. “Sit down. Have a drink. You look like you need to calm your nerves.”

  “Where is he?” Lim said, hands on hips.

  “Where’s who?”

  Lim stepped forward menacingly. “Don’t give me that.” He reached for his holstered sidearm. “Jason Bourne.”

  “That name is unfamiliar to me,” Zhang said truthfully.

  “He was seen going in here.”

  Zhang shrugged. “Then he left. I’ve only been visited by my little sister, Yue.”

  “Listen, now—”

  “She was hurt, you know. She—”

  Lim raised his pistol and fired at the ceiling. Plaster rained down across Sam Zhang’s desk. He was just able to save his glass of whiskey, but the one he’d poured for Lim was now filled with shards and dust.

  “You’ve wasted a glass of fine whiskey, Captain.” Zhang shook his head. “Unforgivable behavior.”

  Lim lowered his pistol. “The next one will go through your heart.”

  “And where will that get you, Captain? I’m telling the truth. The man you’re seeking isn’t here.”

  “Where is he, then?”

  “How should I know?”

  Lim clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “I will find him, Zhang. This I promise you.”

  “Captain, it really makes no difference to me what you do,” he said to Lim’s back as he disappeared through the open doorway.

  When the police had gone and the shop was his again, Zhang pulled out an oversize handkerchief and wiped his face.

  Gods and demons, he thought. I’m getting too damn old for this.

  In pitch darkness Bourne grabbed the lantern and box of matches he had glimpsed before Yue closed the trapdoor. Lighting the lantern, Yue, in his arms, held it high so that they could get as much light into the basement as possible.

  At the bottom of the ladder, they found themselves in cramped quarters. The ceiling was so low it was impossible for Bourne to stand up straight.

  “Let me down,” Yue whispered.

  As soon as her feet hit the floor, she tested her ankle. She nodded to him and mouthed, “I’m okay.”

  But as they picked their way toward the tunnel’s aperture, he could see her grimace every time she put weight on her wounded ankle. Surely she wouldn’t be able to walk far, let alone run, if the situation called for it.

  The basement was like a warehouse, filled with crates nailed shut and cartons bound with heavy twine. They maneuvered through a narrow aisle between two walls of stacks that rose to the ceiling. Once, Yue’s leg faltered and she put a hand on a dusty box to steady herself. She shook off Bourne’s offer to help.

  “I’m not going to be a burden to anyone,” she whispered fiercely.

  The mouth of the tunnel was clear enough. Once, it had been closed off and later boarded up. They saw remnants of rotten boards bound by iron no one had bothered to throw out. Gripping two of the boards, Bourne paused a moment to work one of the iron bands free. It was about eight inches long and still solid.

  They reached the opening of the tunnel. Even Yue had to bend somewhat in order to enter it. It reeked of filth, metallic water, decay, and centuries of human squalor. Bourne took the lantern from her and led the way. The tunnel initially sloped steeply downward before leveling off. It appeared hand dug out of the earth, supported at intervals by thick wooden beams. Above their heads were the floorboards of adjacent basements. A trickle of water had runneled the center of the tunnel’s packed-dirt floor, making even the simple act of walking difficult. Occasionally he heard tiny scrabbling sounds and saw pairs of red eyes. A flash of light revealed rats, large and active.

  Suddenly Bourne heard a different kind of sound behind him, turned to see Yue stumble again. Despite her protestations, he took her again in his arms and began to move forward.

  “Damn you,” she sighed. “I’m not helpless.”

  “But you’re in pain.”

  “You don’t know anything about pain.”

  They came to the first branching, and, as Zhang had directed, Bourne headed left.

  “No?” Anything to keep her from dwelling on her physical pain. “Please tell me.”

  Yue was silent for a moment. Then she said softly, falteringly, “My father was a writer, a dissident. He wrote about the corruption inside the Politburo—the special farms its members got their food from, while everyone else was eating food contaminated with heavy metals, adulterated with melamine.

  “You can imagine what happened. He was arrested on trumped-up charges and sentenced to twenty years at hard labor. My mother began her protests the day he was convicted. Two weeks later, they came for her, tried her on charges of sedition, and took her away, God alone knows where.

  “I was seven at the time they took her. I admire what my parents did, but they had no regard for me or my life. I was given over to my mother’s brother. He hated my father for what he had done to my mother. Having no one else to take out his hatred on, he beat me, starved me, locked me in a closet. One day, I escaped and never went back. I was eleven. Four years with him; four years in hell.”

  Bourne heard her breathing hard, as if she had just finished a sprint. He came to the second fork and again went left. He thought about his own years in hell—the hell of not knowing who he was, where he was from, anything about his parents. Into his mind swam the many people who had been close to him, now all dead. But most of all, he thought of Rebeka, of their time together, of her bravery and her determination. He thought of dragging her through a drainpipe in Mexico City—so eerily similar to these moments with Yue—unable to stanch the bleeding of the knife wound in her side. He thought of her bleeding out in the back of a taxi as he sped toward help that would come too late. He felt the small star of David he had taken from her, which he could not give up at her memorial service in Tel Aviv, which he kept with him because he could not let go of her.

  He had wondered about this, ruminated on it during his time of convalescence on the beach at Caesarea, but could come to no good conclusion. So much of himself was still unknown. Apart from the skills ingrained in him during his time in the original Treadstone program, he did not know who he was or what motivated him beyond an overriding sense of justice and deep-seated anger, a sadness, almost a kind of despair. There were times when he’d wondered if he suffered from a lack of empathy—a sure sign of psychosis. But then Rebeka—or someone like her—would come along and for a time he’d feel deeply and completely, and his fear would be assuaged. Then, inevitably, the person would die, and he would be left alone again, vowing never to allow himself to feel again. His life had resolved itself into a kind of seesawing back and forth between these two volatile points, depriving him of a sense of balance and serenity. He was a man adrift on a half-wrecked ship, so far out to sea no land was visible, in a perpetual fog-bound night that made any course correction impossible.

  A sound from behind them brought him back to the tunnel. It sounded like someone kicking a small stone.

  “There’s someone following us,” Yue whispered.

  He was at a third branching; one more to go. Instead of going left this time, he went into the right-hand fork. He kicked at a couple of rats, sending them skittering away. Setting Yue carefully down in front of the lantern, so the light could not be seen by anyone behind them, he turned to face the way they had come.

  Retzach had waited until Captain Lim and his police contingent had begun their quartering of the area around The China Seas Pearl, leaving the shop to return to its business. Then he went inside, mingling with the Western women in their expensive outfits who were determined to get their bargains, despite their having been treated like cattle by the Shanghai police. In fact, it was for that very r
eason—to show their contempt for the civil authorities—that they crowded inside.

  Retzach slipped in with them. Immediately he saw that the two saleswomen were so overtaxed, it would be child’s play to slip past them without being seen or challenged.

  He didn’t bother to knock on the office door, but instead shoved it open and went inside. Zhang looked up, startled to see someone else in his office. For a moment he didn’t recognize Retzach, then he sighed.

  “What is it, Mr. Long? I’ve been having a trying day.”

  “So I understand.” Retzach stepped across the room. “Well, I won’t keep you but a moment.”

  As he came around the side of the desk, Zhang said, “What are you doing?”

  “Do you know the meaning of blunt-force trauma?” Retzach said as he slammed the side of his snub-nosed Beretta Px4 Storm against the top of the fat man’s head.

  Zhang rocked so far back in his chair, Retzach was forced to grab him to keep him from falling out. As Zhang’s bloodshot eyes cleared, Retzach leaned over and placed the muzzle of the 9 mm against his temple and, finger on the trigger, said, “Bourne came into this shop, but he didn’t come out. Where the fuck is he hiding?”

  Zhang looked up at him. “Like I told Captain Lim—”

  “I’m not Captain Lim. I will fucking spatter your brains all over the walls of this office and then I’ll tear the place apart.”

  Zhang tried to take a breath, failed. “I don’t want Yue hurt.”

  “Who’s Yue?”

  “She’s like my daughter. She’s with this man.”

  “I don’t give a shit about her.”

  “She can’t get hurt.”

  “This isn’t a negotiation.”