The Bourne Retribution

by Eric Van Lustbader

  22

  The first thing Maricruz saw when she opened her eyes was a blindingly white wall. The nauseatingly sweet stink of antiseptic filled her nostrils, making her want to gag. She heard the measured beeping of a heart rate and blood pressure monitor. Shifting her gaze, she saw a needle stuck into the inside of her elbow. A thin tube was attached to the needle. A clear fluid dripped into her vein.

  “Don’t worry,” a familiar male voice said, “it’s only to keep you hydrated.”

  Her gaze shifted yet again and she saw Carlos Danda Carlos, dressed neatly in a summer-weight suit, sitting by her bedside.

  “Where?” The words stuck in her throat and she licked her dry, chapped lips. She stared again. “Where am I?”

  “Hospital Ángeles Pedregal,” Carlos said. “You’ve been severely beaten.” He cocked his head. “Do you remember that?”

  A nurse bustled in, shooing Carlos away for the moment.

  “How are we feeling?” she said with a smile as she began to change several dressings on Maricruz’s shoulder, chest, and right hip. Clearly, she wasn’t interested in eliciting an answer, which was just as well. Maricruz was in no mood to make small talk.

  “You,” she said officiously to Carlos, “don’t stay too long. She needs her rest.”

  “Niñera,” Carlos said, “do you know who I am?”

  “I don’t care if you’re God himself,” she said stiffly. “This is my house, this is my patient, and these are my rules.”

  With a twitch of his lips, Carlos inclined his head, forgetting about her the instant the door closed behind her. He returned his attention to Maricruz, but instead of sitting back down he chose to stand over her, clearly reestablishing the pecking order in the room.

  “Has your memory improved?”

  In her current state, she couldn’t tell whether he was being hostile or solicitous, and this lack of clarity concerned her greatly. She knew she would need all her analytical faculties at their cutting edge in order to accomplish her goal. Outwitting Carlos would be no easy task in the best of times, and right now she was far from that longed-for state.

  “I’m tired,” she said, and it was no lie. “Please let me sleep.”

  For a terrifying moment, Carlos studied her with the critical eye of a collector. Then his lips twitched again and he nodded.

  “One of my men will be right outside at all times. When you’re feeling up to it, let him know and we’ll speak again, at length this time.” At the door, he turned back to her and bared his teeth. “I wish you only sweet dreams, señora.”

  Sometime during the flight to Tel Aviv, Bourne sank into a dream. He stood on a sun-washed shore. Behind him rose the gap-toothed ruins of a Roman town. Seagulls called. The sun had barely risen in the eastern sky, and a fresh wind was blowing in from the endless plain of the sea.

  He heard her coming up behind him, though she was barefoot in the sand.

  “Did you miss me?” Rebeka said.

  Bourne felt the words of his reply stick in his throat.

  She put her arms around him and he felt her body press against him as warmly as the morning sunlight on his face.

  “I missed you.”

  “You’ve been gone a long time,” he managed to say.

  “I’ve been very far away.”

  He wanted to turn around, but something prevented him.

  “What was it like, where you were?”

  “A land of shadows. That’s all I remember.”

  He felt a constriction around his heart. “You’re back. That’s what’s important.”

  He turned around, then, within the curve of her arms, only to find that he was being embraced by Maricruz Encarnación. She was grinning wolfishly.

  “Soon enough,” she said, “you will miss me.”

  He pushed her violently away. She tumbled, and immediately the sand embraced her, covering her as if she had never existed. He turned to find himself alone on the deserted beach, the endless sea lapping at his toes, drawing the wet sand from under his feet. He was miles from nowhere…

  He awoke to find Yue sitting next to him.

  “I came over to see if you were all right.”

  “Why wouldn’t I be all right?” He was annoyed at her for engaging him at this moment, while he was still entangled in the last strands of his curious dream.

  “You were talking in your sleep,” she said.

  “What did I say?”

  “You were calling her name.”

  “What name?” Bourne asked. Had it been Rebeka?

  Yue looked at him. “Maricruz.”

  Bourne turned away to stare out the window, but there was nothing to see except Rebeka’s face.

  When he turned back to Yue, she said, “Thank you for saving us. I hope our information helps you.” She paused for a moment, something unpleasant clearly on her mind. “These Israelis—we don’t know them. They’re aliens to us. We don’t know their motivations. We can’t trust them.”

  “Speak plainly, Yue.”

  “We’ll talk to you, not to them.”

  “They’re the ones who brought you out of China.”

  “They’re the conduit,” she said. “You brought us out.”

  He could tell by her expression there was no point in arguing further. He nodded. “I’ll tell them.”

  “I mean it.”

  “I know.” He tried to make his tone reassuring. “How do you know so much about Ouyang’s wife?”

  Yue smiled her sly smile. “A proprietary underground exists. Even in China, women know how to weasel out information about other women.”

  Bourne laughed, dissipated the last of the hangover from his dream. “Universal truths.”

  “Like faith,” she said.

  Just under eight hours later, Carlos was again standing over Maricruz. This time, however, she was sitting up, after just having finished a breakfast of soft-boiled eggs, toast, and coffee. Her room was huge, more like a hotel suite than a hospital room. She supposed that came with being a VIP championed by Carlos himself.

  “The cobwebs are gone from my head,” she said in her normal voice. And it was true. The sleep had done wonders; her mind was clear and working at its usual full speed.

  “Wonderful news,” Carlos said, in a tone of voice that reminded her of the undertaker who had seen to her father’s repatriated corpse. “May we speak candidly?”

  “Always,” Maricruz said, thinking, Here we go.

  “Beautiful. Now, can you remember what happened?”

  “Like it just happened,” she said with a genuine shudder. She was acutely aware of Carlos’s suspicion, and had determined the best way to deal with it. She manufactured a defiant expression, the opposite of what he would be expecting. “It’s damn difficult making friends in this country.”

  Carlos grunted. “Outsiders always make the same complaint.”

  “Just an observation.”

  “You seem to have forgotten our conversation outside the cantina.” He could not keep the edge of anger out of his voice. “What happened to you?”

  “They beat me,” she said. “As you can plainly see.”

  “My eyesight is twenty-twenty. The question before us is who beat you, señora?”

  She turned her face away from him. Giving up the information he was seeking that easily was not in the cards. She had to make him sweat, otherwise his suspicions would grow.

  “You do not want to say?” He stepped closer, so that he was right beside her. “Why would that be?” Crossing his arms over his chest, he tapped his foot like an impatient schoolmaster. “Come, come, señora. Surely the time for reticence is past. Why won’t you tell me?”

  “Because,” she said with just the right note of bruise in her voice, “I refuse to be humiliated.”

  Her words—the ones he must have been longing to hear—acted as a trigger. He put a hand lightly on her knee. “In this room, Maricruz, in front of me, you cannot be humiliated.”

  His switch to her Christian
name was the key that unlocked the first door. Now she walked through, heading directly into the heart of him. She had succeeded in making him complicit in her emotion; she had set up a powerful bond on which the next phase of the conversation would be based.

  “When a friend betrays you,” she said slowly, “you cannot help but feel humiliated.”

  “Violated, perhaps—yes, I can understand that.” He smiled thinly. “But you see, Maricruz, violated is how you have made me feel.”

  “I? How?”

  “Hours after I left San Luis Potosí, Los Zetas slaughtered Raul Giron and his lieutenants, effectively destroying the Sinaloa infrastructure.”

  Maricruz stitched a puzzled look on her face. “But, Carlos, is that not what we spoke about that night?”

  “What?”

  She could see that she had taken him completely by surprise, and she smiled inside. The beating was already starting to pay dividends.

  “Didn’t you tell me that Giron and Matamoros were a part of the past, that you and I were the future?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Well, I had to start somewhere. Now Giron is dead.”

  He stared at her wide-eyed. “And you were beaten—”

  “Because Matamoros was convinced that I had conspired with you to bring the government helos down on him and his cadre. He was certain that you had left prematurely because of a deal you and I had made.” The stricken expression on his face inspired her to continue. “In that he wasn’t wrong.” She shrugged. “As a practical lesson to both of us, he had me beaten and dumped on your doorstep.”

  “Then we must create our own lesson. We must make certain he knows that he cannot punish us.” He put his hand on her again. “But now you must rest. We will see each other again, when you are stronger.” He smiled back at her, his hand on the knob of the door. “You continue to surprise me, Maricruz. That is a good thing.”

  In Tel Aviv, Bourne met with Director Yadin and Amir Ophir. This was not what he wanted, but it was what he had to endure. Ophir had sent Retzach to kill him, either with or without Yadin’s consent. Either way, he could not trust either man. Once again, as so often in his life, he seemed to be treading in quicksand. Once again, he had only himself to trust in—only his own instincts to keep the treacherous wolves at bay.

  “I should throw you the hell out of here,” the Director thundered as soon as Bourne arrived, “considering the stunt you pulled.”

  “After I found the tracker in the passport, you gave me no choice,” Bourne replied.

  “We always protect our assets,” Ophir said. “Standard operating procedure.”

  “I’m not one of your assets,” Bourne shot back.

  “Then what are you doing here? You asked us to get you out of Shanghai—with a couple of nationals of dubious value in tow.”

  “They know far more than you do about Ouyang and Sun, but they won’t speak to you, only to me.”

  “You see?” Ophir said with open disgust. “I told you using him was a mistake from the get-go.”

  “Now we know where we stand,” Bourne said.

  “Your Chinese pals are now ours. We do with them what we want.”

  “They’re human beings, not chattel.”

  “They are what we say they are!”

  “That’s enough!” Yadin was fuming. “Stand down, Amir.”

  “But, Director—”

  “No buts,” Yadin said, cutting him off. “I’ll have the room.”

  After a small hesitation, Ophir stalked out, but not before shooting Bourne a venomous look. Was it Bourne’s imagination or had there been a hint of fear in that glance?

  When the door closed behind him, the Director sighed. “In the old days,” he said as he went around behind his desk, “one never had to endure bad manners.” He sat down wearily. “In fact, there was none at all. It wasn’t tolerated.”

  “What’s changed?”

  “Everything.” The Director waved him to a seat. “The Arabs, us, the world. Nothing is what it used to be. Old alliances crumble, friends slink away in the night, and the shadows gather around us with ever-increasing evil intent.”

  Elbows on desk, he steepled his fingers. His eyes were pale, his expression bleak. “I imagine you’re wondering why I keep Amir on.”

  “When it comes to clandestine organizations,” Bourne said, “nothing is what it seems and there is no room for rationality.”

  The Director nodded his shaggy head. “Too true. Well, I’ll tell you anyway. He’s the best I have.” His hands spread, spatulate. “That’s the worst indictment of what has become of all of us—the long, inevitable slide into the darkness of incivility.”

  When Bourne made no reply, he nodded. “All right, mistakes were made on both sides.”

  “I couldn’t afford for you to have eyes on me in Shanghai.”

  “There was a man,” the Director said, almost distractedly, “but I had Amir pull him.”

  This was the moment, Bourne thought, to tell Yadin about Ophir’s treachery. But no, there was another, better way, and he said nothing.

  Yadin drummed his fingers on the desktop. “About the Chinese nationals.”

  “Keep them away from Ophir, tend them as you would a garden,” Bourne said, “and they will bear fruit.”

  “I can’t have you talking to them,” Yadin said. “You understand.”

  “It doesn’t matter. Tomorrow I’ll be gone.”

  The Director raised his eyebrows. “Where are you going?”

  Bourne smiled.

  23

  Deng Tsu lived in the clouds—literally and figuratively. His palatial residence sprawled across the top floor—eight hundred feet above street level—of the Fortune Plaza Office Building. The offices of his many interconnected businesses resided ten floors below this residence, making it possible for him to shuttle between the two without ever having to walk outside into Beijing’s often near-toxic atmosphere.

  Approaching his eighty-seventh year of existence, Deng Tsu, Patriarch of the most influential revolutionary family in a constellation that had never lacked for influence, was still as vital as he had been in his fifty-fifth year. He swam daily in his private saltwater pool, practiced both tai chi and aikido with handpicked masters, and meditated for an hour each morning and evening without fail. He was never ill, an exalted state he attributed to his rigorous routine, his staying current on every nuance of his businesses as well as the business of China itself, and taking to bed a different woman three times a week.

  Of course, diet was important—he was religious about what he ingested—but where would he be without his ground rhino horn and freeze-dried tiger paw to keep him as virile as a teenager?

  Deng Tsu received Minister Ouyang in traditional Mandarin dress, which he always wore when he was home. Ten floors down he was never seen without a smart Huntsman bespoke suit, John Lobb brogues, and a Hilditch & Key Sea Island cotton shirt.

  “Tea and cakes have been prepared,” Deng said without preamble as he led Ouyang to what was commonly known as the sunroom—a glass-enclosed solarium in which were planted a profusion of prizewinning roses and orchids in beds set all around the sides.

  In the center of the room were cushions on either side of an antique paulownia-wood scholar’s table meticulously set with a lacquer tea service and small plates of what Deng had termed cakes but were actually rounds of baked seaweed. Deng ingested no sugar.

  The two men sat. Deng poured tea in the ritualistic manner of the old Mandarins. They shared the first cup in companionable silence. Amid the soft, humid air, perfumed by the roses, their velvet petals outstretched like welcoming arms, the cacophony, sandy grit, and pollution of the teeming city seemed a thousand miles away.

  “Now, younger brother,” Deng said as he refilled their cups, “what brings you to my eyrie?” In Deng’s world, the second cup of tea was for questions, the third cup for discussion, the fourth for answers.

  “I imagine you think it’s Cho and his conservativ
es,” Ouyang said, “but they’re only part of the problem.”

  “Explain.”

  “I am speaking now of Ling’s son’s death.”

  “Yes, a terrible tragedy—but those Italian cars—a Ferrari, wasn’t it?—are notoriously difficult to control.”

  “Especially when the driver had consumed a great quantity of alcohol. Especially when the driver is partying with two girls in the car with him.”

  “Your point, Ouyang?”

  “Those girls are still in critical condition.”

  “They’re not my concern.”

  “Oh, but they are, Patriarch. Just as the horribly botched cover-up of the crash is your concern.”

  Deng turned away, stared out the window at the tops of buildings, lost in a mist as dense as a Gobi sandstorm.

  Ouyang sipped at his tea, which was so exquisitely delicious that in other circumstances it might have been distracting. “The stain of this incident, pointing up the profligacy of the elite, has traveled all the way up to the president.”

  Deng drew his liver-colored lips together. “It’s true that Ling is the president’s protégé and political fixer.”

  “This incident has already begun to weaken the president’s position. It has made him look corrupt, if not outright foolish.”

  Deng turned back, his face livid. “You have no right to make these outrageous accusations!”

  “I am only echoing the news,” Ouyang said.

  “You are not the first one to bring it to my attention.”

  “Ignore it at your peril, Patriarch.”

  Deng stared at Ouyang, blinking slowly as an owl. At length, he sighed. “I suppose you have an answer to the problem.”

  “Your forebear made a compact with the people.”

  Deng inclined his head. “What has come to be known as the Grand Bargain.”

  “That’s right. He—and now we—promised to raise the people’s standard of living, to modernize the economy, in exchange for keeping us in power, no questions asked.”