The Bourne Sanction

by Eric Van Lustbader

  “If I’m bad, I learned it at my mother’s breast.”

  Arkadin looked away. He seemed to have trouble breathing. Without a word, he opened the door, bolted outside, stalking in small circles like a lion in the zoo.

  I cannot be alone,” Arkadin had said to Semion Icoupov, and Icoupov had taken him at his word. At Icoupov’s villa where Arkadin was installed, his host provided a young man. But when, a week later, Arkadin had beaten his companion nearly into a coma, Icoupov switched tactics. He spent hours with Arkadin, trying to determine the root of his outbursts of fury. This failed utterly, as Arkadin seemed at a loss to remember, let alone explain these frightening episodes.

  “I don’t know what to do with you,” Icoupov said. “I don’t want to incarcerate you, but I need to protect myself.”

  “I would never harm you,” Arkadin said.

  “Not knowingly, perhaps,” the older man said ruminatively.

  The following week a stoop-shouldered man with a formal goatee and colorless lips spent every afternoon with Arkadin. He sat in a plush upholstered chair, one leg crossed over the other, writing in a neat, crabbed hand in a tablet notebook he protected as if it were his child. For his part, Arkadin lay on his host’s favorite chaise longue, a roll pillow behind his head. He answered questions. He spoke at length about many things, but the things that shadowed his mind he kept tucked away in a black corner of the deepest depths of his mind, never to be spoken of. That door was closed forever.

  At the end of three weeks, the psychiatrist handed in his report to Icoupov and vanished as quickly as he had appeared. No matter. Arkadin’s nightmares continued to haunt him in the dead of night when, upon awakening with a gasp and a start, he was convinced he heard rats scuttling, red eyes burning in the darkness. At those moments, the fact that Icoupov’s villa was completely vermin-free was of no solace to him. The rats lived inside him squirming, shrieking, feeding.

  The next person Icoupov employed to burrow into Arkadin’s past in an attempt to cure him of his fits of rage was a woman whose sensuality and lush figure he felt would keep her safe from Arkadin’s outbursts of fury. Marlene was adept at handling men of all kinds and kinks. She possessed an uncanny ability to sense the specific thing a man desired from her, and provide it.

  At first Arkadin didn’t trust Marlene. Why should he? He couldn’t trust the psychiatrist. Wasn’t she just another form of analyst sent to coax out the secrets of his past? Marlene of course noted this aversion in him and set about countering it. The way she saw it, Arkadin was living under a spell, self-induced or otherwise. It was up to her to concoct an antidote.

  “This won’t be a short process,” she told Icoupov at the end of her first week with Arkadin, and he believed her.

  Arkadin observed Marlene walking on little cat feet. He suspected she was smart enough to know that even the slightest misstep on her part might strike him as a seismic shift, and then all the progress she’d made in gaining his trust would evaporate like alcohol over a flame. She seemed to him wary, acutely aware that at any moment he could turn on her. She acted as if she were in a cage with a bear. Day by day you could track the training of it, but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t unexpectedly rip your face off.

  Arkadin had to laugh at that, the care with which she was treating every aspect of him. But gradually something else began to creep into his consciousness. He suspected that she was coming to feel something genuine for him.

  Devra watched Arkadin through the windshield. Then she kicked open her door, went after him. She shaded her eyes against a white sun plastered to a high, pale sky.

  “What is it?” she said when she’d caught up to him. “What did I say?”

  Arkadin turned a murderous look her way. He appeared to be in a towering rage, just barely holding himself together. Devra found herself wondering what would happen if he let himself go, but she also didn’t want to be in his way when it happened.

  She felt an urge to touch him, to speak soothingly until he returned to a calmer state of mind, but she sensed that would only inflame him further. So she went back to the car to wait patiently for him to return.

  Eventually he did, sitting sideways on the seat, his shoes on the ground as if he might bolt again.

  “I’m not going to fuck you,” he said, “but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to.”

  She felt he wanted to say something else, but couldn’t, that whatever it was was too bound up in what had happened to him a long time ago.

  “It was a joke,” she said softly. “I was making a stupid joke.”

  “There was a time when I would’ve thought nothing of it,” he said, as if talking to himself. “Sex is unimportant.”

  She sensed that he was speaking about something else, something only he knew, and she glimpsed just how alone he was. She suspected that even in a crowd, even with friends—if he had any—he’d feel alone. It seemed to her that he’d walled himself off from sexual melding because it would underscore the depth of his apartness. He seemed to her to be a moonless planet with no sun to revolve around. Just emptiness everywhere as far as he could see. In that moment she realized that she loved him.

  How long has he been in there?” Luther LaValle asked.

  “Six days,” General Kendall replied. He was in his shirtsleeves, which were turned up. That precaution hadn’t been enough to protect them from spatters of blood. “But I guarantee that to him it feels like six months. He’s as disoriented as it’s possible for a human being to be.”

  LaValle grunted, peering at the bearded Arab through the one-way mirror. The man looked like a raw piece of meat. LaValle didn’t know or care whether he was Sunni or Shi’a. They were the same to him—terrorists bent on destroying his way of life. He took these matters very personally.

  “What’s he given up?”

  “Enough that we know the copies of the Typhon intercepts Batt has given us are disinformation.”

  “Still,” LaValle said, “it comes straight from Typhon.”

  “This man’s very highly placed, there’s no question whatsoever of his identity, and he knows of no plans moving into their final stages to hit a major New York building.”

  “That in itself could be disinformation,” LaValle said. “These bastards are masters of that kind of shit.”

  “Right.” Kendall wiped his hands on a towel he’d thrown over his shoulder like a chef at the stove. “They love nothing better than to see us running around in circles, chasing our tails, which is what we’ll be doing if we put out an alert.”

  LaValle nodded, as if to himself. “I want our best people to follow up on it. Confirm the Typhon intercepts.”

  “We’ll do our best, but I feel it my duty to report that the prisoner laughed in my face when I asked him about this terrorist group.”

  LaValle snapped his fingers several times. “What are they called again?”

  “The Black Lesion, the Black Legion, something like that.”

  “Nothing in our database about this group?”

  “No, or at any of our sister agencies, either.” Kendall threw the soiled towel into a basket whose contents were incinerated every twelve hours. “It doesn’t exist.”

  “I tend to agree,” LaValle said, “but I’d like to be certain.”

  He turned from the window, and the two men went out of the viewing room. They walked down a rough concrete corridor painted an institutional green, the buzzing fluorescent tubes that hurled purple shadows on the linoleum floor as they passed. He waited patiently outside the locker room for Kendall to change his clothes; then they proceeded down the corridor. At the end of it they climbed a flight of stairs to a reinforced metal door.

  LaValle pressed his forefinger onto a fingerprint reader. He was rewarded by the clicking of bolts being shot, not unlike a bank vault opening.

  They found themselves in another corridor, the polar opposite of the one they were leaving. This one was paneled in polished mahogany; wall sconces produced a soft, buttery glow between
paintings of historical naval engagements, phalanxes of Roman legions, Prussian Hussars, and English light cavalry.

  The first door on the left brought them into a room straight out of a high-toned men’s club, replete with hunter-green walls, cream moldings, leather furniture, antique breakfronts, and a wooden bar from an old English pub. The sofas and chairs were well spaced, the better to allow occupants to speak of private matters. Flames cracked and sparked comfortingly in a large fireplace.

  A liveried butler met them before they’d taken three steps on the thick, sound-deadening carpet. He guided them to their accustomed spot, in a discreet corner where two high-backed leather chairs were arranged on either side of a mahogany pedestal card table. They were near a tall, mullioned window flanked by thick drapes, which overlooked the Virginia countryside. This club-like room, known as the Library, was in an enormous stone house that the NSA had taken over decades ago. It was used as a retreat as well as for formal dinners for the generals and directors of the organization. Its lower depths, however, were used for other purposes.

  When they had ordered drinks and light refreshments, and were alone again, LaValle said, “Do we have a line on Bourne yet?”

  “Yes and no.” Kendall crossed one leg over the other, arranging the crease in his trousers. “As per our previous briefing, he came onto the grid at six thirty-seven last night, passing through Immigration at Dulles. He was booked on a Lufthansa flight to Moscow. Had he showed we could’ve put McNally onto the flight.”

  “Bourne’s far too clever for that,” LaValle grumbled. “He knows we’re after him now. The element of surprise has been neutralized, dammit.”

  “We managed to discover that he boarded a NextGen Energy Solutions corporate jet.”

  Like a hunting dog on alert, Lavalle’s head came up. “Really? Explain.”

  “An executive by the name of Moira Trevor was on it.”

  “What is she to Bourne?”

  “A question we’re trying to answer,” Kendall said unhappily. He hated disappointing his boss. “In the meantime, we obtained a copy of the flight plan. The destination was Munich. Shall I activate a point man there?”

  “Don’t waste your time.” LaValle waved a hand. “My money’s on Moscow. That’s where he meant to go, that’s where he’s going.”

  “I’ll get right on it.” Kendall opened his cell phone.

  “I want Anthony Prowess.”

  “He’s in Afghanistan.”

  “Then pull him the fuck out,” LaValle said shortly. “Get him on a military chopper. I want him on the ground in Moscow by the time Bourne gets there.”

  Kendall nodded, punched in a special encrypted number, and typed the coded text message to Prowess.

  LaValle smiled at the approaching waiter. “Thank you, Willard,” he said as the man snapped out a starched white tablecloth, arranged the glasses of whiskey, small plates of nibbles, and cutlery on the table, then departed as silently as he’d come.

  LaValle stared at the food. “It seems we’ve backed the wrong horse.”

  General Kendall knew he meant Rob Batt. “Soraya Moore witnessed the debacle. She’s put two and two together in short order. Batt told us he knew about Hart’s meet with Bourne because he was in her office when Bourne’s call came in. Other than the Moore woman, who else is she likely to have told? No one. That’ll lead Hart right back to the deputy director.”

  “Hang him out to dry.”

  Picking up his glass, Kendall said. “Time for Plan B.”

  LaValle stared into the chestnut liquid. “I always thank God for Plan B, Richard. Always.”

  Their glasses clinked together. They drank in studied silence while LaValle ruminated. When, half an hour later, they’d drained their whiskeys and new ones were in their hands, LaValle said, “On the subject of Soraya Moore, I do believe it’s time to bring her in for a chat.”

  “Private?”

  “Oh, yes.” LaValle added a dollop of water to his whiskey, releasing its complex scent. “Bring her here.”

  Fifteen

  TELL ME about Jason Bourne.”

  Harun Iliev, in an American Nike jogging suit identical to the one worn by his commander, Semion Icoupov, rounded the turn of the natural ice-skating rink in the heart of Grindelwald village. Harun had spent more than a decade as Icoupov’s second in command. As a boy he’d been adopted by Icoupov’s father, Farid, after his parents had drowned when a ferry taking them from Istanbul to Odessa had capsized. Harun, at the age of four, was visiting his grandmother there. The news of the deaths of her daughter and son-in-law sent her into cardiac arrest. She died almost instantly—which everyone involved felt was a blessing, for she lacked both the strength and the stamina to care for a four-year-old. Farid Icoupov stepped in, because Harun’s father had worked for him; the two were close.

  “There’s no easy answer,” Harun said now, “principally because there’s no one answer. Some swear he’s an agent of the American CI, others claim he’s an international assassin for hire. Clearly he can’t be both. What is indisputable is that he was responsible for foiling the plot to gas the attendees of the International Anti-Terrorist Conference in Reykjavik three years ago and, last year, the very real nuclear threat to Washington, DC, posed by Dujja, the terrorist group that was run by the two Wahhib brothers, Fadi and Karim al-Jamil. Rumor has it Bourne killed them both.”

  “Impressive, if true. But just the fact that no one can get a handle on him is of extreme interest.” Icoupov’s arms chugged up and down in perfect rhythm to his gliding back and forth. His cheeks were apple red and he smiled warmly at the children skating on either side of them, laughing when they laughed, giving encouragement when one of them fell. “And how did such a man get involved with Our Friend?”

  “Through the university in Georgetown,” Harun said. He was a slender man with the look of an accountant, which wasn’t helped by his sallow skin and the way his olive-pit eyes were sunk deep in his skull. Ice-skating did not come naturally to him as it did to Icoupov. “Besides killing people, it seems Bourne is something of a genius at linguistics.”

  “Is he now?”

  Even though they’d skated for more than forty minutes, Icoupov wasn’t breathing hard. Harun knew he was just getting warmed up. They were in spectacular country. The resort of Grindelwald was just under a hundred miles southeast of Bern. Above them towered three of Switzerland’s most famous mountains—Jungfrau, Mönch, and Eiger—glittering white with snow and ice.

  “It seems that Bourne’s weak spot is for a mentor. The first was a man named Alexander Conklin, who—”

  “I knew Alex,” Icoupov said curtly. “It was before your time. Another lifetime, it often seems.” He nodded. “Please continue.”

  “It seems Our Friend has made a play to become his new mentor.”

  “I must interject here. That seems improbable.”

  “Then why did Bourne kill Mikhail Tarkanian?”

  “Mischa.” Icoupov’s pace faltered for a moment. “Allah preserve us! Does Leonid Danilovich know?”

  “Arkadin is currently out of contact.”

  “What’s his progress?”

  “He’s come and gone from Sevastopol.”

  “That’s something, anyway.” Icoupov shook his head. “We’re running out of time.”

  “Arkadin knows this.”

  “I want Tarkanian’s death kept from him, Harun. Mischa was his best friend; they were closer than brothers. Under no circumstances can he be allowed to be distracted from his present assignment.”

  A lovely young woman held out her hand as she skated abreast of them. Icoupov took it and for a time was swept away in an ice dance that made him feel as if he were twenty again. When he returned, he resumed their skate around the rink. Something about the easy gliding motion of skating, he’d once told Harun, helped him to think.

  “Given what you’ve told me,” Icoupov said at length, “this Jason Bourne may very well cause an unforeseen complication.”


  “You can be sure Our Friend has recruited Bourne to his cause by telling him that you caused the death of—”

  Icoupov shot him a warning look. “I agree. But the question we must answer is how much of the truth he’s risked telling Bourne.”

  “Knowing Our Friend,” Harun said, “I would say very little, if at all.”

  “Yes.” Icoupov tapped a gloved forefinger against his lips. “And if this is the case we can use the truth against him, don’t you think?”

  “If we can get to Bourne,” Harun said. “And if we can get him to believe us.”

  “Oh, he’ll believe us. I’ll make sure of that.” Icoupov executed a perfect spin. “Your new assignment, Harun, is to ensure we get to him before he can do any more damage. We could ill afford to lose our eye in Our Friend’s camp. Further deaths are unacceptable.”

  Munich was full of cold rain. It was a gray city on the best of days, but in this windswept downpour it seemed to hunker down. Like a turtle, it pulled in its head into its concrete shell, turning its back on all visitors.

  Bourne and Moira sat inside the cavernous NextGen 747. Bourne was on his cell, making a reservation on the next flight to Moscow.

  “I wish I could authorize the plane to take you,” Moira said after he’d folded away the phone.

  “No, you don’t,” Bourne said. “You’d like me to stay here by your side.”

  “I already told you why I think that would be a bad idea.” She looked out at the wet tarmac, rainbow-streaked with droplets of fuel and oil. Raindrops trickled down the Perspex window like racing cars in their lanes. “And I find myself not wanting to be here at all.”

  Bourne opened the file he’d taken from Veronica Hart, turned it around, held it out. “I’d like you to take a look at this.”

  Moira turned back, put the file on her lap, paged through it. All at once she looked up. “Was it CI that had me under surveillance?” When Bourne nodded, she said, “Well, that’s a relief.”

  “How is it a relief?”