Robert Ludlum’s™ The Bourne Dominion

by Robert Ludlum

  The maître d’, making a fuss over Don Fernando, showed them outside to a round table near the seawall. The restaurant was filled with glamorous types. Gold and platinum baubles on the wrists of slender women in Louboutin shoes gleamed in the candlelight. Jewels graced their throats and long necks.

  “I feel like an ugly duckling,” Kaja said as they seated themselves.

  “Nonsense, mi amor.” Vegas squeezed her hand. “No one here outshines you.”

  Kaja laughed and kissed him with what seemed great affection. “What a gentleman!”

  Bourne was sitting on the other side of her, and he felt the heat of her thigh pressing against his. She was turned toward Estevan, their hands still clasped. Her thigh slid back and forth against him, the friction creating a clandestine link between them.

  “What’s good to eat here?” he asked Don Fernando, who was seated on his right hand. Don Fernando’s answer was drowned out by the roar of Vespas swinging along the sea road outside the restaurant.

  The waiter uncorked the first bottle of wine from the stash Don Fernando had brought with him. They all drank a toast to their host, who told them that he had already ordered.

  Bourne took his leg away from Kaja’s, and, when she turned to look at him inquiringly, he gave her a brief but emphatic shake of his head.

  Her eyes narrowed for the space of a breath, then, announcing her need to leave the table, she pushed her chair back hard and stalked across the terrace. Don Fernando shot Bourne a warning look.

  Vegas put down his napkin and was about to rise when Don Fernando said, “Estevan, calmaté, amigo. This is a security matter; I’d rather have Jason keep an eye on her.”

  Bourne got up and, crossing the terrace, stepped into the closed-in part of the restaurant, where he was assailed by the aromatic scents of seafood being cooked with Moroccan and Phoenician herbs and spices. He spotted Kaja exiting the front door, and he snaked his way around the tables crowded with boisterous patrons.

  He caught up with her on the narrow sidewalk. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  She pulled away from him. “What does it look like?”

  “Kaja, Estevan will suspect something.”

  She glared at him. “So? I’m tired of all you men.”

  “You’re acting like a spoiled child.”

  She turned and slapped him across the face. He could have stopped her, but he felt the outcome would be worse.

  “Feel better now?”

  “Don’t think I don’t know what’s happening here,” she said. “Don Fernando is terrified I’ll tell Estevan who I really am.”

  “Now would not be a good time.”

  “Say what you mean. Never would be a good time.”

  “Just not now.”

  “Why not now?” Kaja said. “He treats Rosie like a child. I’m not a child anymore. I’m not Rosie.”

  Bourne kept an eye on the road, the clouds of young men on Vespas laughing drunkenly, vying with one another as they rode at a daredevil’s pace. “It was a risk bringing both of you to Cadiz, but the alternative would have meant both your deaths.”

  “Don Fernando should never have gotten Estevan involved in smuggling for the Domna,” she said. “It’s clear he’s not cut out for that kind of life.”

  “Don Fernando wanted a way in,” Bourne said.

  “Don Fernando used Estevan,” she said, disgusted.

  “So did you.” Bourne shrugged. “In any case, he could have refused.”

  She snorted. “Do you think Estevan would refuse that man? He owes Don Fernando everything.”

  “Querida!”

  They both turned to see Vegas emerge from the restaurant, his expression filled with concern.

  “Is everything all right?” He came toward her. “Did I do something to make you angry?”

  Kaja automatically turned on her megawatt Rosie smile. “Of course not, mi amor.” She had to raise her voice over the revving Vespas. “How could you do anything to make me angry?”

  Taking her in his arms, he swung her around, her back to the street. Three shots buzzed past Kaja’s shoulder and head, and blew Estevan backward, out of her embrace, and Bourne leapt onto her, covering her as the white Vespa with the gunman accelerated away from the curb. Bourne dragged her to her feet.

  “Estevan!” she cried. “Estevan, oh, my God!”

  Vegas had landed in a bloody heap against the restaurant’s front. The white stucco was spattered with his blood. Bourne kept her away, pushing her into the arms of Don Fernando, who had run out of the doorway.

  “They tried again!” Bourne shouted. “Keep her inside!”

  Then he stepped off the curb, corralled a young rider who had just stopped to gawk at the bloody body, and yanked him off his Vespa.

  The boy stumbled over the curb, landing on his backside. “Hey! What?” he cried as Bourne roared away down the traffic-choked road.

  22

  PETER MARKS FLOATED in and out of consciousness like a swimmer caught in a rip current. One moment, his feet seemed to be on solid footing, the next they were sliding away as a wave crashed over him, taking him off his feet, spinning him down into a reddish darkness distinguished by vertigo and pain.

  He heard his own groans and the voices of unfamiliar people, but these seemed to be either at a great remove or filtered through layers of gauze. Light hurt his eyes. The only thing he could get down was baby food, and this only occasionally. He felt as if he were dying, as if he lay suspended between life and death, an unwilling citizen of a gray limbo. At last he understood the phrase bed of pain.

  And yet, there came a time when his pain lessened, he ate more, and, blessedly, limbo faded into the realm of dreams, only half remembered, receding as if he were on a train speeding away from a dreadful place in which it had been stalled.

  He opened his eyes to light and color. He took a deep breath, then another. He felt his lungs fill and empty without the crushing pain that had gripped him for what seemed like forever.

  “He’s conscious.” A voice from above, as if an angel were hovering, beating its delicate wings.

  “Who…” Peter licked his lips. “Who are you?”

  “Yo, it’s Tyrone, Chief.”

  Peter’s eyes felt gluey, there were coronas around everything he looked at, as if he were hallucinating. “I… Who?”

  “Tyrone Elkins. From CI.”

  “CI?”

  “I picked you up offa tha street. You were fucked up.”

  “I don’t remember…”

  The black head turned. “Yo, Deron, yo, yo, yo.” Then Tyrone turned back and spoke to Peter again. “The ambulance. Remember the ambulance, Chief?”

  Something was forming out of the haze. “I…”

  “The bogus EMS guys. You got yourself outta the ambulance, shit, still don’t know how.”

  The memory started to form like a cloud building on the horizon. Peter remembered the garage at the Treadstone building, the explosion, being hustled into the ambulance, the realization that he wasn’t being taken to the hospital, that these attendants were the enemy.

  “I remember,” he murmured.

  “That’s good, that’s very good.”

  Another face along with Tyrone’s. Tyrone had called him Deron. A handsome black man with an upper-class British accent.

  “Who are you?”

  “You remember Tyrone? He’s from CI. A friend of Soraya’s.” The handsome man smiled down at Peter. “My name’s Deron. I’m a friend of Jason’s.”

  Peter’s brain took a moment to click into gear. “Bourne?”

  “That’s right.”

  He closed his eyes, blessing the good luck that had landed him in the safest place in DC.

  “Peter, do you know who those people were in the ambulance?”

  Peter’s eyes popped open. “Never saw them before.” He felt his heart beating and sensed that it had been working hard for some time, working to keep him alive. “I don’t know…”

  “Oka
y, okay,” Deron said. “Save your breath.” He turned to Tyrone. “Can you get on this? There must be a police report on the shootings. Use your creds and see if you can get IDs on the dead men.”

  Tyrone nodded and took off.

  Deron picked up a plastic glass of water with a bendy straw in it. “Now,” he said, “let’s see if we can get some more liquid in you.”

  Placing one hand behind Peter’s head, he lifted it gently and offered him the straw. Peter sipped slowly, even though he was parched. His tongue felt swollen to twice its size.

  “Tyrone told me the whole story,” Deron said, “at least as much as he knew.” He took the straw out of Peter’s mouth. “It sounds like you were being kidnapped.”

  Peter nodded.

  “Why?”

  “I don’t…” Then Peter remembered. He’d done intensive research on Roy FitzWilliams and the Damascus-based El-Gabal, to which Fitz had had ties. Hendricks had been absolutely paranoid about security on the issue of Roy FitzWilliams. Peter groaned.

  “What is it? Are you in pain?”

  “No, that would be too simple,” Peter said with a gritty smile. “I fucked up, Deron. My boss warned me to be careful and I did some back-door research on a company computer, which runs through the government server.”

  “So whoever was tapping in got scared and sent the extraction team.”

  “Well, they tried to kill me first.” Peter described the explosion in the garage. “The extraction team was there as a backup.”

  “Which speaks both of meticulous planning and an organization with influence and deep pockets.” Deron rubbed his jaw. “I would say you’ve got big problems, except for the fact that Ty tells me you’re director of Treadstone. You’ve got plenty of firepower yourself.”

  “Sadly, no,” Peter said. “Soraya and I are still getting Treadstone back on its feet. Most of our current personnel are overseas. Our domestic infrastructure is still hollowed out.”

  Deron sat back, forearms on his knees. Losing his English accent, he said, “Damn, homey, you done washed up at da right place.”

  Bourne took the Vespa around a corner, speeding after the gunman. He could see him up ahead on the white Vespa, weaving in and out of traffic as he followed the road along the waterfront, heading south. It was difficult to make up ground, but slowly, by running the bike full-out, Bourne was gaining. The gunman had not looked behind him; he didn’t know that someone was on his tail.

  He went through a light as it was turning red. Bourne, hunched over the handlebars, judged the vectors of the cross-traffic and, with a twist to the left, then the right, shot through the intersection.

  Down the block the gunman had pulled over to the curb behind a black van. He popped open the rear doors and, with the help of the van’s driver, hoisted the Vespa into the interior. Then he slammed the doors, and both men climbed into the front. Bourne was still going full-out, and as the van pulled out into the flow of traffic he was no more than two car lengths behind.

  The van soon turned off the sea road, heading into Cadiz itself. It followed a tortuous path down the city’s narrow, crooked streets. At length, the van pulled over and stopped along a street of warehouses. The driver got out and unlocked a door that rolled up electronically, then returned to the van. Bourne ditched the Vespa and sprinted as the van drove through into the interior. The door rattled down and Bourne dived through with just enough room to spare.

  He lay on a bare concrete floor that stank of creosote and motor oil. The only illumination came from the van’s headlights. Doors slammed as the two men jumped down onto the concrete. They didn’t bother to unload the Vespa. Bourne rose to one knee, hiding behind an enormous metal barrel. The gunman must have gone to a switch box, because a moment later light flooded the interior from a pair of overheads, capped with green shades. There seemed to be nothing in the warehouse except more of the barrels and two stacks of wooden crates. The driver switched off the headlights, then the two men crossed to the crates.

  “Is she dead?” the driver said in Moscow-accented Russian.

  “I don’t know, everything happened too fast.” The gunman laid his pistol down on top of one of the crates.

  “It is unfortunate that you didn’t stick to the plan,” the driver said with a tone of lamentation only Russians could exhibit.

  “She came outside,” the gunman protested. “The temptation was too great. Hit her and run. You would have done the same.”

  The driver shrugged. “I’m just happy I’m not in your shoes.”

  “Fuck you,” the gunman said. “You’re the other half of this team. If I missed her it’s going to fall on both our shoulders.”

  “If our superior finds out,” the driver said, “our shoulders won’t be supporting anything worth talking about.”

  The gunman picked up his weapon and reloaded it. “So?”

  “So we find out if she’s dead.” The driver squared on his companion. “And if not, we rectify your error together.”

  The two men stepped behind the stack and opened a narrow door. Before he went through into what Bourne surmised might be the office, the gunman extinguished the lights. Bourne crept to the van, carefully opened the driver’s door, and rummaged around until he found a flashlight. In the rear, he went through a box of tools and picked out a crowbar. Then he stepped to the stack and squatted down so that the crates were between him and the rear door. Switching on the flashlight, he played the beam over the crates. The wood was an odd greenish color, smooth and virtually seamless. The beam slid across the surface, and he felt his heart rate accelerate. The crates were marked with their origin, Don Fernando’s oil company in Colombia.

  Boris felt his blood run cold. “Cherkesov came here to meet with Ivan?” He shook his head. “This I cannot believe.”

  The heavyset man signaled to one of the men along the wall, who stepped forward. Boris tensed as the acolyte reached into his robes, but all he brought out was a set of grainy black-and-white photos, which he held out to Boris.

  “Go on, take a look,” the heavyset man said. “Because of the lighting, you’ll be able to tell that they were not doctored in any way.”

  Boris took the photos and stared down at them, his mind working a mile a minute. There were Cherkesov and Ivan speaking together. A bit of the Mosque’s interior could be seen behind them. He took note of the date the camera had printed in the lower left-hand corner of the photos.

  He looked at the heavyset man kneeling on the prayer rug. He hadn’t budged since Boris had been shown into the room. “What were they talking about?”

  A smile formed on the lips of the heavyset man. “I know who you are, General Karpov.”

  Boris stood very still, his gaze not on the kneeling man, but on his acolytes. They seemed to have as little interest in him as they had before. “Then you are one up on me.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I don’t know who you are.”

  The smile broadened. “Ah, curiosity! But it is far better for you that you don’t know.” He unlaced his fingers. “We must concentrate on the matter at hand: Cherkesov and Volkin.” He locked his red lips. “I am, shall we say, acutely aware that FSB-2, of which you are now the head, and SVR are locked in a deadly power struggle.”

  Boris waited out the silence. He was getting to know this nameless man, his predilection for dramatic pauses and declarations, the way he meted out information in precise bits and pieces.

  “But that power struggle,” the man continued, “is far more complicated than you know. There are powers lining up on either side that far surpass those of FSB-2 and SVR.”

  “I assume you’re referring to Severus Domna.”

  The heavyset man raised his eyebrows. “Among others.”

  Boris’s heart skipped a beat. “There are others?”

  “There are always others, General.” He gestured with a hand. “Excuse my poor manners. Come. Sit.”

  Boris stepped onto the prayer rug, careful to sit in the sam
e position as his host, though it pained his hips and flexor muscles.

  “You asked me what Cherkesov and your friend Volkin were talking about,” the heavyset man said. “It was the Domna.”

  “Do you know that Cherkesov left FSB-2 to join the Domna?”

  “I heard as much,” the heavyset man acknowledged.

  Boris didn’t believe him. He sensed his host was withholding information. “Cherkesov has ambitions that, for the moment at least, outstrip his power.”

  “You think he had a plan in mind when he allowed himself to be lured away from FSB-2.”

  “Yes,” Boris said.

  “Do you know what it is?”

  “It’s possible one of us does.”

  The heavyset man’s belly began to tremble, and Boris realized that he was laughing silently.

  “Yes, General Karpov, that is quite possible.” Boris’s host considered for a moment. “Tell me, have you ever been to Damascus?”

  “Once or twice, yes,” Boris said, alert that the conversation had suddenly veered in a new direction.

  “How did you find it?”

  “The Paris of the Middle East?”

  “Ha! Yes, I suppose it once was.”

  “Damascus has beautiful bones,” Boris said.

  The heavyset man considered this for a moment. “Yes, Damascus possesses great beauty, but it is also a place of great danger.”

  “How is that?”

  “Damascus is what Cherkesov was sent here to discuss with your friend Volkin.”

  “Cherkesov is no longer welcome in Russia,” Boris said, “but Ivan?”

  “Your friend Volkin has a number of, shall we say, business interests in Damascus.”

  Boris was surprised; Ivan had let it be known that, apart from consulting, he was retired. “What kind of business interests?”

  “Nothing that would keep him in good standing with the grupperovka bosses with whom he has done business for decades.”

  “I don’t understand.” The moment the words were out of his mouth, Boris knew that he had made a fatal error. A key aspect of his host’s face changed radically; all its intimacy and friendliness disappeared like a puff of smoke.