The Bourne Objective (2010)

by Eric Van Lustbader

  Bourne took a breath and let it out slowly. He wondered what it was he’d found out about the laptop that had led him to change the mission. He wasn’t aware of changing any of the Treadstone missions he’d been sent on, if only because he remembered that up until Conklin’s murder he and the Treadstone boss had been on good terms, even friendly ones.

  When he mentioned this, Moreno said, “You told me to tell Conklin that Essai didn’t have the laptop, that you didn’t know what had happened to it.”

  “And did you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why would you do that? Treadstone was paying your salary, Conklin was your boss.”

  “I’m not altogether certain,” Ottavio Moreno confessed. “Other than there’s a fundamental difference between field and office personnel. The one doesn’t necessarily understand the motives of the other, and vice versa. Out here, if we don’t have each other’s backs, we’re dead meat.” He put the pack of Gauloises away. “When you told me you’d found something fundamental enough to change the mission I believed you.”

  So you have come to see the famous Corellos.”

  Roberto Corellos, Narsico Skydel’s cousin, smirked at Moira. He sat in a comfortable armchair. The room, spacious, filled with light, with its deep-pile rug, porcelain lamps, paintings on the walls, looked like someone’s living room. But as Moira was about to discover, Bogotá’s prisons weren’t like any others in the world.

  “The American press wants to speak with the famous Corellos, now that he’s in La Modelo, now that it’s safe.” He drew a cigar from the breast pocket of his guayabera shirt and with great fanfare bit off the end and lit up, using an old Zippo lighter. With another smirk, he said, “A present from one of my many admirers.” It wasn’t immediately clear whether he meant the robusto or the Zippo.

  He blew a cloud of aromatic smoke toward the ceiling and crossed one linen-clad leg over the other. “What newspaper are you with again?”

  “I’m a stringer for The Washington Post,” Moira said. These credentials had been presented to her by Jalal Essai. She didn’t know where he had obtained them and she didn’t care. All that concerned her was that they would hold up under scrutiny. He assured her that they would, and so far he’d been right.

  She had arrived in Bogotá less than twenty-four hours ago and had obtained immediate permission to interview Corellos. She was mildly surprised that no one seemed to care one way or the other.

  “It’s fortunate that you came now. In a week or so I’ll be out of here.” Corellos stared at the glowing tip of the cigar. “This has been something of a vacation for me.” He waved a hand. “I have everything I could want—food, cigars, bitches to fuck, anything and everything—and I don’t have to lift a finger to get them.”

  “Charming,” Moira said.

  Corellos eyed her. He was a handsome man, in a rough, hard-muscled way. And with his dark, smoldering eyes and intense masculine presence, he was certainly charismatic. “You have to understand something about Colombia, Señorita Trevor. The country isn’t in the hands of the government, no, no, no. In Colombia power is split between FARC, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, and the drug lords. Left-wing guerrillas and right-wing capitalists, something like that.” His laugh was as raucous and as joyful as a macaw’s cry. He seemed completely relaxed, as if he were at home, instead of in Bogotá’s most notorious prison. “FARC controls forty percent of the country, we control the other sixty.”

  Moira was skeptical. “That seems something of an exaggeration, Señor Corellos. Should I take everything you tell me with a grain of salt?”

  Corellos reached behind him and placed a Taurus PT92 semi-automatic pistol on the table between them.

  Moira felt sucker-punched.

  “It’s fully loaded, you can check it if you want.” He seemed to be enjoying her shocked reaction. “Or you can take it—as a souvenir. Not to worry, there’s plenty more where that came from.”

  He laughed again. Then he pushed the Taurus to one side. “Listen, señorita, like most gringos I think you’re a bit out of your league here. Just last month we had a war in here—the FARC guerrillas against the, uh, businessmen. It was a full-scale conflict, complete with AK-47s, fragmentation grenades, dynamite, you name it. The guards, such as they are, backed away. The army surrounded the prison but wouldn’t venture inside because we’re better armed than they are.” He winked at her. “I’ll bet the justice minister didn’t tell you about that.”

  “No, he didn’t.”

  “I’m not surprised. It was a bloody fucking mess in here, let me tell you.”

  Moira was fascinated. “How did it end?”

  “I stepped in. FARC listens to me. Escúchame, I’m not against them—certainly not what they stand for. The government is a dirty joke, they’ve got that part right, at least. They know I’ll stand with them, that I’ll rally my people to support them—so long as they leave us alone. Me, I don’t give a fuck about politics—right-wing, left-wing, fascist, socialist, I leave the semantics to the people who have nothing better to do with their stinking lives. Me, I’m too busy making money, that’s my life. Everyone else can rot in hell.”

  He tapped the ash off his cigar into a brass ashtray. “I respect FARC. I have to, I’m a pragmatist. They own most of Bogotá, we don’t. And they’re the ones with their own prison release program. An example: Two weeks ago, in La Picota, the other prison here, the fucking FARC blew out an entire wall, freeing ninety-eight of their comrades. To a gringo such a thing sounds preposterous, impossible, am I right? But that’s life in Colombia.” He chuckled. “Say what you will about FARC, they’ve got balls. I respect that.”

  “In fact, Señor Corellos, unless I’ve misunderstood you, that’s the only thing you respect.” Without another word, Moira reached for the Taurus, broke it down, and put it back together, all the while staring unblinkingly into Corellos’s eyes.

  When she put the pistol back down on the table, Corellos said, “Why do you want to speak with me, señorita? Why did you really come? It isn’t to write a story for a newspaper, is it?”

  “I need your help,” she said. “I’m looking for a certain laptop computer Gustavo Moreno had. Just before he died, it disappeared.”

  Corellos spread his hands. “Why come to me?”

  “You were Moreno’s supplier.”

  “So?”

  “The man who stole the laptop—one of Moreno’s men working for someone else, someone unknown—was found dead on the outskirts of Amatitán, on the estancia owned by your cousin Narsico.”

  “That pussy, taking a gringo name! I want nothing to do with him, he’s dead to me.”

  Moira considered a moment. “It seems to me that implicating him in the murder of this man might be a good way to get back at him.”

  Corellos snorted. “What, and leave it to the Mexican police to figure it out and arrest him? Please! When it comes to solving crimes they’re complete idiots, all they know how to do is take bribes and siestas. Plus, Berengária would be suspect, too. No, if I wanted Narsico dead you would have found him in Amatitán.”

  “So who’s running Moreno’s business, who are you selling to now?”

  Corellos blew cigar smoke, his eyes half lidded.

  “I’m not interested in putting anyone in jail,” she said. “In fact, it would be fruitless, wouldn’t it? I’m just interested in finding the laptop, and there’s a trail I have to follow.”

  Corellos stubbed out his cigar. When he made a gesture someone—significantly, not a guard—came in with a bottle of tequila and two shot glasses, which he placed between Corellos and Moira. “I’m ordering food. What would you like?”

  “Whatever you’re having.”

  He nodded, spoke to the young man, who nodded and slipped unobtrusively out. He leaned forward and poured tequila. When they had both drained their glasses, he said, “You have to understand the depth of my hatred for Narsico.”

  She shrugged. “I’m a gringa, we don’t t
ake such things so seriously. What I do know is that you haven’t had him killed.”

  He waved away her words. “This is what I mean by understanding. Killing’s too good for a shithead like him.”

  She was beginning to get a glimmer of where this conversation was going. “So you have something else planned.”

  That macaw laugh again. “It’s already done. Whoever said that revenge is a dish best served cold had no Colombian blood running through him. Why wait when opportunity stares you in the face?”

  The young man returned with a tray laden with food—an array of small dishes, from rice and beans to fried chilies and smoked seafood. He set the tray down, and Corellos waved him away. Immediately Corellos picked out a plate of shrimp in a fiery red sauce and ate them, head and all. As he sucked the sauce off his fingertips, he continued. “Do you know the best way to get to a man, señorita? It’s through his woman.”

  Now she understood. “You seduced Berengária.”

  “Yes, I cuckolded him, I shamed him, but that’s not all I did. Narsico wanted desperately to outrun his family, so I made sure that he couldn’t.” Corellos’s eyes sparkled. “I set Berengária Moreno up as her brother’s successor.”

  And you did it damn well, Moira thought. Essai said there was no hint of her involvement. “Do you think she had the mole inside her brother’s operation?”

  “If she wanted a list of Gustavo’s clients she only had to ask him, which she didn’t, at least while he was alive.”

  “Then who would?”

  He looked at her skeptically. “Oh, I don’t know, a thousand people, maybe more. You want me to write you a list?”

  Moira ignored his sarcasm. “What about you?”

  He laughed. “What? Are you kidding? Gustavo was making me a fortune by doing all the heavy lifting. Why would I fuck with that?”

  Did Corellos know that Moreno’s client list was on the laptop, or had he assumed it? Moira wondered. Essai didn’t look like the kind of man who was after a Colombian drug lord’s business; he had the aspect of someone who’d been ripped off and wanted his property back. She leaned forward, elbows on the table. “Escúchame, hombre. Someone made off with that laptop. If it wasn’t Berengária then it has to be someone else who wants Gustavo’s business, and it’s just a matter of time before he acts.”

  Corellos took up a plate of fried chilies and popped them one after another into his mouth. His expressive lips were slick with grease. He didn’t appear interested in wiping them off.

  “I don’t know anything about this,” Corellos said coldly.

  Moira believed him. If he had known, he would already have done something about it. She rose. “Maybe Berengária does.”

  His eyes narrowed. “The fuck she does. Whatever she knows, I know.”

  “You’re a long way from Jalisco.”

  Corellos laughed unpleasantly. “You don’t know me very well, do you, chica.”

  “I want that laptop, hombre.”

  “That’s the spirit!” He made a sound deep in his throat astonishingly like a tiger purring. “The hour’s growing late, chica. Why don’t you stay the night? I guarantee my accommodations are better than any this city has to offer you.”

  She smiled. “I think not. Thank you for your hospitality—and your honesty.”

  Corellos grinned. “Anything for a beautiful señorita.” He lifted a warning finger. “Cuidad, chica. I don’t envy you. Berengária’s a fucking piranha. Give her the slightest opening and she’ll eat you up, bones and all.”

  When Peter Marks arrived at Noah Perlis’s flat, he found it crawling with CI agents, two of whom he knew. One, Jesse McDowell, he knew very well. He and McDowell had worked together on two field assignments before Marks was promoted upstairs into management.

  When McDowell saw Marks, he beckoned to him and, taking him aside, said in a hushed tone of voice, “What the hell are you doing here, Peter?”

  “I’m on assignment.”

  “Well, so are we, so you better get the hell out of here before one of Danziger’s gung-ho newbies gets curious about you.”

  “Can’t do that, Jesse.” Peter craned his neck, peering over McDowell’s shoulder. “I’m looking for Jason Bourne.”

  “Good bleeding luck with that, laddie.” McDowell shot him a sardonic look. “How many roses should I send to the funeral?”

  “Listen, Jesse, I just flew in from DC, I’m tired, hungry, cranky, and in no fucking mood to play games with you or any of Danziger’s little tin soldiers.” He made to take a step around McDowell. “D’you think I’m afraid of any of them, or of Danziger?”

  McDowell raised his hands, palms outward. “Okay, okay. You’ve made your point, laddie.” He took Marks by the elbow. “I’ll fill you in on everything, but not here. Unlike you, Danziger still owns my ass.” He steered Marks out the door and into the hallway. “Let’s go down to the pub and lift a few. When I get a pint or two in me, I’ll screw me courage to the wall.”

  The Slaughtered Lamb was just the sort of London pub that had been written about for centuries. It was low, dark, ripe with the scents of fermented beer and very old cigarette smoke, some of which still seemed to hang in the air in a boozy mist.

  McDowell chose a table against one wood-paneled wall, ordered them pints of the room-temperature brew and, for Marks, a plate of bangers and mash. When the food came, Marks took one whiff of the meat and his stomach turned. He had the waiter take the plate away, and settled for a couple of cheese rolls.

  “This investigation’s part of Justice’s ongoing case against Black River,” McDowell said.

  “I thought that case had been wrapped up.”

  “So did everyone else.” McDowell drained his pint and ordered another. “But it appears that someone very high up is gunning for Oliver Liss.”

  “Liss left Black River before any of the shit hit the fan.”

  McDowell took possession of the new pint. “Suspicion has been thrown his way. Point being that he may have gotten out, but it still is likely that he was one of the architects of Black River’s dirty dealings. Our job is to confirm that conjecture with hard evidence, and since Noah Perlis was Liss’s personal lapdog, we’re tossing his place.”

  “Needle in a haystack,” Marks said.

  “Mebbe so.” McDowell gulped down his beer. “But one thing we did find there was a photo of this bloke Diego Hererra. You heard he was knifed to death last night in a posh West End casino by the name of the Vesper Club?”

  “I hadn’t heard,” Marks said. “What’s it to me?”

  “Everything, laddie. The man who was seen knifing Diego Hererra was with Jason Bourne. They left the club together just minutes after the murder.”

  Soraya drove due south as, she intuited, Arkadin—going by the name Frank N. Stein—had. Twilight was falling gently as a leaf as she pulled into Nogales. She was still in Arizona. Just across the border was the sister town, Nogales, in the Mexican state of Sonora.

  She parked and strolled through the dusty central square. Finding an open-air café, she sat and ordered a plate of tamales and a Corona. Her Spanish was a good deal better than her French or her German, which meant that it was very good, indeed. And here her dark skin, Egyptian blood, and prominent nose were easily mistaken for Aztec. She sat back and allowed herself to breathe while she watched the comings and goings of people on errands, shopping, strolling hand in hand. There were many old people, sitting on benches, playing cards or chatting. Vehicles passed—old, dented cars and dusty, rusting trucks loaded with produce. Nogales’s business was agriculture, shipments from its sister town continuously coming across the border for packaging and transshipping all across the United States.

  She had finished her last tamale and was on her second Corona when she saw an old black Chevy, dusty and hulking, but the plates didn’t match and she went back to her beer. She declined dessert but ordered coffee.

  The waiter was setting the tiny cup in front of her when, over his shoulder, she saw a
nother black Chevy. She stood up as he walked away. The plate matched the one on the car Arkadin had rented, but the driver was an eighteen-year-old punk. He parked near the café and got out. His hair was crested, his arms covered in tattoos of snakes and plumed birds. Soraya recognized the quetzal, the sacred bird of the Aztecs and Maya. Downing her espresso in one shot, she left some bills on the table and walked over to the punk.

  “Where did you get that car, compadre?” she asked him.

  He looked her up and down with a sneer. His eyes on her breasts, he said, “What business is it of yours?”

  “I’m not a cop, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  “Why should I be worried?”

  “Because that Chevy is a rental car from Tucson—you and I both know that.”

  The punk continued his sneer. He looked like he practiced it in front of a mirror every morning.

  “Do you like them?”

  The punk started. “What?”

  “My breasts.”

  He laughed uneasily and looked away.

  “Listen,” she said, “I’m not interested in you or the car. Tell me about the man who rented it.”

  He spat sideways and said nothing.

  “Don’t be stupid,” she said. “You’re already in enough trouble. I can make it go away.”

  The punk sighed. “I really don’t know. I found the car out in the desert. It was abandoned.”

  “How did you start it up—did you hot-wire it?”

  “Nah, I didn’t have to, the key was in the ignition.”

  Now, that was interesting. It probably meant that Arkadin wasn’t coming back for it, which meant that he was no longer in Nogales. Soraya thought for a moment. “If I wanted to cross the border, how would I do it?”

  “The border station’s just a couple miles south—”

  “I don’t want to go that way.”

  The punk squinted, eyeing her as if for the first time. “I’m hungry,” he said. “How about buying me a meal?”

  “Okay,” she said, “but don’t expect anything else.”

  When he laughed, the brittle shell of his forced bravado cracked open. His face was transformed into that of a simple kid who looked at the world through sad eyes.