Robert Ludlum's the Bourne Imperative

by Eric Van Lustbader

  His interest lay in the spate of Chinese cyberattacks on government, military, and contractor servers worldwide, trying to glean classified knowledge. It was this investigation he had been working on all day and evening. There had been several moments when he had been certain he’d been onto something, following threads through firewalls, breaking into encrypted files, accessing site after vault-like site, his platoon of software Trojans and worms that he himself had tweaked to his own exacting specifications allowing him access to sites in Russia, Romania, Serbia, and, finally, China. Always China. Each path he took, however, proved to be either a dead end or a false lead, leaving him, after eight hours, back where he had started. But not quite. Knowing where not to look was an excellent tool for first changing his search parameters, then narrowing them down.

  He stood up, stretched, and walked over to the bulletproof window. Small sensors were embedded in the glass that sent out electronic signals proven to jam any audio surveillance system. He stared down at the deserted streets below. Occasionally a car or truck rumbled by. Unbidden, thoughts of his father and his stepfather bloomed in his mind like poisoned flowers. His father, who had left when Richards’s mother had gone blind. Richards had been four. Years later, he had used his computer skills to track his father down only to find that the man denied ever having sired him. As for Richards’s stepfather, he had entered the damaged family in order to live off Richards’s mother’s money. He had made fun of her, had repeatedly betrayed her with a virtual harem of women. When Richards had tried to tell his mother, she had not only refused to believe him but had grown visibly angry, castigating him for refusing to accept her new husband. It was only then he realized that she knew everything, but was so terrified of being on her own that she had sunk deeper and deeper into her own manufactured reality.

  Abruptly, he returned to his desk. Standing at the window made him feel like an animal in a cage, imprisoned within the stronghold of the modern Treadstone castle. He was only dimly aware that it was his life in which he felt imprisoned. Unconsciously, he had chosen his mother’s solution. He had made the Internet, endlessly morphing, always fascinating, more real to him than anything else in his life.

  Flexing his fingers, he cracked his knuckles, then placed his fingertips on the keys. What he needed to do was something more constructive. He decided to fabricate intel on Nicodemo that he could present to his directors, maybe get into their good graces. He felt that old familiar desperation to have superiors like him, and his cheeks flamed with shame.

  He took a deep breath. Concentrate, he thought. Do what you do best; you’ll feel better for this small success. Looking for one man in the complex ISP stew of the Internet was always difficult, he knew. He also knew that no man—not even a ghost—could exist as an island. He had to have associates, friends, family—in other words, an infrastructure, just like everyone else. Even if he didn’t so far exist on the Net, they certainly would. And then there was the fact that he made money, lots of it, according to the scraps Richards had been given. Money did not exist in a vacuum; it came from somewhere and went somewhere else. Those places might be well hidden, but they existed; their routes existed online as well as in the real world. None of this, however, applied to Nicodemo; Richards knew this much about him.

  Not to worry, he decided, his pulse rate climbing; he’d manufacture an oblique approach to finding the Djinn Who Lights The Way. So thinking, he returned to the pathetically few crumbs in the file, reading them over in this new light, for a way to begin writing his bogus trip through the cyberworld of the Net.

  As if of their own volition, his fingers began their familiar tattoo on the keyboard. Moments later, he was once again immersed in his beloved virtual universe.

  3

  "THE TROUBLE IS you flew.”

  “What do you mean?” Soraya shook her head. “I don’t understand.” Dr. Steen glanced up from the folder that contained the results of her EEG and MRI tests. “You were injured in Paris, is that right?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you were treated there as well.”

  She nodded. “That’s right.”

  “Were you not cautioned about the risks associated with flying?” Soraya felt the beating of her heart. It was far too rapid, as if it had broken free of its cage and had risen into her throat.

  “I thought I was fine.”

  “Well, you’re not.” Dr. Steen swiveled in his chair, switching on an LED monitor. He brought up the MRI of her brain. Nodding toward the screen, he said, “You have a subdural hematoma. Your brain is bleeding, Ms. Moore.”

  Soraya felt chilled to the bone. “I saw my previous MRI. It revealed no such thing.”

  “Again,” Dr. Steen said, “the flying.”

  He swiveled back, but the MRI of her brain remained on the screen, a horrible reminder of her un-wellness.

  Dr. Steen clasped his hands on his desktop. He was a middleaged man who shaved his head rather than deal with his balding pate. “I suspect that this—tear, let’s call it—was microscopic. The previous MRI didn’t pick it up. Then you flew and...” His hands opened.

  She leaned forward, anger supplanting her fear. “Why do you keep intimating that it’s somehow my fault?”

  “You shouldn’t have—”

  “Shut the fuck up.” She didn’t say it loudly, but the intensity of her words rocked him backward and rendered him mute. “Is this how you talk to all your patients? What kind of a human being are you?”

  “I’m a doctor. I—”

  “Right,” she interrupted. “Not a human being. My mistake.”

  He watched her steadily, waiting for her to calm down. “Ms. Moore, my extensive experience in neurosurgery has taught me that it does not pay to sugarcoat my diagnoses. The quicker a patient understands their condition, the quicker we can work together to make them well again.”

  She paused for a moment to control herself, but her heart still felt like a runaway train. Then she winced at the sudden spike of pain in her head. At once, Dr. Steen came around his desk and was at her side.

  “Ms. Moore?”

  She rubbed the side of her head.

  “That cuts it.” He reached for his phone. “You’re going to the hospital this minute.”

  “No.” She grasped his arm. “No, please.”

  “I don’t think you understand the gravity of—”

  “My job is my life,” she said.

  “Ms. Moore, pressure is building in your brain. You won’t have a life unless we relieve that pressure. I cannot allow—”

  “I’m okay now. The pain is gone.” She gave him a smile that almost faltered. “Absolutely, I’m fine.”

  Dr. Steen looked around, pulled a chair over to sit beside her. “Okay,” he said, “what’s really going on?”

  “What happened to the doctor with the attitude?”

  “I put him on the shelf for the moment.” He allowed himself a thin smile. “Patient needs me.”

  “I needed you, it seems, the moment I stepped into your office.”

  She was silent for some time. She could hear the phone ring in the outer office, a voice raised suddenly, then stillness returned.

  Dr. Steen tapped her wrist lightly to make certain she was still with him. “We have to resolve your physical problem. Clearly, we can’t do that until your other problem is resolved.”

  Slowly, almost infinitesimally, she raised her eyes to his. “I’m frightened,” she said.

  He seemed in a way relieved. “That’s perfectly normal, only to be expected, in fact. I can help—”

  “Not for me.”

  He looked at her, momentarily confused.

  “For my baby,” Soraya said. “I’m pregnant.”

  How are you feeling?” Bourne said when he appeared in the room where Alef was recovering.

  “Better, physically.”

  The man was sitting up. He was trying to read a copy of the International Herald Tribune someone had given him, but he appeared to be having difficu
lty.

  Bourne set down a black leather briefcase and peered at the page, which was filled with stock market quotes, company mergers, quarterly results, and the like. “Eyes not focusing right?”

  Alef shrugged. “In and out. The doctors said it’s to be expected.”

  “See any companies you own?”

  “What?” Alef laughed uneasily. “No, no, I was just trying to adjust my eyes to the smaller print.”

  Bourne took the paper away, opened the attaché case, and laid a handgun on Alef’s lap. Before he could open his mouth, Bourne said, “What is that?”

  Alef picked it up. “It’s a Glock 19 9 mm.” He checked the magazine, saw that it was unloaded. Sighted down it. A professional.

  Bourne took it from him and, in the same motion, handed him another. “And this?”

  “A CZ-USA 75B Compact Pistol.”

  “How many rounds does it take?”

  “Ten.”

  Bourne took the CZ and replaced it with a far smaller handgun. “Know what that is?”

  Alef handled it. “This is a Para-Ordnance Warthog Pistol, WHX1045R, Alloy Regal Finish, 45 ACP Caliber, 10 round capacity, single action.” He looked up at Bourne with an astonished expression. “How do I know all that?”

  By way of an answer, Bourne plucked up the Warthog and, throwing down a magazine open to a detailed photo, said in Russian, “Pozhaluysta, skazhite mne, chto izobrazheno tam.” Please tell me what is pictured there.

  “A Dragunov SVD-S rifle with folding butt and polymer furniture.” His forefinger traced a pattern across the photo. “It’s a sniper’s rifle.”

  “Good, bad, what?” Bourne demanded.

  “Very good,” Alef said. “One of the best.”

  “What else can you tell me?” Bourne said, switching to English. “Have you ever used one?”

  “Used one?” Alef appeared confused. “I...I don’t know.”

  “What about the Glock or the Warthog?”

  Alef shook his head. “I’m drawing a blank.”

  “You knew them immediately.”

  “Yes, I know, but...how is that possible?” He rubbed his temples as Bourne packed away all the weapons. “What the hell does this mean?”

  “It means,” Bourne said, “that it’s time to see whether a return to Sadelöga will jog your memory.”

  Here’s a flash for you,” Peter Marks said when Soraya came through Treadstone’s security door, “our new boy Richards claims the Djinn Who Lights The Way isn’t a ghost after all. He’s real.”

  “Is that so?” Soraya shrugged off her coat and started toward her office.

  “Yeah.” Peter strode at her side. “And what’s more, he came up with a name—it’s tentative, mind you, but still...his name’s Nicodemo.”

  “Huh.” She threw her coat over the heating sill and sat down at her desk. “Maybe we should go have a talk with Richard Richards.”

  “Not right now. I don’t want to break his concentration. He’s hipdeep in it.” He glanced over at Richards’s cubicle. “I think he’s been at it all night.”

  She shrugged and pulled the stack of files out of her in-box. In them were transcripts of the night’s oral reports filed by her agentsin-place in the Middle East: Syria, Lebanon, Somalia, and so forth. She flipped open the first file and began to read.

  Peter cleared his throat. “So how did things go at the doctor’s?”

  She looked up. Putting a smile on her face, she said, “All the tests were negative. It’s just fatigue.” She shrugged. “He thinks I came back to work sooner than I should have.”

  “I tend to agree,” Peter said. “You don’t look yourself.”

  “No, who do I look like?”

  He didn’t laugh at her weak joke. “Go home, Soraya. Get some rest.”

  “I don’t want to go home. After what happened, and my forced bed rest, the best thing for me is to keep working.”

  “I disagree, and so does your doctor. Take a couple of days off. In fact, don’t even get out of bed.”

  “Peter, I’ll go out of my mind.”

  He put a hand over hers. “Don’t make me bring Hendricks into this.”

  She looked at him for a moment, then nodded. “Okay, but I want this just between the two of us.”

  He smiled. “So do I.”

  “Anything important comes up you’ll call me.”

  “Of course I will.”

  “Use my mobile, the landline at my apartment is out again.”

  He nodded, clearly relieved that she had acquiesced. “You got it.”

  “Okay.” She took a breath. “Just give me a minute to finish this report, then I’ll hand them all over to you.” As he rose, she said softly, “Keep an eye on Richards, will you?”

  Peter bent over. “Sure thing.” He went to her door, turning back for just a moment. “Do as you’re told, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Soraya watched Peter return to his office across the corridor, then she finished reading the report, scribbled some notes on the margin for Peter, and gathered the files up, stacking them to bring over to him. As she did so, she saw the file containing the reports from her agents in Egypt. An image of Amun bloomed in her mind, and immediately she felt her eyes burning. Angry and heartsick in equal measure, she wiped the tears away with the back of her hand.

  Taking several deep breaths, she rose and brought the files over to Peter. On the way down to the ground floor, she checked her watch. It was just before noon. Punching a speed dial number on her mobile, she called Delia Trane, who was an explosives specialist at the Bureau of Alcohol, Firearms, Tobacco, and Explosives. She and Delia had worked closely together on several cases when Soraya had been at Central Intelligence, and beyond that the two were close friends.

  “Raya, how are you?”

  “Needing to see you,” Soraya said. “Can you do lunch?”

  “Today? I have something, but I’ll reschedule it. Are you okay?”

  Soraya told her where and when to meet, then rang off. She had no desire to talk any longer over the phone. Forty minutes later, she entered Jaleo, a tapas restaurant on Seventh Street NW, and saw Delia already seated at a table by the windows. She smiled broadly when she spotted Soraya and waved her over.

  Delia’s mother was an aristocratic Colombian from Bogotá, and the daughter carried much of her maternal ancestors’ fiery blood. Though her eyes were light, her skin was as deep-toned as her friend’s, but there the similarity ended. She had a plain face and a boyish figure, short-cropped hair, and strong hands. At work, her blunt, nononsense manner was legendary, but with Soraya, she was completely different.

  Delia rose and the two women embraced.

  “Tell me everything, Raya.”

  Soraya’s smile faltered. “That’s why I called you.”

  They sat facing each other. Soraya ordered a Virgin Mary. Delia was nursing a caipirinha, a drink prepared with cachaça, Brazilian sugar cane liquor.

  Soraya glanced around the room, grateful that it was filling up, the hubbub rising around them like walls. “The doctor was surprised I wasn’t showing, given that I’m at the beginning of my second trimester. He said he can usually tell.”

  Delia grunted. “Men are so full of shit about their pregnancy radar.”

  “In my case, just like my mother, I may not begin to show until I’m about five or six months.”

  A small silence rose between them amid the increasing clamor of the restaurant as more and more diners were seated and those already there became boisterous. The laughter, in particular, seemed shrill and ugly.

  Delia, sensing her friend’s mounting distress, reached out and took Soraya’s hand in hers. “Raya, listen to me, I won’t let anything happen to the baby, or to you.”

  Soraya’s grateful smile flickered on and off. “The tests came back. I have a subdural hematoma.”

  Delia caught her breath. “How bad is it?”

  “Like a slow leak in a tire. But the pressure...” Soraya’s gaze flick
ed away a moment. “Dr. Steen thinks I should have a procedure. He wants to drill a hole in my head.”

  Delia squeezed her hand tighter. “Of course he thinks that. Surgeons always want to cut and paste.”

  “In this instance, he may be right.”

  “We’ll get a second opinion. A third, if necessary.”

  “The MRI is clear,” Soraya said. “Even I could see the problem.”

  “Hematomas can be self-healing.”

  “I suppose this one could have been. Unfortunately, I flew. The trip from Paris exacerbated it, and now...”

  Delia saw the fear in Soraya’s eyes. “Now what?”

  Soraya took a deep breath and let it out. “Surgical procedures are done on pregnant women only in emergencies because there’s a double risk for the fetus—the anaesthesia and the procedure itself.” Tears glittered in her eyes. “Delia, if something goes wrong—”

  “Nothing’s going to go wrong.”

  “If something goes wrong,” Soraya persisted, “the mother’s wellbeing comes first. If there are complications, they’ll abort the baby.”

  “Ah, Raya.” It was a kind of helpless cry, half submerged in the restaurant clamor.

  Then Delia’s face cleared. “But why think like that?”

  “I have to think like that. You know why.”

  Delia bent in closer. “Are you absolutely certain?”

  “I did the math. Days and menstrual cycles don’t lie, at least mine don’t. There’s no doubt about the father’s identity.”

  “Well, then...”

  “Right.”

  Both women looked up as the waiter appeared tableside. “Have you made your choices, ladies?”