The Bourne Imperative

by Robert Ludlum

  Brick, at the bar, said without turning around, “As they say in the movies, choose your poison.”

  Peter did not have to see his face to know that the imprisoned man was Dick Richards.

  Not hearing an answer, Brick turned, an old-fashioned glass in one hand. “I’m having an Irish whiskey. I’ll make two.”

  Peter, desperately trying to make sense of the scene, stood his ground while Brick poured the drinks, brought them over, and handed him one.

  He clicked his glass against Peter’s, then drank. “Cent’ anni, as they say in the Mafia.” He laughed. Then, seeing the direction in which Peter was looking, he gestured with his drink. “Come. I want to show you something.”

  Reluctantly, Peter followed him over to where Richards and Bogdan, his forbidding guard, were situated out of the line of sight of any of the windows. As if anyone would be poking around way out here. Anyone apart from Peter himself, that is.

  “You said you want to work for me.” Brick’s voice assumed a warm, collegial tone, two men chatting at their club or on the golf links. “That’s a tall order. I’m quite careful whom I hire, and never off the street. And, you see, that’s my dilemma, Tony. Much as I’m grateful for the information you’ve provided, you’re off the street.”

  Brick took another small swallow of the whiskey, rolling it around his mouth before he swallowed. Then he smiled amiably. “But I like you. I admire your style, so I’ll tell you what I’m going to do.” Slipping the Glock from Bogdan’s holster, he held it out butt first to Peter. “You advocated doing away with Peter Marks, Dick’s boss. While I admire your initiative, I don’t think it would be wise to go after a man like that. We don’t want to bring down a shitstorm, do we?” He waggled the Glock invitingly, and reluctantly Peter took it. “No, I believe a far better choice is to nip matters in the bud, take them to the cleaners—isn’t that how you Americans say it?—the man who knows too much. That’s the brill move. So here he is, mate, waiting for the proverbial axe to fall.” Grinning, he nudged Peter forward. “We don’t want to disappoint him, now do we?”

  A line of pink was taking its time showing itself above the eastern horizon as they approached Stockholm.

  They had made the crossing to the mainland in a minimum of light, but Bourne, having navigated the bay with Christien, guided them unfailingly to the car he had brought Rowland down in. They had bundled Rowland into the backseat, Rebeka sliding in beside him, while Bourne climbed behind the wheel.

  Now, hours later, as they approached the city, Bourne exited the highway, turning left at the end of the off-ramp, and rolling through sleeping streets, eventually pulling up beside an empty lot, due for new construction. It was enclosed by a drunken chain-link fence that had seen better days.

  Turning in his seat, Bourne said, “Get him out of here.”

  Rebeka appeared about to query him, then thought better of it. Instead, she opened the curbside door and hauled Rowland out into the pre-dawn light. Bourne shut off the engine, got out, and, coming around the front of the car, took Rowland by the collar and frog-marched him to a waist-high gap in the fence.

  “Bourne,” Rebeka said, “what are you going to do?”

  Pressing his hand to the top of Rowland’s head, Bourne guided him through the gap, then stepped through himself. As he did so, Rowland made a break for it. Bourne went after him. Owing to his two frozen toes, Rowland ran at a spastic, lurching pace, so Bourne caught up to him without difficulty. He slammed him on the back of his head, and Rowland collapsed to his knees, where he remained, his upper torso rocking back and forth as if he had lost all sense of equilibrium.

  Rebeka came up to them. “Bourne, don’t hurt him. Now that he’s regained his memory, we need what’s in his head.”

  “He’s not going to tell us a damn thing.” He slammed the back of Rowland’s head a second time. “Are you, Rowland?” Rowland shook his head, and Bourne struck him a massive blow between the shoulder blades. With an animal grunt, he fell into the snow-covered dirt. Bourne reached down and hauled him back to his penitent kneeling position.

  Alarmed, Rebeka said, “Bourne, what are you going to do?”

  “Shut up.” Bourne was filled with a murderous rage, not only because this man had tried to kill him, had, judging by his actions in the fisherman’s cottage, been sent to kill him, but because he had regained his memory. Bourne had not. In all the years since being pitched into the Mediterranean, he still knew next to nothing about his previous life. It was true enough that he had managed to slot himself into the Bourne identity—he was Jason Bourne now—but he was still a man without a past, without a home, without any place to call his own. He floated in the air, unmoored, ungrounded, forever searching for—he didn’t even know what he was searching for. But this man—who, if Rebeka was to be believed, had been sent by Jihad bis saif to kill him—had regained everything he had lost when Rebeka’s shot had grazed his head, pitching him into Hemviken Bay. He struck Rowland again. Justice! And again. He wanted justice!

  “Bourne…Bourne, for God’s sake!”

  Rebeka, both her hands wrapped around his right forearm, stopped him from a third blow.

  He kicked Rowland in the kidney, and felt a measure of satisfaction as he crumpled over onto his side.

  Then the acute rage subsided, and he allowed Rebeka to interpose herself. With a glare, she crouched down and began to help Rowland to his feet. This Bourne could not tolerate, and he struck the back of Rowland’s knee so that he once more fell to his knees. Leaving him there, she rose to her feet and confronted Bourne.

  “He was sent to kill me,” Bourne said before she had a chance to speak.

  “One of many, yes?” She sought to hold his eyes with her own, then she shook her head again. “Don’t for a moment think I don’t know what’s really going on.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said dully. He felt spent and, worse, empty.

  “Let’s pretend you do.” She took a step toward him, lowering her voice. “What use will beating him to a pulp do? It’s counterproductive,” she added, answering her own question. Then, as if uncertain whether she had gotten through to him, she repeated: “It’s counterproductive.”

  His eyes cleared, and he nodded. She smiled tentatively. “Now, let’s go at him. Together, maybe we can achieve what each of us alone has failed to do.”

  They went around, crouching down in front of Harry Rowland, who looked at them blearily out of red-rimmed eyes.

  “I know you work for Jihad bis saif,” Rebeka said, not yet trusting Bourne to begin this stage of the interrogation on the proper note. “Now, by your own actions, we know you were sent to kill Bourne.”

  “What we don’t know,” Bourne said, taking his cue from her, “is why.”

  Rowland’s head swayed a little from side to side. He licked his lips, which were coated with dried blood. “Why does anyone want to kill you, Bourne?”

  “You’re a threat to this network,” Rebeka said to Bourne. She turned back to Rowland. “Why?”

  His bloodshot eyes stared at her. “You did this to me. I was besotted with you. Those nights in Dahr El Ahmar, you made me forget my mission.” He cocked his head to one side. “How did you do that? I don’t understand. What magic did you work?”

  “This is what we do, Harry.” Rebeka put a hand gently on his thigh. “The charade worked both ways. You fooled me. I had no idea you were a member of Jihad bis saif. Until the end.”

  He licked his lips again. He could not take his eyes off her. “What happened? I was so careful. What gave me away?”

  Her fingers moved on his thigh. She had seized on the pleading tone in his voice. “Tell me why Bourne is a threat to Jihad bis saif.”

  “Jihad bis saif,” he repeated with a sneer. “You don’t know the first thing about Jihad bis saif.” Curiously, he was almost laughing.

  “Then enlighten us,” Bourne said in Arabic, then Pashto. When Rowland didn’t respond, Bourne shook his head. “There
is no Jihad bis saif, is there?”

  “Oh, but there is.”

  A hinted-at smile of self-satisfaction was wiped off Rowland’s face by Bourne’s fist as it connected with his cheek. A squeak came from him as his head snapped back on his neck. Bourne caught him before he could fully tumble over. He slapped Rowland until his eyes came back into focus.

  “I guess I don’t believe you.” He gripped Rowland’s jaw hard. “Let’s put an end to this. Tell us what you know or—”

  At that moment, a helicopter appeared over the rooftops, arcing across the sky.

  “Cops?” Rebeka said, squinting up into the oyster-colored dawn.

  “No insignias.” Bourne rose, jerked Rowland onto his feet.

  The copter came swinging in toward them. Clearly, it was homing in on them.

  “We’d best find cover,” Bourne said. But before they could move, the copter was overhead. The chattering of machine-gun fire ripped up the dirty snow. Chips of ice and clots of freshly turned earth flew in all directions. Bourne tried to pull Rowland along with them, but the fire, meant to separate them, was too intense. The men inside the copter left them no choice. He and Rebeka ran toward a stack of piled-up brick and stone from the razed building.

  Bourne made one last attempt to reach Rowland, but the withering fire drove him back. The copter was moving, but instead of rising, it shot forward. The firing began again, this time clearly directed at Bourne. He dived under the cover of some wooden boards, which immediately began to splinter apart. He rolled, snaking away from where Rebeka had hidden, conscious of keeping the bullets away from her even while he sought to protect himself. Since it had explicitly targeted him, it was clear the copter belonged to Rowland’s network, that those inside had recognized him.

  The copter stopped, hovering twenty feet off the ground. A door slid open and a rope ladder extended from it. Rowland was up and was running unsteadily toward it. As Bourne wriggled under more boards, Rowland grasped a rung.

  Men inside the copter winched up the ladder, grabbing hold of Rowland as soon as he was within arm’s reach. The copter now closed with the area where Bourne was hiding. The firing continued in brief but ferocious bursts. The boards kept flying apart, making it necessary for him to move again and thus expose himself.

  The gunfire continued to track him, moving closer and closer. That was when Bourne heard the sirens. Someone had called the cops. He saw the flashing lights as a string of police vehicles rounded a corner and raced down the street toward the lot.

  The men in the copter saw them too. With a last burst of gunfire at the place where Bourne had been moments before, the copter rose, banked, and, as the sirens wailed ever louder, vanished into the rising sun.

  11

  Ms. Moore is out of surgery and in recovery,” the doctor said.

  There was a collective sigh of relief in the waiting room.

  “Is she okay?” Secretary Hendricks said.

  “We relieved the pressure and stopped the bleeding. We’ll know more in the next twenty-four hours.”

  “What the hell does that mean?” Thorne blurted.

  Delia quickly placed herself between him and the surgeon. “How is the fetus?”

  “We’re monitoring it. We’re hopeful.” The surgeon was pale. He looked wiped out. “But, again, the next number of hours are critical for both mother and child.”

  Delia took a breath and let it out. “So you can’t rule out…intervention.”

  “At this point,” the surgeon said, “nothing should be ruled out.” He looked at them. “When she wakes up, I think it would help if she saw a friendly face.”

  Hendricks stepped forward. “I should—”

  “With all due respect,” Delia said, “if she sees you, the first thing she’ll think of is Peter, and he’s not here, is he?”

  “No.” Hendricks turned to the doctor. “I would like very much to see her, if you don’t mind.”

  The surgeon nodded. He was clearly uncertain, but cowed by Hendricks’s position. “But only for a moment, Mr. Secretary.”

  I’m so sorry,” Hendricks said, bent over Soraya’s supine form. “I fear I’ve asked far too much of you.”

  Her huge, dark eyes regarded him woozily, running in and out of focus, and she mouthed two words: My job.

  He smiled, brushing damp hair off her forehead. There was a tube running out of the side of her head, surrounded by bandages. She was hooked up to multiple machines monitoring her heart rate, pulse, and blood pressure. She looked weak, a pallor beneath her skin, but otherwise sound enough.

  “Your job is one thing,” Hendricks said. “But this—what has come about because of it, is quite another.”

  Beneath the ebbing torpor of the anaesthesia, her eyes showed surprise. “You know.”

  He nodded. “The doctors said not to worry. The baby’s fine.”

  A tear welled out of her eye, rolling down her cheek.

  “Soraya, I forced you to cross a line with Charles Thorne that should never be crossed.”

  “I did,” she whispered, her voice paper-thin. “I did.”

  He shook his head, his expression genuinely sorrowful. “Soraya. I—”

  “No regrets,” she said, just before the surgeon came in and ordered an end to the interview.

  At almost the very moment Hendricks returned to the waiting room, his mobile buzzed. He glanced down. “Ah, well. The president needs me.”

  “How is she?” Delia’s anxiety was written all over her face.

  “Weak, but she seems okay.” He looked around for his coat, but his bodyguard, stepping into the room, handed it to him. “Listen, you have my mobile number. Keep me posted.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Well.” He shrugged on his coat. “I’m deeply relieved.”

  As it had been doing all morning, Delia’s mind flashed back to her first meeting with Soraya. After the bomb had been defused and it had been delivered to a joint forensics team, the two women had returned to their respective offices. But late in the day, Delia’s phone had rung. Soraya asked if she would join her for a drink.

  They met in a dim, smoky bar that smelled of beer and bourbon.

  Soraya took her hand. “I never saw anything like that.” She looked up at Delia’s face. ‘You’ve got the fingers of an artist.”

  Delia was dumbstruck. The instant Soraya took her hand, she felt a tingling that ran all the way up her arm. It entered her torso, and where it ended up made her realize that she wasn’t asexual after all. She could barely recall what they talked about as they drank, but as they moved to the restaurant next door, and the conversation turned to their backgrounds, Delia’s mind snapped back into focus. Both she and Soraya viewed themselves as outsiders: They didn’t hang in groups, they weren’t joiners, even though the fast track in any meaningful job in DC required joining as many clubs as possible.

  “We all are,” Delia said now to Secretary Hendricks, though she was acutely aware that the stab of fear she had experienced when Hendricks had called her had not fully dissipated.

  Silence, though somewhere a dog barked. Stasis, though somewhere a car started up.

  “Well?”

  Peter felt Brick’s gaze descend on him like a hammer blow.

  “Act!”

  Peter took Dick Richards’s chin in his hand, tilting his head up so that their eyes met. “Yes, it’s true—I want a position at your company.” Deep in Richards’s eyes he could see that the other had been listening closely to every word that had been spoken in his presence. He knew that Tom Brick knew Peter as Tony. If he had any sense at all, he’d know that Peter was undercover. But Peter was looking into the eyes of a presumed triple agent. Deep down, whose side did Dick Richards want to be on? He supposed it was time to find out.

  He let go of Richards’s chin and, snapping free the Glock’s cartridge, found it to be empty. He checked the chamber: one bullet. Had he been expected to kill Richards with a single shot?

  Looking up into Brick’s
interested face, he said, “You’ve ordered me to act.” Turning the handgun around, he returned it to Bogdan, who seemed to be sunk deep into a sulk, possibly because he had been denied the prospect of physical mayhem. Like a retriever who needed daily running, this guy seemed like he required a daily dose of destruction.

  Peter turned to Tom Brick, who stared at him for a moment. Suddenly, Brick broke out into a fit of laughter and, going into a deep cockney accent, said, “Crikey Moses, gov, you’ve got some pair a cobbler’s awls, you ’ave.”

  Peter blinked. “What?”

  “Cobbler’s awls. Balls,” Bogdan said unexpectedly. “Cockneys’re always street-rhyming. It’s in their nature.”

  Brick pointed to Richards. “Bogs, untie the little bugger, yeah?” reverting to his normal refined accent. “Then have a bit of a dekko outside, make sure we’re comfy, cozy, and all on our onlys, there’s a good lad.”

  Richards sat still as a statue as Bogdan untied him, kept sitting still as a statue as the hulking bodyguard loaded his Glock’s magazine and snapped it into place. It was only when Bogdan stalked out of the room and he heard the front door slam that he slowly rose. He was as unsteady as a newborn colt.

  Seeing this, Brick crossed to the bar, poured him a stiff whiskey. “Ice, yeah?”

  “Right, yeah.” Richards looked not at him, but at Peter. There was a kind of pleading in his eyes, a silent apology.

  Peter, his back to Brick, mouthed: Trust me. To his immense relief, Richards gave a tiny nod. Did that mean he could trust Richards? Far too early to say. But his expression was confirmation of Peter’s suspicion. Richards was, in fact, a double agent, reporting both to the president and to Brick. Peter fought back an urge to wring his scrawny neck. He needed answers. Why was Richards playing this dangerous game? What did Brick hope to gain?

  Brick returned, handed Richards the whiskey, and said cheerily, “Bottoms up, lad!”

  Turning to Peter, he said, “You know, I never would have let you put a bullet through Dick’s head.” At this, Richards nearly choked on his whiskey. “Nah, the little bugger’s far too valuable.” He eyed Peter. “Know as what?”