The Bourne Imperative

by Robert Ludlum

  Bourne thought a moment. “Rowland was trying to steal the technology at Dahr El Ahmar.”

  “That’s what I thought. But the fact is that Harry knew nothing about the real purpose of Dahr El Ahmar, let alone the experiments. No, he was looking for you, and, ironically, in pursuing him, I led him directly to you.”

  “You couldn’t know that.”

  She made a face.

  Outside in the street, they watched a long black car slide past, more slowly than the rest of the traffic. It could mean nothing, or everything. They kept their eyes on the plate-glass door. Two elderly ladies walked in and sat down. A suit with an iPad under his arm rose and went out. A young mother and child pushed in and looked around for a free table. The three servers passed to and fro. When several minutes went by and nothing untoward happened, Rebeka relaxed.

  “I’m taking a chance telling you this,” she said.

  “Colonel Ben David is already convinced I know Dahr El Ahmar’s secret. The question to be answered is why Harry Rowland was sent to kill me.”

  “Why? Do you think it’s all connected?”

  “We can’t rule out the possibility until we know the network’s goal.”

  “For that we need Harry.”

  He nodded. “Our only lead is the copter that snatched him.”

  Rebeka frowned. “How do you propose we—?”

  Her question was cut short as two uniformed police came through the door and began to scrutinize the customers.

  Martha Christiana, sitting next to Don Fernando Hererra in a private jet, was used to walking a tightrope—in fact, she welcomed it. But, for the first time since she had begun taking on commissions, she wasn’t certain of her footing. Don Fernando was proving to be more of a challenge than she could have anticipated.

  For one thing, he was something of an enigma. For another, he didn’t act like any older man she had ever met. He was a dynamo of physical energy, and mentally he wasn’t stuck in the reminiscences of a former age, unable to embrace an increasingly complex technological present. More than anything, he wasn’t afraid of the even more challenging future. Experience had taught her that older men, having expended their reserves of creative energy, were now content to fade into the comfortable background, letting the present whiz by them in an uncomprehensible blur. Don Fernando’s grasp of cutting-edge technology was both comprehensive and dazzling.

  On a fundamental level, she found Don Fernando charming, erudite, and psychologically astute. He drew her in as the sun does a planet. The two of them made intimate connections that both exhilarated and alarmed her. She found herself basking in these connections the way a beachgoer toasts in sunshine. When she was with him, she was happy. In this, she was deviating from the successful execution of her commission. She knew this, but she didn’t stop. Such behavior was completely foreign to her and, as such, a mystery.

  Another thing: There was in Don Fernando something of a memory for her, of a time before Marrakech, before she ran away from the lighthouse. A time of raging storms and walls of water crashing furiously against the rocky promontory into which her home was driven like a massive spike. Or had her thoughts turned in this direction because Don Fernando was flying her to Gibraltar?

  “I’d like to take you to dinner,” he had said earlier that day.

  “What restaurant?” she had said. “How shall I dress?” She wore a black sheath skirt and matching braided bolero jacket, beneath which was an oyster-white silk shirt, pinned at the top with an onyx oval.

  “It’s a surprise.” His eyes twinkled. “As for how to dress, I see nothing wrong with what you’re wearing.”

  The surprise had been the jet, waiting for them on the tarmac of a private field on the outskirts of Paris. It was only after they had raced down the runway and lifted into the air that he had told her their destination.

  Heart racing, she had said, “What’s in Gibraltar?”

  “You’ll see.”

  Now they had landed. A car and driver were waiting for them. As soon as they climbed in, it swept away down a coast all too familiar to her. Twenty minutes later, the lighthouse came into view, rising from the rocky promontory of her youth.

  “I don’t understand.” She turned to him. “Why have you brought me here?”

  “Are you angry?”

  “I don’t know how you…I don’t know…No, I—”

  The car stopped. The lighthouse loomed high above them.

  “It’s automated now. It has been for years,” Don Fernando said as they got out. “But it’s still functioning, it still serves its original purpose.”

  Leading her around to the west side of the lighthouse, he walked with her several hundred yards to the grave site. She stopped, reading the headstone. It was her father’s grave.

  “Why have you done this, Don Fernando?”

  “You are angry. Perhaps I was wrong.” He took her elbow gently. “Come. We’ll leave immediately.”

  But she did not move, stood her ground and shook off his hand as gently as he had gripped her. She walked several paces away until she was directly in front of the grave. Someone had left flowers in a zinc container, but that was some time ago. The flowers were dried, many of the petals missing.

  Martha Christiana stared down at the stone below which her father lay buried. Then, surprising even herself, she knelt down to touch the earth. Above her, clouds raced across the azure sky. Sea birds swooped, calling to one another. Lifting her head, she saw a sea eagle’s nest and thought of family and home.

  Unaccountably, her fingers went to the pin she wore at her throat. She unfastened it, dug a shallow depression in the earth over her father, and placed the pin in it. Then slowly, almost reverently, she covered it over, placed her palm onto the earth, as if she could still feel it, like a beating heart.

  When she rose, Don Fernando said, “Do you want to go inside?”

  She shook her head. “I belong out here.”

  He nodded, as if he understood her completely. Instead of annoying her, that gesture of their unspoken, innate connection comforted her. She linked her arm in his, walked him away to the edge of the rocky promontory. Below them, the sea rose, foaming against the granite teeth far below.

  “When I was a little girl,” she said, “I used to stand here. The sea looked like brittle glass as it broke apart on the rocks. It made me think of my family. It made me sad.”

  “This is why you left.”

  She nodded. Back in the car, as they drove slowly away from the shore and the glowering lighthouse, she said, “How did you find out?”

  “Everything is knowable,” he said with a smile, “these days.”

  She said nothing more. It did not matter how he had found her history, only that he knew. One more astonishment: She was not unhappy that he knew. Somehow, even without asking, she understood that it would remain their secret.

  She stared at the countryside, and like a sleeper waking from a pleasant dream into harsh reality she remembered that she had been sent here to kill this man. The idea seemed absurd to her now, and yet she knew that she had no choice. She never did once she took a commission from Maceo Encarnación.

  Emerging from her difficult thoughts, she saw that they were turning off Castle Road into an area of Gibraltar unfamiliar to her. After several small streets, they came to a triangle of parkland, dotted with pencil cypress and palm trees. Martha rolled down the tinted window, heard the clatter of swaying fronds. A bright spray of gulls flickered by. Sunlight glimmered off a bisque-tile roof, which came nearer as the car rolled up a driveway and came to rest before a pillared portico.

  “Where are we?” Martha said.

  Without a word, Don Fernando accompanied her up the stone steps, across the portico, and into a large, airy entryway, dominated by a cut-crystal chandelier and a high mahogany banc behind which sat a young woman, efficiently fielding calls while entering data on a computer console.

  A business of some sort, Martha thought. Possibly one of his.
r />   Leaning forward, Don Fernando handed over a folded sheet of paper, which the young woman unfolded as if it were an official document. Her clear eyes scanned it, then they flicked up to take in Don Fernando and, briefly, Martha Christiana herself. She picked up a phone, spoke only a few words into it. Then she nodded at them, and, smiling, pointed in the direction of double swinging doors.

  Inside the doors, a uniformed woman, somewhat older, with a kind face and demeanor, waited for them, her hands clasped in front of her like a nun. When she saw them, she turned, leading them down a wide, thickly carpeted hallway, interspersed with closed doors between which hung various photos of Gibraltar down through the years. The only thing that hadn’t changed was the great shrugged shoulder of rock, uncounted ages old.

  At length, the woman stopped in front of a door and gestured. “Take as long as you wish,” she said. She retreated down the hall in the direction they had come before Martha had a chance to ask her what this was all about.

  Don Fernando looked at her without an expression she could read.

  “I’ll be right here if you need me.”

  She was about to query him, but immediately realized that it would do no good. Resigning herself, she pushed open the heavy door and stepped inside.

  How can they be looking for us?” Rebeka said. “They can’t know our faces.”

  “Nevertheless, they’re here. Whether or not they know our faces, they’re looking for the people at the construction site who escaped on foot.”

  “Anyone who looks guilty or is trying to hide.”

  Bourne looked at her. “Hit me.”

  Her eyes found his, found the answer she was seeking there. Leaning across the table, she slapped him hard across the face, back up, upending her chair, and shouted, “Bastard!”

  The cops looked, but then so did everyone else in the café, even the servers, who stood frozen in place.

  “Calm down,” Bourne said loudly, still seated.

  “Calm down? How could you do this to me! And with my own sister!”

  He rose now, the second scene of the play beginning. “I told you to calm down!”

  “Don’t tell me what to do!” She tossed her head. “You have no right.”

  “I have every right,” he said as he grabbed her wrist.

  Rebeka jerked back even as he held on. “Let me go, you sonofabitch!”

  The physical contact was enough for the police, who stood up simultaneously and approached the table. “Sir,” the older of the two said, “the lady wants you to let her go.”

  “Stay out of this,” Bourne said.

  “Do it!” The younger one moved forward menacingly, and Bourne at once dropped his hold on Rebeka’s wrist.

  “Are you all right, ma’am?” the older cop said. “Do you want to press charges?”

  Eyes flashing, Rebeka said, “I just want to get out of here.” Gathering up her coat and shoulder bag, she turned and stalked out of the café, all eyes following her.

  The older cop turned his attention to Bourne. “Pay your bill and clear out. And stay away from the woman, hear?”

  Bourne put his head down, threw some krona on the table and swept out. As the door closed behind him, the café returned to life. The cops sat back down and finished their coffees, the incident evaporating instantly from their minds.

  Bourne met Rebeka around the corner. She was laughing.

  “How’s your cheek?”

  “I’ll turn the other one.”

  She laughed even harder. It was a rare lighthearted moment in their time together. Across the street, he saw Christien standing beside a black late-model Volvo. He was smoking a small cigar and eying the almost steady stream of young women, wrapped in their winter coats, as if he had not a care in the world.

  Evading the traffic, Bourne and Rebeka crossed the street. He grinned at them—especially Rebeka—as he let her into the backseat. Bourne sat beside him in front. Christien had left the engine running, and he nosed out as soon as he glimpsed a break in the traffic.

  “I have a trace on the copter,” Christien said. He was far too savvy to ask Bourne any more about Rebeka than Bourne had seen fit to tell him over the phone. “That proved to be no problem. There aren’t many with those markings—in fact, only one.”

  “What kind of markings are they?” Rebeka asked.

  Christien gave her the once-over in the rearview mirror. “This is where the abduction gets interesting.”

  He handed Bourne a folder filled with high-resolution photos. Rebeka leaned forward between the bucket seats to get a good look.

  “We have access to a number of the city’s surveillance cameras.” Christien made a turn onto Prästgatan, moving more slowly with the increasing crush of traffic. “I had those blown up, and our computer enhanced the images. Page through them; you’ll see why.”

  There were four 8x10 photos. The enlargements and enhancements had drained them of almost all color, but both Bourne and Rebeka recognized the helicopter that had shot at them and had snatched Harry Rowland. As if they needed confirmation, the second photo showed Rowland through the window of the side door. Bourne flipped to the third photo.

  “Kungliga Transport,” Rebeka read. “It looks like a typical commercial aircraft.”

  “Yes,” Christien said, “but it’s not. Look at the last photo. Up past the tail rotor.”

  Bourne flipped again; this photo was an even closer shot. He held it up so more light fell on it.

  “That’s a corporate logo,” he said, “but I can’t make out the name.”

  “It’s too small, even for the enhancements.” They stopped at a light. Christien tapped the logo. “See the shape? It’s kind of unusual, so we ran the outline through one of our bleeding-edge computer recognition programs, and what do you know, we got a hit. This copter belongs to SteelTrap.”

  “Internet security,” Rebeka said. “Top-shelf stuff.”

  Christien nodded. “Talk about bleeding edge. SteelTrap software is light-years ahead of anyone else’s.”

  “What,” Bourne said, “is SteelTrap doing trying to kill me and, at the same time, rescue Harry Rowland?” He turned to Rebeka. “You said Rowland worked for a terrorist network?”

  “Which one?” Christien said.

  “Jihad bis saif,” Rebecca said. “I overheard Colonel Ben David talking about it in Dahr El Ahmar. He thought I was still unconscious.”

  “Who was he talking with?” Bourne asked her.

  She shook her head. “I don’t know.” She sat back, arms crossed under her breasts. “One thing seems clear, though: it looks like SteelTrap does more than produce bleeding-edge software.”

  “Like what?” Christien said.

  Bourne grunted. “Bleeding-edge, period.”

  13

  When Martha Christiana saw the old woman sitting beside the large picture window, she saw herself. The room was sparsely furnished and even more sparsely decorated. There were few personal items: a comb, a hairbrush with a silver handle. A small yellowed scrimshaw of a lighthouse standing alone on a promontory, a faded photo of a beautiful but frail-looking woman, holding against her shins a small girl. That was all. But the room was filled to brimming with a loneliness so profound it took Martha’s breath away.

  The old woman did not turn as she crossed the room and picked up the photo of her and her mother. There was another photo, she saw now, placed behind the first. It showed a slim man in a peacoat, standing beside the cut-glass beacon of the lighthouse. Raking daylight streamed in, illuminating him, but also emphasizing his separation from anything except that fierce beacon.

  Martha Christiana stared at the photo of her father, but she did not pick it up. She did not touch it at all. She felt, in her heart, that touching it would be a desecration, though she could not say why. At last, she put down the photo and walked over to the old woman. She was staring out at the view: a swath of lawn, a clutch of palms, and beyond, nondescript buildings across the street. Not much to look at, but her conc
entration was absolute, fearsome. Martha did not think she was looking at the grass, the trees, or the buildings, none of which would have any meaning for her. She was sitting slightly forward, tensed, peering, as if through a telescope, into the past.

  “Mom,” Martha said in a shaky voice, “what do you see?”

  At the sound of the voice, her mother began to rock back and forth. She was thin as a rail. In places her bones shone whitely beneath her tissue-thin skin. Her pallor gleamed like the sun in winter.

  Martha moved around until she was standing in front of the old woman. Though her cheeks were deeply scored, her entire face ravaged by time, pain, and loss, still something inside her remained unchanged. Martha felt a pang deep inside her chest.

  “Mom, it’s me, Martha. Your daughter.”

  The old woman did not—or could not—look up. She seemed locked in the past. Martha hesitated, then reached out, took the skeletal hand in hers. It was as cool as marble. She stared at the raised veins, blue, seeming ready to burst through the skin. Then she looked up into her mother’s eyes, gray and gossamer as passing clouds shredded by conflicting wind currents.

  “Mom?”

  The eyes moved imperceptibly, but there was no recognition—none at all. It was as if she did not exist. For so many years, her parents had ceased to exist for her. Now, here, with her father already gone, at the end of her mother’s life, there was nothing for her. She was a stone thrown into the sea, sinking out of sight without even a ripple to mark its passing.

  For some time, she stood as still as that great shoulder of rock at the edge of Gibraltar, holding her mother’s cool hand. Once, her mother’s lips parted, and she whispered something that Martha didn’t catch. It wasn’t repeated, even at Martha’s insistent urging. Silence settled over them both. The years had flown by and were now like fallen leaves, brittle and dead.

  At last, when she could breathe again, Martha Christiana let her mother’s hand slip from hers. She crossed to the door, though she was barely aware of what she was doing. Opening the door, she found Don Fernando waiting patiently in the hallway. She opened the door wider.