The Bourne Sanction

A frown creased Specter’s brow. “No, I don’t suppose it could have been.”

“Give me his name and address,” Bourne said, “and we’ll find out for certain.”

The man on the rooftop had a mole on his cheek, black as sin. Arkadin concentrated on it as the man pulled Devra off the tar, away from Arkadin.

“Did you tell him anything?” he said without taking his eyes off Arkadin.

“Of course not,” Devra shot back. “What d’you take me for?”

“A weak link,” Mole-man said. “I told Pyotr not to use you. Now, because of you, Filya is dead.”

“Filya was an idiot!”

Mole-man took his eyes off Arkadin to sneer at Devra. “He was your fucking responsibility, bitch.”

Arkadin scissored his legs between Mole-man’s, throwing him off balance. Arkadin, quick as a cat, leapt on him, pummeling him. Mole-man fought back as best he could. Arkadin tried not to show the pain in his left shoulder, but it was already dislocated and it wouldn’t work correctly. Seeing this, Mole-man struck a blow as hard as he could flush into the shoulder.

All the breath went out of Arkadin. He sat back, dazed, almost blacked out with pain. Mole-man scrabbled for his gun, found Arkadin’s instead, and swung it up. He was about to pull the trigger when Devra shot him in the back of the head with his own gun.

Without a word, he pitched over onto his face. She stood, wide-legged, in the classic shooter’s stance, one hand supporting the other around the grips. Arkadin, on his knees, for the moment paralyzed with agony, watched her swing the gun around, point it at him. There was something in her eyes he couldn’t identify, let alone understand.

Then, all at once, she let out the long breath she’d been holding inside, her arms relaxed, and the gun came down.

“Why?” Arkadin said. “Why did you shoot him?”

“He was a fool. Fuck me, I hate them all.”

The rain beat down on them, drummed against the rooftop. The sky, utterly dark, muffled the world around them. They could have been standing on a mountaintop on the roof of the world. Arkadin watched her approach him. She put one foot in front of the other, walking stiff-legged. She seemed like a wild animal-angry, bitter, out of her element in the civilized world. Like him. He was tied to her, but he didn’t understand her, he couldn’t trust her.

When she held out her hand to him he took it.

Nine

I HAVE this recurring nightmare,” Defense Secretary Ervin Reynolds “Bud” Halliday said. “I’m sitting right here at Aushak in Bethesda, when in comes Jason Bourne and in the style of The Godfather Part II shoots me in the throat and then between my eyes.”

Halliday was seated at a table in the rear of the restaurant, along with Luther LaValle and Rob Batt. Aushak, more or less midway between the National Naval Medical Center and the Chevy Chase Country Club, was a favorite meeting place of his. Because it was in Bethesda and, especially, because it was Afghani, no one he knew or wanted to keep secrets from came here. The defense secretary felt most comfortable in off-the-beaten-path places. He was a man who despised Congress, despised even more its oversight committees, which were always mucking about in matters that didn’t concern them and for which they had no understanding, let alone expertise.

The three men had ordered the dish after which the restaurant was named: sheets of pasta, filled with scallions, drenched in a savory meat-infused tomato sauce, the whole crowned by rich Middle Eastern yogurt in which flowered tiny bits of mint. The aushak, they all agreed, was a perfect winter meal.

“We’ll soon have that particular nightmare laid to rest, sir,” LaValle said with the kind of obsequiousness that set Batt’s teeth on edge. “Isn’t that so, Rob?”

Batt nodded emphatically. “Quite right. I have a plan that’s virtually foolproof.”

Perhaps that wasn’t the correct thing to say. Halliday frowned,.”No plan is foolproof, Mr. Batt, especially when it involves Jason Bourne.”

“I assure you, no one knows that better than I do, Mr. Secretary.”

Batt, as the seniormost of the seven directorate heads, did not care for being contradicted. He was a linebacker of a man with plenty of experience beating back pretenders to his crown. Still, he was aware that he was treading terra incognita, where a power struggle was raging, the outcome unknown.

He pushed his plate away. In dealing with these people he knew he was making a calculated gamble; on the other hand, he felt the spark that emanated from Secretary Halliday. Batt had entered the nation’s true power grid, a place he’d secretly longed to be, and a powerful sense of elation shot through him.

“Because the plan revolves around DCI Hart,” Batt said now, “my hope is that we’ll be able to bring down two clay pigeons with one shot.”

“Not another word”-Halliday held up his hand-“to either of us. Luther and I must maintain plausible deniability. We can’t afford this operation coming back to bite us on the ass. Is that clear, Mr. Batt?”

“Perfectly clear, sir. This is my operation, pure and simple.”

Halliday gri

Batt looked from the secretary to LaValle and back again. A frown formed on his face. “No, sir, he didn’t.”

“An oversight,” LaValle said smoothly.

“Well, no time like the present.” A smile continued to light Halliday’s expression.

“We believe that one of CI’s problems is Typhon,” LaValle said. “It’s become too much for the director to properly rehabilitate and manage CI, and keep tabs on Typhon. As such, responsibility for Typhon will be taken off your shoulders. That section will be controlled directly by me.”

The entire topic had been handled smoothly, but Batt knew he’d been deliberately sandbagged. These people had wanted control of Typhon from the begi

“Martin Lindros is dead,” LaValle pointed out needlessly. “Another female is the director of Typhon now. That needs to be addressed, along with many other decisions that will affect Typhon’s future. You will also need to be making crucial decisions, Rob, about all of CI. You don’t want more on your plate than you can handle, do you.” It wasn’t a question.

Batt felt himself losing traction on a slippery slope. “Typhon is part of CI,” he said as a last, feeble attempt to win back control.

“Mr. Batt,” Halliday interjected. “We have made our determination. Are you with us or shall we recruit someone else for DCI?”

The man whose call had drawn Professor Specter out into the street was Mikhail Tarkanian. Bourne suggested the National Zoo as a place to meet, and the professor had called Tarkanian. The professor then contacted his secretary at the university to tell her that he and Professor Webb were each taking a personal day. They got in Specter’s car, which had been driven to the estate by one of his men, and headed toward the zoo.

“Your problem, Jason, is that you need an ideology,” Specter said. “An ideology grounds you. It’s the backbone of commitment.”

Bourne, who was driving, shook his head. “As far back as I can remember I’ve been manipulated by ideologues. So far as I can tell, all ideology does is give you tu

“Now I know I’m truly speaking to Jason Bourne,” Specter said, “because I tried my best to instill in David Webb a sense of purpose he lost somewhere in his past. When you came to me you weren’t just cast adrift, you were severely maimed. I sought to help heal you by helping you turn away from whatever it was that hurt you so deeply. But now I see I was wrong-”