The Bourne Sanction

Soraya gave her a small conspiratorial smile, then rose, threading her way back to the ladies’ room. The waiter approached the table, frowning.

“Is there something wrong with the brook trout, ma’am?”

“It’s fine,” Hart said.

As the waiter gathered up the plates Hart took out five twenty-dollar bills, slipped them in his pocket. “You see that man over there, the one with the wide face and football player’s shoulders?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“How about you trip when you get to his table.”

“If I do that,” the waiter said, “I’m liable to dump these brook trouts in his lap.”

“Precisely,” Hart said with a wi

“But it could mean my job.”

“Don’t worry.” Hart took out her ID, showed it to him. “I’ll square things with your boss.”

The waiter nodded, turned away. Soraya reappeared, made her way to the table. Hart threw some bills onto their table but didn’t stand up until the waiter bumped into a busboy. He staggered, the plates tipped. As the NSA shadow leapt up, Hart rose. Together she and Soraya walked to the door. The NSA shadow was berating the waiter, who was brushing him down with several napkins; everyone was looking, gesticulating. A couple of people closest to the accident were shouting their versions of what happened. Amid the escalating chaos, the second NSA shadow had gotten up to come to his compatriot’s aid, but when he saw his target heading toward him he changed his mind.

Hart and Soraya had reached the door, were stepping out into the street. The second NSA shadow began to follow them, but a pair of burly Metro cops burst into the restaurant detaining him. “Hey! What about them!” he shouted at the two women.

Two more patrol cars screeched to a halt, cops raced out. Hart and Soraya already had their IDs out. The cops checked them.

“We’re late for a meeting,” Hart said briskly and authoritatively. “National security.”

The phrase was like open sesame. The cops waved them on.

“Sweet,” Soraya said, impressed.

Hart nodded her head in acknowledgment, but her expression was grim. Wi

When they were several blocks away and had determined that they were clean of LaValle’s tags, Soraya said, “At least let me set up a meet with Bourne so we can pick his brain.”

“I very much doubt this will work.”

“Jason trusts me. He’ll do the right thing,” Soraya said with absolute conviction. “He always does.”

Hart considered for some time. Scylla and Charybdis still loomed large in her thought process. Death by water or fire, which was it to be? But even now she didn’t regret taking the director’s position. If there was anything she was up for at this stage in her life it was a challenge. She couldn’t imagine a bigger one than this.

“As you no doubt know,” she said, “Bourne wants to see the files on the conversations between Lindros and Moira Trevor.” She paused in order to judge Soraya’s reaction to the woman Bourne was now linked with. “I agreed.” There wasn’t even a tremor in Soraya’s face. “I’m meeting him this evening at five,” she said slowly, as if still chewing the idea over. Then, all at once, she nodded decisively. “Join me. We’ll hear his take on your intel then.”

Eleven

SPLENDIDLY DONE,” Specter said to Bourne. “I can’t tell you how impressed I am with how you handled the situations at the zoo and at the hospital.”

“Mikhail Tarkanian is dead,” Bourne said. “I never meant that to happen.”

“Nevertheless it did.” Specter’s black eye wasn’t quite as swollen, but it was begi

The professor clapped Bourne on the back as the two men walked down to the weeping willow on Specter’s property. Out of the corner of his eye, Bourne could see several young men, armed with assault rifles, flanking them. Following the events of today, Bourne didn’t begrudge the professor his armed guards. In fact, they made him feel better about leaving Specter’s side.

Under the nebula of delicate yellow branches the two men gazed out at the pond, its surface as perfectly flat as if it were a sheet of steel. A brace of skittish grackles lifted up from the willow, cawing angrily. Their feathers gleamed in brief rainbow hues as they banked away from the swiftly lowering sun.

“How well do you know Moscow?” Specter asked. Bourne had told him what Tarkanian had said, and they’d agreed that Bourne should start there in his search for Pyotr’s killer.

“Well enough. I’ve been there several times.”

“Still and all, I’ll have a friend, Lev Baronov, meet you at Sheremetyevo. Whatever you require, he’ll provide. Including weapons.”

“I work alone,” Bourne said. “I don’t want or need a partner.”

Specter nodded understandingly. “Lev will be there for support only, I promise he won’t be a hindrance.”

The professor paused a moment. “What worries me, Jason, is your relationship with Ms. Trevor.” Turning so that he faced away from the house, he spoke more softly. “I have no intention of prying into your personal life, but if you’re going overseas-”

“We both are. She’s off to Munich this evening,” Bourne said. “I appreciate your concern, but she’s as tough a woman as I’ve come across. She can take care of herself.”

Specter nodded, clearly relieved. “All right, then. There’s just the matter of the information on Icoupov.” He drew out a packet. “In here are your plane tickets to Moscow, along with the documentation you’ll need. There’s money waiting for you. Lev has the details as to which bank, the account number attached to the safe-deposit box, and a false identity. The account has been established in that name, not in yours.”

“This took some pla

“I had it done last night, in the hope that you’d agree to go,” Specter said. “All that remains is for us to take a picture of you for the passport.”

“And if I’d said no?”

“Someone else had already volunteered.” Specter smiled. “But I had faith, Jason. And my faith was rewarded.”

They turned back and were heading for the house when the professor paused.

“One more thing,” he said. “The situation in Moscow vis-а-vis the grupperovka-the criminal families-is at one of its periodic boiling points. The Kazanskaya and the Azeri are vying for sole control of the drug trade. The stakes are extraordinarily high-in the billions of dollars. So don’t get in their way. If there is any contact with you, I beg you not to engage them. Instead, turn the other cheek. It’s the only way to survive there.”

“I’ll remember that,” Bourne said, just as one of Specter’s men came hurrying out of the back of the house.

“A woman, Moira Trevor, is here to see Mr. Bourne,” he said in German-inflected Turkish.

Specter turned to Bourne, his eyebrows raised in either surprise or concern, if not both.

“I had no other choice,” Bourne said. “I need to see her before she leaves, and after what happened today I wasn’t about to leave you until the last moment.”

Specter’s face cleared. “I appreciate that, Jason. Indeed, I do.” His hand swept up and away. “Go see your lady friend, and then we’ll make our last preparations.”

I’m on my way to the airport,” Moira said when Bourne met her in the hallway. “The plane takes off in two hours.” She gave him all the pertinent information.

“I’m on another flight,” he said. “I have some work to do for the professor.”

A flicker of disappointment crossed her face before vanishing in a smile. “You have to do what you think is best for you.”

Bourne heard the slight distance in her voice, as if a glass partition had come down between them. “I’m out of the university. You were right about that.”