The Bourne Sanction

“Of course it will. Thank you, Herr Mьller.”

Mьller nearly clicked his heels. “The pleasure is all mine, Fraulein.”

Moira walked back through the factory with Mьller at her side. She said good-bye to him once more at the gates to the factory, walked across the gravel drive to where her chauffeured car sat waiting for her, its precisely engineered German engine purring quietly.

They pulled out of the Kaller Steelworks property, turned left toward the autobahn back to Munich. Five minutes later, her driver said, “There’s a car following us, Fraulein.”

Turning around, Moira peered out the back window. A small Volks-wagen, no more than fifty yards behind them, flashed its headlights.

“Pull over.” She pushed aside the hem of her long skirt, took a SIG Sauer out of the holster strapped to her left ankle.

The driver did as he was told, and the car came to a stop on the shoulder of the road. The Volkswagen pulled in behind. Moira sat waiting for something to happen; she was too well trained to get out of the car.

At length, the Volkswagen drove off the shoulder, into the underbrush, where it disappeared from sight. A moment later a man became visible tramping out onto the side of the road. He was tall and narrow, with a pencil mustache and suspenders holding up his trousers. He was in his shirtsleeves, oblivious to the German winter chill. She could see that he had no weapons on him, which, she reasoned, was the point. When he came abreast of her car, she leaned across the backseat, opened the door for him, and he slipped inside.

“My name is Hauser, Fraulein Trevor. Arthur Hauser.” His expression was morose, bitter. “I apologize for the incivility of this impromptu meeting, but I assure you the melodrama is necessary.” As if to underscore his words, he glanced back down the road toward the factory, his expression fearful. “I do not have much time so I shall come straight to the point. There is a flaw in the coupling link-not, I hasten to add, in the hardware. That, I assure you, is absolutely sound. But there is a problem with the software. Nothing that will interfere with the operation of the link, no, not at all. It is, rather, a security flaw-a window, if you will. The chances are it might never be discovered, but all the same it’s there.”

When Hauser glanced again out the back window a car was coming toward them. He clamped his jaws shut, watched as the vehicle passed by, then visibly relaxed as it drove on down the road.

“Herr Mьller was not altogether truthful. The delays were caused by this software flaw, nothing else. I should know, since I was part of the software design team. We tried for a patch, but it’s been devilishly difficult, and we ran out of time.”

“Just how serious is this flaw?” Moira said.

“It depends on whether you’re an optimist or a pessimist.” Hauser ducked his head, embarrassed. “As I said, it might never be discovered.”

Moira glanced out the window for a time, thinking that she shouldn’t ask the next question because, as Noah told her in no uncertain terms, the Firm was now out of ensuring the security of NextGen’s LNG terminal.

And then she heard herself say, “What if I’m a pessimist?”

Peter Marks found Rodney Feir, chief of field support, in the CI caff, eating a bowl of New England clam chowder. Feir looked up, gestured to Marks to sit. Peter Marks had been elevated to chief of operations after the ill-starred Rob Batt was outed as an NSA rat.

“How’s it going?” Feir said.

“How d’you think it’s going?” Marks parked himself on the chair opposite Feir. “I’ve been vetting every one of Batt’s contacts for any sign of NSA taint. It’s daunting and frustrating work. You?”

“As exhausted as you, I expect.” Feir sprinkled oyster crackers into the chowder. “I’ve been briefing the new DCI on everything from agents in the field to the cleaning firm we’ve used for the past twenty years.”

“D’you think she’ll work out?”

Feir knew he had to be careful here. “I’ll say this for her: She’s a stickler for detail. No stone unturned. She’s not leaving anything to chance.”

“That’s a relief.” Marks twiddled a fork between his thumb and fingers. “What we don’t need is another crisis. I’d be happy with someone who can right this listing ship.”

“My sentiments exactly.”

“The reason I’m here,” Marks said, “is I’m having a staffing problem. I’ve lost some people to attrition. Of course, that’s inevitable. I thought I’d get some good recruits graduating from the program, but they went to Typhon. I’m in need of a short-term fix.”

Feir chewed on a mouthful of gritty clam bits and soft potato cubes. He’d diverted those graduates to Typhon and had been waiting for Marks to come to him ever since. “How can I help?”

“I’d like some of Dick Symes’s people to be assigned to my directorate.” Dick Symes was the chief of intelligence. “Just temporarily, you understand, until I can get some raw recruits through training and orientation.”

“Have you talked to Dick?”

“Why bother? He’ll just tell me to go to hell. But you can plead my case to Hart. She’s so snowed under that you’re the one best suited to get her to listen to me. If she makes the call Dick can yell all he wants, it won’t matter.”

Feir wiped his lips. “What number of perso

“Eighteen, two dozen tops.”

“Not inconsiderable. The DCI is going to want to know what you have in mind.”

“I’ve got a brief detailing it all ready to go,” Marks said. “I shoot it to you electronically, you walk it in to her personally.”

Feir nodded. “I think that can be arranged.”

Relief flooded Marks’s face. “Thanks, Rodney.”

“Don’t mention it.” He began to dig into what was left of the chowder. As Marks was about to rise, he said, “Do you by any chance know where Soraya is? She’s not in her office and she’s not answering her cell.”

“Unh-unh.” Marks resettled himself. “Why?”

“No reason.”

Something in Feir’s voice gave him pause. “No reason? Really?”

“Just, you know how office scuttlebutt can be.”

“Meaning?”

“You two are tight, aren’t you.”

“Is that what you heard?”

“Well, yeah.” Feir placed his spoon into the empty bowl. “But if it isn’t true-”

“I don’t know where she is, Rodney.” Marks’s gaze drifted off. “We never had that kind of thing going.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to pry.”

Marks waved away his apology. “Forget it. I have. So what do you want to talk with her about?”

This was what Feir was hoping he’d say. According to the general, he and LaValle required intel on the nuts and bolts of how Typhon worked. “Budgets. She’s got so many agents in the field, the DCI wants an accounting of their expenses-which, frankly, hasn’t been done since Martin died.”

“That’s understandable, given what’s been going on in here lately.”

Feir shrugged deferentially. “I’d do it myself; Soraya’s got more on her plate than she can handle, I imagine. Trouble is, I don’t even know where the files are.” He was going to add: Do you? but decided that would be overselling it.

Marks thought a minute. “I might be able to help you there.”

How badly does your shoulder hurt?” Devra said.

Arkadin, pressed against her body, his powerful arms around her, said, “I don’t know how to answer that. I have an extremely high tolerance for pain.”

The airplane’s cramped bathroom allowed him to concentrate exclusively on her. It was like being in a coffin together, like being dead, but in a strange afterlife where only they existed.

She smiled up at him as one of his hands traced its way from the small of her back to her neck. His thumb pressed against her jaw, gently tilted her head up while his fingers tightened on the nape of her neck.

He leaned in, his weight arching her torso backward above the sink. He could see the back of her head in the mirror, his face about to eclipse hers. A flame of emotion flickered to life, illuminating the soulless void inside him.