The Bourne Sanction

At that moment, a black Mercedes sedan pulled up to the sidewalk. The driver hurried out and, taking hold of Icoupov, half carried him across the pavement. Icoupov struggled, but to no avail; he was weak with lost blood, and growing weaker by the moment. The driver opened the rear door, bundled him into the backseat. He pulled an HK 1911.45 and with it warned Arkadin away, then he hustled back around the front of the Mercedes, slid behind the wheel, and took off.

Icoupov, slumped in the near corner of the backseat, made rhythmic grunts of pain like puffs of smoke from a steam locomotive. He was aware of the soft rocking of the shocks as the car sped through the Munich streets. More slowly came the realization that he wasn’t alone in the backseat. He blinked heavily, trying to clear his vision.

“Hello, Semion,” a familiar voice said.

And then Icoupov’s vision cleared. “You!”

“It’s been a long time since we’ve seen each other, hasn’t it?” Dominic Specter said.

The Empire State Building,” Moira said as she studied the plans Bourne had managed to scoop up in Kirsch’s apartment. “I can’t believe I was wrong.”

They were parked in a rest stop by the side of the autobahn on the way to the airport.

“What do you mean, wrong?” Bourne said.

She told him what Arthur Hauser, the engineer hired by Kaller Steelworks, had confessed about the flaw in LNG terminal’s software.

Bourne thought a moment. “If a terrorist used that flaw to gain control of the software, what could he do?”

“The tanker is so huge and the terminal is so complex that the docking is handled electronically.”

“Through the software program.”

Moira nodded.

“So he could cause the tanker to crash into the terminal.” He turned to her. “Would that set off the tanks of liquid gas?”

“Quite possibly, yes.”

Bourne was thinking furiously. “Still, the terrorist would have to know about the flaw, how to exploit it, and how to reconfigure the software.”

“It sounds simpler than trying to blow up a major building in Manhattan.”

She was right, of course; and because of the questions he’d been pondering he grasped implications of that immediately.

Moira glanced at her watch. “Jason, the NextGen plane with the coupling link is scheduled to take off in thirty minutes.” She put the car in gear, nosed out onto the autobahn. “We have to make up our minds before we get to the airport. Do we go to New York or to Long Beach?”

Bourne said, “I’ve been trying to figure out why both Specter and Icoupov were so hell-bent on retrieving these plans.” He stared down at the blueprints as if willing them to speak to him. “The problem,” he said slowly and thoughtfully, “is that they were entrusted to Specter’s son, Pyotr, who was more interested in girls, drugs, and the Moscow nightlife than he was in his work. As a consequence, his network was peopled by misfits, junkies, and weaklings.”

“Why in the world would Specter entrust so important a document to a network like that?”

“That’s just the point,” Bourne said. “He wouldn’t.”

Moira glanced at him. “What does that mean? Is the network bogus?”

“Not as far as Pyotr was concerned,” Bourne said, “but so far as Specter saw it, yes, everyone who was a part of it was expendable.”

“Then the plans are bogus, too.”

“No, I think they’re real, and that’s what Specter was counting on,” Bourne said. “But when you consider the situation logically and coolly, which no one does when it comes to the threat of an imminent terrorist attack, the probability of a cell managing to get what it needs into the Empire State Building is very low.” He rolled up the plans. “No, I think this was all an elaborate disinformation scheme-leaking communications to Typhon, recruiting me because of my loyalty to Specter. It was all meant to mobilize American security forces on the wrong coast.”

“So you think the Black Legion’s real target is the LNG terminal in Long Beach.”

“Yes,” Bourne said, “I do.”

Tyrone stood looking down at LaValle. A terrible silence had descended over the Library when he and Soraya had entered. He watched Soraya scoop up LaValle’s cell phone from the table.

“Good,” she said with an audible sigh of relief. “No one’s called. Jason must be safe.” She tried him on her cell, but he wasn’t answering.

Hart, who had stood up when they’d come over, said, “You look a little the worse for wear, Tyrone.”

“Nothing a stint at the CI training school wouldn’t cure,” he said.

Hart glanced at Soraya before saying, “I think you’ve earned that right.” She smiled. “In your case, I’ll forgo the usual warning about how rigorous the training program is, how many recruits drop out in the first two weeks. I know we won’t have to be concerned about you dropping out.”

“No, ma’am.”

“Just call me Director, Tyrone. You’ve earned that as well.”

He nodded, but he couldn’t keep his eyes off LaValle.

His interest did not go u

“You’re out of your mind.” LaValle looked apoplectic. “You can’t-”

“On the contrary,” Hart said, “I can.” She turned to Tyrone. “It’s entirely up to you, Tyrone. Let the punishment fit the crime.”

Tyrone, impaling LaValle in his glare, saw there what he always saw in the eyes of white people who confronted him: a toxic mixture of contempt, aversion, and fear. Once, that would have sent him into a frenzy of rage, but that was because of his own ignorance. Perhaps what he had seen in them was a reflection of what had been on his own face. Not today, not ever again, because during his incarceration he’d finally come to understand what Deron had tried to teach him: that his own ignorance was his worst enemy. Knowledge allowed him to work at changing other people’s expectations of him, rather than confronting them with a switchblade or a handgun.

He looked around, saw the look of expectation on Soraya’s face. Turning back to LaValle, he said: “I think something public would be in order, something embarrassing enough to work its way up to Secretary of Defense Halliday.”

Veronica Hart couldn’t help laughing, she laughed until tears came to her eyes, and she heard the Gilbert and Sullivan lines run through her head: His object all sublime, he will achieve in time-let the punishment fit the crime!

Forty-Two

I SEEM TO HAVE you at quite a disadvantage, dear Semion.” Dominic Specter watched Icoupov as he dealt with the pain of sitting up straight.

“I need to see a doctor.” Icoupov was panting like an underpowered engine struggling up a steep grade.

“What you need, dear Semion, is a surgeon,” Specter said. “Unfortunately, there’s no time for one. I need to get to Long Beach and I can’t afford to leave you behind.”

“This was my idea, Asher.” Having braced his back against the seat, some small amount of color was returning to Icoupov’s cheeks.

“So was using Pyotr. What did you call my son? Oh, yes, a useless wart on fate’s ass, that was it, wasn’t it?”

“He was useless, Asher. All he cared about was getting laid and getting high. Did he have a commitment to the cause, did he even know what the word meant? I doubt it, and so do you.”

“You killed him, Semion.”

“And you had Iliev murdered.”

“I thought you’d changed your mind,” Sever said. “I assumed you’d sent him after Bourne to expose me, to gain the upper hand by telling him about the Long Beach target. Don’t look at me like that. Is it so strange? After all, we’ve been enemies longer than we’ve been allies.”

“You’ve become paranoid,” Icoupov said, though at the time he had sent his second in command to expose Sever. He’d temporarily lost faith in Sever’s plan, had finally felt the risks to all of them were too great. From the begi