The Bourne Objective

“Do you really want me to tell you?” Her voice was that of a trained contralto, deep and rich and sonorous. Even at low volume it seemed to pierce into every packed corner of the sweets shop.

“You started this,” Bourne pointed out.

She smiled, but there was nothing happy in it. “Come with me.”

He followed her to the rear of the shop and out a narrow door. Once again in the labyrinthine heart of the market, he looked out at a bewildering array of goods and services: live cocks and velvet-winged bats in cages, cockatoos on bamboo perches, fat fish in tanks of seawater, a butchered lamb, ski

“Here you see many things, many creatures, but as for people, only Amazighs, only Berbers.” Tanirt pointed south, into the High Atlas. “The town of Tineghir is centered within an eighteen-and-a-half-mile oasis at an altitude of more than five thousand feet, stretching across a relatively thin wedge of lush wadi between the High Atlas range to the north and the Anti-Atlas to the south.

“It is a homogeneous place. Like the area around it, the town is inhabited by Amazighs. The Romans called us Mazices; the Greeks, Libyans. By whatever name, we are Berbers, indigenous to many parts of North Africa and the Nile Valley. The ancient Roman author Apuleius was actually Berber, as was Saint Augustine of Hippo. So was, of course, Septimius Severus, emperor of Rome. And it was a Berber, Abd ar-Rahman the First, who conquered southern Spain and established the Umayyad Caliphate in Córdoba, the heart of what he called al-Andalus, modern-day Andalusia.”

She turned to him. “I tell you this so you may better understand what is to come. This is a place of history, of conquest, of great deeds and great men. It is also a place of great energy-a power spot, if you will. It is a nexus point.”

She took his hand again. “Bourne, you are an enigma,” she said softly. “You have a long lifeline-an unusually long lifeline. And yet…”

“What is it?”

“And yet you will die here today or perhaps tomorrow, but certainly within the week.”

All of Marrakech appeared to be a souk, all Moroccans vendors of something or other. Everything seemed to be bought and sold from the storefronts and marketplaces that lined the jammed streets and boulevards.

Arkadin and Soraya had been observed upon their arrival, which he had expected, but no one approached them and they weren’t followed from the airport into the city. This did not reassure him. On the contrary, it made him even more wary. If the Severus Domna agents at the airport hadn’t followed them, it was because they had no need to. His conclusion was that the city, probably the entire Ouarzazate region, was swarming with them.

Soraya confirmed that opinion when he voiced it. “It makes no sense you being here,” she said inside a taxi that smelled of stewed lentils, fried onions, and incense. “Why are you walking into such an obvious trap?”

“Because I can.” Arkadin sat with his small suitcase on his lap. Inside was the laptop computer.

“I don’t believe you.”

“I don’t give a shit what you believe.”

“Another lie, otherwise I wouldn’t be here with you now.”

He looked at her, shaking his head. “Within ten minutes I could make you cry out, I could make you forget all your previous lovers.”

“I’m charmed, truly.”

“Mother Teresa, not Mata Hari.” He said this with a good measure of disgust, as if her chastity had made him lose respect for her, or at least devalue her.

“Do you imagine I care what a piece of shit like you thinks of me.” It was not a question.

They bounced around in the backseat for some time. Then he said, as if continuing the previous conversation, “You’re here as an insurance policy. You and Bourne have a co

Soraya, brooding, was silent for the remainder of the ride.

In Marrakech, Arkadin took her along a warren of streets where Moroccans peered at her, licking their lips as if they were trying to measure the tenderness of her flesh. They were engulfed by the madhouse screeches of the jungle. At length, they entered a stuffy shop that stank of machine oil. A small, bald, mole-like man greeted Arkadin in the obsequious ma

“Well, since you know my stock,” the mole-man said, “I’ll leave you to make your choices. Bring what you want to buy upstairs, I’ll provide what ammunition you require, and we’ll settle the bill.”

Arkadin nodded absently. He was consumed with passing from one drawer of the arsenal to another, calculating firepower, ease of use, rapidity of fire, and the practicality of weight and size of each weapon.

When they were alone, he removed from a drawer what looked to Soraya like a searchlight with a large battery pack underneath it. Turning to her, he shook the searchlight. The battery pack opened and locked into place. The item was a folding machine gun.

“I’ve never seen that before.” She was fascinated despite herself.

“It’s a prototype, not on the market yet. It’s a Magpul FMG, takes standard nine-millimeter Glock ammo but spits it out a shitload faster than a pistol.” He ran his hand down the stubby barrel. “Nice, huh?”

Soraya thought it was. She’d dearly like one for herself.

Arkadin must have recognized the avidity of her gaze. “Here.”

She took it from him, examined it expertly, broke it down, then put it back together.

“Fucking ingenious.” Arkadin seemed in no hurry to take back the FMG. He seemed to be watching her, but, in fact, he was seeing something else, a scene from far away.

In St. Petersburg he’d taken Tracy to her hotel room. She had not asked him to come up, but she hadn’t protested when he had. Inside, she put her handbag and key down on a table, walked across the carpet and into the bathroom. She closed the door but he didn’t hear the click of a lock.

The river glittered in moonlight, black and thick and full of secrets, like an ancient serpent, always half asleep. It was stuffy in the room, so he went to the window and, unlatching it, opened it. A wind, thick as the river and smelling of it, swirled about the room. He turned, looked at the bed, and imagined Tracy there, her nakedness revealed by the moonlight.

A tiny sound, like a sigh or a catch in the throat, caused him to turn around. The bathroom door, unlatched, had opened, and now another swirl of wind pushed it farther, so that a thin wedge of buttery light fell across the carpet. He entered the wedge of light, and his gaze penetrated into the bathroom. He saw Tracy’s back, or rather a slice of it, pale and unblemished. Lower was the swell of her buttocks and the deep crease between. The pulse of pleasure in his groin was so extreme it bordered on pain. There was that thing about her-his hatred and his dependence-that made him weak. He despised himself, but he could not help moving toward the door and pushing it farther open.