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She dragged out the pleasure-pain as long as she could, riding the crests until she fell over onto the other side. When it was over, her body drained, her mind empty, there came a respite, but so brief she winced when the responsibilities of her current life flooded back.
She was trapped in a morally perverse world, trapped in a place and time she had worked toward, but now regarded as repellent. For the first time in many years, she wished Kaja were with her, or at least accessible so she could pour out her current agony before the only other soul on earth who might understand. But she had no idea of Kaja’s whereabouts, or even her current identity. There was no hope on that score.
Then what about Christopher? The room’s air conditioner started up, and a cold wind blew across her back, raising goose bumps. She had run out of options—there was Christopher and then there was Benjamin, the two opposing forces in her current life. Everything had changed during the last phone call with Benjamin; she had to ignore her heart, she had to stay as far away from Christopher as possible.
Making that decision heartened her, and she rose off the bed. She stared at the table on which rested the meal room service had delivered hours ago. She hadn’t touched it and now never would. She picked up the tray and carried it to the door. Balancing it on one hand, she opened the door. The moment she did so, three men waiting in the hallway jumped her.
If he were to be honest with himself, Aaron was doing a whole bunch of nothing when he caught the call from his boss.
“She’s not at the bank,” Robbinet’s crisp voice said in his ear. “You’d better hope she isn’t lying somewhere in the gutter unconscious, or with a bullet through her head.”
Aaron’s mind raced. Like Robbinet, he had assumed that Soraya would head for the Île de France Bank in La Défense. He would have if he were her.
“Wait a minute,” he said, suddenly remembering a certain detail of their interrogation of M. Marchand. “The finances of the Monition Club run through Île de France, but the managing entity is Nymphenburg Landesbank of Munich.”
“Never heard of it,” Robbinet snapped. “Is it represented in Paris?”
“Just a moment.” Aaron did a Google search on his cell phone. “Yes, sir, there’s one office. Seventy Boulevard de Courcelles. Just opposite Parc Monceau.”
“Meet me there in fifteen minutes,” Robbinet said. “And God help you if she’s injured, or worse.”
The plates, cutlery, and food went flying as Skara drove the edge of the tray into the leading man’s throat, but the other two men shoved her back into the room with such force she tumbled into the table and went down on one knee.
The man she had struck slammed the door behind him, locking the four of them in the room together. He drew out a Glock and screwed on a suppressor, while the pair grabbed her arms and threw her onto the bed. He aimed the Glock at her while one of the pair pi
“What’s going on?” the Russian with the Glock said.
As the Russian on top of her struggled to rise up, she slammed his lower jaw upward and forced him to grind his teeth.
“I know who you are,” she whispered into his ear as bloody foam began to leak out of his ruined mouth. She inhaled the scent of bitter almonds.
The Russian’s eyes rolled up and he convulsed. She threw him against the Russian holding her down, who let go of her ankles in order to catch the corpse. She grabbed him and swung him around just before the gunman squeezed the Glock’s trigger. The bullet struck the second Russian and he reared up, momentarily blocking the gunman’s view of his intended target.
She tumbled off the bed and, as the gunman swiveled to find her, kicked him hard in the chest. Taken unawares, he reeled back onto the carpet. His Glock went flying across the room. She lunged for the glass on the bedside table, smashed it against the edge, and drove the jagged bottom into the gunman’s eye.
He screamed and kept on screaming, his arms flailing, as she ground the glass deeper. The Russian’s fists beat at her, driving the breath out of her, and he began to rise up, using his superior strength and weight against her. But she drove her knee into his throat and, using all her leverage, cracked through the cartilage. He choked, gasping for air he could no longer draw into his lungs.
She rose off him then, picking her way carefully around the glittering shards of glass to where the Glock lay. She picked it up and, turning, shot the Russian between the eyes.
She stood rooted to the spot for some time. Before the air conditioner clicked on she thought she could hear the sound of blood seeping. She went slowly over to the bed and sat down on the edge of it, elbows on knees, the Glock with its extended barrel hanging between her legs.
Her head bowed, tears came, and for a long time she did not want to stop crying
Your time here is over, Jason,” Don Fernando said. “You can no longer protect Kaja.”
“You left her alone.”
“There was an emergency. Besides, she was under surveillance.”
“Little good it did.”
Don Fernando sighed. “Jason, this woman has made herself an expert at ru
Bourne knew he was right, but it rankled him that Kaja was gone. She was a loose end. She had become an unknown in the complex equation.
Don Fernando produced a slim folder from his breast pocket and handed it to Bourne. “A first-class ticket to Damascus. There are several stopovers, but that can’t be helped. You’ll touch down by tomorrow morning. I’ll have Almaz agents meet you.”
“Don’t bother,” Bourne said, “I know where to go.” When Don Fernando looked at him quizzically, he added, “I found the shipping labels for whatever is in the dozen crates in the warehouse.”
“I see.” Don Fernando nodded judiciously. As the two Almaz agents departed, he extracted a cigar from its aluminum tube, bit off the end, and, flicking open his lighter, sucked smoke into his lungs. When he had the Cuban going to his satisfaction, he said, “The crates are filled with FN SCAR-M, Mark 20 assault rifles.”
“The Mark 20 doesn’t exist.”
“It does, Jason. These are prototypes. Their firepower is extremely destructive.”
“And they’re going to the Domna in Damascus. What for?”
“That’s what you need to find out.” Don Fernando blew out a cloud of aromatic smoke. “The Domna has been stockpiling these and other assault weapons for over a month, but in the last week the shipments have accelerated.”
“We have the ability to stop this one.”
“On the contrary, I’m doing everything I can to make certain they are delivered to the address you discovered. El-Gabal on Avenue Choukry Kouatly used to be the headquarters of a mining and mineral company. Now it’s a vast complex of offices and warehouse-size spaces used as Domna’s main staging area.”
Bourne tensed. “Why would you let the weapons leave Cadiz?”
“Because,” Don Fernando said, “those SCAR-Ms are filled with a powerful C-4 compound.” He pressed a tiny plastic package and a small cell phone into Bourne’s hand. “Each crate needs to be embedded with one of these identical SIM cards.” He opened the package to show Bourne the stack of SIMs.