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She was shivering. “You came back.” Her words were ripped away like sheets of paper by the roaring of the helicopter. Her teeth chattered.
Bourne ran, bent over, his upper body protecting her. It seemed as if she hadn’t lost much more blood. The pilot leaned over and opened the door, but as soon as he saw they weren’t his expected passengers, he drew his sidearm. Before he could aim it, Bourne shot him between the eyes with Viveka Norén’s silver-plated .22.
After placing Rebeka in the passenger’s seat, he wrapped her in a cashmere blanket he found in the back and strapped her in. He ran around and, opening the pilot’s-side door, hauled him out and climbed in, slamming the door behind him. At that moment a slew of guards erupted out of the rooftop hatch. Semid or one of the dead guards must have been discovered. The men began firing at the helicopter.
Working the controls, Bourne took off, banking toward the west. Enough adrenaline was still pumping that he didn’t yet feel any pain in his left shoulder.
High in the sky, he turned and saw the fireball erupt, blotting out the buildings behind it, as the entire El-Gabal complex was obliterated. The shock wave manhandled the shuddering Sikorsky, which dipped and spun, but Bourne managed to regain control. He flew as low as he dared. He knew within minutes Syrian fighter jets would be screaming toward the explosion, along with fire, police, army, and emergency vehicles.
Rebeka stirred and said something he couldn’t hear over the roar of the engines. Holding the steering oval steady between his knees, he leaned over, slipped a pair of headphones over her head identical to the pair he wore, then adjusted the attached microphone. Now they could speak to each other through the com center.
“Is Semid dead?” Even in pain and severely weakened by loss of blood, she had a one-track mind.
“Yes.”
“You’re sure it was him?”
“I saw the tic.”
A sigh of contentment escaped her.
He saw the pilot’s flight plan taped above his head and he stuck to it until the last minute, then headed due west.
She stirred beside him. “Where are we going?”
“Lebanon.”
“Thirty-three, thirty-two, fifty-five, sixty-four north by thirty-six, oh-two, oh-four, fifty east.”
She was giving him specific map coordinates. He punched them in and the helicopter banked left, then flew straight on.
“Radar,” she said. Her voice was thin and reedy.
“I’m going in as low as possible,” Bourne said. In the pearly light of dawn, he could make out the snaking line of barbed wire with the periodic signs warning of land mines. “Close now.”
Overhead a silver flash drew his attention. The plane was too high to see whether it was a commercial flight or a Syrian army fighter. He flew on. Only several thousand yards now. The silver flash grew in his vision as the plane commenced a steep dive. It was a Syrian army jet.
Even before he heard the first volleys of machine-gun fire, he put the helicopter into a series of daredevil evasive maneuvers. The Syrian jet was coming fast, but now the barbed wire of the border was below him. The jet sent one last volley, hoping to set off one of the land mines, and then they were through. The jet veered off, climbing steeply until it vanished into the sunrise.
“We’re in Lebanon.” Bourne glanced over. Her head was lolling.
“Rebeka?”
Her eyes opened and she drew a deep, shuddering breath. “I’m tired.”
“Rebeka, we’ve crossed over.”
A sphinx-like smile spread across her lips. “The Red Sea has parted.” Momentarily revived, she peered out through the Perspex at the arid landscape, shimmering like copper. “Head southwest. Make for Dahr El Ahmar.” She gave him the new coordinates.
Bourne saw pinpricks of blood seeping through the blanket. She must have been shaken up during his violent maneuvering. “Hold on,” he said, making the course correction. “I’ll have you down in no time.”
She started to laugh, and when Bourne looked at her, she said, “You come to the end of your life and who are you with, a virtual stranger who has saved your mission.” Her cough was thick and phlegmy, and she almost choked. “Don’t you think that’s fu
“You’re not going to die, Rebeka.”
“From your mouth to God’s ear.”
“I have enough experience to know. You need blood and a good surgeon.”
“We’ll find them both in Dahr. We have a field unit there. Your shoulder will be as good as new.”
He was surprised that she had had the presence of mind to notice. “My shoulder is fine.”
“Nevertheless…”
“Nevertheless what?”
“I have an obligation to see you restored to health.”
“That works both ways.”
Her sphinx-like smile reappeared, flickering like a guttering candle.
They flew on. Bourne could see the first outbuildings of Dahr El Ahmar, looking like sugar cubes in the morning’s strong, slanted sunlight. They passed over clumps of sentinel palm trees, their fronds, like tongues, set wagging in the helicopter’s backwash. Soon they would be down. His shoulder was on fire.
“El-Gabal.” Rebeka shivered. “That felt like the end of the world.”
Bourne put his hand over hers. “We survived.”
Her eyes were half closed and she looked very pale. Her dark hair lay damp against her cheek. “In the long history of my people, that’s the important thing.”
“It’s the only thing,” he said.
Epilogue
IT WAS SNOWING in Stockholm, just as it had been the last time he had been there. Bourne, shoulders hunched against the wind-driven snow, crossed Stureplan, the crowded square that was the hub of Stockholm nightlife.
He had flown into Stockholm that morning in response to a brief but telling text that had shown up on his cell phone three days before:
Back home after 13 yrs. @ Frequencies evry nite from 9 till u come.
Kaja. The small package he had sent on ahead was waiting for him when he checked into the small family-run hotel in Gamla Stan, the island between Stockholm proper and Södermalm. He had the contents of the package tucked in the inside pocket of his fur-lined greatcoat as he crossed the busy street and stepped into the entrance of Frequencies. The electronic music hit him with the force of a jackhammer. Lights blazed across the ceiling, the dance floor was jammed with bodies bobbing to the trance-like beat that seemed to rise up from the floor, the shimmering air thick with sweat and perfume.
The long, underlit bar was three- and four-deep with guys trying to score and girls checking them out. It was a mystery how Bourne saw her amid all the throbbing mob and pinballing energy, but there she was, her mother’s eyes shining. Her hair was its natural blond color and her tan was completely gone. She was standing near one end of the bar, a glass in one hand, slightly detached from the mingling crowd. As Bourne approached her, someone asked her to dance and she declined. She had seen Bourne by this time, handing her glass to the bewildered guy and moving toward Bourne. She was dressed in umber: snow boots, a three-quarter-length leather skirt, and a wool cable-knit turtleneck.
They met in a small, briefly calm space amid the swirl. There was no point in having a conversation amid the earsplitting noise. She took his hand and led him around the periphery of the club to the bathrooms. Inside the door marked DAMER, no one batted an eye when she led him across the tiled floor. The young women were too busy snorting coke and telling one another war stories about the guys out on the dance floor.
She opened one of the stall doors and they went in, the door closing behind them.
“Kaja,” he said, “I have something for you.” He took out the silver-plated .22 that had belonged to her mother and handed it over.
She studied it briefly, then looked up at him. There was something subtly different about her, but maybe it was her blond hair or how much she resembled Viveka Norén. Or maybe it had something to do with where they were, the Beretta between them.