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Sovard, the bodyguard-messenger, handed a slim packet to his boss as soon as he had parked in a spot away from other cars.
“Two tickets,” Christien said, handing the packet to Bourne.
Rebeka accepted hers with a certain reluctance. “Where to?”
Fishing an iPad out of Sovard’s briefcase, Christien used the touch screen to access a video. “In this instance, Sweden’s fetish for surveillance has served us well,” he observed.
The three of them watched a video that had obviously been quickly and roughly spliced together from several fixed CCTV cameras at various locations. In the begi
Then, in a flurry of activity, a sudden backwash sent people scurrying. A moment later, the disguised SteelTrap copter descended into view, settling onto the ground. Almost immediately, the side door slid back and three men clambered down. One of them was clearly Harry Rowland. He hustled between the two men, moving left to right, vanishing out of camera range.
Jump-cut to another camera in another area of the airport. Three men were seen hustling across the tarmac. Though the view was from farther away, it was clear from their gait that these were the same three men from the SteelTrap copter. A long-range private jet was waiting for them. An immigration official checked their passports, stamped them, and nodded them up the mobile stairs.
Another jump-cut, this time a different angle on the same scene, closer up, probably through a telephoto lens, judging by the jittery images. One by one, the men bent down, disappearing into the belly of the jet.
A final jump-cut to the jet rolling down the runway, gathering speed. When it lifted off out of the frame, Christien stopped the video and stowed the iPad.
“The pilot was required to file a flight plan with the tower at Arlanda. The plane is headed to Mexico City via Barcelona.” Christien smiled. “It so happens that Maceo Encarnación, the president of SteelTrap, has his main residence in Mexico City.”
“Nice work,” Bourne acknowledged.
Christien nodded. “Your AeroMexico flight will be following virtually the same route as the SteelTrap jet, but they’ll have a two-hour head start. Jason, I know you have a passport. Rebeka?”
“Don’t leave home without it,” she said with a wry smile.
He nodded. “Good. We’re set then.”
Putting the Volvo in gear, he rolled out of the lay-by, back onto the E4, heading for the Arlanda airport.
Sovard was on his way back from security, to which he had accompanied Christien’s VIP guests when a man asked him for the time. The moment he glanced at his watch, he felt an immense pain at the nape of his neck. As he pitched forward, the man caught him under the arms and half-dragged him into an airline lost-luggage office. It was currently unlighted and unma
“I have little time.” The man touched Sovard on a nerve bundle behind his right ear, and a firework of pain exploded in Sovard’s brain. “Where are they going?”
Sovard stared up at him blankly. A sliver of drool escaped the corner of his mouth, discolored his shirt. It was pinkish with his own blood.
“I will only ask you one more time.” Again, the Babylonian used only one finger, this time stopping the flow of blood through Sovard’s carotid artery, then released it. “You have ten seconds to answer my question. After that, I will bring you to the point of unconsciousness, over and over until you beg me to kill you. Frankly, I’d like that, but I’m thinking altruistically, I’m thinking of you.”
He repeated the procedure twice more before Sovard lifted a trembling hand. He’d had enough. The Babylonian leaned forward. Sovard opened his mouth and spoke two words.
Eighty minutes later, Bourne and Rebeka were settling into their first-class seats, accepting hot towels and flutes of champagne from the flight attendant.
“Feel nostalgic?” Bourne said, his gaze following the attendant back down the aisle.
Rebeka laughed. “Not at all. My life as a flight attendant seems like a lifetime ago.”
Bourne stared out the window as the crew made its last-minute preparations, then they strapped themselves in. The massive engines revved as the jet taxied toward the head of the runway. Over the intercom the captain a
“Jason,” she said softly, “what are you thinking?”
It was the first time she had called him anything but Bourne. That made him turn toward her. There was a softness—almost a vulnerability—in her eyes he hadn’t seen before.
“Nothing.”
She watched him for a moment. “Do you ever ask yourself whether it’s time to get out?”
“Get out of what?”
“Don’t do that. You know. The great game.”
“And do what?”
“Find an island in the sun, kick back, drink a beer, eat fresh-caught fish, make love, sleep.”
The plane slowed, turning onto the runway, strings of yellow lights ru
“And then?”
“Then,” she said, “do it all over again the next day.”
“You’re joking.”
There was a silence, broken by the soft push forward as the brakes came off, and the jet hurtled down the runway. They lifted off, the wheels retracted, they rose higher.
Rebeka put her head back against the seat and closed her eyes. “Of course I’m joking.”
During the meal service, she pushed away her tray, unsnapped her seat belt, rose, and went forward, standing out of the flight attendants’ way. When she made no move to use the restroom after the occupied light flicked off and a middle-aged woman emerged, Bourne followed her. A sense of melancholy, sharp as the scent of burning leaves, seemed to have enveloped her.
They stood side by side, shoulders pressed together in the cramped space. Neither of them spoke until Rebeka said, “Have you been to Mexico City?”
“Once that I can remember.”
She had wrapped herself in the protection of her own arms. “It’s a fucking snake pit. A gorgeous snake pit, admittedly, but a snake pit nonetheless.”
“It’s gotten worse in the last five years.”
“The cartels are no longer underground since they’ve integrated with the Colombians. There’s so much money that all the right officials, even the police, are in on the action. The drug trade is out of control. It’s threatening to inundate the entire country, and the government doesn’t have either the will or the inclination to stem the rising tide. Anyway, any time someone in authority pops up trying to take charge, he gets his head lopped off.”
“Not much incentive to swim against the tide.”
“Unless you’re swinging the hammer of God.”
Another silence descended, as if from the high, clear sky through which they were flying. Bourne listened to her soft, even breathing, as if he were lying in bed next to her. Despite this, he was acutely aware of how separate from her—from everyone—he felt. And, abruptly, he understood what she was trying to get out of him. Was he incapable of feeling any deep emotion about anyone? It seemed to him now that each death, each parting he had memory of, had inoculated him over and over, until he was now fully anaesthetized, incapable of doing anything more meaningful than putting one foot in front of the other in the darkness. There was no escape for him, and Rebeka knew it. That was why she had brought up the notion of an island in the sun. Leaving the darkness behind was not an option for him. He had spent so many years negotiating its mysterious byways that he would only be blinded in the sunlight. This realization, he understood, was what had saddened her, wrapping her in melancholy. Whether it was because she had seen herself in him or because she actually desired the exile for herself remained to be seen.