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He went out then without another word, cutting the overhead lights as he left. The lamp on his desk was left burning as, it seemed, it always was, even when he wasn’t there. All that remained was the deep, steady humming of the massive refrigeration units in the basement, rising through the concrete floor in spectral sound.
“Do you want to lie down?” Rebeka looked from Bourne, whose expression made her laugh, to the open coffin. “Neither do I.”
Bourne opened the detailed map of the city el Enterradorhad given him, and, by the dim lamplight, began to study it. “Are we clear on what we need to do,” he said, “once we get in?”
“Rowland first, then Maceo Encarnación.”
Bourne shook his head. “Rowland first, then we get out.”
“What about Encarnación?”
Bourne glanced up. He could see the lamp reflected in her eyes, a corona of light surrounding her pupils. “Listen, I’ve been thinking,” he said softly. “I’m begi
“It’s hiding in plain sight.”
“Really?”
She nodded. “It’s part of Encarnación’s empire. It must be.”
He returned to studying the map of the labyrinthine city. “Why do you say that?”
“We arrived here, drove through...I listened to what Constanza Camargo said, and I knew.”
“You’re wrong,” Bourne said. “ Jihad bis saifis a ghost. It doesn’t exist.”
“But what about what I overheard in Dahr El Ahmar?”
“Dahr El Ahmar. That’s the key, isn’t it?” Bourne looked up again. “It was Colonel Ben David you overheard. You say he thought you were still unconscious, right?”
She nodded.
“What if he knew you were listening?”
She stared at him.
“Think this through, Rebeka. Ben David knew you brought me into Dahr El Ahmar, a top secret Mossad camp in a foreign country, harboring even more top secret research on a procedure parallel to SILEX, the separation of isotopes by laser excitation, in order to quickly and efficiently enrich nuclear material to weapons grade.
“Now, all of a sudden, he doesn’t know whether to trust you. So he sets a trap. He discusses Jihad bis saifwithin your hearing. Come on, why would he do that when you’re within earshot? Would he really take the chance that you were unconscious? The hell he would. No, he talked about Jihad bis saifto see what you would do. And what did you do?You cut and ran. No wonder he sent the Babylonian after you.”
Rebeka shook her head. “No. It can’t be.”
“But you know it is,” Bourne pressed her. “We know Ben David better than most people. I think we’ve both seen him at his worst.”
“Then what about Rowland?”
“He was sent by Maceo Encarnación,” Bourne said. “Encarnación is the one who wants me dead. You saw how his copter came after me in Stockholm.”
He could see her taking deep breaths, gathering herself. When she turned back to him, her eyes were glistening and a tiny tremor went through her like an arrow. “I thought I was so smart.”
“Forget it. We all make mistakes.”
“There was no one inside Mossad I could trust, and in the end Ben David betrayed me.”
“I imagine he sees the betrayal from a different perspective.”
She took another slow breath. “What really happened between you and him? Before, I mean.”
Bourne regarded her for a long time. She became acutely aware of the open coffins, pale silk linings spectral islets in the semi-darkness. They didn’t look soft and comforting at all.
“In the twilight of Mubarak’s reign in Egypt, his government lost control over the Sinai,” Bourne said. “But I’m sure you already know this.”
She nodded.
“That’s where Ben David and I first met. A contingent of IDF was in there policing the local bedouin caravans, which were smuggling drugs, arms, and human slaves from Eritrea into Israel. Ben David was there with five of his Mossad agents, investigating a rumor that Mubarak or someone highly placed inside his government was behind the shipments, greasing the wheels with the bedouin chieftains. I was in the midst of my own investigation that peripherally involved the IDF. Suffice it to say that our goals clashed.”
“He wouldn’t have liked that.”
“He didn’t,” Bourne said. “In typical Ben David fashion, he concocted a story about me and sold it to the IDF commander. As a result, the IDF went after me.”
“Which accomplished the dual goal of getting you and the IDF off his back, giving him a free field to pursue his own objective without interference. Clever.”
“Not clever enough,” Bourne said. “I evaded the IDF by impersonating an arms dealer and joining one of the bedouin caravans. When Ben David and his unit attacked them, there I was.”
Rebeka indicated that they should sit on the floor. “What happened?” she said, when they were settled.
“Ben David got the surprise of his life. According to the caravan leader, the shipments originated in Pakistan, Syria, and Russia, not with the Egyptian government.”
“You believed him?”
Bourne nodded. “He had no reason to lie. As far as he was concerned, I was there to supervise one of my own shipments. He received his payments from Russian arms dealers, like the one I was impersonating, and from terrorist cells with co
His eyes glittered. “Ben David’s intel was either incorrect or deliberate disinformation. Either way, he was wasting his and the Mossad’s time in the Sinai. Trouble was, Ben David refused to believe me. He ordered me executed, and I almost was.”
“But you escaped.”
“With the help of my newfound bedouin friends. Ben David was infuriated, vowing to hunt me down and kill me.”
“That’s the end of the story?”
“Until it picked up again when we flew into Dahr El Ahmar.”
“Shit, I wish I had known.”
“What would you have done differently?” Bourne said. “You needed immediate medical assistance. The Mossad camp was the closest safe haven.”
“I would have warned you.”
Bourne grunted. “Seeing Ben David again was warning enough.”
“He took off half a mountaintop trying to bring you down,” she said. “But then again, you scarred him for life.”
“He got what he deserved.”
Her eyes studied the shadowed contours of his face. “He’ll never forgive you.”
“I don’t want his forgiveness.”
“He’ll never stop hunting you.”
Bourne gave the hint of a smile. “He isn’t the first. He won’t be the last.”
“It must be...” She seemed to lose her voice, or her nerve.
“It must be what?”
“A difficult life you’ve chosen.”
“I think,” he said softly, “it chose me. I’m an accidental passenger.” She shook her head. “You’re an agent of change.”
“Maybe just the center of a balancing act.”
“That’s enough...more than enough, maybe, for one man.”
They sat silently then, their eyes locked, thinking their own thoughts, until they heard a sharp scrape. The overhead lights flickered on, revealing Diego de la Rivera.
“The call’s come in,” he said. “It’s time.”
19
"YOU’RE INSANE.” Martha Christiana stared up at Don Fernando. “You’re telling me we’re alone on the plane?”
“Yes.”
“The pilot and navigator have parachuted out.”
“Three minutes ago. It’s on autopilot.”
“And you plan to crash the plane—”
“Crash it, yes.” He slipped off a thick engraved gold ring with a pigeon-blood cabochon ruby in its center. “The recovery team will find this. It is unique. It will be identified as mine.”
Martha, breathless, still had trouble believing this crazy plan. “But they’ll find no body remains.”
“Oh yes, they will.”
She followed him to the rear of the plane, where, when she saw stacked up three body bags, she recoiled. She stared at him. “This is a joke, right?”
“Unzip the bags.”
He said this with such utter calmness that she felt a chill run down her spine. This was a side of him he had not revealed until now. Brushing past him, she leaned over the top body bag and, with a convulsive gesture, unzipped it. She found herself staring into the blank white face of a corpse.