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“Handle it yourself,” he barked. He was in no mood for office decisions.
“Sir, it’s Michaelson. I’m three blocks south of Founders Park in Virginia. The police just fished a body out of the Potomac. It’s Dick Richards.”
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Anderson said, even as he put the car into a controlled skid, making a sharp U-turn, and accelerated away.
Tell me why Colonel Ben David is at the nexus of the troika’s plan,” Don Fernando said.
“It started with SILEX.” Bourne shifted on the larger of the apartment’s two sofas. “The methodology draws on the extraordinary purity of laser light to selectively agitate uranium’s enriched form. The needed isotope is identified, culled, and extracted. If it works, the process is a game-changer. Enriched uranium for nuclear power plants could be manufactured in a fraction of the time and at a fraction of the cost it now takes.
“The problem,” Bourne went on, “is that SILEX would also make weapons-grade uranium easily available. Yellow-cake to nuclear warheads in a matter of days.”
“But it doesn’t work,” Don Fernando said.
Bourne nodded. “GE bought the rights to SILEX in 2006, but it has yet to perfect the process.”
He turned, staring out the window at the slow river traffic. He seemed always to be looking at people going about their peaceful daily lives while the world hurtled toward the precipice of war.
“SILEX was just the begi
He turned back to Don Fernando. “It was to Dahr El Ahmar that Rebeka guided me after we were both wounded in a firefight in Damascus six weeks ago. It was the closest safe haven, at least for her. She was feverish, very badly wounded. I imagine she wasn’t thinking clearly. Bringing me to Dahr El Ahmar was a breach of security.
“Colonel Ben David tried to have me killed. I managed to escape in the helo we flew in on, but as I left I caught a glimpse of the bunkered facility. Rebeka told me the rest. The Israeli scientists had a breakthrough. Their version of SILEX works.”
There was a deepening silence, into which, after a time, Don Fernando cleared his throat. “So let me get this straight. Colonel Ben David has agreed to sell this process to Maceo Encarnación?”
“To the Chinese,” Bourne said. “My guess is Maceo Encarnación is a peripheral figure in all this—maybe he’s the broker, the one who put Colonel Ben David together with the Chinese.”
“That could very well be.” Don Fernando tapped his teeth ruminatively with his forefinger. “After all, SteelTrap employs a good number of Israeli technicians. It sells its proprietary Internet security to the Israeli government, among many other huge clients.”
He shook his head. “What I don’t understand is why Colonel Ben David would betray his country.”
“Thirty million. Dangle enough money in front of a man like that, a military man, a disgruntled officer who’s probably never made more than fifty thousand dollars a year, and the crystal ball clears.”
“How did you come by that figure? Did you pull it out of the air?”
“So to speak,” Bourne said, waggling his mobile.
Don Fernando made a whistling sound. “Even for Christien and me that’s a trainload of money. I can only imagine that it would be irresistible to Ben David.”
He sat down heavily on the smaller sofa. “The problem is we’re trapped here in my apartment. Nicodemo could take me down with a sniper rifle the minute I walk out my door.”
“He won’t,” Bourne said. “Nicodemo comes from a tradition of hands-on killing. It’s a matter of honor. Killing you at a distance won’t satisfy him. He wants to take your head off.”
“Cold comfort,” Don Fernando grunted.
“Nevertheless, it works to our advantage.” Bourne, staring out the window again, lifted his view across the river to the Right Bank. “I need to bring Nicodemo into my territory.”
In the far distance, he could just make out the sugar-white dome of Sacre Coeur, atop Montmartre. “Tell me, Don Fernando, when was the last time you went to the Moulin Rouge?”
Peter and Soraya looked at each other after Secretary Hendricks left his room.
“Why did you do that?” Peter said.
Soraya smiled and came and sat on the edge of his bed. “You’re welcome.”
“Seriously?” he said.
She nodded. “I don’t want to leave.”
“Because of me.”
She shrugged. “Is that so terrible a reason?”
He studied her a moment, then took a drink of water from a plastic cup. He seemed to be debating something internally. “I have to ask myself...Soraya, you’ve been lying to me.”
“Withholding some information. That’s not the same thing.”
“If we can’t trust each other, what’s the point of either of us staying together?”
“Oh, Peter.” She leaned over and kissed his cheek. “I trust you with my life. It’s just that...” Her eyes cut away for a moment. “I didn’t want anyone to know about my pregnancy. I figured it would jeopardize my position.”
“You thought I’d betray you to Hendricks?”
“No, I...To be honest, Peter, I don’t know what I thought.” She touched the bandaged side of her head. “Obviously, I wasn’t thinking clearly.”
He took her hand in his, and they sat like that, wordless, full of emotion, for some time. Outside, in the corridor, orderlies wheeled gurneys, nurses hurried by, doctors’ names were called. All of that seemed part of another world that had nothing to do with them.
“I want to help you,” Soraya said at length.
“I don’t need help.”
But that was an instinctive, knee-jerk response, and they both knew it. That shared knowledge seemed to break the newly formed ice, to return them to the time when they were closer than siblings, when they shared everything.
Soraya leaned closer and spoke to him in low, intimate tones while he listened intently as she outlined the top-secret mission Hendricks had given her. “Listen, Peter,” she concluded, “Charles is dead, it’s over now, but this liaison with him was strictly Hendricks’s idea. He came to me with it, said it was a matter of national security, and I felt that I...well...that I couldn’t refuse him.”
“He shouldn’t have asked that of you.”
“I’ve been through that with him. He knows he crossed the line.”
“And yet he did it,” Peter said, “and he’ll do it again. You know it and I know it.”
“Probably.”
“What will you tell him the next time?”
She touched her belly. “I have my child to think of now. Things will be different.”
“You think so?”
Her gaze drifted from him to the middle distance. “You’re right. I can’t know.”
He squeezed her hand. “None of us can—ever—no matter the circumstances.”
A small smile wreathed her lips. “True enough.” Leaning over again, she hugged him. “I’m so sorry, Peter.”
“Don’t be. Everything happens for a reason.”
She drew back, watching him. “Do you really believe that?”
He laughed without much humor. “No, but saying it helps keep my spirits up.”
She looked at him steadily. “It’s going to be a long haul, no matter what happens with your legs.”
“I know that.”
“I’ll be here.”
“I know that, too.” He sighed. “They’ll order a psych eval to determine whether I’m fit for duty.”
“So what? They’ve already ordered one for me. We’re fit for duty, Peter. End of story.”
Once more, they sat in companionable silence. Once, a tear overran Peter’s eye and slid down his cheek. “Damn it to hell,” he said, and Soraya squeezed his hand again.
“Tell me something,” he said. “Tell me something positive.”