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“We were worried about the proliferation of weapons-grade uranium if the SILEX formula was stolen.”
Li nodded. “My sole interest was in receiving up-to-the-minute reports on how SILEX was progressing.”
A
“I can’t tell you,” Li said, “because I don’t know.” That was the truth; Minister Ouyang had not confided in him. As never before, Li could appreciate the wisdom of such compartmentalization.
Following a short silence that to Li didn’t seem short at all, A
“Okay, how can I help you?”
I’m getting nowhere fast,” Soraya said.
“Going the long way around won’t work,” Peter said. “We don’t have the time to contact every Treadstone asset in the field by secure satphone.”
“I know. I’ve been trying to access our remote server in Gibraltar.”
Soraya watched the screen of the laptop that had been sent over from Treadstone HQ. The IT team assigned to her and Peter during their stay at the hospital had hooked her up to a speedy wideband co
“So far, no luck.”
“I hope to God not,” Peter said. “That server is supposed to be unhackable, even if someone outside Treadstone knew of its existence.” “Well, don’t worry,” she said glumly. “It is.”
“What worries me...”
“Peter.” Her head came up. “What is it?”
“Nothing.” He looked away.
“Don’t tell me ‘nothing.’” Setting her laptop aside, she crossed the small space between their beds. The hospital had moved them to a large, bright room that they could share, along with the electronic equipment the Treadstone IT team had installed.
Settling herself on the edge of his bed, she took his hand. “What is it?”
“I...” His eyes came back to hers. “My legs hurt. Phantom pain.”
“How do you know it’s not real?”
“The doctors—”
“Fuck the doctors, Peter. They don’t know everything.”
“I have no nerve response, Soraya. My legs are dead.” She squeezed his hand.
“Don’t say that!”
There were dark circles under his eyes that had never been there before, no matter how hard he worked or how tired he’d been. Soraya’s heart broke.
Perhaps Peter, knowing her so well, intuited something of what she was feeling. “The sooner I get used to the fact,” he said, “the better.”
She leaned in toward him. “We’re not giving up.”
“No one’s giving up, I promise.” He produced a watery smile.
“What else have you been up to on that laptop of yours?”
“Trying to Skype Jason. I thought maybe he might know why Core Energy shut down our intelligence network.”
“And?
“He isn’t online. I’ve left him messages on his mobile’s voicemail.”
“Why don’t we concentrate on what we can control, like how in hell Brick managed to get Richards past our vetting process.”
“Maybe he got to him after he came to work for us.”
Peter shook his head. “No way. Remember, I was with both of them in Brick’s Virginia house. Theirs was a longer-standing relationship
than that.”
“Which means he was providing Brick with intel from NSA, possibly from the president himself.”
“We’ll have to interrogate Brick,” Peter said, “as soon as Sam brings him in.”
“You’re joking, right?” She gestured. “Look at us, Peter. We’re going to have him brought here? For interrogation? In our condition?”
She shook her head. “No. Sam is going to have to stand in for us. We can patch into the closed-circuit TV network at the office. We’ll be in constant touch with Sam via wireless earbuds. Any questions occur to us, we can tell Sam. Okay? Peter?”
He nodded, clearly reluctant. The sunlight seemed to have gone out of him, leaving him gray and bereft. She had reminded him of his condition. She was sorry about that, but there was no alternative. To make matters worse, it was going to happen again and again in the weeks and months to come.
She watched him steadily for some time. “You know, my child is going to need a male presence, a father figure.”
Peter barked a brittle laugh. “Right! I’m just the one—”
“But you are, Peter.” Her eyes were bright as she willed him to engage with her. “Who else would I want my baby to know so well?”
When Jacques Robbinet, the French minister of culture, received the call from Jason Bourne, he was sitting in the back of his armorplated Renault. In the front seat were his driver and his longtime bodyguard. It was precisely 9:32 pm. Robbinet was on his way to di
“Jason,” he said with genuine heartiness, “where are you?”
“On the stairs of the Right Bank river wall directly opposite the Pont des Invalides.”
Instantly, Robbinet, whose title of minister of culture masked his real job as head of the Quai d’Orsay, the French equivalent of Central Intelligence, clicked into gear. “Was that you involved in the incident on the Pont Alexandre III?” Robbinet had received the report twenty minutes ago and had dispatched a pair of his agents to assist the police in their investigation. It wasn’t every evening that a car crashed over the side of a Paris bridge, and with the heightened security in place, he wasn’t one to leave any stone unturned.
“There was an abduction and murder attempt,” Bourne said to his old friend. “We swam downriver.”
“‘We’?”
“I’m with a friend. Don Fernando Hererra.”
“Good Lord.”
“You know Don Fernando?”
Robbinet leaned forward, tapping his driver on the shoulder and telling him of the change in destination. “Indeed I do, Jason.” Robbinet told his driver to switch on the siren, bypass the traffic jam, use the sidewalk, if necessary, just step on it. “Stay right where you are. I’ll be with you in minutes.”
“Listen, Jacques, I need a jet.”
Robbinet laughed in a quick moment of disbelief. “Is that all?”
“I’ve got to get to Lebanon as quickly as possible.”
Robbinet well knew that tone of voice. “The situation is that serious?”
“Deadly. We were abducted to keep me from getting there.”
“All right. Let’s get you two out of the water and into dry clothes.” Robbinet’s mind was working at lightning speed. “By that time, I’ll have a jet ready and waiting.” He knew enough to take Bourne at his word. “A military jet. I want the plane armed, just to be on the safe side.”
“Thanks, Jacques.”
“You can thank me,” Robbinet said dryly, “by not getting yourself killed.”
28
THE WHOLE THING was a scam?”
“From begi
Bourne shifted his satphone from one ear to the other; it was significantly heavier than his mobile. He was riding up in the cockpit.
The Mirage fighter jet Jacques Robbinet had procured for him wasn’t comfortable, but then it wasn’t meant to be. It had been built for war. “From the moment Constanza Camargo was pushed into the baggage claim area by airline perso
“But how the hell did she know you’d be there?”
“Maceo Encarnación.”
“And how did she manage to get through security to be at the security area in the first place?”
“Having been to Mexico City and survived,” Bourne said slowly, “I can appreciate fully the complete grip Maceo Encarnación has on the capital.”
Soraya paused for a moment. “And the story Constanza told you about her husband?”