Robert Ludlum's (TM) The Bourne Objective Read online

  “I heard through my pals in CI what Danziger did to you.” He shook his head. “I can’t say that I’m surprised.”

  “What d’you mean?”

  Marks led her across the hall to a quiet corner in the deserted sitting room, where they were ensured complete privacy. French windows looked out on a shadowy alley of greenery. The room was wallpapered a warm persimmon color, the walls covered with photos of Reese Williams in Africa amid crowds of tribesmen. In some of them she was also with an older man, possibly her father. Plush sofas and several deep-cushioned armchairs of striped fabric were arrayed before a fireplace with a marble mantelpiece. A low polished wooden table and a sideboard with two trays of liquor bottles and cut-crystal glasses completed the picture. No amount of municipal salary or rake-offs could account for this magnificent house. Soraya thought Reese must come from enormous wealth.

  They sat side by side on a deep-cushioned sofa, turned partly toward each other.

  “Danziger’s just looking for excuses to get rid of CI’s top management,” Marks said. “He wants his people—and by that I mean Secretary Halliday’s people—in positions of power, but he knows he has to tread carefully to avoid it looking like a wholesale slaughter of the old guard, even though that’s been the plan all along. It’s why I bailed when I knew he was coming in.”

  “I’ve been in Cairo, I didn’t know you’d left CI. Where did you land?”

  “Private sector.” Marks paused for a moment. “Listen, Soraya, I know you can keep a secret, so I’m willing to go out on a limb here and tell you.” He paused, his eyes flicking toward the door, which he’d carefully closed behind them.

  “So?”

  Marks leaned in farther, so their faces were close together. “I’ve joined Treadstone.”

  For a moment, there was nothing but shocked silence and the tick-tock of the brass ship’s clock on the marble mantel. Then Soraya tried a laugh. “Come on, Treadstone is dead and buried.”

  “The old Treadstone, yes,” he said. “But there’s a new Treadstone, resurrected by Frederick Willard.”

  Willard’s name wiped the smile from Soraya’s face. She knew of Willard’s reputation as the Old Man’s Treadstone sleeper agent inside the NSA, who had been instrumental in exposing the former director’s criminal interrogation techniques. But since then he’d seemed to vanish off everyone’s radar. So Peter’s information was all too credible.

  She shook her head, her expression troubled. “I don’t understand. Treadstone was an illicit operation, even by CI’s covert standards. It was shut down for very good reasons. Why on earth would you sign up for it now?”

  “Simple. Willard hates Halliday as much as I do—as much as you do. He’s promised me that he’s going to use Treadstone’s resources to destroy Halliday’s credibility and his power base. That’s why I want you to join us.”

  She was taken aback. “What? Join Treadstone?” As he nodded, her eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Wait a minute. You knew I was going to get canned the minute I walked through the doors to HQ.”

  “Everyone knew, Soraya, except you.”

  “Good Lord.” She jumped up and began to stalk around the room, running her fingertips over the tops of the books on the shelves, the contours of bronze elephants, the textures of the heavy drapes without even being aware of it. Peter had the good sense to say nothing. Finally, she turned to him from across the room and said, “Give me one good reason why I should join you—and please don’t state the obvious.”

  “Okay, putting aside the fact that you need a job, step back and think for a minute. When Willard makes good on his promise, when Halliday is gone, how long d’you think Danziger will last at CI?” He stood up. “I don’t know about you, but I want the old CI back, the one the Old Man ran for decades, the one I can be proud of.”

  “You mean the one that used Jason over and over again whenever it suited its purpose.”

  He laughed, deflecting her blade of cynicism. “Isn’t that one of the things intelligence organizations do best?” He came toward her. “Come on, tell me that you don’t want the old CI back.”

  “I want to be running Typhon again.”

  “Yeah, well, you don’t want to know how Danziger’s going to fuck up the Typhon networks you built up.”

  “To tell you the truth, Typhon’s future is all I’ve been thinking about since I walked out of HQ this afternoon.”

  “Then join me.”

  “What if Willard fails?”

  “He won’t,” Marks said.

  “Nothing in life is assured, Peter, you of all people should know that.”

  “Okay, fair enough. If he fails, then we all fail. But at least we’ll feel that we’ve done whatever we could to bring back CI, that we haven’t simply knuckled under to Halliday and an NSA run rampant.”

  Soraya sighed, picked her way across the carpet to join Marks. “Where the hell did Willard get the funding to resurrect Treadstone?”

  Just by asking the question she saw she had agreed to his offer. She knew she was hooked. But while weighing this understanding, she almost missed the pained look on Peter’s face. “I’m not going to like it, am I?”

  “I didn’t like it, either, but…” He shrugged. “Does the name Oliver Liss mean anything to you?”

  “One of the principals of Black River?” She goggled at him. Then she burst out laughing. “You’re kidding, right? Jason and I were instrumental in discrediting Black River. I thought the three of them were all indicted.”

  “Liss’s partners were, but he severed all ties to Black River months before the shit you and Bourne threw hit the fan. No one could find a trace of his participation in the illegal activity.”

  “He knew?”

  Peter shrugged. “Possibly he was simply lucky.”

  She gave him a penetrating look. “I don’t believe that and neither do you.”

  Marks nodded.

  “You’re damn right I don’t like it. What does that say about Willard’s sense of ethics?”

  Marks took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Halliday plays as dirty as anyone I’ve ever known. Whatever it takes to defeat him, bring it on, I say.”

  “Even making a deal with the devil.”

  “Perhaps it takes one devil to destroy another devil.”

  “Whatever the truth of what you say, this is a treacherous slope, Peter.”

  Marks grinned. “Why d’you think I want you on board? At some point I’m going to need someone to pull me out of the shit before it closes over my head. And I can’t think of a better person to do that than you.”

  Moira Trevor, Lady Hawk pistol strapped into her thigh holster, stood looking at the empty offices of her new but compromised company, Heartland Risk Management, LLC. The space had so quickly become toxic that she wasn’t sad to leave it, only dismayed because she had been in business for less than a year. There was nothing here now but dust, not even memories she could take with her.

  She turned to leave and saw a man filling the open doorway to the outside hall. He was dressed in an expensively cut three-piece suit, spit-shined English brogues, and despite the clear weather he carried a neatly rolled umbrella with a hardwood handle.

  “Ms. Trevor, I presume?”

  She stared hard at him. He had hair like steel bristles, black eyes, and an accent she couldn’t quite place. He was holding a plain brown paper bag, which she eyed with suspicion. “And you are?”

  “Binns.” He offered his hand. “Lionel Binns.”

  “Lionel? You must be joking, no one’s named Lionel these days.”

  He looked at her unblinkingly. “May I come in, Ms. Trevor?”

  “Why would you want to do that?”

  “I’m here to make you an offer.”

  She hesitated for a moment, then nodded. He crossed the threshold without seeming to have moved.

  Peering around, he said, “Oh, dear. What have we here?”

  “Desolation Row.”

  Binns gave her a quick sm
ile. “I’m an early Dylan fan myself.”

  “What can I do for you, Mr. Binns?”

  She tensed as he lifted the brown paper bag and opened it.

  Taking out two paper cups, he said, “I brought us some cardamom tea.”

  The first clue. “How nice,” Moira said, accepting the tea. She took off the plastic top to peer inside. It was pale with milk. She took a sip. And very sweet. “Thank you.”

  “Ms. Trevor, I am an attorney. My client would like to hire you.”

  “Lovely.” She looked around Desolation Row. “I could use some work.”

  “My client wants you to find a notebook computer that was stolen from him.”

  Moira paused with the cup halfway to her lips. Her coffee-colored eyes watched Binns with uncommon scrutiny. She had a strong face with a personality to match.

  “You must have me confused with a private detective. There’s no shortage of those in the district, any one of them—”

  “My client wants you, Ms. Trevor. Only you.”

  She shrugged. “He’s barking up the wrong tree. Sorry. Not my line of work.”

  “Oh, but it is.” There was nothing sinister or even discomforting in Binns’s face. “Let me see if I have this right. You were a highly successful field operative for Black River. Eight months ago you left and started Heartland by poaching the best and the brightest from your former employer. You didn’t back down when Black River tried to intimidate you, in fact you fought back and were instrumental in bringing to light the company’s criminal dealings. Now, for his trouble, your old boss Noah Perlis is dead, Black River has been disbanded, and two of its founding principals are under indictment. Stop me if I’ve gotten anything wrong so far.”

  Moira, astonished, said nothing.

  “From where my client sits,” he continued, “you’re the perfect candidate to find and retrieve his stolen laptop.”

  “And where, exactly, does your client sit?”

  Binns grinned at her. “Interested? There’s quite a handsome remuneration for you.”

  “I’m not interested in money.”

  “Despite needing the work?” Binns cocked his head. “But never mind, I wasn’t speaking of money, though your entire usual fee will be paid in advance. No, Ms. Trevor, I’m talking about something more valuable to you.” He looked around the empty room. “I’m talking about the reason you’ve moved out of here.”

  Moira froze, her heartbeat accelerating. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “You have a traitor in your organization,” Binns said without inflection. “Someone on the NSA’s payroll.”

  Moira frowned. “Just who is your client, Mr. Binns?”

  “I’m not authorized to reveal his identity.”

  “And I suppose you’re also not authorized to tell me how he knows so much about me?”

  Binns spread his hands.

  She nodded. “Fine. I’ll find my goddamn traitor myself.”

  Oddly, this response brought a cat-like smile to Binns’s face. “My client said that would be your answer. I didn’t believe him, so now I’m out a thousand dollars.”

  “I’m sure you’ll find a way to make it up in fees.”

  “Once you get to know me, you’ll realize I’m not that sort of man.”

  “You’re being overly optimistic,” Moira said.

  He nodded. “Possibly.” Retreating to the doorway, he lifted a hand. “If you’ll accompany me…” When she made no move to follow him, he added, “Just this once, I beg you to indulge me. It will only take fifteen minutes of your time, what do you have to lose?”

  Moira couldn’t think of a damn thing, so she allowed him to usher her out.

  Chaaya lived in the penthouse of one of Bangalore’s glittering high-rise mini-cities, a gated residential community guarded day and night against the city’s multitude of ravages. But whether the precautions kept the city out or imprisoned the denizens in its citadel, Arkadin thought, was only a matter of perspective.

  Chaaya opened the door to his knock, as she always did no matter what time he appeared. She had no choice, really. She came from a wealthy family and lived in the lap of luxury, but all of that would evaporate if they knew her secret. She was Hindu and the man she was in love with was Muslim, a mortal sin in the eyes of her father and three brothers should they become aware of her transgression. Though Arkadin had never met her lover, he had arranged that her secret be kept safe; Chaaya owed him everything, and acted accordingly.

  Lush-figured, dusky-hued, in a gauzy dressing gown, her eyes still heavy with sleep, she moved through her skylit apartment with the sensual grace of a Bollywood actress. She was not particularly tall, but her bearing gave that illusion; when she walked into a room heads turned, both male and female. Whether she liked Arkadin, what she thought of him altogether, was of absolutely no interest to him. She feared him, which was all that was required.

  It was brighter up here above the rooftops, giving the false impression that the day had already started. But then this apartment, mirroring both their lives, was full of fake impressions.

  She saw his bloody leg at once and took him into her spacious bathroom, all mirrors and pink-and-gold veined marble. While he stripped off his trousers, she ran hot water. She had a deft touch with the sutures, and he asked her if she’d done this before.

  “Once, long ago,” she said enigmatically.

  That was why he had come here now, at this moment, when trust was at a premium. He and Chaaya recognized something in each other, something of themselves, dark and broken. They were both outsiders, uncomfortable in the world most people inhabited, they’d rather skim along the margins, half hidden by the flickering shadows that terrified everyone else. They were apart, strangers perhaps even to themselves, but companionable with each other because of that very fact.

  While she washed him and worked on closing his wound, he considered his next move. He needed to get out of India, of that there was no doubt. Where would that shithead Oserov guess he might go? Campione d’Italia in Switzerland, where the Eastern Brotherhood maintained a villa, or perhaps its headquarters in Munich. By necessity Oserov’s list of options would be short; even Maslov had his limits as far as sending hit squads around the world on what might be a wild goose chase. He’d never been one to squander manpower or resources, which was why he still headed the single most powerful grupperovka family in an era when the Kremlin was aggressively dismantling the mob.

  Arkadin knew he had to remove himself to a location that was absolutely secure. He had to choose a place neither Oserov nor Maslov would ever consider. And he would tell no one in his organization—at least, not until he could figure out how Oserov had been tipped to his temporary HQ here in Bangalore.

  So he had to arrange for travel out of the city, and the country. But first he had to retrieve Gustavo Moreno’s laptop from its hiding place.

  When Chaaya was finished and they had moved into the living room, he said, “Please fetch the present I gave you.”

  Chaaya cocked her head, a small smile playing around the corners of her mouth. “Are you saying that I can finally open it? I’ve been dying of curiosity.”

  “Bring it here.”

  She rushed out of the room and a moment later returned with a rather large silver-colored box tied with a purple ribbon. She sat across from him, tense and expectant, the box lying across her thighs. “Can I open it now?”

  Arkadin was eyeing the package. “You’ve already opened it.”

  A look of fear crossed her face as swiftly as a gull scuds across a dock. Then she forced a smile onto her beautiful face. “Oh, Leonid, I couldn’t help myself, and it’s such a beautiful robe, I’ve never felt silk like it, it must have cost you a fortune.”

  Arkadin held out his hands. “The box.”

  “Leonid…” But she did as he bade. “I never took it out, I just touched it.”

  He untied the ribbon, which he saw she’d retied with great care, then set the top aside.

&n
bsp; “I love it so, I’d have killed anyone who came near it.”

  Actually, he’d counted on that. When he’d given it to her with the instructions not to open it he’d seen the covetousness in her eyes and knew then that she’d never have the fortitude to comply. But he also knew that she’d guard it with her life. That was Chaaya through and through.

  The robe, which was in fact exceptionally expensive, was folded meticulously into thirds. He removed the laptop, which he’d carefully hidden within its luxurious folds, then handed her the robe.

  Busy unscrewing the underside of the laptop so he could insert the hard drive into its original home, he hardly heard her squeals of delight or the thank-yous she showered on him.

  DCI M. Errol Danziger most often ate lunch at his desk while poring over intelligence reports from his directorate chiefs, comparing them with their counterparts he had sent over daily from the NSA. However, twice a week he ate his midday meal outside CI headquarters. He always went to the same restaurant—the Occidental on Pennsylvania Avenue—and dined with the same person, Secretary of Defense Bud Halliday. Danziger—all too aware of how his predecessor had been killed—traveled the sixteen blocks to these meetings in an armored GMC Yukon Denali accompanied by Lieutenant R. Simmons Reade, two bodyguards, and a secretary. He was never alone; it disturbed him to be alone, a condition he had brought with him from a childhood filled with the shadows of parental strife and abandonment.

  Soraya Moore was waiting for his arrival. She had obtained the DCI’s schedule from her former director of ops, who was running Typhon on a temporary basis. Seated at a table at the Willard Hotel’s Café du Parc, which abutted the Occidental’s outdoor section, she noted the arrival of the Denali on the dot of 1 PM. As the rear door opened, she rose, and by the time the entourage was grouped on the sidewalk she was as close to the DCI as the bodyguards would allow. In fact, one of them, with a chest as broad as the table where she’d been seated, had already stepped in front of her, facing her down.

  “Director Danziger,” she said loudly over his shoulder, “my name is Soraya Moore.”

  The second bodyguard had a hand on his firearm when Danziger ordered them both to stand down. He was a short, square man with sloping shoulders. He’d made it his business to study Islamic culture, which only increased his unwavering antipathy for a religion—more, a way of life—he found backward, even medieval in its conventions and customs. It was his firm belief that Islamics, as he privately called them, could never reconcile their religious beliefs with the pace and progress of the modern world, no matter what they claimed. Behind his back, but not without some admiration, he was known as the Arab because of his avowed desire to rid the world of Islamic terrorists and any other Islamics foolish enough to get in his way.