The Bourne Initiative Read online

  Fulmer inclined his head. “And you?”

  Françoise shuddered visibly. “I’m a go-between.”

  “To interface with anyone.”

  “I go where the money is.”

  Fulmer pursed his lips. “You see, that’s the difference between us. I go where the power is.” He regarded her from under hooded eyes. “Do you really believe your road is higher than mine?”

  She turned away, her eyes searching past the customers coming and going. A young woman entered pushing her baby in a pram; three men in suits, all staring into the faces of their mobiles, sauntered slowly out. Beyond, the agglomerated sounds of the mall, echoing as if they were underwater, filtered into the café between the shouts of those at the bar. The flat-screen was showing a football match between Real Madrid and Manchester United.

  Since it seemed clear Françoise had chosen not to answer, Fulmer opted to push on. “Back to our—to Keyre.”

  Françoise swung her head back toward him. “Everything’s on schedule. But there are new players in the field. Circumstances have dictated a higher price.”

  His eyes narrowed. “How much higher?”

  “Double.”

  “That’s nosebleed territory.”

  It was her turn to shrug. “I don’t set the price, I just report it.”

  “Tell him I agree. But that’s the limit. Tell him he’s hit the ceiling. I’m done negotiating.”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll make him see your point of view.”

  “That’s what I’m paying you for.” He pushed the coffee cup away. “Now I have another job for you.”

  “I’m full up.”

  Fulmer extracted a small leather-bound notepad from his breast pocket, wrote a figure down with a Mont Blanc pen. Tearing off the sheet, he pushed it across the table to her. “Half of that is already in your Gibraltar bank. All that’s required is a phone call from me to have it transferred to your account.”

  Françoise crumpled up the paper, stuck it in a plastic ashtray, burned it. “Pretty sure of yourself, aren’t you.”

  “I make it a point to know the people I hire.”

  “Bien,” she said softly. “What’s the assignment?”

  “I want you to find out where Justin Farreng is getting his recent leaks.”

  Françoise sat stock-still. After a long, agonizing moment, she regained her ability to think clearly. “I’m a go-between, not a detective.”

  “From where I sit, knowing what you’ve accomplished for me, there’s scarcely any difference.”

  “Still…”

  He shrugged again. “If you don’t want the money, I’ll find—”

  “I didn’t say that.” Her fingertips turned the ashtray around and around.

  “Too much money to leave on the table. So much this could be your last score. You could get out of the game, lie on a beach in Bali or Phuket. Attract the muscled surfer boys. Sleep to your heart’s content.”

  She licked her lips. “Why do you want to know…Farreng’s source?” Good God, she had almost said “Justin.”

  “LeakAGE has always been a pain in our asses,” Fulmer said. “But as of late Farreng has been spilling open some unpleasant business regarding Reade and Dunlop.”

  “The law firm in Panama.” She regarded him carefully. “Are you a client?”

  He shook his head. “But one of my shell companies uses another Panamanian firm.”

  “Name?” When he hesitated, she said, “I can’t help you if I don’t know their name.”

  “Musgrave-Stephens.”

  “Have you had any indication that Musgrave-Stephens has been hacked?”

  “No, but I’m figuring it’s just a matter of time.”

  “Then get your shell company out.”

  “Getting the company out is a snap. But then where to?”

  “I suggest Fellingham, Bodeys.”

  “Never heard of them.”

  “That’s the point, isn’t it,” Françoise said with a sly smile. “They take very few clients; they’re extremely exacting, conservative to a fault.”

  “Sounds like just the ticket.”

  She produced a gold-edged card with raised lettering in a flowing script, handed it to him. “Tell them you’re a client of mine.”

  “Is there anything you can’t do for me, Françoise?”

  “I seriously doubt it.”

  He laughed, putting the card away.

  “I have another suggestion.”

  “Fire away.”

  “You want to be the presidential nominee in the next election, yes? I want to be sure you’re not derailed.”

  “And how would that work, exactly?”

  “Dirt, Mr. Fulmer. Have you brought the dirt?”

  He grinned. “As we discussed.” Slapping his briefcase on the table, he opened it, felt around for the hidden compartment, took out a thumb drive and held it up for her to see.

  “And where are you getting the material from?”

  “The deep, dark web.” Fulmer laughed shortly. “That’s strictly need-to-know.” He twirled the thumb drive between his fingers. “What I want, what you need to tell me, is how you intend to use this.”

  Without hesitation, Françoise plucked the miniature drive from his fingertips. “I will have Farreng’s source feed LeakAGE this material detrimental to your enemies. In no time, you’ll be sitting pretty as the obvious next presidential candidate.”

  There was something greedy about Fulmer’s smile. He made the call transferring her fee into her account, exorbitant as usual, but worth every penny.

  “Nous avons toujours fait comprendre mutuellement,” he said, murdering both the grammar and the pronunciation, as was his wont. We always did understand each other.

  —

  Françoise’s loathing for Marshall Fulmer knew no bounds. On the other hand, she was determined to take as much of his money as she could lay her hands on. This conflict—emotion on one side, practicality on the other—was not unknown to her. Still, she needed to consider each episode as it arose. The conflict was uppermost in her mind as she made her way out of the Baronen Köpcenter and onto the docks.

  It was a fine day. The sun shone brightly down on her, small puffy clouds floated by. Boats, skiffs, and ships drifted past. She might have been in a scene from a cartoon or a children’s book. However, the life she was living was strictly X-rated. She went to the rail overlooking the harbor, leaned on it with her elbows. One of the clouds looked like a lamb, which reminded her to make a dinner reservation for tonight at Aifur Song, a new buzzy restaurant. Even Kalmar hadn’t been left out of the latest culinary wave sweeping around the world.

  Perhaps twenty minutes later, a young man with dark hair and even darker eyes came and stood near her. He held an expensive Hasselblad with which he was taking what appeared to be professional photos of the harbor. Despite his age, he already had the spidery red cheeks of the inveterate vodka drinker. He was known to Françoise. His name was Nikolay Ivanovich Rozin. Back home in Moscow, a city she had not seen in ten years, she knew him as Niki. Here, outside the Federation, he was Larry London, a freelance photographer for Global Photographics.

  “Time,” Larry London said as he clicked away on his Hasselblad.

  “I don’t like to be kept waiting.”

  “He knows that.”

  Without uttering another word or waiting for a reply he knew wouldn’t come, he strode away, ostensibly to find another perspective on the harbor and its inhabitants.

  Françoise waited for more time than she should have, then turned, went through a waist-high metal gate that led down to the marina itself. She felt the wooden slats shifting slightly beneath her feet as she made the transition from dry land to water.

  The boat was at anchor three-quarters of the way down the dock, on her left. It was blue-and-white, a motored sailboat with the name Carbon Neutral painted across its stern. It had beautiful lines—sleek and trim—a pleasure boat rather than one made for fishing.

 
; No one welcomed her as she stepped aboard. The deck was clear, but as she neared the cabin she heard music. As she closed on the hatch, which was pinned open, she heard Edith Piaf singing and made a face.

  “You’ve dated yourself, I’m afraid,” she said as she descended into the cabin.

  “I thought the French music was a fine touch.”

  “I’m more a Mylène Farmer fan.”

  He grunted, waved her to an upholstered bench that would turn into a bunk this evening.

  “Bourne,” he said. “Have you found him?”

  “He’s on the Aegean.”

  “The Aegean Sea is a very big body of water.”

  “Not for everyone. The Americans blew up General Karpov’s boat.”

  He raised his eyebrows, thick as hedgerows, expressive as his late father’s. “Did they now? Which Americans?”

  Françoise laughed shortly. “Dreadnaught.”

  He laughed with her. “And Bourne was on board?”

  “No idea.”

  “Those Americans.” He shook his head. His hair, dictated by the latest fashion, was thick and shiny along the top, shaved close to his scalp on either side. “Can’t count on them being the least bit useful. Bad as the British, these days, and that’s saying something.”

  “Turn off that awful caterwauling, if you please.” Françoise crossed her long legs. “Something more appropriate.”

  The man hit a button, then spun the wheel on his iPod mini and the Junkie XL soundtrack to Mad Max: Fury Road pounded forth from the surround sound speakers.

  “No listening device yet devised can hear us through this,” Gora Maslov said. He had taken over from his late father, Dimitri, as head of the Kazanskaya grupperovka, the Russian mafia family that ruled Moscow. In Dimitri’s day, the Kazanskaya had majored in drug-running and black market cars. These days, under Gora’s rule, the family trafficked in the final frontier territories dominated by stolen cyber weapons, virtual currency, organ harvesting, and humans.

  “Well,” Gora said, “it seems that being away from Mother Russia continues to agree with you.”

  She laughed, her white teeth showing briefly. “I’ve been off to see the world.”

  “And how is the world treating you?”

  “Like an empress.”

  “Impressive.” He grinned. “What would the Sovereign think?”

  Françoise rose, fetched herself a drink from the built-in across the cabin, since it was clear that Gora wasn’t going to do it. “You know, I think he would approve.” She splashed vodka over ice cubes she grabbed from the half-size fridge. “I mean, he’s also off to see the world, isn’t he?”

  She took a long swallow, went and stood before him. Then, without any warning, she slapped him across the face.

  “What the fuck?” A red mark blossomed on his cheek, but he seemed unperturbed.

  “Keeping me waiting.”

  “Business.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “You take everything too personally.”

  She shook her head. “I’m disappointed. For someone who’s ostensibly part of the new wave, you can be disconcertingly old-fashioned.”

  “I take after my father.” He watched her with glittering gimlet eyes.

  She almost hit him again, but knew hot anger wasn’t the answer. “You’ve been watching too many American gangster films.” She took a sip of the chilled liquor. “Scarface is your favorite, if memory serves.”

  “That’s right,” he said tightly. “Keep at it.”

  “Or is it Wall Street?”

  He stood up abruptly, and she saw the bulk of him, the gym rat physique, the violence that sheathed his muscles just under his skin.

  “One day you’ll push me too far.”

  She looked up at him from beneath long lashes. “That will be a very bad day for you, Gora.”

  His face went tight. “Is that a threat?”

  “It’s a promise.”

  His hands curled into fists. She knew he longed to incite her, which was why she stayed where she was, calmly sipping her vodka. To use the terms of one of his obsessions, he often reminded her of Sonny Corleone: quick to temper, a beat-down never far from his mind. Also, his Neanderthal Rat Pack attitude toward women—meant to be used, fucked, then thrown onto the scrap heap. But not before he delivered a good thrashing or three.

  She’d witnessed that happen over and over again with all his girlfriends, even one-night stands, observing at a remove. The last few years, when she had been away from everything Russian, she had received her intel on him through third parties. His behavior kept repeating without letup; Gora was incapable of change. He was who he was—but then that was true of so many people it might as well be part of the human condition.

  “Brother, sit yourself down,” she said in Russian.

  “Don’t call me brother, Alyosha.”

  “My mistake, Gora.” Having wound him up as revenge for keeping her waiting, it was up to her to get him to throttle back, to defuse the situation. He’d never be able to do it on his own.

  As he sat, she poured some Coke over ice, handed him the cooling glass. As he drank, she placed her hand on his meaty shoulder. “There’s room for both of us,” she said softly and felt the muscles beneath her fingers lose their tension.

  He drained the rest of the Coke and set the glass down, leaned his head back, and sighed. “There are days,” he said, “when it doesn’t seem so bad being away from home.”

  “Home is lonely, Gora.” She sat down beside him, maintaining physical contact. He’d never had that growing up. “I know you miss Dimitri.”

  “It was that shit Karpov who gunned father down. In a barber shop!” His eyes flashed. “Let me tell you, Alyosha, all debts will be paid.”

  She shook her head. “Karpov is dead, Gora.”

  “Until his best friend, Jason Bourne, is dealt with, my debt to father will not be paid in full.”

  Françoise had to laugh at that, but not to his face. “Is that what all your recent maneuvering is all about?”

  “To that end, maybe you could help me. It would mean returning to Moscow.”

  She shook her head. “I like it out here. I’m never coming home, Gora.”

  “So you think that wise?”

  “Wise?” She cocked her head to one side. “I can’t say. Perhaps I no longer know what wise is. But I know I have to stay here.”

  “Why?” he asked. “Haven’t you killed enough people yet?”

  She snorted. “What is that, a joke?”

  “I’ve never killed anyone in my life.”

  “No, you just order other people to do it,” she said acidly.

  “There’s a difference.”

  She looked at him as if he were insane. But what was she to say? There was no rational response to an irrational statement, so she returned to the previous topic. “The guise of a go-between is perfect for me, Gora. Which is why I’ve no intention of returning.”

  “You disappoint me, Alyosha.”

  She stood, preparatory to leaving. “What else is new?” She’d had enough of him.

  6

  The fog of death and destruction clamped them tight, kept them safe as Bourne and Mala, using the emergency oars clamped to the inside of the hull, rowed their way forward, away from the island of Skyros, toward the vessel holding the rest of the kill squad. The vessel had switched on its searchlight, which was aimed at the water. It was past time for “Smith” to have surfaced and swum back to his boat.

  Reaching the outer perimeter of their cover of smoke, they shipped their oars momentarily, hauled Smith’s corpse over the side, guided him toward the bow, then sent him off into the black water ahead of them. Then they rowed backward just enough that they were hidden again, but not so far that they couldn’t see beyond the smoke field, which, in any event, was slowly but surely dissipating.

  They could see “Smith” floating faceup, moving away from them on the currents. Bourne had been sure to keep him faceup, after he’
d filled his lungs with air to keep him floating long enough for his comrades to spot him. Without his tanks, regulator, mouthpiece, and mask, he would keep afloat even longer.

  “Will they find him?” Mala asked as she crouched beside Bourne in the bow.

  “Wait for it.” He pointed to the spot where Smith’s bare feet, blue-white, veined as marble, drifted into the edge of the beam.

  “There!”

  The shout rushed at them across the water, and the beam swung wildly across “Smith,” then past him, before swinging back, correcting. Bobbing in the low waves, he became a kind of metronome, his rhythm in tune with the sea.

  The boat moved toward an intercept course. Beyond the searchlight’s beam, it was lit up like an airport runway. They counted five men, including the driver. The hull struck the corpse, whirling it away for a moment before it was brought back alongside with a long-handled gaff.

  “Christ,” they heard someone say as “Smith” was hauled on board. “What the hell happened to Stone?”

  “Caught in the blast?” someone else opined.

  “His suit isn’t shredded,” a third voice broke in. “And where the fuck’s his equipment?”

  “Get ready,” Bourne said, handing Mala an oar, taking up the other one himself.

  “It’s like he was stripped after he was killed,” the first voice said.

  Bourne and Mala were already rowing backward when the searchlight’s beam extended outward, scanning the water between the vessel and the debris field. Reaching farther, the beam hit the smoke, reflecting backward as car headlights will in dense fog.

  “The smoke won’t keep us hidden for much longer,” Mala whispered.

  “With luck, it won’t have to.”

  The searchlight beam kept reaching out, closer and closer toward them. But the closer it got, the more diffuse it became, the more the light was reflected back into the hit team’s faces. The vessel began to inch forward.

  “Here they come,” Mala whispered.

  “We hold our position.”

  “But they’ll—”

  The vessel came on, slowly but surely. They were close enough to make out one man straining to scan the debris field with night-vision goggles. But again the smoke refracted the spotlight’s beam into his eyes. He was, in effect, blind.