Текст книги "The Bourne Sanction (Санкция Борна)"

Автор книги: Eric Van Lustbader

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Текущая страница: 15 (всего у книги 29 страниц)

Damon Riggs was real enough. The tag came straight from the NSA HR database.

Tyrone flushed the toilet, emerged from the cubicle, smiled frostily at an NSA agent

bent over one of the sinks washing his hands. The agent glanced at Tyrone’s tag, said,

“You’re a long way from home.”

“And in the middle of winter, too.” Tyrone’s voice was strong and firm. “Damn, I miss

goin’ top-down in Santa Monica.”

“I hear you.” The agent dried his hands. “Good luck,” he said as he left.

Tyrone stared at the closed door for a moment, took a deep breath, let it out slowly. So

far, so good. He went out into the hallway, his eyes straight ahead, his stride purposeful.

He passed four or five agents. A couple gave his tag a cursory glance, nodded. The others

ignored him altogether.

“The trick,” Deron had said, “is to look like you belong. Don’t hesitate, be purposeful.

If you look like you know where you’re going, you become part of the scene, no one

notices you.”

Tyrone reached the door without incident. He went past it as two agents, deep in

conversation, passed him. Then, checking both ways, he doubled back. Quickly he took

out what seemed to be an ordinary piece of clear tape, laid it on top of the fingerprint

reader. Checking his watch, he waited until the second hand touched the 12. Then,

holding his breath, he pressed his forefinger onto the tape so that it was flush against the reader. The door opened. He stripped off the tape, slipped inside. The tape contained

LaValle’s fingerprint, which Tyrone had lifted off the back cover of the file while

working the device that slit the security tape. Soraya had engaged LaValle in

conversation as a diversion.

At the bottom of the flight of steps, he paused for a moment. No alarm bells were

going off, no sound of armed security guards coming his way. Kiki’s software program

had done its work. Now the rest was up to him.

He moved swiftly and silently down the rough concrete corridor. Buzzing fluorescent

strips were the only decoration here, casting a sickly glow. He saw no one, heard nothing

beyond the susurrus of machinery.

Snapping on latex gloves he tried each door he came to. Most were locked. The first

one that wasn’t opened into a small cubicle with a viewing window in one wall. Tyrone

had been in enough police precincts to know this was one-way glass. He peered into a

room not much larger than the one he was in. He could make out a metal chair bolted to

the center of the floor, beneath which was a large drain. Affixed to the right-hand wall

was a three-foot-deep trough as long as a man with manacles bolted to each end, above

which was coiled a fire hose. Its nozzle looked enormous in the confines of the small

room. This, Tyrone knew from photos he’d seen, was a waterboarding tank. He snapped

as many photos of it as possible, because there was the proof Soraya needed that the NSA

was enacting illegal and inhuman torture.

Tyrone took photos of everything with the ten-megapixel digital mini camera Soraya

had given him. Given the huge memory of its smart card, it could record six videos of up

to three minutes in duration.

He moved on, knowing he had an extremely limited amount of time. Opening the door

an inch at a time, he determined that the corridor was still deserted. He hurried down it,

checking all the doors he came to. At length, he found himself in another viewing room.

This time, however, he saw a man kneeling beside a table. His arms were drawn back, his

bound hands on the table. A black hood had been pulled down over his head. His attitude

was of a defeated soldier about to be forced to kiss the feet of his conqueror. Tyrone felt a surge of rage run through him such as he’d never felt before. He couldn’t help thinking of

the history of his own people, hunted by rival tribes on the east coast of Africa, sold to

the white man, brought as slaves back to America. All of this terrible history Deron had

made him study, to learn where he came from, to understand what drove the prejudices,

the innate hatreds, all the powerful forces inside him.

With an effort he pulled himself together. This is what they’d been hoping for: proof

that the NSA was subjecting prisoners to illegal forms of torture. Tyrone took a slew of

photos, even a short video before exiting the viewing room.

Once again, he was the only one in the corridor. This concerned him. Surely he would

have heard or seen NSA personnel down here. But there was no sign of anyone.

All at once, he felt a prickling at the back of his neck. He turned, retracing his steps at a half run. His heart pounded, his blood rushed in his ears. With every step he took his

sense of foreboding increased. Then he broke into a full-out sprint.

Luther LaValle looked up from his reading, said ominously, “What kind of game are

you playing, Director?”

Soraya kept herself from starting. “I beg your pardon?”

“I’ve been through these transmission intercepts you claim come from the Black

Legion twice now. Nowhere do I find any reference to that name or, for that matter, any

name at all.”

Willard appeared, handed General Kendall a folded slip of paper. Kendall read it

without any expression. Then he excused himself. Soraya watched him leave the Library

with no little trepidation.

To regain her attention, LaValle waved the sheets briefly in the air like a red flag in

front of a bull. “Tell me the truth. For all you know, these conversations could be

between two sets of eleven-year-olds playing terrorist games.”

Soraya could feel herself bristling. “My people assure me they’re genuine, Mr.

LaValle, and they’re the best in the business. If you don’t believe that, I can’t imagine

why you want a piece of Typhon.”

LaValle conceded her point, but he wasn’t finished with her. “Then how do you know

they’re from the Black Legion.”

“Collateral intelligence.”

LaValle sat back in his chair. His drink was left untouched on the table. “Just what the

holy hell does collateral intelligence mean?”

“Another source, unrelated to the intercepts, has knowledge of an imminent attack on

American soil that originates with the Black Legion.”

“Who we have no tangible evidence actually exist.”

Soraya was growing increasingly uncomfortable. The conversation was veering

perilously close to an interrogation. “I brought these intercepts at your behest with the

intention of engendering trust between us.”

“That’s as may be,” LaValle said. “But quite frankly these anonymous intercepts,

alarming as they seem on the surface, don’t do it for me. You’re holding something back,

Director. I want to know the source of your so-called collateral intel.”

“I’m afraid that’s impossible. The source is absolutely sacrosanct.” Soraya could not

tell him that her source was Jason Bourne. “However-” She reached down to her slim

attachй case, pulled out several photos, handed them over.

“It’s a corpse,” LaValle said. “I fail to see the significance-”

“Look at the second photo,” Soraya said. “It’s a close-up of the inside of the victim’s

elbow. What do you see?”

“A tattoo of three horses’ heads attached to-what is this? It looks like the Nazi SS

death’s head.”

“And so it is.” Soraya handed him another photo. “This is the uniform patch of the

Black Legion under their leader Heinrich Himmler.”

LaValle pursed his lips. Then he put sheets back in the file, returned it to Soraya. He

held up the photos. “If you could find this insignia, anyone could. This could be a group

that’s simply appropriated the Black Legion’s sign, like the skinheads in Germany

appropriated the swastika. Besides, this isn’t proof that the intercepts came from the

Black Legion. And even if they did I have a problem, Director. It’s the same as yours, I

would think. You’ve told me-also according to your sacrosanct source-that the Black

Legion is being fronted by the Eastern Brotherhood. If the NSA acts on this intel, we’ll

have every flavor of PR nightmare visited on us. The Eastern Brotherhood, as I’m sure

you’re aware, is exceedingly powerful, especially with the overseas press. We run with

this and we’re wrong, it’s going to cause the president and this country an enormous

amount of humiliation, which we can’t afford now. Do I make myself clear?”

“Perfectly, Mr. LaValle. But if we ignore it and America is successfully attacked

again, then how do we look?”

LaValle scrubbed his face with one hand. “So we’re between a rock and hard place.”

“Sir, you know as well as I do that action is better than inaction, especially in a volatile situation like this.”

LaValle was about to capitulate, Soraya knew it, but here came Willard again, gliding

up, silent as a ghost. He bent, whispered something in LaValle’s ear.

“Thank you, Willard,” Lavalle said, “that will be all.” Then he returned his attention to

Soraya. “Well, Director, it seems I’m urgently wanted elsewhere.” He stood up and

smiled down at her, but spoke with a steely tone. “Please join me.”

Soraya’s heart plummeted. This invitation wasn’t a request.

Yakov, the bombila driver, who’d been ordered to park across the avenue from the

front entrance of the Metropolya Hotel, had been joined forty minutes ago by a man who

looked as if he’d been in a fistfight with a meat grinder. Despite efforts to cover it up, his face was swollen, dark as pounded flesh. He wore a silver patch over one eye. He was a

surly bastard, Yakov decided, even before the man handed him a fistful of money. He

uttered not a word of greeting, but slammed into the backseat, slithered down so even the

crown of his head was invisible to anyone glancing casually in.

The atmosphere inside the bombila quickly grew so toxic that Yakov was forced to

vacate the semi-warmth for the freezing Moscow night. He bought himself some food

from a passing Turkish vendor, spent the next half hour eating it, talking to his friend

Max, who’d pulled up behind him because Max was a lazy sonovabitch who grasped at

any excuse not to work.

Yakov and Max were in the middle of heated speculation that concerned last week’s

death of a high-level RAB Bank officer, who was discovered tied up, tortured, and

asphyxiated in the garage of his own elitny dacha. The two of them were wondering why

the General Prosecutor’s Office and the president’s newly formed Investigative

Committee were fighting over jurisdiction of the death.

“It’s politics, pure and simple,” Yakov said.

“Dirty politics,” Max retorted. “There’s nothing pure and simple about that.”

It was then that Yakov spotted Jason Bourne and the sexy dyev getting out of a

bombila in front of the hotel. When he struck the side of his cab three times with the flat of his hand, he sensed a stirring in the backseat.

“He’s here,” he said as the rear window rolled down.

Bourne was about to drop Gala off at the Metropolya Hotel when he looked out the

bombila window, saw the taxi that had earlier taken him from The Chinese Pilot to the

hotel. Yakov, the driver, was leaning against the fender of his dilapidated junkmobile,

eating something greasy while talking to the cabbie parked right behind him.

Bourne saw Yakov glance over as he and Gala exited the bombila. When they’d gone

through the revolving door, Bourne told her to stay put. To his left was the service door

used by porters to take guests’s luggage in and out of the hotel. Bourne looked out across

the street. Yakov stuck his head in the rear window, huddled with a man who’d been

hidden in the backseat.

In the elevator, on the way up to their room, he said, “Are you hungry? I’m starved.”

Harun Iliev, the man Semion Icoupov sent to find Jason Bourne, had expended hours in

contentious negotiations and frustrating dead ends, and finally spent a great deal of

money in his pursuit. It wasn’t coincidence that had led him at last to the bombila named

Yakov, for Yakov was an ambitious man who knew he’d never get rich driving around

Moscow, fending off other bombily, pissing them off by cutting in, snatching their fares

from under their noses. What could be more lucrative than spying on other people?

Especially when your chief client was the American. Yakov had many clients, but none

of them knew how to throw around dollars like the Americans. It was their sincere belief

that enough money bought you anything. Mostly, they were right. When they weren’t,

though, it was still costly for them.

Most of Yakov’s other clients laughed at the kind of money the Americans threw

around. Chiefly, though, he suspected it was because they were jealous. Laughing at what

you didn’t have and never would was, he supposed, better than letting it depress you.

Icoupov’s people were the only ones who paid as well. But they used him far less than

the Americans. On the other hand, they had him on retainer. Yakov knew Harun Iliev

well, had dealt with him a number of times before, and both liked and trusted him.

Besides, they were both Muslim. Yakov kept his religion a secret in Moscow, especially

from the Americans, who, stupidly, would have dropped him like a fake ruble.

Directly after the American attachй contacted him for the job, Yakov had called Harun

Iliev. As a consequence, Harun had already inserted himself in the staff of the

Metropolya Hotel through a cousin of his, who worked in the kitchen as one of the

expediters. He coordinated food orders for the line chefs. The moment he saw the room-

service order come down from 1728, Bourne’s room, he called Harun.

“We’re short-staffed tonight,” he said. “Get down here in the next five minutes and I’ll

make sure you’re the one to take the order up to him.”

Harun Iliev quickly presented himself to his cousin and was shown to a trolley, neatly

covered in starched white linen, laden with covered bowls, platters, plates, silverware,

and napkins. Thanking his cousin for this opportunity to get to Jason Bourne, he rolled

his trolley to the service elevator. Someone was already there. Harun took him to be one

of the hotel managers until, as they entered the elevator, he turned so Harun caught a

fleeting glimpse of his pulped face and the silver patch over one eye.

Harun reached out, pressed the button for the seventeenth floor. The man pressed the

button for the eighteenth. The elevator stopped at the fourth floor, where a maid got on

with her turn-down cart. She exited a floor later.

The elevator had just passed the fifteenth floor when the man reached over, pulled out

the large red EMERGENCY STOP button. Harun turned to question the man’s action,

but the man fired one bullet from a exceptionally quiet 9mm Welrod equipped with a

suppressor. The bullet pierced Harun’s forehead, tore through his brain. He was dead

before he collapsed to the elevator floor.

Anthony Prowess mopped up what little blood there was with a napkin from the room-

service cart. Then he quickly stripped the clothes off his victim, donned the uniform of

the Metropolya Hotel. He pushed in the EMERGENCY STOP button again and the

elevator continued its ascent to the seventeenth floor. After determining that the hallway

was clear, Prowess consulted a map of the floor, dragged the corpse into a utility room,

then wheeled the cart around the corner to room 1728.

Why don’t you take shower? A long hot,” Bourne said.

Gala’s expression was mischievous. “If I stink at least it’s not as bad as you.” She

began to slip out of her mini skirt. “Why don’t we take one together?”

“Some other time. I have business to attend to.”

Her lower lip comically pouted. “God, what could be more boring?”

Bourne laughed as she crossed into the bathroom, closed the door behind her. Soon

after, the sound of running water came to him, along with tiny curls of steam. He turned

on the TV, watched a dreadful show in Russian with the sound turned up.

There was a knock on the door. Bourne rose from his position on the bed, opened the

door. A uniformed waiter in a short jacket and a hat with a bill pulled down over his face

pushed a trolley full of food into the room. Bourne signed the bill, the waiter turned to

leave. Instantly he whirled, a knife in his hand. In one blurred movement, he drew his

arm back. But Bourne was ready. As the waiter threw the knife Bourne raised a domed

metal top off a chafing dish, used it as a shield to deflect the knife. With a flick of his wrist, he sent it spinning at the waiter, who ducked out of the way. The edge of the

domed top caught his hat, spun it off his head, revealing the puffy face of the man who’d

strangled Baronov and tried to kill Bourne, as well.

The attacker drew a Welrod and squeezed off two shots before Bourne shoved the cart

into his midsection. He staggered back. Bourne threw himself across the cart, grabbed

Prowess by the front of the uniform, then wrestled him to the floor.

Bourne managed to kick away the Welrod. The man attacked with hands and feet,

moving Bourne so that he could regain possession of the gun. Bourne could see the patch

over the NSA agent’s eye, could only surmise the damage he’d inflicted.

The agent feinted one way, then caught Bourne flush on the jaw. Bourne staggered and

his attacker was on him with another wire, which he whipped around Bourne’s neck.

Pulling hard on it, he drew Bourne back to his feet. Bourne staggered against the cart. As

it skittered away from him, he grabbed the chafing dish, hurled its contents in the agent’s face. The scalding soup struck the attacker like a torch, and he shouted but failed to drop the wire, instead pulling it tighter, jerking Bourne against his chest.

Bourne was on his knees, his back arched. His lungs were screaming for oxygen, his

muscles were rapidly losing their strength, and it was becoming increasingly difficult to

concentrate. Soon, he knew, he’d pass out.

With his remaining strength, he jabbed his elbow into the agent’s crotch. The wire

slacked off enough for him to get to his feet. He slammed the back of his head into the

agent’s face, heard the satisfying thunk as the man’s head struck the wall. The wire

slackened a bit more, enough for Bourne to pull it from his throat, gasping in air, and

reverse their positions, wrapping the wire around Prowess’s neck. He fought and kicked

like a madman, but Bourne held on, working the wire tighter and tighter, until the agent’s

body went slack. His head toppled to one side. Bourne didn’t slacken the wire until he’d

assured himself there was no longer a pulse. Then he let the man slide to the floor.

He was bent over, hands on thighs, taking deep, slow breaths when Gala walked out of

the bathroom amid a halo of lavender-scented mist.

“Jesus Christ,” she said. Then she turned and vomited all over her bare pink feet.

Twenty-Three

ANY WAY you slice it or dice it,” Luther LaValle said, “he’s a dead man.”

Soraya stared bleakly through the one-way glass at Tyrone, who was standing in a

cubicle ominously outfitted with a shallow coffin-like tub that had restraints for wrists

and ankles, a fire hose above it. In the center of the room a steel table was bolted down to the bare concrete floor, beneath which was a drain to sluice both water and blood away.

LaValle held up the digital camera. “General Kendall found this on your compatriot.”

He touched a button, and the photos Tyrone had taken scrolled across the camera’s

screen. “This smoking gun is enough to convict him of treason.”

Soraya couldn’t help wondering how many shots of the torture chambers Tyrone had

managed to take before he was caught.

“Off with his head,” Kendall said, baring his teeth.

Soraya could not rid herself of the sick feeling in her stomach. Of course, Tyrone had

been in dangerous situations before, but she was directly responsible for putting him in

harm’s way. If anything happened to him she knew she’d never be able to forgive herself.

What was she thinking involving him in such perilous work? The enormity of her

miscalculation was all too clear to her now, when it was too late to do anything about it.

“The real pity,” LaValle went on, “is that with very little difficulty we can make a case

against you, as well.”

Soraya was solely focused on Tyrone, whom she had wronged so terribly.

“This was my idea,” she said dully. “Let Tyrone go.”

“You mean he was only following orders,” General Kendall said. “This isn’t

Nuremberg. Frankly, there’s no viable defense the two of you can put up. His conviction

and execution-as well as yours-are a fait accompli.”

They took her back to the Library, where Willard, seeing her ashen face, fetched her a

fresh pot of Ceylon tea. The three of them sat by the window. The fourth chair,

conspicuously empty, was an accusation to Soraya. Her grievous mismanagement of this

mission was compounded by the knowledge that she had seriously underestimated

LaValle. She’d been lulled by his smug, overaggressive nature into thinking he was the

sort of man who’d automatically underestimate her. She was dead wrong.

She fought the constriction in her chest, the panic welling up, the sense that she and

Tyrone were trapped in an impossible situation. She used the tea ritual to refocus herself.

For the first time in her life she added cream and sugar, and drank the tea as if it were

medication or a form of penance.

She was trying to get her brain unfrozen from shock, to get it working normally again.

In order to help Tyrone, she knew she needed to get herself out of here. If LaValle meant

to charge her as he threatened to do with Tyrone, she’d already be in an adjacent cell. The fact that they’d brought her back to the Library allowed a sliver of light into the darkness that had settled around her. She decided for now to allow this scenario to play out on

LaValle’s and Kendall’s terms.

The moment she set her teacup down, LaValle took up his ax. “As I said before,

Director, the real pity is your involvement. I’d hate to lose you as an ally-though, I see

now, I never really had you as an ally.”

This little speech sounded canned, as if each word had been chewed over by LaValle.

“Frankly,” he continued, “in retrospect, I can see that you’ve lied to me from the first.

You never had any intention of switching your allegiance to NSA, did you?” He sighed,

as if he were a disciplinary dean addressing a bright but chronically wayward student.

“That’s why I can’t believe that you concocted this scheme on your own.”

“If I were a betting man,” Kendall said, “I’d wager your orders came from the top.”

“Veronica Hart is the real problem here.” LaValle spread his hands. “Perhaps through

the lens of what’s happened here today you can begin to see things as we do.”

Soraya didn’t need a weatherman to see which way the wind was blowing. Keeping

her voice deliberately neutral, she said, “How can I be of service?”

LaValle smiled genially, turned to Kendall, said, “You see, Richard, the director can be

of help to us, despite your reservations.” He quickly turned back to Soraya, his

expression sobering. “The general wants to prosecute you both to the full extent of the

law, which I needn’t reiterate is very full indeed.”

Their good-cop, bad-cop routine would seem clichйd, Soraya thought bitterly, except

this was for real. She knew Kendall hated her guts; he’d made no effort to hide his

contempt. He was a military man, after all. The possibility of having to report to a female superior was unthinkable, downright risible. He hadn’t thought much of Tyrone, either,

which made his capture of the younger man that much harder to stomach.

“I understand my position is untenable,” she said, despising having to kowtow to this

despicable human being.

“Excellent, then we’ll start from that point.”

LaValle stared up at the ceiling, giving an impersonation of someone trying to decide

how to proceed. But she suspected he knew very well what he was doing, every step of

the way.

His eyes engaged hers. “The way I see it we have a two-part problem. One concerns

your friend down in the hold. The second involves you.”

“I’m more concerned with him,” Soraya said. “How do I get him out?”

LaValle shifted in his chair. “Let’s take your situation first. We can build a

circumstantial case against you, but without direct testimony from your friend-”

“Tyrone,” Soraya said. “His name is Tyrone Elkins.”

To hammer home just whose conversation this was, LaValle quite deliberately ignored

her. “Without direct testimony from your friend we won’t get far.”

“Direct testimony we will get,” Kendall said, “as soon as we waterboard him.”

“No,” Soraya said. “You can’t.”

“Why, because it’s illegal?” Kendall chuckled.

Soraya turned to LaValle. “There’s another way. You and I both know there is.”

LaValle said nothing for a moment, drawing out the tension. “You told me that your

source for the attribution of the Typhon intercepts was sacrosanct. Does that decision still stand?”

“If I tell you will you let Tyrone go?”

“No,” LaValle said, “but you’ll be free to leave.”

“What about Tyrone?”

LaValle crossed one leg over another. “Let’s take one thing at a time, shall we?”

Soraya nodded. She knew that as long as she was sitting here she had no wiggle room.

“My source was Bourne.”

LaValle looked startled. “Jason Bourne? Are you kidding me?”

“No, Mr. LaValle. He has knowledge of the Black Legion and that they were being

fronted by the Eastern Brotherhood.”

“Where the hell did this knowledge come from?”

“He had no time to tell me, even if he had a mind to,” she said. “There were too many

NSA agents in the vicinity.”

“The incident at the Freer,” Kendall said.

LaValle held up a hand. “You helped him to escape.”

Soraya shook her head. “Actually, he thought I’d turned on him.”

“Interesting.” LaValle tapped his lip. “Does he still think that?”

Soraya determined it was time for a little defiance, a little lie. “I don’t know. Jason has a tendency toward paranoia, so it’s possible.”

LaValle looked thoughtful. “Maybe we can use that to our ad-vantage.”

General Kendall looked disgusted. “So, in other words, this whole story about the

Black Legion could be nothing more than a lunatic fantasy.”

“Or, more likely, deliberate disinformation,” LaValle said.

Soraya shook her head. “Why would he do that?”

“Who knows why he does anything?” LaValle took a slow sip of his whiskey, diluted

now by the melted ice cubes. “Let’s not forget that Bourne was in a rage when he told

you about the Black Legion. By your own admission, he thought you’d betrayed him.”

“You have a point.” Soraya knew better than to defend Bourne to these people. The

more you argued against them, the more entrenched they became in their position.

They’d built a case against Jason out of fear and loathing. Not because, as they claimed,

he was unstable, but because he simply didn’t care about their rules and regulations.

Instead of flouting them, something the directors had knowledge of and knew how to

handle, he annihilated them.

“Of course I do.” LaValle set down his glass. “Let’s move on to your friend. The case

against him is airtight, open-and-shut, no hope whatsoever of appeal or commutation.”

“Let him eat cake,” Kendall said.

“Marie Antoinette never said that, by the way,” Soraya said.

Kendall glared at her, while LaValle continued, “Let the punishment fit the crime

would be more apropos. Or, in your case, Let the expiation fit the crime.” He waved the

approaching Willard away. “What we’re going to need from you, Director, is proof-

incontrovertible proof-that your illegal foray into NSA territory was instigated by

Veronica Hart.”

She knew what he was asking of her. “So, basically, we’re talking an exchange of

prisoners-Hart for Tyrone.”

“You’ve grasped it entirely,” LaValle said, clearly pleased.

“I’ll have to think about it.”

LaValle nodded. “A reasonable request. I’ll have Willard prepare you a meal.” He

glanced at his watch. “Richard and I have a meeting in fifteen minutes. We’ll be back in

approximately two hours. You can think over your answer until then.”

“No, I need to think this over in another environment,” Soraya said.

“Director Moore, given your history of deception that would be a mistake on our part.”

“You promised I could leave if I told you my source.”

“And so you shall, when you’ve agreed to my terms.” He rose, and with him Kendall.

“You and your friend came in here together. Now you’re joined at the hip.”

Bourne waited until Gala was sufficiently recovered. She dressed, shivering, not once

looking at the body of the dead agent.

“I’m sorry you got dragged into this,” Bourne said.

“No you’re not. Without me you never would’ve gotten to Ivan.” Gala angrily jammed

her feet into her shoes. “This is a nightmare,” she said, as if to herself. “Any minute I’ll wake up in my own bed and none of this will have happened.”

Bourne led her toward the door.

Gala shuddered anew as she carefully skirted the body.

“You’re hanging out with the wrong crowd.”

“Ha, ha, good one,” she said, as they made their way down the hall. “That includes

you.”

A moment later, he signaled her to stop. Kneeling down, he touched his fingertip to a

wet spot on the carpet.

“What is it?”

Bourne examined his fingertip. “Blood.”

Gala gave a little whimper. “What’s it doing out here?”

“Good question,” Bourne said as he crept along the hallway. He noted a tiny smear in

front of a narrow door. Wrenching it open, he switched on the utility room’s light.

“Christ,” Gala said.

Inside was a crumpled body with a bullet in its forehead. It was nude, but there was a

pile of clothes tossed in a corner, obviously those of the NSA agent. Bourne knelt down,

rifled through them, hoping to find some form of ID, to no avail.

“What are you doing?” Gala cried.

Bourne spotted a tiny triangle of dark brown leather sticking out from under the

corpse, which was only visible from this low angle. Rolling the corpse on its side, he

discovered a wallet. The dead man’s ID would prove useful, since Bourne now had none

of his own. His assumed identity, which he’d used to check in, was unusable, because the

moment the corpse was found in Fyodor Ilianovich Popov’s room, there’d be a massive

manhunt for him. Bourne reached out, took the wallet.

Then he rose, grabbed Gala’s hand, and got them out of there. He insisted they take the

service elevator down to the kitchen. From there it was a simple matter to find the rear