These memories, reaching across the permeable barrier of time, had ensnared them in their web, which was why he did not at first react to what had come up on the screen. He stared at it for several minutes without seeing the terrible anomaly.
He saw in horrifying detail what he’d hoped he’d never see, the photos of his beloved wife Dao, shoulders and chest riddled with bullets, her face grotesquely disfigured by the traumatic wounds. On the second page he saw the photos of Alyssa, her poor body and her head even more disfigured because of their vulnerability, their smaller size. He sat, paralyzed with grief and horror, at what lay before him. He had to go on. One page left, one last set of photos to complete the tragedy.
He scrolled to the third page, bracing himself for the photos of Joshua. Only there weren’t any.
Stupefied, he did nothing for a moment. At first, he thought there had been a computer glitch, that he’d been inadvertently directed to another page in the Archives. But, no, there was the name: Joshua Webb. But below it were words that seared through Bourne’s consciousness like a hot needle. “Three articles of clothing, listed below, one shoe, partial (sole and heel missing) found ten meters from the corpses of Dao and Alyssa Webb. After an hour’s search, Joshua Webb declared dead. NBF.”
NBF. The Army acronym screamed out to him. No Body Found. Bourne was gripped by an icy cold. They searched for Joshua for an hour—only an hour? And why hadn’t they told him? He’d buried three coffins, his mind excoriated with grief, remorse, and guilt. And all the while they knew, the bastards knew! He sat back. His face was white, his hands trembling. In his heart, he felt a rage he could not contain.
He thought of Joshua; he thought of Khan.
His mind was ablaze, overcome by the horror of the terrible possibility that he’d buried from the moment he’d seen the carved stone Buddha around Khan’s neck: What if Khan really was Joshua? If so, he’d become a killing machine, a monster. Bourne knew only too well how easy it was to find the path to madness and killing in the jungles of Southeast Asia. But there was, of course, another possibility, one his mind quite naturally gravitated toward and held onto: that the plot to plant Joshua was far more wide-ranging and complex than he’d at first considered. If so, if these records were forged, the conspiracy went all the way up to the highest levels of American government. But, oddly, filling his mind with the usual conspiratorial suspicions only increased his sense of dislocation.
In his mind’s eye, he saw Khan holding out the carved stone Buddha, heard him say, “You gave this one to me—yes, you did. And then you abandoned me to die…”
Abruptly, Bourne’s gorge rose into his throat and, with his stomach rebelling madly, he launched himself off the sofa, across the room, and, ignoring the pain, ran to the bathroom, where he vomited every last thing left inside him.
In the OpSit room deep in the bowels of CIA HQ, the duty officer, watching a computer screen, picked up the phone and dialed a specific number. He waited a moment while an automated voice said, “Speak.” The DO asked for the DCI. His voice was analyzed, matched against the list of duty officers. The call was switched, a male voice said, “Hold, please.” A moment later the clear baritone of the DCI came on the line.
“I thought you should know, sir, that an internal alarm has been tripped. Someone got through the military firewall and accessed death records for the following personnel: Dao Webb, Alyssa Webb, Joshua Webb.”
There was a short, unpleasant pause. “Webb, son. You’re sure it’s Webb.”
The sudden urgency in the DCI’s voice brought out the sweat on the young duty officer’s face. “Yessir.”
“Where’s this hacker located?”
“Budapest, sir.”
“Did the alarm do its job? Did it capture the full IP address?”
“Yessir. 106–108 Fo utca.”
In his office the DCI smiled grimly. Totally by coincidence, he’d been leafing through Martin Lindros’ latest report. It seemed as if the Frogs had now sifted through all the remains of the accident that was supposed to have killed Jason Bourne without finding a trace of human remains. Not even a molar. So there’d been no definitive confirmation that, despite the Quai d’Orsay officer’s eyewitness account, Bourne was actually dead. The DCI’s hand clenched into a fist and pounded the desk in anger. Bourne had eluded them again. But despite his ire and frustration, part of him wasn’t all that surprised. After all, Bourne had been trained by the best spook the Agency had ever produced. How many times had Alex Conklin faked his own death in the field, though perhaps never in such spectacular fashion.
Of course, the DCI thought, it was always possible that someone other than Jason Bourne had hacked through the U.S. Army firewall in order to get at the moldy death records of a woman and her two children who weren’t even military personnel and who were known to only a small handful of people still living. But what were the odds?
No, he thought now with mounting excitement, Bourne hadn’t perished in that explosion outside Paris; he was alive and well in Budapest—why there?—and for once he’d made a mistake they could capitalize on. Why he was interested in the death records of his first family the DCI had no idea, nor did he care beyond the fact that Bourne’s inquisitiveness had opened the door for finally fulfilling the sanction.
The DCI reached for the phone. He could have assigned the task to a subordinate, but he wanted to feel the joy of ordering this particular sanction himself. He dialed an overseas number, thinking, I’ve got you now, you sonuvabitch.
Chapter Twenty
For a city founded in the late nineteenth century as a British railroad camp on the Mombasa-to-Uganda line, Nairobi had a depressingly banal skyline filled with sleek modern high-rises. It lay on a flat plain, grasslands that for many years had been the home to the Masai before the coming of Western civilization. It was currently the fastest-growing city in East Africa and, as such, was subject to the usual growing pains as well as the disorienting sight of the old and the new, vast wealth and abject poverty uncomfortably rubbing flanks until sparks flew, tempers flared, and calm needed to be restored. With unemployment high, riots were commonplace as well as late-night muggings, especially in and around Uhuru Park to the west of City Center.
None of these inconveniences were of any interest to the party just arriving from Wilson Airport in a pair of armored limousines, although the occupants noted the signs warning of violence and the private security guards that patrolled City Center and west, where government ministries and foreign embassies resided, as well as along the fringes of Latema and River Roads. They passed along the edge of the bazaar, where virtually every sort of surplus war materiel, from flame-throwers to tanks to shoulder-mounted ground-to-air missile launchers were on display for sale next to cheap gingham dresses and woven textiles in colorful tribal patterns.
Spalko was in the lead limousine with Hasan Arsenov. Behind them, in the second car, sat Zina and Magomet and Akhmet, two of Arsenov’s most senior lieutenants. These men hadn’t bothered to shave their thick curling beards. They wore the traditional black outfits and stared at Zina’s Western clothes with stupefaction. She smiled at them, studying their expressions carefully for any sign of change.
“Everything’s in readiness, Shaykh,” Arsenov said. “My people are perfectly trained and prepared. They are fluent in Icelandic; they have memorized both the hotel’s schematics and the procedures you outlined. They await only my final order of commencement.”
Spalko, staring out at the passing Nairobi parade of natives and foreigners stained red by the setting sun, smiled, if only to himself. “Do I detect a note of skepticism in your voice?”
“If you do,” Arsenov said quickly, “it’s only from my acute sense of anticipation. I’ve been waiting all my life for the chance to be free of the Russian yoke. My people have been outcasts too long; they’ve been waiting for centuries to be welcomed into the community of Islam.”
Spalko nodded abstractedly. For him, Arsenov’s opinion had already become i
rrelevant; the moment he was thrown to the wolves he’d cease to exist altogether.
That evening the five of them convened in a private dining room Spalko had booked on the top floor of the 360 Hotel on Kenyatta Avenue. It, like their rooms, had a view over the city to Nairobi National Park, stocked with giraffes, wildebeest, Thomson’s gazelles and rhinos—as well as lions, leopards and water buffalo. During the dinner there was no talk of business, no hint at all as to their purpose here.
After the plates had been cleared, it was a different story. A team from Humanistas, Ltd., that had preceded them to Nairobi had set up a computer-based audiovideo hookup, which was wheeled into the room. A screen was deployed and Spalko commenced to give a Powerpoint presentation, showing the coast of Iceland, the city of Reykjavik and its environs, then aerial views of the Oskjuhlid Hotel, followed by photos outside and inside the hotel. “There’s the HVAC system, which as you can see here and here has been fitted with state-of-the-art motion detectors as well as infrared heat sensors,” he said. “And here’s the control panel, which like every system in the hotel has a security override, electrical in nature but with battery backups.” He continued, running through the plan in the most minute detail, beginning with the moment they arrived and ending with the moment they left. Everything had been planned for; everything was in readiness.
“Tomorrow morning at sunrise,” he said, standing, and the others stood with him. “La illaha ill Allah.”
“La illaha ill Allah,” the others chorused in solemn reply.
Late at night Spalko lay in bed smoking. One lamp was on, but he was still able to see the glittering lights of the city and, beyond, the forested darkness of the wildlife park. He appeared lost in thought, but in reality he had cleared his mind. He was waiting.
Akhmed heard the distant roaring of the animals and could not sleep. He sat up in bed, rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. It was unusual for him not to sleep soundly and he wasn’t certain what to do. For a time he lay back down, but he was awake now and, aware of the pounding of his heart, his eyes would not close.
He thought of the impending day and the full flower of its promise. Allah will that it be the start of a new dawn for us, he prayed.
Sighing, he sat up, swung his legs over the side of the bed and rose. He pulled on the odd Western trousers and shirt, wondering if he’d ever get used to them. Allah grant not.
He was just opening the door to his room when he saw Zina passing by. She walked with an uncanny grace, moving silently, her hips swaying provocatively. Often, he’d licked his lips when she passed near him and he’d find himself trying to inhale as much of her scent as he could.
He peered out. She was headed away from her room; he wondered where she was going. A moment later he had his answer. His eyes opened wide as she rapped softly on the Shaykh’s door, which opened to reveal the Shakyh. Perhaps he had summoned her for some lapse in discipline Akhmed was not aware of.
Then she said in a tone of voice he’d never heard her use before, “Hasan’s asleep,” and he understood everything.
When the soft knock sounded on his door, Spalko turned, stubbed out his cigarette, then rose, padded across the large room and opened the door.
Zina stood in the hallway. “Hasan’s asleep,” she said as if she was required to explain her presence.
Without a word, Spalko stepped back, and she came in, closing the door softly. He grabbed her, then spun her onto the bed. Within moments she was crying out, her bare flesh slick with their fluids. Their lovemaking contained a certain wildness, as if they had come at last to the end of the world. And when it was over, it wasn’t over at all, for she lay astride him, stroking and caressing him, whispering her desires in the most explicit terms until, inflamed, he took her again.
Afterward she lay entwined with him, smoke curling from her half-open lips. The lamp was off, and solely by the pinpoint lights of the Nairobi night, she held him in her gaze. Ever since he had first touched her, she had longed to know him. She knew nothing of his background—to her knowledge, no one did. If he would talk to her, if he would tell her the little secrets of his life, she’d know that he was bound to her as she was bound to him.
She ran her fingertip around the shell of his ear, across the unnaturally smooth skin of his cheek. “I want to know what happened,” she said softly.
Spalko’s eyes came slowly back into focus. “It was a long time ago.”
“All the more reason to tell me.”
He turned his head, stared into her eyes. “Do you really want to know?”
“Very much, yes.”
He took a breath, let it out. “In those days, my younger brother and I were living in Moscow. He was always getting into trouble, not that he could help it; he had an addict’s disposition.”
“Drugs?”
“Praise Allah, no. In his case, it was gambling. He couldn’t stop betting, even when he’d run out of money. He’d borrow from me, and of course I’d always give him the money because he’d spin a story I chose to believe.”
He turned in her arms, shook out a cigarette, lit it. “Anyway, there came a time when the plausibility of the stories faltered, or possibly even I could no longer afford to believe him. In any event, I said, ‘No more,’ believing, again foolishly as it turned out, that he’d stop.” He drew smoke deep into his lungs, let it out with a hiss. “But he didn’t. So what d’you suppose he did? He went to the last people he should’ve approached, because they were the only ones who’d lend him money.”
“The mob.”
He nodded. “That’s right. He took the money from them knowing that if he lost he’d never be able to pay them back. He knew what they’d do to him, but as I said, he couldn’t help himself. He bet and, as almost always happened, he lost.”
“And?” She was on tenterhooks, begging him to go on.
“They waited for him to pay them back, and when he didn’t, they came after him.”
Spalko stared at the glowing end of his cigarette. The windows were open. Over the low noise of the traffic and the clattering of the palm fronds, now and again came an animal’s booming roar or unearthly howl.
“At first they gave him a beating,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “Nothing too severe because at that point they still assumed he’d come up with the money. When they realized he had nothing and could get nothing, they pursued him in earnest, shot him in the street like a dog.”
He was finished with his cigarette, but he let the butt burn down to where he gripped it between two fingers. He seemed to have forgotten all about it. Beside him, Zina said not a word, so held in thrall was she by his story.
“Six months went by,” he said, flicking the butt across the room and out the window. “I did my homework; I paid the people who needed to be paid, and at last I got my chance. It happened that the boss who’d ordered my brother killed went to the barbershop at the Metropole Hotel every week.”
“Don’t tell me,” Zina said, “you posed as his barber, and when he sat in your chair, you slit his throat with a straight razor.”
He stared at her for a moment, then he broke into a laugh. “That’s very good, very cinematic.” He shook his head. “But in real life it wouldn’t work. The boss had used the same barber for fifteen years and in all that time he’d never accepted a substitute.” He leaned in, kissed her on the mouth. “Don’t be disappointed; take it as a lesson and learn from it.” He slipped his arm around her, drew her close against him. Somewhere in the park a leopard yowled.
“No, I waited until he was freshly shaved and barbered, relaxed from these tender ministrations. I waited for him in the street outside the Metropole, a place so public only a madman would choose it. When he came out, I shot him and his bodyguards dead.”
“And then you escaped.”
“In a sense,” he said. “That day I escaped, but six months later, in another city in another country a Molotov cocktail was thrown at me from a passing car.”
She te
nderly ran her fingers over his plasticized flesh. “I like you this way, imperfect. The pain you endured makes you…heroic.”
Spalko said nothing, and at length he felt her breathing deepen as she drifted off to sleep. Of course, not a word he’d said was true, though he had to admit it made a good story—very cinematic! The truth—what was the truth? He scarcely knew anymore; he’d spent so much time carefully constructing his elaborate facade that there were days when he became lost in his own fiction. In any event, he’d never reveal the truth to anyone else because it would put him at a disadvantage. When people knew you, they thought they owned you—that the truth you had shared with them in a moment of weakness they called intimacy would bind you to them.
In this Zina was like all the rest, and he found the bitter rind of disappointment in his mouth. But then he was always being disappointed by others. They simply weren’t in his sphere; they couldn’t understand the nuances of the world as he did.