The Bourne Ascendancy

  She turned down a street, passed under an ornate gate, entering the bustling Souq Waqif. Here the buildings were all traditional two-story structures of honey-colored stone or whitewashed limestone. Colorful awnings over the shop entrances fluttered in the breeze. Wares were set out—from spices to beaten brass to rugs, and small souvenirs for tourists, some made locally, other cheaper ones manufactured in China to Qatari specifications. Red, blue, yellow, and green parrots squawked on their wooden perches, pecking idly at their leashes or calling to passersby, seeking company or at least a few seeds to munch on.

  The car was useless in the souq, which was one of the reasons Sara had come here. The other was Blum. She had successfully discredited him in El Ghadan’s eyes, in the process turning his attention to her and away from Levi. This was the plan—at least the first part of it. That it was working perfectly made her uneasy. Often, she had learned, it was when things appeared to be rolling along smoothly that the mission was closest to having the wheels come off.

  She trusted El Ghadan about as far as she could lift him, but he was her handler now. That had been the plan she had formulated on the fly as soon as she had recognized him as the man calling her in Nite Jewel. The second part of the plan involved returning Blum to the shadows, where he could again work in secret without being observed.

  Of course, at some point in the near future she would have to kill him in order to satisfy El Ghadan. She knew without the jihad leader having to tell her that he would insist she do it; he was furious at having to use a woman as his eyes on Mossad.

  Killing Blum posed no problem for her, but it might for Levi. That kind of internal joke was necessary now for her to keep her spirits up as she groped her way through the thorny labyrinth of being a double agent. She was used to leading a double life—if you actually ever got used to such a thing—but handling a triple life was a complication of an entirely different magnitude. If your mind wasn’t meticulously and absolutely compartmentalized your artful play-acting could easily fray at the seams, exposing the truth beneath.

  All the while she had been musing, she had been strolling at a leisurely pace through the vast market. The idea was to forget about her owls while at the same time keeping strict track of them. They needed to be lulled into a state of boredom more or less like that of the parrots.

  She bought a silk scarf, a very old small bronze incense-holder, and an earthenware bowl. After her shopping spree, she sat at a café and spent forty minutes sipping an espresso that could have stripped the verdigris off her incense-holder.

  While she sat, face tilted up into a stripe of sunlight falling onto the café terrace, she spotted Blum not once, but twice. He was moving along the second-floor balconies of several buildings across the dusty street. She could tell by the tension in his frame that he was aware of her owls. He never once looked in her direction. He was heading toward their planned rendezvous point.

  With a deep sigh, she finished her espresso, dropped a few coins on the table, and, gathering up her parcels, rose and left the café. Her owls came with her. The three men, still one in front, two behind. Very unimaginative. By now they were like boarders who had overstayed their welcome—familiar but annoying, especially at this moment.

  Keeping to her unhurried pace, she popped into another shop, checking out robes, then an adjacent one that displayed silver jewelry so well crafted she bought a bracelet, wide and gaudy, which she immediately slipped onto her left wrist. She paid too much but she didn’t care; there was no time to haggle.

  Exiting the shop, she made sure her owls caught a full view of her changed profile: parcels on one arm, the silver bracelet on the other. She turned down the main thoroughfare, which was thick with both locals and tourists. The constant crush made it difficult for the men behind her to keep her in sight; the one in front of her lost her completely. Picking up her pace, she brushed her way through the throng. Timing was everything.

  At the very heart of the most congested section of the souq, she ducked into a shadowed doorway, where she stashed her packages in a cobwebbed corner, then skipped lightly up the narrow stone staircase to the second floor.

  Behind her, on the thoroughfare, her three owls, front and back, converged on a woman laden with packages, the silver bracelet Sara had purchased on her left wrist. In the crush, Sara had transferred it to join two others. The woman turned, bewildered, but not half as much as Sara’s owls.

  Above them, Sara crossed one balcony onto another, where Blum was seated at one of the souq’s most venerable cafés.

  Taking command of the table next to his, she settled herself on a chair away from the balustrade and a view of the souq below. She took another espresso, but asked for a plate of almond cookies to help defray the damage to her stomach lining.

  “How goes it?” Blum said

  “I’m plotting your imminent demise.”

  He winced. “Will it hurt?”

  “Think of a spiny lobster placed in a pot of water. The heat is slowly turned up. The lobster goes quietly to sleep, dreaming of whatever it is lobsters dream about.”

  They spoke in undertones, in voices that could not be heard over the murmur of the café patrons and the singsong calls of the merchants below.

  Leaning over, she said at a more normal volume, “Pardon me, but I seem to be out of sugar.”

  He passed her the container stuffed with sugar packets. She plucked three out of the middle, then handed it back. “Thank you.”

  He saw a tiny hotel tube of toothpaste where the packets had been.

  “The first squeeze,” she said, back to the undertone.

  “And that’s it?”

  She nodded. “That’s it. Now for your update.”

  “Everything’s in place.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “You’re sure.”

  “Sure I’m sure.”

  “And there were no owls on you.”

  “None whatsoever.” Blum glanced over the railing at the milling throng. As he did so, he took possession of the toothpaste tube. In the souq, the owls had split up, on the hunt for their missing target. A smile curved his lips like a bow. “I don’t know what you said to El Ghadan, but I’m no longer a person of interest.”

  “Okay,” she said, “then let’s do this.”

  He nodded, paid for his coffee, and left via a side entrance that would let him out onto another street. Sara stayed put, slowly munching her almond cookies, and contemplating the death of Levi Blum.

  32

  Dinazade was lost in a sea of stars,” Soraya said. Sonya was sitting on her lap, her drowsy head on her breast. “She had been lost for a very long time.”

  “Like us, Mama?”

  “Yes, muffin, just like us.” Soraya swallowed the lump in her throat.

  “How did she get lost in the stars?”

  “She was sent there by a wicked wizard who was jealous of Dinazade’s beauty. He wanted her beauty for himself. When Dinazade refused, he sent her into a prison he said she could never escape.”

  “Did she escape, Mama?”

  “Patience, darling. You’ll have to wait for the end of the story to find out.”

  “Mama, I have to use the bathroom.”

  Soraya picked her head up, called for Islam. She had formulated a plan, and it entailed a trip to the bathroom.

  Several moments passed, then the door was unlocked and Islam came in, his dark eyes on her.

  “Are you feeling more ill, Soraya?”

  “I am,” she said. “Also, Sonya has to urinate.”

  He helped her to her feet. The days of constant sitting had affected her legs as well as her balance. She had tried to exercise, to walk, but Islam had stopped her, as if knowing her purpose. This was the one thing that terrified her; if she couldn’t run with Sonya in her arms, how could she hope to escape?

  Soraya took her daughter’s hand, and with Islam close beside her, she crossed the room, went out the door into a featureless corridor. The toilet was the first door on the rig
ht. As usual, Islam came in with them. But there was a Western-style stall, into which she took Sonya, closing the door behind them.

  “Shall I call the doctor, Soraya?” Islam said from his position beside the sink and mirror. “How ill do you feel?”

  Soraya made retching sounds, then said, “It’s just something I ate. A doctor isn’t necessary, but I could use your help.”

  She heard him outside the door, and, signing to Sonya to turn around and press her face into a far corner of the stall, she opened the latch. The moment Islam entered, she hit him hard on the point of his chin. His head snapped back, slammed against the door. Dazed, he fell to his knees.

  Soraya grabbed her daughter, stepped over Islam, and was about to cross the bathroom to the hallway when Sonya squirmed out of her arms and ran back to where Islam knelt, head bobbing.

  “Sonya, what are you doing?” Soraya called in alarm. “Come back here!”

  “Islam is hurt, Mama. We have to help him!”

  Islam’s head came up, his arm snaked around the girl, and Soraya thought in despair, the innocence of children.

  She froze, tasting the freedom of the hallway just beyond the door. But that taste turned out to be a mirage. Islam rose and, taking Sonya’s hand in his, led her out of the bathroom. He did not even look at Soraya, knowing that wherever Sonya went, Soraya would docilely follow.

  Out in the hallway, two armed jihadists were waiting for them.

  “You see how foolish you were,” Islam said, when they were back in the prison room.

  Soraya, terrified because he still had hold of Sonya, sat back on her chair, her hands clasped in her lap like a disobedient schoolgirl. Islam stood in front of her, holding Sonya close against his leg.

  “Mama?”

  Sonya’s lip was quivering, and Soraya knew she was on the verge of tears. Her heart broke all over again. “Hush, muffin. Let Islam speak.”

  Islam said, “Because I genuinely care about your welfare, and to show you I am not the animal you think I am, I will give you a choice. Promise you will not try to escape again.”

  She looked at him defiantly. “And if I do not?”

  “Then you will force me to take Sonya to another room. You will not see her again until this is all over.”

  Lunging, Soraya took Sonya, held her to her breast. Islam made no move to stop her.

  “Mama,” Sonya whispered in her ear, “are we lost in the stars?”

  Soraya, tears trembling at the corners of her eyes, looked up at her captor. “I promise.” She could not say it fast enough.

  * * *

  “Here’s where you learn to fall.”

  Hunter, astride Dagger, twisted in her saddle to meet Camilla’s gaze. It was a misty, windless morning, the eerie stillness seeming to be a harbinger of things to come. The boundaries of the Dairy were obscured and therefore an immense distance away. They were on the oval racetrack at last, with its low whitewashed fences and lanes for seven horses. Here was the final stage of Camilla’s training.

  “It’s not necessary for you to win,” Hunter said. “In fact, winning is peripheral to your brief. Finding Bourne and killing him is your order of business. But you’ll be among professional jockeys. You need to be one of them, as good as they are—better, if I have anything to say about it.”

  During a long and sleepless night, Camilla had tried to work out the web of lies in which she was enmeshed. Right now she was being pulled in different directions. Finnerman and Howard had sent her on a mission to stop Bourne, but if Hunter was telling the truth then on another, hidden level, they wanted her gone, killed in the line of duty. One thing was clear, however. Hunter wanted something entirely different from her. She had made up her mind to be the model pupil, to do whatever she was asked while she was at the Dairy. But after she was sent overseas, it was every woman for herself and devil take the hindmost. She had had her fill of being everyone’s pawn, from POTUS on down to Hunter. It was time to make her own decisions, and what better place to start than in the field where her own eyes and ears would lead her onto the right path. Her dedication and hard work, rising within the military and subsequently the public sector, all in aid of finding herself a free woman at the top of the food chain—it had all been nothing but a mirage. She saw at last the real truth: No matter how high she rose, men were always pulling the strings, making her dance to their personal tunes.

  No more. This she vowed, as a fragile dawn shuffled over the fields and downs of the Dairy.

  “I’m not going to fall,” Camilla said.

  “Of course you’re not. But I’ve been delegated not only to train you but to keep you safe up on your mount.”

  Camilla nodded slowly, unsurely.

  “Okay, this is how you fall,” Hunter said, taking off at a gallop.

  She was bent low over her mount, her butt slightly off the saddle, perfectly assuming the position of a professional racing jockey. As she came around the first turn, she went head over heels, landing on the packed dirt on her right shoulder. She rolled away from the horse, got her legs under her, and stood up, none the worse for wear.

  She whistled, and Dagger turned, trotted back to where she stood against the rail. Camilla urged Dixon forward until she was close enough to smell the lemon of Hunter’s shampoo, mingled with the scents of the horses.

  “Now it’s your turn.” Hunter leapt up onto Dagger’s back. “Your toes will be in the stirrups. First imperative: Tip them out just before you pitch yourself off the horse. Second imperative: You must wait until your horse is into a turn. He’ll be heading to your left, so you’ll pitch yourself over his neck to the right. That way you’ll be completely out of his way; he can’t possibly kick you or, worse, trample you to death. Third imperative: Relax your body. This is no doubt the easiest thing to do, since you have already had extensive training in hand-to-hand combat. Fourth imperative: Land on your right shoulder. You’ll simply tumble. Just let your momentum take you. You’ll be fine. Guaranteed.” She nodded. “Okay? Let’s try it.”

  Camilla dug her heels into Dixon’s flanks, but the big stallion hardly needed urging. He was off in a flash, taking the second half of the turn and heading into the straightaway. Hunter kept Dagger several strides behind her in order to see the scenario clearly, as well as to be able to come to Camilla’s aid should something go wrong.

  Halfway down the straightaway, Camilla set her mind on the precise moment she would take her fall. It would be just before the apex of the turn, so that Dixon would be pulling away from her at the maximum angle as she hit the ground.

  The turn came up, she hit her mark, but her left toe got caught in the stirrup for just a split second. That was enough, however, to throw her off. Instead of falling, she was obliged to grab on to the saddle. There being no horn, her hand slipped off and she dropped. She grabbed the stirrup, but her feet were now dragging in the dirt. Her body began to twist as Dixon passed the apex of the turn, heading left into the homestretch straightaway.

  Camilla tried to fold her legs up, but Dixon’s speed was too great. Then she felt a strong arm reaching around her waist and heard Hunter’s voice shouting, “Let go! Let go!”

  Her terrified mind wanted to hold on for all she was worth, but she let go anyway, felt herself scooped off the ground, swung up and around until she was sitting uncomfortably behind Hunter, astride Dagger. Up ahead, Dixon had slowed, and now, seeing where she was, he turned back at a smart trot until she leaned over and took hold of his bridle.

  As Camilla dismounted, Hunter said, “Not exactly how I drew it up. Next time, make sure your boots tips are square in the stirrups. Now mount up. Let’s go again. I’m not going to be the one responsible for you getting your brains kicked in. A horse can do that, you know. One kick. Wham!”

  * * *

  The curve of the Corniche, now as familiar as home, stretched out in front of Sara. She felt the cool weight concentrated at the small of her back. The snub-nosed .38 El Ghadan had given her was loaded with hollow-point b
ullets filled with mercury. You had to be close to your target, but you didn’t have to be accurate. The weapon and its ammo were tailor-made for Blum’s death.

  It was after midnight. Clammy tendrils of fog, rising out of the water like a living creature, were driven onshore by an east wind. Up ahead, Camilla could see Blum silhouetted against the neon skyscrapers. Behind her, at a discreet distance, came the black SUV carrying El Ghadan, his driver, and two bodyguards.

  This was a terminal rendezvous, without a fallback or any of the usual safeguards strewn as carefully as a minefield.

  She smiled when she came up to him, but her smile was deliberately cold. They were being watched, possibly even recorded. This was play-acting of the highest level; it had to convince even the most hardened cynic.

  “You really fucked up this time,” she said. “There was no good reason to order Khalifa’s death.”

  “I hated that fucker,” Blum retorted, swinging into a rancorous mood from the get-go. “He made my life a living hell.”

  “He could have supplied you with invaluable product. You were impatient; you allowed your personal feelings to get in the way of business. You’re supposed to be a trained fieldman, Blum.”

  He assumed an aggressive posture. “How could you know?”

  “How d’you think? Martine told me.”

  “She had no business doing that.”

  “Because of your foolish action, Martine is blown; she almost lost her life. Now I’m involved.”

  As he took a step toward her, his stance moved from aggressive to belligerent.

  “Careful!” she warned.

  “Why don’t you just get the hell out of my face? It’s you who’s gumming up the works, not me.”

  “I can’t, Blum. You blew up your brief.” Her fingers folded around the grip of the .38. “And now, you see, I have my own brief to complete.”

  She brought the .38 out, squeezed the trigger. The force of the bullet caught him by surprise. Blood bloomed on the right side of his chest as he was thrown backward so hard he stumbled and then, arms pinwheeling frantically, fell into the water.