The Bourne Ascendancy

  Borz, having waited long enough to save face, holstered the gun. How he was going to get into Singapore with it was anyone’s guess.

  “If you want me to stay,” Bourne said with a quiet menace, “then you need me. If you need me, then we negotiate.”

  Borz shrugged, affecting disinterest. “What is there to negotiate?”

  “I want a hundred thousand.”

  “That’s not going to happen.”

  “Or I walk.”

  “I’ll turn you over to the Singapore authorities.”

  “And risk blowing your cover? I don’t think so.” Bourne stared out the window. “Look, Borz, it’s a beautiful night. Why don’t we go out together and enjoy it?”

  * * *

  No sooner had Anselm returned to his room after having his itch scratched in every imaginable way, as well as one or two that had never been on his radar, than there was a pounding on his door. Suffused with a delicious postcoital lassitude, he was just about to order room service, and was disinclined to rise from the edge of the bed where he had plunked himself in a mist of delirium. It was like one of those wet dreams you never want to end, he thought. Only this was real.

  The pounding came again, more insistent this time, impelling him to rise and cross the room.

  “POTUS,” one of the Secret Service agents said when Anselm flung open the door. “Now.”

  Cursing under his breath, Anselm padded across the corridor in his stocking feet, entering Magnus’s immense suite without knocking.

  POTUS turned at the sound. “Ah, there you are, Howard.” He had been staring out the window at the lights of the city, myriad as the invisible stars in a sky turned every shade of colored neon.

  “Where is Camilla?” POTUS said. “I told you I wanted to see her.”

  Anselm was alarmed to feel a tiny trickle of sweat roll down his side. “Camilla’s undercover, Bill. I thought I made that clear to you.”

  “And I told you I don’t care.” He waved his arms. “We’re on the other side of the world, for Christ’s sake, Howard. What could happen?”

  “Bill, do I really have to remind you that the president of the United States takes the world with him wherever he goes?”

  As it was wont to do when he was forced to face reality in private, POTUS’s face fell. He suddenly looked gray and lined, as if he had aged five years in five minutes. Coming away from the window, he collapsed onto a plush chair, scrubbed his face with the heels of his hands.

  “Jesus, Howard, what am I to do?” He looked up at his chief of staff. “I need to see her, to touch her, to…” He shook his head. “She’s all I can think of.”

  Finally his friend’s anguish pierced the pink cloud on which Anselm had floated back to his room. “All right.” He sat down on a chair facing POTUS. “I’ll tell you what. There is an hour between races tomorrow. You have no more than half that before your entrance into the presidential box. I’ll take you to see her.” He lifted a warning finger. “But, now listen to me, Bill. She’ll be working; you can’t interfere with that—we can’t afford to have her cover blown.”

  Magnus blinked. “Thirty minutes won’t do it.”

  “It will have to do. The Singapore president won’t tolerate tardiness.”

  “What the hell’s his name, anyway?”

  The two of them had a good laugh at that one. Anselm rose, crossed to a sideboard, poured himself two fingers of the special bourbon Magnus liked, and downed it. With the fire streaking down to his belly, he turned.

  “Bill—”

  “No, no.” Magnus waved away his words. “I read the brief. I know precisely what Camilla will be doing there tomorrow.” He sighed. “Do your best, Howard.” He rose, went to his chief of staff, gripped his shoulder. “But then I have no worries. You always do.”

  49

  Tell me, Islam,” Sara said, “how long have you been shuttered here with El Ghadan’s guests?”

  “Days,” the young jihadist said noncommittally.

  She cocked her head. “That must be hard for you, being a man of action.”

  The courtyard was silent. The sun was down and the bird had flown; the leaves of the fig tree were still. The ground, baking in the last of the afternoon heat, seemed to absorb all sound. Only the dust remained, floating in the air in listless patterns.

  “Everything is hard for us,” Islam said.

  “Of course,” Sara said. “Otherwise there would be no reason for you to live.”

  He seemed to glare at her, but it might only have been the way the sunlight struck his face. He tapped the gun lying between them amid the plates of food.

  “Decision time,” he said.

  Sara waited a moment, then took up the SIG. She ejected the magazine, which was empty. So was the chamber.

  Islam smiled at her, a hard line in the sand. “But you knew it would not be loaded.”

  “It would have been foolish to have thought otherwise.”

  “Still, your decision concerning the disposition of our guests must be made.”

  She nodded. “Let’s do it, then.”

  They rose and he led her back inside. At the end of the hotel-like corridor stood another steel door with a slot into which he slid his magnetic key card. The door opened with a sigh, as if the area beyond had been hermetically sealed. He ushered her down another, far more utilitarian hallway, past doors clearly marked TOILETS and SHOWERS in both Arabic and English.

  At length he stopped in front of a locked door. “In here,” he said, turning a key in the lock, but as he made to move forward, she stopped him.

  “I go in alone, Islam.” She held his gaze, unblinking. “This is the way it’s going to be.”

  He acquiesced far too quickly, confirming her suspicion that he would be spying on her via video or audio, possibly both.

  “Just knock when you’re finished,” he said.

  She entered the room and the door closed behind her. Ten minutes later, she pounded on the door, and it swung open.

  The moment she stepped out, he said, “Well? What is your decision?”

  She was aware of him scrutinizing her face. Her expression betrayed nothing, but seeing Soraya, and especially Sonya, whom she had never before met, was like a dagger twisted into her heart. Brave didn’t begin to cover what those two were. In the moment before she raised her fist to pound on the door she despised El Ghadan and Islam more than she ever could have imagined. There was an instant when she lost her professional perspective, when everything became personal, but with a colossal effort she was able to pull herself back from that perilous brink.

  “You can ask El Ghadan after I’ve spoken with him,” she said flatly, and strode back down the hall with him trailing helplessly behind.

  * * *

  Camilla looked down at her mobile, saw that Hunter was calling, and didn’t pick up. Standing in the stables with Ohrent and the stamping horses, she had no desire to speak to Hunter. Being on the other side of the world had a way of clarifying issues you were too close to at home.

  “The horses are restless,” she said.

  “They’re always like this before a race.” Ohrent had his hand on Jessuetta’s mane. “Eager for the track.” His mouth twitched. “It’s a good thing. When they’re not like this is the time to worry.”

  He came away from Jessuetta’s stall, stood by her side, looking out at the velvet night. Beyond the Thoroughbred Club’s environs the sky was lit up as if with the northern lights.

  “It’s beautiful,” she said softly.

  “Just another evening in Singapore.” Behind them a horse snorted, others answered it. One of them bumped its hindquarters against a stall. “What are you going to do?” His voice was lower than hers had been.

  She took out her mobile. “I’ve decided to trust you,” she said.

  He did not reply. Instead he waited patiently, in the easy, relaxed manner she had quickly come to admire.

  She brought up the extermination brief from Finnerman’s office, al
ong with the photo of Kettle, and showed them to Ohrent.

  “Huh, a DOD dinger.”

  “There’s more.” She played him the MP3 file of Finnerman and Anselm adding her death to Kettle’s brief.

  He shoved his hands in the back pockets of his jeans. “I think you just answered the question.” He shifted from one foot to the other. “In that event, you’d better come along home with me.” When she turned to him, he added, “You won’t be safe anywhere else.”

  “I’m not going home with you and I’m not going back to my hotel.” She shook her head. “You think I’d be safe with you? Well, I wouldn’t. Until this is over I’m radioactive, and I’m not getting you involved in—”

  “Camilla, I’m already involved,” he said slowly and carefully. “Plus, I’m too old and crotchety to be told by a young filly like you what to do.” His eyes crinkled. “You’re coming with me.”

  “I said—”

  “Pull ya head in. Not to my place. No, you’re right about that. Radioactive isn’t too dramatic a word for what you are. But I’ve got the perfect spot to take you. It’s fifty k’s south of Woop Woop.”

  “Meaning?”

  “Meaning no-fuckin-one is going to find you there.” His smile was so very reassuring. “You’ll spend the night without having to look over your shoulder, which is just as well because you look knackered.”

  She was exhausted. Running on adrenaline could only take you so far before you fell on your face. “Okay.” She returned his smile. “I am delivered into your providential hands.”

  “That’s more like it. I’ll take you there, then be off.”

  She frowned. “Off where?”

  “Me?” Ohrent began to guide her out the back of the stables. “I’m going to find the dinger and settle his fucking hash.”

  * * *

  There was a space in time between the moment Rebeka left Soraya and Sonya and Islam appeared in her place when Soraya could legitimately tell herself that there was a sliver of hope for her and her daughter. She had seen these scenarios all too often in her time at the Company, and especially at Treadstone. She knew the longer they were incarcerated the slimmer their chances of coming out of this alive. She also knew that Jason was doing all he could to free her and Sonya, but though she had been witness to a number of his seeming miraculous feats she was unsure whether this would be one of them.

  After all, every winning streak eventually came to an end. There was always someone stronger, better prepared, and, most crucially, smarter. Jason had not yet come up against such an adversary, but the law of averages told her that it was only a matter of time. El Ghadan was the most powerful jihadist on the planet; he commanded countless men in an array of far-flung places, and he was currently at the top of his game.

  These thoughts, piling onto her like a pyramid intent on burying her beneath their weight, seemed instantly mitigated by Rebeka’s appearance. Soraya could not have been more shocked if the pope had bustled in with his white robes and gold crucifixes, censers swinging in his wake.

  She had met Rebeka several times—Aaron had introduced them. Soraya had intuited Rebeka wasn’t her real name, but she didn’t care. In fact, she knew that it was far better for everyone involved if she didn’t know Rebeka’s real identity. However, the woman’s essential kindness was unmistakable, and she had liked her on the spot. Now, somehow, some way, she was here and ready to help. Had Jason sent her? Possibly, but the hows and whys mattered less than whether she would be able to free them. Right now, Soraya would settle for Rebeka taking Sonya out of here, far away from these people.

  She closed her eyes, knowing she was working herself up into another bout of anxiety. To combat it she began her slow-breathing exercises, and it was when she was sunk deep into prana that the door was unlocked from the outside and Islam stepped in. He was carrying the video camera in one hand, a newspaper in the other. She took Sonya onto her lap; she knew the drill.

  They were finished almost before she knew it. Her mind was elsewhere while the taping was taking place. She felt humiliated and sickened by the violation.

  Then it was over and, tucking the newspaper under one arm, Islam unwound his headscarf, revealing his face. He was a handsome young man, she saw, his face long, bony, eyes sunken on either side of a prominent nose. And yet the sight of him immediately dispelled the effects of her yoga breathing. In fact, it sent her into a full-blown panic.

  Islam showing himself to her was a threat, or maybe a harbinger—the surest sign yet that these people had made up their minds that she and Sonya would not survive. Because now she knew what he looked like, now if she were freed she would be able to identify him.

  Which meant she and Sonya were not going to be freed. They were going to be killed.

  50

  Bourne spent the night on the outskirts of Singapore, where Borz had arranged for the cadre to stay. Once it had been a warehouse, and possibly still was down on the ground floor, though apart from several wooden crates he saw little sign of it. But a loft space, accessed via spiral steel treads, had been turned into a living space for up to fifty human beings. The cadre consisted of only a fraction of what it had been, of course, and Bourne wondered what Borz had planned to do with so many men. Anything he could think of seemed like overkill. Plus which, in a city like Singapore, with its restrictive laws, small seemed far superior—and less risky—than large. But then the scheme masterminded by El Ghadan, to be carried out by Borz’s cadre, had yet to come into focus.

  Bourne, once again unable to sleep, padded through the converted rooms. Accessing the mobile El Ghadan had given him, he brought up the proof-of-life videos he had missed while in Waziristan and Afghanistan, and was reassured by their faces that both Soraya and Sonya were alive and being well treated. There were no signs of bruises or swelling on their faces, no sign either that they were being starved, even though Soraya did look thinner, her large eyes sunken in their sockets, surrounded by dark circles of worry and anxiety. For the moment, this was as much as he could hope for.

  There was also a brief coded text from Sara, accelerating his pulse. El Ghadan’s people had found the false GPS signal Deron had piggybacked onto the real one. El Ghadan knew he had been betrayed.

  “Looking for something?” The pilot, Musa, stepped out of the shadows. A cigarette dangled from between his lips. He never removed it, even when he was speaking.

  “A little air,” Bourne replied.

  “Well, you won’t find it here.” Smoke dribbled from between his half-opened lips. “I heard you saved the boss’s life—twice.”

  “I was lucky to be in the right place at the right time.”

  “Still”—Musa sucked in some smoke, held it, let it go—“we all owe you a debt of gratitude, Yusuf.”

  Bourne nodded in acknowledgment. “You know Singapore well?”

  Musa shrugged. He had the beefy shoulders of a mechanic or a wrestler. Though dull, he possessed an air of quiet confidence, as if he could handle any problem, mechanical or electronic, his airplane developed. “Not as well as I know Chechnya. But some. Enough.”

  “Enough for what?” Bourne asked.

  “Enough to get the job done.”

  And no more, Bourne thought, as he bid Musa good night.

  Moments later, he stood out in the humid darkness, just beyond the warehouse’s front door. From his vantage point there was not much to see: black buildings beyond which rose the multicolored glow of the Singapore night.

  Despite having stolen into the center of the web woven by El Ghadan and Borz, he felt as if he were still in the dark. Because what he had seen and been told didn’t add up, he knew he was missing something—something vital, if he knew anything about the two terrorists. No one was telling the truth, him included.

  The door opened behind him but he did not turn around, even when he felt Aashir come up beside him.

  “You should get your sleep,” Bourne said.

  “But you don’t need it, Yusuf?”

&
nbsp; “I need it less than you.”

  At that moment, the clocks struck midnight and El Ghadan’s mobile buzzed. Raising his forefinger, Bourne stepped away. The usual short video of Soraya and Sonya had been sent to him, but a moment later a voice call came in.

  “Where are you?” El Ghadan said.

  “You know where I am,” Bourne said. “It’s midnight in Singapore.”

  “Yes, I know where you are.”

  There was a pause, ominous in its length, and Bourne’s senses went on high alert. He was almost at the finish line. Nothing could happen to Soraya and Sonya now.

  “You found your explosives expert?” El Ghadan said, interrupting Bourne’s train of thought.

  “As a matter of fact I didn’t. At least none to my satisfaction.”

  “In Damascus? That seems odd.”

  “You don’t know what I was looking for.”

  “So how are you going to fulfill your end of the bargain?”

  “I didn’t say I gave up. I ventured all the way into Afghanistan for the answer.”

  “And you found it there.”

  “I did. This is Singapore, El Ghadan. Lowest profile possible.”

  “And how—?”

  “Leave the how to me. It will happen at the Thoroughbred Club. He’ll be attending the races tomorrow.”

  “Have you scoped out the site?”

  “I plan to do that later this morning. Security will be in the stands hours before the races start, and I’ll get a clear idea of the area he’ll be sitting in.”

  “How are you getting in?”

  “As part of the light maintenance crew.”

  “Sounds like you’ve thought of everything.”

  Bourne glanced over to where Aashir was waiting for him. “How are Soraya and Sonya?”

  “You saw the video.”

  “Yes, but I want to know—”

  But he was talking to dead air. El Ghadan had severed the connection. Pocketing the phone, he returned to Aashir with a certain dread for the safety of Soraya and her daughter. Had El Ghadan bought his story about going so far afield to find the means to assassinate the American president? No way to know, but he had done what needed to be done, in light of Sara’s text. It was essential that El Ghadan believe that he was still going to complete his part of the bargain; otherwise, Soraya and Sonya were as good as dead.