“I’ll recognize Keyre. There’s a face I’ll never forget.”
She looked away for a moment, her hair streaming out behind her until she lassoed it with her fingers. She seemed to be listening to a sound only she could hear. It was very far away, coming off the sands of Somalia like a mirage.
When she turned back to him, her eyes seemed enlarged, as if she had ingested a drug. Maybe she had, Bourne thought. Maybe that drug was Keyre himself.
“You know,” she said in an altogether different tone of voice, “there was a time when I loved you. A time when you were my entire universe.”
“You were very ill,” he said, not wanting her words to sink in, knowing that she might very well be laying a trap, that he absolutely could not trust her, no matter how much he might want to. She was still very much Keyre’s creature, despite all his efforts. It saddened and angered him in equal measure that he had freed her body, but not her mind. He wished to convey none of this to her. “I nursed you back to life. It’s only natural. Transference.”
“That’s one word for it.”
“What word would you substitute?”
She eyed him, searching for any flicker of emotion. She was as expert at pulling emotions from people as a fisherman drawing his catch out of the water. She shook her head. “But, you see, Jason, what I learned is that love is beyond your ken. When love knocks on your door you remain deaf, dumb, and blind.”
She was talking about herself, of course, but what she said made him think of Sara, of all the time they spent together, how well they knew each other—and yet, Mala was right, he always kept a part of himself hidden, locked away, set apart from even the few people he was closest to: Sara, Boris, Soraya Moore. He loved all three of them in his way. But that was the problem: in his way. What was that, exactly? Was he really and truly incapable of loving someone, of giving all of himself? Had living in the shadows, inhabiting all the most perilous fringes of the world damaged him beyond repair? Had all the betrayals, the paranoia of future betrayals made him more weapon than human? No answer presented itself, only a blank wall even he was incapable of scaling.
Mala’s voice was like a scarf of purest silk winding around him, impossibly soft, impossibly strong. “I held you and Keyre, one in each hand”—she lifted both hands, cupping them—“balancing the two of you like the scales of justice.”
“Keyre and the concept of justice are incompatible.”
“So you think, Jason. But you’re wrong. Justice is paramount to Keyre—it always has been.”
“You have found some good in him, is that what you’re telling me?”
She bit her lip. “We’re—all of us—capable of great good and great evil, don’t you think?”
The night, slipping away, was gradually being replaced by predawn light, dirty and wan.
“Right now I’m thinking it’s ironic that light is better for us than darkness. Those night-vision glasses are better than the human eye in picking up and homing in on prey.”
“You don’t really think the traps will injure them?”
“They might—once. After that, no.” Bourne moved them to their left, positioning them squarely at the head of the rock fall they had bypassed on the way down. “But it doesn’t matter; that’s not their purpose.”
—
The first tripwire Bourne had set caught one of the Dreadnaught agents at thigh level, the fish hooks puncturing his trousers and flesh. As he reared back in reaction, they tore chunks of muscle out of both thighs. He grunted in pain as his legs went out from under him. The rest of the team abandoned their positions, grouped around him.
“Fucking Bourne,” said the lead, a man with a long indentation down one side of his bald skull. He was about to cut the fishing line with his knife when he looked around. Then he put the knife back in its sheath. “Okay, this can’t be the only one. Be on the lookout. And don’t cut the line. There’s no telling what that will trigger. We’re dealing with a very clever and resourceful sonuvabitch. You see here a perfect example. He must’ve seen that we had night-vision goggles, exceedingly fine for picking out living creatures in the night, but of no use at all seeing trip wires.”
The man on the ground was writhing in agony. The leader glanced at him briefly. “Give him something.”
“He’s bleeding like a stuck pig,” said another and pointed. “One of the hooks must’ve torn open an artery.”
The wounded man started to scream as the real pain set in. The leader clamped a hand over his mouth. “Give him something to shut him the fuck up,” he said.
“We’re just going to leave him here?” asked another.
“This isn’t the marines. We don’t exist.” The man dug into a first-aid kit, extracted a hypodermic needle, and drove it into the man’s biceps.
As the wounded man calmed, closed his eyes, the leader nodded, then stood up. “Bury him deep, where no one will find him. Then let’s move out.”
Afterward, they returned to their positions, more or less, trying as best they could to compensate for the loss of their comrade. With two down, there were three of them left: the leader, the boat driver, and one other, the man who spoke up. Their spread was of necessity more compact, covering less territory. That could not be helped, and, as it turned out, it didn’t matter, since as they encountered more of the trip wires they were forced to move closer together.
This was the purpose of the trip wires’ placement as Bourne conceived of them: to create a funnel along which the Dreadnaughts were forced forward. He did not want them spread out when he sprang his lethal surprise.
—
It took them longer to come into Bourne’s view than he had expected. Then, as he counted their number, he understood. The first trip wire must have caught one of them because there were three, not four. He glanced to right and left, but this was inhospitable terrain for a flanking maneuver, plus they couldn’t be sure where he was.
That would change in a moment.
Ready? he mouthed, and she nodded. She was ready.
They had briefly discussed how to get the rock fall moving most efficiently. They separated now, growing dim to each other in the ghostly light. Sea birds had awoken, calling and crying as they circled overhead. He welcomed the raucous noise; the clatter as the rock fall began would easily be confused with the clamor of the birds.
They were each now on separate parts of the rock fall, their butts on solid ground, their boots hovering inches above the layers of precariously balanced rock shards. Ignoring each other, they looked to the movement below them as what was left of the Dreadnaught team entered the defile into which they had been herded, beginning the steepest part of the ascent.
Bourne pushed himself back, stood up, fired his pistol at them. The report caused the rock fall to tremble, that’s how fragile its stability was. The three men below scrambled as best they could, but the defile afforded them scant cover and, in any event, at that moment, Mala ground her boot heels into the shards with a powerful double kick. The rumble began.
Bourne lowered himself, gave his own mighty double kick—once, twice, the third time in exact concert with another from Mala, and the entire rock fall gave way. The avalanche picked up speed at once, and, as it did so, its sound deepened, widened, became palpable, like an intense atmospheric disturbance, rushing, tumbling, roaring down the defile with such demonic energy all three Dreadnaughts disappeared from view.
It was only afterward, in the stifled peace of the rock slide’s aftermath, that they heard the sound of the rotors and, looking up, saw the military helo diving toward them.
11
Morgana was waiting behind the wheel of the car when Lieutenant Francis Goode exited the NSA complex. When Goode got in his car and fired the ignition, she followed him out of the vast parking lot that surrounded the black edifice like a castle moat.
He took the highway, headed deeper into Virginia. She turned off with him at the Odenton exit, tailed him through local streets, watched him park in the lot at
tached to the Long Range, a local firing range, and enter the building. Five minutes later she followed him through the front door.
The big guy behind the counter in a red SHOOT FIRST T-shirt looked at her askance until she waved her ID in his face. Then he was all smiles and what-can-I-do-for-yous. She paid for an hour, chose her weapon, and was rung up.
She was given a 9mm Glock, ammunition, and a set of sound-dampening headphones. She entered the range itself, trolled through the row of shooters, looking for Goode.
The lanes to either side of him were occupied. She was on the verge of taking a free lane down from where Goode was firing, but the shooter to his left stopped firing, pressed a button on the partition, and watched as his target headed back to him. Striking it down, he took it and his handgun, and brushed past her as he left. Morgana stepped up into his spot, clipped a new target to the wire, sent it hurtling to the far end of the range. Then she loaded the Glock, took her stance, aimed and squeezed off six shots in rapid succession. She pressed the recall button, but she already knew what she would see: six holes dead center. Having been trained by her father when she was still in her early teens, she had developed into a crack shot.
She was staring at the target when Goode tapped her on the shoulder. She turned, the look of surprise blossoming perfectly, and smiled.
“Hey,” she said, taking off her earphones. “Lieutenant Goode, right?”
He nodded, clearly pleased that she remembered his name. “Ms. Roy!”
“Morgana, remember?”
“Ah, yes, of course.”
He had a horsey kind of laugh, which meshed perfectly with his corn-fed looks. She wondered whether he’d say “Aw, shucks” if she complimented him. That’d be a hoot and a half.
“What are you doing here, Ms.…er, Morgana?”
“Working the Glock, same as you.”
“Now there’s a coincidence.”
“A happy coincidence, I hope.”
Here comes the “Aw, shucks.”
“Gosh, well, it is for me.”
Good enough, she thought with an interior grin.
His gaze slid reluctantly from her face to the target she was holding. “Hello! That’s some nifty shooting.”
“Thank you, kind sir.”
He blushed and grinned, but for the moment seemed to have run out of compliments to give her.
“Well…” She picked up the Glock she had set down when he tapped her. “Nice running into you. Gotta get back to my routine.”
She started to move away, thinking, Is he going to bite, or not?
“Uh, Morgana.”
There’s my good boy!
His voice trailed after her. She took two more steps, then paused, turning back. “Yes, Lieutenant?”
He came after her, just like a puppy dog. “If you don’t…”
She stood her ground, waiting for him to come to her.
Obedient to her will, he took another couple of steps toward her. “If you don’t mind me asking, are you almost finished?—with work, I mean.”
She gave him a rueful smile. “Sadly, I’m only about halfway through.” She cocked her head. “Why d’you ask?”
“Oh, well.” His face fell; it was so pathetic. “I only meant, it’s getting to be dinnertime. Mine, anyway. I have early mornings.”
Oh, goody, Goode. Her smile brightened. “So do I.”
“Well, d’you think you could…you know?”
“Could what?” Such sweet torture for him.
His cheeks were flaming. “Make an exception and come have dinner with me.”
She looked around as if trying to decide. “I don’t know. I…”
He was right in front of her, eager and terrified. “Please say yes.”
“I did skip lunch today, so I am kind of hungry.” She nodded. “And I guess I can catch up tomorrow morning.”
He didn’t hesitate at all. “Really? That’s super.”
—
“Frankie. I wish you’d call me Frankie,” he said. “All my friends do.”
“I like the sound of that,” Morgana said. “Frankie.” She watched his cheeks color again. He was so transparent, like all men when you engaged their reptile brains.
They were ensconced in a back booth of a jam-packed steak house not far from the shooting range. The restaurant, clearly one of his local haunts, smelled of charcoaled meat and beer. At the bubbling, full-up bar an early season baseball game was playing on a TV screen. The oversaturated colors made her retinas throb. It was odd and vaguely disturbing, she thought, how the screen drew your eye no matter where in the room you sat.
They were drinking beers. Their server set plasticized menus in front of them, then slipped away without a word.
“So, Frankie, how d’you like working at Dreadnaught?”
“Are you involved?”
She smiled. “Not married. No boyfriends.”
He laughed, relaxing, as she had hoped. “No, no. I meant involved with Dreadnaught. I mean, you call the general Mac.”
“Oh, that.” She shrugged, keeping her voice offhanded. “I run an off-site enterprise for him. Deep data analytics.”
He frowned. “Isn’t that what NSA itself does?”
She smiled, took a sip of her beer. “What we do is a bit more specialized.”
“Well, that tells me a whole bunch of nothing.”
“Uh huh.” She set her mug down carefully. “And you never answered my question.”
“I can’t talk about Dreadnaught.” He appeared concerned. “You understand. You can’t talk about yours, either.”
“No.” She waved her hand. “Of course. You’re a good soldier, Lieutenant Goode.”
“Frankie.”
She cocked her head, gave him a quizzical look. “That was a joke.”
“Huh? Oh…oh, yeah. Sorry.”
“Never apologize, soldier.”
He gave her a salute. “Yes, ma’am.”
She dropped her eyes to the menu but didn’t read it. She was thinking that she had already caused him to drop enough clues as to how he liked his women. “What’s good here?”
“The New York strip.”
“I’m partial to the tomahawk rib eye.” She lifted her eyes to him. “Ever had that?”
“Uh uh. I always order the same thing.”
Sure, you do. “How about we share the rib eye? It’s big enough for two.”
“Sure.” He grinned. “Why not?”
It was crystal clear he liked the idea of sharing his meat with her. She laughed silently at the double entendre.
She slapped the menu. “It’s settled then. You choose the fixings.” She was betting with herself that they would be potato skins, loaded, and creamed spinach. The waitress drifted by, he ordered, and she won a million dollars.
“Well, one thing’s for sure,” she said, when they were alone. “We’re in the same business.”
“What business is that?”
“Secrets.”
He nodded. “I hear you.” Tilting his head back, he drained his mug, licked his lips as he looked at her. “So I know you’ll get it.” He sighed, rubbed a hand across his face. “It’s so hard, you know. Keeping the secrets.”
“The secrets set you apart. Who can you get close to, right? You can’t even hold a decent conversation with most people.”
He let go a deeper sigh, relaxing all the more. “You got that right.”
“Unless it’s with an insider. Someone who keeps as many secrets as you do. Maybe more.”
“And even then.”
Their steak arrived, along with the potato skins, loaded with butter, sour cream, bacon bits, chives, and creamed spinach, which she despised. They spent the next forty minutes sharing the tomahawk, which was surprisingly good. Frankie thought it had too much flavor, which made her mouth twitch in a sardonic smile. What a plain vanilla guy he was. While they ate, they spoke of things of no consequence to her: where he was raised, went to school, how he became interested in intelligen
ce work while he was in the army. He had two brothers and a sister. He told her where they were and what they were doing, but that information went in one ear and out the other. She reciprocated with her own background. She drew enormous enjoyment from fabricating it on the spot: small family, home schooling, an abusive father—that was a must with this guy; men like Frankie were dying to fix females with broken wings.
“I see you’re not plying me with liquor,” she said, lifting one eyebrow, “like most men.”
“I’m not like most men.”
Oh, yes you are.
She laughed softly, throatily. His sincerity was almost heartbreaking. “I’m beginning to get that impression.”
—
Afterward, in the parking lot, with chorus lines of traffic snaking by, he told her he wanted to see her home, as if they were sixteen-year-olds. That was a no-go. She didn’t want him to see how far away from here she lived, she didn’t want to raise any red flags about why she was at his shooting range.
“My place is being repainted; it stinks to high heaven.” She gave him a judicious look. “But, you know, Frankie, I’d like to see where you live.”
“Really?”
They were striped in shifting vehicle headlights. A semi’s air horn trumpeted a mournful sound, dopplering away.
She nodded. “Really.” Just a bit shy now. “Unless you don’t want me to.”
Of course he wanted her to; his eyes were glazed with the thought of her.
His home was in a concrete block building, low-rise, painted a pastel blue, one of many on a street lined with dusty chestnut trees. To her it looked like limbo, lost in the mists between urban and suburban. As they got out of their cars, a teenage kid in a high school varsity jacket bicycled past. He raised a hand to Frankie, who called, “Hey!” after him. Somewhere a dog barked, mournful as the semi’s air horn.
“Well, this is it,” Frankie said, opening the door to his second-floor apartment.
A bachelor pad, for certain. The living room was dominated by an enormous flat-panel TV. A sofa and easy chair were plunked in front of it with no thought to placement. Opened bags of potato chips and Cheetos shared a low table, cheap and scratched, with an oil-stained pizza box, one forlorn slice, cheese congealed like icing, lying within. No rugs. No pictures or photos on the walls, only posters for Metal Gear Solid V and Call of Duty: Black Ops. Military video games.