“I trust it’s not the president,” Karim al-Jamil said, joking.
“No, but damn close.” The Old Man was perfectly serious. “Secretary of Defense Ervin Reynolds Halliday, known as Bud to everyone who kisses his ass. I very much doubt he has anything approaching real friends.”
“Who does, in this town?”
The DCI emitted a rare chuckle. “Just so.” He stuffed the forkful of food into his mouth, transferred it to one cheek in order to continue talking. “But you and I, Martin, we’re friends. Close as, anyway. So this little deal is between us.”
“You can count on me, sir.”
“I know I can, Martin. The best thing I’ve done in the past decade is bring you along to the top of the CI ladder.”
“I appreciate your trust in me, sir.”
The DCI gave no indication he’d heard the other’s remark. “After Halliday and his faithful pit bull, LaValle, tried to ambush me in the War Room, I made some inquiries. What I’ve discovered is that the two of them have been quietly setting up parallel intelligence units. They’re moving into our turf.”
“Which means we have to stop them.”
The Old Man’s eyes narrowed. “Yes, it does, Martin. And unfortunately they’re making their overt move at the worst possible time: when Dujja is attempting a major attack.”
“Maybe that’s deliberate, sir.”
The DCI thought about the ambush in the War Room. There was no doubt that both Halliday and LaValle were trying to embarrass him in front of the president. He thought again of the president sitting back, watching the thrust and parry unfold. Was he already on the defense secretary’s side? Did he want CI taken over by the Pentagon? The Old Man shuddered at the thought of the military in control of human intelligence. There was no telling what liberties LaValle and Halliday would take with their newfound power. There was a good reason for the separation of power of the Pentagon and CI. Without it, a police state was just a shot away.
“What are you looking for?”
“Dirt.” The DCI swallowed. “The more the merrier.”
Karim al-Jamil nodded. “I’ll need someone—”
“Anyone. Just say the name.”
“Anne Held.”
The DCI was taken aback. “My Anne Held?” He shook his head. “Choose someone else.”
“You said discreet. I can’t use an agent. It’s Anne or nothing.”
The DCI eyed him to see if he could spot the hint of a bluff. Apparently, he couldn’t. “Done,” he conceded.
“Now tell me about Matthew Lerner.”
The Old Man looked him in the eye. “It’s Bourne.”
After a long, awkward moment during which all that could be heard was the whirring of wheels propelled by twelve tiny gerbil feet, Karim al-Jamil said quietly, “What does Jason Bourne have to do with Matthew Lerner?”
The DCI put down his knife and fork. “I know what Bourne has meant to you, Martin. You have a certain, though inexplicable, rapport with him. But the simple fact is that he’s the worst kind of poison for CI. Consequently, I’ve dispatched Matthew Lerner to terminate him.”
For a moment, Karim al-Jamil could not believe what he was hearing. The DCI had sent an assassin to kill Bourne? To take from him and his brother the satisfaction of a long-held and meticulously plotted revenge? No. He wouldn’t have it.
The killing rage—what his father had called the Desert Wind—took possession of his heart, heated it, beat it down until it was like a forged blade. All that could be discerned of this grave inner turmoil was the briefest flare of his nostrils—which in any event his companion, having taken up his cutlery, failed to notice.
Karim al-Jamil cut into his eggs, watched the yolks run. One of them had a blood spot on its glassy surface.
“That was a radical move,” he said when he was in full control of his emotions. “I told you I’d severed him.”
“I thought about it and decided it wasn’t the proper solution.”
“You should have come to me.”
“You’d only have tried to talk me out of it,” the DCI said briskly. Clearly he was pleased with how well he’d handled a tricky situation. “Now it’s too late. You can’t stop it, Martin, so don’t even try.” He wiped his lips. “The good of the group supersedes the desires of the individual. You know that as well as anyone.”
Karim al-Jamil considered the extreme danger of what the DCI had set in motion. In addition to being a threat to their personal revenge, Lerner’s presence in the field was a wild card, one that he and Fadi hadn’t taken into consideration. The altered scenario menaced the execution of their plan. He had learned from Fadi—via a scrambled channel piggybacked onto CI’s own overseas communications—that he had knifed Bourne. If not dealt with, Lerner could become aware of this, and he’d quite naturally become interested in finding out the identity of who had done it. Alternatively, if he discovered that Bourne had already been killed, he’d want to know who the killer was. Either way, it would lead to dangerous complications.
Pushing back from the table, Karim al-Jamil said, “Have you considered the possibility of Bourne killing Lerner?”
“I brought Lerner aboard because of his rep.” The Old Man picked up his cup, saw that the tea had gone cold, set it back down. “They don’t make men like him anymore. He’s a born killer.”
So is Bourne, Karim al-Jamil thought with a bitterness that burned like acid.
Soraya, noticing the drip of fresh blood on the car seat, said, “It looks as if you popped a stitch or two. You’re never going to make it without immediate medical attention.”
“Forget it,” Bourne said. “We both need to get out of here now. The police cordon is only going to draw tighter.” He looked around the port. “Besides, where am I going to get medical attention here?”
“The port maintains a Polyclinic.”
Soraya drove through Ilyichevsk and parked at the side of a three-story building, next to the late-model Skoda Octavia RS. She was aware of how badly Bourne winced as he got out of the car. “We’d better use the side entrance.”
“That’s not going to take care of security,” he said. Opening up the lining of his coat, he took out a small packet sealed in plastic. Ripping it open, he produced another set of ID documents. He leafed through them briefly, though on the plane ride he’d memorized all the documents Deron had forged for him. “My name is Mykola Petrovich Tuz. I’m a lieutenant general in DZND, the SBU’s Department for National Statehood Protection and Combating Terrorism.” He came up to her, took her arm. “Here’s the drill. You’re my prisoner. A Chechnyan terrorist.”
“In that case,” Soraya said, “I’d better put this cloth over my head.”
“No one will even look at you, let alone ask you questions,” Bourne said. “They’ll be dead afraid of you.”
He opened the door and pushed her rudely ahead of him. Almost at once an orderly called for a security guard.
Bourne held out his DZND credentials. “Lieutenant General Tuz,” he said brusquely. “I’ve been knifed, and am in need of a doctor.” He saw the guard’s eyes slide toward Soraya. “She’s my prisoner. A Chechnyan suicide bomber.”
The security guard, his face drained of color, nodded. “This way, Lieutenant General.”
He spoke into his walkie-talkie, then led them down several corridors into a spare examination room typical of hospital ERs.
He indicated the examination table. “I’ve contacted the Polyclinic’s administrator. Make yourself comfortable, Lieutenant General.” Clearly unnerved by both Bourne’s status and Soraya’s presence, he drew his pistol. Aimed it at Soraya. “Stand over there, so the lieutenant general can be seen to.”
Bourne let go of Soraya’s arm, giving her an almost imperceptible nod. She went to the corner of the room and sat on a metal-legged chair as the guard tried to keep an eye on her without actually looking at her face.
A lieutenant general in SBU,” the Polyclinic administrator said from behind his desk. “T
his can’t be your man.”
“We’ll be the judge of that,” Matthew Lerner said in passable Russian.
Dr. Pavlyna shot him a wicked look before turning to the administrator. “You did say he’s suffering from a knife wound.”
The administrator nodded. “That’s what I’ve been told.”
Dr. Pavlyna rose. “Then I think I should see him.”
“We’ll both go,” Lerner said. He’d been standing near the door, a kind of invisible electricity coming off him in waves, like a racehorse in the starting gate.
“That wouldn’t be wise.” The deliberateness with which Dr. Pavlyna said this held significant emphasis for Lerner.
“I agree.” The administrator got up and came around his desk. “If the patient really is who he says he is, I’ll take the brunt of the breach in protocol.”
“Nevertheless,” Lerner said. “I’m going to accompany the doctor.”
“You’ll force me to call security,” the administrator said sternly. “The lieutenant general won’t know who you are or why you’re there. In fact, he could order you held or even shot. I won’t have anything like that in my facility.”
“Stay here,” Dr. Pavlyna said. “I’ll call you as soon as I’ve determined his identity.”
Lerner said nothing as Dr. Pavlyna and the administrator left the office, but he had no intention of cooling his heels while the doctor took charge. She had no idea why he was in Odessa, why he was after Jason Bourne. He didn’t for a minute believe that the patient was anyone but Bourne. A lieutenant general of the Ukrainian secret police here with a knife wound in his side? No chance.
He wasn’t going to allow Dr. Pavlyna to fuck things up. The first thing she would tell Bourne was that Lerner had been dispatched from D.C. to find him. That would set off instant alarm bells in Bourne’s head. He’d be gone before Lerner could get to him. And this time, he’d be far more difficult to locate.
The immediate problem was that he didn’t know where the patient was. He went out the door, accosted the first person he saw, asked where the lieutenant general was being treated. The young woman pointed the way. He thanked her and walked on down the corridor with such concentration that he failed to see her pick up the receiver of an intraclinic phone on the wall, asking to speak to the administrator.
Good afternoon, Lieutenant General. I’m Dr. Pavlyna,” she said the moment she entered the examination room. To the administrator, she added, “This is not our man.”
Bourne, sitting on the examination table, saw nothing in her eye to tell him she was lying, but when he saw her glance over at Soraya, he said, “Stay away from my prisoner, Doctor. She’s dangerous.”
“Please lie back, Lieutenant General.” As Bourne complied, Dr. Pavlyna donned surgeon’s gloves, slit open Bourne’s bloody shirt, and began to peel back the bloody bandage. “Is she the one who gave you the knife wound?”
“Yes,” Bourne said.
She palpated around the wound, judging Bourne’s pain level. “Whoever sutured you did a first-rate job.” She looked into Bourne’s eyes. “Unfortunately, you’ve been a bit too active. I’ll have to resuture the part that’s torn open.”
On cue, the administrator showed her where the paraphernalia was, opening the locked cupboard where the drugs were stored. She selected a box from the second shelf, counted out fourteen pills, wrapped them in a twist of sturdy paper. “Also, I want you to take this. One twice a day for a week. It’s a powerful wide-spectrum antibiotic to guard against infection. Please take them all.”
Bourne accepted the packet, stowed it away.
Dr. Pavlyna brought a bottle of liquid disinfectant, gauze pads, a needle, and suture material to the table. Then she loaded up a syringe.
“What’s that?” Bourne said warily.
“Anesthesia.” She inserted the needle into his side, depressed the plunger. Once again, her eyes caught Bourne’s. “Don’t worry, Lieutenant General, it’s just a local. It’ll take the pain away but will in no way impair your physical or mental acuity.”
As she began the procedure, the phone on the wall burred discreetly. The administrator picked up the receiver and listened for a moment. “All right, I understand. Thank you, Nurse.” He put back the receiver.
“Dr. Pavlyna,” he said. “It seems your friend couldn’t contain his impatience. He’s on his way here.” He went to the door. “I’ll take care of him.” Then he slipped out.
“What friend?” Bourne said.
“Nothing to worry about, Lieutenant General,” Dr. Pavlyna said. She gave him another significant look. “A friend of yours from headquarters.”
On his way to the room where the patient was being treated, Lerner passed three examination rooms. He took the time to peer into each one. Having determined that they were identical, he memorized the layout: where the examining table was, chairs, cabinets, sink… Knowing Bourne’s reputation, he didn’t think he’d get more than one chance to blow his brains out.
He took out his Glock, screwing the silencer onto the end of the barrel. He would have preferred not to use it, because it cut down on both the range and the accuracy of the gun. But in this environment he didn’t have a choice. If he was to accomplish his mission and get out of the building alive, he had to kill Bourne in the quietest way possible. From the moment the DCI had given him his assignment, he knew he’d never be able to torture intel out of him—not in a hostile environment, and possibly not at all. Besides, the best way to take Bourne out was to kill him as quickly and efficiently as possible, giving him no possibility of a counterattack.
At that moment, the administrator rounded the corner up ahead, carrying a disapproving look on his face.
“Excuse me, but you were asked to stay in my office until called,” he said as he confronted Lerner. “I must ask you to return to—”
The heavy blow from the end of the silencer struck him square on the left temple, sending him to the floor in a heap, insensate. Lerner took him by the back of his collar, dragged him back to one of the empty examination rooms, and stowed him behind the door.
Without another thought, he returned to the corridor and walked the rest of the way to his destination without further interference. Standing outside the closed door, he settled his mind into the clear quiet of the kill. Grasping the doorknob with his free hand, he slowly turned it as far as he could, held it in place. The kill-state surrounded him, entered him.
Simultaneously, he let go of the knob, kicked the door open and, taking a long stride across the threshold, squeezed off three shots into the figure on the examination table.
Twenty-two
LERNER’S BRAIN took a moment to make sense of what his eyes saw. It recognized the rolls of material on the examination table; as a result, he began to turn.
But that lag between action and reaction was just enough to allow Bourne, standing to one side, to drive the syringe loaded with a general anesthetic into Lerner’s neck. Still, Lerner was far from finished. He had the constitution of a bull, the determination of the damned. Breaking the syringe before Bourne had a chance to deliver the full dose, he drove his body against Bourne’s.
As Bourne delivered two blows, Lerner squeezed off a shot that ripped open the security guard’s chest.
“What are you doing?” Dr. Pavlyna screamed. “You told me—”
Lerner, driving an elbow into Bourne’s bloody wound, shot her in the head. Her body flew backward into Soraya’s arms.
Bourne dropped to his knees, pain weakening every muscle, firing every nerve ending. As Lerner grabbed him by the neck, Soraya threw the chair she’d been sitting on into his face. His death grip on Bourne broken, he staggered back, firing still, though wildly. She saw the guard’s gun across the room, thought momentarily of making a run for it, but Lerner, recovering with frightening speed, made that impossible.
Instead she lunged for Bourne, dragged him to his feet, and got both of them out of there. She heard the phut! phut! of silenced bullets splinter the wall at h
er elbow, and then they were racing around a corner, down the corridor, retracing their route to the side door.
Outside, she half threw, half stuffed Bourne into the passenger seat of the battered Skoda, slid behind the wheel, fired the ignition, and in a squeal of tires and spray of gravel reversed them out of there.
Lerner, half leaning against the examination table, staggered to his feet. He shook his head, trying to clear it, failed. Reaching up, he pulled the needle from the broken syringe out of his neck. What the hell had Bourne injected him with?
He stood for a moment, weaving like a landlubber on a boat in heavy weather. He gripped the countertop to steady himself. Groggily, he went over to the sink and splashed cold water on his face. The only thing that did was blur his vision even further. He found he had trouble breathing.
Moving his hand along the counter, he discovered a small glass container with one of the rubber tops that allows needles through. He picked it up, put it in front of his face. It took him a moment for his eyes to focus on the small print. Midazolam. That’s what this was. A short-term anesthetic meant to induce twilight sleep. Knowing that, he knew what he needed to counteract its effects. He went through the cabinets until he found a vial of epinephrine, the main chemical in adrenaline. Locating the syringes, he loaded one up, zipped a little of the liquid out the end of the needle to get rid of any air bubbles that might have formed, then injected himself.
That was the end of the midazolam. The cotton-wool haziness went up in a blaze of mental fire. He could breathe again. He knelt over the corpse of the late unlamented Dr. Pavlyna and fished out her ring of keys.
Minutes later, finding his way to the side door, he was out of the Polyclinic. As he approached Dr. Pavlyna’s car, he saw fresh skid marks in the gravel by a vehicle that had been parked beside it. The driver had been in a hurry. He piled into the Skoda Octavia. The skid marks led in the direction of the ferry terminal.
Having been thoroughly briefed on Ilyichevsk’s workings by Dr. Pavlyna, Lerner knew precisely where Bourne was headed. Up ahead, he saw a huge ro-ro loading. He squinted. What was its name? Itkursk.