“In the end, we return to Bourne,” Lerner said, reading from the hastily prepared research notes his chief of staff had thrust into his fist just moments before the meeting convened. “But then the recent history of CI is riddled with snafus and disasters that somehow always have their origin with Jason Bourne.
“It pains me to say I told you so, but this whole mess could’ve been avoided had you kept Lindros here at HQ. I know he was once a field operative, but that was some time ago. The animal edge is quickly dulled by administrative concerns. He’s got his own shop to run. Who’s going to run it if he’s dead? The Cevik debacle was the direct result of Typhon being without a head.”
“Everything you say is true, dammit. I never should’ve allowed Martin to talk me into this. Then disaster upon disaster at Ras Dejen. Well, at least this time Bourne won’t disappear off the grid.”
Lerner shook his head. “But I have to wonder whether that’s enough.”
“What d’you mean?”
“There’s more than a fair chance that Bourne had a hand in Cevik’s escape.”
The Old Man’s eyebrows knit together. “You have proof of this?”
“I’m working on it,” Lerner said. “But it stands to reason. The escape was planned in advance. What Cevik’s people needed to do was to get him out of the cage, and Bourne accomplished that quite efficiently. He’s nothing if not efficient, this we already knew.”
The Old Man slammed his hand on the table. “If he’s behind Cevik’s escape, I swear I’ll skin him alive.”
“I’ll take care of Bourne.”
“Patience, Matthew. For the moment we need him. We must get Martin Lindros back, and Bourne is now our only hope. After due consideration, the Operations Directorate sent the Skorpion Two team in after Skorpion One, and we lost them both.”
“With my contacts, I told you I could gather a small unit—”
“Of freelancers, former NSA operatives now in the private sector.” The DCI shook his head. “That idea was DOA. I could never sanction a bunch of mercenaries, men I don’t know, men not under my command, for such a sensitive mission.”
“But Bourne—dammit, you know his history, and now history is repeating itself. He does whatever the hell he wants whenever it suits him and fuck anyone else.”
“Everything you say is true. Personally, I despise the man. He represents everything that I’ve been taught is a menace to an organization like CI. But one thing I know about him is that he’s loyal to the men he bonds with. Martin is one of those. If anyone can find him and extract him, it’s Bourne.”
At that moment, the door swung open and Anne Held poked her head in.
“Sir, we have an internal problem. My clearance has been busted. I called Electronic Security and they said it wasn’t a mistake.”
“That’s right, Anne. It’s part of Matthew’s reorganization plan. He felt you didn’t need top clearance to do the work I give you.”
“But sir—”
“Clerical staff has one set of clearance priorities,” Lerner said. “Operational staff another. Neat and clean, no ambiguities.” He looked at her. “Still a problem, Ms. Held?”
Anne was furious. She looked to the Old Man, but realized at once that she’d get no help from that quarter. She saw his silence, his complicity, as a betrayal of the relationship she’d worked so long and hard to forge with him. She felt compelled to defend herself, but knew this was the wrong time and place to do it.
She was about to close the door when a messenger from Ops Directorate came up behind her. She turned, took a sheet of paper from him, turned back.
“We just got a read on the missing agent,” she said.
The DCI’s mood had darkened considerably in the last few minutes. “Who is it?” he snapped.
“Soraya Moore,” Anne told him.
“You see,” Lerner said sternly, “another one of our people transferred out of my jurisdiction. How am I expected to do my job when people I have no control over slide off the grid? This is directly attributable to Lindros, sir. If you would give me control of Typhon at least until he’s either found or confirmed dead—”
“Soraya’s with Bourne,” Anne Held said to her boss before Lerner could say another word.
“Goddamm it!” the DCI exploded. “How the hell did that happen?”
“No one seems to know,” Anne said.
The DCI was standing, his face empurpled with rage. “Matthew, I do believe Typhon needs an acting director. As of now, you’re it. Go forth and get the fucking job done ASAP.”
Stop the motorcycle,” Soraya said in his ear.
Bourne shook his head. “We’re still too close to the—”
“Now.” She put the blade of a knife against his throat. “I mean it.”
Bourne turned down a side street, pulled the cycle over to the curb, engaged the kickstand. As they both got off, he turned to her. “Now what the hell is this all about?”
Her eyes blazed with an ill-contained fury. “You killed Tim, you sonovabitch.”
“What? How could you even think—?”
“You told Cevik’s people where he’d be.”
“You’re insane.”
“Am I? It was your idea to take him out of the cell block. I tried to stop you, but—”
“I didn’t have Hytner killed.”
“Then why did you just stand there while he was shot?”
Bourne didn’t give her an answer because he had none to give. He recalled that at the time he’d been assaulted by sound, and—he rubbed his forehead—a debilitating headache. Soraya was right. Cevik’s escape, Hytner’s death. How had he allowed it all to happen?
“Cevik’s escape was meticulously planned and timed. But how?” Soraya was saying. “How could Cevik’s people know where he was? How could they know, unless you told them?” She shook her head. “I should’ve listened more closely to the stories about you going rogue. There were only two men in all of CI you were able to buffalo: One’s dead and the other’s missing. Clearly you can’t be trusted.”
With an effort, Bourne willed his head to clear. “There’s another possibility.”
“This should be good.”
“I didn’t call anyone while we were down in the cells or outside—”
“You could’ve used hand signs, anything.”
“You’re right about the method, wrong about the messenger. Remember when Cevik struck the match?”
“How could I forget?” she said bitterly.
“That was the final signal for the waiting Hummer.”
“That’s just the point, the Hummer was already waiting. You knew because it was your setup.”
“If it was my setup, would I be telling you about it? Think, Soraya! You called Hytner to tell him we were going outside. It was Hytner who called Cevik’s people.”
Her laugh was harsh and derisive. “What, so then one of Cevik’s people shot Tim to death? Why on earth would they do that?”
“To cover their tracks absolutely. With Hytner dead, there was no chance of him being caught and giving them up.”
She shook her head stubbornly. “I knew Tim a long time; he was no traitor.”
“Those are usually the guilty ones, Soraya.”
“Shut up!”
“Maybe he wasn’t a willing traitor. Maybe they got to him in some way.”
“Don’t say one more thing against Tim.” She brandished the knife. “You’re just trying to save your own skin.”
“Look, you’re absolutely right that Cevik’s escape was planned in advance. But I didn’t know where Cevik was being held—I didn’t even know you were holding anyone until you told me not ten minutes before you took me to see Cevik.”
This stopped her in her tracks. She looked at him oddly. It was the same look she’d given him when he’d first seen her down in the Typhon ops center.
“If I was your enemy, why would I save you from the explosion?”
A little shiver went through her. “I don’t
pretend to have all the answers—”
Bourne shrugged. “If your mind’s made up, maybe I shouldn’t confuse you with the truth.”
She took a breath, her nostrils flared. “I don’t know what to believe. Ever since you came down to Typhon—”
In a flash he reached out, disarmed her. She stared at him wide-eyed as he reversed the knife, handing it back to her butt-first.
“If I was your enemy…”
She looked at it a long time, then up at him as she took it, slid it back into its neoprene sheath at the small of her back.
“Okay, so you’re not the enemy. But neither was Tim. There’s got to be another explanation.”
“Then we’ll find it together,” he said. “I have my name to clear, you have Hytner’s.”
“Give me your right hand,” she said to Bourne.
Gripping Bourne’s wrist, she turned the hand over so that the palm was faceup. With her other hand, she laid the flat of the blade on the tip of Bourne’s forefinger.
“Don’t move.”
With one deft motion she flicked the blade forward, along his skin. Instead of drawing blood, she lifted off a minute oval of translucent material so thin Bourne had not felt or noticed it.
“Here we go.” She held it up in the fitful glow of the streetlight for Bourne to see. “It’s known as a NET. A nano-electronic tag, according to the tech boys from DARPA.” She meant the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, an arm of the Department of Defense. “It uses nanotechnology—microscopic servers. This is how I tracked you with the copter so quickly.”
Bourne had fleetingly wondered how the CI copter had picked him up so quickly, but he’d assumed it was the Hummer’s distinctive profile they’d spotted. He considered for a moment. Now he recalled with vivid clarity the curious look Tim Hytner had given him when he had handled the transcript of Cevik’s phone conversation: That was how they’d planted the NET on him.
“Sonovabitch!” He eyed Soraya as she slid the NET into a small oval plastic case and screwed down the lid. “They were going to monitor me all the way to Ras Dejen, weren’t they?”
She nodded. “DCI’s orders.”
“So much for the promise to keep me off the leash,” Bourne said bitterly.
“You’re off now.”
He nodded. “Thanks.”
“How about returning the favor?”
“Which would be…?”
“Let me help you.”
He shook his head. “If you knew me better, you’d know I work alone.”
Soraya looked as if she was about to say something, then changed her mind. “Look, as you said yourself, you’re already in hot water with the Old Man. You’re going to need someone on the inside. Someone you can trust absolutely.” She took a step back toward the motorcycle. “Because you know as sure as we’re both standing here that the Old Man’s going to find ways to fuck you every which way from Sunday.”
Six
KIM LOVETT was tired. She wanted to go home to her husband of six months. He was too new to the district and they were too new to each other for him to have yet succumbed to the crushing separation dictated by his wife’s job.
Kim was always tired. The D.C. Fire Investigation Unit knew no typical hours or workdays. As a consequence, agents like Kim, who were clever, experienced, and knew what they were doing, were called on to labor hours akin to those of an ER surgeon in a war zone.
Kim had caught the call from DCFD during a brief lull in the mind-numbing drudgery of filling out paperwork on a phalanx of arson investigations, one of the few moments during the past weeks when she’d allowed herself to think about her husband—his wide shoulders, his strong arms, the scent of his naked body. The reverie didn’t last long. She had picked up her kit and was on her way to the Hotel Constitution.
She engaged the siren as she headed out. From Vermont Avenue and 11th Street to the northeast corner of 20th and F took no more than seven minutes. The hotel was surrounded by police cars and fire engines, but by now the fire had been contained. Water streamed down the facade from the open wound at the end of the fifth floor. The EMT vehicles had come and gone, and there was about the scene the brittle, jittery aftermath of cinders and draining adrenaline Kim’s father had described to her so well.
Chief O’Grady was waiting for her. She got out of the car and, displaying her ID, was admitted past the police barricades.
“Lovett,” O’Grady grunted. He was a big, beefy man with short but unruly white hair and ears the size and shape of a thick slice of pork tenderloin. His sad, watery eyes watched her guardedly. He was one of the majority who felt that women had no place in the DCFD.
“What’ve we got?”
“Explosion and fire.” O’Grady lifted his chin in the direction of the gaping wound.
“Any of our men killed or injured?”
“No, but thanks for asking.” O’Grady wiped his forehead with a dirty paper towel. “There was a death, however—probably the occupant of the suite, though with the tiny fragments I’ve found I can tell you it will be impossible to make an ID. Also, the cops say one employee is missing. Damn lucky for a fireworks display like this one.”
“You said probably the guest.”
“That’s right. The fire was unnaturally hot, and it was one bitch to put out. That’s why FIU was called in.”
“Any idea what caused the explosion?” she asked.
“Well, it wasn’t the fucking boiler,” the chief said shortly. He stepped closer to her, the burned rubber-and-cinder smell coming off him in waves. When he spoke again, his voice was low, urgent. “You’ve got about an hour up there before Metro Police hand everything over to Homeland Security. And you know what’s gonna happen when those boyos start tramping through our crime scene.”
“Gotcha.” Kim nodded.
“Okay. Go on up. A Detective Overton is waiting.”
He strode off in his rolling, slightly bandy-legged gait.
The lobby was filled with cops and firemen milling around. The cops were taking the temperature of the staff and guests, huddled in separate corners like plotting factions. The firefighters were busy dragging equipment across the blackened runner and marble floor. The place smelled of anxiety and frustration, like a stalled subway car at rush hour.
Kim rode the elevator up, stepping out into a charred and ruined fifth-floor corridor that, except for her, was utterly deserted. Just inside the suite, she found Overton, a stoop-shouldered detective with a long, mournful face, squinting at his notes.
“What the hell happened?” she said after introducing herself. “Any ideas?”
“Possibly.” Detective Overton flipped open a notebook. “The occupants of this corner suite were Jakob and Lev Silver. Brothers. Diamond merchants from Amsterdam. They came in at seven forty-five or thereabouts. We know that because they had a brief conversation with a concierge—” He flipped a page. “—named Thomas. One of them ordered a bottle of champagne, some kind of celebration. After that, Thomas didn’t see them. He swears they didn’t leave the hotel.”
They went into the suite proper.
“Can you give me the lowdown on what caused the explosion?”
“That’s what I’m here for.” She snapped on latex gloves, went to work. Twenty minutes went by as she hunted down the epicenter of the blast and worked her way outward from there. Normally she’d take carpet samples—if an accelerant had been used, it was most likely to be a highly flammable hydrocarbon-based liquid, such as turpentine, acetone, naphtha, or the like. Two telltale signs: The liquid would have seeped into the carpet, even into the underlayer. Also, there would be what was commonly called headspace—short for headspace gas chromatography—which would pick up the traces of the gases released when the accelerants ignited. Since each compound released a unique fingerprint, the headspace could determine not only if an accelerant had been used but also which one.
Here, however, the fire had been of such intensity that it had eaten through the carpet and th
e underlayer. No wonder O’Grady and his men had had difficulty putting it out.
She examined every scrap of metal, splinter of wood, fiber of cloth, and pile of ash. Opening her kit, she exposed parts of this detritus to myriad tests. The rest she carefully put into glass containers, sealed them with airtight lids, and placed each container in its foam padding in her kit.
“I can tell you now that an accelerant was definitely used,” she said as she continued to stow evidence. “I won’t know what it was precisely until I get back to the lab, but I’ll say this much: It wasn’t your garden-variety accelerant. This heat, this level of destruction—”
Detective Overton interrupted her. “But the explosion—”
“There’s no trace of explosive residue,” she said. “Accelerants have flashpoints that often cause explosions in and of themselves. But again, I won’t be sure until I can conduct tests back at the lab.”
By this time, she had moved on in an ever-widening circle surrounding the point of explosion.
All at once, she sat back on her haunches and said, “Have you found out why the sprinklers didn’t come on?”
Overton flipped through his notes. “As it happens, the sprinklers engaged on every floor of the hotel but this one. When we went down to the basement, we discovered that the system had been tampered with. I had to call in an electrician to find out, but the bottom line is that the sprinklers on this floor were disabled.”
“So the entire episode was deliberate.”
“Jakob and Lev Silver were Jews. The waiter who brought them the bottle of champagne—the one employee who’s missing—is Pakistani. Hence my duty to turn this sucker over to Homeland Security.”
She looked up from her work. “You think this waiter is a terrorist?”
Overton shrugged. “My bet’s on a business vendetta against the Silvers, but I sure as hell want to know before Homeland Security does.”
She shook her head. “This setup is too sophisticated by half for a terrorist attack.”