Robert Ludlum's the Bourne Imperative (19 page)

Good Lord
, Peter thought,
what have I stumbled into?
Masking his face in a bland expression, he said, “How will that work, precisely? The shearing, I mean?”

“Let’s not put the shears before the barber, old thing. We need to get ourselves in position first.”

Peter nodded. “All right. I understand perfectly. But who do you mean by ‘we’?”

The moment the question was out of his mouth he knew it was a mistake.

“Why do you ask?” Brick came forward on the sofa like a predator who scents his prey. He became tense and wary. Peter knew he had to do something to defuse his sudden suspicion.

“I’m accustomed to knowing who I work for.”

“You work for me.”

“Core Energy.”

“You will have an official position in the company, yes, of course.”

“But I won’t work there.”

“Why would you?” Brick spread his hands. “Do you know anything about energy?” He waved his hand, erasing his own words. “Never mind, that isn’t what I’m hiring you for.”

“I assume that’s not why you hired Richards here, either.”

Brick smiled. “Keep up that unbridled insolence of yours, my son, and guaranteed you’ll come a cropper.” All at once, his voice softened. “Let me ask you a question, Tony. If you do your job right, it’s the only question I’ll ever ask you: Do the ends justify the means?”

“Sometimes,” Peter said. “People who see the world as black or white are wrong. Life is a continuum of grays, each shade with its own set of rules and conditions.”

Brick tapped his forefinger against his lips. “I like that, old thing. No one has put it quite that way. But, no matter. Here, where we are now, you’re wrong. Here there are no ends, only means. We ask for— we demand—results. If one mean doesn’t produce the desired result, we move on to another. Do you understand? There are no ends here; only means.”

“Philosophy is all well and good,” Peter said, “but it’s not helping me understand what we’re doing.”

“An example is required.” Brick lifted a finger. “All right, then. Let’s take the recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan, which led the country to shut down four reactors crucial for electricity. For months now Tokyo and other major cities have had to ration their electricity needs. Even in Tokyo’s main office buildings, the headquarters of its most prestigious corporations, the air-conditioning has to be set at eighty degrees. Do you know what it’s like to work in eighty-degree temperature? In a suit and tie? Dress codes have had to be relaxed, a Japanese cultural taboo, fetishistic to an extreme, obliterated. Now the country is faced with having to revert to more expensive and environmentally polluting fossil fuels for its electricity needs. The alternative is sitting immobile in the dark. Full-on economic disaster. Then here we come and provide a cheaper energy alternative. What can the Japanese government say but yes? They fairly leaped at our offer.

“As I say, this is an example, but an instructive one nonetheless. Core Energy will now provide an affordable, reliably constant energy flow.”

“Okay, I get that,” Peter said. “But you’re taking advantage of a fluke of nature, a one-off event no one could have foreseen.”

“It would seem that way, wouldn’t it?” A slow smile spread across Brick’s face. “But the fact is, the natural order of things isn’t what caused the core meltdowns. It was human error. The reactors were twelve years old. Their emergency core cooling systems still relied on electricity, rather than the updated versions that use gravity to inundate the cores with water to cool the rods even when electricity isn’t available.”

Peter shook his head. “I’m not certain I understand.”

“It is to our advantage to make use of human greed, old son. Nuclear inspectors and key company officials were given, um, incentives, to look the other way.”

It took a moment or two for Peter to get his head around the enormity of what Brick was telling him. When the truth did hit him, he felt dizzy, sick to his stomach. “Are you...?” For an agitated moment he couldn’t form the words. “Are you telling me that Core Energy was the cause of the disaster?”

“Well, I wouldn’t go that far,” Brick said. “But we certainly did our part to help matters along. And while it’s true that France, for instance, gets eighty percent of its electricity from its nuclear reactors, and we haven’t yet discovered a way to incapacitate them as we did in Japan, the country—in fact, all of Europe—gets its essential natural gas via a pipeline that originates in Russia. Now what do you suppose would happen if that pipeline were to shut down or if sections were blown to bits? What would happen if the carefully fomented so-called Arab Spring uprisings caused the blockade of the Suez Canal or the Gulf of Aqaba? Disaster or opportunity, you see what I’m getting at? Every other company in the world seeks to control supply. We, however, strive to control demand. This is how we occupy the center of the board.”

The shock must have shown on Peter’s face, because Brick said, “Oh, no one at Core Energy can be linked, if that’s what’s worrying you. There is a—what would be the term?—a black ops division that handles such matters, creating need—the opportunities necessary for Core Energy to expand its business. This is where you fit in, old thing. Why do you think I hired you?”

From his hidey-hole beneath the pile of half-splintered wood, Bourne saw a majority of the police vehicles peel off, trying to follow the flight path of the copter. One cop car and an EMS vehicle kept straight on toward the vacant lot. He’d already scanned the perimeter and knew they had entered via the only hole in the fence.

He saw movement out of the corner of his eye. Rebeka was emerging from beneath the impromptu stone-and-brick rubble fortress in which she had taken shelter. He poked his head out and, when she saw him, gestured at the wooden boards. Understanding his silent signal, she nodded and scrambled out, checking the immediate environment. Bourne did the same, digging through the layers of debris and discarded garbage lodged under the boards. His fingers found a couple of cans, and he pulled them free.

The official vehicles were nearing; they had very little time before the cops would be crawling all over the lot. They could not afford to be caught up as material witnesses or, worse, persons of interest in a police investigation. The Swedish cops took the discharging of firearms extremely seriously. There would be no end of interrogations and incarcerations.

Rebeka scuttled toward him. “I didn’t find anything flammable,” she whispered.

“As it happens, I did.” He held up the two dented cans of paint. They were two-thirds empty, but there was still more than enough left for ignition.

As he pried open the lids, she produced her lighter. Bourne set the cans just beneath a chimney of boards, moving them to allow the right amount of draw. She lit the paint and they scrambled back around behind the pile of boards. They were very dry underneath and caught almost immediately.

The cops and EMS team spotted the flames and smoke and ducked through the rent in the chain-link fence, making directly for the fire. By this time, Bourne and Rebeka were fifty yards away.

“Nice diversion,” she said, “but we’re still not out of here.”

Bourne led them, crouched and hidden, along the periphery, until he found a patch of protected ground. Shoving a piece of wood into her hand, he said, “Dig.”

While she went to work, he grasped the bottom of the fence and tried to curl it up. It wouldn’t budge.

“Stop,” he said.

He stood in front of one of the leaning fence posts, kicked it hard twice, and it canted over so that the section of fence became a kind of ramp. Grasping it with curled fingers, they climbed to the top, then jumped off onto the pavement beyond the lot.

They ran.

The problem,” Dr. Steen said, “is that Soraya waited so long.” He regarded Delia as if she were a functional idiot. “She waited until she had an acute episode. If she had taken my advice—”

“She didn’t,” Delia said curtly. She hated the way doctors spoke down to everyone else. “Let’s move on.”

Dr. Santiago, the head surgeon on Soraya’s team, cleared his throat. “Let’s move to a more private space, shall we?”

Delia and Thorne had been led by a nurse through the big metal door into the sacred space where the operating theaters and recovery rooms existed, as if on a faraway shore. Dr. Santiago led them into an unoccupied recovery cubicle. It was small, close, and claustrophobic. It smelled strongly of disinfectant.

“All right,” Delia said, weary of being given yet another prognosis, which would contradict the ones that came before. “Let’s hear it.”

“The bottom line,” Dr. Santiago said, “is she’s had some bleeding as the edema leaked. We’ve taken care of that; we’re draining the excess fluid out of her brain. We’re doing everything we can. Now we have to wait for her body to do the rest.”

“Is she compromised because of the fetus?”

“The brain is a highly complex organ.”

“Just, for God’s sake, tell me!”

“I’m afraid so, yes.”

“How badly?”

“Impossible to say.” Dr. Santiago shrugged. He was a pleasant looking man with black eyes and a hawk-like nose. “It’s a...complication we could do without.”

“I’m quite certain Soraya doesn’t feel that way.” She deliberately let the awkward silence extend before she said, “I want to see her now.”

“Of course.” Both of the doctors appeared relieved to end the interview. Doctors hated feeling helpless, hated admitting it even more.

As they went out, Delia turned to Thorne. “I’m going in first.”

He nodded. As she was about to turn away, he said, “Delia, I want you to know...” He stopped there, unable to go on.

“Whatever you have to say, Charles, say it to her, okay?”

He nodded again.

Dr. Santiago was waiting for her. He smiled thinly at her and gestured. “This way.”

She followed him down a corridor that seemed to be a separate entity, breathing on its own. He stopped at a curtained doorway and stood aside.

“Five minutes,” he cautioned. “No more.”

Delia found that her heart was pounding in her chest. It ached for her friend. Unable to imagine what was lying in wait for her behind the curtain, she pulled it aside, and stepped into the room.

"YOUR CAR.”

“Is registered to my friend’s company,” Bourne said. “He’ll take care of any questions from the police.”

Rebeka glanced behind them. No one was following. “I have a small flat here,” she said. “We can hole up there until we

decide what to do next.”

“I have a better idea.”

They were in a residential neighborhood whose streets were fast filling with traffic as people rose and went to work. Bourne took out his mobile and, despite the early hour, called Christien. 

“What the hell have you and Alef been up to?” Christien’s voice buzzed in his ear. “I’m already fielding calls from the police.” 

“He’s regained his memory. His name’s Harry Rowland, or so he claims. There was nothing to be done.” Bourne went on to explain briefly what had taken place yesterday in Sadelöga. He mentioned Rebeka, but only as a friend of his, not wanting to complicate matters further or cause his friend any degree of suspicion. 

“Damn,” Christien said. “But you’re unharmed?”

“Yes. What we need is to somehow track the copter that snatched Rowland.”

“Are you in a safe place?”

Bourne spotted a small café, open for breakfast. “We are now. Yes.” Christien got their location in Gamla Stan, told Bourne to sit tight, that he’d come to get them himself.

They went to the café, all their senses on high alert. Inside, they reconnoitered, discovered the rear entrance through the kitchen, then chose a table in the rear with a view of everyone who came in and out.

When they had ordered, Bourne said, “Tell me how the Israeli government was able to establish a research facility in Dahr El Ahmar.” Rebeka had stiffened at the words
research facility
. “So you know.” 

“I thought you had brought me to a temporary Mossad forward outpost in Lebanon.”

He waited while the server set down their coffee and sweet rolls. 

“When I escaped in the copter I had stolen in Syria, I realized that Dahr El Ahmar isn’t a military encampment. The Mossad is there to guard a research facility.”

Rebeka stirred sugar into her coffee. 

“What did you see?” 

“I saw the camouflage netting, and I swung low enough to see the bunkered building underneath. There are experiments going on in that building, and I have to ask myself why these experiments are being undertaken in Lebanon, not Israel, where they’d be far more secure.”

“But would they be more secure in Israel?” Rebeka cocked her head. “Why would our enemies look for Israeli research on Lebanese soil?”

Bourne stared at her. “They wouldn’t.”

“No,” she said slowly. “They wouldn’t.”

“What’s in the bunker lab? What are they working on?” 

Three people came in, one left. She stirred more sugar into her coffee, then took a sip. She was gazing at a space between him and the door, looking at nothing but her own thoughts, as if weighing her next action.

At last, she said, “Have you ever heard of SILEX?”

He shook his head.

“For decades now, there has been a theory knocking around the nuclear fuel industry that posited the theory of extracting U-235, the isotope used for enriched uranium fuel rods, via lasers. For a long time it was overhyped, and all designs proved either ineffective or prohibitively expensive. Then, in 1994, a pair of nuclear physicists came up with SILEX—separation of isotopes by laser excitation. The Americans control that process, and a project with SILEX at its center is even now going forward. At Dahr El Ahmar, we have come up with a parallel methodology. It’s being tested in such secrecy because of fears that, if stolen, the technology could be used by terrorist cells or nations like Iran to accelerate weapons designs.”

Bourne thought a moment. “Rowland was trying to steal the technology at Dahr El Ahmar.”

“That’s what I thought. But the fact is that Harry knew nothing about the real purpose of Dahr El Ahmar, let alone the experiments. No, he was looking for you, and, ironically, in pursuing him, I led him directly to you.”