Robert Ludlum's the Bourne Imperative (7 page)

“Raya, how are you?”

“Needing to see you,” Soraya said. “Can you do lunch?”

“Today? I have something, but I’ll reschedule it. Are you okay?”

Soraya told her where and when to meet, then rang off. She had no desire to talk any longer over the phone. Forty minutes later, she entered Jaleo, a tapas restaurant on Seventh Street NW, and saw Delia already seated at a table by the windows. She smiled broadly when she spotted Soraya and waved her over.

Delia’s mother was an aristocratic Colombian from Bogotá, and the daughter carried much of her maternal ancestors’ fiery blood. Though her eyes were light, her skin was as deep-toned as her friend’s, but there the similarity ended. She had a plain face and a boyish figure, short-cropped hair, and strong hands. At work, her blunt, nononsense manner was legendary, but with Soraya, she was completely different.

Delia rose and the two women embraced.

“Tell me everything, Raya.”

Soraya’s smile faltered. “That’s why I called you.”

They sat facing each other. Soraya ordered a Virgin Mary. Delia was nursing a caipirinha, a drink prepared with
cachaça
, Brazilian sugar cane liquor.

Soraya glanced around the room, grateful that it was filling up, the hubbub rising around them like walls. “The doctor was surprised I wasn’t showing, given that I’m at the beginning of my second trimester. He said he can usually tell.”

Delia grunted. “Men are so full of shit about their pregnancy radar.”

“In my case, just like my mother, I may not begin to show until I’m about five or six months.”

A small silence rose between them amid the increasing clamor of the restaurant as more and more diners were seated and those already there became boisterous. The laughter, in particular, seemed shrill and ugly.

Delia, sensing her friend’s mounting distress, reached out and took Soraya’s hand in hers. “Raya, listen to me, I won’t let anything happen to the baby, or to you.”

Soraya’s grateful smile flickered on and off. “The tests came back. I have a subdural hematoma.”

Delia caught her breath. “How bad is it?”

“Like a slow leak in a tire. But the pressure...” Soraya’s gaze flicked away a moment. “Dr. Steen thinks I should have a procedure. He wants to drill a hole in my head.”

Delia squeezed her hand tighter. “Of course he thinks that. Surgeons always want to cut and paste.”

“In this instance, he may be right.”

“We’ll get a second opinion. A third, if necessary.”

“The MRI is clear,” Soraya said. “Even I could see the problem.”

“Hematomas can be self-healing.”

“I suppose this one could have been. Unfortunately, I flew. The trip from Paris exacerbated it, and now...”

Delia saw the fear in Soraya’s eyes. “Now what?”

Soraya took a deep breath and let it out. “Surgical procedures are done on pregnant women only in emergencies because there’s a double risk for the fetus—the anaesthesia and the procedure itself.” Tears glittered in her eyes. “Delia, if something goes wrong—”

“Nothing’s going to go wrong.”

“If something goes wrong,” Soraya persisted, “the mother’s wellbeing comes first. If there are complications, they’ll abort the baby.”

“Ah, Raya.” It was a kind of helpless cry, half submerged in the restaurant clamor.

Then Delia’s face cleared. “But why think like that?”

“I
have
to think like that. You know why.”

Delia bent in closer. “Are you absolutely certain?”

“I did the math. Days and menstrual cycles don’t lie, at least mine don’t. There’s no doubt about the father’s identity.”

“Well, then...”

“Right.”

Both women looked up as the waiter appeared tableside. “Have you made your choices, ladies?”

After receiving his latest commission from Dani Amit, Ilan Halevy, known as the Babylonian, flew from Tel Aviv to Beirut on an Argentinian passport, part of a Mossad-created legend. From Beirut he traveled via private aircraft to Sidon, from Sidon to the Dahr El Ahmar encampment by Jeep.

Colonel Ben David was shaving when the Babylonian was shown into his tent. Ben David did not turn, but glanced at the assassin in the mirror before returning to the scrutiny of his bluish jawline. A livid scar of fire-red flesh, barely healed, ran down from the outside corner of Ben David’s left eye to the lobe of his ear. He could have opted for cosmetic surgery but hadn’t.

“Who knows you’re here?” he asked without preamble.

“No one,” the Babylonian said.

“Not even Dani Amit?”

The Babylonian looked at him steadily; he’d already answered this.

Ben David took the straight razor from his skin and nodded as he washed it free of cream and stubble. “All right then. We can talk.”

He carefully dried the razor before he closed it and put it away. Then he took up a towel and wiped his face clean. Only then did he turn to face the Babylonian.

“Killing becomes you.”

A slow smile spread across the Babylonian’s face. “It’s good to see you, too.”

The two men embraced briefly but intensely, then they stepped back and it was as if the intimacy had never happened. They were all business, and their business was deadly serious.

“They’ve sent me after Rebeka.”

Something dark flitted across Ben David’s eyes and was immediately gone.

“I know what that means to you,” the Babylonian said.

“Then you’re the only one.”

“It’s why I’m here.” The Babylonian regarded Ben David with no little curiosity. “What do you want me to do?”

“I want you to follow through on your commission.”

The Babylonian cocked his head. “Really?”

“Yes,” Ben David said. “Really.”

“I know how you feel about the girl.”

“Do you know how I feel about this project?”

“I do,” the Babylonian said. “Of course I do.”

“Then you know my priorities.”

The Babylonian eyed him for a moment. “She must have pissed you off royally.”

Ben David turned away, busying himself with aligning his shaving equipment in regimental order.

After a moment of observing him, the Babylonian said, “You only go OCD when you’re extremely agitated.”

The Colonel froze, pulling his fingers away from the implements.

“Don’t deny it,” the Babylonian said. “I know you too well.”

“And I know you,” Ben David said, turning back to face him. “You’ve never failed at a commission.”

“That’s not, strictly speaking, true.”

“But only you and I know that.”

The Babylonian nodded. “True enough.”

Ben David took a step toward the other. “The thing is, Rebeka has become tangled up with Jason Bourne.”

“Ah,” the Babylonian said. “Dani Amit didn’t inform me of that complication.”

“He doesn’t know.”

The Babylonian eyed Ben David for a moment. “Why didn’t you tell him?”

“Bourne is none of his fucking business.”

“In other words,” the Babylonian said, “Bourne is
your
business.”

Ben David took another step toward the assassin. “And now he’s yours, as well.”

“Which is why you brought me here.”

“As soon as I learned about the commission.”

“Yes,” the Babylonian said. “How exactly did you find out about it? So far as I know, only Dani Amit and the Director know.”

A slow smile spread across Colonel Ben David’s face. “It’s better this way,” he said, “for all of us.”

The Babylonian seemed to accept this. “So it’s Bourne you want.”

“Yes.”

“And Rebeka?”

“What about her?” Colonel Ben David said sharply.

“I know how you feel—”

“Keep your eye on what’s important. You cannot give Dani Amit the slightest reason to suspect you. You must fulfill your commission.”

The Babylonian looked on with some sympathy. “This can’t be easy for you.”

“Don’t worry about me,” Ben David snapped. “I’m perfectly fine.”

“And we’re on schedule.”

“To the dot.”

The Babylonian nodded. “I’ll be off then.”

“That would be wise.”

After the assassin was gone, Colonel Ben David stood staring at himself in the mirror. Then he strode over, picked up his straight razor, and threw it. The mirror shattered and, with it, Ben David’s reflection.

THE MAN, BIG, BURLY,and round-shouldered, resembled a bear. Clad in a bespoke sharkskin suit that cost more than the yearly salaries of many of his minions, he stood in the sun-splashed Place de la Concorde. The ceaseless clamor of tourists sounded to him like the hammering of a flock of woodpeckers. The endless spiral of traffic surrounding the cement island on which he stood was like death, speeding by always a little out of reach, until the moment when it ran over you, pounding you into the cobbles before speeding onward. He thought of the wasted days of his youth, before he had found himself, before he had discovered how to work his inner strength; time wasted, and now gone forever.

The Place de la Concorde was a favorite meeting place of his when he was in Paris because of its proximity to death, both present and past. It was the place where the guillotine had sliced off the head of Marie Antoinette, among many others, guilty and innocent alike, during France’s notorious Reign of Terror. He liked the sound of that phrase,
Règne de la Terreur
, in any language.

His head turned and he saw her striding across the wide street on impossibly long legs as the light turned, favoring her. She came hidden within a cloud of tourists, seeing him, but totally ignoring him until she was on the far side of the 3,300-year-old Egyptian obelisk glorifying the reign of Rameses II. Given to France by Mehmet Ali, the Ottoman viceroy in 1829, it had originally marked the entrance to the Temple of Luxor. As such, it was a remarkable historical treasure. The man thought about this as the crowds of tourists ebbed and flowed around it without giving it more than a cursory glance. Every day now the history of the world was being lost, plowed under by the mountains of digital effluvia venting off the Internet, scanned by growing millions on their smartphones or iPads. The lives of Britney Spears, Angelina Jolie, and Jennifer Aniston were of more interest to the new masses than were those of Marcel Proust, Richard Wagner, or Victor Hugo, if they even knew who these august personages were.

The man resisted the urge to spit, instead smiling as he slipped through the throngs to the west side of the obelisk where Martha Christiana stood, hands in the pockets of her avant black-and-red L’Wren Scott swing coat, beneath which a deep plum suede pencil skirt from the same designer showed off the shapely lower half of her body. She did not turn when she felt his presence at her left shoulder, but tilted her head in his direction.

“It’s good to see you, my friend,” she said. “It’s been a long time.” 

“Too long,
chérie
.”

Her full lips curved slightly in her Mona Lisa smile. “Now you flatter me.”

He barked a laugh. “There’s no need.”

He was right: she was a strikingly beautiful woman, dark-haired, dark-eyed, Latin in both features and temperament. She could be fiery as well as feisty. In any case, she knew who she was. She was her own woman, which he admired, all the while attempting to tame her. So far, he had not succeeded, for which a part of him was grateful. Martha would not have been half as useful to him if he had managed to break her spirit. Often, in his infrequent idle moments, he found himself wondering why she kept coming back to him. He had nothing on her; besides, she was no one to be coerced—he had found that out on their second meeting. He turned his mind away from that dark time to the pressing matter that necessitated today’s meeting.

Martha was leaning back against the massive obelisk, legs crossed at her tiny ankles. Her Louboutins glittered richly.

“When I was young,” he said, “I used to believe in the concept of reward, as if life were fair and predetermined, as if life couldn’t put undreamed-of and unacceptable obstacles in my path. So what happened? I failed, again and again. I failed until my head hurt and I realized that I had been fooling myself. I knew nothing about life.”

He shook out a cigarette, offered her one, then took one himself. He lit them both, first hers, then his. When he leaned in, he smelled her perfume, which held notes of citrus and cinnamon. Something deep inside him quivered. Cinnamon, especially, presented a special erotic note for him. Many intimate associations flooded his mind before he clamped down on them. Standing up straight, he filled his lungs with nicotine as a way of distancing himself from the past while he spoke.

“I realized that life was trying to guide me,” he continued, “to teach me the lessons I would need in order not only to survive, but to prosper. I realized that I would have to shed my pride, I would have to embrace the unacceptable obstacles, to find the way through them, rather than turning away from them. Because the path to success— anyone’s success, not only mine—lies through them.”

Martha Christiana listened to him silently, solemnly, following every word. He liked that about her. She was not so self-involved that she failed to hear what was important. This quality alone separated her from the masses. She was like him.

“Every time the unacceptable is accepted, there is a change,” she said finally. “Change or die, that is the central thesis we both absorbed, isn’t it? And as the changes add up, a certain metamorphosis occurs. And, suddenly, we are different.”

“More different than we ever thought we’d be.”

She nodded, her gaze fixed on the rows of horse chestnuts flanking the wide, perfectly straight Champs. “And now here we are, once again waiting for the shadows to fall.”

“On the contrary,” he said, “we are the shadows.”

Martha Christiana chuckled, nodding. “Indeed.”

They smoked silently, companionably, for several minutes while the crush of people and traffic ebbed and flowed around them. In the distance, down the Champs, he could see the Arc de Triomph, shimmering like Martha’s Louboutins.

At length, he dropped his cigarette butt and ground it under his heel. “You have a car?”

“Standing by, as usual.”