Eric van Lustbader - The Bourne Objective

Moira froze, her heartbeat accelerating. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“You have a traitor in your organization,” Binns said without inflection. “Someone on the NSA’s payroll.”

Moira frowned. “Just who is your client, Mr. Binns?”

“I’m not authorized to reveal his identity.”

“And I suppose you’re also not authorized to tell me how he knows so much about me?”

Binns spread his hands.

She nodded. “Fine. I’ll find my goddamn traitor myself.”

Oddly, this response brought a cat-like smile to Binns’s face. “My client said that would be your answer. I didn’t believe him, so now I’m out a thousand dollars.”

“I’m sure you’ll find a way to make it up in fees.”

“Once you get to know me, you’ll realize I’m not that sort of man.”

“You’re being overly optimistic,” Moira said.

He nodded. “Possibly.” Retreating to the doorway, he lifted a hand. “If you’ll accompany me…” When she made no move to follow him, he added, “Just this once, I beg you to indulge me. It will only take fifteen minutes of your time, what do you have to lose?”

Moira couldn’t think of a damn thing, so she allowed him to usher her out.

Chaaya lived in the penthouse of one of Bangalore’s glittering high-rise mini-cities, a gated residential community guarded day and night against the city’s multitude of ravages. But whether the precautions kept the city out or imprisoned the denizens in its citadel, Arkadin thought, was only a matter of perspective.

Chaaya opened the door to his knock, as she always did no matter what time he appeared. She had no choice, really. She came from a wealthy family and lived in the lap of luxury, but all of that would evaporate if they knew her secret. She was Hindu and the man she was in love with was Muslim, a mortal sin in the eyes of her father and three brothers should they become aware of her transgression. Though Arkadin had never met her lover, he had arranged that her secret be kept safe; Chaaya owed him everything, and acted accordingly.

Lush-figured, dusky-hued, in a gauzy dressing gown, her eyes still heavy with sleep, she moved through her skylit apartment with the sensual grace of a Bollywood actress. She was not particularly tall, but her bearing gave that illusion; when she walked into a room heads turned, both male and female. Whether she liked Arkadin, what she thought of him altogether, was of absolutely no interest to him. She feared him, which was all that was required.

It was brighter up here above the rooftops, giving the false impression that the day had already started. But then this apartment, mirroring both their lives, was full of fake impressions.

She saw his bloody leg at once and took him into her spacious bathroom, all mirrors and pink-and-gold veined marble. While he stripped off his trousers, she ran hot water. She had a deft touch with the sutures, and he asked her if she’d done this before.

“Once, long ago,” she said enigmatically.

That was why he had come here now, at this moment, when trust was at a premium. He and Chaaya recognized something in each other, something of themselves, dark and broken. They were both outsiders, uncomfortable in the world most people inhabited, they’d rather skim along the margins, half hidden by the flickering shadows that terrified everyone else. They were apart, strangers perhaps even to themselves, but companionable with each other because of that very fact.

While she washed him and worked on closing his wound, he considered his next move. He needed to get out of India, of that there was no doubt. Where would that shithead Oserov guess he might go? Campione d’Italia in Switzerland, where the Eastern Brotherhood maintained a villa, or perhaps its headquarters in Munich. By necessity Oserov’s list of options would be short; even Maslov had his limits as far as sending hit squads around the world on what might be a wild goose chase. He’d never been one to squander manpower or resources, which was why he still headed the single most powerful grupperovka family in an era when the Kremlin was aggressively dismantling the mob.

Arkadin knew he had to remove himself to a location that was absolutely secure. He had to choose a place neither Oserov nor Maslov would ever consider. And he would tell no one in his organization-at least, not until he could figure out how Oserov had been tipped to his temporary HQ here in Bangalore.

So he had to arrange for travel out of the city, and the country. But first he had to retrieve Gustavo Moreno’s laptop from its hiding place.

When Chaaya was finished and they had moved into the living room, he said, “Please fetch the present I gave you.”

Chaaya cocked her head, a small smile playing around the corners of her mouth. “Are you saying that I can finally open it? I’ve been dying of curiosity.”

“Bring it here.”

She rushed out of the room and a moment later returned with a rather large silver-colored box tied with a purple ribbon. She sat across from him, tense and expectant, the box lying across her thighs. “Can I open it now?”

Arkadin was eyeing the package. “You’ve already opened it.”

A look of fear crossed her face as swiftly as a gull scuds across a dock. Then she forced a smile onto her beautiful face. “Oh, Leonid, I couldn’t help myself, and it’s such a beautiful robe, I’ve never felt silk like it, it must have cost you a fortune.”

Arkadin held out his hands. “The box.”

“Leonid…” But she did as he bade. “I never took it out, I just touched it.”

He untied the ribbon, which he saw she’d retied with great care, then set the top aside.

“I love it so, I’d have killed anyone who came near it.”

Actually, he’d counted on that. When he’d given it to her with the instructions not to open it he’d seen the covetousness in her eyes and knew then that she’d never have the fortitude to comply. But he also knew that she’d guard it with her life. That was Chaaya through and through.

The robe, which was in fact exceptionally expensive, was folded meticulously into thirds. He removed the laptop, which he’d carefully hidden within its luxurious folds, then handed her the robe.

Busy unscrewing the underside of the laptop so he could insert the hard drive into its original home, he hardly heard her squeals of delight or the thank-yous she showered on him.

DCI M. Errol Danziger most often ate lunch at his desk while poring over intelligence reports from his directorate chiefs, comparing them with their counterparts he had sent over daily from the NSA. However, twice a week he ate his midday meal outside CI headquarters. He always went to the same restaurant-the Occidental on Pennsylvania Avenue-and dined with the same person, Secretary of Defense Bud Halliday. Danziger-all too aware of how his predecessor had been killed-traveled the sixteen blocks to these meetings in an armored GMC Yukon Denali accompanied by Lieutenant R. Simmons Reade, two bodyguards, and a secretary. He was never alone; it disturbed him to be alone, a condition he had brought with him from a childhood filled with the shadows of parental strife and abandonment.

Soraya Moore was waiting for his arrival. She had obtained the DCI’s schedule from her former director of ops, who was running Typhon on a temporary basis. Seated at a table at the Willard Hotel’s Café du Parc, which abutted the Occidental’s outdoor section, she noted the arrival of the Denali on the dot of 1 PM. As the rear door opened, she rose, and by the time the entourage was grouped on the sidewalk she was as close to the DCI as the bodyguards would allow. In fact, one of them, with a chest as broad as the table where she’d been seated, had already stepped in front of her, facing her down.