Eric van Lustbader - The Bourne Objective

“What are you thinking?” Willard said unexpectedly.

“Nothing.”

“Wrong answer. Our number one priority is to figure out a way to reestablish clandestine contact with Leonid Arkadin.”

“What makes Arkadin so important? Besides, of course, the fact that he’s Treadstone’s first graduate and the only one that got away.”

Willard glared. He didn’t care for his own words being thrown back in his face, especially by an inferior. That was the problem with Willard-one of his many quirks-as Marks, as quick a study as had ever entered CI’s ranks, had come to understand: Willard was convinced of his superiority, and he treated everyone accordingly. That there might be a grain or two of truth to his belief only solidified his fierce control. In fact, Marks guessed that this arrogance was what had allowed Willard to infiltrate and maintain his position as steward inside the NSA for so many years. It had to be so much easier to take orders from your masters when you knew you were in the process of fucking them over.

“It pains me to have to spell this out for you, Marks, but inside Arkadin’s mind lie the last secrets of Treadstone. Conklin submitted him to a raft of psychological techniques that are now lost.”

“What about Jason Bourne?”

“Because of how Arkadin turned out, Conklin didn’t use that technique set on Bourne, so in that sense the two of them are different.”

“How so?”

Willard, whose attention to detail was legendary, shot his cuffs so that they were of precisely equal lengths. “Arkadin has no soul.”

“What?” Marks shook his head as if he hadn’t heard correctly. “Unless I miss my guess, there’s no known technique scientific or otherwise for destroying a soul.”

Willard rolled his eyes. “For God’s sake, Peter, I’m not talking about a machine out of a science-fiction novel.” He rose to his feet. “But ask your parish priest the next time you see him. You’ll be surprised at his answer.” He beckoned for Marks to do the same. “Here comes our new lord and master, Oliver Liss.”

Marks glanced at his watch. “Forty minutes late. Right on time.”

Oliver Liss lived on the wrong coast. He looked, acted, and possibly even thought of himself as if he were a movie star. He was handsome in that way the Hollywood elite cultivated, except that he didn’t seem to work at it. Maybe it was simply superb genes. In any event, when he entered a room he required no other entourage than his own personal sun burning at his back. He was tall, lean, and athletic, engendering bitter envy in those men he met. He liked his drinks strong, his meat red, and his women young, blond, and buxom. He was, in short, precisely the sort of man Hugh Hefner had envisioned when he created Playboy.

Cranking up a mechanical smile without breaking stride, Liss gestured for them to follow him past Cerberus’s gates and into the Monition Club proper. It was breakfast time. Apparently, following Monition Club tradition, that meal was taken on an enclosed brick terrace, which overlooked a cloistered atrium whose center was as neatly laid out as an herb garden, though this time of the year there was scarcely anything to see but fallow ground and a geometry of low cast-iron fences, presumably to keep the mint out of the sage.

Liss led them to a spacious table of inlaid stone. He exuded the scents of beeswax and expensive cologne. Today he was dressed like a country gentleman in flannel trousers, tweed jacket, and a tie with a print of hungry-looking foxes. His expensive ox-blood loafers shone like mirrors.

After they ordered, drank their fresh-squeezed juice, and sipped their bracing French-press coffee, he came right to the point. “I know you have been busy moving into our new offices, taking possession of the electronics and so forth, but I want you to set all that aside. I’m hiring an office manager for that, anyway, you’re both far too valuable to waste.” His voice was as rich and lustrous as his shoes. He rubbed his hands together, a beloved uncle delighted at the latest family reunion. “I want you both concentrated on one matter and one matter only. It seems that with his untimely demise Noah Perlis left some loose ends.”

Willard was taken slightly aback. “You’re not asking us to swim in Black River’s toxic waste, are you?”

“Not in the least. I spent six months untangling myself from the organization I helped found because I could see the train wreck coming. Imagine how that feels, gentlemen.” He raised a finger. “Oh, yes, Frederick, in your case you have a glimmering of what I’ve been going through.” He shook his head. “No, Noah was handling this particular bit of business for me personally, no one else in Black River had a clue.” He sat back as their breakfasts were served, then, over his perfectly cooked eggs Benedict, he continued. “Noah had a ring. He obtained this ring at great cost and, I believe, personal tragedy. It is, not to put too fine a point on it, a singular ring. Though on the outside it looks like a simple gold wedding band, it is something far different. Here, take a look at these.” He passed around several color photos of the item in question.

“As you can see, there are a series of symbols-graphemes, if you want to be technical-engraved around the inside.”

“What is a grapheme?” Marks asked.

“The basic unit of language, any language, really.”

Willard squinted. “Yes, but what the devil language is it?”

“Its own, manufactured out of ancient Sumerian, Latin, and God alone knows what other dead language, possibly one that’s been lost to the modern world.”

“You want us to drop everything for this?” Marks looked incredulous. “Who do you think we are, Indiana Jones?”

Liss, who had been in the process of chewing a bite of food, smirked. “This is not so old as that, my smart-aleck friend. In fact, it probably hasn’t been in existence more than a decade or two.”

“A ring?” Willard shook his head. “What do you want with it?”

“Eyes Only.” Liss winked and tapped the side of his nose. “In any event, Noah had the ring when he was killed by Jason Bourne. It’s clear that Bourne killed him in order to get the ring.”

Marks shook his head. His lack of antipathy toward Bourne was well known. “Why would he do that? He must have had a good reason.”

“What you need to keep in mind is that Bourne has murdered again, without provocation.” Liss looked hard at him. “Find Bourne and you’ll find the ring.” He carefully broke a yolk and dipped a triangle of toast into it. “I got a tip that Bourne was seen in the Heathrow arrivals terminal, so it’s a good bet he’s gone to Noah’s apartment in Belgravia. Start there. I’ve sent all the particulars to your cells and booked you on an evening flight to Heathrow so you’ll be bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, and ready to hit the tarmac at a full sprint when you arrive tomorrow morning.”

Willard put aside the photos and made a face that sent warning bells ringing in Marks’s head.

“When you agreed to fund Treadstone,” Willard said in a quietly ominous voice, “you agreed that I would be in charge of operations.”

“Did I?” Liss rolled his eyes as if trying to recall. Then he shook his head. “No. No, I didn’t.”

“Is this… What is this, some kind of joke?”

“I don’t think so, no.” Liss popped the toast triangle into his mouth and chewed luxuriously.

“I have a very specific agenda.” Willard carefully enunciated each word with a cutting edge. “A particular reason for jump-starting Treadstone.”

“I’m well aware of your obsession with this Russian Leonid Arkadin, but the fact is, Frederick, you didn’t jump-start Treadstone. I did. Treadstone is mine, I fund it lock, stock, and ammunition. You work for me, to think otherwise is to gravely misjudge the parameters of your singular employment.”