Eric van Lustbader - The Bourne Objective

He padded into the kitchen. She could hear him pulling out drawers and rummaging through them.

“It’s not that I’m not grateful, Dad. But really, you’re an idiot for coming out here in the middle of the night. What did you do, follow me? And how did you get in here?” She followed him into the kitchen.

A callused hand came over her mouth and, at the same time, the Glock was wrenched out of her grip. A deep swirl of masculine scent. Then she saw her father lying unconscious on the floor and she began to struggle.

“Stay still,” a voice whispered in her ear. “If you don’t, I’ll take you upstairs and blow your daughter’s face off while you watch.”

WHEN SORAYA ARRIVED at the Tucson airport, she went straight to the line of rental-car booths and showed the photo of “Stanley Kowalski” around to all the personnel without getting a hit. That name was not on their books-not that she had expected it to come up. A professional of Arkadin’s skill level wouldn’t be careless enough to rent a car under the same false name he’d used at Immigration. Undaunted, she sought out the managers of each company. Because she had the date and the time that Arkadin passed through the airport, she had arranged to arrive at more or less the same hour. She asked the managers who had been on duty nine days ago. The same personnel were on duty save one, a woman with the unlikely name of Biffy Flisser, who had quit to take a hospitality position at the Best Western airport hotel. None of the salespeople recognized Arkadin.

The manager was gracious enough to call the Best Western, and Biffy Flisser was waiting for Soraya when she walked into the cool, airy lobby. They sat in the lounge and had drinks while they spoke. Biffy had a pleasant nature and readily agreed to help Soraya with her search.

“Yeah, I know him,” she said, tapping the surveillance photo on Soraya’s phone. “I mean, I don’t really know him, but yeah, he rented a car on that date.”

“You’re sure.”

“Positive.” Biffy nodded. “He wanted a long-term lease. A month or six weeks, he said. I told him in that case we could give him a special rate and he seemed pleased.”

Soraya waited a moment. “Do you recall his name?” she asked casually.

“This is important, isn’t it?”

“It would certainly help me out.”

“Let me see.” She drummed her lacquered fingernails against the tabletop. “Frank, I think, Frank something…” She concentrated all the harder, then brightened. “That’s it! Frank Stein. Frank Norman Stein, actually.”

Frank N. Stein. Soraya burst out into laughter.

“What?” Biffy seemed confused. “What’s so funny?”

This Arkadin was a real card, Soraya thought on her way back to the airport. Then she was brought up short. Or was he? Why would he deliberately use a name that might stick out? Possibly he planned to ditch the car somewhere across the border.

She felt suddenly deflated. Even so, she continued her investigation. Seeking out the rental-car manager, she gave him the fake name Arkadin had used. “What car did he rent?”

“Just a moment.” The manager turned to his computer terminal, input the name and the date. “A black Chevy, an old one, an ’87. A heap, really, but apparently that satisfied him.”

“You keep cars that long?”

The manager nodded. “For one thing, here in the desert they don’t rust. For another, since so many of our cars are stolen, it pays to rent out the old ones. Besides, customers like the gentle prices.”

Soraya copied down the information, including the license plate tag, but without much hope that if she even found the car it would lead to Arkadin. Then she rented a car of her own, thanked the manager, and walked into a café, where she sat down and ordered an iced coffee. She’d learned the hard way not to order iced tea outside New York, Washington, or LA. Americans liked their iced tea achingly sweet.

While she waited, she opened a detailed map of Arizona and northern Mexico. Mexico was a big country, but she guessed Arkadin might be somewhere within a hundred-mile radius of the airport. Otherwise, why specifically choose Tucson when he could have flown into Mexico City or Acapulco? No, she decided, his destination had to be northwestern Mexico, possibly even just across the border.

Her iced coffee came, and she drank it black and unsugared, savoring the acidic bite that chased its way down her throat and into her stomach. She drew a circle around the airport that encompassed one hundred miles. That was her search area.

The moment Soraya left his office, the manager took out a small key from his trouser pocket and unlocked the lowest drawer on the right side of his desk. Inside were files, a handgun registered in his name, and a head shot photo. He brought the photo into the light, staring at it for several moments. Then, pursing his lips, he turned the photo over, read the local number off to himself, and dialed it on his office phone.

When the male voice answered, he said, “Someone came looking for your man-the man in the photo you gave me… She said her name was Soraya Moore, she gave me no reason to disbelieve her… No official ID, no… I did just as you said… No sweat on that score… No, of course you don’t understand. What I mean is that it’ll be easy, I rented her a car…”

“… a Toyota Corolla, silver-blue, license tag… D as in David, V as in Victor, N as in Nancy, three-three-seven-eight.”

There was a bit more, but it was of no interest to Soraya. The tiny electronic bug she had affixed to the underside of the manager’s desk was working perfectly, the manager’s voice came through with crystal clarity. Pity she couldn’t hear the voice on the other end of the line. However, she now knew that someone had staked out the Tucson airport, possibly others near the border with Mexico. She also knew that whoever these people were they were going to follow her into Mexico. One thing stood out: The person the manager had called didn’t understand American jargon. That left out Mexicans, who this close to the border made an almost fetishistic habit of learning every possible English colloquialism and street phrasing. The person had to be a foreigner, possibly Russian. And if, as she suspected, he was one of Arkadin’s people put in place to look out for Dimitri Maslov’s hit squad, this just might be her lucky day.

The first thing Peter Marks did on disembarking at London’s Heathrow Airport was call Willard.

“Where are you?” Marks said.

“The less you know the better.”

Marks bridled at that. “The last thing anyone needs in the field is to fly blind,” he snapped.

“I’m trying to protect you from Liss. When he calls you-and believe me he will-you’ll tell him truthfully that you don’t know where I am, and for you that will be the end of it.”

Peter showed his official government ID to Immigration, and they stamped his passport and waved him through. “But not for you.”

“Let me worry about that, Peter. You have enough on your plate getting the ring from Bourne.”

“I have to find him first,” Marks said, approaching the baggage carousel.

“You’ve had dealings with Bourne,” Willard said. “I trust you’ll find him.”

Marks was outside now, in a typically dreary London morning. He glanced at his watch. It was appallingly early and already the sky was spitting rain in fitful bursts.

“No one really knows Bourne,” he said, “not even Soraya.”

“That’s because nothing about him makes sense,” Willard pointed out. “He’s completely unpredictable.”

“Well, you can hardly complain. I mean Treadstone made him this way.”