Eric van Lustbader - The Bourne Objective

“I don’t say it,” Ottavio Moreno said with a slight frown, “I was that man.”

“I suppose you can’t produce any canceled checks from the Treadstone account.”

“Ha, ha,” Moreno said, but it wasn’t a laugh. He took out a pack of Gauloises Blondes, shook one out, and lit up. He stared at Bourne while he blew smoke at the ceiling. At length, he said, “Am I wrong in thinking we’re on the same page?”

“I don’t know. Are we?”

Bourne got up and went into the kitchen to get himself a glass of cold water. He was angry at himself, not Moreno. He knew he was at his most vulnerable at this juncture. He didn’t like being vulnerable. More to the point, in his line of work he couldn’t afford to be.

Returning to the living room, he sat down on an armchair facing the sofa where Ottavio Moreno still sat smoking slowly, as if in meditation. In Bourne’s absence he’d turned on the TV to the BBC news. The sound was off, but the images of the Vesper Club were all too familiar. Lights were flashing off the tops of emergency vehicles and police cars. Personnel emerged from the club’s front door carrying a stretcher. The body on it was draped in a cloth that covered its face. Then the scene switched to a newsreader in the BBC studios, mouthing whatever had been written for him moments before. Bourne gestured and Moreno turned up the volume, but there was nothing for them in the story, and Moreno muted the sound again.

“It will be harder than ever to get out of London now,” Bourne said shortly.

“I know more ways to get out of London than they do.” He gestured at the cop being interviewed on the screen.

“So do I,” Bourne said. “That isn’t the issue.”

Moreno leaned forward, stubbed out the butt in an ugly free-form ashtray, and lit another. “If you’re waiting for me to apologize, you’re going to be disappointed.”

“Too late for apologies,” Bourne said. “What’s so important about the laptop?”

Moreno shrugged.

“Perlis had the ring,” Bourne said. “He killed Holly to get it.”

“The ring is a symbol of the Severus Domna, all members wear it or carry it unobtrusively.”

“That’s it? If there’s nothing else important about it, why did Perlis murder Holly for it?”

“I don’t know. Maybe he thought it would somehow lead him to the laptop.” Again Moreno stubbed out his cigarette. “Look, is all this distrust because Gustavo was my half brother?”

“I wouldn’t rule it out,” Bourne said.

“Yeah, well, my big brother was a fucking thorn in my side ever since I can remember.”

“Then it’s a good thing for you he’s dead,” Bourne said drily.

Moreno eyed Bourne for a moment. “Jesus Christ, you think I’ve taken over his drug business.”

“I’d be a fool if the thought hadn’t crossed my mind.”

Moreno nodded morosely. “Fair enough.” He sat back and spread his hands wide. “Okay, then, how can I prove myself?”

“Up to you.”

Moreno crossed his arms over his chest and thought a moment. “What do you remember about the four of them: Perlis, Holly, Tracy, and Diego Hererra?”

“Virtually nothing,” Bourne said.

“I imagine you asked Diego about them. What did he tell you?”

“I know about their friendship, their romantic entanglements.”

Moreno frowned. “What romantic entanglements?”

When Bourne told him, he laughed. “ Mano, your boy Diego dropped one steaming pile of shit on your doorstep. There was no romance among the four of them. There was only friendship-until, that is, Holly started wearing the ring. One of them, maybe Tracy, I don’t know, became interested in the engraving on the inside. The more interested she became in it, the more Perlis’s curiosity was piqued. He took a photo of the engraving and brought it to Oliver Liss, his boss at the time. This led directly to the tragedy of Holly’s death.”

“How do you know all this?”

“I worked for Black River until Alex Conklin recruited me as a Treadstone agent in place. That gave the old boy a good deal of satisfaction-he despised Liss, as corrupt and exploitative an individual as you’re likely to meet in this business. He feasted off other people’s misery, hosed the government mercilessly, and directed his operatives to commit crimes and atrocities the government dared not do itself. Until you helped sink Black River, Liss was about the most successful modern-day agent of chaos, and believe me that’s saying a lot.”

“That still doesn’t explain how-”

“Back in the day, Perlis reported to me, before Liss took charge of him directly and used him to carry out private missions.”

Bourne nodded. “The ring was one of those private missions.”

“It became one. Perlis needed help, so he came to me. I was the only one he trusted. He told me that the moment Liss saw the ring he flipped out. That was when he ordered Perlis to find the laptop.”

“The one you helped me steal from Jalal Essai.”

“That’s right.”

Bourne frowned. “But what happened to it?”

“You were supposed to deliver it to Conklin personally, but you didn’t.”

“Why not?”

“You discovered something about the laptop-something, you told me, that it was probable Conklin didn’t want you to know. You took it upon yourself to change the mission on the fly.”

“What did I discover?”

Moreno shrugged. “You never told me, and I was too well trained to ask.”

Bourne was sunk deep in thought. The enigma of the ring was growing with every moment. Considering Liss’s reaction when he saw the ring, it seemed likely that it was in some way connected to the laptop. That was if Moreno was telling him the truth. He felt as if he were in a hall of mirrors, each reflection distorted in a different way so that it was no longer possible to discern reality from carefully constructed fantasy, truth from cleverly worded fiction.

On the TV screen the newsreader had gone on to other stories, in other lands, but the images of Diego Hererra’s corpse being taken out of the Vesper Club continued to flicker through Bourne’s mind. Had it been necessary to kill him, as Moreno had said, or did Moreno have another, darker motive he was keeping from Bourne? The only way to find out the truth was to keep Moreno close to him, and to continue questioning him as subtly as possible until a chink in his armor appeared-or until he proved himself truthful.

“What do you know about Essai?” Bourne asked.

“Besides being a member of the Severus Domna ruling council, not much. He comes from an illustrious family, which dates back all the way to the eleven hundreds, if I’m not mistaken. His ancestors took part in the Moorish invasion of Andalusia. One of them ruled there for a number of years.”

“What about in more modern times?”

“These days no one’s interested in the Berbers or the Amazigh, which we call ourselves.”

“And what of Severus Domna itself?”

“Ah, well, there I can be of some help. First off, I should point out that very little is known about the group. They fly so far below the radar that whatever footprints they leave are all but invisible or easily wiped away. No one knows how large the group is, but members are scattered in virtually every corner of the globe, all in positions of power in governments, businesses, media, and criminal activities. Any industry you care to name they’re in.”

“What’s their aim?” Bourne was thinking of the word Dominion inscribed on the inside of his ring. “What do they want?”

“Power, money, control of world events. Who knows, but that’s a better guess than any other. It’s what everyone wants, isn’t it?”