Eric van Lustbader: The Bourne Objective

Rather than the Oval Office, the president was in the War Room three levels down below the West Wing. Vast computer screens ringed the room, in the center of which was an oval table outfitted with all the accoutrements of twelve virtual offices.

When Bud Halliday arrived, the president was chairing a meeting with Hendricks, the national security adviser, and Brey and Findlay, the respective heads of the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security. From their grim expressions it was clear there was an emergency brewing.

“Glad you could make it, Bud,” the president said, waving Halliday to a chair on the opposite side of the table.

“What’s happened?” Halliday said.

“Something’s come up,” Findlay said, “and we’d value your advice on how to proceed.”

“A terrorist attack on one of our overseas bases?”

“Rather closer to home.” Hendricks appeared to be taking point. Reversing a dossier in front of him, he slid it across the table to Halliday. He spread his hands. “Please.”

Halliday opened the dossier and was confronted with a photo of Jalal Essai. He stayed very calm, was pleased to see that his hand was steady as it turned the onionskin pages of the file.

When he was certain he had himself perfectly under control, he raised his gaze. “Why are we looking at this man?”

“We have information linking him to the torture and murder of Frederick Willard.”

“Evidence?”

“As yet, no,” Findlay said.

“But we have every indication that it will be forthcoming,” Hendricks said.

“Do you want me to buy the bridge, too?” Halliday said caustically.

“What’s disturbing, Mr. Secretary, is that this man Essai has flown beneath our radar, even though he represents a clear and present national security threat.” This from Findlay again.

Halliday tapped the dossier. “There is intel here on Essai going back years. How could we not-?”

“That’s the question we need answered, Bud,” the president said.

Halliday cocked his head. “Well, I mean to say, where did this intel come from?”

“Not from your farm, clearly,” Brey said.

“Nor from yours,” Halliday shot back. He looked from one face to another. “You’re not thinking of pinning this oversight on my people.”

“It wasn’t an oversight,” Findlay said. “At least, not an oversight on our part.”

There was a strained silence in the room, which was finally broken by the president. “Bud, we thought you’d be more forthcoming.”

“Shit, I didn’t,” Brey said.

“When confronted by the evidence,” Hendricks added.

“Evidence of what?” Halliday said. “There’s nothing I have to explain or apologize for.”

“You all owe me a hundred dollars apiece,” Brey said with a smirk.

Halliday glared at him with naked rage.

Hendricks picked up the phone, spoke a few words into the receiver, then set it down.

“For God’s sake, Bud,” the president said, “you’re making this damnably difficult.”

“What is this?” Halliday stood up. “An inquisition?”

“Well, you haven’t helped yourself.” There was deep sadness in the president’s voice. “Last chance.”

Halliday, standing as rigid as a war veteran’s statue, ground his teeth in fury.

Then the door to the War Room opened and in walked the twins, Michelle and Mandy. Their eyes were laughing. At him.

Christ, he thought. Jesus Christ.

“Be seated, Mr. Secretary.”

The president’s voice had turned so full of suppressed anger and a sense of personal betrayal, it sent a shiver down Halliday’s spine. With a sinking heart, he did as he was ordered.

Ahead of him stretched the long, humiliating road to disgrace and ruin. Listening to the tapes the twins had made of his conversations with Jalal Essai in the hideaway apartment, he wondered whether he had the courage to retreat to a quiet, private place and blow his brains out.

Oserov arrived in Morocco with his face swathed in bandages. In Marrakech he found a shop where they made a wax impression and, from this template, a latex mask, white as starlight, that fit over his ruined face. Its terrible, cold stoicism belied the raging torment beneath, but he was grateful for the anonymity it afforded him. He bought a heavy black-and-brown-striped hooded thobe to conceal his head and the top part of his face. With it on, the hood cast the rest of his face in deep shadow.

After a brief meal, which he wolfed down without tasting, he wasted no time renting a car and planning out his route. Then he set out for Tineghir.

Idir Syphax went slowly and methodically through the house in central Tineghir. He moved from shadow to shadow like a wraith or a dream, soundlessly, light as air. Idir had been born and raised in the High Atlas region of Ouarzazate. He was used to winter’s cold and snow. He was known as the man who brings ice to the desert, which meant that he was special. Like Tanirt, the local Berbers were afraid of him.

Idir was slim and well muscled, with a wide mouth of large white teeth and a nose like the prow of a ship. His head and neck were swathed in the traditional blue Berber scarf. He wore robes of a blue-and-white check.

On the outside the house was identical to its neighbors. Inside, however, it was built like a fortress, the rooms a set of nesting boxes protecting, at its heart, the keep. The walls were constructed of solid concrete reinforced with steel rods; the heartwood doors had two-inch-thick metal cores, rendering them impervious to even semi-automatic fire. There were two separate electronic security systems to get through: motion detectors in the outer rooms and infrared heat detectors in the inner ones.

Idir’s family had deep ties with the Etanas reaching back centuries. The Etanas had founded the Monition Club as a way for the Severus Domna to come together in various cities across the globe without attracting attention or using the group’s real name. To the outside world, the Monition Club was a philanthropic organization involved in the advancement of anthropology and ancient philosophies. It was a hermetically sealed world in which the sub-rosa members of the group could move, meet, compare work, and plan initiatives.

Idir had had his own ideas about power and succession, but before he could act Benjamin El-Arian had moved into the power vacuum created when Jalal Essai’s brother had decamped. Now that Jalal Essai had shown his true colors, the Essai family was dead and buried as far as Severus Domna was concerned. His defection had occurred on El-Arian’s watch. Idir had already had several conversations with Marlon Etana, the organization’s top-ranking member in Europe. Together, he had told Etana, they were more than a match for Benjamin El-Arian. Etana wasn’t so sure, but then years in the West had made Etana cautious, timid, even, in Idir’s opinion. Not desirable traits in a leader. He had plans for Severus Domna-big plans-beyond the scope of anything El-Arian or Etana could conceive of. He had tried negotiations, reason, and, finally, appealing to the vanity and ego of the leaders. All to no avail. That left only the path of violence.

Satisfied with his final inspection, he locked up the house and walked away. But not too far. The show was about to begin, and he had reserved for himself a front-row seat.

The moment Arkadin had acted on his suspicions, the moment he had sliced through the tendons at the back of Moira’s knee, the idyll of his sojourn in Sonora was shattered. He saw it for the illusion it was. Not for him the slow pace and hot sun, the slinky dancers and the sad rancheras. His life led elsewhere. From that time forward he couldn’t wait to leave Mexico. He had been bitterly betrayed. Sonora had held up to him the mirror of his life, the life to which he was bound no matter how much he might long to leave it.