Eric van Lustbader - The Bourne Objective

“No, no!” Idir cried, scuttling around to the side of the generator housing. “Here, here,” he muttered to himself. At the base of the plinth he depressed a stone, which slid out of the way. He threw a switch, and the throb of the generator ceased. “See? It’s off.” He stood up. “I’ve done what you asked. My life is nothing, but I beg you to spare my son’s life.”

Arkadin, grinning, set the case on top of the plinth, unlocked it, and took out the laptop. “Now,” he said, as he fired up the computer, “the ring.”

Idir crept closer to the plinth. He managed to tap his fingernail along the top of the computer before Arkadin delivered a heavy backhand blow that swatted him back on his heels.

As Bourne was taking out the ring, Idir said, “It won’t do any good.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Arkadin snapped.

“Let him speak,” Bourne said. “Idir, what do you mean?”

“That isn’t the right laptop.”

“He’s a liar,” Arkadin said. “Look here-” He took the ring from Bourne and inserted it. “-it has the slot for the ring.”

Idir’s laughter was tinged with hysteria, or with madness.

As Arkadin slid the ring through the slot again and again, he tried in vain to bring up the ghost file on the partitioned hard drive.

“You fools!” Idir could not stop laughing. “Someone has been fucking with you. I’m telling you it’s the wrong laptop.”

With an inarticulate cry, Arkadin swung around.

“Leonid, no!”

Bourne leapt at him, too late to keep him from firing, but he ran full-tilt into Arkadin’s right shoulder. The spray of bullets went wide, but two bullets struck Idir’s chest and shoulder.

Both torches were on the floor, crackling as they burned down. They were more than half finished. Bourne and Arkadin attacked each other with hands, feet, and knees. Arkadin, the Magpul in his right hand, hammered at Bourne, who was forced to raise his hands in front of his face in order to deflect the blows. Deep contusions, then ragged cuts broke out on his wrists from the force of the Magpul’s heavy barrel pounding him. He brought his knee up into Arkadin’s stomach, but it seemed to have little or no effect. At the next blow Bourne grabbed the barrel, but it raked down his palm, slicing it open. Arkadin turned the muzzle on Bourne, and Bourne slammed the heel of his bleeding hand into Arkadin’s nose. Blood flew as Arkadin’s head snapped back, the back of it banging off the floor. He squeezed off a short burst, the noise deafening in the space. Bourne struck him again, slamming his head to the right, where a blur of movement shot toward him.

A large rat, terrified by the noise, leapt blindly at Arkadin’s face. Arkadin swung at it and missed. He rolled away, grabbed one of the torches, and thrust it out wildly. The rat leapt away, scrambling across Idir’s slumped body. The flames caught its tail, the rat screamed, and so did Idir, whose robes were now alight and burning with an acrid stench. Staggering to his feet, he slapped wildly at the flames with his good arm, but staggered, off balance, and fell against the plinth. His head struck the statue of Baal, knocking it off the generator housing. It shattered against the floor.

Rising, Bourne ran toward Idir, but the greedy flames had already engulfed him, making it impossible to get close. The sickening stench of roasting meat, the bright burst of flames, and then an ominous ticking counting down the three minutes of life they had left.

Arkadin swung his arm around and fired, but Bourne had moved behind Idir, and the burst of gunfire went wide. The flaming torch was fast guttering. Scooping up one of the torches, Bourne ran back into the doorway to the corridor. Under cover, he drew the Beretta. He was about to fire back when he glimpsed Arkadin on his hands and knees, scrabbling about in the rubble of the shattered statue. He picked out an SDS memory card, brushed it off, and, rising, stuck it into the appropriate slot of the laptop.

“Leonid, leave it,” Bourne shouted. “The laptop is a fake.”

When there was no response, Bourne called Arkadin’s name again, this time more urgently. “We have just over two minutes to find our way out of here.”

“So Idir would have us believe.” Arkadin sounded distracted. “Why would he tell us the truth?”

“He was terrified for the life of his son.”

“In the land of the blind,” Arkadin shot back, “there is no incentive to tell the truth.”

“Leonid, come on! Let it go! You’re wasting time.”

There was no response. The moment Bourne showed his face in the pentangle, Arkadin fired at him. His torch sparking and sputtering near its end, Bourne sprinted back up the corridor the way they had come. Halfway along, the torch guttered and died. He threw it aside and kept on, his eidetic memory guiding him unerringly to the base of the spiral staircase.

Now it was a matter of outrunning the clock. By his estimation, he had less than two minutes to get out of the house before the C-4 exploded. He reached the top of the staircase, but there was no light. The door was closed.

Returning to the bottom of the stairs, he grabbed another torch, lit it, and sprinted back up to the top. Twenty seconds wasted. A minute and a half remaining. At the top of the staircase, he held the torch up to the door. It had no handle on this side. Not even a lock marred its smooth surface. But there must be a way out. Leaning in, he ran his fingertips around the edge where the door met the jamb. Nothing. On all fours he probed the lintel, found a small square that gave to the pressure of his fingertip. He jumped away as the door opened. Just over a minute left to find his way through the maze of concentric circles and out the front door.

Along the curving corridor he went, fast as he could, holding the torch high. The electric lights had been extinguished when Idir had thrown the switch turning off the generator. Once he paused and thought he could hear footsteps echoing behind him, but he couldn’t be certain, and he pressed on, spiraling outward, ever outward toward the skin of the house.

He went through the two open doors and was in what he was sure must be the last of the corridors. Thirty seconds to go. And then the front door was ahead of him. Reaching it, he hauled on the handle. The door wouldn’t budge. He battered on it, to no avail. Cursing under his breath, he turned back, staring down the windowless, doorless corridor. “Everything in the house is an illusion,” Tanirt had told him. “This is the most important advice I can give you.”

Twenty seconds.

As he passed close to the outer wall, air stirred at the side of his head. There were no vents, so where was it coming from? He ran his hand over the wall, which, he surmised, must be the outside wall of the house itself. Using his knuckles, he rapped on the wall, listening for an anomalous sound. Solid, solid. He moved farther back down the corridor.

Fifteen seconds.

And then the sound changed. Hollow. Standing back, he slammed the heel of his shoe into the wall. It went through. Again. Ten seconds. Not enough time. Thrusting the torch into the ragged hole, he set it afire. The flames ate up the paint and the board behind it. Dropping the torch, he covered his head with his arms and dived through.

Glass shattered outward, and then he was rolling in the street, picking himself up and running, running. Behind him, the night seemed to catch fire. The house ballooned outward, the shock wave of the explosion lifting him off his feet, hurling him against the wall of the building across the street.

At first he was struck deaf. He picked himself up, staggered against the wall, and shook his head. He heard screaming. Someone was screaming his name. He recognized Soraya’s voice, then saw her running toward him. Badis was nowhere to be seen.