Robert Ludlum - Bourne 7 – The Bourne Deception

— Why especially you? Hart asked.

— Because the head of al Mokhabarat is Amun Chalthoum. He and I had a heated confrontation.

— How heated?

Soraya‘s memory immediately clamped down. -Chalthoum is a complex character, difficult to read-his entire life seems wrapped up in his career in al Mokhabarat, an organization of thugs and assassins to which he‘s been given a life sentence.

— Lovely, Hart said with no little sarcasm.

— But it would be naive to believe that‘s all there is to him.

— Do you think you can handle him?

— I don‘t see why not. I think he‘s got a thing for me, Soraya said, not quite understanding why she wasn‘t telling Veronica the whole truth.

Eight years ago, on a courier mission, she‘d been captured by agents of al Mokhabarat who, unbeknownst to her, had infiltrated CI‘s local network to which she was to deliver a microdot on which was etched the network‘s new orders. She had no idea what was on the microdot, had no desire to know. She was thrown in a basement cell of al Mokhabarat‘s offices in downtown Cairo. Three days later, with no sleep and only water and a crust of moldy bread to eat once each day, she was taken upstairs and brought before Amun Chalthoum, who took one look at her and immediately ordered her cleaned up.

She was shown to a shower, where she scrubbed every inch of her body with a soapy washcloth. When she stepped out, a set of new clothes was waiting for her. She assumed her old clothes were being ripped apart and scrutinized by an al Mokhabarat forensics team searching for the intel she was carrying.

Everything fit her perfectly. To her surprise, she was then escorted out of the building. It was night. It occurred to her that she‘d had no idea of time passing. In the boiling street a car was waiting at the curb, its headlights illuminating plainclothes guards watching her with studied attention. When she climbed in she had another shock: Amun Chalthoum sat behind the wheel. He was all alone.

He drove very hard and very fast across the city, heading west into the desert. He said nothing, but from time to time when traffic allowed, he watched her with his avid hawk‘s gaze. She was famished but was determined to keep her hunger to herself.

He took her to Wadi AlRayan. He stopped the car, told her to get out. They stood facing each other in the blue moonlight. Wadi AlRayan was so desolate, they could have been the last two humans on earth.

— Whatever you‘re looking for, she said, — I don‘t have it.

— Yes, you do.

— It‘s already been delivered.

— My sources tell me otherwise.

— You don‘t pay your sources nearly enough. Besides, you‘ve checked my clothes and everything else.

He didn‘t laugh, nor would he ever during the time she was with him.

— It‘s in your head. Give it to me. When she didn‘t respond, he added, — We‘ll stay out here until you give me the intel.

She recognized his threat, recognized, too, the impetus behind it. In his eyes she was an Egyptian female. As such, she was brought up to unquestioningly obey males; why should she be any different from any of the other females he knew? Because she was half American? He spit on Americans. Immediately she saw the advantage his mistake gave her. She stood up to him; she kept to her story; she defied him every step of the way; most importantly, she proved she couldn‘t be intimidated.

In the end, he‘d backed down, had taken her back to Cairo, to the airport. At the boarding gate he handed back her passport as a gentleman might. It was a formal and somehow touching gesture. She turned away, certain she‘d never see him again.

The DCI nodded. -If you can use his attraction for you to your advantage, do so, because I have an uncomfortable feeling that Halliday is about to propose a major new military initiative based on the premise of an armed insurrection from inside Iran.

Leonid Arkadin was sitting in a café in Campione d‘Italia, a picturesque Italian tax haven tucked away in the Swiss Alps. The tiny municipality rose steeply off the glassy ultramarine-blue surface of a clear mountain lake, studded with vessels of all sizes from rowboats to multimillion-dollar yachts, complete with the helipads, the copters, and, on the largest of these, the females to go with them.

In a haze of detached amusement, Arkadin watched two long-stemmed models with the kind of perfectly bronzed skin only the privileged and wealthy know how to acquire. As he sipped a small cup of espresso, which was all but lost in his large, square hand, the two models climbed on top of a bald man with an exceedingly hairy body, stretched out on the sea-blue cushions of the yacht‘s rear deck.

He lost interest because for him pleasure was such an ephemeral concept, it lacked both form and function. His mind and his body were still bound to the iron-and-fire wheel of Nizhny Tagil, which just went to prove the old saw: You can take the man out of hell but you can‘t take hell out of the man.

The acrid taste of the toxic Nizhny Tagil sky was still in his mouth when, moments later, a man with skin the color of his espresso approached. Arkadin glanced up with an air close to indifference even as the man slithered into the chair across from him.

— My name is Ismael, the espresso man said. -Ismael Bey.

— Khoury‘s right hand. Arkadin finished off his cup, set it down on the small round table. -I‘ve heard of you.

Bey, a rather young man, thin and bony as a starving dog, sported a dreadfully haunted look. -It‘s done, Arkadin. You‘ve won. With the death of Abdulla Khoury, I‘m now the head of the Eastern Brotherhood, but I value my life more than my predecessor did. What do you want?

Arkadin took hold of his empty cup, moved it to the precise center of its saucer, all without taking his eyes from the other man‘s. When he was ready, he said, — I don‘t want your position, but I am going to take your power.

His lips formed the ghost of a smile, but there was something in the expression that sent a visible shiver of presentiment down the other‘s spine.

— To everyone in the outside world you have assumed the mantle of your fallen leader. However, everything-every decision, every action you will take from this moment on-originates with me; every dollar the Brotherhood makes flows through me. This is the new order of battle.

His smile turned lupine, and Bey‘s face took on a green and shiny cast.

— First in the order of battle is to choose a contingent of one hundred men from the Black Legion. Within the week I want them at a camp I‘ve set up in the Ural Mountains.

Bey cocked his head. -A camp?

— They will be trained by me personally.

— Trained for what?

— For killing.

— Who are they meant to kill?

Arkadin pushed his empty cup across the table until it was sitting squarely in front of Ismael Bey. The gesture, for Bey, was unmistakable. He had nothing; he would have nothing unless he obeyed Arkadin studiously and completely.

Without another word, Arkadin rose, and left Bey confronting the bleak face of his new future.

Today I woke up thinking of Soraya Moore, Willard said. -I was thinking that she must still be grieving over your death.

It was just after sunrise and, as he did every morning at this time, Bourne was sitting through Dr. Firth‘s thorough and tedious examination.

Bourne, who had come to know Willard quite well in the three months the two had been together, said, — I haven‘t tried to contact her.

Willard nodded. -That‘s good. He was small and dapper, with gray eyes and a face that could assume any expression with an unconscious ease.

— Until I find out who tried to kill me three months ago and I deal with him, I‘m determined to keep Soraya out of the loop. It was not that Bourne didn‘t trust her-on the contrary-but because of her ties to CI and the people with whom she worked, he had decided from the first that the burden of truth would be unfair for her to carry with her to CI every day.