Robert Ludlum - Bourne 7 – The Bourne Deception

His laugh was as unpleasant as a jackal‘s bark. -Of course we will. His tone was dark, sardonic. -But even if by some miracle we do, it‘s already too late for me. My enemies will use this breach of security against me, they‘ll say I‘ve brought disgrace not only on al Mokhabarat, but on all of Egypt.

His uncharacteristic tone of self-pity rattled her, made her harden her own voice. -Then why are you bothering with the investigation? Why not simply turn tail and run?

His dark face turned even darker with the sudden rush of blood to his cheeks. She felt him gathering himself, his muscles tensing, and for a moment she wondered if he was going to strike her. But then, just as quickly as it came, the storm of emotion passed, and now his laugh, when it presented itself, was bright and deep.

— Yes, I should have you at my side always, azizti .

Once again she was rattled, this time by his use of the intimate endearment, and she felt a sudden rush of latent affection for him. She could not help wondering whether he was this good an actor, and with this thought came the flush of instant shame because she wanted him to be innocent of involvement in this heinous act. She wanted something from him she felt she couldn‘t have, certainly never would have if he was guilty. Her heart said he was innocent, but her mind remained dappled in the shadows of suspicion.

He turned to her for a moment, his dark eyes alighting on her. -We will find these sons of camel turds, and I will bring them in front of my superiors shackled and on their knees, this I swear on the memory of my father.

Within fifteen minutes they had arrived at a patch of desert that looked not a bit different from the bleak countryside through which they had been traveling. The other four jeeps had peeled off some time ago, their drivers in constant radio contact with Amun and one another. They gave running commentaries as they began their respective searches.

Soraya took up a pair of binoculars and began to scan for any anomalous object, but she wasn‘t optimistic. The desert itself was their worst enemy because the winds would have shifted the sand, most likely burying anything the terrorists might have inadvertently left behind.

— Anything? Chalthoum said twenty minutes later.

— No-wait! She took her eyes from the binocular cups and pointed off to their right. -There, at two o‘clock-about a hundred yards.

Chalthoum turned in that direction and put on some speed. -What do you see?

— I don‘t know-it looks like a smudge, she said as she trained the binoculars on the spot.

She jumped out of the jeep even as it reached the location. Staggering for two steps from the momentum and the softness of the sand, she pushed on. She was squatting down in front of the dark patch by the time Chalthoum reached her.

— It‘s nothing, he said with obvious disgust, — just a blackened branch.

— Maybe not.

Reaching out, she used her cupped hands to excavate away from the branch, which was almost fully buried. As the hole widened, Chalthoum helped keep the sand from running back into the hole. About eighteen inches down, her fingertips found something cool and hard.

— The stick is caught on something! she said excitedly.

But what she unearthed was an empty can of soda, the end of the stick lodged into its opened pop-top. When she pulled the stick out the can fell over, causing a shower of gray ash to scatter from the opening.

— Someone made a fire here, she said. -But there‘s no way to tell how long the ashes have been here.

— Maybe there is a way.

Chalthoum was staring intently at the spill of ashes, which was more or less the shape of the cone of yellow on the laptop‘s screen representing the margin of error for the missile launch site.

— Did your father teach you about Nowruz?

— The Persian pre-revolutionary festival of the new year? Soraya nodded.

— Yes, but we never celebrated it.

— It‘s had a resurgence in Iran over the past couple of years. Chalthoum upended the can, shook out the contents, and nodded. -There is more ash here than one could reasonably expect for a cooking fire. Besides, a terrorist cell would have pre-prepared food that wouldn‘t require heating.

Soraya was racking her brains for the rituals of Nowruz, but in the end she needed Chalthoum to give her a refresher course.

— A bonfire is lit and each member of the family jumps over it while asking for the pale complexion winter breeds to be replaced by healthy red cheeks. Then a feast is consumed during which stories are told for the benefit of the children. As the festival passes from day into night, the fire dies out, then the ashes, which represent winter‘s bad luck, are buried off in the fields.

— I can hardly believe that Nowruz was observed here by Iranian terrorists, Soraya said.

Chalthoum used the stick to poke around in the ashes. -That looks like a bit of eggshell and here is a piece of burned orange rind. Both an egg and an orange are used at the end of the festival.

Soraya shook her head. -They‘d never risk someone seeing the fire.

— True enough, Chalthoum said, — but this would be a perfect place to bury the bad luck of winter. He looked at her. -Do you know when Nowruz began?

She thought a moment, then her pulse began to race. -Three days ago.

Chalthoum nodded. -And at the moment of Sa‘at-I tahvil, when the old year ends and the new one begins, what happens?

Her heart flipped over. -Cannons are fired.

— Or, Chalthoum said, — a Kowsar 3 missile.

BOURNE AND TRACY ATHERTON entered Seville late on the third afternoon of the Feria de Abril, the weeklong festival that grips the entire city at Eastertime like a fever. Only weeks before, during the Semana Santa, masses of hooded penitents followed behind magnificently adorned floats, tiered and filigreed like baroque wedding cakes, filled with ranks of white candles and sprays of white flowers, at the center of which sat images of Christ or the Virgin Mary. Bands of colorfully dressed musicians accompanied the floats, playing music both melancholy and martial.

Now as then avenues were blocked off to vehicular traffic, and even on foot many streets were all but impassable because, it seemed, all of Seville was out taking part in or observing the eye-popping pageant.

In the packed Avenida de Miraflores, they pushed their way into an Internet café. It was dark and narrow, the manager behind a cramped desk in back. The entire left-hand wall was taken up with computer stations hooked up to the Internet. Bourne paid for an hour, then waited along the wall for one of the stations to free up. The place was dim with smoke; everyone had a cigarette except the two of them.

— What are we doing here? Tracy said in a hushed voice.

— I need to find a photo of one of the Prado‘s Goya experts, Bourne said.

— If I can convince Hererra I‘m this man, he‘ll know he‘s got a very clever fake rather than a real lost Goya.

Tracy‘s face lit up and she laughed. -You really are a piece of work, Adam. All at once a frown overtook her. -But if you present yourself as this Goya expert, how on earth are you going to get any money out of Don Fernando for your consortium?

— Simple enough, Bourne said. -The expert leaves and I return as Adam Stone.

A seat opened up and Tracy began to move toward it when Bourne stopped her with a taut shake of his head. When she looked at him questioningly, he spoke to her very softly.

— The man who just walked in-no, don‘t look at him. I saw him on our flight.

— So what?

— He was on my Thai Air flight as well, Bourne said. -He‘s traveled with me all the way from Bali.

She turned her back to him, using a mirror to glance at him briefly. -Who is he? Her eyes narrowed. -What does he want?