Robert Ludlum: Bourne 7 – The Bourne Deception

Unfortunately for Noah, Braun was fully briefed and, before Noah could ask him where Liss was, Braun asked him for an update on the situation with Humphry Bamber, to which Noah replied that Bardem was as secure as it had ever been.

— Does that mean he‘s been terminated? Braun said bluntly.

— Yes, Noah lied, not wanting to get into that thorny issue on the cusp of Pinprick‘s operational phase. He killed the call before Braun could interrogate him further.

Briefly, he felt a stab of concern at Oliver Liss‘s continuing absence, but right now he had more pressing problems, namely Bardem. Running the three scenarios again gave him a probability success rate of 98 percent, 97

percent, and 99 percent. The main military incursion, he knew, was going to take place on two pincer-like fronts: on the borders with Iraq and Afghanistan. One was far to the south, the other clear across the country, in the east. All three scenarios were the same, except in two crucial details: how long Perlis and his team had to secure the oil fields and redirect the oil pipeline before the besieged Iranian military got wind of what was happening, and what shape their military would be in once they became aware of the oil field takeover. Still, by that time Halliday would have diverted the American forces set to rendezvous with the nonexistent indigenous group to provide support and lock down the area.

Someone else entered the tent. Anticipating a progress report on Arkadin‘s flight, he glanced up and started, suddenly certain that it was Moira. His heart racing and adrenaline pumping through him, he realized that it was only Fiona, another member of his elite team who had accompanied him here. Fiona, a redhead with fine features and porcelain skin heavily laced with freckles, looked nothing like Moira, and yet Moira was who he‘d seen. Why was she still on his mind?

For many years he‘d believed that he could not feel anything other than physical pain. He felt nothing when his parents died, or when his best friend in high school was killed in a hit-and-run accident. He remembered standing in burnished sunshine, watching his coffin being lowered into the ground, staring at the epic breasts of Marika DeSoto, their classmate, and wondering what they felt like. It was easy for him to stare at Marika‘s breasts because she was crying; all the kids were crying, apart from him.

He was certain there was something wrong with him, some missing element or essential connection to the outside world that allowed everything to pass him by like two-dimensional images on a movie screen. Until Moira, who had somehow infected him like a virus. Why would he care what she was doing, or how he had treated her when she was under his command?

Liss had warned him about Moira or, more accurately, his relationship with her, which Liss had termed — unhealthy. “Fire her and fuck her,” Liss had said in his usual economic style, “or forget her. Either way, get her out of your head before it’s too late. This happened to you once before, to disastrous results.”

The problem was that it was already too late; Moira was lodged in a place inside himself even he couldn‘t get to. Other than himself, she was the only living person who seemed three-dimensional, who actually lived and breathed. He desperately wanted her near him, but had no idea what he‘d do when she was. Whenever he confronted her now he felt like a child, his ferociously cold anger hiding his fear and insecurity. Possibly one could say he wanted her to love him, but being unable to love even himself, he had no clear conception of what love might consist of, what it would feel like, or even why he should desire it.

But of course, at the throbbing core of him he knew why he desired it, why, in fact, he didn‘t love Moira or even the thought of her. She was merely a symbol of someone else, whose life and death threw a shadow over his soul as if she were the devil or, if not the devil, then surely a demon, or an angel. Even now she had such a perfect hold on him that he could not even speak her name, or think of it, without a spasm of-what? fear, fury, confusion, possibly all three. The truth was that it was she who had infected him, not Moira. Terrible truth be known, his rage at Moira in the form of this unwavering vendetta was really a rage against himself. He had been so certain that he‘d hidden the thought of Holly away forever, but Moira‘s betrayal had cracked open the receptacle in which he stored her memory. And just this memory caused him to touch the ring on his forefinger with the same trepidation a cook might use to test the handle of a burning hot saucepan. He wanted it out of his sight, he wished, in fact, that he‘d never seen it or learned of it, and yet it had been years in his possession and not once had he taken it off for any reason. It was as if Holly and the ring had fused, as if, defying the laws of physics or biology or whatever science, impossible as it might seem, her essence remained in the ring. He looked down at it. Such a small thing to have defeated him so utterly.

He felt feverish now, as if the virus were advancing to another, terminal stage. He stared at the Bardem program without his usual concentration. “Just remember this last bit of advice, mate,” Liss had said to him. “More often than not, women are the downfall of men.”

Was it all coming apart, was there nothing but loss in the world?

Thrusting the laptop aside, he stood and strode out of the tent into the alien atmosphere of Iran. The architectural spiderwebs of the oil rigs circled the area like prison towers. The sound of their pumping filled the oily air with the low, steady rumble of mechanical animals prowling around their cages. The screech and clang of outmoded trucks shifting ill-maintained gears punctuated the afternoon, and the smell of crude was always in the air.

And then, above it all, came the scream of the jet engines as the Air Afrika plane appeared like a silver tube against the hazed and mottled blue of the sky. Arkadin and his men were moments away from landing. Soon the air would be thick with tracer fire, explosions, and shrapnel.

It was time to go to work.

Please tell me this is a joke, Peter Marks said when he and Willard walked into the Mexican restaurant and saw the man sitting alone at the rear banquette. Apart from this figure, Marks and Willard were the only customers in the place. The room smelled of fermented corn and spilled beer.

— I don‘t make jokes, Willard said.

— That really sucks, especially right at this moment.

— Don‘t ask me to do better, Willard said with some asperity, — because I can‘t.

They were in a part of Virginia unknown to Marks. He had no idea a Mexican restaurant would be open for breakfast. Willard raised an arm, a clear invitation for Marks to head on back. The man sitting alone was dressed in an expensive bespoke charcoal-blue suit, a pale blue shirt, and a navy tie with white polka dots. A small enamel replica of the American flag was pinned to his left lapel. He was drinking something out of a tall glass with a sprig of green growing out of the top. A mint julep, Marks would have thought, except that it was seven thirty in the morning.

Despite Willard‘s pressure, Marks balked. -This man is the enemy, he‘s the fucking anti-Christ as far as the intelligence community is concerned. His company flouts the law, does all the things we can‘t do, and gets paid obscene amounts of money to do them. While we slave away in the shit-filled belly of the beast, he‘s out there buying his Gulf-stream Sixes. He shook his head, stubborn to the last. -Really, Freddy, I don‘t think I can.

— Any route that leads to roadkill-weren‘t those your words? Willard smiled winningly. -Do you want to win this war or do you want to see the Old Man‘s dream flushed into the NSA recycle bin? His smile turned encouraging.