Robert Ludlum - The Bourne Sanction

Soraya produced a packet of Lambert amp; Butler cigarettes, knocked one out, lit up.

“When did that begin?” Bourne said.

Soraya rolled down her window partway, blew the smoke into the waning night. “The day I was promoted to director of Typhon.”

“Congratulations.” He sat back, impressed. “But now we have even more of a mystery. Why is the director of Typhon on a surveillance team at four in the morning? I would’ve thought that would be a job for someone farther down the CI food chain.”

“It would be, in other circumstances.” Soraya inhaled, blew smoke out the window again. What was left of the cigarette followed. Then she turned her body toward Bourne. “My new boss told me to handle this myself. That’s what I’m doing.”

“What does all this clandestine work have to do with Moira? She’s a civilian.”

“Maybe she is,” Soraya said, “and maybe she isn’t.” Her large eyes studied Bourne’s for a reaction. “I’ve been digging through the masses of interoffice e-mails and cell phone records going back over the last two years. I came upon some irregularities and handed them over to the new DCI.” She paused for a moment, as if unsure whether to continue. “The thing is, the irregularities concern Martin’s private communications with Moira.”

“You mean he told her CI classified secrets?”

“Frankly, we’re not sure. The communications weren’t intact; they had to be pieced together and enhanced electronically. Some words were garbled, others were out of order. It was clear, however, that they were collaborating on something that bypassed the normal CI channels.” She sighed. “It’s possible he was merely helping her with security issues for NextGen Energy Solutions. But especially after the multiple security breaches CI recently suffered, Hart has make it clear that we can’t afford to overlook the possibility that she’s working clandestinely for some other entity Martin knew nothing about.”

“You mean she was milking him for intel. I find that hard to believe.”

“Right. Now you know why I didn’t want to tell you about it.”

“I’d like to see these communications for myself.”

“For that you’ll have to see the DCI, which, quite honestly, I wouldn’t recommend. There are still high-level operatives in CI who blame you for the Old Man’s death.”

“That’s absurd,” Bourne said. “I had nothing to do with his death.”

Soraya ran a hand through her thick hair. “It was you who brought Karim al-Jamil back to CI thinking he was Martin Lindros.”

“He looked exactly like Martin, spoke exactly like him.”

“You vouched for him.”

“So did a phalanx of CI shrinks.”

“You’re an easy target around CI. Rob Batt, who’s just been promoted to deputy director, is the ringleader of a group who are convinced you’re a schizophrenic, unreliable rogue agent. I’m just saying.”

Bourne closed his eyes for a moment. He’d heard these allegations leveled against him time and again. “You’ve left off another reason why I’m an easy target. I’m a legacy left over from the Alex Conklin era. He had the Old Man’s confidence but hardly anyone else’s, mainly because no one knew what he was doing, especially with the program that created me.”

“All the more reason for you to stay in the shadows.”

Bourne glanced out the window. “I’ve got an early breakfast meeting.”

As he was about to get out of the car, Soraya put a hand on his arm. “Stay out of this, Jason. That’s my advice.”

“And I appreciate the concern.” He leaned toward her, kissed her lightly on the cheek. Then he was crossing the street. A moment later he’d vanished into shadow.

As soon as he was out of her sight, Bourne flipped open the cell phone he’d lifted from her when he’d leaned in to kiss her. Quickly he scrolled through to Veronica Hart’s number, connected with it. He wondered if he’d be pulling her out of sleep, but when she answered she sounded wide awake.

“How’s the surveillance going?” She had a rich, mellow voice.

“That’s what I want to talk with you about.”

There was the briefest of silences before she answered. “Who is this?”

“Jason Bourne.”

“Where is Soraya Moore?”

“Soraya is fine, Director. I simply needed a way to contact you once I’d broken the surveillance, and I was quite certain Soraya wouldn’t give it to me willingly.”

“So you stole her phone.”

“I want to meet with you,” Bourne said. He didn’t have much time. At any moment, Soraya might reach for her phone, would know he’d hijacked it and come after him. “I want to see the evidence that led you to order the surveillance on Moira Trevor.”

“I don’t take kindly to being told what to do, especially by a rogue agent.”

“But you will meet with me, Director, because I’m the only one with access to Moira. I’m your fast track to finding out if she’s really rotten or whether you’re on a wild goose chase.”

I think I’ll stick to the proven way.” Veronica Hart, sitting in her new office with Rob Batt, mouthed the words Jason Bourne to her DDCI.

“But you can’t,” Bourne said in her ear. “Now that I’ve broken the surveillance I can ensure that Moira vanishes off your grid.”

Hart stood up. “I also don’t respond well to threats.”

“I have no need to threaten you, Director. I’m simply telling you the facts.”

Batt studied her expression as well as her responses, trying to get a reading of the conversation. They had been working nonstop since she’d returned from her meeting with the president. He was exhausted, on the point of leaving, but this call interested him intensely.

“Look,” Bourne said, “Martin was my friend. He was a hero. I don’t want his reputation tarnished.”

“All right,” Hart said, “come to my office later this morning, say around eleven.”

“I’m not setting foot inside CI headquarters,” Bourne said. “We’ll meet this evening at five at the entrance to the Freer Gallery.”

“What if I-?”

But Bourne had already severed the connection.

Moira was up, clad in her paisley robe, when Bourne returned. She was in the kitchen, making fresh coffee. She glanced at him without comment. She had more sense than to ask about his comings and goings.

Bourne took off his coat. “Just checking the area for tails.”

She paused. “And did you find any?”

“Quiet as the grave.” He didn’t believe that Moira had been pumping Martin for CI intel, but the inordinate sense of security-of secretiveness-instilled in him by Conklin warned him not to tell her the truth.

She relaxed visibly. “That’s a relief.” Setting the pot on the flame, she said, “Do we have time for a cup together?”

Gray light filtered through the blinds, brightening by the minute. An engine coughed, traffic started up on the street. Voices rose briefly, and a dog barked. The morning had begun.

They stood side by side in the kitchen. Between them on the wall was a Kit-Cat Klock, its raffish kitty eyes and tail moving back and forth as time passed.

“Jason, tell me it wasn’t just mutual loneliness and sorrow that motivated us.”

When he took her in his arms he felt a tiny shiver work its way through her. “One-night stands are not in my vocabulary, Moira.”

She put her head against his chest.

He pulled her hair back from her cheek. “I don’t feel like coffee right now.”

She moved against him. “Neither do I.”

Professor Dominic Specter was stirring sugar into the strong Turkish tea he always carried with him when David Webb walked into the Wonderlake diner on 36th Street, NW. The place was lined with wooden boards, the tables reclaimed wooden slabs, the mismatched chairs found objects. Photographs of loggers and Pacific Northwest vistas were ranged around the walls, interspersed with real logging tools: peaveys, cant hooks, pulp hooks, and timberjacks. The place was a perennial student favorite because of its hours, the inexpensive food, and the inescapable associations with Monty Python’s “The Lumberjack Song.”