Robert Ludlum - The Bourne Sanction

“You look very handsome in that suit,” Soraya said.

“It’s fuckin’ uncomfortable,” he said. “I feel stiff.”

“Just like every NSA agent.”

He laughed the way a Roman gladiator might as he entered the Colosseum.

“Which is the point,” she added. “You’ve got the tag Deron gave you?”

He patted a place over his heart. “Safe and sound.”

Soraya nodded. “Okay, here we go.”

He knew there was a chance he’d never come out of that house alive, but he didn’t care. Why should he? What had his life amounted to up until now? Shit-all. He’d stood up-just as Deron had-made his choice. That’s all a man asks for in this life.

Soraya presented the credentials LaValle had sent her by messenger this morning. Nevertheless, both she and Tyrone were scrutinized by a bookend pair of suits with square jaws and standing orders not to smile. Finally, they passed muster, and were waved through.

As Tyrone drove down the snaking gravel drive Soraya pointed out the terrible gauntlet of surveillance systems an intruder would have to pass in order to infiltrate from beyond the property’s borders. This monologue reassured him that they’d already bypassed these risks by being LaValle’s guests. Now all they had to do was negotiate the interior of the house. Getting out again was another matter entirely.

He drove up to the portico. Before he could turn off the engine, a valet came to relieve him of the car, yet another square-jawed military type who’d never look right in his civilian suit.

General Kendall, punctual as usual, was at the door to meet them. He gave Soraya’s hand a perfunctory shake, then eyeballed Tyrone as she introduced him.

“Your bodyguard, I presume,” Kendall said in a tone someone would use for a rebuke. “But he doesn’t look like standard-issue CI material.”

“This isn’t a standard CI rendezvous,” Soraya returned tartly.

Kendall shrugged. Another perfunctory handshake and he turned on his heel, leading them inside the hulking structure. Through the public rooms, gilt-edged, refined, expensive beyond modern-day imagining, along hushed corridors lined with martial paintings, past mullioned windows through which the January sunlight sparked in beams that stretched across the plush blue carpet. Without seeming to, Tyrone took note of every detail, as if he were casing the joint for a high-end robbery, which in fact he was. They passed the door down to the basement levels. It looked precisely as Soraya had drawn it from memory for him and Deron.

They went on another ten yards to the walnut doors leading to the Library. The fireplace contained a roaring blaze, a grouping had been set with four chairs in the same spot where Soraya said she had sat with Kendall and LaValle on her first visit. Willard met them just inside the door.

“Good afternoon, Ms. Moore,” he said with his customary half bow. “How very nice to see you again so soon. Would you care for your Ceylon tea?”

“That would be wonderful, thank you.”

Tyrone was about to ask for a Coke, but thought better of it. Instead he ordered another Ceylon tea, having not the faintest idea what it tasted like.

“Very good,” Willard said, and left them.

“This way,” Kendall said unnecessarily, leading them to the grouping of chairs where Luther LaValle was already seated, staring out the mullioned windows at the light gathered to an oval over the western hills.

He must have heard the whisper of their approach, because he rose and turned just as they came up. The maneuver seemed to Soraya artfully rehearsed, and therefore as artificial as LaValle’s smile. Dutifully, she introduced Tyrone, and they all sat down together.

LaValle steepled his fingers. “Before we begin, Director, I feel compelled to point out that our own archives department has unearthed some fragmentary history on the Black Legion. Apparently, they did exist during the time of the Third Reich. They were composed of Muslim prisoners of war who were brought back to Germany from the first putsches into the Soviet Union. These Muslims, mainly of Turkish descent from the Caucasus, detested Stalin so much they’d do anything to topple his regime, even becoming Nazis.”

LaValle shook his head like a history professor recounting evil days to a class of wide-eyed students. “It’s a particularly unpleasant footnote in a thoroughly repugnant decade. But as for the Black Legion itself, there’s no evidence whatsoever that it survived the regime that spawned it. Besides which, its benefactor Himmler was a master of propaganda, especially when it came to advancing himself in the eyes of Hitler. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the role of the Black Legion on the Eastern Front was minimal, that it was in fact Himmler’s fantastic propaganda machine that gave it the feared reputation it enjoyed, not anything its members themselves did.”

He smiled, the sun emerging from behind storm clouds. “Now, in that light, let me take a look at the Typhon intercepts.”

Soraya tolerated this rather condescending introduction, meant to discredit the origin of the intercepts before she even handed them over. She allowed indignation and humiliation to pass through her so she could remain calm and focused on her mission. Pulling the slim briefcase onto her lap, she unlocked the coded lock, extracted a red file with a thick black stripe across its upper right-hand corner, marking it as DIRECTOR EYES ONLY-material of the highest security clearance.

Staring LaValle in the face, she handed it over.

“Excuse me, Director.” Tyrone held out his hand. “The electronic tape.”

“Oh, yes, I forgot,” Soraya said. “Mr. LaValle, would you please hand the file to Mr. Elkins.”

LaValle checked the file more closely, saw a ribbon of shiny metal sealing the file. “Don’t bother. I can peel this back myself.”

“Not if you want to read the intercepts,” Tyrone said. “Unless the tape is opened with this”-he held up a small plastic implement-“the file will incinerate within seconds.”

LaValle nodded his approval of the security measures Soraya had taken.

As he gave the file to Tyrone, Soraya said, “Since our last meeting my people have intercepted more communication from the same entity, which increasingly seems to be the command center.”

LaValle frowned. “A command center? That’s highly unusual for a terrorist network, which is, by definition, made up of independent cadres.”

“That’s what makes the intercepts so compelling.”

“It also makes them suspect, in my opinion,” LaValle said. “Which is why I’m anxious to read them myself.”

By this time, Tyrone had slit the metallic security tape, handed the file back. LaValle’s gaze dropped as he opened the file and began to read.

At this point Tyrone said, “I need to use the bathroom.”

LaValle waved a hand. “Go ahead,” he said without looking up.

Kendall watched him as he went up to Willard, who was on his way over with the drinks, to ask for directions. Soraya saw this out of the corner of her eye. If all went well, in the next couple of minutes Tyrone would be standing in front of the door down to the basement at the precise moment Kiki sent the virus to the NSA security system.

Ivan Volkin was a hairy bear of a man, salt-and-pepper hair standing straight up like a madman, a full beard white as snow, small but cheerful eyes the color of a rainstorm. He was slightly bandy-legged, as if he’d been riding a horse all his life. His lined and leathery face lent him a certain dignified aspect, as if in his life he’d earned the respect of many.

He greeted them warmly, welcoming them into an apartment that appeared small because of the stacks of books and periodicals that covered every conceivable horizontal surface, including the kitchen stovetop and his bed.