Bourne 7 – The Bourne Deception

32

SHAHRAKE NASIRI-ASTARA at last! Noah Perlis had been to many exotic destinations in his time, but this area of northwestern Iran wasn‘t one of them. In fact, apart from the stark towers of the oil wells and the attendant petroleum particulates, it was so ordinary looking it could have been somewhere in rural Arkansas. However, Noah had no time to be bored. An hour ago, he‘d received a call from Black River informing him that Dondie Parker, the man he‘d sent to kill Humphry Bamber, had failed to check in as he should have following the completion of his assignment. To Noah, this meant two things: One, Bamber was still alive, and, two, he‘d lied about getting away from Moira, because there was no way he could have survived Dondie Parker on his own. Extrapolating from these hypotheses brought him to another hypothesis of vital and immediate importance to him: the possibility that the newest version of Bardem was poisoned in some way he‘d never be able to discover.

Lucky for him his innate paranoia forced him to back up everything, even his computer. No point in letting his enemies know he was on to them. He‘d shut down the laptop on which Bamber had uploaded the poisoned software and switched to his fully loaded second laptop, which was still running the previous version of Bardem.

He sat inside a canvas tent on a camp chair, much as he imagined Julius Caesar had sat, mapping out his successful military campaigns, centuries ago. Instead of a map of Gaul hand-drawn by Greek cartographers, he had a handmade software program analyzing this oil-rich part of the world running on his laptop. Caesar, a brilliant general in any age, would have understood instantly what he was up to, of that he had no doubt.

He had three scenarios running simultaneously on Bardem, all of them different in small but crucial ways. Much depended on how the Iranian government responded to the incursion-if they found out about it in time. That was the issue, really: timing. It was one thing to be on Iranian soil, quite another to start a military operation on it. The point of Pinprick was its small footprint, hence its name. Did an elephant even feel a pinprick?

You could be sure it didn‘t. Unfortunately, Noah couldn‘t be as certain that the Iranian government wouldn‘t feel Pinprick until Arkadin‘s force of twenty men had established their beachhead and begun redirecting the oil pipeline.

Because the objective of Pinprick had always been the oil in the Iranian fields here in Shahrake NasiriAstara. There was nothing else of value here, militarily or otherwise. That was what was so brilliant about Danziger‘s plan-the seizure of these rich oil fields under the cover of a larger military incursion by America and a sizable coalition of allies in response to Iran‘s alleged act of war against the United States and, indeed, all civilized nations. If the Iranians could shoot down an American passenger jet over Egyptian airspace, what would stop them from downing the jets of other nations that opposed their nuclear program? This had been the cornerstone of the president‘s argument to the United Nations, one that had proved so compelling that it had eaten through all the knee-jerk pacifistic, footdragging bullshit that usually infested the international body of navelgazers and do-nothings.

Through his machinations, Iran had been proven to be a true out-law nation in the eyes of the world. So much the better for everyone. The country‘s regime was a menace; if the rest of the world needed a bit of goading to get off their fat backsides and take matters into their own hands, well, that was the way of the world. One of Black River‘s specialties-one that set it apart from any other private risk management firm-was its ability to alter facts to create a reality that could be molded to a client‘s wishes. This was what Bud Halliday had asked of Black River, why the NSA was paying it a fortune through one of many blind trusts that could in no way be traced back to the secretary or anyone at NSA. So far as any paper trail was concerned-there was always a paper trail, electronic or otherwise, that was a given-Black River‘s client was Good Shepherd Holdings, PLC, on the Inner Hebrides island of Islay, which, if anyone cared to make the trek, consisted of a three-room office in a drafty stone building, where three men and a woman wrote and managed insurance policies for local distilleries throughout the islands.

As for the democratic indigenous group Halliday so heartily touted to the president, it and the meetings its leaders had with Black River personnel were a part of Pinprick. In other words, they were a figment of Danziger‘s imagination. Danziger had argued that the creation of the indigenous group was vital both to get the president moving further in the direction of war and as a reason to shovel virtually unlimited funds to Black River, to cover the massive expenditures for its partners: Yevsen, Maslov, and Arkadin, all of whom were paid by Good Shepherd.

One of Perlis‘s men entered the tent to tell him that Arkadin‘s plane would be arriving within fifteen minutes. Perlis nodded, silently dismissing him. He had disliked using Dimitri Maslov, not because he felt he couldn‘t trust him, but because it galled him that he needed Maslov to deal with Yevsen. Worse, Maslov had brought in Leonid Arkadin, a man Perlis had never met, but whose curriculum vitae in the shadow world of wet work was both impressive and worrying. Impressive because he‘d never failed to successfully complete an assignment; worrying because he was a wild card-in his own way, eerily similar to the late Jason Bourne. Both men had proved themselves unreliable at taking orders and sticking to the game plan they‘d been given. They were both master improvisers, certainly an element in their success, but also a nightmare for anyone attempting to handle them.

Thinking of the Russians caused him to consider the raid on Nikolai Yevsen‘s headquarters in Khartoum. He hadn‘t stayed around to find out who had staged it or what had happened, instead racing safely to the airport, where a Black River light transport was waiting for him just off the runway. When he‘d tried to contact Oliver Liss, he‘d gotten Dick Braun instead. Braun was another of the triumvirate who had founded Black River, but Perlis had never reported to him before. Braun wasn‘t happy, but then he already knew that the raid had been staged by a contingent of the Russian FSB-2 that, it turned out, had been on the trail of Yevsen‘s business for over two years. Noah also learned that Yevsen had been killed in the raid, a mildly surprising turn of events, but one that he, unlike Braun, welcomed. As far as he was concerned the arms dealer‘s death meant one less partner, one less potential security problem to deal with. He could neither fathom nor condone Braun‘s white-hot fury at Dimitri Maslov‘s displeasure. So far as Noah was concerned, the head of the Kazanskaya grupperovka was just another moneyhungry Russian thug. Sooner or later he‘d have to be dealt with-not that he said this to his boss; such a comment would only further inflame the situation. What neither he nor Braun knew was the identity of the American who had infiltrated the Air Afrika building immediately prior to the FSB-2

raid. It was too late to think about what the American might have wanted.

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.

— One would think that after serving all this time in, as you say, the shit-filled belly of the beast, you might crave a little fresh air. Come on. After the first shock, it won‘t be so bad.

— Promise, Daddy?

Willard laughed under his breath. -That‘s the spirit.

Taking Marks‘s arm he steered him across the linoleum tiles. As they approached the banquette, the solitary man seemed to appraise them both. With his dark, wavy hair, wide forehead, and rugged features, he looked like a film star; Robert Forster came immediately to mind, but there were bits and pieces of others, Marks was certain.

— Good morning, gentlemen. Please sit down. Oliver Liss not only looked like a film star, he sounded like one. He had a deep, rich voice that rolled out of his throat with controlled power. -I took the liberty of ordering drinks. He lifted his tall, frosty glass as two others were set down in front of Marks and Willard. -It‘s iced chai with cinnamon and nutmeg. He took a swig of his drink, urging them to do the same. -It‘s said that nutmeg is a psychedelic in high doses. His smile managed to convey the notion that he‘d successfully tried out the theory.

In fact, everything about Oliver Liss exuded success to the most exacting degree. But then he and his two partners hadn‘t built Black River from the ground up on trust funds and dumb luck. As Marks sipped at his drink, he felt as if a nest of pit vipers had taken up residence in his abdomen. Mentally, he cursed Willard for not preparing him for this meeting. He tried to dredge up everything he‘d read or heard about Oliver Liss, and was dismayed to discover that it was precious little. For one thing, the man kept out of the limelight-one of the other partners, Kerry Mangold, was the public face of Black River. For another, very little was known about him. Marks recalled Googling him once and discovering a disconcertingly short bio. Apparently an orphan, Liss was raised in a series of Chicago foster homes until the age of eighteen, when he got his first full-time job working for a building contractor. Apparently the contractor had both contacts and juice, because in no time Liss had begun working in the campaign of the state senator, for whom the contractor had built a twenty-thousand-square-foot home in Highland Park. When the man was elected he took Liss with him to DC, and the rest was, as they say, history. Liss was unmarried, without family affiliations of any kind, at least not that anyone knew about. In short, he lived behind a lead curtain not even the Internet could pierce.

Marks tried not to wince when he drank the chai; he was a coffee drinker and hated any kind of tea, especially ones that tried to masquerade as something else. This one tasted like a cupful of the Ganges.

Someone else might have said, Do you like it? just to break the ice, but it seemed Liss was uninterested in icebreaking or any other form of conventional communication. Instead he directed his eyes, the same deep shade of blue as the background of his tie, to Marks and said, — Willard tells me good things about you. Are they true?

— Willard doesn‘t lie, Marks said.

This brought the ghost of a smile to Liss‘s lips. He continued to sip his vile chai, his gaze never wavering. He seemed not to have to blink, a disconcerting asset in anyone, especially someone in his position.

The food came, then. It appeared as if Liss had ordered not only their drinks but their breakfast as well. This consisted of buttered fresh corn tortillas and scrambled eggs with peppers and onions, drenched in an orange chile sauce that just about incinerated the lining of Marks‘s mouth. Following the first incautious bite, he swallowed hard and stuffed his face with tortillas and sour cream. Water would just spread the heat from his stomach to his small intestine.

Graciously, Liss waited until Marks‘s eyes had stopped watering. Then he said, — You‘re quite right about our Willard. He doesn‘t lie to his friends,

just as if there had been no gap in the conversation. -As for everyone else, well, his lies seem like the soul of truth.

If Willard was flattered by this talk, he gave no indication. Rather, he contented himself by eating his food as slowly and methodically as a priest, his expression Sphinx-like.

— However, if you don‘t mind, Liss continued, — tell me something about yourself.

— You mean my bio, my curriculum vitae?

Liss showed his teeth briefly. -Tell me something about yourself I don‘t know.

Clearly, he meant something personal, something revealing. And it was at this precise moment that Marks realized that Willard had been in discussions with Oliver Liss before this morning, perhaps for some time. “It’s already rebooted,” Willard had said to him, referring to Treadstone. Once again he felt blindsided by the quarterback of his own team, not a good feeling to have at a meeting with the import of this one.

He shrugged mentally. No use fighting it, he was here, he might as well play out the string. This was Willard‘s show, anyway, he was just along for the ride. -One week shy of my first wedding anniversary I met someone-a dancer-a ballet dancer, of all things. She was very young, not yet twentytwo, a good twelve years my junior. We saw each other once a week like clockwork for nineteen months and then, just like that, it was over. Her company went on tour to Moscow, Prague, and Warsaw, but that wasn‘t the reason.

Liss sat back and, drawing out a cigarette, lit it in defiance of the law. Why should he care? Marks thought acidly. He is the law.

— What was the reason? Liss said in an oddly soft tone of voice.

— To tell you the truth, I don‘t know. Marks pushed his food around his plate. -It‘s a funny thing. That heat-one day it was there, the next it wasn‘t.

Liss blew out a plume of smoke. -I assume you‘re divorced now.

— I‘m not. But I suspect you already knew that.

— Why didn‘t you and your wife split up?

This was what Liss‘s information couldn‘t tell him. Marks shrugged. -I never stopped loving my wife.

— So she forgave you.

— She never found out, Marks said.

Liss‘s eyes glittered like sapphires. -You didn‘t tell her.

— No.

— You never felt the urge to tell her, to confess. He paused reflectively. -Most men would.

— There was nothing to tell her, Marks said. -Something happened to me-

like the flu-then it was gone.

— Like it never happened.

Marks nodded. -More or less.

Liss stubbed out his cigarette, turned to Willard, and regarded him for a long moment. -All right, he said. -You have your funding. Then he rose and, without another word, walked out of the restaurant.

It‘s the oil fields, stupid! Moira slapped her forehead with the palm of her hand. -Good God, why didn‘t I see that all along, it‘s so damn obvious!

— Obvious now that you know everything, Humphry Bamber said.

They were in Christian Lamontierre‘s kitchen, eating roast beef and Havarti cheese sandwiches on sprouted-wheat bread Bamber had made from the well-stocked fridge, washed down with Badoit, a French mineral water. Bamber‘s laptop was on the table in front of them, Bardem up and running through the three scenarios Noah had inputted into the software program.

— I thought the same thing the first time I read Israel Zangwill‘s The Big Bow Mystery. Humphry Bamber swallowed a mouthful of sandwich. -It‘s the first real locked-room mystery, although others as far back as Herodotus in the fifth century BCE, believe it or not, toyed with the idea. But it was Zangwill who in 1892 introduced the concept of misdirection, which became the touchstone for all stories of so-called impossible crimes from then on.

— And Pinprick is classic misdirection. Moira studied the scenarios with mounting fascination and dread. -But on such a massive scale that without Bardem no one would be able to figure out that the real reason for invading Iran was to confiscate their oil fields. She pointed at the screen. -This area-Noah‘s target area, Shahrake NasiriAstara-I‘ve read a couple of intelligence reports about it. At least a third of Iran‘s oil comes from there. She pointed again. -See how small a geographic area it is? That makes it both vulnerable to an assault by a relatively small force and easily defendable by that same small force. It‘s perfect for Noah. She shook her head. -My God, this is brilliant-demented, horrific, unthinkable even, but decidedly brilliant.

Bamber went and got another bottle of Badoit out of the fridge. -I don‘t understand.

— I‘m not yet certain of all the details, but what‘s clear is that Black River has made a deal with the devil. Someone high up in the US government has been pushing for us to do something about Iran‘s fast-progressing nuclear program, which threatens to destabilize the entire Middle East. We-and other right-minded governments-have been making noises in the correct diplomatic channels for Iran to cease and dismantle its nuclear reactors. Iran‘s response has been to thumb its nose in our faces. Next, we and our allies tried economic embargoes, which only made Iran laugh because we need their oil, and we‘re not the only ones. Worse, they have the strategic option of closing down the Straits of Hormuz, which would have the effect of shutting down oil shipments from all the OPEC nations in the region.

She got up and put her plate into the sink, then returned to the table.

— Someone here in Washington decided that patience was getting us nowhere.

Bamber frowned. -And?

— So they decided to force the issue. They used the downing of our airliner to go to war against Iran, but they‘re also apparently running a side mission.

— Pinprick.

— Exactly. What Bardem is telling us is that under the chaos of the ground invasion, a small cadre of Black River operatives-with the full consent of the government-is going to take over the oil fields in Shahrake NasiriAstara, giving us far more control over our economic destiny. With this Iranian oil, we‘ll no longer have to kowtow to the Saudis, the Iranians, Venezuela, or any OPEC nation, for that matter. America will be oilindependent.

— But the oil field land-grab is illegal, isn‘t it?

— Duh. However, for some reason that doesn‘t seem to be concerning anyone at the moment.

— Well, what are you going to do now?

That was, of course, the billion-dollar question. In another time, another place she would have called Ronnie Hart, but Ronnie was dead. Noah-

she was quite certain it was Noah-had seen to that. She missed Ronnie now, more than ever, but the selfish reason for her emotion shamed her, and she turned away from the acknowledgment. That‘s when she thought of Soraya Moore. She‘d met Soraya through Bourne, and liked her. That they‘d shared a past hadn‘t bothered her in the slightest; she wasn‘t the jealous type.

How to get in touch with Soraya? Opening her cell, she called CI headquarters. The director, she was told, was out of the country. When she told the operative that her call was urgent, he told her to wait. A little over sixty seconds later, he was back on the phone.

— Give me the number where Director Moore can reach you, he said.

Moira recited her cell phone number and cut the connection, fully expecting that her request would be promptly lost in the maze of paperwork and requests that must constantly flood Soraya‘s electronic in box. She was therefore stunned when her cell phone rang ten minutes later, showing an OUT

OF AREA logo on her tiny screen.

She put the cell to her ear. -Hello?

— Moira? It‘s Soraya Moore. Where are you? Are you in trouble?

Moira laughed in relief to hear the other woman‘s voice. -I‘m in DC and yes, I‘ve been in trouble, and out. Listen, I have some news for you.

Quickly and methodically, she started at the beginning, outlining what she knew about Jay Weston‘s murder-and what she was now certain was Steve Stevenson‘s murder-as well as what she knew of Ronnie Hart‘s death. -It all boils down to this software program Noah Perlis commissioned. She went on to describe what Bardem did, how she had obtained a copy of it, and what it had revealed about Black River‘s plans to confiscate the Iranian oil fields.

— What I can‘t figure is how such a complex plan could have been hatched after the terrorist attack on the airplane outside Cairo.

— It wasn‘t, Soraya said. -I‘m currently in Khartoum and here‘s why. And she told Moira what she and Amun Chalthoum had discovered regarding the Iranian Kowsar 3 missile and the four-man American cadre that had smuggled it over the Sudanese border into Egypt. -So you see it‘s bigger even than Black River and elements inside the government. Even Noah couldn‘t have gotten to Nikolai Yevsen without the help of the Russians.

Now Moira understood why no one was concerned about the illegality of the oil field land-grab. If the Russians were in on Pinprick they would deflect world opinion in the right direction.

— Moira, Soraya said now, — we found the four men outside Khartoum. They were shot once in the head, execution-style, and their bodies dumped in with quicklime. But we managed to salvage something odd from each of them. They look like dog tags, only the writing on them is enciphered.

Moira felt her heart thumping hard in her chest. -They sound like the tags Black River gives to its field personnel.

— Then we could prove it was Black River personnel who fired that missile. We could avert this ill-advised and self-serving war.

— I‘d have to see them to make sure, Moira said.

— I‘ll overnight them to you, Soraya said. -My pal here tells me he can expedite the shipment so you‘ll get the tags tomorrow morning.

— That would be fantastic. If they are what they seem to be, I can get them processed in hours. I‘ll just have to make sure they‘re delivered into the right hands.

— That wouldn‘t be CI, Soraya said. -There‘s a new director, M. Errol Danziger. Though his appointment hasn‘t yet been officially announced, he‘s already taken over-and he‘s Secretary Halliday‘s man. She took a breath.

— Listen, do you need protection? I can have some of my people to wherever you are within twenty minutes.

— Thanks very much, but the way things are going the fewer people who know where I am, the better.

— Understood. There was another, longer pause. -I‘ve been thinking a lot about Jason recently.

— Me, too. Moira was thinking how happy she was that Jason wasn‘t a part of all this. He needed his time to heal, both physically and mentally. Being a hairbreadth from dying wasn‘t something you got over in a few weeks or even months.

— There‘s a lot about him to remember. Half a world away, Soraya was thinking she‘d call Jason and update him just as soon she concluded this conversation.

— You and I share that, don‘t we?

— Don‘t forget about him, Moira, Soraya said just before she rang off.