“He wouldn’t have liked that.”
“He didn’t,” Bourne said. “In typical Ben David fashion, he concocted a story about me and sold it to the IDF commander. As a result, the IDF went after me.”
“Which accomplished the dual goal of getting you and the IDF off his back, giving him a free field to pursue his own objective without interference. Clever.”
“Not clever enough,” Bourne said. “I evaded the IDF by impersonating an arms dealer and joining one of the bedouin caravans. When Ben David and his unit attacked them, there I was.”
Rebeka indicated that they should sit on the floor. “What happened?” she said, when they were settled.
“Ben David got the surprise of his life. According to the caravan leader, the shipments originated in Pakistan, Syria, and Russia, not with the Egyptian government.”
“You believed him?”
Bourne nodded. “He had no reason to lie. As far as he was concerned, I was there to supervise one of my own shipments. He received his payments from Russian arms dealers, like the one I was impersonating, and from terrorist cells with connections to the Colombian and Mexican cartels.”
His eyes glittered. “Ben David’s intel was either incorrect or deliberate disinformation. Either way, he was wasting his and the Mossad’s time in the Sinai. Trouble was, Ben David refused to believe me. He ordered me executed, and I almost was.”
“But you escaped.”
“With the help of my newfound bedouin friends. Ben David was infuriated, vowing to hunt me down and kill me.”
“That’s the end of the story?”
“Until it picked up again when we flew into Dahr El Ahmar.”
“Shit, I wish I had known.”
“What would you have done differently?” Bourne said. “You needed immediate medical assistance. The Mossad camp was the closest safe haven.”
“I would have warned you.”
Bourne grunted. “Seeing Ben David again was warning enough.”
“He took off half a mountaintop trying to bring you down,” she said. “But then again, you scarred him for life.”
“He got what he deserved.”
Her eyes studied the shadowed contours of his face. “He’ll never forgive you.”
“I don’t want his forgiveness.”
“He’ll never stop hunting you.”
Bourne gave the hint of a smile. “He isn’t the first. He won’t be the last.”
“It must be...” She seemed to lose her voice, or her nerve.
“It must be what?”
“A difficult life you’ve chosen.”
“I think,” he said softly, “it chose me. I’m an accidental passenger.” She shook her head. “You’re an agent of change.”
“Maybe just the center of a balancing act.”
“That’s enough...more than enough, maybe, for one man.”
They sat silently then, their eyes locked, thinking their own thoughts, until they heard a sharp scrape. The overhead lights flickered on, revealing Diego de la Rivera.
“The call’s come in,” he said. “It’s time.”
19
"YOU’RE INSANE.” Martha Christiana stared up at Don Fernando. “You’re telling me we’re alone on the plane?”
“Yes.”
“The pilot and navigator have parachuted out.”
“Three minutes ago. It’s on autopilot.”
“And you plan to crash the plane—”
“Crash it, yes.” He slipped off a thick engraved gold ring with a pigeon-blood cabochon ruby in its center. “The recovery team will find this. It is unique. It will be identified as mine.”
Martha, breathless, still had trouble believing this crazy plan. “But they’ll find no body remains.”
“Oh yes, they will.”
She followed him to the rear of the plane, where, when she saw stacked up three body bags, she recoiled. She stared at him. “This is a joke, right?”
“Unzip the bags.”
He said this with such utter calmness that she felt a chill run down her spine. This was a side of him he had not revealed until now. Brushing past him, she leaned over the top body bag and, with a convulsive gesture, unzipped it. She found herself staring into the blank white face of a corpse.
“Three men,” Don Fernando said. “The pilot, the navigator, and me. That is the way it will be reported.”
She whirled on him. “And you’ll just what? Disappear from running Aguardiente Bancorp?”
“It’s a leap of faith,” he said, turning away. “Come now. Our time has run out.” He broke out a pair of parachutes and handed one to her. “Or do you want to die in the crash?”
“I can’t believe this is happening.”
“But it is.” He shrugged into his harness, tightening the bands across his chest. As if noticing her hesitation for the first time, he frowned. “Are you having second thoughts?”
“I don’t understand...”
“Then kill me now and have done with it. You’re running out of time. Fulfill Maceo Encarnación’s commission. I doubt I can stop you.”
Her frown deepened. “He said you wanted to take everything away from him.”
“How much do you know about his empire?”
She shook her head.
“Well then, there is no reason for his comment to affect you.”
She thought about her meeting with Maceo Encarnación at the Place de la Concorde, encircled by constant traffic, the shouts and laughter of unknowing tourists. In the shadow of the guillotine and the Reign of Terror. “But it did.”
“And so...” He spread his hands wide. When she didn’t answer, he stepped toward her, taking the parachute out of her hands and manipulating the straps over her shoulders. But when he began to cinch the wide strap across her waist, she gripped him.
“Wait.”
Their eyes met.
“Last chance, Martha,” he said. “You must decide now. Stay with Maceo Encarnación or take the first step into that new beginning you spoke about in Gibraltar.”
He removed her hands and cinched the waist strap tight. “It seems to me that your past has been defined by following a series of men.” He led her to the door, put his hand on the huge metal bar that would unlock it. “Continue or change, Martha. Your choice is as simple as that.”
“You call this a simple choice?”
“Call it what you will, it’s yours to make.” His voice softened. “No one can help you with this decision, Martha. I wouldn’t even try.”
She took a breath. She thought about the lighthouse, her father’s grave, her mother lost in a world where Martha was still a child, still a part of her life. She stared into Don Fernando’s eyes, wanting to read something there, but he was true to his word: he wasn’t going to try to influence her. And all at once, she realized that he was the first man in her life who hadn’t sought to manipulate her.
She nodded then and replaced his hand on the door’s locking bar. “Let me,” she said.
He laughed and kissed her on both cheeks with great affection. “Best I show you something first.”
“You said we were out of time.”
He guided her back up the aisle to the front of the plane, opened the door to the cockpit, and showed her the pilot and navigator alive and well in their seats.
“Better strap in, boss,” the pilot said. “We’ll be landing in five minutes.”
Charles Thorne turned, restless in bed.
The truth of the matter was he hated and feared Li Wan, yet the two men were bound together by the stream of secrets they passed back and forth as if through a delicate membrane. They were conduits; they needed each other. Thorne turned again, trying and failing to get comfortable.
Worse, by far, was that he envied Li Wan. He had been in love with Natasha Illion, the Israeli supermodel, Li’s inamorata. And he could swear that Li knew. Each time they were together, Li presented Natasha as if she were bathed in a follow spot, or so it seemed to him. And Natasha, perhaps being in on Li’s little running joke, always wore the most provocative designer outfits—necklines down to her navel or mesh tops through which Thorne stole clandestine peeks at her small but perfect breasts, the nipples like cherry buds. Thorne moaned, imagining his mouth enclosing them.