The question that vexed Hendricks most was the identity of Li’s handler. Not one of the DoD’s vaunted sources could tell him who might be running Li Wan.
Hendricks turned his mind to more practical matters. “Ann, I want you dressed and out of here before the team arrives. You have a place?”
She nodded. “A room at the Liaison. I use it when I have late nights on the Hill.”
“Go there now. Tomorrow you will assume your role as a grieving widow.”
“What about Li?”
“He’ll want to convey his condolences,” Hendricks said. “Encourage him to do so in person.”
“It won’t be easy. As we’ve seen, he is a very wary man. If he becomes suspicious now, we’ll never find out who’s running him and what they want.”
“You’re right.” Hendricks thought for a moment. “You’re going to have to give him something that will allay any suspicions he might harbor.”
“It’ll have to be something big—something important.”
Hendricks nodded. “Agreed. Give up his girl.”
“What?” Ann, plainly shaken, stared at him, stupefied. “We can’t. You know we can’t.”
“Do you have a better idea?”
Silence.
“Good God,” Ann Ring said, “I didn’t sign up for this.” “But you did, Ann. You know you did.”
She licked her lips. Her face was pale. “It’s people’s lives we’re manipulating.”
“Not civilians,” Hendricks said. “We all signed the same document.”
“In blood.”
He did not contradict her.
She glanced over one last time at the corpse of her husband. “At what point,” she said, “are you completely drained of all human emotion?”
“You’d better get going,” Hendricks said. He had no clear answer for her.
Four minutes after Ann Ring departed, the clean-up crew arrived. Shortly thereafter, Davies delivered the man who had shot Charles Thorne to death in the midst of a break-in robbery. Hendricks settled the Walther into the corpse’s right hand, curling the forefinger over the trigger. When he and Davies had set it in place and made certain everything was correct, he called Eric Brey, director of the FBI, and emotionlessly filled him in on the murder.
Fuck,” Peter Marks said, “I’m alive.”
“You sound disappointed,” Anderson said.
There was a jouncing, along with the steady vibration of a vehicle engine. His eyes roved.
“Ambulance,” Anderson said. “It was Delia who got to you first. She was inside the school when the shooting took place. She called me first thing.”
Peter licked his lips. “How am I?”
“You’re fine,” Anderson said.
“Where was I shot?”
“You...” Anderson’s eyes cut to the paramedic on his right. Peter felt a sudden lurch in the pit of his stomach. “I can’t feel any thing.”
Anderson’s expression betrayed nothing. “Trauma. Doesn’t mean a thing.”
“But I can’t feel...” Peter braced himself. “Is my spine involved?” Anderson shook his head.
Better off dead, Peter thought, than a cripple.
Anderson put a hand on his shoulder. “Boss, I know what’s going through your mind, but right now nothing’s set in stone. Just relax. Keep still. A surgical team is standing by. Let them do their thing. Everything will be okay.”
Peter closed his eyes, willing his screaming brain to shut up. He needed to concentrate on this moment. Que sera sera. The future would take care of itself.
“The man who shot me. I need to know his identity.”
“He had no ID on him, boss.”
“Fingerprints, dental records, DNA.”
“All being taken care of.”
Peter nodded. He licked his lips. “There’s something else. Richards.”
“I’m on it, boss. There was a breach of the intranet this morning. A Trojan. I called Richards in.”
Peter thought about Richards working for Tom Brick and Core Energy. “Richards may be the one who planted it. The fucker’s clever enough to get through the firewall.”
“I thought of that,” Anderson said. “I placed an electronic keylogger on the server terminal he’s using to ID and quarantine the Trojan.” “Nicely done, Sam.” Peter winced, feeling some pain now. “I don’t yet know why Brick wants to get inside Treadstone.”
“We’ll find out. Take it easy now, boss.”
He saw Anderson nod to the paramedic beside him, who slipped a needle into a vein on the inside of his elbow from which a delicious warmth drifted, washing through him.
“It’s important. It’s all important,” he said, his words already slurry. “I’ll see to it, boss.” And, good as his word, as Peter slipped into unconsciousness, Anderson punched in a number on his mobile, making the first of many calls.
Bourne, heading through the relentlessly beating heart of Mexico City, the smell of blood in his nostrils, hadn’t forgotten about the Babylonian.
He was somewhere within the brightly colored whirlpool of the city, standing in a plaza, watching, driving the same chaotic streets as Bourne, using what contacts and conduits he might have in Mexico to reestablish contact with his quarry.
Thinking about Ilan Halevy was preferable to thinking about Rebeka, who he had failed to protect adequately, who died before she could finish the mission she had assigned herself, a mission that was important enough for her to abandon Mossad and strike out on her own.
Her mission was now his own.
Bourne, heading through the city streets, the stench of fire and fear in his nostrils, looked for Halevy, wanting to find the Babylonian as badly as Halevy wanted to find him.
He drove east, toward the airport, and when he saw the radiant sign for Superama, he turned off. At Revolution 1151, Merced Gómez, Benito Juárez, he pulled into the colossal parking lot, slid the taxi into an empty slot, and got out.
Opening the trunk, he discovered a pile of rags. He used one to wipe down all the interior surfaces. He paused when he was finished and looked at Rebeka. Her shirt had been ripped open. Inside, he saw an aluminum-mesh wallet. Lifting it out with his fingertips, he wiped off the blood. Inside was her legend passport, the money she had taken from beneath the floorboards of her rental apartment in Stockholm, and a delicate silver necklace with a star of David. She had never shown the talisman to him. Leaving the wallet and its contents behind seemed like leaving a part of her to be picked over, so he took them. He knew there was nothing more he could do for her. Saying his silent goodbye, he slammed the door, using the rag, and picked his way through the lot to the store.
In the bathroom, he threw away the rag and washed her blood off his hands. Then he dumped his blood-stained coat and shirt, and went in search of a new outfit. He bought black jeans, a white shirt, and a charcoal-colored jacket.
Returning to the parking lot, he moved through the rows, looking for an older car. Behind him, he heard the throaty gurgle of a motorcycle engine. It was a large one—an Indian Chief Dark Horse. He saw it approaching out of the corner of his eye. It was traveling so slowly that he gave it scant attention, but the instant it put on a burst of speed, he turned. The driver was male, but a mirrored faceplate on his helmet obscured his face. Sunlight spun crazily off the crown of the black impact-resistant plastic.
The Indian went down a parallel row, and Bourne turned back to the car he had chosen. Unbending a wire hanger he had taken from the store where he bought his clothes, he stuck the hooked end down between the door frame and the window. The lock popped up. He was about to open the door when the Indian reappeared, coming at him very fast from the opposite side.