“Withholding some information. That’s not the same thing.”
“If we can’t trust each other, what’s the point of either of us staying together?”
“Oh, Peter.” She leaned over and kissed his cheek. “I trust you with my life. It’s just that...” Her eyes cut away for a moment. “I didn’t want anyone to know about my pregnancy. I figured it would jeopardize my position.”
“You thought I’d betray you to Hendricks?”
“No, I...To be honest, Peter, I don’t know what I thought.” She touched the bandaged side of her head. “Obviously, I wasn’t thinking clearly.”
He took her hand in his, and they sat like that, wordless, full of emotion, for some time. Outside, in the corridor, orderlies wheeled gurneys, nurses hurried by, doctors’ names were called. All of that seemed part of another world that had nothing to do with them.
“I want to help you,” Soraya said at length.
“I don’t need help.”
But that was an instinctive, knee-jerk response, and they both knew it. That shared knowledge seemed to break the newly formed ice, to return them to the time when they were closer than siblings, when they shared everything.
Soraya leaned closer and spoke to him in low, intimate tones while he listened intently as she outlined the top-secret mission Hendricks had given her. “Listen, Peter,” she concluded, “Charles is dead, it’s over now, but this liaison with him was strictly Hendricks’s idea. He came to me with it, said it was a matter of national security, and I felt that I...well...that I couldn’t refuse him.”
“He shouldn’t have asked that of you.”
“I’ve been through that with him. He knows he crossed the line.”
“And yet he did it,” Peter said, “and he’ll do it again. You know it and I know it.”
“Probably.”
“What will you tell him the next time?”
She touched her belly. “I have my child to think of now. Things will be different.”
“You think so?”
Her gaze drifted from him to the middle distance. “You’re right. I can’t know.”
He squeezed her hand. “None of us can—ever—no matter the circumstances.”
A small smile wreathed her lips. “True enough.” Leaning over again, she hugged him. “I’m so sorry, Peter.”
“Don’t be. Everything happens for a reason.”
She drew back, watching him. “Do you really believe that?”
He laughed without much humor. “No, but saying it helps keep my spirits up.”
She looked at him steadily. “It’s going to be a long haul, no matter what happens with your legs.”
“I know that.”
“I’ll be here.”
“I know that, too.” He sighed. “They’ll order a psych eval to determine whether I’m fit for duty.”
“So what? They’ve already ordered one for me. We’re fit for duty, Peter. End of story.”
Once more, they sat in companionable silence. Once, a tear overran Peter’s eye and slid down his cheek. “Damn it to hell,” he said, and Soraya squeezed his hand again.
“Tell me something,” he said. “Tell me something positive.”
“Let’s start with Jason Bourne,” she said, “and how he needs our help.”
26
LA GOULUE HAD BEEN the first of the Moulin Rouge’s famed Cancan Queens.
Each night she entered the famed theater via the well-hidden and almost unknown entrée des artistes, a tiny staircase that led to heaven from the grubby back alleys of Montmartre. The well-worn staircase, trod upon by generations of the Moulin’s dancers and cabaret artists for over a century, had in years past been supplanted by a newer backstage entrance. Don Fernando, however, knew not only of its existence, but the fact that it was still a useful way to gain access to the halcyon environs of the Moulin Rouge, when all other methods failed, or when one of the Doriss Girls of his acquaintance wanted to sneak him in for some backstage shenanigans between shows.
He called his current Doriss Girl, Cerise, who, he assured Bourne, was absolutely reliable.
Just after 8 pm, they exited Don Fernando’s building on the Quai de Bourbon. A driver and car from Don Fernando’s favored service were waiting.
“Tell the driver you’ve changed your mind,” Bourne said.
When Don Fernando dismissed the car and driver, he and Bourne crossed the nearby bridge to the Right Bank without incident.
“I don’t see him,” Don Fernando said.
“You won’t,” Bourne assured him. “But there was a better than even chance he had suborned someone inside the car company you frequent.”
The thing to avoid was crowds, so they headed for the taxi tête de station near the Hôtel de Ville and climbed into the waiting cab. Don Fernando gave the driver the address of the Moulin Rouge, and the Mercedes nosed out into traffic.
“You seem very sure of yourself, Jason,” Don Fernando said as he settled back into the seat.
“It never pays to be sure of anything,” Bourne replied, “apart from putting one foot in front of the other in the dark.”
Don Fernando nodded as he stared at the back of the driver’s head. “I never asked you about the female Mossad agent.”
“Rebeka,” Bourne said. “She and I were both after the same man, Semid Abdul-Qahhar, the head of the Mosque in Munich and one of the seminal players in the Muslim Brotherhood. We joined forces, we helped each other. She was a good person—someone trying to do the right thing, even though it might very well have cost her her position at Mossad.”
Don Fernando nodded absently. “There’s always a price to pay for doing the right thing,” he mused, “the only question is, how heavy is the price?” He rubbed his knuckles against the side of his face. “There’s also a price for not being able to do the right thing.” He sighed. “That’s the nature of life, I suppose.”
“Our life, especially.”
Their discussion was interrupted when they were rear-ended by the car behind them. It was at a slow speed and didn’t amount to much; nevertheless, their driver threw the Mercedes into park and got out and started an altercation with the driver of the other car. “Get out!” Bourne said suddenly. He pushed against Don Fernando. “Get out now!”
Bourne pulled on the door handle, but the central lock had been engaged from the driver’s console. The driver who had hit them handed the taxi driver a small packet.
Bourne launched himself over the front seatbacks, but at that moment a figure ducked into the Mercedes and pointed a Sig-Sauer at him, forcing him to return to the backseat.
“No escape now,” Nicodemo said, as he slid behind the wheel.
He nodded, and the taxi driver returned to the car. Keeping the Sig trained on them, Nicodemo disengaged the central lock. The driver wrenched open the rear door and bound Bourne’s wrists behind his back with a length of plastic zip cord, then did the same to Don Fernando.
“Take them to the trunk,” Nicodemo said.
“You came into us too hard,” the driver said. “The lock’s bashed in and the trunk won’t open.”
“Okay. Get out of here,” Nicodemo said.
The driver slammed the rear door shut, and went back to the car Nicodemo had been driving.
Nicodemo, behind the wheel of the Mercedes, grinned at them. “Now the real darkness comes, Jason.”
Bourne said nothing. He was testing the tensile strength of the zip cord. He wouldn’t be able to snap it without outside help.
Placing the Sig on the bench seat beside him, Nicodemo turned away from them to face front. “Much better to have tame animals,” he said, watching them in the rear view mirror as he put the Mercedes in gear and pulled out into the nighttime street,“ than wild ones to the slaughter.”
A funny thing happened to me on the way to your office, Mr. Brick,” Anderson said. “Funny, odd, that is.”
“And what would that be, Agent Anderson?”
“I just came from looking at a body fished out of the Potomac River. Hadn’t been there long, a couple of hours max.”