He looked at Ann Ring, opened his mouth once, closed it, then said, “My current situation is intolerable.”
“I couldn’t agree more.” Her eyes were steady on him.
There ensued a short silence that nevertheless seemed to boil with thoughts and ideas. After ending the meal in a shocked near-silence, Ann, perhaps intuiting that what he needed was a change in venue, had suggested that they repair to a late-night bar, where they sat in an old-fashioned high-backed booth, completely separate from the other patrons, who were in any event intent on drinking and watching a soccer match on ESPN.
Li waited in vain for Ann Ring to suggest something. “In this type of situation,” he said at last, “there is only one way to deal with things.” He paused. “You have to protect me.”
Ann Ring’s eyes opened wide. “I’m a United States senator. I don’t have to do anything.”
Li swallowed. “I can help you in the same way I helped your husband.”
“Really?” Ann Ring swung her head around. “And what did you do for him?”
“Passed on information he was able to use as scoops at Politics As Usual. Those exclusives made his reputation.”
“Why didn’t I know about this?”
“Charles was very good at keeping secrets.”
“Yes. That he was.” Ann considered a moment. “And what did you get from Charlie in return?”
Li passed a hand across his eyes, said nothing.
“I’m afraid I can’t help you, Li,” Ann said, pushing her shot glass aside and gathering her things preparatory to leaving.
“Wait! Please.” He felt suddenly drained. It was a measure of the severity of his circumstances that he was even considering disclosing what he had needed from Charles. “Tell me, Senator Ring, have you heard of SILEX?”
Ann screwed up her face in concentration. “I have, but at the moment I cannot think in what context.”
“SILEX stands for the separation of isotopes by laser excitation,” Li said. “It’s a true game-changer when it comes to quickly creating enriched fuel for nuclear reactors.”
“Now I remember,” Ann said. “The process was bought by GE, who formed a partnership with Hitachi. They said they could envision a SILEX plant that could enrich enough uranium per year to service sixty reactors. That would be enough to power a third of the United States.”
“Then the government got involved,” Li said.
“We were worried about the proliferation of weapons-grade uranium if the SILEX formula was stolen.”
Li nodded. “My sole interest was in receiving up-to-the-minute reports on how SILEX was progressing.”
Ann frowned. “Why is the Chinese government interested in our progress on SILEX?”
“I can’t tell you,” Li said, “because I don’t know.” That was the truth; Minister Ouyang had not confided in him. As never before, Li could appreciate the wisdom of such compartmentalization.
Following a short silence that to Li didn’t seem short at all, Ann nodded.
“Okay, how can I help you?”
I’m getting nowhere fast,” Soraya said.
“Going the long way around won’t work,” Peter said. “We don’t have the time to contact every Treadstone asset in the field by secure satphone.”
“I know. I’ve been trying to access our remote server in Gibraltar.”
Soraya watched the screen of the laptop that had been sent over from Treadstone HQ. The IT team assigned to her and Peter during their stay at the hospital had hooked her up to a speedy wideband connection. They had Bluetoothed her mobile into the connection as well.
“So far, no luck.”
“I hope to God not,” Peter said. “That server is supposed to be unhackable, even if someone outside Treadstone knew of its existence.” “Well, don’t worry,” she said glumly. “It is.”
“What worries me...”
“Peter.” Her head came up. “What is it?”
“Nothing.” He looked away.
“Don’t tell me ‘nothing.’” Setting her laptop aside, she crossed the small space between their beds. The hospital had moved them to a large, bright room that they could share, along with the electronic equipment the Treadstone IT team had installed.
Settling herself on the edge of his bed, she took his hand. “What is it?”
“I...” His eyes came back to hers. “My legs hurt. Phantom pain.”
“How do you know it’s not real?”
“The doctors—”
“Fuck the doctors, Peter. They don’t know everything.”
“I have no nerve response, Soraya. My legs are dead.” She squeezed his hand.
“Don’t say that!”
There were dark circles under his eyes that had never been there before, no matter how hard he worked or how tired he’d been. Soraya’s heart broke.
Perhaps Peter, knowing her so well, intuited something of what she was feeling. “The sooner I get used to the fact,” he said, “the better.”
She leaned in toward him. “We’re not giving up.”
“No one’s giving up, I promise.” He produced a watery smile.
“What else have you been up to on that laptop of yours?”
“Trying to Skype Jason. I thought maybe he might know why Core Energy shut down our intelligence network.”
“And?
“He isn’t online. I’ve left him messages on his mobile’s voicemail.”
“Why don’t we concentrate on what we can control, like how in hell Brick managed to get Richards past our vetting process.”
“Maybe he got to him after he came to work for us.”
Peter shook his head. “No way. Remember, I was with both of them in Brick’s Virginia house. Theirs was a longer-standing relationship
than that.”
“Which means he was providing Brick with intel from NSA, possibly from the president himself.”
“We’ll have to interrogate Brick,” Peter said, “as soon as Sam brings him in.”
“You’re joking, right?” She gestured. “Look at us, Peter. We’re going to have him brought here? For interrogation? In our condition?”
She shook her head. “No. Sam is going to have to stand in for us. We can patch into the closed-circuit TV network at the office. We’ll be in constant touch with Sam via wireless earbuds. Any questions occur to us, we can tell Sam. Okay? Peter?”
He nodded, clearly reluctant. The sunlight seemed to have gone out of him, leaving him gray and bereft. She had reminded him of his condition. She was sorry about that, but there was no alternative. To make matters worse, it was going to happen again and again in the weeks and months to come.
She watched him steadily for some time. “You know, my child is going to need a male presence, a father figure.”
Peter barked a brittle laugh. “Right! I’m just the one—”
“But you are, Peter.” Her eyes were bright as she willed him to engage with her. “Who else would I want my baby to know so well?”
When Jacques Robbinet, the French minister of culture, received the call from Jason Bourne, he was sitting in the back of his armorplated Renault. In the front seat were his driver and his longtime bodyguard. It was precisely 9:32 pm. Robbinet was on his way to dinner with his mistress, which was why he almost didn’t take the call. On the other hand, the Renault was stuck in traffic, and he had become antsy and bored in equal measure.
“Jason,” he said with genuine heartiness, “where are you?”
“On the stairs of the Right Bank river wall directly opposite the Pont des Invalides.”
Instantly, Robbinet, whose title of minister of culture masked his real job as head of the Quai d’Orsay, the French equivalent of Central Intelligence, clicked into gear. “Was that you involved in the incident on the Pont Alexandre III?” Robbinet had received the report twenty minutes ago and had dispatched a pair of his agents to assist the police in their investigation. It wasn’t every evening that a car crashed over the side of a Paris bridge, and with the heightened security in place, he wasn’t one to leave any stone unturned.