Seeing the agent distracted by the blast, Bourne clambered back into the rear compartment. The plane was lifting off now, gaining in both speed and elevation in order to clear a stand of trees. Bourne swung the shoulder-held missile launcher up, aimed through the sight, and pulled the trigger. The missile launched, speeding directly toward the plane.
The agent, shocked, turned to see Bourne leap out. As he rolled over and over, he covered his head with both arms, curling into a protective ball just before the missile exploded, rupturing the entire side of the plane, sending flames and billowing dark, oily smoke high up into the sky as it crashed back to earth and split apart. The Jeep had wandered too close. Caught in the periphery of the blast, it was lifted off its wheels. Fiery, it turned end over end, spilling the two agents, then coming down onto them in a tangle of overheated metal and burning fabric. The gas tank ignited, sending shock waves across to where the shattered plane was burning. Then it, too, burst asunder with a massive roar, incinerating everyone and everything in the immediate vicinity.
Colonel Ben David stared at Maceo Encarnación. “And the payment?”
Maceo Encarnación smiled. “And the formula?”
Ben David held up a 32-gigabyte SD card. “The real one, this time.”
Maceo Encarnación opened a second envelope, spilling its contents onto the bottom of the suitcase. The diamonds sparkled and glittered in the lamplight. “Thirty million worth of perfection.”
Ben David nodded. Handing over the SD card, he said, “When you insert that directly into your mobile, everything will be revealed.”
Maceo Encarnación clutched it tightly in his fist. “And Core Energy will corner the market on both nuclear fuel and weaponry.”
At that moment, they both heard the roar of the first explosion. They were halfway out of the tent when the shock waves from the second and third detonations threw them backward off their feet.
A flaming tire arced downward from the conflagration, heading directly for Bourne.
Scrambling away, he rolled onto a patch of snow to keep the flames from getting to his clothes. By the time he raised himself up onto one knee, three armed Mossad agents were sprinting toward him. As the first shots were fired, he leaped behind a storage shed just past the edge of the makeshift runway.
The intensity of the fire incinerating the plane and the Jeep kept the agents from coming any closer, and Bourne took the opportunity to run in a half-crouch to the next building, which housed the scientists working in the camouflaged laboratory several hundred yards to his left.
Though well armed, Bourne had no particular desire to shoot the agents except in self-defense. It was their commander and Maceo Encarnación he was after. He’d much prefer to keep hidden and out of their way while he searched for his quarry.
No sooner had he entered the building than the door slammed shut. One of the windows shattered and a thick tongue of flame set the bedding on fire. The sharp odor of chemical fire filled the interior: someone was using a flamethrower.
The blaze leaped up, engulfing the interior almost immediately. Bourne turned back, but the door through which he had slipped in was bolted shut from the outside. He tried to make his way to one of the windows, but the fire had spread so quickly and the flames were so hot that he could not get to even the nearest of them. Ripping off a pillowcase, he held it over his nose and mouth, dropping to the floor, where the air was several degrees cooler. Acrid smoke billowed like storm clouds, obscuring the low ceiling.
He heard a sound over the spark and crackle of the burning wood. A figure filled the shattered window, then stepped through. It was clad in a flame-retardant suit with its own breathing apparatus. The figure held the flamethrower as it looked to his right, then his left. From his position hidden away beneath one of the beds, Bourne could make out the features of Colonel Ben David through the glass face-plate.
Bourne had already witnessed the first tongue of flame and so knew that the flame flower was using liquid—likely napalm—ignited by propane. Now, as Ben David turned again, searching for him, Bourne saw the two tanks on his back: The napalm would be housed in the tank that lay against his back, the propane tank, hidden from anyone standing in front of the Colonel, just behind it. Bourne brought his rifle to bear: All it would take was a single bullet into the propane tank to roast Ben David alive. But in this enclosed space, already afire, Bourne himself would roast along with his enemy.
Trying not to cough, he watched as Ben David quartered the space, searching under one bed after another. The moment he left his post in front of the shattered window, Bourne snaked out from under the bed, sprinted diagonally across the smoke- and ash-filled interior. As he left his feet, diving through the window, Ben David turned, toggling on the flamethrower. Another tongue of flame licked out, across the wall, then shot out the window, where the very end of it licked at the back of Bourne’s jacket, igniting it.
Instantly feeling the heat, Bourne threw himself into a patch of deeper snow, rolling on his back to snuff out the flames. He saw Ben David step through the window, level the snout of the flamethrower on him, even as Bourne lifted the assault rifle to shoot him.
“Stalemate,” Ben David said as he pulled off the suit’s hood. He appeared oblivious to the building burning behind him. “It seems you’re always in my way, one way or another, Bourne. What have you done with Rebeka?”
“Rebeka and I made a good team. I tried to save her.”
Ben David frowned. “What d’you mean?”
“She was killed—stabbed to death inside Maceo Encarnación’s villa in Mexico City.”
Ben David took a threatening step toward Bourne. “Goddamn you. You never should have taken her there.”
“You think her death was my fault? She was on her own mission; it coincided with mine. Besides, you sent the Babylonian to terminate her because she was getting too close to your little operation.”
“What d’you know about it?”
“Now you want me to believe you still have feelings for her?”
“I asked you—”
“I know everything, down to the counterfeit money the Chinese manufactured.”
Ben David leaned forward. “You don’t know his name.”
“You mean Minister Ouyang?”
Ben David stared at him. “Why does he hate your guts?”
Bourne stared back.
“You’re not going to screw this deal for me, Bourne.”
When Ben David tightened his finger on the trigger, Bourne said, “Don’t you want to know who killed Rebeka?”
“I don’t care. She’s dead.”
“It was Nicodemo, Ben David, Maceo Encarnación’s son.” The Colonel stood stock still. “What?”
“You didn’t know Nicodemo was your partner’s son, did you?”
Ben David said nothing, but his tongue emerged briefly to moisten his lips.
“Which means Maceo Encarnación gave the order to have her killed. I could use a partner like that.” Bourne laughed grimly. “But he’s all yours.”
“He’s playing you, Ben David.”
Both men turned at Maceo Encarnación’s growl.
“Why haven’t you killed him?” Encarnación was carrying a pistol in one hand and in the other a massive machete with an evil-looking blade. Ben David looked from Bourne to Encarnación. “Why did you have Rebeka killed?”
“What? I don’t explain my actions to anyone.”