“If I were a betting man,” Kendall said, “I’d wager your orders came from the top.”
“Veronica Hart is the real problem here.” LaValle spread his hands. “Perhaps through the lens of what’s happened here today you can begin to see things as we do.”
Soraya didn’t need a weatherman to see which way the wind was blowing. Keeping her voice deliberately neutral, she said, “How can I be of service?”
LaValle smiled genially, turned to Kendall, said, “You see, Richard, the director can be of help to us, despite your reservations.” He quickly turned back to Soraya, his expression sobering. “The general wants to prosecute you both to the full extent of the law, which I needn’t reiterate is very full indeed.”
Their good-cop, bad-cop routine would seem clichйd, Soraya thought bitterly, except this was for real. She knew Kendall hated her guts; he’d made no effort to hide his contempt. He was a military man, after all. The possibility of having to report to a female superior was unthinkable, downright risible. He hadn’t thought much of Tyrone, either, which made his capture of the younger man that much harder to stomach.
“I understand my position is untenable,” she said, despising having to kowtow to this despicable human being.
“Excellent, then we’ll start from that point.”
LaValle stared up at the ceiling, giving an impersonation of someone trying to decide how to proceed. But she suspected he knew very well what he was doing, every step of the way.
His eyes engaged hers. “The way I see it we have a two-part problem. One concerns your friend down in the hold. The second involves you.”
“I’m more concerned with him,” Soraya said. “How do I get him out?”
LaValle shifted in his chair. “Let’s take your situation first. We can build a circumstantial case against you, but without direct testimony from your friend-”
“Tyrone,” Soraya said. “His name is Tyrone Elkins.”
To hammer home just whose conversation this was, LaValle quite deliberately ignored her. “Without direct testimony from your friend we won’t get far.”
“Direct testimony we will get,” Kendall said, “as soon as we waterboard him.”
“No,” Soraya said. “You can’t.”
“Why, because it’s illegal?” Kendall chuckled.
Soraya turned to LaValle. “There’s another way. You and I both know there is.”
LaValle said nothing for a moment, drawing out the tension. “You told me that your source for the attribution of the Typhon intercepts was sacrosanct. Does that decision still stand?”
“If I tell you will you let Tyrone go?”
“No,” LaValle said, “but you’ll be free to leave.”
“What about Tyrone?”
LaValle crossed one leg over another. “Let’s take one thing at a time, shall we?”
Soraya nodded. She knew that as long as she was sitting here she had no wiggle room. “My source was Bourne.”
LaValle looked startled. “Jason Bourne? Are you kidding me?”
“No, Mr. LaValle. He has knowledge of the Black Legion and that they were being fronted by the Eastern Brotherhood.”
“Where the hell did this knowledge come from?”
“He had no time to tell me, even if he had a mind to,” she said. “There were too many NSA agents in the vicinity.”
“The incident at the Freer,” Kendall said.
LaValle held up a hand. “You helped him to escape.”
Soraya shook her head. “Actually, he thought I’d turned on him.”
“Interesting.” LaValle tapped his lip. “Does he still think that?”
Soraya determined it was time for a little defiance, a little lie. “I don’t know. Jason has a tendency toward paranoia, so it’s possible.”
LaValle looked thoughtful. “Maybe we can use that to our ad-vantage.”
General Kendall looked disgusted. “So, in other words, this whole story about the Black Legion could be nothing more than a lunatic fantasy.”
“Or, more likely, deliberate disinformation,” LaValle said.
Soraya shook her head. “Why would he do that?”
“Who knows why he does anything?” LaValle took a slow sip of his whiskey, diluted now by the melted ice cubes. “Let’s not forget that Bourne was in a rage when he told you about the Black Legion. By your own admission, he thought you’d betrayed him.”
“You have a point.” Soraya knew better than to defend Bourne to these people. The more you argued against them, the more entrenched they became in their position. They’d built a case against Jason out of fear and loathing. Not because, as they claimed, he was unstable, but because he simply didn’t care about their rules and regulations. Instead of flouting them, something the directors had knowledge of and knew how to handle, he annihilated them.
“Of course I do.” LaValle set down his glass. “Let’s move on to your friend. The case against him is airtight, open-and-shut, no hope whatsoever of appeal or commutation.”
“Let him eat cake,” Kendall said.
“Marie Antoinette never said that, by the way,” Soraya said.
Kendall glared at her, while LaValle continued, “Let the punishment fit the crime would be more apropos. Or, in your case, Let the expiation fit the crime.” He waved the approaching Willard away. “What we’re going to need from you, Director, is proof-incontrovertible proof-that your illegal foray into NSA territory was instigated by Veronica Hart.”
She knew what he was asking of her. “So, basically, we’re talking an exchange of prisoners-Hart for Tyrone.”
“You’ve grasped it entirely,” LaValle said, clearly pleased.
“I’ll have to think about it.”
LaValle nodded. “A reasonable request. I’ll have Willard prepare you a meal.” He glanced at his watch. “Richard and I have a meeting in fifteen minutes. We’ll be back in approximately two hours. You can think over your answer until then.”
“No, I need to think this over in another environment,” Soraya said.
“Director Moore, given your history of deception that would be a mistake on our part.”
“You promised I could leave if I told you my source.”
“And so you shall, when you’ve agreed to my terms.” He rose, and with him Kendall. “You and your friend came in here together. Now you’re joined at the hip.”
Bourne waited until Gala was sufficiently recovered. She dressed, shivering, not once looking at the body of the dead agent.
“I’m sorry you got dragged into this,” Bourne said.
“No you’re not. Without me you never would’ve gotten to Ivan.” Gala angrily jammed her feet into her shoes. “This is a nightmare,” she said, as if to herself. “Any minute I’ll wake up in my own bed and none of this will have happened.”
Bourne led her toward the door.
Gala shuddered anew as she carefully skirted the body.
“You’re hanging out with the wrong crowd.”
“Ha, ha, good one,” she said, as they made their way down the hall. “That includes you.”
A moment later, he signaled her to stop. Kneeling down, he touched his fingertip to a wet spot on the carpet.
“What is it?”
Bourne examined his fingertip. “Blood.”
Gala gave a little whimper. “What’s it doing out here?”
“Good question,” Bourne said as he crept along the hallway. He noted a tiny smear in front of a narrow door. Wrenching it open, he switched on the utility room’s light.
“Christ,” Gala said.
Inside was a crumpled body with a bullet in its forehead. It was nude, but there was a pile of clothes tossed in a corner, obviously those of the NSA agent. Bourne knelt down, rifled through them, hoping to find some form of ID, to no avail.
“What are you doing?” Gala cried.
Bourne spotted a tiny triangle of dark brown leather sticking out from under the corpse, which was only visible from this low angle. Rolling the corpse on its side, he discovered a wallet. The dead man’s ID would prove useful, since Bourne now had none of his own. His assumed identity, which he’d used to check in, was unusable, because the moment the corpse was found in Fyodor Ilianovich Popov’s room, there’d be a massive manhunt for him. Bourne reached out, took the wallet.