Bourne 7 – The Bourne Deception - Страница 64

— Having the Goya here at last is cause for celebration, Noah said, which was apparently all the explanation she was going to get. He pulled a slim briefcase out from under the striped cloth and, setting it on the one clear space on the tabletop, twiddled the combination lock and disengaged the snaps.

Inside, Tracy saw, was the cashier‘s check for the balance of her fee, made out to her. Seeing this, she stripped off the packing to reveal the Goya.

Noah barely glanced at it. -Where‘s the rest?

She handed over the document of authenticity, signed by Professor Alonzo Pecunia Zuigaof the Museo del Prado in Madrid. Noah studied it for a moment, nodded, and put it alongside the painting.

— Excellent. He reached into the attachÃ© case and handed her the check.

— I believe this concludes our business, Ms. Atherton. At that moment, his cell rang and he excused himself. His brows knit together. -When? he said into the phone. -Who? What do you mean alone? Dammit, didn‘t I-All right, don‘t fucking move until I get there! He cut the connection, his face dark.

— Is something wrong? Tracy asked.

— Nothing that need concern you. Noah managed a smile through his annoyance. -Please make yourself comfortable here. I‘ll come and fetch you when it‘s safe.

— Safe? What do you mean?

— There‘s an intruder in the building. Noah was already hurrying across the room to the door. -Not to worry, Ms. Atherton, it seems we already have him cornered.

We were picked up the moment we arrived in KRT, Amun Chalthoum said as he and Soraya drove into the city. KRT was the aviation acronym for the Khartoum International Airport, which had been appropriated by the Sudanese themselves.

— I saw them, Soraya said. -Two men.

— They were joined by two others. Chalthoum glanced in the rearview mirror. -All four of them are in a gray 1970s-vintage Toyota Corolla three car-lengths behind us.

— The men at the terminal looked local.

Chalthoum nodded.

— I find that odd, because no one locally knew we were coming to Khartoum.

— Not true. A small, secretive smile played about the Egyptian‘s lips.

— As the head of al Mokhabarat, I was obliged to tell a superior I was leaving the country, if only temporarily. The man I chose to tell is the one I have suspected for some time of secretly undermining me. His eyes once again flicked to the image in the rearview mirror. -Now, at last, I have my proof of his treachery. Nothing will stop me from bringing one of these miscreants back to Cairo to denounce him.

— In other words, Soraya said, — we need to let them catch us.

Amun‘s smile broadened. -Catch up to us, he corrected, — so we can catch them.

The poker game had given up the ghost an hour ago, leaving the house off Dupont Circle redolent of the scents of men-and women-hard at play: cigar ash, leftover pizza, stale but honest sweat, and the ephemeral but powerful odor of money.

Four people draped themselves over purple velvet art deco sofas: Willard, Peter Marks, Police Commissioner Lester Burrows, and Reese Williams, whose house, surprisingly, this turned out to be. Between the four principals, on a low table, sat a bottle of scotch, a bucket half full of ice, and four fat old-fashioned glasses. Everyone else had packed up what was left of their poker stakes, if any, and had staggered home. It was just after twelve on a night without either moon or stars, the clouds so thick and low that even the lights of the district were reduced to murky smudges.

— You won the last hand, Freddy, Burrows said, addressing the ceiling as he reclined against the sofa‘s curled back, — but you haven‘t told me the consequences of seeing you after the final round of raises. I was tapped out, so you put in for me. Now I owe you.

— I want you to answer Peter‘s question about the two missing officers.

— Who?

— Sampson and Montgomery, Marks provided helpfully.

— Oh, them.

The commissioner was still staring absently at the ceiling while Reese Williams, her legs curled up under her, watched the scene with an enigmatic expression.

— There‘s also the matter of a motorcycle cop shooting a man named Jay Weston, which caused the accident Sampson and Montgomery were dispatched to investigate, Marks continued. -Only there was no investigation; it was strangled.

Everyone in the room knew what — strangling an investigation meant.

— Freddy, Burrows said to the ceiling, — is this also part of what I owe you?

Willard‘s eyes were fixed on Reese Williams‘s unexpressive face. -I ponied up a ton of money for you to see me, Lester.

The commissioner sighed and finally relinquished his gaze from the ceiling. -Reese, you know you have a rather large crack up there.

— There are cracks throughout this house, Les, she said.

Burrows seemed to consider this for some time before saying to the other two men, — Be that as it may, there will be no cracks in the information shared here. Whatever I share with you gentlemen is strictly off the record, not for attribution, and however the hell else you want to say it. He sat up abruptly. -Bottom line: Afterward I will not only repudiate the statement, I‘ll go out of my way to prove it false and to run into the ground those who claimed I did say it. Are we clear?

— Perfectly, Marks said, while Willard nodded his assent.

— Detectives Sampson and Montgomery are currently fishing on the Snake River in Idaho.

— Are they really fishing, Marks asked, — or are they dead?

— Jesus Christ, I talked to them yesterday! Burrows said heatedly. -They wanted to know when they could come home. I told them there was no rush.

— Lester, Willard said, — they‘re not in Idaho on your dime.

— Uncle Sam has deeper pockets than I do, the commissioner conceded.

Willard was watching emotions crossing like clouds across Burrows‘s face.

— Precisely what piece of Uncle Sam?

— No one told me, and that‘s the truth, Burrows grumped, as if no one told him anything of any real importance. -But I remember the representative‘s name, if that‘s of any help.

— At this stage, Willard said heavily, — anything might prove useful, even a pseudonym.

— Well, dammit, no one tells the truth in this town! Burrows lifted an accusing finger. -And let me tell you two right now that no police officer of mine shot your Mr. Weston, of that I‘m damn sure. I conducted my own investigation into that allegation.

— Then someone was impersonating one of your police officers, Willard said calmly, — to point everyone in the wrong direction.

— You spooks. Burrows shook his head. -You live in your own world with its own rules. Christ, what a tangled web! He shrugged, as if shaking off his consternation. -That name, then. The man who made the arrangements for my detectives said his name was Noah Petersen. That ring a bell, or was he just blowing spook smoke up my ass?

Bourne had parted company with the lurker, as his cousin‘s cousin had first ensured that both truckers were inside the building, unloading crates, then furtively led the way into the building through the service entrance. Grabbing hold of the truck‘s rear door handle, he vaulted up, grabbing on to the rim of the top and rolling his body onto the truck‘s roof. By climbing onto the refrigeration unit, he was able to reach a concrete abutment on the building‘s facade, by which means he gained the setback along the second floor. Using the spaces between the concrete slabs, he picked his way farther up the building‘s side until he got to the third-floor setback, where he repeated the procedure until, reaching up, he levered himself over the parapet onto the tiled floor of the roof garden.

Unlike the architecture of the building itself, the garden was a delicate mosaic of colors and textures, perfectly manicured, fragrant, and shaded from the glaring sun. Bourne, crouching in a patch of the deepest shadow, breathed in the heady scent of lime as he studied the garden‘s layout. Save for him, the roof was deserted.

Two small structures were cleverly integrated into the garden‘s design: the door down into the building and, as he discovered, a toolshed for the staff who pruned the trees, plants, and flowers. He headed to the doorway, saw that it was protected by a standard circuit-breaker alarm. The moment he opened the door from the outside, the alarm would be triggered.

Backtracking to the toolshed, he took a pruner and a wire stripper to the parapet. There, at the crevice where it met the tiled floor of the roof, he found the wires that connected the garden‘s lights. Using the pruning shears, he cut off a six-foot length of wire. As he walked back to the doorway, he stripped the insulation off both ends.

At the door, he felt above for the alarm wire, stripping off two sections of the insulation and attaching the bare ends of the length of lighting wire he‘d cut to the bare alarm wire. When he was certain the connections were secure, he cut the alarm wire midway between the jerry-rigged splices he‘d made.

Cautiously, he opened the door only wide enough to slip inside. The splices had worked; the alarm was silent. He crept down the narrow, steep staircase to the third floor. His first order of business was to find Arkadin, the man who‘d lured him here, so he could kill him. The second was finding Tracy and getting her out.