Bourne 7 – The Bourne Deception - Страница 70

— Right there, he said. -Shahrake NasiriAstara, just off the Caspian Sea, in northwest Iran.

— What in the name of all that‘s unholy is there? Karpov said.

The IT man, moving to the second laptop, plugged in the name of the area, hit the ENTER key, and scrolled through the resulting news stories. There were precious few, but one of them provided the answer. He looked up into his commander‘s face and said, — Three whopping huge oil fields and the beginnings of a transnational pipeline.

I want you out of here. Amun Chalthoum‘s eyes sparked in the semi-darkness of the old fort. -Instantly.

Soraya was so taken aback that it was a moment before she said, — Amun, I think you‘re confusing me with someone else.

He took her by the elbow. -This is no joke. Go. Now.

She extricated herself from his grip. -What am I, your daughter? I‘m not going anywhere.

— I won‘t risk the life of the woman I love, he said. -Not in a situation like this.

— I don‘t know whether to be flattered or offended. Maybe I‘m both. She shook her head. -Nevertheless, we came here because of me, or have you forgotten?

— I don‘t forget anything. Chalthoum was about to continue when Yusef cut him off.

— I thought you‘d planned for these people to catch up to you.

— I did, Chalthoum said impatiently, — but I didn‘t count on getting trapped in here.

— Too late for regrets now, Yusef whispered. -The enemy has entered the fort.

Chalthoum held up four fingers, to let Yusef know how many men had been following them. Yusef gave a curt nod and gestured for them to follow him. While the men moved out, Soraya bent and, ripping off a piece of one of the men‘s shirts, scooped some quicklime into the makeshift sling.

As they reached the doorway, she said very clearly, — We should stay here.

They turned, and Amun looked at her as if she were insane. -We‘ll be trapped like rats.

— We‘re already trapped like rats. She swung the sling back and forth.

— At least here we have the high ground. She gestured with her chin. -They‘ve already dispersed themselves. They‘ll pick us off one by one before we can get to even one of them.

— You‘re right, Director, Yusef said, and Chalthoum looked like he wanted to swat him across the face.

She appealed to Chalthoum directly. -Amun, get used to it. This is how it is.

Three of the four men, having found shadowed nests for themselves, lay in wait, sighting down the long barrels of their rifles. The fourth man-the beater-moved cautiously from desolate room to ruined room, across abandoned sand-piled spaces without roofs. Always the wind was in his ears, and the grit of the desert in his nose and throat. Granules, shot by the wind, insinuated themselves inside his clothes and formed a familiar layer as they clung to his sweaty skin. His job was to find the targets and drive them into the crisscrossing lines of fire set up by his comrades. He was cautious, but not apprehensive; he‘d done this work before and he‘d do it again many times before old age made this life impossible. But he knew by then he‘d have more than enough money for his family and even his children‘s families. The American paid well-the American, it seemed, never ran out of money, just as the fool never bargained down his price. The Russians, now-they knew how to drive a hard bargain. He‘d sweated through many a negotiation with the Russians, who claimed they didn‘t have money, or, anyway, enough to pay him what he asked. He would settle on a price that made them all happy and then he went about the business of killing. It‘s what he did best, after all-the only thing he was trained for.

He‘d secured more than half the fort and was frankly surprised that he‘d not yet come upon even a sign of the targets. Well, one of them was an Egyptian, he‘d been told. He didn‘t like Egyptians, they smeared you with their honeyed words all the while lying through their teeth. They were like jackals-grinning as they tore the flesh off you.

He turned down a short corridor. When he was no more than halfway along, he heard the sound of the flies buzzing and knew, even though he failed to catch a whiff of rotting flesh, that there must have been a death up ahead of him, and quite recently, too.

Gripping his handgun more tightly, he continued down the hallway with his spine pressed up against one wall, squinting into the gloom. Here and there, sunlight fluttered and twittered like birds in a tree, where the ceiling or wall was cracked or even, in some places, broken open, as if by the hammering fist of a murderous giant.

The sound of the flies had become a hum, as of some great, nebulous creature that waxed and waned as it fed and drowsed. He paused, listening and, in his own unscientific way, counting their number. Something big had died in that room ahead of him, possibly more than one big thing. A human being?

He pulled the trigger of his handgun, the brief light-flare, the report, transforming the entire area. He was like a beast marking its territory, warning other predators of its presence, wanting to instill fear. If the targets were in that room, they were trapped. He knew that room-just as he knew every room in this and the other forts in the area. There was only one entrance and he was five steps away from it.

Then a figure shot out from the open doorway, and he squeezed off four accurate shots in rapid succession that made it dance and jerk.

It was Soraya who followed the dead American Chalthoum had heaved out of the doorway. Swinging her makeshift sling amid the hail of bullets, she let fly its load of quicklime into the face of the shooter. The instant the caustic calcium oxide struck his body fluids-the sweat on his cheeks and the tears in his eyes-a chemical reaction caused the blooming of a terrible heat.

The shooter screamed, dropped his gun, and instinctively clapped his hands to his burning face, trying to scrub off the substance. This only made matters worse for him. Soraya scooped up his gun and shot him in the head, putting him out of his misery, as she would a crippled horse.

Her low whistle brought Chalthoum and Yusef out of the burial chamber.

— One down, she said. -Three to go.

Are you all right? Moira stepped out of the bathtub and helped Humphry Bamber to stand.

— I think I ought to be asking you that question, he said, glancing with a shudder at the shattered head of the intruder. Then he turned and vomited into the toilet.

Moira turned on the cold water in the sink, drenched a hand towel, and placed it on the back of his neck. He took it and held it against the bridge of her nose as they left the bathroom.

She put her arm around his wide shoulders. -Let‘s get you back to somewhere safe.

He nodded like a lost little boy as they picked their way through the office. They were almost at the door when she glanced at the wall of computers.

— What did you find out? What‘s inside Noah‘s version of Bardem?

Bamber broke away, went to the laptop hooked up to all the other equipment, and disconnected it. Closing it, he tucked it under his arm.

— If you don‘t see it for yourself, you won‘t believe it, he said as they hurried out of the office.

I‘m not interested in Treadstone or what Alex Conklin was up to, Peter Marks said.

Willard appeared unfazed. -But you are, I assume, interested in saving CI from the Philistines. It was almost as if he‘d anticipated Marks‘s response.

— Of course I am. Marks turned his empty glass over when Willard tried to fill it with the bottle‘s last round of whisky. -Do you have something in mind-something, I assume, to do with Black River‘s complicity in domestic murder, especially, goddammit, the DCI‘s death?

— The DCI is M. Errol Danziger.

— Don‘t remind me, Marks said sourly.

— I have to. He‘s the eight-hundred-pound gorilla in CI‘s shop, and believe me when I tell you he‘s going to beat all you fine young gentlemen into banana paste if nothing‘s done to stop him.

— What about you?

— I am Treadstone.

Marks stared bleakly at the older man. Whether it was all the singlemalt he‘d consumed or having his face pushed into reality, he felt sick to his stomach. -Go on.

— No, Willard said emphatically. -Either you‘re in or you‘re out, Peter. And before you answer, please understand that there‘s no backing out, no room for second thoughts. Once you‘re in, that‘s it, no matter the cost or the consequences.

Marks shook his head. -What choice do I have?

— There‘s always a choice. Willard poured himself the last of the liquor and took a deep sip. -What there isn‘t-and this goes for me as well as for you-is an opportunity to look back. From this moment on, there is no past. We move forward, only forward, into the dark.

— Jesus. Marks felt a shiver run down his spine. -This sounds like I‘m making a deal with the devil.

— That‘s very funny. Willard smiled and, as if on cue, produced a threepage document, which he spread on the table facing the younger man.

— What the hell is this?

— Also funny. Willard placed a pen on the table. -It‘s a contract with Treadstone. It‘s non-negotiable and, as you can see in clause thirteen, nonrevokable.