The Bourne Dominion (34 page)

Aaron bent over her, his face filled with concern.

“Remember?”

And then she did: the descent into darkness, being nearly strangled to death by Donatien Marchand, Amun running up the stairs, the shots, the blood, and then the fall. Her eyes burned as they welled up and tears spilled out the corners, running down her cheeks, dampening the pillow.

“Where—?”

“You’re in a hospital.”

She turned her head, suddenly aware of the tubes running into her arm.

“I need to see him,” she said.

But when she attempted to rise, Aaron pushed her gently back down.

“And you will, Soraya, I promise you. But not now, not today.”

“I have to.” She became aware that her struggle was for naught; she had no strength. She could not stop crying. Amun dead. She looked up into Aaron’s face.

“Please, Aaron, wake me up.”

“You
are
awake, Soraya. Thank God.”

“This can’t be happening.” Why was she crying? Her heart seemed to have cracked open. The question of whether her love for Amun was real or not seemed irrelevant now. They had been colleagues, friends, lovers—and now he was gone. She had dealt with loss and death before, but this was on a completely different scale. Dimly, she was aware of
her sobbing, and of Aaron holding her, the smell of him mixing with the sickly sweet odors of the hospital. She clung to him. But it was so odd that with Aaron holding her she should have the sense of being alone. Yet she did, and in a sense she felt more alone than she ever had before. Her work was her entire life. Like Jason, she had made little room in it for anyone else—save Amun. And now…

Jason entered her head then. She thought of the losses he had suffered, both professional and personal. She thought mostly of Martin Lindros, the architect of Typhon, her boss, and Jason’s closest friend at the old CI. She had been rocked by Lindros’s death, but how much worse it must have been for Jason. He’d moved heaven and earth to save his friend, only to fail at the very end. Thinking of Jason made her feel less alone, made her feel the oppressiveness of her surroundings, gave her the understanding that she needed to get away, to think, to sort matters out.

“Aaron, you’ve got to get me out of here,” she said with a depth of desperation that startled even herself.

“You have no broken bones, just some bruised ribs. But the doctors are concerned about a concussion—”

“I don’t care,” she cried. “I can’t bear to be in here a moment longer.”

“Soraya, please try to calm down. You’re understandably distraught and—”

She pushed him away, as roughly as she was able. “Stop treating me like a child and listen to what I’m saying, Aaron. Get me the fuck out of here. Now.”

He studied her face for a moment, then nodded. “All right. Give me a moment and I’ll clear it with admissions.”

The moment he left the room, Soraya struggled to a sitting position. This made her head hurt, but she ignored it. She peeled back the tape and slipped the needle out of her arm. Carefully, she swung her legs over the side of the bed. The floor felt cold. Her ankles tingled when she tried to put weight on her legs. She waited for a moment, breathing deeply and evenly to bring more oxygen into her body. Holding on to the bed, she took several tentative steps—one, two, three—like a toddler learning the basics. Painfully slowly, she made her way across the room to the
closet and took out her clothes. She was acting now purely on instinct. Walking stiff-legged like a zombie, she made it to the door and hung on there, renewing her energy while she breathed.

Then she hauled open the door and peered out, looking both ways. Apart from an old man shuffling away from her, holding on to the rolling rack that held his fluid drip, no one was about. Across the corridor was a utility room. She steeled herself and stepped out. The moment she did, she heard voices approaching. One was Aaron’s. He wasn’t alone. Willing her legs to move, she lunged for the handle of the utility room door, swung it open, and stepped inside. Just as the door sighed shut she caught a glimpse of Aaron flanked by two doctors heading for her room.

B
ourne and Essai found Kaja and Vegas in the entryway. The front door was open and, beyond, Don Fernando could be seen directing two cars up his driveway.

“It’s ten o’clock,” Kaja said. As if she sensed that Bourne and Essai, having appeared together, wanted to talk with her, she added, “Dinner time is sacred for Don Fernando.”

Bourne approached them. “Estevan, how are you feeling? You’ve been asleep for hours.”

Vegas steepled his fingers against his forehead. “A little groggy, but better.”

Don Fernando stepped into the doorway. “Our transportation has arrived.”

T
heir destination was a seafood restaurant on the other side of Cadiz. Its expansive terra-cotta-tiled terrace abutted a stone seawall that overlooked the southern part of the harbor. Boats lay at anchor, bobbing gently in the swells. A launch pearled the water as it passed by, leaving a fast-dissolving froth in its wake. Moonlight lay on the water like a silver mantilla; overhead were handfuls of stars.

The maître d’, making a fuss over Don Fernando, showed them
outside to a round table near the seawall. The restaurant was filled with glamorous types. Gold and platinum baubles on the wrists of slender women in Louboutin shoes gleamed in the candlelight. Jewels graced their throats and long necks.

“I feel like an ugly duckling,” Kaja said as they seated themselves.

“Nonsense,
mi amor
.” Vegas squeezed her hand. “No one here outshines you.”

Kaja laughed and kissed him with what seemed great affection. “What a gentleman!”

Bourne was sitting on the other side of her, and he felt the heat of her thigh pressing against his. She was turned toward Estevan, their hands still clasped. Her thigh slid back and forth against him, the friction creating a clandestine link between them.

“What’s good to eat here?” he asked Don Fernando, who was seated on his right hand. Don Fernando’s answer was drowned out by the roar of Vespas swinging along the sea road outside the restaurant.

The waiter uncorked the first bottle of wine from the stash Don Fernando had brought with him. They all drank a toast to their host, who told them that he had already ordered.

Bourne took his leg away from Kaja’s, and, when she turned to look at him inquiringly, he gave her a brief but emphatic shake of his head.

Her eyes narrowed for the space of a breath, then, announcing her need to leave the table, she pushed her chair back hard and stalked across the terrace. Don Fernando shot Bourne a warning look.

Vegas put down his napkin and was about to rise when Don Fernando said, “Estevan,
calmaté, amigo
. This is a security matter; I’d rather have Jason keep an eye on her.”

Bourne got up and, crossing the terrace, stepped into the closed-in part of the restaurant, where he was assailed by the aromatic scents of seafood being cooked with Moroccan and Phoenician herbs and spices. He spotted Kaja exiting the front door, and he snaked his way around the tables crowded with boisterous patrons.

He caught up with her on the narrow sidewalk. “What do you think you’re doing?”

She pulled away from him. “What does it look like?”

“Kaja, Estevan will suspect something.”

She glared at him. “So? I’m tired of all you men.”

“You’re acting like a spoiled child.”

She turned and slapped him across the face. He could have stopped her, but he felt the outcome would be worse.

“Feel better now?”

“Don’t think I don’t know what’s happening here,” she said. “Don Fernando is terrified I’ll tell Estevan who I really am.”

“Now would not be a good time.”

“Say what you mean. Never would be a good time.”

“Just not now.”

“Why not now?” Kaja said. “He treats Rosie like a child. I’m not a child anymore. I’m not Rosie.”

Bourne kept an eye on the road, the clouds of young men on Vespas laughing drunkenly, vying with one another as they rode at a daredevil’s pace. “It was a risk bringing both of you to Cadiz, but the alternative would have meant both your deaths.”

“Don Fernando should never have gotten Estevan involved in smuggling for the Domna,” she said. “It’s clear he’s not cut out for that kind of life.”

“Don Fernando wanted a way in,” Bourne said.

“Don Fernando used Estevan,” she said, disgusted.

“So did you.” Bourne shrugged. “In any case, he could have refused.”

She snorted. “Do you think Estevan would refuse that man? He owes Don Fernando everything.”

“
Querida!
”

They both turned to see Vegas emerge from the restaurant, his expression filled with concern.

“Is everything all right?” He came toward her. “Did I do something to make you angry?”

Kaja automatically turned on her megawatt Rosie smile. “Of course not,
mi amor
.” She had to raise her voice over the revving Vespas. “How could you do anything to make me angry?”

Taking her in his arms, he swung her around, her back to the street.
Three shots buzzed past Kaja’s shoulder and head, and blew Estevan backward, out of her embrace, and Bourne leapt onto her, covering her as the white Vespa with the gunman accelerated away from the curb. Bourne dragged her to her feet.

“Estevan!” she cried. “Estevan, oh, my God!”

Vegas had landed in a bloody heap against the restaurant’s front. The white stucco was spattered with his blood. Bourne kept her away, pushing her into the arms of Don Fernando, who had run out of the doorway.

“They tried again!” Bourne shouted. “Keep her inside!”

Then he stepped off the curb, corralled a young rider who had just stopped to gawk at the bloody body, and yanked him off his Vespa.

The boy stumbled over the curb, landing on his backside. “Hey! What?” he cried as Bourne roared away down the traffic-choked road.

P
ETER MARKS FLOATED
in and out of consciousness like a swimmer caught in a rip current. One moment, his feet seemed to be on solid footing, the next they were sliding away as a wave crashed over him, taking him off his feet, spinning him down into a reddish darkness distinguished by vertigo and pain.

He heard his own groans and the voices of unfamiliar people, but these seemed to be either at a great remove or filtered through layers of gauze. Light hurt his eyes. The only thing he could get down was baby food, and this only occasionally. He felt as if he were dying, as if he lay suspended between life and death, an unwilling citizen of a gray limbo. At last he understood the phrase
bed of pain.

And yet, there came a time when his pain lessened, he ate more, and, blessedly, limbo faded into the realm of dreams, only half remembered, receding as if he were on a train speeding away from a dreadful place in which it had been stalled.

He opened his eyes to light and color. He took a deep breath, then another. He felt his lungs fill and empty without the crushing pain that had gripped him for what seemed like forever.

“He’s conscious.” A voice from above, as if an angel were hovering, beating its delicate wings.

“Who…” Peter licked his lips. “Who are you?”

“Yo, it’s Tyrone, Chief.”

Peter’s eyes felt gluey, there were coronas around everything he looked at, as if he were hallucinating. “I… Who?”

“Tyrone Elkins. From CI.”

“CI?”

“I picked you up offa tha street. You were fucked up.”

“I don’t remember…”

The black head turned. “Yo, Deron, yo, yo, yo.” Then Tyrone turned back and spoke to Peter again. “The ambulance. Remember the ambulance, Chief?”

Something was forming out of the haze. “I…”

“The bogus EMS guys. You got yourself outta the ambulance, shit, still don’t know how.”

The memory started to form like a cloud building on the horizon. Peter remembered the garage at the Treadstone building, the explosion, being hustled into the ambulance, the realization that he wasn’t being taken to the hospital, that these attendants were the enemy.

“I remember,” he murmured.

“That’s good, that’s very good.”

Another face along with Tyrone’s. Tyrone had called him Deron. A handsome black man with an upper-class British accent.

“Who are you?”

“You remember Tyrone? He’s from CI. A friend of Soraya’s.” The handsome man smiled down at Peter. “My name’s Deron. I’m a friend of Jason’s.”

Peter’s brain took a moment to click into gear. “Bourne?”

“That’s right.”

He closed his eyes, blessing the good luck that had landed him in the safest place in DC.

“Peter, do you know who those people were in the ambulance?”

Peter’s eyes popped open. “Never saw them before.” He felt his heart beating and sensed that it had been working hard for some time, working to keep him alive. “I don’t know…”

“Okay, okay,” Deron said. “Save your breath.” He turned to Tyrone. “Can you get on this? There must be a police report on the shootings. Use your creds and see if you can get IDs on the dead men.”

Tyrone nodded and took off.

Deron picked up a plastic glass of water with a bendy straw in it. “Now,” he said, “let’s see if we can get some more liquid in you.”

Placing one hand behind Peter’s head, he lifted it gently and offered him the straw. Peter sipped slowly, even though he was parched. His tongue felt swollen to twice its size.

“Tyrone told me the whole story,” Deron said, “at least as much as he knew.” He took the straw out of Peter’s mouth. “It sounds like you were being kidnapped.”

Peter nodded.

“Why?”

“I don’t…” Then Peter remembered. He’d done intensive research on Roy FitzWilliams and the Damascus-based El-Gabal, to which Fitz had had ties. Hendricks had been absolutely paranoid about security on the issue of Roy FitzWilliams. Peter groaned.

“What is it? Are you in pain?”

“No, that would be too simple,” Peter said with a gritty smile. “I fucked up, Deron. My boss warned me to be careful and I did some back-door research on a company computer, which runs through the government server.”