The Bourne Retribution (16 page)

“Faster,” he said, leaning forward.

As they rounded a corner and the shop came into view, he drew his gun.

16

F
lickering light from a pair of nearly defunct fluorescent tubes threw crazy shadows across the ruined basement. The sirens were so loud now Bourne had to believe the police were already on the scene. Bypassing the staircase up to the shop above, he headed toward the rear right corner, where he had caught a glimpse of another set of stairs, less steep. Taking them two at a time, he leapt up to the landing, put his shoulder to the door. It flew open and he went through.

Yue, trying valiantly to fight the pain, had at last succumbed. She lay unconscious in his arms, her head lolling with every move he made. He turned toward the building’s rear door, but through the translucent glass panel he could see shadows moving, hear police commands. Turning, he sprinted back down the stairs and leapt down into the basement instants before the rear door banged open and heavy boots could be heard tramping across the floorboards.

Sliding down a pile of debris, he returned to the tunnel, where he set Yue down and began to dig through the fall of packed earth until he found his way to the other side of the cave-in. Returning for Yue, he headed back the way they had come, away from the opening he had made, leaving the ruins of the cave-in behind. His progress was slowed by the lack of light, the uneven floor, and the small falls of rock and stone that had occured over the years since the tunnel had been dug by unknown hands. Still, he made steady progress.

A sound came to him. He stopped, held his breath, and listened. Sure enough, he heard the regular sound of footfalls. And then the cone of a flashlight’s beam swung briefly across the tunnel behind them.

C
aptain Lim instructed his men to comb every floor, every apartment, every closet and hiding place imaginable, looking for Bourne, but he himself did not join them. Instead he headed down the staircase to the basement.

At once, in the illumination thrown off by the buzzing fluorescents, he saw the enormity of the cave-in. Picking his way over to it, he peered over the edge of a fall of debris. As the beam of his flashlight penetrated the darkness, he saw the body of a man, lying facedown. From the streaks of blood, now congealed, he knew the man must have been dragged. Moving the beam of light illuminated the hole from which he had been dragged.

Was the dead man Bourne? There was only one way to find out. Gripping his flashlight between his teeth, he half scrambled, half slid down the sloping side of the cave-in. Using the beam of light to orient himself, he discovered that he was in a tunnel. From the look of it, it ran all the way back to Zhang’s pearl shop.

So that’s how you eluded me
, he thought.

Turning now to the dead man, he squatted down and heaved him over onto his back. It was Long. Lim cursed under his breath. How in the name of heaven had Long gotten ahead of him? Then a wave of relief swept over him: The dead man wasn’t Bourne. Colonel Sun’s orders were to detain Bourne. If, instead, he had brought back Bourne’s corpse, all hell would have broken loose, and he would have been in the center of it. He shuddered at the thought. No one in their right mind wanted to get on the wrong side of Colonel Sun.

Rising, he shone his light ahead. Immediately he saw the hole Bourne had made in the debris to continue on. He picked his way through the rent in the cave-in, heading down the tunnel the way he surmised Bourne had gone.

B
ourne, with Yue asleep in his arms, arrived back beneath Sam Zhang’s shop, but as he was seeking to ascend the ladder to Zhang’s office, he heard voices. Cops! Captain Lim had been clever enough to leave two of his men behind to guard against Bourne’s return. Immediately he stopped, listening to the two cops speaking desultorily to each other.

“What did I ever do to Captain Lim to be given this dogshit assignment?”

“You’re alive. That’s all you need to have done.”

“But this is crazy. The
gwai lo
isn’t coming back here; he’s probably a hundred miles away by now.”

“You know it and I know it. Too bad Lim doesn’t give a shit.”

“Lim’s a prick. Anyway, he’s army; he’s not even from around here.”

“Like all of them in Beijing, he’s a political animal.”

“All he cares about is wiping Colonel Sun’s ass.”

“That’s what you’ve got to do to become captain in the army.”

“Fuck that. Count me out.”

A short silence. Then:

“How much longer?”

“A little over an hour. Then we can go home and forget all about that fuck Lim.”

Bourne hunkered down in the basement, propped Yue against one wall. She was sleeping peacefully. Then he rose and, silently, went back to the short ladder up to Zhang’s office. He couldn’t afford to wait an hour, or even fifteen minutes. Any moment Lim would realize that he had lost Bourne or, worse, that he hadn’t in fact kept on down the tunnel, but had retraced his steps.

Launching himself up the ladder, he put his left shoulder against the bottom of the trapdoor, sprang it open, and leapt up out of the vertical shaft. Slamming his elbow into one of the cops, he slashed the other with the knife he had picked up in the tunnel. One cop went down, bleeding, the other drew his gun, and Bourne, chopping down on his wrist, got him to drop it. He struck him in the throat and the cop collapsed, unconscious. Turning back, Bourne kicked the mobile out of the bleeding cop’s fist then, as he, too, drew his sidearm, rendered him unconscious with a blow to his ear.

When Bourne looked up, he saw Sam Zhang, looking big and terrified, gagged, bound to his chair, which had been rolled into the far corner. His eyes darted madly from Bourne to the downed cops and back to Bourne again.

As soon as Bourne removed his gag, he said in a hushed voice, “What are you doing back here? Where is Yue?”

Bourne, using his knife to slit open the ties with which Zhang had been affixed to his chair, said, “I doubled back. I figured this would be the last place Lim would look for me now.”

Zhang nodded and, somewhat unsteadily, held his arm out until Bourne poured him a glass of whiskey. Zhang grabbed it out of his hand, downed it in one fiery gulp. He gasped, shook his head like a wet dog, and held out the glass for more.

As Bourne was pouring it, he gasped out, “Yue?”

“Asleep in the basement.”

Zhang sipped at the whiskey. “How is she?”

“I’ll bring her up,” Bourne said, reluctant to tell Zhang that his “little sister” had been caught in a cave-in.

For the first time, noticing Bourne’s dust-strewn, disheveled appearance, he said, “Wait a minute. What happened down there?”

Ducking away from the question, Bourne returned to the basement, scooped up Yue, and, without waking her, climbed back, depositing her into an office chair.

“Mother!” Zhang cried, struggling out of his chair on legs made wobbly by his confinement. “She looks worse than you do!”

“She’s fine,” Bourne assured him. “There was a cave-in.” Before the fat man could comment, he added, “The man following me was caught in it and killed.”

Still, Zhang knelt in front of her chair, swaying precariously, holding on to the arms. “Little sister,” he whispered. “Little sister.”

“Who was the man who came after us?”

Zhang, scrutinizing Yue’s face, did not reply.

“Zhang,” Bourne said more forcefully. “It was the man who caused the cave-in.”

The fat man started as if Bourne had whipped him. “He promised to keep her safe!” It was almost a wail.

He was holding Yue’s tiny hand between his. “I don’t know,” he said tenderly, as if he was talking to her. “I never saw him before. I asked, but he was too busy putting a gun to my head.” He shook his head sadly. “I never should have given in; I never should have told him where you had gone.”

“You had no choice.”

“Cowards never have a choice, do they?”

Bourne put a hand on his meaty shoulder. “Think how much pain you saved Yue by staying alive.”

He tried to laugh, but it presented itself as more like blubbering. Bourne dragged the two cops out the back, dumping them in a putrid alley. When he returned Zhang was scrubbing the blood off the floor.

After he was finished, Bourne said, “C’mon.” He gathered Yue into his arms. “Why don’t we find someplace more private to talk while you care for little sister?”

Zhang nodded, lumbered out into the alley, and, opening his mobile, called for his car and driver.

A
mir Ophir was working on the last-minute logistics of a rescue mission in the Sinai. Three Israelis hiking up Mount Sinai had been mistaken by a Hamas group for Mossad agents and taken prisoner. As he began the last modifications on the sitrep the call came in on his private mobile. He rose from his desk, strode down the hall as he answered.

“A moment.”

Banging into the men’s restroom, he checked the stalls, which were empty, then, putting his back to the door to keep anyone from entering, said, “What?”

He listened for some time, his expression becoming more and more clouded. “Retzach is dead? Are you absolutely certain?” He rolled his eyes, his tongue unconsciously clucking against the roof of his mouth. The situation had progressed from dangerous to untenable. How was he to explain this lapse to the Director? Yadin was not known for his lenience in the face of failure, and Ophir had no intention of placing himself on that sacrificial platter. He knew full well the fate of those who did because they had no choice.

He had a choice, though it was unpalatable. There had seemed little or no possibility that he would have to activate the backup plan, but Retzach’s death—probably at Bourne’s hands—had forced his hand. It was either that or face the music with the Director.

No choice. No choice at all.

Returning to his office, he picked up the phone and made a call.

17

T
he Director was standing in front of a painting by Alighiero Boetti composed of letters, mainly in English, but also in Arabic. In that context, the letters took on another, more artful meaning that lent them a beautiful impressionistic dimension, shockingly and thrillingly at odds with the usual concreteness of language. He did not turn when Ophir came up beside him. At this hour of the day the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, housed in its severe post-modern building, was nearly empty. Here and there, the Director’s bodyguards could be seen strolling nonchalantly as they pretended to study the paintings on the walls.

“Have we ever sent any of our cryptographers here?” the Director said. “I’ve always harbored the suspicion there was a hidden message in this.”

Ophir did not bother to answer; he knew the Director was as interested in Boetti’s painting as he was, which meant not at all.

“Update,” the Director said with such frost in his voice that Ophir felt himself shudder.

“Bourne has definitely slipped his leash,” Ophir said. He was sick to death of not knowing what mission the Director was running. “I warned you. The Americans couldn’t control Bourne; I can’t imagine why you thought you could.” When the Director made no reply, Ophir continued. “He discovered the bug in the passport we gave him. Apparently, the moment he set foot in Shanghai, he affixed it to the underside of a taxi, leading us on a wild goose chase until we figured out what had happened.”

“Clever chap, that Bourne.”

“What are you saying? His actions are indefensible.”

Director Yadin finally turned to look at Ophir. “Bourne did precisely what I expected him to do.”

Ophir stared at him with a dumbfounded expression. “I…I don’t understand.”

The Director shrugged. “Amir, my friend, it’s just as you say. Bourne is ungovernable. He will not work leashed. This is what the Americans never understood about him. They continually tried to tame him, to fit him into the mold they made for him. But when he escaped that mold he was absolutely determined never to go back.”

“Then how can he help us, Memune?”

The Director, hands behind his back, began to stroll with Ophir at his side. “Though Bourne can’t be leashed, Amir, he can be guided. Bourne is a bullet. Aim the gun and the bullet finds its mark. That’s precisely what I’ve done: I’ve guided him onto the proper path. How he finds his way along that path is of no interest to me.” He nodded his shaggy head. “From here, I will take my boat out for a sail, to grieve and to help clear my head.”

“And I?”

“Finish up this Sinai business before it gets more messy than it already is. I want our citizens out of our enemies’ hands and safely back on home soil by midnight. Is that clear?”

“Perfectly, Memune.”

“Forget Bourne, Amir. You have had your say. Now leave him to me.”

O
phir watched the Director and his retinue of bodyguards leave the museum, then started out himself. On the plaza in front of the museum, he saw the three cars pull out, and was surprised to see the entourage separate. The two cars housing the bodyguards peeled away, while the Director’s car went in another direction—and it wasn’t toward the waterfront where his boat was rocking at its slip.