him. She put one foot in front of the other, walking stiff-legged. She seemed like a wild animal-angry, bitter, out of her element in the civilized world. Like him. He was tied to her, but he didn’t understand her, he couldn’t trust her.
When she held out her hand to him he took it.
Nine
I HAVE this recurring nightmare,” Defense Secretary Ervin Reynolds “Bud” Halliday said. “I’m sitting right here at Aushak in Bethesda, when in comes Jason Bourne and in the style of
Halliday was seated at a table in the rear of the restaurant, along with Luther LaValle and Rob Batt. Aushak, more or less midway between the National Naval Medical Center and the Chevy Chase Country Club, was a favorite meeting place of his. Because it was in Bethesda and, especially, because it was Afghani, no one he knew or wanted to keep secrets from came here. The defense secretary felt most comfortable in off-the-beaten-path places. He was a man who despised Congress, despised even more its oversight committees, which were always mucking about in matters that didn’t concern them and for which they had no understanding, let alone expertise.
The three men had ordered the dish after which the restaurant was named: sheets of pasta, filled with scallions, drenched in a savory meat-infused tomato sauce, the whole crowned by rich Middle Eastern yogurt in which flowered tiny bits of mint. The aushak, they all agreed, was a perfect winter meal.
“We’ll soon have that particular nightmare laid to rest, sir,” LaValle said with the kind of obsequiousness that set Batt’s teeth on edge. “Isn’t that so, Rob?”
Batt nodded emphatically. “Quite right. I have a plan that’s virtually foolproof.”
Perhaps that wasn’t the correct thing to say. Halliday frowned,.”No plan is foolproof, Mr. Batt, especially when it involves Jason Bourne.”
“I assure you, no one knows that better than I do, Mr. Secretary.”
Batt, as the seniormost of the seven directorate heads, did not care for being contradicted. He was a linebacker of a man with plenty of experience beating back pretenders to his crown. Still, he was aware that he was treading terra incognita, where a power struggle was raging, the outcome unknown.
He pushed his plate away. In dealing with these people he knew he was making a calculated gamble; on the other hand, he felt the spark that emanated from Secretary Halliday. Batt had entered the nation’s true power grid, a place he’d secretly longed to be, and a powerful sense of elation shot through him.
“Because the plan revolves around DCI Hart,” Batt said now, “my hope is that we’ll be able to bring down two clay pigeons with one shot.”
“Not another word”-Halliday held up his hand-“to either of us. Luther and I must maintain plausible deniability. We can’t afford this operation coming back to bite us on the ass. Is that clear, Mr. Batt?”
“Perfectly clear, sir. This is my operation, pure and simple.”
Halliday grinned. “Son, those words are music to these big ol’ Texan ears.” He tugged at the lobe of his ear. “Now, I assume Luther here told you about Typhon.”
Batt looked from the secretary to LaValle and back again. A frown formed on his face. “No, sir, he didn’t.”
“An oversight,” LaValle said smoothly.
“Well, no time like the present.” A smile continued to light Halliday’s expression.
“We believe that one of CI’s problems is Typhon,” LaValle said. “It’s become too much for the director to properly rehabilitate and manage CI,
The entire topic had been handled smoothly, but Batt knew he’d been deliberately sandbagged. These people had wanted control of Typhon from the beginning. “Typhon is home-grown CI,” he said. “It’s Martin Lindros’s brainchild.”
“Martin Lindros is dead,” LaValle pointed out needlessly. “Another female is the director of Typhon now. That needs to be addressed, along with many other decisions that will affect Typhon’s future. You will also need to be making crucial decisions, Rob, about all of CI. You don’t want more on your plate than you can handle, do you.” It wasn’t a question.
Batt felt himself losing traction on a slippery slope. “Typhon is part of CI,” he said as a last, feeble attempt to win back control.
“Mr. Batt,” Halliday interjected. “We have made our determination. Are you with us or shall we recruit someone else for DCI?”
The man whose call had drawn Professor Specter out into the street was Mikhail Tarkanian. Bourne suggested the National Zoo as a place to meet, and the professor had called Tarkanian. The professor then contacted his secretary at the university to tell her that he and Professor Webb were each taking a personal day. They got in Specter’s car, which had been driven to the estate by one of his men, and headed toward the zoo.
“Your problem, Jason, is that you need an ideology,” Specter said. “An ideology grounds you. It’s the backbone of commitment.”
Bourne, who was driving, shook his head. “As far back as I can remember I’ve been manipulated by ideologues. So far as I can tell, all ideology does is give you tunnel vision. Everything that doesn’t fit within your self-imposed limits is either ignored or destroyed.”
“Now I know I’m truly speaking to Jason Bourne,” Specter said, “because I tried my best to instill in David Webb a sense of purpose he lost somewhere in his past. When you came to me you weren’t just cast adrift, you were severely maimed. I sought to help heal you by helping you turn away from whatever it was that hurt you so deeply. But now I see I was wrong-”
“You weren’t wrong, Professor.”
“No, let me finish. You’re always quick to defend me, to believe I’m always right. Don’t think I don’t appreciate how you feel about me. I wouldn’t want anything to change that. But occasionally I do make mistakes, and this was one of them. I don’t know what went into the making of the Bourne identity, and believe me when I tell you that I don’t want to know.
“What seems clear to me, however, is that however much you don’t want to believe it, something inside you, something innate and connected with the Bourne identity, sets you apart from everyone else.”
Bourne felt troubled by the direction of the conversation. “Do you mean that I’m Jason Bourne through and through-that David Webb would have become him no matter what?”
“No, not at all. But I do think from what you’ve shared with me that if there had been no intervention, if there had been no Bourne identity, then David Webb would have been a very unhappy man.”
This idea was not a new one to Bourne. But he’d always assumed the thought occurred to him because he knew so damnably little about who he’d been. David Webb was more of an enigma to him than Jason Bourne. That realization itself haunted Bourne, as if Webb were a ghost, a shadowing armature into which the Bourne identity had been hung, fleshed out, given life by Alex Conklin.
Bourne, driving up Connecticut Avenue, NW, crossed Cathedral Avenue. The entrance to the zoo appeared up ahead. “The truth is, I don’t think David Webb would have lasted to the end of the school year.”
“Then I’m pleased I decided to involve you in my real passion.” Something seemed to have been settled inside Specter. “It’s not often a man gets a chance to rectify his mistakes.”
The day was mild enough that the gorilla family had been let out. Schoolchildren clustered noisily at the end of the area where the patriarch sat, surrounded by his brood. The silverback did his level best to ignore them, but when their incessant chatter became too much for him, he walked to the other end of the compound, trailed by his family. There he sat while the same annoyances spiraled out of control. Then he plodded back to the spot where Bourne had first seen him.
Mikhail Tarkanian was waiting for them beside the silverback gorilla area. He looked Specter up and down, clucking over his black eye. Then he took him in his arms, kissed him on both cheeks. “Allah is good, my friend. You are alive and well.”
“Thanks to Jason here. He rescued me. I owe him my life.” Specter introduced the two men.
