The Bourne Sanction

slowed, stopped just long enough for her to climb on behind him. Handing her a helmet, he waited for her to don it, then he zoomed off down the street.

I have several contacts within DARPA,” Deron said. DARPA was an acronym for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, an arm of the Department of Defense. “I have a working knowledge of the software architecture at the heart of the NSA’s surveillance system.” He shrugged. “This is one way I keep my edge.”

“We gotta find a way around it or through it,” Tyrone said.

He was still wearing his black leather jacket. His black helmet was on a table alongside the one he’d given Soraya for the high-speed trip here to Deron’s house-lab. Soraya had met both Deron and Tyrone when Bourne had brought her to this nondescript olive-colored house just off 7th Street, NE.

“You must be joking, right?” Deron, a tall, slim, handsome man with skin the color of light cocoa, looked from one to the other. “Tell me you’re joking.”

“If we were joking we wouldn’t be here.” Soraya rubbed the heel of her hand against her temple as she sought to ignore the fierce headache that had began after her terrifying interview with LaValle and Kendall.

“It’s just not possible.” Deron put his hands on his hips. “That software is state-of-the-art. And two thousand CCTV cameras! Fuck me.”

They sat on canvas chairs in his lab, a double-height room filled with all manner of monitors, keyboards, electronic systems whose functions were known only to Deron. Ranged around the wall were a number of paintings-all masterpieces by Titian, Seurat, Rembrandt, van Gogh. Water Lilies, Green Reflection, Left Part was Soraya’s favorite. That all of them were painted by Deron in the atelier in the next room had stunned her the first time she was here. Now they simply filled her with wonder. How he had reproduced Monet’s exact shade of cobalt blue was beyond her. It was hardly surprising that Bourne used Deron to forge all his ID documents, when in this day and age it was becoming increasingly difficult to do. Many forgers had quit, claiming governments had made their job impossible, but not Deron. It was his stock in trade. Little wonder that he and Bourne were so close. Birds of a feather, Soraya thought.

“What about mirrors?” Tyrone said.

“That would be simplest,” Deron said. “But one of the reasons they’ve installed so many cameras is to give the system multiple views of the same area. That negates mirrors right there.”

“Too bad Bourne killed dat fucker Karim al-Jamil. He could probably write a worm t’screw with the DARPA software like he did with the CI database.”

Soraya turned to Deron. “Can it be done?” she said. “Could you do it?”

“Hacking’s not my thing. I leave that to my old lady.”

Soraya didn’t know Deron had a girlfriend. “How good is she?”

“Please,” Deron snorted.

“Can we talk to her?”

Deron looked dubious. “This is the NSA we’re talking about. Those fuckers don’t fool around. To be frank, I don’t think you ought to be messing with them in the first place.”

“Unfortunately, I have no choice,” Soraya said.

“They fuckin’ wid us,” Tyrone said, “and unless we get all medieval on they ass, they gonna walk all over us an’ own us forever.”

Deron shook his head. “You sure put some interesting notions in this man’s head, Soraya. Before you came along he was the best street protection I ever had. Now look at him. Messing with the big boys in the bad world outside the ghetto.” He didn’t hide the pride he felt for Tyrone, but his voice held a warning, too. “I hope to hell you know what you’re getting yourself into, Tyrone. If this thing comes apart in any way you’re in the federal slammer till Gabriel comes calling.”

Tyrone crossed his arms over his chest, stood his ground.

Deron sighed. “All right, then. We’re all adults here.” He reached for his cell. “Kiki’s upstairs in her lair. She doesn’t like to be interrupted, but in this case I think she’ll be intrigued.” He spoke briefly into the cell, then put it down. Moments later a slim woman with a beautiful African face and deep chocolate skin appeared. She was as tall as Deron, with the upright carriage of proud and ancient royalty.

Her face split into a ferocious grin when she saw Tyrone. “Hey,” they said to each other. That one word seemed all that was needed.

“Kiki, this is Soraya,” Deron said.

Kiki’s smile was wide and dazzling. “My name’s actually Esiankiki. I’m Masai. But in America I’m not so formal; everyone calls me Kiki.”

The two women touched hands. Kiki’s grip was cool and dry. She regarded Soraya out of large coffee-colored eyes. She had the smoothest skin Soraya had ever seen, which she instantly envied. Her hair was very short, marvelously cut like a cap to fit her elongated skull. She wore a brown ankle-length dress that clung provocatively to her slim hips and small breasts.

Deron briefly outlined the problem while he brought up the DARPA software architecture on one of his computer terminals. While Kiki checked it out, he filled her in on the basics. “We need something that can bypass the firewall, and is undetectable.”

“The first isn’t all that difficult.” Kiki’s long, delicate fingers were flying over the keyboard as she experimented with the computer code. “The second, I don’t know.”

“Unfortunately, that’s not the end of it.” Deron positioned himself so he could peer over her shoulder at the terminal. “This particular software controls two thousand CCTV cameras. Our friends here need to get in and out of the facility without being detected.”

Kiki stood up, turned around to face them. “In other words all two thousand cameras have to be covered.”

“That’s right,” Soraya said.

“You don’t need a hacker, dear. You need the invisible man.”

“But you can make them invisible, Kiki.” Deron slid his arm around her slender waist “Can’t you?”

“Hmm.” Kiki peered again at the code on the terminal. “You know, there looks like there may be a recurring variance I might be able to exploit.” She hunkered down on a stool. “I’m going to transfer this upstairs.”

Deron winked at Soraya, as if to say, I told you so.

Kiki routed a number of files to her computer, which was separate from Deron’s. She spun around, slapped her hands on her thighs, and got up. “Okay, then, I’ll see you all later.”

“How much later?” Soraya said, but Kiki was already taking the stairs three at a time.

Moscow was wreathed in snow when Bourne stepped off the Aeroflot plane at Sheremetyevo. His flight had been delayed forty minutes, the jet circling while the runways were de-iced. He cleared Customs and Immigration and was met by a small, cat-like individual wrapped in a white down coat. Lev Baronov, Professor Specter’s contact.

“No luggage, I see,” Baronov said in heavily accented English. He was as wiry and hyperactive as a Jack Russell terrier as he elbowed and barked at the small army of gypsy cab drivers vying for a fare. They were a sad-faced lot, plucked from the minorities in the Caucasus, Asians and the like whose ethnicity prevented them from getting a decent job with decent pay in Moscow. “We’ll take care of that on the way in to town. You’ll need proper clothes for Moscow’s winter. It’s a balmy minus two Celsius today.”

“That would be most helpful,” Bourne replied in perfect Russian.

Baronov’s bushy eyebrows rose in surprise. “You speak like a native, gospadin Bourne.”

“I had excellent instructors,” Bourne said laconically.

Amid the bustle of the flight terminal, he was studying the flow of passengers, noting those who lingered at a newsagent or outside the duty-free shop, those who didn’t move at all. Ever since he emerged into the terminal he’d had the unshakable feeling that he was being watched. Of course there were CCTV cameras all over, but the particular prickling of his scalp that had developed over the years of fieldwork was unerring. Someone had him under surveillance. This fact was both alarming and reassuring-that he’d already picked up a tag meant someone knew he was scheduled to arrive in Moscow. NSA could have scanned the departing flight manifests back at New York and picked up his name from Lufthansa; there’d been no time to take himself off the list. He looked only in short touristic glances because he had no desire to alert his shadow that he was on to him.

“I’m being followed,” Bourne said as he sat in Baronov’s wheezing Zil. They were on the M10 motorway.