“She’s got a point,” the president said.
“The past is the past,” General Kendall said angrily. His face had been darkening with every word Veronica had said. “There’s no evidence whatsoever that either our new informants or our mercenaries, both of which are vital to our victory in the Middle East, would ever turn on us. On the contrary, the intel they’ve provided has been of great help to our men on the field of battle.”
“Mercenaries, by definition, owe their allegiance to whoever pays them the most,” Veronica said. “Centuries of history from Roman times forward have proved this point over and over.”
“All this back-and-forth is of little moment.” LaValle shifted in his seat uncomfortably. Clearly he hadn’t counted on such a spirited defense. Kendall handed him a dossier, which he presented to the president. “General Kendall and I have spent the better part of two weeks putting together this proposal for how to restructure CI going forward. The Pentagon is prepared to implement this plan the moment we get your approval, Mr. President.”
To Veronica’s horror, the president looked over the proposal, then turned it over to her. “What do you say to this?”
Veronica felt suffused with rage. She was already being undermined. On the other hand, she observed, this was a good object lesson for her. Trust no one, not even seeming allies. Up until this moment she’d thought she had the full support of the president. The fact that LaValle, who was, after all, basically the mouthpiece for Defense Secretary Halliday, had the muscle to call this meeting shouldn’t have surprised her. But that the president was asking her to consider a takeover from the Pentagon was outrageous and, quite frankly, frightening.
Without even glancing at the toxic papers, she squared her shoulders. “Sir, this proposal is irrelevant, at best. I resent Mr. LaValle’s flagrant attempt to expand his intelligence empire at CI’s expense. For one thing, as I’ve detailed, the Pentagon is ill suited to direct, let alone win the trust of our vast array of agents in the field. For another, this coup would set a dangerous precedent for the entire intelligence community. Being under the control of the armed forces will not benefit our intelligence-gathering potential. On the contrary, the Pentagon’s history of flagrant disregard for human life, its legacy of illegal operations combined with well-documented fiscal profligacy, makes it an extremely poor candidate to poach on anyone else’s territory, especially CI’s.”
Only the presence of the president forced LaValle to keep his ire in check. “Sir, CI is in total disarray. It needs to be turned around ASAP. As I said, our plan can be implemented today.”
Veronica drew out the thick file detailing her plans for CI. She rose, placed it in the president’s hands. “Sir, I feel duty-bound to reiterate one of the main points of our last discussion. Though I’ve served in the military, I come from the private sector. CI is in need not only of a clean sweep but of a fresh perspective untainted by the monolithic thinking that got us into this insupportable situation in the first place.”
Jason Bourne smiled. “To be honest, tonight I don’t know who I am.” He leaned forward and said very softly, “Listen to me. I want you to take your cell phone out of your handbag without anyone seeing. I want you to call me. Can you do that?”
Moira kept her eyes on his as she found her cell in her handbag, hit the appropriate speed-dial key. His cell phone chimed. He sat back, answered the call. He spoke into the phone as if someone was on the other end of the line. Then he closed the phone, said, “I have to go. It’s an emergency. I’m sorry.”
She continued to stare at him. “Could you act even the least bit upset?” she whispered.
His mouth turned down.
“Do you really have to go?” she said in a normal tone of voice. “Now?”
“Now.” Bourne threw some bills on the table. “I’ll be in touch.”
She nodded a bit quizzically, wondering what he’d seen or heard.
Bourne went down the stairs and out of the restaurant. Immediately he turned right, walked a quarter block, then entered a store selling handmade ceramics. Positioning himself so that he had a view of the street through the plate-glass window, he pretended to look at bowls and serving dishes.
Outside, people passed by-a young couple, an elderly man with a cane, three young women, laughing. But the man who’d been seated in the back corner of their room precisely ninety seconds after they sat down did not appear. Bourne had marked him the moment he’d come in, and when he’d asked for a table in back facing them, he’d had no doubt: Someone was following him. All of a sudden he’d felt that old anxiety that had roiled him when Marie and Martin had been threatened. He’d lost Martin, he wasn’t about to lose Moira as well.
Bourne, whose interior radar had swept the second-floor dining room every few minutes or so, hadn’t picked up anyone else of a suspicious nature, so he waited now inside the ceramics shop for the tail to amble by. When this didn’t occur after five minutes, Bourne went out the door and immediately strode across the street. Using streetlights and the reflective surfaces of windows and car mirrors, he spent another few minutes scrutinizing the area for any sign of the man at the table in back. After ascertaining he was nowhere to be found, Bourne returned to the restaurant.
He went up the stairs to the second floor, but paused in the dark hallway between the staircase and the dining room. There was the man at his rear table. To any casual observer he seemed to be reading the current issue of
Bourne felt a little chill go through him. This man wasn’t following him; he was following Moira.
As Veronica Hart emerged through the outermost checkpoint to the West Wing, Luther LaValle emerged from the shadows, fell into step beside her.
“Nicely done,” he said icily. “Next time I’ll be better prepared.”
“There won’t be a next time,” Veronica said.
“Secretary Halliday is confident there will be. So am I.”
They had reached the hushed vestibule with its dome and columns. Busy presidential aides strode purposefully past them in either direction. Like surgeons, they exuded an air of supreme confidence and exclusivity, as if theirs was a club you desperately wanted to belong to, but never would.
“Where’s your personal pit bull?” Veronica asked. “Sniffing out crotches, I shouldn’t wonder.”
“You’re terribly flip for someone whose job is hanging by a thread.”
“It’s foolish-not to mention dangerous, Mr. LaValle-to confuse confidence with being flip.”
They pushed through the doors, went down the steps to the grounds proper. Floodlights pushed back the darkness to the edges of the premises. Beyond, streetlights glittered.
“Of course, you’re right,” LaValle said. “I apologize.”
Veronica eyed him with no little skepticism.
LaValle gave her a small smile. “I sincerely regret that we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot.”
As she buttoned her coat, he said, “Perhaps both of us have been coming at this situation from the wrong angle.”
Veronica knotted her scarf at her throat outside her collar. “What situation?”
“The collapse of CI.”
In the near distance, beyond the flotilla of heavy reinforced concrete anti-terrorist barriers, tourists strolled by, chatting animatedly, paused briefly to take snapshots, then went on to their dinners at McDonald’s or Burger King.
“It seems to me that more can be gained by us joining forces than by being antagonists.”
Veronica turned to him. “Listen, buddy, you take care of your shop and I’ll take care of mine. I’ve been given a job to do and I’m going to do it without interference from you or Secretary Halliday. Personally, I’m sick and tired of you people extending the line in the sand farther and farther so your empire can grow bigger. CI is off limits to you now and forever, got it?”
LaValle made a face as if he were about to whistle. Then he said, very quietly, “I’d be a bit more careful if I were you. You’re walking across a knife-edge. One false step, one hesitation, and when you fall no one’s going to be there to catch you.”
Her voice turned steely. “I’ve had my fill of your threats, too, Mr. LaValle.”
He turned up his collar against the wind. “When you get to know me better, Veronica, you’ll realize I don’t make threats. I make predictions.”
