Robert Ludlum's (TM) The Bourne Initiative (Jason Bourne series)(12)

A froth of blood bubbled from between Smith’s lips. “You’ll never…” One shuddering breath. More blood. Then everything stopped, most significantly Smith’s heart.





5



Marshall Fulmer did not like Sweden—too namby-pamby for him. The Swedes had no backbone, in his not-so-humble opinion. Cowards, all of them. And he liked Kalmar even less than Stockholm, where he could never get his bearings. It wasn’t like a real city, let alone the capital of a country, but perhaps, he reflected during a lull in the meeting, it was just what the Swedes deserved.

Kalmar was nearest the Baltic States, nearest the western tip of the Russian Federation, which, Fulmer supposed, was why it had been chosen by NATO to hold the Baltic Alliances Conference. As national security advisor, it was incumbent on him to monitor this high-level conference hastily assembled to form a strong and united response to Russia’s increasing bellicosity toward the Baltic States, and to offer support as part of the American contingent that included a four-star general from the Pentagon and a mandarin from the DoD, amusingly masquerading as a military attaché about seven levels below his actual pay grade. Well, that was the way the DoD worked, manifesting mysteries and obfuscations all over the ranch.

Fulmer, seated between the Pentagon general and the DoD mandarin, kept his own council. He was from Western rancher stock—Montana, to be exact. He continued to maintain his family ranch outside Bozeman, and over summer recess spent his time out there riding, herding cattle, hunting, fly-fishing the stream that ran through the north side of the property, and genuinely unwinding.

With his leathery skin and wind-crevassed face, Fulmer looked the part. Mounted on a horse, he could have passed for any number of renowned cowboys out of history. And he had built a reputation inside the Beltway of being a bit of a cowboy. Which meant he shot off his mouth almost as often as he shot his collection of sidearms at his gun club range. Out on the Bozeman ranch he was a crack shot with a scoped rifle.

His colleagues put up with his shenanigans, his media-hogging sound bites primarily, because of the power he had accrued throughout the right corridors in Washington. He was friends with all the right people, all the movers and shakers, left wing as well as right wing. He, better than anyone else, had honed the spectacularly difficult art of walking the political tightrope between parties. He certainly knew how to twist arms when he had to, but he could also charm the pants off just about anyone whose vote he needed.

Now, as the joint session was about to resume, his mobile buzzed. Not his official office mobile—the other one he switched out twice a month. Removing it from his pocket, he looked down at the screen as he held the phone below the table.

A time and a local address. He glanced at his watch. The time was twenty minutes from now. He gathered the papers laid out before him, which he’d barely glanced at, and stuffed them into his slim calfskin briefcase, pushed his chair back, and asked the men on either side of him to carry on while he attended to business back in D.C. They nodded their understanding. Both of them had business back in D.C. from time to time. It was business as usual.

Max, his bodyguard, was at his station just outside the door to the conference room. Naturally enough, he started to dog Fulmer’s tail as Fulmer headed for the private elevator that whisked attendees directly to the floor the conference had taken over.

“Stay,” Fulmer said, as he punched the down button.

“But, sir—”

“This is Sweden, not Syria.”

The elevator doors slid open, and Fulmer stepped in.

“Make yourself useful,” he said, dismissing Max. “Go check to see that the Russians haven’t tossed my room or something.”

Outside the post-modern, anonymous building at which the meeting was being held, he paused to take several deep breaths. The security was duck-ass tight; not a creature was stirring that wasn’t connected via wireless earwig to central station trucks just past the human perimeter. Fulmer ignored them all—they had become such a part of his life he scarcely noticed them.

By far the worst part of his job was the endless meetings he was obliged to attend, not to mention chair. Meetings were a waste of time, period. They were the sinecure of the indecisive and the weak-minded. And yet, he was more than willing to put up with the constant irritation in order to reap the myriad benefits of his powerful position.

What would his simple rancher father make of the place his son had carved out for himself in the world’s most potent seat of power? Probably wouldn’t have believed his son until Marshall toured him around his domain. Sadly, that was impossible; Marshall’s parents had died in a barn fire twenty years ago. They’d both rushed into the barn to save their prized horses; neither horses nor his parents had made it out alive. Were their deaths a testament to the high esteem in which they held their horses or to their foolishness? Marshall had never been able to figure that out.

He waved off his car, set off to the west at a brisk pace. Using the GPS on his burner mobile he made his way to the Baronen K?pcenter, a vast mall near the water. Inside, he checked the directory for Stars and Bars, a sports café on the second floor. He took the escalator up. He saw the open entrance to Stars and Bars right away, but he turned on his heel, heading in the opposite direction. For the next seven or eight minutes, he wandered in and out of shops and storefronts. Inside each, he checked every person who entered after him, looking for individuals who repeated. He saw none.