Robert Ludlum's (TM) The Bourne Initiative (Jason Bourne series)(14)

“From where I sit, knowing what you’ve accomplished for me, there’s scarcely any difference.”

“Still…”

He shrugged again. “If you don’t want the money, I’ll find—”

“I didn’t say that.” Her fingertips turned the ashtray around and around.

“Too much money to leave on the table. So much this could be your last score. You could get out of the game, lie on a beach in Bali or Phuket. Attract the muscled surfer boys. Sleep to your heart’s content.”

She licked her lips. “Why do you want to know…Farreng’s source?” Good God, she had almost said “Justin.”

“LeakAGE has always been a pain in our asses,” Fulmer said. “But as of late Farreng has been spilling open some unpleasant business regarding Reade and Dunlop.”

“The law firm in Panama.” She regarded him carefully. “Are you a client?”

He shook his head. “But one of my shell companies uses another Panamanian firm.”

“Name?” When he hesitated, she said, “I can’t help you if I don’t know their name.”

“Musgrave-Stephens.”

“Have you had any indication that Musgrave-Stephens has been hacked?”

“No, but I’m figuring it’s just a matter of time.”

“Then get your shell company out.”

“Getting the company out is a snap. But then where to?”

“I suggest Fellingham, Bodeys.”

“Never heard of them.”

“That’s the point, isn’t it,” Fran?oise said with a sly smile. “They take very few clients; they’re extremely exacting, conservative to a fault.”

“Sounds like just the ticket.”

She produced a gold-edged card with raised lettering in a flowing script, handed it to him. “Tell them you’re a client of mine.”

“Is there anything you can’t do for me, Fran?oise?”

“I seriously doubt it.”

He laughed, putting the card away.

“I have another suggestion.”

“Fire away.”

“You want to be the presidential nominee in the next election, yes? I want to be sure you’re not derailed.”

“And how would that work, exactly?”

“Dirt, Mr. Fulmer. Have you brought the dirt?”

He grinned. “As we discussed.” Slapping his briefcase on the table, he opened it, felt around for the hidden compartment, took out a thumb drive and held it up for her to see.

“And where are you getting the material from?”

“The deep, dark web.” Fulmer laughed shortly. “That’s strictly need-to-know.” He twirled the thumb drive between his fingers. “What I want, what you need to tell me, is how you intend to use this.”

Without hesitation, Fran?oise plucked the miniature drive from his fingertips. “I will have Farreng’s source feed LeakAGE this material detrimental to your enemies. In no time, you’ll be sitting pretty as the obvious next presidential candidate.”

There was something greedy about Fulmer’s smile. He made the call transferring her fee into her account, exorbitant as usual, but worth every penny.

“Nous avons toujours fait comprendre mutuellement,” he said, murdering both the grammar and the pronunciation, as was his wont. We always did understand each other.

—



Fran?oise’s loathing for Marshall Fulmer knew no bounds. On the other hand, she was determined to take as much of his money as she could lay her hands on. This conflict—emotion on one side, practicality on the other—was not unknown to her. Still, she needed to consider each episode as it arose. The conflict was uppermost in her mind as she made her way out of the Baronen K?pcenter and onto the docks.

It was a fine day. The sun shone brightly down on her, small puffy clouds floated by. Boats, skiffs, and ships drifted past. She might have been in a scene from a cartoon or a children’s book. However, the life she was living was strictly X-rated. She went to the rail overlooking the harbor, leaned on it with her elbows. One of the clouds looked like a lamb, which reminded her to make a dinner reservation for tonight at Aifur Song, a new buzzy restaurant. Even Kalmar hadn’t been left out of the latest culinary wave sweeping around the world.

Perhaps twenty minutes later, a young man with dark hair and even darker eyes came and stood near her. He held an expensive Hasselblad with which he was taking what appeared to be professional photos of the harbor. Despite his age, he already had the spidery red cheeks of the inveterate vodka drinker. He was known to Fran?oise. His name was Nikolay Ivanovich Rozin. Back home in Moscow, a city she had not seen in ten years, she knew him as Niki. Here, outside the Federation, he was Larry London, a freelance photographer for Global Photographics.

“Time,” Larry London said as he clicked away on his Hasselblad.

“I don’t like to be kept waiting.”

“He knows that.”

Without uttering another word or waiting for a reply he knew wouldn’t come, he strode away, ostensibly to find another perspective on the harbor and its inhabitants.

Fran?oise waited for more time than she should have, then turned, went through a waist-high metal gate that led down to the marina itself. She felt the wooden slats shifting slightly beneath her feet as she made the transition from dry land to water.