Robert Ludlum's (TM) The Bourne Initiative (Jason Bourne series)(45)
“So you used a cutout. Come on, I know you’re the origin of the leak that buried MacQuerrie and his team.”
Despite his innate caution, Fulmer’s head swung around. He tried to stare Hornden down, but the man wasn’t giving an inch. “How could you possibly know such a thing?”
“The only way for you to find out is to let me in.” Hornden’s eyes glinted in the semi-darkness. “Then you get access to every one of my contacts—including the one who knows what you did last week.”
The journo’s trap had been laid out, baited, and sprung. Oh, what a lovely night this turned out to be, Fulmer thought. He took his time running through possible courses of action in his mind. First off, was Hornden bluffing? Had he triggered a lucky shot in the dark? What if it wasn’t luck at all? What if he really did have an informant who knew that he was responsible for the leak? Fulmer had been dead careful, which is why he had set up the meet with Fran?oise in that little city in Sweden he’d already forgotten the name of. But he also knew that no matter how careful you were in this cyber day and electronic age, there was no such thing as airtight security.
He could dismiss Hornden’s claims, kick him to the curb, go on about his business, and forget this meeting ever took place. It was certainly a tempting choice. But if Hornden’s contact was real, if he, in fact, knew what was transferred at Fulmer’s meeting with Fran?oise, then there was danger lurking in the long grass Fulmer could not afford to ignore. His new status and what it meant for him going forward would be put in jeopardy. The theft of government files was an act of treason, even if it uncovered wrongdoing. And then there was the NSA—those people would crucify him. He closed his eyes, counted to a hundred while watching the pulse of his heart on the inside of his eyelids.
When he opened his eyes, he had made up his mind. All possible decisions had fallen into line, leaving one at the head.
“I want the name of that one contact.”
The journo had the grace not to smirk. “Naturally.”
“Immediately.”
“Just say the word, Mr. Fulmer, and I’ll do better than that. I myself will take you to the source.”
“Deal,” he said, as much to himself as to Harry Hornden.
—
Flames leapt like a living thing from the cheap carpet, up Keyre’s arm, turning his clothes to smoke and ash. He appeared oblivious. In fury, he hurled Mala to the floor, stamped hard on her forearm. Bourne heard the crack of a bone and saw the girl’s face distort in pain.
Keyre or Mala: the choice was not a difficult one. Reaching down, he grabbed Mala off the burning carpet, slapping out the flames snapping at her bare flesh. His momentary focus on the girl gave Keyre all the opening he needed. Leaping at Bourne, he slammed his whitened knuckles into Bourne’s right cheek, over and over. Something gave way an instant before the flames reached Keyre’s face, climbing his left cheek. He gave them no mind until their tips cindered his eyelashes. Then he withdrew behind what was now a wall of flames.
Bourne, his face a bloody mess, dragged Mala to her feet. Whirling her around, he picked up the other lantern, threw it at where Keyre had been standing. Then he shoved her out into the night, where her sister was waiting, quaking in terror. The chaos gripping the camp was if anything more intense. The rain still pelted down, thunder rumbling down from the hills that had served as his observation garret. Gathering up both girls, he hurtled through the silvery downpour toward the south end of the camp, back the way he had come.
With a scream, Mala tried to break away, to turn around, return to her tormentor. She was so violent that Bourne was obliged to lift her off her feet, carry her beneath one arm like a sack of squirming snakes while he held Liis with his other hand. Blood sluiced off Bourne’s cheek. Beneath the ripped skin, the bone was fractured. As for Mala, she was bleeding in too many places to count. She was holding her broken forearm in her cupped palm.
“I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!” she chanted over and over again, her eyes rolling wildly.
17
Keyre did not want to look at Bourne; it was the Angelmaker who looked in on him to make certain the doctor was performing his duties to the utmost of his abilities. Not that he had a choice; not that he would jeopardize his life by missing a trick in bringing Bourne back from the dead—or as near to it as you could get without passing over to the other side. The Angelmaker supposed that was why the doctor, whose name was Mure, hyperventilated every time he came near his patient. If she were of another nature, she would have murmured a word or two to calm the physician down. But she would no more think of doing that than she would inhale water in an attempt to breathe.
Keyre was not, however, above asking her, “How is the patient?” every time she emerged from the camp’s surgery, no matter how many times a day that happened.
“The same,” was her standard reply.
“Still unconscious?”
She nodded. He seemed anxious, and with good reason. He had tasked her with bringing Bourne to him, only not half dead.
“It’s been five days.” He roamed the sparsely furnished room like a caged tiger. He was naked to the waist; something he only was when they were alone. The same whorls and glyphs that he had incised into her back were weals, raised and hardened, on his own. He had filled out since his first encounter with Bourne. He had the shoulders and upper arms of an American linebacker. His left arm and the side of his face bore the terrible scars, white-blue, twisted like serpents as if with the imprint of each flame separately, of the kerosene fire. His eyelids had no lashes—once burned off, they had never grown back—and the lower lid of one was permanently withered, making that red eye water constantly. The fire, or perhaps the inhalation of smoke, had altered his voice. It was deeper in tone, darker, but at the same time paper thin, like the eerie, wavering notes of a bassoon.