Robert Ludlum's (TM) The Bourne Initiative (Jason Bourne series)(48)

She took his hand in hers. I’ve thought about that moment…What did I mean by that? She squeezed his hand. I’m desperate to know, but I fear it’s a question without an answer.

And then, to her immense relief, she felt his hand squeeze hers in return.

She raised her head, looked into his face. “Jason, wake up.” Then she kissed him, partly open lips pressed ever so gently to his.

Eyes opened.

“Jason.”

“Where?”

His throat was dry, and she fed him several slivers of ice from a cooler at his bedside. His eyes continued to study her as he worked the ice around his mouth, helping the shards to melt. She watched him swallow. Such a small reflex, yet she found herself loving it inordinately.

Swallowing the last of the ice water, he said, “Where am I?”

She should have had a ready answer for him, a quick-draw explanation, but she found herself uncharacteristically tongue-tied. This frightened her, though fear was an infrequent visitor at her door.

“Are we still on Skyros?”

This she could answer. “No.”

Something changed behind his eyes, a wall forming. She knew that wall, knew once it came down she’d never get past it.

“Tell me this isn’t a CIA facility.”

This made her laugh. It was a genuine laugh, one that made him laugh as well. When was the last time I laughed? she asked herself. At dinner with Jason overlooking the moonstruck Aegean before the Nym exploded. Time being more elastic than a rubber band, that seemed like a lifetime ago.

“No. No guards here, Jason.”

“Just you and me.”

“Not quite.”

“No, of course, a medical staff.”

She nodded. They were coming closer to a moment she now dreaded. “A doctor, a nurse. Yes.” Best to take baby steps now. “And, of course, the emergency team that worked on you while we were in the air.”

His eyes regarded her, revealing nothing. She shuddered inwardly. His coldness, his complete apartness, as if he lived in another dimension she could not touch, let alone share, caused her real pain.

“How far have we come?”

And there it was. The question she could not dodge, and lying to him would only make matters worse. If, now, he didn’t trust her, all was surely lost.

“We’re in the Horn of Africa.”

Again his eyes changed, and she felt a bit of life drain out of her.

“Somalia.”

Her lips scarcely moved, her voice so low his head lifted off the pillow in order to hear her. “Yes.”





18



I don’t like it.”

“Which part?” Hornden asked. “I mean it can’t be the neighborhood.” He gestured at the nighttime street. “We’re in Dupont Circle.” He grinned. “It can’t be this beautiful Georgian townhome we’re about to enter. You’d be hard pressed to find a tonier address in all of the District.”

Fulmer glanced back at the line of Cadillac Escalades and more prosaic limos lined up at the curb, their drivers reading the paper, drinking coffee out of paper cups, or resting their heads against the seatbacks, catching a few winks.

“None of the drivers are on their mobile phones,” Fulmer said.

“A strict policy of the establishment their distinguished guests are only too happy to oblige.”

A man of no small stature at sentry duty just inside the front door nodded to Hornden—he was very conspicuously known here—and they passed through the small vestibule, pushing through another door into the two-story entrance hall proper. A huge crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling threw discreet lights every which way. Directly below it was an inlaid fruitwood table, polished to a glassy finish, on which stood a cut-crystal vase bursting with a professionally arranged profusion of long-stemmed flowers that looked like a fireworks display caught in mid-burst. Behind all of this was a grand staircase, curling upward to the second floor.

As far as Fulmer could tell, all the activity was on the ground floor. To their right was a grand salon, furnished with silk divans and love seats. The warmly lit room was devoid of chairs or proper sofas. To their left was a small salon, a library, in fact, with floor-to-ceiling shelves filled with books, no doubt all erotic classics, Fulmer thought acidly, for he had noted immediately that every single woman in both rooms was young, shapely, gorgeously dressed, magnificently jeweled, and coiffed to a fare-thee-well, confirming his suspicions about what sort of gathering he’d been brought to.

“I think I’ll take a pass. My wife and kids are waiting for me, and tomorrow is Sunday; we always go to early worship.”

But as he turned, Hornden caught him by the elbow, swung him back around. “No need to be alarmed. You won’t be tainted here. On any given night half of the most influential men inside the Beltway unwind with appointments here.”

And, indeed, it was true. As Fulmer’s gaze moved from the female pulchritude so brazenly on display, it alighted on one representative and senator after another. There were a couple of men from DoD, another from the Pentagon, along with a handful of ex–administration appointees who had maintained or, in some cases, increased, their standing among the District’s power brokers.

“You see?” Hornden said, “nothing to be concerned about.”