Robert Ludlum's (TM) The Bourne Initiative (Jason Bourne series)(69)
“Hey, hey, what’s up?” Would a Russian say that? she asked herself. And then she realized that if she suddenly started behaving so coldly with him he’d surely get suspicious. She put on her sad face, not so very difficult to do. She sighed. “The truth is, I’m missing D.C.” She fluttered one hand. “I mean, I’m stuck here in the middle of nowhere, pretty much going back and forth between the hotel and this dump—no offense. And the only people I see are you and Fran?oise.”
“I understand completely,” London said.
What would it sound like if he said that in Russian? she wondered.
“But you’ve been sequestered, Morgana, for your own good. Things are still unsettled in Washington.”
“From what I see on the TV things are unsettled all over—Washington, Moscow, NATO HQ. It sounds to me like the world’s going to hell in an out-of-control handcart.”
“Which is why Fran?oise has you here, safe and sound, where you can work undisturbed by outside forces.”
Like Unit 309, the FSB, or spetsnaz, she thought sourly. But she put a reluctant smile on her face. “Truthfully, Larry, I need a break. I’ve been at this day and night for days and days.”
“No one knows this better than Fran?oise,” London said. “But, Morgana, we’re under a severe time constraint here. You have to solve the mystery of what the Bourne Initiative is and how it’s going to be deployed.” He gestured with his greasy fingertips. “We’re almost out of time, and, honestly, we’re in your hands.”
“Of course.” She nodded, the good little soldier. “Forget what I said.”
“That’s the girl.” He smiled broadly. “There’ll be plenty of time afterward, I promise you.”
She returned to her work—her work. She could feel him next to her, smell his woodsy aftershave. Did it remind him of his dacha outside Moscow? The fir trees and the snow? She shivered inwardly at these thoughts. What was his real name? Now she knew the truth, “Larry London” was such a ridiculous alias.
He and Fran?oise read her daily reports; they were always the same. No matter how many bits of the Bourne Initiative she unearthed, none of them fit together. That might be because each new piece was in some small or obscure way different than the last, almost as if the thing was a living organism that kept evolving. And yet the one thing each bit had in common was the zero-day trigger that was now six days away.
What she didn’t put in the reports was her growing conviction that the cyber weapon was being assembled by people far smarter than she was. So many hours at this and she was still at square one when it came to defining the category of cyber weapon it might be. Was it an über-worm built to penetrate the firewalls that guarded the nuclear missile codes available only to the president, as Mac believed? Or was it a virus that self-replicated, creating a zombie army of botnets; was it a key logger that clandestinely transmitted a user’s keystrokes to a third party? The code was nothing like Stuxnet, nothing like Flame or Wiper. Nor was it in any way akin to BlackEnergy, the latest and greatest weaponized malware program. So, then what the hell was it? Maybe Mac knew, maybe he didn’t. In any event, he had now been taken off the board. No one could get to him.
On the other hand, at this moment, Morgana was less interested in reliving her daily frustration with the Bourne Initiative than she was in deciphering the section of coded message she had captured on her laptop before Larry had returned with lunch. While he noshed on her fries as he worked, she was simultaneously running three different programs she herself had created in order to break the cipher and analyze the results.
It was an unsettling project to be working on with London sitting right beside her. Neither could see the other’s screen, but still she felt goose bumps come out on her skin as she worked or, rather, watched her programs do their thing.
The encryption Unit 309 used was masterly, but it wasn’t up to defending against her programs. Eight minutes after she had sicced them on the enciphered message, she was able to read the words en clair, and a full-body panic knifed through her:
PKT4: out of time. She is now in your hands. Use her, then dispose of her. Kay
—
Bourne kneed Mirror Man hard in the groin. As all the wind rushed out of him, Bourne whipped him around, found the knife blade, used it to slice through the plastic manacle. Mirror Man, recovering, jabbed Bourne in the ribs with his elbow. He saw what Baldy was up to, jerked himself free, putting Bourne in the line of fire as Baldy aimed. Bourne chopped down on the side of Mirror Man’s neck, hauled him back in line, jammed his body against his as the bullets meant for him struck Mirror Man instead.
Grabbing the gravity knife as Mirror Man’s knees gave way, Bourne flicked his wrist, and the knife shimmered through the air, sunlight winking off its steel. The blade buried itself in Baldy’s chest. He staggered, knees buckling, then, recovering, launched himself at Bourne.
He fired once as he came, missed. Then he was too close for a firearm, reversed it, seeking to use the butt as a club. Bourne blocked it with the edge of his hand, then grasped Baldy’s arm, pivoted back on his right leg, drawing Baldy in and down. With the back of his neck exposed, Bourne smashed his elbow into the first cervical vertebra. It was the smallest and, therefore, the easiest to fracture. It was also the closest to the skull, its disintegration catastrophic. And so it was with Baldy. He went down and stayed down.