Robert Ludlum's (TM) The Bourne Initiative (Jason Bourne series)(85)

Hornden laughed so hard tears came to his eyes. At some point, he became aware that Fulmer wasn’t joining in his merriment. Wiping his eyes, he nudged Fulmer. “What? You think you’re too pure to get a laugh out of that joke?”

“It’s not funny. It’s not even a joke.” Fulmer was straining to look past the building traffic choking the off ramp to Dulles. “Can it now, Hornden. As soon as we get to the airport I’ve serious business to transact.”

Leaning forward, he tapped the new head of his security detail, sitting up front, on the shoulder. Max, his betrayer, had been arraigned and was now sitting in a federal facility, awaiting interrogation. “Louis, please get on the horn and find out what the fuck is going on. I can’t afford to be late.”

“Already on it, sir.” Louis had his mobile to one ear. Now he spoke into it so softly no one could hear what he was saying.

Temporarily mollified, but still on edge, Fulmer sat back in the seat.

“So,” Hornden said, “you’re as pure as the driven snow. No warts on you, right?”

Fulmer hardly heard him. Whatever Louis had done was working. The traffic was breaking up, and they were pushing their way forward. He caught glimpses of the gleaming shell of the international departure terminal’s exterior now.

“Marsh, you’re not listening to me.” Hornden’s voice had turned plaintive, reaching up the scale to unbecoming heights.

Fulmer brushed his words away as he would a bothersome fly. “I told you to can it and I meant it.”

“You’re choice, Marsh. I mean, you’re running the show, right?”

“Right as shit,” Fulmer said distractedly.

“But then of course you’ll miss out on all the fun.”

Fulmer’s brow furrowed as he glanced over. “What fun? What are you babbling on about, man?”

Hornden had extracted his mobile from his coat pocket. It was one of those oversize jobbies that people obsessed with selfies were so fond of, Fulmer observed with distaste.

“Well, this, for instance.” On the screen of the journo’s mobile was a photo of Fulmer in flagrante delicto. Fulmer was nude, his flabby buttocks high in the air between Gwyneth’s widely spread legs. Fulmer’s reddened face was visible in the mirrored tabletop, and, to make matters even worse, the lovely and lubricious Gwyneth was grinning lewdly at the camera.

“Where…where did you get that?” Fulmer said stupidly. His mind seemed to have frozen solid, encased in a block of ice.

“This still frame is only the icing,” Hornden said with a malicious grin. “Take a gander at the cake, Marsh. I’ve titled it ‘Corpus Delicti,’ or ‘Caught in the Act.’” And then the video began to play, the whole sordid sexual encounter from smoldering beginning to mortifying end.

—



“How did you do it?” the Angelmaker said, comfortably ensconced in her first class seat.

Bourne was looking out the Perspex window at the passing clouds far below. “Do what?”

“Get us out of the country without a hitch?”

When he turned to her, his smile was lacquer thin. He could not see her the same way, not anymore. “I created a diversion.”

She frowned. “What kind of a diversion?”

“I bought two tickets to Istanbul in the name of one of my old Treadstone aliases and his wife. That sent up red flags in all the right quarters, I have no doubt. That flight was leaving twenty minutes after ours.”

She laughed. “Brilliant.”

Over their indifferent meal, he said, “Tell me what else you know about Dima Orlov.”

She frowned at the piece of unidentifiable meat speared on the tines of her fork. “It isn’t much.”

“Nevertheless. Everything you know.”

The atmosphere between them had subtly altered, as if a breeze from the east had cleared away a cloudbank that had lingered far too long in one place. He heard everything she said through this clear lens. He was no longer obliged to scrutinize every move and expression she made; he already knew what lay beneath her tough reptilian armor.

“Everything I know,” she said reflectively while she chewed her bit of meat.

“Your information is all third-hand, I take it.”

“No. Not at all. I was friends with Dima’s daughter, Katya.”

“Past tense.”

“Well, yes.” She put down her fork; she hadn’t eaten much. “Once, we were close—close as mother and daughter. But like many mothers and daughters we had a falling out.”

“About what?”

She laughed softly, bitterly. “She accused me of using her to get close to her father.”

“How far off the mark was she?”

“Huh. That’s the pity of it,” the Angelmaker said. “She wasn’t off at all.”

“You felt nothing for her.”

It wasn’t a question; she didn’t take it as such. “Well, you know me.” She gave him a glancing sideways look. “Nice woman, though. Smart, strong-willed. And yet she was inextricably tied to her father.”

“Why did you want to get close to Dima Orlov?”

“Keyre sent me. He wanted to do a deal with Dima.”

Bourne waited a moment for everything to sink in. “You do realize the irony of that situation.”