Robert Ludlum's (TM) The Bourne Initiative (Jason Bourne series)(87)

Beside him Hornden chuckled. “‘Suggests,’” he repeated under his breath.

Fulmer considered asking Hornden what they were going to do at the VIP airstrip, but he didn’t want to give him the satisfaction. With Hornden, these small, petty victories were all that were left him. Pathetic.

With Fulmer’s credentials they passed through the manned gates. Hornden told the driver to pull over to the left and park.

“Okay,” he said, opening the rear door, “let’s take a walk.”

In the darkness of near midnight, the overbright lights on the tarmac elongated their shadows eastward. A light breeze ruffled Fulmer’s hair, but Hornden’s stayed in place, as if it had been plasticized. Ahead of them, a private aircraft with Dutch insignia crouched, its door open wide in welcome, a rolling staircase set in front of it.

“After you,” Hornden said when they reached the foot of the stairs.

No more “Marsh,” Fulmer noted. For some reason, this gave him a sense of foreboding.

Stepping into the interior, he saw that it had been retrofitted, seats pulled out, replaced with lounges, desks, flatbed seats, and the like. There seemed to be only one person on the plane; where the crew was he had no idea. The man was slim, tall, saturnine, dark-eyed. Fulmer had seen enough bespoke Saville Row suits and John Lobb shoes to recognize them on the figure who came around from behind a desk and strode toward him with his hand extended.

“Mr. Marshall Fulmer, I have wanted to speak with you for some time, ever since you were a senior senator, in fact.” He spoke with a decided Russian accent. “But to be perfectly frank, this meeting was some while in the making.”

Fulmer’s foreboding ratcheted up to a nauseating level as he took the man’s cool, dry hand. The honey trap? he asked himself.

“And you are?”

“Oh, pardon me.” He gave a little bow from the waist that Fulmer took to be ironic. “Konstantin Ludmirovich Savasin, Federal’naya sluzhba bezopasnosti Rossiyskoy Federatsii.” Translation: Federal Security Service, Russian Federation—the successor to the KGB.

Blood drained from Fulmer’s face. He felt the floor slipping away from him. As bad as it had been before, he knew that his day had just fallen into the abyss. Now that he was confronted with the head of the FSB, he had no idea how deep the abyss went.

Freeing his hand from Konstantin’s grip, he pivoted toward Hornden. “Are you kidding me? You’re a Russian agent?”

The journo grinned. “The fun never stops today, does it, Marsh.”

Fulmer sank into a seat, head in his hands. “Jesus Christ.”

Konstantin gripped his shoulder. “Not to worry, old boy. We won’t be asking too much of you.”

“Jesus Christ,” Fulmer moaned.

“Marshall—may I call you Marshall? Marshall, look at me.” Konstantin sighed in a theatrical manner. “Come, come, stand up and take your medicine like a man.”

Still in shock, Fulmer slapped his thighs and stood up. His eyes were red-rimmed and there was a tic battering one eyelid as he looked Konstantin in the face.

“You work for me now, Marshall.”

Fulmer moaned like a child in pain.

“Please, look on the bright side.”

Fulmer’s brows knit together. “The bright side?”

“Yes, of course. You are national security advisor for a very different kind of president of the United States.”

It was only then that the full import of his situation hit him, and, doubling over, he vomited onto the pile carpet of the aisle.

With a look of distaste, Konstantin stepped back in order to keep his John Lobb shoes pristine. He snapped his fingers. “Mr. Hornden, please be kind enough to inform the crew. Their presence is required immediately to clean up the mess the national security advisor has made.”

“At once,” Hornden said crisply, pulling out his mobile.

“In the meantime.” Konstantin hooked his fingers inside Fulmer’s collar, hauling him to his feet. “There is a front cabin. Let us repair there so that we may get on with the business at hand.”

Fulmer trudged on feet made leaden by terror and shame. He was in the midst of a nightmare, he kept telling himself. At any moment he would awaken in his bed, the morning sun would be shining, the birds calling to one another.

Sadly, but predictably, that never happened. This was a nightmare, but a waking one. And so, without quite knowing how he got there, he found himself sitting opposite the saturnine man in his elegant suit and expensive shoes who just happened to be the head of Russia’s most feared security agency.

On the narrow table between them sat a slim notebook computer, a bottle of vodka, its surface already coated in frost, a bucket of ice, and two old-fashioned glasses. Without a word, Konstantin used a pair of silver tongs to transfer ice cubes from the bucket to the glasses, then poured them each three fingers of vodka. He lifted his glass in toast.

“Nasdarovje.” He cocked his head. “No? To a long and fruitful association. Still, no?” He shrugged. “Well, then, to your health, Marshall.” He clinked the rim of his glass against the one still sitting on the table, for Fulmer had not as yet touched his. He drank, then set his glass down.

“Take a sip, Marshall. This vodka is good—the best. It’ll calm your nerves, I guarantee it.” When Fulmer still made no move to touch the glass, Konstantin said, “As you wish. Now, down to business. What I want from you is simple. Well, we want to start out easy, don’t we? Your orders will get more complicated over time.”