The Bourne Deception - By Robert Ludlum & Eric van Lustbader Page 0,102
renewed fear created a circuit of nervous energy he was barely able to contain.
?To be honest, I thought his client wanted to test out a new hedge fund formula. I mean Noah offered so much money, so I thought, what the hell, I?ll have my fuck-you money in a month or two and then no matter what happens in my business I?ll have this substantial stash. It?s tough working freelance, the minute a downturn hits, the business dries up like you wouldn?t believe.?
Moira sat back for a moment. ?Didn?t you know that Noah worked for Black River??
?He presented himself as Noah Petersen. That?s all I knew.?
?You mean you don?t run ID checks on your clients??
?Not when they deposit two and a half million dollars in my bank account.? He shrugged. ?Besides, I?m not the FBI.?
Moira could see his point. In any case, she knew firsthand how persuasive Noah could be, how good he was at being someone else. He loved playing roles as much as a Hollywood actor. That way he never had to be himself.
?At any time during the creation of Bardem did you get a hint that the program wasn?t meant for a hedge fund??
A certain sadness came into Bamber?s face, and he nodded. ?But not until near the end. Not even when Noah gave me instructions from his client for the second revision. He told me I needed to expand the parameters of the real-life data to include government responses to terrorist attacks, military incursions, and the like.?
?And that didn?t set off alarm bells??
Bamber sighed. ?Why should it? These factors are important to hedge funds since they would significantly impact the financial markets, and it?s my understanding that some hedge funds are set up to take advantage of short-term market dislocations.?
?But at some point you came to a different conclusion.?
Bamber paced around the kitchen, rearranging items that didn?t need rearranging. ?The anomalies kept piling up with each revision, I can see that quite clearly now.? He stopped talking abruptly.
?But at the time?? she prompted.
?I kept telling myself everything was okay,? he said with a good degree of anguish. ?I put my head deeper into the increasingly complex algorithms of Bardem. At night, when doubts began to plague me, I focused on the two and a half mil I?d put to work in Treasury bills, my fuck-you money.? He leaned over the sink, his head down. ?Then a couple of days ago I hit a tipping point and I knew I couldn?t let things go on the way they had been. I didn?t know what to do.?
?So you told Steve about Bardem, and Steve did the search on Noah you?d failed to perform and discovered that he worked for Black River.?
?And Steve being Steve, he couldn?t sit on the information. He was too frightened to go to his superiors, so he passed a thumb drive on to the man he?d gone to when his internal search at the DoD turned up nothing on Noah.?
?Jay Weston,? Moira said. ?Of course! I poached Jay from Hobart, another private contractor to the military. He?d have ID?d Noah right away.?
?And now Steve is dead,? Bamber moaned, ?because of my stupidity and my greed.?
Flushed with rage, Moira got up and crossed the kitchen. ?Dammit, Bamber, get a grip on yourself. The last thing I need from you is self-pity.?
He turned on her. ?What?s the matter with you, don?t you have even an ounce of humanity? My partner was just murdered.?
?I don?t have time for sentiment or??
?And if I remember right a friend of yours was blown six ways from Sunday right in front of you. Don?t you have any remorse, any pity? Is there anything inside you except exacting your revenge on Noah??
?What??
?I mean that?s it, isn?t it? That?s what this is all about?you and Noah at each other?s throats and never mind the collateral damage. Well, fuck him and fuck you!?
As he stalked out of the kitchen Moira grabbed on to the sink in order to keep her feet. All at once the kitchen began to tumble over, she seemed to lose her bearings, to have become unmoored so that she could no longer distinguish the floor from the ceiling.
My God, she thought, what?s happening to me? And immediately an image of Ronnie Hart came to her, those lambent eyes watching her from inside the white Buick, Ronnie knowing the end had come and helpless to stop it. The explosion bloomed again in her mind, blotting out sight, sound, and thought.