The Bourne Deception - By Robert Ludlum & Eric van Lustbader Page 0,116

hacienda. It wasn?t, but Boris being Boris caught a whiff of a strange scent.?

?Which eventually brought him to Khartoum.?

Volkin deliberately ignored the comment. Perhaps he thought the answer was self-evident. Instead, he said: ?Do you have the date this alleged meeting between Boris and the American secretary took place??

?It was stamped on the photos,? Bourne said. When he told Volkin, the Russian said emphatically, ?Boris was here with me for three days, including that date. I don?t know who was sitting down with the American secretary of defense, Bourne, but as sure as Russia is corrupt it wasn?t our mutual friend Boris Karpov.?

?Who was it then??

?A chameleon, certainly. Do you know any, Bourne??

?Besides myself, I do. But, unlike me, he?s dead.?

?You seem certain of that.?

?I saw him fall from a great height into the water off the Port of Los Angeles.?

?That is not the same as death. By God, you, of all people, should know,? Volkin said.

A cold chill swept down Bourne?s spine.

?How many lives have you had, Bourne? Boris tells me many. I think it must be the same with Leonid Danilovich Arkadin.?

?Are you telling me that Arkadin didn?t drown? That he survived??

?A black cat like Arkadin has nine lives, my friend, possibly even more.?

So it was Arkadin who?d tried to kill him on Bali. Though the picture had suddenly become clearer, there was still something wrong, something missing.

?Are you sure of all this, Volkin??

?Arkadin is now the new head of the Eastern Brotherhood, how?s that for being sure??

?All right, but why would he hire the Torturer when he seems to want so desperately to kill me himself??

?He wouldn?t,? Volkin said. ?The Torturer is much too unreliable, especially against a foe like you.?

?Then who hired him??

?That, Bourne, is a question even I cannot answer.?

Having decided to take to the field himself in an effort to find the missing Metro police officers, Peter Marks was waiting in front of the bank of elevators to take him to the ground floor when an elevator door slid open. The only person inside was the enigmatic Frederick Willard, up until three months ago the Old Man?s mole inside the NSA?s Virginia safe house. The older man was, as usual, dapper, urbane, utterly self-contained. He wore an impeccable gunmetal-gray, chalk-striped three-piece suit over a crisp white shirt and a conservative tie.

?Hello, Willard,? Marks said as he stepped into the elevator. ?I thought you were on leave.?

?I got back several days ago.?

From Marks?s point of view, Willard was remarkably well suited to play the role of steward in the safe house, evincing an old-school professorial air, musty and rather boring. It wasn?t difficult to see how he melted into the woodwork. Being invisible made it so much easier to eavesdrop on intimate conversations.

The door slid shut and they descended.

?I imagine it?s been difficult getting back into the swing of things,? Marks said, more to be polite to the older man than anything else.

?Frankly, it was like I was never gone.? Willard glanced over at Marks with a grimace, as if he?d just come from the surgeon?s office and his agony was of such magnitude that he could not hide it. ?How did your interview with the president go??

Surprised that Willard knew about it, Marks said, ?Well enough, I suppose.?

?Not that it matters, you?re not getting the post.?

?It figures. Dick Symes was the logical front-runner.?

?Symes is out, too.?

Marks?s acceptance turned to consternation. ?How do you know that??

?Because I know who did get the post and, fuck us all, it isn?t anyone from inside CI.?

?But that makes no sense.?

?On the contrary, it makes perfect sense,? Willard said, ?if your name happens to be Bud Halliday.?

Marks turned toward the older man. ?What?s happened, Willard? Come on, man, out with it!?

?Halliday has used Veronica Hart?s sudden death to his advantage. He?s proposed his own man, M. Errol Danziger, and after meeting with Danziger the president?s agreed.?

?Danziger, the NSA?s current deputy director of signals intelligence for analysis and production??

?That?s the one.?

?But he knows nothing about CI!? Marks cried.

?I believe,? Willard said with some asperity, ?that?s precisely the point.?

The doors opened and the two men stepped out into the marble-and-glass reception area, as chilly as it was vast.

?Under the circumstances, I think we need to talk,? Willard said. ?But not here.?

?Certainly not.? Marks was about to propose a meeting for later, but then changed his mind. Who better than this mysterious veteran with a thousand and one sources, who knew all of Alex Conklin?s back-channel intelligence secrets, to help him find