The Bourne Deception - By Robert Ludlum & Eric van Lustbader Page 0,125
into chaos. So while he studied the probabilities of Pinprick?s end phase the program was spitting out he thought about the devil?s deal he?d been forced to make with Dimitri Maslov and, by extension, Leonid Arkadin. First and foremost, it galled him to partner with Russians, whose corruption and dissolute lifestyle he both loathed and envied. How could a bunch of scummy pigs like that be so awash in money? While it was true that life was never fair, he mused, sometimes it could be downright malevolent. But what could he do? He?d tried many other routes but, in the end, Maslov had been the only way to get to Nikolai Yevsen, who felt about Americans the way he, Perlis, felt about Russians. Accordingly, he?d been forced to make a deal with too many partners?too many partners for whom double dealing and backstabbing had been ingrained in their nature virtually from birth. Contingencies had to be made against the threat of such treachery, and that meant triple the planning and man-hours. Of course, it also meant he?d been able to triple the fee he was charging Bud Halliday, not that the price meant anything to the secretary, the way the US Mint was printing up dollars as if they were confetti. In fact, at the last Black River board meeting, members of the steering committee were so concerned with the threat of hyperinflation that they had voted unanimously to convert their dollars into gold bullion for the next six months while they put their clients on notice that starting September 1, the company would accept fees only in gold or diamonds. What bothered him about that meeting was that Oliver Liss, one of the three founding members and the man he reported to, was absent.
Simultaneously, he was thinking of Moira. Like a cinder in his eye, she had become an irritant. She was firmly lodged in a corner of his mind ever since she had abruptly quit Black River and, after a short hiatus, had started her own company in direct competition with him. Because, make no mistake, Perlis had taken her defection and subsequent treachery personally. It hadn?t been the first time, but he vowed to himself that it would be the last. The first time well, there were good reasons not to think about the first time. He hadn?t for years and he wasn?t about to start now.
Besides, how else should he take actions that directly drained him of his best personnel? Like a jilted lover, he seethed for revenge, his long-withheld affection for her curdled into outright hatred?not only of her, but of himself. While she was under his control, he?d played his cards too close to the vest?had, he had to admit bitterly, misplayed them altogether. And now she was gone, out of his control and in complete opposition to him. He took whatever solace he could salvage from the fact that her lover, Jason Bourne, was dead. He wished her only ill now, he wanted to see her not simply defeated but humiliated beyond redemption; nothing less would appease his appetite for vengeance.
When his satellite phone rang, he assumed it was Bud Halliday, giving him the signal to launch the final phase of Pinprick, but instead he discovered Humphry Bamber on the line.
?Bamber,? he shouted, ?where the hell are you??
?Back at my office, thank God.? Bamber?s voice sounded thin and metallic. ?I finally managed to escape because the woman Moira Something was too badly hurt in the explosion to hold on to me for long.?
?I heard about the explosion,? Noah said truthfully, though of course he didn?t add that he?d ordered it to keep Veronica Hart and Moira from finding out about Bardem from Bamber. ?Are you all right??
?Nothing a few days? rest won?t cure,? Bamber said, ?but listen, Noah, there?s a glitch in the version of Bardem you?re running.?
Noah stared out at the rivers, the beginning and the end of life in North Africa. ?What kind of a glitch? If the program needs another security patch, forget it, I?m almost finished using it.?
?No, nothing like that. There?s a calculation error; the program isn?t producing accurate data.?
Now Noah was alarmed. ?How the hell did that happen, Bamber? I paid through the nose for this software and now you tell me that??
?Calm down, Noah, I?ve already solved the internal error and corrected it. All I need to do now is to upload it to you, but you?ll have to shut down all your programs.?