The Bourne Deception - By Robert Ludlum & Eric van Lustbader Page 0,23

suit his purposes to a T.”

Hart nodded. “That’s just what I was thinking. So while you’re in Egypt I want you to nose around. Use Typhon’s Egyptian contacts to find out what you can about the legitimacy of this group.”

“That won’t be easy,” Soraya said. “I can guarantee you that the national secret police are going to be all over us—especially me.”

“Why especially you?” Hart asked.

“Because the head of al Mokhabarat is Amun Chalthoum. He and I had a heated confrontation.”

“How heated?”

Soraya’s memory immediately clamped down. “Chalthoum is a complex character, difficult to read—his entire life seems wrapped up in his career in al Mokhabarat, an organization of thugs and assassins to which he’s been given a life sentence.”

“Lovely,” Hart said with no little sarcasm.

“But it would be naive to believe that’s all there is to him.”

“Do you think you can handle him?”

“I don’t see why not. I think he’s got a thing for me,” Soraya said, not quite understanding why she wasn’t telling Veronica the whole truth.

Eight years ago, on a courier mission, she’d been captured by agents of al Mokhabarat who, unbeknownst to her, had infiltrated CI’s local network to which she was to deliver a microdot on which was etched the network’s new orders. She had no idea what was on the microdot, had no desire to know. She was thrown in a basement cell of al Mokhabarat’s offices in downtown Cairo. Three days later, with no sleep and only water and a crust of moldy bread to eat once each day, she was taken upstairs and brought before Amun Chalthoum, who took one look at her and immediately ordered her cleaned up.

She was shown to a shower, where she scrubbed every inch of her body with a soapy washcloth. When she stepped out, a set of new clothes was waiting for her. She assumed her old clothes were being ripped apart and scrutinized by an al Mokhabarat forensics team searching for the intel she was carrying.

Everything fit her perfectly. To her surprise, she was then escorted out of the building. It was night. It occurred to her that she’d had no idea of time passing. In the boiling street a car was waiting at the curb, its headlights illuminating plainclothes guards watching her with studied attention. When she climbed in she had another shock: Amun Chalthoum sat behind the wheel. He was all alone.

He drove very hard and very fast across the city, heading west into the desert. He said nothing, but from time to time when traffic allowed, he watched her with his avid hawk’s gaze. She was famished but was determined to keep her hunger to herself.

He took her to Wadi AlRayan. He stopped the car, told her to get out. They stood facing each other in the blue moonlight. Wadi AlRayan was so desolate, they could have been the last two humans on earth.

“Whatever you’re looking for,” she said, “I don’t have it.”

“Yes, you do.”

“It’s already been delivered.”

“My sources tell me otherwise.”

“You don’t pay your sources nearly enough. Besides, you’ve checked my clothes and everything else.”

He didn’t laugh, nor would he ever during the time she was with him. “It’s in your head. Give it to me.” When she didn’t respond, he added, “We’ll stay out here until you give me the intel.”

She recognized his threat, recognized, too, the impetus behind it. In his eyes she was an Egyptian female. As such, she was brought up to unquestioningly obey males; why should she be any different from any of the other females he knew? Because she was half American? He spit on Americans. Immediately she saw the advantage his mistake gave her. She stood up to him; she kept to her story; she defied him every step of the way; most importantly, she proved she couldn’t be intimidated.

In the end, he’d backed down, had taken her back to Cairo, to the airport. At the boarding gate he handed back her passport as a gentleman might. It was a formal and somehow touching gesture. She turned away, certain she’d never see him again.

The DCI nodded. “If you can use his attraction for you to your advantage, do so, because I have an uncomfortable feeling that Halliday is about to propose a major new military initiative based on the premise of an armed insurrection from inside Iran.”

Leonid Arkadin was sitting in a café in Campione d’Italia, a picturesque Italian tax haven tucked away in the Swiss Alps. The tiny municipality rose steeply off the glassy