The Bourne Deception - By Robert Ludlum & Eric van Lustbader Page 0,63
requires yesterday. He couldnt tell her the real reason he needed to see Hererra, and the sooner he convinced her he was an ally the faster shed take him where he needed to go. I dont know him at all. If you get me in to see him Id be grateful.
She handed back the document, which he put away, but her expression remained wary.
How do I know I can trust you?
He shrugged. How do you know anything?
She thought about this for a moment, then nodded. Youre right. Sorry, I cant help you.
But I can help you.
She raised an eyebrow skeptically. Really?
Ill get you the Goya for a song.
She laughed. How could you possibly do that?
Give me an hour when we get to Seville and Ill show you.
All leaves have been canceled, all personnel have been recalled from vacations, Amun Chalthoum said. Ive put my entire force to work on finding how the Iranians crossed my border with a ground-to-air missile.
This situation was bad for him, Soraya knew, even if he hadnt already been on shaky ground with some of his superiors. This breach of security had personal disaster written all over it. Or did it? What if everything hed told her was disinformation meant to distract her from the truth: that with the knowledge either of the Egyptian government or of certain ministers too afraid of raising their own voice against Iran, al Mokhabarat had chosen to use the United States as a bellicose proxy?
Theyd left Delia, left the crash site, driven through the phalanx of media vultures circling the perimeter, and were now racing along the road at top speed in Amuns four-wheel-drive vehicle. The sun was just above the horizon, filling the bowl of the sky with a pellucid light. Pale clouds lay across the western horizon as if exhausted from swimming through the darkness of the night. A wind blew the last of the mornings coolness against their faces. Soon enough, Amun would have to crank up the windows and put the air on.
After sifting through all the pieces of the blast site in the belly of the plane, the forensics team had put together a 3-D computer rendering of the last fifteen seconds of the flight. As Amun and Soraya huddled around a laptop inside a tent, the head of the team had begun the playback.
The modeling is still somewhat crude, hed cautioned, because of how fast we needed to put this together. When the streaking missile came into the frame, he pointed. Also, we cant be one hundred percent certain of the missiles actual trajectory. We could be off by a degree or two.
The missile struck the airliner, breaking it in two and sending it earthward in several fiery spirals. Despite what the leader had said the effect was realistic, and chilling.
What we do know is the Kowsars maximum range. He pressed a key on the laptop, and the imaging changed to a satellite topographic map of the area. He pointed to a red X. This is the crash site. Pressing another key caused a blue ring to be superimposed on the area around the site. The circle shows the missiles maximum range.
Meaning the weapon had to be fired within that space, Chalthoum said.
Soraya could see that he was impressed.
Thats right. The leader nodded. He was a beefy man, balding, with a typical American beer gut and too-small glasses he kept pushing back up the bridge of his nose. But we can narrow it down for you even more. His forefinger pressed still another key and a yellow cone appeared on the screen. The point at the top is where the missile impacted the plane. The bottom is wider because we factored in an error of three percent for our trajectory site.
Once again his finger depressed a key and the scene zoomed in on a square of nearby desert. As well as we can determine, the missile was launched from somewhere within this area.
Chalthoum took a closer look. Thats, what, a square kilometer?
Just under, the leader had said with a small smile of triumph.
This relatively small section of the desert was where they were headed now, hoping to find some sign of the terrorists and their identities. They were part of a convoy, in fact, of five jeeps filled with al Mokhabarat personnel. Soraya found it strange and vaguely disquieting that she was getting used to having them around. She had a map unfolded on her lap. The area theyd seen on the laptop was