was talking to dead air. He dialed Moira's number, but got her voice mail. Damn her, he thought.
He reached the outskirts of the garden, which was twice the size of New York's Central Park. Divided by the Isar River, it was filled with jogging and bicycle paths, meadows, forests, and even hills. Near the crown of one of these was the Chinese pagoda, which was actually a beer garden.
He was naturally thinking of Soraya as he approached the area. It was odd that both she and Moira had intel on the Black Legion. Now he thought back over his phone conversation with her. Something about it had been bothering him, something just out of reach. Every time he strained for it, it seemed to move farther away from him.
His pace was slowed by the hordes of tourists, American diplomats, children with balloons or kites riding the wind. In addition, a rally of teenagers protesting new rulings on curriculum at the university had begun to gather at the pagoda.
He pushed his way forward, past a mother and child, then a large family in Nikes and hideous tracksuits. The child glanced at him and, instinctively, Bourne smiled. Then he turned away, wiped the blood off his face, though it continued to seep through the cuts opened during his fight with Arkadin.
"No, you can't have sausages," the mother said to her son in a strong British accent. "You were sick all night."
"But Mummy," he replied, "I feel right as rain."
Right as rain. Bourne stopped in his tracks, rubbed the heel of his hand against his temple. Right as rain; the phrase rattled around in his head like a steel ball in a pachinko machine.
Soraya.
Hi, it's me, Soraya. That's how she'd started off the call
Then she'd said: Actually, I'm in Munich.
And just before she'd hung up: Right as rain. I can make it. Can you?
Bourne, buffeted by the quickening throngs, felt as if his head were on fire. Something about those phrases. He knew them, and he didn't, how could that be? He shook his head as if to clear it; memories were appearing like knife slashes through a piece of fabric. Light was glimmering...
And then he saw Moira. She was hurrying toward the Chinese pagoda from the opposite direction, her expression intent, grim, even. What had happened? What information did she have for him?
He craned his neck, trying to find Soraya in the swirl of the demonstration. That was when he remembered.
Right as rain.
He and Soraya had had this conversation before-where? In Odessa? Hi, it's me coming before her name meant that she was under duress. Actually coming before a place where she was supposed to be meant that she wasn't there.
Right as rain meant it's a trap.
He looked up and his heart sank. Moira was heading right into it.
When the door opened, Willard froze. He was on his hands and knees hidden from the doorway by the desk's skirt. He heard voices, one of them LaValle's, and held his breath.
"There's nothing to it," LaValle said. "E-mail me the figures and after I'm done with the Moore woman I'll check them."
"Good deal," Patrick, one of LaValle's aides said, "but you'd better get back to the Library, the Moore woman is kicking up a fuss."
LaValle cursed. Willard heard him cross to the desk, shuffle some papers. Perhaps he was looking for a file. LaValle grunted in satisfaction, walked back across the office, and closed the door after him. It was only when Willard heard the grate of the key in the lock that he exhaled.
He fired up the camera, praying that the images hadn't been deleted, and there they were, one after another, evidence that would damn Luther LaValle and his entire NSA administration. Using both the camera and his cell phone, he linked them through the wireless Bluetooth protocol, then transferred the images to his cell. Once that was completed, he navigated to his son's phone number-which wasn't his son's number, though if anyone called it a young man who had standing instructions to pass as his son would answer-and sent the photos in one long burst. Sending them one by one via separate calls would surely cause a red flag on the security server.
At last, Willard sat back and took a deep breath. It was done; the photos were now in the hands of CI, where they'd do the most good, or-if you were Luther LaValle-the most damage. Checking his watch, he pocketed the camera, relatched the door to the hidden compartment,