short, steep flight of perforated steel stairs. In stark contrast with Typhon's light-drenched ops room, the space here was small, dark, cramped, as if the bedrock of Washington itself were reluctant to give up any more of its domain.
Bourne stopped her at the bottom of the stairs. "Have I done something to offend you?"
Soraya stared at him for a moment as if she couldn't believe what she was seeing. "His name is Hiram Cevik," she said, pointedly ignoring Bourne's question. "Fifty-one, married, three children. He's of Turkish descent, moved to Ukraine when he was eighteen. He's been in Cape Town for the last twenty-three years. Owns an import-export firm. For the most part, the business is legit, but every once in a while, it seems, Mr. Cevik gets a whole other thing going." She shrugged. "Maybe his mistress has a taste for diamonds, maybe it's his Internet gambling."
"It's so hard to make ends meet these days," Bourne said.
Soraya looked like she wanted to laugh, but didn't.
"I rarely do things by the book," he said. "But whatever I do, whatever I say, goes. Is that clear?"
For a moment she stared deep into his eyes. What was she looking for? he wondered. What was the matter with her?
"I'm familiar with your methods," she said in an icy tone.
Cevik was leaning against one wall of his cage, smoking a cigarette. When he saw Bourne approaching with Soraya, he blew out a cloud of smoke and said, "You the cavalry or the inquisitor?"
Bourne watched him as Soraya unlocked the cage door.
"Inquisitor, then." Cevik dropped the cigarette butt and ground it beneath his heel. "I should tell you that my wife knows all about my gambling-and about my mistress."
"I'm not here to blackmail you." Bourne stepped into the cage. He could feel Soraya behind him as if she were a part of him. His scalp began to tingle. She had a weapon and was prepared to use it on the prisoner before the situation got out of hand. She was a perfectionist, Bourne sensed that about her.
Cevik came off the wall and stood with his hands at his side, fingers slightly curled. He was tall, with the wide shoulders of a former rugby player and gold cat's eyes. "Judging by your extreme fitness, it's to be physical coercion, then."
Bourne looked around the cage, getting a feel for what it was like to be pent up in it. A flare of something half remembered, a feeling of sickness in the pit of his stomach. "That would get me nowhere." He used the words to bring himself out of it.
"Too true."
It wasn't a boast. The simple statement of fact told him more about Cevik than an hour of vigorous interrogation. Bourne's gaze resettled on the South African.
"How to resolve this dilemma?" Bourne spread his hands. "You need to get out of here. I need information. It's as simple as that."
Cevik let a thin laugh escape his lips. "If it were that simple, my friend, I'd be long gone."
"My name is Jason Bourne. You're talking to me now. I'm neither your jailor nor your adversary." Bourne paused. "Unless you wish it."
"I doubt I'd care for that," Cevik said. "I've heard of you."
Bourne gestured with his head. "Walk with me."
"That's not a good idea." Soraya planted herself between them and the outside world.
Bourne gave her a curt hand signal.
She pointedly ignored him. "This is a gross breach of security."
"I went out of my way to warn you," he said. "Step aside."
She had her cell phone to her ear as he and Cevik went past. But it was Tim Hytner she was calling, not the Old Man.
Though it was night, the floodlights turned the lawn and its paths into silver oases amid the many-armed shadows of the leafless trees. Bourne walked beside Cevik. Soraya Moore followed five paces behind them, like a dutiful duenna, a look of disapproval on her face, a hand on her holstered gun.
Down in the depths, Bourne had been gripped by a sudden compulsion, fired by the lick of a memory-an interrogation technique used on subjects who were particularly resistant to the standard techniques of torture and sensory deprivation. Bourne was suddenly quite certain that if Cevik tasted the open air, experienced the space after being holed up in the cage for days, it would bring home to him all he had to gain from answering Bourne's questions truthfully. And all he had to lose.