"Okay, so you're not the enemy. But neither was Tim. There's got to be another explanation."
"Then we'll find it together," he said. "I have my name to clear, you have Hytner's."
"Give me your right hand," she said to Bourne.
Gripping Bourne's wrist, she turned the hand over so that the palm was faceup. With her other hand, she laid the flat of the blade on the tip of Bourne's forefinger.
"Don't move."
With one deft motion she flicked the blade forward, along his skin. Instead of drawing blood, she lifted off a minute oval of translucent material so thin Bourne had not felt or noticed it.
"Here we go." She held it up in the fitful glow of the streetlight for Bourne to see. "It's known as a NET. A nano-electronic tag, according to the tech boys from DARPA." She meant the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, an arm of the Department of Defense. "It uses nanotechnology-microscopic servers. This is how I tracked you with the copter so quickly."
Bourne had fleetingly wondered how the CI copter had picked him up so quickly, but he'd assumed it was the Hummer's distinctive profile they'd spotted. He considered for a moment. Now he recalled with vivid clarity the curious look Tim Hytner had given him when he had handled the transcript of Cevik's phone conversation: That was how they'd planted the NET on him.
"Sonovabitch!" He eyed Soraya as she slid the NET into a small oval plastic case and screwed down the lid. "They were going to monitor me all the way to Ras Dejen, weren't they?"
She nodded. "DCI's orders."
"So much for the promise to keep me off the leash," Bourne said bitterly.
"You're off now."
He nodded. "Thanks."
"How about returning the favor?"
"Which would be... ?"
"Let me help you."
He shook his head. "If you knew me better, you'd know I work alone."
Soraya looked as if she was about to say something, then changed her mind. "Look, as you said yourself, you're already in hot water with the Old Man. You're going to need someone on the inside. Someone you can trust absolutely." She took a step back toward the motorcycle. "Because you know as sure as we're both standing here that the Old Man's going to find ways to fuck you every which way from Sunday."
Chapter Six
KIM LOVETT was tired. She wanted to go home to her husband of six months. He was too new to the district and they were too new to each other for him to have yet succumbed to the crushing separation dictated by his wife's job.
Kim was always tired. The D.C. Fire Investigation Unit knew no typical hours or workdays. As a consequence, agents like Kim, who were clever, experienced, and knew what they were doing, were called on to labor hours akin to those of an ER surgeon in a war zone.
Kim had caught the call from DCFD during a brief lull in the mind-numbing drudgery of filling out paperwork on a phalanx of arson investigations, one of the few moments during the past weeks when she'd allowed herself to think about her husband-his wide shoulders, his strong arms, the scent of his naked body. The reverie didn't last long. She had picked up her kit and was on her way to the Hotel Constitution.
She engaged the siren as she headed out. From Vermont Avenue and 11th Street to the northeast corner of 20th and F took no more than seven minutes. The hotel was surrounded by police cars and fire engines, but by now the fire had been contained. Water streamed down the facade from the open wound at the end of the fifth floor. The EMT vehicles had come and gone, and there was about the scene the brittle, jittery aftermath of cinders and draining adrenaline Kim's father had described to her so well.
Chief O'Grady was waiting for her. She got out of the car and, displaying her ID, was admitted past the police barricades.
"Lovett," O'Grady grunted. He was a big, beefy man with short but unruly white hair and ears the size and shape of a thick slice of pork tenderloin. His sad, watery eyes watched her guardedly. He was one of the majority who felt that women had no place in the DCFD.
"What've we got?"
"Explosion and fire." O'Grady lifted his chin in the direction of the gaping wound.
"Any of our men killed or injured?"
"No, but thanks for asking." O'Grady wiped his forehead with a dirty paper towel. "There was a death,