It was then, crouched in the shadows of a doorway, unconsciously massaging the back of his head where a lump had already been raised, that he heard her voice. It rose from the deep, from the shadows in which he sat, dropping down through the depths, pulled under the purling waves.
“Lee-Lee,” he whispered. “Lee-Lee!”
It was her voice he heard calling to him. He knew what she wanted; she wanted him to join her in the drowned depths. He put his aching head in his hands and a terrible sob escaped his lips like the last bubble of air from his lungs. Lee-Lee. He hadn’t thought of her in so long—or had he? He’d dreamed about her almost every night; it had taken him this long to realize it. Why? What was different now that she should come to him so strongly after such a long time gone?
It was then he heard the slam of the front door and his head came up in time for him to see the big man racing out of the entrance to 106–108 Fo utca. He was grasping one hand with the other, and by the trail of blood behind him Khan figured that he’d run into Jason Bourne. A small smile crept across his face, for he knew this must be the man who’d attacked him.
Khan felt an immediate urge to kill him, but with an effort he gained control and came up with a better idea. Leaving the shadows, he followed the figure as he fled down Fo utca.
Dohány Synagogue was the largest synagogue in Europe. On its western side, the massive structure had an intricate Byzantine brickwork facade in blue, red and yellow, the heraldic colors of Budapest. Crowning the entrance was a large stained-glass window. Above this impressive sight rose two Moorish polygonal towers topped by striking copper and gilt cupolas.
“I’ll go in and get him,” Annaka said as they got out of her Skoda. Istvan’s service had tried to direct her to a covering doctor, but she’d insisted that she needed to see Dr. Ambrus, that she was an old family friend, and at length they’d directed her here. “The fewer people who see you like this, the better.”
Bourne agreed. “Listen, Annaka, I’m beginning to lose count of the times you’ve saved my life.”
She looked at him and smiled. “Then stop counting.”
“The man who assaulted you.”
“Kevin McColl.”
“He’s an Agency specialist.” There was no need for Bourne to have to tell her what sort of specialist McColl was. Yet another thing he liked about her. “You handled him well.”
“Until he used me as a shield,” she said bitterly. “I should never have allowed—”
“We got out of it. That’s all that matters.”
“But he’s still at large, and his threat—”
“The next time I’ll be ready for him.”
The small smile returned to her face. She directed him to the courtyard in the rear of the synagogue, where she told him he could wait for them without fear of running into anyone.
Istvan Ambrus, the doctor of János Vadas’ acquaintance, was inside at service, but he was amenable enough when Annaka went in and told him of the emergency.
“Of course, I’m pleased to help you in any way I can, Annaka,” he said as he rose from his seat and walked with her through the magnificent chandeliered interior. Behind them was the great five-thousand-tube organ, highly unusual in a Jewish house of worship, on whose keyboard the great composers Franz Liszt and Camille Saint-Saens had once played.
“Your father’s death has hit us all very hard.” He took her hand, squeezed it briefly. He had the blunt, strong fingers of a surgeon or a bricklayer. “How are you holding up, my dear?”
“As well as can be expected,” she said softly, leading him outside.
Bourne was sitting in the courtyard under whose earth lay the corpses of five thousand Jews who had perished in the brutal winter of 1944–45, when Adolph Eichmann turned the synagogue into a concentration point from which he sent ten times that number to camps where they were exterminated. The courtyard, contained between the arches of the inner loggia, was filled with pale memorial stones through which dark-green ivy crept. The trunks of the trees with which it had been planted were similarly wound with the vines. A cold wind ruffled the leaves, a sound that in this place could have been mistaken for distant voices.
It was difficult to sit here and not think of the dead and of the terrible suffering that had gone on here during that dark time. He wondered whether another dark time was gathering itself to overwhelm them once again. He looked up from his contemplation to see Annaka in the company of a round-faced, dapper individual with a pencil mustache and apple cheeks. He was dressed in a brown three-piece suit. The shoes on his small feet were highly polished.
“So you’re the disaster in question,” he said after Annaka had made the introductions, assuring him that Bourne could speak their native tongue. “No, don’t get up,” he went on as he sat down beside Bourne and began his examination. “Well, sir, I don’t believe Annaka’s description did your injuries justice. You look like you’ve been put through a wurst-grinder.”
“That’s just how I feel, Doctor.” Bourne winced despite himself as Dr. Ambrus’ fingers probed a particularly painful spot.
“As I walked out into the courtyard, I saw you deep in thought,” Dr. Ambrus said in a conversational tone. “In a sense, this is a terrible place, this courtyard, reminding us of those we’ve lost and, in a larger sense, what humanity as a whole lost during the Holocaust.” His fingers were surprisingly light as well as agile as they roamed over the tender flesh of Bourne’s side. “But the history of that time isn’t all so grim, you know. Just before Eichmann and his staff marched in, several priests helped the rabbi remove the twenty-seven scrolls of the Torah from the Ark inside the synagogue. They took them, these priests, and buried them in a Christian cemetery, where they remained safe from the Nazis until after the war was ended.” He smiled thinly. “So what does this tell us? There remains the potential for light even in the darkest places. Compassion can come from the most unexpected places. And you have two cracked ribs.”
He rose now. “Come. I have at my house all the equipment necessary to bind you up. In a matter of just a week or so the pain will recede, and you’ll be on the mend.” He waggled a thick forefinger. “But in the interim you must promise me you’ll rest. No strenuous exercise for you. In fact, no exercise at all would be best.”
“I can’t promise you that, Doctor.”
Dr. Ambrus sighed as he shot Annaka a quick glance. “Now why doesn’t that surprise me?”
Bourne got to his feet. “In fact, I’m very much afraid I’m going to have to do everything you’ve just warned me against, in which case I’ve got to ask you to do what you can in order to protect the damaged ribs.”
“How about a suit of armor?” Dr. Ambrus chuckled at his own joke, but his amusement quickly dropped away as he saw the expression on Bourne’s face. “Good God, man, what do you expect to be going up against?”
“If I could tell you,” Bourne said bleakly, “I imagine we’d all be better off.”
Though clearly taken aback, Dr. Ambrus was as good as his word, leading them to his house in the Buda Hills where he had a small examining room where others might have had a study. Outside the window were climbing roses, but the geranium pots were still bare, awaiting warmer weather. Inside, were cream walls, white moldings, and on top of the cabinets, framed snapshots of Dr. Ambrus’ wife and his two sons.
Dr. Ambrus sat Bourne down on the table, humming to himself as he went methodically through his cabinets, picking out one item here, two more there. Returning to his patient who he’d bade strip to the waist, he swung an armatured light around, snapped it on the field of battle. Then he went to work binding Bourne’s ribs tightly in three different layers of material—cotton, spandex and a rubber-like material he said contained Kevlar.
“Better than that no one could do,” he declared when he was finished.
“I can’t breathe,” Bourne gasped.
“Good, that means the pain will be kept to a minimum.” He rattled a small brown plastic bottle. “I’d giv
e you some painkillers, but for a man such as yourself—um, no, I think not. The drug will interfere with your senses, your reflexes will be off, and the next time I see you, you might be on a slab.”
Bourne smiled at the attempt at humor. “I’ll do my best to spare you that shock.” Bourne dug in a pocket. “How much do I owe you?”
Dr. Ambrus raised his hands. “Please.”
“How to thank you, then, Istvan?” Annaka said.
“Just to see you again, my dear, is payment enough.” Dr. Ambrus took her face in his hands, kissed her on first one cheek, then the other. “Promise me you’ll come to dinner one night soon. Bela misses you as much as I. Come, my dear. Come. She’ll make you her goulash, which you loved as a child.”
“I promise, Istvan. Soon.”
Content at last with this promise of payment, Dr. Ambrus let them go.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“Something needs to be done about Randy Driver,” Lindros said.
The DCI finished signing a set of papers, pushing them into his outbox before looking up. “I heard he gave you a sound tongue-lashing.”
“I don’t understand. Is this a source of amusement for you, sir?”
“Indulge me, Martin,” he said with a smirk he refused to hide. “I have few sources of entertainment these days.”
The sun-dazzle that had all afternoon spun off the statue of the three Revolutionary War soldiers outside the window was gone, making the bronze figures appear weary in the shadows shrouding them. The fragile light of another spring day had all too quickly passed into night.
“I want him taken care of. I want access—”
The DCI’s face darkened. “‘I want, I want’—what are you, a three-year-old?”
“You put me in charge of the investigation into Conklin’s and Panov’s murders. I’m only doing what you asked.”
“Investigation?” The DCI’s eyes sparked with anger. “There is no investigation. I told you in no uncertain terms, Martin, that I wanted an end to this. The bleeding is killing us with the bitch-woman. I want it cauterized so it can be forgotten. The last thing I need is for you to be running all over the Beltway, throwing your weight around like a bull in a china shop.” He waved a hand to stave off his deputy’s protestations. “Hang Harris, hang him high and loud enough for the National Security Advisor to be certain we know what we’re doing.”
“If you say so, sir, but with all due respect that would be just about the worst mistake we could make right now.” As the DCI stared open-mouth at him, he spun across the desk the computer printout Harris had sent over.
“What is this?” the DCI said. He liked a precis of everything he was given before he had a chance to read it.
“It’s part of the electronic record of a ring of Russians providing people with illegal handguns. The gun used to murder Conklin and Panov is there. It was falsely registered to Webb. This proves Webb was set up, that he didn’t murder his two best friends.”
The DCI had begun reading the printout, and now his thick white brows furrowed. “Martin, this proves nothing.”
“Again, with all due respect, sir, I don’t see how you can ignore the facts that are right in front of you.”
The DCI sighed, pushed the printout away from him as he sat back in his chair. “You know, Martin, I’ve trained you well. But it occurs to me now that you still have a great deal to learn.” He pointed a forefinger at the paper lying on his desk. “This tells me that the gun Jason Bourne used to shoot Alex and Mo Panov was paid for via a wire transfer from Budapest. Bourne has I don’t know how many bank accounts overseas, in Zurich and Geneva mostly, but I don’t see why he wouldn’t have one in Budapest as well.” He grunted. “It’s a clever trick, one of so many taught to him by Alex himself.”
Lindros’ heart had plummeted to his shoes. “So you don’t think—”
“You want me to take this so-called evidence to the bitch-woman?” The DCI shook his head. “She’d shove it back down my throat.”
Of course, the first thing that had entered the Old Man’s mind was that Bourne had hacked into the U.S. Government database from Budapest, which was why he himself had activated Kevin McColl. No point telling Martin that; he’d only get himself all het up. No, the DCI thought obstinately, the money for the murder weapon had originated in Budapest and that was where Bourne had fled. Further damning evidence of his guilt.
Lindros broke in on his musing. “So you won’t authorize going back to Driver—”
“Martin, it’s coming up on seven-thirty and my stomach has started to rumble.” The DCI stood. “To show you that there’s no hard feelings, I want you to join me for dinner.”
The Occidental Grill was an insider restaurant at which the DCI had his own table. It was for civilians and low-grade government employees to stand on lines, not for him. In this arena his power rose out of the shadow world he inhabited, made itself known to all of Washington. There were precious few inside the Beltway who possessed this status. After a difficult day, there was nothing like using it.
They valet-parked and mounted the long flight of granite steps to the restaurant. Inside, they went down a narrow passageway hung with photos of the presidents as well as other famous political personages who had dined at the grill. As he always did, the DCI paused in front of the photo of J. Edgar Hoover and his ever-constant shadow, Clyde Tolson. The DCI’s eyes bored into the photo of the two men as if he had the power to expunge by fire this duo from the pantheon on the wall of greats.
“I distinctly remember the moment we intercepted the Hoover memo exhorting his senior officers to find the link that tied Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Communist Party to the anti–Vietnam War demonstrations.” He shook his head. “What a world I’ve been a party to.”
“It’s history, sir.”
“Ignominious history, Martin.”
With that pronouncement, he passed through the half-glass doors into the restaurant itself. The room was all wooden booths, cut-glass partitions and mirrored bar. As usual, there was a line, which the DCI navigated like the Queen Mary sailing through a flotilla of motorboats. He stopped in front of the podium, which was presided over by an elegant silver-haired maître d’.
At the DCI’s approach, the man turned with a brace of long menus clutched to his breast. “Director!” His eyes opened wide. There was an odd paleness to his usually florid skin. “We had no idea that you’d be dining with us tonight.”
“Since when do you need advance notice, Jack?” The DCI said.
“May I suggest a drink at the bar, Director? I have your favorite sour mash.”
The DCI patted his stomach. “I’m hungry, Jack. We’ll dispense with the bar and go straight to my table.”
The maître d’ looked distinctly uncomfortable. “Please give me a moment, Director,” he said, hurrying away.
“What the hell’s the matter with him?” muttered the DCI with some annoyance.
Lindros had already taken a look at the DCI’s corner table, saw that it was occupied, and blanched. The DCI saw his expression and he whirled, peering through the throng of waiters and patrons at his beloved table, where the power seat reserved for him was now occupied by Roberta Alonzo-Ortiz, National Security Advisor of the United States. She was deep in conversation with two senators from the Foreign Intelligence Services Committee.
“I’ll kill her, Martin. So help me God, I’ll rend the bitch-woman limb from limb.”
At that moment the maître d’, clearly sweating inside his collar, returned. “We have a nice table all set up for you, Director, a table for four, just for you gentlemen. And the drinks’re on the house, all right?”
The DCI bit back his rage. “It’s quite all right,” he said, aware that he was unable to rid himself of his high color. “Lead on, Jack.”
The maître d’ took them on a route that didn’t pass his old table, and the DCI was grateful to Jack for that.
“I told her, Director,” the maître d’ said almost under his brea
th. “I made it quite clear that that particular corner table was yours, but she insisted. She wouldn’t take no for an answer. What could I do? I’ll have the drinks over in just a minute.” Jack said all this in a rush as he seated them, presenting the food and wine menus. “Is there anything else I can do, Director?”
“No, thank you, Jack.” The DCI picked up his menu.
A moment later a burly waiter with muttonchop sideburns brought two glasses of sour mash, along with the bottle and a carafe of water.
“Compliments of the maître d’,” he said.
If Lindros had been under any illusion that the DCI was calm, he was disabused of that notion the moment the Old Man took up his glass to sip his sour mash. His hand shook, and now Lindros could see that his eyes were glazed with rage.
Lindros saw his opening and, like the fine tactician he was, took it. “The National Security Advisor wants the double murders attended to and swept away with as little fuss as possible. But if the basic assumption that underlies this reasoning—mainly that Jason Bourne is responsible—is untrue, then everything else falls apart, including the NSA’s extremely vocal position.”
The DCI looked up. He stared shrewdly at his deputy. “I know you, Martin. You already have some plan in mind, don’t you?”
“Yessir, I do, and if I’m right, we’ll make the NSA look like fools. But for that to happen, I need Randy Driver’s full and complete cooperation.”
The waiter appeared with the chopped salads.
The DCI waited until they were alone and poured them both more sour mash. With a tight smile, he said, “This business with Randy Driver—you believe it’s necessary?”
“More than necessary, sir. It’s vital.”
“Vital, eh?” The DCI tucked into his salad, looked at the resulting piece of glistening tomato impaled on the tines of his fork. “I’ll sign the paperwork first thing tomorrow.”