My world,” Director Yadin said as he stared out at the cerulean water breaking onto the beach, “is made up of black and white. I leave the shades of gray to other people. I am compelled by my job to see the world in two camps: heroes and villains—those who will help me and those who plot my downfall. Here, we do not have the luxury of being undecided, we do not have the luxury of hesitating, because destruction is always waiting on the other side of night.”
The young men and women, finished with their sexual horseplay in the surf, came running back up the beach, bronzed bodies both hard and lush.
“You know,” Yadin observed, “it’s only when you reach a certain age that you can fully appreciate the bodies of the young.” He turned to Bourne. “It’s part of my job to put those beautiful bodies at risk, and I don’t even have time to consider what a pity it is. My only mistress is necessity.”
Bourne, chin resting on his folded forearms, said, “How does this relate to my history with Ouyang Jidan?”
The Director grunted. “Despite what I’ve just said, for every generation there comes a person whose skills, ingenuity, and danger fall outside the parameters of my universe. You are such a man. And so is Ouyang Jidan. So I suppose it’s not at all surprising that the two of you have a shared history. Somehow, in some mysterious way, you sought each other out, if only because opposites attract.”
The Director stopped rolling his cigar between his fingers, poked one end into his mouth, and took his time lighting up. His eyes glittered eerily in the brief flare-up, then the two men were briefly engulfed in a bluish cloud before the sea breeze blew the aromatic smoke away.
“Ten years ago Ophir and I were running an operation in Syria,” the Director said. “In those days, we were both Kidon. This op was top secret, very perilous not only for us, but for the state itself.” He laughed unexpectedly. “We called ourselves the Assassination Bureau. What a pair of idiots we were!”
His expression sobered quickly enough. “So, then. We had been sent in to infiltrate and to kill. Your specialties, Jason. As it turned out, we weren’t the only ones.”
He paused for a moment to contemplate the end of his cigar, which glowed with what seemed to be an infernal heat. “You remember Brigadier General Wadi Khalid? He was the head of Syrian military intelligence or, as we dubbed him, the Minister of Shitholes.”
The Director puffed on his cigar, then pursed his lips to expel the smoke. Instead he abruptly turned away and began to cough. Released smoke wreathed his head before wafting away.
“Khalid, you may recall, was the architect of the so-called Torture Archipelago, the network of underground torture chambers spread around the country,” the Director continued when he had recovered. “They had to be destroyed, of course, but for obvious reasons, not the least of which was an abrupt reversal of morale among the Syrian military, Khalid had to be exterminated first.”
Yadin coughed again, less violently this time, and cleared his throat. “As I said, in those days Ophir and I were hotshots. We made mistakes—small ones, but they were enough.”
Far out, beyond the shore, a dark blue sailboat, its mainsail ballooned outward, tacked before the wind. Down the beach, a baby started crying. The young women were spreading out a picnic while their boyfriends played cards or sunned themselves.
“So you didn’t get Khalid,” Bourne said, after a time.
“Ophir and I were lucky to escape Damascus with our lives.” The Director stared at his cigar. He no longer seemed interested in smoking it. “But we did return with a startling bit of information. The Syrian military was being taught their interrogation techniques by the Chinese.”
This got Bourne’s attention, as the Director must certainly have known it would. “The Chinese…”
“Ouyang has been whittling away at us for some time.” The Director’s eyes met Bourne’s. “Now it’s cyber warfare, trying to steal our secrets through viruses and Trojans, but it amounts to the same thing. He wants the advanced technology we have.”
“So Ouyang is coordinating all the attacks against you.”
It was Yadin’s turn to look out to sea. “Ouyang’s hatred and fear of us started decades ago. He had been sent to Damascus by his then masters. He was the one mentoring the military intelligence in esoteric torture techniques.”
“Wait a minute, when was this?” Bourne said.
“Eleven years ago. We got out on November fifth.”
Bourne shook his head. “I remember Khalid was killed on November fourth of that year.”
“Two bullets from a long-range rifle—one to the chest, a second to the head.”
“If you didn’t do it—”
“I suppose,” Yadin said wryly, “you don’t recall pulling the trigger.”
“I killed Khalid?”
“Indeed you did.” The Director nodded. “And Brigadier General Wadi Khalid was our friend Ouyang’s premier asset in Syria, one he’d carefully cultivated for years. You blew that operation up. Imagine his loss of face.”
Maricruz Encarnación had the face of Mexico’s conquerors—the high Castilian cheekbones and the imperious air—but with her huge coffee-colored eyes and long waterfall of hair she also might have been an Aztec princess. In either case, she radiated power like the sun.
Minister Ouyang Jidan, sitting next to her in the limo on its way to Shanghai Pudong International Airport, smirked without letting her see his expression. It amused him no end that she infuriated and terrified both his friends and his enemies. She was an outsider—a Westerner; no one understood her, they couldn’t read her and, therefore, had no way of predicting either her requests or her desires. Lăo mò was what they called her behind his back, a Mandarin ethnic slur against Mexicans so stupid he refused to acknowledge it, let alone confront the perpetrators. Yet inside him, a cold fury mounted, multiplying like rats. He never told her, however. He was well aware of her murderous temperament; it was one of the things he found wondrous in her. She was as fierce as a Royal Bengal tiger, as independent as any man he had met.
“Do you think this is wise?” he said now. Though he knew her answer, he felt it incumbent upon him to ask her one last time.
“My father and brother are both dead,” Maricruz said in her musical alto. “If I don’t go, the business will be balkanized. Worse, the executives of the legitimate side of his business will come under increasing pressure from the drug lords my father’s power and influence kept under control.”
“I scrutinize the news from Mexico as thoroughly as you do.”
“Jidan, I very much doubt it.”
“Without Maceo Encarnación,” he said doggedly, “the war between Los Zetas and the Sinaloa cartels has escalated to such a pitch that, if not controlled, it will plunge the entire country into civil war.”
“Nevertheless, I must go.”
“I think you are underestimating the level of danger you’ll be walking into, Maricruz. I don’t think it wise to insert yourself between the two factions.”
“You are afraid for me.”
“Once you leave China I cannot protect you.”
Maricruz showed her small white teeth as she smiled her tigerish smile. “I am my father’s daughter, Jidan.” She put her hand on his thigh. “Besides, you don’t want your lucrative connections severed, do you? Between the opium and the chemicals for meth production we ship to Mexico, we pull down over five billion dollars a year.”
“What I don’t want, Maricruz, is for you to be separated from your head.”
“I won’t forget that,” she said, laughing, as she spread her legs, the lemony shantung silk of her skirt riding up her powerful, burnished thighs, and mounted him. She wore no underwear, and her nimble fingers quickly unzipped him, freeing him. Then she lowered herself onto him. It was easy; she was already wet.
Ouyang let out a puff of air. Hands flat against his chest, she could feel the fierce beating of his heart as if it were a minor seismic event.
She rose and fell on him in a tide-like rhythm. Ouyang’s eyes half closed in pleasure.
“You believe the Encarnación name will protect you.”
“Jidan, please. I know Mexico; I know the cartels.”
He struggled to keep his thoughts from dissolving in the swiftly rising pool of ecstasy. “Los Zetas are different,” he said thickly. “They’re defectors from the army’s special forces. They’re vicious and cruel.”
“Mercenaries are, by definition, vicious and cruel—this has been true no matter how far you go back in history.” She smiled, as if at a memory. She seemed wholly unaffected by their intimate joining. “But the one thing they all have in common is their lust for money. I’m going in prepared. Trust me, Jidan. I will be fine.” Then she gave a little groan, her sole concession to the forces that crested in her. “Everything will be fine.”
Ouyang sat staring after her, drinking in the last shred of her image—her erect, dancer’s carriage, her long, strong legs, her impossibly firm buttocks—as she walked through the door of the departures terminal. His heart constricted, collapsing in on itself. He felt her absence the way a freezing man feels the absence of fire. His mobile phone rang, but he left it unanswered, not trusting himself to speak.
You screwed Ouyang six ways from Sunday,” the Director said, “and after that, Ouyang lost his chance to worm inside the Syrian government. He’s never forgotten that defeat. It’s why he’s after you now; he won’t stop until you’re dead.”
Bourne fingered Rebeka’s gold star of David. “I don’t care.”
“Remember that she—”
“Rebeka was killed by Maceo Encarnación’s son. I killed him and Maceo, that’s over and done with.”
“But it isn’t, Jason,” Yadin said. “Ouyang Jidan was Maceo Encarnación’s partner.”
“This isn’t news to me.”
“But the scope may be.” The Director produced a sheaf of onionskin papers from his breast pocket, unfolded them carefully, and handed them to Bourne. “See for yourself.”
Bourne didn’t want to look; he wanted no more involvement with Yadin, Mossad, Ouyang, anyone from the short life he could remember, for that matter. If the future looked black, then the only patch of gray, the only way out for him, was to choose another path entirely. What that might be, he had no idea. He could return to Georgetown University, resume his professorship in comparative linguistics, of course, except he knew from experience he’d grow bored within the space of a semester. What else was there for him? His Treadstone training had made him uniquely qualified for only one thing.
Reluctantly, with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, he looked down at the first sheet, began reading chapter and verse detailing Ouyang’s growing wealth from his periodic shipments of opium and chemicals that, taken together, could only be bound for the meth labs owned by Encarnación’s cartels.
“Starting five years ago, Ouyang became Encarnación’s sole supplier,” the Director said. “And why not? As a senior Minister, Ouyang was one hundred percent reliable. As you can imagine, he was also a leakproof source. No wonder Encarnación not only bought exclusively from him, but kicked back twenty-five percent from the sales of the finished products.”
By this time, Bourne had finished reading the pages. He now returned them to Yadin. He felt something old and dangerous stirring inside himself. “Have you been tracking Ouyang’s movements?”
“For years,” Yadin said, nodding. “He’s currently in Shanghai.”
“Has he ever traveled to Mexico?”
“No.”
“Anywhere close?”
Yadin shook his head.
Bourne gazed out at the somnolent sea, thinking about unfinished business. He couldn’t let Rebeka’s death go unavenged, and he had nowhere else to go. That thing inside himself sprang to life, and his mind began to shake off the blackness, to work again as it was meant to.
“What doesn’t track,” he said, “is how the two men hooked up in the first place. They were on opposite sides of the world, they moved in entirely different spheres.”
“Not entirely. Don’t forget, Encarnación was the CEO of SteelTrap, the world’s largest Internet security firm. It’s possible they met through the Chinese increasing involvement in cyber espionage.”
Bourne shook his head. “I don’t buy it. I knew Encarnación. He was scrupulous in keeping his legitimate business separate from his criminal activities. For SteelTrap any hint of business with the Chinese would be pure poison. No, there has to be another connection we don’t know about, a connection it’s vital we find.”
The Director carefully put away the papers. In their place, he handed Bourne a sealed packet. When Bourne opened it, he found ten thousand dollars, a first-class ticket from Tel Aviv to Shanghai, and a passport in the name of Lawrence Davidoff.
“Welcome back,” Yadin said. “You leave tomorrow night.”
He waited a moment, perhaps to see if Bourne would return the packet. When he didn’t, Yadin rose and, without another word, stepped out of the shadow of the stone arch, making his way toward his bodyguards, who waited patiently at the land end of the beach.