I don’t like this,” Maricruz said. “It feels like a trap.”
“It feels exactly like a trap,” Bourne acknowledged.
“Let’s get out of here.”
“When I’ve finished my business.”
“How can you remain so cocksure?”
“I have a plan.” Bending down, Bourne picked up the gun she had thrown into the foot well, and loaded it. Then he handed it to her. “My plan involves you. Think you’re up to it?”
Bourne gave the verbal passcode to J. J. Hale as he sat down across from him. Hale, glancing up from his tablet, spoke the countersign.
“Now that the formalities are behind us,” he said, “we can relax. Something to eat? How about a drink? The espresso is fantastic.”
“Just weapons,” Bourne said.
“A man of few words, eh?” Hale nodded. “I can appreciate that. I’ve been instructed to supply you with anything you need.”
Bourne produced a list he had written up, passed it across the table to the armorer. Hale took it, glanced down at it, and whistled.
“Planning to start your own little war?”
“Do you really want to know?”
He raised his hands, palms outward. “God, no. I was just making small talk. But I forget, you’re not one for small talk.”
He tried to remain relaxed, but knowing that Ophir was behind him with a silenced gun caused his spine to stiffen, so that he sat as erect and still as a soldier on the parade ground.
Giving the list another look, he said, “Most of this stuff I can get you right away, no problem. I can even get my hands on the grenade launcher, but the flamethrower is military issue. That’s another matter altogether.”
“Meaning?”
“It’ll take time.”
“No,” Bourne said, “it won’t.”
Hale looked up, his eyebrows raised. “D’you know something I don’t?”
“I know what I need and when I need it.”
“Give me twenty-four—”
“You have an hour to get everything together.” Bourne’s eyes held Hale’s. “Everything.”
Hale laughed uneasily. “Or what?”
“Or I blow your brains out.”
Hale failed to keep his laugh going.
“Take a peek under the table,” Bourne said. “Go on.”
Hale took a breath, which, despite his best effort, shuddered out of him. He shifted slightly, bent enough to glance under the table, saw the 9 mm pointed at his groin.
“That’s a sick joke,” he said, returning to his former position.
“I don’t make jokes.”
Hale blinked. “Clearly.”
“An hour, then.”
Hale cursed silently. Why the hell hadn’t Ophir shot this sonofabitch yet?
Amir Ophir was a man with multiple masters. This seeming contradiction had never bothered him. He was an Israeli whose views had always differed from those of the people around him. Early on in life he had learned to keep his opinions to himself. As a boy, he had been exposed to any number of terrorist incursions, one of which took his brother in a fusillade of friendly fire. Perhaps it was the circumstances of his brother’s death that had made him ripe for being seduced, in the strictest sense.
In any event, the money, laundered by Minister Ouyang from a bank in the Cayman Islands and amassing quietly in a Swiss bank account, did not hurt. His treason was an unholy amalgam of payback and greed, the perfect stew for a secret turncoat.
All this passed through his mind as quickly as a flash of sunlight on water as he watched Bourne sitting opposite Hale not fifty feet from him. Without taking his eyes off Bourne, he reached into his carry-bag, brought out the silencer, which he attached to the .22. The pistol was a smaller caliber than he usually fired, but in this public setting and at this distance it was the weapon of choice.
He double-checked that the Ruger was loaded, the chamber load indicator was on, the safety off. Then, covered by his napkin, he brought it up over the table. He was sighting in on Bourne’s head when he felt a cold steel gun muzzle pressed to the back of his head.
“Hey, haven’t seen you in a while!”
A female voice! He could scarcely believe it.
A hearty clap on the back and an urgent whisper in his ear: “Put the pistol down.”
For a hallucinatory moment, he thought it was Rebeka behind him, resurrected from the grave into which her coffin had been laid. He heard her voice reverberating in his ear and, heart racing, temples throbbing painfully, he all but cried out, My secret’s safe with you now you’re dead.
Then a hand curled over his shoulder, took the Ruger, still wrapped in the napkin, out of his right hand and removed it from his sight.
“Who are you?” he said.
“You first.” Silence. “No?” She dug the muzzle into the nape of his neck. “Okay, let’s go ask people who know you.”
When he didn’t move, she gripped his shoulder with surprising strength and whispered fiercely in his ear, “Get the fuck up!”
Ophir stood, and, recalling Bourne’s admonition, Maricruz stepped back, out of range of his raised fist.
“I’m ambidextrous,” she said, transferring the Ruger to her left hand.
“You’re not going to shoot me in here.”
“No?” She lifted the barrel of the concealed Ruger.
“A silencer. Nice touch.”
She walked him out onto the café’s terrace and sat him down between Bourne and the armorer.
“As promised,” she said to Bourne.
Bourne eyed Ophir. “Maricruz, I’d like you to meet Amir Ophir, Mossad’s head of assassinations and infiltration.”
“Oh, Christ!” Hale said, one hand over his eyes.
“Nothing’s turned out the way you expected,” Bourne said.
“For you, either,” Ophir said. “The Federales are ready to string you up by your balls.”
“Really? Why didn’t you simply tell them where I’d be?”
“Because more than likely they’d fuck up the operation.”
“Just like you did,” Maricruz said. She was standing behind him, both guns pressed through the rattan of the chair back.
Bourne contemplated the Mossad chief. “You’ve lost a great deal of your field tradecraft since Damascus. Time to retire, Amir.”
Ophir grinned through gritted teeth. “Dream on, fucker.”
At that moment Bourne cocked his head, heard the first faint sounds of police sirens. “You’re right, Amir. They did fuck it up.”
Grabbing Hale, he backed away from the table, jerked his head for Maricruz to follow him.
“See you around,” Ophir said. “Count on it.”
Squeezed into the front seat of the truck three-abreast, Bourne said to Hale, “You’re taking us to your warehouse.” When the armorer made no reply, he added, “We can also do this the hard way.”
“Makes no difference to me,” Hale said.
Without seeming to move a muscle, Bourne slammed the edge of his right hand into Hale’s throat. The man made a croaking sound, bent as far double as he was able, and began to gasp for air.
Bourne, glancing over him to Maricruz, said, “Sometimes there’s really no need for a gun.”
Maricruz pulled the armorer’s head up by his damp hair. “How are you feeling, señor? Enjoying the ride?”
He stared straight ahead, tears streaming out of his eyes. Nevertheless, he gave Bourne an address.
A pair of police cruisers, blue roof lights revolving, sped past the truck, heading for the café they had just vacated. Bourne turned right at the next intersection, handed Maricruz his mobile.
She nodded, pulled up Google Maps, entered the address Hale had recited. “Two blocks,” she said, “then make a left.”
Between them, Hale was still gasping for air. He winced when he tried to massage his Adam’s apple. The area was red, already swollen.
“This is no line of work for you, armorer,” Bourne said. “You’ve made the wrong friends.”
Hale’s warehouse was an enormous self-storage facility on the outskirts of the city. Row upon row of identical concrete structures confronted them, their enormous corrugated iron doors rolled down and securely locked. The place reminded Bourne of a cemetery.
The armorer directed the truck down the eighth aisle from the entrance. Halfway down he told Bourne to stop. Bourne took him out of the truck’s cab, Maricruz following. Hale fished a key out of his pocket and, squatting, opened the lock, unhooked it, then rolled the door up.
Flicking on a light switch, he led them into the cavernous interior, which was filled with crates of varying sizes and shapes that rose on three sides.
“Look at this,” Bourne said, pointing out some crates to Maricruz, “Chinese manufacture. I wonder who you bought these weapons from, Hale. Could it have been Minister Ouyang?”
The armorer coughed. “What was it you need again?”
“I gave you a list.”
“It’s gone right out of my head.” He was sweating profusely. “After what…” His hand went to his swollen throat. “After what happened I can’t put two thoughts together.”
Bourne told him, and he nodded dully, went from place to place bringing out the items Bourne asked for, plus the various forms of ammo to go with the weapons.
“Don’t forget the flamethrower,” Bourne said, taking up the grenade launcher, feeling its weight on his right shoulder. When Hale brought out the flamethrower, Bourne added, “So much for the twenty-four-hour wait.”
Hale helped him load the truck with the four hard cases that contained the weapons. Bourne told Maricruz to get back in the cab. After she had done so, Bourne turned to Hale and said in a low voice, “I don’t trust that woman. I need an easily concealed handgun.”
“Then we’re through?” the armorer asked.
“Then we’re through.”
A wave of relief passed over Hale’s face, and he turned back inside the storage space. “I’ve got just the thing.”
“I’m sure you do,” Bourne said, as he slid the corrugated iron door down, stooped, and affixed the lock, snapping it shut.
He thought he heard the tiny echo of Hale’s voice from inside, but he couldn’t be sure. He turned away, swung up behind the wheel, and put the truck in gear.
“Do you know how to get in touch with Matamoros?” Bourne said as he drove out of the storage facility.
“Of course.”
“Use my mobile. Find out where he is. Set up a meet.”
Maricruz nodded. She punched in a number, put the phone to her ear.
“Felipe. Yes, it’s me…It’s a long story, but I’m fine, which is more than I can say for Carlos. Sí, sí, he’s done…Where are you, San Luis Potosí?…No?…Here in Mexico City. We need to—”
At that moment, a black Chevy, running a red light, slammed into the truck’s side with the force of a battering ram.