BOURNE AWOKE BEFORE dawn. Night’s shadows still filled the corners of the living room. Rosie had made up their one upholstered chair with bed linens and a pillow that smelled deeply of pine. For a moment Bourne sat immobile. He had been dreaming of the Nordic disco, of the bright lights, the pounding music, and the woman in the bathroom stall. But instead of pointing a gun at him, it was her finger. Instead of being blond and blue-eyed, she was dark-haired and brown-eyed. She was Rosie. Rosie had opened her mouth to say something to him, something important, he was sure with that certainty that exists only in dreams. Then he had rocketed awake.
Why?
Was it movement? He looked around, but the room was still and serene.
What then?
He rose and stretched his tight muscles. It was when he was moving through the first cycle of exercises he practiced daily that he understood.
The sound of an engine, still far away, had penetrated his sleep, drawing him back to Colombia. Grabbing a sturdy carving knife out of the handmade rack on the kitchen counter, he went outside, shivering in the chill. The rain was gone, but a silvery mist obscured the ground and swirled somnolently through the treetops. In the east, pearl gray was grudgingly giving way to the pallid pink of the moment before sunrise. He saw two battered jeeps behind the house. They looked like World War II issue.
The sound rose into the coming morning.
Bourne cocked his head, listening more closely. And there it was, still faint but unmistakable: thwop-thwop-thwop.
He turned and was about to run inside when Vegas emerged toting a SAM—a Russian Strela-2 shoulder missile launcher with what appeared to be a laser-guided SCS-132 photo optic scope.
Bourne laughed. “You weren’t kidding about being prepared.”
“It’s not just me I have to protect now,” Vegas said. “It’s Rosie.”
They both turned to the north and, breathless moments later, the helicopter appeared through the rising mist. As Vegas rested the missile launcher on his shoulder and peered through the scope, machine-gun fire whistled over their heads.
“Perfect!” Vegas said and squeezed the trigger.
The missile shot off with a boom that echoed through the mountains. The helicopter was still rising over the top of the mist-shrouded ridge when the missile struck it head-on. It burst into a fireball, spewing molten bits of metal and plastic like an erupting volcano.
By that time Bourne and Vegas had taken shelter behind one of the old jeeps.
“You’d better get Rosie,” Bourne said. “We need to get out of here as soon as possible. Are these jeeps gassed up?”
Vegas nodded. “All part of being prepared.”
He’d started to head off to the house when they both again heard the telltale thwop-thwop-thwop!
“I hope you have another missile,” Bourne said.
Vegas sprinted into the house. The second Domna helicopter was rising over the same ridge as the first one, but it abruptly veered off, taking a more indirect route toward the house. The crew inside had obviously seen the fireball; they would be more cautious in their approach.
Vegas returned. “All loaded up!”
Slamming the launcher back onto his shoulder, he peered into the sight. The copter had taken refuge behind a stand of tall pines. Not that it mattered. The laser-guided sight would home in on it even if it dropped from view.
“Here we go!” Vegas cried, and Bourne took a step away from him. He squeezed the trigger.
Nothing happened.
The moment Soraya met Amun Chalthoum at de Gaulle she knew bringing Aaron was a mistake. She and Aaron had driven out prior to their morning meeting with Laurent’s boss at the Monition Club, and the moment Amun had clapped eyes on Aaron it was hate at first sight.
Realizing this, she asked Aaron to hang back while she went to fetch Amun.
“Who the hell is he?” Amun said as he hefted his carry-on.
“Hey, we haven’t seen each other for what, over a year? And this is how you greet me?”
“Yes, over a year and you show up with another man, and not a bad-looking one at that, considering he’s French.”
“It’s business, Amun. That’s Inspector Aaron Lipkin-Renais of the Quai d’Orsay.” The moment she said Aaron’s full name she knew she had made another mistake.
“What’s a Jew doing in the Quai d’Orsay?” Amun’s black eyes looked hard as marbles. He was a tall man, trim, but well built, with wide shoulders and powerful arms. He was both charismatic and forceful in his opinions and orders. His men obeyed him instantly and unquestioningly.
“He’s a Frenchman who also happens to be Jewish.” Soraya leaned in and kissed him on the mouth. Then she linked her arm in his. “Come along and meet him. He’s smart and quick. You’ll like him.”
“I doubt that,” Amun grumbled, but he allowed her to lead him across the concourse to where Aaron was patiently waiting.
To Soraya’s dismay, the energy between the two men seemed both electric and toxic, and she knew that she had brought oil and water together trusting that, contrary to the laws of physics, they would mix. No such luck and, as the three of them walked in silence to Aaron’s car, she felt her heart sink. A triangle had already formed, with her at the crucial axis point.
During the equally silent ride back into Paris, Soraya had time to observe this thoroughly distasteful side of Amun. True, he had been trained as a clandestine field agent, ordered to break up spy rings, including, she had to assume, those controlled by the Mossad from Tel Aviv. But having been born and raised in Cairo, he had been inculcated from a very early age in a hatred of Israelis and, by extension, all Jews. The Jewish question was a topic she had never bothered to bring up with him. Or, she wondered as she squirmed in her seat, had she deliberately shied away from the topic because she did not want to face what must inevitably be his bias? The possibility shamed and diminished them both. She felt sick at heart.
It was then that she felt the loneliness assail her. She had chosen this life, no one had forced her into it, but there were times, like now, when she felt as alone as an old woman at the end of her life.
Aaron’s voice cut through the uncomfortable silence. “I think we ought to drop Mr. Chalthoum at his hotel. We have an appointment to keep.”
“I don’t have a hotel,” Amun said in a voice that could freeze a charging rhino in its tracks. “I’m sleeping with Soraya.”
“Then we’ll drop you at her hotel.”
“I’d rather come with you to this interview.”
Aaron shook his head. “I’m afraid that’s out of the question. This is Quai d’Orsay official business.”
Allah preserve me from male pissing matches, Soraya thought. “Aaron, I invited Amun here because I thought his perspective might be valuable.”
Aaron frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“The organization Laurent wanted to talk to me about is international. Its tentacles are everywhere, especially in the Middle East and Africa.”
“We are talking about another extremist Islamic cadre—”
“We’re not, and that’s the point.” Soraya was looking at Aaron, but she was keeping track of Amun’s expression and body language out of the corner of her eye. “Laurent was able to tell me that this organization has brought elements of East and West together.”
“That’s been tried several times before without success, but in this current climate, I’d say it was impossible.”
Soraya nodded, happy that the tone of the conversation had dropped below a simmer. “I would have said the same thing, but something about what Laurent said convinced me that he wasn’t lying.”
“And what would that something be?” Clearly, Aaron was skeptical.
“Septimius Severus, the Roman general, was born in Libya. It was Severus who increased the size of the Roman army by adding soldiers from North Africa and beyond.”
Aaron shrugged, but Soraya could feel Amun leaning forward in the backseat. She had grabbed his attention.
“General Severus was married to Julia Domna, a Syrian, whose family came from the ancient city of Emesa.”
“Go on,” Amun said, his eyes alight.
“Laurent told me that the name of this organization is Severus Domna. If we heed history, its name tells us that Severus Domna has somehow managed to meld elements of the East with the West.”
Aaron bit his lip as he contemplated the implications. “Could any secret cabal be more dangerous?”
Everyone in the car knew the ominous answer.
The second helicopter rose and shot toward them. The side-mounted machine guns started chattering, the air heating up, dirt, mud, and metal parts flying like shrapnel all around them.
“What the hell happened?” Bourne shouted over the noise.
“I don’t know. I think the launcher is jammed!”
Vegas had the launcher off his shoulder and was peering hard at it. Bourne grabbed him and pulled him down to the ground behind the jeep as bullets pinged all around them. Then he took the launcher away from him.
“Go get Rosie and get the hell out of here,” he said.
“We’ll never make it!”
Bourne was keeping track of the swooping helicopter. “I’ll distract them.”
“You’ll have to do more than that in order to escape.”
“Let me worry about that.” Bourne gave Vegas’s shoulder a squeeze. “Now go, hombre. There’s no time to lose.”
Vegas tried to stop him, but Bourne hefted the launcher onto his shoulder and sprinted out from behind the jeep, heading for a stand of tall pines to the west of the house. The moment the pilot spotted him, the helicopter veered off in his direction.
Vegas used this opportunity to scuttle, crouched over like a spider, from the jeep toward the house. But before he got there, Rosie flew out the door and met him partway. She was carrying a small leather case that looked like an old-fashioned doctor’s bag. Vegas put his arm around her shoulders, guiding her lower, and together they ran back to the jeep. Climbing in, Vegas started the engine and, reversing hard, turned the wheel, changed gears, and shot forward along the side of the house. But instead of heading down the driveway, he lurched off to their left, following a hunting path he used. Soon enough they were engulfed in the trees, out of sight of even the copter pilot.
“Where is Bourne?” Rosie said.
“Protecting us, I hope.”
“But we can’t just leave him there.”
Vegas was concentrating on keeping the jouncing jeep on the narrow dirt path. Pine branches whipped at them, slamming against the doors of the vehicle, and every once in a while his vision was occluded by foliage whipping against the windshield. Had he not known the path so well, traveling it many times at night without a flashlight, he surely would have crashed by now.
“Estevan,” Rosie prompted.
“What would you have me do? Turn around and go back?”
She said nothing, just stared straight ahead.
“We must trust him,” he said. “Just as we trust Don Hernando.”
“I think maybe you put too much trust in people, mi amor.”
“Not people, friends.”
“You put a great store in friendship, mi amor,” she said.
“Without friendship what are we?” Vegas said. “We are set adrift without either obligation or responsibility. And when the storm comes—as it inevitably does—where are we to go?”
She leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “This is why I love you.”
He grunted. But it would be clear to a blind man that he was pleased.
A double line of tracer bullets tore up dirt, grass, and the thick mat of pine needles on either side of Bourne. He made it into the relative safety of the trees with seconds to spare. The young pine right behind him crashed down, sawn in half by the rip of machine-gun fire from the copter. Once beneath the branches, Bourne knelt down and checked the launcher. Vegas was right, it was jammed, and he hadn’t the time to try to fix it. Instead he ejected the missile. It was an SA-7 Grail, with a powerful fragmentation warhead, an older version, Bourne saw. The warhead used a 370-gram TNT charge. Carefully, he took apart the missile, separating the TNT and the container of rocket fuel.
Then he searched through the underbrush, looking for a branch. The first was too long, the second too wet, but then he found a broken branch of the right thickness and length. It was knobbed like a medieval mace. Bourne hefted it, then swung it over his head several times. He thought it would do. Stripping off his jacket and shirt, he tied the sleeves of his shirt to two knobs on either side of the broken branch, then placed the TNT and the rocket fuel gingerly in the fabric. The sling he had made from his shirt held them both securely.
Separating the items, he launched himself up into the thickest pine, moving nimbly, but mindful of the payload he carried, extremely cautiously from branch to branch, rising higher and higher. As he climbed, he could hear the helicopter’s engine more clearly. It was hovering, waiting him out. Every once in a while the pilot sent a volley of machine-gun fire into the copse, perhaps hoping for a blind hit or to flush Bourne from his sanctuary.
Bourne needed a place where he would become a visible target and also give himself sufficient room. It took him some time to find the right spot, but at last he did, a delicate crotch just beneath the tip of the pine. There he balanced himself, then raised his head, waiting to be spotted. The pilot, possibly emboldened by the fact that Bourne no longer carried the Strela-2 launcher, moved the copter in for the kill.
With the TNT and the rocket fuel loaded into his shirt-sling, Bourne cocked his arm and waited. The few seconds as the copter maneuvered to get the kill shot were nerve racking. Bourne judged the distance; he needed the copter in closer. Just a few feet now. Three, two, one.
The machine-gun fire started up just as Bourne swung his payload up and out of the jerry-rigged slingshot. The combined payload struck the helicopter’s shiny metal skin, where the TNT ignited, setting off the rocket fuel.
Bourne ducked as the explosion ripped through the body of the aircraft, tearing it into pieces. He began to climb down, but the stricken copter came out of the sky with appalling speed. Its still-spinning rotors snapped off the tops of the pines and continued to saw into the trees, following the body as it crashed into the copse.
Bourne, shaken out of his perch, felt the intense heat, the violent spray of wood chips, and heard the rotors’ rhythmic drumbeat of death as they came crashing and flailing directly for him.