Free Robert Ludlum's the Bourne Imperative by Eric Van Lustbader

me?”
    “I’m trying to help you. Why can’t you see that?”
    She narrowed her eyes against the glare of sunlight peeking through shredding clouds in the wake of the swiftly moving storm. They were tramping through the freshly fallen hillocks of white. Ahead of them, the water was a pearlescent gray, as if it were an extension of the steeply sloping shingle. They were walking, maybe in circles. It seemed like it, anyway. Small blue-roofed cottages dotted the landscape. Here and there, men could be seen uncovering walkways to their front doors. She wanted to get back to Sadelöga, but Ze’ev was making things difficult. She knew she had to find a way to turn his appearance to her advantage, and she had precious little time in which to do it.
    “I’m trying to understand what you get out of it.”
    He cracked his large knuckles. He wasn’t wearing gloves. His hands were as white as a corpse’s. Though stationed in Tel Aviv, Ze’ev was one of Colonel Ben David’s men. That, in and of itself, made him dangerous. But there were other reasons to be wary of him if what she had heard at Dahr El Ahmar could be trusted.
    “Out of what?” he said.
    “I’m willing to bet that your helping me won’t sit well with either Amit or the Director.”
    He flexed his powder-white fingers. A show of strength or a warning? “Neither of them know, or will know.”
    She regarded him with a hard, skeptical glance, and he sighed. “All right, here’s the deal. Ilan Halevy has had it in for me ever since he’s risen in the ranks.” 
    Ilan Halevy, the Babylonian. “Why would that be?”
    Ze’ev blew a breath out through his nose, a horse snorting under a too-tight rein. “I tried to get him sectioned out of Mossad. It was at the beginning of his career; he was a loose cannon, learned his lessons, then did everything his way, not Mossad’s way.” 
    “Turns out you were wrong.”
    Ze’ev nodded. “He’s never let me forget it, either. He won’t be happy till he forces me out.”
    “Ilan Halevy doesn’t know the meaning of the word happy .” 
    “Still...”
    She nodded. “So, all right, the two of you hate each other’s guts. What does that have to do with me?”
    “I want him to fail.”
    “Not just fail.”
    “No. I want him to fail spectacularly, a failure he cannot crawl out from under.”
    Rebeka considered a moment. “You have a plan.”
    The ghost of a smile made a brief appearance, then was gone. “There’s no way to turn him back. You said so yourself.” 
    “Yes, that would be a complete waste of time. Instead, we lure him to Sadelöga.”
    “And then what?”
    “Then we’ll be waiting.”

    The DC offices of Politics As Usual were on E Street NW.
    Soraya tried not to think as she rode up to the sixteenth floor along with a fistful of suits talking options, margin calls, and Forex strategies. She forced herself off as soon as the doors opened, striding right to the curving front banc formed of sheets of burl maple and stainless steel.
    “Is Charles in?” she said to Marsha, the receptionist.
    “He is, Ms. Moore,” Marsha said with a thoroughly professional smile. “Why don’t you have a seat while I call him.”
    “I’m fine right here.”
    Marsha gave her a brief nod as she dialed Charles’s extension. Even this close, Soraya could only hear an indistinct murmur. While she waited, she glanced around the reception area, even though she knew it well. Laminated plaques commemorating the online news agency’s Peabody- and Pulitzer-Prize–winning stories were everywhere in evidence. Her eye fell inevitably on the brilliant piece Charles had written two years ago, centering on a powerful but littleknown Arab terrorist cell in Syria. Hardly surprising, since that was how he had come to her attention. She had called on him in order to appropriate at least some of his sources, with little result.
    She sensed him then, as she always did, and her head came up, a smile on her full lips.