Free The Bourne Sanction by Robert Ludlum, Eric Van Lustbader Page B

used his knuckle to knock on the driver’s window. The window lowered. As he bent down to speak to whoever was inside, Bourne came up, pulled him aside so he could look in. What he saw astonished even him. The person sitting behind the wheel was Soraya Moore.

WE’VE BEEN SURVEILLING her for close to ten days now,” Soraya said.
    “CI?” Bourne said. “Why?”
    They were sitting in the Chevy. Soraya had turned on the engine to get some heat up. She’d sent Tyrone home, even though it was clear he wanted to be her protector. According to Soraya, he was now working for her in a strictly off-the-record capacity-a kind of personal black-ops unit of one.
    “You know I can’t tell you that.”
    “No, Tyrone can’t tell me. You can.”
    Bourne had worked with Soraya when he’d put together his mission to rescue Martin Lindros, the founder and director of Typhon. She was one of the few people with whom he’d worked in the field, both times in Odessa.
    “I suppose I could,” Soraya admitted, “but I won’t, because it appears that you and Moira Trevor are intimate.”
    She sat staring out the window at the blank sheen of the street. Her large, deep blue eyes and her aggressive nose were the centerpieces of a bold Arabian face the color of cinnamon.
    When she turned back, Bourne could see that she wasn’t happy at being forced to reveal CI intel.
    “There’s a new sheriff in town,” Soraya said. “Her name is Veronica Hart.”
    “You ever hear of her?”
    “No, and neither have any of the others.” She shrugged. “I’m quite sure that was the point. She comes from the private sector: Black River. The president decided on a new broom to sweep out the hash we’d all made of the events leading up to the Old Man’s murder.”
    “What’s she like?”
    “Too soon to tell, but one thing I’m willing to bet on: She’s going to be a whole helluva lot better than the alternative.”
    “Which is?”
    “Secretary of Defense Halliday has been trying to expand his domain for years now. He’s moving through Luther LaValle, the Pentagon’s intel czar. Rumor has it that LaValle tried to pry away the DCI job from Veronica Hart.”
    “And she won.” Bourne nodded. “That says something about her.”
    Soraya produced a packet of Lambert & Butler cigarettes, knocked one out, lit up.
    “When did that begin?” Bourne said.
    Soraya rolled down her window partway, blew the smoke into the waning night. “The day I was promoted to director of Typhon.”
    “Congratulations.” He sat back, impressed. “But now we have even more of a mystery. Why is the director of Typhon on a surveillance team at four in the morning? I would’ve thought that would be a job for someone farther down the CI food chain.”
    “It would be, in other circumstances.” Soraya inhaled, blew smoke out the window again. What was left of the cigarette followed. Then she turned her body toward Bourne.
    “My new boss told me to handle this myself. That’s what I’m doing.”
    “What does all this clandestine work have to do with Moira? She’s a civilian.”
    “Maybe she is,” Soraya said, “and maybe she isn’t.” Her large eyes studied Bourne’s for a reaction. “I’ve been digging through the masses of interoffice e-mails and cell phone records going back over the last two years. I came upon some irregularities and handed them over to the new DCI .” She paused for a moment, as if unsure whether to continue. “The thing is, the irregularities concern Martin’s private communications with Moira.”
    “You mean he told her CI classified secrets?”
    “Frankly, we’re not sure. The communications weren’t intact; they had to be pieced together and enhanced electronically. Some words were garbled, others were out of order. It was clear, however, that they were collaborating on something that bypassed the normal CI channels.” She sighed. “It’s possible he was merely helping her with security issues for NextGen Energy