Read Online The Bourne Objective by Robert Ludlum, Eric Van Lustbader - Free Book Online
Authors: Robert Ludlum, Eric Van Lustbader
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to stay in Cairo despite being recalled.”
“I had a job to do, on the ground, in the field, where the bullets and bombs are real, not computer-generated simulations,” Soraya said. “And for the record I’m American, same as you.”
“You’re nothing like me, Ms. Moore. I give orders. Those who refuse to take them can’t be trusted. They don’t work for me.”
“You never even debriefed me. If you knew—”
“Get it through your head, Ms. Moore, you no longer work for CI.” Danziger, leaning forward, had taken on the pugnacious stance of a boxer in the ring. “I have no interest in debriefing you. An Egyptian? God alone knows where your loyalty lies.” He leered. “Well, maybe I do. With Amun Chalthoum, perhaps?”
Amun Chalthoum was the head of al Mokhabarat, the Egyptian secret service in Cairo, with whom Soraya had recently worked and with whom she had stayed in Cairo when Danziger had summarily ordered her home prematurely, in contradiction of CI’s mission guidelines. In the performance of her mission, she and Amun had fallen in love. She was shocked, or perhaps
stunned
was a better word for it, that Danziger was in possession of such personal information. How in the hell had he found out about her and Amun?
“Birds of a feather,” he said. “Far from the professional behavior I expect from my people, fraternizing—is that the right word for it?—with the enemy.”
“Amun Chalthoum isn’t the enemy.”
“Clearly he isn’t
your
enemy.” He stepped back, a clear sign for his bodyguards to close ranks, blocking whatever limited access she’d had to him. “Good luck getting another government position, Ms. Moore.”
R. Simmons Reade smirked in the background before turning away, following in the DCI’s wake as, surrounded by his entourage, Danziger strode into the Occidental. The bystanders closest to them were staring at her. Putting a hand to her face, she discovered that her cheeks were burning. She had wanted her day in court; however, this was his court and she had seriously misjudged both his intelligence and the scope of his knowledge. She had mistakenly assumed that Secretary Halliday had inveigled the president to install nothing more than a cat’s-paw, a dimwit whom Halliday would have no trouble controlling. More fool her.
As she walked slowly away from the scene of the disaster, she vowed she’d never make that mistake again.
T he man on the phone, whoever he was, was right about one thing: The warehouse on the outskirts of Moscow was indistinguishable from those around it, marching away in neat rows. Boris Karpov, hidden in the shadows across from the front door, checked the address he had written down during his phone conversation with the man who called himself Leonid Arkadin. Yes, he had the right location. Turning, he signaled to his men, all of whom were heavily armed, armored in bulletproof vests and riot helmets. Karpov had a nose for traps and this one stank of it. There was no way he would have come alone, no matter how well armed, no way he was going to stick his neck into a noose devised for him by Dimitri Maslov.
Why was he here then? he asked himself for the hundredth time since the call. Because if there was a chance the man actually was Leonid Danilovich Arkadin and he was telling the truth, then it would be a criminal mistake not to follow up on the lead. The FSB-2 and Karpov in particular had been after Maslov, after the Kazanskaya as a whole, for years now, with little success.
He had been given a mandate—to bring Dimitri Maslov and the Kazanskaya to justice—by his immediate superior, Melor Bukin, the man who had lured him away from FSB with a promotion to full colonel and a command of his own. Karpov had watched the meteoric rise of Viktor Cherkesov and was determined to get on board. Cherkesov morphed the FSB-2 from an anti-drug directorate into a national security force that rivaled the vaunted FSB itself. Bukin was a childhood friend of
“I had a job to do, on the ground, in the field, where the bullets and bombs are real, not computer-generated simulations,” Soraya said. “And for the record I’m American, same as you.”
“You’re nothing like me, Ms. Moore. I give orders. Those who refuse to take them can’t be trusted. They don’t work for me.”
“You never even debriefed me. If you knew—”
“Get it through your head, Ms. Moore, you no longer work for CI.” Danziger, leaning forward, had taken on the pugnacious stance of a boxer in the ring. “I have no interest in debriefing you. An Egyptian? God alone knows where your loyalty lies.” He leered. “Well, maybe I do. With Amun Chalthoum, perhaps?”
Amun Chalthoum was the head of al Mokhabarat, the Egyptian secret service in Cairo, with whom Soraya had recently worked and with whom she had stayed in Cairo when Danziger had summarily ordered her home prematurely, in contradiction of CI’s mission guidelines. In the performance of her mission, she and Amun had fallen in love. She was shocked, or perhaps
stunned
was a better word for it, that Danziger was in possession of such personal information. How in the hell had he found out about her and Amun?
“Birds of a feather,” he said. “Far from the professional behavior I expect from my people, fraternizing—is that the right word for it?—with the enemy.”
“Amun Chalthoum isn’t the enemy.”
“Clearly he isn’t
your
enemy.” He stepped back, a clear sign for his bodyguards to close ranks, blocking whatever limited access she’d had to him. “Good luck getting another government position, Ms. Moore.”
R. Simmons Reade smirked in the background before turning away, following in the DCI’s wake as, surrounded by his entourage, Danziger strode into the Occidental. The bystanders closest to them were staring at her. Putting a hand to her face, she discovered that her cheeks were burning. She had wanted her day in court; however, this was his court and she had seriously misjudged both his intelligence and the scope of his knowledge. She had mistakenly assumed that Secretary Halliday had inveigled the president to install nothing more than a cat’s-paw, a dimwit whom Halliday would have no trouble controlling. More fool her.
As she walked slowly away from the scene of the disaster, she vowed she’d never make that mistake again.
T he man on the phone, whoever he was, was right about one thing: The warehouse on the outskirts of Moscow was indistinguishable from those around it, marching away in neat rows. Boris Karpov, hidden in the shadows across from the front door, checked the address he had written down during his phone conversation with the man who called himself Leonid Arkadin. Yes, he had the right location. Turning, he signaled to his men, all of whom were heavily armed, armored in bulletproof vests and riot helmets. Karpov had a nose for traps and this one stank of it. There was no way he would have come alone, no matter how well armed, no way he was going to stick his neck into a noose devised for him by Dimitri Maslov.
Why was he here then? he asked himself for the hundredth time since the call. Because if there was a chance the man actually was Leonid Danilovich Arkadin and he was telling the truth, then it would be a criminal mistake not to follow up on the lead. The FSB-2 and Karpov in particular had been after Maslov, after the Kazanskaya as a whole, for years now, with little success.
He had been given a mandate—to bring Dimitri Maslov and the Kazanskaya to justice—by his immediate superior, Melor Bukin, the man who had lured him away from FSB with a promotion to full colonel and a command of his own. Karpov had watched the meteoric rise of Viktor Cherkesov and was determined to get on board. Cherkesov morphed the FSB-2 from an anti-drug directorate into a national security force that rivaled the vaunted FSB itself. Bukin was a childhood friend of
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