The Bourne Dominion by Robert & Lustbader Ludlum Page A

What you’re asking is impossible to mobilize in that time frame.”
    “Directors are trained to accomplish the impossible.” Hendricks’s implied threat was clear enough. “That will be all, Mr. Danziger.”
    Peter heard first one set of footstep echoing on the polished floorboards, then, some moments later, another. Both faded away into the distance.
    Peter leaned back against the wall. Samaritan, Indigo Ridge—two clues he would have to follow.
Samaritan is the president’s number one priority
, he thought.
Why did Hendricks agree to let Soraya go to Paris? Why didn’t he involve us in Samaritan?
These were questions Peter knew he had to answer, and the sooner the better. He had an urge to text Soraya, briefing her on what he had just learned and asking her to come back to Washington, but his trust in her stayed his hand. If she thought this death was important enough to investigate personally, that was good enough for him. He’d learned that her instincts were impeccable.
    Then his mind turned to happier thoughts. It looked like Danziger was standing at the precipice. Peter felt elated, especially because he had been given inside knowledge. Anything he could do to sabotage Danziger’s part in Samaritan—whatever that was—would be a giant step in destroying his career and getting him out of CI.
    Off with his head!
Peter’s silent shout pinballed around his mind, gaining energy with each successive carom.
    H aving dropped Essai off at the airport, Bourne stopped at a cantina on the western outskirts of Perales. He was hungry but he also needed time to think. The place was flyblown, with walls somewhere between mustard and adobe. The fluorescent lighting had a tic, and the heartbeat of the ancient iced drink cooler against one wall sounded erratic. There were two waiters, both young men, thin and harried. While scanning the paper menu, he noted faces, expressions, and the angles of repose of the other patrons, old men with skin like tanned hides reading the local paper, drinking coffee, talking politics, or playing chess, an exhausted-looking prostitute past her prime, and a farmer practically inhaling an enormous plate of food. A person on surveillance never held his body in the same way as a civilian. There was always a certain telltale tension in the back, neck, or shoulders. He also studied everyone who came in or out.
    Finding nothing out of the ordinary, he ordered a drink and
bandeja paisa
with a side of
arepas.
When the
aguapanela
—sugarcane-sweetenedwater with a muddle of fresh lime—came he drank half of it at once, then settled back.
    “
There’s a spare sat phone in the glove box, charged and ready to go,
” Essai had said. “
Also a detailed map of the area. Ibagué is clearly marked, as is the oil field Vegas runs.
” That much he could buy, but Essai had made a mistake when he’d added: “
You’ll find my sat number pre-programmed into it.
” It was entirely possible—even prudent—for Essai to have a spare sat phone, and the map was a no-brainer. But the fact that he had pre-programmed his sat phone number into it indicated to Bourne that it wasn’t a spare at all. Bourne asked himself whether it was possible that Essai had known he had been sent to find and kill Corellos. Maybe Corellos himself had told him, but, if so, it would have been long after Essai could’ve bought a second sat phone. All of this meant that it was likely Essai was lying when he said he no longer had a way to ferret out intel from the Domna. If so, then he had a man inside the group, someone who was loyal to him.
    Bourne had never been completely sold on Essai’s earnestness, but he didn’t for an instant doubt his desire to destroy Severus Domna. In this one matter, he and Essai were aligned—they needed each other. They also needed to trust each other, but the trust was compromised because it pertained solely to the matter of the Domna’s demise. After that, all bets were off.
    The food arrived,