“ Disappointmenthardly covers it. I can’t imagine why you wanted to talk with me.”
As he began to rise, Essai said, “The Domna has put out a sanction on you.”
“It won’t be the first, and it won’t be the last,” Bourne said, unimpressed. “I’ll survive.”
“No, you don’t understand.” Now Essai stood, too. “In the Domna’s world, a sanction is never undertaken lightly. Never simply doled out to the highest bidder. It is sacred.”
Bourne watched Essai levelly. “Meaning?”
“Meaning the death blow will come at a time and a place even you will find surprising.” He lifted a forefinger. “And it will be dealt by someone…”
“Yes?”
Essai took a breath. “The fact is, I need you, Mr. Bourne.”
Bourne just managed not to laugh in his face. He did shake his head, though.
“I know, it’s difficult to fathom—for me as well, believe me.” He took a step toward Bourne. “But it’s true what they say: Reality makes strange bedfellows, and, frankly, I cannot imagine stranger bedfellows than the two of us.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Nevertheless…”
Bourne waited. He wasn’t going to do Essai any favors; he wasn’t going to keep the strange conversation going. But the fact was he didn’t dislike Essai, and he hadn’t liked his original assignment of breaking into his house. This mortal transgression he couldn’t put off on Alex Conklin, even though the order originated with his late boss. Conklin either had had no inkling what the consequences of Bourne’s assignment would be, or didn’t care. But Bourne had—he knew how a Muslim would react to his home being invaded—and still he had obeyed orders. The fact was, he owed Essai. It was this debt that was keeping him here now.
“How long have you been siding against the Domna?” This was a crucial question.
“Many years,” Essai replied without hesitation. “But it was only last year that I decided to break with them openly.”
“What were you going to do with the information on the laptop I stole from your house all those years ago?”
“I was planning to take it and make my escape,” Essai said. “But you put an end to that.”
A silence engulfed them so stifling it seemed to silence even the insects and the haunting birdcalls.
Essai spread his hands, palms up. “So here we are, in the godforsaken jungle, being eaten alive by mosquitoes and green-headed flies.”
He stepped away from the now drunken Corellos, who was clutching the near-empty tequila bottle like it was a ten-dollar whore. Bourne followed him into the dense undergrowth. A couple of Corellos’s men eyed them with ill-disguised contempt, then, growing bored, spat and went to get beers out of a cooler.
“These Colombians,” Essai said in that conspiratorial tone he could turn on and off at the drop of a hat. That’s all he said, as if those two words spoke volumes, and they did. Bourne was aware that Essai felt he was better than these people, and maybe he was right. He was certainly better educated, more aware of the outside world, but perhaps that was missing the point. These Colombians, even the least educated of the lot, possessed a concentration of energy that, like a cyclone, could leave devastation in its wake in a heartbeat. Death cared nothing for education or self-awareness; it was the great leveler.
There was something crucial Bourne needed to know. “I was under the impression that once you were in Severus Domna, you were in for life. What led you to break with it?”
“At one point the Domna stood for something genuine—a meeting of the minds between East and West. It was a noble undertaking, a bold design, but it was like trying to mix oil and water. Gradually, so subtly that virtually no one was aware of it, the Domna changed.” He shrugged. “Perhaps it was the ascendance of Benjamin El-Arian—though much as I despise the man, that would be a simplification of the process. El-Arian was and is the lightning rod, no doubt, but the disease infecting the Domna is widespread. It’s gone too far to stop it.”
“What disease are we talking about?”
Essai turned to him. “I know a little about you, Mr. Bourne, so I know that you are familiar with the Black Legion.”
He was talking about the group of disaffected ethnic Muslims the Nazis brought back from the Soviet Union during World War II. The Muslims, who deeply hated Stalin, were trained by the SS, formed into units, and sent to the Eastern Front, where they fought with uncommon ferocity against the troops of their former motherland. The Black Legion had a number of powerful friends within the Nazi hierarchy. During the last days of the war, its soldiers were pulled out of the Eastern Front and sent to safe havens, where the allies couldn’t touch them. Thus, they were scattered, but they never forgot. Decades later, they re-formed around a mosque in Munich, which was now widely regarded as one of the epicenters of Islamic fundamentalist terrorism.
“I’ve dealt with the Black Legion,” Bourne said. “But it’s been silent for more than two years—no manifestos issued, no attacks attributed to it. It’s as if they fell off the edge of the earth.”
“Allah wills it,” Essai said. “This my heart knows.” He wiped his forehead with the back of a hand. He was used to extreme heat, but the humidity was making a mess of his clothes. “In any event, the Black Legion, after suffering a number of defeats—at least one of them, I understand, by your hand and will—has turned its attention, shall we say, inward.”
He glanced around, as if gauging and analyzing the position of Corellos and every one of his men. “For decades, elements high up in the Munich Mosque have had their eye on the Domna. They saw its aims as a direct threat because, as you know, the Mosque wishes nothing less than the domination of Islam in the Western world. The Mosque has been behind the steady influx of Muslims into Western Europe as well as agitating them to demand more rights, more power and influence over the local governments.
“Once, the Mosque had two or three of its people inside the Domna. Now it holds a majority, including Benjamin El-Arian. Now the Domna, with more global reach than even the Mosque possesses, is the greatest threat to world peace that we have ever seen.”
Bourne thought about this for some time. “You’re a family man, Essai. You’re playing a too-dangerous game.”
“You of all people know how dangerous.” A slow smile spread across Essai’s face. “But the die has been cast, the decision made. I cannot live with myself if I stand by and do nothing to stop the Domna.” His eyes blazed like black fire. “The Domna must be stamped out, Mr. Bourne. There is no other alternative for me, for you—for your country.”
Bourne could see the hatred in Essai’s eyes as well as hear it in his voice. This was a man of rigid principle, indomitable spirit, fierce in action, clever in thought. For the first time, Bourne found a measure of respect for the man. And again, he thought about how he had broken into his home, principally because he felt sure that Essai would never forgive him.
“My sense is we don’t have much time to find out what the Domna’s new plan is,” Essai said.
There was another silence between them, just the whir of insects, the chitter of tree frogs, the leathery sound of bats swooping through the treetops.
Essai rose and walked a bit away from the encampment. After a time, Bourne joined him.
Essai stared off through the trees. “I have four children,” he said after a long time. “Three now, actually. My daughter is dead.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It was years ago, like another lifetime.” Essai bit his lip, as if pondering whether or not to go on. “She was a willful girl—not, as you can imagine, the best of traits in a Muslim household. As a child I could control her, but there came a time when she rebelled. She ran away three times. The first two, I was able to bring her back—she was only fourteen. But then, four years later, she ran away with an Irani boy. Can you imagine?”
“I imagine it could have been worse,” Bourne said.