Bourne cut him off and, smiling broadly, said, “Are you the floor manager?”
“Yes. Andrew Steptoe.” He made an attempt to look over Bourne’s shoulder at the green baize door outside of which Donald should have been stationed. “I’m afraid I’m rather busy at the moment. I-”
“Donald said someone would call you over.” He took Steptoe’s elbow and, inclining his head toward him, said in a confidential whisper, “I’m in the middle of one of those high-stakes battles that come along once in a great while, if you understand me.”
“I’m afraid I don’t-”
Bourne turned him away from the door to the Empire Suite. “But of course you do, a mano-a-mano duel over the poker table, I know you do. It’s a matter of money, you see.”
Money was the magic word. He had Steptoe’s full attention now. Behind the manager’s back he could see the scarred man break out into a sly smile. He walked Steptoe closer and closer to the cashier, which was on the right side of the slots room, conveniently located near the entryway so that the clientele could buy chips on their way in and the occasional winners could cash out as they left-if they made it past all the other glittering lures the gambling profession threw at them.
“How much money?” Steptoe could not keep a note of greed out of his voice.
“Half a million,” Bourne said without hesitation.
Steptoe didn’t know whether to frown or lick his chops. “I’m afraid I don’t know you…”
“James. Robert James.” They were nearing the cashier’s cage and, by proximity, the front door. “I’m an associate of Diego Hererra’s.”
“Ah. I see.” Steptoe pursed his lips. “Even so, Mr. James, this establishment does not know you personally. You understand, we cannot put up such a large amount-”
“Oh, no, that’s not what I meant to imply.” Bourne feigned shock. “Rather I need your permission to leave the premises during the game in order to obtain the amount in question, so that I can remain in the game.”
Now the manager did frown. “At this time of night?”
Bourne radiated confidence. “A wire transfer can be effected. It will only take twenty minutes-thirty, at most.”
“Well, it’s highly irregular, don’t you know.”
“Half a million pounds, Mr. Steptoe, is a large amount of money, as you yourself pointed out.”
Steptoe nodded. “Quite so.” He sighed. “I suppose that under the circumstances it can be allowed.” He waggled a forefinger in Bourne’s face. “But be quick about it, sir. I can give you no more than half an hour.”
“Understood.” Bourne shook the manager’s hand. “Thank you.”
Then he and the scarred man turned, went up the steps, across the entryway, through the glass doors, and into the windswept London night.
Several blocks away, as they turned a corner, Bourne rammed the scarred man hard against the side of a parked car and said, “Now tell me who you are and why you killed Diego.”
As the scarred man reached for his knife Bourne gripped his wrist. “Let’s have none of that,” he said. “Give me answers.”
“I would never harm you, Jason, you know that.”
“Why did you kill Diego?”
“He’d been told to bring you to the club at a certain time tonight.”
Bourne remembered Diego looking down at his watch and saying, “Now’s the time to take ourselves to Knightsbridge.” An odd way to put it, except if this man was telling the truth.
“Who told Diego to bring me there?” But Bourne already knew.
“The Severus Domna got to him-I don’t know how-but they gave him precise instructions on how to betray you.”
Bourne remembered Diego picking at his food as if he had something important on his mind. Had he been anticipating the betrayal? Was Ottavio right?
The scarred man stared into Bourne’s face. “You really don’t know me, do you?”
“I told you I didn’t.”
“My name is Ottavio Moreno.” He waited a beat. “Gustavo Moreno’s brother.”
A tiny tremor of recognition raced through Bourne as the veils of his amnesia stirred and tried to part.
“We met in Morocco.” Bourne’s voice was barely a whisper.
“Yes.” A smile creased Ottavio Moreno’s face. “In Marrakech, we traveled into the High Atlas Mountains together, didn’t we?”
“I don’t know.”
“Good God!” Ottavio Moreno’s face registered surprise, perhaps even shock. “And the laptop? What about the laptop?”
“What laptop?”
“You don’t remember the laptop?” He grabbed Bourne by the arms. “Jason, come on. We met in Marrakech in order to get the laptop.”
“Why?”
Ottavio Moreno frowned. “You told me it was a key.”
“Key to what?”
“To the Severus Domna.”
At that moment they heard the familiar high-low wail of police sirens.
“The mess we left behind in the Empire Suite,” Moreno said. “Come on, let’s go.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you,” Bourne said.
“But you must, you owe me,” Ottavio Moreno said. “You killed Noah Perlis.”
In other words,” Secretary of Defense Bud Halliday said as he scanned the report in front of him, “between retirements, normal attrition, and requests for transfer-all of which, I see, have been not only granted but expedited-a quarter of the Old Man’s CI has moved on.”
“And our own personnel have moved in.” DCI Danziger did not bother to keep the satisfaction out of his voice. The secretary appreciated confidence as much as he disliked indecision. Danziger took back the report and carefully folded it away. “It will be only a matter of months, I believe, before that number will increase to fully a third of the old guard.”
“Good, good.”
Halliday rubbed his large, square hands over the remnants of his Spartan lunch. The Occidental was abuzz with the jawing of politicos, reporters, flacks, power brokers, and industry influence peddlers. All of them had paid their respects to him in one circumspect manner or another, whether it was with a slightly terrified smile, an obeisant nod of the head, or, as in the case of the elderly and influential Senator Daughtry, a quick handshake and a down-home how-dee-do. Swing-state senators accumulated power even during non-election years, both parties seeking to curry favor. It was simply standard operating procedure inside the Beltway.
For some time, then, the two men sat in silence. The restaurant began to thin out as the denizens of the DC political pits straggled back to work. But soon enough their place was taken by tourists in striped shirts and baseball caps they’d bought from the vendors down by the Mall imprinted with CIA or FBI. Danziger returned to his lunch, which, as usual, was more substantial than Halliday’s unadorned strip steak. All that was left on the secretary’s plate were several pools of blood, clotted with congealed fat.
Across the table Halliday’s mind had drifted to the dream he couldn’t remember. He had read articles that dreams were a necessary part of sleep-REM sleep, the eggheads called it-without which a man would, eventually, go insane. On the other hand, it was certainly true that he couldn’t recall a single dream. His entire sleeping existence was a perfect blank wall on which nothing was ever scrawled.
He shook himself like a dog coming out of the rain. Why did he care? Well, he knew why. The Old Man had once confided in him that he suffered from the same strange illness-that’s what the Old Man called it, an illness. Strange to think that the two of them had once been friends, more than friends, come to think of it-what had they called it then? Blood brothers. As young men they had confided all their little tics and habits, the secrets that inhabited the dark corners of their souls. Where had it all gone wrong? How had they become the bitterest of enemies? It might have been the gradual divergence of their political views, but friends often dealt with disagreement. No, their separation had to do with a sense of betrayal, and in men such as they were, loyalty was the ultimate-the only-test of friendship.