The Bourne Betrayal by Robert Ludlum, Eric Van Lustbader Read Free Book Online Page A

friend.”
    “In that you’re right.” Bourne walked calmly to the door. “Do whatever the hell you want with the people you command. For myself, I’m going after Martin without your help.”
    “Wait.” The Old Man’s voice rang out in the huge office. There was a note to it like a whistle on a train passing through a dark and deserted landscape. Sadness and cynicism venomously mixed.
    “Wait, you bastard.”
    Bourne took his time turning around.
    The DCI glared at him with a bitter enmity. “How Martin gets along with you is a goddamn mystery.” Hands clenched behind his back, he strode in full military fashion to the window, stood staring out at the immaculate lawn and, beyond, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. He turned back and fixed Bourne in his implacable gaze. “Your arrogance disgusts me.”
    Bourne met his gaze mutely.
    “All right, no leash,” the DCI snapped. He was shaking with barely suppressed rage. “Lerner will see that you have everything you need. But I’m telling you, you’d damn well better bring Martin Lindros home.”

Three
    LERNER LED BOURNE out of the DCI’s suite, down the hall, into his own office. Lerner sat down behind his desk. When he realized that Bourne had chosen to stand, he leaned back.
    “What I’m about to tell you cannot under any circumstances leave this room. The Old Man has named Martin director of a black-ops agency code-named Typhon, dealing exclusively with countering Muslim extremist terrorist groups.”
    Bourne recalled that Typhon was a name out of Greek mythology: the fearsome hundred-headed father of the deadly Hydra. “We already have a Counterterrorist Center.”
    “ CTC knows nothing about Typhon,” Lerner said. “In fact, even inside CI, knowledge of it is on a strict need-to-know basis.”
    “So Typhon is a double-blind black op.”
    Lerner nodded. “I know what you’re thinking: that we haven’t had anything like this since Treadstone. But there are compelling reasons. Aspects of Typhon are-shall we say-extremely controversial, so far as powerful reactionary elements within the administration and Congress are concerned.”
    He pursed his lips. “I’ll cut to the chase. Lindros has constructed Typhon from the ground up. It’s not a division, it’s an agency unto itself. Lindros insisted that he be free of administrative red tape. Also, it’s by necessity worldwide-he’s already staffed up in London, Paris, Istanbul, Dubai, Saudi Arabia, and three locations in the Horn of Africa. And it’s Martin’s intention to infiltrate terrorist cells in order to destroy the networks from the inside out.”
    “Infiltration,” Bourne said. So that’s what Martin had meant when he’d told Bourne that save for the director, he was completely alone inside CI. “That’s the holy grail of counterterrorism, but so far no one’s been able to even come close.”
    “Because they have few Muslims and even fewer Arabists working for them. In all of the FBI , only thirty-three out of twelve thousand have even a limited proficiency in Arabic, and none of those works in the sections of the bureau that investigate terrorism within our borders. With good reason. Leading members of the administration are still reluctant to use Muslims and Western Arabists-they’re simply not trusted.”
    “Stupid and shortsighted,” Bourne said.
    “But these people exist, and Lindros has been quietly recruiting them.” Lerner stood up. “So much for orientation. Your next stop, I believe, will be Typhon ops itself.”
    Because it was a double-blind counterterrorist agency, Typhon was down in the depths. The CI building sub-basement had been recast and remodeled by a construction firm whose every worker had been extensively vetted even before they had been made to sign a confidentiality agreement that would assure them a twenty-year term in a federal maximum-security facility if they were foolish or greedy enough to break their silence. The supplies that had been filling up