Robert Ludlum's (TM) The Bourne Ascendancy by Eric Van Lustbader Page B

nightly.
    “May I offer you a drink? Some chilled fruit juice, perhaps?”
    “Thanks, Hassim.” As pressed for time as she was, it would have been unforgivable to decline. “Whatever you have will be fine.”
    Crossing to a sideboard, he opened a small refrigerator, poured out passionfruit juice from a frosty glass pitcher. He brought the slim glasses over and they drank silently.
    “So,” Hassim said, “how can I help?”
    Briefly, Sara recounted what she knew from Bourne about the massacre at the Al-Bourah Hotel, which was much more than had been reported in the local papers and TV stations.
    “The inference I have made,” she concluded, “is that the raid would not have been possible without police collusion.”
    “And you want a name.”
    “That’s why I’ve come to you in all due haste.”
    Hassim nodded, but he didn’t look confident. “That’s not an easy question to answer.”
    “It’s an eminently easy question to answer.” She set down her empty glass and peered at him. “You get top police brass eating at Vongole virtually every night of the week. The emir’s people as well, if I’m not mistaken. Surely you’ve heard something that can help me.”
    “I never said I didn’t.” But he had trouble meeting her eye.
    “Hassim.” She took a step toward him. “What’s going on?”
    “Something has changed,” he said.
    “Something? What, exactly?”
    “Maybe from the emir on down, I don’t know.” His eyes flicked toward her as he licked his lips. “There’s more money going to the Syrian rebels, for one thing.”
    “That’s hardly news.”
    “Well, but the money isn’t going to the rebels directly. It’s going to a middleman who uses it to arm the rebels—or so the emir and his people believe.”
    She took a step toward him, could sense the fear coming off him like a rank perfume. “But the truth is—”
    “Different,” he said. He licked his lips again. “Listen, I—”
    “Is it more money you want? I’ll get it for you. A bonus.”
    “Money.” He laughed nervously. “No. Not at all.”
    “Then what, Hassim? What can I give you in return for your complete cooperation in the matter?”
    “Assurance,” he said.
    “You have it.”
    “Protection.”
    She nodded. “As well.” What in the world has gotten him so spooked? she wondered.
    “Along with a promise to extract me at a moment’s notice.”
    “Okay. I can do that.”
    He nodded. “The money is going to this middleman. Tons of it.”
    “So you said, Hassim. Who is this middleman? An arms dealer? If so, I’m sure I know him.”
    “Oh, you know him, all right,” Hassim said. “The middleman is El Ghadan.”
    Sara was rocked back on her feet. So it wasn’t just the police who were colluding with El Ghadan, it was the Qatari government itself! No wonder Hassim had extracted those promises from her.
    She pulled herself together long enough to ask, “Who’s he dealing with in the police, Hassim?”
    “The whole department, probably.”
    “You’ve come this far,” she urged. “You might as well hit the finish line.”
    “Right, sure.” Hassim looked disgusted, but whether it was due to the tale he had to tell or with himself was impossible to say. “But for this I need to make a call.” He rose. “I’ll be right back.”
    Sara watched him pad out of the room. She desperately wanted to follow him, try to overhear at least his side of the phone conversation, but she didn’t dare take the chance. She was following a slender thread, and because it was the only thread she had, she was not prepared to put it in jeopardy by doing something rash.
    Instead, she stood up, roamed about the room, examining a cut crystal ashtray here, a bronze statuette there. She picked up a shell, pink as the inside of an ear. To her surprise, it was made of a kind of resin. She turned it over, but there was only the mark of another seashell, tiny, stamped in gold.
    She put it down as Hassim bustled back. “It wasn’t