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Core Energy is run by Tom Brick.”
    “Right. Brick is the company’s public face. But it’s altogether possible that he is getting his orders from Nicodemo. This is what Don Fernando intends to find out. If it’s true, it would allow Nicodemo the freedom to work on the nether side of the law. Don Fernando believes that he is the first of the coming generation of terrorists. He can make deals in the shadows, the gray areas—by outright bribery, extortion, or other methods of coercion—that Brick and Core Energy itself can’t. He’s motivated by neither religion nor ideology. Corner the market on the next century’s major fuel sources and you have the entire world at your feet. In one fell swoop you’ve choked off free trade, you’ve compromised nations’ economies and security. These days, no one can build a competent army without weapons that rely heavily on rare earths.”
    “Where has Don Fernando gone?”
    Christien, too, put down his utensils and wiped his mouth. “Jason, there is a very good reason why Don Fernando asked me to keep his whereabouts secret. He was afraid that you’d try to follow him.”
    “Why?” Bourne leaned forward. “Where has he gone? Tell me.”
    Christien sighed. “Jason, we have our own mystery to solve here.”
    “There’s no going back. You’ll tell me now.”
    The two men’s gazes locked in a contest of wills. At length, Christien looked down at his plate. He picked up his knife and fork and returned to eating. He did not look up from his food. Between bites he said, “Don Fernando has gone to find the Djinn Who Lights The Way.”
    Rebeka paid her check, rose, and walked to the door. At the last minute, she turned and sat down at the table where the blade-thin man had installed himself some time before.
    “Edge of the world,” he said dryly.
    She eyed him. “Not nearly.”
    “For us, at least.”
    “You mean Jews?”
    “That, too.”
    He had curiously dainty hands, milky white, the knuckles prominent, as if the bones were about to burst through the skin. His eyes were black, his thinning hair of a nondescript color. His features were sharp: a slash of mouth, a knife-like nose. She had seen him only once before, years ago, when she had finished her training and had been summoned to Mossad’s Tel Aviv headquarters. He had watched, silent as death, as Dani Amit, head of Collections, had given her her first commission. She remembered him, though, his face indelible on the screen of her mind. His name was Ze’ev— wolf , in Hebrew— though she seriously doubted it was the one he had been born with.
    “You’re lucky I found you,” Ze’ev said.
    “How does that work?” She cocked her head.
    He took an almost dainty sip of coffee. “They’ve activated the Babylonian.”
    Beneath her cool exterior, Rebeka felt the first ripples of apprehension. She tamped down on this emotion before it could turn into outright fear. “Why would they do that?”
    “What the devil are you up to?” Ze’ev said.
    At first, she thought he had deliberately ignored her question, but she quickly realized that his counter-question was his answer. The depth to which she had shaken her bosses was signified by their extreme response.
    She shook her head.
    “I don’t understand you, Rebeka. You’ve had a stellar career so far. Then you go and bring Jason Bourne into Dahr El Ahmar, into the heart of—”
    “He saved my life. I was bleeding out. There was nowhere else to go.”
    Ze’ev sat back, his black eyes contemplating her. She wondered what he was thinking.
    “You had clearance. You knew the secret nature of Dahr El Ahmar.”
    She met his gaze, said nothing.
    “And yet—”
    “As I said.”
    He shook his head. “Colonel Ben David is out for your blood— and, of course, Bourne’s.”
    “I had no idea of the Colonel’s intense antipathy toward Bourne.” “Are you saying he’s not justified?”
    She thought about this for a moment. “I suppose not. But at the time of