The Bourne Dominion by Robert & Lustbader Ludlum Page B

point is we don’t know.” Soraya gripped the back of an upholstered chair. “We want to go to Paris and investigate.”
    “Forget him. You have more important matters to see to. Besides, who knows whether he was trustworthy.”
    “He had given me some preliminary information on a group known as Severus Domna.”
    “Never heard of it, and furthermore the name sounds bogus,” Hendricks said. “I think this contact is playing you.”
    Soraya stood her ground. “I don’t share that opinion.”
    Hendricks rose and crossed to one of the windows. When he’d first met Soraya Moore, he’d wondered if she was a lesbian. There was something about her—a balance, an openness, a willingness to accept the complexities of people that a lot of hetero women simply couldn’t manage. Then he’d dived deeper into her jacket and discovered that her lover was Amun Chalthoum, head of al Mokhabarat, the Egyptian secret service. In fact, he’d called Chalthoum and had an interesting twenty-minute talk. Danziger had used her affair with Chalthoum as an excuse to fire her from Typhon. That was high on the long list of stupidities perpetrated by M. Errol Danziger since he’d come to CI. Typhon’s invaluable contacts and deep-cover operatives were loyal only to her. The moment Hendricks had named her co-director of Treadstone, every one of them had come with her. So now he had a sense of how unique she was.
    “All right,” he said. “Look into it.” Then he turned back to them. “But, Peter, I want you here. Treadstone is still in its infancy and the fact is I envisioned it as an agency with the ability to police and clean up the giant squid of our post–nine-eleven intelligence community. There arenow two hundred sixty-three and counting intelligence organs created or reorganized since 2001. And that doesn’t account for the hundreds of private intel firms we’ve seen fit to hire, some of them so beyond our control they’re operating here in the States in the same manner they do in world war zones. Do you realize that at this moment there are eight hundred fifty thousand Americans with top-secret clearance? That’s far too many by a staggeringly exponential number.” He shook his head emphatically. “There’s no way I will allow both my directors in the field at the same time.”
    Marks took a step toward him. “But—”
    “Peter.” Hendricks smiled. “Soraya has the field experience so she gets this assignment. It’s simple logic.” As they were leaving, he said, “Oh, by the way, I’ve been able to get the Treadstone servers access to all the clandestine services’ databases.”
    After they’d gone, Hendricks thought about Samaritan. He had deliberately kept its existence from Peter, knowing that the moment he got wind of it, he’d want to become involved in the security of Indigo Ridge. Despite the president’s clear warning, Hendricks wanted to keep Peter on Treadstone, which was his baby now, a long-held desire that he was not going to relinquish, even for Samaritan. He was taking a risk, he knew that full well. Should any of the others in the Oval Office meeting, especially General Marshall, suspect that he was holding back key personnel for his own use he’d be in an untenable position.
    Ah well
, he thought,
what’s life without risk?
    He stepped back to the window. His roses looked bedraggled and forlorn. He glanced impatiently at his watch. Where was that damn rose specialist he’d hired?
    It was quiet here, the house removed from the hubbub at the center of the city. Normally, he enjoyed that; it allowed him to think. But this morning was different. He had awoken with the nagging sense that he had missed something. He had already been married and divorced twice when he had met, married, and then buried his beloved Amanda. He had one son, from the second wife, now a marine in military intelligence, deployed in Afghanistan. He should have been worried abouthim, but the fact was he rarely thought