Текст книги "The Bourne Sanction (Санкция Борна)"

Автор книги: Eric Van Lustbader

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“Why is that?”

“Leonid would speak about them.”

“Is Arkadin one of them?”

Gala snorted. “You must be joking! No, he never actually spoke about them to me. I

mean, he mentioned them now and again when he was going to see Ivan.”

“And who is Ivan?”

“Ivan Volkin. He’s an old friend of Leonid’s. He used to be in the grupperovka.

Leonid told me that from time to time the leaders ask him for advice, so he knows all the

players. He’s a kind of de facto underworld historian now. Anyway, he’s the one Leonid

would go to.”

This interested Bourne. “Can you take me to him?”

“Why not? He’s a night owl. Leonid used to visit him very late.” Gala searched in her

handbag for her cell phone. She scrolled through her phone book, dialed Volkin’s

number.

After speaking to someone for several minutes, she terminated the connection and

nodded. “He’ll see us in an hour.”

“Good.”

She frowned, put away her phone. “If you’re thinking that Ivan knows where Leonid

is, you’re mistaken. Leonid told no one where he was going, not even me.”

“You must love this man a great deal.”

“I do.”

“Does he love you?”

When she turned back to him, her eyes were full of tears. “Yes, he loves me.”

“Is that why you took money to spy on Pyotr? Is that why you were partying with that

man tonight at The Chinese Pilot?”

“Christ, none of that matters.”

Bourne sat forward. “I don’t understand. Why doesn’t it matter?”

Gala regarded him for a long time. “What’s the matter with you? Don’t you know

anything about love?” A tear overflowed, ran down her cheek. “Whatever I do for money

allows me to live. Whatever I do with my body has nothing to do with love. Love is

strictly a matter of the heart. My heart belongs to Leonid Danilovich. That’s sacred, pure.

No one can touch it or defile it.”

“Maybe we have different definitions of love,” Bourne said.

She shook her head. “You’ve no right to judge me.”

“Of course you’re right,” Bourne said. “But that wasn’t meant as a judgment. I have

difficulty understanding love, that’s all.”

She cocked her head. “Why is that?”

Bourne hesitated before continuing. “I’ve lost two wives, a daughter, and many

friends.”

“Have you lost love, too?”

“I have no idea what that means.”

“My brother died protecting me.” Gala began to shake. “He was all I had. No one

would ever love me the way he did. After our parents were killed we were inseparable.

He swore he’d make sure nothing bad happened to me. He went to his grave keeping that

promise.” She sat up straight. Her face was defiant. “Now do you understand?”

Bourne realized that he’d seriously underestimated this dyev. Had he done the same

with Moira? Despite admitting his feelings for Moira, he’d unconsciously made the

decision that no other woman could be as strong, as imperturbable as Marie. In this, he

was clearly mistaken. He had this Russian dyevochka to thank for the insight.

Gala peered at him now. Her sudden anger seemed to have burned itself out. “You’re

like Leonid Danilovich in many ways. You no longer will walk off the cliff, you no

longer trust in love. Like him, you were damaged in terrible ways. But now, you see,

you’ve made your present as bleak as your past. Your only salvation is to find someone

to love.”

“I did find someone,” Bourne said. “She’s dead now.”

“Is there no one else?”

Bourne nodded. “Maybe.”

“Then you must embrace her, instead of running away.” She clasped her hands

together. “Embrace love. That’s what I would tell Leonid Danilovich if he were here

instead of you.”

Three blocks away, parked at the curb, Yakov, the cabbie who had dropped Gala and

Bourne off, opened his cell phone, pressed a speed-dial digit on the keypad. When he

heard the familiar voice, he said, “I dropped them off at the Metropolya not ten minutes

ago.”

“Keep an eye out for them,” the voice said. “If they leave the hotel, tell me. Then

follow them.”

Yakov gave his assent, drove back around, installed himself opposite the hotel

entrance. Then he dialed another number, delivered precisely the same information to

another of his clients.

We just missed the package,” Devra said as they walked away from the wreck. “We’d

better get on the road to Istanbul right away. The next contact, Heinrich, has a good

couple of hours’ head start.”

They drove through the night, negotiating the twists, turns, and switchbacks. The black

mountains with their shimmering stoles of snow were their silent, implacable

companions. The road was as pockmarked as if they were in a war zone. Once, hitting a

patch of black ice, they spun out, but Arkadin didn’t lose his head. He turned into the

skid, tamped gently on the brakes several times while he threw the car into neutral, then

turned the engine off. They came to a stop in the side of a snowdrift.

“I hope Heinrich had the same difficulty,” Devra said.

Arkadin restarted the car but couldn’t build up enough traction to get them moving. He

walked around to the rear while Devra took the wheel. He found nothing useful inside the

trunk, so he trudged several paces into the trees, snapped off a handful of substantial

branches, which he wedged in front of the right rear tire. He slapped the fender twice and

Devra stepped on the gas. The car wheezed and groaned. The tires spun, sending up

showers of granular snow. Then the treads found the wood, rolled up onto it and over.

The car was free.

Devra moved over as Arkadin took the wheel. Clouds had slid across the moon,

steeping the road in dense shadow as they made their way through the mountain pass.

There was no traffic; the only illumination for many miles was the car’s own headlights.

Finally, the moon rose from its cloud bed and the hemmed-in world around them was

bathed in an eerie bluish light.

“Times like this when I miss my American,” Devra mused, her head against the seat

back. “He came from California. I loved especially his stories about surfing. My God,

what a weird sport. Only in America, huh? But I used to think how great it would be to

live in a land of sunshine, ride endless highways in convertibles, and swim whenever you

wanted to.”

“The American dream,” Arkadin said sourly.

She sighed. “I so wanted him to take me with him when he left.”

“My friend Mischa wanted me to take him with me,” Arkadin said, “but that was a

long time ago.”

Devra turned her head toward him. “Where did you go?”

“To America.” He laughed shortly. “But not to California. It didn’t matter to Mischa;

he was crazy about America. That’s why I didn’t take him. You go to a place to work,

you fall in love with it, and now you don’t want to work anymore.” He paused for a

moment, concentrated on navigating through a hairpin switchback. “I didn’t tell him that,

of course,” he continued. “I could never hurt Mischa like that. We both grew up in slums,

you know. Fucking hard life, that is. I was beaten up so many times I stopped counting.

Then Mischa stepped in. He was bigger than I was, but that wasn’t it. He taught me how

to use a knife-not just stab, but how to throw it, as well. Then he took me to a guy he

knew, skinny little man, but he had no fat on him at all. In the blink of an eye he had me

down on my back in so much pain my eyes watered. Christ, I couldn’t even breathe.

Mischa asked me if I’d like to be able to do that and I said, ‘Shit, where do I sign up?’”

The headlights of a truck appeared, coming toward them, a horrific dazzle that

momentarily blinded both of them. Arkadin slowed down until the truck lumbered past.

“Mischa’s my best friend, my only friend, really,” he said. “I don’t know what I’d do

without him.”

“Will I meet him when you take me back to Moscow?”

“He’s in America now,” Arkadin said. “But I’ll take you to his apartment, where I’ve

been staying. It’s along the Frunzenskaya embankment. His living room overlooks Gorky

Park. The view is very beautiful.” He thought fleetingly of Gala, who was still in the

apartment. He knew how to get her out; it wouldn’t be a problem at all.

“I know I’ll love it,” Devra said. It was a relief to hear him talk about himself.

Encouraged by his talkative mood, she continued, “What work did you do in America?”

And just like that his mood flipped. He braked the car to a halt. “You drive,” he said.

Devra had grown used to his mercurial mood swings, but watched him come around

the front of the car. She slid over. He slammed the passenger’s-side door shut and she put

the car in gear, wondering what tender nerve she’d touched.

They continued along the road, heading down the mountainside.

“We’ll hit the highway soon enough,” she said to break the thickening silence. “I can’t

wait to crawl into a warm bed.”

Inevitably there came a time when Arkadin took the initiative with Marlene. It

happened while she was sleeping. He crept down the hall to her door. It was child’s play

for him to pick the lock with nothing more than the wire that wrapped the cork in the

bottle of champagne Icoupov served at dinner. Of course, being a Muslim, Icoupov

himself had not partaken of the alcohol, but Arkadin and Marlene had no such

restrictions. Arkadin had volunteered to open the champagne and when he did he palmed

the wire.

The room smelled of her-of lemons and musk, a combination that set off a stirring

below his belly. The moon was full, low on the horizon. It looked as if God were

squeezing it between his palms.

Arkadin stood still, listening to her deep even breaths, every once in a while catching

the hint of a snore. The bedcovers rustled as she turned onto her right side, away from

him. He waited until her breathing settled again before moving to the bed. He climbed,

knelt over her. Her face and shoulder were in moonlight, her neck in shadow, so that it

appeared to him as if he’d already decapitated her. For some reason, this vision disturbed

him. He tried to breathe deeply and easily, but the disturbing vision tightened his chest,

made him so dizzy that he almost lost his balance.

And then he felt something hard and cold that in a drawn breath brought him back to

himself. Marlene was awake, her head turned, staring at him. In her right hand was a

Glock 20 10mm.

“I’ve got a full magazine,” she said.

Which meant she had fourteen more rounds if she missed the kill with her first shot.

Not that that was likely. The Glock was one of the most powerful handguns on the

market. She wasn’t fooling around.

“Back off.”

He rolled off the bed and she sat up. Her bare breasts shone whitely in the moonlight.

She appeared totally unconcerned with her semi-nudity.

“You weren’t asleep.”

“I haven’t slept since I came here,” Marlene said. “I’ve been anticipating this moment.

I’ve been waiting for you to steal into my room.”

She set aside the Glock. “Come to bed. You’re safe with me, Leonid Danilovich.”

As if mesmerized, he climbed back onto the bed and, like a little child, rested his head

against the warm cushion of her breasts while she rocked him tenderly. She lay curled

around him, willing her warmth to seep into his cool, marble flesh. Gradually, she felt his heartbeat cease its manic racing. To the steady sound of her heartbeat, he fell into

slumber.

Some time later, she woke him with a whisper in his ear. It wasn’t difficult; he wanted

to be released from his nightmare. He started, staring at her for a long moment, his body

rigid. His mouth felt raw from yelling in his sleep. Returning to the present, he

recognized her. He felt her arms around him, the protective curl of her body, and to her

astonishment and elation he relaxed.

“Nothing can harm you here, Leonid Danilovich,” she breathed. “Not even your

nightmares.”

He stared at her in an odd, unblinking fashion. Anyone else would have been

frightened, but not Marlene.

“What made you cry out?” she said.

“There was blood everywhere… on the bed.”

“Your bed? Were you beaten, Leonid?”

He blinked, and the spell was broken. He turned over, faced away from her, waiting for

the ashen light of dawn.

Twenty-One

ON A FINE clear afternoon, with the sun already low in the sky, Tyrone drove Soraya

Moore to the NSA safe house nestled within the rolling hills of Virginia. Somewhere, in

some anonymous cybercafй in northeast Washington, Kiki was sitting at a public

computer terminal, waiting to sow the software virus she’d devised to disable the

property’s two thousand CCTV surveillance cameras.

“It’ll loop the video images back on themselves endlessly,” she’d told them. “That was

the easy part. In order to make the code a hundred percent invisible it’ll work for ten

minutes, no more. At that point, it will, in essence, self-destruct, deforming into tiny

packets of harmless code the system won’t pick up as anomalous.”

Everything now depended on timing. Since it was impossible to send an electronic

signal from the NSA safe house without it being picked up and tagged as suspicious, they

had worked out an external timing scheme, which meant that if anything went wrong-if

Tyrone was delayed for any reason-the ten minutes would tick by and the plan would fail.

This was the plan’s Achilles’ heel. Still, it was their only option and they decided to take it.

Besides, Deron had a number of goodies he’d concocted for them after consulting the

architectural plans of the building he’d mysteriously conjured up. She had tried to get

them herself and struck out; NSA had what she thought was a total lock on the property

records.

Just before they stopped at the front gates, Soraya said, “Are you sure you want to go

through with this?”

Tyrone nodded, stony-faced. “Let’s get on wid it.” He was pissed that she’d even

thought to ask that question. When he was on the street, if one of his crew dared to

question his courage or resolve that would’ve been the end of him. Tyrone had to keep

reminding himself that this wasn’t the street. He knew all too well that she’d accepted a

huge risk in taking him in off the street-civilizing him, as he sometimes thought of the

process when he felt particularly hemmed in by the rules and regulations of white men he

knew nothing about.

He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, wondering if he’d ever have stepped into

the white man’s world were it not for his love of her. Here was a woman of color-a

Muslim, no less-who was working for the Man. Not just the Man, but the Man squared,

cubed into infinity, whatever. If she didn’t mind doing it, why should he? But his

upbringing was about as different from hers as it could get. From what she’d told him her

parents had given her everything she needed; he barely had parents, and they either didn’t

want to give him anything or were incapable of giving it. She had the advantage of a first-

class education; he had Deron who, though he’d taught Tyrone many things, was no

substitute for white man’s education.

What was ironic was that only months ago, he would have sneered at the kind of

education she had. But once he’d met her he began to understand how ignorant he really

was. He was street-smart, sure-more than she was. But he was intimidated around people

who’d graduated high school and college. The more he observed them maneuvering

through their world-how they talked, negotiated, interacted with one another-the more he

understood just how stunted his life had been. Street smarts and nothing else was just

what the doctor ordered for picking your way through the hood, but there was a whole

fucking world beyond the hood. Once he realized that, like Deron, he wanted to explore

the world beyond the borders of his neighborhood, he knew he’d have to remake himself

from the toes up.

All this was on his mind when he saw the imposing stone-and-slate building within the

high iron fence. As he knew from the plans he’d memorized at Deron’s it was perfectly

symmetrical, with four high chimneys, eight gabled rooms. A spiky fistful of antennas,

aerials, and satellite dishes was the only anomalous feature.

“You look very handsome in that suit,” Soraya said.

“It’s fuckin’ uncomfortable,” he said. “I feel stiff.”

“Just like every NSA agent.”

He laughed the way a Roman gladiator might as he entered the Colosseum.

“Which is the point,” she added. “You’ve got the tag Deron gave you?”

He patted a place over his heart. “Safe and sound.”

Soraya nodded. “Okay, here we go.”

He knew there was a chance he’d never come out of that house alive, but he didn’t

care. Why should he? What had his life amounted to up until now? Shit-all. He’d stood

up-just as Deron had-made his choice. That’s all a man asks for in this life.

Soraya presented the credentials LaValle had sent her by messenger this morning.

Nevertheless, both she and Tyrone were scrutinized by a bookend pair of suits with

square jaws and standing orders not to smile. Finally, they passed muster, and were

waved through.

As Tyrone drove down the snaking gravel drive Soraya pointed out the terrible

gauntlet of surveillance systems an intruder would have to pass in order to infiltrate from beyond the property’s borders. This monologue reassured him that they’d already

bypassed these risks by being LaValle’s guests. Now all they had to do was negotiate the

interior of the house. Getting out again was another matter entirely.

He drove up to the portico. Before he could turn off the engine, a valet came to relieve

him of the car, yet another square-jawed military type who’d never look right in his

civilian suit.

General Kendall, punctual as usual, was at the door to meet them. He gave Soraya’s

hand a perfunctory shake, then eyeballed Tyrone as she introduced him.

“Your bodyguard, I presume,” Kendall said in a tone someone would use for a rebuke.

“But he doesn’t look like standard-issue CI material.”

“This isn’t a standard CI rendezvous,” Soraya returned tartly.

Kendall shrugged. Another perfunctory handshake and he turned on his heel, leading

them inside the hulking structure. Through the public rooms, gilt-edged, refined,

expensive beyond modern-day imagining, along hushed corridors lined with martial

paintings, past mullioned windows through which the January sunlight sparked in beams

that stretched across the plush blue carpet. Without seeming to, Tyrone took note of every

detail, as if he were casing the joint for a high-end robbery, which in fact he was. They

passed the door down to the basement levels. It looked precisely as Soraya had drawn it

from memory for him and Deron.

They went on another ten yards to the walnut doors leading to the Library. The

fireplace contained a roaring blaze, a grouping had been set with four chairs in the same

spot where Soraya said she had sat with Kendall and LaValle on her first visit. Willard

met them just inside the door.

“Good afternoon, Ms. Moore,” he said with his customary half bow. “How very nice to

see you again so soon. Would you care for your Ceylon tea?”

“That would be wonderful, thank you.”

Tyrone was about to ask for a Coke, but thought better of it. Instead he ordered another

Ceylon tea, having not the faintest idea what it tasted like.

“Very good,” Willard said, and left them.

“This way,” Kendall said unnecessarily, leading them to the grouping of chairs where

Luther LaValle was already seated, staring out the mullioned windows at the light

gathered to an oval over the western hills.

He must have heard the whisper of their approach, because he rose and turned just as

they came up. The maneuver seemed to Soraya artfully rehearsed, and therefore as

artificial as LaValle’s smile. Dutifully, she introduced Tyrone, and they all sat down

together.

LaValle steepled his fingers. “Before we begin, Director, I feel compelled to point out

that our own archives department has unearthed some fragmentary history on the Black

Legion. Apparently, they did exist during the time of the Third Reich. They were

composed of Muslim prisoners of war who were brought back to Germany from the first

putsches into the Soviet Union. These Muslims, mainly of Turkish descent from the

Caucasus, detested Stalin so much they’d do anything to topple his regime, even

becoming Nazis.”

LaValle shook his head like a history professor recounting evil days to a class of wide-

eyed students. “It’s a particularly unpleasant footnote in a thoroughly repugnant decade.

But as for the Black Legion itself, there’s no evidence whatsoever that it survived the

regime that spawned it. Besides which, its benefactor Himmler was a master of

propaganda, especially when it came to advancing himself in the eyes of Hitler.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that the role of the Black Legion on the Eastern Front was

minimal, that it was in fact Himmler’s fantastic propaganda machine that gave it the

feared reputation it enjoyed, not anything its members themselves did.”

He smiled, the sun emerging from behind storm clouds. “Now, in that light, let me take

a look at the Typhon intercepts.”

Soraya tolerated this rather condescending introduction, meant to discredit the origin of

the intercepts before she even handed them over. She allowed indignation and

humiliation to pass through her so she could remain calm and focused on her mission.

Pulling the slim briefcase onto her lap, she unlocked the coded lock, extracted a red file

with a thick black stripe across its upper right-hand corner, marking it as DIRECTOR

EYES ONLY-material of the highest security clearance.

Staring LaValle in the face, she handed it over.

“Excuse me, Director.” Tyrone held out his hand. “The electronic tape.”

“Oh, yes, I forgot,” Soraya said. “Mr. LaValle, would you please hand the file to Mr.

Elkins.”

LaValle checked the file more closely, saw a ribbon of shiny metal sealing the file.

“Don’t bother. I can peel this back myself.”

“Not if you want to read the intercepts,” Tyrone said. “Unless the tape is opened with

this”-he held up a small plastic implement-“the file will incinerate within seconds.”

LaValle nodded his approval of the security measures Soraya had taken.

As he gave the file to Tyrone, Soraya said, “Since our last meeting my people have

intercepted more communication from the same entity, which increasingly seems to be

the command center.”

LaValle frowned. “A command center? That’s highly unusual for a terrorist network,

which is, by definition, made up of independent cadres.”

“That’s what makes the intercepts so compelling.”

“It also makes them suspect, in my opinion,” LaValle said. “Which is why I’m anxious

to read them myself.”

By this time, Tyrone had slit the metallic security tape, handed the file back. LaValle’s

gaze dropped as he opened the file and began to read.

At this point Tyrone said, “I need to use the bathroom.”

LaValle waved a hand. “Go ahead,” he said without looking up.

Kendall watched him as he went up to Willard, who was on his way over with the

drinks, to ask for directions. Soraya saw this out of the corner of her eye. If all went well, in the next couple of minutes Tyrone would be standing in front of the door down to the

basement at the precise moment Kiki sent the virus to the NSA security system.

Ivan Volkin was a hairy bear of a man, salt-and-pepper hair standing straight up like a

madman, a full beard white as snow, small but cheerful eyes the color of a rainstorm. He

was slightly bandy-legged, as if he’d been riding a horse all his life. His lined and

leathery face lent him a certain dignified aspect, as if in his life he’d earned the respect of many.

He greeted them warmly, welcoming them into an apartment that appeared small

because of the stacks of books and periodicals that covered every conceivable horizontal

surface, including the kitchen stovetop and his bed.

He led them down a narrow, winding aisle from the vestibule to the living room, made

room for them on the sofa by moving three teetering stacks of books.

“Now,” he said, standing in front of them, “how can I be of help?”

“I need to know everything you can tell me about the Black Legion.”

“And why are you interested in such a tiny footnote to history?” Volkin looked at

Bourne with a jaundiced eye. “You don’t have the look of a scholar.”

“Neither do you,” Bourne said.

This produced a spraying laugh from the older man. “No, I suppose not.” Volkin wiped

his eyes. “Spoken like one soldier to another, eh? Yes.” Reaching around behind him, he

swung over a ladder-backed chair, straddled it with his arms crossed over the top. “So.

What specifically do you want to know?”

“How did they manage to survive into the twenty-first century?”

Volkin’s face immediately shut down. “Who told you the Black Legion survives?”

Bourne did not want to use Professor Specter’s name. “An unimpeachable source.”

“Is that so? Well, that source is wrong.”

“Why bother to deny it?” Bourne said.

Volkin rose, went into the kitchen. Bourne could hear the refrigerator door open and

close, the light clink of glassware. When Volkin returned, he had an iced bottle of vodka

in one hand, three water glasses in the other.

Handing them the glasses, he unscrewed the cap, filled their glasses halfway. When

he’d poured for himself, he sat down again, the bottle standing between them on the

threadbare carpet.

Volkin raised his glass. “To our health.” He emptied his glass in two great gulps.

Smacking his lips, he reached down, refilled it. “Listen to me closely. If I were to admit

that the Black Legion exists today there would be nothing left of my health to toast.”

“How would anyone know?” Bourne said.

“How? I’ll tell you how. I tell you what I know, then you go out and act on that

information. Where d’you think the shitstorm that ensues is going to land, hmm?” He

tapped his barrel chest with his glass, slopping vodka onto his already stained shirt.

“Every action has a reaction, my friend, and let me tell you that when it comes to the

Black Legion every reaction is fatal for someone.”

Since he’d already as much as admitted that the Black Legion had, in fact, survived the

defeat of Nazi Germany, Bourne brought the subject around to what really concerned

him. “Why would the Kazanskaya be involved?”

“Pardon?”

“In some way I can’t yet understand the Kazanskaya are interested in Mikhail

Tarkanian. I stumbled across one of their contract killers in his apartment.”

Volkin’s expression turned sour. “What were you doing in his apartment?”

“Tarkanian’s dead,” Bourne said.

“What?” Volkin exploded. “I don’t believe you.”

“I was there when it happened.”

“And I tell you it’s impossible.”

“On the contrary, it’s a fact,” Bourne said. “His death was a direct result of him being a

member of the Black Legion.”

Volkin crossed his arms over his chest. He looked like the silverback in the National

Zoo. “I see what’s happening here. How many ways will you try to get me to talk about

the Black Legion?”

“Every way I can,” Bourne said. “The Kazanskaya are in some way in league with the

Black Legion, which is an alarming prospect.”

“I may look as if I have all the answers, but I don’t.” Volkin stared at him, as if daring

Bourne to call him a liar.

Though Bourne was certain that Volkin knew more than he would admit, he also knew

it would be a mistake to call him on it. Clearly, this was a man who couldn’t be

intimidated, so there was no point in trying. Professor Specter had warned him not to get

caught up in the grupperovka war, but the professor was a long way away from Moscow;

his intelligence was only as accurate as his men on the ground here. Instinct told Bourne

there was a serious disconnect. So far as he could see there was only one way to get to the truth.

“Tell me how to get a meet with Maslov,” he said.

Volkin shook his head. “That would be most unwise. With the Kazanskaya in the

middle of a power struggle with the Azeri-”

“Popov is only my cover name,” Bourne said. “Actually, I’m a consultant to Viktor

Cherkesov”-the head of the Federal Anti-Narcotics Agency, one of the two or three most

powerful siloviks in Russia.

Volkin pulled back as if stung by Bourne’s words. He shot Gala an accusatory glance,

as if Bourne were a scorpion she’d brought into his den. Turning back to Bourne he said,

“Have you any proof of this?”

“Don’t be absurd. However, I can tell you the name of the man I report to: Boris

Illyich Karpov.”

“Is that so?” Volkin produced a Makarov handgun, placed it on his right knee. “If

you’re lying…” He picked up a cell phone he scavenged miraculously from out of the

clutter, and quickly punched in a number. “We have no amateurs here.”

After a moment he said into the phone, “Boris Illyich, I have here with me a man who

claims to be working for you. I would like to put him on the line, yes?”

With a deadpan face, Volkin handed over the cell.

“Boris,” Bourne said, “it’s Jason Bourne.”

“Jason, my good friend!” Karpov’s voice reverberated down the line. “I haven’t seen

you since Reykjavik.”

“It seems like a long time.”

“Too long, I tell you!”

“Where have you been?”

“In Timbuktu.”

“What were you doing in Mali?” Bourne asked.

“Don’t ask, don’t tell.” Karpov laughed. “I understand you’re now working for me.”

“That’s right.”

“My boy, I’ve longed for this day!” Karpov let go with another booming laugh. “We

must toast this moment with vodka, but not tonight, eh? Put that old goat Volkin back on

the line. I assume there’s something you want from him.”

“Correct.”

“He hasn’t believed a word you’ve told him. But I’ll change that. Please memorize my

cell number, then call me when you’re alone. Until we speak again, my good friend.”

“He wants to talk to you,” Bourne said.

“That’s understandable.” Volkin took the cell from Bourne, put it to his ear. Almost

immediately his expression changed. He stared at Bourne, his mouth slightly open. “Yes,

Boris Illyich. Yes, of course. I understand.”

Volkin broke the connection, stared at Bourne for what seemed a long time. At length,

he said, “I’m going to call Dimitri Maslov now. I hope to hell you know what you’re

doing. Otherwise, this is the last time anyone will see you, either alive or dead.”

Twenty-Two

TYRONE WENT immediately into one of the cubicles in the men’s room. Fishing out

the plastic tag Deron had made for him, he clipped it on the outside of his suit jacket, a

suit that looked like the regulation government suits all the other spooks wore here. The

tag identified him as Special Agent Damon Riggs, out of the NSA field office in LA.