Текст книги "The Bourne Sanction (Санкция Борна)"

Автор книги: Eric Van Lustbader

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Текущая страница: 16 (всего у книги 29 страниц)

entrance.

Outside, it had begun to snow again. The wind, slicing in from the square, was icy and

bitter. Flagging down a bombila, Bourne was about to give the cabbie the address of

Gala’s friend, then realized that Yakov, the cabbie working for the NSA, knew that

address.

“Get in the taxi,” Bourne said quietly to Gala, “but be prepared to get out quickly and

do exactly as I say.”

Soraya didn’t need a couple of hours to make up her mind; she didn’t even need a

couple of minutes.

“All right,” she said. “I’ll do whatever it takes to get Tyrone out of here.”

LaValle turned back to regard her. “Well, now, that kind of capitulation would do my

heart good if I didn’t know you to be such a duplicitous little bitch.

“Unfortunately,” he went on, “in your case, verbal capitulation isn’t quite as

convincing as it would be in others. That being the case, the general here will make

crystal clear to you the consequences of further treachery on your part.”

Soraya rose, along with Kendall.

LaValle stopped her with his voice, “Oh, and, Director, when you leave here you’ll

have until ten tomorrow morning to make your decision. I’ll expect you back here then. I

hope I’ve made myself clear.”

The general led her out of the Library, down the corridor to the door to the basement.

The moment she saw where he was taking her, she said, “No! Don’t do this. Please.

There’s no need.”

But Kendall, his back ramrod-straight, ignored her. When she hesitated at the security

door, he grasped her firmly by the elbow and, as if she were a child, steered her down the

stairs.

In due course, she found herself in the same viewing room. Tyrone was on his knees,

his arm behind him, bound hands on the tabletop, which was higher than shoulder level.

This position was both extremely painful and humiliating. His torso was forced forward,

his shoulder blades back.

Soraya’s heart was filled with dread. “Enough,” she said. “I get it. You’ve made your

point.”

“By no means,” General Kendall said.

Soraya could see two shadowy figures moving about the cell. Tyrone had become

aware of them, too. He tried to twist around to see what they were up to. One of the men

shoved a black hood over his head.

My God, Soraya said to herself. What did the other man have in his hands?

Kendall shoved her hard against the one-way glass. “Where your friend is concerned

we’re just warming up.”

Two minutes later, they began to fill the waterboarding tank. Soraya began to scream.

Bourne asked the bombila driver to pass by the front of the hotel. Everything seemed

calm and normal, which meant that the bodies on the seventeenth floor hadn’t been

discovered yet. But it wouldn’t be long before someone went to look for the missing

room-service waiter.

He turned his attention across the street, searching for Yakov. He was still outside his

car, talking to a fellow driver. Both of them were swinging their arms to keep their

circulation going. He pointed out Yakov to Gala, who recognized him. When they’d

passed the square, Bourne had the bombila pull over.

He turned to Gala. “I want you to go back to Yakov and have him take you to

Universitetskaya Ploshchad at Vorobyovy Gory.” Bourne was speaking of the top of the

only hill in the otherwise flat city, where lovers and university students went to get drunk, make love, and smoke dope while looking out over the city. “Wait there for me and

whatever you do, don’t get out of the car. Tell the cabbie you’re meeting someone there.”

“But he’s the one who’s been spying on us,” Gala said.

“Don’t worry,” Bourne reassured her. “I’ll be right behind you.”

The view out over Vorobyovy Gory was not so very grand. First, there was the ugly

bulk of Luzhniki Stadium in the mid-foreground. Second, there were the spires of the

Kremlin, which would hardly inspire even the most ardent lovers. But for all that, at night it was as romantic as Moscow could get.

Bourne, who’d had his bombila track the one Gala was in all the way there, was

relieved that Yakov had orders only to observe and report back. Anyway, the NSA was

interested in Bourne, not a young blond dyev.

Arriving at the overlook, Bourne paid the fare he’d agreed to at the beginning of the

ride, strode down the sidewalk, and got into the front seat of Yakov’s taxi.

“Hey, what’s this?” Yakov said. Then he recognized Bourne and made a scramble for

the Makarov he kept in a homemade sling under the ratty dash.

Bourne pulled his hand away and held him back against the seat while taking

possession of the handgun. He pointed it at Yakov. “Who do you report to?”

Yakov said in a whiny voice, “I challenge you to sit in my seat night after night,

driving around the Garden Ring, crawling endlessly down Tverskaya, being cut out of

fares by kamikaze bombily and make enough to live on.”

“I don’t care why you pimp yourself out to the NSA,” Bourne told him. “I want to

know who you report to.”

Yakov held up his hand. “Listen, listen, I’m from Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan. It’s not so

nice there, who can make a living? So I pack my family and we travel to Russia, the

beating heart of the new federation, where the streets are paved with rubles. But when I

arrive here I am treated like dirt. People in the street spit on my wife. My children are

beaten and called terrible names. And I can’t get a job anywhere in this city. ‘Moscow for

Muscovites,’ that is the refrain I hear over and over. So I take to the bombily because I

have no other choice. But this life, sir, you have no idea how difficult it is. Sometimes

after twelve hours I come home with a hundred rubles, sometimes with nothing. I cannot

be faulted for taking money the Americans offer.

“Russia is corrupt, but Moscow, it’s more than corrupt. There isn’t a word for how bad

things are here. The government is made up of thugs and criminals. The criminals

plunder the natural resources of Russia-oil, natural gas, uranium. Everyone takes, takes,

takes so they can have big foreign cars, a different dyev for every day of the week, a

dacha in Miami Beach. And what’s left for us? Potatoes and beets, if we work eighteen

hours a day and if we’re lucky.”

“I have no animosity toward you,” Bourne said. “You have a right to earn a living.” He

handed Yakov a fistful of dollars.

“I see no one, sir. I swear. Just voices on my cell phone. All moneys come to a post

office box in-”

Bourne carefully placed the muzzle of the Makarov in Yakov’s ear. The cabbie

cringed, turned mournful eyes on Bourne.

“Please, please, sir, what have I done?”

“I saw you outside the Metropolya with the man who tried to kill me.”

Yakov squealed like a skewered rat. “Kill you? I’m employed merely to watch and

report. I have no knowledge about-”

Bourne hit the cabbie. “Stop lying and tell me what I want to know.”

“All right, all right.” Yakov was shaking with fear. “The American who pays me, his

name is Low. Harris Low.”

Bourne made him give a detailed description of Low, then he took Yakov’s cell phone.

“Get out of the car,” he said.

“But sir, I answered all your questions,” Yakov protested. “You’ve taken everything of

mine. What more do you want?”

Bourne leaned across him, opened the door, then shoved him out. “This is a popular

place. Plenty of bombily come and go. You’re a rich man now. Use some of the money I

gave you to get a ride home.”

Sliding behind the wheel he put the Zhig in gear, drove back into the heart of the city.

Harris Low was a dapper man with a pencil mustache. He had the prematurely white

hair and ruddy complexion of many blue-blooded families in the American Northeast.

That he had spent the last eleven years in Moscow, working for NSA, was a testament to

his father, who had trod the same perilous path. Low had idolized his father, had wanted

to be like him for as long as he could remember. Like his father, he had the Stars and

Stripes tattooed on his soul. He’d been a running back in college, gone through the

rigorous physical training to be an NSA field agent, had tracked down terrorists in

Afghanistan and the Horn of Africa. He wasn’t afraid to engage in hand-to-hand combat

or to kill a target. He did it for God and country.

During his eleven years in the capital of Russia, Low had made many friends, some of

whom were the sons of his father’s friends. Suffice to say he had developed a network of

apparatchiks and siloviks for whom a quid pro quo was the order of the day. Harris held

no illusions. To further his country’s cause he would scratch anyone’s back-if they, in

turn, scratched his.

He heard about the murders at the Metropolya Hotel from a friend of his in the General

Prosecutor’s Office, who’d caught the police squeal. Harris met this individual at the

hotel and was consequently one of the first people on the scene.

He had no interest in the corpse in the utility closet, but he immediately recognized

Anthony Prowess. Excusing himself from the crime scene, he went into the stairwell off

the seventeenth-floor hallway, punched in an overseas number on his cell. A moment

later Luther LaValle answered.

“We have a problem,” Low said. “Prowess has been rendered inoperative with extreme

prejudice.”

“That’s very disturbing,” LaValle said. “We have a rogue operative loose in Moscow

who has now murdered one of our own. I think you know what to do.”

Low understood. There was no time to bring in another of NSA’s wet-work specialists,

which meant terminating Bourne was up to him.

“Now that he’s killed an American citizen,” LaValle said, “I’ll bring the Moscow

police and the General Prosecutor’s Office into the picture. They’ll have the same photo

of him I’m sending to your cell within the hour.”

Low thought a moment. “The question is tracking him. Moscow is way behind the

curve in closed-circuit TVs.”

“Bourne is going to need money,” LaValle said. “He couldn’t take enough through

Customs when he landed, which means he wouldn’t try. He’ll have set up a local account

at a Moscow bank. Get the locals to help with surveillance pronto.”

“Consider it done,” Low said.

“And Harris. Don’t make the same mistake with Bourne that Prowess did.”

Bourne took Gala to her friend’s apartment, which was lavish even by American

standards. Her friend, Lorraine, was an American of Armenian extraction. Her dark eyes

and hair, her olive complexion, all served to increase her exoticism. She hugged and

kissed Gala, greeted Bourne warmly, and invited him to stay for a drink or tea.

As he took a tour through the rooms, Gala said, “He’s worried about my safety.”

“What’s happened?” Lorraine asked. “Are you all right?”

“She’ll be fine,” Bourne said, coming back into the living room. “This’ll all blow over

in a couple of days.” Having satisfied himself of the security of the apartment, he left

them with the warning not to open the door for anyone they didn’t know.

Ivan Volkin had directed Bourne to go to Novoslobodskaya 20, where the meet with

Dimitri Maslov would take place. At first Bourne thought it lucky that the bombila he

flagged down knew how to find the address, but when he was dropped off he understood.

Novoslobodskaya 20 was the address of Motorhome, a new club jammed with young

partying Muscovites. Gigantic flat-panel screens above the center island bar showed

telecasts of American baseball, basketball, football, English rugby, and World Cup

soccer. The floor of the main room was dominated by tables for Russian billiards and

American pool. Following Volkin’s direction, Bourne headed for the back room, which

was fitted out as an Arabian Nights hookah room complete with overlapping carpets,

jewel-toned cushions, and, of course, gaily colored brass hookahs being smoked by

lounging men and women.

Bourne, stopped at the doorway by two overdeveloped members of club security, told

them he was here to see Dimitri Maslov. One of them pointed to a man lounging and

smoking a hookah in the far left corner.

“Maslov,” Bourne said when he reached the pile of cushions surrounding a low brass

table.

“My name is Yevgeny. Maslov isn’t here.” The man gestured. “Sit down, please.”

Bourne hesitated a moment, then sat on a cushion opposite Yev-geny. “Where is he?”

“Did you think it would be so simple? One call and poof! he pops into existence like a

genie from a lamp?” Yevgeny shook his head, offered Bourne the pipe. “Good shit. Try

some.”

When Bourne declined, Yevgeny shrugged, took a toke deep into his lungs, held it,

then let it out with an audible hiss. “Why do you want to see Maslov?”

“That’s between me and him,” Bourne said.

Yevgeny shrugged again. “As you like. Maslov is out of the city.”

“Then why was I told to come here?”

“To be judged, to see whether you are a serious individual. To see whether Maslov will

make the decision to see you.”

“Maslov trusts people to make decisions for him?”

“He is a busy man. He has other things on his mind.”

“Like how to win the war with the Azeri.”

Yevgeny’s eyes narrowed. “Perhaps you can see Maslov next week.”

“I need to see him now,” Bourne said.

Yevgeny shrugged. “As I said, he’s out of Moscow. But he may be back tomorrow

morning.”

“Why don’t you ensure it.”

“I could,” Yevgeny said. “But it will cost you.”

“How much?”

“Ten thousand.”

“Ten thousand dollars to talk to Dimitri Maslov?”

Yevgeny shook his head. “The American dollar has become too debased. Ten thousand

Swiss francs.”

Bourne thought a moment. He didn’t have that kind of money on him, and certainly

not in Swiss francs. However, he had the information Baronov had given him on the safe-

deposit box at the Moskva Bank. The problem was that it was in the name of Fyodor

Ilianovich Popov, who was no doubt now wanted for questioning regarding the body of

the man in his room at the Metropolya Hotel. There was no help for it, Bourne thought.

He’d have to take the chance.

“I’ll have the money tomorrow morning,” Bourne said.

“That will be satisfactory.”

“But I’ll give it to Maslov and no one else.”

Yevgeny nodded. “Done.” He wrote something on a slip of paper, showed it to Bourne.

“Please be at this address at noon tomorrow.” Then he struck a match, held it to the

corner of the paper, which burned steadily until it crumbled into ash.

Semion Icoupov, in his temporary headquarters in Grindelwald, took the news of

Harun Iliev’s death very hard. He’d been a witness to death many times, but Harun had

been like a brother to him. Closer, even, because the two had no sibling baggage to

clutter and distort their relationship. Icoupov had relied on Harun for his wise counsel.

His was a sad loss indeed.

His thoughts were interrupted by the orchestrated chaos around him. A score of people

were staffing computer consoles hooked up to satellite feeds, surveillance networks,

public transportation CCTV from major hubs all over the world. They were coming to the

final buildup to the Black Legion’s attack; every screen had to be scrutinized and

analyzed, the faces of suspicious people picked out and run through a nebula of software

that could identify individuals. From this, Icoupov’s operatives were building a mosaic of

the real-time backdrop against which the attack was scheduled to take place.

Icoupov became aware that three of his aides were clustered around his desk.

Apparently, they’d been trying to talk to him.

“What is it?” His voice was testy, the better to cover up his grief and inattention.

Ismail, the most senior of his aides, cleared his throat. “We wanted to know who you

intend to send after Jason Bourne now that Harun…” His voice trailed off.

Icoupov had been contemplating the same question. He’d made a mental list that

included any number of people he could send, but he kept eliminating most of them, for

one reason or another. But on the second and third run through he began to realize that

these reasons were in one way or another trivial. Now, as Ismail asked the question again,

he knew.

He looked up into his aides’ anxious faces and said. “It’s me. I’m going after Bourne

myself.”

Twenty-Four

IT WAS disturbingly hot in the Alter Botanischer Garten, and as humid as a rain

forest. The enormous glass panels were opaque with beads of mist sliding down their

faces. Moira, who had already taken off her gloves and long winter coat, now shrugged

out of the thick cable-knit sweater that helped protect her from Munich’s chill, damp

morning, which could penetrate to the bone.

When it came to German cities, she much preferred Berlin to Munich. For one thing,

Berlin had for many years been on the cutting edge of popular music. Berlin was where

such notable pop icons as David Bowie, Brian Eno, and Lou Reed, among many others,

had come to recharge their creative batteries by listening to what musicians far younger

than they were creating. For another, it hadn’t lost its legacy of the war and its aftermath.

Berlin was like a living museum that was reinventing itself with every breath it took.

There was, however, a strictly personal reason why she preferred Berlin. She came for

much the same reason Bowie did, to get away from stale habits, to breathe the fresh air of

a city unlike those she knew. At an early age Moira became bored with the familiar.

Every time she felt compelled to join a group because that was what her friends were

doing she sensed she was losing a piece of herself. Gradually, she realized that her

friends had ceased to become individuals, devolving into a cliquey “they” she found

repellent. The only way to escape was to flee beyond the borders of the United States.

She could have chosen London or Barcelona, as some other college sophomores did,

but she was a freak for Bowie and the Velvet Underground, so Berlin it was.

The botanical garden was built in the mid-1800s as an exhibition hall, but eighty years

later, after its garden was destroyed by a fire, it gained new life as a public park. Outside, the awful bulk of the prewar Fountain of Neptune cast a shadow across the space through

which she strolled.

The array of gorgeous specimens on display inside this glassed-in space only

underscored the fact that Munich itself was without verve or spark. It was a plodding city

of untermenchen, businessmen as gray as the city, and factories belching smoke into the

low, angry sky. It was also a focal point of European Muslim activity, which, in one of

those classic action-reaction scenarios, made it a hotbed of skinhead neo-Nazis.

Moira glanced at her watch. It was precisely 9:30 AM, and here came Noah, striding

toward her. He was cool and efficient, personally opaque, even withholding, but he

wasn’t a bad sort. She’d have refused him as a handler if he was; she was senior enough

to command that respect. And Noah did respect her, she was certain of that.

In many ways Noah reminded her of Johann, the man who’d recruited her while she

was at the university. Actually, Johann hadn’t contacted her at college; he was far too

canny for that. He asked his girlfriend to make the approach, rightly figuring Moira

would be more responsive to a fellow female student. Ultimately, Moira had met with

Johann, was intrigued by what he had to offer her, and the rest was history. Well, not

exactly. She’d never told anyone, including Martin or Bourne, who she really worked for.

To do so would have violated her contract with the firm.

She stopped in front of the pinkly intimate blooms of an orchid, speckled like the

bridge of a virgin’s nose. Berlin had also been the site of her first passionate love affair, the kind that curled your toes, obliterated your focus on responsibility and the future. The affair almost ruined her, principally because it possessed her like a whirlwind and, in the process, she’d lost any sense of herself. She became a sexual instrument on which her

lover played. What he wanted, she wanted, and so dissolution.

In the end, it was Johann who had saved her, but the process of separating pleasure

from self was immensely painful. Especially because two months afterward her lover

died. For a time, her rage at Johann was boundless; curdling their friendship, jeopardizing the trust they’d placed in each other. It was a lesson she never forgot. It was one reason

she hadn’t allowed herself to fall for Martin, though part of her yearned for his touch.

Jason Bourne was another story entirely, for she had once again been overtaken by the

whirlwind. But this time, she wasn’t diminished. Partly, that was because she was mature

now and knew better. Mainly, though, it was because Bourne asked nothing of her. He

sought neither to lead nor to dominate her. Everything with him was clean and open. She

moved on to another orchid, this one dark as night, with a tiny lantern of yellow hidden in its center. It was ironic, she thought, that despite his own issues, she had never before met a man so in control of himself. She found his self-assurance a compelling aphrodisiac, as

well as a powerful antidote to her own innate melancholy.

That was another irony, she thought. If asked, Bourne would surely say that he was a

pessimist, but being one herself, she knew an optimist when she met one. Bourne would

take on the most impossible situations and somehow find a solution. Only the greatest of

optimists could accomplish that.

Hearing soft footfalls, she turned to see Noah, shoulders hunched within a tweed

overcoat. Though born in Israel, he could pass for a German now, perhaps because he’d

lived in Berlin for so long. He’d been Johann’s protйgй; the two had been very close.

When Johann was killed, it was Noah who took his place.

“Hello, Moira.” He had a narrow face below dark hair flecked with premature gray.

His long nose and serious mouth belied a keen sense of the absurd. “No Bourne, I see.”

“I did my best to get him on board at NextGen.”

Noah smiled. “I’m sure you did.”

He gestured and they began to walk together. Few people were around this gloomy

morning so there was no chance of being overheard.

“But to be honest, from what you told me, it was a long shot.”

“I’m not disappointed,” Moira said. “I detested the entire experience.”

“That’s because you have feelings for him.”

“What if I do?” Moira said rather more defensively than she expected.

“You tell me.” Noah watched her carefully. “There is a consensus among the partners

that your emotions are interfering with your work.”

“Where the hell is that coming from?” she said.

“I want you to know that I’m on your side.” His voice was that of a psychoanalyst

calming an increasingly agitated patient. “The problem is you should have come here

days ago.” They passed a worker tending a swath of African violets. When they were out

of her earshot, he continued. “Then you go and bring Bourne with you.”

“I told you. I was still trying to recruit him.”

“Don’t lie to a liar, Moira.” He crossed his arms over his chest. When he spoke again,

every word had weight. “There is a grave concern that your priorities aren’t straight. You

have a job to do, and a vitally important one. The firm can’t afford to have your attention wandering.”

“Are you saying you want to replace me?”

“It’s an option that was discussed,” he acknowledged.

“Bullshit. At this late stage there’s no one who knows the project as well as I do.”

“But then another option was requested: withdrawal from the project.”

Moira was truly shocked. “You wouldn’t.”

Noah kept his gaze on her. “The partners have determined that in this instance it would

be preferable to withdraw than to fail.”

Moira felt her blood rising. “You can’t withdraw, Noah. I’m not going to fail.”

“I’m afraid that’s no longer an option,” he said, “because the decision’s been made. As

of oh seven hundred this morning we’ve officially notified NextGen that we’ve

withdrawn from the project.”

He handed her a packet. “Here is your new assignment. You’re required to leave for

Damascus this afternoon.”

Arkadin and Devra reached the Bosporus Bridge and crossed over into Istanbul just as

the sun was rising. Since coming down from the cruel, snow-swept mountains along

Turkey’s spine they had shed layers of clothes, and now the morning was exceptionally

clear and mild. Pleasure yachts and huge tankers alike plowed the Bosporus on their way

to various destinations. It felt good to roll down the windows. The air, fresh, moist, tangy with salt and minerals, was a distinct relief after the dry hard winter of the hinterlands.

During the night they’d stopped at every gas station, beaten-down motel, or store that

was open-though most were not-in an attempt to find Heinrich, the next courier in Pyotr’s

network.

When it came time for him to spell her, she moved to the passenger’s side, put her

head against the door, and fell into a deep sleep, from which emerged a dream. She was a

whale, swimming in icy black water. No sun pierced the depths where she swam. Below

her was an unfathomable abyss. Ahead of her was a shadowy shape. She didn’t know

why, but it seemed imperative that she follow that shape, catch up with it, identify it. Was it friend or foe? Every so often she filled her head and throat with sound, which she sent

out through the darkness. But she received no reply. There were no other whales around,

so what was she chasing, what was she so desperate to find? There was no one to help

her. She became frightened. The fright grew and grew…

It clung to her as she awoke with a start in the car beside Arkadin. The grayish

predawn light creeping through the landscape rendered every shape unfamiliar and

vaguely threatening.

Twenty-five minutes later they were in the seething, clamorous heart of Istanbul.

“Heinrich likes to spend the time before his flight in Kilyos, the beach community in

the northern suburbs,” Devra said. “Do you know how to get there?”

Arkadin nodded. “I’m familiar with the area.”

They wove their way through Sultanahmet, the core of Old Istanbul, then took the

Galata Bridge, which spanned the Golden Horn, to Karakцy in the north. In the old days,

when Istanbul was known as Constantinople, seat of the Byzantine Empire, Karakцy was

the powerful Genoese trading colony known as Galata. As they reached the center of the

bridge Devra looked west toward Europe, then east across the Bosporus to Ьskьdar and

Asia.

They passed into Karakцy, with its fortified Genoese walls and, rising from it, the

stone Galata tower with its conical top, one of the monuments that, along with the

Topkapi Palace and Blue Mosque, dominated the modern-day city’s skyline.

Kilyos lay along the Black Sea coast twenty-two miles north of Istanbul proper. In the

summer it was a popular beach resort, packed with people swimming, snacking in the

restaurants that lined the beach, shopping for sunglasses and straw hats, sunbathing, or

just dreaming. In winter it possessed a sad, vaguely disreputable air, like a dowager

sinking into senility. Still, on this sun-splashed morning, under a cloudless cerulean sky, there were figures walking up and down the beach: young couples hand in hand; mothers

with young children who ran laughing to the waterline, only to run back, screaming with

terror and delight when the surf piled roughly in. An old man sat on a fold-up stool,

smoking a crooked hand-rolled cigar that gave off a stench like the smokestack of a

tannery.

Arkadin parked the car and got out, stretching his body after the long drive.

“He’ll recognize me the moment he sees me,” Devra said, staying put. She described

Heinrich in detail. Just before Arkadin headed down to the beach, she added, “He likes

putting his feet in the water, he says it grounds him.”

Down on the beach it was warm enough that some people had taken off their jackets.

One middle-aged man had stripped to the waist and sat with knees drawn up, arms locked

around them, facing up to the sun like a heliotrope. Kids dug in the sand with yellow

plastic Tweety Bird shovels, poured sand into pink plastic Petunia Pig buckets. One pair

of lovers had stopped at the shoreline, embracing. They kissed passionately.

Arkadin walked on. Just behind them a man stood in the surf. His trousers were rolled

up; his shoes, with socks stuffed into them, had been placed on a high point in the sand

not far away. He was staring out at the water, dotted here and there with tankers, tiny as

LEGOs, inching along the blue horizon.

Devra’s description was not only detailed, it was accurate. The man in the surf was

Heinrich.

The Moskva Bank was housed in an enormous, ornate building that would pass for a

palace in any other city but was run-of-the-mill by Moscow standards. It occupied a

corner of a busy thoroughfare a stone’s throw from Red Square. The streets and

sidewalks were packed with both Muscovites and tourists.

It was just before 9 AM. Bourne had been walking around the area for the last twenty

minutes, checking for surveillance. That he hadn’t spotted any didn’t mean the bank

wasn’t being watched. He’d glimpsed a number of police cars cruising the snow-covered

streets, more than usual, perhaps.

As he walked along a street close to the bank, he saw another police cruiser, this one

with its light flashing. Stepping back into a shop doorway, he watched as it sped by.

Halfway down the block it stopped behind a double-parked car. It sat there for a moment,

then the two policemen got out of their cruiser, swaggered over to the vehicle.

Bourne took the opportunity to walk down the crowded sidewalk. People were

wrapped and bundled, swaddled like children. Breath came out of their mouths and noses

in cloud-like bursts as they hurried along with hunched shoulders and bent backs. As

Bourne came abreast of the cruiser, he dipped down and glanced in the window. There he

saw his face staring up at him from a tear sheet that had obviously been distributed to

every cop in Moscow. According to the accompanying text he was wanted for the murder

of an American government official.

Bourne walked quickly in the opposite direction, disappearing around a corner before

the cops had a chance to return to their car.

He phoned Gala, who was parked in Yakov’s battered Zhig three blocks away awaiting

his signal. After his call, she pulled out into traffic, made a right, then another. As they had surmised, it was slow going, the morning traffic sluggish.

She checked her watch, saw she needed to give Bourne another ninety seconds. As she