Текст книги "The Bourne Sanction (Санкция Борна)"

Автор книги: Eric Van Lustbader

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 23 (всего у книги 29 страниц)

Do you remember me?”

The old man stopped muttering, peered at her carefully. “You do look an awful lot like

a Petra-Alexandra I once knew.”

“Petra-Alexandra.” She laughed and kissed him on the cheek. “Yes, yes, that’s me!”

He recoiled a little, put a hand on his cheek where she’d planted her lips. Then,

skeptical to the end, he looked past her at Bourne. “Who’s this Nazi bastard? Did he force

you to come here?” His hands curled into fists. “I’ll box his ears for him!”

“No, Herr Pelz, this is a friend of mine. He’s Russian.” She used the name Bourne had

given her, which was on the passport Boris Karpov had provided.

“Russians’re no better than Nazis in my book,” the old man said sourly.

“Actually, I’m an American traveling under a Russian passport.” Bourne said this first

in English and then in German.

“You speak English very well, for a Russian,” Old Pelz said in excellent English. Then

he laughed, showing teeth yellowed by time and tobacco. At the sight of an American, he

seemed to perk up, as if coming out of a decades-long drowse. This was the way he was,

a rabbit being drawn out of a hat, only to withdraw again into the shadows. He wasn’t

mad, just living both in the drab present and in the vivid past. “I embraced the Americans

when they liberated us from tyranny,” he continued proudly. “In my time I helped them

root out the Nazis and the Nazi sympathizers pretending to be good Germans.” He spat

out the last words, as if he couldn’t stand to have them in his mouth.

“Then what are you doing here?” Bourne said. “Don’t you have a home to go to?”

“Sure I do.” Old Pelz smacked his lips, as if he could taste the life of his younger self.

“In fact, I have a very nice house in Dachau. It’s blue and white, with flowers all around

a picket fence. A cherry tree stands in back, spreading its wings in summer. The house is

rented out to a fine young couple with two strapping children, who send their rent check

like clockwork to my nephew in Leipzig. He’s a big-shot lawyer, you know.”

“Herr Pelz, I don’t understand,” Petra said. “Why not stay in your own home? This is

no place to live.”

“The bunker is my health insurance.” The old man cocked a canny eye her way. “Do

you have any idea what would happen to me if I went back to my house? They’d spirit

me away in the night, and that’s the last anyone would ever see of me.”

“Who would do that to you?” Bourne said.

Pelz seemed to consider his answer, as if he needed to remember the text of a book

he’d read in high school. “I told you I was a Nazi hunter, a damn fine one, too. In those

days I lived like a king-or, if I’m honest, a duke. Anyway, that’s before I got cocky and

made my mistake. I decided to go after the Black Legion, and that one intemperate

decision was my downfall. Because of them I lost everything, even the trust of the

Americans, who at that time needed those damn people more than they needed me.

“The Black Legion kicked me into the gutter like a piece of garbage or a mangy dog.

From there it was only a short crawl down here into the bowels of the earth.”

“It’s the Black Legion I came here to talk to you about,” Bourne said. “I’m a hunter,

too. The Black Legion isn’t a Nazi organization anymore. They’ve turned into a Muslim

terrorist network.”

Old Pelz rubbed his grizzled jaw. “I’d say I’m surprised, but I’m not. Those bastards

knew how to play all the cards in all the hands-the Germans, the Brits, and, most

importantly, the Americans. They toyed with all of ’em after the war. Every Western

intelligence service was throwing money at them. The thought of having built-in spies

behind the Iron Curtain had them all salivating.

“It didn’t take the bastards long to figure out it was the Americans who had the upper

hand. Why? ’Cause they had all the money and, unlike the Brits, weren’t being tight-

fisted with it.” He cackled. “But that’s the American way, isn’t it?”

Not waiting for an answer to a question that was self-evident, he plowed on. “So the

Black Legion took up with the American intelligence machine. First off, it wasn’t

difficult to convince the Yanks that they’d never been Nazis, that their only goal was to

fight Stalin. And that was true, as far as it went, but after the war they had other goals in mind. They’re Muslims, after all; they never felt comfortable in Western society. They

wanted to build for the future, and like a lot of other insurgents they created their power base with American dollars.”

He squinted up at Bourne. “You’re American, poor bastard. None of these modern-day

terrorist networks would’ve existed without your country’s backing. Fucking ironic, that

is.”

For a time he lapsed into muttering, broke into a song whose lyrics were so melancholy

tears welled up in his rheumy eyes.

“Herr Pelz,” Bourne said, trying to get the old man to focus. “You were talking about

the Black Legion.”

“Call me Virgil,” Pelz said, nodding as he came out of his fugue state. “That’s right,

my Christian name is Virgil, and for you, American, I will hold my lamp high enough to

throw light on those bastards who ruined my life. Why not? I’m at a stage in my life

when I should tell someone, and it might as well be you.”

They’re in the back,” Bev said to Drew Davis. “Both of them.” A woman in her

midfifties with a thick frame and a quick wit, she was The Glass Slipper’s girl wrangler,

as she wryly called herself-part disciplinarian, part den mother.

“The main interest is in the general,” Davis said, “isn’t that right, Kiki?”

Kiki nodded. She was closely flanked by Soraya and Deron, and all of them were

clustered in Davis’s cramped office up a short flight of stairs from the main room. The

pounding of the bass and drums thumped against the walls like the fists of angry giants.

The room had the appearance of an attic or a garret, windowless, its walls like a time

machine, plastered with photos of Drew Davis with Martin Luther King, Nelson

Mandela, four different American presidents, a host of Hollywood stars, and various UN

dignitaries and ambassadors from virtually every country in Africa. There was also a

series of informal snapshots of him with his arm around a younger Kiki in the Masai

Mara, totally unself-conscious, looking like a queen-in-training.

After her talk with Rob Batt in the parking lot, Soraya had returned to her table inside

and filled in Kiki and Deron on her plan. The noise from the band on stage made

eavesdropping impossible, even by anyone at the next table. Because of her longtime

friendship with Drew Davis, it had been up to Kiki to create the spark that would light the fuse. This she did, resulting in this impromptu meeting in Davis’s office.

“For me to even contemplate what you’re asking, you have to guarantee blanket

immunity,” Drew Davis said to Soraya. “Plus, leave our names out of it, unless you want

to piss me off-which you don’t-as well as pissing off half the elected officials in the

district.”

“You have my word,” Soraya said. “We want these two people, that’s the beginning

and the end of it.”

Drew Davis glanced at Kiki, who responded with an almost imperceptible nod.

Now Davis turned to Bev.

“Here’s what you can do and what you can’t do,” Bev said, reacting to her boss’s cue.

“I won’t allow anyone on my ranch who’s not there for legitimate purposes-that is, either

a patron or a working girl. So forget just barging in there. I do that and tomorrow we have no business left.”

She wasn’t even looking at Drew Davis, but Soraya saw him nod in assent, and her

heart fell. Everything depended on their gaining access to the general while he was in the

midst of his frolics. Then she had a thought.

“I’ll go in as a working girl,” she said.

“No, you won’t,” Deron said. “You’re known to both the general and Feir. One look at

you and they’ll be spooked.”

“They don’t know me.”

Everyone turned their heads to stare at Kiki.

“Absolutely not,” Deron said.

“Ease up there,” Kiki said with a laugh. “I’m not going through with anything. I just

need access.” She mimed taking photos. Then she turned to Bev. “How do I get into the

general’s private room?”

“You can’t. For obvious reasons the private rooms are sacrosanct. Another rule of the

house. And both the general and Feir have chosen their partners for the evening.” She

drummed her fingers against Davis’s desktop. “But in the case of the general there is one

way.”

Virgil Pelz took Bourne and Petra farther into the bunker’s main tunnel, to a rough-

hewn space that opened out into a circle. There were benches here, a small gas stove, a

refrigerator.

“Lucky someone forgot to turn off the electricity,” Petra said.

“Lucky my ass.” Pelz settled himself on a bench. “My nephew pays a town official

under the table to keep the lights on.” He offered them whiskey or wine, which they

refused. He poured himself a shot of liquor, downed it perhaps to fortify himself or to

keep himself from sinking back into the shadows. It was obvious he liked having

company, that the stimulation of other humans was bringing him out of himself.

“Most of what I’ve already told you about the Black Legion is basic history, if you

know where to look, but the key to understanding their success in negotiating the

dangerous postwar landscape lies in two men: Farid Icoupov and Ibrahim Sever.”

“I assume this Icoupov you speak of is Semion Icoupov’s father,” Bourne said.

Pelz nodded. “Just so.”

“And did Ibrahim Sever have a son?”

“He had two,” Pelz replied, “but I’m getting ahead of myself.” He smacked his lips,

glanced at the bottle of whiskey, then decided against another shot.

“Farid and Ibrahim were the best of friends. They grew up together, each the only sons

in large families. Possibly, this is what bonded them as children. The bond was strong; it

lasted for most of their lives, but Ibrahim Sever was a warrior at heart, Farid Icoupov an

intellectual, and the seeds of discontent and mistrust must have been sown early. During

the war their shared leadership worked out just fine. Ibrahim was in charge of the Black

Legion soldiers on the Eastern Front; Farid put in place and directed the intelligence-

gathering network in the Soviet Union.

“It was after the war when the problems began. Stripped of his duties as commandant

of the military end, Ibrahim began to fret that his power was eroding.” Pelz clucked his

tongue against the roof of his mouth. “Listen, American, if you’re a student of history

you know how the two longtime allies and friends Gaius Julius Caesar and Pompey

Magnus became enemies infected by the ambitions, fears, deceptions, and power

struggles of those under their respective commands. So it was with these two. In time,

Ibrahim convinced himself-no doubt abetted by some of his more militant advisers-that

his longtime friend was planning a power grab. Unlike Caesar, who was off in Gaul when

Pompey declared war on him, Farid lived in the next house. Ibrahim Sever and his men

came in the night and assassinated Farid Icoupov. Three days later Farid’s son, Semion,

shot Ibrahim to death as he was driving to work. In retaliation, Ibrahim’s son, Asher,

went after Semion in a Munich nightclub. Asher managed to escape, but in the ensuing

hail of gunfire Asher’s younger brother was killed.”

Pelz scrubbed his face with his hand. “You see how it goes, American? Like an ancient

Roman vendetta, an orgy of blood of biblical proportions.”

“I know about Semion Icoupov, but not about Sever,” Bourne said. “Where’s Asher

Sever now?”

The old man shrugged his thin shoulders. “Who knows? If Icoupov did, Sever would

surely be dead by now.”

For a time, Bourne sat silent, thinking about the Black Legion’s attack on the

professor, thinking about all the little anomalies that had been piling up in his mind: the oddity of Pyotr’s network of decadents and incompetents, the professor saying it was his

idea to have the stolen plans delivered to him via the network, and the question of

whether Mischa Tarkanian-and Arkadin himself-was Black Legion. At last, he said,

“Virgil, I need to ask you several questions.”

“Yes, American.” Pelz’s eyes looked as bright and eager as a robin’s.

Still, Bourne hesitated. Revealing anything of his mission or its background to a

stranger violated every instinct, every lesson he’d been taught, and yet he could see no

other alternative. “I came to Munich because a friend of mine-a mentor, really-asked me

to go after the Black Legion, first because they’re planning an attack against my country,

and second because their leader, Semion Icoupov, ordered his son, Pyotr, killed.”

Pelz looked up, a curious expression on his face. “Asher Sever gathered his power

base, which he’d inherited from his father-a powerful intelligence-gathering network

strewn across Asia and Europe-and ousted Semion. Icoupov hasn’t been running the

Black Legion for decades. If he had, I doubt whether I’d still be down here. Unlike Asher

Sever, Icoupov was a man you could reason with.”

“Are you saying that you’ve met both Semion Icoupov and Asher Sever?” Bourne said.

“That’s right,” Pelz said, nodding. “Why?”

Bourne had gone cold as he contemplated the unthinkable. Could the professor have

been lying to him all the time? But if so-if he was in fact a member of the Black Legion-

why in the world would he entrust the delivery of the attack plans to Pyotr’s shaky

network? Surely he would have known how unreliable its members were. Nothing

seemed to make sense.

Knowing he had to solve this problem one step at a time, he took out his cell phone,

scrolled through the photos, brought up the one the professor had sent of Egon Kirsch. He

looked at the two men in the photo, then handed the phone to Pelz.

“Virgil, do you recognize either of these men?”

Pelz squinted, then stood and walked nearer to one of the bare lightbulbs. “No.” He

shook his head, then, after a moment’s further scrutiny, his forefinger jabbed at the photo.

“I don’t know, because he looks so different…” He returned to where Bourne sat, turned

the phone so they could both see the photo, and tapped the figure of Professor Specter.

“… but, damn, I’d swear this one is Asher Sever.”

Thirty-Six

PETER MARKS, chief of operations, was with Veronica Hart in her office, poring

over reams of personnel data sheets, when they came for her. Luther LaValle,

accompanied by a pair of federal marshals, had swept through CI security, armed with

their warrant. Hart had only the briefest of warnings-a phone call from the first set of

security guards downstairs-that her professional world was imploding. No time to get out

of the way of the falling debris.

She barely had time to tell Marks, then stand up to face her accusers before the three

men entered her office and presented her with the federal warrant.

“Veronica Rose Hart,” the senior of the stone-faced federal marshals intoned, “you are

hereby placed under arrest for conspiring with one Jason Bourne, a rogue agent, for

purposes that violate the regulations of Central Intelligence.”

“On what evidence?” Hart said.

“NSA surveillance photos of you in the courtyard of the Freer handing a packet to

Jason Bourne,” the marshal said in the same zombie voice.

Marks, who was also on his feet, said, “This is insane. You can’t really believe-”

“Shut it, Mr. Marks,” Luther LaValle said with no fear of contradiction. “One more

word out of you and I’ll have you put under formal investigation.”

Marks was about to reply when a sharp look from the DCI forced him to bite back his

words. His jaws clamped shut, but the fury in his eyes was unmistakable.

Hart came around the desk, and the junior marshal cuffed her hands behind her back.

“Is that really necessary?” Marks said.

LaValle pointed at him wordlessly. As they marched Hart from her office, she said,

“Take over, Peter. You’re acting DCI now.”

LaValle grinned. “Not for long, if I have anything to say about it.”

After they’d gone, Marks collapsed into his chair. Finding that his hands were

trembling, he clasped them together, as if in prayer. His heart was pounding so hard he

found it difficult to think. He jumped up, walked over to the window behind the DCI’s

desk, stood staring out at the Washington night. All the monuments were lit up, all the

streets and avenues were filled with traffic. Everything was as it should be, and yet

nothing looked familiar. He felt as if he’d entered an alternate universe. He couldn’t have been witness to what just happened, NSA couldn’t be about to absorb CI into its gigantic

corpus. But then he turned around to find the office empty and the full horror of seeing

the DCI frog-marched out in handcuffs swept over him, made his legs weak, so that he

sought out the big chair behind the desk and sat in it.

Then the implications of where he sat, and why, sank in. He picked up the phone and

dialed Stu Gold, CI’s lead counsel.

“Sit tight. I’ll be right over,” Gold told him in his usual no-nonsense voice. Did

nothing faze him?

Then Marks began to make a series of calls. It was going to be a long and harrowing

night.

Rodney Feir was having the time of his life. As he accompanied Afrique into one of

the rooms in the back of The Glass Slipper, he felt as if he were on top of the world. In

fact, popping a Viagra, he decided to ask her to do a number of things he’d never tried

before. Why the hell not? he asked himself.

While he was undressing he thought of the information on Typhon’s field agents Peter

Marks had sent him via interoffice mail. Feir had deliberately told Marks he didn’t want

it sent electronically because it was too insecure. The info was folded into the inside

pocket of his coat, ready to give to General Kendall before they left The Glass Slipper

tonight. He could have handed it over while they were at dinner, but he’d felt, all things

considered, that a champagne toast after all their treats had been consumed was the

proper way to cap off the night.

Afrique was already on the bed, spread languidly, her large eyes half closed, but she

got right down to business as soon as Feir joined her. He tried to keep his mind on the

proceedings, but seeing as how his body was totally in it, there wasn’t much point. He

preferred dwelling on the things that made him truly happy, like getting the better of

Peter Marks. When he was growing up it was people like Marks-and, for that matter,

Batt-who’d had it all over him, brainiacs with brawn, in other words, who’d made his life

miserable. They were the ones who had the cool circle of friends, who got all the great-

looking girls, who rode in cars while he was still tooling around on a scooter. He was the

nerd, the chubby-fat, really-kid who was made the butt of all their jokes, who was pushed

around and ostracized, who, despite his high IQ, was so tongue-tied he could never stick

up for himself.

He’d joined CI as a glorified pencil pusher, and, yes, he’d worked his way up the

professional ladder, but not into fieldwork or counterintelligence. No, he was chief of

field support, which meant that he was in charge of gathering and distributing the

paperwork generated by the very CI personnel he longed to be like. His office was the

central hub of supply and demand, and there were days when he could convince himself

that it was the nerve center of CI. But most of the time he saw himself for what he really

was-someone who kept pushing electronic lists, data entry forms, directorate requests,

allocation tables, budget spreadsheets, personnel assignment profiles, matйriel lading

bills, a veritable landslide of paperwork whizzing through the CI intranet. A monitor of

information, in other words, a master of nothing.

He was enveloped in pleasure, a warm, viscous friction spreading outward from his

groin into his torso and limbs. He closed his eyes and sighed.

At first, being an anonymous cog in the CI machine suited him, but as the years

passed, as he rose in the hierarchy, only the Old Man understood his worth, for it was the

Old Man who promoted him, time after time. But no one else-certainly none of the other

directors-said a word to him until they needed something. Then a request came flying

through CI cyberspace as quick as you could say, I need it yesterday. If he got them what

they wanted yesterday, he heard nothing, not even a nod of thanks in the hallway, but

should there be any delay at all, no matter the reason, they’d land on him like

woodpeckers on a tree full of insects. He’d never hear the end of their pestering until they got what they wanted, and then silence again. It seemed sadly ironic to him that even in

an insider’s paradise like CI he was on the outside.

It was humiliating to be one of those stereotypical Americans who time and again got

sand kicked in his face. How he hated himself for being a living, breathing clichй. It was

these evenings spent with General Kendall that gave his life color and meaning, the

clandestine meetings in the health club sauna, the dinners at local barbecue joints in SE,

and then the delicious chocolate nightcaps at The Glass Slipper, where he was for once

the insider instead of having his nose pressed to someone else’s window. Knowing that

he couldn’t be transformed he had to settle for losing himself in Afrique’s bed at The

Glass Slipper.

General Kendall, smoking a cigar in the corral, the colloquial name for the parlor room

where the girls were paraded for the benefit of the patrons, was enjoying himself

immensely. If he was thinking of his boss at all, it was of the heart attack this scene he

was enacting would cause LaValle. As for his family, they were the farthest thing from

his mind. Unlike Feir, who always went for the same girl, Kendall was a man of diverse

tastes when it came to the women of The Glass Slipper, and why not? He had virtually no

choice in any other areas of his life. If not here, where?

He sat on the purple velvet sofa, one arm thrown along the back, watching through

slitted eyes the slow parade of flesh. He had already made his choice; the girl was in her

room, undressing, but when Bev had come to him, suggesting that he might want

something a bit more special-another girl to create a threesome-he hadn’t hesitated. He’d

been just about to make his choice when he saw someone. She was impossibly tall, with

skin like the darkest cocoa, and was so regal in her beauty that he broke out into a sweat.

He caught Bev’s eye and she came over. Bev was attuned to his desires. “I want her,”

he said to Bev, pointing at the regal beauty.

“I’m afraid Kiki’s not available,” she said.

This answer made Kendall want her all the more. Venal witch; she knew him too well.

He produced five hundred-dollar bills. “How about now?” he said.

Bev, true to form, pocketed the money. “Leave it to me,” she said.

The general watched her pick her way through the girls to where Kiki was standing,

somewhat apart from the others. While he observed the conversation his heart began to

beat in his chest like a war drum. He was sweating so much he was obliged to wipe his

palms on the purple velvet of the sofa arm. If she said no, what would he do? But she

wasn’t saying no, she was looking across the corral at him, with a smile that raised his

temperature a couple of degrees. Jesus, he wanted her!

As if in a trance, he saw her coming across the room toward him, her hips swaying,

that maddening half smile on her face. He stood up, with some difficulty, he noted. He

felt like a seventeen-year-old virgin. Kiki held out her hand and he took it, terrified that she’d be repulsed if it was damp, but nothing interfered with that half smile.

There was something intensely pleasurable about allowing her to lead him past all the

other girls, enjoying the looks of envy on their faces.

“Which room are you in?” Kiki murmured in a voice like honey.

Kendall, inhaling her spicy, musky scent, could not find his voice. He pointed, and

again she led him as if he were on a leash until they were standing in front of the door.

“Are you sure you want two girls tonight?” She brushed her hip against his. “I’m more

than enough for any man I’ve been with.”

The general felt a delicious shiver travel down the length of his spine, lodge itself like

a heated arrow between his thighs. Reaching out, he opened the door. Lena writhed on

the bed, naked. He heard the door close behind him. Without thinking, he undressed

himself, then he stepped out of the puddle of his clothes, took Kiki’s hand, padded over

to the bed. He knelt on it, she let go of his hand, and he fell on Lena.

He felt Kiki’s hands on his shoulders, and, groaning, he lost himself within Lena’s lush

body. The pleasure built along with the anticipation of Kiki’s long, lithe body pressed

against his glistening back.

It took him some time to become aware that the quick flashes of light weren’t a result

of the quickened firing of nerve endings behind his eyes. Drugged with sex and desire, he

was slow to turn his head directly into another battery of flashes. Even then, negative

images dancing behind his retinas, his fogged brain couldn’t quite piece together what

was happening, and his body continued to move rhythmically against Lena’s pliant flesh.

Then the camera flashed again, he belatedly raised his hand to shield his eyes, and

there was stark reality staring him in the face. Kiki, still dressed, continued to take shots of him and Lena.

“Smile, General,” she said in that sensual, honeyed voice. “There’s nothing else you

can do.”

I’ve got too much anger inside me,” Petra said. “It’s like one of those flesh-eating

diseases you read about.”

“Dachau is toxic for you, so is Munich now,” Bourne said. “You’ve got to go away.”

She moved to the left-hand lane of the autobahn, put on some real speed. They were on

their way back to Munich in the car Pelz’s nephew had bought for him under the

nephew’s name. The police might still be looking for both of them, but their only lead

was Petra’s Munich apartment, and neither of them had any intention of going anywhere

near it. As long as she didn’t get out of the car, Bourne felt it was relatively safe for her to drive him back into the city.

“Where would I go?” she said.

“Leave Germany altogether.”

She laughed, but it wasn’t a pleasant sound. “Turn tail and run, you mean.”

“Why would you see it that way?”

“Because I’m German; because I belong here.”

“The Munich police are looking for you,” he said.

“And if they find me, then I’ll do my time for killing your friend.” She flashed her

headlights so a slower car could get out of her way. “Meanwhile I have money. I can

live.”

“But what will you do?”

She gave him a lopsided smile. “I’m going to take care of Virgil. He needs drying out;

he needs a friend.” Nearing the city, she changed lanes so she could exit when she needed

to. “The cops won’t find me,” she said with an odd kind of certainty, “because I’m taking

him far away from here. Virgil and me, we’ll be two outlaws learning a whole new way

of life.”

Egon Kirsch lived in the northern district of Schwabing, known as the young

intellectual quarter because of the mass of university students that flooded its streets,

cafйs, and bars.

As they came abreast of Schwabing’s main plaza, Petra pulled over. “When I was

younger I used to hang out here with my friends. We were all militants, then, agitating for change, and we felt connected to this place because it was from here that the

Freiheitsaktion Bayer, one of the most famed resistance groups, commandeered Radio

Munich near the end of the war. They broadcast messages to the populace to seize and

arrest all local Nazi leaders, and to signal their rejection of the regime by waving white

sheets out of their windows-an action that was punishable by death, by the way. And they

managed to save a large number of civilian lives as the American army swept in.”

“At last we find something in Munich that even you can be proud of,” Bourne said.

“I suppose so.” Petra laughed, almost sadly. “But I among all of my friends was the

only one who stayed a revolutionary. The others are corporate functionaries or Hausfraus

now. They lead sad, gray lives. I see them sometimes, trudging to and from work. I walk

by them; they don’t even look up. In the end, they all disappointed me.”

Kirsch’s apartment was on the top floor of a beautiful house of stone-colored stucco,

arched windows, and a terra-cotta tile roof. Between two of his windows was a niche

holding a stone statue of the Virgin Mary cradling the baby Jesus.

Petra pulled into the curb in front of the building. “I wish you well, American,” she

said, deliberately using Virgil Pelz’s phrasing. “Thank you… for everything.”

“You may not believe it, but we helped each other,” Bourne said as he got out of the

car. “Good luck, Petra.”

When she’d driven off, he turned, went up the steps to the building, and used the code

Kirsch had given him to open the front door. The interior was neat and spotlessly clean.

The wood-paneled hallway gleamed with a recent waxing. Bourne climbed the carved

wooden staircase to the top floor. Using Kirsch’s key, he let himself in. Though the

apartment itself was light and airy, with many windows overlooking the street, it was

steeped in a deep silence, as if it existed on the bottom of the sea. There was no TV, no

computer. Bookcases lined one entire wall of the living room, holding volumes by

Nietzsche, Kant, Descartes, Heidegger, Leibniz, and Machiavelli. There were also books

by many of the great mathematicians, biographers, fiction writers, and economists. The

other walls were covered with Kirsch’s framed and matted line drawings, so detailed and

intricate that at first glance they seemed to be architectural plans, but then suddenly they came into focus and Bourne realized the drawings were abstracts. Like all good art, they

seemed to move back and forth from reality to an imagined dream world where anything

was possible.

After taking a brief tour of all the rooms, he settled down in a chair behind Kirsch’s

desk. He thought long and hard about the professor. Was he Dominic Specter, the

nemesis of the Black Legion, as he claimed to be, or was he, in fact, Asher Sever, the

leader of the Black Legion? If he was Sever, he’d staged the attack on himself-an