Текст книги "The Bourne Sanction (Санкция Борна)"

Автор книги: Eric Van Lustbader

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 25 (всего у книги 29 страниц)

stationed.”

Hart was too enraged to care. “Get him out of my sight.”

As he was being led to the door, Feir said, “He’s inside the NSA safe house.”

The DCI felt her heart thumping hard in her chest. Feir’s goddamn smile was not only

understandable now, it was warranted.

Thirty-three hours, twenty-six minutes from now. Icoupov’s ominous words were still

ringing in Bourne’s ears when he saw a flicker of movement. He and Icoupov were

standing in the foyer, the front door was still open, and a shadow had for a moment

stained the opposite wall of the hallway. Someone was out there, shielded by the half-

open door.

Bourne, continuing to talk to Icoupov, took the other man by his elbow and moved him

back into the living room, across the rug, toward the hallway to the bedrooms and bath.

As they passed one of the windows, it exploded inward with the force of a man swinging

through. Bourne whirled, the SIG Sauer he’d taken from Icoupov coming to bear on the

intruder.

“Put the SIG down,” a female voice said from behind him. He turned his head to see

that the figure in the hallway-a young pale woman-was aiming a Luger at his head.

“Leonid, what are you doing here?” Icoupov seemed apoplectic. “I gave you express

orders-”

“It’s Bourne.” Arkadin advanced through the welter of glass littering the floor. “It was

Bourne who killed Mischa.”

“Is this true?” Icoupov turned on Bourne. “You killed Mikhail Tarkanian?”

“He left me no choice,” Bourne said.

Devra, her Luger aimed squarely at Bourne’s head, said, “Drop the SIG. I won’t say it

again.”

Icoupov reached out toward Bourne. “I’ll take it.”

“Stay where you are,” Arkadin ordered. His own Luger was aimed at Icoupov.

“Leonid, what are you doing?”

Arkadin ignored him. “Do as the lady says, Bourne. Drop the SIG.”

Bourne did as he was told. The moment he let go of the gun, Arkadin tossed his Luger

aside and leapt at Bourne. Bourne raised a forearm in time to block Arkadin’s knee, but

he felt the jolt all the way up into his shoulder. They traded punishing blows, clever

feints, and defensive blocks. For each move he employed, Arkadin had the perfect

counter, and vice versa. When he stared into the Russian’s eyes he saw his darkest deeds

reflected back at him, all the death and destruction that lay in his wake. In those

implacable eyes there was a void blacker than a starless night.

They moved across the living room as Bourne gave way, until they passed under the

archway separating the living room from the rest of the apartment. In the kitchen Arkadin

grabbed a cleaver, swung it at Bourne. Dodging away from the executioner’s lethal arc,

Bourne reached for a wooden block that held several carving knives. Arkadin brought the

cleaver down on the countertop, missing Bourne’s fingers by less than an inch. Now he

blocked the way to the knives, swinging the cleaver back and forth like a scythe reaping

wheat.

Bourne was near the sink. Snatching a plate out of the dish rack, he hurled it like a

Frisbee, forcing Arkadin to duck out of the way. As the plate shattered against the wall

behind Arkadin, Bourne withdrew a carving knife like a sword out of its scabbard. Steel

clashed against steel, until Bourne used the knife to stab directly at Arkadin’s stomach.

Arkadin brought the cleaver down precisely at the place where Bourne was gripping the

knife, and he had to let go. The knife rang as it hit the floor, then Arkadin rushed Bourne, and the two closed together.

Bourne managed to keep the cleaver away, and at such close quarters it was impossible

to swing it back and forth. Realizing it had become a liability, Arkadin dropped it.

For three long minutes they were locked together in a kind of double death grip.

Bloody and bruised, neither managed to gain the upper hand. Bourne had never

encountered someone of Arkadin’s physical and mental skill, someone who was so much

like him. Fighting Arkadin was like fighting a mirror image of himself, one he didn’t care

for. He felt as if he stood on the precipice of something terrible, a chasm filled with

endless dread, where no life could survive. He felt Arkadin had reached out to pull him

into this abyss, as if to show him the desolation that lurked behind his own eyes, the

grisly image of his forgotten past reflected back at him.

With a supreme effort Bourne broke Arkadin’s hold, slammed his fist against the

Russian’s ear. Arkadin recoiled back against a column, and Bourne sprinted out of the

kitchen, down the hall. As he did so, he heard the unmistakable sound of someone

racking the slide, and he flung himself headlong into the main bedroom. A shot splintered

the wooden door frame just over his head.

Scrambling up, he headed straight for Kirsch’s closet, even as he heard Arkadin shout

to the pale woman to hold her fire. Pushing aside a rack of clothes on hangers, Bourne

scrabbled at the plywood panel in the rear wall of the closet, searching for the clips

Kirsch had described to him at the museum. Just as he heard Arkadin rush into the

bedroom, he turned the clips, removed the panel, and, crouching almost double, stepped

through into a world filled to overflowing with shadow.

When Devra turned around after her attempt to wound Bourne, she found herself

looking at the muzzle of the SIG Sauer that Icoupov had retrieved from the floor.

“You fool,” Icoupov said, “you and your boyfriend are going to fuck everything up.”

“What Leonid is doing is his own business,” she said.

“That’s the nature of the mistake,” Icoupov said. “Leonid has no business of his own.

Everything he is he owes to me.”

She stepped out of the shadows of the hallway into the living room. The Luger at her

hip was pointed at Icoupov. “He’s quits with you,” she said. “His servitude is done.”

Icoupov laughed. “Is that what he told you?”

“It’s what I told him.”

“Then you’re a bigger fool than I thought.”

They circled each other, wary of the slightest move. Even so, Devra managed an icy

smile. “He’s changed since he left Moscow. He’s a different person.”

Icoupov made a dismissive sound in the back of his throat. “The first thing you need to

get through your head is that Leonid is incapable of change. I know this better than

anyone because I spent so many years trying to make him a better person. I failed.

Everyone who tried failed, and do you know why? Because Leonid isn’t whole.

Somewhere in the days and nights of Nizhny Tagil he was fractured. All the czar’s horses

and all the czar’s men can’t put him back together again; the pieces no longer fit.” He

gestured with the SIG Sauer’s barrel. “Get out now, get out while you can, otherwise, I

promise you he’ll kill you like he killed all the others who tried to get close to him.”

“How deluded you are!” Devra spat. “You’re like all your kind, corrupted by power.

You’ve spent so many years removed from life on the streets you’ve created your own

reality, one that moves only to the wave of your own hand.” She took a step toward him,

which prompted a tense response from him. “Think you can kill me before I kill you? I

wouldn’t count on it.” She tossed her head. “Anyway, you have more to lose than I do. I

was already half dead when Leonid found me.”

“Ah, I see it now,” Icoupov nodded, “he’s saved you from yourself, he’s saved you

from the streets, is that it?”

“Leonid is my protector.”

“God in heaven, talk about deluded!”

Devra’s icy smile widened. “One of us is fatally mistaken. It remains to be seen which

one.”

The room is filled with mannequins,” Egon Kirsch had said when he’d described his

studio to Bourne. “I keep the light out with blackout shades because these mannequins

are my creation. I built them from the ground up, so to speak. They’re my companions,

you might say, as well as my creations. In that sense, they can see or, if you like, I believe that they have the gift of sight, and what creature can look upon his creator without going mad or blind, or both?”

With the map of the room in his mind, Bourne crept through the studio, avoiding the

mannequins so as not to make noise or, as Kirsch might have said, so as not to disturb the

process of their birth.

“You think I’m insane,” he’d said to Bourne in the museum. “Not that it matters. To all

artists-successful or not!-their creations are alive. I’m no different. It’s simply that after struggling for years to bring abstractions to life, I’ve given my work human form.”

Hearing a sound, Bourne froze for a moment, then peered around a mannequin’s thigh.

His eyes had adjusted to the extreme gloom, and he could see movement: Arkadin had

found the panel and had come through into the studio after him.

Bourne liked his chances here far better than in Kirsch’s apartment. He knew the

layout, the darkness would help him, and if he struck quickly, he’d have the advantage of

being able to see where Arkadin couldn’t.

With that strategy in mind, he moved out from behind the mannequin, picked his way

toward the Russian. The studio was like a minefield. There were three mannequins

between him and Arkadin, all set at different angles and poses: One was sitting, holding a

small painting as if reading a book; another was standing spread-legged, in a classic

shooter’s pose; the third was running, leaning forward, as if stretching to cross the finish line.

Bourne moved around the runner. Arkadin was crouched down on his hams, wisely

staying in one place until his eyes adjusted. It was precisely what Bourne had done when

he’d entered the studio moments before.

Once again Bourne was struck by the eerie mirror image that Arkadin represented.

There was no pleasure and a great deal of anxiety at the most primitive level in watching

yourself do his best to find you and kill you.

Picking up his pace, Bourne negotiated the space to where the mannequin sat, reading

his painting. Keenly aware that he was running out of time, Bourne moved stealthily

abreast of the shooter. Just as he was about to lunge at Arkadin, his cell phone buzzed,

the screen lighting up with Moira’s number.

With a silent curse, Bourne sprang. Arkadin, alert for even the tiniest anomaly, turned

defensively toward the sound, and Bourne was met with a solid wall of muscle, behind

which was a murderous will of fiery intensity. Arkadin swung; Bourne slid backward,

between the legs of the shooter mannequin. As Arkadin came after him he ran right into

the mannequin’s hips. Recoiling with a curse, he swung at the mannequin. The blade

struck the acrylic skin and lodged in the sheet metal underneath. Bourne kicked out while

Arkadin was trying to pull the blade free, and made contact with the left side of his chest.

Arkadin tried to roll away. Bourne jammed his shoulder against the back of the shooter. It

was extremely heavy, he put all of his strength into it, and the mannequin tipped over,

trapping Arkadin underneath.

“Your friend gave me no choice,” Bourne said. “He would’ve killed me if I hadn’t

stopped him. He was too far away; I had to throw the knife.”

A sound like the crackle of a fire came from Arkadin. It took a moment for Bourne to

realize it was laughter. “I’ll make you a bet, Bourne. Before he died, I bet Mischa said

you were a dead man.”

Bourne was about to answer him when he saw the dim glint of a SIG Sauer Mosquito

in Arkadin’s hand. He ducked just before the.22 bullet whizzed over his head.

“He was right.”

Bourne twisted away, dodging around the other mannequins, using them as cover even

as Arkadin squeezed off three more rounds. Plaster, wood, and acrylic shattered near

Bourne’s left shoulder and ear before he dived behind Kirsch’s worktable. Behind him,

he could hear Arkadin’s grunts combined with the screech of metal as he worked to free

himself from the fallen shooter.

Bourne knew from Kirsch’s description that the front door was to the left. Scrambling

up, he dashed around the corner as Arkadin fired another shot. A chunk of plaster and

lath disintegrated where the.22 impacted the corner. Reaching the door, Bourne unlocked

it, pulled it open, and sprinted out into the hallway. The open door to Kirsch’s apartment

loomed to his left.

No good can come of us training guns on each other,” Icoupov said. “Let’s try to

reason through this situation rationally.”

“That’s your problem,” Devra said. “Life isn’t rational; it’s fucked-up chaos. It’s part

of the delusion; power makes you think you can control everything. But you can’t, no one

can.”

“You and Leonid think you know what you’re doing, but you’re wrong. No one

operates in a vacuum. If you kill Bourne it will have terrible repercussions.”

“Repercussions for you, not for us. This is what power does: You think in shortcuts.

Expediency, political opportunities, corruption without end.”

It was at that moment they both heard the gunshots, but only Devra knew they came

from Arkadin’s Mosquito. She could sense Icoupov’s finger tighten around the SIG’s

trigger, and she went into a semi-crouch because she knew if Bourne appeared rather than

Arkadin she would shoot him dead.

The situation had reached a boiling point, and Icoupov was clearly worried. “Devra, I

beg you to reconsider. Leonid doesn’t know the whole picture. I need Bourne alive. What

he did to Mischa was despicable, but personal feelings have no place in this equation. So

much planning, so much spilled blood will come to nothing if Leonid kills Bourne. You

must let me stop it; I’ll give you anything-anything you want.”

“Do you think you can buy me? Money means nothing to me. What I want is Leonid,”

Devra said just as Bourne appeared through the front doorway.

Devra and Icoupov both turned. Devra screamed because she knew, or she thought she

knew, that Arkadin was dead, and so she redirected the Luger from Icoupov to Bourne.

Bourne ducked back into the hallway and she fired shot after shot at him as she walked

toward the door. Because her focus was entirely concentrated on Bourne, she took her

eyes off Icoupov and so missed the crucial movement as he swung the SIG in her

direction.

“I warned you,” he said as he shot her in the chest.

She fell onto her back.

“Why didn’t you listen?” Icoupov said as he shot her again.

Devra made a little sound as her body arched up. Icoupov stood over her.

“How could you let yourself be seduced by such a monster?” he said.

Devra stared up at him with red-rimmed eyes. Blood pumped out of her with every

labored beat of her heart. “That’s exactly what I asked him about you.” Each ragged

breath filled her with indescribable pain. “He’s not a monster, but if he were you’d be so

much worse.”

Her hand twitched. Icoupov, caught up in her words, paid no attention until the bullet

she fired from her Luger struck his right shoulder. He spun back against the wall. The

pain caused him to drop the SIG. Seeing her struggling to fire again, he turned and ran

out of the apartment, fleeing down the stairwell and out onto the street.

Thirty-Nine

WILLARD, relaxing in the steward’s lounge adjacent to the Library of the NSA safe

house, was enjoying his sweet and milky midmorning cup of coffee while reading The

Washington Post when his cell phone buzzed. He checked it, saw that it was from his

son, Oren. Of course it wasn’t actually from Oren, but Willard was the only one who

knew that.

He put down the paper, watched as the photo appeared on the phone’s screen. It was of

two people standing in front of a rural church, its steeple rising up into the top margin of the photo. He had no idea who the people were or where they were, but these things were

irrelevant. There were six ciphers in his head; this photo told him which one to use. The

two figures plus the steeple meant he was to use cipher three. If, for instance, the two

people were in front of an arch, he’d subtract one from two, instead of adding to it. There were other visual cues. A brick building meant divide the number of figures by two; a

bridge, multiply by two; and so on.

Willard deleted the photo from his phone, then picked up the third section of the Post

and began to read the first story on page three. Starting with the third word, he began to

decipher the message that was his call to action. As he moved through the article,

substituting certain letters for others as the protocol dictated, he felt a profound stirring inside him. He had been the Old Man’s eyes and ears inside the NSA for three decades,

and the Old Man’s sudden death last year had saddened him deeply. Then he had

witnessed Luther LaValle’s latest run at CI and had waited for his phone to ring, but for

months his desire to see another photo fill his screen had been inexplicably unfulfilled.

He simply couldn’t understand why the new DCI wasn’t making use of him. Had he

fallen between the cracks; did Veronica Hart not know he existed? It certainly seemed

that way, especially after LaValle had trapped Soraya Moore and her compatriot, who

was still incarcerated belowdecks, as Willard privately called the rendition cells in the

basement. He’d done what he could for the young man named Tyrone, though God

knows it was little enough. Yet he knew that even the smallest sign of hope-the

knowledge that you weren’t alone-was enough to reinvigorate a stalwart heart, and if he

was any judge of character, Tyrone had a stalwart heart.

Willard had always wanted to be an actor-for many years Olivier had been his god-but

in his wildest dreams he’d never imagined his acting career would be in the political

arena. He’d gotten into it by accident, playing a role in his college company, Henry V, to

be exact, one of Shakespeare’s great tragic politicians. As the Old Man said to him when

he’d come backstage to congratulate Willard, Henry’s betrayal of Falstaff is political,

rather than personal, and ends in success. “How would you like to do that in real life?”

the Old Man had asked him. He’d come to Willard’s college to recruit for CI; he said he

often found his people in the most unlikely places.

Finished with the deciphering, Willard had his immediate instructions, and he thanked

the powers that be that he hadn’t been tossed aside with the Old Man’s trash. He felt like

his old friend Henry V, though more than thirty years had passed since he’d trod a theater

stage. Once again he was being called on to play his greatest role, one that he wore as

effortlessly as a second skin.

He folded the paper away under one arm, took up his cell phone, and went out of the

lounge. He still had twenty minutes left on his break, more than enough time to do what

was required of him. What he had been ordered to do was find the digital camera Tyrone

had on him when he’d been captured. Poking his head into the Library, he satisfied

himself that LaValle was still sitting in his accustomed spot, opposite Soraya Moore, then

he went down the hall.

Though the Old Man had recruited him, it was Alex Conklin who had trained him.

Conklin, the Old Man had told him, was the best at what he did, namely preparing agents

to be put into the field. It didn’t take him long to learn that though Conklin was renowned inside CI for training wet-work agents, he was also adept at coaching sleeper agents.

Willard spent almost a year with Conklin, though never at CI headquarters; he was part of

Treadstone, Conklin’s project that was so secret even most CI personnel was unaware of

its existence. It was of paramount importance that he have no overt association with CI.

Because the role the Old Man had planned for him was inside the NSA, his background

check had to be able to withstand the most vigorous scrutiny.

All this flashed through Willard’s mind as he walked the sacrosanct hallways and

corridors of the NSA’s safe house. He passed agent after agent and knew that he’d done

his job to perfection. He was the indispensable nobody, the person who was always

present, whom no one noticed.

He knew where Tyrone’s camera was because he’d been there when Kendall and

LaValle had spoken about its disposition, but even if he hadn’t, he’d have suspected

where LaValle had hidden it. He knew, for instance, that it wouldn’t have been allowed

to leave the safe house, even on LaValle’s person, unless the damaging images Tyrone

had taken of the rendition cells and the waterboarding tanks had been transferred to the

in-house computer server or deleted off the camera’s drive. In fact, there was a chance

that the images had been deleted, but he doubted it. In the short amount of time the

camera had been in the NSA’s possession, Kendall was no longer in residence and

LaValle had become obsessed with coercing Soraya Moore into giving him Jason

Bourne.

He knew all about Bourne; he’d read the Treadstone files, even the ones that no longer

existed, having been shredded and then burned when the information they held became

too dangerous for Conklin, as well as for CI. He knew there had been far more to

Treadstone than even the Old Man knew. That was Conklin’s doing; he’d been a man for

whom the word secrecy was the holy grail. What his ultimate plan for Treadstone had

been was anyone’s guess.

Inserting his passkey into the lock on LaValle’s office door, he punched in the proper

electronic code. Willard knew everyone’s code-what use would he be as a sleeper agent

otherwise? The door opened inward, and he slipped inside, shutting and locking it behind

him.

Crossing to LaValle’s desk, he opened the drawers one by one, checking for false

backs or bottoms. Finding none, he moved on to the bookcase, the sideboard with its

hanging files and liquor bottles side by side. He lifted the prints off the walls, searching behind them for a hidden cache, but there was nothing.

He sat on a corner of the desk, contemplated the room, unconsciously swinging his leg

back and forth while he tried to work out where LaValle had hidden the camera. All at

once he heard the sound the heel of his shoe made against the skirt of the desk. Hopping

off, he went around, crawled into the kneehole, and rapped on the skirt until he replicated the sound his heel had made. Yes, he was certain now: This part of the skirt was hollow.

Feeling around with his fingertips, he discovered the tiny latch, pushed it aside, and

swung open the door. There was Tyrone’s camera. He was reaching for it when he heard

the scratch of metal on metal.

LaValle was at the door.

Tell me you love me, Leonid Danilovich.” Devra smiled up at him as he knelt over her.

“What happened, Devra? What happened?” was all he could say.

He’d extricated himself at last from the sculpture, and would have gone after Bourne-

but he’d heard the shots coming from Kirsch’s apartment, then the sound of running feet.

The living room was spattered with blood. He saw her lying on the floor, the Luger still

in her hand. Her shirt was dyed red.

“Leonid Danilovich.” She’d called his name when he appeared in her limited field of

vision. “I waited for you.”

She started to tell him what had happened, but blood bubbles formed at the corners of

her mouth and she started to gurgle horribly. Arkadin lifted her head off the floor, cradled it on his thighs. He pushed matted hair off her forehead and cheeks, leaving red streaks

like war paint.

She tried to continue, stopped. Her eyes went out of focus and he thought he’d lost her.

Then they cleared, her smile returned, and she said, “Do you love me, Leonid?”

He bent down and whispered her in ear. Was it I love you? There was so much static in

his head, he couldn’t hear himself. Did he love her, and, if he did, what would it mean?

Did it even matter? He’d promised to protect her and failed. He stared down into her

eyes, into her smile, but all he saw was his own past rising up to engulf him once again.

I need more money,” Yelena said one night as she lay entangled with him.

“What for? I give you enough as it is.”

“I hate it here, it’s like a prison, girls are crying all the time, they’re beaten, and then they disappear. I used to make friends just to pass the time, to have something to do

during the day, but now I don’t bother. What’s the point? They’re gone within a week.”

Arkadin had become aware of Kuzin’s seemingly insatiable need for more girls. “I

don’t see how any of this has to do with you needing more money.”

“If I can’t have friends,” Yelena said, “I want drugs.”

“I told you, no drugs,” Arkadin said as he rolled away from her and sat up.

“If you love me, you’ll get me out of here.”

“Love?” He turned to stare at her. “Who said anything about love?”

She started to cry. “I want to live with you, Leonid. I want to be with you always.”

Feeling something unknown close around his throat, Arkadin stood up, backed away.

“Jesus,” he said, gathering up his clothes, “where do you get such ideas?”

Leaving her to her pitiful weeping, he went out to procure more girls. Before he

reached the front door of the brothel Stas Kuzin intercepted him.

“Yelena’s wailing is disturbing the other girls,” he said in his hissing way. “It’s bad for business.”

“She wants to live with me,” Arkadin said. “Can you imagine?”

Kuzin laughed, the sound like nails screeching against a blackboard. “I’m wondering

what would be worse, the nagging wife wanting to know where you were all night or the

caterwauling brats making it impossible to sleep.”

They both laughed at the comment, and Arkadin thought nothing more about it. For the

next three days he worked steadily, methodically combing Nizhny Tagil for more girls to

restock the brothel. At the end of that time he slept for twenty hours, then went straight to Yelena’s room. He found another girl, one he’d recently hijacked off the streets, sleeping

in Yelena’s bed.

“Where’s Yelena?” he said, throwing off the covers.

She looked up at him, blinking like a bat in sunlight. “Who’s Yelena?” she said in a

voice husky with sleep.

Arkadin strode out of the room and into Stas Kuzin’s office. The big man sat behind a

gray metal desk, talking on the phone, but he beckoned Arkadin to take a seat while he

finished his call. Arkadin, preferring to stand, gripped the back of a wooden chair,

leaning forward over its ladder back.

At length, Kuzin put down the receiver, said, “What can I do for you, my friend?”

“Where’s Yelena?”

“Who?” Kuzin’s frown knit his brows together, making him look something like a

cyclops. “Oh, yes, the wailer.” He smiled. “There’s no chance of her bothering you

again.”

“What does that mean?”

“Why ask a question to which you already know the answer?” Kuzin’s phone rang and

he answered it. “Hold the fuck on,” he said into it. Then he looked up at his partner.

“Tonight we’ll go to dinner to celebrate your freedom, Leonid Danilovich. We’ll make a

real night of it, eh?”

Then he returned to his call.

Arkadin felt frozen in time, as if he was now doomed to relive this moment for the rest

of his life. Mute, he walked like an automaton out of the office, out of the brothel, out of the building he owned with Kuzin. Without even thinking, he got into his car, drove north

into the forest of dripping firs and weeping hemlocks. There was no sun in the sky, the

horizon was rimmed with smokestacks. The air was hazed with carbon and sulfur

particles, tinged a lurid orange-red, as if everything were on fire.

Arkadin pulled off the road and walked down the rutted track, following the route the

van had taken previously. Somewhere along the line he found that he was running as fast

as he could through the evergreens, the stench of decay and decomposition billowing up,

as if eager to meet him.

He brought himself up abruptly at the edge of the pit. In places, sacks of quicklime had

been shaken out in order to aid the decomposition; nevertheless it was impossible to

mistake the content. His eyes roved over the bodies until he found her. Yelena was lying

in a tangle where she’d landed after being kicked over the side. Several very large rats

were picking their way toward her.

Arkadin, staring into the mouth of hell, gave a little cry, the sound a puppy might make

if you mistakenly stepped on its paw. Scrambling down the side, he ignored the appalling

stench and, through watering eyes, dragged her up the slope, laid her out on the forest

floor, the bed of brown needles, soft as her own. Then he trudged back to the car, opened

the trunk, and took out a shovel.

He buried her half a mile away from the pit, in a small clearing that was private and

peaceful. He carried her over his shoulder the whole way, and by the time he was finished

he smelled like death. At that moment, crouched on his hamstrings, his face streaked with

sweat and dirt, he doubted whether he’d ever be able to scrub off the stench. If he knew a

prayer, he would have said it then, but he knew only obscenities, which he uttered with

the fervor of the righteous. But he wasn’t righteous; he was damned.

For a businessman there was a decision to be made. Arkadin was no businessman,

though, so from that day forward his fate was sealed. He returned to Nizhny Tagil with

his two Stechkin handguns fully loaded and extra rounds of ammunition in his breast

pockets. Entering the brothel, he shot the two ghouls dead as they stood at guard. Neither

had a chance to draw his weapon.

Stas Kuzin appeared in the doorway, gripping a Korovin TK pistol. “Leonid, what the

fuck?”

Arkadin shot him once in each knee. Kuzin went down, screaming. As he tried to raise

the Korovin, Arkadin trod heavily on his wrist. Kuzin grunted heavily. When he wouldn’t

let go of the pistol, Arkadin kicked him in the knee. The resulting bellow brought the last of the girls from their respective rooms.

“Get out of here.” Arkadin addressed the girls, though his gaze was fixed on Kuzin’s

monstrous face. “Take whatever money you can find and go back to your families. Tell

them about the lime pit north of town.”

He heard them scrambling, babbling to one another, then it was quiet.

“Fucking sonovabitch,” Kuzin said, staring up at Arkadin.

Arkadin laughed and shot him in the right shoulder. Then, jamming the Stechkins in

their holsters, he dragged Kuzin across the floor. He had to push one of the dead ghouls

out of the way, but at last he made it down the stairs and out the front door with the

moaning Kuzin in tow. In the street one of Kuzin’s vans screeched to a halt. Arkadin