Текст книги "The Bourne Sanction (Санкция Борна)"

Автор книги: Eric Van Lustbader

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drew his guns, emptied them into the interior. The car rocked on its shocks, glass

shattered, its horn blared as the dead driver fell over onto it. No one got out.

Arkadin dragged Kuzin to his car and dumped him in the backseat. Then he drove out

of town to the forest, turning off at the rutted dirt track. At the end of it, he stopped,

hauled Kuzin to the edge of the pit.

“Fuck you, Arkadin!” Kuzin shouted. “Fuck-”

Arkadin shot him point-blank in the left shoulder, shattering it and sending Kuzin

down into the quicklime pit. He peered over. There was the monster, lying on the

corpses.

Kuzin’s mouth drooled blood. “Kill me!” he shouted. “D’you think I’m afraid of

death? Go on, do it now!”

“It’s not for me to kill you, Stas.”

“Kill me, I said. For fuck’s sake, finish it now!”

Arkadin gestured at the corpses. “You’ll die in your victims’s arms, hearing their

curses echoing in your ears.”

“What about all your victims?” Kuzin shouted when Arkadin disappeared from view.

“You’ll die choking on your own blood!”

Arkadin paid him no mind. He was already behind the wheel of his car, backing out of

the forest. It had begun to rain, gunmetal-colored drops that fell like bullets out of a

colorless sky. A slow booming coming from the smelters starting up sounded like the

thunder of cannons signaling the beginning of a war that would surely destroy him unless

he found a way out of Nizhny Tagil that wasn’t in a body bag.

Forty

WHERE ARE YOU, Jason?” Moira said. “I’ve been trying to reach you.”

“I’m in Munich,” he said.

“How wonderful! Thank God you’re close by. I need to see you.” She seemed slightly

out of breath. “Tell me where you are and I’ll meet you there.”

Bourne switched his cell phone from one ear to the other, the better to check his

immediate surroundings. “I’m on my way to the Englischer Garten.”

“What are you doing in Schwabing?”

“It’s a long story; I’ll tell you about it when I see you.” Bourne checked his watch.

“But I’m due to meet up with Soraya at the Chinese pagoda in ten minutes. She says she

has new intel on the Black Legion attack.”

“That’s odd,” Moira said. “So do I.”

Bourne crossed the street, hurrying, but still alert for tags.

“I’ll meet you,” Moira said. “I’m in a car; I can be there in fifteen minutes.”

“Not a good idea.” He didn’t want her involved in a professional rendezvous. “I’ll call

you as soon as I’m through and we can-” All of a sudden, he realized he was talking to

dead air. He dialed Moira’s number, but got her voice mail. Damn her, he thought.

He reached the outskirts of the garden, which was twice the size of New York’s

Central Park. Divided by the Isar River, it was filled with jogging and bicycle paths,

meadows, forests, and even hills. Near the crown of one of these was the Chinese pagoda,

which was actually a beer garden.

He was naturally thinking of Soraya as he approached the area. It was odd that both

she and Moira had intel on the Black Legion. Now he thought back over his phone

conversation with her. Something about it had been bothering him, something just out of

reach. Every time he strained for it, it seemed to move farther away from him.

His pace was slowed by the hordes of tourists, American diplomats, children with

balloons or kites riding the wind. In addition, a rally of teenagers protesting new rulings on curriculum at the university had begun to gather at the pagoda.

He pushed his way forward, past a mother and child, then a large family in Nikes and

hideous tracksuits. The child glanced at him and, instinctively, Bourne smiled. Then he

turned away, wiped the blood off his face, though it continued to seep through the cuts

opened during his fight with Arkadin.

“No, you can’t have sausages,” the mother said to her son in a strong British accent.

“You were sick all night.”

“But Mummy,” he replied, “I feel right as rain.”

Right as rain. Bourne stopped in his tracks, rubbed the heel of his hand against his

temple. Right as rain; the phrase rattled around in his head like a steel ball in a pachinko machine.

Soraya.

Hi, it’s me, Soraya. That’s how she’d started off the call

Then she’d said: Actually, I’m in Munich.

And just before she’d hung up: Right as rain. I can make it. Can you?

Bourne, buffeted by the quickening throngs, felt as if his head were on fire. Something

about those phrases. He knew them, and he didn’t, how could that be? He shook his head

as if to clear it; memories were appearing like knife slashes through a piece of fabric.

Light was glimmering…

And then he saw Moira. She was hurrying toward the Chinese pagoda from the

opposite direction, her expression intent, grim, even. What had happened? What

information did she have for him?

He craned his neck, trying to find Soraya in the swirl of the demonstration. That was

when he remembered.

Right as rain.

He and Soraya had had this conversation before-where? In Odessa? Hi, it’s me coming

before her name meant that she was under duress. Actually coming before a place where

she was supposed to be meant that she wasn’t there.

Right as rain meant it’s a trap.

He looked up and his heart sank. Moira was heading right into it.

When the door opened, Willard froze. He was on his hands and knees hidden from the

doorway by the desk’s skirt. He heard voices, one of them LaValle’s, and held his breath.

“There’s nothing to it,” LaValle said. “E-mail me the figures and after I’m done with

the Moore woman I’ll check them.”

“Good deal,” Patrick, one of LaValle’s aides said, “but you’d better get back to the

Library, the Moore woman is kicking up a fuss.”

LaValle cursed. Willard heard him cross to the desk, shuffle some papers. Perhaps he

was looking for a file. LaValle grunted in satisfaction, walked back across the office, and closed the door after him. It was only when Willard heard the grate of the key in the lock

that he exhaled.

He fired up the camera, praying that the images hadn’t been deleted, and there they

were, one after another, evidence that would damn Luther LaValle and his entire NSA

administration. Using both the camera and his cell phone, he linked them through the

wireless Bluetooth protocol, then transferred the images to his cell. Once that was

completed, he navigated to his son’s phone number-which wasn’t his son’s number,

though if anyone called it a young man who had standing instructions to pass as his son

would answer-and sent the photos in one long burst. Sending them one by one via

separate calls would surely cause a red flag on the security server.

At last, Willard sat back and took a deep breath. It was done; the photos were now in

the hands of CI, where they’d do the most good, or-if you were Luther LaValle-the most

damage. Checking his watch, he pocketed the camera, relatched the door to the hidden

compartment, and scrambled out from under the desk.

Four minutes later, his hair freshly combed, his uniform brushed down, and looking

very smart, indeed, he placed a Ceylon tea in front of Soraya Moore and a single-malt

scotch in front of Luther LaValle. Ms. Moore thanked him; LaValle, staring at her,

ignored him as usual.

Moira hadn’t seen him, and Bourne couldn’t call out to her because in this maelstrom

of people his voice wouldn’t carry. Blocked in his forward motion, he edged his way

back to the periphery, moving to his left in order to circle around to her. He tried her cell again, but she either couldn’t hear it or wasn’t answering.

It was as he was disengaging the line that he saw the NSA agents. They were moving

in concert toward the center of the crowd, and he could only assume that there were

others in a tightening circle within which they meant to trap him. They hadn’t spotted

him yet, but Moira was close to one of the pair in Bourne’s view. There was no way to

get to her without them spotting him. Nevertheless, he continued to circle through the

fringes of the crowd, which had grown so large that many of the young people were

shoving one another as they shouted their slogans.

Bourne pushed on, although it seemed to him at a slower and slower pace, as if he

were in a dream where the laws of physics were nonexistent. He needed to get to Moira

without the agents seeing him; it was dangerous for her to be looking for him with NSA

infiltrating the crowd. Far better for him to get to her first so he could control both their movements.

Finally, as he neared the NSA agents, he could see the reason for the sudden rancor of

the crowd. The shoving was being precipitated by a large group of skinheads, some

wielding brass knuckles or baseball bats. They had swastikas tattooed on their bulging

arms, and when they began to swing at the chanting university students, Bourne made a

run for Moira. But as he lunged for her, one of the agents elbowed a skinhead aside and,

as he did so, caught a glimpse of Bourne. He whirled, his lips moving as he spoke

urgently into the earpiece with which he was wirelessly connected with the other

members of what Bourne assumed was an execution team.

He grabbed Moira, but the agent had hold of him, and he began to jerk Bourne back

toward him, as if to detain him long enough for the other members of the team to reach

them. Bourne struck him flush on the chin with the heel of his hand. The agent’s head

snapped back, and he collapsed into a group of skinheads, who thought he was attacking

them and started beating him.

“Jason, what the hell happened to you?” Moira said as she and Bourne turned, making

their way through the throng. “Where’s Soraya?”

“She was never here,” Bourne said. “This is another NSA trap.”

It would have been best to keep to where the garden was most crowded, but that would

put them in the center of the trap. Bourne led them around the crowd, hoping to emerge

in a place where the agents wouldn’t spot them, but now he saw three more outside the

mass of the demonstration and knew retreat was impossible. Instead he reversed course,

drawing Moira farther into the surging mass of demonstrators.

“What are you doing?” Moira said. “Aren’t we headed straight into the trap?”

“Trust me.” Instinctively he headed toward one of the flashpoints where the skinheads

were clashing with the university students.

They reached the edge of the escalating fight between the two groups of teens. Out of

the corner of his eye Bourne saw an NSA agent struggling through the same mass of

people. Bourne tried to alter their course, but their way was blocked, and a resurgent

wave of students pushed them like flotsam at the tide line. Feeling the new influx of

people, the agent turned to fight against it and ran right into Moira.

He barked Bourne’s name into the microphone in his earpiece, and Bourne slammed a

shoe into the side of his knee. The agent faltered, but managed to counter the chop

Bourne directed at his shoulder blade. The agent drew a handgun, and Bourne snatched a

baseball bat from a skinhead’s grip, struck the agent so hard on the back of his hands that he dropped the handgun.

Then, from behind him, Bourne heard Moira say. “Jason, they’re coming!”

The trap was about to snap shut on both of them.

Forty-One

LUTHER LAVALLE waited on tenterhooks for the call from his extraction team

leader in Munich. He sat in his customary chair facing the window that looked out over

the rolling lawns to the left of the wide gravel drive, which wound through the elms and

oaks lining it like sentinels. Having verbally put her in her place after returning from his office, he contrived to ignore Soraya Moore and Willard who, after the second time, had

given up asking him if he wanted his single-malt scotch refreshed. He didn’t want his

single-malt scotch refreshed and he didn’t want to hear another word from the Moore

woman. What he wanted was his cell phone to ring, for his team leader to tell him that

Jason Bourne was in custody. That’s all he required of this day; he didn’t think it was too much to ask.

Nevertheless, it was true that his nerves were pulled tighter than a drawn bowstring. He

found himself wanting to scream, to punch someone; he’d almost launched himself like a

missile at Willard when the steward had approached him the last time-he was so damn

servile. Beside him, the Moore woman sat, one leg crossed over her knee, sipping her

damnable Ceylon tea. How could she be so calm!

He reached over, slapped the cup and saucer out of her hands. They bounced on the

thick carpet, along with what was left of the espresso, but they didn’t break. He jumped

up, stomped the china beneath his heel until it cracked and cracked again. Aware of

Soraya staring up at him, he snapped, “What? What are you looking at?”

His cell phone buzzed and he snatched it off the table. His heart lifted, a smile of

triumph wreathed his face. But it was a guard at the front gate, not the leader of his

extraction team.

“Sir, I’m sorry to bother you,” the guard said, “but the director of Central Intelligence

is here.”

“What?” LaValle fairly shouted his response. He was flooded with bitter

disappointment. “Keep her the fuck out!”

“I’m afraid that’s not possible, sir.”

“Of course it’s possible.” He moved to the window. “I’m giving you a direct order!”

“She’s with a contingent of federal marshals,” the guard said. “They’re already on their

way to the main house.”

It was true, LaValle could see the convoy making its way up the drive. He stood,

speechless with confusion and fury. How dare the DCI invade his private sanctuary! He’d

have her in prison for this outrage!

He started, feeling someone standing next to him. It was Soraya Moore. Her wide lips

were curled in an enigmatic smile.

Then she turned to him and said, “I do believe it’s the end of days.”

The maelstrom closed around Bourne and Moira. What had once been a simple

demonstration was now a full-blown melee. He heard screams and shouts, hurled

invective, and then, under it all, the familiar high-low wail of police sirens approaching

from several different directions. Bourne was quite certain the NSA hit squad had no

desire to run afoul of the Munich police; it was therefore running out of time. The agent

near Bourne heard the sirens, too, and with his hands clearly still half numb from the bat

grabbed Moira around the throat.

“Drop the bat and come with me, Bourne,” he said against the rising tide of screams

and shouts, “or so help me I’ll break her neck like a twig.”

Bourne dropped the bat but, as he did so, Moira bit into the agent’s hand. Bourne drove

his fist into the soft spot just below his sternum then, taking hold of his wrist, he turned over the arm at an awkward angle, and with a sharp blow broke the agent’s elbow. The

agent groaned, went to his knees.

Bourne dug out his passport and earbud, threw the passport to Moira as he fitted the

electronic bud into his ear canal.

“Name,” he said.

Moira already had the wallet open. “William K. Saunders.”

“This is Saunders,” Bourne said, addressing the wireless network. “Bourne and the girl

are getting away. They’re heading north by northwest past the pagoda.”

Then he took her hand. “Biting his hand,” he said as they stepped over the fallen agent.

“That was quite a professional move.”

She laughed. “It did the trick, didn’t it?”

They made their way through the mob, heading southeast. Behind them, the NSA

agents were shoving their way toward the opposite side of the mass of people. Ahead, a

corps of uniformed policemen outfitted in riot gear were trotting along the path, semi-

automatics at the ready. They passed Bourne and Moira without a second look.

Moira glanced at her watch. “Let’s get to my car as quickly as possible. We have a

plane to catch.”

Don’t give up. Those three words Tyrone had found in his oatmeal were enough to

sustain him. Kendall never came back, nor did any other interrogator. In fact, his meals

came at regular intervals, the trays filled with real food, which was a blessing because he didn’t think he could ever get oatmeal down again.

The periods when the black hood was taken off seemed to him longer and longer in

duration, but his sense of time had been shot, so he didn’t really know whether or not that was true. In any case, he’d used those periods to walk, do sit-ups, push-ups, and squats,

anything to relieve the terrible, bone-deep aching of his arms, shoulders, and neck.

Don’t give up. That message might just as well have read You’re not alone or Have

faith, so rich were those words, like a millionaire’s cache. When he read them he knew

both that Soraya hadn’t abandoned him and that something inside the building, someone

who had access to the basement, was on his side. And that was the moment when the

revelation struck him, as if, if he remembered his Bible correctly, he were Paul on the

road to Damascus, converted by God’s light.

Someone is on my side -not the side of the old Tyrone, who roamed his hood with

perfect wrath and retribution, not the Tyrone who’d been saved from life in the gutter by

Deron, not even the Tyrone who’d been awed by Soraya. No, once he spontaneously

thought Someone is on my side, he realized that my side meant CI. He had not only

moved out of the hood forever, but also stepped out from under Soraya’s beautiful

shadow. He was his own man now; he’d found his own calling, not as Deron’s protector,

or his disciple, not as Soraya’s adoring assistant. CI was where he wanted to be, in the

service of making a difference. His world was no longer defined by himself on one side

and the Man on the other. He was no longer fighting what he was becoming.

He looked up. Now to get out of here. But how? His best choice was to try to find a

way to communicate with whoever had sent the note. He considered a moment. The note

had been hidden in his food, so the logical answer would be to write a note of his own

and somehow hide it in his leftovers. Of course, there was no way to be sure that person

would find the note, or even know it was there, but it was his only shot and he was

determined to take it.

He was looking around for something to use to write when the clanging of the door

brought him up short. He turned to face it as it opened. Had Kendall returned for more

sadistic playtime? Had the real torturer arrived? He took a fearful glance over his

shoulder at the waterboarding tank and his blood turned cold. Then he turned back and

saw Soraya standing in the doorway. She was grinning from ear to ear.

“God,” she said, “it’s good to see you!”

How nice to see you again,” Veronica Hart said, “especially under these

circumstances.”

Luther LaValle had come away from the window; he was standing when the DCI,

flanked by federal marshals and a contingent of CI agents, entered the Library. Everyone

else in the Library at the time goggled, then at the behest of the marshals beat a hasty

retreat. Now he sat ramrod-straight in his chair, facing Hart.

“How dare you,” LaValle said now. “This intolerable behavior won’t go unpunished.

As soon as I inform Secretary of Defense Halliday of your criminal breach of protocol-”

Hart fanned out the photos of the rendition cells in the basement. “You’re right, Mr.

LaValle, this intolerable behavior won’t go unpunished, but I believe it will be Secretary

of Defense Halliday who’ll be leading the charge to punish you for your criminal

protocols.”

“I do what I do in the defense of my country,” LaValle said stiffly. “When a country is

at war extraordinary actions must be undertaken in order to safeguard its borders. It’s you and people like you, with your weak-willed leftist leanings, that are to blame, not me.”

He was livid, his cheeks aflame. “I’m the patriot here. You-you’re just an obstructionist.

This country will crack and fall if people like you are left to run it. I’m America’s only

salvation.”

“Sit down,” Hart said quietly but firmly, “before one of my ‘leftist’ people knocks you

down.”

LaValle glared at her for a moment, then slowly sank into the chair.

“Nice to be living in your own private world where you make the rules and you don’t

give a shit about reality.”

“I’m not sorry for what I did. If you’re expecting remorse, you’re sorely mistaken.”

“Frankly,” Hart said, “I’m not expecting anything out of you until after you’re

waterboarded.” She waited until all the blood had drained from his face, before she

added, “That would be one solution-your solution-but it isn’t mine.” She shuffled the

photos back into their envelope.

“Who’s seen those?” LaValle asked.

The DCI saw him wince when she said, “Everyone who needs to see them.”

“Well, then.” He was unbowed, unrepentant. “It’s over.”

Hart looked past him to the front of the Library. “Not quite yet.” She nodded. “Here

come Soraya and Tyrone.”

Semion Icoupov sat on the stoop of a building not far from where the shooting had

taken place. His greatcoat hid the blood that had pooled inside it, so it he didn’t draw a

crowd, just a curious glance or two from pedestrians hurrying by. He felt dizzy and

nauseated, no doubt from shock and loss of blood, which meant he wasn’t thinking

clearly. He looked around with bloodshot eyes. Where was the car that had brought him

here? He needed to get out of here before Arkadin emerged from the building and spotted

him. He’d taken a tiger from the wild and had tried to domesticate him, a historic mistake

by any measure. How many times had it been attempted before with always the same

result? Tigers weren’t meant to be domesticated; neither was Arkadin. He was what he

was, and would never be anything else: a killing machine of almost preternatural abilities.

Icoupov had recognized the talent and, greedily, had tried to harness it to his own needs.

Now the tiger had turned on him; he’d had a premonition that he would die in Munich,

now he knew why, now he knew how.

Looking back toward Egon Kirsch’s apartment building, he felt a sudden rush of fear,

as if at any moment death would emerge from it, stalking him down the street. He tried to

pull himself together, tried to rise to his feet, but a horrific pain shot through him, his knees buckled, and he collapsed back onto the cold stone.

More people passed, now ignoring him altogether. Cars rolled by. The sky came down,

the day darkened as if covered with a shroud. A sudden gust of wind brought the onset of

rain, hard as sleet. He ducked his head between his shoulders, shivered mightily.

And then he heard his name shouted and, turning his head, saw the nightmare figure of

Leonid Danilovich Arkadin coming down the steps of Kirsch’s building. Now more

highly motivated, Icoupov once again tried to get up. He groaned as he gained his feet,

but tottered there uncertainly as Arkadin began to run toward him.

At that moment, a black Mercedes sedan pulled up to the sidewalk. The driver hurried

out and, taking hold of Icoupov, half carried him across the pavement. Icoupov struggled,

but to no avail; he was weak with lost blood, and growing weaker by the moment. The

driver opened the rear door, bundled him into the backseat. He pulled an HK 1911.45 and

with it warned Arkadin away, then he hustled back around the front of the Mercedes, slid

behind the wheel, and took off.

Icoupov, slumped in the near corner of the backseat, made rhythmic grunts of pain like

puffs of smoke from a steam locomotive. He was aware of the soft rocking of the shocks

as the car sped through the Munich streets. More slowly came the realization that he

wasn’t alone in the backseat. He blinked heavily, trying to clear his vision.

“Hello, Semion,” a familiar voice said.

And then Icoupov’s vision cleared. “You!”

“It’s been a long time since we’ve seen each other, hasn’t it?” Dominic Specter said.

The Empire State Building,” Moira said as she studied the plans Bourne had managed

to scoop up in Kirsch’s apartment. “I can’t believe I was wrong.”

They were parked in a rest stop by the side of the autobahn on the way to the airport.

“What do you mean, wrong?” Bourne said.

She told him what Arthur Hauser, the engineer hired by Kaller Steelworks, had

confessed about the flaw in LNG terminal’s software.

Bourne thought a moment. “If a terrorist used that flaw to gain control of the software,

what could he do?”

“The tanker is so huge and the terminal is so complex that the docking is handled

electronically.”

“Through the software program.”

Moira nodded.

“So he could cause the tanker to crash into the terminal.” He turned to her. “Would that

set off the tanks of liquid gas?”

“Quite possibly, yes.”

Bourne was thinking furiously. “Still, the terrorist would have to know about the flaw,

how to exploit it, and how to reconfigure the software.”

“It sounds simpler than trying to blow up a major building in Manhattan.”

She was right, of course; and because of the questions he’d been pondering he grasped

implications of that immediately.

Moira glanced at her watch. “Jason, the NextGen plane with the coupling link is

scheduled to take off in thirty minutes.” She put the car in gear, nosed out onto the

autobahn. “We have to make up our minds before we get to the airport. Do we go to New

York or to Long Beach?”

Bourne said, “I’ve been trying to figure out why both Specter and Icoupov were so

hell-bent on retrieving these plans.” He stared down at the blueprints as if willing them to speak to him. “The problem,” he said slowly and thoughtfully, “is that they were

entrusted to Specter’s son, Pyotr, who was more interested in girls, drugs, and the

Moscow nightlife than he was in his work. As a consequence, his network was peopled

by misfits, junkies, and weaklings.”

“Why in the world would Specter entrust so important a document to a network like

that?”

“That’s just the point,” Bourne said. “He wouldn’t.”

Moira glanced at him. “What does that mean? Is the network bogus?”

“Not as far as Pyotr was concerned,” Bourne said, “but so far as Specter saw it, yes,

everyone who was a part of it was expendable.”

“Then the plans are bogus, too.”

“No, I think they’re real, and that’s what Specter was counting on,” Bourne said. “But

when you consider the situation logically and coolly, which no one does when it comes to

the threat of an imminent terrorist attack, the probability of a cell managing to get what it needs into the Empire State Building is very low.” He rolled up the plans. “No, I think

this was all an elaborate disinformation scheme-leaking communications to Typhon,

recruiting me because of my loyalty to Specter. It was all meant to mobilize American

security forces on the wrong coast.”

“So you think the Black Legion’s real target is the LNG terminal in Long Beach.”

“Yes,” Bourne said, “I do.”

Tyrone stood looking down at LaValle. A terrible silence had descended over the

Library when he and Soraya had entered. He watched Soraya scoop up LaValle’s cell

phone from the table.

“Good,” she said with an audible sigh of relief. “No one’s called. Jason must be safe.”

She tried him on her cell, but he wasn’t answering.

Hart, who had stood up when they’d come over, said, “You look a little the worse for

wear, Tyrone.”

“Nothing a stint at the CI training school wouldn’t cure,” he said.

Hart glanced at Soraya before saying, “I think you’ve earned that right.” She smiled.

“In your case, I’ll forgo the usual warning about how rigorous the training program is,

how many recruits drop out in the first two weeks. I know we won’t have to be concerned

about you dropping out.”

“No, ma’am.”

“Just call me Director, Tyrone. You’ve earned that as well.”

He nodded, but he couldn’t keep his eyes off LaValle.

His interest did not go unnoticed. The DCI said, “Mr. LaValle, I think it only just that

Tyrone decide your fate.”

“You’re out of your mind.” LaValle looked apoplectic. “You can’t-”

“On the contrary,” Hart said, “I can.” She turned to Tyrone. “It’s entirely up to you,

Tyrone. Let the punishment fit the crime.”

Tyrone, impaling LaValle in his glare, saw there what he always saw in the eyes of

white people who confronted him: a toxic mixture of contempt, aversion, and fear. Once,

that would have sent him into a frenzy of rage, but that was because of his own

ignorance. Perhaps what he had seen in them was a reflection of what had been on his

own face. Not today, not ever again, because during his incarceration he’d finally come

to understand what Deron had tried to teach him: that his own ignorance was his worst

enemy. Knowledge allowed him to work at changing other people’s expectations of him,

rather than confronting them with a switchblade or a handgun.

He looked around, saw the look of expectation on Soraya’s face. Turning back to

LaValle, he said: “I think something public would be in order, something embarrassing

enough to work its way up to Secretary of Defense Halliday.”

Veronica Hart couldn’t help laughing, she laughed until tears came to her eyes, and she

heard the Gilbert and Sullivan lines run through her head: His object all sublime, he will

achieve in time-let the punishment fit the crime!

Forty-Two

I SEEM TO HAVE you at quite a disadvantage, dear Semion.” Dominic Specter

watched Icoupov as he dealt with the pain of sitting up straight.

“I need to see a doctor.” Icoupov was panting like an underpowered engine struggling

up a steep grade.

“What you need, dear Semion, is a surgeon,” Specter said. “Unfortunately, there’s no

time for one. I need to get to Long Beach and I can’t afford to leave you behind.”

“This was my idea, Asher.” Having braced his back against the seat, some small

amount of color was returning to Icoupov’s cheeks.

“So was using Pyotr. What did you call my son? Oh, yes, a useless wart on fate’s ass,

that was it, wasn’t it?”

“He was useless, Asher. All he cared about was getting laid and getting high. Did he

have a commitment to the cause, did he even know what the word meant? I doubt it, and

so do you.”

“You killed him, Semion.”

“And you had Iliev murdered.”

“I thought you’d changed your mind,” Sever said. “I assumed you’d sent him after

Bourne to expose me, to gain the upper hand by telling him about the Long Beach target.

Don’t look at me like that. Is it so strange? After all, we’ve been enemies longer than

we’ve been allies.”

“You’ve become paranoid,” Icoupov said, though at the time he had sent his second in