Текст книги "The Bourne Sanction (Санкция Борна)"

Автор книги: Eric Van Lustbader

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 27 (всего у книги 29 страниц)

command to expose Sever. He’d temporarily lost faith in Sever’s plan, had finally felt the

risks to all of them were too great. From the beginning, he’d argued with Sever against

bringing Bourne into the picture, but had acquiesced to Sever’s argument that CI would

bring Bourne into play sooner later. “Far better for us to preempt them, to put Bourne in

play ourselves,” Sever had said, capping his argument, and that had been the end of it,

until now.

“We’ve both become paranoid.”

“A sad fact,” Icoupov said with a gasp of pain. It was true: Their great strength in

working together without anyone in either camp knowing about it was also a weakness.

Because their regimes ostensibly opposed each other, because the Black Legion’s

nemesis was in reality its closest ally, all other potential rivals shied away, leaving the Black Legion to operate without interference. However, the actions both men were

sometimes obliged to take for the sake of appearance caused a subconscious erosion of

trust between them.

Icoupov could feel that their level of distrust had achieved its highest point yet, and he

sought to defuse it. “Pyotr killed himself-and, in fact, I was only defending myself. Did

you know he hired Arkadin to kill me? What would you have had me do?”

“There were other options,” Sever said, “but your sense of justice is an eye for an eye.

For a Muslim you have a great deal of the Jewish Old Testament in you. And now it

appears that that very justice is about to be turned on you. Arkadin will kill you, if he can get his hands on you.” Sever laughed. “I’m the only one who can save you now. Ironic,

isn’t it? You kill my son and now I have the power of life and death over you.”

“We always had the power of life and death over each other.” Icoupov still struggled to

gain equality in the conversation. “There were casualties on both sides-regrettable but

necessary. The more things change the more they stay the same. Except for Long Beach.”

“There’s the problem precisely,” Sever said. “I’ve just come from interrogating Arthur

Hauser, our man on the inside. As such, he was monitored by my people. Earlier today,

he got cold feet; he met with a member of Black River. It took me some time to convince

him to talk, but eventually he did. He told this woman-Moira Trevor-about the software

flaw.”

“So Black River knows.”

“If they do,” Sever said, “they aren’t doing anything about it. Hauser also told me that

they withdrew from NextGen; Black River isn’t handling their security anymore.”

“Who is?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Sever said. “The point is the tanker is less than a day away from

the California coastline. My software engineer is aboard and in place. The question now

is whether this Black River operative is going to act on her own.”

Icoupov frowned. “Why should she? You know Black River as well as I do, they act as

a team.”

“True enough, but the Trevor woman should have been on to her next assignment by

now; my people tell me that she’s still in Munich.”

“Maybe she’s taking some downtime.”

“And maybe,” Sever said, “she’s going to act on the information Hauser gave her.”

They were nearing the airport, and with some difficulty Icoupov pointed. “The only

way to find out is to check to see whether she’s on the NextGen plane that’s

transshipping the coupling link to the terminal.” He smiled thinly. “You seem surprised

that I know so much. I have my spies as well, many of whom you know nothing about.”

He gasped in pain as he searched beneath his greatcoat. “It was texted to me, but I can’t

seem to find my cell.” He looked around. “It must have fallen out of my pocket when

your driver manhandled me into the car.”

Sever waved a hand, ignoring the implied rebuke. “Never mind. Hauser gave me all

the details, if we can get through security.”

“I have people in Immigration you don’t know about.”

Sever’s smile held a measure of the cruelty that was common to both of them. “My

dear Semion, you have a use after all.”

Arkadin found Icoupov’s cell phone in the gutter where it had fallen as Icoupov had

been bundled into the Mercedes. Controlling the urge to stomp it into splinters, he opened

it to see whom Icoupov had called last, and noticed that the last incoming message was a

text. Accessing it, he read the information on a NextGen jet due to take off in twenty

minutes. He wondered why that would be important to Icoupov. Part of him wanted to go

back to Devra, the same part that had balked at leaving her to go after Icoupov. But

Kirsch’s building was swarming with cops; the entire block was in the process of being

cordoned off, so he didn’t look back, tried not to think of her lying twisted on the floor, her blank eyes staring up at him even after she stopped breathing.

Do you love me, Leonid?

How had he answered her? Even now he couldn’t remember. Her death was like a

dream, something vivid that made no sense. Maybe it was a symbol, but of what he

couldn’t say.

Do you love me, Leonid?

It didn’t matter, but he knew to her it did. He had lied then, surely he’d lied to ease the moments before her death, but the thought that he’d lied to her sent a knife through

whatever passed for his heart.

He looked down at the text message and knew this was where he’d find Icoupov.

Turning around, he walked back toward the cordoned-off area. Posing as a crime reporter

from the Abendzeitung newspaper, he boldly accosted one of the junior uniformed police,

asking him pointed questions about the shooting, stories of gunfire he’d gleaned from

residents of the neighboring buildings. As he suspected, the cop was on guard duty and

knew next to nothing. But that wasn’t the point; he’d now gotten inside the cordon,

leaning against one of the police cars as he conducted his phony and fruitless interview.

At length, the cop was called away, and he dismissed Arkadin, saying the

commissioner would be holding a press conference at 16:00, at which time he would be

free to ask all the questions he wanted. This left Arkadin alone, leaning against the

fender. It didn’t take him long to walk around the front of the vehicle, and when the

medical examiner’s van arrived-creating a perfect diversion-he opened the driver’s-side

door, ducked in behind the wheel. The keys were already in the ignition. He started the

car and drove off. When he reached the autobahn, he put on the siren and drove at top

speed toward the airport.

I won’t have a problem getting you on board,” Moira said as she turned off onto the

four-lane approach to the freight terminal. She showed her NextGen ID at the guard

booth, then drove on toward the parking lot outside the terminal. During the drive to the

airport she’d thought long and hard about whether to tell Jason about whom she really

worked for. Revealing that she was with Black River was a direct violation of her

contract, and right now she prayed there’d be no reason to tell him.

After passing through security, Customs, and Immigration, they arrived on the tarmac

and approached the 747. A set of mobile stairs rose up to the high passenger door, which

stood open. On the far side of the plane, the truck from Kaller Steelworks Gesellschaft

was parked, along with an airport hoist, which was lifting crated parts of the LNG

coupling link into the jet’s cargo area. The truck was obviously late, and the loading

process was necessarily slow and tedious. Neither Kaller nor NextGen could afford an

accident at this late stage.

Moira showed her NextGen ID to one of the crew members standing at the bottom of

the stairs. He smiled and nodded, welcoming them aboard. Moira breathed a sigh of

relief. Now all that stood between them and the Black Legion attack was the ten-hour

flight to Long Beach.

But as they neared the top of the stairs, a figure appeared from the plane’s interior. He

stood in the doorway, staring down at her.

“Moira,” Noah said, “what are you doing here? Why aren’t you on your way to

Damascus?”

Manfred Holger, Icoupov’s man in Immigration, met them at the checkpoint to the

freight terminals, got in the car with them, and they lurched forward. Icoupov had called

him using Sever’s cell phone. He’d been about to go off duty, but luckily for them had

not yet changed out of his uniform.

“There’s no problem.” Holger spoke in the officious manner that had been drummed

into him by his superiors. “All I have to do is check the recent immigration records to see if she’s come through the system.”

“Not good enough,” Icoupov said. “She may be traveling under a pseudonym.”

“All right then, I’ll go on board and check everyone’s passports.” Holger was sitting in

the front seat. Now he swiveled around to look at Icoupov. “If I find that this woman,

Moira Trevor, is on board, what would you have me do?”

“Take her off the plane,” Sever said at once.

Holger looked inquiringly at Icoupov, who nodded. Icoupov’s face was gray again, and

he was having more difficulty keeping the pain at bay.

“Bring her here to us,” Sever said.

Holger had taken their diplomatic passports, passed them quickly through security.

Now the Mercedes was sitting just off the tarmac. The 747 with the NextGen logo

emblazoned on its sides and tail was at rest, still being loaded from the Kaller Steelworks truck. The driver had pulled up so that the truck shielded them from being seen by

anyone boarding the plane or already inside it.

Holger nodded, got out of the Mercedes, and walked across the tarmac to the rolling

stairs.

Kriminalpolizei,” Arkadin said as he stopped the police car at the freight terminal

checkpoint. “We have reason to believe a man who killed two people this afternoon has

fled here.”

The guards waved him past Customs and Immigration without asking for ID; the car

itself was proof enough for them. As Arkadin rolled past the parking lot and onto the

tarmac, he saw the jet, crates from the NextGen truck being hoisted into the cargo bay,

and the black Mercedes idling some distance away from both. Recognizing the car at

once, he nosed the police cruiser to a spot directly behind the Mercedes. For a moment,

he sat behind the wheel, staring at the Mercedes as if the car itself were his enemy.

He could see the silhouettes of two male figures in the backseat; it wasn’t a stretch for

him to figure that one of them was Semion Icoupov. He wondered which of the handguns

he had with him he should use to kill his former mentor: the SIG Sauer 9mm, the Luger,

or the.22 SIG Mosquito. It all depended on what kind of damage he wanted to inflict and

to what part of the body. He’d shot Stas Kuzin in the knees, the better to watch him

suffer, but this was another time and, especially, another place. The airport was public

space; the adjacent passenger terminal was crawling with security personnel. Just because

he had been able to get this far as a member of the kriminalpolizei, he knew better than to overstep his luck. No, this kill needed to be quick and clean. All he desired was to look

into Icoupov’s eyes when he died, for him to know who’d ended his life and why.

Unlike the moment of Kuzin’s demise, Arkadin was fully aware of this moment, keyed

in to the importance of the son overtaking the father, of revenging himself for the

psychological and physical advantages an adult takes with a child. That he hadn’t, in fact, been a child when Mischa had sent Semion Icoupov to resurrect him never occurred to

him. From the moment the two had met, he had always seen Icoupov as a father figure.

He’d obeyed him as he would a father, had accepted his judgments, had swallowed whole

his worldview, had been faithful to him. And now, for the sins Icoupov had visited on

him, he was going to kill him.

When you didn’t show for your scheduled flight, I had a hunch you’d show up here.”

Noah stared at her, completely ignoring Bourne. “I won’t allow you on the plane, Moira.

You’re no longer a part of this.”

“She still works for NextGen, doesn’t she?” Bourne said.

“Who is this?” Noah said, keeping his eyes on her.

“My name is Jason Bourne.”

A slow smile crept over Noah’s face. “Moira, you didn’t introduce us.” He turned to

Bourne, stuck out his hand. “Noah Petersen.”

Bourne shook his hand. “Jason Bourne.”

Keeping the same sly smile on his face, Noah said, “Do you know she lied to you, that

she tried to recruit you to NextGen under false pretenses?”

His eyes flicked toward Moira, but he was disappointed to see neither shock nor

outrage on her face.

“Why would she do that?” Bourne said.

“Because,” Moira said, “like Noah here, I work for Black River, the private security

firm. We were hired by NextGen to oversee security on the LNG terminal.”

It was Noah who registered shock. “Moira, that’s enough. You’re in violation of your

contract.”

“It doesn’t matter, Noah. I quit Black River half an hour ago. I’ve been made chief of

security at NextGen, so in point of fact it’s you who isn’t welcome aboard this flight.”

Noah stood rigid as stone, until Bourne took a step toward him. Then he backed away,

descending the flight of rolling stairs. Halfway down, he turned to her. “Pity, Moira. I

once had faith in you.”

She shook her head. “The pity is that Black River has no conscience.”

Noah looked at her for a moment then turned, clattered down the rest of the stairs, and

stalked off across the tarmac without seeing the Mercedes or the police car behind it.

Because it would make the least noise, Arkadin decided on the Mosquito. Hand curled

around the grips, he got out of the police car, stalked to the driver’s side of the Mercedes.

It was the driver-who doubtless doubled as a bodyguard-he had to dispense with first.

Keeping his Mosquito out of sight, he rapped on the driver’s window with a bare

knuckle.

When the driver slid the glass down, Arkadin shoved the Mosquito in his face and

pulled the trigger. The driver’s head snapped back so hard the cervical vertebrae cracked.

Pulling open the door, Arkadin shoved the corpse aside and knelt on the seat, facing the

two men in the backseat. He recognized Sever from an old photograph when Icoupov had

showed him the face of his enemy. He said, “Wrong time, wrong place,” and shot Sever

in the chest.

As he slumped over, Arkadin turned his attention to Icoupov. “You didn’t think you

could escape me, Father, did you?”

Icoupov-who, between the sudden attack and the unendurable pain in his shoulder, was

going into delayed shock-said, “Why do you call me father? Your father died a long time

ago, Leonid Danilovich.”

“No,” Arkadin said, “he sits here before me like a wounded bird.”

“A wounded bird, yes.” With great effort, Icoupov opened his greatcoat, the lining of

which was sopping wet with his blood. “Your paramour shot me before I shot her in self-

defense.”

“This is not a court of law. What matters is that she’s dead.” Arkadin shoved the

muzzle of the Mosquito under Icoupov’s chin, and tilted upward. “And you, Father, are

still alive.”

“I don’t understand you.” Icoupov swallowed hard. “I never did.”

“What was I ever to you, except a means to an end? I killed when you ordered me to.

Why? Why did I do that, can you tell me?”

Icoupov said nothing, not knowing what he could say to save himself from judgment

day.

“I did it because I was trained to do it,” Arkadin said. “That’s why you sent me to

America, to Washington, not to cure me of my homicidal rages, as you said, but to

harness them for your use.”

“What of it?” Icoupov finally found his voice. “Of what other use were you? When I

found you, you were close to taking your own life. I saved you, you ungrateful shit.”

“You saved me so you could condemn me to this life, which, if I am any judge, is no

life at all. I see I never really escaped Nizhny Tagil. I never will.”

Icoupov smiled, believing he’d gotten the measure of his protйgй. “You don’t want to

kill me, Leonid Danilovich. I’m your only friend. Without me you’re nothing.”

“Nothing is what I always was,” Arkadin said as he pulled the trigger. “Now you’re

nothing, too.”

Then he got out of the Mercedes, walked out on the tarmac to where the NextGen

personnel were almost finished off-loading the crates. Without being seen, he climbed

onto the hoist. There he hunkered down just beneath the operator’s cab, and after the last

crate had been stowed aboard, when the NextGen loaders were exiting the cargo hold via

the interior stairwell, he leapt aboard the plane, scrambled behind a stack of crates, and

sat down, patient as death, while the doors closed, locking him in.

Bourne saw the German official coming and suspected there was something wrong: An

Immigration officer had no business interrogating them now. Then he recognized the

man’s face. He told Moira to get back inside the plane, then stood barring the door as the

official mounted the stairs.

“I need to see everyone’s passport,” the officer said as he approached Bourne.

“Passport checks have already been made, mein Herr.”

“Nevertheless, another security scan must be made now.” The officer held out his

hand. “Your passport, please. And then I will check the identity of everyone else aboard.”

“You don’t recognize me, mein Herr?”

“Please.” The officer put his hand on the butt of his holstered Luger. “You are

obstructing official government business. Believe me, I will take you into custody unless

you show me your passport and then move aside.”

“Here’s my passport, mein Herr.” Bourne opened it to the last page, pointed to a spot

on the inside cover. “And here is where you placed an electronic tracking device.”

“What accusation is this? You have no proof-”

Bourne produced the broken bug. “I don’t believe you’re here on official business. I

think whoever instructed you to plant this on me is paying you to check these passports.”

Bourne gripped the officer’s elbow. “Let’s stroll over to the commandant of Immigration

and ask them if they sent you here.”

The officer drew himself up stiffly. “I’m not going anywhere with you. I have a job to

do.”

“So do I.”

As Bourne dragged him down the rolling stairs, the officer went for his gun.

Bourne dug his fingers into the nerve bundle just above the man’s elbow. “Draw it if

you must,” Bourne said, “but be prepared for the consequences.”

The official’s frosty aloofness finally cracked, revealing the fear beneath. His round

face was pallid and sweating.

“What do you want of me?” he said as they walked along the tarmac.

“Take me to your real employer.”

The officer had one last blast of bravado in him. “You don’t really think he’s here, do

you?”

“As a matter of fact I wasn’t sure until you said that. Now I know he is.” Bourne shook

the official. “Now take me to him.”

Defeated, the officer nodded bleakly. No doubt, he was contemplating his immediate

future. At a quickened pace, he led Bourne around behind the 747. At that moment, the

NextGen truck rumbled to life, heading away from the plane, back the way it had come.

That was when Bourne saw the black Mercedes and a police car directly behind it.

“Where did that police car come from?” The officer tore himself away from Bourne

and broke into a run toward the parked cars.

Bourne, who saw the driver’s-side doors on both vehicles standing open, was at the

officer’s heels. It was clear as they approached that no one was in the police car, but

looking through the Mercedes’s door, they saw the driver, slumped over. It looked as if

he’d been kicked to the passenger’s side of the seat.

Bourne pulled open the rear door, saw Icoupov with the top of his head blown off.

Another man had fallen forward against the front seat rests. When Bourne pulled him

gently backward, he saw that it was Dominic Specter-or Asher Sever-and everything

became clear to him. Beneath the public enmity, the two men were secret allies. This

answered many questions, not the least of which was why everyone Bourne had spoken

to about the Black Legion had a different opinion about who was a member and who

wasn’t.

Sever looked small and frail, old beyond his years. He’d been shot in the chest with

a.22. Bourne took his pulse, listened to his breathing. He was still alive.

“I’ll call for an ambulance,” the officer said.

“Do what you have to do,” Bourne said as he scooped Sever up. “I’m taking this one

with me.”

He left the Immigration officer to deal with the mess, crossing the tarmac and

mounting the rolling stairs.

“Let’s get out of here,” he said as he laid Sever down across three seats.

“What happened to him?” Moira said with a gasp. “Is he alive or dead?”

Bourne knelt beside his old mentor. “He’s still breathing.” As he began to rip off the

professor’s shirt, he said to Moira. “Get us moving, okay? We need to get out of here

now.”

Moira nodded. As she went up the aisle, she spoke to one of the flight attendants, who

ran for the first-aid kit. The door to the cockpit was still open, and she gave the order for takeoff to the captain and the co-pilot.

Within five minutes the rolling stairs had been removed and the 747 was taxiing to the

head of the runway. A moment later the control tower cleared it for takeoff. The brakes

were let out, the engines revved up, and, with increasing velocity, the jet hurtled down

the runway. Then it lifted off, its wheel retracted, flaps were adjusted, and it soared into a sky filled with the crimson and gold of the setting sun.

Forty-Three

IS HE DEAD?” Sever stared up at Bourne, who was cleaning his chest wound.

“You mean Semion?”

“Yes. Semion. Is he dead?”

“Icoupov and the driver, both.”

Bourne held Sever down while the alcohol burned off everything that could cause the

wound to suppurate. No organs had been struck, but the injury must be extremely painful.

Bourne applied an antiseptic cream from a tube in the first-aid kit. “Who shot you?”

“Arkadin.” Tears of pain rolled down Sever’s cheeks. “For some reason, he’s gone

completely insane. Maybe he was always insane. I thought so anyway. Allah, that hurts!”

He took several shallow breaths before he went on. “He came out of nowhere. The driver

said, ‘A police car has pulled up behind us.’ The next thing I know he’s rolling down the

window and a gun is fired point-blank in his face. Neither Semion nor I had time to think.

There was Arkadin inside the car. He shot me, but I’m certain it was Semion he’d come

for.”

Intuiting what must have happened in Kirsch’s apartment, Bourne said, “Icoupov

killed his woman, Devra.”

Sever squeezed his eyes shut. He was having trouble breathing normally. “So what?

Arkadin never cared what happened to his women.”

“He cared about this one,” Bourne said, applying a bandage.

Sever stared up at Bourne with an expression of disbelief. “The odd thing was, I think I

heard him call Semion ‘Father.’ Semion didn’t understand.”

“And now he never will.”

“Stop your fussing; let me die, dammit!” Sever said crossly. “It doesn’t matter now

whether I live or die.”

Bourne finished up.

“What’s done is done. Fate has been sealed; there’s nothing you or anyone else can do

to change it.”

Bourne sat on a seat opposite Sever. He was aware of Moira standing to one side,

watching and listening. The professor’s betrayal only went to prove that you were never

safe when you let personal feelings into your life.

“Jason.” Sever’s voice was weaker. “I never meant to deceive you.”

“Yes, you did, Professor, that’s all you know how to do.”

“I came to look upon you as a son.”

“Like Icoupov looked upon Arkadin.”

With an effort, Sever shook his head. “Arkadin is insane. Perhaps they both were,

perhaps their shared insanity is what drew them together.”

Bourne sat forward, “Let me ask you a question, Professor. Do you think you’re sane?”

“Of course I’m sane.”

Sever’s eyes held steady on Bourne’s, a challenge still, at this late stage.

For a moment, Bourne did nothing, then he rose and, together with Moira, walked

forward toward the cockpit.

“It’s a long flight,” she said softly, “and you need your rest.”

“We both do.”

They sat next to each other, silent for a long time. Occasionally, they heard Sever utter

a soft moan. Otherwise, the drone of the engines conspired to lull them to sleep.

It was freezing in the baggage hold, but Arkadin didn’t mind. The Nizhny Tagil

winters had been brutal. It was during one of those winters that Mischa Tarkanian had

found him, hiding out from the remnants of Stas Kuzin’s regime. Mischa, hard as a knife

blade, had the heart of a poet. He told stories that were beautiful enough to be poems.

Arkadin had been enchanted, if such a word could be ascribed to him. Mischa’s talent for

storytelling had the power to take Arkadin far away from Nizhny Tagil, and when Mischa

smuggled him out past the inner ring of smokestacks, past the outer ring of high-security

prisons, his stories took Arkadin to places beyond Moscow, to lands beyond Russia. The

stories gave Arkadin his first inkling of the world at large.

As he sat now, his back against a crate, knees drawn up to his chest in order to

conserve warmth, he had good cause to think of Mischa. Icoupov had paid for killing

Devra, now Bourne must pay for killing Mischa. But not just yet, Arkadin brooded,

though his blood called out for revenge. If he killed Bourne now, Icoupov’s plan would

succeed, and he couldn’t allow that, otherwise his revenge against him would be

incomplete.

Arkadin put his head back against the edge of the crate and closed his eyes. Revenge

had become like one of Mischa’s poems, its meaning flowering open to surround him

with a kind of ethereal beauty, the only form of beauty that registered on him, the only

beauty that lasted. It was the glimpse of that promised beauty, the very prospect of it, that allowed him to sit patiently, curled between crates, waiting for his moment of revenge,

his moment of inestimable beauty.

Bourne dreamed of the hell known as Nizhny Tagil as if he’d been born there, and

when he awoke he knew Arkadin was near. Opening his eyes, he saw Moira staring at

him.

“What do you feel about the professor?” she said, by which he suspected she meant,

What do you feel about me?

“I think the years of obsession have driven him insane. I don’t think he knows good

from evil, right from wrong.”

“Is that why you didn’t ask him why he embarked on this path to destruction?”

“In a way,” Bourne said. “Whatever his answer would have been it wouldn’t have

made sense to us.”

“Fanatics never make sense,” she said. “That’s why they’re so difficult to counteract.

A rational response, which is always our choice, is rarely effective.” She cocked her

head. “He betrayed you, Jason. He nurtured your belief in him, and played on it.”

“If you climb on a scorpion’s back you’ve got to expect to get stung.”

“Don’t you have a desire for revenge?”

“Maybe I should I smother him in his sleep, or shoot him to death as Arkadin did to

Semion Icoupov. Do you really expect that to make me feel better? I’ll exact my revenge

by stopping the Black Legion’s attack.”

“You sound so rational.”

“I don’t feel rational, Moira.”

She took his meaning, and blood rushed to her cheeks. “I may have lied to you, Jason,

but I didn’t betray you. I could never do that.” She engaged his eyes. “There were so

many times in the last week when I ached to tell you, but I had a duty to Black River.”

“Duty is something I understand, Moira.”

“Understanding is one thing, but will you forgive me?”

He put out his hand. “You aren’t a scorpion,” he said. “It’s not in your nature.”

She took his hand in hers, brought it up to her mouth, and pressed it to her cheek.

At that moment they heard Sever cry out, and they rose, went down the aisle to where

he lay curled on his side like a small child afraid of the dark. Bourne knelt down, drew

Sever gently onto his back to keep pressure off the wound.

The professor stared at Bourne, then, as Moira spoke to him, at her.

“Why did you do it?” Moira said. “Why attack the country you’d adopted as your

own.”

Sever could not catch his breath. He swallowed convulsively. “You’d never

understand.”

“Why don’t you try me?”

Sever closed his eyes, as if to better visualize each word as it emerged from his mouth.

“The Muslim sect I belong to, that Semion belonged to, is very old-ancient even. It had

its beginnings in North Africa.” He paused already out of breath. “Our sect is very strict, we believe in a fundamentalism so devout it cannot be conveyed to infidels by any

means. But I can tell you this: We cannot live in the modern world because the modern

world violates every one of our laws. Therefore, it must be destroyed.

“Nevertheless…” He licked his lips, and Bourne poured out some water, lifted his

head, and allowed him to drink his fill. When he was finished, he continued. “I should

never have tried to use you, Jason. Over the years there have been many disagreements

between Semion and myself-this was the latest, the one that broke the proverbial camel’s

back. He said you’d be trouble, and he was right. I thought I could manufacture a reality,

that I could use you to convince the American security agencies we were going to attack

New York City.” He emitted a dry, little laugh. “I lost sight of the central tenet of life, that reality can’t be controlled, it’s too random, too chaotic. So you see it was I who was on a fool’s errand, Jason, not you.”

“Professor, it’s all over,” Moira said. “We won’t let the tanker dock until we have the

software patched.”

Sever smiled. “A good idea, but it will avail you nothing. Do you know the damage

that much liquid natural gas will do? Five square miles of devastation, thousands killed,

America’s corrupt, greedy way of life delivered the hammer blow Semion and I have

been dreaming of for decades. It’s my one great calling in this life. The loss of human life and physical destruction is icing on the cake.”

He paused to catch his breath, which was shallower and more ragged than ever. “When

the nation’s largest port is incinerated, America’s economy will go with it. Almost half

your imports will dry up. There’ll be widespread shortages of goods and food, companies

will collapse, the stock exchanges will plummet, wholesale panic will ensue.”

“How many of your men are on board?” Bourne said.

Sever smiled weakly. “I love you like a son, Jason.”

“You let your own son be killed,” Bourne said.