Текст книги "The Bourne Sanction (Санкция Борна)"

Автор книги: Eric Van Lustbader

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Текущая страница: 28 (всего у книги 29 страниц)

“Sacrificed, Jason. There’s a difference.”

“Not to him.” Bourne returned to his agenda. “How many men, Professor?”

“One, only one.”

“One man can’t take over the tanker,” Moira said.

The smile played around his lips, even as his eyes closed, his consciousness fading. “If

man hadn’t made machines to do his work…”

Moira turned to Bourne. “What does that mean?”

Bourne shook the old man’s shoulder, but he’d slipped into deep unconsciousness.

Moira checked his eyes, his forehead, his carotid artery. “Without intravenous

antibiotics I doubt he’ll make it.” She looked at Bourne. “We’re near enough New York

City now. We could touch down there, have an ambulance waiting-”

“There’s no time,” Bourne said.

“I know there’s no time.” Moira took his arm. “But I want to give you the choice.”

Bourne stared down at his mentor’s face, lined and seamed, far older in sleep, as if it

had imploded. “He’ll make it on his own, or he won’t.”

He turned away, Moira at his side, and he said, “Call NextGen. This is what I need.”

Forty-Four

THE TANKER Moon of Hormuz, plowed through the Pacific no more than an hour

out of Long Beach harbor. The captain, a veteran named Sultan, had gotten word that the

LNG terminal was online and ready to receive its inaugural shipment of liquid natural

gas. With the current state of the world’s economies, the LNG had become even more

precious; from the time the Moon of Hormuz had left Algeria its cargo had increased in

value by over 30 percent.

The tanker, twelve stories high and as large as a village, held thirty-three million

gallons of LNG cooled to a temperature of -260 degrees. That translated into the energy

equivalent of twenty billion gallons of natural gas. The ship required five miles to come

to a stop, and because of the shape of its hull and the containers on deck Sultan’s view

ahead was blocked for three-quarters of a mile. The tanker had been steaming at twenty

knots, but three hours ago he’d ordered the engines into reverse. Well within five miles of the terminal, the ship was down to six knots of speed and still decelerating.

Within the five-mile radius to shore his nerves became a jittery flame, the nightmare of

Armageddon always with him, because a disaster aboard the Moon of Hormuz would be

just that. If the tanks spilled into the water, the resulting fire would be five miles in

diameter. For another five miles beyond that thermal radiation would burn any human to

a crisp.

But those scenarios were just that: nightmares. In ten years there’d never been even a

minor incident aboard his ship, and there never would be, if he had anything to say about

it. He was just thinking about how fine the weather was, and how much he was going to

enjoy his ten days on the beach with a friend in Malibu, when the radio officer handed

him a message from NextGen. He was to expect a helicopter in fifteen minutes; he was to

give its passengers-Moira Trevor and Jason Bourne-any and all help they requested. That

was surprising enough, but he bristled at the last sentence: He was to take orders from

them until the Moon of Hormuz was safely docked at the terminal.

When the doors to the cargo bay were opened, Arkadin was ready, crouched behind

one of the containers. As the airport maintenance team clambered aboard, he edged out,

then called from the shadows for one of them to help him. When the man complied,

Arkadin broke his neck, dragged him into the deepest shadows of the cargo bay, away

from the NextGen containers. He stripped and donned the man’s maintenance uniform.

Then he stepped over to the work area, keeping the ID tag clipped to it out of full view so that no one could that see that his face didn’t match that on the tag. Not that it mattered: These people were here to get the cargo off-loaded and onto the waiting NextGen trucks

as quickly as possible. It never occurred to any of them that there might be an imposter

among them.

In this way, Arkadin worked his way to the open bay doors, onto the loading lifts with

the container. He hopped onto the tarmac as the cargo was being loaded onto the truck,

then ducked away beneath the wing. Finding himself alone on the opposite side of the

aircraft, he walked away at a brisk, business-like clip. No one challenged him, no one

even gave him a second look, because he moved with the authority of someone who

belonged there. That was the secret of assuming a different identity, even temporarily-

people’s eyes either ignored or accepted what looked correct to them.

As he went, he breathed deeply of the clear, salt air, the freshening breeze whipping his

pants against his legs. He felt free of all the leashes that had bound him to the earth: Stas Kuzin, Marlene, Gala, Icoupov, they were all gone now. The sea beckoned him and he

was coming.

NextGen had its own small terminal on the freight side of the Long Beach airport.

Moira had radioed ahead to NextGen headquarters, giving them a heads-up and asking

for a helicopter to be ready to take her and Bourne to the tanker.

Arkadin beat Bourne to the NextGen terminal. Hurrying now, he used the badge to

open the door to the restricted areas. Out on the tarmac he saw the helicopter right away.

The pilot was talking to a maintenance man. The moment they both squatted down,

examining one of the runners, Arkadin pulled his cap low on his forehead, walked briskly

around to the far side of the helicopter, and made himself busy there.

He saw Bourne and Moira emerge from the NextGen terminal. They paused for a

moment and he could hear their argument about whether or not she should come, but they

must have had it before, because the fight was hammered out in brief, staccato bursts, like shorthand.

“Face facts, Jason. I work for NextGen; without me you won’t get on that copter.”

Bourne turned away, and for an instant Arkadin felt a foreboding, as if Bourne had

seen him. Then Bourne turned back to Moira, and together they hurried across the

tarmac.

Bourne climbed in on the pilot’s side, while Moira headed to Arkadin’s side of the

copter. With a professional smile, he held out a hand, helping her up into the cockpit. He

saw the maintenance man about to come across, but waved him off. Looking up at Moira

through the curved Perspex door he thought of Devra and felt a lurch in his chest, as if

her bleeding head had fallen against him. He waved at Moira, and she lifted her hand in

return.

The rotors began to swirl, the maintenance man signaled for Arkadin to come away;

Arkadin gave him the thumbs-up sign. Faster and faster the rotors spun, and the copter’s

frame began to shudder. Just before it lifted off, Arkadin climbed onto the runner and

curled himself into a ball as they swung out over the Pacific, buffeted by a stiff onshore

wind.

The tanker loomed large in the passengers’ vision as the copter sped toward it at top

speed. Only one other boat could be seen, a commercial fishing vessel several miles away

beyond the security limits imposed by the Coast Guard and Homeland Security. Bourne,

who was sitting directly behind the pilot, saw that he was working to keep the copter’s

pitch at the correct angle.

“Is everything okay?” he shouted over the roar of the rotors.

The pilot pointed to one of the gauges. “There’s a small anomaly in the pitch; probably

the wind, it’s gusting up quite a bit.”

But Bourne wasn’t so sure. The anomaly was constant, whereas the wind wasn’t. He

had an intuition what-or, more accurately, who-was causing the problem.

“I think we have a stowaway,” Bourne said to the pilot. “Take it in low when you get

to the tanker. Skim the tops of the containers.”

“What?” The pilot shook his head. “Too dangerous.”

“Then I’ll take a look myself.” Unstrapping himself, Bourne crept toward the door.

“Okay, okay!” the pilot shouted. “Just get back in your seat!”

They were almost at the bow of the tanker now. It was unbelievably big, a city

lumbering through the Pacific swells.

“Hang on!” the pilot shouted as he took them down far more quickly than normal.

They could see members of the crew racing across the deck, and someone-no doubt the

captain-emerged from the wheelhouse near the stern. Someone was shouting to pull up;

the tops of the containers were coming at them with frightening speed. Just before they

skimmed the top of the nearest container, the copter rocked slightly.

“The anomaly’s gone,” the pilot said.

“Stay here,” Bourne shouted to Moira. “Whatever happens stay on board.” Then he

gripped the weapon lying astride his knees, opened the door and, as she screamed his

name, jumped out of the copter.

He landed after Arkadin, who had already leapt down onto the deck and was scuttling

between containers. Crew members rushed toward them both; Bourne had no idea

whether one of them was Sever’s software engineer, but he raised a hunting crossbow

and they stopped in their tracks. Knowing that firing a gun would be tantamount to

suicide on a tanker full of liquid natural gas, he’d had Moira ask NextGen to have two

crossbows in the copter. How they procured them so quickly was anyone’s guess, but a

corporation of NextGen’s size could get just about anything at a moment’s notice.

Behind him, the chopper set down on the part of the foredeck that had been cleared,

and cut the engines. Doubled over to avoid the rotors, he opened the copter door and

looked up at Moira. “Arkadin is here somewhere. Please stay out of the way.”

“I need to report to the captain. I can take care of myself.” She, too, was cradling a

crossbow. “What does Arkadin want?”

“Me. I killed his friend. It doesn’t matter to him that it was in self-defense.”

“I can help, Jason. If we work together, two are better than one.”

He shook his head. “Not in this case. Besides, you see how slowly the tanker is

moving; its screws are in reverse. It’s within the five-mile limit. For every foot we travel forward, the danger to thousands of lives and the port of Long Beach itself grows

exponentially.”

She nodded stiffly, stepped down, and hurried along the deck to where the captain

stood, awaiting her orders.

Bourne turned, moving cautiously among the containers, in the direction he’d glimpsed

Arkadin heading. Moving along the aisles was like walking down the canyons of

Manhattan. Wind howled as it cut across corners, magnified, racing down the aisles as if

they were tunnels.

Just before he reached the end of the first set of containers, he heard Arkadin’s voice,

speaking to him in Russian.

“There isn’t much time.”

Bourne stood still, trying to determine where the voice was coming from. “What d’you

know about it, Arkadin?”

“Why d’you think I’m here?”

“I killed Mischa Tarkanian, now you kill me. Isn’t that how you defined it back in

Egon Kirsch’s apartment?”

“Listen to me, Bourne, if that’s what I wanted I could have killed you anytime while

you and the woman slept aboard the NextGen 747.”

Bourne’s blood ran cold. “Why didn’t you?”

“Listen to me, Bourne, Semion Icoupov, who saved me, whom I trusted, shot my

woman to death.”

“Yes, that’s why you killed him.”

“Do you begrudge me my revenge?”

Bourne said nothing, thinking of what he would do to Arkadin if he hurt Moira.

“You don’t have to say anything, Bourne, I already know the answer.”

Bourne turned. The voice appeared to have shifted. Where the hell was he hiding?

“But as I said we have little time to find Icoupov’s man on board.”

“It’s Sever’s man, actually,” Bourne said.

Arkadin laughed. “Do you think that matters? They were in bed together. All the time

they posed as bitter enemies they were plotting this disaster. I want to stop it-I have to

stop it, or my revenge on Icoupov will be incomplete.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Listen, Bourne, you know we haven’t much time. I’ve avenged myself on the father,

but this plan is his child. He and Sever gave birth to it, fed it, nurtured it through its

infancy, through its adolescent growing pains. Now each moment brings this floating

supernova closer to the moment of destruction those two madmen envisioned.”

The voice moved again. “Is that what you want, Bourne? Of course not. Then let’s join

together to find Sever’s man.”

Bourne hesitated. He didn’t trust Arkadin, and yet he had to trust him. He examined

the situation from all sides and concluded that the only way to play it was to move

forward. “He’s a software engineer,” he said.

Arkadin appeared, climbing down from the top of one of the containers. For a moment,

the two men stood facing each other, and once again Bourne felt the dislocating sensation

of looking in a mirror. When he stared into Arkadin’s eyes, he didn’t see the madness the

professor spoke of; he saw himself, a heart of darkness and pain beyond understanding.

“Sever told me there was only one man, but he also said we wouldn’t find him, and

even if we did it wouldn’t matter.”

Arkadin frowned, giving him the canny, feral appearance of a wolf. “What did he

mean?”

“I’m not sure.” He turned, walking down the deck toward the crew members who had

cleared the space for the copter to land. “What we’re looking for,” he said as Arkadin fell into step beside him, “is a tattoo specific to the Black Legion.”

“The wheel of horses with the death’s head center.” Arkadin nodded. “I’ve seen it.”

“It’s on the inside of the elbow.”

“We could kill them all.” Arkadin laughed. “But I guess that would offend something

inside you.”

One by one, the two men examined the arms of the eight crewmen on deck, but found

no tattoo. By the time they reached the wheelhouse, the tanker was within two miles of

the terminal. It was barely moving. Four tugboats had hove to and were waiting at the

one-mile limit to tow the tanker the rest of the way in.

The captain was a swarthy individual with a face that looked like it had been deeply

etched by acid rather than the wind and the sun. “As I was telling Ms. Trevor, there are

seven more crewmen, mostly involved in engine room duties. Then there’s my first mate

here, the communications officer, and the ship’s doctor, he’s in sick bay, tending to a

crewman who fell ill two days out of Algeria. Oh, yes, and the cook.”

Bourne and Arkadin glanced at each other. The radioman seemed the logical choice,

but when the captain summoned him he, too, was without the Black Legion tattoo. So

were the captain and his first mate.

“The engine room,” Bourne said.

At his captain’s orders, the first mate led them out onto the deck, then down the

starboard companionway into the bowels of the ship, reaching the enormous engine room

at last. Five men were hard at work, their faces and arms filthy with a coating of grease

and grime. As the first mate instructed them, they held out their arms, but as Bourne

reached the third in line, the fourth man looked at them beneath half-closed lids before he bolted.

Bourne went after him while Arkadin circled, snaking through the oily city of grinding

machinery. He eluded Bourne once but then, rounding a corner, Bourne spotted him near

the line of gigantic Hyundai diesel engines, specifically designed to power the world’s

fleet of LNG tankers. He was trying to furtively shove a small box between the structural

struts of the engine, but Arkadin, coming up behind him, grabbed for his wrist. The

crewman jerked away, brought the box back toward him, and was about to thumb a

button on it when Bourne kicked it out of his hand. The box went flying, and Arkadin

dived after it.

“Careful,” the crewman said as Bourne grabbed hold of him. He ignored Bourne, was

staring at the box Arkadin brought back to them. “You hold the whole world in your

hand.”

Meanwhile Bourne pushed up his shirtsleeve. The man’s arm was smeared with grease,

deliberately so, it seemed, because when Bourne took a rag and wiped it off, the Black

Legion tattoo appeared on the inside of his left elbow.

The man seemed totally unconcerned. His entire being was focused on the box that

Arkadin was holding. “That will blow up everything,” he said, and made a lunge toward

it. Bourne jerked him back with a stranglehold.

“Let’s get him back up to the captain,” Bourne said to the first mate. That’s when he

saw the box up close. He took it out of Arkadin’s hand.

“Careful!” the crewman cried. “One slight jar and you’ll set it off.”

But Bourne wasn’t so sure. The crewman was being too vocal with his warnings.

Wouldn’t he want the ship to blow now that it had been boarded by Sever’s enemies?

When he turned the box over, he saw that the seam between the bottom and the side was

ragged.

“What are you doing? Are you crazy?” The crewman was so agitated that Arkadin

slapped him on the side of the head in order to silence him.

Inserting his fingernail into the seam, Bourne pried the box apart. There was nothing

inside. It was a dummy.

Moira found it impossible to stay in one place. Her nerves were stretched to the

breaking point. The tanker was on the verge of meeting up with the tugboats; they were

only a mile from shore. If the tanks went, the devastation to both human life and the

country’s economy would be catastrophic. She felt useless, a third wheel hanging around

while the two men did their hunting.

Exiting the wheelhouse, she went belowdecks, looking for the engine room. Smelling

food, she poked her head into the galley. A large Algerian was sitting at the stainless-

steel mess table, reading a two-week-old Arabic newspaper.

He looked up, gesturing at the paper. “It gets old the fifteenth time through, but when

you’re at sea what can you do?”

His burly arms were bare to the shoulders. They bore tattoos of a star, a crescent, and a

cross, but not the Black Legion’s insignia. Following the directions he gave her, she

found the infirmary three decks below. Inside, a slim Muslim was sitting at a small desk

built into one of the bulkheads. In the opposite bulkhead were two berths, one of them

filled with the patient who had fallen ill. The doctor murmured a traditional Muslim

greeting as he turned away from his laptop computer to face her. He frowned deeply

when he saw the crossbow in her hands.

“Is that really necessary,” he said, “or even wise?”

“I’d like to speak with your patient,” Moira said, ignoring him.

“I’m afraid that’s impossible.” The doctor smiled that smile only doctors can. “He’s

been sedated.”

“What’s wrong with him?”

The doctor gestured at the laptop. “I’m still trying to find out. He’s been subject to

seizures, but so far I can’t find the pathology.”

“We’re near Long Beach, you’ll get help then,” she said. “I just need to see the insides

of his elbows.”

The doctor’s eyebrows rose. “I beg your pardon?”

“I need to see whether he’s got a tattoo.”

“They all have tattoos, these sailors.” The doctor shrugged. “But go ahead. You won’t

disturb him.”

Moira approached the lower berth, bending over to pull the thin blanket back from the

patient’s arm. As she did so, the doctor stepped forward and struck her a blow on the

back of her head. She fell forward and cracked her jaw on the metal frame of the bunk.

The pain pulled her rudely back from a precipice of blackness, and, groaning, she

managed to roll over. The copper-sweet taste of blood was in her mouth and she fought

against wave after wave of dizziness. Dimly she saw the doctor bent over his laptop, his

fingers racing over the keys, and she felt a ball of ice form in her belly.

He’s going to kill us all. With this thought reverberating in her head, she grabbed the

crossbow off the floor where she’d dropped it. She barely had time to aim, but she was

close enough not to have to be accurate. She breathed a prayer as she let fly.

The doctor arched up as the bolt pierced his spine. He staggered backward, toward

where Moira sat, braced against the berth frame. His arms extended, his fingers clawing

for the keyboard, and Moira rose, swung the crossbow into the back of his head. His

blood spattered like rain over her face and hands, the desk, and the laptop’s keyboard.

Bourne found her on the floor of the infirmary, cradling the computer in her lap. When

he came in, she looked up at him and said, “I don’t know what he did. I’m afraid to shut

it off.”

“Are you all right?”

She nodded. “The ship’s doctor was Sever’s man.”

“So I see,” he said as he stepped over the corpse. “I didn’t believe him when he told

me he had only one man on board. It would be like him to have a backup.”

He knelt down, examined the back of her head. “It’s superficial. Did you black out?”

“I don’t think so, no.”

He took a large gauze pad from the supply cabinet, doused it with alcohol. “Ready?”

He placed it against the back of her head, where her hair was plastered down with blood.

She moaned a little through gritted teeth.

“Can you hold it in place for a minute?”

She nodded, and gently Bourne lifted the laptop into his arms. There was a software

program running, that much was clear. Two radio buttons on the screen were blinking,

one yellow, the other red. On the other side of the screen was a green radio button, which

wasn’t blinking.

Bourne breathed a sigh of relief. “He brought up the program, but you got to him

before he could activate it.”

“Thank God,” she said. “Where Arkadin?”

“I don’t know. When the captain told me you’d gone below I took off after you.”

“Jason, you don’t think…”

Putting the computer aside, he helped her to her feet. “Let’s get you back up to the

captain so you can give him the good news.”

There was a fearful look on his face. “And you?”

He handed her the laptop. “Go to the wheelhouse and stay there. And Moira, this time I

really mean it.”

With the crossbow in one hand, he stepped into the passageway, looked right and left.

“All right. Go. Go!”

Arkadin had returned to Nizhny Tagil. Down in the engine room, surrounded by steel

and iron, he realized that no matter what had happened to him, no matter where he’d

gone, he’d never been able to escape the prison of his youth. Part of him was still in the

brothel he and Stas Kuzin had owned, part of him still stalked the nighttime streets,

abducting young girls, their pale, fearful faces turned toward him as deer turn toward

headlights. But what they’d needed from him he couldn’t-or wouldn’t-give them. Instead,

he’d sent them to their deaths in the quicklime pit Kuzin’s regime had dug amid the firs

and the weeping hemlocks. Many snows had passed since he’d dragged Yelena from the

rats and the quicklime, but the pit remained in his memory, vivid as a blaze of fire. If

only he could have his memory wiped clean.

He started at the sound of Stas Kuzin screaming at him. What about all your victims?

But it was Bourne, descending the steel companionway to the engine room. “It’s over,

Arkadin. The disaster has been averted.”

Arkadin nodded, but inside he knew better: The disaster had already occurred, and it

was too late to stop its consequences. As he walked toward Bourne he tried to fix him in

his mind, but he seemed to morph, like an image seen through a prism.

When he was within arm’s length of him, he said, “Is it true what Sever told Icoupov,

that you have no memory beyond a certain point in time?”

Bourne nodded. “It’s true. I can’t remember most of my life.”

Arkadin felt a terrible pain, as if the very fabric of his soul was being torn apart. With

an inchoate cry, he flicked open his switchblade, lunged forward, aiming for Bourne’s

belly.

Turning sideways, Bourne grabbed his wrist, began to turn it in an attempt to get

Arkadin to drop the weapon. Arkadin struck out with his other hand, but Bourne blocked

it with his forearm. In doing so, the crossbow clattered to the deck. Arkadin kicked it into the shadows.

“It doesn’t have to be this way,” Bourne said. “There’s no reason for us to be

enemies.”

“There’s every reason.” Arkadin broke away, tried another attack, which Bourne

countered. “Don’t you see it? We’re the same, you and me. The two of us can’t exist in

the same world. One of us will kill the other.”

Bourne stared into Arkadin’s eyes, and even though his words were those of a madmen

Bourne saw no madness in them. Only a despair beyond description, and an unyielding

will for revenge. In a way, Arkadin was right. Revenge was all he had now, all he lived

for. With Tarkanian and Devra gone, the only meaning life had for him lay in avenging

their deaths. There was nothing Bourne could say to sway him; that was a rational

response to an irrational impulse. It was true, the two of them couldn’t exist in the same

world.

At that moment Arkadin feinted right with his knife, drove left with his fist, rocking

Bourne back onto his heels. At once he stabbed out with the switchblade, burying it in the

meat of Bourne’s left thigh. Bourne grunted, fought the buckling of his knee, and

Arkadin jammed his boot into Bourne’s wounded thigh. Blood spurted, and Bourne fell.

Arkadin jumped on him, using his fist to pummel Bourne’s face when Bourne blocked

his knife stabs.

Bourne knew he couldn’t take much more of this. Arkadin’s desire for revenge had

filled him with an inhuman strength. Bourne, fighting for his very life, managed to

counterpunch long enough to roll out from under Arkadin. Then he was up and running in

an ungainly limp to the companionway.

Arkadin reached up for him as he was half a dozen rungs off the engine room deck.

Bourne kicked out with his bad leg, surprising Arkadin, catching him under the chin. As

he fell back, Bourne scrambled up the rungs as fast as he could. His left leg was on fire,

and he was trailing blood as the wounded muscle was forced to work overtime.

Gaining the next deck, he continued up the companionway, up and up, until he came to

the first level belowdecks, which according to Moira was where the galley was. Finding

it, he raced in, grabbed two knives and a glass saltshaker. Stuffing the shaker into his

pocket, he wielded the knives as Arkadin loomed in the doorway.

They fought with their knives, but Bourne’s unwieldy carving knives were no match

for Arkadin’s slender-bladed switchblade, and Bourne was cut again, this time in the

chest. He kicked Arkadin in the face, dropped his knives in order to wrest the switchblade

out of Arkadin’s hand, to no avail. Arkadin stabbed at him again and Bourne nearly

suffered a punctured liver. He backed away, then ran out the doorway, up the last

companionway to the open deck.

The tanker was at a near stop. The captain was busy coordinating the hookups with the

tugboats that would bring it the final distance to the LNG terminal. Bourne couldn’t see

Moira, which was a blessing. He didn’t want her anywhere near Arkadin.

Bourne, heading for the sanctuary of the container city, was bowled over as Arkadin

leapt on him. Locked together, they rolled over and over until they fetched up against the

port railing. The sea was far below them, churning against the tanker’s hull. One of the

tugs signaled with its horn as it came alongside, and Arkadin stiffened. To him it was the

siren sounding an escape from one of Nizhny Tagil’s prisons. He saw the black skies,

tasted the sulfur smoke in his lungs. He saw Stas Kuzin’s monstrous face, felt Marlene’s

head between his ankles beneath the water, heard the terrible reports when Semion

Icoupov shot Devra.

He screamed like a tiger, pulling Bourne to his feet, pummeling him over and over

until he was bent back over the railing. In that moment, Bourne knew that he was going

to die as he had been born, falling over the side of a ship, lost in the depth of the sea, and only by the grace of God being brought in to a fishing boat with their catch. His face was

bloody and swollen, his arms felt like lead weights, he was going over.

Then, at the last instant, he pulled the shaker from his pocket, broke it against the rail, and threw the salt in Arkadin’s eyes. Arkadin bellowed in shock and pain, his hand flew

up reflexively, and Bourne snatched the switchblade from him. Blinded, Arkadin still

fought on, and he grasped the blade. With a superhuman effort, not caring that the edges

cut into his fingers, he wrested the switchblade away from Bourne. Bourne heaved him

backward. But Arkadin had control of the knife now, he had partial vision back through

his tearing eyes, and he ran at Bourne with his head tucked into his shoulders, all his

weight and determination behind the charge.

Bourne had one chance. Stepping into the charge, he ignored the knife, grabbed

Arkadin by his uniform jacket and, using his own momentum against him, pivoted from

the hip as he swung him around and up. Arkadin’s thighs struck the railing, his upper

body continuing its flight, so that he toppled head-over-heels over the side.

Falling, falling, falling… the equivalent of twelve stories, before plunging beneath the

waves.

Forty-Five

I NEED A VACATION, “Moira said. “I’m thinking Bali would do me quite well.”

She and Bourne were in the NextGen clinic in one of the campus buildings that

overlooked the Pacific. The Moon of Hormuz had successfully docked at the LNG

terminal and the cargo of the highly compressed liquid was being piped from the tanker

to onshore containers where it would be slowly warmed, expanding to six hundred times

its present volume so it could be used by individual consumers and utility and business

power plants. The laptop had been turned over to the NextGen IT department, so the

software could be parsed and permanently shut down. The grateful CEO of NextGen had

just left the clinic, after promoting Moira to president of the security division and offering Bourne a highly lucrative consulting position with the firm. Bourne had phoned Soraya,

each of them bringing the other up to date. He’d given her the address of Sever’s house,

detailing the clandestine operation it housed.

“I wish I knew what a vacation felt like,” Bourne said when he’d finished the call.

“Well…” Moira smiled at him. “You’ve only to ask.”

Bourne considered for a long time. Vacations were something he’d never

contemplated, but if ever there was a time to take one, he thought, this was it. He looked

back at her and nodded.

Her smile broadened. “I’ll have NextGen make all the arrangements. How long do you

want to go for?”

“How long?” Bourne said. “Right now, I’ll take forever.”

On his way to the airport, Bourne stopped at the Long Beach Memorial Medical