Текст книги "The Bourne Sanction (Санкция Борна)"

Автор книги: Eric Van Lustbader

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can, sending it barreling down the sidewalk as shocked pedestrians scattered helter-

skelter. Pain shot through him and he might have been finished, but the driver could not

keep the Cadillac in its spin any longer. Traffic forced him to straighten out the car’s

trajectory. Bourne took advantage to swing himself back up onto the trunk. His right fist

plunged through the shattered rear window, seeking a second, more secure hold. The car

was accelerating again as it bypassed the last of the bunched-up local traffic, gained the

ramp onto Whitehurst Freeway. Bourne tucked his legs up under him, braced on his

knees.

As they passed into shadow beneath the Francis Scott Key Bridge the man who had

shoved Specter into the backseat thrust a Taurus PT140 through the gap in the broken

glass. The handgun’s muzzle turned toward Bourne as the man prepared to fire. Bourne

let go with his right hand, gripped the man’s wrist, and jerked hard, bringing the entire

forearm into the open air. The motion pushed back the sleeve of the man’s coat and shirt.

He saw a peculiar tattoo on the inside of the forearm: three horses’ heads joined by a

central skull. He slammed his right knee into the inside of the man’s elbow, at the same

time pushed it back against the frame of the car. With a satisfying crack, it broke, the

hand opened, the Taurus fell away. Bourne made a grab for it, but missed.

The Cadillac swerved into the left lane and the pulp hook, ripping through the fabric of

the backseat, was forced out of Bourne’s hand. He gripped the gunman’s broken arm with

both hands, used it to lever himself through the ruined rear window feetfirst.

He landed between the man with the broken arm and Specter, who was huddled against

the left-hand door. The man in the front passenger’s seat was kneeling on the seat, turned

toward him. He also had a Taurus, which he aimed at Bourne. Bourne grabbed the body

of the man beside him, shifted him so that the shot plowed into the man’s chest, killing

him instantly. At once Bourne heaved the corpse against the gunman in the front bench

seat. The gunman swiped the corpse in the shoulder in an attempt to move him away, but

this only brought the corpse in contact with the driver, who had put on a burst of speed

and who seemed to be focused solely on weaving in and out of the traffic.

Bourne punched the gunman in the nose. Blood spattered as the gunman was thrown

off his knees, jolted back against the dashboard. As Bourne moved to follow up his

advantage, the gunman aimed the Taurus at Specter.

“Get back,” he shouted, “or I’ll kill him.”

Bourne judged the moment. If the men had wanted to kill Specter they’d have gunned

him down in the street. Since they grabbed him, they must need him alive.

“All right.” Unseen by the gunman, his right hand scraped along the cushion of the

backseat. As he raised his hands, he flicked a palmful of glass chips into the gunman’s

face. As the man’s hands instinctively went up, Bourne chopped him twice with the edge

of his hand. The gunman drew out a push dagger, the wicked-looking blade protruding

from between his second and third knuckles. He jabbed it directly at Bourne’s face.

Bourne ducked; the blade followed him, moving closer until Bourne slammed his fist into

the side of the gunman’s head, which snapped back against the rear doorpost. Bourne

heard the crack as his neck broke. The gunman’s eyes rolled up and he slumped against

the door.

Bourne locked his crooked arm around the driver’s neck, pulled back hard. The driver

began to choke. He whipped his head back and forth, trying to free himself. As he did so,

the car swerved from one lane to another. The car began to swerve dangerously as he lost

consciousness. Bourne climbed over the seat, pushing the driver off, down into the

passenger’s-side foot well, so that he could slide behind the wheel. The trouble was

though Bourne could steer, the driver’s body was blocking the pedals.

The Cadillac was now out of control. It hit a car in the left lane, bounced off to the

right. Instead of fighting against the resulting spin, Bourne turned into it. At the same

time, he shifted the car into neutral. Instantly the transmission disengaged; the engine was no longer being fed gas. Now its immediate momentum was the issue. Bourne, struggling

to gain control, found his foot blocked from the brake by part of a leg. He steered right,

jouncing over the divider and into an enormous parking lot that lay between the freeway

and the Potomac.

The Cadillac sideswiped a parked SUV, careened farther to the right toward the water.

Bourne kicked the unconscious driver’s inert body with his bare left foot, at last finding

the brake pedal. The car finally slowed, but not enough-they were still heading toward the

Potomac. Whipping the wheel hard to the right caused the Cadillac’s tires to shriek as

Bourne tried to turn the car away from the low barrier that separated the lot from the

water. As the front end of the Cadillac went up over the barrier, Bourne jammed the

brake pedal to the floor, and the car came to a halt partway over the side. It teetered

precariously back and forth. Specter, still huddled in the backseat behind Bourne, moaned

a little, the right sleeve of his Harris Tweed jacket spattered with blood from his captor’s broken nose.

Bourne, trying to keep the Cadillac out of the Potomac, sensed that the front wheels

were still on the top of the barrier. He threw the car into reverse. The Cadillac shot

backward, slamming into another parked car before Bourne had a chance to shift back

into neutral.

From far away he could hear the seesaw wail of sirens.

“Professor, are you all right?”

Specter groaned, but at least his voice was more distinct. “We have to get out of here.”

Bourne was freeing the pedals from the strangled man’s legs. “That tattoo I saw on the

gunman’s arm-”

“No police,” Specter managed to croak. “There’s a place we can go. I’ll tell you.”

Bourne got out of the Caddy, then helped Specter out. Limping over to another car,

Bourne smashed the window with his elbow. The police sirens were coming closer.

Bourne got in, hot-wired the ignition, and the car’s engine coughed to life. He unlocked

the doors. The instant the professor slid into the passenger’s seat Bourne took off,

heading east on the freeway. As quickly as he could he moved into the left-hand lane.

Then he turned abruptly to his left. The car jumped the central divider and he accelerated, heading west now, in the opposite direction the sirens were coming from.

Six

ARKADIN TOOK his evening meal at Tractir on Bolshaya Morsekay, halfway up the

steep hill, a typically unlovely place with roughly varnished wooden tables and chairs.

Almost one entire wall was taken up by a painting of three-masted ships in Sevastopol

harbor circa 1900. The food was unremarkable, but that wasn’t why Arkadin was here.

Tractir was the restaurant whose name he’d found in Oleg Ivanovich Shumenko’s wallet.

No one here knew anyone named Devra, so after the borscht and the blini, he moved on.

Along the coast was a section called Omega, filled with cafйs and restaurants. As the

hub of the city’s nightlife culture, it featured every variety of club one could want. Calla was a club a short stroll from the open-air car park. The night was clear and brisk.

Pinpoints dotted the Black Sea as well as the sky, making for a dizzying vista. Sea and

sky seemed to be virtually interchangeable.

Calla was several steps down from the sidewalk, a place filled with the sweet scent of

marijuana and an unearthly din. A roughly square room was divided between a jam-

packed dance floor and a raised section filled with minuscule round tables and metal cafй

chairs. A grid of colored lights pulsed in time with the house music the straw-thin female

DJ was spinning. She stood behind a small stand on which was set an iPod hooked up to

a number of digital mixing machines.

The dance floor was packed with men and women. Bumping hips and elbows was part

of the scene. Arkadin picked his way over to the bar, which ran along the front of the

right wall. Twice he was intercepted by young, busty blondes who wanted his attention

and, he assumed, his money. He brushed past them, made a beeline for the harried

bartender. Three tiers of glass shelves filled with liquor bottles were attached to a mirror on the wall behind the bar so patrons could check out the action or admire themselves

while getting polluted.

Arkadin was obliged to wade through a phalanx of revelers before he could order a

Stoli on the rocks. When, some time later, the bartender returned with his drink, Arkadin

asked him if he knew a Devra.

“Yah, sure. Over there,” he said, nodding in the direction of the straw-thin DJ.

It was 1 AM before Devra took a break. There were other people waiting for her to

finish-fans, Arkadin presumed. He intended to get to her first. He used the force of his

personality rather than his false credentials. Not that the rabble here would challenge

them, but after the incident at the winery, he didn’t want to leave any trail for the real

SBU to follow. The state police alias he’d used there was now dangerous to him.

Devra was blond, almost as tall as he was. He couldn’t believe how thin her arms were.

They had no definition at all. Her hips were no wider than a young boy’s, and he could

see the bones of her scapulae when she moved. She had large eyes and dead-white skin,

as if she rarely saw the light of day. Her black jumpsuit with its white skull and

crossbones across the stomach was drenched in sweat. Perhaps because of her DJing, her

hands were in constant motion even if the rest of her stayed relatively still.

She eyed him up and down while he introduced himself. “You don’t look like a friend

of Oleg’s,” she said.

But when he dangled the IOU in front of her face her skepticism evaporated. Thus is it

ever, Arkadin thought as she led him backstage. The venality of the human race cannot

be overestimated.

The green room where she relaxed between sets was better off left to the wharf rats

that were no doubt shuttered behind the walls, but right now that couldn’t be helped. He

tried not to think of the rats; he wouldn’t be here long anyway. There were no windows;

the walls and ceiling were painted black, no doubt to cover up a multitude of sins.

Devra turned on a lamp with a mean forty-watt bulb and sat down on a wooden chair

damaged by knife scars and cigarette burns. The difference between the green room and

an interrogation cell was negligible. There were no other chairs or furniture, save for a

narrow wooden table against one wall on which was a jumble of makeup, CDs,

cigarettes, matches, gloves, and other piles of debris Arkadin didn’t bother to identify.

Devra leaned back, lit a cigarette she nimbly swiped from the table without offering

him one. “So you’re here to pay off Oleg’s debt.”

“In a sense.”

Her eyes narrowed, making her look a lot like a stoat Arkadin had once shot outside St.

Petersburg.

“Meaning what, exactly?”

Arkadin produced the bills. “I have the money he owes you right here.” As she reached

out for it, he pulled it away. “In return I’d like some information.”

Devra laughed. “What do I look like, the phone operator?”

Arkadin hit her hard with the back of his hand, so that she crashed into the table. Tubes

of lipstick and mascara went rolling and tumbling. Devra put a hand out to steady herself,

fingers clutching through the morass.

When she pulled out a small handgun Arkadin was ready. His fist hammered her

delicate wrist and he plucked the handgun from her numb fingers.

“Now,” he said, setting her back on the chair, “are you ready to continue?”

Devra looked at him sullenly. “I knew this was too good to be true.” She spat. “Shit!

No good deed goes unpunished.”

Arkadin took a moment to process what she was really saying. Then he said, “Why did

Shumenko need the ten thousand hryvnia?”

“So I was right. You’re not a friend of his.”

“Does it matter?” Arkadin emptied the handgun, broke it down without taking his eyes

off her, tossed the pieces onto the table. “This is between you and me now.”

“I think not,” a deep male voice said from behind him.

“Filya,” Devra breathed. “What took you so long?”

Arkadin did not turn around. He’d heard the click of the switchblade, knew what he

was up against. He eyeballed the mess on the table, and when he saw the double half-

moon grips of scissors peeping out from under a small pyramid of CD cases, he fixed

their location in his mind, then turned around.

As if startled by the big man with heavily pocked cheeks and new hair plugs, he

retreated up against the edge of the table.

“Who the hell’re you? This is a private discussion.” Arkadin spoke more to distract

Filya from his left hand moving behind him along the tabletop.

“Devra is mine.” Filya brandished the long, cruel blade of the handmade switchblade.

“No one talks to her without my permission.”

Arkadin smiled thinly. “I wasn’t talking to her so much as threatening her.”

The idea was to antagonize Filya to the point that he’d do something precipitous and,

therefore, stupid, and Arkadin succeeded admirably. With a growl, Filya rushed him,

knife blade extended, tilted slightly upward.

With only one shot at a surprise maneuver, Arkadin had to make the most of it. The

fingers of his left hand had gripped the scissors. They were small, which was just as well; he had no intention of again killing someone who might provide useful information. He

lifted them, calculating their weight. Then as he brought the scissors around the side of

his body, he flicked his wrist, a deceptively small gesture that was nevertheless all power.

Released from his grip, the scissors flew through the air, embedding in the soft spot just

below Filya’s sternum.

Filya’s eyes opened wide as his headlong rush faltered two paces from Arkadin, then

he resumed his advance, brandishing the knife. Arkadin ducked away from the sweeping

arc of the blade. He grappled with Filya, wanting only to wear him out, let the wound in

his chest sap his strength, but Filya wasn’t having any. Being stabbed had only enraged

him. With superhuman strength he broke Arkadin’s grip on the wrist that held the

switchblade, swung it from a low point upward, breaking through Arkadin’s defense. The

point of the blade blurred toward Arkadin’s face. Too late to stop the attack, Arkadin

reacted instinctively, managing to deflect the stab at the last instant, so that the point

drove through Filya’s own throat.

An arcing veil of blood caused Devra to scream. As she stumbled backward, Arkadin

reached for her. Clamping one hand over her mouth, he shook his head. Her ashen cheeks

and forehead were spattered with blood. Arkadin supported Filya in the crook of one arm.

The man was dying. Arkadin had never meant this to happen. First Shumenko, now Filya.

If he had believed in such things, he would have said that the assignment was cursed.

“Filya!” He slapped the man, whose eyes had turned glassy. Blood leaked out of the

side of Filya’s slack mouth. “The package. Where is it?”

For a moment, Filya’s eyes focused on him. When Arkadin repeated his question a

curious smile took Filya down into death. Arkadin held him for a moment more before

propping him up against a wall.

As he returned his attention to Devra he saw a rat glowering from a corner, and his

gorge rose. It took all his willpower not to abandon the girl to go after it, rip it limb from limb.

“Now,” he said, “it’s just you and me.”

Making certain he wasn’t being followed, Rob Batt pulled into the parking lot adjacent

to the Tysons Corner Baptist Church. He sat waiting in his car. From time to time, he

checked his watch.

Under the late DCI, he had been chief of operations, the most influential of CI’s seven

directorate heads. He was of the Beltway old school with connections that ran directly

back to Yale’s legendary Skull & Bones Club, of which he’d been an officer during his

college days. Just how many Skull & Bones men had been recruited into America’s

clandestine services was one of those secrets its keepers would kill to protect. Suffice it to say it was many, and Batt was one of them. It was particularly galling for him to play

second fiddle to an outsider-and a female, at that. The Old Man would never have

tolerated such an outrage, but the Old Man was gone, murdered in his own home

reportedly by his traitorous assistant, Anne Held. Though Batt-and others of his brethren-

had his doubts about that.

What a difference three months made. Had the Old Man still been alive he’d never

have considered even consenting to this meet. Batt was a loyal man, but his loyalty, he

realized, extended to the man who had reached out to him in grad school, recruited him to

CI. Those were the old days, though. The new order was in place, and it wasn’t fair. He

hadn’t been part of the problem caused by Martin Lindros and Jason Bourne-he’d been

part of the solution. He’d even been suspicious of the man who’d turned out to be an

impostor. He would have exposed him had Bourne not interfered. That coup, Batt knew,

would have scored him the inside track with the Old Man.

But with the Old Man gone, his lobbying for the directorship had been to no avail.

Instead, the president had opted for Veronica Hart. God alone knew why. It was such a

colossal mistake; she’d just run CI into the ground. A woman wasn’t constructed to make

the kinds of decisions necessary to captain the CI ship. The priorities and ways of

approaching problems were different with women. The hounds of the NSA were circling

CI, and he couldn’t bear watching this woman turn them all, the entire company, into

carrion for the feast. At least Batt could join the people who would inevitably take over

when Hart fucked up. Even so, it pained him to be here, to embark upon this unknown

sea.

At 10:30 AM the doors to the church swung open, the parishioners came down the

stairs, stood in the wan sunshine, turning their heads up like sunflowers at dawn. The

ministers appeared, walking side by side with Luther LaValle. LaValle was accompanied

by his wife and teenage son. The two men stood chatting while the family grouped

loosely around. LaValle’s wife seemed interested in the conversation, but the son was

busy ogling a girl more or less his age who was prancing down the stairs. She was a

beauty, Batt had to admit. Then, with a start, he realized that she was one of General

Kendall’s three daughters, because here Kendall was with his arm around his stubby

wife. How the two of them could have produced a trio of such handsome girls was

anyone’s guess. Even Darwin couldn’t have figured it out, Batt thought.

The two families-the LaValles and the Kendalls-gathered in a loose huddle as if they

were a football team. Then the kids went their own ways, some in cars, others on bicycles

because the church wasn’t far from their homes. The two wives chastely kissed their

husbands, piled into a Cadillac Escalade, and took off.

That left the two men, who stood for a moment in front of the church before coming

around to the parking lot. Not a word had been exchanged between them. Batt heard a

heavyweight engine cough to life.

A long black armored limousine came cruising down the aisle like a sleek shark. It

stopped briefly while LaValle and Kendall climbed inside. Its engine, idling, sent small

puffs of exhaust into the cool, crisp air. Batt counted to thirty and, as he’d been

instructed, got out of his car. As he did so, the rear door of the limo popped open.

Ducking his head, he climbed into the dim, plush interior. The door closed behind him.

“Gentlemen,” he said, folding himself onto the bench seat opposite them. The two men

sat side by side in the limo’s backseat: Luther LaValle, the Pentagon’s intel czar, and his second, General Richard P. Kendall.

“So kind of you to join us,” LaValle said.

Kindness had nothing to do with it, Batt thought. A convergence of objectives did.

“The pleasure’s all mine, gentlemen. I’m flattered and, if I may be frank, grateful that

you reached out to me.”

“We’re here,” General Kendall said, “to speak frankly.”

“We’ve opposed the appointment of Veronica Hart from the start,” LaValle said. “The

secretary of defense made his opinion quite clear to the president. However, others,

including the national security adviser and the secretary of state-who, as you know, is a

personal friend of the president-both lobbied for an outsider from the private security

sector.”

“Bad enough,” Batt said. “And a woman.”

“Precisely.” General Kendall nodded. “It’s madness.”

LaValle stirred. “It’s the clearest sign yet of the deterioration of our defense grid that

Secretary Halliday has been warning against for several years now.”

“When we start listening to Congress and the people of the country all hope is lost,”

Kendall said. “A mulligan stew of amateurs all with petty axes to grind and absolutely no

idea of how to maintain security or run the intelligence services.”

LaValle gave off an icy smile. “That’s why the secretary of defense has labored

mightily to keep the workings clandestine.”

“The more they know, the less they understand,” General Kendall said, “and the more

inclined they are to interfere by means of their congressional hearings and threats of

budgets cuts.”

“Oversight is a bitch,” LaValle agreed. “Which is why areas of the Pentagon under my

control are working without it.” He paused for a moment, studying Batt. “How does that

sound to you, Deputy Director?”

“Like manna from heaven.”

Oleg had screwed up big time,” Devra said.

Arkadin took a stab. “He got in over his head with loan sharks?”

She shook her head. “That was last year. It had to do with Pyotr Zilber.”

Arkadin’s ears pricked up. “What about him?”

“I don’t know.” Her eyes opened wide as Arkadin raised his fist. “I swear it.”

“But you’re part of Zilber’s network.”

She turned her head away from him, as if she couldn’t stand herself. “A minor part. I

shuffle things from here to there.”

“Within the past week Shumenko gave you a document.”

“He gave me a package, I don’t know what was in it,” Devra said. “It was sealed.”

“Compartmentalization.”

“What?” She looked up at him. Blood beads on her face looked like freckles. Tears had

caused her mascara to run, giving her dark half circles under her eyes.

“The first principle of putting together a cadre.” Arkadin nodded. “Go on.”

She shrugged. “That’s all I know.”

“What about the package?”

“I passed it on, as I was instructed to do.”

Arkadin bent over her. “Who did you give it to?”

She glanced at the crumpled form on the floor. “I gave it to Filya.”

LaValle had paused a moment to reflect. “We never knew each other at Yale.”

“You were two years ahead of me,” Batt said. “But in Skull and Bones you were

notorious.”

LaValle laughed. “Now you flatter me.”

“Hardly.” Batt unbuttoned his overcoat. “The stories I heard.”

LaValle frowned. “Are never to be repeated.”

General Kendall let loose with a guffaw that filled the compartment. “Should I leave

you two girls alone? Better not; one of you could wind up pregnant.”

The comment was meant as a joke, of course, but there was a nasty undercurrent to it.

Did the military man resent his exclusion from the elite club, or the connection the other

two had through Skull & Bones? Possibly it was a bit of both. In any event, Batt noted

the second’s tone of voice, tucked the possible implications into a place where he could

examine them later.

“What d’you have in mind, Mr. LaValle?”

“I’m looking for a way to convince the president that his more immoderate advisers

made a mistake in recommending Veronica Hart for DCI.” LaValle pursed his lips. “Any

ideas?”

“Off the top of my head, plenty,” Batt said. “What’s in it for me?”

As if on cue LaValle produced another smile. “We’re going to require a new DCI

when we can Hart’s ass out of the District. Who would be your first choice?”

“The current deputy director seems the logical one,” Batt said. “That would be me.”

LaValle nodded. “Our thought precisely.”

Batt tapped his fingertips against his knee. “If you two are serious.”

“We are, I assure you.”

Batt’s mind worked furiously. “It seems to me unwise at this early juncture to have

attacked Hart directly.”

“How about you don’t tell us our business,” Kendall said.

LaValle held up a hand. “Let’s hear what the man has to say, Richard.” To Batt, he

added, “However, let me make something crystal clear. We want Hart out as soon as

possible.”

“We all do, but you don’t want suspicion thrown back at you-or at the defense

secretary.”

LaValle and General Kendall exchanged a quick and knowing look. They were like

twins, able to communicate with each other without uttering a word. “Indeed not,”

LaValle said.

“She told me how you ambushed her at that meeting with the president-and the threats

you made to her outside the White House.”

“Women are more easily intimidated than men,” Kendall pointed out. “It’s a well-

known fact.”

Batt ignored the military man. “You put her on notice. She took your threats very

personally. She had a killer’s rep in Black River. I checked through my sources.”

LaValle seemed thoughtful. “How would you have handled her?”

“I would have made nice, welcomed her to the fold, let her know you’re there for her

whenever she needs your help.”

“She’d never have bought it,” LaValle said. “She knows my agenda.”

“It doesn’t matter. The idea is not to antagonize her. You don’t want her knives out

when you come for her.”

LaValle nodded, as if he saw the wisdom in this approach. “So how do you suggest we

proceed from here?”

“Give me some time,” Batt said. “Hart’s just getting started at CI, and because I’m her

deputy I know everything she does, every decision she makes. But when she’s out of the

office, shadow her, see where she goes, who she meets. Using parabolic mikes you can

listen in to her conversations. Between us, we’ll have her covered twenty-four/seven.”

“Sounds pretty vanilla to me,” Kendall said skeptically.

“Keep it simple, especially when there’s so much at stake, that’s my advice,” Batt said.

“What if she cottons on to the surveillance?” Kendall said.

Batt smiled. “So much the better. It’ll only bolster the CI mantra that the NSA is run

by incompetents.”

LaValle laughed. “Batt, I like the way you think.”

Batt nodded, acknowledging the compliment. “Coming from the private sector Hart’s

not used to government procedure. She doesn’t have the leeway she enjoyed at Black

River. I can already see that, to her, rules and regs are meant to be bent, sidestepped,

even, on occasion, broken. Mark my words, sooner rather than later, Director Hart is

going to give us the ammunition we need to kick her butt out of CI.”

Seven

HOW IS your foot, Jason?”

Bourne looked up at Professor Specter, whose face was swollen and discolored. His

left eye was half closed, dark as a storm cloud.

“Yes,” Specter said, “after what just happened I’m compelled to call you by what

seems like your rightful name.”

“My heel is fine,” Bourne said. “It’s me who should be asking about you.”

Specter put fingertips gingerly against his cheek. “In my life I’ve endured worse

beatings.”

The two men were seated in a high-ceilinged library filled with a large, magnificent

Isfahan carpet, ox-blood leather furniture. Three walls were fitted floor-to-ceiling with

books neatly arrayed on mahogany shelves. The fourth wall was pierced by a large

leaded-glass window overlooking stands of stately firs on a knoll, which sloped down to

a pond guarded by a weeping willow, shivering in the wind.

Specter’s personal physician had been summoned, but the professor had insisted the

doctor tend to Bourne’s flayed heel first.

“I’m sure we can find you a pair of shoes somewhere,” Specter said, sending one of the

half a dozen men in residence scurrying off with Bourne’s remaining shoe.

This rather large stone-and-slate house deep in the Virginia countryside to which

Specter had directed Bourne was a far cry from the modest apartment the professor

maintained near the university. Bourne had been to the apartment numerous times over

the years, but never here. Then there was the matter of the staff, which Bourne noted with

interest as well as surprise.

“I imagine you’re wondering about all this,” Specter said, as if reading Bourne’s mind.

“All in good time, my friend.” He smiled. “First, I must thank you for rescuing me.”

“Who were those men?” Bourne said. “Why did they try to kidnap you?”

The doctor applied an antibiotic ointment, placed a gauze pad over the heel, taped it in

place. Then he wrapped the heel in cohesive bandage.

“It’s a long story,” Specter said. The doctor, finished with Bourne, now rose to

examine the professor. “One I propose to tell you over the breakfast we were unable to

enjoy earlier.” He winced as the doctor palpated areas of his body.

“Contusions, bruises,” the doctor intoned colorlessly, “but no broken bones or

fractures.”

He was a small swarthy man with a mustache and dark slicked-back hair. Bourne made

him as Turkish. In fact, all the staff seemed of Turkish origin.

He gave Specter a small packet. “You may need these painkillers, but only for the next

forty-eight hours.” He’d already left a tube of the antibiotic cream, along with

instructions, for Bourne.

While Specter was being examined, Bourne used his cell phone to call Deron, the art

forger whom he used for all his travel documents. Bourne recited the license tag of the

black Cadillac he’d commandeered from the professor’s would-be kidnappers.

“I need a registration report ASAP.”

“You okay, Jason?” Deron said in his sonorous London-accented voice. Deron had

been Bourne’s backup through many hair-raising missions. He always asked the same

question.

“I’m fine,” Bourne said, “but that’s more than I can say for the car’s original

occupants.”

“Brilliant.”

Bourne pictured him in his lab in the northeast section of DC, a tall, vibrant black man

with the mind of a conjuror.

When the doctor departed, Bourne and Specter were left alone.

“I already know who came after me,” Specter said.

“I don’t like loose ends,” Bourne replied. “The Cadillac’s registration will tell us