Текст книги "The Bourne Deception (Обман Борна)"

Автор книги: Eric Van Lustbader

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As the weather calmed, she thanked Bourne and went off to the toilet to clean up.

He waited several seconds, then reached down, unzipped her slim attaché

case, and rifled through the contents. To her, he was Adam Stone, the name on the passport Willard had given him before he‘d left Dr. Firth‘s compound.

According to the legend Willard had devised, he was a venture capitalist on his way to see a potential client in Seville. Ever mindful of the unknown assailant who‘d tried to kill him, he was wary of anyone sitting next to him, anyone striking up a conversation with him, anyone wanting to know where he‘d been and where he was going.

Inside the attaché case were photos—some quite detailed—of the Goya painting, a horrific study of a man being drawn and quartered by four rearing, snorting stallions while army officers lounged around, smoking, laughing, and playfully poking the victim with their bayonets.

Along with these photos was a set of X-rays, also of the painting, accompanied by a letter authenticating the painting as a genuine Goya, signed by a Professor Alonzo Pecunia Zuiga, a Goya specialist at the Museo del Prado in Madrid. With nothing else of interest, Bourne returned the sheets to the attaché case and rezipped it. Why had the woman lied to him about not knowing if the painting was a genuine Goya? Why had she lied about working for the Prado when, in his letter, Zuigaaddressed her as an outsider, not as an esteemed colleague of the museum? He‘d find out soon enough.

He stared out the window at the infinity of gray-white, turned his mind to his quarry. He‘d used Firth‘s computer to gather information on Don Fernando Hererra. For one thing, Hererra was Colombian, not Spanish. Born in Bogotá in 1946, the youngest child of four, he was shipped off to England for university studies, where he took a First in economics at Oxford. Then, inexplicably, for a time his life took another path entirely. He worked as a petrolerofor the Tropical Oil Company, working his way up to cuńero—a pipe capper—and beyond, moving from camp to camp, each time raising the output of barrels per day. Ever restless, he pushed on, buying a camp dirt-cheap because Tropical Oil‘s experts were certain it was in decline. Sure enough, he turned it around and, within three years, sold it back to Tropical Oil for a tenfold profit.

That‘s when he got into venture capital, using his outsize profits to move into the more stable banking sector. He bought a small regional bank in Bogotá, which had been on the verge of failing, changed its name, and spent the decade of the 1990s building it into a national powerhouse. He expanded into Brazil, Argentina, and, more recently, Spain. Two years ago he‘d vigorously resisted a buyout by Banco Santander, preferring to remain his own master. Now his Aguardiente Bancorp, named after the fiery local licorice-flavored liquor of his native country, had more than twenty branches, the last one opening five months before in London where, increasingly, all the international action was.

He had been married twice, had two daughters, both of whom lived in Colombia, and a son, Jaime, whom Don Fernando had installed as the managing director of Aguardiente‘s London branch. He seemed to be clever, sober, and serious; Bourne could find not the remotest hint of anything sinister about either him or AB, as it was known inside international banking circles.

He felt Tracy‘s return before her scent of fern and citrus reached him.

With a whisper of silk, she slid into the seat beside him.

―Feeling better?‖

She nodded.

―How long have you been working at the Prado?‖ he said.

―About seven months.‖

But she‘d hesitated a moment too long and he knew she was lying. Again, why? What did she have to hide?

―If I remember correctly,‖ Bourne said, ―didn‘t some of Goya‘s later works come under a cloud of suspicion?‖

―In 2003,‖ Tracy said, nodding. ―But since then the fourteen Black Paintings have been authenticated.‖

―But not the one you‘re going to see.‖

She pursed her lips. ―No one has seen it yet, except for the collector.‖

―And who is he?‖

She looked away, abruptly uncomfortable. ―I‘m not at liberty to say.‖

―Surely—‖

―Why are you doing this?‖ Turning back to him, she was abruptly angry.

–Do you think me a fool?‖ Color rose up her neck into her cheeks. ―I know why you‘re on this flight.‖

―I doubt you do.‖

―Please! You‘re on your way to see Don Fernando Hererra, just like I am.‖

―Don Hererra is your collector?‖

―You see?‖ The light of triumph was in her eyes. ―I knew it!‖ She shook her head. ―I‘ll tell you one thing: You‘re not going to get the Goya. It‘s mine; I don‘t care how much I have to pay.‖

―That doesn‘t sound like you work at the Prado,‖ Bourne said, ―or any museum for that matter. And why do you have an unlimited budget to buy a fake?‖

She crossed her arms over her breasts and bit her lip, determined to keep her own counsel.

―The Goya isn‘t a fake, is it?‖

Still she said nothing.

Bourne laughed. ―Tracy, I promise I‘m not after the Goya. In fact, until you mentioned it, I had no idea it existed.‖

She shot him a look of fear. ―I don‘t believe you.‖

He took a packet out of his breast pocket, handed it over. ―Go on, read it,‖ he said. ―I don‘t mind.‖ Willard really did extraordinary work, he thought, as Tracy opened the document and scanned it.

After a moment, she glanced up at him. ―This is a prospectus for a start-up e-commerce company.‖

―I need backing and I need it quickly, before our rivals get a jump on the market,‖ Bourne lied. ―I was told Don Fernando Hererra was the man to cut through the red tape and get the balance of the seed money my group requires yesterday.‖ He couldn‘t tell her the real reason he needed to see Hererra, and the sooner he convinced her he was an ally the faster she‘d take him where he needed to go. ―I don‘t know him at all. If you get me in to see him I‘d be grateful.‖

She handed back the document, which he put away, but her expression remained wary.

―How do I know I can trust you?‖

He shrugged. ―How do you know anything?‖

She thought about this for a moment, then nodded. ―You‘re right. Sorry, I can‘t help you.‖

―But I can help you.‖

She raised an eyebrow skeptically. ―Really?‖

―I‘ll get you the Goya for a song.‖

She laughed. ―How could you possibly do that?‖

―Give me an hour when we get to Seville and I‘ll show you.‖

All leaves have been canceled, all personnel have been recalled from vacations,‖ Amun Chalthoum said. ―I‘ve put my entire force to work on finding how the Iranians crossed my border with a ground-to-air missile.‖

This situation was bad for him, Soraya knew, even if he hadn‘t already been on shaky ground with some of his superiors. This breach of security had personal disasterwritten all over it. Or did it? What if everything he‘d told her was disinformation meant to distract her from the truth: that with the knowledge either of the Egyptian government or of certain ministers too afraid of raising their own voice against Iran, al Mokhabarat had chosen to use the United States as a bellicose proxy?

They‘d left Delia, left the crash site, driven through the phalanx of media vultures circling the perimeter, and were now racing along the road at top speed in Amun‘s four-wheel-drive vehicle. The sun was just above the horizon, filling the bowl of the sky with a pellucid light. Pale clouds lay across the western horizon as if exhausted from swimming through the darkness of the night. A wind blew the last of the morning‘s coolness against their faces. Soon enough, Amun would have to crank up the windows and put the air on.

After sifting through all the pieces of the blast site in the belly of the plane, the forensics team had put together a 3-D computer rendering of the last fifteen seconds of the flight. As Amun and Soraya huddled around a laptop inside a tent, the head of the team had begun the playback.

―The modeling is still somewhat crude,‖ he‘d cautioned, ―because of how fast we needed to put this together.‖ When the streaking missile came into the frame, he pointed. ―Also, we can‘t be one hundred percent certain of the missile‘s actual trajectory. We could be off by a degree or two.‖

The missile struck the airliner, breaking it in two and sending it earthward in several fiery spirals. Despite what the leader had said the effect was realistic, and chilling.

―What we do know is the Kowsar‘s maximum range.‖ He pressed a key on the laptop, and the imaging changed to a satellite topographic map of the area.

He pointed to a red X. ―This is the crash site.‖ Pressing another key caused a blue ring to be superimposed on the area around the site. ―The circle shows the missile‘s maximum range.‖

―Meaning the weapon had to be fired within that space,‖ Chalthoum said.

Soraya could see that he was impressed.

―That‘s right.‖ The leader nodded. He was a beefy man, balding, with a typical American beer gut and too-small glasses he kept pushing back up the bridge of his nose. ―But we can narrow it down for you even more.‖ His forefinger pressed still another key and a yellow cone appeared on the screen. ―The point at the top is where the missile impacted the plane. The bottom is wider because we factored in an error of three percent for our trajectory site.‖

Once again his finger depressed a key and the scene zoomed in on a square of nearby desert. ―As well as we can determine, the missile was launched from somewhere within this area.‖

Chalthoum took a closer look. ―That‘s, what, a square kilometer?‖

―Just under,‖ the leader had said with a small smile of triumph.

This relatively small section of the desert was where they were headed now, hoping to find some sign of the terrorists and their identities. They were part of a convoy, in fact, of five jeeps filled with al Mokhabarat personnel. Soraya found it strange and vaguely disquieting that she was getting used to having them around. She had a map unfolded on her lap. The area they‘d seen on the laptop was marked off, and another zoomed image had grid lines through it. A navigator in each of the other jeeps had similar material. Chalthoum‘s plan was to send a jeep to each corner of the section and work inward, while he and Soraya drove straight to the center and started their part of the search there.

As they rattled along at a breathtaking pace she looked over at Amun, whose face was grim and tight as a fist. But what was he leading her to?

Surely if al Mokhabarat was involved, he wouldn‘t allow her even the faintest glimmering of the truth. Were they on a wild goose chase?

―We‘ll find them, Amun,‖ she said, more to alleviate the tension than because of any strong conviction.

His laugh was as unpleasant as a jackal‘s bark. ―Of course we will.‖ His tone was dark, sardonic. ―But even if by some miracle we do, it‘s already too late for me. My enemies will use this breach of security against me, they‘ll say I‘ve brought disgrace not only on al Mokhabarat, but on all of Egypt.‖

His uncharacteristic tone of self-pity rattled her, made her harden her own voice. ―Then why are you bothering with the investigation? Why not simply turn tail and run?‖

His dark face turned even darker with the sudden rush of blood to his cheeks. She felt him gathering himself, his muscles tensing, and for a moment she wondered if he was going to strike her. But then, just as quickly as it came, the storm of emotion passed, and now his laugh, when it presented itself, was bright and deep.

―Yes, I should have you at my side always, azizti.‖

Once again she was rattled, this time by his use of the intimate endearment, and she felt a sudden rush of latent affection for him. She could not help wondering whether he was this good an actor, and with this thought came the flush of instant shame because she wanted him to be innocent of involvement in this heinous act. She wanted something from him she felt she couldn‘t have, certainly never would have if he was guilty. Her heart said he was innocent, but her mind remained dappled in the shadows of suspicion.

He turned to her for a moment, his dark eyes alighting on her. ―We willfind these sons of camel turds, and I will bring them in front of my superiors shackled and on their knees, this I swear on the memory of my father.‖

Within fifteen minutes they had arrived at a patch of desert that looked not a bit different from the bleak countryside through which they had been traveling. The other four jeeps had peeled off some time ago, their drivers in constant radio contact with Amun and one another. They gave running commentaries as they began their respective searches.

Soraya took up a pair of binoculars and began to scan for any anomalous object, but she wasn‘t optimistic. The desert itself was their worst enemy because the winds would have shifted the sand, most likely burying anything the terrorists might have inadvertently left behind.

―Anything?‖ Chalthoum said twenty minutes later.

―No—wait!‖ She took her eyes from the binocular cups and pointed off to their right. ―There, at two o‘clock—about a hundred yards.‖

Chalthoum turned in that direction and put on some speed. ―What do you see?‖

―I don‘t know—it looks like a smudge,‖ she said as she trained the binoculars on the spot.

She jumped out of the jeep even as it reached the location. Staggering for two steps from the momentum and the softness of the sand, she pushed on.

She was squatting down in front of the dark patch by the time Chalthoum reached her.

―It‘s nothing,‖ he said with obvious disgust, ―just a blackened branch.‖

―Maybe not.‖

Reaching out, she used her cupped hands to excavate away from the branch, which was almost fully buried. As the hole widened, Chalthoum helped keep the sand from running back into the hole. About eighteen inches down, her fingertips found something cool and hard.

―The stick is caught on something!‖ she said excitedly.

But what she unearthed was an empty can of soda, the end of the stick lodged into its opened pop-top. When she pulled the stick out the can fell over, causing a shower of gray ash to scatter from the opening.

―Someone made a fire here,‖ she said. ―But there‘s no way to tell how long the ashes have been here.‖

―Maybe there is a way.‖

Chalthoum was staring intently at the spill of ashes, which was more or less the shape of the cone of yellow on the laptop‘s screen representing the margin of error for the missile launch site.

―Did your father teach you about Nowruz?‖

―The Persian pre-revolutionary festival of the new year?‖ Soraya nodded.

–Yes, but we never celebrated it.‖

―It‘s had a resurgence in Iran over the past couple of years.‖ Chalthoum upended the can, shook out the contents, and nodded. ―There is more ash here than one could reasonably expect for a cooking fire. Besides, a terrorist cell would have pre-prepared food that wouldn‘t require heating.‖

Soraya was racking her brains for the rituals of Nowruz, but in the end she needed Chalthoum to give her a refresher course.

―A bonfire is lit and each member of the family jumps over it while asking for the pale complexion winter breeds to be replaced by healthy red cheeks. Then a feast is consumed during which stories are told for the benefit of the children. As the festival passes from day into night, the fire dies out, then the ashes, which represent winter‘s bad luck, are buried off in the fields.‖

―I can hardly believe that Nowruz was observed here by Iranian terrorists,‖ Soraya said.

Chalthoum used the stick to poke around in the ashes. ―That looks like a bit of eggshell and here is a piece of burned orange rind. Both an egg and an orange are used at the end of the festival.‖

Soraya shook her head. ―They‘d never risk someone seeing the fire.‖

―True enough,‖ Chalthoum said, ―but this would be a perfect place to bury the bad luck of winter.‖ He looked at her. ―Do you know when Nowruz began?‖

She thought a moment, then her pulse began to race. ―Three days ago.‖

Chalthoum nodded. ―And at the moment of Sa‘at-I tahvil, when the old year ends and the new one begins, what happens?‖

Her heart flipped over. ―Cannons are fired.‖

―Or,‖ Chalthoum said, ―a Kowsar 3 missile.‖

14

BOURNE AND TRACY ATHERTON entered Seville late on the third afternoon of the Feria de Abril, the weeklong festival that grips the entire city at Eastertime like a fever. Only weeks before, during the Semana Santa, masses of hooded penitents followed behind magnificently adorned floats, tiered and filigreed like baroque wedding cakes, filled with ranks of white candles and sprays of white flowers, at the center of which sat images of Christ or the Virgin Mary. Bands of colorfully dressed musicians accompanied the floats, playing music both melancholy and martial.

Now as then avenues were blocked off to vehicular traffic, and even on foot many streets were all but impassable because, it seemed, all of Seville was out taking part in or observing the eye-popping pageant.

In the packed Avenida de Miraflores, they pushed their way into an Internet café. It was dark and narrow, the manager behind a cramped desk in back. The entire left-hand wall was taken up with computer stations hooked up to the Internet. Bourne paid for an hour, then waited along the wall for one of the stations to free up. The place was dim with smoke; everyone had a cigarette except the two of them.

―What are we doing here?‖ Tracy said in a hushed voice.

―I need to find a photo of one of the Prado‘s Goya experts,‖ Bourne said.

–If I can convince Hererra I‘m this man, he‘ll know he‘s got a very clever fake rather than a real lost Goya.‖

Tracy‘s face lit up and she laughed. ―You really are a piece of work, Adam.‖ All at once a frown overtook her. ―But if you present yourself as this Goya expert, how on earth are you going to get any money out of Don Fernando for your consortium?‖

―Simple enough,‖ Bourne said. ―The expert leaves and I return as Adam Stone.‖

A seat opened up and Tracy began to move toward it when Bourne stopped her with a taut shake of his head. When she looked at him questioningly, he spoke to her very softly.

―The man who just walked in—no, don‘t look at him. I saw him on our flight.‖

―So what?‖

―He was on my Thai Air flight as well,‖ Bourne said. ―He‘s traveled with me all the way from Bali.‖

She turned her back to him, using a mirror to glance at him briefly. ―Who is he?‖ Her eyes narrowed. ―What does he want?‖

―I don‘t know,‖ Bourne said. ―But you noticed the scar on the side of his neck that runs up into his jaw?‖

She risked another glance in the mirror, then nodded.

―Whoever sent him wants me to know he‘s there.‖

―Your rivals?‖

―Yes. They‘re thugs,‖ he improvised. ―It‘s a typical intimidation tactic.‖

A look of alarm crossed Tracy‘s face and she shrank away from him. ―What kind of dirty business are you in?‖

―It‘s precisely what I told you,‖ Bourne said. ―But the venture capital business is riddled with industrial espionage because being first to market with a new product or idea can often mean the difference between Google or Microsoft buying you out for half a billion dollars or going bust.‖

This explanation appeared to calm her slightly, but she was clearly still on edge. ―What are you going to do?‖

―For the moment, nothing.‖

Bourne crossed the floor and sat down, and Tracy followed him. As he brought up the Museo del Prado on Google, she bent low over his shoulder and said, ―Don‘t bother. The man you want is Professor Alonzo Pecunia Zuiga.‖

This was the Prado‘s Goya expert who‘d authenticated Hererra‘s Goya.

Bourne recalled seeing his letter in her attaché case.

Without a word, he typed in the name. He had to scroll through several news items before he came upon a photo of the professor, who was accepting an award from one of the many Spanish foundations concerned with promoting Goya‘s history and work worldwide.

Alonzo Pecunia Zuigawas a slim man who appeared to be in his midfifties.

He had a dapper spade-shaped beard and thick eyebrows that shaded his eyes like a visor. Bourne checked the date of the photo to be certain it was current. Zooming in on the photo, he printed it out, which cost him an extra couple of euros. Using Google Local, he looked up the addresses of a number of shops.

―Our first stop,‖ he said to Tracy, ―is just off Paseo de Cristóbal Colón, around the corner from the Teatro Maestranza.‖

―What about the man with the scar?‖ she whispered.

Bourne closed out the screen, then went into the browser cache and deleted both the site history and the cookies from the sites he‘d visited.

–I‘m counting on him following us,‖ he said.

―God.‖ Tracy gave a brief shudder. ―I‘m not.‖

The broad paseo ran beside the eastern branch of the Guadalquivir River in the El Arenal barrioof the city. It was the historical district called home by many of the Semana Santa brotherhoods. From the beautiful Maestranza bullring, next door to the massive theater, they could see the thirteenth-century Torre del Oro, the great tower, once clad in gold, part of the fortifications to protect Seville from its ancient enemies, the Muslims of North Africa, the fundamentalist Almohads, Berbers from Morocco who were driven out of Seville and all of Andalusia in 1230 by the armies of the Christian kingdoms of Castile and Aragón.

―Have you ever been to a corrida?‖ Bourne asked.

―No. I hate the idea of bullfighting.‖

―Here‘s your chance to see for yourself.‖ Taking her by the hand, he went to the ticket office by the main gate and bought two sol barreras, the only front seats left, which were in the sun.

Tracy hung back. ―I don‘t think I want to do this.‖

―You either come with me,‖ Bourne said, ―or I leave you here to be questioned by Scarface.‖

She stiffened. ―He‘s followed us here?‖

Bourne nodded. ―Come on.‖ As he handed his tickets over and pushed her through the entrance, he added, ―Don‘t worry, I‘ll take care of everything.

Trust me.‖

A ferocious roaring signaled that the corridahad already begun. The place was filled with tiers of seats, above which rose a continuous line of decorative arches. As they made their way down the aisle, the first bull was in the process of being tenderized via the suerte de picar. The picadores, mounted on horses, padded and blindfolded for the animals‘ protection, drove their short lances into the bull‘s neck while he expended energy attempting to toss their mounts. The horses had oil-soaked cloths in their ears to keep them from shying at the roaring of the crowd. Their vocal cords had been cut to render them mute so as not to distract the bull.

―Okay,‖ Bourne said, handing her a ticket. ―I want you to go get a beer from the stand over there. Drink it in back with plenty of people around you, then make your way to our seats.‖

―And where will you be?‖

―Never mind,‖ he said, ―just do as I‘ve told you and wait for me in the seat.‖

He‘d caught sight of the man with the pink scar, who‘d entered the corridahigh up to give himself a better vantage point. Bourne watched Tracy picking her way back to the refreshment stalls, then he took out his cell phone and pretended to talk to a contact he wanted Scarface to believe he was meeting here. With an emphatic nod, he put the cell away and made his way around the ring. He had to find a place in shadow, private enough for a meet, where he could handle Scarface without interference.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Scarface glance briefly at Tracy before moving down one of the aisles that intersected with the lowest tier where Bourne was heading.

Bourne had been here before and knew the basic layout. He was looking for the toril, the enclosure where the bulls were kept, because he knew a corridor near it led to the toilets on this side of Maestranza. A couple of young toreroswere leaning on the bull gate. Beside them the matador, having exchanged his pink-and-gold cape for the red one, stood still as death, waiting for the moment of suerte de matar, when he would enter the ring with nothing but his sword, his cape, and his athletic skill to bring down the snorting, panting beast. At least, that‘s how these corridafans saw it.

Others, like the Asociación para la defensa del anima, saw quite another picture.

As he neared the toril, there came a jolt against the door that sent the young torerosscattering in fright. The matador briefly turned his attention to the animal in the pen.

―Good, you are eager to come out,‖ he said in Spanish, ―into the smell of blood.‖

Then he returned his attention to the corridaproper where, as the bull tired, his moment was upon him.

― Fuera!‖ came the fevered cries from the aficionados. ― Fuera!‖ Get out!

they called to the picadores, for fear their lances were weakening the bull too much, that the final confrontation would not be the blood match they craved.

Now, as the picadoresbacked their mounts away from the beast, the matador was on the move, entering the corridaas his underlings exited it.

The tumult from the crowd was almost ear shattering. No one paid the slightest attention to Bourne as he reached the area near the toril, save for Scarface who, Bourne could see now, had the tattoo of three skulls on the opposite side of his neck. They were crude, ugly, without doubt prison tattoos, most likely received inside a Russian penitentiary. And this man was more than an intimidator. A skull meant that he was a professional killer: three skulls, three kills.

Bourne was at the very end of this section of the stands—beyond was a decorative archway that led back to the area under the stands. Just below him was the wall that divided the pit where the toreroscrouched to evade the charges of the bull. At the end of that, to Bourne‘s right, was the toril.

Scarface was rapidly approaching, moving down the aisle and across the tiers like a ghost or a wraith. Bourne turned and passed through the archway and down an incline into the shadowed interior. Immediately he was hit by a miasma of human urine and strong animal musk. To his left was the concrete corridor that led to the toilets. There was a door along the wall to his right, outside of which was a uniformed guard.

As he walked toward this tall, slim man a figure blotted out the daylight: Scarface. Bourne approached the guard, who told him, rather brusquely, he had no business being in an area so close to the bulls.

Smiling, Bourne placed himself between the guard and Scarface, then reached out and, talking amiably to the guard, pressed the artery at the side of his neck. Even as the guard reached for his weapon, Bourne blocked him with his other hand. The man tried to fight, but Bourne, moving swiftly, used an elbow to temporarily paralyze the guard‘s right shoulder. He was rapidly losing consciousness from loss of blood to his brain and, as he fell forward, Bourne held him up, continued talking to him because he wanted Scarface to think that this was the man he‘d spoken to on his cell, a colleague of the man Bourne had come here to see. It was essential that he keep the fiction going now that Scarface was closing in.

Taking the key from the chain at the guard‘s hip, he unlocked the door and pushed the guard into the darkened interior. As he followed him in, he shut the door behind him, but not before he‘d caught a glimpse of Scarface hurrying down the ramp. Now that he‘d ascertained the place of Bourne‘s meet, he was prepared to close in on his quarry.

Bourne found himself in a small anteroom filled with wooden bins containing food for the bulls and an enormous soapstone sink with outsize zinc spout and taps, beneath which sat buckets, cloths, mops, and plastic bottles of cleaning fluids. The floor was covered with straw, which absorbed only a minuscule part of the stench. The bull, hidden behind a concrete barrier that rose to Bourne‘s chest, snorted and bellowed, scenting his presence. The frenzied shouts of the crowd broke like waves over the toril, above which sunlight, multicolored from the reflections spinning off the costume of the matador and the outfits of the patrons, splashed across the upper walls of the pen like an artist‘s broad and reckless brushstrokes.

Bourne drew a cloth from one of the buckets and was halfway across the anteroom when the door behind him opened so slowly one needed to be looking straight at it to be aware of the movement. Putting his back to the barrier, he moved to his left, toward the part of the room where the opening door would block Scarface‘s view of him.

The bull, frightened, angered, or both by the sudden new human scents, struck the concrete barrier with its hooves, the force so powerful it sent bits of stucco flying on Bourne‘s side. Scarface seemed to hesitate, no doubt trying to identify the noise. Bourne was almost certain that he had no idea that the next bull was waiting here for its turn to die a bellowing death in the corrida. It was a creature of pure muscle and instinct, easily provoked, easily bewildered, fast and deadly unless brought low by exhaustion and a hundred wounds out of which its life dribbled into the dust of the corrida.

Bourne crept behind the door as it slowly opened, as Scarface‘s left hand appeared holding a knife with a long, slender blade shaped like that of the matador‘s sword. The wicked tip was tilted slightly up, a position from which he could thrust it, slash it, or throw it with equal ease.

Bourne wrapped the cloth around the knuckles of his left hand, providing sufficient padding. He let Scarface take one tentative step into the anteroom and then rushed him from the side. The killer‘s instinct caused the blade to come up and out in a semicircular sweep as he turned toward the blur of motion he detected at the extreme corner of his field of vision.

Deflecting the blade with wrapped knuckles caused Scarface‘s defense to open up, and Bourne stepped in, planting his feet, turning from his hips, and drove his right fist into Scarface‘s solar plexus. The killer gasped almost inaudibly and his eyes opened in a moment of shock, but an instant later he‘d wrapped his right arm around Bourne‘s, locking the back of his hand against the inside of Bourne‘s elbow. Instantly he applied both pressure and leverage in an attempt to break the bones in Bourne‘s forearm.