Текст книги "The Bourne Deception (Обман Борна)"

Автор книги: Eric Van Lustbader

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The door was ajar and, peering in, he could see a wedge of light, Bamber spread-legged in front of the toilet. He could just make out a corner of the sink and, against the rear wall, the bathtub with a shower curtain of gaily dancing fish so cute he had to resist the urge to puke.

He peered into the space between the door and the jamb created by the hinges. Seeing no one hiding behind the door, he nudged it open with his free hand while he leveled the SIG at Bamber‘s head.

―Hey, pussycat.‖ His chuckle came from deep in his throat. ―Noah says hello and good-bye.‖

Bamber flinched, just like Parker was expecting him to, but instead of turning to face him, he collapsed as if poleaxed. As Parker was goggling at him, the gaily dancing fish folded up like an accordion. Parker had a split-second look at a woman staring at him. He just had time to think, Who the fuck is this? Noah didn’t tell me—when the eye of her Lady Hawk spit flame and he spun around in an ungainly pirouette from the bullet fracturing his cheekbone.

He screamed, not in pain or fear, but in rage. He emptied his gun, squeezing off shot after shot, but there was blood in his eyes. He didn‘t feel a thing—the burst of adrenaline and other endorphins made him for the moment immune to the pain. Ignoring Bamber, curled up in a fetal position under the toilet, he leapt at the woman—a woman, for chrissakes!—swinging the butt of his SIG at the curve of her chin. She retreated, only to slam against the tiled wall and slip on the treacherous curve of porcelain, falling to one knee.

Parker took another vicious swing at her with the SIG. She ducked away, but not before the front sight laid a gash across the bridge of her nose. He saw the glazed look come into her eyes and he knew he had her. He was just about to plant the thick sole of his shoe in her solar plexus when the eye of her Lady Hawk spat fire again.

Parker never felt a thing. The bullet exploded through his right eye and took off the back of his head.

30

YOU REALIZE,‖ Bourne said, brandishing the sheet of thermal paper as he and Boris Karpov clattered down the stairs at 779 Gamhuria Avenue, ―that this information could have been left for you to find.‖

―Of course. Yevsen could have left it,‖ Karpov said.

―I was thinking of Arkadin.‖

―But Black River is his partner.‖

―So was Yevsen.‖

The medic had done his best to patch up Bourne‘s face before Bourne shooed him away—at least he‘d stopped the bleeding and administered a shot to prevent any possibility of infection.

―One thing about Arkadin, he‘s consistent,‖ Bourne said. ―What I‘ve learned about the way he sets up operations is that he makes sure he has a stalking horse, a diversionary target whom he directs his enemies toward.‖ He slapped the printout. ―Black River could be his new stalking horse, the people he wants you to go after rather than finding him.‖

―The other possibility,‖ Boris said, ―is that he‘s knocking off his partners one by one.‖

They had passed through the lobby and out into the scalding afternoon sun, where traffic was at a standstill and passersby were gathering as each minute passed, gaping at Boris‘s heavily armed contingent.

―That brings up another question,‖ Karpov said as they climbed into the minibus he‘d commandeered and which had become his mobile headquarters. ―How the hell does Arkadin fit into this puzzle? Why would Black River need him?‖

―Here‘s a possibility,‖ Bourne said. ―Arkadin‘s in Nagorno-Karabakh, a remote area of Azerbaijan that, as you said, is dominated by tribal chieftains, all fanatic Muslims—just like the Black Legion terrorists.‖

―How would the terrorists be involved?‖

―That‘s something we‘ll have to ask Arkadin himself,‖ Bourne said. ―To do that we‘ll have to fly to Azerbaijan.‖

Karpov ordered his IT man to bring up real-time satellite pictures of the Nagorno-Karabakh region in order to figure the best route to the specific area Yevsen used.

The IT man was zooming in on the area when he said, ―Hold on a second.‖

His fingers blurred over the keys, shifting the images on the screen.

―What is it?‖ Karpov said with some impatience.

―A plane just took off from the target area.‖ The IT man swiveled to another laptop and keyed into a different site. ―It‘s an Air Afrika jet, Colonel.‖

―Arkadin!‖ Bourne said. ―Where‘s the flight headed?‖

―Hold on.‖ The IT man switched to the third computer, bringing up an image similar to those on an air controller‘s screen. ―Just let me extrapolate from the jet‘s current heading.‖ His fingers danced some more over the keyboard. Then he swiveled back to the first laptop and an area of landmass filled the screen. The image pulled back until the IT man pointed at a place in the lower right-hand quadrant of the screen.

―Right there,‖ he said. ―Shahrake Nasiri-Astara, just off the Caspian Sea, in northwest Iran.‖

―What in the name of all that‘s unholy is there?‖ Karpov said.

The IT man, moving to the second laptop, plugged in the name of the area, hit the ENTER key, and scrolled through the resulting news stories. There were precious few, but one of them provided the answer. He looked up into his commander‘s face and said, ―Three whopping huge oil fields and the beginnings of a transnational pipeline.‖

I want you out of here.‖ Amun Chalthoum‘s eyes sparked in the semi-darkness of the old fort. ―Instantly.‖

Soraya was so taken aback that it was a moment before she said, ―Amun, I think you‘re confusing me with someone else.‖

He took her by the elbow. ―This is no joke. Go. Now.‖

She extricated herself from his grip. ―What am I, your daughter? I‘m not going anywhere.‖

―I won‘t risk the life of the woman I love,‖ he said. ―Not in a situation like this.‖

―I don‘t know whether to be flattered or offended. Maybe I‘m both.‖ She shook her head. ―Nevertheless, we came here becauseof me, or have you forgotten?‖

―I don‘t forget anything.‖ Chalthoum was about to continue when Yusef cut him off.

―I thought you‘d planned for these people to catch up to you.‖

―I did,‖ Chalthoum said impatiently, ―but I didn‘t count on getting trapped in here.‖

―Too late for regrets now,‖ Yusef whispered. ―The enemy has entered the fort.‖

Chalthoum held up four fingers, to let Yusef know how many men had been following them. Yusef gave a curt nod and gestured for them to follow him.

While the men moved out, Soraya bent and, ripping off a piece of one of the men‘s shirts, scooped some quicklime into the makeshift sling.

As they reached the doorway, she said very clearly, ―We should stay here.‖

They turned, and Amun looked at her as if she were insane. ―We‘ll be trapped like rats.‖

―We‘re already trapped like rats.‖ She swung the sling back and forth.

–At least here we have the high ground.‖ She gestured with her chin. ―They‘ve already dispersed themselves. They‘ll pick us off one by one before we can get to even one of them.‖

―You‘re right, Director,‖ Yusef said, and Chalthoum looked like he wanted to swat him across the face.

She appealed to Chalthoum directly. ―Amun, get used to it. This is how it is.‖

Three of the four men, having found shadowed nests for themselves, lay in wait, sighting down the long barrels of their rifles. The fourth man—the beater—moved cautiously from desolate room to ruined room, across abandoned sand-piled spaces without roofs. Always the wind was in his ears, and the grit of the desert in his nose and throat. Granules, shot by the wind, insinuated themselves inside his clothes and formed a familiar layer as they clung to his sweaty skin. His job was to find the targets and drive them into the crisscrossing lines of fire set up by his comrades. He was cautious, but not apprehensive; he‘d done this work before and he‘d do it again many times before old age made this life impossible. But he knew by then he‘d have more than enough money for his family and even his children‘s families. The American paid well—the American, it seemed, never ran out of money, just as the fool never bargained down his price. The Russians, now—they knew how to drive a hard bargain. He‘d sweated through many a negotiation with the Russians, who claimed they didn‘t have money, or, anyway, enough to pay him what he asked. He would settle on a price that made them all happy and then he went about the business of killing. It‘s what he did best, after all—the only thing he was trained for.

He‘d secured more than half the fort and was frankly surprised that he‘d not yet come upon even a sign of the targets. Well, one of them was an Egyptian, he‘d been told. He didn‘t like Egyptians, they smeared you with their honeyed words all the while lying through their teeth. They were like jackals—grinning as they tore the flesh off you.

He turned down a short corridor. When he was no more than halfway along, he heard the sound of the flies buzzing and knew, even though he failed to catch a whiff of rotting flesh, that there must have been a death up ahead of him, and quite recently, too.

Gripping his handgun more tightly, he continued down the hallway with his spine pressed up against one wall, squinting into the gloom. Here and there, sunlight fluttered and twittered like birds in a tree, where the ceiling or wall was cracked or even, in some places, broken open, as if by the hammering fist of a murderous giant.

The sound of the flies had become a hum, as of some great, nebulous creature that waxed and waned as it fed and drowsed. He paused, listening and, in his own unscientific way, counting their number. Something big had died in that room ahead of him, possibly more than one big thing. A human being?

He pulled the trigger of his handgun, the brief light-flare, the report, transforming the entire area. He was like a beast marking its territory, warning other predators of its presence, wanting to instill fear. If the targets were in that room, they were trapped. He knew that room—just as he knew every room in this and the other forts in the area. There was only one entrance and he was five steps away from it.

Then a figure shot out from the open doorway, and he squeezed off four accurate shots in rapid succession that made it dance and jerk.

It was Soraya who followed the dead American Chalthoum had heaved out of the doorway. Swinging her makeshift sling amid the hail of bullets, she let fly its load of quicklime into the face of the shooter. The instant the caustic calcium oxide struck his body fluids—the sweat on his cheeks and the tears in his eyes—a chemical reaction caused the blooming of a terrible heat.

The shooter screamed, dropped his gun, and instinctively clapped his hands to his burning face, trying to scrub off the substance. This only made matters worse for him. Soraya scooped up his gun and shot him in the head, putting him out of his misery, as she would a crippled horse.

Her low whistle brought Chalthoum and Yusef out of the burial chamber.

–One down,‖ she said. ―Three to go.‖

Are you all right?‖ Moira stepped out of the bathtub and helped Humphry Bamber to stand.

―I think I ought to be asking you that question,‖ he said, glancing with a shudder at the shattered head of the intruder. Then he turned and vomited into the toilet.

Moira turned on the cold water in the sink, drenched a hand towel, and placed it on the back of his neck. He took it and held it against the bridge of her nose as they left the bathroom.

She put her arm around his wide shoulders. ―Let‘s get you back to somewhere safe.‖

He nodded like a lost little boy as they picked their way through the office. They were almost at the door when she glanced at the wall of computers.

―What did you find out? What‘s inside Noah‘s version of Bardem?‖

Bamber broke away, went to the laptop hooked up to all the other equipment, and disconnected it. Closing it, he tucked it under his arm.

―If you don‘t see it for yourself, you won‘t believe it,‖ he said as they hurried out of the office.

I‘m not interested in Treadstone or what Alex Conklin was up to,‖ Peter Marks said.

Willard appeared unfazed. ―But you are, I assume, interested in saving CI from the Philistines.‖ It was almost as if he‘d anticipated Marks‘s response.

―Of course I am.‖ Marks turned his empty glass over when Willard tried to fill it with the bottle‘s last round of whisky. ―Do you have something in mind—something, I assume, to do with Black River‘s complicity in domestic murder, especially, goddammit, the DCI‘s death?‖

―The DCI is M. Errol Danziger.‖

―Don‘t remind me,‖ Marks said sourly.

―I have to. He‘s the eight-hundred-pound gorilla in CI‘s shop, and believe me when I tell you he‘s going to beat all you fine young gentlemen into banana paste if nothing‘s done to stop him.‖

―What about you?‖

―I am Treadstone.‖

Marks stared bleakly at the older man. Whether it was all the single-malt he‘d consumed or having his face pushed into reality, he felt sick to his stomach. ―Go on.‖

―No,‖ Willard said emphatically. ―Either you‘re in or you‘re out, Peter.

And before you answer, please understand that there‘s no backing out, no room for second thoughts. Once you‘re in, that‘s it, no matter the cost or the consequences.‖

Marks shook his head. ―What choice do I have?‖

―There‘s always a choice.‖ Willard poured himself the last of the liquor and took a deep sip. ―What there isn‘t—and this goes for me as well as for you—is an opportunity to look back. From this moment on, there is no past. We move forward, only forward, into the dark.‖

―Jesus.‖ Marks felt a shiver run down his spine. ―This sounds like I‘m making a deal with the devil.‖

―That‘s very funny.‖ Willard smiled and, as if on cue, produced a three-page document, which he spread on the table facing the younger man.

―What the hell is this?‖

―Also funny.‖ Willard placed a pen on the table. ―It‘s a contract with Treadstone. It‘s non-negotiable and, as you can see in clause thirteen, nonrevokable.‖

Marks peered at the contract. ―How is that enforceable? Will you threaten to take my soul?‖ He laughed, but it was too brittle to hold any humor. Then he squinted, reading one paragraph after another.

―Jesus,‖ he said when he was finished. He looked at the pen, then at Willard. ―Tell me you have a plan to get rid of M. Errol-fucking-Danziger or I‘m out of here right now.‖

―Lopping off one head of the hydra will be useless because it will only grow another.‖ Willard picked up the pen and held it out. ―I will get rid of the hydra itself: Secretary of Defense Ervin Reynolds Halliday.‖

―Many have tried, including the late Veronica Hart.‖

―They all thought they had evidence that he was operating beyond the law, a well-trod path that Halliday knows far better than they did. I‘m taking an altogether different route.‖

Marks looked deep into the other man‘s eyes, trying to judge his seriousness. At length, he took the pen and said, ―I don‘t care what route we take as long as Halliday ends up being roadkill.‖

―Tomorrow morning,‖ Willard said, ―you‘ll need to keep that sentiment in mind.‖

―Is that a whiff of sulfur I smell?‖ But Marks‘s laugh was distinctly uneasy.

―I know this man.‖ Yusef brushed the quicklime paste off the dead gunman‘s face with the tip of his boot. ―His name‘s Ahmed, he‘s a free-lance assassin who usually works for the Americans or the Russians.‖ He grunted.

–Now and again at the same time.‖

Chalthoum frowned. ―Has he worked for the Egyptians before?‖

Yusef shook his head. ―Not to my knowledge.‖

―You don‘t use him, do you?‖ Soraya was examining what was left of Ahmed‘s face. ―I don‘t remember seeing his name on any of your reports.‖

―I wouldn‘t trust this scum to bring me a disk of bread,‖ Yusef said with a curl of his upper lip. ―In addition to being a professional murderer, he‘s a liar and a thief, always, even when he was a small boy.‖

―Remember,‖ Chalthoum said with a grim look at Soraya, ―I want at least one of them alive.‖

―First things first,‖ she said. ―Let‘s just concentrate on getting out of here alive ourselves.‖

He was still trying without success to brush the odors of quicklime and death off his clothes, but this business allowed Soraya to take the lead—

which, again, was something he deplored. Ever since they‘d arrived in Khartoum something had taken possession of him, a sense of protectiveness toward Soraya that clearly made her uncomfortable. Possibly it was being away from Egypt; he was in unknown territory, after all, and he knew only too well that he was most sure of himself in his own territory.

She heard him call softly to her but resisted the urge to turn and look at him. Instead she moved steadily forward in a semi-crouch until she came to the first courtyard. There were positions to the left and right on either wall where snipers would have an excellent field of view. She fired a shot at each spot in turn, but there was no answering fire. That was it for the shooter‘s .45, so she dropped it and took out the Glock that Yusef had given her. After double-checking that it was loaded she moved out across the expanse of the grim-looking courtyard, keeping to the shadows thrown by the walls. Not once did she look back, trusting that Amun and Yusef were not far behind her and would provide cover if she got into trouble.

Moments later the second, central courtyard, larger and more intimidating than the first, presented itself. Again she fired shots at the likely sniper positions, again without any result.

―There‘s only one more,‖ Yusef said. ―It‘s smaller, but because it‘s at the front there are more places to defend it.‖

Soraya saw at once that he was right, and that no matter what they did they‘d never be able to reach the parapets on either wall without being shot dead.

―What now?‖ she said to Amun.

Before he could think of a reply, Yusef said, ―I have an idea. I knew Ahmed all his life, I think I can imitate his voice.‖ He looked from Chalthoum to Soraya. ―Shall I give it a shot?‖

―I don‘t see how it can hurt,‖ Chalthoum said, but Yusef didn‘t move until Soraya nodded her assent.

Then he brushed by ahead of her and, crouching in the shadowy mouth where the corridor debouched onto the courtyard, he raised his voice. It wasn‘t his voice, but one neither of them had heard before.

―It‘s Ahmed—please, I‘m hurt!‖ Nothing but echoes. He turned to Soraya.

–Quick!‖ he whispered. ―Give me your shirt.‖

―Take mine,‖ Chalthoum said with a glower.

―Hers will be better,‖ Yusef said. ―They‘ll see it‘s the female‘s.‖

Soraya did as he asked, unbuttoning her short-sleeved shirt and handing it over.

―I‘ve killed them!‖ Yusef called in Ahmed‘s voice. ―See here!‖ Soraya‘s shirt fluttered onto the cobbles of the courtyard like a bird settling onto its nest.

―If you‘ve killed them,‖ a voice came from their left, ―come out!‖

―I can‘t,‖ Yusef replied, ―my leg is broken. I‘ve dragged myself this far, but I‘ve fallen and I can‘t take another step! Please, brothers, come fetch me before I bleed to death!‖

For a long time nothing happened. Yusef was about to shout again when Chalthoum cautioned silence.

―Don‘t oversell it,‖ he whispered. ―Be patient now.‖

More time passed, it was difficult to say how much since in their situation time was bent like taffy, minutes seeming like an hour. At length, they discerned movement on their right. Two men could be seen making their way down to the ground. They moved cautiously, keeping their sides toward the mouth of the hallway. The third man—the one who had queried Yusef—was nowhere in sight. Clearly, he was covering them from his hidden position on the left.

Chalthoum motioned silently to Yusef, who lay down and moved slightly so that the two men could see that one leg was drawn up under the other. Soraya and Chalthoum retreated several steps into the gloom.

―There he is!‖ one of the men cried to the man covering them—who was, it appeared, their leader. ―I can see Ahmed! He‘s fallen, just as he said!‖

―I don‘t see any other movement,‖ the leader‘s voice floated down from the parapet. ―Go get him, but make it quick!‖

Running in a semi-crouch, the two men approached Yusef.

―Hold it!‖ their leader said, and they obediently squatted on their hams, their rifles laid across their thighs, their avid eyes on their fallen comrade.

There was movement from the left as the leader abandoned his eyrie, clattering down stone steps to the courtyard.

―Ahmed,‖ one of the men whispered, ―are you all right?‖

―No,‖ said Ahmed. ―The pain in my leg is terrible, it‘s—‖

But he‘d said enough at close range for the other man to move back a pace.

―What is it?‖ his companion said, aiming his rifle into the mouth of the hallway.

―I don‘t think that‘s Ahmed.‖

That was when Chalthoum and Soraya, Glocks firing, moved out on either side of Yusef. The two crouching men were struck immediately, and Chalthoum kicked their weapons away from where they lay sprawled on the ground. The leader, scurrying to find cover where there was none, fired off-balance and Chalthoum went down with a grunt.

Soraya, running, aimed and fired at the leader, but it was Yusef, from his prone position, who shot the leader in the chest. The man spun around and fell. At once Soraya veered toward him.

―Check Amun!‖ she called to Yusef as she stooped, picking up the leader‘s rifle. He was writhing, bleeding from his right side, but he was breathing.

The bullet hadn‘t punctured a lung.

She knelt down beside him. ―Who hired you?‖

The man looked up at her and spat in her face.

A moment later she was joined by the two men. Amun had been shot in the thigh, but the bullet had gone through and the wound, Yusef said, looked clean. He‘d tied off the area above the wound with a makeshift tourniquet made from her shirt.

―Are you all right?‖ she said, looking up at Chalthoum.

He nodded in his usual dour way.

―I‘ve asked him who hired him,‖ she said, ―but he‘s not talking.‖ ―Take Yusef and see about the other two.‖ Chalthoum was staring intently at the fallen leader.

Soraya knew that look of determination. ―Amun…‖

―Just give me five minutes.‖

They needed the information, there was no question about that. Soraya nodded reluctantly and, with Yusef, walked back to where the other two men lay near the mouth of the hallway. There wasn‘t much to see. Both had taken multiple shots to the abdomen and chest. Neither was alive. As they gathered up the rifles, they heard a muffled cry that, in its inhumanity, sent shivers down their spines.

Yusef turned to her. ―This Egyptian friend of yours, he can be trusted?‖

Soraya nodded, already sick at what Amun was doing with her consent.

There was silence then, except for the desperate voice of the wind, keening through the abandoned rooms. After a time, Chalthoum returned to them. He was limping badly, and Yusef handed him a rifle to lean on.

―My enemies had nothing to do with this,‖ he said in a voice that had not been changed one iota by what he‘d just done. ―These men were hired by the Americans, specifically a man known ridiculously as Triton. Mean anything to you?‖

Soraya shook her head.

―But these might.‖ She saw four small rectangular metal objects swinging from a length of cord. ―I found these around the leader‘s neck.‖

She examined them when he handed them over. ―They look like dog tags.‖

Amun nodded. ―He said they came from the four Americans who were executed back there. These bastards murdered them.‖

But she had to admit the tags weren‘t like any she had ever seen. Instead of carrying name, rank, and serial number, they were laser-engraved with what looked like—

―They‘re enciphered,‖ she said, her heart beating fast. ―These might be the key to proving who launched the Kowsar 3, and why.‖

Book Four

31

LEONID DANILOVICH ARKADIN roamed the passenger area of the Air Afrika flight that had been sent for him and his cadre in Nagorno-Karabakh. He knew their destination was Iran. Noah Perlis was certain that Arkadin didn‘t know the specific site, but Noah was wrong. Like many Americans in his position, Noah believed himself smarter than those who weren‘t American and able to manipulate them. Where Americans got that idea was something of a mystery, but having spent time in DC, Arkadin had some ideas. America‘s smug sense of isolation might have been shaken by the events in 2001, but not its sense of privilege and entitlement. When he‘d been there, he‘d sat in district restaurants, eavesdropping on conversations as part of his Treadstone training. But at the same time he‘d listen to the neocons—men of power, substance, and influence who were convinced that they had the keys to how the world worked. For them, everything was childishly simple, as if there were only two immutable variables in life: action and reaction, both of which they understood completely, and for which they planned. And when the reactions were not what their brain trust had anticipated—when their plans blew up in their faces—instead of admitting their error, in a tide of amnesia they redoubled their efforts. To him, it was madness that turned these people deaf and blind to real events as they unfolded.

Perhaps, he thought now, as he checked and rechecked the readiness of his men and their equipment, Noah was one of the last of his kind, a dinosaur unaware that his age was ending, that the glacier that had been forming on the horizon was about to plow him under.

Just like Dimitri Ilyinovich Maslov.

She has to go back,‖ Dimitri Ilyinovich Maslov said, ―she and the three girls. Otherwise there will be no peace with Lev Antonin.‖

―Since when does a shit-kicker like Antonin dictate to you,‖ Arkadin said, ―the head of the Kazanskaya grupperovka?‖

Arkadin had the sensation that Tarkanian, who stood by his side, had winced. The three men were surrounded by sound, amplified to an earsplitting level. In the Pasha Room of Propaganda, an elitnyclub in downtown Moscow, there were only two other men—both Maslov‘s muscle. All the other attendees—

of which there were more than a dozen—were young, long-legged, blond, busty, gorgeous, and sexually desirable, which pretty much defined them: tyolkasall. They were clothed—or, more accurately, semi-clothed—in provocative outfits, whether miniskirts, bikinis, see-through tops, plunging necklines, or completely backless dresses. They wore high heels, even the ones in bathing suits, and plenty of makeup. Some reluctantly returned to their high school classes each day.

Maslov stared hard at Arkadin, assuming that like everyone else he confronted, he could intimidate him just by a look. Maslov was wrong, and he didn‘t like being wrong. Ever.

He took one step toward Arkadin, which was an aggressive step, though not a threatening one, and his nose wrinkled. ―What‘s that fire smoke I smell on you, Arkadin, are you a fucking woodsman on top of everything else?‖

Five miles from the Orthodox cathedral, Arkadin had taken Joškar into the dense pine forest. She was cradling Yasha in her arms and he was holding an ax he‘d drawn out of the trunk of her car. Her three daughters, sobbing hysterically, trailed along behind the adults in single file.

When they‘d left the parked car, Tarkanian had yelled after them, ―Half an hour, after that I‘m getting the fuck out of here!‖

―Will he really leave us here?‖ she asked.

―Do you care?‖

―Not as long as you‘re with me.‖

At least, that‘s what he thought she‘d said. She‘d spoken so softly that the wind had taken her words almost as soon as they were out of her mouth.

Wings fluttered by overhead as they tramped beneath the swaying pine branches. Once they crunched through the thin crust, the snow was soft as down. Overhead, the sky was as woolly as Joškar‘s coat.

In a small clearing she set her son down on a bed of snowy pine needles.

―He always loved the forest,‖ she said. ―He used to beg me to take him to play in the mountains.‖

As he set about finding felled trees, deadwood, and chopping it up into foot-long logs, Arkadin remembered his own all-too-infrequent trips to the mountains around Nizhny Tagil, the only place where he could take a deep breath without the oppressive weight of his parents and his birthplace withering his heart and sickening his spirit.

Within twenty minutes he had a bonfire going. The girls had stopped their sobbing, their tears freezing like tiny diamonds on their ruddy cheeks. As they stared, fascinated, into the building flames, the frozen tears melted, dripping from their rounded chins.

Joškar delivered Yasha into his arms while she said the prayers in her native language. She held her daughters close to her as she intoned the words, which gradually became a song, her strong voice lifted through the pine boughs, echoing into the thick clouds. Arkadin wondered if the fairies, elves, gods, and demi-gods she had invoked in her stories were somewhere close, watching the ceremony with sorrowful eyes.

At length, Joškar instructed Arkadin on what to say when she placed Yasha onto the funeral pyre. The girls were crying again as they watched their brother‘s little body being consumed by the flames. Joškar said a final prayer, and then they were done. Arkadin had no idea how much time had passed, but Tarkanian and the car were still waiting for them when they broke out of the tree line and returned to civilization.

I made a promise to her,‖ Arkadin said.

―This fucking baby factory?‖ Maslov scoffed. ―You‘re stupider than you look.‖

―You‘re the one who risked two of your men—one of them totally incompetent—to bring me back here.‖

―Yes, you shithead, not you and four civilians who belong to someone else.‖

―You talk about them as if they‘re cattle.‖

―Hey, fuck you, bright boy! Lev Antonin wants them back, and that‘s where they‘re going.‖

―I‘m responsible for her son‘s death.‖

―Did you kill the little fucker?‖ Maslov was fairly shouting now. The muscle had been drifting closer and the tyolkaswere doing their best to look in another direction.

―No.‖

―Then you‘re not responsible for his death. End of fucking story!‖

―I made a promise that she wouldn‘t be sent back to her husband, she‘s dead scared of him. He‘ll beat her half to death.‖

―What the fuck does that mean to me?‖ In his fury, Maslov‘s mineral eyes seemed to shoot sparks. ―I have a business to run.‖