Текст книги "The Bourne Dominion (Господство Борна)"

Автор книги: Eric Van Lustbader

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Table of Contents

Copyright Page

In loving memory of Barbara Skydel

Thanks to

Sam Gold, Ken Dorph

Prologue

Phuket, Thailand

JASON BOURNE EELED his way through the mob. He was assaulted by the bone-juddering, heart-attack-inducing, soul-shattering blast of music coming from ten-foot-tall speakers set on either end of the enormous dance floor. Above the dancers’ bobbing heads an aurora borealis of lights splintered, coalesced, and then shattered against the domed ceiling like an armada of comets and shooting stars.

Ahead of him, across the restless sea of bodies, the woman with the thick mane of blond hair made her way around gyrating couples of all possible combinations. Bourne pressed after her; it was like trying to push his way through a soft mattress. The heat was palpable. Already the snow on the fur collar of his thick coat had melted away. His hair was slick with it. The woman darted in and out of the light, like a minnow under the sun-beaten skin of a lake. She seemed to move in a shuddering jerk-step, visible first here, then there. Bourne pushed after her, overamplified bass and drums having highjacked the feel of his own pulse.

At length, he confirmed that she was making for the ladies’ room, and, having already plotted out a shortcut, he broke off his direct pursuit and plowed the new route through the melee. He arrived at the door just as she disappeared inside. Through the briefly open door the smells of weed, sex, and sweat emerged to swirl around him.

He waited for a pair of young women to stumble out in a cloud of perfume and giggles, then he slid inside. Three women with long, tangled hair and chunky, jangling jewelry huddled at the line of sinks, so engrossed in snorting coke they didn’t see him. Crouching down to peer under the doors, he went quickly past the line of stalls. Only one was occupied. Drawing his Glock, he screwed the noise suppressor onto the end of the barrel. He kicked open the door and, as it slammed back against the partition, the woman with ice-blue eyes and a mane of blond hair aimed a small silver-plated .22 Beretta at him. He put a bullet through her heart, a second in her right eye.

He was smoke by the time her forehead hit the tiles…

Bourne opened his eyes to the diamond glare of tropical sunshine. He looked out onto the deep azure of the Andaman Sea, at the sail– and motorboats bobbing at anchor just offshore. He shivered, as if he were still in his memory shard instead of on Patong Beach in Phuket. Where was that disco? Norway? Sweden? When had he killed that woman? And who was she? A target assigned to him by Alex Conklin before the trauma that had cast him into the Mediterranean with a severe concussion. That was all he could be certain of. Why had Treadstone targeted her? He racked his brain, trying to gather all the details of his dream, but like smoke they drifted through his fingers. He remembered the fur collar of his coat, his hair, wet with snow. But what else? The woman’s face? That appeared and reappeared with the echo of the flickering star-bursts of light. For a moment the music throbbed through him, then it winked out like the last rays of the sun.

What had triggered the memory shard?

He rose from the blanket. Turning, he saw Moira and Berengária Moreno Skydel silhouetted against the burning blue sky, the blindingly white clouds, the vertical finger hills, umber and green. Moira had invited him down to Berengária’s estancia in Sonora, but he had wanted to get farther away from civilization, so they had met up at this resort on the west coast of Thailand, and here they had spent the last three days and nights. During that time, Moira had explained what she was doing in Sonora with the sister of the late drug czar Gustavo Moreno, the two women had asked for his help, and he had agreed. Moira said time was of the essence and, after hearing the details, he had agreed to leave for Colombia tomorrow.

Turning back, he saw a woman in a tiny orange bikini high-stepping like a cantering horse through the surf. Her thick mane of hair shone pale blond in the sunlight. Bourne followed her, drawn by the echo of his memory shard. He stared at her brown back, where the muscles worked between her shoulder blades. She turned slightly, then, and he saw her pull smoke into her lungs from a hand-rolled joint. For a moment, the tang of the sea breeze was sweetened by the drug. Then he saw her flinch and drop the joint into the surf, and his eyes followed hers.

Three police were coming down the beach. They wore suits, but there was no doubt as to their identity. She moved, thinking they were coming for her, but she was wrong. They were coming for Bourne.

Without hesitation, he waded into the surf. He needed to get them away from Moira and Berengária because Moira would surely try to help him and he didn’t want her involved. Just before he dived into an on-coming wave, he saw one of the detectives raise his hand, as if in a salute. When he emerged onto the surface, far beyond the surf line, he saw that it had been a signal. A pair of WaveRunner FZRs were converging on him from either side. There were two men on each, the driver and the man behind him clad in scuba. These people were covering all avenues of escape.

As he made for the Parole, a small sailboat close to him, his mind was working overtime. From the coordination and meticulous manner in which the approach had been made, he knew that the orders had not emanated from the Thai police, who were not known for either. Someone else was manipulating them, and he suspected he knew who. There had always been the chance that Severus Domna would seek retribution for what he had done to the secret organization. But further speculation would have to come afterward; first he had to get out of this trap and away to keep his promise to Moira to ensure Berengária’s safety.

Within a dozen powerful strokes he’d come to the Parole. Hoisting himself over the side, he was about to stand up when a fusillade of bullets caused the boat to rock back and forth. He began to crawl toward the middle of the boat, grabbing a coil of nylon rope. His hands gripped either gunwale. The WaveRunners were closer when the second fusillade came, their violent wakes causing the boat to dance and shudder so violently, it was easy for him to capsize it. He dived backward over the side, arms pinwheeling, as if he’d been shot.

The pair of WaveRunners crisscrossed the area around the overturned boat, their occupants looking for the bobbing of a head. When none appeared, the two scuba divers drew down their masks and, as the drivers slowed their vehicles, tumbled over the side, one hand keeping their masks in place.

Completely invisible to them, Bourne was treading water under the overturned boat, the trapped air sustaining him. But that respite was short-lived. He saw the columns of bubbles through the transparent water as the divers plunged in on either side of the boat.

Quickly he tied off one end of the nylon rope to the starboard cleat. When the first of the divers came at him from below, he ducked down, wrapped the cord around the diver’s neck, and pulled it tight. The diver let go of his speargun to counter Bourne’s attack and Bourne ripped off his mask, effectively blinding him. Then he grabbed the speargun as it floated free, turned, and shot the oncoming second diver through the chest.

Blood ballooned out in a thick cloud, dispersed by the current rising from the deep. Bourne knew it wasn’t wise to stay in these waters when blood was spilled. Lungs burning, he rose, breaking the surface under the overturned boat. But almost immediately he dived back down to find the first diver. The water was dark, hazy with the gout of blood. The dead diver hung in the mist, arms out to the sides, fins pointing straight down into darkness. Bourne was in the midst of turning when the nylon rope looped around his neck and was pulled tight. The first diver drove his knees into the small of Bourne’s back while he hauled on the rope from both sides. Bourne tried grabbing at the diver, but he swam backward out of the way. Though it was clamped shut, a thin line of bubbles trailed from the corner of Bourne’s mouth. The rope was cutting hard into his windpipe, holding him below the surface.

He fought the urge to struggle, knowing that this would both pull the rope tighter and exhaust him. Instead he hung motionless for a moment like the diver not three feet away, twisting in the current, playing dead. The diver pulled him close as he drew his knife to deliver the coup de grâce across Bourne’s neck.

Bourne reached back and pressed the PURGE button on the regulator. Air shot out with such force it caused the diver to loosen his mouth, and, with a thick plume of bubbles, Bourne tore the regulator free. The cord loosened around his neck. Taking advantage of the diver’s surprise, Bourne freed himself. Turning, he tried to pinion the diver’s arms, but his adversary drove the knife toward his chest. Bourne knocked it away, but as he did so the diver wrapped his arms around Bourne’s body so he couldn’t surface to get air.

Bourne pressed the diver’s octopus—the secondary regulator—into his mouth and sucked air into his fiery lungs. The diver scrabbled for his regulator, but Bourne fought him off. The man’s face was white and pinched. He tried again and again to position the knife so that it would cut Bourne or the octopus, to no avail. He blinked heavily several times and his eyes began to turn up as all the life drained out of him. Bourne lunged for the knife, but the diver let it go. It spiraled down into the deep.

Though Bourne was now breathing normally through the octopus, he knew that following a purge there would be very little air left in the tanks. The diver’s legs were locked around him, ankles crossed. In addition, the nylon cord had become entangled with both of them, building a kind of cocoon. He was working on freeing himself when he felt the powerful ripple. A chill rolled through him, rising from the depths. A shark came into view. It was perhaps twelve feet long, silvery black, slanting unerringly upward toward Bourne and the two dead divers. It had smelled the blood, sensed the thrashing bodies in the water transmitting the telltale vibrations that told it there was a dying fish, possibly more than one, for it to feast on.

Struggling, Bourne swung around, the diver in tow. Unbuckling the harness of the second diver’s air tanks, he pushed them off. Immediately the corpse sank down amid its black clouds of blood. The shark changed course, heading directly for the body. Its mouth hinged open and it took an enormous bite out of the diver. Bourne had given himself a respite, albeit a short one. Any minute now more sharks would be drawn to join in a feeding frenzy; he had to be out of the water by then.

He unsnapped the first diver’s weight belt, then pulled off his tanks. Then he fitted the mask over his face. Taking one last aborted breath, he let the tanks go—they were out of air, anyway. The two of them, locked in a macabre embrace, began to rise toward the surface. As they did so, Bourne worked on the nylon cord, unwinding it from around them. But the diver’s legs were still imprisoning his hips. Try as he might, he couldn’t unlock them.

He broke the surface and immediately saw one of the WaveRunners bouncing over the water directly at him. He waved. In the mask, he was hoping the driver would assume he was one of his divers. The WaveRunner slowed as it neared him. By this time, he’d managed to untangle the rope. As the craft swung around, he grabbed onto its back. When he tapped the driver on the knee, the WaveRunner took off. Bourne was still half in the water, and the vehicle’s speed loosened the diver’s death grip. Bourne pounded on the diver’s knees, heard a crack of bone, and then he was free.

He swung up onto the WaveRunner and broke the driver’s neck. Before he tossed him into the water, he unhooked the speargun from his belt. The driver of the second WaveRunner had seen what was happening and was in the process of turning when Bourne drove directly at him. The driver made the wrong choice. Drawing a handgun, he squeezed off two shots, but it was impossible to aim accurately on the bucking vehicle. By this time Bourne was close enough to make the leap. He swung the speargun, launching the WaveRunner’s driver off the vehicle even while he took control of it.

Alone, now, on the sapphire water, Bourne sped away.

Book One

1

One Week Later

“THEY’RE MAKING US look like fools.”

The president of the United States glared around the Oval Office, fixing his eyes on the men standing almost at attention. Outside, the afternoon was bright and sunny, but in here the tension in the room was so oppressive it felt as if the president’s own private thunderstorm had rolled in.

“How did this sorry state of affairs happen?”

“The Chinese have been ahead of us for years,” said Christopher Hendricks, the newly minted secretary of defense. “They’ve begun building nuclear reactors in order to wean themselves off oil and coal, and now as it turns out they own ninety-six percent of the world’s production of rare earths.”

“Rare earths,” the president thundered. “Just what the hell are rare earths?”

General Marshall, the Pentagon’s chief of staff, shifted from one foot to the other, clearly uncomfortable. “They’re minerals that—”

“With all due respect, General,” Hendricks said. “Rare earths are elements.”

Mike Holmes, the national security adviser, turned to Hendricks. “What’s the difference and who the hell cares?”

“Each of the rare earth oxides exhibits its own unique properties,” Hendricks said. “Rare earths are essential for a host of new technologies including electric cars, cell phones, windmills, lasers, superconductors, high-tech magnets, and—to many in this room, especially you, General, most important of all—military weaponry in all areas crucial to our continued security: electronic, optical, and magnetic. Take, for example, the Predator unmanned aircraft or any of our next-generation precision-guided munitions, laser targeting, and satellite communications networks. They all depend on rare earths we import from China.”

“Well, why the hell didn’t we know about all this before?” Holmes fumed.

The president plucked a number of sheets off his desk, holding them up like washing on a line. “Here we have Exhibit A. Six memos dated over the last twenty-three months from Chris to your staff, General, making the same points Chris has made here.” The president turned one of the memos around and read from it. “ ‘Is anyone at the Pentagon aware that it takes two tons of rare earth oxides to make a single new energy windmill, that those windmills we use are imported from China?’ ” He looked inquiringly at General Marshall.

“I never saw those,” Marshall said stiffly. “I have no knowledge—”

“Well, at least someone on your staff does,” the president cut in, “which means that, at the very least, General, your lines of communication are fucked.” The president hardly ever used foul language, and there ensued a shocked silence. “At worst,” the president continued, “there’s a case to be made for gross negligence.”

“Gross negligence?” Marshall blinked. “I don’t understand.”

The president sighed. “Clue him in, Chris.”

“As of five days ago, the Chinese slashed their export quotas of rare earth oxides by seventy percent. They are stockpiling rare earths for their own use, just as I predicted they’d do in my second Pentagon memo thirteen months ago.”

“Because no action was taken,” the president said, “we’re now good and screwed.”

“Tomahawk cruise missiles, the XM982 Excalibur Precision Guided Extended Range Artillery Projectile, the GBU-28 Bunker Buster smart bomb”—Hendricks counted the weaponry off on his fingers—“fiber optics, night-vision technology, the Multipurpose Integrated Chemical Agent Detector known as MICAD and used to detect chemical poisons, Saint-Gobain Crystals for enhanced radiation detection, sonar and radar transducers…” He cocked his head. “Shall I go on?”

The general glared at him but wisely kept his venomous thoughts to himself.

“So.” The president’s fingers drummed a tattoo on his desk. “How do we get out of this mess?” He did not want an answer. Depressing a button on his intercom, he said, “Send him in.”

A moment later a small, round, balding man bustled into the Oval Office. If he was intimidated by all the power in the room, he didn’t show it. Instead he gave a little head bow, much as someone would when addressing a European monarch. “Mr. President, Christopher.”

The president smiled. “This, gentlemen, is Roy FitzWilliams. He’s in charge of Indigo Ridge. Besides Chris, any of you heard of Indigo Ridge? I thought not.” He nodded. “Fitz, if you would.”

“Absolutely, sir.” FitzWilliams’s head bounced up and down like a bobblehead. “In 1978 Unocal bought Indigo Ridge, an area in California with the largest deposit of rare earths outside of China. The oil giant wanted to exploit the element deposits, but with one thing and another they never got around to it. In 2005 a Chinese company made a bid for Unocal, which Congress stopped because of security concerns.” He cleared his throat. “Congress was worried about oil refining getting into Chinese hands; it had never heard of Indigo Ridge or, for that matter, rare earths.”

“So,” the president said, “simply by the grace of God, we retained control of Indigo Ridge.”

“Which brings us to the present,” Fitz said. “Through the efforts of you, Mr. President, and Mr. Hendricks, we have formed a company, called NeoDyme. So much money is needed that NeoDyme is being taken public tomorrow in an enormous IPO. Some of what I’ve told you is, of course, in the public domain. Interest in rare earths has quickened with the Chinese announcement. We’ve also been taking the NeoDyme story on the road, talking the IPO up to key securities analysts, so we hope that they will be recommending the stock to their clients.

“NeoDyme will not only begin the mining of Indigo Ridge, which should have begun decades ago, but also ensure the future security of the country.” He pulled out a note card. “To date, we have identified thirteen rare earth elements in the Indigo Ridge property, including the vital heavy rare earths. Shall I list them?”

He looked up. “Ah, no, maybe not.” He cleared his throat again. “Just this week our geologists delivered even better news. The latest test bores have given indications of the presence of a number of socalled green rare earths, a tremendously significant find for the future, because even the Chinese mines don’t contain these metals.”

The president rolled his shoulders, which he did when coming to the crux of the matter at hand. “Bottom line, gentlemen, NeoDyme is going to become the most important company in America, and possibly—I assure you this is not an overstatement—in the entire world.” His piercing gaze rested on everyone in the room in turn. “It goes without saying that security at Indigo Ridge is a top priority for us now and into the foreseeable future.”

He turned to Hendricks. “Accordingly, I am this day creating a topsecret task force, code-named Samaritan, which will be headed by Christopher. He will liaise with all of you, draw resources as he sees fit from your domains. You will cooperate with him in every way.”

The president stood. “I want to make this crystal clear, gentlemen. Because the security of America—its very future—is at stake, we cannot afford even one mistake, one miscommunication, one dropped ball.” His eyes caught those of General Marshall. “I will have zero tolerance for turf wars, backbiting, or interagency jealousies. Anyone holding back intelligence or personnel from Samaritan will be severely disciplined. Consider yourselves warned. Now go forth and multiply.”

Boris Illyich Karpov broke the arm of one man and jammed his elbow into the eye socket of the second. Blood spurted and heads hung. The stink of sweat and animal fear rose heavily from the two prisoners. They were bound to metal chairs bolted to the rough concrete floor. Between them was a drain, ominous in its circumference.

“Repeat your stories,” Karpov said. “Now.”

As newly appointed head of FSB-2, the Russian secret police arm built by Viktor Cherkesov from an anti-narcotics squad into a rival of Russia’s FSB, inheritor of the KGB’s mantle, Karpov was cleaning house. This was something he had longed to do for many years. Now, through a deal made in strictest confidence, Cherkesov had given him the chance.

Karpov, leaning forward, slapped them both. The normal procedure was to isolate suspects in order to ferret out discrepancies in their answers, but this was different. Karpov already knew the answers; Cherkesov had told him all he needed to know about not only the bad apples in FSB-2—those on the take from certain grupperovkafamilies or what business oligarchs remained after the Kremlin crackdown of the last several years—but also the officers who would seek to undermine Karpov’s authority.

No one was speaking, so Karpov stood up and exited the prison cell. He stood alone in the sub-basement of the yellow-brick building just down the road from Lubyanka Square, where the rival FSB was still headquartered, just as it had been since the time when it was overseen by the terrifying Lavrentiy Beria.

Karpov shook out a cigarette and lit it. Leaning against a dank wall, he smoked, a silent, solitary figure, locked within thoughts of how he would redirect FSB-2’s energies, how he could build it into a force that would find permanent favor with President Imov.

When his fingers began to burn he dropped the butt, ground it beneath his heel, and strode into the neighboring cell, where a rotten officer of FSB-2 sat, broken. Karpov hauled him up and dragged him into the cell with the two officers. The scuffling commotion caused them to lift their heads and stare at the new prisoner.

Without a word, Karpov drew his Makarov and shot the man he was holding in the back of the head. The percussion was such that the bullet exited the brain through the forehead in a spray of blood and brains that spattered the two men bound to their chairs. The corpse pitched forward, sprawled between them.

Karpov called out and two guards appeared. One carried a large reinforced black plastic lawn bag, the other a chain saw, which, at Karpov’s direction, he started up. A puff of oily blue smoke rose from the machine, and then the two men went to work on the corpse, beheading then dismembering it. On either side, the two officers looked down, unable to tear their eyes away from the grisly sight. When Karpov’s men were finished, they gathered up the pieces and dropped them into the lawn bag. Then they left.

“He didn’t answer questions.” Karpov looked hard from one officer to the other. “His fate is your fate, most certainly, unless…” He allowed his voice to die off like smoke rising from a fire that was only just starting.

“Unless what?” Anton, one of the officers, said.

“Shut the fuck up!” Georgy, the other, snapped.

“Unless you accept the inevitable.” Karpov stood in front of them, but he addressed Anton. “This agency is going to change—with you or without you. Think of it this way. You have been granted a singular opportunity to become part of my inner circle, to give me both your faith and your fealty. In return, you live and, quite possibly, you prosper. But only if your allegiance is to me and me alone. If it wavers so much as a little, your family will never know what happened to you. There won’t even be a body left to bury, to comfort your loved ones, nothing, in fact, to mark your time on this earth.”

“I swear undying loyalty to you, General Karpov, on this you can rely.”

Georgy spat, “Traitor! I’ll tear you limb from limb.”

Karpov ignored the outburst. “Words, Anton Fedarovich,” he said.

“What must I do, then?”

Karpov shrugged. “If I have to tell you, there’s no point, is there?”

Anton appeared to consider a moment. “Untie me then.”

“If I untie you, then what?”

“Then,” Anton said, “we will get to the point.”

“Immediately?”

“Without a doubt.”

Karpov nodded and, moving around behind the two, untied Anton’s wrists and ankles. Anton stood up. He was careful not to rub the rawness of his wrists. He held out his right hand. Karpov stared fixedly into his eyes, then, after a moment, he presented his Makarov butt-first.

“Shoot him!” Georgy cried. “Shoot him, not me, you fool!”

Anton took the pistol and shot Georgy twice in the face.

Karpov looked on without expression. “And now how shall we dispose of the body?” This was said in the manner of an oral exam, a final, the culmination, or perhaps the first step in indoctrination.

Anton was as careful with his answer as he was thoughtful. “The chain saw was for the other. This man… this man deserves nothing, less than nothing.” He stared down at the drain, which looked like the maw of a monstrous beast. “I wonder,” he said, “have you any strong acid?”

Forty minutes later, under bright sunshine and a perfectly blue sky, Karpov, on his way to brief President Imov on his progress, received the briefest of text messages. “Border.”

“Ramenskoye,” Karpov said to his driver, referring to Moscow’s main military airport, where a plane, fueled and fully manned, was always at his disposal. The driver made a U-turn as soon as traffic allowed, and stepped on the accelerator.

The moment Karpov presented his credentials to the military immigration official at Ramenskoye, a man so slight Boris at first mistook him for a teenager stepped out of the shadows. He wore a plain dark suit, a bad tie, and scuffed, dusty shoes. There was not an ounce of fat on him; it was as if his muscles were welded into one lithe machine. It was as if he’d honed his body for use as a weapon.

“General Karpov.” He did not offer his hand or any form of greeting. “My name is Zachek.” He offered neither a first name nor a patronymic.

“What?” Karpov said. “Like Paladin?”

Zachek’s long, ax-like face registered nothing. “Who’s Paladin?” He snatched Karpov’s passport from the soldier. “Please come with me, General.”

Turning his back, he started off across the floor and, because he had Karpov’s credentials, Boris, quietly seething, was obliged to follow him. Zachek led him down a sporadically lit corridor that smelled of boiled cabbage and carbolic, through an unmarked door, and into a small, windowless interrogation room. It contained a table bolted to the floor and two blue molded-plastic folding chairs. Incongruously, there was a beautiful brass samovar on the table, along with two glasses, spoons, and a small brass bowl of white and brown sugar cubes.

“Please sit,” Zachek said. “Make yourself at home.”

Karpov ignored him. “I’m the head of FSB-2.”

“I’m aware of who you are, General.”

“Who the hell are you?”

Zachek pulled a laminated folder out of the breast pocket of his suit jacket and opened it. Karpov was forced to take several steps closer in order to read it. SLUZHBA VNESHNEY RAZVEDKI. He reared back. This man was head of the counter-insurgency directorate at SVR, the Russian Federation equivalent of the American Central Intelligence. Strictly speaking, FSB and FSB-2 were confined to domestic matters, though Cherkesov had expanded his agency’s mandate overseas without generating any blowback. Was that what this interview was about, FSB-2 encroaching on SVR’s territory? Karpov now very much regretted not having brought up the subject with Cherkesov before he had taken over.

Karpov slapped the veneer of a smile on his face. “What can I do for you?”

“It’s more what I—or, more accurately, SVR—can do for you.”

“I very much doubt that.”

Karpov was close enough to snatch Zachek’s credentials as Zachek was about to put them away. Now he waved them like a flag of war on the battlefield. In his mind he heard the sounds of sabers rattling.

Zachek held out Karpov’s passport, and the two men exchanged prisoners.

When Karpov had put his passport safely away, he said, “I have a plane to catch.”

“The pilot has instructions to wait until this interview has ended.” Zachek crossed to the samovar. “Tea?”

“I think not.”

Zachek, in the process of filling one glass, turned back to him. “A mistake, surely, General. We have here the finest Russian Caravan black tea. What makes this particular blend of oolong, Keemun, and Lapsang souchong so special is that it was transported from its various plantations through Mongolia and Siberia, just as it was in the eighteenth century when the camel caravans brought it from China, India, and Ceylon.” He took the filled glass by his fingertips and brought it up to his nose, breathing in deeply. “The cold, dry climate allows just the right touch of moisture to be absorbed by the tea when it is nightly set down on the snow-covered steppes.”

He drank, paused, and drank again. Then he looked at Karpov. “Are you certain?”

“Quite certain.”

“As you wish, General.” Zachek sighed as he put down the glass. “It has come to our attention—”

“ Our?”

“The SVR’s attention. Do you prefer that?” Zachek’s fingers waggled. “In any event, you have piqued the SVR’s attention.”

“In what way?”

Zachek put his hands behind his back. He looked like a cadet on the parade ground. “You know, General, I envy a man like you.”

Karpov decided to let him talk uninterrupted. He wanted this mysterious interview over with as soon as possible.

“You’re old school, you came up the hard way, fought for every promotion, bodies of those weaker than you littered behind you.” He pointed at his own chest. “I, on the other hand, had it comparatively easy. You know, it occurs to me that I could learn a lot from a man such as yourself.” He waited for Karpov to respond, but when only silence ensued, he continued.

“How would you like that, General, mentoring me?”

“You’re like all the young technocrats who play video games and think that’s a substitute for experience in the field.”

“I have more important things to do than play video games.”