Текст книги "The Bourne Dominion (Господство Борна)"

Автор книги: Eric Van Lustbader

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Текущая страница: 21 (всего у книги 27 страниц)

She had a bank officer call her a taxi, asking for a late-model Mercedes. While she waited, she called her destination and, in her best, clipped Parisian French, made an appointment with the vice president under the name of Mademoiselle Gobelins. When the Mercedes arrived, she gave the driver the address of her destination.

Ignoring the intermittent pounding in her head, she pushed through the glass doors of the bank building at the stroke of eleven thirty. A receptionist’s podium rose imposingly in the center of the space, flanked on either side by large potted traveler’s palms. Directly behind the podium were the glass doors to the bank. She stood in front of them for a moment, feeling lost, ill, and slightly fearful, but then a feeling of elation gripped her, as if she had reached the end of her investigation. With an effort, she put aside the grief and despair of last night and drew on her anger to help her concentrate on her mission.

Inside, the bank was an open space with long pedestals for people to write on. To the right, a line of teller cages stretched away, to the left a gated wooden half wall led to a row of cubicles inside which bank officers dutifully listened to customer requests or brought their paperwork up to date. At the rear of the room was a high wood-paneled wall in the center of which were a series of digital clocks showing the time in Paris, New York, London, and Moscow. On either side were staircases leading up to the second-floor offices where the highest-ranking bank officers worked. That was where Soraya needed to go.

She gave her name to the information officer, who immediately picked up a phone and called upstairs. Moments later a guard came and accompanied her across the room. She was buzzed in through a gate, and the guard brought her to the center of the rear wall. At the touch of a button, a panel slid open and Soraya stepped into a sumptuously appointed elevator. The guard accompanied her up to the second floor, directing her to the right, down a softly lit corridor. Soraya could hear the discreet tap-tap-tapof fingernails on computer keyboards as she passed open doorways to right and left.

Her appointment was with M. Sigismond, a tall man, slim but powerful looking, with light brown hair, parted on one side, who sprang around his desk to greet her. Extending his hand, he said, “So very nice to make your acquaintance, Mademoiselle Gobelins.” His French contained a slight Germanic starchiness. Holding her hand by the tips of her fingers, he kissed the back, then indicated a plush sofa on her right. “Please have a seat.”

When he had settled himself beside her, he said, “I understand that you would like to make the Nymphenburg Landesbank of Munich your financial institution of choice.”

“That’s right,” Soraya said. She thought M. Sigismond’s brown eyes were the product of colored contacts. “Now that I’ve come into my inheritance, your Wealth Management Division has been recommended to me as being the best in Western Europe.”

M. Sigismond’s smile could not have been warmer. “My dear, it is gratifying, is it not, to know that all one’s hard work has had its desired result.”

“It certainly is.”

“And your complete wish is?”

“To open an account. I have a sizable sum to deposit with more to come. And I will require investment assistance.”

“But of course. Splendid!” M. Sigismond slapped his hands decisively on his thighs. “Now, before we proceed further, I would like to introduce you to the gentleman behind the grand success of our Wealth Management.” He rose and opened a door in the wall that Soraya had not previously noticed. In strode a man of distinctly Middle Eastern descent. He was dark in every way imaginable, and almost magnetically handsome.

“Ah, Mademoiselle Gobelins, what a pleasure to meet you,” he said, gliding toward her. “My name is Benjamin El-Arian.”

Bourne stopped them as they were nearing Don Fernando’s house.

“What is it?” Don Fernando said.

“I don’t know.” Bourne moved them into the clattering shadows of the palms on the sea side of the road. “Something’s wrong. Stay here.”

“I don’t think so.” Don Fernando raised the Colt Python. “Don’t worry, I won’t slow you down.”

Bourne knew there was no point in arguing. Together the two men moved from shadow to shadow until they were opposite the street where the house sat. They stayed there, still and silent, until Bourne caught a shadow darting across one of the lighted windows. It was too large to be Kaja. He pointed, and Don Fernando nodded. He had seen the shadow and understood its implications.

Bourne turned to the older man. “I’m going in through the bedroom window Etana used, but I need a diversion.”

“Leave that to me,” Don Fernando said.

“Give me three minutes to get into place,” Bourne said before he set off across the almost deserted road.

He moved silently from shadow to shadow, approaching the house via an indirect route. Ahead of him, between the street and the stand of palms through which he had chased Etana, was a patch of open ground lit up by streetlights. Moving around to the other side of the house, he saw that the neighboring home was quite close. Bundled telephone and electrical wires stretched down lower and lower house-to-house from the high metal pole on the sea road. He had little time to second-guess himself. He unbuckled his belt, then scaled the side of the neighboring house. Tossing the buckle end of the belt over the wires, he grasped both ends and slid down the wire bundle until he reached the shadows of Don Fernando’s house, and climbed down.

As he ran through the shadows at the rear, he heard gunshots. Racing to his bedroom window, he climbed through into darkness.

He stood absolutely still, listening with every part of his body. The smell of industrial-strength cleanser came to him, but no trace of Essai’s blood. There was no sign of the corpse; Don Fernando’s people were both fast and efficient. Bourne stood just inside the door, controlling his breathing. He could hear the soft hum of the heating system, the squeak of the window sashes as gusts of wind buffeted them. Then he heard the creaks of the floorboards. Kaja’s weight was not great enough to create that sound, so at least one man was in the house. Then a second creak, in a different room, told him there were at least two men in the house. Where was Kaja? Tied up? Wounded? Dead?

Passing through the partially open door, he picked his way down the long corridor that led to the living room and the front of the house. His nostrils flared as he smelled the alien presence. Pushing the door to Kaja’s bedroom open, he found it empty. The coverlet was unrumpled; he didn’t smell her. Whatever she had done after Don Fernando had left, she hadn’t been in the room. He passed the kitchen, which was empty.

The end of the hallway opened up into the living room. Through the French doors, the enclosed garden looked windblown and abandoned. She wasn’t out there, either. Bourne saw the two armed men. One was at the front door, the other was coming back inside after checking the cause of the gunshots.

“Nothing,” he said to his partner in Russian. “Must have been a truck backfiring.”

Bourne launched himself at them, knocking the one on the right flat on his back. He landed a heavy blow on the point of the Russian’s chin, then twisted his torso to give himself enough leverage to engage the one on the left. He had just locked his hand over the barrel of the Glock when Don Fernando burst through the front door. His cell phone was clapped to one ear, his Colt Python pointed at the floor.

“Stop! All of you!” he cried. “Jason, these men are Almaz!”

Bourne relaxed his body and the two Russians stirred. The one he had punched groaned and rolled over.

“What are they doing here?” Bourne said, gaining his feet. “Where’s Kaja?”

Don Fernando took the phone from his ear. “She’s gone, Jason.”

“Kidnapped?”

The second Russian shook his head. “She was observed leaving here on her own. That’s why we were dispatched.”

Don Fernando glowered at him. “And?”

The Almaz agent sighed. “She’s gone. We could find no sign of her in the area, no clue inside the house as to where she went.” He looked up at Don Fernando. “She’s ghosted away.”

Skara stared at herself in the hotel’s bathroom mirror and saw a face she scarcely recognized. One thing was for certain, she was no longer Margaret Penrod. Who am I?she wondered with a shiver like ice water down her back. The question terrified her; the reality of it brought her unbearable grief. Her fingers curled, the nails like knife blades as she scored welts on her palms. She felt the fire, but it was only skin-deep.

She’d had every intention of going back to her apartment, but had stayed in the rigged hotel room, either out of self-punishment or spite, possibly both.

She closed her eyes. Memories flooded back like blood from an open wound. Her father had told her to keep Mikaela safe before he left for the last time. Skara was the only one who had known he was never coming back. He had confided in her, though it was only much later that she understood why; he never said a word about his life to Viveka. Possibly he had seen something of himself in Skara; certainly he had passed things on to her, had taught her how to take care of herself and her sisters. But the Russians had come in the middle of the day when she had mistakenly thought it would be safe to get food. She had left Mikaela with a gun, she had been gone only fifteen minutes, but as it turned out they were the last fifteen minutes of her sister’s life. That was when she and Kaja had decided to leave Stockholm, leave Sweden altogether, split up and have no contact with each other.

She stared at her reflection in the mirror. The welts she had scored on her palms seemed to pulse in the fluorescent light, as if alive. When she switched off the light it seemed to her that she had winked out of existence.

Padding across the room, she reached into the mini-bar for a bottle of vodka. It was so small, she poured it and a second into a thick, heavy-bottomed lowball glass she took off a metal shelf just above the half fridge. She drank off a quarter, then put the glass down on the night table.

She disrobed slowly and provocatively, performing for the video cameras as if they were switched on. Kneeling with her legs apart, she gripped her bare breasts, squeezing until tears ran down her cheeks. Then she lay on her stomach, her hands beneath her at the fulcrum of her thighs, working her fingers in a way that sent a mixture of pleasure and pain through her as she wept into a pillow.

She dragged out the pleasure-pain as long as she could, riding the crests until she fell over onto the other side. When it was over, her body drained, her mind empty, there came a respite, but so brief she winced when the responsibilities of her current life flooded back.

She was trapped in a morally perverse world, trapped in a place and time she had worked toward, but now regarded as repellent. For the first time in many years, she wished Kaja were with her, or at least accessible so she could pour out her current agony before the only other soul on earth who might understand. But she had no idea of Kaja’s whereabouts, or even her current identity. There was no hope on that score.

Then what about Christopher? The room’s air conditioner started up, and a cold wind blew across her back, raising goose bumps. She had run out of options—there was Christopher and then there was Benjamin, the two opposing forces in her current life. Everything had changed during the last phone call with Benjamin; she had to ignore her heart, she had to stay as far away from Christopher as possible.

Making that decision heartened her, and she rose off the bed. She stared at the table on which rested the meal room service had delivered hours ago. She hadn’t touched it and now never would. She picked up the tray and carried it to the door. Balancing it on one hand, she opened the door. The moment she did so, three men waiting in the hallway jumped her.

If he were to be honest with himself, Aaron was doing a whole bunch of nothing when he caught the call from his boss.

“She’s not at the bank,” Robbinet’s crisp voice said in his ear. “You’d better hope she isn’t lying somewhere in the gutter unconscious, or with a bullet through her head.”

Aaron’s mind raced. Like Robbinet, he had assumed that Soraya would head for the Île de France Bank in La Défense. He would have if he were her.

“Wait a minute,” he said, suddenly remembering a certain detail of their interrogation of M. Marchand. “The finances of the Monition Club run through Île de France, but the managing entity is Nymphenburg Landesbank of Munich.”

“Never heard of it,” Robbinet snapped. “Is it represented in Paris?”

“Just a moment.” Aaron did a Google search on his cell phone. “Yes, sir, there’s one office. Seventy Boulevard de Courcelles. Just opposite Parc Monceau.”

“Meet me there in fifteen minutes,” Robbinet said. “And God help you if she’s injured, or worse.”

The plates, cutlery, and food went flying as Skara drove the edge of the tray into the leading man’s throat, but the other two men shoved her back into the room with such force she tumbled into the table and went down on one knee.

The man she had struck slammed the door behind him, locking the four of them in the room together. He drew out a Glock and screwed on a suppressor, while the pair grabbed her arms and threw her onto the bed. He aimed the Glock at her while one of the pair pinned her ankles. The third Russian loosened his belt and climbed on top of her. He stank of garlic and cabbage. His legs pried her thighs apart and he put his face close to hers. She lunged her head upward, her bared teeth biting into his lower lip. He yelped and tried to rear back, but she held on, shaking her head like a dog, working her teeth deeper until she had ripped off a piece of flesh. Blood poured out and the Russian tried to roll off her.

“What’s going on?” the Russian with the Glock said.

As the Russian on top of her struggled to rise up, she slammed his lower jaw upward and forced him to grind his teeth.

“I know who you are,” she whispered into his ear as bloody foam began to leak out of his ruined mouth. She inhaled the scent of bitter almonds.

The Russian’s eyes rolled up and he convulsed. She threw him against the Russian holding her down, who let go of her ankles in order to catch the corpse. She grabbed him and swung him around just before the gunman squeezed the Glock’s trigger. The bullet struck the second Russian and he reared up, momentarily blocking the gunman’s view of his intended target.

She tumbled off the bed and, as the gunman swiveled to find her, kicked him hard in the chest. Taken unawares, he reeled back onto the carpet. His Glock went flying across the room. She lunged for the glass on the bedside table, smashed it against the edge, and drove the jagged bottom into the gunman’s eye.

He screamed and kept on screaming, his arms flailing, as she ground the glass deeper. The Russian’s fists beat at her, driving the breath out of her, and he began to rise up, using his superior strength and weight against her. But she drove her knee into his throat and, using all her leverage, cracked through the cartilage. He choked, gasping for air he could no longer draw into his lungs.

She rose off him then, picking her way carefully around the glittering shards of glass to where the Glock lay. She picked it up and, turning, shot the Russian between the eyes.

She stood rooted to the spot for some time. Before the air conditioner clicked on she thought she could hear the sound of blood seeping. She went slowly over to the bed and sat down on the edge of it, elbows on knees, the Glock with its extended barrel hanging between her legs.

Her head bowed, tears came, and for a long time she did not want to stop crying

Your time here is over, Jason,” Don Fernando said. “You can no longer protect Kaja.”

“You left her alone.”

“There was an emergency. Besides, she was under surveillance.”

“Little good it did.”

Don Fernando sighed. “Jason, this woman has made herself an expert at running and hiding. I knew all along that if she wanted to leave, short of tying her up, there was nothing I or my people could do to stop her.”

Bourne knew he was right, but it rankled him that Kaja was gone. She was a loose end. She had become an unknown in the complex equation.

Don Fernando produced a slim folder from his breast pocket and handed it to Bourne. “A first-class ticket to Damascus. There are several stopovers, but that can’t be helped. You’ll touch down by tomorrow morning. I’ll have Almaz agents meet you.”

“Don’t bother,” Bourne said, “I know where to go.” When Don Fernando looked at him quizzically, he added, “I found the shipping labels for whatever is in the dozen crates in the warehouse.”

“I see.” Don Fernando nodded judiciously. As the two Almaz agents departed, he extracted a cigar from its aluminum tube, bit off the end, and, flicking open his lighter, sucked smoke into his lungs. When he had the Cuban going to his satisfaction, he said, “The crates are filled with FN SCAR-M, Mark 20 assault rifles.”

“The Mark 20 doesn’t exist.”

“It does, Jason. These are prototypes. Their firepower is extremely destructive.”

“And they’re going to the Domna in Damascus. What for?”

“That’s what you need to find out.” Don Fernando blew out a cloud of aromatic smoke. “The Domna has been stockpiling these and other assault weapons for over a month, but in the last week the shipments have accelerated.”

“We have the ability to stop this one.”

“On the contrary, I’m doing everything I can to make certain they are delivered to the address you discovered. El-Gabal on Avenue Choukry Kouatly used to be the headquarters of a mining and mineral company. Now it’s a vast complex of offices and warehouse-size spaces used as Domna’s main staging area.”

Bourne tensed. “Why would you let the weapons leave Cadiz?”

“Because,” Don Fernando said, “those SCAR-Ms are filled with a powerful C-4 compound.” He pressed a tiny plastic package and a small cell phone into Bourne’s hand. “Each crate needs to be embedded with one of these identical SIM cards.” He opened the package to show Bourne the stack of SIMs.

“This couldn’t be done beforehand?”

Don Fernando shook his head. “Every delivery to El-Gabal is put through three different screeners. One is an X-ray machine. The chips would show up. No, they have to be planted by hand on site.”

“And then?”

Don Fernando smiled like a fox. “You have only to press six-six-six on this phone’s keypad, but you must be close and within line of sight of the SIMs for the Bluetooth signal to work. You will then have three minutes to get out of the building. The resulting explosion will destroy everything the Domna has stockpiled as well as everyone inside El-Gabal.”

27

SAVE FOR THE heightened security, Boris found Damascus much as he had left it, a modern city painfully growing up around the oasis, sporting minarets, mosques, and sites dating back to the time the Book of Genesis was written, somewhere during the thirteenth century bc. At the head of his army, Abraham descended into Damascus from the land of the Chaldeans, north of Babylon. He ruled the city for some years, refreshing himself and his men, enchanted by this bejeweled city in the fragrant valley between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, before pushing on to Canaan. Subsequently, Damascus was conquered by Alexander the Great and, later, taken by the Roman general Pompey. Septimius Severus decreed it an official colony of Rome, but Christianity came to the city also. Saint Paul was struck down by holy light on the road to Damascus. Subsequently, he and Saint Thomas lived in Bab Touma, the city’s oldest neighborhood. A crossroads of East and West of major importance, Damascus became the spiritual home of Severus Domna.

In modern times the city was made up of three distinct sections. The ancient Medina—as the Old City was known—and the French Protectorate, whose lyrical architecture and ornate fountains dated from the 1920s, lay side by side like beautiful pearls, but what had accreted around them was the ugly sprawl of the modern city, with its brutal Soviet-style concrete buildings, shopping malls, and traffic-choked avenues.

Boris identified the SVR agents hanging around the arrivals terminal the moment he passed through immigration, trying without success to blend into the scene. He felt for them. At two in the morning there were no crowds to blend into. He entered the men’s room, washed up, and stared at himself in the mirror. He scarcely recognized himself. Decades maneuvering through the minefields of the Russian clandestine services had changed him. Once, he had been young and idealistic, loving the motherland, willing to offer himself on the altar of making it a better place. And now, years later, he realized that Russia was no better off for his hard work. Possibly, it was worse off. He had squandered his life on an impossible dream, but wasn’t that the mirage of youth: the dream of changing the world. Instead, he himself had changed, and the realization disgusted him.

Returning to the arrivals lounge, he found the one food stand open, bought a mezeplate, and sat at a round table no larger than a Frisbee. He ate with his right hand while watching the arrivals board for the flight carrying Cherkesov. It was on time. He had forty minutes until it touched down.

He rose and went to the car rental desk. Fifteen minutes later he was sitting behind the wheel of a rattletrap, engine coughing and groaning. He used the time left to consider his pact with Zachek. An eye for an eye, a curious riff on Strangers on a Train, one of his favorite films, where two strangers talk about committing murders for each other to avoid becoming suspects. In the clandestine services, this kind of pact wouldn’t work. Strangers wouldn’t be able to get near Cherkesov or Beria. But those close to them could. Even after decamping to the Domna, Cherkesov remained a thorn in SVR’s side—according to Zachek even more so now that his power had grown outside Russia’s borders. Boris had offered to terminate Cherkesov for Zachek. In return, Zachek would plant Beria six feet under. He would assume control of SVR and Boris would have gained an ally instead of another enemy. Boris, of course, had his own reason for wanting Cherkesov dead. He owed his job to his former boss, but as long as he was alive Boris lived under his thumb.

Boris checked his watch. Cherkesov’s flight had landed. By the time he pulled out of his space in the lot, passengers from the flight had begun drifting out of the terminal. Boris waited until he saw Cherkesov striding out. He smiled to himself because he was certain his former boss had picked up the SVR agents just as he had, and he knew that Cherkesov would believe they had been waiting for him.

As Cherkesov hurried to the short line of waiting taxis, Boris gunned the car around them. He pulled into the curb in front of the first taxi and, leaning over, threw open the passenger’s-side door.

“Get in, Viktor.”

Cherkesov’s eyes opened wide. “You! What are you doing here?”

“The SVR is right on your heels,” Boris said urgently.

Cherkesov climbed in. As soon as he closed the door, Boris threw the car in gear and pulled out with a squeal of rubber against tarmac.

At night, the wailing of the calls to prayer rang from minaret to minaret, enmeshing the city in a veil of language sung in alien ululations. At least, they seemed alien to Boris as he approached the city in the squeaking car. Green lights burned from the tops of the minarets, far more than he remembered. Cherkesov sat beside him, fuming while he smoked one of his vile Turkish cigarettes. Boris could feel the energy coming off him like electric sparks from a severed power line.

“Now,” Cherkesov said, half turning to Boris, “explain yourself, Boris Illyich. Have you taken care of Jason Bourne?”

Boris took an exit ramp off the highway into the streets. “I’ve been too busy taking care of you.”

Cherkesov stared at him openmouthed.

“After our talk about the SVR I went back to Zachek, Beria’s man.”

“I know who Zachek is,” Cherkesov said impatiently.

“I made a deal with them.”

“You did what?”

“I made a deal so I could find out why they’re shadowing you.”

“Since when have I been—”

“I spotted one of their agents out on the tarmac at Uralsk Airport. I wondered what he was doing there. Zachek told me.” He turned the wheel and they headed down a darkened street lined with anonymous white concrete buildings. Somewhere a radio blared a muezzin’s recorded voice. “Beria is very much interested in your new post inside Severus Domna.”

“Beria could not know—”

“But he does, Viktor Delyagovich. This man is a devil.”

Cherkesov chewed his lower lip in anxiety.

“So I have been following Beria’s agents, from Moscow to Munich and now here, wondering what their orders are.”

“Zachek didn’t tell you?”

Boris shrugged. “It’s not as if I didn’t ask, but I couldn’t press him. There was the danger of him becoming suspicious.”

Cherkesov nodded. “I understand. You did well, Boris Illyich.”

“My loyalty did not end when you bequeathed me FSB-2.”

“Much appreciated.” Cherkesov squinted through the fug of bitter smoke. “Where are we going?”

“To an all-night café I know of.” Boris hunched forward, peering through the scarred windshield. “But I seem to have lost my way.”

“I’d rather go straight to my hotel.” Cherkesov gave an address. “Get back to a major intersection. From there, I’ll know which way to go.”

Boris grunted and turned right, moving along a slightly better illuminated street. “Why the hell is Beria so damn interested in where you go and who you see?”

“Why is Beria interested in anything?” Cherkesov said, an answer that gave away nothing.

Boris came to an intersection where the light was broken, not an uncommon occurrence in this neighborhood. The sound of the muezzin’s canned voice seemed to be following them. Outside, the night was absolutely still. What trees they passed looked skeletal, stripped bare, like prisoners about to be slaughtered.

Boris came to a burned-out block, mostly rubble surrounded by a chain-link fence. He pulled over to the curb and stopped.

“What are you doing?” Cherkesov said.

Boris gently pressed the point of a ceramic knife between two of Cherkesov’s ribs. “Why is Beria so interested in you?”

“He’s always been—”

Cherkesov jumped as Boris dug the point through his clothes and drew blood. Reaching behind him, Boris opened his door. Then he grabbed Cherkesov by the shirtfront and, as he slid out of the vehicle, dragged his former boss with him.

“Some things never change,” Boris said as he goaded Cherkesov toward the chain-link fence. He gestured. “This place makes a convenient killing field. The dogs rip the corpses to shreds before anyone bothers to contact the police.”

Pushing Cherkesov’s head through a gap in the fence, he bent over, following him through.

“This is a grave miscalculation,” Cherkesov said.

Boris poked him again, so that he flinched back into Boris’s grip. “I do believe you’ve made a joke, Viktor Delyagovich.”

Boris pushed his victim on through the rubble until they reached the heart of the destruction. The same blank-faced high-rises rose all around them, dark and uncaring, but the lot itself was filled with the movement of the dogs Boris had spoken about. Sensing humans, they sidled and circled, their black snouts raised, sniffing for the first hint of spilled blood.

“Your death scents you, Viktor Delyagovich. It comes for you from all sides.”

“What… what do you want?” Cherkesov’s voice was a hoarse rasp; he seemed to have trouble breathing.

“A reminiscence,” Boris said. “Do you recall a night about a year ago when you took me to a construction site on—where was it again?”

Cherkesov swallowed hard. “Ulitsa Varvarka.”

Boris snapped his fingers. “That’s right. I thought you were going to kill me, Viktor. But instead you forced me to kill Melor Bukin.”

“Bukin needed killing. He was a traitor.”

“Not my point at all.” Boris jabbed Cherkesov again. “You made me pull the trigger. I knew what would happen to me if I didn’t.”

Cherkesov took a breath. “And look at you now. Head of FSB-2. You, instead of that fool Bukin.”

“And I owe it all to you.”

Shuddering at Karpov’s ironic tone, Cherkesov said, “What is this? Revenge for a killing that got you where you wanted to be? You disliked Bukin as much as I did.”

“Again, Bukin is not the issue. You are. Your use of me—or should I say abuse. You shamed me that night, Viktor.”

“Boris, I never meant to—”

“Oh, but you did. You were reveling in your newfound power—the power the Domna had bestowed on you. And you reveled in it again when you forced me into the pact that would put me forever in your power.”

A shadow of Cherkesov’s oily smile returned. “We all make deals with the devil, Boris. We’re all adults here, we knew this going in. Why are you—?”

“Because,” Boris said, “you forced me into an untenable position. My career or another murder.”

“I don’t see the issue.”

Boris slapped Cherkesov hard on the side of his head. “But you do see the issue, and this is why you chose me. Once again, you reveled in your power to compel me to kill my friend.”

Cherkesov wagged his head back and forth. “An American agent responsible for countless deaths, many of them Russian.”

Boris hit him again, and a streak of blood flew out of the corner of his mouth. The nearest dogs began to howl in counterpoint to the muezzin. Their gaunt bodies looked like scimitars.

“You wanted to break me, didn’t you?” Boris said, dragging his head back. “You wanted me to kill my friend in order to keep everything I have ever dreamed of and worked for.”

“It was an interesting experiment,” Cherkesov said, “you have to admit.”

Boris kicked the backs of Cherkesov’s calves, and he went down. His trousers ripped. Blood seeped from his torn-up knees. Crouching down beside him, Boris said, “Now tell me what you’re doing for the Domna.”