Текст книги "The Bourne Imperative (Крах Борна)"

Автор книги: Eric Van Lustbader

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Текущая страница: 7 (всего у книги 25 страниц)

“Possibly not,” Bourne said.

“What? How—?”

“Your network, Jihad bis saif.” Rebeka had crouched down beside them. “Tell us its goal.”

Rowland opened his mouth, about to answer when they all heard a sound from outside. It was half concealed by the suck-and-wash of the low surf, but it could have been the scrape of a leather boot sole. In any case, it was very close to the house, and Rebeka mouthed:  He’s found us.

“Who’s found us?” Rowland said.

At that moment, the front door crashed open.

8

MARTHA CHRISTIANA found Don Fernando Hererra with little difficulty. After receiving her commission, she had hunkered down in her Parisian hotel suite with her laptop and spent the next eight hours scouring the Internet for every iota of information on the banking mogul. The basics were at her fingertips within seconds. Hererra, born in Bogotá in 1946, the youngest child of four, was shipped off to England for university studies, where he took a First in economics at Oxford. Returning to Colombia, he had worked in the oil industry, rapidly working his way up the hierarchy until he went out on his own, successfully bidding for the company he had worked at. This was how he had amassed his first fortune. It was unclear how he segued into international banking, but from what Martha read, Aguardiente Bancorp was now one of the three largest banks outside of the United States.

Further exploration turned up more. Five years ago, Hererra had named Diego, his only son, to head up the prestigious London branch of Aguardiente. Diego had been killed several years ago under mysterious circumstances that, no matter how she tried, Martha could not clarify; it seemed clear enough that he had been murdered, possibly by Hererra’s enemies, though that, too, remained murky. Currently, Hererra’s main residence was in the Santa Cruz barrioof Seville, though he maintained homes in London, Cadiz—and Paris.

When she had absorbed all the information available on the Web, she pushed back her chair, rose, and padded across the parquet floor to the bathroom, where she turned on the taps and stepped into a steaming shower.

By the time she emerged, she had the framework of a plan formulated. By the time she had dried off, blown out her hair, put on makeup, and gotten dressed, the plan had been fleshed out and detailed. Gathering up her coat, she went out of the hotel. Her car was waiting for her, its powerful engine humming happily in the chilly air. Her driver opened the door for her, and she climbed in.

Hererra lived in an apartment on the Île Saint-Louis, in the middle of the Seine River. It was on the western tip, high up with breathtaking views that encompassed the Pantheon and the Eiffel Tower on the Left Bank, Notre Dame Cathedral on the adjoining Île de la Cité, and the major buildings in that section of the Right Bank.

Martha Christiana had discovered that Hererra was a creature of habit. He liked to haunt certain bars, cafés, bistros, and restaurants in whichever city he was currently inhabiting. In Paris, that meant Le Fleur en Ile for breakfast, lunch at Yam’tcha, and dinner at L’Agassin. As it was too late for lunch and too early for dinner, she had the car take her past the Aguardiente Bancorp offices. In the shower she had considered all of these places and, for one reason or another—too awkward or obvious—had rejected them all. She had read in the paper of a concert of chamber music by Bach that evening at Sainte-Chapelle on the Île de la Cité, one of an ongoing series at the magnificent jewel-box chapel. The concert was early so as to catch the last sparks of winter sunlight through the chapel’s radiant westfacing stained-glass windows.

Martha Christiana had decided on the concert for several reasons. First, Hererra loved Bach, as she did. From her study of him, she surmised that he loved the strict order of the mathematical music, which would appeal to his precise banker’s mind. Second, Sainte-Chapelle was his favorite place in Paris to hear music. Third, the chapel was small, the audience packed together. This would give her ample opportunity to find him and figure out the most natural approach. It would also provide a number of topics—music, architecture, Bach, religion—in which to engage him in conversation that would be both innocent and stimulating.

Yes, she thought, as she left her car and walked the last several blocks to the concert entrance to Sainte-Chapelle, she had chosen wisely. Joining the line, she inched along the sidewalk. She spotted him as he turned into the doorway and came into view. She was pleased: She was only six people behind him. She had chosen an Alexander McQueen outfit, one of her favorites: a belted, navy Vneck military pencil dress, which she had paired with black anklehigh boots with a wedge heel. She wanted to stand out, but not too much.

Inside, the rows of folding chairs were neat and precise, and people took their seats silently, almost reverently, as if they were coming to Mass, not to a concert played by a string quartet. Perhaps, Martha thought, because it was Bach the two might not be so different. She had read that those who loved Bach’s music above all others often felt that when the music rose around them, they were as close to God as they would get in this life.

Her seat was three rows behind Hererra, which was good; she could keep him in sight. He sat between a man more elderly than he and a woman who Martha judged to be on the good side of forty. It was unclear if he knew either of these people, and shortly it didn’t matter, at least not while the quartet was playing Bach. This almost mystical composer elicited many different reactions in his listeners. For Martha Christiana, the music brought up memories of her past: the fogbound lighthouse off the coast of Gibraltar in which she had been born, her father, gruff and weather-beaten, tinkering constantly with the ever-revolving light, her mother, pale and fragile, so agoraphobic that she never left the lighthouse. When her mother looked up at the stars at night, she was overcome with vertigo.

The musicians played, the music unfurled, precise and rigorous in its progression of notes, and Martha Christiana saw herself escaping the lighthouse, leaving her dysfunctional parents behind, stealing aboard a freighter, steaming out of Gibraltar harbor for North Africa, where for nineteen months, she roamed the streets of Marrakech, selling herself to stupid tourists as a virgin, over and over, after the first time using fresh goat’s blood she bought from a butcher, before she was taken in by an enormously wealthy Moroccan, who made her his unwilling concubine. He kept her prisoner inside his house, took her roughly, often brutally, whenever the spirit moved him, which was often.

He furthered her education in literature, mathematics, philosophy, and history. He also taught her how to look inward, to meditate, to empty herself of all thought, all desire, and while she was in that transcendental state, to see God. He gave her the world, many worlds, in fact. Eventually, inevitably, the knowledge with which he endowed her opened her eyes to the terrible price he was exacting from her. Three times she tried to escape from her perfumed prison and three times he caught her. Each time, her punishment was more grievous, more monstrous, but she steeled herself, she would not be cowed. Instead, one night, while they made love, she rose up, intending to slit his throat with a shard of glass she had hoarded in secret. His eyes turned opaque as if he could see his death reflected in her face. He emitted a sound like the ticking of a massive grandfather clock. She spread her arms wide, as if summoning God to do her bidding. His clawed fingers dug in, scratched down her upper arms as if he wished to take her with him as he died of a massive heart attack. Gathering up what money she could find, leaving untouched anything that could be traced back to him, she had fled Marrakech, never to return.

These were not altogether pleasant memories, but they were hers, and after years of trying to deny them, she now accepted them as part of her, albeit a part known only to herself. Every once in a while, when she was alone in the dark, she played Bach on her iPod, reevoking these memories to remind herself of who she was and where she had come from. Then she meditated, emptying herself in order for God to fill her up. It had taken her a long time, absorbing pain of all kinds, to reach this state of being. Always, she emerged from these introspective sessions feeling renewed and ready for the task at hand.

The concert over, the audience applauded, then stood and applauded some more, calling for an encore. The quartet re-emerged from the wings, where they had been absorbing the well-deserved accolades, took up their instruments, and played a short, thrumming piece. More applause, as the concert ended, for good this time.

Martha observed the woman on Hererra’s left turn to him, tilting her head while she spoke and he responded. She was more stately than pretty, very well dressed. A native Parisian, no doubt.

The audience was breaking up, shuffling along the rows, filing slowly up the aisles, talk of the concert persistent and ongoing. Martha Christiana moved along with the people in her row, then hung back a bit at the end so that when she entered the aisle she was alongside the woman with Hererra.

“Le concert vous a-t-il plu?”she said to the woman. Did you enjoy the concert? “J’aime Bach, et vous?” I love Bach, don’t you?

“En fait, non,”the woman replied. In fact, no. “Je préfère Satie.”

Martha, thanking God for the opening, finally addressed Hererra. “Et vous, monsieur, préférez-vous aussi Satie?”

“Non,”Hererra said, with an indulgent smile toward his companion, “I favor Bach above all other composers—apart, of course, from Stephen Sondheim.”

Martha emitted a silvery laugh as she threw back her head, revealing her long neck and velvety throat.

“Yes,” she said. “ Folliesis my favorite show.”

For the first time, Hererra looked past his companion, sizing Martha up. By this time they had reached the echoing marble hallway that led to the street. That was the moment for her to nod in friendly fashion and move ahead of the couple.

Outside, a drizzle was making the streets shiny. Martha paused to turn up the collar of her coat, take out a cigarette, and fumble for her lighter. Before she could find it, a flame appeared before her, and she leaned in, drawing smoke deeply into her lungs. As she let it out, she looked up to see Hererra standing in front of her. He was alone.

“Where is your companion?”

“She had a previous engagement.”

Martha raised her eyebrows. “Really?”

She liked his laugh. It was deep and rich and came from his lower belly.

“No. I dismissed her.”

“An employee, then.”

“Just an acquaintance, nothing more.”

Martha liked the way he said “nothing more,” not dismissively, just matter-of-factly, indicating that circumstances had changed, that he was quick to adapt to the changes.

Hererra took out a cigar, held it up for her to see. “Do you mind?”

“Not at all,” Martha said. “I enjoy the smell of a good cigar.”

They introduced themselves.

As Hererra went through the ritual of cutting and lighting the cigar, precise as a Bach toccata, she said, “Tell me, Don Fernando, have you ever been to Eisenach?” Eisenach was the birthplace of Johann Sebastian Bach.

“I confess I haven’t.” He had the cigar going now. “Have you?”

She nodded. “As a graduate student, I went to the Wartburg Castle, where Martin Luther translated the New Testament into German.”

“Your thesis was on Luther?”

She laughed that silvery laugh again. “I never finished it. Too much of a rebel.” He had been a rebel, too, in his youth. She thought a kindred spirit would appeal to him. She was right.

“Mademoiselle Christiana.”

“Martha, please.”

“All right, then. Martha. Would you be free for dinner?”

“Monsieur, I hardly know you.”

He smiled. “Easiest thing in the world to remedy, don’t you think?”

My name isn’t important,” Peter said. “Richards was followed here.”

Brick’s eyes were adamantine. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Seriously?” Peter looked around at the table crowd. “Any idea where your man is?”

“My man?”

“Right. Owen.” Peter snapped his fingers. “What’s his last name?” A flicker like a passing shadow in Brick’s eyes. “What about Owen?”

“Best I show you.” Peter took a step away.

Brick pulled himself reluctantly away from the railing. “What’s this about then?”

Without another word, Peter led him out of the clubhouse and around the side of the pro shop, passing through the labyrinth of high boxwood to where Florin Popa lay.

Brick stopped dead in his tracks. “What the fuck?”

“Dead as a doornail,” Peter observed pitilessly as Brick bent over Popa’s corpse. “Mr. Brick, you’re clearly under threat. I think it would be prudent for us to get out of here.”

Brick, one hand on Popa’s shoulder, looked up at him. “Bugger off, mate. I’m not going anywhere with you.”

Peter nodded solemnly. “Okay, then. I’ll leave you to muddle through on your own.”

As he began to make his way back through the boxwood, Brick called out.

“Wait a sec. Who the bloody hell are you and who do you work for?”

Bourne reached into the fire, grabbed a burning log, and hurled it at the intruder.

The firebrand hissed and flickered, one end of it bursting into sparking fury when it struck the intruder’s shoulder. He half-spun, flung up one arm to bat the burning log away. Thus engaged, he was poorly prepared for Bourne’s hurtled body. Behind him, Bourne could hear a mad scramble as Rebeka dragged Rowland out of harm’s way.

The intruder chopped down on Bourne’s back, arching him backward, hauled him off, and delivered a blow to his solar plexus. He grabbed Bourne by the collar and threw him against the wall. Bourne ripped a print off the wall, smashing it as the intruder bullrushed him. The glass shattered. Bourne, grasping a long, slender piece, and ignoring the cut in his palm as he grasped it, struck downward.

He had aimed for the intruder’s neck, but missed, the point of the glass shard burying itself, instead, in the intruder’s back. The momentum of the bull rush took both men down to the floor. Seemingly ignoring the glass shard, the intruder flicked out a knife, stabbing down with it. Bourne rolled away, and the knife point buried itself in a narrow gap between the ancient floorboards. Instead of wasting time trying to pry it free, the intruder simply let it go, freeing another weapon.

Rebeka recognized Ilan Halevy immediately. The moment Bourne engaged the Babylonian, she busied herself dragging Weaving back around the corner into the shadows of the kitchen cupboards.

With a whispered, “For the love of God, stay put,” she drew a pair of scaling knives out of their wooden holder, slipped one into her waistband and hefted the other as she reappeared around the corner, just in time to see the Babylonian, a shard of glass protruding from his bloodstained back, stab brutally down with a folding dagger.

She moved swiftly and silently, the scaling knife held in front of her. It had a wicked-looking gut-hook on its top edge. If she could bury it deep enough and then jerk back on the hilt, she could do the Babylonian some serious damage.

Both his strength and his stamina were legendary. She knew he hardly felt the glass shard in his back, wouldn’t feel the scaling knife, either, unless she was lucky enough to hit a vital organ, or skillful enough to bury the gut-hook in his viscera and then pull backward. The resulting gush of blood would give even him pause.

But despite her stealth, he sensed her attack, and at the last instant, turned his body sideways to her, in the process absorbing two heavy blows from Bourne. His left hand whipped out, his fingers like tentacles as they clasped her, twisting viciously, grinding the bones in her wrist against one another. The breath went out of her as flashes of light exploded behind her eyes. In that instant, the Babylonian wrenched the scaling knife from her and slashed it at her. He’d meant to open her throat from side to side, but her reflexes saved her from the lethal blow. The blade slit open her sweater and shirt, opening a horizontal bright-red bloom across her chest, just above her breasts. She gasped and fell backward.

When Harry Rowland—for he was absolutely certain now that was his name—heard the grunts, thumps, and hard exhalations of handto-hand combat, something clicked inside his brain. Completely ignoring Rebeka’s order, he slithered around the corner of the kitchen. In an instant, his measured, professional gaze took in the chaotic situation. Something peeled away. He felt as if, after having been cast adrift in a hazy dreamworld since awakening in the clinic in Stockholm, everything now had become sharp and clear.

Without further conscious thought, he scrambled to his feet, ran to the fireplace, and snatched up the fire tongs. Deftly avoiding Rebeka, he stepped to where Bourne and the intruder grappled in lethal hand-to-hand combat. He regarded the two of them, one after the other. Everything seemed to move in slow motion except his mind, which, having flickered to life, was now racing at a fever pitch. Memories were surfacing, flashing like schools of silvery fish lifted from the depths. They came in rapid succession, but now in their proper order. So many things unknown he now understood, like a thick curtain being pulled back, revealing, layer by layer, his life before being shot. Not everything was there—the tapestry still had holes, missing pieces, curious dead ends that puzzled him, fish slipping through his fingers, returning to the unfathomable deep. Some thoughts still didn’t make sense, but certain imperatives did, and these drove him to decisive, galvanic action.

Lifting the fire tongs over his head, Harry Rowland brought them whistling down toward the top of Bourne’s skull.

Book Two

9

WE LIVE IN A world where information is constantly flowing, through servers, networks, intranets, the Internet.”

Charles Thorne, typing notes on his iPad 3 as an app recorded every word Maceo Encarnación uttered, nodded.

“We are fast becoming a cloud-culture,” Encarnación continued. “Each hour of each day the amount of information grows exponentially, and all of this expanding tsunami of information—all of it– exists in some form or other that can be read and understood by outsiders—by overhearing, bugging, or hacking.”

Thorne, sitting with Encarnación in the offices of Politics As Usual, felt his mobile buzz against his thigh as it lay in his pocket. He ignored it, nodding encouragingly at Encarnación. It had taken him months of complex negotiations with a succession of underlings to get Encarnación, the president and CEO of SteelTrap, to agree to be interviewed. SteelTrap, the world’s largest Internet security firm, was an anomaly in the world of business—so large, so influential, so successful, yet privately held, therefore beholden to no one. Its internal structure was entirely opaque.

In the end, Thorne had lucked out. Encarnación, on his way from Paris to Mexico City, where part of his vast staff maintained one of his palatial residences, had agreed to the interview while his private jet was being refueled. He had insisted that no photos be taken of him. This hardly surprised Thorne since, as part of his research for the interview, he had discovered a curious fact: there were no photos of Encarnación anywhere online. He was a bear of a man, curiouslooking owing to the fact that he was entirely hairless. Thorne found himself wondering if this was a deliberate deforestation or the result of a congenital condition. Another curious thing that he typed into his iPad: Encarnación had not once looked directly at him. His eyes were restless things, like caroming marbles, in constant motion.

“These days,” Encarnación said, “no scrap of information, no matter how small or well hidden, is safe. All of it can be, and is, hacked. This is an indisputable fact. Every hour of every day, encrypted sites behind so-called firewalls are hacked. The latest and most devastating form of terrorism. To counteract these cybercrimes is something of a divine calling. This is my business. This is what I do.” He paused to absorb everything in the office with his colorless eyes. He held his sunglasses between his thumb and forefinger, as if ready to don them at a moment’s notice. “In the Internet age, this is how fortunes are made.”

Thorne’s mobile buzzed again. Ignoring it, he said, “Tell me, Mr. Encarnación, how you first became interested in Internet security.”

Encarnación produced a thin smile that Thorne found horribly disquieting. “I lost everything, all the money I had made trading in equities online. My account was hacked, my hard-earned money stolen.” That mysterious smile again, signifying an apocalypse, as if Thorne were looking into the face of a large, hungry carnivore. “It vanished into the colossal void of Russia.”

“Ah, I see.”

“No,” Encarnación said, “you don’t.” He rocked his sunglasses back and forth. “I fought my desire to go to the place that swallowed my money, to find the person or people who had stolen what was mine, because I knew that if I went to Russia it would eat me alive.”

Thorne pursed his lips as his mobile vibrated insistently for the third time. “What precisely do you mean?”

“I mean that if I had gone to Russia then, ignorant as I was, I would never have returned.”

Thorne could not help a small chuckle. “That sounds a tad, oh, I don’t know, melodramatic.”

“Yes,” Encarnación replied. “Yes, it does.” The smile returned, insistent as the buzzing of Thorne’s mobile. “And yet, it is the absolute truth. Have you been to Moscow, Mr. Thorne?”

Thorne did not want this to turn into an interrogation. “I have.”

“Done business there?”

“Uh, no. But I’ve heard—”

“You’ve heard.” Encarnación threw his words back into his face. “If you haven’t beento Moscow, haven’t engaged in business there, you have no idea.” He shook his completely bald head, which Thorne could not now help thinking of as a skull. “Money, corruption, rotten politics, coercion. This is Moscow.”

“I suppose you could say that about almost any big city.”

Encarnación’s gaze made Thorne feel small and, worse, weak. “Moscow is different. Special. This is why. Having money is not nearly enough. These people with whom you are forced to do business want more from you. Do you know what that something is, Mr. Thorne? They want to be able to shine in the eyes of the president. They curry his favor so badly, so absolutely, that if negotiations do not go the way they want, they will not hesitate to have you shot in the back of the head, or, if their need to be amused is such, to have you poisoned with plutonium long after you have left the rat’s nest of Moscow behind.”

“Plutonium poisoning christ almighty!”Thorne wrote on his iPad.

Encarnación did not blink an eye. “I decided then and there to find a way to retrieve my money. The authorities were worse than useless; in those days, they had even less knowledge about hacking the Internet than they do now.”

Thorne felt as if he were in the presence of a reincarnated Baron Munchausen, the legendary teller of tall tales, except that he had the distinct impression that everything Encarnación was telling was the truth. “Then this is how SteelTrap came into being.”

“That’s correct.”

“And that was...”

“Seven years ago.”

“Did you ever recover your money?”

Encarnación’s expression turned infernal. “With interest.”

Thorne was about to ask for details when his mobile went off for the fourth time. He frowned, but at this point his curiosity overrode his annoyance.Excusinghimself,hesteppedoutoftheofficeashepulled out his mobile. Four text messages from Delia Trane. He had met her several times. He’d had dinner with her and Soraya twice, and he’d been grateful that she had agreed to be their cover for the evening.

Call me ASAP

His frown deepened. One text from her he could ignore, not four. Scrolling through his phonebook, he pressed in her number, put his mobile to his ear. She answered on the first ring.

“Where are you?”

“Where d’you think I am?” His annoyance flared into renewed life.

“Dammit, Delia, I’m in the middle of—”

“Soraya’s in trouble.”

At the mention of her name, he looked around the corridor. People were striding by. Minions who knew nothing about the impending FBI investigation. He went into the empty conference room. “Charles?”

She never called him Charlie, as Soraya did. He closed the door behind him. He was in darkness.

“What kind of trouble?” He had his own troubles to worry about.

The last thing he needed was—

“She’s in the hospital.”

His heart skipped a beat. “Hospital?” he parroted stupidly. “Why?

What’s the matter?”

“She was hurt in Paris. A concussion. Apparently, flying home made it worse.”

“What? Delia, for the love of God—!”

“She has a subdural hematoma. Her brain is bleeding.” Thorne felt the sudden need to sit down.

“Charles?”

“How...” His voicebox seemed to have shut down. He cleared his throat violently, swallowed convulsively. “How bad is it?”

“Bad enough that they needed to do an emergency procedure.”

“Is she...?” He couldn’t say it.

“I don’t know. I’m at the Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington, but she isn’t out of surgery yet.”

He found his thoughts drifting back to Maceo Encarnación, who even now was cooling his heels in his office, while Delia was further complicating his already overcomplicated life. He wanted to forgive her, but could not.

“They have to relieve pressure in her brain, stop the bleeding,”

Delia was saying now.

 “The procedure is normally fairly straightforward, but in Soraya’s case there’s a complication.”

Christ, there’s more?he thought. “What...complication?”

“She’s pregnant, Charles.”

Thorne started as if jolted by a surge of electricity. “What?”

 “She’s carrying your child.”

As Harry Rowland brought the fire tongs down toward the top of his head, Bourne raised an arm.

His hand, grasping the fire tongs, redirected them down onto the intruder’s shoulder. Immediately, Bourne kicked out, connected with the intruder’s knee, then rolled away. Rowland struggled, refused to loosen his death grip on the fire tongs. Bourne connected with the point of his chin, snapping Rowland’s head back, his teeth clacking together. But Rowland continued his grip on the impromptu weapon, and Bourne couldn’t turn away. The intruder’s leg swept out, connecting with Bourne’s ankle, and he went down, pulling Rowland with him.

Rebeka figured she must have blacked out for a moment because when she roused herself, wiping blood off her face, she saw Bourne and Rowland tangled up with the Babylonian. Staggering to her feet, she ripped the tongs from Rowland’s hand, grabbed him by the collar, and jerked him backward, away from the other two men.

“Idiot!” she spat. “What d’you think you’re doing?”

He turned on her then and struck her soundly across the face. “You have no fucking idea what you’ve stepped into,” he said.

Recovering, she hit back, but he blocked her, and, at the same time, used the heel of his hand in three percussive blows that brought her to her knees.

“It all comes down to this,” he said as he bent over her. “I remember everything now. Everything, do you understand?”

She tried to get to her feet, but he wouldn’t let her. With his memory, he seemed to have regained all his strength and cunning. He was once again the man she had been with in that hot and sweaty hotel room in Lebanon, the man with whom she had been in a kind of competition, part cat-and-mouse, part shell game.

He twisted her wrist back painfully. “In Dahr El Ahmar, you won. But here we’ll have a different outcome.”

With Rowland’s distracting weight lifted off him, Bourne returned his attention to the intruder, who, he had concluded, must be the Babylonian. And not a moment too soon. The Babylonian had wrapped a powerful arm around his neck, twisting viciously in an attempt to snap it. Bourne, turning his body in the direction of the twist, bought himself several seconds, enough time to drive his elbow sharply into the Babylonian’s kidney.

The Babylonian grunted, and Bourne, repeating the devastating blow, snaked free of the hold, brought a rough stone ashtray he snatched off a table down onto the back of the Babylonian’s head. Blood gushed, and the Babylonian fell onto his back. The shard of glass half-buried there snapped off.

Bourne, thinking him finished, began to stand up. That was when the Babylonian arched up, slamming his forehead into Bourne’s. Dazed, Bourne went to his knees, and the Babylonian hauled him bodily toward the fire. The Babylonian’s strength was incredible, even though he was bleeding profusely, even though the kidney blows would have incapacitated anyone else.

Bourne felt the intense heat of the flames on the top of his head. The Babylonian meant to feed him into the fire. He was only inches away, sliding along the floor, ever closer. He tried several different strikes, all of which the Babylonian brushed away as ineffectual. Sparks flew before his eyes, and he knew he had no time left.

Reaching over his head, he grasped one of the burning logs, and, unmindful of the pain, jabbed the burning end into the Babylonian’s chest. Immediately, his clothes caught fire, the stench of charring material filling his nostrils.

Rolling away, Bourne was up and running. He saw Rebeka restraining Rowland in the kitchen. Pointing to the rear door, he ushered them through, out into the bitter nighttime cold, and into Rebeka’s boat. While Bourne scooped up handfuls of snow to soothe the blistered skin of his palms, she dragged Rowland on board, then started the engine. Bourne cast off the lines, and they raced off in a spray of icy black water, vanishing into the gathering gloom.

I don’t work for anyone,” Peter said, lying smoothly. “At least, not permanently.”

Brick stared at him. “You’re freelance.”

“Precisely.”

They were in Brick’s brand-new fire-red Audi A8. Peter was driving, taking the place of the late, unlamented Florin Popa. Brick had insisted on this arrangement so he could keep an eye on Peter, whom he still had little reason to trust. They had stopped at the pro shop so Peter could change back into his street clothes. He did this while Brick, leaning against the line of metal lockers, watched him like a pervert in a public restroom, even while he made a brief muffled call on his mobile.