The Bourne Sanction (16 page)

“Mischa tells me you’re having a difficult time.”

“Mischa should keep his mouth shut.”

Icoupov spread his hands. “Someone has to save your life.”

“What d’you know about it?” Arkadin said harshly.

“Actually, I know nothing about what’s happened to you,” Icoupov said. Arkadin, digging the muzzle of the Makarov into Icoupov’s temple, stepped closer.

“Then shut the fuck up.”

“What I am concerned about is the here and now.” Icoupov didn’t blink an eye; he didn’t move a muscle, either. “For fuck’s sake, son, look at you. If you won’t pull back from the brink for yourself, do it for Mischa, who loves you better than any brother would.”

Arkadin let out a ragged breath, as if he were expelling a dollop of poison. He took the Makarov from Icoupov’s head.

Icoupov held out his hand. When Arkadin hesitated, he said with great gentleness,

“This isn’t Nizhny Tagil. There is no one here worth hurting, Leonid Danilovich.”

Arkadin gave a curt nod, let go of the gun. Icoupov called out, handed it to one of two very large men who came down the hallway from the far end where they had been stationed, not making a sound. Arkadin tensed, angry at himself for not sensing them. Clearly, they were bodyguards. In his current condition, they could have taken Arkadin anytime. He looked at Icoupov, who nodded, and an unspoken connection sprang up between them.

“There is only one path for you now,” Icoupov said.

Icoupov moved to sit on the sofa in Arkadin’s trashed apartment, then gestured, and the bodyguard who had taken possession of Arkadin’s Makarov held it out to him.

“Here, now, you will have witnesses to your last spasm of nihilism. If you wish it.”

Arkadin for once in his life ignored the gun, stared implacably at Icoupov.

“No?” Icoupov shrugged. “Do you know what I think, Leonid Danilovich? I think it gives you a measure of comfort to believe that your life has no meaning. Most times you revel in this belief; it’s what fuels you. But there are times, like now, when it takes you by the throat and shakes you till your teeth rattle in your skull.” He was dressed in dark slacks, an oyster-gray shirt, a long black leather coat that made him look somewhat sinister, like a German SS-Stьrmbannfьhrer. “But I believe to the contrary that you are searching for the meaning of your life.” His dark skin shone like polished bronze. He gave the appearance of a man who knew what he was doing, someone, above all, not to be trifled with.

“What path?” Arkadin said dully, taking a seat on the sofa. Icoupov gestured with both hands, encompassing the self-inflicted whirlwind that had torn apart the rooms. “The past for you is dead, Leonid Danilovich, do you not agree?”

“God has punished me. God has abandoned me,” Arkadin said, regurgitating by rote a lament of his mother’s.

Icoupov smiled a perfectly innocent smile, one that could not possibly be misinterpreted. He had an uncanny ability to engage others one-on-one. “And what God is that?”

Arkadin had no answer because this God he spoke of was his mother’s God, the God of his childhood, the God that had remained an enigma to him, a shadow, a God of bile, of rage, of split bone and spilt blood.

“But no,” he said, “God, like heaven, is a word on a page. Hell is the here and now.”

Icoupov shook his head. “You have never known God, Leonid Danilovich. Put yourself in my hands. With me, you will find God, and learn the future he has planned for you.”

“I cannot be alone.” Arkadin realized that this was the truest thing he’d ever said.

“Nor shall you be.”

Icoupov turned to accept a tray from one of the bodyguards. While they had been talking, he’d made tea. Icoupov poured two glasses full, added sugar, handed one to Arkadin.

“Drink with me now, Leonid Danilovich,” he said as he lifted his steaming glass. “To your recovery, to your health, to the future, which will be as bright for you as you wish to make it.”

The two men sipped their tea, which the bodyguard had astutely fortified with a considerable amount of vodka.

“To never being alone again,” said Leonid Danilovich Arkadin. That was a long time ago, at a way station on a river that had turned to blood. Was he much changed from the near-insane man who had put the muzzle of a gun to Semion Icoupov’s head? Who could say? But on days of heavy rain, ominous thunder, and twilight at noon, when the world looked as bleak as he knew it to be, thoughts of his past surfaced like corpses in a river, regurgitated by his memory. And he would be alone again.

Tarkanian was coming around, but the phenothiazine that had been administered to him was doing its job, sedating him mildly and impairing his mental functioning enough so that when Bourne bent over him and said in Russian, “Bourne’s dead, we’re in the process of extracting you,” Tarkanian dazedly thought he was one of the men at the reptile house.

“Icoupov sent you.” Tarkanian lifted a hand, felt the bandage the paramedics had used to keep light out of his eyes. “Why can’t I see?”

“Lie still,” Bourne said softly. “There are civilians around. Paramedics. That’s how we’re extracting you. You’ll be safe in the hospital for a few hours while we arrange the rest of your travel.”

Tarkanian nodded.

“Icoupov is on the move,” Bourne whispered. “Do you know where?”

“No.”

“He wants you to be most comfortable during your debriefing. Where should we take you?”

“Moscow, of course.” Tarkanian licked his lips. “It’s been years since I’ve been home. I have an apartment on the Frunzenskaya embankment.” More and more he seemed to be speaking to himself. “From my living room window you can see the pedestrian bridge to Gorky Park. Such a peaceful setting. I haven’t seen it in so long.”

They arrived at the hospital before Bourne had a chance to continue the interrogation. Then everything happened very quickly. The doors banged open and the paramedic leapt into action, getting the gurney down, rushing it through the automatic glass doors into a corridor leading to the ER. The place was packed with patients. One of the paramedics was talking to a harried overworked intern, who directed him to a small room, one of many off the corridor. Bourne saw that the other rooms were filled. The two paramedics rolled Tarkanian into the room, checked the IV, took his vitals again, unhooked him.

“He’ll come around in a minute,” one of them said. “Someone will be in shortly to see to him.” He produced a practiced smile that was not unlikable. “Don’t worry, your friend’s going to be fine.”

After they’d left, Bourne went back to Tarkanian, said, “Mikhail, I know the Frunzenskaya embankment well. Where exactly is your apartment?”

“He’s not going to tell you.”

Bourne whirled just as the first gunman-the one he’d wrapped the python around-threw himself on top of him. Bourne staggered back, bounced hard against the wall. He struck at the gunman’s face. The gunman blocked it, punched Bourne hard on the point of his sternum. Bourne grunted, and the gunman followed up with a short chop to Bourne’s side.

Down on one knee, Bourne saw him pull out a knife, swipe the blade at him. Bourne shrank back. The gunman attacked with the knife point-first. Bourne landed a hard right flush on his face, heard the satisfying crack of the cheekbone fracturing. Enraged, the gunman closed, the blade swinging through Bourne’s shirt, bringing out an arc of blood like beads on a string.

Bourne hit him so hard he staggered back, struck the gurney on which Tarkanian was stirring out of his drugged stupor. The man took out his handgun with the suppressor. Bourne closed with him, grabbing him tightly, depriving him of space to aim the gun. Tarkanian ripped off the bandage the paramedics had used to keep light out of his eyes, blinked heavily, looking around. “What the hell’s going on?” he said drowsily to the gunman. “You told me Bourne was dead.”

The man was too busy fending off Bourne’s attack to answer. Seeing his firearm was of no use to him he dropped it, kicked it along the floor. He tried to get the knife blade inside Bourne’s defense, but Bourne broke the attacks, not fooled by the feints the gunman used to distract him.

Tarkanian sat up, slid off the gurney. He found it difficult to talk, so he slipped to his knees, crawled across the cool linoleum to where the gun lay. The gunman, one hand gripping Bourne’s neck, was working the knife free, prepared to stab downward into Bourne’s stomach.

“Move away from him.” Tarkanian was aiming the gun at the two men. “I’ll have a clear shot.”

The gunman heard him, shoved the heel of his hand into Bourne’s Adam’s apple, choking him. Then he moved his upper body to one side.

Just as Tarkanian was about to squeeze the trigger Bourne rabbit-punched the gunman in the kidney. He groaned and Bourne hauled him between himself and Tarkanian. A coughing sound announced the bullet plowing into the gunman’s chest. Tarkanian cursed, moved to get Bourne back in his sights. As he did so, Bourne wrested the knife away from the gunman’s limp hand, threw it with deadly accuracy. The force of it lifted Tarkanian backward off his feet. Bourne pushed the gunman away from him, crossed the room to where Tarkanian lay in a pool of his own blood. The knife was buried to the hilt in his chest. By its position, Bourne knew it had pierced a lung. Within moments Tarkanian would drown in his own blood.

Tarkanian stared up at Bourne. He laughed even as he said, “Now you’re a dead man.”

ROB
BATT
made his arrangements through General Kendall, LaValle’s second in command. Through him, Batt was able to access certain black-ops assets in the
NSA
. No congressional oversight, no fuss, no muss. As far as the federal government was concerned, these people didn’t exist, except as auxiliary staff seconded to the Pentagon; they were thought to be pushing papers in a windowless office somewhere in the bowels of the building.

Now, this is the way the clandestine services should run, Batt said to himself as he laid out the operation for the eight young men ranged in a semicircle in a Pentagon briefing room Kendall had provided for him. No supervision, no snooping congressional committees to report to.

The plan was simple, as all his plans tended to be. Other people might like bells and whistles, but not Batt. Vanilla, Kendall had called it. But the more that was involved, the more that could go wrong was how he looked at it. Also, no one fucked up simple plans; they could be put together and executed in a matter of hours, if need be, even with new personnel. But the fact was he liked these
NSA
agents, perhaps because they were military men. They were quick to catch on, quicker even to learn. He never had to repeat himself. To a man, they seemed to memorize everything as it was presented to them. Better still, because of their military background, they obeyed orders unquestioningly, unlike agents in CI-Soraya Moore a case in point-who always thought they knew a better way to get things done. Plus, these bad boys weren’t afraid of rendition; they weren’t afraid to pull the trigger. If given the appropriate order they’d kill a target without either question or regret.

Batt felt a certain exhilaration at the knowledge that no one was looking over his shoulder, that he wouldn’t have to explain himself to anyone-not even the new
DCI
. He’d entered an altogether different arena, one all his own, where he could make decisions of great moment, devise field operations, and carry them out with the confidence that he would be backed to the hilt, that no operation would ever boomerang on him, bring him face-to-face with a congressional committee and disgrace. As he wrapped up the premission briefing, his cheeks were flushed, his pulse accelerated. There was a heat building inside him that could almost be called arousal.

He tried not to think of his conversation with the defense secretary, tried not to think of Luther LaValle heading up Typhon while he looked helplessly on. He desperately didn’t want to give up control of such a powerful weapon against terrorism, but Halliday hadn’t given him a choice.

One step at a time. If there was a way to foil Halliday and LaValle, he was confident he’d find it. But for the moment, he returned his attention to the job at hand. No one was going to fuck up his plan to capture Jason Bourne. He knew this absolutely. Within hours Bourne would be in custody, down so deep even a Houdini like him would never get out. Soraya Moore made her way to Veronica Hart’s office. Two men were emerging: Dick Symes, the chief of intelligence, and Rodney Feir, chief of field support. Symes was a short, round man whose red face appeared to have been applied directly to his shoulders. Feir, several years Symes’s junior, was fair-haired, with an athletic body, an expression as closed as a bank vault.

Both men greeted her cordially, but there was a repellent condescension to Symes’s smile.

“Bearding the lioness in her den?” Feir said.

“Is she in a bad mood?” Soraya asked.

Feir shrugged. “Too soon to tell.”

“We’re waiting to see if she can carry the weight of the world on those delicate shoulders,” Symes said. “Just like with you, Director.”

Soraya forced a smile though her clenched jaws. “You gentlemen are too kind.”

Feir laughed. “Ready, willing, and able to oblige, ma’am.”

Soraya watched them leave, two peas in a pod. Then she poked her head into the DCI’s inner sanctum. Unlike her predecessor, Veronica Hart maintained an open-door policy when it came to her upper-echelon staff. It engendered a sense of trust and camaraderie that-as she’d told Soraya-had been sorely lacking at CI in the past. In fact, from the vast amount of electronic data she’d pored over the last couple of days it was becoming increasing clear to her that the previous DCI’s bunker mentality had led to an atmosphere of cynicism and alienation among the directorate heads. The Old Man came from the school of letting the Seven vie with one another, complete with duplicity, backstabbing, and, so far as she was concerned, outright objectionable behavior. Hart was a product of a new era, where the primary watchword was cooperation. The events of 2001 had proved that when it came to the intelligence services, competition was deadly. So far as Soraya was concerned that was all to the good.