The Bourne Sanction (27 page)

“I don’t care what message you have for me,” Gala said sullenly. “Whatever it is, the answer’s no.”

“Are you sure?” Bourne wondered where she was going with this.

“Sure I’m sure. I’ve had it with you guys trying to find out where Leonid Danilovich is.”

Leonid Danilovich, Bourne said to himself. There’s a name the professor never mentioned.

“The reason we keep hounding you is he’s sure you know.” Bourne had no idea what he was saying, but he felt if he kept running with her he’d be able to open her up.

“I don’t.” Now Gala sounded like a little girl in a snit. “But even if I did I wouldn’t rat him out. You can tell Maslov that.” She fairly spat out the name of the Kazanskaya’s leader, Dimitri Maslov.

Now we’re getting somewhere, Bourne thought. But why was Maslov after Leonid Danilovich, and what did any of this have to do with Pyotr’s death? He decided to explore this link.

“Why were you and Leonid Danilovich using Tarkanian’s apartment?”

Instantly he knew he’d made a mistake. Gala’s expression changed dramatically. Her eyes narrowed and she made a sound deep in her throat. “What the hell is this? You already know why we were camped out there.”

“Tell me again,” Bourne said, improvising desperately. “I’ve only heard it thirdhand. Maybe something was left out.”

“What could be left out? Leonid Danilovich and Tarkanian are the best of friends.”

“Is that where you took Pyotr for your late-night trysts?”

“Ah, so that’s what this is all about. The Kazanskaya want to know all about Pyotr Zilber, and I know why. Pyotr ordered the murder of Borya Maks, in prison, of all placesHigh Security Prison Colony 13. Who could do that? Get in there, kill Maks, a Kazanskaya contract killer of great strength and skill, and get out without being seen.”

“That’s precisely what Maslov wants to know,” Bourne said, because it was the safe comment to make.

Gala picked at her nail extensions, realized what she was doing, stopped. “He suspects Leonid Danilovich did it because Leonid is known for such feats. No one else could do that, he’s sure.”

Time to press her, Bourne decided. “He’s right on the money.”

Gala shrugged.

“Why are you protecting Leonid?”

“I love him.”

“The way you loved Pyotr?”

“Don’t be absurd.” Gala laughed. “I never loved Pyotr. He was a job Semion Icoupov paid me handsomely for.”

“And Pyotr paid for your treachery with his life.”

Gala seemed to peer at him in a different light. “Who are you?”

Bourne ignored her question. “During that time where did you meet Icoupov?”

“I never met him. Leonid served as intermediary.”

Now Bourne’s mind raced to put the building blocks Gala had provided into their proper order. “You know, don’t you, that Leonid murdered Pyotr.” He didn’t of course know that, but given the circumstances it seemed all too likely.

“No.” Gala blanched. “That can’t be.”

“You can see how it must be what happened. Icoupov didn’t kill Pyotr himself, surely that much must be clear to you.” He observed the fear mounting behind her eyes. “Who else would Icoupov have trusted to do it? Leonid was the only other person to know you were spying on Pyotr for Icoupov.”

The truth of what he said was written on Gala’s face like a road sign appearing out of the fog. While she was still in shock, Bourne said, “Please tell me Leonid’s full name.”

“What?”

“Just do as I tell you,” Bourne said. “It may be the only way to save him from being killed by the Kazanskaya.”

“But you’re Kazanskaya.”

Pushing up his sleeve, Bourne gave her a close-up look at the false tattoo. “A Kazanskaya was waiting for Leonid in Tarkanian’s apartment this evening.”

“I don’t believe you.” Her eyes widened. “What were you doing there?”

“Tarkanian’s dead,” Bourne said. “Now do you want to help the man you say you love?”

“I do love Leonid! I don’t care what he did.”

At that moment, the driver cursed mightily, turned in his seat. “My client’s coming.”

“Go on,” Bourne urged Gala. “Write his name down.”

“Something must’ve happened in the
VIP
,” the driver said. “Shit, he looks pissed. You gotta get outta here now.”

Bourne grabbed Gala, opened the street-side door, nearly burying it in the fender of a hurtling bombily. He flagged it down with a fistful of rubles, made the transfer from Western luxury to Eastern poverty in one stride. Gala Nematova broke away from him as he was entering the Zhig. He clutched her by the back of her fur coat, but she shrugged it off, began to run. The cabbie stepped on the gas, the stench of diesel fumes foaming up into the interior, choking them so badly Bourne had to crank open a window. As he did so, he saw two men who’d been at her table come out of the club. They looked right and left. One of them spotted Gala’s running figure, gestured to the other one, and they took off after her.

“Follow those men!” Bourne shouted to the cabbie.

The cabbie had a flat face with a distinctly Asian caste. He was fat, greasy, and spoke Russian with an abominable accent. Clearly, Russian wasn’t his first language. “You’re joking, yes?”

Bourne thrust more rubles at him. “I’m joking, no.”

The cabbie shrugged, crashed the Zhig into first gear, depressed the gas pedal. At that moment the two men caught up with Gala.

AT
PRECISELY
that moment, Leonid Danilovich Arkadin and Devra were deciding how to get to Haydar without Devra’s people knowing about it.

“Best would be to extract him from his environment,” Arkadin said. “But for that we need to know his habitual movements. I don’t have time-”

“I know a way,” Devra said.

The two of them were sitting side by side on a bed on the ground floor of a small inn. The room wasn’t much to look at-just a bed, a chair, a broken-down dresser-but it had its own bathroom, a shower with plenty of hot water, which they’d used one after the other. Best of all, it was warm.

“Haydar’s a gambler,” she continued. “Almost every evening he’s hunkered down in the back room of a local cafй. He knows the owner, who lets them play without imposing a fee. In fact, once a week he joins them.” She glanced at her watch. “He’s sure to be there now.”

“What good is that? Your people are sure to protect him there.”

“Right, that’s why we aren’t going to go near the place.”

An hour later, they were sitting in their rented car on the side of a two-lane road. All their lights were off. They were freezing. Whatever snow had seemed imminent had passed them by. A half-moon rode in the sky, an Old World lantern revealing wisps of clouds and bluish crusty snowbanks.

“This is the route Haydar takes to and from the game.” Devra tilted her watch face so it was illuminated by the moonglow coming off the banked snow. “He should show any minute now.”

Arkadin was behind the wheel. “Just point out the car, leave the rest to me.” One hand was on the ignition key, the other on the gearshift. “We have to be prepared. He might have an escort.”

“If he’s got guards they’ll be in the same car with him,” Devra said. “The roads are so bad it will be extremely difficult to keep him in sight from a trailing vehicle.”

“One car,” Arkadin said. “All the better.”

A moment later the night was momentarily lit by a moving glow below the rise in the road.

“Headlights.” Devra tensed. “That’s the right direction.”

“You’ll know his car?”

“I’ll know it,” she said. “There aren’t many cars in the area. Mostly old trucks for carting.”

The glow brightened. Then they saw the headlights themselves as the vehicle crested the rise. From the position of the headlights, Arkadin could tell this was a car, not a truck.

“It’s him,” she said.

“Get out,” Arkadin ordered. “Run! Run now!”

Keep moving,” Bourne told the cabbie, “in first gear only till I tell you different.”

“I don’t think-”

But Bourne had already swung open the curbside door, was sprinting toward the two men. One had Gala, the other was turning, raising his hand, perhaps a signal for one of the waiting cars. Bourne chopped his midsection with his two hands, brought his head down to his raised knee. The man’s teeth clacked together and he toppled over. The second man swung Gala around so that she was between him and Bourne. He scrabbled for his gun, but Bourne was too quick. Reaching around Gala, Bourne went for him. He moved to block Bourne and Gala stamped her heel on his instep. That was all the distraction Bourne needed. With a hand around her waist, he pulled her away, delivered a vicious uppercut to the man’s throat. Reflexively, he put two hands up, choking and gagging. Bourne delivered two quick blows to his stomach and he, too, hit the pavement.

“Come on!”

Bourne grabbed Gala by the hand, made for the bombila, moving slowly along the street with its door open. Bourne swung her inside, climbed in after her, slammed the door shut.

“Take off!” he shouted at the cabbie. “Take off now!”

Shivering with the cold, Gala rolled up the window.

“My name is Yakov,” the cabbie said, craning his neck to look at them in the rearview mirror. “You make much excitement for me tonight. Is there more? Where can I take you?”

“Just drive around,” Bourne said.

Several blocks on he discovered Gala staring at him.

“You weren’t lying to me,” she said.

“Neither were you. Clearly, the Kazanskaya think you know where Leonid is.”

“Leonid Danilovich Arkadin.” She was still trying to catch her breath. “That’s his name. It’s what you wanted, isn’t it?”

“What I want,” Bourne said, “is a meeting with Dimitri Maslov.”

“The head of the Kazanskaya? You’re insane.”

“Leonid has been playing with a very bad crowd,” Bourne said. “He’s put you in harm’s way. Unless I can persuade Maslov that you don’t know where Arkadin is you’ll never be safe.”

Shivering, Gala struggled back into her fur jacket. “Why did you save me?” She pulled the jacket tight around her slender frame. “Why are you doing this?”

“Because I can’t let Arkadin throw you to the wolves.”

“That’s not what he’s done,” she protested.

“What would you call it?”

She opened her mouth, closed it again, bit her lip as if she could find an answer in her pain.

They had reached the inner Garden Road. Traffic whizzed by at dizzying speeds. The cabbie was about to earn his bombily name.

“Where to?” he said over his shoulder.

There was silence for a moment. Then Gala leaned forward, gave him an address.

“And where the fuck might that be?” the cabbie asked.

That was another oddity about bombily. Since almost none of them were Muscovites, they had no idea where anything was. Unfazed, Gala gave him directions and, with a horrific belching of diesel fumes, they lurched into the madly spinning traffic.

“Since we can’t go back to the apartment,” Gala said, “we’ll crash at my girlfriend’s place. I’ve done it before. She’s cool with it.”

“Do the Kazanskaya know about her?”

Gala frowned. “I don’t think so, no.”

“We can’t take the chance.” Bourne gave the cabbie the address of one of the new American-run hotels near Red Square. “That’s the last place they’ll think to look for you,” he said as the cabbie changed gears and they hurtled through the spangled Moscow night.

Alone in the car, Arkadin fired the ignition and pulled out. He stamped on the gas pedal, accelerating so quickly his head jerked back. Just before he slammed into the right corner of Haydar’s car, he switched on his headlights. He could see Haydar’s bodyguards in the rear seat. They were in the process of turning around when Arkadin’s car made jarring contact. The rear end of Haydar’s car slewed to the left, beginning its spin; Arkadin braked sharply, rammed the right back door, staving it in. Haydar, who had been struggling with the wheel, completely lost control of the car. It spun off the road, its front now facing the way it had come. Its rear struck a tree, the bumper broke in two, the trunk collapsed, and there it sat, a crippled animal. Arkadin drove off the road, put his car in park, got out, stalking toward Haydar. His headlights were shining directly into the wrecked car. He could see Haydar behind the wheel, conscious, clearly in shock. Only one of the men in the backseat was visible. His head was thrown back and to one side. There was blood on his face, black and glistening in the harsh light. Haydar cringed fearfully as Arkadin made for the bodyguards. Both rear doors were so buckled they could not be opened. Using his elbow, Arkadin smashed the near-side rear window and peered in. One man had been caught in Arkadin’s broadside hit. He’d been thrown clear across the car, lay half on the lap of the bodyguard still sitting up. Neither one moved.

As Arkadin moved to haul Haydar out from behind the wheel, Devra came hurtling out of the darkness. Haydar’s eyes opened wide as he recognized her. She tackled Arkadin, her momentum knocking him off his feet.

Haydar watched in amazement as they rolled over through the snow, now visible, now not in the headlight beams. Haydar could see her striking him, the much larger man fighting back, gradually gaining the upper hand by dint of his superior bulk and strength. Then Devra reared back. Haydar could see a knife in her hand. She drove it down into darkness, stabbing again and again.

When she rose again into the headlight beams he could see her breathing heavily. Her hand was empty. Haydar figured she must have left the knife buried in her adversary. She staggered for a moment with the aftereffects of her struggle. Then she made her way over to him.

Yanking open the car door, she said, “Are you okay?”

He nodded, shrinking away from her. “I was told you’d turned on us, joined the other side.”

She laughed. “That’s just what I wanted that sonovabitch to think. He managed to get to Shumenko and Filya. After that I figured the only way to survive was to play along with him until I got a chance to take him down.”

Haydar nodded. “This is the final battle. The thought that you’d turned traitor was dispiriting. I know some of us thought your status was earned on your back, in Pyotr’s bed. But not me.” The shock was coming out of his eyes. The old canny light was returning.