The Bourne Sanction Part 26

Twenty-Five.

SORAYA HAD NEVER understood the nature of panic, despite the fact that she grew up with an aunt who was p.r.o.ne to panic attacks. When the attacks came on her aunt said she felt as if someone had put a plastic dry-cleaning bag over her head; she felt as if she were being smothered to death. Soraya would watch her huddled in a chair or curled up on her bed and wonder how on earth she could feel such a thing. There weren't even any plastic dry-cleaning bags allowed in the house. How could a person feel as if she were suffocating when there wasn't anything on her face?

Now she knew.

As she drove out of the NSA safe house without Tyrone, as the high reinforced metal gates swung closed behind her, her hands trembled on the wheel, her heart felt as if it was jumping painfully inside her breast. There was a film of sweat on her upper lip, under her arms, and at the nape of her neck. Worst of all, she couldn't catch her breath. Her mind raced like a rat in a cage. She gasped, sucking ragged gulps of air in to her lungs. She felt, in short, as if she were being smothered to death. Then her stomach rebelled.

As quickly as she was able she pulled to the side of the road, got out, and stumbled into the trees. Falling to her hands and knees, she vomited up the sweet, milky Ceylon tea.

Jason, Tyrone, and Veronica Hart were now all in terrible jeopardy because of rash decisions she'd made. She quailed at the thought. It was one thing to be chief of station in Odessa, quite another to be director. Maybe she'd taken on more than she could handle, maybe she didn't have the steel nerve that was required to make tough choices. Where was her vaunted confidence? It was back there in the NSA interrogation cell with Tyrone.

Somehow she made it to Alexandria, where she parked. She sat in the car bent over, her clammy forehead pressed to the steering wheel. She tried to think coherently, but her brain seemed encased in a block of concrete. At last, she wept bitterly.

She had to call Deron, but she was petrified of his reaction when she told him that she had allowed his protege to be captured and tortured by the NSA. She had f.u.c.ked up big time. And she had no idea how to rectify the situation. The choice LaValle had given her-Veronica Hart for Tyrone-was unacceptable.

After a time, she calmed down enough to get out of the car. She moved like a sleepwalker through crowds of people oblivious to her agony. It seemed somehow wrong that the world should spin on as it always had, utterly indifferent and uncaring.

She ducked into a little tea shop, and as she rummaged in her handbag for her cell phone she saw the pack of cigarettes. A cigarette would calm her nerves, but standing out in the chilly street while she smoked would make her feel more of a lost soul. She decided to have a smoke on the way back to her car. Placing her cell phone on the table, she stared down at it as if it were alive. She ordered chamomile tea, which calmed her enough for her to pick up her phone. She punched in Deron's number, but when she heard his voice her tongue clove to the roof of her mouth.

Eventually, she was able to get out her name. Before he could ask her how the mission went she asked to speak with Kiki, Deron's girlfriend. Where that came from, she had no idea. She'd met Kiki only twice. But Kiki was a woman and, instinctively, with an atavistic clannishness, Soraya knew it would be easier to confess to her than to Deron.

When Kiki came on the line, Soraya asked if she could come to the little tea shop in Alexandria. When Kiki asked when, Soraya said, "Now. Please."

The first thing you have to do is stop blaming yourself," Kiki said after Soraya had finished recounting in painful detail what had happened at the NSA safe house. "It's your guilt that's paralyzing you, and believe me you're going to need every last brain cell if we're going to get Tyrone out of that hole."

Soraya looked up from her pallid tea.

Kiki smiled, nodding. In her dark red dress, her hair up in a swirl, hammered-gold earrings depending from her earlobes, she looked more regal, more exotic than ever. She towered over everyone in the tea shop by at least six inches.

"I know I have to tell Deron," Soraya said. "I just don't know what his reaction is going to be."

"His reaction won't be as bad as what you fear," Kiki said. "And after all, Tyrone is a grown man. He knew the risks as well as anyone. It was his choice, Soraya. He could've said no."

Soraya shook her head. "That's just it, I don't think he could, at least not from the way he sees things." She stirred her tea, more to forestall what she knew she had to say. Then she looked up, licked her lips. "See, Tyrone's got a thing for me."

"Doesn't he ever!"

Soraya was taken aback. "You know?"

"Everyone who knows him knows, honey. You just have to look at him when the two of you are together."

Soraya felt her cheeks flush. "I think he would've done anything I asked of him no matter how dangerous, even if he didn't want to."

"But you know he wanted to."

It was true, Soraya thought. He'd been excited. Nervous, but definitely excited. She knew that ever since Deron had taken him under his wing he'd chafed at being cooped up in the hood. He was smarter than that, and Deron knew it. But he had neither the interest nor the apt.i.tude for what Deron did. Then she came along. He'd told her he saw her as his ticket out of the ghetto.

Yet she still had a knot in her chest, a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. She could not get out of her head the image of Tyrone on his knees, hooded, arms held behind him on the tabletop.

"You just turned pale," Kiki said. "Are you all right?"

Soraya nodded. She wanted to tell Kiki what she had seen, but she couldn't. She sensed that to talk about it would give it a reality so frightening, so powerful it would throw her back into panic.

"Then we ought to go."

Soraya's heart tripped over itself. "No time like the present," she said.

As they went out the door, she pulled out the pack of cigarettes and threw it in a nearby trash can. She didn't need it anymore.

As planned, Gala picked up Bourne in Yakov's bombila bombila and together they returned to Lorraine's apartment. It was just past 10 and together they returned to Lorraine's apartment. It was just past 10 AM AM; his meet with Maslov wasn't until noon. He needed a shower, a shave, and some rest.

Lorraine was kind enough to provide the necessities for all three. She gave Bourne a set of towels, a disposable razor, and said if he gave her his clothes she'd wash and dry them for him. In the bathroom Bourne stripped, then opened the door enough to hand the dirty clothes to Lorraine.

"After I put these in the wash, Gala and I are going out to get food. Can we bring you anything?"

Bourne thanked her. "Whatever you're having will be fine."

He closed the door, crossed to the shower, turned it on full force. Opening the medicine cabinet, he took out rubbing alcohol, a gauze pad, surgical tape, and antibiotic cream. Then he went back to the toilet, put the seat cover down, and cleaned his abraded heel. It had taken a lot of abuse and was red and raw looking. Squeezing the cream onto the gauze, he placed it over the wound and taped it up.

Then he took his cell phone off the edge of the sink where he'd placed it when undressing, and dialed the number Boris Karpov had given him.

Would you mind going without me?" Gala said, as Lorraine reached into the hall closet for her fur coat. "All of a sudden I'm not feeling well."

Lorraine walked back to her. "What is it?"

"I don't know." Gala sank onto the white leather sofa. "I'm kind of dizzy."

Lorraine took hold of the back of her head. "Bend over. Put your head between your knees."

Gala did as she was told. Lorraine crossed to the sideboard, took out a bottle of vodka, and poured some into a gla.s.s. "Here, take a drink. It'll settle you."

Gala came up as gingerly as a drunk walks. She took the vodka, threw it down her throat so fast she almost choked. But then the fire hit her stomach and the warmth began to spread through her.

"Okay?" Lorraine asked.

"Better."

"All right. I'm going to buy you some hot borscht. You need to get some nourishment into you." She drew on her coat. "Why don't you lie down?"

Once again Gala did as she was told, but after her friend left, she rose. She'd never found the sofa comfortable. Making sure of her balance, she went down the hall. She needed to crash on a proper bed.

As she was pa.s.sing the bathroom, she heard a sound like talking, but Bourne was in there by himself. Curious, she moved closer, then put her ear to the door. She could hear the rushing of the shower more clearly, but also Bourne's voice. He must be on his cell phone.

She heard him say "Medvedev did what?" He was talking politics to whoever was on the other end of the line. She was about to take her ear away from the door when she heard Bourne say, "It was bad luck with Tarkanian . . . No, no, I killed him . . . I had to, I had no other choice."

Gala pulled away as if she'd touched her ear to a hot iron. For some time, she stood staring at the closed door, then she backed away. Bourne had killed Mischa! My G.o.d My G.o.d, she said to herself. How could he? And then, thinking of Arkadin, Mischa's best friend, My G.o.d My G.o.d.

Twenty-Six.

DIMITRI MASLOV had the eyes of a rattlesnake, the shoulders of a wrestler, and the hands of a bricklayer. He was, however, dressed like a banker when Bourne met him inside a warehouse that could have doubled as an aircraft hanger. He was wearing a chalk-striped three-piece Savile Row suit, an Egyptian cotton shirt, and a conservative tie. His powerful legs ended in curiously dainty feet, as if they'd been grafted on from another, far smaller body.

"Don't bother telling me your name," he said as he accepted the ten thousand Swiss francs, "as I always a.s.sume they're fake."

The warehouse was one among many in this soot-laden industrial area on the outskirts of Moscow, and therefore anonymous. Like its neighbors, it had a front area filled with boxes and crates on neat stacks of wooden pallets piled almost to the ceiling. Parked in one corner was a forklift. Next to it was a bulletin board on which had been tacked overlapping layers of flyers, notices, invoices, advertis.e.m.e.nts, and announcements. Bare lightbulbs at the ends of metal flex burned like miniature suns.

After Bourne had been expertly patted down for weapons and wires, he'd been escorted through a door to a tiled bathroom that stank of urine and stale sweat. It contained a trough with water running sluggishly along its bottom and a line of stalls. He was taken to the last stall. Inside, instead of a toilet, was a door. His escort of two burly Russians took him through to what appeared to be a warren of offices, one of which was raised on a steel platform bolted onto the far wall. They climbed the staircase to the door, at which point his escort had left him, presumably to go stand guard.

Maslov was seated behind an ornate desk. He was flanked on either side by two more men, interchangeable with the pair outside. In one corner sat a man with a scar beneath one eye, who would have been unprepossessing save for the flamboyant Hawaiian print shirt he wore. Bourne was aware of another presence behind him, his back against the open door.

"I understand you wanted to see me." Maslov's rattlesnake eyes shone yellow in the harsh light. Then he gestured, holding out his left arm, his hand extended, palm-up, as if he were shoveling dirt away from him. "However, there's someone who insists on seeing you."

In a blur, the figure behind Bourne hurled himself forward. Bourne turned in a half crouch to see the man who'd attacked him at Tarkanian's apartment. He came at Bourne with a knife extended. Too late to deflect it, Bourne sidestepped the thrust, grabbed the man's right wrist with his left hand, using his own momentum to pull him forward so that his face met Bourne's raised elbow flush-on.

He went down. Bourne stepped on the wrist with his shoe until the man let go of the knife, which Bourne took up in his hand. At once the two burly bodyguards drew down on him, pointing their Glocks. Ignoring them, Bourne held the knife in his right palm so the hilt pointed away from him. He extended his arm across the desk to Maslov.

Maslov stared instead at the man in the Hawaiian print shirt, who rose, took the knife from Bourne's palm.

"I am Dimitri Maslov," he said to Bourne.

The big man in the banker's suit rose, nodded deferentially to Maslov, who handed him the knife as he sat down behind the desk.

"Take Evsei out and get him a new nose," Maslov said to no one in particular.

The big man in the banker's suit pulled the dazed Evsei up, dragged him out of the office.

"Close the door," Maslov said, again to no one in particular.

Nevertheless, one of the burly Russian bodyguards crossed to the door, closed it, turned and put his back against it. He shook out a cigarette, lit it.

"Take a seat," Maslov said. Sliding open a drawer, he took out a Mauser, laid it on the desk within easy reach. Only then did his eyes slide up to engage Bourne's again. "My dear friend Vanya tells me that you work for Boris Karpov. He says you claim to have information I can use against certain parties who are trying to muscle in on my territory." His fingers tapped the grips of the Mauser. "However, I would be inexcusably naive to believe that you were willing to part with this information without a price, so let's have it. What do you want?"

"I want to know what your connection is with the Black Legion?"

"Mine? I have none."

"But you've heard of them."

"Of course I've heard of them." Maslov frowned. "Where is this going?"

"You posted your man Evsei in Mikhail Tarkanian's apartment. Tarkanian was a member of the Black Legion."

Maslov held up a hand. "Where the h.e.l.l did you hear that?"

"He was working against people-friends of mine."

Maslov shrugged. "That might be so-I have no knowledge of it one way or another. But one thing I can tell you is that Tarkanian wasn't Black Legion."

"Then why was Evsei there?"

"Ah, now we get to the root of the matter." Maslov's thumb rubbed against his forefinger and middle finger in the universal gesture. "Show me the quid pro quo, to co-opt what Jerry Maguire says." His mouth grinned, but his yellow eyes remained as remote and malevolent as ever. "Though to tell you the truth I'm doubting very much there's any money at all. I mean to say, why would the Federal Anti-Narcotics Agency want to help me? It's anti-f.u.c.king-intuitive."

Bourne finally pulled over a chair, sat down. His mind was rerunning the long conversation he'd had with Boris at Lorraine's apartment, during which Karpov had briefed him on the current political climate in Moscow.

"This has nothing to do with narcotics and everything to do with politics. The Federal Anti-Narcotics Agency is controlled by Cherkesov, who's in the midst of a parallel war to yours-the silovik silovik wars," Bourne said. "It seems as if the president has already picked his successor." wars," Bourne said. "It seems as if the president has already picked his successor."

"That p.i.s.spot Mogilovich." Maslov nodded. "Yeah, so what?"

"Cherkesov doesn't like him, and here's why. Mogilovich used to work for the president in the St. Petersburg city administration way back when. The president put him in charge of the legal department of VM Pulp and Paper. Mogilovich promptly engineered VM's dominance to become Russia's largest and most lucrative pulp and timber company. Now one of America's largest paper companies is buying fifty percent of VM for hundreds of millions of dollars."

During Bourne's discourse Maslov had taken out a penknife, was busy paring grime from under his manicured nails. He did everything but yawn. "All this is part of the public record. What's it to me?"

"What isn't known is that Mogilovich cut himself a deal giving him a sizable portion of VM's shares when the company was privatized through RAB Bank. At the time, questions were raised about Mogilovich's involvement with RAB Bank, but they magically went away. Last year VM bought back the twenty-five percent stake that RAB had taken to ensure the privatization would go through without a hitch. The deal was blessed by the Kremlin."

"Meaning the president." Maslov sat up straight, put away the penknife.

"Right," Bourne said. "Which means that Mogilovich stands to make a king's ransom through the American buy-in, by means the president wouldn't want made public."

"Who knows what the president's own involvement is in the deal?"

Bourne nodded.

"Wait a minute," Maslov said. "Last week a RAB Bank officer was found tied up, tortured, and asphyxiated in his dacha garage. I remember because the General Prosecutor's Office claimed he'd committed suicide. We all got a good laugh out of that one."

"He just happened to be the head of RAB's loan division to the timber industry."

"The man with the smoking gun that could ruin Mogilovich and, by extension, the president," Maslov said.

"My boss tells me this man had access to the smoking gun, but he never actually had it in his possession. His a.s.sistant absconded with it days before his a.s.sa.s.sination, and now can't be found." Bourne hitched his chair forward. "When you find him for us and hand over the papers incriminating Mogilovich, my boss is prepared to end the war between you and the Azeri once and for all in your favor."

"And how the f.u.c.k is he going to do that?"

Bourne opened his cell phone, played back the MP3 file Boris had sent to him. It was a conversation between the kingpin of the Azeri and one of his lieutenants ordering the hit on the RAB Bank executive. It was just like the Russian in Boris to hold on to the evidence for leverage, rather than go after the Azeri kingpin right away.

A broad grin broke out across Maslov's face. "f.u.c.k," he said, "now we're talking!"

After a time, Arkadin became aware that Devra was standing over him. Without looking at her, he held up the cylinder he'd taken from Heinrich.

"Come out of the surf," she said, but when Arkadin didn't make a move, she sat down on a crest of sand behind him.