The Bourne Objective

[1]

YES,” SUPARWITA SAID, “that is the ring Holly Marie Moreau’s father gave her.”

“This ring.” Jason Bourne held up the object in question, a simple gold band with engraving around the inside. “I have no memory of it.”

“You have no memory of many things in your past,” Suparwita said, “including Holly Marie Moreau.”

Bourne and Suparwita were sitting cross-legged on the floor of the Balinese shaman’s house deep in the jungle of Karangasem, in southeast Bali. Bourne had returned to the island to trap Noah Perlis, the spy who had murdered Holly years ago. He had pried the ring out of Perlis’s grasp after he had killed him not five miles from this spot.

“Holly Marie’s mother and father arrived here from Morocco when she was five,” Suparwita said. “They had the look of refugees.”

“What were they fleeing from?”

“Difficult to say for certain. If the stories about them are true, they chose an excellent place to hide from religious persecution.” Suparwita was known formally as a Mangku, both a high priest and a shaman, but also something more, impossible to express in Western terms. “They wanted protection.”

“Protection?” Bourne frowned. “From what?”

Suparwita was a handsome man of indeterminate age. His skin was a deep nut brown, his smile wide and devastating, revealing two rows of white, even teeth. He was large for a Balinese, and exuded a kind of otherworldly power that fascinated Bourne. His house, an inner sanctum surrounded by a lush, sun-dappled garden and high stucco walls, lay in deepest shadow so that the interior was cool even at noontime. The floor was packed dirt covered by a sisal rug. Here and there odd items of indeterminate nature-pots of herbs, clusters of roots, bouquets of dried flowers pressed into the shape of a fan-sprouted from floor or walls as if alive. The shadows, which filled the corners to overflowing, seemed constantly in motion as if formed from liquid rather than air.

“From Holly’s uncle,” Suparwita said. “It was from him they took the ring in the first place.”

“He knew they stole it?”

“He thought it was lost.” Suparwita cocked his head. “There are men outside.”

Bourne nodded. “We’ll deal with them in a minute.”

“Aren’t you concerned they’ll burst in here, guns drawn?”

“They won’t show themselves until I’ve left here; they want me, not you.” Bourne touched the ring with his forefinger. “Go on.”

Suparwita inclined his head. “They were hiding from Holly’s uncle. He had vowed to bring her back to the family compound in the High Atlas Mountains.”

“They’re Berbers. Of course, Moreau means ‘Moor,’ ” Bourne mused. “Why did Holly’s uncle want to bring her back to Morocco?”

Suparwita looked at Bourne for a long time. “I imagine you knew, once.”

“Noah Perlis had the ring last, so he must have murdered Holly to get it.” Bourne took the ring in his hand. “Why did he want it? What’s so important about a wedding ring?”

“That,” Suparwita said, “is a part of the story you were trying to discover.”

“That was some time ago. Now I wouldn’t know where to start.”

“Perlis had flats in many cities,” Suparwita said, “but he was based in London, which was where Holly went when she traveled abroad during the eighteen months before she returned to Bali. Perlis must have followed her back here to kill her and obtain the ring for himself.”

“How do you know all this?” Bourne asked.

Suparwita’s face broke into one of his thousand-watt smiles. All at once he looked like the genie conjured up by Aladdin. “I know,” he said, “because you told me.”

Soraya Moore noticed the differences between the old Central Intelligence under the late Veronica Hart and the new CI under M. Errol Danziger the moment she walked into CI headquarters in Washington, DC. For one thing, security had been beefed up to the point that getting through the various checkpoints felt like infiltrating a medieval fortress. For another, she didn’t recognize a single member of the security personnel on duty. Every face had that hard, beady look only the US military can instill in a human being. She wasn’t surprised by this. After all, before being appointed as DCI by the president, M. Errol Danziger had been the NSA’s deputy director of Signals Intelligence, with a long and distinguished career in the armed forces and then in the DoD. He also had a long and distinguished career as a brass-balled sonovabitch. No, what startled her was simply the speed with which the new DCI had installed his own people inside CI’s formerly sacrosanct walls.

From the time that it had been the Office of Strategic Services during World War II, the agency had been its own domain, entirely free of interference from either the Pentagon or its intelligence arm, the NSA. Now, because of the growing power of Secretary of Defense Bud Halliday, CI was being merged with NSA, its unique DNA being diluted. M. Errol Danziger was now its director, and Danziger was Secretary Halliday’s creature.

Soraya, the director of Typhon, a Muslim-staffed anti-terrorist agency operating under the aegis of CI, considered the changes Danziger had instigated during the several weeks she had been away in Cairo. She felt lucky that Typhon was semi-independent. She reported directly to the DCI, bypassing the various directorate heads. She was half Arab and she knew all her people, had in most instances handpicked them. They would follow her through the gates of hell, if she asked it of them. But what about her friends and colleagues inside CI itself? Would they stay or would they go?

She got off at the DCI’s floor, drenched in the eerie green light filtered through bullet- and bombproof glass, and came up against a young man, reed-thin, steely-eyed, with a high-and-tight marine haircut. He was sitting behind a desk, riffling through a stack of papers. The nameplate on his desk read: LT. R. SIMMONS READE.

“Good afternoon, I’m Soraya Moore,” she said. “I have an appointment with the DCI.”

Lt. R. Simmons Reade glanced up and gave her a neutral look that nevertheless seemed to hold the hint of a sneer. He wore a blue suit, a starched white shirt, and a red-and-blue regimental striped tie. Without glancing at his computer terminal he said, “You had an appointment with Director Danziger. That was fifteen days ago.”

“Yes, I know,” she said. “I was in the field, cleaning up the loose ends of the mission in northern Iran that had to be-”

The light’s greenish tint made Reade’s face seem longer, sharper, dangerous, almost like a weapon. “You disobeyed a direct order from Director Danziger.”

“The new DCI had just been installed,” she said. “He had no way of knowing-”

“And yet Director Danziger knows all he needs to know about you, Ms. Moore.”

Soraya bristled. “What the hell does that mean? And it’s Director Moore.”

“Not surprisingly, you’re out of date, Ms. Moore,” Reade said blandly. “You’ve been terminated.”

“What? You’ve got to be joking. I can’t-” Soraya felt as if she were being sucked down a sinkhole that had just appeared beneath her feet. “I demand to see the DCI!”

Reade’s face got even harder, like a pitchman for the “Be All You Can Be” slogan. “As of this moment, your clearance has been revoked. Please surrender your ID, company credit cards, and cell phone.”

Soraya leaned forward, her fists on the sleek desktop. “Who the hell are you to tell me anything?”

“I’m the voice of Director Danziger.”

“I don’t believe a word you say.”

“Your cards won’t work. There’s nowhere to go but out.”

She stood back up. “Tell the DCI I’ll be in my office when he decides he has time to debrief me.”

R. Simmons Reade reached down beside his desk and lifted a small, topless cardboard box, which he slid across to her. Soraya looked down and almost choked on her tongue. There, neatly stacked, was every personal item she’d had in her office.

I can only repeat what you yourself told me.” Suparwita stood up and, with him, Bourne.

“So even then I was concerned with Noah Perlis.” It wasn’t a question and the Balinese shaman didn’t treat it as such. “But why? And what was his connection to Holly Marie Moreau?”

“Whatever the truth of it,” Suparwita said, “it seems likely they met in London.”

“And what of the odd lettering that runs around the inside of the ring?”

“You showed it to me once, hoping I could help. I have no idea what it means.”

“It isn’t any modern language,” Bourne said, still racking his damaged memory for details.

Suparwita took a step toward him and lowered his voice until it was just above a whisper. Nevertheless, it penetrated into Bourne’s mind like the sting of a wasp.

“As I said, you were born in December, Siwa’s month.” He pronounced the god Shiva’s name as all Balinese did. “Further, you were born on Siwa’s day: the last day of the month, which is both the ending and the beginning. Do you understand? You are destined to die and be born again.”

“I already did that eight months ago when Arkadin shot me.”

Suparwita nodded gravely. “Had I not given you a draft of the resurrection lily beforehand, it’s very likely you would have died from that wound.”

“You saved me,” Bourne said. “Why?”

Suparwita gave him another of his thousand-watt grins. “We are linked, you and I.” He shrugged. “Who can say how or why?”

Bourne, needing to turn to practical matters, said, “There are two of them outside, I checked before I came in.”

“And yet you led them here.”

Now it was Bourne’s turn to grin. He lowered his voice even further. “All part of the plan, my friend.”

Suparwita raised a hand. “Before you carry out your plan, there is something you must know and something I must teach you.”

He paused long enough for Bourne to wonder what was on his mind. He knew the shaman well enough to understand when something grave was about to be discussed. He’d seen that expression just before Suparwita had fed him the resurrection lily concoction in this very room some months ago.

“Listen to me.” There was no smile on the shaman’s face now. “Within the year you will die, you will need to die in order to save those around you, everyone you love or care about.”

Despite all his training, all his mental discipline, Bourne felt a wave of coldness sweep through him. It was one thing to put yourself in harm’s way, to cheat death over and over, often by a hairbreadth, but it was quite another to be told in unequivocal terms that you had less than a year to live. On the other hand, he had the choice to laugh it off-he was a Westerner, after all, and there were so many belief systems in the world that it was easy enough to dismiss 99 percent of them. And yet, looking into Suparwita’s eyes, he could see the truth. As before, the shaman’s extraordinary powers had allowed him to see the future, or at least Bourne’s future. “We are linked, you and I.” He had saved Bourne’s life before, it would be foolish to doubt him now.

“Do you know how, or when?”

Suparwita shook his head. “It doesn’t work like that. My flashes of the future are like waking dreams, filled with color and portent, but there are no images, no details, no clarity.”

“You once told me that Siwa would look after me.”

“Indeed.” The smile returned to Suparwita’s face as he led Bourne into another room, filled with shadows and the scent of frangipani incense. “And the next several hours will be an example of his help.”

Valerie Zapolsky, Rory Doll’s personal assistant, brought the message to DCI M. Errol Danziger herself, because, as she said, her boss did not want to entrust the news to the computer system, even one as hackproof as CI’s.

“Why didn’t Doll bring this himself?” Danziger frowned without looking up.

“The director of operations is otherwise engaged,” Valerie said. “Temporarily.”

She was a small dark woman with hooded eyes. Danziger didn’t like that Doll had sent her.

“Jason Bourne is alive? What the fuck-!” He leapt off his chair as if he’d been electrocuted. As his eyes scanned the report, which was brief and lacking actionable detail, his face grew red with blood. His head fairly trembled.

Then Valerie made the fatal mistake of trying to be solicitous. “Director, is there anything I can do?”

“Do, do?” He looked up as if coming out of a stupor. “Sure, here’s what, tell me this is a joke, a sick, black joke on Rory Doll’s part. Because if not, I sure as hell am going to fire your ass.”

“That will be all, Val,” Rory Doll said, appearing in the doorway behind her. “Go on back to the office.” Her expression of deliverance only partially assuaged his guilt at thrusting her into the line of fire.

“Goddammit,” Danziger said. “I swear I will fire her.”

Doll strolled into the office and stood in front of Danziger’s desk. “If you do, Stu Gold will be on you like flies on shit.”

“Gold? Who the fuck is Stu Gold and why should I give a shit about him?”

“He’s CI’s lawyer.”

“I’ll fire his ass, too.”

“Impossible, sir. His firm has an ironclad contract with CI, and he’s the only one with clearance all the way up-”

The DCI’s hand cut across the air in a vicious gesture. “You think I can’t find just cause to can her?” He snapped his fingers. “What’s her name?”

“Zapolsky. Valerie A. Zapolsky.”

“Right, what is that, Russian? I want her re-vetted down to the brand of toenail polish she uses, understood?”

Doll nodded diplomatically. He was slender and fair-haired, which only caused his electric-blue eyes to blaze like flares. “Absolutely, sir.”

“And God help you if there’s a spot, however small, or even a question, on that report.”

Ever since Peter Marks’s recent defection the DCI had been in a foul mood. Another director of ops had not yet been named. Marks had been Doll’s boss and Doll knew that if he could prove his loyalty to Danziger, he’d have a good shot at Marks’s position. Grinding his teeth in silent fury, he changed the subject. “We need to talk about this new bit of intel.”

“This isn’t a file photo, is it? This isn’t a joke?”

“I wish it were.” Doll shook his head. “But, no, sir. Jason Bourne was photographed applying for a temporary visa at Denpasar Airport in Bali, Indonesia-”

“I know where the hell Bali is, Doll.”

“Just being complete, sir, as per your instructions to us on first-day orientation.”

The DCI, though still fuming, said nothing. He held the report, and its attendant grainy black-and-white photo of Bourne, in his fist-his mailed fist, as he liked to call it.

“Continuing, as you can see by the electronic legend in the lower right-hand corner, the photo was taken three days ago, at two twenty-nine PM local time. It took our signals department this long to ensure there was no transmission error or interception.”

Danziger took a breath. “He was dead, Bourne was supposed to be dead. I was sure we’d shut him down forever.” He crushed the photo, threw it in the hopper attached to the paper shredder. “He’s still there, I assume you know that much.”

“Yes, sir.” Doll nodded. “At this moment he’s on Bali.”

“You have him under surveillance?”

“Twenty-four hours a day. He can’t make a move without us knowing about it.”

Danziger considered for a moment, then said, “Who’s our wet-work man in Indonesia?”

Doll was ready for this question. “Coven. But, sir, if I may point out, in her last written report filed from Cairo, Soraya Moore claimed that Bourne had a major hand in preventing the disaster in northern Iran that brought down Black River.”

“Almost as dangerous as his rogue status is Bourne’s ability to-how shall I put it? — influence women unduly. Moore is certainly one of them, which is why she was fired.” The DCI nodded. “Activate Coven, Mr. Doll.”

“Can do, sir, but it will take him some time to-”

“Who’s closer?” Danziger said impatiently.

Doll checked his notes. “We have an extraction team in Jakarta. I can get them on a military copter within the hour.”

“Do it, and use Coven as backup,” the DCI ordered. “Their orders are to bring Bourne in. I want to subject him to extensive, ah, questioning. I want to pick his brains, I want to know his secrets, how he manages to keep evading us, how at every turn he cheats death.” Danziger’s eyes glittered with malice. “When we’re done with him we’ll put a bullet through his head and claim the Russians killed him.”

[2]

THE LONG BANGALORE night was nearly at an end. Thick with the stench of raw sewage, disease, and human sweat, dense with terror, displaced rage, thwarted desire, and despair, the ashen dawn did nothing to return color to the city.

Finding a physician’s surgery, Arkadin broke in and took what he needed: sutures, iodine, sterile cotton, bandages, and antibiotics to take the place of the ones he hadn’t been able to pick up at the hospital. Loping through the wheezing streets, he knew he needed to stop the bleeding of the wound at the back of his thigh. It wasn’t life threatening, but it was deep, and he didn’t want to lose any more blood. Even more, though, he needed a place to hide, where he could stop the clock that Oserov had set ticking, a place of respite where he could assess his situation. He cursed himself for having been caught flat-footed by the enemy. But he was also acutely aware that his next step was a crucial one, disaster could so quickly compound itself into a catastrophe of deathly proportions.

With his local security penetrated, he could no longer trust any of his usual contacts in Bangalore, which left only one option: the place where he maintained absolute leverage. On the way, entering an encrypted number that gave him access to a relay of secure signal routers, he called Stepan, Luka, Pavel, Alik, as well as Ismael Bey, the figurehead leader of the Eastern Brotherhood, which he controlled.

“We’re under attack from Maslov, Oserov, the entire Kazanskaya,” he told each one brusquely and without preamble. “As of this moment we’re in a state of war.”

He had trained them well, none of them asked superfluous questions, merely acknowledged the order with curt replies. Then they rang off in order to commence the preparations Arkadin had blueprinted for them months ago. Each captain had his specific role to play, each was activating his piece of a plan that literally stretched across the globe. Maslov wanted war, that’s precisely what he was going to get, and not merely on a single front.

Arkadin shook his head and barked a laugh. This moment was always in the wind, as inevitable as their next breath. Now that it was upon him there was a palpable sense of relief. No more grinning through gritted teeth, no more pretending a friendship where only bitter enmity existed.

You’re a dead man, Dimitri Ilyinovich, Arkadin thought. You just don’t know it yet.

A touch of watery pink had tinged the sky, and he was almost at Chaaya’s. Time to make the difficult call. He punched in an eleven-digit number. A male drone at the other end said “Federal Anti-Narcotics Agency” in Russian. The now infamous FSB-2 that, under its leader, a man named Viktor Cherkesov, had become the most powerful and feared agency within the Russian government, surpassing even the FSB, the KGB’s successor.

“Colonel Karpov, if you please,” Arkadin said.

“It’s four AM. Colonel Karpov is unavailable,” the drone said in a voice not unlike one of the undead from a George Romero film.

“So am I,” Arkadin said, honing his sardonic edge, “but I’m making the time to talk to him.”

“And who might you be?” the emotionless voice said in his ear.

“My name is Arkadin, Leonid Danilovich Arkadin. Go find your boss.”

There was a quick catch of the drone’s breath, then, “Hold the line.”

“Sixty seconds,” Arkadin said, looking at his watch and starting the countdown, “no more.”

Fifty-eight seconds later a series of clicks was followed by a deep, gruff voice that said, “This is Colonel Karpov.”

“Boris Illyich, we’ve almost met so many times over the years.”

“Would that I could cross out the almost. How do I know I’m speaking to Leonid Danilovich Arkadin?”

“Dimitri Maslov is still giving you fits, isn’t he?”

When Karpov gave no response, Arkadin continued. “Colonel, who else could give you the Kazanskaya on a silver platter?”

Karpov laughed harshly. “The real Arkadin would never turn on his mentor. Whoever you are, you’re wasting my time. Good-bye.”

Arkadin gave him an address hidden in the industrial outskirts of Moscow.

Karpov was silent for a moment, but Arkadin, listening carefully, could hear the harsh soughing of his breathing. Everything depended on this conversation, on Karpov believing that he was, in fact, Leonid Danilovich Arkadin and that he was telling the truth.

“What am I to make of this address?” the colonel said after a time.

“It’s a warehouse. From the outside it looks exactly like the hundred or so on either side of it. Inside, as well.”

“You’re boring me, gospadin Whoever-You-Are.”

“The third door on the left near the back will take you into the men’s room. Go past the urinal trough to the last stall on the right, which has no toilet, only a door in the rear wall.”

There was only a moment’s hesitation before Karpov said, “And then?”

“Go in heavy,” Arkadin said. “Armed to the teeth.”

“You’re saying that I should take a squad with-”

“No! You go alone. Furthermore, you don’t sign out, you don’t tell a soul where you’re going. Tell them you’re going to the dentist or for an afternoon fuck, whatever your comrades will believe.”

Another pause, this one dark with menace. “Who’s the mole inside my office?”

“Ah, now, Boris Illyich, don’t be so ungrateful. You don’t want to spoil my fun, not after the gift I’ve just given you.” Arkadin took a breath. Having witnessed the colonel take the bait, he judged the moment right to sink the hook all the way in. “But were I you, I wouldn’t use the singular-moles is more like it.”

“What-? Now, listen to me-!”

“You’d best get rolling, Colonel, or your targets will have packed up for the day.” He chuckled. “Here’s my number, I know it didn’t come up on your phones. Call me when you return and we’ll talk names and, quite possibly, much, much more.”

He cut the connection before Karpov could say another word.

Near the end of the workday Delia Trane was sitting at her desk looking over a three-dimensionally rendered computer model of a diabolically clever explosive device, trying to find a way to disarm it before the timer went off. A buzzer deep inside the bomb would sound the instant she failed-if she cut the wrong wire with her virtual cutter or moved it inordinately. She herself had created the software program that had rendered the virtual bomb, but that didn’t mean that she wasn’t having the devil’s own time figuring out a way to disarm it.

Delia was a plain-looking woman in her midthirties with pale eyes, short-cropped hair, and skin deeply burnished by the genes from her Colombian mother. Despite her relative youth and her often ferocious temper, she was one of the ATF’s most coveted explosives experts. She was also Soraya Moore’s best friend, and when one of the guards from reception called to say Soraya was in the lobby she asked him to send her right up.

The two women had met through work, had sparked off each other’s feistiness and independence, recognizing and appreciating kindred spirits, so difficult to find in the hermetically sealed public sector inside the Beltway. Because they had met on one of Soraya’s clandestine assignments they had no need to conceal from each other their life’s work and what it meant to them, the number one relationship killer in DC. Further, both of them realized that, for better or for worse, their entire lives were bound up in their respective services, that they were unsuited for anything but work they couldn’t talk about with civilians, which in a way validated their existence, their independence as women, and their importance irrespective of the gender bias that existed here as virtually everywhere else in Washington. Together they daily took on the DC establishment like a pair of Amazons.

Delia returned to the contemplation of her model, which to her was like an entire world in miniature. Within seconds she was completely immersed in her problem, so she didn’t give a second thought to what her friend was doing here at this time of day. When a shadow fell over her work she looked up into Soraya’s face and knew something was terribly wrong.

“For God’s sake, sit down,” she said, pulling over a spare chair, “before you fall down. What the hell happened, did someone die?”

“Only my job.”

Delia looked at her quizzically. “I don’t understand.”

“I’ve been canned, fired, sent to the showers,” Soraya said. “Terminated without extreme prejudice-but certainly with prejudice,” she added with grim humor.

“What the hell happened?”

“I’m Egyptian, Muslim, a woman. Our new DCI doesn’t need any other reasons.”

“Not to worry, I know a good lawyer who-”

“Forget it.”

Delia frowned. “You’re not going to let them get away with this. I mean, it’s discrimination, Raya.”

Soraya waved a hand. “I’m not spending the next two years of my life going up against CI and Secretary Halliday.”

Delia leaned back. “It goes that high up, huh?”

“How could they do this to me?” Soraya said.

Delia rose and went around her desk to hug her friend. “I know, it’s like being jilted by a lover, someone you thought you knew but who turned out to be using you and, worse, was betraying you all the while.”

“Now I know how Jason felt,” Soraya said morosely. “All the times he’s pulled CI’s hand out of the fire and what did he get for it? He was hunted down like a dog.”

“Good riddance to CI, I say!” Delia kissed the top of her friend’s head. “Time to start over.”

Soraya looked up at her. “Really? Doing what, exactly? This shadow world is all I know, all I want to do. And Danziger’s so pissed off I didn’t come back to CI when he ordered me to that he’s put me on a clandestine service blacklist, making it impossible for me to work in the governmental intelligence community.”

Delia looked thoughtful for a moment. “Tell you what, I need to do some things down the hall, make a call, and we’ll go for some drinks and dinner. Then I have someplace special to take you. How’s that sound?”

“Better than going home, stuffing my face with ice cream, and staring at TV.”

Delia laughed. “That’s my girl.” She waved a finger in the air. “Don’t you worry, we’ll have so much fun tonight you won’t remember to be sad.”

Soraya gave her a rueful smile. “What about bitter?”

“Yeah, we can take care of that, too.”

Bourne sprinted out of Suparwita’s house without looking to either the left or the right. To the people watching he would appear to be a man on an urgent mission. He suspected that they would want to follow him to his next destination.

He could hear them trailing him through the forest, drawn in closer by his focused behavior. He hurried through the underbrush, wanting them close to him so that his agitation would become their agitation. His life wasn’t in danger, he knew, until they had interrogated him. They wanted to know what he knew about the ring. No doubt they felt they were being discreet, but nothing was a secret in Bali. Bourne had heard that they had been asking about it in Manggis, the local village. Once he’d learned they were Russians, he had little doubt that they worked for Leonid Arkadin. He had last seen his enemy, the first graduate of Treadstone’s ultimate soldier program, in the battle-torn area of northern Iran.

Now, in the midst of the emerald-and-umber Balinese jungle, Bourne made a hard right, heading for an enormous berigin-what Westerners called a banyan-the Balinese symbol of immortality. He leapt into the berigin’s many arms, working his way up through the labyrinth of branches until he was high enough to get a panoramic view of the area. Birds called to one another and insects droned. Here and there spears of sunlight pierced the many-layered canopy, turning the soft ground the color of chocolate.

A moment later he spied one of the Russians, stalking cautiously through the dense undergrowth, making his way around stands of thickly foliaged trees. He cradled the barrel of an AK-47 in the crook of his left arm, the forefinger of his right hand lay against the trigger, ready to spray bullets at the slightest noise or disturbance. He advanced slowly toward Bourne’s berigin. Every so often he glanced up into the trees, his scowling eyes dark and searching.

Bourne moved silently through the branches, positioning himself. He waited until the Russian was directly beneath him before he fell like one of the spears of sunlight. His heels struck the Russian’s shoulders, dislocating one, throwing him off his feet. Rolling himself into a ball, Bourne took the brunt of the fall on one shoulder blade, tumbling harmlessly head-over-heels. He was up and at the Russian before the stalker could regain his breath. Nevertheless the Russian’s training asserted itself, his leg flicking out and catching Bourne in the sternum.

Bourne grunted. The Russian, teeth gritted against the pain, sought to gain his feet, and time seemed to stand still, as if the primordial forest around them were holding its breath. Bourne’s right arm lashed out, the edge of his hand breaking the bones in the Russian’s dislocated shoulder. The Russian moaned, but at the same time he drove the butt of the assault rifle into Bourne’s side.

Leaning heavily on the AK-47, the Russian rose to his feet, stumbled over to where Bourne lay tangled in vines. He pointed the muzzle of the rifle but, as he did so, Bourne aimed a scissors kick at his adversary’s knee, bringing the Russian down to his level. A short burst from the rifle scythed upward, raining bits of leaves, bark, and branches onto both of them. The Russian swung the AK-47, trying to use it as a battering ram, but Bourne was already inside the arc of his swing. A swift strike with the edge of his hand broke the Russian’s collarbone, and the heel of Bourne’s other hand slammed into his nose with such force, it drove cartilage and bone into the Russian’s brain. As he keeled over, dead, Bourne snatched the assault rifle out of his bloody grip. He could see the crude tattoo of a serpent wrapped around a dagger that the Russian had gotten in prison, proof positive that he was a member of the grupperovka.

Bourne was unwrapping the vines around him when he heard a guttural voice from behind.

“Drop your weapon,” it said in Moscow-accented Russian.

Bourne turned slowly and saw the second Russian stalker. He must have followed the sound of the gunfire.

“I said drop it,” the Russian growled. He, too, held an AK-47, which was aimed at Bourne’s midsection.

“What do you want?” Bourne said.

“You know very well what I want,” the Russian said. “Now drop your weapon and hand it over.”

“Hand what over? Just tell me what you want and I’ll give it to you.”

“I’ll take the ring now. Right after you drop my partner’s rifle.” He made a beckoning motion. “Come on, fucker. Otherwise I’m going to shoot one leg off, then the other, and if that fails-well, you know how painful a gut wound can be, how long you’ll linger in agony before you bleed to death.”

“Your partner. Too bad about him,” Bourne said, at the same time letting the AK-47 slip out of his grip.

It was pure instinct, the Russian couldn’t help glancing over at his fallen companion. As he did so the motion of the AK-47 made him look down. That was when Bourne whipped the vine up and out. It caught the Russian around the neck, and with a powerful pull Bourne jerked him forward, right into his fist. The Russian doubled over. Bourne, dropping the vine, drove both fists down on the back of his neck.

The Russian crumpled, and Bourne, crouched over him, rolled him onto his back. The man was still dazed, gasping and flopping like a fish on the bottom of a boat. Bourne slapped him into full consciousness, then pressed a knee into his sternum, using his full weight.

The man stared up at him out of blue eyes. His face was unnaturally ruddy, and he could not hold back a dribble of blood from the corner of his mouth.

“Why did Leonid send you?” Bourne said in Russian.

The man blinked. “Who?”

“Don’t do that.” Bourne pressed down and the man groaned. “You know perfectly well who I mean. Leonid Arkadin.”

For a moment the Russian stared up at him, mute. Then, despite his dire circumstances, he laughed. “Is that what you think?” Tears rolled from the corners of his eyes. “That I work for that shitbag?”

The Russian’s response was too spontaneous, too unexpected to be false. Besides, why would he lie? Bourne paused for a moment, reassessing the situation. “If not Arkadin,” he said slowly and carefully, “then who?”

“I’m a member of the Kazanskaya.” There was no mistaking the pride in his voice; this, too, was genuine.

“So Dimitri Maslov sent you.” Not long ago Bourne had met the head of the Kazanskaya in Moscow under unpleasant circumstances.

“In a manner of speaking,” the Russian said. “I report to Vylacheslav Germanovich Oserov.”

“Oserov?” Bourne had never heard of him. “Who is he?”

“Director of operations. Vylacheslav Germanovich plans every phase of the Kazanskaya action while Maslov handles the increasingly annoying government.”

Bourne considered for a moment. “Okay, so you report to this Oserov. Why was it funny that I thought Arkadin had sent you?”

The Russian’s eyes blazed. “You’re as ignorant as a head of cabbage. Oserov and Arkadin hate each other’s guts.”

“Why?”

“Their feud goes back a long way.” He spat out some blood. “Interrogation finished?”

“What’s the nature of their enmity?”

The Russian grinned up at him through bloody teeth. “Get the fuck off my chest.”

“Sure thing.” Bourne stood up, grabbed the Russian’s AK-47, and slammed the butt into the side of his head.

[3]

I SHOULD HAVE KNOWN,” Soraya said.

Delia turned to her, a twinkle in her eye. “Known what?”

“That an inveterate player like you would take me to the best private poker game in the district.”

Delia laughed as Reese Williams led them down a wallpapered hallway peppered with paintings and photos of African wildlife, predominantly elephants.

“I’ve heard about this place,” Soraya said to Williams, “but this is the first time Delia’s seen fit to bring me here.”

“You won’t be sorry,” Williams said over her shoulder, “that I promise you.”

They were in her Federalist brownstone off Dupont Circle. Reese Williams was the strong right arm of Police Commissioner Lester Burrows, indispensable to him in many ways, not the least through her extensive contacts within the upper echelons of DC’s politicos.

Williams threw open the double pocket doors, revealing a library that had been converted into a gambling den, complete with a green baize table, comfortable chairs for six, and clouds of aromatic cigar smoke. As they entered the only sounds in the room were the click of chips and the barely audible flutter of a deck of cards being expertly shuffled, then dealt to the four men sitting around the table.

Besides Burrows, Soraya recognized two senators, one junior, one senior, a high-powered lobbyist, and, her eyes opened wide, was that-?

“Peter?” she said incredulously.

Peter Marks looked up from counting his chips. “Good God. Soraya.” At once he stood up, said, “Deal me out,” and came around the green baize table to embrace her. “Delia, how about taking my place?”

“With pleasure.” She turned to her friend. “Peter’s a regular here and I called him from the office. I thought you could use seeing an old compatriot.”

Soraya grinned and kissed Delia on the cheek. “Thanks.”

Delia nodded and left them, sitting down at the table. She took her usual stacks of chips from the bank, signing an IOU for the amount.

“How are you?” Marks said, holding Soraya at arm’s length.

Soraya surveyed him critically. “How do you think I am?”

“I heard through my pals in CI what Danziger did to you.” He shook his head. “I can’t say that I’m surprised.”

“What d’you mean?”

Marks led her across the hall to a quiet corner in the deserted sitting room, where they were ensured complete privacy. French windows looked out on a shadowy alley of greenery. The room was wallpapered a warm persimmon color, the walls covered with photos of Reese Williams in Africa amid crowds of tribesmen. In some of them she was also with an older man, possibly her father. Plush sofas and several deep-cushioned armchairs of striped fabric were arrayed before a fireplace with a marble mantelpiece. A low polished wooden table and a sideboard with two trays of liquor bottles and cut-crystal glasses completed the picture. No amount of municipal salary or rake-offs could account for this magnificent house. Soraya thought Reese must come from enormous wealth.

They sat side by side on a deep-cushioned sofa, turned partly toward each other.

“Danziger’s just looking for excuses to get rid of CI’s top management,” Marks said. “He wants his people-and by that I mean Secretary Halliday’s people-in positions of power, but he knows he has to tread carefully to avoid it looking like a wholesale slaughter of the old guard, even though that’s been the plan all along. It’s why I bailed when I knew he was coming in.”

“I’ve been in Cairo, I didn’t know you’d left CI. Where did you land?”

“Private sector.” Marks paused for a moment. “Listen, Soraya, I know you can keep a secret, so I’m willing to go out on a limb here and tell you.” He paused, his eyes flicking toward the door, which he’d carefully closed behind them.

“So?”

Marks leaned in farther, so their faces were close together. “I’ve joined Treadstone.”

For a moment, there was nothing but shocked silence and the tick-tock of the brass ship’s clock on the marble mantel. Then Soraya tried a laugh. “Come on, Treadstone is dead and buried.”

“The old Treadstone, yes,” he said. “But there’s a new Treadstone, resurrected by Frederick Willard.”

Willard’s name wiped the smile from Soraya’s face. She knew of Willard’s reputation as the Old Man’s Treadstone sleeper agent inside the NSA, who had been instrumental in exposing the former director’s criminal interrogation techniques. But since then he’d seemed to vanish off everyone’s radar. So Peter’s information was all too credible.

She shook her head, her expression troubled. “I don’t understand. Treadstone was an illicit operation, even by CI’s covert standards. It was shut down for very good reasons. Why on earth would you sign up for it now?”

“Simple. Willard hates Halliday as much as I do-as much as you do. He’s promised me that he’s going to use Treadstone’s resources to destroy Halliday’s credibility and his power base. That’s why I want you to join us.”

She was taken aback. “What? Join Treadstone?” As he nodded, her eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Wait a minute. You knew I was going to get canned the minute I walked through the doors to HQ.”

“Everyone knew, Soraya, except you.”

“Good Lord.” She jumped up and began to stalk around the room, running her fingertips over the tops of the books on the shelves, the contours of bronze elephants, the textures of the heavy drapes without even being aware of it. Peter had the good sense to say nothing. Finally, she turned to him from across the room and said, “Give me one good reason why I should join you-and please don’t state the obvious.”

“Okay, putting aside the fact that you need a job, step back and think for a minute. When Willard makes good on his promise, when Halliday is gone, how long d’you think Danziger will last at CI?” He stood up. “I don’t know about you, but I want the old CI back, the one the Old Man ran for decades, the one I can be proud of.”

“You mean the one that used Jason over and over again whenever it suited its purpose.”

He laughed, deflecting her blade of cynicism. “Isn’t that one of the things intelligence organizations do best?” He came toward her. “Come on, tell me that you don’t want the old CI back.”

“I want to be running Typhon again.”

“Yeah, well, you don’t want to know how Danziger’s going to fuck up the Typhon networks you built up.”

“To tell you the truth, Typhon’s future is all I’ve been thinking about since I walked out of HQ this afternoon.”

“Then join me.”

“What if Willard fails?”

“He won’t,” Marks said.

“Nothing in life is assured, Peter, you of all people should know that.”

“Okay, fair enough. If he fails, then we all fail. But at least we’ll feel that we’ve done whatever we could to bring back CI, that we haven’t simply knuckled under to Halliday and an NSA run rampant.”

Soraya sighed, picked her way across the carpet to join Marks. “Where the hell did Willard get the funding to resurrect Treadstone?”

Just by asking the question she saw she had agreed to his offer. She knew she was hooked. But while weighing this understanding, she almost missed the pained look on Peter’s face. “I’m not going to like it, am I?”

“I didn’t like it, either, but…” He shrugged. “Does the name Oliver Liss mean anything to you?”

“One of the principals of Black River?” She goggled at him. Then she burst out laughing. “You’re kidding, right? Jason and I were instrumental in discrediting Black River. I thought the three of them were all indicted.”

“Liss’s partners were, but he severed all ties to Black River months before the shit you and Bourne threw hit the fan. No one could find a trace of his participation in the illegal activity.”

“He knew?”

Peter shrugged. “Possibly he was simply lucky.”

She gave him a penetrating look. “I don’t believe that and neither do you.”

Marks nodded.

“You’re damn right I don’t like it. What does that say about Willard’s sense of ethics?”

Marks took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Halliday plays as dirty as anyone I’ve ever known. Whatever it takes to defeat him, bring it on, I say.”

“Even making a deal with the devil.”

“Perhaps it takes one devil to destroy another devil.”

“Whatever the truth of what you say, this is a treacherous slope, Peter.”

Marks grinned. “Why d’you think I want you on board? At some point I’m going to need someone to pull me out of the shit before it closes over my head. And I can’t think of a better person to do that than you.”

Moira Trevor, Lady Hawk pistol strapped into her thigh holster, stood looking at the empty offices of her new but compromised company, Heartland Risk Management, LLC. The space had so quickly become toxic that she wasn’t sad to leave it, only dismayed because she had been in business for less than a year. There was nothing here now but dust, not even memories she could take with her.

She turned to leave and saw a man filling the open doorway to the outside hall. He was dressed in an expensively cut three-piece suit, spit-shined English brogues, and despite the clear weather he carried a neatly rolled umbrella with a hardwood handle.

“Ms. Trevor, I presume?”

She stared hard at him. He had hair like steel bristles, black eyes, and an accent she couldn’t quite place. He was holding a plain brown paper bag, which she eyed with suspicion. “And you are?”

“Binns.” He offered his hand. “Lionel Binns.”

“Lionel? You must be joking, no one’s named Lionel these days.”

He looked at her unblinkingly. “May I come in, Ms. Trevor?”

“Why would you want to do that?”

“I’m here to make you an offer.”

She hesitated for a moment, then nodded. He crossed the threshold without seeming to have moved.

Peering around, he said, “Oh, dear. What have we here?”

“Desolation Row.”

Binns gave her a quick smile. “I’m an early Dylan fan myself.”

“What can I do for you, Mr. Binns?”

She tensed as he lifted the brown paper bag and opened it.

Taking out two paper cups, he said, “I brought us some cardamom tea.”

The first clue. “How nice,” Moira said, accepting the tea. She took off the plastic top to peer inside. It was pale with milk. She took a sip. And very sweet. “Thank you.”

“Ms. Trevor, I am an attorney. My client would like to hire you.”

“Lovely.” She looked around Desolation Row. “I could use some work.”

“My client wants you to find a notebook computer that was stolen from him.”

Moira paused with the cup halfway to her lips. Her coffee-colored eyes watched Binns with uncommon scrutiny. She had a strong face with a personality to match.

“You must have me confused with a private detective. There’s no shortage of those in the district, any one of them-”

“My client wants you, Ms. Trevor. Only you.”

She shrugged. “He’s barking up the wrong tree. Sorry. Not my line of work.”

“Oh, but it is.” There was nothing sinister or even discomforting in Binns’s face. “Let me see if I have this right. You were a highly successful field operative for Black River. Eight months ago you left and started Heartland by poaching the best and the brightest from your former employer. You didn’t back down when Black River tried to intimidate you, in fact you fought back and were instrumental in bringing to light the company’s criminal dealings. Now, for his trouble, your old boss Noah Perlis is dead, Black River has been disbanded, and two of its founding principals are under indictment. Stop me if I’ve gotten anything wrong so far.”

Moira, astonished, said nothing.

“From where my client sits,” he continued, “you’re the perfect candidate to find and retrieve his stolen laptop.”

“And where, exactly, does your client sit?”

Binns grinned at her. “Interested? There’s quite a handsome remuneration for you.”

“I’m not interested in money.”

“Despite needing the work?” Binns cocked his head. “But never mind, I wasn’t speaking of money, though your entire usual fee will be paid in advance. No, Ms. Trevor, I’m talking about something more valuable to you.” He looked around the empty room. “I’m talking about the reason you’ve moved out of here.”

Moira froze, her heartbeat accelerating. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“You have a traitor in your organization,” Binns said without inflection. “Someone on the NSA’s payroll.”

Moira frowned. “Just who is your client, Mr. Binns?”

“I’m not authorized to reveal his identity.”

“And I suppose you’re also not authorized to tell me how he knows so much about me?”

Binns spread his hands.

She nodded. “Fine. I’ll find my goddamn traitor myself.”

Oddly, this response brought a cat-like smile to Binns’s face. “My client said that would be your answer. I didn’t believe him, so now I’m out a thousand dollars.”

“I’m sure you’ll find a way to make it up in fees.”

“Once you get to know me, you’ll realize I’m not that sort of man.”

“You’re being overly optimistic,” Moira said.

He nodded. “Possibly.” Retreating to the doorway, he lifted a hand. “If you’ll accompany me…” When she made no move to follow him, he added, “Just this once, I beg you to indulge me. It will only take fifteen minutes of your time, what do you have to lose?”

Moira couldn’t think of a damn thing, so she allowed him to usher her out.

Chaaya lived in the penthouse of one of Bangalore’s glittering high-rise mini-cities, a gated residential community guarded day and night against the city’s multitude of ravages. But whether the precautions kept the city out or imprisoned the denizens in its citadel, Arkadin thought, was only a matter of perspective.

Chaaya opened the door to his knock, as she always did no matter what time he appeared. She had no choice, really. She came from a wealthy family and lived in the lap of luxury, but all of that would evaporate if they knew her secret. She was Hindu and the man she was in love with was Muslim, a mortal sin in the eyes of her father and three brothers should they become aware of her transgression. Though Arkadin had never met her lover, he had arranged that her secret be kept safe; Chaaya owed him everything, and acted accordingly.

Lush-figured, dusky-hued, in a gauzy dressing gown, her eyes still heavy with sleep, she moved through her skylit apartment with the sensual grace of a Bollywood actress. She was not particularly tall, but her bearing gave that illusion; when she walked into a room heads turned, both male and female. Whether she liked Arkadin, what she thought of him altogether, was of absolutely no interest to him. She feared him, which was all that was required.

It was brighter up here above the rooftops, giving the false impression that the day had already started. But then this apartment, mirroring both their lives, was full of fake impressions.

She saw his bloody leg at once and took him into her spacious bathroom, all mirrors and pink-and-gold veined marble. While he stripped off his trousers, she ran hot water. She had a deft touch with the sutures, and he asked her if she’d done this before.

“Once, long ago,” she said enigmatically.

That was why he had come here now, at this moment, when trust was at a premium. He and Chaaya recognized something in each other, something of themselves, dark and broken. They were both outsiders, uncomfortable in the world most people inhabited, they’d rather skim along the margins, half hidden by the flickering shadows that terrified everyone else. They were apart, strangers perhaps even to themselves, but companionable with each other because of that very fact.

While she washed him and worked on closing his wound, he considered his next move. He needed to get out of India, of that there was no doubt. Where would that shithead Oserov guess he might go? Campione d’Italia in Switzerland, where the Eastern Brotherhood maintained a villa, or perhaps its headquarters in Munich. By necessity Oserov’s list of options would be short; even Maslov had his limits as far as sending hit squads around the world on what might be a wild goose chase. He’d never been one to squander manpower or resources, which was why he still headed the single most powerful grupperovka family in an era when the Kremlin was aggressively dismantling the mob.

Arkadin knew he had to remove himself to a location that was absolutely secure. He had to choose a place neither Oserov nor Maslov would ever consider. And he would tell no one in his organization-at least, not until he could figure out how Oserov had been tipped to his temporary HQ here in Bangalore.

So he had to arrange for travel out of the city, and the country. But first he had to retrieve Gustavo Moreno’s laptop from its hiding place.

When Chaaya was finished and they had moved into the living room, he said, “Please fetch the present I gave you.”

Chaaya cocked her head, a small smile playing around the corners of her mouth. “Are you saying that I can finally open it? I’ve been dying of curiosity.”

“Bring it here.”

She rushed out of the room and a moment later returned with a rather large silver-colored box tied with a purple ribbon. She sat across from him, tense and expectant, the box lying across her thighs. “Can I open it now?”

Arkadin was eyeing the package. “You’ve already opened it.”

A look of fear crossed her face as swiftly as a gull scuds across a dock. Then she forced a smile onto her beautiful face. “Oh, Leonid, I couldn’t help myself, and it’s such a beautiful robe, I’ve never felt silk like it, it must have cost you a fortune.”

Arkadin held out his hands. “The box.”

“Leonid…” But she did as he bade. “I never took it out, I just touched it.”

He untied the ribbon, which he saw she’d retied with great care, then set the top aside.

“I love it so, I’d have killed anyone who came near it.”

Actually, he’d counted on that. When he’d given it to her with the instructions not to open it he’d seen the covetousness in her eyes and knew then that she’d never have the fortitude to comply. But he also knew that she’d guard it with her life. That was Chaaya through and through.

The robe, which was in fact exceptionally expensive, was folded meticulously into thirds. He removed the laptop, which he’d carefully hidden within its luxurious folds, then handed her the robe.

Busy unscrewing the underside of the laptop so he could insert the hard drive into its original home, he hardly heard her squeals of delight or the thank-yous she showered on him.

DCI M. Errol Danziger most often ate lunch at his desk while poring over intelligence reports from his directorate chiefs, comparing them with their counterparts he had sent over daily from the NSA. However, twice a week he ate his midday meal outside CI headquarters. He always went to the same restaurant-the Occidental on Pennsylvania Avenue-and dined with the same person, Secretary of Defense Bud Halliday. Danziger-all too aware of how his predecessor had been killed-traveled the sixteen blocks to these meetings in an armored GMC Yukon Denali accompanied by Lieutenant R. Simmons Reade, two bodyguards, and a secretary. He was never alone; it disturbed him to be alone, a condition he had brought with him from a childhood filled with the shadows of parental strife and abandonment.

Soraya Moore was waiting for his arrival. She had obtained the DCI’s schedule from her former director of ops, who was running Typhon on a temporary basis. Seated at a table at the Willard Hotel’s Café du Parc, which abutted the Occidental’s outdoor section, she noted the arrival of the Denali on the dot of 1 PM. As the rear door opened, she rose, and by the time the entourage was grouped on the sidewalk she was as close to the DCI as the bodyguards would allow. In fact, one of them, with a chest as broad as the table where she’d been seated, had already stepped in front of her, facing her down.

“Director Danziger,” she said loudly over his shoulder, “my name is Soraya Moore.”

The second bodyguard had a hand on his firearm when Danziger ordered them both to stand down. He was a short, square man with sloping shoulders. He’d made it his business to study Islamic culture, which only increased his unwavering antipathy for a religion-more, a way of life-he found backward, even medieval in its conventions and customs. It was his firm belief that Islamics, as he privately called them, could never reconcile their religious beliefs with the pace and progress of the modern world, no matter what they claimed. Behind his back, but not without some admiration, he was known as the Arab because of his avowed desire to rid the world of Islamic terrorists and any other Islamics foolish enough to get in his way.

Stepping between his bodyguards, Danziger said, “You’re the Egyptian who felt it necessary to stay in Cairo despite being recalled.”

“I had a job to do, on the ground, in the field, where the bullets and bombs are real, not computer-generated simulations,” Soraya said. “And for the record I’m American, same as you.”

“You’re nothing like me, Ms. Moore. I give orders. Those who refuse to take them can’t be trusted. They don’t work for me.”

“You never even debriefed me. If you knew-”

“Get it through your head, Ms. Moore, you no longer work for CI.” Danziger, leaning forward, had taken on the pugnacious stance of a boxer in the ring. “I have no interest in debriefing you. An Egyptian? God alone knows where your loyalty lies.” He leered. “Well, maybe I do. With Amun Chalthoum, perhaps?”

Amun Chalthoum was the head of al Mokhabarat, the Egyptian secret service in Cairo, with whom Soraya had recently worked and with whom she had stayed in Cairo when Danziger had summarily ordered her home prematurely, in contradiction of CI’s mission guidelines. In the performance of her mission, she and Amun had fallen in love. She was shocked, or perhaps stunned was a better word for it, that Danziger was in possession of such personal information. How in the hell had he found out about her and Amun?

“Birds of a feather,” he said. “Far from the professional behavior I expect from my people, fraternizing-is that the right word for it? — with the enemy.”

“Amun Chalthoum isn’t the enemy.”

“Clearly he isn’t your enemy.” He stepped back, a clear sign for his bodyguards to close ranks, blocking whatever limited access she’d had to him. “Good luck getting another government position, Ms. Moore.”

R. Simmons Reade smirked in the background before turning away, following in the DCI’s wake as, surrounded by his entourage, Danziger strode into the Occidental. The bystanders closest to them were staring at her. Putting a hand to her face, she discovered that her cheeks were burning. She had wanted her day in court; however, this was his court and she had seriously misjudged both his intelligence and the scope of his knowledge. She had mistakenly assumed that Secretary Halliday had inveigled the president to install nothing more than a cat’s-paw, a dimwit whom Halliday would have no trouble controlling. More fool her.

As she walked slowly away from the scene of the disaster, she vowed she’d never make that mistake again.

The man on the phone, whoever he was, was right about one thing: The warehouse on the outskirts of Moscow was indistinguishable from those around it, marching away in neat rows. Boris Karpov, hidden in the shadows across from the front door, checked the address he had written down during his phone conversation with the man who called himself Leonid Arkadin. Yes, he had the right location. Turning, he signaled to his men, all of whom were heavily armed, armored in bulletproof vests and riot helmets. Karpov had a nose for traps and this one stank of it. There was no way he would have come alone, no matter how well armed, no way he was going to stick his neck into a noose devised for him by Dimitri Maslov.

Why was he here then? he asked himself for the hundredth time since the call. Because if there was a chance the man actually was Leonid Danilovich Arkadin and he was telling the truth, then it would be a criminal mistake not to follow up on the lead. The FSB-2 and Karpov in particular had been after Maslov, after the Kazanskaya as a whole, for years now, with little success.

He had been given a mandate-to bring Dimitri Maslov and the Kazanskaya to justice-by his immediate superior, Melor Bukin, the man who had lured him away from FSB with a promotion to full colonel and a command of his own. Karpov had watched the meteoric rise of Viktor Cherkesov and was determined to get on board. Cherkesov morphed the FSB-2 from an anti-drug directorate into a national security force that rivaled the vaunted FSB itself. Bukin was a childhood friend of Cherkesov’s-which more often than not was how these things worked in Russia-and now he had Cherkesov’s ear. Bukin, being Karpov’s mentor, had brought Karpov that much closer to the top of FSB-2’s pyramid of power and influence.

Bukin was on the phone when Karpov had told him where he was going and why. He’d listened briefly, then waved a cursory benediction.

Now, having silently deployed his squad in a close perimeter around the target, Karpov led his men in a frontal assault on the warehouse. He directed one of his men to shoot out the lock on the front door, then he took them inside. He signaled to his men to take each aisle between the stacked crates. It was hours after the end of the normal workday, so they didn’t expect workers, and they weren’t disappointed.

When all of his men inside had appeared and checked in, Karpov led them through the door into the bathroom, which was where the voice had said it would be. The urinal trough was on the left, while opposite was the line of stalls. His men banged open the doors as they proceeded down the line, but all were empty.

Karpov paused before the last stall, then charged through. Just as the voice had described, there was no toilet, only another door set flush with the rear wall. Karpov, a cold ball of dread beginning to form in his stomach, disintegrated the lock with a furious burst from his AK-47 assault rifle. At once he shouldered his way through to find an interior set up with an office against the rear wall, raised off the floor and accessed by a metal ladder.

No one was in the office. The phones had been pulled from the wall outlets, the upended file cases and desks, their drawers open, mocked him with their complete barrenness, the obvious haste with which they had been denuded. He turned slowly in a circle, his practiced eye running over everything. Nothing, there was nothing.

Contacting his men at the perimeter, he confirmed what the ice ball growing in his stomach already told him: No one had entered or left the warehouse from the time they had arrived in the area.

“Fuck!” Karpov set one ample buttock on the corner of a desk. The man on the phone had been right all the way down the line. He had warned Karpov not to tell anyone, warned him that Maslov’s people might be warned. He had to have been Leonid Danilovich Arkadin.

The Rolls-Royce was gargantuan, something out of the automotive Jurassic age. It stood gleaming like a silver train at the curb outside the office building. Stepping ahead of her, Lionel Binns opened the curbside rear door. As Moira bent and stepped inside, a wash of incense rolled over her. She sat down on the leather seat as the attorney closed the door after her.

As she settled herself, her eyes slowly adjusting to the murky gloom, she found herself sitting beside a rather large, blocky man with walnut-colored skin and windswept eyes, dark as the inside of a well. He had a great shock of dark hair, almost ringlets, and a beard long, thick, and as curly as Nebuchadnezzar’s. Now the cardamom tea made sense to her. He was some sort of Arab. Inspecting further, she noticed that his suit, though clearly Western, draped his shoulders and chest like a Berber robe.

“Thank you for coming,” he said in a great, booming voice that echoed off the finely polished walnut surfaces of the spacious interior, “for taking a small leap of faith.” He spoke with a heavy, almost guttural accent, but his English was impeccable.

A moment later the driver, unseen behind a walnut panel, pulled the Rolls out into traffic, heading south.

“You are Mr. Binns’s client, correct?”

“Indeed. My name is Jalal Essai, my home is in Morocco.”

Yes, indeed. Berber. “And you had a laptop that was stolen.”

“That’s right.”

Moira was sitting with her right shoulder against the door. She felt abruptly chilled; the interior now seemed suffocatingly small, as if the man’s presence had spilled out of his body, invading and darkening the backseat, stealing over her, worming its way inside. She tried to catch her breath and managed only to shiver. The air seemed to fizz or shimmer, as if she were seeing a desert mirage. “Why me? I still don’t get it.”

“Ms. Trevor, you have certain, shall we say, unique abilities that I believe will be invaluable in finding my laptop and returning it to me.”

“And those abilities would be…”

“You have successfully taken on both Black River and the NSA. Do you think that I could find a single private detective who has also done so?” He turned and smiled at her with a set of large, brilliant white teeth shining out of a dusky cardamom face defined by flat planes, high cheekbones, and deep-set eyes, hooded as a hawk’s. “No need to answer, that wasn’t a question.”

“Okay, I’ll ask you a question: Do you believe that clandestine agencies were involved in the theft?”

Essai appeared to consider this for some time, though Moira had the distinct impression that he knew for certain.

“It’s possible,” he said at length. “Even likely.”

Moira crossed her arms over her breasts as if to protect herself from the way his logic was chipping away at her resolve, the waves of dark energy emanating from him like nothing she had felt before, as if she were sitting too near a particle collider. She shook her head emphatically. “Sorry.”

Essai nodded. It seemed as if nothing she said or did surprised him.

“In any event, this is for you.”

He handed over a manila folder, which Moira eyed with mounting suspicion and an eerie dread. Why did she feel like Eve taking the apple of knowledge? Nevertheless, as if her hands were obeying someone else’s command, she took possession of the folder.

“Please. There are no strings,” Essai said. “Rest assured.”

She hesitated a moment, then opened it. Inside was a surveillance photo of one of the top operatives she’d poached from Black River meeting with the director of field operations for the NSA.

“Tim Upton? He’s the NSA mole? This wasn’t Photoshopped, was it?”

Essai said nothing, so she dropped her gaze to read the accompanying sheet of observed times and places when Upton met clandestinely with various members of the NSA. She sighed deeply, sitting back against the cushion, and slowly closed the file.

“This is extremely generous of you.”

Essai shrugged as if it were nothing. And as if on cue the Rolls slowed and pulled to the curb.

“Good-bye, Ms. Trevor.”

Moira actually got as far as grabbing the door handle before she turned back to the bearded man and said, “So what is it that makes this laptop of yours so valuable?”

Essai’s smile shone like a beacon.

[4]

BOURNE ARRIVED IN London on a depressingly murky, windblown morning. A misty rain swirled along the Thames, obscuring Big Ben, and the low sky, heavy as lead, pressed down against the modern rise of the city. The air stank of petrol and coal dust, but possibly it was just the industrial grit whipped up by the wind.

Suparwita had told him the address of Noah Perlis’s flat. It was the only specific clue he had left himself from that now forgotten time in his life. Sitting in the back of a taxi on the way in from Heathrow, he stared out at the passing scenery without seeing anything. There seemed whole stretches now when he forgot that he’d had a life before his amnesia, but then, like a slap in the face, a shard of it would unexpectedly surface to remind him of what he was missing, what he could never retrieve. In that first instant he felt diminished, a man living half a life, living with a shadow he could never see or even barely feel. Yet it was there, a part of him he could touch only briefly and in frustratingly limited fashion-flashes in the farthest periphery of his vision.

This was what had happened to him in Bali when, trying to find Suparwita several weeks ago, he had ascended to the first temple at the Pura Lempuyang complex. He stood on the very spot he had been dreaming about and discovered that in the time before his amnesia he had been supposed to meet Holly Marie Moreau there. A memory had surfaced. He recalled watching from too great a distance to help her as she fell down the steep flight of stone steps to her death. In fact, as he had subsequently discovered, Noah Perlis, hidden in the shadows of the high carved stone gates, had pushed her.

Perlis’s flat was in Belgravia, an area of West London between Mayfair and Knightsbridge, in what had once been a merchant’s Georgian mansion but which, in modern times, had been carved into individual living quarters. The shining white building featured a deep terrace that overlooked a tree-lined square. Belgravia was filled with glowing white Georgian row houses, embassies, and posh hotels, a lovely walking neighborhood.

The front-door lock posed no problem, neither did the one on Perlis’s second-floor flat. Bourne walked into a generously proportioned sitting room, neatly and fashionably furnished, probably not by Perlis himself who surely hadn’t the time for such domestic matters. Despite the sunlight, the air was cold, somber, thick and sluggish with abandonment, the vague sorrow of the forgotten or the disappeared. A small vibration hovered at the edge of Bourne’s senses as if left over from the last time Perlis had been here. There was nothing now but a whisper of wind through the old window sashes and the somnolent stirring of dust motes in the diagonal ribs of light.

Though there was a distinctly masculine feel to the place-whiskey-colored leather sofa, burly woods, deep hues on the walls-Bourne couldn’t help but suspect a female touch in the accessories, the pewter candelabra with ivory-colored candles half burned down, the delicate swirl of Moroccan lamps, Mexican kitchen tiles bright as a tropical bird’s plumage. But it was the bathroom, with its retro pink-and-black glass tiles, and neat as a pin, that clearly revealed the flourishes of the woman’s hand. While he was there, he checked behind the toilet tank and, lifting the lid, inside it to see if Perlis had taped anything in those favorite hiding places.

Finding nothing, he moved on to Perlis’s bedroom, which interested him the most. Bedrooms were where people-even ones as professional and security-minded as Perlis-tended to hide their intimate possessions, the items that if discovered might give themselves away as clues to the inner self.

He started with the closet, with its rows of black or dark blue trousers and jackets-but no suits-all this year’s fashions. Someone had been shopping for Perlis, as well. Pushing aside the rack of clothes, Bourne tapped on the back wall, checking for hollow areas, finding none. He did the same with the side walls, then lifted the shoes pair by pair to check the floor for a hidey-hole. Next, he went through the chest of drawers, feeling under each for anything Perlis might have taped there. At the rear of the bottom drawer he found a Glock. Checking it, he discovered that it was well oiled and loaded. He pocketed it.

Finally, he came to the bed, swinging aside the mattress to check the box spring for papers, photos, thumb drives, or a hidden compartment that might contain them. Under the mattress was a childish place to hide anything of value, but that was precisely why most people did it. Old habits died hard. He moved the box spring off the metal frame so he could flip it over, but found nothing out of the ordinary. Putting the bed back together, he sat on the edge and contemplated the seven framed photos on the top of the dresser. They were lined up in such a way that they were likely the last things Perlis saw before he went to sleep and the first things he saw when he woke up in the morning.

Perlis himself appeared in all but one. He had been walking in Hyde Park with Holly Marie Moreau. They had stopped in front of one of the soapbox ministers, and obviously Noah had grabbed someone from the crowd to take the shot. In another-clearly self-timed-they were boating, perhaps upriver on the Thames. Holly was laughing, possibly at something Noah had said. She seemed at ease, which Bourne, knowing Perlis and the end of their tragic history, found deeply unsettling.

The third photo showed Noah shoulder-to-shoulder with a handsome young man in a fashionable three-piece suit. His skin was dark, with exotic features. Something in his face spoke to Bourne, as if he’d seen him in his unremembered life, or at least someone like him. Another shot of the two of them with arm candy, in a swank London nightclub. There was some kind of a gaming table in the background, where bettors hovered tensely, bent at the waist like the elderly. Bourne looked more closely at the arm candy. The two women were half hidden behind the men, slightly out of focus, but as he scrutinized the photo more closely he recognized Holly… and Tracy. Which came as a shock to him. He’d met Tracy a month ago on a plane to Seville and they had become allies as they traveled together to Khartoum, where she had died in his arms. It was only later that he had discovered she was taking orders from Arkadin.

So Tracy, Perlis, Holly, and the unknown young man had been a foursome. What strange stroke of fate had brought them together, had caused them to be friends?

Next came a portrait of the young man, watching the camera with a mixture of suspicion and sardonic amusement, a mocking smile that only scions of wealthy families are rich enough to use as either weapon or lure. The seventh and last photo was of the three of them, Perlis, the young man, Holly Marie Moreau. Where was Tracy? Taking the photo, no doubt, or maybe she was away on one of her innumerable trips. Their faces were lit up from below by the candles of an ornate cake. It was Holly’s birthday. She was between the two men, slightly bent, one hand pushing back her long hair, her cheeks billowed out while she prepared to blow out the candles. She had a faraway look as she considered what to wish for. She looked very young and totally innocent.

Bourne considered the lineup once again, then he rose and in random order took them apart. Taped to the back of the birthday photo was a passport in Perlis’s name, a spare. Pocketing it, Bourne reassembled the elements and replaced the framed photo, staring intently at it. What was Holly Marie Moreau like? How had Perlis met her? Had they been lovers, friends, or had he used her? Had she used him? He ran his hand through his hair, rubbing at his scalp as if he could stimulate his brain into remembering what it clearly couldn’t. He had a moment of pure panic, as if he were in a tiny boat set adrift on a fogbound sea, his sight obscured in every direction. Try as he might he could not recall his time with her. In fact, if it hadn’t been for the persistent dream of her death he’d had in Bali, he wouldn’t have remembered her at all. Was there no end to the nightmare of not remembering, of people appearing out of the dense fog of his past, hovering like ghosts caught in the corners of his vision? Usually he had his emotions under control, but he knew why this time was different: He could still feel the life draining out of Tracy Atherton as he held her in his arms. Had he held Holly the same way as she lay broken at the foot of the Balinese temple’s steep staircase?

He sat on the bed, hunched over, staring into a well of memories, of people close to him who were now dead-because of him? Because they had loved him? He’d loved Marie, of that there was no question. But what about Tracy? Could you love someone after only days, a week? Even a month seemed too short a time to know. And yet Tracy remained in his mind, vibrant and infinitely sad, someone he wanted to touch, to talk with, and couldn’t. He rubbed the heels of his hands into his eyes. And then there was the agony of knowing that Holly had meant something to him, that she had walked beside him, possibly laughing as she had with Noah Perlis, but he would never know. His only memory was of her falling down the temple steps, falling, falling… And now he was alone again, because he didn’t want Moira to suffer the fate of all the others who had tried to get close to him. Alone, always and forever…

Tracy had shivered against him, as if she had been exhaling for the last time. “Jason, I don’t want to be alone.”

“You’re not alone, Tracy.” He remembered his lips pressing against her forehead. “I’m here with you.”

“Yes, I know, it’s good, I feel you around me.” Just before she died she had given a sigh, akin to a cat’s purr of contentment.

The curtains in Noah Perlis’s flat twitched and shivered as if alive, and a harsh, flat laugh escaped his pulled-back lips. Had Holly whispered to him as Tracy had: “It’s in our darkest hour that our secrets eat us alive.” Little did Tracy know that every hour of his amnesiac life was his darkest hour, that the secrets eating him alive were secrets even from him. He missed Tracy, missed her with the sharpness of a stiletto slipped between his ribs so that he gasped out loud. The curtains shivered in the wind through the sash and it was as if Tracy were here with him again, looking at him with her huge blue eyes, her wide megawatt smile so like Suparwita’s. In the wind he heard her laugh, felt the back of her hand brush against his cheek, cooling his flesh.

He had only known her a very short time, but those days had consisted of the compressed time in battle, when staying alive became the be-all and end-all of existence, when every moment contained the taint of death, when company mates become lifelong friends.

Tracy had touched him in a place both heavily defended and starkly tender. She had wormed her way inside him and now remained there, coiled and breathing, even after death.

And then, so close to her, hearing her voice in his mind, he remembered something she had said the night before she’d been killed: “I live in London, Belgravia. If you saw my flat-it’s a tiny thing, but it’s mine and I love it. There’s a mews out back with a flowering pear tree that a pair of house martins nest in come spring. And a nightjar serenades me most evenings.”

He caught his breath. Was it really a coincidence that both Tracy and Perlis lived in Belgravia? Bourne didn’t believe in coincidences, especially not with this group of people: Tracy, Holly, Perlis, the Hererras, Nikolai Yevsen, Leonid Arkadin. Perlis and Yevsen were dead, as were Tracy and Holly, and Arkadin was God only knew where. That left the Hererras as the living tendons that held this constellation together.

Only the photo of the handsome young man with the mocking half smile was left unexplored. Where had he seen that face before? It was maddeningly familiar and yet subtly changed, as if he’d seen the man when he was younger… or older! In a sudden frenzy he slid out the cardboard backing and discovered a small key taped to the back of the photo. He peeled it off. The size indicated that it was from either a public locker at one of the airports or the train station or… There was a paper tag attached by a small piece of thin wire that had a series of numbers handwritten on it in ink. Safe-deposit box. He turned the key over. Imprinted on its obverse was a logo consisting of two tiny interlinked letters: AB.

Everything clicked into place. This man was Diego Hererra, son and heir of Don Fernando Hererra, who had dealt in illicit gun trafficking with the late great Nikolai Yevsen, the legendary arms dealer whom Bourne had killed last month. Don Hererra’s legitimate business was the Aguardiente Bancorp: AB. He had given Diego the job of running Aguardiente’s London office.

Noah Perlis was friends with Diego Hererra, and they both knew Holly. Picking up the photo of the three of them at Holly’s birthday, he looked from one face to another and saw the identical complicit look in their eyes. Perlis had been friends with Holly and he had killed her. That complicit look of friendship… and then murder.

And then it hit him with the force of an express train. He was part of this constellation. According to Suparwita, Holly had been given the ring by her father, Perlis had killed her to get it, and now he had it. Slowly, he took out the ring and rolled it between his fingers. What did the engraving mean?

The photo of the three of them-Perlis, Diego, and Holly-mocked him. What had been the basis of their friendship? Was it a sexual three-way, a physical attraction that in the end had meant nothing to Perlis, or had he become Holly’s friend for a specific reason? And how did these three relate with Tracy? Something was going on here that Bourne didn’t understand, something intimate and at the same time repellent. One thing he knew for certain, however: Understanding their connection to one another was vitally important to discovering the secret of the ring.

The man known to CI Ops Directorate as Coven had arrived in Bali just in time to turn around and follow Bourne to London. Now he sat in his rental car, binoculars to his eyes, watching the second-floor window of the late Noah Perlis’s Belgravia flat. The curtains moved again, and he tried to make out who was in the apartment. On his lap was a PDF of the Perlis file he had requested. He now knew everything CI knew about Perlis-which admittedly wasn’t much, but it was enough to make Coven wonder why Perlis had come to Jason Bourne’s attention. Though his original mission had been to incapacitate Bourne and bring him back to CI in cuffs, this was changed after he’d asked for the file on Perlis. Directly following his request, DCI Danziger had come on the line and quizzed him mercilessly about why he was interested in Perlis. Normally Coven didn’t stick his nose into executive matters, preferring to infiltrate, accomplish his wet work as quickly, cleanly, and efficiently as possible, and get out, no questions asked. But in a way he couldn’t define, this situation was different. The moment DCI Danziger himself seized control of the operation, his hackles rose. Then DCI Danziger confirmed his suspicion and fueled his curiosity by changing the mission midstream: His orders were now to find out the connection between Bourne and Perlis before Coven brought the rogue agent in.

Darkness at noon. The lowering clouds let go the first stuttering spurt, then the rain started in earnest, pocking the sidewalks, running in the gutters, hurling itself onto the car’s roof, against the windshield, turning the world smeary, draining it of color.

Coven had been an agnostic when it came to the changing of the guard at DCI level. Wet work was wet work; he didn’t think that his job, a universe away from the district, would be jeopardized no matter who was running the show. But that was before DCI Danziger had issued new orders, which he considered unprofessional at best, a potential disaster at worst.

Now, squinting through the rain as Bourne emerged from the building, Coven found himself wondering at DCI Danziger’s hidden agenda. It wouldn’t be the first time a DCI had one, but this man was new, hadn’t come up through the ranks, had hardly earned loyalty from people like Coven who risked their lives in the field every hour of every day and night. The thought that this interloper might be running him as part of his own designs pissed Coven off royally. So the moment he spied Bourne exiting the building, he decided to handle the assignment his way and screw DCI Danziger and his secret agenda. If Bourne had something he wanted that badly, Coven would do well to take it for himself.

My family’s entire history is on that laptop,” Jalal Essai said.

“That would hardly be a reason for Black River and the NSA to be after it,” Moira countered.

“No, of course not.”

Essai sighed as he sat back against his chair. They were seated at a corner table in the heart of the terrace restaurant at Caravanserai, a small, exclusive boutique hotel in Virginia, which Essai owned. Ivy-covered brick walls rose on three sides, the fourth being taken up by a row of enormous French doors that led to the restaurant’s interior section.

Mint tea had been set before them, along with an elegant menu of the day’s fresh offerings, but Moira was far more interested in her host. He was more relaxed now, either because she was on the verge of agreeing to his proposal or because they were in surroundings he could control. While the restaurant’s interior was a bit more than half filled, theirs was the only occupied table on the flagstone terrace. A veritable fleet of servers stood by, waiting to be summoned by their master. There was something distinctly Eastern in the tone of the service that made it easy to imagine they were outside the borders of the United States. Far outside.

“I could lie but I have too much respect for you.” Essai moistened his lips with the tea. “The history of my family is of interest-quite possibly great interest-to elements of your government, as well as to a number of individuals and organizations in the private sector.”

“Why would that be?” Moira asked. “And please be specific.”

Essai smiled. “I knew the moment we met that I would like you, and I was right.”

“Did you make a bet with Mr. Binns?”

Essai laughed, a dark, bronze-edged sound that sounded uncannily like a gong being struck. “He told you about our bet, did he?” He shook his head. “Our Mr. Binns is a conservative sort, one wager is all he would accede to.”

Moira noted the our but decided to ignore it for the moment. “Let’s get back to basics.”

Essai took more of his tea. As with most Arabs, direct conversations were not a part of his repertoire; he preferred a circuitous route that would allow both parties time to gain valuable knowledge before closing a business deal. Moira knew this, of course, but Binns and Essai had blindsided her and she didn’t like it. She needed to regain the ground she had lost during the string of surprises Essai had sprung on her in the Rolls, and she calculated that the best way do this was to dictate the pace and flow of the conversation.

“This has something to do with Noah, doesn’t it?” she said suddenly. “I worked for him at Black River and he was involved with the laptop, which is why you chose me, correct?”

Essai looked at her directly. “You are the right person for this job for many reasons, as I told you. One of them is, yes, your relationship with Noah Perlis.”

“What did Noah do? Was he the one who stole the laptop?”

Essai had picked up his menu and perused it. “Ah, the Dover sole is a special today. I highly recommend it.” He looked up, his dark eyes serious. “It’s plated with authentic Moroccan couscous.”

“Then how could I refuse?”

“Splendid!” He looked genuinely delighted and, when he turned, a server was at his right elbow. He ordered for them, then handed the server their menus. When they were alone again he steepled his fingers and said, in much the same tone of voice, “Your late, and I gather unlamented, boss Mr. Perlis was very much involved.”

Moira found herself leaning forward in anticipation. “And?”

He shrugged. “We cannot go forward, you and I, until our deal is ratified. Will you or won’t you agree to find my laptop?”

Moira felt herself breathe, but it was as if she were detached from her body, as if she were looking down at this scene from a height. This was it: She could say no, even now. But she found that she didn’t want to walk away from this assignment. She needed work, needed a new door opened for her, and since this man had given her information that could save her new company from ruin she thought she might as well say yes.

“All right,” she heard herself say. “But I want double my usual fee.”

“Done.” Essai nodded, as if he was expecting this answer all along. “Most gratifying, Ms. Trevor. I thank you from the bottom of my heart.”

“Thank me when I’ve returned your laptop,” she said. “Now about Noah.”

“Your Mr. Perlis was something of a pilot fish. That is to say, he thrived on going after other people’s initiatives.” He spread his hands. “But I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know, am I?”

Moira shook her head.

“This was no exception. Mr. Perlis came to the game a bit on the late side.”

A warning bell went off in Moira’s head. “How late?”

“The mission to find and obtain my notebook by illegal means was the brainchild of CI. More accurately, the small DoN-”

“DoN?”

“Dead of Night,” Essai explained. “This term isn’t known to you?” He waved a hand: It was of no matter. “The DoN arm known as Treadstone.”

Moira felt stunned. “Alex Conklin wanted your laptop?”

“That’s right.” Essai sat back as the appetizers of prawn salad, the heads still on, were placed in front of them. The server vanished without a word.

“And he engineered the raid?”

“Oh, no, not Conklin.”

Essai took up his fork with his right hand and for a moment concentrated on deftly separating the heads from the bodies of his prawns. With one head still impaled on the tines of his fork, his gaze met hers again in such a shocking manner that she instinctively moved back, as if scrambling out of the line of fire.

“It was your friend Jason Bourne who came into my house, where my family eats and sleeps and laughs.”

In that frozen moment, while her heart seemed to cease beating, she knew the dislocated feeling for what it really was: the terrifying moment when your car’s brakes fail and, accelerating beyond your control, you see another vehicle about to slam into you head-on.

“Where my wife sews my clothes, where my daughter rests her head on my lap, where my son is day by day learning to be a man.” A dark vibration, as of a vengeance-filled scream, turned his voice ragged. “Jason Bourne violated every sacred tenet of my life when he stole my laptop.” He lifted the shrimp head as if it were a banner on the field of war. “And now, Ms. Trevor, by all that’s holy you’re going to get it back.”

[5]

THE CITY OF London, just over a mile square, is the historic core of what is now London proper. In medieval times it encompassed London, Westminster, and Southwark, guarded by a defensive wall built by the Romans in the second century, around which the modern metropolis threw its many arms like a spider extending its web. These days the City, slightly expanded, was the financial hub of London. Aguardiente Bancorp, being largely a commercial rather than a retail bank, had its one and only branch on Chancery Lane, just north of Fleet Street. From its large, stately windows, which faced southwest, Bourne could imagine rising the Temple Bar, the historic gate that a century ago linked the City, the financial center, to the road to Westminster, London’s political seat. The Temple Bar, named after the Temple Church, once home of the Knights Templar, was soberly presided over by statues of a griffin and a pair of dragons. Bourne did not, of course, look like Bourne, but rather Noah Perlis, the result of having made a number of purchases at a theatrical makeup shop in Covent Garden.

The gray stone and black marble interior of the bank was equally sober, as befitted an institution that counted as its clients a majority of the international companies doing business in the City. The ecclesiastical vaulted ceiling was so high, it seemed hazed like the sky outside-which, having delivered its burden, hovered now like the ravens in the Tower of London. Bourne crossed the softly echoing floor to the Safe Deposit desk, where a gentleman straight out of a Charles Dickens novel stood with shoulders as thin as a coat hanger, a sallow complexion, and a pair of beady eyes that looked like they had seen everything life had to offer pass them by.

Bourne introduced himself using Perlis’s passport as proof of identity. The Dickens cartoon pursed his lips as he squinted at the fine print, his liver-colored hands tilting the open passport into the light. Then abruptly he closed it, said, “One moment please, sir,” and vanished into the mysterious interior of the bank.

In the low glass barrier guarding each side of the sallow clerk’s window Bourne watched the dim reflections of the people-both customers and bank personnel-behind his back, moving about their business. As he did so, his gaze fell upon a face he had seen before. He’d glimpsed it once inside the shop on Tavistock Street earlier this morning. There was absolutely nothing unusual about it, in fact it was ordinary in every way imaginable. Only Bourne, and perhaps a handful of others with similar experiences and skills, would detect the intentness of the gaze, the way the eyes sliced and diced the vast lobby of the bank into a neat mathematical grid. Bourne watched the eyes moving back and forth in a familiar pattern. The man was figuring possible pathways to him, distances of escape routes to the exits, the placements of the bank guards, and so on.

A moment later the Dickens cartoon returned with no discernible change in his face, which remained as closed as the bank’s vault.

“This way, sir,” he said in a watery voice that reminded Bourne of a man gargling. He opened a panel in the marble half wall, and Bourne stepped through. He shut it with a soft click of a locking mechanism before leading Bourne between rows of polished wooden desks at which sat a platoon of men and women in dark, conservatively cut suits. Some were talking on phones, others addressing customers who sat on the other side of their desks. None of them looked up as the sallow clerk and Bourne passed them by.

At the end of the regiment of desks, the Dickens cartoon pressed a buzzer beside a door with a pebbled-glass panel that revealed the light from within but nothing else. The buzzer was answered, the door swung open, and the clerk stood aside.

“Straight ahead, then left. The corner office.” And then with a vicious little smile: “Mr. Hererra will receive your request.” He even talked like a Dickens character.

With a quick nod, Bourne took his left and proceeded to the corner office, whose door was closed. He rapped on it, heard the one word, “Come,” and entered.

On the other side of the door he found himself in a large, expensively furnished office with a stupendous view of the bustling City, both its historic spires and its odd post-modern skyscrapers, the past and future commingling, it seemed to Bourne, uneasily.

In addition to the usual practical office ensemble of desk, chairs, credenzas, cabinets, and the like was a clubby section off to the right dominated by a leather sofa and matching chairs, a glass-and-steel coffee table, lamps, and a sideboard set up as a bar.

As Bourne walked in Diego Hererra, looking even more like his father than he did in the photos, rose, came out from behind his desk, and with a big smile extended his hand for Bourne to shake.

“Noah,” he said with a deep hearty voice. “Welcome home!”

The moment Bourne took his hand the tip of a switchblade was pressed against his jacket in the spot over his right kidney.

“Who the hell are you,” Diego Hererra said.

Bourne’s face held no emotion. “Is this any way for a banker to act?”

“Fuck that.”

“I’m Noah Perlis, just like my passport-”

“The hell you are,” Diego Hererra said flatly. “Noah was killed in Bali by person or persons unknown less than a week ago. Did you kill him?” He dug the point of the switchblade through Bourne’s jacket. “Tell me who you are or I’ll bleed you like a pig at slaughter.”

“Lovely,” Bourne said as he wrapped an arm around Diego Hererra’s knife arm, locking it in place. When the banker tensed, he said, “Make a move and I’ll fracture your arm so badly it will never work right.”

Diego Hererra’s dark eyes blazed with barely suppressed fury. “You fucker!”

“Calm down, Señor Hererra, I’m a friend of your father’s.”

“I don’t believe you.”

Bourne shrugged. “Call him, then. Tell him Adam Stone is in your office.” Bourne had little doubt that Hererra’s father would recognize the alias Bourne had used when he met him in Seville several weeks ago. When Diego Hererra made no sign of acquiescence, Bourne switched tactics. His tone was now distinctly conciliatory. “I was a friend of Noah’s. Some time ago he’d delivered a set of instructions to me. In the event of his death I was to go to his apartment in Belgravia, where I would find in specific places a duplicate of his passport and the key to a safe-deposit box that resides here. He wanted me to take possession of whatever was in the box. That’s all I know.”

Diego Hererra remained unconvinced. “If you were a friend of his, how is it he never spoke of you?”

“I imagine it was to protect you, Señor Hererra. You know as well as I do what a secretive life Noah led. Everything was neatly compartmentalized, friends and associates included.”

“What about acquaintances?”

“Noah had no acquaintances.” This Bourne had intuited from his brief but intense encounters with Perlis in Munich and Bali. “You know that as well as I do.”

Diego Hererra grunted. Bourne was about to add that he’d been a friend of Holly’s, but some sixth sense born of years of experience warned him against it. Instead he added, “Besides, I was a good friend of Tracy Atherton’s.”

This seemed to affect Diego Hererra. “Is that so?”

Bourne nodded. “I was with her when she died.”

The banker’s eyes narrowed. “And where was that?”

“The headquarters of Air Afrika,” Bourne said without a moment’s hesitation. “Seven seventy-nine El Gamhuria Avenue, Khartoum, to be exact.”

“Christ.” At last Diego Hererra relaxed. “That was a tragedy, a first-class tragedy.”

Bourne let go of his arm, and Hererra closed the switchblade, then gestured for them to cross to the clubby nook. As Bourne sat, he stood in front of the bar.

“Even though it’s early, I think we could use a drink.” He poured three fingers of Herradura Seleccion Suprema añejo sipping tequila into two thick old-fashioned glasses, handed one to Bourne, then sat down himself. After they’d both savored the first sip, he said, “What happened at the end, can you tell me?”

“She was delivering a painting,” Bourne said slowly. “She got caught in a crossfire when the offices were raided by Russian security forces who were after Nikolai Yevsen.”

Diego Hererra’s head came up. “The arms smuggler?”

Bourne nodded. “He was using his company, Air Afrika, to pick up and deliver the contraband.”

The banker’s eyes clouded over. “Who was she working for?”

Bourne lifted his glass to his lips, watching Diego’s face carefully without seeming to do so. “A man by the name of Leonid Danilovich Arkadin.” He took another sip of the aged tequila. “Do you know him?”

Diego Hererra frowned. “Why do you ask?”

“Because,” Bourne said slowly and distinctly, “I want to kill him.”

He’s alive, Leonid Arkadin thought. Vylacheslav Germanovich Oserov didn’t burn to death in that Bangalore hospital corridor. Fuck me, he’s still alive.

He was staring down at a surveillance photo of a man the right side of whose face was horribly disfigured. But I did him some serious hurt, he thought, touching his own leg wound, which was healing nicely, that’s for certain.

He had installed himself in an old convent, dusty and dry as an outdated philosophical text, risen on the outskirts of Puerto Peñasco, a coastal town in the northwest of the Mexican state of Sonora. But then virtually everything in Puerto Peñasco was outdated. An unlovely industrial sprawl, it was redeemed by its broad white beach and warm water.

Puerto Peñasco was off the edge of most people’s maps, but that was only one of the reasons he had chosen it. For another, at this time of the year college students poured across the border from Arizona to take advantage of the surf, the high-rise hotels, and a police force that looked the other way as long as sufficient numbers of American dollars changed hands. With so many young people around, Arkadin felt relatively safe; even if by some means Oserov and his hit squad managed to find him, as they had in Bangalore, they’d stick out like monks on spring break.

How Oserov had tracked him down in India was still a vexing mystery. Yes, Gustavo Moreno’s laptop was safe and he’d been able to reconnect with the remote server that contained the contracts with his arms clients, but half a dozen of his men were gone and, worse, his vaunted security clearly had a hole. Someone within his organization was funneling information to Maslov.

He was about to go down to the beach when his cell phone rang, and because reception was spotty in this odd backwater, he stayed where he was, staring out at tiers of clouds in the west lit like neon signs.

“Arkadin.”

It was Boris Karpov; he felt a certain satisfaction. “Did you keep your destination to yourself?” The pregnant pause was all he needed. “Don’t tell me, no one was there, everything was cleaned out.”

“Who are they, Arkadin? Who are Maslov’s moles inside my organization?”

Arkadin mused for a moment, letting the colonel feel the sharpness of the hook. “I’m afraid it’s not as simple as that, Boris Illyich.”

“What do you mean?”

“You should have gone alone, you should have believed what I told you,” Arkadin said. “Now your end of the bargain has become so much more complicated.”

“What bargain?” Karpov asked.

“Take the next international flight you can get on.” Arkadin watched the sunset splash the clouds with more and more color until they became so supersaturated, they made his eyes throb. Still, he refused to look away, the beauty was overwhelming. “When you arrive at LAX–I assume you know what that is.”

“Of course. It’s the international airport in Los Angeles.”

“When you get to LAX call the number I’m about to give you.”

“But-”

“You want the moles, Boris Illyich, so let’s not equivocate. Just do it.”

Arkadin closed the connection and walked across the sand. Bending over, he rolled up his trousers. He could already feel the wavelets break over his bare feet.

Arkadin may not have killed Tracy himself,” Bourne said, “but he’s the one responsible for her death.”

Diego Hererra sat back for a moment, his glass balanced on one knee as he held it reflectively. “You fell in love with her, didn’t you?” He held up a hand, palm outward. “Don’t even bother answering, everyone fell in love with Tracy, without even trying she had that effect.” He nodded as if to himself. “Speaking for myself, I think that was the part that made it the most devastating. Some women, you know, they’re trying so hard you can practically taste the desperation, and what a turnoff that is. But with Tracy it was another matter entirely. She had…” He snapped his fingers several times. “… what do you call it?”

“Confidence.”

“Yes, but more than that.”

“Self-possession.”

Diego Hererra considered this for a moment, then nodded vigorously. “Yes, that’s it, she was almost preternaturally self-possessed.”

“Except when she got airsick,” Bourne said, thinking of how she had vomited on the horrendous flight from Madrid to Seville.

This caused Diego to throw his head back and laugh. “She hated planes, all right-pity she was on them so often.” He took some more tequila into his mouth, savoring the taste before swallowing. Then he put aside his glass. “I imagine you want to get on with the posthumous assignment our mutual friend charged you with.”

“The sooner the better, I suppose.” Bourne rose and, together with Diego Hererra, went out of his office, along several corridors, hushed and shadowed, down a long ramp that ended in the open vault. Bourne took out his key, but he saw that he had no need of telling Diego the box number because the banker went right to it. Bourne inserted the key into one of the locks and Diego put his master key into the other.

“Together on the count of three.”

They both turned their keys in concert, and the small metal door opened. Diego removed the long box and took it over to a row of small curtained alcoves that ran along one side of the wall. Setting the box down on a ledge inside one of the alcoves, he said, “It’s all yours, Señor Stone.” He gestured. “Please ring this bell when you’re finished and I’ll personally fetch you.”

“Thank you, Señor Hererra.” Bourne entered the alcove, closed the curtain, and sat in the wooden armchair. For a moment, while he listened for Diego Hererra’s soft footfalls receding into the distance, he did nothing. Then, leaning forward, he opened the safe-deposit box. Inside was a small book and nothing more. Lifting it out, Bourne opened it to the first page. It seemed to be a kind of diary or, reading a bit farther, a history of sorts, accumulated one incident at a time, from various sources, it appeared. Bourne came to the first of the names and the hairs on his arms stirred. Involuntarily, he glanced around the cubicle, though there was no one around but him. And yet there was a distinct stirring, a restless energy as the ghosts and perhaps goblins emerged from Perlis’s very private notes, accumulating around his feet like starving dogs.

Leonid Arkadin, Vylacheslav Germanovich Oserov-or Slava, as Perlis called him-and Tracy Atherton. With a line of sweat appearing at his hairline, Bourne began to read.

Damp sand and salt water squooshed between Arkadin’s toes, girls in tiny bikinis and thin dudes in surfer shorts down to their bony knees played volleyball or jogged up and down the beach, just above the high-tide line, beer cans clutched in their hands.

Arkadin was brimming with rage at the corner Maslov and, especially, Oserov had backed him into. He had no doubt that Oserov had convinced Maslov to go after him directly. A frontal assault wasn’t Maslov’s style; he was more cautious than that, especially in times so fraught with danger for him and the Kazanskaya. The government was gunning for him, just waiting for him to make a mistake. So far, with a combination of indebted friends and Teflon guile, he had managed to stay one step ahead of the Kremlin-neither its inquisitors nor its prosecutors had been able to manufacture charges against him that would stick. Maslov still had too much dirt on enough key federal judges to stave off those forays.

Without having thought about it consciously, Arkadin had waded out into the ocean, so that the water rose above his knees, soaking his trousers. He didn’t care; Mexico afforded a breadth of freedom he’d never before tasted. Maybe it was the slower pace or a lifestyle where pleasure came from fishing or watching the sunrise or drinking tequila long into the night while you danced with a dark-eyed young woman whose multicolored skirts lifted with each twirl she made around you. Money-at least the amounts of money he was used to-was irrelevant here. People made a modest living and were content.

It was at that moment that he saw her, or thought he saw her, emerging from the surf like Venus lifted on her gleaming pink shell. The red sun was in his eyes and he was obliged to squint, to shade his eyes with one hand, but the woman he saw emerging was Tracy Atherton: long and sleek, blond and blue-eyed with the widest smile he’d ever seen. And yet it couldn’t be Tracy, because she was dead.

He watched her coming toward him. At one point she turned and looked directly at him and the resemblance fell apart. He turned away into the last of the canted sunlight.

Arkadin had met Tracy in St. Petersburg, at the Hermitage Museum. He had been in Moscow two years, working for Maslov. She was there to view the czarist treasures, while he was there for an onerous rendezvous with Oserov. But then all his meetings with Oserov were onerous, often ending in violence. Maslov’s chief assassin at the time had killed a child-a little boy no more than six years old-in cold blood. For this obscenity, Arkadin had beaten his face to a pulp and dislocated his shoulder. He would have killed him outright if his friend Tarkanian hadn’t intervened. Ever since that incident the resentment between the two men continued to build until most recently igniting in Bangalore. But Oserov, like a vampire, could not be easily killed. With an ironic laugh, Arkadin decided that next time he’d pound a wooden stake through Oserov’s heart. That Dimitri Maslov had continually forced them to work together, Arkadin was convinced, was a deliberate act of sadism for which Maslov would one day pay.

That icy winter’s morning in St. Petersburg he had arrived early to ensure that Oserov hadn’t set up some arcane form of trap. Instead he found a tall slim blonde with huge cornflower-blue eyes and an even wider smile contemplating a portrait of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna. The blonde wore an ankle-length deerskin coat with a high collar dyed an improbable sky blue, beneath which, just peeking out, was a blood-red silk shirt. Without preamble she asked him what he thought of the portrait.

Arkadin, who had taken absolutely no notice of the painting or of anything else of a decorative nature in the vast rooms, peered at the portrait and said, “That was painted in 1758. What possible meaning could it have for me?”

The blonde turned, contemplating him with the same disarming intensity she had given to the painting. “This is the history of your country.” She pointed with a slim, long-fingered hand. “Louis Tocque, the man who painted this, was one of the leading artists of the day. He traveled all the way from Paris to Russia at the behest of Elizabeth Petrovna to paint her.”

Arkadin, ignoramus that he was, shrugged. “So?”

The blonde’s smile widened even more. “It’s a measure of Russia’s world status and power that he came. In those days France was quite enamored with Russia and vice versa. This painting should make all Russians proud.”

Arkadin, about to make an acerbic retort, instead bit his tongue and returned his gaze to the regal woman in the painting.

“She’s beautiful, isn’t she?” the blonde said.

“Well, I’ve never met anyone remotely like her. She doesn’t seem real.”

“And yet she was.” The blonde made a gesture as if to guide his eyes back to the empress. “Imagine yourself in the past, imagine yourself in the painting standing next to her.”

And now, as if looking at the empress for the first time, or through the blonde’s eyes, Arkadin heard himself agree. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, I suppose she is beautiful.”

“Ah, then my time here has been a success.” The blonde’s smile hadn’t faded one iota. She extended her hand toward him. “I’m Tracy Atherton, by the way.”

For a moment Arkadin considered giving a false name, which he did almost by rote. Instead he’d said, “Leonid Danilovich Arkadin.”

The air had suddenly been perfumed with the tincture of history, a spicy, mysterious scent of rose and cedar. Much later he’d worked out what it was that drew him as well as shamed him. He felt like a student, too ignorant or truant to have learned his lessons. Around her he’d always felt his lack of formal education, like a nakedness. And yet, even from that first meeting, he sensed a use for her, that he could absorb what she had learned. He learned from her the value of knowledge, but part of him never forgave her for the way she made him feel, and he used her mercilessly, treated her cruelly, as he bound her ever closer to him.

This clarity came later, of course. At the moment all he felt was an onrush of anger and, without a word, he whirled away from her, stalking off to find Oserov, whose company, for the moment, seemed preferable to this creature’s.

But finding Oserov did nothing to allay his sudden discomfort, so he insisted on changing protocol, removing them from the Hermitage altogether. They walked out onto Millionnaya Street, where he found a café before their lips and cheeks grew too chapped from the icy wind.

Snow had begun to fall with an odd dry rustle like predators snuffling in the underbrush, and Arkadin would never forget how Tracy Atherton had materialized out of it. Her deerskin coat swayed about her ankles like icy surf.

In those days, directly after Dimitri Maslov had sent Oserov and Mischa Tarkanian to liberate him from the prison of his hometown of Nizhny Tagil, Oserov was his superior, a fact that Oserov lorded over him. Oserov was in the middle of lecturing him on how to properly kill a politician, the reason for their trip to St. Petersburg. This particular politician had stupidly aligned himself against Maslov, and so had to be eliminated as quickly and efficiently as possible. Arkadin knew this, and Oserov knew he knew it. Nevertheless, the shit gleefully drove home his points with mind-numbing repetitiveness, as if Arkadin were a backward and insolent five-year-old.

Not many people would have dared interrupt Oserov, but Tracy did. Entering the café, she spotted Arkadin, strode confidently up to their table, and said, “Why, hello, fancy meeting you here,” in her soft British accent.

Oserov, pausing in mid-rant, looked up at her with a glare that would turn most people to stone. Tracy merely widened her smile and, pulling up a chair from a nearby table, said, “You don’t mind if I join you, do you?” She sat down and ordered a coffee before either of them uttered a word.

The moment the waiter left, Oserov’s face darkened ominously. “Listen, I don’t know who you are or why you’re here, but we’re in the middle of important business.”

“I saw that,” Tracy said blandly, waving a hand. “Go ahead, don’t mind me.”

Oserov pushed his chair back with a teeth-grinding scrape. “Hey, fuck off, lady.”

“Calm down,” Arkadin began.

“And you, shut the fuck up.” Oserov stood, leaning over the table. “If you don’t leave now-right this fucking second-I’m going to throw you out on your pretty little ass.”

Tracy stared up at him without blinking. “There’s no need for that kind of language.”

“She’s right, Oserov. I’ll escort her-”

But just at that moment Tracy took hold of the end of Oserov’s tie, which was threatening to dip into her coffee, and Oserov lunged at her, grabbing at the collar of her coat and hauling her to her feet. Her silk shirt ripped, the violent action bringing them unwanted attention from the café’s patrons and staff. Their mission was supposed to be under the radar, and Oserov was ruining that.

Arkadin, on his feet, said softly, “Let her go.” When Oserov maintained his grip, he added, even more quietly, “Let her go, or I’ll knife you right here.”

Oserov looked down at the point of a switchblade that Arkadin had aimed at his liver. His face darkened further, and something malefic bloomed in his hard, glinting eyes.

“I won’t forget this,” he said in an eerie tone as he released her.

Since he was still staring into Tracy’s face it was unclear to whom Oserov was speaking, but Arkadin suspected he was addressing both of them. Before anything worse happened Arkadin came around the table and, taking Tracy by the elbow, walked her out of the café.

The snow was swirling down with singular intent, and almost immediately their hair and shoulders were coated with it.

“Well, that was interesting,” she said.

Arkadin, searching her face, could find no fear in it. “You’ve made a very bad enemy, I’m afraid.”

“Go back inside,” Tracy said, as if she hadn’t heard him. “Without your coat you’re liable to freeze to death.”

“I don’t think you understand-”

“Do you know Doma?”

He blinked. Did she never listen to what anyone said to her? But the tide she rode was taking him farther and farther from the known shore. “The restaurant on the Hermitage embankment? Everyone knows Doma.”

“Eight o’clock tonight.” She gave him one of her patented smiles and left him there in the snow, observed by the glowering Oserov.

The girl whom he’d mistaken for Tracy was long gone, but Arkadin could still make out the damp traces of her narrow footprints in the sand beyond the high-tide line. There were jellyfish in the water now, opalescent and glowing. In the distance a Mexican woman sang a sad ranchera from the speakers of a radio. The jellyfish seemed to be swaying to the music. Night was falling, a black sky studded with stars heading his way. Arkadin returned to the convent to light candles instead of switching on the electric lights, listen to sad rancheras instead of turning on the TV. Seemingly overnight Mexico had seeped into his blood.

I’m beginning to understand why Arkadin and Oserov are mortal enemies, Bourne thought as he looked up from Perlis’s notebook. Hate is a powerful emotion, hate makes normally smart people stupid, or at least makes them less vigilant. Perhaps I’ve finally found Arkadin’s Achilles’ heel.

He’d read enough for the moment. Closing the lid on the safe-deposit box, he pocketed the book and rang the bell to indicate that he was finished. While on the surface it seemed odd that Perlis would use such an old-fashioned method to record what he obviously considered vital intelligence, on further consideration it made perfect sense. Electronic media were all too prone to hacking in so many forms that a handwritten copy was the answer. Kept in a vault, it was perfectly secure, and if the need arose it could be irrevocably destroyed with nothing but a match. These days going low-tech was often the best defense against computer hackers, who could infiltrate the most sophisticated electronic networks and retrieve even supposedly deleted files.

Diego Hererra pulled aside the curtain, took the metal box, returned it to its numbered niche, closed the door behind it, and the two men secured the box with their respective keys.

As they walked out of the vault Bourne said, “I need a favor.”

Diego glanced at him expectantly, but noncommittally.

“There is a man who has been following me. He’s in the bank, waiting for me to return.”

Now Diego smiled. “But of course. I can show you to the door used by customers who require, shall we say, a higher degree of discretion than is the norm.” They were almost at his office when a ripple of concern crossed his face. “Why is this man following you, may I ask?”

“I don’t know,” Bourne said, “though I seem to collect people like him like flies.”

Diego gave a low laugh. “Noah often said more or less the same thing.”

Bourne realized that this was as close as Diego Hererra was going to get to asking him if he worked for Perlis’s outfit. He was beginning to like Diego as much as he liked his father, however, that was no reason to tell him the truth. He nodded as if in tacit answer to Diego’s unspoken question.

“I don’t know who he is, either, but it’s important I find out,” Bourne said.

Diego spread his hands. “I am at your service, Señor Stone,” he said in true Catalan style.

Diego may be living in London, Bourne thought, but his heart is still in Seville.

“I need to get this man out of your bank and onto the street before I leave. A fire alarm would do nicely.”

Diego nodded. “Consider it done.” He lifted a finger. “On the condition that you come to my house tomorrow evening.” He gave Bourne an address in Belgravia. “We have friends in common, it would be rude of me not to offer my hospitality.” Then he grinned, showing even, white teeth. “We’ll have a bite to eat, then, if you fancy a flutter, we’ll go out to the Vesper Club on the Fulham Road.”

Diego had a take-charge attitude that was more no-nonsense than egotistical, again very much like his father. This was in line with the profile he’d gleaned from his Web search some weeks ago, but the Vesper Club, a members-only casino strictly for high-rollers, was not. Bourne stuck the anomaly in the back of his mind and prepared to go into action.

The fire alarm went off in Aguardiente Bancorp. Bourne and Diego Hererra watched as the guards swiftly and methodically herded everyone out the front door, Bourne’s tracker among them.

Bourne emerged from the side entrance of the bank, and as the clients milled around the sidewalk, unsure what to do next, he located his tail, keeping the crowd between them. The man was watching the front entrance for Bourne, all the while in a position to check out the bank’s side entrance.

Slipping through the crowd, which had now doubled in size due to curious pedestrians and drivers gawking from their stopped cars, Bourne came up behind the tracker and said: “Walk straight ahead, up the road toward Fleet Street.” He dug his knuckle into the small of the man’s back. “Everyone will think a silenced pistol shot is a lorry backfiring.” He slammed the heel of his hand against the back of the man’s head. “Did I tell you to turn around? Now start walking.”

The man did as Bourne ordered him, snaking into the fringes of the crowd and picking his way, more quickly now, up Middle Temple Lane. He was broad-shouldered with a dirty-blond crew cut, a face empty as an abandoned lot, with rough skin as if he had an allergy or had been in the wind for too many years. Bourne knew he’d try something, and sooner rather than later. A businessman, lost on his cell phone, hurried toward them, and Bourne felt Crew-Cut leaning toward him. Crew-Cut deliberately bumped against the businessman, allowed himself to be jostled sideways by the collision, and was in the process of turning back on Bourne, his right arm bent, his fingers coming together to form a cement block, when Bourne slammed him behind the knee with the sole of his shoe. At almost the same instant Bourne caught his right arm in a vise created by his elbow and forearm, and cracked the bone.

The man buckled over, groaning. When Bourne bent to lift him to his feet, he would have driven his knee into Bourne’s groin, but Bourne sidestepped and the knee struck him painfully, if harmlessly, on the thigh instead.

At that point Bourne became aware of a car racing the wrong way down the street, too fast in fact to slow down, let alone stop before it hit them. He threw the man’s body into the path of the oncoming vehicle and, using the man’s shoulders as a base, vaulted over the hood. With a screech of brakes, the car tried valiantly to decelerate. The moment his shoes hit the top of the car bullets pierced it from the interior, trying to find him, but he was already sliding down the trunk.

Behind him he heard the liquid thunk! as the car slammed into the body, then the stink of burning rubber flayed off the tires. Risking a glance over his shoulder he saw two men emerge, armed with Glocks-the driver and the shooter. As they turned toward him, the huge knot of patrons and staff that had been standing outside Aguardiente Bancorp came streaming up the street, voices raised, cell phone cameras clicking like a forest of cicadas, trapping the two men, pinning them in place. Now curious pedestrians appeared from Fleet Street. Within moments the familiar high-low clamor of police klaxons filled the air, and Bourne, worming into the midst of the throng, slipped quietly away, turned the corner onto Fleet Street, and melted into the city.

[6]

I’VE LOST TOUCH with him,” Frederick Willard said.

“You’ve lost touch with him before,” Peter Marks pointed out, he thought helpfully.

“This is different,” Willard snapped. He was wearing a conservatively cut chalk-striped suit, a starched blue shirt with white collar and cuffs, and a navy-blue bow tie with white polka dots. “Unless we’re both careful and clever, this is liable to become permanent.”

Since coming aboard the resurrected Treadstone, Marks had learned quickly that it was a mortal sin to mistake Willard’s age for a loss of vigor. The man might be in his sixties but he could still outrun half the field agents at CI, and as for critical brain function-the ability to think through a problem to its best solution-Marks thought him as good as Alex Conklin, Treadstone’s founder. On top of all that, he possessed the uncanny ability to ferret out his adversary’s weak spots, finding the most novel ways of exploiting them. That Willard was something of a sadist, Marks had no doubt, but that was nothing new in their line of shadow work where sadists, masochists, and every other psychological variant congregated like flies on a rotting corpse. The trick, Marks had found, was discovering the quirk of each person’s personality before he used it to bury you.

They had arranged themselves on a sofa in the foyer of a members-only-and from the looks of things men-only-organization to which Oliver Liss belonged.

“The Monition Club,” Marks said during his hundredth glance around. “What the hell kind of place is this?”

“I don’t know,” Willard said waspishly. “I’ve been trying to find out all day without discovering a scrap of information about it.”

“There must be something. Who owns this building, for instance?”

“A holding company in Grenada.” Willard grunted. “Clearly a shell corporation, and the trail gets more convoluted after that. Whoever these people are they definitely don’t want to be known.”

“No law against that,” Marks said.

“Perhaps not, but it strikes me as both strange and suspect.”

“Maybe I should look into it further.”

The interior was as echoey as a cathedral and, with its stone-block walls, Gothic arches, and gilded crosses, resembled an ecclesiastical institution. Thick carpets and oversize furniture abetted the oppressive hush. Now and again someone strode by, spoke briefly to the uniformed woman behind the high desk in the lobby’s center, then passed into the shadows.

The atmosphere reminded Marks of the prevailing mood of the new CI. From what he’d gleaned from his former colleagues, a new set of unsmiling faces in the support staff and an almost bitter level of gloom infected the hallways. This toxic tone somewhat assuaged the guilt he’d been feeling about bailing on CI, especially because he hadn’t been there for Soraya when she’d returned from Cairo. On the other hand, Willard had assured him that he’d be of more help to her now that he’d moved on. “This way your wisdom and advice will seem more objective and therefore have more weight,” Willard had said. As it turned out, he’d been right. Marks was quite sure that he was the only one who could have persuaded her to join Treadstone.

“What are you thinking?” Willard said unexpectedly.

“Nothing.”

“Wrong answer. Our number one priority is to figure out a way to reestablish clandestine contact with Leonid Arkadin.”

“What makes Arkadin so important? Besides, of course, the fact that he’s Treadstone’s first graduate and the only one that got away.”

Willard glared. He didn’t care for his own words being thrown back in his face, especially by an inferior. That was the problem with Willard-one of his many quirks-as Marks, as quick a study as had ever entered CI’s ranks, had come to understand: Willard was convinced of his superiority, and he treated everyone accordingly. That there might be a grain or two of truth to his belief only solidified his fierce control. In fact, Marks guessed that this arrogance was what had allowed Willard to infiltrate and maintain his position as steward inside the NSA for so many years. It had to be so much easier to take orders from your masters when you knew you were in the process of fucking them over.

“It pains me to have to spell this out for you, Marks, but inside Arkadin’s mind lie the last secrets of Treadstone. Conklin submitted him to a raft of psychological techniques that are now lost.”

“What about Jason Bourne?”

“Because of how Arkadin turned out, Conklin didn’t use that technique set on Bourne, so in that sense the two of them are different.”

“How so?”

Willard, whose attention to detail was legendary, shot his cuffs so that they were of precisely equal lengths. “Arkadin has no soul.”

“What?” Marks shook his head as if he hadn’t heard correctly. “Unless I miss my guess, there’s no known technique scientific or otherwise for destroying a soul.”

Willard rolled his eyes. “For God’s sake, Peter, I’m not talking about a machine out of a science-fiction novel.” He rose to his feet. “But ask your parish priest the next time you see him. You’ll be surprised at his answer.” He beckoned for Marks to do the same. “Here comes our new lord and master, Oliver Liss.”

Marks glanced at his watch. “Forty minutes late. Right on time.”

Oliver Liss lived on the wrong coast. He looked, acted, and possibly even thought of himself as if he were a movie star. He was handsome in that way the Hollywood elite cultivated, except that he didn’t seem to work at it. Maybe it was simply superb genes. In any event, when he entered a room he required no other entourage than his own personal sun burning at his back. He was tall, lean, and athletic, engendering bitter envy in those men he met. He liked his drinks strong, his meat red, and his women young, blond, and buxom. He was, in short, precisely the sort of man Hugh Hefner had envisioned when he created Playboy.

Cranking up a mechanical smile without breaking stride, Liss gestured for them to follow him past Cerberus’s gates and into the Monition Club proper. It was breakfast time. Apparently, following Monition Club tradition, that meal was taken on an enclosed brick terrace, which overlooked a cloistered atrium whose center was as neatly laid out as an herb garden, though this time of the year there was scarcely anything to see but fallow ground and a geometry of low cast-iron fences, presumably to keep the mint out of the sage.

Liss led them to a spacious table of inlaid stone. He exuded the scents of beeswax and expensive cologne. Today he was dressed like a country gentleman in flannel trousers, tweed jacket, and a tie with a print of hungry-looking foxes. His expensive ox-blood loafers shone like mirrors.

After they ordered, drank their fresh-squeezed juice, and sipped their bracing French-press coffee, he came right to the point. “I know you have been busy moving into our new offices, taking possession of the electronics and so forth, but I want you to set all that aside. I’m hiring an office manager for that, anyway, you’re both far too valuable to waste.” His voice was as rich and lustrous as his shoes. He rubbed his hands together, a beloved uncle delighted at the latest family reunion. “I want you both concentrated on one matter and one matter only. It seems that with his untimely demise Noah Perlis left some loose ends.”

Willard was taken slightly aback. “You’re not asking us to swim in Black River’s toxic waste, are you?”

“Not in the least. I spent six months untangling myself from the organization I helped found because I could see the train wreck coming. Imagine how that feels, gentlemen.” He raised a finger. “Oh, yes, Frederick, in your case you have a glimmering of what I’ve been going through.” He shook his head. “No, Noah was handling this particular bit of business for me personally, no one else in Black River had a clue.” He sat back as their breakfasts were served, then, over his perfectly cooked eggs Benedict, he continued. “Noah had a ring. He obtained this ring at great cost and, I believe, personal tragedy. It is, not to put too fine a point on it, a singular ring. Though on the outside it looks like a simple gold wedding band, it is something far different. Here, take a look at these.” He passed around several color photos of the item in question.

“As you can see, there are a series of symbols-graphemes, if you want to be technical-engraved around the inside.”

“What is a grapheme?” Marks asked.

“The basic unit of language, any language, really.”

Willard squinted. “Yes, but what the devil language is it?”

“Its own, manufactured out of ancient Sumerian, Latin, and God alone knows what other dead language, possibly one that’s been lost to the modern world.”

“You want us to drop everything for this?” Marks looked incredulous. “Who do you think we are, Indiana Jones?”

Liss, who had been in the process of chewing a bite of food, smirked. “This is not so old as that, my smart-aleck friend. In fact, it probably hasn’t been in existence more than a decade or two.”

“A ring?” Willard shook his head. “What do you want with it?”

“Eyes Only.” Liss winked and tapped the side of his nose. “In any event, Noah had the ring when he was killed by Jason Bourne. It’s clear that Bourne killed him in order to get the ring.”

Marks shook his head. His lack of antipathy toward Bourne was well known. “Why would he do that? He must have had a good reason.”

“What you need to keep in mind is that Bourne has murdered again, without provocation.” Liss looked hard at him. “Find Bourne and you’ll find the ring.” He carefully broke a yolk and dipped a triangle of toast into it. “I got a tip that Bourne was seen in the Heathrow arrivals terminal, so it’s a good bet he’s gone to Noah’s apartment in Belgravia. Start there. I’ve sent all the particulars to your cells and booked you on an evening flight to Heathrow so you’ll be bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, and ready to hit the tarmac at a full sprint when you arrive tomorrow morning.”

Willard put aside the photos and made a face that sent warning bells ringing in Marks’s head.

“When you agreed to fund Treadstone,” Willard said in a quietly ominous voice, “you agreed that I would be in charge of operations.”

“Did I?” Liss rolled his eyes as if trying to recall. Then he shook his head. “No. No, I didn’t.”

“Is this… What is this, some kind of joke?”

“I don’t think so, no.” Liss popped the toast triangle into his mouth and chewed luxuriously.

“I have a very specific agenda.” Willard carefully enunciated each word with a cutting edge. “A particular reason for jump-starting Treadstone.”

“I’m well aware of your obsession with this Russian Leonid Arkadin, but the fact is, Frederick, you didn’t jump-start Treadstone. I did. Treadstone is mine, I fund it lock, stock, and ammunition. You work for me, to think otherwise is to gravely misjudge the parameters of your singular employment.”

Marks suspected that it had dawned on Willard that by switching from CI to Oliver Liss, he’d merely exchanged one hated taskmaster for another. And as he himself had said when he’d recruited Marks, there was no turning back from a deal with the devil. They were both in this to the bitter end, into whatever circle of hell that might lead them.

Liss was also watching Willard. He smiled benignly and pointed with the eggy tines of his fork. “You’d better eat up, your breakfast is getting cold.”

After catching a bite to eat, during which time he read more of Perlis’s account of the blood feud between Arkadin and Oserov, Bourne returned to Belgravia, this time to the street where Tracy Atherton had lived. It was green and cool through the mist that swirled in the gutters and entwined around the chimneys of the row houses. Her house was neat and trim, identical to its neighbors. A steep flight of steps ran up to the front door where, he observed, there was a brass plate with the names of the people inhabiting the six flats.

He pressed the bell for T. ATHERTON, as if she were still alive and he was arriving to spend the afternoon with her in cozy repose, drinking, eating, making love, and talking about art and its long, complex history. He was surprised, then, when the buzzer sounded, unlatching the front door. Pushing his way inside, he found himself in a narrow vestibule, dim and damply chilly in the way only London indoor spaces can be in winter or spring.

Tracy’s flat was on the third floor, up flights of narrow, very steep stairs, the treads of which creaked beneath his weight now and again. He found it all the way in the rear and he recalled her saying, “There’s a mews out back with a flowering pear tree that a pair of house martins nest in come spring.” He imagined the house martins would be nesting there right about now. It was a bittersweet thought.

The door opened a crack as he was warily approaching. The figure that revealed itself was backlit and for a moment he stood stock-still, his heart racing, because he was quite certain he was looking at Tracy. Tall, willowy, blond hair.

“Yes? May I help you?”

Her eyes broke the spell; they were brown, not blue, and they weren’t as large as Tracy’s. He felt himself breathe again. “My name is Adam Stone. I was a friend of Tracy’s.”

“Oh, yes, Trace told me about you.” She did not offer her hand. Her expression was carefully neutral. “I’m Chrissie Lincoln, Tracy’s sister.”

Still, she did not move out of the doorway. “She met you on a flight to Madrid.”

“Actually, the flight was from Madrid to Seville.”

“That’s right.” Chrissie watched him warily. “Trace traveled so much, it was a good thing she liked flying.”

Bourne could see that he was being tested. “She hated flying. She got sick on the flight five minutes after she introduced herself.” He waited for her to say something, then: “May I come in? I’d like to speak to you about Tracy.”

“I suppose.” She stood back, almost reluctantly.

He walked in and she closed the door behind him. Tracy had been right, the flat was tiny, but as beautiful as she had been. Furniture in butter yellows and deep oranges, crisp cream curtains framed each window, throw pillows here and there in polka dots, animal prints, and stripes added bright bits of color. He walked across the living room and into her bedroom.

“Are you looking for something in particular, Mr. Stone?”

“Call me Adam.” Somehow he knew there would be French doors out onto the back, and there was the pear tree in the mews. “I’m looking for the house martins.”

“I beg your pardon?” Her voice was pitched a bit higher, thinner, and her speech was more rapid than her sister’s had been.

“Tracy said that come spring a pair of house martins nested in that pear tree.”

She was at his shoulder. Her hair smelled of lemon. She wore an inexpensive cotton man’s shirt with the sleeves rolled up, revealing sun-browned arms, jeans, not the fashionable low-riding ones, but sturdy Levi’s with the cuffs rolled up, cheap flats, scuffed and worn at the heels, and was in a light sweat as if she had been cleaning or rooting around for some time. She wore no jewelry, not even a wedding band. And yet her last name was Lincoln, not Atherton.

“Do you see a sign of them?” she asked in a brittle voice.

“No,” he said, turning away.

She frowned momentarily and remained silent for a long time.

“Chrissie?”

When she didn’t answer he went and got her a glass of cold water from the kitchen. She took it without comment and drank it slowly and methodically, as if it were medicine.

When she put the glass down, she said to him, “I’m afraid this was a mistake letting you in. I’d prefer if you left.”

Bourne nodded. He’d seen the flat; he didn’t know what he’d expected to find, maybe it was nothing at all, save the scent of her, lingering long after she had left. The night they had shared in Khartoum was far more intimate than if they had made love, an act that despite its name could seem impersonal, even detached. The revelation that came later, that Tracy had been working for Leonid Arkadin, had come like a cold slap across the face. But in the weeks after her death he’d been haunted by the notion that something was wrong with that equation. Not that he doubted she’d been in Arkadin’s employ, but deep down he couldn’t escape the notion that the story wasn’t that simple. It was altogether possible that he’d come here looking for some form of proof, a confirmation of his suspicion.

They had moved back to the front door now, and now Chrissie opened it for him. As he was about to step out, she said, “Mr. Stone-”

“Adam.”

She tried to smile and failed, her face seemed tight and pained. “Do you know what happened in Khartoum?”

Bourne hesitated. He stared out into the hallway, but what he was seeing was Tracy’s face, spattered with blood, as he cradled it in his lap.

“Please. I know I’ve been less than hospitable. I–I’m not thinking straight, you see.” She stood back for him to reenter.

Bourne turned back one hand on the partially open door. “Her death was an accident.”

Chrissie looked at him fearfully, expectantly. “You know this?”

“I was there.”

He saw the blood leave her face. She was staring at him fixedly, as if she couldn’t look away, as if with a terrible clarity she saw an accident about to happen.

“Will you tell me how she died?”

“I don’t think you want to hear the details.”

“Yes,” she said. “I do. I–I need to know. She was my only sibling.” She shut the door and locked it and went over to an armchair, but she did not sit down. Rather, she stood behind it, staring into the middle distance. “I’ve been in a kind of personal hell since I got the news. A sister’s death, it’s-well, it’s not like any other death. I–I can’t explain it.”

Bourne watched her as she stood, her fingers dug into the high, arched back of the chair.

“She was struck by shards of glass, one went through her. She bled out in minutes; there was nothing anyone could do.”

“Poor Trace.” She was gripping the chair back so hard, her knuckles had turned white. “I begged her not to go, just as I begged her not to take that cursed assignment.”

“What assignment?”

“That bloody Goya.”

“Why did she tell you about the Goya?”

“It wasn’t the painting, but the assignment. She said it was going to be her last. She wanted me to know that. Because she knew I disapproved of what she did, I suppose.”

She shuddered. “Evil thing, that Black Painting.”

“You say that as if it were alive.”

She turned back to him. “In a sense it was, because it was connected with that man.”

“Arkadin.”

“She never told me his name. From what I could gather he gave her extremely dangerous assignments, but he paid her so well she accepted them all, at least that’s what she told me.”

“You didn’t believe her?”

“Oh, I believed her, all right, when we were young we made a pact never to lie to each other.” Her hair was a shade darker than her sister’s, and thicker, lush even, and her face was a bit less angular, softer, more open. It was also more careworn. She moved more quickly than Tracy, or perhaps it was that she moved in nervous bursts as if set off by a series of tiny interior explosions. “The problem arose when we grew up. I’m positive there were a great many things about her private life she refused to share.”

“You didn’t push it.”

“Secrecy was her choice,” she said defensively. “I honored her wishes.”

He followed her back into the bedroom. She stood looking around as if dazed, as if she’d lost her sister and now inexplicably couldn’t find her. Light slanting in through the window was splintered in lozenges and rectangles by the pear tree. It was mellow, toned, like the surface of a sepia print. She moved into one of those luminous geometric shapes now.

Her arms wound around her waist as if she were trying to hold in her emotions. “But of one thing I’m quite certain. That man’s a monster, she’d never have worked for him voluntarily. I’m sure he must have had something on her.”

An echo of his own suspicions. Maybe she had something to tell him after all. “Can you think of what it might be?”

“I already told you, Trace was the most secretive person on earth.”

“So there was nothing, no odd response to your questions, nothing of that nature.”

“No.” Chrissie drew the word out into two syllables. “I mean there was one thing, but, well, it’s kind of ridiculous.”

“Ridiculous? How so?”

“I remember one time we were together and, for once, there didn’t seem to be anything to talk about after I’d exhausted the news about me. I was bored with all that, anyway, it was old news to me. I guess I got a bit frustrated, because I said, laughing, you know, something about was she hiding someone up her sleeve.”

Bourne cocked his head. “And?”

“Well, I mean she didn’t think it was funny, did she? She didn’t laugh, that’s for sure. I’d meant a boyfriend or a husband but she said, quite fiercely, that I was the only family she had.”

“You don’t think-”

“No, I don’t,” Chrissie said emphatically. “That wouldn’t be like her at all. She didn’t get on well with Mum and Dad, she was offended by everything about them. And they were deeply offended by her rebelliousness. I was the good daughter. I became a professor at Oxford, following in my father’s footsteps. But Trace… God only knows what they thought she was up to. Anyway, from the time she was thirteen or so they would fight like cats and dogs, until one day she stormed out of the house and never went back. No, I can tell you that she didn’t want a family of her own.”

“And you find that sad.”

“No,” Chrissie said, rather defiant. “I find it admirable.”

Well, at least we get to go after Bourne,” Marks said. “That’s some consolation, he’s one half of the Treadstone equation, isn’t he?”

“Don’t be dense,” Willard snapped. “Liss didn’t even bother to mention it as a peace offering because he knew I’d laugh in his face. He knows I’m the only person on earth-at least one under his control-who can get to Bourne without having his neck or back broken. No, he planned this out from the beginning, it was his whole reason for agreeing to back Treadstone in the first place, and I played right into his hand.”

“That’s a pretty damn high price to pay for a ring,” Marks said. “It must be very rare, costly, or important.”

“I’d like to have another look at that photo of the engraving,” Willard mused. “That’s our best chance of finding out something about the ring, since Liss won’t tell us.”

They had been walking across the Mall, from the Washington Monument toward the Lincoln Memorial, hands in overcoat pockets, backs bowed against the wind, but at the last instant they had decided to make a detour to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Along the way they had, each in his own way, checked for tags and tails. They didn’t trust anyone, least of all Oliver Liss.

They stopped, and Willard stared at the wall, somber in its eternal shadows, sighed deeply, and closed his eyes. A small, secret smile crept across his lips with the stealth of a cat. “He thinks he’s checkmated me, but I’ve got a queen he can’t control.”

Marks shook his head. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Willard’s eyes popped open. “Soraya Moore.”

Marks looked at him, alarmed. “Oh, no.”

“I told you to try to recruit her and you did.”

A pair of vets in uniform, one pushing the other, who was in a wheelchair, came down the long, graceful ramp into the full majesty of the wall and stopped in front of the names. The vet in the wheelchair was without legs. He handed his friend a small bouquet and a miniature American flag on a wooden stand. His friend laid them at the foot of the wall where their compatriots’ names were engraved for all time.

There was a glitter in Willard’s eyes as he turned away from the scene. “I have her first assignment: Find Leonid Arkadin.”

“You said you’d lost him,” Marks pointed out. “Where is she going to start looking?”

“That’s her problem,” Willard said. “She’s a smart girl, I’ve been following her career since she came to prominence at Typhon.” He smiled. “Have a little faith, Peter. She’s first-rate material, plus, she’s got a built-in advantage over you or me. She’s a very good-looking female-highly desirable-which means Arkadin will have her scent before she comes within a block of him.”

His brain was traveling at speed in its own peculiar orbit. “I want her with him, Peter. I want her attached to Arkadin, she’s going to tell me what he’s doing and why he’s doing it.”

The two vets’ heads were bowed, locked within their private memories as tourists and relatives of other fallen filed by, some touching names here and there. A Japanese tour leader, yellow pennant held high, gathered her photo-clicking flock to her.

Marks ran a hand through his hair. “You can’t expect me-What? Jesus, you want me to pimp her out?”

Willard looked like he was sucking on a lemon. “Since when did you become a Boy Scout? Not in CI, surely. The Old Man would’ve had your heart for lunch.”

“She’s a friend of mine, Fred. Longtime.”

“There are no friends in this business, Peter, just the bitterly oppressed. I am Liss’s slave and you are mine and she is yours. That’s how it works.”

Marks looked as glum as Willard had at the end of their breakfast with Liss.

“You will give her her assignment before we leave for the airport-” Willard glanced at his watch. “-which gives you less than six hours to prep for London and do the deed.” His smile was all teeth. “More than enough time for a clever fellow like you, wouldn’t you say?”

[7]

TIME FOR ME to go,” Bourne said. “We should both get some sleep.”

“I don’t want to go to sleep,” Chrissie said and, with a bleak smile, sang, “Bad dreams in the night.” She cocked her head inquiringly. “Kate Bush. Do you know her songs?”

“That’s from ‘Wuthering Heights,’ isn’t it?”

“Yes, my daughter, Scarlett, is a big fan. Not much Kate Bush up at Oxford, I can tell you.”

It was after midnight. He had ventured out to an Indian restaurant, bought their dinner, and had taken it back to Tracy’s flat, where, after swallowing a couple of desultory bites, Chrissie watched him eat. Considering the violent events earlier, outside the bank, it was best if he didn’t venture too far afield, even back to his hotel.

Watching her sitting across from him on the sofa, he recalled another fragment of the conversation he’d had with Tracy in Khartoum the night before she died:

“In your mind you can be anyone, do anything. Everything is malleable, whereas in the real world, effecting change-any change-is so bloody difficult, the effort is wearying.”

“You could adopt an entirely new identity,” he had replied, “one where effecting change is less difficult because now you re-create your own history.”

She had nodded. “Yes, but that has its own pitfalls. No family, no friends-unless, of course, you don’t mind being absolutely isolated.”

“The night before she died,” he said now, “she told me something that led me to believe that in another time, another place she would have enjoyed having her own family.”

For a moment it seemed as if all the air had gone out of her. “Well, that’s bloody irony for you.” Then, recovering somewhat, she went on, “You know, the funny thing is-well, it’s bloody tragic, when I think about it now-I sometimes envied her. She wasn’t tied down, had never married, she could go where she pleased, when she pleased, and she did. She was like a skyrocket, in that way, because of how she loved to walk on the wild side. It was as if danger was-I don’t know-an aphrodisiac, or maybe it was more like the feeling people get when they ride a roller coaster, that sense of going so fast they’re almost, but not quite, out of control.” She gave a bitter little laugh. “The last time I rode a roller coaster I got sick to my stomach.”

Part of him genuinely felt for her, but another part, the professional part, the Bourne identity, in other words, was seeking a way to worm his way farther in, a probe to see if there was anything else Chrissie could tell him about Tracy and her mysterious relationship with Leonid Arkadin. He saw her only as a means to an end, a stepping-stone, not a human being. He hated himself for feeling that way, and yet his dispassion was part of what made him successful. This was who he was, or at least what Treadstone had made of him. In any event, for good or for ill, he was damaged, trained, highly skilled. Just like Arkadin. And yet there was a gulf between them-an abyss so vast, Bourne could not see its bottom or even guess at its depth. He and Arkadin faced each other across this divide, invisible perhaps to anyone but themselves, searching for ways to destroy each other without destroying themselves in the process. There were times when he wondered whether that would be possible, whether to rid the world of one, both had to go.

“You know what I wish?” She turned to him. “Remember that film Superman, not a great film, admittedly, but anyway, Lois Lane dies and Superman is so grief-stricken that he launches himself into the air. He flies around the earth, faster and faster, faster than the speed of sound, faster than the speed of light, so fast that he reverses time to the moment just before Lois will be killed, and he saves her.” Her eyes had settled on his face, but it was something else she was seeing. “I wish I were Superman.”

“You’d turn back time and save Tracy.”

“If I could. But unlike what the screenwriters allowed Superman to do in the film, if I couldn’t, well, at least… at least I’d understand what the bloody hell to do with this grief.” She tried to take a deep breath but succeeded only in choking on her tears. “I feel weighed down, as if I have an anchor tied to my back, or Tracy’s body, cold and stiff and… never moving ever again.”

“That feeling will pass,” Bourne said.

“Yes, I suppose it will, but what if I don’t want it to?”

“Do you want to follow her down into darkness? What about Scarlett, what will happen to her then?”

Chrissie got red in the face and jumped up. Bourne followed her as she stalked into the bedroom, where he found her staring out the French doors at the pear tree, flooded now in silvery moonlight. “Bloody hell, Trace, why are you gone? If she were here now I swear I’d wring her neck.”

“Or at least make her promise to have nothing more to do with Arkadin.”

Bourne hoped injecting Arkadin’s name back into the conversation would lead her back to a memory she might have overlooked. He sensed they might be at a crucial juncture. He had no intention of leaving, as long as she didn’t throw him out. He didn’t think she would, he was her only link with her sister now, he’d been there when Tracy had died. That meant the world to her, he sensed that it brought the two of them closer, made Tracy’s sudden death a bit more bearable.

“Chrissie,” he said gently, “did she ever tell you how she met him?”

She shook her head, then said, “Maybe in Russia. Saint Petersburg? She’d gone there to have a look at the Hermitage. I remember because I was all set to go with her when Scarlett came down with an ear infection, high fever, disorientation, the works.” She shook her head. “God, what different lives the two of us have led! And now… now it’s come to this. Scarlett will be devastated.”

Then she frowned. “Why did you come here, Adam?”

“Because I wanted something to remind me of her, because I had nowhere else to go.” He realized, a bit belatedly, that it was the truth, or at least as much of it as he was prepared to share with her.

“I didn’t, either,” she said with a sigh. “Scarlett was visiting my folks when the call came. She was having a grand time, still is, judging by our last texts.” Her eyes were on him, but again her attention was fixed somewhere else. “Of course you can have a look around, take whatever keepsake you want.”

“I appreciate that.”

She nodded absently, then turned back to her contemplation of the mews and its budding pear tree. A moment later she gave a tiny gasp. “There they are!”

Bourne rose and joined her at the window.

“They’ve returned,” he said. “The house martins.”

Arkadin woke at dawn, climbed into swim shorts, and went out for a run in the surf. The sky was filled with cormorants and pelicans. Greedy gulls walked along the sand, plucking at the remnants of last night’s drunken parties. He ran south until he reached the outskirts of one of the big resort clubs, then turned around. After that he plunged into the water and swam for forty minutes. When he returned to the convent there were more than twenty messages waiting for him on his cell phone. One was from Boris Karpov. He showered and dressed, then chopped up fresh fruit. Pineapple, papaya, bananas, oranges. He ate the sweet chunks with a large dollop of yogurt. Ironically, he was learning to eat healthily in Mexico.

Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, he took up his phone and made his first call. He was informed that the most recent shipment from Gustavo Moreno’s pipeline had not reached the client. It had been delayed, or possibly it had gone missing. At the moment, he was told, it was impossible to say. He ordered his man to keep him informed, then disconnected.

Reflecting that he’d have to deal with the missing shipment himself and, if warranted, dole out harsh punishments, he punched in Karpov’s number.

“I’m in LAX,” Boris Karpov said in his ear. “Now what?”

“Now we meet face-to-face,” Arkadin said. “There’s a late-morning flight to Tucson. Call ahead, order a rental car-a two-seater convertible, the older and more battered the better.” He gave Karpov instructions and driving directions. “Approach with the top down. Be prepared to wait at the rendezvous point for an hour, maybe more, until I determine that you have fulfilled all the terms of our meet. Is that clear?”

“I’ll be there,” Karpov said, “before sundown.”

Bourne was still up, listening to the sounds of the flat, the building, the neighborhood, listening to London itself inhale and exhale as if it were a great beast. He turned his head when Chrissie appeared in the living room. An hour before, close to four, she had gone into the bedroom, but by the bedside lamp and the dry rustle of pages turning, he’d known she hadn’t fallen asleep. Possibly she hadn’t even tried.

“Haven’t you gone to sleep yet?” Her voice was soft, almost burred, as if, in fact, she had just woken up.

“No.” He was sitting back on the sofa, his mind still and dark as the bottom of the sea. But sleep hadn’t come. Once, he thought he’d heard her sigh, but it was only the city breathing.

She came and sat down at the other corner of the sofa, tucked her legs under her. “I’d like to be in here, if it’s all right.”

He nodded.

“You haven’t told me anything about yourself.”

Bourne said nothing; he didn’t feel inclined to lie to her.

Outside a car passed, then another. A dog barked in the silence. The city seemed stilled, as if frozen in ice, not even its heart beating.

The ghost of a smile played across her wide lips. “Just like Trace.”

After a time, her eyelids grew heavy. She curled up like a cat with her head on her arms. Now she did sigh and, within moments, was fast asleep. A short time later, so was he.

You must be insane,” Soraya Moore said. “I’m not going to seduce Arkadin for you, Willard, or anyone else.”

“I understand your concern,” Marks said. “But-”

“No, Peter, I don’t think you do. I really and truly don’t. Otherwise there would be no but.”

She got up and walked to the railing. They had been sitting on a bench down by the canal in Georgetown. Lights glittered and boats lay still and sleeping in their berths. Behind them, young people strolled by, drinking and nuzzling. Occasional bursts of laughter erupted from a scrum of teenagers some distance away who appeared to be texting one another. The night was blessedly mild with just a hint of clouds scudding across the filthy-looking sky.

Marks rose and followed her. He sighed, as if he were the aggrieved party, which further antagonized her.

“Why is it,” she said hotly, “that women are so devalued, men only use them for their bodies.”

It wasn’t a question and Marks knew it. He suspected that a good deal of her anger stemmed from the fact that it was him-a good and trusted friend-asking this of her. And of course that had been Willard’s scheme. He knew this assignment would be offensive to Soraya, more so than, perhaps, to other women who had a less positive self-image; he knew that Marks was the only person who would be able to sell it to her. Indeed, Marks was quite certain that if Willard had given her this assignment directly she would have told him to go fuck himself and left without a backward glance. And yet, as Willard must have foreseen, here she was. Though visibly fuming, she hadn’t told him to fuck off.

“For centuries, as women were systematically held down by men, they devised their own unique ways to get what they wanted: money, power, a decision-making position in a male-dominated society.”

“I don’t need a lecture on women’s role in history,” she snapped.

Marks decided to ignore her comment. “Whatever else you might think, the indisputable fact is that women possess a unique ability.”

“Would you please stop saying unique?”

“An ability to attract men, to seduce them, to find the chinks in their armor, and to use that weakness against them. You know better than I what a potent weapon sex can be when applied judiciously. This is especially true in the clandestine services.” He turned to her. “In our world.”

“Jesus Christ, you are the little fucker, aren’t you?” She leaned on the railing, fingers enlaced, as a man might, with a man’s confidence that was typical of her.

Marks pulled out his cell, brought up a head shot of Arkadin, handed it to her. “Handsome sonovabitch, isn’t he? Magnetic, too, so I’m told.”

“You disgust me.”

“That sort of outrage doesn’t become you.”

“But screwing Arkadin does?” She thrust the cell back at him, but he didn’t reach for it.

“Fight against it all you want, the fact remains that espionage work is what you do, this is what you are. More to the point, this is the life you chose. No one ever twisted your arm.”

“No? What are you doing now?”

He took a calculated risk. “I haven’t given you an ultimatum. You can get up and walk away anytime.”

“And then what? I’ll have nothing, I’ll be nothing.”

“You can return to Cairo, marry Amun Chalthoum, have babies.”

He said this not unkindly, but the concept itself was unkind, or rather despicable. In any event, this was how it struck her. And all at once the full realization of how thoroughly M. Errol Danziger had fucked her dealt her its last, worst body blow. She was done at CI, which was bad enough, but he had made sure that she couldn’t get a position at a competing government agency. One of the private risk management firms was also out of the question; she wasn’t about to get involved with an organization of mercenaries like Black River. She turned away and bit her lip in order to hold back her tears of frustration. She felt the way she imagined women had felt down through the ages when they had ventured into a man’s world, taking orders, biting back their opinions, hoarding secrets revealed in the whispered aftermath of sex, until the day came…

“This guy isn’t unknown to you,” Marks said, careful to keep the urgency he felt out of his voice. “He’s as bad as they get, Raya. This playing up to him, it’s a good thing you’ll be doing.”

“That’s what you all say.”

“No, we all do what needs to be done. That’s the beginning and the end of it.”

“Easy for you to say, you’re not being asked to-”

“You don’t know what I’ve been asked to do.”

She turned away again. He watched her staring out at the canal, at the smears of lights on the water. Off to their left, the kids burst out into a rolling wave of laughter that seemed to gain in intensity as it circled the group.

“What I wouldn’t give to be one of them now,” Soraya said softly. “Not a care in the fucking world.”

And Marks breathed a silent sigh of relief, knowing now that she would swallow the bitter pill he offered. She would take the assignment.

Curious. Very curious, indeed.” In the warm light of the morning sun Chrissie was studying the engraving on the inside of the gold band Bourne had taken from Noah Perlis.

“I know linguistics,” Bourne said, “but this isn’t a known language, is it?”

“Well, it’s hard to say. There are some characteristics of Sumerian, possibly Latin as well, though it’s really neither.” She looked up at him. “Where did you get this?”

“It makes no sense, does it?”

She shook her head. “No, it doesn’t.”

She had made coffee while Bourne rooted around in the freezer. He came up with a pair of crumpets, though judging by the ice crystals clinging to the bag they had been in there for some time. They found some jam and ate standing up, both of them filled with nervous energy. Neither of them mentioned last night. Then Bourne had showed her the ring.

“But that’s only my opinion and I’m far from an expert.” She handed the ring back to Bourne. “The only way to find out for sure is to take it up to Oxford. I have a friend who’s a professor at the Centre for the Study of Ancient Documents. If it can be deciphered, he’s sure to know.”

It was after midnight when Lieutenant R. Simmons Reade tracked his boss down at an all-night squash court in Virginia, where the DCI worked out for two strenuous hours with one of the resident instructors three times a week. Reade was the only one inside CI who could deliver bad news to DCI Danziger without a qualm. He had been Danziger’s prize pupil when Danziger was briefly teaching at the NSA’s clandestine Academy for Special Operations, which the Old Man, who had contempt for everything the NSA stood for, used to call the Academy for Special Services, so he could jokingly refer to it as ASS.

Reade sat through the end of the last game, then made his presence known to the DCI by walking out onto the court, which was hot and smelled of sweat despite the fierce air-conditioning.

Danziger tossed his racquet at the instructor, wrapped a towel around his neck, and walked over to his adjutant.

“How bad?” No preliminaries were needed; the fact that Reade had sought him out at this hour, that he had chosen to come in person rather than through a phone call, was enough to clue him in.

“Bourne has neutralized the extraction team. They’re either dead or in police custody.”

“Jesus Christ,” Danziger said, “how does Bourne do it? No wonder Bud needed me to take over.”

They walked over to a bench and sat. No one else was on the court, the only sound came from the hum of the air-conditioning vents.

“Is Bourne still in London?”

Reade nodded. “As of this moment, yes, sir, he is.”

“And Coven is there, Lieutenant?”

Danziger only called him by his rank when he was truly pissed off. “Yes, sir.”

“Why didn’t he intervene?”

“The site was too public, there were too many witnesses for him to try to snatch Bourne off the street.”

“Other options?”

“Woefully lacking,” Reade said. “Shall I do something about that? I can reach out to our people at NSA for-”

“In time, Randy, but for now I can’t shake the tree and bring in my men wholesale, not politic, as Bud is quick to remind me. No, we have to make the best of the hand we’ve been dealt.”

“Judging by his kill record, sir, Coven is damn good.”

“Fine.” The DCI slapped his thighs and stood up. “Set him loose on Bourne. Tell him he has a free hand, whatever it takes to bring Bourne in.”

[8]

AFTER PETER MARKS had given her the assignment to find and attach herself to Arkadin, Soraya Moore had returned to Delia Trane’s apartment where she had been holed up. For the last two hours she had been on her plugged-in cell phone with a number of her field agents at Typhon. Though Typhon was no longer hers, the same could not be said for the people she had hired, trained, and mentored for the highly specialized jobs monitoring and infiltrating the various Sunni and Shi’a cadres, insurgent groups, jihadists, and extreme splinter politicos in virtually every country in the Middle and Far East. No matter what their current orders were or who was now in charge of Typhon, their loyalty was to her.

Currently she was talking to Yusef, her contact in Khartoum. Arkadin was well known in that part of the world now that he supplied the majority of the armament.

“Arkadin isn’t anywhere in the Middle East,” Yusef said, “or holed up in the mountains of Azerbaijan, for that matter.”

“And he’s not anywhere in Europe, Russia, or Ukraine, I’ve already made certain of that,” Soraya said. “Do you know why he’s gone to ground?”

“Dimitri Maslov, his old mentor, has taken out a fatwa, or whatever the Russians call it, on him.”

“I can understand why,” Soraya said. “Maslov hired him to get the arms business from Nikolai Yevsen, which is what he was doing in Khartoum several weeks ago. Instead he made off with Yevsen’s entire client list, which was stored on a computer server.”

“Well, the word is that Maslov caught up with Arkadin in Bangalore, but was unable to either kill or capture him, so now he’s vanished.”

“In this day and age,” Soraya said, “no one can vanish, at least for long.”

“Well, at least now you know where he isn’t.”

“True enough.” Soraya thought a moment. “I’ll get someone to run through immigration security tapes in the Americas, maybe Australia, too, and see what they come up with.”

David Webb had been to Oxford University, the oldest institution of higher learning in the English-speaking world, twice that Bourne could recall, though, of course, there could have been more visits. In those days the Centre for the Study of Ancient Documents had been located in the university’s Classics Centre at the Old Boys’ School in George Street. Now it was housed in a new home, the ultramodern Stelios Ioannou School for Research in Classical and Byzantine Studies at 66 St Giles’, as incongruous to the study of ancient languages as it was to Oxford’s stately eighteenth- and nineteenth-century buildings. This part of St Giles’ was in the center of Oxford, an ancient city whose charter had been enacted in 1191. The center was known as Carfax, a word derived from the French carrefour, meaning “crossroads.” And indeed, the four great thoroughfares of Oxford, including High Street, met at this juncture, as famous in its own way as Hollywood and Vine, and with a whole lot more history.

Chrissie had phoned her friend, a professor by the name of Liam Giles, before they started out from London. Oxford was only fifty-five miles away, and it took them just over an hour to get there using her old Range Rover. Tracy had given it to her when she started traveling so much.

The city was precisely as he remembered it, transporting all who arrived there back in time to an age of top hats, robes, horse-drawn carriages, and communications by post. It was as if it and all its inhabitants had been preserved in amber. Everything about Oxford belonged to another, simpler age.

By the time Chrissie found a parking spot the sun had begun to peer out from behind voluminous clouds, and the day had begun to warm, as if it might really be spring. They found Professor Liam Giles ensconced in his office, a large space set up as a workroom-cum-laboratory. Shelves were filled with manuscripts and thick hand-bound books. He was bent over one of them, scrutinizing a copy of a papyrus with a magnifying glass.

According to Chrissie, Professor Giles was the Richards-Bancroft Chair of the department, but as he glanced up Bourne was surprised to see a man of barely forty. He sported a prominent nose and chin and was balding, small round glasses pushed up onto his ever-expanding forehead. He had fur on his forearms, which were also short, like a kangaroo’s.

Bourne’s one concern about returning to Oxford had been that someone would recognize him as David Webb. But even though faculty members hung on decade after decade the university was huge, encompassing many colleges, and they were far from All Souls, the college where he had made several guest lectures.

In any event, Giles accepted him as Adam Stone. He seemed genuinely happy to see Chrissie, asking after her solicitously, and after Scarlett, whom he clearly knew personally.

“Tell her to stop by sometime,” he said. “I have a little surprise for her that I think she’ll like. I know she’s eleven, but she’s got the mind of a fifteen-year-old, so this ought to tickle her pink.”

Chrissie thanked him, then introduced the enigma of the ring’s curious engraving. Bourne handed the ring over and Giles, switching on a special lamp, studied the engraving on the inside first with the naked eye, then through a jeweler’s loupe. He went to a shelf, took down textbooks, leafed through them, his forefinger moving down the large pages of dense paragraphs and small, hand-drawn illustrations. He went back and forth between the texts and the ring for some time. At last he looked up at Bourne and said, “I think it will help if I can take some pictures of the item in question. Do you mind?”

Bourne told him to go ahead.

Giles took the ring to a curious mechanism, which looked like the end of a fiber-optic cable. He carefully clamped the ring so that the filament was in its center. Then he handed them goggles with treated dark lenses, slipped on a pair himself. When he was sure they were protected, he typed two commands on a computer keyboard. A series of mini-flashes of blinding blue light ensued, and Bourne knew that he had activated a blue laser.

The silent outburst was over almost as soon as it had begun. Giles removed his goggles, and they did the same.

“Brilliant,” the professor said as his fingers flew over his keyboard. “Let’s have a look, shall we?”

He turned on a plasma screen inset into the wall, and a series of high-definition photographs-close-ups of the engraving-appeared. “This is how the writing appears to the naked eye, being engraved on a three-hundred-and-sixty-degree surface. But what,” he said, “if it was meant to be read-or seen-on a flat surface, like most writing?” Here he manipulated the digital images until they merged into one long strip. “What we’re left with is what appears to be one long word, which seems improbable.” He zoomed in. “At least, that’s how it appears on the circular surface of the ring. However, now, in its flat form, we can see two breaks, so that what we’re actually looking at are three distinct groups of letters.”

“Words,” Bourne said.

“It would seem so,” Giles said with a mysterious lilt in his voice.

“But I see some cuneiforms,” Chrissie said. “I reckon they’re Sumerian.”

“Well, they certainly look Sumerian,” Giles said, “but in fact they’re Old Persian.” He slid one of the open texts toward her. “Here, take a look.” As she was doing that he addressed Bourne. “Old Persian is derived from Sumero-Akkadian, so our dear Christina can be forgiven her error.” The affection with which he said this punctured the pompousness of the statement. “However, there’s a crucial difference between the two without which decipherment is impossible. Akkadian cuneiforms represent entire syllables, whereas the cuneiforms of Old Persian are semi-alphabetic, which means each one represents a letter.”

“What are the Latin letters doing mixed in?” Chrissie said. “And those unknown symbols, are they a language?”

Giles smiled. “You, Mr. Stone, have presented me with a most curious-and I must say damn exciting-mystery.” He pointed to the screen. “What you see here is a composite of Old Persian, Latin, and-well, for lack of a better term, something else. I reckon I’m familiar with every ancient language mankind has discovered and cataloged, and this one is a definite outlier.” He waved a hand. “But I’ll get back to that presently.”

He moved his mouse pointer horizontally just below the engraving. “The first thing I can tell you is that there is no such thing as a composite language-cuneiform and letters just don’t mix. So if this isn’t a language, per se, exactly what is it?”

Bourne, who had been studying the line of the engraving, said, “It’s a cipher.”

Giles’s eyes widened behind the lenses of his glasses. “Very good, Mr. Stone. I applaud you.” He nodded. “Indeed, this seems to be a cipher, but like everything else about this engraving, it’s of a curious sort.” Here he once again manipulated the image, literally rearranging the blocks, separating the Old Persian cuneiforms and Latin letters into two distinct groups, the third group being the “letters” of the outlier language.

“Severus,” Bourne said, reading the Latin word from the scramble.

“Which could mean any number of things,” Chrissie said, “or nothing.”

“True enough,” Giles said. “But now we come to the Old Persian.” He manipulated the cuneiforms. “See here, now we have a second word: Domna.”

“Wait a minute.” Chrissie thought for a moment. “Septimius Severus was made a Roman senator by Marcus Aurelius in about 187. Subsequently he rose to become emperor in 193, and he ruled until his death eighteen years later. His reign was a strict military dictatorship, a response to the horrific corruption of his predecessor, Commodus. On his deathbed he famously advised his sons to ‘Enrich the soldiers and scorn all other men.’ ”

“Lovely,” Giles said.

“Some interesting things about him. He was born in what is now Libya, and when he increased the size of the Roman army he added auxiliary corps, soldiers from the far eastern borders of Rome’s empire, which must have included many from North Africa and beyond.”

“How is that relevant?” Giles said.

Now it was Chrissie’s turn to have a mysterious lilt to her voice. “Septimius Severus was married to Julia Domna.”

“Severus Domna,” Bourne said. Something went off in the back of his head, deep down, beyond the veils his memory could not penetrate. Maybe it was a flash of déjà vu, or maybe a warning. Whatever it was, like all the free-floating bits of his previous life that suddenly, mysteriously surfaced, it would become an itch he couldn’t scratch. He’d have no choice but to run it to ground until he unearthed its link to him.

“Adam, are you all right?” Chrissie was looking at him with a puzzled, almost alarmed expression.

“I’m fine,” he said. He’d have to watch himself with her; she was as perceptive as her sister. “Is there more?”

She nodded. “And it gets more interesting. Julia Domna was Syrian. Her family came from the ancient city of Emesa. Her ancestors were king-priests of the powerful temple of Baal, and so very influential throughout Syria.”

“So,” Bourne said, “here we have an engraving-both a cipher and an anagram-made up of an ancient Western and Eastern language, merged.”

“Just the way Septimius Severus and Julia Domna merged West and East.”

“But what does it mean?” Bourne mused. “It seems that we’re still lacking the key.” He looked at Giles expectantly.

The professor nodded. “The third language. I reckon you’re right, Mr. Stone. The key to the meaning of Severus Domna must lie in the third word.” He handed the ring back to Bourne.

“So the language is still a mystery,” Chrissie said.

“Oh, no. I know exactly what it is. It’s Ugaritic, an extinct written proto-language that arose in a small but important section of Syria.” He looked at Chrissie. “Just like your Julia Domna.” He pointed. “You can see here-and here-and again here-that Ugaritic is an important link between the earliest proto-languages and the written word as we know it today because it’s the first known evidence of the Levantine and South Semetic alphabets. In other words the Greek, Hebrew, and Latin alphabets find their sources in Ugaritic.”

“So you know that this word is Ugaritic,” Bourne said, “but you don’t know what the word is.”

“Again, yes and no.” Giles walked up to the screen, and as he pointed to each Ugaritic character he pronounced the letter. “So I know all the letters, you see, but like the two others, this word is an anagram. Though Ugaritic appears briefly in the study of Middle Eastern languages, the study of Ugaritic on its own is quite a specialized field, and rather a small one, I’m afraid, because of the prevailing belief that it is a dead end-a facilitation language, rather than an active one. There are only two or three Ugaritic scholars in the world and I’m not one of them, so for me to decipher the anagram would take an inordinate amount of time-which, frankly, I don’t have.”

“I’m surprised there’s anyone studying it,” Chrissie said.

“Actually, there’s only one reason there are any scholars at all.” Giles walked back to his computer keyboard. “There is a small group that believes Ugaritic has, uh, shall we say magic powers.”

“What,” Bourne said, “like black magic?”

Giles laughed. “Oh my, no, Mr. Stone, nothing so fantastic. No, these people believe that Ugaritic is a key part to the workings of alchemy, that Ugaritic was created for priests, chants to make manifest the divine. They believe, further, that alchemy itself is a blending of Ugaritic-articulating the right sounds in the proper order-and the specific scientific protocols.”

“Lead into gold,” Chrissie said.

The professor nodded. “Among others things, that’s right.”

“Once again, the blending of East and West,” Bourne said, “like Severus and Domna, like Old Persian and Latin.”

“Intriguing. I hadn’t thought of it in that light, but yes. It sounds far-fetched, I know, and you have to take an enormous leap of faith, but, well, now that you’ve brought up Julia Domna and her origins, look here.” Giles worked the keyboard. The screen changed to a map of the Middle East that quickly zoomed in on modern-day Syria, and then, zooming in farther, a specific section of the country. “The epicenter of the Ugaritic language was the part of Syria that includes the Great Temple of Baal, considered by some to be the most powerful of the old pagan gods.”

“Do you know any of these Ugaritic experts, Professor?” Bourne asked.

“One,” Giles said. “He’s, how shall I say, eccentric, as they all are in this arcane and rather outré field. As it happens, he and I play chess online. Well, it’s a form of proto-chess, actually, enjoyed by the ancient Egyptians.” He chuckled. “With your permission, Mr. Stone, I’ll e-mail him the inscription right now.”

“You have my blessing,” Bourne said.

Giles composed the e-mail, attached a copy of the inscription, and sent it off. “He loves puzzles, the more obscure the better, as you can imagine. If he can’t translate it, no one can.”

Soraya, propped up on the bed in the guest room at Delia’s apartment, was dreaming of Amun Chalthoum, the lover she had left behind in Cairo, when her cell phone began to throb on her lap. Hours ago she had switched it to vibrate mode so as not to disturb her friend, fast asleep in her bedroom.

Her eyes snapped open, the veils of her dream parted, and, putting the cell to her ear, she said, “Yes,” very softly.

“We’ve got a hit,” the voice said in her ear. It was Safa, one of the women in Typhon’s network, whose family had been killed by terrorists in Lebanon. “At least it’s a possible. I’m uploading several images to your laptop now.”

“Hold on,” she said.

Soraya had a phone company Internet card plugged into her laptop, and she switched it on. A moment later she was connected. She saw that the file was delivered and opened it. There were three photos. The first was a file shot, head and shoulders, of Arkadin, the same one Peter had showed her, so it must be the only decent shot they had of him. This version was larger and clearer, however. Marks was right, he was a handsome specimen: hooded eyes, aggressive features. And blond. Positive or negative? She wasn’t sure. The other two were obvious CCTV photos, the images flat, the colors poorly rendered, of a man, large and muscular, wearing one of those inexpensive sports hats with a Dallas Cowboys logo, which he probably bought at the airport. She couldn’t see enough of his face to make a positive ID. But in the second CCTV image, he’d tipped his hat back on his head to scratch his scalp. His hair was very black, very shiny, as if it had just been dyed. He must have thought he was out of camera range, she thought as she studied the face. She compared it with the file shot.

“I think it’s him,” she said.

“So do I. The images are from the Immigration cameras at the Dallas/Fort Worth airport eight days ago.”

Why would he fly into Texas, Soraya wondered, rather than New York or LA?

“He came in on a flight from Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris under the name Stanley Kowalski.”

“You’re joking,” Soraya said.

“I kid you not.”

The man definitely had a sense of humor.

[9]

LEONID ARKADIN WATCHED with slitted eyes as the battered dirt-brown convertible came bouncing along the road that led to the wharf. The sun was a bloody flag on the horizon; it had been another scorching day.

Fitting the binoculars to his eyes, he watched Boris Karpov park the car, get out, and stretch his legs. With the top down and no trunk to speak of, the colonel had no choice but to come alone. Karpov looked around, for a moment looked right where Arkadin lay stretched out, before his eyes moved on without seeing him. Arkadin was perfectly camouflaged on the corrugated tin roof of a fish shed, peering out from the space below the hand-painted sign that said, BODEGA-PESCADO FRESCO A DIARIO.

Flies buzzed busily, the stink of fish enveloped him like a noxious cloud, and the heat of the day, stored up by the tin, burned into his belly, knees, and elbows like a furnace floor, but none of these distractions interfered with his surveillance.

He watched as Karpov lined up for the sunset cruise, paid his fare, and climbed on board the schooner that daily took to the Sea of Cortés. Aside from the crew of grizzled Mexicans and sailors, Karpov was the oldest man on board by a good thirty years. A fish out of water was the only way to describe him, standing on the deck amid the partying bikini-clad girls and their drunken, hormonal escorts. The more uncomfortable the colonel was, the better Arkadin liked it.

Ten minutes after the schooner cast off and set sail, he climbed off the fish shack and strolled down to the wharf, where the cigarette-a long, sleek, fiberglass boat that was, basically, all engine-was docked. El Heraldo-God knew where the Sonoran man got that name-was waiting to help him cast off.

“Everything’s all set, boss, just like you wanted.”

Arkadin smiled at the Mexican and clamped a powerful hand on his shoulder. “What would I do without you, my friend?” He slipped El Heraldo twenty American dollars.

El Heraldo, a small, barrel-chested man with an old salt’s wide, bandy-legged stance, grinned hugely as Arkadin climbed into the cigarette. Finding the pre-stocked ice chest, he opened it, dug down deep, and stowed an item he’d packed inside a waterproof zip-lock bag. Then he went to the wheel. A long, deep, phlegmy growl rolled up through the water at the stern, along with a blue drift of smoke from the marine fuel as he started the engines. El Heraldo cast off the lines fore and aft, and waved to Arkadin who steered the boat clear of the docks, threading through the buoys that marked the brief channel. Ahead lay the deep water, where the warm colors of the setting sun stippled the cobalt-blue waves.

The waves were so small, they could have been in a river. Like the Neva, Arkadin thought. His mind returned to the past, to St. Petersburg at sunset, a velvet sky overhead, ice in the river, when he and Tracy sat facing each other at a window table at the Doma, overlooking the water. Apart from the Hermitage, the embankment was dominated by buildings with ornate facades that reminded him of Venetian palazzos, untouched by Stalin or his communist successors. Even the Admiralty was beautiful, with none of the brutalist military architecture found in similar buildings festering in other large Russian cities.

Over blini and caviar she talked about the exhibits at the Hermitage, whose history he absorbed completely. He found it amusing that not far away on the bottom of the Neva lay the corpse of the politician, wrapped and tied like a sack of rotten potatoes, weighed down with bars of lead. The river was as peaceful as ever, lights from the monuments dancing on its surface, hiding the murky darkness beneath. He wondered briefly if there were fish in the river and, if so, what they’d make of the grisly package he’d delivered into their world earlier that day.

Over dessert she said, “I have something to ask you.”

He had looked at her expectantly.

She hesitated, as if unsure how to proceed or whether to go on at all. At length, she took a sip of water and said, “This isn’t easy for me, though, oddly, the fact that we hardly know each other makes it a bit easier.”

“It’s often easier to talk to people we’ve just met.”

She nodded, but she was pale and the words seemed to have gotten stuck in her throat. “It’s a favor, really.”

Arkadin had been waiting for this. “If I can help you, I will. What sort of favor?”

Out on the Neva a long sightseeing boat plowed slowly by, its spotlights illuminating great swaths of the river and the buildings on either embankment. They might have been in Paris, a city in which Arkadin had managed to lose himself many times, if only for a short time.

“I need help,” she said in a lost little voice that caused him to put his elbows on the table and lean toward her. “The kind of help your friend-what did you say his name was?”

“Oserov.”

“That’s right. I’ve always been good at summing people up very quickly. Your friend Oserov strikes me as the kind of man I need, am I right?”

“What kind of man is that?” Arkadin said, wondering what she was getting at and why this normally articulate woman was now having such a hard time finding the words she needed.

“Disposable.”

Arkadin laughed. She was a woman after his own mind. “What do you need him for, exactly.”

“I’d rather tell him personally.”

“The man hates your guts, so you’re better off telling me first.”

She looked out at the river and the opposite bank for a moment, then turned back to him. “All right.” She took a deep breath. “My brother’s in trouble-serious trouble. I need to find some way-some permanent way-of extricating him.”

Was her brother some sort of criminal? “So the police won’t find out, I’m guessing.”

She laughed without any humor. “I wish I could go to the police with this. Unfortunately, I can’t.”

Arkadin hunched his shoulders. “What’s he gotten into?”

“He’s in over his head with a loan shark-he’s got a gambling problem. I gave him some money to help him out but he just blew through that and when he came up short yet again, he stole a piece of artwork I was delivering to one of my clients. I’ve mollified the client, thank God, but if it ever came out I’d be finished.”

“I imagine it gets worse from here.”

She nodded woefully. “He went to the wrong people to fence it, got a third of what he should have gotten, an amount that wasn’t nearly enough. Now, unless something drastic is done, the lender will have him killed.”

“This lender, he’s powerful enough to make that happen?”

“Oh, yes.”

“All the better.” Arkadin smiled. He thought helping her would be fun, but also, like a chess player, he could already see how he could bring her into checkmate. “I’ll take care of it.”

“All I want you to do,” she said, “is introduce me to Oserov.”

“I’ve just told you, you don’t need him. I’ll do this favor for you.”

No,” she said firmly. “I don’t want you involved.”

He spread his hands. “I already am involved.”

“I don’t want you involved any deeper than you are.” The low lamplight fell across her as if they were in an intimate scene in a play, as if she were about to say the things that would make the audience gasp after holding its collective breath. “And as for Oserov, unless I’ve mistaken him, he likes money more than he hates me.”

Arkadin laughed again, despite himself. He was going to tell her she was forbidden to talk with Oserov, but something in her eyes stopped him. He suspected that she would get up, walk away, and he’d never see her again. And he very much did not want that to happen, because this opportunity to hold something vital over her, to use her, would be lost.

The increased jouncing of the cigarette boat returned Arkadin’s attention to the present. He had crossed the wake of the schooner and was now bearing down across its port flank. He got on the two-way radio and spoke to the schooner’s captain, with whom he had made prior arrangements.

Five minutes later he was bobbing alongside the schooner, a rope ladder had been lowered, and Boris Karpov’s rather corpulent body was climbing down.

“A fine place for two Russians to meet, eh, Colonel?” he said with a grin and a wink.

“I admit I was looking forward to meeting you,” Karpov said, “under vastly different circumstances.”

“Me in manacles or dead in a pool of blood, I can only imagine.”

Karpov seemed to be having trouble breathing. “You’ve amassed quite the reputation for mayhem and murder.”

“It’s difficult for any one person to live up to those rumors.” Arkadin was amused to see that Karpov, rather green around the gills, seemed in no mood for banter. “Don’t worry, seasickness lasts only as long as we’re on the water.”

He chuckled as the ladder was hoisted up. He pulled away from the schooner, cutting a pale wake through the water. The bow lifted as the cigarette began to slice through the waves, and Karpov sat down with an audible thump, head between his legs.

“Stand up,” Arkadin suggested, “and keep your eye on a fixed spot on the horizon-that freighter, for instance. That’ll minimize the nausea.”

After a moment, Karpov did just that.

“Don’t forget to breathe.”

Arkadin steered them south by southeast and when he judged he’d put enough distance between the cigarette and the schooner, he cut the engines to just above an idle, turned, and regarded his passenger.

“One thing I have to say about our government,” he said, “it trains its employees to follow orders to the letter.” He made a little mock-bow. “Congratulations.”

“Fuck you,” Karpov said before he turned toward the water and vomited copiously over the side.

Arkadin dragged out the ice chest that El Heraldo had stocked, and drew out a bottle of chilled vodka. “We don’t stand on ceremony at sea. Here’s a little bit of home, it’ll help settle your stomach.” He handed the bottle to Karpov. “But do me a favor and rinse your mouth before you take a swig.”

Karpov scooped a handful of seawater into his mouth, swished it around, and spat it out. Then he unscrewed the cap and took a long swig. His eyes closed as he swallowed.

“That’s better.” He returned the bottle to Arkadin. “Now to business, the sooner I get back on dry land the better.” But before Arkadin could reply, he turned and vomited again, hanging over the side of the cigarette, sweaty and limp. He moaned. And then again when Arkadin patted him down, looking for a weapon or an electronic recording device.

Finding none, Arkadin stepped away and waited until Karpov had rinsed his mouth out again, then said, “It seems we’d better get you to land sooner rather than later.”

Returning the bottle to the ice chest, he offered a handful of cubes to the colonel, then got back to driving the boat. He headed due south now, following a line of white-and-gray pelicans, flying in perfect formation, low to the inky water, at length turning in at the estuary of Estero Morua where he moored in shallow water. By that time darkness had engulfed the eastern sky. In the west it looked like a banked fire, all smoldering embers, glimmering dimly in a vain attempt to keep back the fall of night.

They waded ashore with Arkadin carrying the ice chest on one brawny shoulder. The moment he hit the beach Karpov sat down in the sand, or perhaps collapsed might have been a better word for it. He appeared bedraggled and still slightly ill as he clumsily pulled off his sopping shoes and socks. Arkadin, who wore rubber sandals, had no such problem.

Arkadin went about gathering a pile of driftwood and setting it alight. He had finished one Dos Equis and had popped the cap on another when the colonel asked, rather weakly, for a bottle.

“Better to have a bite to eat first.”

Arkadin proffered a small wrapped parcel, but Karpov just shook his head.

“As you wish.” Arkadin stuck his nose into a burrito of carne asada wrapped in a freshly baked tortilla and inhaled deeply.

“Good God,” Karpov said, averting his face.

“Ah, Mexico!” Arkadin dug into the burrito with gusto. “Pity you didn’t listen to me when you raided Maslov’s warehouse,” he said between enormous chews.

“Don’t even start on that.” Karpov bit off his words as if each one were Arkadin’s head. “The most likely scenario was that you were setting a trap for me on Maslov’s orders. What did you expect me to do?”

Arkadin shrugged. “Still, opportunity wasted.”

“What did I just say?”

“What I mean is with a man like Maslov you’re not going to get more than two.”

“I know what the fuck you meant,” the colonel said hotly.

Arkadin took this with admirable equanimity. “Water under the bridge.” He popped the top on another Dos Equis and handed it over.

Karpov closed his eyes for a moment; it looked like he was mentally counting to ten. When he opened his eyes, he said in as even a tone of voice as he could muster, “I’ve come all this way to listen, so you’d damn well better have something of value to tell me.”

Having wolfed down his burrito, Arkadin brushed off his hands and took another beer to wash down the food. “You want the names of the moles-I don’t blame you, I’d want them if I were in your shoes-and I’ll give them to you, but first I want some assurances.”

“Here it comes,” Karpov said wearily. He rolled the bottle across his sweating forehead. “All right, what’s the price?”

“Permanent immunity for me.”

“Done.”

“And I want Dimitri Maslov’s head on a platter.”

Karpov gave him a curious look. “What is it between the two of you?”

“I want an answer.”

“Done.”

“I need a guarantee,” Arkadin insisted. “Despite all your efforts, he’s still got a fucking platoon of people-from FSB apparatchiks to regional politicos to federal judges-in his pocket. I don’t want him squirming off the chopping block.”

“Well, that depends on the quality, detail, and amount of intel you provide me, doesn’t it?”

“Don’t worry about that, Colonel. Everything I have is rock-solid and as damaging to him as it gets.”

“Then, as I said, it’s done.” Karpov swigged down some beer. “Anything else?”

“Yes.”

Karpov, who had taken up one of his sea-soaked shoes, nodded sadly. “There always is, isn’t there?”

“I want Oserov to myself.”

Karpov frowned as he extracted a bit of seaweed from inside the ruined shoe. “Oserov is Maslov’s second in command, keeping him out of the bull’s-eye is going to be a bit tricky.”

“I could give a shit.”

“Please try to surprise me,” Karpov said drily. He considered a moment, then, making up his mind, nodded decisively. “All right, then.” He raised a finger. “But I need to warn you that when I make my move you’ll have twelve hours maximum to take care of him. After that, he’s mine along with the rest of them.”

Arkadin extended his hand and took Karpov’s, whose grip was strong and callused, a workingman’s grip. He liked that. A government employee he might be, but he was no drone: This was a man who would not fuck him, of that Arkadin was certain.

In that precise moment Karpov sprang at Arkadin, one hand around his neck, gripping his chin and lifting it while the other hand held a razor blade to his exposed throat.

“Inside your shoe.” Arkadin sat perfectly still. “Very low-tech, very good.”

“Listen, you fucking goon, I don’t take kindly to being fucked over-you set me up to fail at the warehouse. Now Maslov has been warned, he’s going to be on his guard, which is going to make bringing him down all the more difficult. You’ve done nothing but treat me with disrespect. You’re a fucking murderer, the lowest form of what passes for life in a whole stinking pile of shit. You intimidate people, torture them, torment them, then kill them as if human life has no meaning. I feel unclean just being near you, but I want Dimitri Maslov more than I want to kill you, so I’ll just have to live with the decision. Life is full of compromises and with each one your hands dip deeper into blood, I’ve come to terms with that. But if you and I are going to work together, you’re going to give me the respect I deserve or I swear on my father’s grave I’ll slit your throat right here, right now, turn my back and forget I ever met you.” He put his face next to Arkadin’s. “Are we clear, Leonid Danilovich?”

“You’re not going to be able to make a move against Maslov with the moles in place.” Arkadin was looking straight ahead, which meant up at the night sky, where stars glittered like faraway eyes, watching the foibles of humankind with contempt or at least indifference.

Karpov jerked his head. “Are we clear?”

“Crystal.” He relaxed somewhat as the colonel put away the blade. He had been correct about Karpov’s essential nature: This was no man to be bullied, not even by the fearsome Russian bureaucracy. Arkadin silently saluted him. “Your first problem is to poison the moles in the FSB-2’s kitchen.”

“You mean the baseboards.”

Arkadin shook his head. “If that were the case, my dear Colonel, your problems would all be simple ones. However, I do mean the kitchen, because Maslov owns one of the chefs.”

There was silence for a time, just the soft lapping of the water, the last of the gulls’ cries as they bedded down for the night. The moon emerged from behind a low bank of clouds, casting a bluish mantle over them even as it chipped away at the black sea, strewing pinpoints of light across its choppy surface.

“Which one?” Karpov said after a long time.

“I’m not sure you want to hear this.”

“I’m not sure, either, but what the fuck, it’s too late to stop now.”

“It is, isn’t it?” Arkadin took out a pack of Turkish cigarettes and offered one to the colonel.

“I’m trying to cut down on my bad habits.”

“A futile preoccupation.”

“Say that when you have high blood pressure.”

Arkadin lit up, put the pack away, and took a deep drag. As the smoke drifted out of his nostrils, he said, “Melor Bukin, your boss, reports to Maslov.”

Karpov’s eyes blazed. “You shit, are you fucking with me again?”

Without a word Arkadin dug out the plastic bag he’d stowed in the bottom of the ice chest, zipped it open, and handed over the contents. Then he added several pieces of driftwood to the fire, which was waning.

Karpov moved a bit nearer to the fire in order to have a better look. Arkadin had handed him one of those cheap cell phones bought in any convenience store, a burner, which meant its calls couldn’t be traced. He thumbed it on.

“Audio and video,” Arkadin said as he used a stick to better arrange the wood. Planning for this day or one like it, he had used this cell to clandestinely record certain meetings between Maslov and Bukin that he’d attended. He knew there would be no doubt in the colonel’s mind when he finished viewing the evidence.

At length, Karpov looked bleakly up from the tiny screen. “I’ll need to keep this.”

Arkadin waved a hand. “All part of the service.”

Somewhere far off, the drone of a small plane came to them, a sound no more significant than a mosquito’s whine.

“How many more?” Karpov asked.

“I know of two-their names are in the phone’s directory-but there may be more. I’m afraid you’re going to have to ask your boss.”

Karpov’s brow furrowed. “That won’t be easy.”

“Even with this evidence?”

Karpov sighed. “I’m going to have to take him by surprise, cut him off completely before he has a chance to contact anyone.”

“Chancy,” Arkadin said. “On the other hand, if you go to President Imov with the evidence he’ll be so outraged he’s sure to let you do whatever you want with Bukin.”

Karpov appeared to be considering this approach. Good. Arkadin smiled inwardly. Melor Bukin had risen up through the apparatchik ranks mainly because of the president, before he’d been chosen by Viktor Cherkesov, the head of FSB-2. Inside the Kremlin a war was being waged between Cherkesov and the FSB’s Nikolai Patrushev, a well-known disciple of Imov’s. Cherkesov had built a formidable power base without the president’s patronage. Arkadin had his own reason for wanting Bukin disgraced. When Karpov threw Bukin in prison, his mentor, Cherkesov, would not be far behind. Cherkesov was the one thorn in his side he hadn’t been able to extricate, but now Karpov would take care of that for him.

Yet he had no time to gloat. His restless mind had already turned to more personal matters. Namely, the various routes he might take to avenge himself on Karpov for holding a knife to his throat. His mind was already afire with visions of slitting the colonel’s throat with his own razor blade.

[10]

MOIRA AND JALAL Essai sat together in the temporary quarters of his DC hotel suite. Between them were Essai’s netbook and the netbook that Moira had bought the day before, one she knew was absolutely clean. She had already souped it up far beyond its original specs.

She was going to ask him how to get started, because she had to assume that all her systems had been compromised, but she needn’t have bothered. As it turned out he had a lot of information about the laptop, all of which he shared with her. Latterly it had fallen into the hands of Gustavo Moreno, a Colombian drug lord living in the outskirts of Mexico City. Moreno had been killed some months ago when his compound had been raided by a party of officers disguised as Russian oilmen.

“The raiding party was headed by Colonel Boris Karpov,” Essai said.

Curious, Moira thought. But then she knew how small and insular this world was. She knew about the colonel from Bourne; they were friends, as much as two people like that could be friends.

“So Karpov has the laptop.”

“Unfortunately, no,” Essai said. “The laptop was taken from Moreno’s compound, by one of his own people, sometime before the raid.”

“One of his own people who was obviously working for who-a rival?”

“Possibly,” Essai said. “I don’t know.”

“What’s the thief’s name?”

“Name, photo, everything.” Essai turned the laptop’s screen toward her and brought up the image. “But it’s a dead end, literally. His body was found a week after the raid.”

“Where?” Moira said.

“Outside of Amatitán.” Essai pulled up Google Earth and punched in a set of coordinates. The globe of the planet revolved until the northwest coast of Mexico came into view. He pointed. Amatitán was in Jalisco, in the heart of tequila country. “Right here. As it happens on the estancia of Moreno’s sister, Berengária, although now that she’s married Narsico Skydel, the tequila magnate, she goes by the name of Barbara Skydel.”

“I seem to recall a memo at Black River about Narsico. He’s the cousin of Roberto Corellos, the jailed Colombian drug lord, isn’t that right?”

Essai nodded. “Narsico has been trying to distance himself from his infamous cousin for some time. He hasn’t been back in Colombia in ten years. Five years ago, apparently finding it too difficult to outrun his family’s reputation, he changed his name and bought into the largest tequila distillery in Mexico. Now he owns it outright and over the past two years has been expanding its reach.”

“Marrying Berengária couldn’t have helped him,” Moira pointed out.

“I don’t know. She’s proved herself to be a shrewd businesswoman. Most people’s best guess is that she’s the one behind the expansion. I think she’s more willing to take calculated risks than he is, and so far she hasn’t made a single misstep.”

“How was her relationship with Gustavo?”

“By all reports the two siblings were close. They bonded early, after their mother died.”

“Do you think she was involved in his business?”

Essai folded his arms over his chest. “Difficult to say. Whatever involvement she might have had was certainly not evident, there’s nothing whatsoever to link her with Gustavo’s drug trafficking.”

“But you did say that she was a canny businesswoman.”

He frowned. “You think she had the mole inside her own brother’s shop?”

Moira shrugged. “Who can say?”

“Neither of them would be that stupid.”

Moira nodded. “I agree, though if someone wants us to think one of them had the mole murdered, it seems talking to them would be useful. But first I want to pay a visit to Roberto Corellos.”

Essai smiled the dark smile that chilled Moira’s soul. “I think, Ms. Trevor, that you’ve already begun to earn your fee.”

Bourne and Chrissie were on their way back in a driving rainstorm that had come upon them virtually without warning when Bourne’s cell rang.

“Mr. Stone.”

“Hello, Professor,” Bourne said.

“I have some news,” Giles said. “I’ve received an e-mail back from my chess partner. It seems that he has solved the riddle of the third word.”

“What is it?” Bourne asked.

“Dominion.”

“Dominion,” Bourne repeated. “So the three words engraved on the inside of the ring are: Severus Domna Dominion. What does it mean?”

“Well, it could be an incantation,” Giles said, “or an epithet, a warning. Even-and I’m being deliberately fanciful here-the instructions for turning lead into gold. Without additional information I’m afraid there’s no way of knowing.”

The road ahead was smeared with rain, the wipers slapped back and forth on their prescribed arc. Bourne checked the side mirror, as he did automatically every thirty seconds or so.

“There is an interesting tidbit about Ugaritic my friend provided, though I can’t see how it’s relevant. The basis of its interest for him and his colleagues is that there are documents-or fragments thereof-they claim come from the court of King Solomon. It seems that Solomon’s astrologers spoke Ugaritic amongst themselves, that they believed in its alchemical powers.”

Bourne laughed. “With all the legends of King Solomon’s gold, I can see where the scientists of an early age believed alchemy was the key to turning lead into gold.”

“Frankly, Mr. Stone, I told him the same thing.”

“Thank you, Professor. You’ve been most helpful.”

“Anytime, Mr. Stone. A friend of Christina’s is a friend of mine.”

As Bourne put away his cell, he saw that the black-and-gold truck that had pulled into their lane three vehicles back some minutes ago was now right behind them.

“Chrissie, I’d like you to get off the motorway,” he said quietly. “When you do, pull over.”

“Are you feeling all right?”

He said nothing, his eyes flicking to the side mirror. Then he reached out and stopped her from using the turn signal. “Don’t do that.”

Her eyes opened wide and she gave a little gasp. “What’s going on?”

“Just do what I tell you and everything will be all right.”

“Not reassuring.” She moved into the left-hand lane as the next exit sign became visible through the rain. “Adam, you’re scaring me.”

“That wasn’t my intention.”

She took the ramp, which immediately curved around to the left, and pulled onto the shoulder. “Then what is your intention?”

“To drive,” he said. “Move over.”

She got out of the Range Rover, covered her head, which was tucked down between her hunched shoulders, and went around, jumping into the passenger’s side. Her door was not even fully closed when Bourne saw the truck making its way around the curve of the off-ramp. Immediately he put the vehicle in gear and pulled out.

The truck was directly behind him as if tethered to the Range Rover with a grappling hook. Bourne put on a burst of speed, went through a light on the red, then onto the motorway’s entrance ramp. Traffic was moderate and he was able to weave in and out of the lanes. He was just thinking that a truck was an impractical vehicle to pursue them when a gray BMW pulled up abreast of them.

As the window slid down, Bourne yelled for Chrissie to get down. He pushed her, then bent low over the wheel as gunshots shattered his side window, showering him with glass pellets and fistfuls of rain. At that moment he saw the black-and-gold truck coming up fast behind him; they meant to box him in.

Both vehicles rocked back and forth, their sides scraping together dangerously. Bourne risked a glance in the rearview mirror. The black-and-gold truck was right on their tail.

“Brace yourself,” he said to Chrissie, who was bent over as far as her seat belt would allow, her arms over her head.

He angled the car, then slammed on the brakes. For a split second the Range Rover skidded on the wet tarmac, then he had compensated. The offside rear bumper crumpled on impact with the truck, the Range Rover swerved at a sharp angle so that, as he had calculated, the driver’s-side rear bumper plowed into the BMW with tremendous force, as if it had been shot out of a cannon. Impelled by the crash, the BMW veered hard right and, out of control, slammed into the guardrail with such force that the entire driver’s side was staved in. A fireworks of sparks, a shrieking of tortured metal as the BMW bounced off the guardrail and spun. The front end was heading directly for the Range Rover and Bourne turned the wheel hard to the right, cutting off a yellow Mini. There was a horrific screech of tires, horns blared, fenders were dented or flattened in a chain reaction. Bourne accelerated into the gap, switched lanes again, then as he cleared more of the traffic moved back across to the fast lane.

“Jesus,” Chrissie whispered. “Jesus Christ.”

The Range Rover was still rocking on its shocks. Bourne could no longer see the smashed-up BMW or the black-and-gold truck in the rearview mirror.

After a crash or an accident, even a near miss, everything goes quiet, or possibly the human ear, traumatized like the rest of the organism, goes temporarily deaf. In any event, it was dead silent in the SUV as Bourne exited the motorway, turned off the access road as soon as he could, and rolled along streets lined with wholesalers and warehouses, where no one shouted in fear, no horns blared angrily or brakes screeched, where order still reigned and the chaos of the motorway seemed to belong to another universe. He didn’t stop until he found a deserted block and pulled over.

Chrissie was silent, her face dead white. Her hands trembled in her lap. She was near to weeping with both terror and relief.

“Who are you?” she said after a time. “Why is someone trying to kill you?”

“They want the ring,” Bourne said simply. After what had just happened she deserved at least a modicum of the truth. “I don’t know why yet, I’m trying to figure that out.”

She turned to him. Her eyes had paled, too, or perhaps that was simply a trick of the light. Bourne didn’t think so.

“Was Trace involved with this ring?”

“Maybe, I don’t know.” Bourne started the car and pulled out into the street. “But her friends were.”

She shook her head. “This is all going much too fast for me. Everything’s turned upside down, I can’t seem to get my bearings.”

She ran her hands through her hair, then noticed something odd. “Why are we heading back toward Oxford?”

He gave her a wry look as he headed toward the on-ramp of the motorway. “Like you, I don’t like people shooting at me.

“I need to get a better look at the BMW and our friend inside.” Noting her terrified expression, he added, “Don’t worry. I’ll get out near the crash site. Are you okay to drive?”

“Of course.”

He turned left and rolled onto the motorway, in the direction of Oxford. The worst of the rain had drifted away; only a light drizzle remained. He slowed the wipers down. “I’m sorry for the damage.”

She shuddered and gave him a grim smile. “It couldn’t be helped, could it?”

“When is Scarlett due back from your parents’ house?”

“Not until next week, but I can pick her up anytime,” she said.

“Fine.” Bourne nodded. “I don’t want you to go to your house in Oxford. Is there someplace else you can stay?”

“I’ll go back to Tracy’s flat.”

“That’s out, as well. These people must have picked me up there.”

“What about my parents’ house?”

“That’s no good, either, but I want you to pick Scarlett up from them and go somewhere else, somewhere you haven’t been before.”

“You don’t think-?”

Very deliberately, he produced the Glock he’d found in Perlis’s flat and placed it in the glove compartment.

“What are you doing?”

“We were being followed, possibly all the way from Tracy’s flat. There’s no point in taking a chance these people know about Scarlett-and where your parents live, for that matter.”

“But who are they?”

He shook his head.

“This is a nightmare, Adam.” Her voice was brittle, as if her words were made of glass. “What on earth was Trace mixed up in?”

“I wish I had an answer for you.”

Traffic on the opposite side of the motorway was at a standstill, which told him that they were nearing the crash site. Directly ahead the vehicles on their side were all but inching along, which would make it less difficult for him to get out and for Chrissie to take the wheel.

“What about you?” she asked as he put the Range Rover in neutral.

“Don’t worry about me,” he said. “I’ll make my way back to London.” Her worried expression revealed that she didn’t believe him. He gave her his cell number. But when he saw her dig a pen out of her handbag he added, “Memorize it, I don’t want you writing it down.”

They got out of the Range Rover and she slid behind the wheel. “Adam.” She reached out and grabbed his arm. “For God’s sake, take care of yourself.”

He smiled. “I’ll be fine.”

But she wouldn’t let him go. “Why are you pursuing this?”

He thought about Tracy dying in his arms. He carried her blood on his hands.

Ducking his head through the window, he said, “I owe her a debt I can never repay.”

Bourne vaulted over the median onto the other side of the rain-slick motorway. As he approached the crash site his mind was racing, taking in the welter of ambulances, emergency vehicles, and police cars. The personnel had come from all over the surrounding area, which was a stroke of luck for what he had in mind. The crash site had not yet been cordoned off. He saw a body laid out on the ground, covered by a tarp. A squad of forensics personnel patrolled the area adjacent to the corpse, taking notes or digital photos, marking out small bits of forensic evidence with numbered plastic cones, and conferring among themselves. Each fragment of evidence-drops of blood, shards of a broken taillight, bits of shredded fabric, the litter of a shattered car window, an oil slick-was being photographed from several angles.

Bourne moved to the side of one of the emergency vehicles and unobtrusively slipped into the cab, rooting through the glove compartment for a form of ID. Finding nothing there, he moved on to the sun visors. One of them had a rubber band around it. Pulling it down, he found several cards, one of which was an expired ID. It always amazed him that people grew so attached to their own history, they were reluctant to part with any tangible evidence of it. Hearing someone approaching, he grabbed a pair of latex gloves, slid over and out the other side. As he did so, he clipped the ID to his coat and walked purposefully into the melee of official personnel trying to make sense of the mess left on the smeared tarmac of the motorway.

He squinted at the BMW; the guardrail had finally impaled it like a harpoon, wrecking it entirely. Bourne saw where he’d driven Chrissie’s car into the corner of the rear bumper. Squatting down next to it, he vigorously scrubbed off the few flecks of paint from her vehicle. He had just finished memorizing the plate number when a local police inspector crouched down beside him.

“What d’you reckon?” He was a whey-faced man with bad teeth and breath to match. He looked as if he had been raised on tepid beer, bangers and mash, and treacle.

“The speed must have been fantastic in order to do this damage.” Bourne spoke in a hoarse voice, using his best South London accent.

“Cold or allergies?” the local inspector said. “Either way, you should take care of yourself in the bloody-minded weather.”

“I’ll need to see the victims.”

“Righto.” The inspector rose on creaky knees. The backs of his hands were chapped and reddened, the result of a long, hard winter stuck in an underheated office. “This way.”

He led Bourne through the knots of people to where the corpse was still laid out. He lifted the tarp for Bourne to have a look. The body was broken up. Bourne was surprised to see that the man was older, he guessed in his late forties or early fifties-extremely odd for an executioner.

The inspector’s wrists rested on his bony knees. “With no ID, it’ll be a bitch trying to notify his wife.”

The corpse wore what appeared to be a gold wedding band on the third finger of his left hand. Bourne thought that interesting, but he wasn’t about to share his opinion, or anything else for that matter, with the inspector. He had to get a look at the inside of the ring.

“I’m going in,” Bourne said.

The inspector guffawed.

Bourne slipped off the ring. This ring was far older than the one he already had. He held it up to see more clearly. It was scratched and worn, thinned out over time. It took gold maybe a hundred years or more to get this thin. He tipped the ring. It was engraved on the inside. He could make out the Old Persian and Latin, yes. He peered more closely, rotating the ring between his fingers. There were only two words, Severus Domna. The third one, Dominion, was missing.

“Find anything?”

Bourne shook his head. “I thought maybe there’d be some sort of engraving-‘To Bertie, from Matilda,’ something of that sort.”

“Another dead end,” the inspector said sourly. “Christ on a crutch, my knees are killing me.” He stood up with a little groan.

Now Bourne knew what Severus Domna must stand for: a group or a society. Whatever you wanted to call them, one thing was clear-they had gone to great lengths to keep themselves secret from the world at large. And now, for whatever reason, they had surfaced, risking their secretive status-all for the ring engraved with their name and the word Dominion.

[11]

OLIVER LISS, STRIDING down North Union Street in Alexandria’s Old Town, checked the time and, a moment later, stepped into one of those large chain drugstores that carried most everything. He went past the dental hygiene and foot care sections, picked out a cheap cell phone with thirty prepaid minutes, and took it up to the checkout counter where an Indian woman rang it up, along with a copy of The Washington Post. He paid cash.

Back out on the street, the paper tucked under one arm, he pulled apart the plastic blister pack and walked back beneath a dull and starless sky to where he’d parked his car. He got in and attached the phone to his portable charger, which would give it a full charge in less than five minutes. While he waited, he put his head back against the seat and closed his eyes. He hadn’t had much sleep last night or, for that matter, any night since he’d agreed to fund the resurrected Treadstone.

Not for the first time he wondered whether he had done the right thing, and then he tried to recall the last time he’d made a business decision of his own free will. More than a decade ago he’d been approached by a man who called himself Jonathan, though Liss soon enough surmised that wasn’t his name at all. Jonathan said that he was part of a large multinational group. If Liss played his cards right, if he pleased Jonathan and, therefore, the group, Jonathan would ensure that the group became Liss’s permanent client. Jonathan had then suggested to him that he found a private risk management firm under cover of which the business could become a private contractor for the US armed forces in overseas hot spots. That was how Black River had been formed. Jonathan’s group had provided the seed money, just as Jonathan had promised, and brought in the two partners. It was this same group that, through Jonathan, had given him advance warning of events taking place that would blow Black River out of the water sooner rather than later. The group had extricated him without him being implicated in any future investigation, congressional hearings, the filing of criminal charges, trials, and the inevitable incarcerations.

Then, only weeks after his parachute to safety, Jonathan had presented another suggestion, which wasn’t a suggestion at all, but an order: provide seed money for Treadstone. He hadn’t even heard of Treadstone, but then he’d been given an enciphered file detailing its creation and workings. That was when he’d learned that only one member of Treadstone remained alive: Frederick Willard. He contacted Willard and the rest had unfolded just as predicted.

Every once in a while he allowed himself the luxury of wondering how this group possessed such a staggering wealth of classified information. What were its sources? It seemed irrelevant whether the information was about American, Russian, Chinese, or Egyptian secret service agencies, to name just a few. The intelligence was always of the highest caliber and always correct.

The most mysterious aspect of this entire chapter of his life was that he’d never met any of these people face-to-face. Jonathan made suggestions, via the phone, to which he acceded without the faintest hint of a protest. He was not a man who enjoyed being enslaved-but he did savor every moment of being alive, and without these people he long ago would have been a dead man. He owed everything to Jonathan’s group.

Jonathan and his colleagues were hard taskmasters-utterly serious, intent on their goals-but they were generous with their rewards. Over the years the group had recompensed Liss beyond his wildest dreams-and that was another aspect of its existence that only added to the mystery: the group’s seemingly limitless wealth. Just as importantly, the group protected him, a promise Jonathan had made to him, a promise borne out when he had been extracted from the disaster that landed his two former Black River partners in federal penitentiaries for the rest of their lives.

A low beep alerted him that the cell phone was fully charged. Disconnecting it from the charger, he turned it on and punched in a local number. After two rings, the line connected and he said: “Delivery.” There was a short pause, then an automated female voice said, “Ecclesiastes three: six-two.”

It was always a book of the Bible, he had no idea why. He disconnected, picked up the paper. “Ecclesiastes” referred to the sports section. “Three: six-two” meant third column, sixth paragraph, second word.

Running his forefinger down the specified column he discovered today’s code word: steal.

He picked up his cell and punched in a ten-digit number. “Steal,” he said when the line engaged after one ring. Instead of a voice he heard a series of electronic clicks and pops as the complex network of servos and switchers rerouted his call again and again to a remote location that was God alone knew where. Then the icy sound of encrypting devices being engaged and, at last, a voice said:

“Hello, Oliver.”

“Good afternoon, Jonathan.”

The enciphering slowed the speech down, stripping it of emotion and tone, rendering it unrecognizable, closer to the voice of an automaton.

“Have you sent them on their way?”

“They took off an hour ago, they’ll be in London early tomorrow morning.” It was the voice that had sent him the dossier on the ring in the first place. “They have their orders, but…”

“Yes?”

“All Willard talks about is Arkadin and Bourne and the Treadstone program that created them. According to him, he’s discovered a method to make them even more… useful, I think was the term he used.”

Jonathan chuckled. At least Liss assumed it was a chuckle, though it came across to him as a dry rustle, as of a swarm of insects infesting high grass.

“I want you to stay out of his way, Oliver, is that clear?”

“Sure it’s clear.” Liss rubbed his forehead with his knuckles. What the hell was Jonathan’s purpose here? “But I’ve told him to put his plans on hold until the ring is found.”

“Just as you should have done.”

“Willard wasn’t happy.”

“You don’t say.”

“I have a feeling that he’s already plotting to bolt the farm.”

“And when he does,” Jonathan said, “you will do nothing to stop him.”

“What?” Liss was stunned. “But I don’t understand.”

“Everything is as it should be,” Jonathan said just before he disconnected.

Soraya, in the Dallas/Fort Worth airport, approached every rental-car agency with a photo of Arkadin. No one recognized him. She had something to eat, bought a paperback novel and a Snickers bar. While she ate the bar slowly, she strolled over to the desk of the airline Arkadin had flown in on and asked for the supervisor on duty.

This turned out to be a large man named Ted, who appeared to be an ex-football-lineman going to fat, as they all did sooner or later. He appraised her through the dusty lenses of his glasses and, after asking her name, suggested they go back into his office.

“I’m with Continental Insurance,” she said, snapping off a chunk of her Snickers. “I’m trying to locate a man named Stanley Kowalski.”

Ted sat back for a moment, laced his thick hands over his stomach, and said, “You’re kidding me, right?”

“No,” Soraya said, “I’m not.” She gave him the flight info on Kowalski.

Ted sighed and shrugged. Swiveling around, he checked his computer terminal. “Well, how about that,” he said, “there he is, just like you said.” He turned back to her. “Now, how can I help you?”

“I’d like to find out where he went from here.”

Ted laughed. “Now I know this is some kind of joke. This airport is one of the largest and busiest in the world. Your Mr. Kowalski could have gone anywhere, or nowhere at all.”

“He didn’t rent a car,” Soraya said. “And he didn’t make a connection to a national carrier because he went through Immigration right here in Dallas. Just to make sure, though, I checked the CCTV logs for that day.”

Ted frowned. “You sure are thorough, give you that.” He thought a moment. “But now I’m going to tell you something I bet you didn’t know. We have a number of regional carriers flying out of here.”

“I checked their CCTV logs as well.”

Ted smiled. “Well, I know you didn’t check the CCTV for our charter flights, ’cause they don’t have ’em.” He began to write on a slip of paper he tore off a pad. Then he handed it over. “These are their names.” He winked at her. “Good huntin’.”

She hit the jackpot at the fifth name Ted had given her. A pilot there remembered Arkadin’s face, though he didn’t give his name as Stanley Kowalski.

“Said his name was Slim Pickens.” The pilot screwed up his face. “Weren’t there an actor by that name?”

“Coincidence,” Soraya said. “Where did you take Mr. Pickens?”

“Tucson International Airport, ma’am.”

“Tucson, huh?”

Soraya thought, Why in hell would Arkadin want to go to Tucson? And then, as if a switch had been thrown in her head, she knew.

Mexico.

Having checked into a small hotel in Chelsea, Bourne stood under a hot shower, sluicing away the sweat and grime of his ordeal. The muscles in his neck, shoulders, and back throbbed with a deep-seated ache in the aftermath of the collision and his long run off the motorway.

Just thinking the words Severus Domna sent echoes through his mind. It was maddening not being able to pluck the memories out of his fogbound past. He was certain that he had once known about it. Why? Had the group been the target of a Treadstone mission Conklin had sent him on? He had obtained the Dominion ring somewhere, from someone, for some specific reason, but beyond those three vague facts was only an impenetrable mist. Why had Holly’s father stolen the ring from his brother? Why had he given it to Holly? Who was her uncle, what was the ring to him? Bourne couldn’t ask Holly. That left her uncle, whoever he was.

He turned off the water, stepped out of the stall, and vigorously rubbed himself down with a towel. Perhaps he should return to Bali. Were either of Holly’s parents still alive, still living there? Suparwita might know, but he had no phone, there was no way to contact him save to return to Bali and ask him in person. Then it came to him. There was a better way to get the information he needed, and the plan he was formulating would serve two purposes because it would trap Leonid Arkadin.

His mind still working at a fever clip, he put on clothes he had bought at Marks & Spencer in Oxford Street on his way to the hotel. These included a dark-colored suit and black turtleneck. He polished his shoes with the kit provided in the room, then took a taxi to Diego Hererra’s house in Sloane Square.

This proved to be a redbrick Victorian affair with a steeply pitched slate roof and a pair of conical turrets, sticking up into the night sky like horns. A brass door-knocker in the shape of a stag’s head looked stoically out on all visitors. Diego himself opened the door to Bourne’s knock.

He smiled thinly. “No worse for the wear and tear of yesterday’s adventure, I see.” He waved a hand. “Come in, come in.”

Diego wore dark trousers and an elegant evening jacket probably more appropriate to the Vesper Club. Bourne, however, still held the clothing instincts of an academic professor and was as uncomfortable in formal dress wear as he would have been in a medieval suit of armor.

He led Bourne through an old-fashioned parlor, lit by antique lamps with frosted-glass shades, into a dining room dominated by a polished mahogany table over which hung a crystal chandelier, now dimly lit, casting the light of a thousand stars across jewel-toned wallpaper and oak wainscoting. Two place settings beckoned. While Bourne sat, Diego poured them glasses of an excellent sherry to go with the small plates of grilled fresh sardines, papas fritas, paper-thin slices of rosy Serrano ham, small disks of fat-speckled chorizo, and a platter of three Spanish cheeses.

“Please help yourself,” Diego said when he joined Bourne at the table. “This is the custom in Spain.”

As they ate Bourne was aware of Diego watching him. At length, Diego said, “My father was very pleased that you came to see me.”

Pleased or interested? Bourne wondered. “How is Don Fernando?”

“As always.” Diego was eating like a bird, picking at his food. He either had no appetite or had something important on his mind. “He’s quite fond of you, you know.”

“I lied to him about who I was.”

Diego laughed. “You do not know my father. I’m quite sure he was interested only in whether you were friend or enemy.”

“I am Leonid Arkadin’s enemy, as he well knows.”

“Precisely.” Diego spread his hands. “Well, we all have that in common. This is the tie that binds.”

Bourne pushed away his plate. “Actually, I was wondering about that.”

“In what way, may I ask?”

“We’re all bound by our acquaintance with Noah Perlis. Your father knew Perlis, didn’t he?”

Diego didn’t miss a beat. “As a matter of fact he didn’t. Noah was my friend. We’d go to the casino-the Vesper Club-and gamble the night away. This is what Noah liked to do best when he was in London. The moment I knew he was coming I’d set it all up-his credit line, the chips.”

“And, of course, the girls.”

Diego grinned. “Of course the girls.”

“Didn’t he want to see Tracy-and Holly?”

“When they were here, but most times they weren’t.”

“You were a foursome.”

Diego frowned. “Why would you think that?”

“Judging by the photos in Noah’s flat.”

“What are you implying?”

Something almost imperceptible had crept into Diego’s demeanor. A tension akin to a subtle ripple emanating from the core of him. Bourne was pleased that his probing had struck a nerve.

Bourne shrugged. “Nothing, really, other than in those photos you all looked very close.”

“As I said, we were friends.”

“Closer than friends, I would think.”

At that moment Diego glanced down at his watch. “If you fancy a bit of a flutter, now’s the time to take ourselves to Knightsbridge.”

The Vesper Club was a very posh casino in London’s very posh West End. It was one of those discreet affairs, hardly noticeable from the street, the polar opposite of the exclusive velvet-rope nightclubs in New York and Miami Beach that revel in their crassness.

Inside it was all butter-soft leather banquettes at the restaurant, a long, snaking brass-and-glass, neon-lit bar, and a number of gaming rooms clad in marble, mirrors, and stone columns with Doric capitals. They passed among the slots. Off to one side was the electronic gaming room whose high-decibel rock music and neon lights seemed to blink Go! Bourne peered in, saw that it was patrolled by a guard. He guessed the club figured the younger clients were more apt to get rowdy than the older, more established ones.

They went down several steps into the more sedate but no less opulent main gaming area, featuring all the usual suspects: baccarat, roulette, poker, blackjack. The oval room was filled with the low buzz of bets being made, roulette wheels spinning, the calls of the croupiers, and the ubiquitous clink of glassware. They wound their way through this expanse to a green baize door guarded by a large man in a tuxedo. The moment he caught sight of Diego, he smiled and gave a small deferential nod.

“How are you this evening, Mr. Hererra?”

“Quite all right, Donald.” He gestured. “This is my friend Adam Stone.”

“Good evening, sir.” Donald opened the door, which swung inward. “Welcome to the Vesper Club’s Empire Suite.”

“This was where Noah liked to play poker,” Diego said over his shoulder. “Only high stakes, only expert players.”

Bourne looked around at the dark walls, the solid-marble floor, three kidney-shaped tables; the hunched shoulders and concentrated expressions of the men and women who sat around the green baize analyzing the cards, sizing up their opponents and placing their bets accordingly. “I wasn’t aware that Noah had the kind of money to be a high-roller.”

“He didn’t. I staked him to it.”

“Wasn’t that risky?”

“Not with Noah.” Diego grinned. “When it came to poker he was an expert’s expert. Before an hour went by I’d get my money back and then some. I’d go and play with the profit. It was a good deal for both of us.”

“Did the girls come here?”

“What girls?”

“Tracy and Holly,” Bourne said patiently.

Diego looked thoughtful. “Once or twice, I suppose.”

“You don’t remember.”

“Tracy liked to gamble, Holly didn’t.” Diego’s shrug was an attempt to conceal his growing discomfort. “But surely you know this already.”

“Tracy didn’t like to gamble.” Bourne kept any hint of accusation out of his voice. “She hated her job, which caused her to gamble almost every day.”

Diego turned back to him, a look of consternation on his face, or was it fear?

“She worked for Leonid Arkadin,” Bourne continued. “But surely you knew this already.”

Diego licked his lips. “Actually, I had no idea.” He looked as if he wanted to sit down. “But how… how is this possible?”

“Arkadin was blackmailing her,” Bourne said. “He had something on her, what was it?”

“I… I don’t know,” Diego said in a shaky voice.

“You need to tell me, Diego. It’s vitally important.”

“Why? Why is it vitally important? Tracy is dead-she and Holly are both dead. And now Noah, too. Shouldn’t they all be left in peace?”

Bourne took a step toward him. Though he lowered his voice, it was full of menace. “But Arkadin is still alive. He was responsible for Holly’s death. And it was your friend Noah who murdered Holly.”

“No!” Diego stiffened. “You’re wrong, he couldn’t possibly-”

“I was there when it happened, Diego. Noah pushed her off a flight of steps at the top of a temple in East Bali. That, my friend, is fact, not the fiction you’ve been feeding me.”

“Drink,” Diego said in a voice made thin and hoarse by his consternation.

Bourne took him by the elbow and walked him over to the small bar at the rear of the Empire Suite. Diego lurched on stiff legs as if he were already drunk. As soon as he collapsed on a stool he ordered a double whiskey-no refined sherry for him now. He drank the whiskey off in three long gulps, then asked for another. He would have downed all of that, as well, if Bourne hadn’t pulled the glass out of his unsteady hand and set it down on the black granite bartop.

“Noah killed Holly.” Diego was slumped over, staring into the depths of the whiskey, into a past that he’d thought he knew. “What a fucking nightmare.”

Diego did not seem to be a man prone to foul language. He was clearly out of his element, which indicated that he wasn’t privy to his father’s illicit arms trafficking. Neither, apparently, did he know what Noah had done for a living.

Suddenly his head swung around and he looked at Bourne. “Why? Why would he do that?”

“He wanted something she had. Apparently she wouldn’t give it to him voluntarily.”

“So he killed her?” Diego looked incredulous. “What kind of man would do something like that?” He shook his head slowly and sadly. “I can’t conceive of anyone wanting to harm her.”

Bourne noticed that Diego hadn’t said, I can’t conceive of Noah wanting to harm her. “Clearly,” he said, “Noah was not who you thought he was.” He refrained from adding, Neither was Tracy.

Diego grabbed the glass and finished off the second double. “Good God,” he whispered.

Very gently Bourne said, “Tell me about the four of you, Diego.”

“I need another drink.”

Bourne ordered him a single this time. Diego lunged for the glass like a life jacket thrown to a drowning man. At one of the tables a woman in a glittery gown cashed in, rose, and walked out. Her place was taken by a man with the shoulders of a football player. A heavyish older woman with frosted hair, who had apparently just come in, sat down at the middle table. All three tables were full up.

Diego took two convulsive swallows of whiskey, then said in a voice bled dry, “Tracy and I had a thing, nothing serious, we saw other people-at least she did. It was very off-and-on, very casual. We had a few giggles, nothing more. We didn’t want it to disturb our friendship.”

Something in his voice alerted Bourne. “That’s not all of it, is it?”

Diego’s mournful expression deepened, and he looked away. “No,” he said. “I fell in love with her. I didn’t mean to, I didn’t even want to,” he added, as if it had been within his power to choose. “She was so nice about it, so kind. But still…” His voice drifted away on a tide of sad memories.

Bourne thought it time to move on. “And Holly?”

Diego seemed to snap out of his daze. “Noah seduced her. I saw it happening, I thought it was amusing, in a way, that no harm would come of it. Please don’t ask me why.”

“What happened?”

Diego sighed. “As it turned out Noah had a thing for Tracy, a very bad thing. For her part she wanted nothing to do with him, she told him flat-out.” He took another gulp of his whiskey. He was drinking it as if it were water. “The thing she wouldn’t say, even to me, was that she didn’t really like Noah, or at least she didn’t trust him.”

“Which meant?”

“Tracy was very protective of Holly, she saw Noah moving in on Holly because he couldn’t have her. She felt Noah was just being cynical and self-destructive while Holly was taking the liaison far more seriously. She believed it would end in tears-Holly’s tears.”

“Why didn’t she step in, tell Noah to back off?”

“She did. He told her-far too bluntly, if you ask me-to stay out of it.”

“Did you talk to him?”

Diego looked even more miserable than before. “I should have, I know, but I didn’t believe Tracy, or maybe I chose not to believe her because if I did, then the situation had already gotten so messy and I didn’t…”

“What, you didn’t want to get your hands dirty?”

Diego nodded, but he wouldn’t meet Bourne’s eyes.

“You must have had your own suspicions about Noah.”

“I don’t know, perhaps I did. But the fact is I wanted to believe in us, I wanted to believe that everything would work out all right, that we would make it all right because we cared about one another.”

“You cared about one another all right, but not in the right way.”

“Looking back now everything seems twisted, no one was who they said they were, or liked what they said they liked. I don’t even understand what drew us together.”

“That’s the point, isn’t it?” Bourne said, not unkindly. “Each one of you wanted something from someone else in the group; in one way or another all of you used your friendships as leverage.”

“Everything we did together, everything we said or confided to one another was a lie.”

“Not necessarily,” Bourne said. “You knew Tracy was working for Arkadin, didn’t you?”

“I told you I didn’t.”

“When I asked you what Arkadin had on her, do you remember what you said?”

Diego bit his lip, but said nothing.

“You said that Tracy was dead-that she and Holly were both dead, and shouldn’t they be left in peace?” He peered into Diego’s face. “That’s a response of a man who knows exactly what he’s been asked.”

Diego slapped the flat of his hand onto the bartop. “I promised her I wouldn’t tell anyone.”

“I understand,” Bourne said gently, “but keeping it a secret now doesn’t help her.”

Diego passed a hand across his face, as if trying to wipe away a memory. At the second table from them a man said, “I’m out,” pushed his chair back, rose, and stretched.

“All right.” Diego’s eyes met Bourne’s. “She said that Arkadin had helped get her brother out of terrible trouble and now he was using that against her.”

Bourne almost said, But Tracy didn’t have a brother. He caught himself and said, “What else?”

“Nothing. It was after… before we went to sleep. It was very late, she’d had too much to drink, she’d been depressed all evening and then as soon as we finished she couldn’t stop crying. I asked her if I’d done anything wrong, which only made her cry harder. I held her for a long time. When she calmed down she told me.”

Something was very wrong. Chrissie said they had no brother, Tracy told Diego they did. One of the two sisters was lying, but which one? What possible reason could Tracy have for lying to Diego, and what reason would Chrissie have to lie to him?

At that moment Bourne saw movement out of the corner of his eye. The man who had cashed in was making his way toward the bar, and within another two steps Bourne knew that he was heading straight for them.

Though the man wasn’t large he gave a formidable appearance. His black eyes seemed to smolder out of a face the color of tanned leather. His thick hair and close-cropped beard matched the color of his eyes. He had a hawk-like nose, a wide thick-lipped mouth, and cheeks like slabs of concrete. A small diagonal scar bisected one furry eyebrow. He moved with a low center of gravity, his arms loose and relaxed, though not swinging or even moving at all.

And it was this gait, this way of holding himself that marked him as a man of professional intent, a man with whom death walked from dusk until dawn. It was also these things that triggered a memory, causing it to pierce the maddening veils of Bourne’s amnesia.

A shiver of recognition passed down Bourne’s spine: This was the man who had helped him obtain the Dominion ring.

Bourne moved away from Diego. This man, whoever he was, didn’t know him as Adam Stone. As Bourne approached him, he extended his hand and a smile creased his face.

“Jason, at last I’ve caught up with you.”

“Who are you? How do you know me?”

The smile lost its luster. “It’s Ottavio. Jason, don’t you remember me?”

“Not at all.”

Ottavio shook his head. “I don’t understand. We worked together in Morocco, an assignment from Alex Conklin-”

“Not now,” Bourne said. “The man I’m with-”

“Diego Hererra, I recognize him.”

“Hererra knows me as Adam Stone.”

Ottavio nodded, at once focused. “I understand.” He glanced over Bourne’s shoulder. “Why don’t you introduce us?”

“I don’t think that would be wise.”

“Judging by Hererra’s expression, it will look odd if you don’t.”

Bourne saw that he had no choice. Turning on his heel, he led Ottavio back to the bar.

Bourne introduced them, “Diego Hererra, this is Ottavio-”

“Moreno,” Ottavio said, extending his hand for Diego to take.

As Diego did so his eyes opened wide in shock and his body slumped down onto the stool. That was when Bourne saw the scarred man pull out the slender, ceramic blade of the knife, which through sleight of hand he had palmed and slipped through Diego’s chest. Its tip was curved slightly upward, mimicking his smile, which now seemed ghastly.

Bourne grabbed him by the shirtfront and hauled him off his feet, but the scarred man would not let go of Diego’s hand. He was immensely powerful, his grip was like a vise. Bourne turned to Diego but saw that the life was already fleeing his body, the knife tip had probably pierced his heart.

“I’ll kill you for this,” Bourne whispered.

“No you won’t, Jason. I’m one of the good guys, remember?”

“I don’t remember a thing, not even your name.”

“Then you’ll just have to trust me. We’ve got to get out-”

“I’m not letting you go anywhere,” Bourne said.

“You have no choice but to trust me.” The scarred man glanced toward the door, which had just opened. “Regard the alternative.”

Bourne saw Donald the bouncer come into the Empire Suite. He was accompanied by two other brawny men in tuxedos. All of them, Bourne noted with an electric shock that passed clear through him, were wearing gold rings on the forefingers of their right hands.

“They’re Severus Domna,” the scarred man said.