The Bourne Objective

[12]

IN THE ABSOLUTE stillness of inaction, the only sound was the whisper of gamblers losing money. Ottavio handed Bourne a pair of specially baffled earplugs, along with the whispered word: “Now.”

Bourne fitted the plugs into his ear canals. He saw what looked like a ball bearing palmed out of Ottavio’s pocket, held between the forefinger and middle finger of his left hand. Only its rough surface and the earplugs gave clues to what it might be: a USW, an ultrasonic weapon.

At that moment Ottavio let the USW drop to the floor, where it rolled across the slick marble squares toward the three Severus Domna agents standing between them and the green baize door. The USW activated as soon as it hit the floor, sending out an AFS, an area field of sound, that affected the inner ears of everyone in the room, causing them to collapse in waves of dizziness.

Bourne followed Ottavio past the tables, leaping over prone bodies. Donald and the other two bouncers were on the floor with the gamblers and the dealers, but as the scarred man stepped over a bouncer the man reached up and, pulling hard on the back of his jacket, toppled him backward, then struck him hard just above the right ear. Bourne sidestepped Ottavio’s falling body. As the bouncer rose, Bourne recognized him as the man patrolling the electronic gaming room; he wore earplugs to mute the rock music. They weren’t the kind Bourne and the scarred man were using, but they had dampened the field enough for him to overcome his disorientation.

Bourne slammed his fist into the bouncer’s side. The bouncer grunted, and when he turned, he held a Walther P99 in his hand. Bourne drove the edge of his hand down onto the bouncer’s wrist. He wrested the Walther away from him and swung its butt into the bouncer’s face, but he ducked away out of reach. Bourne drove him against the wall; the bouncer hit him hard on the right biceps and Bourne’s arm went numb. The bouncer, seeking to build on his advantage, drove his fist toward Bourne’s solar plexus, but Bourne deflected the blow, buying himself time to regain feeling in his right arm.

They fought savagely and silently in a room bizarrely filled with people slumped over the gaming tables or puddled on the floor like spilled Jell-O. Their soundless fury was a blur of intense motion in a room otherwise devoid of it, lending the vicious give-and-take of hand-to-hand combat an eerie quality, as if they were battling underwater.

Oxygenated blood was rushing back into Bourne’s right arm when the bouncer got himself inside Bourne’s defense and landed a powerful blow in the same spot. Bourne’s arm dropped as if it were made of stone, and he could see the grin of triumph informing the bouncer’s face. He feinted right, which didn’t fool the man, whose grin widened. Bourne’s left elbow connected with his throat, breaking the hyoid bone. The bouncer made an odd, clicking sound as he went down and stayed down.

By this time Ottavio had regained his feet and was shaking off the effects of the blow to his head. Bourne pulled open the door and, together, they went out into the casino’s main room, walking quickly but not fast enough to draw attention to themselves. The sonic field hadn’t penetrated here. Everything was moving at a normal pace, no one yet suspected what had happened in the Empire Suite, but Bourne knew it was just a matter of time before the head of security or one of the managers went looking for Donald or one of the other two bouncers.

Bourne tried to hurry them along, but the scarred man hung back.

“Wait,” he said, “wait.”

They had removed their earplugs and the scrapes and rustlings of the rarefied world around them plunged in on them like the roar of angry surf.

“We can’t afford to wait,” Bourne said. “We need to get out of here before-”

But it was already too late. A man with a ramrod-straight back and the clear no-nonsense air of authority was striding across the main room toward them. There were too many people around for a confrontation, nevertheless Bourne saw Ottavio heading toward the manager.

Bourne cut him off and, smiling broadly, said, “Are you the floor manager?”

“Yes. Andrew Steptoe.” He made an attempt to look over Bourne’s shoulder at the green baize door outside of which Donald should have been stationed. “I’m afraid I’m rather busy at the moment. I-”

“Donald said someone would call you over.” He took Steptoe’s elbow and, inclining his head toward him, said in a confidential whisper, “I’m in the middle of one of those high-stakes battles that come along once in a great while, if you understand me.”

“I’m afraid I don’t-”

Bourne turned him away from the door to the Empire Suite. “But of course you do, a mano-a-mano duel over the poker table, I know you do. It’s a matter of money, you see.”

Money was the magic word. He had Steptoe’s full attention now. Behind the manager’s back he could see the scarred man break out into a sly smile. He walked Steptoe closer and closer to the cashier, which was on the right side of the slots room, conveniently located near the entryway so that the clientele could buy chips on their way in and the occasional winners could cash out as they left-if they made it past all the other glittering lures the gambling profession threw at them.

“How much money?” Steptoe could not keep a note of greed out of his voice.

“Half a million,” Bourne said without hesitation.

Steptoe didn’t know whether to frown or lick his chops. “I’m afraid I don’t know you…”

“James. Robert James.” They were nearing the cashier’s cage and, by proximity, the front door. “I’m an associate of Diego Hererra’s.”

“Ah. I see.” Steptoe pursed his lips. “Even so, Mr. James, this establishment does not know you personally. You understand, we cannot put up such a large amount-”

“Oh, no, that’s not what I meant to imply.” Bourne feigned shock. “Rather I need your permission to leave the premises during the game in order to obtain the amount in question, so that I can remain in the game.”

Now the manager did frown. “At this time of night?”

Bourne radiated confidence. “A wire transfer can be effected. It will only take twenty minutes-thirty, at most.”

“Well, it’s highly irregular, don’t you know.”

“Half a million pounds, Mr. Steptoe, is a large amount of money, as you yourself pointed out.”

Steptoe nodded. “Quite so.” He sighed. “I suppose that under the circumstances it can be allowed.” He waggled a forefinger in Bourne’s face. “But be quick about it, sir. I can give you no more than half an hour.”

“Understood.” Bourne shook the manager’s hand. “Thank you.”

Then he and the scarred man turned, went up the steps, across the entryway, through the glass doors, and into the windswept London night.

Several blocks away, as they turned a corner, Bourne rammed the scarred man hard against the side of a parked car and said, “Now tell me who you are and why you killed Diego.”

As the scarred man reached for his knife Bourne gripped his wrist. “Let’s have none of that,” he said. “Give me answers.”

“I would never harm you, Jason, you know that.”

“Why did you kill Diego?”

“He’d been told to bring you to the club at a certain time tonight.”

Bourne remembered Diego looking down at his watch and saying, “Now’s the time to take ourselves to Knightsbridge.” An odd way to put it, except if this man was telling the truth.

“Who told Diego to bring me there?” But Bourne already knew.

“The Severus Domna got to him-I don’t know how-but they gave him precise instructions on how to betray you.”

Bourne remembered Diego picking at his food as if he had something important on his mind. Had he been anticipating the betrayal? Was Ottavio right?

The scarred man stared into Bourne’s face. “You really don’t know me, do you?”

“I told you I didn’t.”

“My name is Ottavio Moreno.” He waited a beat. “Gustavo Moreno’s brother.”

A tiny tremor of recognition raced through Bourne as the veils of his amnesia stirred and tried to part.

“We met in Morocco.” Bourne’s voice was barely a whisper.

“Yes.” A smile creased Ottavio Moreno’s face. “In Marrakech, we traveled into the High Atlas Mountains together, didn’t we?”

“I don’t know.”

“Good God!” Ottavio Moreno’s face registered surprise, perhaps even shock. “And the laptop? What about the laptop?”

“What laptop?”

“You don’t remember the laptop?” He grabbed Bourne by the arms. “Jason, come on. We met in Marrakech in order to get the laptop.”

“Why?”

Ottavio Moreno frowned. “You told me it was a key.”

“Key to what?”

“To the Severus Domna.”

At that moment they heard the familiar high-low wail of police sirens.

“The mess we left behind in the Empire Suite,” Moreno said. “Come on, let’s go.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you,” Bourne said.

“But you must, you owe me,” Ottavio Moreno said. “You killed Noah Perlis.”

In other words,” Secretary of Defense Bud Halliday said as he scanned the report in front of him, “between retirements, normal attrition, and requests for transfer-all of which, I see, have been not only granted but expedited-a quarter of the Old Man’s CI has moved on.”

“And our own personnel have moved in.” DCI Danziger did not bother to keep the satisfaction out of his voice. The secretary appreciated confidence as much as he disliked indecision. Danziger took back the report and carefully folded it away. “It will be only a matter of months, I believe, before that number will increase to fully a third of the old guard.”

“Good, good.”

Halliday rubbed his large, square hands over the remnants of his Spartan lunch. The Occidental was abuzz with the jawing of politicos, reporters, flacks, power brokers, and industry influence peddlers. All of them had paid their respects to him in one circumspect manner or another, whether it was with a slightly terrified smile, an obeisant nod of the head, or, as in the case of the elderly and influential Senator Daughtry, a quick handshake and a down-home how-dee-do. Swing-state senators accumulated power even during non-election years, both parties seeking to curry favor. It was simply standard operating procedure inside the Beltway.

For some time, then, the two men sat in silence. The restaurant began to thin out as the denizens of the DC political pits straggled back to work. But soon enough their place was taken by tourists in striped shirts and baseball caps they’d bought from the vendors down by the Mall imprinted with CIA or FBI. Danziger returned to his lunch, which, as usual, was more substantial than Halliday’s unadorned strip steak. All that was left on the secretary’s plate were several pools of blood, clotted with congealed fat.

Across the table Halliday’s mind had drifted to the dream he couldn’t remember. He had read articles that dreams were a necessary part of sleep-REM sleep, the eggheads called it-without which a man would, eventually, go insane. On the other hand, it was certainly true that he couldn’t recall a single dream. His entire sleeping existence was a perfect blank wall on which nothing was ever scrawled.

He shook himself like a dog coming out of the rain. Why did he care? Well, he knew why. The Old Man had once confided in him that he suffered from the same strange illness-that’s what the Old Man called it, an illness. Strange to think that the two of them had once been friends, more than friends, come to think of it-what had they called it then? Blood brothers. As young men they had confided all their little tics and habits, the secrets that inhabited the dark corners of their souls. Where had it all gone wrong? How had they become the bitterest of enemies? It might have been the gradual divergence of their political views, but friends often dealt with disagreement. No, their separation had to do with a sense of betrayal, and in men such as they were, loyalty was the ultimate-the only-test of friendship.

The truth was they had betrayed what they had built as young men, as their idealism was burned away in the crucible of the nation’s capital, where they had both chosen to serve lifetime sentences. The Old Man had been an acolyte of John Foster Dulles while he had attached himself to Richard Helms-men with wildly divergent backgrounds, methodologies, and, most importantly, ideologies. And since they were in the business of ideology and that business was their life there was no recourse but to turn on each other, to try with every fiber of their being to prove the other wrong, to bring him down, to destroy him.

For decades the Old Man had outwitted him at every turn, but now the tables were turned, the Old Man was dead, and he had the prize he’d set his gaze on so long ago: control of CI.

Danziger clearing his throat brought Halliday back from the chasm of the past.

“Is there anything we’ve failed to cover?”

The secretary regarded him as a child studies an ant or a beetle, with the curiosity reserved for a species so far below him that it seemed inconceivably distant. Danziger was far from a stupid man, which was why Halliday had chosen him as his knight to move back and forth across the chessboard of the American clandestine services. But apart from his usefulness on the board, he viewed Danziger as entirely expendable. Halliday had closed himself off the moment he felt the Old Man’s betrayal. He had a wife and two children, of course, but he scarcely thought of them. His son was a poet-good Christ, a poet, of all things! And his daughter, well, the less said about her and her female partner the better. As for his wife, she had betrayed him as well, giving birth to two disappointments. These days, apart from formal functions where the strict code of Washington family values required her to be on his arm, they lived entirely separate lives. It had been years since they had slept in the same room, let alone the same bed. Occasionally they found themselves having breakfast together, a minor torture Halliday escaped as quickly as he could.

Danziger was leaning forward confidentially across the table. “If there’s anything I can help you with, you only have to-”

“I think you’ve confused me with a friend,” Halliday snapped. “The day I ask for your help is the day I put a gun in my mouth and pull the trigger.”

He slid out of the booth and walked away without a backward glance, leaving Danziger to pay the check.

Alone for the moment while Boris Karpov slept inside the convent, Arkadin poured himself a mescal and took the drink out into the steamy Sonora night. Dawn would soon be scything through the stars, extinguishing them as it went. The shorebirds were already awake, flocking out of their nests to sweep along the beachfront.

Arkadin, breathing deeply of the salt and the phosphorus, punched in a number on his cell. The phone rang for a very long time. Knowing there would be no voice mail, he was about to hang up when a raspy voice sounded in his ear.

“Who in the unholy name of Saint Stephen is this?”

Arkadin laughed. “It’s me, Ivan.”

“Why, hello, Leonid Danilovich,” Ivan Volkin said.

Volkin had once been the most powerful man in the grupperovka. Unaffiliated with any family, he had for many years been a negotiator, both between families and between the bosses of certain families and the most corrupt businessmen and politicians. He was a man, in sum, to whom practically anyone in power owed favors. And though long retired, he had defied convention by becoming even more powerful as his age advanced. He was also particularly fond of Arkadin, whose strange ascent in the underworld he’d followed since the day Maslov had him brought to Moscow from his hometown of Nizhny Tagil.

“I thought you might be the president,” Ivan Volkin said. “I told him I couldn’t help him this time.”

The thought of the president of the Russian Federation calling Ivan Volkin for a favor caused Arkadin to chuckle all the more. “Pity for him,” he said.

“I did some digging regarding your problem as you outlined it to me. You do indeed have a mole, my friend. I was able to narrow the candidates down to two, but that’s as far as I was able to get.”

“That’s more than enough, Ivan Ivanovich. You have my undying gratitude.”

Volkin laughed. “You know, my friend, you’re just about the only person on earth I don’t want anything from.”

“I could give you virtually anything you want.”

“As I well know, but to tell you the truth it’s a relief to have someone in my life who owes me nothing and to whom I owe the same. Nothing changes between us, eh, Leonid Danilovich.”

“No, Ivan Ivanovich, it doesn’t.”

After Volkin had given Arkadin the names of the two suspects, he said, “I have one more bit of information that will be of interest to you. I find it curious that I cannot tie either of these suspects to the FSB or, for that matter, any Russian secret service whatsoever.”

“Then who is running the spy in my organization?”

“Your mole has been extremely careful to keep his identity a secret-he wears dark glasses and a sweatshirt with a hood over his head, so there’s no good photo of him. However, the man he’s been meeting has been identified as Marlon Etana.”

“Odd name.” It rang a bell deep inside Arkadin’s mind, but he was unable to access it.

“Odder still is that I cannot find a single scrap of information on Marlon Etana.”

“Ah, a pseudonym, surely.”

“One would have expected that, yes,” Volkin said. “However, that would mean a legend to give the pseudonym reality. I have found nothing, except that Marlon Etana is a founding member of the Monition Club, which has many branches throughout the world, but whose headquarters seems to be in Washington, DC.”

“A deep-cover arm of CI or one of the many Hydra heads of the American Department of Defense.”

Ivan Volkin made an animal sound deep in his throat. “When you find out, Leonid Danilovich, be sure to let me know.”

Be sure to let me know,” Arkadin had said to Tracy some months ago. “Anything and everything you find out about Don Fernando Hererra, even the most minute, seemingly irrelevant bit of information.”

“Including the regularity of his bowel movements?”

He sat watching her, his feral eyes glittering, not moving, not blinking. They were seated at a café in Campione d’Italia, the picturesque Italian tax haven tucked away in the Swiss Alps. The tiny municipality rose steeply off the glassy ultramarine-blue surface of a clear mountain lake, studded with vessels of all sizes from rowboats to multimillion-dollar yachts, complete with the helipads, the copters, and, on the largest of these, the females to go with them.

For the five minutes before she had arrived, Arkadin had been watching an obscenely large yacht on which two long-stemmed models preened as if for paparazzi. They had the kind of perfectly bronzed skin only the kept woman knows how to acquire. As he sipped a small cup of espresso, which was all but lost in his large, square hand, he thought, It’s good to be the king. Then he saw the naked hairy back of this particular king and turned away in disgust. You can take the man out of hell but you can’t take hell out of the man. This was the operative phrase for Arkadin.

Then Tracy had shown up and he forgot the hell of Nizhny Tagil that plagued him like a recurring nightmare. Nizhny Tagil was where he had been born and raised, where he’d lost three toes to rats when his mother had locked him in a closet, where he had killed and was almost killed so many times he’d lost count. Nizhny Tagil was where he had lost everything, where, one could say, he had died.

He had ordered Tracy an espresso with sambuca, which was what she liked. As he stared into her beautiful face, he continued to be confounded by his conflicting feelings. He was drawn to her, intensely, but he also hated her. He hated her erudition, her vast knowledge. Every time she opened her mouth she reminded him of how little formal education he’d had. And to make matters much worse, he learned something valuable every time he was with her. How often do we despise our teachers, who lord it over us with their superior knowledge, who throw that knowledge and their experience in our faces. Every time he learned something, he was reminded of how inexorably tied to her he was, how much he needed her. Which was why he treated her as a bipolar might. He loved her, rewarded her with more and more money at the completion of each assignment, showered her with gifts between assignments.

She had never slept with him. He hadn’t tried to seduce her, fearing that in the throes of passion his iron control might weaken, that he would grab her by the throat and throttle her until her tongue poked out and her eyes rolled up in her head. He would regret her death. Over the years she had proved indispensable. With the inside knowledge she had given him, he’d been able to blackmail her wealthy art clients, and those he chose not to suborn he used as patsies, delivering drugs all over the world secreted in the crates that held their precious artwork.

Tracy ran the crescent of lemon rind around the rim of her cup. “What’s so special about Don Fernando?”

“Drink your espresso.”

She stared down at her cup but didn’t touch it.

“What’s the matter?” he said at last.

“Let’s skip him, shall we?”

He waited a moment, quietly. Then, suddenly leaning forward, he grasped her knee beneath the table in an agonizing grip. Her head snapped up, her eyes engaged with his.

“You know the rules,” he said with soft menace. “You don’t question assignments, you take them.”

“Not this one.”

“All of them.”

“I like this man.”

“All. Of. Them.”

She stared at him, unblinking.

He despised most of all when she got like this, that enigmatic mask that came down over her face, making him feel like a dim-witted child who had failed to learn how to read properly. “Have you forgotten the damaging evidence I have on you? Do you want me to go to your client and tell him how you accommodated your brother when he stole your client’s painting to cover his debts? Do you really want to spend the next twenty years of your life in prison? It’s more terrible than you can imagine, believe me.”

“I want out,” she said in a strangled voice.

He had laughed. “God, you’re a stupid cow.” Once, just once, he thought, I’d like to make you cry. “There is no out. You signed on, a contract in blood, metaphorically speaking.”

“I want out.”

He sat back, releasing her knee. “Besides, Don Fernando Hererra is only a secondary target-at least, for now.”

She had begun to shake, very slightly, and there was a tic under her left eye. She took up her espresso and drained the cup. There was a slight clatter when she set it down.

“Who are you after?”

Close, this time, he thought. Very close. “Someone special,” he had said. “A man who calls himself Adam Stone. And this assignment is a bit different.” His hands had spread wide apart. “Adam Stone is not his real name, of course.”

“What is it?”

Arkadin’s smile held real malice. He turned his head and ordered them two more espressos.

Dawn was spreading its wings over Puerto Peñasco as Arkadin’s brief flare of memory subsided into darkness. A freshening breeze off the water brought the scent of a new day. There had been women in his life-Yelena, Marlene, Devra, others, surely, though their names now escaped him-but no one like Tracy. Those three-Yelena, Marlene, and Devra-had meant something to him, though he’d be hard put to say precisely what. Each in her own way had changed the course of his life. Yet none had enriched it. Only Tracy, his Tracy. He clenched his fist. But she hadn’t been his Tracy, had she? No, no, no. Good Christ, no.

Rain drummed against the roof of the cottage, fat drops sliding down the windows. A rumble of approaching thunder. The lace curtains stirred. In the dead of night Chrissie lay fully dressed on one of the twin beds, staring at the window, speckled as a robin’s egg. Scarlett lay curled on the other bed, breathing evenly in her sleep. Chrissie knew she should be sleeping, that she needed her rest, but after the incident on the motorway her nerves would not stop singing. Several hours ago she had contemplated taking half a lorazepam to calm herself into sleep, but the thought of drifting off made her more anxious.

The singing of her nerves had only increased when she’d picked Scarlett up from her parents. Her father, always well attuned to her moods, had suspected something was up with her the moment he opened the door to her knock, and he was not convinced when she tried to reassure him that everything was fine. She could still see his thin, oblong face as he stood looking after her while she bundled Scarlett into the Range Rover. It was the same stricken look he’d had standing over Tracy’s coffin as it was lowered into the ground. As she got in behind the wheel, Chrissie breathed a sigh of relief that she’d had the foresight to park the SUV so that he couldn’t see the scrapes along one side. She waved cheerfully to him as she drove away. He was still standing in the doorway when she went around a curve and disappeared from his view.

Now, hours later and miles away, she lay on the bed in a house owned by a girlfriend who was away in Brussels on business. She’d been able to pick up the keys from the woman’s brother. In the dark she lay listening to all the tiny creaking and moaning, whispers and hissing of a strange house. The wind clawed at the window sashes, trying to find a way in. She shivered and pulled a blanket tighter around her, but the blanket didn’t warm her. Neither did the central heating. There was a chill in her bones, caused by her vibrating nerves, and the dread that stalked her thoughts.

“We were being followed, possibly all the way from Tracy’s flat,” Adam had said. “There’s no point in taking a chance these people know about Scarlett-and where your parents live, for that matter.”

The thought that these people who had wanted to shoot Adam might know about her daughter gave her a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. She wanted to feel safe here, wanted to believe that there was no danger now that she had separated herself from him, but the doubts continued to prey on her. Another roll of thunder, closer this time, and then another burst of rain rattled the windowpane. She sat up, gasping. Her heart was pounding, and she reached for the Glock that Adam had given her for protection. She had some experience with guns, though mostly rifles and shotguns. Against her mother’s objections, her father had taken her hunting on winter Sundays, when the frost was brittle and the sun was weak and drained of color. She remembered the quivering flank of a deer, and how she had flinched when her father had fired a shot into its heart. She remembered the look in its eye as her father had taken his skinning knife to its belly. Its mouth was half open as if it had been about to ask for mercy before it was shot.

Scarlett whimpered in her sleep, and Chrissie rose and, leaning over, stroked her hair as she always did when her daughter was having a bad dream. Why were children burdened with nightmares, she wondered, when there was so much time for nightmares in adult life? Where was the carefree childhood she’d had? Was it a mirage? Had she also had nightmares, night terrors, anxieties? She could not now remember, which was a blessing.

She knew one thing, though, Tracy would have laughed at her for even having such thoughts. “Life isn’t carefree,” she could hear her sister saying. “What are you thinking? Life is difficult, at best. At its worst, it’s a bloody nightmare.”

What would have led her to say such a thing? Chrissie asked herself. What misfortunes had befallen her while I had my head stuck in my Oxford texts? All at once she was overcome with the conviction that she had failed Tracy, that she should have seen the signs of her stress, her difficult life. But, really, how could she have helped her? Tracy had been lost in a world so distant, so alien, Chrissie was sure she would have found it incomprehensible. Just as she could make no sense of what had happened today. Who was Adam Stone? She had no doubt that he’d been friends with Tracy, but she suspected now that he was more-a compatriot, business partner, maybe even her boss. Something he hadn’t told her, hadn’t wanted to tell her. All she knew for certain was that her sister’s life had been a secret, and so was Adam’s. They had been part of the same alien world, and now all unknowing she had been dragged into it. She gave a shiver again and, seeing that Scarlett had quieted, lay beside her so that they were back-to-back. Her daughter’s warmth seeped slowly into her, her eyelids grew heavy, and she began to drowse, sinking slowly, inexorably into the delicious cushion of sleep.

A sharp noise startled her awake. For a moment she lay completely still, listening to the rain, the wind, Scarlett breathing along with the cottage. She listened for the noise. Had she dreamed it or had she been asleep at all? After what seemed a long time, she got out of Scarlett’s bed, reached over, and slid her hand under the pillow for the Glock. Padding silently toward the half-open bedroom door, she peered out at the wedge of pale light from the lamp she’d kept on in the bedroom across the hall so she and Scarlett could find the bathroom without barking their shins.

She moved into the hallway, listened fiercely. She became aware of sweat snaking down her sides from underneath her arms. Her breath felt hot in her throat. Every second that ticked by ratcheted up her anxiety, but also the hope that she had dreamed the noise. Gliding along the hallway, she peered down the stairs at the darkened living room. Standing at the head of the stairs, undecided, she had just about convinced herself that she’d been dreaming when she heard the small noise again.

Slowly she put one bare foot after the other as she descended from semi-darkness into blackness. She needed to get all the way down the stairs before she could reach the switch that turned on the living room lights. The staircase loomed before her, seeming steeper, more treacherous in the dark. Briefly she thought about going back upstairs to look for a flashlight, but felt that she might lose her nerve if she turned around now. She kept descending, tread by tread. They were of wood, polished to a high gloss, without the benefit of a runner. Once, she slipped and, pitching forward, almost lost her balance. Grabbing for the railing, she held on while her pulse beat wildly in her ears.

Calm down, she told herself. Just bloody well calm those nerves, Chrissie. There’s no one there.

The noise came again, louder this time because she was closer to it, and she knew: Someone was inside the house.

Just after sunset, on the day Karpov had begun his long trek back to Moscow, Arkadin and El Heraldo set off in the cigarette. Arkadin maneuvered the slender powerboat beyond the slips without running lights, which was illegal, but necessary. Besides, as he had quickly learned, in Mexico the line between legal and illegal moved more times than the front lines of a war. Not to mention the fact that what was illegal and what was enforceable were often at odds.

The cigarette’s powerful GPS system was deeply hooded, so that no illumination leaked out into the blue velvet of dusk. Stars had gathered in the eastern sky, eager to display their splendor.

“Time,” Arkadin said.

“Eight minutes,” El Heraldo replied, consulting his watch.

Arkadin altered their course by a couple of degrees. They were already past the perimeter of the policía patrols, but still he did not turn on any lights. The GPS screen told him everything he needed to know. The multi-baffled mufflers El Heraldo had installed on the exhaust were working to perfection; the cigarette made scarcely any noise as it skimmed over the water at high speed.

“Five minutes,” El Heraldo intoned.

“We’ll be in visual range in a moment.”

That was El Heraldo’s cue to take the wheel while Arkadin peered through a pair of military high-power night-vision binoculars toward the south.

“Got ’em,” he said, after a moment.

At once El Heraldo cut their speed by half.

Arkadin, peering through the binoculars at the oncoming boat-a yacht that must have cost upward of fifty million dollars-saw the infrared flashes, two long, two short, visible only to him.

“All’s well,” he said. “Full stop.”

El Heraldo cut the engines, and the cigarette cut through the swells on its own momentum. Dead ahead the yacht loomed up out of the darkness. It, too, had all its lights extinguished. As Arkadin prepared himself, El Heraldo put on the night goggles and manned the infrared beacon. The yacht was equipped with an identical beacon, which was how the two boats drew alongside each other without lights and without incident.

A rope ladder was unfurled over the yacht’s port side, and El Heraldo made it fast to the cigarette. A man, dressed in black, handed down a small carton. El Heraldo received it on his shoulder, then placed it on the cigarette’s deck.

Using a pocketknife, Arkadin slit the carton open. Inside were cans of prepackaged organic corn tortillas. Arkadin opened one, pulled out the roll of tortillas. Inside the roll were stacked four plastic-wrapped packages of a white powder. He stuck the blade of his knife into a packet and tasted its contents. Satisfied, he waved a prearranged signal to the crew member on the yacht. Inserting the bag of cocaine back into the can, he returned it to the carton, and El Heraldo lifted it up to the crewman.

A short whistle came from the yacht as the crewman vanished up the ladder, and Arkadin waited. Moments later two rather large bundles were lowered via a portable winch. The bundles, lying horizontal, were each perhaps six feet in length. They were cradled in a net as if they were a pair of tuna.

When the bundles reached the cigarette’s deck, El Heraldo rolled them off the net, which was immediately winched back up to the yacht. Then El Heraldo detached the rope ladder, which was also withdrawn.

Another whistle, longer this time, came from the yacht. Behind the wheel, El Heraldo started the engines, put the cigarette into reverse, and began to back away from the yacht. When they had reached an adequate distance, the yacht began to move forward, continuing its journey northward, up the coast of Sonora.

As El Heraldo turned the cigarette around, heading them east, back toward shore, Arkadin took up a flashlight and, squatting down, slashed the coverings at one end of the bundles. Then he shone the flashlight on what was inside.

The faces of the two men appeared pale in the light, except where their beards had started to grow. They were still groggy with the anesthetic they had been given when they had been abducted in Moscow. Nevertheless their eyes, which hadn’t seen light for some days, screwed up, watering unstoppably.

“Good evening, gentlemen,” Arkadin said, invisible behind the dazzle of the beam of light. “At last you have reached the end of your journey. For one of you, at least. Stepan, Pavel, you were two of my captains, two of my most trusted men. And yet one of you has betrayed me.”

He showed them how the light turned the blade of his knife into a white streak. “In the next hour or so one of you will confess and will tell me everything he knows about his betrayal. A quick, painless death will be his reward. If not… has either of you ever known anyone who has died of thirst? No? God help you, that’s not the way any human being should die.”

For an instant Chrissie froze, unsure what to do as her fight and flight responses warred with each other. Then she took a deep breath and thought about the situation rationally. Retreating wouldn’t help; she’d be trapped on the second floor, and whoever had invaded the cottage would be that much closer to Scarlett. Her only thought now was for her daughter. Whatever happened, she knew she had to keep her safe.

She took a tentative step down, then another. Five treads to go before she could flick the lights on. With her back to the wall, she slowly descended. The noise came again and she froze. It sounded as if someone had come in through the kitchen door and now moved into the living room. She raised the Glock, swinging it in a slow arc as she squinted into the gloom. But apart from the partial outline of the sofa and one wing of an armchair opposite the fireplace, she could make out nothing, certainly no movement, no matter how furtive.

Another step down, another step closer to the light switch. She was only one tread away from it now, her torso leaning forward, free hand outstretched when, with an indrawn gasp, she started back. Someone was close to her, at the bottom of the stairs. In a confused swirl she felt movement on the other side of the newel post, and she raised the Glock, aiming it.

“Who’s there?” Her voice startled her, as if it belonged to a dream or to someone else. “Stay where you are, I’ve got a gun.”

“Cookie, where in the bloody hell did you get a handgun?” her father said from out of the darkness. “I knew something was wrong. What’s going on?”

She flipped on the light and saw him standing there, his face pale and pinched with concern.

“Dad?” She blinked, as if she couldn’t believe it was really him. “What are you doing here?”

“Cookie, where’s Scarlett?”

“Upstairs. She’s sleeping.”

He nodded. “Good, let’s keep it that way.”

He gripped the barrel of the Glock and pushed it down to her side. “Now come on over here. I’ll light a fire, and you’ll tell me what sort of trouble you’re in.”

“I’m not in any trouble, Dad. Does Mum know you’re here?”

“Your mum is as worried about you as I am. Her way of dealing with things is to cook, which she’s doing right now. I’m meant to bring you and Scarlett back home with me.”

Like a sleepwalker, she came down off the stairs and into the living room. Her father was turning on lamps. “I can’t do that, Dad.”

“Why not?” He waved a hand. “Never mind, I didn’t think you would.” He stooped, putting some logs into the grate. Then he checked around. “Where are the matches?”

He padded into the kitchen. She could hear him pulling out drawers and rummaging through them.

“It’s not that I’m not grateful, Dad. But really, you’re an idiot for coming out here in the middle of the night. What did you do, follow me? And how did you get in here?” She followed him into the kitchen.

A callused hand came over her mouth and, at the same time, the Glock was wrenched out of her grip. A deep swirl of masculine scent. Then she saw her father lying unconscious on the floor and she began to struggle.

“Stay still,” a voice whispered in her ear. “If you don’t, I’ll take you upstairs and blow your daughter’s face off while you watch.”

[13]

WHEN SORAYA ARRIVED at the Tucson airport, she went straight to the line of rental-car booths and showed the photo of “Stanley Kowalski” around to all the personnel without getting a hit. That name was not on their books-not that she had expected it to come up. A professional of Arkadin’s skill level wouldn’t be careless enough to rent a car under the same false name he’d used at Immigration. Undaunted, she sought out the managers of each company. Because she had the date and the time that Arkadin passed through the airport, she had arranged to arrive at more or less the same hour. She asked the managers who had been on duty nine days ago. The same personnel were on duty save one, a woman with the unlikely name of Biffy Flisser, who had quit to take a hospitality position at the Best Western airport hotel. None of the salespeople recognized Arkadin.

The manager was gracious enough to call the Best Western, and Biffy Flisser was waiting for Soraya when she walked into the cool, airy lobby. They sat in the lounge and had drinks while they spoke. Biffy had a pleasant nature and readily agreed to help Soraya with her search.

“Yeah, I know him,” she said, tapping the surveillance photo on Soraya’s phone. “I mean, I don’t really know him, but yeah, he rented a car on that date.”

“You’re sure.”

“Positive.” Biffy nodded. “He wanted a long-term lease. A month or six weeks, he said. I told him in that case we could give him a special rate and he seemed pleased.”

Soraya waited a moment. “Do you recall his name?” she asked casually.

“This is important, isn’t it?”

“It would certainly help me out.”

“Let me see.” She drummed her lacquered fingernails against the tabletop. “Frank, I think, Frank something…” She concentrated all the harder, then brightened. “That’s it! Frank Stein. Frank Norman Stein, actually.”

Frank N. Stein. Soraya burst out into laughter.

“What?” Biffy seemed confused. “What’s so funny?”

This Arkadin was a real card, Soraya thought on her way back to the airport. Then she was brought up short. Or was he? Why would he deliberately use a name that might stick out? Possibly he planned to ditch the car somewhere across the border.

She felt suddenly deflated. Even so, she continued her investigation. Seeking out the rental-car manager, she gave him the fake name Arkadin had used. “What car did he rent?”

“Just a moment.” The manager turned to his computer terminal, input the name and the date. “A black Chevy, an old one, an ’87. A heap, really, but apparently that satisfied him.”

“You keep cars that long?”

The manager nodded. “For one thing, here in the desert they don’t rust. For another, since so many of our cars are stolen, it pays to rent out the old ones. Besides, customers like the gentle prices.”

Soraya copied down the information, including the license plate tag, but without much hope that if she even found the car it would lead to Arkadin. Then she rented a car of her own, thanked the manager, and walked into a café, where she sat down and ordered an iced coffee. She’d learned the hard way not to order iced tea outside New York, Washington, or LA. Americans liked their iced tea achingly sweet.

While she waited, she opened a detailed map of Arizona and northern Mexico. Mexico was a big country, but she guessed Arkadin might be somewhere within a hundred-mile radius of the airport. Otherwise, why specifically choose Tucson when he could have flown into Mexico City or Acapulco? No, she decided, his destination had to be northwestern Mexico, possibly even just across the border.

Her iced coffee came, and she drank it black and unsugared, savoring the acidic bite that chased its way down her throat and into her stomach. She drew a circle around the airport that encompassed one hundred miles. That was her search area.

The moment Soraya left his office, the manager took out a small key from his trouser pocket and unlocked the lowest drawer on the right side of his desk. Inside were files, a handgun registered in his name, and a head shot photo. He brought the photo into the light, staring at it for several moments. Then, pursing his lips, he turned the photo over, read the local number off to himself, and dialed it on his office phone.

When the male voice answered, he said, “Someone came looking for your man-the man in the photo you gave me… She said her name was Soraya Moore, she gave me no reason to disbelieve her… No official ID, no… I did just as you said… No sweat on that score… No, of course you don’t understand. What I mean is that it’ll be easy, I rented her a car…”

“… a Toyota Corolla, silver-blue, license tag… D as in David, V as in Victor, N as in Nancy, three-three-seven-eight.”

There was a bit more, but it was of no interest to Soraya. The tiny electronic bug she had affixed to the underside of the manager’s desk was working perfectly, the manager’s voice came through with crystal clarity. Pity she couldn’t hear the voice on the other end of the line. However, she now knew that someone had staked out the Tucson airport, possibly others near the border with Mexico. She also knew that whoever these people were they were going to follow her into Mexico. One thing stood out: The person the manager had called didn’t understand American jargon. That left out Mexicans, who this close to the border made an almost fetishistic habit of learning every possible English colloquialism and street phrasing. The person had to be a foreigner, possibly Russian. And if, as she suspected, he was one of Arkadin’s people put in place to look out for Dimitri Maslov’s hit squad, this just might be her lucky day.

The first thing Peter Marks did on disembarking at London’s Heathrow Airport was call Willard.

“Where are you?” Marks said.

“The less you know the better.”

Marks bridled at that. “The last thing anyone needs in the field is to fly blind,” he snapped.

“I’m trying to protect you from Liss. When he calls you-and believe me he will-you’ll tell him truthfully that you don’t know where I am, and for you that will be the end of it.”

Peter showed his official government ID to Immigration, and they stamped his passport and waved him through. “But not for you.”

“Let me worry about that, Peter. You have enough on your plate getting the ring from Bourne.”

“I have to find him first,” Marks said, approaching the baggage carousel.

“You’ve had dealings with Bourne,” Willard said. “I trust you’ll find him.”

Marks was outside now, in a typically dreary London morning. He glanced at his watch. It was appallingly early and already the sky was spitting rain in fitful bursts.

“No one really knows Bourne,” he said, “not even Soraya.”

“That’s because nothing about him makes sense,” Willard pointed out. “He’s completely unpredictable.”

“Well, you can hardly complain. I mean Treadstone made him this way.”

“It absolutely did not,” Willard said hotly. “Whatever happened to him, the form of amnesia he’s suffered has changed him irrevocably. Speaking of which, I want you to see a Chief Inspector Lloyd-Philips. Bourne may have been involved in a murder at the Vesper Club in the West End last night. Start looking for him there.”

Marks made several quick notes on the palm of his hand. “You’re the one who isn’t understandable.” He was standing in line for a taxi, periodically shuffling forward. Speaking in a low voice, he covered his mouth with his hand. “You went out of your way to help him in Bali, now you seem to want to examine him like a circus freak.”

“He is a freak, Peter. A very dangerous freak-he’s already murdered Noah Perlis and now he may be implicated in another death. How much more proof do you need that he’s out of control? I don’t want you to forget that fact or lose sight of our goal. The Treadstone training made him into an ultimate warrior, but then something unforeseen-a freak of fate or nature, whatever you choose to call it-altered him further. He became something unknown, something more. Which is why I’ve pitted him against Arkadin. As I’ve already explained to you, Arkadin, being the first of Treadstone’s graduates, was subjected to a form of extreme training that-well, after he escaped and disappeared, Conklin decided to modify the training, to scale it back, make it less… extreme.”

Having reached the head of the line, Marks slid into the backseat of the taxi and gave the address of a small hotel he liked in the West End.

“If Treadstone is to go forward, if it’s to be successful, if it’s to fulfill its promise, we must find out who will prevail.” Willard’s voice buzzed in Marks’s ear like a wasp beating against a windowpane. “Depending on who is left alive, we’ll know how to proceed.”

Marks stared out the window, seeing nothing. “I want to get this straight. If Arkadin prevails, you’ll go back to the initial training methodology.”

“With several minor tweaks I’ve got in mind.”

“But what if Bourne kills Arkadin? You don’t know-”

“That’s right, Peter, we’ll be faced with an X-factor. The process will, therefore, take longer. We’ll have to study Bourne in a controlled environment. We’ll-”

“Wait a minute. Are you talking about imprisoning him?”

“Subjecting him to repeated batteries of psychological tests, yes, yes.” Willard sounded impatient, as if he’d made his point but Marks was too stupid to get it. “This is the essence of Treadstone, Peter. This is what Alex Conklin devoted his life to.”

“But why? I just don’t get it.”

“The Old Man didn’t either, not really.” Willard sighed. “Sometimes I think Alex was the only American to learn from the tragic mistakes of the war in Vietnam. It was his special genius, you see, to anticipate Iraq and Afghanistan. He saw the new world coming. He knew that the old methods of waging war were as antiquated, as certain to fail as the Napoleonic code.

“While the Pentagon was spending billions on stockpiling smart bombs, nuclear submarines, stealth bombers, supersonic jet fighters, Alex was concentrated on building the one weapon of war he knew would be effective: human beings. Treadstone’s mission from the very first day of its inception was to build the perfect human weapon: fearless, merciless, skilled at infiltration, subterfuge, misdirection, mimicry. A weapon of a thousand faces who could be anyone, go anywhere, kill any target without remorse, and return to take on the next mission.

“And now you see what a visionary Alex was. What he saw has, indeed, come to pass. What we create in the Treadstone program will become America’s most potent weapon against its enemies, no matter how clever they are, no matter how remote their location. Do you think I’m going to bury something invaluable? I made a deal with the devil so that Treadstone would be resurrected.”

“And what,” Marks said, “if the devil has other ideas for Treadstone?”

“Then,” Willard replied, “the devil will have to be dealt with in some manner.” There was a slight pause. “Arkadin or Bourne, it makes no difference to me. Only the outcome of their struggle for survival interests me. And either way, I will have them-one or the other-as the prototype for the graduates Treadstone will produce.”

Start at the beginning,” Bourne said. “This has all the earmarks of a nightmare.”

“The long and the short of it,” Ottavio Moreno said with a sigh, “is that you had no right to kill Noah Perlis.”

The two men were in a safe house in Thamesmead, a small developed area directly across the river from the London City Airport. It was one of those modern crackerjack boxes being thrown up all over the sprawling suburbs that were as flimsy as they looked. They had driven there in Moreno’s gray Opel, as anonymous a car as you were likely to find in London. They’d eaten some cold chicken and pasta out of the fridge, washed it down with a bottle of decent South African wine, and then had retired to the living room where they literally threw themselves onto the sofas.

“Perlis killed Holly Moreau.”

“Perlis was business,” Ottavio Moreno pointed out.

“So, I think, was Holly.”

Ottavio Moreno nodded. “But then it became personal, didn’t it?”

Bourne had no good reply to that, since the answer was obvious to both of them.

“Water under the bridge,” Moreno said, taking Bourne’s silence as acquiescence. “The point that you’ve forgotten is that I hired Perlis to find the laptop.”

“He had no laptop; he had the ring.”

Moreno shook his head. “Forget the ring and try to remember the laptop.”

Bourne felt as if he were sinking deeper and deeper into quicksand. “You mentioned the laptop before, but I have no memory of it.”

“In that event I imagine you have no memory of how you stole it from Jalal Essai’s home.”

Bourne shook his head helplessly.

Moreno dug his thumbs into his eyes for a moment. “I see what you meant when you said start at the beginning.”

Bourne, saying nothing, watched him carefully. The constant problem with people arising out of his past was this: Who were they really and were they telling him the truth? A man with no memory isn’t difficult to lie to. In fact, Bourne reflected, it was probably fun to lie to an amnesiac and watch his reactions.

“You were given an assignment to get the laptop computer.”

“By whom?”

Moreno shrugged. “Alex Conklin, I imagine. Anyway, we made contact in Marrakech.”

Morocco again. Bourne sat forward. “Why would I contact you?”

“I was Alex Conklin’s contact there.” When Bourne gave him a skeptical look, he added, “I’m a half brother. My mother is a Berber, from the High Atlas Mountains.”

“Your father got around.”

“Make a joke, okay, it’s all right, I won’t gut you.” Ottavio Moreno laughed. “Christ, this is a fucked-up world.” He shook his head in disbelief. “Okay, look, my friend. My father had his thumb in a shitload of pies, most of them illegal, yes, I freely admit it. So what? So his business ventures took him to many places around the world, some of them strange.”

“Business wasn’t the only thing he had a healthy appetite for,” Bourne said.

Ottavio Moreno nodded. “Too true. He had an eye for exotic women.”

“Are there any other little half Morenos running around?”

Moreno laughed. “There very well might be, knowing my father. But if there are, I don’t know about them.”

Bourne decided there was nothing more to be gained by taking the subject of the elder Moreno’s love life any farther. “Okay, you say that you were Conklin’s contact in Marrakech.”

“I don’t say it,” Ottavio Moreno said with a slight frown, “I was that man.”

“I suppose you can’t produce any canceled checks from the Treadstone account.”

“Ha, ha,” Moreno said, but it wasn’t a laugh. He took out a pack of Gauloises Blondes, shook one out, and lit up. He stared at Bourne while he blew smoke at the ceiling. At length, he said, “Am I wrong in thinking we’re on the same page?”

“I don’t know. Are we?”

Bourne got up and went into the kitchen to get himself a glass of cold water. He was angry at himself, not Moreno. He knew he was at his most vulnerable at this juncture. He didn’t like being vulnerable. More to the point, in his line of work he couldn’t afford to be.

Returning to the living room, he sat down on an armchair facing the sofa where Ottavio Moreno still sat smoking slowly, as if in meditation. In Bourne’s absence he’d turned on the TV to the BBC news. The sound was off, but the images of the Vesper Club were all too familiar. Lights were flashing off the tops of emergency vehicles and police cars. Personnel emerged from the club’s front door carrying a stretcher. The body on it was draped in a cloth that covered its face. Then the scene switched to a newsreader in the BBC studios, mouthing whatever had been written for him moments before. Bourne gestured and Moreno turned up the volume, but there was nothing for them in the story, and Moreno muted the sound again.

“It will be harder than ever to get out of London now,” Bourne said shortly.

“I know more ways to get out of London than they do.” He gestured at the cop being interviewed on the screen.

“So do I,” Bourne said. “That isn’t the issue.”

Moreno leaned forward, stubbed out the butt in an ugly free-form ashtray, and lit another. “If you’re waiting for me to apologize, you’re going to be disappointed.”

“Too late for apologies,” Bourne said. “What’s so important about the laptop?”

Moreno shrugged.

“Perlis had the ring,” Bourne said. “He killed Holly to get it.”

“The ring is a symbol of the Severus Domna, all members wear it or carry it unobtrusively.”

“That’s it? If there’s nothing else important about it, why did Perlis murder Holly for it?”

“I don’t know. Maybe he thought it would somehow lead him to the laptop.” Again Moreno stubbed out his cigarette. “Look, is all this distrust because Gustavo was my half brother?”

“I wouldn’t rule it out,” Bourne said.

“Yeah, well, my big brother was a fucking thorn in my side ever since I can remember.”

“Then it’s a good thing for you he’s dead,” Bourne said drily.

Moreno eyed Bourne for a moment. “Jesus Christ, you think I’ve taken over his drug business.”

“I’d be a fool if the thought hadn’t crossed my mind.”

Moreno nodded morosely. “Fair enough.” He sat back and spread his hands wide. “Okay, then, how can I prove myself?”

“Up to you.”

Moreno crossed his arms over his chest and thought a moment. “What do you remember about the four of them: Perlis, Holly, Tracy, and Diego Hererra?”

“Virtually nothing,” Bourne said.

“I imagine you asked Diego about them. What did he tell you?”

“I know about their friendship, their romantic entanglements.”

Moreno frowned. “What romantic entanglements?”

When Bourne told him, he laughed. “Mano, your boy Diego dropped one steaming pile of shit on your doorstep. There was no romance among the four of them. There was only friendship-until, that is, Holly started wearing the ring. One of them, maybe Tracy, I don’t know, became interested in the engraving on the inside. The more interested she became in it, the more Perlis’s curiosity was piqued. He took a photo of the engraving and brought it to Oliver Liss, his boss at the time. This led directly to the tragedy of Holly’s death.”

“How do you know all this?”

“I worked for Black River until Alex Conklin recruited me as a Treadstone agent in place. That gave the old boy a good deal of satisfaction-he despised Liss, as corrupt and exploitative an individual as you’re likely to meet in this business. He feasted off other people’s misery, hosed the government mercilessly, and directed his operatives to commit crimes and atrocities the government dared not do itself. Until you helped sink Black River, Liss was about the most successful modern-day agent of chaos, and believe me that’s saying a lot.”

“That still doesn’t explain how-”

“Back in the day, Perlis reported to me, before Liss took charge of him directly and used him to carry out private missions.”

Bourne nodded. “The ring was one of those private missions.”

“It became one. Perlis needed help, so he came to me. I was the only one he trusted. He told me that the moment Liss saw the ring he flipped out. That was when he ordered Perlis to find the laptop.”

“The one you helped me steal from Jalal Essai.”

“That’s right.”

Bourne frowned. “But what happened to it?”

“You were supposed to deliver it to Conklin personally, but you didn’t.”

“Why not?”

“You discovered something about the laptop-something, you told me, that it was probable Conklin didn’t want you to know. You took it upon yourself to change the mission on the fly.”

“What did I discover?”

Moreno shrugged. “You never told me, and I was too well trained to ask.”

Bourne was sunk deep in thought. The enigma of the ring was growing with every moment. Considering Liss’s reaction when he saw the ring, it seemed likely that it was in some way connected to the laptop. That was if Moreno was telling him the truth. He felt as if he were in a hall of mirrors, each reflection distorted in a different way so that it was no longer possible to discern reality from carefully constructed fantasy, truth from cleverly worded fiction.

On the TV screen the newsreader had gone on to other stories, in other lands, but the images of Diego Hererra’s corpse being taken out of the Vesper Club continued to flicker through Bourne’s mind. Had it been necessary to kill him, as Moreno had said, or did Moreno have another, darker motive he was keeping from Bourne? The only way to find out the truth was to keep Moreno close to him, and to continue questioning him as subtly as possible until a chink in his armor appeared-or until he proved himself truthful.

“What do you know about Essai?” Bourne asked.

“Besides being a member of the Severus Domna ruling council, not much. He comes from an illustrious family, which dates back all the way to the eleven hundreds, if I’m not mistaken. His ancestors took part in the Moorish invasion of Andalusia. One of them ruled there for a number of years.”

“What about in more modern times?”

“These days no one’s interested in the Berbers or the Amazigh, which we call ourselves.”

“And what of Severus Domna itself?”

“Ah, well, there I can be of some help. First off, I should point out that very little is known about the group. They fly so far below the radar that whatever footprints they leave are all but invisible or easily wiped away. No one knows how large the group is, but members are scattered in virtually every corner of the globe, all in positions of power in governments, businesses, media, and criminal activities. Any industry you care to name they’re in.”

“What’s their aim?” Bourne was thinking of the word Dominion inscribed on the inside of his ring. “What do they want?”

“Power, money, control of world events. Who knows, but that’s a better guess than any other. It’s what everyone wants, isn’t it?”

“If you’re a student of history,” Bourne conceded.

Ottavio Moreno laughed. “So many aren’t.”

Bourne took a breath and let it out slowly. He wondered what it was he’d found out about the laptop that had led him to change the mission. He wasn’t aware of changing any of the Treadstone missions he’d been sent on, if only because he remembered that up until Conklin’s murder he and the Treadstone boss had been on good terms, even friendly ones.

When he mentioned this, Moreno said, “You told me to tell Conklin that Essai didn’t have the laptop, that you didn’t know what had happened to it.”

“And did you?”

“Yes.”

“Why would you do that? Treadstone was paying your salary, Conklin was your boss.”

“I’m not altogether certain,” Ottavio Moreno confessed. “Other than there’s a fundamental difference between field and office personnel. The one doesn’t necessarily understand the motives of the other, and vice versa. Out here, if we don’t have each other’s backs, we’re dead meat.” He put the pack of Gauloises away. “When you told me you’d found something fundamental enough to change the mission I believed you.”

So you have come to see the famous Corellos.”

Roberto Corellos, Narsico Skydel’s cousin, smirked at Moira. He sat in a comfortable armchair. The room, spacious, filled with light, with its deep-pile rug, porcelain lamps, paintings on the walls, looked like someone’s living room. But as Moira was about to discover, Bogotá’s prisons weren’t like any others in the world.

“The American press wants to speak with the famous Corellos, now that he’s in La Modelo, now that it’s safe.” He drew a cigar from the breast pocket of his guayabera shirt and with great fanfare bit off the end and lit up, using an old Zippo lighter. With another smirk, he said, “A present from one of my many admirers.” It wasn’t immediately clear whether he meant the robusto or the Zippo.

He blew a cloud of aromatic smoke toward the ceiling and crossed one linen-clad leg over the other. “What newspaper are you with again?”

“I’m a stringer for The Washington Post,” Moira said. These credentials had been presented to her by Jalal Essai. She didn’t know where he had obtained them and she didn’t care. All that concerned her was that they would hold up under scrutiny. He assured her that they would, and so far he’d been right.

She had arrived in Bogotá less than twenty-four hours ago and had obtained immediate permission to interview Corellos. She was mildly surprised that no one seemed to care one way or the other.

“It’s fortunate that you came now. In a week or so I’ll be out of here.” Corellos stared at the glowing tip of the cigar. “This has been something of a vacation for me.” He waved a hand. “I have everything I could want-food, cigars, bitches to fuck, anything and everything-and I don’t have to lift a finger to get them.”

“Charming,” Moira said.

Corellos eyed her. He was a handsome man, in a rough, hard-muscled way. And with his dark, smoldering eyes and intense masculine presence, he was certainly charismatic. “You have to understand something about Colombia, Señorita Trevor. The country isn’t in the hands of the government, no, no, no. In Colombia power is split between FARC, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, and the drug lords. Left-wing guerrillas and right-wing capitalists, something like that.” His laugh was as raucous and as joyful as a macaw’s cry. He seemed completely relaxed, as if he were at home, instead of in Bogotá’s most notorious prison. “FARC controls forty percent of the country, we control the other sixty.”

Moira was skeptical. “That seems something of an exaggeration, Señor Corellos. Should I take everything you tell me with a grain of salt?”

Corellos reached behind him and placed a Taurus PT92 semi-automatic pistol on the table between them.

Moira felt sucker-punched.

“It’s fully loaded, you can check it if you want.” He seemed to be enjoying her shocked reaction. “Or you can take it-as a souvenir. Not to worry, there’s plenty more where that came from.”

He laughed again. Then he pushed the Taurus to one side. “Listen, señorita, like most gringos I think you’re a bit out of your league here. Just last month we had a war in here-the FARC guerrillas against the, uh, businessmen. It was a full-scale conflict, complete with AK-47s, fragmentation grenades, dynamite, you name it. The guards, such as they are, backed away. The army surrounded the prison but wouldn’t venture inside because we’re better armed than they are.” He winked at her. “I’ll bet the justice minister didn’t tell you about that.”

“No, he didn’t.”

“I’m not surprised. It was a bloody fucking mess in here, let me tell you.”

Moira was fascinated. “How did it end?”

“I stepped in. FARC listens to me. Escúchame, I’m not against them-certainly not what they stand for. The government is a dirty joke, they’ve got that part right, at least. They know I’ll stand with them, that I’ll rally my people to support them-so long as they leave us alone. Me, I don’t give a fuck about politics-right-wing, left-wing, fascist, socialist, I leave the semantics to the people who have nothing better to do with their stinking lives. Me, I’m too busy making money, that’s my life. Everyone else can rot in hell.”

He tapped the ash off his cigar into a brass ashtray. “I respect FARC. I have to, I’m a pragmatist. They own most of Bogotá, we don’t. And they’re the ones with their own prison release program. An example: Two weeks ago, in La Picota, the other prison here, the fucking FARC blew out an entire wall, freeing ninety-eight of their comrades. To a gringo such a thing sounds preposterous, impossible, am I right? But that’s life in Colombia.” He chuckled. “Say what you will about FARC, they’ve got balls. I respect that.”

“In fact, Señor Corellos, unless I’ve misunderstood you, that’s the only thing you respect.” Without another word, Moira reached for the Taurus, broke it down, and put it back together, all the while staring unblinkingly into Corellos’s eyes.

When she put the pistol back down on the table, Corellos said, “Why do you want to speak with me, señorita? Why did you really come? It isn’t to write a story for a newspaper, is it?”

“I need your help,” she said. “I’m looking for a certain laptop computer Gustavo Moreno had. Just before he died, it disappeared.”

Corellos spread his hands. “Why come to me?”

“You were Moreno’s supplier.”

“So?”

“The man who stole the laptop-one of Moreno’s men working for someone else, someone unknown-was found dead on the outskirts of Amatitán, on the estancia owned by your cousin Narsico.”

“That pussy, taking a gringo name! I want nothing to do with him, he’s dead to me.”

Moira considered a moment. “It seems to me that implicating him in the murder of this man might be a good way to get back at him.”

Corellos snorted. “What, and leave it to the Mexican police to figure it out and arrest him? Please! When it comes to solving crimes they’re complete idiots, all they know how to do is take bribes and siestas. Plus, Berengária would be suspect, too. No, if I wanted Narsico dead you would have found him in Amatitán.”

“So who’s running Moreno’s business, who are you selling to now?”

Corellos blew cigar smoke, his eyes half lidded.

“I’m not interested in putting anyone in jail,” she said. “In fact, it would be fruitless, wouldn’t it? I’m just interested in finding the laptop, and there’s a trail I have to follow.”

Corellos stubbed out his cigar. When he made a gesture someone-significantly, not a guard-came in with a bottle of tequila and two shot glasses, which he placed between Corellos and Moira. “I’m ordering food. What would you like?”

“Whatever you’re having.”

He nodded, spoke to the young man, who nodded and slipped unobtrusively out. He leaned forward and poured tequila. When they had both drained their glasses, he said, “You have to understand the depth of my hatred for Narsico.”

She shrugged. “I’m a gringa, we don’t take such things so seriously. What I do know is that you haven’t had him killed.”

He waved away her words. “This is what I mean by understanding. Killing’s too good for a shithead like him.”

She was beginning to get a glimmer of where this conversation was going. “So you have something else planned.”

That macaw laugh again. “It’s already done. Whoever said that revenge is a dish best served cold had no Colombian blood running through him. Why wait when opportunity stares you in the face?”

The young man returned with a tray laden with food-an array of small dishes, from rice and beans to fried chilies and smoked seafood. He set the tray down, and Corellos waved him away. Immediately Corellos picked out a plate of shrimp in a fiery red sauce and ate them, head and all. As he sucked the sauce off his fingertips, he continued. “Do you know the best way to get to a man, señorita? It’s through his woman.”

Now she understood. “You seduced Berengária.”

“Yes, I cuckolded him, I shamed him, but that’s not all I did. Narsico wanted desperately to outrun his family, so I made sure that he couldn’t.” Corellos’s eyes sparkled. “I set Berengária Moreno up as her brother’s successor.”

And you did it damn well, Moira thought. Essai said there was no hint of her involvement. “Do you think she had the mole inside her brother’s operation?”

“If she wanted a list of Gustavo’s clients she only had to ask him, which she didn’t, at least while he was alive.”

“Then who would?”

He looked at her skeptically. “Oh, I don’t know, a thousand people, maybe more. You want me to write you a list?”

Moira ignored his sarcasm. “What about you?”

He laughed. “What? Are you kidding? Gustavo was making me a fortune by doing all the heavy lifting. Why would I fuck with that?”

Did Corellos know that Moreno’s client list was on the laptop, or had he assumed it? Moira wondered. Essai didn’t look like the kind of man who was after a Colombian drug lord’s business; he had the aspect of someone who’d been ripped off and wanted his property back. She leaned forward, elbows on the table. “Escúchame, hombre. Someone made off with that laptop. If it wasn’t Berengária then it has to be someone else who wants Gustavo’s business, and it’s just a matter of time before he acts.”

Corellos took up a plate of fried chilies and popped them one after another into his mouth. His expressive lips were slick with grease. He didn’t appear interested in wiping them off.

“I don’t know anything about this,” Corellos said coldly.

Moira believed him. If he had known, he would already have done something about it. She rose. “Maybe Berengária does.”

His eyes narrowed. “The fuck she does. Whatever she knows, I know.”

“You’re a long way from Jalisco.”

Corellos laughed unpleasantly. “You don’t know me very well, do you, chica.”

“I want that laptop, hombre.”

“That’s the spirit!” He made a sound deep in his throat astonishingly like a tiger purring. “The hour’s growing late, chica. Why don’t you stay the night? I guarantee my accommodations are better than any this city has to offer you.”

She smiled. “I think not. Thank you for your hospitality-and your honesty.”

Corellos grinned. “Anything for a beautiful señorita.” He lifted a warning finger. “Cuidad, chica. I don’t envy you. Berengária’s a fucking piranha. Give her the slightest opening and she’ll eat you up, bones and all.”

When Peter Marks arrived at Noah Perlis’s flat, he found it crawling with CI agents, two of whom he knew. One, Jesse McDowell, he knew very well. He and McDowell had worked together on two field assignments before Marks was promoted upstairs into management.

When McDowell saw Marks, he beckoned to him and, taking him aside, said in a hushed tone of voice, “What the hell are you doing here, Peter?”

“I’m on assignment.”

“Well, so are we, so you better get the hell out of here before one of Danziger’s gung-ho newbies gets curious about you.”

“Can’t do that, Jesse.” Peter craned his neck, peering over McDowell’s shoulder. “I’m looking for Jason Bourne.”

“Good bleeding luck with that, laddie.” McDowell shot him a sardonic look. “How many roses should I send to the funeral?”

“Listen, Jesse, I just flew in from DC, I’m tired, hungry, cranky, and in no fucking mood to play games with you or any of Danziger’s little tin soldiers.” He made to take a step around McDowell. “D’you think I’m afraid of any of them, or of Danziger?”

McDowell raised his hands, palms outward. “Okay, okay. You’ve made your point, laddie.” He took Marks by the elbow. “I’ll fill you in on everything, but not here. Unlike you, Danziger still owns my ass.” He steered Marks out the door and into the hallway. “Let’s go down to the pub and lift a few. When I get a pint or two in me, I’ll screw me courage to the wall.”

The Slaughtered Lamb was just the sort of London pub that had been written about for centuries. It was low, dark, ripe with the scents of fermented beer and very old cigarette smoke, some of which still seemed to hang in the air in a boozy mist.

McDowell chose a table against one wood-paneled wall, ordered them pints of the room-temperature brew and, for Marks, a plate of bangers and mash. When the food came, Marks took one whiff of the meat and his stomach turned. He had the waiter take the plate away, and settled for a couple of cheese rolls.

“This investigation’s part of Justice’s ongoing case against Black River,” McDowell said.

“I thought that case had been wrapped up.”

“So did everyone else.” McDowell drained his pint and ordered another. “But it appears that someone very high up is gunning for Oliver Liss.”

“Liss left Black River before any of the shit hit the fan.”

McDowell took possession of the new pint. “Suspicion has been thrown his way. Point being that he may have gotten out, but it still is likely that he was one of the architects of Black River’s dirty dealings. Our job is to confirm that conjecture with hard evidence, and since Noah Perlis was Liss’s personal lapdog, we’re tossing his place.”

“Needle in a haystack,” Marks said.

“Mebbe so.” McDowell gulped down his beer. “But one thing we did find there was a photo of this bloke Diego Hererra. You heard he was knifed to death last night in a posh West End casino by the name of the Vesper Club?”

“I hadn’t heard,” Marks said. “What’s it to me?”

“Everything, laddie. The man who was seen knifing Diego Hererra was with Jason Bourne. They left the club together just minutes after the murder.”

Soraya drove due south as, she intuited, Arkadin-going by the name Frank N. Stein-had. Twilight was falling gently as a leaf as she pulled into Nogales. She was still in Arizona. Just across the border was the sister town, Nogales, in the Mexican state of Sonora.

She parked and strolled through the dusty central square. Finding an open-air café, she sat and ordered a plate of tamales and a Corona. Her Spanish was a good deal better than her French or her German, which meant that it was very good, indeed. And here her dark skin, Egyptian blood, and prominent nose were easily mistaken for Aztec. She sat back and allowed herself to breathe while she watched the comings and goings of people on errands, shopping, strolling hand in hand. There were many old people, sitting on benches, playing cards or chatting. Vehicles passed-old, dented cars and dusty, rusting trucks loaded with produce. Nogales’s business was agriculture, shipments from its sister town continuously coming across the border for packaging and transshipping all across the United States.

She had finished her last tamale and was on her second Corona when she saw an old black Chevy, dusty and hulking, but the plates didn’t match and she went back to her beer. She declined dessert but ordered coffee.

The waiter was setting the tiny cup in front of her when, over his shoulder, she saw another black Chevy. She stood up as he walked away. The plate matched the one on the car Arkadin had rented, but the driver was an eighteen-year-old punk. He parked near the café and got out. His hair was crested, his arms covered in tattoos of snakes and plumed birds. Soraya recognized the quetzal, the sacred bird of the Aztecs and Maya. Downing her espresso in one shot, she left some bills on the table and walked over to the punk.

“Where did you get that car, compadre?” she asked him.

He looked her up and down with a sneer. His eyes on her breasts, he said, “What business is it of yours?”

“I’m not a cop, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Why should I be worried?”

“Because that Chevy is a rental car from Tucson-you and I both know that.”

The punk continued his sneer. He looked like he practiced it in front of a mirror every morning.

“Do you like them?”

The punk started. “What?”

“My breasts.”

He laughed uneasily and looked away.

“Listen,” she said, “I’m not interested in you or the car. Tell me about the man who rented it.”

He spat sideways and said nothing.

“Don’t be stupid,” she said. “You’re already in enough trouble. I can make it go away.”

The punk sighed. “I really don’t know. I found the car out in the desert. It was abandoned.”

“How did you start it up-did you hot-wire it?”

“Nah, I didn’t have to, the key was in the ignition.”

Now, that was interesting. It probably meant that Arkadin wasn’t coming back for it, which meant that he was no longer in Nogales. Soraya thought for a moment. “If I wanted to cross the border, how would I do it?”

“The border station’s just a couple miles south-”

“I don’t want to go that way.”

The punk squinted, eyeing her as if for the first time. “I’m hungry,” he said. “How about buying me a meal?”

“Okay,” she said, “but don’t expect anything else.”

When he laughed, the brittle shell of his forced bravado cracked open. His face was transformed into that of a simple kid who looked at the world through sad eyes.

She took him back to the café, where he ordered burritos de machaca and a huge plate of cowboy beans larded with chiles pasados. His name was Álvaro Obregón. He was from Chihuahua. His family had migrated north in search of work and had ended up here. Through the intervention of his mother’s brother, his parents worked at a maquiladora packaging fruit and vegetables. According to him, his sister was a slut and his brothers goofed off all day instead of working. He himself was employed by a rancher. He’d come into town to pick up an order of supplies the rancher had phoned in.

“At first, I was excited about coming here,” he said. “I’d read up about American Nogales and discovered that a lot of really cool people were born here, like Charlie Mingus. His music sounds like shit to me, but you know, he’s famous and all. And then there’s Roger Smith. Imagine banging Ann-Margret, huh! But the coolest is Movita Castaneda. I bet you never heard of her.”

When Soraya said she hadn’t, he grinned. “She was in Flying Down to Rio and Mutiny on the Bounty, but I only saw her in Tower of Terror.” He mopped up the last of his beans. “Anyway, she married Marlon Brando. Now, there was one cool actor, until he blew up like a blimp, anyway.”

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and smacked his lips. “It didn’t take long for the shine to wear off. I mean, just look around you. What a fucking dump!”

“You seem to have a good job,” Soraya pointed out.

“Yeah, you try it. It sucks.”

“It’s steady work.”

“A rat makes more money than I do.” He gave a wry, lopsided smile. “But that doesn’t mean I starve to death.”

“Which brings us back to my original question. I want to get into Mexico.”

“Why? The place is a fucking shithole.”

Soraya smiled. “Who do I see?”

Álvaro Obregón made a show of having to think about it, but Soraya suspected he already knew. He looked out over the square. The lights had come on, people were on their way to dinner or heading home after some last-minute shopping. The air smelled of refried beans and other sharp, acidic scents of norteño cooking. Finally, he said, “Well, there are a couple of local polleros across the border.” These were people whom you paid to guide you across the border without having to bother with customs and Immigration. “But really, there’s only one to use, and you’re in luck, early this morning he brought a family of migrants across from Mexico. He’s here now and I can make the introductions. He’s known as Contreras, though I know for a fact that’s not his real name. I’ve dealt with him personally.”

On that score Soraya had no doubt. “I’d like you to set up the meet with your compadre Contreras.”

“It’ll cost you. A hundred American dollars.”

“Highway robbery. Fifty.”

“Seventy-five.”

“Sixty. That’s my last offer.”

Álvaro Obregón put his hand on the table palm-up, and Soraya laid a twenty and a ten onto it. The bills disappeared so fast they might never have existed.

“The rest when you deliver,” she said.

“Wait here,” Álvaro Obregón said.

“Save time and call him, why don’t you?”

Álvaro Obregón shook his head. “No cell contact, ever. Rules of the game.” He rose and, seemingly in no particular hurry, sauntered off at the leisurely pace endemic to Nogales.

For just over an hour Soraya sat alone, soaking up the spangle of the night and the lilt of songs of a local banda, playing a form of brass-heavy music from Sinaloa. A couple of men asked her to dance; politely but firmly she turned them down.

Then, just as the banda segued into its second cumbia, she saw Álvaro Obregón emerge out of the shadows. He was accompanied by a man, presumably Contreras, the pollero, whom she judged to be in his early to midforties with a face like a map that had been folded and refolded too many times. Contreras was tall and rangy with slightly bowed legs, like a lifetime cowboy. And like a cowboy he wore a wide-brimmed hat, stovepipe jeans, and a western shirt with piping and pearl snaps.

The man and the boy sat down without a word. Up close Contreras had the sun-bleached eyes of a man used to sagebrush, dust, and the scorching desert. His skin resembled overtanned leather.

“Boy tells me you want to go south.” Contreras spoke to her in English.

“That’s right.” Soraya had seen eyes like his before in professional gamblers. They seemed to bore into your skull.

“When?”

A man of few words, that was all right with her. “The sooner the better.”

Contreras lifted his head to the moon, as if he were a coyote about to howl at it. “Just a sliver,” he said. “Tonight’ll be better than tomorrow, tomorrow’ll be better than the next. After that…” He shrugged, as if to say the door would close.

“What’s your fee?” she asked.

He gazed at her again in a neutral way. “Can’t bargain with me like you did with the boy.”

“All right.”

“Fifteen hundred, half up front.”

“A quarter, the rest when you’ve brought me safely across.”

Contreras’s mouth gave a little twitch. “You were right, boy, she is some kinda bitch.”

Soraya wasn’t offended; she knew it was meant as a compliment. That’s how these people spoke, she wasn’t going to change it and she wasn’t about to try.

Contreras shrugged then and began to stand up. “I told you.”

“Tell you what,” Soraya said, “I’ll meet your terms if you take a look at a photo for me.”

Contreras studied her for a moment, then eased back into the chair. He held out his hand, just as Álvaro Obregón had. The boy learned quickly.

Soraya scrolled through the photos on her cell until she found the surveillance shot of Arkadin. She laid the phone in the pollero’s palm. “Have you seen him? You might have taken him south maybe nine or ten days ago.” That’s what she surmised from Álvaro Obregón’s tale of the black Chevy abandoned in the desert: Arkadin had found a way into Mexico that bypassed official scrutiny.

Contreras did not look down at the photo, but kept his colorless eyes on her. “I don’t bargain,” he repeated. “Are you asking me for a favor?”

Soraya hesitated a moment, then nodded. “I suppose I am.”

“Don’t do favors.” He glanced down at the photo. “My fee is now two thousand.”

Soraya sat back and crossed her arms over her chest. “Now you’re taking advantage of me.”

“Decide,” Contreras said. “A minute more and we’ll call it an even three thousand.”

Soraya exhaled. “Okay, okay.”

“Let’s see the color.”

He meant he wanted to see the money, all of it, to make sure she’d be able to pay. When she had unrolled the hundred-dollar bills to his satisfaction, he nodded.

“Took him across ten days ago.”

“Did he say where he was going?”

Contreras snorted. “Didn’t say a fucking thing, not even when he handed me the money. That was fine by me.”

Soraya played her last card. “Where do you think he was going?”

Contreras lifted his head a moment, as if sniffing something on the wind. “Man like him, not into the desert, that’s for sure. I could see he hated the heat. And he sure as hell wasn’t going to work at one of the maquiladoras in Sonora. This was a boss, his own man.” His gaze lowered and he squinted at her. “Like you.”

“So where does that leave us?”

“The coast, lady boss. Sure as we’re sitting here he was going to the coast.”

Bourne was asleep when the call from Chrissie came in. The sound of his cell woke him instantly, and he pressed a thumb against his eye as he answered the call.

“Adam.”

Instantly alerted by the tension in that one word, he said, “What’s happened?”

“There’s… there’s someone here who wants to speak with you. Oh, Adam!”

“Chrissie, Chrissie…”

An unfamiliar male voice took over: “Stone, Bourne, whatever you’re calling yourself. You’d better get over here. The woman and her daughter are in very deep shit.”

Bourne gripped the phone more tightly. “Who are you?”

“My name is Coven. I need to see you, right now.”

“Where are you?”

“I’m going to give you directions. Listen carefully, I won’t repeat them.” Coven rattled off a complicated list of highways, roads, turns, and mileage. “I expect you here in ninety minutes.”

Bourne glanced at Moreno, who was gesturing at him. “I don’t know whether I can make it by-”

“You’ll make it,” Coven assured him. “If you don’t, the little girl gets hurt. For every fifteen minutes you’re late, she gets hurt worse. Do I make myself clear?”

“Perfectly,” Bourne said.

“Good. The clock starts ticking now.”

[14]

FREDERICK WILLARD SPENT eight straight hours connected to the Internet, trying and failing to find out who owned the Monition Club, what the organization did, where it got its money, and who its members were. During that time he took three breaks, two to use the bathroom and one to wolf down some very bad Chinese food he’d ordered online and had delivered. All around him workmen were renovating the new Treadstone offices, installing electronic equipment and specially designed soundproofed doors, and painting walls that the day before had been stripped of wallpaper.

Willard had the patience of a tortoise, but at last even he gave up. He spent the next forty minutes down on the street, walking around the block, clearing his head of paint fumes and plaster dust while he thought the situation through.

At the end of that time he returned to his office, printed out his résumé, and then went home to shower, shave, and dress in a suit and tie. He made sure his shoes were highly polished. Then, the résumé folded and tucked in his breast pocket, he drove to the Monition Club and parked in a nearby municipal underground lot.

There was a certain spring in his gait as he went up the stone steps and into the imposing lobby. The same woman manned the high desk in the center, and he went up to her and asked for the director of public relations.

“We have no director of public relations,” she said with an unsmiling face. “How may I help you?”

“I wish to see the person in charge of hiring personnel,” Willard said.

The woman looked at him dubiously for a moment, then she said, “We aren’t hiring.”

Willard put some honey into his voice and smiled. “Nevertheless, I would very much appreciate you telling whoever’s in charge that I would like to see him-or her.”

“You’d need to have a résumé with you.”

Willard produced it.

Eyeing it, the receptionist smiled and said, “Your name?”

“Frederick Willard.”

“One moment, Mr. Willard.” She dialed an internal extension and murmured into the microphone of her wireless headset. When she had disconnected she looked up at him and said, “Please have a seat, Mr. Willard. Someone will be out shortly.”

Willard thanked her, then walked back to the same bench where he and Peter Marks had waited for Oliver Liss. The receptionist went back to answering the phone and directing calls. Willard thought this system oddly antiquated. It appeared as if the personnel who worked at the Monition Club did not have direct phone lines.

This interested him, and he began to study the woman more closely. Though she was young and at first blush looked like the standard-issue receptionist, he was getting the sense that she was something altogether different. For one thing, she seemed to make the decision of whether or not he was going to get past her. For another, it looked as if she was vetting each call.

After thirty minutes or so a slim young man appeared through a door set flush with one of the wall panels. He was dressed in a charcoal-gray conservatively cut suit. His tie had what appeared to be a gold bar embroidered in its center. He went directly over to the receptionist and, bending forward slightly, spoke to her in a voice so low that even within the confines of the hushed lobby Willard could not hear what he said or what the receptionist replied.

Then he turned and, with a noncommittal smile on his face, approached Willard.

“Mr. Willard, please follow me.”

Without waiting for a reply, he turned on his heel. Willard went across the lobby. As he passed the receptionist’s desk, he saw her watching him.

The young man took him through the door and down a dimly lit, wood-paneled corridor. It was carpeted and decorated with paintings of medieval hunting scenes. They passed doors on either side. All of them were closed, and Willard could hear nothing at all inside. Either the offices were empty, which he doubted, or the doors were soundproofed-yet another anomaly for a workplace. At least, one that wasn’t part of the clandestine services.

At length, the young man stopped in front of a door on the left, knocked once, then opened the door inward.

“Mr. Frederick Willard,” the young man announced in a curiously formal manner as he stepped across the threshold.

Following him, Willard found himself not in an office but in a library, and a surprisingly large one, at that. Bookshelves lined three of the walls from floor to ceiling. The fourth wall was an immense picture window that looked out on a small but beautifully landscaped cloister garden with a central fountain in the Moorish style. It looked like something out of the sixteenth century.

In front of this window was a large refectory table of a thick, dark hardwood, polished to a high gloss. Seven high-backed wooden chairs were arranged at regular intervals around the table. In one sat a man with rounded shoulders, thick hair pushed back from his wide forehead in silver wings, and skin the color of honey. A large, very thick book was open in front of him, which he was studying with great concentration. Then he looked up, and Willard was confronted by a pair of piercing blue eyes, a large, hawk-like nose, and a hard smile.

“Come in, Mr. Willard,” he said, that hard smile fixed in place. “We’ve been expecting you.”

They use pleasure craft-very expensive yachts,” Contreras said.

“To go up and down the coast,” Soraya said.

“That’s the safest way to transport goods up from central Mexico, where they’re received from the Colombian cartels.”

The desert sky was huge, so chock-full of stars that in certain places the night seemed hazed an icy blue. The barest crescent of a moon hung low in the sky, giving off precious little illumination. Contreras checked the dial of his watch; it seemed he had the schedule of the patrolling migras down to a science.

They were crouched in the deep shadow thrown by a clump of sagebrush and a giant saguaro cactus. When they spoke it was in the barest of whispers. She followed the pollero’s lead so that, like his, her voice sounded no different than the dry desert wind.

“Your man is into drugs, count on it,” Contreras said. “Why else does a man like him want to sneak into Mexico?”

It was colder here than she had expected, and she shivered a little.

“Unless someone was meeting him, he would have gone straight to Nogales, stolen a car, and then headed due west to the coast.”

Soraya was about to reply when he put a forefinger to his lips. She listened, and a moment later she heard what had alerted him: the soft crunch of boot soles across the ground not far from them. When a spotlight was switched on Contreras didn’t even twitch, which meant he had been expecting it. The light swung in an arc, not at the area where they were hidden, but ahead of them, where the invisible border stretched, desolate and windblown. She heard a grunt, then the light was switched off and the sound of the boot soles faded away.

She was about to shift position when Contreras grabbed her and held her still. Even in the starry darkness she could feel his eyes glaring at her. She held her breath. A moment later the beam of blinding light re-ignited, sweeping a larger portion of the desert ahead. Then three shots exploded into the night, sending up tiny dust devils where the bullets impacted the earth.

She heard a brief gurgle, which might have been a laugh. The light was extinguished. Then all was stillness again, and the lonesome soughing of the wind reasserted itself.

Now we go, Contreras mouthed to her.

She nodded, following him on cramped legs as they skirted the clump of sagebrush and, circling to the right, dashed across the flat ground from the United States into Mexico. There was nothing at all to mark their transition from one country to another.

In the distance she heard the howl of a coyote, but couldn’t tell from what side of the border it came. A jackrabbit, springing out of their way, startled her. She found that her heart was racing, and there was an odd sort of singing in her ears, as if her blood were rushing too quickly through her veins and arteries.

Contreras led her forward at a steady pace, never stopping, never at a loss for direction. His confidence was absolute, and she felt secure within the circumference of it. It was an odd and slightly unsettling feeling, one that made her think of Amun, of Cairo, and of their time in the Egyptian desert. Could it have been just weeks ago? It seemed like such a long time since she’d seen him, and their text messages were becoming fewer and shorter as time went on.

The night was now starless, as profoundly dark as the bottom of the ocean, as if even hours from now there would be no dawn, no sun rising in the distant eastern sky. A sudden crack of thunder came to her, but it sounded far away, streaking through the sky of another country.

They walked for a long time, through a flat, monotonous landscape that seemed scarcely alive. At last, Soraya saw the glow of lights, and shortly thereafter Contreras led her into Nogales, Sonora.

“This is as far as I go,” the pollero said. He was looking not toward the lights, but out into the blackness of the eastern outskirts of town.

Soraya handed him the balance of his fee, and he pocketed it without counting it.

“The Ochoa has clean rooms, and the management doesn’t ask questions.” Then he spat casually between his dusty cowboy boots. “I hope you find what you’re looking for,” he said.

She nodded, watching him head east toward an unknown destination. When the night had swallowed him up, she turned and walked until the dust turned to packed earth and then to streets and sidewalks. She found the Ochoa without difficulty. There was some kind of all-night festival going on. The central square was lit up; at one end a mariachi band played something fast and cacophonous, at the other booths were set up selling freshly made tacos and quesadillas. In between, crowds drifted or danced or staggered, drunk, yelling friendly curses at the musicians or anyone who would listen. Here and there a fight broke out, blood chants rose up. A horse whinnied and, snorting, stamped its hooves.

The lobby of the Ochoa was all but deserted. The night clerk, a small man with a wiry body and the face of a prairie dog, was watching a Mexican telenovela on a small portable TV with bad reception. He sat rapt in his airless cubicle, seeming not to notice. He scarcely glanced at Soraya, handing her a key when she paid the one-night price of the room, posted on a rate card above his head. He did not ask for her passport or any other form of identification. She could have been a mass murderer for all he cared.

Her room was on the second floor and, since she’d asked for quiet, in the back. There was, however, no air-conditioning. She opened the window wide and looked out. The room overlooked a dingy alleyway and a blank brick wall, the rear of another building, possibly a restaurant, judging by the long row of garbage cans lined up on one side of a doorway, closed off by only a screen door. A bare fluorescent bulb threw a sickly blue light over the garbage cans. The shadows were as purple as bruises. As she watched, a man in a heavily stained apron pushed open the screen and sat on one of the garbage can lids. He rolled a joint, stuck it in his mouth, and lit up. As he drew in the smoke, his eyes closed. She heard some noises. At one end of the alley a couple was having sex up against the wall. The cook, lost in his pot-induced reverie, ignored them. Maybe he didn’t even hear them.

She turned away from the window and checked out the room. As Contreras had told her, it was clean and neat, even the bathroom, thank God. Disrobing, she turned on the shower, waited for the water to turn hot, then stepped in, luxuriating in the heat, the grime and sweat sluicing off her. Slowly, her muscles lost their tension and she began to relax. All at once a wave of tiredness swept over her and she realized that she was exhausted. Stepping out of the shower, she gave her body a vigorous toweling off. The thin, rough terry turned her skin red beneath its dusky hue.

The shower had left the room stifling. With the towel held against her, she crossed to the window to catch the benefits of whatever fitful breeze was blowing. That’s when she saw the two men leaning against the wall of the restaurant. In the illumination cast by the fluorescent bulb she saw that one of them was checking something on his PDA. She ducked back behind the faded curtain an instant before the second man glanced up at her window. She could see his face, dark and closed as a fist. He said something to his companion, which made him look up at her window as well.

The Ochoa was no longer safe. She backed up, put on her dirty clothes, and went to the door. When she pulled it open, two men rushed in. One held her hands behind her back while the other put a cloth over her mouth and nose. She tried to hold her breath, tried to work herself free of the iron grip holding her fast. She could make no headway. This silent, futile fight went on for some minutes, her thrashing only depleting her lungs’ store of oxygen. Then, despite her willpower, her autonomic system took control and she took a breath, then another. A terrible smell invaded her, she tried to cry out. Tears came to her eyes, rolled down her cheeks. She tried to take a gulp of fresh air. Then the blackness rushed in and her body collapsed into her captors’ arms.

Arkadin saw the dorsal fin cutting through the water. Judging by its size, the shark was a large one, ten or twelve feet long. It was coming straight at the stern of the cigarette. Not surprising, considering the amount of blood in the water.

Arkadin had worked on Stepan for three hours and the man was a bloody wreck, curled on his side in a fetal position, weeping uncontrollably, blood from a thousand cuts dripping in pink rivulets as it mingled with the seawater on the deck.

Pavel had witnessed this interrogation-the bloodletting and, eventually, Stepan’s screams of innocence-and then it had been his turn. He had expected Arkadin to use his gutting knife on him, as he had on Stepan, but a key part of interrogation was surprise, the terror of the unexpected.

Arkadin had tied Pavel’s feet to the winch and had lowered him headfirst over the stern of the boat. He lengthened the time underwater with each plunge, so that by the end of the sixth or seventh Pavel was certain he was going to drown. Then Arkadin had cut him, slashing him under each eye. As the blood ran, he plunged Pavel back underwater. This had continued for perhaps forty minutes. Then the shark showed up. Pavel must have seen the shark. When El Heraldo hauled him up he looked mortally terrified.

Taking advantage of the weakness, Arkadin punched Pavel three times in rapid succession as hard as he could, breaking two or three of Pavel’s ribs. Pavel began to gasp, his breathing became painfully difficult. Responding to his boss’s signal, El Heraldo lowered Pavel back into the water. The shark nosed in, curious and interested.

Pavel began a panicked thrashing in the water. The thrashing only made the shark more interested. Sharks had poor eyesight, relying on scent and motion. This one scented fresh blood, and the thrashing led it to believe that its prey was injured. Putting on speed, it headed directly for the injured creature.

Arkadin saw the sudden acceleration of the dorsal fin and lifted his arm, a signal to El Heraldo, who cranked the winch. Just before his head and shoulders cleared the water, Pavel’s body shuddered and swung wildly as the shark struck. When El Heraldo had Pavel dangling in the air, he gave a strangled cry and, drawing his handgun, leaned over the stern of the cigarette and pumped the magazine empty, firing shot after shot into the creature’s immense bulk.

As the water churned wildly, turning black with the shark’s blood, Arkadin crossed to the winch, swung it, and lowered a screaming, weeping Pavel to the deck. Arkadin let El Heraldo have his fun. Ever since his younger brother had lost a leg to a tiger shark three years ago, El Heraldo got a murderous look in his eye whenever he saw a dorsal fin. El Heraldo had revealed this grisly piece of family history one night when he was very drunk and very sad.

Arkadin turned his attention to Pavel. What the repeated near drownings had started, the shark had finished. Pavel was in very bad shape. The shark had taken a chunk of his left shoulder and cheek. He was bleeding profusely, it was the least of his problems. He’d been traumatized by the shark attack. His eyes were wide and staring, darting from place to place but not focusing. His teeth were chattering uncontrollably, and there was the stink of excrement coming off him.

Ignoring all that, Arkadin squatted down beside his captain and, putting a hand on his head, said, “Pavel Mikhailovich, my very good friend, we have a serious problem to resolve. And only you can resolve it. Either Stepan or you has been passing information to someone outside our organization. Stepan swears it’s not him, which, I’m afraid, leaves you as the guilty party.”

Pavel, weeping and howling in pain and terror, was unresponsive, until Arkadin bounced the back of his head off the deck.

“Pull yourself together, Pavel Mikhailovich! Focus! Your life hangs in the balance.” When Pavel’s gaze alighted on him and stayed there, Arkadin smiled and stroked his hair. “I know you’re in pain, my friend, and good God, you’re bleeding like a stuck pig! But that will all be over soon. El Heraldo will patch you up in no time, he’s a master, believe me.

“Look, Pavel Mikhailovich, here’s the deal. Tell me who you’re working for, what you’ve passed on, tell me everything and we’ll patch you up. You’ll be as good as new. What’s more, I’ll let it be known that Stepan was the mole. Your employer will relax, you’ll continue as before, passing on information, except you’ll be passing on only the information I feed you. How does this sound? Agreed?”

Pavel moaned and nodded, clearly not trusting himself yet to speak.

“Good.” Arkadin looked up at El Heraldo. “Have you finished with your fun?”

“The sonovabitch’s dead.” El Heraldo spat in the water with some satisfaction. “And now its friends have come to feast on it.”

Arkadin looked back down to Pavel and thought, It’s the same with this sonovabitch.

The man with the piercing blue eyes gestured. “Please sit down, Mr. Willard, would you like something to drink?”

“I could do with a whiskey,” Willard said.

The young man whom Willard had followed vanished, only to reappear moments later with a tray on which sat an old-fashioned glass with whiskey, a tumbler of water, and another of ice.

Someone else seemed to be walking on Willard’s legs, pulling out a chair, and sitting down at the refectory table. The young man set the three glasses in front of Willard, then went out the library door and closed it silently behind him.

“I don’t understand how you could be expecting me,” Willard said. Then he remembered his eight hours of scouring the Internet in search of information on the Monition Club. “My computer’s ISP number is protected.”

“Nothing is protected.” The man took hold of the book and, turning it around, pushed it over to Willard. “Tell me what you make of this.”

Willard looked down at an illustration of a series of letters and odd symbols. He recognized the Latin letters, but the others were unknown to him. Then a little thrill rippled down his spine. Unless he was mistaken, this series was the same as the engraving in the photos Oliver Liss had showed him and Peter Marks.

He looked up into those electric-blue eyes and said: “I don’t know what to make of it.”

“Tell me, Mr. Willard, are you a student of history?”

“I like to think so.”

“Then you know about King Solomon.”

Willard shrugged. “More than most, I imagine.”

The man across from him sat back and laced his fingers over his lean stomach. “Solomon’s life and times are steeped in myth and legend. As in the Bible, it’s often difficult, if not impossible, to discern truth from fiction. Why? Because his disciples had a vested interest in obscuring the truth. By far the most outrageous stories arose concerning the hoard of Solomon’s gold. Vast amounts that supposedly staggered the imagination. Historians and archaeologists now routinely ignore these stories as distorted or patently false. For one thing, where did all this gold come from? Solomon’s legendary mines? Even if the king had harnessed ten thousand slaves, he could not have amassed such a legendary hoard in his brief lifetime. So now it’s taken for gospel that there was no such thing as King Solomon’s gold.”

He leaned forward and tapped the book illustration with his crooked forefinger. “This string of letters and symbols tells a different story. It is a clue-but, oh, more than a clue, much more. It is a key telling those who would listen that King Solomon’s gold does, indeed, exist.”

Willard gave an involuntary chuckle.

“Has something struck you as amusing?”

“Forgive me, but I find this melodramatic gibberish hard to take seriously.”

“Well, you’re free to leave whenever you want. Now, if you wish.”

As the man was turning the open book back toward himself, Willard reached out and stopped him.

“I’d really rather not.” Willard cleared his throat. “You were speaking of truth versus fiction.” He paused only a moment. “Perhaps it would help if you told me your name.”

“Benjamin El-Arian. I’m one of a handful of resident scholars the Monition Club employs to deal with matters of ancient history and how it impacts the present.”

“Again, you’ll forgive me, but I don’t for a moment believe that I was suddenly and out of the blue granted an interview with a simple scholar after trolling through the Internet for eight hours trying to find source material on the Monition Club. No, Mr. El-Arian, though you may well be a scholar, that can hardly be all you are.”

El-Arian contemplated him for some time. “It seems to me, Mr. Willard, that you’re far too thoughtful and perceptive to find anything I say amusing.” He took the book and turned the page. “And please let us not forget that it was you who came here, seeking knowledge, presumably.” His eyes lit up in what might have been an instant of merriment. “Or were you thinking of seeking employment in order to infiltrate us as you did with the NSA?”

“I’m surprised you’re aware of that, it was hardly common knowledge.”

“Mr. Willard,” El-Arian said, “there isn’t anything about you we don’t know. Including your role in Treadstone.”

Ah, at last we come to the crux of the matter, Willard thought. He waited, his expression perfectly neutral, but watching Benjamin El-Arian as if El-Arian were a spider sitting in the center of his web.

“I know Treadstone is something of a hot-button issue with you,” El-Arian said, “so I’ll tell you what I know. Please don’t hesitate to correct me if I have any facts wrong. Treadstone was started by Alexander Conklin, inside Central Intelligence. His brainchild gave birth to only two graduates: Leonid Danilovich Arkadin and Jason Bourne. Now you have resurrected Treadstone, under the aegis of Oliver Liss, but almost immediately Liss is dictating to you even more than CI did to your predecessor.” He paused to give Willard time to correct him or make objections. When his guest remained silent, he nodded. “All this is prologue, however.” He tapped the open book again. “Since Liss has given you orders to find the gold ring with this engraving, it might interest you to know that he is not operating as an independent entity.”

Willard tensed. “So who am I actually working for?”

El-Arian’s smile held a sardonic edge. “Well, like all things in the matter, it’s complicated. The man who has been providing his funding and intel is Jalal Essai.”

“Never heard of him.”

“Nor should you have. Jalal Essai does not move in your circles. In fact, like me, Essai makes it his business to remain unknown to people like you. He’s a member of the Monition Club-or, rather, he was. You see, for some years this particular ring was presumed lost. It’s the only one of its kind, for reasons that will become clear to you momentarily.”

El-Arian rose and, crossing to a section of the bookcases, pressed a hidden stud. The section swung outward, revealing a tea service consisting of a chased brass pot, a plate with an array of tiny powdered cakes, and six glasses, each narrow as a shot glass but perhaps three times its height. He loaded them onto a tray and brought them back to the table.

In a ceremonial manner, he poured tea for them both, then gestured toward the plate of cakes for Willard to help himself. He settled himself, sipping and savoring his drink, which, Willard discovered, was sweet mint tea, a Moroccan staple.

“Back to the matter at hand.” El-Arian took a sweet and popped it in his mouth. “What the ring’s engraving told us was this: King Solomon’s gold is fact, not fiction. The engraving contains specific Ugaritic symbols. Solomon employed a platoon of seers. These seers, or some of them at any rate, were versed in alchemy. They had discovered that intoning certain Ugaritic words and phrases in conjunction with scientific procedures they developed could turn lead into gold.”

Willard sat stunned for a moment. He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. “Lead into gold?” he said finally. “Literally?”

“Literally.” El-Arian popped another sweet into his mouth. “This is the answer to the seemingly unsolvable mystery I proposed before, namely, how Solomon amassed such a hoard of gold in his short lifetime.”

Willard shifted in his seat. “Is that what you people do here? Chase fairy tales?”

El-Arian produced one of his enigmatic smiles. “As I said, you’re free to leave anytime you wish. And yet you won’t.”

Out of sheer spite, Willard got to his feet. “How do you know that?”

“Simply because, even if you aren’t yet convinced, the idea is too compelling.”

Willard produced his own enigmatic smile. “Even if it is a fairy tale.”

El-Arian pushed his chair back and crossed to the part of the bookcases where he had gotten the tea and cakes. Reaching into the shadows, he pulled something out, brought it back, and placed it on the table in front of Willard.

Willard held El-Arian’s eyes for a moment, then dropped his gaze. He picked up a gold coin. It appeared ancient. On it was imprinted a pentagram star, along with the inscription GRAM, MA, TUM, TL, TRA in the spaces between the points. In the center of the star was a symbol so worn away as to be incomprehensible.

“That pentagrammic star is the symbol of King Solomon, though various sources depict it as a six-pointed star, a cross engraved with Hebrew letters, even a Celtic knot. But it was the pentagrammic star that was engraved on the ring he always wore, which was said to have magic properties. Among them, it allowed him to trap demons and speak to animals.”

Willard laughed. “You don’t believe such claptrap.”

“Certainly not,” El-Arian said. “On the other hand, that gold coin is without doubt part of Solomon’s hoard.”

“I don’t see how you could be certain,” Willard said. “No expert exists who could verify such a thing.”

El-Arian’s curious smile returned. “For one thing we have verified its age. But more importantly we discovered something else,” he said. “Turn the coin over please.”

To Willard’s surprise and bewilderment, the obverse of the coin was totally different.

“You see, this side isn’t made of gold,” El-Arian said. “It’s made of lead, the original metal before it was transformed into gold.”

[15]

MOIRA SET OUT from Guadalajara early in the morning, driving into the heart of blue agave country in the Mexican state of Jalisco. The sky was huge, with just a few brushstrokes of cloud floating in the vivid blue. The sun was searing, and the morning grew hot very quickly. Toward noon she was obliged to roll up the windows and turn on the air conditioner. She lost cell service several times, and without her GPS she had some difficulty finding Amatitán.

She used the time to put her interview with Roberto Corellos into its proper perspective. Why did he tell her that he’d chosen Berengária to keep her brother’s business going? Why on earth would he trust a woman to handle his livelihood? Moira had met many men like Corellos, and none of them was enlightened when it came to females. Screwing, cooking, having babies, that was the extent of their expectations of women.

She mulled these questions over for hours until at last she caught sight of Amatitán. Corellos had a burning need for revenge. In a hot-tempered man of his blood, revenge was a matter of honor. Cuckolding his cousin wouldn’t be enough for him. It made sense that Corellos would want to ensnare Narsico in the kind of life his cousin had tried so desperately to put behind him. That was revenge.

If Berengária was, indeed, heir to the drug business, then it followed a man must be running the show behind the scenes. Who? Corellos wasn’t going to tell her, and there was nothing she had to barter with except her body, which she was not about to use. But Berengária was another story. Piranha she might be, but Moira had had dealings with piranhas before. What had aroused her suspicions most was that Corellos hadn’t been concerned that whoever had stolen the laptop now had access to Gustavo’s client list. The only reason for this was that Corellos was already in business with him.

The endless fields of blue agave passed by on either side. Workers toiled in the fields, sweating and grunting with their efforts. The Skydel estancia was just ahead.

If, as she now believed, Essai’s laptop-the computer stolen from Gustavo Moreno-contained the drug lord’s client list, then there must be something else on it of great importance to her employer, and she was willing to bet that it wasn’t simply his family history, as he’d claimed. Then why had Essai lied to her? What was he hiding?

Oliver Liss has lied to you from the first day he met you,” Benjamin El-Arian said.

“I expect everyone to lie to me,” Willard said. “It’s a necessary evil of the life I lead.”

The two men were walking in the Moorish cloister outside the Monition Club library. Here they were sheltered from the wind. The sun, high in the sky, spilled its warmth onto their shoulders.

“So you’re at peace with it.”

“Of course not.” Willard inhaled deeply. There was something planted in the cloister, an herb or spice, whose scent he found pleasant and familiar. “My life is a war. I sift through the lies, I’ve trained myself to see past them. Then I act accordingly.”

“You already know that Oliver Liss has no intention of allowing you to run Treadstone as you see fit.”

“Of course, but I needed someone to get Treadstone off flatline. His agenda and mine were never going to coincide. However, it was Liss or no one.”

“Now there’s someone else,” El-Arian said. “Liss is owned by Jalal Essai. As I told you. Essai was a member of the Monition Club. Currently he’s on his own.”

“What would make him do that?” Willard asked.

“The same thing that kept you from walking out of the library.”

“King Solomon’s gold?”

El-Arian nodded. “Once he discovered that the Solomon ring wasn’t lost, he decided he wanted the gold for himself.”

Willard stopped and turned toward El-Arian. “Just how much gold are we talking about here?”

“It’s difficult to know with any degree of precision, but if I had to guess I’d put the amount somewhere between fifty and a hundred billion dollars.”

Willard gave a low whistle. “That’s enough incentive for an army to go rogue.” Then he scratched the side of his head. “What I can’t work out is why you’re telling me all this.”

“Bourne has the Solomon ring,” El-Arian said. “And Treadstone’s other graduate, Leonid Arkadin, is in possession of a certain laptop. Some years ago, Bourne was sent by Alex Conklin to steal the laptop from Jalal Essai. This he did, but for some reason unknown to us he never delivered it to his boss. For years we have searched for it, in vain. It seemed as if it had vanished completely. Then one of our moles sent us information through an agent of ours, Marlon Etana, that Arkadin was in possession of the stolen laptop. How did he obtain it? A Colombian drug lord by the name of Gustavo Moreno was killed in a raid a month or so ago, but the laptop containing his detailed client list was not found in his compound. Somehow Arkadin had it spirited away, and now he’s used it to muscle his way into Moreno’s business.”

“This is the same laptop that was stolen from Jalal Essai?”

“It is.”

“How in God’s name did it end up with Gustavo Moreno?”

El-Arian shrugged. “A mystery we have yet to solve.”

Willard mulled this over for a moment. “In any event, you can’t be interested in a list of drug distributors,” he said. “What’s so special about this particular laptop?”

“The hard drive contains a hidden file that provides a key to the location of King Solomon’s gold.”

Willard appeared startled. “Are you telling me that Arkadin knows where the gold is?”

El-Arian shook his head. “I doubt Arkadin knows of the hidden file’s existence. As I said, he stole it to get Moreno’s client list. But even if he did know of the file, he wouldn’t be able to access it. It’s protected.”

“Nothing is protected,” Willard said, “as you yourself told me.”

“Except for this file. No decryption program, no computer on earth can unlock it. There is only one way to read the file. The laptop has been fitted with a special slot. Fit the Solomon ring into the slot, an internal reader scans the engraving on the inside, and the file opens.”

“So Essai had the laptop,” Willard said. “What about the ring?”

“Jalal Essai had them both.”

“I don’t see how that makes sense. Why wouldn’t he have gone after Solomon’s gold himself?”

“Because even if he had opened the file, he wouldn’t have been able to act on it.” El-Arian, moving from sunlight to shadow, seemed to change in size as well as presence, as if there were two of him moving slightly out of sync with each other. “There is a section of the instructions missing from the file.”

“And Essai doesn’t have it.”

“No, he doesn’t.”

“Who does?” Willard asked.

“It resides in a special room inside a house in Tineghir, a town in the High Atlas Mountains of Morocco.”

Willard shook his head. “I know it’s easy to ask after the fact, but why was Essai entrusted with the ring and the laptop?”

“His family is the oldest, the most religiously strict. It was felt that he was the best choice.”

There was a small silence as both men presumably contemplated the misjudgment that had been made.

“What I still don’t understand is why all this is happening now. At one point, you must have had both the ring and the laptop. Why didn’t you get the gold then?”

“We would have, of course,” El-Arian said, “but we were unable to do so. We lacked that section of the instructions. After decades of searching, the full set was discovered by chance after an earthquake in Iran uncovered an archaeological treasure trove of information, much of it spirited out of the great Library at Alexandria before the first fire. One scroll contained information on King Solomon’s court.”

“And this came to light after the ring disappeared and the laptop was stolen.”

“That’s right.” El-Arian spread his hands. “So now you see how your agenda and ours coincide. You want to bring Bourne and Arkadin together to learn once and for all who is the ultimate warrior. We want the Solomon ring and the laptop.”

“Forgive me, but I don’t see the relationship.”

“We have tried, unsuccessfully, to get the laptop from Arkadin. I’ve lost every man I’ve sent to kill him, and I’m tired of sending people I know to a certain death. Similarly, I know that CI has been trying for years to kill Bourne, also without success. No, the only way for us to obtain what we want is to bring the two men together.”

“Bourne likely has the Solomon ring with him, but will Arkadin have the laptop?”

“He doesn’t let it out of his sight lately.”

They began walking again, around and around the central fountain, where a robin was drinking while nervously watching them. Willard could relate to the bird’s nervousness.

“If I didn’t believe Oliver Liss,” Willard said, “why should I believe you?”

“I don’t expect you to believe me,” El-Arian said. “But to prove my sincerity, this is what I propose: You help me get Bourne and Arkadin together-something you want, anyway-and I’ll take Oliver Liss off your back.”

“How are you going to do that? Liss is a man with a great deal of power.”

“Believe me, Mr. Willard, Oliver Liss doesn’t know the meaning of power.” Benjamin El-Arian turned. His eyes caught the sunlight and seemed to spark like an engine starting up. “He will be removed from your life.”

Willard shook his head. “I’m afraid promises aren’t good enough. I’ll be wanting half down, the remainder when I’ve brought Bourne and Arkadin together.”

El-Arian spread his hands. “We’re talking about a man, not money.”

“That’s your problem to solve,” Willard said. “I’ll start the ball rolling when-but only when-your actions back up your words.”

“Well, then.” El-Arian smiled. “I’ll just have to arrange a change of scenery for Mr. Liss.”

The Skydel hacienda sprawled at the center of the immense estancia. It was built in the Spanish colonial style with its white stucco walls, carved wooden shutters, wrought-iron grillwork, and curved terra-cotta roof tiles. A woman in a maid’s uniform opened the door to Moira’s knock and, when she introduced herself, led her across a terrazzo-floored foyer, through a large, cool living room, out onto a flagstone patio that overlooked a clay tennis court, gardens, and a swimming pool where a woman-presumably Berengária Moreno-was doing laps. Beyond this vista stretched the ubiquitous blue agave fields.

The heady scent of Old World roses came to Moira as she was led toward a man sitting at a glass-and-wrought-iron table, laden with food on Mexican fired-clay plates, and pitchers of red and white sangria stuffed with slices of fresh fruit.

The man rose at her approach, smiling broadly. He wore a terry-cloth short-sleeved top and surfer’s swimming trunks, revealing a lean, hairy body.

“Barbara!” he called over his shoulder. “Our guest is here!”

Then he held out his hand and gripped Moira’s. “Good afternoon, Señorita Trevor. Narsico Skydel. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

“The pleasure’s all mine,” Moira said.

“Please.” He gestured. “Make yourself at home.”

“Thank you.” Moira chose a chair near him.

“White or red?”

“White, please.”

He poured two glasses of white sangria, handed her one, then sat. “You must be hungry after your long trip.” He indicated the food. “Please help yourself.”

By the time she had loaded a plate Berengária Moreno-known here as Barbara Skydel-had finished her laps and, toweling off, was coming up the stone pathway to the patio. She was a tall, slim woman, her water-slicked hair pulled back from her handsome face in a ponytail. Moira imagined her with Roberto Corellos, cuckolding her husband. Barbara reached the patio and, barefoot, walked over. Her handshake was cool, firm, and business-like.

“Narsico’s publicist said you’re writing a piece about tequila, is that right?” Her voice was deep for a woman, and vibrant, as if at an early age she’d been taught to sing.

“It is.” Moira took a sip of her sangria.

Launching into his opening pitch, Narsico informed her that tequila was made from the piña, the heart of the agave plant.

Barbara interrupted him. “What sort of a piece are you writing?” She sat on the opposite side of the table from the two of them, which Moira thought a telling choice. The natural thing would be to sit next to your husband.

“It’s sociological, really. The origins of tequila, what it has meant to the Mexicans, that sort of thing.”

“That sort of thing,” Barbara echoed. “Well, to begin with tequila isn’t a Mexican drink at all.”

“But the Mexicans had to know about the agave plant.”

“Of course.” Barbara Skydel took a plate and filled it with food from different serving platters. “For centuries the piña had been cooked and sold as candy. Then the Spaniards invaded. It was the Spanish Franciscans who settled in this fertile valley and founded the town of Santiago de Tequila in 1530. It was the Franciscans who conceived of fermenting the piña’s sugars into a potent liquor.”

“So,” Moira said, “the agave was yet another aspect of Mexican culture appropriated and changed by the conquistadores.”

“Well, it’s worse than that, really.” Barbara licked her fingertips, reminding Moira of Roberto Corellos. “The conquistadores merely killed the Mexicans. It was the Franciscans who traveled with them, systematically dismantling the Mexican way of life and replacing it with the particularly cruel Spanish version of Catholicism. Ethnically speaking, it was the Spanish church that destroyed Mexican culture.” She smiled with her teeth. “The conquistadores were merely soldiers, they were after Mexican gold. The Franciscans were the soldiers of God, they wanted the Mexican soul.”

As Barbara poured herself a goblet of blood-red sangria, Narsico cleared his throat. “As you can see, my wife has become a fierce advocate of the Mexican way of life.”

He seemed embarrassed by this discussion, as if his wife was guilty of bad manners. Moira wondered how long Barbara’s convictions had been a bone of contention between them. Did he disagree with her, or did he think her outspokenness on this issue was bad PR for his company, which was, after all, wholly dependent on consumers?

“You didn’t always hold that conviction, Señora Skydel?”

“Growing up in Colombia, I knew only the struggle of my people against our dictator-generals and fascist armies.”

Narsico sighed theatrically. “Mexico has changed her.”

Moira did not miss the hint of bitterness in his voice. She studied Barbara as she ate, an elemental act that often revealed more about people than they realized. Barbara ate quickly and aggressively, as if there were a need to defend her food, and Moira wondered what her upbringing had been like. As the only female child she would have been served last, with her mother. Also, she was wholly concentrated on her food, and Moira imagined it was a sensual experience for her. Moira liked the way she ate, she found it endearing, and she thought again of Corellos’s description of her as a piranha.

At that moment Narsico’s cell phone buzzed, and taking it up, he rose and excused himself. Moira noticed that Barbara ignored him as he walked back inside the hacienda.

“As you can already see,” Barbara said, “there are a number of ways to tell this story.” She had a very direct way of speaking, and of looking at you when she spoke. “I’d like to influence the way you tell it.”

“You already have.”

Barbara nodded. She was one of those fortunate women with excellent bone structure, lucid skin, and a tight, athletic body, all of which naturally defied the passing of time. It was impossible to guess her precise age. Judging by her manner, Moira supposed she might have reached forty, though she looked a good five or six years younger.

“Where are you from?”

“Actually, I just came from Bogotá,” Moira said. She knew she was taking a chance, but she didn’t have the time to draw this out, and she felt the need to take advantage of Narsico’s absence. “I saw Roberto Corellos, Narsico’s cousin.” She watched the other woman’s face carefully. “And, coincidentally or not, an old friend of yours.”

Something dark and cold passed across Berengária Moreno’s face. “I don’t know what you mean, Corellos and I never saw eye-to-eye,” she said coldly.

“How about mouth-to-mouth?”

For a long, uncomfortable moment Barbara sat perfectly still. When she opened her mouth again she no longer looked handsome, or even appealing, and Moira knew precisely what Corellos had meant. Here comes the piranha, she thought.

In a low voice filled with menace Barbara said, “I could have you thrown out on your ass, beaten senseless, or even-” She bit back her words.

“Or what?” Moira said, egging her on. “Have me killed? Well, we know your husband wouldn’t have the balls to do it.”

Unexpectedly, Barbara Skydel exploded into laughter. “Oh, Jesus mio, can you imagine?” But almost immediately she sobered up. “Roberto had no business telling you about what happened.”

“You’ll have to take that up with him.”

Moira noticed Barbara glance back at the house where Narsico, still on his cell, paced up and down behind one of the French doors.

Barbara stood. “Why don’t we go for a walk?”

After hesitating for a moment, Moira drank off the last of her sangria and, rising, followed Barbara down past the tennis court, toward the gardens. When they were far away from the hacienda, in among a dusty stand of dwarf pine trees, Barbara turned to her and said, “You interest me. Who are you, because you sure as hell aren’t a reporter.”

Moira mentally braced herself for the worst. “What makes you say that?”

Barbara leaned in toward her in the menacing manner of certain men. “Roberto never would have told a reporter about us. He wouldn’t have told you a goddamn thing.”

“What can I say?” Moira shrugged. “He liked me.”

Barbara snorted. “Roberto doesn’t like anyone, and he only loves himself.” She cocked her head, and abruptly her manner changed from menacing to seductive. Backing Moira against the trunk of a tree, she put her hand up, twining a wisp of Moira’s hair around her forefinger. “So then you fucked him, or at least gave him a blow job.”

“He didn’t touch me.”

The back of Barbara’s hand stroked Moira’s cheek. Was Barbara jealous, trying to seduce her, or just screwing with her mind?

“Somehow you got to him. How did you do it?”

Moira smiled. “I graduated top of my class in charm school.”

Barbara’s long fingers were like feathers against her cheek and ear. “What did Roberto see in you? He may be a brute and a swine, but one of his great strengths is sizing up people virtually from the moment he meets them. So I’m left wondering why you’ve come here.” She pressed her lips against Moira’s cheek. “It isn’t to interview my husband, I think we’ve established that much.”

Moira felt she needed to shock Barbara in order to gain the upper hand. “I’ve come to investigate the murder of the man found on your property several weeks ago.”

Barbara stepped back. “You’re police? The American police are interested in the murder?”

“I’m not police,” Moira said. “I’m federal.”

All the breath seemed to go out of Barbara. “Christ,” she said. “That’s how you got to Roberto.”

Moira said, “Berengária, I want you to take me to the place where the body was found. I want you to take me there now.”

Bourne drove Ottavio Moreno’s gray Opel, following precisely the directions Coven had given him. Beside him, Ottavio was readying all the purchases Bourne had made. There was silence between them, just the thrumming of the tires on the road, the hiss of oncoming traffic working its way through the closed windows.

“Twenty minutes,” Bourne said finally.

“We’ll be ready,” Ottavio replied without lifting his head from his work. “Don’t worry.”

Bourne wasn’t worried, it wasn’t in his nature, or if it had once been, his Treadstone training had long since burned it out of him. He was thinking of Coven, the man with what was without doubt a CI field ops code name. He well knew that CI trained and directed a cadre of field operatives who specialized in wet work. He needed to know everything he could about Coven before their encounter, and there was only one person who could help him.

Taking out his cell, he punched in a number he hadn’t used in some time. When the familiar voice answered, he said, “Peter, it’s Jason Bourne.”

Peter Marks was on his way to see Chief Inspector Lloyd-Philips, who was waiting for him at the Vesper Club, when the call came in. He fairly vibrated when he heard Bourne’s voice.

“Where the hell are you?” Marks, in the back of one of those huge London cabs, found himself shouting.

“I need your help,” Bourne said. “What do you know about Coven?”

“The CI field op?”

“You didn’t say our field op. Have you left CI, Peter?”

“Actually, I quit not so long ago.” Marks had to will his heart rate back down to acceptable levels. He needed to find out where Bourne was and get to him. “Danziger has created a toxic atmosphere that I wouldn’t tolerate. He’s slowly getting rid of anyone loyal to the Old Man.” He coughed as a sudden chill went through him, and he shivered briefly. “You know he canned Soraya.”

“I didn’t.”

“Jason, I want you to know… I’m damn glad you’re alive.”

“Peter, about Coven.”

“Right, Coven. He’s as dangerous-and as successful-as they get.” Marks thought for a moment. “Hard, remorseless, a real shit.”

“Would he harm a child?”

“What?”

“You heard me,” Bourne said.

“Jesus, I don’t think so. He’s a devoted family man, if you can believe it.” Marks took a breath. “Jason, what the hell is going on?”

“I don’t have time now-”

“Listen, I was sent to London to find out what the hell happened at the Vesper Club.”

“Peter, the incident at the Vesper Club happened last night. If you really are in London-”

“I am. I’m on my way to the Vesper Club now.”

“You were already on the plane when I was at the club, so cut the bullshit, Peter. Who are you working for now?”

“Willard.”

“You’re Treadstone.”

“That’s right. We’re working for the same-”

“I don’t work for Treadstone, or Willard. In fact,” Bourne went on, “when I see Willard again, I’m going to wring his neck. He sold me out. Why did he do that, Peter?”

“I don’t know.”

“Good-bye, Peter.”

“Wait! Don’t hang up, I need to see you.”

There was a brief pause. Marks found that his hand was sweating so badly, the phone almost slipped from his grip. “Jason, please. This is important.”

“Aren’t you going to ask me why I was with the man who knifed Diego Hererra?”

“You can tell me, if you want. But frankly, I don’t care. I know you must’ve had a good reason.”

“Good man. Willard is training you well.”

“You’re right, of course, Willard’s a perfect shit. He’ll do anything to resurrect Treadstone.”

“Why?”

Marks hesitated. He’d never liked hitching his star to Willard’s dream, but at the time he felt he’d had no choice. And of course, Willard had played him perfectly, working on his desire to get revenge against Danziger and his puppet master, Bud Halliday. When Willard had promised him that he’d find a way to take Halliday down, and Danziger with him, he was in. But Willard had made a mistake when he’d asked Marks to betray Bourne. Willard, having no loyalty except to the idea of Treadstone, couldn’t conceive of the idea of personal loyalty, let alone have an inkling of its power.

He took a deep breath and said, “Willard wants to get you and Arkadin together so he can determine once and for all which of Treadstone’s training protocols is superior. If Arkadin kills you, then he’ll go back to the original protocols, make some minor adjustments, and start training recruits.”

“And if I kill Arkadin?”

“Then, Jason, he says he’ll have to study you to find out how your amnesia has changed you, so he can alter the Treadstone training program accordingly.”

“A monkey in a cage.”

“I’m afraid so, yes.”

“And you’re meant to take me back to Washington?”

“No. It’s not that simple. But if you’ll meet me, I’ll explain everything.”

“Maybe, Peter. If I think I can trust you.”

“Jason, you can. You absolutely can.” Marks believed this fervently, with every fiber of his being. “When can we-?”

“Not now. Right now, what I need from you is everything you know about Coven-specifically his methodology, tendencies, and what, if it comes to it, he’s capable of.”

Bourne listened to Peter Marks, filing away everything he said. Then he told him he’d be in touch and disconnected. For a time, he concentrated on the traffic piling up, allowing his subconscious to work on the problem at hand-that is, how to neutralize Coven without jeopardizing Chrissie and Scarlett.

Then he saw a sign for George Street and immediately recalled his afternoon in Oxford. And yet his thoughts were not of Chrissie and Professor Giles. As if it were yesterday, he recalled his visit to the Centre for the Study of Ancient Documents at the Old Boys’ School in Oxford’s George Street. He’d gone in the guise of David Webb, visiting professor of linguistics, but inside, the Bourne identity had asserted itself. He knew, but he didn’t know how he knew, that in this moment in time he’d still had in his possession the laptop he had stolen from Jalal Essai. He had taken time out from his classes at Oxford to enter the Centre for the Study of Ancient Documents. What had he done there, what was he researching? He couldn’t remember. But he did know that whatever he’d discovered there had led him to keep the laptop. What had he done with it? It was on the cusp of his memory, like the burning edge of the sun in eclipse. He almost had it, almost.

And then the turnoff Coven had described was coming up on the right, and he had to step away from the cusp, let it go, because it was time to confront Coven.

[16]

WE’LL HAVE TO walk from here.” Barbara climbed out of the jeep. Despite the lingering heat, she had changed into jeans, cowboy boots, and a plaid shirt, the sleeves rolled up to her elbows.

Moira followed her. They had driven for perhaps a mile, due west of the hacienda but still well within the boundaries of the immense estancia. In the distance rose dusty blue hills, and the sweet, almost fermented scent of the blue agave thickened the air. The sun wallowed just above the horizon. The ground, storing the heat of the day, was baking. To the west, the sky was white and glaring.

“Ai, Narsico said this would all blow over, but I knew different.”

“Why is that?” Moira said.

“That’s the way things always happen.”

“What things?” Moira pressed.

“You get fucked by the smallest things.”

“Murder is a small thing?”

Barbara lifted her chin in a gesture of contempt. “You think I give a rat’s ass about someone I don’t even know?”

“What became of the police investigation?” she asked as they walked through the arid scrubland.

“The usual.” Barbara squinted into the sun. “An inspector from Tequila asked some questions, but there was no identification on the man, and no one claimed the body. He spent several weeks interviewing us and everyone on our staff. He made a complete nuisance of himself. He kept saying that there was a reason the victim was found on our estancia. We became prime suspects, but he and his kind are so inept that finally he was forced to give up spewing innuendos and speculation. Then, complete silence. So far as I knew, the case was closed.”

“That’s the Mexican perspective,” Moira said. “For us, the murder has taken on larger implications.”

The concern Moira had heard before crept back into Barbara’s voice. “Like what?”

“For one thing, we know that the victim worked for your late brother in his compound outside Mexico City, so a link has been established between you and the victim.”

“He worked for Gustavo? I had no idea. I had nothing to do with Gustavo’s business dealings.”

“Really? The fact that you’ve been sleeping with his supplier makes that difficult to believe.”

“And for another?”

Moira deliberately kept silent. It appeared that they were approaching the crime scene, or at least the spot where the body had been dumped, because Barbara slowed and began to look around.

“This is it.” Barbara pointed to a spot a few feet ahead of them. “That’s where the body was found.”

In this arid climate, footprints from several weeks ago were still visible, but they were inextricably overlaid with the boot prints of the police. Moira picked her way slowly around the periphery, scrutinizing the ground.

“The earth hasn’t been dug up, or even disturbed very much. It doesn’t look like the crime scene was scoured.”

“It wasn’t. They dragged us out here while they were here,” Barbara said.

Moira began her investigation in earnest. Snapping on a pair of latex gloves, she pawed through the dirt, dust, and scrub. By whatever mysterious means, Jalal Essai had obtained copies of the forensic photos of the victim, which showed him lying on his left side. His wrists were tied behind his back and his legs were bent at an angle, his head bent forward. From this, it could be deduced that he had been kneeling at the moment of his demise. Essai had tried to get the autopsy report, as well, but it had been lost by either the coroner’s office or the police, both of which seemed incompetent.

“Another thing,” she said, wanting to continue to heighten Barbara’s tension, “we know the victim left the compound less than thirty minutes before the raid during which your brother was killed.” She raised her gaze to peer into Barbara’s eyes. “Which means that he had advance warning of the raid.”

“Why are you looking at me?” Barbara said. “I told you I had nothing to do with Gustavo’s business.”

“Are you going to keep saying that until I believe you?”

Barbara folded her arms over her chest. “Damn you to hell, I had nothing to do with this man’s death.”

Moira was looking for a spent shell casing. The one curious thing about the photos was that it was clear the victim had been shot with a small-caliber handgun. One shot to the base of the skull. The lack of powder or flash burns on either the victim’s skin or his clothes indicated that the killer hadn’t shot at particularly close range, which you would certainly want to do if you meant to kill a man with one shot from a small-caliber weapon.

Forty minutes of sifting topsoil through her fingers produced nothing. By this time she had made one complete circuit of the crime scene at a calculated distance from where the body was found. Of course, it was possible that the victim had been killed elsewhere and dumped here, but she didn’t think so. If, as she suspected, the killer’s motivation was not only to silence the victim but also to implicate the Skydels, he would want the killing to occur on their property.

At a wider radius from the kill spot, more scrub grew, and Moira, once again down on her knees, began to excavate around the base of these gray-green plants. The sun was lowering, passing through a stray band of striated cloud. The landscape turned blue-gray in the false twilight. Moira sat back on her hams, waiting for more light. When the sun began to emerge, the crime scene was pierced with brilliant shards of red-gold, scattering across the ground at an acute angle. Their shadows stretched out behind them, attenuated giants.

Out of the corner of her eye Moira saw a bright flash, instantaneous, like the wink of a diamond facet, and then it was gone. She turned her head and quickly picked her way to the spot where she had seen the flash. Now there was nothing. Still, she drove her fingers into the ground, pushing them forward, turning over the dusty earth.

And there it was, suddenly, in the palm of her hand, as the granules of dirt fell away. Carefully, she plucked it up between thumb and forefinger and moved it into the sunlight. The flash came again, and she read the markings on the case, her heart beating hard and fast.

Barbara took a step closer. “What have you found?” Her voice was a little breathless.

Moira rose to her feet. “Has it ever occurred to you that the victim was deliberately shot on your estancia?”

“What? Why?”

“As I said, the victim worked for your brother, Gustavo. However, he was someone else’s creature. This someone tipped the victim to the raid, and the victim escaped. Why was he tipped off, only to be killed within hours of his escape?”

Barbara, mute, shook her head.

“When he left Gustavo’s compound he took with him your brother’s laptop, which contained all of Gustavo’s drug contacts.”

Barbara licked her lips. “The person who controlled him killed him?”

“Yes.”

“Shot him to death on my estancia.”

“Yes. To try to implicate you,” Moira said. “What saved you was luck in the form of the incompetence of the local police.”

“But why would this person want to implicate me in the murder?”

“I’m speculating here,” Moira said, “but I’d say he wanted to get you out of the picture.”

Again, Barbara shook her head, mutely.

“Consider: The person who has Gustavo’s laptop holds your brother’s business in his hands. His plan was to muscle his way in and get rid of anyone who stood in his way.”

Barbara’s eyes were wide and staring. “I don’t believe you.”

“That’s where this shell casing comes in.” Moira held up the item in question. “The forensic photos showed that the victim was shot to death with one bullet to the base of the skull. The oddity was that the killer used a small-caliber handgun, even though he wasn’t standing right behind the victim. I figured that he had to be using special ammunition, and I was right.”

She placed the spent casing in Barbara’s hand. Barbara held it up and looked at the markings in the last of the fading light.

“I can’t read the writing.”

“That’s because it’s Russian Cyrillic. The manufacturer is Tula. This casing is from a very special bullet, a hollow-core that’s filled with cyanide. Not surprisingly, it’s illegal, and only available in Russia. It’s not even sold over the Internet.”

Barbara looked at her. “The killer is Russian.”

“The man who muscled his way into Gustavo’s business.” She nodded. “That’s right, I know you’re only fronting your brother’s business. I know you and Roberto have a new partner.”

That did it. Barbara’s face fell. “Goddammit, I told Roberto that Leonid was out to get him, but he just laughed at me.”

“Leonid?” Moira’s heart gave a thump in her chest. “Is Leonid Arkadin your partner?”

“Roberto said, ‘What do you know, you’re a woman, women know what they’re told to know, nothing more.’ ”

Moira grabbed her arm in order to focus her. “Barbara, is Leonid Arkadin your partner?”

Barbara looked away. She bit her lip.

“Is it loyalty or fear that’s keeping your mouth shut?”

Moira could just make out one curve of Barbara’s thin smile. “I’m loyal to no one. In this business it doesn’t pay. That’s another thing my husband doesn’t understand.”

“Then you’re scared of Arkadin.”

Barbara’s head swung around, and there was a violent look in her eyes. “The fucker muscled his way in. He strong-armed Roberto, for Christ’s sake, said he had Gustavo’s client list. Roberto said those were his people. Arkadin said that was in the past. He said that Gustavo was dead, he had the list, and the clients were his, as well. He said the best solution was to share the profits equally, that if Roberto didn’t agree he’d contact them without Roberto’s permission or help and supply them from other sources.

“Roberto tried three times to kill Arkadin. All the attempts failed. Then Arkadin told him, ‘Fuck you, Gustavo’s clients are mine now, go find yourself some other pigeons to feed.’ I thought Roberto was going to have a coronary. I calmed him down.”

“Your husband must’ve liked that,” Moira said drily.

“My husband’s a pussy, as you can see for yourself,” Barbara said. “But he’s devoted to me and he serves his purpose.” She lifted her arms to encompass the whole of the estancia. “Besides, his business would be in the toilet without me.”

The sun had slid behind the mountains in the west. It was growing dark very quickly now, as if an immense blanket had been thrown across the sky.

“Let’s get back to the jeep,” Moira said as she took the shell casing from Barbara.

On the way back to the hacienda, Barbara said, “You know Arkadin, I gather.”

Moira knew as much as Bourne had told her. “Well enough to know that his next step will be to take over Corellos’s business completely. That’s how Arkadin operates.” It was how he’d appropriated Nikolai Yevsen’s arms distribution in Khartoum. He’d find some way to suborn a La Modelo guard or a FARC inmate or maybe one of Corellos’s many women inside prison, pay them enough to assuage their fear of the drug lord. One day soon, Moira thought, Corellos would wind up dead in his luxurious cell.

“Arkadin is already pissed at Roberto and me,” Barbara said as she guided the jeep over the unpaved road. “The latest shipment has been delayed. The boat had to pull in for repairs because its engine overheated. If you know anything about Mexico, you know that those repairs weren’t going to happen in a matter of hours, or even overnight. The boat will be ready by tomorrow evening, but I know that’s not going to satisfy him.” Her hands were gripping the wheel so tightly, her knuckles had turned white as bone.

“I understand, Berengária, honestly I do.”

“Why do you disrespect me? I’ve been Barbara for years.”

“I respect your real name. You should embrace it, not reject it.”

When Berengária did not reply, Moira continued. “Arkadin has his rules, and they’re inflexible. Both you and Roberto will forfeit something for the delay.”

Berengária stared straight ahead. “I know.”

“And listen, mami, if this shipment should fail to reach its destination, someone else will be paying you a visit, someone not nearly as kind and understanding as I am. You can be sure that’s how Arkadin wants it and how it’s going to be.”

Berengária thought for a long time. The sun had already slipped behind the purple mountains. The sky seemed scrubbed of clouds. In the east darkness was gathering. They seemed to drive for a long time, as if Berengária was driving in circles, as if she was reluctant to return to the hacienda. At length, she braked and put the jeep in neutral. Then she turned to Moira.

“What if,” she said with a particular ferocity, “that’s not how I want it to be?”

Moira experienced the joy of the wheel turning, of Berengária finally being in her sights. She returned her fierceness with a grin. “There I think I can help you.”

Berengária stared at her with an intensity that to another woman might have been disturbing. But Moira understood what it was she wanted, what their quid pro quo would be. She admired this woman, and pitied her as well. Difficult enough to be a strong woman in a man’s world, but to maintain your strength in the Latino world was a task worthy of an Amazon. And yet, above and beyond her personal feelings was the knowledge that Berengária was her target. What she needed from Berengária she would get. Now she knew how to get it.

Leaning over very slowly, she took Berengária’s head in her hands and pressed her lips to hers.

Berengária’s eyes opened wide for just a split instant before they fluttered closed. Her lips softening, then opening, she gave herself over to the kiss.

Moira felt the moment of her capitulation with both a sense of triumph and compassion. Then she felt Berengária’s hand on the nape of her neck, the pressure of passion unleashed, and she sighed into Berengária’s sweet mouth.

My name is Lloyd-Philips, Chief Inspector Lloyd-Philips.”

Peter Marks introduced himself and shook the proffered hand, which was pale, limp, and nicotine-stained. Lloyd-Philips, in a cheap suit, frayed at the cuffs, sported a gingery mustache and thinning hair that might once have been the same color, but now seemed dusted with ash.

The chief inspector tried to smile, but couldn’t quite make it. Maybe those muscles had atrophied, Marks thought wryly. He showed Lloyd-Philips his bogus credentials, which claimed he worked for a private firm under the auspices of the DoD and, therefore, had the power of the Pentagon behind him.

They were standing in the deserted lobby of the Vesper Club, which had been cordoned off by the police as a crime scene.

Marks said: “One of the alleged perpetrators might be a person of interest to my superiors. That being the case, I’d appreciate a look-see at the relevant CCTV tape from last night.”

Lloyd-Philips shrugged his thin shoulders. “Why not? We’re already printing up flyers with the photos of the two men’s faces to distribute to the metropolitan police and personnel at all train stations, airports, and shipping terminals.”

The chief inspector led him through the casino proper, down a corridor, and into the back rooms, one of which was hot and smelled of electronics. A technician sat in front of a complex board filled with dials, sliders, and a computer keyboard. Just above were two lines of monitors, each showing a different part of the casino. From what Marks could see, no nook or cranny had been ignored, even the lavatories.

Lloyd-Philips bent over the technician, murmured something, to which the man nodded and started punching keys. The chief inspector reminded Marks of a character out of any one of a hundred British spy novels. His vaguely dyspeptic expression of long-suffering boredom marked him as a career bureaucrat with one eye closed and the other on his approaching pension.

“Here we go,” the technician intoned.

One of the monitors went black, then an image appeared. Marks saw the bar in the high-rollers’ room. Then Bourne and another man he recognized as the now deceased Diego Hererra moved into the frame and stayed there. They were speaking, but they were partly turned away from the camera, and it was impossible to make out what they were saying.

“Diego Hererra entered the Vesper Club at approximately nine thirty-five last night,” Lloyd-Philips said in his slightly bored donnish voice. “With him was this man.” He pointed to Bourne. “Adam Stone.”

The video continued. Another man-presumably the killer-came into the picture. It was when he began to approach Bourne and Diego Hererra that things got interesting.

Marks leaned forward tensely. Bourne had moved in front of Hererra, as if to block the killer’s advance. But something curious happened as they spoke to each other. Bourne’s attitude changed. It was almost as if he knew the killer, but judging by his initial expression that couldn’t be true. Yet Bourne allowed him to come over to the bar, to stand next to Hererra. And then Diego slumped over. Bourne grabbed the killer by the lapels, as he should have done in the first place. But then the second strange thing happened. Bourne didn’t beat the crap out of the killer. Marks was frankly astonished to see the two of them take on the three bouncers who appeared from the casino’s main rooms.

“And there you have it,” Chief Inspector Lloyd-Philips said. “The perpetrator used some kind of high-frequency sound weapon to render everyone unconscious.”

“Have you identified the killer?” Marks asked.

“Not yet. He doesn’t appear on any of our electronic nets.”

“This club is members-only. The manager must know who he is.”

Lloyd-Philips looked distinctly annoyed. “According to the club’s records, the suspect’s name is Vincenzo Mancuso, but though there are actually three men with that name in England, none of them matches the man on the tape. Nevertheless, we dispatched inspectors to interview the three Vincenzo Mancusos, only one of whom resides in the London environs. All have alibis that check out.”

“Forensics?” Marks asked.

The chief inspector looked ready to bite Marks’s head off. “No suspicious fingerprints were found, and there was no sign of the murder weapon. On my orders the men fanned out within a mile radius of the club, pawing through dustbins, peering down storm drains, and the like. They even dredged the river, though no one had a hope of finding the knife. All searches have so far proved fruitless.”

“And what of the other man-Adam Stone?”

“Vanished off the face of the earth.”

Which means the investigation is at a standstill, Marks thought. This is a high-profile murder investigation. No wonder he’s edgy.

“Adam Stone is the person of interest to my superiors.” Marks drew the chief inspector away from the technician. “They-and I-would consider it a personal favor if you suppressed Stone’s photo from the flyers.”

Lloyd-Philips smiled, not a pretty sight. His teeth were as nicotine-stained as his fingertips.

“I’ve made a career of not giving personal favors. That’s how I keep my nose clean and my pension intact.”

“Nevertheless, in this instance my superiors at DoD would be grateful if you made an exception.”

“Listen, laddo, I brought you in here as a courtesy.” The chief inspector’s eyes were suddenly as flinty as his voice. “I don’t care if your superiors are five-bloody-star generals, London’s my bailiwick. My superiors-Her Majesty’s Government-don’t appreciate you lot coming over here and leaning on us like we’re a bunch of colonial yobs. An’ I don’t like it one ickle bit, either.” He lifted a warning finger. “A word in your shell-like: Naff off before I get really hacked and decide to detain you as a material witness.”

“Thanks for your hospitality, Chief Inspector,” Marks said drily. “Before I go, I’d like a copy of the photos of Stone and the un-ID’d man.”

“Anything to get you out of my bloody hair.” Lloyd-Philips tapped the tech on the shoulder, the tech asked for the number of Marks’s cell, then pressed a button; a moment later a digital still from the security tape of the two men side by side appeared on Marks’s phone.

“All right, then.” The chief inspector turned to Marks. “Don’t make me regret what I’ve done. Stay well away from me and my case and you’ll get on well.”

Back out on the street, the sun was struggling to be seen through masses of streaming cloud. The city roared all around Marks. He checked the photo on his PDA. Then he punched in Willard’s private line and got right to his voice mail. Willard’s phone was off, which, calculating the hour back in Washington, Marks thought odd. He left a detailed message, asking Willard to run the photo of the man who had knifed Diego Hererra through the Treadstone data banks, which had been amassed from those of the usual alphabet soup of CI, NSA, FBI, DoD, plus some others to which Willard had gained access.

From a detective-inspector outside the club to whom he showed his ID, Marks obtained Diego Hererra’s home address. Forty minutes later he arrived just as a silver Bentley limousine turned the corner and pulled up outside Hererra’s house. The liveried driver emerged, walked smartly around the gleaming grille to open the rear door. A tall, distinguished man who looked like an older version of Diego emerged. With a somber expression and a heavy tread the man climbed the steps to Diego’s front door and inserted a key in the door.

Before he could disappear inside, Marks strode up and said, “Mr. Hererra, I’m Peter Marks.” When the older man turned around to peer at him, Marks added, “I’m terribly sorry for your loss.”

The elder Hererra paused for a moment. He was a handsome man, with a leonine shock of white hair, worn long over his collar in the current Catalan style, but he appeared ashen beneath his deep outdoorsman’s tan. “Did you know my son, Señor Marks?”

“I’m afraid I didn’t have that pleasure, sir.”

Hererra nodded somewhat absently. “It seemed Diego had very few male friends.” His mouth twitched in a parody of a smile. “His preference was for women.”

Marks took a step forward and held his creds up for the other to see. “Sir, I know this is a difficult time, and I apologize in advance if I’m intruding, but I need to talk to you.”

Hererra continued to look through Marks as if he hadn’t heard a word he’d said. Then he seemed to focus. “Do you know something about his death?”

“This isn’t a conversation for the street, is it, Señor Hererra.”

“No, of course not.” Hererra’s head twitched. “Please forgive my lack of manners, Señor Marks.” Then he gestured. He had very large, square hands, the capable hands of a skilled laborer. “Come inside and we’ll talk.”

Marks went up the steps, across the threshold, and into the late Diego Hererra’s house. He heard the older man coming in after him, the door close behind him, and then there was a knife blade across his throat, and Diego Hererra’s father was close behind him, holding him in an astonishingly powerful grip.

“Now, you sonovabitch,” Hererra said, “you’ll tell me everything you know about my son’s murder, or by Christ’s tears I’ll slit your throat from ear to ear.”

[17]

BUD HALLIDAY SAT in a semicircular banquette at the White Knights Lounge, a bar in an out-of-the-way area of suburban Maryland where he often came to unwind. He nursed a bourbon-and-water while he tried to clear his mind of the clutter that had built up over the long day.

His parents were Mainline Philadelphians who could trace their respective families back to Alexander Hamilton and John Adams, respectively. They had been childhood sweethearts who, with the predictability of their ilk, were divorced. His mother, a society doyenne, now lived in Newport, Rhode Island. His father, plagued with emphysema from years of inveterate smoking, rattled around the family mansion, trailed by oxygen tanks and a pair of full-time Haitian nurses. Halliday saw neither of them. He’d turned his back on the hermetically sealed golden glow of their society world when, to their horror and mortification, he had gleefully enlisted in the marines at the age of eighteen. While at boot camp he had imagined his mother fainting at the news, which gave him a great measure of satisfaction. As for his father, he’d probably chewed off the end of his cigar, blamed his wife for his disappointment, and gone off to the insurance company he owned, and which he ran with ruthless and appalling success.

Finding that he’d finished his bourbon, Halliday flagged down the waiter and ordered another.

The twins arrived at the same time as his drink, and he ordered them chocolate martinis. They sat down on either side of him. One was dressed in green, the other in blue. The one in green was a redhead, the other blond. Today, at least. They were like that, Michelle and Mandy. They liked to play off their eerie echoes of each other, but at the same time asserting their differences. They were tall, almost six feet, with figures as lush and luscious as their lips. They could have been models, or possibly even actresses, given the expert way they played roles, but were neither vain nor empty-headed. Michelle was a theoretical mathematician, and Mandy was a microbiologist at the CDC. Michelle, who could have had her pick of chairs at any of the top universities in the country, instead worked for DARPA-the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency-cooking up new cryptographic algorithms that could foil even the fastest computer, even used in tandem. Her latest used heuristic techniques, meaning it learned from every attempt to break it, as if it were a self-educating entity, changing on the fly. It required a physical key to unlock it.

Never had two more fertile minds been wrapped in such delectable and erotic packages, Halliday thought as the waiter set their chocolate martinis in front of them. They all raised their glasses in a silent toast to another night together. When they were off duty, the girls loved sex, chocolate, and sex, in that order. But they weren’t off duty yet.

“What’s your assessment of the ring?” Halliday asked Michelle.

“It would help,” she said, “if you had given me the real thing instead of a set of photos.”

“Given that I didn’t, what’s your best guess?”

Michelle took a sip of her drink as if needing time to set her thoughts in order or to figure out how to express them to Halliday, a mental midget compared with her and her twin.

“It seems likely to me that the ring is a physical key.”

Halliday got interested in a hurry. He was keeping a sharp lookout. “Meaning?”

“Just what I said. It may be the algorithm I’m working on, but the odd inscription on the inside of the ring appears to me to be like the ridges of a key.” Responding to Halliday’s quizzical look, she changed tack. Taking out a felt-tip pen, she drew on Halliday’s napkin.

“Here we have a common key to a lock. It has ridges cut into it that are unique to it. Most common locks have twelve pins inside the lock cylinder, six upper and six lower. When the key is inserted in the cylinder, the ridges raise the upper pins above the shear line, allowing the shaft inside the cylinder to turn and the lock to open.

“So now consider each ideogram of the engraving inside the ring as a notch. Slip the ring into the right lock and presto, Open Sesame.”

“Is this possible?” he asked.

“Anything’s possible, Bud. You know that.”

Halliday stared at her drawing, suddenly galvanized. Her theory took a big leap of faith to believe, but the woman was a stone-cold genius. He couldn’t afford to dismiss any theory she put forward no matter how loopy it might sound on first blush.

“What’s in store for us tonight?” Mandy asked, clearly bored with this topic.

“I’m hungry.” Michelle pocketed her pen. “I haven’t eaten a thing all day, except for a Snickers I found in my drawer, and that was so stale the chocolate had turned white.”

“Finish your drink,” Halliday said.

She feigned a pout. “You know how I get when I drink on an empty stomach.”

Halliday chuckled. “So I’ve been told.”

“Well, it’s true and then some,” Mandy said. And in another voice entirely, deeper, with plenty of vibrato, a singer’s voice: “Dat li’l girl, she get freak-eee!”

“Whereas dis one,” Michelle said in precisely the same voice, “she already got her freak on!”

Both of them threw their heads back and laughed for precisely the same amount of time. Halliday, watching them, turning his head from side to side, felt a throbbing in his forehead, as if he were observing a tennis match from too close.

“Ah, there you are!” Mandy said as their foursome was about to be completed.

“We thought you might not be coming,” Michelle said.

Halliday palmed his diagram-covered napkin and hid it in his lap. Both the girls noticed but said nothing, simply smiling into the face of the newcomer.

“There is no power on earth.” Jalal Essai slid into the banquette and kissed Mandy in the place on her neck she liked best. “That could possibly have kept me away.”

Peter Marks stood very still. The man behind him smelled of tobacco and anger. The knife he held to Marks’s throat was razor-sharp, and Marks, who certainly had enough experience in these matters, had no doubt that Hererra would slit his throat.

“Señor Hererra, there’s no need for these melodramatics,” he said. “I’ll gladly share with you everything I know. Let’s just keep calm and not lose our heads here.”

“I’m perfectly calm,” Hererra said grimly.

“All right.” Marks tried to swallow. His throat had dried up. “I’ll admit up front that what I know isn’t very much.”

“It’s got to be more than that bastard Lloyd-Shithead was willing to share. He told me to concentrate on making arrangements to bring my son back to Spain, which he said wouldn’t be possible until the medical examiner was through with him.”

Now Marks understood why Hererra was in a fury. “I agree, the chief inspector is something of a dick.” He swallowed. “But he’s of no consequence now. I want to know why Diego was murdered almost as much as you do. Believe me, I’m determined to find out.” This was true. Marks would never find Bourne without discovering what had happened last night in the Vesper Club, and why Bourne would leave with the murderer as if they were friends. Something wasn’t adding up.

He felt Hererra breathing behind him. It was deep and even, which to Marks was very frightening indeed, because it meant that despite his grief this man was in full possession of all his faculties. This spoke of a powerful personality; it would be suicidal to fuck with him.

“In fact,” Marks continued, “I can show you a photo of the man who murdered your son.”

The knife blade trembled a moment in Hererra’s huge fist, then it was withdrawn, and Marks stepped away. He turned to face the older man.

“Please, Señor Hererra, I understand the depth of your sorrow.”

“Do you have a son, Señor Marks?”

“I don’t, sir. I’m not married.”

“Then you can’t know.”

“I lost a sister when I was twelve. She was only ten. I was so angry I wanted to destroy everything in sight.”

Hererra contemplated him for a moment, then said, “So you know.”

He took Marks into the living room. Marks sat down on a sofa, but Hererra remained standing, looking at the photos of his son and, presumably, his many girlfriends that lined the mantel. For a long time, the two men remained like that, Hererra silent, Marks unwilling to disturb the older man’s grief.

At length, Hererra turned and, crossing to where Marks sat, said, “I’ll see that photo now.”

Marks dug out his PDA, scrolled to the media section, and brought up the photo he’d gotten from Lloyd-Philips’s IT tech.

“He’s on the left,” Marks said, pointing to the as-yet-unidentified man.

Hererra took the PDA and stared down at the screen for so long that Marks thought he had turned to stone.

“And the other man?”

Marks shrugged. “An innocent bystander.”

“Tell me about him, he looks familiar to me.”

“Lloyd-Shithead told me his name is Adam Stone.”

“Is that so.” Something slithered across Hererra’s face.

Marks impatiently pointed again. “Señor, this is important. Do you know the man on the left?”

Hererra thrust the PDA back into Marks’s hand, then went to the bar setup and poured himself a brandy. He drank half straight off, then, in an effort to compose himself, set the glass carefully down. “Christ almighty,” he murmured under his breath.

Marks rose and came over to where he was standing. “Señor, I can help you if you’ll let me.”

Hererra looked over at him. “How? How can you help me?”

“I’m good at finding people.”

“You can find my son’s murderer?”

“With some help, yes, I believe I can.”

Hererra appeared to consider this for some time. Then, as if making up his mind, he gave a little nod. “The man on the left is Ottavio Moreno.”

“You know him?”

“Oh, yes, señor, I know him very well. Since he was a little boy. I used to hold him in my arms when I was in Morocco.” Hererra picked up his brandy and drained the glass. His blue eyes looked bleak, but Marks caught the storm of anger far back in the shadows beneath the intelligent brow.

“Are you telling me that Ottavio is the half brother of Gustavo Moreno, the late Colombian drug lord?”

“I’m telling you that he’s my godson.” The anger boiled forward into the set of his jaw, the slight tremor of his hand. “That’s why I know he couldn’t have killed Diego.”

Moira and Berengária Moreno lay entwined in each other’s arms. The plush owner’s cabin smelled of musk, marine oil, and the sea. Beneath them, the yacht rocked gently as if wanting to lull them to sleep. They knew, each in her own way, that sleep was out of the question. The yacht was due to leave the dock in less than twenty minutes. Slowly, they rose, their bodies love-bruised, their senses on overload, as if they had slipped out of time and place. Wordlessly, they dressed, and minutes later emerged from belowdecks. The velvet sky arched over them with what seemed like protective arms.

After she had a brief talk with the captain, Berengária nodded to Moira. “They’ve completed all the tests. The engine is in perfect running order. There should be no more delays.”

“Let’s hope not.”

Starlight spangled the water. Berengária had flown them in Narsico’s single-engine Lancair IV-P to Lic. Gustavo Díaz Ordaz International Airport on the Pacific coast. From there it was a short drive to the surfer’s paradise of Sayulita, where they met the yacht. All told, the trip took just over ninety minutes.

Moira stood next to Berengária. The crew, busy preparing to get under way, paid them no mind. It only remained for Berengária to debark.

“You’ve called Arkadin?”

Berengária nodded. “I spoke to him while you were freshening up. He’ll be there to meet the boat just before dawn. Of course after the delay, he’s going to want to board and check the entire shipment himself. You must be ready for him before then.”

“Don’t worry.” Moira touched her arm and produced in the other woman another little tremor. “Who is the recipient?”

Berengária slid her arm around Moira’s waist. “You don’t really need to know that.”

When Moira said nothing, Berengária leaned against her and sighed deeply. “My God, what a fucking snake pit this has turned out to be. Fuck men. Fuck them all!”

Berengária smelled of spice and salt spray, scents Moira liked. She found it intriguing to seduce another woman. There was nothing repellent about it, it was simply part of the job, something different, a challenge for her in every sense of the word. She was a sexual creature but, apart from one pleasant but inconsequential college experiment, had always been heterosexual. There was an edge of danger to Berengária she found attractive. In fact, making love to her was far more satisfying than it had been with a number of men she had bedded. Unlike those men-and excepting Bourne-Berengária knew when to be fierce and when to be tender, she took the time to seek out the secret places that touched Moira’s pleasure centers, concentrating on them until Moira convulsed over and over again.

Not surprisingly, she was unlike Roberto Corellos’s dismissive description of her as a piranha. She was both tough and vulnerable, a complexity to which a man like Corellos would be deaf, dumb, and blind. She had made her way in a man’s world, having run and ruthlessly expanded her husband’s business, yet she had been as terrified of her brother as she was now of Corellos and Leonid Arkadin. Moira could see that Berengária had no illusions. Her power was as nothing compared with theirs. They commanded a respect among their respective troops that she could never enjoy no matter how hard she tried.

Once again, Moira felt her mixed emotions of admiration and pity, this time because the moment Moira sailed away to her rendezvous with Arkadin, Berengária would be left to an undetermined fate. Caught between the corrosive power of Corellos and the contemptible weakness of Narsico, the future would not go well for her.

Which was why she kissed her hard on the lips and held her tight, because it would be for the last time, and Berengária deserved at least that modicum of solace, no matter how fleeting.

She ran her tongue around Berengária’s ear. “Who is the client?”

Berengária shivered and held her tighter. At length, she leaned back enough to engage Moira’s eyes. “The client is one of Gustavo’s oldest and best, which is why the delay caused such problems.”

Tears glittered in her eyes, and Moira knew she understood that tonight had been both the beginning and the end for them. This curious woman had no illusions, yes. And for an instant, Moira felt the pang of loss one feels when an ocean or a continent separates two people who had once held each other.

In a final acquiescence, Berengária bowed her head. “His name is Don Fernando Hererra.”

Soraya awoke with the taste of the Sonoran Desert in her mouth. Assaulted by aches and pains, she rolled over onto her back and groaned. She stared up at the four men towering over her, two on each side. They were dusky-skinned, like her, and like her they were of mixed blood. It took one to know one, she thought groggily. These men were part Arab. They looked so much alike, they could have been brothers.

“Where is he?” one of the men said.

“Where is who?” she said, trying to identify his accent.

Another of the men-one on the opposite side-squatted down in the comfortable manner of a desert Arab, his wrists on his knees.

“Ms. Moore-Soraya, if I may-you and I are looking for the same person.” His voice was calm and assured, and as casual as if they were two friends finding an equitable solution to a recent squabble. “One Leonid Danilovich Arkadin.”

“Who are you?” she said.

“We ask the questions,” said the man who had spoken first. “You provide the answers.”

She tried to get up, but discovered that she had been staked out-cords around her wrists and ankles were wrapped around tent pegs that had been driven into the ground.

As the first light of dawn leaked into the sky, tendrils of pink crawled toward her like a spider.

“My name isn’t important,” the man squatting beside her said. One of his eyes was brown, she noticed, the other a watery blue, almost milky, like an opal, as if it had been damaged or ravaged by disease. “Only what I want is important.”

Those two sentences seemed so absurd she felt the urge to laugh. People were known by their names. Without a name there was no personal history, no profile possible, just a blank slate, which was apparently how he wanted it. She wondered how she could change that.

“If you won’t talk to me voluntarily,” he said, “we’ll have to try another way.”

He snapped his fingers, and one of the other men handed him a small bamboo cage. No-Name took it gingerly by the handle and, swinging it past Soraya’s face, set it down between her breasts. Inside was a very large scorpion.

“Even if it stings me,” Soraya said, “it won’t kill me.”

“Oh, I don’t want it to kill you.” No-Name unlatched the door and with a pen started to prod the scorpion out. “But if you don’t tell us where Arkadin is hiding, you will begin to have seizures, your heart rate and blood pressure will rise, your vision will become blurred, need I go on?”

The scorpion was hard and shiny-black, its tail arched high over its carapace. When sunlight touched it, it seemed to glow as if with an inner power. Soraya tried not to watch it, tried to damp down the fright rising inside her. But there was an instinctual response that was difficult to control. She heard her heartbeat pounding in her ears, felt a pain beneath her sternum as the fright built. She bit her lip.

“And if you should receive multiple stings without treatment, well, who knows how badly you’ll suffer?”

As delicately as a ballet dancer the creature ventured forth on its eight legs until it stood in the valley between Soraya’s breasts. She fought back the urge to scream.

Oliver Liss sat on a narrow bench in the weight room of his health club. His chest and arms were shiny with sweat. A towel was draped around his neck. He was on his third set of fifteen biceps reps when the redhead walked in. She was tall, with square shoulders, an upright bearing, and an epic rack. He’d seen her here a number of times before. One hundred dollars to the manager, and now he knew her name was Abby Sumner, she was thirty-four, divorced, and childless. She was one of the endless fleet of lawyers toiling for the Justice Department. He had already speculated that her long hours had resulted in her divorce, but it was this same extended work schedule that attracted him. Less time for her to get in his way once the affair started. He had no doubt that it would start, no doubt at all. It was simply a matter of when.

Liss finished his reps, put the dumbbells back in their slots, then toweled off while he made his recon assessment. Abby had gone straight for the bench press and, having selected weights, slid under the bar. That was Liss’s cue. He rose and, strolling over to the bench press, looked down at her with his actor’s megawatt smile and said, “Do you need a spotter?”

Abby Sumner looked up at him with large blue eyes. Then she returned his smile.

“Thank you. I could use one; I’ve just gone up in weights.”

“It’s a little unusual to see a woman bench-pressing, unless she’s in training.”

Abby Sumner’s smile remained in place. “I do a lot of heavy lifting at work.”

Liss laughed softly. She lifted the weights off the rests and began her reps, while he held his hands a bit beneath the bar in case she faltered. “It sounds like I wouldn’t want to get in your way.”

“No,” she said. “You wouldn’t.”

She appeared to be having little or no difficulty with the higher weight. Liss’s difficulty lay in keeping his eyes off her breasts.

“Don’t arch your back,” he said.

She pulled her spine back down to the bench. “I always do that when I increase weight. Thanks.”

She finished her first set of eight reps, and he helped her guide the bar back onto the rests. While she took a short breather, he said, “My name’s Oliver and I’d love to take you to dinner sometime.”

“That would be interesting.” Abby looked up at him. “Unfortunately, I don’t mix business with pleasure.”

Responding to his quizzical expression, she slid out from under the bar and stood up. She really was an impressive woman, Liss thought. She glanced over to the juice bar, where a clean-cut man was drinking one of those phosphorescent-green glasses of wheatgrass juice. The man drained his glass, set it down, and began to saunter toward them.

Abby brought her gym bag up onto the bench and, reaching into it, brought out several folded sheets of paper, which she handed to Liss.

“Oliver Liss, my name is Abigail Sumner. This judicial order from the attorney general of the United States authorizes me and Jeffrey Klein”-here she indicated the wheatgrass drinker, who was now standing beside her-“to take you into custody pending an investigation into allegations made against you while you were president of Black River.”

Liss gaped at her. “This is nonsense. I was investigated and absolved.”

“New allegations have come to light.”

“What allegations?”

She nodded at the papers she had given him. “You’ll find the list enumerated in the attorney general’s order.”

He opened the order but couldn’t seem to focus on the letters. He shoved the papers back to her. “This must be some kind of mistake. I’m not going anywhere with you.”

Klein produced a pair of manacles.

“Please, Mr. Liss,” Abby said, “don’t make this more difficult on yourself.”

Liss turned this way and that, as if contemplating escape or a last-minute reprieve from Jonathan, his guardian angel. Where was he? Why hadn’t he warned Liss of this new investigation?

Colonel Boris Karpov returned to Moscow with a heart of stone. His visit with Leonid Arkadin had been sobering on many levels, not the least of which was the terrible bind he was in. Maslov had suborned a number of apparatchiks inside FSB-2, including Melor Bukin, Karpov’s immediate superior. Like all of the intel Arkadin had provided him, the proof was both damning and irrefutable.

Karpov, in the backseat of the black FSB-2 Zil, stared unseeingly out the window as his driver headed into the city from Sheremetyevo Airport.

Arkadin had suggested going to President Imov with the evidence Karpov now had in his possession. The very fact that Arkadin suggested it made Karpov suspicious, but even if Arkadin had his own reason for wanting him to go to Imov, he might still do it. The stakes, however, could not be higher, both for his career and for him, personally.

He had two choices: He could take the evidence against Bukin to Viktor Cherkesov, the head of FSB-2. The problem there, however, was that Bukin was Cherkesov’s creature. If the evidence against Bukin was made public, Cherkesov would, by association, come under suspicion. Whether or not he knew of Bukin’s perfidy, he’d be finished, forced to resign in disgrace. Rather than allow that to happen, Karpov could envision him eliminating the damning evidence against his friend-and that would include Karpov himself.

He had to admit that Arkadin was correct. Going to President Imov with the evidence was the safest choice, because Imov would be only too happy to bring down Cherkesov. In fact, he very well might be so grateful that he’d name someone inside FSB-2 he could trust-like Karpov-as the new head of the agency.

The more Karpov thought this through the more sense it made. And yet lurking in the background was the niggling voice that told him once this scenario came to pass, he would owe a great debt to Arkadin. That, he knew instinctively, was not a great position to be in. But only if Arkadin was alive.

He laughed a little as he told his driver to take a detour to the Kremlin. Sitting back, he punched in the number of the president’s office.

Thirty minutes later he was admitted into the president’s residence, where a pair of Red Army guards showed him into one of a number of chilly, high-ceilinged anterooms. Over his head, like a frozen giant spider’s web, an ornate crystal-and-ormolu chandelier hung, giving off faceted light that struck the similarly ornate Italianate furniture, upholstered in silks and brocades.

He sat while the guards, at opposite ends of the chamber, watched him. A clock on a spotted marble mantel tick-tocked mournfully, chiming the half hour, then the hour. Karpov went into a form of meditation he used to pass time during the many lonely vigils he’d had to endure over the years in more foreign countries than he cared to count. Ninety minutes after his arrival a young steward sporting a sidearm appeared to fetch him. Karpov was instantly alert. He was also refreshed. The steward smiled, and Karpov followed him down so many halls and around so many corners, he had difficulty in placing himself within the immense residence.

President Imov was sitting behind a Louis XIV desk in his comfortably furnished study. A cheerful fire was burning in the hearth. Behind him the magnificent domes of Red Square could be seen rising like strange missiles toward the mottled Russian sky.

Imov was writing in a ledger with an old-fashioned fountain pen. The steward withdrew without a word, soundlessly closing the double doors behind him. After a moment Imov looked up, removed his wire-rimmed glasses, and gestured to the single armchair set in front of the desk. Karpov crossed the carpet and seated himself without a word, patiently waiting for the interview to begin.

For a time, Imov regarded him with his slate-gray eyes, which were narrow, slightly elongated. Perhaps he had some Mongol blood in him. In any case he was a warrior, having fought to elevate himself to the presidency, then fought even harder to stay there against several fierce opponents.

Imov was not a large man, but he was impressive just the same. His personality could fill a ballroom when it suited him. Otherwise, he was content to let the stature of his office suffice.

“Colonel Karpov, it strikes me as odd that you have come to see me.” Imov held his fountain pen as if it were a dagger. “You belong to Viktor Cherkesov, a silovik who has openly defied Nikolai Patrushev, his opposite number at FSB, and by extension me.” He twirled the pen deftly. “Tell me, then, is there a reason why I should listen to what you have to say, since your boss has sent you here instead of coming himself?”

“I did not come at the behest of Viktor Cherkesov. In fact, he has no idea I’m here, and I’d rather it stayed that way.” Karpov placed the cell phone with the incriminating evidence against Bukin on the desk between them and withdrew his hand. “Also, I belong to no man, Cherkesov included.”

Imov’s gaze remained on Karpov’s face. “Indeed. Since Cherkesov stole you away from Nikolai, I must say that’s welcome news.” He tapped the end of the pen against the desktop. “And yet I can’t help but take that statement with a grain of salt.”

Karpov nodded. “Perfectly understandable.”

When his eyes moved to the cell phone, Imov’s followed. “And what have we here, Boris Illyich?”

“Part of FSB-2 is rotten,” Karpov said slowly and distinctly. “It has to be cleansed, the sooner the better.”

For a moment, Imov did nothing; then he set down the fountain pen, reached out for the cell phone, and turned it on. For a long while after that, there was no sound whatsoever in the study, not even, Karpov noted, the hushed footfalls of the secretarial and support staffs that must infest the place. Possibly, the study was soundproof as well as electronic-bug-proof.

When Imov was finished, he held the cell phone precisely as he had held the fountain pen, as if it were a weapon.

“And who, Boris Illyich, do you envision purging the FSB-2 of its rot?”

“Whomever you choose.”

At this response, President Imov threw his head back and laughed. Then, wiping his eyes, he reached into a drawer, opened an ornate silver-clad humidor, and withdrew two Havana cigars. Handing one to Karpov, he bit the end off his and lit it with a gold lighter that had been a gift from the president of Iran. When Karpov produced a book of matches, Imov laughed again and pushed the gold lighter across the desk.

Colonel Boris Karpov found the lighter extraordinarily heavy. He flicked on the flame and luxuriously drew the cigar smoke into his mouth.

“We should begin, Mr. President.”

Imov regarded Karpov through a veil of smoke. “No time like the present, Boris Illyich.” He swung around, contemplating the onion domes of Red Square. “Clean the fucking place out-permanently.”

It was ironic, when you thought about it, Soraya thought. Despite having multiple eyes-she could not for the life of her remember how many-scorpions couldn’t see well, depending on tiny cilia on their claws to sense movement and vibration. At the moment that meant the rise and fall of her chest.

No-Name watched the scorpion with a mixture of impatience and contempt as it sat there, unmoving. Clearly, it didn’t know where it was or what it wanted to do. That’s when he took his pen and jammed the end of it onto the scorpion’s head. The sudden attack startled and infuriated it. The tail twitched and struck, and Soraya gave a little gasp. No-Name used the pen to prod the creature back into its cage. He swung the door closed and latched it.

“Now,” No-Name said, “either we wait for the venom to take effect, or you tell us where to find Arkadin.”

“Even if I knew,” Soraya said, “I wouldn’t tell you.”

He frowned. “You’re not going to change your mind.”

“Go screw yourself.”

He nodded, as if having anticipated her stubbornness. “It will be instructive to see how long you last after the scorpion stings you eight or nine times.”

With a languid pass of his hand, he signaled the scorpion handler, who unlatched the cage’s door and was about to open it when, with a deafening report, he was blown backward in a welter of blood and bone. Soraya turned her head and saw him sprawled on the ground, his entire forehead gone. More shots were fired, and when she turned back the other men lay on the ground. No-Name was clutching his ruined right shoulder, biting his lip in pain. A pair of legs ending in dusty boots came into her field of vision.

“Who-?” Soraya looked up, but between the first symptoms of the scorpion venom and the sun in her eyes she couldn’t see. Her heart seemed about to pump out of her chest, and her entire body was throbbing as if with a very high fever. “Who-?”

The male figure squatted down. With the back of his sunburned hand he swatted the cage off her chest. A moment later she felt the ropes that bound her being loosened, and she shook them off. As she squinted up, a cowboy hat was placed over her head, the wide brim shading her from the glaring sunlight.

“Contreras,” she said, seeing his creased face.

“My name is Antonio.” He put one arm beneath her shoulders and helped lift her up. “Call me Antonio.”

Soraya began to weep.

Antonio offered her his gun, an interesting piece of custom work: a Taurus Tracker.44 Magnum, a hunter’s handgun, with a wooden rifle stock affixed to it. She took the Taurus, and he stood her up. She was staring down at No-Name, who stared back, teeth bared. She felt shaky, her brain was on fire. She watched him watching her. Her forefinger curled around the trigger. She aimed the Tracker and pulled the trigger. As if jerked by invisible strings, No-Name arched up once, then lay still, his blind eyes reflecting the rising sun.

She stopped crying.

[18]

COVEN WENT ABOUT his work with a frightening calm. He had spent the hours after trussing up Chrissie and Scarlett familiarizing himself with the house. As for Chrissie’s father, he’d bound and gagged him and stuffed him in a closet. He left them for forty minutes for a trip to a hardware store, where he bought the largest portable generator he could carry by himself. Returning to the house, he checked on his captives. Chrissie and her daughter were still securely tied to the twin beds upstairs. The father was either asleep or unconscious, Coven didn’t care which. Then he had lugged the generator into the basement and with little difficulty hooked it up to the electrical system, as a backup if the lights went out. He ran a test. The thing ticked like a geriatric grandfather clock. It was severely undersize for its task. Even cutting back on the circuits he connected, he determined that he’d have a maximum of ten minutes of light before the generator conked out. Well, it would have to do.

Then he went back upstairs and stared at Chrissie and Scarlett while he smoked a cigarette. The daughter, though only a preteen, was prettier than the mother. If he were another sort of person he would avail himself of that very young, tender body, but he despised that degenerate trait in men. He was a fastidious person, a man of moral rectitude. It was how he dealt with his job, how he managed to stay sane in what he considered an insane world. His personal life was pure vanilla, as dull as a bus driver’s gray existence. He had a wife-his high school sweetheart-two children, and a dog named Ralph. He had mortgage payments, a dotty mother to support, and a brother he visited fortnightly in a loony bin, though these days they didn’t call it that. When he came home from a long, hard, often bloody assignment, he kissed his wife hard on the lips, then went to his children and-whether they were playing, sitting in front of the TV, or asleep in bed-bent over them and inhaled their milky-sweet scent. Then he ate a meal his wife had prepared, took her upstairs, and fucked her silly.

He lit another cigarette from the end of the butt, and stared down at mother and daughter spread-eagled side by side on the twin beds. The girl was a child, inviolate. The thought of harming her was thoroughly repellent to him. As for the mother, she didn’t appeal to him, too skinny and wan looking. He’d leave her to someone else. Unless Bourne forced him to kill her.

Back downstairs, he rummaged through the larder, opened up a can of Heinz baked beans, and ate the contents cold from the backs of his two fingers. All the while he listened to the tiny sounds around him, breathed in and mentally cataloged the scents in each room. In short, he moved around the house until he’d familiarized himself with every idiosyncrasy, every nook and cranny. Now it was his territory, his high ground, his eventual place of victory.

Then he returned to the living room and switched on all the lamps. That’s when he heard the gunshot. Rising, he drew his Glock from its leather holster and, pulling back the drapes, peered out the front window. He tensed as he saw Jason Bourne zigzagging at top speed toward the front door. With a squeal of rubber and a spray of gravel, a gray Opel slewed around broadside to the front of the house. The driver’s door opened, and the driver fired a shot at Bourne. He missed. Then Bourne was on the front steps, and Coven went to the door, his Glock at the ready. He heard two more shots and, crouching down, swung the door open. Bourne was sprawled facedown on the steps, a stain of blood spreading over his jacket.

Coven ducked back as another shot was fired. He darted out even as he squeezed off one shot after another. The gunman ducked back inside the Opel. Coven grabbed Bourne’s jacket with his free hand and hauled him over the sill. He fired off one more shot, heard the gunman put the Opel into gear and speed off. He kicked the door shut behind him.

He checked Bourne’s pulse, then went to the window. Pulling aside the curtains again, he peered into the driveway but could see no sign of either the gunman or the Opel.

Turning back into the living room, he bent over to Bourne’s prone form and pressed the muzzle of the Glock to the side of Bourne’s head. He was turning him over when the lights flickered, dimmed, then came on again. From the basement, he heard the grandfather-clock ticking of the backup generator. He had scarcely enough time to register that the power to the house had been cut when Bourne knocked the Glock away and struck him a powerful blow on his sternum.

The man you’re looking for is in Puerto Peñasco, no doubt.” Antonio handed Soraya back her cell phone. “My compadre, the marina’s harbormaster, knows the gringo. He’s taken up residence in the old Santa Teresa convent, which has been abandoned for years. He has a cigarette boat he takes out each evening just after sunset.”

They were seated in a sunny cantina on Calle de Ana Gabriela Guevara in Nogales. Antonio had spent some time helping Soraya clean up, getting her ice to use in the compress she placed against the spot between her breasts where the scorpion had stung her. The reddish patch did not swell, and whatever symptoms she had felt in the desert were now mostly gone. She also had Antonio buy her half a dozen bottles of water, which she started drinking right away to fight her dehydration and more quickly move the venom out of her system.

After an hour or so, she felt better. Then she bought new clothes in a store on Plaza Kennedy, and they went to get something to eat.

“I’ll drive you to Puerto Peñasco,” Antonio said.

Soraya popped the last bite of her chilaquiles into her mouth. “I think you have better things to do. You’re no longer making money off me.”

Antonio made a face. On the ride back into Nogales he had told her his real name was Antonio Jardines. He’d taken Contreras as his business name. “Now you offend me. Is this how you treat the man who saved your life?”

“I owe you a debt of thanks.” Soraya sat back, contemplating him. “What I can’t understand is why you’re taking such a personal interest in me.”

“How to explain?” Antonio sipped his café de olla. “My life is defined by the space between Nogales, Arizona, and here, in Nogales, Sonora. A fucking boring strip of desert that’s been known to drive men like me to drink. My only concern is the fucking migras and, believe me, that’s not much of anything.” He spread his hands. “There’s something else, too. Life here is full of neglect. In fact, you could say that life here is defined by neglect, the kind that rots the soul and infests all of Latin America. No one gives a shit-about anyone, or anything, except money.” He finished off his café de olla. “Then you come along.”

Soraya considered this. She took her time because she didn’t want to make a mistake, although she could hardly be certain of anything here. “I don’t want to drive into Puerto Peñasco,” she said finally. She had been thinking about this all through the meal. Antonio finding out that Arkadin had a cigarette sealed the deal. “I want to arrive there by boat.”

Antonio’s eyes glittered. Then his forefinger made a bobbing motion. “This is what I’m talking about. You don’t think like a woman, you think like a man. This is what I would do.”

“Can your compadre at the marina arrange it?”

He chuckled. “You see, you do need my help.”

Bourne struck a second blow. He had been shot with blanks by Ottavio Moreno and was covered in pig’s blood from a plastic bag he’d punctured. Coven, who didn’t react one way or another to the blows, drove the butt of the Glock down onto Bourne’s forehead. Bourne grabbed his wrist and twisted hard. Then he caught one of Coven’s fingers and broke it. The Glock went flying across the living room floor, fetching up beside the cold grate.

Bourne pushed Coven off and rose on one knee, but Coven kicked his leg out from under him and Bourne toppled backward. Coven was on him in an instant, driving his fist into Bourne’s face, landing blow after blow. Bourne lay still. Coven rose and aimed a kick at Bourne’s ribs. Without seeming to move at all, Bourne caught his foot before it could land and wrenched the ankle to the left.

Coven grunted as the anklebones snapped. He landed hard, immediately rolled over, and scrambled on elbows and knees toward where the Glock lay beside the grate.

Bourne took up a brass sculpture from a chair-side table and threw it. The sculpture slammed into the back of Coven’s head, driving his chin and nose into the floor. His jaws snapped shut and blood gushed from his nose. Undeterred, he grabbed the Glock and, in one fluid motion, swung it around and squeezed off a shot. The bullet struck the table beside Bourne’s head, toppling it and the lamp on it onto Bourne.

He tried to fire again, but Bourne leapt on him, wrestling him onto his back. He grabbed a fire poker and swung it down hard. Bourne rolled away and the poker bounced against the floor. Coven stabbed out with it, catching Bourne’s jacket, piercing it and pinning him to the floor. He rammed the end of the poker into the wood, then rose painfully over Bourne. Taking up the ash shovel, he brought the long brass handle across Bourne’s throat and, using all his weight, pressed down.

It was 123 miles from Nogales to Las Conchas, where an associate of Antonio’s compadre had driven the boat they would pick up. She had asked for a big boat, and an ostentatious one, something to catch Arkadin’s attention and keep it until he got a good look at her. In the Nogales Mall, before they had set out, she had bought the most provocative bikini she could find. When she’d modeled it for Antonio, his eyes almost popped out of his skull.

“¡Madre de Dios, qué linda muchacha!” he had cried.

Because of the aftereffect of the scorpion sting, she bought a diaphanous cover-up, also some beach towels, a pair of huge Dior sunglasses, a fashionable visor, and a fistful of sunscreen, which she lost no time in slathering on.

Antonio’s friend was named Ramos, and he had brought exactly the right kind of boat: big and flashy. Its diesels thrummed and gurgled as she and Antonio boarded and were shown around below by Ramos. He was a small, dark, rotund man, with curling black hair, tattoos on his massive arms, and a ready smile.

“I have guns-pistols and semi-automatics-if you need them,” he said helpfully. “No extra charge, except for spent rounds.”

Soraya thanked him, but said weapons wouldn’t be necessary.

Soon after returning above deck they got under way. Puerto Peñasco was just over five miles due north.

Over the rumble of the diesels, Ramos said, “We have a couple of hours before sunset, when Arkadin usually takes out the cigarette. I have fishing gear. I’ll take you to the fifty-one-mile reef, where there’s plenty of halibut, black sea bass, and red snapper. How about it?”

Soraya and Antonio fished off the reef for about an hour and a half before they packed it in and swept in toward the marina. Ramos pointed out Arkadin’s cigarette as he cut the speed rounding the headland and nosed in toward the docks. There was no sign of Arkadin, but Soraya could see an older Mexican preparing the boat to get under way. The Mexican was dark-skinned, with a face fissured by hard work, salt wind, and scorching sunlight.

“You’re in luck,” Ramos said. “He’s coming.”

Soraya looked in the direction Ramos indicated and saw a powerful-looking man striding down the dock. He wore a baseball cap, black-and-green surfer’s bathing trunks, a torn Dos Equis T-shirt, and a pair of rubber sandals. She slipped off her cover-up. Her dark, oiled skin gleamed sleekly.

The dock was long, jutting out into the marina, and she had time to study him. He had dark hair, cut very short, a rugged face that gave away nothing, very square shoulders, like a swimmer, but his arms and legs were more like a wrestler’s, long and muscular. He looked as if he had every reason to be confident, walking with a minimum amount of effort, almost gliding, as if his feet were made of ball bearings. There was a source of energy about him, like a ring of fire, that she could not comprehend, but it made her uneasy. She thought there was something familiar about him, which made her unease almost painful. And then, with an electric jolt that frightened her to her core, she knew what it was: He moved just like Jason.

“Here we go.” Ramos steered the boat in front of the cigarette and put it in idle so that they drifted in toward the slip.

Arkadin was saying something to the Mexican and laughing when Ramos’s boat caught the periphery of his vision. He looked up, squinting against the oblique sunlight, and at once saw Soraya. His nostrils flared as his gaze took in her aggressive, exotic face, her body, which in the tiny bikini was as good as being naked-even better, Soraya felt, because it left the tiniest bit to his imagination. She raised one arm, as if to keep her visor on her head, but really the gesture accentuated the sensuality of her body.

And then, just like that, he turned away and said something to the Mexican that made him chuckle. Soraya was disappointed. Her fingers gripped the railing as if she wanted to throttle it.

“The gringo’s a fucking maricón, that’s all there is to it,” Antonio said.

Soraya laughed. “Don’t be idiotic.” But his comment had lifted her out of her temporary sense of defeat. “I haven’t given him enough of a challenge.” Then an idea occurred to her and, turning to Antonio, she put her arms on his shoulders. Gazing into his eyes, she said, “Kiss me. Kiss me and don’t stop.”

Antonio looked happy to oblige. He grabbed her around the waist and planted his lips on hers. His tongue seemed to scald her as it probed between her teeth and into her mouth. Soraya arched her back, molding her body to his.

Ramos maneuvered the boat a bit too close to the cigarette’s bow, causing the gringo and El Heraldo to turn. As El Heraldo ran to the bow, gesticulating and cursing him mightily, the gringo stood watching Soraya and Antonio locked in their amorous embrace. He seemed interested now.

Shouting his apologies, Ramos steered the boat back on course and eased it into its slip. A marina hand stood by to loop the mooring ropes fore and aft as Ramos cut the engines, and threw the coils to him. Then Ramos stepped off the boat and headed toward the harbormaster’s office. Arkadin continued to stare at Soraya and Antonio Jardines, though he hadn’t moved an inch.

“Enough,” Soraya said into Antonio’s mouth. “¡Basta, hombre! ¡Basta!”

Antonio was reluctant to let her go, and she pushed him away first with one hand, then with both. By the time she had managed to free herself, Arkadin was on the dock, heading their way.

“Mano, you’re like a fucking pulpo,” she said loudly, only partly for Arkadin’s benefit.

Antonio, relishing his role, grinned at her and wiped his lips with the back of his hand. Then Arkadin was on board and between them.

“Maricón, what are you doing here? Get out of my face,” Antonio said.

Arkadin straight-armed him off the boat and into the water. The Mexican on the cigarette laughed uproariously.

“That wasn’t a good idea,” Soraya said coldly.

“He was hurting you.” Arkadin said it as a clear statement of fact.

“You have no idea what he was doing.” Soraya kept up her frozen exterior.

“He’s a man, you’re a woman,” Arkadin said. “I know exactly what he was doing.”

“Maybe I liked it.”

Arkadin laughed. “Maybe you did. Should I help the sonovabitch back onto the dock?”

Soraya looked down at Antonio snorting water out of his nose. “I could have done that.” Then she looked back at Arkadin. “Leave the sonovabitch where he is.”

Arkadin laughed again and offered her his arm. “Maybe you need a change of scene.”

“Maybe I do. But it won’t be with you.”

Then she pushed past him, climbed off the boat, and walked slowly and provocatively back up the dock.

Bourne felt his lungs burning. There were black spots in his vision. Soon enough the bar across his throat would crack his hyoid bone, and it would be all over for him. Reaching out, he grabbed Coven’s fractured ankle and squeezed as hard as he could. Coven shouted in surprise and pain, the pressure came off Bourne’s throat as Coven reared back, and, shoving the bar upward, Bourne rolled out from under it.

Coven, a murderous look in his eye, found the Glock and aimed it at Bourne. At that moment the ticking of the generator ceased and the house was plunged into darkness. Coven squeezed off a shot, narrowly missing Bourne, and Bourne rolled away into deepest shadow. He held still for the space of ten long breaths, then rolled again. Coven fired another shot, but this struck well wide of the mark. It was clear he had no idea where Bourne was located.

Bourne could hear Coven moving around. Now that the lights had been extinguished, Coven had lost the advantage of being on his territory. Coven would have to think of another way to reestablish his dominant position.

If Bourne were in his shoes, he’d try to get to Chrissie and Scarlett, use them as leverage to flush him out. He stayed very still, listening intently to the direction in which Coven was moving. It was from left to right. He was passing the fireplace. Where was he headed? Where was he keeping his captives?

Bourne pictured as much of the ground-floor interior as had registered after Coven had dragged him inside. He could see the fireplace, the two upholstered armchairs, the side table and lamp, the sofa, and the stairs leading up to the second story.

The creak of a step tread betrayed Coven, and without a second thought Bourne sprang from his hiding place, scooped up the lamp, and jerked its cord out of the electrical socket. He threw it hard against the wall to his left as he leapt up onto the cushion of the armchair. Coven fired two shots in the direction of the crash as Bourne launched himself over the railing of the staircase.

He slammed into Coven, hurling him against the back wall before landing atop him. Coven, shaken, nevertheless squeezed off two more shots. He missed, but the flashes burned Bourne’s cheek. Coven lunged for Bourne, trying to swat him with the barrel of the Glock. Bourne kicked out, splintering one of the railing balusters. Wrenching it out of its socket, he swung it against the side of Coven’s face. Coven grunted as his own blood spattered the wall and he rolled away from another blow. He lashed out with his foot, slamming the sole of his shoe into Bourne’s face. Tumbling backward, Bourne fell away from him, and, bracing himself against the wall, Coven fired twice more into the confined space of the staircase.

Either of the shots would have hit Bourne had he not already vaulted over the banister. He hung there in darkness. When he heard Coven scrambling up the stairs, he flexed his arms and, rising up, rolled his body back over the banister. Taking the treads three at a time, he raced up to the second floor. He knew two things now: Coven was going for his hostages, and the Glock had run through its magazine. Coven needed time to reload and was at his most vulnerable.

But when Bourne reached the second-floor landing there was no discernible movement. He crouched and, listening, waited. More windows meant light, but it was faint and inconstant, as the overgrown tree branches outside scraped against the house. He could see four doors: four rooms, two on either side. He opened the door into the first room on the left, which was empty, put his ear against the inside wall that abutted the next room. He heard nothing. He went back to the doorway. Coven fired at him as Bourne raced across the hallway and into the first room on the right. Bourne had given him time to reload.

Wasting no time, Bourne crossed to the window, unlatched it, and, opening it wide, climbed through. He was faced with a thick tangle of oak branches into which he climbed. Moving through the oak, he made his way to the window of the second room on the right. A shadow moved in there, and he went very still. Dimly, he could make out a pair of twin beds. He thought he saw figures lying on them: Chrissie and Scarlett?

Reaching up to the branch lying more or less horizontally over his head, he swung himself back and forth to gain the required momentum, then launched himself feet-first through the window. The old glass shattered into a thousand crystalline fragments, causing Coven to instinctively cover his face with his forearm.

Landing, Bourne flew across the room, striking Coven shoulder-first. The two men slammed against the far wall and went down in a heap. Bourne punched him three times, then lunged for the Glock. But Coven was ready, and when Bourne’s defense opened up, he struck a hammer blow on his burned and bleeding cheekbone, Bourne went down, and Coven raised the Glock, not at Bourne, but at Scarlett, who lay bound and spread-eagled on the nearest bed. His angle was such that he had no clear shot at Chrissie, who lay on the bed nearer the window.

Coven was breathing heavily but still managed to say, “All right, get up. You have five seconds to put your hands behind your head. Then I shoot the girl.”

“Please, Jason, please. Do what he says.” Chrissie’s voice was high, tight with a mortal terror that bordered on hysteria. “Don’t let him hurt Scarlett.”

Bourne looked at Chrissie, then delivered a scissors kick that jerked Coven’s extended gun arm down and away from Scarlett.

Coven cursed under his breath as he struggled to regain control of the Glock. That was his mistake. Keeping the scissors grip on Coven’s arm, Bourne jackknifed his body. He head-butted Coven in his already broken and bloody nose. Coven howled in pain but still tried extricating his arm. Bourne smashed the sole of his shoe into Coven’s kneecap, shattering it. Coven collapsed, and Bourne stepped on the knee. Coven’s eyes watered and his jowls shook so hard, shivers went down his body.

Wrenching the Glock away from him, Bourne pressed its muzzle into Coven’s right eye.

When Coven tried to make a countermove, Bourne said, “If you do that, you’ll never walk out of the room. Who will take care of your wife and children then?”

Coven, his visible eye bloodshot and staring, subsided. But as Bourne removed the muzzle, he exploded upward, using his shoulder and hip. Bourne bore the attack with equanimity, allowed Coven to drive him backward, to expend whatever reserve of energy he had left, then brought the butt of the Glock down on Coven’s skull, shattering the orbital bone. Coven tried to scream, but no sound emerged from his mouth. His eyes rolled up into his head as he fell at Bourne’s feet.

[19]

BORIS KARPOV WALKED through a windblown Red Square, breathing deeply while he thought of how to proceed against Bukin and, by association, the very dangerous Cherkesov. President Imov had given him everything he asked for, including absolute secrecy until he could ferret out all the moles in FSB-2. The place to start was Bukin. He knew he could break Bukin. Once he did, the other moles would come to light without difficulty.

A light snow was falling, the flakes, small and dry, swirling in the wind. Lights twinkled off the golden and striped onion domes, and tourists took flash photos of one another against the ornate architecture. He took a moment to drink in the peaceful scene, all too rare in Moscow these days.

Retracing his steps, he plodded back to his limo. The driver, seeing him returning, fired the ignition. He got out from behind the wheel and opened the rear door for his boss. A tall blonde in a ruddy fox coat and knee-high boots strode past. The driver’s eyes lingered on her as Karpov ducked and climbed in. The door slammed shut behind him.

He said, “HQ,” when the driver slid behind the wheel. The driver nodded wordlessly, put the limo in gear, and they drove out of the Kremlin.

It was an eleven-minute drive to FSB-2 headquarters on ulitsa Znamenka, depending on traffic-which, at this hour, wasn’t as bad as it could be. Karpov was lost in thought. He was figuring out a way to get Bukin alone, to cut him off from his contacts. He decided to invite him to dinner. On the way, he would instruct his driver to divert their car to the vast construction site on ulitsa Varvarka, a dead zone for cell phone traffic, so he and Bukin could “discuss” his treachery undisturbed.

The driver stopped at a red light, but when it turned green he did not put the car in gear. Now, through his smoked-glass window, Karpov saw that a Mercedes limo had drawn up beside them. As he watched, the rear door opened and a figure emerged. It was too dark to see who it was, but a moment later the door to his car was wrenched open-odd since his driver always auto-locked all doors-and the figure, ducking its head, slid onto the seat beside him.

“Boris Illyich, always a pleasure to see you,” Viktor Cherkesov said.

He had a smile like a hyena, and he smelled like one, too, Karpov observed.

Cherkesov, whose yellow eyes made him look ravenous, even bloodthirsty, leaned forward slightly to speak to the driver. “The ulitsa Varvarka, I think. The construction site.” Then he sat back, his repellent smile glimmering in the semi-darkness of the limo’s interior. “We don’t want to be disturbed, do we, Boris Illyich.”

It was not a question.

Mandy and Michelle were asleep, entwined around each other, which was how they always slept after a long erotic workout. In contrast, Bud Halliday and Jalal Essai had retired to the living room of the apartment they jointly owned under a pseudonym so well documented that the ownership could never be traced back to them.

Out of courtesy rather than choice, Halliday was sipping a glass of sweet mint tea as he sat opposite Essai.

“I’ve been meaning to tell you,” Halliday said in his most casual voice. “Oliver Liss is in federal custody.”

Essai sat up. “What? Why didn’t you tell me right away?”

Halliday gestured toward the bedroom, where the twins were sound asleep.

“But… what happened? It seemed he was safe.”

“These days, it seems, no one is safe.” Halliday was searching for the humidor. “Quite without warning, the Justice Department has opened a new investigation into his associations when he was running Black River.” He looked up suddenly, impaling Essai with his gaze. “Will the investigation ripple out to you?”

“I’m completely insulated,” Jalal Essai said. “I made certain of this from the beginning.”

“Okay then. Fuck Liss. We move on.”

Jalal Essai seemed nonplussed. “You’re not surprised?”

“I think Oliver Liss has been skating on thin ice for some time.”

“I need him,” Jalal Essai said.

“Correction: You needed him. When I said move on, I meant it.”

Halliday found the leather-bound humidor and extracted a cigar. He offered it to Essai, who declined. Then he nipped off the end, stuck it in his mouth, and lit up. He rolled the cigar through the flame as he puffed away.

Essai said, “I suppose Liss had outlived his usefulness.”

“That’s the spirit.” Halliday felt calmer now that he had the smoke inside him. Sex with Michelle always got his heart hammering to the point of pain. The woman was a fucking gymnast.

Essai helped himself to more tea. “With Liss, I was just following orders from an organization I’ve left behind.”

“Now the two of us are in business,” Halliday observed.

Essai nodded. “The business of a hundred billion in gold.”

Halliday frowned as he stared at the glowing end of his cigar. “You feel no remorse at betraying the Severus Domna? After all, they’re your own kind.”

Essai ignored the racist remark. He’d become inured to Halliday the way one comes to ignore the ache of a cyst. “My kind are no different from your kind, inasmuch as there are those who are good, those who are bad, and those who are ugly.”

Halliday guffawed so hard he almost choked on the smoke. He sat forward laughing and coughing. His eyes watered.

“I must say, Essai, for an Arab you’re quite all right.”

“I’m Berber-Amazigh.” Essai stated this as fact, without a trace of rancor.

Halliday eyed him through the smoke. “You speak Arabic, don’t you?”

“Among other languages, including Berber.”

Halliday spread his hands, as if the other’s answer proved his point. He and Jalal Essai had met in college, where Essai spent two years as an exchange student. In fact, it was because of Essai that Halliday became interested in what he perceived as the growing Arab threat to the Western world. Essai was Muslim, but strictly speaking an outsider in the highly splintered and religicized Arab world. Through the lens of Essai’s worldview, Halliday recognized that it was only a matter of time before the Arab world’s sectarian battles spilled over their boundaries and became a series of wars. For that very reason he cultivated Essai as a friend and adviser, realizing only much later, when Essai was becoming disinterested in Severus Domna’s objectives, that Essai had been dispatched to the States, to his college specifically, to cultivate him as a friend and ally.

When greed got the best of Essai, when he confessed what his original motivation had been, all of Halliday’s worst prejudices against Arabs were confirmed. He hated Essai, then. He’d even plotted to kill him. But in the end, he had abandoned his revenge fantasies, seduced, as Essai had been, by King Solomon’s gold. Who could resist such a glittering prize? He and Essai, as Halliday came to realize in a repellent moment of understanding, had more in common than seemed possible, given their disparate backgrounds. Then again they were both soldiers of the night, inhabiting the world of shadows that existed on the edges of civilized society, protecting it from destructive elements both without and within.

“The Severus Domna is no different from any tyrant-fascist, communist, or socialist,” Jalal Essai said. “It lives to accumulate power, to allow its members to influence world events for the sole purpose of amassing more power. In the face of such power, mere human politics becomes irrelevant, as does religion.”

Essai sat back, crossing one leg over the other. “In the beginning Severus Domna was motivated by the desire for change, a meeting of the minds between East and West, among Islam and Christianity and Judaism. A noble goal, I admit, and for a time they succeeded, if only in small ways. But then, like all altruistic endeavors, this one fell afoul of human nature.”

He suddenly sat forward, on the edge of the sofa. “And I tell you this, there is no stronger motivation in human beings than greed, even fear. Greed, like sex, makes men stupid, blind to fear, or to the need for anything else. Greed distorted the goals of Severus Domna to such an extent that they became virtually irrelevant. The members continued to pay lip service to the original mission, but by then Severus Domna was rotten to the core.”

“What does that make us?” Halliday continued to puff on his cigar. “We’re as greedy as the Severus Domna, perhaps more.”

“But we’re aware of what drives us,” Jalal Essai said with a glint in his eyes. “We’re both clear-eyed and clearheaded.”

Scarlett stared up at Bourne while he untied her. Her cheeks were tear-streaked. She wasn’t crying now, but she was trembling uncontrollably and her teeth were chattering.

“Is Mum okay?”

“She’s fine.”

“Who are you?” Tears were coming, more fitfully this time. “Who was that man?”

“My name is Adam, and I’m a friend of your mum’s,” Bourne said. “I asked her to help me and she took me to Oxford to see Professor Giles. You remember him?”

Scarlett nodded, sniffling. “I like Professor Giles.”

“He likes you, too. Very much.”

His voice was soothing, and she seemed to be calming down. “You flew into the room like Batman.”

“I’m not Batman.”

“I know that,” she said somewhat indignantly, “but you’ve got blood all over you and you’re not hurt.”

He plucked at his damp shirt. “It’s not real blood. I needed to fool the man who kidnapped you and your mother.”

She regarded him appraisingly. “Are you a secret agent like Aunt Tracy?”

Bourne laughed. “Aunt Tracy wasn’t a secret agent.”

“Yes, she was.”

That indignant note in her voice warned Bourne not to treat her like a child.

“What makes you think that?”

Scarlett shrugged. “You couldn’t talk to her without her holding something back. I think secrets were all she had. And she was always sad.”

“Are secret agents sad?”

Scarlett nodded. “That’s why they become secret agents.”

There was something pure and profound in that statement, but for the moment Bourne was content to let it go. “Professor Giles and your mum helped me with a problem. Unfortunately, this man wanted something of mine.”

“He must’ve wanted it badly.”

“Yes, he did.” Bourne smiled. “I’m very sorry I led you and your mother into danger, Scarlett.”

“I want to see her.”

Bourne lifted her into his arms. She seemed cold as ice. He carried her over to the bed by the window. Chrissie was covered in shards of glass. She was unconscious.

“Mummy!” Scarlett leapt out of Bourne’s arms. “Mummy, wake up!”

Bourne, noting the edge of terror in Scarlett’s voice, bent over Chrissie. Her pulse was good, her breathing even.

“She’s okay, Scarlett.” He pinched Chrissie’s cheeks and her eyelids fluttered, then opened. She looked up into his face.

“Scarlett.”

“She’s right here, Chrissie.”

“Coven?”

“Adam flew through the window like Batman,” Scarlett said, proud of her new knowledge.

Chrissie frowned, noticing Bourne’s shirt. “All that blood.”

Scarlett gripped her mother’s hand tightly. “It’s fake, Mum.”

“Everything’s fine now,” Bourne said. “No, don’t move yet.” He scooped the glass off her as best he could. “All right, unbutton your blouse.” But her fingers trembled too badly for her to grip the buttons properly.

“My arms are killing me,” she said softly. She turned her head and smiled into her daughter’s face. “Thank God you’re safe, sugarplum.”

Scarlett burst into fresh tears. Chrissie looked up at Bourne as he undid her buttons, shrugged her out of the blouse so that the last of the glass shards fell harmlessly on either side of her.

Then he lifted her up. When he’d swung her away from the bed, he put her down. As they stepped over Coven’s lifeless body, Chrissie shuddered. They stopped in the room she had been using to get sweaters for her and Scarlett, who, in a kind of delayed reaction, was leaking tears as she knelt to put on her sweater, which was yellow with a pattern of pink bunnies eating ice-cream cones. Halfway down the stairs she began to whimper.

Chrissie put an arm around her. “It’s all right, sugarplum. Everything’s all right, Mum has you now,” she whispered over and over.

When they reached the ground floor, she said to Bourne, “Coven tied my father up, he’s here somewhere.”

Bourne found him, bound and gagged, in one of the kitchen closets. He was unconscious, either from the blow that caused the bruised swelling on his left temple or from the lack of oxygen. Bourne laid him on the kitchen floor and untied him. It was dark with the power still off.

“My God, is he dead?” Chrissie said as she and Scarlett ran in.

“No. His pulse is strong.” He took his finger away from the carotid and began to free him from his bonds.

Chrissie, her courage disintegrating at the sight of her father so helplessly incapacitated, began to soundlessly weep, but this caused Scarlett to sob, so she bit her lip, holding back more tears. She ran cold water in the sink, soaked a dishcloth, and filled up a glass. Crouching down beside her daughter, she placed the folded towel against Bourne’s cheek, which had started to swell and discolor.

Her father was thin, in the manner of many older people. His face was time-ravaged and somewhat lopsided, so that Bourne guessed he’d had a stroke not so long ago. Bourne shook him gently, and his eyelids fluttered open, his tongue ran around his dry lips.

“Can you sit him up?” Chrissie asked. “I’ll get some water into him.”

Supporting her father’s back, Bourne sat him up slowly and carefully.

“Dad, Dad?”

“Where is that sonovabitch who hit me?”

“He’s dead,” Bourne said.

“Come on, Dad, drink some water.” Chrissie was observing her father closely, fearful that at any moment he would pass out again. “It’ll make you feel better.”

But the old man paid her no mind. Instead he was staring intently at Bourne. He licked his lips again and accepted the glass his daughter held for him. His knobby Adam’s apple bobbed spastically as he drank. He choked.

“Easy, Dad. Easy.”

His hand fluttered up, and she took the rim of the glass away from his mouth. Then his forefinger unfurled, pointing at Bourne.

“I know you.” His voice was like sandpaper over metal.

Bourne said, “I don’t think so.”

“No, no. You came into the Centre when I ran it. That was years ago, of course, when the Centre was in Old Boys’ School in George Street. But I’ll never forget it because I had to call an ex-colleague by the name of Basil Bayswater, a first-class wanker if ever there was one. He made a killing in the market and retired to Whitney. Spent all his time playing an ancient form of chess or something. Disgraceful waste of time.

“But you.” His forefinger touched Bourne’s chest. “I never forget a face. I’ll be goddamned. You’re Professor Webb. That’s it! David Webb!”

[20]

PETER MARKS RECEIVED the call from Bourne, brief and succinct, and with mixed feelings agreed to come to the address Bourne gave him. In a way, he was surprised that Bourne had called him back. On the other hand, Bourne didn’t sound like himself, which caused Marks to wonder what sort of situation he was heading into. His relationship with Bourne was all one-way: through Soraya. He knew something of her history with Bourne, and he’d always wondered whether she had allowed her personal feelings to color her opinion of him.

The official CI line was, and had been for some time, that Bourne’s amnesia had made him unpredictable, and therefore dangerous. He was a rogue agent, loyal to no one and nothing, least of all CI. Though CI had been forced to use him in the past, it was always through deception or coercion, because there seemed no other way to control him. And not even those methods had proved to be a sure thing. Though Marks was personally aware of Bourne’s recent work bringing down Black River and stopping an incipient war with Iran, he knew next to nothing about the man. He was a complete enigma. It was futile to predict his responses in any given situation. And then there was the fact that many people who had tried to get close to him had died sudden and violent deaths. Happily, Soraya wasn’t one of them, but Marks worried that it might be just a matter of time.

“Bad news?” Don Fernando Hererra said.

“Just more of the same,” Marks said. “I’ve a meeting to go to.”

They were seated in the living room of Diego Hererra’s home, surrounded by photos of him. Marks wondered whether being here was painful or comforting for the father.

“Señor Hererra, before I go, is there anything more you can tell me about your godson? Do you know why he was at the Vesper Club last night, or why he might have stabbed Diego? What sort of relationship did they have?”

“None, to answer your last question first.”

Hererra took out a cigarette and lit up but didn’t seem interested in smoking it. His eyes roved the room, as if afraid to alight on any one thing for long. Marks suspected that he was nervous. About what?

Hererra contemplated Marks for some moments. The ash from his unsmoked cigarette toppled soundlessly to the carpet, where it lay between his feet. “Diego did not know of Ottavio’s existence, at least so far as his relationship to me was concerned.”

“Then why would Ottavio kill Diego?”

“He wouldn’t, therefore I refuse to believe that he did.”

Hererra told his driver to take Marks to the nearest rental-car office. He insisted that he and Marks exchange phone numbers. Those words of disbelief resounded in Marks’s head as he punched the address Bourne had given him into the GPS program on his PDA.

“I want to stay abreast of your investigation,” Hererra said. “You promised me that you would find my son’s killer. You should know that I take all promises made to me extremely seriously.”

Marks saw no reason to doubt him.

Fifteen minutes after he drove out of the rental-car lot, his PDA buzzed and he read a text message from Soraya. Within minutes Willard called him.

“Progress.”

“I’ve made contact,” Marks said, meaning Bourne.

“You know where he is?” A slight quickening of Willard’s voice.

“Not yet,” Marks lied. “But I will soon.”

“Good, I’m in time.”

“Time for what?” Marks asked.

“The mission has changed somewhat. I need you to facilitate a meeting between Bourne and Arkadin.”

Marks searched for hidden meaning in Willard’s voice. Something back home had changed. He hated being out of the loop and felt at an immediate disadvantage. “What about the ring?”

“Are you listening to me?” Willard snapped. “Just do as you’re ordered.”

Now Marks was certain that he was being denied access to a major development. He felt the old anger against the machinations of his superiors rising up in his throat like bile.

“Has Soraya Moore made contact?” Willard continued.

“Yes. I just received the rearranged text message from her.”

“Contact her,” Willard said. “Coordinate your efforts. You need to get the two men to the following place.” He gave Marks an address. “How you do it is up to you, but I do have some information Arkadin should find interesting.” He told Marks what El-Arian had told him about the missing piece of information without which the file on the laptop’s hard drive was useless. “You have seventy-two hours.”

“Seventy-two-?” But he was talking to dead air. The conversation was over.

At the next intersection, Marks checked the GPS map on his PDA to make sure that he hadn’t missed a turn while talking with Willard. The morning had started out sunny, but clouds had rolled in, turning everything to shades of gray. Now a light drizzle blurred the edges of even the sharpest angles on buildings and signs.

The light turned green and, as he left the intersection behind, he noticed a white Ford moving into his lane right behind him. He knew a tail when he saw one. He’d seen the white Ford before, several vehicles behind him, though now and again he’d lost sight of it behind a large produce truck. The Ford was occupied by only the driver, who wore dark glasses. Stepping on the accelerator, he sent his rental car lurching forward as he ground the gearshift up from first to third more quickly than the transmission could easily handle. There was a moment between second and third when the car hesitated, and he was afraid he’d stripped the gears. Then it leapt forward so fast he almost slammed into the rear end of the truck in front of him. He swerved to the right-hand lane, accelerating further as the white Ford slid in behind him.

He was in a section of London dense with traffic, boutiques, and larger stores. A sign for an underground garage came up so fast he had to swerve into its entrance at the last possible instant. He scraped the front left fender on the concrete wall, then corrected and hurtled down the ramp into the neon-lit concrete cavern.

He pulled into a parking spot that was so tight, he had to roll down the window to slide out. By that time, he heard the squeal of tires and figured the white Ford was still hot on his trail. He saw the open stairwell next to the elevator, ducked into it just as a white car flashed by. The stairwell smelled of grease and urine. As he rushed up the stairs two and three at a time, he heard a car door slam and the fast slap of shoe soles against concrete, and then someone was running up the stairs behind him.

As he was about to whip around a corner, he came upon a homeless man, so drunk he had passed out. Bending over, Marks held his breath as he dragged the drunk up the stairs, placing him across the tread just around the corner. Retreating into shadow on the stairs above, Marks waited, breathing deeply and easily.

The sounds of pounding footsteps came closer, and Marks tensed himself into a half crouch. His tail raced around the corner and, as Marks had planned, didn’t see the drunk until it was too late. As he stumbled, pitching forward, Marks leapt down the stairs, driving his knee into the top of the man’s head. The tail lurched backward, stumbling again over the drunk and sprawling onto his back.

Marks saw him pulling a Browning M1900 from beneath his jacket. Marks kicked it upward just before he fired a shot. The noise held and echoed so deafeningly in the confined space, the drunk opened his eyes and sat bolt upright. The man with the Browning grabbed the drunk by the collar and pressed the gun’s muzzle into the side of his head.

“You’ll come with me now.” He had a heavy accent, Middle Eastern perhaps. “Or I shoot his brains out.” He jerked the drunk so hard, spittle flew from his slack lips.

“Oi, yer wanker!” the drunk shouted, completely confused. “Piss off!”

The gunman, as contemptuous as he was incensed, slammed the side of the drunk’s head with the barrel of the Browning. Marks launched himself across the gap. The heel of his hand made contact with the gunman’s chin, shoved it hard upward, exposing his neck. While he wrestled with the gun hand, he drove his fist into the gunman’s throat. The cartilage gave way and the gunman collapsed, gasping without getting oxygen into his system. His eyes were wide and rolling. He could only make animal gruntings, but soon enough even that ceased.

The drunk whirled with astonishing agility and kicked the gunman in the crotch. “ ’Ow ’bout that now, yer bleedin’ pisspot!” Then, muttering to himself, he stumbled down the stairs without a backward glance.

Quickly now Marks went through the gunman’s pockets, but all he found was keys to the white Ford and a wad of money. No passport, no identification of any kind. He had dark skin, black curling hair, and a full beard. One thing for sure, Marks thought, he’s not CI. So who was he working for and why the hell was he following me? He wondered who could know he was here except for Willard and Oliver Liss.

Then he heard the whistle raised by foot police and knew he had to get out of there. Once more, he studied the dead man, wishing there was some identifier, like a tattoo or…

That’s when he saw the gold ring on the third finger of his right hand and, stooping, worked it off. He hoped there might be a commemorative engraving on the inside.

There wasn’t. There was something far more interesting.

Soraya saw Leonid Arkadin again in the lone marina restaurant. Or, rather, he must have been searching for her, because engrossed in her fiery shrimp and yellow rice she didn’t see him enter. Her waiter brought her a drink-a tequini, he said-from the man at the bar. Soraya glanced up, and of course it was Arkadin. She looked into his eyes as she picked up the martini glass. She smiled. That was all the encouragement he needed.

“You’re persistent, I’ll give you that,” she said when he’d sauntered over.

“If I were your lover, I wouldn’t let you eat dinner alone.”

“My ex pool boy? I sent him packing.”

He laughed and gestured to the booth in which she sat. “May I?”

“I’d prefer you didn’t.”

He sat down anyway and put his drink on the table, as if marking out his territory. “If you let me order, I’ll pay for your dinner.”

“I don’t need you to pay for my dinner,” she said flatly.

“Need has nothing to do with it.” He lifted his hand and the waiter glided over. “I’ll have steak, bloody, and an order of tomatillos.” The waiter nodded and left.

Arkadin smiled, and Soraya was astonished at how genuine it seemed. There was a deep warmth to it that frightened her.

“My name is Leonardo,” he said.

She snorted. “Don’t be ridiculous. No one in Puerto Peñasco is named Leonardo.”

He seemed crestfallen, like a little boy caught with his hand in the cookie jar, and now she was beginning to make sense of his approach to women. She could see how magnetic he was, how compelling an impression he made, exuding the security of a powerful man with a softer core of vulnerability. What woman could resist that? She laughed silently to herself and felt better, as if at last she was standing on solid ground, in a place where she could confidently move forward with her assignment.

“You’re right, of course,” Arkadin said. “It’s actually Leonard, just plain Leonard.”

“Penny.” She held out a hand, which he held briefly. “What are you doing in Puerto Peñasco, Leonard?”

“Fishing, sport racing.”

“In your cigarette.”

“Yes.”

Soraya finished up her shrimp just as his steak and tomatillos arrived. The steak, bloody as ordered, was smothered in chilies. Arkadin dug in. He must have a cast-iron stomach, she thought.

“And you?” he said around bites.

“I came for the weather.” She pushed the tequini away from her.

“You don’t like it?”

“I don’t drink alcohol.”

“Alcoholic?”

She laughed. “Muslim. I’m Egyptian.”

“I apologize for sending you an inappropriate gift.”

“No need.” She waved away his words. “You couldn’t have known.” Then she smiled. “But you’re sweet.”

“Ha! Sweet is one thing I’m not.”

“No?” She cocked her head. “What are you, then?”

He wiped the blood off his lips and sat back for a moment. “Well, to tell you the truth I’m something of a hard-ass. My partners thought so, especially when I bought them out. So did my wife, for that matter.”

“She’s also in the past?”

He nodded as he dug into his food again. “Nearly a year now.”

“Children?”

“Are you kidding?”

Arkadin certainly had a gift for spinning yarns, she thought appreciatively. “I’m not much of a nurturer, either,” she said, somewhat truthfully. “I’m entirely focused on my business.”

He asked her what that might be without looking up from his steak.

“Import-export,” she said. “To and from North Africa.”

His head came up slowly, but very deliberately. She felt her heart beating against her rib cage. It was, she thought, like coaxing a shark onto the hook. She didn’t want to make the slightest mistake now, and felt a little thrill pass through her. She was very close to the precipice, to the moment when her fictional self would fuse with her real self. This moment was why she chose to do what she did. It was why she hadn’t walked away from Peter when he’d recruited her for the assignment, why she had set aside the demeaning aspect of what she was expected to do. None of that mattered. What mattered was standing a hairbreadth from the precipice. This precise moment was what she lived for, and Peter had known this long before she did.

Arkadin wiped his mouth again. “North Africa. Interesting. My former partners did a fair amount of business in North Africa. I didn’t like their methods-or, to be honest, the people they were dealing with. That was one of the reasons I decided to buy them out.”

He was quick on his feet, Soraya thought, improvising like crazy. She was liking this conversation more and more.

“What line are you in?” she asked.

“Computers, peripherals, computer services, that sort of thing.”

Right, she thought, amused. She put a thoughtful expression on her face. “Well, I could connect you with some reliable people, if you like.”

“Maybe you and I could do business.”

Bite! she thought with some elation. Time to reel in the shark, but very slowly and very carefully.

“Hm. I don’t know, I’m already near capacity.”

“Then you need to expand.”

“Sure. With what capital?”

“I have capital.”

She eyed him warily. “I don’t think so. We know nothing about each other.”

He set his knife and fork down, and smiled. “Then let’s make getting to know each other our first order of business.” He lifted a finger. “In fact, I have something to show you that just might entice you into doing business with me.”

“And what might that be?”

“Ah-ah-ah, it’s a surprise.”

Calling the waiter over, he ordered two espressos without asking her if she wanted one. As it happened, she did. She wanted her senses to be on full alert because she had no doubt that at some point tonight she would have to fend off his amorous advances in a way that would lead him on, not turn him off.

They chatted amiably while drinking the espressos, finding their way toward feeling comfortable with each other. Soraya, seeing how relaxed he was, allowed herself to relax, as well, at least as far as she was able. Beneath, however, she felt the tension of steel cables singing through her body. This was a man of enormous charm, as well as charisma. She could see how so many women were magnetically drawn into his orbit. But at the same time the part of her that had pulled back, observing at an objective distance, recognized the show he was putting on, and that she was not seeing the real Arkadin. After a time, she wondered whether anyone had. He had so successfully walled himself off from other human beings that she suspected he was no longer accessible even to himself. And at that moment, he seemed to her a lost little boy, long exiled, who could no longer find his way home.

“Well,” he said as he set down his empty cup, “shall we move on?” He threw some bills onto the table and, without waiting for a reply, slid out of the booth. He held out his hand and, after a moment’s deliberate hesitation, she took it, allowing him to swing her out of her seat.

The night was mild, without a breath of a breeze, heavy as velvet drapes. The sky was moonless, but the stars blazed in the blackness. They strolled away from the water, and then north, paralleling the beach. To their right, the light-smear of Puerto Peñasco seemed part of a painting, a world apart.

Streetlights gave way to starlit darkness and then, abruptly, the lights of a large stone structure that looked vaguely religious in nature. She saw the cross set into the stone above the wood-and-iron door.

“It used to be a convent.” Arkadin unlocked the door and stood aside for her to enter. “My home away from home.”

The interior was sparsely furnished, but aromatic with incense and candle wax. She saw a desk, several armchairs, a refectory table and eight chairs, a pew-like sofa festooned with ill-matched pillows. All of it was heavy, dark wood. None of it looked comfortable.

As they walked through the living room, Arkadin lit thick cream-colored candles in iron stands of varying heights. The effect in the convent’s immense stone interior was increasingly medieval, and she smiled to herself, suspecting that he was setting the scene for romance or, in this case, seduction.

He opened a bottle of red wine and poured it into an oversize Mexican goblet, then he filled another with guara juice. Handing her the juice, he said, “Come. This way.”

He led her farther into the gloom, pausing to light candles along the way. The far wall was almost all brick fireplace, as enormous as any in an English baronial hall. She could smell the old ash and creosote coating the firebrick after decades of use and, judging by what she saw, years of neglect.

Now Arkadin lit a particularly large candle and, holding it high as one would a torch, walked toward the shadows of the fireplace. The impenetrable darkness began to give grudging way to the inconstant illumination of the flame.

As the shadows retreated, a shape took form in the fireplace, a chair. And on the chair sat a figure. The figure was bound to the chair by its ankles. Its arms, presumably bound at the wrists, were behind it.

As Arkadin brought the candle still closer, the light from the flame rose up from the figure’s ankles to legs, torso, finally revealing its face, bloody and swollen so badly that one eye had closed.

“How do you like your surprise?” Arkadin said.

The goblet of juice shattered on the floor tiles as it slipped from Soraya’s grip.

The man bound to the chair was Antonio.

It was like a chess match, Bourne staring at the old man, trying to place him as the director of the Centre for the Study of Ancient Documents when he had been in Oxford as David Webb, the old man staring at him more certain with every passing second of Bourne’s identity.

Chrissie was staring at them both, as if trying to figure out which would checkmate the other. “Adam, is my father right? Is your name really David Webb?”

Bourne saw a way out-the only way-but he didn’t like it. “Yes,” he said, “and no.”

“Either way, your name isn’t Adam Stone.” Chrissie’s voice held a metallic edge. “Which means you lied to Trace. She knew you as Adam Stone, and that’s how I know you.”

Bourne turned to look at her. “Adam Stone is as much my name as David Webb used to be. I’ve been known by different names at different times. But they’re only names.”

“Damn you!” Chrissie got up, turned her back, and stalked into the kitchen.

“She’s pretty angry,” Scarlett said, watching him with her eleven-year-old face, beautiful yet not fully formed.

“Are you angry?” Bourne asked.

“You’re not a professor?”

“In fact, I am,” Bourne said. “A professor of linguistics.”

“Then I think it’s cool. D’you have a whole bunch of secret identities?”

Bourne laughed. He liked this child. “When the need arises.”

“Bat-Signal!” She cocked her head, and in the straightforward manner of children, said, “Why did you lie to Mum and Aunt Tracy?”

Bourne was about to say something about Tracy, but just in time reminded himself that as far as Scarlett was concerned her aunt was still alive. “I was in one of my secret identities when I met your aunt. Then Tracy told your mum about me. It was the best way I could get her to listen to me quickly.”

“If you’re not Professor David Webb who the hell are you?” Chrissie’s father said, visibly gathering himself.

“I was Webb when I knew you,” Bourne said. “I didn’t come to Oxford, to you, under false pretenses.”

“What are you doing here with my daughter and granddaughter?”

“It’s a long story,” Bourne said.

A spark of cunning came into the old man’s face. “I’ll bet it has something to do with my older daughter.”

“In a way.”

The old man clenched a fist. “That damn engraving.”

A little chill traveled down Bourne’s spine. “What engraving?”

The old man peered at him curiously. “Do you not remember? I’m Dr. Bishop Atherton. You brought me a drawing of a phrase you said was an engraving.”

And then Bourne remembered. He remembered everything.