The Bourne Sanction

“We’ve both become paranoid.”

“A sad fact,” Icoupov said with a gasp of pain. It was true: Their great strength in working together without anyone in either camp knowing about it was also a weakness. Because their regimes ostensibly opposed each other, because the Black Legion’s nemesis was in reality its closest ally, all other potential rivals shied away, leaving the Black Legion to operate without interference. However, the actions both men were sometimes obliged to take for the sake of appearance caused a subconscious erosion of trust between them.

Icoupov could feel that their level of distrust had achieved its highest point yet, and he sought to defuse it. “Pyotr killed himself-and, in fact, I was only defending myself. Did you know he hired Arkadin to kill me? What would you have had me do?”

“There were other options,” Sever said, “but your sense of justice is an eye for an eye. For a Muslim you have a great deal of the Jewish Old Testament in you. And now it appears that that very justice is about to be turned on you. Arkadin will kill you, if he can get his hands on you.” Sever laughed. “I’m the only one who can save you now. Ironic, isn’t it? You kill my son and now I have the power of life and death over you.”

“We always had the power of life and death over each other.” Icoupov still struggled to gain equality in the conversation. “There were casualties on both sides-regrettable but necessary. The more things change the more they stay the same. Except for Long Beach.”

“There’s the problem precisely,” Sever said. “I’ve just come from interrogating Arthur Hauser, our man on the inside. As such, he was monitored by my people. Earlier today, he got cold feet; he met with a member of Black River. It took me some time to convince him to talk, but eventually he did. He told this woman-Moira Trevor-about the software flaw.”

“So Black River knows.”

“If they do,” Sever said, “they aren’t doing anything about it. Hauser also told me that they withdrew from NextGen; Black River isn’t handling their security anymore.”

“Who is?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Sever said. “The point is the tanker is less than a day away from the California coastline. My software engineer is aboard and in place. The question now is whether this Black River operative is going to act on her own.”

Icoupov frowned. “Why should she? You know Black River as well as I do, they act as a team.”

“True enough, but the Trevor woman should have been on to her next assignment by now; my people tell me that she’s still in Munich.”

“Maybe she’s taking some downtime.”

“And maybe,” Sever said, “she’s going to act on the information Hauser gave her.”

They were nearing the airport, and with some difficulty Icoupov pointed. “The only way to find out is to check to see whether she’s on the NextGen plane that’s transshipping the coupling link to the terminal.” He smiled thinly. “You seem surprised that I know so much. I have my spies as well, many of whom you know nothing about.” He gasped in pain as he searched beneath his greatcoat. “It was texted to me, but I can’t seem to find my cell.” He looked around. “It must have fallen out of my pocket when your driver manhandled me into the car.”

Sever waved a hand, ignoring the implied rebuke. “Never mind. Hauser gave me all the details, if we can get through security.”

“I have people in Immigration you don’t know about.”

Sever’s smile held a measure of the cruelty that was common to both of them. “My dear Semion, you have a use after all.”

Arkadin found Icoupov’s cell phone in the gutter where it had fallen as Icoupov had been bundled into the Mercedes. Controlling the urge to stomp it into splinters, he opened it to see whom Icoupov had called last, and noticed that the last incoming message was a text. Accessing it, he read the information on a NextGen jet due to take off in twenty minutes. He wondered why that would be important to Icoupov. Part of him wanted to go back to Devra, the same part that had balked at leaving her to go after Icoupov. But Kirsch’s building was swarming with cops; the entire block was in the process of being cordoned off, so he didn’t look back, tried not to think of her lying twisted on the floor, her blank eyes staring up at him even after she stopped breathing.

Do you love me, Leonid?

How had he answered her? Even now he couldn’t remember. Her death was like a dream, something vivid that made no sense. Maybe it was a symbol, but of what he couldn’t say.

Do you love me, Leonid?

It didn’t matter, but he knew to her it did. He had lied then, surely he’d lied to ease the moments before her death, but the thought that he’d lied to her sent a knife through whatever passed for his heart.

He looked down at the text message and knew this was where he’d find Icoupov. Turning around, he walked back toward the cordoned-off area. Posing as a crime reporter from the Abendzeitung newspaper, he boldly accosted one of the junior uniformed police, asking him pointed questions about the shooting, stories of gunfire he’d gleaned from residents of the neighboring buildings. As he suspected, the cop was on guard duty and knew next to nothing. But that wasn’t the point; he’d now gotten inside the cordon, leaning against one of the police cars as he conducted his phony and fruitless interview.

At length, the cop was called away, and he dismissed Arkadin, saying the commissioner would be holding a press conference at 16:00, at which time he would be free to ask all the questions he wanted. This left Arkadin alone, leaning against the fender. It didn’t take him long to walk around the front of the vehicle, and when the medical examiner’s van arrived-creating a perfect diversion-he opened the driver’s-side door, ducked in behind the wheel. The keys were already in the ignition. He started the car and drove off. When he reached the autobahn, he put on the siren and drove at top speed toward the airport.

I won’t have a problem getting you on board,” Moira said as she turned off onto the four-lane approach to the freight terminal. She showed her NextGen ID at the guard booth, then drove on toward the parking lot outside the terminal. During the drive to the airport she’d thought long and hard about whether to tell Jason about whom she really worked for. Revealing that she was with Black River was a direct violation of her contract, and right now she prayed there’d be no reason to tell him.

After passing through security, Customs, and Immigration, they arrived on the tarmac and approached the 747. A set of mobile stairs rose up to the high passenger door, which stood open. On the far side of the plane, the truck from Kaller Steelworks Gesellschaft was parked, along with an airport hoist, which was lifting crated parts of the LNG coupling link into the jet’s cargo area. The truck was obviously late, and the loading process was necessarily slow and tedious. Neither Kaller nor NextGen could afford an accident at this late stage.

Moira showed her NextGen ID to one of the crew members standing at the bottom of the stairs. He smiled and nodded, welcoming them aboard. Moira breathed a sigh of relief. Now all that stood between them and the Black Legion attack was the ten-hour flight to Long Beach.

But as they neared the top of the stairs, a figure appeared from the plane’s interior. He stood in the doorway, staring down at her.

“Moira,” Noah said, “what are you doing here? Why aren’t you on your way to Damascus?”

Manfred Holger, Icoupov’s man in Immigration, met them at the checkpoint to the freight terminals, got in the car with them, and they lurched forward. Icoupov had called him using Sever’s cell phone. He’d been about to go off duty, but luckily for them had not yet changed out of his uniform.

“There’s no problem.” Holger spoke in the officious ma