The Bourne Sanction

Bourne saw the German official coming and suspected there was something wrong: An Immigration officer had no business interrogating them now. Then he recognized the man’s face. He told Moira to get back inside the plane, then stood barring the door as the official mounted the stairs.

“I need to see everyone’s passport,” the officer said as he approached Bourne.

“Passport checks have already been made, mein Herr.”

“Nevertheless, another security scan must be made now.” The officer held out his hand. “Your passport, please. And then I will check the identity of everyone else aboard.”

“You don’t recognize me, mein Herr?”

“Please.” The officer put his hand on the butt of his holstered Luger. “You are obstructing official government business. Believe me, I will take you into custody unless you show me your passport and then move aside.”

“Here’s my passport, mein Herr.” Bourne opened it to the last page, pointed to a spot on the inside cover. “And here is where you placed an electronic tracking device.”

“What accusation is this? You have no proof-”

Bourne produced the broken bug. “I don’t believe you’re here on official business. I think whoever instructed you to plant this on me is paying you to check these passports.” Bourne gripped the officer’s elbow. “Let’s stroll over to the commandant of Immigration and ask them if they sent you here.”

The officer drew himself up stiffly. “I’m not going anywhere with you. I have a job to do.”

“So do I.”

As Bourne dragged him down the rolling stairs, the officer went for his gun.

Bourne dug his fingers into the nerve bundle just above the man’s elbow. “Draw it if you must,” Bourne said, “but be prepared for the consequences.”

The official’s frosty aloofness finally cracked, revealing the fear beneath. His round face was pallid and sweating.

“What do you want of me?” he said as they walked along the tarmac.

“Take me to your real employer.”

The officer had one last blast of bravado in him. “You don’t really think he’s here, do you?”

“As a matter of fact I wasn’t sure until you said that. Now I know he is.” Bourne shook the official. “Now take me to him.”

Defeated, the officer nodded bleakly. No doubt, he was contemplating his immediate future. At a quickened pace, he led Bourne around behind the 747. At that moment, the NextGen truck rumbled to life, heading away from the plane, back the way it had come. That was when Bourne saw the black Mercedes and a police car directly behind it.

“Where did that police car come from?” The officer tore himself away from Bourne and broke into a run toward the parked cars.

Bourne, who saw the driver’s-side doors on both vehicles standing open, was at the officer’s heels. It was clear as they approached that no one was in the police car, but looking through the Mercedes’s door, they saw the driver, slumped over. It looked as if he’d been kicked to the passenger’s side of the seat.

Bourne pulled open the rear door, saw Icoupov with the top of his head blown off. Another man had fallen forward against the front seat rests. When Bourne pulled him gently backward, he saw that it was Dominic Specter-or Asher Sever-and everything became clear to him. Beneath the public enmity, the two men were secret allies. This answered many questions, not the least of which was why everyone Bourne had spoken to about the Black Legion had a different opinion about who was a member and who wasn’t.

Sever looked small and frail, old beyond his years. He’d been shot in the chest with a.22. Bourne took his pulse, listened to his breathing. He was still alive.

“I’ll call for an ambulance,” the officer said.

“Do what you have to do,” Bourne said as he scooped Sever up. “I’m taking this one with me.”

He left the Immigration officer to deal with the mess, crossing the tarmac and mounting the rolling stairs.

“Let’s get out of here,” he said as he laid Sever down across three seats.

“What happened to him?” Moira said with a gasp. “Is he alive or dead?”

Bourne knelt beside his old mentor. “He’s still breathing.” As he began to rip off the professor’s shirt, he said to Moira. “Get us moving, okay? We need to get out of here now.”

Moira nodded. As she went up the aisle, she spoke to one of the flight attendants, who ran for the first-aid kit. The door to the cockpit was still open, and she gave the order for takeoff to the captain and the co-pilot.

Within five minutes the rolling stairs had been removed and the 747 was taxiing to the head of the runway. A moment later the control tower cleared it for takeoff. The brakes were let out, the engines revved up, and, with increasing velocity, the jet hurtled down the runway. Then it lifted off, its wheel retracted, flaps were adjusted, and it soared into a sky filled with the crimson and gold of the setting sun.

Forty-Three

IS HE DEAD?” Sever stared up at Bourne, who was cleaning his chest wound.

“You mean Semion?”

“Yes. Semion. Is he dead?”

“Icoupov and the driver, both.”

Bourne held Sever down while the alcohol burned off everything that could cause the wound to suppurate. No organs had been struck, but the injury must be extremely painful.

Bourne applied an antiseptic cream from a tube in the first-aid kit. “Who shot you?”

“Arkadin.” Tears of pain rolled down Sever’s cheeks. “For some reason, he’s gone completely insane. Maybe he was always insane. I thought so anyway. Allah, that hurts!” He took several shallow breaths before he went on. “He came out of nowhere. The driver said, ‘A police car has pulled up behind us.’ The next thing I know he’s rolling down the window and a gun is fired point-blank in his face. Neither Semion nor I had time to think. There was Arkadin inside the car. He shot me, but I’m certain it was Semion he’d come for.”

Intuiting what must have happened in Kirsch’s apartment, Bourne said, “Icoupov killed his woman, Devra.”

Sever squeezed his eyes shut. He was having trouble breathing normally. “So what? Arkadin never cared what happened to his women.”

“He cared about this one,” Bourne said, applying a bandage.

Sever stared up at Bourne with an expression of disbelief. “The odd thing was, I think I heard him call Semion ‘Father.’ Semion didn’t understand.”

“And now he never will.”

“Stop your fussing; let me die, dammit!” Sever said crossly. “It doesn’t matter now whether I live or die.”

Bourne finished up.

“What’s done is done. Fate has been sealed; there’s nothing you or anyone else can do to change it.”

Bourne sat on a seat opposite Sever. He was aware of Moira standing to one side, watching and listening. The professor’s betrayal only went to prove that you were never safe when you let personal feelings into your life.

“Jason.” Sever’s voice was weaker. “I never meant to deceive you.”

“Yes, you did, Professor, that’s all you know how to do.”

“I came to look upon you as a son.”

“Like Icoupov looked upon Arkadin.”

With an effort, Sever shook his head. “Arkadin is insane. Perhaps they both were, perhaps their shared insanity is what drew them together.”

Bourne sat forward, “Let me ask you a question, Professor. Do you think you’re sane?”

“Of course I’m sane.”

Sever’s eyes held steady on Bourne’s, a challenge still, at this late stage.

For a moment, Bourne did nothing, then he rose and, together with Moira, walked forward toward the cockpit.

“It’s a long flight,” she said softly, “and you need your rest.”

“We both do.”

They sat next to each other, silent for a long time. Occasionally, they heard Sever utter a soft moan. Otherwise, the drone of the engines conspired to lull them to sleep.

It was freezing in the baggage hold, but Arkadin didn’t mind. The Nizhny Tagil winters had been brutal. It was during one of those winters that Mischa Tarkanian had found him, hiding out from the remnants of Stas Kuzin’s regime. Mischa, hard as a knife blade, had the heart of a poet. He told stories that were beautiful enough to be poems. Arkadin had been enchanted, if such a word could be ascribed to him. Mischa’s talent for storytelling had the power to take Arkadin far away from Nizhny Tagil, and when Mischa smuggled him out past the i