The Bourne Sanction

Just before he reached the end of the first set of containers, he heard Arkadin’s voice, speaking to him in Russian.

“There isn’t much time.”

Bourne stood still, trying to determine where the voice was coming from. “What d’you know about it, Arkadin?”

“Why d’you think I’m here?”

“I killed Mischa Tarkanian, now you kill me. Isn’t that how you defined it back in Egon Kirsch’s apartment?”

“Listen to me, Bourne, if that’s what I wanted I could have killed you anytime while you and the woman slept aboard the NextGen 747.”

Bourne’s blood ran cold. “Why didn’t you?”

“Listen to me, Bourne, Semion Icoupov, who saved me, whom I trusted, shot my woman to death.”

“Yes, that’s why you killed him.”

“Do you begrudge me my revenge?”

Bourne said nothing, thinking of what he would do to Arkadin if he hurt Moira.

“You don’t have to say anything, Bourne, I already know the answer.”

Bourne turned. The voice appeared to have shifted. Where the hell was he hiding?

“But as I said we have little time to find Icoupov’s man on board.”

“It’s Sever’s man, actually,” Bourne said.

Arkadin laughed. “Do you think that matters? They were in bed together. All the time they posed as bitter enemies they were plotting this disaster. I want to stop it-I have to stop it, or my revenge on Icoupov will be incomplete.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Listen, Bourne, you know we haven’t much time. I’ve avenged myself on the father, but this plan is his child. He and Sever gave birth to it, fed it, nurtured it through its infancy, through its adolescent growing pains. Now each moment brings this floating supernova closer to the moment of destruction those two madmen envisioned.”

The voice moved again. “Is that what you want, Bourne? Of course not. Then let’s join together to find Sever’s man.”

Bourne hesitated. He didn’t trust Arkadin, and yet he had to trust him. He examined the situation from all sides and concluded that the only way to play it was to move forward. “He’s a software engineer,” he said.

Arkadin appeared, climbing down from the top of one of the containers. For a moment, the two men stood facing each other, and once again Bourne felt the dislocating sensation of looking in a mirror. When he stared into Arkadin’s eyes, he didn’t see the madness the professor spoke of; he saw himself, a heart of darkness and pain beyond understanding.

“Sever told me there was only one man, but he also said we wouldn’t find him, and even if we did it wouldn’t matter.”

Arkadin frowned, giving him the ca

“I’m not sure.” He turned, walking down the deck toward the crew members who had cleared the space for the copter to land. “What we’re looking for,” he said as Arkadin fell into step beside him, “is a tattoo specific to the Black Legion.”

“The wheel of horses with the death’s head center.” Arkadin nodded. “I’ve seen it.”

“It’s on the inside of the elbow.”

“We could kill them all.” Arkadin laughed. “But I guess that would offend something inside you.”

One by one, the two men examined the arms of the eight crewmen on deck, but found no tattoo. By the time they reached the wheelhouse, the tanker was within two miles of the terminal. It was barely moving. Four tugboats had hove to and were waiting at the one-mile limit to tow the tanker the rest of the way in.

The captain was a swarthy individual with a face that looked like it had been deeply etched by acid rather than the wind and the sun. “As I was telling Ms. Trevor, there are seven more crewmen, mostly involved in engine room duties. Then there’s my first mate here, the communications officer, and the ship’s doctor, he’s in sick bay, tending to a crewman who fell ill two days out of Algeria. Oh, yes, and the cook.”

Bourne and Arkadin glanced at each other. The radioman seemed the logical choice, but when the captain summoned him he, too, was without the Black Legion tattoo. So were the captain and his first mate.

“The engine room,” Bourne said.

At his captain’s orders, the first mate led them out onto the deck, then down the starboard companionway into the bowels of the ship, reaching the enormous engine room at last. Five men were hard at work, their faces and arms filthy with a coating of grease and grime. As the first mate instructed them, they held out their arms, but as Bourne reached the third in line, the fourth man looked at them beneath half-closed lids before he bolted.

Bourne went after him while Arkadin circled, snaking through the oily city of grinding machinery. He eluded Bourne once but then, rounding a corner, Bourne spotted him near the line of gigantic Hyundai diesel engines, specifically designed to power the world’s fleet of LNG tankers. He was trying to furtively shove a small box between the structural struts of the engine, but Arkadin, coming up behind him, grabbed for his wrist. The crewman jerked away, brought the box back toward him, and was about to thumb a button on it when Bourne kicked it out of his hand. The box went flying, and Arkadin dived after it.

“Careful,” the crewman said as Bourne grabbed hold of him. He ignored Bourne, was staring at the box Arkadin brought back to them. “You hold the whole world in your hand.”

Meanwhile Bourne pushed up his shirtsleeve. The man’s arm was smeared with grease, deliberately so, it seemed, because when Bourne took a rag and wiped it off, the Black Legion tattoo appeared on the inside of his left elbow.

The man seemed totally unconcerned. His entire being was focused on the box that Arkadin was holding. “That will blow up everything,” he said, and made a lunge toward it. Bourne jerked him back with a stranglehold.

“Let’s get him back up to the captain,” Bourne said to the first mate. That’s when he saw the box up close. He took it out of Arkadin’s hand.

“Careful!” the crewman cried. “One slight jar and you’ll set it off.”

But Bourne wasn’t so sure. The crewman was being too vocal with his warnings. Wouldn’t he want the ship to blow now that it had been boarded by Sever’s enemies? When he turned the box over, he saw that the seam between the bottom and the side was ragged.

“What are you doing? Are you crazy?” The crewman was so agitated that Arkadin slapped him on the side of the head in order to silence him.

Inserting his fingernail into the seam, Bourne pried the box apart. There was nothing inside. It was a dummy.

Moira found it impossible to stay in one place. Her nerves were stretched to the breaking point. The tanker was on the verge of meeting up with the tugboats; they were only a mile from shore. If the tanks went, the devastation to both human life and the country’s economy would be catastrophic. She felt useless, a third wheel hanging around while the two men did their hunting.

Exiting the wheelhouse, she went belowdecks, looking for the engine room. Smelling food, she poked her head into the galley. A large Algerian was sitting at the stainless-steel mess table, reading a two-week-old Arabic newspaper.

He looked up, gesturing at the paper. “It gets old the fifteenth time through, but when you’re at sea what can you do?”

His burly arms were bare to the shoulders. They bore tattoos of a star, a crescent, and a cross, but not the Black Legion’s insignia. Following the directions he gave her, she found the infirmary three decks below. Inside, a slim Muslim was sitting at a small desk built into one of the bulkheads. In the opposite bulkhead were two berths, one of them filled with the patient who had fallen ill. The doctor murmured a traditional Muslim greeting as he turned away from his laptop computer to face her. He frowned deeply when he saw the crossbow in her hands.

“Is that really necessary,” he said, “or even wise?”

“I’d like to speak with your patient,” Moira said, ignoring him.