The Bourne Sanction

Four

BOURNE, sunk deep into the shadows opposite the restaurant Jewel, saw the two men emerge. By the a

Bourne, without a vehicle, looked around, saw a bicyclist coming up 31st Street, NW, from the towpath. He was cycling along the gutter to avoid the traffic. Bourne walked smartly toward him and stepped in front of him. The cyclist stopped short, uttering a sharp exclamation.

“I need your bike,” Bourne said.

“Well, you bloody well can’t have it, mate,” the cyclist said with a heavy British accent.

At the corner of 31st and M, a black GMC SUV was pulling into the curb in front of the two men.

Bourne pressed four hundred dollars into the cyclist’s hand. “Like I said, right now.”

The young man stared down at the money for a moment. Then he swung off, said, “Be my guest.”

As Bourne mounted up, he handed over his helmet. “You’ll be wanting this, mate.”

The two men had already vanished into the GMC’s interior, the SUV was pulling out into the thick traffic flow. Bourne took off, leaving the cyclist to shrug behind him as he climbed onto the sidewalk.

Reaching the corner, Bourne turned right onto M Street. The GMC was three cars ahead of him. Bourne wove his way around the traffic, moving into position to keep up with the SUV. At 30th Street, NW, they all hit a red light. Bourne was forced to put one foot down, which was why he got a late start when the GMC jumped the light just before it turned green. The SUV roared ahead of the other vehicles, and Bourne launched himself forward. A white Toyota was coming from 30th into the intersection, heading right for him at a ninety-degree angle. Bourne put on a burst of speed, swerved up onto the corner sidewalk, backing a clutch of pedestrians into those behind them, to a round of curses. The Toyota, horn blaring angrily, just missed him as it jounced across M Street.

Bourne was able to make good headway, as the GMC had been slowed by the sludgy traffic up ahead, splitting off where M Street and Pe

Making the best of a worsening situation, Bourne threw caution to the wind, following the accelerating GMC into the fork as it took Pe

“Are you all right?”

“What were you trying to do?”

“Didn’t you see the red light?”

“You could have killed yourself-or someone else!”

A welter of voices as pedestrians surrounded him, trying to help him out from under the bicycle. Bourne thanked them as he scrambled to his feet. He ran several hundred yards down the avenue, but as he feared the GMC was long gone.

Expelling a string of bawdily colorful curses, Arkadin rummaged through the pockets of Oleg Ivanovich Shumenko, who lay twitching in the bloodstained catwalk deep inside the Sevastopol Winery. As he did so, he wondered how he could have been such a fool. He’d done precisely what Shumenko had wanted him to do, which was to kill him. He’d rather have died than divulge the name of the next man in Pyotr Zilber’s network.

Still, there was a chance that something he had on his person would lead Arkadin farther along. Arkadin had already made a small pile of coins, bills, toothpicks, and the like. He unfolded each scrap of paper he came across, but none of them contained either a name or an address, just lists of chemicals, presumably those the winery required for fermentation or the periodic cleaning of its vats.

Shumenko’s wallet was a sad affair-sliver-thin, containing a faded photo of an older couple smiling into the sun and the camera Arkadin took to be Shumenko’s parents, a condom in a worn foil pouch, a driver’s license, car registration, ID badge for a sailing club, an IOU chit for ten thousand hryvnia-just under two thousand American dollars-two receipts, one for a restaurant, the other for a nightclub, an old photo of a young girl smiling into the camera.

In pocketing the receipts, the only reasonable leads he’d found, he inadvertently flipped over the IOU. On the reverse was the name DEVRA, written in a sharp, spiky feminine hand. Arkadin wanted to look for more, but he heard an electronic squawk, then the bawl of Yetnikova’s voice. He looked around, saw an old-fashioned walkie-talkie hanging by its strap from the railing. Stuffing the papers into his pocket, he hurried along the catwalk, slid down the ladder, made his way out of the champagne fermentation room.

Shumenko’s boss, Yetnikova, marched toward him down the labyrinthine corridors as if she were in the forefront of the Red Army entering Warsaw. Even at this distance, he could see the scowl on her face. Unlike his Russian credentials, his Ukrainian ones were paper-thin. They’d pass a cursory test, but after any kind of checking he’d be busted.

“I called the SBU office in Kiev. They did some digging on you, Colonel.” Yetnikova’s voice had turned from servile to hostile. “Or whoever you are.” She puffed herself up like a porcupine about to do battle. “They never heard of-”

She gave a little squeak as he jammed one hand over her mouth while he punched her hard in the solar plexus. She collapsed into his arms like a rag doll, and he dragged her along the corridor until he came to the utility closet. Opening the door, he shoved her in, went in after her.

Sprawled on the floor, Yetnikova slowly came to her senses. Immediately she began her bluster-cursing and promising dire consequences for the outrages perpetrated on her person. Arkadin didn’t hear her; he didn’t even see her. He attempted to block out the past, but as always the memories flattened him. They took possession of him, taking him out of himself, producing like a drug a dream-like state that over the years had become as familiar as a twin brother.

Kneeling over Yetnikova, he dodged her kicks, the snapping of her jaws. He withdrew a switchblade from a sheath strapped to the side of his right calf. When he snikked open its long, thin blade, fear finally twisted Yetnikova’s face. Her eyes opened wide and she gasped, raising her hands instinctively.