The Bourne Sanction

“Icoupov is in residence now,” Pyotr said. “How you make your way inside is up to you.”

“I’ll be in touch.” After paging through the documents, asking a question here and there, Arkadin placed them in the case on top of the diamonds, snapped the lid shut, slung the case into the passenger’s seat of the Mercedes as easily as if it were filled with balloons.

“Tomorrow, same time, right here,” Pyotr said as Arkadin slid behind the wheel.

The Mercedes started up, its engine purring. Then Arkadin put it in gear. As he slid out onto the road, Pyotr turned to walk to the front of the BMW. He heard the squeal of brakes, the slewing of a car, and turned to see the Mercedes heading directly toward him. He was paralyzed for a moment. What the hell is he doing? he asked himself. Belatedly, he began to run. But the Mercedes was already on top of him, its front grille slammed into him, pi

Through a haze of agony he saw Arkadin get out of his car, walk toward him. Then something gave out inside him and he passed into oblivion.

He regained consciousness in a paneled study, gleaming with polished brass fixtures, lush with jewel-toned Isfahan carpets. A walnut desk and chair were within his field of vision, as was an enormous window that looked out on the sparkling water of Lake Lugano and the veiled mountains behind it. The sun was low in the west, sending long shadows the color of a fresh bruise over the water, up the whitewashed walls of Campione d’Italia.

He was bound to a plain wooden chair that seemed to be as out of place in the surroundings of wealth and power as he was. He tried to take a deep breath, winced with shocking pain. Looking down, he saw bandages wrapped tightly around his chest, realized that he must have at least one cracked rib.

“At last you have returned from the land of the dead. For a while there you had me worried.”

It was painful for Pyotr to turn his head. Every muscle in his body felt as if it were on fire. But his curiosity would not be denied, so he bit his lip, kept turning his head until a man came into view. He was rather small, stoop-shouldered. Glasses with round lenses were fitted over large, watery eyes. His bronzed scalp, lined and furrowed as pastureland, was without a single hair, but as if to make up for his bald pate his eyebrows were astonishingly thick, arching up over the skin above his eye sockets. He looked like one of those wily Turkish traders from the Levant.

“Semion Icoupov,” Pyotr said. He coughed. His mouth felt stiff, as if it were stuffed with cotton. He could taste the salt-copper of his own blood, and swallowed heavily.

Icoupov could have moved so that Pyotr didn’t have to twist his neck so far in order to keep him in view, but he didn’t. Instead he dropped his gaze to the sheet of heavy paper he’d unrolled. “You know, these architectural plans of my villa are so complete I’m learning things about the building I never knew before. For instance, there is a sub-basement below the cellar.” He ran his stubby forefinger along the surface of the plan. “I suppose it would take some doing to break into it now, but who knows, it might prove worthwhile.”

His head snapped up and he fixed Pyotr with his gaze. “For instance, it would make a perfect place for your incarceration. I’d be assured that not even my closest neighbor would hear you scream.” He smiled, a cue for a terrible focusing of his energies. “And you will scream, Pyotr, this I promise you.” His head swiveled, the beacons of his eyes searching out someone else. “Won’t he, Leonid?”

Now Arkadin came into Pyotr’s field of view. At once he grabbed Pyotr’s head with one hand, dug into the hinge of his jaw with the other. Pyotr had no choice but to open his mouth. Arkadin checked his teeth one by one. Pyotr knew that he was looking for a false tooth filled with liquid cyanide. A death pill.

“All his,” Arkadin said as he let go of Pyotr.

“I’m curious,” Icoupov said. “How in the world did you procure these plans, Pyotr?”

Pyotr, waiting for the proverbial shoe to drop, said nothing. But all at once he began to shiver so violently his teeth chattered.

Icoupov signaled to Arkadin, who swaddled Pyotr’s upper body in a thick blanket. Icoupov brought a carved cherry chair to a position facing Pyotr, sat down on it.

He continued just as if he hadn’t expected an answer. “I must admit that shows a fair amount of initiative on your part. So the clever boy has grown into a clever young man.” Icoupov shrugged. “I’m hardly surprised. But listen to me now, I know who you really are-did you think you could fool me by continually changing your name? The truth of the matter is you’ve prodded open a wasp’s nest, so you shouldn’t be surprised to get stung. And stung and stung and stung.”

He inclined his upper body toward Pyotr. “However much your father and I despise each other, we grew up together; once we were as close as brothers. So. Out of respect for him, I won’t lie to you, Pyotr. This bold foray of yours won’t end well. In fact, it was doomed from the start. And d’you want to know why? You needn’t answer; of course you do. Your earthly needs betrayed you, Pyotr. That delicious girl you’ve been bedding for the past six months belongs to me. I know you’re thinking that’s not possible. I know you vetted her thoroughly; that’s your MO. I anticipated all your inquiries; I made certain you received the answers you needed to hear.”

Pyotr, staring into Icoupov’s face, found his teeth chattering again, no matter how tightly he clamped his jaw.

“Tea, please, Philippe,” Icoupov said to an unseen person. Moments later, a slender young man set an English silver tea service onto a low table at Icoupov’s right hand. Like a favorite uncle, Icoupov went about pouring and sugaring the tea. He put the porcelain cup to Pyotr’s bluish lips, said, “Please drink, Pyotr. It’s for your own good.”

Pyotr stared implacably at him until Icoupov said, “Ah, yes, I see.” He sipped the tea from the cup himself to assure Pyotr it was only tea, then offered it again. The rim chattered against Pyotr’s teeth, but eventually Pyotr drank, slowly at first, then more avidly. When the tea was drained, Icoupov set the cup back on its matching saucer. By this time Pyotr’s shivering had subsided.

“Feeling better?”

“I’ll feel better,” Pyotr said, “when I get out of here.”

“Ah, well, I’m afraid that won’t be for some time,” Icoupov said. “If ever. Unless you tell me what I want to know.”

He hitched his chair closer; the benign uncle’s expression was now nowhere to be found. “You stole something that belongs to me,” he said. “I want it back.”

“It never belonged to you; you stole it first.”

Pyotr replied with such venom that Icoupov said, “You hate me as much as you love your father, this is your basic problem, Pyotr. You never learned that hate and love are essentially the same in that the person who loves is as easily manipulated as the person who hates.”

Pyotr screwed up his mouth, as if Icoupov’s words left a bitter taste in his mouth. “Anyway, it’s too late. The document is already on its way.”

Instantly, there was a change in Icoupov’s demeanor. His face became as closed as a fist. A certain tension lent his entire small body the aspect of a weapon about to be launched. “Where did you send it?”

Pyotr shrugged, but said nothing more.

Icoupov’s face turned dark with momentary rage. “Do you think I know nothing about the information and matйriel pipeline you have been refining for the past three years? It’s how you send information you stole from me back to your father, wherever he is.”

For the first time since he’d regained consciousness, Pyotr smiled. “If you knew anything important about the pipeline, you’d have rolled it up by now.”

At this Icoupov regained the icy control over his emotions.