The Bourne Sanction

Twenty-Seven

IT ALL STARTED with Pyotr Zilber,” Maslov said. “Or rather his younger brother, Aleksei. Aleksei was a wise guy. He tried to muscle in on one of my sources for foreign cars. A lot of people were killed, including some of my men and my source. For that, I had him killed.”

Dimitri Maslov and Bourne were sitting in a glassed-in greenhouse built on the roof of the warehouse where Maslov had his office. They were surrounded by a lush profusion of tropical flowers: speckled orchids, brilliant carmine anthurium, birds-of-paradise, white ginger, heliconia. The air was perfumed with the scents of the pink plumeria and white jasmine. It was so warm and humid, Maslov looked right at home in his bright-hued short-sleeved shirt. Bourne had rolled up his sleeves. There was a table with a bottle of vodka and two glasses. They’d already had their first drink.

“Zilber pulled strings, had my man Borya Maks sent to High Security Prison Colony 13 in Nizhny Tagil. You’ve heard of it?”

Bourne nodded. Conklin had mentioned the prison several times.

“Then you know it’s no picnic in there.” Maslov leaned forward, refilled their glasses, handed one to Bourne, took the other himself. “Despite that, Zilber wasn’t satisfied. He hired someone very, very good to infiltrate the prison and kill Maks.” Drinking vodka, surrounded by a riot of color, he appeared totally at his ease. “Only one person could accomplish that and get out alive: Leonid Danilovich Arkadin.”

The vodka had done Bourne a world of good, returning both warmth and strength to his overtaxed body. There was still a smear of blood on the point of one cheek, dried now, but Maslov had neither looked at it nor commented on it. “Tell me about Arkadin.”

Maslov made an animal sound in the back of his throat. “All you need to know is that the sonovabitch killed Pyotr Zilber. God knows why. Then he disappeared off the face of the earth. I had Evsei stake out Mischa Tarkanian’s apartment. I was hoping Arkadin would come back there. Instead, you showed up.”

“What’s Zilber’s death to you?” Bourne said. “From what you’ve told me, there was no love lost between the two of you.”

“Hey, I don’t have to like a person to do business with him.”

“If you wanted to do business with Zilber you shouldn’t have had his brother murdered.”

“I have my reputation to uphold.” Maslov sipped his vodka. “Pyotr knew what kinds of shit his brother was into, but did he stop him? Anyway, the hit was strictly business. Pyotr took it far too personally. Turns out he was almost as reckless as his brother.”

There it was again, Bourne thought, the slurs against Pyotr Zilber. What, then, was he doing ru

“I coveted Pyotr’s network. Because of the war with the Azeri, I’ve been looking for a new, more secure method to move our drugs. Zilber’s network was the perfect solution.”

Bourne put aside his vodka. “Why would Zilber want anything to do with the Kazanskaya?”

“There you’ve given away the extent of your ignorance.” Maslov eyed him curiously. “Zilber would have wanted money to fund his organization.”

“You mean his network.”

“I mean precisely what I say.” Maslov looked hard and long at Bourne. “Pyotr Zilber was a member of the Black Legion.”

Like a sailor who senses an onrushing storm, Devra stopped herself from asking Arkadin again about his maimed foot. There was about him at this moment the same slight tremor of intent of a bowstring pulled back to its maximum. She transferred her gaze from his left foot to the corpse of Heinrich, taking in sunlight that would no longer do him any good. She felt the danger beside her, and she thought of her dream: her pursuit of the unknown creature, her sense of utter desolation, the building of her fear to an unbearable level.

“You’ve got the package now,” she said. “Is it over?”

For a moment, Arkadin said nothing, and she wondered whether she’d left her deflecting question too late, whether he would now turn on her because she had asked about what had happened to that damn foot.

The red rage had gripped Arkadin, shaking him until his teeth rattled in his skull. It would have been so easy to turn to her, smile, and break her neck. So little effort; nothing to it. But something stopped him, something cooled him. It was his own will. He-did-not-want-to-kill-her. Not yet, at least. He liked sitting here on the beach with her, and there were so few things he liked.

“I still have to shut down the rest of the network,” he said, at length. “Not that I think it actually matters at this point. Christ, it was put together by an out-of-control commander too young to have learned caution, peopled by drug addicts, inveterate gamblers, weaklings, and those of no faith. It’s a wonder the network functioned at all. Surely it would have imploded on its own sooner or later.” But what did he know? He was simply a soldier engaged in an invisible war. His was not to reason why.

Pulling out his cell phone, he dialed Icoupov’s number.

“Where are you?” his boss said. “There’s a lot of background noise.”

“I’m at the beach,” Arkadin said.

“What? The beach?”

“Kilyos. It’s a suburb of Istanbul,” Arkadin said.

“I hope you’re having a good time while we’re in a semi-panic.”

Arkadin’s demeanor changed instantly. “What happened?”

“The bastard had Harun killed, that’s what happened.”

He knew how much Harun Iliev meant to Icoupov. Like Mischa meant to him. A rock, someone to keep him from drifting into the abyss of his imagination. “On a happier note,” he said, “I have the package.”

Icoupov gave a short intake of breath. “Finally! Open it,” he commanded. “Tell me if the document is inside.”

Arkadin did as he was told, breaking the wax seal, prying open the plastic disk that capped off the cylinder. Inside, tightly rolled sheets of pale blue architectural paper unfurled like sails. There were four in all. Quickly, he sca

Sweat broke out at his hairline. “I’m looking at a set of architectural plans.”

“It’s the target of the attack.”

“The plans,” Arkadin said, “are for the Empire State Building in New York City.”

Book Three

Twenty-Eight

IT TOOK ten minutes for Bourne to get a decent co

At that moment Bourne heard Specter’s voice in his ear. “Jason,” he said, clearly out of breath, “what’s happened?”

Bourne brought him up to date, ending with the information that Pyotr was a member of the Black Legion.

For a long moment, there was silence on the line.

“Professor, are you all right?”

Specter cleared his throat. “I’m fine.”

But he didn’t sound fine, and as the silence stretched on Bourne strained to catch a hint of his mentor’s emotional state.

“Look, I’m sorry about your man Baronov. The killer wasn’t Black Legion; he was an NSA agent sent to murder me.”

“I appreciate your candor,” Specter said. “And while I grieve for Baronov, he knew the risks. Like you, he went into this war with his eyes open.”