The Bourne Sanction

As Kirsch spoke they moved on to a granite sculpture of the kneeling Senenmut, from the time of the Eighteenth Dynasty.

“The ancient Egyptians knew how to live,” Kirsch observed. “They weren’t afraid of death. To them, it was just another journey, not to be undertaken lightly, but still they knew there was something waiting for them after life.” He put his hand out, as if to touch the statue or perhaps to absorb some of its potency. “Look at this statue. Life still glows within it, thousands of years later. For centuries the Egyptians had no equal.”

“Until they were conquered by the Romans.”

“And yet,” Kirsch said, “it was the Romans who were changed by the Egyptians. A century after the Ptolemys and Julius Caesar ruled from Alexandria, it was Isis, the Egyptian goddess of revenge and rebellion, who was worshipped throughout the Roman Empire. In fact, it’s all too likely that the early Christian Church founders, unable to do away with her or her followers, transmogrified her, stripped her of her war-like nature, and made from her the perfectly peaceful Virgin Mary.”

“Leonid Arkadin could use a little less Isis and a lot more Virgin Mary,” Bourne mused.

Kirsch raised his eyebrows. “What do you know of this man?”

“I know a lot of dangerous people are terrified of him.”

“With good reason,” Kirsch said. “The man’s a homicidal maniac. He was born and raised in Nizhny Tagil, a hotbed of homicidal maniacs.”

“So I’ve heard,” Bourne nodded.

“And there he would have stayed had it not been for Tarkanian.”

Bourne’s ears pricked up. He’d assumed that Maslov had put his man in Tarkanian’s apartment because that’s where Gala was living. “Wait a minute, what does Tarkanian have to do with Arkadin?”

“Everything. Without Mischa Tarkanian, Arkadin would never have escaped Nizhny Tagil. It was Tarkanian who brought him to Moscow.”

“Are they both members of the Black Legion?”

“So I’ve been given to understand,” Kirsch said. “But I’m only an artist; the clandestine life has given me an ulcer. If I didn’t need the money-I’m a singularly unsuccessful artist, I’m afraid-I never would have stayed in this long. This was to be my last favor for Specter.” His eyes continued to dart to the left and right. “Now that Arkadin has murdered Dieter Heinrich, last favor has taken on a new and terrifying meaning.”

Bourne was now on full alert. Specter had assumed that Tarkanian was Black Legion, and Kirsch just confirmed it. But Maslov had denied Tarkanian’s affiliation with the terrorist group. Someone was lying.

Bourne was about to ask Kirsch about the discrepancy when out of the corner of his eye he spotted one of the men who’d come into the museum just after he had. The man had paused for a moment in the vestibule, as if orienting himself, then strode purposefully off into the exhibition hall.

Because the man was close enough to overhear them in the museum’s hushed atmosphere, Bourne took Kirsch’s arm. “Come this way,” he said, leading the German contact into another room, which was dominated by a calcite statue of twins from the Eighth Dynasty. It was chipped, time-worn, dating from 2390 BC.

Pushing Kirsch behind the statue, Bourne stood like a sentinel, watching the other man’s movements. The man glanced up, saw that Bourne and Kirsch were no longer at the statue of Senenmut, and looked casually around.

“Stay here,” Bourne whispered to Kirsch.

“What is it?” There was a slight quaver in Kirsch’s voice, but he looked stalwart enough. “Is Arkadin here?”

“Whatever happens,” Bourne warned him, “stay put. You’ll be safe until I come get you.”

As Bourne moved around the far side of the Egyptian twins, the man entered the gallery. Bourne walked to the side opening and into the room beyond. The man, sauntering nonchalantly, took a quick look around and, as if seeing nothing of interest, followed Bourne.

This gallery held a number of high display cases but was dominated by a five-thousand-year-old stone statue of a woman with half her head sheared off. The antiquity was staggering, but Bourne had no time to appreciate it. Perhaps because it was toward the rear of the museum, the room was deserted, save for Bourne and the man, who was standing between Bourne and the one way in or out of the gallery.

Bourne placed himself behind a two-sided display case with a board in the center on which were hung small artifacts-sacred blue scarabs and gold jewelry. Because of a center gap in the board, Bourne could see the man, but the man remained unaware of his position.

Standing completely still, Bourne waited until the man began to come around the right side of the display case. Bourne moved quickly to his right, around the opposite side of the case, and rushed the man.

He shoved him against the wall, but the man maintained his balance. As he took up a defensive posture he pulled a ceramic knife from a sheath under his armpit, swung it back and forth to keep Bourne at bay.

Bourne feinted right, moved left in a semi-crouch. As he did so, he swung his right arm against the hand wielding the knife. His left hand grabbed the man by his throat. As the man tried to drive his knee into Bourne’s belly, Bourne twisted to partially deflect the blow. In so doing, he lost his block on the knife hand and now the blade swept in toward the side of his neck. Bourne stopped it just before it struck, and there they stood, locked together in a kind of stalemate.

“Bourne,” the man finally got out. “My name is Jens. I work for Dominic Specter.”

“Prove it,” Bourne said.

“You’re here meeting with Egon Kirsch, so you can take his place when Leonid Arkadin comes looking for him.”

Bourne let up on his grip of Jens’s neck. “Put away your knife.”

Jens did as Bourne asked, and Bourne let go of him completely.

“Now where’s Kirsch? I need to get him out of here and safely on a plane back to Washington.”

Bourne led him back into the adjoining gallery, to the statue of the twins.

“Kirsch, the gallery’s clear. You can come out now.”

When the contact didn’t appear, Bourne stepped behind the statue. Kirsch was there all right, crumpled on the floor, a bullet hole in the back of his head.

Semion Icoupov watched the receiver attuned to the electronic bug in Bourne’s passport. As they approached the area of the Egyptian museum, he told the driver of his car to slow down. A keen sense of anticipation coursed through him: He’d decided to take Bourne by gunpoint into his car. It seemed the best way now to get him to listen to what Icoupov had to tell him.

At that moment his cell phone sounded with the ringtone he’d assigned to Arkadin’s number, and while on the lookout for Bourne he put the phone to his ear.

“I’m in Munich,” Arkadin said in his ear. “I rented a car, and I’m driving in from the airport.”

“Good. I’ve got an electronic tag on Jason Bourne, the man Our Friend has sent to retrieve the plans.”

“Where is he? I’ll take care of him,” Arkadin said in his typical blunt way.

“No, no, I don’t want him killed. I’ll take care of Bourne. In the meantime, stay mobile. I’ll be in touch shortly.”

Bourne, kneeling down beside Kirsch, examined the dead body.

“There’s a metal detector out front,” Jens said. “How the hell could someone bring a gun in here? Plus, there was no noise.”

Bourne turned Kirsch’s head so the back of it caught the light. “See here.” He pointed to the entry wound. “And here. There’s no exit wound, which there would have been with a shot fired at close range.” He stood up. “Whoever killed him used a suppressor.” He went out of the gallery with a purposeful stride. “And whoever killed him works here as a guard; the museum’s security perso

“There are three of them,” Jens said, keeping pace behind Bourne.

“Right. Two on the metal detector, one roaming the galleries.”