The Bourne Sanction

“The fact is LaValle tried several times to make a run at CI while the Old Man was in charge. He failed every time, and do you know why?” Feir looked from one to the other, the Cheshire Cat grin back on his face. “Because for years the Old Man has had a deep-cover mole inside the NSA.”

Hart goggled at him. “What?”

“This is bullshit,” Gold said. “He’s blowing smoke up our ass.”

“Good guess, counselor, but wrong. I know the identity of the mole.”

“How on earth would you know that, Rodney?”

Feir laughed. “Sometimes-not very often, I admit-it pays to be CI’s chief file clerk.”

“That’s hardly what you-”

“That’s precisely what I am, Director.” A storm cloud of deep-seated anger momentarily shook him. “No fancy title can obscure the fact.” He waved a hand, his flash of rage quickly banked to embers. “But no matter, the point is I see things in CI no one else does. The Old Man had contingencies in place should he be killed, but you know this better than I do, counselor, don’t you?”

Gold turned to Hart. “The Old Man left a number of sealed envelopes addressed to different directors in the event of his sudden demise.”

“One of those envelopes,” Feir said, “the one with the identity of the mole inside NSA, was sent to Rob Batt, which made sense at the time, since Batt was chief of operations. But it never got to Batt, I saw to that.”

“You-” Hart was so enraged that she could barely speak.

“I could say that I’d already begun to suspect that Batt was working for the NSA,” Feir said, “but that would be a lie.”

“So you held on to it, even after I was appointed.”

“Leverage, Director. I figured that sooner or later I’d need my Get Out of Jail Free card.”

There was the smile that made Hart want to bury her fist in his face. With an effort, she restrained herself. “And meanwhile, you let LaValle trample all over us. Because of you I was led out of my office in handcuffs, because of you the Old Man’s legacy is a hair’s breadth from being buried.”

“Yeah, well, these things happen. What can you do?”

“I’ll tell you what I can do,” Hart said, signaling the agents, who grabbed Feir again. “I can tell you to go to hell. I can tell you that you’ll spend the rest of your life in jail.”

Even then, Feir appeared unfazed. “I said I knew who the mole is, Director. Furthermore-and I believe this will be of especial interest you-I know where he’s stationed.”

Hart was too enraged to care. “Get him out of my sight.”

As he was being led to the door, Feir said, “He’s inside the NSA safe house.”

The DCI felt her heart thumping hard in her chest. Feir’s goddamn smile was not only understandable now, it was warranted.

Thirty-three hours, twenty-six minutes from now. Icoupov’s ominous words were still ringing in Bourne’s ears when he saw a flicker of movement. He and Icoupov were standing in the foyer, the front door was still open, and a shadow had for a moment stained the opposite wall of the hallway. Someone was out there, shielded by the half-open door.

Bourne, continuing to talk to Icoupov, took the other man by his elbow and moved him back into the living room, across the rug, toward the hallway to the bedrooms and bath. As they passed one of the windows, it exploded inward with the force of a man swinging through. Bourne whirled, the SIG Sauer he’d taken from Icoupov coming to bear on the intruder.

“Put the SIG down,” a female voice said from behind him. He turned his head to see that the figure in the hallway-a young pale woman-was aiming a Luger at his head.

“Leonid, what are you doing here?” Icoupov seemed apoplectic. “I gave you express orders-”

“It’s Bourne.” Arkadin advanced through the welter of glass littering the floor. “It was Bourne who killed Mischa.”

“Is this true?” Icoupov turned on Bourne. “You killed Mikhail Tarkanian?”

“He left me no choice,” Bourne said.

Devra, her Luger aimed squarely at Bourne’s head, said, “Drop the SIG. I won’t say it again.”

Icoupov reached out toward Bourne. “I’ll take it.”

“Stay where you are,” Arkadin ordered. His own Luger was aimed at Icoupov.

“Leonid, what are you doing?”

Arkadin ignored him. “Do as the lady says, Bourne. Drop the SIG.”

Bourne did as he was told. The moment he let go of the gun, Arkadin tossed his Luger aside and leapt at Bourne. Bourne raised a forearm in time to block Arkadin’s knee, but he felt the jolt all the way up into his shoulder. They traded punishing blows, clever feints, and defensive blocks. For each move he employed, Arkadin had the perfect counter, and vice versa. When he stared into the Russian’s eyes he saw his darkest deeds reflected back at him, all the death and destruction that lay in his wake. In those implacable eyes there was a void blacker than a starless night.

They moved across the living room as Bourne gave way, until they passed under the archway separating the living room from the rest of the apartment. In the kitchen Arkadin grabbed a cleaver, swung it at Bourne. Dodging away from the executioner’s lethal arc, Bourne reached for a wooden block that held several carving knives. Arkadin brought the cleaver down on the countertop, missing Bourne’s fingers by less than an inch. Now he blocked the way to the knives, swinging the cleaver back and forth like a scythe reaping wheat.

Bourne was near the sink. Snatching a plate out of the dish rack, he hurled it like a Frisbee, forcing Arkadin to duck out of the way. As the plate shattered against the wall behind Arkadin, Bourne withdrew a carving knife like a sword out of its scabbard. Steel clashed against steel, until Bourne used the knife to stab directly at Arkadin’s stomach. Arkadin brought the cleaver down precisely at the place where Bourne was gripping the knife, and he had to let go. The knife rang as it hit the floor, then Arkadin rushed Bourne, and the two closed together.

Bourne managed to keep the cleaver away, and at such close quarters it was impossible to swing it back and forth. Realizing it had become a liability, Arkadin dropped it.

For three long minutes they were locked together in a kind of double death grip. Bloody and bruised, neither managed to gain the upper hand. Bourne had never encountered someone of Arkadin’s physical and mental skill, someone who was so much like him. Fighting Arkadin was like fighting a mirror image of himself, one he didn’t care for. He felt as if he stood on the precipice of something terrible, a chasm filled with endless dread, where no life could survive. He felt Arkadin had reached out to pull him into this abyss, as if to show him the desolation that lurked behind his own eyes, the grisly image of his forgotten past reflected back at him.

With a supreme effort Bourne broke Arkadin’s hold, slammed his fist against the Russian’s ear. Arkadin recoiled back against a column, and Bourne sprinted out of the kitchen, down the hall. As he did so, he heard the unmistakable sound of someone racking the slide, and he flung himself headlong into the main bedroom. A shot splintered the wooden door frame just over his head.

Scrambling up, he headed straight for Kirsch’s closet, even as he heard Arkadin shout to the pale woman to hold her fire. Pushing aside a rack of clothes on hangers, Bourne scrabbled at the plywood panel in the rear wall of the closet, searching for the clips Kirsch had described to him at the museum. Just as he heard Arkadin rush into the bedroom, he turned the clips, removed the panel, and, crouching almost double, stepped through into a world filled to overflowing with shadow.

When Devra turned around after her attempt to wound Bourne, she found herself looking at the muzzle of the SIG Sauer that Icoupov had retrieved from the floor.

“You fool,” Icoupov said, “you and your boyfriend are going to fuck everything up.”

“What Leonid is doing is his own business,” she said.