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it, pulled it open, and sprinted out into the hallway. The open door to Kirsch’s apartment
loomed to his left.
No good can come of us training guns on each other,” Icoupov said. “Let’s try to
reason through this situation rationally.”
“That’s your problem,” Devra said. “Life isn’t rational; it’s fucked-up chaos. It’s part
of the delusion; power makes you think you can control everything. But you can’t, no one
can.”
“You and Leonid think you know what you’re doing, but you’re wrong. No one
operates in a vacuum. If you kill Bourne it will have terrible repercussions.”
“Repercussions for you, not for us. This is what power does: You think in shortcuts.
Expediency, political opportunities, corruption without end.”
It was at that moment they both heard the gunshots, but only Devra knew they came
from Arkadin’s Mosquito. She could sense Icoupov’s finger tighten around the SIG’s
trigger, and she went into a semi-crouch because she knew if Bourne appeared rather than
Arkadin she would shoot him dead.
The situation had reached a boiling point, and Icoupov was clearly worried. “Devra, I
beg you to reconsider. Leonid doesn’t know the whole picture. I need Bourne alive. What
he did to Mischa was despicable, but personal feelings have no place in this equation. So
much pla
must let me stop it; I’ll give you anything-anything you want.”
“Do you think you can buy me? Money means nothing to me. What I want is Leonid,”
Devra said just as Bourne appeared through the front doorway.
Devra and Icoupov both turned. Devra screamed because she knew, or she thought she
knew, that Arkadin was dead, and so she redirected the Luger from Icoupov to Bourne.
Bourne ducked back into the hallway and she fired shot after shot at him as she walked
toward the door. Because her focus was entirely concentrated on Bourne, she took her
eyes off Icoupov and so missed the crucial movement as he swung the SIG in her
direction.
“I warned you,” he said as he shot her in the chest.
She fell onto her back.
“Why didn’t you listen?” Icoupov said as he shot her again.
Devra made a little sound as her body arched up. Icoupov stood over her.
“How could you let yourself be seduced by such a monster?” he said.
Devra stared up at him with red-rimmed eyes. Blood pumped out of her with every
labored beat of her heart. “That’s exactly what I asked him about you.” Each ragged
breath filled her with indescribable pain. “He’s not a monster, but if he were you’d be so
much worse.”
Her hand twitched. Icoupov, caught up in her words, paid no attention until the bullet
she fired from her Luger struck his right shoulder. He spun back against the wall. The
pain caused him to drop the SIG. Seeing her struggling to fire again, he turned and ran
out of the apartment, fleeing down the stairwell and out onto the street.
Thirty-Nine
WILLARD, relaxing in the steward’s lounge adjacent to the Library of the NSA safe
house, was enjoying his sweet and milky midmorning cup of coffee while reading The
Washington Post when his cell phone buzzed. He checked it, saw that it was from his
son, Oren. Of course it wasn’t actually from Oren, but Willard was the only one who
knew that.
He put down the paper, watched as the photo appeared on the phone’s screen. It was of
two people standing in front of a rural church, its steeple rising up into the top margin of the photo. He had no idea who the people were or where they were, but these things were
irrelevant. There were six ciphers in his head; this photo told him which one to use. The
two figures plus the steeple meant he was to use cipher three. If, for instance, the two
people were in front of an arch, he’d subtract one from two, instead of adding to it. There were other visual cues. A brick building meant divide the number of figures by two; a
bridge, multiply by two; and so on.
Willard deleted the photo from his phone, then picked up the third section of the Post
and began to read the first story on page three. Starting with the third word, he began to
decipher the message that was his call to action. As he moved through the article,
substituting certain letters for others as the protocol dictated, he felt a profound stirring inside him. He had been the Old Man’s eyes and ears inside the NSA for three decades,
and the Old Man’s sudden death last year had saddened him deeply. Then he had
witnessed Luther LaValle’s latest run at CI and had waited for his phone to ring, but for
months his desire to see another photo fill his screen had been inexplicably unfulfilled.
He simply couldn’t understand why the new DCI wasn’t making use of him. Had he
fallen between the cracks; did Veronica Hart not know he existed? It certainly seemed
that way, especially after LaValle had trapped Soraya Moore and her compatriot, who
was still incarcerated belowdecks, as Willard privately called the rendition cells in the
basement. He’d done what he could for the young man named Tyrone, though God
knows it was little enough. Yet he knew that even the smallest sign of hope-the
knowledge that you weren’t alone-was enough to reinvigorate a stalwart heart, and if he
was any judge of character, Tyrone had a stalwart heart.
Willard had always wanted to be an actor-for many years Olivier had been his god-but
in his wildest dreams he’d never imagined his acting career would be in the political
arena. He’d gotten into it by accident, playing a role in his college company, Henry V, to
be exact, one of Shakespeare’s great tragic politicians. As the Old Man said to him when
he’d come backstage to congratulate Willard, Henry’s betrayal of Falstaff is political,
rather than personal, and ends in success. “How would you like to do that in real life?”
the Old Man had asked him. He’d come to Willard’s college to recruit for CI; he said he
often found his people in the most unlikely places.
Finished with the deciphering, Willard had his immediate instructions, and he thanked
the powers that be that he hadn’t been tossed aside with the Old Man’s trash. He felt like
his old friend Henry V, though more than thirty years had passed since he’d trod a theater
stage. Once again he was being called on to play his greatest role, one that he wore as
effortlessly as a second skin.
He folded the paper away under one arm, took up his cell phone, and went out of the
lounge. He still had twenty minutes left on his break, more than enough time to do what
was required of him. What he had been ordered to do was find the digital camera Tyrone
had on him when he’d been captured. Poking his head into the Library, he satisfied
himself that LaValle was still sitting in his accustomed spot, opposite Soraya Moore, then
he went down the hall.
Though the Old Man had recruited him, it was Alex Conklin who had trained him.
Conklin, the Old Man had told him, was the best at what he did, namely preparing agents
to be put into the field. It didn’t take him long to learn that though Conklin was renowned inside CI for training wet-work agents, he was also adept at coaching sleeper agents.
Willard spent almost a year with Conklin, though never at CI headquarters; he was part of
Treadstone, Conklin’s project that was so secret even most CI perso
its existence. It was of paramount importance that he have no overt association with CI.
Because the role the Old Man had pla