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But his eyes had already betrayed him. Arkadin reached out, turned up the music.
“He’s heard of you, Oleg Ivanovich. In fact, you’re quite important to him.”
Shumenko plastered a simulated smile on his face. “I have no idea what you’re talking
about.”
“There was a grave mistake made. He needs the document back.”
Shumenko, smiling still, jammed his hands in his pockets. “Once again, I must tell
you-”
Arkadin made a grab for him, but Shumenko’s right hand reappeared, gripping a GSh-
18 semi-automatic that was pointed at Arkadin’s heart.
“Hmm. The sights are acceptable at best,” Arkadin said.
“Please don’t move. Whoever you are-and don’t bother to give me a name that in any
case will be false-you’re no friend of Pyotr’s. He must be dead. Perhaps even by your
hand.”
“But the trigger pull is relatively heavy,” Arkadin continued, as if he hadn’t been
listening, “so that’ll give me an extra tenth of a second.”
“A tenth of a second is nothing.”
“It’s all I need.”
Shumenko backed up, as Arkadin wanted him to, toward the curved side of a container
to keep a safer distance. “Even while I mourn Pyotr’s death I will defend our network
with my life.”
He backed up farther as Arkadin took another step toward him.
“It’s a long fall from here so I suggest you turn around, climb back down the ladder,
and disappear into whatever sewer you crawled out of.”
As Shumenko retreated, his right foot skidded on a bit of yeast paste Arkadin had
noted earlier. Shumenko’s right knee went out from under him, the hand holding the
GSh-18 raised in an instinctive gesture to help keep him from falling.
In one long stride Arkadin was inside the perimeter of his defense. He made a grab for
the gun, missed. His fist struck Shumenko on the right cheek, sending the reedy man
lurching back into the side of the container in the space between two protruding levers.
Shumenko slashed his arm in a horizontal arc, the sight on the barrel of the GSh-18
raking across the bridge of Arkadin’s nose, drawing blood.
Arkadin made another lunge at the semi-automatic and, bent back against the curved
sheet of stainless steel, the two men grappled. Shumenko was surprisingly strong for a
thin man, and he was proficient in hand-to-hand combat. He had the proper counter for
every attack Arkadin threw at him. They were very close now, not a hand’s span
separating them. Their limbs worked quickly, hands, elbows, forearms, even shoulders
used to produce pain or, in blocking, minimize it.
Gradually, Arkadin seemed to be getting the better of his adversary, but with a double
feint Shumenko managed to get the butt of the GSh-18 lodged against Arkadin’s throat.
He pressed in, using leverage in an attempt to crush Arkadin’s windpipe. One of
Arkadin’s hands was trapped between their bodies. With the other, he pounded
Shumenko’s side, but he lacked Shumenko’s leverage, and his blows did no damage.
When he tried for Shumenko’s kidney, the other man twisted his hips away, so his hand
glanced off the hip bone.
Shumenko pressed his advantage, bending Arkadin over the railing, trying with the
butt of his gun and his upper body to shove Arkadin off the catwalk. Ribbons of darkness
flowed across Arkadin’s vision, a sign that his brain was becoming oxygen-starved. He
had underestimated Shumenko, and now he was about to pay the price.
He coughed, then gagged, trying to breathe. Then he moved his free hand up against
the front of Shumenko’s jacket. It would seem to Shumenko-concentrating on killing the
interloper-as if Arkadin was making one last futile attempt to free his trapped hand. He
was taken completely off guard when Arkadin slipped a pen out of his breast pocket,
stabbed it into his left eye.
Immediately Shumenko reared back. Arkadin caught the GSh-18 as it dropped from
the stricken man’s nerveless hand. As Shumenko slid to the catwalk, Arkadin grabbed
him by the shirtfront, knelt to be on the same level with him.
“The document,” he said. And when Shumenko’s head began to loll, “Oleg Ivanovich,
listen to me. Where is the document?”
The man’s good eye glistened, ru
him until he moaned with pain.
“Where?”
“Gone.”
Arkadin had to bend his head to hear Shumenko’s whisper over the loud music. The
Cure had been replaced by Siouxsie and the Banshees.
“What d’you mean gone?”
“Down the pipeline.” Shumenko’s mouth curled in the semblance of a smile. “Not
what you wanted to hear, ‘friend of Pyotr Zilber,’ is it?” He blinked tears out of his good eye. “Since this is the end of the line for you, bend closer and I’ll tell you a secret.” He licked his lips as Arkadin complied, then lunged forward and bit into the lobe of
Arkadin’s right ear.
Arkadin reacted without thinking. He jammed the muzzle of the GSh-18 into
Shumenko’s mouth, pulled the trigger. Almost at the same instant, he realized his
mistake, said “Shit!” in six different languages.
Four
BOURNE, sunk deep into the shadows opposite the restaurant Jewel, saw the two men
emerge. By the a
them in sight as they moved off together. One of them began to speak into a cell phone.
He paused for a moment to ask his colleague a question, then returned to his conversation
on the phone. By this time the two had reached M Street, NW. Finished with his call, the
man put his cell phone away. They waited on the corner, watching the nubile young girls
slipping by. They didn’t slouch, Bourne noted, but stood ramrod-straight, their hands in
view, at their sides. It appeared that they were waiting to be picked up; a good call on a
night like this when parking was at a premium and traffic on M Street, as thick as
molasses.
Bourne, without a vehicle, looked around, saw a bicyclist coming up 31st Street, NW,
from the towpath. He was cycling along the gutter to avoid the traffic. Bourne walked
smartly toward him and stepped in front of him. The cyclist stopped short, uttering a
sharp exclamation.
“I need your bike,” Bourne said.
“Well, you bloody well can’t have it, mate,” the cyclist said with a heavy British
accent.
At the corner of 31st and M, a black GMC SUV was pulling into the curb in front of
the two men.
Bourne pressed four hundred dollars into the cyclist’s hand. “Like I said, right now.”
The young man stared down at the money for a moment. Then he swung off, said, “Be
my guest.”
As Bourne mounted up, he handed over his helmet. “You’ll be wanting this, mate.”
The two men had already vanished into the GMC’s interior, the SUV was pulling out
into the thick traffic flow. Bourne took off, leaving the cyclist to shrug behind him as he climbed onto the sidewalk.
Reaching the corner, Bourne turned right onto M Street. The GMC was three cars
ahead of him. Bourne wove his way around the traffic, moving into position to keep up
with the SUV. At 30th Street, NW, they all hit a red light. Bourne was forced to put one
foot down, which was why he got a late start when the GMC jumped the light just before
it turned green. The SUV roared ahead of the other vehicles, and Bourne launched
himself forward. A white Toyota was coming from 30th into the intersection, heading
right for him at a ninety-degree angle. Bourne put on a burst of speed, swerved up onto
the corner sidewalk, backing a clutch of pedestrians into those behind them, to a round of