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bitter. Flagging down a bombila, Bourne was about to give the cabbie the address of
Gala’s friend, then realized that Yakov, the cabbie working for the NSA, knew that
address.
“Get in the taxi,” Bourne said quietly to Gala, “but be prepared to get out quickly and
do exactly as I say.”
Soraya didn’t need a couple of hours to make up her mind; she didn’t even need a
couple of minutes.
“All right,” she said. “I’ll do whatever it takes to get Tyrone out of here.”
LaValle turned back to regard her. “Well, now, that kind of capitulation would do my
heart good if I didn’t know you to be such a duplicitous little bitch.
“Unfortunately,” he went on, “in your case, verbal capitulation isn’t quite as
convincing as it would be in others. That being the case, the general here will make
crystal clear to you the consequences of further treachery on your part.”
Soraya rose, along with Kendall.
LaValle stopped her with his voice, “Oh, and, Director, when you leave here you’ll
have until ten tomorrow morning to make your decision. I’ll expect you back here then. I
hope I’ve made myself clear.”
The general led her out of the Library, down the corridor to the door to the basement.
The moment she saw where he was taking her, she said, “No! Don’t do this. Please.
There’s no need.”
But Kendall, his back ramrod-straight, ignored her. When she hesitated at the security
door, he grasped her firmly by the elbow and, as if she were a child, steered her down the
stairs.
In due course, she found herself in the same viewing room. Tyrone was on his knees,
his arm behind him, bound hands on the tabletop, which was higher than shoulder level.
This position was both extremely painful and humiliating. His torso was forced forward,
his shoulder blades back.
Soraya’s heart was filled with dread. “Enough,” she said. “I get it. You’ve made your
point.”
“By no means,” General Kendall said.
Soraya could see two shadowy figures moving about the cell. Tyrone had become
aware of them, too. He tried to twist around to see what they were up to. One of the men
shoved a black hood over his head.
My God, Soraya said to herself. What did the other man have in his hands?
Kendall shoved her hard against the one-way glass. “Where your friend is concerned
we’re just warming up.”
Two minutes later, they began to fill the waterboarding tank. Soraya began to scream.
Bourne asked the bombila driver to pass by the front of the hotel. Everything seemed
calm and normal, which meant that the bodies on the seventeenth floor hadn’t been
discovered yet. But it wouldn’t be long before someone went to look for the missing
room-service waiter.
He turned his attention across the street, searching for Yakov. He was still outside his
car, talking to a fellow driver. Both of them were swinging their arms to keep their
circulation going. He pointed out Yakov to Gala, who recognized him. When they’d
passed the square, Bourne had the bombila pull over.
He turned to Gala. “I want you to go back to Yakov and have him take you to
Universitetskaya Ploshchad at Vorobyovy Gory.” Bourne was speaking of the top of the
only hill in the otherwise flat city, where lovers and university students went to get drunk, make love, and smoke dope while looking out over the city. “Wait there for me and
whatever you do, don’t get out of the car. Tell the cabbie you’re meeting someone there.”
“But he’s the one who’s been spying on us,” Gala said.
“Don’t worry,” Bourne reassured her. “I’ll be right behind you.”
The view out over Vorobyovy Gory was not so very grand. First, there was the ugly
bulk of Luzhniki Stadium in the mid-foreground. Second, there were the spires of the
Kremlin, which would hardly inspire even the most ardent lovers. But for all that, at night it was as romantic as Moscow could get.
Bourne, who’d had his bombila track the one Gala was in all the way there, was
relieved that Yakov had orders only to observe and report back. Anyway, the NSA was
interested in Bourne, not a young blond dyev.
Arriving at the overlook, Bourne paid the fare he’d agreed to at the begi
ride, strode down the sidewalk, and got into the front seat of Yakov’s taxi.
“Hey, what’s this?” Yakov said. Then he recognized Bourne and made a scramble for
the Makarov he kept in a homemade sling under the ratty dash.
Bourne pulled his hand away and held him back against the seat while taking
possession of the handgun. He pointed it at Yakov. “Who do you report to?”
Yakov said in a whiny voice, “I challenge you to sit in my seat night after night,
driving around the Garden Ring, crawling endlessly down Tverskaya, being cut out of
fares by kamikaze bombily and make enough to live on.”
“I don’t care why you pimp yourself out to the NSA,” Bourne told him. “I want to
know who you report to.”
Yakov held up his hand. “Listen, listen, I’m from Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan. It’s not so
nice there, who can make a living? So I pack my family and we travel to Russia, the
beating heart of the new federation, where the streets are paved with rubles. But when I
arrive here I am treated like dirt. People in the street spit on my wife. My children are
beaten and called terrible names. And I can’t get a job anywhere in this city. ‘Moscow for
Muscovites,’ that is the refrain I hear over and over. So I take to the bombily because I
have no other choice. But this life, sir, you have no idea how difficult it is. Sometimes
after twelve hours I come home with a hundred rubles, sometimes with nothing. I ca
be faulted for taking money the Americans offer.
“Russia is corrupt, but Moscow, it’s more than corrupt. There isn’t a word for how bad
things are here. The government is made up of thugs and criminals. The criminals
plunder the natural resources of Russia-oil, natural gas, uranium. Everyone takes, takes,
takes so they can have big foreign cars, a different dyev for every day of the week, a
dacha in Miami Beach. And what’s left for us? Potatoes and beets, if we work eighteen
hours a day and if we’re lucky.”
“I have no animosity toward you,” Bourne said. “You have a right to earn a living.” He
handed Yakov a fistful of dollars.
“I see no one, sir. I swear. Just voices on my cell phone. All moneys come to a post
office box in-”
Bourne carefully placed the muzzle of the Makarov in Yakov’s ear. The cabbie
cringed, turned mournful eyes on Bourne.
“Please, please, sir, what have I done?”
“I saw you outside the Metropolya with the man who tried to kill me.”
Yakov squealed like a skewered rat. “Kill you? I’m employed merely to watch and
report. I have no knowledge about-”
Bourne hit the cabbie. “Stop lying and tell me what I want to know.”
“All right, all right.” Yakov was shaking with fear. “The American who pays me, his
name is Low. Harris Low.”
Bourne made him give a detailed description of Low, then he took Yakov’s cell phone.
“Get out of the car,” he said.
“But sir, I answered all your questions,” Yakov protested. “You’ve taken everything of
mine. What more do you want?”
Bourne leaned across him, opened the door, then shoved him out. “This is a popular
place. Plenty of bombily come and go. You’re a rich man now. Use some of the money I
gave you to get a ride home.”
Sliding behind the wheel he put the Zhig in gear, drove back into the heart of the city.
Harris Low was a dapper man with a pencil mustache. He had the prematurely white
hair and ruddy complexion of many blue-blooded families in the American Northeast.