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That he had spent the last eleven years in Moscow, working for NSA, was a testament to
his father, who had trod the same perilous path. Low had idolized his father, had wanted
to be like him for as long as he could remember. Like his father, he had the Stars and
Stripes tattooed on his soul. He’d been a ru
rigorous physical training to be an NSA field agent, had tracked down terrorists in
Afghanistan and the Horn of Africa. He wasn’t afraid to engage in hand-to-hand combat
or to kill a target. He did it for God and country.
During his eleven years in the capital of Russia, Low had made many friends, some of
whom were the sons of his father’s friends. Suffice to say he had developed a network of
apparatchiks and siloviks for whom a quid pro quo was the order of the day. Harris held
no illusions. To further his country’s cause he would scratch anyone’s back-if they, in
turn, scratched his.
He heard about the murders at the Metropolya Hotel from a friend of his in the General
Prosecutor’s Office, who’d caught the police squeal. Harris met this individual at the
hotel and was consequently one of the first people on the scene.
He had no interest in the corpse in the utility closet, but he immediately recognized
Anthony Prowess. Excusing himself from the crime scene, he went into the stairwell off
the seventeenth-floor hallway, punched in an overseas number on his cell. A moment
later Luther LaValle answered.
“We have a problem,” Low said. “Prowess has been rendered inoperative with extreme
prejudice.”
“That’s very disturbing,” LaValle said. “We have a rogue operative loose in Moscow
who has now murdered one of our own. I think you know what to do.”
Low understood. There was no time to bring in another of NSA’s wet-work specialists,
which meant terminating Bourne was up to him.
“Now that he’s killed an American citizen,” LaValle said, “I’ll bring the Moscow
police and the General Prosecutor’s Office into the picture. They’ll have the same photo
of him I’m sending to your cell within the hour.”
Low thought a moment. “The question is tracking him. Moscow is way behind the
curve in closed-circuit TVs.”
“Bourne is going to need money,” LaValle said. “He couldn’t take enough through
Customs when he landed, which means he wouldn’t try. He’ll have set up a local account
at a Moscow bank. Get the locals to help with surveillance pronto.”
“Consider it done,” Low said.
“And Harris. Don’t make the same mistake with Bourne that Prowess did.”
Bourne took Gala to her friend’s apartment, which was lavish even by American
standards. Her friend, Lorraine, was an American of Armenian extraction. Her dark eyes
and hair, her olive complexion, all served to increase her exoticism. She hugged and
kissed Gala, greeted Bourne warmly, and invited him to stay for a drink or tea.
As he took a tour through the rooms, Gala said, “He’s worried about my safety.”
“What’s happened?” Lorraine asked. “Are you all right?”
“She’ll be fine,” Bourne said, coming back into the living room. “This’ll all blow over
in a couple of days.” Having satisfied himself of the security of the apartment, he left
them with the warning not to open the door for anyone they didn’t know.
Ivan Volkin had directed Bourne to go to Novoslobodskaya 20, where the meet with
Dimitri Maslov would take place. At first Bourne thought it lucky that the bombila he
flagged down knew how to find the address, but when he was dropped off he understood.
Novoslobodskaya 20 was the address of Motorhome, a new club jammed with young
partying Muscovites. Gigantic flat-panel screens above the center island bar showed
telecasts of American baseball, basketball, football, English rugby, and World Cup
soccer. The floor of the main room was dominated by tables for Russian billiards and
American pool. Following Volkin’s direction, Bourne headed for the back room, which
was fitted out as an Arabian Nights hookah room complete with overlapping carpets,
jewel-toned cushions, and, of course, gaily colored brass hookahs being smoked by
lounging men and women.
Bourne, stopped at the doorway by two overdeveloped members of club security, told
them he was here to see Dimitri Maslov. One of them pointed to a man lounging and
smoking a hookah in the far left corner.
“Maslov,” Bourne said when he reached the pile of cushions surrounding a low brass
table.
“My name is Yevgeny. Maslov isn’t here.” The man gestured. “Sit down, please.”
Bourne hesitated a moment, then sat on a cushion opposite Yev-geny. “Where is he?”
“Did you think it would be so simple? One call and poof! he pops into existence like a
genie from a lamp?” Yevgeny shook his head, offered Bourne the pipe. “Good shit. Try
some.”
When Bourne declined, Yevgeny shrugged, took a toke deep into his lungs, held it,
then let it out with an audible hiss. “Why do you want to see Maslov?”
“That’s between me and him,” Bourne said.
Yevgeny shrugged again. “As you like. Maslov is out of the city.”
“Then why was I told to come here?”
“To be judged, to see whether you are a serious individual. To see whether Maslov will
make the decision to see you.”
“Maslov trusts people to make decisions for him?”
“He is a busy man. He has other things on his mind.”
“Like how to win the war with the Azeri.”
Yevgeny’s eyes narrowed. “Perhaps you can see Maslov next week.”
“I need to see him now,” Bourne said.
Yevgeny shrugged. “As I said, he’s out of Moscow. But he may be back tomorrow
morning.”
“Why don’t you ensure it.”
“I could,” Yevgeny said. “But it will cost you.”
“How much?”
“Ten thousand.”
“Ten thousand dollars to talk to Dimitri Maslov?”
Yevgeny shook his head. “The American dollar has become too debased. Ten thousand
Swiss francs.”
Bourne thought a moment. He didn’t have that kind of money on him, and certainly
not in Swiss francs. However, he had the information Baronov had given him on the safe-
deposit box at the Moskva Bank. The problem was that it was in the name of Fyodor
Ilianovich Popov, who was no doubt now wanted for questioning regarding the body of
the man in his room at the Metropolya Hotel. There was no help for it, Bourne thought.
He’d have to take the chance.
“I’ll have the money tomorrow morning,” Bourne said.
“That will be satisfactory.”
“But I’ll give it to Maslov and no one else.”
Yevgeny nodded. “Done.” He wrote something on a slip of paper, showed it to Bourne.
“Please be at this address at noon tomorrow.” Then he struck a match, held it to the
corner of the paper, which burned steadily until it crumbled into ash.
Semion Icoupov, in his temporary headquarters in Grindelwald, took the news of
Harun Iliev’s death very hard. He’d been a witness to death many times, but Harun had
been like a brother to him. Closer, even, because the two had no sibling baggage to
clutter and distort their relationship. Icoupov had relied on Harun for his wise counsel.
His was a sad loss indeed.
His thoughts were interrupted by the orchestrated chaos around him. A score of people
were staffing computer consoles hooked up to satellite feeds, surveillance networks,
public transportation CCTV from major hubs all over the world. They were coming to the
final buildup to the Black Legion’s attack; every screen had to be scrutinized and
analyzed, the faces of suspicious people picked out and run through a nebula of software
that could identify individuals. From this, Icoupov’s operatives were building a mosaic of