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cell.”
“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” Feir didn’t struggle as the agents grabbed hold of
either arm and hauled him to his feet. He turned to Hart. “Director, did you ever wonder
why Luther LaValle didn’t try a run at CI while the Old Man was alive?”
“I didn’t have to; I know. The Old Man was too powerful, too well co
“True enough, but there’s another, more specific reason.” Feir looked from one agent
to the other.
Hart wanted to wring his neck. “Let him go,” she said.
Gold stepped forward. “Director, I strongly recommend-”
“No harm in hearing the man out, Stu.” Hart nodded. “Go ahead, Rodney. You have
one minute.”
“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