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“That’s right,” Soraya said. She thought M. Sigismond’s brown eyes were the product of colored contacts. “Now that I’ve come into my inheritance, your Wealth Management Division has been recommended to me as being the best in Western Europe.”
M. Sigismond’s smile could not have been warmer. “My dear, it is gratifying, is it not, to know that all one’s hard work has had its desired result.”
“It certainly is.”
“And your complete wish is?”
“To open an account. I have a sizable sum to deposit with more to come. And I will require investment assistance.”
“But of course. Splendid!” M. Sigismond slapped his hands decisively on his thighs. “Now, before we proceed further, I would like to introduce you to the gentleman behind the grand success of our Wealth Management.” He rose and opened a door in the wall that Soraya had not previously noticed. In strode a man of distinctly Middle Eastern descent. He was dark in every way imaginable, and almost magnetically handsome.
“Ah, Mademoiselle Gobelins, what a pleasure to meet you,” he said, gliding toward her. “My name is Benjamin El-Arian.”
Bourne stopped them as they were nearing Don Fernando’s house.
“What is it?” Don Fernando said.
“I don’t know.” Bourne moved them into the clattering shadows of the palms on the sea side of the road. “Something’s wrong. Stay here.”
“I don’t think so.” Don Fernando raised the Colt Python. “Don’t worry, I won’t slow you down.”
Bourne knew there was no point in arguing. Together the two men moved from shadow to shadow until they were opposite the street where the house sat. They stayed there, still and silent, until Bourne caught a shadow darting across one of the lighted windows. It was too large to be Kaja. He pointed, and Don Fernando nodded. He had seen the shadow and understood its implications.
Bourne turned to the older man. “I’m going in through the bedroom window Etana used, but I need a diversion.”
“Leave that to me,” Don Fernando said.
“Give me three minutes to get into place,” Bourne said before he set off across the almost deserted road.
He moved silently from shadow to shadow, approaching the house via an indirect route. Ahead of him, between the street and the stand of palms through which he had chased Etana, was a patch of open ground lit up by streetlights. Moving around to the other side of the house, he saw that the neighboring home was quite close. Bundled telephone and electrical wires stretched down lower and lower house-to-house from the high metal pole on the sea road. He had little time to second-guess himself. He unbuckled his belt, then scaled the side of the neighboring house. Tossing the buckle end of the belt over the wires, he grasped both ends and slid down the wire bundle until he reached the shadows of Don Fernando’s house, and climbed down.
As he ran through the shadows at the rear, he heard gunshots. Racing to his bedroom window, he climbed through into darkness.
He stood absolutely still, listening with every part of his body. The smell of industrial-strength cleanser came to him, but no trace of Essai’s blood. There was no sign of the corpse; Don Fernando’s people were both fast and efficient. Bourne stood just inside the door, controlling his breathing. He could hear the soft hum of the heating system, the squeak of the window sashes as gusts of wind buffeted them. Then he heard the creaks of the floorboards. Kaja’s weight was not great enough to create that sound, so at least one man was in the house. Then a second creak, in a different room, told him there were at least two men in the house. Where was Kaja? Tied up? Wounded? Dead?
Passing through the partially open door, he picked his way down the long corridor that led to the living room and the front of the house. His nostrils flared as he smelled the alien presence. Pushing the door to Kaja’s bedroom open, he found it empty. The coverlet was unrumpled; he didn’t smell her. Whatever she had done after Don Fernando had left, she hadn’t been in the room. He passed the kitchen, which was empty.
The end of the hallway opened up into the living room. Through the French doors, the enclosed garden looked windblown and abandoned. She wasn’t out there, either. Bourne saw the two armed men. One was at the front door, the other was coming back inside after checking the cause of the gunshots.
“Nothing,” he said to his partner in Russian. “Must have been a truck backfiring.”
Bourne launched himself at them, knocking the one on the right flat on his back. He landed a heavy blow on the point of the Russian’s chin, then twisted his torso to give himself enough leverage to engage the one on the left. He had just locked his hand over the barrel of the Glock when Don Fernando burst through the front door. His cell phone was clapped to one ear, his Colt Python pointed at the floor.
“Stop! All of you!” he cried. “Jason, these men are Almaz!”
Bourne relaxed his body and the two Russians stirred. The one he had punched groaned and rolled over.
“What are they doing here?” Bourne said, gaining his feet. “Where’s Kaja?”
Don Fernando took the phone from his ear. “She’s gone, Jason.”
“Kidnapped?”
The second Russian shook his head. “She was observed leaving here on her own. That’s why we were dispatched.”
Don Fernando glowered at him. “And?”
The Almaz agent sighed. “She’s gone. We could find no sign of her in the area, no clue inside the house as to where she went.” He looked up at Don Fernando. “She’s ghosted away.”
Skara stared at herself in the hotel’s bathroom mirror and saw a face she scarcely recognized. One thing was for certain, she was no longer Margaret Penrod. Who am I? she wondered with a shiver like ice water down her back. The question terrified her; the reality of it brought her unbearable grief. Her fingers curled, the nails like knife blades as she scored welts on her palms. She felt the fire, but it was only skin-deep.
She’d had every intention of going back to her apartment, but had stayed in the rigged hotel room, either out of self-punishment or spite, possibly both.
She closed her eyes. Memories flooded back like blood from an open wound. Her father had told her to keep Mikaela safe before he left for the last time. Skara was the only one who had known he was never coming back. He had confided in her, though it was only much later that she understood why; he never said a word about his life to Viveka. Possibly he had seen something of himself in Skara; certainly he had passed things on to her, had taught her how to take care of herself and her sisters. But the Russians had come in the middle of the day when she had mistakenly thought it would be safe to get food. She had left Mikaela with a gun, she had been gone only fifteen minutes, but as it turned out they were the last fifteen minutes of her sister’s life. That was when she and Kaja had decided to leave Stockholm, leave Sweden altogether, split up and have no contact with each other.
She stared at her reflection in the mirror. The welts she had scored on her palms seemed to pulse in the fluorescent light, as if alive. When she switched off the light it seemed to her that she had winked out of existence.
Padding across the room, she reached into the mini-bar for a bottle of vodka. It was so small, she poured it and a second into a thick, heavy-bottomed lowball glass she took off a metal shelf just above the half fridge. She drank off a quarter, then put the glass down on the night table.
She disrobed slowly and provocatively, performing for the video cameras as if they were switched on. Kneeling with her legs apart, she gripped her bare breasts, squeezing until tears ran down her cheeks. Then she lay on her stomach, her hands beneath her at the fulcrum of her thighs, working her fingers in a way that sent a mixture of pleasure and pain through her as she wept into a pillow.