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“Nothing paralyzed.”
“No, but the concussion you were walking around with will need time to heal, or surely something neurologically bad will happen. No ru
“Or falling off staircases.”
He smiled. “Best to get out of that habit.”
“I promise.” Her fingers picked at the sheet as if she couldn’t wait to get it off her. “I suppose, then, you’ll have to take me to safer places.”
His expression sobered. “Soraya, I promise to get you out of here as soon as I can. No more than a day or so while they finish tests, and then I’ll use Robbinet’s influence, assuming he’s still talking to me.”
“What happened between you two?”
“I lost you. He was ready to end my career if we didn’t find you alive and well.”
“I’ll talk to him.”
“Finally! I have a champion!”
He laughed and she joined in, even though it pained her a bit. She didn’t mind. The pain reminded her that she was alive, and that felt so very fine.
“But you have to be good,” Aaron said. “You still need plenty of bed rest.”
“Don’t worry, I now have a healthy respect for concussions.” She gri
He nodded. “But now you have to rest.”
“In a minute. Please give me my cell phone.”
He gave her a stern look but did as she asked, rummaging in the shallow closet. When he brought it to her, she turned it on and saw she had four messages from Hendricks, but none from Peter. She looked up at Aaron. “Okay, now scram.”
His brow furrowed. “What does this mean?”
“Leave me alone.”
He nodded. “I’ll be right outside.”
“Don’t you have anywhere else to be?”
“I do.” He crossed to the door and opened it. He gri
In all the noise of the restaurant Bourne almost didn’t hear his cell phone. He was in the middle of finessing more information out of Rebeka on the building plan of the synagogue, and for a moment considered ignoring the call. Then he saw it was from Soraya and answered. But he couldn’t hear a word she said, so, excusing himself, he went outside onto the street, walking several hundred feet away down a narrow alley, pressing himself against a crumbling building chained with a padlock.
“Where are you?” Her voice sounded tight and strained.
“Damascus.” Bourne kept his eyes on the passing crowds. Between Boris and Corellos, he needed to be wary of death squads and lone assassins. “Are you all right?”
“Yes. Fine. I’m in Paris. I tried to call Peter but he isn’t answering his cell, which is very odd. No one has seen or heard from him.”
“Contact Tyrone. If he hasn’t heard something, then he’ll find a way.”
“Good idea.” She told him everything she had learned about the Monition Club, the Arab terrorist co
Bourne’s mind was processing the information as fast as it was received. “What interests me is that the Domna’s finances are handled through a Munich bank and Semid Abdul-Qahhar, the head of the Mosque in Munich, is also here in the same city where Severus Domna has its headquarters and staging area.”
“Staging area for what?”
“Not sure, but I think it’s an imminent attack on US soil.”
“Target?”
“I don’t—” Bourne broke off the conversation. He had seen someone, a flash of a face among the bobbing heads. Slamming his phone shut, he took off after the figure. As he drew closer, he was able to identify the familiar gait. Even without a clear look at the man’s face, he knew it was Boris.
Bourne shouldered his way through the crowds as people squeezed together along the narrow streets. After several minutes he had a sense that Boris was headed toward the synagogue. What was he up to? Surely if he had followed Bourne here, he had lost the scent. But Boris did not give the impression of someone who was lost. On the contrary, his concentration was fierce; he was a man on a mission.
The entrance to the synagogue was down a narrow, unprepossessing alley, which gave out on a cobbled courtyard with an olive tree planted in its center. When he reached a spot where he could keep an eye on the alley, Boris melted back into shadow. He crossed his arms in front of him like an Egyptian mummy and stood absolutely still, waiting.
Bourne waited. Nothing happened. No one entered or left the alley leading to the synagogue. The sliver of sky visible was a carnival set, the night tinged a gaudy, electric blue from the lights atop the minarets.
Bourne took out his cell and dialed Boris’s number. In the shadows, Boris started and grabbed for his phone. As he did so, Bourne stepped into the shadows beside him.
“Hello, Boris,” he said. “I understand you’ve been sent to kill me.”
31
“JASON, WHAT IN hell are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same question, Boris.” Bourne studied his friend in the darkness. “The question is whether either of us will tell the truth.”
“When have we ever lied to each other?”
“Who can say, Boris? You know far more about our relationship than I do. Right now, as far as I can see, nothing is what it seems.”
“I couldn’t agree more. I’ve been shafted by so many people these last couple of days my head is spi
“Friendship is a matter of trust.”
“Once again, I couldn’t agree more, but if you have to think about it, trust doesn’t exist.”
A bitterness in Boris’s voice disturbed Bourne. “What’s at the heart of this issue, Boris?”
“I just came from Munich. One of my oldest friends tried to have me killed there. As a matter of fact, you know him. Ivan Volkin never retired. He’s been working for Severus Domna for years.”
“My condolences.”
“You don’t seem surprised.”
“The only surprise was that you two were friends.”
“Well, we aren’t.” Boris turned his head away, peering down the street. “It seems we never were.”
Bourne let a moment pass, in honor of Boris’s sorrow. “Are you here to say your special form of hello to me,” he said finally, “or to Semid Abdul-Qahhar?”
“No secrets from you, are there? Why am I not surprised.” Boris laughed humorlessly. “Let me tell you something, my friend, several hours ago the man who forced me to make a decision between killing you and keeping my career was on the other end of my special form of hello.”
“So you have removed the need to kill me.”
“There was never any need, Jason. If I did what Viktor Cherkesov ordered me to do, there wouldn’t be enough of me left to have a career.” He grunted. “And by the way, how do you know that that prime dick Semid Abdul-Qahhar lives here?”
“How do you?”
The two men laughed together.
Boris slapped Bourne on the back. “Dammit, Jason, it’s good to see you! We must have a toast to our reunion, but first I’m expecting Konstantin Beria, the head of SVR, and his little prick, Zachek, to show up here.”
“How is that?”
Boris told him about the key that Cherkesov was tasked by the Domna to bring to Semid Abdul-Qahhar.
“You let Beria have it?” Bourne said.
Boris laughed. “For all the good it will do him. It’s not a real key, it doesn’t open anything. It’s modeled after the keys in a Flash video game.” Seeing the look on Bourne’s face, he added, “Hard to believe, but someone inside the Domna has a sense of humor.”
“What’s hard to believe is that you know anything about video games.”
“I need to keep up with the times, Jason, otherwise I’ll get run over by the young technocrats coming to power. They use video games to keep their skills sharp and the smell of blood in their nostrils.”
“You and I use the field.”