“And they’re going to the Domna in Damascus. What for?”
“That’s what you need to find out.” Don Fernando blew out a cloud of aromatic smoke. “The Domna has been stockpiling these and other assault weapons for over a month, but in the last week the shipments have accelerated.”
“We have the ability to stop this one.”
“On the contrary, I’m doing everything I can to make certain they are delivered to the address you discovered. El-Gabal on Avenue Choukry Kouatly used to be the headquarters of a mining and mineral company. Now it’s a vast complex of offices and warehouse-size spaces used as Domna’s main staging area.”
Bourne tensed. “Why would you let the weapons leave Cadiz?”
“Because,” Don Fernando said, “those SCAR-Ms are filled with a powerful C-4 compound.” He pressed a tiny plastic package and a small cell phone into Bourne’s hand. “Each crate needs to be embedded with one of these identical SIM cards.” He opened the package to show Bourne the stack of SIMs.
“This couldn’t be done beforehand?”
Don Fernando shook his head. “Every delivery to El-Gabal is put through three different screeners. One is an X-ray machine. The chips would show up. No, they have to be planted by hand on site.”
“And then?”
Don Fernando smiled like a fox. “You have only to press six-six-six on this phone’s keypad, but you must be close and within line of sight of the SIMs for the Bluetooth signal to work. You will then have three minutes to get out of the building. The resulting explosion will destroy everything the Domna has stockpiled as well as everyone inside El-Gabal.”
27
SAVE FOR THE heightened security, Boris found Damascus much as he had left it, a modern city painfully growing up around the oasis, sporting minarets, mosques, and sites dating back to the time the Book of Genesis was written, somewhere during the thirteenth century bc. At the head of his army, Abraham descended into Damascus from the land of the Chaldeans, north of Babylon. He ruled the city for some years, refreshing himself and his men, enchanted by this bejeweled city in the fragrant valley between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, before pushing on to Canaan. Subsequently, Damascus was conquered by Alexander the Great and, later, taken by the Roman general Pompey. Septimius Severus decreed it an official colony of Rome, but Christianity came to the city also. Saint Paul was struck down by holy light on the road to Damascus. Subsequently, he and Saint Thomas lived in Bab Touma, the city’s oldest neighborhood. A crossroads of East and West of major importance, Damascus became the spiritual home of Severus Domna.
In modern times the city was made up of three distinct sections. The ancient Medina—as the Old City was known—and the French Protectorate, whose lyrical architecture and ornate fountains dated from the 1920s, lay side by side like beautiful pearls, but what had accreted around them was the ugly sprawl of the modern city, with its brutal Soviet-style concrete buildings, shopping malls, and traffic-choked avenues.
Boris identified the SVR agents hanging around the arrivals terminal the moment he passed through immigration, trying without success to blend into the scene. He felt for them. At two in the morning there were no crowds to blend into. He entered the men’s room, washed up, and stared at himself in the mirror. He scarcely recognized himself. Decades maneuvering through the minefields of the Russian clandestine services had changed him. Once, he had been young and idealistic, loving the motherland, willing to offer himself on the altar of making it a better place. And now, years later, he realized that Russia was no better off for his hard work. Possibly, it was worse off. He had squandered his life on an impossible dream, but wasn’t that the mirage of youth: the dream of changing the world. Instead, he himself had changed, and the realization disgusted him.
Returning to the arrivals lounge, he found the one food stand open, bought a meze plate, and sat at a round table no larger than a Frisbee. He ate with his right hand while watching the arrivals board for the flight carrying Cherkesov. It was on time. He had forty minutes until it touched down.
He rose and went to the car rental desk. Fifteen minutes later he was sitting behind the wheel of a rattletrap, engine coughing and groaning. He used the time left to consider his pact with Zachek. An eye for an eye, a curious riff on Strangers on a Train, one of his favorite films, where two strangers talk about committing murders for each other to avoid becoming suspects. In the clandestine services, this kind of pact wouldn’t work. Strangers wouldn’t be able to get near Cherkesov or Beria. But those close to them could. Even after decamping to the Domna, Cherkesov remained a thorn in SVR’s side—according to Zachek even more so now that his power had grown outside Russia’s borders. Boris had offered to terminate Cherkesov for Zachek. In return, Zachek would plant Beria six feet under. He would assume control of SVR and Boris would have gained an ally instead of another enemy. Boris, of course, had his own reason for wanting Cherkesov dead. He owed his job to his former boss, but as long as he was alive Boris lived under his thumb.
Boris checked his watch. Cherkesov’s flight had landed. By the time he pulled out of his space in the lot, passengers from the flight had begun drifting out of the terminal. Boris waited until he saw Cherkesov striding out. He smiled to himself because he was certain his former boss had picked up the SVR agents just as he had, and he knew that Cherkesov would believe they had been waiting for him.
As Cherkesov hurried to the short line of waiting taxis, Boris gunned the car around them. He pulled into the curb in front of the first taxi and, leaning over, threw open the passenger’s-side door.
“Get in, Viktor.”
Cherkesov’s eyes opened wide. “You! What are you doing here?”
“The SVR is right on your heels,” Boris said urgently.
Cherkesov climbed in. As soon as he closed the door, Boris threw the car in gear and pulled out with a squeal of rubber against tarmac.
At night, the wailing of the calls to prayer rang from minaret to minaret, enmeshing the city in a veil of language sung in alien ululations. At least, they seemed alien to Boris as he approached the city in the squeaking car. Green lights burned from the tops of the minarets, far more than he remembered. Cherkesov sat beside him, fuming while he smoked one of his vile Turkish cigarettes. Boris could feel the energy coming off him like electric sparks from a severed power line.
“Now,” Cherkesov said, half turning to Boris, “explain yourself, Boris Illyich. Have you taken care of Jason Bourne?”
Boris took an exit ramp off the highway into the streets. “I’ve been too busy taking care of you.”
Cherkesov stared at him openmouthed.
“After our talk about the SVR I went back to Zachek, Beria’s man.”
“I know who Zachek is,” Cherkesov said impatiently.
“I made a deal with them.”
“You did what?”
“I made a deal so I could find out why they’re shadowing you.”
“Since when have I been—”
“I spotted one of their agents out on the tarmac at Uralsk Airport. I wondered what he was doing there. Zachek told me.” He turned the wheel and they headed down a darkened street lined with anonymous white concrete buildings. Somewhere a radio blared a muezzin’s recorded voice. “Beria is very much interested in your new post inside Severus Domna.”
“Beria could not know—”
“But he does, Viktor Delyagovich. This man is a devil.”
Cherkesov chewed his lower lip in anxiety.
“So I have been following Beria’s agents, from Moscow to Munich and now here, wondering what their orders are.”
“Zachek didn’t tell you?”
Boris shrugged. “It’s not as if I didn’t ask, but I couldn’t press him. There was the danger of him becoming suspicious.”
Cherkesov nodded. “I understand. You did well, Boris Illyich.”
“My loyalty did not end when you bequeathed me FSB-2.”
“Much appreciated.” Cherkesov squinted through the
fug of bitter smoke. “Where are we going?”
“To an all-night café I know of.” Boris hunched forward, peering through the scarred windshield. “But I seem to have lost my way.”
“I’d rather go straight to my hotel.” Cherkesov gave an address. “Get back to a major intersection. From there, I’ll know which way to go.”
Boris grunted and turned right, moving along a slightly better illuminated street. “Why the hell is Beria so damn interested in where you go and who you see?”
“Why is Beria interested in anything?” Cherkesov said, an answer that gave away nothing.
Boris came to an intersection where the light was broken, not an uncommon occurrence in this neighborhood. The sound of the muezzin’s canned voice seemed to be following them. Outside, the night was absolutely still. What trees they passed looked skeletal, stripped bare, like prisoners about to be slaughtered.
Boris came to a burned-out block, mostly rubble surrounded by a chain-link fence. He pulled over to the curb and stopped.
“What are you doing?” Cherkesov said.
Boris gently pressed the point of a ceramic knife between two of Cherkesov’s ribs. “Why is Beria so interested in you?”
“He’s always been—”
Cherkesov jumped as Boris dug the point through his clothes and drew blood. Reaching behind him, Boris opened his door. Then he grabbed Cherkesov by the shirtfront and, as he slid out of the vehicle, dragged his former boss with him.
“Some things never change,” Boris said as he goaded Cherkesov toward the chain-link fence. He gestured. “This place makes a convenient killing field. The dogs rip the corpses to shreds before anyone bothers to contact the police.”
Pushing Cherkesov’s head through a gap in the fence, he bent over, following him through.
“This is a grave miscalculation,” Cherkesov said.
Boris poked him again, so that he flinched back into Boris’s grip. “I do believe you’ve made a joke, Viktor Delyagovich.”
Boris pushed his victim on through the rubble until they reached the heart of the destruction. The same blank-faced high-rises rose all around them, dark and uncaring, but the lot itself was filled with the movement of the dogs Boris had spoken about. Sensing humans, they sidled and circled, their black snouts raised, sniffing for the first hint of spilled blood.
“Your death scents you, Viktor Delyagovich. It comes for you from all sides.”
“What… what do you want?” Cherkesov’s voice was a hoarse rasp; he seemed to have trouble breathing.
“A reminiscence,” Boris said. “Do you recall a night about a year ago when you took me to a construction site on—where was it again?”
Cherkesov swallowed hard. “Ulitsa Varvarka.”
Boris snapped his fingers. “That’s right. I thought you were going to kill me, Viktor. But instead you forced me to kill Melor Bukin.”
“Bukin needed killing. He was a traitor.”
“Not my point at all.” Boris jabbed Cherkesov again. “You made me pull the trigger. I knew what would happen to me if I didn’t.”
Cherkesov took a breath. “And look at you now. Head of FSB-2. You, instead of that fool Bukin.”
“And I owe it all to you.”
Shuddering at Karpov’s ironic tone, Cherkesov said, “What is this? Revenge for a killing that got you where you wanted to be? You disliked Bukin as much as I did.”
“Again, Bukin is not the issue. You are. Your use of me—or should I say abuse. You shamed me that night, Viktor.”
“Boris, I never meant to—”
“Oh, but you did. You were reveling in your newfound power—the power the Domna had bestowed on you. And you reveled in it again when you forced me into the pact that would put me forever in your power.”
A shadow of Cherkesov’s oily smile returned. “We all make deals with the devil, Boris. We’re all adults here, we knew this going in. Why are you—?”
“Because,” Boris said, “you forced me into an untenable position. My career or another murder.”
“I don’t see the issue.”
Boris slapped Cherkesov hard on the side of his head. “But you do see the issue, and this is why you chose me. Once again, you reveled in your power to compel me to kill my friend.”
Cherkesov wagged his head back and forth. “An American agent responsible for countless deaths, many of them Russian.”
Boris hit him again, and a streak of blood flew out of the corner of his mouth. The nearest dogs began to howl in counterpoint to the muezzin. Their gaunt bodies looked like scimitars.
“You wanted to break me, didn’t you?” Boris said, dragging his head back. “You wanted me to kill my friend in order to keep everything I have ever dreamed of and worked for.”
“It was an interesting experiment,” Cherkesov said, “you have to admit.”
Boris kicked the backs of Cherkesov’s calves, and he went down. His trousers ripped. Blood seeped from his torn-up knees. Crouching down beside him, Boris said, “Now tell me what you’re doing for the Domna.”
That smile again, dark as pitch. “You won’t kill me because then you will be marked as an enemy of the Domna. They won’t stop until you’re dead.”
“You have it all wrong, Viktor. I won’t stop until they’re dead.”
Still, the realization did not show in Cherkesov’s eyes. “They have too many allies, some close to you.”
“Like Ivan Volkin?”
Now a black terror transformed Cherkesov’s face. “You know? How could you know?” His entire demeanor had changed. His face was sallow and he appeared to be panting.
“I’ll take care of Ivan Ivanovich in good time,” Boris said. “Right now, it’s your turn.”
Champagne or orange juice, sir?”
“Champagne, thank you,” Bourne said to the young flight attendant as she bent over, a small tray balanced on the spread fingers of one hand.
She smiled sweetly as she handed him the flute. “Dinner will be served in forty minutes, sir. Have you made your choices?”
“I have,” Bourne said, pointing to the menu.
“Very good, sir.” The flight attendant’s smile widened. “If there is anything you require during the flight, my name is Rebeka.”
Alone in his seat, Bourne stared out the Perspex window as he sipped champagne. He was thinking about Boris, wondering why he hadn’t shown himself. In this battle, Boris had the distinct edge. They were friends because Boris said they had been. Bourne had no memory of their first meeting, or what had happened. His first remembered encounter with Boris was in Reykjavik six years ago; before that was a complete blank. He had only Boris’s word that they had been friends. What if Boris had been lying to him all along? This cloud of unknowing was the most frustrating—and dangerous—effect of his amnesia. When people popped up out of his past and claimed to be friends or colleagues he was required to make an instant determination about whether or not they were telling the truth. In the six years Bourne had known Boris, he had always acted like a friend. Two years ago Boris had been wounded in northeastern Iran. Bourne had found him and carried him to safety. They had worked side by side in a number of perilous situations. Bourne never had cause to doubt Boris’s motivations. Until now.
Have you made your choices? An innocent sentence coming from a flight attendant, but it had many layers of meaning she wasn’t aware of. Bourne had had his choices made for him when he plunged into the Mediterranean and surfaced without a memory of who or what he was. Since then, his life had been a struggle to understand the choices he had once made but could no longer remember, a struggle with the choices Alex Conklin had made for him. The latest case in point to surface from the murk of his past: killing Kaja’s mother, Viveka Norén. It nauseated him that Conklin had sent him on a mission of personal vengeance, to—what? To teach a dead man a lesson for trying to assassinate him? The cruelty and heartlessness of Conklin’s choice made Bourne sick to his stomach. And he had been the agent of death. He could not
exonerate himself. “There is no reason.”
No, he thought now, there was no reason.
So, Mademoiselle Gobelins,” El-Arian said, “how may we best serve your needs?”
The moment he sat down beside her Soraya felt as if her skin had been seared. Invisible ants crawled over her flesh, and it was all she could do not to flinch away from him. Even his smile was dark, as if the emotion behind it came from a different place inside him. She felt his enormous psychic energy, and for the first time in her adult life she was afraid of another person. When she was five, her father had taken her to a seer in a seething backwater alley of Cairo. Why he did it, she had no idea. When her mother had found out about it afterward, she had flown into a rage, something Soraya had never before seen her mother do.
When the seer, a surprisingly young man with black eyes and hair and dark skin that looked like the hide of a crocodile, took her hand in his she felt as if the earth beneath her had crumbled, that she was falling into an abyss, that she would never stop falling.
“I have you,” the seer said, as if to comfort her, but she felt like a fly caught in his web, and she had burst into tears.
On the way home, her father had not spoken to her, and she sensed that she had failed an important test, that he would never forgive her, that his love for her was slipping away like grains of sand through her slender fingers. Afterward, following her mother’s terrifying outburst, she sensed that nothing was the same between her parents. Her father had broken some unspoken agreement between them and, just as he couldn’t forgive Soraya, his wife couldn’t forgive him. Six months later, her mother bundled her off to America. As a child or adolescent, she would never see Cairo again.
Soraya, sitting next to Benjamin El-Arian on the second floor of the Nymphenburg Landesbank, experienced again the same frightening sensation of falling into an unfathomable abyss.
El-Arian stirred beside her. “Are you well, Mademoiselle Gobelins?”
“Quite well, thank you,” she said in a thickened voice.