Parker removed his shoes, tied the laces together, and, slinging them over his shoulder, climbed the stairs. When he reached the second floor, he went down the hallway to the far end, where a window overlooked the fire escape. Unlatching the window, he threw it open and climbed out, making his way up floor by floor, like a fly climbing a wall.
Noah Perlis had found Dondie Parker in one of the local ghetto gyms. Parker was part of a boxing club, the leading contender in the regional welterweight division. He was an exceptional boxer because he learned fast, had tons of stamina, and had found a way to channel his murderous aggression. On the other hand, he wasn’t crazy about concussions and fractured ribs, so when Noah showed up and expressed an interest in him, Parker was only too happy to listen to his proposition.
To say that Dondie Parker owed Noah everything would not be overstating the case, a fact that was ever on Parker’s mind, never more so than when, as now, he was carrying out an assignment that came directly from Noah. Noah reported to only one man, Oliver Liss, who was so far up the Black River food chain he seemed to be in another universe altogether. Parker was so accomplished that every now and then Oliver Liss would call him in and give him a personal assignment, which Parker carried out immediately and without telling anyone, including Noah. If Noah knew about these extracurricular assignments, he never said anything to Parker, and Parker was happy to leave those horrific sleeping dogs lie.
He’d reached the floor of Humphry Bamber’s office. And now, after one more recheck of the building layout Noah had sent to his cell, he crept down to the other end of the fire escape, where he peered in a window. He saw all manner of electronic equipment, most of it up and running, so he knew Bamber had to be there. He untied his laces and slipped on his shoes. Then, taking out his jimmy-picks, he forced open the window with minimal difficulty. Drawing his custom SIG Sauer, he climbed through.
He turned as he heard the sound of someone urinating. Grinning to himself, he made his way toward the sound of urine striking porcelain. The only thing better would be to drill Bamber while he was on the throne.
The door was ajar and, peering in, he could see a wedge of light, Bamber spread-legged in front of the toilet. He could just make out a corner of the sink and, against the rear wall, the bathtub with a shower curtain of gaily dancing fish so cute he had to resist the urge to puke.
He peered into the space between the door and the jamb created by the hinges. Seeing no one hiding behind the door, he nudged it open with his free hand while he leveled the SIG at Bamber’s head.
“Hey, pussycat.” His chuckle came from deep in his throat. “Noah says hello and good-bye.”
Bamber flinched, just like Parker was expecting him to, but instead of turning to face him, he collapsed as if poleaxed. As Parker was goggling at him, the gaily dancing fish folded up like an accordion. Parker had a split-second look at a woman staring at him. He just had time to think, Who the fuck is this? Noah didn’t tell me—when the eye of her Lady Hawk spit flame and he spun around in an ungainly pirouette from the bullet fracturing his cheekbone.
He screamed, not in pain or fear, but in rage. He emptied his gun, squeezing off shot after shot, but there was blood in his eyes. He didn’t feel a thing—the burst of adrenaline and other endorphins made him for the moment immune to the pain. Ignoring Bamber, curled up in a fetal position under the toilet, he leapt at the woman—a woman, for chrissakes!—swinging the butt of his SIG at the curve of her chin. She retreated, only to slam against the tiled wall and slip on the treacherous curve of porcelain, falling to one knee.
Parker took another vicious swing at her with the SIG. She ducked away, but not before the front sight laid a gash across the bridge of her nose. He saw the glazed look come into her eyes and he knew he had her. He was just about to plant the thick sole of his shoe in her solar plexus when the eye of her Lady Hawk spat fire again.
Parker never felt a thing. The bullet exploded through his right eye and took off the back of his head.
30
YOU REALIZE,” Bourne said, brandishing the sheet of thermal paper as he and Boris Karpov clattered down the stairs at 779 Gamhuria Avenue, “that this information could have been left for you to find.”
“Of course. Yevsen could have left it,” Karpov said.
“I was thinking of Arkadin.”
“But Black River is his partner.”
“So was Yevsen.”
The medic had done his best to patch up Bourne’s face before Bourne shooed him away—at least he’d stopped the bleeding and administered a shot to prevent any possibility of infection.
“One thing about Arkadin, he’s consistent,” Bourne said. “What I’ve learned about the way he sets up operations is that he makes sure he has a stalking horse, a diversionary target whom he directs his enemies toward.” He slapped the printout. “Black River could be his new stalking horse, the people he wants you to go after rather than finding him.”
“The other possibility,” Boris said, “is that he’s knocking off his partners one by one.”
They had passed through the lobby and out into the scalding afternoon sun, where traffic was at a standstill and passersby were gathering as each minute passed, gaping at Boris’s heavily armed contingent.
“That brings up another question,” Karpov said as they climbed into the minibus he’d commandeered and which had become his mobile headquarters. “How the hell does Arkadin fit into this puzzle? Why would Black River need him?”
“Here’s a possibility,” Bourne said. “Arkadin’s in Nagorno-Karabakh, a remote area of Azerbaijan that, as you said, is dominated by tribal chieftains, all fanatic Muslims—just like the Black Legion terrorists.”
“How would the terrorists be involved?”
“That’s something we’ll have to ask Arkadin himself,” Bourne said. “To do that we’ll have to fly to Azerbaijan.”
Karpov ordered his IT man to bring up real-time satellite pictures of the Nagorno-Karabakh region in order to figure the best route to the specific area Yevsen used.
The IT man was zooming in on the area when he said, “Hold on a second.” His fingers blurred over the keys, shifting the images on the screen.
“What is it?” Karpov said with some impatience.
“A plane just took off from the target area.” The IT man swiveled to another laptop and keyed into a different site. “It’s an Air Afrika jet, Colonel.”
“Arkadin!” Bourne said. “Where’s the flight headed?”
“Hold on.” The IT man switched to the third computer, bringing up an image similar to those on an air controller’s screen. “Just let me extrapolate from the jet’s current heading.” His fingers danced some more over the keyboard. Then he swiveled back to the first laptop and an area of landmass filled the screen. The image pulled back until the IT man pointed at a place in the lower right-hand quadrant of the screen.
“Right there,” he said. “Shahrake Nasiri-Astara, just off the Caspian Sea, in northwest Iran.”
“What in the name of all that’s unholy is there?” Karpov said.
The IT man, moving to the second laptop, plugged in the name of the area, hit the enter key, and scrolled through the resulting news stories. There were precious few, but one of them provided the answer. He looked up into his commander’s face and said, “Three whopping huge oil fields and the beginnings of a transnational pipeline.”
I want you out of here.” Amun Chalthoum’s eyes sparked in the semi-darkness of the old fort. “Instantly.”
Soraya was so taken aback that it was a moment before she said, “Amun, I think you’re confusing me with someone else.”
He took her by the elbow. “This is no joke. Go. Now.”
She extricated herself from his grip. “What am I, your daughter? I’m not going anywhere.”
“I won’t risk the life of the woman I love,” he said. “Not in a situation like this.”
“I don’t know whether to be flattered or offended. Maybe I’m both.”
She shook her head. “Nevertheless, we came here because of me, or have you forgotten?”
“I don’t forget anything.” Chalthoum was about to continue when Yusef cut him off.
“I thought you’d planned for these people to catch up to you.”
“I did,” Chalthoum said impatiently, “but I didn’t count on getting trapped in here.”
“Too late for regrets now,” Yusef whispered. “The enemy has entered the fort.”
Chalthoum held up four fingers, to let Yusef know how many men had been following them. Yusef gave a curt nod and gestured for them to follow him. While the men moved out, Soraya bent and, ripping off a piece of one of the men’s shirts, scooped some quicklime into the makeshift sling.
As they reached the doorway, she said very clearly, “We should stay here.”
They turned, and Amun looked at her as if she were insane. “We’ll be trapped like rats.”
“We’re already trapped like rats.” She swung the sling back and forth. “At least here we have the high ground.” She gestured with her chin. “They’ve already dispersed themselves. They’ll pick us off one by one before we can get to even one of them.”
“You’re right, Director,” Yusef said, and Chalthoum looked like he wanted to swat him across the face.
She appealed to Chalthoum directly. “Amun, get used to it. This is how it is.”
Three of the four men, having found shadowed nests for themselves, lay in wait, sighting down the long barrels of their rifles. The fourth man—the beater—moved cautiously from desolate room to ruined room, across abandoned sand-piled spaces without roofs. Always the wind was in his ears, and the grit of the desert in his nose and throat. Granules, shot by the wind, insinuated themselves inside his clothes and formed a familiar layer as they clung to his sweaty skin. His job was to find the targets and drive them into the crisscrossing lines of fire set up by his comrades. He was cautious, but not apprehensive; he’d done this work before and he’d do it again many times before old age made this life impossible. But he knew by then he’d have more than enough money for his family and even his children’s families. The American paid well—the American, it seemed, never ran out of money, just as the fool never bargained down his price. The Russians, now—they knew how to drive a hard bargain. He’d sweated through many a negotiation with the Russians, who claimed they didn’t have money, or, anyway, enough to pay him what he asked. He would settle on a price that made them all happy and then he went about the business of killing. It’s what he did best, after all—the only thing he was trained for.
He’d secured more than half the fort and was frankly surprised that he’d not yet come upon even a sign of the targets. Well, one of them was an Egyptian, he’d been told. He didn’t like Egyptians, they smeared you with their honeyed words all the while lying through their teeth. They were like jackals—grinning as they tore the flesh off you.
He turned down a short corridor. When he was no more than halfway along, he heard the sound of the flies buzzing and knew, even though he failed to catch a whiff of rotting flesh, that there must have been a death up ahead of him, and quite recently, too.
Gripping his handgun more tightly, he continued down the hallway with his spine pressed up against one wall, squinting into the gloom. Here and there, sunlight fluttered and twittered like birds in a tree, where the ceiling or wall was cracked or even, in some places, broken open, as if by the hammering fist of a murderous giant.
The sound of the flies had become a hum, as of some great, nebulous creature that waxed and waned as it fed and drowsed. He paused, listening and, in his own unscientific way, counting their number. Something big had died in that room ahead of him, possibly more than one big thing. A human being?
He pulled the trigger of his handgun, the brief light-flare, the report, transforming the entire area. He was like a beast marking its territory, warning other predators of its presence, wanting to instill fear. If the targets were in that room, they were trapped. He knew that room—just as he knew every room in this and the other forts in the area. There was only one entrance and he was five steps away from it.
Then a figure shot out from the open doorway, and he squeezed off four accurate shots in rapid succession that made it dance and jerk.
It was Soraya who followed the dead American Chalthoum had heaved out of the doorway. Swinging her makeshift sling amid the hail of bullets, she let fly its load of quicklime into the face of the shooter. The instant the caustic calcium oxide struck his body fluids—the sweat on his cheeks and the tears in his eyes—a chemical reaction caused the blooming of a terrible heat.
The shooter screamed, dropped his gun, and instinctively clapped his hands to his burning face, trying to scrub off the substance. This only made matters worse for him. Soraya scooped up his gun and shot him in the head, putting him out of his misery, as she would a crippled horse.
Her low whistle brought Chalthoum and Yusef out of the burial chamber. “One down,” she said. “Three to go.”
Are you all right?” Moira stepped out of the bathtub and helped Humphry Bamber to stand.
“I think I ought to be asking you that question,” he said, glancing with a shudder at the shattered head of the intruder. Then he turned and vomited into the toilet.
Moira turned on the cold water in the sink, drenched a hand towel, and placed it on the back of his neck. He took it and held it against the bridge of her nose as they left the bathroom.
She put her arm around his wide shoulders. “Let’s get you back to somewhere safe.”
He nodded like a lost little boy as they picked their way through the office. They were almost at the door when she glanced at the wall of computers.
“What did you find out? What’s inside Noah’s version of Bardem?”
Bamber broke away, went to the laptop hooked up to all the other equipment, and disconnected it. Closing it, he tucked it under his arm.
“If you don’t see it for yourself, you won’t believe it,” he said as they hurried out of the office.
I’m not interested in Treadstone or what Alex Conklin was up to,” Peter Marks said.
Willard appeared unfazed. “But you are, I assume, interested in saving CI from the Philistines.” It was almost as if he’d anticipated Marks’s response.
“Of course I am.” Marks turned his empty glass over when Willard tried to fill it with the bottle’s last round of whisky. “Do you have something in mind—something, I assume, to do with Black River’s complicity in domestic murder, especially, goddammit, the DCI’s death?”
“The DCI is M. Errol Danziger.”
“Don’t remind me,” Marks said sourly.
“I have to. He’s the eight-hundred-pound gorilla in CI’s shop, and believe me when I tell you he’s going to beat all you fine young gentlemen into banana paste if nothing’s done to stop him.”
“What about you?”
“I am Treadstone.”
Marks stared bleakly at the older man. Whether it was all the single-malt he’d consumed or having his face pushed into reality, he felt sick to his stomach. “Go on.”
“No,” Willard said emphatically. “Either you’re in or you’re out, Peter. And before you answer, please understand that there’s no backing out, no room for second thoughts. Once you’re in, that’s it, no matter the cost or the consequences.”
Marks shook his head. “What choice do I have?”
“There’s always a choice.” Willard poured himself the last of the liquor and took a deep sip. “What there isn’t—and this goes for me as well as for you—is an opportunity to look back. From this moment on, there is no past. We move forward, only forward, into the dark.”
“Jesus.” Marks felt a shiver run down his spine. “This sounds like I’m making a deal with the devil.”
“That’s very funny.” Willard smiled and, as if on cue, produced a three-page document, which he spread on the table facing the younger man.
“What the hell is this?”
>
“Also funny.” Willard placed a pen on the table. “It’s a contract with Treadstone. It’s non-negotiable and, as you can see in clause thirteen, nonrevokable.”
Marks peered at the contract. “How is that enforceable? Will you threaten to take my soul?” He laughed, but it was too brittle to hold any humor. Then he squinted, reading one paragraph after another.
“Jesus,” he said when he was finished. He looked at the pen, then at Willard. “Tell me you have a plan to get rid of M. Errol-fucking-Danziger or I’m out of here right now.”
“Lopping off one head of the hydra will be useless because it will only grow another.” Willard picked up the pen and held it out. “I will get rid of the hydra itself: Secretary of Defense Ervin Reynolds Halliday.”
“Many have tried, including the late Veronica Hart.”
“They all thought they had evidence that he was operating beyond the law, a well-trod path that Halliday knows far better than they did. I’m taking an altogether different route.”
Marks looked deep into the other man’s eyes, trying to judge his seriousness. At length, he took the pen and said, “I don’t care what route we take as long as Halliday ends up being roadkill.”
“Tomorrow morning,” Willard said, “you’ll need to keep that sentiment in mind.”
“Is that a whiff of sulfur I smell?” But Marks’s laugh was distinctly uneasy.
I know this man.” Yusef brushed the quicklime paste off the dead gunman’s face with the tip of his boot. “His name’s Ahmed, he’s a freelance assassin who usually works for the Americans or the Russians.” He grunted. “Now and again at the same time.”