The Bourne Sanction

by Eric Van Lustbader

  “I keep wondering what it is that feels so good about the water rushing over my feet and pulling back out.”

  After a moment, Heinrich glanced at him. “If you don’t mind, I’m trying to meditate.”

  “Meditate on this,” Arkadin said, sticking a knife very carefully in his side.

  Heinrich’s eyes opened wide. He staggered, but Arkadin was there to catch him. They sat down together in the surf, like old friends communing with nature.

  Heinrich’s mouth made gasping sounds. They reminded Arkadin of a fish hauled out of the water.

  “What… what?”

  Arkadin cradled him with one hand as he searched beneath his poplin jacket with the other. Just as he thought, Heinrich had the package on him, not trusting it to be out of his sight for an instant. He held it in his palm for a moment. It was in a rolled cardboard cylinder. So small for something with that much power.

  “A lot of people have died for this,” Arkadin said.

  “Many more will die before it’s over,” Heinrich managed to get out. “Who are you?”

  “I’m your death,” Arkadin said. Plunging the knife in again, he turned it between Heinrich’s ribs.

  “Ah, ah, ah,” Heinrich whispered as his lungs filled with his own blood. His breathing turned shallow, then erratic. Then it ceased altogether.

  Arkadin continued to shelter him with a comradely arm. When Heinrich, nothing more than deadweight now, slumped against him, Arkadin held him up as the surf crashed and ebbed around them.

  Arkadin stared out at the horizon, as Heinrich had done, certain that beyond the demarcation was nothing save a black abyss, endless and unknowable.

  Bourne went willingly with the two plainclothes policemen out of the vault. As they stepped into the corridor, Bourne slammed the edge of his hand down on the cop’s wrist, causing the Makarov to drop and slide along the floor. Whirling, Bourne kicked the other cop, who was flung back against the edge of a square column. Bourne grabbed hold of the arm of the first cop. Lifting it, he slammed his elbow into the cop’s rib cage, then smashed his hand into the back of his neck. With both cops down, Bourne hurried along the corridor, but another man came sprinting toward him, blocking the way to the front of the bank, a man who fit Yakov’s description of Harris Low.

  Reversing course, Bourne leapt up the marble staircase, taking the steps three at a time. Racing around the turn, he gained the landing of the second floor. He’d memorized the plans Baronov’s friend had procured for him and had planned for an emergency, not trusting to chance that he’d get in and out of the bank without being identified. It was clear Vasily Legev, having recognized gospadin Popov, would blow the whistle on him while he was inside the safe-deposit viewing cubicle. As Bourne broke out into the corridor he encountered one of the bank’s security men. Grabbing him by the front of his uniform, Bourne jerked him off his feet, swung him around, and hurled him down the stairs at the ascending NSA agent.

  Racing down the corridor, he reached the door to the fire stairs, opened it, and went through. Like many buildings of its vintage this one had a staircase that rose around an open central core.

  Bourne took off up the stairs. He passed the third floor, then the fourth. Behind him, he could hear the fire door bang open, the sound of hurried footsteps on the stairs behind him. His maneuver with the guard had slowed down the agent, but hadn’t stopped him.

  He was midway to the fifth and top floor when the agent fired on him. Bourne ducked, hearing the spang! of the ricochet. He sprinted upward as another shot went past him. Reaching the door to the roof at last, he opened it, and slammed it shut behind him.

  Harris Low was furious. With all the personnel at his disposal Bourne was still at large. That’s what you get, he thought as he raced up the stairwell, when you leave the details to the Russians. They were great at brute force, but when it came to the subtleties of undercover work they were all but useless. Those two plainclothes officers, for instance. Over Low’s objections they hadn’t waited for him, had gone into the vault after Bourne themselves. Now he was left with mopping up the mess they’d made.

  He came to the door to the roof, turned the handle, and banged it open with the flat of his shoe. The tarred rooftop, the low winter sky glowered at him. Walther PPK/S at the ready, he stepped out onto the roof in a semi-crouch. Without warning, the door slammed shut on him, driving him back onto the small landing.

  Up on the roof, Bourne pulled open the door and dived through. He struck Low three blows, directed first at the agent’s stomach and then at his right wrist, forcing Low to let go of the gun. The Walther flew down the stairwell, landing on a step just above the fourth floor.

  Low, enraged, drove his fists into Bourne’s kidney twice in succession. Bourne collapsed to his knees, and Low kicked him onto his back then straddled his chest, pinning Bourne’s arms. Low gripped Bourne’s throat, squeezing as hard as he could.

  Bourne struggled to get his arms free, but he had insufficient leverage. He tried to get a breath, but Low’s grip on him was so complete that he was unable to get any oxygen into his system. He stopped trying to free his arms and pressed down with the small of his back, providing a fulcrum for his legs, which he drew up, then extended toward his head. He brought his calves together, sandwiching Low’s head between them. Low tried to shake them off, violently twisting his shoulders back and forth, but Bourne held on, increasing his grip. Then, with an enormous effort, Bourne spun them both to the left. Low’s head hit against the wall, and Bourne’s arms were free. Unwinding his legs, he slammed the palms of his hands against Low’s ears.

  Low shouted in pain, kicked away, and scrambled back down the stairs. Bourne, on his knees, could see that Low was heading for the Walther. Bourne rose. Just as Low reached it, Bourne launched himself down and across the air shaft. He landed on Low, who whipped the Walther’s short but thick barrel into Bourne’s face. Bourne reared back, and Low bent him over the railing. Four floors of air shaft loomed below, ending in an unforgiving concrete base. As they locked in their struggle, Low slowly, inexorably, brought the muzzle of the Walther to bear on Bourne’s face. At the same time, the heel of Bourne’s hand was pushing Low’s head up.

  Low shook loose from Bourne’s grip, lunged at him in an effort to pistol-whip him into unconsciousness. Bourne bent his knees. Using Low’s own momentum, he slid one arm under the agent’s crotch, and lifted him up. Low tried to get a fix on Bourne with the Walther, failed, swung his arm back to deliver another blow with the barrel.

  Using all his remaining strength, Bourne hefted him up and over the banister, dumping him down the air shaft. Low plummeted, a tangle of arms and legs, until he hit the bottom.

  Bourne turned, went back out onto the roof. As he loped across it, he could hear the familiar rise and fall of police sirens. He wiped blood off his cheek with the back of his hand. Reaching the other side of the roof, he climbed atop the parapet, leapt across the intervening space onto the roof of the adjoining building. He did this twice more until he felt that it was safe for him to return to the street.

  Twenty-Five

  SORAYA HAD NEVER understood the nature of panic, despite the fact that she grew up with an aunt who was prone to panic attacks. When the attacks came on her aunt said she felt as if someone had put a plastic dry-cleaning bag over her head; she felt as if she were being smothered to death. Soraya would watch her huddled in a chair or curled up on her bed and wonder how on earth she could feel such a thing. There weren’t even any plastic dry-cleaning bags allowed in the house. How could a person feel as if she were suffocating when there wasn’t anything on her face?

  Now she knew.

  As she drove out of the NSA safe house without Tyrone, as the high reinforced metal gates swung closed behind her, her hands trembled on the wheel, her heart felt as if it was jumping painfully inside her breast. There was a film of sweat on her upper lip, under her arms, and at the nape of her neck. Worst of all, she couldn’t catch her breath. Her mind raced like a r
at in a cage. She gasped, sucking ragged gulps of air into her lungs. She felt, in short, as if she were being smothered to death. Then her stomach rebelled.

  As quickly as she was able she pulled to the side of the road, got out, and stumbled into the trees. Falling to her hands and knees, she vomited up the sweet, milky Ceylon tea.

  Jason, Tyrone, and Veronica Hart were now all in terrible jeopardy because of rash decisions she’d made. She quailed at the thought. It was one thing to be chief of station in Odessa, quite another to be director. Maybe she’d taken on more than she could handle, maybe she didn’t have the steel nerve that was required to make tough choices. Where was her vaunted confidence? It was back there in the NSA interrogation cell with Tyrone.

  Somehow she made it to Alexandria, where she parked. She sat in the car bent over, her clammy forehead pressed to the steering wheel. She tried to think coherently, but her brain seemed encased in a block of concrete. At last, she wept bitterly.

  She had to call Deron, but she was petrified of his reaction when she told him that she had allowed his protégé to be captured and tortured by the NSA. She had fucked up big time. And she had no idea how to rectify the situation. The choice LaValle had given her—Veronica Hart for Tyrone—was unacceptable.

  After a time, she calmed down enough to get out of the car. She moved like a sleepwalker through crowds of people oblivious to her agony. It seemed somehow wrong that the world should spin on as it always had, utterly indifferent and uncaring.

  She ducked into a little tea shop, and as she rummaged in her handbag for her cell phone she saw the pack of cigarettes. A cigarette would calm her nerves, but standing out in the chilly street while she smoked would make her feel more of a lost soul. She decided to have a smoke on the way back to her car. Placing her cell phone on the table, she stared down at it as if it were alive. She ordered chamomile tea, which calmed her enough for her to pick up her phone. She punched in Deron’s number, but when she heard his voice her tongue clove to the roof of her mouth.

  Eventually, she was able to get out her name. Before he could ask her how the mission went she asked to speak with Kiki, Deron’s girlfriend. Where that came from, she had no idea. She’d met Kiki only twice. But Kiki was a woman and, instinctively, with an atavistic clannishness, Soraya knew it would be easier to confess to her than to Deron.

  When Kiki came on the line, Soraya asked if she could come to the little tea shop in Alexandria. When Kiki asked when, Soraya said, “Now. Please.”

  The first thing you have to do is stop blaming yourself,” Kiki said after Soraya had finished recounting in painful detail what had happened at the NSA safe house. “It’s your guilt that’s paralyzing you, and believe me you’re going to need every last brain cell if we’re going to get Tyrone out of that hole.”

  Soraya looked up from her pallid tea.

  Kiki smiled, nodding. In her dark red dress, her hair up in a swirl, hammered-gold earrings depending from her earlobes, she looked more regal, more exotic than ever. She towered over everyone in the tea shop by at least six inches.

  “I know I have to tell Deron,” Soraya said. “I just don’t know what his reaction is going to be.”

  “His reaction won’t be as bad as what you fear,” Kiki said. “And after all, Tyrone is a grown man. He knew the risks as well as anyone. It was his choice, Soraya. He could’ve said no.”

  Soraya shook her head. “That’s just it, I don’t think he could, at least not from the way he sees things.” She stirred her tea, more to forestall what she knew she had to say. Then she looked up, licked her lips. “See, Tyrone’s got a thing for me.”

  “Doesn’t he ever!”

  Soraya was taken aback. “You know?”

  “Everyone who knows him knows, honey. You just have to look at him when the two of you are together.”

  Soraya felt her cheeks flush. “I think he would’ve done anything I asked of him no matter how dangerous, even if he didn’t want to.”

  “But you know he wanted to.”

  It was true, Soraya thought. He’d been excited. Nervous, but definitely excited. She knew that ever since Deron had taken him under his wing he’d chafed at being cooped up in the hood. He was smarter than that, and Deron knew it. But he had neither the interest nor the aptitude for what Deron did. Then she came along. He’d told her he saw her as his ticket out of the ghetto.

  Yet she still had a knot in her chest, a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. She could not get out of her head the image of Tyrone on his knees, hooded, arms held behind him on the tabletop.

  “You just turned pale,” Kiki said. “Are you all right?”

  Soraya nodded. She wanted to tell Kiki what she had seen, but she couldn’t. She sensed that to talk about it would give it a reality so frightening, so powerful it would throw her back into panic.

  “Then we ought to go.”

  Soraya’s heart tripped over itself. “No time like the present,” she said.

  As they went out the door, she pulled out the pack of cigarettes and threw it in a nearby trash can. She didn’t need it anymore.

  As planned, Gala picked up Bourne in Yakov’s bombila and together they returned to Lorraine’s apartment. It was just past 10 AM; his meet with Maslov wasn’t until noon. He needed a shower, a shave, and some rest.

  Lorraine was kind enough to provide the necessities for all three. She gave Bourne a set of towels, a disposable razor, and said if he gave her his clothes she’d wash and dry them for him. In the bathroom Bourne stripped, then opened the door enough to hand the dirty clothes to Lorraine.

  “After I put these in the wash, Gala and I are going out to get food. Can we bring you anything?”

  Bourne thanked her. “Whatever you’re having will be fine.”

  He closed the door, crossed to the shower, turned it on full force. Opening the medicine cabinet, he took out rubbing alcohol, a gauze pad, surgical tape, and antibiotic cream. Then he went back to the toilet, put the seat cover down, and cleaned his abraded heel. It had taken a lot of abuse and was red and raw looking. Squeezing the cream onto the gauze, he placed it over the wound and taped it up.

  Then he took his cell phone off the edge of the sink where he’d placed it when undressing, and dialed the number Boris Karpov had given him.

  Would you mind going without me?” Gala said, as Lorraine reached into the hall closet for her fur coat. “All of a sudden I’m not feeling well.”

  Lorraine walked back to her. “What is it?”

  “I don’t know.” Gala sank onto the white leather sofa. “I’m kind of dizzy.”

  Lorraine took hold of the back of her head. “Bend over. Put your head between your knees.”

  Gala did as she was told. Lorraine crossed to the sideboard, took out a bottle of vodka, and poured some into a glass. “Here, take a drink. It’ll settle you.”

  Gala came up as gingerly as a drunk walks. She took the vodka, threw it down her throat so fast she almost choked. But then the fire hit her stomach and the warmth began to spread through her.

  “Okay?” Lorraine asked.

  “Better.”

  “All right. I’m going to buy you some hot borscht. You need to get some nourishment into you.” She drew on her coat. “Why don’t you lie down?”

  Once again Gala did as she was told, but after her friend left, she rose. She’d never found the sofa comfortable. Making sure of her balance, she went down the hall. She needed to crash on a proper bed.

  As she was passing the bathroom, she heard a sound like talking, but Bourne was in there by himself. Curious, she moved closer, then put her ear to the door. She could hear the rushing of the shower more clearly, but also Bourne’s voice. He must be on his cell phone.

  She heard him say “Medvedev did what?” He was talking politics to whoever was on the other end of the line. She was about to take her ear away from the door when she heard Bourne say, “It was bad luck with Tarkanian… No, no, I killed him… I had to, I had no other choice.”
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  Gala pulled away as if she’d touched her ear to a hot iron. For some time, she stood staring at the closed door, then she backed away. Bourne had killed Mischa! My God, she said to herself. How could he? And then, thinking of Arkadin, Mischa’s best friend, My God.

  Twenty-Six

  DIMITRI MASLOV had the eyes of a rattle-snake, the shoulders of a wrestler, and the hands of a bricklayer. He was, however, dressed like a banker when Bourne met him inside a warehouse that could have doubled as an aircraft hangar. He was wearing a chalk-striped three-piece Savile Row suit, an Egyptian cotton shirt, and a conservative tie. His powerful legs ended in curiously dainty feet, as if they’d been grafted on from another, far smaller body.

  “Don’t bother telling me your name,” he said as he accepted the ten thousand Swiss francs, “as I always assume they’re fake.”

  The warehouse was one among many in this soot-laden industrial area on the outskirts of Moscow, and therefore anonymous. Like its neighbors, it had a front area filled with boxes and crates on neat stacks of wooden pallets piled almost to the ceiling. Parked in one corner was a forklift. Next to it was a bulletin board on which had been tacked overlapping layers of flyers, notices, invoices, advertisements, and announcements. Bare lightbulbs at the ends of metal flex burned like miniature suns.

  After Bourne had been expertly patted down for weapons and wires, he’d been escorted through a door to a tiled bathroom that stank of urine and stale sweat. It contained a trough with water running sluggishly along its bottom and a line of stalls. He was taken to the last stall. Inside, instead of a toilet, was a door. His escort of two burly Russians took him through to what appeared to be a warren of offices, one of which was raised on a steel platform bolted onto the far wall. They climbed the staircase to the door, at which point his escort had left him, presumably to go stand guard.

  Maslov was seated behind an ornate desk. He was flanked on either side by two more men, interchangeable with the pair outside. In one corner sat a man with a scar beneath one eye, who would have been unprepossessing save for the flamboyant Hawaiian print shirt he wore. Bourne was aware of another presence behind him, his back against the open door.