The Bourne Dominion (35 page)

“So whoever was tapping in got scared and sent the extraction team.”

“Well, they tried to kill me first.” Peter described the explosion in the garage. “The extraction team was there as a backup.”

“Which speaks both of meticulous planning and an organization with influence and deep pockets.” Deron rubbed his jaw. “I would say you’ve got big problems, except for the fact that Ty tells me you’re director of Treadstone. You’ve got plenty of firepower yourself.”

“Sadly, no,” Peter said. “Soraya and I are still getting Treadstone back on its feet. Most of our current personnel are overseas. Our domestic infrastructure is still hollowed out.”

Deron sat back, forearms on his knees. Losing his English accent, he said, “Damn, homey, you done washed up at da right place.”

B
ourne took the Vespa around a corner, speeding after the gunman. He could see him up ahead on the white Vespa, weaving in and out of traffic as he followed the road along the waterfront, heading south. It was difficult to make up ground, but slowly, by running the bike full-out, Bourne was gaining. The gunman had not looked behind him; he didn’t know that someone was on his tail.

He went through a light as it was turning red. Bourne, hunched over the handlebars, judged the vectors of the cross-traffic and, with a twist to the left, then the right, shot through the intersection.

Down the block the gunman had pulled over to the curb behind a black van. He popped open the rear doors and, with the help of the van’s driver, hoisted the Vespa into the interior. Then he slammed the doors, and both men climbed into the front. Bourne was still going full-out, and as the van pulled out into the flow of traffic he was no more than two car lengths behind.

The van soon turned off the sea road, heading into Cadiz itself. It followed a tortuous path down the city’s narrow, crooked streets. At length, the van pulled over and stopped along a street of warehouses. The driver got out and unlocked a door that rolled up electronically, then returned to the van. Bourne ditched the Vespa and sprinted as the van drove through into the interior. The door rattled down and Bourne dived through with just enough room to spare.

He lay on a bare concrete floor that stank of creosote and motor oil. The only illumination came from the van’s headlights. Doors slammed as the two men jumped down onto the concrete. They didn’t bother to unload the Vespa. Bourne rose to one knee, hiding behind an enormous metal barrel. The gunman must have gone to a switch box, because a
moment later light flooded the interior from a pair of overheads, capped with green shades. There seemed to be nothing in the warehouse except more of the barrels and two stacks of wooden crates. The driver switched off the headlights, then the two men crossed to the crates.

“Is she dead?” the driver said in Moscow-accented Russian.

“I don’t know, everything happened too fast.” The gunman laid his pistol down on top of one of the crates.

“It is unfortunate that you didn’t stick to the plan,” the driver said with a tone of lamentation only Russians could exhibit.

“She came outside,” the gunman protested. “The temptation was too great. Hit her and run. You would have done the same.”

The driver shrugged. “I’m just happy I’m not in your shoes.”

“Fuck you,” the gunman said. “You’re the other half of this team. If I missed her it’s going to fall on both our shoulders.”

“If our superior finds out,” the driver said, “our shoulders won’t be supporting anything worth talking about.”

The gunman picked up his weapon and reloaded it. “So?”

“So we find out if she’s dead.” The driver squared on his companion. “And if not, we rectify your error together.”

The two men stepped behind the stack and opened a narrow door. Before he went through into what Bourne surmised might be the office, the gunman extinguished the lights. Bourne crept to the van, carefully opened the driver’s door, and rummaged around until he found a flashlight. In the rear, he went through a box of tools and picked out a crowbar. Then he stepped to the stack and squatted down so that the crates were between him and the rear door. Switching on the flashlight, he played the beam over the crates. The wood was an odd greenish color, smooth and virtually seamless. The beam slid across the surface, and he felt his heart rate accelerate. The crates were marked with their origin, Don Fernando’s oil company in Colombia.

B
oris felt his blood run cold. “Cherkesov came
here
to meet with Ivan?” He shook his head. “This I cannot believe.”

The heavyset man signaled to one of the men along the wall, who stepped forward. Boris tensed as the acolyte reached into his robes, but all he brought out was a set of grainy black-and-white photos, which he held out to Boris.

“Go on, take a look,” the heavyset man said. “Because of the lighting, you’ll be able to tell that they were not doctored in any way.”

Boris took the photos and stared down at them, his mind working a mile a minute. There were Cherkesov and Ivan speaking together. A bit of the Mosque’s interior could be seen behind them. He took note of the date the camera had printed in the lower left-hand corner of the photos.

He looked at the heavyset man kneeling on the prayer rug. He hadn’t budged since Boris had been shown into the room. “What were they talking about?”

A smile formed on the lips of the heavyset man. “I know who you are, General Karpov.”

Boris stood very still, his gaze not on the kneeling man, but on his acolytes. They seemed to have as little interest in him as they had before. “Then you are one up on me.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I don’t know who you are.”

The smile broadened. “Ah, curiosity! But it is far better for you that you don’t know.” He unlaced his fingers. “We must concentrate on the matter at hand: Cherkesov and Volkin.” He locked his red lips. “I am, shall we say, acutely aware that FSB-2, of which you are now the head, and SVR are locked in a deadly power struggle.”

Boris waited out the silence. He was getting to know this nameless man, his predilection for dramatic pauses and declarations, the way he meted out information in precise bits and pieces.

“But that power struggle,” the man continued, “is far more complicated than you know. There are powers lining up on either side that far surpass those of FSB-2 and SVR.”

“I assume you’re referring to Severus Domna.”

The heavyset man raised his eyebrows. “Among others.”

Boris’s heart skipped a beat. “There are others?”

“There are always others, General.” He gestured with a hand. “Excuse my poor manners. Come. Sit.”

Boris stepped onto the prayer rug, careful to sit in the same position as his host, though it pained his hips and flexor muscles.

“You asked me what Cherkesov and your friend Volkin were talking about,” the heavyset man said. “It was the Domna.”

“Do you know that Cherkesov left FSB-2 to join the Domna?”

“I heard as much,” the heavyset man acknowledged.

Boris didn’t believe him. He sensed his host was withholding information. “Cherkesov has ambitions that, for the moment at least, outstrip his power.”

“You think he had a plan in mind when he allowed himself to be lured away from FSB-2.”

“Yes,” Boris said.

“Do you know what it is?”

“It’s possible one of us does.”

The heavyset man’s belly began to tremble, and Boris realized that he was laughing silently.

“Yes, General Karpov, that is quite possible.” Boris’s host considered for a moment. “Tell me, have you ever been to Damascus?”

“Once or twice, yes,” Boris said, alert that the conversation had suddenly veered in a new direction.

“How did you find it?”

“The Paris of the Middle East?”

“Ha! Yes, I suppose it once was.”

“Damascus has beautiful bones,” Boris said.

The heavyset man considered this for a moment. “Yes, Damascus possesses great beauty, but it is also a place of great danger.”

“How is that?”

“Damascus is what Cherkesov was sent here to discuss with your friend Volkin.”

“Cherkesov is no longer welcome in Russia,” Boris said, “but Ivan?”

“Your friend Volkin has a number of, shall we say, business interests in Damascus.”

Boris was surprised; Ivan had let it be known that, apart from consulting, he was retired. “What kind of business interests?”

“Nothing that would keep him in good standing with the
grupperovka
bosses with whom he has done business for decades.”

“I don’t understand.” The moment the words were out of his mouth, Boris knew that he had made a fatal error. A key aspect of his host’s face changed radically; all its intimacy and friendliness disappeared like a puff of smoke.

“That is a pity,” the heavyset man said. “I was hoping that you could shed some light on why Damascus has become the focus of both Volkin and Cherkesov.” He snapped his fingers and the two men on either side produced Taurus PT145 Millenniums, small pistols with a big .45 punch.

Boris jumped up, but two more men, armed with Belgian FN P90 small-profile submachine guns, appeared in the doorway.

Behind them came Zachek with a death’s-head grin. “I’m afraid, General Karpov,” Zachek said, “that your usefulness is at an end.”

B
ourne had just inserted the crowbar into the gap between the top and side of one of the crates when the rear door opened. He snapped off the flashlight an instant before the two Russians emerged. Before one of them could reach for the light switch, he tossed the flashlight across the warehouse. When it struck the floor, the Russians started, reached for their weapons, and ran toward the sound.

He was closer to the gunman, the driver having taken the lead. Swinging the crowbar, he slammed the end into the gunman’s hand, and his pistol dropped to the floor. The gunman howled, the driver pulled up short and turned on his heel just as Bourne flung the crowbar. It hit the driver square in the face, knocking him backward so hard his head slammed into the concrete, cracking his skull, killing him instantly.

The gunman, his fractured right hand hanging at his side, pulled out
a stun baton with his left hand. It was a sixteen-incher that could deliver a nasty three-hundred-thousand-volt kick. The gunman swung it back and forth, keeping Bourne at bay while he advanced on him, pushing him back along the side of the van. His plan seemed to be to get Bourne into a corner where he would have no room to maneuver away from the baton. One touch of it and Bourne knew he would be writhing helplessly on the floor.

He retreated along the length of the van. The gunman had his eye on where he wanted Bourne to end up, so he was a beat slow in reacting as Bourne swung open one of the van’s rear doors, using it as a shield between him and the baton while he scrabbled in the toolbox.

The gunman was swinging around the end of the door when Bourne uncapped the aerosol can of enamel paint and sprayed it into the gunman’s eyes. The gunman reared back, hands to his face, gasping, and Bourne slammed the bottom of the can against the fractured bones. The gunman groaned, the pain bringing him to his knees. Bourne took the baton from him, but the gunman lunged forward, wrapping his arms around Bourne’s legs in an attempt to bring him down. His mouth opened to sink his teeth into Bourne’s thigh when Bourne connected with the side of his head. All the breath seemed to go out of him and he lay on his back, the fingers of his good hand trying to dig the paint out of his eyes.

Bourne grabbed his hand and pulled it away. “Who do you work for?”

“Go fuck your mother,” the man said in his guttural tone.

Bourne dialed down the charge on the baton and gave the gunman a shot in the side. His body arched up, the heels of his shoes drumming against the concrete.

“Who do you work for?”

Silence. Bourne raised the charge slightly and applied it again.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” The gunman coughed heavily and began to choke. His mouth was full of blood; in his frenzy he had bitten his tongue almost clear through.

“I won’t ask you again.”

“You won’t have to.”

The gunman’s jaws ground together and, a moment later, his chest convulsed. A bluish foam mingled with the blood in his mouth, bubbling over to coat his lips. Leaning over, Bourne tried to pry open the jaws, but it was too late. A distinct odor of bitter almonds wafted up to him and he reared back. The gunman had bitten open a cyanide capsule.

P
ARIS AT NIGHT
was not such a bad place for a single woman to be. She sat in a café, drinking bad coffee and thinking about taking up smoking. Soraya was surrounded by young bohemians, with which Paris was always teeming, no matter the era. The thing about Paris’s inhabitants she loved so much was that they were constantly reimagining themselves. While the city itself—its grand boulevards, its martial lines of horse chestnuts, its magnificent parks, its beautiful fountains around which were arrayed timeless cafés where one could sit for hours and watch the world go by—remained constant, its young people were busy remaking themselves.

The water of the Canal St. Martin was as black and shiny as vinyl. She was surrounded by lovers, bicyclists, laughing college kids, tattooed writers, and sloe-eyed poets, scowling into the night as they scribbled their random thoughts.

Each café was a nexus of its neighborhood, and though each had its own patrons, there was always room for the occasional guest. Waiters, long-haired and slim-hipped, came and went, dispensing plates of
steak-frites
and carafes of pastis. It wasn’t only French she heard spoken at the
adjacent tables, but German and English as well. The endless existential arguments remained the staple of the city’s café society.

Her head hurt so much that she rested it in her hands. Her eyes closed, but this only caused her to become dizzy. She opened her eyes with a start and a muttered curse. She had to keep herself awake until the danger from a concussion had passed. Flagging down a passing waiter, she ordered a double espresso, gulped it down while the waiter was still standing beside her, then asked for another. When this came, she dissolved three teaspoonfuls of sugar in it and sipped slowly. The dual jolts of caffeine and sugar elbowed away the exhaustion. For the moment, the pain in her head eased and her thoughts became clearer.