"I guess several," she said. "My own company, for one. I told you they"ve become paranoid ever since we started to build the LNG station in Long Beach. NoHold Energy might be another. They"ve been waving a vice president"s job at me for six months. I could see them wanting to know more about me so they can sweeten their offer."
"Other than those two?"
"No."
He"d told her what he wanted her to do, and now in the Georgetown night she was doing it. They always had habits, these watchers in the shadows, little peculiarities built up from all the boring hours spent at their lonely jobs. This one liked to be on the inside of the sidewalk so he could duck quickly into a doorway if need be.
Once he had the shadow"s idiosyncracies down, it was time to take him out. But as Bourne worked his way through the crowds, moving closer to the shadow, he saw something else. The man wasn"t alone. A second tail had taken up a parallel position on the opposite side of the street, which made sense. If Moira decided to cross the street in this throng, the first shadow might run into some difficulty keeping her in sight. These people, whoever they were, were leaving little to chance.
Bourne melted back, matching his pace to that of the crowd"s. At the same time, he called Moira. She"d put in her Bluetooth earpiece so she could take his call without being conspicuous. Bourne gave her detailed instructions, then broke off following her shadows.
Moira, the back of her neck tingling as if she were in the crosshairs of an a.s.sa.s.sin"s rifle, crossed the street, walked over to M Street. The main thing for her to keep in mind, Jason said, was to move at a normal pace, neither fast nor slow. Jason had alarmed her with the news that she was being followed. She had merely maintained the illusion of being calm. There were many people from both present and past who might be following her-a number of whom she hadn"t mentioned when Jason had asked. Still, so close to the opening of the LNG terminal it was an ominous sign. She had desperately wanted to share with Jason the intel that had come to her today about the possibility of the terminal being a terrorist target, not in theory, but in reality. However, she couldn"t-not unless he was an employee of the company. She was bound by her ironclad contract not to tell anyone outside the firm any confidential information.
At 31st Street NW, she turned south, walking toward the Ca.n.a.l Towpath. A third of the way down the block, on her side, was a discreet plaque on which the word JEWEL JEWEL was etched. She opened the ruby-colored door, entered the high-priced new restaurant. This was the kind of place where dishes were accessorized with kaffir lime foam, freeze-dried ginger, and ruby grapefruit pearls. was etched. She opened the ruby-colored door, entered the high-priced new restaurant. This was the kind of place where dishes were accessorized with kaffir lime foam, freeze-dried ginger, and ruby grapefruit pearls.
Smiling sweetly at the manager, she told him that she was looking for a friend. Before he could check his reservation book, she said her friend was with a man whose name she didn"t know. She"d been here several times, once with Jason, so she knew the layout. At the rear of the second room was a short corridor. Against the right-hand wall were two unis.e.x bathrooms. If you kept on going, which she did, you came to the kitchen, all bright lights, stainless-steel pans, copper pots, huge stovetops raging at high heat. Young men and women moved around the room in what seemed to her like military precision-sous-chefs, line cooks, expediters, the pastry chef and her staff, all performing under the stern commands of the chef de cuisine.
They were all too concentrated on their respective tasks to give Moira much notice. By the time her figure did register she"d already disappeared out the rear door. In a back alley filled with Dumpsters, a White Top cab was waiting, its engine purring. She climbed in and the cab took off.
Arkadin drove through the hills of rural Nakhimovskiy district, lush even in winter. He pa.s.sed checkered farmland, bounded by low forested areas. The sky was lightening, the dark, rain-laden clouds already disappearing, replaced by high c.u.mulus that glowed like embers in the sunlight that broke through everywhere. A golden sheen covered the acres of vineyards as he approached the Sevastopol Winery. At this time of year there were no leaves or fruit, of course, but the twisted, stunted boles, like the trunks of elephants, bore a life of their own that gave the vineyard a certain mystery, a mythic aspect, as if these sleeping vines needed only the spell of a wizard to come awake.
A burly woman named Yetnikova introduced herself as Oleg Ivanovich Shumenko"s immediate supervisor-there was, apparently, no end to the tiers of supervisors in the winery. She had shoulders as wide as Arkadin"s, a red, round, vodka face with features as curiously small as those of a doll. She wore her hair tied up in a peasant babushka, but she was all bristling business.
When she demanded to know Arkadin"s business, he whipped out one of many false credentials he carried. This one identified him as a colonel in the SBU, the Security Service of Ukraine. Upon seeing the SBU card, Yetnikova wilted like an unwatered plant and showed him where to find Shumenko.
Arkadin, following her direction, went down corridor after corridor. He opened each door he came to, peering inside offices, utility closets, storerooms, and the like, apologizing to the occupants as he did so.
Shumenko was working in the fermentation room when Arkadin found him. He was a reed-thin man, much younger than Arkadin had imagined-no more than thirty or so. He had thick hair the color of goldenrod that stood up from his scalp like a series of c.o.c.ks...o...b... Music spilled out from a portable player-a British band, the Cure. Arkadin had heard the song many times in Moscow clubs, but it seemed startling here in the hind end of the Crimea.
Shumenko stood on a catwalk four yards in the air, bent over a stainless-steel apparatus as large as a blue whale. He seemed to be sniffing something, possibly the latest batch of champagne he was concocting. Rather than turn down the music, Shumenko gestured for Arkadin to join him.
Without hesitation Arkadin mounted the vertical ladder, climbed swiftly up to the catwalk. The yeasty, slightly sweet odors of fermentation tickled his nostrils, causing him to rub the end of his nose vigorously to stave off a sneezing fit. His practiced gaze swept the immediate vicinity taking in every last detail, no matter how minute.
"Oleg Ivanovich Shumenko?"
The reedy young man put aside a clipboard on which he was taking notes. "At your service." He wore a badly fitting suit. He placed the pen he had been using in his breast pocket, where it joined a line of others. "And you would be?"
"A friend of Pyotr Zilber"s."
"Never heard of him."
But his eyes had already betrayed him. Arkadin reached out, turned up the music. "He"s heard of you, Oleg Ivanovich. In fact, you"re quite important to him."
Shumenko plastered a simulated smile on his face. "I have no idea what you"re talking about."
"There was a grave mistake made. He needs the doc.u.ment back."
Shumenko, smiling still, jammed his hands in his pockets. "Once again, I must tell you-"
Arkadin made a grab for him, but Shumenko"s right hand reappeared, gripping a GSh-18 semi-automatic that was pointed at Arkadin"s heart.
"Hmm. The sights are acceptable at best," Arkadin said.
"Please don"t move. Whoever you are-and don"t bother to give me a name that in any case will be false-you"re no friend of Pyotr"s. He must be dead. Perhaps even by your hand."
"But the trigger pull is relatively heavy," Arkadin continued, as if he hadn"t been listening, "so that"ll give me an extra tenth of a second."
"A tenth of a second is nothing."
"It"s all I need."
Shumenko backed up, as Arkadin wanted him to, toward the curved side of a container to keep a safer distance. "Even while I mourn Pyotr"s death I will defend our network with my life."
He backed up farther as Arkadin took another step toward him.
"It"s a long fall from here so I suggest you turn around, climb back down the ladder, and disappear into whatever sewer you crawled out of."
As Shumenko retreated, his right foot skidded on a bit of yeast paste Arkadin had noted earlier. Shumenko"s right knee went out from under him, the hand holding the GSh-18 raised in an instinctive gesture to help keep him from falling.
In one long stride Arkadin was inside the perimeter of his defense. He made a grab for the gun, missed. His fist struck Shumenko on the right cheek, sending the reedy man lurching back into the side of the container in the s.p.a.ce between two protruding levers. Shumenko slashed his arm in a horizontal arc, the sight on the barrel of the GSh-18 raking across the bridge of Arkadin"s nose, drawing blood.
Arkadin made another lunge at the semi-automatic and, bent back against the curved sheet of stainless steel, the two men grappled. Shumenko was surprisingly strong for a thin man, and he was proficient in hand-to-hand combat. He had the proper counter for every attack Arkadin threw at him. They were very close now, not a hand"s span separating them. Their limbs worked quickly, hands, elbows, forearms, even shoulders used to produce pain or, in blocking, minimize it.
Gradually, Arkadin seemed to be getting the better of his adversary, but with a double feint Shumenko managed to get the b.u.t.t of the GSh-18 lodged against Arkadin"s throat. He pressed in, using leverage in an attempt to crush Arkadin"s windpipe. One of Arkadin"s hands was trapped between their bodies. With the other, he pounded Shumenko"s side, but he lacked Shumenko"s leverage, and his blows did no damage. When he tried for Shumenko"s kidney, the other man twisted his hips away, so his hand glanced off the hip bone.
Shumenko pressed his advantage, bending Arkadin over the railing, trying with the b.u.t.t of his gun and his upper body to shove Arkadin off the catwalk. Ribbons of darkness flowed across Arkadin"s vision, a sign that his brain was becoming oxygen-starved. He had underestimated Shumenko, and now he was about to pay the price.
He coughed, then gagged, trying to breathe. Then he moved his free hand up against the front of Shumenko"s jacket. It would seem to Shumenko-concentrating on killing the interloper-as if Arkadin was making one last futile attempt to free his trapped hand. He was taken completely off guard when Arkadin slipped a pen out of his breast pocket, stabbed it into his left eye.
Immediately Shumenko reared back. Arkadin caught the GSh-18 as it dropped from the stricken man"s nerveless hand. As Shumenko slid to the catwalk, Arkadin grabbed him by the shirtfront, knelt to be on the same level with him.
"The doc.u.ment," he said. And when Shumenko"s head began to loll, "Oleg Ivanovich, listen to me. Where is the doc.u.ment?"
The man"s good eye glistened, running with tears. His mouth worked. Arkadin shook him until he moaned with pain.
"Where?"
"Gone."
Arkadin had to bend his head to hear Shumenko"s whisper over the loud music. The Cure had been replaced by Siouxsie and the Banshees.
"What d"you mean gone?"
"Down the pipeline." Shumenko"s mouth curled in the semblance of a smile. "Not what you wanted to hear, "friend of Pyotr Zilber," is it?" He blinked tears out of his good eye. "Since this is the end of the line for you, bend closer and I"ll tell you a secret." He licked his lips as Arkadin complied, then lunged forward and bit into the lobe of Arkadin"s right ear.
Arkadin reacted without thinking. He jammed the muzzle of the GSh-18 into Shumenko"s mouth, pulled the trigger. Almost at the same instant, he realized his mistake, said "s.h.i.t!" in six different languages.
Four.
BOURNE, sunk deep into the shadows opposite the restaurant Jewel, saw the two men emerge. By the annoyed expressions on their faces he knew they"d lost Moira. He kept them in sight as they moved off together. One of them began to speak into a cell phone. He paused for a moment to ask his colleague a question, then returned to his conversation on the phone. By this time the two had reached M Street, NW. Finished with his call, the man put his cell phone away. They waited on the corner, watching the nubile young girls slipping by. They didn"t slouch, Bourne noted, but stood ramrod-straight, their hands in view, at their sides. It appeared that they were waiting to be picked up; a good call on a night like this when parking was at a premium and traffic on M Street, as thick as mola.s.ses.
Bourne, without a vehicle, looked around, saw a bicyclist coming up 31st Street, NW, from the towpath. He was cycling along the gutter to avoid the traffic. Bourne walked smartly toward him and stepped in front of him. The cyclist stopped short, uttering a sharp exclamation.
"I need your bike," Bourne said.
"Well, you b.l.o.o.d.y well can"t have it, mate," the cyclist said with a heavy British accent.
At the corner of 31st and M, a black GMC SUV was pulling into the curb in front of the two men.
Bourne pressed four hundred dollars into the cyclist"s hand. "Like I said, right now."
The young man stared down at the money for a moment. Then he swung off, said, "Be my guest."
As Bourne mounted up, he handed over his helmet. "You"ll be wanting this, mate."
The two men had already vanished into the GMC"s interior, the SUV was pulling out into the thick traffic flow. Bourne took off, leaving the cyclist to shrug behind him as he climbed onto the sidewalk.
Reaching the corner, Bourne turned right onto M Street. The GMC was three cars ahead of him. Bourne wove his way around the traffic, moving into position to keep up with the SUV. At 30th Street, NW, they all hit a red light. Bourne was forced to put one foot down, which was why he got a late start when the GMC jumped the light just before it turned green. The SUV roared ahead of the other vehicles, and Bourne launched himself forward. A white Toyota was coming from 30th into the intersection, heading right for him at a ninety-degree angle. Bourne put on a burst of speed, swerved up onto the corner sidewalk, backing a clutch of pedestrians into those behind them, to a round of curses. The Toyota, horn blaring angrily, just missed him as it jounced across M Street.
Bourne was able to make good headway, as the GMC had been slowed by the sludgy traffic up ahead, splitting off where M Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, intersected at 29th Street. Just as he neared the light he saw the GMC take off and knew he had been spotted. The problem with a bicycle, especially one that had caused a minor uproar lunging through a red light, was that the cyclist became conspicuous, exactly the opposite of what was intended.
Making the best of a worsening situation, Bourne threw caution to the wind, following the accelerating GMC into the fork as it took Pennsylvania Avenue. The good news was that the congestion prevented the GMC from keeping up speed. More good news: Another red light loomed. This time Bourne was ready for the GMC to plow right through. Swerving in and out between vehicles, he put on another burst of speed, running the red light with the big SUV. But just as he was coming abreast of the far crosswalk, a gaggle of drunk teenagers stumbled off the curb on their way across the avenue. They closed off the lane behind the GMC and were so raucous they either didn"t hear Bourne"s warning shout or didn"t care. He was forced to swerve sharply to the right. His front tire struck the curb, the bike lifted up. People scattered out of its way as it became, in effect, a missile. Bourne was able to keep it going after it landed, but there was simply nowhere for him to steer it without plowing into another group of kids. He applied the brakes without enough effect. Leaning to the right, he forced the bike down on its side, ripping his right trouser leg as it skidded along the cement.
"Are you all right?"
"What were you trying to do?"
"Didn"t you see the red light?"
"You could have killed yourself-or someone else!"
A welter of voices as pedestrians surrounded him, trying to help him out from under the bicycle. Bourne thanked them as he scrambled to his feet. He ran several hundred yards down the avenue, but as he feared the GMC was long gone.
Expelling a string of bawdily colorful curses, Arkadin rummaged through the pockets of Oleg Ivanovich Shumenko, who lay twitching in the bloodstained catwalk deep inside the Sevastopol Winery. As he did so, he wondered how he could have been such a fool. He"d done precisely what Shumenko had wanted him to do, which was to kill him. He"d rather have died than divulge the name of the next man in Pyotr Zilber"s network.
Still, there was a chance that something he had on his person would lead Arkadin farther along. Arkadin had already made a small pile of coins, bills, toothpicks, and the like. He unfolded each sc.r.a.p of paper he came across, but none of them contained either a name or an address, just lists of chemicals, presumably those the winery required for fermentation or the periodic cleaning of its vats.
Shumenko"s wallet was a sad affair-sliver-thin, containing a faded photo of an older couple smiling into the sun and the camera Arkadin took to be Shumenko"s parents, a condom in a worn foil pouch, a driver"s license, car registration, ID badge for a sailing club, an IOU chit for ten thousand hryvnia-just under two thousand American dollars-two receipts, one for a restaurant, the other for a nightclub, an old photo of a young girl smiling into the camera.
In pocketing the receipts, the only reasonable leads he"d found, he inadvertently flipped over the IOU. On the reverse was the name DEVRA DEVRA, written in a sharp, spiky feminine hand. Arkadin wanted to look for more, but he heard an electronic squawk, then the bawl of Yetnikova"s voice. He looked around, saw an old-fashioned walkie-talkie hanging by its strap from the railing. Stuffing the papers into his pocket, he hurried along the catwalk, slid down the ladder, made his way out of the champagne fermentation room.
Shumenko"s boss, Yetnikova, marched toward him down the labyrinthine corridors as if she were in the forefront of the Red Army entering Warsaw. Even at this distance, he could see the scowl on her face. Unlike his Russian credentials, his Ukrainian ones were paper-thin. They"d pa.s.s a cursory test, but after any kind of checking he"d be busted.
"I called the SBU office in Kiev. They did some digging on you, Colonel." Yetnikova"s voice had turned from servile to hostile. "Or whoever you are." She puffed herself up like a porcupine about to do battle. "They never heard of-"
She gave a little squeak as he jammed one hand over her mouth while he punched her hard in the solar plexus. She collapsed into his arms like a rag doll, and he dragged her along the corridor until he came to the utility closet. Opening the door, he shoved her in, went in after her.
Sprawled on the floor, Yetnikova slowly came to her senses. Immediately she began her bl.u.s.ter-cursing and promising dire consequences for the outrages perpetrated on her person. Arkadin didn"t hear her; he didn"t even see her. He attempted to block out the past, but as always the memories flattened him. They took possession of him, taking him out of himself, producing like a drug a dream-like state that over the years had become as familiar as a twin brother.
Kneeling over Yetnikova, he dodged her kicks, the snapping of her jaws. He withdrew a switchblade from a sheath strapped to the side of his right calf. When he snikk snikked open its long, thin blade, fear finally twisted Yetnikova"s face. Her eyes opened wide and she gasped, raising her hands instinctively.
"Why are you doing this?" she cried. "Why?"
"Because of what you"ve done."
"What? What did I do? I don"t even know you!"
"But I know you." Slapping her hands aside, Arkadin went to work on her.
When, moments later, he was done, his vision came back into focus. He took a long, shuddering breath as if shaking off the effects of an anesthetic. He stared down at the headless corpse. Then, remembering, he kicked the head into a corner filled with filthy rags. For a moment, it rocked like a ship on the ocean. The eyes seemed to him gray with age, but they were only filmed with dust, and the release he sought eluded him once again.
Who were they?" Moira asked.
"That"s the difficulty," Bourne told her. "I wasn"t able to find out. It would help if you could tell me why they"re following you."
Moira frowned. "I have to a.s.sume it has something to do with the security on the LNG terminal."
They were sitting side by side in Moira"s living room, a small, cozy s.p.a.ce in a Georgetown town house of red-brown brick on Cambridge Place, NW, near Dumbarton Oaks. A fire was crackling and licking in the brick hearth; espresso and brandy sat on the coffee table in front of them. The chenille-covered sofa was deep enough for Moira to curl up on. It had big roll arms and a neck-high back.
"One thing I can tell you," Bourne said, "these people are professionals."
"Makes sense," she said. "Any rival of my firm would hire the best people available. That doesn"t necessarily mean I"m in any danger."
Nevertheless, Bourne felt another sharp pang at the loss of Marie, then carefully, almost reverently, put the feeling aside.
"More espresso?" Moira asked.
"Please."
Bourne handed her his cup. As she bent forward, the light V-neck sweater revealed the tops of her firm b.r.e.a.s.t.s. At that moment, she raised her gaze to his. There was a mischievous glint in her eyes.
"What are you thinking about?"
"Probably the same thing you are." He rose, looked around for his coat. "I think I"d better go."
"Jason . . ."
He paused. Lamplight gave her face a golden glow. "Don"t," she said. "Stay. Please."
He shook his head. "You and I both know that"s not a good idea."
"Just for tonight. I don"t want to be alone, not after what you discovered." She gave a little shiver. "I was being brave before, but I"m not you. Being followed gives me the w.i.l.l.i.e.s."