“The Shaykh, yes.” Khalid Murat shook his head. “Always the Shaykh.”
At that moment, the car phone rang. Khalid Murat glanced at his trusted companion and calmly clicked on the speakerphone. “Yes, Shaykh,” he said in a deferential tone of voice. “Hasan and I are both here. We await your instructions.”
High above the street where the convoy was idling, a figure crouched on a flat rooftop, elbows atop the low parapet. Lying along the parapet was a Finnish Sako TRG-41 bolt-action sniper rifle, one of many he had modified himself. Its aluminum and polyurethane stock made it as light as it was deadly accurate. He was dressed in the camouflage uniform of the Russian military, which did not look out of place with the Asian caste of his smooth features. Over the uniform, he wore a lightweight Kevlar harness from which hung a metal loop. In his right palm, he cradled a small matte-black box, no larger than the size of a pack of cigarettes. It was a wireless device in which were set two buttons. There was a stillness about him, a kind of aura that intimidated people. It was as if he understood silence, could gather it to him, manipulate it, unleash it as a weapon.
In his black eyes grew the world entire, and the street, the buildings upon which he now gazed were nothing more than a stage set. He counted the Chechen soldiers as they emerged from the guard vehicles. There were eighteen: the drivers still behind the wheels and in the center vehicle at least four guards as well as the principals.
As the rebels entered the main entrance of the hospital on their way to secure the site, he depressed the top button of the wireless remote and C4 charges went off, collapsing the hospital entrance. The percussion shook the street, set the heavy vehicles to rocking on their oversized shocks. The rebels caught directly in the blast were either blown to bits or crushed beneath the weight of falling rubble, but he knew that at least some of the rebels could have been far enough inside the hospital lobby to have survived, a possibility he had factored into his plan.
With the sound of the first explosion still ringing and the dust not yet settled, the figure looked down at the wireless device in his hand and depressed the lower button. The street in front and back of the convoy erupted in a deafening blast, collapsing the shell-pocked macadam.
Now, even as the men below struggled to come to grips with the carnage he had visited upon them, the assassin took up the Sako, moving with a methodical, unhurried precision. The rifle was loaded with special non-fragmentation bullets of the smallest caliber the rifle could accommodate. Through its IR-enabled scope, he saw three rebels who had managed to escape the blasts with only minor injuries. They were running toward the middle vehicle, screaming at the occupants to get out before it was destroyed by another blast. He watched as they yanked open the right-hand doors, allowed Hasan Arsenov and one guard to emerge. That left the driver and three remaining bodyguards inside the car with Khalid Murat. As Arsenov turned away, the figure sighted on his head. Through the scope, he noted the expression of command plastered on Arsenov’s face. Then he moved the barrel in a smooth, practiced motion, this time sighting on the Chechen’s thigh. The figure squeezed off a shot and Arsenov grabbed his left leg, shouting as he went down. One of the guards ran to Arsenov, dragged him to cover. The two remaining guards, swiftly determining where the shot had come from, ran across the street, entering the building on whose roof the figure crouched.
As three more rebels appeared, racing out a side entrance to the hospital, the assassin dropped the Sako. He watched now as the vehicle containing Khalid Murat slammed into reverse. Behind and below him, he could hear the rebels pounding up the stairs leading to his rooftop perch. Still unhurried, he fitted titanium and corundum spikes to his boots. Then he took up a composite crossbow and shot a line into a light pole just behind the middle vehicle, tying off the line to make sure it was taut. Shouting voices reached him. The rebels had gained the floor directly below him.
The front of the vehicle was now facing him as the driver tried to maneuver it around the huge chunks of concrete, granite and macadam that had erupted in the explosion. The assassin could see the soft glint of the two panes of glass that comprised the windshield. That was the one problem the Russians had yet to overcome: Bullet-proofing the glass made the panes so heavy it required two of them for the windshield. The personnel carrier’s one vulnerable spot was the strip of metal between the two panes.
He took the sturdy metal loop attached to his harness and snapped himself to the taut line. Behind him, he heard the rebels burst through the door, emerging onto the roof a hundred feet away. Spotting the assassin, they swung around to fire on him as they ran toward him, setting off an unnoticed trip wire. Immediately, they were engulfed in a fiery detonation from the last remaining packet of C4 the assassin had planted the night before.
Never turning around to acknowledge the carnage behind him, the assassin tested the line and then launched himself from the rooftop. He slid down the line, lifting his legs so that the spikes were aimed at the windshield divider. Everything now depended on the speed and the angle with which he would strike the divider between the bullet-proof panes of the windshield. If he was off by just a fraction, the divider would hold and he had a good chance of breaking his leg.
The force of the impact ran up his legs, jolting his spine as the titanium and corundum spikes on his boots crumpled the divider like a tin can, the panes of glass caving in without its support. He crashed through the windshield and into the interior of the vehicle, carrying with him much of the windshield. A chunk of it struck the driver in the neck, half-severing his head. The assassin twisted to his left. The bodyguard in the front seat was covered in the driver’s blood. He was reaching for his gun when the assassin took his head between his powerful hands and broke his neck before he had a chance to squeeze off a round.
The other two bodyguards in the jumpseat just behind the driver fired wildly at the assassin, who pushed the bodyguard with the broken neck so that his body absorbed the bullets. From behind this makeshift protection, he used the bodyguard’s gun, fired precisely, one shot through the forehead of each man.
That left only Khalid Murat. The Chechen leader, his face a mask of hatred, had kicked open the door and was shouting for his men. The assassin lunged at Murat, shaking the huge man as if he were a water rat; Murat’s jaws snapped at him, almost taking off an ear. Calmly, methodically, almost joyously he seized Murat around the throat and, staring into his eyes, jabbed his thumb into the cricoid cartilage of the Chechen leader’s lower larynx. Blood immediately filled Murat’s throat, choking him, draining him of strength. His arms flailed, his hands beating against the assassin’s face and head. To no avail. Murat was drowning in his own blood. His lungs filled and his breathing became ragged, thick. He vomited blood and his eyes rolled up in their sockets.
Dropping the now-limp body, the assassin climbed back into the front seat, hurling the driver’s corpse out of the door. He slammed the vehicle into gear and stepped on the gas before what remained of the rebels could react. The vehicle leaped forward like a racehorse from the gate, hurtled over rubble and tarmac, then vanished into thin air as it plummeted into the hole the explosives had made in the street.
Underground, the assassin upshifted, racing through the tight space of a storm drain that had been widened by the Russians, who had intended to use them for clandestine assaults on rebel strongholds. Sparks flew as the metal fenders now and again scraped against the curving concrete walls. But for all that, he was safe. His plan had concluded as it had begun: with perfect clockwork precision.
After midnight the noxious clouds rolled away, at last revealing the moon. The detritus-laden atmosphere gave it a reddish glow, its lambent light intermittently disturbed by the still burning fires.
Two men stood in the center of a steel bridge. Below them, the charred remains of an unending war were reflected in the surface of the sluggish water.
“It’s done,” the first one said. “Khalid Murat has been killed in a manner that will cause maximum impact.”
“I would expect nothing less, Khan,” the second man said. “You owe your impeccable reputation in no small part to the commissions I’ve given you.” He was taller than the assassin by a good four inches, square-shouldered, long-legged. The only thing that marred his appearance was the strange glassy utterly hairless skin on the left side of his face and neck. He possessed the charisma of a born leader, a man not to be trifled with. Clearly, he was at home in the great halls of power, in public forums or in thuggish back alleys.
Khan was still basking in the look in Murat’s eyes as he died. The look was different in every man. Khan had learned there was no common thread, for each man’s life was unique, and though all sinned, the corrosion those sins caused differed from one to the next, like the structure of a snowflake, never to be repeated. In Murat, what had it been? Not fear. Astonishment, yes, rage, surely, but something more, deeper—sorrow at leaving a life’s work undone. The dissection of the last look was always incomplete, Khan thought. He longed to know whether there was betrayal there, as well. Had Murat known who had ordered his assassination?
He looked at Stepan Spalko, who was holding out an envelope, heavy with money.
“Your fee,” Spalko said. “Plus a bonus.”
“Bonus?” The topic of money refocused Khan’s attention fully on the immediate. “There was no mention of a bonus.”
Spalko shrugged. The ruddy moonlight made his cheek and neck shine like a bloody mass. “Khalid Murat was your twenty-fifth commission with me. Call it an anniversary present, if you wish.”
“You’re most generous, Mr. Spalko.” Khan stowed the envelope away without looking inside. To have done otherwise would have been very bad manners.
“I’ve asked you to call me Stepan. I refer to you as Khan.”
“That’s different.”
“How so?”
Khan stood very still, and the silence flowed toward him. It gathered in him, making him seem taller, broader.
“I’m not required to explain myself to you, Mr. Spalko.”
“Come, come,” Spalko said with a conciliatory gesture. “We’re far from strangers. We share secrets of the most intimate nature.”
The silence built. Somewhere on the outskirts of Grozny an explosion lit up the night, and the sound of small-arms fire came to them like strings of children’s firecrackers.
At length, Khan spoke. “In the jungle I learned two mortal lessons. The first was to trust absolutely only myself. The second was to observe the most minute proprietaries of civilization, because knowing your place in the world is the only thing standing between you and the anarchy of the jungle.”
Spalko regarded him for a long time. The fitful glow from the firefight was in Khan’s eyes, lending him a savage aspect. Spalko imagined him alone in the jungle, prey to privations, the quarry of greed and wanton bloodlust. The jungle of Southeast Asia was a world unto itself. A barbarous, pestilential area with its own peculiar laws. That Khan had not only survived there, but flourished, was, in Spalko’s mind at least, the essential mystery surrounding him.
“I’d like to think we’re more than businessman and client.”
Khan shook his head. “Death has a particular odor. I smell it on you.”
“And I on you.” A slow smile crept across Spalko’s face. “So you agree, there is something special between us.”
“We’re men of secrets,” Khan said, “aren’t we?”
“A worship of death; a shared understanding of its power.” Spalko nodded his assent. “I have what you requested.” He held out a black file folder.
Khan looked into Spalko’s eyes for a moment. His discerning nature had caught a certain air of condescension that he found inexcusable. As he had long ago learned to do, he smiled at the offense, hiding his outrage behind the impenetrable mask of his face. Another lesson he had learned in the jungle: Acting in the moment, in hot blood, often led to an irreversible mistake; waiting in patience for the hot blood to cool was where all successful vengeance was bred. Taking the folder, he busied himself with opening the dossier. Inside, he found a single sheet of onionskin with three brief close-typed paragraphs and a photo of a handsome male face. Beneath the picture was a name: David Webb. “This is all of it?”
“Culled from many sources. All the information on him anyone has.” Spalko spoke so smoothly Khan was certain he had rehearsed the reply.
“But this is the man.”
Spalko nodded.
“There can be no doubt.”
“None whatsoever.”
Judging by the widening glow, the firefight had intensified. Mortars could be heard, bringing their rain of fire. Overhead, the moon seemed to glow a deeper red.
Khan’s eyes narrowed and his right hand curled slowly into a tight fist of hate. “I could never find a trace of him. I’d suspected he was dead.”
“In a way,” Spalko said, “he is.”
He watched Khan walk across the bridge. He took out a cigarette and lit up, drawing the smoke into his lungs, letting it go reluctantly. When Khan had disappeared into the shadows, Spalko pulled out a cell phone, dialed an overseas number. A voice answered, and Spalko said, “He has the dossier. Is everything in place?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. At midnight your local time you’ll begin the operation.”
Part One
Chapter One
David Webb, professor of linguistics at Georgetown University, was buried beneath a stack of ungraded term papers. He was striding down the musty back corridors of gargantuan Healy Hall, heading for the office of Theodore Barton, his department head, and he was late, hence this shortcut he had long ago discovered using narrow, ill-lighted passageways few students knew about or cared to use.
There was a benign ebb and flow to his life bound by the strictures of the university. His year was defined by the terms of the Georgetown semesters. The deep winter that began them gave grudging way to a tentative spring and ended in the heat and humidity of the second semester’s finals week. There was a part of him that fought against serenity, the part that thought of his former life in the clandestine service of the U.S. government, the part that kept him friends with his former handler, Alexander Conklin.
He was about to round a corner when he heard harsh voices raised and mocking laughter and saw ominous-seeming shadows playing along the wall.
“Muthfucka, we gonna make your gook tongue come out the back of your head!”
Webb dropped the stack of papers he had been carrying and sprinted around the corner. As he did so, he saw three young black men in coats down to their ankles arrayed in a menacing semicircle around an Asian, trapping him against a corridor wall. They had a way of standing, their knees slightly bent, their upper limbs loose and swinging slightly that made their entire bodies seem like blunt and ugly aspects of weapons, cocked and ready. With a start, he recognized their prey was Rongsey Siv, a favorite student of his.
“Muthafucka,” snarled one, wiry, with a strung-out, reckless look on his defiant face, “we come in here, gather up the goods to trade for the bling-bling.”
“Can’t ever have enough bling-bling,” said another with an eagle tattoo on his cheek. He rolled a huge gold square-cut ring, one of many on the fingers of his right hand, back and forth. “Or don’t you know the bling-bling, gook?”
“Yah, gook,” the strung-out one said, goggle-eyed. “You don’t look like you know shit.”
“He wants to stop us,” the one with the tattooed cheek said, leaning in toward Rongsey. “Yah, gook, whatcha gonna do, kung-fuckin-fu us to death?”
They laughed raucously, making stylized kicking gestures toward Rongsey, who shrank back even farther against the wall as they closed in.
The third black man, thick-muscled, heavyset, drew a baseball bat from underneath the voluminous folds of his long coat. “That right. Put your hands up, gook. We gonna break your knuckles good.” He slapped the bat against his cupped palm. “You want it all at once or one at a time?”
br /> “Yo,” the strung-out one cried, “he don’t get to choose.” He pulled out his own baseball bat and advanced menacingly on Rongsey.
As the strung-out kid brandished his bat, Webb came at them. So silent was his approach, so intent were they on the damage they were about to inflict that they did not become aware of him until he was upon them.
He grabbed the strung-out kid’s bat in his left hand as it was coming down toward Rongsey’s head. Tattoo-cheek, on Webb’s right, cursed mightily, swung his balled fist, knuckles bristling with sharp-edged rings, aiming for Webb’s ribs.
In that instant, from the veiled and shadowed place inside Webb’s head, the Bourne persona took firm control. Webb deflected the blow from tattoo-cheek with his biceps, stepped forward and slammed his elbow into tattoo-cheek’s sternum. He went down, clawing at his chest.
The third thug, bigger than the other two, cursed and, dropping his bat, pulled a switchblade. He lunged at Webb, who stepped into the attack, delivering a short, sharp blow to the inside of the assailant’s wrist. The switchblade fell to the corridor floor, skittering away. Webb hooked his left foot behind the other’s ankle and lifted up. The big thug fell on his back, turned over and scrambled away.
Bourne yanked the baseball bat out of the strung-out thug’s grip. “Muthafuckin’ Five-O,” the thug muttered. His pupils were dilated, unfocused by the effects of whatever drugs he’d taken. He pulled a gun—a cheap Saturday-night special—and aimed it at Webb.
With deadly accuracy, Webb flung the bat, striking the strung-out thug between the eyes. He staggered back, crying out, and his gun went flying.
Alerted by the noise of the struggle, a pair of campus security guards appeared, rounding the corner at a run. They brushed past Webb, pounding after the thugs, who fled without a backward glance, the two helping the strung-out one. They burst through the rear door to the building, out into the bright sunshine of the afternoon, with the guards hot on their heels.