“I’d rather tell him personally.”
“The man hates your guts, so you’re better off telling me first.”
She looked out at the river and the opposite bank for a moment, then turned back to him. “All right.” She took a deep breath. “My brother’s in trouble—serious trouble. I need to find some way—some permanent way—of extricating him.”
Was her brother some sort of criminal? “So the police won’t find out, I’m guessing.”
She laughed without any humor. “I wish I could go to the police with this. Unfortunately, I can’t.”
Arkadin hunched his shoulders. “What’s he gotten into?”
“He’s in over his head with a loan shark—he’s got a gambling problem. I gave him some money to help him out but he just blew through that and when he came up short yet again, he stole a piece of artwork I was delivering to one of my clients. I’ve mollified the client, thank God, but if it ever came out I’d be finished.”
“I imagine it gets worse from here.”
She nodded woefully. “He went to the wrong people to fence it, got a third of what he should have gotten, an amount that wasn’t nearly enough. Now, unless something drastic is done, the lender will have him killed.”
“This lender, he’s powerful enough to make that happen?”
“Oh, yes.”
“All the better.” Arkadin smiled. He thought helping her would be fun, but also, like a chess player, he could already see how he could bring her into checkmate. “I’ll take care of it.”
“All I want you to do,” she said, “is introduce me to Oserov.”
“I’ve just told you, you don’t need him. I’ll do this favor for you.”
No,” she said firmly. “I don’t want you involved.”
He spread his hands. “I already am involved.”
“I don’t want you involved any deeper than you are.” The low lamplight fell across her as if they were in an intimate scene in a play, as if she were about to say the things that would make the audience gasp after holding its collective breath. “And as for Oserov, unless I’ve mistaken him, he likes money more than he hates me.”
Arkadin laughed again, despite himself. He was going to tell her she was forbidden to talk with Oserov, but something in her eyes stopped him. He suspected that she would get up, walk away, and he’d never see her again. And he very much did not want that to happen, because this opportunity to hold something vital over her, to use her, would be lost.
The increased jouncing of the cigarette boat returned Arkadin’s attention to the present. He had crossed the wake of the schooner and was now bearing down across its port flank. He got on the two-way radio and spoke to the schooner’s captain, with whom he had made prior arrangements.
Five minutes later he was bobbing alongside the schooner, a rope ladder had been lowered, and Boris Karpov’s rather corpulent body was climbing down.
“A fine place for two Russians to meet, eh, Colonel?” he said with a grin and a wink.
“I admit I was looking forward to meeting you,” Karpov said, “under vastly different circumstances.”
“Me in manacles or dead in a pool of blood, I can only imagine.”
Karpov seemed to be having trouble breathing. “You’ve amassed quite the reputation for mayhem and murder.”
“It’s difficult for any one person to live up to those rumors.” Arkadin was amused to see that Karpov, rather green around the gills, seemed in no mood for banter. “Don’t worry, seasickness lasts only as long as we’re on the water.”
He chuckled as the ladder was hoisted up. He pulled away from the schooner, cutting a pale wake through the water. The bow lifted as the cigarette began to slice through the waves, and Karpov sat down with an audible thump, head between his legs.
“Stand up,” Arkadin suggested, “and keep your eye on a fixed spot on the horizon—that freighter, for instance. That’ll minimize the nausea.”
After a moment, Karpov did just that.
“Don’t forget to breathe.”
Arkadin steered them south by southeast and when he judged he’d put enough distance between the cigarette and the schooner, he cut the engines to just above an idle, turned, and regarded his passenger.
“One thing I have to say about our government,” he said, “it trains its employees to follow orders to the letter.” He made a little mock-bow. “Congratulations.”
“Fuck you,” Karpov said before he turned toward the water and vomited copiously over the side.
Arkadin dragged out the ice chest that El Heraldo had stocked, and drew out a bottle of chilled vodka. “We don’t stand on ceremony at sea. Here’s a little bit of home, it’ll help settle your stomach.” He handed the bottle to Karpov. “But do me a favor and rinse your mouth before you take a swig.”
Karpov scooped a handful of seawater into his mouth, swished it around, and spat it out. Then he unscrewed the cap and took a long swig. His eyes closed as he swallowed.
“That’s better.” He returned the bottle to Arkadin. “Now to business, the sooner I get back on dry land the better.” But before Arkadin could reply, he turned and vomited again, hanging over the side of the cigarette, sweaty and limp. He moaned. And then again when Arkadin patted him down, looking for a weapon or an electronic recording device.
Finding none, Arkadin stepped away and waited until Karpov had rinsed his mouth out again, then said, “It seems we’d better get you to land sooner rather than later.”
Returning the bottle to the ice chest, he offered a handful of cubes to the colonel, then got back to driving the boat. He headed due south now, following a line of white-and-gray pelicans, flying in perfect formation, low to the inky water, at length turning in at the estuary of Estero Morua where he moored in shallow water. By that time darkness had engulfed the eastern sky. In the west it looked like a banked fire, all smoldering embers, glimmering dimly in a vain attempt to keep back the fall of night.
They waded ashore with Arkadin carrying the ice chest on one brawny shoulder. The moment he hit the beach Karpov sat down in the sand, or perhaps collapsed might have been a better word for it. He appeared bedraggled and still slightly ill as he clumsily pulled off his sopping shoes and socks. Arkadin, who wore rubber sandals, had no such problem.
Arkadin went about gathering a pile of driftwood and setting it alight. He had finished one Dos Equis and had popped the cap on another when the colonel asked, rather weakly, for a bottle.
“Better to have a bite to eat first.”
Arkadin proffered a small wrapped parcel, but Karpov just shook his head.
“As you wish.” Arkadin stuck his nose into a burrito of carne asada wrapped in a freshly baked tortilla and inhaled deeply.
“Good God,” Karpov said, averting his face.
“Ah, Mexico!” Arkadin dug into the burrito with gusto. “Pity you didn’t listen to me when you raided Maslov’s warehouse,” he said between enormous chews.
“Don’t even start on that.” Karpov bit off his words as if each one were Arkadin’s head. “The most likely scenario was that you were setting a trap for me on Maslov’s orders. What did you expect me to do?”
Arkadin shrugged. “Still, opportunity wasted.”
“What did I just say?”
“What I mean is with a man like Maslov you’re not going to get more than two.”
“I know what the fuck you meant,” the colonel said hotly.
Arkadin took this with admirable equanimity. “Water under the bridge.” He popped the top on another Dos Equis and handed it over.
Karpov closed his eyes for a moment; it looked like he was mentally counting to ten. When he opened his eyes, he said in as even a tone of voice as he could muster, “I’ve come all this way to listen, so you’d damn well better have something of value to tell me.”
Having wolfed down his burrito, Arkadin brushed off his hands and took another beer to wash down the food. “You want the names of the moles—I don’t blame you, I’d wan
t them if I were in your shoes—and I’ll give them to you, but first I want some assurances.”
“Here it comes,” Karpov said wearily. He rolled the bottle across his sweating forehead. “All right, what’s the price?”
“Permanent immunity for me.”
“Done.”
“And I want Dimitri Maslov’s head on a platter.”
Karpov gave him a curious look. “What is it between the two of you?”
“I want an answer.”
“Done.”
“I need a guarantee,” Arkadin insisted. “Despite all your efforts, he’s still got a fucking platoon of people—from FSB apparatchiks to regional politicos to federal judges—in his pocket. I don’t want him squirming off the chopping block.”
“Well, that depends on the quality, detail, and amount of intel you provide me, doesn’t it?”
“Don’t worry about that, Colonel. Everything I have is rock-solid and as damaging to him as it gets.”
“Then, as I said, it’s done.” Karpov swigged down some beer. “Anything else?”
“Yes.”
Karpov, who had taken up one of his sea-soaked shoes, nodded sadly. “There always is, isn’t there?”
“I want Oserov to myself.”
Karpov frowned as he extracted a bit of seaweed from inside the ruined shoe. “Oserov is Maslov’s second in command, keeping him out of the bull’s-eye is going to be a bit tricky.”
“I could give a shit.”
“Please try to surprise me,” Karpov said drily. He considered a moment, then, making up his mind, nodded decisively. “All right, then.” He raised a finger. “But I need to warn you that when I make my move you’ll have twelve hours maximum to take care of him. After that, he’s mine along with the rest of them.”
Arkadin extended his hand and took Karpov’s, whose grip was strong and callused, a workingman’s grip. He liked that. A government employee he might be, but he was no drone: This was a man who would not fuck him, of that Arkadin was certain.
In that precise moment Karpov sprang at Arkadin, one hand around his neck, gripping his chin and lifting it while the other hand held a razor blade to his exposed throat.
“Inside your shoe.” Arkadin sat perfectly still. “Very low-tech, very good.”
“Listen, you fucking goon, I don’t take kindly to being fucked over—you set me up to fail at the warehouse. Now Maslov has been warned, he’s going to be on his guard, which is going to make bringing him down all the more difficult. You’ve done nothing but treat me with disrespect. You’re a fucking murderer, the lowest form of what passes for life in a whole stinking pile of shit. You intimidate people, torture them, torment them, then kill them as if human life has no meaning. I feel unclean just being near you, but I want Dimitri Maslov more than I want to kill you, so I’ll just have to live with the decision. Life is full of compromises and with each one your hands dip deeper into blood, I’ve come to terms with that. But if you and I are going to work together, you’re going to give me the respect I deserve or I swear on my father’s grave I’ll slit your throat right here, right now, turn my back and forget I ever met you.” He put his face next to Arkadin’s. “Are we clear, Leonid Danilovich?”
“You’re not going to be able to make a move against Maslov with the moles in place.” Arkadin was looking straight ahead, which meant up at the night sky, where stars glittered like faraway eyes, watching the foibles of humankind with contempt or at least indifference.
Karpov jerked his head. “Are we clear?”
“Crystal.” He relaxed somewhat as the colonel put away the blade. He had been correct about Karpov’s essential nature: This was no man to be bullied, not even by the fearsome Russian bureaucracy. Arkadin silently saluted him. “Your first problem is to poison the moles in the FSB-2’s kitchen.”
“You mean the baseboards.”
Arkadin shook his head. “If that were the case, my dear Colonel, your problems would all be simple ones. However, I do mean the kitchen, because Maslov owns one of the chefs.”
There was silence for a time, just the soft lapping of the water, the last of the gulls’ cries as they bedded down for the night. The moon emerged from behind a low bank of clouds, casting a bluish mantle over them even as it chipped away at the black sea, strewing pinpoints of light across its choppy surface.
“Which one?” Karpov said after a long time.
“I’m not sure you want to hear this.”
“I’m not sure, either, but what the fuck, it’s too late to stop now.”
“It is, isn’t it?” Arkadin took out a pack of Turkish cigarettes and offered one to the colonel.
“I’m trying to cut down on my bad habits.”
“A futile preoccupation.”
“Say that when you have high blood pressure.”
Arkadin lit up, put the pack away, and took a deep drag. As the smoke drifted out of his nostrils, he said, “Melor Bukin, your boss, reports to Maslov.”
Karpov’s eyes blazed. “You shit, are you fucking with me again?”
Without a word Arkadin dug out the plastic bag he’d stowed in the bottom of the ice chest, zipped it open, and handed over the contents. Then he added several pieces of driftwood to the fire, which was waning.
Karpov moved a bit nearer to the fire in order to have a better look. Arkadin had handed him one of those cheap cell phones bought in any convenience store, a burner, which meant its calls couldn’t be traced. He thumbed it on.
“Audio and video,” Arkadin said as he used a stick to better arrange the wood. Planning for this day or one like it, he had used this cell to clandestinely record certain meetings between Maslov and Bukin that he’d attended. He knew there would be no doubt in the colonel’s mind when he finished viewing the evidence.
At length, Karpov looked bleakly up from the tiny screen. “I’ll need to keep this.”
Arkadin waved a hand. “All part of the service.”
Somewhere far off, the drone of a small plane came to them, a sound no more significant than a mosquito’s whine.
“How many more?” Karpov asked.
“I know of two—their names are in the phone’s directory—but there may be more. I’m afraid you’re going to have to ask your boss.”
Karpov’s brow furrowed. “That won’t be easy.”
“Even with this evidence?”
Karpov sighed. “I’m going to have to take him by surprise, cut him off completely before he has a chance to contact anyone.”
“Chancy,” Arkadin said. “On the other hand, if you go to President Imov with the evidence he’ll be so outraged he’s sure to let you do whatever you want with Bukin.”
Karpov appeared to be considering this approach. Good. Arkadin smiled inwardly. Melor Bukin had risen up through the apparatchik ranks mainly because of the president, before he’d been chosen by Viktor Cherkesov, the head of FSB-2. Inside the Kremlin a war was being waged between Cherkesov and the FSB’s Nikolai Patrushev, a well-known disciple of Imov’s. Cherkesov had built a formidable power base without the president’s patronage. Arkadin had his own reason for wanting Bukin disgraced. When Karpov threw Bukin in prison, his mentor, Cherkesov, would not be far behind. Cherkesov was the one thorn in his side he hadn’t been able to extricate, but now Karpov would take care of that for him.
Yet he had no time to gloat. His restless mind had already turned to more personal matters. Namely, the various routes he might take to avenge himself on Karpov for holding a knife to his throat. His mind was already afire with visions of slitting the colonel’s throat with his own razor blade.
10
MOIRA AND JALAL Essai sat together in the temporary quarters of his DC hotel suite. Between them were Essai’s netbook and the netbook that Moira had bought the day before, one she knew was absolutely clean. She had already souped it up far beyond its original specs.
She was going to ask him how to get started, because she had to assume that all her systems had been compromised, but she
needn’t have bothered. As it turned out he had a lot of information about the laptop, all of which he shared with her. Latterly it had fallen into the hands of Gustavo Moreno, a Colombian drug lord living in the outskirts of Mexico City. Moreno had been killed some months ago when his compound had been raided by a party of officers disguised as Russian oilmen.
“The raiding party was headed by Colonel Boris Karpov,” Essai said.
Curious, Moira thought. But then she knew how small and insular this world was. She knew about the colonel from Bourne; they were friends, as much as two people like that could be friends.
“So Karpov has the laptop.”
“Unfortunately, no,” Essai said. “The laptop was taken from Moreno’s compound, by one of his own people, sometime before the raid.”
“One of his own people who was obviously working for who—a rival?”
“Possibly,” Essai said. “I don’t know.”
“What’s the thief’s name?”
“Name, photo, everything.” Essai turned the laptop’s screen toward her and brought up the image. “But it’s a dead end, literally. His body was found a week after the raid.”
“Where?” Moira said.
“Outside of Amatitán.” Essai pulled up Google Earth and punched in a set of coordinates. The globe of the planet revolved until the northwest coast of Mexico came into view. He pointed. Amatitán was in Jalisco, in the heart of tequila country. “Right here. As it happens on the estancia of Moreno’s sister, Berengária, although now that she’s married Narsico Skydel, the tequila magnate, she goes by the name of Barbara Skydel.”
“I seem to recall a memo at Black River about Narsico. He’s the cousin of Roberto Corellos, the jailed Colombian drug lord, isn’t that right?”
Essai nodded. “Narsico has been trying to distance himself from his infamous cousin for some time. He hasn’t been back in Colombia in ten years. Five years ago, apparently finding it too difficult to outrun his family’s reputation, he changed his name and bought into the largest tequila distillery in Mexico. Now he owns it outright and over the past two years has been expanding its reach.”