It took her ten minutes to wash her face, rinse out her mouth, and recover sufficiently to be seen, but by that time her headache had bloomed into a violent pounding. She was so pale, the saleswoman offered to call a doctor. Soraya declined politely, but asked where she might purchase makeup.
Out on the street, the sunlight hurt her eyes and increased the pain in her head. Half an hour later, after she’d spent nearly three hundred euros, having designer makeup professionally applied, she looked more or less normal. Then, wearing a pair of outsize sunglasses she had selected at the shop, she strode down the street, entered the Élysée Bank branch a block from the Seine, and tapped into the Treadstone account.
She had a bank officer call her a taxi, asking for a late-model Mercedes. While she waited, she called her destination and, in her best, clipped Parisian French, made an appointment with the vice president under the name of Mademoiselle Gobelins. When the Mercedes arrived, she gave the driver the address of her destination.
Ignoring the intermittent pounding in her head, she pushed through the glass doors of the bank building at the stroke of eleven thirty. A receptionist’s podium rose imposingly in the center of the space, flanked on either side by large potted traveler’s palms. Directly behind the podium were the glass doors to the bank. She stood in front of them for a moment, feeling lost, ill, and slightly fearful, but then a feeling of elation gripped her, as if she had reached the end of her investigation. With an effort, she put aside the grief and despair of last night and drew on her anger to help her concentrate on her mission.
Inside, the bank was an open space with long pedestals for people to write on. To the right, a line of teller cages stretched away, to the left a gated wooden half wall led to a row of cubicles inside which bank officers dutifully listened to customer requests or brought their paperwork up to date. At the rear of the room was a high wood-paneled wall in the center of which were a series of digital clocks showing the time in Paris, New York, London, and Moscow. On either side were staircases leading up to the second-floor offices where the highest-ranking bank officers worked. That was where Soraya needed to go.
She gave her name to the information officer, who immediately picked up a phone and called upstairs. Moments later a guard came and accompanied her across the room. She was buzzed in through a gate, and the guard brought her to the center of the rear wall. At the touch of a button, a panel slid open and Soraya stepped into a sumptuously appointed elevator. The guard accompanied her up to the second floor, directing her to the right, down a softly lit corridor. Soraya could hear the discreet tap-tap-tap of fingernails on computer keyboards as she passed open doorways to right and left.
Her appointment was with M. Sigismond, a tall man, slim but powerful looking, with light brown hair, parted on one side, who sprang around his desk to greet her. Extending his hand, he said, “So very nice to make your acquaintance, Mademoiselle Gobelins.” His French contained a slight Germanic starchiness. Holding her hand by the tips of her fingers, he kissed the back, then indicated a plush sofa on her right. “Please have a seat.”
When he had settled himself beside her, he said, “I understand that you would like to make the Nymphenburg Landesbank of Munich your financial institution of choice.”
“That’s right,” Soraya said. She thought M. Sigismond’s brown eyes were the product of colored contacts. “Now that I’ve come into my inheritance, your Wealth Management Division has been recommended to me as being the best in Western Europe.”
M. Sigismond’s smile could not have been warmer. “My dear, it is gratifying, is it not, to know that all one’s hard work has had its desired result.”
“It certainly is.”
“And your complete wish is?”
“To open an account. I have a sizable sum to deposit with more to come. And I will require investment assistance.”
“But of course. Splendid!” M. Sigismond slapped his hands decisively on his thighs. “Now, before we proceed further, I would like to introduce you to the gentleman behind the grand success of our Wealth Management.” He rose and opened a door in the wall that Soraya had not previously noticed. In strode a man of distinctly Middle Eastern descent. He was dark in every way imaginable, and almost magnetically handsome.
“Ah, Mademoiselle Gobelins, what a pleasure to meet you,” he said, gliding toward her. “My name is Benjamin El-Arian.”
Bourne stopped them as they were nearing Don Fernando’s house.
“What is it?” Don Fernando said.
“I don’t know.” Bourne moved them into the clattering shadows of the palms on the sea side of the road. “Something’s wrong. Stay here.”
“I don’t think so.” Don Fernando raised the Colt Python. “Don’t worry, I won’t slow you down.”
Bourne knew there was no point in arguing. Together the two men moved from shadow to shadow until they were opposite the street where the house sat. They stayed there, still and silent, until Bourne caught a shadow darting across one of the lighted windows. It was too large to be Kaja. He pointed, and Don Fernando nodded. He had seen the shadow and understood its implications.
Bourne turned to the older man. “I’m going in through the bedroom window Etana used, but I need a diversion.”
“Leave that to me,” Don Fernando said.
“Give me three minutes to get into place,” Bourne said before he set off across the almost deserted road.
He moved silently from shadow to shadow, approaching the house via an indirect route. Ahead of him, between the street and the stand of palms through which he had chased Etana, was a patch of open ground lit up by streetlights. Moving around to the other side of the house, he saw that the neighboring home was quite close. Bundled telephone and electrical wires stretched down lower and lower house-to-house from the high metal pole on the sea road. He had little time to second-guess himself. He unbuckled his belt, then scaled the side of the neighboring house. Tossing the buckle end of the belt over the wires, he grasped both ends and slid down the wire bundle until he reached the shadows of Don Fernando’s house, and climbed down.
As he ran through the shadows at the rear, he heard gunshots. Racing to his bedroom window, he climbed through into darkness.
He stood absolutely still, listening with every part of his body. The smell of industrial-strength cleanser came to him, but no trace of Essai’s blood. There was no sign of the corpse; Don Fernando’s people were both fast and efficient. Bourne stood just inside the door, controlling his breathing. He could hear the soft hum of the heating system, the squeak of the window sashes as gusts of wind buffeted them. Then he heard the creaks of the floorboards. Kaja’s weight was not great enough to create that sound, so at least one man was in the house. Then a second creak, in a different room, told him there were at least two men in the house. Where was Kaja? Tied up? Wounded? Dead?
Passing through the partially open door, he picked his way down the long corridor that led to the living room and the front of the house. His nostrils flared as he smelled the alien presence. Pushing the door to Kaja’s bedroom open, he found it empty. The coverlet was unrumpled; he didn’t smell her. Whatever she had done after Don Fernando had left, she hadn’t been in the room. He passed the kitchen, which was empty.
The end of the hallway opened up into the living room. Through the French doors, the enclosed garden looked windblown and abandoned. She wasn’t out there, either. Bourne saw the two armed men. One was at the front door, the other was coming back inside after checking the cause of the gunshots.
“Nothing,” he said to his partner in Russian. “Must have been a truck backfiring.”
Bourne launched himself at them, knocking the one on the right flat on his back. He landed a heavy blow on the point of the Russian’s chin, then twisted his torso to give himself enough leverage to engage the one on the left. He had just locked his hand over the barrel of the Glock when Don Fernando burst through the front door. His cell phone was clapped to one ear, his Colt Python pointed at
the floor.
“Stop! All of you!” he cried. “Jason, these men are Almaz!”
Bourne relaxed his body and the two Russians stirred. The one he had punched groaned and rolled over.
“What are they doing here?” Bourne said, gaining his feet. “Where’s Kaja?”
Don Fernando took the phone from his ear. “She’s gone, Jason.”
“Kidnapped?”
The second Russian shook his head. “She was observed leaving here on her own. That’s why we were dispatched.”
Don Fernando glowered at him. “And?”
The Almaz agent sighed. “She’s gone. We could find no sign of her in the area, no clue inside the house as to where she went.” He looked up at Don Fernando. “She’s ghosted away.”
Skara stared at herself in the hotel’s bathroom mirror and saw a face she scarcely recognized. One thing was for certain, she was no longer Margaret Penrod. Who am I? she wondered with a shiver like ice water down her back. The question terrified her; the reality of it brought her unbearable grief. Her fingers curled, the nails like knife blades as she scored welts on her palms. She felt the fire, but it was only skin-deep.
She’d had every intention of going back to her apartment, but had stayed in the rigged hotel room, either out of self-punishment or spite, possibly both.
She closed her eyes. Memories flooded back like blood from an open wound. Her father had told her to keep Mikaela safe before he left for the last time. Skara was the only one who had known he was never coming back. He had confided in her, though it was only much later that she understood why; he never said a word about his life to Viveka. Possibly he had seen something of himself in Skara; certainly he had passed things on to her, had taught her how to take care of herself and her sisters. But the Russians had come in the middle of the day when she had mistakenly thought it would be safe to get food. She had left Mikaela with a gun, she had been gone only fifteen minutes, but as it turned out they were the last fifteen minutes of her sister’s life. That was when she and Kaja had decided to leave Stockholm, leave Sweden altogether, split up and have no contact with each other.
She stared at her reflection in the mirror. The welts she had scored on her palms seemed to pulse in the fluorescent light, as if alive. When she switched off the light it seemed to her that she had winked out of existence.
Padding across the room, she reached into the mini-bar for a bottle of vodka. It was so small, she poured it and a second into a thick, heavy-bottomed lowball glass she took off a metal shelf just above the half fridge. She drank off a quarter, then put the glass down on the night table.
She disrobed slowly and provocatively, performing for the video cameras as if they were switched on. Kneeling with her legs apart, she gripped her bare breasts, squeezing until tears ran down her cheeks. Then she lay on her stomach, her hands beneath her at the fulcrum of her thighs, working her fingers in a way that sent a mixture of pleasure and pain through her as she wept into a pillow.
She dragged out the pleasure-pain as long as she could, riding the crests until she fell over onto the other side. When it was over, her body drained, her mind empty, there came a respite, but so brief she winced when the responsibilities of her current life flooded back.
She was trapped in a morally perverse world, trapped in a place and time she had worked toward, but now regarded as repellent. For the first time in many years, she wished Kaja were with her, or at least accessible so she could pour out her current agony before the only other soul on earth who might understand. But she had no idea of Kaja’s whereabouts, or even her current identity. There was no hope on that score.
Then what about Christopher? The room’s air conditioner started up, and a cold wind blew across her back, raising goose bumps. She had run out of options—there was Christopher and then there was Benjamin, the two opposing forces in her current life. Everything had changed during the last phone call with Benjamin; she had to ignore her heart, she had to stay as far away from Christopher as possible.
Making that decision heartened her, and she rose off the bed. She stared at the table on which rested the meal room service had delivered hours ago. She hadn’t touched it and now never would. She picked up the tray and carried it to the door. Balancing it on one hand, she opened the door. The moment she did so, three men waiting in the hallway jumped her.
If he were to be honest with himself, Aaron was doing a whole bunch of nothing when he caught the call from his boss.
“She’s not at the bank,” Robbinet’s crisp voice said in his ear. “You’d better hope she isn’t lying somewhere in the gutter unconscious, or with a bullet through her head.”
Aaron’s mind raced. Like Robbinet, he had assumed that Soraya would head for the Île de France Bank in La Défense. He would have if he were her.
“Wait a minute,” he said, suddenly remembering a certain detail of their interrogation of M. Marchand. “The finances of the Monition Club run through Île de France, but the managing entity is Nymphenburg Landesbank of Munich.”
“Never heard of it,” Robbinet snapped. “Is it represented in Paris?”
“Just a moment.” Aaron did a Google search on his cell phone. “Yes, sir, there’s one office. Seventy Boulevard de Courcelles. Just opposite Parc Monceau.”
“Meet me there in fifteen minutes,” Robbinet said. “And God help you if she’s injured, or worse.”
The plates, cutlery, and food went flying as Skara drove the edge of the tray into the leading man’s throat, but the other two men shoved her back into the room with such force she tumbled into the table and went down on one knee.
The man she had struck slammed the door behind him, locking the four of them in the room together. He drew out a Glock and screwed on a suppressor, while the pair grabbed her arms and threw her onto the bed. He aimed the Glock at her while one of the pair pinned her ankles. The third Russian loosened his belt and climbed on top of her. He stank of garlic and cabbage. His legs pried her thighs apart and he put his face close to hers. She lunged her head upward, her bared teeth biting into his lower lip. He yelped and tried to rear back, but she held on, shaking her head like a dog, working her teeth deeper until she had ripped off a piece of flesh. Blood poured out and the Russian tried to roll off her.
“What’s going on?” the Russian with the Glock said.
As the Russian on top of her struggled to rise up, she slammed his lower jaw upward and forced him to grind his teeth.
“I know who you are,” she whispered into his ear as bloody foam began to leak out of his ruined mouth. She inhaled the scent of bitter almonds.
The Russian’s eyes rolled up and he convulsed. She threw him against the Russian holding her down, who let go of her ankles in order to catch the corpse. She grabbed him and swung him around just before the gunman squeezed the Glock’s trigger. The bullet struck the second Russian and he reared up, momentarily blocking the gunman’s view of his intended target.
She tumbled off the bed and, as the gunman swiveled to find her, kicked him hard in the chest. Taken unawares, he reeled back onto the carpet. His Glock went flying across the room. She lunged for the glass on the bedside table, smashed it against the edge, and drove the jagged bottom into the gunman’s eye.
He screamed and kept on screaming, his arms flailing, as she ground the glass deeper. The Russian’s fists beat at her, driving the breath out of her, and he began to rise up, using his superior strength and weight against her. But she drove her knee into his throat and, using all her leverage, cracked through the cartilage. He choked, gasping for air he could no longer draw into his lungs.
She rose off him then, picking her way carefully around the glittering shards of glass to where the Glock lay. She picked it up and, turning, shot the Russian between the eyes.
She stood rooted to the spot for some time. Before the air conditioner clicked on she thought she could hear the sound of blood seeping. She went slowly over to the bed and sat down on the edge of it, elbows on knees, the Gloc
k with its extended barrel hanging between her legs.
Her head bowed, tears came, and for a long time she did not want to stop crying
Your time here is over, Jason,” Don Fernando said. “You can no longer protect Kaja.”
“You left her alone.”
“There was an emergency. Besides, she was under surveillance.”
“Little good it did.”
Don Fernando sighed. “Jason, this woman has made herself an expert at running and hiding. I knew all along that if she wanted to leave, short of tying her up, there was nothing I or my people could do to stop her.”
Bourne knew he was right, but it rankled him that Kaja was gone. She was a loose end. She had become an unknown in the complex equation.
Don Fernando produced a slim folder from his breast pocket and handed it to Bourne. “A first-class ticket to Damascus. There are several stopovers, but that can’t be helped. You’ll touch down by tomorrow morning. I’ll have Almaz agents meet you.”
“Don’t bother,” Bourne said, “I know where to go.” When Don Fernando looked at him quizzically, he added, “I found the shipping labels for whatever is in the dozen crates in the warehouse.”
“I see.” Don Fernando nodded judiciously. As the two Almaz agents departed, he extracted a cigar from its aluminum tube, bit off the end, and, flicking open his lighter, sucked smoke into his lungs. When he had the Cuban going to his satisfaction, he said, “The crates are filled with FN SCAR-M, Mark 20 assault rifles.”
“The Mark 20 doesn’t exist.”
“It does, Jason. These are prototypes. Their firepower is extremely destructive.”