“I swear undying loyalty to you, General Karpov, on this you can rely.”
Georgy spat, “Traitor! I’ll tear you limb from limb.”
Karpov ignored the outburst. “Words, Anton Fedarovich,” he said.
“What must I do, then?”
Karpov shrugged. “If I have to tell you, there’s no point, is there?”
Anton appeared to consider a moment. “Untie me then.”
“If I untie you, then what?”
“Then,” Anton said, “we will get to the point.”
“Immediately?”
“Without a doubt.”
Karpov nodded and, moving around behind the two, untied Anton’s wrists and ankles. Anton stood up. He was careful not to rub the rawness of his wrists. He held out his right hand. Karpov stared fixedly into his eyes, then, after a moment, he presented his Makarov butt-first.
“Shoot him!” Georgy cried. “Shoot him, not me, you fool!”
Anton took the pistol and shot Georgy twice in the face.
Karpov looked on without expression. “And now how shall we dispose of the body?” This was said in the manner of an oral exam, a final, the culmination, or perhaps the first step in indoctrination.
Anton was as careful with his answer as he was thoughtful. “The chain saw was for the other. This man… this man deserves nothing, less than nothing.” He stared down at the drain, which looked like the maw of a monstrous beast. “I wonder,” he said, “have you any strong acid?”
Forty minutes later, under bright sunshine and a perfectly blue sky, Karpov, on his way to brief President Imov on his progress, received the briefest of text messages. “Border.”
“Ramenskoye,” Karpov said to his driver, referring to Moscow’s main military airport, where a plane, fueled and fully manned, was always at his disposal. The driver made a U-turn as soon as traffic allowed, and stepped on the accelerator.
The moment Karpov presented his credentials to the military immigration official at Ramenskoye, a man so slight Boris at first mistook him for a teenager stepped out of the shadows. He wore a plain dark suit, a bad tie, and scuffed, dusty shoes. There was not an ounce of fat on him; it was as if his muscles were welded into one lithe machine. It was as if he’d honed his body for use as a weapon.
“General Karpov.” He did not offer his hand or any form of greeting. “My name is Zachek.” He offered neither a first name nor a patronymic.
“What?” Karpov said. “Like Paladin?”
Zachek’s long, ax-like face registered nothing. “Who’s Paladin?” He snatched Karpov’s passport from the soldier. “Please come with me, General.”
Turning his back, he started off across the floor and, because he had Karpov’s credentials, Boris, quietly seething, was obliged to follow him. Zachek led him down a sporadically lit corridor that smelled of boiled cabbage and carbolic, through an unmarked door, and into a small, windowless interrogation room. It contained a table bolted to the floor and two blue molded-plastic folding chairs. Incongruously, there was a beautiful brass samovar on the table, along with two glasses, spoons, and a small brass bowl of white and brown sugar cubes.
“Please sit,” Zachek said. “Make yourself at home.”
Karpov ignored him. “I’m the head of FSB-2.”
“I’m aware of who you are, General.”
“Who the hell are you?”
Zachek pulled a laminated folder out of the breast pocket of his suit jacket and opened it. Karpov was forced to take several steps closer in order to read it. SLUZHBA VNESHNEY RAZVEDKI. He reared back. This man was head of the counter-insurgency directorate at SVR, the Russian Federation equivalent of the American Central Intelligence. Strictly speaking, FSB and FSB-2 were confined to domestic matters, though Cherkesov had expanded his agency’s mandate overseas without generating any blowback. Was that what this interview was about, FSB-2 encroaching on SVR’s territory? Karpov now very much regretted not having brought up the subject with Cherkesov before he had taken over.
Karpov slapped the veneer of a smile on his face. “What can I do for you?”
“It’s more what I—or, more accurately, SVR—can do for you.”
“I very much doubt that.”
Karpov was close enough to snatch Zachek’s credentials as Zachek was about to put them away. Now he waved them like a flag of war on the battlefield. In his mind he heard the sounds of sabers rattling.
Zachek held out Karpov’s passport, and the two men exchanged prisoners.
When Karpov had put his passport safely away, he said, “I have a plane to catch.”
“The pilot has instructions to wait until this interview has ended.” Zachek crossed to the samovar. “Tea?”
“I think not.”
Zachek, in the process of filling one glass, turned back to him. “A mistake, surely, General. We have here the finest Russian Caravan black tea. What makes this particular blend of oolong, Keemun, and Lapsang souchong so special is that it was transported from its various plantations through Mongolia and Siberia, just as it was in the eighteenth century when the camel caravans brought it from China, India, and Ceylon.” He took the filled glass by his fingertips and brought it up to his nose, breathing in deeply. “The cold, dry climate allows just the right touch of moisture to be absorbed by the tea when it is nightly set down on the snow-covered steppes.”
He drank, paused, and drank again. Then he looked at Karpov. “Are you certain?”
“Quite certain.”
“As you wish, General.” Zachek sighed as he put down the glass. “It has come to our attention—”
“Our?”
“The SVR’s attention. Do you prefer that?” Zachek’s fingers waggled. “In any event, you have piqued the SVR’s attention.”
“In what way?”
Zachek put his hands behind his back. He looked like a cadet on the parade ground. “You know, General, I envy a man like you.”
Karpov decided to let him talk uninterrupted. He wanted this mysterious interview over with as soon as possible.
“You’re old school, you came up the hard way, fought for every promotion, bodies of those weaker than you littered behind you.” He pointed at his own chest. “I, on the other hand, had it comparatively easy. You know, it occurs to me that I could learn a lot from a man such as yourself.” He waited for Karpov to respond, but when only silence ensued, he continued.
“How would you like that, General, mentoring me?”
“You’re like all the young technocrats who play video games and think that’s a substitute for experience in the field.”
“I have more important things to do than play video games.”
“It pays to familiarize yourself with what the competition is up to.” Boris waved a hand. “Now get to the point. I don’t have all day.”
Zachek nodded thoughtfully. “We simply want to ensure that the arrangement we had with your predecessor will continue with you.”
“What arrangement?”
“Oh, dear, you mean Cherkesov flew the coop without informing you?”
“I have no knowledge of a deal,” Karpov said. “If you’ve done your research, you know that I don’t do deals.” He was through here. He headed for the door.
“I thought,” Zachek said softly, “that in this case you would make an exception.”
Karpov counted to ten and then turned back. “You know, it’s exhausting talking to you.”
“Apologies,” Zachek said, though his expression indicated anything but. “The deal, General. It involves money—a monthly figure can easily be arrived at—and intelligence. We want to know what you know.”
“That isn’t a deal,” Karpov said, “it’s extortion.”
“We can bandy words all day, General, but as you yourself said, you have a plane to catch.” His voice hardened. “We do this deal—as we did with your predecessor—and you and your colleagues are free to wander the globe, far beyond the scope of FSB-2’s charter.”
“Viktor Cherk
esov created our charter.” Karpov turned the doorknob.
“Believe me when I tell you that we can make your life a living hell, General.”
Boris opened the door and strode out.
It was just over 665 miles from Ramenskoye to the Uralsk Airport in western Kazakhstan, a flat and ugly stretch of land, barren, brown, desiccated.
Viktor Delyagovich Cherkesov was waiting for him, leaning against a dusty military vehicle, smoking a black Turkish cigarette. He was a tall man with thick, wavy hair, graying at the temples. His eyes were dark as coffee and unreadable; he’d seen too many atrocities, had given too many orders, had himself participated in too many crimes.
Karpov walked over to him with a quickening pulse. Part of his deal with this devil was that in return for the keys to FSB-2 he would, from time to time, grant favors. Of what sort, he had not bothered to ask; Cherkesov would not have told him. But now the first summons had arrived and Karpov knew that his obligation to the former head of FSB-2 had come due. Denying him his request was not an option.
Cherkesov offered a cigarette and Karpov took it, leaned in to catch the flame from Cherkesov’s lighter. He despised the harshness of Turkish tobacco, but he wasn’t about to refuse his former boss anything.
“You look good,” Cherkesov began. “Ruining other people’s lives suits you.”
Karpov cracked a wry smile. “And your new life suits you.”
“Power suits me.” Cherkesov threw down his cigarette, the end burning bright against the cheap tarmac. “It suits both of us.”
“Where have you been since you left us?”
Cherkesov smiled. “Munich. Nowhere.”
“Munich is nowhere,” Karpov affirmed. “If I never see that city again it will be too soon.”
Cherkesov shot out another cigarette and lit it. “I know you, Boris Illyich. You have something weighing on your mind.”
“SVR,” Karpov said. He’d been seething the entire flight. “I want to talk with you about the deal you made with them.”
Cherkesov blinked. “What deal?”
And then everything fell into place. Zachek had been running a bluff, hoping to take advantage of the fact that Boris had been in his new job less than a month. He told his former boss about the repugnant interview at Ramenskoye, leaving out no detail, from Zachek’s approach at Immigration to his last line as Boris had walked out the door of the windowless room.
During this discourse, Cherkesov sucked ruminatively on the inside of his cheek. “I’d like to say I’m surprised,” he said at last, “but I’m not.”
“You know this man Zachek? There’s something smarmy about him.”
“All flunkies are smarmy. Zachek does Beria’s bidding. Beria is the man you need to watch out for.” Konstantin L. Beria was the current head of SVR and, like his notorious forebear, had amassed a reputation for violence, paranoia, and malevolent trickery. Konstantin was every inch as feared and despised as Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria had been.
“Beria was afraid to come near me,” Cherkesov said. “He sent Zachek on a fishing expedition to see if you could be turned.”
“Fuck Beria.”
Cherkesov’s eyes narrowed. “Careful, my friend. This is not a man to be taken lightly.”
“Advisement taken.”
Cherkesov gave a curt nod. “If relations deteriorate, contact me.” He flicked his lighter open and closed, the clicking like that of an insect moving through a field of grass. “Now to the matter at hand. I have an assignment for you.”
Karpov watched the other man for any sign of what he was about to say. He found none. Cherkesov was like that, his face closed as a bank vault. Military jets sat, tense and watchful, on the tarmac. Now and again a mechanic would appear; no one came near the two Russians.
Cherkesov plucked a bit of tobacco off his lip, ground it to powder. “I need you to kill someone.”
Karpov let out a breath he had not been fully aware he’d been holding. Was that all? He felt a wave of relief flood through him, and he nodded. “Just give me the details and it will be done.”
“Immediately.”
Karpov nodded again. “Of course. Immediately.” He took a drag on his cigarette, one eye slitted against the smoke. “I assume you have a photo of the victim.”
Cherkesov, smirking, drew a snapshot out of his breast pocket and handed it over. He watched, curious and avid, as all the blood drained from Karpov’s face.
He met Karpov’s eyes with a knowing smile. “You have no choice. None whatsoever.” His head tilted. “What? Is the price of your success too high?”
Karpov tried to speak, but he felt as if Cherkesov were throttling him.
Cherkesov’s smile broadened. “No, I thought not.”
2
JASON BOURNE, IN a hotel on the edge of the Colombian jungle, awoke into darkness, but he did not open his eyes. He lay on the thin, lumpy mattress for a moment, still wrapped in the strange web of his dream. He’d been in a house of many rooms, with corridors that seemed to lead to places in which he was blind. Like his past. The house was on fire and filled with smoke. He was not the only one in it. There was someone else who moved with the stealth of a fox, someone who was looking for him, someone who, with murderous intent, was very close, though the thick, choking smoke hid him completely from view.
At what precise moment dream became reality he couldn’t say. He smelled smoke; it was what had awakened him. Rolling out of bed, he was engulfed in it, and once again his dream reared up in his mind. He made for the door and stopped.
Someone was waiting for him, just on the other side of the door. Someone armed. Someone with murderous intent.
Bourne backed up, grabbed a scarred wooden chair, fragile seeming as kindling. Opening the door, he hurled the chair through the doorway. Even as he heard the answering gunshots, he exploded across the threshold.
He struck the gunman’s wrist with such force that a bone snapped. The weapon hung by nerveless fingers but the gunman wasn’t done yet. His kick caught Bourne in the side, slamming him against the opposite wall. The gunman, having given himself breathing room, moved through the smoke like a wraith, swinging the butt of the gun—now gripped in his other hand—into the side of Bourne’s head.
Bourne went down and stayed down. The smoke was thickening, and he could feel the heat as the flames licked closer. Down on the floor the air was clearer, it gave him an edge his opponent had not yet figured out. He kicked out at Bourne, who grabbed the shoe in mid-flight, twisted it so that the ankle cracked. The gunman shouted in pain. Bourne, on his knees, punched him hard in the kidneys then, as the body started to crumple, grabbed the back of the gunman’s head and slammed the chin against his knee.
Smoke engulfed the hallway. The flames had reached the head of the stairs and threatened to turn the second floor into an inferno. Grabbing the gunman’s weapon, Bourne launched himself back into his room. As he sprinted across the floor, he crossed his arms over his face and, leaping, crashed through the glass and wood of the window.
They were waiting for him on the other side. There were three of them, converging on him as he hurtled to the ground from the second-floor window in a hail of shattered glass. He caught one, in a bright wink of blood the barrel of his gun scoring a line down the man’s cheek. He buried his fist into the belly of the second man, who doubled over. Then a gun muzzle pressed hard into the back of his neck.
Bourne raised his hands and the man with the gashed cheek ripped the gun from his grip, then punched him in the jaw.
“¡Basta!” the man behind Bourne commanded. “Él no quiere ser lastimado.” He’s not to be hurt.
Bourne calculated that he could take these three, but he remained unmoving. These people weren’t out to kill him. They had started the fire. The one lurking outside his door could have kicked it down and tried to shoot him, but he didn’t. The fire was to herd him, as were the shots fired in the hallway. He hadn’t been expected to engage the gunman in the hallway.
Bourne had a strong suspicion who had sent these men, so he allowed them to tie his hands behind his back and jam a hemp sack over his head. He was bundled into a hot, cramped vehicle that stank of gasoline, sweat, and oil. They rumbled off into the jungle, the lack of shocks telling him that he was in some sort of run-down military vehicle. Bourne memorized the turns, counting to himself to get a rough approximation of how far they had come. All the while, he used the sharp metal edge behind his back to begin sawing through the flex that bound his wrists together.
After perhaps twenty minutes, the vehicle came to a halt. For some time, nothing happened, except a sharp and sometimes vitriolic exchange in idiomatic Spanish. He tried to make out what was being said, but the thick hemp and the peculiar acoustics of the vehicle’s interior made it virtually impossible. He was summarily hauled out into the coolness of deep shade. Flies and mosquitoes buzzed, a falling leaf brushed against the back of his hand as he was pulled forward. The acrid stench of a latrine, then the odors of gun oil, cordite, and sour sweat. He was pushed down onto what felt like the rough canvas of a folding camp stool and there he sat for another half an hour, listening. He could hear movement, but no one spoke, a sign of ironclad discipline.
Then, abruptly, the hemp sack was removed and he blinked in the dusky light of the forest. Looking around, he found himself in a makeshift camp. He noted thirteen men—and that was just in his field of vision.
One man approached, flanked by two uniformed counterparts, heavily armed with semi-automatics, handguns, and ammo belts. Bourne recognized Roberto Corellos from Moira’s detailed description. He was handsome in a rough, hard-muscled way. And with his dark, smoldering eyes and intensely masculine presence, he possessed a certain charisma that was certain to resonate with these men.
“So…” He drew a cigar from the breast pocket of his beautifully embroidered guayabera shirt, bit off the end, and lit up, using a heavy Zippo lighter. “Here we are, hunter and prey.” He blew out a cloud of aromatic smoke. “But which is which, I wonder?”
Bourne studied him with great care. “Funny,” he said, “you don’t look like a convict.”