The Bourne Dominion (31 page)

Bourne nodded. “He’s the leader of the Mosque in Munich.”

“Indeed.” He leaned forward slightly, a certain tension informing his torso. “It was Abdul-Qahhar who took advantage of circumstances to forge a deal with Benjamin El-Arian.”

“What circumstances?”

“Ah, now we arrive at the crux of the matter.” Essai jerked his head. “That woman in there. She told you her story?”

Bourne nodded.

“Her father is the key to the mystery of why the Domna allowed Abdul-Qahhar to invade their precincts.”

“It wasn’t a deal?”

“Oh, yes, but the question is what kind of deal,” Essai said. “The vulnerability the Domna felt when your old organization, Treadstone, targeted them led El-Arian to make his deal with the Mosque.”

Bourne said nothing. This was the second time he’d heard about the Domna’s sense of vulnerability. The problem was he simply didn’t believe it. Either Essai was lying to him yet again, or Essai truly didn’t know the real reason Semid Abdul-Qahhar had been welcomed into the organization. What bothered Bourne the most was that from all he had been able to find out, the Domna had been set up to bridge the cultural and religious gap between East and West—a noble attempt to teach the two cultures to live in peace with each other. Why, then, would Semid Abdul-Qahhar, an Arab extremist masquerading as a benign Muslim, be allowed to upset Severus Domna’s carefully calibrated balance? Nothing added up. Bourne stared hard at Essai. Once again he was at a loss to classify the man as friend or enemy.

“You want to know who Christien Norén worked for, is that it?”

“Everyone in this house wants to know,” Essai said, leaning back. “We thought Kaja would know, or at least be able to give us some clue, which is why Don Fernando wanted me to fetch her along with Vegas.”

“Why didn’t you tell me all this back in Colombia?”

“Her father went after your old boss. Word is the two of you were close. I couldn’t be sure you’d do what needed to be done if you knew who she really was.”

This explanation sounded logical, and possibly it was true, but with Essai you never knew. Don Fernando had warned him about Essai’s pathological lying, not that Bourne hadn’t already suspected as much. On the other hand, it was helpful to get confirmation of his suspicion.

“And if I hadn’t come along?”

Essai shrugged. “I was negotiating with Roberto Corellos to help me when you fell into my life like a gift from Allah.” He smiled. “You make a habit of it.” His hand briefly lifted and fell. “But believe me, that’s all water under the bridge.”

Holding a conversation with Essai was an exhausting experience, listening to him and trying to ferret out what he was really saying—or, more often, not saying. “Unfortunately, none of this brings us any closer to discovering what the Domna is up to.”

“There’s something else.” He sat forward again and, as he did so, lowered his voice. “Benjamin El-Arian has been taking secret trips to Damascus. I discovered their existence purely by accident, through, of all people, Estevan Vegas. Going through Estevan’s bills of lading, I discovered a discrepancy in moneys that I traced to a round-trip first-class ticket from Paris to Damascus. Digging further, I turned up El-Arian’s name, along with the fact that this wasn’t his first trip to Damascus. El-Arian was paying for the trips by skimming off profits from the exports filtered through the oil fields in Colombia that Vegas manages for Don Fernando.”

“Any idea what El-Arian was doing in Damascus?”

Essai shook his head. “In that regard, I’ve hit a dead end. But I think it has something to do with the group Christien Norén worked for.”

“That makes no sense,” Bourne said. “The men who came after Kaja and her sisters are Russian.”

Essai rose. “Nevertheless, from what little my contacts in Damascus could glean, I think there’s a connection.”

Bourne wondered why Essai was so keen on finding out the truth about Christien Norén’s affiliation. Then, like a flash of lightning, the answer came to him. Essai didn’t believe the story about how El-Arian had come to make a deal with the Mosque, either. He was as skeptical as Bourne himself. He was convinced that the true reason would become apparent only when the mystery of Christien Norén was solved.

“Have you told Don Fernando any of this?”

Essai gave him an enigmatic smile. “Only you and I know.”

B
oris stood very still. The alley stank of fish and stale frying oil. The noise of the traffic was like a hive of angry wasps. Zachek sauntered up as if he didn’t have a care in the world. His eyes were on Karpov all the time. He looked dapper in a long black cashmere coat, black kidskin gloves, and mirror-finish brogues with soles so thick Boris was certain they must contain a tongue of steel. This was an old trick dating back to the KGB: the steel useful for vicious stomping sessions. Some things, Boris thought, never went out of style, even among the Internet generation.

When Zachek came up to where the two men stood at the mouth of the alley, he said, “Fuck, Karpov, maybe you wouldn’t make such a good mentor, after all.”

Boris gestured with his chin. “Why not ask your comrade with a face full of metal for his opinion?”

Zachek opened his mouth, threw his head back, and laughed. “You old guys,” he said.

That was when Boris jammed his right elbow into the gunman’s Adam’s apple. At the same time, he shoved the gun away with his left hand. It went off, deafening all three of them. Boris shot the gunman point-blank with the Tokarev and the man arched back and slammed against the brick wall, where he left a mealy-looking Rorschach blood-blot.

Zachek was just starting to come out of shock when Boris grabbed him by the back of his soft, pelt-like collar and smashed his face into the blood-blot.

“What do you see there, Zachek, eh? Tell me, you little prick.” Boris dragged Zachek back. He switched to an upper-class-British–accented English. “I say Zachek, old bean, you’ve gotten blood all over your five-thousand-dollar cashmere overcoat. Not to mention those shiny shoes. What are they? John Lobb?”

Zachek, clearly out of ideas, tried to kick Boris with one of his steel-soled shoes, but Karpov danced out of the way. “Uh-uh,” he said, delivering a mighty slap to the back of Zachek’s head. “Clearly, you need some lessons in how to behave.”

Zachek had given up trying to extricate himself from Karpov’s grip and was wiping the blood off his face. He had a split upper lip and the flesh over his right eye was puffed up, rapidly turning a deep purple-blue.

Boris shook him until his teeth rattled. “Any more of your SVR pals around?”

Zachek shook his head.

“Answer me when I speak to you!” he ordered.

“There… was just the three of us.”

“You figured that was more than enough to handle an old man like me, right, little prick? Don’t shake your head, I know exactly what’s in that pea brain of yours.”

“You… you’ve got it all wrong. Oh shit.” Zachek snorted a clot of blood out of his nose. It stuck on the wall in the middle of the widening blot.

“Okay, little prick, tell me how I’m wrong.” He shoved the Tokarev’s muzzle into the soft flesh where Zachek’s lower jaw met his neck. “But if I don’t like your answer—
boom!
”

“I… I need to sit down.” Zachek was hyperventilating. Beneath the smears of blood, his face looked pale.

Boris dragged him back down the alley, all the way to the other end, where a number of wooden crates that smelled of fresh oranges were stacked. Zachek collapsed gratefully onto one and sat slumped over, his hands crossed over his head, as if he was expecting Boris to beat him senseless.

There was less vehicular traffic beyond this end of the alley, but the foot traffic was heavy. Luckily, it was rush hour. Everyone was hurrying
home, lost in their own thoughts; no one so much as glanced into the alley. Nevertheless, Boris didn’t want to stay there any longer than he had to.

“Pull yourself together, Zachek, and tell me what you have to say.”

Zachek gave a little shudder, pulled his stained cashmere coat more tightly around himself, and said, “You think we set that ambush for you and the woman.”

“Don’t pretend you don’t know who she was.”

“The fact is I don’t.” Zachek’s ashen face looked like a battlefield. The man was spent. “I didn’t come here following you. I didn’t set that ambush, that’s what I was trying to tell you in the crowd back there.”

Boris remembered Zachek shouting something at him, but in the roar of the mob and the screams of police sirens, he hadn’t been able to hear a word.

“You’re making no sense,” Boris said. “You have precisely ten seconds to rectify that.”

Zachek flinched. “Beria sent me here to keep an eye on Cherkesov.”

All the blood drained out of Boris’s face. “Viktor is here?”

Zachek nodded. “I had no knowledge of you being in Munich until I saw you in the street. Believe me, I was as shocked to see you as you were to see me.”

“I don’t believe you,” Boris said.

Zachek shrugged. “So, what can I expect?”

“Give me a reason.”

Zachek’s nose had begun to bleed and he tipped his head back. “I can get you an interview inside the Mosque.”

“Tell me.”

Zachek closed his eyes. “As easy as that? No, I don’t think so. I want your word that I get out of this alive.”

Boris watched Zachek’s body language, which he had found a virtually foolproof method of discovering whether or not a person was lying.

“The only way you get out of this alley alive is if you become my eyes and ears in SVR.”

“You want me to spy on Beria? If he finds out he’ll kill me.”

Boris shrugged. “Make sure he doesn’t find out. For a smart little prick like you that shouldn’t be difficult.”

“You don’t know Beria,” Zachek said sourly.

Boris grinned. “That’s why I have you.”

Zachek looked up at him as he licked his bruised and swollen lips. His right eye was almost completely closed. Boris crossed his arms over his barrel chest. “It seems, little prick, that we need each other.”

Zachek rested his head against the building wall. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t call me that.”

“I’d appreciate some answers. Are you in or out?”

Zachek took a shuddering breath. “It looks as if you’ll be mentoring me, after all.”

Boris grunted. “If you didn’t set the ambush, who did?”

“Who knew you were coming to Munich?”

“No one.”

“Then ‘no one’ set the ambush.” Zachek’s lips twitched in a parody of a smile. “But of course, that’s not possible.”

Of course it isn’t
, Boris thought. All at once he had trouble breathing.

Zachek must have seen the change on his face because he said, “Life’s more complicated than you thought, eh, General?”

This time, could the little prick be right?
Boris wondered.
But it’s impossible. Absolutely unthinkable
. Because there was only one other person who knew he was going to Munich: his old and trusted friend Ivan Volkin.

C
HRISTOPHER HENDRICKS FOUND
any face-to-face with M. Errol Danziger thoroughly unpleasant, but he had every confidence that this time would be different.

Lieutenant R. Simmons Reade, Danziger’s sycophantic pilot fish, appeared first. He was a thin, weasel-eyed individual with a contemptuous demeanor and the manners of a demonic marine drill sergeant. The two spent so much time together that, behind their backs, they were known as Edgar and Clyde, a cutting reference to J. Edgar Hoover and Clyde Tolson, the Beltway’s most infamous closeted gays.

Danziger looked the part. He was short and, unlike his days in the field, was running to fat around his middle, a sure sign that he liked his steaks, fries, and bourbon too much. He had a head like a football and a personality to match: tough, a will to get over the goal line, and always the possibility of fumbling short of the first down. The problem lay in his constant promotions. He had been deadly in wet work, near brilliant as the NSA’s deputy director of Signals Intelligence for Analysis and Production, but a total bust as the director of Central Intelligence. He had no sense of history, didn’t know how CI worked, and, worst of all, didn’t
care. The result was akin to trying to jam a dowel into a square hole. It wasn’t working. The reality, however, had done nothing to stop Danziger’s headlong reaving of the hallowed halls of CI.

“Welcome to the director’s suite at CI,” Lieutenant Reade said with all the officiousness of a palace chancellor. “Take a pew.”

Hendricks looked around Danziger’s vast suite and wondered what he did with all the room. Bowl? Hold archery contests? Shoot his Red Ryder BB gun?

Hendricks smiled without an ounce of warmth. “Where’s your shark, Reade?”

Reade blinked. “Beg pardon, sir?”

Hendricks swept the words away with the back of his hand. “Never mind.”

He chose the chair that Danziger had sat in the last time they’d had a meeting here.

Reade took a military step toward him. “Uhm, that’s the director’s chair.”

Hendricks sat down, working his buttocks into the cushion. “Not today.”

Reade, face darkened, was about to say something more when his master stepped into the room. Danziger wore a fashionable pin-striped suit, a blue shirt with unfashionable white collar and cuffs, and a striped regimental tie. A tiny enamel American flag was pinned to his lapel. To his credit, his pause at seeing where Hendricks had seated himself was minuscule. Still, Hendricks didn’t miss it.

Forced into the facing chair, he made a project of lifting the fabric of his trousers over his knees, then shooting his cuffs, before he uttered one word.

“It’s good to see you here, Mr. Secretary,” he said with a closed face. “To what do I owe this honor?”

But of course he knew, Hendricks thought. He had gone crying to his general buddies at the Pentagon, who had petitioned the president.
Who’s your mommy, Danziger?
he thought.

“Does your visit have an amusing component?” the DCI said.

“Ah, no. Just a passing thought.”

Danziger spread his hands. “Care to share?”