Robert Ludlum - Bourne 7 – The Bourne Deception

It was hardly a surprise that when he arrived the leaders greeted him like a conquering hero.

Not that this homecoming of sorts was simply pleasant; nothing in Arkadin‘s life was simple. Possibly he had misremembered the landscape or perhaps something had changed inside him. Either way, the moment he drove into the Nagorno-Karabakh area it was as if he‘d been hurled back into Nizhny Tagil.

The camp had been set up precisely to his specifications: Ten tents made of camouflage material ringed a large oval compound. To the east was the landing strip where his plane had touched down. At the other end of it was a short L-shaped extension on which was sitting a Air Afrika Transport cargo plane. The tents had an aspect he hadn‘t anticipated: They reminded him of the ring of high-security prisons that girdled Nizhny Tagil, the town in which he‘d been born and raised, if you could call living with psychotic parents being raised.

But again, memory was not a simple matter. Twenty minutes after arriving, having entered one of the tents that had been set up as his command station, he was inspecting the impressive array of weaponry he‘d had transshipped: AK47 Lancasters, AR15 Bushmasters and LWRC SRT 6.8mm assault rifles, World War II US Marine M2A1-7 flamethrowers, armor-piercing grenades, shoulder-fired FIM-92 Stinger missiles, mobile howitzers, and, the key to his mission, three AH-64 Apache helicopters loaded with AGM-114 Hellfire missiles with specially made dual-charge nose cones of depleted uranium, unconditionally guaranteed by the seller to penetrate even the most heavily armored vehicle.

Dressed in camo fatigues, armed with a metal baton on one hip and an American Colt.45 on the other, Arkadin emerged from the largest of the tents and was met by Dimitri Maslov, the head of the Kazanskaya, the most powerful family of the Moscow mob. Maslov looked like a street fighter who was calculating how to pin you in the least amount of time and with the maximum pain. His hands were large, thick, and broad, and looked like they could wring the neck of anyone and anything. His muscular legs ended in outlandishly dainty feet, as if they‘d been grafted on from someone else‘s body. He‘d grown his hair since the last time Arkadin had seen him and, dressed in lightweight camo fatigues, had something of the anarchic air of Che Guevara.

— Leonid Danilovich, Maslov said with false heartiness, — I see you‘ve wasted no time in putting our war matériel to use. Well, good, it cost a fucking fortune.

With Maslov were two no-neck bodyguards, their fatigues sporting immense sweat rings, clearly out of their element in this hot climate.

Looking past the human weapons, Arkadin eyed the grupperovka chief with a kind of impersonal distrust. Ever since he‘d defected from being the Kazanskaya‘s main enforcer to working exclusively for Semion Icoupov, he wasn‘t sure where he stood with the man. That they were doing business now meant nothing; a combination of compelling circumstance and powerful partner thrust them together. Arkadin had the impression that they were two pit bulls deciding how to finish the other off. This was borne out when Maslov said, — I still haven‘t gotten over the loss of my Mexican pipeline. I can‘t help feeling that if you‘d been available, I wouldn‘t have lost it.

— Now I believe you‘re exaggerating, Dimitri Ilyinovich.

— But instead you dropped out of sight, Maslov continued, deliberately ignoring Arkadin. -You were unreachable.

Arkadin thought he‘d better pay attention now. Did Maslov suspect that he had taken Gustavo Moreno‘s laptop, a prize that Arkadin was certain Maslov thought was rightfully his?

Arkadin thought it best to change the subject. -Why are you here?

— I always like to see my investments firsthand. Besides, Triton, the man coordinating the entire operation, wanted a firsthand report on your progress.

— Triton need only have called me, Arkadin said.

— He‘s a cautious man, our Triton, or so I‘ve heard. I‘ve never met him myself-frankly, I don‘t know who he is, only that he‘s a man with deep pockets and the wherewithal to mount this ambitious project. And don‘t forget, Arkadin, it was I who recommended you to Triton. ‗There‘s no one better to train these men,‘ I told him in no uncertain terms.

Arkadin thanked Maslov, even though privately it pained him to do so. On the other side of the ledger, it warmed him to know that Maslov had no idea who Triton was or who he worked for, whereas he himself knew everything. Maslov‘s amassed millions had made him overconfident and sloppy, which in Arkadin‘s opinion made him ripe for the slaughter. That would come, he told himself, in time.

When Maslov had phoned him with the proposition laid out by Triton, he‘d at first refused. Now that he was the power behind the Eastern Brotherhood he neither needed nor wanted to hire himself out as a free-lancer. When Maslov‘s flattery, describing Arkadin and the Black Legion‘s crucial part in the plan, had failed to move him, the twenty-million-dollar fee was dangled in front of his face. Still, he hesitated, until he‘d learned that the target was Iran, the objective to overthrow the current regime. Then the dazzling prospect of Iran‘s oil pipeline danced through his head: untold billions, untold power. This prize took his breath away. He was canny enough to know, though Maslov was careful not to mention it, that Triton‘s aim must be the pipeline, too. His endgame was to double-cross Triton at the last minute, to snatch the pipeline for himself, but to do that he needed to properly assess his enemy‘s resources. He needed to know who Triton was.

He saw someone emerge from the interior of the jeep that he‘d been warned by tribal lookouts had brought Maslov and his thugs here. At first the heat rising from the freshly laid tarmac obscured the man‘s face. Not that it mattered; Arkadin recognized that easy, loping gait, so deliberately like Clint Eastwood‘s in A Fistful of Dollars .

— What‘s he doing here? Arkadin struggled to keep the sharp edge out of his voice.

— Who? Oserov? Maslov said in all innocence. -Vylacheslav Germanovich is now my second in command. He shook his head ingenuously. -Did I fail to mention that? I would have if I‘d been able to get hold of you to protect my Mexican interests. He shrugged. -But, alas…

Oserov was smiling now, in that half-ironic, half-condescending expression that had been tattooed into Arkadin‘s brain in Nizhny Tagil. Was graduating Oxford a license to act superior to every other grupperovka member in Russia? Arkadin didn‘t think so.

— Arkadin, really? Oserov said in British English. -Bloody shocking you‘re still alive.

Arkadin hit him hard on the point of the chin. Oserov, that vile smile still stitched to his face, was already on his knees, his eyes rolling, by the time Maslov‘s bodyguards stepped in.

Maslov held up one hand to stay them. Nevertheless, his face was dark and congested with anger. -You shouldn‘t have done that, Leonid Danilovich.

— You shouldn‘t have brought him.

Unmindful of the weapons drawn on him, Arkadin knelt beside Oserov. -So here you are in the blazing Azerbaijani sun, so far from home. How does it feel?

Oserov‘s eyes were bloodshot and a thin trail of pink drool descended like a strand of a spider‘s web from one corner of his mouth, but he never stopped smiling. All at once, he reached out and grabbed Arkadin by his shirtfront, jerking him closer.

— You‘ll live to regret this insult, Leonid Danilovich, now that Mischa is no longer alive to protect you.

Arkadin sprang away and rose to his feet. -I told you what I‘d do to him if I saw him again.

Maslov‘s eyes narrowed. His face still had that congested look. -That was a long time ago.