Robert Ludlum - The Bourne Sanction

“My father was taken because he was plotting to overthrow the head of an organization. They call themselves the Eastern Brotherhood.”

“Doesn’t the EB espouse a peaceful integration of Muslims into Western society?”

“That’s their public stance, certainly, and their literature would have you believe it’s so.” Specter put down his cup. “In fact, nothing could be farther from the truth. I know them as the Black Legion.”

“Then the Black Legion has finally decided to come after you.”

“If only it were as simple as that.” He halted at a discreet knock on the door. “Enter.”

The young man he’d sent on the errand strode in carrying a shoe box, which he set down in front of Bourne.

Specter gestured. “Please.”

Taking his foot off the table, Bourne opened the box. Inside were a pair of very fine Italian loafers, along with a pair of socks.

“The left one is half a size larger to accommodate the pad that will protect your heel,” the young man said in German.

Bourne pulled on the socks, slipped on the loafers. They fit perfectly. Seeing this, Specter nodded to the young man, who turned and, without another word, left the room.

“Does he speak English?” Bourne asked.

“Oh, yes. Whenever the need arises.” Specter’s face was wreathed in a mischievous smile. “And now, my dear Jason, you’re asking yourself why he’s speaking German if he’s a Turk?”

“I assume it’s because your network spans many countries including Germany, which is, like England, a hotbed of Muslim terrorist activity.”

Specter’s smile deepened. “You’re like a rock. I can always count on you.” He raised a forefinger. “But there is yet another reason. It has to do with the Black Legion. Come. I’ve something to show you.”

Filya Petrovich, Pyotr’s Sevastopol courier, lived in an anonymous block of crumbling housing left over from the days the Soviets had reshaped the city into a vast barracks housing its largest naval contingent. The apartment, frozen in time since the 1970s, had all the charm of a meat locker.

Arkadin opened the door with the key he’d found on Filya. He pushed Devra over the threshold, stepped in. Turning on the lights, he closed the door behind him. She hadn’t wanted to come, but she had no say in the matter, just as she’d had no say in helping him drag Filya’s corpse out the nightclub’s back door. They set him down at the end of the filthy alley, propped up against a wall damp with unknown fluids. Arkadin poured the contents of a half-empty bottle of cheap vodka over him, then pressed the man’s fingers around the bottle’s neck. Filya became one drunk among many other drunks in the city. His death would be swept away on an inefficient and overworked bureaucratic tide.

“What’re you looking for?” Devra stood in the middle of the living room, watching Arkadin’s methodical search. “What d’you think you’ll find? The document?” Her laugh was a kind of shrill catcall. “It’s gone.”

Arkadin glanced up from the mess his switchblade had made of the sofa cushions. “Where?”

“Far out of your reach, that’s for sure.”

Closing his knife, Arkadin crossed the space between the two of them in one long stride. “Do you think this is a joke, or a game we’re playing here?”

Devra’s upper lip curled. “Are you going to hurt me now? Believe me, nothing you could do would be worse than what’s already been done to me.”

Arkadin, the blood pounding in his veins, held himself in check to consider her words. What she said was probably the truth. Under the Soviet boot, God had forsaken many Ukrainians, especially the young attractive females. He needed to take another tack entirely.

“I’m not going to hurt you, even though you’re with the wrong people.” He turned on his heel, sat down on a wood-framed chair. Leaning back, he ran his fingers through his hair. “I’ve seen a lot of shit-I’ve done two stints in prison. I can imagine the systematic brutalization you’ve been through.”

“Me and my mother, God rest her soul.”

The headlights of passing cars shone briefly through the windows, then dwindled away. A dog barked in an alleyway, its melancholy voice echoing. A couple passing by outside argued vehemently. Inside the shabby apartment the patchy light cast by the lamps, their shades either torn or askew, caused Devra to look terribly vulnerable, like a wisp of a child. Arkadin rose, stretched mightily, strolled over to the window, looked out onto the street. His eyes picked out every bit of shadow, every flare of light no matter how brief or tiny. Sooner or later Pyotr’s people were going to come after him; it was an inevitability that he and Icoupov had discussed before he left the villa. Icoupov had offered to send a couple of hard men to lie low in Sevastopol in the event they were needed, but Arkadin refused, saying he preferred to work alone.

Having assured himself that the street was for the moment clear, he turned away from the window, back to the room. “My mother died badly,” he said. “She was murdered, brutally beaten, left in a closet for the rats to gnaw on. At least that’s what the coroner told me.”

“Where was your father?”

Arkadin shrugged. “Who knows? By that time, the sonovabitch could’ve been in Shanghai, or he could’ve been dead. My mother told me he was a merchant marine, but I seriously doubt it. She was ashamed of having been knocked up by a perfect stranger.”

Devra, who had sat down on the ripped-apart arm of the sofa during this recitation, said, “It sucks not knowing where you came from, doesn’t it? Like always being adrift at sea. You’ll never recognize home even if you come upon it.”

“Home,” Arkadin said heavily. “I never think of it.”

Devra caught something in his tone. “But you’d like to, wouldn’t you?”

His expression went sour. He checked the street again with his usual thoroughness. “What would be the point?”

“Because knowing where we come from allows us know who we are.” She beat softly at her chest with a fist. “Our past is part of us.”

Arkadin felt as if she’d pricked him with a needle. Venom squirted through his veins. “My past is an island I’ve sailed away from long ago.”

“Nevertheless, it’s still with you, even if you’re not aware of it,” she said with the force of having mulled the question over and over in her own mind. “We can’t outrun our past, no matter how hard we try.”

Unlike him, she seemed eager to talk about her past. He found this curious. Did she think this subject was common ground? If so, he needed to stay with it, to keep the connection with her going.

“What about your father?”

“I was born here, grew up here.” She stared down at her hands. “My father was a naval engineer. He was thrown out of the shipyards when the Russians took it over. Then one night they came for him, said he was spying on them, delivering technical information on their ships to the Americans. I never saw him again. But the Russian security officer in charge took a liking to my mother. When he’d used her up, he started on me.”

Arkadin could just imagine. “How did it end?”

“An American killed him.” She looked up at him. “Fucking ironic, because this American was a spy sent to photograph the Russian fleet. When the American had completed his assignment he should’ve gone back home. Instead he stayed. He took care of me, nursed me back to health.”

“Naturally you fell in love with him.”

She laughed. “If I was a character in a novel, sure. But he was so kind to me; I was like a daughter to him. I cried when he left.”

Arkadin found that he was embarrassed by her confession. To distract himself, he looked around the ruined apartment one more time.