Robert Ludlum - The Bourne Sanction

“You’re kidding,” she said.

“Absolutely, you will,” he said. “I can’t go to a proper doctor.”

Arkadin ordered food. Devra ate like an animal, shoving dripping pieces of stew into her mouth with her fingertips. She looked as if she hadn’t eaten in days. Perhaps she hadn’t. Seeing how she laid waste to the food, Arkadin ordered more. He ate slowly and deliberately, conscious of everything he put into his mouth. Killing did that to him: All his senses were working overtime. Colors were brighter, smells stronger, everything tasted rich and complex. He could hear the acrid political argument going on in the opposite corner between two old men. His own fingertips on his cheek felt like sandpaper. He was acutely aware of his own heartbeat, the blood rushing behind his ears. He was, in short, a walking, talking exposed nerve.

He both loved and hated being in this state. The feeling was a form of ecstasy. He remembered coming across a dog-eared paperback copy of The Teachings of Don Juan by Carlos Castaneda, had learned to read English from it, a long, torturous path. The concept of ecstasy had never occurred to him before reading this book. Later, in emulation of Castaneda, he thought of trying peyote-if he could find it-but the idea of a drug, any drug, set his teeth on edge. He was already lost quite enough. He held no desire to find a place from which he could never return.

Meanwhile the ecstasy he was in was a burden as well as a revelation, but he knew he couldn’t long stand being that exposed nerve. Everything from a car backfiring to the chirrup of a cricket crashed against him, as painful as if he’d been turned inside out.

He studied Devra with an almost obsessive concentration. He noticed something he hadn’t seen before-likely, with her gesticulating, she’d distracted him from noticing. But now she’d let down her guard. Perhaps she was just exhausted or had relaxed with him. She had a tremor in her hands, a nerve that had gone awry. Clandestinely, he watched the tremor, thinking it made her seem even more vulnerable.

“I don’t get you,” he told her now. “Why have you turned against your own people?”

“You think Pyotr Zilber, Oleg Shumenko, and Filya were my own people?”

“You’re a cog in Zilber’s network. What else would I think?”

“You heard how that pig talked to me up on the roof. Shit, they were all like that.” She wiped grease off her lips and chin. “I never liked Shumenko. First it was gambling debts I had to bail him out of, then it was drugs.”

Arkadin’s voice was offhand when he said, “You told me you didn’t know what the last loan was for.”

“I lied.”

“Did you tell Pyotr?”

“You’re joking. Pyotr was the worst of the lot.”

“Talented little bugger, though.”

Devra nodded. “So I thought when I was in his bed. He got away with an awful lot of shit because he was the boss-drinking, partying, and, Jesus, the girls! Sometimes two and three a night. I got thoroughly sick of him and asked to be reassigned back home.”

So she’d been Pyotr’s squeeze for a short time, Arkadin thought. “The partying was part of his job, though, forging contacts, ensuring they came back for more.”

“Sure. Trouble was he liked it all too much. And inevitably, that attitude infected those who were close to him. Where d’you think Shumenko learned to live like that? From Pyotr, that’s who.”

“And Filya?”

“Filya thought he owned me, like chattel. When we’d go out together he’d act as if he was my pimp. I hated his guts.”

“Why didn’t you get rid of him?”

“He was the one supplying Shumenko with coke.”

Quick as a cat, Arkadin leaned across the table, looming. “Listen, lapochka , I don’t give a fuck who you like or don’t like. But lying to me, that’s another story.”

“What did you expect?” she said. “You blew in like a fucking whirlwind.”

Arkadin laughed then, breaking a tension that was stretched to the breaking point. This girl had a sense of humor, which meant she was clever as well as smart. His mind had made a connection between her and a woman who’d once been important to him.

“I still don’t understand you.” He shook his head. “We’re on different sides of this conflict.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. I was never part of this conflict. I didn’t like it; I only pretended I did. At first it was a goal I set for myself: whether I could fool Pyotr, and then the others. When I did, it just seemed easier to keep going. I got paid well, I learned quicker than most, I got perks I never would have gotten from being a DJ.”

“You could’ve left anytime.”

“Could I?” She cocked her head. “They would’ve come after me like they’re coming after you.”

“But now you’ve made up your mind to leave them.” He cocked his head. “Don’t tell me it’s because of me.”

“Why not? I like sitting next to a whirlwind. It’s comforting.”

Arkadin grunted, embarrassed again.

“Besides, the last straw came when I found out what they’re planning.”

“You thought of your American savior.”

“Maybe you can’t understand that one person can make a difference in your life.”

“Oh, but I can,” Arkadin said, thinking of Semion Icoupov. “In that, you and I are the same.”

She gestured. “You look so uncomfortable.”

“Come on,” he said, standing. He led her back past the kitchen, poked his head in for a moment, then took her into the men’s room.

“Get out,” he ordered a man at the sink.

He checked the stall to make sure they were alone. “I’ll tell you how to fix this damnable shoulder.”

When he gave her the instructions, she said, “Is it going to hurt?”

In answer, he put the handle of the wooden spoon he’d swiped from the kitchen between his teeth.

With great reluctance Bourne turned his back on the Gaboon viper. Many things flitted through his mind, not the least of which was Mikhail Tarkanian. He was the mole inside the professor’s organization. Who knew how much intel he had about Specter’s network; Bourne couldn’t afford to let him get away.

The man before him now was flat-faced, his skin slightly greasy. He had a two-day growth of beard and bad teeth. His breath stank from cigarettes and rotting food. He pointed his suppressed Glock directly at Bourne’s chest.

“Come out of there,” he said softly.

“It won’t matter whether or not I comply,” Bourne answered. “The herpetologist down the corridor has surely phoned security. We’re all about to be put into custody.”

“Out. Now.”

The man made a fatal error of gesturing with the Glock. Bourne used his left forearm to knock the elongated barrel aside. Slamming the gunman back against the opposite wall of the corridor, Bourne drove a knee into his groin. As the gunman gagged, Bourne chopped the gun out of his hand, grabbed him by his overcoat, flung him headlong into the Gaboon viper’s case with such force that he skidded along the floor toward the corner where the viper lay coiled.

Bourne, imitating the viper, made a rhythmic hissing sound, and the snake raised its head. At the same moment it heard the hissing of a rival snake, it sensed something living thrust into its territory. It struck out at the terrified gunman.

Bourne was already pounding down the corridor. The door at the far end gaped open. He burst out into daylight. Tarkanian was waiting for him, in case he escaped the two gunmen; he had no stomach to prolong the pursuit. He drove a fist into Bourne’s cheek, followed that up with a vicious kick. But Bourne caught his shoe in his hands, twisted his foot violently, spinning him off his feet.

Bourne could hear shouts, the slap and squeak of cheap soles against concrete. Security was on its way, though he couldn’t see them yet.