Robert Ludlum - The Bourne Sanction

Yet she still had a knot in her chest, a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. She could not get out of her head the image of Tyrone on his knees, hooded, arms held behind him on the tabletop.

“You just turned pale,” Kiki said. “Are you all right?”

Soraya nodded. She wanted to tell Kiki what she had seen, but she couldn’t. She sensed that to talk about it would give it a reality so frightening, so powerful it would throw her back into panic.

“Then we ought to go.”

Soraya’s heart tripped over itself. “No time like the present,” she said.

As they went out the door, she pulled out the pack of cigarettes and threw it in a nearby trash can. She didn’t need it anymore.

As planned, Gala picked up Bourne in Yakov’s bombila and together they returned to Lorraine’s apartment. It was just past 10 AM; his meet with Maslov wasn’t until noon. He needed a shower, a shave, and some rest.

Lorraine was kind enough to provide the necessities for all three. She gave Bourne a set of towels, a disposable razor, and said if he gave her his clothes she’d wash and dry them for him. In the bathroom Bourne stripped, then opened the door enough to hand the dirty clothes to Lorraine.

“After I put these in the wash, Gala and I are going out to get food. Can we bring you anything?”

Bourne thanked her. “Whatever you’re having will be fine.”

He closed the door, crossed to the shower, turned it on full force. Opening the medicine cabinet, he took out rubbing alcohol, a gauze pad, surgical tape, and antibiotic cream. Then he went back to the toilet, put the seat cover down, and cleaned his abraded heel. It had taken a lot of abuse and was red and raw looking. Squeezing the cream onto the gauze, he placed it over the wound and taped it up.

Then he took his cell phone off the edge of the sink where he’d placed it when undressing, and dialed the number Boris Karpov had given him.

Would you mind going without me?” Gala said, as Lorraine reached into the hall closet for her fur coat. “All of a sudden I’m not feeling well.”

Lorraine walked back to her. “What is it?”

“I don’t know.” Gala sank onto the white leather sofa. “I’m kind of dizzy.”

Lorraine took hold of the back of her head. “Bend over. Put your head between your knees.”

Gala did as she was told. Lorraine crossed to the sideboard, took out a bottle of vodka, and poured some into a glass. “Here, take a drink. It’ll settle you.”

Gala came up as gingerly as a drunk walks. She took the vodka, threw it down her throat so fast she almost choked. But then the fire hit her stomach and the warmth began to spread through her.

“Okay?” Lorraine asked.

“Better.”

“All right. I’m going to buy you some hot borscht. You need to get some nourishment into you.” She drew on her coat. “Why don’t you lie down?”

Once again Gala did as she was told, but after her friend left, she rose. She’d never found the sofa comfortable. Making sure of her balance, she went down the hall. She needed to crash on a proper bed.

As she was passing the bathroom, she heard a sound like talking, but Bourne was in there by himself. Curious, she moved closer, then put her ear to the door. She could hear the rushing of the shower more clearly, but also Bourne’s voice. He must be on his cell phone.

She heard him say “Medvedev did what?” He was talking politics to whoever was on the other end of the line. She was about to take her ear away from the door when she heard Bourne say, “It was bad luck with Tarkanian… No, no, I killed him… I had to, I had no other choice.”

Gala pulled away as if she’d touched her ear to a hot iron. For some time, she stood staring at the closed door, then she backed away. Bourne had killed Mischa! My God , she said to herself. How could he? And then, thinking of Arkadin, Mischa’s best friend, My God .

DIMITRI MASLOV had the eyes of a rattlesnake, the shoulders of a wrestler, and the hands of a bricklayer. He was, however, dressed like a banker when Bourne met him inside a warehouse that could have doubled as an aircraft hanger. He was wearing a chalk-striped three-piece Savile Row suit, an Egyptian cotton shirt, and a conservative tie. His powerful legs ended in curiously dainty feet, as if they’d been grafted on from another, far smaller body.

“Don’t bother telling me your name,” he said as he accepted the ten thousand Swiss francs, “as I always assume they’re fake.”

The warehouse was one among many in this soot-laden industrial area on the outskirts of Moscow, and therefore anonymous. Like its neighbors, it had a front area filled with boxes and crates on neat stacks of wooden pallets piled almost to the ceiling. Parked in one corner was a forklift. Next to it was a bulletin board on which had been tacked overlapping layers of flyers, notices, invoices, advertisements, and announcements. Bare lightbulbs at the ends of metal flex burned like miniature suns.

After Bourne had been expertly patted down for weapons and wires, he’d been escorted through a door to a tiled bathroom that stank of urine and stale sweat. It contained a trough with water running sluggishly along its bottom and a line of stalls. He was taken to the last stall. Inside, instead of a toilet, was a door. His escort of two burly Russians took him through to what appeared to be a warren of offices, one of which was raised on a steel platform bolted onto the far wall. They climbed the staircase to the door, at which point his escort had left him, presumably to go stand guard.

Maslov was seated behind an ornate desk. He was flanked on either side by two more men, interchangeable with the pair outside. In one corner sat a man with a scar beneath one eye, who would have been unprepossessing save for the flamboyant Hawaiian print shirt he wore. Bourne was aware of another presence behind him, his back against the open door.

“I understand you wanted to see me.” Maslov’s rattlesnake eyes shone yellow in the harsh light. Then he gestured, holding out his left arm, his hand extended, palm-up, as if he were shoveling dirt away from him. “However, there’s someone who insists on seeing you.”

In a blur, the figure behind Bourne hurled himself forward. Bourne turned in a half crouch to see the man who’d attacked him at Tarkanian’s apartment. He came at Bourne with a knife extended. Too late to deflect it, Bourne sidestepped the thrust, grabbed the man’s right wrist with his left hand, using his own momentum to pull him forward so that his face met Bourne’s raised elbow flush-on.

He went down. Bourne stepped on the wrist with his shoe until the man let go of the knife, which Bourne took up in his hand. At once the two burly bodyguards drew down on him, pointing their Glocks. Ignoring them, Bourne held the knife in his right palm so the hilt pointed away from him. He extended his arm across the desk to Maslov.

Maslov stared instead at the man in the Hawaiian print shirt, who rose, took the knife from Bourne’s palm.

“I am Dimitri Maslov,” he said to Bourne.

The big man in the banker’s suit rose, nodded deferentially to Maslov, who handed him the knife as he sat down behind the desk.

“Take Evsei out and get him a new nose,” Maslov said to no one in particular.

The big man in the banker’s suit pulled the dazed Evsei up, dragged him out of the office.

“Close the door,” Maslov said, again to no one in particular.

Nevertheless, one of the burly Russian bodyguards crossed to the door, closed it, turned and put his back against it. He shook out a cigarette, lit it.

“Take a seat,” Maslov said. Sliding open a drawer, he took out a Mauser, laid it on the desk within easy reach. Only then did his eyes slide up to engage Bourne’s again. “My dear friend Vanya tells me that you work for Boris Karpov. He says you claim to have information I can use against certain parties who are trying to muscle in on my territory.” His fingers tapped the grips of the Mauser. “However, I would be inexcusably naive to believe that you were willing to part with this information without a price, so let’s have it. What do you want?”