Bourne 4 - The Bourne Legacy (51 page)

Now, as Arsenov had ordered, they were careful to speak only Icelandic, even when they were alone together. At one of the rental companies counters in the terminal, Arsenov rented one car and three vans for the cadre, which was composed of six men and four women. While Arsenov and Zina took the car into Reykjavik, the rest of the cadre drove the vans south of the city to the town of Hafnarfjordur, the oldest trading port in Iceland, where Spalko had rented a large clapboard house on a cliff overlooking the harbor. The colorful village of small, quaint clapboard houses was surrounded on the land side by lava flows, filled with mist and a sense of being lost in time. It was possible to imagine among the brightly painted fishing boats lying side by side in the harbor warshield-bedecked Viking longships readying themselves for their next bloody campaign.

Arsenov and Zina drove through Reykjavik, familiarizing themselves with the streets they'd previously seen only on maps, getting a sense of traffic and travel patterns. The city was picturesque, built on a peninsula so that it was possible to see the white snowencrusted mountains or the piercing blue-black North Atlantic ocean from almost any place you stood. The island itself was created from the shift of tectonic plates as the American and Eurasian landmasses pulled apart. Because of the relative youth of the island, the crust was thinner than on either of the surrounding continents, which accounted for the remarkable abundance of geothermal activity used to heat Icelandic homes. The entire city was connected to the Reykjavik Energy hot water pipeline. In City Centre, they cruised past the modern and peculiarly unsettling Hallgrimskirkja Church, looking like a rocket ship out of science fiction. It was by far the tallest structure in what was otherwise a low-rise city. They found the health services building and drove from there to the Oskjuhlid Hotel.

"You're sure this is the route they'll take?" Zina said.

"Absolutely." Arsenov nodded. "It's the shortest way and they'll want to get to the hotel as quickly as possible."

The hotel's periphery was teeming with American, Arab and Russian security.

"They've turned it into a fortress," Zina said.

"Just as the Shaykh's photos showed us," Arsenov replied with a small smile. "How much personnel they have makes no difference to us."

They parked and went from shop to shop, making their various purchases. Arsenov had been far happier inside the metal shell of their rented car. Mingling with the crowds, he was acutely aware of his own alienness. How different these slim, light-skinned, blueeyed people were! With his black hair and eyes, his big bones and swarthy skin, he felt as graceless as a Neanderthal among Cro-Magnons. Zina, he discovered, had no such difficulties. She took to new places, new people, new ideas with a frightening zeal. He worried about her, worried about her influence on the children they would one day have.

Twenty minutes after the operation at the rear of the Eurocenter Bio-I Clinic, Khan still wondered when he'd ever felt more strongly the urge to retaliate against an enemy. Even though he'd been outmanned and outgunned, even though the rational part of his mind—

usually so in control of every action he took—understood all too well the foolhardiness of launching a counterattack against the men Spalko had sent to get him and Jason Bourne, another part of him had been determined to fight back. Strangely, it was Bourne's warning that had brought out in him the irrational desire to hurl himself into the pitched battle and rend Spalko's men limb from limb. It was a feeling that came from the very core of him, and so powerful was it that it had taken all his rational willpower to pull back, to hide from the men Annaka had sent in to find him. He could have taken those two down, but of what use would it have been? Annaka would only have sent more of them in for him.

He was sitting in Grendel, a cafe about a mile from the clinic, which was now crawling with police and, probably, Interpol agents. He sipped at his double espresso and thought about the primal feeling in which he still felt gripped. Once again, he saw the look of concern on Jason Bourne's face when he saw Khan about to step into the trap in which he was already ensnared. As if he'd been more concerned with keeping Khan out of danger than with his own safety. But that was impossible, wasn't it?

Khan was not in the habit of replaying recent scenarios, but he found himself doing so now. As Bourne and Annaka had headed for the exit, he'd tried to warn Bourne about her, but he'd been too late. What had motivated him to do that? Certainly, he hadn't planned on it. It was a spur-of-themoment decision. Or was it? He recalled, with a vividness he found unsettling, his feeling when he'd seen the damage he'd done to Bourne's ribs. Had it been remorse? Impossible!

It was maddening. The thought would not let him be: the moment when Bourne had made the choice between staying safe behind the deadly creature McColl had become or putting himself in harm's way in order to protect Annaka. Up until that moment, he'd been trying to reconcile the notion of David Webb, college professor, being Jason Bourne, international assassin, of being in his line of work. But no assassin he could think of would have endangered himself to protect Annaka.

Who, then, was Jason Bourne?

He shook his head, annoyed at himself. This was a question, though maddening, that he needed to put aside for the time being. At last he understood why Spalko had called him while he was in Paris. He'd been given a test and, to Spalko's way of thinking, he'd failed. Spalko now thought of Khan as an imminent threat to him, just as he thought of Bourne as a threat. For Khan, Spalko had become the enemy. All his life, Khan had only one way of dealing with enemies: He eliminated them. He was very well aware of the danger; he welcomed it as a challenge. Spalko was certain he could defeat Khan. How could Spalko know that that arrogance would only make him burn all the brighter?

Khan drained his small cup and, flipping open his cell phone, punched in a number.

"I was just about to call you but I wanted to wait until I was out of the building," Ethan Hearn said. "Something's up."

Khan checked his watch. It wasn't yet five. "What, exactly?"

"About two minutes ago I saw a HAZMAT truck approaching and I got down to the basement in time to see two men and a woman bringing a man in on a stretcher."

"That woman will be Annaka Vadas," Khan said.

"She's quite the stunner."

"Listen to me, Ethan," Khan said forcefully, "if you run into her, be very careful. She's as dangerous as they come."

"Too bad," Hearn mused.

"No one saw you?" Khan wanted to get him off the subject of Annaka Vadas.

"No," Hearn said. "I was quite careful about that."

"Good." Khan thought a moment. "Can you find out where they took this man? I mean the exact location?"

"I already know. I watched the elevator when they took him up. He's somewhere on the fourth floor. That's Spalko's personal level; it's accessed only with a magnetic key."

"Can you get it?" Khan asked.

"Impossible. He keeps it on his person at all times."

"I'll have to find another way," Khan said.

"I thought magnetic keys were foolproof."

Khan laughed shortly. "Only a fool believes that. There's always a way into a locked room, Ethan, just as there's always a way out."

Khan rose, threw some money on the table, and walked out of the cafe. Right now he was loath to stay in one place for too long. "Speaking of which, I need a way into Humanistas."

"There are any number—"

"I have reason to believe Spalko is expecting me." Khan crossed the street, his eyes alert for anyone who might be watching him.

"That's a completely different story," Hearn said. There was a pause as he considered the problem, then: "Wait a minute, hang on. Let me look in my PDA. I might have something.

"Okay, I'm back." Hearn gave a little laugh. "I
do
have something, and I think you're going to like it.

Arsenov and Zina arrived at the house ninety minutes after the others. By that time, the cadre had changed into jeans and workshirts and had pulled the van into the large garage. While the women took charge of the bags of food Arsenov and Zina had bought, the men opened the box of hand weapons waiting for them and helped set up the spray-painters. Arsenov took out the photos Spalko had given him and they set about spray-painting the van the proper color of an official government vehicle. While the van was drying, they drove the second van into the garage. Using a stencil, they spray-painted
Hafnarfjordur Fine Fruits <& Vegetables
onto both sides of the vehicle. Then they went into the house, which was already perfumed by the meal the women had prepared. Before sitting down to eat, they commenced their prayers. Zina, excitement buzzing through her like an electrical current, was barely present, praying to Allah by rote while she thought of the Shaykh and her role in the triumph that was now only a day away.

At dinner the conversation was spirited, a flux of tension and anticipation animating them. Arsenov, who normally frowned on such loose behavior, allowed this outlet for their nerves, but only for a contained amount of time. Leaving the women to clean up, he led the men back down to the garage, where they applied the official decals and markings to the sides and front of the van. They drove that outside, brought the third one in, spraypainted it the colors of Reykjavik Energy. Afterward they were all exhausted and ready for sleep, for they would be rising very early. Still, Arsenov made them run through their parts of the plan, insisting they speak Icelandic. He wanted to see what effect mental fatigue would have on them. Not that he doubted them. All of his nine compatriots had long ago proven themselves to him. They were physically strong, mentally tough and, perhaps most important of all, completely without remorse or compunction. However, none of them had ever been involved in an operation of this size, scope or global ramifications; without the NX 20 they'd never had the wherewithal. And so it was particularly satisfying to watch them dredge up the necessary reserves of energy and stamina to run through their roles with flawless precision.

He congratulated them and then, as if they were his blood children, said to them with great love and affection in his heart,
"La illaha ill Allah."

"La illaha ill Allah,"
they chorused in unison with such love burning in their eyes that Arsenov was moved close to tears. In this moment, as they searched one another's faces, the enormity of the task set before them was brought home to them. For Arsenov's part, he saw them all—his family— gathered together in a strange and forbidding land, on the brink of the most glorious moment their people would ever witness. Never had his sense of the future burned so brilliantly, never had his sense of purpose— the righteousness—

of their cause been made so manifest to him. He was grateful for the presence of all of them.

As Zina was about to go upstairs, he put a hand on her arm, but as the others passed her, glancing at them, she shook her head. "I have to help them with the peroxide," she said, and he let her go.

"May Allah grant you a peaceful sleep," she said softly, mounting the stairs.

Later, Arsenov lay in bed unable, as usual, to sleep. Across from him, in the other narrow bed, Akhmed snored with the noise of a buzzsaw. A light wind ruffled the curtains of the open window; as a youth, Arsenov had grown used to the cold; now he liked it. He stared up at the ceiling, thinking as he always did in the dark hours of Khalid Murat, of his betrayal of his mentor and his friend. Despite the necessity of the assassination, his personal disloyalty continued to eat at him. And there was the wound in his leg, a pain no matter how well it was healing that acted as a goad. In the end he'd failed Khalid Murat, and nothing he could do now could change that fact. He rose, went into the hallway and padded silently down the stairs. He'd slept in his clothes, as he always did. He went out into the chill night air, extracting a cigarette and lighting it. Low on the horizon a bloated moon sailed through the star-spangled sky. There were no trees; he heard no insects.

As he walked farther away from the house, his seething mind began to clear, to calm itself. Perhaps, after he'd finished the cigarette he'd even be able to catch a few hours of sleep before the three-thirty rendezvous with Spalko's boat.

He had almost finished his cigarette and was about to turn around when he heard the whisper of low voices. Startled, he drew his gun and looked around. The voices, drifting on the night air, were coming from behind a pair of enormous boulders that rose up like the horns of a monster from the top of the cliff's face.

Dropping his cigarette and grinding its lit end into the ground, he moved toward the rock formation. Though he used caution, he was fully prepared to empty his weapon into the hearts of whoever was spying on them.

But as he peered around the curving face of the rock, it wasn't infidels he saw but Zina. She was talking in low tones to another, larger figure, but from his angle Arsenov could not tell who it was. He moved slightly, drawing closer. He couldn't hear their words, but even before he noticed Zina's hand on the other's arm, he had recognized the voice she used when she was set on seducing him.

He pressed his fist to his temple as if to stop the sudden throbbing in his head. He wanted to scream as he watched the fingers of Zina's hand draw up into what looked to him like spider's legs, her nails scoring the forearm of... who was it she was trying to seduce? His jealousy goaded him to action. At the risk of being seen, he moved farther, part of him entering the moonlight, until the face of Magomet came into view. Blind rage gripped him; he was shaking all over. He thought of his mentor. What would Khalid Murat have done? he asked himself. Doubtless, he would have confronted the pair, heard their separate explanations of what they were doing and then made his judgment accordingly.

Arsenov stood up to his full height and, advancing on the pair, held his right arm out straight in front of him. Magomet, who was more or less turned facing him, saw him and abruptly stepped back, severing the hold Zina had on him. His mouth opened wide, but in his shock and terror, nothing came out.