Bourne 4 - The Bourne Legacy (52 page)

"Magomet, what is it?" Zina said and, turning, saw Arsenov advancing on them.

"Hasan, no!" she cried just as Arsenov pulled the trigger. The bullet entered Magomet's open mouth and blew the back of his head off. He was thrown backward in a welter of blood and brains.

Arsenov turned the gun on Zina. Yes, he thought, Khalid Murat would surely have handled the situation differently, but Khalid Murat was dead and he, Hasan Arsenov, the architect of Murat's demise, was alive and in charge, and this was why. It was a new world.

"Now you," he said.

Staring into his black eyes, she knew that he wanted her to grovel, to get down on her knees and beg him for mercy. He could care less about any explanation she might give him. She knew that he was beyond reason; at this moment he wouldn't know the truth from a clever concoction. She also knew that giving him what he wanted at the moment he wanted it was a trap, a slippery slope once embarked upon impossible to get off. There was only one way to stop him in his tracks.

Her eyes blazed. "Stop it!" she ordered. "Right now!" Reaching out, she closed her fingers around the barrel of the gun, drew it upward so that it was no longer pointed at her head. She risked a quick glance at the dead Magomet. That was a mistake she wouldn't make twice.

"What's come over you?" she said. "So close to our shared goal, have you lost your mind?"

She was clever to have reminded Arsenov of their reason for being in Reykjavik For the moment, his devotion to her had blinded him to the larger goal. All he'd reacted to was her voice and her hand on Magomet's arm.

With a ragged motion, he put the gun away.

"Now what will we do?" she said. "Who'll take over Magomet's responsibilities?"

"You caused this," he said with disgust. "You figure it out."

"Hasan." She knew better than to try to touch him at this moment or even to come closer than she already was. "You are our leader. It's your decision and yours alone." He looked around, as if just coming out of a trance. "I suspect our neighbors will assume the report of the gunshot was merely a truck backfiring." He stared at her. "Why were you out here with him?"

"I was trying to dissuade him from the path he'd chosen," Zina said carefully.

"Something happened to him when I shaved his beard on the plane. He made overtures." Arsenov's eyes blazed anew. "And what was your response?"

"What d'you imagine it was, Hasan?" she said, her hard voice matching his. "Are you saying that you don't trust me?"

"I saw your hand on him, your fingers...." He could not go on.

"Hasan, look at me." She reached out. "Please look at me." He turned slowly, reluctantly, and elation rose inside her. She had him; despite her error in judgment, she still had him.

Breathing an inaudible sigh of relief, she said, "The situation required some delicacy. Surely you can understand that. If I turned him down flat, if I was cold to him, if I angered him, I was afraid of a reprisal. I was afraid his anger would impair his use to us." Her eyes held his. "Hasan, I was thinking of the reason we're here. That's my only focus now, as it should be yours."

He stood immobile for long moments, absorbing her words. The hiss and suck of the waves spending themselves against the cliffs far below seemed unnaturally loud. Then, abruptly, he nodded and the incident was swept away. That was his way.

"All that remains is to dispose of Magomet."

"We'll wrap him up and take him with us to the rendezvous. The boat crew can dispose of him in deep water."

Arsenov laughed. "Zina, really, you're the most pragmatic female I know."

Bourne awoke to find himself strapped into what appeared to be a dentist's chair. He looked around the black concrete room, saw the large drain in the center of the white tile floor, the hose coiled on the wall, the tiered cart beside the chair on which were arrayed ranks of gleaming stainless-steel implements, all, it seemed, designed to inflict agonizing damage to the human body, and was not reassured. He tried to move his wrists and ankles, but the wide leather straps were secured, he noted, with the same buckles used on straitjackets.

"You can't get out," Annaka said, coming around from behind him. "It's useless to try." Bourne stared at her for a moment, as if he was struggling to bring her into focus. She was dressed in white leather pants and a black sleeveless silk blouse with a plunging neckline, an outfit she never would have worn while she was playing the role of the innocent classical pianist and devoted daughter. He cursed himself for being gulled by her initial antipathy toward him. He should've known better. She was too available, too conveniently knowledgeable about Molnar's building. Hindsight was useless, however, and he put aside his disappointment in himself and applied himself to the difficult situation at hand.

"What an actress you turned out to be," he said.

A slow smile broadened her lips, and when she parted them slightly, he could see her white, even teeth. "Not only with you but with Khan." She drew up the single chair in the room and sat down close beside him. "You see, I know him well, your son. Oh, yes, I know, Jason. I know more than you think, much more than you do." She gave a little laugh, a tinkling, bell-like sound of pure delight as she drank in the expression on Bourne's face. "For a long time Khan didn't know whether you were alive or dead. Indeed, he made a number of attempts to find you, always unsuccessful—your CIA had done an excellent job of hiding you—until Stepan helped him. But even before he knew you were, in fact, alive, he'd spent all his idle hours concocting elaborate ways in which he'd seek his revenge on you." She nodded. "Yes, Jason, his hatred for you was all-encompassing." Putting her elbows on her knees, she leaned toward him. "How does that make you feel?"

"I applaud your performances." Despite the potent emotions she had dredged from him, he was determined not to rise outwardly to her bait.

Annaka made a moue. "I'm a woman of many talents."

"And as many loyalties, it seems." He shook his head. "Did our saving each other's lives mean nothing to you?"

She sat back up, her manner brisk now, almost businesslike. "You and I can agree on these things, at least. Often life and death are the only things that matter."

"Then free me," he said.

"Yes, I've fallen head over heels for you, Jason." She laughed. "That's not the way things work in real life. I saved you for one reason only: Stepan." His brow was furrowed in concentration. "How can you let this happen?"

"How can I not? I have a history with Stepan. For a time he was the only friend my mother had."

Bourne was surprised. "Spalko and your mother knew each other?" Annaka nodded. Now that he was bound and presented no danger to her, she seemed to want to talk. Bourne was rightfully suspicious of this.

"He met her after my father had her sent away," Annaka continued.

"Sent away where?" Bourne was intrigued despite himself. She could charm the venom out of a snake.

"To a sanatorium." Annaka's eyes darkened, revealing in a flash a trace of genuine feeling. "He had her committed. It wasn't difficult; she was physically frail, unable to fight him. In those days ... yes, it was still possible."

"Why would he do such a thing? I don't believe you," Bourne said flatly.

"I don't care whether you believe me or not." She contemplated him for a moment with the disturbing aspect of a reptile. Then, possibly because she needed to, she went on.

"She'd become an inconvenience. His mistress demanded it of him; in this he was abominably weak." The outpouring of naked hatred had transformed her face into an ugly mask, and Bourne understood that, at last, she had unleashed the truth about her past. "He never knew that I'd discovered the truth, and I never let on.
Never''
She tossed her head.

"Anyway, Stepan was visiting the same asylum. In those days, he went to see his brother ... the brother who'd tried to kill him."

Bourne stared at her, dumbfounded. He realized that he had no idea whether she was lying or telling the truth. He had been correct about one aspect of her, at least—she
was
at war. The parts she played so masterfully were her offensives, her raiding parties into enemy territory. He looked into her implacable eyes and knew that there was something monstrous about the way she chose to manipulate those she had drawn close to her. She leaned in, took his chin between her thumb and fingers. "You haven't seen Stepan, have you? He's had extensive plastic surgery on the right side of his face and neck. What he tells people about it varies, but the truth is, his brother threw gasoline on him and then put a lighter to his face."

Bourne couldn't help but react. "My God. Why?"

She shrugged. "Who knows? The brother's dangerously insane. Stepan knew it, so for that matter did his father, but he refused to acknowledge it until it was too late. And even afterward, he continued to defend the boy, insisting that it was a tragic accident."

"All this might be true," he said. "But even if it is, it doesn't excuse you conspiring against your own father."

She laughed. "How can you, of all people, say that, when you and Khan have tried to kill each other? Such fury in two men, my God!"

"He came after me. I only defended myself."

"But he hates you, Jason, with a passion I've rarely seen. He hates you just as much as I hated my father. And d'you know why? Because you abandoned him as my father abandoned my mother."

"You're talking as if he's really my son," Bourne spat.

"Oh, yes, that's right, you've convinced yourself that he isn't. That's convenient, isn't it?

That way you don't have to think about how you left him to die in the jungle."

"But I didn't!" Bourne knew he shouldn't let her drag him into this emotionally charged subject, but he couldn't help himself. "I was told he was dead. I had no idea he might've survived. That's what I discovered when I was inside government database."

"Did you stay around to look, to check? No, you buried your family without even looking in the coffins! If you had, you would've seen that your son wasn't there. No, you coward, you fled the country instead."

Bourne tried to pull himself out of his bonds. "That's rich, you lecturing me on family!"

"That's quite enough." Stepan Spalko had entered the room with the perfect timing of a ringmaster. "I have more important matters to discuss with Mr. Bourne than family sagas."

Annaka obediently stood up. She patted Bourne's cheek. "Don't look so sullen, Jason. You're not the first man I've fooled, and you won't be the last."

"No," he said. "Spalko will be the last."

"Annaka, leave us now," Spalko said, adjusting his butcher's apron with hands covered in Latex gloves. The apron was clean and well pressed. As yet, there wasn't a spot of blood on it.

As Annaka departed, Bourne turned his attention to the man who, according to Khan, had engineered the murders of Alex and Mo. "And you don't distrust her, not even a little?"

"Yes, she's an excellent liar." He chuckled. "And I know a thing or two about lying." He crossed to the cart, eyed with the connoisseur's intensity the implements arrayed there.

"I suppose it's natural to think that because she betrayed you, she'd do the same to me." He turned, the light reflecting off the unnaturally smooth skin on the side of his face and neck. "Or are you trying to drive a wedge between us? That would be standard operating procedure for an operative of your high caliber." He shrugged and picked up an implement, twirled it between his fingers. "Mr. Bourne, what I'm interested in is how much you've discovered about Dr. Schiffer and his little invention."

"Where's Felix Schiffer?"

"You can't help him, Mr. Bourne, even if you could manage the impossible and free yourself. He outlived his usefulness and now he's beyond anyone's power to resurrect."

"You killed him," Bourne said, "just as you killed Alex Conklin and Mo Panov." Spalko shrugged. "Conklin took Dr. Schiffer away from me when I needed him the most. I got Schiffer back, of course. I always get what I want. But Conklin had to pay for thinking he could oppose me with impunity."

"And Panov?"

"He was in the wrong place at the wrong time," Spalko said. "It's as simple as that." Bourne thought of all the good Mo Panov had done in his life and felt overwhelmed by the uselessness of his death. "How can you talk about the taking of two men's lives as if it was as simple as snapping your fingers?"

"Because it was, Mr. Bourne." Spalko laughed. "And by tomorrow the taking of those two men's lives will be as nothing to what's coming."

Bourne tried not to look at the glinting implement. Instead, what came into his mind was an image of László Molnar's blue-white body stuffed into his own refrigerator. He'd seen first-hand the damage these tools of Spalko's could inflict. Because he was face to face with the fact that Spalko had been responsible for Molnar's torture and death, he knew that everything Khan had told him about this man was true. And if Khan had told the truth about Spalko, was it not possible that he'd been telling the truth all along, that he was, in fact, Joshua Webb, Bourne's own son? The facts were mounting, the truth was before him, and Bourne felt its crushing weight as if it were a mountain on his shoulders. He couldn't bear to look at... what?

It didn't matter now because Spalko had begun wielding his instruments of pain.

"Again, I'll ask you what you know about Dr. Schiffer's invention." Bourne stared past Spalko. At the blank concrete wall.

"You've chosen not to answer me," Spalko said. "I applaud your courage." He smiled charmingly. "And pity the futility of your gesture."

He applied the whorled end of the implement to Bourne's flesh.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Khan went into Houdini, a magic and logic games shop at 87 Vaci utca building. The walls and display cabinets of the smallish boutique were crammed with magic tricks, brain teasers and mazes of all kinds, shapes and descriptions, old and new. Children of all ages, their mothers or fathers in tow, prowled the aisles, pointing and staring wide-eyed at that fantastic wares.