Bourne 4 - The Bourne Legacy (64 page)

He got out of the car and walked across what remained of the wrack-strewn shingle. A rowboat was coming for him, even though it was high tide and the fishing boat was very close to shore. He'd called the captain the moment he'd successfully run the hotel's security checkpoint. Only a skeleton crew of the captain and a mate were onboard. He climbed in as the captain nosed the rowboat onto the shingle, then the mate pushed off with his oar.

Spalko was fuming and not a word was said on the short, unpleasant trip back to the fishing boat. When he was aboard, Spalko said, "Make ready to leave, Captain."

"Begging you pardon, sir," the captain replied, "but what about the rest of the crew?" Spalko grabbed the captain by his shirtfront. "I gave you an order, Captain. I expect you to carry it out."

"Aye, aye, sir," the captain grumbled with an evil glint in his eye. "But with only the two of us to crew, it'll take a little longer to get under way."

"You'd damn well better get to it then," Spalko told him, as he headed below.

The water was cold as ice, black as the subbasement of the hotel. Bourne knew that he needed to get onboard the fishing boat as quickly as possible. Thirty seconds after he'd pushed out from the shingle, his fingers and toes had started to go numb; thirty seconds after that, he couldn't feel them at all.

The two minutes it took him to reach the boat seemed like the longest in his life. He reached up for an oiled hawser and hauled himself out of the sea. He shivered in the wind, moving hand over hand up the line.

As he went, he experienced an eerie dislocation. With the scent of the sea in his nostrils, the feel of the brine drying on his skin, it seemed to him as if he wasn't in Iceland at all but in Marseilles, that he wasn't climbing onto a fishing boat in pursuit of Stepan Spalko but was clandestinely boarding a pleasure yacht on his way to execute the international assassin for hire, Carlos. For it was in Marseilles that the nightmare had begun, where the pitched battle with Carlos had ended with him being flung overboard, the shock of being shot and almost drowned robbing him of his memory, of his very life. As he lifted himself over the gunwale onto the deck of the fishing boat, he felt a stab of fear that was almost paralyzing in its intensity. It was in this very same situation that he'd failed. He felt abruptly exposed, as if he wore this failure on his sleeve. He almost faltered then, but into his mind sprang the image of Khan, and he remembered what he'd said to him when they'd first met in that tension-filled setting.
"Who are you?"
Because it occurred to him now that Khan didn't know, and if Bourne wasn't around to help him find out who he was, he'd have no one. He thought of Khan, on his knees in the thermal heating station, and it seemed to him that it wasn't only the Kalishnikov he'd let go of but also, possibly, something of his own inner rage.

Bourne, taking a deep breath, settled his mind on what was before him and crept along the deck. The captain and his mate were busy in the wheel-house and he encountered little difficulty in rendering them unconscious. There was plenty of rope around and he was in the process of binding their wrists behind their backs when Spalko said from behind him, "I think you'd better find a bit of rope for yourself." Bourne was crouched down. The two seamen lay on their sides, back to back. Without showing anything to Spalko, Bourne slipped out his switchblade. Immediately, he knew he'd made a fatal mistake. The mate had his back to him, but the captain did not and saw very clearly that he was now armed. His eyes looked into Bourne's but, curiously, he made no sound or movement that would alert Spalko. Instead, he closed his eyes as if in sleep.

"Stand up and turn around," Spalko ordered.

Bourne did as he was told, keeping his right hand hidden behind the outer edge of his thigh. Spalko, in freshly pressed jeans and a black cable-knit turtleneck sweater, stood spread-legged on the deck, Bourne's ceramic gun in his hand. And again Bourne was subjected to the strange sense of dislocation. As with Carlos years ago, Spalko now had the drop on him. All that remained was for Spalko to pull the trigger, for Bourne to be hit and cast into the water. This time, however, in the bone-chilling North Atlantic, there would be no rescue as there had been in the mild Mediterranean waters. He would quickly freeze and drown.

"You simply will not die, will you, Mr. Bourne?"

Bourne dove at Spalko, the switchblade snapping open. Spalko, startled, squeezed the trigger far too late. The bullet sang out over the water as the blade buried itself in his side. He grunted, clubbed the barrel of the gun down onto Bourne's cheek. Blood spurted from both of them. Spalko's left knee buckled, but Bourne crashed to the deck. Spalko, remembering, kicked him viciously in his cracked ribs, rendering Bourne nearly unconscious. He pulled the switchblade from his side, threw it into the water. Then he bent and dragged Bourne to the gunwale. As Bourne began to stir, Spalko hit him with heel of his hand. Then he hauled him more or less upright and bent him over the side. Bourne was phasing in and out of consciousness, but the sharp tang of the icy black water brought him around enough to know that he was on the brink of annihilation. It was happening again, just as it had so many years ago. He was in so much pain that he could barely draw breath, but there was life to think of—his life now, not the one that had been taken away from him. He wouldn't let himself be robbed again.

As Spalko exerted himself to heave him over the side, Bourne kicked out with all his might. With a sickening snap, the sole of his shoe connected with Spalko's jaw. Spalko, grabbing his broken jaw, staggered backward, and Bourne ran at him. Spalko had no time to use the gun; Bourne was already inside his guard. He slammed the butt down on Bourne's shoulder, and Bourne staggered as more pain flashed through him. Then he'd reached up, digging his fingers into the broken bones of Spalko's jaw. Spalko screamed and Bourne wrenched the gun from his grip. He jammed the muzzle underneath Spalko's chin and pulled the trigger.

The sound did not amount to much, but the force of the percussion lifted Spalko bodily off the deck and pitched him over the side. He went into the sea headfirst. For a moment, as Bourne looked on, he floated facedown, rocked back and forth by the restless waves. Then he went under as if drawn by something huge and immensely potent beneath the sea.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Martin Lindros spent twenty minutes on the phone with Ethan Hearn. Hearn had much information about the famous Stepan Spalko, all of it such a stunning revelation it took Lindros some time to absorb and accept. In the end, no item was of more interest to him than the one that showed an electronic transfer from one of Spalko's many shell companies in Budapest to buy a gun from a certain illegal Russian-run company operating out of Virginia until Detective Harris had shut them down. An hour later he had two hard copies printed out from the electronic files Hearn had emailed him. He got into his car and headed over to the DCI's town house. Overnight, the Old Man had been stricken with the flu. It must be bad, Lindros thought now, for him to have left the office at all during the crisis at the summit.

His driver stopped the staff car at the high iron gates, leaned out the open window, and pressed the intercom. In the ensuing silence he began to wonder if the Old Man, feeling better, had summarily taken himself back to the office without informing anyone. Then the querulous voice crackled over the intercom, the driver announced Lindros, and a moment later, the gates swung soundlessly open. The driver pulled the car up and Lindros got out. He rapped on the door with the brass knocker, and when it opened, he saw the DCI, his face wrinkled and his hair disheveled from lying on a pillow. He was wearing striped pajamas over which he'd wrapped a heavy-looking bathrobe. On his bony feet were carpet slippers.

"Come in, Martin. Come in." He turned and left the door open without waiting for Lindros to cross the threshold. Lindros entered, closed the door behind him. The DCI had padded into the study, which was off to the left. There were no lights on; there appeared to be none on in the house at all.

He went into the study, a masculine space with hunter green walls, a cream ceiling, and oversize leather chairs and sofa scattered about. A TV, set into a wall of built-in bookcases, was off. Every other time Lindros had been in this room it had been on, tuned to CNN, either with or without the sound.

The Old Man sat heavily down in his favorite chair. The side table at his right elbow was crammed with a large box of tissues and bottles of aspirin, Tylenol Cold & Sinus, NyQuil, Vicks VapoRub, Coricidin, DayQuil, and Robitussin DM cough syrup.

"What is this, sir?" Lindros said, indicating the small drugstore.

"I didn't know what I'd need," The DCI said, "so I just took everything out of the medicine chest."

Then Lindros saw the bottle of bourbon and the old-fashioned glass, and he frowned.

"Sir, what's going on?" He craned his neck to see out the open doorway of the study.

"Where's Madeleine?"

"Ah, Madeleine." The Old Man picked up his whiskey glass and slugged some down.

"Madeleine has gone to her sister's in Phoenix."

"And left you on your own?" Lindros reached over and turned on a standing lamp, and the DCI blinked owlishly at him. "When will she be back, sir?"

"Hmmm." The DCI said, as if considering his deputy's words. "Well, the thing of it is, Martin, I don't know when she's coming back."

"Sir?" Lindros said with some alarm.

"She's left me. At least that's what I think has happened." The DCI's gaze seemed fixed as he drained his glass of bourbon. He pursed his shining lips as if perplexed. "How does one know these things, really?"

"Haven't the two of you talked?"

"Talked?" The DCI's gaze snapped back into focus. He looked at Lindros for a moment.

"No. We haven't spoken about it at all."

"Then how do you know?"

"You think I'm making it up, tempest in a rotunda, eh?" The DCI's eyes came alive for an instant and all at once his voice was clotted with barely suppressed emotion. "But there are things of hers that're gone, you see— personal things, intimate things. The house is goddamned empty without them."

Lindros sat down. "Sir, you have my sympathy, but I have something—"

"Maybe, Martin, she never loved me." The Old Man reached for the bottle. "But how is one to know such a mysterious thing?"

Lindros learned forward, gently took the bourbon from his commander. The DCI didn't seem surprised. "I'll work on it for you, sir, if you'd like." The DCI nodded vaguely. "All right."

Lindros put the bottle aside. "But for now we have another pressing matter to discuss." He set the file he'd gotten from Ethan Hearn down on the Old Man's side table.

"What is that? I can't read anything now, Martin."

"Then I'll tell you," Lindros said. When he was done, there was a silence that seemed to echo throughout the house.

After a time the Old Man looked at his deputy with watery eyes. "Why'd he do it, Martin? Why did Alex break every rule and steal one of our own people?"

"I think he'd gotten a hint of what was coming, sir. He was frightened of Spalko. As it turned out, with very good reason."

The Old Man sighed and put his head back. "So it wasn't treason, after all."

"No, sir."

"Thank God."

Lindros cleared his throat. "Sir, you must rescind the Bourne sanction at once, and someone's going to have to debrief him."

"Yes, of course. I think you're best equipped to do that, Martin."

"Yes, sir." Lindros stood.

"Where are you going?" The querulousness had returned to the Old Man's voice.

"To the Virginia State Police Commissioner. I have another copy of that file to drop into his lap. I'm going to insist that Detective Harris be reinstated, with a commendation from us. And as for the National Security Advisor herself... ?" The DCI took up the file and stroked it lightly. With this bit of animation, some color returned to his face. "Give me overnight, Martin." Slowly, the old glint was returning to his eyes. "I'll think of something deliciously suitable." He laughed, the first time he'd done so, it seemed, in ages. " 'Let the punishment fit the crime,' eh?"

Khan was with Zina to the end. He'd hidden the NX 20 and its horribly lethal payload. As far as the security people who were swarming all over the thermal heating station were concerned, he was a hero. They knew nothing about the bio-weapon. They knew nothing about him.

It was a curious time for Khan. He held the hand of a dying young woman who couldn't speak, who could barely breathe, and yet who quite clearly didn't want to let him go. Perhaps it was simply that, in the end, she didn't want to die. After Hull and Karpov realized that she was on the verge of dying and couldn't provide them with information, they lost interest and so they left her alone with Khan. And he, so inured to death, experienced something wholly unexpected. Each breath she took, labored and painful, was a lifetime. He saw this in her eyes which, like her hand, would not let him go. She was drowning in the silence, sinking down into darkness. He couldn't let that happen.

Unbidden, his own pain was brought to the surface by hers, and he spoke to her of his life: of his abandonment, his imprisonment by the Vietnamese gunrunner, the religious conversion forced on him by the missionary, the political brainwashing by his Khmer Rouge interlocutor.

And then, most painful of all, was wrenched out of him his feelings about Lee-Lee. "I had a sister," he said in a thin, reedy voice. "She would've been about your age had she lived. She was two years younger than me, looked up to me, and I—I was her protector. I wanted so much to keep her safe, not only because my parents said I should but because I needed to. My father was away a lot. When we were off playing, who would protect her if not me?" Unaccountably, his eyes felt hot and his vision was blurred. Suffused with shame, he was about to turn away, but he saw something in Zina's eyes, a fierce compassion that served as a lifeline for him, and his shame vanished. He continued then, connected to her on an even more intimate level. "But, in the end, I failed Lee-Lee. My sister was killed along with my mother. I should've been too, but I survived." His hand found its way to the carved stone Buddha, gaining strength from it as he had done so many times before. "For such a long time, I used to wonder, what use was my survival? I had failed her."