“Listen, Martin, I know I’m officially off the case—”
“Jesus, Harry, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that.”
“Never mind now,” Detective Harris interrupted. He launched into an abbreviated account of the driver of the GTO, his gun, and the scam being run on falsely registered guns. “You see how it works,” he went on. “These guys can get guns for anyone they want.”
“Yeah, so?” Lindros said without much enthusiasm.
“So they can also put anyone’s name on the registration. Like David Webb’s.”
“That’s a nice theory, but—”
“Martin, it isn’t a theory!” Harris was fairly shouting into the receiver; everyone around him looked up from their work, surprised at the rising sound of his voice. “It’s the real deal!”
“What?!”
“That’s right. This same ring ‘sold’ a gun to one David Webb, only Webb never bought it, because the store on the permit doesn’t exist.”
“Okay, but how d’we know Webb didn’t know about this ring and used them to get a gun illegally?”
“That’s the beauty part,” Harris said. “I have the electronic ledger from the ring. Every sale is meticulously recorded. Funds for the gun Webb supposedly bought were wired in from Budapest.”
The monastery perched atop a mountain ridge. On the steep terraces far below, it grew oranges and olives, but up above, where the building seemed implanted like a molar in the bedrock itself, there grew only thistle and wild laudanum. Kri-kri, the ubiquitous Cretan mountain goat, were the only creatures able to sustain themselves at the level of the monastery.
The ancient stone construction had long been forgotten. Which of the marauding peoples from the island’s storied history had built it was difficult for a lay person to say. It had, like Crete itself, passed through many hands, been mute witness to prayers and sacrifice and the spilling of blood. Even from a cursory glance, however, it was clear that it was very old.
From the dawn of time, the issue of security had been of paramount importance to warriors and monastics alike, hence the monastery’s place atop the mountain. On one slope were the fragrant terraced groves; on the other was a gorge, not unlike the slash of a Saracen’s cutlass, scored deep into the rock, opening up the mountain’s flesh.
Having encountered professional resistance at the house in Iraklion, Spalko proceeded to plan this assault with a great deal of care. Making a run at the place in daylight was out of the question. No matter in which direction they might try it, they were certain to be mowed down long before they reached the monastery’s thick and crenelated outer walls. Therefore, while his men took their wounded compatriot back to the jet to be tended to by the surgeon and to assemble the needed supplies, Spalko and Zina rented motorcycles so that they could reconnoiter the area surrounding the monastery.
At the edge of the gorge, they left their vehicles and hiked down. The sky was an absorbent blue, so brilliant that it seemed to imbue every other color with its aura. Birds circled and rose on the thermals, and when the breeze picked up, the delicious scent of orange blossoms perfumed the air. Ever since she boarded his personal jet, Zina had been patiently waiting to find out why Spalko wanted to get her alone.
“There’s an underground entrance to the monastery,” Spalko said, as they descended the rocky scree into the end of the gorge closest to the structure. The chestnut trees on the lip of the gorge had given way to tougher cypresses, whose twisted trunks extended from the earthen crannies between boulders. They used the flexible branches as impromptu handholds as they continued down the steep slope of the gorge.
Where the Shaykh got his information, Zina could only guess at. In any event, it was clear that he possessed a worldwide network of people with ready access to almost any information he could require.
They rested for a moment, leaning against an outcropping. The afternoon was getting on, and they ate olives, flatbread and a bit of octopus marinated in olive oil, vinegar and garlic.
“Tell me, Zina,” Spalko said now, “do you think of Khalid Murat—do you miss him?”
“I miss him very much.” Zina wiped her lips with the back of her hand, bit into a wedge of flatbread. “But Hasan is our leader now; all things must pass. What happened to him was tragic but not unexpected. We’re all targets of the savage Russian regime; we all have to live with that knowledge.”
“What if I were to tell you that the Russians had nothing to do with Khalid Murat’s death?” Spalko said.
Zina stopped eating. “I don’t understand. I know what happened. Everyone does.”
“No,” Spalko said softly, “all you know is what Hasan Arsenov has told you.”
She stared at him, and in the dawning of comprehension her knees felt weak.
“How—” She was so full of emotion her voice failed her and she was obliged to clear her throat, start over again, aware that part of her didn’t want to know the answer to the question she was about to ask. “How d’you know this?”
“I know,” Spalko said levelly, “because Arsenov contracted with me to assassinate Khalid Murat.”
“But why?”
Spalko’s eyes bored into hers. “Oh, you know, Zina—you, of all people—you who’s his lover, who knows him better than anyone—you know very well.”
And, sadly, Zina did; Hasan had told her as much many times. Khalid Murat was part of the old order. He couldn’t think past the borders of Chechnya; in Hasan’s opinion, he was afraid to take on the world when he could not yet see a way for them to hold back the Russian infidels.
“Didn’t you suspect?”
And the truly galling thing, she thought, was that she hadn’t suspected, not for a moment. She had believed Hasan’s story from first word to last. She wanted to lie to the Shaykh, to make herself look more clever in his eyes, but under the burden of his gaze, she knew he’d see right through her and know she was lying, and then, she suspected, he’d know she couldn’t be trusted and he’d be finished with her.
And so, humiliated, she shook her head. “He had me fooled.”
“You and everyone else,” he said evenly. “Never mind.” He smiled suddenly. “But now you know the truth; you see the power of having information others don’t.”
She stood for a moment, her buttocks against the sun-heated rock, rubbing her palms down her thighs. “What I don’t understand,” she said, “is why you’ve chosen to tell me.”
Spalko heard the twin notes of fear and trepidation in her voice and decided that was as it should be. She knew she stood on the edge of a precipice. If he was any judge of character, she had suspected as much from the moment he had proposed she come with him to Crete, certainly from the instant she had colluded with him in his lie to Arsenov.
“Yes,” he said, “you’ve been chosen.”
“But for what?” She found that she was shaking.
He came and stood close to her. Blocking out the sunlight, he exchanged the sun’s warmth for his own. She could smell him, as she had in the hangar, and the male musk of him made her wet.
“You’ve been chosen for great things.” As he came ever closer, his voice dropped in volume even while it was increasing in intensity.
“Zina,” he whispered, “Hasan Arsenov is weak. I knew it the moment he came to me with his scheme for assassination. Why should he need me? I asked myself. A strong warrior who believes his leader is no longer fit to lead will undertake to murder the man himself; he will not hire out the deed to others who, if they are clever and patient, will one day use his weakness against him.”
Zina was trembling, both from his words and the force of his physical presence, which was making her feel as if her skin was prickling, her hair standing on end. Her mouth was dry, her throat full with longing.
“If Hasan Arsenov is weak, Zina, of what use is he to me?” Spalko put a hand on her breast and Zina’s nostrils flared. “I’ll tell you.” She closed her eyes. “The mission we’ll shortly embark on is fraught with dang
er every step of the way.” He squeezed gently, pulling upward with agonizing slowness. “In the event something goes wrong, it’s prudent to have a leader who can like a magnet attract the attention of the enemy, drawing them toward him even as the real work goes on unimpeded.” He pressed his body against hers, felt her rising against him in a kind of spasm she was powerless to control. “Do you see what I mean?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“You’re the strong one, Zina. If you had wanted to dethrone Khalid Murat, you’d never have come to me first. You’d have taken his life yourself and considered it a blessing you’d done for yourself and for your people.” His other hand moved inward along her thigh. “Isn’t that so?”
“Yes,” she breathed. “But my people will never accept a female leader. It’s inconceivable.”
“To them but not to us.” He drew one leg away. “Think, Zina. How will you make it happen?”
With the hot rush of hormones racing through her, it was hard to think clearly. Part of her realized that that was the point. It wasn’t simply that he wanted to take her here in the cleft of the gorge, against the naked rocks, beneath the naked sky. As he had back in the architect’s house, he was submitting her to another test. If she lost herself completely now, if she failed to put her mind in gear, if he could make her so be-clouded with desire that she couldn’t answer his question, then he would be done with her. He would find another candidate to serve his purpose.
Even as he opened her blouse, touched her burning skin, she forced herself to remember how it had been with Khalid Murat, how after his advisors had left their twice-weekly councils, he had listened to what she had to say and often acted on it. She’d never dared tell Hasan the role she’d played, for fear she would be abandoned to the brutality of his jealousy.
But now, splayed out on the rock beneath the Shaykh’s advances, she extrapolated forward. Grabbing the back of the Shayhk’s head, pulling it down to her neck, she whispered in his ear, “I’ll find someone—someone physically intimidating, someone whose love for me will make him compliant—and I will command through him. It’ll be his face the Chechen see, his voice they’ll hear, but he’ll be doing precisely what I tell him to do.”
He’d pulled his upper torso away for a moment and she looked up into his eyes, saw them glittering as much with admiration as with lust, and with another tremor of exultation she knew that she had passed her second test. And then, opened and all at once impaled, she groaned in a long, drawn-out exclamation of their shared joy.
Chapter Eighteen
The scent of coffee still infused the apartment. They had returned after their meal without dawdling in time-honored tradition over coffee and dessert. Bourne had too much on his mind. But the respite, however brief, had served to revive him, had allowed his subconscious to work on information he needed to process.
They entered the apartment very close together. Citrus and musk rose off her like mist off a river; he couldn’t help inhaling it deep into his lungs. In order to distract himself, he grimly turned his mind to the business at hand.
“Did you notice the burns and lesions, the punctures and ligature marks on László Molnar’s body?”
She shuddered. “Don’t remind me.”
“He’d been tortured over a period of many hours, perhaps as much as a couple of days.”
She looked at him from beneath straight and serious brows.
“Which means,” he said, “that he may have given away Dr. Schiffer’s location.”
“Or he may not have,” she said, “which would also be a reason to kill him.”
“I don’t think we can afford to make that assumption.”
“What d’you mean ‘we’?”
“Yes, I know, as of now I’m on my own.”
“Are you trying to make me feel guilty? You forget, I have no interest in finding Dr. Schiffer.”
“Even if it meant a disaster for the world at large if he fell into the wrong hands?”
“What d’you mean?”
Khan, in his rental car downstairs, pressed the ear-bud. Their words were coming in clearly.
“Alex Conklin was a master technician—it was his speciality. From what I’ve learned, he was better at planning and executing complex missions than anyone I ever met. As I told you, he wanted Dr. Schiffer so badly that he poached him off a top-secret Department of Defense program, brought him over to the CIA and then promptly ‘disappeared’ him. That means whatever Schiffer was working on was so important that Alex felt the need to keep him out of harm’s way. And as it turned out, he was right, because someone kidnapped Dr. Schiffer. The operation your father ran for him got him away, hidden somewhere only László Molnar knew about. Now your father’s dead and so is Molnar. The difference is that Molnar was tortured before he was killed.”
Khan sat up straighter, his heart beating fast. Your father? Could the woman Bourne was with, the one to whom he’d paid no attention—could she really be Annaka?
Annaka stood in a patch of sunlight coming in through her bay window. “What d’you think Dr. Schiffer was working on that interested all these people so much?”
“I thought you had no interest in Dr. Schiffer,” Bourne said.
“Don’t be snide. Just answer the question.”
“Schiffer is the world’s foremost expert in bacteriological particulate behavior. That’s what I found out from the forum site Molnar had visited. I told you, but you were too busy finding poor Molnar’s corpse.”
“That sounds like gibberish to me.”
“Remember the Web site Molnar had accessed?”
“Anthrax, Argentinean hemorrhagic fever…”
“Cryptococcosis, pneumonic plague. I think it’s possible that the good doctor was working with these lethal biologicals or something similar, maybe something even worse.”
Annaka stared at him for a moment, shook her head.
“I think what got Alex so excited—and frightened—was that Dr. Schiffer has invented a device that could be used as a biological weapon. If so, he holds one of the terrorists’ holy grails.”
“Oh, my God! But that’s only a guess. How can you be sure you’re right?”
“I’ve just got to keep digging.” Bourne said. “Still so sanguine about Dr. Schiffer’s whereabouts?”
“But I don’t see how we can find him.” She turned and went to the piano, as if it were a touchstone or a talisman to keep her safe from harm.
“We,” Bourne said. “You said ‘we.’”
“A slip of the tongue.”
“A Freudian slip, it would seem.”
“Stop it,” she said crossly, “right now.”
He had gotten enough of the measure of her to know that she meant what she said. He went and sat down behind the escritoire. He saw the LAN line that connected her laptop computer to the Internet.
“I’ve got an idea.” he said. That was when he saw the scratches. The sunlight was hitting the highly polished surface of the piano bench in such a way that he could see several marks, freshly made. Someone had been in the apartment while they had been out. For what reason? He looked around for any signs of a disturbance.
“What is it?” Annaka asked. “What’s the matter?”
“Nothing,” he said. But the pillow wasn’t in quite the same position in which he’d left it; it was now skewed a bit to the right.
She put her hand on her hip. “So what’s your idea?”
“I need to get something first,” he improvised, “from the hotel.” He didn’t want to alarm her, but he needed to find a way to do some clandestine recon work. It was possible—perhaps even likely—that whoever had been in the apartment was still nearby. After all, they’d been under surveillance at László Molnar’s apartment. But how the hell had the watcher trailed them here? he asked himself. He’d been careful in every way that he could imagine. There was a ready answer, of course: Khan had found him.
Bourne grabbed his leather jacket and headed for the door. “I won’t
be long, I promise. In the meantime, if you want to be useful, you can go back on that Web site, see what more you can discover.”
Jamie Hull, head of American security at the terrorism summit in Reykjavik, had a thing for Arabs. He didn’t like them; he didn’t trust them. They didn’t even believe in God—at least, not the right one—let alone believe in Christ the Savior, he thought sourly as he strode down the hallway of the vast Oskjuhlid Hotel.
Another reason to dislike them: They had under their control three-quarters of the world’s oil. But then, if not for that, no one would’ve paid them the slightest attention, and all things being equal, they would’ve wiped themselves out through their indecipherable webs of intertribal warfare. As it was, there were four different Arabic security teams, one for each country present, but Feyd al-Saoud coordinated their work.
As Arabs went, Feyd al-Saoud wasn’t so bad. He was a Saudi—or was it Sunni? Hull shook his head. He didn’t know. This was another reason he didn’t like them; you never could tell who the hell they were or whose arm they’d cut off, given the chance. Feyd al-Saoud was even Western-schooled, somewhere in London, Oxford—or was it Cambridge? Hull asked himself. As if there was any difference! The point was you could speak to the man in plain English without him looking at you as if you’d just grown a second head.
Also, it seemed to Hull, he was a reasonable man, which meant that he knew his place. When it came to the president’s needs and desires, he deferred to Hull on almost everything, which was more than you could say for that sonuva-socialist-bitch Boris Illyich Karpov. He regretted bitterly having complained about him to the Old Man and being barked at in return, but, really, Karpov was the most exasperating bastard Hull had ever had the misfortune to work with.
He entered the multitiered conference theater where the summit itself would take place. It was a perfect oval, with a wave-form ceiling made up of blue panels of acoustic baffling. Hidden behind these panels were the large air ducts that allowed in the air filtered by the forum’s sophisticated HVAC system, completely separate from the hotel’s massive network. For the rest, the walls were of polished teak, the seats blue-cushioned, the horizontal surfaces either bronze or smoked-glass.
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