“I would never harm Diego,” Bourne said. “I think you know that.”
“There is no one else but you.” Don Hernando’s voice, though soft, was like a cry full of pain and suffering. “Betrayal, betrayal!” He shook his head. “The only other possibility is Ottavio Moreno. He’s my godson. He would never lay a hand on Diego.”
Bourne sat very still, feeling a trickle of blood down his leg. He could end this at any moment, but he chose to let the situation play out because a violent end wouldn’t help him. He was extremely fond of Don Hererra; he couldn’t lift a finger against him. “And yet, it was Ottavio who knifed Diego,” he said.
“Lies!” The old man was quivering. “What possible reason—?”
“Severus Domna.”
At once Don Hererra blinked. A tic started in his right cheek. “What’s that you say?”
“You’ve heard of Severus Domna, I take it.”
The old man nodded. “I’ve crossed swords with a few members over the years.”
This interested Bourne greatly. Now he was doubly glad he had chosen not to act. “I have something Severus Domna wants,” Bourne said. “Its emissaries have followed me in London, Oxford—elsewhere here. Somehow one of them got to Diego. His assignment was to bring me to the Vesper Club, where they were waiting for me. Ottavio found out. He might have acted too hastily, but he was protecting me, I assure you.”
“You and he know each other?”
“We did,” Bourne said. “He died yesterday.”
The old man’s face grew hard. “How?”
“He was shot by a man employed by Jalal Essai.”
Don Hererra’s head swung around. Life was beginning to bloom on his cheeks. “Essai?”
“He wants the same thing Severus Domna wants.”
“He’s no longer with the group?”
“No.” Slowly Bourne became aware of the knife point being withdrawn.
“My sincere apologies,” the old man said.
“I know you must have been proud of Diego.”
For a time, Don Hererra said nothing. Bourne waved down a waiter and ordered two coffees. When cup and saucer were set down in front of Don Hererra, the old man stirred in some sugar, then took a sip, wincing at the taste.
“I can’t wait to get back to Sevilla.” His eyes engaged Bourne’s. “Before you go, there is something I must tell you. I used to hold Ottavio Moreno in my arms when I visited his mother. Her name is Tanirt and she lives in Tineghir.” He paused; his gaze was probing, and he was once again his old canny self. “That is where you’re headed, isn’t it?”
Bourne nodded.
“Be very careful, señor. Tineghir is the nexus of Severus Domna. Tineghir is where it was born, where it first flourished, due mostly to Jalal Essai’s family. But the Essais were split when Jalal’s brother turned his back on Severus Domna, uprooted his family, and moved to Bali.”
That would be Holly’s father, Bourne thought.
“Benjamin El-Arian, whose family coveted the Essais’ power, used the schism to gain influence. So far as I know, he has been the leader of Severus Domna for some years now.”
“So it’s all-out war between Essai and El-Arian.”
Don Fernando nodded. “From what I’ve been able to glean, Severus Domna doesn’t take kindly to members leaving the fold. Blood in, blood out.” He finished off his coffee. “But back to Tanirt. I’ve known her for a long time. She is, in many respects, the female I’ve been closest to most of my adult life, and that includes my late wife.”
“I think I should know if she’s your mistress.”
The old man smiled. “Tanirt is a special person, which you will discover for yourself when you speak with her.” He leaned forward. “Escúchame, señor, she is the first person you must see when you arrive in Morocco.” He scribbled a line on a scrap of paper. “Call her at this number when you arrive. She will be expecting you. Her advice will serve you well, there can be no doubt. She sees all sides of every situation.”
“Am I to believe that she was Gustavo Moreno’s mistress, and now she’s yours?”
“When you meet her you will understand,” Don Fernando said. “But this much I will say. Tanirt is no one’s mistress. She is who she is. It is not for any man to have her in that way. She is…” He looked away for a moment. “… wild.”
Dimitri Maslov received the news that Colonel Boris Karpov was getting a haircut and shave at the Metropole barbershop with cautious optimism. Karpov, also a cautious man, never got his hair cut at the same place twice.
Maslov summoned Oserov, but was informed that Oserov was AWOL, having left Moscow the day before. Maslov, seething, had had enough of Oserov. In fact, he’d kept him on this long only to piss off Arkadin, for whom he harbored both a father’s love and a spurned parent’s bitter hatred. But Oserov’s humiliating failure in Bangalore had sunk him fatally. He had become all but useless to Maslov, having acquired the stink of defeat.
“Where did he go?” Maslov inquired of Oserov’s assistant. They were standing in the offices, surrounded by Maslov’s crew.
“Tineghir.” The assistant coughed and licked his dry lips. “Morocco.”
“Why did he go to Morocco?”
“He… he didn’t tell me.”
“Did you try to find out?”
“How would I do that?”
Maslov drew his custom-made Makarov and shot the assistant between the eyes. Then he turned a murderous gaze on each of his men, slowly. The ones closest to him stepped back a pace, as if struck by an invisible blow.
“Anyone who thinks he can take a piss without my order, step forward.”
No one moved.
“Anyone who thinks he can disobey an order, step forward.”
No one breathed.
“Yevgeny.” He turned to a stocky man with a scar beneath one eye. “Arm yourself and your two best men. You’re coming with me.”
Then he stalked back into his office, went to the cabinet behind his desk, and began to pick through weaponry. If the debacle in Bangalore had taught him anything it was that if you want to get something difficult done, do it yourself. Times had changed. He knew it, yet he hadn’t wanted to believe it. Everything was more difficult than it had been. The government had become aggressively hostile, the siloviks had run off the more pliable oligarchs, and good people were harder and harder to find. The easy money had been made. Now he had to claw and scratch for every dollar. He was working double the hours just to make the profit he’d earned ten years ago. It was enough to make you weep for lost youth. The fact of the matter is, he thought as he fitted a suppressor to the muzzle of his Makarov, it’s no fun being a criminal anymore. Now it’s work, pure and simple. He’d been reduced to the level of an apparatchik, and he hated it. This new reality was a bitter pill for him to swallow. He was exhausted from trying to keep his head above water. And then, to top it all off, Boris Karpov had become his personal bête noire.
Well armed, he slammed the cabinet doors shut. Hefting his Makarov, he discovered a newfound vigor. After so many years behind a desk, it felt good to hit the streets, to take the law into his own hands, to shake it until it went limp and gave up. He felt ready to bite off its head.
* * *
The Metropole barbershop was situated off the vast, marble-and-ormolu lobby of the Federated Moskva Hotel, an old and venerable establishment located between the Bolshoi Theater and Red Square. The building was so ornate, it seemed at any moment on the verge of imploding from the encrustations of cornices, balustrades, carved stone panels, massive lintels, and projecting parapets.
The Metropole was set up with three old-fashioned barber’s chairs, behind which were a mirrored wall and the cabinets that contained the various implements of the trade: scissors, straight razors, shaving cream machines, tall glass jars of a blue liquid disinfectant, neatly folded towels, combs, brushes, electric hair clippers, canisters of talcum powder, and bottles of bracing aftershave.
Currently all three chairs were occupied b
y clients over whom had been spread black nylon smocks that snapped at the neck. The two men at either end were getting their hair cut by barbers in the traditional Metropole white uniforms. The man in the middle, reclining on his chair with a hot towel wrapped around his face, was Boris Karpov. While his barber stropped a straight razor, Karpov whistled an old Russian folk melody he remembered from his childhood. In the background a dinosaur of a radio played a staticky news report, announcing the latest government initiative to combat growing unemployment. Two men, one young, one old, sat in wooden chairs on the other side of the shop, reading copies of Pravda while waiting their turn.
Yevgeny’s men had reconnoitered the hotel lobby for ten minutes, assiduously checking for FSB-2 agents. Finding none, they signaled to their boss. Yevgeny, in a long winter overcoat similar to the ones his men wore, entered the Federated Moskva, along with a family led by an unsmiling Intourist guide. While the guide led the family to reception, he walked directly to the Metropole, assuring himself that Boris Karpov was, indeed, the man in the center chair getting his face scraped. As soon as the barber lifted the towel from Karpov’s face, Yevgeny turned and signaled to his man who was standing by the revolving door. This man, in turn, signaled Maslov, who got out of the black BMW parked in front of the hotel, went across the sidewalk, and up the steps.
The moment he appeared through the revolving door, Yevgeny and his men went into action, just as had been planned. The two men stationed themselves on either side of the Metropole entrance. There was no other egress.
Yevgeny walked in and, drawing his Makarov pistol, used the barrel to signal to the two men waiting to get the hell out. He swung the muzzle of the Makarov in the general direction of the clients getting their hair cut to keep them and their barbers from moving. He nodded and Maslov entered.
“Karpov, Boris Karpov.” Maslov had his Makarov at the ready. “I understand you’re looking for me.”
Karpov opened his eyes. His gaze rested on Maslov a moment. “Shit, this is awkward.”
Maslov grinned wolfishly. “Only for you.”
Karpov raised a hand from under his smock. The barber took the edge of the straight razor from his cheek and stepped back. Karpov looked from Maslov to Yevgeny to the two armed men who now appeared in the doorway.
“This doesn’t look good for me, but if you’ll listen I think we can work a deal.”
Maslov laughed. “Listen to this, the incorruptible Colonel Karpov begging for his life.”
“I’m just being pragmatic,” Karpov said. “I’m soon to become the head of FSB-2, so why kill me? I’d be an excellent friend to have, don’t you agree?”
“The only good friend,” Maslov said, “is a dead friend.”
He took aim at Karpov, but before he could squeeze the trigger, an explosion blasted him backward off his feet. A hole had appeared in Karpov’s smock from the bullet he had fired. He threw off the smock at the same time as the two other clients—both FSB-2 undercover agents—fired through their smocks. Yevgeny’s two men went down. Yevgeny killed one of Karpov’s men before Karpov shot him three times in the chest.
Karpov, his face still covered with shaving cream, walked over to where Maslov lay on the black-and-white tile floor.
“How do you feel?” He aimed his pistol at Maslov’s face. “At the end of an era?”
Without waiting for a reply, he squeezed the trigger.
Moira opened her eyes after what seemed like days or weeks of sleep, and saw Berengária Moreno’s face.
Berengária smiled, but it was a smile full of concern. “How do you feel?”
“Like I’ve been hit by a train.” Her left leg was in a full cast, suspended by a sling-and-pulley system, so the lower half was above the level of her head.
“You look beautiful, mami.” Berengária’s voice was light and breezy. She kissed Moira lightly on the mouth. “I have a private ambulance waiting downstairs to take us back to the hacienda. A full-time nurse and a physical therapist have already settled into their guest rooms.”
“You didn’t have to do that.” It was a stupid thing to say. Luckily, Berengária had the good grace to ignore it.
“You’ll have to get used to calling me Barbara.”
“I know.”
Then her tone changed, her voice softened, and she leaned close to Moira. “I was sure I’d never see you again.”
“Which only goes to prove that there are no sure things in life.”
Berengária laughed. “God knows.”
“Barbara…”
“Mami, please, I’ll be angry if you think I expect anything. I would do anything for you, including leaving you alone, if that’s your wish.”
Moira put her hand against Barbara’s cheek. “Right now, all I want is to recover.” She sighed deeply. “Barbara, I want to be able to run again.”
Barbara put her hand over Moira’s. “Then you’ll make it so. And I’ll help you, if that is your wish. If not…” She shrugged.
“Thank you.”
“Get better, mami. That’s how you’ll thank me.”
Moira’s expression clouded over. “You know, I wasn’t lying to Arkadin. Corellos has to be dealt with, and the sooner the better.”
“I know.” Barbara almost mouthed the words, so softly did she speak.
“It will take some thought, but the problem will give me something to concentrate on besides my leg.”
“I’m tempted to say just concentrate on getting better, but I know you’ll laugh in my face.”
Moira’s expression darkened even further. “You’re in the wrong business, you know that, don’t you?”
“It was my brother’s life.”
“I’m tempted to say that it doesn’t have to be yours, but I know you’ll laugh in my face.”
Barbara smiled ruefully. “God knows there’s no escaping family.” Absently, she stroked Moira’s cast. “My brother was good to me, he protected me, he looked out for me when others tried to take advantage of me.” She looked into Moira’s eyes. “He taught me to be tough. He taught me how to hold my head up in the world of men. Without him I don’t know where I’d be.”
Moira thought about this for some time. One compelling reason to stay with Barbara was so she could convince her to leave her brother’s business behind, despite her perceived obligation to him. Moira hadn’t been in touch with her own family for years, didn’t even know whether her parents were still alive. She wondered if she cared. Her own brother was another matter entirely. She knew where he was, what he was doing, and with whom he associated. She was certain he knew nothing of her. They had severed ties in their early twenties. Unlike with her parents, she felt something for him, but it wasn’t good.
She took a deep breath and exhaled the stale air of her past. “I’m healing faster than the surgeon had expected, and no one thinks more highly of his work than he does.”
Barbara’s eyes twinkled. “Well, you know, nothing is as we expect.”
This time, both women laughed together.
Benjamin El-Arian sat behind his desk in his study. He was on the phone with Idir Syphax, the top-echelon member of Severus Domna in Tineghir. Syphax had confirmed that both Arkadin and Bourne were on their way to Morocco. El-Arian wanted to make certain that every detail he had worked out for their strategy was understood and in place. This was no time for surprises; he had no illusions concerning the nature of the two men.
“Everything is prepared inside the house?”
“Yes,” Idir said in his ear. “The system has been checked and rechecked. Most recently by me, as you requested. Once they’re in, they won’t be able to get out.”
“We built a better rat trap.”
A chuckle. “That’s the size of it.”
Now El-Arian came to the most difficult question. “What about the woman?” He could not bring himself to utter Tanirt’s name.
“We cannot touch her, of course. The men are terrified of her.”
With good reason, El-Arian though
t. “Leave her alone, then.”
“I will pray to Allah,” Idir said.
El-Arian was pleased. Pleased also that Willard had actually made good on his end of the bargain. He was about to add a comment when he heard the screech of a car taking off from outside his Georgetown brownstone. Because he was wearing a wireless headphone he was able to get up, walk across the carpet, and peer through the slats of the wooden shutters without breaking off the call.
He saw a bundle lying awkwardly on his front steps, as if it had been dropped there. The cylindrical shape was wrapped up in an old carpet. He estimated the length to be somewhere between five and a half and six feet.
While still talking into his mike, he went down the hall, opened his front door, and hauled the carpet into his foyer. He grunted; it was very heavy. The carpet was tied in three places with common twine. He went back to his desk, retrieved a folding knife from a drawer, and returned to the foyer. Squatting down, he severed the three lengths of twine and unrolled the carpet. This unleashed an unholy stench that caused him to jump back.
When he saw the body, when he recognized it, when he realized that it was still alive, he cut short the call. Staring down at Frederick Willard, he thought, Allah preserve me, Jalal Essai has declared war on me. Unlike the deaths of the men he had sent to terminate Essai, this was a personal statement.
Setting aside his natural revulsion, he bent over Willard. One eye would not open, and the other was so inflamed there was no white at all.
“I will pray for you, my friend,” El-Arian said.
“I have no interest in Allah or in God.” Willard’s dry, cracked lips scarcely moved, and something terrible must have been done to his throat or vocal cords because his voice was nearly unrecognizable. It sounded like a razor cutting through flesh. “The rest is darkness. There is no one left to trust.”
El-Arian asked him a question, but the answer wasn’t forthcoming. Leaning forward, he touched the side of Willard’s neck. There was no pulse. El-Arian said a brief prayer, if not for the infidel, then for himself.
Book Four
Robert Ludlum's (TM) The Bourne Objective Page 38
