That’s when he saw the gold ring on the third finger of his right hand and, stooping, worked it off. He hoped there might be a commemorative engraving on the inside.
There wasn’t. There was something far more interesting.
* * *
Soraya saw Leonid Arkadin again in the lone marina restaurant. Or, rather, he must have been searching for her, because engrossed in her fiery shrimp and yellow rice she didn’t see him enter. Her waiter brought her a drink—a tequini, he said—from the man at the bar. Soraya glanced up, and of course it was Arkadin. She looked into his eyes as she picked up the martini glass. She smiled. That was all the encouragement he needed.
“You’re persistent, I’ll give you that,” she said when he’d sauntered over.
“If I were your lover, I wouldn’t let you eat dinner alone.”
“My ex pool boy? I sent him packing.”
He laughed and gestured to the booth in which she sat. “May I?”
“I’d prefer you didn’t.”
He sat down anyway and put his drink on the table, as if marking out his territory. “If you let me order, I’ll pay for your dinner.”
“I don’t need you to pay for my dinner,” she said flatly.
“Need has nothing to do with it.” He lifted his hand and the waiter glided over. “I’ll have steak, bloody, and an order of tomatillos.” The waiter nodded and left.
Arkadin smiled, and Soraya was astonished at how genuine it seemed. There was a deep warmth to it that frightened her.
“My name is Leonardo,” he said.
She snorted. “Don’t be ridiculous. No one in Puerto Peñasco is named Leonardo.”
He seemed crestfallen, like a little boy caught with his hand in the cookie jar, and now she was beginning to make sense of his approach to women. She could see how magnetic he was, how compelling an impression he made, exuding the security of a powerful man with a softer core of vulnerability. What woman could resist that? She laughed silently to herself and felt better, as if at last she was standing on solid ground, in a place where she could confidently move forward with her assignment.
“You’re right, of course,” Arkadin said. “It’s actually Leonard, just plain Leonard.”
“Penny.” She held out a hand, which he held briefly. “What are you doing in Puerto Peñasco, Leonard?”
“Fishing, sport racing.”
“In your cigarette.”
“Yes.”
Soraya finished up her shrimp just as his steak and tomatillos arrived. The steak, bloody as ordered, was smothered in chilies. Arkadin dug in. He must have a cast-iron stomach, she thought.
“And you?” he said around bites.
“I came for the weather.” She pushed the tequini away from her.
“You don’t like it?”
“I don’t drink alcohol.”
“Alcoholic?”
She laughed. “Muslim. I’m Egyptian.”
“I apologize for sending you an inappropriate gift.”
“No need.” She waved away his words. “You couldn’t have known.” Then she smiled. “But you’re sweet.”
“Ha! Sweet is one thing I’m not.”
“No?” She cocked her head. “What are you, then?”
He wiped the blood off his lips and sat back for a moment. “Well, to tell you the truth I’m something of a hard-ass. My partners thought so, especially when I bought them out. So did my wife, for that matter.”
“She’s also in the past?”
He nodded as he dug into his food again. “Nearly a year now.”
“Children?”
“Are you kidding?”
Arkadin certainly had a gift for spinning yarns, she thought appreciatively. “I’m not much of a nurturer, either,” she said, somewhat truthfully. “I’m entirely focused on my business.”
He asked her what that might be without looking up from his steak.
“Import-export,” she said. “To and from North Africa.”
His head came up slowly, but very deliberately. She felt her heart beating against her rib cage. It was, she thought, like coaxing a shark onto the hook. She didn’t want to make the slightest mistake now, and felt a little thrill pass through her. She was very close to the precipice, to the moment when her fictional self would fuse with her real self. This moment was why she chose to do what she did. It was why she hadn’t walked away from Peter when he’d recruited her for the assignment, why she had set aside the demeaning aspect of what she was expected to do. None of that mattered. What mattered was standing a hairbreadth from the precipice. This precise moment was what she lived for, and Peter had known this long before she did.
Arkadin wiped his mouth again. “North Africa. Interesting. My former partners did a fair amount of business in North Africa. I didn’t like their methods—or, to be honest, the people they were dealing with. That was one of the reasons I decided to buy them out.”
He was quick on his feet, Soraya thought, improvising like crazy. She was liking this conversation more and more.
“What line are you in?” she asked.
“Computers, peripherals, computer services, that sort of thing.”
Right, she thought, amused. She put a thoughtful expression on her face. “Well, I could connect you with some reliable people, if you like.”
“Maybe you and I could do business.”
Bite! she thought with some elation. Time to reel in the shark, but very slowly and very carefully.
“Hm. I don’t know, I’m already near capacity.”
“Then you need to expand.”
“Sure. With what capital?”
“I have capital.”
She eyed him warily. “I don’t think so. We know nothing about each other.”
He set his knife and fork down, and smiled. “Then let’s make getting to know each other our first order of business.” He lifted a finger. “In fact, I have something to show you that just might entice you into doing business with me.”
“And what might that be?”
“Ah-ah-ah, it’s a surprise.”
Calling the waiter over, he ordered two espressos without asking her if she wanted one. As it happened, she did. She wanted her senses to be on full alert because she had no doubt that at some point tonight she would have to fend off his amorous advances in a way that would lead him on, not turn him off.
They chatted amiably while drinking the espressos, finding their way toward feeling comfortable with each other. Soraya, seeing how relaxed he was, allowed herself to relax, as well, at least as far as she was able. Beneath, however, she felt the tension of steel cables singing through her body. This was a man of enormous charm, as well as charisma. She could see how so many women were magnetically drawn into his orbit. But at the same time the part of her that had pulled back, observing at an objective distance, recognized the show he was putting on, and that she was not seeing the real Arkadin. After a time, she wondered whether anyone had. He had so successfully walled himself off from other human beings that she suspected he was no longer accessible even to himself. And at that moment, he seemed to her a lost little boy, long exiled, who could no longer find his way home.
“Well,” he said as he set down his empty cup, “shall we move on?” He threw some bills onto the table and, without waiting for a reply, slid out of the booth. He held out his hand and, after a moment’s deliberate hesitation, she took it, allowing him to swing her out of her seat.
The night was mild, without a breath of a breeze, heavy as velvet drapes. The sky was moonless, but the stars blazed in the blackness. They strolled away from the water, and then north, paralleling the beach. To their right, the light-smear of Puerto Peñasco seemed part of a painting, a world apart.
Streetlights gave way to starlit darkness and then, abruptly, the lights of a large stone structure that looked vaguely religious in nature. She saw the cross set into the stone above the wood-and-iron door.
“It used to be a convent.” Arkadin unlocked the
door and stood aside for her to enter. “My home away from home.”
The interior was sparsely furnished, but aromatic with incense and candle wax. She saw a desk, several armchairs, a refectory table and eight chairs, a pew-like sofa festooned with ill-matched pillows. All of it was heavy, dark wood. None of it looked comfortable.
As they walked through the living room, Arkadin lit thick cream-colored candles in iron stands of varying heights. The effect in the convent’s immense stone interior was increasingly medieval, and she smiled to herself, suspecting that he was setting the scene for romance or, in this case, seduction.
He opened a bottle of red wine and poured it into an oversize Mexican goblet, then he filled another with guara juice. Handing her the juice, he said, “Come. This way.”
He led her farther into the gloom, pausing to light candles along the way. The far wall was almost all brick fireplace, as enormous as any in an English baronial hall. She could smell the old ash and creosote coating the firebrick after decades of use and, judging by what she saw, years of neglect.
Now Arkadin lit a particularly large candle and, holding it high as one would a torch, walked toward the shadows of the fireplace. The impenetrable darkness began to give grudging way to the inconstant illumination of the flame.
As the shadows retreated, a shape took form in the fireplace, a chair. And on the chair sat a figure. The figure was bound to the chair by its ankles. Its arms, presumably bound at the wrists, were behind it.
As Arkadin brought the candle still closer, the light from the flame rose up from the figure’s ankles to legs, torso, finally revealing its face, bloody and swollen so badly that one eye had closed.
“How do you like your surprise?” Arkadin said.
The goblet of juice shattered on the floor tiles as it slipped from Soraya’s grip.
The man bound to the chair was Antonio.
It was like a chess match, Bourne staring at the old man, trying to place him as the director of the Centre for the Study of Ancient Documents when he had been in Oxford as David Webb, the old man staring at him more certain with every passing second of Bourne’s identity.
Chrissie was staring at them both, as if trying to figure out which would checkmate the other. “Adam, is my father right? Is your name really David Webb?”
Bourne saw a way out—the only way—but he didn’t like it. “Yes,” he said, “and no.”
“Either way, your name isn’t Adam Stone.” Chrissie’s voice held a metallic edge. “Which means you lied to Trace. She knew you as Adam Stone, and that’s how I know you.”
Bourne turned to look at her. “Adam Stone is as much my name as David Webb used to be. I’ve been known by different names at different times. But they’re only names.”
“Damn you!” Chrissie got up, turned her back, and stalked into the kitchen.
“She’s pretty angry,” Scarlett said, watching him with her eleven-year-old face, beautiful yet not fully formed.
“Are you angry?” Bourne asked.
“You’re not a professor?”
“In fact, I am,” Bourne said. “A professor of linguistics.”
“Then I think it’s cool. D’you have a whole bunch of secret identities?”
Bourne laughed. He liked this child. “When the need arises.”
“Bat-Signal!” She cocked her head, and in the straightforward manner of children, said, “Why did you lie to Mum and Aunt Tracy?”
Bourne was about to say something about Tracy, but just in time reminded himself that as far as Scarlett was concerned her aunt was still alive. “I was in one of my secret identities when I met your aunt. Then Tracy told your mum about me. It was the best way I could get her to listen to me quickly.”
“If you’re not Professor David Webb who the hell are you?” Chrissie’s father said, visibly gathering himself.
“I was Webb when I knew you,” Bourne said. “I didn’t come to Oxford, to you, under false pretenses.”
“What are you doing here with my daughter and granddaughter?”
“It’s a long story,” Bourne said.
A spark of cunning came into the old man’s face. “I’ll bet it has something to do with my older daughter.”
“In a way.”
The old man clenched a fist. “That damn engraving.”
A little chill traveled down Bourne’s spine. “What engraving?”
The old man peered at him curiously. “Do you not remember? I’m Dr. Bishop Atherton. You brought me a drawing of a phrase you said was an engraving.”
And then Bourne remembered. He remembered everything.
Book Three
21
ANTONIO SLUMPED IN the furious darkness of the convent’s hearth, a darkness so thick and black it seemed to obliterate not just light, but life itself.
Soraya took several steps toward him, peering into the gloom.
“He’s not your pool boy,” Arkadin said. “That’s clear enough.”
She said nothing, knowing that he had begun to bait her in order to gain information. This, in itself, was a hopeful sign, indicating that Antonio hadn’t talked, despite the beating he’d received.
Deciding that outrage was her best course, she turned on Arkadin. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
When Arkadin smiled it was like a wolf appearing through pine trees. “I like to know who my prospective partners are.” His smile lengthened, like knives being unsheathed. “Especially ones that fall into my lap so conveniently.”
“Partners?” She laughed harshly. “You must be fucking dreaming, my Russian friend. I wouldn’t partner with you for—”
He grabbed her then, pressing his lips against hers, but she was ready for him. She folded herself against him and slammed her knee into his groin. His hands on her trembled for a moment, but he did not let her go. His lupine grin never faltered, but there were tears glittering in the corners of his eyes.
“You won’t get me,” she said softly but icily, “either way.”
“Yes, I will,” he said, just as icily, “because you came here to get me.”
Soraya had nothing to say to this, but she was hoping he was making a stab in the dark, because otherwise she was blown all to hell. “Let Antonio go.”
“Give me a reason.”
“We’ll talk.”
He massaged his groin gently. “We already talked.”
She bared her teeth. “We’ll try another form of communication.”
He put a hand on her breast. “Like this?”
“Untie him.” Soraya tried not to grit her teeth. “Let him go.”
Arkadin appeared to consider her request. “I think not,” he said after several moments of tense silence. “He means something to you, which makes him valuable as leverage.” Reaching into his pocket, he produced a switchblade. It snikked open and, pushing her away, he advanced on Antonio. “What should I cut off first, do you think? Ear? Finger? Or something even lower down?”
“If you cut anything off…”
He turned to her. “Yes?”
“If you cut anything off you’ll never be able to sleep while I’m lying beside you.”
He leered at her. “I don’t sleep.”
She had begun to despair for Antonio’s life when her cell rang. Without waiting for Arkadin to give her permission, she answered it.
“Soraya.” It was Peter Marks.
“Yes.”
“What’s happened?” Intuitive as ever, he’d picked up on the tension in her voice.
She stared into Arkadin’s eyes. “Everything’s hunky-dory.”
“Arkadin?”
“You bet.”
“Excellent, you’ve made contact.”
“More than.”
“There’s a problem, I get it. Well, you’ll have to find your way out of it and fast, because our mission’s become urgent.”
“What the hell is going on?”
“You need to get Arkadin to the following address within seventy-two h
ours.” Then he recited the address Willard had given him.
“That’s an impossible order to fill.”
“Obviously, but it’s got to be done. He and Bourne have to meet, and that’s where Bourne will be.”
A pinpoint of light appeared in the darkness ahead of her. Yes, she thought, it just might work. “Okay,” she said to Peter, “I’ll put a rush on it.”
“And make sure he takes his laptop with him.”
Soraya let out a breath. “How d’you propose I do that?”
“Hey, that’s why you get the big bucks.”
He rang off before she could tell him to go to hell. With a grunt of disgust, she pocketed her cell.
“Business problems?” Arkadin said in a mocking tone.
“Nothing that can’t be solved.”
“I like your can-do attitude.” Mocking her still, he brandished the switchblade. “Are you going to solve this problem?”
Soraya put a thoughtful expression on her face. “Possibly.” Walking past him, she went into the hearth, where Antonio watched her with the one eye that wasn’t swollen shut. She was shocked to find him grinning at her.
“Don’t mind me,” he said in a hoarse voice, “I’m having fun.”
Without Arkadin being able to see, she put her forefinger to her lips, then pressed it to his. It came away bloody. She turned back to Arkadin. “It all depends on you.”
“I don’t think so. The ball’s in your court.”
“Here’s how this will work.” She emerged back into the flickering candlelight. “You let Antonio go and I’ll tell you how to find Jason Bourne.”
He burst out laughing. “You’re bluffing.”
“When it comes to someone’s life,” she said, “I never bluff.”
“Still, what does an importer-exporter know about Jason Bourne?”
“Simple enough.” Soraya had already worked out her answer. “From time to time, he uses my company as a cover.” This was a plausible enough story to give him reason to believe her.
“And why does an importer-exporter think I care where Jason Bourne is?”
She cocked her head. “Do you?” This was no time to back down or show weakness.
The Bourne Objective (2010) Page 30
