Since the day of the assassination, the long-dreamed-of moment when he had become the new leader of the Chechen freedom fighters, Arsenov had lived in a feverish almosthallucinatory state. He slept heavily but not restfully, for his slumber was filled with nightmares in which he was trying to find something or someone through mazes of rubble and was defeated. As a consequence, he was edgy and short with his subordinates; he tolerated no excuses whatsoever. Only Zina had the power to calm him; her alchemical touch allowed him to return from the strange limbo into which he had somehow receded. The twinge of his wound brought him back to the present. He stared out the window at the ancient streets, watched with an envy that bordered on agony as people went about their business without hindrance, without the slightest trace of fear. He hated them, each and every one who in the course of their free and easy lives gave not one thought to the desperate struggle he and his people had been engaged in since the 1700s.
"What is it, my love?" A frown of concern crossed Zina's face.
"My legs ache. I grow weary of sitting, that's all."
"I know you. The tragedy of Murat's murder hasn't left you, despite our vengeance. Thirty-five Russian soldiers went to their graves in retaliation for the murder of Khalid Murat."
"Not just Murat," Arsenov said. "Our men. We lost seventeen men to Russian treachery."
"You've rooted out the traitor, shot him yourself in front of the sublieutenants."
"To show them what awaits all traitors to the cause. The judgment was swift, the punishment hard. This is our fate, Zina. There aren't enough tears to shed for our people. Look at us. Lost and dispersed, hiding in the Caucasus, more than one hundred fifty thousand Chechens living as refugees."
Zina did not stop Hasan as he enumerated once again this agonizing history because these stories needed to be repeated as often as possible. They were the history books of the Chechens.
Arsenov's fists went white, his nails drawing crescents of blood from beneath the skin of his palms. "Ah, to have a weapon more deadly than an AK-47, more powerful than a packet of C4!"
"Soon, soon, my love," Zina crooned softly in her deep, musical voice. "The Shaykh has proved to be our greatest friend. Look how much aid his organization has provided our people in just the last year; look how much coverage his press people have gotten us in international magazines and newspapers."
"And still the Russian yoke is around our necks," Arsenov growled. "Still we die by the hundreds."
"The Shaykh has promised us a weapon that will change all that."
"He's promised us the world." Arsenov wiped grit out of his eye. "The time for promises is over. Let us now see the proof of his covenant."
The limousine the Shaykh had sent for the Chechens turned off the motorway at Kalmankrt Boulevard, which took them over the Arpad Bridge, the Danube with its heavy barges and brightly painted pleasure craft a dazzle below them. Zina glanced down. To one side were the breathtaking domed and needle-spired Gothic stone edifices of the Houses of Parliament; on the other was thickly forested Margaret Island, within which was the luxe Danubius Grand Hotel, where crisp white sheets and a thick down comforter were awaiting them. Zina, hard as armor plate during the day, reveled in her nights in Budapest, never more so than in the luxury of the huge hotel bed. She saw in this feast of pleasure no betrayal of her ascetic existence but rather a brief respite from hardship and degradation, a reward like a wafer of Belgian chocolate slipped beneath the tongue, there in secret to melt in a cloud of ecstasy.
The limo nosed into the car park in the basement level of the Human-istas, Ltd. building. As they got out of the car, Zina took the large rectangular package from the driver. Uniformed guards checked the pair's passports against photos in the data bank of their computer terminal, gave them laminated ID tags and ushered them into a rather grand bronze-and-glass elevator.
Spalko received them in his office. By this time the sun was high in the sky, beating the river to a sheet of molten brass. He embraced them both, asked after the comfort of their flight, the ease of their trip in from Ferih-egy Airport and the status of Arsenov's bullet wound. When the amenities had been dispensed with, they went into an adjacent room, paneled in honey-toned pecan wood, where a table had been set with crisp white linen and sparkling dinnerware. Spalko had had a meal prepared, Western food. Steak, lobster, three different vegetables—all the Chechens' favorites. And not a potato anywhere in evidence. Potatoes were often all Arsenov and Zina had to eat for days on end. Zina put the package on an empty chair, and they sat at the table.
"Shaykh," Arsenov said, "as always, we're overwhelmed by the largesse of your hospitality."
Spalko inclined his head. He was pleased with the name he had given himself in their world, which meant the Saint, friend of God. It struck the right note of reverence and awe, an exalted shepherd to his flock.
He rose now and opened a bottle of powerful Polish vodka, which he poured into three glasses. He lifted his and they followed suit. "In memory of Khalid Murat, a great leader, a powerful warrior, a grim adversary," he intoned solemnly in the Chechen fashion. "May Allah grant him the glory he has earned in blood and courage. May the tales of his prowess as a leader and as a man be told and retold among all the faithful." They downed the fiery liquor in one quick gulp.
Arsenov stood, refilled the glasses. He raised his glass, and the others followed suit.
"To the Shaykh, friend of the Chechens, who will lead us to our rightful place in the new order of the world." They drank down the vodka.
Zina made to rise, doubtless to make her own toast, but Arsenov stayed her with a hand on her arm. The restraining gesture did not fail to catch Spalko's attention. What interested him most was Zina's response. He could see past her veiled expression to her seething core. There were many injustices in the world, he knew, on every scale imaginable. It seemed to him peculiar and not a little perverse that human beings could be outraged by injustice on a grand scale, all the while missing the small wrongs that were daily visited on individuals. Zina fought side by side with the men; why, then, should she not have an opportunity to raise her voice in a toast of her own choosing? Rage seethed within her; Spalko liked that—he knew how to use another person's anger.
"My compatriots, my friends." His eyes were sparking with conviction. "To the meeting of sorrowful past, desperate present and glorious future. We stand on the brink of tomorrow!"
They began to eat, speaking of general and inconsequential matters just as if they were at a rather informal dinner party. And yet an air of anticipation, of incipient change, had crept into the room. They kept their eyes on their plates or on one another, as if now so close to it, they were reluctant to look at the gathering storm that was pressing in upon them. At length, they were finished.
"It's time," the Shaykh said. Arsenov and Zina rose to stand before him. Arsenov bowed his head. "One who dies for the love of the material world dies a hypocrite. One who dies for the love of the hereafter dies an ascetic. But one who dies for the love of the Truth dies a Sufi."
He turned to Zina, who opened the package they had brought with them from Grozny. Inside were three cloaks. She handed one to Arsenov, who put it on. She donned hers. The third Arsenov held in his hands as he faced the Shaykh.
"The kherqeh is the garment of honor of the dervish," Arsenov intoned. "It symbolizes the divine nature and attributes."
Zina said, "The cloak is sewn with the needle of devotion and the thread of the selfless remembrance of God."
The Shaykh bowed his head and said, "La illaha ill Allah" There is no God but God, who is One.
Arsenov and Zina repeated, "La illaha ill Allah" Then the Chechen rebel leader placed the kherqeh around the Shaykh's shoulders. "It is enough for most men to have lived according to the Shariah, the law of Islam, in surrender to the divine will, to die in grace and to enter into Paradise," he said. "But there are those of us who yearn for the divine here and now and whose love for God compels us to seek the path of inwardness. We are
Sufi."
Spalko felt the weight of the dervish cloak and said, "O thou soul which are at peace, return unto thy Lord, with gladness that is thine in Him and His in thee. Enter thou among My slaves. Enter thou My Paradise."
Arsenov, moved by this quotation from the Qur'an, took Zina's hand, and together they knelt before the Shaykh. In a call-and-response three centuries old, they recited a solemn oath of obedience. Spalko produced a knife, handed it to them. Both in turn cut themselves and, in a stemmed glass, offered up to him their blood. In this manner, they became murids, disciples of the Shaykh, bound to him in both word and deed. Then, even though it was painful for Arsenov with his wounded thigh, they sat crosslegged, facing one another, and in the manner of the Naqshibandi Sufis, they performed the zikr, the ecstatic union with God. They placed their right hands on their left thighs, left hands atop right wrists. Arsenov began to move his head and neck to the right in the arc of a semicircle, and Zina and Spalko followed in perfect time to Arsenov's soft, almost sensual chanting: "Save me, my Lord, from the evil eye of envy and jealousy, which falleth upon Thy bountiful Gifts." They made the same movement to the left.
"Save me, my Lord, from falling into the hands of the playful children of earth, lest they might use me in their games; they might play with me and then break me in the end, as children destroy their toys." Back and forth, back and forth. "Save me, my Lord, from all manner of injury that cometh from the bitterness of my adversaries and from the ignorance of my loving friends."
The chanted prayers and the movement became one, merging into an ecstatic whole in the presence of God....
Much later, Spalko led them down a back corridor to a small stainless-steel elevator, which took them down below the basement into the very bedrock in which the building was set.
They entered a vaulted, high-ceilinged room, crisscrossed by iron struts. The low hiss of the climate control was the only sound they heard. A number of crates had been stacked along one wall. It was to these that Spalko led them. He handed a crowbar to Arsenov, watched with a good measure of satisfaction as the terrorist leader cracked open the nearest crate, stared down at the gleaming sets of AK-47 assault rifles. Zina took one up, inspected it with care and precision. She nodded to Arsenov, who opened another crate, which held a dozen shoulder-held rocket-launchers.
"This is the most advanced ordnance in the Russian arsenal," Spalko said.
"But what price?" Arsenov said.
Spalko spread his hands. "What price would be appropriate if this weaponry helped you gain your freedom?"
"How do you put a price on freedom?" Arsenov said with a frown.
"The answer is you cannot. Hasan, freedom has no known price tag. It is bought with the blood and the indomitable hearts of people like yourselves." He moved his eyes to Zina's face. "These are yours—all of them—to use as you see fit to secure your borders, make those around you take notice." At last, Zina looked up at him, through long lashes. Their eyes locked, sparked, though their expressions remained impassive. As if responding to Spalko's scrutiny, Zina said, "Even this weaponry won't gain us entry to the Reykjavik Summit."
Spalko nodded, the corners of his mouth turning up slightly. "True enough. The international security is far too comprehensive. An armed assault would result in nothing but our own deaths. However, I have a plan that will not only gain us access to the Oskjuhlid Hotel but will allow us to kill every person inside without exposing ourselves. Within hours of the event, everything you have dreamed of for centuries will be yours."
"Khalid Murat was afraid of the future, afraid of what we, as Chechens, can accomplish." The fever of righteousness colored Arsenov's face. "We have been too long ignored by the world. Russia beats us into the ground while their comrades in arms, the Americans, stand by and do nothing to save us. Billions of American dollars flow into the Middle East but to Chechnya not a ruble!"
Spalko had assumed the self-satisfied air of a professor who sees his prize pupil perform well. His eyes glittered balefully. "That will all change. Five days from now all the world will be at your feet. Power will be yours, as well as the respect of those who have spit on you, abandoned you. Russia, the Islamic world and all of the West, especially the United States!"
"We're speaking here of changing the entire world order, Zina," Arsenov fairly shouted.
"But how!" Zina asked. "How is this possible*."
"Meet me in Nairobi in three days' time," Spalko replied, "and you'll see for yourself."
The water, dark, deep, alive with an unnameable horror, closes over his head. He is sinking. No matter how hard he struggles, how desperately he strikes out for the surface, he feels himself spiraling down, as if weighted with lead. Then he looks down, sees a thick rope, slimy with weed, tied around his left ankle. He cannot see what is at the end of the rope because it disappears into the blackness below him. But whatever it is must be heavy, must be dragging him down, because the rope is taut. Desperately, he reaches down, his bloated fingers scrabbling to free himself, and the Buddha drifts free, spinning slowly, falling away from him into the unfathomable darkness.... Khan awoke with a start, as always, racked by a horrible sense of loss. He lay amid the humid tangle of sheets. For a time, the recurring nightmare still pulsed evilly in his mind. Reaching down, he touched his left ankle as if to reassure himself that the rope was not tied to him. Then, gingerly, almost reverently, he moved his fingers up the taut, slick muscles of his abdomen and chest until he touched the small carved stone Buddha that hung around his neck by a thin gold chain. He never took it off, even when he slept. Of course it was there. It was always there. It was a talisman, even though he had tried to convince himself that he didn't believe in talismans.
With a small sound of disgust, he rose, then padded into the bathroom, splashed cold water over his head. He turned on the light, blinking for a moment. Thrusting his head close to the mirror, he inspected his reflection, looking at himself as if for the first time. He grunted, relieved himself, then, turning on a table lamp, sat on the edge of the bed, read again the sparse dossier Spalko had given him. Nothing in it gave the slightest hint that David Webb possessed the abilities Khan had seen. He touched the black-and-blue mark on his throat, thought of the net Webb had fashioned out of vines and cleverly set. He tore up the single sheet of the dossier. It was useless, less than useless, since it had led him to underestimate his target. And there were other implications, just as immediate. Spalko had given him information that was either incomplete or incorrect. He suspected that Spalko knew precisely who and what David Webb was. Khan needed to know if Spalko had set some gambit in motion that involved Webb. He had his own plans for David Webb and he was quite determined that no one—not even Stepan Spalko—got in the way.
With a sigh, he turned off the light and lay back down, but his mind was unprepared for sleep. He found his entire body abuzz with speculation. Up until making the deal for his last assignment with Spalko, he had had no idea David Webb even existed, much less was still alive. He doubted he would have taken the assignment had not Spalko dangled Webb in front of his face. He must have known that Khan would find the prospect of finding Webb irresistible. For some time now, working for Spalko had made Khan uncomfortable. Increasingly, Spalko seemed to believe that he owned Khan, and Spalko, Khan was sure, was a megalomaniac.
In the jungles of Cambodia, where he had been forced to make his way as a child and teenager, he had had more than a little experience with megalomaniacs. The hot, humid weather, the constant chaos of war, the uncertainty of daily life all combined to drive people to the edge of madness. In that malevolent environment, the weak died, the strong survived; everyone was in some elemental fashion changed.
As he lay in bed, Khan fingered the scars on his body. It was a form of ritual, a superstition, perhaps, a method of keeping him safe from harm— not from the violence one adult perpetrates on another, but from the creeping, nameless terror a child feels in the dead of night. Children, waking from such nightmares, run to their pare
nts, crawl into the warmth and comfort of their bed and are soon fast asleep. But Khan had no parents, no one to comfort him. On the contrary, he had been constantly obliged to free himself from the clutches of addle-brained adults who thought of him only as a source of money or sex. Slavery was what he had known for many years, from both the Caucasians and the Asians he had had the misfortune to stumble across. He belonged to neither world and they knew it. He was a half-breed and, as such, reviled, cursed at, beaten, abused, laid low in every manner a human being can be degraded.
And still he had persevered. His goal, from day to day, had devolved simply to surviving. But he had learned from bitter experience that escape was not enough, that those who had enslaved him would come after him, punish him severely. Twice, he had almost died. That was when he understood that more was required of him if he was to survive. He would have to kill or, eventually, he would be killed.
It was just before five when the Agency assault team stole into the motel from their position at the highway roadblock. They had been alerted to the presence of Jason Bourne by the night manager, who had awakened from a Xanax-induced doze to see Bourne's face staring at him from the TV screen. He had pinched himself to make sure he wasn't dreaming, had taken a shot of cheap rye, and made his call.
The team leader had called for the motel's security lights to be switched off so the team could make their approach in darkness. As they began to move into position, however, the refrigerated truck at the opposite end of the motel started up and switched on its headlights, catching some of the team in its powerful beams. The team leader waved frantically to the hapless driver, then ran to his side of the truck, told him to haul ass out of there. The driver, goggle-eyed at the sight of the team, did as he was requested, turning out his lights until he was clear of the parking lot and rolling down the highway. The team leader signed to his men and they headed directly toward Bourne's room. At his silent command two broke off, headed around the back. The leader gave them twenty seconds to position themselves before he gave the order for them to don gas masks. Two of his men knelt, fired canisters of tear gas through the front window of the room. The leader's extended arm came down and his men rushed the room, slamming open the door. Gas whooshed out as they scuttled in, machine guns at the ready. The TV was on, the sound muted. CNN was showing the face of their quarry. The remains of a hasty meal were strewn on the stained, worn carpet and the bed was stripped. The room was abandoned.
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