None of the three men had made a move, and now they wouldn't. Bourne kept one eye on them just the same. He took the muzzle away from Vadas' temple, let him go.
"I could have shot you dead, if that had been my wish."
"And I would have killed you," Annaka said fiercely.
"I've no doubt you'd have tried," Bourne said. He put up the ceramic gun, showing her and Vadas' men that had he no intention of using it. "But these are hostile acts. We'd have to be enemies to make them." Picking up Annaka's gun, he handed it to her, grips first. Without a word, she took it, aimed it at him.
"What have you turned your daughter into, Mr. Vadas? She would kill for you, yes, but it also seems as if she would kill too quickly and for no reason at all." Vadas stepped between Annaka and Bourne, pushed her gun down with his hand. "I've enough enemies as it is, Annaka," he said softly.
Annaka put away her gun, but her flashing eyes still held a hostility Bourne noted. Vadas turned to Bourne. "As I said, for you, killing Alexsei would have been an act of insanity, and yet you seem to be the very opposite of a madman."
"I was set up, made to be the patsy for the killings, so that the real killer would remain free."
"Interesting. Why?"
"I came here to find that out."
Vadas stared hard at Bourne. Then he looked around him, raised his arms. "I would have met Alexsei here, you know, had he lived. You see, this is a place of great significance. Here, at the dawn of the fourteenth century, once stood Buda's first parish church. The huge pipe organ you see up there on the balcony played at the two weddings of King Matthias. The last two kings of Hungary, Francis Joseph I and Charles IV, were crowned on this spot,. Yes, there's great history here, and Alexsei and I, we were going to change history."
"With the help of Dr. Felix Schiffer, wasn't it?" Bourne said. Vadas had no time to answer. Just then, an echoing roar sounded and he was thrown backward, arms outstretched. Blood oozed from a bullethole in his forehead. Bourne grabbed Annaka, dived onto the stonework paving. Vadas' men turned and, fanning out, began to return fire as they headed for cover. One was shot almost immediately, and he skidded over the marble floor, dead before he collapsed. A second gained the edge of a bench and was desperately trying to get behind it when he, too, was felled by a bullet that entered his spine. He arched back, his weapon crashing to the floor. Bourne looked from the third man taking cover to Vadas, who lay sprawled face-up in a widening pool of blood. He was unmoving, no respiration visible in his chest. More gunfire brought Bourne's attention back to Vadas' third man, who was now rising out of a crouch, squeezing off a series of shots, his trajectory upward toward the cathedral's great organ. His head flung backward and his arms opened wide as a speck of blood on his chest rapidly widened. He tried to clutch at the fatal wound, but his eyes were already rolling up in his head.
Bourne looked up into the gloom of the organ balcony, saw a darker shadow flitting, and he fired. Stone chips flew. Then he had grabbed Annaka's flashlight, playing the beam over the balcony as he ran toward the spiral stone staircase up to it. Annaka, at last released and able to make sense of the chaos, saw her father and screamed.
"Back!" Bourne shouted. "You're in danger!"
Ignoring him, Annaka rushed to her father's side.
Bourne covered her, sending more shots into the shadows of the balcony, but he was not surprised at the lack of return fire. The sniper had achieved his aim; in all liklihood he was already on the run.
With no more time to waste, Bourne leaped up the staircase up to the balcony. Seeing a spent shell casing, he kept on going. The balcony appeared deserted. Its floor was stoneflagged, and the wall behind the organ ornately carved wood paneling. Bourne ducked behind the organ, but the space was deserted. He checked the floor around the organ, then the wood wall. The spacing around one of the panels appeared slightly different from the others, one side several millimeters wider as if...
Bourne felt around with his fingertips, discovered that the panel was in fact a narrow doorway. He went through it, found himself confronting a steep spiral staircase. With his gun at the ready, he climbed up the treads, which ended at another door. When he pushed it open, he saw that it gave out onto the rooftop of the church. The moment he poked his head out, a shot was fired at him. He ducked back but not before seeing a figure making its way onto the roof tiles, which were pitched at an extreme angle. To make matters worse, it had begun to rain and the tiles were even more treacherous. The positive side to this was that the assassin was too engaged with keeping his balance to risk firing off another shot at Bourne.
Bourne saw immediately that his new boot soles would skid and he pulled them off, dropped them over the side of the parapet. He then went crab-wise across the roof. Thirty meters below him, a dizzying drop away, the square in which the church sat gleamed in the Old World streetlights. Using his fingers and toes to anchor him, he continued his pursuit of the sniper. In the back of his mind was the suspicion that the figure he was pursuing was Khan, but how could he have arrived in Budapest before Bourne and why would he shoot Vadas rather than Bourne?
Lifting his head, he could see the figure was making for the south spire. Bourne scrambled after him, determined not to let him get away. The tiles were old and crumbly. One tile split down the center as he grasped it, coming off in his hand, and for a moment, he flailed about, balancing precariously on the acute pitch. Then he regained his balance, threw the tile away. It shattered on the flat rooftop of the small chapel extension ten feet below him.
His mind was racing ahead. The moment of extreme peril for him was when the sniper reached the safe haven of the spire. If Bourne was still exposed on the roof, the sniper would have a clear shot at him. It was raining harder now, making touch and sight that much more difficult. The south spire was no more than a hazy outline some fifty feet away.
Bourne was three-quarters of the way to the spire when he heard something—the clang of metal against stone—and he threw himself prone onto the tiles. Water sluiced over him and as he felt the zing of the bullet whizz past his ear, the tiles near his right knee exploded and he lost his purchase. He slid down the precipitous slope, tumbling off the edge.
Instinctively, he had relaxed his body, and when his shoulder struck the roof of the chapel below, he rolled himself into a ball, using his own momentum to launch himself across the roof, dissipating the energy of the drop. He fetched up against a stained-glass window, which kept him out of the sniper's line of sight.
Looking up, he could see that he was not that far from the spire. A lesser tower was just in front of him, a narrow slit of a window presenting itself. It was medieval in nature and therefore had no pane of glass in it. He squeezed through, found his way up to the top, which gave out onto a narrow stone parapet that led directly to the south spire. Bourne had no way of knowing whether he would become visible to the sniper as he crossed the parapet. He took a deep breath, bolted out of the doorway, sprinted along the narrow stone passageway. Ahead of him, he saw the movement of a shadow, and he dove into a ball as a shot rang out. He was up and running again all in one motion, and before the sniper could fire again he had left his feet, this time diving head-first through an open window of the spire.
More shots resounded, and shards of stone flew past him as he scrambled up the spiral staircase at the core of the spire. Above him, he heard the metallic click that told him his adversary had run out of ammo, and he leaped up the stairs three at a time, making the most of his temporary advantage. He heard another metallic sound, and an empty cartridge came bouncing down the stone stairs. Bounding ahead, he bent his back, keeping his profile low. No more shots ensued, increasing the probability that he was gaining on the sniper.
But probability was not good enough; he had to be certain. He aimed Annaka's flashlight up the spiral, flicked the beam on. At once he saw the trace of a shadow on the treads just above him, slipping away almost immediately, and he redoubled his efforts. He switched off the beam before the snipe
r could get a reading on his position. They were near the top of the spire now, some eighty meters in the air. There was nowhere else for the sniper to go. He would have to kill Bourne to get himself out of the trap. This desperation would make him both more dangerous and more reckless. It was up to Bourne to use the latter possibility to his advantage.
Up ahead of him, he could see the spire's ending, a circular space surrounded by high arches that let in the rain and wind, and he checked his headlong ascent. He knew that if he continued, the chances were good that he would be met with a fusillade of bullets. And yet he could not stay here. He took his flashlight, set it on a step above him at an angle, then he lay down, and keeping his head down, he reached out, stretching as far as he could, and flicked on the beam.
The resulting hail of bullets was deafening. Even while the noise was still echoing up and down the length of the spire, Bourne had launched himself up the remaining stairs. He had gambled that the sniper's desperation would lead him to empty his entire cartridge at what he assumed was Bourne's final assault.
Out of the haze of stone dust, Bourne bull-rushed the sniper, driving him back across the stone floor, against one of the stone arches. The man slammed his combined fists down on Bourne's back, driving Bourne to his knees. His head went down, exposing his neck, too tempting a target to pass up. As the sniper drove a hand-strike at Bourne's neck, Bourne twisted, grasping the descending arm, using the sniper's own momentum against him, pulling the man off his feet. Bourne struck him in the kidney as he went down. The sniper brought his ankles together around Bourne's, twisting, so that Bourne fell backward. Immediately, the man leaped at him. They grappled hand-to-hand, the light from the flashlight picked apart by the hail of dust. By its illumination, Bourne saw the sniper's long, hatchet face, blond hair, light eyes. Bourne was briefly taken aback. He realized that he'd expected the sniper to be Khan.
Bourne did not want to kill this man; he wanted to question him. He desperately wanted to know who he was, who had sent him and why Vadas had been marked for death. But the man fought with the strength and tenacity of the damned, and when he struck Bourne on the right shoulder, Bourne's arm went numb. The man was on him before he could shift his stance and protect himself. Three punches in succession sent him reeling through one of the arches until he was backed over the low stone railing. The man came after him, his empty gun reversed in his hand so that he could use the butt as a cudgel.
Shaking his head, Bourne tried to rid himself of the pain in his right side. The sniper was almost upon him, his right arm raised, the heavy butt of the gun gleaming in the lights of the square. There was a murderous look on his face, his lips pulled back in an animal snarl. He swung in a shallow, vicious arc; the butt came down, its clear intention to shatter Bourne's skull. At the last moment, Bourne slid aside just enough and the sniper's own momentum sent him hurtling over the rail.
Bourne reacted instantly, reached down and grabbed the man by his hand, but the rain made the flesh slippery as oil and the fingers slid through his grip. With a scream the man fell away, plummeting to the pavement far below.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
With the fall of night, Khan arrived in Budapest. He took a taxi from the airport and checked into the Danubius Hotel as Heng Raffarin, the name he'd used as a Le Monde reporter in Paris. This was how he'd come through Immigration, but he was also carrying other documents, purchased like the other that identified him as a deputy inspector for Interpol.
"I've flown in from Paris to interview Mr. Conklin," he said in a harassed tone of voice.
"All these delays! I'm frightfully late. Do you think you could inform Mr. Conklin that I've finally arrived? We're both on rather tight schedules." As Khan had foreseen, the desk clerk automatically looked at the cubbyholes behind him, each with a room number printed in gold-leaf. "Mr. Conklin isn't in his suite at the moment. Would you care to leave a note?"
"I suppose I have no other choice. We'll get a fresh start in the morning." Khan pretended to write a note for "Mr. Conklin," sealed it, gave it to the clerk. Taking his key, he turned away, but out of the corner of his eye he watched as the clerk stuck the envelope in the cubbyhole marked penthouse 3. Satisfied, he took the elevator up to his room, which was on the floor below the penthouse level.
He washed up, took some implements out of a small bag and went out of his room. He took the stairway up one flight to the penthouse level. He stood in the corridor a very long time, simply listening, accustoming himself to the small noises endemic to any building. He stood, still as stone, waiting for something—a sound, a vibration, a feel—
that would tell him whether to go forward or to retreat.
In the end, nothing untoward presented itself, and so he moved cautiously forward, reconnoitering the entire corridor, assuring himself that it, at least, was secure. At length, he found himself in front of the polished teak double doors of Penthouse 3. Extracting a pick, he inserted it into the lock. A moment later, the door opened. Again, he stood for some tune in the open doorway, breathing in the suite. Instinct told him that the room was empty. Still, he was wary of a trap. Swaying slightly with the effects of sleeplessness and the rising tide of his emotions, he scanned the room. Besides the remnants of a package the approximate size of a shoebox, there was precious little in the suite to indicate that it was occupied. Judging by the look of the bed, it hadn't been slept in. Where was Bourne now? Khan wondered.
At length, he drew his wandering mind back into his body, crossed to the bathroom, turned on the light. He saw the plastic comb, the toothbrush, toothpaste, tiny bottle of mouthwash the hotel had provided along with soap, shampoo and hand cream. He unscrewed the toothpaste top, squeezed out a bit into the sink, washed it away. Then he pulled out a paper clip and a small silver box. Inside the box were two capsules with shells of quick-dissolving gelatin. One was white, the other black.
"One pill makes your heart beat, the other makes it slow, and the pills that Father gives you don't do anything at all," he sang to the tune of "White Rabbit" in a clear tenor as he extracted the white capsule from its bed.
He was about to place it into the open top of the toothpaste tube, tamp it down with the end of the paper clip, when something stopped him. He counted to ten, then replaced the cap, careful to put the tube back precisely as he had found it.
He stood, for a moment, bewildered, staring at the two capsules that he himself had prepared while waiting for his flight out of Paris. He had been clear, then, about what he'd wanted to do—the black capsule was filled with just enough krait venom to paralyze Bourne's body while still allowing his mind to remain conscious and alert. Bourne knew more about what Spalko was planning than Khan did; he had to, having followed his trail of leads all the way back to Spalko's home base. Khan wanted to know what Bourne knew before he killed him. This is what he told himself, at least. But it was impossible to deny any longer that his mind, so long filled with fevered visions of revenge, had lately made room for other scenarios. No matter how much energy he expended on rejecting them, they persisted. In fact, he realized now, the more violently he dismissed them, the more stubbornly they refused to disappear. Feeling like a fool, he was standing in the room of his nemesis, unable to follow through on the plan he had meticulously formulated. Instead, in the theater of his mind he was replaying the look on Bourne's face when he had seen the carved stone Buddha that hung by a gold chain around his neck. He clutched at the Buddha now, feeling as he always did a certain sense of solace and safety in its soft shape and singular weight. What was wrong with him?
With a small grunt of anger, he turned and stalked out of the suite. On his way down to his room, he pulled out his cell phone, punched in a local number. After two rings, a voice answered.
"Yes?" said Ethan Hearn.
"How's the job going?" Khan asked.
"Actually, I'm finding it enjoyable."
"Just as I predicted."
"Where are you?" Humanistas, Ltd.'s newest development officer asked.
"Budapest."
"That's a surprise," Hearn said. "I thought you had a commission in East Africa."
"I've declined it," Khan said. He had reached the lobby and now crossed it, heading to the front door. "In fact, for the time being I've taken myself off the market."
"Something pretty important must've brought you here."
"It's your boss, as a matter of fact. What have you been able to ferret out?"
"Nothing concrete, but he's up to something, I can tell, and it's very, very big."
"What makes you say that?" Khan asked.
"First, he entertains a pair of Chechens," Hearn said. "On the surface, there's nothing strange about that. We have an important initiative in Chechnya. And yet it was strange, very strange, because even though they were dressed as Westerners—the man was beardless, the woman without her head scarf—I recognized them, well, him-, at least. Hasan Arsenov, leader of the Chechen rebels."
"Go on," Khan urged, thinking he was getting more than his money's worth from this mole.
"Then, two nights ago, he asked me to go to the opera," Hearn continued. "He said he wanted to snag a wealthy prospect by the name of László Molnar."
"What's so strange about that?" Khan said.
"Two things," Hearn replied. "First, Spalko took over midway through the evening. He pretty much ordered me to take the next day off. Second, Molnar's disappeared."
"Disappeared?"
"Vanished utterly, like he never existed," Hearn said. "Spalko thinks I'm too naive not to have checked up." He laughed softly.
"Don't get overconfident," Khan warned. "That's when you make a mistake. And, remember what I told you, don't underestimate Spalko. Once you do, you're as good as dead."
"I got it, Khan. Christ, I'm not stupid."
"You wouldn't be on my payroll if you were," Khan reminded him. "D'you have this László Molnar's home address?"
Ethan Hearn gave it to him.
"Now," Khan said, "all you have to do is keep your ears open and your head down. I want everything of his you can burrow into."
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