She shrugged. "Who knows? The brother's dangerously insane. Stepan knew it, so for that matter did his father, but he refused to acknowledge it until it was too late. And even afterward, he continued to defend the boy, insisting that it was a tragic accident."
"All this might be true," he said. "But even if it is, it doesn't excuse you conspiring against your own father."
She laughed. "How can you, of all people, say that, when you and Khan have tried to kill each other? Such fury in two men, my God!"
"He came after me. I only defended myself."
"But he hates you, Jason, with a passion I've rarely seen. He hates you just as much as I hated my father. And d'you know why? Because you abandoned him as my father abandoned my mother."
"You're talking as if he's really my son," Bourne spat.
"Oh, yes, that's right, you've convinced yourself that he isn't. That's convenient, isn't it?
That way you don't have to think about how you left him to die in the jungle."
"But I didn't!" Bourne knew he shouldn't let her drag him into this emotionally charged subject, but he couldn't help himself. "I was told he was dead. I had no idea he might've survived. That's what I discovered when I was inside government database."
"Did you stay around to look, to check? No, you buried your family without even looking in the coffins! If you had, you would've seen that your son wasn't there. No, you coward, you fled the country instead."
Bourne tried to pull himself out of his bonds. "That's rich, you lecturing me on family!"
"That's quite enough." Stepan Spalko had entered the room with the perfect timing of a ringmaster. "I have more important matters to discuss with Mr. Bourne than family sagas."
Annaka obediently stood up. She patted Bourne's cheek. "Don't look so sullen, Jason. You're not the first man I've fooled, and you won't be the last."
"No," he said. "Spalko will be the last."
"Annaka, leave us now," Spalko said, adjusting his butcher's apron with hands covered in Latex gloves. The apron was clean and well pressed. As yet, there wasn't a spot of blood on it.
As Annaka departed, Bourne turned his attention to the man who, according to Khan, had engineered the murders of Alex and Mo. "And you don't distrust her, not even a little?"
"Yes, she's an excellent liar." He chuckled. "And I know a thing or two about lying." He crossed to the cart, eyed with the connoisseur's intensity the implements arrayed there.
"I suppose it's natural to think that because she betrayed you, she'd do the same to me." He turned, the light reflecting off the unnaturally smooth skin on the side of his face and neck. "Or are you trying to drive a wedge between us? That would be standard operating procedure for an operative of your high caliber." He shrugged and picked up an implement, twirled it between his fingers. "Mr. Bourne, what I'm interested in is how much you've discovered about Dr. Schiffer and his little invention."
"Where's Felix Schiffer?"
"You can't help him, Mr. Bourne, even if you could manage the impossible and free yourself. He outlived his usefulness and now he's beyond anyone's power to resurrect."
"You killed him," Bourne said, "just as you killed Alex Conklin and Mo Panov." Spalko shrugged. "Conklin took Dr. Schiffer away from me when I needed him the most. I got Schiffer back, of course. I always get what I want. But Conklin had to pay for thinking he could oppose me with impunity."
"And Panov?"
"He was in the wrong place at the wrong time," Spalko said. "It's as simple as that." Bourne thought of all the good Mo Panov had done in his life and felt overwhelmed by the uselessness of his death. "How can you talk about the taking of two men's lives as if it was as simple as snapping your fingers?"
"Because it was, Mr. Bourne." Spalko laughed. "And by tomorrow the taking of those two men's lives will be as nothing to what's coming."
Bourne tried not to look at the glinting implement. Instead, what came into his mind was an image of László Molnar's blue-white body stuffed into his own refrigerator. He'd seen first-hand the damage these tools of Spalko's could inflict. Because he was face to face with the fact that Spalko had been responsible for Molnar's torture and death, he knew that everything Khan had told him about this man was true. And if Khan had told the truth about Spalko, was it not possible that he'd been telling the truth all along, that he was, in fact, Joshua Webb, Bourne's own son? The facts were mounting, the truth was before him, and Bourne felt its crushing weight as if it were a mountain on his shoulders. He couldn't bear to look at... what?
It didn't matter now because Spalko had begun wielding his instruments of pain.
"Again, I'll ask you what you know about Dr. Schiffer's invention." Bourne stared past Spalko. At the blank concrete wall.
"You've chosen not to answer me," Spalko said. "I applaud your courage." He smiled charmingly. "And pity the futility of your gesture."
He applied the whorled end of the implement to Bourne's flesh.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Khan went into Houdini, a magic and logic games shop at 87 Vaci utca building. The walls and display cabinets of the smallish boutique were crammed with magic tricks, brain teasers and mazes of all kinds, shapes and descriptions, old and new. Children of all ages, their mothers or fathers in tow, prowled the aisles, pointing and staring wide-eyed at that fantastic wares.
Khan approached one of the harried salespeople and told her he wanted to see Oszkar. She asked him his name, then picked up a phone and dialed an interior extension. She spoke into the receiver for a moment, then directed Khan to the back of the store. He passed through a door at the rear of the shop into a tiny vestibule lit by one bare bulb. The walls were of an indeterminate color; the air smelled of boiled cabbage. He went up an iron circular staircase to the office on the second floor. It was lined with books—mostly first-edition volumes on magic, biographies and autobiographies of famous magicians and escape artists. An autographed photo of Harry Houdini hung on the wall over an antique oak rolltop desk. The old Persian carpet was still on the plank floor, still in desperate need of cleaning, and the huge, thronelike high-backed armchair still sat in its place of honor facing the desk.
Oszkar sat in exactly the same position he'd been in a year ago when Khan last had occasion to visit him. He was a pear-shaped man of middle years with huge side whiskers and a bulbous nose. He rose when he saw Khan and, grinning, came around from behind the desk and shook his hand.
"Welcome back," he said, gesturing for Khan to take a seat. "What can I do for you?" Khan told his contact what he needed. Oszkar wrote as Khan spoke, from time to time nodding to himself.
Then he looked up. "Is that all?" He seemed disappointed; he loved nothing better than being challenged.
"Not quite," Khan said. "There's the matter of a magnetic lock."
"Now we're talking!" Oszkar was beaming now. He rubbed his hands together as he rose. "Come with me, my friend."
He led Khan into a wallpapered hallway lit by what appeared to be gaslamps. He had a way of waddling when he walked, comical as a penguin, but when you saw him escape from three pairs of handcuffs in under ninety seconds, you were exposed to a whole new meaning of the word finesse.
He opened a door and walked into his workshop—a large space evenly divided into areas by workbenches and metal counters. He directed Khan over to one, where he commenced to rummage through a vertical stack of drawers. At length he brought out a small black and chrome square.
"All mag locks work off current, you know that, right?" When Khan nodded, he continued. "And they're all fail-safe, meaning they need a constant power supply to work. Anyone who installs one of these knows that if you cut the current, the lock will open, so there's certain to be a backup power supply, possibly even two, if the subject's paranoid enough."
"This one is," Khan assured him.
"Very well then." Oszkar nodded. "So forget about cutting the power supply—it'll take you too long, and even if you had the time you still might not be able to cut the power to all the backups
." He held up a forefinger. "But, what's not so commonly known is that all magnetic locks work off DC current, so ..." He rummaged around again, held up another object. "What you need is a portable AC power supply with enough juice to zap the mag lock."
Khan took the power pack in his hand. It was heavier than it looked. "How is it going to work?"
"Imagine a lightning strike on an electrical system." Oszkar tapped the power supply.
"This baby will scramble the DC current long enough for you to open the door, but it won't short it out completely. Eventually, it'll cycle back on again and the lock will reestablish itself."
"How long will I have?" Khan asked.
"That depends on the make and model of the mag lock." Oszkar shrugged his meaty shoulders. "The best guess I can give you is fifteen minutes, maybe twenty, but no more than that."
"Can't I just zap it again?"
Oszkar shook his head. "Chances are good you'll freeze the mag into its locked position, and then you'd have to take the entire door down in order to get out." He laughed, clapped Khan on the back. "Not to worry, I have faith in you." Khan looked at him askance. "Since when did you have faith in anything?" "Quite right." Oszkar handed him a small zippered leather case. "Tricks of the trade always trump faith."
At precisely two-fifteen in the morning, local Icelandic time, Arsenov and Zina placed the carefully wrapped body of Magomet into one of the vans and drove down the coast farther south toward an out-of-the-way cove. Arsenov was behind the wheel. Periodically, Zina, studying a detailed map, gave him directions.
"I sense the nervousness in the others," he said after a time. "It's more than simple anticipation."
"We're on more than a simple mission, Hasan."
He glanced at her. "Sometimes I wonder whether icewater runs in your veins." She put a smile on her face as she briefly squeezed his leg. "You know very well what runs in my veins."
He nodded. "That I do." He had to admit that, as much as he was driven by his desire to lead his people, he was happiest being with Zina. He longed for a time when the war would be over, when he could shed his rebel's guise and be a husband to her, a father to their children.
"Zina," he said as they turned off the road and jounced down the rutted path that descended off the cliff face to their destination, "we've never talked about us."
"What d'you mean?" Of course she knew very well what he meant and tried to push away the sudden dread that constricted her. "Of course we have." The way had become steeper and he slowed the van. Zina could see the last turn in the path; beyond that was the rocky cove and the restless North Atlantic.
"Not about our future, our marriage, the children we'll have one day. What better time to pledge our love for each other."
It was then that she fully understood how intuitive the Shaykh really was. For by his own words, Hasan Arsenov had condemned himself. He was afraid to die. She heard it in his choice of words, if not in his voice or in his eyes.
She saw his doubts, now, about her. If there was one thing she'd learned since joining the rebels, it was that doubt undermined initiative, determination, most especially action. Because of the extreme tension and anxiety, perhaps, he had exposed himself, and his weakness was as repugnant to her as it had been to the Shaykh. Hasan's doubts about her were sure to infect his thinking. She'd made a terrible blunder in seeking so quickly to enlist Magomet, but she was so very eager to embrace the Shaykh's future. Still, judging by Hasan's violent reaction, his doubts about her must have begun earlier. Did he think that he could no longer trust her?
They had arrived at the rendezvous point fifteen minutes ahead of schedule. She turned and took his face in her hands. Tenderly, she said, "Hasan, long have we walked side by side in the shadow of death. We have survived through the will of Allah, but also because of our unswerving devotion to one another." She leaned over and kissed him. "So now we pledge ourselves to one another, because we desire death in the path of Allah more than our enemies desire life."
Arsenov closed his eyes for a moment. This was what he'd wanted from her, what he'd been afraid she'd never give him. It was why, he realized now, he'd jumped to an ugly conclusion when he'd seen her with Magomet.
"In Allah's eyes, under Allah's hand, in Allah's heart," he said in a form of benediction. They embraced, but Zina was, of course, far away across the North Atlantic. She was wondering what the Shaykh was doing at this very moment. She longed to see his face, to be near him. Soon, she told herself. Soon enough everything she wanted would be hers.
Sometime later they got out of the van and stood watching on the shore, hearing the waves rumble and spend themselves against the shingle. The moon had already gone down in the short span of darkness this far north. In another half hour it would grow light and another long day would dawn. They were in more or less the center of the cove, its arms extended on either side so that the tide was stymied, the waves made small and robbed of their usual peril. A chill wind off the black water made Zina shiver, but Arsenov embraced it.
They saw the sweep of the light then, blinking on and off three times. The boat had arrived. Arsenov switched on the flashlight, returning the signal. Faintly, they could see the fishing boat running no lights, nosing in. They went to the back of the van and, together, brought their burden down to the tide line.
"Won't they be surprised to see you again," Arsenov said.
"They're the Shaykh's men, nothing surprises them," Zina replied, acutely aware that according to the story the Shaykh told Hasan she was supposed to have met this crew. Of course, the Shaykh would have already apprised them of that fact. Arsenov switched on his flashlight again and they saw heading toward them an oared boat, heavily laden, lying low in the water. There were two men and a stack of crates; there would be more crates on the fishing boat. Arsenov glanced at his watch; he hoped they could finish before first light.
The two men nosed the prow of the rowboat up onto the shingle and got out. They didn't waste time with introductions, but as they had been ordered to do, they treated Zina as if she was known to them.
With great efficiency, the four of them offloaded the crates, piling them up neatly in the back of the van. Arsenov heard a sound, turned and saw that a second rowboat had pulled up onto the shingle and knew then that they'd beat the dawn. They loaded Magomet's corpse onto the first rowboat, now otherwise empty, and Zina gave the crew members the order to dump it when they were in the deepest water. They obeyed her without question, which pleased Arsenov. Obviously, she'd made an impression on them when she'd supervised the delivery of the cargo to them. In short order, then, the six of them moved the rest of the crates into the van. Then the men returned to their boats as silently as they had disembarked from them and, with a push from Arsenov and Zina, began their return journey to the fishing boat. Arsenov and Zina looked at each other. With the arrival of the cargo, the mission had suddenly taken on a reality it hadn't had before.
"Can you feel it, Zina?" Arsenov said as he put his hand on one of the crates. "Can you feel the death waiting there?"
She put her hand over his. "What I feel is victory."
They drove back to the base where they were met by the other members of the cadre, who through the judicious application of peroxide dye and colored contact lenses had now been utterly transformed. Nothing was said concerning the death of Magomet. He had come to a bad end and this close to their mission none of them wanted to know the details—they had more important things on their minds.
Carefully, the crates were unloaded and opened, revealing compact machine pistols, packs of C4 plastique explosive, HAZMAT suits. Another crate, smaller than the others, contained scallions, bagged, bedded in shaved ice. Arsenov gestured to Akhmed, who donned Latex gloves and removed the crate of scallions to the van that had printed on it Hafnarfjordur Fine Fruits & Vegetables. Then the blond and blue-eyed Akhmed climbed into the van and drove off.
The last crate was left for Arsenov and Zina to open. It contained the NX 20. Together, they look
ed at it, the two halves lying innocently inside their molded foam bed, and thought of what they'd been witness to in Nairobi. Arsenov looked at his watch. "Very soon now the Shaykh will arrive with the payload."
The final preparations had begun.
Just after nine a.m., a van from Fontana Department Store pulled up at the service entrance on the basement level of Humanistas, Ltd. where it was halted by a pair of security guards. One of them consulted his daily work sheet and even though he saw on it a delivery from Fontana for Ethan Hearn's office, he asked to see the bill of lading. When the driver complied, the guard told him to open the back of the van. The guard climbed in, checked off each item on the list, then he and his partner opened every carton, checking the two chairs, credenza, cabinet and sofa bed. All the doors on the credenza and cabinet were opened, the interiors inspected, the pillows on the sofa and chairs lifted. Finding everything in order, the security guards handed back the bill of lading and gave the driver and his delivery partner directions to Ethan Hearn's office.
The driver parked near the elevator and he and his partner unloaded the furniture. It took them four trips to get everything up to the sixth floor, where Hearn was waiting for them. He was only too pleased to show them where he wanted each piece of furniture, and they were just as pleased to receive the generous gratuity he handed them when their task was completed.
After they left, Hearn closed the door and began to transfer the stacks of files that had built up beside his desk into the cabinet in alphabetical order. The hush of a well-run office fell over the room. After a time, Hearn rose and went to the door. Opening it, he found himself face to face with the woman who had accompanied the man on the stretcher into the building late yesterday.
"You're Ethan Hearn?" When he nodded, she held out a hand. "Annaka Vadas." He took her hand briefly, noting that it was firm and dry. He recalled Khan's warning and he put an innocently quizzical look on his face. "Do we know each other?"
Bourne 4 - The Bourne Legacy Page 41
