He smiled. "I think a glass of champagne is called for, don't you?" She laughed. "You think of everything, Stepan."
He indicated the flutes sitting in their niches on the inside panel of her door. They were crystal, not plastic. As she leaned forward to take them, he removed a split of champagne from a refrigerated compartment. Outside, the high-rises on either side of the motorway sped by, reflecting the orb of the lowering sun.
Spalko ripped off the foil, popped the cork and poured the foaming champagne into first one flute, then the other. He put down the bottle and they clinked glasses in a silent toast. They sipped together and she looked into his eyes. They were like brother and sister, closer even because neither carried with them the baggage of sibling rivalry. Of all the men she had known, she reflected, Stepan came closest to fulfilling her desires. Not that she'd ever longed for a mate. As a girl, a father would have suited her, but it was not to be. Instead, she'd chosen Stepan, strong, competent, invincible. He was everything a daughter would want from her father.
The high-rises were becoming less numerous as they passed through the outermost ring of the city. The light continued to lower as the sun set. The sky was high and ruddy and there was very little wind, conditions ripe for a perfect takeoff.
"How about a little music," Spalko said, "to go with our champagne moment?" His hand was raised to the multi-CD player embedded over his head. "What would please you most? Bach? Beethoven? No, of course. Chopin."
He chose the corresponding CD and his forefinger pressed a button. But instead of the lyrical melody typical of her favorite composer, she heard her own voice:
"It isn't Interpol you work for— you don't have their habits. CIA, no, I don't think so. Stepan would know if the Americans were trying to penetrate his organization. So who then, hmm?"
Annaka, her flute halfway to her partly open lips, froze.
"Don't look so ashen, Ethan."
She saw, to her horror, Stepan grinning at her over the rim of his flute.
"I don't care, really. I simply want an insurance policy in case things turn sour here. That insurance policy is you."
Spalko's finger hit the "Stop" button, and save for the muffled thrumming of the limo's powerful engine, silence overtook them.
"I imagine you're wondering how I came by your treachery." Annaka found that she had temporarily lost the ability to speak. Her mind was frozen in place at the precise moment Stepan had very kindly asked her what music would please her most. More than anything in the world, she wanted to go back to that moment. Her shocked mind could only reflect on the split in her reality that had opened up like a yawning abyss at her feet. There was only her perfect life before Spalko had played the digital recording and the disaster it had become after he'd played it. Was Stepan still smiling that awful crocodile smile? She found that she was having difficulty focusing. Without thinking, she swiped at her eyes.
"My God, Annaka, are those genuine tears?" Spalko shook his head ruefully. "You've disappointed me, Annaka, though, to be perfectly honest, I'd been wondering when you'd betray me. On that point, your Mr. Bourne was quite correct."
"Stepan, I—" She stopped of her own accord. She hadn't recognized her own voice, and the last thing she would do was beg. Her life was miserable enough as it was. He was holding something up between thumb and finger, a tiny disk, smaller even than a watch battery. "An electronic listening device planted in Hearn's office." He laughed shortly. "The irony is that I didn't particularly suspect him. One of these is in every new employee's office, at least for the first six months." He pocketed the disk with the flourish of a magician. "Bad luck for you, Annaka. Good luck for me." Swallowing the rest of his champagne, he set the flute down. She still hadn't moved. Her back was straight, her right elbow cocked. Her fingers surrounded the rim of the flute's flared bottom.
He looked at her tenderly. "You know, Annaka, if you were anyone else, you'd be dead by now. But we share a history, we share a mother, if you want to stretch a definition to its limit." He cocked his head, putting the surface of his face in the last of the afternoon's light. The side of his face that was as poreless as plastic shone like the glass windows of the high-rises that were now far behind them. Very little in the way of habitation lay before them until they turned into the airport proper.
"I love you, Annaka." One hand held her by her waist. "I love you in a way I could never love anyone else." The bullet from Bourne's gun made surprisingly little noise. Annaka's torso was thrown back into his welcoming arm and her head came up all at once. He could feel the tremor run through her and knew that the bullet must have lodged near her heart. His eyes never left hers. "It really is a pity, isn't it?" He felt the heat of her running over his hand, down onto the leather seat as her blood pooled. Her eyes seemed to be smiling, but there was no expression anywhere else on her face. Even at the point of death, he reflected, she had no fear. Well, that was something, wasn't it?
"Is everything all right, Mr. Spalko?" his driver asked from up front.
"It is now," Stepan Spalko said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The Danube was cold and dark. The grievously injured Bourne hit the river-water first, where the drain emptied out, but it was Khan who had difficulty. The extreme chill of the water was of no import to him, but the darkness brought to him the nightmarish horror of his recurring dream.
The shock of the water, the surface so distant above his head, caused him to feel as if his ankle was tied to the white semi-decomposed body, spinning slowly below him in the depth. Lee-Lee was calling to him, Lee-Lee wanted him to join her.... He felt himself tumbling into darkness, even deeper water. And then, quite suddenly and terrifyingly, he was being pulled. By Lee-Lee? he wondered in a panic. All at once he felt the warmth of another body, large and, despite its wounds, still immensely powerful. He felt Bourne's arm circle his waist, the surge of Bourne's legs as he kicked them out of the swift current into which Khan had fallen, driving them upward toward the surface.
Khan seemed to be crying, or at least crying out, but when they breached the surface and made for the far shore, Khan struck out, as if he wanted nothing more than to punish Bourne, to beat him senseless. But all he could manage at the moment was to tear the encircling arm from around his waist and glare at Bourne as they pulled themselves against the stone embankment.
"What did you think you were doing?" Khan said. "You almost caused me to drown!" Bourne opened his mouth to answer him, but apparently thought better of it. Instead, he pointed downriver to where a vertical iron rose out of the water. Across the deep blue water of the Danube, fire trucks, ambulances and police cars still ringed the Humanistas, Ltd., building. Crowds had joined the knots of evacuated employees, surging like surf along the sidewalks, spilling through the streets, hanging out windows, craning their necks for a better angle. Boats sailing up and down the river were converging on the spot and even though members of the police force waved them away, the passengers rushed to the railing to get a closer look at what they thought might be a disaster in the making. But they were too late. It appeared that whatever fires had been started by the explosion in the elevator shaft had been extinguished.
Bourne and Khan, sticking to the shadows of the embankment, made their way to the ladder, which they climbed as quickly as they could. Lucky for them, all eyes were on the commotion at the Humanistas, Ltd., building. Several yards away, a section of the embankment was under repair and they were able to crawl into the sheltering shadows below street level but above the water-line, where the concrete had become undermined and was now shored up with pillars of heavy timber.
"Give me your phone," Khan said. "Mine's waterlogged." Bourne unwrapped Conklin's cell phone and handed it over.
Khan dialed Oszkar's cell phone and, when he reached him, told him where they were and what they required. He listened for a moment and then said to Bourne.
"Oszkar, my contact here in Budapest, is chartering us a flight. And he's getting you some antibiotics."
/> Bourne nodded. "Now let's see how good he really is. Tell him we need the schematics for the Oskjuhlid Hotel in Reykjavik."
Khan glared at him and for a moment Bourne was afraid that he was going to hang up simply out of spite. He bit his lip. He'd have to remember to talk to Khan in a less confrontational manner.
Khan told Oszkar what they needed. "It'll take about an hour," he said.
"He didn't say 'impossible'?" Bourne said.
"Oszkar never says 'impossible.'"
"My contacts couldn't have done better."
A chill and fitful wind had sprung up, forcing them to move farther into their makeshift cave. Bourne took the opportunity to assess the damage Spalko had inflicted on him; Khan had done well in ministering to the punctures, which were numerous on his arms, chest and legs. Khan still had on his jacket. He now took it off and shook it out. As he did so, Bourne saw that the inside was composed of a number of pockets, all of which looked filled.
"What d'you have in there?" he asked.
"Tricks of the trade," Khan said unhelpfully. He retreated into his own world by using Bourne's cell phone.
"Ethan, it's me," he said.
"Is everything all right?"
"That depends," Hearn said. "In the mele", I discovered that my office was bugged."
"Does Spalko know who you work for?"
"I never mentioned your name. Anyway, mostly my calls to you were out of the office."
"Still, it would be wise for you to leave."
"My thoughts exactly," Hearn said. "I'm happy to hear your voice. After the explosions I didn't know what to think."
"Have a little faith," Khan said. "How much d'you have on him?"
"Enough."
"Take everything you have and get out now. I will have my revenge on him no matter what happens."
He heard Hearn take a breath, "What's that supposed to mean?"
"It means I want a backup. If for some reason you can't get the material to me, I want you to contact—hold on a moment." He turned to Bourne and said, "Is there someone at the Agency who can be trusted with intel on Spalko?"
Bourne shook his head, then immediately reconsidered. He thought about what Conklin had told him about the Deputy Director—that he was not only fair-minded but that he was his own man. "Martin Lindros," he said.
Khan nodded and repeated the name to Hearn, then he closed the connection and handed back the phone.
Bourne felt in a quandary. He wanted to find some way to connect with Khan, but he didn't know how. Finally, he hit upon the idea of asking him how he had reached the interrogation room. He felt a relief when Khan began to talk. He told Bourne about hiding in the sofa, the explosion in the elevator shaft and his escape from the bolted room. He did not, however, mention Annaka's treachery.
Bourne listened with mounting fascination, but even so, part of him remained detached, as if this conversation was happening to someone else. He was shying away from Khan; the psychic wounds were too raw. He recognized that in his present debilitated state, he was as yet mentally unprepared to tackle the questions and doubts that flooded him. And so the two of them talked fitfully and awkwardly, always skirting the central issue that lay between them like a castle that could be sieged but not taken. An hour later Oszkar arrived in his company van with towels and blankets and new clothes, along with an antibiotic for Bourne. He gave them a Thermos of hot coffee to drink. They climbed into the backseat, and while they changed, he bundled up their torn and sodden clothes, all except Khan's remarkable jacket. Then he gave them bottled water and food, which they wolfed down.
If he was surprised at the sight of Bourne's wounds, he didn't show it, and Khan assumed that he'd worked out that the assault had been a success. He presented Bourne with a lightweight laptop computer.
"The schematics for every system and subsystem in the hotel have been downloaded to the hard drive," he said, "as well as maps of Reykjavik and the surrounding area and some basic information I thought might come in handy."
"I'm impressed." Bourne said this to Oszkar, but he meant it for Khan, too.
Martin Lindros got the call just after eleven a.m. Eastern Daylight Time. He jumped into his car and made the fifteen-minute drive to George Washington Hospital in just under eight minutes. Detective Harry Harris was in the E.R. Lindros used his credentials to cut through the red tape so that one of the harried residents took him over to the bed. Lindros pulled aside the curtain that ran around three sides of the emergency room station, pulled it shut behind him.
"What the hell happened to you?" he said.
Harris eyed him as best he could from his propped-up position on the bed. His face was puffy and discolored. His upper lip was split and there was a gash under his left eye that had been stitched.
"I got fired—that's what happened."
Lindros shook his head. "I don't understand."
"The National Security Advisor called my boss. Directly. Herself. She demanded I be fired. Dismissed without compensation or pension. This is what he told me when he summoned me to his office yesterday."
Lindros' hands curled into fists. "And then?"
"What d'you mean? He fired my ass. Disgraced me after the spotless career I've had."
"I mean," Lindros said, "how did you wind up here?"
"Oh, that." Harris turned his head to one side, looking at nothing. "I got drunk, I guess."
"You guess?"
Harris turned back to him, his eyes blazing. "I got very drunk, okay? I think it was the least I deserved."
"But you got more than that."
"Yah. There was an argument with a couple of bikers, if I remember right, which escalated into something of a brawl."
"I suppose you think you deserved to get beaten to a pulp." Harris said nothing.
Lindros passed a hand across his face. "I know I promised you I'd take care of this, Harry. I thought I had it under control, even the DCI had come around, more or less. I just didn't figure on the NSA making a preemptive strike."
"Fuck her," Harris said. "Fuck everyone." He laughed bitterly. "It's like my ma used to say, 'No good deed goes unpunished.'"
"Look, Harry, I never would've cracked this Schiffer thing without you. I'm not going to abandon you now. I'll get you out of this."
"Yeah? I'd like the fuck to know how."
"As Hannibal, one of my military icons, once famously said, 'We will either find a way or make one.'"
When they were ready, Oszkar drove them to the airport. Bourne, whose body was racked with pain, was happy to let someone else drive. Still, he remained on operational alert. He was pleased to see that Oszkar was using his mirrors to check for tags. No one appeared to be following them. Up ahead, he could see the airport's control tower, and a moment later Oszkar turned off the motorway. There were no cops in sight. Nothing seemed out of place. Still, he could feel the vibrations start up inside him. No one came for them as they cruised through the airport roads, heading toward the charter services airfield. The aircraft was waiting, ready and fueled. They got out of the van. Before he left, Bourne gripped Oszkar's hand. "Thanks again."
"No problem," Oszkar said with a smile. "It all goes on the bill." He drove off and they went up the stairs and into the aircraft.
The pilot welcomed them aboard, then pulled up the stairs and closed and locked the door. Bourne told him their destination and five minutes later they were taxiing down the runway, lifting off for their two-hour, ten-minute flight to Reykjavik.
"We'll be coming up on the fishing boat in three minutes," the pilot said. Spalko adjusted the electronic earbud, picked up Sido's refrigerated box and went to the rear of the plane and shrugged himself into the harness. As he tightened the cinches, he stared at the back of Peter Sido's head. Sido was handcuffed to his seat. One of Spalko's armed men was in the seat next to him.
"You know where to take him," he said softly to the pilot.
"Yessir. It won't be anywhere near Greenland."
Spalko went to the rear do
orway, signaled to his man, who rose and walked back up the narrow aisle to join him.
"Are you all right for fuel?"
"Yessir," the pilot answered. "My calculation's right on the money." Spalko peered out the small round window in the door. They were lower now, the North Atlantic blue-black, the wave crests a sure sign of its vaunted turbulence.
"Thirty seconds, sir," the pilot said. "There's a pretty stiff wind from the northnortheast. Sixteen knots."
"Roger that." Spalko could feel the slowing of their airspeed. He was wearing a 7-mm survival dry suit under his clothes. Unlike a diver's wet suit, which relied on a thin layer of water between the body and the neo-prene suit to keep body temperature up, this was sealed at the feet and the wrists to keep the water out. Inside the trilaminate shell he wore a Thermal Protection System Thinsulate undersuit for added protection against the cold. Still, unless he timed his landing perfectly, the impact of the freezing water could paralyze him and even with the protection of the suit that would prove fatal. Nothing could go wrong. He attached the box to his left wrist with a locking chain and drew on his dry gloves.
"Fifteen seconds," the pilot said. "Wind constant." Good, no gusts, Spalko thought. He nodded to his man, who pulled down on the huge lever and swung open the door. The howling of the wind filled the interior of the aircraft. There was nothing below him but thirteen thousand feet of air, and then the ocean, which would be as hard as concrete if he hit it at the rate of free fall.
"Go!" the pilot said.
Spalko jumped. There was a rushing in his ears, the wind against his face. He arched his body. Within eleven seconds he was falling at 110 miles per hour, terminal velocity. And yet he didn't feel as if he was falling. Rather, the sensation was one of something softly pressing against him.
He looked down, saw the fishing boat and, using the air pressure, moved himself horizontally to compensate for the sixteen-knot north-by-northeast wind. Aligning himself, he checked his wrist altimeter. At twenty-five hundred feet he pulled the rip cord, felt the gentle tug at his shoulders, the soft rustle of nylon as the canopy deployed above him. All at once the ten square feet of air resistance his body had provided had been transformed into 250 square feet of drag. He was now descending at a leisurely sixteen feet per second.
Bourne 4 - The Bourne Legacy Page 44
