“Because we both have a strategic interest in opposing China,” Cafferty replied. “That’s the long game.”
“Ah.” Sorokin drew out the word. “You think you can use us as a counterbalance.”
“Of course. Russia is naturally closer to the West than to China. You were already beginning an integration with Europe after the Soviet era. Then in 1999, your government changed, and you went in reverse. It’s time to change course and return to your roots.”
“You’re ignoring the ideological compatibility we have with China.”
Cafferty shrugged. “First of all, I know you don’t care about ideology. And let’s face facts. Your ideological compatibility is shallow at best. China’s ideology is power, not communism. They want to rule the world. And that means they have a strategic interest in keeping Russia weak, not letting you become a genuine competitor. They want you floundering around, tweaking the West without ever realizing your economic potential.”
They continued walking down the path. Their guards, Dixon and Nicholai, stayed out of earshot behind them.
“Let me ask you a question,” Sorokin said. “The recent climate riots in Moscow. Bombs, terrorism, the assaults on our energy infrastructure. Are these being coordinated and funded out of the U.S.?”
“Are you saying Russia played no role in stoking the U.S. riots?”
Sorokin chuckled. “Young idealists. So easy to manipulate, hmm?”
“Very easy, but that kind of unrest is hard to put back in the box once you set it free.”
“So what’s your goal?”
“Russians value law and order even more than suburban Americans.”
“And a government that can’t deliver law and order is vulnerable, is that the idea? Sow the seeds of unrest? Make people so unhappy with our current direction that they demand change?”
“Even autocrats ultimately need the consent of the governed,” Cafferty said.
Sorokin shook his head. “No, they need the consent of the military.”
“True. Fair enough.”
They stopped on the trail again. Sorokin studied Cafferty with thoughtful eyes. “Assuming I have any interest at all in seeing the change you’re talking about, what would be the appeal for me?”
“Obviously, lifting of the indictments,” Cafferty replied. “As it happens, we expect a federal judge to throw out most of the charges later this month. Call it a gesture of good faith on our part. And while the sanctions need to stay in place for public consumption, how we target them involves a great deal of flexibility.”
“Status quo ante? Give me back what I already had before? That’s not much of an offer.”
“That’s only the beginning. I’m talking about business opportunities. Partnerships with the West and the developing nations. Yes, you can mine your oil and gas for five or ten more years and make a fortune while you’re doing it, but then what? Who are you going to sell it to when we’ve all converted to renewables? Energy is the profit industry over the next fifty years. We’re talking about a second industrial revolution. The ones who lead it will be the new Carnegies and Rockefellers. You can be part of that. You can lead the way in Russia.”
“And in return?” Sorokin asked, looking curious.
“You support political change. Let’s face it, Gennady. None of this happens as long as Russia is trapped by a shortsighted, backward-looking government.”
Sorokin laughed. “You think I’m going to publicly oppose Putin? No offense, but you’re out of your fucking mind. Yes, I’d love to see change, but not if that change involves me buried somewhere in the forest.”
“I’m not saying you come out in open opposition. Not yet. I’m saying you start working with us behind the scenes. We need to get the other oligarchs on board. We need them to realize there is an alternative.”
Sorokin shook his head. “There’s not. You’re kidding yourself. A few riots in the street aren’t enough. Putin will crush those. As long as the siloviki stand behind the current government, there will never be a revolution. And the Moth has made sure that the siloviki are completely loyal. They’re his soldiers, one and all.”
“You’re wrong.”
“What do you mean?”
“The siloviki want an alternative, too. Do you think there’s no unrest among them? Do you think they don’t see the same shortcomings that you do? It’s the Soviet system come to life again. No one likes it. They’re just putting up with it until they see their moment. After Chernobyl and Gorbachev came Yeltsin, but he was the wrong messenger. He failed. The country needs a better messenger this time.”
“Are you talking about me? You’re crazy.”
Cafferty smiled. “You? Of course not. You said yourself, you’re not a politician. I’m talking about someone that the siloviki will support. Someone every bit as strong, every bit as ruthless as what you have now, but someone who wants a new Russia. Someone with an economic and political vision to go along with a lust for power.”
“That person doesn’t exist,” Sorokin said. Then he narrowed his eyes. “Does he?”
“I have someone I’d like you to talk to,” Cafferty replied.
“Who?”
Cafferty didn’t have a chance to say anything more.
At that moment, a burst of sharp explosions rose above the wetlands, causing a flock of birds to rise into the air. Cafferty flinched with surprise. He looked at Sorokin, who showed no fear, but who had a strange, very Russian look of resignation on his face.
It was a look that said nothing ever changed.
“What the hell was that?” Cafferty asked.
He saw Dixon and Nicholai running forward, grabbing for their weapons.
“That’s your Russian revolution ending before it begins, Clark,” Sorokin told him with a sigh. “That’s gunfire.”
* * *
—
Tati heard what sounded like the rat-a-tat-tat of fireworks exploding, and she scrambled off the blanket. Instantly, Baxter swung his rifle up so that it was pointing down the footpath. He shouted into his radio.
“Status, status, status!”
No one answered him.
“What is it?” Tati called. “What’s going on?”
Baxter waved frantically at her. “This way! Come this way!”
Tati took a few steps, but she froze in terror when she saw Baxter lift the rifle up to his shoulder and aim the barrel directly at her. His finger was on the trigger, and he shouted again.
“Stop! On your knees! Hands in the air!”
She realized that he wasn’t talking to her. Someone was behind her. She glanced over her shoulder and saw Vadik appearing from around a bend in the trail. Seeing the police officer, Vadik dropped to his knees and threw up his arms, but he also shouted to Tati.
“Tell them!” he called to her. “Tell them I’m your husband!”
Tati ran toward Vadik, blocking him from Baxter with her body as the police officer shouted for her to get down and stay out of the way. She didn’t. She wrapped Vadik up in her arms, and then she shouted to Baxter without letting go.
“This is my husband! I called him!”
“Your husband?”
“Yes, I called him half an hour ago. Vadik’s only here because I asked him to come.”
Baxter didn’t lower his rifle. “I heard gunfire.”
“There are men with weapons!” Vadik called. “They’re storming the park! I saw them as I reached the trail, and I ran like hell to get away from them. They’ve killed the guards!”
“Status!” Baxter barked into his radio again without getting a reply.
He swore loudly and began to advance on the two of them, coming closer without moving his weapon from its ready position.
Vadik held Tati tightly in his arms. With his mouth near her ear, he whispered so that Baxter couldn’t hear him. �
��Is Sorokin here?”
“I don’t know. Cafferty went off to meet someone, and he hasn’t come back.”
“Which way?”
“Across the creek. Vadik, what’s going on?”
“Don’t be afraid.”
“Afraid of what?”
“Of what I have to do,” her husband said.
She felt Vadik’s arm slip from her shoulders. Her husband shouted at Baxter, who was barely ten feet away. “Over there!”
A hail of gunfire burst from the trees, so loud as to make her scream and cover her ears. Vadik pushed her sharply to the ground. With her face sideways in the dirt, she saw Baxter shooting into the dense brush beside the trail. He was wounded, a river of blood pouring from his shoulder.
What happened next felt like a terrible dream.
Vadik was above her, but he had a gun in his hand. A gun! Her first thought was that he was going to fire into the trees, but instead, her husband extended his arm and shot at Baxter. His first shot clipped the police officer’s ear and caused another spray of blood, and as Baxter swung his rifle around, Vadik fired again. This time, his bullet seared into the side of Baxter’s head, and the man dropped. He just crumpled to the ground, all life gone.
Tati screamed.
She’d never screamed like that in her life. “Vadik, oh my God, what did you do?”
She stayed on the ground. When she tried to get up, her legs didn’t seem to work at all. She was covered in dirt and mist, and she realized there was also a fine sheen of red droplets all over her arms and legs. At first, she thought she was bleeding, but then she realized that Baxter’s blood had sprayed over her.
“Vadik!” she screamed again, nearly hysterical. “You killed him!”
He pulled her to her feet, but he had to hold her so that she didn’t fall down again. Every muscle in her body twitched. She felt the world spinning in crazy, dizzy circles. In front of her, a second man emerged from the brush, a man with shaved red hair. He had a gun, too, and he gestured at Vadik.
“We need to go.”
“On my way.” Vadik lowered her to the ground again, because she couldn’t stay standing. “Tati, stay here and don’t move. I’ll be back in just a couple of minutes, and then we’ll get out of here, and I promise you, we’ll be safe.”
Tati shook her head in a daze. “I don’t understand.”
“This is something I need to do. For you, for me, for Russia, for the planet. We’re going to kill Sorokin. Just stay here. I’ll come back for you. I promise.”
She watched her husband team up with the other man, and the two of them headed down the footpath with their guns in their hands.
18
Bourne saw bodies on the ground at a point where two footpaths made a fork. There were three dead, including a woman in police uniform. The other two were terrorists. It was obvious they’d been killed only minutes earlier, because ribbons of blood covered the trails and were still trickling into the grass.
He studied the body of the shooter at his feet. The man wore an Earth Day T-shirt, with barbed-wire surrounding the planet. His eyes were fixed, staring up from the ground, and he had a green tattoo on his forearm of a woman with flowers, trees, and birds interspersed with her long hair.
Gaia.
“Is this Lennon’s work?” Nova murmured. “Leave a couple of terrorists behind for us to find, so we think it’s the Gaia Crusade?”
“Or the Crusade is here, too,” Bourne said. He gestured down the northbound trail at the fork. “You take that way. Stay in touch on the radio.”
Without a word, Nova jogged north, and Jason shifted onto a dirt trail leading toward the Thames. The crushed rock broadcast his footsteps, and the light drizzle wasn’t enough to cover up the noise, so he switched to a grass fringe next to the trees. He had to duck under the branches as he ran. On the other side of the brush was the deep-blue water of a lake. The path curved ahead of him, and he kept his gun outstretched.
He stopped when he heard a voice beyond the bend of the trail. Someone was right in front of him, invisible but only a few yards away.
“Harry, it’s Charles. Have you found them?”
There was no answer, which made Jason think the man was wearing an earpiece. Then the voice continued.
“Andrew and Will aren’t answering. I think they’re down.”
And then after another pause: “Praise Gaia!”
Jason grabbed a thick tree branch that had fallen across the trail. Silently, he picked his way into a dense grove of wildflowers. He crouched down, motionless and unseen, and then broke the tree branch between his hands, making a sharp crack.
The man from the Gaia Crusade heard it. Jason heard him approach cautiously from around the curve in the path. He could make out a small twentysomething man with a semiautomatic rifle readied in his arms. His finger was over the trigger, and his head nervously bobbed left and right. Jason let him get closer. His muscles were poised, ready to spring. He waited until the man had taken a step past his hiding place, and when the man’s head swung to look in the opposite direction, Jason shot from cover. His hands worked independently, like a pianist at the keyboard. His right hand snapped the man’s wrist away from the gun. His other arm locked around the man’s throat, cutting off noise and air. The Gaia Crusade terrorist kicked and twitched, but Jason lifted him off the ground and held him tightly until the man slumped in his grasp.
He lowered the body to the ground and took the man’s rifle and slung it over his shoulder.
“One more down,” he murmured to Nova.
“I heard a gunshot near me,” she replied over the radio. “I’m checking it out.”
Bourne ran again. Through the trees, he spotted a short observation tower, built of blue-gray wood and tan brick. While he was sheltered by the thick foliage, he heard shouts, followed by another burst of gunfire. He ran to the point where the trees ended at an open grassy area, and he dropped to the ground and slithered forward on his chest. The tower was just ahead of him. He crawled beside a wetland creek, where the tall grass was high enough to cover his body. On the other side of the creek was a parallel trail, and he saw three men holding rifles. At their feet was the body of a security guard who’d been shot. The men pointed their guns at two others, who were on their knees.
One was a heavyset guard that Bourne didn’t recognize. The other was Dixon Lewis.
Jason crawled another few inches toward the tower. It was only three stories tall and butted up against a wooden fence topped with barbed wire to prevent access to the fragile wetlands on the other side. The door to the tower was open. Four men stood in the clearing in front of the building.
Clark Cafferty had his back against the tower, and Gennady Sorokin stood next to him. Two men confronted them from inches away. One was pale with a fuzz of red hair, the other skinny and dark. Both men had handguns. The redhead aimed his gun at Cafferty’s head and the other pointed at Sorokin.
Hidden in the grass, Bourne slid the rifle off his shoulder and aimed at the freckled temple of the man in front of Cafferty.
“Kill him,” the redhead barked at his partner. “Kill Sorokin! Now!”
But Jason saw that the dark-haired man didn’t have his finger on the trigger. The man stared into Sorokin’s fiery, sneering eyes at the end of his barrel and couldn’t bring himself to do it. Jason understood.
It was hard to kill someone, even someone you hated, while you were looking into his eyes.
“Kill him!”
Bourne kept the rifle aimed at the redhead, whose gun was pressed into Cafferty’s forehead. The old man remained calm, his face showing no fear. Jason couldn’t risk the shot, not with the man’s finger on the trigger, one muscle spasm away from firing. But he was running out of time.
The redhead’s rage bubbled past the boiling point. “For fuck’s sake, kill Sorokin, Vadik! Do it now, or I
shoot him myself!”
“I will!”
But more seconds ticked by. With a bellow of impatience, the redhead shifted his gun away from Cafferty’s head to point it at Sorokin.
He fired.
In the same instant, so did Bourne.
* * *
—
The explosion next to his ear cascaded like a shock wave through Vadik’s skull. He flinched, his knees buckling, and his gun dropped from his numb fingers. His vision turned upside down, and when it righted, he saw the body of Gennady Sorokin sliding down the tower wall, leaving a splatter of blood and brain on the wood behind him. Sorokin had a black hole in the middle of his forehead, his eyes open with a look of stunned surprise.
Harry was on the ground, too, his red hair turning a deeper shade of burgundy from the blood pouring from the bullet wound in the side of his head. Vadik stared, frozen, at the Gaia Crusade terrorist at his feet. His brain couldn’t process what was happening.
Harry! Dead!
He took a staggering step backward from the bodies. As he did, another bullet screamed past him, so close he felt its heat. Wood splintered off the door of the tower. Distantly, he heard more gunfire, and he saw another operative from the Gaia Crusade crumple to the ground as a cloud of blood burst from his head. And then another. The last one got off several shots from his rifle toward the creek, but then a bullet struck the center of his forehead, and he collapsed, too.
They were all gone. All of them. Vadik was alone.
Clark Cafferty came off the wall. In a daze, Vadik still couldn’t react. The old man put both hands on his chest and shoved, and Vadik stumbled away and nearly fell. Another shot exploded near him; another shot missed. Then, as Vadik regained his balance, he saw Cafferty kneeling to retrieve Vadik’s gun from the pavement.
The gun was in his hand!
He was aiming it at him!
Vadik threw himself at Cafferty, grabbing the man’s arm and pushing it away as he fired. He shoved Cafferty back against the wall and then spun inside the open door of the tower. He took the steps two at a time with more shots chasing him, but when he got to the top, he realized he was trapped.
The Bourne Treachery Page 15
