Bourne and Annaka were heading toward the metal exit door when Bourne saw Khan working his way through the stampeding crowd toward them. Bourne grabbed Annaka, interposed himself between her and the oncoming Khan. What was Khan’s intention, he wondered. Did he mean to kill them or to intercept them? Did he expect Bourne to tell him everything he’d discovered about Felix Schiffer and the biochemical diffuser? But no, there was something different about Khan’s expression, some clockwork calculation that was missing.
“Listen to me!” Khan said, trying to make himself heard above the noise. “Bourne, you’ve got to listen to me!”
But Bourne, herding Annaka, had reached the metal exit door and, crashing through it, hurtled into the alley behind the clinic, where a HAZMAT truck was parked. Six men armed with machine-guns stood in front of it. Bourne, instantly recognizing it as a trap, turned and instinctively shouted at Khan, who was coming on behind him.
Annaka, swinging around, saw Khan at last and ordered two of the men to open fire. But Khan, heeding Bourne’s warning, leaped aside a split-second before the hail of bullets mowed down the clinic’s security detail that had come to investigate. Now all hell broke loose inside the clinic, as staff ran, screaming, through the swinging doors, down the corridor toward the front entrance.
Two of the men grabbed Bourne from behind. He whirled, engaging them.
“Find him,” he heard Annaka shout. “Find Khan and kill him!”
“Annaka, what—”
Bourne, stunned, watched the pair that had fired race past him, leaping over the wreckage of the bullet-ridden bodies.
Bourne, pushing himself to action, smashed one man in the face, putting him down, but another took his place.
“Careful,” Annaka warned. “He’s got a gun!”
One of the men shackled Bourne’s arms behind his back while a second scrabbled for the weapon. He wrestled free, chopped down hard, breaking his would-be captor’s nose. Blood gushed and the man fell back, his hands cupping the center of his ruined face.
“What the hell are you doing?”
Then Annaka, armed with a machine pistol, stepped in, slammed him hard with its thick butt in his cracked ribs. All the breath went out of him and he canted over, losing his balance. His knees were like rubber and the agony that racked him was for a moment unbearable. Then they’d grabbed hold of him. One man punched him in the side of the head. Bourne sagged again in their arms.
The two men returned from their recon of the clinic wing. “No sign of him,” they reported to Annaka.
“No matter,” she said, and pointed to the man writhing on the ground. “Get him into the vehicle. Hurry now!”
She turned back to Bourne, saw the man with the broken nose was pressing a gun to the side of Bourne’s head. His eyes blazed with fury and he seemed intent on pulling the trigger.
Annaka said calmly but firmly. “Put the gun down. He’s to be taken alive.” She stared at him, not moving a muscle. “Spalko’s orders. You know that.” At length the man put the gun up.
“All right,” she said. “Into the truck.”
Bourne stared at her, his mind was ablaze with her betrayal.
Smirking, Annaka held out a hand and one of the men handed her a hypodermic filled with a clear liquid. With a swift and sure motion, she emptied the hypodermic into Bourne’s vein, and slowly his eyes lost focus.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Hasan Arsenov had put Zina in charge of the physical aspect of the cadre, as if she were a stylist. She took her orders seriously as she always did, though not without a private snicker of cynicism. Like a planet to a sun, she was aligned with the Shaykh now. As was her way, she had mentally and emotionally removed herself from Hasan’s orbit. It had begun that night in Budapest—though, in truth, the seeds must have been planted earlier—and had come to fruition under the burning sun of Crete. She clove to their time together on the Mediterranean island as if it were her own private legend, one she shared only with him. They’d been—what?—Theseus and Ariadne. The Shaykh had recounted the myth of the Minotaur’s terrible life and bloody death to her. Together, she and the Shaykh had entered a real-life labyrinth and triumphed. In the fever of these newly precious memories, it never occurred to her that this was a Western myth in which she had inserted herself, that in aligning herself with Stepan Spalko, she had moved away from Islam, which had nurtured her, raised her like a second mother, had been her succor, her only solace in the dark days of the Russian occupation. It never occurred to her that to embrace one, she had to let go of the other. And even if it had, with her cynic’s nature, she might have made the same choice.
Because of her knowledge and diligence the men of the cadre that arrived in twilit Keflavik Airport were clean-shaven, barbered in the European style, dressed in dark Western business suits, so bland they made themselves virtually anonymous. The women were without traditional khidzhab, the scarf that covered their faces. Their bare faces were made up in the European style and they were clothed in sleek Parisian fashions. They passed through Immigration without incident, using the false identities and forged French passports Spalko had provided.
Now, as Arsenov had ordered, they were careful to speak only Icelandic, even when they were alone together. At one of the rental company’s counters in the terminal, Arsenov rented one car and three vans for the cadre, which was composed of six men and four women. While Arsenov and Zina took the car into Reykjavik, the rest of the cadre drove the vans south of the city to the town of Hafnarfjördur, the oldest trading port in Iceland, where Spalko had rented a large clapboard house on a cliff overlooking the harbor. The colorful village of small, quaint clapboard houses was surrounded on the land side by lava flows, filled with mist and a sense of being lost in time. It was possible to imagine among the brightly painted fishing boats lying side by side in the harbor war-shield-bedecked Viking longships readying themselves for their next bloody campaign.
Arsenov and Zina drove through Reykjavik, familiarizing themselves with the streets they’d previously seen only on maps, getting a sense of traffic and travel patterns. The city was picturesque, built on a peninsula so that it was possible to see the white snow-encrusted mountains or the piercing blue-black North Atlantic ocean from almost any place you stood. The island itself was created from the shift of tectonic plates as the American and Eurasian landmasses pulled apart. Because of the relative youth of the island, the crust was thinner than on either of the surrounding continents, which accounted for the remarkable abundance of geothermal activity used to heat Icelandic homes. The entire city was connected to the Reykjavik Energy hot water pipeline.
In City Centre, they cruised past the modern and peculiarly unsettling Hallgrimskirkja Church, looking like a rocket ship out of science fiction. It was by far the tallest structure in what was otherwise a low-rise city. They found the health services building and drove from there to the Oskjuhlid Hotel.
“You’re sure this is the route they’ll take?” Zina said.
“Absolutely.” Arsenov nodded. “It’s the shortest way and they’ll want to get to the hotel as quickly as possible.”
The hotel’s periphery was teeming with American, Arab and Russian security.
“They’ve turned it into a fortress,” Zina said.
“Just as the Shaykh’s photos showed us,” Arsenov replied with a small smile. “How much personnel they have makes no difference to us.”
They parked and went from shop to shop, making their various purchases. Arsenov had been far happier inside the metal shell of their rented car. Mingling with the crowds, he was acutely aware of his own alienness. How different these slim, light-skinned, blue-eyed people were! With his black hair and eyes, his big bones and swarthy skin, he felt as graceless as a Neanderthal among Cro-Magnons. Zina, he discovered, had no such difficulties. She took to new places, new people, new ideas with a frightening zeal. He worried about her, worried about her influence on the children they would one day have.
Twenty minut
es after the operation at the rear of the Eurocenter Bio-I Clinic, Khan still wondered when he’d ever felt more strongly the urge to retaliate against an enemy. Even though he’d been outmanned and outgunned, even though the rational part of his mind—usually so in control of every action he took—understood all too well the foolhardiness of launching a counterattack against the men Spalko had sent to get him and Jason Bourne, another part of him had been determined to fight back. Strangely, it was Bourne’s warning that had brought out in him the irrational desire to hurl himself into the pitched battle and rend Spalko’s men limb from limb. It was a feeling that came from the very core of him, and so powerful was it that it had taken all his rational willpower to pull back, to hide from the men Annaka had sent in to find him. He could have taken those two down, but of what use would it have been? Annaka would only have sent more of them in for him.
He was sitting in Grendel, a café about a mile from the clinic, which was now crawling with police and, probably, Interpol agents. He sipped at his double espresso and thought about the primal feeling in which he still felt gripped. Once again, he saw the look of concern on Jason Bourne’s face when he saw Khan about to step into the trap in which he was already ensnared. As if he’d been more concerned with keeping Khan out of danger than with his own safety. But that was impossible, wasn’t it?
Khan was not in the habit of replaying recent scenarios, but he found himself doing so now. As Bourne and Annaka had headed for the exit, he’d tried to warn Bourne about her, but he’d been too late. What had motivated him to do that? Certainly, he hadn’t planned on it. It was a spur-of-the-moment decision. Or was it? He recalled, with a vividness he found unsettling, his feeling when he’d seen the damage he’d done to Bourne’s ribs. Had it been remorse? Impossible!
It was maddening. The thought would not let him be: the moment when Bourne had made the choice between staying safe behind the deadly creature McColl had become or putting himself in harm’s way in order to protect Annaka. Up until that moment, he’d been trying to reconcile the notion of David Webb, college professor, being Jason Bourne, international assassin, of being in his line of work. But no assassin he could think of would have endangered himself to protect Annaka.
Who, then, was Jason Bourne?
He shook his head, annoyed at himself. This was a question, though maddening, that he needed to put aside for the time being. At last he understood why Spalko had called him while he was in Paris. He’d been given a test and, to Spalko’s way of thinking, he’d failed. Spalko now thought of Khan as an imminent threat to him, just as he thought of Bourne as a threat. For Khan, Spalko had become the enemy. All his life, Khan had only one way of dealing with enemies: He eliminated them. He was very well aware of the danger; he welcomed it as a challenge. Spalko was certain he could defeat Khan. How could Spalko know that that arrogance would only make him burn all the brighter?
Khan drained his small cup and, flipping open his cell phone, punched in a number.
“I was just about to call you but I wanted to wait until I was out of the building,” Ethan Hearn said. “Something’s up.”
Khan checked his watch. It wasn’t yet five. “What, exactly?”
“About two minutes ago I saw a HAZMAT truck approaching and I got down to the basement in time to see two men and a woman bringing a man in on a stretcher.”
“That woman will be Annaka Vadas,” Khan said.
“She’s quite the stunner.”
“Listen to me, Ethan,” Khan said forcefully, “if you run into her, be very careful. She’s as dangerous as they come.”
“Too bad,” Hearn mused.
“No one saw you?” Khan wanted to get him off the subject of Annaka Vadas.
“No,” Hearn said. “I was quite careful about that.”
“Good.” Khan thought a moment. “Can you find out where they took this man? I mean the exact location?”
“I already know. I watched the elevator when they took him up. He’s somewhere on the fourth floor. That’s Spalko’s personal level; it’s accessed only with a magnetic key.”
“Can you get it?” Khan asked.
“Impossible. He keeps it on his person at all times.”
“I’ll have to find another way,” Khan said.
“I thought magnetic keys were foolproof.”
Khan laughed shortly. “Only a fool believes that. There’s always a way into a locked room, Ethan, just as there’s always a way out.”
Khan rose, threw some money on the table, and walked out of the café. Right now he was loath to stay in one place for too long. “Speaking of which, I need a way into Humanistas.”
“There are any number—”
“I have reason to believe Spalko is expecting me.” Khan crossed the street, his eyes alert for anyone who might be watching him.
“That’s a completely different story,” Hearn said. There was a pause as he considered the problem, then: “Wait a minute, hang on. Let me look in my PDA. I might have something.
“Okay, I’m back.” Hearn gave a little laugh. “I do have something, and I think you’re going to like it.
Arsenov and Zina arrived at the house ninety minutes after the others. By that time, the cadre had changed into jeans and workshirts and had pulled the van into the large garage. While the women took charge of the bags of food Arsenov and Zina had bought, the men opened the box of hand weapons waiting for them and helped set up the spray-painters.
Arsenov took out the photos Spalko had given him and they set about spray-painting the van the proper color of an official government vehicle. While the van was drying, they drove the second van into the garage. Using a stencil, they spray-painted Hafnarfjördur Fine Fruits & Vegetables onto both sides of the vehicle.
Then they went into the house, which was already perfumed by the meal the women had prepared. Before sitting down to eat, they commenced their prayers. Zina, excitement buzzing through her like an electrical current, was barely present, praying to Allah by rote while she thought of the Shaykh and her role in the triumph that was now only a day away.
At dinner the conversation was spirited, a flux of tension and anticipation animating them. Arsenov, who normally frowned on such loose behavior, allowed this outlet for their nerves, but only for a contained amount of time. Leaving the women to clean up, he led the men back down to the garage, where they applied the official decals and markings to the sides and front of the van. They drove that outside, brought the third one in, spray-painted it the colors of Reykjavik Energy.
Afterward they were all exhausted and ready for sleep, for they would be rising very early. Still, Arsenov made them run through their parts of the plan, insisting they speak Icelandic. He wanted to see what effect mental fatigue would have on them. Not that he doubted them. All of his nine compatriots had long ago proven themselves to him. They were physically strong, mentally tough and, perhaps most important of all, completely without remorse or compunction. However, none of them had ever been involved in an operation of this size, scope or global ramifications; without the NX 20 they’d never had the wherewithal. And so it was particularly satisfying to watch them dredge up the necessary reserves of energy and stamina to run through their roles with flawless precision.
He congratulated them and then, as if they were his blood children, said to them with great love and affection in his heart, “La illaha ill Allah.”
“La illaha ill Allah,” they chorused in unison with such love burning in their eyes that Arsenov was moved close to tears. In this moment, as they searched one another’s faces, the enormity of the task set before them was brought home to them. For Arsenov’s part, he saw them all—his family—gathered together in a strange and forbidding land, on the brink of the most glorious moment their people would ever witness. Never had his sense of the future burned so brilliantly, never had his sense of purpose—the righteousness—of their cause been made so manifest to him. He was grateful for the presence of all of them.
As Zina was abou
t to go upstairs, he put a hand on her arm, but as the others passed her, glancing at them, she shook her head. “I have to help them with the peroxide,” she said, and he let her go.
“May Allah grant you a peaceful sleep,” she said softly, mounting the stairs.
Later, Arsenov lay in bed unable, as usual, to sleep. Across from him, in the other narrow bed, Akhmed snored with the noise of a buzzsaw. A light wind ruffled the curtains of the open window; as a youth, Arsenov had grown used to the cold; now he liked it. He stared up at the ceiling, thinking as he always did in the dark hours of Khalid Murat, of his betrayal of his mentor and his friend. Despite the necessity of the assassination, his personal disloyalty continued to eat at him. And there was the wound in his leg, a pain no matter how well it was healing that acted as a goad. In the end he’d failed Khalid Murat, and nothing he could do now could change that fact.
He rose, went into the hallway and padded silently down the stairs. He’d slept in his clothes, as he always did. He went out into the chill night air, extracting a cigarette and lighting it. Low on the horizon a bloated moon sailed through the star-spangled sky. There were no trees; he heard no insects.
As he walked farther away from the house, his seething mind began to clear, to calm itself. Perhaps, after he’d finished the cigarette he’d even be able to catch a few hours of sleep before the three-thirty rendezvous with Spalko’s boat.
He had almost finished his cigarette and was about to turn around when he heard the whisper of low voices. Startled, he drew his gun and looked around. The voices, drifting on the night air, were coming from behind a pair of enormous boulders that rose up like the horns of a monster from the top of the cliff’s face.
Dropping his cigarette and grinding its lit end into the ground, he moved toward the rock formation. Though he used caution, he was fully prepared to empty his weapon into the hearts of whoever was spying on them.