As Spalko exerted himself to heave him over the side, Bourne kicked out with all his might. With a sickening snap, the sole of his shoe connected with Spalko’s jaw. Spalko, grabbing his broken jaw, staggered backward, and Bourne ran at him. Spalko had no time to use the gun; Bourne was already inside his guard. He slammed the butt down on Bourne’s shoulder, and Bourne staggered as more pain flashed through him.
Then he’d reached up, digging his fingers into the broken bones of Spalko’s jaw. Spalko screamed and Bourne wrenched the gun from his grip. He jammed the muzzle underneath Spalko’s chin and pulled the trigger.
The sound did not amount to much, but the force of the percussion lifted Spalko bodily off the deck and pitched him over the side. He went into the sea headfirst.
For a moment, as Bourne looked on, he floated facedown, rocked back and forth by the restless waves. Then he went under as if drawn by something huge and immensely potent beneath the sea.
Chapter Thirty-One
Martin Lindros spent twenty minutes on the phone with Ethan Hearn. Hearn had much information about the famous Stepan Spalko, all of it such a stunning revelation it took Lindros some time to absorb and accept. In the end, no item was of more interest to him than the one that showed an electronic transfer from one of Spalko’s many shell companies in Budapest to buy a gun from a certain illegal Russian-run company operating out of Virginia until Detective Harris had shut them down.
An hour later he had two hard copies printed out from the electronic files Hearn had e-mailed him. He got into his car and headed over to the DCI’s town house. Overnight, the Old Man had been stricken with the flu. It must be bad, Lindros thought now, for him to have left the office at all during the crisis at the summit.
His driver stopped the staff car at the high iron gates, leaned out the open window, and pressed the intercom. In the ensuing silence he began to wonder if the Old Man, feeling better, had summarily taken himself back to the office without informing anyone.
Then the querulous voice crackled over the intercom, the driver announced Lindros, and a moment later, the gates swung soundlessly open. The driver pulled the car up and Lindros got out. He rapped on the door with the brass knocker, and when it opened, he saw the DCI, his face wrinkled and his hair disheveled from lying on a pillow. He was wearing striped pajamas over which he’d wrapped a heavy-looking bathrobe. On his bony feet were carpet slippers.
“Come in, Martin. Come in.” He turned and left the door open without waiting for Lindros to cross the threshold. Lindros entered, closed the door behind him. The DCI had padded into the study, which was off to the left. There were no lights on; there appeared to be none on in the house at all.
He went into the study, a masculine space with hunter green walls, a cream ceiling, and oversize leather chairs and sofa scattered about. A TV, set into a wall of built-in bookcases, was off. Every other time Lindros had been in this room it had been on, tuned to CNN, either with or without the sound.
The Old Man sat heavily down in his favorite chair. The side table at his right elbow was crammed with a large box of tissues and bottles of aspirin, Tylenol Cold & Sinus, NyQuil, Vicks VapoRub, Coricidin, DayQuil, and Robitussin DM cough syrup.
“What is this, sir?” Lindros said, indicating the small drugstore.
“I didn’t know what I’d need,” The DCI said, “so I just took everything out of the medicine chest.”
Then Lindros saw the bottle of bourbon and the old-fashioned glass, and he frowned. “Sir, what’s going on?” He craned his neck to see out the open doorway of the study. “Where’s Madeleine?”
“Ah, Madeleine.” The Old Man picked up his whiskey glass and slugged some down. “Madeleine has gone to her sister’s in Phoenix.”
“And left you on your own?” Lindros reached over and turned on a standing lamp, and the DCI blinked owlishly at him. “When will she be back, sir?”
“Hmmm.” The DCI said, as if considering his deputy’s words. “Well, the thing of it is, Martin, I don’t know when she’s coming back.”
“Sir?” Lindros said with some alarm.
“She’s left me. At least that’s what I think has happened.” The DCI’s gaze seemed fixed as he drained his glass of bourbon. He pursed his shining lips as if perplexed. “How does one know these things, really?”
“Haven’t the two of you talked?”
“Talked?” The DCI’s gaze snapped back into focus. He looked at Lindros for a moment. “No. We haven’t spoken about it at all.”
“Then how do you know?”
“You think I’m making it up, tempest in a rotunda, eh?” The DCI’s eyes came alive for an instant and all at once his voice was clotted with barely suppressed emotion. “But there are things of hers that’re gone, you see—personal things, intimate things. The house is goddamned empty without them.”
Lindros sat down. “Sir, you have my sympathy, but I have something—”
“Maybe, Martin, she never loved me.” The Old Man reached for the bottle. “But how is one to know such a mysterious thing?”
Lindros leaned forward, gently took the bourbon from his commander. The DCI didn’t seem surprised. “I’ll work on it for you, sir, if you’d like.”
The DCI nodded vaguely. “All right.”
Lindros put the bottle aside. “But for now we have another pressing matter to discuss.” He set the file he’d gotten from Ethan Hearn down on the Old Man’s side table.
“What is that? I can’t read anything now, Martin.”
“Then I’ll tell you,” Lindros said. When he was done, there was a silence that seemed to echo throughout the house.
After a time the Old Man looked at his deputy with watery eyes. “Why’d he do it, Martin? Why did Alex break every rule and steal one of our own people?”
“I think he’d gotten a hint of what was coming, sir. He was frightened of Spalko. As it turned out, with very good reason.”
The Old Man sighed and put his head back. “So it wasn’t treason, after all.”
“No, sir.”
“Thank God.”
Lindros cleared his throat. “Sir, you must rescind the Bourne sanction at once, and someone’s going to have to debrief him.”
“Yes, of course. I think you’re best equipped to do that, Martin.”
“Yes, sir.” Lindros stood.
“Where are you going?” The querulousness had returned to the Old Man’s voice.
“To the Virginia State Police Commissioner. I have another copy of that file to drop into his lap. I’m going to insist that Detective Harris be reinstated, with a commendation from us. And as for the National Security Advisor herself…?”
The DCI took up the file and stroked it lightly. With this bit of animation, some color returned to his face. “Give me overnight, Martin.” Slowly, the old glint was returning to his eyes. “I’ll think of something deliciously suitable.” He laughed, the first time he’d done so, it seemed, in ages. “‘Let the punishment fit the crime,’ eh?”
Khan was with Zina to the end. He’d hidden the NX 20 and its horribly lethal payload. As far as the security people who were swarming all over the thermal heating station were concerned, he was a hero. They knew nothing about the bio-weapon. They knew nothing about him.
It was a curious time for Khan. He held the hand of a dying young woman who couldn’t speak, who could barely breathe, and yet who quite clearly didn’t want to let him go. Perhaps it was simply that, in the end, she didn’t want to die.
After Hull and Karpov realized that she was on the verge of dying and couldn’t provide them with information, they lost interest and so they left her alone with Khan. And he, so inured to death, experienced something wholly unexpected. Each breath she took, labored and painful, was a lifetime. He saw this in her eyes which, like her hand, would not let him go. She was drowning in the silence, sinking down into darkness. He couldn’t let that happen.
Unbidden, his own pain was brought to the surface by hers, and he spoke to her
of his life: of his abandonment, his imprisonment by the Vietnamese gunrunner, the religious conversion forced on him by the missionary, the political brainwashing by his Khmer Rouge interlocutor.
And then, most painful of all, was wrenched out of him his feelings about Lee-Lee. “I had a sister,” he said in a thin, reedy voice. “She would’ve been about your age had she lived. She was two years younger than me, looked up to me, and I—I was her protector. I wanted so much to keep her safe, not only because my parents said I should but because I needed to. My father was away a lot. When we were off playing, who would protect her if not me?” Unaccountably, his eyes felt hot and his vision was blurred. Suffused with shame, he was about to turn away, but he saw something in Zina’s eyes, a fierce compassion that served as a lifeline for him, and his shame vanished. He continued then, connected to her on an even more intimate level. “But, in the end, I failed Lee-Lee. My sister was killed along with my mother. I should’ve been too, but I survived.” His hand found its way to the carved stone Buddha, gaining strength from it as he had done so many times before. “For such a long time, I used to wonder, what use was my survival? I had failed her.”
When Zina’s lips parted slightly, he saw that her teeth were bloody. Her hand, which he held so tightly, squeezed his and he knew that she wanted him to go on. He was not only freeing her from her own agony but he was freeing himself from his own. And the most curious thing was that it worked. Though she couldn’t speak, though she was slowly dying, still her brain functioned. She heard what he said, and by her expression, he knew that it meant something to her—he knew that she was transported and that she understood.
“Zina,” he said, “in a way, we’re kindred spirits. I see myself in you—alienated, abandoned, utterly alone. I know this won’t make much sense to you, but my own guilt at my failure to protect my sister made me hate my father beyond reason. All I could see was his abandonment of us—of me.” And then, in a moment of astonishing revelation, he realized that he was looking through a glass darkly, that the only way he recognized himself in her was that he had changed. She was, in fact, the way he used to be. It was far easier to plan revenge on his father than to face the full brunt of his own guilt. It was from this knowledge that his desire to help her sprang. He fervently wished that he could rescue her from death.
But he, of all people, understood with uncanny intimacy the coming of death. Its tread, once heard, could not be stopped, even by him. And when the time came, when he heard the tread and saw death’s proximity in her eyes, he leaned over and, without being aware of it, smiled down at her reassuringly.
Picking up where Bourne, his father, had left off, he said, “Remember what to tell the Questioners, Zina. ‘My God is Allah, my prophet Mohammad, my religion Islam, and my kibla the Holy Kaaba.’” There seemed so much that she wanted to tell him and could not. “You are righteous, Zina. They will welcome you to glory.”
Her eyes flickered once and then, like a flame, the life that animated them was extinguished.
Jamie Hull was waiting for Bourne when he returned to the Oskjuhlid Hotel. It had taken Bourne some time to get back there. Twice he was on the verge of passing out and was obliged to turn off the road, sitting with his forehead pressed against the steering wheel, he was in terrible pain, weary beyond thought, still, his will to see Khan again goaded him on. He did not care about security; he didn’t care about anything now but being with his son.
At the hotel, after Bourne had briefly recounted Stepan Spalko’s role in the assault on the hotel, Hull insisted on taking him to a medic to see to his fresh wounds.
“Spalko’s worldwide reputation is such that even after we recover the body and release the evidence, there will be those who will refuse to believe it,” Hull responded.
The emergency medic’s rooms were filled with casualties lying on hastily erected cots. The more seriously wounded had been driven off by ambulance to the hospital. Then there were the dead, of whom no one yet wished to speak.
“We know your part in this, and I must say we’re all grateful,” Hull said, as he sat beside Bourne. “The president wants to speak with you, of course, but that will come later.”
The medic arrived and started to stitch up Bourne’s lacerated cheek.
“This won’t heal pretty,” she said. “You might want to consult a plastic surgeon.”
“It won’t be my first scar,” Bourne said.
“So I see,” she said dryly.
“One thing we found troubling was the presence of HAZMAT suits,” Hull continued. “We found no sign of a biological or chemical agent. Did you?”
Bourne had to think fast. He’d left Khan alone with Zina and the bio-weapon. A sudden stab of fear struck him. “No. We were as surprised as you were. But, afterward, there was no one left alive to ask.”
Hull nodded, and when the medic was finished, he helped Bourne up and out into the corridor. “I know you’d like nothing better than a hot shower and a change of clothes, but it’s important that I debrief you immediately.” He smiled reassuringly. “It’s a matter of national security. My hands are tied. But at least we can do it in a civilized manner over a hot meal, okay?”
Without another word, he delivered a short, sharp kidney punch that dropped Bourne to his knees. As Bourne gasped for breath, Hull drew back his other hand. In it was a push-dagger, the stubby leaflike blade that emerged from between his second and third fingers dark with a substance that was doubtless poisonous.
As he was about to drive it into Bourne’s neck, a shot sounded in the corridor. Bourne, released from Hull’s grip, slumped against the wall. Turning his head, he took everything in: Hull lying dead on the maroon carpet, the poisoned push-dagger in his hand, and hurrying up on his slightly bandy legs, Boris Illyich Karpov, director of the FSB’s Alpha Unit, a silenced pistol in his hand.
“I must admit,” Karpov said in Russian, as he helped Bourne to his feet, “I always harbored a secret desire to kill a CIA agent.”
“Christ, thanks,” Bourne gasped in the same language.
“This was a pleasure, believe me.” Karpov stared down at Hull. “The CIA sanction against you has been rescinded, not that it mattered to him. It seems that you still have enemies inside your own Agency.”
Bourne took several deep breaths, in itself a terribly painful proposition. He waited for his mind to clear sufficiently. “Karpov, how do I know you?”
The Russian let loose with a booming laugh. “Gospadin Bourne, I see the rumors about your memory are true.” He put his arm around Bourne’s waist, half supporting him. “Do you remember—? No, of course you don’t. Well, the truth is, we’ve met several times. The last time, you saved my life, in fact.” He laughed again at Bourne’s bewildered expression. “It’s a fine tale, my friend. A suitable story to tell over a bottle of vodka. Or maybe two, eh? After a night like this, who knows?”
“I’d be grateful for some vodka,” Bourne acknowledged, “but there’s someone I need to find first.”
“Come,” Karpov said, “I’ll contact my men to clean up this garbage and we’ll do together whatever needs to be done.” He grinned hugely, dissolving the brutality of his features. “You stink like a week-old fish, you know that? But what the hell, I’m used to all sorts of foul odors!” He laughed again. “What a pleasure to see you again! One doesn’t make friends easily, I’ve discovered, especially in our line of work. And so we must celebrate this event, this reunion, no?”
“Absolutely.”
“And who must you need to find, my good friend Jason Bourne, that you cannot take a hot shower and a well-deserved rest first?”
“A young man named Khan. You’ve met him, I assume.”
“Indeed,” Karpov said as he led Bourne down another corridor. “A most remarkable young man. D’you know he never left the dying Chechen’s side? And she, for her part, never let go of his hand until the end.” He shook his head. “Most extraordinary.”
He pursed his ruby lips. “Not that she deser
ved his attention. What was she, a murderer, a destroyer? You only have to see what they were attempting here to understand what kind of a monster she was.”
“And yet,” Bourne said, “she needed to hold his hand.”
“How he put up with it I’ll never know.”
“Perhaps he needed something from her, as well.” Bourne gave him a look. “Still think she was a monster?”
“Oh, yes,” Karpov said, “but then the Chechens have trained me to think that way.”
“Nothing changes, does it?” Bourne said.
“Not until we wipe them out.” Karpov gave him a sideways glance. “Listen, my idealistic friend, they have said about us what other terrorists have said about you Americans, ‘God has declared war on you.’ We have learned from bitter experience to take such pronouncements seriously.”
As it happened, Karpov knew just where Khan was—in the main restaurant, which was, after a fashion, up and running again with a severely limited menu.
“Spalko’s dead,” Bourne said to cover the rush of feeling he felt when he saw Khan.
Khan put down his hamburger and studied the stitches on Bourne’s swollen cheek. “Are you hurt?”
“More than I already am?” Bourne winced as he sat down. “It’s only minor.”
Khan nodded but didn’t take his eyes off Bourne.
Karpov, sitting down beside Bourne, called out to a passing waiter for a bottle of vodka. “Russian,” he said sharply, “not that Polish swill. And bring with it large glasses. We’re real men here, a Russian and heroes who are almost as good as Russians!” Then he returned his attention to his companions. “All right, what am I missing?” he said cannily.
“Nothing,” Khan and Bourne said together.
“Is that so?” The Russian agent’s caterpillar eyebrows lifted. “Well, then, there’s nothing left but to drink. In vino, veritas. In wine, there is truth, so the ancient Romans believed. And who should disbelieve them? They were damn fine soldiers, the Romans, and they had great generals, but they would’ve been even better if they’d drunk vodka instead of wine!” He laughed raucously until the other two had no choice but to join in.