Setting the triangle carefully aside, she slid headfirst through the opening. Now she could see that she was at the rear of her house, overhanging the narrow alley where she and her neighbors put out their garbage for the sanitation truck that weekly rumbled down the cobbles, disturbing the residents‘ sleep every Thursday at daybreak.
The glow of her neighbors‘ security lights streamed harshly into the interior, illuminating the laptop as she placed it on the lip of the opening. It was then that she saw to her consternation and alarm that the laptop‘s hot-swappable hard drive was missing. She checked and checked again as one will when a wallet is lost, because the enormity of the loss is such a shock.
Then with a grunt of disgust, she shoved the laptop away. All this effort, putting herself in harm‘s way-and for nothing!
With her hands against the brickwork of the facade, she began to lever herself out, rounding her shoulders to get them through the triangle at its widest point, no mean trick-she had barely enough room to squeeze them through. Then she grasped one of the decorative stone outcroppings to increase her leverage. Now she had to contend with her hips, which didn‘t look as if they‘d make it.
She was struggling with this problem of solid geometry when she heard a sound directly below her. Twisting her neck painfully, she saw that her rear door was opening. Someone was coming out-a figure in black. Though he looked severely foreshortened because of her awkward view from above, she could see him clearly enough. He stood motionless on the back step, peering around.
Now she turned back to her task, desperate to free herself. Resettling her grip on the ornamental stone lip, she redoubled her effort to haul her lower body through the opening. Unfortunately, this resulted in her hips getting stuck in the triangle. Belatedly, she saw how she should have twisted to have the best shot at getting through. She tried to push herself back, to free herself, but she was stuck. Down below, the man in black had lit a cigarette. By the way he was glancing up and down the alley, she figured that he must be waiting for the Lincoln Town Car to pick him up. As she continued to struggle, she saw him pull out his cell phone. Any moment now he would punch in his confederates‘ number and, finding they didn‘t answer, would take off on his own. With him would go her hard drive and any chance of hacking into Noah‘s Wi-Fi network.
The man in black put his phone to his ear, and she willed herself to relax, to exhale, so her body would soften. There! She was free! Now she twisted her hips and hauled herself through. Hanging precariously from the stone ornamentation, she heard the man‘s soft voice spiral up to her, along with the smoke from his cigarette. Knowing she was out of time, she let go and, plunging downward, landed on him.
As he fell to the cobbles, his cell phone flew through the air, shattering some feet away. His head hit the street with a sickening smack.
Jolted, aching, and slightly disoriented, she crawled over the corpse of the man in black, and in so doing found his cell phone. She stared at it curiously for a moment. If she was holding his cell, what had flown through the air?
Staggering to her feet, she zigzagged her way to where the splintered plastic and metal shards lay shining on the cobbles. On one of the small rectangular pieces was a thick red lightning bolt from upper right corner to lower left, symbol of all of Black River‘s specially designed hardware.
— Oh, God, she moaned. -No.
Sinking to her knees, she scooped up the disks, remnants of her hard drive, which was split open, unusable, unsalvageable, utterly ruined.
24
WHILE BOURNE AND TRACY waited in the first-class lounge in Madrid for their Egyptair flight, Bourne excused himself and walked toward the men‘s room. He passed the shiny ranked shelves displaying newspapers from all over the world, in a great many languages, but all with more or less the same screaming headlines: — Negotiations Break Down, or — On The Brink, or — Last Diplomatic Hope Gone, but which invariably included the words — Iran and
— War.
When he was out of Tracy‘s sight, he extracted his cell and called Boris‘s number. There was no answer, no ring even, which meant that Boris had his phone off. He thought a moment and, walking to the windows so that he was away from everyone, he scrolled through his phone‘s address book until he brought up another Moscow number.
— What the hell? a crusty old voice shouted down the line.
— Ivan, Ivan Volkin, he said. -It‘s Jason Bourne, Boris‘s friend.
— I know whose friend you are. I‘m old, not senile. Besides, you caused enough mayhem when you were here three months ago to remain indelible in the mind of an Alzheimer‘s patient.
— I‘m trying to get in touch with Boris.
— What else is new? Volkin said tartly. -Why don‘t you try calling him instead of bothering me?
— I wouldn‘t be calling you if he answered his cell.
— Ah, then you don‘t have his satellite phone number.
Which meant, Bourne thought, that Boris had returned to Africa. -You mean he‘s back in Timbuktu?
— Timbuktu? Volkin said. -Where did you get the idea Boris had been in Timbuktu?
— From Boris himself.
— Hah! No, no, no. Not Timbuktu. Khartoum.
Bourne leaned against the glass chilled by the fierce air-conditioning of the lounge. He felt as if the ground were sliding out from under his feet. Why did all strands of the spider‘s web lead to Khartoum?
— What‘s Boris doing in Khartoum?
— Something he doesn‘t want you, his good friend, to know about. Volkin laughed throatily. -Obviously.
Bourne took a stab in the dark. -But you know.
— Me? My dear Bourne, I‘m retired from the world of the grupperovka. Who‘s got the bad memory, me or you?
There was something very wrong with this conversation, and a moment later Bourne knew what it was. Surely, with all his contacts, Volkin must have heard of Bourne‘s — death. And yet there was no surprise in his voice when Bourne announced himself, no awkward questions being asked. Which meant he already knew Bourne had survived the attack on Bali. That meant Boris knew.
He tried another tack. -Do you know a man named Bogdan Machin?
— The Torturer. Of course I know him.
— He‘s dead, Bourne said.
— No one‘s going to mourn, believe me.
— He was sent to Seville, Bourne said, — to kill me.
— Aren‘t you already dead? Volkin said with an ironic twist.
— You knew I wasn‘t.
— Me, I still have a couple of brain cells left, which is more than could be said for the late, unlamented Bogdan Machin.
— Who told you? Boris?
— Boris? My dear fellow, Boris went on a weeklong drunk when he heard-
through me, I might add-that you‘d been killed. Now, of course, he knows better.
— So Boris wasn‘t the one who shot me.