— The other possibility, Boris said, — is that he‘s knocking off his partners one by one.
They had passed through the lobby and out into the scalding afternoon sun, where traffic was at a standstill and passersby were gathering as each minute passed, gaping at Boris‘s heavily armed contingent.
— That brings up another question, Karpov said as they climbed into the minibus he‘d commandeered and which had become his mobile headquarters. -How the hell does Arkadin fit into this puzzle? Why would Black River need him?
— Here‘s a possibility, Bourne said. -Arkadin‘s in Nagorno-Karabakh, a remote area of Azerbaijan that, as you said, is dominated by tribal chieftains, all fanatic Muslims-just like the Black Legion terrorists.
— How would the terrorists be involved?
— That‘s something we‘ll have to ask Arkadin himself, Bourne said. -To do that we‘ll have to fly to Azerbaijan.
Karpov ordered his IT man to bring up real-time satellite pictures of the Nagorno-Karabakh region in order to figure the best route to the specific area Yevsen used.
The IT man was zooming in on the area when he said, — Hold on a second.
His fingers blurred over the keys, shifting the images on the screen.
— What is it? Karpov said with some impatience.
— A plane just took off from the target area. The IT man swiveled to another laptop and keyed into a different site. -It‘s an Air Afrika jet, Colonel.
— Arkadin! Bourne said. -Where‘s the flight headed?
— Hold on. The IT man switched to the third computer, bringing up an image similar to those on an air controller‘s screen. -Just let me extrapolate from the jet‘s current heading. His fingers danced some more over the keyboard. Then he swiveled back to the first laptop and an area of landmass filled the screen. The image pulled back until the IT man pointed at a place in the lower right-hand quadrant of the screen.
— Right there, he said. -Shahrake NasiriAstara, just off the Caspian Sea, in northwest Iran.
— What in the name of all that‘s unholy is there? Karpov said.
The IT man, moving to the second laptop, plugged in the name of the area, hit the ENTER key, and scrolled through the resulting news stories. There were precious few, but one of them provided the answer. He looked up into his commander‘s face and said, — Three whopping huge oil fields and the beginnings of a transnational pipeline.
I want you out of here. Amun Chalthoum‘s eyes sparked in the semi-darkness of the old fort. -Instantly.
Soraya was so taken aback that it was a moment before she said, — Amun, I think you‘re confusing me with someone else.
He took her by the elbow. -This is no joke. Go. Now.
She extricated herself from his grip. -What am I, your daughter? I‘m not going anywhere.
— I won‘t risk the life of the woman I love, he said. -Not in a situation like this.
— I don‘t know whether to be flattered or offended. Maybe I‘m both. She shook her head. -Nevertheless, we came here because of me, or have you forgotten?
— I don‘t forget anything. Chalthoum was about to continue when Yusef cut him off.
— I thought you‘d planned for these people to catch up to you.
— I did, Chalthoum said impatiently, — but I didn‘t count on getting trapped in here.
— Too late for regrets now, Yusef whispered. -The enemy has entered the fort.
Chalthoum held up four fingers, to let Yusef know how many men had been following them. Yusef gave a curt nod and gestured for them to follow him. While the men moved out, Soraya bent and, ripping off a piece of one of the men‘s shirts, scooped some quicklime into the makeshift sling.
As they reached the doorway, she said very clearly, — We should stay here.
They turned, and Amun looked at her as if she were insane. -We‘ll be trapped like rats.
— We‘re already trapped like rats. She swung the sling back and forth.
— At least here we have the high ground. She gestured with her chin. -They‘ve already dispersed themselves. They‘ll pick us off one by one before we can get to even one of them.
— You‘re right, Director, Yusef said, and Chalthoum looked like he wanted to swat him across the face.
She appealed to Chalthoum directly. -Amun, get used to it. This is how it is.
Three of the four men, having found shadowed nests for themselves, lay in wait, sighting down the long barrels of their rifles. The fourth man-the beater-moved cautiously from desolate room to ruined room, across abandoned sand-piled spaces without roofs. Always the wind was in his ears, and the grit of the desert in his nose and throat. Granules, shot by the wind, insinuated themselves inside his clothes and formed a familiar layer as they clung to his sweaty skin. His job was to find the targets and drive them into the crisscrossing lines of fire set up by his comrades. He was cautious, but not apprehensive; he‘d done this work before and he‘d do it again many times before old age made this life impossible. But he knew by then he‘d have more than enough money for his family and even his children‘s families. The American paid well-the American, it seemed, never ran out of money, just as the fool never bargained down his price. The Russians, now-they knew how to drive a hard bargain. He‘d sweated through many a negotiation with the Russians, who claimed they didn‘t have money, or, anyway, enough to pay him what he asked. He would settle on a price that made them all happy and then he went about the business of killing. It‘s what he did best, after all-the only thing he was trained for.
He‘d secured more than half the fort and was frankly surprised that he‘d not yet come upon even a sign of the targets. Well, one of them was an Egyptian, he‘d been told. He didn‘t like Egyptians, they smeared you with their honeyed words all the while lying through their teeth. They were like jackals-grinning as they tore the flesh off you.
He turned down a short corridor. When he was no more than halfway along, he heard the sound of the flies buzzing and knew, even though he failed to catch a whiff of rotting flesh, that there must have been a death up ahead of him, and quite recently, too.
Gripping his handgun more tightly, he continued down the hallway with his spine pressed up against one wall, squinting into the gloom. Here and there, sunlight fluttered and twittered like birds in a tree, where the ceiling or wall was cracked or even, in some places, broken open, as if by the hammering fist of a murderous giant.
The sound of the flies had become a hum, as of some great, nebulous creature that waxed and waned as it fed and drowsed. He paused, listening and, in his own unscientific way, counting their number. Something big had died in that room ahead of him, possibly more than one big thing. A human being?
He pulled the trigger of his handgun, the brief light-flare, the report, transforming the entire area. He was like a beast marking its territory, warning other predators of its presence, wanting to instill fear. If the targets were in that room, they were trapped. He knew that room-just as he knew every room in this and the other forts in the area. There was only one entrance and he was five steps away from it.