―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.‖
The explosion of laughter obliged Bourne to hold the phone away from his ear for a moment.
When Volkin had calmed down, he said, ―What an absurd notion! You Americans! Where on earth did you come up with that bit of insanity?‖
―Someone in Seville showed me surveillance photos of Boris in a Munich beer hall with the American secretary of defense.‖
―Really? On what planet would that happen?‖
―I know it sounds crazy but I heard a tape of them talking. Secretary Halliday ordered my death and Boris agreed to it.‖
―Boris is your friend.‖ Volkin‘s tone had turned deadly serious. ―He‘s Russian; friendships don‘t come easily to us, and they‘re never betrayed.‖
―It was a barter,‖ Bourne persisted. ―Boris said he wanted Abdulla Khoury, the head of the Eastern Brotherhood, killed in return.‖
―It‘s true Abdulla Khoury was killed recently, but I assure you that Boris would have no reason to want him dead.‖
―Are you certain?‖
―Boris has been working on anti-narcotics, yes? You know this or, at least, must have surmised as much. You‘re a clever one, hah! The Eastern Brotherhood was funding its Black Legion terrorists through a drug pipeline that ran from Colombia to Mexico to Munich. Boris had someone inside the cartel who provided him with the other end of the pipeline, namely Gustavo Moreno, a Colombian drug lord living in a vast hacienda outside Mexico City.
Boris attacked the hacienda with his elite team of FSB-2 men and shut Moreno down. But the really big prize—Moreno‘s laptop with the details of every inch of the pipeline—eluded him. What happened to it? Boris spent two days searching every inch of the compound, to no avail, because before he died Moreno insisted it was in the hacienda. It wasn‘t, but Boris being Boris caught a whiff of a strange scent.‖
―Which eventually brought him to Khartoum.‖
Volkin deliberately ignored the comment. Perhaps he thought the answer was self-evident. Instead, he said: ―Do you have the date this alleged meeting between Boris and the American secretary took place?‖
―It was stamped on the photos,‖ Bourne said. When he told Volkin, the Russian said emphatically, ―Boris was here with me for three days, including that date. I don‘t know who was sitting down with the American secretary of defense, Bourne, but as sure as Russia is corrupt it wasn‘t our mutual friend Boris Karpov.‖
―Who was it then?‖
―A chameleon, certainly. Do you know any, Bourne?‖
―Besides myself, I do. But, unlike me, he‘s dead.‖
―You seem certain of that.‖
―I saw him fall from a great height into the water off the Port of Los Angeles.‖
―That is not the same as death. By God, you, of all people, should know,‖
Volkin said.
A cold chill swept down Bourne‘s spine.
―How many lives have you had, Bourne? Boris tells me many. I think it must be the same with Leonid Danilovich Arkadin.‖
―Are you telling me that Arkadin didn‘t drown? That he survived?‖
―A black cat like Arkadin has nine lives, my friend, possibly even more.‖
So it was Arkadin who‘d tried to kill him on Bali. Though the picture had suddenly become clearer, there was still something wrong, something missing.
―Are you sure of all this, Volkin?‖
―Arkadin is now the new head of the Eastern Brotherhood, how‘s that for being sure?‖
―All right, but why would he hire the Torturer when he seems to want so desperately to kill me himself?‖
―He wouldn‘t,‖ Volkin said. ―The Torturer is much too unreliable, especially against a foe like you.‖
―Then who hired him?‖
―That, Bourne, is a question even I cannot answer.‖
Having decided to take to the field himself in an effort to find the missing Metro police officers, Peter Marks was waiting in front of the bank of elevators to take him to the ground floor when an elevator door slid open.
The only person inside was the enigmatic Frederick Willard, up until three months ago the Old Man‘s mole inside the NSA‘s Virginia safe house. The older man was, as usual, dapper, urbane, utterly self-contained. He wore an impeccable gunmetal-gray, chalk-striped three-piece suit over a crisp white shirt and a conservative tie.
―Hello, Willard,‖ Marks said as he stepped into the elevator. ―I thought you were on leave.‖
―I got back several days ago.‖
From Marks‘s point of view, Willard was remarkably well suited to play the role of steward in the safe house, evincing an old-school professorial air, musty and rather boring. It wasn‘t difficult to see how he melted into the woodwork. Being invisible made it so much easier to eavesdrop on intimate conversations.
The door slid shut and they descended.
―I imagine it‘s been difficult getting back into the swing of things,‖
Marks said, more to be polite to the older man than anything else.
―Frankly, it was like I was never gone.‖ Willard glanced over at Marks with a grimace, as if he‘d just come from the surgeon‘s office and his agony was of such magnitude that he could not hide it. ―How did your interview with the president go?‖
Surprised that Willard knew about it, Marks said, ―Well enough, I suppose.‖
―Not that it matters, you‘re not getting the post.‖
―It figures. Dick Symes was the logical front-runner.‖
―Symes is out, too.‖
Marks‘s acceptance turned to consternation. ―How do you know that?‖
―Because I know who did get the post and, fuck us all, it isn‘t anyone from inside CI.‖
―But that makes no sense.‖
―On the contrary, it makes perfect sense,‖ Willard said, ―if your name happens to be Bud Halliday.‖
Marks turned toward the older man. ―What‘s happened, Willard? Come on, man, out with it!‖
―Halliday has used Veronica Hart‘s sudden death to his advantage. He‘s proposed his own man, M. Errol Danziger, and after meeting with Danziger the president‘s agreed.‖
―Danziger, the NSA‘s current deputy director of signals intelligence for analysis and production?‖
―That‘s the one.‖
―But he knows nothing about CI!‖ Marks cried.