―Perfectly,‖ Marks said, while Willard nodded his assent.
―Detectives Sampson and Montgomery are currently fishing on the Snake River in Idaho.‖
―Are they really fishing,‖ Marks asked, ―or are they dead?‖
―Jesus Christ, I talked to them yesterday!‖ Burrows said heatedly. ―They wanted to know when they could come home. I told them there was no rush.‖
―Lester,‖ Willard said, ―they‘re not in Idaho on your dime.‖
―Uncle Sam has deeper pockets than I do,‖ the commissioner conceded.
Willard was watching emotions crossing like clouds across Burrows‘s face.
―Precisely what piece of Uncle Sam?‖
―No one told me, and that‘s the truth,‖ Burrows grumped, as if no one told him anything of any real importance. ―But I remember the representative‘s name, if that‘s of any help.‖
―At this stage,‖ Willard said heavily, ―anything might prove useful, even a pseudonym.‖
―Well, dammit, no one tells the truth in this town!‖ Burrows lifted an accusing finger. ―And let me tell you two right now that no police officer of mine shot your Mr. Weston, of that I‘m damn sure. I conducted my own investigation into that allegation.‖
―Then someone was impersonating one of your police officers,‖ Willard said calmly, ―to point everyone in the wrong direction.‖
―You spooks.‖ Burrows shook his head. ―You live in your own world with its own rules. Christ, what a tangled web!‖ He shrugged, as if shaking off his consternation. ―That name, then. The man who made the arrangements for my detectives said his name was Noah Petersen. That ring a bell, or was he just blowing spook smoke up my ass?‖
Bourne had parted company with the lurker, as his cousin‘s cousin had first ensured that both truckers were inside the building, unloading crates, then furtively led the way into the building through the service entrance.
Grabbing hold of the truck‘s rear door handle, he vaulted up, grabbing on to the rim of the top and rolling his body onto the truck‘s roof. By climbing onto the refrigeration unit, he was able to reach a concrete abutment on the building‘s facade, by which means he gained the setback along the second floor. Using the spaces between the concrete slabs, he picked his way farther up the building‘s side until he got to the third-floor setback, where he repeated the procedure until, reaching up, he levered himself over the parapet onto the tiled floor of the roof garden.
Unlike the architecture of the building itself, the garden was a delicate mosaic of colors and textures, perfectly manicured, fragrant, and shaded from the glaring sun. Bourne, crouching in a patch of the deepest shadow, breathed in the heady scent of lime as he studied the garden‘s layout. Save for him, the roof was deserted.
Two small structures were cleverly integrated into the garden‘s design: the door down into the building and, as he discovered, a toolshed for the staff who pruned the trees, plants, and flowers. He headed to the doorway, saw that it was protected by a standard circuit-breaker alarm. The moment he opened the door from the outside, the alarm would be triggered.
Backtracking to the toolshed, he took a pruner and a wire stripper to the parapet. There, at the crevice where it met the tiled floor of the roof, he found the wires that connected the garden‘s lights. Using the pruning shears, he cut off a six-foot length of wire. As he walked back to the doorway, he stripped the insulation off both ends.
At the door, he felt above for the alarm wire, stripping off two sections of the insulation and attaching the bare ends of the length of lighting wire he‘d cut to the bare alarm wire. When he was certain the connections were secure, he cut the alarm wire midway between the jerry-rigged splices he‘d made.
Cautiously, he opened the door only wide enough to slip inside. The splices had worked; the alarm was silent. He crept down the narrow, steep staircase to the third floor. His first order of business was to find Arkadin, the man who‘d lured him here, so he could kill him. The second was finding Tracy and getting her out.
Tracy was standing by the window, looking out at the chaotic street, when she heard the door open behind her. Assuming it was Noah, she turned back into the room, only to confront a man with a shaved head, a goatee, black shot through with white, a ring of diamonds in the lobe of one ear, and a tattoo of a fanged bat on the side of his neck. With his wide shoulders, barrel chest, and thick legs, he looked like a wrestler or one of those mutant extreme fighters she‘d seen once or twice on American TV.
―So you‘re the one who brought my Goya,‖ the Bat-man said as he sauntered over to the table where the painting lay in all its grotesque grandeur. He had a way of walking, a rolling gait one saw only on muscle-men and sailors.
―That‘s Noah‘s,‖ Tracy said.
―No, my dear Ms. Atherton, it‘s mine,‖ the Bat-man said in grating, thickly accented English. ―Perlis merely bought it for me.‖ He held the painting up in front of him. ―It‘s my payment.‖ His chuckle was like the gurgle of a dying man. ―A unique prize for unique services rendered.‖
―You know my name,‖ she said, moving toward the table with its platters and thick glass bowls of food, ―but I don‘t know yours.‖
―Are you certain you want to know it?‖ He continued to examine the Goya with a connoisseur‘s practiced eye. And then, without allowing her space to answer: ―Ah, well, then, it‘s Nikolai Yevsen. Perhaps you‘ve heard of me, I own Air Afrika, I own this building.‖
―Frankly, I never heard of you or of Air Afrika. My business is art.‖
―Is that so?‖ Yevsen placed the Goya back onto the table, across which he faced her. ―Then what are you doing with Jason Bourne?‖
―Jason Bourne?‖ She frowned. ―Who‘s Jason Bourne?‖
―The man you brought here with you.‖
Her frown deepened. ―What are you talking about? I came alone. Noah can vouch for that.‖
―Perlis is busy at the moment, interrogating your friend Mr. Bourne.‖
―I don‘t—‖ The rest of her words choked in her throat when saw a snub-nosed .45 in his left hand.
28
IF YOUR BUSINESS is art,‖ Yevsen said, ―what are you doing with an assassin, a spy, a man with no scruples, no heart? A man who would put a bullet through your head as soon as look at you.‖
―But who‘s threatening to shoot me?‖ Tracy said.
―You or him?‖ ―You brought him here to kill me.‖ Yevsen had a face that conveyed brute force, blunt power. He was a man used to getting what he wanted from anyone, at any time. ―I have to ask myself why you would do that.‖