Abruptly famished, he ordered everything he had smelled when he came in. The beer arrived almost immediately in an enormous ceramic-and-metal stein. He took two quick gulps and set the stein down. On either side of him jolly Germans were drinking and eating, but mostly shouting, singing, and laughing, obnoxious as hyenas. It was all Karpov could do not to get up and walk out. But he was here for a reason and he wasn’t going anywhere until he ascertained whether or not the man in the doorway had followed him.
Since he had sat down almost a dozen people had entered the biergarten, none of whom had set off any alarms. Mostly they consisted of families or young couples, arm in arm. Watching them, Boris strained to remember the last time he had walked arm in arm with a woman. He doubted he was missing anything.
His food came and, just as he was tucking into his gleaming, fragrant bratwurst, a figure stepped through the front door. The hair on the backs of his hands stirred. He put the bite of wurst into his mouth and chewed meditatively.
He had expected the man from the doorway across from the alley, but this was a woman—a young one, at that. Boris watched her covertly as she shook out her umbrella, then collapsed it before taking a look around the restaurant. He was careful not to meet her gaze, concentrating on spearing a potato slippery with grease. He popped the morsel into his mouth, washed it down with some beer, and looked up. The young woman had taken a seat at the end of a table, on the side facing him. She was between him and the front door.
Karpov had had enough of this nonsense; these people were either bad at their job or amateurs. He laid his knife and fork on his plate, took the plate in one hand, his beer stein in the other, and got up.
As the hour had grown later, the biergartenhad become downright raucous, more and more of the patrons transformed into red-faced drunks. Threading his way through the crowd, he decided amateurs were the worst kind of adversary. They didn’t know the rules, which made them unpredictable.
There was a small gap between the young woman and her neighbor—a thick-necked German, stuffing his face and guzzling beer. When Boris nudged him to move over, the fat German looked up, his eyes glaring.
He was about to say something, but Karpov beat him to it. “ Sie haben Fett über ihr ganzes Gesicht.” You have grease all over your face.
Fatty grunted like a pig and, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, heaved his bulk over.
“ Danke, mein Herr,”Karpov said, climbing into the space rather clumsily so that he deliberately jostled the young woman slightly.
“ Je suis désolé, mademoiselle.”
Her head jerked around. He was gratified to see that his French had startled her. Then a door slammed shut in her eyes and she turned away, staring down at a magazine she was holding. It was in English, Boris saw, not German. Vanity Fair. She was reading a story on Lady Gaga, one of those perfectly idiotic pop stars who could exist only in America.
He returned his attention to his meal. Some time later, she lifted the magazine so a plate of Wiener schnitzel could be placed in front of her. She took a look at it, wrinkled her nose in distaste, and, pushing the plate away, resumed her reading.
Boris swallowed a chunk of bratwurst and hailed a passing server.
“ Noch ein Bier, bitte.” Another beer, please. The server nodded. Just as she was turning away, Boris added, “ Und eine für die junge Dame.”
The young woman turned to him and said more tartly than sweetly, “Thank you, no.”
“Bring it anyway,” Karpov shouted to the back of the disappearing server.
She had dark hair and a cream complexion, with that quintessentially pretty look only American women have: healthy, vibrant, with perfectly symmetrical faces. In other words, bland as Wonder Bread. Once, several years ago in New Jersey, he had actually eaten a couple of slices of Wonder Bread spread with Peter Pan peanut butter. The cloying sweetness of the sandwich had dissolved into an unpalatable paste in his mouth, and he had gagged.
He turned to the young woman and said in English, “Aren’t you going to eat your schnitzel?”
“Please.” She dragged out the word: puh-leez.
Boris eyed the breaded veal cutlet. “Yeah, that’ll put a couple of pounds on you, for sure.”
This use of American slang caused her to finally look at him. “What’s your story?”
“Gosh, Midge,” he said with a plastic malt-shop accent, “I was just about to ask you the same question.”
She laughed. “ ‘Midge’! I haven’t heard that name since I stopped reading Archiecomics.” She apparently made a decision, because she held out her hand. “Lana Lang.”
He took her hand in his. It was cool, the edges more callused than he had expected. Maybe not an amateur, he thought. “You’re joking, right?”
“Uh-uh.” Her smile could be wicked. “My dad was some huge Superman fan.”
“Hello, Lana Lang. Bryan Stonyfield.”
“I know who you are,” she said very softly.
Boris, who had not let go of her hand, tightened his grip. “How would that be? We’ve never met before.”
“I’m Wagner’s daughter.” She slipped her hand from his and put more than enough euros on the table to cover both their meals. “Now you must come with me, no questions asked.”
“Wait a minute,” Karpov said, bristling. “I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“But you must,” Lana said. “You’re in mortal danger. Without me, you’ll be dead before dawn.”
14
THEY MADE THE trip down the mountain without difficulty. Bourne had been correct in trusting to Vegas’s local knowledge. His shortcut bypassed all the federal military roadblocks, as well as any of Suarez’s FARC patrols looking for their commander.
Bourne reconnoitered the airport and its environs, looking for hostiles and finding none.
“You can’t go into the terminal looking like that,” Rosie said as she got out of Vegas’s jeep.
Bourne looked at himself in the rearview mirror. There were smears of blood all over him, and his clothes were ripped.
Rosie dug into her bag and came out with a handful of money. “Stay here,” she said.
Bourne was about to protest but the look in her eye stayed him. He watched her head into the terminal and counted off the minutes. At fifteen, he resolved to go in after her.
Vegas leaned against his jeep, smoking. “Don’t worry, hombre. She can take care of herself.”
As it turned out, Vegas’s trust in her was well placed. Rosie emerged from the terminal swinging a white paper shopping bag. She had bought Bourne a shirt and a pair of jeans, along with underwear and socks. As he stripped off his bloody and shredded shirt, she climbed in beside him.
“Ah, good,” she said when she eyed the bottle of disinfectant and the roll of gauze he had taken from the bathroom in Vegas’s house.
She worked expertly on his naked torso, dabbing at all the cuts, scrapes, and abrasions he had collected in his fall from the pine tree. All the while, Vegas smoked his cigarette and grinned hard at Bourne.
“ ¿Ella es una maravilla, verdad?” She’s a wonder, isn’t she? “ ¡Tú debe verla en la cama!” You should see her in bed!
“ ¡Estevan, basta!” But she was laughing, somehow pleased, just the same.
She got out of the jeep then and turned her back so Bourne could strip off the rest of his clothes and pull on the ones she had bought for him.
Two hours after their rendezvous on the road, Bourne limped over to the Perales airport check-in counter. The limp was false, as was his London accent. To his surprise, there were not one or two, but three open tickets waiting for him under the code name Mr. Zed. He was pleased to discover that Essai had paid for everything in cash; there were no credit card numbers on the ticket or voucher receipts. He asked for a wheelchair when the time came to pre-board his flight. He booked his ticket under the name of Lloyd Childress, a British national, according to one of the two remaining passports he carried. He had ditched the third before he had left Thailand because the Domna had found him under that identity.