“Believe me when I tell you that we can make your life a living hell, General.”
Boris opened the door and strode out.
It was just over 665 miles from Ramenskoye to the Uralsk Airport in western Kazakhstan, a flat and ugly stretch of land, barren, brown, desiccated.
Viktor Delyagovich Cherkesov was waiting for him, leaning against a dusty military vehicle, smoking a black Turkish cigarette. He was a tall man with thick, wavy hair, graying at the temples. His eyes were dark as coffee and unreadable; he’d seen too many atrocities, had given too many orders, had himself participated in too many crimes.
Karpov walked over to him with a quickening pulse. Part of his deal with this devil was that in return for the keys to FSB-2 he would, from time to time, grant favors. Of what sort, he had not bothered to ask; Cherkesov would not have told him. But now the first summons had arrived and Karpov knew that his obligation to the former head of FSB-2 had come due. Denying him his request was not an option.
Cherkesov offered a cigarette and Karpov took it, leaned in to catch the flame from Cherkesov’s lighter. He despised the harshness of Turkish tobacco, but he wasn’t about to refuse his former boss anything.
“You look good,” Cherkesov began. “Ruining other people’s lives suits you.”
Karpov cracked a wry smile. “And your new life suits you.”
“Power suits me.” Cherkesov threw down his cigarette, the end burning bright against the cheap tarmac. “It suits both of us.”
“Where have you been since you left us?”
Cherkesov smiled. “Munich. Nowhere.”
“Munich isnowhere,” Karpov affirmed. “If I never see that city again it will be too soon.”
Cherkesov shot out another cigarette and lit it. “I know you, Boris Illyich. You have something weighing on your mind.”
“SVR,” Karpov said. He’d been seething the entire flight. “I want to talk with you about the deal you made with them.”
Cherkesov blinked. “What deal?”
And then everything fell into place. Zachek had been running a bluff, hoping to take advantage of the fact that Boris had been in his new job less than a month. He told his former boss about the repugnant interview at Ramenskoye, leaving out no detail, from Zachek’s approach at Immigration to his last line as Boris had walked out the door of the windowless room.
During this discourse, Cherkesov sucked ruminatively on the inside of his cheek. “I’d like to say I’m surprised,” he said at last, “but I’m not.”
“You know this man Zachek? There’s something smarmy about him.”
“All flunkies are smarmy. Zachek does Beria’s bidding. Beria is the man you need to watch out for.” Konstantin L. Beria was the current head of SVR and, like his notorious forebear, had amassed a reputation for violence, paranoia, and malevolent trickery. Konstantin was every inch as feared and despised as Lavrentiy Pavlovich Beria had been.
“Beria was afraid to come near me,” Cherkesov said. “He sent Zachek on a fishing expedition to see if you could be turned.”
“Fuck Beria.”
Cherkesov’s eyes narrowed. “Careful, my friend. This is not a man to be taken lightly.”
“Advisement taken.”
Cherkesov gave a curt nod. “If relations deteriorate, contact me.” He flicked his lighter open and closed, the clicking like that of an insect moving through a field of grass. “Now to the matter at hand. I have an assignment for you.”
Karpov watched the other man for any sign of what he was about to say. He found none. Cherkesov was like that, his face closed as a bank vault. Military jets sat, tense and watchful, on the tarmac. Now and again a mechanic would appear; no one came near the two Russians.
Cherkesov plucked a bit of tobacco off his lip, ground it to powder. “I need you to kill someone.”
Karpov let out a breath he had not been fully aware he’d been holding. Was that all? He felt a wave of relief flood through him, and he nodded. “Just give me the details and it will be done.”
“Immediately.”
Karpov nodded again. “Of course. Immediately.” He took a drag on his cigarette, one eye slitted against the smoke. “I assume you have a photo of the victim.”
Cherkesov, smirking, drew a snapshot out of his breast pocket and handed it over. He watched, curious and avid, as all the blood drained from Karpov’s face.
He met Karpov’s eyes with a knowing smile. “You have no choice. None whatsoever.” His head tilted. “What? Is the price of your success too high?”
Karpov tried to speak, but he felt as if Cherkesov were throttling him.
Cherkesov’s smile broadened. “No, I thought not.”
2
JASON BOURNE, IN a hotel on the edge of the Colombian jungle, awoke into darkness, but he did not open his eyes. He lay on the thin, lumpy mattress for a moment, still wrapped in the strange web of his dream. He’d been in a house of many rooms, with corridors that seemed to lead to places in which he was blind. Like his past. The house was on fire and filled with smoke. He was not the only one in it. There was someone else who moved with the stealth of a fox, someone who was looking for him, someone who, with murderous intent, was very close, though the thick, choking smoke hid him completely from view.
At what precise moment dream became reality he couldn’t say. He smelled smoke; it was what had awakened him. Rolling out of bed, he was engulfed in it, and once again his dream reared up in his mind. He made for the door and stopped.
Someone was waiting for him, just on the other side of the door. Someone armed. Someone with murderous intent.
Bourne backed up, grabbed a scarred wooden chair, fragile seeming as kindling. Opening the door, he hurled the chair through the doorway. Even as he heard the answering gunshots, he exploded across the threshold.
He struck the gunman’s wrist with such force that a bone snapped. The weapon hung by nerveless fingers but the gunman wasn’t done yet. His kick caught Bourne in the side, slamming him against the opposite wall. The gunman, having given himself breathing room, moved through the smoke like a wraith, swinging the butt of the gun—now gripped in his other hand—into the side of Bourne’s head.
Bourne went down and stayed down. The smoke was thickening, and he could feel the heat as the flames licked closer. Down on the floor the air was clearer, it gave him an edge his opponent had not yet figured out. He kicked out at Bourne, who grabbed the shoe in mid-flight, twisted it so that the ankle cracked. The gunman shouted in pain. Bourne, on his knees, punched him hard in the kidneys then, as the body started to crumple, grabbed the back of the gunman’s head and slammed the chin against his knee.
Smoke engulfed the hallway. The flames had reached the head of the stairs and threatened to turn the second floor into an inferno. Grabbing the gunman’s weapon, Bourne launched himself back into his room. As he sprinted across the floor, he crossed his arms over his face and, leaping, crashed through the glass and wood of the window.
They were waiting for him on the other side. There were three of them, converging on him as he hurtled to the ground from the second-floor window in a hail of shattered glass. He caught one, in a bright wink of blood the barrel of his gun scoring a line down the man’s cheek. He buried his fist into the belly of the second man, who doubled over. Then a gun muzzle pressed hard into the back of his neck.
Bourne raised his hands and the man with the gashed cheek ripped the gun from his grip, then punched him in the jaw.
“ ¡Basta!” the man behind Bourne commanded. “ Él no quiere ser lastimado.” He’s not to be hurt.
Bourne calculated that he could take these three, but he remained unmoving. These people weren’t out to kill him. They had started the fire. The one lurking outside his door could have kicked it down and tried to shoot him, but he didn’t. The fire was to herd him, as were the shots fired in the hallway. He hadn’t been expected to engage the gunman in the hallway.