Bourne waited. Nothing happened. No one entered or left the alley leading to the synagogue. The sliver of sky visible was a carnival set, the night tinged a gaudy, electric blue from the lights atop the minarets.
Bourne took out his cell and dialed Boris’s number. In the shadows, Boris started and grabbed for his phone. As he did so, Bourne stepped into the shadows beside him.
“Hello, Boris,” he said. “I understand you’ve been sent to kill me.”
31
“JASON, WHAT IN hell are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same question, Boris.” Bourne studied his friend in the darkness. “The question is whether either of us will tell the truth.”
“When have we ever lied to each other?”
“Who can say, Boris? You know far more about our relationship than I do. Right now, as far as I can see, nothing is what it seems.”
“I couldn’t agree more. I’ve been shafted by so many people these last couple of days my head is spinning.”
“Friendship is a matter of trust.”
“Once again, I couldn’t agree more, but if you have to think about it, trust doesn’t exist.”
A bitterness in Boris’s voice disturbed Bourne. “What’s at the heart of this issue, Boris?”
“I just came from Munich. One of my oldest friends tried to have me killed there. As a matter of fact, you know him. Ivan Volkin never retired. He’s been working for Severus Domna for years.”
“My condolences.”
“You don’t seem surprised.”
“The only surprise was that you two were friends.”
“Well, we aren’t.” Boris turned his head away, peering down the street. “It seems we never were.”
Bourne let a moment pass, in honor of Boris’s sorrow. “Are you here to say your special form of hello to me,” he said finally, “or to Semid Abdul-Qahhar?”
“No secrets from you, are there? Why am I not surprised.” Boris laughed humorlessly. “Let me tell you something, my friend, several hours ago the man who forced me to make a decision between killing you and keeping my career was on the other end of my special form of hello.”
“So you have removed the need to kill me.”
“There was never any need, Jason. If I did what Viktor Cherkesov ordered me to do, there wouldn’t be enough of me left to have a career.” He grunted. “And by the way, how do you know that that prime dick Semid Abdul-Qahhar lives here?”
“How do you?”
The two men laughed together.
Boris slapped Bourne on the back. “Dammit, Jason, it’s good to see you! We must have a toast to our reunion, but first I’m expecting Konstantin Beria, the head of SVR, and his little prick, Zachek, to show up here.”
“How is that?”
Boris told him about the key that Cherkesov was tasked by the Domna to bring to Semid Abdul-Qahhar.
“You let Beria have it?” Bourne said.
Boris laughed. “For all the good it will do him. It’s not a real key, it doesn’t open anything. It’s modeled after the keys in a Flash video game.” Seeing the look on Bourne’s face, he added, “Hard to believe, but someone inside the Domna has a sense of humor.”
“What’s hard to believe is that you know anything about video games.”
“I need to keep up with the times, Jason, otherwise I’ll get run over by the young technocrats coming to power. They use video games to keep their skills sharp and the smell of blood in their nostrils.”
“You and I use the field.”
“They’re useless in the field, the young ones. They’re always looking for shortcuts.”
“For keys to unlock the next level.”
“That’s right. They don’t think for themselves.”
A cooling wind snaked down the street, bringing with it the scent of spices. The muezzins started up, the amplified calls to prayer drowning out all other noise. The street drained of people.
“The key was a test,” Bourne said.
Boris nodded. “To see if Cherkesov was trustworthy and obedient.”
“He failed.”
“Miserably. But Semid Abdul-Qahhar doesn’t know that yet. And Beria doesn’t know I’m waiting for him.” Boris put an arm across Bourne’s chest. “Hold on. They’re coming.”
Bourne saw two men approaching. They wore long coats that reached down to the tops of their shoes, a clear indication that they were carrying long-barreled weapons. The older man was short and feral looking, the other younger and taller, with a face that looked like it had been put through a meat grinder. Bourne smiled as he thought of Boris’s fists making vicious contact with the technocrat.
“I want these cocksuckers,” Boris said. “They tried to kill me.”
“It looks like they’re carrying some heavy weapons,” Bourne said.
“So I see.”
Bourne was preparing himself when, from the corner of his eye, he saw a figure in a black robe and hijabcome stealthily down the street from the other end. It was Rebeka.
The security for Indigo Ridge once more set, Hendricks did precisely what Skara had asked him not to do: He went looking for her. First, he tried her cell phone, but got a Chinese man who told him to go to hell in Mandarin. Next, he had a private conversation with Jonathan Brey, the head of the FBI. He and Brey went back a long time; they exchanged favors regularly.
“Anything you want, Chris,” Brey said, “it’s yours.”
“I’m looking for someone who’s dropped out of sight,” Hendricks said, consumed with shame, humiliation, and the singular anguish of a jilted lover. “She may have already left the country.” He paused. “She entered as Margaret Penrod, which was an alias, but I have no doubt she’s now under another assumed name.”
“Any idea what that might be?”
Again, those terrible emotions washed over Hendricks. “I do not.”
“Photo?”
“I’ll have one sent over.” The government vetting process must have one, Hendricks thought, otherwise I’ll look even more like an idiot.“Right now, though, I need two of your best investigators.”
“Done,” Brey said.
Hendricks met the agents at Skara’s apartment. When the doorbell went unanswered, the agents broke in, sidearms drawn, even though Hendricks told them that wasn’t necessary. Procedure, they said in almost robotic unison. Once they had secured the premises, they retired to the doorway, as Hendricks ordered, lurking like a pair of leashed guard dogs.
Hendricks took a tour around the small one-bedroom apartment. The living room was depressingly bare, exuding the stale air of abandonment. There was nothing to tell him that she had been there. Ditto, the tiny bathroom; only lint lay like sand on the narrow shelves of the medicine cabinet. The toilet tank held only water, the bathtub had been washed clean of sediment and hairs.
He stepped into the bedroom and immediately smelled her. He went through the drawers of the dresser, which were all empty. Pulling them out, he turned them over, looking for something taped to their undersides. The closet was occupied by an assortment of hangers, nothing more. The bedside table had one drawer in which he found two paper clips, a card for her fake business, and the nub of a pencil.
With a heavy sigh, he sat down on the bad, feeling it give just the way her body gave under his weight. Wrists on knees, he bent over and stared at the floor. He missed her, there was no denying it. A hole gaped open inside him. He thought he had made sure he’d never feel that way again. His eyes swam out of focus, his thoughts swirled like water down a drain. At that moment his cell phone burred.
“Hendricks.”
“Mr. Secretary, this is CI agent Tyrone Elkins.”
The words slowly penetrated Hendricks’s muzzy mind. “How did you get my number, son?”