“What,” Bourne said, “like black magic?”
Giles laughed. “Oh my, no, Mr. Stone, nothing so fantastic. No, these people believe that Ugaritic is a key part to the workings of alchemy, that Ugaritic was created for priests, chants to make manifest the divine. They believe, further, that alchemy itself is a blending of Ugaritic-articulating the right sounds in the proper order-and the specific scientific protocols.”
“Lead into gold,” Chrissie said.
The professor nodded. “Among others things, that’s right.”
“Once again, the blending of East and West,” Bourne said, “like Severusand Domna,like Old Persian and Latin.”
“Intriguing. I hadn’t thought of it in that light, but yes. It sounds far-fetched, I know, and you have to take an enormous leap of faith, but, well, now that you’ve brought up Julia Domna and her origins, look here.” Giles worked the keyboard. The screen changed to a map of the Middle East that quickly zoomed in on modern-day Syria, and then, zooming in farther, a specific section of the country. “The epicenter of the Ugaritic language was the part of Syria that includes the Great Temple of Baal, considered by some to be the most powerful of the old pagan gods.”
“Do you know any of these Ugaritic experts, Professor?” Bourne asked.
“One,” Giles said. “He’s, how shall I say, eccentric, as they all are in this arcane and rather outré field. As it happens, he and I play chess online. Well, it’s a form of proto-chess, actually, enjoyed by the ancient Egyptians.” He chuckled. “With your permission, Mr. Stone, I’ll e-mail him the inscription right now.”
“You have my blessing,” Bourne said.
Giles composed the e-mail, attached a copy of the inscription, and sent it off. “He loves puzzles, the more obscure the better, as you can imagine. If he can’t translate it, no one can.”
Soraya, propped up on the bed in the guest room at Delia’s apartment, was dreaming of Amun Chalthoum, the lover she had left behind in Cairo, when her cell phone began to throb on her lap. Hours ago she had switched it to vibrate mode so as not to disturb her friend, fast asleep in her bedroom.
Her eyes snapped open, the veils of her dream parted, and, putting the cell to her ear, she said, “Yes,” very softly.
“We’ve got a hit,” the voice said in her ear. It was Safa, one of the women in Typhon’s network, whose family had been killed by terrorists in Lebanon. “At least it’s a possible. I’m uploading several images to your laptop now.”
“Hold on,” she said.
Soraya had a phone company Internet card plugged into her laptop, and she switched it on. A moment later she was connected. She saw that the file was delivered and opened it. There were three photos. The first was a file shot, head and shoulders, of Arkadin, the same one Peter had showed her, so it must be the only decent shot they had of him. This version was larger and clearer, however. Marks was right, he was a handsome specimen: hooded eyes, aggressive features. And blond. Positive or negative? She wasn’t sure. The other two were obvious CCTV photos, the images flat, the colors poorly rendered, of a man, large and muscular, wearing one of those inexpensive sports hats with a Dallas Cowboys logo, which he probably bought at the airport. She couldn’t see enough of his face to make a positive ID. But in the second CCTV image, he’d tipped his hat back on his head to scratch his scalp. His hair was very black, very shiny, as if it had just been dyed. He must have thought he was out of camera range, she thought as she studied the face. She compared it with the file shot.
“I think it’s him,” she said.
“So do I. The images are from the Immigration cameras at the Dallas/Fort Worth airport eight days ago.”
Why would he fly into Texas,Soraya wondered, rather than New York or LA?
“He came in on a flight from Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris under the name Stanley Kowalski.”
“You’re joking,” Soraya said.
“I kid you not.”
The man definitely had a sense of humor.
9
LEONID ARKADIN WATCHED with slitted eyes as the battered dirt-brown convertible came bouncing along the road that led to the wharf. The sun was a bloody flag on the horizon; it had been another scorching day.
Fitting the binoculars to his eyes, he watched Boris Karpov park the car, get out, and stretch his legs. With the top down and no trunk to speak of, the colonel had no choice but to come alone. Karpov looked around, for a moment looked right where Arkadin lay stretched out, before his eyes moved on without seeing him. Arkadin was perfectly camouflaged on the corrugated tin roof of a fish shed, peering out from the space below the hand-painted sign that said, BODEGA-PESCADO FRESCO A DIARIO.
Flies buzzed busily, the stink of fish enveloped him like a noxious cloud, and the heat of the day, stored up by the tin, burned into his belly, knees, and elbows like a furnace floor, but none of these distractions interfered with his surveillance.
He watched as Karpov lined up for the sunset cruise, paid his fare, and climbed on board the schooner that daily took to the Sea of Cortés. Aside from the crew of grizzled Mexicans and sailors, Karpov was the oldest man on board by a good thirty years. A fish out of waterwas the only way to describe him, standing on the deck amid the partying bikini-clad girls and their drunken, hormonal escorts. The more uncomfortable the colonel was, the better Arkadin liked it.
Ten minutes after the schooner cast off and set sail, he climbed off the fish shack and strolled down to the wharf, where the cigarette-a long, sleek, fiberglass boat that was, basically, all engine-was docked. El Heraldo-God knew where the Sonoran man got that name-was waiting to help him cast off.
“Everything’s all set, boss, just like you wanted.”
Arkadin smiled at the Mexican and clamped a powerful hand on his shoulder. “What would I do without you, my friend?” He slipped El Heraldo twenty American dollars.
El Heraldo, a small, barrel-chested man with an old salt’s wide, bandy-legged stance, grinned hugely as Arkadin climbed into the cigarette. Finding the pre-stocked ice chest, he opened it, dug down deep, and stowed an item he’d packed inside a waterproof zip-lock bag. Then he went to the wheel. A long, deep, phlegmy growl rolled up through the water at the stern, along with a blue drift of smoke from the marine fuel as he started the engines. El Heraldo cast off the lines fore and aft, and waved to Arkadin who steered the boat clear of the docks, threading through the buoys that marked the brief channel. Ahead lay the deep water, where the warm colors of the setting sun stippled the cobalt-blue waves.
The waves were so small, they could have been in a river. Like the Neva, Arkadin thought. His mind returned to the past, to St. Petersburg at sunset, a velvet sky overhead, ice in the river, when he and Tracy sat facing each other at a window table at the Doma, overlooking the water. Apart from the Hermitage, the embankment was dominated by buildings with ornate facades that reminded him of Venetian palazzos, untouched by Stalin or his communist successors. Even the Admiralty was beautiful, with none of the brutalist military architecture found in similar buildings festering in other large Russian cities.
Over blini and caviar she talked about the exhibits at the Hermitage, whose history he absorbed completely. He found it amusing that not far away on the bottom of the Neva lay the corpse of the politician, wrapped and tied like a sack of rotten potatoes, weighed down with bars of lead. The river was as peaceful as ever, lights from the monuments dancing on its surface, hiding the murky darkness beneath. He wondered briefly if there were fish in the river and, if so, what they’d make of the grisly package he’d delivered into their world earlier that day.
Over dessert she said, “I have something to ask you.”
He had looked at her expectantly.
She hesitated, as if unsure how to proceed or whether to go on at all. At length, she took a sip of water and said, “This isn’t easy for me, though, oddly, the fact that we hardly know each other makes it a bit easier.”