Something certainly was amiss, a fact confirmed to him as the dagger, thrown with great accuracy by Essai, penetrated his chest between two ribs and pierced his heart. He fell heavily, like a wildebeest taken down by a lion. Essai approached him, knelt, and determined there was no pulse, no life left. Then he returned to his bedroom, where the first assassin was writhing on the floor with ever-more-uncoordinated movements.
Snapping on a lamp, he studied the man’s face. He did not recognize him, but then he didn’t expect to. Severus Domna would not have sent anyone he could identify on sight. Squatting down beside the man, he said, “My friend, I pity you. I pity you because I have chosen not to end your life and therefore your suffering. Instead, I will leave you as you are.”
Pulling out a cell phone burner, he dialed a local number.
“Yes?” Benjamin El-Arian said.
“Delivery for you to pick up,” Essai said.
“You must be mistaken. I didn’t order anything.”
Essai put the cell to the assassin’s mouth, and he made sounds like a cow in distress.
“Who is this?”
Something had changed in El-Arian’s voice, a febrile element that Essai, the cell to his ear again, was able to catch.
“I estimate you have thirty minutes before your assassin dies. His life is in your hands.”
Essai closed the cell and, standing, ground it to bits beneath his heel.
Then he addressed the assassin for the last time: “You will tell Benjamin El-Arian what happened here, and then he will deal with you as he sees fit. Tell him that the same fate awaits anyone he sends after me. That’s all you need to do now. His time-and yours-is over.”
Moira, standing on the starboard side of the yacht, watched the exchange of infrared signals through the night glasses the captain had handed her moments before. She could see the cigarette boat lying to as the yacht came up on it. Moving her field of vision slightly, she saw two figures in the cigarette besides the signaler. A man and a woman. The man was almost certainly Arkadin, but who was the woman and why would he have someone else on board? Berengária had told her Arkadin came out to meet her boats with just a mate, an old Mexican named El Heraldo.
The captain continued to keep the yacht’s engines idling as it slid through the black waves on its own momentum. Now Moira could make out Arkadin’s face, and beside him was-Soraya Moore!
She almost dropped the night glasses overboard. What the hell?she thought. For every plan there was a wrench that could jam up the works. Here was hers.
The quiet lapping of the water was all she heard as the cigarette came up alongside the yacht. A crewman tossed down a rope ladder; another manned the winch. Meanwhile two other crewmen were busy hauling up the cargo from belowdecks. Berengária had explained the routine in detail. A crate was loaded into the net to be winched down to the cigarette so Arkadin could inspect the contents.
As this was happening, Moira leaned over the rail, peering down at the people in the cigarette. Soraya saw her first, her mouth forming an O of silent surprise.
What the hell?she mouthed up to Moira, who had to laugh. They’d both had the same reaction on seeing each other.
Then Arkadin caught sight of her. Frowning, he climbed the ladder. The moment he swung aboard the yacht he drew out a Glock 9mm and aimed it at her midsection.
“Who the hell are you?” he said. “And what are you doing on board my boat?”
“It’s not your boat, it belongs to Berengária,” Moira said in Spanish.
Arkadin’s eyes narrowed. “And do you belong to Berengária also?”
“I belong to no one,” Moira said, “but I am looking out for Berengária’s interests.” She had thought about the possible answers to his questions during the entire trip up the coast of Mexico. What it boiled down to was this: Arkadin was a man first, a homicidal criminal second.
“Just like a woman to send a woman,” Arkadin said, as disdainful as Roberto Corellos.
“Berengária is convinced you no longer trust her.”
“This is true.”
“Perhaps she no longer trusts you.”
Arkadin gave her a dark look but said nothing.
“This is a poor state of affairs,” Moira acknowledged. “And no way to run a business.”
“And how does the woman who does not own you suggest we proceed?”
“For a start, you might lower the Glock,” Moira observed.
By this time Soraya had made her way up the ladder and now appeared, swinging her legs over the yacht’s brass railing. She seemed to size up the situation immediately, looking from Moira to Arkadin and back again.
“Fuck you,” Arkadin said. “And fuck Berengária for sending you.”
“If she had sent a man, the chances are good the two of you would have killed each other.”
“I would have killed him, certainly,” Arkadin said.
“So sending a man would not have been the smart thing to do.”
Arkadin snorted. “Fuck, we’re not in the kitchen.” He shook his head in disbelief. “You’re not even armed.”
“Therefore, you won’t shoot me,” Moira said. “Therefore, you will be willing to listen when I talk, when I negotiate, when I propose a way to go forward without suspicion on either side.”
Arkadin watched her as a hawk watches a sparrow. Perhaps he no longer considered her a threat, or possibly what she said had gotten through to him. In any event, he lowered the Glock and tucked it away at the small of his back.
Moira looked pointedly at Soraya. “But I won’t talk or negotiate or propose anything with someone unfamiliar. Berengária told me about you and your boatman, El Heraldo, but now I see this woman here. I don’t like surprises.”
“That makes two of us.” Arkadin jerked his head in Soraya’s direction. “A new partner, on probation. She doesn’t work out, I put a hole in the back of her head.”
“Just like that.”
Arkadin walked to where Soraya stood and, cocking his thumb and forefinger as if they were a gun, he pressed its muzzle to the base of her skull. “Boom!” Then he turned and, smiling in the most charming manner, said, “So speak your mind.”
“There are too many partners,” Moira said bluntly.
This gave Arkadin pause. “For myself,” he said at length, “I don’t care for partners in the least.” He shrugged. “Unfortunately, they’re a part of doing business. But if Berengária wants out…”
“We were thinking more of Corellos.”
“She’s his lover.”
“This is business,” Moira said. “What she did with Corellos was to keep the peace between them.” Now she shrugged. “What better weapon does she have?”
Arkadin seemed to look at her in a new light. “Corellos is very powerful.”
“Corellos is in prison.”
“I doubt for much longer.”
“Which is why,” Moira said, “we hit him now.”
“Hit him?”
“Kill, terminate, murder, call it what you like.”
Arkadin paused a moment, then burst out laughing. “Where in the world did Berengária find you?”
Moira, glancing at Soraya, took a not-so-wild guess, thinking: Pretty much the same place you found your new partner.
Why would she do that?” Professor Atherton had his head in his hands. “Why would Tracy tell anyone that she had a brother?”
“Especially when that put her in Arkadin’s debt,” Chrissie added.
“She did more than mention her brother,” Bourne said. “She concocted an elaborate lie about him being alive and in debt over his head. It’s as if she wanted Arkadin to have something on her.”
Chrissie shook her head. “But that doesn’t make sense.”
It did, Bourne thought, if she had been sent to get close to Arkadin. To report on his deals and his whereabouts, for example. He was not, however, about to speculate with these people.
“That question can wait,” he said. “After the shots in the woods, we need to get out of here.” He turned to Professor Atherton. “I can carry Marks, can you maneuver on your own?”