“Well,” he said as he set down his empty cup, “shall we move on?” He threw some bills onto the table and, without waiting for a reply, slid out of the booth. He held out his hand and, after a moment’s deliberate hesitation, she took it, allowing him to swing her out of her seat.
The night was mild, without a breath of a breeze, heavy as velvet drapes. The sky was moonless, but the stars blazed in the blackness. They strolled away from the water, and then north, paralleling the beach. To their right, the light-smear of Puerto Peñasco seemed part of a painting, a world apart.
Streetlights gave way to starlit darkness and then, abruptly, the lights of a large stone structure that looked vaguely religious in nature. She saw the cross set into the stone above the wood-and-iron door.
“It used to be a convent.” Arkadin unlocked the door and stood aside for her to enter. “My home away from home.”
The interior was sparsely furnished, but aromatic with incense and candle wax. She saw a desk, several armchairs, a refectory table and eight chairs, a pew-like sofa festooned with ill-matched pillows. All of it was heavy, dark wood. None of it looked comfortable.
As they walked through the living room, Arkadin lit thick cream-colored candles in iron stands of varying heights. The effect in the convent’s immense stone interior was increasingly medieval, and she smiled to herself, suspecting that he was setting the scene for romance or, in this case, seduction.
He opened a bottle of red wine and poured it into an oversize Mexican goblet, then he filled another with guara juice. Handing her the juice, he said, “Come. This way.”
He led her farther into the gloom, pausing to light candles along the way. The far wall was almost all brick fireplace, as enormous as any in an English baronial hall. She could smell the old ash and creosote coating the firebrick after decades of use and, judging by what she saw, years of neglect.
Now Arkadin lit a particularly large candle and, holding it high as one would a torch, walked toward the shadows of the fireplace. The impenetrable darkness began to give grudging way to the inconstant illumination of the flame.
As the shadows retreated, a shape took form in the fireplace, a chair. And on the chair sat a figure. The figure was bound to the chair by its ankles. Its arms, presumably bound at the wrists, were behind it.
As Arkadin brought the candle still closer, the light from the flame rose up from the figure’s ankles to legs, torso, finally revealing its face, bloody and swollen so badly that one eye had closed.
“How do you like your surprise?” Arkadin said.
The goblet of juice shattered on the floor tiles as it slipped from Soraya’s grip.
The man bound to the chair was Antonio.
It was like a chess match, Bourne staring at the old man, trying to place him as the director of the Centre for the Study of Ancient Documents when he had been in Oxford as David Webb, the old man staring at him more certain with every passing second of Bourne’s identity.
Chrissie was staring at them both, as if trying to figure out which would checkmate the other. “Adam, is my father right? Is your name really David Webb?”
Bourne saw a way out-the only way-but he didn’t like it. “Yes,” he said, “and no.”
“Either way, your name isn’t Adam Stone.” Chrissie’s voice held a metallic edge. “Which means you lied to Trace. She knew you as Adam Stone, and that’s how I know you.”
Bourne turned to look at her. “Adam Stone is as much my name as David Webb used to be. I’ve been known by different names at different times. But they’re only names.”
“Damn you!” Chrissie got up, turned her back, and stalked into the kitchen.
“She’s pretty angry,” Scarlett said, watching him with her eleven-year-old face, beautiful yet not fully formed.
“Are you angry?” Bourne asked.
“You’re not a professor?”
“In fact, I am,” Bourne said. “A professor of linguistics.”
“Then I think it’s cool. D’you have a whole bunch of secret identities?”
Bourne laughed. He liked this child. “When the need arises.”
“Bat-Signal!” She cocked her head, and in the straightforward manner of children, said, “Why did you lie to Mum and Aunt Tracy?”
Bourne was about to say something about Tracy, but just in time reminded himself that as far as Scarlett was concerned her aunt was still alive. “I was in one of my secret identities when I met your aunt. Then Tracy told your mum about me. It was the best way I could get her to listen to me quickly.”
“If you’re not Professor David Webb who the hell are you?” Chrissie’s father said, visibly gathering himself.
“I was Webb when I knew you,” Bourne said. “I didn’t come to Oxford, to you, under false pretenses.”
“What are you doing here with my daughter and granddaughter?”
“It’s a long story,” Bourne said.
A spark of cunning came into the old man’s face. “I’ll bet it has something to do with my older daughter.”
“In a way.”
The old man clenched a fist. “That damn engraving.”
A little chill traveled down Bourne’s spine. “What engraving?”
The old man peered at him curiously. “Do you not remember? I’m Dr. Bishop Atherton. You brought me a drawing of a phrase you said was an engraving.”
And then Bourne remembered. He remembered everything.
ANTONIO SLUMPED IN the furious darkness of the convent’s hearth, a darkness so thick and black it seemed to obliterate not just light, but life itself.
Soraya took several steps toward him, peering into the gloom.
“He’s not your pool boy,” Arkadin said. “That’s clear enough.”
She said nothing, knowing that he had begun to bait her in order to gain information. This, in itself, was a hopeful sign, indicating that Antonio hadn’t talked, despite the beating he’d received.
Deciding that outrage was her best course, she turned on Arkadin. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
When Arkadin smiled it was like a wolf appearing through pine trees. “I like to know who my prospective partners are.” His smile lengthened, like knives being unsheathed. “Especially ones that fall into my lap so conveniently.”
“Partners?” She laughed harshly. “You must be fucking dreaming, my Russian friend. I wouldn’t partner with you for-”
He grabbed her then, pressing his lips against hers, but she was ready for him. She folded herself against him and slammed her knee into his groin. His hands on her trembled for a moment, but he did not let her go. His lupine grin never faltered, but there were tears glittering in the corners of his eyes.
“You won’t get me,” she said softly but icily, “either way.”
“Yes, I will,” he said, just as icily, “because you came here to get me.”
Soraya had nothing to say to this, but she was hoping he was making a stab in the dark, because otherwise she was blown all to hell. “Let Antonio go.”
“Give me a reason.”
“We’ll talk.”
He massaged his groin gently. “We already talked.”
She bared her teeth. “We’ll try another form of communication.”
He put a hand on her breast. “Like this?”
“Untie him.” Soraya tried not to grit her teeth. “Let him go.”
Arkadin appeared to consider her request. “I think not,” he said after several moments of tense silence. “He means something to you, which makes him valuable as leverage.” Reaching into his pocket, he produced a switchblade. It snikked open and, pushing her away, he advanced on Antonio. “What should I cut off first, do you think? Ear? Finger? Or something even lower down?”