Finished with the deciphering, Willard had his immediate instructions, and he thanked the powers that be that he hadn’t been tossed aside with the Old Man’s trash. He felt like his old friend Henry V, though more than thirty years had passed since he’d trod a theater stage. Once again he was being called on to play his greatest role, one that he wore as effortlessly as a second skin.
He folded the paper away under one arm, took up his cell phone, and went out of the lounge. He still had twenty minutes left on his break, more than enough time to do what was required of him. What he had been ordered to do was find the digital camera Tyrone had on him when he’d been captured. Poking his head into the Library, he satisfied himself that LaValle was still sitting in his accustomed spot, opposite Soraya Moore, then he went down the hall.
Though the Old Man had recruited him, it was Alex Conklin who had trained him. Conklin, the Old Man had told him, was the best at what he did, namely preparing agents to be put into the field. It didn’t take him long to learn that though Conklin was renowned inside CI for training wet-work agents, he was also adept at coaching sleeper agents. Willard spent almost a year with Conklin, though never at CI headquarters; he was part of Treadstone, Conklin’s project that was so secret even most CI personnel was unaware of its existence. It was of paramount importance that he have no overt association with CI. Because the role the Old Man had planned for him was inside the NSA, his background check had to be able to withstand the most vigorous scrutiny.
All this flashed through Willard’s mind as he walked the sacrosanct hallways and corridors of the NSA’s safe house. He passed agent after agent and knew that he’d done his job to perfection. He was the indispensable nobody, the person who was always present, whom no one noticed.
He knew where Tyrone’s camera was because he’d been there when Kendall and LaValle had spoken about its disposition, but even if he hadn’t, he’d have suspected where LaValle had hidden it. He knew, for instance, that it wouldn’t have been allowed to leave the safe house, even on LaValle’s person, unless the damaging images Tyrone had taken of the rendition cells and the waterboarding tanks had been transferred to the in-house computer server or deleted off the camera’s drive. In fact, there was a chance that the images had been deleted, but he doubted it. In the short amount of time the camera had been in the NSA’s possession, Kendall was no longer in residence and LaValle had become obsessed with coercing Soraya Moore into giving him Jason Bourne.
He knew all about Bourne; he’d read the Treadstone files, even the ones that no longer existed, having been shredded and then burned when the information they held became too dangerous for Conklin, as well as for CI. He knew there had been far more to Treadstone than even the Old Man knew. That was Conklin’s doing; he’d been a man for whom the word secrecy was the holy grail. What his ultimate plan for Treadstone had been was anyone’s guess.
Inserting his passkey into the lock on LaValle’s office door, he punched in the proper electronic code. Willard knew everyone’s code-what use would he be as a sleeper agent otherwise? The door opened inward, and he slipped inside, shutting and locking it behind him.
Crossing to LaValle’s desk, he opened the drawers one by one, checking for false backs or bottoms. Finding none, he moved on to the bookcase, the sideboard with its hanging files and liquor bottles side by side. He lifted the prints off the walls, searching behind them for a hidden cache, but there was nothing.
He sat on a corner of the desk, contemplated the room, unconsciously swinging his leg back and forth while he tried to work out where LaValle had hidden the camera. All at once he heard the sound the heel of his shoe made against the skirt of the desk. Hopping off, he went around, crawled into the kneehole, and rapped on the skirt until he replicated the sound his heel had made. Yes, he was certain now: This part of the skirt was hollow.
Feeling around with his fingertips, he discovered the tiny latch, pushed it aside, and swung open the door. There was Tyrone’s camera. He was reaching for it when he heard the scratch of metal on metal.
LaValle was at the door.
Tell me you love me, Leonid Danilovich.” Devra smiled up at him as he knelt over her.
“What happened, Devra? What happened?” was all he could say.
He’d extricated himself at last from the sculpture, and would have gone after Bourne-but he’d heard the shots coming from Kirsch’s apartment, then the sound of running feet. The living room was spattered with blood. He saw her lying on the floor, the Luger still in her hand. Her shirt was dyed red.
“Leonid Danilovich.” She’d called his name when he appeared in her limited field of vision. “I waited for you.”
She started to tell him what had happened, but blood bubbles formed at the corners of her mouth and she started to gurgle horribly. Arkadin lifted her head off the floor, cradled it on his thighs. He pushed matted hair off her forehead and cheeks, leaving red streaks like war paint.
She tried to continue, stopped. Her eyes went out of focus and he thought he’d lost her. Then they cleared, her smile returned, and she said, “Do you love me, Leonid?”
He bent down and whispered her in ear. Was it I love you? There was so much static in his head, he couldn’t hear himself. Did he love her, and, if he did, what would it mean? Did it even matter? He’d promised to protect her and failed. He stared down into her eyes, into her smile, but all he saw was his own past rising up to engulf him once again.
I need more money,” Yelena said one night as she lay entangled with him.
“What for? I give you enough as it is.”
“I hate it here, it’s like a prison, girls are crying all the time, they’re beaten, and then they disappear. I used to make friends just to pass the time, to have something to do during the day, but now I don’t bother. What’s the point? They’re gone within a week.”
Arkadin had become aware of Kuzin’s seemingly insatiable need for more girls. “I don’t see how any of this has to do with you needing more money.”
“If I can’t have friends,” Yelena said, “I want drugs.”
“I told you, no drugs,” Arkadin said as he rolled away from her and sat up.
“If you love me, you’ll get me out of here.”
“Love?” He turned to stare at her. “Who said anything about love?”
She started to cry. “I want to live with you, Leonid. I want to be with you always.”
Feeling something unknown close around his throat, Arkadin stood up, backed away. “Jesus,” he said, gathering up his clothes, “where do you get such ideas?”
Leaving her to her pitiful weeping, he went out to procure more girls. Before he reached the front door of the brothel Stas Kuzin intercepted him.
“Yelena’s wailing is disturbing the other girls,” he said in his hissing way. “It’s bad for business.”
“She wants to live with me,” Arkadin said. “Can you imagine?”
Kuzin laughed, the sound like nails screeching against a blackboard. “I’m wondering what would be worse, the nagging wife wanting to know where you were all night or the caterwauling brats making it impossible to sleep.”
They both laughed at the comment, and Arkadin thought nothing more about it. For the next three days he worked steadily, methodically combing Nizhny Tagil for more girls to restock the brothel. At the end of that time he slept for twenty hours, then went straight to Yelena’s room. He found another girl, one he’d recently hijacked off the streets, sleeping in Yelena’s bed.