Page 42 of The Bourne Legacy (Jason Bourne 4)

  But as he peered around the curving face of the rock, it wasn’t infidels he saw but Zina. She was talking in low tones to another, larger figure, but from his angle Arsenov could not tell who it was. He moved slightly, drawing closer. He couldn’t hear their words, but even before he noticed Zina’s hand on the other’s arm, he had recognized the voice she used when she was set on seducing him.

  He pressed his fist to his temple as if to stop the sudden throbbing in his head. He wanted to scream as he watched the fingers of Zina’s hand draw up into what looked to him like spider’s legs, her nails scoring the forearm of…who was it she was trying to seduce? His jealousy goaded him to action. At the risk of being seen, he moved farther, part of him entering the moonlight, until the face of Magomet came into view.

  Blind rage gripped him; he was shaking all over. He thought of his mentor. What would Khalid Murat have done? he asked himself. Doubtless, he would have confronted the pair, heard their separate explanations of what they were doing and then made his judgment accordingly.

  Arsenov stood up to his full height and, advancing on the pair, held his right arm out straight in front of him. Magomet, who was more or less turned facing him, saw him and abruptly stepped back, severing the hold Zina had on him. His mouth opened wide, but in his shock and terror, nothing came out.

  “Magomet, what is it?” Zina said and, turning, saw Arsenov advancing on them.

  “Hasan, no!” she cried just as Arsenov pulled the trigger.

  The bullet entered Magomet’s open mouth and blew the back of his head off. He was thrown backward in a welter of blood and brains.

  Arsenov turned the gun on Zina. Yes, he thought, Khalid Murat would surely have handled the situation differently, but Khalid Murat was dead and he, Hasan Arsenov, the architect of Murat’s demise, was alive and in charge, and this was why. It was a new world.

  “Now you,” he said.

  Staring into his black eyes, she knew that he wanted her to grovel, to get down on her knees and beg him for mercy. He could care less about any explanation she might give him. She knew that he was beyond reason; at this moment he wouldn’t know the truth from a clever concoction. She also knew that giving him what he wanted at the moment he wanted it was a trap, a slippery slope once embarked upon impossible to get off. There was only one way to stop him in his tracks.

  Her eyes blazed. “Stop it!” she ordered. “Right now!” Reaching out, she closed her fingers around the barrel of the gun, drew it upward so that it was no longer pointed at her head. She risked a quick glance at the dead Magomet. That was a mistake she wouldn’t make twice.

  “What’s come over you?” she said. “So close to our shared goal, have you lost your mind?”

  She was clever to have reminded Arsenov of their reason for being in Reykjavik. For the moment, his devotion to her had blinded him to the larger goal. All he’d reacted to was her voice and her hand on Magomet’s arm.

  With a ragged motion, he put the gun away.

  “Now what will we do?” she said. “Who’ll take over Magomet’s responsibilities?”

  “You caused this,” he said with disgust. “You figure it out.”

  “Hasan.” She knew better than to try to touch him at this moment or even to come closer than she already was. “You are our leader. It’s your decision and yours alone.”

  He looked around, as if just coming out of a trance. “I suspect our neighbors will assume the report of the gunshot was merely a truck backfiring.” He stared at her. “Why were you out here with him?”

  “I was trying to dissuade him from the path he’d chosen,” Zina said carefully. “Something happened to him when I shaved his beard on the plane. He made overtures.”

  Arsenov’s eyes blazed anew. “And what was your response?”

  “What d’you imagine it was, Hasan?” she said, her hard voice matching his. “Are you saying that you don’t trust me?”

  “I saw your hand on him, your fingers….” He could notgo on.

  “Hasan, look at me.” She reached out. “Please look at me.”

  He turned slowly, reluctantly, and elation rose inside her. She had him; despite her error in judgment, she still had him.

  Breathing an inaudible sigh of relief, she said, “The situation required some delicacy. Surely you can understand that. If I turned him down flat, if I was cold to him, if I angered him, I was afraid of a reprisal. I was afraid his anger would impair his use to us.” Her eyes held his. “Hasan, I was thinking of the reason we’re here. That’s my only focus now, as it should be yours.”

  He stood immobile for long moments, absorbing her words. The hiss and suck of the waves spending themselves against the cliffs far below seemed unnaturally loud. Then, abruptly, he nodded and the incident was swept away. That was his way.

  “All that remains is to dispose of Magomet.”

  “We’ll wrap him up and take him with us to the rendezvous. The boat crew can dispose of him in deep water.”

  Arsenov laughed. “Zina, really, you’re the most pragmatic female I know.”

  Bourne awoke to find himself strapped into what appeared to be a dentist’s chair. He looked around the black concrete room, saw the large drain in the center of the white tile floor, the hose coiled on the wall, the tiered cart beside the chair on which were arrayed ranks of gleaming stainless-steel implements, all, it seemed, designed to inflict agonizing damage to the human body, and was not reassured. He tried to move his wrists and ankles, but the wide leather straps were secured, he noted, with the same buckles used on straitjackets.

  “You can’t get out,” Annaka said, coming around from behind him. “It’s useless to try.”

  Bourne stared at her for a moment, as if he was struggling to bring her into focus. She was dressed in white leather pants and a black sleeveless silk blouse with a plunging neckline, an outfit she never would have worn while she was playing the role of the innocent classical pianist and devoted daughter. He cursed himself for being gulled by her initial antipathy toward him. He should’ve known better. She was too available, too conveniently knowledgeable about Molnar’s building. Hindsight was useless, however, and he put aside his disappointment in himself and applied himself to the difficult situation at hand.

  “What an actress you turned out to be,” he said.

  A slow smile broadened her lips, and when she parted them slightly, he could see her white, even teeth. “Not only with you but with Khan.” She drew up the single chair in the room and sat down close beside him. “You see, I know him well, your son. Oh, yes, I know, Jason. I know more than you think, much more than you do.” She gave a little laugh, a tinkling, bell-like sound of pure delight as she drank in the expression on Bourne’s face. “For a long time Khan didn’t know whether you were alive or dead. Indeed, he made a number of attempts to find you, always unsuccessful—your CIA had done an excellent job of hiding you—until Stepan helped him. But even before he knew you were, in fact, alive, he’d spent all his idle hours concocting elaborate ways in which he’d seek his revenge on you.” She nodded. “Yes, Jason, his hatred for you was all-encompassing.” Putting her elbows on her knees, she leaned toward him. “How does that make you feel?”

  “I applaud your performances.” Despite the potent emotions she had dredged from him, he was determined not to rise outwardly to her bait.

  Annaka made a moue. “I’m a woman of many talents.”

  “And as many loyalties, it seems.” He shook his head. “Did our saving each other’s lives mean nothing to you?”

  She sat back up, her manner brisk now, almost businesslike. “You and I can agree on these things, at least. Often life and death are the only things that matter.”

  “Then free me,” he said.

  “Yes, I’ve fallen head over heels for you, Jason.” She laughed. “That’s not the way things work in real life. I saved you for one reason only: Stepan.”

  His brow was furrowed in concentration. “How can you let this happen?”

&n

bsp; “How can I not? I have a history with Stepan. For a time he was the only friend my mother had.”

  Bourne was surprised. “Spalko and your mother knew each other?”

  Annaka nodded. Now that he was bound and presented no danger to her, she seemed to want to talk. Bourne was rightfully suspicious of this.

  “He met her after my father had her sent away,” Annaka continued.

  “Sent away where?” Bourne was intrigued despite himself. She could charm the venom out of a snake.

  “To a sanatorium.” Annaka’s eyes darkened, revealing in a flash a trace of genuine feeling. “He had her committed. It wasn’t difficult; she was physically frail, unable to fight him. In those days…yes, it was still possible.”

  “Why would he do such a thing? I don’t believe you,” Bourne said flatly.

  “I don’t care whether you believe me or not.” She contemplated him for a moment with the disturbing aspect of a reptile. Then, possibly because she needed to, she went on. “She’d become an inconvenience. His mistress demanded it of him; in this he was abominably weak.” The outpouring of naked hatred had transformed her face into an ugly mask, and Bourne understood that, at last, she had unleashed the truth about her past. “He never knew that I’d discovered the truth, and I never let on. Never.” She tossed her head. “Anyway, Stepan was visiting the same asylum. In those days, he went to see his brother…the brother who’d tried to kill him.”

  Bourne stared at her, dumbfounded. He realized that he had no idea whether she was lying or telling the truth. He had been correct about one aspect of her, at least—she was at war. The parts she played so masterfully were her offensives, her raiding parties into enemy territory. He looked into her implacable eyes and knew that there was something monstrous about the way she chose to manipulate those she had drawn close to her.

  She leaned in, took his chin between her thumb and fingers. “You haven’t seen Stepan, have you? He’s had extensive plastic surgery on the right side of his face and neck. What he tells people about it varies, but the truth is, his brother threw gasoline on him and then put a lighter to his face.”

  Bourne couldn’t help but react. “My God. Why?”

  She shrugged. “Who knows? The brother’s dangerously insane. Stepan knew it, so for that matter did his father, but he refused to acknowledge it until it was too late. And even afterward, he continued to defend the boy, insisting that it was a tragic accident.”

  “All this might be true,” he said. “But even if it is, it doesn’t excuse you conspiring against your own father.”

  She laughed. “How can you, of all people, say that, when you and Khan have tried to kill each other? Such fury in two men, my God!”

  “He came after me. I only defended myself.”

  “But he hates you, Jason, with a passion I’ve rarely seen. He hates you just as much as I hated my father. And d’you know why? Because you abandoned him as my father abandoned my mother.”

  “You’re talking as if he’s really my son,” Bourne spat.

  “Oh, yes, that’s right, you’ve convinced yourself that he isn’t. That’s convenient, isn’t it? That way you don’t have to think about how you left him to die in the jungle.”

  “But I didn’t!” Bourne knew he shouldn’t let her drag him into this emotionally charged subject, but he couldn’t help himself. “I was told he was dead. I had no idea he might’ve survived. That’s what I discovered when I was inside government database.”

  “Did you stay around to look, to check? No, you buried your family without even looking in the coffins! If you had, you would’ve seen that your son wasn’t there. No, you coward, you fled the country instead.”

  Bourne tried to pull himself out of his bonds. “That’s rich, you lecturing me on family!”

  “That’s quite enough.” Stepan Spalko had entered the room with the perfect timing of a ringmaster. “I have more important matters to discuss with Mr. Bourne than family sagas.”

  Annaka obediently stood up. She patted Bourne’s cheek. “Don’t look so sullen, Jason. You’re not the first man I’ve fooled, and you won’t be the last.”

  “No,” he said. “Spalko will be the last.”

  “Annaka, leave us now,” Spalko said, adjusting his butcher’s apron with hands covered in Latex gloves. The apron was clean and well pressed. As yet, there wasn’t a spot of blood on it.

  As Annaka departed, Bourne turned his attention to the man who, according to Khan, had engineered the murders of Alex and Mo. “And you don’t distrust her, not even a little?”

  “Yes, she’s an excellent liar.” He chuckled. “And I know a thing or two about lying.” He crossed to the cart, eyed with the connoisseur’s intensity the implements arrayed there. “I suppose it’s natural to think that because she betrayed you, she’d do the same to me.” He turned, the light reflecting off the unnaturally smooth skin on the side of his face and neck. “Or are you trying to drive a wedge between us? That would be standard operating procedure for an operative of your high caliber.” He shrugged and picked up an implement, twirled it between his fingers. “Mr. Bourne, what I’m interested in is how much you’ve discovered about Dr. Schiffer and his little invention.”

  “Where’s Felix Schiffer?”

  “You can’t help him, Mr. Bourne, even if you could manage the impossible and free yourself. He outlived his usefulness and now he’s beyond anyone’s power to resurrect.”

  “You killed him,” Bourne said, “just as you killed Alex Conklin and Mo Panov.”

  Spalko shrugged. “Conklin took Dr. Schiffer away from me when I needed him the most. I got Schiffer back, of course. I always get what I want. But Conklin had to pay for thinking he could oppose me with impunity.”

  “And Panov?”

  “He was in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Spalko said. “It’s as simple as that.”

  Bourne thought of all the good Mo Panov had done in his life and felt overwhelmed by the uselessness of his death. “How can you talk about the taking of two men’s lives as if it was as simple as snapping your fingers?”

  “Because it was, Mr. Bourne.” Spalko laughed. “And by tomorrow the taking of those two men’s lives will be as nothing to what’s coming.”

  Bourne tried not to look at the glinting implement. Instead, what came into his mind was an image of László Molnar’s blue-white body stuffed into his own refrigerator. He’d seen first-hand the damage these tools of Spalko’s could inflict.

  Because he was face to face with the fact that Spalko had been responsible for Molnar’s torture and death, he knew that everything Khan had told him about this man was true. And if Khan had told the truth about Spalko, was it not possible that he’d been telling the truth all along, that he was, in fact, Joshua Webb, Bourne’s own son? The facts were mounting, the truth was before him, and Bourne felt its crushing weight as if it were a mountain on his shoulders. He couldn’t bear to look at…what?

  It didn’t matter now because Spalko had begun wielding his instruments of pain. “Again, I’ll ask you what you know about Dr. Schiffer’s invention.”

  Bourne stared past Spalko. At the blank concrete wall.

  “You’ve chosen not to answer me,” Spalko said. “I applaud your courage.” He smiled charmingly. “And pity the futility of your gesture.”

  He applied the whorled end of the implement to Bourne’s flesh.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Khan went into Houdini, a magic and logic games shop at 87 Vaci utca building. The walls and display cabinets of the smallish boutique were crammed with magic tricks, brain teasers and mazes of all kinds, shapes and descriptions, old and new. Children of all ages, their mothers or fathers in tow, prowled the aisles, pointing and staring wide-eyed at that fantastic wares.

  Khan approached one of the harried salespeople and told her he wanted to see Oszkar. She asked him his name, then picked up a phone and dialed an interior extension. She spoke into the receiver for a moment, then directed Khan to the ba

ck of the store.

  He passed through a door at the rear of the shop into a tiny vestibule lit by one bare bulb. The walls were of an indeterminate color; the air smelled of boiled cabbage. He went up an iron circular staircase to the office on the second floor. It was lined with books—mostly first-edition volumes on magic, biographies and autobiographies of famous magicians and escape artists. An autographed photo of Harry Houdini hung on the wall over an antique oak rolltop desk. The old Persian carpet was still on the plank floor, still in desperate need of cleaning, and the huge, thronelike high-backed armchair still sat in its place of honor facing the desk.

  Oszkar sat in exactly the same position he’d been in a year ago when Khan last had occasion to visit him. He was a pear-shaped man of middle years with huge side whiskers and a bulbous nose. He rose when he saw Khan and, grinning, came around from behind the desk and shook his hand.

  “Welcome back,” he said, gesturing for Khan to take a seat. “What can I do for you?”

  Khan told his contact what he needed. Oszkar wrote as Khan spoke, from time to time nodding to himself.

  Then he looked up. “Is that all?” He seemed disappointed; he loved nothing better than being challenged.

  “Not quite,” Khan said. “There’s the matter of a magnetic lock.”

  “Now we’re talking!” Oszkar was beaming now. He rubbed his hands together as he rose. “Come with me, my friend.”

  He led Khan into a wallpapered hallway lit by what appeared to be gaslamps. He had a way of waddling when he walked, comical as a penguin, but when you saw him escape from three pairs of handcuffs in under ninety seconds, you were exposed to a whole new meaning of the word finesse.

  He opened a door and walked into his workshop—a large space evenly divided into areas by workbenches and metal counters. He directed Khan over to one, where he commenced to rummage through a vertical stack of drawers. At length he brought out a small black and chrome square.

  “All mag locks work off current, you know that, right?” When Khan nodded, he continued. “And they’re all fail-safe, meaning they need a constant power supply to work. Anyone who installs one of these knows that if you cut the current, the lock will open, so there’s certain to be a backup power supply, possibly even two, if the subject’s paranoid enough.”