Bourne climbed in on the pilot’s side, while Moira headed to Arkadin’s side of the copter. With a professional smile, he held out a hand, helping her up into the cockpit. He saw the maintenance man about to come across, but waved him off. Looking up at Moira through the curved Perspex door he thought of Devra and felt a lurch in his chest, as if her bleeding head had fallen against him. He waved at Moira, and she lifted her hand in return.
The rotors began to swirl, the maintenance man signaled for Arkadin to come away; Arkadin gave him the thumbs-up sign. Faster and faster the rotors spun, and the copter’s frame began to shudder. Just before it lifted off, Arkadin climbed onto the runner and curled himself into a ball as they swung out over the Pacific, buffeted by a stiff onshore wind.
The tanker loomed large in the passengers’ vision as the copter sped toward it at top speed. Only one other boat could be seen, a commercial fishing vessel several miles away beyond the security limits imposed by the Coast Guard and Homeland Security. Bourne, who was sitting directly behind the pilot, saw that he was working to keep the copter’s pitch at the correct angle.
“Is everything okay?” he shouted over the roar of the rotors.
The pilot pointed to one of the gauges. “There’s a small anomaly in the pitch; probably the wind, it’s gusting up quite a bit.”
But Bourne wasn’t so sure. The anomaly was constant, whereas the wind wasn’t. He had an intuition what-or, more accurately, who-was causing the problem.
“I think we have a stowaway,” Bourne said to the pilot. “Take it in low when you get to the tanker. Skim the tops of the containers.”
“What?” The pilot shook his head. “Too dangerous.”
“Then I’ll take a look myself.” Unstrapping himself, Bourne crept toward the door.
“Okay, okay!” the pilot shouted. “Just get back in your seat!”
They were almost at the bow of the tanker now. It was unbelievably big, a city lumbering through the Pacific swells.
“Hang on!” the pilot shouted as he took them down far more quickly than normal. They could see members of the crew racing across the deck, and someone-no doubt the captain-emerged from the wheelhouse near the stern. Someone was shouting to pull up; the tops of the containers were coming at them with frightening speed. Just before they skimmed the top of the nearest container, the copter rocked slightly.
“The anomaly’s gone,” the pilot said.
“Stay here,” Bourne shouted to Moira. “Whatever happens stay on board.” Then he gripped the weapon lying astride his knees, opened the door and, as she screamed his name, jumped out of the copter.
He landed after Arkadin, who had already leapt down onto the deck and was scuttling between containers. Crew members rushed toward them both; Bourne had no idea whether one of them was Sever’s software engineer, but he raised a hunting crossbow and they stopped in their tracks. Knowing that firing a gun would be tantamount to suicide on a tanker full of liquid natural gas, he’d had Moira ask NextGen to have two crossbows in the copter. How they procured them so quickly was anyone’s guess, but a corporation of NextGen’s size could get just about anything at a moment’s notice.
Behind him, the chopper set down on the part of the foredeck that had been cleared, and cut the engines. Doubled over to avoid the rotors, he opened the copter door and looked up at Moira. “Arkadin is here somewhere. Please stay out of the way.”
“I need to report to the captain. I can take care of myself.” She, too, was cradling a crossbow. “What does Arkadin want?”
“Me. I killed his friend. It doesn’t matter to him that it was in self-defense.”
“I can help, Jason. If we work together, two are better than one.”
He shook his head. “Not in this case. Besides, you see how slowly the tanker is moving; its screws are in reverse. It’s within the five-mile limit. For every foot we travel forward, the danger to thousands of lives and the port of Long Beach itself grows exponentially.”
She nodded stiffly, stepped down, and hurried along the deck to where the captain stood, awaiting her orders.
Bourne turned, moving cautiously among the containers, in the direction he’d glimpsed Arkadin heading. Moving along the aisles was like walking down the canyons of Manhattan. Wind howled as it cut across corners, magnified, racing down the aisles as if they were tunnels.
Just before he reached the end of the first set of containers, he heard Arkadin’s voice, speaking to him in Russian.
“There isn’t much time.”
Bourne stood still, trying to determine where the voice was coming from. “What d’you know about it, Arkadin?”
“Why d’you think I’m here?”
“I killed Mischa Tarkanian, now you kill me. Isn’t that how you defined it back in Egon Kirsch’s apartment?”
“Listen to me, Bourne, if that’s what I wanted I could have killed you anytime while you and the woman slept aboard the NextGen 747.”
Bourne’s blood ran cold. “Why didn’t you?”
“Listen to me, Bourne, Semion Icoupov, who saved me, whom I trusted, shot my woman to death.”
“Yes, that’s why you killed him.”
“Do you begrudge me my revenge?”
Bourne said nothing, thinking of what he would do to Arkadin if he hurt Moira.
“You don’t have to say anything, Bourne, I already know the answer.”
Bourne turned. The voice appeared to have shifted. Where the hell was he hiding?
“But as I said we have little time to find Icoupov’s man on board.”
“It’s Sever’s man, actually,” Bourne said.
Arkadin laughed. “Do you think that matters? They were in bed together. All the time they posed as bitter enemies they were plotting this disaster. I want to stop it-I
“I don’t believe you.”
“Listen, Bourne, you know we haven’t much time. I’ve avenged myself on the father, but this plan is his child. He and Sever gave birth to it, fed it, nurtured it through its infancy, through its adolescent growing pains. Now each moment brings this floating supernova closer to the moment of destruction those two madmen envisioned.”
The voice moved again. “Is that what you want, Bourne? Of course not. Then let’s join together to find Sever’s man.”
Bourne hesitated. He didn’t trust Arkadin, and yet he had to trust him. He examined the situation from all sides and concluded that the only way to play it was to move forward. “He’s a software engineer,” he said.
Arkadin appeared, climbing down from the top of one of the containers. For a moment, the two men stood facing each other, and once again Bourne felt the dislocating sensation of looking in a mirror. When he stared into Arkadin’s eyes, he didn’t see the madness the professor spoke of; he saw himself, a heart of darkness and pain beyond understanding.
“Sever told me there was only one man, but he also said we wouldn’t find him, and even if we did it wouldn’t matter.”
Arkadin frowned, giving him the canny, feral appearance of a wolf. “What did he mean?”
“I’m not sure.” He turned, walking down the deck toward the crew members who had cleared the space for the copter to land. “What we’re looking for,” he said as Arkadin fell into step beside him, “is a tattoo specific to the Black Legion.”
“The wheel of horses with the death’s head center.” Arkadin nodded. “I’ve seen it.”
“It’s on the inside of the elbow.”
“We could kill them all.” Arkadin laughed. “But I guess that would offend something inside you.”
One by one, the two men examined the arms of the eight crewmen on deck, but found no tattoo. By the time they reached the wheelhouse, the tanker was within two miles of the terminal. It was barely moving. Four tugboats had hove to and were waiting at the one-mile limit to tow the tanker the rest of the way in.
