to see whether she’s on the NextGen plane that’s transshipping the coupling link to the terminal.” He smiled thinly. “You seem surprised that I know so much. I have my spies as well, many of whom you know nothing about.” He gasped in pain as he searched beneath his greatcoat. “It was texted to me, but I can’t seem to find my cell.” He looked around. “It must have fallen out of my pocket when your driver manhandled me into the car.”
Sever waved a hand, ignoring the implied rebuke. “Never mind. Hauser gave me all the details, if we can get through security.”
“I have people in Immigration you don’t know about.”
Sever’s smile held a measure of the cruelty that was common to both of them. “My dear Semion, you have a use after all.”
Arkadin found Icoupov’s cell phone in the gutter where it had fallen as Icoupov had been bundled into the Mercedes. Controlling the urge to stomp it into splinters, he opened it to see whom Icoupov had called last, and noticed that the last incoming message was a text. Accessing it, he read the information on a NextGen jet due to take off in twenty minutes. He wondered why that would be important to Icoupov. Part of him wanted to go back to Devra, the same part that had balked at leaving her to go after Icoupov. But Kirsch’s building was swarming with cops; the entire block was in the process of being cordoned off, so he didn’t look back, tried not to think of her lying twisted on the floor, her blank eyes staring up at him even after she stopped breathing.
How had he answered her? Even now he couldn’t remember. Her death was like a dream, something vivid that made no sense. Maybe it was a symbol, but of what he couldn’t say.
It didn’t matter, but he knew to her it did. He had lied then, surely he’d lied to ease the moments before her death, but the thought that he’d lied to her sent a knife through whatever passed for his heart.
He looked down at the text message and knew this was where he’d find Icoupov. Turning around, he walked back toward the cordoned-off area. Posing as a crime reporter from the
At length, the cop was called away, and he dismissed Arkadin, saying the commissioner would be holding a press conference at 16:00, at which time he would be free to ask all the questions he wanted. This left Arkadin alone, leaning against the fender. It didn’t take him long to walk around the front of the vehicle, and when the medical examiner’s van arrived-creating a perfect diversion-he opened the driver’s-side door, ducked in behind the wheel. The keys were already in the ignition. He started the car and drove off. When he reached the autobahn, he put on the siren and drove at top speed toward the airport.
I won’t have a problem getting you on board,” Moira said as she turned off onto the four-lane approach to the freight terminal. She showed her NextGen ID at the guard booth, then drove on toward the parking lot outside the terminal. During the drive to the airport she’d thought long and hard about whether to tell Jason about whom she really worked for. Revealing that she was with Black River was a direct violation of her contract, and right now she prayed there’d be no reason to tell him.
After passing through security, Customs, and Immigration, they arrived on the tarmac and approached the 747. A set of mobile stairs rose up to the high passenger door, which stood open. On the far side of the plane, the truck from Kaller Steelworks Gesellschaft was parked, along with an airport hoist, which was lifting crated parts of the LNG coupling link into the jet’s cargo area. The truck was obviously late, and the loading process was necessarily slow and tedious. Neither Kaller nor NextGen could afford an accident at this late stage.
Moira showed her NextGen ID to one of the crew members standing at the bottom of the stairs. He smiled and nodded, welcoming them aboard. Moira breathed a sigh of relief. Now all that stood between them and the Black Legion attack was the ten-hour flight to Long Beach.
But as they neared the top of the stairs, a figure appeared from the plane’s interior. He stood in the doorway, staring down at her.
“Moira,” Noah said, “what are you doing here? Why aren’t you on your way to Damascus?”
Manfred Holger, Icoupov’s man in Immigration, met them at the checkpoint to the freight terminals, got in the car with them, and they lurched forward. Icoupov had called him using Sever’s cell phone. He’d been about to go off duty, but luckily for them had not yet changed out of his uniform.
“There’s no problem.” Holger spoke in the officious manner that had been drummed into him by his superiors. “All I have to do is check the recent immigration records to see if she’s come through the system.”
“Not good enough,” Icoupov said. “She may be traveling under a pseudonym.”
“All right then, I’ll go on board and check everyone’s passports.” Holger was sitting in the front seat. Now he swiveled around to look at Icoupov. “If I find that this woman, Moira Trevor, is on board, what would you have me do?”
“Take her off the plane,” Sever said at once.
Holger looked inquiringly at Icoupov, who nodded. Icoupov’s face was gray again, and he was having more difficulty keeping the pain at bay.
“Bring her here to us,” Sever said.
Holger had taken their diplomatic passports, passed them quickly through security. Now the Mercedes was sitting just off the tarmac. The 747 with the NextGen logo emblazoned on its sides and tail was at rest, still being loaded from the Kaller Steelworks truck. The driver had pulled up so that the truck shielded them from being seen by anyone boarding the plane or already inside it.
Holger nodded, got out of the Mercedes, and walked across the tarmac to the rolling stairs.
The guards waved him past Customs and Immigration without asking for ID; the car itself was proof enough for them. As Arkadin rolled past the parking lot and onto the tarmac, he saw the jet, crates from the NextGen truck being hoisted into the cargo bay, and the black Mercedes idling some distance away from both. Recognizing the car at once, he nosed the police cruiser to a spot directly behind the Mercedes. For a moment, he sat behind the wheel, staring at the Mercedes as if the car itself were his enemy.
He could see the silhouettes of two male figures in the backseat; it wasn’t a stretch for him to figure that one of them was Semion Icoupov. He wondered which of the handguns he had with him he should use to kill his former mentor: the SIG Sauer 9mm, the Luger, or the.22 SIG Mosquito. It all depended on what kind of damage he wanted to inflict and to what part of the body. He’d shot Stas Kuzin in the knees, the better to watch him suffer, but this was another time and, especially, another place. The airport was public space; the adjacent passenger terminal was crawling with security personnel. Just because he had been able to get this far as a member of the
Unlike the moment of Kuzin’s demise, Arkadin was fully aware of this moment, keyed in to the importance of the son overtaking the father, of revenging himself for the psychological and physical advantages an adult takes with a child. That he hadn’t, in fact, been a child when Mischa had sent Semion Icoupov to resurrect him never occurred to him. From the moment the two had met, he had always seen Icoupov as a father figure. He’d obeyed him as he would a father, had accepted his judgments, had swallowed whole his worldview, had been faithful to him. And now, for the sins Icoupov had visited on him, he was going to kill him.
When you didn’t show for your scheduled flight, I had a hunch you’d show up here.” Noah stared at her, completely ignoring Bourne. “I won’t allow you on the plane, Moira. You’re no longer a part of this.”
“She still works for NextGen, doesn’t she?” Bourne said.
“Who is this?” Noah said, keeping his eyes on her.
“My name is Jason Bourne.”
A slow smile crept over Noah’s face. “Moira, you didn’t introduce us.” He turned to Bourne, stuck out his hand. “Noah Petersen.”
