When Bourne declined, Yevgeny shrugged, took a toke deep into his lungs, held it, then let it out with an audible hiss. “Why do you want to see Maslov?”
“That’s between me and him,” Bourne said.
Yevgeny shrugged again. “As you like. Maslov is out of the city.”
“Then why was I told to come here?”
“To be judged, to see whether you are a serious individual. To see whether Maslov will make the decision to see you.”
“Maslov trusts people to make decisions for him?”
“He is a busy man. He has other things on his mind.”
“Like how to win the war with the Azeri.”
Yevgeny’s eyes narrowed. “Perhaps you can see Maslov next week.”
“I need to see him now,” Bourne said.
Yevgeny shrugged. “As I said, he’s out of Moscow. But he may be back tomorrow morning.”
“Why don’t you ensure it.”
“I could,” Yevgeny said. “But it will cost you.”
“How much?”
“Ten thousand.”
“Ten thousand dollars to talk to Dimitri Maslov?”
Yevgeny shook his head. “The American dollar has become too debased. Ten thousand Swiss francs.”
Bourne thought a moment. He didn’t have that kind of money on him, and certainly not in Swiss francs. However, he had the information Baronov had given him on the safe-deposit box at the Moskva Bank. The problem was that it was in the name of Fyodor Ilianovich Popov, who was no doubt now wanted for questioning regarding the body of the man in his room at the Metropolya Hotel. There was no help for it, Bourne thought. He’d have to take the chance.
“I’ll have the money tomorrow morning,” Bourne said.
“That will be satisfactory.”
“But I’ll give it to Maslov and no one else.”
Yevgeny nodded. “Done.” He wrote something on a slip of paper, showed it to Bourne. “Please be at this address at noon tomorrow.” Then he struck a match, held it to the corner of the paper, which burned steadily until it crumbled into ash.
Semion Icoupov, in his temporary headquarters in Grindelwald, took the news of Harun Iliev’s death very hard. He’d been a witness to death many times, but Harun had been like a brother to him. Closer, even, because the two had no sibling baggage to clutter and distort their relationship. Icoupov had relied on Harun for his wise counsel. His was a sad loss indeed.
His thoughts were interrupted by the orchestrated chaos around him. A score of people were staffing computer consoles hooked up to satellite feeds, surveillance networks, public transportation CCTV from major hubs all over the world. They were coming to the final buildup to the Black Legion’s attack; every screen had to be scrutinized and analyzed, the faces of suspicious people picked out and run through a nebula of software that could identify individuals. From this, Icoupov’s operatives were building a mosaic of the real-time backdrop against which the attack was scheduled to take place.
Icoupov became aware that three of his aides were clustered around his desk. Apparently, they’d been trying to talk to him.
“What is it?” His voice was testy, the better to cover up his grief and inattention.
Ismail, the most senior of his aides, cleared his throat. “We wanted to know who you intend to send after Jason Bourne now that Harun…” His voice trailed off.
Icoupov had been contemplating the same question. He’d made a mental list that included any number of people he could send, but he kept eliminating most of them, for one reason or another. But on the second and third run through he began to realize that these reasons were in one way or another trivial. Now, as Ismail asked the question again, he knew.
He looked up into his aides’ anxious faces and said. “It’s me. I’m going after Bourne myself.”
Twenty-Four
IT WAS disturbingly hot in the Alter Botanischer Garten, and as humid as a rain forest. The enormous glass panels were opaque with beads of mist sliding down their faces. Moira, who had already taken off her gloves and long winter coat, now shrugged out of the thick cable-knit sweater that helped protect her from Munich’s chill, damp morning, which could penetrate to the bone.
When it came to German cities, she much preferred Berlin to Munich. For one thing, Berlin had for many years been on the cutting edge of popular music. Berlin was where such notable pop icons as David Bowie, Brian Eno, and Lou Reed, among many others, had come to recharge their creative batteries by listening to what musicians far younger than they were creating. For another, it hadn’t lost its legacy of the war and its aftermath. Berlin was like a living museum that was reinventing itself with every breath it took.
There was, however, a strictly personal reason why she preferred Berlin. She came for much the same reason Bowie did, to get away from stale habits, to breathe the fresh air of a city unlike those she knew. At an early age Moira became bored with the familiar. Every time she felt compelled to join a group because that was what her friends were doing she sensed she was losing a piece of herself. Gradually, she realized that her friends had ceased to become individuals, devolving into a cliquey “they” she found repellent. The only way to escape was to flee beyond the borders of the United States.
She could have chosen London or Barcelona, as some other college sophomores did, but she was a freak for Bowie and the Velvet Underground, so Berlin it was.
The botanical garden was built in the mid-1800s as an exhibition hall, but eighty years later, after its garden was destroyed by a fire, it gained new life as a public park. Outside, the awful bulk of the prewar Fountain of Neptune cast a shadow across the space through which she strolled.
The array of gorgeous specimens on display inside this glassed-in space only underscored the fact that Munich itself was without verve or spark. It was a plodding city of
Moira glanced at her watch. It was precisely 9:30 AM, and here came Noah, striding toward her. He was cool and efficient, personally opaque, even withholding, but he wasn’t a bad sort. She’d have refused him as a handler if he was; she was senior enough to command that respect. And Noah did respect her, she was certain of that.
In many ways Noah reminded her of Johann, the man who’d recruited her while she was at the university. Actually, Johann hadn’t contacted her at college; he was far too canny for that. He asked his girlfriend to make the approach, rightly figuring Moira would be more responsive to a fellow female student. Ultimately, Moira had met with Johann, was intrigued by what he had to offer her, and the rest was history. Well, not exactly. She’d never told anyone, including Martin or Bourne, who she really worked for. To do so would have violated her contract with the firm.
She stopped in front of the pinkly intimate blooms of an orchid, speckled like the bridge of a virgin’s nose. Berlin had also been the site of her first passionate love affair, the kind that curled your toes, obliterated your focus on responsibility and the future. The affair almost ruined her, principally because it possessed her like a whirlwind and, in the process, she’d lost any sense of herself. She became a sexual instrument on which her lover played. What he wanted, she wanted, and so dissolution.
In the end, it was Johann who had saved her, but the process of separating pleasure from self was immensely painful. Especially because two months afterward her lover died. For a time, her rage at Johann was boundless; curdling their friendship, jeopardizing the trust they’d placed in each other. It was a lesson she never forgot. It was one reason she hadn’t allowed herself to fall for Martin, though part of her yearned for his touch. Jason Bourne
