what happens?
Her heart flipped over. -Cannons are fired.
— Or, Chalthoum said, — a Kowsar 3 missile.
14
BOURNE AND TRACY ATHERTON entered Seville late on the third afternoon of the Feria de Abril, the weeklong festival that grips the entire city at Eastertime like a fever. Only weeks before, during the Semana Santa, masses of hooded penitents followed behind magnificently adorned floats, tiered and filigreed like baroque wedding cakes, filled with ranks of white candles and sprays of white flowers, at the center of which sat images of Christ or the Virgin Mary. Bands of colorfully dressed musicians accompanied the floats, playing music both melancholy and martial.
Now as then avenues were blocked off to vehicular traffic, and even on foot many streets were all but impassable because, it seemed, all of Seville was out taking part in or observing the eye-popping pageant.
In the packed Avenida de Miraflores, they pushed their way into an Internet cafA©. It was dark and narrow, the manager behind a cramped desk in back. The entire left-hand wall was taken up with computer stations hooked up to the Internet. Bourne paid for an hour, then waited along the wall for one of the stations to free up. The place was dim with smoke; everyone had a cigarette except the two of them.
— What are we doing here? Tracy said in a hushed voice.
— I need to find a photo of one of the Prado‘s Goya experts, Bourne said.
— If I can convince Hererra I‘m this man, he‘ll know he‘s got a very clever fake rather than a real lost Goya.
Tracy‘s face lit up and she laughed. -You really are a piece of work, Adam. All at once a frown overtook her. -But if you present yourself as this Goya expert, how on earth are you going to get any money out of Don Fernando for your consortium?
— Simple enough, Bourne said. -The expert leaves and I return as Adam Stone.
A seat opened up and Tracy began to move toward it when Bourne stopped her with a taut shake of his head. When she looked at him questioningly, he spoke to her very softly.
— The man who just walked in-no, don‘t look at him. I saw him on our flight.
— So what?
— He was on my Thai Air flight as well, Bourne said. -He‘s traveled with me all the way from Bali.
She turned her back to him, using a mirror to glance at him briefly. -Who is he? Her eyes narrowed. -What does he want?
— I don‘t know, Bourne said. -But you noticed the scar on the side of his neck that runs up into his jaw?
She risked another glance in the mirror, then nodded.
— Whoever sent him wants me to know he‘s there.
— Your rivals?
— Yes. They‘re thugs, he improvised. -It‘s a typical intimidation tactic.
A look of alarm crossed Tracy‘s face and she shrank away from him. -What kind of dirty business are you in?
— It‘s precisely what I told you, Bourne said. -But the venture capital business is riddled with industrial espionage because being first to market with a new product or idea can often mean the difference between Google or Microsoft buying you out for half a billion dollars or going bust.
This explanation appeared to calm her slightly, but she was clearly still on edge. -What are you going to do?
— For the moment, nothing.
Bourne crossed the floor and sat down, and Tracy followed him. As he brought up the Museo del Prado on Google, she bent low over his shoulder and said, — Don‘t bother. The man you want is Professor Alonzo Pecunia Zuiga.
This was the Prado‘s Goya expert who‘d authenticated Hererra‘s Goya. Bourne recalled seeing his letter in her attachA© case.
Without a word, he typed in the name. He had to scroll through several news items before he came upon a photo of the professor, who was accepting an award from one of the many Spanish foundations concerned with promoting Goya‘s history and work worldwide.
Alonzo Pecunia Zuigawas a slim man who appeared to be in his midfifties. He had a dapper spade-shaped beard and thick eyebrows that shaded his eyes like a visor. Bourne checked the date of the photo to be certain it was current. Zooming in on the photo, he printed it out, which cost him an extra couple of euros. Using Google Local, he looked up the addresses of a number of shops.
— Our first stop, he said to Tracy, — is just off Paseo de CristA?bal ColA?n, around the corner from the Teatro Maestranza.
— What about the man with the scar? she whispered.
Bourne closed out the screen, then went into the browser cache and deleted both the site history and the cookies from the sites he‘d visited.
— I‘m counting on him following us, he said.
— God. Tracy gave a brief shudder. -I‘m not.
The broad paseo ran beside the eastern branch of the Guadalquivir River in the El Arenal
