— From Boris himself.
— Hah! No, no, no. Not Timbuktu. Khartoum.
Bourne leaned against the glass chilled by the fierce air-conditioning of the lounge. He felt as if the ground were sliding out from under his feet. Why did all strands of the spider‘s web lead to Khartoum?
— What‘s Boris doing in Khartoum?
— Something he doesn‘t want you, his good friend, to know about. Volkin laughed throatily. -Obviously.
Bourne took a stab in the dark. -But you know.
— Me? My dear Bourne, I‘m retired from the world of the
There was something very wrong with this conversation, and a moment later Bourne knew what it was. Surely, with all his contacts, Volkin must have heard of Bourne‘s — death. And yet there was no surprise in his voice when Bourne announced himself, no awkward questions being asked. Which meant he already knew Bourne had survived the attack on Bali. That meant Boris knew.
He tried another tack. -Do you know a man named Bogdan Machin?
— The Torturer. Of course I know him.
— He‘s dead, Bourne said.
— No one‘s going to mourn, believe me.
— He was sent to Seville, Bourne said, — to kill me.
— Aren‘t you already dead? Volkin said with an ironic twist.
— You knew I wasn‘t.
— Me, I still have a couple of brain cells left, which is more than could be said for the late, unlamented Bogdan Machin.
— Who told you? Boris?
— Boris? My dear fellow, Boris went on a weeklong drunk when he heard-
through me, I might add-that you‘d been killed. Now, of course, he knows better.
— So Boris wasn‘t the one who shot me.
The explosion of laughter obliged Bourne to hold the phone away from his ear for a moment.
When Volkin had calmed down, he said, — What an absurd notion! You Americans! Where on earth did you come up with that bit of insanity?
— Someone in Seville showed me surveillance photos of Boris in a Munich beer hall with the American secretary of defense.
— Really? On what planet would that happen?
— I know it sounds crazy but I heard a tape of them talking. Secretary Halliday ordered my death and Boris agreed to it.
— Boris is your friend. Volkin‘s tone had turned deadly serious. -He‘s Russian; friendships don‘t come easily to us, and they‘re never betrayed.
— It was a barter, Bourne persisted. -Boris said he wanted Abdulla Khoury, the head of the Eastern Brotherhood, killed in return.
— It‘s true Abdulla Khoury was killed recently, but I assure you that Boris would have no reason to want him dead.
— Are you certain?
— Boris has been working on anti-narcotics, yes? You know this or, at least, must have surmised as much. You‘re a clever one, hah! The Eastern Brotherhood was funding its Black Legion terrorists through a drug pipeline that ran from Colombia to Mexico to Munich. Boris had someone inside the cartel who provided him with the other end of the pipeline, namely Gustavo Moreno, a Colombian drug lord living in a vast hacienda outside Mexico City. Boris attacked the hacienda with his elite team of FSB-2 men and shut Moreno down. But the really big prize- Moreno‘s laptop with the details of every inch of the pipeline-eluded him. What happened to it? Boris spent two days searching every inch of the compound, to no avail, because before he died Moreno insisted it was in the hacienda. It wasn‘t, but Boris being Boris caught a whiff of a strange scent.
— Which eventually brought him to Khartoum.
Volkin deliberately ignored the comment. Perhaps he thought the answer was self-evident. Instead, he said: — Do you have the date this alleged meeting between Boris and the American secretary took place?
— It was stamped on the photos, Bourne said. When he told Volkin, the Russian said emphatically, — Boris was here with me for three days, including that date. I don‘t know who was sitting down with the American secretary of defense, Bourne, but as sure as Russia is corrupt it wasn‘t our mutual friend Boris Karpov.
— Who was it then?
— A chameleon, certainly. Do you know any, Bourne?
— Besides myself, I do. But, unlike me, he‘s dead.
— You seem certain of that.
— I saw him fall from a great height into the water off the Port of Los Angeles.
— That is not the same as death. By God, you, of all people, should know,
