Part 17 (1/2)
”That's right,” Soraya said.
”You don't need a hacker, dear. You need the invisible man.”
”But you can make them invisible, Kiki.” Deron slid his arm around her slender waist ”Can't you?”
”Hmm.” Kiki peered again at the code on the terminal. ”You know, there looks like there may be a recurring variance I might be able to exploit.” She hunkered down on a stool. ”I'm going to transfer this upstairs.”
Deron winked at Soraya, as if to say, I told you so I told you so.
Kiki routed a number of files to her computer, which was separate from Deron's. She spun around, slapped her hands on her thighs, and got up. ”Okay, then, I'll see you all later.”
”How much later?” Soraya said, but Kiki was already taking the stairs three at a time.
Moscow was wreathed in snow when Bourne stepped off the Aeroflot plane at Sheremetyevo. His flight had been delayed forty minutes, the jet circling while the runways were de-iced. He cleared Customs and Immigration and was met by a small, cat-like individual wrapped in a white down coat. Lev Baronov, Professor Specter's contact.
”No luggage, I see,” Baronov said in heavily accented English. He was as wiry and hyperactive as a Jack Russell terrier as he elbowed and barked at the small army of gypsy cab drivers vying for a fare. They were a sad-faced lot, plucked from the minorities in the Caucasus, Asians and the like whose ethnicity prevented them from getting a decent job with decent pay in Moscow. ”We'll take care of that on the way in to town. You'll need proper clothes for Moscow's winter. It's a balmy minus two Celsius today.”
”That would be most helpful,” Bourne replied in perfect Russian.
Baronov's bushy eyebrows rose in surprise. ”You speak like a native, gospadin gospadin Bourne.” Bourne.”
”I had excellent instructors,” Bourne said laconically.
Amid the bustle of the flight terminal, he was studying the flow of pa.s.sengers, noting those who lingered at a newsagent or outside the duty-free shop, those who didn't move at all. Ever since he emerged into the terminal he'd had the unshakable feeling that he was being watched. Of course there were CCTV cameras all over, but the particular p.r.i.c.kling of his scalp that had developed over the years of fieldwork was unerring. Someone had him under surveillance. This fact was both alarming and rea.s.suring-that he'd already picked up a tag meant someone knew he was scheduled to arrive in Moscow. NSA could have scanned the departing flight manifests back at New York and picked up his name from Lufthansa; there'd been no time to take himself off the list. He looked only in short touristic glances because he had no desire to alert his shadow that he was on to him.
”I'm being followed,” Bourne said as he sat in Baronov's wheezing Zil. They were on the M10 motorway.
”No problem,” Baronov said, as if he was used to being tailed all the time. He didn't even ask who was following Bourne. Bourne thought of the professor's pledge that Baronov wouldn't get in his way.
Bourne paged through the packet Baronov had given him, which included new ID, a key, and the box number to get money out of the safe-deposit vault in the Moskva Bank.
”I need a plan of the bank building,” Bourne said.
”No problem.” Baronov exited the M10. Bourne was now Fyodor Ilianovich Popov, a midlevel functionary of GazProm, the gargantuan state-run energy conglomerate.
”How well will this ID hold up?” Bourne asked.
”Not to worry.” Baronov grinned. ”The professor has friends in GazProm who know how to protect you, Fyodor Ilianovich Popov.”
Anthony Prowess had come a long way to keep the ancient Zil in sight and he wasn't about to lose it, no matter what evasive maneuvers the driver took. He'd been waiting at Sheremetyevo for Bourne to come through Immigration. General Kendall had sent a recent surveillance photo of Bourne to his cell. The photo was grainy and two-dimensional because of the long telephoto lens used, but it was a close-up; there was no mistaking Bourne when he arrived.
For Prowess, the next few minutes were crucial. He had no illusions that he could remain unnoticed by Bourne for any length of time; therefore, in the short moments while his subject was still unself-conscious, he needed to drink in every tic and habit, no matter how minuscule or seemingly irrelevant. He knew from bitter experience that these small insights would prove invaluable as the surveillance ground on, especially when it came time to engage the subject and terminate him.
Prowess was no stranger to Moscow. He'd been born here to a British diplomat and his cultural attache wife. Not until Prowess was fifteen did he understand that his mother's job was a cover. She was, in fact, a spy for MI6, Her Majesty's Secret Service. Four years later Prowess's mother was compromised, and MI6 spirited them out of the country. Because his mother was now a wanted woman, the Prowesses were sent to America, to begin a new life with a new family name. The danger had been ground so deeply into Prowess that he'd actually forgotten what they were once called. He was now simply Anthony Prowess.
As soon as he'd built up qualified academic credits, he applied to the NSA. From the moment he'd discovered that his mother was a spy, that was all he'd wanted to do. No amount of pleading from his parents could dissuade him. Because of his ease with foreign languages and his knowledge of other cultures, the NSA sent him abroad, first to the Horn of Africa to train, then to Afghanistan, where he liaised with the local tribes fighting the Taliban in rough mountain terrain. He was a hard man, no stranger to hards.h.i.+p, or to death. He knew more ways to kill a human being than there were days in the year. Compared with what he'd been through in the past nineteen months, this a.s.signment was going to be a piece of cake.
Seventeen.
BOURNE AND BARONOV sped down Volokolamskoye Highway. Crocus City was an enormous high-end mall. Built in 2002, it was a seemingly endless array of glittering boutiques, restaurants, car showrooms, and marble fountains. It was also an excellent place to lose a tail.
While Bourne shopped for suitable clothes, Baronov was busy on his cell phone. There was no point in going to the trouble of losing the tail inside the maze of the mall only to have him pick them up again when they returned to the Zil. Baronov was calling a colleague to come to Crocus City. They'd take his car, and he'd drive the Zil into Moscow.
Bourne paid for his purchases and changed into them. Baronov took him to the Franck Muller Cafe inside the mall, where they had coffee and sandwiches.
”Tell me about Pyotr's last girlfriend,” Bourne said.
”Gala Nematova?” Baronov shrugged. ”Not much to tell, really. She's just another one of those pretty girls one sees around all the latest Moscow nightclubs. These women are a ruble a dozen.”
”Where would I find her?”
Baronov shrugged. ”She'll go where the oligarchs cl.u.s.ter. Really, your guess is as good as mine.” He laughed good-naturedly. ”For myself, I'm too old for places like that, but I'll be glad to take you on a round-robin tonight.”
”All I need is for you to lend me a car.”
”Suit yourself, miya droog miya droog.”
A few moments later, Baronov went to the men's room, where he'd agreed to make the switch of car keys with his friend. When he returned he handed Bourne a folded piece of paper on which was the plan for the Moskva Bank building.
They went out a different direction from the way they'd come in, which led them to a parking lot on the other side of the mall. They got into a vintage black Volga four-door sedan that, to Bourne's relief, started up immediately.
”You see? No problem.” Baronov laughed jovially. ”What would you do without me, gospadin gospadin Bourne?” Bourne?”
The Frunzenskaya embankment was located southwest of Moscow's inner Garden Ring. Mikhail Tarkanian had said that he could see the pedestrian bridge to Gorky Park from his living room window. He hadn't lied. His apartment was in a building not far from Khlastekov, a restaurant serving excellent Russian food, according to Baronov. With its two-story, square-columned portico and decorative concrete balconies, the building itself was a prime example of the Stalinist Empire style that raped and beat into submission a more pastoral and romantic architectural past.
Bourne instructed Baronov to stay in the Volga until he returned. He went up the stone steps, under the colonnade, and through the gla.s.s door. He was in a small vestibule that ended in an inner door, which was locked. On the right wall was a bra.s.s panel with rows of bell pushes corresponding to the apartments. Bourne ran his finger down the rows until he found the push with Tarkanian's name. Noting the apartment number, he crossed to the inner door and used a small flexible blade to fool the lock's tumblers into thinking he had a key. The door clicked open, and he went inside.
There was a small arthritic elevator on the left wall. To the right, a rather grand staircase swept up to the first floor. The first three treads were in marble, but these gave way to simple concrete steps that released a kind of talc.u.m-like powder as the porous treads wore away.
Tarkanian's apartment was on the third floor, down a dark corridor, dank with the odors of boiled cabbage and stewed meat. The floor was composed of tiny hexagonal tiles, chipped and worn as the steps leading up.
Bourne found the door without trouble. He put his ear against it, listening for sounds within the apartment. When he heard none, he picked the lock. Turning the gla.s.s k.n.o.b slowly, he pushed open the door a crack. Weak light filtered in past half-drawn curtains framing windows on the right. Behind the smell of disuse was a whiff of a masculine scent-cologne or hair cream. Tarkanian had made it clear he hadn't been back here in years, so who was using his apartment?
Bourne moved silently, cautiously through the rooms. Where he'd expected to find dust, there was none; where he expected the furniture to be covered in sheets, it wasn't. There was food in the refrigerator, though the bread on the counter was growing mold. Still, within the week, someone had been living here. The k.n.o.bs to all the doors were gla.s.s, just like the one on the front door, and some looked wobbly on their bra.s.s shafts. There were photos on the wall: high-toned black-and-whites of Gorky Park in different seasons.
Tarkanian's bed was unmade. The covers lay pulled back in unruly waves, as if someone had been startled out of sleep or had made a hasty exit. On the other side of the bed, the door to the bathroom was half closed.
As Bourne stepped around the end of the bed, he noticed a five-by-seven framed photo of a young woman, blond, with a veneer of beauty cultivated by models the world over. He was wondering whether this was Gala Nematova when he caught a blurred movement out of the corner of his eye.
A man hidden behind the bathroom door made a run at Bourne. He was armed with a thick-bladed fisherman's knife, which he jabbed at Bourne point-first. Bourne rolled away, the man followed. He was blue-eyed, blond, and big. There were tattoos on the sides of his neck and the palms of his hands. Mementos of a Russian prison.
The best way to neutralize a knife was to close with your opponent. As the man lunged after him, Bourne turned, grabbed the man by his s.h.i.+rt, slammed his forehead into the bridge of the man's nose. Blood spurted, the man grunted, cursed in guttural Russian, ”Blyad!”
He drove a fist into Bourne's side, tried to free his hand with the knife. Bourne applied a nerve block at the base of the thumb. The Russian b.u.t.ted Bourne in the sternum, drove him back off the bed, into the half-open bathroom door. The gla.s.s k.n.o.b drilled into Bourne's spine, causing him to arch back. The door swung fully open and he sprawled on the cold tiles. The Russian, regaining use of his hand, pulled out a Stechkin APS 9mm. Bourne kicked him in the s.h.i.+n, so he went down on one knee, then struck him on the side of the face, and the Stechkin went flying across the tiles. The Russian launched a flurry of punches and hand strikes that battered Bourne back against the door before grabbing the Stechkin. Bourne reached up, felt the cool octagon of the gla.s.s doork.n.o.b. Grinning, the Russian aimed the pistol at Bourne's heart. Wrenching off the k.n.o.b, Bourne threw it at the center of the Russian's forehead, where it struck full-on. His eyes rolled up and he slumped to the floor.
Bourne gathered up the Stechkin and took a moment to catch his breath. Then he crawled over to the Russian. Of course, he had no conventional ID on him, but that didn't mean Bourne couldn't find out where he'd come from.