Part 43 (1/2)
”What?” The pilot shook his head. ”Too dangerous.”
”Then I'll take a look myself.” Unstrapping himself, Bourne crept toward the door.
”Okay, okay!” the pilot shouted. ”Just get back in your seat!”
They were almost at the bow of the tanker now. It was unbelievably big, a city lumbering through the Pacific swells.
”Hang on!” the pilot shouted as he took them down far more quickly than normal. They could see members of the crew racing across the deck, and someone-no doubt the captain-emerged from the wheelhouse near the stern. Someone was shouting to pull up; the tops of the containers were coming at them with frightening speed. Just before they skimmed the top of the nearest container, the copter rocked slightly.
”The anomaly's gone,” the pilot said.
”Stay here,” Bourne shouted to Moira. ”Whatever happens stay on board.” Then he gripped the weapon lying astride his knees, opened the door and, as she screamed his name, jumped out of the copter.
He landed after Arkadin, who had already leapt down onto the deck and was scuttling between containers. Crew members rushed toward them both; Bourne had no idea whether one of them was Sever's software engineer, but he raised a hunting crossbow and they stopped in their tracks. Knowing that firing a gun would be tantamount to suicide on a tanker full of liquid natural gas, he'd had Moira ask NextGen to have two crossbows in the copter. How they procured them so quickly was anyone's guess, but a corporation of NextGen's size could get just about anything at a moment's notice.
Behind him, the chopper set down on the part of the foredeck that had been cleared, and cut the engines. Doubled over to avoid the rotors, he opened the copter door and looked up at Moira. ”Arkadin is here somewhere. Please stay out of the way.”
”I need to report to the captain. I can take care of myself.” She, too, was cradling a crossbow. ”What does Arkadin want?”
”Me. I killed his friend. It doesn't matter to him that it was in self-defense.”
”I can help, Jason. If we work together, two are better than one.”
He shook his head. ”Not in this case. Besides, you see how slowly the tanker is moving; its screws are in reverse. It's within the five-mile limit. For every foot we travel forward, the danger to thousands of lives and the port of Long Beach itself grows exponentially.”
She nodded stiffly, stepped down, and hurried along the deck to where the captain stood, awaiting her orders.
Bourne turned, moving cautiously among the containers, in the direction he'd glimpsed Arkadin heading. Moving along the aisles was like walking down the canyons of Manhattan. Wind howled as it cut across corners, magnified, racing down the aisles as if they were tunnels.
Just before he reached the end of the first set of containers, he heard Arkadin's voice, speaking to him in Russian.
”There isn't much time.”
Bourne stood still, trying to determine where the voice was coming from. ”What d'you know about it, Arkadin?”
”Why d'you think I'm here?”
”I killed Mischa Tarkanian, now you kill me. Isn't that how you defined it back in Egon Kirsch's apartment?”
”Listen to me, Bourne, if that's what I wanted I could have killed you anytime while you and the woman slept aboard the NextGen 747.”
Bourne's blood ran cold. ”Why didn't you?”
”Listen to me, Bourne, Semion Icoupov, who saved me, whom I trusted, shot my woman to death.”
”Yes, that's why you killed him.”
”Do you begrudge me my revenge?”
Bourne said nothing, thinking of what he would do to Arkadin if he hurt Moira.
”You don't have to say anything, Bourne, I already know the answer.”
Bourne turned. The voice appeared to have s.h.i.+fted. Where the h.e.l.l was he hiding?
”But as I said we have little time to find Icoupov's man on board.”
”It's Sever's man, actually,” Bourne said.
Arkadin laughed. ”Do you think that matters? They were in bed together. All the time they posed as bitter enemies they were plotting this disaster. I want to stop it-I have have to stop it, or my revenge on Icoupov will be incomplete.” to stop it, or my revenge on Icoupov will be incomplete.”
”I don't believe you.”
”Listen, Bourne, you know we haven't much time. I've avenged myself on the father, but this plan is his child. He and Sever gave birth to it, fed it, nurtured it through its infancy, through its adolescent growing pains. Now each moment brings this floating supernova closer to the moment of destruction those two madmen envisioned.”
The voice moved again. ”Is that what you want, Bourne? Of course not. Then let's join together to find Sever's man.”
Bourne hesitated. He didn't trust Arkadin, and yet he had to trust him. He examined the situation from all sides and concluded that the only way to play it was to move forward. ”He's a software engineer,” he said.
Arkadin appeared, climbing down from the top of one of the containers. For a moment, the two men stood facing each other, and once again Bourne felt the dislocating sensation of looking in a mirror. When he stared into Arkadin's eyes, he didn't see the madness the professor spoke of; he saw himself, a heart of darkness and pain beyond understanding.
”Sever told me there was only one man, but he also said we wouldn't find him, and even if we did it wouldn't matter.”
Arkadin frowned, giving him the canny, feral appearance of a wolf. ”What did he mean?”
”I'm not sure.” He turned, walking down the deck toward the crew members who had cleared the s.p.a.ce for the copter to land. ”What we're looking for,” he said as Arkadin fell into step beside him, ”is a tattoo specific to the Black Legion.”
”The wheel of horses with the death's head center.” Arkadin nodded. ”I've seen it.”
”It's on the inside of the elbow.”
”We could kill them all.” Arkadin laughed. ”But I guess that would offend something inside you.”
One by one, the two men examined the arms of the eight crewmen on deck, but found no tattoo. By the time they reached the wheelhouse, the tanker was within two miles of the terminal. It was barely moving. Four tugboats had hove to and were waiting at the one-mile limit to tow the tanker the rest of the way in.
The captain was a swarthy individual with a face that looked like it had been deeply etched by acid rather than the wind and the sun. ”As I was telling Ms. Trevor, there are seven more crewmen, mostly involved in engine room duties. Then there's my first mate here, the communications officer, and the s.h.i.+p's doctor, he's in sick bay, tending to a crewman who fell ill two days out of Algeria. Oh, yes, and the cook.”
Bourne and Arkadin glanced at each other. The radioman seemed the logical choice, but when the captain summoned him he, too, was without the Black Legion tattoo. So were the captain and his first mate.
”The engine room,” Bourne said.
At his captain's orders, the first mate led them out onto the deck, then down the starboard companionway into the bowels of the s.h.i.+p, reaching the enormous engine room at last. Five men were hard at work, their faces and arms filthy with a coating of grease and grime. As the first mate instructed them, they held out their arms, but as Bourne reached the third in line, the fourth man looked at them beneath half-closed lids before he bolted.
Bourne went after him while Arkadin circled, snaking through the oily city of grinding machinery. He eluded Bourne once but then, rounding a corner, Bourne spotted him near the line of gigantic Hyundai diesel engines, specifically designed to power the world's fleet of LNG tankers. He was trying to furtively shove a small box between the structural struts of the engine, but Arkadin, coming up behind him, grabbed for his wrist. The crewman jerked away, brought the box back toward him, and was about to thumb a b.u.t.ton on it when Bourne kicked it out of his hand. The box went flying, and Arkadin dived after it.
”Careful,” the crewman said as Bourne grabbed hold of him. He ignored Bourne, was staring at the box Arkadin brought back to them. ”You hold the whole world in your hand.”
Meanwhile Bourne pushed up his s.h.i.+rtsleeve. The man's arm was smeared with grease, deliberately so, it seemed, because when Bourne took a rag and wiped it off, the Black Legion tattoo appeared on the inside of his left elbow.
The man seemed totally unconcerned. His entire being was focused on the box that Arkadin was holding. ”That will blow up everything,” he said, and made a lunge toward it. Bourne jerked him back with a stranglehold.