Aware that he was vulnerable from behind as well as in front, he slowly raised his left hand. The hissing’s steady rhythm didn’t change. Keeping his eyes on the snake’s head, he moved his hand until it was over the snake. He’d read about a technique meant to calm this kind of snake but had no idea whether it would work. He touched the snake on the top of its head with a fingertip. The hissing stopped. It did work!
He grasped it at its neck. Letting go of the gun, he supported the viper’s body with his other hand. The creature didn’t struggle. Walking gingerly across the case to the far end, he set it carefully down in a corner. A group of kids were staring, openmouthed, from the other side of the glass. Bourne backed away from the viper, never taking his eyes from it. Near the shattered feeding window he knelt down, grasped the Glock.
A voice behind him said, “Leave the gun where it is and turn around slowly.”
The damn thing’s dislocated,” Arkadin said.
Devra stared at his deformed shoulder.
“You’ll have to reset it for me.”
Drenched to the bone, they were sitting in a late-night café on the other side of Sevastopol, warming themselves as best they could. The gas heater in the café hissed and hiccupped alarmingly, as if it were coming down with pneumonia. Glasses of steaming tea sat before them, half empty. It was barely an hour after their hair’s-breadth escape, and both of them were exhausted.
“You’re kidding,” she said.
“Absolutely, you will,” he said. “I can’t go to a proper doctor.”
Arkadin ordered food. Devra ate like an animal, shoving dripping pieces of stew into her mouth with her fingertips. She looked as if she hadn’t eaten in days. Perhaps she hadn’t. Seeing how she laid waste to the food, Arkadin ordered more. He ate slowly and deliberately, conscious of everything he put into his mouth. Killing did that to him: All his senses were working overtime. Colors were brighter, smells stronger, everything tasted rich and complex. He could hear the acrid political argument going on in the opposite corner between two old men. His own fingertips on his cheek felt like sandpaper. He was acutely aware of his own heartbeat, the blood rushing behind his ears. He was, in short, a walking, talking exposed nerve.
He both loved and hated being in this state. The feeling was a form of ecstasy. He remembered coming across a dog-eared paperback copy of The Teachings of Don Juan by Carlos Castaneda, had learned to read English from it, a long, torturous path. The concept of ecstasy had never occurred to him before reading this book. Later, in emulation of Castaneda, he thought of trying peyote—if he could find it—but the idea of a drug, any drug, set his teeth on edge. He was already lost quite enough. He held no desire to find a place from which he could never return.
Meanwhile the ecstasy he was in was a burden as well as a revelation, but he knew he couldn’t long stand being that exposed nerve. Everything from a car backfiring to the chirrup of a cricket crashed against him, as painful as if he’d been turned inside out.
He studied Devra with an almost obsessive concentration. He noticed something he hadn’t seen before—likely, with her gesticulating, she’d distracted him from noticing. But now she’d let down her guard. Perhaps she was just exhausted or had relaxed with him. She had a tremor in her hands, a nerve that had gone awry. Clandestinely, he watched the tremor, thinking it made her seem even more vulnerable.
“I don’t get you,” he told her now. “Why have you turned against your own people?”
“You think Pyotr Zilber, Oleg Shumenko, and Filya were my own people?”
“You’re a cog in Zilber’s network. What else would I think?”
“You heard how that pig talked to me up on the roof. Shit, they were all like that.” She wiped grease off her lips and chin. “I never liked Shumenko. First it was gambling debts I had to bail him out of, then it was drugs.”
Arkadin’s voice was offhand when he said, “You told me you didn’t know what the last loan was for.”
“I lied.”
“Did you tell Pyotr?”
“You’re joking. Pyotr was the worst of the lot.”
“Talented little bugger, though.”
Devra nodded. “So I thought when I was in his bed. He got away with an awful lot of shit because he was the boss—drinking, partying, and, Jesus, the girls! Sometimes two and three a night. I got thoroughly sick of him and asked to be reassigned back home.”
So she’d been Pyotr’s squeeze for a short time, Arkadin thought. “The partying was part of his job, though, forging contacts, ensuring they came back for more.”
“Sure. Trouble was he liked it all too much. And inevitably, that attitude infected those who were close to him. Where d’you think Shumenko learned to live like that? From Pyotr, that’s who.”
“And Filya?”
“Filya thought he owned me, like chattel. When we’d go out together he’d act as if he was my pimp. I hated his guts.”
“Why didn’t you get rid of him?”
“He was the one supplying Shumenko with coke.”
Quick as a cat, Arkadin leaned across the table, looming. “Listen, lapochka, I don’t give a fuck who you like or don’t like. But lying to me, that’s another story.”
“What did you expect?” she said. “You blew in like a fucking whirlwind.”
Arkadin laughed then, breaking a tension that was stretched to the breaking point. This girl had a sense of humor, which meant she was clever as well as smart. His mind had made a connection between her and a woman who’d once been important to him.
“I still don’t understand you.” He shook his head. “We’re on different sides of this conflict.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. I was never part of this conflict. I didn’t like it; I only pretended I did. At first it was a goal I set for myself: whether I could fool Pyotr, and then the others. When I did, it just seemed easier to keep going. I got paid well, I learned quicker than most, I got perks I never would have gotten from being a DJ.”
“You could’ve left anytime.”
“Could I?” She cocked her head. “They would’ve come after me like they’re coming after you.”
“But now you’ve made up your mind to leave them.” He cocked his head. “Don’t tell me it’s because of me.”
“Why not? I like sitting next to a whirlwind. It’s comforting.”
Arkadin grunted, embarrassed again.
“Besides, the last straw came when I found out what they’re planning.”
“You thought of your American savior.”
“Maybe you can’t understand that one person can make a difference in your life.”
“Oh, but I can,” Arkadin said, thinking of Semion Icoupov. “In that, you and I are the same.”
She gestured. “You look so uncomfortable.”
“Come on,” he said, standing. He led her back past the kitchen, poked his head in for a moment, then took her into the men’s room.
“Get out,” he ordered a man at the sink.
He checked the stall to make sure they were alone. “I’ll tell you how to fix this damnable shoulder.”
When he gave her the instructions, she said, “Is it going to hurt?”
In answer, he put the handle of the wooden spoon he’d swiped from the kitchen between his teeth.
With great reluctance Bourne turned his back on the Gaboon viper. Many things flitted through his mind, not the least of which was Mikhail Tarkanian. He was the mole inside the professor’s organization. Who knew how much intel he had about Specter’s network; Bourne couldn’t afford to let him get away.
The man before him now was flat-faced, his skin slightly greasy. He had a two-day growth of beard and bad teeth. His breath stank from cigarettes and rotting food. He pointed his suppressed Glock directly at Bourne’s chest.
“Come out of there,” he said softly.
“It won’t matter whether or not I comply,” Bourne answered. “The herpetologist down the corridor has surely phoned security. We’re all abo
ut to be put into custody.”
“Out. Now.”
The man made a fatal error of gesturing with the Glock. Bourne used his left forearm to knock the elongated barrel aside. Slamming the gunman back against the opposite wall of the corridor, Bourne drove a knee into his groin. As the gunman gagged, Bourne chopped the gun out of his hand, grabbed him by his overcoat, flung him headlong into the Gaboon viper’s case with such force that he skidded along the floor toward the corner where the viper lay coiled.
Bourne, imitating the viper, made a rhythmic hissing sound, and the snake raised its head. At the same moment it heard the hissing of a rival snake, it sensed something living thrust into its territory. It struck out at the terrified gunman.
Bourne was already pounding down the corridor. The door at the far end gaped open. He burst out into daylight. Tarkanian was waiting for him, in case he escaped the two gunmen; he had no stomach to prolong the pursuit. He drove a fist into Bourne’s cheek, followed that up with a vicious kick. But Bourne caught his shoe in his hands, twisted his foot violently, spinning him off his feet.
Bourne could hear shouts, the slap and squeak of cheap soles against concrete. Security was on its way, though he couldn’t see them yet.
“Tarkanian,” he said, and coldcocked him.
Tarkanian went down heavily. Bourne knelt beside him and was giving him mouth-to-mouth when three security guards rounded the corner, came pounding up to him.
“My friend collapsed just as we saw the men with the guns.” Bourne gave an accurate description of the two gunmen, pointed toward the open door to the Reptile Discovery Center. “Can you get help? My friend is allergic to mustard. I think there must have been some in the potato salad we had for lunch.”
One of the security guards called 911, while the other two, guns drawn, vanished into the doorway. The guard stayed with Bourne until the paramedics arrived. They took Tarkanian’s vitals, loaded him onto the gurney. Bourne walked at Tarkanian’s side as they made their way through the gawking crowds to the ambulance waiting on Connecticut Avenue. He told them about Tarkanian’s allergic reaction, also that in this state he was hypersensitive to light. He climbed into the back of the ambulance. One of the paramedics closed the doors behind him while the other prepared the IV drip of phenothiazine. The vehicle took off, siren wailing.
Tears streamed down Arkadin’s face, but he made no noise. The pain was excruciating, but at least the arm was back in its socket. He could move the fingers of his left hand, just barely. The good news was that the numbness was giving way to a peculiar tingling, as if his blood had turned to champagne.
Devra held the wooden spoon in her hand. “Shit, you almost bit this in two. It must’ve hurt like a bitch.”
Arkadin, dizzy and nauseous, grimaced in pain. “I could never get food down now.”
Devra tossed aside the spoon as they left the men’s room. Arkadin paid their check, and they went out of the café. The rain had stopped, leaving the streets with that slick, just-washed look so familiar to him from old American films from the 1940s and 1950s.
“We can go to my place,” Devra offered. “It’s not far from here.”
Arkadin shook his head. “I think not.”
They walked, seemingly aimlessly, until they came to a small hotel. Arkadin booked a room. The flyblown night clerk barely looked at them. He was only interested in taking their money.
The room was mean, barely furnished with a bed, a hard-backed chair, and a dresser with three legs and a pile of books propping up the fourth corner. A circular threadbare carpet covered the center of the room. It was stained, pocked with cigarette burns. What appeared to be a closet was the toilet. The shower and sink were down the hall.
Arkadin went to the window. He’d asked for a room in front, knowing it would be noisier, but would afford him a bird’s-eye view of anyone coming. The street was deserted, not a car in sight. Sevastopol glowed in a slow, cold pulse.
“Time,” he said, turning back into the room, “to get some things straight.”
“Now? Can’t this wait?” Devra was lying crosswise on the bed, her feet still on the floor. “I’m dead on my feet.”
Arkadin considered a moment. It was deep into the night. He was exhausted but not yet ready for sleep. He kicked off his shoes, lay down on the bed. Devra had to sit up to make room for him, but instead of lying down parallel to him, she resumed her position, head on his belly. She closed her eyes.
“I want to come with you,” she said softly, almost as if in sleep.
He was instantly alert. “Why?” he said. “Why would you want to come with me?”
She said nothing in reply; she was asleep.
For a time, he lay listening to her steady breathing. He didn’t know what to do with her, but she was all he had left of this end of Pyotr’s network. He spent some time digesting what she had told him about Shumenko, Filya, and Pyotr, looking for holes. It seemed improbable to him that Pyotr could be so undisciplined, but then again he’d been betrayed by his girlfriend of the moment, who worked for Icoupov. That spoke of a man out of control, whose habits could indeed filter down to his subordinates. He had no idea if Pyotr had daddy issues, but given who his daddy was it certainly wasn’t out of the question.
This girl was strange. On the surface she was so much like other young girls he’d come across: hard-edged, cynical, desperate, and despairing. But this one was different. He could see beneath her armor plating to the little lost girl she once had been and perhaps still was. He put his hand on the side of her neck, felt the slow pulse of her life. He could be wrong, of course. It could all be a performance put on for his benefit. But for the life of him he’d couldn’t figure out what her angle might be.
And there was something else about her, connected to her fragility, her deliberate vulnerability. She needed something, he thought, as, in the end, we all did, even those who fooled themselves into thinking they didn’t. He knew what he needed; it was simply that he chose not to think about it. She needed a father, that was clear enough. He couldn’t help suspecting there was something about her he was missing, something she hadn’t told him but wanted him to find. The answer was already inside him, dancing like a firefly. But every time he reached out to capture it, it just danced farther away. The feeling was maddening, as if he’d had sex with a woman without reaching an orgasm.
And then she stirred, and in stirring said his name. It was like a bolt of lightning illuminating the room. He was back on the rainy rooftop, with Mole-man standing over him, listening to the conversation between him and Devra.
“He was your responsibility,” Mole-man said, referring to Filya.
Arkadin’s heart beat faster. Your responsibility. Why would Mole-man say that if Filya was the courier in Sevastopol? As if of their own accord, his fingertips stroked the velvet flesh of Devra’s neck. The crafty little bitch! Filya was a soldier, a guard. She was the courier in Sevastopol. She’d handed the document off to the next link. She knew where he had to go next.
Holding her tightly, Arkadin at last let go of the night, the room, the present. On a tide of elation, he drifted into sleep, into the blood-soaked clutches of his past.
Arkadin would have killed himself, this was certain, had it not been for the intervention of Semion Icoupov. Arkadin’s best and only friend, Mischa Tarkanian, concerned for his life, had appealed to the man he worked for. Arkadin remembered with an eerie clarity the day Icoupov had come to see him. He had walked in, and Arkadin, half crazed with a will to die, had put a Makarov PM to his head—the same gun he was going to use to blow his own brains out.
Icoupov, to his credit, didn’t make a move. He stood in the ruins of Arkadin’s Moscow apartment, not looking at Arkadin at all. Arkadin, in the grip of his sulfurous past, was unable to make sense of anything. Much later, he understood. In the same way you didn’t look a bear in the eye, lest he charge you, Icoupov had kept his gaze focused on other things—the broken picture frames, the smashed crystal, the overturned chai
rs, the ashes of the fetishistic fire Arkadin had lit to burn his clothes.
“Mischa tells me you’re having a difficult time.”
“Mischa should keep his mouth shut.”
Icoupov spread his hands. “Someone has to save your life.”
“What d’you know about it?” Arkadin said harshly.
“Actually, I know nothing about what’s happened to you,” Icoupov said.
Arkadin, digging the muzzle of the Makarov into Icoupov’s temple, stepped closer. “Then shut the fuck up.”
“What I am concerned about is the here and now.” Icoupov didn’t blink an eye; he didn’t move a muscle, either. “For fuck’s sake, son, look at you. If you won’t pull back from the brink for yourself, do it for Mischa, who loves you better than any brother would.”
Arkadin let out a ragged breath, as if he were expelling a dollop of poison. He took the Makarov from Icoupov’s head.
Icoupov held out his hand. When Arkadin hesitated, he said with great gentleness, “This isn’t Nizhny Tagil. There is no one here worth hurting, Leonid Danilovich.”
Arkadin gave a curt nod, let go of the gun. Icoupov called out, handed it to one of two very large men who came down the hallway from the far end where they had been stationed, not making a sound. Arkadin tensed, angry at himself for not sensing them. Clearly, they were bodyguards. In his current condition, they could have taken Arkadin anytime. He looked at Icoupov, who nodded, and an unspoken connection sprang up between them.
“There is only one path for you now,” Icoupov said.
Icoupov moved to sit on the sofa in Arkadin’s trashed apartment, then gestured, and the bodyguard who had taken possession of Arkadin’s Makarov held it out to him.
“Here, now, you will have witnesses to your last spasm of nihilism. If you wish it.”