Bourne 4 - The Bourne Legacy (33 page)

Csilla's sergeant had taken one of their officers out of the building the moment the perpetrator had been spotted. He already knew that he was clever enough to have found his way from building to building. Having successfully escaped from László Molnar's apartment, he didn't now consider that the criminal would allow himself to get trapped in the adjacent building's stairway. That meant he'd find a way out, and the sergeant wanted all bases covered. He had a man on the roof, one each at the front and service entrances. That left the alleyway on the side. He didn't see how the murderer would get to the alley, but he wasn't taking any chances.

Lucky for him, he saw the figure outlined against the fire escape as he turned the building corner and entered the alley. By the light of the street-lamp on Endrodi Street he saw his officer enter the alley from the opposite end. He signed upward to the man, indicating the figure on the fire escape. He had drawn his gun and was steadily advancing toward the vertical ladder that led down from the fire escape when the figure moved, seemed to pull apart as if dividing. The sergeant started in surprise. There were
two
figures on the fire escape!

He raised his gun and fired. Sparks flew off the metal, and he saw one of the figures launch itself into the air, rolling into a ball only to disappear between the two enormous Dumpsters. The officer broke into a run, but the sergeant held back. He saw his officer reach the corner of the Dumpster nearest him, go into a crouch as he approached the space between the two.

The sergeant looked up for the second figure. The feeble illumination made it difficult to pick out details, but he saw no one standing. The fire escape looked clear. Where could the seond one have gone?

He returned his attention to his officer, only to find that the man had vanished. He took several steps forward, called out his name. No response. He pulled out his walkie-talkie, was about to call for reinforcements when something dropped onto him. He stumbled, fell heavily, got up on one knee, shaking his head. Then something emerged from the space between the Dumpsters. By the time he realized that it wasn't his officer, he had been dealt a blow hard enough to cause him to lose consciousness.

"That was really stupid," Bourne said, stooping to help Annaka up off cobbles of the alley.

"You're welcome," she said, shaking off his hand, standing on her own power.

"I thought you were afraid of heights."

"I'm afraid of dying more," she shot back.

"Let's get out of here before more policemen show up," he said. "I think you ought to lead the way."

The streetlight was in Khan's eyes as Bourne and Annaka ran out of the alley. Although he couldn't see their faces, he recognized Bourne by his shape and his gait. As for his female companion, though his mind registered her in a peripheral way, he did not give her much attention. He, like Bourne, was far more interested in why the police had been drawn to László Molnar's apartment when Bourne had been there. Also, like Bourne, he was struck by the similarity of this scenario to the one at Conklin's estate in Manassas. It had Spalko's thumbprint all over it. The trouble was that unlike in Manassas when he had spotted Spalko's man, he had come across no such person during his thorough recon of the four square blocks around Molnar's apartment building. So who had called the police? Someone had to have been on the scene to tip them off when Bourne and the woman had entered the building.

He started up his rental car and was able to follow Bourne as he got into a taxi. The female continued on. Khan, knowing Bourne, was prepared for the backtracking, the reversal of direction, the changing taxis, and so was able to keep Bourne in sight during the maneuvers meant to shake any tails.

At last Bourne's taxi reached Fo utca. Four blocks north of the magnificent domes of the Kiraly Baths, Bourne stepped out of the taxi and went into the building at 106-108. Khan slowed his car, pulled it into the curb up the block and across the street—he didn't want to pass by the entrance. He turned off the engine, sank into darkness. Alex Conklin, Jason Bourne, László Molnar, Hasan Ar-senov. He thought about Spalko and wondered how all these disparate names were connected. There was a line of logic here, there always was, if only he could see it.

In this manner, five or six minutes passed and then another taxi pulled up in front of the entrance to 106-108. Khan watched a young female get out. He strained to catch a glimpse of her face before she pushed through the heavy front doors, but all he was able to determine was that she had red hair. He waited, watching the facade of the building. No light had gone on after Bourne had entered the lobby, which meant that he must be waiting for the woman—that this was her apartment. Sure enough, within three minutes, lights went on in the fourth—and top—floor bay window.

Now that he knew where they were, he commenced to sink into
zazen,
but after an hour of fruitlessly trying to clear his mind, he gave up. In the darkness, his hand closed around the small carved stone Buddha. Almost immediately thereafter, he fell into a deep sleep, from which he dropped like a stone into the nether world of his recurring nightmare.

The water is blue-black, swirling restlessly as if alive with malignant energy. He tries
to strike out for the surface, stretching up so hard his bones crack
with the strain. Still, he
continues to sink into the darkness, dragged down by the rope tied around his ankle. His
lungs are beginning to burn. He longs to take a breath, but he knows that the moment he
opens his mouth, the water will rush in and he'll drown.

He reaches down, trying to untie the rope, but his fingers fail to gain a grip on the slick
surface. He feels, like an electric current running through him, the terror of whatever
waits for him in the darkness. The terror presses in on him like a vise; he forces down an
urge to gibber. In that moment he hears the sound rising from the depths
—
the clangor of
bells, of massed monks chanting before they are slaughtered by the Khmer Rouge.
Eventually, the sound resolves itself into the song of a single voice, a clear tenor, a
repeated ululation not unlike a prayer.

And it is as he stares down into the darkness, as he begins to make out the shape
tethered to the other rope, the thing that is dragging him inexorably to his doom, that he
feels the song he is hearing must be coming from that figure. For he knows the figure
twirling in the powerful current below him; it's as familiar to him as his own face, his
own body. But now, with a shock that pierces him to the quick, he realizes that the sound
isn't coming from the familiar form below him because it's dead, which is why its weight
is dragging him down to his doom.

The sound is nearer to hand, and now he recognizes the ululation as that of a clear
tenor
—
his own voice coming from deep inside himself. It touches every part of him at
once.

"Lee-Lee! Lee-Lee!" he is calling just before he drowns....

Spalko and Zina arrived in Crete before the sun, touching down in Kazantzakis Airport just outside Iraklion. They were accompanied by a surgeon and three men, whom Zina had taken the time to scrutinize during the flight. They were not particularly big men, if only to ensure that they wouldn't stand out in a crowd. Spalko's heightened sense of security dictated that when, as now, he was engaged not as Stepan Spalko, president of Humanistas, Ltd., but as the Shaykh, he maintain the lowest of profiles, not only for himself but for all of his personnel. It was in their motionless-ness that Zina recognized their power, for they had absolute control over their bodies, and when they moved, they did so with the fluidity and surety of dancers or yoga masters. She could see the intent in their dark eyes, which came only after years of hard training. Even when they were smiling deferentially at her, she could sense the danger that lurked within them, coiled, waiting patiently for its moment of release.

Crete, the largest island in the Mediterranean, was the gateway between Europe and Africa. For centuries it had lain baking in the hot Mediterranean sun, its southern eye trained on Alexandria in Egypt and Banghazi in Libya. Inevitably, however, an island so blessed in location was also surrounded by predators. At the crossroads of cultures, its history was by necessity bloody. Like waves breaking on the shore, invaders from different lands washed up on Crete's coves and beaches, bringing with them their culture, language, architecture and religion.

Iraklion had been founded by the Saracens in a.d. 824. They had called it Chandax, a bastardization of the Arabic word
kandak,
owing to the moat they dug around it. The Saracens ruled for one hundred forty years, before the Byzantines wrested control away from them. But the pirates were so as-toundingly successful that it had taken three hundred boats to carry away all of their amassed booty to Byzantium. During the Venetian occupation, the city was known as Candia. Under the Venetians, it became the most important cultural center in the Eastern Mediterranean. All of that came to an end with the first Turkish invasion.

This polyglot history was everywhere one looked: in Iraklion's massive Venetian fortress that protected its beautiful harbor from invasion; the town hall, housed in the Venetian Loggia; the "Koubes," the Turkish fountain near the former church of the Savior, which the Turks converted into the Valide mosque.

But in the modern, bustling city itself, there remained nothing of Mi-noan culture, the first and, from an archaeological point of view, the most important Cretan civilization. To be sure, the remnants of the palace of Knossos could be seen outside the city proper, but it was for historians to note that the Saracens had chosen this spot to found Chandax because it had been the main port of the Minoans thousands of years earlier. At heart, Crete remained an island shrouded in myth, and it was impossible to set foot on it without being reminded of the legend of its birth. Centuries before the Saracens, the Venetians or the Turks existed, Crete had come to prominence from out of the mists of legend. Minos, Crete's first king, was a demigod. His father, Zeus, taking the form of a bull, raped his mother, Europa, and so from the first, the bull became the signifier of the island.

Minos and his two brothers battled for the rule of Crete, but Minos prayed to Poseidon, promising eternal obeisance to the god of the sea if he would use his power to help Minos defeat his brothers. Poseidon heard the prayer and from the churning sea rose a snowwhite bull. This animal was meant as a sacrifice for Minos to pledge his subservience to Poseidon, but the greedy king coveted the bull and kept it for himself. Enraged, Poseidon caused Minos' wife to fall in love with it. In secret, she engaged Daedalus, Minos'

favorite architect, to build her a hollow cow out of wood in which she hid so that the bull would mate with her. The issue of that sexual congress was the Minotaur—a monstrous man with a bull's head and tail— whose savagery wreaked so much havoc on the island that Minos had Daedalus build an enormous labyrinth, so elaborate that the captured Minotaur could never escape from it.

This legend was much in Stepan Spalko's mind as he and his team drove up the city's steep streets, for he had an affinity for Greek myths—their emphasis on rape and incest, bloodletting and hubris. He saw aspects of himself in many of them, so it was not difficult for him to believe himself a demigod.

Like many Mediterranean island towns, Iraklion was built on the side of a mountain, its stone houses rising up the steep streets mercifully plied by taxis and buses. In fact, the entire spine of the island rose in a chain known as the White Mountains. The address Spalko had obtained by interrogation from Laszl6 Molnar was a house perhaps halfway up the city slope. It belonged to an architect by the name of Istos Daedalika, who, as it turned out, was as mythical as his ancient namesake. Spalko's team had determined that the house had been leased by a company associated with László

Molnar. They arrived at the address just as the night sky was about to be split open like the hull of a nut, revealing the bloody Mediterranean sun.

After a brief reconnoiter, they all donned tiny headphones, connecting themselves electronically over a wireless network. They checked their weapons, high-powered composite crossbows, excellent for the silence they needed to keep. Spalko synchronized his watch with two of his men, then sent them around to the rear entrance while he and Zina approached the front entrance. The remaining member of the team was ordered to keep watch and warn them of any suspect activity on the street or, alternatively, the approach of the police.

The street was deserted and quiet; no one was stirring. There were no lights on in the house, but Spalko didn't expect there to be any. He glanced at his watch, counting into his microphone as the second hand swept toward sixty.

Inside the house, the mercenaries were astir. It was moving day, the last few hours before they would depart as the others had before them. They moved Dr. Schiffer to a different location on Crete every three days; they did it quickly and quietly, the destination being decided upon only at the last minute. Such security measures required that some of them stay behind to ensure every last vestige of their presence was either taken or destroyed.

At this moment, the mercenaries were dispersed throughout the house. One of them was in the kitchen making thick Turkish coffee, a second was in the bathroom, a third had turned on the satellite TV. He watched the screen disinterestedly for a moment, then went to the front window, pulled aside the curtain, peered out into the street. Everything appeared normal. He stretched like a cat, bending his body this way and that. Then, strapping on his shoulder holster, he went to perform his morning perimeter check. He unlocked the front door, pulled it open and was promptly shot through the heart by Spalko. He pitched backward, his arms splayed, his eyes rolling upward in their sockets, and was dead before he struck the floor.