He looked at the heavyset man kneeling on the prayer rug. He hadn’t budged since Boris had been shown into the room. “What were they talking about?”

A smile formed on the lips of the heavyset man. “I know who you are, General Karpov.”

Boris stood very still, his gaze not on the kneeling man, but on his acolytes. They seemed to have as little interest in him as they had before. “Then you are one up on me.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“I don’t know who you are.”

The smile broadened. “Ah, curiosity! But it is far better for you that you don’t know.” He unlaced his fingers. “We must concentrate on the matter at hand: Cherkesov and Volkin.” He locked his red lips. “I am, shall we say, acutely aware that FSB-2, of which you are now the head, and SVR are locked in a deadly power struggle.”

Boris waited out the silence. He was getting to know this nameless man, his predilection for dramatic pauses and declarations, the way he meted out information in precise bits and pieces.

“But that power struggle,” the man continued, “is far more complicated than you know. There are powers lining up on either side that far surpass those of FSB-2 and SVR.”

“I assume you’re referring to Severus Domna.”

The heavyset man raised his eyebrows. “Among others.”

Boris’s heart skipped a beat. “There are others?”

“There are always others, General.” He gestured with a hand. “Excuse my poor manners. Come. Sit.”

Boris stepped onto the prayer rug, careful to sit in the same position as his host, though it pained his hips and flexor muscles.

“You asked me what Cherkesov and your friend Volkin were talking about,” the heavyset man said. “It was the Domna.”

“Do you know that Cherkesov left FSB-2 to join the Domna?”

“I heard as much,” the heavyset man acknowledged.

Boris didn’t believe him. He sensed his host was withholding information. “Cherkesov has ambitions that, for the moment at least, outstrip his power.”

“You think he had a plan in mind when he allowed himself to be lured away from FSB-2.”

“Yes,” Boris said.

“Do you know what it is?”

“It’s possible one of us does.”

The heavyset man’s belly began to tremble, and Boris realized that he was laughing silently.

“Yes, General Karpov, that is quite possible.” Boris’s host considered for a moment. “Tell me, have you ever been to Damascus?”

“Once or twice, yes,” Boris said, alert that the conversation had suddenly veered in a new direction.

“How did you find it?”

“The Paris of the Middle East?”

“Ha! Yes, I suppose it once was.”

“Damascus has beautiful bones,” Boris said.

The heavyset man considered this for a moment. “Yes, Damascus possesses great beauty, but it is also a place of great danger.”

“How is that?”

“Damascus is what Cherkesov was sent here to discuss with your friend Volkin.”

“Cherkesov is no longer welcome in Russia,” Boris said, “but Ivan?”

“Your friend Volkin has a number of, shall we say, business interests in Damascus.”

Boris was surprised; Ivan had let it be known that, apart from consulting, he was retired. “What kind of business interests?”

“Nothing that would keep him in good standing with the grupperovka bosses with whom he has done business for decades.”

“I don’t understand.” The moment the words were out of his mouth, Boris knew that he had made a fatal error. A key aspect of his host’s face changed radically; all its intimacy and friendliness disappeared like a puff of smoke.

“That is a pity,” the heavyset man said. “I was hoping that you could shed some light on why Damascus has become the focus of both Volkin and Cherkesov.” He snapped his fingers and the two men on either side produced Taurus PT145 Millenniums, small pistols with a big .45 punch.

Boris jumped up, but two more men, armed with Belgian FN P90 small-profile submachine guns, appeared in the doorway.

Behind them came Zachek with a death’s-head grin. “I’m afraid, General Karpov,” Zachek said, “that your usefulness is at an end.”

Bourne had just inserted the crowbar into the gap between the top and side of one of the crates when the rear door opened. He snapped off the flashlight an instant before the two Russians emerged. Before one of them could reach for the light switch, he tossed the flashlight across the warehouse. When it struck the floor, the Russians started, reached for their weapons, and ran toward the sound.

He was closer to the gunman, the driver having taken the lead. Swinging the crowbar, he slammed the end into the gunman’s hand, and his pistol dropped to the floor. The gunman howled, the driver pulled up short and turned on his heel just as Bourne flung the crowbar. It hit the driver square in the face, knocking him backward so hard his head slammed into the concrete, cracking his skull, killing him instantly.

The gunman, his fractured right hand hanging at his side, pulled out a stun baton with his left hand. It was a sixteen-incher that could deliver a nasty three-hundred-thousand-volt kick. The gunman swung it back and forth, keeping Bourne at bay while he advanced on him, pushing him back along the side of the van. His plan seemed to be to get Bourne into a corner where he would have no room to maneuver away from the baton. One touch of it and Bourne knew he would be writhing helplessly on the floor.

He retreated along the length of the van. The gunman had his eye on where he wanted Bourne to end up, so he was a beat slow in reacting as Bourne swung open one of the van’s rear doors, using it as a shield between him and the baton while he scrabbled in the toolbox.

The gunman was swinging around the end of the door when Bourne uncapped the aerosol can of enamel paint and sprayed it into the gunman’s eyes. The gunman reared back, hands to his face, gasping, and Bourne slammed the bottom of the can against the fractured bones. The gunman groaned, the pain bringing him to his knees. Bourne took the baton from him, but the gunman lunged forward, wrapping his arms around Bourne’s legs in an attempt to bring him down. His mouth opened to sink his teeth into Bourne’s thigh when Bourne connected with the side of his head. All the breath seemed to go out of him and he lay on his back, the fingers of his good hand trying to dig the paint out of his eyes.

Bourne grabbed his hand and pulled it away. “Who do you work for?”

“Go fuck your mother,” the man said in his guttural tone.

Bourne dialed down the charge on the baton and gave the gunman a shot in the side. His body arched up, the heels of his shoes drumming against the concrete.

“Who do you work for?”

Silence. Bourne raised the charge slightly and applied it again.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” The gunman coughed heavily and began to choke. His mouth was full of blood; in his frenzy he had bitten his tongue almost clear through.

“I won’t ask you again.”

“You won’t have to.”

The gunman’s jaws ground together and, a moment later, his chest convulsed. A bluish foam mingled with the blood in his mouth, bubbling over to coat his lips. Leaning over, Bourne tried to pry open the jaws, but it was too late. A distinct odor of bitter almonds wafted up to him and he reared back. The gunman had bitten open a cyanide capsule.

23

PARIS AT NIGHT was not such a bad place for a single woman to be. She sat in a café, drinking bad coffee and thinking about taking up smoking. Soraya was surrounded by young bohemians, with which Paris was always teeming, no matter the era. The thing about Paris’s inhabitants she loved so much was that they were constantly reimagining themselves. While the city itself—its grand boulevards, its martial lines of horse chestnuts, its magnificent parks, its beautiful fountains around which were arrayed timeless cafés where one could sit for hours and watch the world go by—remained constant, its young people were busy remaking themselves.