bitter. Flagging down a bombila, Bourne was about to give the cabbie the address of

Gala’s friend, then realized that Yakov, the cabbie working for the NSA, knew that

address.

“Get in the taxi,” Bourne said quietly to Gala, “but be prepared to get out quickly and

do exactly as I say.”

Soraya didn’t need a couple of hours to make up her mind; she didn’t even need a

couple of minutes.

“All right,” she said. “I’ll do whatever it takes to get Tyrone out of here.”

LaValle turned back to regard her. “Well, now, that kind of capitulation would do my

heart good if I didn’t know you to be such a duplicitous little bitch.

“Unfortunately,” he went on, “in your case, verbal capitulation isn’t quite as

convincing as it would be in others. That being the case, the general here will make

crystal clear to you the consequences of further treachery on your part.”

Soraya rose, along with Kendall.

LaValle stopped her with his voice, “Oh, and, Director, when you leave here you’ll

have until ten tomorrow morning to make your decision. I’ll expect you back here then. I

hope I’ve made myself clear.”

The general led her out of the Library, down the corridor to the door to the basement.

The moment she saw where he was taking her, she said, “No! Don’t do this. Please.

There’s no need.”

But Kendall, his back ramrod-straight, ignored her. When she hesitated at the security

door, he grasped her firmly by the elbow and, as if she were a child, steered her down the

stairs.

In due course, she found herself in the same viewing room. Tyrone was on his knees,

his arm behind him, bound hands on the tabletop, which was higher than shoulder level.

This position was both extremely painful and humiliating. His torso was forced forward,

his shoulder blades back.

Soraya’s heart was filled with dread. “Enough,” she said. “I get it. You’ve made your

point.”

“By no means,” General Kendall said.

Soraya could see two shadowy figures moving about the cell. Tyrone had become

aware of them, too. He tried to twist around to see what they were up to. One of the men

shoved a black hood over his head.

My God, Soraya said to herself. What did the other man have in his hands?

Kendall shoved her hard against the one-way glass. “Where your friend is concerned

we’re just warming up.”

Two minutes later, they began to fill the waterboarding tank. Soraya began to scream.

Bourne asked the bombila driver to pass by the front of the hotel. Everything seemed

calm and normal, which meant that the bodies on the seventeenth floor hadn’t been

discovered yet. But it wouldn’t be long before someone went to look for the missing

room-service waiter.

He turned his attention across the street, searching for Yakov. He was still outside his

car, talking to a fellow driver. Both of them were swinging their arms to keep their

circulation going. He pointed out Yakov to Gala, who recognized him. When they’d

passed the square, Bourne had the bombila pull over.

He turned to Gala. “I want you to go back to Yakov and have him take you to

Universitetskaya Ploshchad at Vorobyovy Gory.” Bourne was speaking of the top of the

only hill in the otherwise flat city, where lovers and university students went to get drunk, make love, and smoke dope while looking out over the city. “Wait there for me and

whatever you do, don’t get out of the car. Tell the cabbie you’re meeting someone there.”

“But he’s the one who’s been spying on us,” Gala said.

“Don’t worry,” Bourne reassured her. “I’ll be right behind you.”

The view out over Vorobyovy Gory was not so very grand. First, there was the ugly

bulk of Luzhniki Stadium in the mid-foreground. Second, there were the spires of the

Kremlin, which would hardly inspire even the most ardent lovers. But for all that, at night it was as romantic as Moscow could get.

Bourne, who’d had his bombila track the one Gala was in all the way there, was

relieved that Yakov had orders only to observe and report back. Anyway, the NSA was

interested in Bourne, not a young blond dyev.

Arriving at the overlook, Bourne paid the fare he’d agreed to at the beginning of the

ride, strode down the sidewalk, and got into the front seat of Yakov’s taxi.

“Hey, what’s this?” Yakov said. Then he recognized Bourne and made a scramble for

the Makarov he kept in a homemade sling under the ratty dash.

Bourne pulled his hand away and held him back against the seat while taking

possession of the handgun. He pointed it at Yakov. “Who do you report to?”

Yakov said in a whiny voice, “I challenge you to sit in my seat night after night,

driving around the Garden Ring, crawling endlessly down Tverskaya, being cut out of

fares by kamikaze bombily and make enough to live on.”

“I don’t care why you pimp yourself out to the NSA,” Bourne told him. “I want to

know who you report to.”

Yakov held up his hand. “Listen, listen, I’m from Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan. It’s not so

nice there, who can make a living? So I pack my family and we travel to Russia, the

beating heart of the new federation, where the streets are paved with rubles. But when I

arrive here I am treated like dirt. People in the street spit on my wife. My children are

beaten and called terrible names. And I can’t get a job anywhere in this city. ‘Moscow for

Muscovites,’ that is the refrain I hear over and over. So I take to the bombily because I

have no other choice. But this life, sir, you have no idea how difficult it is. Sometimes

after twelve hours I come home with a hundred rubles, sometimes with nothing. I cannot

be faulted for taking money the Americans offer.

“Russia is corrupt, but Moscow, it’s more than corrupt. There isn’t a word for how bad

things are here. The government is made up of thugs and criminals. The criminals

plunder the natural resources of Russia-oil, natural gas, uranium. Everyone takes, takes,

takes so they can have big foreign cars, a different dyev for every day of the week, a

dacha in Miami Beach. And what’s left for us? Potatoes and beets, if we work eighteen

hours a day and if we’re lucky.”

“I have no animosity toward you,” Bourne said. “You have a right to earn a living.” He

handed Yakov a fistful of dollars.

“I see no one, sir. I swear. Just voices on my cell phone. All moneys come to a post

office box in-”

Bourne carefully placed the muzzle of the Makarov in Yakov’s ear. The cabbie

cringed, turned mournful eyes on Bourne.

“Please, please, sir, what have I done?”

“I saw you outside the Metropolya with the man who tried to kill me.”

Yakov squealed like a skewered rat. “Kill you? I’m employed merely to watch and

report. I have no knowledge about-”

Bourne hit the cabbie. “Stop lying and tell me what I want to know.”

“All right, all right.” Yakov was shaking with fear. “The American who pays me, his

name is Low. Harris Low.”

Bourne made him give a detailed description of Low, then he took Yakov’s cell phone.

“Get out of the car,” he said.

“But sir, I answered all your questions,” Yakov protested. “You’ve taken everything of

mine. What more do you want?”

Bourne leaned across him, opened the door, then shoved him out. “This is a popular

place. Plenty of bombily come and go. You’re a rich man now. Use some of the money I

gave you to get a ride home.”

Sliding behind the wheel he put the Zhig in gear, drove back into the heart of the city.

Harris Low was a dapper man with a pencil mustache. He had the prematurely white

hair and ruddy complexion of many blue-blooded families in the American Northeast.