"Why? She had everything she could possibly-"

Bourne's expression stopped him dead. "Imagine, Ivan, having you as a grandfather. Imagine feeling stifled by your power, all the things you did for her."

"Isn't that what a grandfather does with his grandchild?"

"Maybe all she wanted, Ivan, was to do those things for herself."

"But she didn't have the wherewithal. She was young. Worse, she was female. In this world-"

"Stop," Bourne said. "Listen to yourself." He leaned forward. "Ivan, Irina was obviously a woman who knew her own mind, who flouted convention. She must have worked hard to devise her own ways of getting what she wanted. And I can imagine she felt the need to be secretive about them to keep you at arm's length, to keep you from continually stepping in, intervening in every decision she made."

Ivan sat back, seemed somehow shrunken by the chair or perhaps by his realization of what Irina had been and of what he had missed at every turn.

He put a hand to his temple. "I failed her. Her death is my fault. She never would have gone near that vosdushnik."

"She would have found Mik no matter what you did or didn't do, Ivan. Your exalted position has affected the way you see the world. You can't manipulate everyone. You're not God."

Ivan glared at Bourne for a moment, his fingers at his temple trembled. "No. No, you're right, Jason." He sighed. "The truth is power disconnects you from the real world. Great power even more so. I've had it for so long that I often forget what life must be like for the little people scurrying around their little lives."

Bourne could have made a comment here but he chose to keep his own counsel.

"So." Ivan picked up his glass, stared into the depths made murky by the semidissolved sugar cubes. "What was she doing with the vosdushnik?"

"I couldn't hazard a guess," Bourne said. "They seemed on intimate terms, but then he tried to kill us both, so who knows?" He paused for a moment. "Unless it had something to do with what her father and brother were into."

Ivan was still staring into his tea, as if he wanted nothing more than to be a million miles away from his granddaughter's death.

"Ivan?"

Volkin finally stirred. When he looked up his eyes were for a moment vacant, dead. "I've lost a son, a grandson, and now Irina. Where does it end?" Then his eyes snapped into focus. "No death happens in a vacuum, Jason. At least not in our world, eh? Like ripples spiraling out from a stone thrown into a lake I think now there are implications to Irina's death." He lapsed back into silence, his concentration as wavering as the dust motes trapped inside their shafts of sunlight.

Bourne sensed this was a crucial moment, felt that if he pushed Ivan now the old man would only push back, and Bourne would get nothing more out of him. He finished his tea and rose.

"I need to get back to Irina's, clean up, change my clothes."

Ivan possibly didn't hear his words but he registered that Bourne was about to leave. He raised a hand. "Hold on." His finger pointed. "Sit back down a moment."

Bourne complied. He'd taken the right course.

Ivan scrubbed his wrinkled forehead with the tips of his fingers. "Forgive me, Jason, I misspoke before. I know exactly why Irina went to Mik."

He placed his hands in his lap, stared at their veiny backs as if they were road maps that could get him to a different destination. "My son and grandson were up to their armpits in shit. Their under-the-table dealings were draining their legitimate business. They were becoming more and more desperate. When I tried to help them, when I discovered what they had gotten themselves into, I backed away. They were in so deep even my associates wouldn't help them."

He looked up suddenly, his eyes enlarged, rheumy. Every year of his life seemed etched on his face. "You already know my position on the Muslims of the Federation. I despise all Chechens. You say some are good, hardworking men and woman. I say they're all a scourge. They won't be content until they have exacted the full measure of revenge for the two wars we waged on them." He raised a hand. "Don't try to dissuade me. I know I'm right."

"Mik and his associates were of interest to me only while they were alive," Bourne said. "I'm interested in only one Chechen: Ivan Borz. He's assumed to be Chechen, but frankly I have my doubts. In any event, Mik moved Borz's money around, but now that lead is in ashes."

"Perhaps not." Ivan laced his fingers over his thin belly. He seemed to have come back from the misty graveyard he had retreated into when Bourne had given him the news of Irina's death. "One thing I did find out-because my grandson told me before the FSB raid-is that the money Mik appropriated out of thin air for Borz was all headed to Cairo."

Where Boris had set up his operation on Borz, Bourne thought.

"I need to get to Cairo yesterday," Bourne said. "Can you get me there?"

- Kidon. A Hebrew word for "bayonet." Used to describe Mossad's elite corps of infiltrators, wet work specialists, the best of the best when it came to combat and silent killing.

Korsolov and Pankin were looking for a Kidon assassin-an exterminating angel. Their best bet was to study the CCTV tapes from Moscow airports and train stations, searching for a face that found a match in the FSB's admittedly incomplete and slightly out-of-date database.

Not that they were alone in the endeavor. The colonel had dragooned upward of a hundred people into the search, and their computer screens were all running hot as they sifted through the constant flow of people coming into the Federation through Moscow, two to a screen to ensure nothing was missed. He had considered sending a contingent to the nearest seaport but, as Pankin was quick to remind him, the Kidon relied on speed-in and out before anyone knew one of theirs had ever been there. That argued against transport by sea. Pankin would have liked to go back to Piotr and his mysterious contact to harness the facial recognition system the Chinese had hijacked from Interpol and the U.S. Feds, but he knew FSB's Kidon database, incomplete though it was, was far better than that of either of the foreign agencies. Mossad was, after all, the Federation's enemy. The FSB's threat assessment directorate had cause to keep track of its agents as best it could.

They had been at it for over four hours when Korsolov pulled Pankin away. They went down the hallway eerily lit by overhead fluorescents, buzzing like angry flies. Korsolov bought them coffee out of one of the vending machines and they drank, leaning against a wall on which was a poster exhorting those within range to take their next vacation in the paradise of Crimea. A bright yellow sun shone down on azure water and a buff-colored beach. A gaily striped umbrella completed the fantasy.

"Captain," Korsolov said, "do you know what a field promotion is?"

"Of course, Colonel."

Korsolov smirked, dug in his pocket, extracting a pair of shiny objects which he pinned on the epaulets of Pankin's tunic, after first removing his captain's insignia. He dropped them into Pankin's cupped palm. "Keep these as a souvenir. Give 'em to your firstborn son, so he'll join the FSB like his father."

"Sir?"

"In recognition of your help in the matter of identifying the perpetrator of General Boris Illyich Karpov's heinous murder, and to celebrate my imminent promotion to general, you have been promoted to colonel. In addition, you are now my adjutant. You'll report to me and to no one else."

"Sir, I don't know what to say."

Before Korsolov could respond, one of his men hurried up. "Sir, I think we have something. Only..."

"Only what?"

"Well..." His man pulled out a digital copy of a photo taken off one of the CCTV cameras in Sheremetyevo. The time stamp was two days ago at 20:08 hours. A female face, half hidden by the head of a passing man, was circled in red grease pencil.

"Who am I looking at?" Korsolov said.

"Maybe no one," his man said. "Maybe a ghost."

Korsolov handed the photo to Pankin. "This face mean anything to you, Colonel?"

Pankin, who during the long night had made it his business to refamiliarize himself with all Mossad personnel in the FSB records directorate, said, "It does. But like this man, I'm a bit puzzled."

Korsolov was rapidly losing patience. "And why is that?"

"Well, hard as it may be to believe, this member of Kidon was knifed to death some three years ago in Mexico City."

"Do we have proof of that, Colonel? I mean incontrovertible proof."

"When it comes to Mossad we are rarely able to dig up incontrovertible proof."

Korsolov's forefinger stabbed out, tapping the red bull's-eye drawn on the surveillance photo. "And yet here is incontrovertible proof that she is still alive." He eyed Pankin, the messenger all but forgotten. "General Karpov's exterminator. What's her name?"

"She's had many over the years, legend on top of legend. By all accounts, she was-excuse me, is-Kidon's best agent." Pankin cleared his throat. "We know her only by her code name: Rebeka."

PART TWO.

Life? It's simple: manipulation through ideological doctrine.

-Ivan Borz

21.

Sara Yadin, known by her code name Rebeka, returned to Israel as Jenny Parker, an Australian national, a historical researcher at the University at Perth, the legend impeccably fabricated by Mossad's Scrivener Directorate.

Jerusalem was under war skies, a seemingly endless occurrence these days. The bleak grayness of Moscow was replaced by a riot of deep, life-affirming earth tones, the spikes and thorns of Russian were replaced by a molten torrent of Hebrew and Arabic, warming her from the inside out. She walked out into the heat, colliding with the scalding sunlight on her face and bare arms, which she nevertheless welcomed as an old and trusted friend.

She took a taxi from the airport, had it drop her off in front of an anonymous, blank-faced office building that housed law firms, import-exporters, and the like. She took an elevator up to the third floor, where a discreet sign announced GOLD JEWELRY. Pushing through the door, she went straight to the glass-topped counter, bought a Star of David identical to the one she had lost and a thin gold chain that was close enough. She paid in cash, fixed the clasp at the nape of her neck, and walked out, feeling the familiar weight of the star against her chest, but plagued by a vague unease nevertheless.

She walked a mile in a circuitous route to make certain she wasn't being followed, then entered the executive offices of Mossad and surrendered herself to the usual scrutiny by the security team whose members she knew by their given names.

Above her head was the motto, "Where there is no guidance, a nation falls, but in an abundance of counselors there is safety," Proverbs 11:14, inscribed in Hebrew into the midnight-blue marble.

The Caesarea division was on the eighth floor of the nine-story building. Another security search was mandatory before she was allowed entry. The Kidon offices were in the rear, a series of windowless rooms, protected from electronic surveillance, monitored around the clock in three shifts of two men and two women each.

She was met by Mossad's director, who welcomed her back with a brief nod and a curt "Well done." He led her along the corridor and through a door that could be opened only by highly restricted iris ID. Beyond was a narrow spiral of steel treads, which they ascended. It gave out onto a tiny landing that was between floors eight and nine. Through another locked door was a suite of rooms the polar opposite of the Kidon offices. In fact, the space, with its modern leather furniture, plush beige carpet, and tasteful but innocuous prints on the walls, looked more like an expensive suite in a five-star hotel.

The Director turned and, as soon as the door to the suite closed behind Sara, grabbed her in a bear hug and kissed her on both cheeks.

"Well done." His voice was warm and affectionate. "Well done, Sara!"

"Thank you, Father."

Eli Yadin released her, and he and his daughter took a step back to assess one another. "Your mission went well," he said.

"It was flawless," she replied.

A shadow crossed his face. "Not entirely."

"What do you mean? My target is dead."

"Of course he is. There's no doubt of that. None whatsoever. Had you not terminated Yasha he would have given Belov-and, eventually, Svetlana Novachenko-"

"Svetlana Karpova."

Eli Yadin regarded his daughter for a moment. "The late General Karpov was not a friend of Israel's. Sara."

"He helped Bourne-and, indirectly, me-in Damascus. Have you forgotten?"

"I forget nothing, daughter. But our mission had been, through Belov, to secretly help Ukraine break away from Russian influence. Now, because of Yasha's treachery, that plan is as dead as he is."

"I will not debate Boris with you," she said tightly. "You implied a problem."

Nodding his shaggy head, he guided her to one of the sofas, poured coffee from a pot on a nearby sideboard, brought the cups over and sat down beside her. "You were made at Sheremetyevo airport." He handed her the coffee, which she accepted but did not drink.

Unconsciously, she fingered the gold star, as if to make sure it was still there. "Who?"

There was a discreet knock on the door, the Director, frowning, said, "Come," and Dov Liron, head of the Caesarea unit, Sara's boss, came in. She rose, shook his hand, then kissed him on both cheeks.

He hoisted a manila folder. "You asked for this as soon as-"

Eli lifted a hand to still him. "Just leave it on the desk, Dov. Thank you."

Liron complied and left without a backward glance. The Director discouraged curiosity inside Mossad headquarters.

"Well, that's the odd part," Eli said, returning to her question. "At first, it seemed as if the interest came from our Chinese enemies. They like to keep tabs on us as best they can." He shrugged. "Though we always manage to be at least one step ahead of them."

He sipped his coffee. "Drink, drink, darling. The breach isn't anything we can't deal with."

Sara eyed him, took a sip, but didn't taste it.

"No, it wasn't the Chinese who spotted you; it was an old enemy of ours that has tapped the Chinese faucet. They must have found some piece of evidence of our presence."

He leaned over, took up three cubes of sugar. "Here. I forgot." He dropped them in her coffee, watched her sip again with no little pleasure. "No, it was the Russians who made you." He sat forward, elbows on knees. "Bottom line, I want you away from here. We have to assume the FSB has traced your flight back here."

"Away from Jerusalem? Where?"

Her father shrugged. "I don't know. The Maldives, maybe. You could use some rest and relaxation. The scuba diving is fantastic, and I know you've been dying to see the reefs. Now's your time."

Before she could reply, his mobile buzzed and he lifted a finger as he answered it, listening for some minutes, then saying, "All right." He disconnected, and rose. "Excuse me a moment, darling. I have a small fire to put out. I won't be a moment."

When she was alone, Sara stared into her coffee. She didn't want to go to the Maldives, even if it was to scuba dive. She did not want to go on vacation; she did not need rest and relaxation. After what happened, the suggestion of a vacation smacked of failure. Her mission in Moscow had been difficult-not technically, though it had involved more than one target, which was unusual enough without the other circumstances involved. It had somehow taken a toll on her emotionally. This was so odd it caused her no small degree of concern. One of the basic elements of Kidon training was to kill quickly, silently, efficiently, and dispassionately. Otherwise, your survival-your basic humanity-was at risk. Involuntarily she shivered, as if the ice that had crept into her bones in Moscow had not yet left her. It was like waking from a dream that, unaccountably, seemed just as real with your eyes open.

Unsettled, she rose, wandered around the suite, until she found herself at her father's desk. There, as if spotlighted, was the manila folder Dov had left, so urgent he had instructions to come at once to the Director's inner sanctum.