"Gone, a long time ago."

"I'm sorry, is she dead?"

Amira shrugged her slender shoulders. "She left to be with cousins in the Gaza Strip. That was the last we heard of her."

"Why did she leave?"

Amira shrugged again. "My father."

"Why didn't she take you with her?"

Amira glared at her. "You know why. He said he'd kill her if she tried to abduct me. That's what he called it, even though I told him I wanted to go. I was severely punished for having an opinion."

Sara glanced over at the houseboat under repair, but she could make out no movement. Short of going over there with a flashlight-which, under the circumstances, was out of the question-she couldn't be sure it was deserted. The motorboat bobbed down below them. There were no small craft anywhere in the vicinity. She turned back to Amira.

"Look, it's really not safe out here."

Amira turned abruptly. "Is there really a price on my head?"

She's putting up a good front, Sara thought, but she's frightened. On the other hand, she could see no upside in lying to her. "Boris's influence was protecting you. Now that he's gone..." She shrugged. "I promised Jason I'd keep you safe." Smiling, she gestured to the open slider. "You don't want to make a liar out of me, do you?"

Amira hesitated for a moment, then stepped quickly back into her living room. Then turned to face Sara as she followed her. "If I'm to believe you, I'm not safe here-or maybe anywhere in Cairo."

"You're safe with me," Sara said.

At that moment, a hail of semiautomatic fire shredded the middle of the front door. In a blur of indistinct movement, the door burst open.

- Aleksandr Volkin, he of so many aliases, had picked up Goga's trail with little difficulty. His grandfather had told him where General Karpov was headquartering his rogue Cairo unit. Now, as he sat in his rental car, waiting to see who emerged from the houseboat he knew had belonged to Karpov's man, Feyd, he could not halt his thoughts from marching backward, could not stop himself from feeling Irina's breath in his ear, her whispered voice sending electric shocks through his thighs and groin. He knew psychology as well as anyone, he knew how susceptible teenagers were to outside influence, and how sexual tendencies are imprinted so deeply on their psyches at that vulnerable age they never stray from them. Because of their teenage intimacies he could never get over Irina; he had never wanted to. She was all he wanted-always and forever.

Now she was gone. Now the void inside him, the lethal blackness, was expanding, taking control. Without her was life worth living? He had asked himself that question innumerable times since his grandfather had confirmed his twin's premonition.

The worst thing was waiting. No, the very worst thing was remaining still. His mind, his body buzzed as if he had plugged himself into a power grid. Too much of him was being pushed to the outer edges by the void's ghastly expansion, doubling and redoubling.

At one point he thought he saw movement in the houseboat under construction to the right of his target area. The movement, caught like a gnat in the periphery of his vision, flickered and was gone so quickly he was unsure he had seen it at all.

He returned to his surveillance of Feyd's houseboat and, long moments later, was rewarded by Goga emerging, crossing to his vehicle. Then Aleksandr went rigid. His chest barely moved as his breathing virtually ceased for the amount of time it took Jason Bourne to step to Goga's car and get in.

35.

Amira shot the first man who came through the door. Her aim was very good; someone-possibly Bourne-had taught her how to shoot. But they came so fast, and used the man she had shot as a shield, she missed the other two men who had burst through.

By that time, Sara had upended the table. Now she pulled Amira down behind it as a hail of bullets were fired at them. They struck the table, making it shudder and jump, as if alive. She poked her CZ 75 SP-01 9mm around the side, squeezed off two impeccable shots that stopped the remaining intruders in their tracks.

She expected more men, a second salvo, more withering this time, but when none came she stuck her head around the side. Three men dead; no sign of more.

"We scared them away!" Amira said from over her shoulder as she surveyed the scene. "They're gone."

They were gone. Now why would that be? Sara wondered. Then as Amira stood up, the short hairs at the nape of her neck stirred, and she knew.

"Come on!" she shouted, grabbing Amira by the hand.

"What? What are you-?"

Sara pushed her urgently through the slider, out onto the deck, bringing them both to the railing where the fairy lights still winked on and off in their gay semaphore.

"Now jump!"

"What?"

Clutching her, Sara lifted her over the rail, let go. As Amira landed on the aft section of the motorboat, she threw herself over the side.

"Keys?"

Amira reached under the console. Sara grabbed the key out of Amira's outstretched hand, started the engine-and thank God it was gassed up and ready to go. In the meantime Amira untied the boat. Sara slammed the engine full out, heading into the center of the river.

"Get down!" she shouted an instant before the houseboat exploded into an vicious fireball, oily black smoke rising from the flames that engulfed what moments before had been Amira's home.

The boat bucked and rocked; the violent thrashing almost dislodged them. Water sloshed over the sides as Sara struggled to keep the boat on course, away from the wreckage. She thought of her times on board her father's sailboat, helping him when a sudden squall overtook them, the sky as black with angry clouds as it was now with choking smoke. The first lesson her father taught her was not to panic, the second to go about securing the boat-keeping the storm directly aft so the boat wouldn't be broadsided as he reefed the sails. Those lessons were key now, because blind instinct would have caused her to steer the boat in a broad arc, and they would have been broadsided by the aftermath. Instead, she put the explosion site directly aft and put the engine full out.

Debris fell like sleet. She felt an intense burning in the center of her back. Then Amira was beating the flames out with her bare hands, scrubbing her palms around in a circle, then ripping away the blackened material so she could stamp out the last embers with the sole of her shoe.

"Amira," Sara said, "are you okay?"

"Physically fine," Amira said breathlessly. "As for the rest, ask me tomorrow or the next day."

Something in her voice caused Sara to turn. That was when she saw the blood.

- The Cairo area west of the Nile is actually Giza. It includes Imbaba, the upscale Mohandiseen, Agouza, and Dokki. Historically, it was centered around Memphis, Egypt's ancient capital, when the Giza area was maintained as sacred pharaonic burial grounds. Nasser's great urban achievement in Giza was to turn the west bank of the Nile into a modern hell of brutish concrete tower blocks, multilane flyovers, and massive shopping centers.

Mohandiseen, the upscale neighborhood, had originally been built for engineers, and was now a mecca for tourists, foreign embassies, as well as duplex apartments of pharaonic scale. This is where Goga drove Bourne.

Beneath a patchwork sky appearing in the first tiny glimmerings of dawn, Goga drove down Gam'et el Duwal el Arabya, known in English as Arab League Boulevard. Ugly high-rises loomed on either side of them. Goga's Jeep was equipped with what appeared to be an outsize radio. From it emanated sporadic bursts of Arabic, chopped into slaw by waves of static.

"We've been monitoring Ivan Borz's intermittent electronic traffic," Goga said. "It's coming from somewhere here in Mohandiseen. We keep vectoring, closing in on the area. We have it down to a radius of six square blocks. Still a lot of buildings to canvas. But we continue to make progress."

None of this was helpful to Bourne's pursuit of Borz.

"Do you know where the Israelis are stationed?" he asked.

"They know where we are, we know where they are. It's a kind of detente; sometimes that happens when we both find ourselves in enemy territory at the same time."

"I want to know where they are." He could have called Sara, of course, but he didn't want to give her more fuel to feed her obsession with Borz. "No," he said, "don't drive me there. Give me directions. I'll go on foot."

"It isn't safe here," Goga protested.

"Alone." Bourne got out of the Jeep the instant Goga pulled over. It was still moving, and he ran a few feet to regain his equilibrium. Then he set off toward the apartment complex where Lev Bin was running the Mossad operation against Borz. He remembered Lev from his previous dealings with Mossad, but he did not know him, so he had only Sara's warning about the agent to go by.

A half hour later, taking a circuitous route along the smoggy canyons of Mohandiseen's streets, he arrived at the building. According to Goga, the Mossad had set up in an apartment on the top floor. Heading around to the rear of the building, he picked the lock on the service entrance door, let himself into the building. In the lobby, he took the elevator up to the top floor, went down the hall to the fire stairs, pushed through the door, and turned, watching the hallway through the wire-mesh glass panel at head height.

He waited, calm, still, patient. He was so fiercely concentrated on his view of the hallway and the elevator door he almost missed the sound. It caught at the very edge of hearing, could almost have been mistaken for one of the multiple noises every building exhales, from foundations shifting in sandy soil to the HVAC recirculating, resetting itself. But it wasn't any of those-it was neither geological nor mechanical in nature.

It was man-made.

Bourne whirled in time to receive a powerful blow to the jaw. As he was slammed back against the fire door, his assailant jabbed with his left hand. Between two curled fingers a wicked-looking push-dagger blade extended like the claw of a tiger.

Bourne allowed the lunge. Rather than shrinking back he stepped into the attack. As the blade of the push-dagger slid past his right side, he struck his assailant in the throat with the heel of his hand, disarmed him as he went down to one knee.

Then he hauled him up, and said in Hebrew: "Tell Lev Bin Jason Bourne is here to see him."

- "How did you know he was one of mine?"

"I've worked with Mossad before," Bourne said. "Standard operating procedure."

"It's depressing when we become predictable," Lev said.

He had wrinkled his nose in disgust when his man had brought Bourne through the door to their quarters. His disgust had made him pugnacious. Or maybe, Bourne thought, that was simply his nature.

"Dangerous, too," he said.

"Don't tell me my business." Lev stood with his hands on his hips. Behind him, three men were hunched over laptops, shortwave receivers, and broadband interceptors. The stink of warm metal and multitasking electronics imprinted the air with the signature of the modern world racing at hyperspeed. The distant buzz of static and the echoes of dismembered words circled over their heads like malcontent spirits.

Lev moved so that he blocked Bourne's view of his people at work. "We should speak in the back room."

"Here will be fine," Bourne said, and when Lev, being contrary, took a step toward the rear of the apartment, told him: "The Russian team knows where you live."

Lev halted, turned back, but with a slight curl to his upper lip, said: "I don't care. I can handle the Russians. All of them are idiots."

"Not these," Bourne said. "They were handpicked by General Karpov himself. They're working a rogue operation, completely off the books."

Lev sniffed, puffed up with his sense of self-superiority. "Only the Americans work that way, not the Russians."

"Boris Karpov doesn't work the way other Russian operatives do."

"Perhaps that's why he's dead."

Now Bourne knew that even Lev, stuck here half a world away, was being kept well informed. That bit of intel was vital to how he would proceed. "Doesn't matter," he said. "The operation was designed to continue with or without the General's leadership. The directives have all been baked in."

Lev shook his head. "And you know this how?"

"Through the Director."

Lev laughed. "Our Director?"

"Eli, yes." Bourne stood his ground. He had dealt with men like Lev Bin before. They subsisted on the slightest sign of hesitation, which they interpreted as fear-in other words, weakness.

"I don't believe you."

"You would say that."

Lev drew out his mobile. "I'll just call him and find out the truth of the matter."

"By all means call him, Lev. But I can guarantee you Eli will not tell you the truth."

Skepticism ruled Lev's face, along with a kind of bewildered amusement. "And why would that be?"

"He's lost confidence in you."

Lev let out a short bark of a laugh, but his mouth had formed into a rictus, tension whitening the corners of his lips. "Ridiculous. He put me in charge of the operation."

"No," Bourne said with a deadly quiet. "He put you in charge of an operation. A decoy for Ivan Borz and the Russians. While he's watching out for you and Karpov's people, Rebeka and I head the real mission."

"Rebeka is in Jerusalem."

"No," Bourne said, relentless. "She's here, with me."

"I would know if she was. As head of the operation it's my right to know."

"Nevertheless, she's here."

Bourne said this with such absolute conviction that, for the first time, he saw fear flicker behind Lev's eyes.

"If what you say is true..." He took a moment, apparently needing a small time-out. "Why are you telling me this?" His tone had altered subtly, concern slipping in front of arrogance.

"I want to get to Ivan Borz before Karpov's people do." Bourne knew he had hooked Lev. What was left was to reel him in slowly and delicately so that he wouldn't escape the hook. "I've talked with Goga-their head of ops. He's the one who drove me into Giza. He would have driven me to your building if I hadn't stopped him."

Lev nodded slowly. "I suppose I owe you a vote of thanks for that."

"Worse for us, Goga's closer to finding Borz than you are. When he gets within shouting distance of Borz he'll kill him on the spot. Eli sent me to prevent that. He wants me to interrogate Borz."

"Why? The fucker deserves to die."

"No question," Bourne said. "But not before he gives up all his identities, all his contacts, all his secrets."

"And you came to me...?"

"I'm asking for your help. This is something only you can do." This appeal was the essence of the con game. You give your mark your confidence. In return, he gives you precisely what you want.

"Explain, please."

"I see your operation here. I have more confidence in you than Eli does. He doesn't have eyes on the ground."