Borz sat down opposite Bourne. "I'm listening."

"It's getting more difficult to speak, bound like this."

Borz hesitated only a moment. Then he took out a stiletto, cut through the plastic ties binding Bourne to the director's chair. Then he sat back.

"The SAS officer is waiting, Jason."

Bourne rubbed circulation back into his wrists and ankles. "I kept wondering why Irina would willingly bring me to Mik, your vosdushnik. He also made her grandfather's money disappear from one place and appear in another." This was the meaning of the second part of Boris's rebus: Follow the money. "But what no one knew, what Boris discovered, was that Mik was also the sole conduit for the president."

"How could that be?" Borz said. "There would be no plausible deniability."

"There would be if Vasily, Irina's father, was his cutout."

"This is pure fancy. Vasily was killed on orders by the president."

"I think Vasily-and his older son-got greedy. They were skimming." "There are records in there you need to see," Irina had said outside Mik's. "Something terrible has been going on. What I'll make Mik show you will explain everything." This was the shard of memory he had been trying to pull out of the darkness of the rift in his mind. Irina knew her father's real work and, he surmised, so did his wife. That knowledge and the fact that he wouldn't stop had driven her mad. Of course she believed she was possessed by the devil. In her mind Vasily was the devil. "Irina wanted me to see the proof because then I could connect the Sovereign to the scheme he had hatched."

"What has all this got to do with me?"

"Patience, Bobby. The president was using Vasily and Mik to move money around-it became an immense shell game. The money you deposited with Mik was halved-probably halved, anyway-and sent-"

"And you really think I wouldn't know?"

"It's Madoff accounting-voodoo economics. Your money seems to be there, but if you had ever asked Mik for all of it..." Bourne allowed the unspoken end of the sentence to hang in the air, giving the treachery far more weight than if he had voiced it.

Without a word, Borz rose, strode over to a sturdy metal briefcase, opened it, took out a military-grade laptop. He brought it back, opened it, fired it up. The top prevented Bourne from seeing what he was doing. It didn't matter; Bourne knew that Borz was accessing his account.

"There," he said, with a distinct note of triumph in his voice. "It's all there." He looked up. "I knew you were full of shit."

"You must have other accounts elsewhere, Bobby. Transfer that money into one of them."

Borz frowned. "This is a trick of some kind."

"I'm trying to help you, Bobby. Trust me."

"Trust."

"Even though it's not a word in your vocabulary."

Borz considered for a moment, trying to work all the angles, trying and failing to see how Bourne could trick him. His fingers began to dance over the keyboard. "I'm in," he said, almost to himself. "Transfer complete." For long minutes afterward he sat staring at the screen, so still the instant of transfer might have been frozen in time. At length, he sucked in a deep breath, let it out in a hiss. "Half," he said. "It's half of what it should be.

"Fuck!" Borz seemed ready to smash his laptop to pieces. His gaze locked onto Bourne. "Where the fuck did my money go?"

"You know, Bobby. The question has already been asked."

"What question?" And then it dawned on him. "You can't mean that ISIS-"

"Is being funded by the Sovereign with your money. Yes."

Borz jumped up. "This is crazy." He paced back and forth, as if caged, which, in a way, he was. "Why would he do such a thing?"

"It's all part of the shell game," Bourne said. "Misdirection. Make the world look one way-force it to concentrate on ISIS-"

"-while the Russians overwhelm Ukraine, before the West can act."

"The Western powers make decisions about as quickly as the Queen Mary turns around," Bourne said drily. "And, so, two days from now, the first stage of the president's goal of retrieving the territory lost to Russia at the fall of the Soviet Union will be complete."

"At no cost to him." Borz glanced down at his laptop screen as if hoping the figures would have somehow magically changed. Then his eyes flicked back up. "And you can get my money back? How?"

"Bobby, Bobby," Bourne said, "be kind enough to tell me about what happened in Istanbul."

"Kindness doesn't enter into it," Borz replied, slamming down the lid of his laptop.

43.

There will be consequences when you get home," Professor Tambourine said.

Sara shrugged. "There always are."

Tambourine was getting her settled in the cockpit of the humanitarian freight flight outward bound to Koban, the Syrian city on the Turkish border that was under siege by ISIS. The flight was being sent to drop supplies to the embattled Kurds. Tambourine had arranged for Sara to parachute in with the crates, without anyone aboard giving her a second thought.

"I'm afraid this time it's different." The professor looked rueful. "I received a call from the Director wanting to know why you hadn't arrived home with the cadre."

Sara's eyes flashed. "And what did you tell him?"

"Before I had a chance to say anything, he told me he was sending-"

"Don't tell me," Sara said, strapping herself in as the pilot and navigator in the row in front of her went through their final checklist. "He's sending my boss, Dov Liron, to fetch me." She shrugged. "That's been done before."

"It isn't Liron he's sending, Rebeka. It's Ophir."

"Oh dear." Amir Ophir was the head of Metsada, Mossad's Special Branch Ops. Ophir was second-in-command under her father. "That's unfortunate."

"Well, it would have been," Professor Tambourine said with a twinkle in his eye, "if he knew where you were headed."

"Why? What did you tell the Director?"

"That you were no longer in Cairo. That you'd gone to Tunis."

"Tunis? What on earth would I be doing there?"

Tambourine shrugged. "I'm sure I have no idea." He grinned. "I'm just a stringer on this bus."

"From the bottom of my heart, Professor, thank you."

"You're welcome. But when this adventure finally shakes out, I fear it may be the end for the both of us."

Sara winked at him. "I wouldn't count on it."

He gave her a nod of approval. "I have weaponized you to your satisfaction?"

"Completely. You're a whiz, Professor."

"I do what I can."

"Ready," the pilot said. "You'd better leave, R. M. We only have one extra chute, and that's for the young lady."

Professor Tambourine laughed. "Drinks and dinner at Cairo's finest for you and the crew when you return, Richard." Then, rubbing his hands together in his best professorial fashion, he addressed Sara. "Righto. Luck and a stalwart heart, my brava." He gave her the V-for-victory sign just before he left the cockpit and deplaned.

She watched him stride across the tarmac, head held up, back ramrod straight, ready for whatever else the day might bring. There was a spring in his step she hadn't seen before. She promised herself that when she returned to Jerusalem, whatever else happened, she would keep him safe from harm.

Moments later, the tarmac clear, Richard revved the engines to full power. The ailerons were at full lift as the plane taxied down the runway, and, with a great leap upward, punched its way into the burning sky.

- "In those days, I was running guns out of Istanbul," Borz said. "In those days, before the Islamic voice of Turkey rose up, you could run guns with impunity."

"You can still run guns out of Istanbul with impunity," Bourne said. "It's only the officials who've changed, not the policies." He regarded Borz for a moment. It was still disconcerting to be talking to someone who looked like himself. That was the point, he assumed. Borz had demonstrated a keen grasp on human psychology. "So either you weren't running guns or running them was a front for something else."

Borz sat stock-still. Only a piteous moan from the British SAS officer broke the silence that had overlaid the ubiquitous thrum of the electronics. Bourne assumed there must be an immense generator somewhere nearby to power all the equipment. Electricity in a war zone was inconstant at best.

"I can't stand that sniveling," Borz snapped. He pointed to Bourne. "With me."

An armed guard accompanied them for the short walk back to the first building. All the dishes in the center of the table had been cleared.

"Here," Borz said, indicating the chair where El-Amir had sat. "He never did finish his food-so sit. Eat."

Bourne did nothing of the sort. Instead, he sat back, arms folded across his chest, studied Borz through half-closed eyes. "What sort of trade would appeal to a man like you, Bobby? A businessman and a self-professed sociopath."

Borz's fingers gripped the back of the chair opposite Bourne. "High-functioning sociopath."

"Yes, of course." Bourne stared up at the ceiling, then back down to Borz. "You were transshipping young girls."

"How d'you come to that?"

"One, the white slave trade is the most lucrative of all criminal activities. Two-"

"Wait a minute. Why not drugs?"

"You have to be well connected to be in the drug trade in a place like Istanbul, and you were too young for that. Besides, as I was about to say, Istanbul is perfectly situated geographically to transship girls from Eastern Europe into the West, where you'd get top dollar. Plus, being a sociopath, trading in human beings wouldn't bother your conscience in the least. You don't have a conscience."

"Perhaps you should tell this story," Borz said testily. When Bourne made no reply, he continued in an altogether different tone of voice. "You had been inserted into Istanbul to terminate-does the name Dolman strike a spark? No? Well, he was your target, Dolman. I found this out only much later. Too late, I would say.

"I had worked for Dolman briefly before breaking away. Going out on my own wasn't easy. A lot of people died, even more blood was shed before an uneasy detente was established.

"Afterward, I figured out that you had been provided with intel indicating I knew Dolman's operation inside and out. I was impressed from the first time we met by how much of the underground workings of Istanbul you knew."

"And what was your name then, Bobby? Your full name?"

Borz bared his teeth. "The story, Jason. The story is what matters here." He slipped into the chair opposite Bourne. "Not hungry? Well, this story won't help your appetite, this I can guarantee."

"Back to Dolman."

"No. Dolman was only a minor player in this particular drama. Back to you and me. Because that's what it became, back then in Istanbul. You made yourself useful to me, then indispensable. You have that knack."

"What knack?"

"Of being able to insinuate yourself into any situation."

"It's a gift."

"Right." Borz laughed, but it was a sound devoid of pleasure. He leaned forward, placed his elbows on the table. "So the two of us, all those days ago-we became inseparable. My business was never better-the military-grade weapons, anyway. You didn't find out about the...girls...until near the end. That's what I thought, anyway. There came a time, however, when I realized that I was wrong, that you knew about the girls right from the get-go. Your fucking intel was so good."

Borz seemed lost in thought for a moment. Then he went on: "So. There came a time when you had insinuated yourself so deeply into my regime that you felt comfortable bringing up the topic of Dolman. He was my main rival-older than me, more connected, more powerful. I wanted to be like him, and he knew it. He could feel me breathing down his neck. So did you.

"You offered to take him out for me, but, of course, you needed the intel only someone who had been inside his organization could give you. Me. So I gave you everything I had learned while I was working for Dolman: his organizational structure, the people close to him, the ones he trusted, the ones he didn't. Most important of all, I drew a map of the inside of his compound, gave you his schedule. Dolman was a man of habit; those things never change. And armed with all this knowledge, you infiltrated his compound, found him, and killed him."

Borz rose, restless again, came around the table to stand behind Bourne's chair, his hands resting lightly on the top slat, so that Bourne could feel his knuckles across the middle of his shoulders.

His voice grew tight. "What I had never imagined, what you did to me, Jason, was make me the prime suspect in Dolman's murder. You stole my stiletto-a knife that was special to me; Dolman had presented it to me. Everyone knew that knife-they'd all seen it. And you sliced it across Dolman's throat."

Bourne had just enough time to think, The way you sliced open Boris's throat, before Borz coiled his arm around Bourne's own throat, locked him in the hold with the heel of his hand against the nape of Bourne's neck with such force he lifted Bourne out of his seat.

"I...want...my...money...fucker," Borz rasped in his ear.

Instead of resisting, Bourne went with the pull and lift, drawing his knees up to his chest, and somersaulted back over Borz's head. His own head was still locked; worse, the bones of Borz's forearm were virtually crushing his windpipe, cutting off all air.

On the other hand, he was now behind Borz, he had Borz in an awkward and indefensible position, and when he drove his knee into Borz's kidney, Borz grunted, had no choice but to let his grip slip. Bourne drew his fist back to deliver a blow that would crack Borz's lower ribs, but he was held back by Borz's gunman, who put the muzzle of a handgun to the side of his head.

That was a mistake. Bourne slammed into him while, at the same time, his hand shoved the barrel away so that when the gunman fired he almost took the top of Borz's head off. Borz ducked down. His harsh shout of alarm and momentary fear caused his gunman to freeze, not knowing what to do. That was all the opening Bourne required. Driving the edge of his hand into the place between the gunman's neck and shoulder, he ripped the weapon out of his hand, smashed the butt into the back of the man's head. The gunman fell beside Borz, who was trying to rouse himself from his close encounter with the bullet.

Bourne bent, grabbed Borz, hauled him up, struck him a blow on the point of his chin. Borz staggered back, regained his footing, struck back. The blows came so thick and fast they were mere blurs, difficult to defend against. Then Bourne struck Borz with such force that he was sent reeling across the room. From down on one knee, Borz rose, grabbed a chair, smashed it against the wall. One thick leg remained in his first, transformed into a cudgel. He was in the process of launching himself toward Bourne when a mortar shell struck the side of the building, sending everyone and everything flying.

44.