A corner of her mouth twitched up. A dusting of freckles arced across the bridge of her nose. He hadn't noticed them before, but then he hadn't really been looking.

"So tell me how you knew-about the scar, I mean."

"I've seen one very much like it."

"Really?"

"Really."

"Where?"

"On a woman."

"No, I mean where in the world."

"In Somalia."

There was still the ghost of a smile on her lips. "What? Pirates, I suppose."

"Pirates, slave traders, terrorists, call them what you will. She was a girl, actually. She looked twelve or thirteen, but with children who have been so abused it's difficult to tell their real age."

When she turned to him her smile had vanished. Her eyes were on him, and they were very still. "And you saw this girl? With the same scar as mine?"

"The wound at her hip was dark and swollen. It hadn't completely closed over yet. There were droplets of blood around the edges."

A certain vibration had sprung up between them, a quivering in the air, as of a swarm of soundless insects.

"And?"

"And then," Bourne said, "I disappeared her."

- First Minister Timur Savasin, lounging in the shadows of his hotel room terrace, watched the couple stand with their backs to him as they gazed out to sea. They seemed close as lovers. He felt no jealousy seeing the Angelmaker with Jason Bourne, only a keen anticipation. It seemed to him now that tomorrow was the culmination of a fated life. He was overcome with the sensation, not of dej vu but of the opposite: that he was meant to be here now, at this very moment, on the shore of Cyprus, watching the creature of his design and Bourne, close enough to have sex or to kill each other. She had taken only the briefest glance at the photo of Bourne, but that was all she needed. She had a knack for taking in entire subjects in the blink of an eye and never forgetting them. Keeping an image from a photo in her head was child's play. Now here they were together. However she had handled the first contact, she had succeeded. He would have been stunned if she had failed.

A frisson of presentiment passed through him then, like a chill ribbon invading a tropical ocean's warm current. With startling clarity, he recalled the Angelmaker telling him that death was in their room with them. Idiotic as that had sounded to him then, he thought he felt death's presence now, as, like him, it watched, godlike from above, its two principal objects of affection.

Time to make some calls. Digging out his mobile, he dialed the first of two local numbers.

- "And this girl, this refugee from Somali pirates," the Angelmaker said, "where is she now?"

Bourne's gaze remained fixed on the lights at sea. "Wouldn't it be strange if she were standing here beside me?"

"I don't believe in coincidences," she said dismissively.

"Neither," Bourne said, "do I."

She looked at him again with that curious sideways glance. "What are you implying?" When he remained silent, she said, "Do you know how many complex factors would have to align in order for me to be that girl?"

"A thousand angels dancing on the head of a pin." Into the silence that now arose between them, he said, "You recognized me, Mala. I have no doubt about that. The question is, why are you here at the same time as me?"

"I'm not that girl anymore."

"No one is the same."

"You are." Her dress swirled around her ankles like a sail. "And for the record, I was a good deal older than I looked."

"That's disturbing." He shifted in the sand. "You've learned a great deal in the interim."

"I am wiser as well as older."

"Mala," he said, "when are we going to stop playing this game?"

"Why stop something that's so pleasurable?"

He saw the wisp of a smile play across her lips. Then it was gone. "There's only one reason why you're here now," he said. "You're working for the Russians."

"I work for myself."

"A very specific Russian."

"Who could that be?"

"Tomorrow is zero hour," he said.

"Zero hour? That means nothing to me."

"You know."

"But I don't."

Bourne knew there were many ways to lie; there was only one way to express true ignorance. "Tomorrow-in nineteen hours, to be exact-the Sovereign is going to order his troops into Ukraine for a full-on invasion."

"You're hallucinating."

"He's been arming ISIS, fueling their advance as a distraction for the Western powers."

"How could he do that?" she said. "Even the Sovereign couldn't come up with such a plan. Besides, the committee that runs Bank Rossiya wouldn't-"

"But he did," Bourne said. So she wasn't working for the Sovereign. Who then? First Minister Timur Savasin. "He bypassed even his inner circle at Bank Rossiya. The money is in a secret account at the Omega and Gulf Bank, which he owns." He turned his head, studying her profile. She was already a beautiful girl when he had come upon her in the Somali camp. But, as a young woman, how she had flowered open.

"You're making this up. The Western powers would never allow such a thing."

"The EU derives eighty percent of its natural gas from Russia. It's getting on toward winter. What do you think will happen when the Sovereign turns off the tap, leaving millions of people shivering in the dark?"

She crossed her arms over her chest.

"In Somalia, after I liberated you, after I shot dead the creature who had marked you over and over as his possession, his slave, his chattel, do you remember what you said to me? How you survived those long months?"

Nothing from her. Nothing at all.

"You told me that you became expert at deluding yourself. You convinced yourself that you were somewhere else, that you were someone else. 'I would have gone insane.' Those were your exact words. That iron will was ingenious, admirable, but now it has worked against you. I was wrong-some people don't change. What is different here than it was in Somalia? You have traded one master for another."

He moved so that he was facing her, his back to the rolling sea and its mysterious winking lights neither of them could decipher. "Mala," he said, "Russia is going to war. It's going to invade Ukraine. You know the Sovereign's stated claim on Eastern Europe. The populace of the West cares very little about what happens to Ukraine-think of the dithering and nonresponse when Russia took over the Crimea. Most people in the West don't even know Estonia exists, let alone want to risk lives to save it. Unless the plan is stopped now, before it begins, how long after Russia absorbs Ukraine do you think it will take before the new Union of Soviet Socialist Republics invades Estonia?"

56.

Sara rose from delta sleep chased by dreams that had latterly insinuated themselves into her sleep, as if her unconscious was preparing her to leave the delicious nothingness in which she floated.

"Rebeka!"

Her eyes snapped open, she found herself looking up at Dov.

"Are you awake?"

"What d'you think?" she said crossly, because her head was still muzzy.

"The private jet belongs to Abdul Aziz, a businessman from-"

"Istanbul," she finished for him. That had snapped her to full consciousness.

"You know him?"

"He's a friend of Bourne's."

"Well, I hope he doesn't end up like Bourne's other friend, General Karpov."

She sat up. "You knew about that?"

"It didn't make us happy."

Her vertigo seemed to be gone. "D'you have more?"

"God, yes. A whole lot more. And very fast transport standing by for you."

"Is it stocked with food?"

He laughed. "Yes."

She stood. "Fill me in while we board. Suddenly, I'm ravenous."

- "When do you want me to kill him?" the Angelmaker said when she returned to their room.

Timur Savasin had ordered room service: a pink saddle of lamb, grilled vegetables, halloumi cheese, and loukaniko sausage. Out of respect, he had ordered her a salad as well, something he detested.

She sat down opposite at the laden table in the sitting area of their suite and began to serve herself. "Tonight would be good."

"Very possibly."

"In his sleep. Moonlight stealing into the room. Very romantic. I'd like that. All romance ends in death."

"So that's what you started?" he said neutrally. "A romance?"

"Christ, no." She laughed, showing small white teeth. "I was using a figure of speech."

"Very poetic."

The hint of an electric current in his voice caused her to glance up, between transferring a spoonful of artichokes, carrots, and onions to her plate.

"FM, you aren't jealous, are you?"

"I've no idea what you're talking about."

Smiling slyly, she speared a chunk of lamb on the tines of her fork. "I'll say this for you, FM, you do love your meat." She popped the morsel in her mouth, chewed slowly and lasciviously, swallowed. "Human and otherwise."

Pushing back his chair, he crossed to the sideboard where the three bottles of premium-grade vodka he had ordered each stood in the center of its own sweating ice bucket. He poured himself a shot, downed it with a violent backward thrust of his head, sloshed in a triple. Turning around, he watched her eat with slow, methodical precision; he'd never seen her wolf her food.

She lifted a shapely arm. "Come. Sit. Eat your meats." She speared a sausage. "They're really rather wonderful."

He took a sip or two of his vodka, strolled back across the room, and, moving his chair, sat down beside her. Taking up a fork, he began to eat from her plate.

"Here's the table leg." She tapped it with a forefinger. "Why don't you piss on that, too?"

He grunted. "No worries there. I've already marked my territory." He chomped down on a sausage. "Many times." He chewed slowly, thoughtfully. "So you've bonded yourself to him."

"I've bonded him to me."

"By giving him your confidence."

"The foundation of all con games. That's right."

"And he bought it-your confidence."

"I believe so."

"This is not just any mark. This is Jason Bourne."

"I know who he is, FM," she said levelly. "What eludes me is your intense antipathy toward him."

"He and Boris Karpov were close friends. I don't need any more incentive."

"But you do have more."