“Where the hell are Beria and his lackey?” Boris whispered.
Bourne wondered where anyone was. He had no idea how many men Semid Abdul-Qahhar had with him or how heavily armed they were. He looked up and discovered a safe way to find out. The rooms were constructed with thick, hand-hewn beams of fragrant cedar that rose to a height of ten feet, well below the height of the original structure. There was no ceiling to the rooms, simply crossbeams to keep the vertical ones true, and swaths of fabric hung from beam to beam.
He signaled to Boris to go on ahead, then worked his way up one of the beams, finding footholds in the rough wood. The beams were massive six-by-sixes, allowing him to stretch out along them as he crawled from room to room. The fabric was sheer enough to make out figures, their positions in the rooms, and their movement inside them. He saw three of Semid Abdul-Qahhar’s men, one alone in a room, preparing to pray, but no sign of either Rebeka or Semid himself. He knew that she must be as focused on Semid as he was; the men were just a temporary roadblock.
And then, in the fifth room, he saw her. She was with Semid, but there wasn’t anything about the scene he liked.
Boris crept forward on little cat feet, as the poem went, one that he had memorized when he was a boy and repeated to himself each night before he went to bed, as if it were a prayer. Tonight, however, his heart was full of blood; all he could think of was Zachek and Beria. It occurred to him now that his line of work was defined by a chain of affronts and retributions. You just had to pray that you would survive them all… on little cat feet.
He entered a room where a man was kneeling on a prayer rug, his forehead pointing toward Mecca. A short-barreled assault rifle lay at his side. Boris could hear the muttered prayer, words falling like rain from the Arab’s mouth as his torso rose and fell. Boris waited until his forehead touched the rug. Then he stepped silently up to him and, putting all his weight into it, slammed his shoe down on the back of the man’s neck. He heard a series of sharp cracks, like someone puncturing bubble wrap, and the man collapsed.
Scooping up the assault rifle, Boris stepped over the corpse and continued on.
Two men were behind Rebeka. Bourne couldn’t tell whether or not she was aware of them, so he leapt off his perch, crashing down through the fabric. He landed in a crouch. The men turned, and he swung a leg out, catching one of them behind the knees. He went down in a tangle, and Bourne was on him at once with both fists.
Rebeka struck the second man on the side of the head. He staggered back, but managed to raise his assault rifle and fire off a barrage of shots. She went down at his feet, and he lifted the butt of the weapon as if to slam it onto the top of her head, but first she drove her fist into his crotch. As he doubled over, she drew a slender knife from beneath her black cloak and slit open his belly from one side to the other.
Even as his eyes opened wide in shock, she was leapfrogging over him, stretching out to grab the hem of Semid Abdul-Qahhar’s robe. He stumbled but used a wide-bladed dirk to cut away that section of cloth, freeing himself. He ran from the room.
Bourne rose from the floor and sprinted after Rebeka as she followed Semid out of the seraglio rooms and into the synagogue proper.
The moment Boris heard the rapid-fire blasts, he broke into a run. Beria and Zachek, both wielding AK-74 assault rifles, were spread-legged, standing side by side, as they mercilessly mowed down six of Semid Abdul-Qahhar’s men.
Zachek spotted Boris as he ran into the entry space and turned his weapon, firing indiscriminately. Boris retreated behind the doorway through which he had entered. The firing was so blistering he had to wait, crouched, heart hammering, before he could make a reappearance. By that time, only the bodies of the six men remained, twisted and bleeding from multiple wounds. No sign of either Beria or Zachek.
Keeping his rage and frustration in check, he took each room one by one, listening as well as looking. Then he heard another burst of gunfire and headed off to his left. A bullet tore into his left calf as he crossed a threshold. He went down, his left leg collapsing under him, but landed on his right shoulder, tucking it in so that he rolled, coming up onto one knee and returning fire. He nearly took Zachek’s head off, but the little prick pulled back just in time.
Boris moved, even though it pained him and his left ankle almost buckled. It was a good thing he did because Zachek’s head and shoulders popped up as he fired at the spot Boris had just vacated. Swinging his assault rifle around, Boris clipped the corner of the wall behind which Zachek hid. Wood and plaster splinters fountained up, and Boris moved again, this time in the opposite direction, and when Zachek appeared again, firing at the spot where Boris would have been if he had continued in the same direction, Boris drilled Zachek’s left shoulder.
As Zachek fell backward, Boris sprinted directly at him, holding his fire until Zachek came into view. Zachek squeezed the trigger of his AK-74 and more bits of wood and plaster blinded Boris momentarily. Still, he came on, knowing it was fatal to stay in one place.
Clearing his vision, he saw Zachek on the floor. His back was against a wall. Blood streamed from his shattered left shoulder. He was desperately trying to reload his weapon.
Sensing Boris, his head came up and he bared his teeth like a rabid dog. Then he grinned, threw the assault rifle away, and spread his hands.
“I surrender, General. Don’t shoot, I’m unarmed.”
Boris glimpsed the tiny derringer half hidden in Zachek’s right hand. But even if the little prick had been unarmed, Boris knew it wouldn’t have mattered. He pulled the trigger on his assault rifle and Zachek briefly danced like a marionette whose strings were being cut. In a mass of blood, he slipped sideways and his eyes went dark.
Something significant must have happened, Boris thought, because he saw that Beria had now begun his retreat from the synagogue. Boris was intrigued. He deduced that Bourne had somehow altered the situation irretrievably, and that Beria was pragmatic enough to get out while his skin was whole.
That wasn’t going to happen.
Boris caught up with him in the entryway, already littered with six corpses. Beria, in full flight, chose the shortest distance between him and the front door. This route took him between two of the bodies. The instant he skidded in a puddle of blood, Boris, loping from behind at full speed, barreled into him. Something lurched in his left ankle and a javelin of fire scorched up his leg. The bullet from Zachek’s assault rifle had gone completely through his calf, which was good, but the wound was bleeding profusely. The leg needed to be elevated and the wound seen to. Boris’s leg gave way and he went down hard on one knee. A sea of pain swept through him. Beria, only partially recovered, swung the butt of his AK-74 across Boris’s chin, knocking him flat.
Beria aimed the assault rifle, about to pull the trigger when he heard voices echoing suddenly and frighteningly. Unwilling to give away his position by firing, he whipped around and fled the synagogue as fast as his legs would carry him.
Bourne saw Semid Abdul-Qahhar take a swipe at Rebeka with his gleaming dirk. She countered with her thin-bladed knife, then closed with him, slipping inside his defenses, slicing his left cheek from just beneath the eye to the corner of his mouth, which opened wide, but made no sound. He struck her in the side with his fist, then delivered a vicious kick to her ribs, which slammed her against a wall.
He came in hard and fast, leading with the dirk while fumbling beneath his robe with the other hand. Rebeka was defending herself against the stab of the dirk. She evaded it with ease, but only because it was a feint.