powerful siloviks in Russia.
Volkin pulled back as if stung by Bourne’s words. He shot Gala an accusatory glance,
as if Bourne were a scorpion she’d brought into his den. Turning back to Bourne he said,
“Have you any proof of this?”
“Don’t be absurd. However, I can tell you the name of the man I report to: Boris
Illyich Karpov.”
“Is that so?” Volkin produced a Makarov handgun, placed it on his right knee. “If
you’re lying…” He picked up a cell phone he scavenged miraculously from out of the
clutter, and quickly punched in a number. “We have no amateurs here.”
After a moment he said into the phone, “Boris Illyich, I have here with me a man who
claims to be working for you. I would like to put him on the line, yes?”
With a deadpan face, Volkin handed over the cell.
“Boris,” Bourne said, “it’s Jason Bourne.”
“Jason, my good friend!” Karpov’s voice reverberated down the line. “I haven’t seen
you since Reykjavik.”
“It seems like a long time.”
“Too long, I tell you!”
“Where have you been?”
“In Timbuktu.”
“What were you doing in Mali?” Bourne asked.
“Don’t ask, don’t tell.” Karpov laughed. “I understand you’re now working for me.”
“That’s right.”
“My boy, I’ve longed for this day!” Karpov let go with another booming laugh. “We
must toast this moment with vodka, but not tonight, eh? Put that old goat Volkin back on
the line. I assume there’s something you want from him.”
“Correct.”
“He hasn’t believed a word you’ve told him. But I’ll change that. Please memorize my
cell number, then call me when you’re alone. Until we speak again, my good friend.”
“He wants to talk to you,” Bourne said.
“That’s understandable.” Volkin took the cell from Bourne, put it to his ear. Almost
immediately his expression changed. He stared at Bourne, his mouth slightly open. “Yes,
Boris Illyich. Yes, of course. I understand.”
Volkin broke the connection, stared at Bourne for what seemed a long time. At length,
he said, “I’m going to call Dimitri Maslov now. I hope to hell you know what you’re
doing. Otherwise, this is the last time anyone will see you, either alive or dead.”
Twenty-Two
TYRONE WENT immediately into one of the cubicles in the men’s room. Fishing out
the plastic tag Deron had made for him, he clipped it on the outside of his suit jacket, a
suit that looked like the regulation government suits all the other spooks wore here. The
tag identified him as Special Agent Damon Riggs, out of the NSA field office in LA.
Damon Riggs was real enough. The tag came straight from the NSA HR database.
Tyrone flushed the toilet, emerged from the cubicle, smiled frostily at an NSA agent
bent over one of the sinks washing his hands. The agent glanced at Tyrone’s tag, said,
“You’re a long way from home.”
“And in the middle of winter, too.” Tyrone’s voice was strong and firm. “Damn, I miss
goin’ top-down in Santa Monica.”
“I hear you.” The agent dried his hands. “Good luck,” he said as he left.
Tyrone stared at the closed door for a moment, took a deep breath, let it out slowly. So
far, so good. He went out into the hallway, his eyes straight ahead, his stride purposeful.
He passed four or five agents. A couple gave his tag a cursory glance, nodded. The others
ignored him altogether.
“The trick,” Deron had said, “is to look like you belong. Don’t hesitate, be purposeful.
If you look like you know where you’re going, you become part of the scene, no one
notices you.”
Tyrone reached the door without incident. He went past it as two agents, deep in
conversation, passed him. Then, checking both ways, he doubled back. Quickly he took
out what seemed to be an ordinary piece of clear tape, laid it on top of the fingerprint
reader. Checking his watch, he waited until the second hand touched the 12. Then,
holding his breath, he pressed his forefinger onto the tape so that it was flush against the reader. The door opened. He stripped off the tape, slipped inside. The tape contained
LaValle’s fingerprint, which Tyrone had lifted off the back cover of the file while
working the device that slit the security tape. Soraya had engaged LaValle in
conversation as a diversion.
At the bottom of the flight of steps, he paused for a moment. No alarm bells were
going off, no sound of armed security guards coming his way. Kiki’s software program
had done its work. Now the rest was up to him.
He moved swiftly and silently down the rough concrete corridor. Buzzing fluorescent
strips were the only decoration here, casting a sickly glow. He saw no one, heard nothing
beyond the susurrus of machinery.
Snapping on latex gloves he tried each door he came to. Most were locked. The first
one that wasn’t opened into a small cubicle with a viewing window in one wall. Tyrone
had been in enough police precincts to know this was one-way glass. He peered into a
room not much larger than the one he was in. He could make out a metal chair bolted to
the center of the floor, beneath which was a large drain. Affixed to the right-hand wall
was a three-foot-deep trough as long as a man with manacles bolted to each end, above
which was coiled a fire hose. Its nozzle looked enormous in the confines of the small
room. This, Tyrone knew from photos he’d seen, was a waterboarding tank. He snapped
as many photos of it as possible, because there was the proof Soraya needed that the NSA
was enacting illegal and inhuman torture.
Tyrone took photos of everything with the ten-megapixel digital mini camera Soraya
had given him. Given the huge memory of its smart card, it could record six videos of up
to three minutes in duration.
He moved on, knowing he had an extremely limited amount of time. Opening the door
an inch at a time, he determined that the corridor was still deserted. He hurried down it,
checking all the doors he came to. At length, he found himself in another viewing room.
This time, however, he saw a man kneeling beside a table. His arms were drawn back, his
bound hands on the table. A black hood had been pulled down over his head. His attitude
was of a defeated soldier about to be forced to kiss the feet of his conqueror. Tyrone felt a surge of rage run through him such as he’d never felt before. He couldn’t help thinking of
the history of his own people, hunted by rival tribes on the east coast of Africa, sold to
the white man, brought as slaves back to America. All of this terrible history Deron had
made him study, to learn where he came from, to understand what drove the prejudices,
the innate hatreds, all the powerful forces inside him.
With an effort he pulled himself together. This is what they’d been hoping for: proof
that the NSA was subjecting prisoners to illegal forms of torture. Tyrone took a slew of
photos, even a short video before exiting the viewing room.
Once again, he was the only one in the corridor. This concerned him. Surely he would
have heard or seen NSA personnel down here. But there was no sign of anyone.
All at once, he felt a prickling at the back of his neck. He turned, retracing his steps at a half run. His heart pounded, his blood rushed in his ears. With every step he took his
sense of foreboding increased. Then he broke into a full-out sprint.
Luther LaValle looked up from his reading, said ominously, “What kind of game are
you playing, Director?”
Soraya kept herself from starting. “I beg your pardon?”
“I’ve been through these transmission intercepts you claim come from the Black