sinking into senility. Still, on this sun-splashed morning, under a cloudless cerulean sky, there were figures walking up and down the beach: young couples hand in hand; mothers
with young children who ran laughing to the waterline, only to run back, screaming with
terror and delight when the surf piled roughly in. An old man sat on a fold-up stool,
smoking a crooked hand-rolled cigar that gave off a stench like the smokestack of a
tannery.
Arkadin parked the car and got out, stretching his body after the long drive.
“He’ll recognize me the moment he sees me,” Devra said, staying put. She described
Heinrich in detail. Just before Arkadin headed down to the beach, she added, “He likes
putting his feet in the water, he says it grounds him.”
Down on the beach it was warm enough that some people had taken off their jackets.
One middle-aged man had stripped to the waist and sat with knees drawn up, arms locked
around them, facing up to the sun like a heliotrope. Kids dug in the sand with yellow
plastic Tweety Bird shovels, poured sand into pink plastic Petunia Pig buckets. One pair
of lovers had stopped at the shoreline, embracing. They kissed passionately.
Arkadin walked on. Just behind them a man stood in the surf. His trousers were rolled
up; his shoes, with socks stuffed into them, had been placed on a high point in the sand
not far away. He was staring out at the water, dotted here and there with tankers, tiny as
LEGOs, inching along the blue horizon.
Devra’s description was not only detailed, it was accurate. The man in the surf was
Heinrich.
The Moskva Bank was housed in an enormous, ornate building that would pass for a
palace in any other city but was run-of-the-mill by Moscow standards. It occupied a
corner of a busy thoroughfare a stone’s throw from Red Square. The streets and
sidewalks were packed with both Muscovites and tourists.
It was just before 9 AM. Bourne had been walking around the area for the last twenty
minutes, checking for surveillance. That he hadn’t spotted any didn’t mean the bank
wasn’t being watched. He’d glimpsed a number of police cars cruising the snow-covered
streets, more than usual, perhaps.
As he walked along a street close to the bank, he saw another police cruiser, this one
with its light flashing. Stepping back into a shop doorway, he watched as it sped by.
Halfway down the block it stopped behind a double-parked car. It sat there for a moment,
then the two policemen got out of their cruiser, swaggered over to the vehicle.
Bourne took the opportunity to walk down the crowded sidewalk. People were
wrapped and bundled, swaddled like children. Breath came out of their mouths and noses
in cloud-like bursts as they hurried along with hunched shoulders and bent backs. As
Bourne came abreast of the cruiser, he dipped down and glanced in the window. There he
saw his face staring up at him from a tear sheet that had obviously been distributed to
every cop in Moscow. According to the accompanying text he was wanted for the murder
of an American government official.
Bourne walked quickly in the opposite direction, disappearing around a corner before
the cops had a chance to return to their car.
He phoned Gala, who was parked in Yakov’s battered Zhig three blocks away awaiting
his signal. After his call, she pulled out into traffic, made a right, then another. As they had surmised, it was slow going, the morning traffic sluggish.
She checked her watch, saw she needed to give Bourne another ninety seconds. As she
approached the intersection near the bank, she used the time to pick a likely target. A
shiny Zil limousine, not a speck of snow on its hood or roof, was heading slowly toward
the intersection at right angles to her.
At the appointed time she accelerated forward. The bombila’s tires, which she and
Bourne had checked when they’d returned to Lorraine’s, were nearly bald, their treads
worn down to a nub. Gala braked much too hard and the Zhig shrieked as the brakes
locked, the old tires skidding along the icy street until its grille struck the front fender of the Zil limo.
All traffic came to a screeching halt, horns blared, pedestrians detoured from their
appointed rounds, drawn by the spectacle. Within thirty seconds three police cruisers had
converged on the site of the accident.
As the chaos mounted, Bourne slipped through the revolving door into the ornate lobby
of the Moskva Bank. He immediately crossed the marble floor, passing under one of the
three huge gilt chandeliers that hung from the vaulted ceiling high above. The effect of
the room was to diminish human size, and the experience was not unlike visiting a dead
relative in his marble niche.
There was a low banquette two-thirds of the way across the vast room, behind which
sat a row of drones, their heads bent over their work. Before approaching, Bourne
checked everyone inside the bank for suspicious behavior. He produced Popov’s
passport, then wrote down the number of the safe-deposit box on a small pad kept for that
specific purpose.
The woman glanced at him, took his passport and the slip of paper, which she ripped
off the pad. Locking her drawer, she told Bourne to wait. He watched her walk over to
the rank of supervisors and managers, who sat in rows behind identical wooden desks,
and present Bourne’s documentation. The manager checked the number against his
master list of safe-deposit boxes, then he checked the passport. He hesitated, then reached for the phone, but when he noticed Bourne staring at him, he returned to receiver to its
cradle. He said something to the woman clerk, then rose and came over to where Bourne
stood.
“Mr. Popov.” He handed back the passport. “Vasily Legev, at your service.” He was an
oily Muscovite who continually scrubbed his palms together as if his hands had been
somewhere he’d rather not reveal. His smile seemed as genuine as a three-dollar bill.
Opening a door in the banquette, he ushered Bourne through. “It will be my pleasure to
escort you to our vault.”
He led Bourne to the rear of the room. A discreet door opened onto a hushed carpeted
corridor with a row of square columns on either side. Bad reproductions of famous
landscape paintings hung on the walls. Bourne could hear the muted sounds of phones
ringing, computer operators inputting information or writing letters. The vault was
directly ahead, its massive door open; to the left a set of marble stairs swept upward.
Vasily Legev showed Bourne through the circular opening and into the vault. The
hinges of the door looked to be two feet long and as thick around as Bourne’s biceps.
Inside was a rectangular room filled floor-to-ceiling with metal boxes, only the fronts of
which could be seen.
They went over to Bourne’s box number. There were two locks, two keyholes. Vasily
Legev inserted his key in the left-hand lock, Bourne inserted his into the right-hand lock.
The two men turned their keys at the same time, and the box was free to be pulled out of
its niche. Vasily Legev brought the box to one of a number of small viewing rooms. He
set it down on a ledge, nodded to Bourne, then left, pulling the privacy curtain behind
him.
Bourne didn’t bother sitting. Opening the box, he discovered a great deal of money in
American dollars, euros, Swiss francs, and a number of other currencies. He pocketed ten
thousand Swiss francs, along with some dollars and euros, before he closed the box,
pulled aside the curtain, and emerged into the vault proper.
Vasily Legev was nowhere to be seen, but two plainclothes cops had placed
themselves between Bourne and the doorway to the vault. One of them aimed a Makarov