According to the professor, Kirsch said he’d rather meet Bourne in a public setting. He
chose the State Museum for Egyptian Art on Hofgartenstrasse, which was housed within
the massive rococo facade of the Wittelsbach Palace. Bourne took a full circuit of the
streets around the palace, checking once more for tags, but he couldn’t recall being in
Munich before. He didn’t have that eerie sense of dйjа vu that meant he had returned to a
place he couldn’t remember. Therefore, he knew local tags would have the advantage of
terrain. There might be a dozen places to hide around the palace that he didn’t know
about.
Shrugging, he entered the museum. The metal detector was staffed by a pair of armed
security guards, who were also setting aside backpacks and picking through handbags.
On either side of the vestibule was a pair of basalt statues of the Egyptian god Horus-a
falcon with a disk of the sun on his forehead-and his mother, Isis. Instead of walking
directly to the exhibits, Bourne turned, stood behind the statue of Horus, watching for ten minutes as people came and went. He noted everyone between twenty-five and fifty,
memorizing their faces. There were seventeen in all.
He then made his way past a female armed guard, into the exhibition halls, where he
found Kirsch precisely where he told Specter he’d be, scrutinizing an ancient carving of a
lion’s head. He recognized Kirsch from the photo Specter had sent him, a snapshot of the
two men standing together on the university campus. The professor’s courier was a wiry
little man with a shiny bald skull and black eyebrows as thick as caterpillars. He had pale blue eyes that darted this way and that as if on gimbals.
Bourne went past him, ostensibly looking at several sarcophagi while using his
peripheral vision to check for any of the seventeen people who’d entered the museum
after him. When no one presented themselves, he retraced his steps.
Kirsch did not turn as Bourne came up beside him, but said, “I know it sounds
ridiculous, but doesn’t this sculpture remind you of something?”
“The Pink Panther,” Bourne said, both because it was the proper code response, and
because the sculpture did look astonishingly like the modern-day cartoon icon.
Kirsch nodded. “Glad you made it without incident.” He handed over the keys to his
apartment, the code for the front door, and detailed directions to it from the museum. He
looked relieved, as if he were handing over his burdensome life rather than his home.
“There are some features of my apartment I want to talk to you about.”
As Kirsch spoke they moved on to a granite sculpture of the kneeling Senenmut, from
the time of the Eighteenth Dynasty.
“The ancient Egyptians knew how to live,” Kirsch observed. “They weren’t afraid of
death. To them, it was just another journey, not to be undertaken lightly, but still they
knew there was something waiting for them after life.” He put his hand out, as if to touch
the statue or perhaps to absorb some of its potency. “Look at this statue. Life still glows within it, thousands of years later. For centuries the Egyptians had no equal.”
“Until they were conquered by the Romans.”
“And yet,” Kirsch said, “it was the Romans who were changed by the Egyptians. A
century after the Ptolemys and Julius Caesar ruled from Alexandria, it was Isis, the
Egyptian goddess of revenge and rebellion, who was worshipped throughout the Roman
Empire. In fact, it’s all too likely that the early Christian Church founders, unable to do away with her or her followers, transmogrified her, stripped her of her war-like nature,
and made from her the perfectly peaceful Virgin Mary.”
“Leonid Arkadin could use a little less Isis and a lot more Virgin Mary,” Bourne
mused.
Kirsch raised his eyebrows. “What do you know of this man?”
“I know a lot of dangerous people are terrified of him.”
“With good reason,” Kirsch said. “The man’s a homicidal maniac. He was born and
raised in Nizhny Tagil, a hotbed of homicidal maniacs.”
“So I’ve heard,” Bourne nodded.
“And there he would have stayed had it not been for Tarkanian.”
Bourne’s ears pricked up. He’d assumed that Maslov had put his man in Tarkanian’s
apartment because that’s where Gala was living. “Wait a minute, what does Tarkanian
have to do with Arkadin?”
“Everything. Without Mischa Tarkanian, Arkadin would never have escaped Nizhny
Tagil. It was Tarkanian who brought him to Moscow.”
“Are they both members of the Black Legion?”
“So I’ve been given to understand,” Kirsch said. “But I’m only an artist; the
clandestine life has given me an ulcer. If I didn’t need the money-I’m a singularly
unsuccessful artist, I’m afraid-I never would have stayed in this long. This was to be my
last favor for Specter.” His eyes continued to dart to the left and right. “Now that Arkadin has murdered Dieter Heinrich, last favor has taken on a new and terrifying meaning.”
Bourne was now on full alert. Specter had assumed that Tarkanian was Black Legion,
and Kirsch just confirmed it. But Maslov had denied Tarkanian’s affiliation with the
terrorist group. Someone was lying.
Bourne was about to ask Kirsch about the discrepancy when out of the corner of his
eye he spotted one of the men who’d come into the museum just after he had. The man
had paused for a moment in the vestibule, as if orienting himself, then strode purposefully off into the exhibition hall.
Because the man was close enough to overhear them in the museum’s hushed
atmosphere, Bourne took Kirsch’s arm. “Come this way,” he said, leading the German
contact into another room, which was dominated by a calcite statue of twins from the
Eighth Dynasty. It was chipped, time-worn, dating from 2390 BC.
Pushing Kirsch behind the statue, Bourne stood like a sentinel, watching the other
man’s movements. The man glanced up, saw that Bourne and Kirsch were no longer at
the statue of Senenmut, and looked casually around.
“Stay here,” Bourne whispered to Kirsch.
“What is it?” There was a slight quaver in Kirsch’s voice, but he looked stalwart
enough. “Is Arkadin here?”
“Whatever happens,” Bourne warned him, “stay put. You’ll be safe until I come get
you.”
As Bourne moved around the far side of the Egyptian twins, the man entered the
gallery. Bourne walked to the side opening and into the room beyond. The man,
sauntering nonchalantly, took a quick look around and, as if seeing nothing of interest,
followed Bourne.
This gallery held a number of high display cases but was dominated by a five-
thousand-year-old stone statue of a woman with half her head sheared off. The antiquity
was staggering, but Bourne had no time to appreciate it. Perhaps because it was toward
the rear of the museum, the room was deserted, save for Bourne and the man, who was
standing between Bourne and the one way in or out of the gallery.
Bourne placed himself behind a two-sided display case with a board in the center on
which were hung small artifacts-sacred blue scarabs and gold jewelry. Because of a
center gap in the board, Bourne could see the man, but the man remained unaware of his
position.
Standing completely still, Bourne waited until the man began to come around the right
side of the display case. Bourne moved quickly to his right, around the opposite side of
the case, and rushed the man.
He shoved him against the wall, but the man maintained his balance. As he took up a
defensive posture he pulled a ceramic knife from a sheath under his armpit, swung it back