Robert Ludlum's (TM) The Bourne Initiative (Jason Bourne series)(5)
“Moscow.” MacQuerrie gave her a date from last year. “On the occasion of Boris Karpov’s wedding.”
“I see Karpov,” Morgana said. “In the center.”
“D’you recognize anyone else? He has his arm across the shoulders of the man to his immediate right.”
“Yes.”
“Do you recognize that man?”
She leaned closer, zoomed in a bit, but not too much; the images would become too vague to accurately glean features and expressions. “I’m afraid I don’t, Mac.”
The general sighed. “Well, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.”
She felt the whirlpool congeal into an icy ball. She wanted to vomit it up and throw it at Mac. Instead, fighting to keep her cool, she said: “Karpov looks genuinely pleased to be with him. But, as you’ve told me, he didn’t have any close friends in the Russian hierarchy.”
“That’s correct.”
Now she was sure that MacQuerrie was in serious distress; his eyebrows were knit together in a dreadful expression of anxiety.
“That man isn’t a Russian, Morgana. He’s one of ours—or at least he was. You’re looking at Boris Karpov’s best friend, the only one he would trust to continue his operation in the event of his demise.
“The man Karpov is embracing is Jason Bourne.”
2
The Aegean Sea was a pure cobalt blue in the late afternoon sunlight. The boat plowed through the waves, on its way west. Nym, Boris Karpov’s hundred-foot motorboat, whose captain and crew were Greeks and Cypriots, was the only asset of the late FSB general that hadn’t been confiscated by the Russian government following his murder and the death of his new bride. The only reason it hadn’t been confiscated was that Boris had wisely kept the boat in international waters, out of reach of even the Sovereign’s avaricious clutches.
These thoughts were uppermost in Jason Bourne’s mind as he stood amidships, leaning on the polished port railing, staring at the smudge on the horizon that even at this distance he recognized as the island of Skyros. To the northeast and days behind them was the Sea of Marmara and, beyond, Istanbul, where they had briefly anchored to take on supplies, fuel, fresh food, and water. Istanbul was no longer a safe haven for Westerners. And yet he knew so many people in and around the city that he, rather than the captain, did all the bartering.
From Skyros, he had no idea where he would go. At the moment, he was content to be at sea, to feel the salt wind in his hair, to have it cleanse him of Boris’s horrific murder and its exhausting and perilous aftermath. Boris had been involved in a myriad of strategies, initiatives of which neither the Sovereign nor his comrades in the FSB were aware. Perhaps they would all unravel now, or even had already died along with the spymaster who had conceived them. It was a relief not to have to think of tomorrow, of ticking clocks, of countdowns toward one catastrophe or another, of outrunning life or deadly deadlines.
His best friend was gone, had left him the boat as a remembrance. In truth, he had no use for this huge boat. Nevertheless, here he was. It was a matter of honoring both his friendship and Boris’s memory to accept the gift, to use it as he saw fit. Boris trusted him to do that; he had every intention of respecting that trust.
Behind him, too, was the Russian Federation. Last year, he had fallen so deeply into a nest of vipers he’d be quite happy never to set foot in Russia again. All this brooding about the past—the part of it he could remember—was making him melancholy. But what else should he feel? Every time he thought he’d had enough, that he should return to the professorial life of David Webb, the person he had been before the Bourne identity had been imprinted on him by the people running Treadstone, he knew it was useless. He’d tried that—twice, in fact—only to become bored within weeks. He was who he was now. He couldn’t outrun it; senseless to try.
The Nym slowed to quarter speed. Captain Stavros appeared out of the wheelhouse, descended an outside ladder, and approached Bourne. He carried a bottle of chilled vodka, two glasses, and a pepper shaker.
“Berth or anchorage?” he asked in his typical shorthand.
In the days since Bourne had come aboard Nym, the two men had come to know each other, as much as two strangers in close quarters can know each other. They ate their meals together, drank together, afterward exchanged stories about the boat’s former master, for whom Stavros had a deep and abiding affection. Despite his formidable personality, his studied cruelty, Boris had often been astonishingly genial. Despite his dark and brooding Russian soul—or perhaps because of it—he had loved good food, fine drink, and laughter. Lots of laughter, the perfect anodyne for the bleak profession he had carved out for himself.
Boris had felt things deeply, made friends for life, would do anything for those friends. These qualities, mirrored in Bourne, had formed the basis of their abiding friendship. Even though they often found themselves on opposite sides, many were the times they helped each other out, finding common enemies to defeat. Bourne would miss their camaraderie, but he missed the heightened experience of shared danger most of all.
“Anchorage.” Bourne gave him coordinates, and Stavros nodded. He was used to being told the minimum about where his master was headed and why.
Handing Bourne one of the glasses, he gave them both generous pours of the vodka—a very fine Russian brand, Bourne noted. Before they drank, Stavros dotted the surface of the liquor in each glass with pepper. He grinned at Bourne, who returned the expression. This was a silent tribute to Boris, an old-school Russian, if ever there was one. Back in the day you always used pepper before you drank your vodka. Often, the liquor would contain fusel oil, a product of poor distillation; the pepper would bind with the oil, sink it to the bottom of the glass. The word fusel, Bourne knew, was German for “bad liquor.”