Robert Ludlum's (TM) The Bourne Initiative (Jason Bourne series)(105)
“You’re sure?”
She barked a laugh. “I was there. His half sister, Alyosha Orlova, is dead as well.”
“You’ve been busy.”
She took another breath. “Two international phone numbers on a Post-it I found on Gora’s boat might be everything you need.”
“Tell me.”
She recited the first number. “There’s a name or a place written after it: Keyre.”
“A name. A Somali arms dealer—he filled the vacuum when the authorities caught up to Victor Bout.”
“That bad.”
“Worse, if that’s possible.” The train had stopped, passengers were disembarking, dragging their luggage. The ones with briefcases were on their mobiles, talking without seeing. “And the second number?”
“No name.” She read off the string of numbers; Bourne memorized them. “That it?”
“One more thing.” He heard her breathing down the line and knew she was working herself up to what was most difficult for her. “Alyosha and Nikolay Rozin were also involved in the Initiative, in a way I can’t yet work out, except that Alyosha’s father was Dimitri Maslov.”
Bourne was stepping onto the platform while talking to Morgana. His mind was working overtime, but at the same time his eyes were quartering the platform and, indeed, the entire expanse of the station in his field of vision. He did this unconsciously, as a matter of course, every detail caught in the web of his gaze.
“Soraya was right about you,” he said. “Let’s keep in touch.”
With that he folded away his sat phone. Mala and Savasin were in front of him, the first minister’s people grouped at the end of the platform, waiting for them. The remaining two guards who had been on the train with him were busy off-loading the corpses of the two who had been killed during the journey.
The crowd of debarking passengers had thinned, a majority of them shying away from the huddled group of FSB operatives with their long coats and grim faces. The grayness of Moscow hung like a pall over the tracks, and the atmosphere was considerably chillier and sharper, as if the station’s HVAC system were pumping out blasts of air imported from Siberia.
Echoes of voices and shoe soles on concrete were dying away like embers losing their inner glow. Steps ahead of him, Mala was taking her time digging a verbal knife between Savasin’s ribs. Four repairmen on an electric cart, laden with substantial toolboxes, plus a well-secured rectangle of tempered glass, passed them by, stopped outside the first class car, then clambered in with the slab of glass. Clearly, they had been alerted by the crew to the damaged window and carpet in the conference cabin.
Farther along, at the mouth of the vast station hall, the FSB gang shifted on their feet. Bourne, who had completed his inventory of passenger faces, turned his full attention toward Savasin’s greeting committee. His penetrating gaze moved from one face to another, and what he saw gave him pause. One would think that they’d been looking around as he had, the better to pick up any potential threats to the first minister. Such was not the case, however. All of them—Bourne counted seven—were staring fixedly at Savasin.
Bourne checked their surroundings. They were almost at the head of the bullet train, which was on their right. To the left, across the platform, the next track was empty. Two other platforms and three tracks extended further in that direction.
Hurrying to catch up with Timur and Mala, Bourne kept his eyes on the FSB men, who had begun to stir in the manner of bees when their hive is invaded by a human hand. A sudden dull flash of metal, and Bourne had caught Mala by the collar, was swinging her around and down onto the platform. The guns were out now, and he pointed to the gap between the Sapsan and the platform. As Mala wriggled herself into the gap, vanishing beneath the train, the first spray of bullets peppered the side of the train nearest Savasin. Whatever passengers remained ran for cover, and the pair of security guards attracted to the gunshots took one look at the perpetrators and, without a word, melted back into the interior of the station.
Grabbing the first minister, Bourne dragged him down to a prone position, slithered into the gap, hauling Timur into it after him. Behind them, the bristling hive was in motion, as coordinated as bees in flight. Four agents raced down to the front of the Sapsan, while the other three peeled off to patrol the platform on the other side of the train. Two men slid down into the gap, following Bourne, while the remaining two paced along the platform, eyes focused on the gap between the Sapsan and the platform for the slightest sign of movement.
Below the gap, where the Sapsan’s narrow undercarriage dwelled, the space widened out, black as pitch, but with room to both hide and maneuver.
Bourne, shadowed and all but invisible, struck the first of the FSB men on the side of the neck, a blow so devastating that the man dropped his Strizh from nerveless fingers. Bourne grabbed him and drew the man into the shadows with him. The second agent made his appearance in the narrow space. When, gun drawn, he crouched down to check out the shadowed area, Bourne shoved his comrade at him. As Bourne had anticipated, the second man shot first and asked questions after. He put a bullet through his comrade’s chest before Bourne, emerging from the darkness, grabbed him by the front of his coat, and slammed the heel of his hand into the man’s nose. Blood fountained; the man reared back right into Mala’s grip. Wrapping her arm around his neck, she twisted hard with her other hand, breaking the man’s neck.