Robert Ludlum's (TM) The Bourne Initiative (Jason Bourne series)(107)
Bourne turned, and so did Ivan, gaping at two more figures clambering through the opening. One was the woman with the feral smile. The other was a figure out of the newspapers and state TV. Ivan goggled. It couldn’t be!
And yet Fyodor Ilianovich confirmed his tentative identification. “May I introduce Timur Ludmirovich Savasin, First Minister of the Russian Federation. First Minister, this is Ivan Ivanovich, an upright citizen, and I trust a patriot, of the Russian Federation.”
If I didn’t see it with my own eyes, Ivan thought, I wouldn’t believe it. What on earth is the First Minister doing climbing through the window of my carriage?
“Of course, of course!” Ivan said, coming out of his brief stasis. It was totally lost on him that no one bothered to introduce the woman with the feral smile. In point of fact, he was relieved. “Of course a patriot, First Minister.”
“Ivan Ivanovich, it is an honor to meet a true patriot of Mother Russia such as yourself,” Savasin said in his most formal voice.
Ivan all but passed out. To his utter chagrin, he was sweating profusely. “The honor is all mine, First Minister, I assure you.”
Savasin smiled. “I—we—need your help.”
“Anything, First Minister,” Ivan said. “I am entirely at your service.”
—
And so it was that Ivan Ivanovich, nearing the end of the line, experienced the greatest day of his life—notwithstanding it being an experience he swore never to tell anyone, not even his wife and three sons. Twenty minutes after they had crawled through his window he was leading the first minister, Fyodor, and the woman with the feral smile out of the first class carriage and into the electric cart. All of them were wearing train yard workman’s uniforms and caps, stripped off Fools One, Two, and Three, who had been bound and gagged virtually naked, and thrust into the bathroom, under his benign and—he had to admit it!—amused gaze. Ivan locked them in himself with his master key that opened every door on every train and in the train yard itself. After thirty years on the job, he had amassed any number of privileges.
One of the trio, he could not tell which, but he imagined it to be the woman with the feral smile, glanced behind them, where five men in trench coats, holding pistols in their hands, frowning deeply like old men at a comrade’s funeral, stood on the platform, discussing God alone knew what. Ivan did not want to know, just as he did not want to know the nature of the first minister’s current difficulty. His heart was filled with the opportunity—call it a gift!—he had been given to do his duty as a citizen and—his chest swelled with pride at the thought—as a patriot. He had never in his life felt more Russian, not when he had gotten married, not during the occasions of the births of his three sons, nor the wedding of the eldest. These were all beautiful moments in a man’s life, to be sure, but they were shared by almost every man. But this moment, this one was special. It was unique in his life—shared with no other. Only Ivan Ivanovich. And he would remember it and bask in its glory until his last dying breath.
—
“Come see me when this is all over,” Savasin told the old man as he let them off on the far side of the train yard, a place so vast the station itself was barely a smudge on the near horizon. Ivan Ivanovich smiled shyly, brushed some soot off the first minister’s lapel, and gave them a military salute. And that was how Bourne, Savasin, and the Angelmaker left him.
They made their way through a gap in the cyclone fence the old man had pointed out to them. Daylight was dying, the last glimmers of sun sparking off the tops of Moscow’s tallest buildings, turning them to molten gold. A strong north wind had sprung up, sending the temperatures plummeting by at least ten degrees. Scattered clouds rushed by overhead, except for a gathering in the west, like birds seeking out the last rays of the sun before Moscow slipped into darkness.
Across a narrow service road a municipal parking lot spread out like an old lady with too much weight. And like that old lady, the tarmac was cracked and pockmarked by time and harsh weather.
It took them some time to find a car they could break into. Muscovites still maintained the habit of taking their steering wheels with them when they parked, to ensure their vehicles would still be there when they returned. But at last Bourne found one intact, broke in, and hot-wired the starter. Savasin climbed into the passenger’s seat and, without a word of protest, the Angelmaker occupied the backseat. It was the first minister who knew Dima’s new address and the best route to get them there unnoticed. They did not speak about the incident at Leningradsky Station. Savasin was sunk in gloom. Bourne felt it best not to disturb him, and the Angelmaker, uncharacteristically, refrained from mocking Savasin’s humiliation. Seeing with their own eyes how his own FSB had been turned against him, acting on orders from an older brother who, though in an inferior post, somehow wielded more power than he did seemed punishment enough.
40
Only two dead?” Konstantin’s glance bounced off the pair of corpses lying on the Sapsan platform of Leningradsky Station and up to the remaining five men. “Bourne must be losing his touch.”
“Two dead is an unacceptable number, sir,” Viktor, the leader of the spetsnaz squad, said. “These are my people.”
Konstantin’s eyes glittered, and his voice crackled with harsh energy. “No, Captain, you and everyone else in the FSB are my people. Never forget that.”