Robert Ludlum's (TM) The Bourne Initiative (Jason Bourne series)(95)

“Stay away from her,” Stubby said in no uncertain terms.

The tall agent tore his gaze from Mala to look at Stubby. He opened his mouth, as if about to say something, but at the last moment apparently decided against it, bit his lip instead.

“I’m going to get him,” Stubby said. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

Taller snickered again. When Stubby was gone, he waved the Strizh in Mala’s general direction. “What’s her story?”

“What’s yours?” Bourne said.

He swung the pistol toward Bourne’s knees. “Don’t make me, shithead.”

He sidled around so as to keep his eye on Bourne while he approached Mala. “She a good fuck?”

“Better than your mother.”

Taller’s neck and face went beet red. When the color reached his hairline, he touched Mala’s foot tentatively with one of his steel-toed shoes.

“I told you not to wake her,” Bourne said.

“Who gives a fuck what you say!” Taller drew back his foot and kicked Mala’s ankle hard.

Before he knew what was happening, she had swiveled her hips, cocked her left leg and lashed out with a mighty kick to his solar plexus.

Taller made a guttural sound like an animal going to the slaughter. Bourne caught him around the neck, swung him into the table.

“Ack!” Taller exclaimed, even while he jammed his elbow into Bourne’s side.

Mala grabbed the pistol out of his grip, but the men were so tightly wound together she couldn’t aim properly.

“Don’t!” Bourne shouted. “The shot will only bring more FSB.”

Then he was too busy dealing with Taller, who had managed to reverse their positions. Now he slammed Bourne against the compartment wall, jammed the heel of his hand under Bourne’s chin, pushing upward. Then, using all his weight, he body-slammed Bourne against the wall, over and over. Mala, reversing the pistol, brought the butt down on the back of his head, but he seemed unfazed.

Bourne brought his hands in, used his thumbs to dig into the bundles of nerves just below and behind Taller’s ears. That the FSB agent felt. Grabbing him by the front of his jacket, Bourne turned him, rammed his head against the window with such force the glass shattered. Still, Taller wouldn’t give up. His hands sought Bourne’s neck, his red-rimmed eyes blazed with fury, but when Bourne pressed down on him, the jagged shards of glass punctured the back of his neck. One of them severed the third cervical vertebra from the fourth, and Taller was done. His hands dropped away and all the fire vanished from his eyes as his body went slack.

Before Bourne and Mala had a chance to exchange a word, the compartment door opened and Stubby entered, his right arm holding his Strizh straight out in front of him. Before he had a chance to take in the scene, Mala had stepped forward, wrapped one arm around his, and broke it at the elbow.

Stubby gave a yelp, dropped to his knees. Bourne stepped toward him and Mala aimed Taller’s pistol at whoever came through the door next.

“That’s enough,” First Minister Timur Savasin said. He brushed past Stubby without giving him so much as a glance.

“Is it,” Mala said rhetorically. She kept the Strizh aimed at Savasin’s head. “I don’t think so.”

Savasin raised his hands, open palms toward them. “I come in peace,” he said.

“That’s a sick joke,” Mala said, indicating the two agents.

“You certainly did a number on them.” He was looking at Bourne, seeking to engage him directly, rather than through his companion, whose identity was a mystery to him. “I apologize for any inconvenience their, um, overzealousness caused you.”

“As you can see, the inconvenience was all theirs.”

Savasin shrugged. “They’re replaceable, I assure you.”

“So it goes in the Russian Federation,” Mala said.

“Mr. Bourne, since I have no dominion in this compartment, would you be so kind as to ask your companion to lower her gun. This conversation will be somewhat more difficult with a Strizh pointed at my head.”

“In a moment, perhaps,” Bourne said. “I want to know what the hell this is all about.”

“I confess it’s a long story,” Savasin said.

“I’ll bet,” Mala said, ignoring Bourne’s silent signal to desist.

“Tell me who you are,” Bourne said.

“You know very well who I am.”

“Even if I do, I want to hear it from your own lips.”

“Timur Ludmirovich Savasin, First Minister, Russian Federation.”

Bourne crossed to the sofa, sat down on it. “For days now this woman and I have been hunted by spetsnaz. On whose orders? Yours?”

“That was a mistake.”

“Really?” Mala said. “Jason, let me put a bullet in this lying bastard’s brain.”

“She’ll do it, Timur Ludmirovich,” Bourne said. “Killing is like breathing to her.”

Savasin licked his lips. “Who is she, Mr. Bourne?”

“The Angelmaker,” Mala said.

Savasin started. “I thought the Angelmaker was a bit of fiction, a fairy tale made up by certain people to frighten their competitors.”

“If killing them was frightening them,” Mala said, “then that’s what they did.”