The Bourne Dominion Read Free Page B

comfort your loved ones, nothing, in fact, to mark your time on this earth.”
    “I swear undying loyalty to you, General Karpov, on this you can rely.”
    Georgy spat, “Traitor! I’ll tear you limb from limb.”
    Karpov ignored the outburst. “Words, Anton Fedarovich,” he said.
    “What must I do, then?”
    Karpov shrugged. “If I have to tell you, there’s no point, is there?”
    Anton appeared to consider a moment. “Untie me then.”
    “If I untie you, then what?”
    “Then,” Anton said, “we will get to the point.”
    “Immediately?”
    “Without a doubt.”
    Karpov nodded and, moving around behind the two, untied Anton’s wrists and ankles. Anton stood up. He was careful not to rub the rawness of his wrists. He held out his right hand. Karpov stared fixedly into his eyes, then, after a moment, he presented his Makarov butt-first.
    “Shoot him!” Georgy cried. “Shoot
him
, not me, you fool!”
    Anton took the pistol and shot Georgy twice in the face.
    Karpov looked on without expression. “And now how shall we dispose of the body?” This was said in the manner of an oral exam, a final, the culmination, or perhaps the first step in indoctrination.
    Anton was as careful with his answer as he was thoughtful. “The chain saw was for the other. This man… this man deserves nothing, less than nothing.” He stared down at the drain, which looked like the maw of a monstrous beast. “I wonder,” he said, “have you any strong acid?”
    F orty minutes later, under bright sunshine and a perfectly blue sky, Karpov, on his way to brief President Imov on his progress, received the briefest of text messages. “Border.”
    “Ramenskoye,” Karpov said to his driver, referring to Moscow’s main military airport, where a plane, fueled and fully manned, was always at his disposal. The driver made a U-turn as soon as traffic allowed, and stepped on the accelerator.
    T he moment Karpov presented his credentials to the military immigration official at Ramenskoye, a man so slight Boris at first mistook him for a teenager stepped out of the shadows. He wore a plain dark suit, a bad tie, and scuffed, dusty shoes. There was not an ounce of fat on him; it was as if his muscles were welded into one lithe machine. It was as if he’d honed his body for use as a weapon.
    “General Karpov.” He did not offer his hand or any form of greeting. “My name is Zachek.” He offered neither a first name nor a patronymic.
    “What?” Karpov said. “Like Paladin?”
    Zachek’s long, ax-like face registered nothing. “Who’s Paladin?” Hesnatched Karpov’s passport from the soldier. “Please come with me, General.”
    Turning his back, he started off across the floor and, because he had Karpov’s credentials, Boris, quietly seething, was obliged to follow him. Zachek led him down a sporadically lit corridor that smelled of boiled cabbage and carbolic, through an unmarked door, and into a small, windowless interrogation room. It contained a table bolted to the floor and two blue molded-plastic folding chairs. Incongruously, there was a beautiful brass samovar on the table, along with two glasses, spoons, and a small brass bowl of white and brown sugar cubes.
    “Please sit,” Zachek said. “Make yourself at home.”
    Karpov ignored him. “I’m the head of FSB-2.”
    “I’m aware of who you are, General.”
    “Who the hell are you?”
    Zachek pulled a laminated folder out of the breast pocket of his suit jacket and opened it. Karpov was forced to take several steps closer in order to read it. SLUZHBA VNESHNEY RAZVEDKI . He reared back. This man was head of the counter-insurgency directorate at SVR, the Russian Federation equivalent of the American Central Intelligence. Strictly speaking, FSB and FSB-2 were confined to domestic matters, though Cherkesov had expanded his agency’s mandate overseas without generating any blowback. Was that what this interview was about, FSB-2 encroaching on SVR’s territory?