The Bourne Sanction Read Free Page B

into view. He was rather small, stoop-shouldered. Glasses with round lenses were fitted over large, watery eyes. His bronzed scalp, lined and furrowed as pastureland, was without a single hair, but as if to make up for his bald pate his eyebrows were astonishingly thick, arching up over the skin above his eye sockets. He looked like one of those wily Turkish traders from the Levant.
    “Semion Icoupov,” Pyotr said. He coughed. His mouth felt stiff, as if it were stuffed with cotton. He could taste the salt-copper of his own blood, and swallowed heavily. Icoupov could have moved so that Pyotr didn’t have to twist his neck so far in order to keep him in view, but he didn’t. Instead he dropped his gaze to the sheet of heavy paper he’d unrolled. “You know, these architectural plans of my villa are so complete I’m learning things about the building I never knew before. For instance, there is a subbasement below the cellar.” He ran his stubby forefinger along the surface of the plan. “I suppose it would take some doing to break into it now, but who knows, it might prove worthwhile.”
    His head snapped up and he fixed Pyotr with his gaze. “For instance, it would make a perfect place for your incarceration. I’d be assured that not even my closest neighbor would hear you scream.” He smiled, a cue for a terrible focusing of his energies. “And you will scream, Pyotr, this I promise you.” His head swiveled, the beacons of his eyes searching out someone else. “Won’t he, Leonid?”
    Now Arkadin came into Pyotr’s field of view. At once he grabbed Pyotr’s head with one hand, dug into the hinge of his jaw with the other. Pyotr had no choice but to open his mouth. Arkadin checked his teeth one by one. Pyotr knew that he was looking for a false tooth filled with liquid cyanide. A death pill.
    “All his,” Arkadin said as he let go of Pyotr.
    “I’m curious,” Icoupov said. “How in the world did you procure these plans, Pyotr?”
    Pyotr, waiting for the proverbial shoe to drop, said nothing. But all at once he began to shiver so violently his teeth chattered.
    Icoupov signaled to Arkadin, who swaddled Pyotr’s upper body in a thick blanket. Icoupov brought a carved cherry chair to a position facing Pyotr, sat down on it. He continued just as if he hadn’t expected an answer. “I must admit that shows a fair amount of initiative on your part. So the clever boy has grown into a clever young man.”
    Icoupov shrugged. “I’m hardly surprised. But listen to me now, I know who you really are-did you think you could fool me by continually changing your name? The truth of the matter is you’ve prodded open a wasp’s nest, so you shouldn’t be surprised to get stung. And stung and stung and stung.”
    He inclined his upper body toward Pyotr. “However much your father and I despise each other, we grew up together; once we were as close as brothers. So. Out of respect for him, I won’t lie to you, Pyotr. This bold foray of yours won’t end well. In fact, it was doomed from the start. And d’you want to know why? You needn’t answer; of course you do. Your earthly needs betrayed you, Pyotr. That delicious girl you’ve been bedding for the past six months belongs to me. I know you’re thinking that’s not possible. I know you vetted her thoroughly; that’s your MO. I anticipated all your inquiries; I made certain you received the answers you needed to hear.”
    Pyotr, staring into Icoupov’s face, found his teeth chattering again, no matter how tightly he clamped his jaw.
    “Tea, please, Philippe,” Icoupov said to an unseen person. Moments later, a slender young man set an English silver tea service onto a low table at Icoupov’s right hand. Like a favorite uncle, Icoupov went about pouring and sugaring the tea. He put the porcelain cup to Pyotr’s bluish lips, said, “Please drink, Pyotr. It’s for your own good.”
    Pyotr stared implacably at him until Icoupov said, “Ah, yes, I see.”