Bourne 4 - The Bourne Legacy (34 page)

Spalko and Zina entered the vestibule at the same moment his men crashed through the back door. The mercenary in the kitchen dropped his coffee cup, drew his weapon and wounded one of Spalko's men before he, too, was shot dead.

Nodding to Zina, Spalko took the stairs three at a time.

Zina had reacted to the shots coming through the bathroom door by ordering one of Spalko's men out the back door. She ordered another of Spalko's team to break down the door. This he did quickly and efficiently. No gunfire greeted them as they burst into the bathroom. Instead, they saw the window out which the mercenary had crawled. Zina had anticipated this possibility, hence her sending a man out the back. A moment later she heard the telltale
thwok!
of the bolt being loosed, followed by a heavy grunt.

Upstairs, Spalko went from room to room in a crouch. The first bedroom was empty and he moved to the second. As he passed the bed, he caught a movement in the wall mirror above the dresser to his left. Something moved under the bed. At once, he dropped to his knees, shot the bolt. It passed through the dust ruffle and the bed was lifted off its feet. A body thrashed and groaned.

On his knees, Spalko fitted another bolt in his crossbow, began to aim it when he was bowled over. Something hard hit his head, a bullet ricocheted and he felt a weight on him. At once he let go of the crossbow, drew out a hunting knife and stabbed upward into his attacker. When it was buried to the hilt, he turned it, gritting his teeth with the effort, and was rewarded with a heavy gout of blood.

With a grunt, he threw the mercenary off him, retrieved his knife, wiped the blade down on the dust ruffle. Then he shot the second bolt down through the bed. Mattress stuffing flew through the air and the thrashing came to an abrupt halt. He came back downstairs, after having checked the remaining second-floor rooms, into a living room reeking of cordite. One of his men was entering the open back door with the last remaining mercenary, whom he had seriously wounded. The entire assault had lasted less than three minutes, which suited Spalko's design; the less attention they brought to the house, the better.

There was no trace of Dr. Felix Schiffer. And yet Spalko knew that Las-z!6 Molnar hadn't lied to him. These men were part of the mercenary contingent Molnar had hired when he and Conklin had engineered Schiffer's escape.

"What's the final disposition?" he asked his men.

"Marco is wounded. Nothing major, the bullet went in and out the flesh of his left arm," one of them said. "Two opposition dead, one seriously wounded." Spalko nodded. "And two dead upstairs."

Flicking the snout of his machine pistol at the last remaining mercenary, the man added, "This one won't last long unless he gets treatment." Spalko looked at Zina, nodded. She approached the wounded man and, kneeling, turned him over on his back. He groaned and blood leaked out of him.

"What's your name?" she said in Hungarian.

He looked at her, with eyes darkened by pain and knowledge of his own impending death.

She took out a small box of wooden matches. "What's your name?" she repeated, this time in Greek.

When there was no reply forthcoming, she said to Spalko's men, "Hold him still." Two of them bent to comply. The mercenary struggled briefly, then was still. He stared up at her with equanimity; he was a professional soldier, after all. She struck the match. A sharp smell of sulphur accompanied the flare of the flame. With her thumb and forefinger, she pried apart the lids of one eye, brought the flame down toward the exposed eyeball.

The mercenary's free eye blinked maniacally and his breathing became stertorous. The flame, reflected in the curve of his glistening orb, moved ever closer. He felt fear, Zina could see that, but beneath that there was a sense of disbelief. He simply did not believe that she would follow through with her implied threat. A pity, but it made no difference to her.

The mercenary screamed, his body arching up despite the men's efforts to hold him down. He writhed and howled even after the match, guttering, fell smoking onto his chest. His good eyeball rolled around in its socket as if trying to find a safe haven. Zina calmly lit another match, and all at once the mercenary vomited. Zina wasn't deterred. It was vital now that he understand that there was only one response that would stop her. He wasn't stupid; he knew what it was. Also, no amount of money was worth this torture. Through the tearing of his good eye, she could see his capitulation. Still, she wouldn't let him up, not until he'd told her where they had taken Schiffer. Behind her, observing the scene from start to finish, Stepan Spalko was impressed despite himself. He'd had no clear idea of how Zina would react when he gave her the assignment of interrogation. In a way, it was a test; but it was more—it was a way to get to know her in the intimate fashion he found so pleasurable.

Because he was a man who used words every day of his life in order to manipulate people and events, Spalko had an innate distrust of them. People lied, it was as simple as that. Some liked to lie for the effect it had; others lied without knowing it, in order to protect themselves from scrutiny; still others lied to themselves. It was only in action, in what people did, especially in extreme circumstances or under duress, that their true natures were revealed. There was no possibility of lying then; you could safely believe the evidence arrayed before you.

Now he knew a truth about Zina he hadn't before. He doubted whether Hasan Arsenov knew it, whether he'd even believe it if told. At her core Zina was hard as a rock; she was tougher than Arsenov himself. Watching her now extracting the information from the hapless mercenary, he knew that she could live without Arsenov, though Arsenov couldn't live without her.

Bourne awoke to the sound of practice arpeggios and the aromatic smell of coffee. For a moment he hung between sleep and consciousness. He was aware that he was lying on Annaka Vadas' sofa, that he had an eiderdown comforter over him and a goose feather pillow beneath his head. At once he rose fully out of sleep into Annaka's sun-drenched apartment. He turned, saw her sitting at the gleaming grand piano, a huge cup of coffee by her side.

"What time is it?"

She continued her chord runs without picking up her head. "After noon." "Christ!"

"Yes, it was time for my practice, time you got up." She began to play a melody he couldn't place. "I actually thought you'd have gone back to your hotel by the time I awoke, but I came in here and there you were, sleeping like a child. So I went and made coffee. Would you like some?" "Absolutely." "You know where it is." She picked up her head then, refused to turn away, watched him as he peeled off the eiderdown, drew on his cords and shirt. He padded into the bathroom, and when he was finished, he went into the kitchen. As he was pouring himself coffee, she said, "You have a nice body, scarred though it is." He searched for cream; apparently she liked her coffee black. "The scars give me character."

"Even the one around your neck?"

Poking through the refrigerator, he didn't answer her but, rather, involuntarily put a hand to the wound, and in so doing felt again Mylene Dutronc's compassionate ministrations.

"That one's new," she said. "What happened?" "I had an encounter with a very large, very angry creature." She stirred, abruptly uneasy. "Who tried to strangle you?" He had found the cream. He poured in a dollop, then two teaspoonfuls of sugar, took his first sip. Returning to the living room, he said, "Anger can do that to you, or didn't you know?"

"How would I? I'm not a part of your violent world." He looked at her levelly. "You tried to shoot me, or have you forgotten?" "I don't forget anything," she said shortly. Something he'd said had chafed her, but he didn't know what it was. Part of her was frayed thin. Perhaps it was only the shock of her father's sudden and violent death. In any case he decided to try another tack. "There's nothing edible in your refrigerator."

"I usually go out to eat. There's a sweet cafe" five blocks away." "Do you think we could go there?" he said. "I'm starving." "As soon as I'm finished. Our late night delayed my day." The piano bench scraped the floor as she settled herself more fully. Then the first bars of Chopin's Nocturne in B-Flat Minor drifted through the room, swirling like leaves falling on a golden autumn afternoon. He was surprised at how much pleasure the music gave him.

After some moments, he got up, went to the small escritoire and opened her computer.

"Please don't do that," Annaka said without taking her eyes from the music sheet. "It's distracting."

Bourne sat, trying to relax, while the gorgeous music swept through the apartment. While the last of the Nocturne was still echoing, Annaka rose, went into the kitchen. He heard the water in the sink running while she waited for it to get cold. It seemed to run for a long time. She returned then, with a glass of water in one hand, which she drank down in a single long swallow. Bourne, watching her from his position at the escritoire, saw the curve of her pale neck, the curl of several stray strands, a fiery copper, at her hairline.

"You did very well last night," Bourne said.

"Thank you for talking me down from the ledge." Her eyes slid away, as if she didn't want any part of his compliment. "I was never so frightened in my life." They were in the cafe, which was filled with cut-glass chandeliers, velvet-seat cushions and translucent wall sconces affixed to cherrywood walls. They sat across from each other at a window table, overlooking the outdoor portion of the cafe, which was deserted, it being still too chilly to sit in the pale morning sun.

"My concern now is that Molnar's apartment was under surveillance," Bourne said.

"There's no other explanation for the police arriving at just that time."

"But why would anyone be watching the apartment?"

"To see if we showed up. Ever since I've arrived in Budapest, my inquiries have been frustrated."

Annaka glanced nervously out the window. "What about now? The thought of someone watching my apartment—watching
us
—gives me the creeps."

"No one followed us here from your apartment, I made sure of that." He paused while their food was served. When the waiter had departed, he resumed. "Remember the precautions I made us take last night after we escaped the police? We took separate taxis, changed twice, reversed direction."

She nodded. "I was too exhausted then to question your bizarre instructions."

"No one knows where we went or even that we're together now."

"Well, that's a relief." She released a long-held breath.

Khan had just one thought when he saw Bourne and the woman walk out of her building: Despite Spalko's cocky assurances that he was safe from Bourne's search, Bourne was continuing to circle closer. Somehow Bourne had found out about László

Molnar, the man Spalko was interested in. Furthermore, he'd discovered where Molnar lived and, presumably, he'd been inside the apartment when the police showed up. Why was Molnar important to Bourne? Khan had to find out.

He watched from behind as Bourne and the woman walked off. Then he got out of his rental car, went into the entrance of 106-108 Fo utca. He picked the lock on the lobby door and entered the hallway inside. Taking the elevator up to the top floor, he found the staircase up to the roof. Unsurprisingly, the door was alarmed, but for him it was a simple matter to jump the circuit, bypassing the alarm system altogether. He went through the door, onto the roof, crossing immediately to the front of the building. With his hands on the stone parapet, he leaned over, saw immediately the bay window on the fourth floor just below him. Climbing over the parapet, he eased himself down onto the ledge beneath the window. The first window he tried was locked, but the other wasn't. He opened the window, climbed through into the apartment. He would dearly have liked to look around, but without knowing how soon they would return, he knew he couldn't risk it. This was a time for business, not indulgences. Looking around for a likely spot, he glanced up at the frosted-glass light fixture hanging from the center of the ceiling. It was as good as any, he quickly determined, and better than most. Dragging over the piano bench, he positioned it beneath the fixture, then climbed on it. He took out the miniature electronic bug, dropped it over the rim of the frosted-glass bowl. Then he climbed down, put an electronic ear-bud into his ear and activated the bug. He heard the small noises as he moved the piano bench back into place, heard his own footfalls across the polished wooden floor as he went over to the sofa, where a pillow and down comforter lay. He took up the pillow, sniffed its center. He smelled Bourne, but the scent stirred a previously undisturbed memory. As it began to rise upward in his mind, he dropped the pillow as if it had burst into flame. Quickly now, he exited the apartment as he had come, retracing his steps down to the lobby. But this time he went back through the building, going out the service entrance. One could never be too careful.

Annaka began work on her breakfast. Sunlight streamed in through the window, illuminating her extraordinary fingers. She ate like she played, handling the cutlery as if they were musical instruments.

"Where did you learn to play piano like that?" he said.

"Did you like it?"

"Yes, very much."

"Why?"

He cocked his head. "Why?"

She nodded. "Yes, why did you like it? What did you hear in it?" Bourne thought a moment. "A kind of mournfulness, I suppose." She put down her knife and fork and, with her hands free, began to sing a section of the Nocturne. "It's the unresolved dominant sevenths, you see. With them, Chopin expanded the accepted limits of dissonance and key." She resumed singing, the notes ringing out.

"The result is expansive. And at the same time mournful, because of those unresolved dominant sevenths."

She paused, her beautiful pale hands hanging suspended over the table, the long fingers arched slightly as if still imbued with the energy of the composer.

"Anything else?"

He gave it some more thought, then shook his head.

She took up her knife and fork, went back to eating. "My mother taught me to play. It was her profession, teaching piano, and as soon as she felt that I was good enough, she taught me Chopin. He was her favorite, but his music is immensely difficult to play—not only technically but also getting the emotion right."