his friends, family, schooling, every detail he can give you. I’ll study it on the flight over, then meet with him.”

“Jason, I don’t like the way this conversation is headed,” Specter said. “I suspect I

know what you’re planning. If I’m right, you’re going to take Kirsch’s place. I forbid it. I won’t let you set yourself up as a target for Arkadin. It’s far too dangerous.”

“It’s a little late for second thoughts, Professor,” Bourne said. “It’s vital I get these

plans, you said so yourself. You do your part and I’ll do mine.”

“Fair enough,” Specter said after a moment’s hesitation. “But my part includes

activating a friend of mine who operates out of Munich.”

Bourne didn’t like the sound of that. “What do you mean?”

“You’ve already made it clear that you work alone, Jason, but this man Jens is

someone you want at your back. He’s intimately familiar with wet work.”

A professional killer for hire, Bourne thought. “Thank you, Professor, but no.”

“This isn’t a request, Jason.” Specter’s voice held a stern warning not to cross him.

“Jens is my condition for you taking Kirsch’s place. I won’t allow you to walk into this

bear trap on your own. My decision is final.”

Dimitri Maslov and Boris Karpov embraced like old friends while Bourne stood on,

silent. When it came to Russian politics nothing should surprise him, but it was

nevertheless astonishing to see a high-ranking colonel in the Federal Anti-Narcotics

Agency cordially greeting the kingpin of the Kazanskaya, one of the two most notorious

narcotics grupperovka.

This bizarre reunion took place in Bar-Dak, near the Leninsky Prospekt. The club had

opened for Maslov; hardly surprising, since he owned it. Bar-Dak meant both “brothel”

and “chaos” in current Russian slang. Bar-Dak was neither, though it did sport a

prominent strippers’ stage complete with poles and a rather unusual leather swing that

looked like a horse’s harness.

An open audition for pole dancers was in full swing. The lineup of eye-poppingly-built

young blond women snaked around the four walls of the club, which was painted in

glossy black enamel. Massive sound speakers, lines of vodka bottles on mirrored shelves,

and vintage mirror balls were the major accoutrements.

After the two men were finished slapping each other on the back, Maslov led them

across the cavernous room, through a door, and down a wood-paneled hallway. Mixed in

with the scent of the cedar was the unmistakable waft of chlorine. It smelled like a health club, and with good reason. They went through a translucent pebbled glass door into a

locker room.

“The sauna’s just over there,” Maslov pointed. “We meet inside in five minutes.”

Before Maslov would continue the conversation with Bourne, he insisted on meeting

with Boris Karpov. Bourne had thought such a conference unlikely, but when he called

Boris, his friend readily agreed. Maslov had given Bourne the name of Bar-Dak, nothing

more. Karpov had said only, “I know it. I’ll be there in ninety minutes.”

Now, stripped down to the buff, white Turkish towels around their loins, the three men

reconvened in the steamy confines of the sauna. The small room was lined, like the

hallway, in cedar paneling. Slatted wooden benches ran around three walls. In one corner

was a heap of heated stones, above which hung a cord.

When Maslov entered, he pulled the cord, showering the rocks with water, which

produced clouds of steam that swirled up to the ceiling and down again, engulfing the

men as they sat on the benches.

“The colonel has assured me that he will take care of my situation if I take care of his,”

Maslov said. “Perhaps I should say that I will take care of Cherkesov’s problem.”

There was a twinkle in his eye as he said this. Stripped of his outsize Hawaiian shirt,

he was a small, wiry man with ropy muscles and not an ounce of fat on him. He wore no

gold chains around his neck or diamond rings on his fingers. His tattoos were his jewelry;

they covered his entire torso. But these were not the crude and often blurred prison

tattoos found on so many of his kind. They were among the most elaborate designs

Bourne had ever seen: Asian dragons breathing fire, coiling their tails, spreading their

wings, grasping with claws outstretched.

“Four years ago I spent six months in Tokyo,” Maslov said. “It’s the only place to get

tattoos. But that’s just my opinion.”

Boris rocked with laughter. “So that’s where you were, you bastard! I scoured all of

Russia for your skinny butt.”

“In the Ginza,” Maslov said, “I hoisted quite a few saki martinis to you and your law

enforcement minions. I knew you’d never find me.” He made a sweeping gesture. “But

that bit of unpleasantness is behind us; the real perpetrator confessed to the murders I was suspected of committing. Now we find ourselves in our own private glasnost.”

“I want to know more about Leonid Danilovich Arkadin,” Bourne said.

Maslov spread his hands. “Once he was one of us. Then something happened to him, I

don’t know what. He broke away from the grupperovka. People don’t do that and survive

for long, but Arkadin is in a class by himself. No one dares to touch him. He wraps

himself in his reputation for murder and ruthlessness. This is a man-let me tell you-who

has no heart. Yes, Dimitri, you might say to me, but isn’t that true of most of your kind?

To this I answer, Yes. But Arkadin is also without a soul. This is where he parts company

with the others. There is no one else like him, the colonel can back me up on this.”

Boris nodded sagely. “Even Cherkesov fears him, our president as well. I personally

don’t know anyone in either FSB-1 or FSB-2 who’d be willing to take him on, let alone

survive. He’s like a great white shark, the murderer of killers.”

“Aren’t you being a bit melodramatic?”

Maslov sat forward, elbows in knees. “Listen, my friend, whatever the hell your real

name is, this man Arkadin was born in Nizhny Tagil. Do you know it? No? Let me tell

you. This fucking excuse of a city east of here in the southern Ural Mountains is hell on

earth. It’s filled with smokestacks belching sulfurous fumes from its ironworks. Poor is

not even a word you can apply to the residents, who swill homemade vodka that’s almost

pure alcohol and pass out wherever they happen to land. The police, such as they are, are

as brutal and sadistic as the citizens. As a gulag is ringed by guard towers, Nizhny Tagil

is surrounded by high-security prisons. Since the prison inmates are released without

even train fare they settle in the town. You, an American, cannot imagine the brutality,

the callousness of the residents of this human sewer. No one but the worst of the crims-as

the criminals are called-dares be on the streets after 10 PM.”

Maslov wiped the sweat off his cheeks with the back of his hand. “This is the place

where Arkadin was born and raised. It was from this cesspit that he made a name for

himself by kicking people out of their apartments in old Soviet-era projects and selling

them to criminals with a bit of money stolen from regular citizens.

“But whatever happened to Arkadin in Nizhny Tagil in his youth-and I don’t profess to

know what that might be-has followed him like a ghoul. Believe me when I tell you that

you’ve never met a man like him. You’re better off not.”

“I know where he is,” Bourne said. “I’m going after him.”

“Christ.” Maslov shook his head. “You must have a mighty fucking large death wish.”

“You don’t know my friend here,” Boris said.