kitchen, down the hall. As he did so, he heard the unmistakable sound of someone
racking the slide, and he flung himself headlong into the main bedroom. A shot splintered
the wooden door frame just over his head.
Scrambling up, he headed straight for Kirsch’s closet, even as he heard Arkadin shout
to the pale woman to hold her fire. Pushing aside a rack of clothes on hangers, Bourne
scrabbled at the plywood panel in the rear wall of the closet, searching for the clips
Kirsch had described to him at the museum. Just as he heard Arkadin rush into the
bedroom, he turned the clips, removed the panel, and, crouching almost double, stepped
through into a world filled to overflowing with shadow.
When Devra turned around after her attempt to wound Bourne, she found herself
looking at the muzzle of the SIG Sauer that Icoupov had retrieved from the floor.
“You fool,” Icoupov said, “you and your boyfriend are going to fuck everything up.”
“What Leonid is doing is his own business,” she said.
“That’s the nature of the mistake,” Icoupov said. “Leonid has no business of his own.
Everything he is he owes to me.”
She stepped out of the shadows of the hallway into the living room. The Luger at her
hip was pointed at Icoupov. “He’s quits with you,” she said. “His servitude is done.”
Icoupov laughed. “Is that what he told you?”
“It’s what I told him.”
“Then you’re a bigger fool than I thought.”
They circled each other, wary of the slightest move. Even so, Devra managed an icy
smile. “He’s changed since he left Moscow. He’s a different person.”
Icoupov made a dismissive sound in the back of his throat. “The first thing you need to
get through your head is that Leonid is incapable of change. I know this better than
anyone because I spent so many years trying to make him a better person. I failed.
Everyone who tried failed, and do you know why? Because Leonid isn’t whole.
Somewhere in the days and nights of Nizhny Tagil he was fractured. All the czar’s horses
and all the czar’s men can’t put him back together again; the pieces no longer fit.” He
gestured with the SIG Sauer’s barrel. “Get out now, get out while you can, otherwise, I
promise you he’ll kill you like he killed all the others who tried to get close to him.”
“How deluded you are!” Devra spat. “You’re like all your kind, corrupted by power.
You’ve spent so many years removed from life on the streets you’ve created your own
reality, one that moves only to the wave of your own hand.” She took a step toward him,
which prompted a tense response from him. “Think you can kill me before I kill you? I
wouldn’t count on it.” She tossed her head. “Anyway, you have more to lose than I do. I
was already half dead when Leonid found me.”
“Ah, I see it now,” Icoupov nodded, “he’s saved you from yourself, he’s saved you
from the streets, is that it?”
“Leonid is my protector.”
“God in heaven, talk about deluded!”
Devra’s icy smile widened. “One of us is fatally mistaken. It remains to be seen which
one.”
The room is filled with mannequins,” Egon Kirsch had said when he’d described his
studio to Bourne. “I keep the light out with blackout shades because these mannequins
are my creation. I built them from the ground up, so to speak. They’re my companions,
you might say, as well as my creations. In that sense, they can see or, if you like, I believe that they have the gift of sight, and what creature can look upon his creator without going mad or blind, or both?”
With the map of the room in his mind, Bourne crept through the studio, avoiding the
mannequins so as not to make noise or, as Kirsch might have said, so as not to disturb the
process of their birth.
“You think I’m insane,” he’d said to Bourne in the museum. “Not that it matters. To all
artists-successful or not!-their creations are alive. I’m no different. It’s simply that after struggling for years to bring abstractions to life, I’ve given my work human form.”
Hearing a sound, Bourne froze for a moment, then peered around a mannequin’s thigh.
His eyes had adjusted to the extreme gloom, and he could see movement: Arkadin had
found the panel and had come through into the studio after him.
Bourne liked his chances here far better than in Kirsch’s apartment. He knew the
layout, the darkness would help him, and if he struck quickly, he’d have the advantage of
being able to see where Arkadin couldn’t.
With that strategy in mind, he moved out from behind the mannequin, picked his way
toward the Russian. The studio was like a minefield. There were three mannequins
between him and Arkadin, all set at different angles and poses: One was sitting, holding a
small painting as if reading a book; another was standing spread-legged, in a classic
shooter’s pose; the third was running, leaning forward, as if stretching to cross the finish line.
Bourne moved around the runner. Arkadin was crouched down on his hams, wisely
staying in one place until his eyes adjusted. It was precisely what Bourne had done when
he’d entered the studio moments before.
Once again Bourne was struck by the eerie mirror image that Arkadin represented.
There was no pleasure and a great deal of anxiety at the most primitive level in watching
yourself do his best to find you and kill you.
Picking up his pace, Bourne negotiated the space to where the mannequin sat, reading
his painting. Keenly aware that he was running out of time, Bourne moved stealthily
abreast of the shooter. Just as he was about to lunge at Arkadin, his cell phone buzzed,
the screen lighting up with Moira’s number.
With a silent curse, Bourne sprang. Arkadin, alert for even the tiniest anomaly, turned
defensively toward the sound, and Bourne was met with a solid wall of muscle, behind
which was a murderous will of fiery intensity. Arkadin swung; Bourne slid backward,
between the legs of the shooter mannequin. As Arkadin came after him he ran right into
the mannequin’s hips. Recoiling with a curse, he swung at the mannequin. The blade
struck the acrylic skin and lodged in the sheet metal underneath. Bourne kicked out while
Arkadin was trying to pull the blade free, and made contact with the left side of his chest.
Arkadin tried to roll away. Bourne jammed his shoulder against the back of the shooter. It
was extremely heavy, he put all of his strength into it, and the mannequin tipped over,
trapping Arkadin underneath.
“Your friend gave me no choice,” Bourne said. “He would’ve killed me if I hadn’t
stopped him. He was too far away; I had to throw the knife.”
A sound like the crackle of a fire came from Arkadin. It took a moment for Bourne to
realize it was laughter. “I’ll make you a bet, Bourne. Before he died, I bet Mischa said
you were a dead man.”
Bourne was about to answer him when he saw the dim glint of a SIG Sauer Mosquito
in Arkadin’s hand. He ducked just before the.22 bullet whizzed over his head.
“He was right.”
Bourne twisted away, dodging around the other mannequins, using them as cover even
as Arkadin squeezed off three more rounds. Plaster, wood, and acrylic shattered near
Bourne’s left shoulder and ear before he dived behind Kirsch’s worktable. Behind him,
he could hear Arkadin’s grunts combined with the screech of metal as he worked to free
himself from the fallen shooter.
Bourne knew from Kirsch’s description that the front door was to the left. Scrambling
up, he dashed around the corner as Arkadin fired another shot. A chunk of plaster and
lath disintegrated where the.22 impacted the corner. Reaching the door, Bourne unlocked