The Bourne Objective

17


BUD HALLIDAY SAT in a semicircular banquette at the White Knights Lounge, a bar in an out-of-the-way area of suburban Maryland where he often came to unwind. He nursed a bourbon-and-water while he tried to clear his mind of the clutter that had built up over the long day.
His parents were Mainline Philadelphians who could trace their respective families back to Alexander Hamilton and John Adams, respectively. They had been childhood sweethearts who, with the predictability of their ilk, were divorced. His mother, a society doyenne, now lived in Newport, Rhode Island. His father, plagued with emphysema from years of inveterate smoking, rattled around the family mansion, trailed by oxygen tanks and a pair of full-time Haitian nurses. Halliday saw neither of them. He’d turned his back on the hermetically sealed golden glow of their society world when, to their horror and mortification, he had gleefully enlisted in the marines at the age of eighteen. While at boot camp he had imagined his mother fainting at the news, which gave him a great measure of satisfaction. As for his father, he’d probably chewed off the end of his cigar, blamed his wife for his disappointment, and gone off to the insurance company he owned, and which he ran with ruthless and appalling success.
Finding that he’d finished his bourbon, Halliday flagged down the waiter and ordered another.
The twins arrived at the same time as his drink, and he ordered them chocolate martinis. They sat down on either side of him. One was dressed in green, the other in blue. The one in green was a redhead, the other blond. Today, at least. They were like that, Michelle and Mandy. They liked to play off their eerie echoes of each other, but at the same time asserting their differences. They were tall, almost six feet, with figures as lush and luscious as their lips. They could have been models, or possibly even actresses, given the expert way they played roles, but were neither vain nor empty-headed. Michelle was a theoretical mathematician, and Mandy was a microbiologist at the CDC. Michelle, who could have had her pick of chairs at any of the top universities in the country, instead worked for DARPA—the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency—cooking up new cryptographic algorithms that could foil even the fastest computer, even used in tandem. Her latest used heuristic techniques, meaning it learned from every attempt to break it, as if it were a self-educating entity, changing on the fly. It required a physical key to unlock it.
Never had two more fertile minds been wrapped in such delectable and erotic packages, Halliday thought as the waiter set their chocolate martinis in front of them. They all raised their glasses in a silent toast to another night together. When they were off duty, the girls loved sex, chocolate, and sex, in that order. But they weren’t off duty yet.
“What’s your assessment of the ring?” Halliday asked Michelle.
“It would help,” she said, “if you had given me the real thing instead of a set of photos.”
“Given that I didn’t, what’s your best guess?”
Michelle took a sip of her drink as if needing time to set her thoughts in order or to figure out how to express them to Halliday, a mental midget compared with her and her twin.
“It seems likely to me that the ring is a physical key.”
Halliday got interested in a hurry. He was keeping a sharp lookout. “Meaning?”
“Just what I said. It may be the algorithm I’m working on, but the odd inscription on the inside of the ring appears to me to be like the ridges of a key.” Responding to Halliday’s quizzical look, she changed tack. Taking out a felt-tip pen, she drew on Halliday’s napkin.
“Here we have a common key to a lock. It has ridges cut into it that are unique to it. Most common locks have twelve pins inside the lock cylinder, six upper and six lower. When the key is inserted in the cylinder, the ridges raise the upper pins above the shear line, allowing the shaft inside the cylinder to turn and the lock to open.
“So now consider each ideogram of the engraving inside the ring as a notch. Slip the ring into the right lock and presto, Open Sesame.”
“Is this possible?” he asked.
“Anything’s possible, Bud. You know that.”
Halliday stared at her drawing, suddenly galvanized. Her theory took a big leap of faith to believe, but the woman was a stone-cold genius. He couldn’t afford to dismiss any theory she put forward no matter how loopy it might sound on first blush.
“What’s in store for us tonight?” Mandy asked, clearly bored with this topic.
“I’m hungry.” Michelle pocketed her pen. “I haven’t eaten a thing all day, except for a Snickers I found in my drawer, and that was so stale the chocolate had turned white.”
“Finish your drink,” Halliday said.
She feigned a pout. “You know how I get when I drink on an empty stomach.”
Halliday chuckled. “So I’ve been told.”
“Well, it’s true and then some,” Mandy said. And in another voice entirely, deeper, with plenty of vibrato, a singer’s voice: “Dat li’l girl, she get freak-eee!”
“Whereas dis one,” Michelle said in precisely the same voice, “she already got her freak on!”
Both of them threw their heads back and laughed for precisely the same amount of time. Halliday, watching them, turning his head from side to side, felt a throbbing in his forehead, as if he were observing a tennis match from too close.
“Ah, there you are!” Mandy said as their foursome was about to be completed.
“We thought you might not be coming,” Michelle said.
Halliday palmed his diagram-covered napkin and hid it in his lap. Both the girls noticed but said nothing, simply smiling into the face of the newcomer.
“There is no power on earth.” Jalal Essai slid into the banquette and kissed Mandy in the place on her neck she liked best. “That could possibly have kept me away.”
Peter Marks stood very still. The man behind him smelled of tobacco and anger. The knife he held to Marks’s throat was razor-sharp, and Marks, who certainly had enough experience in these matters, had no doubt that Hererra would slit his throat.
“Se?or Hererra, there’s no need for these melodramatics,” he said. “I’ll gladly share with you everything I know. Let’s just keep calm and not lose our heads here.”
“I’m perfectly calm,” Hererra said grimly.
“All right.” Marks tried to swallow. His throat had dried up. “I’ll admit up front that what I know isn’t very much.”
“It’s got to be more than that bastard Lloyd-Shithead was willing to share. He told me to concentrate on making arrangements to bring my son back to Spain, which he said wouldn’t be possible until the medical examiner was through with him.”
Now Marks understood why Hererra was in a fury. “I agree, the chief inspector is something of a dick.” He swallowed. “But he’s of no consequence now. I want to know why Diego was murdered almost as much as you do. Believe me, I’m determined to find out.” This was true. Marks would never find Bourne without discovering what had happened last night in the Vesper Club, and why Bourne would leave with the murderer as if they were friends. Something wasn’t adding up.
He felt Hererra breathing behind him. It was deep and even, which to Marks was very frightening indeed, because it meant that despite his grief this man was in full possession of all his faculties. This spoke of a powerful personality; it would be suicidal to f*ck with him.
“In fact,” Marks continued, “I can show you a photo of the man who murdered your son.”
The knife blade trembled a moment in Hererra’s huge fist, then it was withdrawn, and Marks stepped away. He turned to face the older man.
“Please, Se?or Hererra, I understand the depth of your sorrow.”
“Do you have a son, Se?or Marks?”
“I don’t, sir. I’m not married.”
“Then you can’t know.”
“I lost a sister when I was twelve. She was only ten. I was so angry I wanted to destroy everything in sight.”
Hererra contemplated him for a moment, then said, “So you know.”
He took Marks into the living room. Marks sat down on a sofa, but Hererra remained standing, looking at the photos of his son and, presumably, his many girlfriends that lined the mantel. For a long time, the two men remained like that, Hererra silent, Marks unwilling to disturb the older man’s grief.
At length, Hererra turned and, crossing to where Marks sat, said, “I’ll see that photo now.”
Marks dug out his PDA, scrolled to the media section, and brought up the photo he’d gotten from Lloyd-Philips’s IT tech.
“He’s on the left,” Marks said, pointing to the as-yet-unidentified man.
Hererra took the PDA and stared down at the screen for so long that Marks thought he had turned to stone.
“And the other man?”
Marks shrugged. “An innocent bystander.”
“Tell me about him, he looks familiar to me.”
“Lloyd-Shithead told me his name is Adam Stone.”
“Is that so.” Something slithered across Hererra’s face.
Marks impatiently pointed again. “Se?or, this is important. Do you know the man on the left?”
Hererra thrust the PDA back into Marks’s hand, then went to the bar setup and poured himself a brandy. He drank half straight off, then, in an effort to compose himself, set the glass carefully down. “Christ almighty,” he murmured under his breath.
Marks rose and came over to where he was standing. “Se?or, I can help you if you’ll let me.”
Hererra looked over at him. “How? How can you help me?”
“I’m good at finding people.”
“You can find my son’s murderer?”
“With some help, yes, I believe I can.”
Hererra appeared to consider this for some time. Then, as if making up his mind, he gave a little nod. “The man on the left is Ottavio Moreno.”
“You know him?”
“Oh, yes, se?or, I know him very well. Since he was a little boy. I used to hold him in my arms when I was in Morocco.” Hererra picked up his brandy and drained the glass. His blue eyes looked bleak, but Marks caught the storm of anger far back in the shadows beneath the intelligent brow.
“Are you telling me that Ottavio is the half brother of Gustavo Moreno, the late Colombian drug lord?”
“I’m telling you that he’s my godson.” The anger boiled forward into the set of his jaw, the slight tremor of his hand. “That’s why I know he couldn’t have killed Diego.”
Moira and Berengária Moreno lay entwined in each other’s arms. The plush owner’s cabin smelled of musk, marine oil, and the sea. Beneath them, the yacht rocked gently as if wanting to lull them to sleep. They knew, each in her own way, that sleep was out of the question. The yacht was due to leave the dock in less than twenty minutes. Slowly, they rose, their bodies love-bruised, their senses on overload, as if they had slipped out of time and place. Wordlessly, they dressed, and minutes later emerged from belowdecks. The velvet sky arched over them with what seemed like protective arms.
After she had a brief talk with the captain, Berengária nodded to Moira. “They’ve completed all the tests. The engine is in perfect running order. There should be no more delays.”
“Let’s hope not.”
Starlight spangled the water. Berengária had flown them in Narsico’s single-engine Lancair IV-P to Lic. Gustavo Díaz Ordaz International Airport on the Pacific coast. From there it was a short drive to the surfer’s paradise of Sayulita, where they met the yacht. All told, the trip took just over ninety minutes.
Moira stood next to Berengária. The crew, busy preparing to get under way, paid them no mind. It only remained for Berengária to debark.
“You’ve called Arkadin?”
Berengária nodded. “I spoke to him while you were freshening up. He’ll be there to meet the boat just before dawn. Of course after the delay, he’s going to want to board and check the entire shipment himself. You must be ready for him before then.”
“Don’t worry.” Moira touched her arm and produced in the other woman another little tremor. “Who is the recipient?”
Berengária slid her arm around Moira’s waist. “You don’t really need to know that.”
When Moira said nothing, Berengária leaned against her and sighed deeply. “My God, what a f*cking snake pit this has turned out to be. F*ck men. F*ck them all!”
Berengária smelled of spice and salt spray, scents Moira liked. She found it intriguing to seduce another woman. There was nothing repellent about it, it was simply part of the job, something different, a challenge for her in every sense of the word. She was a sexual creature but, apart from one pleasant but inconsequential college experiment, had always been heterosexual. There was an edge of danger to Berengária she found attractive. In fact, making love to her was far more satisfying than it had been with a number of men she had bedded. Unlike those men—and excepting Bourne—Berengária knew when to be fierce and when to be tender, she took the time to seek out the secret places that touched Moira’s pleasure centers, concentrating on them until Moira convulsed over and over again.
Not surprisingly, she was unlike Roberto Corellos’s dismissive description of her as a piranha. She was both tough and vulnerable, a complexity to which a man like Corellos would be deaf, dumb, and blind. She had made her way in a man’s world, having run and ruthlessly expanded her husband’s business, yet she had been as terrified of her brother as she was now of Corellos and Leonid Arkadin. Moira could see that Berengária had no illusions. Her power was as nothing compared with theirs. They commanded a respect among their respective troops that she could never enjoy no matter how hard she tried.
Once again, Moira felt her mixed emotions of admiration and pity, this time because the moment Moira sailed away to her rendezvous with Arkadin, Berengária would be left to an undetermined fate. Caught between the corrosive power of Corellos and the contemptible weakness of Narsico, the future would not go well for her.
Which was why she kissed her hard on the lips and held her tight, because it would be for the last time, and Berengária deserved at least that modicum of solace, no matter how fleeting.
She ran her tongue around Berengária’s ear. “Who is the client?”
Berengária shivered and held her tighter. At length, she leaned back enough to engage Moira’s eyes. “The client is one of Gustavo’s oldest and best, which is why the delay caused such problems.”
Tears glittered in her eyes, and Moira knew she understood that tonight had been both the beginning and the end for them. This curious woman had no illusions, yes. And for an instant, Moira felt the pang of loss one feels when an ocean or a continent separates two people who had once held each other.
In a final acquiescence, Berengária bowed her head. “His name is Don Fernando Hererra.”
* * *
Soraya awoke with the taste of the Sonoran Desert in her mouth. Assaulted by aches and pains, she rolled over onto her back and groaned. She stared up at the four men towering over her, two on each side. They were dusky-skinned, like her, and like her they were of mixed blood. It took one to know one, she thought groggily. These men were part Arab. They looked so much alike, they could have been brothers.
“Where is he?” one of the men said.
“Where is who?” she said, trying to identify his accent.
Another of the men—one on the opposite side—squatted down in the comfortable manner of a desert Arab, his wrists on his knees.
“Ms. Moore—Soraya, if I may—you and I are looking for the same person.” His voice was calm and assured, and as casual as if they were two friends finding an equitable solution to a recent squabble. “One Leonid Danilovich Arkadin.”
“Who are you?” she said.
“We ask the questions,” said the man who had spoken first. “You provide the answers.”
She tried to get up, but discovered that she had been staked out—cords around her wrists and ankles were wrapped around tent pegs that had been driven into the ground.
As the first light of dawn leaked into the sky, tendrils of pink crawled toward her like a spider.
“My name isn’t important,” the man squatting beside her said. One of his eyes was brown, she noticed, the other a watery blue, almost milky, like an opal, as if it had been damaged or ravaged by disease. “Only what I want is important.”
Those two sentences seemed so absurd she felt the urge to laugh. People were known by their names. Without a name there was no personal history, no profile possible, just a blank slate, which was apparently how he wanted it. She wondered how she could change that.
“If you won’t talk to me voluntarily,” he said, “we’ll have to try another way.”
He snapped his fingers, and one of the other men handed him a small bamboo cage. No-Name took it gingerly by the handle and, swinging it past Soraya’s face, set it down between her breasts. Inside was a very large scorpion.
“Even if it stings me,” Soraya said, “it won’t kill me.”
“Oh, I don’t want it to kill you.” No-Name unlatched the door and with a pen started to prod the scorpion out. “But if you don’t tell us where Arkadin is hiding, you will begin to have seizures, your heart rate and blood pressure will rise, your vision will become blurred, need I go on?”
The scorpion was hard and shiny-black, its tail arched high over its carapace. When sunlight touched it, it seemed to glow as if with an inner power. Soraya tried not to watch it, tried to damp down the fright rising inside her. But there was an instinctual response that was difficult to control. She heard her heartbeat pounding in her ears, felt a pain beneath her sternum as the fright built. She bit her lip.
“And if you should receive multiple stings without treatment, well, who knows how badly you’ll suffer?”
As delicately as a ballet dancer the creature ventured forth on its eight legs until it stood in the valley between Soraya’s breasts. She fought back the urge to scream.
Oliver Liss sat on a narrow bench in the weight room of his health club. His chest and arms were shiny with sweat. A towel was draped around his neck. He was on his third set of fifteen biceps reps when the redhead walked in. She was tall, with square shoulders, an upright bearing, and an epic rack. He’d seen her here a number of times before. One hundred dollars to the manager, and now he knew her name was Abby Sumner, she was thirty-four, divorced, and childless. She was one of the endless fleet of lawyers toiling for the Justice Department. He had already speculated that her long hours had resulted in her divorce, but it was this same extended work schedule that attracted him. Less time for her to get in his way once the affair started. He had no doubt that it would start, no doubt at all. It was simply a matter of when.
Liss finished his reps, put the dumbbells back in their slots, then toweled off while he made his recon assessment. Abby had gone straight for the bench press and, having selected weights, slid under the bar. That was Liss’s cue. He rose and, strolling over to the bench press, looked down at her with his actor’s megawatt smile and said, “Do you need a spotter?”
Abby Sumner looked up at him with large blue eyes. Then she returned his smile.
“Thank you. I could use one; I’ve just gone up in weights.”
“It’s a little unusual to see a woman bench-pressing, unless she’s in training.”
Abby Sumner’s smile remained in place. “I do a lot of heavy lifting at work.”
Liss laughed softly. She lifted the weights off the rests and began her reps, while he held his hands a bit beneath the bar in case she faltered. “It sounds like I wouldn’t want to get in your way.”
“No,” she said. “You wouldn’t.”
She appeared to be having little or no difficulty with the higher weight. Liss’s difficulty lay in keeping his eyes off her breasts.
“Don’t arch your back,” he said.
She pulled her spine back down to the bench. “I always do that when I increase weight. Thanks.”
She finished her first set of eight reps, and he helped her guide the bar back onto the rests. While she took a short breather, he said, “My name’s Oliver and I’d love to take you to dinner sometime.”
“That would be interesting.” Abby looked up at him. “Unfortunately, I don’t mix business with pleasure.”
Responding to his quizzical expression, she slid out from under the bar and stood up. She really was an impressive woman, Liss thought. She glanced over to the juice bar, where a clean-cut man was drinking one of those phosphorescent-green glasses of wheatgrass juice. The man drained his glass, set it down, and began to saunter toward them.
Abby brought her gym bag up onto the bench and, reaching into it, brought out several folded sheets of paper, which she handed to Liss.
“Oliver Liss, my name is Abigail Sumner. This judicial order from the attorney general of the United States authorizes me and Jeffrey Klein”—here she indicated the wheatgrass drinker, who was now standing beside her—“to take you into custody pending an investigation into allegations made against you while you were president of Black River.”
Liss gaped at her. “This is nonsense. I was investigated and absolved.”
“New allegations have come to light.”
“What allegations?”
She nodded at the papers she had given him. “You’ll find the list enumerated in the attorney general’s order.”
He opened the order but couldn’t seem to focus on the letters. He shoved the papers back to her. “This must be some kind of mistake. I’m not going anywhere with you.”
Klein produced a pair of manacles.
“Please, Mr. Liss,” Abby said, “don’t make this more difficult on yourself.”
Liss turned this way and that, as if contemplating escape or a last-minute reprieve from Jonathan, his guardian angel. Where was he? Why hadn’t he warned Liss of this new investigation?
Colonel Boris Karpov returned to Moscow with a heart of stone. His visit with Leonid Arkadin had been sobering on many levels, not the least of which was the terrible bind he was in. Maslov had suborned a number of apparatchiks inside FSB-2, including Melor Bukin, Karpov’s immediate superior. Like all of the intel Arkadin had provided him, the proof was both damning and irrefutable.
Karpov, in the backseat of the black FSB-2 Zil, stared unseeingly out the window as his driver headed into the city from Sheremetyevo Airport.
Arkadin had suggested going to President Imov with the evidence Karpov now had in his possession. The very fact that Arkadin suggested it made Karpov suspicious, but even if Arkadin had his own reason for wanting him to go to Imov, he might still do it. The stakes, however, could not be higher, both for his career and for him, personally.
He had two choices: He could take the evidence against Bukin to Viktor Cherkesov, the head of FSB-2. The problem there, however, was that Bukin was Cherkesov’s creature. If the evidence against Bukin was made public, Cherkesov would, by association, come under suspicion. Whether or not he knew of Bukin’s perfidy, he’d be finished, forced to resign in disgrace. Rather than allow that to happen, Karpov could envision him eliminating the damning evidence against his friend—and that would include Karpov himself.
He had to admit that Arkadin was correct. Going to President Imov with the evidence was the safest choice, because Imov would be only too happy to bring down Cherkesov. In fact, he very well might be so grateful that he’d name someone inside FSB-2 he could trust—like Karpov—as the new head of the agency.
The more Karpov thought this through the more sense it made. And yet lurking in the background was the niggling voice that told him once this scenario came to pass, he would owe a great debt to Arkadin. That, he knew instinctively, was not a great position to be in. But only if Arkadin was alive.
He laughed a little as he told his driver to take a detour to the Kremlin. Sitting back, he punched in the number of the president’s office.
Thirty minutes later he was admitted into the president’s residence, where a pair of Red Army guards showed him into one of a number of chilly, high-ceilinged anterooms. Over his head, like a frozen giant spider’s web, an ornate crystal-and-ormolu chandelier hung, giving off faceted light that struck the similarly ornate Italianate furniture, upholstered in silks and brocades.
He sat while the guards, at opposite ends of the chamber, watched him. A clock on a spotted marble mantel tick-tocked mournfully, chiming the half hour, then the hour. Karpov went into a form of meditation he used to pass time during the many lonely vigils he’d had to endure over the years in more foreign countries than he cared to count. Ninety minutes after his arrival a young steward sporting a sidearm appeared to fetch him. Karpov was instantly alert. He was also refreshed. The steward smiled, and Karpov followed him down so many halls and around so many corners, he had difficulty in placing himself within the immense residence.
President Imov was sitting behind a Louis XIV desk in his comfortably furnished study. A cheerful fire was burning in the hearth. Behind him the magnificent domes of Red Square could be seen rising like strange missiles toward the mottled Russian sky.
Imov was writing in a ledger with an old-fashioned fountain pen. The steward withdrew without a word, soundlessly closing the double doors behind him. After a moment Imov looked up, removed his wire-rimmed glasses, and gestured to the single armchair set in front of the desk. Karpov crossed the carpet and seated himself without a word, patiently waiting for the interview to begin.
For a time, Imov regarded him with his slate-gray eyes, which were narrow, slightly elongated. Perhaps he had some Mongol blood in him. In any case he was a warrior, having fought to elevate himself to the presidency, then fought even harder to stay there against several fierce opponents.
Imov was not a large man, but he was impressive just the same. His personality could fill a ballroom when it suited him. Otherwise, he was content to let the stature of his office suffice.
“Colonel Karpov, it strikes me as odd that you have come to see me.” Imov held his fountain pen as if it were a dagger. “You belong to Viktor Cherkesov, a silovik who has openly defied Nikolai Patrushev, his opposite number at FSB, and by extension me.” He twirled the pen deftly. “Tell me, then, is there a reason why I should listen to what you have to say, since your boss has sent you here instead of coming himself?”
“I did not come at the behest of Viktor Cherkesov. In fact, he has no idea I’m here, and I’d rather it stayed that way.” Karpov placed the cell phone with the incriminating evidence against Bukin on the desk between them and withdrew his hand. “Also, I belong to no man, Cherkesov included.”
Imov’s gaze remained on Karpov’s face. “Indeed. Since Cherkesov stole you away from Nikolai, I must say that’s welcome news.” He tapped the end of the pen against the desktop. “And yet I can’t help but take that statement with a grain of salt.”
Karpov nodded. “Perfectly understandable.”
When his eyes moved to the cell phone, Imov’s followed. “And what have we here, Boris Illyich?”
“Part of FSB-2 is rotten,” Karpov said slowly and distinctly. “It has to be cleansed, the sooner the better.”
For a moment, Imov did nothing; then he set down the fountain pen, reached out for the cell phone, and turned it on. For a long while after that, there was no sound whatsoever in the study, not even, Karpov noted, the hushed footfalls of the secretarial and support staffs that must infest the place. Possibly, the study was soundproof as well as electronic-bug-proof.
When Imov was finished, he held the cell phone precisely as he had held the fountain pen, as if it were a weapon.
“And who, Boris Illyich, do you envision purging the FSB-2 of its rot?”
“Whomever you choose.”
At this response, President Imov threw his head back and laughed. Then, wiping his eyes, he reached into a drawer, opened an ornate silver-clad humidor, and withdrew two Havana cigars. Handing one to Karpov, he bit the end off his and lit it with a gold lighter that had been a gift from the president of Iran. When Karpov produced a book of matches, Imov laughed again and pushed the gold lighter across the desk.
Colonel Boris Karpov found the lighter extraordinarily heavy. He flicked on the flame and luxuriously drew the cigar smoke into his mouth.
“We should begin, Mr. President.”
Imov regarded Karpov through a veil of smoke. “No time like the present, Boris Illyich.” He swung around, contemplating the onion domes of Red Square. “Clean the f*cking place out—permanently.”
It was ironic, when you thought about it, Soraya thought. Despite having multiple eyes—she could not for the life of her remember how many—scorpions couldn’t see well, depending on tiny cilia on their claws to sense movement and vibration. At the moment that meant the rise and fall of her chest.
No-Name watched the scorpion with a mixture of impatience and contempt as it sat there, unmoving. Clearly, it didn’t know where it was or what it wanted to do. That’s when he took his pen and jammed the end of it onto the scorpion’s head. The sudden attack startled and infuriated it. The tail twitched and struck, and Soraya gave a little gasp. No-Name used the pen to prod the creature back into its cage. He swung the door closed and latched it.
“Now,” No-Name said, “either we wait for the venom to take effect, or you tell us where to find Arkadin.”
“Even if I knew,” Soraya said, “I wouldn’t tell you.”
He frowned. “You’re not going to change your mind.”
“Go screw yourself.”
He nodded, as if having anticipated her stubbornness. “It will be instructive to see how long you last after the scorpion stings you eight or nine times.”
With a languid pass of his hand, he signaled the scorpion handler, who unlatched the cage’s door and was about to open it when, with a deafening report, he was blown backward in a welter of blood and bone. Soraya turned her head and saw him sprawled on the ground, his entire forehead gone. More shots were fired, and when she turned back the other men lay on the ground. No-Name was clutching his ruined right shoulder, biting his lip in pain. A pair of legs ending in dusty boots came into her field of vision.
“Who—?” Soraya looked up, but between the first symptoms of the scorpion venom and the sun in her eyes she couldn’t see. Her heart seemed about to pump out of her chest, and her entire body was throbbing as if with a very high fever. “Who—?”
The male figure squatted down. With the back of his sunburned hand he swatted the cage off her chest. A moment later she felt the ropes that bound her being loosened, and she shook them off. As she squinted up, a cowboy hat was placed over her head, the wide brim shading her from the glaring sunlight.
“Contreras,” she said, seeing his creased face.
“My name is Antonio.” He put one arm beneath her shoulders and helped lift her up. “Call me Antonio.”
Soraya began to weep.
Antonio offered her his gun, an interesting piece of custom work: a Taurus Tracker .44 Magnum, a hunter’s handgun, with a wooden rifle stock affixed to it. She took the Taurus, and he stood her up. She was staring down at No-Name, who stared back, teeth bared. She felt shaky, her brain was on fire. She watched him watching her. Her forefinger curled around the trigger. She aimed the Tracker and pulled the trigger. As if jerked by invisible strings, No-Name arched up once, then lay still, his blind eyes reflecting the rising sun.
She stopped crying.