Borya Maks sent to High Security Prison Colony 13 in Nizhny Tagil. You've heard of it?"
Bourne nodded. Conklin had mentioned the prison several times.
"Then you know it's no picnic in there." Maslov leaned forward, refilled their glasses, handed one to Bourne, took the other himself. "Despite that, Zilber wasn't satisfied. He hired someone very, very good to infiltrate the prison and kill Maks." Drinking vodka, surrounded by a riot of color, he appeared totally at his ease. "Only one person could accomplish that and get out alive: Leonid Danilovich Arkadin."
The vodka had done Bourne a world of good, returning both warmth and strength to his overtaxed body. There was still a smear of blood on the point of one cheek, dried now, but Maslov had neither looked at it nor commented on it. "Tell me about Arkadin."
Maslov made an animal sound in the back of his throat. "All you need to know is that the sonovabitch killed Pyotr Zilber. God knows why. Then he disappeared off the face of the earth. I had Evsei stake out Mischa Tarkanian's apartment. I was hoping Arkadin would come back there. Instead, you showed up."
"What's Zilber's death to you?" Bourne said. "From what you've told me, there was no love lost between the two of you."
"Hey, I don't have to like a person to do business with him."
"If you wanted to do business with Zilber you shouldn't have had his brother murdered."
"I have my reputation to uphold." Maslov sipped his vodka. "Pyotr knew what kinds of shit his brother was into, but did he stop him? Anyway, the hit was strictly business. Pyotr took it far too personally. Turns out he was almost as reckless as his brother."
There it was again, Bourne thought, the slurs against Pyotr Zilber. What, then, was he doing running a secret network? "What was your business with him?"
"I coveted Pyotr's network. Because of the war with the Azeri, I've been looking for a new, more secure method to move our drugs. Zilber's network was the perfect solution."
Bourne put aside his vodka. "Why would Zilber want anything to do with the Kazanskaya?"
"There you've given away the extent of your ignorance." Maslov eyed him curiously. "Zilber would have wanted money to fund his organization."
"You mean his network."
"I mean precisely what I say." Maslov looked hard and long at Bourne. "Pyotr Zilber was a member of the Black Legion."
Like a sailor who senses an onrushing storm, Devra stopped herself from asking Arkadin again about his maimed foot. There was about him at this moment the same slight tremor of intent of a bowstring pulled back to its maximum. She transferred her gaze from his left foot to the corpse of Heinrich, taking in sunlight that would no longer do him any good. She felt the danger beside her, and she thought of her dream: her pursuit of the unknown creature, her sense of utter desolation, the building of her fear to an unbearable level.
"You've got the package now," she said. "Is it over?"
For a moment, Arkadin said nothing, and she wondered whether she'd left her deflecting question too late, whether he would now turn on her because she had asked about what had happened to that damn foot.
The red rage had gripped Arkadin, shaking him until his teeth rattled in his skull. It would have been so easy to turn to her, smile, and break her neck. So little effort; nothing to it. But something stopped him, something cooled him. It was his own will. He-did-not-want-to-kill-her. Not yet, at least. He liked sitting here on the beach with her, and there were so few things he liked.
"I still have to shut down the rest of the network," he said, at length. "Not that I think it actually matters at this point. Christ, it was put together by an out-of-control commander too young to have learned caution, peopled by drug addicts, inveterate gamblers, weaklings, and those of no faith. It's a wonder the network functioned at all. Surely it would have imploded on its own sooner or later." But what did he know? He was simply a soldier engaged in an invisible war. His was not to reason why.
Pulling out his cell phone, he dialed Icoupov's number.
"Where are you?" his boss said. "There's a lot of background noise."
"I'm at the beach," Arkadin said.
"What? The beach?"
"Kilyos. It's a suburb of Istanbul," Arkadin said.
"I hope you're having a good time while we're in a semi-panic."