be ascribed to him. Mischa's talent for storytelling had the power to take Arkadin far away from Nizhny Tagil, and when Mischa smuggled him out past the inner ring of smokestacks, past the outer ring of high-security prisons, his stories took Arkadin to places beyond Moscow, to lands beyond Russia. The stories gave Arkadin his first inkling of the world at large.
As he sat now, his back against a crate, knees drawn up to his chest in order to conserve warmth, he had good cause to think of Mischa. Icoupov had paid for killing Devra, now Bourne must pay for killing Mischa. But not just yet, Arkadin brooded, though his blood called out for revenge. If he killed Bourne now, Icoupov's plan would succeed, and he couldn't allow that, otherwise his revenge against him would be incomplete.
Arkadin put his head back against the edge of the crate and closed his eyes. Revenge had become like one of Mischa's poems, its meaning flowering open to surround him with a kind of ethereal beauty, the only form of beauty that registered on him, the only beauty that lasted. It was the glimpse of that promised beauty, the very prospect of it, that allowed him to sit patiently, curled between crates, waiting for his moment of revenge, his moment of inestimable beauty.
Bourne dreamed of the hell known as Nizhny Tagil as if he'd been born there, and when he awoke he knew Arkadin was near. Opening his eyes, he saw Moira staring at him.
"What do you feel about the professor?" she said, by which he suspected she meant, What do you feel about me?
"I think the years of obsession have driven him insane. I don't think he knows good from evil, right from wrong."
"Is that why you didn't ask him why he embarked on this path to destruction?"
"In a way," Bourne said. "Whatever his answer would have been it wouldn't have made sense to us."
"Fanatics never make sense," she said. "That's why they're so difficult to counteract. A rational response, which is always our choice, is rarely effective." She cocked her head. "He betrayed you, Jason. He nurtured your belief in him, and played on it."
"If you climb on a scorpion's back you've got to expect to get stung."
"Don't you have a desire for revenge?"
"Maybe I should I smother him in his sleep, or shoot him to death as Arkadin did to Semion Icoupov. Do you really expect that to make me feel better? I'll exact my revenge by stopping the Black Legion's attack."
"You sound so rational."
"I don't feel rational, Moira."
She took his meaning, and blood rushed to her cheeks. "I may have lied to you, Jason, but I didn't betray you. I could never do that." She engaged his eyes. "There were so many times in the last week when I ached to tell you, but I had a duty to Black River."
"Duty is something I understand, Moira."
"Understanding is one thing, but will you forgive me?"
He put out his hand. "You aren't a scorpion," he said. "It's not in your nature."
She took his hand in hers, brought it up to her mouth, and pressed it to her cheek.
At that moment they heard Sever cry out, and they rose, went down the aisle to where he lay curled on his side like a small child afraid of the dark. Bourne knelt down, drew Sever gently onto his back to keep pressure off the wound.
The professor stared at Bourne, then, as Moira spoke to him, at her.
"Why did you do it?" Moira said. "Why attack the country you'd adopted as your own."
Sever could not catch his breath. He swallowed convulsively. "You'd never understand."
"Why don't you try me?"
Sever closed his eyes, as if to better visualize each word as it emerged from his mouth. "The Muslim sect I belong to, that Semion belonged to, is very old-ancient even. It had its beginnings in North Africa." He paused already out of breath. "Our sect is very strict, we believe in a fundamentalism so devout it cannot be conveyed to infidels by any means. But I can tell you this: We cannot live in the modern world because the modern world violates every one of our laws. Therefore, it must be destroyed.
"Nevertheless..." He licked his lips, and Bourne poured out some water, lifted his head, and allowed him to drink his fill. When he was finished, he continued. "I should never have tried to use you, Jason. Over the years there have been many disagreements between Semion