haven't much time. I've avenged myself on the father, but this plan is his child. He and Sever gave birth to it, fed it, nurtured it through its infancy, through its adolescent growing pains. Now each moment brings this floating supernova closer to the moment of destruction those two madmen envisioned."
The voice moved again. "Is that what you want, Bourne? Of course not. Then let's join together to find Sever's man."
Bourne hesitated. He didn't trust Arkadin, and yet he had to trust him. He examined the situation from all sides and concluded that the only way to play it was to move forward. "He's a software engineer," he said.
Arkadin appeared, climbing down from the top of one of the containers. For a moment, the two men stood facing each other, and once again Bourne felt the dislocating sensation of looking in a mirror. When he stared into Arkadin's eyes, he didn't see the madness the professor spoke of; he saw himself, a heart of darkness and pain beyond understanding.
"Sever told me there was only one man, but he also said we wouldn't find him, and even if we did it wouldn't matter."
Arkadin frowned, giving him the canny, feral appearance of a wolf. "What did he mean?"
"I'm not sure." He turned, walking down the deck toward the crew members who had cleared the space for the copter to land. "What we're looking for," he said as Arkadin fell into step beside him, "is a tattoo specific to the Black Legion."
"The wheel of horses with the death's head center." Arkadin nodded. "I've seen it."
"It's on the inside of the elbow."
"We could kill them all." Arkadin laughed. "But I guess that would offend something inside you."
One by one, the two men examined the arms of the eight crewmen on deck, but found no tattoo. By the time they reached the wheelhouse, the tanker was within two miles of the terminal. It was barely moving. Four tugboats had hove to and were waiting at the one-mile limit to tow the tanker the rest of the way in.
The captain was a swarthy individual with a face that looked like it had been deeply etched by acid rather than the wind and the sun. "As I was telling Ms. Trevor, there are seven more crewmen, mostly involved in engine room duties. Then there's my first mate here, the communications officer, and the ship's doctor, he's in sick bay, tending to a crewman who fell ill two days out of Algeria. Oh, yes, and the cook."
Bourne and Arkadin glanced at each other. The radioman seemed the logical choice, but when the captain summoned him he, too, was without the Black Legion tattoo. So were the captain and his first mate.
"The engine room," Bourne said.
At his captain's orders, the first mate led them out onto the deck, then down the starboard companionway into the bowels of the ship, reaching the enormous engine room at last. Five men were hard at work, their faces and arms filthy with a coating of grease and grime. As the first mate instructed them, they held out their arms, but as Bourne reached the third in line, the fourth man looked at them beneath half-closed lids before he bolted.
Bourne went after him while Arkadin circled, snaking through the oily city of grinding machinery. He eluded Bourne once but then, rounding a corner, Bourne spotted him near the line of gigantic Hyundai diesel engines, specifically designed to power the world's fleet of LNG tankers. He was trying to furtively shove a small box between the structural struts of the engine, but Arkadin, coming up behind him, grabbed for his wrist. The crewman jerked away, brought the box back toward him, and was about to thumb a button on it when Bourne kicked it out of his hand. The box went flying, and Arkadin dived after it.
"Careful," the crewman said as Bourne grabbed hold of him. He ignored Bourne, was staring at the box Arkadin brought back to them. "You hold the whole world in your hand."
Meanwhile Bourne pushed up his shirtsleeve. The man's arm was smeared with grease, deliberately so, it seemed, because when Bourne took a rag and wiped it off, the Black Legion tattoo appeared on the inside of his left elbow.
The man seemed totally unconcerned. His entire being was focused on the box that Arkadin was holding. "That will blow up everything," he said, and made a lunge toward it. Bourne jerked him back with a stranglehold.