bicycle, especially one that had caused a minor uproar lunging through a red light, was that the cyclist became conspicuous, exactly the opposite of what was intended.
Making the best of a worsening situation, Bourne threw caution to the wind, following the accelerating GMC into the fork as it took Pennsylvania Avenue. The good news was that the congestion prevented the GMC from keeping up speed. More good news: Another red light loomed. This time Bourne was ready for the GMC to plow right through. Swerving in and out between vehicles, he put on another burst of speed, running the red light with the big SUV. But just as he was coming abreast of the far crosswalk, a gaggle of drunk teenagers stumbled off the curb on their way across the avenue. They closed off the lane behind the GMC and were so raucous they either didn't hear Bourne's warning shout or didn't care. He was forced to swerve sharply to the right. His front tire struck the curb, the bike lifted up. People scattered out of its way as it became, in effect, a missile. Bourne was able to keep it going after it landed, but there was simply nowhere for him to steer it without plowing into another group of kids. He applied the brakes without enough effect. Leaning to the right, he forced the bike down on its side, ripping his right trouser leg as it skidded along the cement.
"Are you all right?"
"What were you trying to do?"
"Didn't you see the red light?"
"You could have killed yourself-or someone else!"
A welter of voices as pedestrians surrounded him, trying to help him out from under the bicycle. Bourne thanked them as he scrambled to his feet. He ran several hundred yards down the avenue, but as he feared the GMC was long gone.
Expelling a string of bawdily colorful curses, Arkadin rummaged through the pockets of Oleg Ivanovich Shumenko, who lay twitching in the bloodstained catwalk deep inside the Sevastopol Winery. As he did so, he wondered how he could have been such a fool. He'd done precisely what Shumenko had wanted him to do, which was to kill him. He'd rather have died than divulge the name of the next man in Pyotr Zilber's network.
Still, there was a chance that something he had on his person would lead Arkadin farther along. Arkadin had already made a small pile of coins, bills, toothpicks, and the like. He unfolded each scrap of paper he came across, but none of them contained either a name or an address, just lists of chemicals, presumably those the winery required for fermentation or the periodic cleaning of its vats.
Shumenko's wallet was a sad affair-sliver-thin, containing a faded photo of an older couple smiling into the sun and the camera Arkadin took to be Shumenko's parents, a condom in a worn foil pouch, a driver's license, car registration, ID badge for a sailing club, an IOU chit for ten thousand hryvnia-just under two thousand American dollars-two receipts, one for a restaurant, the other for a nightclub, an old photo of a young girl smiling into the camera.
In pocketing the receipts, the only reasonable leads he'd found, he inadvertently flipped over the IOU. On the reverse was the name DEVRA, written in a sharp, spiky feminine hand. Arkadin wanted to look for more, but he heard an electronic squawk, then the bawl of Yetnikova's voice. He looked around, saw an old-fashioned walkie-talkie hanging by its strap from the railing. Stuffing the papers into his pocket, he hurried along the catwalk, slid down the ladder, made his way out of the champagne fermentation room.
Shumenko's boss, Yetnikova, marched toward him down the labyrinthine corridors as if she were in the forefront of the Red Army entering Warsaw. Even at this distance, he could see the scowl on her face. Unlike his Russian credentials, his Ukrainian ones were paper-thin. They'd pass a cursory test, but after any kind of checking he'd be busted.
"I called the SBU office in Kiev. They did some digging on you, Colonel." Yetnikova's voice had turned from servile to hostile. "Or whoever you are." She puffed herself up like a porcupine about to do battle. "They never heard of-"
She gave a little squeak as he jammed one hand over her mouth while he punched her hard in the solar plexus. She collapsed into his arms like a rag doll, and he dragged her along the corridor until he came to the utility closet. Opening the door, he