the man pulled Devra off the tar, away from Arkadin.
"Did you tell him anything?" he said without taking his eyes off Arkadin.
"Of course not," Devra shot back. "What d'you take me for?"
"A weak link," Mole-man said. "I told Pyotr not to use you. Now, because of you, Filya is dead."
"Filya was an idiot!"
Mole-man took his eyes off Arkadin to sneer at Devra. "He was your fucking responsibility, bitch."
Arkadin scissored his legs between Mole-man's, throwing him off balance. Arkadin, quick as a cat, leapt on him, pummeling him. Mole-man fought back as best he could. Arkadin tried not to show the pain in his left shoulder, but it was already dislocated and it wouldn't work correctly. Seeing this, Mole-man struck a blow as hard as he could flush into the shoulder.
All the breath went out of Arkadin. He sat back, dazed, almost blacked out with pain. Mole-man scrabbled for his gun, found Arkadin's instead, and swung it up. He was about to pull the trigger when Devra shot him in the back of the head with his own gun.
Without a word, he pitched over onto his face. She stood, wide-legged, in the classic shooter's stance, one hand supporting the other around the grips. Arkadin, on his knees, for the moment paralyzed with agony, watched her swing the gun around, point it at him. There was something in her eyes he couldn't identify, let alone understand.
Then, all at once, she let out the long breath she'd been holding inside, her arms relaxed, and the gun came down.
"Why?" Arkadin said. "Why did you shoot him?"
"He was a fool. Fuck me, I hate them all."
The rain beat down on them, drummed against the rooftop. The sky, utterly dark, muffled the world around them. They could have been standing on a mountaintop on the roof of the world. Arkadin watched her approach him. She put one foot in front of the other, walking stiff-legged. She seemed like a wild animal-angry, bitter, out of her element in the civilized world. Like him. He was tied to her, but he didn't understand her, he couldn't trust her.
When she held out her hand to him he took it.
Chapter Nine
I HAVE this recurring nightmare," Defense Secretary Ervin Reynolds "Bud" Halliday said. "I'm sitting right here at Aushak in Bethesda, when in comes Jason Bourne and in the style of The Godfather Part II shoots me in the throat and then between my eyes."
Halliday was seated at a table in the rear of the restaurant, along with Luther LaValle and Rob Batt. Aushak, more or less midway between the National Naval Medical Center and the Chevy Chase Country Club, was a favorite meeting place of his. Because it was in Bethesda and, especially, because it was Afghani, no one he knew or wanted to keep secrets from came here. The defense secretary felt most comfortable in off-the-beaten-path places. He was a man who despised Congress, despised even more its oversight committees, which were always mucking about in matters that didn't concern them and for which they had no understanding, let alone expertise.
The three men had ordered the dish after which the restaurant was named: sheets of pasta, filled with scallions, drenched in a savory meat-infused tomato sauce, the whole crowned by rich Middle Eastern yogurt in which flowered tiny bits of mint. The aushak, they all agreed, was a perfect winter meal.
"We'll soon have that particular nightmare laid to rest, sir," LaValle said with the kind of obsequiousness that set Batt's teeth on edge. "Isn't that so, Rob?"
Batt nodded emphatically. "Quite right. I have a plan that's virtually foolproof."
Perhaps that wasn't the correct thing to say. Halliday frowned,."No plan is foolproof, Mr. Batt, especially when it involves Jason Bourne."
"I assure you, no one knows that better than I do, Mr. Secretary."
Batt, as the seniormost of the seven directorate heads, did not care for being contradicted. He was a linebacker of a man with plenty of experience beating back pretenders to his crown. Still, he was aware that he was treading terra incognita, where a power struggle was raging, the outcome unknown.
He pushed his plate away. In dealing with these people he knew he was making a calculated gamble; on the other hand, he felt the spark that emanated from Secretary Halliday. Batt had entered the nation's true power grid, a place he'd secretly longed to be, and a powerful sense of elation shot through him.
"Because the plan revolves around DCI Hart," Batt said now, "my hope is that we'll be