the truth is I... couldn't. I wanted to forget her, forget her death ever happened."
"But I remember running down a cobbled street, holding her in my arms, her blood everywhere."
Soraya nodded. Her face was heavy with sorrow. "You saw her moving. You picked her up. That's when you were shot. I returned fire and suddenly there was a hail of bullets. We got separated. You went to find the target, Hamid ibn Ashef. From what you told me later, when we rendezvoused in the catacombs, you found him and shot him, but were unsure whether you'd killed him."
"And Sarah?"
"By then she was long dead. You left her on the way to kill Hamid ibn Ashef."
For a long time, there was silence in the stateroom. Bourne turned, went to the water jug, poured himself half a glass. He opened the twist of paper Dr. Pavlyna had given him, swallowed one of the antibiotic pills. The water tasted flat, slightly bitter.
"How did it happen?" He had his back to her. He didn't want to see her face when she told him.
"She appeared at the spot where we met my conduit. He told us where Hamid ibn Ashef was. In return, we gave him the money he'd asked for. We were finishing the transaction when we saw her. She was running. I don't know why. Also, she had her mouth open as if shouting something. But the conduit was shouting, too. We thought he'd betrayed us-which, it turned out, he had. We shot at her. Both of us. And she fell."
Bourne, abruptly tired, sat down in the bed.
Soraya took a step toward him. "Are you all right?"
He nodded, took a deep breath. "It was a mistake," he said.
"Do you think that makes any difference to her?"
"You may not even have hit her."
"And then again I may have. In any event, would that absolve me?"
"You're drowning in your own guilt."
She gave a sad little laugh. "Then I guess we both are."
They regarded each other across the small space of the stateroom. The Itkursk's horn sounded again, muffled, mournful. The ro-ro rocked them as it plowed south across the Black Sea, but it was so quiet in the stateroom that she imagined she could hear the sound of his mind working through a deep and tangled mystery.
He said, "Soraya, listen to me, I think Sarah's death is the key to everything that's happened, everything that's happening now."
"You can't be serious." But by the expression on his face she knew he was, and she was sorry for her response. "Go on," she said.
"I think Sarah is central. I think her death set everything in motion."
"Dujja's plan to detonate a nuclear bomb in a major American city? That's a stretch."
"Not the plan per se. I have no doubt that was already being discussed," Bourne said. "But I think the timing of it changed. I think Sarah's death lit the fuse."
"That would mean that Sarah is connected with your original mission to terminate Hamid ibn Ashef."
He nodded. "That would be my guess. I don't think she was at the rendezvous point by accident."
"Why would she be there? How would she have known?"
"She could have found out from your conduit. He betrayed us to Hamid ibn Ashef's people," Bourne said. "As to why she was there, I have no idea."
Soraya frowned. "But where's the link between Hamid ibn Ashef and Fadi?"
"I've been thinking about that bit of intel you got from your forensics friend at the Fire Investigation Unit."
"Carbon disulfide-the accelerant Fadi used at the Hotel Constitution."
"Right. One of things you told me carbon disulfide is used for is flotation-a method for the separation of mixtures. Flotation was developed in the late twentieth century on a commercial scale mainly for the processing of silver."
Soraya's eyes lit up. "One of Integrated Vertical Technologies' businesses is silver processing. IVT is owned by Hamid ibn Ashef."
Bourne nodded. "I think IVT is the legitimate entity that's been bankrolling Dujja all these years."
"But Sarah-"
"As for Sarah, or anything else, for that matter, we're dead in the water until we reach Istanbul and can connect to the Internet. Right now, our cell phones are useless."
Soraya rose. "In that event, I'm going to get us something to eat. I don't know about you, but I'm starving."
"We'll go together."
Bourne began to rise, but she pushed him back onto the bed. "You need your rest, Jason. I'll get food for both of us."
She smiled at him before turning and going out the door.
Bourne lay back for a moment,