you not?" Zaim stared hard at Bourne with watery eyes.
"You climbed into the metal carcasses of the warbirds, you sifted through the bones of the warriors berthed inside. Don't bother to deny it. Anyone who does gathers enemies the same way a rotting corpse gathers flies." He flicked his free hand. His heavily callused palms and fingers were tattooed with dirt so ingrained, it could never be washed away. "I can smell it on you."
"This enemy," Bourne said, "is at the moment unknown to me."
Zaim grinned, showing many dark gaps between what teeth were left in his mouth. His breath was as rank as the grave. "Then I have become valuable to you. More valuable, surely, than a bottle of liquor."
"My enemies were in hiding, watching the Site of Death?"
"How much is it worth to you," Zaim said, "to be shown the face of your enemy?"
Bourne slid money across the table.
Zaim took it with a practiced swipe of his clawlike hand. "Your enemy keeps watch on the Site, day and night. It's like a spiderweb, you see? He wants to see what insects it attracts."
"What's it to him?"
Zaim shrugged. "Very little."
"So there's someone else."
Zaim leaned closer. "We are pawns, you see. We are born pawns. What else are we good for? How else are we to scratch out a living?" He shrugged again. "Even so, one can keep the evil times at bay only so long. Sooner or later, grief comes in whatever guise will be most painful."
Bourne thought of Zaim's son, buried alive in the landslide. But he could say nothing; he'd promised Alem.
"I'm looking for a friend of mine," he said softly. "He was carried onto Ras Dejen by the first warbird. His body is not at the Site of Death. Therefore, I believe he's alive. What do you know of this?"
"I? I know nothing. Except for snatches overheard here and there." Zaim scratched at his beard with gnarly black nails. "But there is perhaps someone who could help."
"Will you bring me to him?"
Zaim smiled. "That is entirely up to you."
Bourne pushed another wad of money across the stained table. Zaim took it, grunted, folded it away.
"On the other hand," he said, "we can do nothing while your enemy watches." He pursed his lips reflectively. "The eye of your enemy sits spread-legged over your left shoulder-a foot soldier, we would say, no one higher up."
"Now you're involved," Bourne said, nodding to where the other had put the money.
Alem's father shrugged. "I am unconcerned. I know this man; I know his people. Nothing evil will come of me talking to you, believe me."
"I want him off my back," Bourne said. "I want the eye to sleep."
"Of course you do." Zaim rubbed his chin. "Anything can be arranged, even such a difficult wish."
Bourne slid over more money, and Zaim nodded, apparently satisfied, at least for the moment. He reminded Bourne of a Vegas slot machine: He wasn't going to stop taking money from Bourne until Bourne walked away.
"Wait exactly three minutes-no more, no less-then follow me out the front door." Zaim stood.
"Walk a hundred paces down the main street, then turn left into an alley, then take the first right. Of course, I cannot risk being seen to help you in this. In any event, I trust you'll know what to do. Afterward you'll walk away without retracing your steps. I'll find you."
"There's a message for you," Peter Marks said when Soraya returned to Typhon to clean out her desk.
"You take it, Pete," she said dully. "I've been bounced out of here."
"What the hell-?"
"The acting director has spoken."
"He's gonna kill everything that Lindros wanted Typhon to be."
"That seems to be the idea."
As she was about to turn away, he took hold of her arm, swung her back. He was a young man, stocky, with deep-set eyes, hair the color of corn, a faint dry Nebraska twang. "Soraya, I just want to say for me-well, for all of us, really-no one blames you for what happened to Tim. Shit happens. In this business it's, unfortunately, all really bad."
Soraya took a breath, let it out slowly. "Thanks, Pete. I appreciate that."
"I figured you'd been beating yourself up for letting Bourne run roughshod all over you and Tim."
She was silent for a moment, unsure what she was feeling. "It wasn't Bourne," she said at last, "and it wasn't me. It just happened, Pete. That's all."
"Sure, okay. I only meant that, you know, Bourne is another outsider forced on us by the Old Man.