the backseat, Soraya went to get a shirt. She was rooting through Arkadin's desk when he found her.
"Fuck, no," he said and, grabbing her wrist, dragged her outside.
Half throwing her into the passenger's seat of the car, he said, "I will kill you as soon as look at you." Then he went around the front of the car, slid behind the wheel, and fired the ignition.
"You're right." Soraya kept Moira's leg elevated as they sped through the outskirts of Puerto Penasco. "Willard wanted me to get close to you, to report on your whereabouts and your business dealings."
"And? I sense there's something more."
"There is," she said. She knew she had to sell this part perfectly. She no longer believed absolutely in her ability to outsmart him, but this much she needed to do. "Willard has become interested in a man I'm sure you know, because he works for Maslov: Vylacheslav Oserov."
Arkadin's knuckles turned white on the steering wheel, but his voice betrayed nothing of what he must be feeling. "Why would Willard be interested in Oserov?"
"I have no idea," Soraya said. This much, at least, was true. "But I do know that yesterday a Treadstone agent ID'd Oserov in Marrakech. He tracked Oserov out into the Atlas Mountains, to a village called Tineghir."
They arrived at Santa Fe General, on Morua Avenue, but Arkadin made no move to get out of the car.
"What was Oserov doing in Tineghir?"
"Looking for a ring."
Arkadin shook his head. "Speak plainly."
"This particular ring somehow unlocks a hidden file on a laptop hard drive." She looked at him. "I know, I don't understand it, either." All of this information had been in the last text message she had received from Peter. She opened the rear door. "Can we get Moira into the ER, please?"
Arkadin got out of the car and slammed the door she had just opened. "I want more."
"I've told you all I know."
He stared into her face. "You see what happens to people who fuck with me."
"I'm not fucking with you," Soraya said. "I've betrayed a trust, what more do you want from me?"
"Everything," he said. "I want everything."
They rushed Moira into the emergency room. While the personnel were hooking her up and taking her vitals, Soraya asked for the name of the best neurosurgeon in Sonora. She spoke idiomatic Spanish; furthermore, she looked Latina. These attributes opened doors for her. When she got the surgeon's private number, she called him herself. His PA said he was unavailable until Soraya threatened to find the PA and wring his neck. The surgeon came on the line shortly thereafter. Soraya described Moira's injury and told him where they were. He said considering a cash bonus of two thousand American dollars was involved, he'd be over immediately.
"Let's go," Arkadin said the moment she disconnected.
"I'm not leaving Moira."
"We have further business to discuss."
"Then we can discuss it here."
"Back at the convent."
"I'm not going to fuck you," she said.
"Thank God, fucking you would be like fucking a scorpion."
The irony of his comment made her laugh despite her worry and despair. She went to look for coffee, and he followed her.
Bourne drove to Oxford as fast as he dared without attracting the attention of the police. The city was precisely as he had left it both times he had been there. The quiet streets, the quaint stores, the lifelong denizens going about their chores, the tearooms, the bookstores, all like a miniature created by an obsessive eighteenth-century academic. Driving its streets was like visiting the inside of a snow globe.
Bourne parked near where Chrissie had left her Range Rover when they had come together, and he trotted up the steps of the Centre for the Study of Ancient Documents. Professor Liam Giles was also right where he had been when they had last been there, bent over his desk in his voluminous office. He looked up as Bourne entered, blinking owlishly, as if he didn't recognize him. Bourne saw that it wasn't Giles after all, but another man of Giles's approximate build and age.
"Where's Professor Giles?"
"On leave," the man said.
"I'm looking for him."
"So I gather. May I ask why?"
"Where is he?"
The man blinked his owlish blink. "Away."
Bourne had looked up Giles's official bio on the way over, which was available on the Oxford University Web site.
"It's about his daughter."
The man behind Giles's desk blinked. "Is she ill?"
"I'm not at liberty to say. Where can I find Professor Giles?"
"I don't think - "
"It's urgent," Bourne said. "A matter of life or death."