THE BOURNE SERIES
Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Initiative
(by Eric Van Lustbader)
Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Enigma
(by Eric Van Lustbader)
Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Ascendancy
(by Eric Van Lustbader)
Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Retribution
(by Eric Van Lustbader)
Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Imperative
(by Eric Van Lustbader)
Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Dominion
(by Eric Van Lustbader)
Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Objective
(by Eric Van Lustbader)
Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Deception
(by Eric Van Lustbader)
Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Sanction
(by Eric Van Lustbader)
Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Betrayal
(by Eric Van Lustbader)
Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Legacy
(by Eric Van Lustbader)
The Bourne Ultimatum
The Bourne Supremacy
The Bourne Identity
THE TREADSTONE SERIES
Robert Ludlum’s The Treadstone Resurrection
(by Joshua Hood)
THE COVERT-ONE SERIES
Robert Ludlum’s The Patriot Attack
(by Kyle Mills)
Robert Ludlum’s The Geneva Strategy
(by Jamie Freveletti)
Robert Ludlum’s The Utopia Experiment
(by Kyle Mills)
Robert Ludlum’s The Janus Reprisal
(by Jamie Freveletti)
Robert Ludlum’s The Ares Decision
(by Kyle Mills)
Robert Ludlum’s The Arctic Event
(by James H. Cobb)
Robert Ludlum’s The Moscow Vector
(with Patrick Larkin)
Robert Ludlum’s The Lazarus Vendetta
(with Patrick Larkin)
Robert Ludlum’s The Altman Code
(with Gayle Lynds)
Robert Ludlum’s The Paris Option
(with Gayle Lynds)
Robert Ludlum’s The Cassandra Compact
(with Philip Shelby)
Robert Ludlum’s The Hades Factor
(with Gayle Lynds)
THE JANSON SERIES
Robert Ludlum’s The Janson Equation
(by Douglas Corleone)
Robert Ludlum’s The Janson Option
(by Paul Garrison)
Robert Ludlum’s The Janson Command
(by Paul Garrison)
The Janson Directive
ALSO BY ROBERT LUDLUM
The Bancroft Strategy
The Ambler Warning
The Tristan Betrayal
The Sigma Protocol
The Prometheus Deception
The Matarese Countdown
The Apocalypse Watch
The Scorpio Illusion
The Road to Omaha
The Icarus Agenda
The Aquitaine Progression
The Parsifal Mosaic
The Matarese Circle
The Holcroft Covenant
The Chancellor Manuscript
The Gemini Contenders
The Road to Gandolfo
The Rhinemann Exchange
The Cry of the Halidon
Trevayne
The Matlock Paper
The Osterman Weekend
The Scarlatti Inheritance
G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
Publishers Since 1838
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Copyright © 2020 by Myn Pyn LLC
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Freeman, Brian, author.
Title: Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Evolution / Brian Freeman.
Description: U.S. edition. | New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 2020. |
Identifiers: LCCN 2020018114 (print) | LCCN 2020018115 (ebook) | ISBN 9780525542599 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780525542605 (ebook)
Subjects: GSAFD: Mystery fiction. | Suspense fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3606.R4454 R63 2020 (print) | LCC PS3606.R4454 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020018114
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020018115
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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CONTENTS
Also by Robert Ludlum
Title Page
Copyright
Part OneChapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Part TwoChapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Part ThreeChapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
Chapter Thirty-six
Chapter Thirty-seven
Part FourChapter Thirty-eight
Chapter Thirty-nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-one
Chapter Forty-two
Chapter Forty-three
Chapter Forty-four
Chapter Forty-five
Chapter Forty-six
Chapter Forty-seven
About the Authors
MYSTERY HANGS OVER LAS VEGAS SHOOTING
October 9, 2019
WASHINGTON (AP)
Nearly one year after sixty-six people were killed in the nation’s worst mass shooting incident, the FBI announced last week that it had concl
uded its investigation into the tragedy. However, the agency’s report, which offers no clues about the motive of the killer, seems to leave the public with more questions than answers.
On November 3, 2018, Charles Hackman opened fire from a room on the nineteenth floor of the Lucky Nickel hotel in downtown Las Vegas. Targeting a crowd of more than five thousand men, women, and children gathered for an antique car show, Hackman killed or wounded dozens of people during an eighteen-minute shooting spree before being shot and killed by police.
Hackman, a fifty-four-year-old actuary from Summerlin, Nevada, had no prior criminal record and no history of mental illness or substance abuse. Despite what the FBI called an exhaustive investigation of Hackman’s personal background and behavior, the agency was unable to identify any political, ethnic, or religious motive behind the shooting. The agency said it found no evidence that Hackman had been a member of any extremist organization and concluded that he acted alone.
But with no explanation for what caused a seemingly unremarkable man to commit the nation’s worst act of mass murder, the FBI’s report has prompted a flood of online conspiracy theories and accusations that the agency is covering up what really happened. Despite attempts by social media platforms to limit the spread of “fake news,” millions of people have now read and shared articles suggesting without evidence that Hackman was either a jihadist recruit or the victim of a government frame-up.
Even the number of victims in the tragedy has become a subject of controversy. While the official death toll was set at sixty-six in the days following the incident, the hashtag #66or67 has begun trending this week, reflecting allegations from anonymous sources in the government that a missing victim was not counted in the final total and may have been the first person targeted in the shooting. . . .
@abbeylaurent_ 4/9/20 4:12pm
Live-tweeting: Ready for Congresswoman Sofia Ortiz to speak on tech privacy abuse in New York’s Washington Square Park. Huge crowd, lots of chanting, lots of signs. Intersections blocked, traffic at a standstill.
@abbeylaurent_ 4/9/20 4:28pm
Still waiting. No sign of her yet.
@abbeylaurent_ 4/9/20 4:29pm
Want more on Ortiz? Check out my full profile of the first-term New York congresswoman in the online magazine The Fort. tinyurl.com/yxl8mpdo
@abbeylaurent_ 4/9/20 4:39pm
Here she is. Cheers are deafening. Ortiz wasting no time working up the crowd. “We’re here to tell Big Tech that WE own our personal data, not them, and we’re taking it back!”
@abbeylaurent_ 4/9/20 4:43pm
Ortiz confirming what my source told me last week. She’s accusing tech companies of covering up a massive data hack. Source unknown, could be foreign. “Affecting nearly every American.”
@abbeylaurent_ 4/9/20 4:46pm
Ortiz now calling for expansive new federal regulations and oversight. “Biggest change to privacy laws in a generation.” Says tech giants have proven they can’t be trusted.
@abbeylaurent_ 4/9/20 4:47pm
Crowd really getting riled up. People spilling into the street, some confrontations with cops. Ortiz is asking for peaceful protest—WAIT—OMG!!!!!!!
@abbeylaurent_ 4/9/20 4:48pm
ORTIZ SHOT!!!!!! CONGRESSWOMAN ORTIZ HAS BEEN SHOT!!!!!
@abbeylaurent_ 4/9/20 4:50pm
Ortiz is down twenty feet away from me. Blood everywhere. It’s pandemonium. Crowd charging the stage. MORE GUNFIRE! GUNFIRE IN THE CROWD!
@abbeylaurent_ 4/9/20 4:52pm
Have to move. Not safe here.
@abbeylaurent_ 4/9/20 5:21pm
Riot!! Guns, bottles, knives being used as weapons. I can see two bodies in the street and eight cars on fire. Looting, too, numerous store windows broken.
@abbeylaurent_ 4/9/20 5:32pm
STAY AWAY from the Washington Square area.
@abbeylaurent_ 4/9/20 5:41pm
Anarchists leading the violence, masks over their faces. Not sure where they came from. Police nowhere close to getting this under control. Have to move again.
@abbeylaurent_ 4/9/20 5:56pm
Police rounding up everyone on the street. Mass arrests, including yours truly. Anyone got bail?
@abbeylaurent_ 4/10/20 7:05am
Okay, I’m out. Got my phone back. Update: Five confirmed dead from last night’s riot, area still locked down. Congresswoman Sofia Ortiz killed from a shot to the throat by a sniper. FBI calling it an assassination.
@abbeylaurent_ 4/10/20 8:35am
My source telling me there is a suspect in the Ortiz assassination. NOT in custody, location unknown, armed and dangerous.
@abbeylaurent_ 4/10/20 8:37am
Suspect is ex-government operative gone rogue, believed to be part of a radical anarchist group. No identity yet, just the code name Cain.
@abbeylaurent_ 4/10/20 8:38am
Who is Cain?
PART ONE
ONE
THE man in black lifted his binoculars and studied the rain-swept boardwalk. The benches that stretched along Dufferin Terrace, on the cliffside looming over the lower town and the St. Lawrence River, were empty. His contact hadn’t arrived yet, but that was to be expected. It was only nine-fifteen, and he’d told her to be on the boardwalk at ten o’clock. He wanted the extra time to survey the meeting ground and see if he was walking into a trap.
He’d left a car behind near the port and then taken the funicular to the Haute-Ville. Now he stood like an invisible man in the darkness, behind a stone wall on the hill of the Citadel. Cold rain sheeted from the sky, blurring the nighttime lights of Quebec City. A fierce wind rattled the winter skeletons of the trees, drowning out the other sounds with its moan. In front of him, the Château Frontenac hotel rose like a medieval castle. At the base of the cliff, the lower town’s ribbon of lights glittered beside the great dark stain of the river. Along the boardwalk, a row of antique cannons aimed their muzzles out over the water, as if anticipating the return of American invaders.
The cannons weren’t wrong.
The Americans were here somewhere. Looking for him.
Where are you hiding?
He waited, patient and motionless, not reacting to the cold or the wetness of his clothes or the bite of the wind. He’d trained himself to be immune to such things. He used the binoculars to examine every window, every doorway, every shadow or corner where someone could hide. Even the best operatives usually made mistakes. The flicker of a match as a cigarette was lit. The swish of a curtain. A footprint in the mud. When he’d completed his survey, he repeated it two more times, and he still saw nothing to alarm him.
He was starting to feel safe.
Then someone screamed.
He tensed, but this was a happy scream, mixed with laughter. A young couple, drenched by the downpour, ran hand in hand along the glistening boardwalk below him. They took shelter under one of the canopies next to the cliff, where they began kissing passionately. He zoomed in on their faces under the gazebo lights. Both were in their twenties, both attractive. The woman had pink-and-blond hair that was pasted over her face, and she had the lean, strong build of a runner, wearing skintight leggings. The man with her was several inches taller and had black hair and a long, deep scar on his cheek.
He tried to decide who they were.
Two harmless tourists.
Or two killers.
The truth was usually in the eyes. He watched carefully to see if either of them broke cover long enough to throw a surreptitious glance at their surroundings, but if this was a performance for his benefit, they stayed in character. When they’d kissed for a while, they walked back into the rain. Each looked at the other with a hungry grin, the way lovers would. They headed north toward the grand hotel.
That was when he saw his contact arrive on the boardwalk. She was early. She walked down the steps
from Governor’s Park, seemingly not bothered by the rain that pummeled her. A large leather satchel purse hung from her shoulder. She reached the walkway just as the young couple passed in front of her, and he worried that the timing was too perfect. He could picture it all happening. A pistol in the hand of the man with the scar. One shot, no chance to run, his contact collapsing with a bullet in her throat. He yanked his own gun into his hand and prepared to dive down the Citadel slope, even though he was too far away to stop what was about to happen.
Except he was wrong.
The young couple waved at the woman. She smiled back. They were simply three strangers enjoying the romance of the rain. There was no ambush, no gunfire. He watched the couple continue on their way to the Château Frontenac, and his contact crossed the boardwalk to the gazebo, where he’d told her to wait. She grabbed her phone from her purse and checked the time. Then she stared at the hillside in his direction with her hands on her hips. He knew she couldn’t see him, but she had the look of someone who could feel that she was being watched.
He examined her closely through the binoculars.
The journalist named Abbey Laurent was a couple of years past thirty, medium height and a little skinny. She wore a waist-length jean jacket over a white T-shirt, forest-green cargo pants, and black calf boots. Her hair was colored to a deep dark red, falling in wet strands to her shoulders and across her forehead in spiky bangs. She wore lipstick that was as dark red as her hair, and her mouth was folded into a curious smirk, as if she were enjoying the excitement of what she was doing. Her eyes were dark, and they were smart eyes that didn’t miss a thing.
She pushed some of the buttons on her phone. A second later, his own phone buzzed. She’d sent him a text.
I’m here, mystery man.
He allowed himself a tight smile. He liked this woman. But liking and trusting were two different things.
He let her wait without replying to her message, and meanwhile, he did another thorough check of the area through the binoculars. They were alone. The young couple on the boardwalk had long since disappeared. He saw no sign that the woman was being watched, but even so, he let their meeting time come and go. Ten o’clock. Ten-fifteen. Ten-thirty. She sent more texts, which grew annoyed and impatient as time wore on.
The Bourne Evolution Page 1