“What do you say, Bourne?” Priest asked impatiently. “The clock is ticking. We need someone who can find the connection between Sofia Ortiz and Medusa. We need to know what they’re planning. Will you help us?”
Jason noticed a little smirk on Scott’s face, because his friend knew there was no way he was going to say no. Sometimes Jason thought that Scott knew him better than he knew himself.
“I’m in,” Bourne replied.
* * *
—
THAT was two weeks ago.
Now Sofia Ortiz was dead, and Jason was on the run.
He sat in the back seat of an Audi sedan driven south along the Canadian coast by a fat businessman and his twenty-something mistress. Bourne knew where he needed to go. Despite the ambush the previous night, he had to go back to Quebec City. If Medusa had framed him for the murder of Sofia Ortiz, then the only thing he could do was to take the fight to Medusa, and that meant infiltrating their operation. There was one person left who could help him do that.
Abbey Laurent.
She had a source who’d told her about the data hack. She had a source who’d told her about Cain. Bourne needed to find out who was passing secrets to her and trace her source back to Medusa.
“Where are we going?” the businessman in the front seat whined, his voice oozing fear. He had sweat glistening on his head, which was mostly bald except for a thin crown of brown hair. “You haven’t told us anything!”
“Just keep driving.”
“How do we know you won’t kill us?”
“You don’t,” Jason said.
Bourne eased far back into the seat, where his face was partly hidden through the rear window. He watched small towns passing as they headed south, and he eyed the highway ahead for roadblocks and police. They were still more than an hour outside the urban core of Quebec City. His shoulder burned as if a spike had been driven through it, and his head throbbed. He tried to concentrate; he needed a plan. But as he sat in the rear of the Audi, he found himself tormented by flashbacks. His face twitched. In moments of stress, his brain fired a storm of memories at him, one after another. He saw the faces of people from his lost past, people he should have known but who were strangers to him.
And other faces.
People he’d killed.
Jason tried to shut it all out. He had to focus. Stop it!
He realized he’d become distracted. When he glanced at the front seat, he saw that the fat businessman’s right hand had drifted away from the steering wheel.
“What are you doing?” Jason hissed.
He lurched forward, shoving the gun into the man’s neck. The man had slipped a cell phone out of his pocket and was trying to dial an emergency number. Jason twisted the man’s wrist sharply, forcing him to drop the phone. The car swerved as the man screamed in pain, and a car in the opposite lane blared its horn. Jason grabbed the phone, then put the barrel of the gun against the head of the blond in the passenger seat.
“Give me your phone, too. Any more tricks like that, and I’ll shoot you both.”
The young woman, unlike her companion, remained cool and calm. She took out a phone from her tight jeans and handed it to Bourne. He shoved both phones in his pocket, then collapsed backward against the seat. The woman turned around to stare at him. She looked him up and down, more curious than afraid.
“You’re bleeding,” she said.
The businessman, whose thick fingers were clenched around the wheel again, shot her an angry look. “Don’t talk to him! Are you crazy?”
“Shut up, Wallace,” the girl snapped. Then she said to Bourne: “You should have somebody look at that. I can help you if you want.”
“Are you a nurse?”
“Close. My dad’s a vet.”
Bourne laughed. “That’s what you call close?”
“I’ve helped him in surgery since I was twelve. If I can deal with an angry Siamese, I think I can deal with you.”
“Why would you want to help me?” Jason asked.
She shrugged. “Hopefully, you’re less likely to kill me that way.”
Bourne studied the girl’s face. She couldn’t be more than twenty-two or twenty-three. Her blond hair was long and straight, and she wore a scoop T-shirt that emphasized her skinny neck and bony shoulders. Her face was pimpled. She had sleepy brown eyes, but she had a street-smart look that told him she already knew a lot about men.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Amie.”
“And who’s Wallace here?”
“My boss,” she said. She added with a smirk, “Among other things.”
“Amie, stop talking to him!” the man behind the wheel demanded again. “He’s a psychopath!”
“You’re being boring, Wallace,” the young woman replied with a lazy glance. She nodded her head toward the car window as she continued the conversation with Bourne. “We’re in Montmagny. There’s a pharmacy a few blocks away from here. I can get the things to fix you up.”
“Are you saying I should let you go inside by yourself?” Bourne asked.
“Well, you could, but I’ll be honest. If you do that, I won’t come back.”
“That is honest. Except if I come inside with you, then I have to worry about Wallace driving off and calling the police.”
She smirked again. “You don’t need to worry about him. Wallace will be a good boy.”
“Because he wants to keep you alive?”
“Oh, no, he’d run out on me in a heartbeat to save his own neck. But you have his phone, and he likes to take pictures of me while I’m sucking his dick. I imagine his wife would find those pretty interesting.”
Wallace swore at her over and over in a loud voice.
Bourne smiled. “Have you ever done stitches?”
“Lots of times.”
He nodded. “Okay. Wallace, pull into the pharmacy lot when you see it. Don’t even think about trying to flag down a cop.”
“Wallace, give the man your wallet, too,” Amie added.
“What the hell for?” the businessman bellowed.
“That’s our deal, baby. You always pay.”
They reached the parking lot of the pharmacy, where the signs were in French. Bourne directed the businessman to park near the door so that he could watch the car through the windows. It was early evening, and the store was crowded when they went inside, but the number of people helped him keep a low profile. No one gave them a second glance. He took Amie by the hand in a tight grip, and she played her part, leaning her head against his shoulder as if they were lovers. He noticed an ATM near the wall and remembered he was low on cash.
“Do you know his bank code?” Bourne asked her.
“Sure.”
“Take out five hundred dollars.”
Amie shrugged. “Make it a thousand. He can afford it.”
“You’re something else,” Jason told her.
He avoided the bank camera as the girl made the transaction. When she handed him the cash, he gave two hundred dollars back to her. She smiled and stuffed the wad of bills in her pocket.
“So what’s the deal with you two?” Jason asked her. “You can do a lot better than him.”
“I know, but I have champagne tastes. Wallace helps with that. What about you? You want to tell me who you are and what you’re running from?”
“It’s better that you not know,” Jason replied.
“Yeah, I figured.”
They didn’t take long to buy the supplies they needed. When they were back in the Audi, Bourne directed Wallace to the highway, and they headed west out of town. Not long after, the houses thinned, and they found themselves in a densely wooded area. When they reached a cross street that led deeper into the forest, he directed the businessman to turn away from the coastal road. They drove for several miles, unti
l they were on a deserted stretch hugged by trees on both sides. Wallace parked the sedan on the shoulder, and Bourne could feel the man’s panic rise.
“Let me take a look at your shoulder,” Amie said.
She got out of the passenger seat, came around to the rear of the car, and straddled Bourne’s lap in the back seat. She undid the buttons of his shirt and pushed it off his shoulder, where the bullet wound was bleeding. Using the gauze and antiseptic from the pharmacy, she cleaned the wound, removed the torn stitches, then dipped a needle in rubbing alcohol and poured some over the bullet hole, making him wince with pain. She set about closing him up again, and he was impressed. Her stitches were neater and tighter than the doctor had given him the previous night.
“You’re good at that,” he said.
“I know.” She winked at him.
Then she was done, and it was time to go. She got out of the car, and Bourne pointed the gun at Wallace’s head in the front seat. “Get out. Leave the keys.”
“Jesus, you’re going to shoot me! Shit! Shit!”
“I’m not going to shoot you, but I’m taking your car. You can walk back to town and report it missing. By then, I won’t need it. And remember, I still have your phone. Be nice to Amie, or I start texting your wife.”
“Shit!” Wallace said again, backing up toward the trees and yanking the belt of his pants over his stomach. Tears rolled down his round face.
Bourne climbed out of the rear seat. He opened the driver’s door and gestured at the young blonde. “You don’t need him. If you want to come with me, I can drop you anywhere you want.”
“Nah. If I don’t stay with him, he’ll probably get eaten by a bear.”
“Well, thanks for your help,” Jason told her.
Amie patted the bulge in her front pocket, where she had the cash from the ATM. “Thank you.”
Bourne got behind the wheel, then rolled down the window. “Why were you so sure I wouldn’t kill you, Amie?”
The girl shrugged. “Dad treats lots of cats.”
“Cats?” he said. “So what?”
“Sometimes you look in a cat’s eyes and know you better not turn your back on them. But with some cats, you realize that no matter how much they growl and hiss at you, that’s not who they really are. I decided you weren’t a mean cat.”
SEVEN
BOURNE left the Audi in an empty parking lot behind the Musée Nationale des Beaux-Arts in Quebec City. He was confident the car wouldn’t be found for a day or more, but he had no intention of going back to it. When the time came, he’d find another way out of town. He left behind all of the phones, too, including his own. He’d used it to call Miles Priest and Scott DeRay, and that meant it could be tracked to him as soon as he powered it on. He’d find a new burner phone along the way.
It was nearly eight o’clock at night. He hiked in the darkness through the old growth trees and shallow hills of the battlefield park known as the Plains of Abraham on his way into the heart of the city. When he reached the downtown streets, the first thing he did was find a cheap hostel near Rue Dauphine, mostly populated by students. He paid cash for a tiny room with not much more than a bed and a shared bathroom down the hall.
As he headed outside, he passed a young couple coming in who smelled of Turkish coffee and marijuana. He told them his phone had died and asked if they’d mind running a quick Google search for him. Ninety seconds and ten dollars later, he had the local address for the online magazine called The Fort.
Editor and publisher, Jacques Varille.
Senior writer, Abbey Laurent.
The magazine office was only a few blocks away, in a gray stone building across from Esplanade Park. The cobblestoned Rue d’Auteuil was deserted, but Jason avoided the street and approached the building via the park, where the trees hid him. He watched the neighborhood, alert for signs of a trap. The windows of the building were all dark, including the top-floor offices where The Fort was housed. The cross streets looked empty, but Jason let the time tick by before he moved. Patience was how he stayed alive. When he was certain that no one was keeping the building under surveillance, he darted across the intersection.
There were windows in the middle of the twin entry doors. Using the butt of his pistol, he broke the glass, reached around the jagged shards, and let himself inside the building. With his gun in his hand, he took the staircase to the top floor, where he found another door labeled with a sign for The Fort. The interior door yielded with a single kick of his boot.
He had a mini penlight in his pocket that cast a weak beam, and he aimed it at the floor, making sure the light didn’t pass close to the windows. The magazine office was small, just a single room with half a dozen desks, a supply closet, a mini kitchen, and a laser printer. Cheap tourist posters of Canadian landscapes adorned the walls. The room smelled of pizza, thanks to a delivery box squeezed into one of the wastebaskets. Bourne went from desk to desk, looking for the one that belonged to Abbey Laurent. He found it at the back, and he knew it because of the photographs she kept. He recognized the attractive woman with mahogany-colored hair. The woman he’d saved from a killer in New York. The woman he’d seen through the lenses of his binoculars in the rain at Dufferin Terrace.
The woman who’d led him into an ambush.
Did she know what was going to happen? Was she part of Medusa? Or was she another one of their innocent pawns?
He picked up another of the framed photographs on her desk, which showed Abbey standing next to a tall, lean man in a gray suit, obviously a few years older than she was. The man had one arm around her waist in a possessive grip, and he carried a leather briefcase in his other hand. He wore a lanyard around his neck that identified him as part of a United Nations conference. Bourne recognized the background of the photo as inside Grand Central Station. On the photograph itself, someone had written a caption in neat penmanship: Abbey et Michel, New York. It was dated the previous year.
Jason had a hard time imagining these two in a relationship. The man in the photograph had the cautious, humorless smile of a diplomat. By contrast, Abbey stared at the camera with the grin of someone who rode life like a roller coaster with her arms in the air. She wore a little black dress with a plunging neckline and flouncy lace sleeves that said, Look at me. Even though the two women didn’t resemble each other at all, there was something in Abbey’s attitude and eyes that reminded him of Nova.
Bourne examined Abbey’s desk, which was messy, with hardly a square inch of open space. She had notepads filled with writing, scribbled out of the lines with arrows and bubbles as she thought of new ideas. The borders of her computer monitor were covered over with yellow sticky notes. It all reflected a quick, chaotic mind.
He opened the top drawer of her desk. Inside, he found a dozen matching Uni-Ball pens, two tins of breath mints, and coupons for just about every fast-food restaurant in the city. There was also a digital voice recorder.
Jason took out the recorder and pressed the button for playback.
The voice on the machine sounded loud in the dark, empty space. He quickly switched it to a whisper and held the device to his ear.
“Congresswoman, some people say that in the age of social media, privacy is an archaic notion. I take it you disagree.”
He had never heard Abbey Laurent’s voice before, but he was sure it was her. The fast, almost breathless way she had of talking matched her face. She sounded as if her mouth were always trying to catch up with her brain. Bourne kept listening, and the next voice on the recording was one he recognized from television.
Congresswoman Sofia Ortiz.
Her Hispanic-accented voice was slow and measured, like a politician considering her words.
“Yes, I do disagree. Most strenuously. Is there convenience that comes with living our lives online? Have these apps made our lives better? Absolutely. But the question is, who is really in control of
all that information? If we are talking about an individual’s personal data, then the individual should own it. Period. And I’m afraid that Big Tech has forgotten that simple lesson. These companies are the latest in a long history of monopolistic industries with too much money, too much power, too much influence, too much potential for abuse. They need to be reined in.”
“Speaking of abuse,” Abbey went on, “one of my sources tells me that you believe Big Tech has been covering up some kind of large-scale data hack. A theft that affects practically every online user. What can you tell me about that?”
“I’m not commenting on that,” the congresswoman replied. When she continued, Jason could hear the smile in her voice. “At least not on the record.”
“And off the record?”
“Off the record, people will be shocked to the core by the volume of data that was stolen.”
“Do you know who is behind it?”
“No. How can you investigate the perpetrator of something that Big Tech claims never happened? There are obviously foreign actors who would be likely suspects. Russia. China. Iran.”
“What are the risks of this data being in the wrong hands?”
“The risks? Incalculable. Online advertisers already synthesize data in order to influence your buying behavior. Imagine if nearly all of your personal data was available to a rogue actor, someone who wanted to influence you for other reasons. To shape what you think, what you believe, how you act, how you vote. That’s the situation we face.”
“There’s already a new social media software that claims to know what you want to do before you do it,” Abbey said. “Prescix boasts that it can predict your behavior. If you don’t know what you want for dinner, the app will tell you. I’ve used it. It’s creepy how accurate it is.”
“Prescix,” Congresswoman Ortiz replied thoughtfully. “Yes, I know the software, but the goal of this technology is not to predict what you do. It’s not so benign as they would claim. The goal is to tell you what to do. To manipulate you and make you do whatever they want.”
The Bourne Evolution Page 6