The Bourne Evolution

by Brian Freeman

  Her eyes rolled up. Her body slid to the floor of the car.

  He couldn’t hide what he’d done. People saw it happen; they saw him. Bedlam ensued. Shouts for help rose in the station, and inside and outside the funicular car, two dozen people stampeded for the sunlight of the exit.

  He saw Abbey Laurent among the crowd. She’d almost reached the streets of the lower town when she heard the scream and the chaos erupting behind her. She turned in confusion and looked back at the funicular car, taking in the sight of the unconscious woman on the floor and Jason standing over her.

  Their eyes met across the station, and he watched her face go pale. Then he could see her lips soundlessly form one word.

  Cain.

  TEN

  CAIN.

  Abbey had no doubt that it was him. The assassin. The killer who had sent a bullet into the throat of Congresswoman Sofia Ortiz.

  She also had no doubt that he was here to kill her.

  Abbey ran into the streets of the lower town, where the crowd swallowed her and kept her invisible. Once she was there, she walked quickly, keeping her head down. Her red hair stood out, so when she passed a gift shop that had a table of clearance clothes outside, she grabbed a hooded sweatshirt and quickly pulled it over her head. She yanked up the hood, hiding her hair. She didn’t dare look back.

  The Basse-Ville was a rabbit’s warren of uneven streets tunneling between centuries-old brick buildings. When she reached the first cross street, she turned left and hurried beside shop doorways with her hands shoved in the pouch of the sweatshirt. In the plaza ahead of her, she approached an eighteenth-century stone church known as Notre-Dame-des-Victoires. As she passed the church wall, she crossed the steps and took cover in a pedestrian alleyway. Peering around the corner of the wall, she watched the people in the plaza.

  Moments later, she saw him. Cain. He ran into the courtyard, hunting for her. Abbey immediately backed away before he could see her and headed down the alley. At the other end, she turned toward the water. She ran across the green grass outside the Royal Battery, past the park’s walls and cannons, and then darted through traffic to the walkway beside the cold ribbon of the St. Lawrence River.

  Looking back across the street, she saw no sign that he’d followed her. She stayed next to the water as she walked, with the hood blocking her face if anyone looked her way from the city. The wind was fierce and cold, but she was hot from running. The pier was deserted. In the high season, cruise ships docked here, belching out thousands of tourists into the tiny streets, but April was too early for the big ships to come calling. The glass walkway from the terminal crossed over her head and ended at the water. Across the narrow river channel, she could see the hillside marking the town of Lévis. Out beyond the port, the river split in two around Ile d’Orléans as it snaked toward the Atlantic.

  Abbey checked her watch. It was already after one o’clock, which meant she was late. Ahead of her, beyond the terminal building, she saw the riverside restaurant known as Les Vingt Chats. Whenever Michel was in town, they met there. He was waiting for her now, and the thought of seeing him gave her an intense sense of relief.

  Her phone buzzed in her pocket. She took it out, expecting a message from Michel, but when she read it, she knew who the message was from.

  It was the man in the funicular. The man who’d lured her to the boardwalk the previous night.

  It was Cain.

  I’m not trying to hurt you. You’re in danger.

  She trembled as she stared at the screen. She stopped where she was and turned around to study the port. Had he found her? Was he hiding near the terminal?

  No. She was all alone on the blustery river walk. And yet she felt watched.

  Another text came in.

  The woman on the funicular was going to kill you. Tell me where you are.

  She didn’t believe him. She couldn’t let him find her.

  You’re Cain! You’re the killer!

  She powered down her phone rather than let him taunt her with more messages. She was distracted now, focused on getting to the restaurant. The sign for Les Vingt Chats called to her, as it had so many times before. The long row of windows in the dining room overlooked the water, and stairs led from the portside walkway to the lobby. She headed there, but then she heard someone calling to her.

  “Abbey!”

  Startled, she tried to find the source of the voice. Then she heard it again.

  “Ici! C’est moi!”

  Far down the pier, she spotted a man by the water, framed against the sun. It was Michel, waving at her. He felt like a lifeline after two days caught in a nightmare. She ran toward him, but as she got closer, she was disturbed by what she saw. Michel, who was always the perfectly dressed bureaucrat, looked disheveled and unshaved. He wore a dirty raincoat; his tie was loose. The wind had blown his coiffed black hair into messy tufts.

  “Michel!” She went to embrace him, but instead, he took her by the shoulders.

  “What the hell have you gotten me into?” he demanded.

  “What? What are you talking about?”

  “They threatened to fire me. They threatened to arrest me.”

  “Who?”

  “The government. They told me to bring you back to Ottawa with me. You need to answer their questions, Abbey. You need to tell them everything you know.”

  Abbey pried his hands from her and backed away. “Michel, what have you done?”

  “Me? What have I done? My career is finished. They’ll never trust me again. All because I tried to help you.”

  “Slow down. Tell me what’s going on.”

  Michel walked to the edge of the concrete pier. Out on the river, dots of sunlight glistened on the whitecaps. He ran his hands through his hair and stared at the sky. She’d never seen him like this. She’d barely seen any emotion from him in all the time they’d spent together, and now he was falling to pieces.

  “Jesus,” he said. “I can’t believe this.”

  “Michel, talk to me. What happened?”

  He turned and looked at her. His eyes were sleepless and bloodshot. “After we talked last night, I went to the office. I was there all night. I dug into our intelligence reports to see what information we’d gathered about the assassination in New York. Then I reached out to a few of my American contacts. That was all. I was still at my desk at four in the morning when the phone rang. It was the minister. The minister himself. He told me that three CSIS agents would be in my office in ten minutes, and I was to tell them everything about the inquiries I’d been making. And he said the answers would determine whether I’d keep my job or spend the next twenty years in Millhaven.”

  “Oh, my God! Did you tell them about me?”

  “They already knew all about you. The CSIS think you’re a threat to national security, Abbey. Why do they think that? What the hell have you been doing?”

  “Nothing! This is insane! I’ve been following a story, that’s all. I tried to set up a meeting with a source, and then someone tried to kill me. Last night someone broke into The Fort and searched my desk. Today I was followed as I came here. I barely got away.”

  “Who followed you?”

  “I think it was the assassin from New York. I think it was Cain.”

  Michel rubbed his chin, and she could see the strain on his face. “Are you sure?”

  “No, I’ve never met him. I don’t know what he looks like. But an American intelligence agent visited my apartment last night with the police. He said that Cain was coming to Quebec City to get me.”

  “You know something. You have something he wants.” Michel hesitated. “Or you’re involved in something criminal, Abbey. Tell me that’s not true.”

  Anger flashed on her face. “You know me, Michel. I’m a reporter. You actually think I’m a spy?”

  “I don’t know what to think any
more.”

  “This is all about Cain. The Americans, the CSIS, they both think I can lead them to Cain. That’s why he wants me dead.”

  Michel took her hands. “Then come back with me to Ottawa, and talk to them.”

  “So they can put me in Millhaven, too? No, thanks.”

  “It’s not like that. Just answer their questions. Nothing will happen to you. I’ll make sure they let me stay with you the whole time. It’s safer if you’re not in Quebec City, based on what’s been happening here. Stay with me. We can be together.” He paused and then leaned closer to her. “You know I still love you.”

  Abbey wanted to believe him. She’d spent three years with Michel and almost married him. And yet if it came down to a choice, she wondered if he would sacrifice her with barely a second thought.

  “First, tell me what you found out,” Abbey said. “You said you reached out to your contacts. What did you find?”

  “I didn’t find anything.”

  “I don’t believe that.”

  “It’s true. I hit a brick wall.”

  “You’re lying, Michel,” Abbey snapped. “You think I can’t read your face? The CSIS didn’t show up simply because you were asking questions. You found something, and whatever it is scared the hell out of people.”

  Michel didn’t say anything, but she could see him breathing hard. His raw nerves made him twitch.

  “It scared the hell out of you, too, didn’t it?” Abbey went on softly. “You have to tell me the truth. I have to know what I’m up against. What did you find out, Michel? What did the Americans tell you about Cain?”

  He bit his lip. “Cain is just the tip of the iceberg.”

  “Then what else is going on?”

  Michel leaned close to her and whispered. “Have you ever heard of an organization called Medusa?”

  “No.”

  “Are you sure? It’s never come up from any of your sources?”

  “Never,” Abbey said. “What’s Medusa?”

  Michel shook his head. “I don’t know many details. One of the Americans I talked to assumed I knew all about it, and that’s why he told me what he did. When he realized this was new to me, he panicked and said I had to keep it all quiet. But I didn’t. I kept pushing, and that’s why the CSIS showed up in my office.”

  “Michel, what is Medusa?”

  “Nobody really knows. That’s what has everyone scared. Nobody seems to know how big the organization is, or how it’s structured, or who runs it. It’s not connected to any government, or at least no one seems to think so, but they can’t be sure. The only thing anyone seems to know is that it’s technology-driven. They aim to control people, influence them, shape how they behave, how they think. They’ve been fomenting unrest. Protests. Riots. They’re like an army that uses technology to recruit its own soldiers.”

  Abbey put a hand over her mouth. “The data hack,” she murmured. “Personal information on tens of millions of people.”

  “Exactly. The CIA thinks Medusa was behind it.”

  “But why?”

  “That’s what scares them, Abbey. They don’t know.”

  “So this killer called Cain must be part of Medusa.”

  “The government thinks so,” Michel replied. “Do you see why you have to come with me, Abbey? If this organization thinks you’re a threat, you’re dead. Let me protect you. Let us protect you.”

  She hesitated. Do I trust this man?

  But she didn’t have a choice.

  For two days, the walls had been closing in on her, and now Michel was giving her a way out. She’d called him for help, and he was offering help. She couldn’t keep running. Not on her own.

  “Okay,” she said.

  “Really? Thank God!”

  “Yes, let’s go,” she told him. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  Michel’s face flushed with relief. He took two steps along the pier to embrace her.

  Then his neck exploded.

  The bullet went straight through him, severing his spinal cord. Blood showered over Abbey as if she’d walked into a fountain. The crack of a gunshot rolled over the wind, but she barely even noticed it. Her mouth froze open in horror and shock. Michel was alive, and then he was dead; it happened in an instant. The light vanished from his eyes. Her lover crumpled sideways, and his body spilled from the pier, making a splash in the river water. He disappeared below the surface. Just like that, he was gone. The only evidence that he’d been there at all was the blood dripping down her face.

  The killer with the gold-rimmed glasses walked calmly toward her across the empty pier. His coat flew up behind him in the wind. He had a gun with a suppressor in his right hand, and this time she had no Taser to fight back. She needed to run, but her legs felt rooted to the ground. Her brain whirled, unable to catch up to what was happening. Reality broke into a million pieces.

  Run!

  But she stood there, paralyzed. Michel was dead. Soon she would be, too. It was as if she were watching herself from far away, screaming commands that her body ignored.

  The man stopped right in front of her. His wispy blond hair blew across his head. His cold blue eyes made her shiver. She expected him to raise the gun, but he didn’t. The other night, in the park, he would have put a bullet in her neck and been done, but he wasn’t going to make it that easy for her now.

  “Ms. Laurent,” he said in that same flat, emotionless voice. “I believe you and I have unfinished business.”

  ELEVEN

  JASON stood on the Rue du Sault-au-Matelot under a rough cliff that rose like a craggy face over his head. He had no hope of finding Abbey Laurent in the maze of lower-town streets. He checked his new phone, but she hadn’t answered his texts. He didn’t blame her for that. She thought he was Cain; she thought he was a murderer. He could picture her face vividly in his mind and remember the look of terror as she saw him in the funicular. He’d seen that look often enough in his life.

  He also knew that if he didn’t find her, she wouldn’t make it out of the Basse-Ville alive. Medusa had already sent one assassin after her, and Bourne doubted that the woman in the funicular was working alone.

  Save her! She has information you need!

  But in truth, it was more than that. He’d watched her face through the lenses of his binoculars. Then, in the funicular, he’d been inches away from her, able to admire the soft curve of her jaw in profile, the choppy red hair, the way her lips always had the same little smile, as if she were thinking of a private joke. She intrigued him.

  Don’t think like that! Abbey Laurent is an asset, nothing more. She’s the gateway to Medusa. Find her!

  Bourne switched off his emotions. He had a problem to solve, and he needed to solve it quickly. He dialed a new number on the phone, and a moment later, a male voice answered, “The Fort.”

  “Abbey Laurent, please,” Jason said, letting his voice flatten into a Brooklyn accent.

  “I’m sorry, Abbey’s at lunch. Can I take a message?”

  “Is this Jacques? Jacques Varille?”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Jacques, this is Matt Schneider calling. Abs gave me your name and said if I couldn’t reach her, I should talk to you.”

  He heard hesitation in the magazine editor’s voice. “How can I help you?”

  “Well, see, I’m a freelance photographer based in New York. I met Abs last year when she was hanging out at that UN conference with Michel, and I bumped into her again last week when I was shooting pics at the Ortiz rally. Man, that went sideways, but for a photographer, it was like winning the lottery, you know?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Anyway, we were chatting before the rally, and I mentioned that I was going to be in QC today doing brochure photos for Hilton. We talked about getting together, but it was a pretty casual thing. She wasn’t e
ven sure she’d be in town. Except then she called me a few days ago and asked if I’d mind bringing along my pics from the riot and letting her go through them. I guess she’s trying to ID somebody for a story. We were supposed to meet for lunch, but I’m here with my laptop, and she’s not, and she’s not answering her phone. You got any idea where I can find her? The thing is, I have to head to the airport at three, and she sounded like she really wanted to see my pics.”

  “Are you certain she knew it was today, Matt?” the editor asked. “Because she told me this morning that Michel was coming to town and she was meeting him at one o’clock.”

  “Well, it wouldn’t be the first time I got my signals crossed. I was pretty sure we were clear on the date, though. Of course, if Michel’s in town, maybe she just forgot. You know where they were having lunch? I could swing over and say hi to both of them and see if she still wants to breeze through my photo library.”

  “She didn’t say specifically, but they usually meet at Les Vingt Chats. It’s a riverside restaurant near the port terminal.”

  “Twenty cats. Got it. Thanks a lot, Jacques.”

  Bourne hung up. He checked a map on his phone for the restaurant, which was only a short walk from where he was. He hurried through the newer, more corporate section of town, where the Old World charm evaporated and Quebec looked like any other city. As he neared the river, the wind rose up like a slap and turned the air cold. He used an access road past an old pumping station to approach the restaurant, but he hesitated near the door. If Abbey Laurent wasn’t alone, that complicated his mission, and if she saw him coming for her, she’d panic. He didn’t want her to run.

  Find her! Take her!

  Then his plan changed. Everything changed.

  A suppressor muffled the sound, but the wind carried the noise of a gunshot to his ears from near the river.

  Medusa.

  Bourne jumped a fence near the town’s massive Old Port building, which took him inside an open-air amphitheater that was used for summer concerts. He skidded down the grass to the sunken staging area and sprinted to the opposite side. There, he took the concrete steps two at a time to the top of the theater, where a knoll with overgrown weeds separated him from the pier walkway. He could see the river and a series of white storage siloes rising over the industrial port. In front of him was a long, low building that housed a naval museum, which was closed and empty today.