The Bourne Evolution

by Brian Freeman

  He heard a muffled scream. Bourne threw himself over the next fence and crouched low in the weeds. Two people approached from the river. One was the killer with the gold-rimmed glasses he’d seen outside the offices of The Fort the previous night. The other was Abbey Laurent. She had streaks of blood on her face, and she squirmed violently in the man’s grasp. A belt secured her wrists tightly behind her back. The Medusa killer held the woman around her waist, dragging her with him as she struggled. His gun wasn’t visible, but Bourne knew he had one jabbed into the woman’s side.

  Twenty yards away, he saw a blue Renault parked near a row of maple trees outside the naval museum. The killer hustled Abbey toward the car. Bourne readied his gun, but Abbey’s body was between him and the killer, and he couldn’t fire without hitting her. He crawled through the grass, staying parallel to them, waiting for an opportunity when the Medusa assassin was in his line of sight.

  “If you kill me, I can’t tell you anything!” Abbey hissed on the walkway as she tried to twist free from her captor.

  The assassin laughed at her. “Don’t flatter yourself, Ms. Laurent. Anything you know comes from us. You have nothing we need. You’re simply a loose end.”

  “Then what are you waiting for?” she snarled.

  “Patience, please. My orders are to kill you, but how I do so is up to me. Since you’re so fond of electric shocks, I thought you might enjoy feeling what it’s like when fifty thousand volts fire between your legs. Maybe you’ll get a thrill.”

  Abbey inhaled and spat in his face. The killer flinched and yanked his gun arm back to whip the barrel across her skull. As he did, his grip on her loosened. Abbey wrenched away, and in the same instant, Bourne fired. He fired and missed. The bullet ripped off part of the man’s ear, then shattered a window in the naval museum.

  The gunshot froze Abbey where she was, and before she could run, the killer grabbed her again. He pinned her with his arm around her throat and used her body as a shield as he pointed his weapon into the weeds.

  “Come out!” he barked. “Come out now!”

  Bourne stood up slowly, his gun aimed across the short space of grass and concrete between them, his finger on the trigger. They confronted each other, neither one with an advantage. Jason inched down the grassy slope until his feet were on the pavement. Not even ten feet separated them.

  “Cain,” the man murmured.

  “That’s a name from my past,” Jason replied.

  “I’m told you don’t have a past.”

  The killer’s glasses glinted in the sunlight, and his lips curled into a smile. Blood poured from his ear. He crushed his arm around Abbey’s neck, and her legs kicked wildly as he lifted her off the ground. With her air cut off, panic filled her eyes.

  “Let her go,” Bourne said.

  “Put down your gun, and I will.”

  “Give me the girl, and I’ll let you leave.”

  “Then we’re at an impasse,” the man replied.

  Abbey’s legs flailed. Her body shunted back and forth, slamming against the killer, but he remained rooted to the ground like the trunk of a tree. He lifted her higher. A purple color flushed her cheeks.

  “Stop!” Bourne shouted.

  “Drop your gun. She goes free.”

  “If she dies, so do you.”

  “Well, she is going to die,” the killer replied.

  Jason’s eyes met Abbey’s. Something changed in her expression. Her mouth opened, as if she were trying to form a word, but she couldn’t. Then Bourne understood. Abbey’s hands were still tied behind her, but he could see her fingers curled like claws, the nails long and sharp. Her body jerked against the assassin, and this time, she snapped her fingers around the man’s testicles and crushed them between her nails.

  He howled in agony. As he thrashed to dislodge her, she clung to him without letting go. Still holding Abbey by the neck, the assassin cracked the barrel down against the top of her head. As soon as Jason saw the man’s gun shift away, he leaped across the space between them. The assassin tried to bring his gun back around, but Bourne locked his fingers around the man’s wrist and piled his weight against him, bringing all of them to the ground.

  Unconscious, Abbey spilled to the concrete beside them.

  Jason was on top, pinning the killer down. He slammed the man’s wrist against the pavement until his hand released the gun. The assassin had his own hand locked around Jason’s gun, and their arms seesawed for control. Bourne snapped his forehead against the man’s nose, breaking it in a mass of blood, but the killer didn’t relent. The Renault was right next to them, and Jason rolled, throwing the man sideways and slamming his head into the steel frame of the sedan.

  The blow dizzied the man. His grip on Jason’s gun hand loosened. Bourne shoved the barrel into the killer’s temple and squeezed the trigger. The shot was like a cannon in his ears. Bone, blood, and brain flew. Deadweight, the assassin collapsed on top of him, and Jason shoved away the body and tried to get air into his chest again.

  Then his head turned sideways.

  Abbey Laurent had disappeared.

  Go after her! You can’t let her go!

  Bourne staggered to his feet. Just beyond the Renault, Abbey limped away, zigzagging, too dizzy to make a straight path. Her hands were still tied behind her. He marched toward her, and when she looked back, she tried to run. But she couldn’t. She swayed and fell, and her eyes leached tears as he loomed over her. She struggled to fight him, but her kicks were weak. Jason picked her up under the shoulders and carried her to the Renault, and then he opened the back door and laid her across the seat.

  She stared at him with wide-open brown eyes that struggled to focus.

  “Are you going to run?” he asked. “If I were you, I’d try to run.”

  She didn’t answer.

  “I’m going to tie your legs, just to be sure,” he said. “I’m sorry, but I can’t let you go right now. We need to talk, and we can’t talk here. I’m going to get us out of town.”

  He slid off his belt and wrapped it around her ankles. She didn’t resist as he tied them together.

  “Did he hurt you in any other way?” Jason asked. “Do you need medical help?”

  Abbey simply watched him with a blank expression. Her face was oddly calm.

  “I’m not going to kill you,” he added.

  Still she said nothing. Her skin was pale. Her red bangs hung in messy strands across her forehead. Her eyes followed everything he did, as if trying to figure him out.

  “I’m going to get the keys,” Jason told her, “and then we’ll go.”

  He backed out of the Renault and began to close the car door, but then Abbey spoke to him for the first time.

  “Hey.”

  Jason stared at her, waiting.

  “What do you like most about Quebec?” she asked.

  He allowed himself a quick laugh.

  “Those wonderful little maple candies,” Bourne replied.

  TWELVE

  BOURNE drove for hours until it was dark and the Renault was in the hills north of Montreal. He took a dirt road that ended at the shore of a mountain lake, with dense stands of pines filling the slopes over the water. A small wooden pier jutted into the lake, and stars crowded the night sky. Behind him, tied up in the back seat, Abbey Laurent was silent. She hadn’t spoken again during the long trip.

  He got out into the cold air and opened the rear door. Starlight shined in Abbey’s eyes. She was awake, watching him, waiting to see what he would do. He leaned inside and untied the belt that bound her ankles, and then he gently pulled her up by the shoulders and reached around to release her wrists. Slowly, she stretched her limbs, wincing, and she glanced through the car windows. Her eyes registered the remoteness of where they were.

  “This looks like a good place to kill someone,” she said.

 
“I told you. I’m not going to do that.”

  “No? Isn’t that what Cain does? You killed that man by the river. Not that I’m complaining, by the way, since he was going to kill me. You killed four people at the boardwalk, right? Four. And then there’s Sofia Ortiz. You shot her in the throat. As far as I can tell, killing is what you’re good at.”

  “I didn’t shoot Sofia Ortiz,” Bourne replied. “As for the others, I killed them because they were trying to kill me.”

  He watched her try to figure out if he was telling the truth or simply letting her believe what she wanted to hear. Her lips pushed together in a frown. Then she fidgeted on the seat.

  “Not that you care or anything, but I need to pee so bad you wouldn’t believe,” she said.

  “Sorry. Of course. Go ahead.”

  “Aren’t you afraid I’ll run?”

  “There’s nowhere to run out here, Abbey.”

  They both got out of the Renault. Abbey held on to the car to steady herself as the blood returned to her limbs. She walked a little way into the trees, and Jason turned his back to give her privacy. He heard the noise of her zipper and then of her relieving herself in the dirt. He headed to the edge of the lake, and he was surprised when she came up beside him after she was done. He’d assumed that, regardless of what he’d told her, she would try to run and he’d have to chase her down.

  Abbey knelt at the shore and washed her hands in the cold water, and then she splashed it over her face and did her best to clean off the dried blood. When she was done, she walked onto a sturdy pier, where she sat down and dangled her feet above the water. He followed and sat down next to her.

  “I’m sorry about your friend Michel,” he said.

  Abbey stared out at the lake. “It’s my fault. I got him killed.”

  “Don’t blame yourself for that.”

  “Why not? I asked him to help me, and now he’s dead.”

  “Were the two of you involved?”

  She shrugged. “Yes and no. He was kind of like my safety net.”

  They sat in silence. He watched her try to quash her fear, as her knee jiggled nervously on the dock.

  “Is it really true that you didn’t shoot the congresswoman?” she asked him finally.

  “Yes, it’s true.”

  “The shot came from your hotel room. That’s what my source told me.”

  “You’re right. It did.”

  “So?”

  “I wasn’t there when it happened.”

  “Oh, yeah? Where were you? Taking the Circle Line tour or something?”

  “Actually, I was saving your life,” Bourne said.

  Abbey swiveled to look at him. “What?”

  “Someone tried to shoot you as you ran from the scene. I knocked you out of the way.”

  “That was you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why should I believe that?”

  “Because you never shared on your social media accounts that somebody tried to kill you. Did you tell anyone about it?”

  Abbey hesitated. “Nobody.”

  “That’s why you should believe me. I was there on the street with you. I wasn’t in that hotel room. I didn’t shoot Congresswoman Ortiz.”

  “Am I supposed to think that this was just a big coincidence? You happened to show up and be my hero?”

  “No. I was following you.”

  “Why?” Abbey demanded.

  “Because you have information I need.”

  “I don’t know anything.”

  “Yes, you do. You heard what the man on the pier said. He’s part of an organization that’s been feeding you stories. They played you, Abbey Laurent. You were their pawn. That’s why you got the interview with Sofia Ortiz. That’s why you knew about the data hack. That’s why they told you about me.”

  “Medusa,” Abbey murmured.

  Bourne felt a rush of adrenaline. He grabbed Abbey’s wrist and twisted. Too hard. “What do you know about Medusa?”

  “You’re hurting me,” she complained.

  “Tell me about Medusa!”

  “I don’t know anything about them! The first time I heard the name was today. Michel said that whatever Medusa is, it has government officials scared to death. And oh, by the way, Mr. Cain, they think you’re part of it.”

  Jason let go of her wrist, and she massaged it with her other hand.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “Regardless of what Michel told you, I’m not part of Medusa. They set me up. They framed me for the murder in New York and put me in the crosshairs of every intelligence agent on the planet.”

  “You mean like Nash Rollins?” she asked. “He came to my apartment last night.”

  “I know.”

  “He said you were a killer and that I should be afraid of you.”

  “Well, you should probably believe him.”

  “He said you were damaged. He called you a man with no past. What does that mean?”

  “It’s not important,” Bourne replied.

  “The man on the pier said the same thing. He said you didn’t have a past.”

  “You ask a lot of questions.”

  “I’m a reporter. Asking questions is what I do. Besides, I’m still not sure you aren’t going to kill me, so what difference does it make?”

  “The less you know about me, the better.”

  Abbey opened her mouth to say something more, but she stopped. She brought her knees up on the pier and wrapped her arms around them. “What do you think I know? Why did you want to meet with me in the first place?”

  “I want to know who your source is,” Jason said. “You have a source in New York. Someone gave you information about the data hack. I think whoever it is can point the way to Medusa. That’s where I need to start. That’s my only lead right now. I need to leverage your source to get inside the organization.”

  “In order to do what?” Abbey asked.

  “Destroy them. Expose the conspiracy.”

  She studied his face in the darkness and then shook her head. “I’m sorry, who the hell are you? Who do you work for?”

  “Right now, nobody. I’m on my own.”

  “Why do they call you Cain?”

  “It’s an identity from the past,” Bourne said.

  “Do you have a real name?”

  “I did, but that was a long time ago. I’m not that person anymore. I’ve had to accept that.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “You’re right. It doesn’t.”

  She gave an annoyed little sigh at his unwillingness to talk. Then she said, “Did you really save me in New York?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “And you saved me again today. I guess I should say thank you.”

  Bourne shrugged. “I saved you because I needed information. That’s all it is.”

  You’re an asset. Nothing more.

  “Why didn’t you show up on the boardwalk?” Abbey asked.

  “Because it was a trap.”

  “Well, how did you know I wasn’t part of Medusa, too? Why were you so sure it wasn’t me who set you up?”

  He turned and stared at her. “I wasn’t sure at all.”

  “Then what’s changed? Why do you trust me now?”

  “I don’t trust you. I think you’re a pawn, not part of Medusa, but that doesn’t mean I trust you. Generally speaking, I don’t trust anyone.”

  “I guess we’re even. Generally speaking, I don’t trust killers.”

  “Smart choice,” Bourne said.

  “So what happens now?”

  “Now you tell me your source in New York. Who told you about the data hack? Who was feeding you information?”

  “Journalists don’t reveal their sources,” Abbey said.

  “Unless a sou
rce burns you, which this one did. Do you think the attempt on your life in New York was random? It wasn’t. It was Medusa. You’d outlived your usefulness to them, and they were using the riot as cover to eliminate you.”

  He could see in her eyes that she hadn’t considered that possibility. “You really think they were targeting me?”

  “They still are. The man on the pier proved that.”

  She chewed on her fingernail. “Jesus.”

  “Who’s your source?” Bourne asked again.

  “He couldn’t be involved. He’s legit.”

  “If he’s not involved, then he’s a pawn like you. But one way or another, he’s a link in the chain that leads to Medusa.”

  “What will you do if you find him?”

  “Get him to tell me what he knows,” Bourne said.

  “What does that mean? Are you going to torture him? Kill him?”

  “It depends. I need him to be scared enough to send an alarm up the chain. He needs to reach out to his contact. And then I follow that person. That’s how it works.”

  “You make it sound so normal,” Abbey said. “Not like twisted bullshit, which it is.”

  “It’s just my world.”

  She gripped the end of the pier with both hands. “If I tell you his name, how do I know you won’t kill me? We’re sitting in the middle of the forest where no one will ever find my body. You said yourself you only saved me because you needed me. What makes you any different from Medusa once I’ve outlived my usefulness?”

  “I can’t give you any guarantees, Abbey. You wouldn’t believe them anyway.”

  “So what are you saying? I should trust you? You just said I was smart not to trust you.”

  “That’s right.”