The Bourne Evolution

by Brian Freeman

  “Yes.”

  “So let’s go.”

  Abbey headed for the display area of the store. He knew, right then, at that moment, that she hated him. He was bothered enough by her reaction that he forgot about the camera he’d spotted in the ceiling of the boutique. He didn’t remind her to keep her head down and her face out of sight.

  * * *

  —

  NASH Rollins didn’t see a caller ID when his cell phone rang. Normally, the Treadstone phones could unmask the number of anyone who was calling, but not this time. He took the call and barked, “Who is this?”

  “Hello, Nash,” Miles Priest said in his gravelly voice.

  “Ah. Miles. Of course. Do you have information for me?”

  “I do. You wanted us to focus on the woman. That was a good call. She’s in Las Vegas. We caught her on facial recognition in the Forum Shops.”

  “Are she and Bourne still together?”

  “So it appears.”

  “Do you know what they’re doing there?” Nash asked.

  “No.”

  “Las Vegas,” he said. “I’m not surprised that Cain would go back there, since we think it’s a Medusa stronghold. All right, I’ll take care of it.”

  “See that you do,” Miles replied.

  The phone went silent as Miles hung up. Nash immediately dialed another number. “Get the jet ready,” he told the woman who answered. “Tell the director I have to go to Nevada tonight.”

  THIRTY-FIVE

  I’M sorry about this,” Jason told Iniya as he secured the realtor and her husband to the headboard of their bed. He made sure the duct tape was secure, and he checked the gags on their mouths. “It should only be a few hours. When I’m done, I’ll call the police and let them know you’re here. They’ll release you.”

  The Indian woman’s green eyes were wild with fear.

  “Your husband will be fine,” Jason added. “He should wake up in a few minutes.”

  The realtor’s husband had fought back despite a gun aimed at his chest, and Bourne had been forced to incapacitate him with a blow to the head that left the man bloody. He was still unconscious on the bed next to his wife.

  “I’m sorry,” Jason said again.

  He went back downstairs, where Abbey waited for him, looking perfect in her purple cocktail dress. She held the hand-lettered invitations to the Gabriel Fox party in her hand. Their keys to the Prescix kingdom, which Iniya had given them at gunpoint. When Abbey looked at him now, there was something different in her eyes, as if she needed distance from Jason to keep herself safe. She came up to him with a serious expression and said, “There’s blood on your face.”

  Abbey wet her finger and wiped it off.

  “The limo’s outside,” she told him.

  “We should go.”

  They didn’t talk as the car drove them to Sensara. A long line of cars waited at the guard gate, stretching for almost a quarter mile. This time, the guards simply confirmed that the occupants of the vehicles had their invitations and waved them into the neighborhood. There were no searches, no metal detectors. That was what he’d expected, so he’d taken the risk of keeping his gun in the holster on his back, rather than leaving it behind. The limo dropped Jason and Abbey at the gates outside Gabriel Fox’s giant property, where servers welcomed them with champagne. Abbey held Jason’s hand as they wandered onto the estate grounds past an elaborate cactus garden. Her grip was limp.

  Dozens of people in upscale finery surrounded them as they neared the house. The lights were low, creating romantic shadows. Night had fallen, and a vast map of lights came on throughout the Las Vegas valley far below them. The air had turned cooler, and a stiff breeze swirled across the mountaintop. When they got to the estate, they found their way to one of the balconies behind the swimming pools, and Jason did a survey of the guests around them. He saw faces he knew from the business world, from government, from the media, and a few celebrities, too. Some of them might have recognized Bourne if they’d looked closely, but the dim light provided cover, and when anyone looked at the two of them, they saw Abbey, not him. She was a beautiful vision in her dress, and she knew how to play the part.

  Even so, he hated the coolness he felt from her. That told him something that he didn’t want to face. His feelings for her were real.

  “It looks like our hosts have arrived,” Abbey murmured.

  Jason followed her gaze.

  Gabriel Fox and his bride joined the party in spectacular fashion. A gleaming cylindrical steel tower rose slowly from the middle of the swimming pool fountains, rotating slowly as it ascended, until it stopped high above the crowd of guests, thirty feet in the air. White spotlights shined on two people standing on the small platform at the top, behind a gold railing.

  One was Gabriel Fox. The squat, pudgy CEO of Prescix wore a black-and-white leopard print tuxedo with black silk lapels, with a matching leopard print pillbox hat on top of his head. Fox carried a flaming metal torch that looked as if it had come from the Olympics, and he raised it high as the tower slowly made another circle over the crowd. The heat of the fire made his round face glow. He grinned below his thick brown mustache.

  Bourne was more focused on the woman with him. His bride.

  She was incredibly tall and sleek, so thin as to look gaunt. Her coal-black hair was pulled behind her and tied in a tight knot, and a diamond tiara sat on her head like a crown. She wore a jeweled see-through lace top that left her torso essentially nude, and below, she wore a leopard print miniskirt that matched Gabriel’s tuxedo. Her smile showed only pale peach lips, and her icy blue eyes missed nothing. She didn’t move or wave or acknowledge any of the people below her.

  “I think that’s the scariest bitch I’ve ever seen,” Abbey said.

  Jason couldn’t take his eyes off the woman. Abbey glanced his way and saw his fixation.

  “Are you okay?” she asked.

  “I know her.”

  “What?”

  “I know her,” he repeated.

  The woman with Gabriel Fox was unforgettable, and he’d seen her before. Just once. She’d been there on one of the worst days of his life. When he ran for the Lucky Nickel hotel after the shooting, he’d found the parking lot crowded with people screaming as they bolted from the exits. It was chaos; the people were in panic. But not all of them. There had been one woman who walked calmly away, utterly unfazed by the violence around her. One woman, tall, cold, confident. Their eyes had met for a brief moment. She’d seen him and given him the strangest smile, both erotic and chilling. He’d wondered who she was, but a moment later, he’d spotted Nash Rollins, and the thin, blue-eyed Amazon had disappeared from his mind.

  Until now.

  Bourne knew. Seeing her here, he knew the truth.

  “She killed Nova,” he said.

  He didn’t have time to say anything more or to answer the questions on Abbey’s face, because at that moment, Gabriel Fox spoke into a microphone that broadcast his voice around the estate. “Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for joining me here today. The party will last all night, and I want you to enjoy all the amenities of my home. What I have is yours. If you’re wondering what to do next, well, just check your Prescix account for advice. Because Prescix will know before you do.”

  A wave of nervous laughter rippled through the crowd.

  “Before we kick off the celebration, let me introduce you to the woman who is now my partner in sex, love, and life . . . especially sex. Trust me when I tell you that you don’t want to call her by any other name than this . . . the incredible Miss Shirley.”

  The woman next to Gabriel on the tower held up her hand to wave like a queen, still with the same frozen smile. She might as well have been a statue, perfectly carved. Simultaneously, fireworks shot from the roof of the estate, making multicolored flowers in the night sky and causing rippling wa
ves of thunder under their feet. Around them, the entire crowd burst into applause.

  “Miss Shirley,” Abbey murmured, eyeing the woman on the platform. “Holy shit. That’s her. She’s Medusa.”

  “I’m betting she runs the whole Las Vegas operation,” Bourne said.

  “You can’t let her see you,” Abbey told him. “She’ll know who you are. We’ll never get out of here alive.”

  “I know.”

  “What did you mean when you said she killed Nova?”

  “She was at the Lucky Nickel. I saw her. I don’t know if Hackman pulled the trigger or if she did, but she was there.”

  “Do you think Gabriel knows who she is? What she is?”

  “We need to find out.”

  Jason watched the elevated platform slowly descend to the level of the fountains. When it did, stepping-stones emerged out of the water that allowed Gabriel Fox to lead Miss Shirley back to the patio. He saw them mingling with the guests one by one, but he noticed that Miss Shirley never looked at the person she was talking to. Instead, like a predatory reptile, her eyes moved constantly, as if looking for prey. He took Abbey’s hand and backed away into the shadows, where they couldn’t be seen.

  “I have to get Gabriel alone,” he said.

  “How do you plan to do that?”

  Bourne studied the sprawling grounds of the estate. There seemed to be people everywhere, wandering in the darkness. He saw lights in every room, and all the walls were made of glass, allowing others to look inside. Then he glanced at the multilevel roof, which was unlit. No one was up there, not even security.

  “Find one of the servers,” Jason told Abbey. “Tell them to deliver a message to Gabriel Fox. For him only, no one else. Say that Miles Priest has an urgent private message for him, and he sent someone who’s waiting on the roof.”

  “Do you think he’ll come?”

  “If he’s not Medusa, he’ll come. If he is, well, he’ll tell Miss Shirley, and she’ll send others.”

  Abbey’s lips pushed into a thin line. “Okay.”

  “Can you do this?”

  “Of course.”

  “After you’ve delivered the message, wait for me near the gates. There’s a cactus garden down there that we passed as we were coming in. Stay out of sight. I’ll be there as soon as I can. We may need to leave quickly.”

  He expected her to argue as she had in the past. He half wanted her to say that she wouldn’t let him go alone, that she wanted to be with him. But she didn’t. Not this time. Instead, she brushed back her hair and told him in a calm voice, “Don’t get yourself killed, Jason.”

  Abbey disappeared into the crowd. He waited until she was gone, and then he made his way to the nearest glass doors leading into the estate itself. He passed through bizarrely decorated open spaces as he hunted for stairs that led to the next level. On the second floor, he did the same. And then again. When he got to the top floor, he found exterior stairs that took him to the roof.

  From up here, he had an unobstructed view of the people, the grounds, the Sensara neighborhood, and the rest of Las Vegas. Near the estate wall and the outer gates, where limousines continued to deliver more guests, he could make out the silhouettes of towering saguaros, chollas, and prickly pears in the cactus garden. Pinpoint snow-white lights shimmered in the breeze. He couldn’t see if Abbey had made it there yet. He wondered for a moment if she would leave without him and he would never see her again. Maybe that would be better for both of them.

  Jason checked his watch and waited.

  Half an hour passed, and he was still alone. He found himself pacing, letting the mountain breeze wash across his face. When an hour had passed, he began to think that Gabriel Fox had chosen to ignore his message.

  Then he heard footsteps approaching on the roof stairs. He reached for the holster in the small of his back, but he heard only one set of footsteps, rather than the boots of Medusa’s army. A few seconds later, the CEO of Prescix joined him. Gabriel took off his pillbox hat and draped his leopard print tuxedo coat over his arm. He approached warily, but he also had a curious expression.

  “Jason Bourne. I don’t recall seeing your name on the invitation list. Then again, what’s a wedding without a party crasher?”

  “You don’t sound surprised to see me.”

  “I’m not. Remember, my business is tech. Do you think anything happens on my estate that isn’t observed and recorded? I knew you were here from the second you stepped foot out of that limousine.”

  “And yet you let me in,” Bourne said. “You could have had security turn me away.”

  Gabriel assessed Bourne like an exhibit of bones in a museum. “Frankly, I was curious about why you’re here. Are you going to kill me? Is that the plan?”

  “No.”

  “Well, good,” the man replied with a chuckle. “I don’t mind missing the party, but I’d sure hate to miss the wedding night.”

  Bourne frowned. The easy confidence in Gabriel’s attitude bothered him. The CEO knew Jason was at the party, and yet he’d come to the roof alone to confront an assassin, seemingly without concern or fear. Something was wrong.

  “Anyway, you dragged me up here,” Gabriel went on in the same casual drawl. He twirled his pillbox hat in his fingers. “I assume Miles Priest didn’t really send you. So what do you want?”

  “I came to warn you.”

  “About what?”

  “Your wife,” Jason said.

  Gabriel’s mouth broke into a wide smile. “Ah, you know Miss Shirley, do you? People who meet her rarely forget the experience.”

  “I know she’s Medusa.”

  The tech billionaire wandered toward the edge of the roof and stared down at the party. “You and Miles. All these fairy tales about Medusa. We’ve become a society addicted to conspiracy theories.”

  “Medusa is real, and your new wife is in the middle of it. If she married you, it’s because you’ve got something they want, and we both know what that is. Prescix.”

  Gabriel shook his head impatiently. He spoke without turning around. “I’m surprised at you, Bourne. Do you really think I would get involved with a woman—even a woman as talented as Miss Shirley—without knowing everything about her? Believe me, I know exactly who she is and what she’s done.”

  “Do you know she’s a killer?”

  Gabriel chuckled as he walked back to Bourne. “And a very good one, too.”

  “You don’t care?”

  “Care? It was one of the things I found most attractive about her. Did it never occur to any of you that a killer is what I need? You and Miles seem to think that Miss Shirley is using me, that Medusa is using me. I’m one of the most successful entrepreneurs in the world, Bourne. I know what I’m doing. The fact is, I’m using them.”

  “To accomplish what?”

  “To take over the tech cabal, of course. To turn the game around. Tomorrow, Miss Shirley and I will head to Nassau, where Miles and his friends will try to persuade me to join forces with them. I intend to do just that. Say what you want about Miles, but strategically, he’s always right. The tech companies need to stand as one. But when all is said and done, I plan to be the person in charge, not him. Prescix will call the shots and start acquiring the other companies. And once that’s done, Miss Shirley and I will launch the next part of our plan.”

  “Namely?”

  “We’ll take over Medusa, too. Me and her together.”

  Bourne could see the depth of the man’s ego. He wasn’t just a rich, harmless eccentric. He was brilliant but also a megalomaniac. Everything that Prescix could do, all the damage it could cause, had been in this man’s head all along. He’d intended from the beginning to write software that would let him control people.

  But that was the kind of power that others wanted, too. Once Pandora’s box was open, it couldn’t be closed.


  “You’re making a mistake, Gabriel.”

  “Am I?”

  “Medusa is stronger than you are. Right now, they’re giving you what you want. They’re letting you think you’re in control. But once they have what they need, you’re expendable.”

  “Actually, you’re the one who’s expendable, Cain. You’re a chess piece who’s stayed on the board much longer than necessary. Pawns don’t win the game. They get sacrificed. Which is what happens next.”

  “Or I could kill you right now,” Jason said, reaching behind his back for his pistol.

  Gabriel shrugged and began to place the pillbox hat back on his head. “You do what you have to do, Bourne.”

  Jason stared at the CEO in confusion. And then he realized. The hat was a signal. Gabriel hadn’t shown any concern about meeting him, because all along, he’d had Bourne in the gunsights of another assassin. When I put the hat back on, take him out. Jason lunged forward just as the bullet from a rifle hidden in the hills cracked past the back of his head, missing him by a millimeter. He launched himself into Gabriel, knowing the tangle of bodies bought him a couple of seconds to grab his own pistol. Then, as he broke free and charged for the roof stairs, he laid down a continuous rain of fire toward the assassin’s lair in the dark hills. Shot after shot went wild, but the cover was enough. He threw himself down the steps just as a cloud of stucco blew off the wall where the shooter barely missed him again.

  He thundered level by level through the estate, pushing through the crowd of panicked guests on his way to the garden. He only had seconds to get there.

  If they knew Bourne was here, then they knew Abbey was here, too.

  * * *

  —

  ABBEY felt a little bit of a chill. High up on the mountain, the air was cooler than on the valley floor. She followed a figure eight sidewalk through the cacti sprouting from the rocks, retracing her footsteps the way she’d been doing for more than an hour. One part of her mind told her to leave right now. To go through the gate and go home to Canada. To forget about Jason Bourne and whether he lived or died.