The Bourne Evolution

by Brian Freeman

  But another part of her mind made her stay. That was the part that realized she was falling in love with him.

  Fool!

  She told herself that, but it didn’t matter. She felt something for Jason, and she couldn’t turn it off or walk away. It didn’t matter who he was or what he’d done.

  When she heard footsteps approaching on the garden path, her heart sped up with relief, and the only thing she wanted to do was run to him. She’d been terrified that he wasn’t coming back. That she’d lost him forever.

  But when she turned around, it wasn’t Jason standing there.

  It was Miss Shirley.

  “Abbey Laurent,” the woman said from behind her arctic blue eyes. “What a treat. I’ve been wanting to meet you for a while now.”

  Instinctively, Abbey took a step backward. Miss Shirley kept coming closer atop her high heels. The woman had a hand hidden behind her back. Her white dress glowed under the garden lights, but her face was in shadow.

  “You did such a good job for us, Abbey,” Miss Shirley went on, taunting her. “The articles you wrote. About Hackman, about Ortiz. What a good little stooge for Medusa you were. I chose you myself, you know. I told Carson to find you. I told him what to say. You did everything we hoped for, except for one little thing. You forgot the fact that you were supposed to die a while ago. We tried in New York. We tried in Quebec. And yet here you are. I’m really rather upset that you’re still alive.”

  “Go to hell, you crazy bitch.”

  “Oh, Abbey. So foolish. So brave. I wouldn’t have thought it. Is that Jason’s influence? You’ve spent a lot of time with him lately. I really have to know, are you sleeping with him? Did he fall for that girl-next-door look of yours? Did you seduce a cold-blooded assassin?”

  “You don’t know who he really is.”

  “Oh, I know exactly who he is. You’re the naive one.”

  “Go to hell,” she said again.

  Miss Shirley smiled with just her lips. Her hand emerged from behind her back, with a knife clutched in her fingers. The knife had a two-foot blade that was curved like a crescent moon. “You’re very attractive, Abbey. If we had more time, I’d show you what a real woman is like in bed. All it would take is one night, and trust me, you’d never want to be with a man again. Even Bourne.”

  “Robots don’t turn me on,” Abbey snapped.

  “You’d be surprised.”

  “Are you jealous? Is that it? You want Jason for yourself, and you know you’ll never have him?”

  “There are very few things I want that I can’t have,” Miss Shirley replied. “Right now, I want you. Bleeding. Begging me for mercy.”

  Abbey spun away to run, but when she did, she found herself trapped by a huge security guard in a black suit who gathered her up in his arms. She hadn’t even heard him sneak up behind her. He turned her around so that she had no choice but to face Miss Shirley. Abbey squirmed furiously but couldn’t get away. Miss Shirley came up directly in front of her. Her breath was on Abbey’s face, and she was close enough to scrape the point of the knife gently over the skin of her shoulder, leaving a red trail.

  “Such a lovely dress,” she said. “Did Jason buy it for you?”

  She flicked the knife and cut away one of the straps, making the dress slide down Abbey’s chest, exposing one of her breasts.

  “Beautiful. Pert and perfect.”

  “Stop playing games,” Abbey said. “If you’re going to kill me, kill me.”

  “Oh, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I could just slice open your throat, of course, and you’d be gone in a couple of minutes, but where’s the fun in that? I told you, I want to hear you beg. Now, where should I make the first cut? Your fingers? Your delicate little ears? I could take each of your breasts first, how about that? This is a very, very sharp blade. Two little swishes, and they’d be gone. Imagine how terrible it would be for Jason to find you that way. Seeing that naked body he enjoyed desecrated in so many ways.”

  Abbey spit in her face, and Miss Shirley simply wiped it away and laughed. She cocked the knife, and Abbey squeezed her eyes shut, anticipating the agony.

  Then a voice hissed from the darkness. “Get away from her right now.”

  Bourne emerged from the tall cacti. His gun was inches from the back of Miss Shirley’s head. Abbey couldn’t help herself. Tears of relief streamed down her cheeks.

  “Ah, Jason, I was wondering if you’d be able to join us,” Miss Shirley said. “The hero returns in the nick of time. I’d hoped that our shooter would take care of you once and for all, but apparently not. What a shame. Abbey and I were just getting to know each other.”

  “Drop the knife.”

  “Of course. If that’s what you want.”

  Miss Shirley opened her fingers, and the knife clattered to the paver stones at her feet. Jason pressed the barrel hard into her neck. “Tell your man to let her go.”

  “It’s all right, Terence,” Miss Shirley instructed the guard in the black suit.

  The guard removed his arms from around Abbey, and she stumbled across the trail to Jason, her heels tripping on the stones.

  “Stay behind me,” he told her. “We’re heading for the gate.”

  “You’ll never get there,” Miss Shirley told them. “At least ten more guards are on their way. You’re trapped.”

  “If I don’t make it, neither do you,” Bourne replied.

  “I’ll tell you what, Jason. Let’s do a deal. Leave me the girl to play with, and you can go.”

  Abbey had to swallow down an urge to tell Jason simply to pull the trigger, so they could watch this woman die. She sensed from the tautness of his muscles that Jason was struggling with the same desire. As Abbey held on to his belt, Jason wrapped an arm tightly around Miss Shirley’s throat and dragged the woman backward, using her body as a shield. He pointed the gun into her temple as more guards closed in on them from three sides. Abbey acted as his eyes, pulling him backward step by step until they reached the wrought-iron gates of the estate.

  There were other guests there, staring wide-eyed at what was happening.

  “Open the door on the nearest car, Abbey,” Jason instructed her. “Get inside and make sure the driver’s ready to go. Tell him I’ll shoot him if he hesitates for even a second.”

  She was sure that Bourne would do just that.

  Abbey opened the first limo door and scrambled inside, and she left the door open. Jason dragged Miss Shirley all the way up to the car.

  “I should kill you right now,” he said.

  “You could, but then my men will fire. Everybody loses.”

  “Jason, let’s go,” Abbey shouted. “Hurry.”

  She watched him put one hand on Miss Shirley’s back. He shoved hard, pushing her toward the Medusa men. In the same instant, Jason threw himself inside the limo and covered her as he dragged the door shut behind him. The guns were already firing. Bullets shattered the glass all around them and hammered the steel on the doors, and the limo sped away.

  THIRTY-SIX

  THEY’RE calling it a failed assassination attempt,” Abbey said, scrolling through the news feed on her phone. “‘The man believed to be responsible for the shooting of Congresswoman Sofia Ortiz was thwarted by armed security last night in the attempted murder of Gabriel Fox, CEO of Prescix Corporation.’”

  “Who do they think I’m working for?” Bourne asked.

  “The feds blame ‘rogue elements inside Big Tech.’”

  Jason shook his head. “Medusa is using this to advance their plan. Do they mention you?”

  “I’m an anonymous kidnap victim you used in making your escape,” Abbey replied. “I’m not identified by name.”

  “They’re sending you a message by keeping you out of it. You’re safe now, but next time, they’ll claim you’re part of the conspiracy. That’s the
choice you have to make.”

  Abbey said nothing. He knew she was wrestling with what to do.

  The sky had begun to lighten over the hills with the pink glow of dawn. They sat in the Land Rover in a Henderson parking lot, where they had a vantage on the access road leading in and out of the Sensara community. For hours, a steady stream of vehicles had come and gone. Limousines. Police. FBI. There was no sign yet of Gabriel Fox, but sooner or later, Bourne knew that the man would emerge from seclusion. Along with Miss Shirley.

  “Thank you, by the way,” Abbey said.

  “For what?”

  “You saved my life again. It’s becoming a habit with you.”

  “I’m the one who nearly got you killed,” Jason said.

  “Yes, but I didn’t want you to think I don’t care. If you hadn’t been there, I’d be dead now. That woman—Miss Shirley—do you really think she would have done the things she said? I mean, not just kill me, but . . .”

  “Yes, I do. She’s a sadist and a psychopath.”

  “My God. Who are these people? What’s their plan?”

  “I don’t know yet, but I’m hoping Gabriel Fox and Miss Shirley will lead us to the answers.”

  “Us,” Abbey murmured.

  He heard the change in her voice, and he turned and stared at her. “I mean me. This is my fight, not yours.”

  She took a long time to say anything more. “I know I insisted on being part of this, Jason, but now I—I think I need to go.”

  “Of course you do. I want you to go. I want you to be safe.”

  “It’s not for the reason you think,” Abbey went on. “I’m scared, but I’m not running away. I realized something last night. I’m putting you in danger by being here. I think you know I feel something for you. It’s not just attraction, not just sexual. I’m drawn to you, and whatever the feeling is, it’s strong. I tried to push it away. I tried to be cold, because some of the things you have to do—they horrify me. But I can’t pretend. And the thing is, I think you feel something for me, too.”

  There was nothing Jason could say to that.

  “I know you can’t admit it,” Abbey went on when she saw that he wouldn’t answer her. “That’s okay. But I also know that if I’m in danger, that’s going to change what you do. Just like it did last night. You’re going to put me first, and the result of that is you’re more likely to get killed. I can’t live with that. I don’t want you sacrificing yourself for me.”

  Jason knew she was right. That was lesson number one they’d drilled into his head.

  Emotion is your enemy. Emotion kills. You have to switch off that part of yourself.

  Treadstone.

  The next part of the journey belonged to him alone. He’d already decided that. He would have left Abbey behind in the night if he had to, to make sure she didn’t put herself in any more jeopardy. That was how it had to be.

  “There they are,” Abbey said, pointing across the street. “They’re on the move.”

  Bourne lifted his binoculars. He saw the vehicle they’d followed two nights ago, the armored Volvo SUV, emerging from the winding road that led to Sensara. He couldn’t see through the smoked windows to identify who was inside. This time, there was more than one vehicle leaving the estate. Two other identical SUVs followed the first, like a convoy.

  “Let’s see where they go,” he said.

  He pulled into traffic two blocks behind them. As early as it was, there were enough cars on the roads to keep the Land Rover anonymous. The three matching Volvos all followed the same route westward across the city. None of the vehicles had any identifying markings, and the windows were all black. The convoy made slow progress through the city traffic, but when they reached the flat, empty desert land in the far south of the valley, they accelerated. It was easy to keep the three vehicles in sight, and Bourne stayed half a mile back, watching them turn toward Henderson’s executive airport.

  Before the convoy reached the airport itself, the first of the vehicles turned into the driveway of a large, windowless warehouse. Jason pulled the Land Rover to the curb and watched them. The three SUVs all parked outside a loading dock halfway down the length of the building, and the passengers got out.

  He could see them now through his binoculars. Gabriel Fox was there, accompanied by Miss Shirley. The others were security, including faces he recognized from the previous evening. These weren’t ordinary guards; they were clearly trained black ops men. He counted nine of them.

  Medusa.

  Miss Shirley walked up to the loading dock and unlocked the door with a key. Two of the guards rolled up the white metal door on its rails, and two others opened up the rear panels of the three Volvos. Then Miss Shirley and Gabriel led them all inside, while one of the guards stayed outside as a sentry.

  “Can you see inside the warehouse?” Abbey asked.

  “No.”

  A few minutes later, the guards emerged, pushing hand trucks loaded with wooden crates. One by one, they stored the crates inside the SUVs, and by the time they were done, they’d squeezed two dozen crates into the rear of the Volvos. At that point, they closed the loading dock door, and Miss Shirley relocked it. The vehicles headed back out to the road, and Bourne followed.

  “I saw labels stamped on the crates,” Abbey said. “What did they say?”

  “They were brand names for French vineyards. Champagne.”

  “Another party?”

  “Maybe.”

  This time, the convoy headed for the airport. Jason stayed behind them until they drove to the fenced area leading to the taxiways, and then he pulled into the airport parking lot and used the binoculars again. The gate slid back, giving the SUVs access, and the Volvos drove in tandem toward a Gulfstream jet parked inside the airport fence. There, Gabriel Fox and Miss Shirley met two uniformed pilots, and the four of them got on board the jet.

  Meanwhile, the guards in the SUVs loaded the crates of wine into the baggage compartment of the plane. When they were done, they climbed the steps into the passenger area. The door closed behind them.

  Not long after, the jet taxied to the runaway and roared into the sky over the Las Vegas mountains.

  “You want me to sweet-talk one of the ground crew and see if they know the flight plan?” Abbey asked.

  Jason shook his head. “Gabriel told me that he and Miss Shirley were heading to a meeting of the tech cabal in Nassau. Scott told me they meet on some private island down there.”

  “You’re going to go there, too, aren’t you?” Abbey asked.

  “Yes.” Then he added, “Just me.”

  Abbey bit her lip, but she didn’t protest.

  “I’ll charter a jet and go after them,” Jason said, “but there’s something I need to check out first.”

  Bourne took the Land Rover out of the airport. He retraced the route that the Volvos had taken to the unmarked warehouse a mile away. The parking lot was deserted. He found the loading dock where the convoy had brought out their cargo, and he stopped the Land Rover just outside the door.

  He and Abbey both got out. Jason retrieved a crowbar from the back of the truck, and then he went to the loading dock door and used two metal pins from inside his wallet to manipulate the tumblers on the lock. It took him a couple of minutes, and when the lock clicked open, he bent down and threw the door up on its metal rails.

  They cautiously entered the dark storage area, which was almost completely filled with wooden crates that matched what had been loaded on the jet. They were all labeled with the names of French wineries. Jason glanced toward the ceiling and saw a series of red lights go on as their motion activated the security cameras. “We don’t have much time before we get a lot of company in here,” he said.

  “What are you looking for?” Abbey asked.

  Bourne didn’t answer. He went to the nearest crate, which had an ink stamp
on the outside for Sarcennes Blanc de Blancs champagne. He wedged the forked blade of the crowbar into the top seam of the crate and pushed hard to loosen the nails on the upper panel. Then he pushed the crate open and shined his flashlight inside.

  There was no champagne in the crate.

  Instead, he saw military rifles nestled in dense foam, plus magazines and boxes of ammunition.

  “Shit,” Abbey murmured. She stepped back and assessed the quantity of crates stacked against the wall. “Medusa has enough firepower here to start a war.”

  “I think that’s the plan,” Bourne said.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  THE jet that would ferry Bourne out of Las Vegas was almost ready to go.

  He’d called in a favor from a CEO whose son had been kidnapped in Guatemala a few years earlier and then rescued in a Treadstone mission that Jason had led. The man was happy to arrange a private flight from McCarran to Nassau, no questions asked.

  “Take the Land Rover,” he told Abbey. “I put twenty thousand dollars in cash in your bag. Drive home. Go back to Quebec City and The Fort. Forget about Medusa, and forget about me.”

  “That’s not going to happen,” Abbey replied. “You need to call me when this is done.”

  “If we stay in touch, you’re at risk. If anyone thinks they can get to me through you, they’ll come after you.”

  “I don’t care. You need to let me know you’re safe.”

  He nodded. “I will if I can.”

  “Call me. Because if you don’t, I’m going to assume you’re dead.”

  “I’ll call you.”

  Abbey shook her head in frustration. “I suppose there’s no point in telling you to walk away from this. You don’t owe anything to the people who hired you. They betrayed you; they tried to have you killed. Let someone else go after Medusa. Not you.”

  “I’m not doing this for the tech cabal. It’s not about them. If I don’t stop Medusa, I’ll spend the rest of my life running. Always looking over my shoulder. And after what we’ve found here, this is personal to me, too.”