Robert Ludlum's™ The Bourne Evolution (Jason Bourne Book 12)

by Brian Freeman

  Bourne was alone.

  That was how it had to be.

  THIRTEEN

  NASH Rollins waited in the darkness outside the terminal at the north end of the Quebec City airport. A CSIS agent with a pencil mustache stood beside him and conducted an animated phone conversation in French. Rollins leaned on his cane and perused the night sky for the arrival of the Treadstone helicopter. He was more than ready to get out of Canada.

  The CSIS agent, whose name was Fontaine, hung up the phone. “The borders are all on alert for your man. This Cain.”

  Rollins shrugged. “You won’t find him.”

  “Don’t be so sure of that. We tracked the stolen Renault and its plates on a street cam. The police are searching for the car.”

  “He’ll switch vehicles soon if he hasn’t already. You lost him for good as soon as he was out of Quebec.”

  “Are you suggesting we don’t know how to do our jobs, Mr. Rollins?”

  That was, in fact, what Rollins was suggesting, but he didn’t bother with actual insults. “I’m suggesting that Cain is a professional who knows how to avoid capture. He knows where to cross the border without being detected.”

  “And why are you so sure he’s on his way out of the country?”

  “Because he got the woman. He got what he came for. He’s done here.”

  The CSIS agent had an annoying habit of smoothing his mustache with his finger. “Well, if we do find him before he gets across the border, he’s ours first. We believe he murdered a Canadian government official when he kidnapped the reporter. He’ll need to answer for that, in addition to his other crimes on Canadian soil.”

  “What about the body at the naval museum?” Rollins asked. “Did you identify him?”

  “Not yet. The man had no wallet. But he matches the description the woman gave us of the person who tried to kill her in Artillery Park. The question is why Cain killed him.”

  “Probably because the man saw his face.”

  “He’s quite a dangerous man, your Cain.”

  “Yes, he is.”

  “What do you think he’ll do with the woman?”

  “He’ll kill her, too,” Rollins replied.

  “Quel dommage. She’s a pretty thing. Spirited, too. The kind of cat who’s likely to leave scratches on your back.” The agent smoothed his mustache again and smirked, as if he’d made a very amusing joke.

  Rollins made no comment. He saw the lights of the approaching helicopter and heard the staccato throb of its rotors. Black and unmarked, it floated down to the helipad in front of them, and Rollins had to hold his hat down to keep it on his head. As the helicopter touched down, Rollins signaled the pilot with a finger across his throat. The engine quieted, and the rotors began to slow.

  The CSIS agent extended a hand. “Good hunting, Mr. Rollins.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I’d like to say I’m sorry to see you go, but in all honesty, most of us will be happy to see the backs of you and your men. And Cain, too, of course. We have no interest in being part of the American Wild West.”

  Rollins snorted. “Au revoir, Fontaine.”

  The agent gave him a pained smile. He combed his mustache one last time and headed back to the terminal building. When he was out of earshot, Rollins took out his phone and dialed Treadstone in New York.

  “It’s me,” he said. “I’m heading home.”

  “The tone of your voice suggests you failed again.”

  Rollins fumed silently. “Yes. Bourne made it out of the city. He took the journalist with him, and after that, he disappeared. I assume he’ll head back to the U.S.”

  “What’s his next target?”

  “Unknown.”

  “Director Shaw won’t be happy. He’s getting pressure from Congress. One of their own was murdered, and the assassin is one of ours. Cain needs to be eliminated. Soon.”

  Rollins didn’t need headquarters telling him what he already knew.

  “Activate all of our assets around the U.S.,” he told her, “and tell them to keep a close eye on our safe houses. Cain knows all of them. He could show up anywhere. Issue a kill-on-sight order, and make sure we warn everyone who knows him. Jason Bourne isn’t Treadstone anymore. He’s Medusa.”

  *

  BOURNE used a penlight to guide him through the trees. Every few steps, he stopped, listening. He had the Medusa assassin’s gun in his hand. Even out here, even at night, there were always threats. He didn’t know what Abbey Laurent would do now that she was free. She might go back to Quebec City, as he’d told her to do. Or she might pull off the road at the next town and call the police.

  It was also possible that his contact in Montreal had turned against him. He and Nova had relied on the man many times, but payoffs had a way of trumping loyalty. Jason kept off-the-books contacts in most cities, but he was a marked man now, and even the most reliable sources could smell a lucrative payday. He didn’t know whether to expect a welcoming party when he went for the car.

  He turned off the flashlight as he neared the main highway. At the end of the trail, nearly two dozen cars filled a small parking lot used by backpackers hiking into the mountains. He spotted the truck that had been left for him, a beat-up forest-green Land Rover. Instead of heading for the vehicle, he stayed on the fringe of the trees and circled the parking lot, coming up on the Land Rover from behind. He moved silently, leading with the gun.

  No one was here.

  They hadn’t found him yet.

  Jason crossed the pavement to the truck. He checked under the chassis for explosives or tracking devices, but found nothing. Then he located the keys in a metallic case under the front bumper and let himself inside the vehicle. The truck had a stale smell of fake pine from an air freshener dangling under the mirror. He checked under the dashboard and found a thick envelope that contained twenty-five thousand dollars in cash from one of his personal accounts.

  Time to go.

  He turned the key in the ignition and switched on the headlights. When he did, he grabbed for his gun.

  Abbey Laurent stood in front of the car.

  Jason threw open the door and leaped out, pointing the gun at her chest. She put up her arms and spread her fingers wide.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” he demanded.

  When Abbey didn’t answer, Bourne walked over to her and pressed the suppressor against her forehead. “I said, what the hell are you doing here?”

  “Honestly? I don’t know.”

  “What does that mean? You’re working with them, aren’t you? You’re one of them.”

  Her voice was steady as she replied. “I’m not. I swear I’m not. I’m exactly who you think I am.”

  “Then why did you come back? I let you go.”

  “Because I want to go with you,” Abbey said.

  “What?”

  Jason saw a fierce determination in her eyes. “Look, I may not trust you, but I trust everyone else even less. Plus, I’m a writer, and this story isn’t over. You said you want to expose the conspiracy? So do I. These people killed Michel, and they tried to kill me. I want to find out the truth about who they are.”

  “You’re insane.”

  “Maybe I am.”

  “You’ll slow me down. You’ll wind up dead.”

  “I know the risks. That’s my choice. If I slow you down, then fine, leave me behind. But you might find you can use me. A man traveling alone attracts a lot more attention than a man and a woman together. I’m your cover.”

  Jason frowned, but he couldn’t argue with her logic.

  “See?” Abbey went on. “You know I’m right. Take me to New York with you. That’s where Carson Gattor is. You already said he’s the first link in the chain that leads to Medusa. You know it’s not going to be easy to get to him. He’s smart. If he thinks you’re coming after him, he’s going to be on his guard. He doesn’t know you, but he knows me. I can help you draw him out, Mr. Cain.”

  He shook his head in disbelief at
this woman’s sheer foolish courage. He hadn’t met someone like her in a long time.

  Not since Nova.

  He lowered his weapon.

  “I’m not Cain,” he told her. “Not anymore. Cain was a long time ago. My name is Jason Bourne.”

  PART TWO

  FOURTEEN

  THE CEOs of thirty-six of the world’s most influential technology companies sat around a handmade beechwood conference table imported from a Baltic coastal village in Sweden. Thirty of the participants were men, six were women, and they ranged in age from twenty-nine to seventy-five. Their countries of origin were dominated by the U.S., but also included representatives from China, South Korea, Switzerland, Germany, and India. The invitation-only group had no name. Outside of this room, it didn’t officially exist. The billionaire members called it simply “the cabal.”

  Four times a year, they came here to discuss technology strategy, in a villa owned by Miles Priest on a private island a few miles off the coast of Nassau. Warm ocean breezes blew through the open-air space that looked down on the island’s sand beach, which was now bone-white in the moonlight. Dozens of red-necked Bahama parrots chattered in the palm trees beyond the balcony. Silver platters of coconut-crusted shrimp, fish stew and johnnycakes, conch salad, and guava duff sat in the middle of the table within easy reach, along with carafes of wine, sparkling water, Yellow Bird, and Goombay Smash. There was, ironically, no technology allowed at these meetings. No phones, no laptops, no devices of any kind. The members of the cabal knew better than anyone that people were always listening.

  Miles Priest sat in his usual place at the head of the table, his back to the ocean view. Scott DeRay sat on his right, and Nelly Lessard, who coordinated the cabal’s communications and meetings, sat on his left. Most of the others in the group wore comfortable tropical attire—flowered shirts, shorts, sandals—but Priest never wore anything except a business suit at these meetings. He was still a product of the FBI culture in which he’d spent thirty years. Always professional. Always driven by stringent rules and values. Many of the CEOs expected hedonistic pleasures during their stay on the island, and Priest had no trouble indulging their distasteful fetishes, but he refused to allow such weaknesses in his own life.

  At most meetings, the executives deferred to him as the leader of the cabal. That was high praise in a group whose other members were equally brilliant, arrogant, and über-rich, but Priest’s éminence grise persona and his six-foot-six stature managed to keep them in line. So did the fact that Nelly Lessard kept secret recordings of each member’s private peccadilloes. A night at a Macau hotel with two seventeen-year-olds? A taste for trafficked Egyptian antiquities? Nelly Lessard knew all about them. If anyone stepped seriously out of line, they were quietly reminded that certain recordings could be sent to their boards of directors or even the criminal authorities in their countries.

  However, tonight Miles Priest was on the defensive.

  “A debacle!” Hon Xiu-Le announced from the far end of the conference table. The small forty-year-old with straw-like black hair was the Shanghai-based leader of China’s largest social messaging application, representing nearly a billion users. “A debacle, Mr. Priest, there is no other way to describe it! You told us that your operation in New York would help us gain the upper hand against Medusa. We would finally know what they were planning. Instead you played right into their hands.”

  Priest’s sagging bloodhound face showed no expression. “I don’t disagree with you, Hon.”

  “Congress is screaming!” added Tyler Wall, the youngest member of the cabal and the founder of a medical device company specializing in internal microrobotics for surgical procedures. The irony of his focus on small things was that Wall was built like a carnival strongman, with blond hair down to his waist and a full beard. His odd affectation was that he always wore a flowing white robe and carried a walking stick, like a modern-day Moses. “The legislation from Ortiz should have been dead in the water, but after her murder, the bill is gathering momentum in the House. Rumors are all over D.C. that Big Tech was behind the assassination. You think anyone is going to believe us if we say yes, the killer was our agent, but actually he was a Medusa mole and we had no idea about that when we hired him? How stupid does that make us look?”

  Wall looked straight at Scott DeRay as he said this.

  “You’re right, I take full responsibility for the recruitment of Jason Bourne,” Scott replied. “Obviously, he was more susceptible to manipulation by Medusa’s psychological methods than I realized. The man is one of my oldest friends, but I misjudged him.”

  “A lot of good that does now,” Wall went on. “If our involvement in hiring him comes to light, this is disastrous! Catastrophic!”

  “It won’t come out,” Priest interjected sharply.

  “That seems optimistic, Mr. Priest,” Hon Xiu-Le announced to sympathetic rumblings from the others at the table. The Chinese entrepreneur adjusted tiny round glasses on his face and folded his small hands together. “If this man is captured, it seems inevitable that the investigation will lead back to Mr. DeRay—and from him to all of us.”

  “Bourne will never be captured,” Scott informed them.

  “Unless Medusa wants him to be captured,” Wall suggested. “Maybe that’s the plan. Bring him up to Capitol Hill in cuffs and leg irons to point the finger at the cabal, and watch them pass legislation to cripple us by voice vote!”

  Priest waited until the unrest settled and the members were quiet. “We are dealing with Bourne.”

  “How?” Wall asked, thumping a meaty fist on the table.

  “I reached out to Treadstone,” Priest replied with a sideways glance at Scott. “I suggested that we have a shared interest in getting rid of Bourne, particularly given Treadstone’s recent resurrection. Bourne is a threat to them as much as to us. Director Shaw is in complete agreement. They were nearly successful in eliminating him in Canada.”

  Hon Xiu-Le scowled. “Nearly?”

  “It appears Bourne escaped the net,” Scott announced. “He’s gone underground again.”

  More discontent rippled through the cabal.

  “He escaped for now,” Priest continued, “but there’s nowhere he can go where we won’t be looking for him. Nelly is coordinating the tech resources among our various members to watch for any footprint he may leave online. He will be found. As soon as we locate him, Treadstone will take action to remove him. Now, I share your disappointment with our failure in New York, but I suggest we all return our focus to the more urgent issue. Namely, Medusa. Ever since the data hack, we’ve been expecting them to move against us in a major way. Any congressional action that arises because of the Ortiz assassination will weaken us, but this is only the first step. We still don’t know their endgame. I would suggest that we remain vigilant for unusual activity within our companies. Fluctuations in stock price or unusual buying or selling activity. Key personnel departures. Theft of intellectual property. Until we know what Medusa is planning, we’re all at risk.”

  “Speaking of risk,” Wall interrupted again, “what is being done about Prescix? You promised us a deal, Miles.”

  “We’ve faced a setback on that front,” Priest told them, “but we’re not done yet.”

  He nodded at Nelly Lessard to give her report. Nelly was sixty years old, with neat gray hair and a grandmotherly voice that masked a tough-as-nails personality. She wasn’t even five feet tall, and she stood up so that the others at the table could see her. Her bones were thin and birdlike. “We extended an invitation to the founder of Prescix, Gabriel Fox, to join the cabal and meet with us here on the island,” she told the group. “He declined. In fact, he declined by hiring a blimp to fly over the Carillon headquarters flashing the word No. Along with a curse directed at Miles. As we all know, Gabriel is a genius but with the erratic personality quirks that geniuses sometimes have.”

  “Gabriel is nuts!” Wall said flatly. “But who cares? Prescix software is more powerful t
han anything we’ve seen in social media in more than a decade. It’s been quadrupling its user base worldwide every month for the past year. We can’t have that much influence out there unchecked and uncoordinated. Prescix needs to be in this room.”

  “Agreed,” Priest replied crisply. “As Nelly says, we’d hoped to recruit Gabriel directly, but he refused. In my mind, that’s an unacceptable response. In the absence of Gabriel’s cooperation, we’ve been working to give the company alternative leadership.”

  Hon Xiu-Le leaned forward, his eyes suspicious. “How do you plan to do that?”

  Scott stood up. Like Priest, he always wore a suit to these meetings. “I’ve been working with the legal team at Carillon to acquire Prescix. We’ve been quietly accumulating a large holding of stock under multiple surrogates. And we’ve made an outreach to the company’s COO, Kevin Drake, to support our bid and get a majority of the board to back the takeover. If that goes forward in the next day or so as we expect, then Gabriel will be out, and as the next CEO, Kevin has promised his enthusiasm for joining our group. Prescix will shortly be one of us, ladies and gentlemen. I guarantee it.”

  Scott’s announcement won smiles from the others at the table. In the wake of that news, Priest stood up next to his protégé. “This seems like a good time to break for the evening. We’ll reconvene at breakfast. I’m sure you can all find productive ways to spend your night on the island.”

  As the CEOs began to disperse throughout the estate grounds, Priest leaned closer to Scott. “Have you confirmed with Kevin Drake that everything is on track?”

  Scott nodded. “Kevin’s in Las Vegas. He’ll be breaking the news to Gabriel tomorrow. We’ll shortly have majority support on the Prescix board. It’s a done deal. Gabriel’s gone.”

  “Excellent,” Priest replied. “Nelly, have you arranged some company for Kevin while he’s in Sin City? I understand he’s rather particular.”