“I’m here to help. Don’t be afraid. Stay right here, and you’ll be fine.”
He peeled away his hand, and she nodded silently at him.
“Where would the execs be?” he asked her. “Where are they hiding?”
She pointed a finger upward. “Top floor.”
“Don’t move. It’ll be over soon.”
Bourne got up from the bar. As he did, he spotted two Medusa operatives on the other side of the patio doors, patrolling the estate grounds. The men spotted him, too, and fired, shattering the glass, scoring the room with a rapid, deadly stream of fire. At his feet, the young woman screamed, and Bourne hit the floor and rolled away, drawing the bullets from her. He rolled until he found cover behind one of the wide legs of a cherrywood pool table, but a hail of bullets ricocheted around him, and he felt a searing pain in his calf. He spun away again, his shoes slipping on the floor, then fired back with one arm, sending bullets wild but driving the men to the ground.
He shot again and hit one of the men, but the other operative unleashed a new battery of fire. Bourne threw himself down and scrambled away, the bullets pinging after him across the floor and getting closer. He stood no chance, until he heard the assassin’s rifle jam, and the rain of bullets suddenly stopped. As the man tried to clear his gun, Bourne sat up and calmly took aim. Seeing the threat, the man broke into a run, but Bourne led him with the barrel shot by shot and took him down with a bullet in the neck.
That was four.
By his count, Medusa still had five other men inside the building. Plus Miss Shirley and Gabriel Fox. All of them were heading upstairs to kill the members of the tech cabal hidden on the top floor.
Bourne hurried back to the hallway. When he looked at the pink tile at his feet, he saw drops of deeper red, and he realized he was trailing blood. He’d been shot in the leg. Running made his heart beat faster and made him lose more blood, but he couldn’t stop. He half ran, half limped as he hunted for the stairs, passing more bodies as he did. Staff. Guards. Maids. When he found a marble staircase near the house’s palatial entrance, he recognized a man dead on the steps, the Indian CEO of an online retail giant who’d been mowed down before he could escape to the upper floors.
He climbed higher. Everyone on the second and third floors was dead, too. There was nothing but silence and blood around him. As he neared the fourth floor, he heard an explosion of gunfire over his head, muffled by the walls of the mansion. He’d caught up to the Medusa team. Bourne followed the sound of the shooting back to the atrium that rose over the interior courtyard. Slipping to his knees, he slithered across the tiled hallway to the stone railing and assessed the action on the far side of the open space. At least three or four estate security guards had barricaded themselves in the opposite corner, and the Medusa team had split in two and was closing on them from both sides. The columns built along the hallways gave them cover. The gunfire in both directions was intense.
He counted four Medusa operatives, two in each hallway. He didn’t see Gabriel Fox. He didn’t see Miss Shirley.
Bourne felt his head spinning as pain came in waves from his leg. He tried to focus. He jutted the barrel of a rifle through a gap in the stone railing and saw the head of a Medusa assassin appear in the crosshairs of his scope across the atrium. The man in his sights was focused on the guards. He didn’t know Bourne was there.
Breathe in.
Slowly breathe out.
Ease back on the trigger.
The man’s head exploded.
The new burst of fire should have alerted the others, but they were too caught up in the adrenaline of the fight to realize that the game had changed. Bourne refocused, re-aimed, sighting down the barrel at the next of the Medusa operatives taking cover along the same atrium corridor.
Another shot. Another kill.
But now they’d spotted the new threat.
One of the two remaining Medusa assassins trained fire across the atrium, and the corridor around Bourne exploded with bullets, rock, and tile. He felt a fragment slice across the back of his hand and leave a gash of blood. He rolled away, his world turning upside down, but he had nowhere to go. With his body mostly exposed, he aimed through the stone railing again and fired back. A hail of bullets burned the air. He never should have survived the exchange, but he got lucky. One of his bullets nicked a column, flaking off a jagged arrowhead of stone that ricocheted into the assassin’s eye. The man wailed and staggered back, and the estate guards in the far corner immediately shot him down with a deafening burst of fire.
Bourne had to run. He had to get to the stairs and then to the next floor. That was where Miss Shirley was. He crawled, stumbled, then found his feet and limped to the next corner and into the middle of the hallway.
But the last Medusa assassin was waiting for him.
The man pulled the trigger. Gunfire erupted around him. Bourne waited to die. This was the end.
Then, in the same instant, shot after shot lit up the atrium like fireworks. The tech cabal guards burst from their barricade in the corner, and Bourne saw the Medusa assassin fall, riddled with bullets. The firefight was done. He tried to get up, tried to keep going, tried to run, but as he pushed himself to his feet, his legs buckled under him.
His head hit the hard floor.
Everything went black.
*
ONE floor up, Miss Shirley spat out a single curse. “Fuck!”
She ripped the headset from her head, threw it to the floor, and kicked it away. She felt an urge to pull the trigger on her rifle, just to shoot up the walls in fury, but she held her fire. At that moment, eight expert assassins should have been converging from the lower floors for their final assault on the tech cabal. They should have been about to embark on a last orgy of killing, a frenzy she would feel like electricity between her legs.
Instead, the three of them were alone. Miss Shirley, one last Medusa agent, code-named Dallas, and the utterly worthless Gabriel Fox.
Fox stared at her, his face suddenly filled with fear. “What the hell’s going on?”
“They’re off the air,” she said. “All of them. Jersey, Philly, Chicago, New York, Memphis, the whole fucking lot of them, they’re all gone. Nobody’s coming to regroup with us. There’s no backup. It’s just us.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying they’re dead. This is a catastrophe. A disaster.”
She stared down the open-air hallway on the estate’s top floor. At the far end was a locked door, and on the other side, she knew, was the entire tech cabal. These were the people she’d come here to kill, and she’d failed.
The head of Medusa, the man who’d been her lover for almost twenty years, would never forgive her.
“We need to go,” she concluded.
“Are you out of your mind?” Gabriel demanded. “What about our plan? What about you and me taking over the cabal?”
“Oh, Gabriel, shut your lunatic mouth for once in your life. Don’t you get it? We need to get to one of the helicopters and get the hell off this island. If we don’t, we’ll be dead, too. We’ve lost.”
Gabriel shook his head, his face screwed up with rage. “You underestimated them!”
Miss Shirley signaled Dallas to lead the way toward the stairs. She grabbed Gabriel’s arm and dragged him with her. “I underestimated nothing. We knew exactly what we were walking into. Don’t you get it? This isn’t the tech cabal, you fucking fool. They’re not the ones who did this.”
Gabriel tried to keep up with her, but he stumbled over his own feet. “Then who did?”
Miss Shirley didn’t answer, but she knew exactly who’d destroyed her plan. She could picture the man’s face in her head, expressionless, infuriating. He was the man she was going to kill slowly, taking him apart limb by limb.
“Bourne.”
FORTY-ONE
THE barrels of half a dozen rifles surrounded Bourne.
He regained consciousness in an open-air terrace that looked ou
t across the darkness of the island. The only light around him came from a dozen flickering candles, which cast strange, giant shadows. The dark crowns of jungle trees waved on the other side of the railings. A warm breeze blew across his bare skin; he wore only shorts. When he went to get up, he discovered that his wrists and ankles were tightly bound to a wrought-iron chaise where his body had been carried. He stared into the dirty, bloody faces of the estate security guards who’d survived the Medusa assault. They kept their guns focused on him. Meanwhile, an attractive doctor tended to his wounds. She’d already removed the bullet from his leg and bandaged the other gashes on his body.
When the doctor was done, two of the guards moved aside, and Nelly Lessard approached him, her face pale and tired. He’d met her during his meetings with Scott and Miles. Another guard brought her a chair, and she sat down next to Bourne with her short, birdlike legs squeezed together. She wore an elegant dark suit that was torn in several places, and her coiffed gray hair was in disarray. Nonetheless, she projected an aura of calm authority as she waved a hand at the security team.
“I appreciate the abundance of caution, gentlemen, but I think we can dispense with the guns. Also, please untie Mr. Bourne’s hands and legs.”
The guards freed Bourne, and he sat up slowly, fighting off another wave of dizziness and nausea. The doctor had anesthetized his wounds, but the pain wouldn’t stay away for long. He studied his surroundings and noticed the glint of broken glass on the terrace floor and furniture tipped over. He spotted three of the tech cabal’s CEOs hovering in the background, pacing near the top-floor railings with a kind of shell shock.
“Medusa?” he asked, hearing the ragged sound of his own voice.
“Gone,” Nelly told him. “Gabriel Fox and that awful woman hijacked one of the helicopters. They kidnapped the pilot and escaped.”
“How many dead?”
“Sadly, we’re still counting. The carnage is appalling. Fortunately, the majority of us—not just the tech cabal but most of the estate staff—were able to take refuge on the top floor when the assault began. Medusa never got to us, but that’s only because you wiped most of them out. Had you not arrived when you did, I have no doubt that we’d all be dead right now. We’re enormously grateful.”
Bourne said nothing.
Nelly looked as if she were trying to make sense of the man in front of her and all she could find were contradictions. “Obviously, I was wrong about you, Jason. We all were. We were convinced that Medusa had exploited your psychological damage and turned you against us.”
“It was a setup,” Bourne replied. “A very good one.”
“Yes, so it seems. We should have been helping you, and instead—”
“Instead, you were trying to kill me,” he replied.
“I’m afraid so. I won’t apologize, because we both know that’s how the game is played. We make choices based on the information we have. I doubt you would have expected us to act any differently.”
“You’re right.”
“Nonetheless, I’m curious, Jason, why you went to so much trouble to save us.”
He shrugged. “It wasn’t selfless on my part, if that’s what you’re thinking. I don’t care what happens to you. The only way out for me is to expose the conspiracy. Until then, I’m a wanted man. I’d rather not live the rest of my life on the run.”
A smile played around the edges of Nelly’s lips, as if she didn’t believe him. “Well, whatever your motives, I’m glad you were here.”
“Are the police on their way?” Bourne asked.
“Oh, yes. Bahamian police and navy. FBI. CIA. We’ll be inundated soon enough. I waited as long as I could, but there’s no way we could keep an incident like this under wraps. It’s going to be worldwide news.”
He nodded. “I can’t stay here. I need to go.”
“Yes, I assumed that was the case. I wish I could help you, but the authorities won’t take my word for your innocence. If the U.S. government finds you, you’ll be arrested, and after that, I suspect you’ll simply disappear. Anyway, I’ve arranged for fresh clothes and any supplies you may need. Do you want a transport back to Nassau or Freeport? I can get you shuttled there discreetly and put on a private plane wherever you need to go.”
Bourne shook his head. “A friend of mine is waiting for me on a boat offshore. At least, I hope he still is. If you have a sat phone, I’ll call him.”
“Are you sure? The least we can do is arrange your getaway.”
“No offense, Nelly, but I don’t trust anyone in the tech cabal.”
“I suppose we deserve that,” she said.
“It’s not just because you’ve been trying to kill me. You’re compromised. You have a spy.”
Nelly looked around to make sure they were out of earshot. “What do you mean?”
“Medusa has someone inside the cabal.”
“Are you sure?”
“There’s no other explanation. The assault team knew too much. They knew where the tunnel was and how to get through. They knew the power specs for the island. They were familiar with your defenses and the layout of the estate. Someone on the inside had to give them that kind of information. It could have been someone on the security team, but it could have been one of your CEOs, too.”
“I can’t believe that’s possible,” Nelly said. “I know these people backward and forward.”
“Like you knew me?” Bourne asked.
She frowned. “That’s a fair point.”
“All I’m saying is, you don’t know who to trust, and neither do I. That means I’m safer working on my own.”
“Understood.”
“The one thing that would be helpful right now is a new gun. And ammunition.”
“I’m sure that can be arranged. I take it that means you’re still going after them. You’re going after Medusa.”
“They’re not done,” Bourne replied. “A setback like this won’t make them stop.”
“So how will you track them down? Where do you think they’re planning to strike next?”
Bourne said nothing. Nelly read his face and knew what he was thinking. “I see. You don’t trust me, either. Well, I can’t blame you for that.”
“It’s better if no one knows where I’m going.”
“No, you’re right. Tell me nothing. If you’re correct that we have a spy, it could be anyone. I’ll get everything ready and make sure you get off this island safely. Then it’s up to you, Jason.”
Nelly left him alone. The light of the candles played across his skin, and when he moved, he felt shocks of pain all over his body. He was already deep inside his head, planning what came next. These were the moments when his loss of memory became a kind of advantage. Having no past made it easier to leave himself behind and imagine the world through the eyes of his enemies.
He needed to get inside the head of someone he didn’t know. Medusa was more than Miss Shirley. It had a leader. A strategist dictating every move, like a chess grand master. Whoever that leader was, he or she would already know that their plan had gone wrong. Medusa had aimed a body blow against the tech cabal, and they’d failed. But they wouldn’t go away and lick their wounds. They’d strike again, hard and fast.
If you fail to kill your enemy with a body shot, then you cut off his head.
Treadstone.
Bourne already knew what Medusa would do next. They’d go after Miles Priest.
*
THE open door of the helicopter let a cold, driving wind into the passenger cabin. It was dark all around them, with no land in sight and nothing but miles of Atlantic water below. Miss Shirley sat on the cabin floor, dangling her bare feet out the open door. The fierce wind swirled her black hair and assaulted her skin, but she liked the bite of the cold. It kept her awake and alert. It kept her angry.
The Medusa operative named Dallas sat up front, monitoring the pilot. Only Gabriel Fox sat in back with Miss Shirley, and he was belted into the nearest leather seat, with his arms wrappe
d tightly around himself and his entire body shivering.
“Do we need to keep the door open?” Gabriel complained like a whining ten-year-old. “I’m shriveling up to nothing here.”
“I like the chill,” Miss Shirley replied calmly.
At high speed over the water, the helicopter jostled and bucked. Her body stayed in perfect balance, moving gracefully with the bumps of air. Gabriel, by contrast, clung to the straps of the seat belt as the turbulence threw him back and forth. His face was pale, and he had his mouth clamped tightly shut. She watched the bulge of his throat swell as he swallowed down bile.
“I hate choppers,” he said. “They scare the shit out of me.”
“You have to be one with the vibration,” she told him.
“I don’t know what the hell that means.”
Miss Shirley got to her feet. She leaned as far as she could outside the helicopter, holding herself steady with nothing but the lightest touch on the door frame. She extended one bare leg straight out the door, level with her hip, then did the same with her left arm. Balanced on one foot, she finally let go of the door frame altogether and rode the waves of turbulence like an aerial surfer.
“Jesus Christ,” Gabriel shouted. “Stop that! You’re freaking me out!”
“You need to relax, my love. Here, let me help.”
Slowly, Miss Shirley drew her body back inside the helicopter. She gave Gabriel a wicked smile. She spread her legs and mounted him with her knees on either side of his thighs. Underneath the thin silk of his robe, she felt him begin to grow hard against the fabric of her bikini bottom. She took his face roughly in her hands and kissed him, shoving her tongue inside his mouth.
“There’s nothing to fear,” she said.
Robert Ludlum's™ The Bourne Evolution (Jason Bourne Book 12) Page 31