“But we lost. We were supposed to take out the tech cabal. First them, then Medusa. You and I were supposed to take over everything. Now what happens?”
“You don’t need to worry about that.”
“Are you kidding? I was seen. People know it was me. They’re going to arrest me for murder.”
“That will never happen.”
Gabriel shook his head. “I need protection! I need to talk to the head of Medusa. You know who he is, right? You know how to get hold of him?”
“Of course.”
“Well, we need to set up a meeting. I’ve got what he wants. Prescix. All of my code. Medusa has wanted that from the beginning. But it’s not free. He needs to get me out of this mess, pull strings, whatever the hell he does. Plus, I want a seat at the table. Influence. That’s my price.”
“I already informed him of our situation,” Miss Shirley replied. “I told him what happened on the island. He anticipated your demands.”
“Smart man. What did he say?”
“He said to assure you that Medusa has a place for you.”
Gabriel sagged against the seat and let out a whistle of relief. “Hot damn. That’s good news. You know what this means, don’t you? Our plan is still good. We get me inside Medusa, and when the time is right, you and me push out the big man, and we take over instead. Then we can focus on the tech cabal again. The new legislation is moving forward in Congress. They’ll be weak, distracted. We’ll pick them off one by one.”
“Yes, we will.”
Gabriel let his hands roam over her body, his arousal returning. “This calls for a celebration.”
“You’re right, it does.”
She stood up inside the helicopter, swaying with its side-to-side motion. She tugged on the strings of her bikini top to free her breasts and then did the same with the bikini bottoms and stood naked in front of Gabriel. With a seductive smirk, she flicked the bikini out the open door of the helicopter, where the wind whipped it away.
Miss Shirley sank to her knees in front of him. She pushed Gabriel’s legs apart and clicked open the straps of the seat belt on his chest. With her fingernails scraping along his skin, she shoved the silk robe back off his shoulders and stripped it from his body until he, like her, was naked inside the helicopter. She leaned over and grabbed him by the waist, and then she bit his earlobe hard enough to draw blood. As he cringed with pain and pleasure, she whispered to him.
“Medusa has a very special place for you, Gabriel.”
“Oh, yeah? Where’s that?”
“The bottom of the sea.”
He only had an instant for his eyes to widen in fear. In one smooth motion, Miss Shirley hoisted Gabriel’s body into the air and launched him through the helicopter’s open door. The tumult of the wind drowned out his scream, and with a flash of white skin, he vanished, falling to the empty ocean below them.
Miss Shirley blew a kiss to the air and waved after him with the tips of her fingers. She slipped Gabriel’s Chinese robe around her body and tied it, and then she slid the door shut. Humming softly to herself, she did a little dance in the bouncing cabin as the helicopter flew on through the night.
FORTY-TWO
THE stars spread across the Caribbean night sky, crystal clear over the dark ocean. Bourne lay on his back on the deck of the catamaran with his hands behind his head. Inside, at the boat’s bridge, Teeling steered them north toward the Bahamian town of Freeport. From there, Bourne could charter a plane back to the U.S. and make arrangements to cross the Atlantic on his way to find Miles Priest.
His mind swirled with details. Maps. Money. Equipment. Transport. Scott had taught him long ago to break down a plan into a thousand steps, like a flowchart, with moves and countermoves that depended on how each component of the plan played out in real life.
A strategy is only as good as the steps you take to execute it.
Scott DeRay.
Bourne hadn’t told Nelly what he was planning to do, but it didn’t matter. He was sure that Scott knew he was coming. Scott would have put himself inside the heads of the Medusa leadership and come to the same conclusion that Bourne did. The next attack would happen in Scotland. They would strike at Miles Priest directly. And if that was where Medusa was headed, then Bourne would be there, too.
The exhaustion of the day made him want to sleep, but he couldn’t do that yet. He stared at the stars and felt the wind racing across his body and listened to the low throb of the motor. Normally, that was the perfect environment in which to separate himself from everything else and focus exclusively on the mission in front of him.
But he couldn’t.
He kept finding his mind distracted. The more he thought about what he had to do, the more he found his thoughts interrupted by something else.
Someone else.
Abbey Laurent.
He’d left her behind, but he hadn’t really left her behind at all. She was still with him. When he closed his eyes, he could picture her face, the spiky red bangs hanging over her eyes, the pale lips when she wiped her lipstick off, the smart dark eyes that didn’t miss a thing. He could feel the softness of her skin and her fingertips running across his body. He remembered the catch in her breath as they coupled in bed.
Don’t think about her! She’s gone!
Marie had left him alone. Nova had left him alone. And now the only safe thing he could do was let Abbey go. He couldn’t have anyone in his life. As soon as he did, they were both vulnerable. Both at risk.
But the desire to be close to her overwhelmed him. Teeling had given him a satellite phone, and all he needed to do was dial her number to hear her voice again.
Let her go!
Jason’s fingers hesitated over the phone keypad. He tried to hold himself back the way an alcoholic stares at a glass full of whiskey and looks for willpower, but he couldn’t stop himself. He punched in the numbers and waited through an interminable length of silence on the water as the satellites tried to connect him to Abbey Laurent.
The silence lasted so long that he thought the call had gone dead.
Then he heard her voice, curious, nervous, hopeful. “Hello?”
Jason took a long time to answer. He thought about hanging up. He’d found her; he knew she was alive. That was enough.
But it wasn’t.
“It’s me,” he said.
Relief poured out of her across the miles between them. “Oh, Jason, thank God! Are you okay? What happened?”
“I’m fine,” he replied.
“You don’t sound fine. Are you hurt?”
“It’s nothing serious.”
“Did you get to the island? Did you stop them?”
“I stopped the worst of it. Medusa didn’t get what they wanted.”
“What does that mean? Is it over?”
Bourne hesitated. “No. It’s not over yet.”
“What about our twisted friend?” Abbey asked.
“She’s still alive. She’s still out there. That’s one reason I have to keep going.”
He heard Abbey breathing hard and fast. There was something strange in her voice when she spoke again. “Where are you now?”
“On the water, but not for long. I’m going after them.”
Again the silence lasted forever and made him wonder if he’d lost her. Finally, she said, “Jason, it’s not too late to quit. Come back to me.”
He’d never felt so tempted by anything in his life. “I’m sorry. I can’t.”
“I know.”
“I have to go,” Bourne said.
“No. Wait. Stay with me a while longer.”
“I wish I could, Abbey. What about you? Are you okay? Where are you now?”
“On the road,” she told him. “Where else would I be?”
He thought that was an odd thing for her to say. “Is everything all right?”
“Fine. I’m fine. But do you want the truth? I miss you. I can’t stop thinking about that night we spent in Oklahoma City.”
&
nbsp; Bourne tensed, because she’d made a deliberate mistake. They’d spent the night together in Amarillo, not Oklahoma City. She was telling him something. Sending him a message.
She wasn’t alone.
“I remember that night, too,” he told her, to make clear he understood.
“Good. When will I see you again, Jason?”
“Someday.”
“That’s not enough,” she told him. “Tell me when.”
He didn’t want to make promises he couldn’t keep, but he did it anyway. “It’s April now. On June 1, if I haven’t found you before then, go back to where we were supposed to meet the first time. Same time, same place.”
“The last time you didn’t show up,” Abbey reminded him.
“This time I will. If I’m alive, I will.”
“I’ll be there.”
“I have to go,” he said again.
“Tell me where you’re going next,” Abbey pressed him. “Please, Jason. Tell me the truth. If all I do is find a headline in a newspaper about people being killed, I have to know if you were involved. If June 1 comes and goes and you’re not there, I need to know where to start looking for you. Because I will.”
He knew she wasn’t the only one listening. He was sure it was Treadstone. She’d warned him; she’d given him a chance to lie. But he was tired of lying. It was time to face everyone who was hunting for him. Let them come.
“Miles Priest has a castle in Scotland,” he said. “Medusa is going to bring everything they have against him. That’s the endgame.”
“Be careful, Jason.” He heard the pleading in her voice. “I’ll see you on June 1?”
“June 1.”
Bourne hung up the phone and was left alone with the darkness of the ocean.
*
“SCOTLAND,” Abbey told Nash Rollins. “Are you satisfied? Jason is on his way to Scotland.”
“Miles Priest?”
“Yes.”
Rollins took a cell phone out of his pocket and dialed. “It’s me. Get the jet ready. I need to leave immediately. Destination is Glasgow, but keep this off the books. I don’t want any notice of the trip circulating on our computer systems. We don’t know who’s going to be watching for activity inside Treadstone.”
He hung up the phone and began gathering up his things in the Denver safe house where they’d spent the last day. Abbey found that she could barely look at him.
“That was well done, Ms. Laurent,” Rollins said. “Bourne wouldn’t tell many people what he told you. Obviously, he trusts you.”
Abbey said nothing. She wondered whether Jason trusting her would cost him his life. She’d hoped that he would lie when he realized she wasn’t alone, that he would give her the wrong information and send Nash Rollins off on a fruitless chase to the other side of the world. But she could hear in his voice that Jason had told her the truth. He really was going to Scotland, and for some reason, he wanted Treadstone to know it.
“You did the right thing by helping me,” Rollins added.
“Spare me your bullshit,” Abbey snapped back. “Am I free to go now? Can I finally get the hell out of here and go home?”
Rollins shrugged. “Of course. One of my agents will accompany you and make sure you get back home to Quebec City. Obviously, she’ll also be there in case you and Bourne make any further contact and you try to warn him away.”
Abbey shook her head. “He won’t contact me again.”
“Well, I’m taking no chances.”
Abbey got off the sofa, and her lip curled with disgust as she stared at the Treadstone agent. “I hate you people. All of you. You threaten, manipulate, plot, and kill, and somehow you convince yourself that none of this is wrong.”
Rollins paused in the safe house with his briefcase in his hand. Slowly, he put his hat on his head and then leaned on his cane. “I’m well aware that we have to cross terrible lines, Ms. Laurent.”
“Then why do you do it?”
“Theoretically? For a greater good.”
Abbey shook her head. “You want the greater good, Mr. Rollins? Look at Jason. He seems to be the only one who hasn’t forgotten what that is. Which is pretty ironic, isn’t it, given his past. What does it take to convince you of the truth? He’s not Medusa, and he never was. He’s been trying to take them down from the beginning. He still is.”
The Treadstone agent frowned. “Assuming you’re right—assuming Bourne isn’t simply lying to you, playing you—then what would you suggest I do?”
“You keep trying to kill him,” Abbey replied. “Maybe, instead, you should try to help him.”
FORTY-THREE
RAIN made the Highlands of Scotland green, and rain poured down in waves over Bourne’s head. He stood at the fringe of a thick stand of fir trees a quarter mile from Miles Priest’s castle outside the village of Glenfyrr. Manicured lawns and gardens surrounded the estate. Stony hills loomed in the distance, gray and ominous, swept by fog. The castle itself stood on a promontory high over the angry sea, built of old brown stone, with a single rounded tower facing the ocean. Turrets like the rooks of a chessboard lined the square wings that overlooked the gardens. Beyond the castle, he could see a cemetery and the decaying ruins of a chapel rising out of the green grass. The crumbling ramparts of the castle’s stone wall clung to the sheer cliff face.
It was what he didn’t see that worried him.
He didn’t see Medusa. And yet he knew they had to be here. Somewhere in the trees around him and on the beaches below the cliffs, a team of assassins waited for darkness. Then they would strike. Medusa would have no trouble penetrating the defenses here. No more than half a dozen guards, widely spread out, patrolled the grounds. He was surprised that Scott hadn’t boosted security, but maybe Medusa had outthought him this time with their plan.
Bourne waited until the next patrol passed out of sight. Then he broke from the trees and ran at full speed across the wet grass. The rain and twilight made him mostly invisible, just a dark blur against the forest. He reached the next stand of trees that hugged the high cliffs, and he heard the thunder of waves breaking against the jagged rocks a hundred feet below him. He surveyed the area with his binoculars again, but from this new angle, he still saw no evidence of the Medusa team readying their assault. He ducked through the trees to the very edge of the cliff and studied the windswept water, but there were no boats waiting offshore and no Zodiacs dragged onto the rocky beach. Nothing looked amiss in the rainy Scottish night.
Where are they?
He followed the coastline until the main tower of the castle rose above the trees, four stories of old wet stone staring toward the sea. Smoke from the chimneys stung the air. Lights glowed inside a handful of windows. He’d come prepared for a fortress, with a nylon rope and bowline knot hooked to his waist under his shirt for climbing; with a hacksaw blade if he needed to cut through bars; and with smoke grenades if he needed a diversion. But when he looked for a way inside, he realized that they’d left the door open for him.
Literally.
A thick, double-paneled oak door that led into the castle’s round tower hung ajar. When he came closer, he saw cigarette butts littering the wet grass. Obviously, this was where the castle staff took their smoke breaks, and they didn’t bother to lock up the doors each time they came and went.
Gun in hand, Bourne slipped inside the castle.
Too easy!
His instincts screamed that he was walking into a trap. But he was alone.
He found himself in a cramped circular hallway, with a stone floor that ran along the tower’s rounded wall. The air had a musty smell, the product of constant dampness, and the interior was drafty and cold. He led the way with his gun, but no one challenged him. Halfway around the tower, he found a wrought-iron staircase that spiraled upward. He climbed the metal steps, which squealed with his footfalls. The entire frame shook, as loose bolts rattled under his weight.
Two stories up, Bourne found a landing with a small wooden door, barely
wide enough for a man to get through. Slowly, he turned the brass knob and pushed the door open an inch. He listened inside and heard nothing, and he opened the door the rest of the way and found himself in a grand library, shaped like a half-moon, with a high ceiling and chambered windows facing toward the sea and the foggy Scottish hills. Bookshelves lined the walls, along with a series of Renaissance-style religious oil paintings. A huge fire crackled, giving heat to the cold castle. Persian rugs lay over the weathered wood floor, and a brass chandelier hung on chains from the high ceiling.
One man was inside. Scott DeRay.
“Hello, Jason,” Scott told him. “Welcome. I’ve been expecting you.”
His friend raised a crystal lowball glass that was half-filled with amber liquid. “Some scotch? It’s Laphroaig. The good stuff.”
“No.”
Bourne felt disoriented, creeping into this medieval castle and finding nothing but an old friend in a business suit, drinking whisky.
“You really could have come in the front door,” Scott added with a twinkle, “but where’s the fun in that? You never could do things the easy way. I hope we won’t have any medical bills for the guards you met along the way.”
“They’re fine,” Bourne replied, distracted.
He checked out the windows. Through the rain-dotted glass, he studied the stone wall along the coastline that led out to the cemetery and the ruins of the chapel. Below the wall, the sea crashed against the rocks. No one was there. Not on the beach or the grounds, not in the forest. The assault he’d expected wasn’t happening. Medusa wasn’t here.
He shook his head. “This doesn’t make sense.”
“Medusa?”
“I was sure they’d come after you and Miles.”
“I thought the same thing,” Scott replied. “That’s why I sent Miles away to keep him out of danger.”
“Where did you send him?”
“A hotel he owns near Prestwick. He’s been there since we got back. But I sent a limo to collect him. He should be arriving shortly. The fact is, it looks like we were both wrong, Jason. Believe me, the security in this castle is much more than it appears to be. We have electronics in place around the grounds and surveillance in a perimeter for several miles. No one gets in without our knowing about it. That includes you. I tracked you from the time you arrived. There’s no one out there, Jason. Nobody’s coming.”
Robert Ludlum's™ The Bourne Evolution (Jason Bourne Book 12) Page 32