“Tell them not to worry,” Scott replied. “Putting out details about Medusa was part of the plan. The point is to convince most of the Western governments that Medusa is under control. A neutralized threat. We served up Miles as our sacrificial lamb, and we showed enough of our real hand to make them think they have us on the run. So while they waste time with their subpoenas and congressional investigations, we can proceed with our next step.”
“You mean Prescix?”
Scott nodded. He took a lavender-colored macaron cookie from the tray in front of him, but when he ate it, he found it oddly difficult to swallow, as if an apricot pit had begun to swell in his windpipe. “Yes, my first major initiative as CEO of Carillon will be to announce that the Prescix board has agreed to a merger.”
“Assuming your DOJ doesn’t stop it,” Fyodor pointed out.
“The feds? Please. They’re salivating at the idea. I’ve already promised them that we’ll adapt the Prescix code to help with their anti-terrorism investigations. They’ll identify a few white supremacists shouting ‘Sieg Heil’ and look like heroes. For them, the merger can’t come soon enough. That will also take all of their antitrust threats off the table. Meanwhile, we’ll integrate the personal data from the hack and run all of it through the Prescix algorithms. That’s tens of millions of people. We’ll have them believing whatever we want them to believe. Left, right, it doesn’t matter. The next election is going to be utter chaos. It’s everything you want.”
“Oh, we want much more than that,” Fyodor reminded him. “This is only the beginning, my friend.”
Scott sipped his espresso and wrung a hand through the fabric of his collar, which was now damp with his sweat. Yes, you want civil war, you old fool. And I’ll give it to you. People will be at each other’s throats, but not just in New York, Portland, and San Francisco. The streets of Moscow and Beijing will erupt, too. We’ll burn it all down and get ready to rebuild under a new master plan.
The Medusa plan.
“It will take more money,” Scott replied.
“Oh, don’t worry about that. You’ll have whatever you need. I’ll make sure of it. Of course, I’ll expect some favors of my own. I have a few names of people who may need special attention from the Prescix software. Political rivals. Some diplomats who have been uncooperative. My wife’s brother. That sort of thing.”
Scott chuckled. “I expected as much. Just give me a list.”
“Good, fine, excellent,” Fyodor announced, happily slapping the bistro table and making his coffee spill. “I’ve always liked doing business with you, Scott. Hard to believe it’s been all these years, isn’t it? I remember meeting you that summer in Prague, this cocky college kid with all these ridiculous plans to run the world. And that girl with you, oh my God. Even at sixteen, Miss Shirley was scarier than anyone in the FSB. But I saw something in you. You were different. I knew you’d make one of the best assets I ever recruited.”
“Thank you, Fyodor,” Scott replied.
Although the truth is, I was the one who recruited you.
Fyodor cut into another of the cheeses, and the wafting smell affected Scott with a wave of nausea. He had to hold on to the table to steady himself as the room spun. He felt a strange tingling in his lips, like the pricks of a hundred needles.
“You all right, my friend?” Fyodor asked, chewing loudly. “You’re starting to look sick.”
“I’m fine,” Scott replied.
“I was sorry to hear the news about your Miss Shirley, by the way.”
Scott said nothing at the mention of her name. He missed Shirl, but he hadn’t cried for her. She would have detested any show of weakness like that from him. Even so, it was still hard to imagine his world without her. She’d been a secret ally at his side for almost twenty years.
“I’d always assumed she was indestructible,” Fyodor went on.
“So had I.”
“Bourne killed her?”
“Yes.”
“I would have liked to see that battle,” Fyodor mused. “It must have been one for the ages. How did he do it?”
“He cut off her head,” Scott murmured angrily.
“Just like Perseus and Medusa, eh? How ironic. What about Bourne himself?”
“Treadstone killed him.”
“Are you sure? Bourne has proved to be a slippery adversary in the past.”
Scott rubbed his temples with his fingers. A fierce headache had now taken root behind his eyes. “This time I’m sure. Treadstone tried hard to keep it quiet, but we intercepted an encrypted transmission of a classified report directly to the attorney general. It confirmed his death.”
“Well, RIP Jason Bourne. I do like it when the American government does our work for us.”
Scott nodded in agreement, but he’d begun to feel light-headed. He didn’t understand what was happening to him. The flu? He found it hard to concentrate on their conversation. He needed to get back outside into the fresh air of Paris. “I told you Bourne wouldn’t be a problem, Fyodor.”
“Indeed you did.”
“I’ll let you know when we’re moving ahead on Prescix. And how much more money we need.”
“Do that.” Fyodor reached across the table and wrapped up Scott’s hand in his paw. “Anyway, congratulations, my friend. I appreciate a man who delivers on his promises. There’s bound to be a bonus in it for you. Whatever you want.”
Scott stood up from the chair. As he did, the inside of the café made somersaults in front of his eyes. “I don’t care about anything like that.”
“Ah yes, of course,” Fyodor replied, with a cynical rasp in his voice. “You don’t care about material things, says the man in the five-thousand-dollar Savile Row suit. You’re an idealist. You know what we call idealists in Russia, don’t you?”
“What?”
Fyodor leaned dangerously far back in the little café chair and laughed until his belly shook. “As soon as I find one, I’ll let you know.”
*
FYODOR was in no hurry to leave the café.
When he was done with the food, he signaled to the lovely little French waitress and ordered a bottle of Pouilly-Fuissé to wash it all down. She poured him the first glass, and while she did, his thick fingers explored her ass under the thin fabric of her skirt. She didn’t slap his hand away. Instead, she gave him a grin and a wink that said: Ask me how much.
Ah, Paris. He loved this city.
An hour later, he’d finished the wine and had a buzz that would last him until lunch. He stripped the linen napkin out of his collar and crumpled it on the table. He pushed his huge frame out of the chair and took heavy, unsteady steps toward the café door. Outside, he paid no attention to his bodyguards standing on either side of the bistro entrance. His town car waited for him at the curb. He closed his eyes briefly to savor the sunshine, and then he bent down and yanked open the town car’s rear door.
The car wasn’t empty. Nash Rollins sat in the back seat.
“Fyodor Mikhailov,” Rollins announced in a pleasant voice. “It’s been a long time.”
The Russian whirled around with surprising speed for a big man, but that was when he noticed for the first time that the two bodyguards outside the café were not his own men. They were strangers. Americans. With guns.
Fyodor gave a long, loud sigh of resignation. Life was what it was. You won until you lost, and then you dealt with the consequences. “Nash Rollins. I take it we’re going for a drive, are we?”
“Yes, we are. Come, join me.”
Rollins slid over to the opposite side of the town car and patted the leather seat next to him. Fyodor squeezed his bulk inside, and one of the American agents slammed the door shut behind him. No one outside could see through the smoked windows. The car headed off slowly into the Parisian streets.
“I’m a diplomat, Nash,” Fyodor reminded him. “You’re making a serious mistake by kidnapping me.”
Rollins gave a friendly tap on the Russian’s knee with his c
ane. “Kidnapping? Don’t be so dramatic, Fyodor. You’re free to go. In fact, we can drop you off at your embassy if you’d like. However, we both know that Moscow doesn’t like the smell of failure. Agents who fail tend not to live very long. And that’s what I’m smelling on your suit, Fyodor. Failure. It’s even stronger than all of that French cheese.”
Fyodor frowned with his many chins. “Explain.”
“We have everything on tape. Your meeting with Scott DeRay. Medusa. Prescix. That waitress you were groping? She’s mine. She could crack that thick neck of yours like a pretzel if she wanted, by the way. See, that civil war you want is officially over before it starts. Tomorrow, the American media will report that the Prescix software is being used as a front for Russian counterintelligence. Trading will be suspended. The company will be shut down and its code taken apart byte by byte to see what little games you and Medusa have been up to. So by all means, go back to Moscow if you want, but we both know the only thing waiting for you is an extra-large hole dug in the taiga forest.”
The Russian spent a moment evaluating what Rollins had said. “I take it you’re offering me an alternative.”
“I am.”
Fyodor was nothing if not practical. “What do you want, and what do I get?”
“What I want is information. You come back to the U.S. and tell us everything you know about the inner workings of Medusa. Names, locations, moles in the government and private industry, targets, plans. All the details about the data hack and how it was done and who was affected. You give us everything we need to take apart the entire Medusa infrastructure person by person. Do that, and we give you a free pass. You get a beachside Florida condominium with an all-new identity and plenty of money to spend on hookers, vodka, and caviar.”
Fyodor stared out the window at Paris, knowing he was unlikely ever to see the city again. He lit a cigarette in the back of the town car and reflected on his options, which didn’t take long, because he didn’t have any. He wasted no time on patriotic sentiment. A living traitor was better than a dead patriot.
“Florida?” he asked. “You want to send me to Florida?”
“Or anywhere else you prefer,” Rollins replied.
The Russian shrugged and blew out a cloud of smoke. “Florida is fine. Humidity and cockroaches don’t bother me. But throw in a lifetime pass to Disney World, okay? I like to ride the teacups.”
FORTY-SEVEN
BOURNE followed Scott DeRay from the Parisian bistro into the sprawling grounds of the Jardin du Luxembourg.
By the time his old friend reached the geometric gardens laid out in front of the palace, it was obvious that the poison was rapidly taking effect. He could see Scott’s steps grow erratic. Getting closer, he saw sweat pouring down the man’s face and tremors wracking his limbs. Scott staggered to a bench near the green waters of the pond, where children played with brightly colored toy sailboats. It reminded Bourne of the time they’d met in Central Park, not long ago.
The truth was written on Scott’s face. He didn’t know how, but he knew he was dying.
He watched Scott pull out a phone to call for help, but the phone slipped from his numb fingers and fell to the pavement. Bourne came over and picked up the phone and then sat down next to him.
“It says on your Prescix profile that you’re going to die horribly today, Scott. It’s scary how accurate that software is.”
Scott turned his head slowly and tried to focus, and his eyes finally widened with recognition. “You.”
“Yes, I’m sorry to still be alive,” Bourne replied. “I really didn’t think you’d swallow the story about Nash killing me, but he said we just needed to make the information hard for you to find. I guess he was right.”
If you want someone to believe a lie, cover it up like a secret you’re desperate to keep.
Treadstone.
Scott struggled to fight back. He lifted a hand to reach into the pocket of his suit, where Bourne knew he kept a gun, but then his hand fell back to the bench and lay limply at his side. He had no strength. Even his voice sounded like an effort.
“What’s the poison, Jason?” he asked. “Tetrodotoxin?”
“The symptoms fit,” Bourne agreed. “Given how quickly it’s working, I imagine it was a massive dose. You only have a few minutes left.”
“Are you saying you didn’t do this?” Scott asked.
Bourne watched the families playing in the park. Children ate ice cream cones. Lovers kissed. No one noticed the man dying on the bench in front of them. “No. Sorry, Scott, that wasn’t me.”
“Who?”
“You chose the wrong enemy,” Bourne told him. “One of the CEOs that your team murdered in the Caribbean was Hon Xiu-Le from Shanghai. He wasn’t among the bodies, so we didn’t know where he was at first. Apparently, Miss Shirley tied him up in one of the Jeeps before she blew it up. Treadstone found what was left of him and was able to confirm his identity. Definitely a mistake. Hon had a lot of friends high up in the Chinese government. You don’t make that kind of money over there unless you’re connected to the party circle. They were very upset to find out that he’d been killed. When I called one of my counterparts in Beijing, he was extremely interested to learn that you were the one behind Hon’s death. They were happy to work with us.”
Scott closed his eyes. “The old Chinese tourist outside the park.”
“Yes, he was good. I was watching for it, and I still didn’t spot him giving you the injection. I’ve been following you for a couple of weeks now. Actually, Nash and I were getting nervous that the Chinese might go after you before you had a chance to lead us to whoever was funding Medusa. They told us they’d wait, but we weren’t sure how long. But then you arranged the meeting with Fyodor this morning, so we gave them the green light. By the way, Fyodor is with Nash now. Telling him everything. Medusa is done, Scott. It’s over.”
Scott opened his eyes and spat the words at Bourne as he struggled for breath. “I could have killed you any time I wanted, Jason. I let you live because we were friends.”
“You let me live because you could manipulate me. That’s all.”
Bourne dug into the back pocket of his slacks and pulled out a worn, wrinkled photograph. The picture showed two boys on an anonymous beach, with the whitecaps of the Atlantic behind them. They couldn’t be more than eleven years old, both in baggy swim trunks. The boys had their arms around each other’s shoulders and big grins on their faces. Looking at them, he found it hard to see himself in the taller boy on the left or Scott in the boy on the right. It had been another lifetime for both of them. They’d grown into completely different people.
“We stopped being friends years ago,” Bourne said, dropping the photograph into the man’s lap. He had no use for it anymore. “Goodbye, Scott.”
He stood up from the bench, but Scott grabbed his wrist in a weak grip. “Wait.”
Jason stared down at him and said nothing.
“You’re not just killing me,” Scott told him, as if it were a curse. “When I die, you die, too. Your whole childhood. Who you really were. Your past will be gone forever. I’m the only one who remembers it.”
Bourne shook his head. “You’re wrong about that. I have no past.”
He slipped sunglasses over his face and walked away into the park.
*
IT was June 1 in Quebec City. Ten o’clock at night.
Darkness shrouded the boardwalk below the Château Frontenac. Abbey checked her watch to be sure of the time. It was the early summer season, and dozens of people strolled in and out of shadows in the glow of the fairy lights. A cool breeze blew across the cliff top, and the St. Lawrence River made a black ribbon between the hills below her. Her mind was tense with anticipation. She leaned on the railing under the gazebo canopy, in the exact place where she’d waited for a mystery man two months earlier.
A man who’d never appeared.
This time I will, Jason had promised her. If I’m alive, I will.
&n
bsp; But weeks had passed, and she hadn’t heard a word from him. He was a ghost. Even so, she wanted to believe that he would be here for their rendezvous, that he wouldn’t leave her with nothing. Jason wouldn’t be that cruel.
If he was still alive. If the media reports were wrong.
Life had gone on for Abbey since she’d come home. She’d quit The Fort; she’d given up her studio apartment. She’d decided that she couldn’t go back to the person she was before all of this started, but she still had no idea what she was going to do next. Since then, she’d been in limbo, sleeping on a friend’s sofa and wandering the streets of the upper and lower towns in a kind of fog.
Her relationship with Jason needed closure before she could put away the past. All she could do was count off the days and nights until June 1.
Until now.
Would he show up?
Abbey pulled out her phone and keyed in a text. She’d texted the same number over and over for weeks, but all of her messages had gone into the ether, with no reply.
I’m here, mystery man.
Just like the first time. She waited, staring at her phone, biting her lip. But he didn’t answer her. He was never going to answer her. The minutes crept on, just as they had in April, and she was alone. Ten-fifteen came and went. Then ten-thirty. She came to grips with the reality.
The papers were right. Jason Bourne was dead.
Or maybe that was what he wanted her to think. Maybe, like last time, he was watching her right now from somewhere close by, with no intention of coming to meet her. It was his way of saying: Move on without me. She got ready to do just that, because he’d given her no other choice. She had to go. She had to figure out her life. She stared down at the river in the grip of a deep depression, and that was when she heard a whisper behind her.
“What do you like most about Quebec?”
Abbey’s hands flew to her mouth. She spun around, and there he was. Jason. Alive, unharmed, passion for her written all over his face. She stared back at him, the man who’d kidnapped her, the man who’d nearly gotten her killed, the man she was in love with.
Robert Ludlum's™ The Bourne Evolution (Jason Bourne Book 12) Page 35