The Bourne Retribution

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The Bourne Retribution Page 38

by Robert Ludlum


  Like a sleepwalker, he approached the bed. He recognized her, yet she looked vastly different. She was painfully thin, and so ashen she appeared almost ghostly. In some places, the blue of her veins shone through her translucent skin with a venomous lucidity. She had the appearance of someone who was still in the grip of an exceptionally grave and painful illness.

  As he came close, she parted her gown, revealing the ugly scar on her side where she had been stabbed the night they had escaped Maceo Encarnación’s villa in Mexico City. He had had to carry her the final yards, and then…

  He took her to him, enfolding her, cradling her, rocking her gently. As the tips of his fingers ran along the still-livid scar, he felt his heart well up to the bursting point. And he whispered, “I saw you bleed out in the back of the taxi. I left you a corpse in Mexico City. I stood by while they buried you here in Tel Aviv. And now…”

  “Now here we are. Everything is good.” She smiled.

  He remembered that smile, and the feelings it engendered rose up in him like a cresting wave.

  “You were so brave, Jason. So resourceful. I never would have made it if it weren’t for you.” She took his head in her hands, kissed him tenderly with lips soft as clouds. “My love, you saved my life.”

  For a seemingly endless time, they held each other wordlessly, content just to feel each other, to assure themselves that this reunion was real, not a dream from which they would wake, heartbroken and in despair.

  “Jason,” she said at length, “I was so frightened for you. When my father told me his plan, I was livid. I wouldn’t speak to him for days. But he kept at me, repeated over and over what I told you, and at last I relented. And he was right. You were the only one who could get close to Ouyang, who could kill him. The only one. And of course, he had given you the perfect motivation: my death.”

  There was anguish in her voice, as well as love. But there was also unmistakable pride.

  Holding her now, hearing her speak, having once again felt her lips against his, the rage leached out of Bourne’s heart, and he calmed. As always, her touch was like a balm against the betrayals the world had, time and again, heaped on him. And as this process continued, he understood that though Eli had used him, he hadn’t betrayed him. On the contrary, Eli had trusted him to commit the most sacred act a father could set in motion: retribution for his gravely wounded daughter.

  Rebeka—Sara; it would take some getting used to before he could call her that—shifted against him, and he realized that she must still be in pain.

  “Lie back,” he said gently.

  “Only if you keep hold of me.”

  He lay her down, held her hand in both of his while she smiled up at him, and sighed deeply.

  “Now listen, my love, while I tell you a story. When we met I was a flight attendant. You were heading for Damascus and so was I. But some time before, I met with Ouyang. It was all part of the plan. I presented myself as a courier, moving military secrets from Damascus to Oman. He saw me as a mule—as he was supposed to.

  “The fact was, I was the one stealing the secrets. I was hiding in plain sight. From that moment on, his attention moved off me to find the people running me. But he never could find them, because they didn’t exist. He wasted untold time and money chasing the invisible honeypot while, one by one, I killed off his people.”

  “Until he discovered the truth.”

  “Yes.”

  “And then he wouldn’t rest until you were dead.” Bourne wanted to scream. All at once, he hated his life of secrets and lies, hated the despicable life that had put her in harm’s way.

  “At the outset of the mission, I was outfitted with a hollow tooth,” she continued. “Inside was a fast-acting capsule. It wasn’t a death pill, but one that would ensure my life under extreme circumstances. I swallowed a drug our scientists have perfected that slows the metabolism to simulate death. If I’m found in time, I can be revived, though the return to life is a long and painful one.”

  For some time, Bourne sat holding her hand.

  Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes. “How many times have I imagined this moment, Jason; longed for it with all my heart and soul.”

  Leaning over, Bourne kissed her tears away. “You’re not going out into the field again.”

  “Could I stop you?” She searched his face. “Be honest. What else would either of us do?”

  For a long time, they stared into each other’s eyes. At length, he took the gold chain from around his neck. The small star of David glimmered between them, a comet in the night sky. The moment she saw it, the tears came again. But this time her eyes were shining. She bent her head forward and he affixed the chain at the nape of her neck. The emblem of her he had carried with him from the moment of her supposed death lay on her chest as it had on the afternoon he had met her, heading to Damascus.

  “You see, you were always close to me,” he whispered.

  “Jason.” Tears lay heavy on her eyelids, reflecting tiny prisms. “Oh, Jason, what are you waiting for?”

  He leaned toward her, and Sara Yadin burst into delighted laughter.

  “Yes,” she sighed just before his lips covered hers.

  Acknowledgments

  My thanks to:

  Sinocism and The Financial Times

  for insights into China.

  About the Author

  ROBERT LUDLUM was the author of twenty-seven novels, each one a New York Times bestseller. There are more than 225 million copies of his books in print, and they have been translated into thirty-two languages. He is the author of The Scarlatti Inheritance, The Chancellor Manuscript, and the Jason Bourne series—The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy, and The Bourne Ultimatum—among others. Mr. Ludlum passed away in March 2001. To learn more, visit www.Robert-Ludlum.com and Facebook.com/RobertLudlumBooks.

  ERIC VAN LUSTBADER is the author of numerous bestselling novels including First Daughter, Blood Trust, The Ninja, and the international bestsellers featuring Jason Bourne: The Bourne Legacy, The Bourne Betrayal, The Bourne Sanction, The Bourne Deception, The Bourne Objective, and The Bourne Dominion. For more information, you can visit www.EricVanLustbader.com. You can also follow him on Facebook and Twitter.

  The Jason Bourne Novels

  The Bourne Identity

  The Bourne Supremacy

  The Bourne Ultimatum

  The Bourne Legacy (by Eric Van Lustbader)

  The Bourne Betrayal (by Eric Van Lustbader)

  The Bourne Sanction (by Eric Van Lustbader)

  The Bourne Deception (by Eric Van Lustbader)

  The Bourne Objective (by Eric Van Lustbader)

  The Bourne Dominion (by Eric Van Lustbader)

  The Bourne Imperative (by Eric Van Lustbader)

  The Covert-One Novels

  The Hades Factor (by Gayle Lynds)

  The Cassandra Compact (by Philip Shelby)

  The Paris Option (by Gayle Lynds)

  The Altman Code (by Gayle Lynds)

  The Lazarus Vendetta (by Patrick Larkin)

  The Moscow Vector (by Patrick Larkin)

  The Arctic Event (by James Cobb)

  The Ares Decision (by Kyle Mills)

  The Janus Reprisal (by Jamie Freveletti)

  The Utopia Experiment (by Kyle Mills)

  The Paul Janson Novels

  The Janson Directive

  The Janson Command (by Paul Garrison)

  Also by Robert Ludlum

  The Scarlatti Inheritance

  The Matlock Paper

  Trevayne

  The Cry of the Halidon

  The Rhinemann Exchange

  The Road to Gandolfo

  The Gemini Contenders

  The Chancellor Manuscript

  The Holcroft Covenant

  The Matarese Circle

  The Parsifal Mosaic

  The Aquitaine Progression

  The Icarus Agenda

  The Osterman Weekend

  The Road to Omaha

 
The Scorpio Illusion

  The Apocalypse Watch

  The Matarese Countdown

  The Prometheus Deception

  The Sigma Protocol

  The Tristan Betrayal

  The Ambler Warning

  The Bancroft Strategy

  Also by Eric Van Lustbader

  Nicholas Linnear Novels

  Second Skin

  Floating City

  The Kaisho

  White Ninja

  The Miko

  The Ninja

  China Maroc Novels

  Shan

  Jian

  Other Novels

  Blood Trust

  Last Snow

  First Daughter

  The Testament

  Art Kills

  Pale Saint

  Dark Homecoming

  Black Blade

  Angel Eyes

  French Kiss

  Zero

  Black Heart

  Sirens

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  Contents

  Title Page

  Welcome

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Book One1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  Book Two18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  Book Three33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  41

  42

  43

  44

  45

  46

  Book Four47

  48

  49

  50

  51

  52

  53

  54

  55

  56

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Other Novels

  Newsletters

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2013 by Myn Pyn, LLC

  Cover art and design by Faceout Studio, Jeff Miller.

  Cover copyright © 2013 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  Grand Central Publishing

  Hachette Book Group

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  New York, NY 10017

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  First ebook edition: December 2013

  Grand Central Publishing is a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  The Grand Central Publishing name and logo is a trademark of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

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  ISBN 978-1-4555-5097-5

  E3

 

 

 


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