The Bourne Treachery

by Brian Freeman

“Where were they?” Bourne asked.

  “Scarborough, near the coast. Kotov was right. They’re heading to Whitby.”

  “Time for the end game,” Jason said.

  He accelerated toward the city lights ahead of them.

  29

  From behind the wheel of a black SUV, Lennon studied the seaside cottage. The more time passed without any activity, the more he grew concerned. He could see lights on inside the small house, but he didn’t see Maxim Zungaya moving behind the windows. The old man’s car was still parked in the garage, and he’d made no effort to leave. Lennon’s agents on the cliffside and in the neighboring street hadn’t reported sightings. Not of Maxim. Not Tati or Vadik. Not Cain.

  Lennon wondered if it was possible that he’d been wrong. Perhaps Tati hadn’t turned to her father’s old friend for help.

  He saw JoJo returning from her scouting mission outside the house. She wore a zipped jacket now that emphasized her fleshy curves. She was smart, physically tough, and a tiger in bed; he knew that from the three times he’d come to her for sex in a darkened hotel room. She got into the passenger side of the sedan.

  “I didn’t see him inside,” she reported.

  “Are you sure he’s still there?”

  “Well, I never saw him leave. The drapes are closed in the upstairs bedroom, so he could be in there. Maybe he went to bed.”

  “Without turning off the other house lights?” Lennon asked. “I don’t think so.”

  “You want to go in?”

  “Not yet. We’ll wait a while longer.”

  She put a hand between his legs, and her talented fingers stroked him. “Should I make the time go faster?”

  He smiled at her, but he removed her hand and shook his head. She was definitely a tiger. “Not now, JoJo.”

  “But later?”

  “Yes, later,” he told her.

  Lennon glanced at the rearview mirror. No one lingered in the neighborhood. There was no evidence of a trap. He studied his reflection and his current disguise, making sure it was perfect. Long, thin nose that drooped at the end. High pronounced cheekbones like a British gentleman. A black short-haired wig, flat and greased. Brown contacts. A reddish hooked scar on his cheek, which was the only thing a witness would remember about his face. Fake, of course. He wore all black, which made him disappear into the darkness.

  “Maxim was on the phone earlier,” JoJo said. “I couldn’t hear the conversation, but I saw him in the garden. He looked worried.”

  “And then?”

  “Then he went into the house, and he hasn’t come out.”

  “Give me the binoculars,” Lennon said, but before JoJo could get them out of her daypack, he saw the lights go off in the cottage at the end of the street. Something was happening. One by one, the windows went dark, and the porch light was the last to go. There was now no light at all inside the house. He waited, watching. Seconds later, a man emerged from the front door and limped into the shadows. He wore a black fedora and a raincoat—could the man be any more of a spy?—and he walked with the help of a cane.

  Lennon expected him to go to the garage to retrieve his car. He didn’t. Instead, he turned away toward the parkland beside the sea. Wherever he was going, he was heading there on foot.

  “Stay here,” he told JoJo. “Watch for Cain. Report any changes.”

  He exited the sedan. Maxim had already disappeared toward the cliffside, but the old man couldn’t go fast or far. Lennon walked to the end of the block and then into the grassy park, where the night wind coming off the sea had turned frigid. There were no lights by the cliff, but the moon was bright enough to let him see the small, slightly stooped old man limping on the path, heading westward away from town.

  In the other direction, one of his own men appeared from the tall grass near the cliff like a vampire. Lennon heard the man in his radio.

  “Do you want me to follow?”

  “No, I’ll take the lead. Stay where you are.”

  Lennon gave Maxim plenty of room. The old man wasn’t going to get away. Maxim stayed on the path, passing an area where the seaside houses were built close to the cliff. Every now and then, he stopped to watch the waves crashing against the beach below him, which was the kind of thing a spy would do to monitor anyone around him. And yet Maxim never looked back.

  The man’s pace was slow. When Lennon checked his watch, he saw that fifteen minutes had already passed. The old Russian’s destination was unclear, and he gave no indication of meeting anyone. Soon, the cottages around them vanished, and the two of them hiked into empty headlands, surrounded by nothing but green hills and the long black expanse of the sea.

  Then Maxim stopped. So did Lennon, watching, waiting.

  Was this the meeting point?

  Lennon crept forward, hugging the hillside, where he was mostly invisible in his black clothes. He saw a pinpoint of light and realized it was a cigarette lighter. Not long after, he caught the acrid smell of a cigarette on the breeze.

  That was wrong.

  Something was definitely wrong.

  He’d memorized the file that had been sent to him about Maxim Zungaya. Moscow kept a close eye on the man, in case the time came when they chose to eliminate him. That included hacking all of his UK health records. Lennon remembered perfectly well what the file had said.

  Maxim had quit smoking years ago.

  Lennon realized he’d been played. The old spy had played him, and he couldn’t help but be impressed.

  “Pete, report,” he murmured into his radio. Pete was the operative stationed on the street behind Maxim’s house.

  “Pete,” he repeated.

  There was no answer. Of course not. Pete was dead.

  Lennon gave up all pretense of cover. He ran down the trail, not hiding his pursuit, and the man ahead of him showed no surprise. He’d been waiting for him all along. Wondering how long it would take for him to spot the deception.

  The man turned to meet him. The moonlight showed the face that was hidden under the brim of the fedora.

  It wasn’t Maxim Zungaya.

  A different old man raised his cane with two hands, as if he were part of the Light Brigade readying for a charge. He squeezed the cane handle, and a twelve-inch, double-sawtoothed blade snapped open from the base. The man jabbed it in Lennon’s direction, and his weathered face creased with determination.

  “Give it a go, mate,” the old man said. “Let’s see who wins.”

  * * *

  —

  Maxim stared at the spray of blood on his hands. He hadn’t had blood on his hands in a long time. He’d assumed someone would be waiting for him in the next street, when he escaped that way through his backyard. But he also assumed, correctly, that whoever it was would be young and arrogant enough to presume that an old spy was no threat.

  When he spotted the man in the car, he’d tapped on the window. Then he fired a shot that was almost inaudible because of the thunder of the sea’s breaking waves. Quickly, he checked him for ID and found none, but he found a gun and a knife. The man was definitely an assassin. Just like the blond woman who’d been outside his cottage earlier in the day.

  This was a hit squad. Looking for him.

  Looking for Tati Reznikova.

  Maxim drove Seymour’s 1986 Volvo through the quiet Whitby streets. He kept an eye on the mirrors, but he wasn’t being followed. The ruse had worked. Seymour had bought him time to slip away.

  His friend hadn’t looked surprised to see Maxim appear on his doorstep at one in the morning. After twenty years, they finally dispensed with the pretense of who they both were, and Maxim had asked for his help, one old spy to another. Seymour had agreed to take Maxim’s place on the cliffside, even though the retired MI-5 man had to know there was a good chance that this would be his last mission.

  Maxim drove down into
the heart of his adopted town. He felt nostalgia for Sochi, where he’d spent his childhood, but he’d known when he passed along his first classified file in 1975 that the day would come when he’d be forced to leave Russia forever. Assuming he survived that long. Whitby had been a good place to retire and hide. He passed rows of familiar red-brick houses, and then, in the commercial streets, he saw pubs and restaurants he’d visited for years. Every place held memories. Like Seymour, he knew he might not see any of them again. He didn’t know what to expect from meeting Tati after all these years, but he knew the rendezvous was dangerous. And possibly fatal.

  On the other hand, he also experienced a rush of adrenaline at going into the field one last time. For just a moment, he felt young again.

  He crossed the bridge over the River Esk to the east side of town. Then he turned right, following the river past dozens of sailboats moored on the docks. He drove to a lane that headed up the steep hillside, and the old Volvo engine whined on the climb until he reached the flatlands atop the cliff. The houses disappeared behind him. In the distance, he saw the ruins of the Whitby Abbey, silhouetted by moonlight and isolated on the promontory. His route took him past wide-open fields, all the way to the abbey’s destroyed towers. He could see the night sky through hollowed-out arches and the empty stone flower where the church’s rose window had been. It was a ghostly place.

  Across from the abbey was a small farmhouse. Tommy Beyer, Seymour’s son, had spent months expanding and renovating the property into a rental cottage. The property was poised on the fringe of the high cliff, with a fence to discourage hikers from getting too close to the edge. Maxim followed the driveway until it ended at a wooden fence outside the cottage. His wasn’t the only car there. A cream-colored Renault was parked in the weeds in front of him. As he shut down the Volvo, the passenger door of the Renault opened, and a woman got out.

  Despite all the years, Maxim recognized her immediately. Tati Reznikova.

  He got out, too, assaulted by gales on the high cliff. Tati had been wearing a wig, but it blew away, leaving her long blond hair mussed around her face. She ran across the grass and wrapped him up in an embrace.

  “Uncle Maxim.”

  “Tati,” he said. He held her hands at arm’s length and studied her in the moonlight. “Look how beautiful you became. Of course, I knew that would be true.”

  “Thank you for meeting me.” Then she looked at his sleeves and saw the dark spatters of blood. “Oh, my God, what happened?”

  “A man was waiting for me outside my house.”

  “Because of me? Because of my call?”

  “I assume so.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know. A killer. If they’re after me, then they’re after you, too.”

  She shook her head in despair. “I’m sorry! I’m putting you at risk, but I didn’t know where else to turn.”

  “No, it was right for you to call. We should be safe here for a few minutes, but we can’t linger.”

  “I have so much to tell you,” Tati said. She gestured at the Renault. “My husband, Vadik, is in the car. I told him to wait. He did things—horrible, illegal things—but I don’t think this is only about him anymore. For some reason, this is about me, too. I need a way out. A way out of the country.”

  Maxim nodded. He was a spy again, a chess player thinking of moves and countermoves. “Is the Renault stolen?”

  “Yes.”

  “We need to hide it.”

  “And then what?” she asked.

  “I’ll call a friend. He keeps a private plane at the airport in Durham. He specializes in transporting things so that the customs authorities aren’t aware of it. Hopefully, he can get the two of you out. Norway. Denmark. Somewhere like that.”

  “Yes. Yes, thank you!” Tati hugged him again and kissed his cheek.

  “That won’t be the end, Tati. If people really are looking for you and your husband, they won’t stop.”

  Her face darkened. “Believe me, I understand that.”

  Maxim glanced around at the deserted cliffside. The ruins of the abbey loomed like Dracula’s castle beyond the fields. The fierce wind cut through his clothes and made him shiver. He didn’t like being in the open. He wondered if, on the other side of the river, Seymour was already dead.

  “Come on, let’s get the Renault out of sight,” he told her. “We must hurry, my dear. It won’t take them long to find us.”

  30

  Bourne and Nova approached Maxim’s house from the seaside, following the GPS map on his phone. They dashed along the cliff under the moonlight. The wind blew damp spray across their faces, and the surf stormed the beach in white foam below them. They both had their guns in their hands.

  When they spotted a length of stone wall creeping along the fringe of the parkland, they ran across the damp grass, then crouched and followed the wall, staying out of sight. Bent over, they inched forward step by step. Ahead of them, the white stucco of the corner cottage glistened, but the windows were dark. It was the middle of the night, and the neighborhood was empty. Too empty.

  Jason stopped with Nova beside him. He rose up high enough to glance over the stone wall. The rear yard that butted up to the back of Maxim’s property was quiet. His gaze traveled the entire length of the parkland around them, and he confirmed that they were alone.

  “Where are they?” he murmured.

  “Who?”

  “Lennon’s people. They should be here.”

  “Are we too late?” Nova asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  They continued toward the white house from the rear. As they came alongside it, Jason glanced in the side garden and saw a marble chess table with a fluted base. They were in the right place. This was Maxim Zungaya’s house. He led Nova to the corner of the wall, where the road dead-ended at the parkland. Up and down the street, he noted the handful of cars and the unlit windows.

  No one was watching them.

  No one was waiting for them.

  He stepped over the low wall into the front garden, and Nova did the same. At the windows, he peered inside, seeing no movement. The outer doors were made of glass, too, leading to a small porch with antique furniture. He checked the latch. The doors that led inside were open.

  “I’ll go around the back,” Nova told him.

  Jason nodded. Nova headed down a narrow driveway toward the detached garage, and Jason opened the glass doors and slipped into the house. He listened, hearing no sound other than the ticking of a grandfather clock on the porch. He kept his gun aimed in front of him, leading the way.

  He checked the rooms one by one, leaving the lights off but using a flashlight to guide him. Based on the décor and art, Maxim Zungaya had left his Russian past completely behind him in his new identity. There were no photographs anywhere and no paintings or furniture that even hinted of Eastern Europe. Instead, the pictures on the wall were generic seaside watercolors, and the weathered sofas, chairs, and tables looked like the product of visits to multiple estate sales. In the kitchen, he smelled an aroma of beef and onions, but the dishes had all been cleaned and neatly put away.

  There was no phone anywhere. No computer. No cameras.

  He took the stairs to the second floor. The bed in the master bedroom was made, and the other bedrooms looked pristine. Maxim wasn’t in the house.

  Jason returned to the main level. In the dark corridor that led out back, he froze when he heard a noise outside. He raised his gun, then lowered it as he saw Nova slip in through the rear door. She met him in the hallway.

  “Anything?” he asked.

  She nodded. “I saw footprints in the wet grass. Someone left out the back. The footprints led into the next yard and then to a cul-de-sac that butts up to the houses. I checked the street.”

  “And?”

  “There’s a man in the front seat of a
Mercedes. Shot in the head. Dead.”

  “Is it Maxim?”

  Nova shook her head. “Young. I’m thinking it’s one of Lennon’s operatives.”

  “Maxim got away?”

  “That’s what it looks like. My bet is he took out the guy in the car. Don’t mess with an old Russian spy.”

  “He’s meeting Tati.”

  “Probably,” Nova agreed. “The question is where.”

  “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

  They turned toward the unlit living room, but then Jason stopped. They heard a door opening, and the hardwood floors shifted as someone came inside the house. Both of them switched off their lights and aimed their guns. Slow, heavy footsteps landed on the floor, and they heard labored breathing.

  A silhouette filled the doorway. Bourne turned on his flashlight again and saw an old man squinting into the bright light. His face dripped with blood, but it didn’t match the photograph they had of Maxim Zungaya. The man took one more limping step, then he slumped sideways to the floor.

  Nova grabbed for a wall switch. The man at their feet was badly wounded, blood soaking through his shirt. They saw what looked like multiple stab wounds on his neck and arms. They knelt on either side of him, and he made a feeble attempt to defend himself when he saw their guns.

  “Interpol,” Nova told him. “It’s okay. Who are you?”

  The man shook his head. He spoke with difficulty, gagging on the words. “Seymour Beyer. Retired MI-5.”

  “Who did this to you?”

  Seymour shook his head. “Tall, dark hair. A pro. He beat me good.”

  Bourne glanced at Nova. “Lennon.”

  “I’ll get help for you,” Nova told the man, but Seymour grabbed her arm and held her back.

  “Forget me. I’m done. You need to find Maxim.”

  “Where is he? Do you know where he was meeting Tati?”

  “Near the ruins,” Seymour replied. “East cliff, by the abbey. My son owns a cottage there.”

  Jason got close to the old spy’s face. “Does Lennon know where Maxim went? Did you tell him?”