The Bourne Treachery

by Brian Freeman

  Seymour held up both hands, which were curled like a bird’s talons. The skin around his knuckles had already turned multiple shades of purple and blue. All of the man’s fingers had been snapped back and broken.

  “I’m sorry,” he gasped. “I’m sorry, I just couldn’t take it. I told him where Maxim was after he broke the third finger. The rest he did for fun.”

  * * *

  —

  The empty cottage had the smell of fresh paint. All the furniture was new, and the counters were clean and empty. They left the lights off, but Tati sat with Vadik at a table where moonlight glowed through the seaside windows. He drank from a lone bottle of dark ale they’d found in the refrigerator. In the deep shadows on her husband’s face, she could see him falling apart. He looked like a child now, scared and guilt-ridden.

  Maxim was on the phone, trying to wake up his pilot friend who had a plane to cross the North Sea.

  Tati twisted the wedding ring on her finger. One year. They’d been married for a year, plus a few weeks. She’d never been madly in love with Vadik, but he seemed to want her so badly, and now she knew why. To use her. To manipulate her. She should have listened to the voice in her head that told her she was better off alone. He was an inferior scientist. An inferior lover. Yes, he was handsome in his dark, skinny way, but he would always be little more than a child. She’d convinced herself that thirty years old was the time to be serious, to marry, to have babies. Now she knew she’d made a mistake. If she was going to be with a man, she needed an equal, and there weren’t many of those.

  “I’ve been thinking about it,” Vadik said. “What we could do in Europe. How to build new lives.”

  “Yes?” She tried to sound like she cared.

  “I have a plan. It may not be perfect, but it’s a start. We could get jobs as lab technicians somewhere. It’s entry level, so companies won’t check our résumés too closely. Even if we need to make up new identities, we could still be involved in science.”

  “What, cleaning test tubes?” Tati asked. “I have a doctorate.”

  “Well, it’s a start. It’s a way in.”

  She wanted to slap him for being a fool. Instead, she said, “That’s something to think about.”

  “Tati, if I could change the situation for us, I would. You know that. But right now, wherever we go, I’m at risk. I can’t ever go back to my old life. That means you can’t, either. As soon as they find me, they’ll kill me.”

  “Then we’ll do what we have to do,” Tati said.

  She looked up as Maxim rejoined them. He put away his phone and stood over the table without sitting down. It was strange, seeing this man from her childhood looking so old. He moved slowly. His skin sagged, and he seemed to have shrunk. But his brain hadn’t lost a step. Maxim understood her situation perfectly.

  “Were you able to reach him?” she asked. “The pilot?”

  “No. Not him. Not his wife. That worries me.”

  “You think someone already found him?”

  “It’s possible. Then again, he may simply be away on one of his trips.”

  “So what do we do?” Tati asked. “Do we wait here?”

  Maxim shook his head. “No. We can’t stay in Whitby any longer. We need to go. We’ll find a place to stay on the other side of the moors. Some place remote, secure. At least that will buy us time while I try to find out what happened to my friend.”

  Vadik leaped to his feet. “Yes! We need to go! While we sit here, they’re getting closer to finding us.”

  Tati stood up, too. In the gloom, she exchanged a look with Maxim that went unnoticed by her husband. She gave a little nod, and that was all she needed to do. Vadik turned away toward the cottage door. As he did, Maxim withdrew his pistol from his pocket and gripped it by the barrel. The old man lifted his arm over his head, and with a whip of air, he brought the steel handle of the gun sharply down on Vadik’s skull. He knew exactly where to hit him. Vadik barely made a sound, just a little huff of breath, and then he collapsed where he stood, unconscious. Blood trickled out of his hair onto his neck.

  She stared down at her husband. She knew she’d never see him again. This was a one-way trip for her alone, but she felt no regret. “Goodbye, Vadik.”

  “Quickly,” Maxim told her. “He won’t be out long. We need to be gone.”

  Tati stepped over the body of her husband, and the two of them went to the cottage’s back door. Maxim glanced through the window, then took her hand, and they crept outside together. He whispered to her to keep low. To her left, the walls of the ruined abbey loomed against the night sky. To her right, overgrown hedges ran along a wooden fence and blocked their view of the fields. She strained to listen above the shriek of the wind and the boom of the sea waves below the cliff.

  She heard something.

  A low hum of engines, the crunch of gravel, very close by. Vehicles were arriving. Maxim heard it, too, and his face darkened. He pulled her to the low fence, and they squatted in the overgrown grass and peered around the wall of the hedge. Out in the green grass, she saw four dark SUVs pulling up behind Maxim’s Volvo. They weren’t even a hundred feet away. As she watched, men and women piled from the cars. There were more than a dozen of them, mostly dressed in black, all with pistols and rifles in their arms. One man, obviously the leader, was the last to appear from the lead vehicle. He stood away from the others, framed by the moonlight as he surveyed the promontory.

  “Oh, my God,” Tati murmured. “They’re going to kill us.”

  Maxim took her hand again. He led her through the grass toward the fields behind the cottage, away from the fence and the gathering of men, cars, and guns. There were several outbuildings here, including an old horse barn. Maxim seemed to know exactly where he was going. He led her inside the barn and across a floor that was soft with hay, and he pointed to a wooden ladder dangling between two of the horse stalls.

  “Can you carry that?” he asked her.

  “Yes. Where are we going?”

  “The abbey. If we can get over the wall, that will slow them down in chasing us.”

  She rushed to the ladder and unhooked it, and she carried it awkwardly under one arm as Maxim led them out of the barn. They navigated a maze of grassy trails between the other outbuildings, until they reached an iron gate by the abbey road. Maxim swung it open, grimacing as the rusted metal squealed. They crossed the lane to a seven-foot-high stone wall that circled the abbey grounds, and Tati braced the ladder against the wall.

  Maxim held up his hand for silence. “Do you hear that?”

  “What?”

  “Something strange. Almost like an insect, but it’s not that.” He gazed at the night sky but shook his head, seeing nothing. “It doesn’t matter. Hurry.”

  “Can you do this?” she asked Maxim.

  He gave her a little smile. “We shall see. I’ll go first. Pull up the ladder behind you.”

  Maxim climbed the ladder with a spry agility for his age, but when he jumped down on the other side, she heard a cry of pain that he couldn’t restrain. She climbed quickly behind him, and just for a moment, she lingered on top of the wall, outlined by the sky, easily visible as she awkwardly grabbed the ladder.

  They saw her. Somehow they knew right where she was. The crack of multiple gunshots ripped across the fields. Stone burst into clouds of shards. She screamed, then dropped the ladder as she fell, and she landed hard.

  “I’m sorry, I couldn’t hold the ladder. They’ll use it! They’ll follow us!”

  The look on Maxim’s face told her he had even worse news.

  “My ankle is broken,” he said.

  “Oh, no!”

  “I can’t go anywhere. You have to go without me.”

  “They’ll kill you!”

  “I’ll slow you down if I stay with you. You have to go now, Tati. Do you know how to use a gun?�
��

  “Yes, my father taught me.”

  “Take it,” Maxim said, handing her his pistol. He dug in his pocket and handed her a spare magazine, too.

  “Without the gun, you’re defenseless,” she said.

  “I am anyway,” Maxim replied with a shrug. “Sometimes the only move is to lay down your king. Now go. Run. If anyone comes near you, kill them.”

  Tati hugged him tightly. Uncle Maxim had only been back in her life for a few minutes, and already she hated the idea of losing him again.

  “Go,” he repeated.

  She ran and didn’t look back. The ruined abbey rose above her, and she sprinted for the cover of the walls.

  31

  “Gunshots,” Bourne said.

  He jammed on the brakes and skidded the car off the road into the tall grass. He spilled out of the driver’s door, and Nova rolled out the open door on the other side. The narrow country lane stretched ahead of them into the darkness. On one side, behind a stone wall, were the abbey ruins, and on the other were a cluster of buildings set amid an open expanse of green fields. They heard it again.

  Gunfire.

  He saw matchstick figures running through the fields, firing as they went. They were chasing someone.

  “Get me over the wall,” Jason said. “Then check near the house. Make sure this isn’t another misdirection.”

  They crossed the road to the base of the stone wall that circled the abbey grounds. Without a word, Nova crouched in the brush and laced her fingers together. As Jason put a boot into the sling made by her hands, she hoisted him until he could grab the top of the wall. He pulled himself up, kicked his legs over the edge, and dropped smoothly to the tall grass on the other side.

  He found himself near a small pond, its surface agitated by the stiff, cold gale that whipped from the sea across the open land. Tall weeds surrounded the water. A walking path stretched through green fields, and he saw the turrets and triangular peak of the abbey’s western front a hundred yards away. The lights of the town glowed on the far cliff beyond the river, and dark streaks of clouds came and went in the night sky.

  Jason ran, his gun in his hand. He kept his body low in the brush. As he neared the abbey, shots erupted with a crackle of noise and flame, but the shots didn’t seem to be targeting him. He spotted an assassin on top of the stone wall. Dropping to one knee, Jason took aim and fired back, hitting the Lennon operative squarely in the temple and knocking him backward off the wall.

  Framed against the night sky, he now saw the man who’d been targeted by the shooter. A bent silhouette stood alone in the green grass. The man favored one leg and seemed barely able to stand. There wasn’t enough light to make out his features, but he held himself like an old man, and Jason guessed who he was.

  Maxim Zungaya.

  But Bourne was too late. As he watched, the old spy slowly fell, like an ancient tree toppling after a lightning strike. Jason reached him and saw that the man had been struck multiple times in the shoulder and chest. His face was wrenched into a knot of pain. He lay on his back in the grass, bullet wounds bleeding, his breath coming raggedly.

  Jason crouched over him and whispered, “Where’s Tati?”

  The old man didn’t answer. He just shook his head.

  “I’m here to help. I’m not with them, I’m American. Where’s Tati?”

  Finally, Maxim croaked out a reply. “The ruins.”

  More shots exploded now, landing so close that mud from the wet ground splashed Bourne’s face. He rolled away, seeing another shooter propped atop the wall. The man’s bullets chased him across the grass. Jason fired back several times, wildly, but the return fire bought him time to aim from his back. His first shot struck the man’s shoulder, and the next landed in the middle of his throat. Instead of falling back, the man crumpled forward, draped down the side of the wall.

  When Jason ran back to Maxim, the old man was barely breathing. His gaze was fixed on the stars. “Seymour?” he murmured.

  Jason shook his head. “I’m sorry.”

  Maxim closed his eyes and exhaled long and slow. His chest stilled. He didn’t take another breath.

  With a last glance at the wall, Jason dashed across the open grass toward the abbey. He reached the monument, where the remains of the stonework towered over his head. It had the abandoned emptiness of a ghost town. Green moss and lichen climbed the bricks. Wind sang through the huge gaps where there had once been elaborate glass windows. Step by step, he crept beside the walls. The farther he went, the less of the structure remained around him. At the east end, the jagged columns looked like mouths filled with broken teeth. Cautiously, he approached a gothic archway and crossed to the other side. There, the abbey frame was no more than rooks standing on a chessboard, just a few feet high.

  He strained to hear over the wind. The abbey had a graveyard solitude, but he knew she was here somewhere. Hiding.

  Jason called out. “Tati!”

  She responded with a hail of bullets. In the darkness, she was nothing but a flash of blond hair, squirming from behind one of the ruined columns as she fired at him. Shots ricocheted off stone and kicked up grass and mud. Jason lurched back behind the wall of the gothic arch, but at least one of the bullets seared a bloody line across his thigh. He waited, listening to her fire until he heard the click of an empty chamber, and then he broke from cover and charged.

  He wasn’t fast enough. She was skilled and quick and had a new magazine loaded in seconds. This time she stood up and aimed, and her first bullet grazed his neck, spraying more blood. Jason swerved away, diving behind the nearest column stub. They were no more than a dozen feet apart, him behind one column, her behind another.

  “Tati, I’m not here to hurt you,” he shouted. He knew they were running out of time. The gunfire would draw more men across the wall. “I want to help you get away.”

  Her voice was clipped. “Fuck you.”

  “I was with Clark Cafferty.”

  She responded with another bullet that bounced off the stone an inch from his face.

  “Tati, I need you to trust me.”

  “I don’t.”

  “I’m going to throw out my gun,” he told her.

  “So what? I’m sure you have another.”

  “I’ll come out hands up. If you want to kill me, you can kill me. But there are more people coming over the wall. They’ll be here in seconds. We need to go.”

  “What about Maxim?” she called. “Where’s Maxim?”

  “I’m sorry. He didn’t make it. They killed him.”

  She responded with a stark silence. Then, with a scream, she fired several more times toward the sky in a burst of rage. In the wake of that, when there was a lull in the wind, he heard what sounded like crying.

  “Tati, I’m throwing my gun toward you.” He secured his pistol, then tossed it into the grass. “I’m coming out. My hands are up. I promise you, I’m here to help.”

  He stood up from the grass. With his hands in the air, he edged out from behind the base of the column. The ruins rose over his head like tall soldiers at attention. From behind the next column, he saw Tati emerge, too, gun aimed at his chest. She was dirty and wet, and her face was a mess of tears. Her knees knocked together with cold. Strands of her blond hair were pasted across her face.

  “We need to go,” he told her. “Now.”

  Her body trembled, but her arms were rigid, and she didn’t lower the gun. “Who are you?”

  “My name is Jason Bourne. There was a woman in the wetlands when you were hiding. Do you remember her? Black hair, tattoos. She’s here with me. We’ll get you away from here, but we have to move.”

  Jason saw Tati hesitate, trying to decide whether she could trust him. Then her eyes widened, and her gaze traveled beyond his shoulder. He knew. Someone was right behind him. Tati’s mouth fell open in a silent cry,
and Bourne threw himself sideways, just as gunfire blasted through the space where his body had been a moment before. He leaped for his gun in the grass. He brought it up, strafing a man and a woman who had semiautomatic rifles cradled in their arms. He hit the man in the stomach, the woman in the shoulder. Wounded, they kept firing, not at Tati but at him, but they struggled to hold their guns steady, and one bullet went astray and clipped the base of Tati’s ear. Jason fired back, emptying his gun.

  The woman collapsed. So did the man.

  He ran to grab their rifles and slung one over his shoulder and kept the other ready to fire. When he got back to Tati, she hadn’t moved at all. She was frozen, in shock, blood flowing from the gash in her ear. He came up and carefully removed the gun from her tight grip and shoved it under his belt.

  “Who are they?” she murmured, staring with wide eyes at the fallen bodies in the grass. “Who were they?”

  “They work for a man named Lennon. Do you know who he is?”

  Tati shook her head. “No.”

  “He’s an assassin. A killer.”

  Her head turned. She blinked as she stared at him. “Isn’t that what you are?”

  “Yes,” he replied, no emotion on his face.

  “Are you going to kill me?”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Why are they doing this?” she asked. “I’m not a terrorist. I’m a scientist. That’s all.”

  “You’re also the daughter of Grigori Kotov,” Bourne told her.

  Her eyes showed her confusion. “What does that have to do with anything?”

  Bourne saw the blood oozing from Tati’s ear. He ripped away part of his torn shirt and tried to stanch the flow. “Your father is what this is about. That’s why Cafferty brought you with him. He needed to get you out of Russia, because he knew you’d be at risk as soon as the truth came out.”

  “I don’t understand!” Tati insisted. “What truth? This is crazy! My father’s dead. He was a traitor, a spy, and they killed him. It’s over. It’s part of the past. I don’t want to think about it anymore.”