Finally, Kotov turned to his daughter, drinking Tati in with his eyes. It was an awkward reunion after three years in which he’d been dead to her. They both smoked. They stared at each other in uncomfortable silence, neither one smiling. They stood ten feet apart, making no move to come closer.
“Tati,” Kotov murmured after a while, making her name sound like a prayer. “Good God, look how beautiful you are.”
She shivered, and the armor she was wearing crumbled away. Tears slipped down her face in a quiet, steady rain. She stamped out her cigarette under her foot, and like a statue coming to life, she crossed the deck. She threw her arms stiffly around her father, and her voice was choked.
“Papa.”
* * *
—
Late in the day, Bourne and Nova stood together among the redwoods outside the house. It was time to leave, to go back to the airport. Nothing had gone wrong. No violence. No intruders. There had been no indication that Lennon was coming or that he even knew where they were. And yet the siren of concern in Jason’s brain hadn’t quieted at all. If anything, it got louder, wailing for attention.
“Do you want us to stay longer?” he asked Holly.
A dismissive smile crossed the CIA agent’s face. She stood with Sugar under a huge umbrella, both of them perfectly dry. “No, we have the situation under control. I have the two of you booked on a plane to San Francisco in an hour, so you should be on your way.”
Again, it was just like Tallinn. They were being sent away. The job was done. Sugar gave him one bark of acknowledgment, and her tail wagged.
“Thank you both for your good work,” Holly added, nodding at Nova and Bourne in turn. “Goodbye for now. Or perhaps I should say au revoir . . . Cain. I’m sure we’ll meet again.”
Sugar led her back to the stairs across the muddy ground, and Holly disappeared into the house. The others were all still inside, except for Tati, who stood near the black SUV in the pouring rain, which had intensified throughout the afternoon. She stared at Jason with her gray eyes, no expression on her mouth.
Nova gave them a moment alone and walked toward the trees.
Tati didn’t say anything. She stared at him intently, as if memorizing every detail of his face. Then she reached out and grabbed his neck with both hands and kissed him long and hard, molding her skinny body against his. When she was done, she pushed wet hair from her eyes and said, “Okay, goodbye.”
She left him without looking back.
Nova returned with a smirk. “Lipstick,” she told him, and Bourne rubbed his mouth with his sleeve.
Deputy Wallins got out of the SUV with security hoods in his hand, but Jason shook his head. “Let’s not bother with those, Wallins,” he said. Then he rattled off the location of the compound from the route he’d calculated. Nova, chiming in, cited the exact turns they’d made after leaving Highway 101.
The deputy frowned with dismay. “Well, shit.”
He tossed the hoods in the back of the SUV, and they climbed inside. Bourne sat on one side of the backseat, and Nova sat on the other. As Wallins retraced their route to the highway and turned south toward the airport, Bourne found himself staring at Nova, whose eyes were focused on the rain and the woods passing by outside. She exuded the same detachment she’d had on the flight across the Atlantic.
Finally, feeling his stare, she turned his way. He tried to read her face, but she’d always been an enigma. “So you’ll go back to Paris now?” she asked.
“Probably, but I need a new place. Lennon knows where I live.”
“So do I.”
“Yes, you do.”
“Which one of us do you want to hide from more?” she asked.
“I’m not hiding from anyone.”
“No?”
Nova slid across the seat next to him. Their legs touched. Her face was close to him, her eyes deep green in the shadows, her black hair thick and wet. The rain thumped on the roof of the SUV and streaked across the windows. His desire for her came back like a power surge melting circuits.
“Why don’t we leave tomorrow?” she murmured. “Skip the flight to San Francisco. Take one night for us.”
“And then what?”
“Then we see where it leads.”
“You said we had no future. What’s changed?”
“I’ve changed.”
“Because of Lennon? Because of what he did to you?”
“Maybe. Or maybe I’m just sick of what I have to do in this life. Maybe I can’t bear to drag my past around with me anymore. I feel like we have one more chance to get it right, Jason. If you’re willing to try.”
“What does that mean?”
“I mean, what if we both left together? What if we both walked away from this world?”
He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t have to. He watched her trace the pain in his face as if she were reading a map. Her voice was dark with sorrow. “But you can’t, can you? You can’t do it.”
“This is who I am.”
“No, it’s who they made you to be.”
“It’s the same thing.”
“Then give me one night. For old times. Something to remember you by.”
Bourne didn’t have a chance to answer her. He felt the SUV slowing. They’d been making slow progress because of the rain, and now the vehicle crept to a stop. Jason immediately leaned forward toward the front seat. “What’s going on, Wallins?”
“Accident.”
Bourne stared through the slashing windshield wipers at the road ahead of them. He saw a mass of headlights and brake lights on the two-lane highway. The red lights of several police cars marked the scene, too. He could just make out the accident a quarter mile away, a chain reaction that had sent several cars into the ditch. In the middle of the highway, an overturned semi blocked the lanes.
“Give us our guns,” he told the marshal.
Wallins turned around. “You think this is a setup?”
“I don’t know. We’ll check it out.”
The deputy unlocked the glove compartment and passed their weapons across the seat, along with their phones. Bourne slipped his gun into his pocket, then pushed open the door of the SUV. Nova followed him outside. They walked into the teeth of the driving rain, closing in on the accident scene. It wasn’t recent. There were already tow trucks clearing the highway, but traffic wasn’t going to be continuing soon.
Bourne gestured Nova to the opposite side, and the two of them hiked south on the shoulders of the highway. Most of the other drivers were still in their cars, and he glanced at the faces inside each one as he passed. They were in a section of road where walls of evergreens lined both sides. He couldn’t see deep into the forest. If there were men with guns waiting, they were hidden.
Was this the trap?
Was it right here?
A police officer in a yellow slicker approached him. He called to Nova, too. “Sir, ma’am, can you return to your vehicles, please? This area’s not safe.”
“What happened?” Bourne asked him.
“Slick road, car going too fast. You can figure out the rest.”
“When will it be cleared?”
“We think about half an hour. Sorry, but if you’ve got somewhere to be soon, you’re not going to get there.”
Bourne thanked him. He returned up the highway, and Nova rejoined him. He kept hearing the same alarms in his brain, but he saw nothing to suggest that the scene was anything but what it appeared to be. An accident in bad weather.
There was no sign of Lennon.
Where are you?
“We’re not going to make that flight,” Nova said.
“No, we’re not.”
“We passed an oceanfront hotel a couple of miles back. Maybe we should have Wallins drop us there. We can catch a shuttle in the morning.”
She
didn’t hide her hunger for him.
“One night?” she added quietly.
Jason couldn’t resist her any longer. He couldn’t deny that he wanted her back in his arms and in his bed. He’d felt that desire like a storm since he first saw her again in the tunnel in London. “All right. One night.”
38
As darkness fell, Bourne stood at the windows of their hotel suite, which overlooked the whitecaps of the Pacific breaking on the rocks. Nova came up beside him. She carried two wineglasses, filled with an expensive California cabernet. She’d already undressed for him, her naked body a tapestry of wild tattoos. Her Greek coin pendant dangled into the hollow of her full breasts.
It was just like Tallinn. Exactly like Tallinn. But this time, there was no ferry out in the water. No bomb about to explode.
She stood on tiptoes and teasingly bit his ear and planted kisses on his neck. Her tongue traced circles on his skin. Déjà vu. “If you close your eyes, you can pretend I’m Tati,” she taunted him.
“Bitch.”
Nova let out a throaty laugh that aroused him even more. They sipped wine and stared at each other and then put their glasses down. He surveyed every inch of her body, because she liked that; she wanted to be lusted after. She hadn’t changed at all. Her long black hair, which was swept to one side. Her deep curves. Her chocolate-brown nipples, high and hard. The Celtic knot inked down the golden skin of her flat stomach.
He took her in his arms, put his lips on hers, and ran fingertips down her back. His touch was soft; they always started soft with each other, then grew rough. Outside, the gales of the storm made the windows whistle and moan. Cold rain sheeted over the glass. An ominous blanket of fog began to slouch ashore from the water with white tendrils, like the outstretched fingers of a skeleton. But inside, it was hot. A wood fire crackled, the only light in the room. The heat brought a flush to their skin.
She took off his clothes slowly. Exquisitely slowly. Her long nails lingered on each button of his shirt. When his chest was bare, she found every wound, every scar, every bruise, and made love to it with a kiss. Sliding her breasts across his torso, she went down to her knees. He felt her undoing his belt, tugging on his zipper, peeling off his clothes until he was naked, too, and fully ready for her. She took him in her mouth, a tunnel that was warm and wet. He felt her tongue. Her teeth.
When she stood up again, they were done being soft. She backed away, crooking a finger for him to follow. Wickedness filled her eyes. Firelight and shadow flickered over the mosaic of her body. He came toward her, but as he reached for her, she ducked breathlessly away. They circled each other like wrestlers. He shunted left, then dived and grabbed her waist, and as she half-giggled, half-screamed, he threw her onto the bed.
He climbed on top of her. Trapped her beneath him. Held her wrists down. Leaned into her hips. She writhed like a cat to get away, but he held her tightly in his grasp. Her face gleamed with the game.
“You haven’t lost a step,” she whispered.
“Neither have you.”
“Remember the first time?”
“Quebec.”
“God, that was good.”
Her head came off the bed, and her mouth kissed him wildly. A gust of wind shook the walls. She hooked an ankle around his, and with a savage twist of her shoulders, she tumbled both of them off the bed. He landed on his back with a groan, and then she was on top, pinning him down with her hands and knees. Between her rigid thighs, she teased him, lowering herself just enough to give him a feel of her wetness and then slipping away.
“Want me?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Now?”
“Yes.”
“Prove it.”
She rolled off him and scrambled to her feet with a laugh. He got up, too, stalking her around the hotel furniture. She breathed hard, grinning, biting her lower lip, practically dancing with excitement. When he ran for her, she giggled and slipped away. She went to the window and threw it open, and wind and rain sailed into the room, twirling the curtains, making the fire sizzle, soaking her body in cold spray. Jason took hold of her slippery skin, but she slid out of his grasp. As she tried to escape again, he grabbed her wrist and pulled her back. She scratched his neck with her nails, bit it like a vampire, then sank to the wet carpet and used her mouth again to make his knees weak.
He lifted her under her shoulders until her feet came off the ground. She wrapped her legs around his waist. Standing by the window, soaked by the downpour, they kissed with a mad energy. Finally, Nova slid to the soaking-wet carpet. She guided him down on top of her, and she spread her legs wide and arched her back with a shout when he drove inside her. Her calves pounded him like a drum, her whispers urging him to go faster and harder. And he did.
That was Nova. She was a goddess of sex.
It was later, a long time later, when they lay in bed together in each other’s arms. Her head was on his chest, her fingers stroking him everywhere. They’d made love twice, but they’d said nothing since they were done. Outside, night had fallen, and they’d closed the window far enough to let only a shriek of wind squeeze inside. The fire was dying. The room had grown cold.
In the aftermath of their frenzied coupling, she felt like a stranger again. Aloof. Unhappy. The little girl who’d lost everything.
Nova slipped restlessly out of bed. She went to the window and stared at the ocean, the vista shrouded by darkness and fog. She picked up her phone, scrolled through multiple screens, and put it down. Then she retrieved their wineglasses from a table in the corner and brought them back to the bed. She handed one to Jason and clinked her glass against his.
“To the past,” she said.
They drank.
“To memories lost and found,” she said.
They drank again.
“To sex.”
And they drank more. Soon Jason’s glass was empty. So was hers.
Nova went back to the window. She didn’t look at him in bed. “I would have done it, you know,” she told him softly.
“Done what?”
“Walked away. For you, I would have done it. I want you to know that. If I thought there was any way we could really be together, things would be different. I wasn’t lying.”
“I never thought you were.”
“I’m sorry, Jason.”
His mouth tried to form the words: For what?
But he couldn’t. He felt himself sinking into a kind of quicksand.
Something was very wrong. His tongue felt thick, his throat constricted. He blinked, and every blink felt slow and long, as if it took forever to open and close his eyes. Nova watched him from across the room, her face screwed up with guilt and sadness. She gathered up her clothes, began to get dressed. He tried to push himself up, but his body had become leaden, too heavy to move. He still had the empty, delicate wineglass in his hand. He squeezed it until it broke, and the shards cut him, making blood flow down his arm. Staring at the blood, watching his hand slowly spin before his eyes, he knew.
She’d drugged him. It was in the wine.
With his other hand, he quickly shoved a finger into his throat until he vomited over the bedsheets.
“That won’t work,” Nova told him, shaking her head. “It’s already in your bloodstream. It acts fast. But the effects won’t last long.”
Why?
He couldn’t form the word, but he didn’t need to say it. He knew why.
Love is treachery.
She was fully dressed. Ready to leave him. Ready to betray him. She tied the laces on her black sneakers. She secured her gun. Her knife. She tied her black hair into a ponytail and slipped a beret low over her forehead. She didn’t bother with her phone; she just left it on the table.
“Strawberry Fields,” she said.
He didn’t say anything. He couldn’t say anything.
>
“You were right,” she went on. “A message was waiting for me at the food truck. I swear, I didn’t think there was anything Lennon could tell me that would make a difference. But I was wrong. God, was I wrong. I can’t let it stand, Jason. I told you when I first met you that I wished I could erase my past like you. You don’t know what I went through. What it was like. How many times I tried to kill myself. All because of him. Because of what he did.”
She came up to the end of the bed, and he wanted to grab her. Hold her. Stop her. But he couldn’t. His body wouldn’t listen to his brain.
“Four little words,” Nova told him. “The old man at the truck gave me the message. That was all it took. Four words to change my whole life. To change who I am. Four words to turn me.”
She leaned close to Jason, and her beautiful face broke into pieces in his mind like a fun house mirror.
“Do you know what he said to me? Kotov murdered your parents.”
He could see glints of silver on her skin. Tears. She was crying.
“Really, I should have known,” she went on. “I should have guessed. Holly told us that Kotov had done wet work around Europe after the wall fell. Those were the missions that helped the oligarchs build their fortunes. He was the good lieutenant, building a power base for his boss. My father was a competitor for the Russians. He was in the way. Him and his oil and gas deals. So he had to go.”
Don’t believe it, Bourne wanted to say.
But he knew it wasn’t a lie.
“You can look it all up yourself,” Nova told him. “It’s on my phone. Lennon sent me the evidence. The photos. The hotel reservations in Crete, the boat rentals, the weapons purchases, the bank transfers to the pirates. It’s clear as day, Jason. Grigori Kotov hired the men who killed my father and my mother.” Her voice rose. She screamed at him with a kind of primal agony, and he felt the intensity of her pain washing over him. “Do you understand what he did to me? Do you have any idea what he took away from me? Do you think I’m going to stand by and do nothing?”
The Bourne Treachery Page 30