The Bourne Evolution

by Brian Freeman

  “I have a mole.”

  This time she scored a direct hit. He couldn’t keep the surprise off his face. “A mole? You mean—”

  “I have a source inside Medusa,” Abbey told him.

  “Who?”

  “I can’t say. Not yet.”

  Carson backtracked. “Oh, of course. Obviously.”

  “But my source is high up in the organization. He says he was a true believer, but the violence has gone too far for him. He thought New York—the assassination, the riot—was a mistake. He saw my articles and reached out to me, because he wants the story to come out. The thing is, this guy knows everything. He knows details of their operations and how their technology works. Plus, he’s got a list of contacts in the government and private sector who have been compromised by Medusa.”

  “Impressive,” Carson replied evenly, but she could imagine the ocean wave of terror rolling through his mind. “Did he give you any names on this list?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Well, how exactly can I help?” Carson asked.

  “My source is going to need a lawyer. Someone who can guide him through the system. You know this story is going to lead to hearings, criminal investigations, prosecutions. He’ll need immunity in order to talk. Plus witness protection.”

  “Yes, definitely,” Carson replied. Then he added with studied casualness, “Did you already give him my name? Did you tell him you were going to talk to me?”

  “No, I just said I knew a lawyer who could help. I wanted to reach out to you first. I’d like to get the two of you together. Would you be willing to meet with him?”

  “Of course, but I need more details before I do that.”

  “No more details,” Jason said in her ear. “He’s hooked. He’s scared. Let him twist.”

  Abbey bolted to her feet from the bench. “I’ll get back in touch and tell you everything soon. I just needed to know you were in, Carson. Thank you.”

  “Abbey, wait, if I’m going to research the legal issues, I need to know more of what we’re facing. What is this person’s role inside the organization? What crimes has he been involved with? That will affect any immunity discussions with the feds.”

  “Let me talk to him first,” Abbey replied. “He’s cautious, because his life is in danger as soon as he goes public. I’ll share everything you told me, and I’ll make sure he knows he can trust you.”

  “Abbey, you have to be careful what you say to him. There could be legal conflicts with me or my firm that need to be cleared before we can move forward. I’m worried about my name getting out before I know who I’m dealing with.”

  “Don’t worry, Carson,” she said. “I’ll be careful. We’ll work it all out. I’m sorry, I have to go. I’ll call you, and we’ll meet soon.”

  “When? Where?”

  Abbey didn’t answer him. She put her head down and disappeared into the crowd.

  * * *

  —

  PHASE One was done. Now it was time for Phase Two.

  Once a target is off balance, keep him that way. Don’t let him recover.

  Treadstone.

  Bourne fell in behind Carson Gattor as the lawyer headed under the arch out of Washington Square Park. The man walked as if in a daze up Fifth Avenue, not looking behind him. Abbey had done well. Gattor was scared. His pace was quick; he needed to get back to the safety of his office; he needed to make a phone call to Medusa.

  Now it was time to ramp up the fear.

  At the stoplight, Bourne came up immediately behind the lawyer. He whispered in his ear. “You handled that well, Mr. Gattor.”

  The man began to spin around in shock, but Bourne hissed, “Don’t look back. The feds could be watching. Take out your phone and pretend you’re making a call.”

  Gattor did as instructed, but Bourne could see sweat on the back of the man’s neck. “Who are you? What’s going on?”

  “We’ve been watching Abbey Laurent. We were wondering who she would meet with.”

  “Why?”

  “You heard her. This is a mole hunt, Mr. Gattor. We’ve known for some time that we had a leak. Operations have been compromised. Agents have been killed. Whoever it is has been very careful, but now he’s shown himself. When Ms. Laurent calls you again, we need you to set up a meeting. We’ll have someone standing by to eliminate both of them.”

  “My God! You’re Medusa. . . . You mean, this is real? There’s a mole?”

  “There is. Be glad Ms. Laurent reached out to you, Mr. Gattor. It puts you in the clear. Some of us were convinced that you were the mole.”

  “Me? Never! I would never!”

  “We’ll be in touch again before the meeting. Take precautions until then, and assume you’re under surveillance.”

  “Wait! You can’t leave it like that. I have questions.”

  “We can’t talk here. The light is green. Walk. Don’t look at me. When you get to the Church of the Ascension on the next block, go into the courtyard and around to the far corner of the building. I’ll be there.”

  Bourne pushed past Gattor and continued northward until he reached the Episcopal church, where he let himself inside the gate and took cover behind the trees. He didn’t have to wait long. The rapid tap of Gattor’s leather shoes announced his arrival, and as the man came around the building, Bourne grabbed him and shoved him against the brick wall.

  Gattor’s eyes widened with recognition. “Oh my God, it’s you! You’re Cain!”

  “Of course I am. I told you, you did well, Mr. Gattor. You’ve played your part perfectly up until now. Don’t blow it.”

  “My part? What are you saying? You’re supposed to be dead!”

  “Yes, that’s what we wanted everyone to think. The setup worked just as we hoped, thanks in large part to you, Mr. Gattor. The information you gave Abbey Laurent worked exactly as intended. Medusa is grateful. But now we have a problem.”

  “I don’t understand. Why are you here? There’s never supposed to be direct contact! I’m a resource, nothing more. She swore to me I was safe!”

  She.

  Gattor’s contact at Medusa was a woman.

  “Your previous terms of engagement no longer apply,” Bourne informed him. “The mole changes everything. You’re on a list, Mr. Gattor. You’re blown.”

  “My God, what do I do?”

  “I told you, as soon as the journalist calls you again, set up a meeting. We’ll take care of the rest.”

  “But what if she gives him my name? What if he knows me? You just said I’m blown.”

  “If she gives him your name, it won’t be the mole at that meeting. It’ll be the FBI. You’ll be under arrest. And don’t get any ideas about cutting a deal with them, Mr. Gattor. We can get to you anywhere.”

  “This is madness!”

  Bourne slid out the gun he’d taken from the Canadian policeman. Gattor squirmed, seeing the weapon, and Bourne held him in place against the wall. He pressed the butt of the gun, which was empty now, into the lawyer’s hand. “Look, there’s a slim chance you may need to take care of this situation on your own.”

  “What?”

  “The mole is part of Medusa. That means he’ll be cautious. If he suspects a trap, he may contact you outside the scheduled time and place, when we don’t have a wet team ready to go. In that case, we’ll need you to eliminate him yourself. The woman, too, if she’s with him.”

  “Eliminate them? You want me to kill them? That was never part of the deal! I don’t even know how to fire a gun!”

  “If he thinks he’s dealing only with you, he’s less likely to expect an ambush. That’s your advantage. As for the gun, it’s easy. Point and shoot. Be careful, the trigger is sensitive, so don’t put your finger on it until you’re ready to fire. A forehead shot is best, so you’ll need to be close. Anywhere else, and he’l
l take time to bleed out, so he may have an opportunity to grab his own weapon and kill you.”

  “Jesus!”

  “Good luck, Mr. Gattor,” Bourne told him. “We’ll be watching.”

  Jason left the lawyer a quivering mess inside the shelter of the trees. He melted back onto the New York streets. As he walked downtown, he slipped his phone into his hand and sent a text to Abbey.

  Phase Two complete. It’s a go.

  Carson Gattor was in full panic mode. The lawyer would be screaming into his phone soon and demanding a meeting, but not with Abbey Laurent.

  The only thing he could do now was reach out to Medusa.

  SEVENTEEN

  IT was Cain!” Carson Gattor screamed into his phone after he closed and locked the door of his twentieth-floor office near Union Square. “He’s in New York. He confronted me on the street. He said he was part of Medusa. He said you’re looking for a mole inside the organization who knows about me. My God, is that true?”

  The sultry voice of his contact showed no emotion. She never did. “Are you certain it was him, Carson?”

  “Of course I’m sure! You’re the one who gave me the information about him. I thought he was going to kill me!”

  She didn’t answer right away. Her silence told him that calculations were going through her mind. “But in fact, he didn’t kill you. How interesting.”

  “Interesting? That’s all you have to say? This isn’t how it’s supposed to work! This isn’t our deal! I was just supposed to be a go-between. I wasn’t supposed to deal with people like Cain.”

  “Calm down, Carson. If Cain wanted you dead, you’d already have a bullet in your throat.”

  “I won’t calm down. Was he telling the truth? Is there a mole inside Medusa who can expose me?”

  “No, he was simply trying to rattle you, and obviously he succeeded.”

  “But why?”

  “That I’m not sure about. It’s a curious puzzle.”

  Carson shook his head. “You need to help me. Mole or not, I’m at risk. You need to get me out!”

  “Quiet!” the woman insisted, in a voice that didn’t allow for any protest. He knew better than to open his mouth again when she used that tone. In person, it was a tone that brought swift punishment.

  Carson waited through an interminable length of silence. He heard nothing on the phone but the smooth, measured sound of her breathing, which he knew well. That sound always aroused him. Her breath was like that when she straddled him, her eyes closed, when she teased him with her interminably slow movements up and down, postponing the aching moment of relief.

  They’d met exactly six times. Every meeting was memorable. Every one ended the same way, with depraved, glorious sex in a hotel room and information passed to him on a thumb drive for distribution to a contact in the media or government. Money always showed up in his bank account a few days later, although in truth, he would have paid her for the experience. She was that good.

  The very first time had been in Las Vegas. He’d been in town for a meeting with one of his clients, and a taxi had taken him to an upscale casino outside the city. He’d played the blackjack tables and lost big. He’d never had such a losing streak in his life, but he found that he couldn’t stop, not even when the rational part of his brain told him to walk away. The deeper he dug the hole, the more he believed that his luck had to turn, and when it did, everything would go his way. But his luck never changed. He played and lost throughout the night, raising the stakes higher and higher with each hand, until he was down by more than one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. He didn’t have that kind of money.

  That was when he met her.

  She showed up at his side, incredibly tall, sleek and gorgeous, with black hair and pale eyes that sent a surge of blood between his legs. She wore a barely-there thigh-high black dress that clung to her bony curves, and when she bent over, he could see everything.

  “You seem to have a problem, Mr. Gattor.”

  How did she know his name?

  Carson hadn’t put it together at the time. He was in too much of a fog. It was only later that he realized that he’d been set up, that he’d been chosen and steered to the casino and manipulated and cheated out of his money. No, all he knew at that moment was that he was turned on by this woman and facing a debt he couldn’t pay.

  “I have a solution. I have a way for you to satisfy your debt in full and make a great deal more money beyond that.”

  “What do I have to do?” he asked, although it didn’t matter. Whatever it was, he was going to do it. He couldn’t say no to her.

  “We’ll talk about details soon. For now, I only have one demand.”

  “What is it?”

  “You must remember at all times when we are together to call me Miss Shirley.”

  Then she’d taken him up to a penthouse suite in the hotel that overlooked the mountains and introduced him to a night of pain and pleasure unlike anything he’d ever experienced. In the morning, she’d given him a first-class airline ticket and told him to strike up a conversation with the man in the seat next to him.

  That was all. Build a relationship.

  That was his first mission for Medusa.

  “You did the right thing by calling me, Carson,” Miss Shirley told him when the waiting on the phone had gone on for more than a minute. “Your assessment of the situation is correct. We need to extract you.”

  “You’ll pull me out?”

  “Yes. Obviously, your work for us has become known, and that means you’re at risk. You can’t stay in New York.”

  “Where will I go?”

  “Initially, you’ll join me in Las Vegas. I’ll send the jet for you tonight. Someone will debrief you about your interaction with Cain and Ms. Laurent. And then we’ll find you a new location and identity. You’ll start over, Carson. Do you like Asia? Perhaps we can send you to Bangkok. I suspect you’d find diversions to entertain you there. Of course, our relationship will need to end. We won’t talk again.”

  “I—I don’t know—” He found himself horrified at the idea of never spending another night with her.

  “The alternative is another meeting with Cain,” Miss Shirley replied. “Is that what you want?”

  “No!”

  “Fine. Do exactly as I say. There’s a wine bar in Greenwich Village called Villiers. Be there tonight at ten o’clock. In the meantime, I’ll make plans for your departure, and I’ll text you further instructions when you’re in place. Walk, don’t take a cab. We need to make sure you’re not being followed.”

  “Are you sure it’s safe?”

  “Relax, Carson. Haven’t I always taken care of you?”

  “What if he contacts me again?” Carson asked. “What if he simply shows up somewhere? What do I do?”

  He heard the smile in her voice. “You said Cain gave you a gun. Use it.”

  * * *

  —

  MISS Shirley hung up the phone.

  She lay naked on a chaise lounge in a white-walled estate in the Las Vegas hills. The ninety-degree sun beat down on her bronzed body. She climbed off the chaise lounge and walked in her sandals to the diving board of the Roman-inspired pool, which was surrounded by stone urns, erotic fountains, and statues of goddesses. She kicked off her shoes, mounted the board, and made a clean dive, her lean body slicing into the turquoise water. Like the Olympic swimmer she was, she swam forty laps freestyle and used the ladder to climb out of the pool again, not winded at all.

  Water dripped from her breasts and wet hair. She dried herself with a towel, retrieved her sandals, and returned to the chaise at an unhurried pace.

  She picked up the phone and dialed a number.

  “Restak,” a voice answered.

  “It’s me.”

  “What can I do for you . . . Miss Shirley?”

 
“I’m coming to New York,” she replied. “Cain is there. We need an incident arranged for tonight.”

  EIGHTEEN

  THERE he is,” Bourne told Abbey, stealing a glance through binoculars at the Broadway entrance of the high-rise off Union Square.

  A cold rain fell in the New York night. Carson Gattor wore a beige trench coat and opened an umbrella over his head. He joined the crowd of pedestrians and turned left across from the park, heading west past a row of retail shops. He walked quickly and nervously, looking back over his shoulder every few steps.

  Jason didn’t move.

  “Shouldn’t we follow him?” Abbey asked.

  “We will. First I want to see who else is following him.”

  Bourne waited patiently, assessing the others in the crowd near Gattor. When he was satisfied, he took Abbey’s arm, and the two of them hurried along Fourteenth Street without crossing the street, keeping an eye on the lawyer across the late-evening traffic. They’d done a rough color job to change Abbey’s hair from red to black, and she wore a dark hoodie pulled up to hide her face. Jason wore a wool cap pulled low on his forehead and an Islanders jersey. Despite checking his surroundings repeatedly, Gattor never looked in their direction. He wasn’t skilled at identifying surveillance.

  They stayed behind him for two long blocks until he got to Sixth Avenue, where he turned left toward the heart of Greenwich Village. Rain spat through the streetlights, and the passing cars threw spray over the curbs. The short southbound blocks passed quickly, and the farther Gattor went, the more careless he got about looking back. It was easy to keep him in sight. When he reached the clock tower of the Jefferson Market Library, he turned onto Tenth Street and continued through the leafy streets of the Village. The pedestrians thinned, and Jason allowed the gap between them to increase. Gattor walked several more blocks past parked cars that were squeezed together on the street and trash bags piled on the curb. On the other side of Seventh Avenue, they watched him disappear into a small wine bar with tall windows facing the sidewalk.