The Bourne Evolution

by Brian Freeman

  But the desire to be close to her overwhelmed him. Teeling had given him a satellite phone, and all he needed to do was dial her number to hear her voice again.

  Let her go!

  Jason’s fingers hesitated over the phone keypad. He tried to hold himself back the way an alcoholic stares at a glass full of whiskey and looks for willpower, but he couldn’t stop himself. He punched in the numbers and waited through an interminable length of silence on the water as the satellites tried to connect him to Abbey Laurent.

  The silence lasted so long that he thought the call had gone dead.

  Then he heard her voice, curious, nervous, hopeful. “Hello?”

  Jason took a long time to answer. He thought about hanging up. He’d found her; he knew she was alive. That was enough.

  But it wasn’t.

  “It’s me,” he said.

  Relief poured out of her across the miles between them. “Oh, Jason, thank God! Are you okay? What happened?”

  “I’m fine,” he replied.

  “You don’t sound fine. Are you hurt?”

  “It’s nothing serious.”

  “Did you get to the island? Did you stop them?”

  “I stopped the worst of it. Medusa didn’t get what they wanted.”

  “What does that mean? Is it over?”

  Bourne hesitated. “No. It’s not over yet.”

  “What about our twisted friend?” Abbey asked.

  “She’s still alive. She’s still out there. That’s one reason I have to keep going.”

  He heard Abbey breathing hard and fast. There was something strange in her voice when she spoke again. “Where are you now?”

  “On the water, but not for long. I’m going after them.”

  Again the silence lasted forever and made him wonder if he’d lost her. Finally, she said, “Jason, it’s not too late to quit. Come back to me.”

  He’d never felt so tempted by anything in his life. “I’m sorry. I can’t.”

  “I know.”

  “I have to go,” Bourne said.

  “No. Wait. Stay with me a while longer.”

  “I wish I could, Abbey. What about you? Are you okay? Where are you now?”

  “On the road,” she told him. “Where else would I be?”

  He thought that was an odd thing for her to say. “Is everything all right?”

  “Fine. I’m fine. But do you want the truth? I miss you. I can’t stop thinking about that night we spent in Oklahoma City.”

  Bourne tensed, because she’d made a deliberate mistake. They’d spent the night together in Amarillo, not Oklahoma City. She was telling him something. Sending him a message.

  She wasn’t alone.

  “I remember that night, too,” he told her, to make clear he understood.

  “Good. When will I see you again, Jason?”

  “Someday.”

  “That’s not enough,” she told him. “Tell me when.”

  He didn’t want to make promises he couldn’t keep, but he did it anyway. “It’s April now. On June 1, if I haven’t found you before then, go back to where we were supposed to meet the first time. Same time, same place.”

  “The last time you didn’t show up,” Abbey reminded him.

  “This time I will. If I’m alive, I will.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  “I have to go,” he said again.

  “Tell me where you’re going next,” Abbey pressed him. “Please, Jason. Tell me the truth. If all I do is find a headline in a newspaper about people being killed, I have to know if you were involved. If June 1 comes and goes and you’re not there, I need to know where to start looking for you. Because I will.”

  He knew she wasn’t the only one listening. He was sure it was Treadstone. She’d warned him; she’d given him a chance to lie. But he was tired of lying. It was time to face everyone who was hunting for him. Let them come.

  “Miles Priest has a castle in Scotland,” he said. “Medusa is going to bring everything they have against him. That’s the endgame.”

  “Be careful, Jason.” He heard the pleading in her voice. “I’ll see you on June 1?”

  “June 1.”

  Bourne hung up the phone and was left alone with the darkness of the ocean.

  * * *

  —

  SCOTLAND,” Abbey told Nash Rollins. “Are you satisfied? Jason is on his way to Scotland.”

  “Miles Priest?”

  “Yes.”

  Rollins took a cell phone out of his pocket and dialed. “It’s me. Get the jet ready. I need to leave immediately. Destination is Glasgow, but keep this off the books. I don’t want any notice of the trip circulating on our computer systems. We don’t know who’s going to be watching for activity inside Treadstone.”

  He hung up the phone and began gathering up his things in the Denver safe house where they’d spent the last day. Abbey found that she could barely look at him.

  “That was well done, Ms. Laurent,” Rollins said. “Bourne wouldn’t tell many people what he told you. Obviously, he trusts you.”

  Abbey said nothing. She wondered whether Jason trusting her would cost him his life. She’d hoped that he would lie when he realized she wasn’t alone, that he would give her the wrong information and send Nash Rollins off on a fruitless chase to the other side of the world. But she could hear in his voice that Jason had told her the truth. He really was going to Scotland, and for some reason, he wanted Treadstone to know it.

  “You did the right thing by helping me,” Rollins added.

  “Spare me your bullshit,” Abbey snapped back. “Am I free to go now? Can I finally get the hell out of here and go home?”

  Rollins shrugged. “Of course. One of my agents will accompany you and make sure you get back home to Quebec City. Obviously, she’ll also be there in case you and Bourne make any further contact and you try to warn him away.”

  Abbey shook her head. “He won’t contact me again.”

  “Well, I’m taking no chances.”

  Abbey got off the sofa, and her lip curled with disgust as she stared at the Treadstone agent. “I hate you people. All of you. You threaten, manipulate, plot, and kill, and somehow you convince yourself that none of this is wrong.”

  Rollins paused in the safe house with his briefcase in his hand. Slowly, he put his hat on his head and then leaned on his cane. “I’m well aware that we have to cross terrible lines, Ms. Laurent.”

  “Then why do you do it?”

  “Theoretically? For a greater good.”

  Abbey shook her head. “You want the greater good, Mr. Rollins? Look at Jason. He seems to be the only one who hasn’t forgotten what that is. Which is pretty ironic, isn’t it, given his past. What does it take to convince you of the truth? He’s not Medusa, and he never was. He’s been trying to take them down from the beginning. He still is.”

  The Treadstone agent frowned. “Assuming you’re right—assuming Bourne isn’t simply lying to you, playing you—then what would you suggest I do?”

  “You keep trying to kill him,” Abbey replied. “Maybe, instead, you should try to help him.”

  FORTY-THREE

  RAIN made the Highlands of Scotland green, and rain poured down in waves over Bourne’s head. He stood at the fringe of a thick stand of fir trees a quarter mile from Miles Priest’s castle outside the village of Glenfyrr. Manicured lawns and gardens surrounded the estate. Stony hills loomed in the distance, gray and ominous, swept by fog. The castle itself stood on a promontory high over the angry sea, built of old brown stone, with a single rounded tower facing the ocean. Turrets like the rooks of a chessboard lined the square wings that overlooked the gardens. Beyond the castle, he could see a cemetery and the decaying ruins of a chapel rising out of the green grass. The crumbling ramparts of the castle’s stone w
all clung to the sheer cliff face.

  It was what he didn’t see that worried him.

  He didn’t see Medusa. And yet he knew they had to be here. Somewhere in the trees around him and on the beaches below the cliffs, a team of assassins waited for darkness. Then they would strike. Medusa would have no trouble penetrating the defenses here. No more than half a dozen guards, widely spread out, patrolled the grounds. He was surprised that Scott hadn’t boosted security, but maybe Medusa had outthought him this time with their plan.

  Bourne waited until the next patrol passed out of sight. Then he broke from the trees and ran at full speed across the wet grass. The rain and twilight made him mostly invisible, just a dark blur against the forest. He reached the next stand of trees that hugged the high cliffs, and he heard the thunder of waves breaking against the jagged rocks a hundred feet below him. He surveyed the area with his binoculars again, but from this new angle, he still saw no evidence of the Medusa team readying their assault. He ducked through the trees to the very edge of the cliff and studied the windswept water, but there were no boats waiting offshore and no Zodiacs dragged onto the rocky beach. Nothing looked amiss in the rainy Scottish night.

  Where are they?

  He followed the coastline until the main tower of the castle rose above the trees, four stories of old wet stone staring toward the sea. Smoke from the chimneys stung the air. Lights glowed inside a handful of windows. He’d come prepared for a fortress, with a nylon rope and bowline knot hooked to his waist under his shirt for climbing; with a hacksaw blade if he needed to cut through bars; and with smoke grenades if he needed a diversion. But when he looked for a way inside, he realized that they’d left the door open for him.

  Literally.

  A thick, double-paneled oak door that led into the castle’s round tower hung ajar. When he came closer, he saw cigarette butts littering the wet grass. Obviously, this was where the castle staff took their smoke breaks, and they didn’t bother to lock up the doors each time they came and went.

  Gun in hand, Bourne slipped inside the castle.

  Too easy!

  His instincts screamed that he was walking into a trap. But he was alone.

  He found himself in a cramped circular hallway, with a stone floor that ran along the tower’s rounded wall. The air had a musty smell, the product of constant dampness, and the interior was drafty and cold. He led the way with his gun, but no one challenged him. Halfway around the tower, he found a wrought-iron staircase that spiraled upward. He climbed the metal steps, which squealed with his footfalls. The entire frame shook, as loose bolts rattled under his weight.

  Two stories up, Bourne found a landing with a small wooden door, barely wide enough for a man to get through. Slowly, he turned the brass knob and pushed the door open an inch. He listened inside and heard nothing, and he opened the door the rest of the way and found himself in a grand library, shaped like a half-moon, with a high ceiling and chambered windows facing toward the sea and the foggy Scottish hills. Bookshelves lined the walls, along with a series of Renaissance-style religious oil paintings. A huge fire crackled, giving heat to the cold castle. Persian rugs lay over the weathered wood floor, and a brass chandelier hung on chains from the high ceiling.

  One man was inside. Scott DeRay.

  “Hello, Jason,” Scott told him. “Welcome. I’ve been expecting you.”

  His friend raised a crystal lowball glass that was half-filled with amber liquid. “Some scotch? It’s Laphroaig. The good stuff.”

  “No.”

  Bourne felt disoriented, creeping into this medieval castle and finding nothing but an old friend in a business suit, drinking whisky.

  “You really could have come in the front door,” Scott added with a twinkle, “but where’s the fun in that? You never could do things the easy way. I hope we won’t have any medical bills for the guards you met along the way.”

  “They’re fine,” Bourne replied, distracted.

  He checked out the windows. Through the rain-dotted glass, he studied the stone wall along the coastline that led out to the cemetery and the ruins of the chapel. Below the wall, the sea crashed against the rocks. No one was there. Not on the beach or the grounds, not in the forest. The assault he’d expected wasn’t happening. Medusa wasn’t here.

  He shook his head. “This doesn’t make sense.”

  “Medusa?”

  “I was sure they’d come after you and Miles.”

  “I thought the same thing,” Scott replied. “That’s why I sent Miles away to keep him out of danger.”

  “Where did you send him?”

  “A hotel he owns near Prestwick. He’s been there since we got back. But I sent a limo to collect him. He should be arriving shortly. The fact is, it looks like we were both wrong, Jason. Believe me, the security in this castle is much more than it appears to be. We have electronics in place around the grounds and surveillance in a perimeter for several miles. No one gets in without our knowing about it. That includes you. I tracked you from the time you arrived. There’s no one out there, Jason. Nobody’s coming.”

  “They could still be on their way.”

  “Maybe so, but you know as well as I do that Medusa isn’t about to walk in blind. They’d start with an advance team to scout the area. They haven’t done that. No, I think your success in stopping them on the island forced a radical change in their plans.”

  Bourne frowned. He went over the flowchart he’d mapped out in his head of actions and reactions, moves and countermoves. He’d anticipated every possible plan of attack by Medusa, but he hadn’t considered the possibility that they might do nothing at all.

  “I don’t like this,” he said.

  “Agreed. I don’t like it, either, but if they move in, we’ll have plenty of warning that they’re coming. In the meantime, I’m glad you’re here. For now, let’s sit and relax until Miles gets back.”

  Bourne took another look through the castle windows. Below him, one of the guards patrolled the back of the estate, and somehow, he still expected to see the man crumple to the wet ground with a bullet in his head. He expected an assault team to appear from the trees on all sides, closing on the castle.

  But no one did.

  He turned away from the windows, but he didn’t sit down.

  “Nelly gave us a report from the island,” Scott told him, sitting on the stone hearth, where the warmth of the fire made his tanned skin glow. “That was amazing work, Jason. And honestly, it’s more than the cabal deserved, based on how we treated you. You saved a lot of lives. You also finally convinced Miles that he was wrong about you. He’ll be reaching out to his contacts in Washington to see if we can restore your reputation. It won’t be easy, given the evidence that Medusa mounted against you, but if anyone can get it done, it’s Miles.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  “You validated my judgment, too,” Scott added. “But of course, I’m not surprised. I know you better than anyone.”

  “You know me better than I know myself,” Bourne replied.

  “I suppose that’s true. Someone has to remember everything you’ve forgotten. Like all those days we spent at the beach when we were kids. Thunder Mountain? Do you remember that? I guess not. We’d climb the trail up to the top of the hill through the trees and then race each other down the sand dunes on the other side. You always won.”

  “It’s all gone,” Bourne said.

  “And that summer in Europe? I was at a private college in Switzerland, and you came over and we traveled around together. That was the best summer of my life. Italy. Germany. Turkey. Estonia. Russia. The Czech Republic. We went everywhere.”

  “You showed me pictures. It looked like we did it all.”

  “We did. Two twenty-year-olds who weren’t afraid of anything. We were going to rule the world.”

  “I guess the plan worked out for you,
” Bourne said.

  Scott shrugged. “It’s a work in progress. You know, that summer was also the time we had our one big fight. We went a couple years without speaking to each other after that. I guess in some regard, I’m glad your memory loss wiped that away. I have a lot of regrets about that time.”

  Bourne was surprised. “You never told me about that.”

  “Like I said, I was just as happy to have you not remember it.”

  “What was the fight about?”

  Scott got up from the hearth and refilled his glass from the bottle of Laphroaig. He wasn’t a big man, and the size of the room under the high ceiling made him look even smaller. And yet his personality, his ego, and his charm always filled the space wherever he was. Bourne’s skill was to disappear, whereas Scott’s was to have everyone remember him.

  “Oh, it started with an argument about politics,” Scott said. “We’d been simmering about that all summer. You were always the government boy, particularly after 9/11. Me, I became pretty cynical about government after going to school in Europe.”

  “You joined the FBI,” Bourne pointed out. “Doesn’t that make you a government boy, too?”

  “I thought I could change things from the inside. I was wrong. Some things need to be torn down before we can rebuild them. Back then, I already knew that technology would rule the world, but you had these naive notions about privacy.”

  “So was that what split us up? Government versus technology?”

  Scott smiled and shook his head. “Oh, no. In the end, we argued over a girl. Isn’t that always how it goes?”

  “We both wanted the same girl?”

  “Actually, no, you didn’t like her at all. She was younger than me. Sixteen years old, but all grown up, believe me. You thought she was wrong for me. Funny thing is, I always had the suspicion that she wanted you even more than me. Anyway, it came down to a choice, and I was young and in lust, and I chose her. You went home. I kept traveling with her. You and I didn’t talk again for a long time after that.”

  “Well, I’m sorry we let it come between us,” Bourne told him.