The Bourne Evolution

by Brian Freeman

  Scott rubbed his temples with his fingers. A fierce headache had now taken root behind his eyes. “This time I’m sure. Treadstone tried hard to keep it quiet, but we intercepted an encrypted transmission of a classified report directly to the attorney general. It confirmed his death.”

  “Well, RIP Jason Bourne. I do like it when the American government does our work for us.”

  Scott nodded in agreement, but he’d begun to feel light-headed. He didn’t understand what was happening to him. The flu? He found it hard to concentrate on their conversation. He needed to get back outside into the fresh air of Paris. “I told you Bourne wouldn’t be a problem, Fyodor.”

  “Indeed you did.”

  “I’ll let you know when we’re moving ahead on Prescix. And how much more money we need.”

  “Do that.” Fyodor reached across the table and wrapped up Scott’s hand in his paw. “Anyway, congratulations, my friend. I appreciate a man who delivers on his promises. There’s bound to be a bonus in it for you. Whatever you want.”

  Scott stood up from the chair. As he did, the inside of the café made somersaults in front of his eyes. “I don’t care about anything like that.”

  “Ah yes, of course,” Fyodor replied, with a cynical rasp in his voice. “You don’t care about material things, says the man in the five-thousand-dollar Savile Row suit. You’re an idealist. You know what we call idealists in Russia, don’t you?”

  “What?”

  Fyodor leaned dangerously far back in the little café chair and laughed until his belly shook. “As soon as I find one, I’ll let you know.”

  * * *

  —

  FYODOR was in no hurry to leave the café.

  When he was done with the food, he signaled to the lovely little French waitress and ordered a bottle of Pouilly-Fuissé to wash it all down. She poured him the first glass, and while she did, his thick fingers explored her ass under the thin fabric of her skirt. She didn’t slap his hand away. Instead, she gave him a grin and a wink that said: Ask me how much.

  Ah, Paris. He loved this city.

  An hour later, he’d finished the wine and had a buzz that would last him until lunch. He stripped the linen napkin out of his collar and crumpled it on the table. He pushed his huge frame out of the chair and took heavy, unsteady steps toward the café door. Outside, he paid no attention to his bodyguards standing on either side of the bistro entrance. His town car waited for him at the curb. He closed his eyes briefly to savor the sunshine, and then he bent down and yanked open the town car’s rear door.

  The car wasn’t empty. Nash Rollins sat in the back seat.

  “Fyodor Mikhailov,” Rollins announced in a pleasant voice. “It’s been a long time.”

  The Russian whirled around with surprising speed for a big man, but that was when he noticed for the first time that the two bodyguards outside the café were not his own men. They were strangers. Americans. With guns.

  Fyodor gave a long, loud sigh of resignation. Life was what it was. You won until you lost, and then you dealt with the consequences. “Nash Rollins. I take it we’re going for a drive, are we?”

  “Yes, we are. Come, join me.”

  Rollins slid over to the opposite side of the town car and patted the leather seat next to him. Fyodor squeezed his bulk inside, and one of the American agents slammed the door shut behind him. No one outside could see through the smoked windows. The car headed off slowly into the Parisian streets.

  “I’m a diplomat, Nash,” Fyodor reminded him. “You’re making a serious mistake by kidnapping me.”

  Rollins gave a friendly tap on the Russian’s knee with his cane. “Kidnapping? Don’t be so dramatic, Fyodor. You’re free to go. In fact, we can drop you off at your embassy if you’d like. However, we both know that Moscow doesn’t like the smell of failure. Agents who fail tend not to live very long. And that’s what I’m smelling on your suit, Fyodor. Failure. It’s even stronger than all of that French cheese.”

  Fyodor frowned with his many chins. “Explain.”

  “We have everything on tape. Your meeting with Scott DeRay. Medusa. Prescix. That waitress you were groping? She’s mine. She could crack that thick neck of yours like a pretzel if she wanted, by the way. See, that civil war you want is officially over before it starts. Tomorrow, the American media will report that the Prescix software is being used as a front for Russian counterintelligence. Trading will be suspended. The company will be shut down and its code taken apart byte by byte to see what little games you and Medusa have been up to. So by all means, go back to Moscow if you want, but we both know the only thing waiting for you is an extra-large hole dug in the taiga forest.”

  The Russian spent a moment evaluating what Rollins had said. “I take it you’re offering me an alternative.”

  “I am.”

  Fyodor was nothing if not practical. “What do you want, and what do I get?”

  “What I want is information. You come back to the U.S. and tell us everything you know about the inner workings of Medusa. Names, locations, moles in the government and private industry, targets, plans. All the details about the data hack and how it was done and who was affected. You give us everything we need to take apart the entire Medusa infrastructure person by person. Do that, and we give you a free pass. You get a beachside Florida condominium with an all-new identity and plenty of money to spend on hookers, vodka, and caviar.”

  Fyodor stared out the window at Paris, knowing he was unlikely ever to see the city again. He lit a cigarette in the back of the town car and reflected on his options, which didn’t take long, because he didn’t have any. He wasted no time on patriotic sentiment. A living traitor was better than a dead patriot.

  “Florida?” he asked. “You want to send me to Florida?”

  “Or anywhere else you prefer,” Rollins replied.

  The Russian shrugged and blew out a cloud of smoke. “Florida is fine. Humidity and cockroaches don’t bother me. But throw in a lifetime pass to Disney World, okay? I like to ride the teacups.”

  FORTY-SEVEN

  BOURNE followed Scott DeRay from the Parisian bistro into the sprawling grounds of the Jardin du Luxembourg.

  By the time his old friend reached the geometric gardens laid out in front of the palace, it was obvious that the poison was rapidly taking effect. He could see Scott’s steps grow erratic. Getting closer, he saw sweat pouring down the man’s face and tremors wracking his limbs. Scott staggered to a bench near the green waters of the pond, where children played with brightly colored toy sailboats. It reminded Bourne of the time they’d met in Central Park, not long ago.

  The truth was written on Scott’s face. He didn’t know how, but he knew he was dying.

  He watched Scott pull out a phone to call for help, but the phone slipped from his numb fingers and fell to the pavement. Bourne came over and picked up the phone and then sat down next to him.

  “It says on your Prescix profile that you’re going to die horribly today, Scott. It’s scary how accurate that software is.”

  Scott turned his head slowly and tried to focus, and his eyes finally widened with recognition. “You.”

  “Yes, I’m sorry to still be alive,” Bourne replied. “I really didn’t think you’d swallow the story about Nash killing me, but he said we just needed to make the information hard for you to find. I guess he was right.”

  If you want someone to believe a lie, cover it up like a secret you’re desperate to keep.

  Treadstone.

  Scott struggled to fight back. He lifted a hand to reach into the pocket of his suit, where Bourne knew he kept a gun, but then his hand fell back to the bench and lay limply at his side. He had no strength. Even his voice sounded like an effort.

  “What’s the poison, Jason?” he asked. “Tetrodotoxin?”

  “The symptoms fit,” Bourne agreed. “Given ho
w quickly it’s working, I imagine it was a massive dose. You only have a few minutes left.”

  “Are you saying you didn’t do this?” Scott asked.

  Bourne watched the families playing in the park. Children ate ice cream cones. Lovers kissed. No one noticed the man dying on the bench in front of them. “No. Sorry, Scott, that wasn’t me.”

  “Who?”

  “You chose the wrong enemy,” Bourne told him. “One of the CEOs that your team murdered in the Caribbean was Hon Xiu-Le from Shanghai. He wasn’t among the bodies, so we didn’t know where he was at first. Apparently, Miss Shirley tied him up in one of the Jeeps before she blew it up. Treadstone found what was left of him and was able to confirm his identity. Definitely a mistake. Hon had a lot of friends high up in the Chinese government. You don’t make that kind of money over there unless you’re connected to the party circle. They were very upset to find out that he’d been killed. When I called one of my counterparts in Beijing, he was extremely interested to learn that you were the one behind Hon’s death. They were happy to work with us.”

  Scott closed his eyes. “The old Chinese tourist outside the park.”

  “Yes, he was good. I was watching for it, and I still didn’t spot him giving you the injection. I’ve been following you for a couple of weeks now. Actually, Nash and I were getting nervous that the Chinese might go after you before you had a chance to lead us to whoever was funding Medusa. They told us they’d wait, but we weren’t sure how long. But then you arranged the meeting with Fyodor this morning, so we gave them the green light. By the way, Fyodor is with Nash now. Telling him everything. Medusa is done, Scott. It’s over.”

  Scott opened his eyes and spat the words at Bourne as he struggled for breath. “I could have killed you any time I wanted, Jason. I let you live because we were friends.”

  “You let me live because you could manipulate me. That’s all.”

  Bourne dug into the back pocket of his slacks and pulled out a worn, wrinkled photograph. The picture showed two boys on an anonymous beach, with the whitecaps of the Atlantic behind them. They couldn’t be more than eleven years old, both in baggy swim trunks. The boys had their arms around each other’s shoulders and big grins on their faces. Looking at them, he found it hard to see himself in the taller boy on the left or Scott in the boy on the right. It had been another lifetime for both of them. They’d grown into completely different people.

  “We stopped being friends years ago,” Bourne said, dropping the photograph into the man’s lap. He had no use for it anymore. “Goodbye, Scott.”

  He stood up from the bench, but Scott grabbed his wrist in a weak grip. “Wait.”

  Jason stared down at him and said nothing.

  “You’re not just killing me,” Scott told him, as if it were a curse. “When I die, you die, too. Your whole childhood. Who you really were. Your past will be gone forever. I’m the only one who remembers it.”

  Bourne shook his head. “You’re wrong about that. I have no past.”

  He slipped sunglasses over his face and walked away into the park.

  * * *

  —

  IT was June 1 in Quebec City. Ten o’clock at night.

  Darkness shrouded the boardwalk below the Château Frontenac. Abbey checked her watch to be sure of the time. It was the early summer season, and dozens of people strolled in and out of shadows in the glow of the fairy lights. A cool breeze blew across the cliff top, and the St. Lawrence River made a black ribbon between the hills below her. Her mind was tense with anticipation. She leaned on the railing under the gazebo canopy, in the exact place where she’d waited for a mystery man two months earlier.

  A man who’d never appeared.

  This time I will, Jason had promised her. If I’m alive, I will.

  But weeks had passed, and she hadn’t heard a word from him. He was a ghost. Even so, she wanted to believe that he would be here for their rendezvous, that he wouldn’t leave her with nothing. Jason wouldn’t be that cruel.

  If he was still alive. If the media reports were wrong.

  Life had gone on for Abbey since she’d come home. She’d quit The Fort; she’d given up her studio apartment. She’d decided that she couldn’t go back to the person she was before all of this started, but she still had no idea what she was going to do next. Since then, she’d been in limbo, sleeping on a friend’s sofa and wandering the streets of the upper and lower towns in a kind of fog.

  Her relationship with Jason needed closure before she could put away the past. All she could do was count off the days and nights until June 1.

  Until now.

  Would he show up?

  Abbey pulled out her phone and keyed in a text. She’d texted the same number over and over for weeks, but all of her messages had gone into the ether, with no reply.

  I’m here, mystery man.

  Just like the first time. She waited, staring at her phone, biting her lip. But he didn’t answer her. He was never going to answer her. The minutes crept on, just as they had in April, and she was alone. Ten-fifteen came and went. Then ten-thirty. She came to grips with the reality.

  The papers were right. Jason Bourne was dead.

  Or maybe that was what he wanted her to think. Maybe, like last time, he was watching her right now from somewhere close by, with no intention of coming to meet her. It was his way of saying: Move on without me. She got ready to do just that, because he’d given her no other choice. She had to go. She had to figure out her life. She stared down at the river in the grip of a deep depression, and that was when she heard a whisper behind her.

  “What do you like most about Quebec?”

  Abbey’s hands flew to her mouth. She spun around, and there he was. Jason. Alive, unharmed, passion for her written all over his face. She stared back at him, the man who’d kidnapped her, the man who’d nearly gotten her killed, the man she was in love with.

  “Those wonderful little maple candies,” she replied, hardly able to get the words out.

  He took a step toward her, and they wrapped their bodies together and kissed. She could feel the longing pouring out of him, the need for her, the pent-up desire to hold her in his arms. His kiss said all the things he’d never be able to say out loud. His kiss said he loved her, the way she loved him. But his kiss also said something else. She could feel it.

  He’d come here for a reason.

  He’d come to say goodbye.

  The strange thing was, she’d come here to say the same thing. She couldn’t stay with him. No matter what they felt for each other, they couldn’t be together. Real life didn’t work that way. They had to go on alone. Him to his world. Her to whatever came next.

  But the hard part could wait.

  For the next hour, they sat on a bench in the darkness of the boardwalk, with Jason’s arm around her shoulders and her head in the crook of his neck. They talked, and kissed, and talked, and kissed. She thought about suggesting that they get a room at the Château Frontenac, where they could spend the night and make love again. One more time. Before the end. But she didn’t do that. It was hard enough, knowing he was going to leave.

  “I’m jobless and homeless,” Abbey told him eventually, with a little laugh, when he asked about the last several weeks. “I quit all of it.”

  “I hope you didn’t do that for me,” he said with a note of concern.

  “I didn’t, Jason.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. I won’t deny that you changed me, but whatever I do next is for me. You were right. I need to figure myself out, and this is the first step. Actually, I guess going with you was the first step, but I didn’t know it then. Now I do. Scary or not, I’m doing what you said. I’m jumping out of the plane.”

  He smiled. “So what are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know. I’m still thinking about it. But somehow I like
not knowing. I like having to think about new choices.”

  They were both silent for a while. The crowds on the boardwalk grew thinner as the night wore on. The end was getting closer, and as it did, the silences between them got longer. Neither of them wanted to deal with the future.

  “Everyone said you were dead,” Abbey told him quietly when they ran out of other things to say. “I didn’t know what to believe. I hoped they were wrong, but I didn’t know. It’s been hell.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Even if you weren’t dead, I wasn’t sure you’d come.”

  “I promised I would.”

  “I know. And I’m glad you did. I’m glad you didn’t leave me to wonder.”

  “Because now you can move on?” Jason asked.

  She squeezed his hand tightly. She didn’t want to say it, but she said it anyway. “Yes. Now I can move on.”

  “Good. That’s what I want you to do.”

  “What about you?” she asked.

  “My world has no room for outsiders, Abbey. You know that.”

  This time, she didn’t argue with him. “Medusa?”

  “It’s buried. So is Miss Shirley. You’re safe. You’re free.”

  “What about you?” she asked. “Are you free?”

  “I’m dead, which is almost the same thing. Nash wants me to stay dead for a while. It’s easier to work behind the scenes that way. In the shadows. If people don’t expect me, they don’t know I’m coming.”

  Abbey frowned. “Does that mean you’re going back to that life?”

  “For now. That’s all I know. That’s who I am.”

  “Who do you think you are?” she asked, hating what she knew he would say.

  “A killer,” Bourne replied without hesitation.

  Abbey shook her head with regret. That word sounded so harsh from his lips. And so wrong.

  “I need to go,” Jason went on.

  “I wish things were different.”

  “I do, too.”