The Bourne Initiative

by Eric Van Lustbader

The screen went dark.

  “Got you, you sonuvabitch.”

  —

  For Morgana that was the end of her second successful brief for Soraya Moore. But for Bourne, there was one more thing left to do. Much as he wanted to, he couldn’t carry Mala’s body out of the citadel, even amid such chaos, so he did the next best thing.

  In Keyre’s laboratory, he stared at the table with its old bloodstains, now almost black as pitch. How much pain and suffering had this table seen—not only Mala’s, but all the young girls who had come before her.

  Searching through the magus’s supplies he came upon a can of flammable liquid. What he had done with it, how he had applied it judiciously to his “girls” Bourne could not—and would not—imagine.

  Standing in the doorway, even with her phone against her cheek, briefing Soraya, bringing her up to date in hushed tones, assuring her she had made a copy of the code and then destroyed the fail-safe-locked original, Morgana sensed his great sorrow. She did not pretend to understand his relationship with the Angelmaker, nor why he could feel anything for her at all. But it wasn’t her place to understand, and she did not judge him.

  She watched silently as he doused the table with the liquid, then ran a thin line of it across the lab’s floor to where the Angelmaker’s body lay. There were a number of devices that created a flame in the lab, but Bourne deliberately chose the most primitive of them—long wooden matches.

  Scraping the head of one along the side of the box, he watched the flame flare up. He wished he were the kind of person who believed in God; he wished he knew a prayer.

  He composed his own. “Good-bye, Anjelica,” he whispered. “You will be remembered.”

  Then he threw the match onto the center of the glistening table.

  About the Author

  ROBERT LUDLUM was the author of twenty-seven novels, each one a New York Times bestseller. There are more than 225 million of his books in print, and they have been translated into thirty-two languages. He is the author of The Scarlatti Inheritance, The Chancellor Manuscript, and the Jason Bourne series—The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy, and The Bourne Ultimatum—among others. Mr. Ludlum passed away in March 2001. To learn more, you can visit Robert-Ludlum.com.

  ERIC VAN LUSTBADER is the author of numerous bestselling novels including First Daughter, Beloved Enemy, The Ninja, and the international bestsellers featuring Jason Bourne: The Bourne Legacy, The Bourne Betrayal, The Bourne Sanction, The Bourne Deception, The Bourne Objective, The Bourne Dominion, The Bourne Imperative, The Bourne Retribution, and The Bourne Ascendancy. For more information, you can visit EricVanLustbader.com. You can also follow him on Facebook and Twitter.

  THE JASON BOURNE NOVELS

  The Bourne Identity

  The Bourne Supremacy

  The Bourne Ultimatum

  The Bourne Legacy (by Eric Van Lustbader)

  The Bourne Betrayal (by Eric Van Lustbader)

  The Bourne Sanction (by Eric Van Lustbader)

  The Bourne Deception (by Eric Van Lustbader)

  The Bourne Objective (by Eric Van Lustbader)

  The Bourne Dominion (by Eric Van Lustbader)

  The Bourne Imperative (by Eric Van Lustbader)

  The Bourne Retribution (by Eric Van Lustbader)

  The Bourne Ascendancy (by Eric Van Lustbader)

  The Bourne Enigma (by Eric Van Lustbader)

  THE COVERT-ONE NOVELS

  The Hades Factor (by Gayle Lynds)

  The Cassandra Compact (by Philip Shelby)

  The Paris Option (by Gayle Lynds)

  The Altman Code (by Gayle Lynds)

  The Lazarus Vendetta (by Patrick Larkin)

  The Moscow Vector (by Patrick Larkin)

  The Arctic Event (by James Cobb)

  The Ares Decision (by Kyle Mills)

  The Janus Reprisal (by Jamie Freveletti)

  The Utopia Experiment (by Kyle Mills)

  The Geneva Strategy (by Jamie Freveletti)

  The Patriot Attack (by Kyle Mills)

  THE PAUL JANSON NOVELS

  The Janson Directive

  The Janson Command (by Paul Garrison)

  The Janson Option (by Paul Garrison)

  The Janson Equation (by Douglas Corleone)

  ALSO BY ROBERT LUDLUM

  The Scarlatti Inheritance

  The Matlock Paper

  Trevayne

  The Cry of the Halidon

  The Rhinemann Exchange

  The Road to Gandolfo

  The Gemini Contenders

  The Chancellor Manuscript

  The Holcroft Covenant

  The Matarese Circle

  The Parsifal Mosaic

  The Aquitaine Progression

  The Icarus Agenda

  The Osterman Weekend

  The Road to Omaha

  The Scorpio Illusion

  The Apocalypse Watch

  The Matarese Countdown

  The Prometheus Deception

  The Sigma Protocol

  The Tristan Betrayal

  The Ambler Warning

  The Bancroft Strategy

  ALSO BY ERIC VAN LUSTBADER

  NICHOLAS LINNEAR NOVELS

  Second Skin

  Floating City

  The Kaisho

  White Ninja

  The Miko

  The Ninja

  CHINA MAROC NOVELS

  Shan

  Jian

  JACK MCCLURE / ALLI CARSON NOVELS

  Beloved Enemy

  Father Night

  Blood Trust

  Last Snow

  First Daughter

  ​​OTHER NOVELS

  Any Minute Now

  The Testament

  Art Kills

  Pale Saint

  Dark Homecoming

  Black Blade

  Angel Eyes

  French Kiss

  Zero

  Black Heart

  Sirens

  Thank you for buying this ebook, published by Hachette Digital.

  To receive special offers, bonus content, and news about our latest ebooks and apps, sign up for our newsletters.

  Sign Up

  Or visit us at hachettebookgroup.com/newsletters