The Bourne Treachery

by Brian Freeman

  Bourne knew that Lennon was right. He had no escape. If he gave up now, there was at least a chance for Nova and Tati, a chance that Lennon would really let them live. As Cain, he’d cheated death again and again, but Jason had never expected a happy ending. His life was always going to end with a bullet.

  He felt the heaviness of the rifle in the crook of his arm. He began to let the barrel sag to point at the ground. In front of him, the blond woman known as JoJo curled her broad lips in a smile of anticipation.

  Then, as he watched, JoJo’s head exploded.

  One instant she was smiling at him. The next instant, the entire side of her skull blew outward in a cloud of blood and brain.

  The whistle and boom of the shot trailed it by a millisecond. A huge cone of light lit up the dark field. A throb, a growl, grew louder over their heads. Bourne looked up to see a black helicopter looming over the abbey grounds. Flame spat from the open door, and one of the other men in the circle around him blew backward off his feet with a giant hole in his chest.

  Jason pulled Tati to the ground and covered her with his body. Another spotlight filled the field; another helicopter soared toward them from the coastline. He heard Lennon shouting; he saw the men break ranks and run, diving back toward the SUVs. Slowly, slowly, the helicopters dropped toward the green grass, whirling the air into a tornado. The gunfire ceased. He heard the crunch of gravel and the squeal of tires. The trucks spun through the grass and cascaded through the open gate back to the road.

  The first helicopter landed in the field. The other rose back up, trailing the SUVs that shot toward the cover of the town. Sprawled on the ground, Bourne looked up and squinted as men in British military uniforms jumped to the weeds and ran toward him. The noise of the helicopter deafened him, but even with the thump of the rotors so close, he also heard the sharp barking of a dog.

  At the door of the chopper, Sugar strained at the leash where Holly Schultz held her.

  Jason got to his feet slowly. Tati tried to stand but couldn’t, so he let her put her arms around his neck, and he lifted her up. With British officers on either side of him, he carried her to the helicopter.

  As he walked into the churning, swirling whirlwind, he glanced at the gate where Lennon had been. There was no one there now except the bodies left behind in the field.

  Nova was gone. Jason had lost her.

  33

  On the helicopter ride back to London, Jason felt the physical pain of the night catch up to him. He was cold and tired. The cuts on his flesh stung, even after they’d been bandaged by the onboard medic. He felt a bone-deep ache all over his body that rolled through him like electric shocks. His face and hair were wet from the damp towel Holly had given him to wipe off the blood.

  Tati lay with her head against his shoulder. She kept her arms around his waist. Her messy hair, blond and purple, fell across her face. Every now and then, her gray eyes opened, and she stared up at him, unblinking. She didn’t smile; her full, pale lips bore no expression. She just studied him seriously, like a scientist, as if she were going back to the question she’d asked when they were in the field.

  What kind of man are you?

  He’d shown her the answer. It was the only answer he had. He was a killer. He was Treadstone. He couldn’t fight his own identity.

  The rhythmic throb of the helicopter lulled him like a kind of hypnosis. His head sank back, and he closed his eyes, but he couldn’t sleep. Exhaustion took second place to guilt and grief. He kept seeing the image of Nova’s face in his memory, and he kept wondering where she was and whether she was alive.

  He’d failed her. He’d left her in Lennon’s hands.

  It was still dark when they landed at Battersea Heliport on a platform jutting out over the Thames. Jason helped Tati out of the helicopter. Although she was able to walk on her own now, she clung to him like a second skin, her head against his shoulder. He’d become her shelter in the storm, and there was danger in that.

  Dixon Lewis was there to meet them. He’d checked himself out of the hospital, and his arm was in a sling. Seeing him, Tati’s eyes burned with fire, her body tensing. She associated him with the entire nightmare.

  “It’s okay,” Jason whispered in her ear. “I hate him, too.”

  That got her to smile weakly.

  They all got in the back of a limousine—Sugar included—and headed out on the empty London streets, protected front and back by Escalades with armed agents. Dixon was taking no chances. Nobody spoke about what had happened, not yet, not in front of Tati. Neither Holly nor Dixon asked for updates, and no one mentioned Grigori Kotov. Jason noted that they didn’t ask him about Nova, either. To them, she was no more than a name crossed off the active list.

  The limousine took them to a gated mansion in St. John’s Wood not far from Regent’s Park. With four columns and a red-brick façade, it looked like an estate uprooted from an exclusive New England neighborhood. Here in London, Jason assumed the house sold for tens of millions of dollars. Inside, the modern décor was as opulent as the exterior promised, with white marble floors and gleaming gold chandeliers.

  “The U.S. ambassador lives nearby,” Holly told them. “This house belongs to a CEO in the defense industry, but he lets us use it from time to time for special guests. The location is totally secure. You’re quite safe here.”

  Tati nodded but didn’t let go of Jason’s arm.

  “We have a doctor waiting to see you,” Holly added. “She’ll make sure you’re okay.”

  “I don’t need a doctor,” she replied.

  “Well, you’ve gone through a traumatic physical experience. We’d feel better if you underwent a brief examination to make sure you haven’t suffered any internal injuries.”

  Jason nodded at her. “You should go, Tati.”

  “What about you?” she asked. “You’re the one who’s really hurt.”

  “I’m fine. Let the doctor look you over.”

  “Yes, all right.”

  Holly smiled. “Excellent. The exam won’t take long. Then you can shower and get a few hours’ sleep. There’s plenty of time to talk tomorrow. I’m sure you have lots of questions for us.”

  “Will Jason be close by?” Tati asked.

  “Right next door,” Holly assured her.

  “Okay.” Then Tati hesitated. “Is it true what he told me? Is Papa really alive?”

  “I know it’s a shock, but yes, he is.”

  “Three years. I didn’t know. He never reached out to me. How is that possible?”

  “Believe me, Grigori wanted to let you know,” Holly told her. “I talk to him often, and he misses you terribly. We made sure he got reports about you every month. But it wouldn’t have been safe for either of you to tell you the truth. Tomorrow we can arrange for you to talk to him. And after that, to live with him.”

  Her lips pursed in thought. “Okay,” she said again.

  An Indian nurse in blue scrubs came down the curving staircase, a stethoscope slung around her neck. She touched Tati gently on the elbow, which made the girl flinch with anxiety. Jason had to pry Tati’s arm gently from around his waist. The nurse began to lead her upstairs, but Tati looked back at him and asked, “You’ll be next door?”

  Jason nodded. “Don’t worry. I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Okay.”

  When they were gone, Sugar led Holly into a living room decorated with zebra-striped furniture and a grand piano. Bourne and Dixon followed. Holly and Dixon both sat down, but Jason remained standing.

  “I didn’t expect to see you here,” he said to Dixon. “How are you?”

  “I’ll live,” the CIA agent replied. “I’m sure that’s a disappointment. What about you? You look like hell.”

  “I’m fine,” Bourne repeated, although his weariness was beginning to overtake him. He found it hard to keep his eyes open.

/>   “You did good work today,” Holly told him.

  “I’m glad you arrived when you did. We’d run out of luck.”

  “It’s distressing about Nova, of course.”

  “Yes, it is,” he replied coolly. The word made him angry all over again: distressing. Like she’d ordered the wrong wine with dinner.

  “Tati seems to have developed an attachment to you,” Holly noted. “That could be useful in its way.”

  “She’s shell-shocked,” Jason said.

  “Yes, well, the shocks aren’t over for her, I’m afraid. Eventually, it’s going to dawn on her that her life as she knew it is done. She can never go back to the way things were. In dealing with that, it will be useful for her to rely on someone she trusts.”

  Bourne looked back and forth between Holly and Dixon. “If she asks, I’d tell her not to trust anyone. Including me.”

  Holly stroked Sugar’s head. Her jaw hardened. “Maybe I’m not making myself clear. I want her to trust you. I want you to encourage that trust. She’s smart and independent, and when she gets over the initial trauma, she may be inclined to keep secrets or act impulsively. We need to know if that happens.”

  “In other words, you want me to lie to her.”

  “I assume that’s not a problem for you.”

  Jason didn’t answer her question. He didn’t need to. Lying was a way of life.

  The only truth you should tell is a lie. Treadstone.

  “I’m going to take a shower,” he said, shutting down the conversation, “and then I’m going to sleep.”

  Holly nodded. “By all means. You’ve earned it. Again, good job.”

  Bourne left the two of them in the living room. He climbed the stairs, hanging on to the brass railing for support, and found his bedroom on the third floor. It had a king-sized bed draped with a gray comforter, red velvet curtains, and mirrored closets taking up an entire wall. The first thing he did was check for surveillance; he assumed they’d be spying on him. He found a listening device tucked among a pot of fresh mums on the nightstand and a miniature 4k camera nestled among the metal rods of a chandelier. He disabled them both.

  He stripped off his clothes and went into the bathroom. The shower had glass doors and black granite walls. He turned on the rainfall showerhead and let the hot water cascade over his body. The heat stung his cuts and burns, but as he lingered under the spray, it felt good. He scraped the dirt and blood from his body, and then he stood with his eyes closed, completely motionless. He may even have slept for a while standing up. When he was done, he felt revived and almost human again, but feeling better physically made his mental torment worse. All he could think about was Nova, who was out of his reach.

  Jason dried off and returned to the bedroom, the towel wrapped around his waist.

  There, Tati waited under the sheets of his bed. She was freshly showered like him, her hair and bare shoulders still damp. Her black glasses lay neatly closed on his nightstand.

  “Hello,” she said with an odd politeness. Her face had the same serious expression she’d worn for hours.

  He sat on the bed next to her. “Did you see the doctor? What did she say?”

  “She said I was tough, and I was fine, and I should sleep. Except I’m not tired. I’m wired. I feel full of energy.”

  “That’s the adrenaline. When it wears off, you’ll crash.”

  “Oh, yes? What about you, are you about to crash, too?”

  “Probably. And we both need rest for tomorrow. You should go back to your own room, Tati.”

  “I don’t want to be alone,” she told him. “I’d rather stay here with you. You make me feel safe.”

  “I’ll be right here if you need me.”

  Tati reached out and stroked his bare chest with one of her sharp fingernails. “If you want, we could have sex. I don’t mind.”

  “No, we can’t. I can’t let anything happen between us. It’s against the rules. More than that, it would be me taking advantage of you, and I’m not going to do that.”

  “Are you sure? Vadik wanted sex every night. I didn’t really like it. Somehow I think I would like it with you.”

  Jason said nothing more.

  Her forehead crinkled with unhappy curiosity. “Vadik. My husband. Is he dead? Do you know?”

  “I got a report while we were in the helicopter. Yes, he is.”

  “Oh.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “Well, I should be honest. I didn’t love him. I’m not someone who can feel love, I think. I feel more upset about Uncle Maxim.” She caressed his cheek, and her eyes filled with sympathy. “The woman with the black hair. Something happens to your face when you talk about her. Do you love her?”

  “It’s complicated.”

  “Do you think she’s dead?

  Her question stabbed him like the thrust of a knife. “I don’t know.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, observing his reaction. “I must sound heartless, saying something like that. Insensitive. That’s how I am. I’m a scientist, so I’m only comfortable with facts. Things you can measure.”

  “It’s okay. I understand.”

  Tati threw back the sheet and climbed out of the bed. She was naked and not at all self-conscious about it. Multicolored bruises dotted her shoulders, stomach, and thighs like an abstract painting. She stood in front of him, then bent down and kissed him quickly on the lips, her hair swishing his face.

  “Good night,” she said, putting a little question mark on it.

  “Good night.”

  She took a couple of steps toward the adjoining door, but then she stopped. “So my father is alive.”

  “Yes, he is.”

  “You will take me to him?” Tati asked.

  “If that’s what you want, yes, I’m pretty sure they’ll put you on a plane tomorrow. They’ll take you wherever he is.”

  Tati shook her head. “That’s not what I mean. Will you take me to him? Will you go with me?”

  “I may not be able to do that,” Bourne replied. “His location is highly secret. That’s for his own safety. And for yours. Very few people know where he is.”

  “If you don’t go, then I don’t go.”

  Jason thought about Holly Schultz. I want her to trust you.

  “Then I’ll go,” he said. “Now get some sleep.”

  * * *

  —

  “Tati is fine,” Nash told Grigori Kotov as he put down the phone. “Cain rescued her. They have her in a safe house in London.”

  Kotov burst out of the chair where he was sitting, his face blooming with relief. He took heavy strides to the doors that led to the deck and threw them open. It was dark among the redwoods, and he went to the railing and breathed in the night air. He loosened his tie and undid the collar button of his white shirt. His eyes closed, and he let out a huge sigh. “Thank God for that.”

  Nash joined him on the deck. “I know this is a relief.”

  “I’m saved, Rollins. That’s the only way to put it. In rescuing her, Cain rescued me, too. You’ll bring her to me?”

  “That’s the plan. You’ll be able to talk to her in a few hours, and you should be able to see her in a couple of days. According to Holly, she went through a lot, but they’ve had a doctor look her over, and she’s fine.”

  The Russian eyed him with a frown. “What did she go through?”

  “Lennon very nearly captured her during an assault in Whitby. It was a close call. As it is, her husband Vadik is dead.”

  Kotov took out a cigar and lit it, and the sweet smoke blended with the damp smells of the redwood forest. “No real loss there.”

  “Maxim, too, I’m afraid,” Nash added.

  Kotov arched an eyebrow. “Yes? That is a blow. I’m sorry to hear it. I liked him. He helped Tati get away?”

&nbs
p; “He did. Just as you predicted.”

  With his cigar in his hand, Kotov took a long look into the darkness and then glanced up at the invisible stars. “Well, thank you, old friend. You may have been a traitor, but you ended your life with honor.”

  Nash kept his thoughts to himself. He’d seen it many times over the years, that strange hypocrisy of double agents. They always saw their own actions as moral, and they had no reluctance about condemning others who were guilty of the same sin.

  “Does Tati know about me?” Kotov asked.

  “Yes. Cain told her.”

  “How did she take it?”

  “That I don’t know,” Nash replied. “I’m sure it was a shock.”

  “Of course. I have to be honest, I’m not sure what to expect from her. I haven’t seen Tati in three years.”

  “She loves you. That’s all that really matters.”

  A cloud passed across Kotov’s face. “I hope that’s true. I wonder. I had the talk with her when she was just a little girl, you know. The talk every Russian in a position of power has to have with their family. I told her the day might come when I’d be denounced. Imprisoned. Killed. It doesn’t matter how loyal you are. It’s always a risk. You’re in favor one moment, out of favor the next. I told her she needed to turn her back on me if that happened. She had to think of her own future, her own safety, not mine. She had to lie to everyone, say whatever they wanted her to say.”

  “Well, she’s outside Putin’s control now,” Nash said.

  “Yes, she is.” Kotov unleashed a deep chuckle as he smoked his cigar. “What I wouldn’t give to have seen the Moth’s face when he found out that I’m alive. He knows I’m coming for him. He knows this isn’t over. But now I have Tati. With her at my side, I can start planning my resurrection.”

  Nash listened to the night around them, isolating every sound. It was an old Treadstone habit. No matter where you were, no matter how much security was nearby, you had to listen to your senses. As soon as you thought you were safe, you were already at risk.