The Bourne Treachery

by Brian Freeman

  That was true when you made plans, too. Kotov was an experienced spy and should have known that, but the Russian had an ego to match his ambitions.

  “If you set foot in the country, you’ll be arrested,” Nash pointed out. “And most likely killed.”

  “Not if the siloviki and the oligarchs support me. They’re crying out for change, Rollins! We’ve been seeding the ground for three years. Once they know they have an alternative, they’ll be with me. So will the people. I’ll come home as a hero. Hell, maybe I’ll parachute right into the middle of Red Square. Mark my words, at this time next year, I’ll be the president of Russia. That’s always been my destiny. And Tati will be at my side.”

  Nash kept listening. Somewhere out there, beyond the darkness of the forest, he could hear the Pacific throwing waves against the beach.

  “I hope that’s true, Grigori,” he said cautiously.

  The wily Russian grinned at him. “But? I hear the but in your voice. Say what you want to say, Rollins.”

  “But Lennon is still out there,” Nash replied. “I wouldn’t make the mistake of underestimating him.”

  34

  “Strawberry Fields Forever.”

  That was the song Lennon had chosen to torture Nova. She didn’t know why. It had no special meaning for her, and yet he played it over and over, as if its wobbly psychedelic tune would worm its way into her brain. Strangely, somehow, it was having the effect he wanted. The music began to make her dizzy. Her head floated, drifting into a haze. She wondered if he’d layered subliminal messages into the track, something she couldn’t hear but that was affecting her mind. Or else he was pumping some kind of odorless chemical into the room to loosen the willpower of her brain.

  Time had passed while she was in captivity. Probably hours. In the beginning, she’d tried to count off the seconds and minutes in her head, but after a while, she’d given up. They’d tied her up in total darkness, so that she could see nothing. She was bound to a wall, her body spread into an X like da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man. Her wrists and ankles were both shackled to keep her where she was, and a metal band around her neck kept her head from turning or slipping forward. Her eyes had been taped open, leaving them dry and pained even in the unlit windowless room.

  “Lennon!” she found herself shouting. She didn’t know where the killer was, but she was certain he could hear her. “Lennon, I’m not going to tell you anything. You may as well just kill me, if that’s the plan. This isn’t going to work!”

  But it was working. She’d endured physical torture before, but this was different. The wall she kept around her emotions had begun to crumble, leaving her mind exposed.

  It had to be a drug!

  She was already weakening when the first photograph appeared. The music kept playing—“Strawberry Fields Forever”—and then an old photo filled the opposite wall as if she were watching a movie. The brightness of it after so long in the dark made her want to close her eyes, but she couldn’t do that. What she saw was a little girl, maybe five years old, jet-black hair, big smile. Herself. The photo showed Nova on a beach in Greece, wearing a little-girl bathing suit, standing up to her knees in the Mediterranean water. That smile. So wide. So happy. She hadn’t smiled like that in a long time.

  More pictures appeared on the wall, changing with the beat of the music. More photographs of her as a child. Where did Lennon get them? Obviously, while she’d been stalking him for Interpol, he’d been stalking her, too, gathering information he could use against her. She remembered all the places she saw, the turquoise water at Milokopi Beach, the white-and-blue walls of the villa courtyard and its strange nude paintings, the ruins at Corinth with her standing in front of the Temple of Apollo.

  Nova.

  Three years old. Four, five, six. That smile.

  And then she saw her parents. Her mother’s face appeared. Her mother, with the ebony hair and fiery green eyes she’d passed down to Nova. As she saw her mother’s face again, she also heard her mother calling her name in that sweet, musical tone she remembered.

  “Nova! Nova, my love, come inside!”

  Was she really hearing that voice? How was that even possible? It had to be a trick! Or else her brain had begun to do Lennon’s work for him, filling the silence with her own memories. It couldn’t be real! Nothing was real.

  Wasn’t the song telling her that?

  But whether it was real or a dream, the voice stirred something inside her, an ache deep in her heart. It took her back to places she’d pushed away long ago, places she no longer had the courage to visit.

  Then her father appeared in front of her, too. Her father, a few years older than her mother and so very British. Wavy, curly hair, a little long and unruly. Those thick dark eyebrows, the square chin, the master-of-the-universe smirk as he did his oil and gas deals across Europe. All she’d known as a girl was that her father was a big man, an important man, a rich man, but none of that mattered, because when they were together, he only had eyes for her.

  “There’s my sweet baby.”

  The voice again! His voice! Her father! It couldn’t be real. Sweet baby. No one knew about that other than her. It was her father’s private name for her; he’d only used it when they were alone.

  Was she torturing herself?

  “Lennon,” she shouted again. This time she added in despair, unable to hold back: “Stop.”

  He didn’t stop.

  She knew what was coming next. The innocent pictures of her childhood disappeared, and now she saw the photos on the yacht, grotesquely flashing in front of her along with the drums of “Strawberry Fields Forever.” The photos of the bodies lying on the deck in their blood. Her mother’s lifeless open eyes staring at her as she hid under the bed. Her father’s body, facedown in a crimson pool that spread across the floor and soaked her clothes.

  “Stop!” she cried again.

  There were photos of Nova immediately after the murders, when the smile was gone forever. Forever—just like the song said. Her eyes then had a numb, dazed look, every emotion deadened. Her mouth was shut. Mute. She didn’t say a word for months. The police, the doctors, the nurses, the psychiatrists, they would talk to her and ask her questions and tell her everything was going to be fine, and she didn’t say a word to any of them. She didn’t speak again until six months later, when a waiter in London brought her kataifi, which was her favorite dessert. She pushed the plate to the floor and announced, “I will never eat this again.”

  And she hadn’t.

  Each time the song ended, the room went dark. Then it started all over again. The photos all came back, one after another. The music began to go faster; the photos appeared and disappeared on the wall like a strobe going on and off. Soon the music went so fast it sounded like mice singing the words, and somehow the sheer speed of it, the comic caricature of the Beatles, made it all worse.

  She couldn’t look away, and she couldn’t cry. She struggled against the bonds that held her, but she was frozen in place on the wall. She was forced to relive it over and over. She just murmured, “Stop,” but she couldn’t even hear herself.

  Finally, after an interminable number of repetitions, the music shut off. The photos vanished, and the darkness lingered. Silence filled the room. She could still feel the pace of her heartbeat like a rocket. She’d wanted a reprieve, but now the very absence of the torture scared her, because she didn’t know what came next.

  Then a voice whispered in her ear. Hot breath. It was so unexpected and close she couldn’t help but scream. He was right next to her, and she hadn’t even heard him enter the room.

  “Look at that girl,” he murmured.

  The first photograph reappeared on the wall. One picture. Nova on the beach.

  “Look at that lovely, innocent girl,” Lennon said again.

  Nova had no choice but to look. The image of herself stared back, but t
hat child was a stranger to her. That child was long gone. That child had been killed.

  Lennon came in front of her. They were face-to-face. Enough light glowed from the picture on the wall that she could barely make out his features. He didn’t look the same. Was it another disguise?

  Or was this who he really was?

  His hair seemed curly, blond. She thought his eyes were blue. He was tall, graceful, lean. He had something in his hand. A little white bottle. He brought it close to her eyes and squeezed a drop of liquid under her eyelid with a strange tenderness. Maybe it was a drug, but whatever it was, the moisture helped ease the pain. He repeated it with her other eye. Then he stared at her, just inches away, with a look that was almost erotic.

  “Sweet baby,” he said.

  “Fuck you.”

  His white teeth shined as he smiled at her. “That fire. That’s what I’ve always liked about you. You’re so different from the others who hunt for me. You’ve been a little hobby of mine over the past couple of years. I decided to learn everything I could about your sad story. I figured sooner or later we would end up in a room like this.”

  Her mouth was as dry as dust, but she managed to spit in his face.

  Lennon laughed and wiped his cheek with his sleeve. “Passion. Anger. Nerve. That’s what you have. That’s what I demand of Yoko.”

  “Yoko?” Nova murmured.

  “Yes. Exactly. Some of the others have come close, but no one has ever had the strength to be my equal. But you? You have that special quality I want.”

  “You want me to be the next Yoko?”

  “I do. Together, you and I would be unstoppable.”

  “Do you honestly think I would say yes to that?”

  “Today? Right now? Of course not. No, I’m planting a seed, Nova. Sooner or later, we’ll be together. It’s inevitable, because we fit. What does Jason call you? The dark lady. That’s what you’ve always been. That’s what you want to be. I can make it happen, and no one else can. Your destiny is with me. Eventually, you’ll realize the truth of that.”

  “You’re insane.”

  His face was so close to hers. Their lips were practically touching. His eyes had a strange magnetism. “Maybe so. But so are you. Cruel. Vengeful. Wild. You crossed that bridge when you were a girl, didn’t you?”

  She felt his hands roaming over her body. He wore thin linen gloves that had a vibrating touch, giving her little electric jolts wherever his fingers went. And soon they were going to intimate places. Her neck. Her breasts. Her hips. Her thighs. Between her legs.

  “I know you’re in love with Jason,” Lennon said, probing and prodding her with a repulsive sensuality. “But he’ll never really love you. He’s stuck inside the identity they created for him. He’ll never be able to break free from that world.”

  “What do you think?” she asked, wishing she could squeeze her legs shut. “That I’ll fall in love with you?”

  “No, I don’t have the ego to believe that. But love means nothing to people like us. Admit it. You and I are so alike. I can satisfy your most extreme desires. The things you never confess to anyone else. The fantasies that keep you awake at night in a hot sweat. That’s the kind of man you really need.”

  She wanted to close her eyes and not stare into his face. “Just tell me what you want. Information? Secrets? Tell me, so I can say no, and then you can kill me. Enough with the games.”

  “I’m not going to kill you, Yoko.”

  “Stop calling me that!”

  “But that’s who you are now.” His voice was teasing and mellow. His fingers kept exploring.

  “What do you want?”

  “I don’t want anything. In fact, the reason you’re here is because of what I can give you.”

  “What’s that?”

  “I can give you your life back. The life that was stolen from you.”

  “How the hell can you do that?”

  “By giving you the power you’ve always craved,” Lennon replied. He pointed at the photograph shining on the wall. “Nova is helpless. Nova is a scared little girl hiding under a bed. But Yoko is strong. Yoko can take the things she wants and owe nothing to anyone. Yoko and Lennon can rule the world.”

  “I’m not helpless.”

  “No?”

  “I’m not,” she snapped.

  “All right. Then walk away. I’ll give you back to Cain, if that’s what you want. All you have to do is answer one question.”

  She tried to understand the game. “What question?”

  He brushed his face next to hers and whispered in her ear. “Where am I going?”

  “What?”

  “You heard me. Tell me where I’m going.”

  “You’re going to kill Kotov,” she replied. “Do you think I don’t know that?”

  Lennon smiled and caressed her with his buzzing electric fingers. “Where am I going?”

  “Stop it.”

  “Do you want to go through it again? The pictures? The music? We can start over. I have plenty of time.”

  “Do whatever you want.”

  “I can do whatever I want to Nova. But not to Yoko. Which are you? Who do you want to be?”

  “I. Am. Nova!”

  He stepped away, backlit by the glow on the wall, his face in shadow. “Tell me where I’m going. It’s simple. You know the answer, so tell me.”

  He removed something from his pocket and pushed a button. On the wall behind him, she saw her parents. On the yacht. Their bodies. Their blood. Their eyes, frozen forever, staring at her under the bed.

  “Where am I going?” he asked.

  “Stop it!”

  “Where am I going? You know where. Tell me where. Say the words, and then you’re free.”

  He pushed another button. The music began again. The lyrics taunted her, which was exactly what he wanted. The truth was in the lyrics. Two little words, that was all she had to say. She knew what he wanted her to say, but it made no sense. What difference would it make to say them?

  Why was he doing this?

  “Where am I going?” he asked again.

  She bit her tongue.

  “You know,” he said. “Say it.”

  “No.”

  The music got louder. And louder. The song ended, and it started again. Two little words. It was such a simple little thing. Nothing was real. Just say the words!

  “Where am I going?”

  “No, no, no!”

  She heard the thump of the beat, and the photos switched on and off with the drums. Death. Blood. Eyes. Death. Blood. Eyes. Again and again. All she could do was stare at the pictures and hear the music singing in her brain. Her body twitched uncontrollably. What had he done to her? What was in the drops he’d given her? She felt every muscle going into spasm, jerking like lightning flooding through her veins. She had no control of anything.

  “Where am I going?

  “Where am I going?

  “Where am I going?

  “Where am I going?”

  She screamed. She had to make it stop. She had to drive the images and the music out of her brain.

  Two words. It meant nothing to say them. It changed nothing at all. Just do it.

  “Strawberry Fields,” she whispered. It didn’t feel like a surrender, but it was. Complete surrender.

  The music stopped instantly. The pictures vanished.

  Out of the total darkness, she heard Lennon’s voice, smug with triumph and satisfaction. She knew he was smiling. “That’s right. That’s absolutely right. That’s where I’m going. And so are you. We’re done now. I don’t need anything else from you. Not yet, but very soon. You need to be ready for what comes next . . . Yoko.”

  35

  The teenager with the hat box arrived at the estate in St. John’s Wood in the midafternoon. He ca
me by taxi with the box in his hands, and as he placed it on the ground outside the wrought-iron gates, armed security descended on him from their positions across the street. They grabbed the boy and muscled him inside the house.

  The box he brought was octagonal, gold with white dots, tied with a matching ribbon and a neat bow on top. A card had been slipped under the ribbon, with a name etched on it in perfect script as if it were a formal wedding gift.

  Jason Bourne.

  When Jason saw it, he knew what was inside. The weight of the box—around ten pounds—gave it away. The fear of it took his breath away.

  Nova.

  He let the guards keep watch on the teenager in the living room. He took the box to the estate’s dark-paneled study and set it in the middle of a felt-covered card table, where it taunted him. Dixon Lewis joined him there, and so did Holly and Sugar. The moment they were inside the room, the dog let out a mournful howl. Even when Holly shushed her, she refused to stop, so Holly had to put her outside.

  “She smells something in there,” Holly said darkly.

  Jason knew what Sugar sensed. Something in the box was human.

  He put his hands on both sides of the hat box lid, but he felt a keen reluctance to open it. He wasn’t sure he could handle it if Nova was dead, if Lennon had inflicted the ultimate cruelty on her body and wanted to brag about it. Inhaling sharply, he removed the lid. Something heavy was inside, obscured by a wrapping of white linen. Carefully, he undid the folds of the fabric, exposing a clear plastic bag.

  Inside the bag, gaping at them from behind the plastic, was Clark Cafferty’s head. His eyes and mouth were both open in the expression of someone who was staring at a nightmare come to life.

  “Son of a bitch,” Jason murmured.

  Holly touched Dixon’s arm with a question, and the CIA agent whispered, “Clark.”

  “There are moments when being unable to see is a blessing,” Holly remarked softly. “Do you think he was alive when it happened?”