The Treadstone Resurrection
Page 1
THE BOURNE SERIES
Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Nemesis (by Eric Van Lustbader)
Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Initiative (by Eric Van Lustbader)
Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Enigma (by Eric Van Lustbader)
Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Ascendancy (by Eric Van Lustbader)
Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Retribution (by Eric Van Lustbader)
Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Imperative (by Eric Van Lustbader)
Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Dominion (by Eric Van Lustbader)
Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Objective (by Eric Van Lustbader)
Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Deception (by Eric Van Lustbader)
Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Sanction (by Eric Van Lustbader)
Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Betrayal (by Eric Van Lustbader)
Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Legacy (by Eric Van Lustbader)
The Bourne Ultimatum
The Bourne Supremacy
The Bourne Identity
THE COVERT-ONE SERIES
Robert Ludlum’s The Patriot Attack (by Kyle Mills)
Robert Ludlum’s The Geneva Strategy (by Jamie Freveletti)
Robert Ludlum’s The Utopia Experiment (by Kyle Mills)
Robert Ludlum’s The Janus Reprisal (by Jamie Freveletti)
Robert Ludlum’s The Ares Decision (by Kyle Mills)
Robert Ludlum’s The Arctic Event (by James H. Cobb)
Robert Ludlum’s The Moscow Vector (with Patrick Larkin)
Robert Ludlum’s The Lazarus Vendetta (with Patrick Larkin)
Robert Ludlum’s The Altman Code (with Gayle Lynds)
Robert Ludlum’s The Paris Option (with Gayle Lynds)
Robert Ludlum’s The Cassandra Compact (with Phillip Shelby)
Robert Ludlum’s The Hades Factor (with Gayle Lynds)
THE JANSON SERIES
The Janson Directive
Robert Ludlum’s The Janson Equation (by Douglas Corleone)
Robert Ludlum’s The Janson Option (by Paul Garrison)
Robert Ludlum’s The Janson Command (by Paul Garrison)
ALSO BY ROBERT LUDLUM
The Bancroft Strategy
The Ambler Warning
The Tristan Betrayal
The Sigma Protocol
The Prometheus Deception
The Matarese Countdown
The Apocalypse Watch
The Scorpio Illusion
The Road to Omaha
The Icarus Agenda
The Aquitaine Progression
The Parsifal Mosaic
The Matarese Circle
The Holcroft Covenant
The Chancellor Manuscript
The Gemini Contenders
The Road to Gandolfo
The Rhinemann Exchange
The Cry of the Halidon
Trevayne
The Matlock Paper
The Osterman Weekend
The Scarlatti Inheritance
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Copyright © 2019 by Myn Pyn LLC
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Hood, Joshua, author.
Title: Robert Ludlum’s the Treadstone resurrection / Joshua Hood.
Other titles: Treadstone resurrection
Description: New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 2020.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019036505 (print) | LCCN 2019036506 (ebook) | ISBN 9780525542551 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780525542568 (ebook)
Subjects: GSAFD: Adventure fiction. | Suspense fiction.
Classification: LCC PS3608.O5574 R63 2020 (print) | LCC PS3608.O5574 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019036505
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019036506
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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CONTENTS
Also by Robert Ludlum
Title Page
Copyright
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Epilogue
About the Authors
PROLOGUE
BUENA VISTA, VENEZUELA
Nick Ford sat in the back of the filthy pickup, his body racked with fever, pain radiating from the bullet hole in his leg. He was exhausted, and his body screamed for sleep. But every time he closed his eyes, he found himself back in the jungle.
Caught in the kill zone. Machine guns chattering from the shadows, the caustic fog of fresh gunpowder, and the screams of his dying teammates.
Dead. All of them.
Ford still couldn’t wrap his mind around what had happened. How he’d managed to lose an entire team on what was supposed to be an easy recon. There was only one answer that made any sense.
We were be
trayed.
The truck rattled to a halt and Ford pulled himself to his feet and climbed down to the muddy street. He limped to the driver’s-side window, tugged a sweaty wad of bills from his pocket, and passed them to the man behind the wheel.
“No, no, señor,” the man protested, “I can’t take that, not after—”
Ford was quick to cut him off. “José, you take this,” he said, shoving the cash into the man’s callused hand. “You take this and get your family the hell out of here.”
“Gracias, Señor Ford. I wish—”
“José, you need to go, before it’s too late.”
“Vaya con dios.” He nodded before shoving the truck into gear and pulling away in a cloud of exhaust.
Ford stood on the street and considered his options. He knew SEBIN—the dreaded Bolivarian National Intelligence Service—was looking for him, and he knew what they would do when they found him. There was a part of Ford that wished they’d hurry up and find him. Put a bullet in his head and get it over with.
There will be time for that later, he told himself. Right now, you have a job to do.
Ford hobbled across the street. The pain was unbearable. Each step more painful than the last, but he forced himself to keep moving. March or die, he ordered himself. Just put one foot in front of the other.
By the time he made it to the alley that smelled of piss and rotted garbage his shirt was soaked with sweat. He fell against the stone wall. Dug the bottle of Percocet from the pocket of the jeans José had gotten for him and thumbed the cap free.
The bottle had been full on Monday; now there were only two pills remaining. Enough to get him through the night. After that, Ford knew it wouldn’t matter.
This had always been a one-way trip.
He shook the Percs into his mouth and dry-swallowed. The pills left a bitter taste in the back of his throat, and then he was moving again. Down the alley, heading north, toward the faded white sign perched atop the Hotel Bolívar.
The Bolívar was an ugly pillbox of a building, with pallid stucco walls and sagging razor wire. It was not the kind of hotel you found on TripAdvisor, but Ford trusted the owner, which made it the safest place in the city.
By the time he staggered into the dingy lobby, the pills had kicked in and muted the pain in his leg to a dull roar.
“Señor Ford,” Miguel greeted him in broken English. The smile on his face crumbled when he saw Ford’s condition, and he came around the desk. “You look like the shit. Should I call for the doctor?”
“No.” Ford winced. “Just a room—and a bottle.” He leaned against the counter and dug the last of his cash from his pocket, slapping it on the scarred surface. The effort left him out of breath.
“Of course.” Miguel nodded.
He retrieved a bottle of Santa Teresa rum from the shelf and a key from the wallboard, and placed them both on the counter.
“Thank you, my friend,” Ford said.
He took the stairs to the second floor, unlocked the door, and stepped inside.
The room reminded him of the shitty double-wide where he’d grown up: same cigarette-scarred table, yellowed blinds, and musty beer-cooler smell. Ford closed the door behind him and set his assault pack on a chair.
He cracked the rum and took a deep pull from the bottle. The liquor burned the back of his throat and settled hot into his gut. Properly fortified for the job ahead, he unzipped the pack and spread its contents on the table: a laptop, two shim cameras, a dirt-encrusted camera, and an M18 Claymore mine.
The rumble in his stomach reminded him that he hadn’t eaten in nine hours, and he retrieved a can of pineapple that he’d picked up in a market outside of El Nula. He popped the ring and carefully peeled the lid free.
Three years ago when he first came to Venezuela the fruit would have cost him four dollars. But with the economy in free fall and the country gripped in hyperinflation, it cost three times that amount in Caracas.
Money. That’s what all of this was about, he thought, spearing the fruit with his knife and placing it in his mouth before picking up the shim cams and stepping out into the hall.
The shim cams were a holdover from his time in Special Forces. Each camera was the size of a tube of ChapStick, with a lens on one end and a flat tail on the other. They were old tech—massive compared to the micro–surveillance cameras on the market today. But Ford trusted them, and like the name implied, they could be emplaced anywhere.
He wedged the first camera into a crack at the end of the hall and angled the lens so it covered the stairwell leading up from the lobby. He used a strip of tape to stick the second camera to the top of the flickering Coke machine and pointed the lens at his door.
Back inside the room, he tried to pull the bed against the door, but when he tugged on the box spring, the bed refused to move. He pulled harder, and when it still didn’t budge, Ford dropped to his knees.
When did Miguel start bolting the beds to the floor?
Ford knew it didn’t matter and got to his feet. He retrieved a plastic wedge from his assault pack, remembering the words of the man who’d trained him: “Ford, always remember, one is none, and two is one.”
Hayes, still saving my sorry ass, he thought, kicking the wedge under the frame and returning to the assault pack for a roll of hundred-mile-an-hour tape, the military’s version of duct tape, and the Claymore.
He used the tape to secure the Claymore mine to the headrest of the chair, and once he was sure that it would hold, he dragged the chair across the room and checked the angle. When he was sure that it was out of the door’s path, Ford screwed the blasting cap into the mine, plugged the free end of the firing wire into the detonator, and carried it into the bathroom.
Ford set the detonator on the toilet and turned on the faucet.
He splashed water over his face, his mind turning to the café outside of Bogotá and the last time he saw Hayes.
* * *
—
“Nick, I’m leaving.”
“Leaving?” Ford laughed. “Where the hell you going?”
“No, I’m leaving Treadstone. I’m done.”
“Done?” Ford frowned. “What do you mean, ‘done’?”
“I’m out. Finished.”
“Can you do that? I mean, are they going to let you . . . ?”
The change in the man’s expression was instantaneous. His face went flat, eyes hard and pregnant with the threat of violence.
It was a look Ford had seen many times before—one that usually ended with someone bleeding out on the floor—and despite himself, Ford took an involuntary step back.
The two men had first met in Special Forces and had forged a tight bond during multiple deployments. They were on the same team in Afghanistan when the CIA plucked them from their firebase and sent them to Treadstone.
But it was the fact that they remained close after the government-sanctioned mind job that was supposed to have ripped them down to the studs—robbed them of the ability to maintain any relationships outside of the missions assigned to them—that surprised the docs at Treadstone. The whole point of the program was to create unstoppable independent operatives.
“No one is letting me do shit,” Hayes snapped, his legendary temper on full display.
“Easy, brother, I didn’t mean any harm,” Ford said, holding up his hands.
Hayes’s face softened and a hint of a smile appeared at the corner of his lips.
“This isn’t about you, bro. This is for me.”
Something had happened to Hayes on his last mission, and while Ford didn’t know the details, he knew that it had changed him.
“But I think you should do the same.”
“Man, I don’t know how to do anything else,” Ford said.
“If you ever need anything, all you have to do is ask,” Hayes said, and then he was gone.
* * *
—
Ford turned the water off and reached for a towel, catching his reflection in the mirror. He was shocked by what he saw.
The three months he’d spent in the Orinoco Delta had taken their toll, and the man looking back at him was thirty-seven going on sixty. Lean and hard, with don’t-fuck-with-me eyes and the half-moon scar that covered half of his neck before disappearing into his shirt.
I should have listened to him.
Back at the table he turned on the monitor connected to the cameras and booted up the computer. He logged on and connected the mobile WiFi to the laptop. Accessed the IP anonymizer and adjusted the settings so it would bounce the laptop’s Internet protocol address to a different server every ninety seconds.
He pulled out the camera that he was using for the recon before the ambush, plugged it into the computer, and, while he waited for the pictures to upload, opened an email and typed the subject.
By the time you get this I’ll be dead
He saw the first photo pop up on the screen and decided they would speak for themselves. Ford was just dragging the images into the body of the email when the computer monitor flashed to life.
“Oh, shit.”
He grabbed the computer and the Glock 19 and rushed into the bathroom. Slamming the door behind him, Ford set the computer on the sink and picked up the detonator. His eyes never left the spinning progress wheel.
C’mon, c’mon, he begged, willing the files to upload faster.
* * *
—
Ten miles to the north, a pair of eighteen-wheelers turned off the road. The lead Peterbilt slowed with a hiss of its air brakes and made a wide turn onto a cracked asphalt road.
Felix Black climbed down from the cab, a loaded H&K 416 slung against his chest. He marched to the rear trailer through the dust kicked up from the gravel lining the abandoned airfield and popped the access door.
The inside of the trailer was packed with blinking monitors, a bank of processors, and a satellite uplink—the price of each setup was more than twice the cost of the Peterbilt and trailer combined.
“Who has the lock?” Black asked, stepping inside.