The Bourne Deception - By Robert Ludlum & Eric van Lustbader Page 0,12

blown backward off the motorbike. Moira screamed.

Throwing aside the rifle and drawing a wicked-looking hunting knife with a serrated blade, Arkadin jumped to the ground and raced toward the kill site in order to slit Bourne’s throat and ensure his death. But his progress was impeded by a herd of cows. Following them were women with offerings of fruit and flowers on their heads, and behind them came the town’s children in a ceremonial procession, moving toward the temple. Arkadin tried to get around them, but one of the cows, disturbed by his frantic movements, turned in his direction. It shook its long, sharp horns and at once the procession froze as if in midstep. Heads turned and all eyes were on him, and with one last look at Bourne’s bloody body, he vanished back into the jungle.

The celebrants rushed toward Bourne, spilling their offerings across the sparse grass where he lay on his back in the dirt. He tried to get up, failed. Moira knelt over him, and he pulled her down so her ear was against his mouth. Blood had soaked the front of his shirt, and now trickled darkly into the earth.

Book One

1

Three Months Later

IN AN UPPER-CLASS SUBURB of Munich, two young bodyguards with gimlet eyes and holstered 9mm Glocks in their armpits flanked a thin, hyperactive man as he emerged from a house. An older man with dark skin and grave lines reaching down from either corner of his mouth, like mustaches, emerged from the shadowed refuge to briefly shake the hyperactive man’s hand. Then the three men trotted down the stairs and entered a waiting car: one of the bodyguards riding shotgun, the other one with the hyperactive man in back. The meeting had been intense but brief, and the engine was already running, purring like a well-fed cat. His mind was filled with how he was going to structure the debriefing he would give his boss, Abdulla Khoury, on the rapidly changing face of the Turkish situation as it had just been outlined to him.

The newborn morning lay drowsing, barely awake, and utterly silent. The trees, well manicured and leafy, dappled the sidewalks in inky shade. The air was soft and cool, as yet innocent of the harsh sun that would turn the sky white in a few hours’ time. The early hour had been deliberately chosen. As expected, there was no traffic to speak of, just a young boy at the far end of the block teaching himself to ride a bicycle. A sanitation truck lumbered around the corner at the opposite end of the block, its huge brushes beginning to spin whatever dirt there might be on the nearly immaculate street into the truck’s belly. Again, the sight was utterly normal; the residents of this neighborhood all had pull with the municipal government, and they were proud of the fact that their streets were always the first to be cleaned each day.

As the car gathered speed, making its way down the street, the huge truck turned so that it was sideways to the oncoming vehicle, blocking the road. Without an instant’s hesitation the car’s driver threw the vehicle into reverse and stepped on the gas. With a screech of tires the car shot backward, away from the truck. At the sound, the boy looked up. He was standing, straddling the bike, appearing to get his wind back. But at the last moment, as the oncoming car neared him, he reached into the bike’s wicker basket and drew out an odd-looking weapon with an unnaturally long barrel. The rocket-launched grenade shattered the car’s rear window and the car burst apart in an oily orange-and-black fireball. By this time the boy, hunched over the handlebars of his bike, was pedaling expertly away, a satisfied smile on his face.

Just past noon that same day, Leonid Arkadin was sitting in a Munich beer hall surrounded by oompah music and drunken Germans when his cell phone buzzed. Recognizing the caller’s phone number, he walked out into the street, where it was slightly less noisy, and grunted a wordless greeting.

“Like the others, your latest attempt to destroy the Eastern Brotherhood has failed.” Abdulla Khoury’s ugly voice buzzed in his ear like an angry wasp. “You killed my finance minister this morning, that’s all. I’ve already appointed another.”

“You misunderstand me, I don’t mean to destroy the Eastern Brotherhood,” Arkadin said. “I mean to take it over.”

The response was a harsh laugh devoid of all humor, or even human emotion.