The Bourne Deception - By Robert Ludlum & Eric van Lustbader Page 0,69
of knowing it was there, but even he was surprised by its size. Like the corrida, the pen was divided by sunlight and shadow. Dust motes hung in the light in the upper half of the pen, but below was the darkness of the Minotaurs cave. He saw the bull in the shadows, red eyes glittering, black lips flecked with foam. It was staring at him, pawing the ground with massive hooves. Its tail switched back and forth, its massive shoulders were bunched with muscle and sinew. Its head lowered ominously.
And then Scarface was on him. The man, solely intent on Bourne, was as yet unaware of the creature with which they shared the pen. The three skulls, each peering in a different direction, filled Bournes vision. He brought an elbow up, aiming for the throat, slammed it into Scarfaces chin instead as the killer partially deflected the blow. At almost the same time Scarface smashed his fist into the side of Bournes head, bringing him down to the packed-dirt floor. Rolling over, he grabbed Bournes ears, pulled Bournes head off the ground, then slammed it back down.
Bourne was rapidly losing consciousness. Scarface was astride him, his bulk painfully pressed down on Bournes rib cage. There was a moment when Scarface grinned. He slammed Bournes head down again and again, taking increasing pleasure.
Bourne thought, Wheres his knife?
He felt around on the floor with both hands, but there were flashes behind his eyes, the light and dark of the room were spinning, merging into a pinwheel of silver sparks. He felt his breath laboring, his heart hammering in his chest, but as his head was once again slammed into the dirt even these vital sensations began to slip away, replaced by a numbing warmth that flooded inward from his extremities. This warmth was soothing, taking away all pain, all effort, all will. He saw himself floating on a river of white light, moving away from his world of shadows and darkness.
And then something cold intruded and for a moment he was certain it was the breath of Shiva, the destroyer, whose face he sensed hovering over him. Then he knew the blade of cold for what it was. Taking hold of the knifes hilt brought him back from the brink, and he plunged the blade into Scarfaces side, piercing the flesh between his ribs, skewering his heart.
Scarface reared up, his shoulders trembling, but perhaps, Bourne thought, they werent trembling at all, because his head was still spinning from the pounding it had taken. He had trouble focusing. How else to explain Scarfaces head being replaced by that of a bull? This wasnt Crete, he wasnt in the Minotaurs cave. He was in Seville, at the Maestranza corrida.
Then full consciousness returned and, with it, the knowledge of precisely where in the corrida he was.
The pen!
And as he looked up from his prone position he saw the bull, huge and menacing, its head lowered, its razor-tipped horns angled to disembowel him.
Undersecretary Stevenson did not look at all well when Moira and Veronica Hart found him, but then no one looks particularly good stretched out on a slab in the cold room of the DC morgue. The two women had been searching the area surrounding the Fountain of the Court of Neptune sculpture near the entrance to the Library of Congress. As fieldwork protocol dictated, they began at the point of originin this case, the fountainand began moving outward in a spiral, hoping to spot some clue that Stevenson might have left as to what had happened to him.
Moira had already called Stevensons wife and married daughter, neither of whom had seen or heard from him. She had just looked up the number of Humphry Bamber, Stevensons friend and old college roommate, when Hart got the call that a corpse fitting the undersecretarys description had just been brought into the morgue. The Metro police wanted a positive ID. The DCI had turned to Moira, who said shed give the prelim. If it was Stevenson, the cops could call his wife to make the formal ID.
He looks like shit, Hart said now as they stood over the cadaver of the late Steve Stevenson. What happened to him? she asked the associate ME.
Hit-and-run. C1 to C4 of his spine crushed, as well as most of his pelvis, so the vehicle mustve been something big: an SUV or a truck. The AME was a small, compact woman with an enormous coppery halo of wild curls. He never