Robert Ludlum's the Bourne Evolution - Brian Freeman Page 0,10

Instead, a whistle whined in his ear, and he heard an electronic recording. “Your call cannot be completed as dialed.”

Jason heard a roaring in his head. The wound in his shoulder throbbed.

Had he misdialed? No.

He tried again and got the same message. And again. And again. The number was supposed to be monitored 24/7. Nelly was always supposed to be there to take his call. Instead, the number had been shut down. Taken away from him, taken out of service. He knew what that meant.

The operation had been terminated. He’d been burned.

There was only one other way to get in touch with Carillon. He still had one other person he could reach. Scott DeRay had given him a special private cell phone number that he answered himself day or night. Jason had never used it before, but he dialed the number now.

A man’s voice answered on the first ring, but it wasn’t the voice he expected. The voice belonged to a stranger, not a friend.

“Who is this?” the man asked.

Jason tried to make sense of it. Why was someone else answering this phone?

“I need to talk to Scott,” Jason said.

“You have the wrong number.”

“I know that’s not true!” Bourne insisted. “I know you can reach him. This is his phone. It’s urgent we talk.”

“I can’t help you. You have the wrong number.”

Liar! Jason wanted to shout into the phone. He squeezed his eyes shut and debated how much to say. “Look, I need to talk to Scott right now. Or to Miles Priest. Tell them it’s about … it’s about Medusa.”

There was a long stretch of dead air on the phone.

Then the voice said, “Don’t call this number again.”

The next long silence told Jason that the man had hung up.

The setup that had started in New York was complete. They hadn’t missed a single detail. Jason was a wanted man, cut off from rescue, cut off from his lifelines. Even a friend who went back to his forgotten childhood had set him adrift.

Bourne was on his own.

FOUR

THE screams of the gulls kept Jason company as he hiked along a rocky beach toward the streets of Saint-Jean-sur-Mer. The April air was crisp and cool. He wore a blue wool hat pulled down over his forehead and a pair of sunglasses supplied by Monsieur Bernard. His clothes were clean now, no evidence of bloodstains, and he’d showered, shaved, and replaced the dressings on his wounds. He looked like any other early-season visitor taking a holiday in the small tourist village.

People came to Saint-Jean-sur-Mer because of the river. They sailed, they fished, they ate lobster rolls in the seaside cafés. Art galleries and bakeries hugged the north-south highway that followed the water. The houses all had the same peaked roofs, white siding, and cherry-red trim. Without the French signs, he could have pictured himself in Cape Cod. Only a few hundred people lived here, and most of them could trace their family roots to this same place for generations.

Jason dug in his pocket to check how much money he had left. He’d paid the doctor and his daughter and Monsieur Bernard, and now he only had a couple hundred Canadian dollars in cash. Somewhere he’d need to get more. He was certain that the bank account that Scott DeRay and Miles Priest had set up for him was shut down, with special instructions to delay the man who came to the bank looking to withdraw funds.

A message would be sent. Killers would be dispatched.

He felt something else in his pocket. When he pulled it out, he saw a plastic, electronic hotel key for his room in New York, overlooking Washington Square Park. That was the room where the shooter had set up a rifle while Jason was in the crowd below. That was the room where the fatal shot on Sofia Ortiz had been taken from an open window.

A bullet in the throat. The signature of Cain.

He broke the key in half and divided the pieces among two separate waste bins he found outside the sidewalk shops.

Jason realized he was hungry. It had been more than twenty-four hours since he’d eaten anything at all. He chose a brasserie that served fish and chips and fish soup, with windows that looked out on the bay. It was a one-room restaurant, and all the tables had plastic tablecloths decorated with pictures of vegetables and flowers. Ropes, fishnets, and life preservers hung on the walls as decorations. He sat at an empty table in the corner,