Robert Ludlum's the Bourne Evolution - Brian Freeman Page 0,112

at Prince George Wharf.

The warm late-afternoon sun beat down on his face. He wore a dirty green tank top and loose-fitting cargo shorts, along with a fraying baseball cap, sneakers, and no socks. He hadn’t shaved. He’d swapped his leather duffel for an old canvas bag with a shoulder strap. With that look, he blended in as just another Nassau beach bum, one of those urban escapees who’d traded in the nine-to-five world for a downscale island life.

Halfway down the pier, he found what he was looking for, a thirty-foot catamaran with smoked black windows on its bridge and the name Irish Whiskey painted along its gleaming-white hull. The owner kept it in pristine shape. The flat boat deck was empty, but someone had been stretched out in the sun recently, leaving behind a half-full pink drink in a hurricane glass and a rippled Tom Clancy paperback that had obviously spent time in the water.

Bourne stepped from the pier onto the boat, feeling it rock under his feet. He didn’t announce himself, because if he was in the right place, the owner already knew he was here. He’d talked to half a dozen locals as he tracked down the man on the catamaran, and he was sure that the man’s spies had warned him that a stranger was coming his way.

Except Bourne wasn’t a stranger.

He dropped his bag on the deck and made his way to the glass door leading to the boat’s interior. He opened it, stepped inside, and immediately felt the barrel of a gun pushed against the back of his head.

“Cain,” the boat’s owner said cheerfully.

“Hello, Teeling.”

“I’d say you were getting sloppy, because you made it so easy for me to spot you. But you’re never sloppy, are you? That means you wanted me to know you were coming. Presumably, that means you want me to think you’re not a threat.”

“You’re right. I just want to talk. I’m not a threat.”

“Well, that’s where you’re wrong, because the Jason Bourne I know is always a threat.”

“My gun’s in my bag outside,” Bourne told him. “Otherwise, I’m unarmed.”

“How’d you find me?”

“You’re not as anonymous as you think you are, Teeling. Director Shaw made sure we kept an eye on you after you left. I heard you hopscotched around South America for a couple of years, then landed here. Retirement suits you.”

The man grunted. “Seriously? And all this time, I figured if Treadstone ever found me, they’d kill me. Or if they didn’t, then the commies would.”

Teeling pulled the gun from Bourne’s head and gestured toward a white leather sofa that stretched below the boat’s slanted windows. The floors and cabinets in the interior were all varnished oak. Bourne sat down, and Teeling went over to the boat’s mirrored wet bar and grabbed a bottle of his namesake whiskey. He held up a glass. “You want a shot?”

“No, thanks.”

The agent poured one for himself, then sat down at a safe distance. He was well into his seventies, but Bourne wasn’t about to underestimate the threat posed by any Treadstone man, and Teeling had been one of the best. They’d only overlapped by a year before Teeling left the agency, but the stories of the man’s operations in Russia in the post-Gorbachev era were legendary.

Teeling was around five feet ten, and he’d maintained a strong build. He wore no shirt, exposing a deep tan interrupted by multiple scars. His turquoise swimsuit came down to his bony knees. He had long gray hair that hung to his shoulders, but his bushy mustache and eyebrows were still mostly black. He had a wrinkled face, with dark eyes that were sharp and bright. He kept his gun loosely in his fingers, pointed at the floor.

“You’re a hot commodity these days, Cain,” Teeling told him.

“Oh?”

“Yeah, I’ve been reading about you in the news.”

“Don’t believe everything you read. I didn’t shoot the congresswoman.”

“Well, I assumed the stories were bullshit, but I was wondering what was up. The fact that you’re here makes me think you’d rather I didn’t pick up the phone and call any of our old colleagues.”

“You’re right.”

“Okay. So what do you want from me? No offense, Bourne, but I’m out, and I like being out. I’ve got money in the bank, a few good spots on the water for yellowtail and snapper, and a couple of local girls who think gray hair is sexy. I’d rather not mess any of that up.”

The man made it sound as if he’d left the intelligence world