squeezing him from both directions.
Jason backed up the steps, then turned and ran toward the house. He ignored the pain. He ignored the dizziness. The young cop was still unconscious in the mud, and he jumped over him on his way toward the highway. He had to get away now! In less than a minute, the road would be shut down in both directions by men with guns. He ran past the house and down the dirt driveway to Route 132, where he put up a hand to stop an Audi sedan that was barreling toward him in the southbound lane.
The Audi’s brakes squealed as the car jammed to a stop. There were two people in the front seat, a man and a woman. He heard the driver swearing at him.
Bourne ran to the car’s back door and threw it open and pointed the cop’s gun at the man’s head.
“Drive.”
The man behind the wheel was a bearded fifty-something businessman in a navy sport coat and open-collared dress shirt. He had a blond woman in the seat next to him who was less than half his age. The anger in the man’s face bled away as he saw the gun, and his eyes widened with terror. “Oh shit, oh shit, just take the car. Take the car!”
“Drive,” Bourne repeated, pulling the back door shut and stretching along the floor of the car. “I’ve got a gun pointed at your spine through the seat. You stop for anything, I fire, and you’re paralyzed. Got it? Now go.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever you say.”
Jason heard the wheels screeching as the car accelerated.
“Don’t speed!” he directed the man. “Don’t draw any attention to yourself. There may be men with rifles heading toward the highway from the beach. Ignore them. If you do anything to signal them, you’re both dead.”
“Okay! I’m driving! Don’t hurt us! Where do you want to go?”
“Just keep heading south,” Bourne said, closing his eyes and applying pressure to the bloody wound on his shoulder. “As soon as I figure out where I’m going, I’ll tell you.”
FIVE
ABBEY knew that the policeman didn’t believe her story. There was no evidence left in Artillery Park of her encounter with the man in the gold-rimmed glasses. He was gone. Her Taser was gone. There were no witnesses.
The police officer had the look of a butler at a royal palace. He was in his thirties but oozed the kind of pompous condescension that most men take at least fifty years to perfect. He was slim and tall, with brown hair parted in the middle and greased down, and he sported a pencil mustache that he kept combing with the tip of his finger. He had prominent cheekbones and ears that jutted from the side of his head.
“You didn’t know this man?” the cop said with obvious skepticism. “You’d never seen him before?”
“No, but he knew me. He was waiting outside the bar. He called me by name.”
“Could he have seen you while you were inside?”
“I suppose. I didn’t see him, but it’s possible.”
“Did you have a lot to drink last night?” the police officer asked, staring down his nose at her.
“I had one beer. What does that have to do with anything?”
“Hmm,” the cop said, working his mouth as if he were chewing something unpleasant. “And you say this man pulled a gun on you?”
“That’s right. He was going to kill me.”
“How do you know that?”
“Well, the gun was my first clue,” Abbey snapped.
She shifted impatiently on her feet and looked around the park to see if anyone was watching her. It crossed her mind that maybe she was being followed; maybe she’d been followed for days, ever since New York. She felt tired, angry, and paranoid. It had been a bad night. She hadn’t felt safe going back to her apartment, so she’d crashed on a girlfriend’s couch and made up an excuse about ducking an old boyfriend. She’d hardly slept at all. And then, in the morning, she’d debated whether to report what had happened. Her editor, Jacques, had finally prevailed on her to call the police, but now she was regretting her decision.
“Did this man want something from you?” the police officer went on. “Did he ask for money? Or do you think he was planning a sexual assault?”
“I think he was just planning to shoot me.”
“Did the two of you argue? Was he angry?”
“No, he wasn’t angry. He never showed any emotion at all. This guy was an assassin. He met me in