Robert Ludlum's the Bourne Evolution - Brian Freeman Page 0,135
of killing you.”
“Do you believe her?”
“Honestly, I don’t know what to believe anymore.”
“Then I guess you have a choice to make,” Bourne said.
Rollins sighed loudly and sat down on top of one of the gravestones. He propped his chin on the end of his cane. “You and I go way back, Jason.”
“Yes, we do.”
“You were always one of my best men. I work with a lot of agents who are smart and tough, but you had something more. Somehow you managed to hang on to your soul long after the rest of us had lost ours. I respected that. But ever since what you went through, ever since the memory loss, I’ve had my doubts. Damaged men are a liability in our business.”
“We’re all damaged,” Bourne said.
“Maybe so. Maybe you’re right about that. I’ve sure as hell made my share of mistakes. The fact is, I was willing to believe the worst about you. I was absolutely certain you’d turned. What happened in New York just confirmed what I already believed. You needed to go, Jason. You needed to be taken out. I was willing to pull the trigger myself, regardless of our history.”
“Well, here I am. If that’s what you think, pull the trigger.”
Rollins let out a humorless laugh and shoved his gun back in its holster. “I was wrong about all of it, wasn’t I? Every last thing.”
“Yes.”
“Ortiz? Benoit? It wasn’t you. It was that monster at the bottom of the cliff who killed them.”
“And Nova, too,” Bourne said.
“Christ. I’m sorry, Jason. Truly.”
“Don’t blame yourself, Nash. You made a judgment based on the evidence you had. The evidence Medusa wanted you to see. Anyone looking at who I was, at what I’d done, would have come to the same conclusion. I didn’t give you any reason to doubt yourself.”
“Well, I’ve never been troubled by self-doubt,” Rollins replied. “I always thought it was a sign of weakness.”
“Since I lost my memory, I’m never without it.”
Rollins’s mouth wrinkled into a frown. “We still have a problem, you know. We haven’t stopped Medusa. You dealt them a blow, but it’s not fatal. Taking out the black widow leaves a lot of other spiders behind.”
“Except we know who’s spinning the web.”
“Oh?”
“Scott DeRay,” Bourne said. “Medusa was his brainchild from the very beginning.”
Rollins whistled with surprise. “Seriously? You two were close. He was willing to set you up?”
“I made it easy for him.”
The Treadstone agent shook his head. “Unfortunately, knowing that doesn’t change anything, Jason. Even if you’re right, we can’t simply make a move against him. Scott has Medusa spies in place throughout the government. They’ll cover for him if we try to do anything without evidence. No one will believe your story.”
“A mentally deranged ex-agent suspected of shooting a congresswoman? No. They won’t.”
“Plus, Scott will never tip his hand if he knows you’re still alive. As long as he thinks you’re out there hunting him, he’ll keep operating in the background, and we’ll never be able to expose him or the network.”
“You’re right.”
“I want to roll all of these bastards up, Jason, but right now, the biggest thing standing in the way of that is you.”
Bourne didn’t say anything at first, because everything Nash said was true. Scott needed to feel safe if they were going to take him down. He needed to believe that Cain was no longer a threat. It was the same lesson that Scott had quoted to him earlier.
When your enemy thinks he’s winning, he’s at his most vulnerable.
Treadstone.
“In that case, you know what you have to do,” Bourne told him. “It’s why you came here in the first place.”
“What’s that?” Rollins asked.
“You have to kill me.”
DISAPPEARANCE OF CARILLON CEO EXPOSES A WIDE-RANGING CONSPIRACY
May 3, 2020
WASHINGTON (AP)
In the wake of the disappearance of former FBI director and Carillon CEO Miles Priest, federal officials are releasing details for the first time about a shadowy anarchist organization in which Priest is believed to have been involved.
Known by the nickname Medusa, the organization has operated in secrecy for several years, using technology and violence to foment divisions along political and cultural lines. Medusa is suspected of playing a role in the recent assassination of Congresswoman Sofia Ortiz and in the murders of several chief executives of worldwide technology companies on a private Caribbean island owned by Priest.
Long considered one of the most influential leaders in the technology community, Priest is now described by officials in the Department of Justice as the mastermind of Medusa and the architect of a strategy