Robert Ludlum's the Bourne Evolution - Brian Freeman Page 0,140
someone to believe a lie, cover it up like a secret you’re desperate to keep.
Treadstone.
Scott struggled to fight back. He lifted a hand to reach into the pocket of his suit, where Bourne knew he kept a gun, but then his hand fell back to the bench and lay limply at his side. He had no strength. Even his voice sounded like an effort.
“What’s the poison, Jason?” he asked. “Tetrodotoxin?”
“The symptoms fit,” Bourne agreed. “Given how quickly it’s working, I imagine it was a massive dose. You only have a few minutes left.”
“Are you saying you didn’t do this?” Scott asked.
Bourne watched the families playing in the park. Children ate ice cream cones. Lovers kissed. No one noticed the man dying on the bench in front of them. “No. Sorry, Scott, that wasn’t me.”
“Who?”
“You chose the wrong enemy,” Bourne told him. “One of the CEOs that your team murdered in the Caribbean was Hon Xiu-Le from Shanghai. He wasn’t among the bodies, so we didn’t know where he was at first. Apparently, Miss Shirley tied him up in one of the Jeeps before she blew it up. Treadstone found what was left of him and was able to confirm his identity. Definitely a mistake. Hon had a lot of friends high up in the Chinese government. You don’t make that kind of money over there unless you’re connected to the party circle. They were very upset to find out that he’d been killed. When I called one of my counterparts in Beijing, he was extremely interested to learn that you were the one behind Hon’s death. They were happy to work with us.”
Scott closed his eyes. “The old Chinese tourist outside the park.”
“Yes, he was good. I was watching for it, and I still didn’t spot him giving you the injection. I’ve been following you for a couple of weeks now. Actually, Nash and I were getting nervous that the Chinese might go after you before you had a chance to lead us to whoever was funding Medusa. They told us they’d wait, but we weren’t sure how long. But then you arranged the meeting with Fyodor this morning, so we gave them the green light. By the way, Fyodor is with Nash now. Telling him everything. Medusa is done, Scott. It’s over.”
Scott opened his eyes and spat the words at Bourne as he struggled for breath. “I could have killed you any time I wanted, Jason. I let you live because we were friends.”
“You let me live because you could manipulate me. That’s all.”
Bourne dug into the back pocket of his slacks and pulled out a worn, wrinkled photograph. The picture showed two boys on an anonymous beach, with the whitecaps of the Atlantic behind them. They couldn’t be more than eleven years old, both in baggy swim trunks. The boys had their arms around each other’s shoulders and big grins on their faces. Looking at them, he found it hard to see himself in the taller boy on the left or Scott in the boy on the right. It had been another lifetime for both of them. They’d grown into completely different people.
“We stopped being friends years ago,” Bourne said, dropping the photograph into the man’s lap. He had no use for it anymore. “Goodbye, Scott.”
He stood up from the bench, but Scott grabbed his wrist in a weak grip. “Wait.”
Jason stared down at him and said nothing.
“You’re not just killing me,” Scott told him, as if it were a curse. “When I die, you die, too. Your whole childhood. Who you really were. Your past will be gone forever. I’m the only one who remembers it.”
Bourne shook his head. “You’re wrong about that. I have no past.”
He slipped sunglasses over his face and walked away into the park.
*
IT was June 1 in Quebec City. Ten o’clock at night.
Darkness shrouded the boardwalk below the Château Frontenac. Abbey checked her watch to be sure of the time. It was the early summer season, and dozens of people strolled in and out of shadows in the glow of the fairy lights. A cool breeze blew across the cliff top, and the St. Lawrence River made a black ribbon between the hills below her. Her mind was tense with anticipation. She leaned on the railing under the gazebo canopy, in the exact place where she’d waited for a mystery man two months earlier.
A man who’d never appeared.
This time I will, Jason had promised her. If I’m alive, I will.