Robert Ludlum's the Bourne Evolution - Brian Freeman Page 0,20
want to come with me, I can drop you anywhere you want.”
“Nah. If I don’t stay with him, he’ll probably get eaten by a bear.”
“Well, thanks for your help,” Jason told her.
Amie patted the bulge in her front pocket, where she had the cash from the ATM. “Thank you.”
Bourne got behind the wheel, then rolled down the window. “Why were you so sure I wouldn’t kill you, Amie?”
The girl shrugged. “Dad treats lots of cats.”
“Cats?” he said. “So what?”
“Sometimes you look in a cat’s eyes and know you better not turn your back on them. But with some cats, you realize that no matter how much they growl and hiss at you, that’s not who they really are. I decided you weren’t a mean cat.”
SEVEN
BOURNE left the Audi in an empty parking lot behind the Musée Nationale des Beaux-Arts in Quebec City. He was confident the car wouldn’t be found for a day or more, but he had no intention of going back to it. When the time came, he’d find another way out of town. He left behind all of the phones, too, including his own. He’d used it to call Miles Priest and Scott DeRay, and that meant it could be tracked to him as soon as he powered it on. He’d find a new burner phone along the way.
It was nearly eight o’clock at night. He hiked in the darkness through the old growth trees and shallow hills of the battlefield park known as the Plains of Abraham on his way into the heart of the city. When he reached the downtown streets, the first thing he did was find a cheap hostel near Rue Dauphine, mostly populated by students. He paid cash for a tiny room with not much more than a bed and a shared bathroom down the hall.
As he headed outside, he passed a young couple coming in who smelled of Turkish coffee and marijuana. He told them his phone had died and asked if they’d mind running a quick Google search for him. Ninety seconds and ten dollars later, he had the local address for the online magazine called The Fort.
Editor and publisher, Jacques Varille.
Senior writer, Abbey Laurent.
The magazine office was only a few blocks away, in a gray stone building across from Esplanade Park. The cobblestoned Rue d’Auteuil was deserted, but Jason avoided the street and approached the building via the park, where the trees hid him. He watched the neighborhood, alert for signs of a trap. The windows of the building were all dark, including the top-floor offices where The Fort was housed. The cross streets looked empty, but Jason let the time tick by before he moved. Patience was how he stayed alive. When he was certain that no one was keeping the building under surveillance, he darted across the intersection.
There were windows in the middle of the twin entry doors. Using the butt of his pistol, he broke the glass, reached around the jagged shards, and let himself inside the building. With his gun in his hand, he took the staircase to the top floor, where he found another door labeled with a sign for The Fort. The interior door yielded with a single kick of his boot.
He had a mini penlight in his pocket that cast a weak beam, and he aimed it at the floor, making sure the light didn’t pass close to the windows. The magazine office was small, just a single room with half a dozen desks, a supply closet, a mini kitchen, and a laser printer. Cheap tourist posters of Canadian landscapes adorned the walls. The room smelled of pizza, thanks to a delivery box squeezed into one of the wastebaskets. Bourne went from desk to desk, looking for the one that belonged to Abbey Laurent. He found it at the back, and he knew it because of the photographs she kept. He recognized the attractive woman with mahogany-colored hair. The woman he’d saved from a killer in New York. The woman he’d seen through the lenses of his binoculars in the rain at Dufferin Terrace.
The woman who’d led him into an ambush.
Did she know what was going to happen? Was she part of Medusa? Or was she another one of their innocent pawns?
He picked up another of the framed photographs on her desk, which showed Abbey standing next to a tall, lean man in a gray suit, obviously a few years older than she was. The man had one arm around her waist