Robert Ludlum's the Bourne Evolution - Brian Freeman Page 0,54
wine bar with tall windows facing the sidewalk.
Jason and Abbey sat down next to each other under the awning of a shipping store across the street, where they had a vantage on the bar. The place was packed. As the door opened and closed, they could hear piano music. Jason put an arm around Abbey’s shoulders and nudged her head against him, so they looked like lovers taking a respite from the rain. From where they were, they could see the One World Trade Center tower jutting into the sky.
“Do you think he’s meeting someone?” Abbey said under her breath.
“It looks that way.”
“Medusa?”
“Most likely.”
She saw the concern on Jason’s face. “You don’t look pleased. Isn’t this what you wanted?”
“He’s alone,” Jason said. “Nobody followed him. Just us. He isn’t being watched. I don’t understand that. If he’s meeting anyone from Medusa, they’d make sure the area’s secure.”
“Do you think it’s a trap? For us?”
“If they wanted us, this place would already be surrounded. It’s not.”
“What do you want to do?” Abbey asked.
Jason shot his gaze across the narrow street toward the wine bar and its flashing neon sign with the name Villiers. The lights were bright inside, and a crowd of twenty- and thirty-somethings made the place standing room only. Several high cocktail tables dotted the floor and a railing circled the perimeter for people who were standing up. He could see Carson Gattor near the rear wall, his coat over his sleeve. The lawyer had a glass of white wine in his hand, and he closed his eyes as he drank. He looked relaxed now. Relieved.
But he was still alone. No one had approached him. The size of the crowd squeezed into the small bar made it impossible to tell whether Gattor was being watched.
“Take a walk outside the place,” Jason told Abbey. “Both directions. Don’t stop or look through the windows, but have your phone out and do a continuous burst of photographs of the interior. I’d like to see who’s in there with him.”
“You think someone from Medusa is already there?”
“I don’t know, but Gattor’s not here for the chardonnay. Do you feel comfortable doing this?”
“Sure.”
Abbey got to her feet and dodged a couple of cars as she ran to the opposite corner of Tenth near the wine bar. She wandered past the blue-painted walls of Villiers and pretended to be having a conversation on her phone as she fired off multiple photographs of the people inside. Then she acted as if she’d gotten lost and retraced her steps, repeating the process from the other direction. Bourne smiled. She had good tradecraft.
She rejoined Jason and huddled close to him again. Rain dripped from the awning.
“Carson is at the back. He’s not talking to anybody, and I didn’t notice anyone paying attention to him.”
“Do you know if he lives near here?”
“No. Other direction. He told me he has a place in Chelsea.”
“I don’t like this,” Jason said.
They waited as time ticked by, first half an hour, then an hour. Nothing changed inside the wine bar. Periodically, Jason kept an eye on Gattor, and he noticed that the man’s relaxed demeanor evaporated as the evening wore on. The lawyer grew anxious, checking his watch and his phone. He was being stood up, and that obviously unnerved him. When the clock passed eleven, Gattor made a call to someone but obviously got no answer.
Still, he made no effort to leave.
“Jason!” Abbey whispered urgently. “Across the street. Under the scaffolding.”
Bourne shifted his gaze that way. Two men had arrived on the corner, with eyes glued to their phone screens. Both were young, probably not even twenty-five, dressed completely in black. One was tall and skinny, with messy brown hair streaked with neon green. His companion was a squat Asian with a chin beard and dark buzz cut.
When Jason looked the other way up Seventh Avenue, he saw a third man, also in black, his head shaved bald and his neck covered in tattoos.
Then, only seconds later, an Uber car pulled up to the curb on the far side of the street, and two muscular young women emerged from the back seat. Also in black. One slipped a Guy Fawkes mask over her face, but her friend spoke to her sharply, and she removed it and secured it in the pocket of her black jacket.
The five of them stood in the rain up and down the street, not communicating directly with each other but obviously together.