Robert Ludlum's the Bourne Evolution - Brian Freeman Page 0,7

candies. She held her breath, waiting.

Say it!

He threw his cigarette to the ground and crushed it under his foot. He took off his gold-rimmed glasses, wiped them carefully with a handkerchief from his suit pocket, and repositioned them on his face. His hands returned to the deep pockets of his raincoat. “I guess the lower town,” he said. “So picturesque.”

She tried to stay calm and not give anything away. She reminded herself to keep smiling and to keep the terror she felt off her face. It wasn’t him. This wasn’t her mystery man. He was a stranger, and more than that, she knew he was a killer.

He was here to kill her.

“I could use a cigarette, too,” Abbey said, unlatching her satchel purse so she could reach inside.

But he wasn’t fooled at all.

Her hand dove inside her purse, her fingers clawing for the plastic grip of the Taser. As she drew it out, the man with the gold-rimmed glasses slipped his own hand out of his raincoat pocket. He held a black pistol with a long barrel, and his blue eyes had the sharp gaze of a hawk. Abbey squeezed her eyes shut and yanked the trigger, and the wires of the Taser ejected, filling the man’s body with fifty thousand volts. His arm lurched; he fired his gun into the air, making her scream. She pulled the trigger again, delivering more electric shocks. He collapsed to the ground, wriggling and jerking in fits, the gun spilling from his hand.

Abbey threw the Taser down.

She ran blindly from the park, making a zigzag path around dark corners to get away, losing herself in the deserted old streets of the city.

THREE

JASON didn’t know if he was remembering or dreaming.

Bits and pieces of a life buzzed through his head like the clickety-clack of film in an old projector. He saw children lined up in formation, a dozen boys in gray uniforms being scolded by a stern old man who marked all of their demerits on a clipboard. He saw a gravestone at his feet, blue marble, with two names that were blurred by a kind of fog. He could only read the year of their deaths: 2001. He heard explosions that made him cover his ears. Gunfire. He heard words coming out of his mouth in foreign languages. He saw places that were unfamiliar to him, and yet he knew he’d been to all of them. Cities around the world. Streets and monuments at night. Churches, not to pray, but to meet people in secret. Boats on the water, borders, checkpoints. Walls to be climbed and buildings to be infiltrated.

The hazy images raced in and out of his brain. Through it all, he saw one face. A woman. She kept reappearing, kept interrupting the movie to whisper in his ear. Stay with me, my love, stay alive. She had flowing black hair, a nose hooked like an eagle, dark passionate eyes, a wicked laugh, olive skin. He could feel her body wrapped up hungrily in his own. Her mouth, teasing him. The fullness of her lips, the softness of her skin.

She was in his arms, and they were happy.

Then she was in the arms of someone else, being carried away. Her eyes were closed, her face lifeless, her blood spilling to the ground. He heard himself screaming.

No!

His eyes snapped open from unconsciousness. He was awake, but lost in a cloud of confusion. Everything that had been in his head scurried away, like cockroaches afraid of the light, leaving behind an empty place.

Bourne lay in a twin bed. The sheet under him was damp from his sweat. He must have thrown off the blanket sometime during the night, because his body was uncovered. He was naked, on his back. The room was small and unlit, but he could see a crack of light around the blinds that covered the double window, which let him examine his surroundings. There was a single door that led to the outside; a small bathroom, barely larger than a phone booth; an empty closet. Two watercolor paintings hung on peeling burgundy wallpaper, showing sailboats on the water. A lamp sat on a desk near the window.

He felt disoriented, trapped in the middle of a strange dream.

He tried to get up, but pain knifed through his body like a flaming arrow. He collapsed back to the mattress, breathing hard. His head pounded, and his vision made a cartwheel, turning upside down before righting itself. When he looked at his torso,