Robert Ludlum's the Bourne Evolution - Brian Freeman Page 0,83

the gleaming hotels of the Strip. “We’re closer to the heart of the conspiracy than we’ve ever been before. Medusa is here in Las Vegas. We need to find them.”

TWENTY-EIGHT

THEY located Nova’s house on a dusty open lot south of the McCarran airport. It was a stucco rambler with a red clay roof. Some of the other nearby tracts had been snapped up and converted into luxury estates, but this house dated to the old days in Las Vegas. The windows had been boarded up and painted with No Trespassing signs. Garbage filled the yard, which was nothing but a square patch of flat, rocky dirt with a scattering of mesquite bushes and drooping palm trees. A mesh fence surrounded the entire lot.

Jason drove two blocks past the house and parked the Land Rover where it wouldn’t be seen, and then they walked back along the deserted street. He checked the area for surveillance and didn’t see any, but he also spotted tire tracks in the dirt. They weren’t the first to investigate here.

“You think this was where Nova was based?” Abbey asked.

Bourne pushed aside a section of the fence so they could squeeze inside. “Benoit said she bought a place near the airport. This house was purchased four months before Nova was killed, and the property tax records show the owner as Felicity Brand. That’s an alias she used on one of the missions we did together.”

“But you didn’t know about the house?”

He shook his head. “No.”

Jason led them to the front door, which hung ajar on one of its hinges. A lizard ran across his dirty boot. The air inside was hot and stale, and the boarded-over windows left the interior dark. The furniture had all been removed, either taken by Treadstone or hauled away by thieves. Nothing was left to remind him of Nova. What was still here—some old blankets, a shopping cart, empty food bags—had obviously been left by squatters looking for a place to spend the night.

He turned on a flashlight, which caused another scattering of lizards. A few wasps clung to the bare walls. He did an up-and-down survey of the hardwood floor with his light. Many of the beams had splintered in the heat.

“What are you looking for?” Abbey asked.

“Hiding places.”

Jason paced slowly, tapping floor panels with his boot, looking for the hollow reverberation of a storage area. He found nothing. When he was done in the living room, he repeated the process in the dining room and then in each of the house’s bedrooms. In the kitchen, he pushed aside the abandoned refrigerator, disturbing a scorpion. He checked the toilet tanks in the bathrooms and found only dank brown water. There were no secret areas.

And yet he knew Nova. She would have kept a place to hide the information she was gathering.

“Let’s check the garage,” he said.

They took a narrow hallway to the musty single-stall garage. Wooden shelves had been assembled on one wall, but they’d collapsed, spilling a few paint cans. When he turned his flashlight to the floor, he saw interlocking rigid tiles, an unusual upgrade in what was otherwise a downscale house. A dusting of plaster had gathered on the tiles. He saw overlapping footprints.

Jason got on his hands and knees and began pushing the tiles with his fingers. Abbey saw what he was doing and got on the floor next to him and did the same thing. Together, they checked every tile. When they reached the center of the garage, where a vehicle would normally be parked, Abbey murmured, “Jason, look at this.”

He shined the flashlight where she was pointing and saw that two tiles were loose, as if they’d been removed and replaced many times. He handed the flashlight to Abbey and then pried back the tiles, revealing the concrete floor underneath. The light showed a square metal panel that had been installed in the concrete, along with hinges on one side and a circular ring on the other that could be used to lift the panel from the floor.

Abbey kept the light aimed at the floor as he squeezed his finger into the ring and pulled back the metal cover.

As he did, Abbey said, “That’s strange.”

“What?”

“A red light just went on down there.” An instant later, she continued: “Jason, that’s a camera!”

Jason dropped the metal cover. He got to his feet and pulled Abbey with him. “We need to get out of here. They’re coming.”

He avoided the front door and instead led Abbey out the back.