others, leveled a Saturday-night special at him as the motorcycle neared.
"Hang on!" he shouted at Soraya. Feeling her arms wrapped tightly around his waist, he leaned back, shifting their center of gravity sharply, at the same time gunning the engine. The front end of the motorcycle lifted off the ground. They rushed at the thugs reared up like a lion on the attack. He heard a shot fired, but the underside of the motorcycle protected them. Then they were in the midst of it. He snatched a bat from the grip of the thug on the left, slammed it down onto the wrist of the third teen, and the gun went flying.
They burst out of the end of the alley. Bourne leaned forward, guiding the motorcycle back onto two wheels just in time for the sharp turn to the right, down a street seething with garbage and stray dogs, yelping at the Harley's thunderous passage.
Bourne said, "Now we can straighten-"
He never finished. Soraya had locked the crook of her arm across his windpipe and was bringing to bear a lethal pressure.
Chapter Five
DAMN YOU, damn you, damn you!" Soraya chanted like an exorcist.
Bourne scarcely heard her. He was far too busy trying to stay alive. The motorcycle was hurtling at a hundred kilometers an hour down the street, the wrong way, as it happened. He managed to swerve out of the way of an old Ford, horn blaring, a deep voice shouting obscenities. But in the process he sideswiped a Lincoln idling at the opposite curb. The motorcycle hit, bouncing off the long dented slash in the Continental's front fender. Bourne's windpipe, almost entirely blocked by the choke hold Soraya had on him, was allowing next to no air into his lungs. Stars twinkled at the periphery of his vision, and he was blacking out for microseconds at a time.
Even so, he was aware that the Lincoln had awakened and, making a sharp U-turn, was now in fast pursuit of the motorcyle that had done it damage. Up ahead, a truck lumbered toward him, taking up most of the street.
Putting on a shocking burst of speed, the Continental came abreast of him, its blackened window rolled down and a moon-faced black man scowling and howling a string of curses. Then the voracious snout of a sawed-off shotgun showed itself.
"This'll teach yo, muthafucka!"
Before Moon-face had a chance to pull the trigger, Soraya kicked upward with her left leg. The edge of her boot struck the shotgun barrel; it swung wildly upward, the blast exploding into the treetops lining the street. Taking advantage, Bourne twisted the handlebars to full speed and took off down the street directly toward the huge truck. The driver saw their suicide maneuver and panicked, turning the wheel hard over as he simultaneously downshifted and stood on the air brakes. The truck, howling in protest, slewed broadside across the road.
Soraya, seeing death approaching with appalling speed, cried out in Arabic. She relinquished her choke hold to once again swing her arms tight around Bourne's waist.
Bourne coughed, sucked sweet air into his burning lungs, leaned all the way over to his right, cut the engine an instant before they were sure to slam into the truck.
Soraya's scream was cut short. The motorcycle went down on its side in a welter of sparks and blood from skin flayed off Bourne's right leg as they slid between the truck's madly spinning axles.
On the other side Bourne brought the engine to life, using the momentum and the weight of their combined bodies to return the motorcycle to its normal upright position.
Soraya, too dazed to immediately resume her attack, said, "Stop, please stop now."
Bourne ignored her. He knew where he was going.
The DCI was in conference with Matthew Lerner, being debriefed on the particulars of Hiram Cevik's escape and its fiery aftermath.
"Hytner aside," Lerner said, "the damage was light. Two agents with cuts and abrasions-one of those also with a concussion from the blast. A third agent missing. Minor damage to the bird on the ground"-he meant the helicopter-"none to the one that had been hovering."
"That was a public arena," the Old Man said. "It was fucking amateur hour out there."
"What the hell was Bourne thinking, bringing Cevik out into the open?"
The director's gaze rose to the portrait of the president that hung on one wall of the conference room. On the other wall was a portrait of his predecessor. You only get your portrait painted after they've hung you out to dry,