Текст книги "The Bourne Imperative (Крах Борна)"

Автор книги: Eric Van Lustbader

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Текущая страница: 24 (всего у книги 25 страниц)

The copse was suddenly very quiet. The stench of the rifles’ fire hung in the air like mist. Crouching down, Bourne pushed forward from tree to tree. Bullets flew at him, striking so close to him he could feel the brush of air they displaced. He sprinted toward the flare of the weapon, and the instant he saw the soldier, he threw the knife he had extracted from the backpack.

The soldier fired, but the bullets went upward into the sky as he crashed backward, the knife buried hilt-deep in the left side of his chest. Cautiously, Bourne went to him, kicked his weapon away, then crouched down beside him. Confirming that he was dead, he quickly stripped off the soldier’s clothes, then his own. The uniform was an acceptable fit. There was blood on the shirt, but this could be easily explained after a pitched battle in the pines.

Taking up the dead soldier’s rifle, he struck out for the edge of the copse closest to the rise behind which the soldiers had attacked the Jeep. Rounding the left edge of the rise, he picked up the abandoned rocket launcher and saw that it had been loaded in case the first rocket missed. Keeping it with him, he quartered the area. Finding no other soldiers, he headed for the camouflaged vehicle. Dressed as he was, it wouldn’t do to return to camp on foot.

He reached the vehicle and, speculating on the curious presence of Chinese soldiers so close to a top secret Israeli base guarded by Mossad, pulled off the opaque camo material, only to come face-to-face with a plainclothesman, armed with an Israeli Tavor TAR-21, small, lethal, accurate, like everything Mossad. The agent, who had obviously driven the Chinese soldiers to the site, whipped the barrel of the Tavor toward Bourne’s face.

30

COLONEL ARI BEN DAVID stood facing Maceo Encarnación, and all the resentment and diminishment he had stored up from the moment he had entered into talks with the Mexican entrepreneur bubbled poisonously into his throat like mercury.

He detested dealing with intermediaries, which, in this case, Maceo Encarnación was, but he detested even more having to deal with the Chinese, in the form of Minister Ouyang. He’d had no choice, a bitter circumstance he had divulged to Maceo Encarnación along about their third meeting.

It was the Mexican who had come up with the idea. This should have softened Ben David’s feelings toward Encarnación, but it did not. On the contrary, the proposed solution was so ingenious, so perfect, that Ben David felt only resentment that he hadn’t thought of it. From that moment on, he had been beholden to Maceo Encarnación.

Colonel Ben David, bitter by birth, paranoid by nature, persecuted by dint of both his nationality and his religion, was incapable of any positive emotion whatsoever. He was enraged that Minister Ouyang was in possession of incriminating evidence that, should it find its way to either Dani Amit or the Director, would not only end his career in Mossad, but also see him incarcerated for the rest of his life. He and Ilan Halevy had collaborated on terminations outside the sanctioned purview of Mossad. They had made tens of thousands by Ben David’s soliciting kill requests from individuals and the Babylonian’s enacting the murders. They had made one mistake: They had left a paper trail regarding the first hit. How Minister Ouyang had come into possession of the information, Ben David did not know. The fact was that he had it and was using it to get what he wanted from Ben David: namely, the modified SILEX formula the scientists at Dahr El Ahmar had perfected, which would allow China accelerated access to nuclear fuel and weapons.

Now, breaking his brief reverie, Colonel Ben David looked from Maceo Encarnación to Colonel Han Cong, commander of the sixman cadre Minister Ouyang had sent as his representatives.

“Your report, Colonel?” he said.

“The enemy Jeep has been destroyed,” Han said.

Maceo Encarnación addressed himself to the Chinese. “Bourne

and the driver?”

“The deaths have not yet been confirmed.”

“And why would that be?” Ben David asked.

Colonel Han cleared his throat. “I have not yet heard from my men.”

At once Ben David lost interest in him. He turned to Maceo Encarnación. “They’re dead,” he said. “Bourne is coming.”

“Excuse me,” Colonel Han said. “How do you know that?”

A slow smile spread across Colonel Ben David’s face, as if he had been waiting for that question. “I know Bourne, Colonel Han.”

Colonel Han frowned. “But three soldiers, highly trained and heavily armed...”

“I know what Bourne is capable of.” Ben David touched the livid scar on the side of his face. “Intimately.”

The dubious expression on Han’s face turned into a shrug. “Then we should complete our transaction as swiftly as possible.” He nodded to Maceo Encarnación, who hefted a hard-sided suitcase onto the trestle table. The fingerprint lock was duly opened, the top swung back, and the thirty million American dollars were revealed.

“It’s all there. You have Minister Ouyang’s word.” Colonel Han held out his hand. “Now the formula.”

Ben David dug into the pocket of his fatigues and drew out a USB drive, which he placed in the Chinese’s palm. “It’s all there,” he said dryly. “You have my word.”

The Mossad agent’s hesitation on first seeing the Chinese uniform gave Bourne the chance to duck away.

Dropping the launcher, he grabbed the agent by the front of his vest and flung him out of the vehicle onto the ground in a flurry of snow. The agent rolled onto his back, firing the Tavor, almost severing Bourne’s head from his neck. The sting of the bullets’ heat burned Bourne’s cheek as he jabbed the butt of his QBZ down onto the agent’s sternum. The agent smashed the butt of his own weapon against Bourne’s, deflecting it at the last instant so that it slipped off his ribs and onto the ground. Kicking upward, he struck Bourne’s left hip, throwing him off balance.

Bouncing to his feet, he came at Bourne, driving the Tavor crosswise into Bourne’s neck, sending him stumbling into the side of the vehicle. The agent bent him backward as he pressed the weapon so hard into Bourne’s throat that all air was cut off. Grinning with the effort, he bore down, his focus narrowing to his intent as the moment of his target’s death approached.

It was this intent, so fervent, that caused him to miss Bourne’s right heel hooking into his. As Bourne drew back his leg, the agent lost his balance. But even as he fell, he swung the Tavor around, aiming it at Bourne’s chest. He pulled the trigger as he landed, the bullets firing wide when Bourne smashed the butt of his weapon into the agent’s face. The second strike shattered his sternum and rib cage, driving a rib through his chest. It must have punctured a lung because pink foam boiled between the agent’s lips, followed by a gout of blood, thick and clotted.

Colonel Han, having given no indication that he had registered Ben David’s barb, inserted the drive into his tablet and switched it on.

Maceo Encarnación’s lips twitched. “Believe it or not, Colonel Han is an expert in physics and in laser excitation in particular.”

The two men watched as Colonel Han brought up the files on the USB drive and scanned them.

At that moment, Colonel Ben David’s satphone buzzed. He listened for a moment, the frown on his face deepening. “No, do nothing. Just keep him in sight.” He closed the connection before saying, “Our vehicle has been sighted. Only one man is in it.”

“Bourne?” Maceo Encarnación said.

“He’s wearing Dov’s uniform.” Ben David shook his head. “But I doubt it’s Dov.” He turned to the Chinese. “Colonel Han, I believe it’s past time for you to leave.”

Han looked up from his scrutiny of the equations, nodded, and closed down his tablet. Pocketing the USB drive and sticking the tablet under his arm, he nodded curtly to the two men, then stepped smartly out of Ben David’s field tent.

Bourne, wearing the agent’s clothes, drove the vehicle toward the Mossad encampment outside Dahr El Ahmar. The loaded launcher lay in the footwell behind him. He had a clear idea of the layout of the camp, having seen it from the air on his previous visit with Rebeka.

He found his mind, normally so calculating and pragmatic, turning back to Rebeka. He remembered the first time he had seen her, on the commercial flight to Damascus, a flight attendant about whom swirled a mystery he wanted to unravel. It was only later that she revealed herself as a Mossad agent. During their joint assault on the terrorist Semid Abdul-Qahhar’s stronghold, she had proved herself to be fierce, intelligent, and brave. He felt her loss as keenly as if Maceo Encarnación had knifed him in the ribs. Constanza Camargo had told him that Maceo Encarnación was protected by the ancient Aztec gods, but the truth as he knew it now was something both more mundane and more sinister. Maceo Encarnación was protected by all those people he had seduced, suborned, coerced, tricked, and beaten into submission. Armor enough for the modern world.

As he drove, Bourne became aware of sharp glinted sunlight reflected off coated glass lenses. He was being observed by the Mossad, by Maceo Encarnación’s men, or by what was left of the Chinese military contingent.

Maceo Encarnación followed Colonel Han out of Ben David’s tent, walking beside him as he headed for the aircraft that would take him and what remained of his cadre back to Beijing, where Minister Ouyang waited for the bounty for which he had delivered thirty million to Maceo Encarnación.

“You played your part well,” Colonel Han said in the condescending tone of the true Celestial that set Maceo Encarnación’s teeth on edge.

Encarnación, imagining himself swinging a machete in the powerful horizontal arc that would sever Colonel Han’s head from his body, replied, “I’ll take my fee now.”

Colonel Han, looking straight ahead as if he walked alone, tugged out a thick envelope from the inside breast pocket of his tunic. He held it, apparently not ready to hand it over. “What is it you did to deserve this generous payment, Encarnación?”

Feeling the blood rushing through his head, Maceo Encarnación pressed his fingertips to his temple where he could feel a distended vein beating like a second heart. He calmed himself before answering. “I acted as the go-between. I introduced Minister Ouyang to Colonel Ben David and oversaw the negotiations. Ouyang never would have got to Ben David without me.”

“He might have.” Colonel Han slapped the envelope against his knuckles. “ MinisterOuyang is both powerful and resourceful.” He shrugged, as if he had his orders to fulfill even though he did not agree with them. He held out the envelope, and Maceo Encarnación, made to feel like a paid employee instead of a partner, took the envelope and, in the Colonel’s presence, laboriously counted the bills.

“The five million is all there,” Han said in precisely the same voice he had used inside Ben David’s tent.

“But is it real?” Maceo Encarnación removed three bills at random and, using eyedroppers from tiny vials he carried, subjected them to two chemical tests.

“Satisfied?” Han said with a wry smile. “They’re real. Unlike the thirty million you delivered to the Zionist Ben David. He sold his precious formula for a suitcase full of counterfeit money.”

With a minimum of effort, Maceo Encarnación produced a smile of complicity. “But the bills are so well made it will take him some time to realize that he has been swindled.”

“And by then,” Han said triumphantly, “it will already be too late.”

His plane was dead ahead. He signaled to his three remaining soldiers and they climbed on board.

“What about your other men?” Maceo Encarnación asked. “Don’t you want to know whether they’re dead or alive?”

“Once Bourne was spotted, they became a liability.”

“Wasn’t stopping Bourne part of your mission?”

“An adjunct.” Colonel Han began to mount the stairs up to the plane. “I have the formula. That’s all that matters.”

“Not to Minister Ouyang.”

“No,” Colonel Han said. “But it is to my superior, General Hwang Liqun.”

So saying, Han mounted the steps, disappearing inside the fuselage of the plane. A moment later, one of his soldiers swung the door closed, locking it from inside. The engines started up, obliging Maceo Encarnación to step backward at a rapid pace. He wasn’t quick enough to avoid getting a face full of jet fuel backwash. Particles flew into his eyes, making them tear. He turned then, jogging back to Ben David’s tent.

Bourne heard the roar of jet engines, and he diverted the vehicle in that direction. If a plane was taking off, it was a sure bet that the deal for the SILEX formula had been concluded. He was too late.

Stepping hard on the accelerator, he roared through the periphery of the camp, shattering a wooden barrier and causing agents to fire at him even as they scattered out of the way. Seeing the jet, he accelerated away from them. It was a civilian plane with Chinese markings.

These thoughts passed through Bourne’s mind like swiftly flying birds as he dug in his backpack. He was nearing the plane, which had taxied to the head of the makeshift runway and now sat, panting like a chained animal impatient to be released. He turned the vehicle hard to his left, paralleling the plane’s path. Shots were being fired off to his left, and he ducked down as bullets spanged into the side of his vehicle.

He was coming up on the tail of the jet when he heard a roar off to his left. A quick glance revealed a Jeep with a driver and an armed agent riding shotgun. The agent leveled the Tavor TAR-21 at him, and Bourne jerked the wheel hard over to his right so that the offside scraped the plane’s fuselage, giving the agent no chance to fire without hitting the plane.

At that moment, the jet’s brakes came off and it started to taxi down the runway. Bourne, drawing closer to the plane, had pulled out the grenade Robbinet had procured for him when the agent’s Jeep slammed into him. He turned back, his arm swinging out, connecting with the agent, who was jolted backward. His Jeep continued on its course, scraping along the side of Bourne’s vehicle. Bourne turned right, then made a sharp left, bringing the near-side front corner jabbing into the Jeep. Both men stiffened; as the driver was about to haul the wheel hard over, the armed agent leaped into Bourne’s vehicle. The Jeep, jolted hard, ricocheted away. The agent slammed Bourne in the back of the head.

The jet began to pull away.

Colonel Ben David laughed like a loon when Maceo Encarnación re-entered his tent. His fingers were hauling up handfuls of American dollars out of the suitcase. “Look at these,” he said merrily, “all crap.”

“Very fine crap,” Maceo Encarnación said, crossing the tent. “Exquisite craftsmanship.”

“Of course.” Ben David nodded. “It’s the work of the Chinese. Expert counterfeiters, those shitbags.” He smirked. “The SILEX formula for thirty million in bogus bills. Ouyang thought he had pulled one over on me.”

“He might have, without me.”

Ben David nodded. “True enough. But when that formula is implemented, it will level the laboratory it was made in. Quite the joke on Ouyang.” Reluctantly, he inclined his head. “I’m in your debt.”

“You hate being in anyone’s debt, Colonel,” Maceo Encarnación said shrewdly.

“Especially yours.” Ben David’s expression had turned sour.

“It’s not so bad. You could be in Ouyang’s debt.”

The Mossad agent was so powerful that he dragged Bourne halfway out of the driver’s seat.

The vehicle began to swerve crazily, throwing the agent off balance. Instead of resisting, Bourne flipped backward, using the agent’s clasped forearms, somersaulting over his back. The agent twisted his torso, driving his elbow into Bourne’s side just as the vehicle swerved again. Bourne was thrown half out of the vehicle, one leg and hip flying just above the ground.

The agent was about to pound Bourne’s head with the butt of his rifle, but another, wider swerve brought the vehicle in contact with the fuselage of the plane. The agent abandoned Bourne for the instant it took him to vault over the seatback, get behind the wheel, and regain control of the vehicle.

Bourne managed to hook one leg up over the side of the vehicle so that he was lying more or less horizontally. The plane was very close, the jet outtake just in front of him, over the agent’s head. The fuel made it virtually impossible to breathe, difficult to see. Nevertheless, Bourne knew that he was as close as he was ever going to get to his target. Pulling out the safety, he swung his arm back and let go of the grenade just past the apex of the arc. It spiraled through the air like a thrown football, but the engine’s outtake hurled it away, so that the plane was unharmed by the explosion.

Seeing the agent distracted by the blast, Bourne clambered back into the rear compartment. The plane was lifting off now, gaining in both speed and elevation in order to clear a stand of trees. Bourne swung the shoulder-held missile launcher up, aimed through the sight, and pulled the trigger. The missile launched, speeding directly toward the plane.

The agent, shocked, turned to see Bourne leap out. As he rolled over and over, he covered his head with both arms, curling into a protective ball just before the missile exploded, rupturing the entire side of the plane, sending flames and billowing dark, oily smoke high up into the sky as it crashed back to earth and split apart. The Jeep had wandered too close. Caught in the periphery of the blast, it was lifted off its wheels. Fiery, it turned end over end, spilling the two agents, then coming down onto them in a tangle of overheated metal and burning fabric. The gas tank ignited, sending shock waves across to where the shattered plane was burning. Then it, too, burst asunder with a massive roar, incinerating everyone and everything in the immediate vicinity.

Colonel Ben David stared at Maceo Encarnación. “And the payment?”

Maceo Encarnación smiled. “And the formula?”

Ben David held up a 32-gigabyte SD card. “The real one, this time.”

Maceo Encarnación opened a second envelope, spilling its contents onto the bottom of the suitcase. The diamonds sparkled and glittered in the lamplight. “Thirty million worth of perfection.”

Ben David nodded. Handing over the SD card, he said, “When you insert that directly into your mobile, everything will be revealed.”

Maceo Encarnación clutched it tightly in his fist. “And Core Energy will corner the market on both nuclear fuel and weaponry.”

At that moment, they both heard the roar of the first explosion. They were halfway out of the tent when the shock waves from the second and third detonations threw them backward off their feet.

A flaming tire arced downward from the conflagration, heading directly for Bourne.

Scrambling away, he rolled onto a patch of snow to keep the flames from getting to his clothes. By the time he raised himself up onto one knee, three armed Mossad agents were sprinting toward him. As the first shots were fired, he leaped behind a storage shed just past the edge of the makeshift runway.

The intensity of the fire incinerating the plane and the Jeep kept the agents from coming any closer, and Bourne took the opportunity to run in a half-crouch to the next building, which housed the scientists working in the camouflaged laboratory several hundred yards to his left.

Though well armed, Bourne had no particular desire to shoot the agents except in self-defense. It was their commander and Maceo Encarnación he was after. He’d much prefer to keep hidden and out of their way while he searched for his quarry.

No sooner had he entered the building than the door slammed shut. One of the windows shattered and a thick tongue of flame set the bedding on fire. The sharp odor of chemical fire filled the interior: someone was using a flamethrower.

The blaze leaped up, engulfing the interior almost immediately. Bourne turned back, but the door through which he had slipped in was bolted shut from the outside. He tried to make his way to one of the windows, but the fire had spread so quickly and the flames were so hot that he could not get to even the nearest of them. Ripping off a pillowcase, he held it over his nose and mouth, dropping to the floor, where the air was several degrees cooler. Acrid smoke billowed like storm clouds, obscuring the low ceiling.

He heard a sound over the spark and crackle of the burning wood. A figure filled the shattered window, then stepped through. It was clad in a flame-retardant suit with its own breathing apparatus. The figure held the flamethrower as it looked to his right, then his left. From his position hidden away beneath one of the beds, Bourne could make out the features of Colonel Ben David through the glass face-plate.

Bourne had already witnessed the first tongue of flame and so knew that the flame flower was using liquid—likely napalm—ignited by propane. Now, as Ben David turned again, searching for him, Bourne saw the two tanks on his back: The napalm would be housed in the tank that lay against his back, the propane tank, hidden from anyone standing in front of the Colonel, just behind it. Bourne brought his rifle to bear: All it would take was a single bullet into the propane tank to roast Ben David alive. But in this enclosed space, already afire, Bourne himself would roast along with his enemy.

Trying not to cough, he watched as Ben David quartered the space, searching under one bed after another. The moment he left his post in front of the shattered window, Bourne snaked out from under the bed, sprinted diagonally across the smoke– and ash-filled interior. As he left his feet, diving through the window, Ben David turned, toggling on the flamethrower. Another tongue of flame licked out, across the wall, then shot out the window, where the very end of it licked at the back of Bourne’s jacket, igniting it.

Instantly feeling the heat, Bourne threw himself into a patch of deeper snow, rolling on his back to snuff out the flames. He saw Ben David step through the window, level the snout of the flamethrower on him, even as Bourne lifted the assault rifle to shoot him.

“Stalemate,” Ben David said as he pulled off the suit’s hood. He appeared oblivious to the building burning behind him. “It seems you’re always in my way, one way or another, Bourne. What have you done with Rebeka?”

“Rebeka and I made a good team. I tried to save her.”

Ben David frowned. “What d’you mean?”

“She was killed—stabbed to death inside Maceo Encarnación’s villa in Mexico City.”

Ben David took a threatening step toward Bourne. “Goddamn you. You never should have taken her there.”

“You think her death was my fault? She was on her own mission; it coincided with mine. Besides, you sent the Babylonian to terminate her because she was getting too close to your little operation.”

“What d’you know about it?”

“Now you want me to believe you still have feelings for her?”

“I asked you—”

“I know everything, down to the counterfeit money the Chinese manufactured.”

Ben David leaned forward. “You don’t know his name.”

“You mean Minister Ouyang?”

Ben David stared at him. “Why does he hate your guts?”

Bourne stared back.

“You’re not going to screw this deal for me, Bourne.”

When Ben David tightened his finger on the trigger, Bourne said, “Don’t you want to know who killed Rebeka?”

“I don’t care. She’s dead.”

“It was Nicodemo, Ben David, Maceo Encarnación’s son.” The Colonel stood stock still. “What?”

“You didn’t know Nicodemo was your partner’s son, did you?”

Ben David said nothing, but his tongue emerged briefly to moisten his lips.

“Which means Maceo Encarnación gave the order to have her killed. I could use a partner like that.” Bourne laughed grimly. “But he’s all yours.”

“He’s playing you, Ben David.”

Both men turned at Maceo Encarnación’s growl.

“Why haven’t you killed him?” Encarnación was carrying a pistol in one hand and in the other a massive machete with an evil-looking blade. Ben David looked from Bourne to Encarnación. “Why did you have Rebeka killed?”

“What? I don’t explain my actions to anyone.”

Ben David shook his head. “You had a choice. You could have captured her—”

“Are you crazy? She was far too dangerous to try to capture. Besides, there was Bourne to deal with.”

“—but you had your son kill her anyway.”

Maceo Encarnación looked suddenly stricken. “I have no son.”

“Nicodemo. He isyour son.”

“Who told you that?” Encarnación flared.

Ben David gestured at Bourne with his head.

“And you believe him?”

“It makes too much sense to be a lie.”

Maceo Encarnación spat. “Did you even hear what I said? You’ve inhaled too much smoke. Rebeka is dead, so is Nicodemo. The past is buried. It’s our future we have to concentrate on now. Bourne is the only one standing in—”

Ben David turned the ugly snout of the flamethrower on Encarnación and pulled the trigger. A burst of napalm spat out, just missing the Mexican. Bourne was on his feet in an instant. He kicked out, sending Ben David reeling back into the flames licking out of the shattered window.

Without a backward glance, Maceo Encarnación ran around to the rear of the building. Bourne followed him at a strong lope. At the corner, a shot caused him to quickly duck back. He heard the crunch of running feet and darted around the corner, firing as he went. Maceo Encarnación had vanished. Bourne stalked after him, checking the snowy ground for his footprints. The three Mossad agents who had fired at him previously were frantically combating the fire, which had crept close to the netting that camouflaged the laboratory from both the ground and the sky.

At the end of the building Bourne saw prints leading off toward the laboratory. Having to cross unprotected ground, he moved cautiously. He was halfway across when he noticed one of the agents answer his satphone, and he hunkered down, making himself as inconspicuous as possible. The agent, covered in soot, his clothes seared and singed in places, nodded, then abandoned his comrades, racing off toward the far side of the compound. Bourne tracked him until he passed behind the burning building, then he rose, tracing Maceo Encarnación’s footprints, which led directly to the front door of the camouflaged lab. He was about to follow them when he turned, sensing movement out of the corner of his eye.

The Mossad agent had appeared from around the far side of the furiously burning building, and he wasn’t alone. Colonel Ben David was with him.

Maceo Encarnación cursed the day he had agreed to Tom Brick’s plan to buy the SILEX process from the avaricious Ben David. He’d bought into Brick’s argument that the process would mean that Core Energy would eventually corner the market on nuclear fuel, which, despite certain setbacks, was surely the main energy source of an emissionless future without fossil fuel.

Perhaps Brick had been right. Maceo Encarnación didn’t know, and he no longer cared. It had been his idea to rope in Minister Ouyang, knowing through Maricruz’s weekly reports how desperate the Chinese were for more energy, especially now with their great engine of progress slowing because of massive pollution all over the country. The Chinese were building nuclear reactors at an astonishing rate. Their appetite for enriched uranium to fuel these plants was increasing exponentially. Maceo Encarnación hated the Chinese with an unrivaled passion. They stood for everything he despised, everything he had spent his entire adult life fighting against: repression, regulation, dampening the free spirit of the country’s population. Seeing the opportunity to fuck them over was too great a temptation. But now, as he made himself invisible in the shadows near the front door of the laboratory, he understood how his desire had conflicted with destiny.

He was not meant to be here, on the run from Jason Bourne. He should have been back in Mexico City with Anunciata. Now he was faced with the moment when dominion slips through one’s grip, when expectations of wealth, influence, and power are overwhelmed by self-preservation and survival.

He stiffened as the door to the laboratory opened inch by inch. The interior of the building, designed by the five scientists at work here, was broken up into rooms where the separate processes of the formula could be produced and refined before being chained together with the others in the largest area at the far end of the structure. This last space was lead-lined, and all precautions had been taken owing to the radioactive material being created there. As far as he could tell, all the scientists were clustered in the far lab, finishing the last of the SILEX testing.

The door opened farther. Maceo Encarnación, checking his firearm, discovered that it was empty. Tossing it aside, he raised his machete over his head, ready to strike off Bourne’s head the moment he entered the building.

A shadow fell across the widening wedge of doorway, and Maceo Encarnación felt the tremor of intent run up his arm and into the fists that grasped the machete with a professional executioner’s grip.

He watched the silhouette form: the nose, lips, forehead, chin, until the entire head was in front of him like that of a condemned criminal on the block. The machete whistled down, the long, wicked blade glimmering briefly before it fell into shadow as it cleaved through the neck, severing the head from its trunk.

The head bounced along the floor while the trunk danced and spun, blood spurting with each frantic pump of the heart. For an instant, Maceo Encarnación was transported back to the shoreline of Mexico, the soft Gulf waves rolling onto the shore, both seawater and sand soaking up the blood, as the head rolled back and forth in the pink foam of the surf.

Then the present returned with the speed of a rocket, and he saw the severed head facing away from him. He turned it toward him by hooking his foot against the side of the nose. It stared up at him with the unthinking eyes of a landed shark. It was a face he knew well, but it wasn’t Bourne’s.

He expelled a startled yelp as Bourne grabbed hold of him and slammed him back against the wall so hard he dropped the bloody machete. He stared from Bourne to the severed head.