Robert Ludlum's (TM) The Bourne Initiative (Jason Bourne series)(104)

“No,” Gora said, taking a step toward them. “No hospital.”

“All right then. Do you have a pair of large scissors?” she asked over her shoulder.

“What for?” Gora said.

“The zipper is in back. I can’t turn her over, she’s in too much pain,” Morgana replied. “I’ll need to cut off her dress to give her some relief.”

Gora again gestured with his head, and the goon stepped out of the cabin. Morgana could hear his footsteps receding down the corridor. The idea was to get Gora so agitated that he’d fixate on Natalie, giving Morgana room to execute the last, and most delicate, part of the plan.

Moments later, Goon Number One returned with a pair of kitchen scissors, which he handed to Morgana. “Stay here,” she said. “I need your help. Hold her dress away from her so I won’t cut her.”

Again, the goon glanced at Gora, who nodded, almost wearily. He was done with being the Good Samaritan. All he wanted now was his alone time with Morgana, her dress rucked, her thighs exposed to his avid gaze.

As the goon bent over, pulling Natalie’s dress away from her chest, he could not help taking a look down her bodice. That was when Morgana buried the scissor blades into his left side. The goon grabbed her by the throat, callused fingers digging in, trying to rip it out. She struck him hard right above the left kidney with the edge of her hand. He winced, his eyes bloodshot, and she used his own momentum against him, bringing his side back toward her, twisting the scissors in the wound.

Blood spurted, the goon convulsed, and Gora started, unable to see what had happened. Natalie grabbed the goon’s Strizh and, when Morgana cast the goon’s body aside, pointed it at Gora.

Morgana turned back to Maslov. “Now, Gora, it’s time for you to answer some ques—” But she saw Natalie’s finger tighten on the trigger, and cried out: “No, no, no!”

She lunged for Natalie’s hand, but it was too late. Natalie squeezed the trigger once, twice, three times, just as Morgana had done with Niki, the false Larry London. Gora, eyes open wide, grabbed his chest, staggering back, falling to his knees. His fingers convulsed, trying vainly to stanch the blood pouring out of him. He was staring at Natalie, his mouth, leaking blood, working soundlessly.

“Fuck you, fucker,” Natalie spat as he fell over onto his face. She remained rigid, her right arm like a tree branch, in her mind still the weapon aiming at where Gora Maslov had stood a moment ago.

Morgana snatched the Strizh out of Natalie’s now compliant hand. As Goon Number Two rushed in, pistol at the ready, having been drawn by the gunfire, she shot him neatly through the heart.

“Dammit, Nat. I told you no deviations.”

“I didn’t deviate,” Natalie said, rolling off the bed. “I meant to kill him from the first.” She eyed Morgana. “Why d’you think I agreed to your plan? Just for the money?” Hiking up her skirt, she pulled down her panties, revealing a part of her she’d kept hidden from Morgana: a garden of bruises, deep and dark as secrets. “What’s money without revenge?”





38



Jason Bourne received the first call as the Sapsan bullet train was nearing Leningradsky Station in Moscow.

“Hello, Jason, it’s your old friend Soraya.”

Bourne was standing between Mala and Savasin, so he stepped away down the corridor.

“Soraya, it’s really you?”

“It is.”

“Where are you?”

“Back in the saddle.”

“D.C.? Doing what?”

“Stepping back into the old pond. Now I’ve been asked to take over Dreadnaught.”

“And you said yes.”

“I missed the life, Jason. Too much.”

“And Sonya.”

“Thriving.” A pause. “Where are you?”

“Russia. Moscow, to be exact.”

“I’m going to give a new operative of mine this number.”

“I wish you wouldn’t.”

“Morgana has been on the Initiative now for over a week. She’s a very special person, and she has firsthand intel you need to hear.”

“Why don’t you relay—”

“You need to hear it from her, complete with her inflections. Take her opinions seriously, will you?” Before he had a chance to answer, she said, “When this is over, come see me in D.C. I guarantee you safe passage.”

“No one can do that, Soraya. Not even you.”

“Then I’ll come to you.”

The second call came as they were pulling into the station, readying themselves to disembark.

“Bourne.”

“I have very little time, Morgana.”

“None of us do.” Morgana’s voice buzzed in his ear like an insistent fly. “The Initiative contains a zero-day trigger.”

“I know.”

“Do you also know that there’s exactly twenty hours before the Initiative is deployed?” Silence. “I didn’t think so.” She took a breath. “I still don’t know what it’s going to be deployed against, but I will tell you that Gora Maslov was involved up to his eyeballs.”

Bourne caught the past tense. “Was?”

“He’s dead, Bourne.”