Robert Ludlum's (TM) The Bourne Initiative (Jason Bourne series)(119)

“Anjelica.”

A small smile, perhaps of recognition, lit her face. Her lips parted as if to reply to him, and then she pitched forward onto her face, felled by a gunshot that had come from directly behind her. Locked as they were in their own world of fatal consequences, neither Bourne nor Keyre had heard Morgana’s stealthy entrance into the building. And until the gunshot, Mala had blocked Keyre’s view of her.

Both he and Bourne shouted at the same time, in shock and grief, perhaps, but the sounds, like those of an animal, were indecipherable. As they went at each other, Bourne felt a rage, pure and powerful, rise up within him. Now she was gone. Bourne knew she was gone without having to kneel beside her, check her pulse, or listen for her breath. She lay as she had fallen, deathly still, nothing more than a husk now, and perhaps, at last, at peace.

Bourne soon found that there was no good way to fight Keyre. He was as slippery as an eel, seemingly as immune to the blows Bourne rained on him as if he were made of stone. As for Morgana, she was trying her best to get a clear shot at Keyre, without success. Meanwhile, Keyre’s returned blows were taking their toll on Bourne. In his weakened state, he knew he couldn’t hold out for very long. He needed to end the struggle quickly or face defeat and death.

With lightning speed he went through his options, none of which seemed to him to give him much of a chance. But there was one, though the riskiest of the bunch, which might see him through. With the next strike from Keyre, he doubled over, moaning in pain. Taking the bait, Keyre doubled down on his attack, which built to such a frenzy that he completely disregarded his defense.

That was where Bourne got him. From his knees, Bourne drove a fist upward and, with the Somali bent over him, his knuckle struck Keyre squarely in the sternum, shattering it. In shock, Keyre seemed to freeze for a moment. And in the moment, Bourne acted. Rising from his penitent’s position, he buried his fist in Keyre’s side. Ribs went, at least two, possibly three, stove in by the power of the blow. The third strike caught Keyre’s left kidney. The fourth and fifth, as well.

Bourne grabbed a handful of the Somali’s hair, dripping sweat, and, using the massed tips of his fingers, drove the shards of Keyre’s sternum inward, into his organs. Blood poured out of Keyre’s mouth, his eyes turned upward, as if beseeching his unknown Yibir gods for a surcease that did not come. Bourne was in no mood for mercy. Taking Keyre’s head in his hands, he slammed his face into his raised knee.

Keyre dropped like a stone and lay in a widening pool of his own blood.

At the sound of pounding boot soles, Bourne turned to see a pair of guards run into the room. Morgana shot them both before they could fire. Bourne and Morgana’s eyes locked again, and a strange mixed message passed between them. She had killed Anjelica, but then the Angelmaker had been about to kill him. It was her nature, as she had told him. The nature of the scorpion. He nodded to her, and she nodded back.

He looked down at Mala’s body, the surprised expression on her face. Her eyes were as blank as those of the Sphinx. What had she thought at the end? he wondered. He thought of her tortured life, both when she was with Keyre and after. He had never left her; he’d been a poison in her blood that no amount of figurative transfusions could defeat.

In the end, despite all of his help, Keyre had owned her, body and soul.

“Bourne!” Morgana cried.

The sharpness of her voice broke the spell, and he told her how Keyre had altered the Initiative to shut down NATO to accommodate the Russian Sovereign.

“That’s it then,” she said in despair. “Even if we were to somehow get through to someone high up in NATO, even if the person would believe us, it would be too late.”

“But there must be a way,” Bourne said. “Boris wouldn’t have had the Initiative constructed without a fail-safe. A key. A way to shut down the zero-day trigger in case of emergency.”

She looked up, a gleam of hope in her eyes. “If he left it with anyone, he left it with you. He must have. You two were thick as thieves; you were the only one he trusted. You must have it.”

“Everyone seems to think I do,” Bourne said. “But I don’t.”

“All right then. But to have even the remotest chance I have to get a look at the completed code.”

He nodded. “This way.”

Bourne led her to the only metal door in the room. Fireproof. “I’ll bet anything what we need is behind here.”

It occurred to her then that the complete code had been her holy grail from the moment she had been given her slightly hysterical orders from Mac. She had hit a wall and had decided to take a different route altogether; the route her father would have had her take. But all the while, like an itch she couldn’t scratch, her failure at piecing together the Initiative never left her mind. It had increased in stature, like a myth, like fabled El Dorado. Now she fairly shook at the thought of actually seeing the finished code.

“We have less than ten minutes to find the Initiative and to somehow defeat the zero-day trigger, and, look, there’s no lock.” She could not keep the despair out of her voice. “There’s not even a handle.” She pointed. “Just this rectangle affixed to the surface.”

“It must be the locking mechanism.”

“But there’s no keypad. How—?”

Bourne touched the plate. His fingertip made an impression, just as it would on a haptic mobile phone or laptop screen.