Robert Ludlum's (TM) The Bourne Initiative (Jason Bourne series)(6)

“To our great general!” Stavros cried, holding his glass high. His voice was a deep basso, clotted by years of too much drink and cigarette tar.

“To Boris Illyich.” Long may his memory live on, Bourne thought.

“We will never forget him!”

They clinked glasses, downed the vodka in one.

Above them, the sky was an inverted porcelain bowl, light-blue and white, the colors of the boat’s master stateroom. Gulls wheeled and called plaintively, having flown out from the island’s rocky cliffs on the eastern shore to beg for food.

“Will we be staying in Skyros long?”

“Several days,” Bourne said evasively, and the captain nodded, understanding: it was none of his business.

He refilled Bourne’s glass, then took his leave, heading back up into the wheelhouse to guide Nym the last half mile to the anchorage two hundred yards offshore. The water was quite deep on this side of the island.

Bourne moved toward the bow, the better to watch the craggy cliffs and the curved shingle coming into focus. Details, he thought. Everything was in the details. So many of his foes had forgotten to take care of the details; so many had lost their lives because of that lapse.

Bourne called for the speedy runabout with its overclocked dual diesels. As he descended the accommodation ladder, he saw the captain staring down at him.

“Sure you don’t want one of the crew with you, sir?”

“Positive.”

Stavros held up a Steyr M automatic pistol in a sign of query.

“Thanks, but there’s no need.”

“You never know.” Stavros grinned. “The general used to say that.”

True enough. Bourne raised a hand, caught the Steyr, then made his way down to the waiting runabout. The captain had dropped anchor at the precise coordinates Bourne had given him. Bourne had been to Skyros only once, and that under extreme conditions. But in light of what was about to take place he supposed his return could be considered a homecoming of sorts.

The crewman who had been preparing the runabout for him leapt up onto the accommodation ladder and cast off. Bourne fired up the outboard engine and headed to a spot just left of the headland that jutted out into the Aegean like a questing nose. Gulls peeled away from the boat, circled him for a while, then wheeled away, calling their disappointment.

When he was close enough for the runabout to enter the shadow of the looming promontory, he steered it farther left. By this point, the headland was between him and the Nym. No one on board could see what he was doing or who was waiting for him.

She was sitting on a rise on the shingle, smoking a cigarette, watching him beneath half-lowered lids as he cut the engines, dropped anchor, and leapt into the shallows.

She made no move to help him, stayed where she was, giving him that peculiar sideways glance of hers as he picked his way up the shingle to her. She wore a revealing swimsuit of a metallic plum-colored fabric. She was turned so that he could see the ugly scar that ran along the outside of her right calf all the way up to her hipbone. It was clear the wound had been inflicted in many stages, a form of torture. He knew what had been carved into her beautiful back.

Her magnificent legs were very long, her waist thin. A scattering of freckles dusted the bridge of her nose. Her eyes changed color with the light—either midnight-blue or black. In all, she was staggeringly beautiful.

“Do you think what I’m wearing is appropriate?”

“For the beach, you mean.”

She smiled a thousand-watt smile. They were more or less repeating their lines from last year, when they had met in Nicosia. Before that, Bourne hadn’t seen her since he had spirited her away from Keyre’s camp in Somalia. She had been younger then, no more than a girl, but Keyre had spent months torturing her, indoctrinating her as dictated by his Yibir traditions. What he had meant to do with her, Bourne had no idea, and if she knew she had never told him.

Her name was Mala Ilves, an Estonian by birth. No one but Bourne called her Mala now; few even knew the name. These days she was known only as the Angelmaker.

“For what we are here to do,” she said.

“How can I answer? I don’t know why you asked me to come here, to such an out-of-the-way place.”

She turned her face up to the lowering sun. “It’s peaceful here, isn’t it?” That sideways glance again. “But it’s also bloody.”

“That was a long time ago, Mala.”

“Not for me, it isn’t.” She ran her fingertips down the length of the scar. “It’s only yesterday.”

Bourne came and sat down beside her. “I don’t believe that.” She smelled of licorice and the sea and clean sweat. A far cry from the stench of blood and rotting flesh that rose off her when he had brought her here from Somalia.

She ran her hands through her thick hair. “I’ve never lied to you, Jason.”

“How many times have you wanted to?”

She wet her lips with the tip of a pink tongue and laughed softly. “I cannot count the times.”

He waited a moment before he spoke again. Sunlight glanced off the waves, spreading the last of its warmth toward them. A cormorant vanished from sight, returned to the surface a good three yards away with a silvery fish in its beak. Lifting its head to the sun, as Mala had, it swallowed the fish whole.

“So tell me, why have you brought me here?”