Eric van Lustbader - The Bourne Objective

“Just do what I tell you and everything will be all right.”

“Not reassuring.” She moved into the left-hand lane as the next exit sign became visible through the rain. “Adam, you’re scaring me.”

“That wasn’t my intention.”

She took the ramp, which immediately curved around to the left, and pulled onto the shoulder. “Then what is your intention?”

“To drive,” he said. “Move over.”

She got out of the Range Rover, covered her head, which was tucked down between her hunched shoulders, and went around, jumping into the passenger’s side. Her door was not even fully closed when Bourne saw the truck making its way around the curve of the off-ramp. Immediately he put the vehicle in gear and pulled out.

The truck was directly behind him as if tethered to the Range Rover with a grappling hook. Bourne put on a burst of speed, went through a light on the red, then onto the motorway’s entrance ramp. Traffic was moderate and he was able to weave in and out of the lanes. He was just thinking that a truck was an impractical vehicle to pursue them when a gray BMW pulled up abreast of them.

As the window slid down, Bourne yelled for Chrissie to get down. He pushed her, then bent low over the wheel as gunshots shattered his side window, showering him with glass pellets and fistfuls of rain. At that moment he saw the black-and-gold truck coming up fast behind him; they meant to box him in.

Both vehicles rocked back and forth, their sides scraping together dangerously. Bourne risked a glance in the rearview mirror. The black-and-gold truck was right on their tail.

“Brace yourself,” he said to Chrissie, who was bent over as far as her seat belt would allow, her arms over her head.

He angled the car, then slammed on the brakes. For a split second the Range Rover skidded on the wet tarmac, then he had compensated. The offside rear bumper crumpled on impact with the truck, the Range Rover swerved at a sharp angle so that, as he had calculated, the driver’s-side rear bumper plowed into the BMW with tremendous force, as if it had been shot out of a cannon. Impelled by the crash, the BMW veered hard right and, out of control, slammed into the guardrail with such force that the entire driver’s side was staved in. A fireworks of sparks, a shrieking of tortured metal as the BMW bounced off the guardrail and spun. The front end was heading directly for the Range Rover and Bourne turned the wheel hard to the right, cutting off a yellow Mini. There was a horrific screech of tires, horns blared, fenders were dented or flattened in a chain reaction. Bourne accelerated into the gap, switched lanes again, then as he cleared more of the traffic moved back across to the fast lane.

“Jesus,” Chrissie whispered. “Jesus Christ.”

The Range Rover was still rocking on its shocks. Bourne could no longer see the smashed-up BMW or the black-and-gold truck in the rearview mirror.

After a crash or an accident, even a near miss, everything goes quiet, or possibly the human ear, traumatized like the rest of the organism, goes temporarily deaf. In any event, it was dead silent in the SUV as Bourne exited the motorway, turned off the access road as soon as he could, and rolled along streets lined with wholesalers and warehouses, where no one shouted in fear, no horns blared angrily or brakes screeched, where order still reigned and the chaos of the motorway seemed to belong to another universe. He didn’t stop until he found a deserted block and pulled over.

Chrissie was silent, her face dead white. Her hands trembled in her lap. She was near to weeping with both terror and relief.

“Who are you?” she said after a time. “Why is someone trying to kill you?”

“They want the ring,” Bourne said simply. After what had just happened she deserved at least a modicum of the truth. “I don’t know why yet, I’m trying to figure that out.”

She turned to him. Her eyes had paled, too, or perhaps that was simply a trick of the light. Bourne didn’t think so.

“Was Trace involved with this ring?”

“Maybe, I don’t know.” Bourne started the car and pulled out into the street. “But her friends were.”

She shook her head. “This is all going much too fast for me. Everything’s turned upside down, I can’t seem to get my bearings.”

She ran her hands through her hair, then noticed something odd. “Why are we heading back toward Oxford?”

He gave her a wry look as he headed toward the on-ramp of the motorway. “Like you, I don’t like people shooting at me.

“I need to get a better look at the BMW and our friend inside.” Noting her terrified expression, he added, “Don’t worry. I’ll get out near the crash site. Are you okay to drive?”

“Of course.”

He turned left and rolled onto the motorway, in the direction of Oxford. The worst of the rain had drifted away; only a light drizzle remained. He slowed the wipers down. “I’m sorry for the damage.”

She shuddered and gave him a grim smile. “It couldn’t be helped, could it?”

“When is Scarlett due back from your parents’ house?”

“Not until next week, but I can pick her up anytime,” she said.

“Fine.” Bourne nodded. “I don’t want you to go to your house in Oxford. Is there someplace else you can stay?”

“I’ll go back to Tracy’s flat.”

“That’s out, as well. These people must have picked me up there.”

“What about my parents’ house?”

“That’s no good, either, but I want you to pick Scarlett up from them and go somewhere else, somewhere you haven’t been before.”

“You don’t think-?”

Very deliberately, he produced the Glock he’d found in Perlis’s flat and placed it in the glove compartment.

“What are you doing?”

“We were being followed, possibly all the way from Tracy’s flat. There’s no point in taking a chance these people know about Scarlett-and where your parents live, for that matter.”

“But who are they?”

He shook his head.

“This is a nightmare, Adam.” Her voice was brittle, as if her words were made of glass. “What on earth was Trace mixed up in?”

“I wish I had an answer for you.”

Traffic on the opposite side of the motorway was at a standstill, which told him that they were nearing the crash site. Directly ahead the vehicles on their side were all but inching along, which would make it less difficult for him to get out and for Chrissie to take the wheel.

“What about you?” she asked as he put the Range Rover in neutral.

“Don’t worry about me,” he said. “I’ll make my way back to London.” Her worried expression revealed that she didn’t believe him. He gave her his cell number. But when he saw her dig a pen out of her handbag he added, “Memorize it, I don’t want you writing it down.”

They got out of the Range Rover and she slid behind the wheel. “Adam.” She reached out and grabbed his arm. “For God’s sake, take care of yourself.”

He smiled. “I’ll be fine.”

But she wouldn’t let him go. “Why are you pursuing this?”

He thought about Tracy dying in his arms. He carried her blood on his hands.

Ducking his head through the window, he said, “I owe her a debt I can never repay.”

Bourne vaulted over the median onto the other side of the rain-slick motorway. As he approached the crash site his mind was racing, taking in the welter of ambulances, emergency vehicles, and police cars. The personnel had come from all over the surrounding area, which was a stroke of luck for what he had in mind. The crash site had not yet been cordoned off. He saw a body laid out on the ground, covered by a tarp. A squad of forensics personnel patrolled the area adjacent to the corpse, taking notes or digital photos, marking out small bits of forensic evidence with numbered plastic cones, and conferring among themselves. Each fragment of evidence-drops of blood, shards of a broken taillight, bits of shredded fabric, the litter of a shattered car window, an oil slick-was being photographed from several angles.