Eric van Lustbader - The Bourne Objective

She was well trained and surprisingly strong. She scissored her legs, catching his right ankle, taking him off balance. He fell backward and she was on him. He had control of one wrist, but the knife blade scythed in to slit his throat. Using the carpenter’s nail like a push dagger, he slapped his hand against the side of her neck, puncturing her carotid artery.

A fountain of blood arced out, pulsing with each slackening beat of her heart. The woman toppled over into the leaves that had covered her. She looked up at him with Kazmi’s enigmatic smile, that smile that made him believe that Jalal Essai wasn’t finished with him, that had put him on alert, that had caused him to keep the carpenter’s nail hidden in his left hand. Were Kazmi and the woman working together? Had she been his backup? It seemed so to him, a diabolical scheme that made of Jalal Essai a formidable enemy with whom he had a difficult and shadowed past, a man who doubtless nursed a blood grudge against him.

As Chrissie and her father sat Marks down in a chair, they heard rifle shots. Chrissie gave a little gasp and ran to the door, pulling it open against her father’s shouted warning. Still in the shadows of the doorway, she peered out past the driveway and the Opel to the woods beyond, but she could see nothing, even though she strained with every ounce of her strength to penetrate the foliage, to spot a sign that Bourne was still alive. What if he was wounded and needed help?

She had already made up her mind to go after him, as she imagined Tracy would have done in the same circumstances, when she saw him emerging through the branches. Before she could take a step, someone flashed past her, down the steps.

“Scarlett!”

Scarlett raced down the driveway, skirted the dead man, passing around the trunk of the car, and flung herself into Bourne’s arms.

“This is real blood, your blood,” she said a bit out of breath, “but I can help you.”

Bourne was about to brush her gently away, but her obvious concern changed his mind. She genuinely wanted to help, and he couldn’t take that away from her. He knelt down beside her so that she could check his cuts and bruises.

“I’ll get bandages from Granddad’s kit.” But she made no move to leave him, digging in the dirt with her fingers as children will when they’re embarrassed or at a loss for words. Then she put her face up to his. “Are you all right?”

He smiled. “Imagine tripping over a rock.”

“Just scratches and bruises?”

“That’s all.”

“That’s good then. I-” She held something up for him to see. “I found this just now. Does it belong to Mr. Marks? This is where he was lying.”

Bourne took it and rubbed the dirt off. It was a Severus Domna ring. Where had it come from?

“I’ll ask Mr. Marks when we get inside.” He pocketed the ring.

At that moment Chrissie came up, out of breath not only from the all-out sprint but also from the terror of having her daughter exposed to more danger.

“Scarlett,” she said.

Bourne saw that she was prepared to scold her daughter until she glimpsed her examining Bourne’s superficial wounds with absolute concentration and she, like Bourne, shut her mouth to allow this mini-drama to play out.

“If you let me put bandages on your cuts,” Scarlett said, “you’ll be fine.”

“Then let’s go inside, Dr. Lincoln.”

Scarlett giggled. Bourne stood up, and the three of them returned in silence to the house, where Bourne went directly to where they had sat Marks. Chrissie’s father was tending him with materials from an astonishingly well-stocked first-aid kit. Marks’s eyes were closed, his head back. Bourne guessed the professor had administered a sedative.

“The first-aid kit’s from the trunk of Dad’s car,” Chrissie said as Scarlett rummaged around for bandages and Mercurochrome. “He’s been a hunter all his life.”

Bourne sat cross-legged on the rug while Scarlett ministered to him.

“The wound’s a clean one,” Professor Atherton said of his own patient. “Bullet went clear through, so the chance of infection is low, especially now that I’ve cleaned it out.” He took the Mercurochrome from Scarlett, applied it to two squares of sterile gauze, placed the gauze over the entrance and exit wounds, then expertly wrapped the whole in surgical tape. “Seen much worse in my day,” he said. “The only problem now is to make sure he rests and gets some fluids in him as soon as possible. He’s lost a lot of blood, though not nearly as much as if he didn’t have the tourniquet on.”

Finished, he looked up from his patient to see Bourne. “You sure look like crap, whatever-the-hell-your-name-is.”

“Professor, I need to ask you a question.”

The old man snorted. “Is that all you do, son, ask questions?” He put a hand on the arm of Marks’s chair and levered himself up to a standing position. “Well, you can ask me anything you like, doesn’t mean I’ll answer you.”

Bourne stood as well. “Did Tracy have a brother?”

“What?”

Chrissie frowned. “Adam, I already told you that Tracy was my only-”

Bourne held up his hand. “I’m not asking your father whether you and your sister had a brother. I’m asking if Tracy had a brother.”

A malevolent expression gathered on Professor Atherton’s face. “Bugger’n’blast, son, in days gone by I’d’ve boxed your ears for saying something so bloody-minded.”

“You didn’t answer the question. Did Tracy have a brother?”

The professor’s expression darkened further. “You mean a half brother.”

Chrissie took a step toward the two men, who were now faced off like street fighters about to settle a grudge. “Adam, why are you-?”

“Don’t get all gutted up over nothing.” Her father waved away her protest. And then to Bourne: “You’re asking me if I had sexual relations with another woman and something came of it?”

“That’s right.”

“Never did,” Professor Atherton said. “I loved the girls’ mother and I’ve been faithful to her for longer than I care to remember.” He shook his head. “I think you’ve made rather a hash of this.”

Bourne was unfazed. “Tracy worked for a dangerous man. I had to ask myself why because it seemed doubtful that she would work for him willingly. Then Chrissie provided a partial answer. Tracy told this man she had a brother who was in trouble.”

At once Professor Atherton’s demeanor altered radically. All color drained out of his face; he might have fallen if Chrissie hadn’t stepped to his side to support him. With some difficulty she got him to sit down in the chair opposite Marks.

“Dad?” She knelt beside him, his clammy hand in hers. “What is this? Is there a brother I don’t know about?”

The old man kept shaking his head. “I had no idea she knew,” he mumbled as if to himself. “How the bloody hell did she find out?”

“So it’s true.” Chrissie shot Bourne a glance, then redirected her attention to her father. “Why didn’t you and Mum tell us?”

Professor Atherton sighed deeply, then passed a hand across his sweating brow. He looked at his daughter blankly, as if he didn’t recognize her, or he was expecting to see someone else.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“But you must.” She seemed to rise up, stiffening her spine, and she leaned in toward him as if to lend her words more weight. “You have no choice now, Dad. You have to tell me about him.”

Her father remained silent, impassive now, as if free of a fever that had gripped him.

“What’s his name?” she implored. “Can’t you tell me that much?”

Her father’s eyes would not meet hers. “He had no name.”