“I really don’t care what you think. I don’t know anything.”
“Why were you meeting with this man? What did he want?”
“I have nothing to say about that.”
“I’m trying to protect you, Ms. Laurent.”
“No, you’re not. You don’t care what happens to me. You just want him.”
Rollins shifted on his feet and grimaced with pain. He reached into the inner pocket of his coat and came out with a small white card, which he handed to her. She read it and saw no name, no identification, no agency, just ten numbers. A phone number.
“If he contacts you, call that number,” Rollins told her. “Day or night.”
“Why? So you can kill both of us?”
Rollins sighed. “Please don’t think you can confront this man alone. He’s violent, and he’s unstable. I’ve known him for years. He’s damaged in a way you or I can’t understand. He’s a man with no past.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
Rollins ignored her question. He limped to the apartment door and put a hand on the doorknob. Then he turned back. “If you hear from him, call that number, Ms. Laurent.”
“Wait!” Abbey said. “Who is he? Is he Cain? What’s his real name?”
“Names don’t matter,” Rollins told her. “He goes by a lot of names. Cain is just one of them. The only thing you need to know is that this man is a killer.”
*
JASON stood in the darkness at the far end of Rue Saint-Flavien. He sheltered in the nook of a graffiti-strewn doorway, where he was invisible. Police cars with swirling lights blocked the alley on both sides of the apartment building where Abbey Laurent lived, and he heard the chatter of their radios. There was also a dark sedan parked farther away, its lights off. As Bourne watched, the door to the building opened, and a cluster of police officers walked outside. They were followed by a man that he knew well. A man limping from the injury that Jason had given him the previous night.
Nash Rollins.
Treadstone was still here. Still hunting him.
The police got into their cars, and the cars peeled away in both directions. Bourne sank deeper into the doorway as one of the vehicles spun around the corner directly in front of him. That left Nash Rollins and the sedan. Rollins signaled with his hand, and the sedan’s lights turned on, as it roared up to the curb in front of him. The back door opened, and Rollins climbed inside, but as he did, another Treadstone agent got out of the vehicle.
The sedan made a U-turn and sped away, but the remaining agent stayed by the door to Abbey Laurent’s building. His hands were in his pockets, where he no doubt had easy access to a weapon. Bourne knew the drill. The agent would be there all night.
Jason pulled up his collar, silently left the doorway, and melted into the darkness. He had a plan.
Tomorrow he’d fight back.
Tomorrow he’d take Abbey Laurent.
NINE
THE next morning, Jason watched the watchers.
He spotted a second Treadstone agent arriving to conduct surveillance on Abbey Laurent, replacing the one who’d spent the night there. Jason knew him from a mission they’d done together in Milan. His name was Farnham, and Jason remembered him as cocky and way too sure of himself. He was in his twenties, with brown hair and a baby face that disguised his ruthlessness. He wore a white mock turtleneck and a gray silk suit, looking like an upscale Canadian businessman. He leaned against a parked car half a block away from Abbey’s door and talked on his phone in fluent French, using a loud voice and an easy smile.
Bourne knew the rule. Sometimes the best cover was to hide in plain sight.
At nine o’clock, Abbey Laurent emerged into the alley below her apartment. Jason watched her check both directions with a nervous expression. She studied all of the pedestrians coming and going. An old woman walking her dog. Two teenage boys eating chocolate croissants and carrying red backpacks. A man hosing down the sidewalk. Her gaze passed over Farnham without stopping. She shot a quick look at the cloudless sky and then shrugged her purse strap over her shoulder and walked up the hill. Her red hair and cobalt-blue blouse made her easy to spot.
At the corner, she turned right. As soon as she did, Farnham slipped the phone into his pocket and followed. Two blocks behind him, Bourne followed, too. When he reached the next alley, he could see both of them. Abbey walked without looking back, and Farnham stayed about twenty yards behind her on the opposite sidewalk. Near the next intersection at Côte de la Fabrique, Abbey disappeared into a bakery. She wasn’t inside for long. When she came out, she had a takeaway cup of coffee in her hand, and again she glanced up and down the street.
This time, however, she zeroed in on a police officer approaching from the opposite direction. She engaged in a brief conversation with the cop, then walked quickly away. Farnham increased his pace to catch her, but he had only gone a few steps when the police officer confronted him on the sidewalk. The cop demanded to know who Farnham was and why he was following a young woman on the street, and while the American agent made loud protestations, Abbey disappeared from view around the next curve.
Bourne smiled. The woman was smart and resourceful. She’d spotted the tail. By the time Farnham got free of the cop, he had to run to locate her again, but he was too late. Bourne kept Farnham in sight as the Treadstone agent hurried to the next intersection, where several streets came together in a busy jumble of cars and people. There was no sign of Abbey Laurent.
As Jason watched, Farnham pulled out his phone to call in a report. Less than five minutes later, a blue Mercedes whipped along the busy street and stopped beside him, and the agent climbed into the passenger seat. The car sped off. Bourne waited to see what would happen next. As soon as the car disappeared, he spotted Abbey emerging from her hiding place on a grassy slope above the Côte de la Fabrique, where she’d been watching the whole thing.
Definitely smart.
With a toss of her deep red hair, Abbey joined the people on the street. Jason gave her plenty of space, but she walked with more assurance now, as if she were confident that she’d shaken the people pursuing her. Her route took her sharply uphill past the Morrin Centre, and eventually she reached Rue d’Auteuil near Esplanade Park, only a couple of blocks from the offices of The Fort. As he had the previous night, Jason stayed in the park, rather than on the street, and he shadowed Abbey until she reached the building where the magazine was housed. She observed the broken window on the front door, and the sight obviously unnerved her. She turned around, suspicious again, and made a careful review of the area, as if she could feel his eyes. Then she went inside.
Bourne waited. There was nothing else to do. Waiting was the real art of surveillance. He bought a newspaper; he bought coffee; he found a bench near the Boer War monument, where the trees sheltered him. The morning was cold but bright, and he wore sunglasses. From where he was, he could see the building doors. Whenever Abbey came outside again, he’d spot her.
Soon he had company on the stakeout. The blue Mercedes returned and pulled into a parking place with a similar vantage on Abbey Laurent’s building. Someone had obviously reported to Treadstone that she’d arrived at The Fort. Two men got out of the Mercedes. One was Farnham; the other was an agent who Bourne didn’t recognize. Farnham took the car keys, and the other agent walked away down the cobblestoned street, leaving Farnham alone to take the first shift. Jason watched the young operative get behind the wheel of the Mercedes. The driver’s window was open, and he could see the occasional cloud of cigarette smoke drift into the air.