“Shut up! Do it just like you said. Turn around and get on your knees. Do it!”
“Sure. Absolutely. Thank you. You’re saving my life!”
Bourne turned around and sank to his knees. He laced his hands behind his head. He closed his eyes and held his breath, focusing all of his senses on listening to the movements of the cop behind him. He heard the splash of boots in the mud and heavy, anxious breathing. The cop got closer. He was right there behind him, squatting, inches away. Then Jason heard the noise he was waiting for, the smooth slide of metal against leather as the cop holstered his weapon in order to reach for his cuffs.
Instantly, Bourne twisted and drove his elbow into the cop’s kidney. As he spun, he fished out the cop’s gun with his other hand. Bourne shot an elbow upward and cracked the man’s chin, snapping his head backward. At the same time, he backhanded the man’s ear and knocked him sideways. He swung the heavy gun into the cop’s forehead, drawing blood and dizzying him. Bourne hit him again, harder, and this time the cop crumpled onto his back with his eyes closed.
Jason scrambled to his feet. He felt wetness on his skin and glanced at his shoulder, where blood seeped through his shirt. His stitches had opened. He stumbled down the steps toward the beach, but as he neared the water, he stopped. They were already coming for him, but not the police. He didn’t hear sirens. Instead, overhead, he heard the fierce throb of an engine getting louder.
A helicopter.
He looked up and saw a black helicopter descending toward the beach like a giant insect. Before it even landed, half a dozen operatives in paramilitary gear leaped from the open door and landed in the shallow water not even a hundred yards from the trees. They all had automatic rifles in their hands. From where they were, he was invisible, but his location had already made its way from a nervous cop’s radio to the men who were hunting him. They knew where he was. Half of them moved down the beach, heading straight for the woods, and the other half crept toward the street to cut him off.
Before Bourne could move, he heard another engine. A second helicopter soared into view over the trees and descended toward the other end of the beach like a pincer, squeezing him from both directions.
Jason backed up the steps, then turned and ran toward the house. He ignored the pain. He ignored the dizziness. The young cop was still unconscious in the mud, and he jumped over him on his way toward the highway. He had to get away now! In less than a minute, the road would be shut down in both directions by men with guns. He ran past the house and down the dirt driveway to Route 132, where he put up a hand to stop an Audi sedan that was barreling toward him in the southbound lane.
The Audi’s brakes squealed as the car jammed to a stop. There were two people in the front seat, a man and a woman. He heard the driver swearing at him.
Bourne ran to the car’s back door and threw it open and pointed the cop’s gun at the man’s head.
“Drive.”
The man behind the wheel was a bearded fifty-something businessman in a navy sport coat and open-collared dress shirt. He had a blond woman in the seat next to him who was less than half his age. The anger in the man’s face bled away as he saw the gun, and his eyes widened with terror. “Oh shit, oh shit, just take the car. Take the car!”
“Drive,” Bourne repeated, pulling the back door shut and stretching along the floor of the car. “I’ve got a gun pointed at your spine through the seat. You stop for anything, I fire, and you’re paralyzed. Got it? Now go.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever you say.”
Jason heard the wheels screeching as the car accelerated.
“Don’t speed!” he directed the man. “Don’t draw any attention to yourself. There may be men with rifles heading toward the highway from the beach. Ignore them. If you do anything to signal them, you’re both dead.”
“Okay! I’m driving! Don’t hurt us! Where do you want to go?”
“Just keep heading south,” Bourne said, closing his eyes and applying pressure to the bloody wound on his shoulder. “As soon as I figure out where I’m going, I’ll tell you.”
FIVE
ABBEY knew that the policeman didn’t believe her story. There was no evidence left in Artillery Park of her encounter with the man in the gold-rimmed glasses. He was gone. Her Taser was gone. There were no witnesses.
The police officer had the look of a butler at a royal palace. He was in his thirties but oozed the kind of pompous condescension that most men take at least fifty years to perfect. He was slim and tall, with brown hair parted in the middle and greased down, and he sported a pencil mustache that he kept combing with the tip of his finger. He had prominent cheekbones and ears that jutted from the side of his head.
“You didn’t know this man?” the cop said with obvious skepticism. “You’d never seen him before?”
“No, but he knew me. He was waiting outside the bar. He called me by name.”
“Could he have seen you while you were inside?”
“I suppose. I didn’t see him, but it’s possible.”
“Did you have a lot to drink last night?” the police officer asked, staring down his nose at her.
“I had one beer. What does that have to do with anything?”
“Hmm,” the cop said, working his mouth as if he were chewing something unpleasant. “And you say this man pulled a gun on you?”
“That’s right. He was going to kill me.”
“How do you know that?”
“Well, the gun was my first clue,” Abbey snapped.
She shifted impatiently on her feet and looked around the park to see if anyone was watching her. It crossed her mind that maybe she was being followed; maybe she’d been followed for days, ever since New York. She felt tired, angry, and paranoid. It had been a bad night. She hadn’t felt safe going back to her apartment, so she’d crashed on a girlfriend’s couch and made up an excuse about ducking an old boyfriend. She’d hardly slept at all. And then, in the morning, she’d debated whether to report what had happened. Her editor, Jacques, had finally prevailed on her to call the police, but now she was regretting her decision.
“Did this man want something from you?” the police officer went on. “Did he ask for money? Or do you think he was planning a sexual assault?”
“I think he was just planning to shoot me.”
“Did the two of you argue? Was he angry?”
“No, he wasn’t angry. He never showed any emotion at all. This guy was an assassin. He met me in order to kill me. Period. If I hadn’t had the Taser, I’d be dead.”
“Ah, yes, the Taser,” the cop murmured with a reprimand in his voice. “I’m glad you came back to that. Are you aware, Ms. Laurent, that a Taser is a prohibited weapon in Canada? Importing and owning one is a crime. If it’s missing as you say, then I suppose I can let it go, but I would strongly advise you not to replace it.”
Abbey brushed her mahogany bangs out of her eyes with a swipe of her fingers. “Seriously, you’re worried about my Taser? That’s what you’re taking away from all this? A man tried to kill me. Right here. A hit man.”
“Well, that’s very dramatic, but I’m not sure we can leap to a conclusion like that,” he sneered at her. “I understand that journalists like to think they’re all characters in a Tarantino film, but if this happened as you say, the most likely explanation is that this man is some kind of stalker.”