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Leonid Arkadin, lost in the dappled shadows of the forest, heard the roar of the engines over the measured chanting that came from inside the walls of the temple over which, from his position, he had a perfect view. He raised the Parker Hale M85 so the stock fit comfortably to his shoulder and sighted down the Schmidt & Bender scope.
He was calm now, his anxiety replaced by a curious and cu
All at once a motorbike emerged into the temple clearing, and Arkadin breathed deeply as he centered Bourne in his sights. And in that moment the outline of Bourne‘s body became keenly defined, like vapor condensing into the poisoned nectar of revenge.
Bourne and Moira broke out into a perfectly still clearing in which were set three temples—a large one in the center, two smaller ones on either side.
There was no sound except the rhythmic throb of the motorbike‘s engine. Then, hearing chanting from inside the walls of the center temple, Bourne pulled up.
In that moment Arkadin, settling himself on the nearly horizontal branch of a tree, pulled the trigger, and Bourne was blown backward off the motorbike. Moira screamed.
Throwing aside the rifle and drawing a wicked-looking hunting knife with a serrated blade, Arkadin jumped to the ground and raced toward the kill site in order to slit Bourne‘s throat and ensure his death. But his progress was impeded by a herd of cows. Following them were women with offerings of fruit and flowers on their heads, and behind them came the town‘s children in a ceremonial procession, moving toward the temple. Arkadin tried to get around them, but one of the cows, disturbed by his frantic movements, turned in his direction. It shook its long, sharp horns and at once the procession froze as if in midstep. Heads turned and all eyes were on him, and with one last look at Bourne‘s bloody body, he vanished back into the jungle.
The celebrants rushed toward Bourne, spilling their offerings across the sparse grass where he lay on his back in the dirt. He tried to get up, failed. Moira knelt over him, and he pulled her down so her ear was against his mouth. Blood had soaked the front of his shirt, and now trickled darkly into the earth.
Book One
1
Three Months Later
IN AN UPPER-CLASS SUBURB of Munich, two young bodyguards with gimlet eyes and holstered 9mm Glocks in their armpits flanked a thin, hyperactive man as he emerged from a house. An older man with dark skin and grave lines reaching down from either corner of his mouth, like mustaches, emerged from the shadowed refuge to briefly shake the hyperactive man‘s hand. Then the three men trotted down the stairs and entered a waiting car: one of the bodyguards riding shotgun, the other one with the hyperactive man in back. The meeting had been intense but brief, and the engine was already ru
The newborn morning lay drowsing, barely awake, and utterly silent. The trees, well manicured and leafy, dappled the sidewalks in inky shade. The air was soft and cool, as yet i
As the car gathered speed, making its way down the street, the huge truck turned so that it was sideways to the oncoming vehicle, blocking the road.
Without an instant‘s hesitation the car‘s driver threw the vehicle into reverse and stepped on the gas. With a screech of tires the car shot backward, away from the truck. At the sound, the boy looked up. He was standing, straddling the bike, appearing to get his wind back. But at the last moment, as the oncoming car neared him, he reached into the bike‘s wicker basket and drew out an odd-looking weapon with an u
Just past noon that same day, Leonid Arkadin was sitting in a Munich beer hall surrounded by oompah music and drunken Germans when his cell phone buzzed. Recognizing the caller‘s phone number, he walked out into the street, where it was slightly less noisy, and grunted a wordless greeting.
―Like the others, your latest attempt to destroy the Eastern Brotherhood has failed.‖ Abdulla Khoury‘s ugly voice buzzed in his ear like an angry wasp. ―You killed my finance minister this morning, that‘s all. I‘ve already appointed another.‖
―You misunderstand me, I don‘t mean to destroy the Eastern Brotherhood,‖
Arkadin said. ―I mean to take it over.‖
The response was a harsh laugh devoid of all humor, or even human emotion. ―No matter how many of my associates you kill, Arkadin, this I assure you: I will always survive.‖
Moira Trevor was sitting behind her sparkling new chrome-and-glass desk, in the sparkling new offices of Heartland Risk Management, LLC, her brand-new company, occupying two floors of a post-modern building in the heart of Northwest Washington, DC. She was on the phone with Steve Stevenson, one of her contacts in the Department of Defense, being briefed on a lucrative job her new company had been hired to do, one of half a dozen that had rolled in over the past five weeks, and simultaneously ru
When her intercom sounded, she started, realizing she‘d been gazing at the photo, her thoughts wandering back, as they often did these days, to those golden days on Bali before Bourne was gu