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Now, hours later, as they approached the city, Bourne exited the highway, turning left at the end of the off-ramp, and rolling through sleeping streets, eventually pulling up beside an empty lot, due for new construction. It was enclosed by a drunken chain-link fence that had seen better days.
Turning in his seat, Bourne said, “Get him out of here.”
Rebeka appeared about to query him, then thought better of it. Instead, she opened the curbside door and hauled Rowland out into the pre-dawn light. Bourne shut off the engine, got out, and, coming around the front of the car, took Rowland by the collar and frogmarched him to a waist-high gap in the fence.
“Bourne,” Rebeka said, “what are you going to do?”
Pressing his hand to the top of Rowland’s head, Bourne guided him through the gap, then stepped through himself. As he did so, Rowland made a break for it. Bourne went after him. Owing to his two frozen toes, Rowland ran at a spastic, lurching pace, so Bourne caught up to him without difficulty. He slammed him on the back of his head, and Rowland collapsed to his knees, where he remained, his upper torso rocking back and forth as if he had lost all sense of equilibrium.
Rebeka came up to them. “Bourne, don’t hurt him. Now that he’s regained his memory, we need what’s in his head.”
“He’s not going to tell us a damn thing.” He slammed the back of Rowland’s head a second time. “Are you, Rowland?” Rowland shook his head, and Bourne struck him a massive blow between the shoulder blades. With an animal grunt, he fell into the snow-covered dirt. Bourne reached down and hauled him back to his penitent kneeling position.
Alarmed, Rebeka said, “Bourne, what are you going to do?”
“Shut up.” Bourne was filled with a murderous rage, not only because this man had tried to kill him, had, judging by his actions in the fisherman’s cottage, been sent to kill him, but because he had regained his memory. Bourne had not. In all the years since being pitched into the Mediterranean, he still knew next to nothing about his previous life. It was true enough that he had managed to slot himself into the Bourne identity—he wasJason Bourne now—but he was still a man without a past, without a home, without any place to call his own. He floated in the air, unmoored, ungrounded, forever searching for—he didn’t even know what he was searching for. But this man—who, if Rebeka was to be believed, had been sent by Jihad bis saifto kill him—had regained everything he had lost when Rebeka’s shot had grazed his head, pitching him into Hemviken Bay. He struck Rowland again. Justice! And again. He wanted justice!
“Bourne...Bourne, for God’s sake!”
Rebeka, both her hands wrapped around his right forearm, stopped him from a third blow.
He kicked Rowland in the kidney, and felt a measure of satisfaction as he crumpled over onto his side.
Then the acute rage subsided, and he allowed Rebeka to interpose herself. With a glare, she crouched down and began to help Rowland to his feet. This Bourne could not tolerate, and he struck the back of Rowland’s knee so that he once more fell to his knees. Leaving him there, she rose to her feet and confronted Bourne.
“He was sent to kill me,” Bourne said before she had a chance to speak.
“One of many, yes?” She sought to hold his eyes with her own, then she shook her head again. “Don’t for a moment think I don’t know what’s really going on.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said dully. He felt spent and, worse, empty.
“Let’s pretend you do.” She took a step toward him, lowering her voice. “What use will beating him to a pulp do? It’s counterproductive,” she added, answering her own question. Then, as if uncertain whether she had gotten through to him, she repeated: “It’s counterproductive.”
His eyes cleared, and he nodded. She smiled tentatively. “Now, let’s go at him. Together, maybe we can achieve what each of us alone has failed to do.”
They went around, crouching down in front of Harry Rowland, who looked at them blearily out of red-rimmed eyes.
“I know you work for Jihad bis saif,” Rebeka said, not yet trusting Bourne to begin this stage of the interrogation on the proper note. “Now, by your own actions, we know you were sent to kill Bourne.”
“What we don’t know,” Bourne said, taking his cue from her, “is why.”
Rowland’s head swayed a little from side to side. He licked his lips, which were coated with dried blood. “Why does anyone want to kill you, Bourne?”
“You’re a threat to this network,” Rebeka said to Bourne. She turned back to Rowland. “Why?”
His bloodshot eyes stared at her. “You did this to me. I was besotted with you. Those nights in Dahr El Ahmar, you made me forget my mission.” He cocked his head to one side. “How did you do that? I don’t understand. What magic did you work?”
“This is what we do, Harry.” Rebeka put a hand gently on his thigh. “The charade worked both ways. You fooled me. I had no idea you were a member of Jihad bis saif. Until the end.”
He licked his lips again. He could not take his eyes off her. “What happened? I was so careful. What gave me away?”
Her fingers moved on his thigh. She had seized on the pleading tone in his voice. “Tell me why Bourne is a threat to Jihad bis saif.”
“ Jihad bis saif,” he repeated with a sneer. “You don’t know the first thing about Jihad bis saif.” Curiously, he was almost laughing.
“Then enlighten us,” Bourne said in Arabic, then Pashto. When Rowland didn’t respond, Bourne shook his head. “There is no Jihad bis saif, is there?”
“Oh, but there is.”
A hinted-at smile of self-satisfaction was wiped off Rowland’s face by Bourne’s fist as it co
“I guess I don’t believe you.” He gripped Rowland’s jaw hard. “Let’s put an end to this. Tell us what you know or—”
At that moment, a helicopter appeared over the rooftops, arcing across the sky.
“Cops?” Rebeka said, squinting up into the oyster-colored dawn.
“No insignias.” Bourne rose, jerked Rowland onto his feet.
The copter came swinging in toward them. Clearly, it was homing in on them.
“We’d best find cover,” Bourne said. But before they could move, the copter was overhead. The chattering of machine-gun fire ripped up the dirty snow. Chips of ice and clots of freshly turned earth flew in all directions. Bourne tried to pull Rowland along with them, but the fire, meant to separate them, was too intense. The men inside the copter left them no choice. He and Rebeka ran toward a stack of piled-up brick and stone from the razed building.
Bourne made one last attempt to reach Rowland, but the withering fire drove him back. The copter was moving, but instead of rising, it shot forward. The firing began again, this time clearly directed at Bourne. He dived under the cover of some wooden boards, which immediately began to splinter apart. He rolled, snaking away from where Rebeka had hidden, conscious of keeping the bullets away from her even while he sought to protect himself. Since it had explicitly targeted him, it was clear the copter belonged to Rowland’s network, that those inside had recognized him.
The copter stopped, hovering twenty feet off the ground. A door slid open and a rope ladder extended from it. Rowland was up and was ru
Men inside the copter winched up the ladder, grabbing hold of Rowland as soon as he was within arm’s reach. The copter now closed with the area where Bourne was hiding. The firing continued in brief but ferocious bursts. The boards kept flying apart, making it necessary for him to move again and thus expose himself.