The Bourne Retribution

Book 11: Jason Bourne Series

by Eric Van Lustbader

Genres: Spy Thrillers; International Crime & Mystery; Suspense

Synopsis

Jason Bourne is one of the most popular and compelling characters in modern fiction. Originally created by best-selling author Robert Ludlum, now New York Times best-selling writer Eric Van Lustbader carries on Ludlum's legacy with a novel about the rogue secret agent who has lost his memory...

Bourne's friend Eli Yadin, head of Mossad, learns that Ouyang Jidan, a senior member of China's Politburo, and a major Mexican drug lord may have been trafficking in something far more deadly than drugs. Yadin needs Bourne to investigate. Bourne agrees, but only because he has a personal agenda: Ouyang Jidan is the man who ordered Rebeka – one of the only people Bourne has ever truly cared about – murdered. Bourne is determined to avenge her death, but in the process he becomes enmeshed in a monstrous world-wide scheme involving the Chinese, Mexicans, and Russians.

Bourne's increasingly desperate search for Ouyang takes him from Tel Aviv to Shanghai, Mexico City, and, ultimately, a village on China's coast where a clever trap has been laid for him. Bourne finds himself pursued on all sides and unsure whom he can trust. As he moves closer to Ouyang, closer to avenging the woman he loved, he also moves ever closer to his own death...

A Hachette Audio production.

Release date: December 3, 2013

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Print pages: 464

Sample

Prologue

Las Peñas, Michoacán, Mexico

In all its eleven years of existence, La Concha d’Oro had never witnessed the likes of the security now firmly in place. Armed Federales stalked, eagle-eyed, the perimeter of the exclusive resort’s land side, a motorboat patrolled the water that paralleled its crescent beachfront, and wherever the two VIPs—for whom the resort had been emptied of guests, vetted, and made secure—went, their bodyguards floated like clouds of bees, busy doing nothing but tending their respective flowers.


About those flowers: They consisted of two men, Carlos Danda Carlos, newly appointed chief of Mexico’s anti-drug enforcement agency, and Eden Mazar, Mossad’s anti-terrorist specialist. Mexico needed all the help it could get to fight the entrenched corruption and fear that kept the three most powerful drug cartels’ grip on the country inviolable, which was why, the Director of Mossad had explained to Jason Bourne not three days ago, Carlos Danda Carlos had reached out to Mossad.

Carlos Danda Carlos was a new breed of Mexican, the Director had explained, educated in the United States, a fearless reformer, a determined general in the fight to free his country from the death grip in which it found itself.

“Los Zetas is far and away the most dangerous cartel,” the Director had said, “mainly due to the fact that it was created from a cadre of elite soldiers who deserted from the Mexican Army’s Special Forces.” The Director had put his hand on Bourne’s shoulder. “Nevertheless, there will be so much security, for you it will be a milk run. Just look after Eden Mazar, and, in between, get some sun and relaxation.”

“I don’t work for you. I don’t work for anyone, ever,” Bourne had said, rather ungenerously considering the way the Director had treated him ever since he had come to Israel, following the death of Maceo Encarnación.

The Director’s smile was tinged with both sadness and regret. “Rebeka was like a daughter to me. It’s been a month since her funeral, but you show no inclination to leave. This is not like you.”

“I’m no longer me,” Bourne said. “Something inside me has changed. There is nothing that interests me.”

The Director watched him for a moment. He was a small man with a halo of wild white hair, the sort of man for whom every line etched into his leather face seemed to represent another death or disappointment. His large cache of victories was hidden out of sight. “I thought this…trip would help take your mind off—”

“Nothing’s going to take my mind off her death,” Bourne said harshly.

The Director nodded. “It’s too soon. I understand completely.” He looked around the harborfront. “Well, you can hang around here for another month—or as long as you like.”

Bourne scoured his words, looking for a hint of irony, but failed to find any. Apparently, the Director meant what he said.

Then he paused to consider his limited options. “On the other hand, maybe you’re right. Maybe an assignment is just what I need.”

And so he had met Eden Mazar, had traveled in the same private Mossad jet with him and his contingent of bodyguards, had disembarked at the small private airfield exclusively reserved for La Concha d’Oro guests, which the Mexican Federales had kept in security lockdown for forty-eight hours prior to landing.


Now here he was, standing six feet away from the two exotic flowers and their bodyguards, scanning the area for trouble that surely would never come. The trouble was he was back in Mexico, and though he was far from Mexico City, where Rebeka had been killed, his mind was still filled with the sight and scent of her death in the taxi’s backseat, driving down apocalyptic streets.

Perhaps the Director hadn’t anticipated Bourne’s reaction to his swift return to Rebeka’s land of death, or possibly his suggestion had been deliberate. Getting back on the horse that threw you was often the best medicine.

Not this time.

Without his fully knowing it, Rebeka had pierced his Bourne armor, penetrating to the core of him. Her death throbbed like an internal wound that refused to heal. I have met other women like her, he thought. And then, inevitably: There’s been no one like her.


Such black thoughts were not typical of his psyche, which had been hardened in crucible after crucible until he had been quite certain that nothing could affect him for long, or even at all. But Rebeka’s death, piled upon all the deaths of those others who had tried to get close to him, was a loss that threatened to suffocate him, plow him under the earth. And why not? His life had been little more than a living death from the moment he had been pulled from the black waters by Mediterranean fishermen and realized that he had lost his memory, his past, his life up until the very moment when he had opened his eyes in unfamiliar surroundings.

Eden Mazar, coming out from beneath the gaily painted wooden overhang of the octagonal gazebo set overlooking the Pacific, reminded him that he was once more in unfamiliar surroundings. But this time, he felt lost, a sea captain who has forgotten his charts and how to steer by the stars.

“These people are to be pitied,” Eden said to him in a rumbling undertone. “They either lack the will or are too corrupt to take on the cartels in any concerted manner. Either way there’s nothing more for me to do here. The government no longer controls Mexico; the cartels do. We’ll be leaving this evening after dinner.”

Bourne nodded.

Eden turned away, then hesitated and came back to Bourne, a wry smile playing across his lips. “Are you bored yet?”

“What makes you think I’m bored?”

Eden grunted. “I have read your face. Also, your file.”

Bourne was alarmed that the Mossad had a file on him, but he wasn’t surprised. He only wondered how accurate it was.

“There’s nothing for you to do,” Eden continued. “But really, this isn’t your thing, is it? You’re infiltration and excision. That’s what the Director likes so much about you.”

“I didn’t know I was a current topic of conversation inside the Mossad.”

Eden smiled kindly. “You were close to Rebeka. That kind of thing didn’t happen with her.”

Suddenly Bourne understood. “And I’m the Director’s only living link with her.”

“She was a special human being, as well as a remarkable agent. We miss her, but we’ll never be able to replace her. Her death dealt us a terrible blow. We will demand retribution.”

“That’s the Mossad way, isn’t it?”

Mazar chose not to answer. “I’ve got to get back to Carlos. He’s not a bad sort, but when it comes to change, to making the concerted effort needed to rid Mexico of the cartels, his hands remain tied. As I said, pitiable.”

Bourne considered a moment. “Why are you here? What’s the Mossad’s interest in Mexican drug cartels?”

“This is something you failed to ask the Director?”

Bourne realized he should have; maybe he hadn’t been thinking clearly.

Mazar smiled. “But you don’t really need to ask anyone that question, Jason, do you?”

Bourne watched him mount the steps back up to the gazebo, where Carlos and his cadre of muscle were waiting patiently in the shade. A cool breeze off the water started up, ruffling Bourne’s hair, stirring the hair on his forearms. What did Eden mean? Was the Mossad aware of the links among Encarnación, the Mexican cartels, and the Chinese government Bourne had discovered? Had Rebeka been working on that connection even before she had met him? He determined that, one way or another, he’d pry the answer out of Mazar.

Hearing a whining insect-like drone, he looked up, saw a small plane high in the sky. Squinting as it came closer, he could make out the pontoons. A seaplane then. Shading his eyes, he saw that the crew of the patrol boat had spotted the seaplane as well. There was movement on the deck, the flash of gun barrels.

Bourne saw that Eden’s bodyguards, being under the gazebo, were blocked from the scene. He started up the steps in order to warn Eden when Carlos Danda Carlos’s men, wielding machetes, sliced off the heads of Eden’s two bodyguards.

Eden turned as blood spattered him. Bourne reached for him, but Carlos, aiming a .357 Magnum at Bourne, shook his head. Eden was in the process of turning his head to look for Bourne when one of Carlos’s bodyguard swung his machete with such force that Eden’s head, severed from his shoulders, arced out onto the beach, where it rolled down the gentle slope until it was kissed by the turquoise waves lapping onto the warm sand.

Bourne took a chance, made his move, leaping onto the machete-wielder. Snatching the weapon from his hand, he drove it into his sternum, piercing skin and flesh, shattering bone.

Then an enormous percussion sounded in his ears at almost the same instant he was slammed backward by the powerful bullet plowing through the muscle of his left shoulder.

He grunted, toppled over the gazebo’s striped railing, tumbled down onto the beach.

  

Hours later, when he was able to rouse himself, the sun was close to setting, turning sky, sea, and sand the color of blood. He lay close to Eden’s head, which bobbed in the water like a child’s toy, striped with black blood, abandoned.


Bourne turned his head, blinked blurriness out of his eyes. Not a figure could be seen. So far as he could tell, the entire resort was deserted.

The gentle surf bumped Eden’s head against him, turning it slowly, as inexorably as the earth rotates from day to night. Eden’s eyes, already filmed over, stared at him accusingly. Bourne opened his mouth, as if the accusation had been verbal, but all at once he was inundated by a wave of violent pain, and quickly he passed into merciful unconsciousness.

1

Internally, the Director of Mossad was traditionally known as Memune, “first among equals.” Not Eli Yadin. “I have a name,” he would say to the new recruits whenever he met them. “Use it.”


Yadin was normally an optimistic man—in his line of work you were either optimistic or you blew your brains out inside of eighteen months. But today he was unhappy; worse, his optimism had failed him. Possibly that was due to Amir Ophir, the man sitting opposite him, aboard his sailboat, the most secure spot in Tel Aviv—all of Israel for that matter.

Ophir was the head of Metsada, Mossad’s Special Ops branch. Through Kidon, its wet-work group, it was in charge of conducting assassination, sabotage, paramilitary, and psychological warfare pro­jects. Unlike the Director, Ophir was dark of both skin and hair. His eyes, set far apart in his face, were pitch black, like the pupil of a raven’s eye. Yadin often thought Ophir’s soul was the same color.

“Honestly, Memune, I don’t understand you.” Ophir shook his head. “When he was up and running, the man was a liability, an albatross, even. Now he’s finished, done. He goes out with the trash. The Mexicans not only killed Eden, they desecrated him. This is totally unacceptable. They must be made to pay.”

“Are you telling me my job, Amir?”

“Of course not, Memune,” Ophir said hastily. “I am only voicing my outrage—the outrage of our entire family.”

“I share your outrage, Amir. And believe me, the perpetrators will be made to pay.”

“I will design a counter to the Mexicans that will—”

“You will do no such thing,” the Director said sharply.

“What?”

“Ouyang Jidan is behind the Mexicans. A larger plan has been set in motion.”

Ophir’s expression grew dark. “You have not told me about it.”

“I just did,” the Director said blandly.

“Details.”

“Compartmentalization.”

Ophir appeared offended by this blatant rebuff. “You do not trust me?”

“Don’t be absurd, Amir.”

“Then—”

The Director looked him in the eye. “The plan involves Bourne.”

Ophir made a derisive sound through pursed lips.

The Director raised a hand. “Ah, well, you see…”

“Memune, listen to me. Wherever Bourne goes, death follows. First Rebeka and now Eden. What I cannot fathom is why you’ve brought him into the center of our family.”

“I know how close you were with Eden.”

“Eden Mazar was one of my best men.”

The Director could see that Ophir was getting heated more rapidly than usual.

“I feel your pain, Amir,” the Director said, “but Bourne is of great strategic use to us.”

“Bourne is burned out. He’s of no use to anyone.”

“I disagree.”

Ophir raised one ebon eyebrow. “Even if you’re right, which I seriously doubt, is that use worth Eden Mazar’s life?”

“Amir, Amir, it is for God to make such a judgment.”

Ophir snorted. “Yes. God is everywhere, and nowhere at all. The fact is, God has nothing to do with our chosen profession. If there is a God, there would be no need for Mossad or Kidon.”

Unfortunately, the Director knew what Ophir meant. It was times like these—when terror clamped Eli’s heart and was slowly squeezing the life out of it—that felt as if God had abandoned his chosen people. But such thoughts were counterproductive.

“I would prefer we leave God out of our discussion,” the Director said. It wasn’t spoken as an order, and yet it was. This, too, was the Mossad way.

“You’re mistaken to pin the two deaths on Bourne,” he went on. “He was their harbinger, but certainly not their cause.”

“He failed to protect Rebeka.”

“Rebeka didn’t need protection,” the Director snapped. “You of all people know that.”

“And what about Eden?”

The Director stood up. The wind had changed directions, and he spent some time adjusting the sails accordingly. When everything was secure and to his liking he returned to his seat and stared into Ophir’s raven eyes.

“Amir, we find ourselves in a situation that I fear is quite beyond us. We need help.”

“I can get you all the help you need.”

The Director shook his head. “I think not. Not this time.”

“Memune, please. Bourne can’t be trusted.” Ophir’s eyes grew dark and dangerous. “He’s not us; he’s not family,” he said emphatically.

Leaning forward, forearms on knees, the Director put his hands together as if in prayer. “And yet, for better or for worse, it’s Bourne, Amir. Only Bourne can help us now.”

  

Jason Bourne, sitting in ancient shadow, stared out at the sunlight chopping the Mediterranean into diamond shards. He imagined each shard to be a leaping fish, went through the exercise of visualizing what each fish looked like as it leapt from the water. Instead he saw Eden Mazar’s decapitated head flying over the gazebo into the edge of the surf.


Diamond shards became flecks of blood, raining down on him. He saw Eden’s veiled eyes admonishing him. He closed his eyes, but that only brought up images of Rebeka in Mexico City, dying in the backseat of a taxi.

Above him rose the arches of the ancient aqueduct built in the first century BCE, during King Herod’s reign. Three hundred years later, with the city of Caesarea greatly enlarged, it was extended, bringing cool, clear water from the springs of Shummi six miles away at the foot of Mount Carmel. Now the modern resort of Caesarea, adjacent to the ruins of the old city, was run by a private corporation.


At some point he became aware that a figure had entered his island of shade, and he grew annoyed, wanting, more than anything, to be alone. He turned, about to voice his displeasure, when he saw the Director, clad in one of his usual lightweight linen suits. His one concession for the beach was highly polished leather huaraches.

“It took me some time to find you,” the Director said, “so I imagine that’s the way you wanted it.”

When Bourne made no reply and swung his head to look out again at the sea, the Director stepped closer and sat down beside him.

“I understand you left the hospital prematurely.”

“Opinions differ,” Bourne said dully.

“A doctor’s opinion—”

“I know my body better than any doctor,” Bourne said curtly.

For some time, the two sat in an uncomfortable silence. Young women in tiny bikinis ran, shouting with laughter, into the surf to interrupt their boyfriends’ game of water Frisbee. Someone was taking photos of the aqueduct. A mother herded her two children up the beach, rubbing a towel briskly over their dripping heads. The salt tang was overlaid with the scents of suntan lotion and clean sweat.

“How’s your shoulder?”

“My shoulder’s fine,” Bourne said. “Is that why you’re here? To check on my health? I don’t need a shoulder.”

“I don’t have a shoulder to give,” the Director said brusquely. Then he sighed. “You may want out, Jason—”

“I don’t want out. I just want to be here.”

“Doing nothing but thinking of her.”

“It’s none of your business what I’m doing.”

“Sitting on the beach day after day isn’t for people like us.”

Bourne remained mute.

“We’ll rest when we’re dead,” the Director observed drily. “Anyway, I didn’t come here to debate the merits of the life we’re in. I came to tell you that your enemies are still searching for you.”

“Eden’s death is proof I’m not ready.”

“No one could have saved Eden, not from a betrayal by Carlos. Recall, if you will, Eden had his handpicked bodyguards with him. They were killed instantly. You did your best.”

“I should have done better. In other times—”

“This isn’t other times,” the Director said. “And the past is the past. You and I have to deal with the now.”

Bourne’s eye was caught by two of the Director’s grim-faced men coming down the beach. They bracketed the man who had been taking pictures and hustled him away.

“It didn’t take me that long to find you,” the Director said. “It hasn’t taken Ouyang Jidan long, either.”

Bourne squinted through the harsh sunlight. Was the photographer in custody Chinese?

The Director produced a cigar but made no move to light it, simply rolled it back and forth between his fingers like a magician’s wand. “Don’t for a moment imagine Ouyang hasn’t been monitoring the entire situation, Jason.” The Director’s face held a measure of solace for Bourne. “You embarrassed him, caused him to lose face. He’s going to strike while you’re most vulnerable.”

Bourne swung his head around. “Did Rebeka know about Ouyang?”

“What? No.”

“Who did, besides you?”

The Director heaved another sigh. “My head of Metsada. Amir Ophir.”

“Then why did Ouyang order her killed?”

For a moment the Director stood stock-still. A pulse beat in his right temple. “Encarnación gave the order.”

“No,” Bourne said. “He didn’t.”

2

Good.” Quan, the wushun master, almost casually tossed a jian, a slender double-edged sword, traditionally used by gentlemen and scholars. As Ouyang Jidan caught it deftly by the hilt, Quan said, “White Snake Form.”


Ouyang stood perfectly still in the center of the training facility. The three men against whom he had been fighting for the past twenty minutes, using the Red Phoenix open-hand style, now picked up their own swords. Unlike Ouyang’s, theirs were dao, short, single-edged broadswords. All the weapons were carbon steel, rather than the traditional wooden training swords. Ouyang had moved beyond those years ago. There were twenty-nine levels in his chosen wushun discipline; he was fifteenth level.


Quan, a tiny man, looking no more than a wisp, was old in the manner of all great wushun masters. That is to say old in years only. He moved like a thirty-year-old, but his mind was filled with the wisdom only long decades of experience could produce. He was twenty-ninth level.

“Now,” Quan said to the three men, “attack.”

Ouyang moved not a muscle as the others advanced, an oasis of utter calm in the eye of the approaching whirlwind. The three men—tall, medium, and small in stature—came at him one by one, in the gliding, stretched movements of the Chinese straight sword form.

The small one struck first, an overhead blow meant to split the skull. Ouyang countered without moving his legs or torso in the slightest. Just his arms blurred, steel struck on steel, a lightning flash of sparks, and then the short man, shaken, stepped back at the precise moment the tall man lunged in with a strike meant to penetrate all the way to the spine. With a flick of his wrists that was neither disdainful nor flamboyant, Ouyang guided his opponent’s dao aside.


The medium man’s approach was entirely different. He was an expert in Sacred Stone, the same form Ouyang was using. For almost five minutes the two men stood toe-to-toe, with only their arms and weapons moving, until Ouyang, employing an unorthodox strike, swept his opponent’s legs out from under him.

The three men now spread out and simultaneously attacked Ouyang from different directions, the medium man switching from the immobile Sacred Stone to the fluid Fire Dance. For long moments, the endless clang of steel on steel, sparks like lightning, blurs like a mist clouding the interior of the building. Again and again the men tried to defeat Ouyang. Again and again, they were deflected, and then, in a breathtaking flurry, disarmed, defeated.

  

Well,” Colonel Sun said, when it was over, after Ouyang had been elevated to sixteenth level in a brief ceremony, “even I am impressed.”


Ouyang looked at him, sword blade lying against his hairless forearm. “Perhaps you wish to take me on.”

Colonel Sun chuckled, shaking his head. “You are old school, Minister. I never studied the straight sword forms.”

“Too low-tech, I imagine.” Ouyang sheathed his jian with a reverence the younger man would never grasp. “So there is a gap in your expertise.”


Colonel Sun chuckled again, but there was an undertone of uneasiness, an unanswered question of failure. He was young to be such a highly ranked officer—in his midthirties, a handsome man, with a slight Manchu cast to his eyes and cheekbones. Ouyang had mentored him, brought him along, overseeing his swift rise through the military ranks. Sun was intelligent, inquisitive, like Ouyang, a visionary—one of the young upstarts that, Ouyang hoped, would help bring the Middle Kingdom the world hegemony it so richly deserved.

“I have altered my mind-set,” Colonel Sun said, “of Ministers who sit in offices and shuffle papers as they make decisions.”

“Only me,” Ouyang said with an impish smile. “Only me.”

  

Later, the two men sat in the private dining suite at the Hyatt on the Bund reserved exclusively for Ouyang. They drank Starbucks coffee and ate the American breakfast Ouyang insisted they tolerate, if not enjoy, as part of their preparation for world hegemony. Outside the windows stretched Pudong and the glittering arc of the Bund, for centuries one of the world’s most famous waterfronts.


Colonel Sun, having had enough of the foreign substances, put aside his fork and said, “One of our people has been taken into custody at Caesarea.”

Ouyang scowled. “That is most unfortunate.”

Colonel Sun, clearing the tastes out of his mouth with a gulp of water, nodded. “Jason Bourne was with Director Yadin.”

“He’s like a fucking cockroach,” Ouyang said. “Impossible to kill, as you yourself found out in the catacombs of Rome. You tried twice and failed both times.”

Colonel Sun winced. “Everyone has failed. That does not mean I’ll fail again.”

Ouyang nodded. “An outcome that would please me, Sun. And also, I might add, lead to another promotion.” He wiped his lips. “Now, about the Mexican operation.”

“A mistake was made at Las Peñas.” Colonel Sun spat. “Mexicans! They can’t be trusted to think for themselves. Though, in the past that has worked in our favor.” He hesitated a moment, as if unsure whether to voice his next thought. “And then there is Maricruz.”

Ouyang stiffened visibly. “Maceo Encarnación’s daughter is an exception to the rule.”

“And yet,” Colonel Sun said, “she is the one who brought us into contact with the Mexicans.”

“In the past that has worked in our favor,” Ouyang said, deliberately parroting his protégé.

“The failure at Dahr El Ahmar to obtain the Israeli laser process for enriching uranium has not only set back our plans in Africa, but also given Cho Xilan the ammunition he needs against our long-range path for China.”

Cho was the secretary of the powerful Chongqing Party, Ouyang’s chief rival in the Central Committee. The Chongqing was also known as the Pure Heaven party for its conservative view of continuing the Middle Kingdom’s long-standing policy of isolation and non-​engagement with the West. The rift between conservative and liberal factions of the government had been blown open by the very public purging of Bo Xilai and the subsequent arrest of his wife for allegedly murdering a Westerner.


“Listen to me, Sun. Now that the president has decided to convene the Party Congress, everything has changed,” Ouyang said. “In two weeks we will finalize plans to hand power to a new generation of leaders.

“I am determined to be one of those leaders. I am just as determined to ensure that Cho Xilan is not one of them. He was elevated when Bo Xilai was purged. We must find a way to implicate him in conspiring with the former head of the Chongqing Party.”

Colonel Sun considered. “That will not be easy. Cho has many powerful friends.”

“Nothing we do is easy, Sun.” Ouyang’s fork paused on the way to his mouth, hanging in midair. “Listen to me now. The Mexicans could not be expected to deal with Jason Bourne, a man they know nothing about. Carlos did what he was ordered to do, and, as a result, Mossad has been dealt another blow. First the powerful agent Rebeka, and now Eden Mazar.”

“Well then, it’s no wonder Yadin is talking with Bourne.”

“The question is, why is Bourne listening?” Ouyang chewed meditatively on a bite of egg and bacon. “Why was Bourne in Las Peñas protecting Mazar? Bourne is a loner. He loathes and distrusts government agencies.” He shook his head, staring out at the glimmering high-rise skyline of Shanghai. “Something vital has changed. We need to find out, Sun.”

The colonel shook his head. “I don’t understand.”

Ouyang pursed his lips. “Bourne is a wild card, Sun, he always has been. We cannot afford to let him or Mossad interfere with us.”

“I don’t understand why you’re still worried about Mossad. Their agent Rebeka is dead.”

“Given what we know, Sun, there is every possibility that Mossad’s Director has talked Bourne into following in Rebeka’s footsteps.”

“I still don’t—”

“You know as much as you need to know, Sun.” Ouyang turned away. “Focus on Bourne. He’s your target now.”

  

Bourne had booked himself into an anonymous motel on the seedier side of Caesarea, away from the posh tourist center where the rich came to play. Its whitewashed stone looked abused, as if the past had beaten it up. It was, however, not so anonymous that a man dressed as a tourist, carrying an overnight bag, wasn’t able to find it and book himself a room, paying cash for a one-night stay. While the clerk turned his back to fetch his room key, the tourist checked the computer terminal for Bourne’s room number.


The tourist had an entirely unremarkable face. In fact, minutes after he had checked in, the clerk had forgotten what he looked like. Meanwhile, on the third floor, the tourist stopped outside Bourne’s room.

He set down his overnight bag, unzipped it, and removed a vinyl sheet that, when shaken out, deployed as a suit, into which he stepped. When he zipped up the front, his body seemed to disappear. He slipped plastic booties over his shoes, then snapped on latex gloves.

Inside Bourne’s room, he observed everything with a cold cli­ni­cian’s eye. He went methodically through every drawer, shelf, checked behind every picture, underneath the bed—making certain to replace everything in the precise spot and angle in which he’d found it. Finding nothing of interest, he stepped into the bathroom. He felt behind the toilet’s water tank, lifted the porcelain lid to peer inside. From the side of the sink, he picked up a water glass. Holding it at rim and bottom, he sprayed a fine white powder on the curved side. Immediately several fingerprints were revealed. He placed a short length of a specially formulated tape over the fingerprints, then carefully peeled it off. The prints were perfectly preserved on the tape.

A moment later, silent and ghost-like, he slipped from the room. Stripping off the vinyl suit and booties, he stowed them in his bag. He kept the latex gloves on. Descending two flights of metal stairs, he exited unnoticed through the rear door, vanishing into the white noonday glare.

3

My world,” Director Yadin said as he stared out at the cerulean water breaking onto the beach, “is made up of black and white. I leave the shades of gray to other people. I am compelled by my job to see the world in two camps: heroes and villains—those who will help me and those who plot my downfall. Here, we do not have the luxury of being undecided, we do not have the luxury of hesitating, because destruction is always waiting on the other side of night.”


The young men and women, finished with their sex