Read Online Robert Ludlum's the Bourne Imperative by Eric Van Lustbader - Free Book Online Page B

Many intimate associations flooded his mind before he clamped down on them. Standing up straight, he filled his lungs with nicotine as a way of distancing himself from the past while he spoke.
    “I realized that life was trying to guide me,” he continued, “to teach me the lessons I would need in order not only to survive, but to prosper. I realized that I would have to shed my pride, I would have to embrace the unacceptable obstacles, to find the way through them, rather than turning away from them. Because the path to success— anyone’s success, not only mine—lies through them.”
    Martha Christiana listened to him silently, solemnly, following every word. He liked that about her. She was not so self-involved that she failed to hear what was important. This quality alone separated her from the masses. She was like him.
    “Every time the unacceptable is accepted, there is a change,” she said finally. “Change or die, that is the central thesis we both absorbed, isn’t it? And as the changes add up, a certain metamorphosis occurs. And, suddenly, we are different.”
    “More different than we ever thought we’d be.”
    She nodded, her gaze fixed on the rows of horse chestnuts flanking the wide, perfectly straight Champs. “And now here we are, once again waiting for the shadows to fall.”
    “On the contrary,” he said, “we are the shadows.”
    Martha Christiana chuckled, nodding. “Indeed.”
    They smoked silently, companionably, for several minutes while the crush of people and traffic ebbed and flowed around them. In the distance, down the Champs, he could see the Arc de Triomph, shimmering like Martha’s Louboutins.
    At length, he dropped his cigarette butt and ground it under his heel. “You have a car?”
    “Standing by, as usual.”
    “Good.” He nodded, then licked his lips. “I’ve got a problem.” He always began the business end of their conversations in the same way. The ritualistic opening calming him. He always had problems, but he rarely called on Martha Christiana to solve them. He hoarded her special talents for the problems he felt certain no one else could handle.
    “Male or female?” asked Martha Christiana.
    He slipped a photo out of an inner pocket and handed it over. “Ah, what a handsome devil!” Her lips curled up. “I could go for this one.”
    “Right.” He laughed as he handed over a USB thumb drive. “All the relevant information on the target is on here, though I know you like to do your own digging.”
    “On occasion. I like to hit all the notes, even the trivial ones.” She looked over at him. “And where is this Don Fernando Hererra currently residing?”
    “He’s on the move.” He showed bits of his teeth, the color of ivory mah-jongg tiles. “He’s searching for me.”
    Martha Christiana raised her eyebrows. “He doesn’t look like a killer.”
    “He isn’t.”
    “Then what does he want? And why do you want him terminated?”
    He sighed. “He wants everything. Don Fernando wants to extract something from me far more precious than my life.”
    Now Martha Christiana turned to him fully, her face full of concern. “What would that be, guapo ?”
    “My legacy.” He puffed air out of his mouth. “He wants to take everything I have, everything I ever will have, away from me.”
    “I will not let him.”
    He smiled like beaten brass and touched the back of her hand as lightly as the brush of a butterfly’s wing. “Martha, when you are finished, I will have someone come fetch you. There is a very special commission I need you for.”
    Martha Christiana returned his smile as she pushed herself off the obelisk. “Don Fernando Hererra will be taken care of.”
    He smiled. “I know he will.”
    This thing with Bourne, this liaison,” Ze’ev said, “is fucking foolish, it isn’t worth it. It will be the death of you, Ben David will see to that.” Rebeka clucked her tongue. “This is what you traveled all the way from Tel Aviv to tell