Read Online Robert Ludlum's (TM) The Bourne Ascendancy by Eric Van Lustbader - Free Book Online Page A

the hell they want. Stop, crop the grass, amble along, anything but what you want them to do. They’re lazy beasts, at heart.” Hunter had a voice as hard and raspy as the callused palm of her hand, as if she smoked three packs a day or had had some surgical procedure on her throat. “So the idea is intent .” She smacked the small English saddle with the flat of her hand. “Before you mount the horse know what you want him to do, where you want him to go, and at what pace—walk, trot, canter, gallop.” Her gray eyes shot Camilla a look. They looked as if she had been through innumerable battles—not weary as much as wise. “Got that?”
    Camilla nodded.
    “This horse likes you. I felt it from the moment you two met,” Hunter said. “He’s a gelding, powerful, fast—not a workhorse. See by his sleekness, his long, well-formed legs? He’s a racer. Exactly the kind of horse you’ll be riding in the field.” She patted Starfall’s flank fondly. “We’ll start you off on him, then graduate you to a horse that won’t be so fond of you. You’ll need proficiency on all of ’em. Where you’re headed you won’t get to choose.”
    Camilla felt her heart thudding wildly in her chest. “You’re going to teach me how to win? Really?”
    Hunter looked at her in a way that made Camilla believe she could see right through her to the fear.
    “First things first, darlin’. Now c’mon, mount this beast. And remember, from the left, always from the left.”
    *  *  *
    The moment the door closed in his face, Levi Blum looked left and right down the alley. Finding he was alone, he drew out a small black box, placed it against the door. He fitted himself with a wireless earbud, switched on the Bluetooth connection, and began to fiddle with the dial on the front of the box. It took only moments to get the electronic ear focused on the two voices in the room beyond the door. He switched on the recording device hidden within the electronic ear.
    “The problem is El Ghadan. How the hell does he know so much about you?” Rebeka’s voice came through loud and clear.
    “That’s what I have to find out.” Now Bourne’s voice.
    Rebeka: “You have less than seven days to carry out the mission. How can you—?”
    Bourne: “Let me worry about that.”
    Rebeka: “About the mission: You’re not actually going to kill the president of the United States?”
    Bourne: “What choice do I have? El Ghadan was all too clear about what he’ll do to Soraya and Sonya if I don’t.”
    Silence for several long beats. Blum, feeling pins and needles in his left leg, shifted from one foot to the other.
    Rebeka: “You have another choice, you know.”
    Bourne: “I don’t.”
    Rebeka: “You could find them and—”
    Bourne: “El Ghadan has already taken care of that possibility.”
    Rebeka: “I know, but…”
    Another silence.
    Bourne: “I know what you’re implying. Tell me this, if it was Aaron who was being held captive, what would you do?”
    Rebeka: “I’d do what needs to be done. Mossad does not negotiate with terrorists.”
    Bourne: “And if in the process he died?”
    Rebeka: “Then so be it.”
    Bourne: “There is a two-year-old child involved.”
    Rebeka: “I understand that.”
    Bourne: “You are as remorseless as the God of Abraham.”
    Rebeka: “That was how I was raised. That is how I need to be. My people are given no choice. Are you surprised?”
    Bourne: “Not in the least.”
    A third silence. No, not quite a silence. Blum tried dialing in more closely, but all he seemed to hear was what might be the sliding of fabric against fabric, or possibly something else altogether. A hissing like the imagined conversation between two serpents.
    Then, abruptly, Rebeka spoke: “That’s it, then.”
    Her voice was louder, closer to the door, and Blum hurriedly detached the box, plucked the bud from his ear, jammed them both deep in the pocket of his trousers.
    Not a moment too soon. The door swung open and