Read Online The Bourne Objective by Robert Ludlum, Eric Van Lustbader - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Robert Ludlum, Eric Van Lustbader
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darkening the backseat, stealing over her, worming its way inside. She tried to catch her breath and managed only to shiver. The air seemed to fizz or shimmer, as if she were seeing a desert mirage. “Why me? I still don’t get it.”
“Ms. Trevor, you have certain, shall we say, unique abilities that I believe will be invaluable in finding my laptop and returning it to me.”
“And those abilities would be…”
“You have successfully taken on both Black River and the NSA . Do you think that I could find a single private detective who has also done so?” He turned and smiled at her with a set of large, brilliant white teeth shining out of a dusky cardamom face defined by flat planes, high cheekbones, and deep-set eyes, hooded as a hawk’s. “No need to answer, that wasn’t a question.”
“Okay, I’ll ask you a question: Do you believe that clandestine agencies were involved in the theft?”
Essai appeared to consider this for some time, though Moira had the distinct impression that he knew for certain.
“It’s possible,” he said at length. “Even likely.”
Moira crossed her arms over her breasts as if to protect herself from the way his logic was chipping away at her resolve, the waves of dark energy emanating from him like nothing she had felt before, as if she were sitting too near a particle collider. She shook her head emphatically. “Sorry.”
Essai nodded. It seemed as if nothing she said or did surprised him.
“In any event, this is for you.”
He handed over a manila folder, which Moira eyed with mounting suspicion and an eerie dread. Why did she feel like Eve taking the apple of knowledge? Nevertheless, as if her hands were obeying someone else’s command, she took possession of the folder.
“Please. There are no strings,” Essai said. “Rest assured.”
She hesitated a moment, then opened it. Inside was a surveillance photo of one of the top operatives she’d poached from Black River meeting with the director of field operations for the NSA .
“Tim Upton? He’s the NSA mole? This wasn’t Photoshopped, was it?”
Essai said nothing, so she dropped her gaze to read the accompanying sheet of observed times and places when Upton met clandestinely with various members of the NSA . She sighed deeply, sitting back against the cushion, and slowly closed the file.
“This is extremely generous of you.”
Essai shrugged as if it were nothing. And as if on cue the Rolls slowed and pulled to the curb.
“Good-bye, Ms. Trevor.”
Moira actually got as far as grabbing the door handle before she turned back to the bearded man and said, “So what is it that makes this laptop of yours so valuable?”
Essai’s smile shone like a beacon.
4
B OURNE ARRIVED IN London on a depressingly murky, windblown morning. A misty rain swirled along the Thames, obscuring Big Ben, and the low sky, heavy as lead, pressed down against the modern rise of the city. The air stank of petrol and coal dust, but possibly it was just the industrial grit whipped up by the wind.
Suparwita had told him the address of Noah Perlis’s flat. It was the only specific clue he had left himself from that now forgotten time in his life. Sitting in the back of a taxi on the way in from Heathrow, he stared out at the passing scenery without seeing anything. There seemed whole stretches now when he forgot that he’d had a life before his amnesia, but then, like a slap in the face, a shard of it would unexpectedly surface to remind him of what he was missing, what he could never retrieve. In that first instant he felt diminished, a man living half a life, living with a shadow he could never see or even barely feel. Yet it was there, a part of him he could touch only briefly and in frustratingly limited fashion—flashes in the farthest periphery of his vision.
This was what had happened to him in Bali when, trying to find Suparwita several weeks ago, he had ascended to the first temple at the Pura Lempuyang complex. He
“Ms. Trevor, you have certain, shall we say, unique abilities that I believe will be invaluable in finding my laptop and returning it to me.”
“And those abilities would be…”
“You have successfully taken on both Black River and the NSA . Do you think that I could find a single private detective who has also done so?” He turned and smiled at her with a set of large, brilliant white teeth shining out of a dusky cardamom face defined by flat planes, high cheekbones, and deep-set eyes, hooded as a hawk’s. “No need to answer, that wasn’t a question.”
“Okay, I’ll ask you a question: Do you believe that clandestine agencies were involved in the theft?”
Essai appeared to consider this for some time, though Moira had the distinct impression that he knew for certain.
“It’s possible,” he said at length. “Even likely.”
Moira crossed her arms over her breasts as if to protect herself from the way his logic was chipping away at her resolve, the waves of dark energy emanating from him like nothing she had felt before, as if she were sitting too near a particle collider. She shook her head emphatically. “Sorry.”
Essai nodded. It seemed as if nothing she said or did surprised him.
“In any event, this is for you.”
He handed over a manila folder, which Moira eyed with mounting suspicion and an eerie dread. Why did she feel like Eve taking the apple of knowledge? Nevertheless, as if her hands were obeying someone else’s command, she took possession of the folder.
“Please. There are no strings,” Essai said. “Rest assured.”
She hesitated a moment, then opened it. Inside was a surveillance photo of one of the top operatives she’d poached from Black River meeting with the director of field operations for the NSA .
“Tim Upton? He’s the NSA mole? This wasn’t Photoshopped, was it?”
Essai said nothing, so she dropped her gaze to read the accompanying sheet of observed times and places when Upton met clandestinely with various members of the NSA . She sighed deeply, sitting back against the cushion, and slowly closed the file.
“This is extremely generous of you.”
Essai shrugged as if it were nothing. And as if on cue the Rolls slowed and pulled to the curb.
“Good-bye, Ms. Trevor.”
Moira actually got as far as grabbing the door handle before she turned back to the bearded man and said, “So what is it that makes this laptop of yours so valuable?”
Essai’s smile shone like a beacon.
4
B OURNE ARRIVED IN London on a depressingly murky, windblown morning. A misty rain swirled along the Thames, obscuring Big Ben, and the low sky, heavy as lead, pressed down against the modern rise of the city. The air stank of petrol and coal dust, but possibly it was just the industrial grit whipped up by the wind.
Suparwita had told him the address of Noah Perlis’s flat. It was the only specific clue he had left himself from that now forgotten time in his life. Sitting in the back of a taxi on the way in from Heathrow, he stared out at the passing scenery without seeing anything. There seemed whole stretches now when he forgot that he’d had a life before his amnesia, but then, like a slap in the face, a shard of it would unexpectedly surface to remind him of what he was missing, what he could never retrieve. In that first instant he felt diminished, a man living half a life, living with a shadow he could never see or even barely feel. Yet it was there, a part of him he could touch only briefly and in frustratingly limited fashion—flashes in the farthest periphery of his vision.
This was what had happened to him in Bali when, trying to find Suparwita several weeks ago, he had ascended to the first temple at the Pura Lempuyang complex. He
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