Like a sleepwalker, he approached the bed. He recognized her, yet she looked vastly different. She was painfully thin, and so ashen she appeared almost ghostly. In some places, the blue of her veins shone through her translucent skin with a venomous lucidity. She had the appearance of someone who was still in the grip of an exceptionally grave and painful illness.
As he came close, she parted her gown, revealing the ugly scar on her side where she had been stabbed the night they had escaped Maceo Encarnación’s villa in Mexico City. He had had to carry her the final yards, and then…
He took her to him, enfolding her, cradling her, rocking her gently. As the tips of his fingers ran along the still-livid scar, he felt his heart well up to the bursting point. And he whispered, “I saw you bleed out in the back of the taxi. I left you a corpse in Mexico City. I stood by while they buried you here in Tel Aviv. And now…”
“Now here we are. Everything is good.” She smiled.
He remembered that smile, and the feelings it engendered rose up in him like a cresting wave.
“You were so brave, Jason. So resourceful. I never would have made it if it weren’t for you.” She took his head in her hands, kissed him tenderly with lips soft as clouds. “My love, you saved my life.”
For a seemingly endless time, they held each other wordlessly, content just to feel each other, to assure themselves that this reunion was real, not a dream from which they would wake, heartbroken and in despair.
“Jason,” she said at length, “I was so frightened for you. When my father told me his plan, I was livid. I wouldn’t speak to him for days. But he kept at me, repeated over and over what I told you, and at last I relented. And he was right. You were the only one who could get close to Ouyang, who could kill him. The only one. And of course, he had given you the perfect motivation: my death.”
There was anguish in her voice, as well as love. But there was also unmistakable pride.
Holding her now, hearing her speak, having once again felt her lips against his, the rage leached out of Bourne’s heart, and he calmed. As always, her touch was like a balm against the betrayals the world had, time and again, heaped on him. And as this process continued, he understood that though Eli had used him, he hadn’t betrayed him. On the contrary, Eli had trusted him to commit the most sacred act a father could set in motion: retribution for his gravely wounded daughter.
Rebeka—Sara; it would take some getting used to before he could call her that—shifted against him, and he realized that she must still be in pain.
“Lie back,” he said gently.
“Only if you keep hold of me.”
He lay her down, held her hand in both of his while she smiled up at him, and sighed deeply.
“Now listen, my love, while I tell you a story. When we met I was a flight attendant. You were heading for Damascus and so was I. But some time before, I met with Ouyang. It was all part of the plan. I presented myself as a courier, moving military secrets from Damascus to Oman. He saw me as a mule—as he was supposed to.
“The fact was, I was the one stealing the secrets. I was hiding in plain sight. From that moment on, his attention moved off me to find the people running me. But he never could find them, because they didn’t exist. He wasted untold time and money chasing the invisible honeypot while, one by one, I killed off his people.”
“Until he discovered the truth.”
“Yes.”
“And then he wouldn’t rest until you were dead.” Bourne wanted to scream. All at once, he hated his life of secrets and lies, hated the despicable life that had put her in harm’s way.
“At the outset of the mission, I was outfitted with a hollow tooth,” she continued. “Inside was a fast-acting capsule. It wasn’t a death pill, but one that would ensure my life under extreme circumstances. I swallowed a drug our scientists have perfected that slows the metabolism to simulate death. If I’m found in time, I can be revived, though the return to life is a long and painful one.”
For some time, Bourne sat holding her hand.
Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes. “How many times have I imagined this moment, Jason; longed for it with all my heart and soul.”
Leaning over, Bourne kissed her tears away. “You’re not going out into the field again.”
“Could I stop you?” She searched his face. “Be honest. What else would either of us do?”
For a long time, they stared into each other’s eyes. At length, he took the gold chain from around his neck. The small star of David glimmered between them, a comet in the night sky. The moment she saw it, the tears came again. But this time her eyes were shining. She bent her head forward and he affixed the chain at the nape of her neck. The emblem of her he had carried with him from the moment of her supposed death lay on her chest as it had on the afternoon he had met her, heading to Damascus.
“You see, you were always close to me,” he whispered.
“Jason.” Tears lay heavy on her eyelids, reflecting tiny prisms. “Oh, Jason, what are you waiting for?”
He leaned toward her, and Sara Yadin burst into delighted laughter.
“Yes,” she sighed just before his lips covered hers.
Acknowledgments
My thanks to:
Sinocism and The Financial Times
for insights into China.
About the Author
ROBERT LUDLUM was the author of twenty-seven novels, each one a New York Times bestseller. There are more than 225 million copies of his books in print, and they have been translated into thirty-two languages. He is the author of The Scarlatti Inheritance, The Chancellor Manuscript, and the Jason Bourne series—The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy, and The Bourne Ultimatum—among others. Mr. Ludlum passed away in March 2001. To learn more, visit www.Robert-Ludlum.com and Facebook.com/RobertLudlumBooks.
ERIC VAN LUSTBADER is the author of numerous bestselling novels including First Daughter, Blood Trust, The Ninja, and the international bestsellers featuring Jason Bourne: The Bourne Legacy, The Bourne Betrayal, The Bourne Sanction, The Bourne Deception, The Bourne Objective, and The Bourne Dominion. For more information, you can visit www.EricVanLustbader.com. You can also follow him on Facebook and Twitter.
The Jason Bourne Novels
The Bourne Identity
The Bourne Supremacy
The Bourne Ultimatum
The Bourne Legacy (by Eric Van Lustbader)
The Bourne Betrayal (by Eric Van Lustbader)
The Bourne Sanction (by Eric Van Lustbader)
The Bourne Deception (by Eric Van Lustbader)
The Bourne Objective (by Eric Van Lustbader)
The Bourne Dominion (by Eric Van Lustbader)
The Bourne Imperative (by Eric Van Lustbader)
The Covert-One Novels
The Hades Factor (by Gayle Lynds)
The Cassandra Compact (by Philip Shelby)
The Paris Option (by Gayle Lynds)
The Altman Code (by Gayle Lynds)
The Lazarus Vendetta (by Patrick Larkin)
The Moscow Vector (by Patrick Larkin)
The Arctic Event (by James Cobb)
The Ares Decision (by Kyle Mills)
The Janus Reprisal (by Jamie Freveletti)
The Utopia Experiment (by Kyle Mills)
The Paul Janson Novels
The Janson Directive
The Janson Command (by Paul Garrison)
Also by Robert Ludlum
The Scarlatti Inheritance
The Matlock Paper
Trevayne
The Cry of the Halidon
The Rhinemann Exchange
The Road to Gandolfo
The Gemini Contenders
The Chancellor Manuscript
The Holcroft Covenant
The Matarese Circle
The Parsifal Mosaic
The Aquitaine Progression
The Icarus Agenda
The Osterman Weekend
The Road to Omaha
The Scorpio Illusion
The Apocalypse Watch
The Matarese Countdown
The Prometheus Deception
The Sigma Protocol
The Tristan Betrayal
The Ambler Warning
The Bancroft Strategy
Also by Eric Van Lustbader
Nicholas Linnear Novels
Second Skin
Floating City
The Kaisho
White Ninja
The Miko
The Ninja
China Maroc Novels
Shan
Jian
Other Novels
Blood Trust
Last Snow
First Daughter
The Testament
Art Kills
Pale Saint
Dark Homecoming
Black Blade
Angel Eyes
French Kiss
Zero
Black Heart
Sirens
Thank you for buying this ebook, published by Hachette Digital.
To receive special offers, bonus content, and news about our latest ebooks and apps, sign up for our newsletters.
Sign Up
Or visit us at hachettebookgroup.com/newsletters
For more about this book and author, visit Bookish.com.
Contents
Title Page
Welcome
Dedication
Prologue
Book One1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
Book Two18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
Book Three33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
Book Four47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Other Novels
Newsletters
Table of Contents
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2013 by Myn Pyn, LLC
Cover art and design by Faceout Studio, Jeff Miller.
Cover copyright © 2013 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at
[email protected] Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
Grand Central Publishing
Hachette Book Group
237 Park Avenue
New York, NY 10017
hachettebookgroup.com
twitter.com/grandcentralpub
First ebook edition: December 2013
Grand Central Publishing is a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
The Grand Central Publishing name and logo is a trademark of Hachette Book Group, Inc.
The Hachette Speakers Bureau provides a wide range of authors for speaking events. To find out more, go to www.hachettespeakersbureau.com or call (866) 376-6591.
The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.
ISBN 978-1-4555-5097-5
E3
Robert Ludlum, The Bourne Retribution
(Series: Jason Bourne # 11)
Thank you for reading books on BookFrom.Net Share this book with friends