Bourne 4 - The Bourne Legacy by Robert Ludlum, Eric Van Lustbader Page B

in the event he turned up there or contacted his wife. The team found the house locked up and empty. There's no sign of Bourne's wife or two children. Subsequent investigation revealed that she appeared at their school and pulled them out of class with no explanation."
    "That seals it!" The DCI seemed almost apoplectic. "In every area he's a step ahead of us because he had these murders planned out beforehand!" During the short, swift drive to Langley, he'd allowed his emotions to get the better of him. Between Alex's murder and Alonzo-Ortiz's maneuvering, he had entered the Agency briefing in a rage. Now, presented with the forensic evidence, he was more than ready to convict.
    "It's clear that Jason Bourne has gone rogue." The Old Man, still standing, fairly shook now. "Alexander Conklin was an old and trusted friend. I cannot remember or list the number of times he put his reputation—his very life —on the line for this organization, for his country. He was a true patriot in every sense of the word, a man of whom we were all justly proud." Lindros, for his own part, was considering the number of times he could remember and list when the Old Man had ranted at Conklin's cowboy tactics, his rogue missions, his secret agendas. It was all well and good to eulogize the dead, but, he thought, in this business it was downright foolish to ignore the dangerous tendencies of agents past and present. That, of course, included Jason Bourne. He was a sort of sleeper agent, the worst kind really—one not fully under his own control. In the past, he had been activated by circumstance, not by his own choosing. Lindros knew very little about Jason Bourne, an oversight he was determined to rectify the moment this briefing was adjourned.
    "If Alexander Conklin had one weakness, one blind spot, it was Jason Bourne," the DCI went on. "Years before he met and married his current wife, Marie, he lost the whole of his first family—his Thai wife and two kids—in an attack in Phnom Penh. The man was half-mad with grief and remorse when Alex picked him up off the street in Saigon and trained him. Years later, even after Alex enlisted the aid of Morris Panov, there were problems controlling the asset—despite Dr. Panov's regular reports to the contrary. Somehow, he too fell under the influence of Jason Bourne.
    "I warned Alex over and over, I begged him to bring Bourne in to be evaluated by our team of forensic psychiatrists, but he refused. Alex, God rest his soul, could be a stubborn man; he believed in Bourne."
    The DCFs face was slick with sweat, his eyes wide as he glanced around the room.
    "And what is the result of that belief? Both men have been gunned down like dogs by the very asset they sought to control. The simple truth is that Bourne is uncontrollable. And he is deadly, a poisonous viper." The DCI slammed his fist down on the conference table.
    "I will not have these heinous, cold-blooded murders go unpunished. I'm authorizing a worldwide sanction drawn up, ordering Jason Bourne's immediate termination."

    Bourne shivered, by now chilled through and through. He glanced up, played his beam over the refrigeration vent. Heading back down the center aisle, he clambered up the right-hand stack of crates, crawled his way across the top of the stacks until he came to the grate. Flipping open the switchblade, he used the spine of the blade to unscrew the grille. The soft light of dawn flowed into the interior. There appeared to be just enough room for him to squeeze through. He hoped.
    He rolled his shoulders in toward his chest, squeezing himself into the aperture, and began to wriggle from side to side. All went well for the first several inches or so, and then his forward progress abruptly stopped. He tried to move but couldn't. He was stuck. He exhaled all the air out of his lungs, allowed his upper body to go slack. He pushed with his feet and legs. A crate slid and tumbled, but he had inched forward. He lowered his legs until his