THEY’RE calling it a failed assassination attempt,” Abbey said, scrolling through the news feed on her phone. “‘The man believed to be responsible for the shooting of Congresswoman Sofia Ortiz was thwarted by armed security last night in the attempted murder of Gabriel Fox, CEO of Prescix Corporation.’”
“Who do they think I’m working for?” Bourne asked.
“The feds blame ‘rogue elements inside Big Tech.’”
Jason shook his head. “Medusa is using this to advance their plan. Do they mention you?”
“I’m an anonymous kidnap victim you used in making your escape,” Abbey replied. “I’m not identified by name.”
“They’re sending you a message by keeping you out of it. You’re safe now, but next time, they’ll claim you’re part of the conspiracy. That’s the choice you have to make.”
Abbey said nothing. He knew she was wrestling with what to do.
The sky had begun to lighten over the hills with the pink glow of dawn. They sat in the Land Rover in a Henderson parking lot, where they had a vantage on the access road leading in and out of the Sensara community. For hours, a steady stream of vehicles had come and gone. Limousines. Police. FBI. There was no sign yet of Gabriel Fox, but sooner or later, Bourne knew that the man would emerge from seclusion. Along with Miss Shirley.
“Thank you, by the way,” Abbey said.
“For what?”
“You saved my life again. It’s becoming a habit with you.”
“I’m the one who nearly got you killed,” Jason said.
“Yes, but I didn’t want you to think I don’t care. If you hadn’t been there, I’d be dead now. That woman—Miss Shirley—do you really think she would have done the things she said? I mean, not just kill me, but . . .”
“Yes, I do. She’s a sadist and a psychopath.”
“My God. Who are these people? What’s their plan?”
“I don’t know yet, but I’m hoping Gabriel Fox and Miss Shirley will lead us to the answers.”
“Us,” Abbey murmured.
He heard the change in her voice, and he turned and stared at her. “I mean me. This is my fight, not yours.”
She took a long time to say anything more. “I know I insisted on being part of this, Jason, but now I—I think I need to go.”
“Of course you do. I want you to go. I want you to be safe.”
“It’s not for the reason you think,” Abbey went on. “I’m scared, but I’m not running away. I realized something last night. I’m putting you in danger by being here. I think you know I feel something for you. It’s not just attraction, not just sexual. I’m drawn to you, and whatever the feeling is, it’s strong. I tried to push it away. I tried to be cold, because some of the things you have to do—they horrify me. But I can’t pretend. And the thing is, I think you feel something for me, too.”
There was nothing Jason could say to that.
“I know you can’t admit it,” Abbey went on when she saw that he wouldn’t answer her. “That’s okay. But I also know that if I’m in danger, that’s going to change what you do. Just like it did last night. You’re going to put me first, and the result of that is you’re more likely to get killed. I can’t live with that. I don’t want you sacrificing yourself for me.”
Jason knew she was right. That was lesson number one they’d drilled into his head.
Emotion is your enemy. Emotion kills. You have to switch off that part of yourself.
Treadstone.
The next part of the journey belonged to him alone. He’d already decided that. He would have left Abbey behind in the night if he had to, to make sure she didn’t put herself in any more jeopardy. That was how it had to be.
“There they are,” Abbey said, pointing across the street. “They’re on the move.”
Bourne lifted his binoculars. He saw the vehicle they’d followed two nights ago, the armored Volvo SUV, emerging from the winding road that led to Sensara. He couldn’t see through the smoked windows to identify who was inside. This time, there was more than one vehicle leaving the estate. Two other identical SUVs followed the first, like a convoy.
“Let’s see where they go,” he said.
He pulled into traffic two blocks behind them. As early as it was, there were enough cars on the roads to keep the Land Rover anonymous. The three matching Volvos all followed the same route westward across the city. None of the vehicles had any identifying markings, and the windows were all black. The convoy made slow progress through the city traffic, but when they reached the flat, empty desert land in the far south of the valley, they accelerated. It was easy to keep the three vehicles in sight, and Bourne stayed half a mile back, watching them turn toward Henderson’s executive airport.
Before the convoy reached the airport itself, the first of the vehicles turned into the driveway of a large, windowless warehouse. Jason pulled the Land Rover to the curb and watched them. The three SUVs all parked outside a loading dock halfway down the length of the building, and the passengers got out.
He could see them now through his binoculars. Gabriel Fox was there, accompanied by Miss Shirley. The others were security, including faces he recognized from the previous evening. These weren’t ordinary guards; they were clearly trained black ops men. He counted nine of them.
Medusa.
Miss Shirley walked up to the loading dock and unlocked the door with a key. Two of the guards rolled up the white metal door on its rails, and two others opened up the rear panels of the three Volvos. Then Miss Shirley and Gabriel led them all inside, while one of the guards stayed outside as a sentry.
“Can you see inside the warehouse?” Abbey asked.
“No.”
A few minutes later, the guards emerged, pushing hand trucks loaded with wooden crates. One by one, they stored the crates inside the SUVs, and by the time they were done, they’d squeezed two dozen crates into the rear of the Volvos. At that point, they closed the loading dock door, and Miss Shirley relocked it. The vehicles headed back out to the road, and Bourne followed.
“I saw labels stamped on the crates,” Abbey said. “What did they say?”
“They were brand names for French vineyards. Champagne.”
“Another party?”
“Maybe.”
This time, the convoy headed for the airport. Jason stayed behind them until they drove to the fenced area leading to the taxiways, and then he pulled into the airport parking lot and used the binoculars again. The gate slid back, giving the SUVs access, and the Volvos drove in tandem toward a Gulfstream jet parked inside the airport fence. There, Gabriel Fox and Miss Shirley met two uniformed pilots, and the four of them got on board the jet.
Meanwhile, the guards in the SUVs loaded the crates of wine into the baggage compartment of the plane. When they were done, they climbed the steps into the passenger area. The door closed behind them.
Not long after, the jet taxied to the runaway and roared into the sky over the Las Vegas mountains.
“You want me to sweet-talk one of the ground crew and see if they know the flight plan?” Abbey asked.
Jason shook his head. “Gabriel told me that he and Miss Shirley were heading to a meeting of the tech cabal in Nassau. Scott told me they meet on some private island down there.”
“You’re going to go there, too, aren’t you?” Abbey asked.
“Yes.” Then he added, “Just me.”
Abbey bit her lip, but she didn’t protest.
“I’ll charter a jet and go after them,” Jason said, “but there’s something I need to check out first.”
Bourne took the Land Rover out of the airport. He retraced the route that the Volvos had taken to the unmarked warehouse a mile away. The parking lot was deserted. He found the loading dock where the convoy had brought out their cargo, and he stopped the Land Rover just outside the door.
He and Abbey both got out. Jason retrieved a crowbar from the back of the truck, and then he went to the loading dock door and used two metal pins from inside his wallet to manipulate the tumblers on the lock. It took him a couple of minutes, and when the lock clicked open, he bent down and threw the door up on its metal rails.
They cautiously entered the dark storage area, which was almost completely filled with wooden crates that matched what had been loaded on the jet. They were all labeled with the names of French wineries. Jason glanced toward the ceiling and saw a series of red lights go on as their motion activated the security cameras. “We don’t have much time before we get a lot of company in here,” he said.
“What are you looking for?” Abbey asked.
Bourne didn’t answer. He went to the nearest crate, which had an ink stamp on the outside for Sarcennes Blanc de Blancs champagne. He wedged the forked blade of the crowbar into the top seam of the crate and pushed hard to loosen the nails on the upper panel. Then he pushed the crate open and shined his flashlight inside.
There was no champagne in the crate.
Instead, he saw military rifles nestled in dense foam, plus magazines and boxes of ammunition.
“Shit,” Abbey murmured. She stepped back and assessed the quantity of crates stacked against the wall. “Medusa has enough firepower here to start a war.”
“I think that’s the plan,” Bourne said.