A cold midnight rain fell on Grosvenor Square. The dampness made the fifty-degree temperature feel as if London were freezing. Jason Bourne took what shelter he could under the gnarled branches of one of the park’s plane trees. He sat astride an X-PRO street bike, a full-face blackout helmet covering his head, a black rain jacket and waterproof black pants over his clothes. The rain and the darkness made him almost invisible.
The bike sat in the wet grass near the statue of FDR, which gave Bourne a vantage on the entrance to Gordon Ramsay’s Lucky Cat restaurant across the street. Flipping up the visor of the helmet, Bourne retrieved his phone from a zippered pocket in his jacket. He opened an app that synched with the spy camera he’d hidden inside the restaurant earlier in the day. Immediately, the screen gave him a 4K view of the late-night activity. It was Friday, and the Mayfair hot spot was alive with people feasting on monkfish tempura and duck leg bao. Every table was full to the max.
No, not every table.
The two booths closest to the kitchen, which would normally seat eight to ten people squeezed together, included just two men, one at either booth. Bourne zoomed in the camera. He assessed the men: both Middle Eastern with short black hair and trimmed beards, both dressed in white sport coats over royal-blue silk turtlenecks, both armed with machine pistols positioned discreetly in their laps.
Faisal al-Najjar always traveled with protection.
Focusing the camera beyond the guards, Bourne took a close-up look at al-Najjar himself. The Saudi banker sat at the square chef’s table, enjoying Asian dishes fresh from the clattering kitchen woks and washing them down with expensive white wine. Al-Najjar wore a dark pin-striped suit that looked as if it came directly from Savile Row, but his head was covered by a red-and-white-checkered kaffiyeh. He wasn’t alone at the chef’s table. Two girls sat with him, both Russian, both blond, both barely more than teenagers. Their cleavage spilled out of glittering thigh-high cocktail dresses.
With a buzz of vibration, a text message crossed Bourne’s screen. It was from Shadow.
Is he there?
Jason texted a quick reply. Yes.
Shadow wrote back moments later. Let me know when you have him.
Bourne didn’t bother answering. This was a kidnapping, and kidnappings were always a delicate business.
On the video feed, he took note of the empty plates and the three empty bottles of wine. It was almost time. Al-Najjar would be leaving soon. According to the assistant concierge at the London Hilton, the banker had a set routine whenever he was in London. Two or three fresh-faced young escorts, always Russian and blond. Live rock music at a Soho club. Dinner at one of the city’s trendy restaurants. And then a limousine back to his top-floor suite after midnight with the girls in tow. By morning, the concierge reported with a sniff, the maids needed hazard pay to clean up the room.
Outside the restaurant, gauzy headlights cut through the rain. Bourne watched a limo glide down the street from the direction of Park Lane and come to a stop near the steps of the building. He checked the camera and saw al-Najjar getting up from the chef’s table, one stunning girl on each arm. The Saudi thanked the men in the kitchen in a booming accented voice, thanked the tuxedo-clad maître d’, who was there to bow in gratitude, and then took up position between his two guards. The men made no effort to hide their weapons as they led the banker through the maze of tables.
Moments later, Jason watched the Lucky Cat door open across from the park. One of the guards came through first, machine pistol level and ready to fire. The banker followed with his companions. The driver of the limo greeted al-Najjar with a huge umbrella, and the Saudi and the girls descended the steps, safe from the rain, and climbed into the back of the town car. One guard took the passenger seat to the left of the driver. The other climbed into a black Mercedes parked behind the limo at the curb. The engines of both vehicles purred to life.
Bourne flipped down the visor on his helmet. Time to go.
But as he got ready to fire up the street bike, he stopped. Through the dank London rain, cigarette smoke drifted his way. Someone was hiding in the darkness. Not far away, a voice whispered, low and urgent, in an Arabic language. Bourne followed the sound of the voice and spotted a small man crouched near the hedge that bordered the street. The man had a phone pressed to his mouth. As the two vehicles pulled away from the curb, the man watched them go, still murmuring into the phone.
He was the lookout. The hunters followed immediately.
The growl of street bikes rose above the pounding downpour. Bourne watched two compact motorcycles, much like his own, wheel around the corner of Audley Street and pursue the Saudi banker’s limousine and the trailing Mercedes. Two drivers hunched over the handlebars, both shrouded in black like he was. As they passed under the glow of a streetlight, he knew what they were.
Assassins.
Bourne swore under his breath. He shoved his foot down to kick-start the X-PRO. The noise of his engine drew the attention of the lookout near the street, and the man spun around and shouted in surprise. Bourne watched the man thrust one hand inside his jacket, then saw the silver glint of a pistol reflected in the light. He accelerated, kicking up spray and mud. Bullets thudded into the tree trunk beside him and pinged off the stone of the Roosevelt Memorial. He leaned left on the bike as another round ricocheted off the metal frame, and then he drew his Sig Sauer and awkwardly returned fire. His body was off balance; his shots missed. He wheeled the X-PRO in a circle and gunned it at the man in front of him, using a tight serpentine motion. Arms extended like a V, the man fired back. One round cracked the shell of Bourne’s helmet; another shattered his mirror.
But the game of chicken finally forced the man to jump aside to avoid the stampeding bike. Following the man’s rolling body with the barrel of his Sig, Bourne squeezed the trigger twice, putting two rounds in the middle of his back. Then he braked hard, jerking the bike sideways. He splashed the X-PRO through the sodden grass and onto the path that led out of the park.
On the street, the other vehicles had already disappeared. Al-Najjar was staying at the Hilton, so Bourne assumed the limousine would be heading for Park Lane. He followed the road around Grosvenor Square and sped up toward the glow of the brightly lit thoroughfare a few blocks away. His engine whined like a cloud of angry hornets. As he reached Park Lane, he whipped around the corner, dodging cars and taxis. Even at midnight, London traffic was heavy. He weaved in and out of the four southbound lanes, with expensive hotels flashing by on his left. It didn’t take him long to spot the limousine and the trailing Mercedes, with the two street bikes practically hugging the rear bumper.
Motorcycles were a dime a dozen on the London streets. The vehicles hadn’t taken evasive maneuvers yet; they didn’t know they were being targeted. Bourne shot forward using the taxi lane, then cut across the street in front of a Range Rover that slammed on its brakes with a squeal and a blare of its horn. Keeping one hand on the handlebars, Bourne drew his Sig with the other. Only a short stretch of empty pavement separated him from the two killers on street bikes. He aimed low, the gun barrel impossible to keep steady at high speed, and he fired at the rear tire on the bike immediately in front of him.
The bullet bounced off the street and missed. One of the cyclists glanced back and saw him. The man shouted to his companion on the other bike, and that motorcycle broke to the right and bumped onto the curb that ran along the tree-lined median. With a burst of speed, the bike drew alongside the driver’s window of the Mercedes. In an instant, the man drew a gun and unleashed a barrage of fire. The Mercedes driver had no chance, but neither did the cyclist. The sedan lurched out of control, veered right, and crushed the bike and its rider against the low iron fence that bordered the median. The cyclist toppled off the machine, his lower body now pulp. The car bounced off the fence and swerved across multiple lanes, and Bourne heard the tortured metal thuds of a chain reaction crash behind him as other drivers braked wildly. He swerved far left to avoid the spinning Mercedes and lost his Sig in the process; the other bike in front of him swerved right.
The limo driver realized what was happening. The long, sleek town car had slowed as the vehicle neared the Hilton, but now its tires screeched as it accelerated past the hotel. It made a hard left, wheels coming off the ground, then righted itself and sped down Piccadilly. The second street bike stayed on its tail. Bourne closed the gap, coming up directly beside the other cyclist, but he had to break off as the man thrust out an arm to knock him off the X-PRO. He snaked back, striking a glancing blow on the rear of the other machine that made both of them wobble and nearly go over.
Bourne reached for his ankle, detaching his backup Ruger from its holster. The cyclist drew his own gun. They targeted each other, but before either one of them could take a shot, the rear window of the limousine ahead of them shattered outward. Machine-pistol fire erupted from the security guard inside. One round seared across the top of Bourne’s left shoulder, ripping through his jacket and drawing blood. The next exploded the front tire on his X-PRO. His bike careened to the pavement, and he rolled hard on the street as he lost his grip, elbow pads and knee pads taking the punishing blows.
The other cyclist took a burst of bullets squarely in the chest. Bourne watched the man lose control and fly backward, somersaulting and slamming headfirst into the street. The bike roared forward, riderless, then crashed sideways as if in slow motion and spun to a stop, wheels still turning. The man on the street didn’t move. Blood stained the pavement. He was gone. Behind them, traffic came to a dead halt, backing up as far as the Hard Rock Cafe and leaving a long stretch of Piccadilly deserted.
Bourne got to his feet slowly, bones and muscles all protesting. He tasted blood in his mouth. Dizziness made him stagger, but he shook it off, limping toward the sidewalk. He heard the shrill up-and-down wail of sirens drawing closer. Fifty yards away, the limo carrying al-Najjar stopped, blocked by vehicles ahead of it. Its rear window was a jagged line of glass fragments. The passenger door swung open, and the guard with the machine pistol climbed out and surveyed the street.
His eyes immediately went to Bourne.
The man marched his way, his face hard and dark, his gun level in his arms. Bourne realized he’d lost his backup Ruger, too; it was sitting in the middle of the street near the X-PRO. He took a couple of steps backward, gauging the distance between himself and the guard. The sheer volume of bullets the machine pistol could unleash didn’t leave him anywhere to run. If he moved, the man would cut him down.
Then a siren screamed, nearly on top of him.
From behind, another motorcycle rocketed down the middle of the lane between the stopped traffic and careened around him. Bourne caught a glimpse of the reflective yellow jacket and white helmet of a London police officer. The cop closed in on the security guard, who squatted and put his machine pistol on the pavement and held his hands out from his sides, fingers spread wide.
The bike jerked to a stop next to the guard. The cop flipped up his visor.
That was when Bourne noticed that the police officer wasn’t riding a police street bike. It was black and unmarked, like the vehicles the other men had been riding. Bourne began to shout a warning, but he was too late. The police officer’s hand dove into the pocket of his yellow jacket and came out with a semiautomatic. He fired three bullets into the face of the guard, who collapsed immediately to the street.
Bourne ran, but his legs gave way beneath him, and he stumbled and slipped to his knees. It didn’t matter. The killer posing as a cop had already revved his bike again. As he sped past the limo, the man paused long enough to grab something from his pocket, separate a metal pin, and lob a grenade gracefully into the vehicle’s broken back window. Then in the next instant, the bike roared away down Piccadilly.
It took five seconds.
Bourne—knowing what was about to happen—threw himself to the pavement and covered his head. A muffled explosion erupted inside the limo, making the ground shake. The remaining windows of the vehicle blasted outward in a shower of shrapnel and glass, along with the tissue, organs, bones, and blood of the limo driver, the two Russian prostitutes, and the Saudi banker named al-Najjar.