Hours later, at sunset, Bourne watched Rod Holtzman drive a black Chevy pickup out of the condo tower’s parking garage. He followed the killer in his Highlander. The pickup stayed on the city streets out of Long Beach, and Holtzman used several techniques in the first few miles of his journey to make sure that no one was on his trail. He accelerated abruptly at red lights, cut across lanes to make right turns, and pulled over to park for several minutes to let traffic pass him by.
Bourne watched it all from the computer screen on a laptop in his Toyota. He’d scoured the parking garage earlier and identified the vehicle registered to Holtzman, and he’d placed a magnetic GPS tag on the bumper. So he kept a safe distance from the Chevy and stayed out of sight as the killer did his elaborate dance to throw off pursuers.
But Holtzman was no fool.
West of Long Beach, in Lomita, the killer veered off Highway 1 and parked his pickup on a quiet residential street. Bourne waited a few blocks away, watching the blip of the GPS tracker, but ten minutes passed, and the truck didn’t move again. After another twenty minutes, he took the risk of driving close enough that he could spot the pickup at the curb half a block away. From that distance, he could see that the truck was empty, and there was no sign of Holtzman.
The pickup was parked in front of a modest Spanish-style home on 250th Street, with a white picket fence around the front lawn. Bourne did a quick search on the ownership records of the house, and he found that the property was listed in the name of a generic LLC. If Holtzman’s target was inside, there wasn’t any indication of who it was. But Bourne didn’t think the hit man would park his truck outside the house where he was planning to kill someone.
No. This was Holtzman’s house.
A staging area where he could leave one identity behind and become someone entirely new. New look. New clothes. New car.
Bourne took the risk of driving past the house. He saw external cameras covering the front and sides in both directions. If anyone approached the house, Holtzman would get an alert, and the killer could also watch the traffic coming and going on the street. At least Bourne was confident that the man hadn’t already escaped. The detached garage next to the house was open, with a beat-up Ford Taurus parked inside.
He drove to the end of the block, did a U-turn, and waited.
Night fell soon after. Wherever he was going, Holtzman planned to use the cover of darkness. It would also make him harder to follow. An hour passed, and finally Bourne spotted the red lights of the Taurus backing down the driveway into the street. Holtzman was on the move. Bourne gave him space, then eased the Highlander onto the street and took off after the other car.
The killer made his way back to the crowded city traffic on Highway 1. Every stoplight put Bourne at risk of losing him, so he stayed closer than he otherwise would, hoping the darkness would show Holtzman nothing but headlights when he studied the vehicles behind him. For the next half hour, Bourne got lucky, keeping the Taurus in view, but when they reached Hermosa Beach, his luck ran out. He didn’t know whether the man had spotted him or whether Holtzman was just being cautious, but at the next light, the Taurus suddenly accelerated through a red light and then immediately turned right.
Thirty seconds later, when Bourne’s Highlander finally turned onto the same street, the Taurus was already gone.
Bourne pounded the steering wheel in frustration.
If Holtzman made it to his destination, if he completed the hit, there was a strong likelihood that they would never know who the target was.
Where are you?
He tried to put himself inside the killer’s head and anticipate his next move. For all the diversions Holtzman had made along the way, he’d always returned to Highway 1 eventually. He hadn’t headed for the 405 or gone inland. So maybe his destination was closer to the coast, and he’d return to the north-south highway again when he felt secure that he’d lost whoever might be following him.
Bourne swung the Highlander around and returned to his original route. He drove hard and fast now—as fast as L.A. traffic would allow—skipping lights and wheeling around other vehicles, hoping he wouldn’t draw police attention. When the traffic on 1 backed up, he switched to side streets and drove through stop signs and parking lots to get ahead of the cars around him. But he kept coming back to the main road. He had only one goal—to get ahead of Holtzman, wherever the man was.
A few blocks south of LAX, in El Segundo, he spotted a parking lot for a Chick-fil-A on Highway 1, and he pulled off the road and waited.
Five minutes passed. Then fifteen.
When twenty minutes passed, he worried that his long shot hadn’t paid off. The killer had gone elsewhere.
Then he saw the Taurus.
Holtzman passed the Chick-fil-A, driving slowly and cautiously, attracting no attention. Bourne pulled out of the parking lot and took up position a few cars behind him. At this point, the killer had obviously concluded that he’d ditched anyone who might have been pursuing him. Holtzman stayed on Highway 1 for miles, past the airport, past Marina del Rey and Santa Monica, and finally onto the foggy stretch where the road clung to the coast and followed the ocean northward.
Bourne gave him more space. Holtzman kept driving through darkness and fog, nothing but a gauzy pair of red lights half a mile ahead. Houses thinned, and the headlands crept up to the east shoulder of the road. They passed Topanga Beach, Las Tunas Beach, and then the eastern outskirts of Malibu and the central heart of the rich enclave. Still the killer drove, hugging the ocean. Traffic thinned, until it felt as if only the two of them were driving north on the lonely road. There was nothing around them but the Pacific waves, the highway pavement, and the rocky slopes of the coastal hills. More than an hour and a half had passed since they’d left Lomita.
The fog got thicker. A cloud rolled in from the ocean and billowed onto the land. Bourne drew closer, closing the distance between the two vehicles as visibility shrank. He saw no other lights, no houses, just the looming night hills lost in a milky haze.
Then the red lights of the car ahead of him vanished. One moment they were there, and then they were gone.
Was it the fog?
No. The Taurus had left the road. It couldn’t be far away; if he kept going, he’d drive right past it. Bourne slowed the Highlander to a crawl, then pulled well off the highway shoulder and stopped. He got out, his Glock in his hand. The cold air felt damp and thick. He narrowed his eyes, trying to see something, anything, but the fog left him blind. Instead, he reached back into the Highlander and found his gear pack. He unzipped a side pocket and found his TNV10 thermal monocular.
When he put it to his eye, two heat signatures immediately cut through the fog. He spotted the Taurus maybe a hundred yards ahead of him, parked on the sloping land. Beyond the car, moving away as he climbed the hill, was Rod Holtzman.
Bourne set off in slow pursuit. He took a treacherous path up the pitted, uneven slope. The ocean breeze covered the noise of his footsteps, but high brambles scraped at his skin, and the dense brush threatened to lasso his ankles and spill him off his feet. The monocular kept Holtzman in sight. For a while, Bourne had no idea where the man was going. Then, near the crest of the hill, a new heat signature bloomed, showing the outline of an isolated mansion that faced the sprawling hills and the ocean.
It was a rich Malibu house, far from any neighbors. Whoever was inside, Bourne guessed, was Holtzman’s target.
As the house loomed closer, the hit man stopped to surveil the property, and Bourne did the same. It was three stories, terraced against the hill, with a large elevated balcony stretching across the entire front of the house. The paver-stone driveway led around to the garage in back. Above the house, power lines followed the ridgeline. The large estate was dark, no sign that anyone was home, no moving heat echoes through any of the high windows that gave views of the Pacific.
The glowing image of Holtzman set off again. As Bourne followed, he watched the hit man approach the side of the mansion. Moments later, Holtzman disappeared entirely.
He was inside.
Waiting.
Bourne reached the house a couple of minutes later. He circled it entirely, confirming that the place was deserted. Using an app on his phone, he identified the house address and unearthed the name of the owner. A Google search told him that the man was a Hollywood producer, but the name meant nothing to him, and nothing about his work history suggested a natural connection to the Files.
Why would someone want him dead?
He took up position in the trees behind the house, crouched on the slope below the power lines. When he checked the estate through his monocular, he saw no movement inside. Holtzman had staked out his own hiding place. He didn’t doubt that the man would wait all night if necessary, and into the day, if it meant finishing the job. The alternative was exposure and life behind bars.
Bourne wondered what weapon the killer planned to use and whether the hit carried any special instructions. Make it hard, or make it painless and quick, or make it look like an accident or suicide.
Who ordered the kill?
Another hour passed. Then two. It was past midnight. The dampness got inside his bones, making his limbs stiff. He kept his Glock in his hand, but he had to flex his fingers to keep them loose. The fog stayed dense, nearly impenetrable, and began to play tricks on his eyes. He saw things that weren’t there, the shadows so vivid that he kept pointing his gun into the darkness.
When the car came, he heard it before he saw it. An engine growled, getting closer. Twin headlights glowed in the fog, already halfway up the entrance road from Highway 1. Bourne unfolded his legs and got to his feet, his body protesting. He stayed on the fringe of the trees, expecting one of the rear garage doors to open, expecting a flood of spotlights to illuminate the rear of the house.
Instead, everything stayed dark.
The car stopped. The headlights went off. He heard the clicks of two car doors opening, but the vehicle wasn’t close to him. It had stopped near the house’s front door, and at least two people were getting out. Bourne hurried that way, picking his way down the invisible road. They were going in the front, not the back, and Holtzman might be right inside the door, ready to strike.
Then he heard a voice from the far side of the house, along with the footsteps. Five little words carried by the breeze.
“I think the power’s out.”
Bourne froze.
The shock left him paralyzed, motionless in the fog. He knew that voice!
He’d heard that voice in Quebec City. In Paris. He’d heard that voice in his bed dozens of times, her words twisted up with laughter, joy, and passion. He knew that voice and the woman it belonged to better than anyone else in his life.
It was Abbey Laurent.
Impossible!
It couldn’t be Abbey! How could she be here? Why?
Then the shell around his mind shattered. The how and why of it didn’t matter. Not now. The footsteps kept on toward the house, toward a professional assassin waiting inside. Jason broke into a desperate run. He charged down the driveway and rounded the corner at the front of the house. Ahead of him, the front door was open. He didn’t see her, but he heard the sharp stab of that voice he knew well.
Abbey screamed.
He covered the last few steps as if he were flying and cleared the threshold into the darkness. The house was black. The noise of a struggle showed him the way forward, and he dove for the sound. He heard another scream—Abbey—then the guttural gasp of a wounded man.
Was it Holtzman?
Or someone else?
Bourne needed the threat directed at him. Holtzman needed to know the game had changed. He aimed his Glock at the ceiling and squeezed off a round, the shot booming like an explosion in the small space. The halo of light as the gun went off showed him three people, Abbey against the wall, a bleeding stranger in front of her, Holtzman plunging at the stranger with a knife. Jason fired high again. Plaster and dust fell, choking them. By instinct, he ducked, expecting an assault, and he got one. Holtzman ran at him, swinging the blade with a deadly rush of air. He missed, barely, and Bourne delivered a roundhouse punch where he thought the man’s midsection was. But Jason missed, too.
A boot connected with his wrist. His Glock fell. The knife swung again, slicing close enough to slash open the sleeve of his jacket. Bourne clutched for Holtzman in the darkness, found the killer’s forearm, and bent it sharply back. Holtzman winced. The knife spilled from his fingers, but he twisted free and swung an elbow that connected hard with Bourne’s cheekbone and dizzied him. Jason came off his knees, his head and shoulders like a battering ram into Holtzman’s stomach, driving him backward into the wall.
The killer expelled a spray of vomit, but then he recovered and drove his elbows down into Bourne’s collarbone. A knee snapped upward into Jason’s chin. Bourne heard someone running for the front door—was it Abbey?—but Holtzman leaped past him and took whoever it was down to the house’s marble floor. Abbey cried in pain as her body landed, but she lashed back, because Bourne heard Holtzman grunt as a blow hit his face. Abbey slithered forward and tried to stand as the man chased her down the hallway.
Bourne threw himself at Holtzman’s back, landing on top of him. The two men rolled out the open door into the clammy fog. Holtzman kicked hard, separating himself, and Jason heard the deadly snicker of a wire being extended. A garrote. He had a split second to throw up his forearm as the killer looped the wire over his head and pulled it tight. He felt it cutting his skin, and his own arm squeezed into his throat, cutting off most of his air. Jason struggled wildly. His boot cracked against Holtzman’s foot; his hands reached back and clawed at the killer’s face. One nail found the liquid goo of the man’s eye and he dug it in, eliciting a scream.
The garrote loosened. Bourne ripped it away.
He reached into his jacket pocket, where his Thompson dagger waited. In a single blind move, he spun. The knife hit flesh and opened up Holtzman’s throat, nearly severing his head as a fountain of blood cascaded over Bourne’s face.
Jason staggered backward. He couldn’t see. His eyes saw nothing but blood, darkness, and fog. But he heard the sickening, choking gag as bile replaced the air in Holtzman’s lungs and the thud as his body collapsed to the walkway outside the house. Bourne gasped for breath himself. He swayed, reaching out for something, anything to hold on to and lean against. When there was nothing, he began to fall, but then arms held him up. Arms held him tightly, and the scent of a familiar perfume enveloped him.
He knew it was Abbey.
And Abbey knew it was him.
Bourne heard her murmur in his ear. “Jason.”