36

Bourne drove a street bike deep into the port.

Railroad tracks lined one side of the shipping pier, and the deep waters of the oceanside channel bumped up against stone pilings on the other side. A cool breeze blew in from offshore, with a spitting rain in the air. Where the pier made a dogleg to his left, he drifted to a stop and hid the bike near the rocks. No one was likely to see it there. He checked both directions, but in this corner of the port, he had the road to himself.

It was midnight. Despite the late hour, industrial activity rumbled through the nearby inlets. He heard the thunder of engines and the bang of metal against metal. Light towers glowed against the night sky and threw ghostly shadows. Across the water, the high triangular silhouettes of cranes moved like giant spiders as they loaded and unloaded brightly colored cargo containers.

His Glock in his hand, Bourne slipped across the road. Flatbed railcars stretched out of sight in both directions in an unbroken line, ­double-​­stacked with containers made of weathering steel. He climbed atop the coupling that connected the two nearest cars, then jumped down to the rocks on the other side. The next set of railway cars made a wall, and he repeated the process, slowly cutting across the parallel tracks toward the far side of the inlet.

Halfway through the maze, he heard a shot.

It was barely audible above the thumping noise of the port and the plink of rain on the containers. The muffled report came from in front of him; it came from where he was heading. Jason ran faster, up and over the train cars. When he finally cleared the tracks, he stopped, surveying a small parking lot next to the middle harbor. The lot butted up to a ­barbed-​­wire fence, and he saw a ­two-​­story building beyond the fence. It was built on a concrete platform to give a vantage over the activity of the port. Stairs led up to a door labeled SECURITY on the second floor, next to a few brightly lit windows.

That was Rufus Mack’s office.

The door leading inside was wide open.

Bourne ran to the revolving security gate and jabbed the call button. No one answered. He noticed a camera mounted on the nearest light tower, but the camera had been shot out, and glass littered the pavement on the other side of the fence. Quickly, he climbed the wet, slippery gate to the narrow steel platform, then took wire cutters from the inside pocket of his jacket and snipped the four rows of barbed wire and peeled them away. He lowered his body from the platform, then let go and landed on the ground inside the fence.

As he came off his knees, he swung the Glock in a semicircle. Not even five minutes had passed since he’d heard the gunshot. He examined the shadows of the building around him, but he saw no movement and heard no footsteps. Whoever had taken the shot had already disappeared.

Bourne ran up the steps to the building’s open door. Leading with his gun, he spun inside. A large empty office looked out on the pier in every direction. Multiple monitors reflected video camera feeds from around the area. On the west side, he saw a monitor reflecting static, probably from the shattered camera at the gate below him. Below the monitor, he saw the body of a Black man sprawled on the linoleum floor.

The face matched the photo Shadow had given him. It was Rufus Mack, dressed in the brown uniform of port security. Vix’s contact. Blood was spreading in a pool under his head from the bullet hole in the middle of his forehead.

Mack was dead.

Bourne swore. Someone had gotten here first; someone was ahead of him, but only by a few minutes. Who?

It didn’t matter. Whoever it was had gotten what he needed out of ­Mack—​­the name of the ship that would smuggle Vix out of the ­country—​­and then killed the man to make sure he didn’t sound the alarm.

Bourne went to the nearest windows. From where he was, he could see three huge container ships staggered around multiple docks, all of them weighted down with cargo and seemingly ready for departure.

Which one?

He returned to the body of Rufus Mack and searched the man’s pockets. They were empty. He sifted through the mass of papers on Mack’s desk, looking for any kind of clue that might point him to the ship where Vix would be hiding, but he found nothing. Then he noted a separate monitor that showed security camera footage on each of the three ships readying for departure.

The Algeriana.

The Mirandelle.

The Xin Fang.

He rewound the video feeds for each of the ships by two hours, then ­fast-​­forwarded, watching people come and go on the gangways that led inside the freighters. Whenever he saw anything that raised a red flag, he froze the video and checked it again. His review of the footage for the Algeriana showed nothing. Same with the Mirandelle. By the time he’d gone through most of the video for the Xin Fang, he was beginning to think Shadow was wrong. Vix’s escape wasn’t planned for tonight in Long Beach. Or it wasn’t on a freighter located in Rufus Mack’s area of the port.

Then he paused the video as someone approached the gangway of the Xin Fang. He backed up and watched the same fragment again. When he checked the time stamp, he saw that it had been recorded barely half an hour earlier. When Bourne zoomed in, the clarity of the feed was enough for him to recognize Rufus Mack. The security man chatted with a guard monitoring the gangway, and then he gestured the man away from the area with a ­handshake—​­probably a handshake that included a sizable bribe.

When the other guard was gone, Mack waved toward the shadows.

A woman in a hooded sweatshirt, with a duffel slung over one shoulder, walked into the light. Bourne couldn’t see her face, but he knew it was her. Vix. She hurried up the gangway past Mack and disappeared into the interior of the freighter.

Bourne snatched Rufus Mack’s port ID from the body and put the lanyard around his neck, with the badge flipped around on the outside of his jacket. He ran back to the steps and descended to the ground near the security fence. Quickly, he made his way to the water, where the long line of the pier stretched in front of him. He saw the Xin Fang at a dock two hundred yards away. He headed for the ship slowly, his hands in his pockets, one hand still curled around the Glock.

The closer he got to the ship, the more people he saw. Workers came and went, but no one paid attention to him. Overhead, giant cranes manipulated painted steel containers into cubes six and seven high, like enormous sets of children’s blocks. He neared the gangway, which was guarded by a man in uniform waiting at the base of the ramp. The man had a radio and a gun, but this was not the same man who’d been monitoring access to the ship in the video he’d seen. Jason didn’t alter his pace, but he shot a glance at the narrow corridors between the mountains of containers. He saw a body in the shadows; it had been dragged to a place where it was nearly out of sight.

The guard was a fake. This was the first watchman to protect whatever was going on inside the ship.

He was also Chinese.

The CCP was here for the Files.

As Bourne approached, the man tensed, his hand drawing near his gun. Jason let his own hands slip from his pockets, as if he were no threat. He didn’t look like a guard, and he wasn’t dressed like a guard, but all he needed was a cover that held for a few seconds. With a scowl on his face, he gestured at the hull of the ship towering over their heads, and he barked at the man in a voice that didn’t tolerate disobedience.

“Hey, what the fuck? Didn’t Rufus give you my message? I said I wanted two men on patrol tonight. The feds are all up my ass about counterfeits out of Dong Nai, and I don’t want to give them anything that might slow us up.” Bourne pointed over the man’s shoulder. “Did that asshole with the clipboard ask you any questions? What did you tell him?”

Momentarily confused, the man twisted around to look behind him. In that instant, with a lightning blow, Bourne hit him in the throat. As the guard doubled over and choked, Jason threw him to the ground and slammed his head hard against the pavement until he was out cold. He looked both ways for anyone running toward him, but amid the rain and shadows, no one had noticed the fight. He rolled the body to the darkness at the edge of the pier, then ran up the rusting gangway to the stern of the ship.

For now, he was alone. The ship was designed to run with a skeleton crew, and whoever was here was likely above him on the navigation bridge. Looking forward, he saw a covered walkway, with containers rising above it to make a high wall. The superstructure of the ship rose over his head. He drew his Glock, then climbed to the next level and made his way through an open watertight door into the alleyway. The hum of the ship filled his ears. He checked the crew and officers’ ­mess—​­both ­empty—​­then noted the cook and a couple of messmen at work with food in the galley. None looked back to see him.

He climbed to the next level. And then the next. He searched quickly, making his way from port to starboard and back.

Where was Vix?

Bourne checked all of the accommodation rooms on the upper decks and found no one in the cabins or recreation rooms. He climbed to the top of the ship, avoiding the bridge crew, then made his way back down to the alleyway on the main deck. He was ready to head forward past the stacks of containers when a scream rose from the bowels of the ship.

He slid down the railing to the upper platform of the engine decks. He found himself in a hot, supersized world of pipes, tanks, and boilers, thumping with the deafening noise of machinery and the hiss of hydraulics. He didn’t need to hide his movements; no one could hear him. The equipment rooms were an erector set of fuel pumps and compressors, all whirring and banging, glistening in yellow and silver paint. His Glock outstretched, he made his way through the maze.

First the upper platform. It was empty. Then he descended to the middle platform just above the hull, where the pounding noise of the motors got louder, and he wanted to cover his ears. His head throbbed.

But he’d heard something. Was it a shot? A ricochet of bullet on metal?

Vix was here; she was close.

So were the Chinese.

The stifling heat intensified. Sweat poured in beads down his skin, soaking his clothes. The butt of his gun slipped in his hand. He squatted to survey the room below the machinery, but if anyone was hiding here, they were hidden behind a tangle of steel. His back against hot metal, he edged sideways past diesel generators twice his height.

There she was.

Huddled on the floor beyond the generators, her knees drawn up, her arms clutching a laptop to her chest, was Vix. She saw him, and her eyes widened. As Bourne ran forward, she opened her mouth to shout, but he recognized the warning too late.

Where the equipment ended, he charged into the open, and a vicious kick from his right sent him flying, his Glock skidding away across the floor. As he tumbled and then tried to get up, another kick threw him backward, his head and shoulders crashing into ­rock-​­hard steel. His eyes refocused, and he saw the Chinese assassin with the red glasses and spiky hair, the killer who’d dodged him three times before. The kid had his QSZ-­92 in his hand, and he grinned as he brought up his arm to aim the gun at Bourne.

Ten feet away. Easy shot.

Then a wail of desperation distracted both of them. Vix shot off the floor and threw herself at the assassin, knocking him sideways against one of the generators. She ran, the laptop still in her arms, and the maneuver gave Bourne time to slither across the floor to grab his Glock. He scooped it up and rolled again, barely missing a shot from the killer’s QSZ, and he fired back three times, hearing wild pings of metal. The third shot hit the assassin just above the knee, and the kid howled, his leg giving way. As the killer fell, he fired over and over, a random barrage of bullets that sent Bourne half crawling, half running to get away. Ricochets bounced like popcorn. Bourne leaped, hitting the metal wall, then crashed down to his left behind a web of yellow pipes.

He waited, breathing hard. He wiped his face and tried to dry his gun on his shirt. He listened, but he couldn’t hear footsteps above the thunder of equipment. He couldn’t hear the assassin getting up, moving left, moving right.

Where was he?

Bourne aimed at the wall and squeezed off a shot, trying to draw fire that would give away the killer’s location. The assassin didn’t take the bait. Bourne glanced to the ­six-​­foot gap between his hiding place and the row of generators, and he wondered if he could make it before the killer targeted him. He took the chance. He pushed off his knees and leaped, and again he drew no fire.

Then he knew why.

Bourne stood up. He kept his gun level, but he didn’t shoot. When he eased past the machinery, he saw the killer on his back on the floor, a bloody, gaping gunshot wound where his left eye should have been.

A ricochet. A ricochet from one of the man’s own bullets had taken him down.

Jason turned and ran. He had no time. Vix.

He bolted up the steps to the ship’s main deck, colliding with and taking down two men who’d come to investigate the noises from below. Another man in uniform jumped to intercept him, and Bourne dodged him and flung himself outside through the watertight door. The gangway was immediately in front of him. Halfway down, he saw Vix, slipping and sliding on the wet steps. She glanced back and spotted him, and he took off in pursuit. When she reached the pier, she sprinted straight ahead into the mountainous cubes of stacked containers, and she vanished into the darkness.

Bourne followed.

The rain made a singsong music on the steel. The containers loomed like skyscrapers over his head, framed against the night sky. He crossed into a wide track between the rows of cargo, and a shot bounced off the pavement and clanged against the metal. Vix stood a few feet away, the laptop under one arm, her other arm shaking as she tried to steady herself and fire. She squeezed the trigger once more and missed over Bourne’s head. Then the next shot made zigzag ricochets down the row of containers.

When she pulled the trigger again, it clicked and came up empty.

Vix dropped the gun. She pulled a knife from her belt and waved it in front of her.

Bourne pointed his Glock at her chest as he walked forward. “It’s over, Vix. Give me the laptop.”

She jabbed the knife at him. “Stay away!”

“Don’t make me shoot you. I don’t want to do that. But I will. I’ll kill you, and I’ll take the laptop anyway. Make it easy on yourself.”

“No!”

“You can still escape. You can find a way out of the country and go wherever you want.”

Vix dropped the knife and dug in her pocket. He watched her hand emerge with a pink stun gun, but before she could point it at him, he stepped inside her arms and knocked it away, then peeled the laptop from her fingers. He kept the Glock level as he backed up, and with his other hand, he lifted the lid and booted up the machine. The home screen glowed a few seconds later, with nothing but twelve white boxes blinking at him on a blue background and waiting for a password.

The Files.

“What’s the access code?” he asked.

“Fuck you.”

“I told you, I don’t want to kill you.”

“If you kill me, you get shit,” Vix snapped.

“You’re right, but that doesn’t sound like an even trade, does it? Would your father think this is worth you dying like he did? Like your mom? Like your sister? Come on, Vix. Give me the code, and forget about the Files.”

Vix stared at him through the shadows.

Then she rattled off a combination of letters, numbers, and symbols. Bourne tapped the keys as she did, memorized the code, and then pressed the ENTER button. The laptop screen changed, the password prompt disappeared, and three parallel lines appeared. A menu. He navigated the mouse arrow to the menu and clicked to see a lineup of at least twenty ­top-​­level search options. A guide to every secret that could be unlocked. Financial. Political. Personal. Sexual. He could almost sense a rogue brain humming inside the machine, an ­all-​­knowing genie with no moral compass ready to grant your wishes.

He had the Files.

“Thank you, Vix.”

She said nothing.

He powered down the laptop and holstered his Glock. Vix looked surprised, as if she’d expected him to kill her anyway once he had what he wanted. He backed away until she was out of range, and then he finally turned around as he reached the next corridor between the shipping containers. He looked back one last time as he went deeper into the maze. Vix hadn’t moved. Her face was lost in the shadows.

Bourne took a circuitous route back to the other side of the pier.

As he reached his street bike, he heard a text arrive on his phone. He checked it and saw a message from Shadow.

Do you have it?

Jason stared at those four words long and hard. He was at the point of no return.

Then he climbed aboard the bike and fired the engine, and with a flick of his wrist, he tossed the phone into the water.