The assault brought Bourne back into the fight.
He watched the two closest men on his left swivel as bullets thudded into the snow and trees around them. He rolled free of the SUV, training his AK-12 on both men, and watched twenty rounds eviscerate their twitching bodies. They fell hard. There were now only two men left, caught in a pincer from ahead and behind, and they split their fire. One aimed at Johanna, the other at Bourne.
He rolled back to cover and slapped in a new magazine. More glass flew like shrapnel. The front tires of the SUV exploded. Inside the Audi, he heard Tati screaming and Franken crying.
When the barrage paused as the men exhausted their magazines, Bourne struck back. Johanna did the same. They swung into the open and attacked with a deadly, pinpoint cross fire, turning the white snow blood-red at the men’s feet as their pulped bodies collapsed. Bourne’s finger finally released the trigger. He reloaded, but the battle was done. Around him, a fierce silence replaced the blast of the rifles. Burnt smoke rose in the still air. Cody’s men were all down. The tech specialist had dropped the laptop and run away into the woods.
At the center of the intersection, Cody stood alone, as stiff as an oak tree, his eyes wild with fury and disbelief.
Bourne hiked toward him, boots crunching in the snow. So did Johanna from the opposite side of the road. Cody still had his Grach in his belt, which was like a spitball against a cannon. He grabbed for it anyway, and as he yanked the gun free, Bourne unleashed a short round of tight, accurate fire that nearly severed the man’s hand from his wrist. The Russian howled, watching blood spurt from his dangling limb.
Cody didn’t move again.
Johanna walked up next to Bourne, her rifle still aimed at Cody. She wore white jeans and a white Lycra coat that made her look like a snow angel. Her long blond hair was tucked under a white beret, making her nearly invisible while she was hiding in the woods. One of her blue eyes winked.
“Surprise.”
“Hey, I knew you were there,” Bourne said.
“Did not.”
He allowed himself a tight smile. “Well, I knew someone was there.”
“Glad to see me?” she asked.
“Very glad.”
Johanna nodded at Cody. “What do we do with Bigfoot here?”
Cody growled at them, his face contorted with pain. “You’re going to kill me, so just fucking do it.”
“I could cauterize the wound,” Bourne pointed out. “That would save him. Or at least it would buy us time to get him to a hospital.”
“Are you going to do that?” Johanna asked.
“No.” Then he said, “Watch him, okay? If he goes for his knife, disembowel him.”
Bourne walked back to the shattered Audi. He pried open the rear door, hearing the metal grind in protest. Tati and Franken huddled on the floor of the car inside, with Tati protecting the boy with her body. He helped them both out of the vehicle and made sure they hadn’t been injured by any of the flying bullets or the fragments of metal and glass. They were unharmed.
The three of them returned to the middle of the intersection. Bourne noticed that Franken wasn’t staring at the ground anymore. His eyes burned into the huge Russian, his young, bruised face reddened with a lust for vengeance. Tati, by contrast, didn’t look at Cody at all. She simply stared at Jason, as if still unsure whether she was dreaming.
“It’s up to you two,” Bourne said. “You’re the judge and jury. What do we do with him? We can save his life or we can kill him.”
Tati and Franken glanced at each other and said in unison, “Kill him.”
Bourne’s index finger slapped the switch on the AK-12 to semiautomatic mode—one shot at a time—then curled around the trigger of the rifle. Cody stared back at him, defiant, his dark face aflame. The big man didn’t have long to live regardless. Blood continued to pulse like a fountain from his wrist with each heartbeat. In another few minutes, he’d be gone, even if Bourne did nothing more. Jason thought about making the end hard, not soft. That was what his gut told him. Pay this sadist back for the things he’d done. To Tati. To Franken. To the boy’s family. To countless young women. Make his last few minutes agonizing and slow.
Squeeze the trigger. A shot in the knee.
Again. A shot in the other knee.
Again. A shot in the groin.
Take the man’s knife and peel back his skin. Let him scream for mercy before the devil took him away.
Instead, Bourne hoisted the rifle in one smooth motion, squeezed the trigger, and fired a single shot between Cody’s eyes before the man had time to say another word. The Russian pitched forward, dead.
“Come on,” Bourne said. “Let’s go.”
*
They took one of Cody’s SUVs.
On the long drive back to Tallinn, Jason kept a close eye on the mirrors, but no one from Cody’s operation—or from Treadstone—showed up to follow them. They dropped Franken Mikkel at an apartment outside the city in Maardu, where his aunt lived. From that moment, Bourne knew the clock was ticking. He’d told the boy not to lie or hold anything back. The aunt would take Franken to the hospital, and the hospital would ask questions about his wound, and the entire story would come out when the police arrived. Soon enough, the Internal Security Service would be locating multiple bodies around Narva, and they’d be looking for the three of them at every border crossing.
All hell was about to break loose in Estonia, and Bourne needed to get himself, Tati, and Johanna out of the country.
He ditched the SUV in the city center. They shopped for new clothes and left their old clothes in the changing rooms. Then they took a cab to the port to catch the ferry to Helsinki, which was the fastest departure point. As they boarded, he wondered if Tati would remember the significance of this location. She did. The CIA had staged the death of her father—a Russian defector—in a ferry explosion at this port years earlier. He could see the memories casting shadows across her face. Tati went off by herself as the ferry cruised to open water in the Gulf of Finland, which left Bourne alone with Johanna.
They stood next to each other by the railing, with the cold breeze whipping off the water. Tallinn disappeared on the horizon behind them, and Helsinki was still two hours away. Johanna laced her fingers through his hand. Her pretty face was serene, her blue eyes lost in the sea, but that was an act.
They both knew time was short between them.
“I did a deal with Shadow,” Johanna said.
Bourne nodded. “I figured.”
“The deal was to save you. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have done it. Anything else, and I would have spit in her face.”
“If you hadn’t been there, I’d be dead. So would Tati and Franken.”
“Shadow knew what you were going to do,” Johanna told him, which he’d already guessed. “She knew your plan. She knew you were going to steal the Files. Did you tell anyone?”
“Only Abbey,” he replied.
Johanna stiffened. A frown crossed her lips. The name Abbey seemed to grate on her nerves like fingernails on a chalkboard. He understood the irritation. He’d told Abbey his secret, but not her. He’d trusted his old lover, but not his current lover. But the jealousy went deeper than that.
Then Johanna shrugged and let it go. “Well, I don’t suppose she told anyone. Shadow must have bugged her house.”
“I’m sure she did. That was a mistake on my part. I should have seen that coming.”
“You better tell Abbey.”
“I will.”
“Because I’m sure you’ll see her again.”
“Johanna—”
She shook her head, brushing away the long blond hair that blew across her face. The gesture covered her hurt. “Forget it. I’m not her. That’s the way it’s always been. I know who you love.”
He didn’t say anything, despite everything he wanted to say. The silence dragged out for a while, with nothing between them but the rumble of the engines and the slap of the water on the hull. She pulled her hand away from his and rubbed her fingers together in the brittle cold to warm them.
“Officially, my job was to get the Files back,” Johanna went on eventually. “Rescuing your ass was secondary. But Shadow knew I wouldn’t do one without the other. That’s why she picked me. Any other agent, they’d grab the laptop and not care what happened to you. Or the Russian girl. But I figured I could do both.”
“Thank you, Johanna. I mean that.”
“I know you do.”
“But the Files are gone,” Jason added. “Either Garrett or Vix must have loaded a time bomb. The password worked the first time. I checked it. Everything was there. It was legit. But using it the second time must have set a virus in motion that erased all of the code. Maybe the hacked data, too.”
Johanna stared out at the water. “I guess that’s the best outcome to the race. A draw. I didn’t want the fucking Russian mobster to get it. Honestly, Jason, I can’t believe you were willing to give it to him, but I understand. Your weakness is always the woman, isn’t it? Anyway, Cody doesn’t have it, but neither does Shadow. I wasn’t crazy about turning it over to her, either.”
The ferry cruised into choppy water. As the boat swayed, Johanna lost her balance. She fell against Jason, and he caught her. Their arms slipped around each other’s waists. Their faces were close, lips nearly touching. Then she disengaged and pushed him away. She wiped her eyes, and if he’d asked her about it, she would have said it was the salt air. But they both knew they were saying goodbye.
He realized that was something he didn’t want to do.
“What was the rest of your deal?” he asked. “What did Shadow offer you?”
“A truce. I can come back if I want.”
“To Treadstone?”
“That’s right.”
“Do you want to?”
“And work for her? No way.”
“What if you were working with me?” Jason asked.
Johanna’s head turned. Her blue eyes tried to read the expression on his face, as if he must be making a joke. “You told me you only work alone.”
“I do, but for you, I’d make an exception.”
“So what would we be? Partners?”
“Why not? Like you said, we’re good together.”
“Are you serious?”
“I am.”
She swallowed hard. The wind blew her hair into her face again, but she left it where it was. “No. It’s tempting, Jason, but no. I don’t want to be Treadstone partners. If you and I are together, I want to be partners. But that’s not what you want from me. I get it. We can have sex. We can save each other’s lives. But at the end of the day, you are in love with Abbey Laurent. Nothing I do, nothing you do, is going to change that. So go on back to her, and I’ll get on with my life. It’s better for all of us that way.”
Jason waited a long time before saying anything more. “What are you going to do?”
When Johanna didn’t answer right away, he added, “Are you still trying to destroy Treadstone?”
She sighed with resignation. “No. I’m done with that. I don’t want Shadow coming after me anymore. It’s not worth it. She set me free when she didn’t have to, and I’ll honor that. But it’s not just to save my neck. Somewhere in these past few weeks, I realized that the deep state always wins. Take out Shadow, and someone worse replaces her. Take out Treadstone, and something worse replaces them. You may as well dance with the devil you know. I mean, that’s why you do it, right?”
That was a question Bourne couldn’t answer, even though he’d asked himself that very question many times.
Why? Why did he stay?
“So what will you do?” he asked again.
“I’ve been thinking about that. When Shadow had me locked up, I figured I was done. I’d never get out. But now that I’m free, I need time. At least a year. Maybe more. I need to be by myself. I’m going to buy a boat, sail around the Mediterranean, drink wine, look at the stars. I don’t know. Somewhere along the way, I might figure out who I am and what the hell life is really about.”
“I like that,” Jason said.
“Yeah. Me too.” She opened her mouth as if to say something, as if to ask him something, but she didn’t. Clouds crossed her face. “Anyway, we shouldn’t leave the ferry together. Eventually, they’ll review the cameras. I’ll head out on my own. You go into the city with Tati.”
“Okay.”
“Is the Treadstone jet meeting you?”
“Yes. Tonight.”
“Well, don’t tell Shadow my plans. I don’t think she’ll kill me, but then again, you never know with her.”
There was nothing else to say, but they lingered together anyway. He felt the desire between them like a living thing, breathing and wanting. It would be easy to take her in his arms. It would be easy to tell her not to go. If either one of them had said a word, or made a motion, everything would have changed.
Instead, the moment passed. Johanna turned around, shoved her hands into her pockets, and stalked away from him. She didn’t say goodbye, and neither did he. He stood there on the deck, watching her go. She reached the door that led inside, and she disappeared, leaving nothing but the faintest essence of her perfume in the cold air.
“You like her,” said a voice at his shoulder.
He turned and found Tati next to him. The boat ride, the escape from captivity, had begun to revive her. She looked alive again.
“I do,” he agreed.
“Maybe you love her?” she went on with a little arch of her eyebrows.
Bourne didn’t answer, because he didn’t have an answer. He heard Johanna’s voice in his head. At the end of the day, you are in love with Abbey Laurent.
“You came back for me, Jason,” Tati said, kissing his cheek, then wiping away the pink lipstick she’d bought for herself in Tallinn. “I knew you would. I knew you would save me.”
“I wasn’t going to leave you to that monster.”
“That’s sweet, but can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
“Why? Why did you risk everything for me? It’s not like you know me so well.”
Bourne smiled. “Because you needed help.”
“And that’s all?”
“That’s everything. That’s the only thing I have to hold on to. You’ve seen me, Tati. You’ve seen who I am and what I do. I have to take lives. But if I can’t save a life sometimes, then I don’t know why I’m here.”
“Sweet,” she said again. “You’re sweet.”
“I’m not so sure about that.”
“You will take me with you?” Tati went on. “We’ll go to America?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll finally be free there?”
Bourne nodded. “You’ll be free.”