As night began to fall, the island of Lindisfarne took shape through Bourne’s binoculars. The landmass was small, barely two square miles located not even two miles off the Northumberland coast. He could see the causeway stretching across damp sand, with the rising tide already encroaching on the lonely road from the North Sea. A charcoal sky hung low and menacing over their heads, blowing mist on the Land Rover he’d parked in the tall grass. He could see a few cars racing to reach the mainland before the water submerged the causeway and isolated the island for the next seven hours.
“Should we be heading over there?” Johanna asked with concern as a wave slithered across the road like a lookout and then withdrew.
“Soon,” Jason replied. He checked his watch and saw that they were five minutes past the safe crossing time. “If anyone’s coming for us, they’ll head over when they think no one is coming behind them. So I want to see who crosses at the last minute.”
“By playing chicken with the tide?”
“Yeah. Pretty much. But we’ll be fine.”
He felt a cold wind on his face, mixed with rain. The stiff sea breeze whistled in his ears. Johanna stood next to him, her arms wrapped tightly around her chest. Her face glistened with dampness, and her long hair clung to her neck. Her blue eyes had a faraway look as she stared at the low hills of the island.
“Do you really think Monika’s over there?” she murmured.
“I do.”
“Does she know we’re coming?”
“I think so.”
In the trees behind them, a branch snapped like the crack of a gun. Bourne swung that way, Sig in hand, but he relaxed when he saw Vandal making her way back to the Land Rover. He was surprised that she’d made any noise on her approach, and he noticed that she took a wrong step in the dirt, then recovered.
“Anything?” he asked.
“One car parked near a farm road a quarter mile away.”
“Who is it?”
“It’s a young couple. They’re watching the sheep in the field, but mostly they’re making out. I don’t know whether they’re planning to cross, but if they are, it’ll be soon. I don’t see any other traffic heading our way.”
“What’s your take on the lovebirds?”
“They look harmless,” Vandal said.
Bourne pricked up his ears as a vehicle approached on the mainland road. A small red Ford Fiesta crept between the marshlands, its engine putt-putting like a mouse on a squeaky treadmill. He aimed the binoculars toward the car in time to spot a dark-haired woman in the passenger’s seat, her hands clenched around the dashboard. She didn’t look more than twenty years old.
“That’s them,” Vandal said.
Jason couldn’t see the driver from this angle, but he agreed with Vandal that the woman didn’t look like a threat.
“All right, time to go.”
The three of them clambered into the Land Rover. Johanna took the back, Vandal rode shotgun, and Jason sat on the right-hand driver’s side. The vehicle bumped out of the trees and back onto the narrow road, and he turned toward Lindisfarne. Daylight was fading fast and the rain intensified, falling in sheets from the dark clouds. He drove past tidal pools and bright green moss that inched up to the edge of the causeway. The wide swath of brown sand beyond the road had already disappeared as black water slouched in from both sides.
Not far offshore, he reached a turnaround where a sign warned them to turn back if the tide had reached the pavement, which it had. Ahead of them, the incoming sea no longer receded from the road with each wave. He accelerated into the water, kicking up a cloud of white spray. Ripples from the tires spread out with a roar behind them. From above, rain poured across the windshield.
It didn’t take him long to catch up to the young couple in the Ford Fiesta. The smaller car inched through the water, taking the dead center of the two lanes and making it impossible for him to pass. Bourne came within a car’s length of their bumper, but he had nowhere to go. They reached the middle of the causeway, where a weather-beaten refuge tower rose on stilts above the tide. The low bridge near the tower hadn’t taken on water yet, but only a few feet ahead of them, the sea had already begun to claim the rest of the road between the bridge and the island.
Momentarily on dry land, the Fiesta stopped.
“Aw, Jesus, guys, come on,” Vandal murmured.
Jason tapped the horn gently, trying to nudge them forward, because they only had a few minutes before the water would be deep enough to float the two vehicles off the road. But the Fiesta remained where it was, its engine idling, its brake lights on. Suddenly, the passenger door jerked open. The young woman got out onto the bridge, screaming at her companion behind the wheel.
“You fucking idiot, look what you’ve done! I told you not to cross, I told you! Now we’re trapped! This is my mom’s car, Donny, shit! I am so screwed!”
Bourne got out, too. He stood behind the driver’s door and called to the woman. “You should be fine if you leave now and go slowly. It’s not too deep yet. But don’t wait. Another five minutes, and we’ve all got trouble.”
The young woman stared back at him with wild eyes. She pointed to the far side of the bridge, where bare pavement descended into the dark sea. The rain soaked her clothes and the wind tossed her dark hair into a tornado.
“Fine? Does that look fine? Does that look fine to you? Are you crazy?”
She kept screaming at Bourne, and her keening voice distracted him as the driver’s door of the Fiesta swung open. He lost a split second of concentration.
He’d forgotten the rule.
Looks can be deceiving.
Treadstone.
The woman’s companion emerged from behind the wheel. The speed of his movement suddenly alerted Jason’s mind to imminent danger, and before he even spotted the semiautomatic rifle in the man’s hands, he shouted a warning.
“Get down, get down, get down!”
The driver began firing. In the same instant, the young woman dug under her T-shirt and came out with a Glock, and she opened fire as well. Bourne threw himself off the bridge into the shallow water, then splashed backward to put the frame of the Land Rover between his body and the killers. The windshield of the SUV exploded like popcorn as bullets raked the interior. The passenger doors flew open, and Vandal and Johanna dived for the water on the opposite side of the bridge. The pillars of the refuge tower gave them cover, but the woman with the pistol shifted her aim to the water, while the driver advanced toward the Land Rover, firing his HK416 as he came.
Bourne dug his Sig from the holster in the small of his back. Around him, bullets punctured the water like a hailstorm. He scrambled out of the rising tide and ducked behind the SUV. The Land Rover rocked with the wind, and more glass flew as the driver fired through the vehicle, sending shrapnel over Bourne’s head.
Behind the refuge tower, he heard Vandal shooting back. The young woman, whoever she was, was no match for the Treadstone agent. With a handful of shots, Vandal took her down, and the explosions from the Glock ceased. But the other shooter re-aimed his rifle toward the tower, and Vandal and Johanna both splashed away in the water with bullets chasing them. Bourne rose up and fired through the broken rear window of the Land Rover, one shot, two, three, four. The fourth bullet found its mark in the shooter’s temple, and the man keeled sideways into the water. The rifle spilled from his hands to the pavement of the bridge.
Bourne ran to the tower and extended his hand to help Johanna out of the water. He did the same with Vandal, but as Vandal reached the pavement, one of her legs buckled, and she slipped heavily against the tower’s wooden frame. Her eyes went blank for a moment, then refocused. Jason grabbed her and held her up, and he slapped his hand gently against her cheeks.
“Are you okay? Are you hit?”
She blinked, then shook her head. “No, I’m fine, just a little dizzy. Come on, let’s go.”
He helped her stretch out across the back seat and took his place behind the wheel. Johanna was already in the passenger seat. He tapped the accelerator of the Land Rover, bringing the SUV up against the rear bumper of the Fiesta. The motor made a grinding noise as he forced the smaller car out of the way. Slowly, the Fiesta jerked forward, and Bourne kept pushing until the other car tipped from the side of the bridge and rolled into the waves, which swarmed over its tires.
Beyond the bridge, there was nothing but unbroken sea stretching ahead of him. The shore of Holy Island still looked distant, a smudge of land against the horizon, which was black from the storm and the growing darkness. The road dipped down, and the SUV churned forward, sinking into the water. He drove slowly, hearing waves slap against the doors, alert to the moment when the tires might lose their grip on the road and leave the SUV floating and spinning toward the North Sea.
His windshield was gone except for a few jagged glass teeth. The rain and gales pounded his face. He tried to wipe his eyes, but even when he could see, his headlights blurred under the rising water. He kept driving, foot by foot, inch by inch. Thirty seconds passed. Then a minute. Then another minute. Slowly, the hills of Lindisfarne grew larger and closer. He felt the Land Rover buck as if it would lift off the ground, but then it landed solidly on the pavement again. Squinting, blinking, he spotted green scrub rising above the waterline. The tide seemed to suck the vehicle down, desperate to hold it in its grasp, but with a squeal, the tires broke free and the SUV swerved out of the sea and onto the rain-soaked road.
They were on the island.
Bourne drove another half a mile, until they were well into the rolling meadows. Then he let the Land Rover drift to a stop. The ice-cold rain pounded on the roof like thunder, whipping through the SUV and stinging their skin. He tried to orient himself, but they were in the middle of nowhere, with no light to penetrate the night. All they could do was keep driving until they reached the town.
“Those two,” Johanna said. “The ones in the Fiesta. Who were they?”
“A welcoming party,” Bourne replied. “The killers are already here.”
Nash Rollins spent the evening nursing a Smith’s ale at a picnic bench outside the Crown & Anchor pub. He sat under a patio umbrella while the downpour turned the streets of the town into black rivers. As darkness fell, he’d had the village to himself for the first hour. The tourists were gone, and the locals were tucked inside their homes out of the cold and rain. But now he had company. A few minutes earlier, he’d heard the throb of helicopters getting closer. He’d seen their lights in the sky and followed their track as they descended to land in the empty green fields behind the village.
Now an assault team had begun to spread one by one through the deserted streets. He counted at least a dozen men, dressed to blend in, no heavy weaponry in view, but no doubt with plenty of firepower under their nylon jackets. They didn’t know where to go—they didn’t know where she was yet—but it was a small town. It wouldn’t take them long to zero in on their target. The woman the villagers knew as Sarah Tedford was the woman formerly known as Monika Roth.
It was time to move.
From where he was, Nash could see the beachfront street a block away and the pretty little house by the sea with the stone fence and the garden. Her refuge. Her getaway. He pushed himself up from the bench, not bothering with an umbrella. He let the rain soak his swept-back gray hair and drip in streaks under the collar of his long coat like icy fingernails. With one hand, he kept a tight hold on his cane. His other hand stayed secure inside his pocket.
He limped down the alley behind the Lindisfarne Priory. He stayed close to the green hedge, not trying to hide. He whistled and sang off-key—“Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head”—the way an old man who’s had a little too much might do. Ahead of him, at the corner, he saw one of them. From the helicopters. It was a man in his twenties, six feet tall, wool cap over his head, wearing a brown waxed jacket, jeans, and Wellingtons. The man’s hands were loose, but Nash assumed one of his guns was in a jacket pocket, and he could see the bulge at the man’s ankle where he kept his backup pistol.
The man saw Nash coming. He wasn’t worried about an old man in the rain. Instead, he saluted Nash with a finger at his cap and said, “Good evening, sir.”
“Good evening to you,” Nash replied, adopting a British accent and noting that the man’s husky voice was Eastern European. The killers were hired help. Contract mercenaries.
“What brings you to the island?” Nash asked. “Or did you get caught by the tide?”
“I’m looking for a friend who lives in town,” the man replied. “Maybe you know her. Blond hair, forties, very attractive.”
“What’s your friend’s name?”
The man hesitated, which gave away the game.
“Monika,” he replied finally.
Nash shook his head. “Sorry, there’s no Monika on the island. Believe me, I know everyone. Lived here for years.”
“Then I must have it wrong. Is there anyone else who matches that description? Maybe under a different name.”
Nash chuckled. “You don’t know your friend’s name?”
“She’s more like a friend of a friend. We’ve never met.”
“Ah, I see. Well, I’m afraid there are no attractive blondes around here to keep an old man awake. If only there were, this place might be a little less bleak when the tide comes in. Sorry, I hope you find her.”
He continued past the man with a friendly shake of his cane. Then he turned around, drawing his Ruger SR22 with its Silent-SR suppressor. Without a word, he calmly fired a single shot into the man’s forehead. The gun made a muffled crack that the noise of the wind covered. The hired help, who didn’t even have time to look surprised, went down like a heavy sack of flour.
Nash glanced around the empty street to make sure that he was alone and that no one else from the assault team came running. He took the man’s collar and dragged his body behind an overgrown bush of Russian sage outside a nearby cottage. A trail of blood followed, but the rain quickly washed it away into the dirt and rocks of the alley.
He returned his gun to his pocket. He popped his Union Jack umbrella and crossed the street to the stone wall that ringed the beachfront house. A row of daffodils grew along the base of the wall. On his left, he could see headlands rising above the North Sea, the walls of St. Mary’s Church, and the ruins of the old priory, which was surrounded by the graves of a medieval cemetery. Down the path that curled around the church, he saw the bobbing beam of a flashlight. They didn’t have much time. More men were coming.
A wooden gate led through the stone wall. He let himself inside and closed the gate behind him, and when he turned toward the garden, he found himself staring into the black barrel of a Glock. A beautiful blond woman, her face elegant even in the driving rain, held the gun at the end of her outstretched arms. She stared darkly at him, but the suspicion fled as she recognized his face under the umbrella.
“Nash,” she said. “Jesus. I almost killed you.”
She lowered the gun, and he leaned forward and kissed her like a daughter.
“Hello, Shadow. Sorry for the late visit, but we need to get you out of here right now.”