“Please put your gun on the floor,” Thatcher said. “Don’t let my age deceive you. I’m quite a good shot, and as fond as I am of Abbey, I really would have no hesitation about pulling the trigger.”
Bourne stared at Abbey. She was gagged, unable to speak, and her wrists were tied in front of her. Her ankles were tied, too, barely allowing her to walk. Her hair, which she’d taken from black back to red during their week in New York, hung messily in her face. Their eyes met across the darkness of the sunroom. He saw no fear from her, only sadness and guilt. As if this situation were her fault, when in reality, all the blame was his.
He’d killed her. He’d violated the first rule, the only rule, by getting involved. For that sin, they would both die.
Jason knelt and put the gun on the stone floor.
“Kick it away now, will you? Toward Lennon, please.”
Bourne did. Lennon retrieved the other gun from the floor, and the assassin’s gun was rock-solid, pointed toward Jason’s chest.
“Excellent,” Thatcher said. “Thank you.”
The professor nudged Abbey into the room. They went as far as the body of Varak, and Thatcher looked down at the billionaire with something like regret. “Such a shame, truly. We spent a long time building the cover for Varak. Steering contracts to his company, making sure he established a fortune. Nurturing his reputation as a philanthropist. He really was the perfect symbol for us, not bound to any cause or government. Of course, as Lennon says, Varak knew this day might come. He had a single-minded devotion to the Pyramid. And to me.”
Thatcher glanced at Abbey, who studied him with fire in her eyes. “Ah, yes, I’ve disappointed you, my dear. I understand how you feel. Let’s get rid of that gag, shall we? It doesn’t matter now.”
He undid the gag and eased it down her neck. Abbey worked out the kinks in her jaw and then stared at Jason.
“I’m so sorry,” she told him, her voice raspy.
Bourne shook his head. “None of this was you. I did this.”
“How very sweet,” Thatcher said. “But you really shouldn’t blame yourself, Cain. It was always going to end this way. I love Abbey, but she’s simply too smart, too determined, for her own good. Tom Blomberg thought she might be dissuaded if we simply took away her reputation, but I knew her too well for that. The young journalist in the front row of my class was never going to give up, once she thought she had a story. That was why canceling her wasn’t going to be enough.”
“Christ, Thatcher, why?” Bourne demanded. “Why bring her back into this now? You could have let her go. It was done. She would never have known the truth about Varak. You could have killed me and put an end to it. Why kill Abbey, too?”
“A very noble sentiment,” Thatcher replied. “I wish that were possible, because I’m not lying, Abbey. I have always been enormously fond of you. Proud of you, too, almost like you were a daughter to me. But that’s also why I knew you’d never let it go. Varak dying wouldn’t be enough to satisfy you that the Pyramid was gone. If Jason didn’t come back, you’d pursue the truth and push and push until you found out everything. I’m afraid that was a risk we couldn’t allow.”
Abbey shook her head in disgust. “How could you be a part of this, Walden? You. It goes against everything you ever taught me.”
The professor shrugged. “Ideals are for younger men. I told you that we faced a choice, Abbey. Not an easy choice, but one that had to be made. No one will thank you for your principles if you hold to them while the world is crumbling around you. And it is crumbling, my dear. We are spinning out of control in so many ways. Division is leaving us weak at a time when we need to be strong. When we need to have a unity of purpose to overcome the existential challenges to this country and to the world.”
“And the way to unity is by lying to people?” Abbey demanded. “By murdering those who get in the way of your plan?”
The professor stiffened. Harshness entered his voice, a ruthless certainty. Bourne had heard that tone before. It was the harshness of the radical so convinced of his own rightness that he can justify any evil to take power.
“Do sacrifices need to be made?” Thatcher asked. “Unpleasant ones? Violent ones? Yes, and I wish that weren’t true. But what’s the alternative, Abbey? Letting the world burn? Letting disease wipe out the population? Letting the country descend into civil war? No, I’m sorry. We may not like saying that the ends justify the means, but in this case, they do. They do, Abbey.”
“How did you get involved?” Bourne asked him. “How did you become Genesis?”
Thatcher looked down again at the body of Varak on the floor. “I knew the men of the original Inver Brass decades ago. One of them was a university president. I was his senior aide back then. So I dealt with all of them. Genesis, Banner, Bravo, Paris, Venice, brilliant men who weren’t appreciated for their selfless determination. I knew Varak, too. The father to the son. I was the one who set the boy up with the family in Iceland, who made sure his upbringing would prepare him for the future. Because one day, I knew Inver Brass would have to come back. A few years ago, as I watched the world going crazy, I convened several of my former students. People who’d taken their place as senior leaders in government, media, and business. I described the Inver Brass of the past, and I told them it needed to return in a new form. We would form the nucleus of the Pyramid, with Varak as the man in the middle, with an institute created by him as the means to put our plans into action. You may think we’re the enemy, but I won’t apologize for the work we’ve done, for the progress we’ve made. If you think you’ve stopped us, Cain—you and Abbey and Saira Kohli and Oskar Vogel—you are quite wrong. The faces may change, but the work goes on.”
“And that’s why Lennon had to go after Varak,” Bourne concluded. “Not me. The rot goes deep into the government. They couldn’t risk me finding out.”
“Indeed. But Lennon assured us you’d come anyway, and he knows you well. I suppose that’s not a surprise, given your history.”
Outside the estate, they heard the throb of an engine, growing louder. Bourne knew what it was. As if he’d come full circle from that night in Iceland, he heard a helicopter descending toward the landing pad on the grounds of the estate. A helicopter that would take Lennon and Walden Thatcher to safety, with Varak left behind. The death of the old Pyramid, the beginning of the new.
And with Jason and Abbey both dead, too.
Lennon spoke into a microphone. “Perimeter, draw in. It’s time to go.”
Bourne felt the warmth of the plastic transmitter hidden in his palm. He flipped up the acrylic cover with his thumb, and the red button waited beneath it. The muscles in his body tensed.
“With that, I’m afraid our time has come to an end,” Thatcher said. “I wish there were some other way, Abbey. Truly, I do. As for you, Cain, well, I assume you always knew your life would end in a moment like this. Some things are inevitable.”
Abbey was crying tears of fury. “Fuck you, Walden.”
“Brave to the end, my dear, just as I would expect,” the professor said. Then he nodded at Lennon. “If you would, sir. The satisfaction of dealing with Cain once and for all belongs to you. But let’s make it quick, shall we?”
The assassin stood up from the chair. His arm was rigid, pointing the gun at Bourne’s head. His mouth twisted into a cruel smile. “Years ago, you tried to kill me, and you failed, Cain. I told you, I was always the superior agent. By the way, I usually like to whistle a Beatles song as I do this. Any requests?”
Bourne shrugged. “How about ‘Maxwell’s Silver Hammer’? For old time’s sake.”
“Because you think something will fall down upon my head?”
“Yes, I do.”
Jason pushed the button.
Outside, the IED erupted in the backpack. The first explosion rumbled like thunder and shook the walls of the house, but in the next instant, the gas line blew, and the earthquake threw all of them into the air and slapped them down. Every window in the room shattered, spraying a cloud of glass like broken teeth across the floor. Debris crashed from the ceiling. Bourne was ready. He shook off the impact, then scrambled to his feet and hoisted Abbey’s body into his arms. She was stunned, almost unconscious. He glanced at Lennon and saw the killer recovering from the first blow, hunting for his gun on the floor. The man was between Bourne and the broken doors that led outside, so Jason stumbled the opposite way, carrying Abbey toward the main part of the house. In the hallway, he kicked the door shut and dived for the ground, just as a fusillade of bullets seared through the wood over their heads.
He grabbed for the backup gun strapped to his ankle, and he spun on his back, firing blindly through the door. Then he slapped Abbey’s face gently, trying to rouse her from the impact of the blast. They needed to get away now.
“Abbey, get up, you need to get up, we need to run.”
Her eyes blinked slowly, stirring from the shock wave. She pushed herself to her knees, then stood up dizzily as Bourne helped her. The two of them limped down the hallway, feeling the entire house shudder and groan around them. Black smoke filled the corridor, stinging their eyes and making them choke. The house was on fire, flames on the other side of the walls roaring like a beast fighting to get free. Jason took Abbey’s hand, pulling her along, because they could barely see.
Stairs. They were at the stairs!
Bourne went first, guiding them, and Abbey steadied herself on the railing. A haze filled in around them like a cloud. Then, bursting out of that haze, one of Lennon’s men shot up the stairs. Seeing Bourne above him, he began to raise the rifle in his hands, but Bourne lashed out with a kick that caught the man in the stomach and sent him reeling back down to the foyer. They found him on the floor, unconscious, and they stepped over him and headed for the door. The fire chased them, burning along the floors and walls; the ceiling began to come down in huge beams and fragments of stone from above.
“Out!” he shouted to Abbey. “Outside! Hurry!”
The two of them shoved open the front door into the fresh air. The dark night had turned to day, lit by flames. Next to them, the perpendicular wing of the house didn’t exist anymore; it was a burning mound of wood and brick, leveled by the gas explosion, and the rest of the house was already being engulfed by a wave of destruction. They ran to put distance between themselves and the conflagration, but as he led Abbey toward the old Hamptons highway, he had to pull her to the ground again as bullets banged around them. Two men charged up the driveway, semiautomatic rifles in hand, peppering the air with gunfire. Bourne used his pistol to fire back, buying a few seconds.
“The back!” he shouted. “We need to get to the back!”
He lifted Abbey up and stayed behind her to shield her from the incoming fire. The bullets came close, and then closer, one searing his calf, another ricocheting off debris and sending up a fragment of metal that sliced his arm. He fired back again, over his shoulder, and then they crossed the corner of the house and were momentarily out of view. Ahead of them was the huge stretch of lawn, dancing with the reflected yellow glow of the flames. Smoke rose in billowing clouds. Only the bracing, incoming ocean gales kept the sparks and poison out of their faces.
“Stay there,” he told Abbey. “Don’t move. I’ll be right back.”
The entire rear of the house was aflame. Cinders shot in the air and landed around him like tiny meteors. He pushed through the smoke, bent over at the waist, and made his way to the remains of the porch steps. He found the M4 there, where he’d left it, the metal of the gun now blazing hot to the touch. Bourne slung it over his shoulder and made his way back to Abbey, and as he reached her, he spotted two of Lennon’s men rounding the corner. They were barely twenty yards away, their rifles already firing.
“Jason!” Abbey screamed, ducking, diving.
He braced the carbine, aimed, and unleashed a deadly stream of automatic fire that practically cut both men in half.
“Come on!” he called again.
They ran for the water. Around them, glass exploded and blew like hail, and wood and stone shot from the house in a rain of shrapnel. As Jason glanced over his shoulder, he saw the entire rear wall shudder and collapse, shooting off fireworks that landed on their clothes and burned through to their skin. Abbey screamed at the pain. A fragment of wood hit her thigh like a knife, and she tripped and toppled to the ground. He turned to help her, but then, behind him, came the growl of an engine, even louder than the roar of the dying mansion.
Bourne looked back toward the ocean. Near the cliffside, the helicopter began to rise from the helipad, an insect climbing into the sky. Lennon and Walden Thatcher were already on board. Escaping. Free. He turned the M4 up and fired, tracers of bullets whipping through the air, but he was too far away to do any damage. The helicopter kept getting higher and higher, soaring out of range.
He threw the M4 down to the ground and headed for Abbey, who was getting up now, pushing herself to her feet. She stood alone on the green grass, surrounded by pockets of fire, framed by the estate ablaze behind her. Her skin glowed, but her face was covered with dirt and blood. She favored one leg, and he could see that she couldn’t walk. But that was okay. He would carry her if he had to.
And then light bloomed around her.
A cone of light from over their heads. A searchlight.
The helicopter lit up Abbey from above, and by instinct, she looked up in confusion, her face turned toward the sky.
Lennon.
Bourne felt his breath leave his chest. He was at least twenty feet from Abbey. Twenty feet that felt like twenty miles. He pushed off at a run, desperate, screaming at her to duck, to move, to throw herself away from that light. Ten feet. And there it was—the tiny dot of light appearing on Abbey’s forehead, the laser scope from the sniper rifle that Lennon was aiming from the helicopter. She stared at Jason, her eyes uncomprehending, her lips bent into a strange little smile.
Jason threw himself off the ground.
At the same moment, the crack of the gunshot rippled through the air, following the bullet that tore into bone.