Winter Bourne

Chapter 23 An Amusement

Jason Bourne

The light warning that someone was outside the door flashed again. Jason checked the monitor. Two scruffy looking college-aged boys were standing there. As the taller one knocked on the door, Jason swiveled the camera along the hallway. It was empty. Their visitors' body language was loose, relaxed. Both were unarmed. Not a threat. Not yet reassured, Jason darted to the window to scan the parking lot, ignoring Nicky who sat frozen on the bed. No new cars were there since the last time he'd checked. No suspicious activity or, worse, a lack of regular activity on the streets surrounding the hostel. Everything looked normal. The odds that the boys were a decoy for a real threat dropped to near zero. Jason flicked through a set of possible actions and associated consequences. Discarding one choice after another, he made his decision barely twenty seconds after that first knock. Standing to one side of the door, he called out in German, "Who is it?"

"Uh, hallo? We are having an amusement," a Spanish flavored voice answered in a poor attempt at German. "Down in the large room. We invite you and its lady friend."

"Thank you. We'll come," Jason said. He waited, watching the monitor until they walked down to another guest door. He cast a glance around the room to evaluate how long it would take to clean up and get out. At least Nicky was fastidious with her things organized in one neat pile.

"I'm not going," Nicky said.

Jason glanced at her. Nicky's voice was calm, but her hands were clenched into fists. He said, "It's a hostel. We'd stick out more by not attending."

"I know why you're doing this. You're going to pack me off with a bunch of kids."

"It'd be safer."

"Not for them."

Jason froze. Did she suspect?

"I don't have your training, or your brains, but I'm not stupid."

She had a tell, a habit that betrayed her nervousness. Nicky was doing it now. Running a hand through her hair, currently a soft chestnut color that suited her fair coloring. He waited, uncertain. He didn't know her well enough to judge if she was playing him or if she truly understood the situation.

"They found me in Brussels, but they waited. For you."

She had some of the puzzle. Jason nodded. "Another bad decision by Blackbriar because you caught on and ruined their plan."

"Amazing isn't it? How you happened to arrive in Brussels just at the right time to rescue me." She tilted her head at him. "How long were you watching them watching me?"

Ignoring the sarcasm, he said, "Not that long."

She looked away then, and he could no longer guess what she was thinking. She was doing it again. Instead of yelling at him, she hid her emotions behind a polite mask, retreating to some private place that he couldn't follow.

"I'm sorry-"

"Don't," Nicky cut off his awkward attempt at an apology. "I understand. You were gathering intel on Blackbriar. Operatives. How they work."

"Yes."

"Wait. That doesn't make sense." Nicky frowned. "Of course, the CIA wants us. Why does Blackbriar come after us? Why would they think you'd come for me? If they thought that I was bait for you, why didn't they grab me? They would have had a lot more control if I were a hostage."

No, she didn't have the full picture. Jason had wanted to give Nicky more time before scaring her more that she already was. He gave her a partial truth. "They were overconfident. Made too many mistakes. It's why we got away."
For once, Nicky wasn't letting him evade her. She turned back to face him and folded her arms across her chest, the very image of stubbornness. "What are you not telling me?"

Jason couldn't meet the sudden fierceness in her eyes. He dragged over one of the ratty armchairs to the bed and sat down next to her. He couldn't think of a way to soften it. "Blackbriar was after you, Nicky. Not me. I'd have been a hostage for them. To make you do what they wanted."

She took it like the blow it was. He watched the fear and surprise melt into confusion. She adjusted. Her chin went up. "You knew Blackbriar was after me? What do they want?"

"I don't know." Jason paid attention not Nicky's obvious expressions, the ones that said she was confused, uncertain. He watched for those subtle, impossible to control micro-expressions that exposed true intent. "I think you do."

She startled, her whole body responding as if from another sudden strike. He hadn't it thought it possible for her to get paler. Beads of perspiration appeared at her hairline.

"I don't. David, I swear I have no idea."

He believed her. It changed things.

"Why didn't you ask me before now?" Nicky asked.

Jason looked down at his hands, noting the way his fingers were twisting together. Alarmed that his self-control was slipping, he rubbed his hands along his thighs, and then settled them in his lap. He wondered if Nicky realized how frail she looked. She'd lost weight she couldn't afford. The infection hadn't helped. The effect of weaning off the painkillers hadn't been pleasant either. Now he was hurting her more, and he had to hope that she'd be strong enough to take it. "Figured you needed time to heal."

Nicky just looked at him. "Is this why we're not in South America right now? Why we doubled back to Bremen? You're going after Blackbriar?"

He shook his head. "We need to figure out what they want first. Then we can decide what to do." A quick check of his watch and he stood, holding out a hand. "Let's go downstairs."

"Brussels first."

"Oh." Jason sat back down. "What do you remember?"

She frowned. "I recognized a man. Guess that he had to be a tail. Got scared and ran…"

Listening, Jason made mental notes, matching what Nicky said against what he'd witnessed. Overall, Nicky had done better than he'd have expected. She had prepared a plan, prepped a disguise and get-away kit, and had executed it without hesitation. If there hadn't been both a CIA and a Blackbriar crew after her, she would have had gotten away. Her biggest failure was not noticing that she'd been found at least eight days before that.

"… then someone grabbed me. It was Tom Cronin."

"You knew him?"

"He was Landy's right hand man." Nicky looked away. Her shoulders drooped. "He was one of the good guys."

"Who would have put you in handcuffs and sent you to back to Langley for arrest, interrogation and twenty years in Federal prison." Jason said. He could have added execution, but it would have been an unneeded cruelty. He didn't have much faith in Landy's promises of immunity.

"Doing his job, I know." She bit her lips and added. "Just wish Tom didn't have to die."

Jason felt his gut clench. He should have been paying more attention to her body language. Nicky was feeling conflicted. She'd known this man, had worked with him and was having a hard time seeing him as an enemy. She'd been careful not to criticize Jason for killing him, but was grieving enough to protest his death. He wondered if she'd believe him when he said, "I didn't kill him, Nicky."

She took an audible deep breath. Those deep brown eyes met his. "Then what did happen?"

"When you went into the restaurant and ran up the stairs, I guessed you'd been made. I went outside–" Jason was cut off again.

"You were in the restaurant?" She sprang to her feet.

She seemed upset. Jason wasn't sure why. Frowning, he said, "I already told you I'd been watching you."

Nicky sank back down on the bed, her arms wrapped around her shoulders. She'd turned away from him again.

"What's wrong?" Jason asked.

"I was so scared all the time." Her voice was low, thready with remembered pain. "If I'd known you were there, I wouldn't have been so afraid."

"That's exactly why I couldn't tell you."

She gave him a hard look that softened as comprehension dawned. "Because my body language would have changed. It would have made them suspicious."

"Right."

The anger and tension keeping her back rigid drained away. "Go on. Please."

Jason backtracked. "Let's see. Right. Oh, yeah, I'd found your get-away gear a couple of days before, so I had a good idea of what you'd do. When you ran upstairs, I went outside to run interference, if you needed it. You did good. The Blackbriar tail didn't even notice when you walked by him. It was the CIA that spotted you. Blackbriar must have been monitoring the CIA channels, because then they all started after you."

"It was Blackbriar I went after first. Started on the outliers and worked forward. Got a lucky break and found their ops vehicle. Broke in and disabled their comm. Once that was down, they lost their situational awareness. Drove it over to the Sheraton complex and down to the subway."

Nicky looked confused and she held up a hand. "Wait? How can you drive down to the subway?"

Shrugging, he said, "Used the staircases. The walkway at the bottom's wide enough for two cars. Wasn't that bad."

"Holy Mother of God! That's crazy."

"Had to get in front of the chase." It hadn't felt like a crazy idea at the time. He'd needed to hurry and had had few options. At the same time, another mental thread made a note that Nicky was Catholic. The constant dissection of speech patterns and observation wasn't a process he could turn off. It annoyed him that his unconscious was continuing to treat Nicky as a hostile, not a friend. Then a thought startled him out of his conversation. The realization that Jason Bourne had not and did not have friends. Hadn't needed that set of social skills. No wonder he was so uneasy around Nicky. Her association with Treadstone kept all of his training in play, even when he wanted to trust her.

"Jason?"

He blinked. "Sorry. Uh, anyway, I left the van at the top of the escalators and went to find you."

"By following the sound of the gun-fight?"

"Right. Figure it must have started when someone recognized a member of the opposite team."

Nicky showed her surprise. "They weren't shooting at me?"

"Not likely."

"Oh." She gave him a crooked smile. "Guess that's good news."

"Anyway, I caught up with you." He shrugged. "You know the rest."

Nicky gave him a stiff nod. Her face was showing an odd mixture of relief and sadness. "Did I thank you for my life yet?"

"Yes." He had to force it, but he managed to smile at her. It wasn't her fault that he'd killed again to protect her. Interesting that Nicky didn't ask if he'd killed the man who'd murdered her friend. She wasn't nearly as cold or ruthless as she thought she was. "I've got a question for you. How did you spot the tail?"

"His shoes," Nicky said. "Different outfit, but same shoes. It made me look at his face a second time and I realized I'd seen him before."

"Good." Jason kept any criticism to himself. Nicky had focused on the small, but had never seen the bigger picture. If she had, she'd have seen that the antennas sprouting on the neighboring buildings day by day and the fleet of vans following her wherever she went. He couldn't blame Nicky. She didn't have the training he'd been given.

He stood a second time. Held out his hand again.

This time she didn't refuse him. Nicky slipped her hand into his, let him help her. Her hand was soft and he resisted the urge to let it linger in his own. He let it drop. Turned away to give himself a moment to recover his calm and dragged the chair back away from the bed.

"We should go downstairs. Just for a half an hour or so." He held the door open for her. "When we get back we can talk about Daniels."

He heard her sigh, but she didn't protest.

It was going to be a long night, but he'd pushed it off as long as he could. If he didn't get answers soon, they might never be free of Blackbriar. He hoped that by now Landy had gotten something useful out of the last package he'd sent her.

--

Pamela Landy

"You know, Pam. Most guys send woman they like flowers." CIA Director Carson shook his head in mock dismay. He gestured to the two Blackbriar operatives, drugged and chained on their beds. "Your boyfriend keeps sending you bodies."