Nicky shoves the folder into the backpack slung over her shoulder as she heads for the stairs.
Like most Parisian apartments, this building has only stairs; there is no elevator. The main staircase winds down to the ground floor, and Nicky and Bourne know that front door is about to be kicked in.
But Nicky and David Webb specifically chose this building, a remodeled hôtel particulier, because of an added feature: a set of back stairs, originally used by servants. The door to those back stairs had been sealed off long ago, but David and Nicky made modifications.
Bourne follows Nicky as she moves quickly for the stairs. "Where are we going?"
"One floor above," answers Nicky. She knows that by tomorrow Treadstone will have the legal means to search every apartment in this building, and the home she'd once shared with David Webb will be an open book to them. She's mournful at the loss of this last vestige of the Parisian life she had with David.
She races up the wide steps, feeling the burn in her thighs. They are only just slipping past the diamond-patterned tile landing leading up to the fourth floor when the main door is kicked open with a terrific crash. They can hear racing feet, snapped commands and shouted responses.
Jason skids to the wall, reaches out and pulls a red lever, igniting the building's fire alarm system. Nicky nods in approval as she heads up to the next level. Doors open and panicked voices mix with shouts of anger as residents swarm out of their homes and those on the lower floors are confronted with the intruders.
The fourth floor, like all the other étages, hosts apartments on either side with double height wood doors. As the floor's apartment residents exit their homes and head for the main staircase, no one notices as Nicky and Jason disappear behind the stairwell. Nicky points to a recessed alcove. The door would be unnoticeable if one weren't looking. Nicky reaches up and extracts a small key hidden on top, unlocking the door and snapping on a light switch. A string of dim bulbs light the way down the hidden staircase.
"We enabled access here and on the first floor," explains Nicky, slipping through the narrow door, Bourne following behind her.
"Nice," Bourne mutters, closing the door. Nicky hands him the key and he relocks it, then follows her down.
They can hear the chaos on the floors they pass, the siren blaring, the shouting in English and French as their hunters look for them while dealing with residents trying to evacuate the building. At the ground floor, Nicky turns the interior lock and pushes the door open cautiously. Thick greenery provides cover over and around the door. From the street, it looks like foliage climbing a trellis wall (another of their modifications). It's a visual effect because the lattice is actually set back from the building about three feet – enough space for two people to quietly slip out into the darkness of the side street without notice, though the commotion of the flashing lights, the sirens of the approaching fire brigade, and a confusion of people pouring out on the streets masks their movements anyway.
They both keep their heads down, moving quickly, Bourne following Nicky, who is dialing on her phone.
She breaks into a run as she barks into the receiver. "Now! No I'm not fucking kidding. You have twenty-four hours, maybe thirty-six max."
Just as quickly she hangs up, opens up messaging and dictates a text: "Now."
She offers no explanation as to the identity of either recipient.
Nicky turns a sharp corner and smashes the phone into the brick façade repeatedly until the phone splinters and cracks while Bourne stares in bemusement.
"I've got a car stashed over on Rue Saint Martin," she tells him, throwing half the pieces into bushes nearby. "It's nearly a straight shot down to Pont Notre Dame."
She hurries down the alley, tossing the remaining pieces of the cell phone in a gutter. He follows, keeping pace with her, throwing quick glances over his shoulder. No one is following them…yet. A few minutes later Nicky is stalking toward a blue Peugeot 307.
Nicky throws him a set of keys which he catches unerringly; he goes around to the driver's side and unlocks the door. Nicky's not on the passenger side; she's still standing on the sidewalk.
"Get out of town," she tells him.
"Where are you going?" Bourne demands, moving back to her.
"You need to go," she repeats, taking a step back. "Cross needs at least a day to get a full view of that network. The only way he can do that if they're not looking at it. He needs a diversion."
"Divers-" Bourne's eyes widen. "This is Cross' plan? For you to be bait?"
"This is my plan," she hisses. He reaches out, grabs her arm. She slaps at his hand, but he does not release his hold on her.
"Are you crazy?" he bellows.
"I'm the only fucking sane person I know!" Nicky shouts. "I'm the only one with all my faculties, whose brain hasn't been fucked with, isn't fucked, the only one of you who can make my own path. The only thing wrong with me is how jacked up my life is because of other people!"
Bourne's hand tightens fractionally around her arm. Even though he's barely holding on to his temper, he does not squeeze, does not shake.
Nicky jerks out of his hold. "Do what I tell you to do. I don't need to be saved."
"You don't have the sense God gave meal worms," he snaps.
"I know them, you don't," she says through gritted teeth. "I worked with them, I was them."
"You're not them anymore. You're a loose end they tried –are trying - to kill."
"They won't kill me. I have something they need." She's betting on that.
"What could you possibly have now that they need that you didn't have before?"
"I know what happened to you."
That draws him up short, his eyes sharp and bright.
She plays her card. "I know why you broke."
His expression is ferocious. "You said no one knew what happened to me -"
"That was before tonight," she cuts in. "Before I debriefed you. But I…I know what happened to you."
He is gobsmacked and furious. "What were you planning to give them before?" She's silent, and Bourne shakes his head in disbelief. "You had nothing?"
She hesitates, then: "I had you."
His nostrils flare, eyes flinty. He connects the dots. "You knew they'd be watching your old place. You wanted them to see us together."
"I didn't know for sure they were watching, but it made sense," she agrees. "It's good spy craft."
For a moment, they stare at one another. She watches as outrage and betrayal and disappointment and resignation flit across his face, the changes so fast it's hard to see; but she has spent endless hours staring at him, registering every mood.
"I am so goddamned tired of people using me," he grits out.
"I know," Nicky nods. She offers no apology. Needs must when the devil drives. "I had a different plan, but you came to me."
The tic in his jaw is the only indication that he's grinding his teeth. Bourne's eyes are mirrors to his fury, rage coiling in those blue depths. Whatever he intends to say next is interrupted by the sharp report of a gun and stone fragments flying from the door behind to her. They both duck. Twenty feet away and running toward them are a quartet of Treadstone agents, SIG Pro SP2022 pistols drawn.
"Get in the car!" Bourne orders.
She doesn't argue; they both jump into the Peugeot, and he has the car in gear before Nicky's even closed her door or buckled in. Several shots ring out behind them and the window behind Nicky shatters, the bullet embedding itself in the dashboard. She curses, snapping in her safety belt as Jason whips the car around a parked car, driving madly along the Parisian street. It's so late that even for a city never truly asleep, there aren't many people out; but Jason is laying on the horn as a warning to any pedestrian stupid enough to step into the street as he careens down the road.
"You got a safe house anywhere we can get to?" he asks.
"Sorbonne," she shoots back. "Over the Seine."
He shifts gears, cursing the Peugeot's lack of muscle.
"They'll be on us soon," Nicky mutters, and it's prescient because right then, two black sedans fall in behind them. More bullets zing past them, some punching through the rear windshield, shattering it. Glass flies toward them, scatters over the back seat.
"Get down!" shouts Bourne. He keeps his head as low as he can while still maintaining a clear view of the road.
Nicky is ducking, but not just to avoid bullets whizzing over her head; she reaches into her jacket to grab the Glock 19. A quick press check shows her the bullet in the chamber. Unsnapping her belt buckle, she sits up and turns, firing several shots through the empty rear window. Jason pulls the steering wheel hard to the left, causing her to tumble back in her seat. She grunts and rights herself, bracing her shoulder on the headrest, bringing the gun up again and emptying the clip. This time, she scores several direct hits: one of the sedans swerves madly, the driver overcorrecting and slamming into his cohort. The two cars jump the road and ram into a nearby building.
"Go!" shouts Nicky, spinning around in her seat, ejecting the cartridge and reaching into her backpack for another magazine. She slaps in a fresh clip and chambers a round.
Jason floors it, tries to get what distance he can from their pursuers.
"Shit. There's another one," Jason says, eyes on the rearview mirror.
Nicky turns –another black sedan whips out from a side street in front of the two cars she derailed.
"Keep on this road as long as you can," Nicky instructs him. "It'll veer off as we get closer to the Seine, but stay on Saint Martin. It'll take us directly to the bridge. Cross over and ditch the car at the Sorbonne. At 2 rue de Fossés Saint Jacques, there's a safe house, flat 4A. The entry code is 9941."
Behind them come more bullets, more shattered glass, and Jason veering to stay on the road.
"I'm going to die in a car chase," Nicky mutters darkly.
"Not today you're not," Bourne snaps.
Bourne is superlative at evasive driving, smoothly shifting gears while weaving seamlessly through traffic.
They are speeding down Rue Saint Martin when it empties out onto Rue des Varrieres – which is a one way street.
"That way!" points Nicky to the right, in opposition to the traffic flow, to where Saint Martin picks up again across the road.
Jason makes an illegal turn, directly into oncoming traffic, ignoring the blared horns and the panicked cars which part and swerve around the Peugeot. Bourne nearly clips a vehicle as he makes a quick jab left to rejoin Rue Saint Martin.
Nicky can see the Treadstone car behind them, momentarily stuck on Rue Saint Martin, trying to make its way across traffic to follow them. The Pont Notre-Dame is devoid of other cars as Jason crosses over Quai des Gesvres. The metal and stone arch bridge connects The Right Bank to Île de la Cité.
"Meet me at the Pont des Arts in three days," Nicky says suddenly, eliciting a startled glance from Jason, who is speeding across one spandrel. "Don't come for me."
She may be dead then but it's a gamble she has to take. "I'll tell you what you want to know."
"What the hell are you talking about?" he demands. His eyes widen when he sees her pulling the door handle. "Nicky?! What are you doing?"
As if recognizing her intent, he slows down enough that when she leaps from the car, it's not at a suicidal speed; she flings the door shut behind her and runs a few steps to the railing. She can see him, open mouthed with horror as she jumps over the bridge, straight down toward the black, murky waters of the Seine, keeping her body arrow straight. Behind her she hears the anguished scream of her name – or thinks she does. She knows he won't follow her; he can't, not with the other car closing behind him. At least, she hopes he won't. Or does she hope he will?
The conundrum that is her relationship with Jason Bourne is her last thought before she enters the river like a bullet, the dark water cold as it closes over her head.