Chapter 5: Adrift

Aaron was back at the table under the tarpaulin cover studying the maps exactly as Marta had seen him before the last time she approached him above deck. Instead of joining him again, she sunk down against the rusting superstructure of the fishing trawler and pulled a woven hat from nearby over her head to think. It was too large but served the dual purpose of shielding her from the sun, and from satellite surveillance-if Aaron's suspicions were correct.

Marta glanced up to find Aaron smiling at her, amused, at either how she looked or at her not joining him at the table. She preferred to be alone in her thoughts with no distractions. And Aaron was exactly that-his elbows propped up on either side of the maps laid before him, his arms and torso bare, defined and lightly tanned. She dipped her head so the silly hat would block his view of her admiring, delighted grin. Marta had to ignore him and concentrate on the shadow of an idea she felt roaming in the recesses of her mind. It was a feeling she commonly had when she was very close to a scientific breakthrough.

Aaron was completely charmed by Marta's awkward attentiveness. He had worked for so many years to elicit such attention that he was tempted to abandon his task and exploit the triumph. The moment passed too quickly, though, and he could see that she was already lost to him in her own solitary contemplation. Doctor Shearing was the studious, detached virologist once again. Watching her for a few minutes, he began to feel foreboding over what she could be considering so intently.

Aaron pulled his thoughts back to the plans percolating in his own head and focused in on the most viable options. As always, the decision would be fight or flight. His natural inclination was to fight, and he had already zeroed in on a promising strategy he had been considering since seeing the news reports a couple days ago at the Newark airport. Without alerting Marta, he had kept up on the latest developments back in the states regarding one Jason Bourne.

The same name carved into the Alaskan cabin bunk popping up with a suspect face in prime time, at the same time as Outcome was being torched, couldn't be a coincidence. Aaron had no doubt the two events were related and Jason Bourne was obviously a program agent, like himself, if not an Outcome recruit. His sharp mind reviewed the bulletin he had heard with almost perfect recollection. He needed whatever information Marta could share on the program details and its participants.

Marta. Strategic plotting suddenly halted at the reminder of her. Together, as Aaron determined the course must be, was a consideration to factor into the plan. They stood a better chance if the choice was flight.

He looked over to see office-white bare legs folded over feet that tapped absentmindedly. Marta was staring off into the ocean, biting her lower lip in distant contemplation. Aaron's gut twisted at the sight of her childlike innocence. No, he reminded himself, innocent would not be the right word to describe her. Marta was not an innocent, and she definitely was not as vulnerable as she looked right now. Yet she did make things more complicated; left him more vulnerable. Watching her, though, he couldn't regret the decision or his visceral need to keep her.

Marta suddenly stilled as if coming to a conclusion. She slowly turned towards Aaron, almost reluctantly, and her eyes met his with a nervous cautiousness that unsettled him. The look immediately vanished, replaced with a bright smile as she stood up and approached him at the table. She took her previous seat next to him and asked suggestively, "So, do we get to be lost?" as she glanced down at his maps.

"Yes," Aaron smiled ruefully, then pointed to a nearby island at the beginning of a trail of dots on the map he had marked out. "Here," he continued, his finger following the jaunty line, "there, then when we make it here," he stopped on a larger black dot, "we'll be able to blend in a little better. Hopefully we can stay a day or two while I line up a safe house in one of the neighboring countries."

Aaron reached under the table and squeezed Marta's knee, teasing, "We can play back-packing hippies. You'll be cute in braids, but no attracting too much attention."

She smiled back at him, but her eyes didn't quite reach his gaze.

"You have a different plan then?" he asked, leaning back in his chair, studying her expression.

Marta squared her shoulders, knowing he would not like what she had to say. "Yes. We can't outrun the US government and all its resources bent on our demise to protect their cover up. They'll never stop. Hiding only delays the inevitable under that scenario-our death."

Her eyebrow lifted in question, "Without me, your plan wouldn't be to run, would it?"

Aaron ignored her last comment. "First of all, it's not the US government after us, it's a small special projects division-specifically Eric Byer and his National Research Assay Group."

Marta knew the group but had never heard the leader's name before. "But the CIA, NSA or some other national defense government agency must have given the Research Assay Group sanction. They couldn't have done all they accomplished without proper authorization and financial support."

"Exactly," Aaron replied. "Most likely, only one branch has knowledge of Outcome. Our country has three for checks and balance. There may be only a few programs involved with NRAG and most probably don't understand Byer's full scope and mission. That works to our advantage."

"Then we only need to expose the truth about the National Research Assay Group to the other two branches. Or, to the media," Martha countered. "We take the fight to them, politically."

Aaron repeated a line of reasoning he had used before. "Can you go loud enough, big enough, fast enough that they won't shut you down before you can do real damage?"

Marta slumped in her seat a few minutes before she stared back at him with quiet, but sad, strength. She looked up to the sky, shook her head and admitted, "Aaron, I'm terrified. Believe me, what I want to do is run and hide." Her left hand found its way under the table to clasp his, resting on her knee. "But I'll never feel safe and I'll be just as terrified waiting for them to track us down as I would trying to fight them."

Aaron wouldn't say aloud what he was thinking. Normally, he would've agreed with her choice to turn and fight. He already knew the plan he would follow, had he been on his own: to take down that prick Eric Byer and his asshole Assay Group.

It was clear to Aaron that Marta was not aware there already was a political fight playing out in Washington. This was not information he was keen to share with her. She was already suggesting nearly the same offensive strategy. He was still sure that, to protect her, they needed a defensive course, not a confrontational one.

Aaron had caught enough news coverage to piece together that the blond congresswoman, Pamela Landy, was accused of aiding Jason Bourne. He knew Bourne had to be a rogue agent, like him, from the name carved into the training cabin in Alaska. Bourne's face wouldn't have been splashed all over the TV screen had he still been active; his existence would still be top secret. He was off the rails and they were tracking him down. They would have to stop him. Operatives still in play, like the one that nearly took them down in Manila, would already be on Bourne's tail.

It was a journalist that had been shot at the metro station. News stations were reporting that Jason Bourne had been there. It was presumed he shot the journalist, but Aaron knew better. Bourne must have been trying to get to the reporter at the public location, but Byer had taken him out. Somehow, Bourne slipped out of the net that would've been laid out for him, in the chaos. It was reported he was still at large.

Aaron wondered if Bourne had made contact with the journalist before he was shot. Had he gotten information or, even better, evidence they could use to bring down the Research Assay Group and its backers?

It wasn't looking good for Bourne; he was deemed a terrorist with full military and civilian might against him. Even the agencies and branches that weren't privy to NRAG's true function would be after him. Selfishly, Aaron figured it worked in his and Marta's favor-as a distraction.

Or to divide and conquer, he thought, before dismissing it with a shake of his head. Any information or proof Bourne had hoped to get from the reporter was probably gone anyways. And Landy was on trial for treason, headed for a sure conviction.

As a terrorist, Bourne would never have a chance to testify at the trial, even if he could somehow appear at court. And, unfortunately, with Landy formally indicted and in custody, Bourne's ally had been neutralized and couldn't help him; even if he had somehow gotten some kind of evidence. If the two of them had been working together to expose Outcome and its affiliate groups, they failed.

Marta was watching Aaron suspiciously. She still hadn't told him her plan, but preferred to hear his first. He was obviously deciding on one but was leaving her out of the thought process. "What?", she demanded. Aaron's reluctance to respond only encouraged her. "You know something or have a plan you don't want to tell me about. Am I right?"

He stared back at her in silence, trying in vain to come up with any better alternative to the only viable option they had if they were going to fight their fate. His fingers intertwined with hers, as if symbolic of their interlaced destiny. Or mutual destruction, he tried not to think. Aaron made a decision.

"Does the name Jason Bourne ring a bell?"