As he burst through the open doorway, he curled himself into a ball, rolling fast into the room then unfolding himself all in one smooth motion.
He saw a burly man with a bat tattooed on the side of his neck turn and fire at him. He ducked, rolling toward the conference table laden with food. In that moment he saw Tracy pull her ceramic gun out of a thigh holster. He heard the report of another gunshot and launched himself, his body low and twisting, into the massive legs of the Batman, taking him down just as he fired at Tracy, who instinctively turned away. The bullet went low into one of the heavy glass bowls, sending shards exploding in all directions.
Bourne and Bat-man crashed to the floor with Bourne trying to wrest the
.45 out of his left hand. The gun went off again, the bullet whining past Bourne‘s ear, rendering him temporarily deaf. Bat-man drove his right hand into Bourne‘s ribs, Bourne slammed his knuckles into Bat-man‘s jaw, then followed it with three quick chops with the edge of his hand to the side of Bat-man‘s neck. Using all his strength, his adversary inched the muzzle of the .45 toward Bourne‘s temple. Bourne drove it back, but three successive punches to the same spot on his rib cage caused him to suck in air and, all at once, the muzzle was aimed at his head. Bat-man bore down on the trigger with his left forefinger.
That was when Bourne found his shoulder wound. Driving his finger into the pulpy mass caused Bat-man to howl like a wolf at bay, and Bourne was able to slap the .45 out of his hand. But with a great heave of his body, Bat-man shoved Bourne off, lunged for the gun, and, grabbing it by its barrel, struck Bourne on the temple with the butt end. Bourne‘s head snapped back, bouncing off the floor, but Bat-man kept up the attack, already sensing victory.
Bourne, his consciousness wavering, crawled away, as if seeking safety beneath the conference table. Bat-man grunted with each blow he delivered, rising up as he swung the heavy butt down again and again.
Bourne, feeling consciousness slipping further and further away into a red haze of agony, crawled the few more inches he needed to grab Tracy‘s ceramic gun, which was lying on the floor. With grim determination, he pointed it up at Bat-man and shot him point-blank in the face.
The air was filled with a storm of blood, bone, and bits of pink brain matter. Bat-man had reared up to deliver another titanic blow, but the force of the bullet arched his head and torso back and away. Then Bourne heard, as if through a ton of cotton wool, what sounded like a sack of wet cement hitting the floor.
For a moment, he lay on his back, one leg raised, his heart pumping like a sprinter‘s at the finish line. Pain suffused him, radiating out from the bullet wound he‘d sustained in Bali. His violent actions and the beating he had taken had a deleterious effect on his healing, just as Dr. Firth had warned. Just like after the second surgery, he felt like he‘d been struck by a speeding train.
Then he breathed, and heard his blood singing the song of life in his inner ears. And then came the fiery touch of Shiva, removing the chill of death from his bones, as if this spirit—or, as Suparwita believed, god—had protected him once again, extending his strong hand to take Bourne‘s and bring him back fully into the land of the living.
All at once, hearing conflicting rounds of semi-automatic fire coming from the hallway, he twitched, stirred, and, rising on one elbow, groaned deeply. His head was swimming and he seemed afloat in blood—not his blood, Bat-man‘s, dead as yesterday‘s news, faceless, all but unrecognizable.
It was then, amid the semi-automatic fire that seemed both closer and more frenzied, that he looked around for Tracy. She was lying on her side beyond the table.
―Tracy,‖ he said, and then more urgently, ―Tracy!‖
Her right arm moved in response. He crawled painfully under the table, across the floor glittering with knife-like glass shards that tore into the heels of his hands and his shins.
―Tracy.‖
Her eyes stared straight ahead, but as he rose up into her field of vision, her eyes tracked him and a small smile lit her face.
―There you are.‖
He reached down, putting one arm beneath her shoulders, but when he moved to pick her up, her face contorted and she cried out.
―Oh, God—God help me!‖
―What is it? What‘s the matter?‖
She stared at him mutely, a web of pain clouding her eyes.
He lifted her torso as gently as he could, and that was when he saw the two large shards of glass sticking out of her back like dagger blades. Wiping the sweat off her brow, he said, ―Tracy, I want you to move your feet. Can you do that for me?‖
He looked at her feet, but nothing happened.
―What about your legs?‖
Nothing. He pinched the flesh of her thigh. ―Do you feel that?‖
―What… what did you do?‖
She was paralyzed. At least one of the glass spears had severed key nerves. And the other one? He moved, trying to get a better look at how deeply the glass was embedded. These were good-size pieces, six to eight inches long, he judged, and they were buried deep. He recalled Tracy turning away, then the bullet from Yevsen‘s gun slamming into the heavy glass bowl.
The impact had acted like the detonation of a nail bomb, impaling her on two of the larger projectiles.
The thunder of the semi-automatic fire was very close now, though more intermittent.
―I‘ve got to get you to a hospital,‖ Bourne said, but as he tried to lever her from her half-sitting position she vomited a gout of blood, and he eased back, cradling her in his arms.
―I‘m not going anywhere.‖
―I‘m not going to let you—‖
―You know it and I know it.‖ Tracy‘s eyes were bloodshot, cratered with dark circles like deep bruises. ―I don‘t want to be alone, Jason.‖
He held her as she relaxed back against him. ―Why did you call me that?‖
―Yes, I know your real name, I have from the moment I met you, which wasn‘t a coincidence. Keep still,‖ she said, cutting him off, ―I have things to tell you and there isn‘t much time.‖ She licked her bloody lips. ―Arkadin hired me to make sure you got here. Nikolai Yevsen, the man you just killed, told me that Arkadin is in Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijan, why I don‘t know, but he isn‘t here.‖
So she‘d been working for Arkadin all along. Bourne shook his head grimly at how well he‘d been played. He‘d been made to suspect her and then been given a perfectly plausible explanation as to why she‘d lied about knowing the Goya was real. At that, he‘d stupidly let down his guard. He saw Arkadin‘s hand in these delicate threads and admiration mingled with his anger at himself.
Tracy‘s eyes suddenly opened so wide he could see the bloodshot whites all the way around. ―Jason!‖
Her breathing had become shallow and erratic. She tried to smile. ―It‘s in our darkest hour that our secrets eat us alive.‖