Robert Ludlum's the Bourne Imperative by Eric Van Lustbader Read Free Book Online Page B

had made the Internet, endlessly morphing, always fascinating, more real to him than anything else in his life.
    Flexing his fingers, he cracked his knuckles, then placed his fingertips on the keys. What he needed to do was something more constructive. He decided to fabricate intel on Nicodemo that he could present to his directors, maybe get into their good graces. He felt that old familiar desperation to have superiors like him, and his cheeks flamed with shame.
    He took a deep breath. Concentrate , he thought. Do what you do best; you’ll feel better for this small success . Looking for one man in the complex ISP stew of the Internet was always difficult, he knew. He also knew that no man—not even a ghost—could exist as an island. He had to have associates, friends, family—in other words, an infrastructure, just like everyone else. Even if he didn’t so far exist on the Net, they certainly would. And then there was the fact that he made money, lots of it, according to the scraps Richards had been given. Money did not exist in a vacuum; it came from somewhere and went somewhere else. Those places might be well hidden, but they existed; their routes existed online as well as in the real world. None of this, however, applied to Nicodemo; Richards knew this much about him.
    Not to worry, he decided, his pulse rate climbing; he’d manufacture an oblique approach to finding the Djinn Who Lights The Way. So thinking, he returned to the pathetically few crumbs in the file, reading them over in this new light, for a way to begin writing his bogus trip through the cyberworld of the Net.
    As if of their own volition, his fingers began their familiar tattoo on the keyboard. Moments later, he was once again immersed in his beloved virtual universe.

3
    "THE TROUBLE IS you flew.”
    “What do you mean?” Soraya shook her head. “I don’t understand.” Dr. Steen glanced up from the folder that contained the results of her EEG and MRI tests. “You were injured in Paris, is that right?” 
    “Yes.”
    “And you were treated there as well.”
    She nodded. “That’s right.”
    “Were you not cautioned about the risks associated with flying?” Soraya felt the beating of her heart. It was far too rapid, as if it had broken free of its cage and had risen into her throat. 
    “I thought I was fine.”
    “Well, you’re not.” Dr. Steen swiveled in his chair, switching on an LED monitor. He brought up the MRI of her brain. Nodding toward the screen, he said, “You have a subdural hematoma. Your brain is bleeding, Ms. Moore.”
    Soraya felt chilled to the bone. “I saw my previous MRI. It revealed no such thing.”
    “Again,” Dr. Steen said, “the flying.”
    He swiveled back, but the MRI of her brain remained on the screen, a horrible reminder of her un-wellness.
    Dr. Steen clasped his hands on his desktop. He was a middleaged man who shaved his head rather than deal with his balding pate. “I suspect that this—tear, let’s call it—was microscopic. The previous MRI didn’t pick it up. Then you flew and...” His hands opened.
    She leaned forward, anger supplanting her fear. “Why do you keep intimating that it’s somehow my fault?”
    “You shouldn’t have—”
    “Shut the fuck up.” She didn’t say it loudly, but the intensity of her words rocked him backward and rendered him mute. “Is this how you talk to all your patients? What kind of a human being are you?”
    “I’m a doctor. I—”
    “Right,” she interrupted. “Not a human being. My mistake.”
    He watched her steadily, waiting for her to calm down. “Ms. Moore, my extensive experience in neurosurgery has taught me that it does not pay to sugarcoat my diagnoses. The quicker a patient understands their condition, the quicker we can work together to make them well again.”
    She paused for a moment to control herself, but her heart still felt like a runaway train. Then she winced at the sudden spike of pain in her head. At once, Dr.