The Bourne Sanction by Robert Ludlum, Eric Van Lustbader Read Free Book Online

and Martin had been threatened. He’d lost Martin, he wasn’t about to lose Moira as well.
    Bourne, whose interior radar had swept the second-floor dining room every few minutes or so, hadn’t picked up anyone else of a suspicious nature, so he waited now inside the ceramics shop for the tail to amble by. When this didn’t occur after five minutes, Bourne went out the door and immediately strode across the street. Using streetlights and the reflective surfaces of windows and car mirrors, he spent another few minutes scrutinizing the area for any sign of the man at the table in back. After ascertaining he was nowhere to be found, Bourne returned to the restaurant. He went up the stairs to the second floor, but paused in the dark hallway between the staircase and the dining room. There was the man at his rear table. To any casual observer he seemed to be reading the current issue of The Washingtonian, like any good tourist, but every once in a while his gaze flicked upward for a fraction of a second, focused on Moira.
    Bourne felt a little chill go through him. This man wasn’t following him; he was following Moira.
    As Veronica Hart emerged through the outermost checkpoint to the West Wing, Luther LaValle emerged from the shadows, fell into step beside her.
    “Nicely done,” he said icily. “Next time I’ll be better prepared.”
    “There won’t be a next time,” Veronica said.
    “Secretary Halliday is confident there will be. So am I.”
    They had reached the hushed vestibule with its dome and columns. Busy presidential aides strode purposefully past them in either direction. Like surgeons, they exuded an air of supreme confidence and exclusivity, as if theirs was a club you desperately wanted to belong to, but never would.
    “Where’s your personal pit bull?” Veronica asked. “Sniffing out crotches, I shouldn’t wonder.”
    “You’re terribly flip for someone whose job is hanging by a thread.”
    “It’s foolish-not to mention dangerous, Mr. LaValle-to confuse confidence with being flip.”
    They pushed through the doors, went down the steps to the grounds proper. Floodlights pushed back the darkness to the edges of the premises. Beyond, streetlights glittered.
    “Of course, you’re right,” LaValle said. “I apologize.”
    Veronica eyed him with no little skepticism.
    LaValle gave her a small smile. “I sincerely regret that we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot.”
    What he really regrets, Veronica thought, is my pulling him and Kendall to pieces in front of the president.Understandable, really.
    As she buttoned her coat, he said, “Perhaps both of us have been coming at this situation from the wrong angle.”
    Veronica knotted her scarf at her throat outside her collar. “What situation?”
    “The collapse of CI.”
    In the near distance, beyond the flotilla of heavy reinforced concrete anti-terrorist barriers, tourists strolled by, chatting animatedly, paused briefly to take snapshots, then went on to their dinners at McDonald’s or Burger King.
    “It seems to me that more can be gained by us joining forces than by being antagonists.”
    Veronica turned to him. “Listen, buddy, you take care of your shop and I’ll take care of mine. I’ve been given a job to do and I’m going to do it without interference from you or Secretary Halliday. Personally, I’m sick and tired of you people extending the line in the sand farther and farther so your empire can grow bigger. CI is off limits to you now and forever, got it?”
    LaValle made a face as if he were about to whistle. Then he said, very quietly, “I’d be a bit more careful if I were you. You’re walking across a knife-edge. One false step, one hesitation, and when you fall no one’s going to be there to catch you.”
    Her voice turned steely. “I’ve had my fill of your threats, too, Mr. LaValle.”
    He turned up his collar against the wind. “When you get to know me better, Veronica, you’ll realize I don’t make threats. I