Bourne 4 - The Bourne Legacy Read Free Page B

learned two mortal lessons. The first was to trust absolutely only myself. The second was to observe the most minute proprietaries of civilization, because knowing your place in the world is the only thing standing between you and the anarchy of the jungle."
    Spalko regarded him for a long time. The fitful glow from the firefight was in Khan's eyes, lending him a savage aspect. Spalko imagined him alone in the jungle, prey to privations, the quarry of greed and wanton bloodlust. The jungle of Southeast Asia was a world unto itself. A barbarous, pestilential area with its own peculiar laws. That Khan had not only survived there, but flourished, was, in Spalko's mind at least, the essential mystery surrounding him.
    "I'd like to think we're more than businessman and client." Khan shook his head. "Death has a particular odor. I smell it on you." "And I on you." A slow smile crept across Spalko's face. "So you agree, there is something special between us."
    "We're men of secrets," Khan said, "aren't we?"
    "A worship of death; a shared understanding of its power." Spalko nodded his assent.
    "I have what you requested." He held out a black file folder. Khan looked into Spalko's eyes for a moment. His discerning nature had caught a certain air of condescension that he found inexcusable. As he had long ago learned to do, he smiled at the offense, hiding his outrage behind the impenetrable mask of his face. Another lesson he had learned in the jungle: Acting in the moment, in hot blood, often led to an irreversible mistake; waiting in patience for the hot blood to cool was where all successful vengeance was bred. Taking the folder, he busied himself with opening the dossier. Inside, he found a single sheet of onionskin with three brief close-typed paragraphs and a photo of a handsome male face. Beneath the picture was a name: David Webb. "This is all of it?"
    "Culled from many sources. All the information on him anyone has." Spalko spoke so smoothly Khan was certain he had rehearsed the reply.
    "But this is the man."
    Spalko nodded.
    "There can be no doubt."
    "None whatsoever."
    Judging by the widening glow, the firefight had intensified. Mortars could be heard, bringing their rain of fire. Overhead, the moon seemed to glow a deeper red. Khan's eyes narrowed and his right hand curled slowly into a tight fist of hate. "I could never find a trace of him. I'd suspected he was dead."
    "In a way," Spalko said, "he is."

    He watched Khan walk across the bridge. He took out a cigarette and lit up, drawing the smoke into his lungs, letting it go reluctantly. When Khan had disappeared into the shadows, Spalko pulled out a cell phone, dialed an overseas number. A voice answered, and Spalko said, "He has the dossier. Is everything in place?"
    "Yes, sir."
    "Good. At midnight your local time you'll begin the operation."

PART ONE

CHAPTER ONE

    David Webb, professor of linguistics at Georgetown University, was buried beneath a stack of ungraded term papers. He was striding down the musty back corridors of gargantuan Healy Hall, heading for the office of Theodore Barton, his department head, and he was late, hence this shortcut he had long ago discovered using narrow, ill-lighted passageways few students knew about or cared to use.
    There was a benign ebb and flow to his life bound by the strictures of the university. His year was denned by the terms of the Georgetown semesters. The deep winter that began them gave grudging way to a tentative spring and ended in the heat and humidity of the second semester's finals week. There was a part of him that fought against serenity, the part that thought of his former life in the clandestine service of the U.S. government, the part that kept him friends with his former handler, Alexander Conklin. He was about to round a corner when he heard harsh voices raised and mocking laughter and saw ominous-seeming shadows playing along the wall.
    "Muthfucka, we gonna make your gook tongue come out the back of your