The Bourne Retribution Read Free Page A

“attack.”
    Ouyang moved not a muscle as the others advanced, an oasis of utter calm in the eye of the approaching whirlwind. The three men—tall, medium, and small in stature—came at him one by one, in the gliding, stretched movements of the Chinese straight sword form.
    The small one struck first, an overhead blow meant to split the skull. Ouyang countered without moving his legs or torso in the slightest. Just his arms blurred, steel struck on steel, a lightning flash of sparks, and then the short man, shaken, stepped back at the precise moment the tall man lunged in with a strike meant to penetrate all the way to the spine. With a flick of his wrists that was neither disdainful nor flamboyant, Ouyang guided his opponent’s dao aside.
    The medium man’s approach was entirely different. He was an expert in Sacred Stone, the same form Ouyang was using. For almost five minutes the two men stood toe-to-toe, with only their arms and weapons moving, until Ouyang, employing an unorthodox strike, swept his opponent’s legs out from under him.
    The three men now spread out and simultaneously attacked Ouyang from different directions, the medium man switching from the immobile Sacred Stone to the fluid Fire Dance. For long moments, the endless clang of steel on steel, sparks like lightning, blurs like a mist clouding the interior of the building. Again and again the men tried to defeat Ouyang. Again and again, they were deflected, and then, in a breathtaking flurry, disarmed, defeated.
      
    W ell,” Colonel Sun said, when it was over, after Ouyang had been elevated to sixteenth level in a brief ceremony, “even I am impressed.”
    Ouyang looked at him, sword blade lying against his hairless forearm. “Perhaps you wish to take me on.”
    Colonel Sun chuckled, shaking his head. “You are old school, Minister. I never studied the straight sword forms.”
    “Too low-tech, I imagine.” Ouyang sheathed his jian with a reverence the younger man would never grasp. “So there is a gap in your expertise.”
    Colonel Sun chuckled again, but there was an undertone of uneasiness, an unanswered question of failure. He was young to be such a highly ranked officer—in his midthirties, a handsome man, with a slight Manchu cast to his eyes and cheekbones. Ouyang had mentored him, brought him along, overseeing his swift rise through the military ranks. Sun was intelligent, inquisitive, like Ouyang, a visionary—one of the young upstarts that, Ouyang hoped, would help bring the Middle Kingdom the world hegemony it so richly deserved.
    “I have altered my mind-set,” Colonel Sun said, “of Ministers who sit in offices and shuffle papers as they make decisions.”
    “Only me,” Ouyang said with an impish smile. “Only me.”
      
    L ater, the two men sat in the private dining suite at the Hyatt on the Bund reserved exclusively for Ouyang. They drank Starbucks coffee and ate the American breakfast Ouyang insisted they tolerate, if not enjoy, as part of their preparation for world hegemony. Outside the windows stretched Pudong and the glittering arc of the Bund, for centuries one of the world’s most famous waterfronts.
    Colonel Sun, having had enough of the foreign substances, put aside his fork and said, “One of our people has been taken into custody at Caesarea.”
    Ouyang scowled. “That is most unfortunate.”
    Colonel Sun, clearing the tastes out of his mouth with a gulp of water, nodded. “Jason Bourne was with Director Yadin.”
    “He’s like a fucking cockroach,” Ouyang said. “Impossible to kill, as you yourself found out in the catacombs of Rome. You tried twice and failed both times.”
    Colonel Sun winced. “Everyone has failed. That does not mean I’ll fail again.”
    Ouyang nodded. “An outcome that would please me, Sun. And also, I might add, lead to another promotion.” He wiped his lips. “Now, about the Mexican operation.”
    “A mistake was made at Las Peñas.” Colonel Sun spat. “Mexicans!