Bourne Legacy

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 defined 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 head!' Bourne dropped the stack of papers he had been carrying and sprinted around the corner. As he did so, he saw three young black men in coats down to their ankles arrayed in a menacing semicircle around an Asian, trapping him against a corridor wall. They had a way of standing, their knees slightly bent, their upper limbs loose and swinging slightly that made their entire bodies seem like blunt and ugly aspects of weapons, cocked and ready. With a start, he recognized their prey was Rongsey Siv, a favorite student of his. "Muthafucka,' snarled one, wiry, with a strung-out, reckless look on his defiant face, "we come in here, gather up the goods to trade for the bling-bling.' "Can't ever have enough bling-bling,' said another with an eagle tattoo on his cheek. He rolled a huge gold square-cut ring, one of many on the fingers of his right hand, back and forth. "Or don't 0you know the bling-bling, gook?' "Yah, gook,' the strung-out one said, goggle-eyed. "You don't look like you know shit.' "He wants to stop us,' the one with the tattooed cheek said, leaning in toward Rongsey. "Yah, gook, whatcha gonna do, kung-fuckin-fu us to death?' They laughed raucously, making stylized kicking gestures toward Rongsey, who shrank back even farther against the wall as they closed in. The third black man, thick-muscled, heavyset, drew a baseball bat from underneath the voluminous folds of his long coat. ''That right. Put your hands up, gook. We gonna break your knuckles good.' He slapped the bat against his cupped palm. "You want it all at once or one at a time?' "Yo,' the strung-out one cried, "he don't get to choose.' He pulled out his own baseball bat and advanced menacingly on Rongsey.' As the strung-out kid brandished his bat, Webb came at them. So silent was his approach, so intent were they on the damage they were about to inflict that they did not become aware of him until he was upon them. He grabbed the strung-out kid's bat in his left hand as it was coming down toward Rongsey's head. Tattoo-cheek, on Webb's right, cursed mightily, swung his balled fist, knuckles bristling with sharp-edged rings, aiming for Webb's ribs. In that instant, from the veiled and shadowed place inside Webb's head the Bourne persona took firm control. Webb deflected the blow from tattoo-cheek with his biceps, stepped forward and slammed his elbow into tattoo-cheek's sternum. He went down, clawing at his chest. The third thug, bigger than the other two, cursed and, dropping his bat, pulled a switchblade. He lunged at Webb, who stepped into the attack, delivering a short, sharp blow to the inside of the assailant's wrist. The switchblade fell to the corridor floor, skittering away. Webb hooked his left foot behind the oLustbader, Eric is the author of 'Bourne Legacy', published 2004 under ISBN 9780312331757 and ISBN 0312331754.