The Bourne Dominion by Robert & Lustbader Ludlum

Legion.
    “Now all I can think of is revenge. The information on the laptop you stole was to be that revenge. I was going to steal the gold from under the Domna’s nose, but that is no longer possible.”
    Bourne was about to reply when Essai waved away his words. “But Allah is great, Allah is good because in the fullness of time you have reappeared, you, the instrument of my revenge.”
    There was another silence. Night creatures chittered overhead and Corellos, eyes closed, chin on chest, began to snortle like a pig.
    Essai gave a dry laugh, then cleared his throat. “I need your expertise, Mr. Bourne. You are the only one I trust to find out what the Domna’s new plan is so that, together, we can stop it.”
    “I work alone.”
    “Odd, isn’t it?” He hadn’t heard Bourne, or if he had, he ignored him.
    “Using the word
trust.
”
    “We’re both men of our word, yes?”
    Bourne nodded.
    The corners of Essai’s eyes wrinkled. “Then this is what I propose—”
    “I know what you want me to do,” Bourne said.
    “It’s only what you were planning to do yourself. But now you have my assistance.”
    “I don’t want your assistance.”
    “With all due respect, Mr. Bourne, in this instance you most assuredly do. The Domna is both large and powerful, its tentacles spread into every corner of the globe.” He waggled his forefinger in Bourne’s direction. “You think I am being melodramatic, but I assure you I am not.”
    “I’m going to do what I’m going to do.”
    Essai nodded, almost eagerly. “Understood. In return, I propose to tell you whom the Domna has sent to kill you.”
    Bourne shrugged. “I’ll find out in due course. I know all the avenues, all the players.”
    “You won’t know this one. As I said to you, the Domna has embarked on a sacred mission. Without my help, you may very well be destroyed.”
    “And I suppose you’re planning to withhold this information until I deliver to you the information you want on the Domna.”
    “Nothing of the sort, Mr. Bourne. I want you to live! Besides, I told you that we’re both men of our word. I’m going to tell you this instant.” He took a step closer, his voice lowered. “Unless you stop him, your friend Boris Karpov will kill you.”

4

    “ Y OU’VE BEEN MORE than fair with us, Mr. Secretary.”
    “Peter, I’ve asked you to call me Christopher,” Secretary of Defense Hendricks replied.
    Peter Marks, sitting beside his co-director, Soraya Moore, murmured his acquiescence.
    “I have ideas for the resurrected Treadstone,” Hendricks continued, “but before I voice them I want to hear from you two. How do you envision Treadstone going forward?”
    The three were in the drawing room of Hendricks’s town house in Georgetown, where they were beginning a strategy briefing. Hendricks’s family, while from the upper crust of Washington society, was nevertheless lacking wealth, which meant that despite his blue blood he was possessed of a distinctly blue-collar work ethic. He was a striver, some might say an overachiever.
    He was slim and tall with the upright bearing of a military man. In fact, he had served, briefly, in Korea, had been wounded in the line of duty, and had been duly decorated by the president himself before returning to the public sector. Until a year ago, he had been national security adviser.
    Now that he was finally in the catbird seat, he was determined to implement a number of initiatives he had been formulating for years. The first—and frankly most important—was turning the resurrected Treadstone into his own organization, free of the impediments of CI, NSA, and Congress.
    Hendricks had no great desire to circumvent the law. Nevertheless, he had observed that, from time to time, there was a need for a group of people—small, tightly knit, intensely loyal to one another and to America—to operate in areas impossible for those subject to oversight and scrutiny to go. Now, with the country under attack from