@@@@@She nodded, brushed her lips against his, 510
@@@@@She nodded, brushed her lips against his, and ran after her
husbandThe obvious consort walked back into the small house and slammed the door shut,
removing the light
Jason reattached the binoculars to his trousers and tried to understand what he had observedIt
had been like watching a silent movie minus the subtitles, the gestures far more real and without
exaggerated theatricalityThat there was in the confines of this fenced acreage a m?nage ? trois
was obvious, but this could hardly explain the fenceThere was another reason, a reason he had to
learn
Further, instinct told him that whatever it was, was linked to the huge overweight man who had
walked angrily back into the small houseHe had to reach that house; he had to reach that man who
had been a part of his forgotten pastHe slowly got to his feet, and ducking from one pine to the
next, he made his way to the end of the circular drive, and then continued down the tree-lined
border of the narrow graveled road
He stopped, lurching to the ground at a sudden sound that was no part of the murmuring woods
Somewhere wheels were spinning, crushing stone and displacing it; he rolled over and over into the
dark recesses of the low-hanging, wide-spreading branches of a pine tree, swinging his body around
to locate the disturbance
Within seconds he saw something racing out of the shadows of the circular drive, rushing over
the gravel of the extended roadIt was a small odd-shaped vehicle, half three-wheeled motorbike,
half miniature golf cart, the tires large and deeply treaded, capable of both high speed and balance
It was also, in its way, ominous, for, in addition to a high flexible antenna, thick curved Plexiglas
shields shot up from all sides, bulletproof windows that protected the driver from gunfire while
alerting by radio anyone inside the residences of an assaultGeneral Norman Swayne?s ?farm? took
on an even stranger ambienceThen, abruptly, it was macabre
A second three-wheeled cart swung out from the shadows behind the cabin?and it was a cabin
with split logs on the exterior?and came to a stop only feet from the first vehicle on the graveled
roadBoth drivers? heads swung militarily toward the small house as if they were robots in a public
gallery, and then the words shot out from an unseen speaker
?Secure the gates,? said the amplified voice, a voice in command?Release the dogs and resume
your rounds
As if choreographed, the vehicles swung in unison, each in the opposite direction, the drivers
gunning their engines as one, the strange-looking carts racing forward into the shadowsAt the
mention of dogs Bourne had automatically reached into his back pocket and removed the CO2 gun;
he then crawled laterally, rapidly, through the underbrush to within feet of the extended fenceIf
the dogs were in a pack, he would have no choice but to scramble up the links and spring over the
Robert Ludlum ?? THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM
93
coiled barbed wire to the other sideHis dual-chambered dart pistol could eliminate two animals,
not more; there would be no time to reloadHe crouched, waiting, ready to leap up on the fence, the
sightlines beneath the lower branches relatively clear
