Robert Ludlum - Robert Ludlums (TM) The Bourne Dominion

Robert Ludlum was the author of twenty-six international bestselling novels, published in thirty-two languages and forty countries. He is perhaps best known as the creator and author of three novels featuring Jason Bourne: The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy, and The Bourne Ultimatum.

Eric Van Lustbader is the author of numerous bestselling novels including First Daughter, The Testament, The Ninja, and the international bestsellers featuring Jason Bourne: The Bourne Legacy, The Bourne Betrayal, The Bourne Sanction, and The Bourne Deception. For more information, you can visit www.ericvanlustbader.com. You can also follow him on Facebook and Twitter.

Thanks to

Sam Gold, Ken Dorph

The Bancroft Strategy

The Ambler Warning

The Tristan Betrayal

The Janson Directive

The Sigma Protocol

The Prometheus Deception

The Matarese Countdown

The Cry of the Halidon

The Apocalypse Watch

The Scorpio Illusion

The Road to Omaha

The Bourne Ultimatum

Trevayne

The Icarus Agenda

The Bourne Supremacy

The Aquitaine Progression

The Road to Gandolfo

The Parsifal Mosaic

The Bourne Identity

The Matarese Circle

The Holcroft Covenant

The Chancellor Manuscript

The Gemini Contenders

The Rhinemann Exchange

The Matlock Paper

The Osterman Weekend

The Scarlatti Inheritance

Robert Ludlums The Bourne Objective

Robert Ludlums The Bourne Deception

Robert Ludlums The Bourne Sanction

Robert Ludlums The Bourne Betrayal

Robert Ludlums The Bourne Legacy

Second Skin

Floating City

The Kaisho

White Ninja

The Miko

The Ninja

Shan

Jian

Blood Trust

Last Snow

First Daughter

The Testament

Art Kills

Pale Saint

Dark Homecoming

Black Blade

Angel Eyes

French Kiss

Zero

Black Heart

Sirens

Phuket, Thailand

J ASON BOURNE EELED his way through the mob. He was assaulted by the bone-juddering, heart-attack-inducing, soul-shattering blast of music coming from ten-foot-tall speakers set on either end of the enormous dance floor. Above the dancers bobbing heads an aurora borealis of lights splintered, coalesced, and then shattered against the domed ceiling like an armada of comets and shooting stars.

Ahead of him, across the restless sea of bodies, the woman with the thick mane of blond hair made her way around gyrating couples of all possible combinations. Bourne pressed after her; it was like trying to push his way through a soft mattress. The heat was palpable. Already the snow on the fur collar of his thick coat had melted away. His hair was slick with it. The woman darted in and out of the light, like a minnow under the sun-beaten skin of a lake. She seemed to move in a shuddering jerk-step, visible first here, then there. Bourne pushed after her, overamplified bass and drums having highjacked the feel of his own pulse.

At length, he confirmed that she was making for the ladies room, and, having already plotted out a shortcut, he broke off his direct pursuit and plowed the new route through the melee. He arrived at the door just as she disappeared inside. Through the briefly open door the smells of weed, sex, and sweat emerged to swirl around him.

He waited for a pair of young women to stumble out in a cloud of perfume and giggles, then he slid inside. Three women with long, tangled hair and chunky, jangling jewelry huddled at the line of sinks, so engrossed in snorting coke they didnt see him. Crouching down to peer under the doors, he went quickly past the line of stalls. Only one was occupied. Drawing his Glock, he screwed the noise suppressor onto the end of the barrel. He kicked open the door and, as it slammed back against the partition, the woman with ice-blue eyes and a mane of blond hair aimed a small silver-plated .22 Beretta at him. He put a bullet through her heart, a second in her right eye.

He was smoke by the time her forehead hit the tiles

B ourne opened his eyes to the diamond glare of tropical sunshine. He looked out onto the deep azure of the Andaman Sea, at the sail- and motorboats bobbing at anchor just offshore. He shivered, as if he were still in his memory shard instead of on Patong Beach in Phuket. Where was that disco? Norway? Sweden? When had he killed that woman? And who was she? A target assigned to him by Alex Conklin before the trauma that had cast him into the Mediterranean with a severe concussion. That was all he could be certain of. Why had Treadstone targeted her? He racked his brain, trying to gather all the details of his dream, but like smoke they drifted through his fingers. He remembered the fur collar of his coat, his hair, wet with snow. But what else? The womans face? That appeared and reappeared with the echo of the flickering star-bursts of light. For a moment the music throbbed through him, then it winked out like the last rays of the sun.

What had triggered the memory shard?

He rose from the blanket. Turning, he saw Moira and Berengria Moreno Skydel silhouetted against the burning blue sky, the blindingly white clouds, the vertical finger hills, umber and green. Moira had invited him down to Berengrias estancia in Sonora, but he had wanted to get farther away from civilization, so they had met up at this resort on the west coast of Thailand, and here they had spent the last three days and nights. During that time, Moira had explained what she was doing in Sonora with the sister of the late drug czar Gustavo Moreno, the two women had asked for his help, and he had agreed. Moira said time was of the essence and, after hearing the details, he had agreed to leave for Colombia tomorrow.

Turning back, he saw a woman in a tiny orange bikini high-stepping like a cantering horse through the surf. Her thick mane of hair shone pale blond in the sunlight. Bourne followed her, drawn by the echo of his memory shard. He stared at her brown back, where the muscles worked between her shoulder blades. She turned slightly, then, and he saw her pull smoke into her lungs from a hand-rolled joint. For a moment, the tang of the sea breeze was sweetened by the drug. Then he saw her flinch and drop the joint into the surf, and his eyes followed hers.

Three police were coming down the beach. They wore suits, but there was no doubt as to their identity. She moved, thinking they were coming for her, but she was wrong. They were coming for Bourne.

Without hesitation, he waded into the surf. He needed to get them away from Moira and Berengria because Moira would surely try to help him and he didnt want her involved. Just before he dived into an on-coming wave, he saw one of the detectives raise his hand, as if in a salute. When he emerged onto the surface, far beyond the surf line, he saw that it had been a signal. A pair of WaveRunner FZRs were converging on him from either side. There were two men on each, the driver and the man behind him clad in scuba. These people were covering all avenues of escape.