Eric Van Lustbader - Robert Ludlums (TM) the Bourne Sanction

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Copyright 2008 by Myn Pyn, LLC

Excerpt from The Bourne Dominion copyright 2010 by Myn Pyn, LLC

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the US Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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Second eBook Edition: April 2011

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ISBN: 978-0-446-53992-0

Suspenseful.

Fort Wayne News-Sentinel

Lustbader is an excellent storyteller and is not afraid to keep the twists and turns coming in this sequel This is an explosive addition to a series with an unrivaled heritage and storied pedigree.

Bookreporter.com

A cleverly plotted, incisive thriller with a hero Im glad is on the good guys side. In an amazing work of fiction, Lustbader takes us into the minds of terrorists.

NightsandWeekends.com

I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants a delicious thriller. There are plenty of surprises in this one, making it excellent summer reading.

TheRomanceReadersConnection.com

The underlying thread of the story is a simple one: What will a man do to save a friend, even in the face of total evil, great danger, and apparently insurmountable barriers? How Lustbader handles this should keep you entertained for hours.

NewMysteryReader.com

There is the normal excitement and explosive energy, suspense, and terror that only a Jason Bourne novel can have. The book also presents a fascinating intellectual challenge especially given the realism of the scenarios and the current state of the world.

colpop.net

AND PRAISE FOR THE
OTHER BOURNE THRILLERS

Cinematic hairsbreadth escapes, crosses, double crosses, explosions, furious fisticuffs, and careening plot twists. Its a hearty serving of meat-and-potatoes action adventure, just the sort of fare that Ludlums and Lustbaders fans relish.

Publishers Weekly on The Bourne Legacy

The novel begins explosively and retains the breathless pace throughout fans will find in author Eric Van Lustbader a very worthy and more than capable writer to continue this splendid saga.

Curledup.com on The Bourne Legacy

High-voltage entertainment and, quite honestly, impossible to put down.

Washington Times on The Bourne Supremacy

A killer of a thriller! Constant intrigue, action aplenty, bloody good fun.

USA Today on The Bourne Supremacy

Very fast, very violent, and very fascinating.

Chicago Tribune on The Bourne Identity

A superb cloak-and-dagger melodrama enough excitement to exhaust the hardiest reader.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch on The Bourne Identity

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 LudlumsThe Bourne Legacy

Robert LudlumsThe Bourne Betrayal

Second Skin

Floating City

The Kaisho

White Ninja

The Miko

The Ninja

Shan

Jian

First Daughter

The Testament

Art Kills

Pale Saint

Dark Homecoming

Black Blade

Angel Eyes

French Kiss

Zero

Black Heart

Sirens

For Dan and Linda Jariabka,
with thanks and love

My thanks to:

The intrepid reporters at The Exile.
Bournes adventures in Moscow and Arkadins history in Nizhny Tagil would not have existed without their help.

Gregg Winter for turning me on to the logistics of transporting LNG.

Henry Morrison for clutch ideating at all hours.

A note to my readers:

I try to be as factual as possible in my novels, but this is, after all, a work of fiction.

In order to make the story as exciting as possible, Ive inevitably taken artistic license here and there, with places, objects, and, possibly, even time.

I trust readers will overlook these small anomalies and enjoy the ride.

W HILE THE FOUR inmates waited for Borya Maks to appear, they lounged against filthy stone walls whose cold no longer affected them. Out in the prison yard where they smoked expensive black-market cigarettes made from harsh black Turkish tobacco, they talked among themselves as if they had nothing better to do than to suck the acrid smoke into their lungs, expel it in puffs that seemed to harden in the freezing air. Above their heads was a cloudless sky whose glittering starlight turned it into a depthless enamel shell. Ursa Major, Lynx, Canes Venatici, Perseusthese same constellations burned the heavens above Moscow, six hundred miles to the southwest, but how different life was here from the gaudy, overheated clubs of Trehgorny val and Sadovnicheskaya street.

By day the inmates of Colony 13 manufactured parts for the T-90, Russias formidable battle tank. But at night what do men without conscience or emotion talk to one another about? Strangely, family. There was a stability to coming home to a wife and children that defined their previous lives like the massive walls of High Security Colony 13 defined their present ones. What they did to earn moneylie, cheat, steal, extort, blackmail, torture, and killwas all they knew. That they did these things well was a given, otherwise they would have been dead. Theirs was a life outside civilization as most people knew it. Returning to the warmth of a familiar woman, to the homey smells of sweet beets, boiled cabbage, stewed meat, the fire of peppery vodka, was a comfort that made them all nostalgic. The nostalgia bound them as securely as the tattoos of their shadowy profession.