bourne legacy | Page 7

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
denned 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
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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.
"Mutha fucka," 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 tattooon 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 you 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 other's
ankle and lifted up. The big thug fell on his back, turned over and scrambled away.
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Bourne yanked the baseball bat out of the strung-out thug's grip. "Muthafuckin' Five-O," the thug
muttered. His pupils were dilated, unfocused by the effects of whatever drugs he'd taken. He pulled a
gun—a cheap Saturday-night special—and aimed it at Webb.
With deadly accuracy, Webb flung the bat, striking the strung-out thug between the eyes. He staggered
back, crying out, and his gun went flying.
Alerted by the noise of the struggle, a pair of campus security guards appeared, rounding the corner at a
run. They brushed past Webb, pounding after the thugs, who fled without a backward glance, the two
helping the strung-out one. They burst through the rear door to the building, out into the bright sunshine of
the afternoon, with the guards hot on their heels.
Despite the guards' intervention, Webb felt Bourne's desire to pursue the thugs run hot in his body. How
quickly it had risen from its psychic sleep, how easily it had gained control of him. Was it because he
wanted it to? Webb took a deep breath, gained a semblance of control and turned to