Robert Ludlum's™ The Bourne Deception

Excerpt

     IN AN UPPER-CLASS SUBURB of Munich, two young bodyguards with gimlet eyes and holstered 9mm Glocks in their armpits flanked a thin, hyperactive man as he emerged from a house. An older man with dark skin and grave lines reaching down from either corner of his mouth, like mustaches, emerged from the shadowed refuge to briefly shake the hyperactive man's hand. Then the three men trotted down the stairs and entered a waiting car: one of the bodyguards riding shotgun, the other one with the hyperactive man in back. The meeting had been intense but brief, and the engine was already running, purring like a well-fed cat. His mind was filled with how he was going to structure the debriefing he would give his boss, Abdulla Khoury, on the rapidly changing face of the Turkish situation as it had just been outlined to him.
     The newborn morning lay drowsing, barely awake, and utterly silent. The trees, well manicured and leafy, dappled the sidewalks in inky shade. The air was soft and cool, as yet innocent of the harsh sun that would turn the sky white in a few hours' time. The early hour had been deliberately chosen. As expected, there was no traffic to speak of, just a young boy at the far end of the block teaching himself to ride a bicycle. A sanitation truck lumbered around the corner at the opposite end of the block, its huge brushes beginning to spin whatever dirt there might be on the nearly immaculate street into the truck's belly. Again, the sight was utterly normal; the residents of this neighborhood all had pull with the municipal government, and they were proud of the fact that their streets were always the first to be cleaned each day.
     As the car gathered speed, making its way down the street, the huge truck turned so that it was sideways to the oncoming vehicle, blocking the road. Without an instant's hesitation the car's driver threw the vehicle into reverse and stepped on the gas. With a screech of tires the car shot backward, away from the truck. At the sound, the boy looked up. He was standing, straddling the bike, appearing to get his wind back. But at the last moment, as the oncoming car neared him, he reached into the bike's wicker basket and drew out an odd-looking weapon with an unnaturally long barrel. The rocket-launched grenade shattered the car's rear window and the car burst apart in an oily orange-and-black fireball. By this time the boy, hunched over the handlebars of his bike, was pedaling expertly away, a satisfied smile on his face...