Free The Bourne Dominion by Robert & Lustbader Ludlum

warmth suffuse her body. She flexed her hands.
    “What’s up?” Peter asked.
    “My fingertips are tingling.”
    Peter threw his head back and laughed.
    E ssai drove Bourne away from Corellos’s encampment. The headlights were on, illuminating the dirt track through the dense forest of Bosque de Niebla de Chicaque, but already a pinkish blue light stole through the branches, snatching shadows from along the ground. Birdsong, which had been missing during the depths of the night, ricocheted back and forth above their heads.
    “We’re heading west instead of east,” Bourne said, “back to Bogotá.”
    “We’re going to the regional airport at Perales,” Essai said, “where I’ll take a flight to Bogotá and you’ll take the car. You need to go farther west, to Ibagué. It’s in the mountains, about sixty miles southwest of El Colegio.”
    “And why do I want to go there?”
    “In Ibagué you will seek out a man named Estevan Vegas. He’s a member of the Domna—a weak link, as you might say in idiomatic English, yes? I was going to speak with him about defecting, but now that you’re here I expect you’ll have a better chance than I would.”
    “Explain yourself, Essai.”
    “With pleasure.”
    Now that they were away from Corellos’s camp, Essai seemed more relaxed, almost jovial, if such a word could be applied to this taciturn, revenge-obsessed man.
    “It’s simple, really. I’m a known quantity within the Domna: a pariah, a traitor. Even with a man like Vegas with shaky loyalty to the group, my presence would be problematic. In fact, it might backfire, providing him with a reason to become defensive, intractable.”
    “While I am an unknown quantity,” Bourne said. “Vegas will be more inclined to listen to me.”
    “That will depend entirely on your powers of persuasion. From what I know of you, another excellent reason for you to take my place.”
    Bourne thought for a moment. “And if he does spill?”
    “Your intel on the Domna will be current. I, unfortunately, have been cut off for some time. I am now deaf and blind to the details of their plots and plans.”
    “Vegas lives in the middle of nowhere,” Bourne pointed out.
    “First of all, the term
middle of nowhere
doesn’t apply to the Domna,” Essai said. “Its eyes and ears are everywhere.” They bumped onto a paved section of the road, though their speed slowed considerably because it was in desperate need of repair and potholes deep enough to throw an axle seemed to be everywhere. “Second, though Vegas may not know everything we need to know, he’s bound to know someone who does. It will then be your job to find them and charm them out of the information. Then you’ll take a flight out of Perales. Tickets will be waiting for you there.”
    “And while I’m trying to poke into the Domna’s dark corners, what will you be doing?”
    “Providing a distraction to cover you.”
    “What, exactly?”
    “You’re better off not knowing, believe me.” Essai manhandled the vehicle around a dual pothole of staggering depth. “There’s a spare sat phone in the glove box, charged and ready to go. Also a detailed map of the area. Ibagué is clearly marked, as is the oil field Vegas runs.”
    Leaning forward, Bourne opened the glove box and checked the contents.
    “You’ll find my sat number pre-programmed into it,” Essai continued. “That way, we’ll never be out of touch, no matter where we are.”
    They rumbled past a gorge with sheer rock walls and, a mile or two farther, an enormous waterfall crashing down a blood-red cliff with enormous, unending energy. The tree canopy became abruptly less thick, more light flickering, a Morse code through the tangle of branches.
    They burst through the western edge of the trees. A riot of bougainvillea inhabiting a colonial stone wall shivered, shaking off the early-morning dew in the first slender shoots of sunlight.
    Bourne looked out at the countryside. Due west was a chain