Robert Ludlum's (TM) The Bourne Ascendancy Read Online Free PDF Page B

voice sound like the wind?”
    “Yes, Mommy.”
    “Then follow it and in the darkness you will find me, and like the djinn did for Dinazade, I will keep you safe from harm.” Soraya sang, almost in tears, “ For I am the sun and I am the moon / The stars, they do my bidding / None dare stand before me / For I am made of air and sea and sky / When you are with me / When I hold you / You are in the arms of God .”
    *  *  *
    “So you’ve agreed to it.”
    “Yes, sir, I have.”
    President Magnus frowned. “For Christ’s sake, Camilla, don’t call me ‘sir’ when we’re alone.”
    Camilla’s generous lips curled in a cat’s smile. “As you wish, Bill.”
    The two of them were sitting on one of the two facing sofas in the Oval Office. In front of them glowed the iconic seal of the president of the United States, woven into the majestic blue carpet, reminding all who entered just where they were.
    “You’ve read the brief.”
    “I have.”
    “All the way through.”
    “I’ve memorized it. It’s quite complex.”
    “It has to be. With the summit only a week away, surely you can see that.”
    “Why not postpone the summit? Or at least change the venue.”
    Magnus shook his head. “Too late. Besides, I’ll be goddamned if I’ll let a terrorist threat disrupt the culmination of the most important peace process of our lifetime.”
    “Of course. It’s just that—”
    “I know.” POTUS sighed. “Why did you say yes, Camilla? Was Howard that persuasive?”
    “You know me, Bill,” she said. “I’m a patriot at heart. That’s my training. I go where my country needs me most. I will protect you. As the head of Secret Service that’s my job.”
    “And the rest of Secret Service?”
    “Cleaned up, as you directed. Besides, Warren has been with me every step of the way. He’ll do fine until I return.”
    POTUS seemed uninterested in Warren, her deputy. “What about your own needs?”
    She pursed her lips, which, though she did not know it, made her look all the more alluring. “Now you’re being disingenuous. It’s not my needs you’re referring to.”
    “ Our needs.”
    She stared at him, breathing softly. By any measure he was an impressive man: tall, square-shouldered, oozing masculinity. Women loved him, men envied him. His skill as an orator was outstripped only by his ability to connect with individual people, be it a foreign leader, a legislator, or the common man or woman. He had won the last election in a landslide, and, remarkably, his approval ratings had stayed high into this, his second year in office, traditionally the most perilous, as the honeymoon effect wore off. Not for William Magnus. Not at all.
    “I was amused this morning,” Camilla said now, “the way Howard tried to waylay me.”
    “Let me guess,” POTUS said. “With his Nespresso.”
    She laughed; they laughed together.
    “Come over here,” he said, patting the fabric next to him.
    “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
    His face clouded over, his wide-set gray eyes darkening. “Nothing’s a good idea anymore,” he grumbled.
    “Now you sound like a little boy.”
    “I want what I want. We all do. It’s a primal human trait.”
    “Primal animal trait, you mean.”
    He shrugged, ran a hand through his thick salt-and-pepper hair. “What’s the difference?”
    “In this case, none.”
    He shook his head, looked for something for his restless hands to do, found only her. “You know the brief’s hidden agenda. It’s an evil plot dreamed up by Howard and Marty to keep us apart.”
    “Maybe it’s not so evil.”
    “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
    The phone on his desk rang, but he made no move.
    “Aren’t you going to answer that?” Camilla asked, knowing he wasn’t.
    Magnus was looking at the American flag furled on its stand behind his desk. “I was just thinking…”
    The ringing stopped; the silence in the Oval Office was absolute. Sound bafflers and