Well - we've seen the Bourne Identity, the Bourne Supremacy and the Bourne Ultimatum, and lately, possibly even the Bourne Legacy.
Here now is the new blockbuster in the trilogy - nay quadrilogy - quintilogy about the life and goings-on of Jason Bourne. And everybody knows that in any good spy thriller, there has to be a getaway-thing going on. So why was Robert Ludlum so remiss that he missed it? Anyway, here for the first time, is The Bourne Getaway. Enjoy it.
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The white BMW drew up almost soundlessly at the curbside, the fat tyres scrunching gently on the sandy gravel and the engine was cut. As the rear door was opened, a flurry of fur exploded outwards as the dogs from hell reunited with terra firma, locating the nearest rock and piddling voluminously to release the pressure of a long confinement. The front gate was unlocked with difficulty and swung wide on squeaky hinges and the animals happily rushed away, around to the back and the freedom of the extended plot.
Bourne was home. At least he liked to think of it as "home", although it was more of a retreat into silence, albeit punctuated sporadically by the cries and curses of the onderdorp. He tried to screen these out when they occurred, although with his mind almost destroyed by the years of abuse it was almost impossible - the brain no longer obeyed him implicitly, it was starting to become "autonomous" in his older years. Sodding brain cells, doing their own thing.
He still entertained the occasional recollections of Treadstone and the anonymous brown stone frontage, but these days he was more attuned to tyre treads and skipping flat stones on the fusty little leiwater dam in the back yard. Bourne had found his refuge - granted, he often wondered whether the bastards would come after him again and would puncture his elaborate disguise as an overweight, arthritic accountant. He shrugged off the sombre thought of the pudgy old body, and fumbled around in the trunk for the big soft red ball that he would perch his bottom on a bit later while he pretended to do his spinal exercises.
Shit - this bloody boot lid needs adjusting - it was just a couple of days back that the damn thing had started to slam down rather quickly. Must be something wrong with the damping mechanism. Stupid thing nearly closed my fingers in the trunk. He held up the nicotine-stained fingers of the right hand - the trigger finger, honed through years of action and discipline, and noted with satisfaction the tremor that he had deliberately trained into the nerve response. Never know when you need a fast quivery trigger finger - wonderful for rapid-fire. Grab the trigger, and tremble. Works like a charm. He lost count of how many had died while he trembled his digit.
Having stowed all the crappola from the trunk and back seat in a large heap on the lounge carpet, he shambled through the back french door onto the concrete patio and gratefully lit a cigarette, sucking deep the smoke into every available cavity of lung alveolae. All this shit about cancer was just a bunch of dingoes kidneys, he sourly noted - if he was really meant to die, it would have been a lot sooner and considerably more painfully than he foresaw his own demise. Suck ciggy- so. Having flicked the butt into the outside braai area, he turned his attention to a second major priority in life. A drink, and a stiff one too.
It was still early, so he deposited his shapeless form into a plastic garden chair, farted and sagged in front of his laptop to do some exam paper setting. To him fell the burden of teaching clueless little tossers the finer things in life, like debits and credits, and amortized book values. And, Bourne noted, there is nothing finer after a braai of succulent lambs flesh, than picking your teeth with a T- account. The only thing that outdoes that, is a month end consolidation. Sparkling stuff!
He paused. Something in his subconscious niggled at him. What was different? He felt the hairs on the back of his scalp prickle, and his latent training although rusty and long-dormant, sprang to the fore. There was no sound. McGregor was holding its breath. No onderdorp dogs were barking, and even the carp in the stagnant leiwater dam seemed to be frozen. Was it that cold recently? Almost imperceptibly, he became aware of the faintest snick of sound, something that the untrained ear would never have detected. But his did. And it sounded like the arming of something extremely nasty and high powered, and very very automatic. Idly, he wondered how they'd found him in this backwater. What trick had he missed when he arrived? He supposed in his heart of hearts that they would never have let him live. And now it was time.
Where the hell were the dogs? Why hadn't they barked, or at least torn the kneecaps off the intruder? Bourne was getting rather edgy, what with the prospect of his imminent demise and the goddam arthritis wandering up his right arm. He tried very slowly to move his wrist, hoping that the movement would not be misconstrued by whoever was standing behind him. There it was again - the soft snick sound of a weapon being cocked.
"He's already cocked the goddam thing once" Bourne thought "what happened to the first bullet?" Had the hired gun managed to miss him at point blank range, or had he deliberately shot one of the dogs from hell? And why did he cock the gun only when I moved my wrist - maybe he's edgy? At that moment, as he steeled himself for the bullet to explode in his skull, there came a revelation every bit as violent in his addled brain - it was him causing the snick snick sound. Have they booby trapped my laptop? Awwshit - it's the tapping of my fingers on the keyboard - nearly killed myself by accident there, he mused. Jesus - imagine putting a bullet through my laptop keyboard. What would the missus say? "Jason - come away from that bottle! NOW!!"
Bourne gave up for the day - it was all too much excitement. He'd try setting papers tomorrow, after some supper and quick surreptitious page through a lewd book about Generally Accepted Accounting Principles in the bath. Would need to be careful the pages didn't get wet.
Sunday dawned in its normal splendour and by the time he had roused, the dogs were at frolic as usual, sniffing and shitting and scratching up the plants that Hardy, The Gardener had so painstakingly put in recently. No point in calling off the dogs - there's plenty more money where that came from - Hardy can plant some more next week.
What's for breakfast? "Scrambled eggs on toast on the back patio, as usual - then the normal 11.30 braai, and then we leave for home, as usual". Bourne sighed. One of the little problems of enforced anonymity is that one has to do such mundane things, over and over, and over and over without end. God how he hated the life of an under-cover accountant. He had wanted to be a lumberjack as a youth, but the local council had cut down all the trees over 3 feet in height so the traffic cops could hide in comfort while peering over the stumps to trap unsuspecting motorists. So, thwarted in his ambition, he'd answered a local advert for "wet work" in the smalls, thinking that it had something to do with gardening. It was only years later that he discovered why they called it "wet work", when he had to do his own clean up after accidentally killing the local sweeper team who had been on standby for the hit. There'd been hell to pay for that little lark.
But that was all history - he'd moved on, and survived in a field that most didn't. And he had his pudgy body to show for it. Somewhere in the back of his mind, a thought stirred. He wondered if it was in fact the right thing to be doing - accountancy and progressive death in easy stages.
The compulsory braai over, he shovelled the crap back into the car, lobbing the unused laptop onto the pile and slammed the trunk lid, neatly snapping the laptop in two. Fuck, he screamed. There go all my T-accounts. Geddin goddamn dogs - we're outta here.
The BM swished majestically away, leaving nothing but the faintest imprint of dirt, neatly furrowed like a miniature Zen-garden at the roadside. The Treadstone agent bent down and examined the pattern minutely. Damn, he thought - missed him again. You can never get your hands on a good accountant when you need one.
AUTHOR'S NOTE : The published work is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to anyone living or dead is entirely coincidental.
Now out on Maxi DVD 5-disc set :
The Bourne Weekender : Jason Bourne's Secret Places;
More of Jason's Secret Bitz
Jason's Country Getaways
Braaiing with Bourne : The Greasy Fingers Guide to Lamb Chops
Wetwork Accounting : The Treadstone Guide to Writing off Liabilities and
The McGregor Fine Dining Guide : Jason's Gastronomique Gut
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