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Edith Gates was silent for a moment; she simply looked at her husband?My dear,? she said, ?I
don?t give a damn if you had an assignation with the most voluptuous whore in the Combat Zone
Somebody would probably have to give her a few drinks to restore her confidence
?In that department you?re not exactly a stud, bastard
?Is there a point to this colloquy??
?I think soAbout an hour ago, just before you came home from your office, a man was at the
doorDenise was doing the silver, so I answered itI must say he looked impressive; his clothes
were terribly expensive and his car was a black Porsche??
Robert Ludlum ?? THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM
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?And?? broke in Gates, lurching forward in the chair, his eyes suddenly wide, rigid
?He said to tell you that le grand professeur owed him twenty thousand dollars and ?he? wasn?t
where he was supposed to be last night, which I chanel classic handbag assumed was the RitzOh, Christ, he doesn?t understandWhat did you say??
?I didn?t like his language or his attitudeI told him I hadn?t the vaguest idea where you were
He knew I was lying, but there wasn?t anything he could doLying?s something he knows about
?I can?t imagine that twenty thousand is such a problem for you??
?It?s not the money, it?s the method of payment
?For what??
?Nothing
?I believe that?s what you call a contradiction, Randy
?Shut up!?
The telephone rangGates lunged up from the chair and stared at itHe made no move to go to
the desk; instead, he spoke in a guttural voice to his wife?Whoever it is, you tell him I?m not hereI?m away, out of town?you don?t know when I?ll be back
Edith walked over to the phone?It?s your very private line,? she said as she picked it up on the
third ring?The Gates residence,? began Edith, a ploy she had used for tiffany silver jewelry years; her friends knew who
it was, others did not matter to her any longerYes? I?m sorry, he?s away and we don?t
know when he?ll return Gates?s wife looked briefly at the phone, then hung upShe turned to her
husband?That was the operator in ParisSomeone was calling you, but when I said
you weren?t here, she didn?t even ask where you could be reachedShe simply got off the line?
very abruptly
?Oh, my God!? cried Gates, visibly shakensomething?s gone wrong,
someone lied!? With those enigmatic words the attorney whipped around, and raced across the
room, fumbling in his trousers pocketHe reached a section of the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves
where the center of the chest-high shelf had been converted into a safe-like cupboard, a carved
wooden door superimposed on the brown steelIn panic, as an afterthought stunned him further, he
spun around and screamed at his chloe dior wife?Get out of here! Get out, get out, get out!?
Edith Gates walked slowly to the study door, where she turned to her husband and spoke quietly
?It all goes back to Paris, doesn?t it, Randy? Seven years ago in ParisThat?s where something
happened, isn?t it? You came back a frightened man, a man with a pain you won?t share
?Get out of here!? shrieked the vaunted professor of law, his eyes wild
Edith went out the door, closing it behind her but not releasing the knob, her hand twisted so the
latch would not closeMoments later she opened it barely a few inches and watched her husband
The shock was beyond anything she could imagineThe man she had lived with for thirty-three
years, the legal giant who neither smoked nor drank a drop of alcohol, was plunging a hypodermic
needle into his forearm
Robert Ludlum ?? THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM
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10
Darkness had descended on Manassas, omega seamaster de ville the countryside alive with nocturnal undercurrents, as
Bourne crept through the woods bordering the ?farm? of General Norman SwayneStartled birds
fluttered out of their black recesses; crows awoke in the trees and cawed their alarms, then, as if
calmed by a foraging co-conspirator, kept silent
He reached it, wondering, if indeed it would be thereA fence?high, with thick crisscrossing
links embedded in green plastic, a coiled-barbed-wire addition above slanting outwardThe Jing Shan SanctuaryThere had been things to conceal within that Oriental
wildlife preserve, so it was protected by an all but impassable government barrierBut why would a
desk-bound general on military pay erect such a barricade around a ?farm? in Manassas, Virginia,
an obstruction costing thousands of dollars? It was not designed to fence in livestock; it was,
instead, built to keep out human louis vuitton backpacks life |
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