The BOURNE Equation

Its been a busy 13 hours.

With my search now for both Ryo and Kenzo akin to trying to find two needles in one giant haystack, it was left to Flinkman's excessively handy and highly augmented mobile device to piece together a string of 'cyber breadcrumbs'.

Following a slew of 'How do I?' text messages to Flinkman, the first stage was fairly straight forward. Grabbing one of only a handful of available pics of Kenzo, taken from a recent Tech Expo event over in San Diego, and dragging the image into the phone's very own search engine. The software ran a satellite-aided search via every speed and CCTV camera within a 100 mile radius and strung every match together into a trackable map-like guide. I jacked a nearby car and followed the trail intently.

This eventually led me to a smoking pile of vehicular carcasses under a tunnel, along with a few human ones for good measure. Place swarming with cops, I hack into recordings of the nearest CCTV feeds.

Seemed the ensuing car chase culminated in a heavy shootout where Kenzo's car was intercepted by an armoured van. The Russians got away, Kenzo's men eliminated and the old man apprehended and thrown in the back of the van before both it and he disappeared. I'm talking vanished without a trace, leaving me without anything resembling a lead.

That's when I remember the phone call I overheard between nightclub owner Derek Chan and some Russian dude called Dollinskii some weeks back and slowly put together another piece of the puzzle.

The Russians want to replicate Ludlum's experiments and set out piecing together the various events to make it work. Ryo's tech, Niki Parson's background experience, Ludlum's notes... they make a deal with Chan, who agrees to betray Ryo to get out of his heavy debt with Ryo's family name. With Chan the one lead I have, I set out to make him talk.

Problem is; A - the paranoid music geek rarely stepped foot outside of The Rising Son, his very own personal rave-addled party love nest, so in order to get to him I'd need to find a way to get inside. Bringing me to problem B; The last time I was there I was ducking a swarm of bullets courtesy of Ryo's questionable 'enquiry' skills. Which left only one other access point. The air vent.

Breaking into the building via the roof and shimmying along the tunnels was the fun part. Waiting for him to be alone whilst he 'entertained' three, count em, female companions, was more than even I signed up for. Thankfully it was all over within minutes.

The three escorts collected their fee and made their exit. I could see on a nearby monitor his security detail had been tripled since the last time so getting in and out without incident was paramount.

I unscrewed the grid using one of a handful of coins taken from the car's glove compartment and slid it to the side before jumping down, landing cat-like on the floor. Grabbing a steak knife from a table I made my way over to his circular leopard-skinned covered bed where the exhausted 'prince' slept, placing one hand on his mouth as I pressed the knife firmly against his throat with the other.

"Hey. This is your 19:57 booty call." I whispered. "Now, I'm gonna need you to be as quite as a baby mouse. Well, that is, until, I ask you a couple a questions about who you've been keeping company with lately... then I expect you to sing like you were auditioning for American Idol!"

The wet patch that emerged from beneath the covers told me he was all ears, as he began spilling the beans on everything he knew. Which, to be honest, wasn't much, but enough to point me in the direction of my next and current destination; a distant abandoned airfield inexplicably absent from any official road maps.

Now here I am, peering down through the small window of an industrial air hanger, with no sign of the old man in sight. But what I do see, is half a dozen military grunts shifting various sized heavy boxes onto a mini transport truck. WMD's of some sort perhaps? Whatever it is it's gotta be bad.

Short on time and In need of a thermal birds eye view, I decide to break Flinkman's golden 'rule' and give the brain box a call.

["Ah... Hello?"] he says hesitantly, as he answers.

"Flinkman, I'm at a key location. Trails gone cold and I'm in the dark. I need your eyes!"

["Ah... hello ma! How... are you...?"]

Great! Either he's given me his mothers belated birthday gift by mistake or... aw heck!

"Is... Doc there with you?" I ask.

["That's... about right, ma! That's... yep, yep...!"]

"Fine. Okay, look, I need to know how many termites are inside the building I'm staring down to into, before I, you know, run in half-cocked and get myself killed?"

["Ah, really? Okay... well, good luck with that, ma! Hope it... all goes well!."]

"Hope it goes...? Are you shi-?" He hangs up.

I'm gonna kill the little guy. Providing I don't die first of course. Either way looks like I'm on my own. But that's okay, Ive face worst odds in the past. I think. Probably.

"Drop the gun and turn around. Slowly. And keep your hands where I can see them."

Your kidding me? How can I let someone get the drop on me for the second time in less than 24 hours? His accents thick, youthful... his response will be quick so I'll need to time my movements to a t-

A rifle butt slamming against the back of my head stops my train of thought dead as the world about me slowly dissolves out of view. Damn it. I hate blackouts.

To be continued...