Excerpt from The Prometheus Deception by Robert Ludlum, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

Bryson felt eerily detached from himself, the way he sometimes did in the field—floating above the scene, observing everything with a cool and calculating eye. He often thought he might be killed in the field: that was an eventuality he could plan for, take into account. But he had never thought he would be fired. And that it was a beloved mentor who was firing him made it worse—made it personal.

"All part of the retirement plan," Waller continued. "Idle hands are the devil’s workshop, as they say. Something we’ve learned from hard
experience. Give a field agent a lump sum and nothing to do, and he’ll get himself into trouble, as night follows day. You need a project. Something real. And you’re a natural teacher—one of the reasons you were so good in the field."

Bryson said nothing, trying to dispel a wrenching memory of an operation in a small Latin American province, the memory of looking at a face in the crosshairs of a sniper-scope. The face belonged to one of his "students"—a kid named Pablo, a nineteen-year-old Amerindian he’d trained in the art of defusing, and deploying, high explosives. A tough but decent kid. His parents were peasants in a hillside village that had just been overtaken by Maoist insurrectionists: if word got out that Pablo was working with their enemies, the guerrillas would kill his parents, and most likely in cruel and inventive ways—that was their signature. The kid wavered, struggled with his loyalties, and decided he had no choice but to cross over: to save his parents, he’d tell the guerrillas all he knew about their adversaries, the names of others who had cooperated with the forces of order. He was a tough kid, a decent kid, caught in a situation where there was no right answer. Bryson peered at Pablo’s face through the scope—the face of a stricken, miserable, frightened young man—and only looked away after he squeezed the trigger.

Waller’s gaze was steady. "Your name is Jonas Barrett. An independent scholar, the author of half a dozen highly respected articles in peer-
reviewed journals. Four of them in the Journal of Byzantine Studies. Team efforts—gave our near-eastern experts something to do in their down time. We do know a thing or two about how to build a civilian legend." Waller handed him a folder. It was canary yellow, which signified that the card stock was interlaced with magnetic strips and could not be removed from the premises. It contained a legend—a fictive biography. His biography.

He skimmed the densely printed pages: they detailed the life of a reclusive scholar whose linguistic capacities matched his, whose expertise could be quickly mastered. The lineaments of his biography were easily assimilated—most of them, that was. Jonas Barrett was unmarried. Jonas Barrett never knew Elena. Jonas Barrett was not in love with Elena. Jonas Barrett did not ache, even now, for Elena’s return. Jonas Barrett was a fiction: for Nick to make him real meant accepting the loss of Elena.

"The appointment went through a few days ago. Woodbridge is expecting their new adjunct lecturer to arrive in September. And, if I may say so,they’re lucky to have him."

"I have any choice in the matter?"

"Oh, we could have found you a position at any of a dozen multinational consulting firms. Or perhaps one of the behemoth petroleum or engineering companies. But this one is right for you. You’ve always had a mind that could handle abstractions as easily as facts. I used to worry it would be a handicap, but it turned out to be one of your greatest strengths."

"And if I don’t want to retire? What if I don’t want to go gently into that good night?" For some reason, he flashed back on the blur of steel, the sinewy arm plunging the blade toward him....

"Don’t, Nick," Waller said, his expression opaque.

Copyright Robert Ludlum 2000. All rights reserved.