Robert Ludlum's The Treadstone Resurrection

lt;b>Joshua Hood is the author of Warning Order and Clear by Fire. He graduated from the University of Memphis before joining the military and spending five years in the 82nd Airborne Division. He was a team leader in the 3-504 Parachute Infantry Regiment in Iraq from 2005 to 2006, conducting combat operations in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. From 2007 to 2008, Hood served as a squad leader with the 1-508th Parachute Infantry Regiment in Afghanistan for which he was decorated for valor in Operation Furious Pursuit. On his return to civilian life he became a sniper team leader on a full time SWAT team in Memphis, where he was awarded the lifesaving medal. Currently he works as the Director of Veteran Outreach for the American Warrior Initiative.


Robert Ludlum was the author of twenty-seven novels, each one a New York Times bestseller. There are more than 225 million of his books in print, and they have been translated into thirty-two languages. He is the author of The Scarlatti Inheritance, The Chancellor Manuscript, and the Jason Bourne series--The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy, and The Bourne Ultimatum--among other novels. Mr. Ludlum passed away in March 2001.

1

La Conner, Washington

Adam Hayes was lying in the center of the bed when the nightmare came. The tremor started at the edge of his lips, a ripple that twisted into a feral snarl. He started to sweat, hands tearing at the sheets, eyes pinballing behind closed lids, mind trapped in the horrors of the past.

He waited in the shadows, eyes closed, ears straining for the sound of his approaching prey. Kill them all-that was the order. He was just the instrument-a man conditioned to kill without hesitation. His hand closed around the hilt of the knife at the small of his back. The metal hilt felt cold through the latex gloves. The blade came free with the hiss of steel on leather and Hayes opened his eyes; the sentryÕs face was green in the night vision.

Now, the voice told him, and he struck.

HayesÕs hand snaked under the pillow and his fingers closed around the reassuring steel of the Springfield 9-millimeter EMP. He rolled off the bed and dropped into a crouch, the hardwood cold as a corpse on his bare knees. Muscle memory had taken over, and his hands worked independently of thought. The snap of the pistol onto the target and the flick of the thumb disengaging the safety came unbidden.

It was only when his index finger curled around the trigger, compressing the spring until all it would take was a whisper of pressure for the gun to fire, that Hayes became conscious of the moment.

Then the nightmare evaporated.

Hayes blinked the world back into focus, his eyes falling to the outstretched pistol, sights centered on the shirt hanging on the back of the door. Jesus Christ.

He let go of the trigger and snicked the safety into place. The realization that he'd come within a hairsbreadth of sending a 9-millimeter hollow-point through the door made him sick to his stomach.

It was 5:05 in the morning and the nightmares were getting worse.

When he trusted his legs to hold him, Hayes grunted to his feet, placed the pistol on the bedside table, and padded across the hardwood to the bathroom. He palmed the wall switch and the overhead lights flashed to life, revealing the mass of scars that crisscrossed his bare torso like lines on a topographic map.

He stopped at the sink, plucked the orange pill bottle from the open medicine cabinet, and twisted the cap free. He shook a dose into his hand. The oblong pill in his callused palm reminded him of the last appointment with the shrink in Tacoma.

"What about the nightmares?" she asked, over the scratch of her pen across the paper.

"Haven't had one in months."

"Adam, you are making wonderful progress," she said, tearing the sheet from the prescription pad, "but."

There's always a but.

"But there will be setbacks."

Setbacks.

He felt the anger stir in his gut, like a wolf waking in its den. Three nightmares in one week wasn't a setback; it was a fucking meltdown. He was pissed. Mad that he'd listened to her-let himself believe that he'd made progress.

That he could be normal.

"No," he said aloud. "That's not who I am anymore."

He took a breath, placed the pill in his mouth, and gently closed the door. He took a drink of water from the sink, and when Hayes looked up, his eyes lighted on the sheet of construction paper taped to the glass. The stick-figure family holding hands beneath a lemon-yellow sun.

Hayes brushed his finger over the "I love my Daddy" scrawled in crayon, a sad smile stretching across his face.

In the shower, he twisted the cold-water knob all the way to the left and ducked under the showerhead. The water came out of the pipe ice-cold and hit his flesh with the sting of a bullwhip. His mind recoiled, muscles tensed like hawsers beneath his skin, forcing the air from his lungs, but Hayes stood fast and waited for the question that had greeted him every morning for the past eighteen months.