The Bourne Sanction

Infobox Book |
name = The Bourne Sanction
title_orig =
translator =


image_caption = "The Bourne Sanction" first edition cover.
author = Eric Van Lustbader
cover_artist =
country = United States
language = English
series = "Jason Bourne"
genre = Spy, Thriller novel
publisher = Grand Central Publishing
release_date = July 29, 2008
media_type = Print (Hardback)
pages = 496 pp "(first edition)"
isbn = ISBN 0446539864
preceded_by = The Bourne Betrayal
followed_by = The Bourne Deception

"The Bourne Sanction" is the title for the novel by Eric Van Lustbader and the sixth novel in the Jason Bourne series created by Robert Ludlum. It was released on July 29, 2008. It is Lustbader's third Bourne novel, following "The Bourne Betrayal" that was published in 2007.

Plot Introduction

In the prologue, four prisoners at High Security Prison Colony 13, in Nizhny Tagil, Russia are waiting for Borya Maks. The prisoners attack Borya Maks and try to kill him. As they try to kill him Leonid Arkadin (member of Kazanskaya), defends him, killing the prisoners that want to attack him. Arkadin, leads Maks into a corridor to kill him himself. Arkadin is an assassin that was sent to kill Borya Maks by Pyotr Zilber. As Arkadin returns to Campione d'Italia, Switzerland, Zilber pays him for a job well done (unaware that Arkadin is soon going to go after him). Zilber then talks about another person he would like to take out, Semion Icoupov. Zilber is unaware that is who Arkadin works for and is then trapped in a T-Bone by Arkadin into the side of his BMW. Pyotr Zilber wakes up laying on a bed in a room with Semion Icoupov and Leonid Arkadin. The two men torment information out of him, ending up in him committing suicide. Arkadin's next mission is to Sevastopol, to get possession of an important document that is vitally important to the successful accomplishment of a terrorist act on United States soil.

Plot Summary

At the beginning of the book, Bourne is at Georgetown University talking with Moira Trevor. Moira Trevor wants Bourne to be the head of security at their new liquid natural gas terminal in Long Beach, California. Meanwhile, Veronica Hart, a determined woman to get the DCI job, is on her way to the Oval Office to meet with the President of the United States, Luther LaValle (pentagon intelligence czar), and General Richard P. Kendall.

Bourne and Moira go to a restaurant to eat something. While they are there, Bourne notices something strange about the experience. He feels there is someone watching him. He has Moira call himself on the phone, which is followed by him leaving the restaurant and waiting for his enemy to appear. When no one appears, Bourne then goes back into the restaurant to sit down. Behind him there is a man reading a paper, glancing at Moira every once in a while and realizes that she has a follower.

Luther LaValle, Rob Batt, and General Kendall are designing a plan to get Hart sacked because they think she is no good to the CI organization. They want Hart out as soon as possible. When Bourne and Specter return to a high ceilinged library, Specter tells Bourne of Pyotr Zilber and his death. He was a former student at Georgetown University. He tells Bourne that he is a terrorist hunter and would like Jason to go after Semion Icoupov.

In Europe, Bourne's investigation into the Black Legion turns into on of the deadliest and most tangled operations of his double life. The pursuit of the leader of a murderous terrorist group with roots in the darkest days of World War II. During all of this Arkadin, who is just a brilliant and damaged as Bourne, is getting closer by the minute in achieving his mission.While Bourne thinks he is getting closer to Arkadin, Arkadin thinks hes getting closer to Bourne.

Bourne goes to Moscow following information provided by Professor Specter. He is then followed by many people sent after him because of intercepted information. At the Metrtopolya Hotel in Russia, many things happen very fast. Bourne checks in to the hotel with a girl named Gala. But not knowing about being followed, many people are expecting him to arrive. The taxi driver, Yakov is paid by a man named Harris Low to drop him off at the hotel. Yakov is a poor man with an unpleasent past. He does what he does for money, driving around people for eighteen hours a day in a cab. Occasionally he doesn't get paid for what he does. Meanwhile in the hotel, Bourne wrestles an impersonated waiter (Anthony Prowess) to the ground after dodging a knife. As he exits the room and into the hall he finds a blood trail that leads to the closet where Prowess had executed a man also sent up to Bourne.

Meanwhile, Soraya and Tyrone are meeting with Luther LaValle and General Kendall. Tyrone and Soraya are there to meet with them because LaValle and Kendall believe they are getting intel on the Black Legion. When Tyrone asks for the bathroom he descends the staircase to finish what Soraya, him and a woman named Kiki are there for. Her software program has done her work and it is all up to him. He gets caught and brought into a cell. LaValle and Kendall leave Tyrone's life up to Soraya. She must trade Hart for Tyrone. But what LaValle didnt know was that Hart was gathering intel that Rodney Feir has been gathering ever since he was fired for being a CI rat.

In Moscow, Bourne meets with Dimitri Maslow, who tells him about Arkadin's life vaguely. After the meeting Bourne calls Specter. Specter reveals that Pyotr Zilber was his son, who was a member of the Black Legion. Bourne knows what Arkadin is capable of doing and is going to go after Specter's last man, Kirsch. Later on when Bourne is in a museum in Europe he leaves Kirsch behind a statue. When he returns he finds his corpse with a bullet through his head. He meets Jens, one of the men Specter sent to give his apartment to Bourne. The pair leaves the building and Semion Icoupov shoots Jens point blank with a total of two shots outside the museum.

Escaping the mayhem in the State Museum in Sheremetyevo, Bourne and Petra, a security guard paid to shoot Kirsch, visit Herr Pelz, an older man that Petra knew when she was a child. He helped her out very much in Dachau, where she grew up. Herr "Old" Pelz tells Bourne more information about the Black Legion. Bourne shows Pelz a picture and asks him if he can identify the people in it. Pointing to the picture of Professor Specter he says "Damn, I'd swear this one is Asher Sever." He told Bourne that Sever's dad, Ibrahim killed Semion Icoupov's father. For that Icupouv executed Ibrahim. The brothers have hated each other and wants the other one killed. After being dropped of at Kirsch's apartment by Petra, Bourne finds a tiny transmitter planted on his passport. The door bells rings and it's Semion Icoupov. A couple minutes later Arkadin blasts through the window with Devra coming in the back way with an SIG. Icoupov shoots Devra in the chest and walks over to her, not realizing she still has her gun. She shoots him in the shoulder and he runs out of the house escaping to a rooftop.

Bourne jumps out a helicopter onto the Moon of Hormuz (the tanker), following Arkadin. Boure and Arkadin team up (or at least Bourne thinks so) to find Sever's man on board with the Black Legion symbol. Once Moira kills the doctor---Sever's man---Bourne comes down in the lower room because the captain told him that she was down there. As he comes up Arkadin lunges at him with a knife aiming at Bourne's stomach. After a long fight, Arkadain goes over board with a twelve story drop, plunging into water.

Back at the hospital where Asher Sever (who we find out is not Dominic Specter) is on life support, Bourne meets Willard, the chef at the NSA Safe House. There Willard tells him that Arkdadin was a member of Treadstone. Conklin knew Icoupov and they agreed it would be good to train Arkadin because he had the drive and nothing to lose. But when it came down to the fight at the end, Leonid Danilovich Arkadin vs. Jason Bourne, it was Jason Bourne, who came out on top.