I'll start by saying that while this novel is the best (so far) of the three Bourne books by Eric Van Lustbader, none of the new novels compare to Robert Ludlum's original trilogy.
The nice thing about this piece was the "candle burning at both ends" feeling I got as I followed both Jason Bourne and his "new" arch nemesis, Leonid Arkadin, to their inevitable showdown. The two men leave a bloody trail of bodies and bullets in their wake, and then, through an ingenius little twist, are forced to help each other out. I won't tell you how they resolve their differences in the end, but I am sure we'll see the two at each others throats in Van Lustbader's next Bourne novel.
The problem I had with this book was the stale side story between two of America's intelligence gathering forces. NSA and CI act like two petulant children. The novel is far fetched to begin with (all Bourne reads are), but the idea that these two "associations" are willing to cripple the other to curry favour with the indifferent president is mindless and boring.
Mr. Van Lustbader, stick to the reason we buy these books: Jason Bourne.