8

A crack. Outside the room. Snaplike, echoing off into a sharp coda, the sound penetrating, diminishing in the distance. Bourne opened his eyes.

The staircase. The staircase in the filthy hallway outside his room. Someone had been walking up the steps and had stopped, aware of the noise his weight had caused on the warped, cracked wood. A normal boarder at the Steppdeckstrasse rooming house would have no such concerns.

Silence.

Crack. Now closer. A risk was taken, timing paramount, speed the cover. Jason spun off the bed, grabbing the gun that was by his head, and lunged to the wall by the door. He crouched, hearing the footsteps—one man—the runner, no longer concerned with sound, only with reaching his destination. Bourne had no doubt what it was; he was right.

The door crashed open; he smashed it back, then threw his full weight into the wood, pinning the intruder against the doorframe, pummeling the man’s stomach, chest, and arm into the recessed edge of the wall. He pulled the door back and lashed the toe of his right foot into the throat below him, reaching down with his left hand, grabbing blond hair and yanking the figure inside. The man’s hand went limp; the gun in it fell to the floor, a long-barreled revolver with a silencer attached.

Jason closed the door and listened for sounds on the staircase. There were none. He looked down at the unconscious man. Thief? Killer? What was he?

Police? Had the manager of the boardinghouse decided to overlook the code of the Steppdeckstrasse in search of a reward? Bourne rolled the intruder over and took out a billfold. Second nature made him remove the money, knowing it was ludicrous to do so; he had a small fortune on him. He looked at the various credit cards and the driver’s license; he smiled, but then his smile disappeared. There was nothing funny; the names on the cards were different ones, the name on the license matching none. The unconscious man was no police officer.

He was a professional, come to kill a wounded man in the Steppdeckstrasse. Someone had hired him. Who? Who could possibly know he was there?

The woman? Had he mentioned the Steppdeckstrasse when he had seen the row of neat houses, looking for Number 37? No, it was not she; he may have said something, but she would not have understood. And if she had, there’d be no professional killer in his room; instead, the rundown boardinghouse would be surrounded by police.

The image of a large fat man perspiring above a table came to Bourne. That same man had wiped the sweat from his protruding lips and had spoken of the courage of an insignificant goat—who had survived. Was this an example of his survival technique? Had he known about the Steppdeckstrasse? Was he aware of the habits of the patron whose sight terrified him? Had he been to the filthy rooming house? Delivered an envelope there?

Jason pressed his hand to his forehead and shut his eyes. Why can’t I remember? When will the mists clear? Will they ever clear?

Don’t crucify yourself.…

Bourne opened his eyes, fixing them on the blond man. For the briefest of moments he nearly burst out laughing; he had been presented with his exit visa from Zurich, and instead of recognizing it, he was wasting time tormenting himself. He put the billfold in his pocket, wedging it behind the Marquis de Chamford’s, picked up the gun and shoved it into his belt, then dragged the unconscious figure over to the bed.

A minute later the man was strapped to the sagging mattress, gagged by a torn sheet wrapped around his face. He would remain where he was for hours, and in hours Jason would be out of Zurich, compliments of a perspiring fat man.

He had slept in his clothes. There was nothing to gather up or carry except his topcoat. He put it on, and tested his leg, somewhat after the fact, he reflected. In the heat of the past few minutes he had been unaware of the pain; it was there, as the limp was there, but neither immobilized him. The shoulder was not in as good shape. A slow paralysis was spreading; he had to get to a doctor. His head … he did not want to think about his head.

He walked out into the dimly lit hallway, pulled the door closed, and stood motionless, listening. There was a burst of laughter from above; he pressed his back against the wall, gun poised. The laughter trailed off; it was a drunk’s laughter—incoherent, pointless.

He limped to the staircase, held on to the railing, and started down. He was on the third floor of the four-story building, having insisted on the highest room when the phrase high ground had come to him instinctively. Why had it come to him? What did it mean in terms of renting a filthy room for a single night? Sanctuary?

Stop it!

He reached the second floor landing, creaks in the wooden staircase accompanying each step. If the manager came out of his flat below to satisfy his curiosity, it would be the last thing he satisfied for several hours.

A noise. A scratch. Soft fabric moving briefly across an abrasive surface. Cloth against wood. Someone was concealed in the short stretch of hallway between the end of one staircase and the beginning of another. Without breaking the rhythm of his walk, he peered into the shadows; there were three recessed doorways in the right wall, identical to the floor above. In one of them …

He took a step closer. Not the first; it was empty. And it would not be the last, the bordering wall forming a cul-de-sac, no room to move. It had to be the second, yes, the second doorway. From it a man could rush forward, to his left or right, or throwing a shoulder into an unsuspecting victim, send his target over the railing, plunging down the staircase.

Bourne angled to his right, shifting the gun to his left hand and reaching into his belt for the weapon with a silencer. Two feet from the recessed door, he heaved the automatic in his left hand into the shadows as he pivoted against the wall.

“Was ist?…” An arm appeared; Jason fired once, blowing the hand apart. “Ahh!” The figure lurched out in shock, incapable of aiming his weapon. Bourne fired again, hitting the man in the thigh; he collapsed on the floor, writhing, cringing. Jason took a step forward and knelt, his knee pressing into the man’s chest, his gun at the man’s head. He spoke in a whisper.

“Is there anyone else down there?”

“Nein!” said the man, wincing in pain. “Zwei … two of us only. We were paid.”

“By whom?”

“You know.”

“A man named Carlos?”

“I will not answer that. Kill me first.”

“How did you know I was here?”

“Chernak.”

“He’s dead.”

“Now. Not yesterday. Word reached Zurich: you were alive. We checked everyone … everywhere. Chernak knew.”

Bourne gambled. “You’re lying!” He pushed the gun into the man’s throat. “I never told Chernak about the Steppdeckstrasse.”

The man winced again, his neck arched. “Perhaps you did not have to. The Nazi pig had informers everywhere. Why should the Steppdeckstrasse be any different? He could describe you. Who else could?”

“A man at the Drei Alpenhäuser.”

“We never heard of any such man.”

“Who’s ‘we’?”

The man swallowed, his lips stretched in pain. “Businessmen … only businessmen.”

“And your service is killing.”

“You’re a strange one to talk. But, nein. You were to be taken, not killed.”

“Where?”

“We would be told by radio. Car frequency.”

“Terrific,” said Jason flatly. “You’re not only second-rate, you’re accommodating. Where’s your car?”

“Outside.”

“Give me the keys.” The radio would identify it.

The man tried to resist; he pushed Bourne’s knee away and started to roll into the wall. “Nein!”

“You haven’t got a choice.” Jason brought the handle of the pistol down on the man’s skull. The Swiss collapsed.

Bourne found the keys—there were three in a leather case—took the man’s gun and put it into his pocket. It was a smaller weapon than the one he held in his hand and had no silencer, lending a degree of credence to the claim that he was to be taken, not killed. The blond man upstairs had been acting as the point, and therefore needed the protection of a silenced gunshot should wounding be required. But an unmuffled report could lead to complications; the Swiss on the second floor was a backup, his weapon to be used as a visible threat.

Then why was he on the second floor? Why hadn’t he followed his colleague? On the staircase? Something was odd, but there was no accounting for tactics, nor the time to consider them. There was a car outside on the street and he had the keys for it.

Nothing could be disregarded. The third gun.

He got up painfully and found the revolver he had taken from the Frenchman in the elevator at the Gemeinschaft Bank. He pulled up his left trouser leg and inserted the gun under the elasticized fabric of his sock. It was secure.

He paused to get his breath and his balance, then crossed to the staircase, aware that the pain in his left shoulder was suddenly more acute, the paralysis spreading more rapidly. Messages from brain to limb were less clear. He hoped to God he could drive.

He reached the fifth step and abruptly stopped, listening as he had listened barely a minute ago for sounds of concealment. There was nothing; the wounded man may have been tactically deficient, but he had told the truth. Jason hurried down the staircase. He would drive out of Zurich—somehow—and find a doctor—somewhere.

He spotted the car easily. It was different from the other shabby automobiles on the street. An outsized, well-kept sedan, and he could see the bulge of an antenna base riveted into the trunk. He walked to the driver’s side and ran his hand around the panel and left front fender; there was no alarm device.

He unlocked the door, then opened it, holding his breath in case he was wrong about the alarm; he was not. He climbed in behind the wheel, adjusting his position until he was as comfortable as he could be, grateful that the car had an automatic shift. The large weapon in his belt inhibited him. He placed it on the seat beside him, then reached for the ignition, assuming the key that had unlocked the door was the proper one.

It was not. He tried the one next to it, but it, too, would not fit. For the trunk, he assumed. It was the third key.

Or was it? He kept stabbing at the opening. The key would not enter; he tried the second again; it was blocked. Then the first. None of the keys would fit into the ignition! Or were the messages from brain to limb to fingers too garbled, his coordination too inadequate! Goddamn it! Try again!

A powerful light came from his left, burning his eyes, blinding him. He grabbed for the gun, but a second beam shot out from the right; the door was yanked open and a heavy flashlight crashed down on his hand, another hand taking the weapon from the seat.

“Get out!” The order came from his left, the barrel of a gun pressed into his neck.

He climbed out, a thousand coruscating circles of white in his eyes. As vision slowly came back to him, the first thing he saw was the outline of two circles. Gold circles; the spectacles of the killer who had hunted him throughout the night. The man spoke.

“They say in the laws of physics that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. The behavior of certain men under certain conditions is similarly predictable. For a man like you one sets up a gauntlet, each combatant told what to say if he falls. If he does not fall, you are taken. If he does, you are misled, lulled into a false sense of progress.”

“It’s a high degree of risk,” said Jason. “For those in the gauntlet.”

“They’re paid well. And there’s something else—no guarantee, of course, but it’s there. The enigmatic Bourne does not kill indiscriminately. Not out of compassion, naturally, but for a far more practical reason. Men remember when they’ve been spared; he infiltrates the armies of others. Refined guerrilla tactics applied to a sophisticated battleground. I commend you.”

“You’re a horse’s ass.” It was all Jason could think to say. “But both your men are alive, if that’s what you want to know.”

Another figure came into view, led from the shadows of the building by a short, stocky man. It was the woman; it was Marie St. Jacques.

“That’s him,” she said softly, her look unwavering.

“Oh, my God.…” Bourne shook his head in disbelief. “How was it done, Doctor?” he asked her, raising his voice. “Was someone watching my room at the Carillon? Was the elevator timed, the others shut down? You’re very convincing. And I thought you were going to crash into a police car.”

“As it turned out,” she replied, “it wasn’t necessary. These are the police.”

Jason looked at the killer in front of him; the man was adjusting his gold spectacles. “I commend you,” he said.

“A minor talent,” answered the killer. “The conditions were right. You provided them.”

“What happens now? The man inside said I was to be taken, not killed.”

“You forget. He was told what to say.” The Swiss paused. “So this is what you look like. Many of us have wondered during the past two or three years. How much speculation there’s been! How many contradictions! He’s tall, you know; no, he’s of medium height. He’s blond; no, he has dark black hair. Very light blue eyes, of course; no, quite clearly they are brown. His features are sharp; no, they’re really quite ordinary, can’t pick him out in a crowd. But nothing was ordinary. It was all extraordinary.”

Your features have been softened, the character submerged. Change your hair, you change your face.… Certain types of contact lenses are designed to alter the color of the eyes.… Wear glasses, you’re a different man. Visas, passports … switched at will.

The design was there. Everything fit. Not all the answers, but more of the truth than he wanted to hear.

“I’d like to get this over with,” said Marie St. Jacques, stepping forward. “I’ll sign whatever I have to sign—at your office, I imagine. But then I really must get back to the hotel. I don’t have to tell you what I’ve been through tonight.”

The Swiss glanced at her through his gold-rimmed glasses. The stocky man who had led her out of the shadows took her arm. She stared at both men, then down at the hand that held her.

Then at Bourne. Her breathing stopped, a terrible realization becoming clear. Her eyes grew wide.

“Let her go,” said Jason. “She’s on her way back to Canada. You’ll never see her again.”

“Be practical, Bourne. She’s seen us. We two are professionals; there are rules.” The man flicked his gun up under Jason’s chin, the barrel pressed once more into Bourne’s throat. He ran his left hand about his victim’s clothes, felt the weapon in Jason’s pocket and took it out. “I thought as much,” he said, and turned to the stocky man. “Take her in the other car. The Limmat.”

Bourne froze. Marie St. Jacques was to be killed, her body thrown into the Limmat River.

“Wait a minute!” Jason stepped forward; the gun was jammed into his neck, forcing him back into the hood of the car. “You’re being stupid! She works for the Canadian government. They’ll be all over Zurich.”

“Why should that concern you? You won’t be here.”

“Because it’s a waste!” cried Bourne. “We’re professionals, remember?”

“You bore me.” The killer turned to the stocky man. “Geh! Schnell. Guisan Quai!”

“Scream your goddamn head off!” shouted Jason. “Start yelling! Don’t stop!”

She tried, the scream cut short by a paralyzing blow to her throat. She fell to the pavement as her would-be executioner dragged her toward a small nondescript black sedan.

“That was stupid,” said the killer, peering through his gold-rimmed spectacles into Bourne’s face. “You only hasten the inevitable. On the other hand, it will be simpler now. I can free a man to tend to our wounded. Everything’s so military, isn’t it? It really is a battlefield.” He turned to the man with the flashlight. “Signal Johann to go inside. We’ll come back for them.”

The flashlight was switched on and off twice. A fourth man, who had opened the door of the small sedan for the condemned woman, nodded. Marie St. Jacques was thrown into the rear seat, the door slammed shut. The man named Johann started for the concrete steps, nodding now at the executioner.

Jason felt sick as the engine of the small sedan was gunned and the car bolted away from the curb into the Steppdeckstrasse, the twisted chrome bumper disappearing into the shadows of the street. Inside that car was a woman he had never seen in his life … before three hours ago. And he had killed her. “You don’t lack for soldiers,” he said.

“If there were a hundred men I could trust, I’d pay them willingly. As they say, your reputation precedes you.”

“Suppose I paid you. You were at the bank; you know I’ve got funds.”

“Probably millions, but I wouldn’t touch a franc note.”

“Why? Are you afraid?”

“Most assuredly. Wealth is relative to the amount of time one has to enjoy it. I wouldn’t have five minutes.” The killer turned to his subordinate. “Put him inside. Strip him. I want photographs taken of him naked—before and after he leaves us. You’ll find a great deal of money on him; I want him holding it. I’ll drive.” He looked again at Bourne. “Carlos will get the first print. And I have no doubt that I’ll be able to sell the others quite profitably on the open market. Magazines pay outrageous prices.”

“Why should ‘Carlos’ believe you? Why should anyone believe you? You said it: no one knows what I look like.”

“I’ll be covered,” said the Swiss. “Sufficient unto the day. Two Zurich bankers will step forward identifying you as one Jason Bourne. The same Jason Bourne who met the excessively rigid standards set by Swiss law for the release of a numbered account. It will be enough.” He spoke to the gunman. “Hurry! I have cables to send. Debts to collect.”

A powerful arm shot over Bourne’s shoulder, vicing his throat in a hammerlock. The barrel of a gun was jolted into his spine, pain spreading throughout his chest as he was dragged inside the sedan. The man holding him was a professional; even without his wounds it would have been impossible to break the grip. The gunman’s expertise, however, did not satisfy the bespectacled leader of the hunt. He climbed behind the wheel and issued another command.

“Break his fingers,” he said.

The armlock briefly choked off Jason’s air as the barrel of the gun crashed down repeatedly on his hand—hands. Instinctively, Bourne had swung his left hand over his right, protecting it. As the blood burst from the back of his left, he twisted his fingers, letting it flow between them until both hands were covered. He choked his screams; the grip lessened; he shouted.

“My hands! They’re broken!”

“Gut.”

But they were not broken; the left was damaged to the point where it was useless; not the right. He moved his fingers in the shadows; his hand was intact.

The car sped down the Steppdeckstrasse and swung into a sidestreet, heading south. Jason collapsed back in the seat, gasping. The gunman tore at his clothes, ripping his shirt, yanking at his belt. In seconds his upper body would be naked; passport, papers, cards, money no longer his, all the items intrinsic to his escape from Zurich taken from him. It was now or it was not to be. He screamed.

“My leg! My goddamned leg!” He lurched forward, his right hand working furiously in the dark, fumbling under the cloth of his trouser leg. He felt it. The handle of the automatic.

“Nein!” roared the professional in the front. “Watch him!” He knew; it was instinctive knowledge.

It was also too late. Bourne held the gun in the darkness of the floor; the powerful soldier pushed him back. He fell with the blow, the revolver, now at his waist, pointed directly at his attacker’s chest.

He fired twice; the man arched backward. Jason fired again, his aim sure, the heart punctured; the man fell over into the recessed jump seat.

“Put it down!” yelled Bourne, swinging the revolver over the rounded edge of the front seat, pressing the barrel into the base of the driver’s skull. “Drop it!”

His breathing erratic, the killer let the gun fall. “We will talk,” he said, gripping the wheel. “We are professionals. We will talk.” The large automobile lurched forward, gathering speed, the driver increasing pressure on the accelerator.

“Slow down!”

“What is your answer?” The car went faster. Ahead were the headlights of traffic; they were leaving the Steppdeckstrasse district, entering the busier city streets. “You want to get out of Zurich, I can get you out. Without me, you can’t. All I have to do is spin the wheel, crash into the pavement. I have nothing whatsoever to lose, Herr Bourne. There are police everywhere up ahead. I don’t think you want the police.”

“We’ll talk,” lied Jason. Everything was timing, split-second timing. There were now two killers in a speeding enclosure that was in itself a trap. Neither killer was to be trusted; both knew it. One had to make use of that extra half-second the other would not take. Professionals. “Put on the brakes,” said Bourne.

“Drop your gun on the seat next to mine.”

Jason released the weapon. It fell on top of the killer’s, the ring of heavy metal proof of contact. “Done.”

The killer took his foot off the accelerator, transferring it to the brake. He applied the pressure slowly, then in short stabs so that the large automobile pitched back and forth. The jabs on the pedal would become more pronounced; Bourne understood this. It was part of the driver’s strategy, balance a factor of life and death.

The arrow on the speedometer swung left: 30 kilometers, 18 kilometers, 9 kilometers. They had nearly stopped; it was the moment for the extra half-second of effort—balance a factor, life in balance.

Jason grabbed the man by the neck, clawing at his throat, yanking him up off the seat. Then he raised his bloody left hand and thrust it forward, smearing the area of the killer’s eyes. He released the throat, surging his right hand down toward the guns on the seat. Bourne gripped a handle, shoving the killer’s hand away; the man screamed, his vision blurred, the gun out of reach. Jason lunged across the man’s chest, pushing him down against the door, elbowing the killer’s throat with his left arm, grabbing the wheel with his bloody palm. He looked up through the windshield and turned the wheel to the right, heading the car toward a pyramid of trash on the pavement.

The automobile plowed into the mound of debris—a huge, somnambulant insect crawling into garbage, its appearance belying the violence taking place inside its shell.

The man beneath him lunged up, rolling on the seat. Bourne held the automatic in his hand, his fingers jabbing for the open space of the trigger. He found it. He bent his wrist and fired.

His would-be executioner went limp, a dark red hole in his forehead.

In the street, men came running toward what must have looked like a dangerously careless accident. Jason shoved the dead body across the seat and climbed over behind the wheel. He pushed the gearshift into reverse; the sedan backed awkwardly out of the debris, over the curl, and into the street. He rolled down his window, calling out to the would-be rescuers as they approached.

“Sorry! Everything’s fine! Just a little too much to drink!”

The small band of concerned citizens broke up quickly, a few making gestures of admonition, others running back to their escorts and companions. Bourne breathed deeply, trying to control the involuntary trembling that seized his entire body. He pulled the gear into drive; the car started forward. He tried to picture the streets of Zurich from a memory that would not serve him.

He knew vaguely where he was—where he had been—and more important, he knew more clearly where the Guisan Quai was in relationship to the Limmat.

Geh! Schnell. Guisan Quai!

Marie St. Jacques was to be killed on the Guisan Quai, her body thrown into the river. There was only one stretch where the Guisan and the Limmat met: it was at the mouth of Lake Zurich, at the base of the western shore. Somewhere in an empty parking lot or a deserted garden overlooking the water, a short, stocky man was about to carry out an execution ordered by a dead man. Perhaps by now the gun had been fired, or a knife plunged into its mark; there was no way to know, but Jason knew he had to find out. Whoever and whatever he was, he could not walk away blindly.

The professional in him, however, demanded that he swerve into the dark wide alley ahead. There were two dead men in the car; they were a risk and a burden he could not tolerate. The precious seconds it would take to remove them could avoid the danger of a traffic policeman looking through the windows and seeing death.

Thirty-two seconds was his guess; it had taken less than a minute to pull his would-be executioners from the car. He looked at them as he limped around the hood to the door. They were curled up obscenely next to one another against a filthy brick wall. In darkness.

He climbed behind the wheel and backed out of the alley.

Geh! Schnell. Guisan Quai!