“Why are they doing it?” asked Jason, sitting down next to Marie in the packed café. He had made the fifth telephone call, five hours after having reached the embassy. “They want me to keep running. They’re forcing me to run, and I don’t know why.”
“You’re forcing yourself,” said Marie. “You could have made the calls from the room.”
“No, I couldn’t. For some reason they want me to know that. Each time I call, that son of a bitch asks me where I am now, am I in ‘safe territory’? Silly goddamn phrase, ‘safe territory.’ But he’s saying something else. He’s telling me that every contact must be made from a different location, so that no one outside or inside could trace me to a single phone, a single address. They don’t want me in custody, but they want me on a string. They want me, but they’re afraid of me; it doesn’t make sense!”
“Isn’t it possible you’re imagining these things? No one said anything remotely like that.”
“They didn’t have to. It’s in what they didn’t say. Why didn’t they just tell me to come right over to the embassy? Order me. No one could touch me there; it’s U.S. territory. They didn’t.”
“The streets are being watched; you were told that.”
“You know, I accepted that—blindly—until about thirty seconds ago when it struck me. By whom? Who’s watching the streets?”
“Carlos, obviously. His men.”
“You know that and I know that—at least we can assume it—but they don’t know that. I may not know who the hell I am or where I came from, but I know what’s happened to me during the past twenty-four hours. They don’t.”
“They could assume too, couldn’t they? They might have spotted strange men in cars, or standing around too long, too obviously.”
“Carlos is brighter than that. And there are lots of ways a specific vehicle could get quickly inside an embassy’s gate. Marine contingents everywhere are trained for things like that.”
“I believe you.”
“But they didn’t do that; they didn’t even suggest it. Instead, they’re stalling me, making me play games. Goddamn it, why?”
“You said it yourself, Jason. They haven’t heard from you in six months. They’re being very careful.”
“Why this way? They get me inside those gates, they can do whatever they want. They control me. They can throw me a party or throw me into a cell. Instead, they don’t want to touch me, but they don’t want to lose me either.”
“They’re waiting for the man flying over from Washington.”
“What better place to wait for him than in the embassy?” Bourne pushed back his chair. “Something’s wrong. Let’s get out of here.”
It had taken Alexander Conklin, inheritor of Treadstone, exactly six hours and twelve minutes to cross the Atlantic. To go back he would take the first Concorde flight out of Paris in the morning, reach Dulles by 7:30 Washington time and be at Langley by 9:00. If anyone tried to phone him or asked where he had spent the night, an accommodating major from the Pentagon would supply a false answer. And a First Secretary at the embassy in Paris would be told that if he ever mentioned having had a single conversation with the man from Langley, he’d be descaled to the lowest attaché on the ladder and shipped to a new post in Tierra del Fuego. It was guaranteed.
Conklin went directly to a row of pay phones against the wall and called the embassy. The First Secretary was filled with a sense of accomplishment.
“Everything’s according to schedule, Conklin,” said the embassy man, the absence of the previously employed Mister a sign of equality. The Company executive was in Paris now, and turf was turf. “Bourne’s edgy. During our last communication he repeatedly asked why he wasn’t being told to come in.”
“He did?” At first Conklin was surprised; then he understood. Delta was feigning the reactions of a man who knew nothing of the events on Seventy-first Street. If he had been told to come to the embassy, he would have bolted. He knew better; there could be no official connection. Treadstone was anathema, a discredited strategy, a major embarrassment. “Did you reiterate that the streets were being watched?”
“Naturally. Then he asked me who was watching them. Can you imagine?”
“I can. What did you say?’
“That he knew as well as I did, and all things considered I thought it was counterproductive to discuss such matters over the telephone.”
“Very good.”
“I rather thought so.”
“What did he say to that? Did he settle for it?”
“In an odd way, yes. He said, ‘I see.’ That’s all.”
“Did he change his mind and ask for protection?”
“He’s continued to refuse it. Even when I insisted.” The First Secretary paused briefly. “He doesn’t want to be watched, does he?” he said confidentially.
“No, he doesn’t. When do you expect his next call?”
“In about fifteen minutes.”
“Tell him the Treadstone officer has arrived.” Conklin took the map from his pocket; it was folded to the area, the route marked in blue ink. “Say the rendezvous has been set for one-thirty on the road between Chevreuse and Rambouillet, seven miles south of Versailles at the Cimetière de Noblesse.”
“One-thirty, road between Chevreuse and Rambouillet … the cemetery. Will he know how to get there?”
“He’s been there before. If he says he’s going by taxi, tell him to take the normal precautions and dismiss it.”
“Won’t that appear strange? To the driver, I mean. It’s an odd hour for mourning.”
“I said you’re to ‘tell him’ that. Obviously he won’t take a taxi.”
“Obviously,” said the First Secretary quickly, recovering by volunteering the unnecessary. “Since I haven’t called your man here, shall I call him now and tell him you’ve arrived?”
“I’ll take care of that. You’ve still got his number?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Burn it,” ordered Conklin. “Before it burns you. I’ll call you back in twenty minutes.”
A train thundered by in the lower level of the Métro, the vibrations felt throughout the platform. Bourne hung up the pay phone on the concrete wall and stared for a moment at the mouthpiece. Another door had partially opened somewhere in the distance of his mind, the light too far away, too dim to see inside. Still, there were images. On the road to Rambouillet … through an archway of iron latticework … a gently sloping hill with white marble. Crosses—large, larger, mausoleums … and statuary everywhere. Le Cimetière de Noblesse. A cemetery, but far more than a resting place for the dead. A drop, but even more than that. A place where conversations took place amid burials and the lowering of caskets. Two men dressed somberly as the crowds were dressed somberly, moving between the mourners until they met among the mourners and exchanged the words they had to say to each other.
There was a face, but it was blurred, out of focus; he saw only the eyes. And that unfocused face and those eyes had a name. David … Abbott. The Monk. The man he knew but did not know. Creator of Medusa and Cain.
Jason blinked several times and shook his head as if to shake the sudden mists away. He glanced over at Marie, who was fifteen feet to his left against the wall, supposedly scanning the crowds on the platform, watching for someone possibly watching him. She was not; she was looking at him herself, a frown of concern across her face. He nodded, reassuring her; it was not a bad moment for him. Instead, images had come to him. He had been to that cemetery; somehow he would know it. He walked toward Marie; she turned and fell in step beside him as they headed for the exit.
“He’s here,” said Bourne. “Treadstone’s arrived. I’m to meet him near Rambouillet. At a cemetery.”
“That’s a ghoulish touch. Why a cemetery?”
“It’s supposed to reassure me.”
“Good God, how?”
“I’ve been there before. I’ve met people there … a man there. By naming it as the rendezvous—an unusual rendezvous—Treadstone’s telling me he’s genuine.”
She took his arm as they climbed the steps toward the street. “I want to go with you.”
“Sorry.”
“You can’t exclude me!”
“I have to, because I don’t know what I’m going to find there. And if it’s not what I expect, I’ll want someone on my side.”
“Darling, that doesn’t make sense! I’m being hunted by the police. If they find me, they’ll send me back to Zurich on the next plane; you said so yourself. What good would I be to you in Zurich?”
“Not you. Villiers. He trusts us, he trusts you. You can reach him if I’m not back by daybreak or haven’t called explaining why. He can make a lot of noise, and God knows he’s ready to. He’s the one backup we’ve got, the only one. To be more specific, his wife is—through him.”
Marie nodded, accepting his logic. “He’s ready,” she agreed. “How will you get to Rambouillet?”
“We have a car, remember? I’ll take you to the hotel, then head over to the garage.”
He stepped inside the elevator of the garage complex in Montmartre and pressed the button for the fourth floor. His mind was on a cemetery somewhere between Chevreuse and Rambouillet, on a road he had driven over but had no idea when or for what purpose.
Which was why he wanted to drive there now, not wait until his arrival corresponded more closely to the time of rendezvous. If the images that came to his mind were not completely distorted, it was an enormous cemetery. Where precisely within those acres of graves and statuary was the meeting ground? He would get there by one, leaving a half hour to walk up and down the paths looking for a pair of headlights or a signal. Other things would come to him.
The elevator door scraped open. The floor was three-quarters filled with cars, deserted otherwise. Jason tried to recall where he had parked the Renault; it was in a far corner, he remembered that, but was it on the right or the left? He started tentatively to the left; the elevator had been on his left when he had driven the car up several days ago. He stopped, logic abruptly orienting him. The elevator had been on his left when he had entered, not after he had parked the car; it had been diagonally to his right then. He turned, his movement rapid, his thoughts on a road between Chevreuse and Rambouillet.
Whether it was the sudden, unexpected reversal of direction or an inexperienced surveillance, Bourne neither knew nor cared to dwell upon. Whichever, the moment saved his life, of that he was certain. A man’s head ducked below the hood of a car in the second aisle on his right; that man had been watching him. An experienced surveillance would have stood up, holding a ring of keys he had presumably picked up from the floor, or checked a windshield wiper, then walked away. The one thing he would not do was what this man did; risk being seen by ducking out of sight.
Jason maintained his pace, his thoughts concerned on this new development. Who was this man? How had he been found? And then both answers were so clear, so obvious he felt like a fool. The clerk at the Auberge du Coin.
Carlos had been thorough—as he was always thorough—every detail of failure examined. And one of those details was a clerk on duty during a failure. Such a man bore scrutiny, then questioning; it would not be difficult. The show of a knife or a gun would be more than sufficient. Information would pour from the night clerk’s trembling lips, and Carlos’ army ordered to spread throughout the city, each district divided into sectors, hunting for a specific black Renault. A painstaking search, but not impossible, made easier by the driver, who had not bothered to switch license plates. For how many unbroken hours had the garage been watched? How many men were there? Inside, outside? How soon would others arrive? Would Carlos arrive?
The questions were secondary. He had to get out. He could do without the car, perhaps, but the resulting dependency on unknown arrangements might cripple him; he needed transportation and he needed it now. No taxi would drive a stranger to a cemetery on the outskirts of Rambouillet at one o’clock in the morning, and it was no time to rely on the possibility of stealing a car in the streets.
He stopped, taking cigarettes and matches from his pockets; then, striking a match, he cupped his hands and angled his head to protect the flame. In the corner of his eye he could see a shadow—square-shaped, stocky; the man once more had lowered himself, now behind the trunk of a nearer automobile.
Jason dropped to a crouch, spun to his left and lunged out of the aisle between two adjacent cars, breaking his fall with the palms of his hands, the maneuver made in silence. He crawled around the rear wheels of the automobile on his right, arms and legs working rapidly, quietly, down the narrow alley of vehicles, a spider scurrying across a web. He was behind the man now; he crept forward toward the aisle and rose to his knees, inching his face along smooth metal, and peered beyond a headlight. The heavy-set man was in full view, standing erect. He was evidently bewildered, for he moved hesitantly closer toward the Renault, his body low again, squinting to see beyond the windshield. What he saw frightened him further; there was nothing, no one. He gasped, the audible intake of breath a prelude to running. He had been tricked; he knew it and was not about to wait around for the consequences—which told Bourne something else. The man had been briefed on the driver of the Renault, the danger explained. The man began to race toward the exit ramp.
Now. Jason sprang up and ran straight ahead across the aisle, between the cars to the second aisle, catching up with the running man, hurling himself at his back and throwing him to the concrete floor. He hammerlocked the man’s thick neck, crashing the outsized skull into the pavement, the fingers of his left hand pressed into the man’s eye sockets.
“You have exactly five seconds to tell me who’s outside,” he said in French, remembering the grimacing face of another Frenchman in an elevator in Zurich. There had been men outside then, men who wanted to kill him then, on the Bahnhofstrasse. “Tell me! Now!”
“A man, one man, that’s all!”
Bourne relocked the neck, digging his fingers deeper into the eyes. “Where?”
“In a car,” spat out the man. ‘Parked across the street. My God, you’re choking me! You’re blinding me!”
“Not yet. You’ll know it when and if I do both. What kind of car?”
“Foreign. I don’t know. Italian, I think. Or American. I don’t know. Please! My eyes!”
“Color!”
“Dark! Green, blue, very dark. Oh my God!”
“You’re Carlos’ man, aren’t you?”
“Who?”
Jason yanked again, pressed again. “You heard me—you’re from Carlos!”
“I don’t know any Carlos. We call a man; there is a number. That’s all we do.”
“Has he been called?” The man did not reply; Bourne dug his fingers deeper. “Tell me!”
“Yes. I had to.”
“When?”
“A few minutes ago. The coin telephone on the second ramp. My God! I can’t see.”
“Yes, you can. Get up!” Jason released the man, pulling him to his feet. “Get over to the car. Quickly!” Bourne pushed the man back between the stationary automobiles to the Renault’s aisle. The man turned, protesting, helpless. “You heard me. Hurry!” shouted Jason.
“I’m only earning a few francs.”
“Now you can drive for them.” Bourne shoved him again toward the Renault.
Moments later the small black automobile careened down an exit ramp toward a glass booth with a single attendant and the cash register. Jason was in the back seat, his gun pressed against the man’s bruised neck. Bourne shoved a bill and his dated ticket out the window; the attendant took both.
“Drive!” said Bourne. “Do exactly what I told you to do!”
The man pressed the accelerator, and the Renault sped out through the exit. The man made a screeching U-turn in the street, coming to a sudden stop in front of a dark green Chevrolet. A car door opened behind them; running footsteps followed.
“Jules? Que se passe-t-il? C’est toi qui conduis?” A figure loomed in the open window.
Bourne raised his automatic, pointing the barrel at the man’s face. “Take two steps back,” he said in French. “No more, just two. And then stand still.” He tapped the head of the man named Jules. “Get out. Slowly.”
“We were only to follow you,” protested Jules, stepping out into the street. “Follow you and report your whereabouts.”
“You’ll do better than that,” said Bourne, getting out of the Renault, taking his map of Paris with him. “You’re going to drive me. For a while. Get in your car, both of you!”
Five miles outside of Paris, on the road to Chevreuse, the two men were ordered out of the car. It was a dark, poorly lighted, third-grade highway. There had been no stores, buildings, houses, or road phones for the past three miles.
“What was the number you were told to call?” demanded Jason. “Don’t lie. You’d be in worse trouble.”
Jules gave it to him. Bourne nodded and climbed into the seat behind the wheel of the Chevrolet.
The old man in the threadbare overcoat sat huddled in the shadows of the empty booth by the telephone. The small restaurant was closed, his presence there an accommodation made by a friend from the old days, the better days. He kept looking at the instrument on the wall, wondering when it would ring. It was only a question of time, and when it did he would in turn make a call and the better days would return permanently. He would be the one man in Paris who was the link to Carlos. It would be whispered among the other old men, and respect would be his again.
The high-pitched sound of the bell burst from the telephone, echoing off the walls of the deserted restaurant. The beggar climbed out of the booth and rushed to the phone, his chest pounding with anticipation. It was the signal. Cain was cornered! The days of patient waiting merely a preface to the fine life. He lifted the phone out of its curved recess.
“Yes?”
“It’s Jules!” cried the breathless voice.
The old man’s face turned ashen, the pounding in his chest growing so loud he could barely hear the terrible things being said. But he had heard enough.
He was a dead man.
White-hot explosions joined the vibrations that took hold of his body. There was no air, only white light and deafening eruptions surging up from his stomach to his head.
The beggar sank to the floor, the cord stretched taut, the phone still in his hand. He stared up at the horrible instrument that carried the terrible words. What could he do? What in the name of God would he do?
Bourne walked down the path between the graves, forcing himself to let his mind fall free as Washburn had commanded a lifetime ago in Port Noir. If ever he had to be a sponge, it was now; the man from Treadstone had to understand. He was trying with all his concentration to make sense out of the unremembered, to find meaning in the images that came to him without warning. He had not broken whatever agreement they had; he had not turned, or run.… He was a cripple; it was as simple as that.
He had to find the man from Treadstone. Where inside those fenced acres of silence would he be? Where did he expect him to be? Jason had reached the cemetery well before one, the Chevrolet a faster car than the broken-down Renault. He had passed the gates, driven several hundred yards down the road, pulled off onto the shoulder and parked the car reasonably out of sight. On his way back to the gates it had started to rain. It was a cold rain, a March rain, but a quiet rain, little intrusions upon the silence.
He passed a cluster of graves within a plot bordered by a low iron railing, the centerpiece an alabaster cross rising eight feet out of the ground. He stood for a moment before it. Had he been here before? Was another door opening for him in the distance? Or was he trying too desperately to find one? And then it came to him. It was not this particular grouping of gravestones, not the tall alabaster cross, nor the low iron railing. It was the rain. A sudden rain. Crowds of mourners gathered in black around a burial site, the snapping of umbrellas. And two men coming together, umbrellas touching, brief, quiet apologies muttered, as a long brown envelope exchanged hands, pocket to pocket, unnoticed by the mourners.
There was something else. An image triggered by an image, feeding upon itself, seen only minutes ago. Rain cascading down white marble; not a cold, light rain, but a downpour, pounding against the wall of a glistening white surface … and columns … rows of columns on all sides, a miniature replica of an ancient treasure.
On the other side of the hill. Near the gates. A white mausoleum, someone’s scaled-down version of the Parthenon. He had passed it less than five minutes before, looking at it but not seeing it. That was where the sudden rain had taken place, where two umbrellas had touched and an envelope been delivered. He squinted at the radium dial of his watch. It was fourteen minutes past one; he started running back up the path. He was still early; there was time left to see a car’s headlights, or the striking of a match or …
The beam of a flashlight. It was there at the bottom of the hill and it was moving up and down, intermittently swinging back at the gates as though the holder were concerned that someone might appear. Bourne had an almost uncontrollable urge to race down between the rows of graves and statuary, shouting at the top of his voice. I’m here! It’s me. I understand your message. I’ve come back! I have so much to tell you … and there is so much you must tell me!
But he did not shout and he did not run. Above all else, he had to show control, for what afflicted him was so uncontrollable. He had to appear completely lucid—sane within the boundaries of his memory. He began walking down the hill in the cold light rain, wishing his sense of urgency had allowed him to remember a flashlight.
The flashlight. Something was odd about the beam of light five hundred feet below. It was moving in short vertical strokes, as if in emphasis … as if the man holding it were speaking emphatically to another.
He was. Jason crouched, peering through the rain, his eyes struck by a sharp, darting reflection of light that shot out whenever the beam hit the object in front of it. He crept forward, his body close to the ground, covering practically a hundred feet in seconds, his gaze still on the beam and the strange reflection. He could see more clearly now; he stopped and concentrated. There were two men, one holding the flashlight, the other a short-barreled rifle, the thick steel of the gun known only too well to Bourne. At distances of up to thirty feet it could blow a man six feet into the air. It was a very odd weapon for an officer-of-record sent by Washington to have at his command.
The beam of light shot over to the side of the white mausoleum; the figure holding the rifle retreated quickly, slipping behind a column no more than twenty feet away from the man holding the flashlight.
Jason did not have to think; he knew what he had to do. If there was an explanation for the deadly weapon, so be it, but it would not be used on him. Kneeling, he judged the distance and looked for points of sanctuary, both for concealment and protection. He started out, wiping the rain from his face, feeling the gun in his belt that he knew he could not use.
He scrambled from gravestone to gravestone, statue to statue, heading to his right, then angling gradually to his left until the semicircle was nearly complete. He was within fifteen feet of the mausoleum; the man with the murderous weapon was standing by the left corner column, under the short portico to avoid the rain. He was fondling his gun as though it were a sexual object, cracking the breach, unable to resist peering inside. He ran his palm over the inserted shells, the gesture obscene.
Now. Bourne crept out from behind the gravestone, hands and knees propelling him over the wet grass until he was within six feet of the man. He sprang up, a silent, lethal panther hurling dirt in front of him, one hand surging for the barrel of the rifle, the other for the man’s head. He reached both, grabbed both, clasping the barrel in the fingers of his left hand, the man’s hair in his right. The head snapped back, throat stretched, sound muted. He smashed the head into the white marble with such force that the expulsion of breath that followed signified a severe concussion. The man went limp, Jason supporting him against the wall, permitting the unconscious body to slip silently to the ground between the columns. He searched the man, removing a .357 Magnum automatic from a leather case sewn into his jacket, a razor-sharp scaling knife from a scabbard on his belt and a small .22 revolver from an ankle holster. Nothing remotely government issue; this was a hired killer, an arsenal on foot.
Break his fingers. The words came back to Bourne; they had been spoken by a man in gold-rimmed glasses in a large sedan racing out of the Steppdeckstrasse. There was reason behind the violence. Jason grabbed the man’s right hand and bent the fingers back until he heard the cracks; he did the same with the left, the man’s mouth blocked, Bourne’s elbow jammed between the teeth. No sound emerged above the sound of the rain, and neither hand could be used for a weapon or as a weapon, the weapons themselves placed out of reach in the shadows.
Jason stood up and edged his face around the column. The Treadstone officer now angled the light directly into the earth in front of him. It was the stationary signal, the beam a lost bird was to home into; it might be other things also—the next few minutes would tell. The man turned toward the gate, taking a tentative step as though he might have heard something, and for the first time Bourne saw the cane, observed the limp. The officer-of-record from Treadstone Seventy-One was a cripple … as he was a cripple.
Jason dashed back to the first gravestone, spun behind it and peered around the marble edge. The man from Treadstone still had his attention on the gates. Bourne glanced at his watch; it was 1:27. Time remained. He pushed himself away from the grave, hugging the ground until he was out of sight, then stood up and ran, retracing the arch back to the top of the hill. He stood for a moment, letting his breathing and his heartbeat resume a semblance of normalcy, then reached into his pocket for a book of matches. Protecting it from the rain, he tore off a match and struck it.
“Treadstone?” he said loud enough to be heard from below.
“Delta!”
Cain is for Charlie and Delta is for Cain. Why did the man from Treadstone use the name Delta rather than Cain? Delta was no part of Treadstone; he had disappeared with Medusa. Jason started down the hill, the cold rain whipping his face, his hand instinctively reaching beneath his jacket, pressing the automatic in his belt.
He walked onto the stretch of lawn in front of the white mausoleum. The man from Treadstone limped toward him, then stopped, raising his flashlight, the harsh beam causing Bourne to squint and turn his head away.
“It’s been a long time,” said the crippled officer, lowering the light. “The name’s Conklin, in case you’ve forgotten.”
“Thank you. I had. It’s only one of the things.”
“One of what things?”
“That I’ve forgotten.”
“You remembered this place, though. I figured you would. I read Abbott’s logs; it was here where you last met, last made a delivery. During a state burial for some minister or other, wasn’t it?”
“I don’t know. That’s what we have to talk about first. You haven’t heard from me in over six months. There’s an explanation.”
“Really? Let’s hear it.”
“The simplest way to put it is that I was wounded, shot, the effects of the wounds causing a severe … dislocation. Disorientation is a better word, I guess.”
“Sounds good. What does it mean?”
“I suffered a memory loss. Total. I spent months on an island in the Mediterranean—south of Marseilles—not knowing who I was or where I came from. There’s a doctor, an Englishman named Washburn, who kept medical records. He can verify what I’m telling you.”
“I’m sure he can,” said Conklin, nodding. “And I’ll bet those records are massive. Christ, you paid enough!”
“What do you mean?”
“We’ve got a record, too. A bank officer in Zurich who thought he was being tested by Treadstone transferred a million and a half Swiss francs to Marseilles for an untraceable collection. Thanks for giving us the name.”
“That’s part of what you have to understand. I didn’t know. He’d saved my life, put me back together. I was damn near a corpse when I was brought to him.”
“So you decided a million-odd dollars was a pretty fair ballpark figure, is that it? Courtesy of the Treadstone budget.”
“I told you, I didn’t know. Treadstone didn’t exist for me; in many ways it still doesn’t.”
“I forgot. You lost your memory. What was the word? Disorientation?”
“Yes, but it’s not strong enough. The word is amnesia.”
“Let’s stick to disorientation. Because it seems you oriented yourself straight into Zurich, right to the Gemeinschaft.”
“There was a negative surgically implanted near my hip.”
“There certainly was; you insisted on it. A few of us understood why. It’s the best insurance you can have.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Can’t you understand that?”
“Sure. You found the negative with only a number on it and right away you assumed the name of Jason Bourne.”
“It didn’t happen that way! Each day it seemed I learned something, one step at a time, one revelation at a time. A hotel clerk called me Bourne; I didn’t learn the name Jason until I went to the bank.”
“Where you knew exactly what to do,” interrupted Conklin. “No hesitation at all. In and out, four million gone.”
“Washburn told me what to do!”
“Then a woman came along who just happened to be a financial whiz kid to tell you how to squirrel away the rest. And before that you took out Chernak in the Löwenstrasse and three men we didn’t know but figured they sure as hell knew you. And here in Paris, another shot in a bank transfer truck. Another associate? You covered every track, every goddamned track. Until there was only one thing left to do. And you—you son of a bitch—you did it.”
“Will you listen to me! Those men tried to kill me; they’ve been hunting me since Marseilles. Beyond that, I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about. Things come to me at times. Faces, streets, buildings; sometimes just images I can’t place, but I know they mean something, only I can’t relate to them. And names—there are names, but then no faces. Goddamn you—I’m an amnesiac! That’s the truth!”
“One of those names wouldn’t be Carlos, would it?”
“Yes, and you know it. That’s the point; you know much more about it than I do. I can recite a thousand facts about Carlos, but I don’t know why. I was told by a man who’s halfway back to Asia by now I had an agreement with Treadstone. The man worked for Carlos. He said Carlos knows. That Carlos was closing in on me, that you put out the word that I’d turned. He couldn’t understand the strategy, and I couldn’t tell him. You thought I’d turned because you didn’t hear from me, and I couldn’t reach you because I didn’t know who you were. I still don’t know who you are!”
“Or the Monk, I suppose.”
“Yes, yes … the Monk. His name was Abbott.”
“Very good. And the Yachtsman? You remember the Yachtsman, don’t you? And his wife?”
“Names. They’re there, yes. No faces.”
“Elliot Stevens?”
“Nothing.”
“Or … Gordon Webb.” Conklin said the name quietly.
“What?” Bourne felt the jolt in his chest, then a stinging, searing pain that drove through his temples to his eyes. His eyes were on fire! Fire! Explosions and darkness, high winds and pain.… Almanac to Delta! Abandon, abandon! You will respond as ordered. Abandon! “Gordon …” Jason heard his own voice, but it was far away in a faraway wind. He closed his eyes, the eyes that burned so, and tried to push the mists away. Then he opened his eyes and was not at all surprised to see Conklin’s gun aimed at his head.
“I don’t know how you did it, but you did. The only thing left to do and you did it. You got back to New York and blew them all away. You butchered them, you son of a bitch. I wish to Christ I could bring you back and see you strapped into an electric chair, but I can’t, so I’ll do the next best thing. I’ll take you myself.”
“I haven’t been in New York for months. Before then, I don’t know—but not in the last half-year.”
“Liar! Why didn’t you do it really right? Why didn’t you time your goddamn stunt so you could get to the funerals? The Monk’s was just the other day; you would have seen a lot of old friends. And your brother’s! Jesus God Almighty! You could have escorted his wife down the aisle of the church. Maybe delivered the eulogy, that’d be the kicker. At least speak well of the brother you killed.”
“Brother?… Stop it! For Christ’s sake, stop it!”
“Why should I? Cain lives! We made him and he came to life!”
“I’m not Cain. He never was! I never was!”
“So you do know! Liar! Bastard!”
“Put that gun away. I’m telling you, put it down!”
“No chance. I swore to myself I’d give you two minutes because I wanted to hear what you’d come up with. Well, I’ve heard it and it smells. Who gave you the right? We all lose things; it goes with the job, and if you don’t like the goddamned job you get out. If there’s no accommodation you fade; that’s what I thought you did, and I was willing to pass on you, to convince the others to let you fade! But no, you came back, and turned your gun on us.”
“No! It’s not true!”
“Tell that to the laboratory techs, who have eight fragments of glass that spell out two prints. Third and index fingers, right hand. You were there and you butchered five people. You—one of them—took out your guns—plural—and blew them away. Perfect setup. Discredited strategy. Varied shells, multiple bullets, infiltration. Treadstone’s aborted and you walk out free.”
“No, you’re wrong! It was Carlos. Not me, Carlos. If what you’re saying took place on Seventy-first Street, it was him! He knows. They know. A residence on Seventy-first Street. Number 139. They know about it!”
Conklin nodded, his eyes clouded, the loathing in them seen in the dim light, through the rain. “So perfect,” he said slowly. “The prime mover of the strategy blows it apart by making a deal with the target. What’s your take besides the four million? Carlos give you immunity from his own particular brand of persecution? You two make a lovely couple.”
“That’s crazy!”
“And accurate,” completed the man from Treadstone. “Only nine people alive knew that address before seven-thirty last Friday night. Three of them were killed, and we’re the other four. If Carlos found it, there’s only one person who could have told him. You.”
“How could I? I didn’t know it. I don’t know it!”
“You just said it.” Conklin’s left hand gripped the cane; it was a prelude to firing, steadying a crippled foot.
“Don’t!” shouted Bourne, knowing the plea was useless, spinning to his left as he shouted, his right foot lashing out at the wrist that held the gun. Che-sah! was the unknown word that was the silent scream in his head. Conklin fell back, firing wildly in the air, tripping over his cane. Jason spun around and down, now hammering his left foot at the weapon; it flew out of the hand that held it.
Conklin rolled on the ground, his eyes on the far columns of the mausoleum, expecting an explosion from the gun that would blow his attacker into the air. No! The man from Treadstone rolled again. Now to the right, his features in shock, his wild eyes focused on—There was someone else!
Bourne crouched, diving diagonally backward as four gunshots came in rapid succession, three screeching ricochets spinning off beyond sound. He rolled over and over and over, pulling the automatic from his belt. He saw the man in the rain; a silhouetted figure rising above a gravestone. He fired twice; the man collapsed.
Ten feet away Conklin was thrashing on the wet grass, both hands spreading frantically over the ground, feeling for the steel of a gun. Bourne sprang up and raced over; he knelt beside the Treadstone man, one hand grabbing the wet hair, the other holding his automatic, its barrel pressed into Conklin’s skull. From the far columns of the mausoleum came a prolonged, shattering scream. It grew steadily, eerily in volume, then stopped.
“That’s your hired shotgun,” said Jason, yanking Conklin’s head to the side. “Treadstone’s taken on some very strange employees. Who was the other man? What death row did you spring him from?”
“He was a better man than you ever were,” replied Conklin, his voice strained, the rain glistening on his face, caught in the beam of the fallen flashlight six feet away on the ground. “They all are. They’ve all lost as much as you lost, but they never turned. We can count on them!”
“No matter what I say, you won’t believe me. You don’t want to believe me!”
“Because I know what you are—what you did. You just confirmed the whole damn thing. You can kill me, but they’ll get you. You’re the worst kind. You think you’re special. You always did. I saw you after Phnom Penh—everybody lost out there, but that didn’t count with you. It was only you, just you! Then in Medusa! No rules for Delta! The animal just wanted to kill. And that’s the kind that turns. Well, I lost too, but I never turned. Go on! Kill me! Then you can go back to Carlos. But when I don’t come back, they’ll know. They’ll come after you and they won’t stop until they get you. Go on! Shoot!”
Conklin was shouting, but Bourne could hardly hear him. Instead he had heard two words and the jolts of pain hammered at his temples. Phnom Penh! Phnom Penh. Death in the skies, from the skies. Death of the young and the very young. Screeching birds and screaming machines and the deathlike stench of the jungle … and a river. He was blinded again, on fire again.
Beneath him the man from Treadstone had broken away. His crippled figure was crawling in panic, lunging, his hands surging through the wet grass. Jason blinked, trying to force his mind to come back to him. Then instantly he knew he had to point the automatic and fire. Conklin had found his gun and was raising it. But Bourne could not pull the trigger.
He dove to his right, rolling on the ground, scrambling toward the marble columns of the mausoleum. Conklin’s gunshots were wild, the crippled man unable to steady his leg or his aim. Then the firing stopped and Jason got to his feet, his face against the smooth wet stone. He looked out, his automatic raised; he had to kill this man, for this man would kill him, kill Marie, link them both to Carlos.
Conklin was hobbling pathetically toward the gates, turning constantly, the gun extended, his destination a car outside in the road. Bourne raised his automatic, the crippled figure in his gunsight. A split half-second and it would be over, his enemy from Treadstone dead, hope found with that death, for there were reasonable men in Washington.
He could not do it; he could not pull the trigger. He lowered the gun, standing helpless by the marble column as Conklin climbed into his car.
The car. He had to get back to Paris. There was a way. It had been there all along. She had been there!
He rapped on the door, his mind racing, facts analyzed, absorbed and discarded as rapidly as they came to him, a strategy evolving. Marie recognized the knock; she opened the door.
“Dear God, look at you! What happened?”
“No time,” he said, rushing toward the telephone across the room. “It was a trap. They’re convinced I turned, sold out to Carlos.”
“What?”
“They say I flew into New York last week, last Friday. That I killed five people … among them a brother.” Jason closed his eyes briefly. “There was a brother—is a brother. I don’t know, I can’t think about it now.”
“You never left Paris! You can prove it!”
“How? Eight, ten hours, that’s all I’d need. And eight or ten hours unaccounted for is all they need now. Who’s going to come forward?”
“I will. You’ve been with me.”
“They think you’re part of it,” said Bourne, picking up the telephone and dialing. “The theft, the turning, Port Noir, the whole damn thing. They’ve locked you into me. Carlos engineered this down to the last fragment of a fingerprint. Christ! Did he put it together!”
“What are you doing? Whom are you calling?”
“Our backup, remember? The only one we’ve got. Villiers. Villiers’ wife. She’s the one. We’re going to take her, break her, put her on a hundred racks if we have to. But we won’t have to; she won’t fight because she can’t win.… Goddamn it, why doesn’t he answer?”
“The private phone’s in his office. It’s three in the morning. He’s probably—”
“He’s on! General? Is that you?” Jason had to ask; the voice on the line was oddly quiet, but not the quiet of interrupted sleep.
“Yes, it is I, my young friend. I apologize for the delay. I’ve been upstairs with my wife.”
“That’s whom I’m calling about. We’ve got to move. Now. Alert French Intelligence, Interpol and the American Embassy but tell them not to interfere until I’ve seen her, talked to her. We have to talk.”
“I don’t think so, Mr. Bourne.… Yes, I know your name, my friend. As for your talking to my wife, however, I’m afraid that’s not possible. You see, I’ve killed her.”