Rock music blared from the transistor radio with tin-like vibrations as the long-haired driver of the Yellow Cab slapped his hand against the rim of the steering wheel and jolted his jaw with the beat. The taxi edged east on Seventy-first Street, locked into the line of cars that began at the exit on the East River Drive. Tempers flared as engines roared in place and cars lurched forward only to slam to sudden stops, inches away from bumpers in front. It was 8:45 in the morning, New York’s rush hour traffic as usual a contradiction in terms.
Bourne wedged himself into the corner of the back seat and stared at the tree-lined street beneath the rim of his hat and through the dark lenses of his sunglasses. He had been there; it was all indelible. He had walked the pavements, seen the doorways and the storefronts and the walls covered with ivy—so out of place in the city, yet so right for this street. He had glanced up before and had noticed the roof gardens, relating them to a gracious garden several blocks away toward the park, beyond a pair of elegant French doors at the far end of a large … complicated … room. That room was inside a tall, narrow building of brown, jagged stone, with a column of wide, lead-paned windows rising four stories above the pavement. Windows made of thick glass that refracted light both inside and out in subtle flashes of purple and blue. Antique glass, perhaps, ornamental glass … bulletproof glass. A brownstone residence with a set of thick outside steps. They were odd steps, unusual steps, each level crisscrossed with black ridges that protruded above the surface, protecting the descender from the elements. Shoes going down would not slip on ice or snow … and the weight of anyone climbing up would trigger electronic devices inside.
Jason knew that house, knew they were coming closer to it. The echo in his chest accelerated and became louder as they entered the block. He would see it any moment, and as he held his wrist, he knew why Parc Monceau had struck such chords in his mind’s eye. That small part of Paris was so much like this short stretch of the Upper East Side. Except for an isolated intrusion of an unkempt stoop or an ill-conceived whitewashed façade, they could be identical blocks.
He thought of André Villiers. He had written down everything he could remember since a memory had been given him in the pages of a notebook hastily purchased at Charles de Gaulle Airport. From the first moment when a living, bullet-ridden man had opened his eyes in a humid, dingy room on Ile de Port Noir through the frightening revelations of Marseilles, Zurich and Paris—especially Paris, where the specter of an assassin’s mantle had fallen over his shoulders, the expertise of a killer proven to be his. By any standards, it was a confession, as damning in what it could not explain as in what it described. But it was the truth as he knew the truth, infinitely more exculpatory after his death than before it. In the hands of André Villiers it would be used well; the right decisions would be made for Marie St. Jacques. That knowledge gave him the freedom he needed now. He had sealed the pages in an envelope and mailed it to Parc Monceau from Kennedy Airport. By the time it reached Paris he would be alive or he would be dead; he would kill Carlos or Carlos would kill him. Somewhere on that street—so like a street thousands of miles away—a man whose shoulders floated rigidly above a tapered waist would come after him. It was the only thing he was absolutely sure of; he would do the same. Somewhere on that street …
There it was! It was there, the morning sun bouncing off the black enameled door and the shiny brass hardware, penetrating the thick, lead-paned windows that rose like a wide column of glistening, purplish blue, emphasizing the ornamental splendor of the glass, but not its resistance to the impacts of high-powered rifles and heavy-calibered automatic weapons. He was here, and for reasons—emotions—he could not define, his eyes began to tear and there was a swelling in his throat. He had the incredible feeling that he had come back to a place that was as much a part of him as his body or what was left of his mind. Not a home; there was no comfort, no serenity found in looking at that elegant East Side residence. But there was something else—an overpowering sensation of—return. He was back at the beginning, the beginning, at both departure and creation, black night and bursting dawn. Something was happening to him; he gripped his wrist harder, desperately trying to control the almost uncontrollable impulse to jump out of the taxi and race across the street to that monstrous, silent structure of jagged stone and deep blue glass. He wanted to leap up the steps and hammer his fist against the heavy black door.
Let me in! I am here! You must let me in! Can’t you understand?
I AM INSIDE!
Images welled up in front of his eyes; jarring sounds assaulted his ears. A jolting, throbbing pain kept exploding at his temples. He was inside a dark room—that room—staring at a screen, at other, inner images that kept flashing on and off in rapid, blinding succession.
Who is he? Quickly. You’re too late! You’re a dead man. Where is this street? What does it mean to you? Whom did you meet there? What? Good. Keep it simple; say as little as possible. Here’s a list: eight names. Which are contacts? Quickly! Here’s another. Methods of matching kills. Which are yours?… No, no, no! Delta might do that, not Cain! You are not Delta, you are not you! You are Cain. You are a man named Bourne. Jason Bourne! You slipped back. Try again. Concentrate! Obliterate everything else. Wipe away the past. It does not exist for you. You are only what you are here, became here!
Oh, God. Marie had said it.
Maybe you just know what you’ve been told.… Over and over and over again. Until there was nothing else.… Things you’ve been told … but you can’t relive … because they’re not you.
The sweat rolled clown his face, stinging his eyes, as he dug his fingers into his wrist, trying to push the pain and the sounds and the flashes of light out of his mind. He had written Carlos that he was coming back for hidden documents that were his … “final protection.” At that time, the phrase had struck him as weak; he had nearly crossed it out, wanting a stronger reason for flying to New York. Yet instinct had told him to let it stand; it was a part of his past … somehow. Now he understood. His identity was inside that house. His identity. And whether Carlos came after him or not, he had to find it. He had to!
It was suddenly insane! He shook his head violently back and forth trying to suppress the compulsion, to still the screams that were all around him—screams that were his screams, his voice. Forget Carlos. Forget the trap. Get inside that house! It was there; it was the beginning!
Stop it!
The irony was macabre. There was no final protection in that house, only a final explanation for himself. And it was meaningless without Carlos. Those who hunted him knew it and disregarded it; they wanted him dead because of it. But he was so close … he had to find it. It was there.
Bourne glanced up; the long-haired driver was watching him in the rearview mirror. “Migraine,” said Jason curtly. “Drive around the block. To this block again. I’m early for my appointment. I’ll tell you where to let me off.”
The brownstone was behind them now, passed quickly in a sudden, brief break in the traffic. Bourne swung around in the seat and looked at it through the rear window. The seizure was receding, the sights and sound of personal panic fading; only the pain remained, but it too would diminish, he knew that. It had been an extraordinary few minutes. Priorities had become twisted; compulsion had replaced reason, the pull of the unknown had been so strong that for a moment or two he had nearly lost control. He could not let it happen again; the trap itself was everything. He had to see that house again; he had to study it again. He had all day to work, to refine his strategy, his tactics for the night, but a second, calmer appraisal was in order now. Others would come during the day, closer appraisals. The chameleon in him would be put to work.
Sixteen minutes later it was obvious that whatever he intended to study no longer mattered. Suddenly, everything was different, everything had changed. The line of traffic in the block was slower, another hazard added to the street. A moving van had parked in front of the brownstone; men in coveralls stood smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee, putting off that moment when work was to commence. The heavy black door was open and a man in a green jacket, the moving company’s emblem above the left pocket, stood in the foyer, a clipboard in his hand. Treadstone was being dismantled! In a few hours it could be gutted, a shell! It couldn’t be! They had to stop!
Jason leaned forward, money in his hand, the pain gone from his head; all was movement now. He had to reach Conklin in Washington. Not later—not when the chess pieces were in place—but right now! Conklin had to tell them to stop! His entire strategy was based on darkness … always darkness. The beam of a flashlight shooting out of first one alleyway, then another, then against dark walls and up to darkened windows. Orchestrated properly, swiftly, darting from one position to another. An assassin would be drawn to a stone building at night. At night. It would happen at night! Not now! He got out.
“Hey, mister!” yelled the driver through the open window.
Jason bent down. “What is it?”
“I just wanted to say thanks. This makes my—”
A spit. Over his shoulder! Followed by a cough that was the start of a scream. Bourne stared at the driver, at the stream of blood that had erupted over the man’s left ear. The man was dead, killed by a bullet meant for his fare, fired from a window somewhere in that street.
Jason dropped to the ground, then sprang to his left spinning toward the curb. Two more spits came in rapid succession, the first imbedded in the side of the taxi, the second exploding the asphalt. It was unbelievable! He was marked before the hunt had begun! Carlos was there. In position! He or one of his men had taken the high ground, a window or a rooftop from which the entire street could be observed. Yet the possibility of indiscriminate death caused by a killer in a window or on a rooftop was crazy; the police would come, the street blocked off, even a reverse trap aborted. And Carlos was not crazy! It did not make sense. Nor did Bourne have the time to speculate; he had to get out of the trap … the reverse trap. He had to get to that phone. Carlos was here! At the doors of Treadstone! He had brought him back. He had actually brought him back! It was his proof!
He got to his feet and began running, weaving in and out of the groups of pedestrians. He reached the corner and turned right—the booth was twenty feet away, but it was also a target. He could not use it.
Across the street was a delicatessen, a small rectangular sign above the door: TELEPHONE. He stepped off the curb and started running again, dodging the lurching automobiles. One of them might do the job Carlos had reserved for himself. That irony, too, was macabre.
“The Central Intelligence Agency, sir, is fundamentally a fact-finding organization,” said the man on the line condescendingly. “The sort of activities you describe are the rarest part of our work, and frankly blown out of proportion by films and misinformed writers.”
“Goddamn it, listen to me!” said Jason, cupping the mouthpiece in the crowded delicatessen. “Just tell me where Conklin is. It’s an emergency!”
“His office already told you, sir. Mr. Conklin left yesterday afternoon and is expected back at the end of the week. Since you say you know Mr. Conklin, you’re aware of his service-related injury. He often goes for physical therapy—”
“Will you stop it! I saw him in Paris—outside of Paris—two nights ago. He flew over from Washington to meet me.”
“As to that,” interrupted the man in Langley, “when you were transferred to this office, we’d already checked. There’s no record of Mr. Conklin having left the country in over a year.”
“Then it’s buried! He was there! You’re looking for codes,” said Bourne desperately. “I don’t have them. But someone working with Conklin will recognize the words. Medusa, Delta, Cain … Treadstone! Someone has to!”
“No one does. You were told that.”
“By someone who doesn’t. There are those who do. Believe me!”
“I’m sorry. I really—”
“Don’t hang up!” There was another way; one he did not care to use, but there was nothing else. “Five or six minutes ago, I got out of a taxi on Seventy-first Street. I was spotted and someone tried to take me out.”
“Take … you out?’
“Yes. The driver spoke to me and I bent down to listen. That movement saved my life, but the driver’s dead, a bullet in his skull. That’s the truth, and I know you have ways of checking. There are probably half a dozen police cars on the scene by now. Check it out. That’s the strongest advice I can give you.”
There was a brief silence from Washington. “Since you asked for Mr. Conklin—at least used his name—I’ll follow this up. Where can I reach you?”
“I’ll stay on. This call’s on an international credit card. French issue, name of Chamford.”
“Chamford? You said—”
“Please.”
“I’ll be back.”
The waiting was intolerable, made worse by a stern Hassid glaring at him, fingering coins in one hand, a roll in another, and crumbs in his stringy, unkempt beard. A minute later the man in Langley was on the line, anger replacing compromise.
“I think this conversation has come to an end, Mr. Bourne or Chamford, or whatever you call yourself. The New York police were reached; there’s no such incident as you described on Seventy-first Street. And you were right. We do have ways of checking. I advise you that there are laws about such calls as this, strict penalties involved. Good day, sir.”
There was a click; the line went dead. Bourne stared at the dial in disbelief. For months the men in Washington had searched for him, wanted to kill him for the silence they could not understand. Now, when he presented himself—presented them with the sole objective of his three-year agreement—he was dismissed. They still would not listen! But that man had listened. And he had come back on the line denying a death that had taken place only minutes ago. It could not be … it was insane. It had happened.
Jason put the phone back on the hook, tempted to bolt from the crowded delicatessen. Instead, he walked calmly toward the door, excusing himself through the rows of people lined up at the counter, his eyes on the glass front, scanning the crowds on the sidewalk. Outside, he removed his topcoat, carrying it over his arm, and replaced the sunglasses with his tortoise-shells. Minor alterations, but he would not be where he was going long enough for them to be a major mistake. He hurried across the intersection toward Seventy-first Street.
At the far corner he fell in with a group of pedestrians waiting for the light. He turned his head to the left, his chin pressed down into his collarbone. The traffic was moving but the taxi was gone. It had been removed from the scene with surgical precision, a diseased, ugly organ cut from the body, the vital functions in normal process. It showed the precision of a master assassin, who knew precisely when to go in swiftly with a knife.
Bourne turned quickly, reversing his direction, and began walking south. He had to find a store; he had to change his outer skin. The chameleon could not wait.
Marie St. Jacques was angry as she held her place across the room from Brigadier General Irwin Arthur Crawford in the suite at the Pierre Hotel. “You wouldn’t listen!” she accused. “None of you would listen. Have you any idea what you’ve done to him?”
“All too well,” replied the officer, the apology in his acknowledgment, not his voice. “I can only repeat what I’ve told you. We didn’t know what to listen for. The differences between the appearance and the reality were beyond our understanding, obviously beyond his own. And if beyond his, why not ours?”
“He’s been trying to reconcile the appearance and reality, as you call it, for seven months! And all you could do was send out men to kill him! He tried to tell you. What kind of people are you?”
“Flawed, Miss St. Jacques. Flawed but decent, I think. It’s why I’m here. The time span’s begun and I want to save him if I can, if we can.”
“God, you make me sick!” Marie stopped, she shook her head and continued softly. “I’ll do whatever you ask, you know that. Can you reach this Conklin?”
“I’m sure I can. I’ll stand on the steps of that house until he has no choice but to reach me. He may not be our concern, however.”
“Carlos?”
“Perhaps others.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ll explain on the way. Our main concern now—our only concern now—is to reach Delta.”
“Yes. The man you call Jason Bourne.”
“And he’s been one of you from the beginning,” said Marie. “There were no slates to clean, no payments or pardons bargained for?”
“None. You’ll be told everything in time, but this is not the time. I’ve made arrangements for you to be in an unmarked government car diagonally across from the house. We have binoculars for you; you know him better than anyone now. Perhaps you’ll spot him. I pray to God you do.”
Marie went quickly to the closet and got her coat. “He said to me one night that he was a chameleon …”
“He remembered?” interrupted Crawford.
“Remembered what?”
“Nothing. He had a talent for moving in and out of difficult situations without being seen. That’s all I meant.”
“Wait a minute.” Marie approached the army man, her eyes suddenly riveted on his again. “You say we have to reach Jason, but there’s a better way. Let him come to us. To me. Put me on the steps of that house. He’ll see me, get word to me!”
“Giving whoever’s out there two targets?”
“You don’t know your own man, General. I said ‘get word to me.’ He’ll send someone, pay a man or a woman on the street to give me a message. I know him. He’ll do it. It’s the surest way.”
“I can’t permit it.”
“Why not? You’ve done everything else stupidly! Blindly! Do one thing intelligently!”
“I can’t. It might even solve problems you’re not aware of, but I can’t do it.”
“Give me a reason.”
“If Delta’s right, if Carlos has come after him and is in the street, the risk is too great. Carlos knows you from photographs. He’ll kill you.”
“I’m willing to take that risk.”
“I’m not. I’d like to think I’m speaking for my government when I say that.”
“I don’t think you are, frankly.”
“Leave it to others. May we go, please?”
“General Service Administration,” intoned a disinterested switchboard operator.
“Mr. J. Petrocelli, please,” said Alexander Conklin, his voice tense, his fingers wiping the sweat from his forehead as he stood by the window, the telephone in his hand. “Quickly, please!”
“Everybody’s in a hurry—” The words were shorted out, replaced by the hum of a ring.
“Petrocelli, Reclamation Invoice Division.”
“What are you people doing?” exploded the CIA man, the shock calculated, a weapon.
The pause was brief. “Right now, listening to some nut ask a stupid question.”
“Well, listen further. My name’s Conklin, Central Intelligence Agency, Four-Zero clearance. You do know what that means?”
“I haven’t understood anything you people’ve said in the past ten years.”
“You’d better understand this. It took me damn near an hour, but I just reached the dispatcher for a moving company up here in New York. He said he had an invoice signed by you to remove all the furniture from a brownstone on Seventy-first Street—139, to be exact.”
“Yeah, I remember that one. What about it?”
“Who gave you the order? That’s our territory. We removed our equipment last week, but we did not—repeat, did not—request any further activity.”
“Just hold it,” said the bureaucrat. “I saw that invoice. I mean, I read it before I signed it; you guys make me curious. The order came directly from Langley on a priority sheet.”
“Who in Langley?”
“Give me a moment and I’ll tell you. I’ve got a copy in my out file; it’s here on my desk.” The crackling of paper could be heard on the line. It stopped and Petrocelli returned. “Here it is, Conklin. Take up your beef with your own people in Administrative Controls.”
“They didn’t know what they were doing. Cancel the order. Call up the moving company and tell them to clear out! Now!”
“Blow smoke, spook.”
“What?”
“Get a written priority requisition on my desk before three o’clock this afternoon, and it may—just may—get processed tomorrow. Then we’ll put everything back.”
“Put everything back?”
“That’s right. You tell us to take it out, we take it out. You tell us to put it back, we put it back. We have methods and procedures to follow just like you.”
“That equipment—everything—was on loan! It wasn’t—isn’t—an Agency operation.”
“Then why are you calling me? What have you got to do with it?”
“I don’t have time to explain. Just get those people out of there. Call New York and get them out! Those are Four-Zero orders.”
“Make them a hundred and four and you can still blow smoke. Look, Conklin, we both know you can get what you want if I get what I need. Do it right. Make it legitimate.”
“I can’t involve the Agency!”
“You’re not going to involve me, either.”
“Those people have got to get out! I’m telling you—” Conklin stopped, his eyes on the brownstone below and across the street, his thoughts suddenly paralyzed. A tall man in a black overcoat had walked up the concrete steps; he turned and stood motionless in front of the open door. It was Crawford. What was he doing? What was he doing here? He had lost his senses; he was out of his mind! He was a stationary target; he could break the trap!
“Conklin? Conklin …?” The voice floated up out of the phone as the CIA man hung up.
Conklin turned to a stocky man six feet away at an adjacent window. In the man’s large hand was a rifle, a telescopic sight secured to the barrel. Alex did not know the man’s name and he did not want to know it; he had paid enough not to be burdened.
“Do you see that man down there in the black overcoat standing by the door?” he asked.
“I see him. He’s not the one we’re looking for. He’s too old.”
“Get over there and tell him there’s a cripple across the street who wants to see him.”
Bourne walked out of the used clothing store on Third Avenue, pausing in front of the filthy glass window to appraise what he saw. It would do; everything was coordinated. The black wool knit hat covered his head to the middle of his forehead; the wrinkled, patched army field jacket was several sizes too large; the red-checked flannel shirt, the wide-bulging khaki trousers and the heavy work shoes with the thick rubber soles and huge rounded toes were all of a piece. He only had to find a walk to match the clothing. The walk of a strong, slow-witted man whose body had begun to show the effects of a lifetime of physical strain, whose mind accepted the daily inevitability of hard labor, reward found with a six-pack at the end of the drudgery.
He would find that walk; he had used it before. Somewhere. But before he searched his imagination, there was a phone call to make; he saw a telephone booth up the block, a mangled directory hanging from a chain beneath the metal shelf. He started walking, his legs automatically more rigid, his feet pressing weight on the pavement, his arms heavy in their sockets, the fingers of his hands slightly spaced, curved from years of abuse. A set, dull expression on his face would come later. Not now.
“Belkins Moving and Storage,” announced an operator somewhere in the Bronx.
“My name is Johnson,” said Jason impatiently but kindly. “I’m afraid I have a problem, and I hope you might be able to help me.”
“I’ll try, sir. What is it?”
“I was on my way over to a friend’s house on Seventy-first Street—a friend who died recently, I’m sorry to say—to pick up something I’d lent him. When I got there, your van was in front of the house. It’s most embarrassing, but I think your men may remove my property. Is there someone I might speak to?”
“That would be a dispatcher, sir.”
“Might I have his name, please?”
“What?”
“His name.”
“Sure. Murray. Murray Schumach. I’ll connect you.” Two clicks preceded a long hum over the line.
“Schumach.”
“Mr. Schumach?”
“That’s right.”
Bourne repeated his embarrassing tale. “Of course, I can easily obtain a letter from my attorney, but the item in question has little or no value—”
“What is it?”
“A fishing rod. Not an expensive one, but with an old-fashioned casting reel, the kind that doesn’t get tangled every five minutes.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean. I fish out of Sheepshead Bay. They don’t make them reels like they used to. I think it’s the alloys.”
“I think you’re right, Mr. Schumach. I know exactly in which closet he kept it.”
“Oh, what the hell—a fishing rod. Go up and see a guy named Dugan, he’s the supervisor on the job. Tell him I said you could have it, but you’ll have to sign for it. If he gives you static, tell him to go outside and call me; the phone’s disconnected down there.”
“A Mr. Dugan. Thank you very much, Mr. Schumach.”
“Christ, that place is a ballbreaker today!”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Nothing. Some whacko called telling us to get out of there. And the job’s firm, cash guaranteed. Can you believe it?”
Carlos. Jason could believe it.
“It’s difficult, Mr. Schumach.”
“Good fishing,” said the Belkins man.
Bourne walked west on Seventieth Street to Lexington Avenue. Three blocks south he found what he was looking for: an army-navy surplus store. He went inside.
Eight minutes later he came out carrying four brown, padded blankets and six wide canvas straps with metal buckles. In the pockets of his field jacket were two ordinary road flares. They had been there on the counter looking like something they were not, triggering images beyond memory, back to a moment of time when there had been meaning and purpose. And anger. He slung the equipment over his left shoulder and trudged up toward Seventy-first Street. The chameleon was heading into the jungle, a jungle as dense as the unremembered Tam Quan.
It was 10:48 when he reached the corner of the tree-lined block that held the secrets of Treadstone Seventy-One. He was going back to the beginning—his beginning—and the fear that he felt was not the fear of physical harm. He was prepared for that, every sinew taut, every muscle ready; his knees and feet, hands and elbows weapons, his eyes trip-wire alarms that would send signals to those weapons. His fear was far more profound. He was about to enter the place of his birth and he was terrified at what he might find there—remember there.
Stop it! The trap is everything. Cain is for Charlie and Delta is for Cain!
The traffic had diminished considerably, the rush hour over, the street in the doldrums of midmorning quiescence. Pedestrians strolled now, they did not hasten; automobiles swung leisurely around the moving van, angry horns replaced by brief grimaces of irritation. Jason crossed with the light to the Treadstone side; the tall, narrow structure of brown, jagged stone and thick blue glass was fifty yards down the block. Blankets and straps in place, an already weary, slow-witted laborer walked behind a well-dressed couple toward it.
He reached the concrete steps as two muscular men, one
black, one white, were carrying a covered harp out the door. Bourne stopped and called out, his words halting, his dialect coarse.
“Hey! Where’s Doogan?”
“Where the hell d’you t’ink?” replied the white, angling his head around. “Sittin’ in a fuckin’ chair.”
“He ain’t gonna lift nothin’ heavier than that clipboard, man,” added the black. “He’s an executive, ain’t that right, Joey?”
“He’s a crumbball, is what he is. Watcha’ got there?”
“Schumach sent me,” said Jason. “He wanted another man down here and figured you needed this stuff. Told me to bring it.”
“Murray the menace!” laughed the black. “You new, man? I ain’t seen you before. You come from shape-up?”
“Yeah.”
“Take that shit up to the executive,” grunted Joey, starting down the steps. “He can allocate it, how about that, Pete? Allocate—you like it?”
“I love it, Joey. You a regular dictionary.”
Bourne walked up the reddish brown steps past the descending movers to the door. He stepped inside and saw the winding staircase on the right, and the long narrow corridor in front of him that led to another door thirty feet away. He had climbed those steps a thousand times, walked up and down that corridor thousands more. He had come back, and an overpowering sense of dread swept through him. He started down the dark, narrow corridor; he could see shafts of sunlight bursting through a pair of French doors in the distance. He was approaching the room where Cain was born. That room. He gripped the straps on his shoulder and tried to stop the trembling.
Marie leaned forward in the back seat of the armor-plated government sedan, the binoculars in place. Something had happened; she was not sure what it was, but she could guess. A short, stocky man had passed by the steps of the brownstone a few minutes ago, slowing his pace as he approached the general, obviously saying something to him. The man had then continued down the block and seconds later Crawford had followed him.
Conklin had been found.
It was a small step if what the general said was true. Hired gunmen, unknown to their employer, he unknown to them. Hired to kill a man … for all the wrong reasons! Oh, God, she loathed them all! Mindless, stupid men. Playing with the lives of other men, knowing so little, thinking they knew so much.
They had not listened! They never listened until it was too late, and then only with stern forbearance and strong reminders of what might have been—had things been as they were perceived to be, which they were not. The corruption came from blindness, the lies from obstinacy and embarrassment. Do not embarrass the powerful; the napalm said it all.
Marie focused the binoculars. A Belkins man was approaching the steps, blankets and straps over his shoulder, walking behind an elderly couple, obviously residents of the block out for a stroll. The man in the field jacket and the black knit hat stopped; he began talking to two other movers carrying a triangular-shaped object out the door.
What was it? There was something … something odd. She could not see the man’s face; it was hidden from view, but there was something about the neck, the angle of the head … what was it? The man started up the steps, a blunt man, weary of his day before it had begun … a slovenly man. Marie removed the binoculars; she was too anxious, too ready to see things that were not there.
Oh, God, my love, my Jason. Where are you? Come to me. Let me find you. Do not leave me for these blind, mindless men. Do not let them take you from me.
Where was Crawford? He had promised to keep her informed of every move, everything. She had been blunt. She did not trust him, any of them; she did not trust their intelligence, that word spelled with a lower-case i. He had promised … where was he?
She spoke to the driver. “Will you put down the window, please. It’s stifling in here.”
“Sorry, miss,” replied the civilian-clothed army man. “I’ll turn on the air conditioning for you, though.”
The windows and doors were controlled by buttons only the driver could reach. She was in a glass and metal tomb in a sun-drenched, tree-lined street.
“I don’t believe a word of it!” said Conklin, limping angrily across the room back to the window. He leaned against the sill, looking out, his left hand pulled up to his face, his teeth against the knuckle of his index finger. “Not a goddamned word!”
“You don’t want to believe it, Alex,” countered Crawford. “The solution is so much easier. It’s in place, and so much simpler.”
“You didn’t hear that tape. You didn’t hear Villiers!”
“I’ve heard the woman; she’s all I have to hear. She said we didn’t listen … you didn’t listen.”
“Then she’s lying!” Awkwardly Conklin spun around. “Christ, of course she’s lying! Why wouldn’t she? She’s his woman. She’ll do anything to get him off the meathook.”
“You’re wrong and you know it. The fact that he’s here proves you’re wrong, proves I was wrong to accept what you said.”
Conklin was breathing heavily, his right hand trembling as he gripped his cane. “Maybe … maybe we, maybe …” He did not finish; instead he looked at Crawford helplessly.
“We ought to let the solution stand?” asked the officer quietly. “You’re tired, Alex. You haven’t slept for several days; you’re exhausted. I don’t think I heard that.”
“No.” The CIA man shook his head, his eyes closed, his face reflecting his disgust. “No, you didn’t hear it and I didn’t say it. I just wish I knew where the hell to begin.”
“I do,” said Crawford, going to the door and opening it. “Come in, please.”
The stocky man walked in, his eyes darting to the rifle leaning against the wall. He looked at the two men, appraisal in his expression. “What is it?”
“The exercise has been called off,” Crawford said. “I think you must have gathered that.”
“What exercise? I was hired to protect him.” The gunman looked at Alex. “You mean you don’t need protection anymore, sir?”
“You know exactly what we mean,” broke in Conklin. “All signals are off, all stipulations.”
“What stipulations? I don’t know about any stipulations. The terms of my employment are very clear. I’m protecting you, sir.”
“Good, fine,” said Crawford. “Now what we have to know is who else out there is protecting him.”
“Who else where?”
“Outside this room, this apartment. In other rooms, on the street, in cars, perhaps. We have to know.”
The stocky man walked over to the rifle and picked it up. “I’m afraid you gentlemen have misunderstood. I was hired on an individual basis. If others were employed, I’m not aware of them.”
“You do know them!” shouted Conklin. “Who are they? Where are they?”
“I haven’t any idea … sir.” The courteous gunman held the rifle in his right arm, the barrel angled down toward the floor. He raised it perhaps two inches, no more than that, the movement barely perceptible. “If my services are no longer required, I’ll be leaving.”
“Can you reach them?” interrupted the brigadier. “We’ll pay generously.”
“I’ve already been paid generously, sir. It would be wrong to accept money for a service I can’t perform. And pointless for this to continue.”
“A man’s life is at stake out there!” shouted Conklin.
“So’s mine,” said the gunman, walking to the door, the weapon raised higher. “Goodbye, gentlemen.” He let himself out.
“Jesus!” roared Alex, swinging back to the window, his cane clattering against a radiator. “What do we do?”
“To start with, get rid of that moving company. I don’t know what part it played in your strategy, but it’s only a complication now.”
“I can’t. I tried. I didn’t have anything to do with it. Agency Controls picked up our sheets when we had the equipment taken out. They saw that a store was being closed up and told GSA to get us the hell out of there.”
“With all deliberate speed,” said Crawford, nodding. “The Monk covered that equipment by signature; his statement absolves the Agency. It’s in his files.”
“That’d be fine if we had twenty-four hours. We don’t even know if we’ve got twenty-four minutes.”
“We’ll still need it. There’ll be a Senate inquiry. Closed, I hope.… Rope off the street.”
“What?”
“You heard me—rope off the street! Call in the police, tell them to rope everything off!”
“Through the Agency? This is domestic.”
“Then I will. Through the Pentagon, from the Joint Chiefs, if I have to. We’re standing around making excuses, when it’s right in front of our eyes! Clear the street, rope it off, bring in a truck with a public address system. Put her in it, put her on a microphone! Let her say anything she likes, let her scream her head off. She was right. He’ll come to her!”
“Do you know what you’re saying?” asked Conklin. “There’ll be questions. Newspapers, television, radio. Everything will be exposed. Publicly.”
“I’m aware of that,” said the brigadier. “I’m also aware that she’ll do it for us if this goes down. She may do it anyway, no matter what happens, but I’d rather try to save a man I didn’t like, didn’t approve of. But I respected him once, and I think I respect him more now.”
“What about another man? If Carlos is really out there, you’re opening the gates for him. You’re handing him his escape.”
“We didn’t create Carlos. We created Cain and we abused him. We took his mind and his memory. We owe him. Go down and get the woman. I’ll use the phone.”
Bourne walked into the large library with the sunlight streaming through the wide, elegant French doors at the far end of the room. Beyond the panes of glass were the high walls of the garden … all around him objects too painful to look at; he knew them and did not know them. They were fragments of dreams—but solid, to be touched, to be felt, to be used—not ephemeral at all. A long hatch table where whiskey was poured, leather armchairs where men sat and talked, bookshelves that housed books and other things—concealed things—that appeared with the touch of buttons. It was a room where a myth was born, a myth that had raced through Southeast Asia and exploded in Europe.
He saw the long, tubular bulge in the ceiling and the darkness came, followed by flashes of light and images on a screen and voices shouting in his ears.
Who is he? Quick. You’re too late! You’re a dead man! Where is this street? What does it mean to you? Whom did you meet there?… Methods of kills. Which are yours? No!… You are not Delta, you are not you!… You are only what you are here, became here!
“Hey! Who the hell are you?” The question was shouted by a large, red-faced man seated in an armchair by the door, a clipboard on his knees. Jason had walked right past him.
“You Doogan?” Bourne asked.
“Yeah.”
“Schumach sent me. Said you needed another man.”
“What for? I got five already, and this fuckin’ place has hallways so tight you can’t hardly get through ’em. They’re climbing asses now.”
“I don’t know. Schumach sent me, that’s all I know. He told me to bring this stuff.” Bourne let the blankets and the straps fall to the floor.
“Murray sends new junk? I mean, that’s new.”
“I don’t—”
“I know, I know! Schumach sent you. Ask Schumach.”
“You can’t. He said to tell you he was heading out to Sheepshead. Be back this afternoon.”
“Oh, that’s great! He goes fishing and leaves me with the shit.… You’re new. You a crumbball from the shape-up?”
“Yeah.”
“That Murray’s a beaut. All I need’s another crumbball. Two wiseass stiffs and now four crumbballs.”
“You want me to start in here? I can start in here.”
“No, asshole! Crumbballs start at the top, you ain’t heard? It’s further away, capisce?”
“Yeah, I capisce.” Jason bent down for the blankets and the straps.
“Leave that junk here—you don’t need it. Get upstairs, top floor, and start with the single wood units. As heavy as you can carry, and don’t give me no union bullshit.”
Bourne circled the landing on the second floor and climbed the narrow staircase to the third, as if drawn by a magnetic force beyond his understanding. He was being pulled to another room high up in the brownstone, a room that held both the comfort of solitude and the frustration of loneliness. The landing above was dark, no lights on, no sunlight bursting through windows anywhere. He reached the top and stood for a moment in silence. Which room was it? There were three doors, two on the left side of the hallway, one on the right. He started walking slowly toward the second door on the left, barely seen in the shadows. That was it; it was where thoughts came in the darkness … memories that haunted him, pained him. Sunlight and the stench of the river and the jungle … screaming machines in the sky, screaming down from the sky. Oh, God, it hurt!
He put his hand on the knob, twisted it and opened the door. Darkness, but not complete. There was a small window at the far end of the room, a black shade pulled down, covering it, but not completely. He could see a thin line of sunlight, so narrow it barely broke through, where the shade met the sill. He walked toward it, toward that thin, tiny shaft of sunlight.
A scratch! A scratch in the darkness! He spun, terrified at the tricks being played on his mind. But it was not a trick! There was a diamondlike flash in the air, light bouncing off steel.
A knife was slashing up at his face.
“I would willingly see you die for what you’ve done,” said Marie, staring at Conklin. “And that realization revolts me.”
“Then there’s nothing I can say to you,” replied the CIA man, limping across the room toward the general. “Other decisions could have been made—by him and by you.”
“Could they? Where was he to start? When that man tried to kill him in Marseilles? In the rue Sarrasin? When they hunted him in Zurich? When they shot at him in Paris? And all the while he didn’t know why. What was he to do?”
“Come out! Goddamn it, come out!”
“He did. And when he did, you tried to kill him.”
“You were there! You were with him. You had a memory.”
“Assuming I knew whom to go to, would you have listened to me?”
Conklin returned her gaze. “I don’t know,” he answered, breaking the contact between them and turning to Crawford. “What’s happening?”
“Washington’s calling me back within ten minutes.”
“But what’s happening?”
“I’m not sure you want to hear it. Federal encroachment on state and municipal law-enforcement statutes. Clearances have to be obtained.”
“Jesus!”
“Look!” The army man suddenly bent down to the window. “The truck’s leaving.”
“Someone got through,” said Conklin.
“Who?”
“I’ll find out.” The CIA man limped to the phone; there were scraps of paper on the table, telephone numbers written hastily. He selected one and dialed. “Give me Schumach … please … Schumach? This is Conklin, Central Intelligence. Who gave you the word?”
The dispatcher’s voice on the line could be heard halfway across the room. “What word? Get off my back! We’re on that job and we’re going to finish it! Frankly I think you’re a whacko—”
Conklin slammed down the phone. “Christ … oh, Christ!” His hand trembled as he gripped the instrument. He picked it up and dialed again, his eyes on another scrap of paper. “Petrocelli. Reclamations,” he commanded. “Petrocelli? Conklin again.”
“You faded out. What happened?”
“No time. Level with me. That priority invoice from Agency Controls. Who signed it?”
“What do you mean, who signed it? The top cat who always signs them. McGivern.”
Conklin’s face turned white. “That’s what I was afraid of,” he whispered, as he lowered the phone. He turned to Crawford, his head quivering as he spoke. “The order to GSA was signed by a man who retired two weeks ago.”
“Carlos …”
“Oh, God!” screamed Marie. “The man carrying the blankets, the straps! The way he held his head, his neck. Angled to the right. It was him! When his head hurts, he favors the right. It was Jason! He went inside.”
Alexander Conklin turned back to the window, his eyes focused on the black enameled door across the way. It was closed.
The hand! The skin … the dark eyes in the thin shaft of light. Carlos!
Bourne whipped his head back as the razorlike edge of the blade sliced the flesh under his chin, the eruption of blood streaming across the hand that held the knife. He lashed his right foot out, catching his unseen attacker in the kneecap, then pivoted and plunged his left heel into the man’s groin. Carlos spun, and again the blade came out of the darkness, now surging toward him, the line of assault directly at his stomach. Jason sprang back off the ground, crossing his wrists, slashing downward, blocking the dark arm that was an extension of the handle. He twisted his fingers inward, yanking his hands together, vicing the forearm beneath his blood-soaked neck and wrenched the arm diagonally up. The knife creased the cloth of his field jacket and once above his chest. Bourne spiraled the arm downward, twisting the wrist now in his grip, crashing his shoulder into the assassin’s body, yanking again as Carlos plunged sideways off balance, his arm pulled half out of its socket.
Jason heard the clatter of the knife on the floor. He lurched toward the sound, at the same time reaching into his belt for his gun. It caught on the cloth; he rolled on the floor, but not quickly enough. The steel toe of a shoe crashed into the side of his head—his temple—and shock waves bolted through him. He rolled again, faster, faster, until he smashed into the wall; coiling upward on his knee, trying to focus through the weaving, obscure shadows in the near total darkness. The flesh of a hand was caught in the thin line of light from the window; he lunged at it, his own hands now claws, his arms battering rams. He gripped the hand, snapping it back, breaking the wrist. A scream filled the room.
A scream and the hollow, lethal cough of a gunshot. An icelike incision had been made in Bourne’s upper left chest, the bullet lodged somewhere near his shoulder blade. In agony, he crouched and sprang again, pummeling the killer with a gun into the wall above a sharp-edged piece of furniture. Carlos lunged away as two more muted shots were fired wildly. Jason dove to his left, freeing his gun, leveling it at the sounds in the darkness. He fired, the explosion deafening, useless. He heard the door crash shut; the killer had raced out into the hallway.
Trying to fill his lungs with air, Bourne crawled toward the door. As he reached it, instinct commanded him to stay at the side and smash his fist into the wood at the bottom. What followed was the core of a terrifying nightmare. There was a short burst of automatic gunfire as the paneled wood splintered, fragments flying across the room. The instant it stopped, Jason raised his own weapon and fired diagonally through the door; the burst was repeated. Bourne spun away, pressing his back against the wall; the eruption stopped and he fired again. There were now two men inches from each other, wanting above all to kill each other. Cain is for Charlie and Delta is for Cain. Get Carlos. Trap Carlos. Kill Carlos!
And then they were not inches from each other. Jason heard racing footsteps, then the sounds of a railing being broken as a figure lurched down the staircase. Carlos was racing below; the pig-animal wanted support; he was hurt. Bourne wiped the blood from his face, from his throat, and moved in front of what was left of the door. He pulled it open and stepped out into the narrow corridor, his gun leveled in front of him. Painfully he made his way toward the top of the dark staircase. Suddenly he heard shouts below.
“What the hell you doin’ man? Pete! Peter!”
Two metallic coughs filled the air.
“Joey! Joey!”
A single spit was heard; bodies crashed to a floor somewhere below.
“Jesus! Jesus, Mother of—!”
Two metallic coughs again, followed by a guttural cry of death. A third man was killed.
What had that third man said? Two wiseass stiffs and now four crumbballs. The moving van was a Carlos operation! The assassin had brought two soldiers with him—the first three crumbballs from the shape-up. Three men with weapons, and he was one with a single gun. Cornered on the top floor of the brownstone. Still Carlos was inside. Inside. If he could get out, it would be Carlos who was cornered! If he could get out. Out!
There was a window at the front end of the hallway, obscured by a black shade. Jason veered toward it, stumbling, holding his neck, creasing his shoulder so to blunt the pain in his chest. He ripped the shade from its spindle; the window was small, the glass here, too, thick, prismatic blocks of purple and blue light shooting through it. It was unbreakable, the frame riveted in place; there was no way he could smash a single pane. And then his eyes were drawn below to Seventy-first Street. The moving van was gone! Someone had to have driven it away … one of Carlos’ soldiers! That left two. Two men, not three. And he was on the high ground; there were always advantages on the high ground.
Grimacing, bent partially over, Bourne made his way to the first door on the left; it was parallel to the top of the staircase. He opened it and stepped inside. From what he could see it was an ordinary bedroom: lamps, heavy furniture, pictures on the walls. He grabbed the nearest lamp, ripped the cord from the wall and carried it out to the railing. He raised it above his head and hurled it down, stepping back as metal and glass crashed below. There was another burst of gunfire, the bullets shredding the ceiling, cutting a path in the plaster. Jason screamed, letting the scream fade into a cry, the cry into a prolonged desperate wail, and then silence. He edged his way to the rear of the railing. He waited. Silence.
It happened. He could hear the slow, cautious footsteps; the killer had been on the second floor landing. The footsteps came closer, became louder, a faint shadow appeared on the dark wall. Now. Bourne sprang out of his recess and fired four shots in rapid succession at the figure on the staircase; a line of bullet holes and eruptions of blood appeared diagonally across the man’s collar. The killer spun, roaring in anger and pain as his neck arched back and his body plummeted down the steps until it was still, sprawled faceup across the bottom three steps. In his hands was a deadly automatic field machine gun with a rod and brace for a stock.
Now. Jason ran over to the top of the staircase and raced down, holding the railing, trying to keep whatever was left of his balance. He could not waste a moment; he might not find another. If he was going to reach the second floor it was now, in the immediate aftermath of the soldier’s death. And as he leaped over the dead body, Bourne knew it was a soldier; it was not Carlos. The man was tall and his skin was white, very white, his features Nordic or northern European, in no way Latin.
Jason ran into the hallway of the second floor, seeking the shadows, hugging the wall. He stopped, listening. There was a sharp scrape in the distance, brief scratch from below. He knew what he had to do now. The assassin was on the first floor. And the sound had not been deliberate; it had not been loud enough or prolonged enough to signify a trap. Carlos was injured—a smashed kneecap or a broken wrist could disorient him to the point where he might collide with a piece of furniture or brush against a wall with a weapon in his hand, briefly losing his balance as Bourne was losing his. It was what he needed to know.
Jason dropped to a crouch and crept back to the staircase, to the dead body sprawled across the steps. He had to pause for a moment; he was losing strength, too much blood. He tried to squeeze the flesh at the top of his throat and press the wound in his chest—anything to stem the bleeding. It was futile; to stay alive he had to get out of the brownstone, away from the place where Cain was born. Jason Bourne … there was no humor in the word association. He found his breath again, reached out and pried the automatic weapon from the dead man’s hands. He was ready.
He was dying and he was ready. Get Carlos. Trap Carlos … Kill Carlos! He could not get out; he knew that. Time was not on his side. The blood would drain out of him before it happened. The end was the beginning: Cain was for Carlos and Delta was for Cain. Only one agonizing question remained: who was Delta? It did not matter. It was behind him now; soon there would be darkness, not violent but peaceful … freedom from that question.
And with his death Marie would be free, his love would be free. Decent men would see to it, led by a decent man in Paris whose son had been killed on rue du Bac, whose life had been destroyed by an assassin’s whore. Within the next few minutes, thought Jason, silently checking the clip in the automatic weapon, he would fulfill his promise to that man, carry out the agreement he had with men he did not know. By doing both, the proof was his. Jason Bourne had died once on this day; he would die again but would take Carlos out with him. He was ready.
He lowered himself to a prone position and crept hands over elbows toward the top of the staircase. He could smell the blood beneath him, the sweet, bland odor penetrating his nostrils, informing him of a practicality. Time was running out. He reached the top step, pulling his legs under him, digging into his pocket for one of the road flares he had purchased at the army-navy store on Lexington Avenue. He knew now why he had felt the compulsion to buy them. He was back in the unremembered Tam Quan, forgotten except for brilliant, blinding flashes of light. The flares had reminded him of that fragment of memory; they would light up a jungle now.
He uncoiled the waxed fuse from the small round recess in the flare head, brought it to his teeth and bit through the cord, shortening the fuse to less than an inch. He reached into his other pocket and took out a plastic lighter; he pressed it against the flare, gripping both in his left hand. Then he angled the rod and the brace of the weapon into his right shoulder, shoving the curved strip of metal into the cloth of his blood-soaked field jacket; it was secure. He stretched out his legs and, snakelike, started down the final flight of steps, head below, feet above, his back scraping the wall.
He reached the midpoint of the staircase. Silence, darkness, all the lights had been extinguished … Lights? Light? Where were the rays of sunlight he had seen in that hallway only minutes ago? They had streamed through a pair of French doors at the far end of the room—that room—beyond the corridor, but he could see only darkness now. The door had been shut; the door beneath him, the only other door in that hallway, was also closed, marked by a thin shaft of light at the bottom. Carlos was making him choose. Behind which door? Or was the assassin using a better strategy? Was he in the darkness of the narrow hallway itself?
Bourne felt a stabbing jolt of pain in his shoulder blade, then an eruption of blood that drenched the flannel shirt beneath his field jacket. Another warning: there was very little time.
He braced himself against the wall, the weapon leveled at the thin posts of the railing, aimed down into the darkness of the corridor. Now! He pulled the trigger. The staccato explosions tore the posts apart as the railing fell, the bullets shattering the walls and the door beneath him. He released the trigger, slipping his hand under the scalding barrel, grabbing the plastic lighter with his right hand, the flare in his left. He spun the flint; the wick took fire and he put it to the short fuse. He pulled his hand back to the weapon and squeezed the trigger again, blowing away everything below. A glass chandelier crashed to a floor somewhere; singing whines of ricochets filled the darkness. And then—light! Blinding light as the flare ignited, firing the jungle, lighting up the trees and the walls, the hidden paths and the mahogany corridors. The stench of death and the jungle was everywhere, and he was there.
Almanac to Delta. Almanac to Delta. Abandon, abandon!
Never. Not now. Not at the end. Cain is for Carlos and Delta is for Cain. Trap Carlos. Kill Carlos!
Bourne rose to his feet, his back pressed against the wall, the flare in his left hand, the exploding weapon in his right. He plunged down into the carpeted underbrush, kicking the door in front of him open, shattering silver frames and trophies that flew off tables and shelves into the air. Into the trees. He stopped; there was no one in that quiet, soundproof, elegant room. No one in the jungle path.
He spun around and lurched back into the hallway, puncturing the walls with a prolonged burst of gunfire. No one.
The door at the end of the narrow, dark corridor. Beyond was the room where Cain was born. Where Cain would die, but not alone.
He held his fire, shifting the flare to his right hand beneath the weapon, reaching into his pocket for the second flare. He pulled it out, and again uncoiled the fuse and brought it to his teeth, severing the cord, now millimeters from its point of contact with the gelatinous incendiary. He shoved the first flare to it; the explosion of light was so bright it pained his eyes. Awkwardly, he held both flares in his left hand and, squinting, his legs and arms losing the battle for balance, approached the door.
It was open, the narrow crack extending from top to bottom on the lock side. The assassin was accommodating, but as he looked at that door, Jason instinctively knew one thing about it that Carlos did not know. It was a part of his past, a part of the room where Cain was born. He reached down with his right hand, bracing the weapon between his forearm and his hip, and gripped the knob.
Now. He shoved the door open six inches and hurled the flares inside. A long staccato burst from a Sten gun echoed throughout the room, throughout the entire house, a thousand dead sounds forming a running chord beneath, as sprays of bullets imbedded in a lead shield backed by a steel plate in the door.
The firing stopped, a final clip expended. Now. Bourne whipped his hand back to the trigger, crashed his shoulder into the door and lunged inside, firing in circles as he rolled on the floor, swinging his legs counterclockwise. Gunshots were returned wildly as Jason honed his weapon toward the source. A roar of fury burst from blindness across the room; it accompanied Bourne’s realization that the drapes had been drawn, blocking out the sunlight from the French doors. Then why was there so much light … magnified light beyond the sizzling blindness of the flares? It was overpowering, causing explosions in his head, sharp bolts of agony at his temples.
The screen! The huge screen was pulled down from its bulging recess in the ceiling, drawn taut to the floor, the wide expanse of glistening silver a white-hot shield of ice-cold fire. He plunged behind the large hatch table to the protection of a copper dry bar; he rose and jammed the trigger back, in another burst—a final burst. The last clip had run out. He hurled the weapon by its rod-stock across the room at the figure in white overalls and a white silk scarf that had fallen below his face.
The face! He knew it! He had seen it before! Where … where? Was it Marseilles? Yes … no! Zurich? Paris? Yes and no! Then it struck him at that instant in the blinding, vibrating light, that the face across the room was known to many, not just him. But from where? Where? As so much else, he knew it and did not know it. But he did know it! It was only the name he could not find!
He spiraled back off his feet, behind the heavy copper dry bar. Gunshots came, two … three, the second bullet tearing the flesh of his left forearm. He pulled his automatic from his belt; he had three shots left. One of them had to find its mark—Carlos. There was a debt to pay in Paris, and a contract to fulfill, his love far safer with the assassin’s death. He took the plastic lighter from his pocket, ignited it and held it beneath a bar rag suspended from a hook. The cloth caught fire; he grabbed it and threw it to his right, as he dove to his left. Carlos fired at the flaming rag, as Bourne spun to his knees, leveling his gun, pulling the trigger twice.
The figure buckled but did not fall. Instead, he crouched, then sprang like a white panther diagonally forward, his hands outstretched. What was he doing? Then Jason knew. The assassin gripped the edge of the huge silver screen, ripping it from its metal bracket in the ceiling, pulling it downward with all his weight and strength.
It floated down above Bourne, filling his vision, blocking everything else from his mind. He screamed as the shimmering silver descended over him, suddenly more frightened of it than of Carlos or of any other human being on the earth. It terrified him, infuriated him, splitting his mind in fragments; images flashed across his eyes and angry voices shouted in his ears. He aimed his gun and fired at the terrible shroud. As he slashed his hand against it wildly, pushing the rough silver cloth away, he understood. He had fired his last shot, his last. As a legend named Cain, Carlos knew by sight and by sound every weapon on earth; he had counted the gunshots.
The assassin loomed above him, the automatic in his hand aimed at Jason’s head. “Your execution, Delta. On the day scheduled. For everything you’ve done.”
Bourne arched his back, rolling furiously to his right; at least he would die in motion! Gunshots filled the shimmering room, hot needles slicing across his neck, piercing his legs, cutting up to his waist. Roll, roll!
Suddenly the gunshots stopped, and in the distance he could hear repeated sounds of hammering, the smashing of wood and steel, growing louder, more insistent. There was a final deafening crash from the dark corridor outside the library, followed by men shouting, running, and beyond them somewhere in the unseen, outside world, the insistent whine of sirens.
“In here! He’s in here!” screamed Carlos.
It was insane! The assassin was directing the invaders directly toward him, to him! Reason was madness, nothing on earth made sense!
The door was crashed open by a tall man in a black overcoat; someone was with him, but Jason could not see. The mists were filling his eyes, shapes and sounds becoming obscured, blurred. He was rolling in space. Away … away.
But then he saw the one thing he did not want to see. Rigid shoulders that floated above a tapered waist raced out of the room and down the dimly lit corridor. Carlos. His screams had sprung the trap open! He had reversed it! In the chaos he had trapped the stalkers. He was escaping!
“Carlos …” Bourne knew he could not be heard; what emerged from his bleeding throat was a whisper. He tried again, forcing the sound from his stomach. “It’s him. It’s … Carlos!”
There was confusion, commands shouted futilely, orders swallowed in consternation. And then a figure came into focus. A man was limping toward him, a cripple who had tried to kill him in a cemetery outside of Paris. There was nothing left! Jason lurched, crawling toward the sizzling, blinding flare. He grabbed it and held it as though it were a weapon, aiming it at the killer with a cane.
“Come on! Come on! Closer, you bastard! I’ll burn your eyes out! You think you’ll kill me, you won’t! I’ll kill you! I’ll burn your eyes!”
“You don’t understand,” said the trembling voice of the limping killer. “It’s me, Delta. It’s Conklin. I was wrong.”
The flare singed his hands, his eyes!… Madness. The explosions were all around him now, blinding, deafening, punctuated by ear-splitting screeches from the jungle that erupted with each detonation.
The jungle! Tam Quan! The wet, hot stench was everywhere, but they had reached it! The base camp was theirs!
An explosion to his left; he could see it! High above the ground, suspended between two trees, the spikes of a bamboo cage. The figure inside was moving. He was alive! Get to him, reach him!
A cry came from his right. Breathing, coughing in the smoke, a man was limping toward the dense underbrush, a rifle in his hand. It was him, the blond hair caught in the light, a foot broken from a parachute jump. The bastard! A piece of filth who had trained with them, studied the maps with them, flown north with them … all the time springing a trap on them! A traitor with a radio who told the enemy exactly where to look in that impenetrable jungle that was Tam Quan.
It was Bourne! Jason Bourne. Traitor, garbage!
Get him! Don’t let him reach others! Kill him! Kill Jason Bourne! He is your enemy! Fire!
He did not fall! The head that had been blown apart was still there. Coming toward him! What was happening? Madness. Tam Quan …
“Come with us,” said the limping figure, walking out of the jungle into what remained of an elegant room. That room. “We’re not your enemies. Come with us.”
“Get away from me!” Bourne lunged again, now back to the fallen screen. It was his sanctuary, his shroud of death, the blanket thrown over a man at birth, a lining for his coffin. “You are my enemy! I’ll take you all! I don’t care, it doesn’t matter! Can’t you understand!? I’m Delta! Cain is for Charlie and Delta is for Cain! What more do you want from me? I was and I was not! I am and I am not! Bastards, bastards! Come on! Closer!”
Another voice was heard, a deeper voice, calmer, less insistent. “Get her. Bring her in.”
Somewhere in the distance the sirens reached a crescendo, and then they stopped. Darkness came and the waves carried Jason up to the night sky, only to hurl him down again, crashing him into an abyss of watery violence. He was entering an eternity of weightless … memory. An explosion filled the night sky now, a fiery diadem rose above black waters. And then he heard the words, spoken from the clouds, filling the earth.
“Jason, my love. My only love. Take my hand. Hold it. Tightly, Jason. Tightly, my darling.”
Peace came with the darkness.