21

The motor launch pitched violently in the darkness and the torrential rains. The crew of two bailed out the water that continuously swept back over the gunwales as the grizzled Chinese-Portuguese captain, squinting through the cabin’s large windows, inched his way forward toward the black outlines of the island. Bourne and d’Anjou flanked the boat’s owner; the Frenchman spoke, raising his voice over the downpour. “How far do you judge it to the beach?”

“Two hundred meters, plus or minus ten or twenty,” said the captain.

“It’s time for the light. Where is it?”

“In the locker beneath you. On the right. Another seventy-five meters and I hold. Any farther, the rocks can be dangerous in this weather.”

“We have to get into the beach!” cried the Frenchman. “It’s imperative, I told you that!”

“Yes, but you forgot to tell me there would be this rain, these swells. Ninety meters, and you can use the little boat. The engine is strong, you’ll get there.”

Merde!” spat out d’Anjou, opening the locker and pulling out a casement light. “That could leave a hundred-plus meters!”

“In any event it would not be less than fifty, I told you that.”

“And between the two is deep water!”

“Shall I turn around and head for Macao?”

“And get us blown up by the patrols? You make payment when it is due or you do not make your destination! You know that!”

“One hundred meters, no more.”

D’Anjou nodded testily while holding the casement light up to his chest. He pressed a button, immediately releasing it, and for a brief moment an eerie, dark blue flash illuminated the pilot’s window. Seconds later a corresponding blue signal was seen through the mottled glass from the island’s shoreline. “You see, mon capitaine, had we not come in for the rendezvous this miserable scow would have been blown out of the water.”

“You were fond enough of her this afternoon!” said the helmsman, working furiously at the wheel.

“That was yesterday afternoon. It is now one-thirty the next morning and I have come to know your thieving ways.” D’Anjou replaced the light in the locker and glanced at Bourne, who was looking at him. Each was doing what he had done many times in the days of Medusa—checking out a partner’s apparel and equipment. Both men had rolled their clothing in canvas bags—trousers, sweaters and thin rubber skullcaps, all black. The only equipment other than Jason’s automatic and the Frenchman’s small .22 caliber pistol were scabbarded knives—all unseen. “Get in as close as you can,” said d’Anjou to the captain. “And remember, you won’t receive the final payment if you’re not here when we return.”

“Suppose they take your money and kill you?” cried the pilot, spinning the wheel. “Then I’m out!

“I’m touched,” said Bourne.

“Have no fear of that,” answered the Frenchman, glaring at the Chinese-Portuguese. “I’ve dealt with this man many times over many months. Like you, he is the pilot of a fast boat and every bit the thief you are. I line his Marxist pockets so that his mistresses live like concubines of the Central Committee. Also, he suspects I keep records. We are in God’s hands, perhaps better.”

“Then take the light,” muttered the captain grudgingly. “You may need it, and you’re no good to me stranded or ripped up on the rocks.”

“Your concern overwhelms me,” said d’Anjou, retrieving the light and nodding at Jason. “We’ll familiarize ourselves with the skiff and its motor.”

“The motor’s under thick canvas. Don’t start it until you’re in the water!”

“How do we know it will start?” asked Bourne.

“Because I want my money, Silent One.”

The ride into the beach drenched them both, both bracing themselves against the panels of the small boat, Jason gripping the sides and d’Anjou the rudder and the stern so as to keep from pitching overboard. They grazed a shoal. Metal ground against the rocks as the Frenchman swerved the rudder to starboard, pushing the throttle to maximum.

The strange, dark blue flash came once again from the beach. They had strayed in the wet darkness; d’Anjou angled the boat toward the signal and within minutes the bow struck sand. The Frenchman swung the stick down, elevating the motor, as Bourne leaped overboard, grabbing the rope and pulling the small craft up on the beach.

He gasped, startled by the figure of a man suddenly next to him, gripping the line in front of him. “Four hands are better than two,” shouted the stranger, an Oriental, in perfectly fluent English—English with an American accent.

“You’re the contact?” yelled Jason, bewildered, wondering if the rain and the waves had distorted his hearing.

“That’s such a foolish term!” replied the man, shouting back. “I’m simply a friend!”

Five minutes later, having beached the small boat, the three men walked through the thick, shorefront foliage, which was suddenly replaced by scrubby trees. The “friend” had constructed a primitive lean-to out of a ship’s tarpaulin; a small fire faced the dense woods in front, unseen from the sides and the rear, concealed by the tarp. The warmth was welcome; the winds and the drenching rain had chilled Bourne and d’Anjou. They sat cross-legged around the fire and the Frenchman spoke to the uniformed Chinese.

“This was hardly necessary, Gamma—”

Gamma?” erupted Jason.

“I’ve implemented certain traditions of our past, Delta. Actually, I could have used Tango or Fox Trot—it wasn’t all Greek, you know. The Greek was reserved for the leaders.”

“This is a bullshit conversation. I want to know why we’re here. Why you haven’t paid him and we get the hell out?”

Man …!” said the Chinese, drawing out the word, purposely emphasizing the American idiom. “This cat’s uptight! What’s his beef?”

“My beef, man, is that I want to get back to that boat. I really don’t have time for tea!”

“How about Scotch?” said the officer of the People’s Republic, reaching behind him, pulling his arm forward, and displaying a bottle of perfectly acceptable whisky. “We’ll have to share the cork, as it were, but I don’t think we’re infectious people. We bathe, we brush our teeth, we sleep with clean whores—at least my heavenly government makes sure they’re clean.”

“Who the hell are you?” asked Jason Bourne.

“ ‘Gamma’ will do, Echo’s convinced me of that. As to what I am, I leave that to your imagination. You might try USC—that’s the University of Southern California—with graduate studies in Berkeley—all those protests in the sixties, surely you remember them.”

“You were a part of that crowd?”

“Certainly not! I was a staunch conservative, a member of the John Birch Society who wanted them all shot! Screeching freaks with no regard for their nation’s moral commitments.”

“This is a bullshit conversation.”

“My friend Gamma,” interrupted d’Anjou, “is the perfect intermediary. He is an educated double or triple or conceiveably a quadruple agent working all sides for the benefit of his own interests. He is the totally amoral man, and I respect him for that.”

“You came back to China? To the People’s Republic?”

“It’s where the money was,” admitted the officer. “Any repressive society offers vast opportunities for those willing to take minor risks on behalf of the repressed. Ask the commissars in Moscow and the Eastern bloc. Of course, one must have contacts in the West and possess certain talents that can also serve the regimental leaders. Fortunately, I’m an exceptional sailor, courtesy of friends in the Bay Area who owned yachts and small motor craft. I’ll return one day. I really do like San Francisco.”

“Don’t try to fathom his Swiss accounts,” said d’Anjou. “Instead, let’s concentrate on why Gamma has made us such a pleasant retreat in the rainstorm.” The Frenchman took the bottle and drank.

“It will cost you, Echo,” said the Chinese.

“With you, what doesn’t? What is it?” D’Anjou passed the bottle to Jason.

“I may speak in front of your companion?”

“Anything.”

“You’ll want the information. I guarantee it. The price is one thousand American.”

“That’s it?”

“It should be enough,” said the Chinese officer, taking the bottle of Scotch from Bourne. “There are two of you, and my patrol boat is half a mile away in the south cove. My crew thinks I’m holding a secret meeting with our undercover people in the colony.”

“I’ll ‘want the information,’ and you’ll ‘guarantee it.’ For those words I’m to produce a thousand dollars without a struggle when it’s entirely possible you have a dozen Zhongguo ren outside in the bush.”

“Some things must be taken on faith.”

“Not my money,” countered the Frenchman. “You don’t get a sou until I have an idea what you’re selling.”

“You are Gallic to the core,” said Gamma, shaking his head. “Very well. It concerns your disciple, the one who no longer follows his master, but instead picks up his thirty pieces of silver and a great deal more.”

“The assassin?”

Pay him!” ordered Bourne, rigid, staring at the Chinese officer.

D’Anjou looked at Jason and the man called Gamma, then pulled up his sweater and unbuckled his soaking wet trousers. He reached below his waist and forced up an oilcloth money belt; he unzipped the center pocket, slipped out the bills one after another with his fingers and held them out for the Chinese officer. “Three thousand for tonight and one for this new information. The rest is counterfeit. I always carry an extra thousand for contingencies, but only a thousand—”

“The information,” broke in Jason Bourne.

“He paid for it,” replied Gamma. “I shall address him.”

“Address whomever the hell you like, just talk.”

“Our mutual friend in Guangzhou,” began the officer speaking to d’Anjou. “The radioman at Headquarters One.”

“We’ve done business,” said the Frenchman guardedly.

“Knowing I’d be meeting you here at this hour, I refueled at the pumps in Zhuhai Shi shortly after ten-thirty. There was a message for me to reach him—we have a safe relay. He told me there was a call rerouted through Beijing with an unidentified Jade Tower priority code. It was for Soo Jiang—”

D’Anjou bolted forward, both hands on the ground. “The pig!

“Who is he?” asked Bourne quickly.

“Supposedly chief of Intelligence for Macao operations,” replied the Frenchman, “but he would sell his mother to a brothel if the price was right. At the moment he is the conduit to my once and former disciple. My Judas!

“Who’s suddenly been summoned to Beijing,” interrupted the man called Gamma.

“You’re sure of that?” said Jason.

“Our mutual friend is sure,” answered the Chinese, still looking at d’Anjou. “An aide to Soo came to Headquarters One and checked all of tomorrow’s flights from Kai-tak to Beijing. Under his department’s authorization he reserved space—a single space—on every one. In several cases it meant that the original passengers were reduced to stand-by status. When an officer at Headquarters One asked for Soo’s personal confirmation, the aide said he had left for Macao on urgent business. Who has business in Macao at midnight? Everything’s closed.”

“Except the casinos,” volunteered Bourne. “Table Five. The Kam Pek. Totally controlled circumstances.”

“Which, in light of the reserved space,” said the Frenchman, “means that Soo isn’t sure when he will reach the assassin.”

“But he is sure he’ll reach him. Whatever message he’s carrying is nothing short of an order that has to be complied with.” Jason looked at the Chinese officer. “Get us into Beijing,” he said. “The airport, the earliest flight. You’ll be rich, I guarantee it.”

“Delta, you’re mad!” cried d’Anjou. “Peking is out of the question!”

“Why? No one’s looking for us and there are French, English, Italians, Americans—God knows who else—all over the city. We’ve both got passports that’ll get us through.”

“Be reasonable!” pleaded Echo. “We’ll be in their nets. Knowing what we know, if we’re spotted in the vaguest questionable circumstances we’ll be killed on the spot! He’ll show up again down here, most likely in a matter of days.”

“I don’t have days,” said Bourne coldly. “I’ve lost your creation twice. I’m not going to lose him a third time.”

“You think you can possibly take him in China?”

“Where else would he least expect a trap?”

Madness! You are mad!”

“Make the arrangements,” Jason ordered the Chinese officer. “The first flight out of Kai-tak. When I’ve got the tickets, I’ll hand over fifty thousand dollars American to whoever gives them to me. Send someone you can trust.”

“Fifty thousand.…?” The man called Gamma stared at Bourne.

The skies over Peking were hazy, the dust traveling on the winds from the North China plains creating pockets of vapid yellows and dull browns in the sunlight. The airport, like all other internationals, was immense, the runways a crisscrossing patchwork of black avenues, several over two miles in length. If there was a difference between Peking airport and its Western counterparts, it was in the huge dome-shaped terminal with its adjacent hotel and various freeways leading into the complex. Although contemporary in design, there was an underlying sense of functionalism and an absence of eye-pleasing touches. It was an airport to be used and admired for its efficiency, not for its beauty.

Bourne and d’Anjou went through customs with a minimum of effort, the way eased for them by their fluent Chinese. The guards were actually pleasant, barely glancing at their minimal luggage, more curious about their linguistic ability than their possessions. The chief official accepted without question the story of two Oriental scholars on a holiday where pleasant travels would no doubt find their way into the lecture halls. They converted a thousand dollars each into renminbi—literally, the People’s Money—and were given nearly two thousand yuan apiece in return. And Bourne took off the glasses he had purchased in Washington from his friend Cactus.

“One thing bewilders me,” said the Frenchman as they stood in front of an electronic sign showing the next three hours of arrivals and departures. “Why would he be flown in on a commercial plane? Certainly, whoever is paying him has government or military aircraft at his disposal.”

“Like ours, those aircraft have to be signed out and accounted for,” answered Jason. “And whoever it is has to keep his distance from your assassin. He has to come in as a tourist or a businessman and then the convoluted process of making contact begins. At least that’s what I’m counting on.”

Madness! Tell me, Delta, if you do take him—and I add that it’s a significant ‘if’ because he’s extraordinarily capable—have you any idea how to get him out?”

“I’ve got money, American money, large bills, more than you can imagine. It’s in the lining of my jacket.”

“That’s why we stopped at the Peninsula, isn’t it? Why you told me not to check you out yesterday. Your money’s there.”

“It was. In the hotel safe. I’ll get him out.”

“On the wings of Pegasus?”

“No, probably a Pan Am flight with the two of us helping a very sick friend. Actually, somewhere along the line I think you gave me the idea.”

“Then I am a mental case!”

“Stay by the window,” said Bourne. “There’s another twelve minutes before the next plane is due from Kai-tak, but then that could mean two minutes or twelve hours. I’m going to buy us both a present.”

“Madness,” mumbled the Frenchman, too tired to do more than shake his head.

Jason returned, directing d’Anjou into a corner within sight of the immigration doors, which were kept closed except for those passengers emerging from customs. Bourne reached into his inside jacket pocket and pulled out a long, thin, brightly covered box with the sort of gaudy wrapping found in souvenir shops the world over. He removed the top; inside on ersatz felt was a narrow brass letter-opener, with Chinese characters along the handle. The point was obviously honed and sharp. “Take it,” said Jason. “Put it in your belt.”

“How’s the balance?” asked Medusa’s Echo as he slid the blade under his trousers.

“Not bad. It’s about halfway to the base of the handle and brass gives it weight. The thrust should be decent.”

“Yes, I recall,” said d’Anjou. “One of the first rules was never to throw a knife, but one evening at dusk you watched a Gurkha take out a scout ten feet away without firing a shot or risking hand-to-hand combat. His carbine bayonet spun through the air like a whirling missile, right into the scout’s chest. The next morning you ordered the Gurkha to teach us—some did better than others.”

“How did you do?”

“Reasonably well. I was older than all of you, and whatever defenses I could learn that did not take great physical exertion I felt drawn to. Also I kept practicing. You saw me; you commented on it frequently.”

Jason looked at the Frenchman. “It’s funny, but I don’t remember any of that.”

“I just naturally thought … I’m sorry, Delta.”

“Forget it. I’m learning to trust things I don’t understand.”

The vigil continued, reminding Bourne of his wait in Lo Wu as one trainload after another crossed the border, no one revealed until a short, elderly man with a limp became someone else in the distance. The 11:30 plane was over two hours late. Customs would take an additional fifty minutes.

That one!” cried d’Anjou, pointing to a figure walking out of the immigration doors.

“With a cane?” asked Jason. “With a limp?”

“His shabby clothes cannot conceal his shoulders!” exclaimed Echo. “The gray hair is too new; he hasn’t brushed it sufficiently, and the dark glasses too wide. Like us, he is tired. You were right. The summons to Beijing had to be complied with, and he is careless.”

“Because ‘rest is a weapon’ and he disregarded it?”

“Yes. Last night Kai-tak had to have taken its toll on him, but, more important, he had to obey. Merde! His fees must be in the hundreds of thousands!”

“He’s heading for the hotel,” said Bourne. “Stay back here, I’ll follow him—at a distance. If he spotted you, he’d run and we could lose him.”

“He could spot you!

“Not likely. I invented the game. Also, I’ll be behind him. Stay here. I’ll come back for you.”

Carrying his flight bag, his gait snowing the weariness of jet lag, Jason fell in line with the disembarked passengers heading into the hotel, his eyes on the gray-haired man up ahead. Twice the former British commando stopped and turned around, and twice, with each brief movement of the shoulders, Bourne also turned and bent down, as if brushing an insect from his leg or adjusting the strap of his flight bag, his body and face out of sight. The crowd at the registration counter grew and Jason was eight people behind the killer in the second line, making himself as inconspicuous as possible, continually stooping to kick his flight bag ahead. The commando reached the female clerk; he showed his papers, signed the register, and limped with his cane toward a bank of brown elevators on the right. Six minutes later Bourne faced the same clerk. He spoke in Mandarin.

Ni neng bang-zhu wo ma?” he began, asking for help. “It was a sudden trip and I’ve no place to stay. Just for the night.”

“You speak our language very well,” said the clerk, her almond-shaped eyes wide in appreciation. “You do us honor,” she added politely.

“I hope to do much better during my stay here. I’m on a scholarly trip.”

“It is the best kind. There are many treasures in Beijing, and elsewhere, of course, but this is the heavenly city. You have no reservation?”

“I’m afraid not. Everything was last-minute, if you know what I mean.”

“As I speak both languages, I can tell you that you said it correctly in ours. Everything is rush-rush. I’ll see what I can do. It will not be terribly grand, of course.”

“I can’t afford terribly grand,” said Jason shyly. “But I have a roommate—we can share the same bed, if necessary.”

“I’m certain it will be on such short notice.” The clerk’s fingers leafed through the file cards. “Here,” she said. “A single back room on the second floor. I think it may fit your economics—”

“We’ll take it,” agreed Bourne. “By the way, a few minutes ago I saw a man in this line whom I’m sure I know. He’s getting on now, but I think he was an old professor of mine when I studied in England. Gray-haired, with a cane … I’m certain it’s he. I’d like to call him.”

“Oh, yes, I remember.” The clerk now separated the most recent registration cards in front of her. “The name is Wadsworth, Joseph Wadsworth. He’s in three-twenty-five. But you may be wrong. His occupation is listed as an off-shore oil consultant from Great Britain.”

“You’re right, wrong man,” said Jason, shaking his head in embarrassment. He took the key to the room.

“We can take him! Now!” Bourne gripped d’Anjou’s arm, pulling the Frenchman away from the deserted corner of the terminal.

“Now? So easily? So quickly? It is incredible!”

“The opposite,” said Jason, leading d’Anjou toward the crowded row of glass doors that was the entrance to the hotel. “It’s completely credible. Your man’s mind is on a dozen different things right now. He’s got to stay out of sight. He can’t place a call through a switchboard, so he’ll remain in his room waiting for a call to him giving him his instructions.” They walked through a glass door, looked around and headed to the left of the long counter. Bourne continued, speaking rapidly. “Kai-tak didn’t work last night, so he has to consider another possibility. His own elimination on the basis that whoever discovered the explosives under the car saw him and identified him—which is the truth. He has to insist that his client be alone at the arranged rendezvous so he can reach him one on one. It’s his ultimate protection.” They found a staircase and started climbing. “And his clothes,” went on Medusa’s Delta, “he’ll change them. He can’t appear as he was and he can’t appear as he is. He has to be someone else.” They reached the third floor, and Jason, his hand on the knob, turned to d’Anjou. “Take my word for it, Echo, your boy’s involved. He’s got exercises going on in his head that would challenge a Russian chess player.”

“Is this the academic speaking or the man they once called Jason Bourne?”

“Bourne,” said David Webb, his eyes cold, his voice ice. “If it ever was, it’s now.”

The flight bag strapped over his shoulder, Jason slowly opened the staircase door, inching his body into the frame. Two men in dark pin-striped suits walked up the hallway toward him complaining at the apparent lack of room service; their speech was British. They opened the door to their room and went inside. Bourne pulled the staircase door back and pushed d’Anjou through; they walked down the corridor. The room numbers were in Chinese and English.

341, 339, 337—they were in the right hallway, the room was along the left wall. Three Indian couples suddenly emerged from a brown elevator, the women in their saris, the men in tight-fitting trousers; they passed Jason and d’Anjou chattering, looking for their rooms, the husbands obviously annoyed to be carrying their own luggage.

335, 333, 331—

“This is the end!” screamed a female voice as an obese woman in hair curlers strode martially out of a door on the right wearing a bathrobe. The nightgown underneath trailed below, twice snarling her feet. She yanked it up, revealing a pair of legs worthy of a rhinoceros. “The toilet doesn’t work and you can forget the phone!”

“Isabel, I told you!” shouted a man in red pajamas peering through the open door. “It’s the jet lag. Get some sleep and remember this isn’t Short Hills! Don’t nitpick. Expand yourself!”

“Since I can’t use the bathroom, I have no choice! I’ll find some slant-eyed bastard and yell like hell! Where are the stairs? I wouldn’t walk into one of those goddamned elevators. If they move at all, it’s probably sideways and right through the walls into a seven forty-seven!”

The distraught woman swept by on her way to the staircase exit. Two of the three Indian couples had difficulty with their keys, finally managing to negotiate the locks with loud, well-placed kicks, and the man in the red pajamas slammed the door of his room after shouting to his wife in high dudgeon. “It’s like that class reunion at the club! You’re so embarrassing, Isabel!”

329, 327 … 325. The room. The hallway was deserted.

They could hear the strains of Oriental music from behind the door. The radio was turned up, the volume loud, to be made louder with the first ring of a telephone bell. Jason pulled d’Anjou back and spoke quietly against the wall. “I don’t remember any Gurkhas or any scouts—”

“A part of you did, Delta,” interrupted Echo.

“Maybe, but that’s beside the point. This is the beginning of the end of the road. We’ll leave our bags out here. I’ll go for the door and you follow hard. Keep your blade ready. But I want you to understand something, and there can’t be a mistake—don’t throw it unless you absolutely have to. If you do, go for his legs. Nothing above the waist.”

“You put more faith in an older man’s accuracy than I do.”

“I’m hoping I won’t have to call on it. These doors are made of hollow plywood and your assassin’s got a lot on his mind. He’s thinking about strategy, not about us. How could we know he’s here, and even if we did, how could we get across the border on such short notice? And I want him! I’m taking him! Ready?”

“As I ever will be,” said the Frenchman, lowering his small suitcase and pulling the brass letter-opener from his belt. He held the blade in his hand, his fingers spread, seeking the balance.

Bourne slipped the flight bag off his shoulder to the floor and quietly positioned himself in front of Room 325. He looked at d’Anjou. Echo nodded, and Jason sprang toward the door, his left foot a battering ram, crashing into the space below the lock. The door plunged inward, as though blown apart; wood shattered, hinges were torn from their bolts. Bourne lunged inside, rolling over and over on the floor, his eyes spinning in all directions.

Arrêtez!” roared d’Anjou.

A figure came through an inner doorway—the gray-haired man, the assassin! Jason sprang to his feet, hurling himself at his quarry, grabbing the man’s hair, yanking him to the left, then to the right, crashing him back into the doorframe. Suddenly the Frenchman screamed as the brass blade of the letter-opener flashed through the air, embedding itself in the wall, the handle quivering. It was off the mark, a warning.

“Delta! No!

Bourne stopped all movement, his quarry pinned, helpless under his weight and grip.

Look!” cried d’Anjou.

Jason slowly moved back, his arms rigid, caging the figure in front of him. He stared into the gaunt, wrinkled face of a very old man with thinning gray hair.