26

Bourne stopped the black Shanghai sedan on the dark, tree-lined, deserted stretch of road. According to the map, he had passed the Eastern Gate of the Summer Palace—actually once a series of ancient royal villas set down on acres of sculptured countryside dominated by a lake known as Kunming. He had followed the shoreline north until the colored lights of the vast pleasure ground of emperors past faded, giving way to the darkness of the country road. He extinguished the headlights, got out, and carried his purchases, now in a waterproof knapsack, to the wall of trees lining the road, and dug his heel into the ground. The earth was soft, making his task easier, for the possibility that his rented car might be searched was real. He reached inside the knapsack, pulled out a pair of workman’s gloves and a long-bladed hunting knife. He knelt down and dug a hole deep enough to conceal the sack; he left the top of it open, picked up the knife and cut a notch in the trunk of the nearest tree to expose the white wood beneath the bark. He replaced the knife and gloves in the knapsack, pressed it down into the earth and covered it with dirt. He returned to the car, checked the odometer, and started the engine. If the map was as accurate about distances as it was in detailing those areas in and around Beijing where it was prohibited to drive, the entrance to the Jing Shan Sanctuary was no more than three-quarters of a mile away around a long curve up ahead.

The map was accurate. Two floodlights converged on the high green metal gate beneath huge panels depicting brightly colored birds; the gate was closed. In a small glass-enclosed structure on the right sat a single guard. At the sight of Jason’s approaching headlights he sprang up and ran out. It was difficult to tell whether the man’s jacket and trousers were a uniform or not; there was no evidence of a weapon.

Bourne drove the sedan up to within feet of the gate, climbed out, and approached the Chinese behind it, surprised to see that the man was in his late fifties or early sixties.

Bei tong, bei tong!” began Jason before the guard could speak, apologizing for disturbing him. “I’ve had a terrible time,” he continued rapidly, pulling out the list of the French-assigned negotiators from his inside pocket. “I was to be here three and a half hours ago, but the car didn’t arrive and I couldn’t reach Minister—” He picked out the name of a textile minister from the list. “—Wang Xu, and I’m sure he’s as upset as I am!”

“You speak our language,” said the bewildered guard. “You have a car with no driver.”

“The minister cleared it. I’ve been to Beijing many, many times. We were going to have dinner together.”

“We are closed, and there is no restaurant here.”

“Did he leave a note for me, perhaps?”

“No one leaves anything here but lost articles. I have very nice Japanese binoculars I could sell you cheap.”

It happened. Beyond the gate, about thirty yards down the dirt road, Bourne saw a man in the shadows of a tall tree, a man wearing a long tunic—four buttons—an officer. Around his waist was a thick holster belt. A weapon.

“I’m sorry, I have no use for binoculars.”

“A present, perhaps?”

“I have few friends and my children are thieves.”

“You are a sad man. There is nothing but children and friends—and the spirits, of course.”

“Now, really, I simply want to find the minister. We are discussing renminbi in the millions!”

“The binoculars are but a few yuan.”

“All right! How much?”

“Fifty.”

“Get them for me,” said the chameleon impatiently, reaching into his pocket, his gaze casually straying beyond the green fence as the guard rushed back to the gatehouse. The Chinese officer had retreated farther into the shadows but was still watching the gate. The pounding in Jason’s chest once again felt like kettledrums—as it so often had in the days of Medusa. He had turned a trick, exposed a strategy. Delta knew the Oriental mind. Secrecy. The lone figure did not, of course, confirm it, but he did not deny it, either.

“Look how grand they are!” cried the guard, running back to the fence and holding out the binoculars. “One hundred yuan.”

“You said fifty!”

“I didn’t notice the lenses. Far superior. Give me the money and I’ll throw them over the gate.”

“Very well,” said Bourne, about to push the money through the crisscrossing mesh of the fence. “But under one condition, thief. If by any chance you are questioned about me, I choose not to be embarrassed.”

“Questioned? That’s foolish. There’s no one here but me.”

Delta was right.

“But in case you are, I insist you tell the truth! I am a French businessman urgently seeking this minister of textiles because my car was unpardonably delayed. I will not be embarrassed!”

“As you wish. The money, please.”

Jason shoved the yuan bills through the fence; the guard clutched them and threw the binoculars over the gate. Bourne caught them and looked pleadingly at the Chinese. “Have you any idea where the minister might have gone?”

“Yes, and I was about to tell you without additional money. Men so grand as you and he would no doubt go to the dining house named Ting Li Guan. It is a favorite of rich foreigners and powerful men of our heavenly government.”

“Where is it?”

“In the Summer Palace. You passed it on this road. Go back fifteen, twenty kilometers, and you will see the great Dong An Men gate. Enter it, and the guides will direct you, but show your papers, sir. You travel in a very unusual way.”

“Thank you!” yelled Jason, running to the car. “Vive la France!

“How beautiful,” said the guard, shrugging, heading back to his post and counting his money.

The officer walked quietly up to the gatehouse and tapped on the glass. Astonished, the night watchman leaped out of his chair and opened the door.

“Oh, sir, you startled me! I see you were locked inside. Perhaps you fell asleep in one of our beautiful resting places. How unfortunate. I will open the gate at once!”

“Who was that man?” asked the officer calmly.

“A foreigner, sir. A French businessman who has had much misfortune. As I understood him, he was to meet the minister of textiles here hours ago and then proceed to dinner, but his automobile was delayed. He’s very upset. He does not wish to be embarrassed.”

“What minister of textiles?”

“Minister Wang Xu, I believe he said.”

“Wait outside, please.”

“Certainly, sir. The gate?”

“In a few minutes.” The soldier picked up the telephone on the small counter and dialed. Seconds later he spoke again. “May I have the number of a minister of textiles named Wang Xu?… Thank you.” The officer pressed down the center bar, released it, and dialed again. “Minister Wang Xu, please?”

“I am he,” said a somewhat disagreeable voice at the other end of the line. “Who is this?”

“A clerk at the Trade Council Office, sir. We’re doing a routine check on a French businessman who has you listed as a reference—”

“Great Christian Jesus, not that idiot Ardisson! What’s he done now?”

“You know him, sir?”

“I wish I didn’t! Special this, special that! He thinks that when he defecates, the odor of lilacs fills the stalls.”

“Were you to have dinner with him tonight, sir?”

“Dinner? I might have said anything to keep him quiet this afternoon! Of course, he hears only what he wants to hear and his Chinese is terrible. On the other hand, it’s perfectly possible that he would use my name to obtain a reservation when he didn’t have one. I told you, special this, special that! Give him whatever he wants. He’s a lunatic but harmless enough. We’d send him back to Paris on the next plane if the fools he represents weren’t paying so much for such third-rate material. He’s cleared for the best illegal whores in Beijing! Just don’t bother me, I’m entertaining.” The minister abruptly hung up.

His mind at ease, the army officer replaced the phone and walked outside to the night watchman. “You were accurate,” he said.

“The foreigner was most agitated, sir. And very confused.”

“I’m told both conditions are normal for him.” The army man paused for a moment, then added, “You may open the gate now.”

“Certainly, sir.” The guard reached into his pocket and pulled out a ring of keys. He stopped, looking over at the officer. “I see no automobile, sir. It is many kilometers to any transportation. The Summer Palace would be the first—”

“I’ve telephoned for a car. It should be here in ten or fifteen minutes.”

“I’m afraid I will not be here then, sir. I can see the light of my relief’s bicycle down the road now. I am off duty in five minutes.”

“Perhaps I’ll wait here,” said the officer, dismissing the watchman’s words. “There are clouds drifting down from the north. If they bring rain, I could use the gatehouse for shelter until my car arrives.”

“I see no clouds, sir.”

“Your eyes are not what they once were.”

“Too true.” The repeated ringing of a bicycle bell broke the outer silence. The relief guard approached the fence as the watchman started to unlock the gate. “These young ones announce themselves as though they were descending spirits from heaven.”

“I should like to say something to you,” said the officer sharply, stopping the watchman in his tracks. “Like the foreigner, I, too, do not wish to be embarrassed for catching an hour of much needed sleep in a beautiful resting place. Do you like your job?”

“Very much, sir.”

“And the opportunity to sell such things as Japanese binoculars turned over to you for safekeeping?”

“Sir?”

“My hearing’s acute and your shrill voice is loud.”

Sir?”

“Say nothing about me and I will say nothing about your unethical activities, which would undoubtedly send you into a field with a pistol put to your head. Your behavior is reprehensible.”

“I have never seen you, sir! I swear on the spirits in my soul!”

“We in the party reject such thoughts.”

“Then on anything you like!

“Open the gate and get out of here.”

“First my bicycle, sir!” The watchman ran to the far edge of the fence, wheeled out his bicycle and unlocked the gate. He swung it back, nodding with relief as he literally threw the new man the ring of keys. Mounting the saddle of his bicycle, he sped off down the road.

The second guard walked casually through the gate holding his bicycle by the handlebars. “Can you imagine?” he said to the officer. “The son of a Kuomintang warlord taking the place of a feeble-minded peasant who would have served us in the kitchens.”

Bourne spotted the white notch in the tree trunk and drove the sedan off the road between two pine trees. He turned off the lights and got out. Rapidly he broke numerous branches to camouflage the car in the darkness. Instinctively, he worked quickly—he would have done so in any event—but to his alarm, within seconds after he finished concealing the sedan, headlights appeared far down on the road to Beijing. He bent down, kneeling in the underbrush and watched the automobile pass by, fascinated by the sight of a bicycle strapped to its roof, then concerned when moments later the noise of the engine was abruptly cut off; the car had stopped around the bend up ahead. Wary that some part of his own car had been seen by an experienced field man who would park out of sight and return on foot, Jason raced across the road into the tangled brush beyond the trees. He ran in spurts to his right, from pine to pine, to the midpoint of the curve where again he knelt in the shadowed greenery, waiting, studying every foot of the thoroughfare’s borders, listening for any sound that did not belong to the hum of the deserted country road.

Nothing. Then finally something, and when he saw what it was, it simply did not make sense. Or did it? The man on the bicycle with a friction light on the front fender was pedaling up the road as if his life depended on a speed he could not possibly attain. As he drew closer Bourne saw that it was the watchman … on a bicycle … and a bicycle had been strapped to the roof of the car that had stopped around the bend. Had it been for the watchman? Of course not; the car would have proceeded to the gate.… A second bicycle? A second watchman—arriving on a bicycle? Of course. If what he believed was true, the guard at the gate would be changed, a conspirator put in his place.

Jason waited until the watchman’s light was barely a speck in the distant darkness, then ran in the road back to his car and the tree with the notch in the bark. He now dug up the knapsack and began sorting out the articles of his trade. He removed his jacket and white shirt and put on a black turtleneck sweater; he secured the sheath of the hunting knife to the belt of his dark trousers and shoved the automatic with a single shell in it on the other side. He picked up two spools connected by a three-foot strand of thin wire, and thought that the lethal instrument was far better than the one he had fashioned in Hong Kong. Why not? He was much closer to his objective, if anything he had learned in that distant Medusa had any value. He rolled the wire into both spools equally, and carefully pushed them down inside his trousers’ right back pocket, then picked up a small penlight and clipped it to the lower edge of his right front pocket. He placed a long, double strand of outsized Chinese firecrackers, which was folded and held in place by an elastic band, in his left front pocket along with three books of matches and a small wax candle. The most awkward item was a hand-held medium-gauge wire cutter, the size of a pair of pliers. He inserted it head down into his left back pocket, then sprang the release so that the two short handles were pressed against the cloth, thus locking the instrument in its shell. Finally, he reached for a wrapped pile of clothing that was coiled so tight its dimensions were no more than that of a rolling pin. He centered it on his spine, pulled the elastic band around his waist, and snapped the clips into place. He might never use the clothes but then he could leave nothing to chance—he was too close!

I’ll take him, Marie! I swear I’ll take him and we’ll have our life again. It’s David and I love you so! I need you so!

Stop it! There are no people, only objectives. No emotions, only targets and kills and men to be eliminated who stand in the way. I have no use for you, Webb. You’re soft and I despise you. Listen to Delta—listen to Jason Bourne!

The killer who was a killer by necessity buried the knapsack with his white shirt and tweed jacket and stood up between the pine trees. His lungs swelled at the thought of what was before him, one part of him frightened and uncertain, the other furious, ice-cold.

Jason started walking north into the curve, going from tree to tree as he had done before. He reached the car that had passed him with the bicycle strapped to its roof; parked on the side of the road, it had a large sign taped under the front window. He edged closer and read the Chinese characters, smiling to himself as he did so:

This is a disabled official vehicle of the government. Tampering with any part of the mechanism is a serious crime. Theft of this vehicle will result in the swift execution of the offender.

In the lower left-hand corner there was a column in small print:

People’s Printing Plant Number 72. Shanghai.

Bourne wondered how many hundreds of thousands of such signs had been made by Printing Plant 72. Perhaps they took the place of a warranty, two with each vehicle.

He backed into the shadows and continued around the bend until he reached the open space in front of the floodlit gate. His eyes followed the line of the green fence. On the left it disappeared into the forest darkness. On the right it extended perhaps two hundred feet beyond the gatehouse, running the length of a parking lot with numbered areas for tour buses and taxis, where it angled sharply south. As he expected, a bird sanctuary in China would be enclosed, a deterrent for poachers. As d’Anjou had phrased it: “Birds have been revered in China for centuries. They’re considered delicacies for the eyes and the palate.” Echo. Echo was gone. He wondered if d’Anjou had suffered … No time.

Voices! Bourne snapped his head back toward the gate as he lurched into the nearest foliage. The Chinese army officer and a new, much younger watchman—no, now definitely a guard—walked out from behind the gatehouse. The guard was wheeling a bicycle while the officer held a small radio to his ear.

“They’ll start arriving shortly after nine o’clock,” said the army man, lowering the radio and shoving down the antenna. “Seven vehicles each three minutes apart.”

“The truck?”

“It will be the last.”

The guard looked at his watch. “Perhaps you should get the car, then. If there’s a telephone check, I know the routine.”

“A good thought,” agreed the officer, clamping the radio to his belt and taking the bicycle’s right handlebar. “I have no patience with those bureaucratic females who bark like chows.”

“But you must have,” insisted the guard, laughing. “And you must take out the lonely ones, the ugly ones, and perform at your best between their legs. Suppose you received a poor report? You could lose this heavenly job.”

“You mean that feeble-minded peasant you relieved—”

“No, no,” broke in the guard, releasing the bicycle. “They seek out the younger ones, the handsome ones, like me. From our photographs, of course. He’s different; he pays them yuan from his sales of lost items. I sometimes wonder if he makes a profit.”

“I have trouble understanding you civilians.”

“Correction, if I may, Colonel. In the true China I am a captain in the Kuomintang.”

Jason was stunned by the younger man’s remark. What he had heard was incredible! In the true China I am a captain in the Kuomintang. The true China? Taiwan? Good God, had it started? The war of the two Chinas? Was that what these men were about? Madness! Wholesale slaughter! The Far East would be blown off the face of the earth! Christ! In his hunt for an assassin had he stumbled on the unthinkable?

It was too much to absorb, too frightening, too cataclysmic. He had to move quickly, putting all thought on hold, concentrating only on movement. He read the radium dial of his watch. It was 8:54, and he had very little time to do what had to be done. He waited until the army officer bicycled past, then made his way cautiously, silently through the foliage until he saw the fence. He approached it, taking out the penlight from his pocket, flashing it twice to judge the dimensions. They were extraordinary. Its height was no less than twelve feet, and the top angled outward like the inner barricade of a prison fence with coils of barbed wire strung along the parallel strands of steel. He reached into his back pocket, squeezed the handles together and removed the wire cutter. He then probed with his left hand in the darkness, and when he found the crisscrossing wires closest to the ground, he placed the head of the cutter to the lowest.

Had David Webb not been desperate, and Jason Bourne not furious, the job would not have been accomplished. The fence was no ordinary fence. The gauge of the metal was far, far stronger than that of any barricade enclosing the most violent criminals on earth. Each strand took all the strength Jason had as he manipulated the cutter back and forth until the metal snapped free. And each snap came, but only with the passing of precious minutes.

Again Bourne looked at the glowing dial of his watch. 9:06. Using his shoulder, his feet digging into the ground, he bent the barely two-foot vertical rectangle inward through the fence. He crawled inside, sweat drenching his body everywhere, and lay on the ground breathing heavily. No time. 9:08.

He rose unsteadily to his knees, shook his head to clear it and started to his right, holding the fence for support until he came to the corner that fronted the parking area. The floodlit gate was two hundred feet to his left.

Suddenly, the first vehicle arrived. It was a Russian Zia limousine, vintage late sixties. It circled into the parking lot and took the first position on the right beside the gatehouse. Six men got out and walked in martial unison toward what was apparently the main path of the bird sanctuary. They disappeared in the dark, the beams of flashlights illuminating their way. Jason watched closely; he would be taking that path.

Three minutes later, precisely on schedule, a second car drove through the gate and parked alongside the Zia. Three men got out of the back while the driver and the front-seat passenger talked. Seconds later the two men emerged, and it was all Bourne could do to control himself when his stare centered in on the passenger, the tall, slender passenger who moved like a cat as he walked to the rear of the automobile to join the driver. It was the assassin! The chaos at Kai-tak Airport had demanded the elaborate trap in Beijing. Whoever was stalking this assassin had to be caught quickly and silenced. Information had to be leaked, reaching the assassin’s creator—for who else knew the hired killer’s tactics better than the one who had taught them to him? Who else wanted revenge more than the Frenchman? Who else was capable of unearthing the other Jason Bourne? D’Anjou was the key, and the impostor’s client knew it.

And Jason Bourne’s instincts—born of the gradually, painfully remembered Medusa—were accurate. When the trap had so disastrously collapsed inside Mao’s tomb, a desecration that would shake the republic, the elite circle of conspirators had to regroup swiftly, secretly, beyond the scrutiny of their peers. An unparalleled crisis faced them; there was no time to lose in determining their next moves.

Paramount, however, was secrecy. Wherever they met, secrecy was their most crucial weapon. In the true China I am a captain in the Kuomintang. Christ! Was it possible?

Secrecy. For a lost kingdom? Where better could it be found than in the wild acreages of idyllic government bird sanctuaries, official parks controlled by powerful moles from the Kuomintang in Taiwan? A strategy that came out of desperation had led Bourne to the core of an incredible revelation. No time! It’s not your business! Only he is!

Eighteen minutes later the six automobiles were in place, the passengers dispersed, joining their colleagues somewhere within the dark forest of the sanctuary. Finally, twenty-one minutes after the arrival of the Russian limousine, a canvas-covered truck lumbered through the gate, making a wide circle and parking next to the last entry, no more than thirty feet from Jason. Shocked, he watched as bound and gagged men and women with gaping mouths held in place by strands of cloth were pushed out of the van; without exception they fell, rolling on the ground, moaning in protest and in pain. Then just within the covered opening a man was struggling, twisting his short, thin body and kicking at the two guards, who held him off and finally threw him down on the graveled parking lot. It was a white man.… Bourne froze. It was d’Anjou! In the glow of the distant floodlights he could see that Echo’s face was battered, his eyes swollen. When the Frenchman pulled himself to his feet, his left leg kept bending and collapsing, yet he would not give in to his captors’ taunting; he remained defiantly on his feet.

Move! Do something! What? Medusa—we had signals. What were they? Oh God, what were they? Stones, sticks, rocks … gravel! Throw something to make a sound, a small distracting sound that could be anything—away from an area, ahead, as far ahead as possible! Then follow it up quickly. Quickly!

Jason dropped to his knees in the shadows of the right-angled fence. He reached down and grabbed a small handful of gravel and threw it in the air over the heads of prisoners struggling to their feet. The brief clatter on the roofs of several cars was by and large lost amid the stifled cries of the bound captives. Bourne repeated the action, now with a few more stones. The guard standing next to d’Anjou glanced over in the direction of the splattering gravel, then dismissed the sound when his attention was suddenly drawn to a woman who had gotten to her feet and had started to run toward the gate. He raced over, grabbed her by the hair, and threw her back into the group. Again Jason reached for more stones.

He stopped all movement. D’Anjou had fallen to the ground, his weight on his right knee, his bound hands supporting him on the gravel. He watched the distracted guard, then slowly he turned in Bourne’s direction. Medusa was never far away from Echo—he had remembered. Swiftly, Jason shoved the palm of his hand out, once, twice. The dim reflected light off his flesh was enough; the Frenchman’s gaze was drawn to it. Bourne moved his head forward in the shadows. Echo saw him! Their eyes made contact. D’Anjou nodded, then turned away, and awkwardly, painfully rose to his feet as the guard returned.

Jason counted the prisoners. There were two women and five men, including Echo. They were herded by the guards, both of whom had removed heavy night sticks from their belts and used them as prods, driving the group toward the path outside the parking lot. D’Anjou fell. He collapsed on his left leg, twisting his body as he dropped to the ground. Bourne watched closely; there was something strange about the fall. Then he understood. The fingers of the Frenchman’s hands, which were tied together in front, were spread apart. Covering the movement with his body, Echo scooped up two fistfuls of gravel, and as a guard approached, pulling him to his feet, d’Anjou again stared briefly in Jason’s direction. It was a signal. Echo would drop the tiny stones as long as they lasted so that his fellow Medusan would have a path to follow.

The prisoners were directed to the right, out of the graveled area, as the young guard, the “captain in the Kuomintang,” locked the gate. Jason ran out of the shadows of the fence into the shadows of the truck, pulling the hunting knife from its sheath as he crouched by the hood, looking at the gatehouse. The guard was just outside the door, speaking into the hand-held radio that connected him to the meeting ground. The radio would have to be taken out. So would the man.

Tie him up. Use his clothes to gag him.

Kill him! There can’t be any additional risks. Listen to me!

Bourne dropped to the ground, plunging the hunting knife into the truck’s left front tire, and as it deflated he ran to the rear and did the same. Rounding the back of the truck, he raced into the space between it and the adjacent automobile. Pivoting back and forth as he moved forward, he slashed the remaining tires of the truck and those on the left side of the car. He repeated the tactic down the line of vehicles until he had slashed all the tires except those of the Russian Zia, only ten-odd yards away from the gatehouse. It was time for the guard.

Tie him

Kill him! Each step has to be covered, and each step leads back to your wife!

Silently, Jason opened the door of the Russian automobile, reached inside and released the hand brake. Closing the door as quietly as he had opened it, he judged the distance from the hood to the fence; it was approximately eight feet. Gripping the window frame, he pressed his full weight forward, grimacing as the huge car began to roll. Giving the vehicle a final, surging shove, he dashed in front of the car next to the Zia as the limousine crashed into the fence. He lowered himself out of sight and reached into his right back pocket.

Hearing the crash, the startled guard ran around the gatehouse and into the parking lot, shifting his eyes in all directions, then staring at the stationary Zia. He shook his head, as if accepting a vehicle’s unexplained malfunction, and walked over to the door.

Bourne sprang out of the darkness, the spools in both hands, the wire arcing over the guard’s head. It was over in less than three seconds, no sound emitted other than a sickening expulsion of air. The garrote was lethal; the captain from the Kuomintang was dead.

Removing the radio from the man’s belt, Jason searched the clothes. There was always the possibility that something might be found, something of value. There was—were! The first was a weapon—not surprisingly, an automatic. The same caliber as the one he had taken from another conspirator in Mao’s tomb. Special guns for special people, another recognition factor, the armaments consistent. Instead of one shell, he now had the full complement of nine, in addition to a silencer that precluded disturbing the revered dead in a revered mausoleum. The second was a billfold that contained money and an official document proclaiming the bearer to be a member of the People’s Security Forces. The conspirators had colleagues in high places. Bourne rolled the corpse under the limousine, slashed the left tires and raced around the car, plunging his hunting knife into those on the right. The huge automobile settled into the ground. The captain from the Kuomintang was provided a secure, concealed resting place.

Jason ran to the gatehouse, debating whether or not to shoot out the floodlights, and he decided against it. If he survived he would need the illumination of the landmark. If—if? He had to survive! Marie! He went inside and, kneeling below the window, removed the shells from the guard’s automatic, inserting them into his own. He then looked around for schedules or instructions; there was a roster tacked to the wall next to the ring of keys hanging on a nail. He grabbed the keys.

A telephone rang! The earsplitting bell reverberated off the glass walls of the small gatehouse. If there’s a telephone check, I know the routine. A captain from the Kuomintang. Bourne rose, picked up the phone from the counter and crouched again, spreading his fingers over the mouthpiece.

Jing Shan,” he said hoarsely. “Yes?”

“Hello, my thrusting butterfly,” answered a female voice in what Jason determined to be decidedly uncultured Mandarin. “How are all your birds tonight?”

“They’re fine but I’m not.”

“You don’t sound like yourself. This is Wo, isn’t it?”

“With a terrible cold and vomiting and running back to the stalls every two minutes. Nothing stays down or inside.”

“Will you be all right in the morning? I don’t wish to be contaminated.”

Take out the lonely ones, the ugly ones.…

“I wouldn’t want to miss our date—”

“You’ll be too weak. I’ll call you tomorrow night.”

“My heart withers like the dying flower.”

“Cow dung!” The woman hung up.

As he talked Jason’s eyes strayed to a pile of heavy coiled chain in the corner of the gatehouse, and he understood. In China, where so many mechanical things failed, the chain was a backup should the lock in the center of the gate refuse to close. On top of the coiled chain was an ordinary steel padlock. One of the keys on the ring should fit it, he thought, as he inserted several until the lock sprang open. He gathered up the chain and started outside, then stopped, turned around, and ripped the telephone out of the wall. One more piece of malfunctioning equipment.

At the gate he uncoiled the chain and wound the entire length around the midpoint of the two center posts until there was a bulging mass of coiled steel. He pressed four links of the chain together so that the open spaces were clear, inserted the curved bar, and secured the lock. Everything was stretched taut, and contrary to generally accepted belief, firing a bullet into the mass of hard metal would not blow it apart, only heighten the possibility that a deflected bullet might kill the one firing and endanger the lives of anyone else in the area. He turned and started down the center path, once more staying in the shadows of the border.

The path was dark. The glow from the floodlit gate was blocked by the dense woods of the bird sanctuary, but the light was still visible in the sky. Cupping his penlight in the palm of his left hand, his arm stretched downward toward the ground, he could see every six or seven feet a small piece of gravel. Once he saw the first two or three he knew what to look for: tiny discolorations on the dark earth, the distance relatively consistent between them. D’Anjou had squeezed up each stone, probably between his thumb and forefinger, rubbing it as hard as he could to remove the grime of the parking lot and impart the oils of his flesh so that each might stand out. The battered Echo had not lost his presence of mind.

Suddenly, there were two stones, not one, and only inches apart. Jason looked up, squinting in the tiny glow of the concealed penlight. The two stones were no accident, but another signal. The main path continued straight ahead, but the one taken by the herded prisoners veered sharply to the right. Two stones meant a turn.

Then, abruptly, there was a change in the relative distances between the pebbles. They were farther and farther apart, and just when Bourne thought there were no more, he saw another. Suddenly, there were two on the ground, marking another intersecting path. D’Anjou knew he was running out of stones and so had begun a second strategy, a tactic that quickly became clear to Jason. As long as the prisoners remained on a single path, there would be no stones, but when they turned into other paths, two pieces of gravel indicated the direction.

He skirted the edges of marshes, and went deep into fields and out of them, everywhere hearing the sudden fluttering of wings and the screeches of disturbed birds as they winged off into the moonlit sky. Finally there was only one narrow path and it led down into a glen of sorts—

He stopped, instantly extinguishing the cupped penlight. Below, about a hundred feet down the narrow path he saw the glow of a cigarette. It moved slowly, casually up and down, an unconcerned man smoking, but still a man placed where he was for a reason. Then Jason studied the darkness beyond—because it was a different darkness; specks of light flickered now and then through the dense woods of the descending glen. Torches, perhaps, for there was nothing constant about the barely discernible light. Of course, torches. He had reached it. Below in the distant glen, beyond the guard with his cigarette, was the meeting ground.

Bourne lurched into the tangled brush on the right side of the path. He started down only to find that the serpentine reeds were like fishnets, stalks woven together by years of erratic winds. To rip them apart or to break them would create noise inconsistent with the normal sounds of the sanctuary. Snaps and zipperlike scratchings were not the sudden fluttering of wings or the screeches of disturbed inhabitants. They were man-made and signified a different intrusion. He reached for his knife, wishing the blade were longer, and began a journey that had he remained on the path would have taken him no more than thirty seconds. It took him now nearly twenty minutes to slice his way silently to within sight of the guard.

“My God!” Jason held his breath, suppressing the cry in his throat. He had slipped; the slithering, hissing creature beneath his left foot was at least a yard and a half in length. It coiled around his leg, and in panic he clutched a part of the body, pulling it away from his flesh, and severing it in midair with his knife. The snake thrashed violently about for several seconds, then the spasms stopped; it was dead, uncoiled at his foot. He closed his eyes and shivered, letting the moment pass. Again he crouched and crept closer to the guard, who was now lighting another cigarette or trying to light it with one match after another that failed to ignite. The guard seemed furious with his government-subsidized book of matches.

Ma de shizi, shizi!” he said under his breath, the cigarette in his mouth.

Bourne crawled forward, slicing the last few reeds of thick grass until he was six feet from the man. He sheathed the hunting knife, and again reached into his right back pocket for the garrote. There could be no misplaced blade that permitted a scream; there could only be utter silence broken by an unheard expulsion of air.

He’s a human being! A son, a brother, a father!

He is the enemy. He’s our target. That’s all we have to know. Marie is yours, not theirs.

Jason Bourne lunged out of the grass as the guard inhaled his first draft of tobacco. The smoke exploded from his gaping mouth. The garrote was arced in place, the trachea severed as the patrol fell back in the underbrush, his body limp, his life over.

Whipping out the bloody wire, Jason shook it in the grass, then rolled the spools together and shoved them back into his pocket. He pulled the corpse deeper into the foliage, away from the path, and began searching the pockets. He first found what felt like a thick wad of folded toilet tissue, not at all uncommon in China where such paper was continuously in short supply. He unsnapped his penlight, cupped it and looked at his find, astonished. The paper was folded and soft but it was not tissue. It was renminbi, thousands of yuan, more than several years’ income for most Chinese. The guard at the gate, the “captain of the Kuomintang,” had money—somewhat more than Jason thought usual—but nowhere near this amount. A billfold was next. There were photographs of children, which Bourne quickly replaced, a driving permit, a housing allocation certificate, and an official document proclaiming the bearer to be … a member of the People’s Security Forces! Jason pulled out the paper he had taken from the first guard’s billfold and placed both side by side on the ground. They were identical. He folded both and put them into his pocket. A last item was as puzzling as it was interesting. It was a pass allowing the bearer access to Friendship Stores, those shops that serve foreign travelers and are all but prohibited to the Chinese except for the highest government officials. Whoever the men were below, thought Bourne, they were a strange and rarefied group. Subordinate guards carried enormous sums of money, enjoyed official privileges light years beyond their positions, and bore documents identifying themselves as members of the government’s secret police. If they were conspirators—and everything he had seen and heard from Shenzen to Tian An Men Square to this wildlife preserve would seem to confirm it—the conspiracy reached into the hierarchy of Beijing. No time! It’s not your concern!

The weapon strapped to the man’s waist was, as he expected, similar to the one in his belt, as well as the gun he had thrown into the woods at the Jing Shan gate. It was a superior weapon, and weapons were symbols. A sophisticated weapon was no less a mark of status than an expensive watch, which might have many imitators, but those who had a schooled eye for the merchandise would know the genuine article. One might merely show it to confirm one’s status, or deny it as government issue from an army that bought its weapons from every available source in the world. It was a subtle point of recognition—only one superior kind allocated to one elite circle. No time! It’s no concern of yours! Move!

Jason extracted the shells, put them in his pocket, and threw the gun into the forest. He crawled out to the path and started slowly, silently, down toward the flickering light beyond the wall of high trees below.

It was more than a glen, it was a huge well dug out of prehistoric earth, a rupture dating from the Ice Age that had not healed. Birds flapped above, in fear and curiosity; owls hooted in angry dissonance. Bourne stood at the edge of the precipice looking down through the trees at the gathering below. A pulsating circle of torches illuminated the meeting ground. David Webb gasped, wanting to vomit, but the ice-cold command dictated otherwise: Stop it. Watch. Know what we’re dealing with.

Suspended from the limb of a tree by a rope attached to his bound wrists, his arms stretched out above him, his feet barely inches off the ground, a male prisoner writhed in panic, muted cries coming from his throat, his eyes wild and pleading above his gagged mouth.

A slender, middle-aged man dressed in a Mao jacket and trousers stood in front of the violently twisting body. His right hand was extended, clasping the jeweled hilt of an upended sword, its blade long and thin, its point resting in the earth. David Webb recognized the weapon—weapon and not a weapon. It was a ceremonial sword of a fourteenth-century warlord belonging to a ruthless class of militarists who destroyed villages and towns and whole countrysides, and were even suspected of opposing the will of the Yuan emperors—Mongols who left nothing but fire and death and the screams of children in their wake. The sword was also used for ceremonies far less symbolic, far more brutal than rites performed at the dynasty’s courts. David felt a wave of nausea and apprehension gripping him as he watched the scene below.

Listen to me!” shouted the slender man in front of the prisoner as he turned to address his audience. His voice was high-pitched but deliberate, instructive. Bourne did not know him, but his was a face that would be hard to forget. The close-cropped gray hair, the gaunt, pale features—above all, the stare. Jason could not see the eyes clearly, but it was enough that the fires of the torches danced off them. They, too, were on fire.

“The nights of the great blade begin!” screamed the slender man suddenly. “And they will continue night after night until all those who would betray us are sent to hell! Each of these poisonous insects have committed crimes against our holy cause, crimes we are aware of, all of which could lead to the great crime demanding the great blade.” The speaker turned to the suspended prisoner. “You! Indicate the truth and only the truth! Do you know the Occidental?”

The prisoner shook his head, throated moans accompanying the wild movement.

Liar!” shrieked a voice from the crowd. “He was in the Tian An Men this afternoon!”

Again the prisoner shook his head spastically in panic.

“He spoke against the true China!” shouted another. “I heard him in the Hua Gong Park among the young people!”

“And in the coffee house on the Xidan Bei!”

The prisoner convulsed, his wide, stunned eyes fixed in shock on the crowd. Bourne began to understand. The man was hearing lies and he did not know why, but Jason knew. The star-chamber inquisition was in session; a troublemaker, or a man with doubts, was being eliminated in the name of a greater crime. And on the outside possibility that he might have committed it. The nights of the great blade begin—night after night! It was a reign of terror inside a small, bloody kingdom within a vast land where centuries of bloodstained warlords had prevailed.

“He did these things?” shouted the gaunt-faced orator. “He said these things?”

A frenzied chorus of affirmatives filled the glen.

“In the Tian An Men.…!”

“He talked to the Occidental.…!”

“He betrayed us all.…!”

“He caused the trouble at the hated Mao’s tomb.…!”

“He would see us dead, our cause lost.…!”

“He speaks against our leaders and wants them killed.…!”

“To oppose our leaders,” said the orator, his voice calm but rising, “is to vilify them, and, by so doing, to remove the care one must accord the precious gift called life. When these things occur, the gift must be taken away.”

The suspended man writhed more furiously, his cries growing louder and matching the moans of the other prisoners who were forced to kneel in front of the speaker in full view of the imminent execution. Only one kept refusing, continuously trying to rise in disobedience and disrespect, and continuously beaten down by the guard nearest him. It was Philippe d’Anjou. Echo was sending another message to Delta, but Jason Bourne could not understand it.

“… this diseased, ungrateful hypocrite, this teacher of the young, who was welcomed like a brother into our dedicated ranks because we believed the words he spoke—so courageously, we thought—in opposition to our motherland’s tormentors, is no more than a traitor. His words are hollow. He is a sworn companion of the treacherous winds and they would take him to our enemies, the tormentors of Mother China! In his death may he find purification!” The now shrill-voiced orator pulled the sword out of the ground. He raised it above his head.

And so that his seed may not be spread, recited the scholar David Webb to himself, recalling the words of the ancient incantation and wanting to close his eyes, but unable to, ordered by his other self not to. We destroy the well from which the seed springs, praying to the spirits to destroy all it has entered here on earth.

The sword arced vertically down, hacking into the groin and genitalia of the screaming, twisting body.

And so that his thoughts may not be spread, diseasing the innocent and the weak, we pray to the spirits to destroy them wherever they may be, as we here destroy the well from which they spring.

The sword was now swung horizontally, slashing through the prisoner’s neck. The writhing body fell to the ground under a shower of blood from the severed head, which the slender man with the eyes of fire continued to abuse with the blade until there was no recognition of a human face.

The rest of the terrified prisoners filled the glen with wails of horror as they groveled on the ground, soiling themselves, begging for mercy. Except one. D’Anjou rose to his feet and stared in silence at the messianic man with the sword. The guard approached. Hearing him, the Frenchman turned and spat in his face. The guard, mesmerized, perhaps sickened by what he had seen, backed away. What was Echo doing? What was his message?

Bourne then looked over at the executioner with the gaunt face and the close-cropped gray hair. He was wiping the long blade of the sword with a white silk scarf as aides removed the body and what was left of the prisoner’s skull. He pointed to a striking, attractive woman who was being dragged by the two guards over to the rope. Her posture was erect, defiant. Delta studied the executioner’s face. Beneath the maniacal eyes, the man’s thin mouth was stretched into a slit. He was smiling.

He was dead. Sometime. Somewhere. Perhaps tonight. A butcher, a bloodstained, blind fanatic who would plunge the Far East into an unthinkable war—China against China, the rest of the world to follow.

Tonight!