Bourne sat in the racing shadows of the backseat, the intermittent moonlight bright, creating brief explosions of light and dark inside the automobile. At sudden, irregular, unexpected moments he leaned forward and pressed the barrel of his gun into the back of his prisoner’s neck. “Try crashing off the road and there’s a bullet in your head. Do you understand me?”
And always there was the same reply, or a variation of it, spoken in a clipped British accent. “I’m not a fool. You’re behind me and you’ve got a weapon and I can’t see you.”
Jason had ripped the rearview mirror from its bracket, the bolt having cracked easily in his hand. “Then I’m your eyes back here, remember that. I’m also the end of your life.”
“Understood,” the former officer in the Royal Commandos repeated without expression.
The government road map spread out on his lap, the penlight cupped in his left hand, the automatic in his right, Bourne studied the roads heading south. As each half hour passed and landmarks were spotted, Jason understood that time was his enemy. Although the assassin’s right arm was effectively immobilized, Bourne knew he was no match for the younger, stronger man in sheer stamina. The concentrated violence of the last three days had taken its toll physically, mentally, and—whether he cared to acknowledge it or not—emotionally, and while Jason Bourne did not have to acknowledge it, David Webb proclaimed it with every fiber of his emotional being. The scholar had to be kept at bay, deep down inside, his voice stilled.
Leave me alone! You’re worthless to me!
Every now and then Jason felt the dead weight of his lids closing over his eyes. He would snap them open and abuse some part of his body, pinching hard the soft sensitive flesh of his inner thigh or digging his nails into his lips, to create instant pain so as to dispel the exhaustion. He recognized his condition—only a suicidal fool would not—and there was no time or place to remedy it with an axiom he had stolen from Medusa’s Echo. Rest is a weapon, never forget it. Forget it, Echo … brave Echo … there’s no time for rest, no place to find it.
And while he accepted his own assessment of himself, he also had to accept his evaluation of his prisoner. The killer was totally alert; his sharpness was in his skill at the wheel, for Jason demanded speed over the strange, unfamiliar roads. It was in his constantly moving head, and it was in his eyes whenever Bourne saw them, and he saw them frequently whenever he directed the assassin to slow down and watch for an off-shooting road on the right or the left. The imposter would turn in the seat—the sight of his so-familiar features always a shock to Jason—and ask whether the road ahead was the one his “eyes” wanted. The questions were superfluous; the former commando was continuously making his own assessment of his captor’s physical and mental condition. He was a trained killer, a lethal machine who knew that survival depended on gaining the advantage over his enemy. He was waiting, watching, anticipating the moment when his adversary’s eyelids might close for that brief instant or when the weapon might suddenly drop to the floor, or his enemy’s head might recline for a second into the comfort of the backseat. These were the signs he was waiting for, the lapses he could capitalize on to violently alter the circumstances. Bourne’s defense, therefore, depended upon his mind, in doing the unexpected so that the psychological balance remained in his favor. How long could it last—could he last?
Time was his enemy, the assassin in front of him a secondary problem. In his past—that vaguely remembered past—he had handled killers before, manipulated them before, because they were human beings subject to the wiles of his imagination. Christ, it came down to that! So simple, so logical—and he was so tired.… His mind. There was nothing else left! He had to keep thinking, had to keep prodding his imagination and make it do its work. Balance, balance! He had to keep it on his side! Think. Act. Do the unexpected!
He removed the silencer from his weapon, leveled the gun at the closed right-front window, and pulled the trigger. The explosion was ear-shattering, reverberating throughout the enclosed car, as the glass splintered, blowing out into the rushing night air.
“What the hell was that for?” screamed the impostor-assassin, clutching the wheel, holding an involuntary swerve in control.
“To teach you about balance,” answered Jason. “You should understand that I’m unbalanced. The next shot could blow your head away.”
“You’re a fucking lunatic, that’s what you are!”
“I’m glad you understand.”
The map. One of the more civilized things about a PRC road map—and consistent with the quality of its vehicles—was the starred indicators of garages which were open twenty-four hours a day along the major routes. One had only to think of the confusion that might result from military and official transports breaking down to understand the necessity; it was heaven-sent for Bourne.
“There’s a gas station about four miles down this road,” he said to the assassin—to Jason Bourne, he reflected. “Stop and refill and don’t say a word—which would be foolish if you tried, because you obviously can’t speak the language. You must memorize the few pathetic words you need.”
“You do speak it?”
“It’s why I’m the original and you’re the fake.”
“You can bloody well have it, Mr. Original!”
Jason fired the gun again, blowing the rest of the window away. “The fake!” he yelled, raising his voice over the sound of the wind. “Remember that.”
Time was the enemy.
He took a mental inventory of what he had, and it was not much. Money was his primary ammunition; he had more than a hundred Chinese could make in a hundred lifetimes, but money in itself was not the answer. Only time was the answer. If he had a prayer to get out of the vast land of China, it had to be by air, not on the ground. He would not last that long. Again, he studied the map. It would take thirteen to fifteen hours to reach Shanghai—if the car held up and if he held up, and if they could get by the provincial checkpoints where he knew there would be alarms out for a Westerner, or two Westerners, attempting to pass through. He would be taken—they would be taken. And even if they reached Shanghai, with its relatively lax airport, how many complications might arise?
There was an option—there were always options. It was crazy and outrageous, but it was the only thing left.
Time was the enemy. Do it. There is no other choice.
He circled a small symbol on the outskirts of the city of Jinan. An airport.
Dawn. Wetness everywhere. The ground, the tall grass, and the metal fence glistened with morning dew. The single runway beyond was a shining black shaft cutting across the close-cropped field, half green with today’s moisture, half dullish brown from the pounding of yesterday’s broiling sun. The Shanghai sedan was far off the airport road, as far off as the assassin could drive it, again concealed by foliage. The impostor was once more immobilized, now by the thumbs. Pressing the gun into his right temple, Jason had ordered the assassin to wind the spools of wire into double slipknots around each thumb, and then he had snapped the spools away with his cutter, run the wire back and coiled the two remaining strands tightly around the killer’s wrists. As the commando discovered, with any slight pressure, such as twisting or separating his hands, the wire dug deeper into his flesh.
“If I were you,” said Bourne, “I’d be careful. Can you imagine what it would be like having no thumbs? Or if your wrists were cut?”
“Fucking technician!”
“Believe it.”
Across the airfield a light was turned on in a one-story building with a row of small windows along the side. It was a barracks of sorts, simple in design and functional. Then there were other lights—naked bulbs, the glows more like glares. A barracks. Jason reached for the coiled roll of clothing he had removed from the small of his back; he undid the straps, unfurled the garments over the grass and separated them. There was a large Mao jacket, a pair of rumpled outsized trousers, and a visored cloth hat that was standard for the clothes. He put on the hat and the jacket, buttoning the latter over his dark sweater, then stood up and pulled the large trousers over his own. A webbed cloth belt held them in place. He smoothed the drab, bulky jacket over the trousers, and turned to the assassin, who was watching him with astonishment and curiosity.
“Get over to the fence,” said Jason, bending down and digging into his knapsack. “Get on your knees and lean into it,” he continued, pulling out a five-foot length of thin nylon rope. “Press your face into the links. Eyes front! Hurry up!”
The killer did as he was told, his bound hands awkwardly, painfully in front of him between his body and the fence, his head pressed into the wire mesh. Bourne walked rapidly over and quickly threaded the rope through the fence on the right side of the assassin’s neck, and with his fingers reaching through the open squares he swung the line across the commando’s face and pulled the rope back through. He yanked it taut and knotted it at the base of the assassin’s skull. He had worked so swiftly and so unexpectedly that the former officer could barely get out the words before he realized what had happened. “What the hell are you—oh, Christ!”
“As that maniac remarked about d’Anjou before he hacked into his head, you’re not going anywhere, Major.”
“You’re going to leave me here?” asked the killer, stunned.
“Don’t be foolish. We’re on the buddy system. Where I go, you go. Actually, you’re going first.”
“Where?”
“Through the fence,” said Jason, taking the wire cutter from the knapsack. He began cutting a pattern around the assassin’s torso, relieved that the wire links were nowhere near as thick as those at the bird sanctuary. The outline complete, Bourne stepped back and raised his right foot, placing it between the impostor’s shoulder blades. He shoved his leg forward. Killer and fence fell collapsing onto the grass on the other side.
“Jesus!” cried the commando in pain. “Pretty fucking funny, aren’t you?”
“I don’t feel remotely amusing,” replied Jason. “Every move I make is very unfunny, very serious. Get up and keep your voice down.”
“For Christ’s sake, I’m tied to the damn fence!”
“It’s free. Get up and turn around.” Awkwardly the assassin staggered to his feet. Bourne surveyed his work; the sight of the outline of wire mesh attached to the killer’s upper body, as though held in place by a protruding nose, was funny. But the reason for its being there was not funny at all. Only with the assassin secure in front of his eyes was all risk eliminated. Jason could not control what he could not see, and what he could not see could cost him his life.… Far more important, the life of David Webb’s wife—even David Webb. Stay away from me! Don’t interfere! We’re too close!
Bourne reached over and yanked the bowknot free, holding on to one end of the line. The fence fell away, and before the assassin could adjust, Jason whipped the rope around the commando’s head, raising it so that the line was caught in the killer’s mouth. He pulled it tight, tighter, stretching the assassin’s jaw open until it was a gaping dark hole surrounded by a border of white teeth, the flesh creased in place, unintelligible sounds emerging from the commando’s throat.
“I can’t take credit for this, Major,” said Bourne, knotting the thin nylon rope, the remaining thirty-odd inches hanging loose. “I watched d’Anjou and the others. They couldn’t talk, they could only gag on their own vomit. You saw them, too, and you grinned. How does it feel, Major?… Oh, I forgot, you can’t answer, can you?” He shoved the assassin forward, then gripped his shoulder, sending him to the left. “We’ll skirt the end of the runway,” he said. “Move!”
As they rounded the airfield grass, staying in the darkness of the borders, Jason studied the relatively primitive airport. Beyond the barracks was a small circular building with a profusion of glass but no lights shining except a single glare in a small square structure set in the center of the roof. The building was Jinan’s terminal, he thought, the barely lit square on top the control tower. To the left of the barracks, at least two hundred feet to the west, was a dark, open, high-ceilinged maintenance hangar with huge wheeled ladders near the wide doors reflecting the early light. It was apparently deserted, with the crews still in their quarters. Down in the southern perimeter of the field, on both sides of the runway and barely discernible, were five aircraft, all props and none imposing. The Jinan Airport was a secondary, even tertiary, landing field, undoubtedly being upgraded, as were so many airports in China in the cause of foreign investment, but it was a long way from international status. Then, again, the air corridors were channels in the sky and not subject to the cosmetic or technological whims of airports. One simply had to enter those channels and stay on course. The sky acknowledged no borders; only earthbound men and machines did. Combined, they were another problem.
“We’re going into the hangar,” whispered Jason, jabbing the commando’s back. “Remember, if you make any noise, I won’t have to kill you—they will. And I’ll have my chance to get away because you’ll be giving it to me. Don’t doubt it. Get down!”
Thirty yards away a guard walked out of the cavernous structure, a rifle slung over his shoulder, his arms stretching as his chest swelled with a yawn. Bourne knew it was the moment to act; a better one might not present itself. The assassin was prone, his wire-bound hands beneath him, his gaping mouth pressed into the earth. Grabbing the loose nylon rope, Jason gripped the killer’s hair, yanking up his head, and looped the line twice around the commando’s neck. “You move, you choke,” whispered Bourne, getting to his feet.
He ran silently to the hangar’s wall, then quickly walked to the corner and peered around the edge. The guard had barely moved. Then Jason understood—the man was urinating. Perfectly natural and perfectly perfect. Bourne stepped away from the building, dug his right foot into the grass and rushed forward, his weapon a rigid right hand preceded by an arcing left foot striking the base of the guard’s spine. The man collapsed, unconscious. Jason dragged him back to the corner of the hangar, then across the grass to where the assassin lay immobile, afraid to move.
“You’re learning, Major,” said Bourne, again grabbing the commando’s hair and pulling the nylon rope from around his neck. The fact that the looped rope would not have choked the impostor, any more than a loose clothesline wound around a person’s neck would, told Delta something. His prisoner could not think geometrically; stresses were not a strong point in the killer’s imagination, only the spoken threat of death. It was something to bear in mind. “Get up,” ordered Jason. The assassin did so, his gaping mouth swallowing air, his eyes full of hatred. “Think about Echo,” said Bourne, his own eyes returning the killer’s loathing. “Excuse me, I mean d’Anjou. The man who gave you your life back—a life, at any rate, and one you apparently took to. Your Pygmalion, old chap!… Now, hear me, and hear me well. Would you like the rope removed?”
“Auggh!” grunted the assassin, nodding his head, his eyes reduced from hatred to pleading.
“And your thumbs released?”
“Auggh, auggh!”
“You’re not a guerrilla, you’re a gorilla,” said Jason, pulling the automatic from his belt. “But as we used to say in the old days—before your time, chap—there are ‘conditions.’ You see, either we both get out of here alive, or we disappear, our mortal remains consigned to a Chinese fire, no past, no present—certainly no retrospective regarding our subzero contributions to society.… I see I’m boring you. Sorry, I’ll forget the whole thing.”
“Auggh!”
“Okay, if you insist. Naturally, I won’t give you a weapon, and if I see you trying to grab one, you’re dead. But if you behave, we might—just might—get away. What I’m really saying to you, Mr. Bourne, is that whoever your client is over here can’t allow you to live any more than he can me. Understand? Dig? Capisce?”
“Auggh!”
“One thing more,” added Jason, tugging at the rope that fell over the commando’s shoulder. “This is nylon, or polyurethane, or whatever the hell they call it. When it’s burned, it just swells up like a marshmallow; there’s no way you can untie it. It’ll be attached to both your ankles, both knots curled up into cement. You’ll have a step-span of approximately five feet—only because I’m a technician. Do I make myself clear?”
The assassin nodded, and as he did so Bourne sprang to his right, kicking the back of the commando’s knees, sending the impostor to the ground, his bound thumbs bleeding. Jason knelt down, the gun in his left hand pressed into the killer’s mouth, the fingers of his right undoing the bowknot behind the commando’s head.
“Christ Almighty!” cried the assassin as the rope fell away.
“I’m glad you’re of a religious persuasion,” said Bourne, dropping the weapon and rapidly lashing the rope around the commando’s ankles, forming a square knot on each; he ignited his lighter and fired the ends. “You may need it.” He picked up the gun, held it against the killer’s forehead, and uncoiled the wire around his prisoner’s wrists. “Take off the rest,” he ordered. “Be careful with the thumbs, they’re damaged.”
“My right arm’s no piece of cake, either!” said the Englishman, struggling to remove the slipknots. His hands freed, the assassin shook them, then sucked the blood from his wounds. “You got your magic box, Mr. Bourne?” he asked.
“Always an arm’s length away, Mr. Bourne,” replied Jason. “What do you need?”
“Tape. Fingers bleed. It’s called gravity.”
“You’re well schooled.” Bourne reached behind him for the knapsack and pulled it forward, dropping it in front of the commando, his gun leveled at the killer’s head. “Feel around. It’s a spool near the top.”
“Got it,” said the assassin, removing the tape and rapidly winding it around his thumbs. “This is one rotten fucking thing to do to anybody,” he added when he had finished.
“Think of d’Anjou,” said Jason flatly.
“He wanted to die, for Christ’s sake! What the hell was I supposed to do?”
“Nothing. Because you are nothing.”
“Well then, that kind of puts me on your level, doesn’t it, sport? He made me into you!”
“You don’t have the talent,” said Jason Bourne. “You’re lacking. You can’t think geometrically.”
“What does that mean?”
“Ponder it.” Delta rose to his feet. “Get up,” he commanded.
“Tell me,” said the assassin, pushing himself off the ground and staring at the weapon aimed at his head. “Why me? Why did you ever get out of the business?”
“Because I was never in it.”
Suddenly, floodlights—one after another—began to wash over the field, and with a single brilliant illumination, yellow marker lights appeared along the entire length of the runway. Men ran out of the barracks, a number toward the hangar, others behind their quarters where the engines of unseen vehicles abruptly roared. The lights of the terminal were turned on; activity was at once everywhere.
“Take his jacket off and the hat,” ordered Bourne, pointing the gun at the unconscious guard. “Put them on.”
“They won’t fit!”
“You can have them altered in Savile Row. Move!”
The impostor did as he was told, his right arm so much a problem that Jason had to hold the sleeve for him. With Bourne prodding the commando with the gun, both men ran to the wall of the hangar, then moved cautiously toward the end of the building.
“Do we agree?” asked Bourne, whispering, looking at the face that was so like his own years ago. “We get out or we die?”
“Understood,” answered the commando. “That screaming bastard with his bloody fancy sword is a fucking lunatic. I want out!”
“That reaction wasn’t on your face.”
“If it had been, the maniac might have turned on me!”
“Who is he?”
“Never got a name. Only a series of connections to reach him. The first was a man at the Guangdong garrison named Soo Jiang—”
“I’ve heard the name. They call him the Pig.”
“It’s probably accurate, I don’t know.”
“Then what?”
“A number is left at Table Five at the casino in—”
“The Kam Pek, Macao,” interrupted Jason. “What then?”
“I call the number and speak French. This Soo Jiang is one of the few slants who speak the language. He sets the time of the meet; it’s always the same place. I go across the border to a field up in the hills where a chopper comes in and someone gives me the name of the target. And half the money for the kill.… Look! Here it comes! He’s circling into his approach.”
“My gun’s at your head.”
“Understood.”
“Did your training include flying one of those things?”
“No. Only jumping out of them.”
“That won’t do us any good.”
The incoming plane, its red lights blinking on the wings, swept down, out of the brightening sky toward the runway. The jet landed smoothly. It taxied to the end of the asphalt, swung to the right, and headed back to the terminal.
“Kai guan qi you!” shouted a voice from in front of the hangar, the man pointing at three fuel trucks off to the side, explaining which one was to be used.
“They’re gassing up,” said Jason. “The plane’s taking off again. Let’s get on it.”
The assassin turned, his face—that face—pleading. “For Christ’s sake, give me a knife, something!”
“Nothing.”
“I can help!”
“This is my show, Major, not yours. With a knife you’d slice my stomach apart. No way, chap.”
“Da long xia!” cried the same voice from in front of the hangar, describing government officials in terms of large crayfish. “Fang song,” he continued, telling everyone to relax, that the plane would taxi away from the terminal and the first of the three fuel trucks should be driven out to meet it.
The officials disembarked; the plane circled in place and began charging back over the runway while the tower instructed the pilot where he would refuel. The truck raced out; men leaped from the carriage and began pulling the hoses from their recesses.
“It’ll take about ten minutes,” said the assassin. “It’s a Chinese version of an upgraded DC-Three.”
The aircraft came to a stop, the engines cut, as rolling ladders were pushed to the wings and men scaled them. The fuel tanks were opened, the nozzles inserted amid constant chatter between the maintenance crews. Suddenly the hatch door in the center of the fuselage was reopened, the metal steps slapping down to the ground. Two men in uniform walked out.
“The pilot and his flight officer,” said Bourne, “and they’re not stretching their legs. They’re checking every damn thing those people are doing. We’ll time this very carefully, Major, and when I say ‘Move,’ you move.”
“Straight to the hatch,” agreed the assassin. “When the second bloke hits the first step.”
“That’s about it.”
“Diversion?”
“In what way?”
“You had a pretty fancy one last night. You had your own Yank Fourth of July, you did.”
“Wrong way. Besides, I used them all up.… Wait a minute. The fuel truck.”
“You blow it, there goes the plane. Also, you couldn’t time it to the blokes getting back on board.”
“Not that truck,” said Jason, shaking his head and staring beyond the commando. “The one over there.” Bourne gestured at the nearer of the two red trucks directly in front of them, about a hundred feet away. “If it went up, the first order of business would be to get the plane out of there.”
“And we’d be a lot closer than we are now. Let’s do it.”
“No,” corrected Jason. “You’ll do it. Exactly the way I tell you with my gun inches from your head. Move!”
The assassin in front, they raced out to the truck, covered by the dim light and the commotion around the plane. The pilot and his flight officer were shining flashlights over the engines and barking impatient orders to the maintenance crews. Bourne ordered the commando to crouch down in front of him as he knelt over the open knapsack and withdrew the roll of gauze. He removed the hunting knife from his belt, pulled a coiled hose off its rack, dropping it to the ground, and slid his left hand to the base where it entered the tank.
“Check them,” he told the commando. “How much longer? And move slowly, Major. I’m watching you.”
“I said I wanted out. I’m not going to screw up!”
“Sure, you want out, but I’ve got a hunch you’d rather go it alone.”
“The thought never occurred to me.”
“Then you’re not my man.”
“Thanks a lot.”
“No, I meant it. The thought would have occurred to me.… How much longer?”
“Between two and three minutes, as I judge.”
“How good is your judgment?”
“Twenty-odd missions in Oman, Yemen, and points south. Aircraft similar in structure and mechanism. I know it all, sport. It’s old hat. Two to three minutes, no more than that.”
“Good. Get back here.” Jason pricked the hose with his knife and made a small incision, enough to permit a steady stream of gasoline to flow out, but little enough so that the pump barely operated. He rose to his feet, covering the assassin with his gun as he handed him the roll of gauze. “Pull out about six feet and drench it with the fuel that’s leaking down there.” The killer knelt down and followed Bourne’s instructions. “Now,” continued Jason, “stuff the end into the slit where I’ve cut the hose. Farther—farther. Use your thumb!”
“My arm’s not what it used to be!”
“Your left hand is! Press harder!” Bourne looked quickly over at the refueling—refueled—aircraft. The commando’s judgment had been accurate. Men were climbing off the wings and winding the hoses back into the fuel truck. Suddenly, the pilot and the flight officer were making their final check. They would head for the hatch door in less than a minute! Jason reached into his pocket for matches and threw them down in front of the assassin, his weapon leveled at the killer’s head. “Light it. Now!”
“It’ll go up like a goddamned stick of nitro! It’ll blow us both into the sky, especially me!”
“Not if you do it right! Lay the gauze on the grass, it’s wet—”
“Retarding the fire—?”
“Hurry up! Do it!”
“Done!” The flame leaped up from the end of the cloth strip, then instantly fell back and began its gradual march up the gauze. “Bloody technician,” said the commando under his breath as he rose to his feet.
“Get in front of me,” ordered Bourne as he strung the knapsack to his belt. “Start walking straight forward. Lower your height and shrink your shoulders like you did in Lo Wu.”
“Jesus Christ! You were—?”
“Move!”
The fuel truck began backing away from the plane, then circled forward, swinging around the rolling ladders, heading to its left beyond where the first red truck was parked … and circling again, now to the right behind both stationary trucks to take up its position next to the one with the lighted gauze heading into its fuel tank. Jason whipped his head around, his eyes riveted on the fired tape. It had burst into its final flame! One spark entering the leaking petcock and the exploding tank would send hot metal into its sister trucks’ vulnerable shells. Any second!
The pilot gestured to his flight officer. They marched together toward the hatch door.
“Faster!” yelled Bourne. “Be ready to run!”
“When?”
“You’ll know. Keep your shoulders low! Bend your spine, goddamn it!” They turned right toward the plane, passing through an oncoming crowd of maintenance personnel heading back to the hangar. “Gongju ne?” cried Jason, admonishing a colleague for having left behind a valuable set of tools by the aircraft.
“Gong ju?” shouted a man at the end of the crowd, grabbing Bourne’s arm and holding up a toolbox. Their eyes met and the crewman was stunned, his face contorted in shock. “Tian a!” he screamed.
It happened. The fuel truck exploded, sending erratic pillows of fire pulsating into the sky as deadly shards of twisted metal pierced the space above and to the sides of the flaming vehicle. The crews screamed en masse; men raced in all directions, most to the protection of the hangar.
“Run!” shouted Jason. The assassin did not have to be told; both men raced to the plane and the hatch door, where the pilot, who had climbed inside, was peering out in astonishment while the flight officer remained frozen on the ladder. “Kuai!” yelled Bourne, keeping his face in the shadows and forcing the commando’s head down on the metal steps. “Jiu feiji …!” he added, screaming, telling the pilot to get out of the fire zone for the safety of the plane—that he was maintenance and would secure the hatchway.
A second truck blew up, the opposing walls of explosives forming a volcanic eruption of fire and spewing metal.
“You’re right!” shouted the pilot in Chinese, grabbing his officer copilot by the shirt and pulling him inside; both raced up the short aisle to the flight deck.
It was the moment, thought Jason. He wondered. “Get in!” he ordered the commando as the third fuel truck blasted over the field and into the early light.
“Right!” yelled the assassin, raising his head and straightening his body for the leap up the steps. Then suddenly, as another deafening explosion took place and the plane’s engines roared, the killer spun around on the ladder, his right foot plunging toward Bourne’s groin, his hand lashing out to deflect the weapon.
Jason was ready. He crashed the barrel of his gun into the commando’s ankle, then swung it up, smashing it across the assassin’s temple; blood flowed as the killer fell back into the fuselage. Bourne leaped up the steps, kicking the unconscious body of the impostor back across the metal floor. He yanked the hatchway into place, slamming the latches down and securing the door. The plane began to taxi, instantly swerving to the left away from the flaming center of danger. Jason ripped the knapsack from his belt, pulled out a second length of nylon rope and tied the assassin’s wrists to two widely separated seat clamps. There was no way the commando could free himself—none that Bourne could think of—but just in case he was mistaken, Jason cut the rope attached to the assassin’s ankles, separated his legs and tied each foot to the opposite clamps across the aisle.
He got up and started toward the flight deck. The aircraft was now on the runway, racing down the blacktop; suddenly the engines were cut. The plane was stopping in front of the terminal, where the group of government officials was gathered, watching the evergrowing conflagrations taking place less than a quarter of a mile away to the north.
“Kai ba!” said Bourne, placing the barrel of his automatic against the back of the pilot’s head. The copilot whirled around in his seat. Jason spoke in clear Mandarin as he shifted his arm. “Watch your dials, and prepare for takeoff, then give me your maps.”
“They will not clear us!” yelled the pilot. “We are to pick up five outgoing commissioners!”
“To where?”
“Baoding.”
“That’s north,” said Bourne.
“Northwest,” insisted the copilot.
“Good. Head south.”
“It will not be permitted!” shouted the pilot.
“Your first duty is to save the aircraft. You don’t know what’s going on out there. It could be sabotage, a revolt, an uprising. Do as I tell you, or you’re both dead. I really don’t care.”
The pilot snapped his head around and looked at Jason. “You are a Westerner! You speak Chinese but you are a Westerner! What are you doing?”
“Commandeering this aircraft. You’ve got plenty of runway left. Take off! South! And give me the maps.”
The memories came back. Distant sounds, distant sights, distant thunder.
“Snake Lady, Snake Lady! Respond! What are your sector coordinates?”
They were heading into Tam Quan and Delta would not break silence. He knew where they were and that was all that mattered. Command Saigon could go to hell, he wasn’t about to give the North Viet monitoring posts an inkling as to where they were going.
“If you won’t or can’t respond, Snake Lady, stay below six hundred feet! This is a friend talking, you assholes! You don’t have many down here! Their radar will pick you up over six-fifty.”
I know that, Saigon, and my pilot knows it, even if he doesn’t like it, and I still won’t break silence.
“Snake Lady, we’ve completely lost you! Can any retard on that mission read an air map?”
Yes, I can read one very well, Saigon. Do you think I’d go up with my team trusting any of you? Goddamnit, that’s my brother down there! I’m not important to you but he is!
“You’re crazy, Western man!” yelled the pilot. “In the name of the spirits, this is a heavy aircraft and we’re barely over the treetops!”
“Keep your nose up,” said Bourne, studying a map. “Dip and grab altitude, that’s all.”
“That is also foolishness!” shouted the copilot. “One downdraft at this level and we are into the forests! We are gone!”
“The weather reports on your radio say there’s no turbulence anticipated—”
“That is above,” screamed the pilot. “You don’t understand the risks! Not down here!”
“What was the last report out of Jinan?” asked Jason, knowing full well what it was.
“They have been trying to track this flight to Baoding,” said the officer. “They have been unable to do so for the past three hours. They are now searching the Hengshui mountains.… Great spirits, why am I telling you? You heard the reports yourself! You speak better than my parents, and they were educated!”
“Two points for the Republic’s Air Force.… Okay, take a hundred-and-sixty-degree turn in two and a half minutes and climb to an altitude of a thousand feet. We’ll be over water.”
“We’ll be in range of the Japanese! They’ll shoot us down!”
“Put out a white flag—or better still, I’ll get on the radio. I’ll think of something. They may even escort us to Kowloon.”
“Kowloon!” shrieked the flight officer. “We’ll be shot!”
“Entirely possible,” agreed Bourne. “But not by me,” he added. “You see, in the final analysis, I have to get there without you. As a matter of fact, you can’t even be a part of my scene. I can’t allow that.”
“You’re making positively no sense!” said the exasperated pilot.
“You just make a hundred-and-sixty-degree turn when I tell you.” Jason studied the airspeed, calibrating the knots on the map, and calculated the estimated distance he wanted. Below, through the window, he saw the coast of China fall behind them. He looked at his watch; ninety seconds had passed. “Make your turn, Captain,” he said.
“I would have made it anyway!” cried the pilot. “I am not of the divine wind of the Kamikaze. I do not fly into my own death.”
“Not even for your heavenly government?”
“Least of all.”
“Times change,” said Bourne, his concentration once more on the air map. “Things change.”
“Snake Lady, Snake Lady! Abort! If you can hear me, get out of there and return to base camp. It’s a no-win! Do you read me? Abort!.”
“What do you want to do, Delta?”
“Keep flying, mister. In three more minutes you can get out of here.”
“That’s me. What about you and your people?”
“We’ll make it.”
“You’re suicidal, Delta.”
“Tell me about it.… All right, everyone check your chutes and prepare for cast-off. Someone help Echo, put his hand on the cord.”
“Déraisonnable!”
The airspeed held steady at close to 370 miles per hour. The route Jason chose, flying at low altitude through the Formosa Strait—past Longhai and Shantou on the Chinese coast, and Hsinchu and Fengshan on Taiwan—was something over 1,435 miles. Therefore the estimate of four hours, plus or minus minutes, was reasonable. The out islands north of Hong Kong would be visible in less than half an hour.
Twice during the flight they had been challenged by radio, once from the Nationalist garrison on Quemoy, the other from a patrol plane out of Raoping. Each time Bourne took over communications, explaining in the first instance that they were on a search mission for a disabled ship bringing Taiwanese goods into the Mainland, for the second a somewhat more ominous declaration that as part of the People’s Security Forces they were scouting the coast for contraband vessels that had undoubtedly eluded the Raoping patrols. For this last communication, he not only was unpleasantly arrogant but also used the name and the official—highly classified—identification number of a dead conspirator who lay underneath a Russian limousine in the Jing Shan Bird Sanctuary. Whether either interrogator believed him or not was, as he expected, irrelevant. Neither cared to disturb the status quo ante. Life was complicated enough. Let things be, let them go. Where was the threat?
“Where’s your equipment?” asked Jason, addressing the pilot.
“I’m flying it!” replied the man, studying his instruments, visibly shaking at each eruption of static from the radio, each reporting communication from commercial aircraft. “As you may or may not know, I have no flight plan. We could be on a collision course with a dozen different planes!”
“We’re too low,” said Bourne, “and the visibility’s fine. I’ll trust your eyes not to bump into anybody.”
“You’re insane!” shouted the copilot.
“On the contrary. I’m about to walk back into sanity. Where’s your emergency equipment? The way you people build things, I can’t imagine that you don’t have any.”
“Such as?” asked the pilot.
“Life rafts, signaling devices—parachutes.”
“Great spirits!”
“Where?”
“The compartment in the rear of the plane, the door to the right of the galley.”
“It’s all for the officials,” added the copilot dourly. “If there are problems, they are supplied.”
“That’s reasonable,” said Bourne. “How else would you attend to business?”
“Madness.”
“I’m going aft, gentlemen, but my gun will be pointed right back here. Keep on course, Captain. I’m very experienced and very sensitive. I can feel the slightest variation in the air, and if I do, we’re all dead. Understood?”
“Maniac!”
“Tell me about it.” Jason got up from the deck and walked back through the fuselage, stepping over his roped-up, splayed-out prisoner, who had given up the struggle to free himself, the layers of dried blood covering the wound at his left temple. “How are things, Major?”
“I made a mistake. What else do you want?”
“Your warm body in Kowloon, that’s what I want.”
“So some son of a bitch can put me in front of a firing squad?”
“That’s up to you. Since I’m beginning to put things together, some son of a bitch might even give you a medal if you play your cards the way you should play them.”
“You’re very big with the cryptics, Bourne. What does that mean?”
“With luck, you’ll find out.”
“Thanks a lot!” shouted the Englishman.
“No thanks to me. You gave me the idea, sport. I asked you if, in your training, you’d learned how to fly one of these things. Do you remember what you told me?”
“What?”
“You said you only knew how to jump out of them.”
“Holy shit!”
The commando, the parachute securely strapped to his back, was bound upright between two seats, legs and hands tied together, his right hand lashed to the release cord.
“You look crucified, Major, except that the arms should be extended.”
“For God’s sake, will you make sense?”
“Forgive me. My other self keeps trying to express himself. Don’t do anything stupid, you bastard, because you’re going out that hatch! Hear me? Understood?”
“Understood.”
Jason walked to the flight deck, sat on the deck, picked up the map, and spoke to the flight officer. “What’s the check?” he asked.
“Hong Kong in six minutes if we don’t ‘bump into anybody.’ ”
“I have every confidence in you, but defection notwithstanding, we can’t land at Kai-tak. Head north into the New Territories.”
“Aiya!” screamed the pilot. “We cross radar! The mad Gurkhas will fire on anything remotely Mainland!”
“Not if they don’t pick you up, Captain. Stay below six hundred feet up to the border, then climb over the mountains at Lo Wu. You can make radio contact with Shenzen.”
“And what in the name of the spirits do I say?”
“You were hijacked, that’s all. You see, I can’t allow you to be a part of me. We can’t land in the colony. You’d draw attention to a very shy man—and his companion.”
The parachutes snapped open above them, the sixty-foot rope connecting them by their waists stretched in the winds, as the aircraft sped north toward Shenzen.
They landed in the waters of a fish hatchery south of Lok Ma Chau. Bourne hauled in the rope, pulling the bound assassin toward him, as the owners of the hatchery screamed on the banks of their squared-off pond. Jason held up money—more money than the husband and wife could earn in a year.
“We are defectors!” he cried. “Rich defectors! Who cares?”
No one cared, least of all the owners of the hatchery. “Mgoi! Mgoissaai!” they kept repeating, thanking the strange pink creatures who fell from the sky, as Bourne dragged the assassin out of the water.
The Chinese garments discarded and the commando’s wrists lashed behind his back, Bourne and his captive reached the road that headed south into Kowloon. Their drenched clothes were drying rapidly under the heat of the sun, but their appearance would not attract what few vehicles there were on the road and the fewer still that might be willing to pick up hitchhikers. It was a problem that had to be solved. Solved quickly, accurately. Jason was exhausted; he could barely walk and his concentration was fading. One misstep and he could lose—but he could not lose! Not now!
Peasants, mainly old women, trudged along the borders of the pavement, their outsized, wide-brimmed black hats shielding withered faces from the sun, yokes spread across ancient shoulders supporting baskets of produce. A few looked curiously at the disheveled Westerners, but only briefly; their world did not invite surprises. It was enough to survive; their memories were strong.
Memories. Study everything. You’ll find something you can use.
“Get down,” said Bourne to the assassin. “On the side of the road.”
“What? Why?”
“Because if you don’t, you won’t see three more seconds of daylight.”
“I thought you wanted my warm body in Kowloon!”
“I’ll take a cold body if I have to. Down! On your back! Incidentally, you can shout as loud as you want, no one will understand you. You might even be helping me.”
“Christ, how?”
“You’re in trauma.”
“What?”
“Down! Now!”
The killer lowered himself to the pavement, rolled over on his back, and stared into the bright sunlight, his chest heaving with awkward gulps of breath. “I heard the pilot,” he said. “You are a fucking maniac!”
“To each his own interpretation, Major.” Suddenly, Jason turned in the road and began shouting to the peasant women. “Jiu ming!” he screamed. “Qing bangmang!” He pleaded with the ancient survivors to help his hurt companion, who had either a broken back or crushed ribs. He reached into his knapsack and pulled out money, explaining that every minute counted, that medical help was required as soon as possible. If they could give assistance, he would pay a great deal for their kindness.
As one, the peasants rushed forward, their eyes not on the patient but on the money, their hats flying in the wind, their yokes forgotten.
“Na gunzi lai!” yelled Bourne, asking for splints or sticks of wood that would hold the damaged man rigid.
The women ran into the fields, returning with long bamboo stalks, slicing away the fibers that would give the poor man in pain a measure of relief when he was strapped in place. And having done so amid much vociferous expressions of sympathy and in spite of the patient’s protestations in English, they accepted Bourne’s money and went on their way.
Except one. She spotted a truck coming down from the north.
“Duo shao qian?” she said, leaning into Jason’s ear, asking him how much he would pay.
“Ni shuo ne,” answered Bourne, telling her to name a price.
She did and Delta accepted. With her arms outstretched, the woman walked out onto the road, and the truck stopped. A second negotiation was made with the driver, and the assassin was loaded onto the van, supine, strapped to the bamboo. Jason climbed on behind him.
“How are you doing, Major?”
“This thing is filled with lousy, fucking ducks!” screamed the commando, staring around at the banks of wooden cages on all sides, the odor overpowering, sickening.
A particular fowl, in its infinite wisdom, chose the moment to squirt a stream of excrement into the assassin’s face.
“Next stop, Kowloon,” said Jason Bourne, closing his eyes.