The telephone rang, startling the naked woman who quickly sat up in the bed. The man lying next to her was suddenly wide awake; he was wary of any intrusion, especially one in the middle of the night, or, more accurately, the early hours of the morning. The expression on his soft, round Oriental face, however, showed that such intrusions were not infrequent, only unnerving. He reached for the phone on the bedside table.
“Wei?” he said softly.
“Macao lai dianhua,” replied the switchboard operator at headquarters, Guangdong garrison.
“Connect me on scrambler and remove all recording devices.”
“It is done, Colonel Soo.”
“I will conduct my own study of that,” said Soo Jiang, sitting up and reaching for a small, flat, rectangular object with a raised circle at one end.
“It’s not necessary, sir.”
“I would hope not for your sake.” Soo placed the circle over the mouthpiece and pressed a button. Had there been an intercept on the line, the piercing whistle that suddenly erupted for one second would have continued pulsating until the listening device was removed or a listener’s eardrum was punctured. There was only silence, magnified by the moonlight streaming through the window. “Go ahead, Macao,” said the colonel.
“Bon soir, mon ami,” said the voice from Macao, the French instantly accepted as being spoken by the impostor. “Comment ça va?”
“Vous?” gasped Soo Jiang, stunned, swinging his short fat legs from under the sheet and planting them on the floor. “Attendez!” The colonel turned to the woman. “You. Out. Get out of here,” he ordered in Cantonese. “Take your clothes and put them on in the front room. Keep the door open so I can see you leave.”
“You owe me money!” whispered the woman stridently. “For two times you owe me money, and double for what I did for you below!”
“Your payment is in the fact that I may not have your husband fired. Now get out! You have thirty seconds or you have a penniless husband.”
“They call you the Pig,” said the woman, grabbing her clothes and rushing to the bedroom door, where she turned, glaring at Soo. “Pig!”
“Out.”
Seconds later Soo returned to the phone, continuing in French. “What happened? The reports from Beijing are incredible! No less so the news from the airfield in Shenzen. He took you prisoner!”
“He’s dead,” said the voice from Macao.
“Dead?”
“Shot by his own people, at least fifty bullets in his body.”
“And you?”
“They accepted my story. I was an innocent hostage picked up in the streets and used as a shield as well as a decoy. They treated me well and, in fact, kept me from the press at my insistence. Of course, they’re trying to minimize everything, but they won’t have much success. The newspaper and television people were all over the place, so you’ll read about it in the morning papers.”
“My God, where did it happen?”
“An estate on Victoria Peak. It’s part of the consulate and damned secret. That’s why I have to reach your leader-one. I learned things that he should know about.”
“Tell me.”
The “assassin” laughed derisively. “I sell this kind of information, I don’t give it away—especially not to pigs.”
“You’ll be well taken care of,” insisted Soo.
“Too well in my book.”
“What do you mean by ‘leader-one’?” asked the colonel dismissing the remark.
“Your head man, the chief, the big rooster—whatever you want to call him. He was the man in that forest preserve who did all the talking, wasn’t he? The one who used his sword with such efficiency, the wild-eyed corkscrew with the short hair, the one I tried to warn about the Frenchman’s delaying tactics—”
“You dare …? You did that?”
“Ask him. I told him something was wrong, that the Frenchman was stalling him. Christ, I paid for his not listening to me! He should have hacked that French bastard when I told him to! Now you tell him I want to talk to him!”
“Even I do not talk to him,” said the colonel. “I reach only subordinates by their code names. I don’t know their real ones—”
“You mean the men who fly down to the hills in Guangdong to meet me and deliver the assignments?” interrupted Bourne.
“Yes.”
“I won’t talk to any of them!” exploded Jason, now posing as his own impostor. “I want to talk to the man. And he’d better want to talk to me.”
“You will speak with others first, but still, even for them, there must be very strong reasons. They do the summoning, others do not. You should know that by now.”
“All right, you can be the courier. I was with the Americans for almost three hours, mounting the best cover I ever mounted in my life. They questioned me at length and I answered them openly—I don’t have to tell you that I have backups all over the territory, men and women who’ll swear I’m a business associate, or that I was with them at a specific time, no matter who calls—”
“You don’t have to tell me that,” Soo broke in. “Please, just give me the message I’m to convey. You talked with the Americans. Then what?”
“I listened, too. The colonials have a stupid habit of talking too freely among themselves in the presence of strangers.”
“I hear a British voice now. The voice of superiority. We’ve all heard it before.”
“You’re damned right. The wogs don’t do that, and God knows you slants don’t either.”
“The one who took me prisoner, the man who was killed by the Americans, was an American himself.”
“So?”
“I leave a signature with my kills. The name has a long history. It’s Jason Bourne.”
“We know that. And?”
“He was the original! He was an American, and they’ve been hunting him for nearly two years.”
“And?”
“They think Beijing found him and hired him. Someone in Beijing who needed the most important kill of his life, who needed to kill a man in that house. Bourne’s for sale to anybody, an equal-opportunity employee, as the Americans might say.”
“Your language is elusive. Please be clearer!”
“There were several others in that room with the Americans. Chinese from Taiwan who said outright that they oppose most of the leaders of the secret societies in the Kuomintang. They were angry. Frightened, too, I think.” Bourne stopped. Silence.
“Yes?” pressed the colonel apprehensively.
“They said a number of other things. They also kept mentioning the name of someone called Sheng.”
“Aiya!”
“That’s the message you’ll convey and I’ll expect a response at the casino within three hours. I’ll send someone to pick it up and don’t try anything foolish. I have people there who can start a riot as easily as they can roll a seven. Any interference and your men are dead.”
“We remember the Tsim Sha Tsui a few weeks ago,” said Soo Jiang. “Five of our enemies killed in a back room while a cabaret erupts in violence. There’ll be no interference; we’re not fools where you are concerned. We often wondered if the original Jason Bourne was as proficient as his successor.”
“He wasn’t.” Bring up the possibility of a riot at the casino in case Sheng’s people try to trap you. Say their men will be killed. You don’t have to elaborate. They’ll understand.… The analyst knew whereof he spoke. “A question,” said Jason, genuinely interested. “When did you and the others decide I wasn’t the original?”
“At first sight,” replied the colonel. “The years leave their marks, don’t they? The body may remain agile, even improve with care, but the face reflects time; it is inescapable. Your face could not possibly be the face of the man from Medusa. That was over fifteen years ago and you are, at best, a man in your early thirties. The Medusa did not recruit children. You were the reincarnation of the Frenchman.”
“The code word is ‘crisis’ and you have three hours,” said Bourne, hanging up the phone.
“This is crazy!” Jason stepped out of the open glass booth in the all-night telephone complex and looked angrily at McAllister.
“You did it very well,” said the analyst, writing on a small notepad. “I’ll pay the bill.” The undersecretary started toward the raised platform where the operators accepted payments for international calls.
“You’re missing the point,” continued Bourne at McAllister’s side, his voice low, harsh. “It can’t work. It’s too unorthodox, too obvious for anyone to buy it.”
“If you were demanding a meeting I’d agree with you, but you’re not. You’re only asking for a telephone conversation.”
“I’m asking him to acknowledge the core of his whole goddamned scam! That he is the core!”
“To quote you again,” said the analyst, picking up the bill on the counter and holding out money, “he can’t afford not to respond. He has to.”
“With preconditions that’ll throw you out of the box.”
“I’ll want your input in such matters, of course.” McAllister took his change, nodding thanks to the weary female operator, and started for the door, Jason beside him.
“I may not have any input to give.”
“Under the circumstances, you mean,” said the analyst, as they stepped out onto the crowded pavement.
“What?”
“It’s not the strategy that upsets you, Mr. Bourne, because it’s basically your strategy. What makes you furious is that I’m the one implementing it, not you. Like Havilland, you don’t think I’m capable.”
“I don’t think this is the time or the occasion for you to prove you’re Machine Gun Kelly! If you fail, your life’s the last thing that concerns me. Somehow the Far East comes first, the world comes first.”
“There’s no way I can fail. I told you, even if I fail, I don’t. Sheng loses no matter whether he lives or not. In seventy-two hours the consulate in Hong Kong will make sure of it.”
“Premeditated self-sacrifice isn’t something I approve of,” said Jason, as they started up the street. “Self-deluding heroics always get in the way and screw things up. Besides, your so-called strategy reeks of a trap. They’ll smell it!”
“They would if you negotiated with Sheng and not me. You tell me it’s unorthodox, too obvious, the movements of an amateur. That’s fine. When Sheng hears me on the phone, everything will fall into place for him. I am the embittered amateur, the man who’s never been in the field, the first-rate bureaucrat who’s been passed over by the system he’s served so well. I know what I’m doing, Mr. Bourne. You just get me a weapon.”
The request was not difficult to fulfill. Over in Macao’s Porto Interior, on the Rua das Lorchas, was d’Anjou’s flat, which was a minor arsenal of weapons, the tools of the Frenchman’s trade. It was simply a matter of getting inside and selecting those arms most easily dismantled so as to cross the relatively lax border at Guangdong with diplomatic passports. But it took something over two hours, the process of selection being the most time-consuming as Jason put gun after gun in McAllister’s hand, with Jason watching the analyst’s grip and the expression on his face. The weapon finally chosen was the smallest, lowest calibrated pistol in d’Anjou’s arsenal, a Charter Arms .22 with a silencer.
“Aim for the head, at least three bullets in the skull. Anything else would be a beesting.”
McAllister swallowed, staring at the gun, as Jason studied the weapons, deciding which had the greatest firepower in the smallest package. He chose for himself three Interdynamic KG-9 machine pistols that used outsized clips holding thirty rounds of ammunition.
With their weapons concealed beneath their jackets, they entered the half-filled Kam Pek casino at 3:35 in the morning and walked to the end of the long mahogany bar. Bourne went to the seat he had occupied previously. The undersecretary sat four stools away. The bartender recognized the generous customer who had given him close to a week’s salary less than a week ago. He greeted him like a patron with a long history of dispensing largesse.
“Nei hou a!”
“Mchoh La. Mgoi,” said Bourne, saying that he was fine, in good health.
“The English whisky, isn’t it?” asked the bartender, sure of his memory, hoping it would produce a reward.
“I told friends at the casino in the Lisboa that they should talk to you. I think you’re the best man behind a bar in Macao.”
“The Lisboa? That’s where the true money is! I thank you, sir.” The bartender rushed to pour Jason a drink that would have crippled Caesar’s legions. Bourne nodded without comment, and the man turned reluctantly to McAllister four chairs away. Jason noted that the analyst ordered white wine, paid with precision, and wrote the amount in his notebook. The bartender shrugged, performed the unpleasant service, and walked to the center of the sparsely occupied bar, keeping his eyes on his favored customer.
Step one.
He was there! The well-dressed Chinese in the tailored dark suit, the martial-arts veteran who did not know enough dirty moves, the man he had fought in an alley and who had led him up into the hills of Guangdong. Colonel Soo Jiang was taking no risks under the circumstances. He wanted only the most proven conduits working tonight. No impoverished old men, no whores.
The man walked slowly past several tables, as if studying the action, appraising the dealers and the players, trying to determine where he should test his luck. He arrived at Table Five and, after observing the play of the cards for nearly three minutes, casually sat down and withdrew a roll of bills from his pocket. Among them, thought Jason, was a message marked Crisis.
Twenty minutes later the impeccably dressed Chinese shook his head, put his money back in his pocket, and got up from the table. He was the shortcut to Sheng! He knew his way around both Macao and the border at Guangdong, and Bourne knew he had to reach this man, and reach him quickly! He glanced first at the bartender, who had gone to the end of the bar to prepare drinks for a waiter who was serving the tables, then over at McAllister.
“Analyst!” he whispered sharply. “Stay here!”
“What are you doing?”
“Saying hello to my mother, for Christ’s sake!” Jason got off the stool and started for the door after the conduit. Passing the bartender, he said in Cantonese. “I’ll be right back.”
“It’s no problem, sir.”
Out on the pavement, Bourne followed the well-dressed man for several blocks until he turned into a narrow, dimly lit side street and approached an empty parked car. He was meeting no one; he had delivered the message and was getting out of the area. Jason rushed forward, and as the conduit opened the car door he touched the man’s shoulder. The conduit spun around, crouching, his experienced left foot lashing out viciously. Bourne jumped back, raising his hands in a gesture of peace.
“Let’s not go through this again,” he said in English, for he remembered the man spoke English, taught him by Portuguese nuns. “I still hurt from the beating you gave me a week ago.”
“Aiya! You!” The conduit raised his hands in a like gesture of noncombat. “You do me honor when I do not deserve it. You bested me that night, and for that reason I have practiced six hours a day to improve myself.… You bested me, then. But not now.”
“Considering your age and then considering mine, take my word for it, you weren’t bested. My bones ached far more than yours did, and I’m not about to check out your new training schedule. I’ll pay you a lot of money, but I won’t fight you. The word for it is cowardice.”
“Not you, sir,” said the Oriental, lowering his hands and grinning. “You are very good.”
“Yes, me, sir,” replied Jason. “You scare the hell out of me. And you did me a great favor.”
“You paid me well. Very well.”
“The message was for you?”
“Yes.”
“Then you have taken the Frenchman’s place?”
“He’s dead. Killed by the people who sent the message.”
The conduit looked bewildered, perhaps even sad. “Why?” he asked. “He serviced them well and he was an old man, older than you.”
“Thanks a lot.”
“Did he betray those he serviced?”
“No, he was betrayed.”
“The Communists?”
“Kuomintang,” said Bourne, shaking his head.
“Dong wu! They are no better than the Communists. What do you want from me?”
“If everything goes right, pretty much what you did before, but this time I want you to stay around. I want to hire a pair of eyes.”
“You go up into the hills in Guangdong?”
“Yes.”
“You need assistance crossing the border, then?”
“Not if you can find me someone who can shift a photograph from one passport to another.”
“It is done every day. The children can do it.”
“Good. Then we’re down to my hiring your eyes. There’s a degree of risk, but not much. There’s also twenty thousand dollars, American. Last time I paid you ten, this time it’s twenty.”
“Aiya, a fortune!” The conduit paused, studying Bourne’s face. “The risk must be great.”
“If there’s trouble, I’ll expect you to get out. We’ll leave the money here in Macao, accessible only to you. Do you want the job, or do I look elsewhere?”
“These are the eyes of the hawk bird. Look no further.”
“Come back with me to the casino. Wait outside, down the street, and I’ll have the message picked up.”
The bartender was only too pleased to do as Jason requested. He was confused by the odd word “crisis” that was to be used until Bourne explained that it was the name of a race horse. He carried a “special” drink to a bewildered player at Table Five and returned with the sealed envelope under his tray. Jason had scanned the nearby tables looking for turning heads and shifting eyes amid the spiraling clouds of smoke; he saw none. The sight of the maroon-jacketed bartender among the maroon-jacketed waiters was too common to draw attention. As instructed, the tray was placed between Bourne and McAllister. Jason shook a cigarette out of his pack and shoved a book of matches down the bar toward the non-smoking analyst. Before the perplexed undersecretary could understand, Bourne got off his stool and walked over to him. “Have you got a light, mister?”
McAllister looked at the matches, quickly picked them up, tore one out and struck it, holding the flame up for the cigarette. When Jason returned to his seat, the sealed envelope was in his hand. He opened it, removed the paper inside and read the typewritten English script: Telephone Macao—32-61-443.
He looked around for a pay phone and then realized that he had never used one in Macao, and even if there were instructions, he was not familiar with the Portuguese colony’s coins. It was always the little things that loused up the bigger things. He signaled the bartender, who reached him before his hand was back on the bar.
“Yes, sir? Another whisky, sir?”
“Not for a week,” said Bourne, placing Hong Kong money in front of him. “I have to make a phone call to someone here in Macao. Tell me where a pay phone is and let me have the proper coins, will you, please?”
“I could not permit so fine a gentleman as yourself to use a common telephone, sir. Between us, I believe many of the customers here may be diseased.” The bartender smiled. “Allow me, sir. I have a telephone on my counter—for very special people.”
Before Jason could protest or give thanks, a telephone was put in front of him. He dialed as McAllister stared at him.
“Wei?” said a female voice.
“I was instructed to call this number,” replied Bourne in English. The dead impostor had not known Chinese.
“We will meet.”
“We insist.”
“Then desist. You know me better than that, or you should. I want to talk to the man, and only the man.”
“You are presumptuous.”
“You’re less than an idiot. So’s the skinny preacher with the big sword unless he talks to me.”
“You dare—”
“I’ve heard that once before tonight,” interrupted Jason sharply. “The answer is yes, I do dare. He’s got a hell of a lot more to lose than I do. He’s only one client, and my list is growing. I don’t need him, but right now I think he needs me.”
“Give me a reason that can be confirmed.”
“I don’t give reasons to corporals. I was once a major, or didn’t you know that?”
“There’s no need for insults.”
“There’s no need for this conversation. I’ll call you back in thirty minutes. Offer me something better, offer me the man. And I’ll know if it’s himself because I’ll ask a question or two that only he can answer. Ciao, lady.” Bourne hung up.
“What are you doing?” whispered an agitated McAllister four chairs away.
“Arranging your day in the sun, and I hope you’ve got some lotion. We’re getting out of here. Give me five minutes, then follow me. Turn right out the door and keep walking. We’ll pick you up.”
“We?”
“There’s someone I want you to meet. An old friend—young friend—whom I think you’ll approve of. He dresses like you do.”
“Someone else? Are you insane?”
“Don’t blow your cool, analyst, we’re not supposed to know each other. No, I’m not insane. I just hired a backup in case I’m outthought. Remember, you wanted my input in such matters.”
The introductions were short and no names were used, but it was evident that McAllister was impressed by the stocky, broad-shouldered, well-dressed Chinese.
“Are you an executive with one of the firms over here?” asked the analyst as they walked toward the side street where the conduit’s car was parked.
“In a manner of speaking, yes, sir. My own firm, however. I run a courier service for very important people.”
“But how did he find you?”
“I’m sorry, sir, but I’m sure you can understand. Such information is confidential.”
“Good Lord,” muttered McAllister, glancing at the man from Medusa.
“Get me to a phone in twenty minutes,” said Jason in the front seat. The bewildered undersecretary sat in the back.
“They are using a relay, then?” asked the conduit. “They did so many times with the Frenchman.”
“How did he handle them?” asked Bourne.
“With delays. He would say, ‘Let them sweat.’ May I suggest an hour?”
“You’re on. Is there a restaurant open around here?”
“Over in the Rua Mercadores.”
“We need food, and the Frenchman was right—he was always right. Let them sweat.”
“He was a decent man to me,” said the conduit.
“At the end he was some kind of eloquent if perverted saint.”
“I do not understand, sir.”
“It’s not necessary that you do. But I’m alive and he’s not because he made a decision.”
“What kind of decision, sir?”
“That he should die so that I could live.”
“Like the Christian Scriptures. The nuns taught them to us.”
“Hardly,” said Jason, amused at the thought. “If there’d been another way out we would have taken it. There wasn’t. He simply accepted the fact that his death was my way out.”
“I liked him,” said the conduit.
“Take us to the restaurant.”
It was all Edward McAllister could do to contain himself. What he did not know and what Bourne would not discuss at the table was choking him with frustration. Twice he tried to broach the subject of relays and the current situation and twice Jason cut him off, admonishing the undersecretary with a stare, as the conduit, in gratitude, looked away. There were certain facts the Chinese knew about and there were other facts he did not care to know about for his own safety.
“Rest and food,” mused Bourne, finishing the last of his tian-suan rou. “The Frenchman said they were weapons. He was right, of course.”
“I suggest he needed the first more than you did, sir,” said the conduit.
“Perhaps. Anyway, he was a student of military history. He claimed more battles were lost from fatigue than from inferior firepower.”
“This is all very interesting,” McAllister interrupted sharply, “but we’ve been here for some time and I’m sure there are things we should be doing.”
“We will, Edward. If you’re uptight, think what they’re going through. The Frenchman also used to say that the enemy’s exposed nerves were our best allies.”
“I’m becoming rather tired of your Frenchman,” said McAllister testily.
Jason looked at the analyst and spoke quietly. “Don’t ever say that to me again. You weren’t there.” Bourne checked his watch. “It’s over an hour. Let’s find a phone.” He turned to the conduit. “I’ll need your help,” he added. “You just put in the money. I’ll dial.”
“You said you’d call back in thirty minutes!” spat out the woman at the other end of the line.
“I had business to take care of. I have other clients and I’m not too crazy about your attitude. If this is going to be a waste of time, I’ve got other things to do and you can answer to the man when the typhoon comes.”
“How could that happen?”
“Come on, lady! Give me a trunk filled with more money than you’ve ever thought about and I might tell you. On the other hand, I probably wouldn’t. I like to be owed favors by men in high places. You’ve got ten seconds and I hang up.”
“Please. You will meet a man who will take you to a house on the Guia Hill where there is highly sophisticated communications equipment—”
“And where a half-dozen of your goons will crack my skull and throw me into a room where a doctor fills me with juice and you get it all for nothing!” Bourne’s anger was only partly feigned; Sheng’s troops were the ones behaving like amateurs. “I’ll tell you about another piece of sophisticated equipment. It’s called a telephone and I don’t think there’d be communications from Macao to the Guangdong garrison if you didn’t have scramblers. Of course, you bought them in Tokyo because if you made them yourselves they probably wouldn’t work! Use one. I’m calling you just once more, lady. Have a number for me. The man’s number.” Jason hung up.
“That’s interesting,” said McAllister several feet away from the pay phone, glancing briefly at the Chinese conduit who had returned to the table. “You used the stick when I would have used the carrot.”
“Used the what?”
“I would have emphasized what extraordinary information I had to reveal. Instead, you threatened, as if you were dismissing whoever it was.”
“Spare me,” answered Bourne, lighting a cigarette, grateful that his hand was not shaking. “For your edification I did both. The threat emphasizes the revelation and the dismissal reinforces both.”
“Your input is showing,” said the undersecretary of State, a hint of a smile on his face. “Thank you.”
The man from Medusa looked hard at the man from Washington. “If this damn thing works, can you do it, analyst? Can you whip out the gun and pull the trigger? Because if you can’t, we’re both dead.”
“I can do it,” said McAllister calmly. “For the Far East. For the world.”
“And for your day in the sun.” Jason started toward the table. “Let’s get out of here. I don’t want to use this phone again.”
The serenity of Jade Tower Mountain was belied by the frantic activity inside the villa of Sheng Chou Yang. The turmoil was caused not by the number of people, for there were only five, but by the intensity of the players. The minister listened as his aides came and went from the garden bringing news of the latest developments and timidly offered advice, which was instantly withdrawn at the first sign of displeasure.
“Our people have confirmed the story, sir!” cried a uniformed middle-aged man rushing from the house. “They’ve talked to the journalists. Everything was as the assassin described and a photograph of the dead man was distributed to the newspapers.”
“Get it,” ordered Sheng. “Have it wired here at once. This whole thing is incredible.”
“It’s being done,” said the soldier. “The consulate sent an attaché to the South China News. It should be arriving within minutes.”
“Incredible,” repeated Sheng softly, his eyes straying to the lily pads in the nearest of the four man-made ponds. “The symmetry is too perfect, the timing too perfect, and that means something is imperfect. Someone has imposed order.”
“The assassin?” asked another aide.
“For what purpose? He has no idea that he would have been a corpse before the night was over in the sanctuary. He thought he was privileged, but we were only using him to trap his predecessor, unearthed by our man in Special Branch.”
“Then who?” questioned another.
“That’s the dilemma. Who? Everything is at once tempting yet clumsy. It’s all too apparent, fraught with unprofessional ego. The assassin, if he’s telling the truth, has to believe he has nothing to fear from me, but still he threatens, conceivably throwing over a most profitable client. Professionals don’t do that, and that’s what bothers me.”
“You are suggesting a third party, Minister?” asked the third aide.
“If so,” said Sheng, his eyes now riveted on a single lily pad, “someone with no experience or with the intelligence of an ox. It’s a dilemma.”
“It’s here, sir!” shouted a young man, racing into the garden, holding a teletyped photograph.
“Give it to me. Quickly!” Sheng grabbed the paper and angled it into the glare of a floodlight. “It is he! I’ll never forget that face as long as I breathe! Clear everything! Tell the woman in Macao to give our assassin the number and electronically sweep all conceivable interceptions. Failure is death.”
“Instantly, Minister!” The operator ran back to the house.
“My wife and my children,” said Sheng Chou Yang reflectively. “They may be upset by all this disturbance. Will one of you please go inside and explain that affairs of state keep me from their beloved presence?”
“It is my honor, sir,” said an aide.
“They suffer so from the demands of my work. They are all angels. One day they will be rewarded.”
Bourne touched the conduit’s shoulder, then pointed to the lighted marquee of a hotel on the right side of the street. “We’ll check in here, then head for a phone booth on the other side of the city. Okay?”
“It’s wise,” said the Chinese. “They are all over the telephone company.”
“And we’ve got to get some sleep. The Frenchman never stopped telling me that rest was also a weapon. Christ, why do I keep repeating myself?”
“Because you’re obsessed,” said McAllister from the backseat.
“Tell me about it. No, don’t.”
Jason dialed the number in Macao that tripped a relay in China into a swept telephone in Jade Tower Mountain. As he did so he looked at the analyst. “Does Sheng speak French?” he asked quickly.
“Of course,” said the undersecretary. “He deals with the Quai d’Orsay and speaks the language of everyone he negotiates with. It’s one of his strengths. But why not use Mandarin? You know it.”
“The commando didn’t, and if I speak English he might wonder where the British accent went. French’ll cover it, as it did with Soo Jiang, and I’ll also know whether or not it’s Sheng.” Bourne stretched a handkerchief across the mouthpiece as he heard a second, echoing ring fifteen hundred miles away. The scramblers were in place.
“Wei?”
“Comme le colonel, je préfère le français.”
“Shemma?” cried the voice, bewildered.
“Fawen,” said Jason, the Mandarin for French.
“Fawen? Wo buhui!” replied the man excitedly, stating that he did not speak French. The call was expected. Another voice intruded; it was in the background and too low to be heard. And then it was there on the line.
“Pourquoi vous parlez français?” It was Sheng! No matter the language, Bourne would never forget the orator’s singsong delivery. It was the zealous minister of an unmerciful God seducing an audience before assaulting it with fire and brimstone.
“Let’s say I feel more comfortable.”
“Very well. What is this incredible story you bring? This madness during which a name was mentioned?”
“I was also told you speak French,” interrupted Jason.
There was a pause in which only Sheng’s steady breathing could be heard. “You know who I am?”
“I know a name that doesn’t mean anything to me. It does to someone else, though. Someone you knew years ago. He wants to talk to you.”
“What?” screamed Sheng. “Betrayal!”
“Nothing of the sort, and if I were you, I’d listen to him. He saw right through everything I told them. The others didn’t, but he did.” Bourne glanced at McAllister beside him; the analyst nodded his head, as if to say that Jason was convincingly using the words the undersecretary had given him. “He took one look at me and put the figures together. But then the Frenchman’s original boy was pretty well shot up; his head was a bloody cauliflower.”
“What have you done?”
“Probably the biggest favor you ever got, and I expect to be paid for it. Here’s your friend. He’ll use English.” Bourne handed the phone to the analyst, who spoke instantly.
“It’s Edward McAllister, Sheng.”
“Edward …?” The stunned Sheng Chou Yang could not complete the name.
“This conversation is off the record, with no official sanction. My whereabouts are unlogged and unknown. I’m speaking solely for my own benefit—and yours.”
“You … astonish me, my old friend,” said the minister slowly, fearfully collecting himself.
“You’ll read about it in the morning papers and it’s undoubtedly on all the newscasts from Hawaii already. The consulate wanted me to disappear for a few days—the fewer questions the better—and I knew just whom I wanted to go with.”
“What happened, and how did you—”
“The similarity in their appearance was too obvious to be coincidental,” broke in the undersecretary of State. “I suppose d’Anjou wanted to trade on the legend as totally as possible, and that included the physical characteristics for those who had seen Jason Bourne in the past. An unnecessary fillip, in my opinion, but it was effective. In the panic on Victoria Peak—and from the nearly unrecognizable face—no one else noticed that striking resemblance. But then none of the others knew Bourne. I did.”
“You?”
“I drove him out of Asia. I’m the one he came to kill, and consistent with his perverse sense of irony and revenge, he decided to do it by leaving the corpse of your assassin on Victoria Peak. Fortunately for me, his ego didn’t permit him to evaluate your man’s abilities correctly. Once the firing started, our now mutual associate overpowered him and threw him into the guns.”
“Edward, the information is coming too fast, I cannot assimilate it. Who brought Jason Bourne back?”
“Obviously the Frenchman. His pupil and immensely successful meal ticket had defected from him. He wanted revenge and knew where to find the one man who could give him that. His colleague from Medusa, the original Jason Bourne.”
“Medusa!” whispered Sheng with loathing.
“Despite their reputation, in certain units there were intense loyalties. You save a man’s life, he doesn’t forget.”
“What led you to the preposterous conclusion that I have anything to do with the man you call an assassin—”
“Please, Sheng,” interrupted the analyst. “It’s too late for protestations. We’re talking. But I’ll answer your question. It was in the pattern of several killings. It started with a vice-premier of China in the Tsim Sha Tsui and four other men. They all were your enemies. And at Kai-tak the other night, two of your most vocal critics in the Peking delegation—targets of a bomb. There were also rumors; there always are in the underworld. The whispers spoke of messages between Macao and Guangdong, of powerful men in Beijing—of one man with immense power. And finally there was the file.… The figures added up. You.”
“The file? What is this, Edward?” asked Sheng, feigning strength. “Why is this an unofficial, unreported communication between us?”
“I think you know.”
“You’re a brilliant man. You know I would not ask if I did. We’re above such pavanes.”
“A brilliant bureaucrat kept in the back room, wouldn’t you also say?”
“In truth, I expected better things for you. You provided most of the words and the moves for your so-called negotiators during the trade conferences. And everyone knows you did exemplary work in Hong Kong. By the time you left, Washington had every major influence in the territory in its orbit.”
“I’ve decided to retire, Sheng. I’ve given twenty years of my life to my government, but I won’t give it my death. I won’t be ambushed and shot at or truck-bombed. I won’t become a target for terrorists, whether it’s here or in Iran or Beirut. It’s time I got something for myself, for my family. Times change, people change, and living’s expensive. My pension and my prospects are far less than I deserve.”
“I agree with you completely, Edward, but what has it got to do with me? We were compromisers together—adversaries, to be sure, as in a courtroom, but certainly not enemies in the arena of violence. And what in the name of heaven is this foolishness about my name being mentioned by jackals of the Kuomintang?”
“Spare me.” The analyst glanced over at Bourne. “Whatever was said by our mutual associate, the words were provided by me; they weren’t his. Your name was never mentioned in Victoria Peak, and there were no Taiwanese in our interrogation of your man. I gave him those words because there’s a certain validity in them for you. As to your name, it’s for a restricted few, their eyes only. It’s in the file I mentioned, a file locked in my office in Hong Kong. It’s marked ‘Ultra Maximum Security.’ There is only one copy of this file, and it’s buried in a vault in Washington to be released or destroyed only by me. However, should the unexpected happen—say, a plane crash, or if I disappeared, or was killed—the file would be turned over to the National Security Council. The information in this file, in the wrong hands, could prove catastrophic for the entire Far East.”
“I am intrigued, Edward, by your candid, if incomplete, information.”
“Meet with me, Sheng. And bring money, a great deal of money—American money. Our mutual associate tells me there are hills in Guangdong where your people flew down to see him. Meet me there tomorrow, between ten o’clock and midnight.”
“I must protest, my adversarial friend. You have not provided me with an incentive.”
“I can destroy both copies of that file. I was sent over here to track down a story out of Taiwan, a story so detrimental to all our interests that a hint of its contents could start a chain of events that terrifies everyone. I believe there’s considerable substance to the story, and if I’m right, it can be traced directly to my old counterpart during the Sino-American conferences. It couldn’t be happening without him.… It’s my last assignment, Sheng, and a few words from me can remove that file from the face of the earth. I simply determine the information to be totally false and dangerously inflammatory, compiled by your enemies in Taiwan. The few who know about it want to believe that, take my word for it. The file is then sent to the shredder. So is the copy in Washington.”
“You still have not told me why I should listen to you!”
“The son of a Kuomintang taipan would know. The leader of a cabal in Beijing would know. A man who could be disgraced and decapitated tomorrow morning certainly would know.”
The pause was long, the breathing erratic over the line. Finally, Sheng spoke.
“The hills in Guangdong. He knows where.”
“Only one helicopter,” said McAllister. “You and the pilot, no one else.”