“Johnny! Johnny, stop it!” His sister’s voice crashed into his ear as she cradled his head in one arm, the other extended above him, her free hand gripping his hair, nearly pulling it out of his skull. “Can you hear me? We’re all right, Bro! The children are in another villa—we’re fine!”
The faces above him and around him came slowly into focus. Among them were the two old men, one from Boston, the other from Paris. “There they are!” screamed St. Jacques, lurching up but stopped by Marie, who fell across him. “I’ll kill the bastards!”
“No!” roared his sister, holding him, helped by a guard whose strong black hands gripped her brother’s shoulders. “At this moment they’re two of the best friends we have.”
“You don’t know who they are!” cried St. Jacques, trying to free himself.
“Yes, we do,” broke in Marie, lowering her voice, her lips next to his ear. “Enough to know they can lead us to the Jackal—”
“They work for the Jackal!”
“One did,” said the sister. “The other never heard of Carlos.”
“You don’t understand!” whispered St. Jacques. “They’re old men—‘the old men of Paris,’ the Jackal’s army! Conklin reached me in Plymouth and explained … they’re killers!”
“Again, one was but he’s not anymore; he has nothing to kill for now. The other … well, the other’s a mistake, a stupid, outrageous mistake, but that’s all he is, and thank God for it—for him.”
“It’s crazy,” agreed Marie, nodding to the guard to help her brother up. “Come on, Johnny, we have things to talk about.”
The storm had blown away like a violent, unwanted intruder racing off into the night leaving behind the carnage of its rage. The early morning light broke over the eastern horizon, slowly revealing through the mists the blue-green out islands of Montserrat. The first boats cautiously, dolefully lumbered out to the favored fishing grounds, for the catch of the day meant one more day’s survival. Marie, her brother and the two old men were around a table on the balcony of an unoccupied villa. Over coffee, they had been talking for the better part of an hour, treating each point of horror coldly, dissecting facts without feeling. The aged false hero of France had been assured that all proper arrangements would be made for his woman once phone service had been restored to the big island. If it was possible, he wanted her to be buried in the islands; she would understand. There was nothing left for her in France but the ignominy of a tawdry grave. If it was possible—
“It’s possible,” said St. Jacques. “Because of you my sister’s alive.”
“Because of me, young man, she might have died.”
“Would you have killed me?” asked Marie, studying the old Frenchman.
“Certainly not after I saw what Carlos had planned for me and my woman. He had broken the contract, not I.”
“Before then.”
“When I had not yet seen the needles, understood what was all too obvious?”
“Yes.”
“That’s difficult to answer; a contract’s a contract. Still, my woman was dead, and a part of her dying was because she sensed that a terrible thing had been demanded of me. To go through with that demand would deny that aspect of her death, don’t you see? Yet again, even in her death, the monseigneur could not be totally denied—he had made possible years of relative happiness that would have been impossible without him.… I simply don’t know. I might have reasoned that I owed him your life—your death—but certainly not the children’s … and most certainly not the rest of it.”
“Rest of what?” asked St. Jacques.
“It’s best not to inquire.”
“I think you would have killed me,” said Marie.
“I tell you, I simply don’t know. There was nothing personal. You were not a person to me, you were simply an event that was part of a business arrangement.… Still, as I say, my woman was gone, and I’m an old man with limited time before me. Perhaps a look in your eyes or a plea for your children—who knows, I might have turned the pistol on myself. Then again, I might not have.”
“Jesus, you are a killer,” said the brother quietly.
“I am many things, monsieur. I don’t ask forgiveness in this world; the other’s another question. There were always circumstances—”
“Gallic logic,” remarked Brendan Patrick Pierre Prefontaine, former judge of the first circuit court in Boston, as he absently touched the raw tender skin of his neck below his singed white hair. “Thank heavens I never had to argue before les tribunals; neither side is ever actually wrong.” The disbarred attorney chuckled. “You see before you a felon, justly tried and justly convicted. The only exculpatory aspect of my crimes is that I was caught and so many others were not and are not.”
“Perhaps we are related, after all, Monsieur le Juge.”
“By comparison, sir, my life is far closer to that of St. Thomas Aquinas—”
“Blackmail,” interrupted Marie.
“No, actually the charge was malfeasance. Accepting remunerations for favorable decisions, that sort of thing.… My God, we’re hound’s-tooth Boston! In New York City it’s standard procedure: Leave your money with the bailiff, enough for everyone.”
“I’m not referring to Boston, I’m talking about why you’re here. It’s blackmail.”
“That’s an oversimplification but essentially correct. As I told you, the man who paid me to find out where you’d gone also paid me an additional large sum of money to keep the information to myself. Under the circumstances, and because I have no pressing schedule of appointments, I thought it logical to pursue the inquiry. After all, if the little I knew brought so much, how much more might come to me if I learned a little more?”
“You talk of Gallic logic, monsieur?” inserted the Frenchman.
“It’s simple interrogatory progression,” replied the former judge, briefly glancing at Jean Pierre before turning back to Marie. “However, my dear, I may have glossed over an item that was extremely helpful in negotiations with my client. To put it plainly, your identity was being withheld and protected by the government. It was a strong point that frightened a very strong and influential man.”
“I want his name,” said Marie.
“Then I must have protection, too,” rejoined Prefontaine.
“You’ll have it—”
“And perhaps something more,” continued the old disbarred attorney. “My client has no idea I came here, no knowledge of what’s happened, all of which might fuel the fires of his largess if I described what I’ve experienced and observed. He’d be frightened out of his mind even to be associated with such events. Also, considering the fact that I was nearly killed by that Teutonic Amazon, I really deserve more.”
“Am I then to be rewarded for saving your life, monsieur?”
“If I had anything of value—other than my legal expertise, which is yours—I’d happily share it. If I’m given anything, that still holds, Cousin.”
“Merci bien, Cousin.”
“D’accord, mon ami, but never let the Irish nuns hear us.”
“You don’t look like a poor man, Judge,” said John St. Jacques.
“Then appearances are as deceiving as a long-forgotten title you so generously use.… I should add that my wants are not extravagant, for there’s no one but myself, and my creature comforts do not require luxury.”
“You’ve lost your woman, too, then?”
“Not that it’s any of your damn business, but my wife left me twenty-nine years ago, and my thirty-eight-year-old son, now a successful attorney on Wall Street, uses her name and when questioned by curious people tells them he never knew me. I haven’t seen him since he was ten; it was not in his interest, you understand.”
“Quelle tristesse.”
“Quel bullshit, Cousin. That boy got his brains from me, not from the airhead who bore him.… However, we stray. My French pureblood here has his own reasons—obviously based on betrayal—for cooperating with you. I have equally strong reasons for wanting to help you, too, but I must also consider myself. My aged new friend can go back and live what’s left of his life in Paris, whereas I have no place to go but Boston and the few opportunities I’ve developed over the years to eke out a living. Therefore my deep-seated motives for wanting to help must themselves take a backseat. With what I know now I wouldn’t last five minutes in the streets of Boston.”
“Breakthrough,” said John St. Jacques, staring at Prefontaine. “I’m sorry, Judge, we don’t need you.”
“What?” Marie sat forward in her chair. “Please, Bro, we need all the help we can get!”
“Not in this case. We know who hired him.”
“We do?”
“Conklin knows; he called it a ‘breakthrough.’ He told me that the man who traced you and the children here used a judge to find you.” The brother nodded across the table at the Bostonian. “Him. It’s why I smashed up a hundred-thousand-dollar boat to get back over here. Conklin knows who his client is.”
Prefontaine again glanced at the old Frenchman. “Now is the time for ‘Quelle tristesse,’ Sir Hero. I’m left with nothing. My persistence brought me only a sore throat and a burned scalp.”
“Not necessarily,” interrupted Marie. “You’re the attorney, so I shouldn’t have to tell you. Corroboration is cooperation. We may want you to tell everything you know to certain people in Washington.”
“Corroboration can be obtained with a subpoena, my dear. Under oath in a courtroom, take my personal as well as my professional word for it.”
“We won’t be going to court. Ever.”
“Oh?… I see.”
“You couldn’t possibly, Judge, not at this juncture. However, if you agree to help us you’ll be well paid.… A moment ago you said that you had strong reasons for wanting to help, reasons that had to be secondary to your own well-being—”
“Are you by any chance a lawyer, my dear?”
“No, an economist.”
“Holy Mary, that’s worse.… About my reasons?”
“Do they concern your client, the man who hired you to trace us?”
“They do. His august persona—as in Caesar Augustus—should be trashed. Slippery intellectuality aside, he’s a whore. He had promise once, more than I let him know, but he let it all go by the boards in a flamboyant quest for his own personal grail.”
“What the hell’s he talking about, Mare?”
“A man with a great deal of influence or power, neither of which he should have, I think. Our convicted felon here has come to grips with personal morality.”
“Is that an economist speaking?” asked Prefontaine, once more absently touching the blistered flesh of his neck. “An economist reflecting on her last inaccurate projection that caused inappropriate buying or selling on the stock exchanges, resulting in losses many could afford and many more could not?”
“My voice was never that important, but I’ll grant you it’s the reflection of a great many others whose projections were, because they never risked, they only theorized. It’s a safe position.… Yours isn’t, Judge. You may need the protection we can provide. What’s your answer?”
“Jesus, Mary and Joseph, you’re a cold one—”
“I have to be,” said Marie, her eyes leveled on the man from Boston. “I want you with us, but I won’t beg, I’ll simply leave you with nothing and you can go back to the streets in Boston.”
“Are you sure you’re not a lawyer—or perhaps a lord high executioner?”
“Take your choice. Just give me your answer.”
“Will somebody tell me what the hell is going on here!” yelled John St. Jacques.
“Your sister,” answered Prefontaine, his gentle gaze on Marie, “has enlisted a recruit. She’s made the options clear, which every attorney understands, and the inevitability of her logic, in addition to her lovely face, crowned by that dark red hair, makes my decision also inevitable.”
“What …?”
“He’s opted for our side, Johnny. Forget it.”
“What do we need him for?”
“Without a courtroom a dozen different reasons, young man,” answered the judge. “In certain situations, volunteerism is not the best road to take unless one is thoroughly protected beyond the courts.”
“Is that right, Sis?”
“It’s not wrong, Bro, but it’s up to Jason—damn it—David!”
“No, Mare,” said John St. Jacques, his eyes boring into his sister’s. “It’s up to Jason.”
“Are these names I should be aware of?” asked Prefontaine. “The name ‘Jason Bourne’ was sprayed on the wall of your villa.”
“My instructions, Cousin,” said the false yet not so false hero of France. “It was necessary.”
“I don’t understand … any more than I understood the other name, the ‘Jackal,’ or ‘Carlos,’ which you both rather brutally questioned me about when I wasn’t sure whether I was dead or alive. I thought the ‘Jackal’ was fiction.”
The old man called Jean Pierre Fontaine looked at Marie; she nodded. “Carlos the Jackal is a legend, but he is not fiction. He’s a professional killer now in his sixties, rumored to be ill, but still possessed with a terrible hatred. He’s a man of many faces, many sides, some loved by those who have reasons to love him, others detested by those who consider him the essence of evil—and depending on the view, all have their reasons for being correct. I am an example of one who has experienced both viewpoints, but then my world is hardly yours, as you rightly suggested, St. Thomas of Aquinas.”
“Merci bien.”
“But the hatred that obsesses Carlos grows like a cancer in his aging brain. One man drew him out; one man tricked him, usurped his kills, taking credit for the Jackal’s work, kill after kill, driving Carlos mad when he was trying to correct the record, trying to maintain his supremacy as the ultimate assassin. That same man was responsible for the death of his lover—but one far more than a lover, the woman who was his keel, his beloved since childhood in Venezuela, his colleague in all things. That single man, one of hundreds, perhaps thousands sent out by governments everywhere, was the only one who ever saw his face—as the Jackal. The man who did all this was a product of American intelligence, a strange man who lived a deadly lie every day of his life for three years. And Carlos will not rest until that man is punished … and killed. The man is Jason Bourne.”
Squinting, stunned by the Frenchman’s story, Prefontaine leaned forward over the table. “Who is Jason Bourne?” he asked.
“My husband, David Webb,” replied Marie.
“Oh, my God,” whispered the judge. “May I have a drink, please?”
John St. Jacques called out. “Ronald!”
“Yes, boss-mon!” cried from within the guard whose strong hands had held his employer’s shoulders an hour ago in Villa Twenty.
“Bring us some whisky and brandy, please. The bar should be stocked.”
The orange sun in the east suddenly took fire, its rays penetrating what was left of the sea mists of dawn. The silence around the table was broken by the soft, heavily accented words of the old Frenchman. “I am not used to such service,” he said, looking aimlessly beyond the railing of the balcony at the progressively bright waters of the Caribbean. “When something is asked for, I always think the task should be mine.”
“Not anymore,” said Marie quietly, then after a beat, adding, “… Jean Pierre.”
“I suppose one could live with that name.…”
“Why not here?”
“Qu’est-ce que vous dites, madame?”
“Think about it. Paris might not be any less dangerous for you than the streets of Boston for our judge.”
The judge in question was lost in his own aimless reverie as several bottles, glasses and a bucket of ice were brought to the table. With no hesitation, Prefontaine reached out and poured himself an extravagant drink from the bottle nearest him. “I must ask a question or two,” he said emphatically. “Is that proper?”
“Go ahead,” replied Marie. “I’m not sure I can or will an swer you, but try me.”
“The gunshots, the spray paint on the wall—my ‘cousin’ here says the red paint and the words were by his instructions—”
“They were, mon ami. The loud firing of the guns as well.”
“Why?”
“Everything must be as it is expected to be. The gunshots were an additional element to draw attention to the event that was to take place.”
“Why?”
“A lesson we learned in the Résistance—not that I was ever a ‘Jean Pierre Fontaine,’ but I did my small part. It was called an accentuation, a positive statement making clear that the underground was responsible for the action. Everyone in the vicinity knew it.”
“Why here?”
“The Jackal’s nurse is dead. There is no one to tell him that his instructions have been carried out.”
“Gallic logic. Incomprehensible.”
“French common sense. Incontestable.”
“Carlos will be here by noon tomorrow.”
“Oh, dear God!”
The telephone rang inside the villa. John St. Jacques lurched out of his chair only to be blocked by his sister, who threw her arm in front of his face and then raced through the doors into the living room. She picked up the phone.
“David?”
“It’s Alex,” said the breathless voice on the line. “Christ, I’ve had this goddamned thing on redial for three hours! Are you all right?”
“We’re alive but we weren’t supposed to be.”
“The old men! The old men of Paris! Did Johnny—”
“Johnny did, but they’re on our side!”
“Who?”
“The old men—”
“You’re not making one damn bit of sense!”
“Yes, I am! We’re in control here. What about David?”
“I don’t know! The telephone lines were cut. Everything’s a mess! I’ve got the police heading out there—”
“Screw the police, Alex!” screamed Marie. “Get the army, the marines, the lousy CIA! We’re owed!”
“Jason won’t allow that. I can’t turn on him now.”
“Well, try this for size. The Jackal will be here tomorrow!”
“Oh, Jesus! I have to get him a jet somewhere.”
“You have to do something!”
“You don’t understand, Marie. The old Medusa surfaced—”
“You tell that husband of mine that Medusa’s history! The Jackal isn’t, and he’s flying in here tomorrow!”
“David’ll be there, you know that.”
“Yes, I do.… Because he’s Jason Bourne now.”
“Br’er Rabbit, this ain’t thirteen years ago, and you just happen to be thirteen years older. You’re not only gonna be useless, you’re gonna be a positive liability unless you get some rest, preferably sleep. Turn off the lights and grab some sack time in that big fancy couch in the living room. I’ll man the phones, which ain’t gonna ring ’cause nobody’s callin’ at four o’clock in the morning.”
Cactus’s voice had faded as Jason wandered into the dark living room, his legs heavy, his lids falling over his eyes like lead weights. He dropped to the couch, swinging his legs slowly, with effort, one at a time, up on the cushions; he stared at the ceiling. Rest is a weapon, battles won and lost … Philippe d’Anjou. Medusa. His inner screen went black and sleep came.
A screaming, pulsating siren erupted, deafening, incessant, echoing throughout the cavernous house like a sonic tornado. Bourne spastically whipped his body around and sprang off the couch, at first disoriented, unsure of where he was and for a terrible moment … of who he was.
“Cactus!” he roared, racing out of the ornate living room into the hallway. “Cactus!” he shouted again, hearing his voice lost in the rapid, rhythmic crescendos of the siren-alarm. “Where are you?”
Nothing. He ran to the door of the study, gripping the knob. It was locked! He stepped back and crashed his shoulder against it, once, twice, a third time with all the speed and strength he could summon. The door splintered, then gave way and Jason hammered his foot against the central panel until it collapsed; he went inside and what he found caused the killing machine that was the product of Medusa and beyond to stare in ice-cold fury. Cactus was sprawled over the desk, under the light of the single lamp, in the same chair that had held the murdered general, his blood forming a pool of red on the blotter—a corpse.… No, not a corpse! The right hand moved, Cactus was alive!
Bourne ran to the desk and gently raised the old man’s head, the shrill, deafening, all-encompassing alarm making communication—if communication were possible—impossible. Cactus opened his dark eyes, his trembling right hand moving down the blotter, his forefinger curved and tapping the top of the desk.
“What is it?” yelled Jason. The hand kept moving back toward the edge of the blotter, the tapping more rapid. “Below? Underneath?” With minuscule—nearly imperceptible—motions of his head, Cactus nodded in the affirmative. “Under the desk!” shouted Bourne, beginning to understand. He knelt down to the right of Cactus and felt under the thin top drawer, then to the side—He found it! A button. Again gently, he moved the heavy rolling chair inches to the left and centered his eyes on the button. Beneath it, in tiny white letters on a black plastic strip, was the answer.
Aux. Alarm
Jason pressed the button; instantly the shrieking pandemonium was cut off. The ensuing silence was nearly as deafening, the adjustment to it nearly as terrifying.
“How were you hit?” asked Bourne. “How long ago?… If you can talk, just whisper, no energy at all, do you understand?”
“Oh, Br’er, you’re too much,” whispered Cactus, in pain. “I was a black cabdriver in Washington, man. I’ve been here before. It ain’t fatal, boy, I gotta slug in the upper chest.”
“I’ll get a doctor right away—our friend Ivan, incidentally—but if you can, tell me what happened while I move you to the floor and look at the damage.” Jason slowly, carefully lowered the old man off the chair and onto the throw rug beneath the bay window. He tore off Cactus’s shirt; the bullet had gone through the flesh of the left shoulder. With short, swift movements Bourne ripped the shirt into strips and tightly wrapped a primitive bandage around his friend’s chest and between the underarm and the shoulder. “It’s not much,” said Jason, “but it’ll hold you for a while. Go on.”
“He’s out there, Br’er!” Cactus coughed weakly, lying back on the floor. “He’s got a big mother ’fifty-seven magnum with a silencer; he pinned me through the window, then smashed it and climbed inside.… He—he …”
“Easy! Don’t talk, never mind—”
“I gotta. The brothers out there, they ain’t got no hardware. He’ll pick ’em off!… I played deep dead and he was in a hurry—oh, was he in a hurry! Look over there, will ya?” Jason swung his head in the direction of Cactus’s gesture. A dozen or so books had been yanked out of a shelf on the side wall and strewn on the floor. The old man continued, his voice growing weaker. “He went over to the bookcase like in a panic, until he found what he wanted … then to the door, that ’fifty-seven ready for bear, if you follow me.… I figured it was you he was after, that he’d seen you through the window go out to the other room, and I tell ya, I was workin’ my right knee like a runnin’ muskrat ’cause I found that alarm button an hour ago and knew I had to stop him—”
“Easy!”
“I gotta tell you … I couldn’t move my hands ’cause he’d see me, but my knee hit that sucker and the siren damn near blew me out of the chair.… The honky bastard fell apart. He slammed the door, locked it, and beat his way out of here back through the window.” Cactus’s neck arched back, the pain and the exhaustion overtaking him. “He’s out there, Br’er Rabbit—”
“That’s enough!” ordered Bourne as he cautiously reached up, snapping off the desk lamp, leaving the dim light from the hallway through the shattered door as the only illumination. “I’m calling Alex; he can send the doctor—”
Suddenly, from somewhere outside, there was a high-pitched scream, a roar of shock and anguish Jason knew only too well. So did Cactus, who whispered, his eyes shut tight: “He got one. That fucker got one of the brothers!”
“I’m reaching Conklin,” said Jason, pulling the phone off of the desk. “Then I’ll go out and get him.… Oh, Christ! The line’s out—it’s been cut!”
“That honky knows his way around here.”
“So do I, Cactus. Stay as quiet as you can. I’ll be back for you—”
There was another scream, this lower, more abrupt, an expulsion of breath more than a roar.
“May sweet Jesus forgive me,” muttered the old black man painfully, meaning the words. “There’s only one brother left—”
“If anyone should ask forgiveness, it’s me,” cried Bourne, his voice guttural, half choking. “Goddamn it! I swear to you, Cactus, I never thought, never even considered, that anything like this would happen.”
“ ’Course you didn’t. I know you from back to the old days, Br’er, and I never heard of you asking anyone to risk anything for you.… It’s always been the other way around.”
“I’m going to pull you over,” interrupted Jason, tugging on the rug, maneuvering Cactus to the right side of the desk, the old man’s left hand close enough to reach the auxiliary alarm. “If you hear anything or see anything or feel anything, turn on the siren.”
“Where are you going? I mean how?”
“Another room. Another window.”
Bourne crept across the floor to the mutilated door, lurched through it and ran into the living room. At the far end was a pair of French doors that led to an outside patio; he recalled seeing white wrought-iron lawn furniture on the south end of the house when he was with the guards. He twisted the knob and slipped outside, pulling the automatic from his belt, shutting the right door, and crouching, making his way to the shrubbery at the edge of the grass. He had to move quickly. Not only was there a third life in the balance, a third unrelated, unwarranted death, but a killer who could be his shortcut to the crimes of the new Medusa, and those crimes were his bait for the Jackal! A diversion, a magnet, a trap … the flares—part of the equipment he had brought with him to Manassas. The two emergency “candles” were in his left rear pocket, each six inches long and bright enough to be seen for miles; ignited together yet spaced apart they would light up Swayne’s property like two searchlights. One in the south drive, the other by the kennels, possibly waking the drugged dogs, bewildering them, infuriating them—Do it! Hurry.
Jason scrambled across the lawn, his eyes darting everywhere, wondering where the stalking killer was and how the innocent quarry that Cactus had enlisted was evading him. One was experienced, the other not, and Bourne could not permit the latter’s life to be wasted.
It happened! He had been spotted! Two cracks on either side of him, bullets from a silenced pistol slicing the air. He reached the south leg of the paved drive and, racing across it, dived into the foliage. Ripping a flare from his pocket, he put down the weapon, snapped up the flame of his lighter, ignited the fuse and threw the sizzling candle to his right. It landed on the road; in seconds it would spew out the blinding fire. He ran to his left beneath the pine trees toward the rear of the estate, his lighter and the second flare in one hand, the automatic in the other. He was parallel to the kennels; the flare in the road exploded into bluish-white flames. He ignited the second and threw it end over end, arcing it forty yards away to the front of the kennels. He waited.
The second flare burst into sputtering fire, two balls of blinding white light eerily illuminating the house and grounds of the estate’s south side. Three of the dogs began to wail, then made feeble attempts to howl; soon their confused anger would be heard. A shadow. Against the west wall of the white house—it moved, caught in the light between the flare by the kennels and the house. The figure darted for the protection of the shrubbery; it crouched, an immobile but intrusive part of the silhouetted foliage. Was it the killer or the killer’s target, the last “brother” recruited by Cactus?… There was one way to find out, and if it was the former and he was a decent marksman, it was not the best tactic, but still it was the quickest.
Bourne leaped up from the underbrush, yelling in full view as he lunged to his right, at the last half second plunging his foot into the soft dirt and pivoting, lowering his body and diving to his left. “Head for the cabin!” he roared. And he got his answer. Two more spits, two more cracks in the air, the bullets digging up the earth to his right. The killer was good; perhaps not an expert but good enough. A .357 held six shells; five had been fired, but there had been sufficient time to reload the emptied cylinder. Another strategy—quickly!
Suddenly another figure appeared, a man running up the road toward the rear of Flannagan’s cabin. He was in the open—he could be killed!
“Over here, you bastard!” screamed Jason, jumping up and firing his automatic blindly into the shrubbery by the house. And then he got another answer, a welcome one. There was a single spit, a single crack in the air and then no more. The killer had not reloaded! Perhaps he had no more shells—whatever, the primary target was now on the high ground. Bourne raced out of the bushes and across the lawn through the opposing light of the flares; the dogs were now really aroused, the yelps and throated growls of attack becoming louder. The killer ran out of the shrubbery and into the road, racing through shadows toward the front gates. Jason had the bastard, he knew it. The gates were closed, the Medusan was cornered. Bourne roared: “There’s no way out, Snake Lady! Make it easy on yourself—”
A spit, a crack. The man had reloaded while running! Jason fired; the man fell in the road. And as he did so, the intermittent silence of the night was ripped open by the sound of a powerful, racing engine, the vehicle in question speeding up the outside road, its flashing red and blue lights signifying the police. The police! The alarm must have been wired into the Manassas headquarters, a fact that had never occurred to Bourne; he had assumed that such a measure was impossible where Medusa was concerned. It wasn’t logical; the security was internal; no external force could be permitted for Snake Lady. There was too much to learn, too much that had to be kept secret—a cemetery!
The killer writhed in the road, rolling over and over toward the bordering pine trees. There was something clutched in his hand. Jason approached him as two police officers got out of the patrol car beyond the gate. He lashed his foot out, kicking the man’s body, releasing whatever it was in his grip and reaching down to pick it up. It was a leather-bound book, one of a set, like a volume of Dickens or Thackeray, the embossed letters in gold, more for display than for reading. It was crazy! Then he flipped open a page and understood it was not crazy at all. There was no print inside, only the scrawl of handwritten notes on blank pages. It was a diary, a ledger!
There could be no police! Especially not now. He could not allow them to be aware of his and Conklin’s penetration into Medusa. The leather-bound book in his hand could not see the official light of day! The Jackal was everything. He had to get rid of them!
“We got a call, mister,” intoned a middle-aged patrolman walking toward the grilled gate, a younger associate joining him. “HQ said he was uptight as hell. We’re responding, but like I told dispatch, there’ve been some pretty wild parties out here, no criticism intended, sir. We all like a good time now and then, right?”
“Absolutely right, Officer,” replied Jason, trying his utmost to control the painful heaving in his chest, his eyes straying to the wounded killer—he had disappeared! “There was a momentary shortage in electricity that somehow interfered with the telephone lines.”
“Happens a lot,” confirmed the younger patrolman. “Sudden showers and summer heat lightnin’. Someday they’ll put all them cables underground. My folks got a place—”
“The point is,” interrupted Bourne, “everything’s getting back to normal. As you can see, some of the lights in the house are back on.”
“I can’t see nothin’ through them flares,” said the young police officer.
“The general always takes the ultimate precautions,” explained Jason. “I guess he feels he has to,” added Bourne, somewhat lamely. “Regardless, everything’s—as I said—getting back to normal. Okay?”
“Okay by me,” answered the older patrolman, “but I got a message for someone named Webb. He in there?”
“I’m Webb,” said Jason Bourne, alarmed.
“That makes things easier. You’re supposed to call a ‘Mister Conk’ right away. It’s urgent.”
“Urgent?”
“An emergency, we were told. It was just radioed to us.”
Jason could hear the rattling of the fence on the perimeter of Swayne’s property. The killer was getting away! “Well, Officer, the phones are still out here.… Do you have one in your car?”
“Not for personal use, sir. Sorry.”
“But you just said it was an emergency.”
“Well, I suppose since you’re a guest of the general’s I could permit it. If it’s long distance, though, you’d better have a credit card number.”
“Oh, my God.” Bourne unlocked the gate and rushed to the patrol car as the siren-alarm was activated back at the house—activated and then instantly shut off. The remaining brother had apparently found Cactus.
“What the hell was that?” yelled the young policeman.
“Forget it!” screamed Jason, jumping into the car and yanking an all too familiar patrol phone out of its cradle. He gave Alex’s number in Virginia to the police switchboard and kept repeating the phrase: “It’s an emergency, it’s an emergency!”
“Yes?” answered Conklin, acknowledging the police operator.
“It’s me!”
“What happened?”
“Too involved to go into. What’s the emergency?”
“I’ve got you a private jet out of the Reston airport.”
“Reston? That’s north of here—”
“The field in Manassas doesn’t have the equipment. I’m sending a car for you.”
“Why?”
“Tranquility. Marie and the kids are okay; they’re okay! She’s in charge.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“Get to Reston and I’ll tell you.”
“I want more!”
“The Jackal’s flying in today.”
“Jesus Christ!”
“Wrap things up there and wait for the car.”
“I’ll take this one!”
“No! Not unless you want to blow everything. We’ve got time. Wrap it up out there.”
“Cactus … he’s hurt—shot.”
“I’ll call Ivan. He’ll get back in a hurry.”
“There’s one brother left—only one, Alex. I killed the other two—I was responsible.”
“Cut that out. Stop it. Do what you have to do.”
“Goddamn you, I can’t. Someone’s got to be here and I won’t be!”
“You’re right. There’s too much to keep under wraps out there and you’ve got to be in Montserrat. I’ll drive out with the car and take your place.”
“Alex, tell me what happened on Tranquility!”
“The old men … your ‘old men of Paris,’ that’s what happened.”
“They’re dead,” said Jason Bourne quietly, simply.
“Don’t be hasty. They’ve turned—at least I gather the real one turned and the other’s a God-given mistake. They’re on our side now.”
“They’re never on anyone’s side but the Jackal’s, you don’t know them.”
“Neither do you. Listen to your wife. But now you go back to the house and write out everything I should know.… And Jason, I must tell you something. I hope to Christ you can find your solution—our solution—on Tranquility. Because all things considered, including my life, I can’t keep this Medusa on our level much longer. I think you know that.”
“You promised!”
“Thirty-six hours, Delta.”
In the woods beyond the fence a wounded man crouched, his frightened face against the green links. In the bright wash of the headlights, he observed the tall man who had gone into the patrol car and now came out, awkwardly, nervously thanking the policemen. He did not, however, permit them inside.
Webb. The killer had heard the name “Webb.”
It was all they had to know. All Snake Lady had to know.