The Bourne Identity jb-1

by Robert Ludlum

  “So you do know! Liar! Bastard!”

  “Put that gun away. I’m telling you, put it down!”

  “No chance. I swore to myself I’d give you two minutes because I wanted to hear what you’d come up with. Well, I’ve heard it and it smells. Who gave you the right?’ We all lose things; it goes with the job, and if you don’t like the goddamned job you get out. If there’s no accommodation you fade; that’s what I thought you did, and I was willing to pass on you, to convince the others to let you fade! But no, you came back, and turned your gun on us.”

  “No! It’s not true!”

  “Tell that to the laboratory techs, who have eight fragments of glass that spell out two prints. Third and index fingers, right hand. You were there and you butchered five people. You—one of them—took out your guns—plural—and blew them away. Perfect setup. Discredited strategy. Varied shells, multiple bullets, infiltration. Treadstone’s aborted and you walk out free.”

  “No, you’re wrong! It was Carlos. Not me, Carlos. If what you’re saying took place on Seventy-first Street, it was him! He knows. They know. A residence on Seventy-first Street. Number 139. They know about it!”

  Conklin nodded, his eyes clouded, the loathing in them seen in the dim light, through the rain.

  “So perfect,” he said slowly. “The prime mover of the strategy blows it apart by making a deal with the target. What’s your take besides the four million? Carlos give you immunity from his own particular brand of persecution? You two make a lovely couple.”

  “That’s crazy!”

  “And accurate,” completed the man from Treadstone. “Only nine people alive knew that address before seven-thirty last Friday night. Three of them were killed, and we’re the other four. If Carlos found it, there’s only one person who could have told him. You.”

  “How could I? I didn’t know it. I don’t know it!”

  “You just said it.” Conklin’s left hand gripped the cane; it was a prelude to firing, steadying a crippled foot.

  “Don’t!” shouted Bourne, knowing the plea was useless, spinning to his left as he shouted, his right foot lashing out at the wrist that held the gun. Che-sah! was the unknown word that was the silent scream in his head. Conklin fell back, firing wildly in the air, tripping over his cane. Jason spun around and down, now hammering his left foot at the weapon; it flew out of the hand that held it.

  Conklin rolled on the ground, his eyes on the far columns of the mausoleum, expecting an explosion from the gun that would blow his attacker into the air. No! The man from Treadstone rolled again. Now to the right, his features in shock, his wild eyes focused on—There was someone else!

  Bourne crouched, diving diagonally backward as four gunshots came in rapid succession, three screeching ricochets spinning off beyond sound. He rolled over and over and over, pulling the automatic from his belt. He saw the man in the rain; a silhouetted figure rising above a gravestone.

  He fired twice; the man collapsed.

  Ten feet away Conklin was thrashing on the wet grass, both hands spreading frantically over the ground, feeling for the steel of a gun. Bourne sprang up and raced over, he knelt beside the Treadstone man, one hand grabbing the wet hair, the other holding his automatic, its barrel pressed into Conklin’s skull. From the far columns of the mausoleum came a prolonged, shattering scream.

  It grew steadily, eerily in volume, then stopped.

  “That’s your hired shotgun,” said Jason, yanking Conklin’s head to the side. “Treadstone’s taken on some very strange employees. Who was the other man? What death row did you spring him from?”

  “He was a better man than you ever were,” replied Conklin, his voice strained, the rain glistening on his face, caught in the beam of the fallen flashlight six feet away on the ground. “They all are. They’ve all lost as much as you lost, but they never turned. We can count on them!”

  “No matter what I say, you won’t believe me. You don’t want to believe me!”

  “Because I know what you are—what you did. You just confirmed the whole damn thing. You can kill me, but they’ll get you. You’re the worst kind. You think you’re special. You always did. I saw you after Phnom Penh—everybody lost out there, but that didn’t count with you. It was only you, just you! Then in Medusa! No rules for Delta! The animal just wanted to kill. And that’s the kind that turns. Well, I lost too, but I never turned. Go on! Kill me! Then you can go back to Carlos. But when I don’t come back, they’ll know. They’ll come after you and they won’t stop until they get you. Go on! Shoot!”

  Conklin was shouting, but Bourne could hardly hear him. Instead he had heard two words and the jolts of pain hammered at his temples. Phnom Penh! Phnom Penh. Death in the skies, from the skies. Death of the young and the very young. Screeching birds and screaming machines and the deathlike stench of the jungle … and a river. He was blinded again, on fire again.

  Beneath him the man from Treadstone had broken away. His crippled figure was crawling in panic, lunging, his hands surging through the wet grass. Jason blinked, trying to force his mind to come back to him. Then instantly he knew he had to point the automatic and fire. Conklin had found his gun and was raising it. But Bourne could not pull the trigger.

  He dove to his right, rolling on the ground, scrambling toward the marble columns of the mausoleum. Conklin’s gunshots were wild, the crippled man unable to steady his leg or his aim.

  Then the firing stopped and Jason got to his feet, his face against the smooth wet stone. He looked out, his automatic raised; he had to kill this man, for this man would kill him, kill Marie, link them both to Carlos.

  Conklin was hobbling pathetically toward the gates, turning constantly, the gun extended, his destination a car outside in the road. Bourne raised his automatic, the crippled figure in his gunsight.

  A split half-second and it would be over, his enemy from Treadstone dead, hope found with that death, for there were reasonable men in Washington.

  He could not do it; he could not pull the trigger. He lowered the gun, standing helpless by the marble column as Conklin climbed into his car.

  The car. He had to get back to Paris. There was a way. It had been there all along. She had been there!

  He rapped on the door, his mind racing, facts analyzed, absorbed and discarded as rapidly as they came to him, a strategy evolving. Marie recognized the knock; she opened the door.

  “Dear God, look at you! What happened?”

  “No time,” he said, rushing toward the telephone across the room. “It was a trap. They’re convinced I turned, sold out to Carlos.”

  “What?”

  “They say I flew into New York last week, last Friday. That I killed five people … among them a brother.” Jason closed his eyes briefly. “There was a brother—is a brother. I don’t know, I can’t think about it now.”

  “You never left Paris! You can prove it!”

  “How? Eight, ten hours, that’s all I’d need. And eight or ten hours unaccounted for is all they need now. Who’s going to come forward?”

  “I will. You’ve been with me.”

  “They think you’re part of it,” said Bourne, picking up the telephone and dialing. “The theft, the turning, Port Noir, the whole damn thing. They’ve locked you into me. Carlos engineered this down to the last fragment of a fingerprint. Christ! Did he put it together!”

  “What are you doing? Whom are you calling?”

  “Our backup, remember? The only one we’ve got. Villiers. Villiers’ wife. She’s the one. Were going to take her, break her, put her on a hundred racks if we have to. But we won’t have to; she won’t fight because she can’t win… Goddamn it, why doesn’t he answer?”

  “The private phone’s in his office. It’s three in the morning. He’s probably—”

  “He’s on! General? Is that you?” Jason had to ask; the voice on the line was oddly quiet, but not the quiet of interrupted sleep.

  “Yes, it is I, my young friend. I apologize for the delay. I’ve
been upstairs with my wife.”

  “That’s whom I’m calling about. We’ve got to move. Now. Alert French Intelligence, Interpol and the American Embassy but tell them not to interfere until I’ve seen her, talked to her. We have to talk.”

  “I don’t think so, Mr. Bourne… Yes, I know your name, my friend. As for your talking to my wife, however, I’m afraid that’s not possible. You see, I’ve killed her.”

  33

  Jason stared at the hotel room wall, at the flock paper with the faded designs that spiraled into one another in meaningless contortions of worn fabric. “Why?” he said quietly into the phone. “I thought you understood.”

  “I tried, my friend,” said Villiers, his voice beyond anger or sorrow. “The saints know I tried, but I could not help myself. I kept looking at her … seeing the son she did not bear behind her, killed by the pig animal that was her mentor. My whore was someone else’s whore … the animal’s whore. It could not be otherwise, and as I learned, it was not. I think she saw the outrage in my eyes, heaven knows it was there.” The general paused, the memory painful now. “She not only saw the outrage, but the truth. She saw that I knew. What she was, what she had been during the years we’d spent together. At the end, I gave her the chance I told you I would give her.”

  “To kill you?”

  “Yes. It wasn’t difficult. Between our beds is a nightstand with a weapon in the drawer. She lay on her bed, Goya’s Maja, splendid in her arrogance, dismissing me with her private thoughts, as I was consumed by my own. I opened the drawer for a book of matches and walked back to my chair and my pipe, leaving the drawer open, the handle of the gun very much in evidence.

  “It was my silence, I imagine, and the fact that I could not take my eyes off her that forced her to acknowledge me, then concentrate on me. The tension between us had grown to the point where very little had to be said to burst the floodgates, and—God help me—I said it. I heard myself asking, ‘Why did you do it?’ Then the accusation became complete. I called her my whore, the whore that killed my son.

  “She stared at me for several moments, her eyes breaking away once to glance at the open drawer and the gun … and the telephone. I stood up, the embers in my pipe glowing, loose … chauffé au rouge. She spun her legs off the bed, put both hands into that open drawer and took out the gun. I did not stop her, instead I had to hear the words, from her own lips, hear my own indictment of myself as well as hers. What I heard will go to my grave with me, for there will be honor left by my person and the person of my son. We will not be scorned by those who’ve given less than us. Never.”

  “General …” Bourne shook his head, unable to think clearly, knowing he had to find the seconds in order to find his thoughts. “General, what happened? She gave you my name. How? You’ve got to tell me that. Please.”

  “Willingly. She said you were an insignificant gunman who wished to step into the shoes of a giant. That you were a thief out of Zurich, a man your own people disowned.”

  “Did she say who those people were?”

  “If she did I didn’t hear. I was blind, deaf, my rage uncontrolled. But you have nothing to fear from me. The chapter is closed, my life over with a telephone call.”

  “No!” Jason shouted. “Don’t do that! Not now.”

  “I must.”

  “Please. Don’t settle for Carlos’ whore. Get Carlos! Trap Carlos!”

  “Reaping scorn on my name by lying with that whore? Manipulated by the animal’s slut?”

  “Goddamn you—what about your son? Five sticks of dynamite on rue du Bac!”

  “Leave him in peace. Leave me in peace. It’s over.”

  “It’s not over! Listen to me! Give a moment, that’s all I ask.” The images in Jason’s mind raced furiously across his eyes, clashing, supplanting one another. But these images had meaning. Purpose. He could feel Marie’s hand on his arm, gripping him firmly, somehow anchoring his body to a mooring of reality. “Did anyone hear the gunshot?”

  “There was no gunshot. The coup de grâce is misunderstood in these times. I prefer its original intent. To still the suffering of a wounded comrade or a respected enemy. It is not used for a whore.”

  “What do you mean? You said you killed her.”

  “I strangled her, forcing her eyes to look into mine as the breath went out of her body.”

  “She had your gun on you …”

  “Ineffective when one’s eyes are burning from the loose embers of a pipe. It’s immaterial now; she might have won.”

  “She did win if you let it stop here! Can’t you see that? Carlos wins! She broke you! And you didn’t have the brains to do anything but choke her to death! You talk about scorn? You’re buying it all; there’s nothing left but scorn!”

  “Why do you persist, Monsieur Bourne?” asked Villiers wearily. “I expect no charity from you, nor from anyone. Simply leave me alone. I accept what is. You accomplish nothing.”

  “I will if I can get you to listen to me! Get Carlos, trap Carlos! How many times do I have to say it? He’s the one you want! He squares it all for you! And he’s the one I need! Without him I’m dead. We’re dead. For God’s sake, listen to me!”

  “I would like to help you, but there’s no way I can. Or will, if you like.”

  “There is.” The images came into focus. He knew where he was, where he was going. The meaning and the purpose came together. “Reverse the trap. Walk away from it untouched, with everything you’ve got in place.”

  “I don’t understand. How is that possible?”

  “You didn’t kill your wife. I did!”

  “Jason!” Marie screamed, clutching his arm.

  “I know what I’m doing,” said Bourne. “For the first time, I really know what I’m doing. It’s funny, but I think I’ve known it from the beginning.”

  Parc Monceau was quiet, the street deserted, a few porch lights shimmering in the cold, mistlike rain, all the windows along the row of neat, expensive houses dark, except for the residence of André François Villiers, legend of Saint-Cyr and Normandy, member of France’s National Assembly … wife killer. The front windows above and to the left of the porch glowed dimly. It was the bedroom wherein the master of the house had killed the mistress of the house, where a memory-ridden old soldier had choked the life out of an assassin’s whore.

  Villiers had agreed to nothing; he had been too stunned to answer. But Jason had driven home his theme, hammered the message with such repeated emphasis that the words had echoed over the telephone. Get Carlos! Don’t settle for the killer’s whore! Get the man who killed your son! The man who put five sticks of dynamite in a car on rue du Bac and took the last of the Villiers line. He’s the one you want. Get him!

  Get Carlos. Trap Carlos. Cain is for Charlie and Delta is for Cain. It was so clear to him. There was no other way. At the end, it was the beginning—as the beginning had been revealed to him. To survive he had to bring in the assassin; if he failed, he was a dead man. And there would be no life for Marie St. Jacques. She would be destroyed, imprisoned, perhaps killed, for an act of faith that became an act of love. Cain’s mark was on her, embarrassment avoided with her removal. She was a vial of nitroglycerine balanced on a highwire in the center of an unknown ammunition depot. Use a net. Remove her. A bullet in the head neutralizes the explosives in her mind. She cannot be heard!

  There was so much Villiers had to understand, and so little time to explain, the explanation itself limited both by a memory that did not exist and the current state of the old soldier’s mind. A delicate balance had to be found in the telling, parameters established as to time and the general’s immediate contributions. Jason understood; he was asking a man who held his honor above all things to lie to the world. For Villiers to do that, the objective had to be monumentally honorable.

  Get Carlos!

  There was a second, ground floor entrance to the general’s home, to the right of the steps, beyond a gate, where deliveries were made to the downstairs kitchen. Vill
iers had agreed to leave the gate and the door unlatched. Bourne had not bothered to tell the old soldier that it did not matter; that he would get inside in any event, a degree of damage intrinsic to his strategy. But first there was the risk that Villiers’ house was being watched, there being good reasons for Carlos to do so, and equally good reasons not to do so. All things considered, the assassin might decide to stay as far away from Angélique Villiers as possible, taking no chance that one of his men could be picked up, thus proving his connection, the Parc Monceau connection. On the other hand, the dead Angélique was his cousin and lover … the only person on earth he cares about. Philippe d’Anjou.

  D’Anjou! Of course there’d be someone watching—or two or ten! If d’Anjou had gotten out of France, Carlos could assume the worst; if the man from Medusa had not, the assassin would know the worst. The colonial would be broken, every word exchanged with Cain revealed. Where? Where were Carlos’ men? Strangely enough, thought Jason, if there was no one posted in Parc Monceau on this particular night, his entire strategy was worthless.

  It was not; they were there. In a sedan—the same sedan that had raced through the gates of the Louvre twelve hours ago, the same two men—killers who were the backups of killers. The car was fifty feet down the street on the left-hand side, with a clear view of Villiers’ house. But were those two men slumped down in the seat, their eyes awake and alert, all that were there? Bourne could not tell; automobiles lined the curbs on both sides of the street. He crouched in the shadows of the corner building, diagonally across from the two men in the stationary sedan. He knew what had to be done, but he was not sure how to do it. He needed a diversion, alarming enough to attract Carlos’ soldiers, visible enough to flush out any others who might be concealed in the street or on a rooftop, or behind a darkened window.

  Fire. Out of nowhere. Sudden, away from Villiers’ house, yet close enough and startling enough to send vibrations throughout the quiet, deserted, tree-lined street. Vibrations … sirens; explosive … explosions. It could be done. It was merely a question of equipment.