The Bourne Ultimatum jb-3

by Robert Ludlum

  Good God! Did I just do what I just did?

  He began to tremble, the trained psychiatrically oriented part of him telling him it was posttraumatic stress.

  Bullshit, you asshole. It wasn't you!

  He started walking, and then kept walking and walking and walking. He was not on a backcountry road, he was on Tobacco Road. There were no signs of civilization, not a car in either direction, not a house-not even the ruins of an old farmhouse-or a primitive stone wall that would at least have proved that humans had visited the environs. Mile after mile passed and Mo fought off the effects of the drug-induced exhaustion. How long had it been? They had taken his watch, his watch with the day and date in impossible small print, so he had no idea of either the present time or the time that had elapsed since he had been taken from Walter Reed Hospital. He had to find a telephone. He had to reach Alex Conklin! Something had to happen soon!

  It did.

  He heard the growing roar of an engine and spun around. A red car was speeding up the road from the south-no, not speeding, but racing, with its accelerator flat on the floor. He waved his arms wildly-gestures of helplessness and appeal. To no avail; the vehicle rushed past him in a blur ... then to his delighted surprise the air was filled with dust and screeching brakes. The car stopped! He ran ahead as the automobile actually backed up, the tires still screaming. He remembered the words his mother incessantly repeated when he was a youngster in the Bronx: Always tell the truth, Morris. It's the shield God gave us to keep us righteous.

  Panov did not precisely subscribe to the admonition, but there were times when he felt it had socially interactive validity. This might be one of them. So, somewhat out of breath he approached the opened passenger window of the red automobile. He looked inside at the woman driver, a platinum blonde in her mid-thirties with an overly made-up face and large breasts encased in décolletage more fitting to an X-rated film than a backcountry road in Maryland. Nevertheless, his mother's words echoed in his ears, so he spoke the truth.

  "I realize that I look rather shabby, madam, but I assure you it's purely an exterior impression. I'm a doctor and I've been in an accident-"

  "Get in, for Christ's sake!"

  "Thank you so very much." No sooner had Mo closed the door than the woman slammed the car into gear, gunned the engine to its maximum, and seemingly launched off the rough pavement and down the road. "You're obviously in a hurry," offered Panov.

  "So would you be, pal, if you were me, I gotta husband back there who's puttin' his truck together to come after my ass!"

  "Oh, really?"

  "Stupid fuckin' jerk! He rolls across the country three weeks outta the month layin' every broad on the highways, then blows his keister when he finds out I had a little fun of my own."

  "Oh, I'm terribly sorry."

  "You'll be a hell of a lot sorrier if he catches up with us."

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "You really a doctor?"

  "Yes, I am."

  "Maybe we can do business."

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "Can you handle an abortion?"

  Morris Panov closed his eyes.

  22

  Bourne walked for nearly an hour through the streets of Paris trying to clear his head, ending up at the Seine, on the Pont de Solferino, the bridge that led to the Quai des Tuileries and the gardens. As he leaned against the railing absently watching the boats lazily plowing the waters below, the question kept assaulting him: Why, why, why? What did Marie think she was doing? Flying over to Paris! It wasn't just foolish, it was stupid-yet his wife was neither a fool nor an idiot. She was a very bright lady with reserves of control and a quick, analytical mind. That was what made her decision so untenable; what could she possibly hope to accomplish? She had to know he was far safer working alone rather than worrying about her while tracking the Jackal. Even if she found him, the risk was doubled for both of them, and that she had to understand completely. Figures and projections were her profession. So why?

  There was only one conceivable answer, and it infuriated him. She thought he might slip back over the edge as he had done in Hong Kong, where she alone had brought him to his senses, to the reality that was uniquely his own, a reality of frightening half truths and only partial remembrances, episodic moments she lived with every day of their lives together. God, how he adored her; he loved her so! And the fact that she had made this foolish, stupid, untenable decision only fueled that love because it was so-so giving, so outrageously unselfish. There were moments in the Far East when he had craved his own death, if only to expunge the guilt he felt at putting her in such dangerous-untenable?-positions. The guilt was still there, always there, but the aging man in him recognized another reality. Their children. The cancer of the Jackal had to be ripped out of all their lives. Couldn't she realize that and leave him alone?

  No. For she was not flying to Paris to save his life-she had too much confidence in Jason Bourne for that. She was coming to Paris to save his mind. I'll handle it, Marie. I can and will handle it!

  Bernardine. He could do it. The Deuxième could find her at Orly or De Gaulle. Find her and take her, put her under guard at a hotel and claim no one knew where he was. Jason ran from the Pont de Solferino to the Quai des Tuileries and to the first telephone he could find.

  "Can you do it?" asked Bourne. "She's only got one updated passport and it's American, not Canadian."

  "I can try on my own," answered Bernardine, "but not with any help from the Deuxième. I don't know how much Saint Alex told you, but at the moment my consultant status has been canceled and I think my desk has been thrown out the window."

  "Shit!"

  "Merde to the triple, mon ami. The Quai d'Orsay wants my underwear burned with me in it, and were it not for certain information I possess regarding several members of the Assembly, they would no doubt revive the guillotine."

  "Can you pass around some money at immigration?"

  "It would be better if I acted in my former official capacity on the assumption that the Deuxième does not so swiftly advertise its embarrassments. Her full name, please."

  "Marie Elise St. Jacques Webb-"

  "Ah, yes, I recall now, at least the St. Jacques," broke in Bernardine. "The celebrated Canadian economist. The newspapers were filled with her photograph. La belle mademoiselle."

  "It was exposure she could have done without."

  "I'm certain it was."

  "Did Alex say anything about Mo Panov?"

  "Your doctor friend?"

  "Yes."

  "I'm afraid not."

  "Goddamn it!"

  "If I may suggest, you must think of yourself now."

  "I understand."

  "Will you pick up the car?"

  "Should I?"

  "Frankly, I wouldn't if I were you. It's unlikely, but the invoice might be traced back to me. There's risk, however minor."

  "That's what I thought. I bought a métro map. I'll use the trains. ... When can I call you?"

  "Give me four, perhaps five hours to get back here from the airports. As our saint explained, your wife could be leaving from several different points of embarkation. To get all those passenger manifests will take time."

  "Concentrate on the flights arriving early tomorrow morning. She can't fake a passport, she wouldn't know how to do it."

  "According to Alex, one does not underestimate Marie Elise St. Jacques. He even spoke French. He said she was formidable."

  "She can come at you from the outer limits, I'll tell you that."

  "Qu'est-ce que c'est?"

  "She's an original, let's leave it there."

  "And you?"

  "I'm taking the subway. It's getting dark. I'll call you after midnight."

  "Bonne chance."

  "Merci."

  Bourne left the booth knowing his next move as he limped down the Quai, the bandage around his knee forcing him to assume a damaged leg. There was a métro station by the Tuileries where he would catch a train to Havr
e-Caumartin and switch to the Regional Express north line past St.-Denis-Basilique to Argenteuil. Argenteuil, a town of the Dark Ages founded by Charlemagne in honor of a nunnery fourteen centuries ago, now fifteen hundred years later a city that housed the message center of a killer as brutal as any man who roamed the bloody fields with a broadsword in Charlemagne's barbaric days, then as now celebrating and sanctifying brutality in the shadows of religiosity.

  Le Coeur du Soldat was not on a street or a boulevard or an avenue. Instead, it was in a dead-end alleyway around the corner and across from a long-since-closed factory whose faded signs indicated a once flourishing metallurgical refining plant in what had to be the ugliest part of the city. Nor was the Soldat listed in the telephone directory; it was found by innocently asking strangers where it was, as the inquirer was to meet une grosse secousse at this undiscoverable pissoir. The more dilapidated the buildings and the filthier the streets, the more cogent were the directions.

  Bourne stood in the dark narrow alley leaning against the aged rough brick of the opposing structure across from the bistro's entrance. Above the thick massive door in square block letters, several missing, was a dull red sign: L C eur d Soldat. As the door was sporadically opened for entering or departing clientele, metallic martial music blared forth into the alley; and the clientele were not candidates for an haute couture cotillion. His appearance was in keeping, thought Jason, as he struck a wooden match against the brick, lighting a thin black cigar as he limped toward the door.

  Except for the language and the deafening music, it might have been a waterfront bar in Sicily's Palermo, reflected Bourne as he made his way to the crowded bar, his squinting eyes roaming, absorbing everything he could observe-briefly confused, wondering when he had been in Palermo, Sicily.

  A heavyset man in a tank shirt got off a stool; Jason slid on top of it. The clawlike hand gripped his shoulder; Bourne slapped his right hand up, grabbing the wrist and twisting it clockwise, pushing the barstool away and rising to his full height. "What's your problem?" he asked calmly in French but loud enough to be heard.

  "That's my seat, pig! I'm just taking a piss!"

  "So maybe when you're finished, I'll take one," said Jason, his gaze boring into the man's eyes, the strength of his grip unmistakable-emphasized by pressing a nerve with his thumb, which had nothing to do with strength.

  "Ah, you're a fucking cripple ... !" cried the man, trying not to wince. "I don't pick on invalids."

  "I'll tell you what," said Bourne, releasing his thumb. "You come back, we'll take turns, and I'll buy you a drink each time you let me get off this bum leg of mine, okay?"

  Looking up at Jason, the heavyset man slowly grinned. "Hey, you're all right."

  "I'm not all right, but I'm certainly not looking for a fight,' either. Shit, you'd hammer me to the floor." Bourne released the muscular Tank Shirt's arm.

  "I'm not so sure of that," said the man, now laughing and holding his wrist. "Sit, sit! I'll take a piss and come back and buy you a drink. You don't look like you're loaded with francs."

  "Well, like they say, appearances are deceiving," replied Jason, sitting down. "I've got different, better clothes and an old friend told me to meet him here but not to wear them. ... I just got back from good money in Africa. You know, training the savages-"

  Cymbals crashed in the metallic, deafening martial music as Tank Shirt's eyes widened. "Africa?" interrupted the stranger. "I knew it! That grip-LPN."

  What remained of the Chameleon's memory data banks expanded into the code. LPN-Legion Patria Nostra. France's Foreign Legion, the mercenaries of the world. It was not what he had in mind, but it would certainly do. "Christ, you too?" he asked, again coarsely but innocently.

  "La Légion étrangère! 'The Legion is our Fatherland'!"

  "This is crazy!"

  "We don't announce ourselves, of course. There's great jealousy, naturally, because we were the best and we were paid for it, but still these are our people. Soldiers!"

  "When did you leave the Legion?" asked Bourne, sensing a cloud that could be troublesome.

  "Ah, nine years ago! They threw me out before my second conscription for overweight. They were right and they probably saved my life. I'm from Belgique, a corporal."

  "I was discharged a month ago, before my first term was over. Wounds during our incursion into Angola and the fact that they figured I was older than my papers said. They don't pay for extended recoveries." How easily the words came.

  "Angola? We did that? What was the Quai d'Orsay thinking about."

  "I don't know. I'm a soldier, I follow orders and don't question those I can't understand."

  "Sit! My kidneys are bursting. I'll be right back. Maybe we know friends. ... I never heard of any Angola operation."

  Jason leaned forward over the bulging bar and ordered une bière, grateful that the bartender was too busy and the music too loud for the man to have overheard the conversation. However, he was infinitely more grateful to Saint Alex of Conklin, whose primary advice to a field agent was to "get in bad with a mark first before you get in good," the theory being that the reversal from hostility to amiability was far stronger for the change. Bourne swallowed the beer in relief. He had made a friend at Le Coeur du Soldat. It was an inroad, minor but vital, and perhaps not so minor.

  Tank Shirt returned, his thick arm around the shoulders of a younger man in his early twenties, of medium height and with the physique of a large safe; he was wearing an American field jacket. Jason started to get off the barstool. "Sit, sit!" cried his new friend, leaning forward to be heard through the crowds and the music. "I brought us a virgin."

  "What?"

  "You forgot so quickly? He's on his way to becoming a Legion recruit."

  "Oh, that," laughed Bourne, covering his gaffe. "I wondered in a place like this-"

  "In a place like this," broke in Tank Shirt, "half will take it or give it either way as long as it's rough. But that's neither here nor there. I thought he should talk to you. He's American and his French is grotesque, but if you speak slow, he'll catch on.

  "No need to," said Jason in faintly accented English. "I grew up in Neufchâtel, but I spent several years in the States."

  "That's nice to heah." The American's speech was distinctly Deep South, his smile genuine, his eyes wary but unafraid.

  "Then let us start again," said the Belgian in heavily accented English. "My name is ... Maurice, it's as good a name as any. My young friend here is Ralph, at least he says it is. What's yours, my wounded hero?"

  "Francois," replied Jason, thinking of Bernardine and wondering briefly how he was doing at the airports. "And I'm no hero; they died too quickly. ... Order your drinks, I'm paying." They did and Bourne did, his mind racing, trying to recall the little he knew about the French Foreign Legion. "A lot has changed in nine years, Maurice." How very easily the words came, thought the Chameleon. "Why are you enlisting, Ralph?"

  "Ah figure it's the wisest thing I can do-kinda disappear for a few years, and I understand five is the minimum."

  "If you last the first, mon ami," interjected the Belgian.

  "Maurice is right. Listen to him. The officers are tough and difficult-"

  "All French!" added the Belgian. "Ninety percent, at least. Only one foreigner in perhaps three hundred reach the officer corps. Have no illusions."

  "But Ah'm a college man. An engineer."

  "So you'll build fine latrines for the camps and design perfect shit holes in the field," laughed Maurice. "Tell him, François. Explain how the savants are treated."

  "The educated ones must first know how to fight," said Jason, hoping he was right.

  "Always first!" exclaimed the Belgian. "For their schooling is suspicious. Will they doubt? Will they think when they are paid only to follow orders? ... Oh, no, mon ami, I would not emphasize your érudition."

  "Let it come out gradually," added Bourne. "When they need it, not when you want to offer it."

  "Bien!" cried Maurice. "He kn
ows what he's talking about. A true légionnaire!"

  "Can you fight?" asked Jason. "Could you go after someone to kill him?"

  "Ah killed mah feeancee and her two brothers and a cousin, all with a knife and my bare hands. She was fuckin' a big banker in Nashville and they were coverin' for her because he was payin' all of 'em a lot of money. ... Yeah, I can kill, Mr. François."

  Manhunt for Crazed Killer in Nashville

  Young engineer with promising future escapes dragnet. ...

  Bourne remembered the newspaper headlines of only weeks ago, as he stared at the face of the young American. "Go for the Legion," he said.

  "If push comes to shove, Mr. François, could I use you as a reference?"

  "It wouldn't help you, young man, it might only hurt. If you're pressed, just tell the truth. It's your credentials."

  "Aussi bien! He knows the Legion. They will not take maniacs if they can help it, but they-how do you say it, François?"

  "Look the other way, I think."

  "Oui. They look the other way when there are-encore, Francois?"

  "When there are extenuating circumstances."

  "See? My friend Francois also has brains. I wonder how he survived."

  "By not showing them, Maurice."

  A waiter wearing about the filthiest apron Jason had ever seen clapped the Belgian on the neck. "Votre table, René."

  "So?" shrugged Tank Shirt. "Just another name. Quelle différence? We eat and with good fortune we will not be poisoned."

  Two hours later, with four bottles of rough vin ordinaire consumed by Maurice and Ralph, along with suspicious fish, Le Coeur du Soldat settled in for its nightly endurance ritual. Fights occurred episodically, broken up by muscular waiters. The blaring music marshaled memories of battles won and lost, engendering arguments between old soldiers who had basically been the assault troops, cannon fodder, at once resentful and filled with the pride of survival because they had survived the blood and horror their gold-braided superiors knew nothing about. It was the collective roar of the underprivileged foot soldiers heard from the time of the Pharaoh's legions to the grunts of Korea and Vietnam. The properly uniformed officers decreed from far behind the lines, and the foot soldiers died to preserve their superiors' wisdom. Bourne remembered Saigon and could not fault the existence of Le Coeur du Soldat.