The Bourne Ultimatum jb-3

by Robert Ludlum

  The Jackal was caught in his shoulder-his right shoulder! The weapon literally snapped out of his grip as he jerked up his forearm, his fingers spastically uncurled under the impact of the Graz Burya's penetration. With no cessation of movement, the Jackal swung around, the bloody long white robe separating, billowing like a sail as he grabbed the massive flesh wound with his left hand and violently kicked the floor lamp into Jason's face.

  Bourne fired again, half blinded by the flying shade of the heavy lamp, his weapon deflected by the thick stem. The shot went wild; steadying his hand, he squeezed the trigger again, only to hear the sickening finality of a sharp metallic click-the gun's magazine was empty! Struggling to a crouch, he lunged for the blunt, ugly automatic weapon as the white-robed Carlos raced through the shattered doorway into the corridor. Jason got to his feet, but his knee collapsed! It had buckled under his own weight. Oh, Christ! He crawled to the edge of the bed and dived over the pulled-down sheets toward the bedside telephone-it had been demolished, the Jackal had shot it apart! Carlos's demented mind was summoning up every tactic, every counteraction he had ever used.

  Another sound! This loud and abrupt. The crash bar on the hallway's stairway exit had been slammed into the opening position, the heavy metal door smashed back into the concrete wall of the landing. The Jackal was heading down the flights of steps to the lobby. If the front desk had listened to Conklin, he was trapped!

  Bourne looked at the elderly couple in the corner, affected by the fact that the old man was covering the woman with his own body. "It's all right," he. said, trying to calm them by lowering his voice. "I know you probably don't understand me-I don't speak Russian-but you're safe now."

  "We don't speak Russian either," admitted the man, an Englishman, in clipped, guarded tones, straining his neck as he looked at Jason while trying to rise. "Thirty years ago I would have been standing at that door! Eighth Army with Monty, y'know. Rather grand at El Alamein-all of us, of course. To paraphrase, age doth wither, as they say."

  "I'd rather not hear it, General-"

  "No, no, merely a brigadier-"

  "Fine!" Bourne crept over the bed, testing his knee; whatever it was had snapped back. "I have to get to a phone!"

  "Actually, what outraged me was the goddamned robe!" went on the veteran of El Alamein. "Fucking disgraceful, I say-forgive me, darling."

  "What are you talking about?"

  "The white robe, lad! It had to be Binky's-the couple across the hall we're traveling with-he must have copped it from that lovely Beau-Rivage in Lausanne. The rotten theft is bad enough, but to have given it to that swine is unforgivable!"

  In seconds, Jason had grabbed the Jackal's weapon and crashed his way into the room across the hall, immediately knowing that "Binky" deserved more admiration than the brigadier afforded him. He lay on the floor bleeding from knife wounds across his stomach and throat.

  "I can't reach anyone!" screamed the woman with thinning gray hair; she was on her knees above the victim, weeping hysterically. "He fought like a madman-somehow he knew that priest wouldn't fire his gun!"

  "Hold the skin together wherever you can," yelled Bourne, looking over at the telephone. It was intact! He ran to it, and instead of calling the front desk or the operator, he dialed the numbers for the suite.

  "Krupkin?" cried Alex.

  "No, me! First: Carlos is on the staircase-the hallway I went into! Second: a man's cut up, same hallway, seventh door on the right! Hurry."

  "As fast as I can. I've got a clear line to the office."

  "Where the hell is the KGB team?"

  "They just got here. Krupkin called only seconds ago from the lobby-it's why I thought you were-"

  "I'm going to the staircase!"

  "For God's sake, why?"

  "Because he's mine!"

  Jason raced to the door, offering no words of comfort for the hysterical wife; he could not summon them. He crashed his way through the exit door, the Jackal's weapon in his hand. He started down the staircase, suddenly hearing the sound of his own shoes; he stopped on the seventh step and removed both, and then his ankle-length socks. The cool surface of the stone on his feet somehow reminded him of the jungles, flesh against the cold morning underbrush; for some abstract, foolish memory he felt more in command of his fears-the jungles were always the friend of Delta One.

  Floor by floor he descended, following the inevitable rivulets of blood, larger now, no longer to be stemmed, for the last wound was too severe to stop by exerting pressure. Twice the Jackal had applied such pressure, once at the fifth-floor and again at the third-floor hallway doors, only to be followed by streaks of dark red, as he could not manipulate the exterior locks without the security keys.

  The second floor, then the first, there were no more! Carlos was trapped! Somewhere in the shadows below was the death of the killer who would set him free! Silently, Bourne removed a book of Metropole matches from his pocket; he huddled against the concrete wall, tore out a single match and, cupping his hands, fired the packet. He threw it over the railing, the weapon in his hand ready to explode with continuous rounds of bullets at anything that moved below!

  There was nothing-nothing! The cement floor was empty-there was no one there! Impossible! Jason raced down the last flight of steps and pounded on the door to the lobby.

  "Shto?" yelled a Russian inside. "Kto tam?"

  "I'm an American! I'm working with the KGB! Let me in!"

  "Shto ... ?"

  "I understand," shouted another voice. "And, please, you understand that many guns are directed at you when I open the door. It is understand?"

  "Understand!" shouted Bourne, at the last second remembering to drop Carlos's weapon on the concrete floor. The door opened.

  "Da!" said the Soviet police officer, instantly correcting himself as he spotted the machine pistol at Jason's feet. "Nyet!" he yelled.

  "Nye za shto?" said a breathless Krupkin, urging his heavyset body forward.

  "Pochemu?"

  "Komitet!"

  "Prekrasno." The policeman nodded obsequiously, but stayed in place.

  "What are you doing?" demanded Krupkin. "The lobby is cleared and our assault squad is in place!"

  "He was here!" whispered Bourne, as if his intense quiet voice further obscured his incomprehensible words.

  "The Jackal?" asked Krupkin, astonished.

  "He came down this staircase! He couldn't have gone out on any other floor. Every fire door is dead-bolted from the inside-only the crash bars release them."

  "Skazhi," said the KGB official to the hotel guard, speaking in Russian. "Has anyone come through this door within the past ten minutes since the orders were given to seal them off?"

  "No, sir!" replied the mititsiya. "Only a hysterical woman in a soiled bathrobe. In her panic, she fell in the bathroom and cut herself. We thought she might have a heart attack, she was screaming so. We escorted her immediately to the nurse's office."

  Krupkin turned to Jason, switching back to English. "Only a woman came through, a woman in panic who had inured herself."

  "A woman? Is he certain? ... What color was her hair?" Dimitri asked the guard; with the man's reply he again looked at Bourne. "He says it was reddish and quite curly."

  "Reddish?" An image came to Jason, a very unpleasant one. "A house phone-no, the front desk! Come on, I may need your help." With Krupkin following, the barefooted Bourne ran across the lobby to a clerk at the reception counter. "Can you speak English?"

  "Certainly most good, even many veniculars, mister sir."

  "A room plan for the tenth floor. Quickly."

  "Mister sir?"

  Krupkin translated; a large loose-leaf notebook was placed on the counter, the plastic-enclosed page turned to-"This room!" said Jason, pointing at a square and doing his best not to alarm the frightened clerk. "Get it on the telephone! If the line's busy, knock off anybody on it."

  Again Krupkin translated as a phone was placed in front of Bourne. He picked it up and spoke. "
This is the man who came into your room a few minutes ago-"

  "Oh, yes, of course, dear fellow. Thank you so much! The doctor's here and Binky's-"

  "I have to know something, and I have to know it right now. ... Do you carry hairpieces, or wigs, with you when you travel?"

  "I'd say that's rather impertinent-"

  "Lady, I don't have time for amenities, I have to know! Do you?"

  "Well, yes I do. It's no secret, actually, all my friends know it and they forgive the artifice. You see, dear boy, I have diabetes ... my gray hair is painfully thin."

  "Is one of those wigs red?"

  "As a matter of fact, yes. I rather fancy changing-"

  Bourne slammed down the phone and looked over at Krupkin. "The son of a bitch lucked out. It was Carlos!"

  "Come with me!" said Krupkin as they both raced across the empty lobby to the complex of back-room offices of the Metropole. They reached the nurse's infirmary door and went inside. They both stopped; both gasped and then winced at what they saw.

  There were rolls of torn, unwound gauze and reels of tape in various widths, and broken syringes and tubes of antibiotics scattered about the examining table and the floor, as if all were somehow administered in panic. These, however, the two men barely noticed, for their eyes were riveted on the woman who had tended to her crazed patient. The Metropole's nurse was arched back in her chair, her throat surgically punctured, and over her immaculate white uniform ran a thin stream of blood. Madness!

  Standing beside the living room table, Dimitri Krupkin spoke on the phone as Alex Conklin sat on the brocaded couch massaging his bootless leg and Bourne stood by the window staring out on the Marx Prospekt. Alex looked over at the KGB officer, a thin smile on his gaunt face as Krupkin nodded, his eyes on Conklin. An acknowledgment was being transmitted between the two of them. They were worthy adversaries in a never-ending, essentially futile war in which only battles were won, the philosophical conflicts never resolved.

  "I have your assurance then, comrade," said Krupkin in Russian, "and, frankly, I will hold you to it. ... Of course I'm taping this conversation! Would you do otherwise? ... Good! We understand each other as well as our respective responsibilities, so let me recapitulate. The man is seriously wounded, therefore the city taxi service as well as all doctors and all hospitals in the Moscow area have been alerted. The description of the stolen automobile has been circulated and any sightings of man or vehicle are to be reported only to you. The penalty for disregarding these instructions is the Lubyanka, that must be clear. ... Good! We have a mutual understanding and I expect to hear from you the minute you have any information, yes? ... Don't have a cardiac arrest, comrade. I am well aware that you are my superior, but then this is a proletarian society, yes? Simply follow the advice of an extremely experienced subordinate. Have a pleasant day. ... No, that is not a threat, it is merely a phrase I picked up in Paris-American origin, I believe." Krupkin hung up the phone and sighed. "There's something to be said for our vanished, educated aristocracy, I'm afraid."

  "Don't say it out loud," observed Conklin, nodding at the telephone. "I gather nothing's coming down."

  "Nothing to act upon immediately but something rather interesting, even fascinating in a macabre sort of way."

  "By which you mean it concerns Carlos, I assume."

  "No one else." Krupkin shook his head as Jason looked over at him from the window. "I stopped at my office to join the assault squad and on my desk were eight large manila envelopes, only one of which had been opened. The police found them in the Vavilova and, true to form, having read the contents of only one, wanted nothing to do with them."

  "What were they?" asked Alex, chuckling. "State secrets describing the entire Politburo as gay?"

  "You're probably not far off the mark," interrupted Bourne. "That was the Jackal's Moscow cadre in the Vavilova. He was either showing them the dirt he had on them, or giving them the dirt on others."

  "The latter in this case," said Krupkin. "A collection of the most preposterous allegations directed at the ranking heads of our major ministries."

  "He's got vaults of that garbage. It's standard operating procedure for Carlos; it's how he buys his way into circles he shouldn't be able to penetrate."

  "Then I'm not being clear, Jason," continued the KGB officer. "When I say preposterous, I mean exactly that-beyond belief. Lunacy."

  "He's almost always on target. Don't take that judgment to the bank."

  "If there were such a bank I certainly would, and I'd negotiate a sizable loan on its efficacy as collateral.. Most of the information is the stuff of the lowest-grade tabloids-nothing unusual there, of course-but along with such nonsense are outright distortions of times, places, functions and even identities. For example, the Ministry of Transport is not where a particular file says, but a block away, and a certain comrade direktor is not married to the lady named but to someone else-the woman mentioned is their daughter and is not in Moscow but rather in Cuba, where she's been for six years. Also, the man listed as head of Radio Moscow and accused of just about everything short of having intercourse with dogs, died eleven months ago and was a known closet orthodox Catholic, who would have been far happier as a truly devout priest. ... These blatant falsehoods I picked up in a matter of minutes, time being at a premium, but I'm sure there are dozens more."

  "You're saying that a scam was pulled on Carlos?" said Conklin.

  "One so garish-albeit compiled with extreme conviction-it would be laughed out of our most rigidly doctrinaire courts. Whoever fed him these melodramatic 'exposés' wanted built-in deniabilities."

  "Rodchenko?" asked Bourne.

  "I can't think of anyone else. Grigorie-I say 'Grigorie' but I never called him that to his face; it was always 'General'-was a consummate strategist, the ultimate survivor, as well as a deeply committed Marxist. Control was his byword, his addiction, really, and if he could control the infamous Jackal for the Motherland's interests, what a profound exhilaration for the old man. Yet the Jackal killed him with those symbolic bullets in his throat. Was it betrayal, or was it carelessness on Rodchenko's part at having been discovered? Which? We'll never know." The telephone rang and Krupkin's hand shot down, picking it up. "Da?" Shifting to Russian, Dimitri gestured for Conklin to restrap the prosthetic boot as he spoke. "Now listen to me very carefully, comrade. The police are to make no moves-above all, they are to remain out of sight. Call in one of our unmarked vehicles to replace the patrol car, am I clear? ... Good. We'll use the Moray frequency."

  "Breakthrough?" asked Bourne, stepping away from the window as Dimitri slammed down the phone.

  "Maximum!" replied Krupkin. "The car was spotted on the Nemchinovka road heading toward Odintsovo."

  "That doesn't mean anything to me. What's in Odintsovo, or whatever it's called?"

  "I don't know specifically, but I must assume he does. Remember, he knows Moscow and its environs. Odintsovo is what you might call an industrial suburb about thirty-five minutes from the city-"

  "Goddamn it!" yelled Alex, struggling with the Velcro straps of his boot.

  "Let me do that," said Jason, his tone of voice brooking no objection as he knelt down and swiftly manipulated the thick strips of coarse cloth. "Why is Carlos still using the Dzerzhinsky car?" continued Bourne, addressing Krupkin. "It's not like him to take that kind of risk."

  "It is if he has no choice. He has to know that all Moscow taxis are a silent arm of the state, and he is, after all, severely wounded and undoubtedly now without a gun or he would have used it on you. He's in no condition to threaten a driver or steal an automobile. ... Besides, he reached the Nemchinovka road quickly; that the car was even seen is pure chance. The road is not well traveled, which I assume he also knows."

  "Let's get out of here!" cried Conklin, annoyed by both Jason's attention and his own infirmity. He stood up, wavered, angrily rejected Krupkin's hand, and started for the door. "We can talk in the car. We're wasting time."

  "Moray, come in,
please," said Krupkin in Russian, sitting beside the assault squad driver in the front seat, the microphone at his lips, his hand on the frequency dial of the vehicle's radio. "Moray, respond, if I'm reaching you."

  "What the hell's he talking about?" asked Bourne, in the backseat with Alex.

  "He's trying to make contact with the unmarked KGB patrol following Carlos. He keeps switching from one ultrahigh frequency to another. It's the Moray code."

  "The what?"

  "It's an eel, Jason," replied Krupkin, glancing over the seat. "Of the Muraenidae family with pore-like gills and capable of descending to great depths. Certain species can be quite deadly."

  "Thank you, Peter Lorre," said Bourne.

  "Very good," laughed the KGB man. "But you'll admit it's aptly descriptive. Very few radios can either send it or receive it."

  "When did you steal it from us?"

  "Oh, not you, not you at all. From the British, truthfully. As usual, London is very quiet about these things, but they're far ahead of you and the Japanese in certain areas. It's that damned MI-Six. They dine in their clubs in Knightsbridge, smoke their odious pipes, play the innocents, and send us defectors trained at the Old Vic."

  "They've had their gaps," said Conklin defensively.

  "More so in their high-dudgeon revelations than in reality, Aleksei. You've been away too long. We've both lost more than they have in that department, but they can cope with public embarrassment-we haven't learned that time-honored trait. We bury our 'gaps,' as you put it; we try too hard for that respectability which too often eludes us. Then, I suppose, we're historically young by comparison." Krupkin again switched back into Russian. "Moray, come in, please! I'm reaching the end of the spectrum. Where are you, Moray?"

  "Stop there, comrade!" came the metallic voice over the loudspeaker. "We're in contact. Can you hear me?"

  "You sound like a castrato but I can hear you."