The Bourne Identity

by Ludlum, Robert

“That was a day, I can tell you. I thought my father would have apoplexy. He left his precious cattle to my brothers long enough to fly east to talk me out of it.”

  “Talk you out of it? Why? He was an accountant; you were going after a doctorate in economics.”

  “Don’t make that mistake,” Marie exclaimed. “Accountants and economists are natural enemies. One views trees, the other forests, and the visions are usually at odds, as they, should be. Besides, my father’s not simply Canadian, he’s French-Canadian. I think he saw me as a traitor to Versailles. But he was mollified when I told him that a condition of the fellowship was a commitment to work for the government for a minimum of three years. He said I could ‘serve the cause better from within.’ Vive Québec libre—vive la France!”

  They both laughed.

  The three-year commitment to Ottawa was extended for all the logical reasons: whenever she thought of leaving, she was promoted a grade, given a large office and an expanded staff.

  “Power corrupts, of course”—she smiled—“and no one knows it better than a ranking bureaucrat whom banks and corporations pursue for a recommendation. But I think Napoleon said it better. ‘Give me enough medals and I’ll win you any war.’ So I stayed. I enjoy my work immensely. But then it’s work I’m good at and that helps.”

  Jason watched her as she talked. Beneath the controlled exterior there was an exuberant, childlike quality about her. She was an enthusiast, reining in her enthusiasm whenever she felt it becoming too pronounced. Of course she was good at what she did; he suspected she never did anything with less than her fullest application. “I’m sure you are—good, I mean—but it doesn’t leave much time for other things, does it?”

  “What other things?”

  “Oh, the usual. Husband, family, house with the picket fence.”

  “They may come one day; I don’t rule them out.”

  “But they haven’t.”

  “No. There were a couple of close calls, but no brass ring. Or diamond, either.”

  “Who’s Peter?”

  The smile faded. “I’d forgotten. You read the cable.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. We’ve covered that. ... Peter? I adore Peter. We lived together for nearly two years, but it didn’t work out.”

  “Apparently he doesn’t hold any grudges.”

  “He’d better not!” She laughed again. “He’s director of the section, hopes for a cabinet appointment soon. If he doesn’t behave himself, I’ll tell the Treasury Board what he doesn’t know and he’ll be back as an SX-Two”

  “He said he was going to pick you up at the airport on the twenty-sixth. You’d better cable him.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  Her leaving was what they had not talked about; they had avoided the subject as though it were a distant eventuality. It was not related to what-had-happened; it was something that was going to be. Marie had said she wanted to help him; he had accepted, assuming she was driven by false gratitude into staying with him for a day or so—and he was grateful for that. But anything else was unthinkable.

  Which was why they did not talk about it. Words and looks had passed between them, quiet laughter evoked, comfort established. At odd moments there were tentative rushes of warmth and they both understood and backed away. Anything else was unthinkable.

  So they kept returning to the abnormality, to what-had-happened. To him more than to them, for he was the irrational reason for their being together ... together in a room at a small village inn in Switzerland. Abnormality. It was not part of the reasonable, ordered world of Marie St. Jacques, and because it was not, her orderly, analytical mind was provoked. Unreasonable things were to be examined, unraveled, explained. She became relentless in her probing, as insistent as Geoffrey Washburn had been on the Ile de Port Noir, but without the doctor’s patience. For she “ did not have the time; she knew it and it drove her to the edges of stridency.

  “When you read the newspapers, what strikes you?”

  “The mess. Seems it’s universal.”

  “Be serious. What’s familiar to you?”

  “Most everything, but I can’t tell you why.”

  “Give me an example.”

  “This morning. There was a story about an American arms shipment to Greece and the subsequent debate in the United Nations; the Soviets protested. I understand the significance, the Mediterranean power struggle, the Mid East spillover.”

  “Give me another.”

  “There was an article about East German interference with the Bonn government’s liaison office in Warsaw. Eastern bloc, Western bloc; again I understood.”

  “You see the relationship, don’t you? You’re politically—geo-politically—receptive.”

  “Or I have a perfectly normal working knowledge of current events. I don’t think I was ever a diplomat. The money at the Gemeinschaft would rule out any kind of government employment.”

  “I agree. Still, you’re politically aware. What about maps? You asked me to buy you maps. What comes to mind when you look at them?”

  “In some cases names trigger images, just as they did in Zurich. Buildings, hotels, streets ... sometimes faces. But never names. The faces don’t have any.”

  “Still you’ve traveled a great deal.”

  “I guess I have.”

  “You know you have.”

  “All right, I’ve traveled.”

  “How did you travel?”

  “What do you mean, how?”

  “Was it usually by plane, or by car—not taxis but driving yourself?”

  “Both, I think. Why?”

  “Planes would mean greater distances more frequently. Did people meet you? Are there faces at airports, hotels?”

  “Streets,” he replied involuntarily.

  “Streets? Why streets?”

  “I don’t know. Faces met me in the streets ... and in quiet places. Dark places.”

  “Restaurants? Cafés?”

  “Yes. And rooms.”

  “Hotel rooms?”

  “Yes.”

  “Not offices? Business offices?”

  “Sometimes. Not usually.”

  “All right People met you. Faces. Men? Women? Both?”

  “Men mostly. Some women, but mostly men.”

  “What did they talk about?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Try to remember.”

  “I can’t. There aren’t any voices; there aren’t any words.”

  “Were there schedules? You met with people, that means you had appointments. They expected to meet with you and you expected to meet with them. Who scheduled those appointments? Someone had to.”

  “Cables. Telephone calls.”

  “From whom? From where?”

  “I don’t know. They would reach me.”

  “At hotels?”

  “Mostly, I imagine.”

  “You told me the assistant manager at the Carillon said you did receive messages.”

  “Then they came to hotels.”

  “Something-or-other Seventy-One?”

  “Treadstone.”

  “Treadstone. That’s your company, isn’t it?”

  “It doesn’t mean anything. I couldn’t find it.”

  “Concentrate!”

  “I am. It wasn’t listed. I called New York.”

  “You seem to think that’s so unusual. It’s not.”

  “Why not?”

  “It could be a separate in-house division, or a blind subsidiary—a corporation set up to make purchases for a parent company whose name would push up a negotiating price. It’s done every day.”

  “Whom are you trying to convince?”

  “You. It’s entirely possible that you’re a roving negotiator for American financial interests. Everything points to it: funds set up for immediate capital, confidentiality open for corporate approval, which was never exercised. These facts, plus your own antenna for political shifts, point to a trusted purchasing agent, and qui
te probably a large shareholder or part owner of the parent company.”

  “You talk awfully fast.”

  “I’ve said nothing that isn’t logical.”

  “There’s a hole or two.”

  “Where?”

  “That account didn’t show any withdrawals. Only deposits. I wasn’t buying, I was selling.”

  “You don’t know that; you can’t remember. Payments can be made with shortfall deposits.”

  “I don’t even know what that means.”

  “A treasurer aware of certain tax strategies would. What’s the other hole?”

  “Men don’t try to kill someone for buying something at a lower price. They may expose him; they don’t kill him.”

  “They do if a gargantuan error has been made. Or if that person has been mistaken for someone else. What I’m trying to tell you is that you can’t be what you’re not! No matter what anyone says.”

  “You’re that convinced.”

  “I’m that convinced. I’ve spent three days with you. We’ve talked, I’ve listened. A terrible error has been made. Or it’s some kind of conspiracy.”

  “Involving what? Against what?”

  “That’s what you have to find out.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Tell me something. What comes to mind when you think of money?”

  Stop it! Don’t do this! Can’t you understand? You’re wrong. When I think of money I think of killing.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I’m tired. I want to sleep. Send your cable in the morning. Tell Peter you’re flying back.”

  It was well past midnight, the beginning of the fourth day, and still sleep would not come. Bourne stared at the ceiling, at the dark wood that reflected the light of the table lamp across the room. The light remained on during the nights; Marie simply left it on, no explanation sought, none offered.

  In the morning she would be gone and his own plans had to crystallize. He would stay at the inn for a few more days, call the doctor in Wohlen and arrange to have the stitches removed. After that, Paris. The money was in Paris, and so was something else; he knew it, he felt it. A final answer; it was in Paris.

  You are not helpless. You will find your way.

  What would he find? A man named Carlos? Who was Carlos and what was he to Jason Bourne?

  He heard the rustle of cloth from the couch against the wall. He glanced over, startled to see that Marie was not asleep. Instead, she was looking at him, staring at him really.

  “You’re wrong, you know,” she said.

  “About what?”

  “What you’re thinking.”

  “You don’t know what I’m thinking.”

  “Yes, I do. I’ve seen that look in your eyes, seeing things you’re not sure are there, afraid that they may be.”

  “They have been,” he replied. “Explain the Steppdeckstrasse. Explain a fat man at the Drei Alpenhäuser.”

  “I can’t, but neither can you.”

  “They were there. I saw them and they were there.”

  “Find out why. You can’t be what you’re not, Jason. Find out.”

  “Paris,” he said.

  “Yes, Paris.” Marie got up from the couch. She was in a soft yellow nightgown, nearly white, pearl buttons at the neck; it flowed as she walked toward the bed in her bare feet. She stood beside him, looking down, then raised both her hands and began unbuttoning the top of the gown. She let it fall away, as she sat on the bed, her breasts above him. She leaned toward him, reaching for his face, cupping it, holding him gently, her eyes as so often during the past few days unwavering, fixed on his. “Thank you for my life,” she whispered.

  “Thank you for mine,” he answered, feeling the longing he knew she felt, wondering if an ache accompanied hers, as it did his. He had no memory of a woman and, perhaps because he had none she was everything he could imagine; everything and much, much more. She repelled the darkness for him. She stopped the pain.

  He had been afraid to tell her. And she was telling him now it was all right, if only for a while, for an hour or so. For the remainder of that night, she was giving him a memory because she too longed for release from the coiled springs of violence. Tension was suspended, comfort theirs for an hour or so. It was all he asked for, but God in heaven, how he needed her!

  He reached for her breast and pulled her lips to his lips, her moisture arousing him, sweeping away the doubts.

  She lifted the covers and came to him.

  She lay in his arms, her head on his chest, careful to avoid the wound in his shoulder. She slid back gently, raising herself on her elbows. He looked at her, their eyes locked, and both smiled. She lifted her left hand, pressing her index finger over his lips, and spoke softly.

  “I have something to say and I don’t want you to interrupt. I’m not sending the cable to Peter. Not yet.”

  “Now, just a minute.” He took her hand from his face. “Please, don’t interrupt me. I said ‘not yet.’ That doesn’t mean I won’t send it, but not for a while. I’m staying with you. I’m going to Paris with you.”

  He forced the words. “Suppose I don’t want you to.”

  She leaned forward brushing her lips against his cheek. “That won’t wash. The computer just rejected it.”

  “I wouldn’t be so certain, if I were you.”

  “But you’re not me. I’m me, and I know the way you held me, and tried to say so many things you couldn’t say. Things I think we both wanted to say to each other for the past several days. I can’t explain what’s happened. Oh, I suppose it’s there in some obscure psychological theory somewhere, two reasonably intelligent people thrown into hell together and crawling out ... together. And maybe that’s all it is. But it’s there right now and I can’t run away from it. I can’t run away from you. Because you need me, and you gave me my life.”

  “What makes you think I need you?”

  “I can do things for you that you can’t do for yourself. It’s all I’ve thought about for the past two hours.” She raised herself further, naked beside him. “You’re somehow involved with a great deal of money, but I don’t think you know a debit from an asset. You may have before, but you don’t now. I do. And there’s something else. I have a ranking position with the Canadian government. I have clearance and access to all manner of inquiries. And protection. International finance is rotten and Canada has been raped. We’ve mounted our own protection and I’m part of it. It’s why I was in Zurich. To observe and report alliances, not to discuss abstract theories.”

  “And the fact that you have this clearance, this access, can help me?”

  “I think it can. And embassy protection, that may be the most important. But I give you my word that at the first sign of violence, I’ll send the cable and get out. My own fears aside, I won’t be a burden to you under those conditions.”

  “At the first sign,” repeated Bourne, studying her. “And I determine when and where that is?”

  “If you like. My experience is limited. I won’t argue.”

  He continued to hold her eyes, the moment long, magnified by silence. Finally he asked, “Why are you doing this? You just said it. We’re two reasonably intelligent people who crawled out of some kind of hell. That may be all we are. Is it worth it?”

  She sat motionless. “I also said something else; maybe you’ve forgotten. Four nights ago a man who could have kept running came back for me and offered to die in my place. I believe in that man. More than he does, I think. That’s really what I have to offer.”

  “I accept,” he said, reaching for her. “I shouldn’t, but I do. I need that belief very badly.”

  “You may interrupt now,” she whispered, lowering the sheet, her body coming to his. “Make love to me, I have needs too.”

  Three more days and nights went by, filled by the warmth of their comfort, the excitement of discovery. They lived with the intensity of two people aware that change would come. And when it came, it would come quickly; so there were things to tal
k about which could not be avoided any longer.

  Cigarette smoke spiraled above the table joining the steam from the hot, bitter coffee. The concierge, an ebullient Swiss whose eyes took in more than his lips would reveal, had left several minutes before, having delivered the petit déjeuner and the Zurich newspapers, in both English and French. Jason and Marie sat across from each other, both had scanned the news.

  “Anything in yours?” asked Bourne.

  “That old man, the watchman at the Guisan Quai, was buried the day before yesterday. The police still have nothing concrete. ‘Investigation in progress,’ it says.”

  “It’s a little more extensive here,” said Jason, shifting his paper awkwardly in his bandaged left hand.

  “How is it?” asked Marie, looking at the hand.

  “Better. I’ve got more play in the fingers now.”

  “I know.”

  “You’ve got a dirty mind.” He folded the paper. “Here it is. They repeat the things they said the other day. The shells and blood scrapings are being analyzed.” Bourne looked up. “But they’ve added something. Remnants of clothing; it wasn’t mentioned before.”

  “Is that a problem?”

  “Not for me. My clothes were bought off a rack in Marseilles. What about your dress? Was it a special design or fabric?”

  “You embarrass me; it wasn’t. All my clothes are made by a woman in Ottawa.”

  “It couldn’t be traced, then?”

  “I don’t see how. The silk came from a bolt an FS-Three in our section brought back from Hong Kong.”

  “Did you buy anything at the shops in the hotel? Something you might have had on you. A kerchief, a pin, anything like that?”

  “No. I’m not much of a shopper that way.”

  “Good. And your friend wasn’t asked any questions when she checked out?”

  “Not by the desk, I told you that. Only by the two men you saw me with in the elevator.”

  “From the French and Belgian delegations.”

  “Yes. Everything was fine.”

  “Let’s go over it again.”

  “There’s nothing to go over. Paul—the one from Brussels—didn’t see anything. He was knocked off his chair to the floor and stayed there. Claude—he tried to stop us, remember?—at first thought it was me on the stage, in the light, but before he could get to the police he was hurt in the crowd and taken to the infirmary—”