'Where does he think my man is going?
'On another assignment, of course. He's heard the details!'
'He's wrong. The man is available if the price is met. '
'Call me back in several minutes. I will speak to my client and see if matters are to be pursued. '
Bourne had called five minutes later. Consent was given, the rendezvous set. Repulse Bay. One hour. The statue of the war god halfway down the beach on the left towards the pier. The contact would wear a black kerchief around his neck; the code was to remain the same.
Jason looked at his watch; it was twelve minutes past the hour. The contact was late, and the rain was not a problem; on the contrary, it was an advantage, a natural cover. Bourne had scouted every foot of the meeting ground, forty feet in every direction that had a sight line to the statue of the idol, and he had done so after the appointed time, using up minutes as he kept his eyes on the path to the statue. Nothing so far was irregular. There was no trap in the making.
The Zhongguo ren came into view, his shoulders hunched as he dashed down the steps in the downpour as if the shape of his body would ward off the rain. He ran along the path towards the statue of the war god, stopping as he approached the huge snarling idol. He skirted the wash of the floodlights, but what could briefly be seen of his face conveyed his anger at finding no one in sight.
'Frenchman, Frenchman?'
Bourne raced back through the foliage towards the steps, checking once more before rendezvous, reducing his vulnerability. He edged his way around the thick stone post that bordered the steps and peered through the rain at the upper path to the hotel. He saw what he hoped to God he would not see! A man in a raincoat and hat came out of the run-down Colonial Hotel and broke into a fast walk. Halfway to the steps he stopped, pulling something out of his pocket; he turned; there was a slight glow of light... returned instantly by a corresponding tiny flash at one of the windows of the crowded lobby. Penlights. 'Signals. A scout was on his way to a forward post, as his relay or his back-up confirmed communications. Jason spun around and retraced the path he had made through the drenched foliage.
'Frenchman, where are you?
'Over here!'
'Why did you not answer? Where?'
'Straight ahead. The bushes in front of you. Hurry up!'
The contact approached the foliage; he was an arm's length away. Bourne sprang up and grabbed him, spinning him around and pushing him farther into the wet bushes, as he did so clamping his left hand over the man's mouth. 'If you want to live, don't make a sound!'
Thirty feet into the shoreline woods, Jason slammed the contact into the trunk of a tree. 'Who's with you? he asked harshly, slowly removing his hand from the man's mouth.
'With me?' ' No one is with me!'
'Don't Her Bourne pulled out his gun and placed it against the contact's throat. The Chinese crashed his head back into the tree, his eyes wide, his mouth gaping. 'I don't have time for traps!' continued Jason. 'I don't have timer
'And there is no one with me! My word in these matters is my livelihood! Without it I have no profession!'
Bourne stared at the man. He put the gun back in his belt, gripped the contact's arm and propelled him to the right . 'Be quiet. Come with me. '
Ninety seconds later Jason and the contact had crawled through the soaking wet underbrush towards an area of the path some twenty-odd feet to the west of the massive idol. The downpour covered whatever noises might have been picked up on a dry night. Suddenly, Bourne grabbed the Oriental's shoulder, stopping him. Up ahead the scout could be seen, crouching, hugging the border of the path, a gun in his hand. For a moment he crossed through a wash of the statue's floodlight before he disappeared; it was only for an instant, but it was enough. Bourne looked at the contact.
The Chinese was stunned. He could not take his eyes off the spot in the light where the scout had crossed. His thoughts were coming to him rapidly, the terror in him building; it was in his stare. 'Si',' he whispered. 'Jiagian!'
'In short English words,' said Jason, speaking through the rain. That man's an executioner?'
'S/"7... Yes. '
Tell me, what have you brought me?
'Everything,' answered the contact, still in shock. 'The first money, the instructions... everything. '
'A client doesn't send money if he's going to kill the man he's hiring. '
'I know,' said the contact softly, nodding his head and closing his eyes. 'It is me they want to kill. '
His words to Liang on the harbour walk had been prophetic, thought Bourne. 'It's not a trap for me... it's for you. You did your job and they can't allow any traces... They can't afford you any longer.'
There's another up at the hotel. I saw them signaling each other with flashlights. It's why I couldn't answer you for several minutes. '
The Oriental turned and looked at Jason; there was no self-pity in his eyes. The risks of my profession,' he said simply. 'As my foolish people say, I will join my ancestors, and I hope they are not so foolish. Here. ' The contact reached into his inside pocket and withdrew an envelope. 'Here is everything. '
'Have you checked it out?'
'Only the money. ' It's all there. ' I would not meet with the Frenchman with less than his demands, and the rest I do not care to know. ' Suddenly the man looked hard at Bourne, blinking his eyes in the downpour. 'But you are not the Frenchman!'
'Easy,' said Jason. Things have come pretty fast for you tonight. '
'Who are you?'
'Someone who just showed you where you stood. ' How much money did you bring?
Thirty thousand American dollars. '
'If that's the first payment, the target must be someone impressive. '
'I assume he is. '
'Keep it. '
' What? What are you saying?
'I'm not the Frenchman, remember?
'I do not understand. '
'I don't even want the instructions. I'm sure someone of your professional calibre can turn them to your advantage. A man pays well for information that can help him; he pays a hell of a lot more for his life. '
'Why would you do this?
'Because none of it concerns me. I have only one concern. I want the man who calls himself Bourne and I can't waste time. You've got what I just offered you plus a dividend – I'll get you out of here alive if I have to leave two corpses here in the Bay, I don't care. But you've got to give me what I asked for on the phone. You said your client told you the
Frenchman's assassin was going someplace else. Where? Where is Bourne?
'You talk so rapidly-'
'I told you, I haven't time! Tell me! If you refuse, I leave and your client kills you. Take your choice. '
'Shenzhen,' said the contact, as if frightened at the name.
'China? There's a target in Shenzhen?
'One can assume that. My wealthy client has sources in Queen's Road. '
'What's that?
The Consulate of the People's Republic. A very unusual visa was granted. Apparently it was cleared on the highest authority in Beijing. The source did not know why, and when he questioned the decision he was promptly removed from the section. He reported this to my client. For money, of course. '
'Why was the visa unusual?
'Because there was no waiting period and the applicant did not appear at the consulate. Both are unheard of. '
'Still, it was just a visa. '
'In the People's Republic there is no such thing as "just a visa". Especially not for a white male travelling alone under a questionable passport issued in Macao. '
'Macao?
'Yes. '
'What's the entry date?'
Tomorrow. The Lo Wu border. '
Jason studied the contact . 'You said your client has sources in the consulate. Do you?
'What you are thinking will cost a great deal of money, for the risk is very great. '
Bourne raised his head and looked through the sheets of rain at the floodlit idol
beyond. There was movement; the scout was searching for his target . 'Wait here,' he said.
The early morning train from Kowloon to the Lo Wu border took barely over an hour. The realization that he was in China took less than ten seconds. Long Live the People's Republic.
There was no need for the exclamation point, the border guards lived it. They were rigid, staring, and abusive, pummelling passports with their rubber stamps with the fury of hostile adolescents. There was, however, an ameliorating support system. Beyond the guards a phalanx of young women in uniform stood smiling behind several long tables stacked with pamphlets extolling the beauty and virtues of their land and its system. If there was hypocrisy in their postures, it did not show.
Bourne had paid the betrayed, marked contact the sum of $7,000 for the visa. It was good for 5 days. The purpose of the visit was listed as 'business investments in the Economic Zone', and was renewable at Shenzhen immigration with proof of investment along with the corroborating presence of a Chinese banker through whom the money was to be brokered. In gratitude, and for no additional charge, the contact had given him the name of a Shenzhen banker who could easily steer 'Mr Cruett' to investment possibilities, the said Mr. Cruett being still registered at the Regent Hotel in Hong Kong. Finally, there was a bonus from the man whose life he had saved in Repulse Bay: the description of the man travelling under a Macao passport across the Lo Wu border. He was '6' 1" tall, 185 Ib, white skin, light brown hair. ' Jason had stared at the information, unconsciously recalling the data on his own government ID card. It had read: 'HT: 6' 1" WT: 187 Ibs. White male. Hair: Lt Brn. ' An odd sense of fear spread through him. Not the fear of confrontation; he wanted that, above all, for he wanted Marie back above everything. Instead, it was the horror that he had somehow created a monster: a stalker of death that came from a lethal virus he had perfected in the laboratory of his mind and body.
It had been the first train out of Kowloon, occupied in the main by skilled labour and the executive personnel permitted – enticed – into the Free Economic Zone of Shenzhen by the People's Republic in the hope of attracting foreign investments. At each stop on the way to the border, as more and more passengers boarded, Bourne had walked through the cars, his eyes resting for an intense instant on each of the white males of whom there was a total of only fourteen by the time they reached Lo Wu. None had even vaguely fitted the description of the man from Macao – the description of himself. The new 'Jason Bourne' would be taking a later train. The original would wait on the other side of the border. He waited now.
During the four hours that passed he explained 16 times to inquiring border personnel that he was waiting for a business associate; he had obviously misunderstood the schedule and had taken a far too early train. As with people in any foreign country, but especially in the Orient, the fact that a courteous American had gone to the trouble of making himself understood in their language was decidedly beneficial. He was offered four cups of coffee, seven hot teas, and two of the uniformed girls had giggled as they presented him with an overly sweet Chinese ice cream cone. He accepted all – to do otherwise would have been rude, and since most of the Gang of Four had lost not only their faces but their heads, rudeness was out, except for the border guards.
It was 11:10. The passengers emerged through the long, fenced open-air corridor after dealing with immigration, mostly tourists, mostly white, mostly bewildered and awed to be there. The majority were in small tour groups, accompanied by guides – one each from Hong Kong and the People's Republic – who spoke acceptable English, or German, or French or, reluctantly, Japanese for those particularly disliked visitors with more money than Marx or Confucius ever had. Jason studied each white male. The many that were over six feet in height were too young or too old or too portly or too slender or too obvious in their lime-green and lemon-yellow trousers to be the man from Macao.
Wai! Over there! An older man in a tan gabardine suit who appeared to be a medium-sized tourist with a limp was suddenly taller – and the limp was gone! He walked rapidly down the steps through the middle of the crowd and ran into the huge parking lot filled with buses and tour vans and a few taxis, each with a zhan – off-duty – posted in the front windows. Bourne raced after the man, dodging between the bodies in front of him, not caring whom he pushed aside. I was the man – the man from Macao!
'Hey, are you crazy? Ralph, he shoved me!'
'Shove back. What do you want from me?
'Do something!'
'He's gone. '
The man in the gabardine suit jumped into the open door of a van, a dark green van with tinted windows that according to the Chinese characters belonged to a department called the Chutang Bird Sanctuary. The door slid shut and the vehicle instantly broke away from its parking space and careened around the vehicles into the exit lane. Bourne was frantic; he could not let him go! An old taxi-was on his right, the motor idling. He pulled the door open, to be greeted by a shout.
'Zha!' screamed the driver.
'Shi ma? roared Jason, pulling enough American money from his pocket to ensure five years of luxury in the People's Republic.
'Aiyar'
'Zou!' ordered Bourne, leaping into the front seat and pointing to the van which had swerved into the semicircle. 'Stay with him and you can start your own business in the Zone,' he said in Cantonese. 'I promise you!'
Marie, I'm so close! I know it's him! I'll take him! He's mine now! He's our deliverance!
The van sped out of the exit road, heading south at the first intersection, avoiding the large square jammed with tour buses and crowds of sightseers cautiously avoiding the endless stream of bicycles in the streets. The taxi driver picked up the van on a primitive highway paved more with hard clay than asphalt. The dark-windowed vehicle could be seen ahead entering a long curve in front of an open truck carrying heavy farm machinery. A tour bus waited at the end of the curve, swinging into the road behind the truck.
Bourne looked beyond the van; there were hills up ahead and the road began to rise. Then another tour bus appeared, this one behind them.
'Shumchun,' said the driver.
'Bin do?' asked Jason.
The Shumchun water supply,' answered the driver in Chinese. 'A very beautiful reservoir, one of the finest lakes in all China. It sends its water south to Kowloon and Hong Kong. Very crowded with visitors this time of year. The autumn views are excellent. '
Suddenly the van accelerated, climbing the mountain road, pulling away from the truck and the tour bus. 'Can't you go faster? Get around the bus, that truck!'
'Many curves ahead. '
Try it!'
The driver pressed his foot to the floor and swerved around the bus, missing its bulging front by inches as he was forced back in line by an approaching army half-track with two soldiers in the cabin. Both the soldiers and the tour guides yelled at them through open windows. 'Sleep with your ugly mothers!' screamed the driver, filled with his moment of triumph, only to be faced with the wide truck filled with farm machinery blocking the way.
They were going into a sharp right curve. Bourne gripped the window and leaned out as far as he could for a clearer view. 'There's no one coming!' he yelled at the driver through the onrushing wind. 'Go ahead! You can get around. Now?
The driver did so, pushing the old taxi to its limits, the tyres spinning on a stretch of hard clay, which made the cab sideslip dangerously in front of the truck. Another curve, now sharply to the left, and rising steeper. Ahead the road was straight, ascending a high hill. The van was nowhere to be seen; it had disappeared over the crest of the hill.
'Kuai!' shouted Bourne. 'Can't you make this damn thing go faster?'
'It has never been this fast! I think the fuck-fuck spirits will explode the motor! Then what will I do? It took me five years to buy this unholy machine, and many unholy bribes to drive in the Zone!'
Jason threw a handful of bills on the floor of the cab by the driver's feet . 'There's ten times more if we catch that van! Now, go."
The taxi soared over the top of the hill, descending swiftly into an enormous glen at the edge of a vast lake that seemed to extend for miles. In the distance Bourne could see snowcapped mountains and green islands dotting the blue-green water as far as the eye could see. The taxi came to a halt beside a large red and gold pagoda reached by a long, polished concrete staircase. Its open balconies overlooked the lake. Refreshment stands and curio shops were scattered about on the borders of the parking lot, where four tour buses were standing with the dual guides shouting instructions and pleading with their charges not to get in the wrong vehicles at the end of their walks.
The dark-windowed van was nowhere to be seen. Bourne shifted his head swiftly, looking in all directions. Where was it? 'What's that road over there?' he asked the driver.
'Pump stations. No one is permitted down that road, it is patrolled by the army. Around the bend is a high fence and a guard house. '
'Wait here. ' Jason climbed out of the cab and started walking towards the prohibited road, wishing he had a camera or a guide book – something to mark him as a tourist. As it was, the best he could do was to assume the hesitant walk and wide-eyed expression of a sightseer. No object was too insignificant for his inspection. He approached the bend in the badly paved road; he saw the high fence and part of the guardhouse – then all of it. A long metal bar fell across the road; two soldiers were talking, their backs to him, looking the other way – looking at two vehicles parked side by side farther down by a square concrete structure painted brown. One of the vehicles was the dark-windowed van, the other the brown sedan. It began to move. It was heading back to the gate!
Bourne's thoughts came rapidly. He had no weapon; it was pointless even to consider carrying one across the border. If he tried to stop the van and drag the killer out, the commotion would bring the guards, their rifle fire swift and accurate. Therefore he had to draw the man from Macao out – of his own volition. The rest Jason was primed for; he would take the impostor one way or the other. Take him back to the border and over – one way or another. No man was a match for him; no eyes, no throat, no groin safe from an assault, swift and agonizing. David Webb had never come to grips with that reality. Bourne lived it.
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