'Understood. '
Jason walked to the flight deck, sat on the deck, picked up the map and spoke to the flight officer. 'What's the check?' he asked. 'Hong Kong in six minutes if we don't "bump into anybody". '
'I have every confidence in you, but defection notwithstanding, we can't land at Kai Tak. Head north into the New
Territories. '
'Aiya!' screamed the pilot . 'We cross radar! The mad Gurkhas will fire on anything remotely mainland!'
'Not if they don't pick you up, Captain. Stay below six hundred feet up to the border, then climb over the mountains at Lo Wu. You can make radio contact with Shenzhen. '
'And what in the name of the spirits do I say?
'You were hijacked, that's all. You see, I can't allow you to be part of me. We can't land in the colony. You'd draw attention to a very shy man – and his companion.'
The parachutes snapped open above them, the sixty-foot rope connecting them by their waists stretched in the winds as the aircraft sped north towards Shenzhen.
They landed in the waters of a fish hatchery south of Lok Ma Chau. Bourne hauled in the rope, pulling the bound assassin towards him as the owners of the hatchery screamed on the banks of their squared-off pond. Jason held up money – more money than the husband and wife could earn in a year. 'We are defectors? he cried. 'Rich defectors! Who cares! No one cared, least of all the owners of the hatchery. 'Mgoi! Mgoissaair they kept repeating, thanking the strange pink creatures who fell from the sky as Bourne dragged the assassin out of the water.
The Chinese garments discarded and the commando's wrists lashed behind his back, Bourne and his captive reached the road that headed south into Kowloon. Their drenched clothes were drying rapidly under the heat of the sun, but their appearance would not attract what few vehicles there were on the road, fewer still willing to pick up hitchhikers. It was a problem that had to be solved. Solved quickly, accurately. Jason was exhausted; he could barely walk and his concentration was fading. One mis-step and he could lose – but he could not lose! Not now!
Peasants, mainly old women," trudged along the borders of the pavement, their outsized, wide-brimmed black hats shielding withered faces from the sun, yokes spread across ancient shoulders supporting baskets of produce. A few looked curiously at the dishevelled Westerners, but only briefly; their world did not invite surprises. It was enough to survive; their memories were strong.
Memories. Study everything. You'll find something you can use.
'Get down,' said Bourne to the assassin. 'On the side of the road. '
'What? Why?'
'Because if you don't you won't see three more seconds of daylight. '
'I thought you wanted my warm body in Kowloon!'
'I'll take a cold body if I have to. Down! On your backl Incidentally, you can shout as loud as you want, no one will understand you. You might even be helping me. '
'Christ, now?'
'You're in trauma. '
What?'
'Down! Now!'
The killer lowered himself to the pavement, rolled over on his back and stared into the bright sunlight, his chest heaving with awkward gulps of breath. 'I heard the pilot,' he said. 'You are a fucking maniac!'
To each his own interpretation, Major. ' Suddenly, Jason turned in the road and began shouting to the peasant women. 'Jiuming!' he screamed. 'Ring bang mang!' He pleaded with the ancient survivors to help his hurt companion, who had either a broken back or crushed ribs. He reached into his knapsack and pulled out money, explaining that every minute counted, that medical help was required as soon as possible. If they could give assistance, he would pay a great deal for their kindness.
As one, the peasants rushed forward, their eyes not on the patient, but on the money, their hats flying in the wind, their yokes forgotten.
Wo gunzi lai! yelled Bourne, asking for splints or sticks of wood that would hold the damaged man rigid.
The women ran into the fields, returning with long bamboo shoots, slicing away the fibres that would give the poor man in pain a measure of relief when he was strapped in place. And having done so amid much shrieking expressions of sympathy and in spite of the patient's protestations in English, they accepted Bourne's money and went on their way.
Except one. She spotted a truck coming down from the north.
''Duo shao qian?' she said, leaning into Jason's ear, asking him how much he would pay.
'Ni shuo ne,' answered Bourne, telling her to name a price.
She did and Delta accepted. With her arms outstretched, the woman walked out onto the road, and the truck stopped. A second negotiation was made with the driver, and the assassin was loaded onto the van, supine, strapped to the bamboo. Jason climbed on behind him.
'How are you doing, Major?'
'This thing is filled with lousy, fucking ducks!' screamed the commando, staring around at the banks of wooden cages on all sides, the odour overpowering, sickening.
A particular bird, in its infinite wisdom, chose the moment to squirt a stream of excrement into the assassin's face.
'Next stop, Kowloon,' said Jason Bourne, closing his eyes.
30
The telephone rang. Marie spun around in the chair, stopped by Mo Panov's raised hand. The doctor walked across the hotel room, picked up the bedside phone, and spoke. 'Yes!' he said quietly. He frowned as he listened, then as if he realized that his expression might alarm the patient, he looked over at Marie and shook his head, his hand now dismissing whatever urgency she might have attached to the call. 'All right,' he continued after nearly a minute. 'We'll stay put until we hear from you, but I have to ask you, Alex, and forgive my directness. Did anyone feed you drinks?' Panov winced as he pulled the phone briefly away from his ear. 'My only response is that I'm entirely too kind and experienced to speculate on your antecedents. Talk to you later. ' He hung up.
'What's happened"? asked Marie, half out of the chair.
'Far more than he could go into, but it was enough. ' The psychiatrist paused, looking down at Marie. 'Catherine Staples is dead. She was shot down in front of her apartment house several hours ago-'
'Oh, my God,' whispered Marie.
That huge intelligence officer,' continued Panov. 'The one we saw in the Kowloon station whom you called the major and Staples identified as a man named Lin Wenzu-'
'What about him?'
'He's severely wounded and in critical condition at the hospital. That's where Conklin called from, a pay phone in the hospital. '
Marie studied Panov's face. 'There's a connection between Catherine's death and Lin Wenzu, isn't there?'
'Yes. When Staples was killed it was apparent that the operation had been penetrated-'
'What operation? By whom?'
'Alex said that'll all come later. In any event, things are coming to a boil and this Lin may have given his life to rip out the penetration – "neutralizing it," was the way Conklin put it. '
'Oh, God,' cried Marie her eyes wide, her voice on the edge of hysteria . 'Operations! Penetrations... neutralizing, Lin, even Catherine – a friend who turned on me – I don't care about those things! What about David?
'They say he went into China. '
'Good Christ, they've killed him!' screamed Marie, leaping out of the chair.
Panov rushed forward and grabbed her by the shoulders. He gripped her harder, forcing her spastically shaking head to stop its movement, insisting in silence that she look at him. 'Let me tell you what Alex said to me... Listen to me!'
Slowly, breathlessly, as if trying to find a moment of clarity in her confusion and exhaustion, Marie stood still, staring at her friend. 'What?' she whispered.
'He said that in a way he was glad David was up there – or out there – because in his judgement he had a better chance to survive. '
'You believe that?' screamed David Webb's wife, tears filling her eyes.
'Perhaps,' said Panov, nodding and speaking softly. 'Conklin pointed out that here in Hong Kong David could be shot or
stabbed in a crowded street – crowds, he said, were both an enemy and a friend. Don't ask me where these people find their metaphors, I don't know. '
'What the hell are you trying to tell me?'
'What Alex told me. He said they made him go back, made him be someone he wanted to forget. Then he said there never was anyone like "Delta". "Delta" was the best there ever was... David Webb was "Delta", Marie. No matter what he wanted to put out of his mind, he was "Delta". Jason Bourne was an afterthought, an extension of the pain he had to inflict on himself, but his skills were honed as "Delta" ... In some respects I know your husband as well as you do. '
'In those respects, far better, I'm sure,' said Marie, resting her head against the comforting chest of Morris Panov. 'There were so many things he wouldn't talk about. He was too frightened, or too ashamed... Oh, God, Mo! Will he come back to me?"
'Alex thinks "Delta" will come back. '
Marie leaned away from the psychiatrist and looked into his eyes; through the tears her stare was rigid. 'What about David?' she asked in a plaintive whisper. 'Will he come back?'
'I can't answer that. I wish I could, but I can't. '
'I see. ' She released Panov and walked to a window, looking down at the crowds below in the congested, garishly lighted streets. 'You asked Alex if he'd been drinking. Why did you do that, Mo?'
The moment the words came out I regretted them. '
'Because you offended him?' asked Marie, turning back to the psychiatrist.
'No. Because I knew you'd heard them and you'd want an explanation. I couldn't refuse you that. '
'Well'
'It was the last thing he said to me – two things, actually. He said you were wrong about Staples-'
'Wrong? I was there. I saw. I heard her lies!'
'She was trying to protect you without sending you into panic. '
'More lies! What was the other?'
Panov held his place and spoke simply, his eyes locked with Marie's. 'Alex said that crazy as things seemed, they weren't really so crazy after all. '
'My God, they've turned him!'
'Not all the way. He won't tell them where you are – where we are. He told me we should be ready to move within minutes after his next call. He can't take the chance of coming back here. He's afraid he'll be followed. '
'So we're running again – with nowhere to go but back into hiding. And all of a sudden there's a rotten growth in our armour. Our crippled St George who slays dragons now wants to lie with them. '
That's not fair, Marie. That's not what he said, not what I said. '
'Bullshit, Doctor! That's my husband out there, or up there! They're using him, killing him, without telling us why! Oh, he may – just may – survive because he's so terribly good at what he does – did – which was everything he despised, but what's going to be left of the man and his mind! You're the expert, Doctor! What's going to be left when all the memories come back? And they damn well better come back, or he won't survive!'
'I told you, I can't answer that. '
'Oh, you're terrific, Mo! All you've got is carefully qualified positions and no answers, not even well couched projections. You're hiding! You should have been an economist! You missed your calling!'
'I miss a lot of things. Almost including the plane to Hong Kong. '
Marie stood motionless, as if struck. She burst into a new wave of tears as she ran to Panov, embracing him. 'Oh, God, I'm sorry, Mo! Forgive me, forgive me!'
'I'm the one who should apologize,' said the psychiatrist . 'It was a cheap shot. ' He tilted her head back, gently stroking the grey hair streaked with white. 'Lord, I can't stand that wig. '
'It's not a wig, Doctor. '
'My degrees, by way of Sears Roebuck, never included cosmetology. '
'Only taking care of feet. '
'They're easier than heads, take my word for it. '
The telephone rang. Marie gasped and Panov stopped breathing. He slowly turned his head towards the hateful ringing.
'You try that again or anything like it and you're dead!' roared Bourne, gripping the back of his hand where the flesh was darkening from the force of the blow. The assassin, his wrists tied in front of him beneath the sleeves of his jacket, had lunged against the door of the cheap hotel, jamming
Jason's left hand into the doorframe.
'What the hell do you expect me to do?' the former British commando yelled. 'Walk gently into that good night smiling at my own firing squad?'
'So you're a closet reader too,' said Bourne, watching the killer clutch his ribcage, where Jason's right foot had landed an agonizing blow. 'Maybe it's time I asked you why you're in the business I was never actually a part of. Why, Major?"
'Are you really interested, Mr Original?' grunted the impostor, falling into a worn-out armchair against the wall. 'Then it's my turn to ask why. ' •
'Perhaps because I never understood myself,' said David Webb . 'I'm quite rational about that. '
'Oh, I know all about you! It was part of the Frenchman's training. The great Delta was bonkers! His wife and kiddies were blown up in the water in a place called Phnom Penh by a stray jet. This oh-so-civilized scholar went crazy and it's a fact nobody could control him and nobody gave a damn because he and the teams he led did more damage than most of the search-and-destroys put together. Saigon said you were suicidal and from its point of view the more so the better. They wanted you and the garbage you commanded to buy it. They never wanted you back. You were an embarrassment!'
Snake lady, snake lady... this is a friend talking, you assholes. You don't have many down here... Abort! It's a no-win!
'I know, or I think I know that part of it,' said Webb . 'I asked about you. '
The assassin's eyes grew wide as he stared at his bound wrists. When he spoke, it was barely above a whisper, the voice that emerged an echo of itself, and unreal. 'Because I'm psycho, you son of a bitch! I've known it since I was a kid. The nasty dark thoughts, the knives into animals just to watch their eyes and their mouths. Raping a neighbour's daughter, a vicar's kid, because I knew she couldn't say anything, and then catching up with her on the street afterwards and walking her to school. I was eleven years old. And later, at Oxford, during club hazing, holding a lad under water, just below the surface, until he drowned – to watch his eyes, his mouth. Then going back to classes and excelling in that nonsense any damn fool could do who had the wits to get out of a thunder shower. There I was the right sort of fellow, as befitted the son of the father. '
'You never sought help?
'Help? With a name like Allcott-Price?'
'Allcott-?' Stunned, Bourne stared at his prisoner. 'General Allcott-Price? Montgomery's boy genius in World War Two? "Slaughter" Allcott, the man who led the flank attack on Tobruk, and later barrelled through Italy and Germany? England's Patton?'
'I wasn't alive then, for Christ's sake! I was a product of his third wife – perhaps his fourth, for all I know. He was very large in that department – women, I mean. '
'D'Anjou said you never told him your real name. '
'He was bloody well right! The general, swilling his brandy in his oh-so-superior club in St James's, has passed the word. "Kill him! Kill the rotten seed and never let the name out. He's no part of me, the woman was a whore!" But I am part of him and he knows it. He knows where I get my kicks from, the sadistic bastard, and we both have a slew of citations for doing what we like doing best. '
'He knew, then? About your sickness?'
'He knew... he knows. He kept me out of Sandhurst – our West Point, in case you don't know – because he didn't want me anywhere near his precious army. He figured they'd find me out and it'd dim his precious image. He damn near had apoplexy when I joined up. He won't have a decent night's sleep until he's told quietly that I'm out – dead out with all the traces buried. '
'Why are you telling me who you are? 'Simple,' replied the former commando, his eyes boring into Jason's. The way I read it, whichever way it goes, only o
ne of us is going to make it through. I'll do my damndest to see that it's me, I told you that. But it may not be – you're no slouch – and if it isn't, you'll have a name you can shock the goddamn world with, probably make a bloody fortune in the bargain what with literary and cinema rights, that sort of thing. '
'Then the general will spend the rest of his life sleeping peacefully. '
'Sleep?' He'll probably blow his brains out! You weren't listening. I said he'd be told quietly, all the traces buried, no name surfacing. But this way nothing's buried. It's all hanging out like Maggie's drawers, the whole sick sordid mess with no apologies on my part, chap. I know what I am, I accept it. Some of us are just plain different. Let's say we're anti-social, to put it one way; hard-core violent is another -rotten, still another. The only difference within my being different is that I'm bright enough to know it. '
'And accept it,' said Bourne, quietly.
'Wallow in it! Positively intoxicated by the highs! And let's look at it this way. If I lose and the story blows, how many practising anti-socials might be fired up by it? How many other different men are out there who'd be only too happy to take my place, as I took yours? This bloody world is crawling with Jason Bournes. Give them direction, give them an idea, and they'll flock to the source and be off and running. That was the Frenchman's essential genius, can't you see?'
'I see garbage, that's all I see. '
'Your eyesight's not too shabby. That's what the general will see – a reflection of himself – and he'll have to live with the exposure, choke with it. '
'If he wouldn't help you, you should have helped yourself, commit yourself. You're bright enough to know that. '
'And cut off all the fun, all the highs? Unthinkable, sport! You go your way and find the most expendable outfit in the service, hoping the accident will happen that will put an end to it before they peg you for what you are. I found the outfit, but the accident never happened. Unfortunately, competition brings out the best in all of us, doesn't it? We survive because somebody else doesn't want us to... And then, of course, there's drink. It gives us confidence, even the courage to do the things we're not sure we can do. '
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