Then there's nothing I can say to you,' replied the C.I.A. man, limping across the room towards the general. 'Other decisions could have been made – by him and by you.'
'Could they? Where was he to start? When that man tried
to kill him in Marseilles? In the rue Saracin? When they hunted him in Zurich? When they shot at him in Paris? And all the while, he didn't know why. What was he to do?'
'Come out! Goddamn it, come out!'
'He did. And when he did, you tried to kill him.'
'You were there! You were with him. You had a memory.'
'Assuming I knew who to go to, would you have listened to me?'
Conklin returned her gaze. 'I don't know,' he answered, breaking the contact between them and turning to Crawford. 'What's happening?'
'Washington's calling me back within ten minutes.'
'But what's happening!'
'I'm not sure you want to hear it. Federal encroachment on state and municipal law-enforcement statutes. Clearances have to be obtained.'
'Jesus!'
'Look!' The army man suddenly bent down to the window. "The truck's leaving.'
'Someone got through,' said Conklin.
'Who?'
'I'll find out.' The C.I.A. man limped to the phone; there were scraps of paper on the table, telephone numbers written hastily. He selected one and dialled. 'Give me Schumach... please... Schumach? This is Conklin, Central Intelligence. Who gave you the word?'
The dispatcher's voice on the line could be heard halfway across the room. 'What word? Get off my back! We're on that job and we're going to finish it! Frankly, I think you're a whacko...'
Conklin slammed down the phone. 'Christ... oh, Christ!' His hand trembled as he gripped the instrument. He picked it up and dialled again, his eyes on another scrap of paper. 'Petrocelli. Reclamations,' he commanded. 'Petrocelli? Conklin again.'
'You faded out. What happened?'
'No time. Level with me. That priority invoice from Agency Controls. Who signed it?'
'What do you mean, who signed it? The topcat who always signs them. McGivern.'
Conklin's face turned white. That's what I was afraid of,'
he whispered as he lowered the phone. He turned to Crawford, his head quivering as he spoke. The order to General Services was signed by a man who retired two weeks ago.'
'Carlos...'
'Oh, God!' screamed Marie. The man carrying the blankets, the straps! The way he held his head, his neck. Angled to the right. It was him! When his head hurts, he favours the right It was Jason I He went inside.'
Alexander Conklin turned back to the window, his eyes focused on the black enamelled door across the way. It was closed.
The hand! The skin... the dark eyes in the thin shaft of light Carlos!
Bourne whipped his head back as the razor-like edge of the blade sliced the flesh under his chin, the eruption of blood streaming across the hand that held the knife. He lashed his right foot out, catching his unseen attacker in the kneecap, then pivoted and plunged his left heel into the man's groin. Carlos spun and again the blade came out of the darkness, now surging towards him, the line of assault directly at his stomach. Jason sprang back off the ground, crossing his wrists, slashing downward, blocking the dark arm that was an extension of the handle. He twisted his fingers inward, yanking his hands together, vicing the forearm beneath his blood-soaked neck and wrenched the arm diagonally up. The knife creased the cloth of his field jacket and, once above his chest, Bourne spiralled the arm downward, twisting the wrist now in his grip, crashing his shoulder into the assassin's body, yanking again as Carlos plunged sideways off balance, his arm pulled half out of its socket
Jason heard the clatter of the knife on the floor; he lurched towards the sound, at the same time reaching into his belt for his gun. It caught on the cloth; he rolled on the floor, but not quickly enough. The steel toe of a shoe crashed into the side of his head – his temple – and shock waves bolted through him. He rolled again, faster, faster, until he smashed into the wall; coiling upward on his knee, trying to focus through the weaving, obscure shadows in the near total darkness. The flesh of a hand was caught in the thin line of light from the window, he lunged at it, his own hands now claws, his arms battering rams. He gripped the hand, snapping it back, breaking the wrist A scream filled the room.
A scream and the hollow, lethal spit of a gunshot. An ice-like incision had been made in Bourne's upper left chest, the bullet lodged somewhere near his shoulder blade. In agony, he crouched and sprang again, pummelling the killer with a gun into the wall above a sharp-edged piece of furniture; Carlos lunged away as two more muted shots were fired wildly. Jason dived to his left, freeing his gun, levelling it at the sounds in the darkness. He fired, the explosion deafening, useless. He heard the door crash shut; the killer had raced out into the hallway.
Trying to fill his lungs with air, Bourne crawled towards the door. As he reached it, instinct commanded him to stay at the side and smash his fist into the wood at the bottom. What followed was the core of a terrifying nightmare. There was a short burst of automatic gunfire as the panelled wood splintered, fragments flying across the room. The instant it stopped, Jason raised his own weapon and fired diagonally through the door; the burst was repeated. Bourne spun away, pressing his back against the wall; the eruption stopped and he fired again. There were now two men inches from each other, wanting above all to kill each other. Cain is for Charlie and Delta is for Cain. Get Carlos. Trap Carlos. Kill Carlos!
And then they were not inches from each other. Jason heard racing footsteps, then the sounds of a railing being broken as a figure lurched down the staircase. Carlos was racing below; the pig-animal wanted support; he was hurt. Bourne wiped the blood from his face, from his throat, and moved in front of what was left of the door. He pulled it open and stepped out into the narrow corridor, his gun levelled in front of him. Painfully he made his way towards the top of the dark staircase. Suddenly he heard shouts below.
'What the hell you doing man! Pete! Pete!'
Two spits filled the air.
'Joey! Joey!'
A single spit was heard; bodies crashed to a floor somewhere below.
'Jesus! Jesus, Mother of...!'
Two spits again, followed by a guttural cry of death. A third man was killed.
What had that third man said? Two wise-ass stiffs and four crumb balls now. The moving van was a Carlos operation! The assassin had brought two soldiers with him – the first three crumb balls from the shape up. Three men with weapons, and he was one with a single gun. Cornered on the top floor of the brownstone. Still Carlos was inside. Inside. If he could get out, it would be Carlos who was cornered! If he could get out. Out!
There was a window at the front end of the hall, obscured by a black blind. Jason veered towards it, stumbling, holding his neck, creasing his shoulder to blunt the pain in his chest He ripped the blind from its spindle; the window was small, the glass here, too, thick, prismatic blocks of purple and blue light shooting through it, it was unbreakable, the frame riveted in place; there was no way he could smash a single pane. And then his eyes were drawn below to Seventy-first Street. The removal van was gone. Someone must have driven it away... one of Carlos's soldiers! That left two. Two men, not three. And he was on the high ground; there were always advantages on the high ground.
Grimacing, bent partially over, Bourne made his way to the first door on the left; it was parallel to the top of the staircase; He opened it and stepped inside. From what he could see it was an ordinary bedroom, lamps, heavy furniture, pictures on the walls. He grabbed the nearest lamp, ripped the cord from the wall and carried it out to the railing. He raised it above his head and hurled it down, stepping back as metal and glass crashed below. There was another burst of gunfire, the bullets shredding the ceiling, cutting a path in the plaster. Jason screamed, letting the scream fade into a cry, the cry into a prolonged desperate wail, and then silence; he edged his way to the rear of the railing. He waited. Silence.
It happened. He could hear the slow, cautious footsteps; the killer bad been on the first-floor landing. The footsteps came closer, became louder; a faint shadow appeared on the dark wall. Now. Bourne sprang out of his recess and fired four shots in rapid succession at the figure on the staircase; a line of bullet holes and eruptions of blood appeared diagonally across the man's collar. The killer spun, roaring in anger and pain as his neck arched back and his body plummeted down the steps until it was still, sprawled face-up across the bottom three steps. In his hands was a deadly automatic field machine-gun with a rod and brace for a stock.
Now. Jason ran over to the top of the staircase and raced down, holding the railing, trying to keep whatever was left of his balance. He could not waste a moment, he might not find another. If he was going to reach the first floor it was now, in the immediate aftermath of the soldier's death. And as he leaped over the dead body, Bourne knew it was a soldier; it was not Carlos. The man was tall, and his skin was white, very white, his features Nordic, or northern European, in no way Latin.
Jason ran into the hallway of the first floor, seeking the shadows, hugging the wall. He stopped, listening. There was a sharp scrape in the distance, a brief scratch from below. He knew what he had to do now. The assassin was on the ground floor. And the sound had not been deliberate; it had not been loud enough or prolonged enough to signify a trap. Carlos was injured – a smashed kneecap or a broken wrist could disorient him to the point where he might collide with a piece of furniture or brush against a wall with a weapon in his hand, briefly losing his balance as Bourne was losing his. It was what he needed to know.
Jason dropped to a crouch and crept back to the staircase, to the dead body sprawled across the steps. He had to pause for a moment; he was losing strength, too much blood. He tried to squeeze the flesh at the top of his throat and press the wound in his chest, anything to stem the bleeding. It was futile; to stay alive he had to get out of the brownstone house, away from the place where Cain was born. Jason Bourne... there was no humour in the word association. He found his breath again, reached out and pried the automatic weapon from the dead man's hands. He was ready.
He was dying and he was ready. Get Carlos. Trap Carlos... Kill Carlos! He could not get out; he knew that. Time was not on his side. The blood would drain out of him before it happened. The end was the beginning: Cain was for Carlos and Delta was for Cain. Only one agonizing question remained: who was Delta? It did not matter. It was behind him now; soon there would be the darkness, not violent but peaceful... freedom from that question.
And with his death Marie would be free, his love would be free. Decent men would see to it, led by a decent man in Paris whose son had been killed on the rue du Bac, whose life had been destroyed by an assassin's whore. Within the next few minutes, thought Jason, silently checking the clip in the automatic weapon, he would fulfil his promise to that man, carry out the agreement he had with men he did not know. By doing both, the proof was his. Jason Bourne had died once on this day; he would die again but would take Carlos with him. He was ready.
He lowered himself to a prone position and crept, hands over elbows, towards the top of the staircase. He could smell the blood beneath him, the sweet, bland odour penetrating his nostrils, informing him of a practicality. Time was running out. He reached the top step, pulling his legs up under him, digging into his pocket for one of the road flares he had purchased at the army-navy store on Lexington Avenue. He knew now why he had felt the compulsion to buy them. He was back in the unremembered Tarn Quan, forgotten except for brilliant, blinding flashes of light. The flares had reminded him of that fragment of memory; they would light up a jungle now.
He uncoiled the waxed fuse from the small round recess in the flare head, brought it to his teeth and bit through the cord, shortening the fuse to less than an inch. He reached into his other pocket and took out a plastic lighter; he pressed it against the flare, gripping both in his left hand. Then he angled the rod and brace of the weapon into his right shoulder, shoving the curved strip of metal into the cloth of his blood-soaked field jacket; it was secure. He stretched out his legs and, snake-like, started down the final flight of steps, head below, feet above, his back scraping the wall.
He reached the mid-point of the staircase. Silence, darkness, all the lights had been extinguished... Lights? Lights? Where were the rays of sunlight he had seen in that hallway only minutes ago? It had streamed through a pair of French windows at the far end of the room – that room – beyond the corridor, but he could see only darkness now. The door had been shut; the door beneath him, the only other door in that hallway, was also closed, marked only by a thin shaft of light. Carlos was making him choose. Behind which door? Or was the assassin using a better strategy? Was he in the darkness of the narrow hall itself?
Bourne felt a stabbing jolt of pain in his shoulder blade, then an eruption of blood that drenched the flannel shirt beneath his field jacket. Another warning: there was very little time.
He braced himself against the wall, the weapon levelled at the thin posts of the railing, aimed down into the darkness of the corridor. Now! He pulled the trigger. The staccato explosions tore the posts apart as the railing fell, the bullets shattering the walls and the door beneath him. He released the trigger, slipping his hand under the scalding barrel, grabbing the plastic lighter with his right hand, the flare in his left. He spun the flint; the wick took fire and he put it to the short fuse. He pulled his hand back to the weapon and squeezed the trigger again, blowing away everything below. A glass chandelier crashed to a floor somewhere; singing whines of ricochets filled the darkness. And then – light I Blinding light as the flare ignited, firing the jungle, lighting up the trees and the walls, the hidden paths and the mahogany corridors. The stench of death and the jungle was everywhere, and he was there.
Almanac to Delta, Almanac to Delta! Abandon, abandon!
Never. Not now. Not at the end. Cain is for Carlos and Delta is for Cain. Trap Carlos. Kill Carlos!
Bourne rose to his feet, his back pressed against the wall, the flare in his left hand, the exploding weapon in his right. He plunged down into the carpeted underbrush, kicking the door in front of him open, shattering silver frames and trophies that flew off tables and shelves into the air. Into the trees. He stopped; there was no one in that quiet, sound-proof elegant room. No one in the jungle path.
He spun around and lurched back into the hall, puncturing the walls with a prolonged burst of gunfire. No one.
The door at the end of the narrow, dark corridor. Beyond was the room where Cain was born. Where Cain would die, but not alone.
He held his fire, shifting the flare to his right hand beneath the weapon, reaching into his pocket for the second flare. He pulled it out, and again uncoiled the fuse and brought it to his teeth, severing the cord, now millimetres from its point of contact with the gelatinous incendiary. He shoved the first flare to it; the explosion of light was so bright it pained his eyes. Awkwardly, he held both flares in his left hand and, squinting, his legs and arms losing the battle for balance, approached the door.
It was open, the narrow crack extending from top to bottom on the lock side. The assassin was accommodating, but as he looked at that door, Jason instinctively knew one thing about it that Carlos did not know. It was a part of his past, a part of the room where Cain was born. He reached down with his right hand, bracing the weapon between his forearm and his hip, and gripped the knob.
Now. He shoved the door open six inches and hurled the flares inside. A long staccato burst from a Sten gun echoed throughout the room, throughout the entire house, a thousand dead sounds forming a running chord beneath as sprays of bullets embedded in a lead shield backed by a steel plate in the door.
The firing stopped, a final clip expended. Now. Bourne whipped his hand back to the trigger, crashed his shoulder into the door, and lunged inside, firing in circles as he rolled on the floor, swinging his legs counter clockwise. Gunshots were returned wildly as Jason honed his weapon towards the source. A roar of fury burst from blindness across the room; it accompanied Bourne's realization that the curtains had been drawn, blocking out the sunlight from the French windows. Then why was there so much light... magnified light beyond the sizzling blindness of the flares? It was overpowering, causing explosions in his head, sharp bolts of agony at his temples.
The screen! The huge screen was pulled down from its bulging recess in the ceiling, drawn taut to the floor, the wide expanse of glistening silver a white-hot shield of ice-cold fire. He plunged behind the large table to the protection of a copper corner bar; he rose and jammed the trigger back, in another burst – a final burst. The last clip had run out. He hurled the weapon by its rod-stock across the room at the figure in white overalls and a white silk scarf that had fallen below his face.
The face! He knew it! He had seen it before I Where... where? Was it Marseilles? Yes... no! Zurich? Paris? Yes and no! Then it struck him at that instant in the blinding vibrating light, that the face across the room was known to many, not just him. But from where? Where? As so much else, he knew it and did not know it. But he did know it! It was only the name he could not find!
He spiralled back off his feet, behind the heavy copper bar. Gunshots came, two... three, the second bullet tearing the flesh of his "left forearm. He pulled his automatic from his belt, he had three shots left. One of them had to find its mark, Carlos. There was a debt to pay in Paris, and a contract to fulfil, his love far safer with the assassin's death. He took the plastic lighter from his pocket, ignited it, and held it beneath a cloth suspended from a hook. The cloth caught fire, he grabbed it and threw it to his right as he dived to his left. Carlos fired at the flaming rag as Bourne spun to his knees, levelling his gun, pulling the trigger twice.
The figure buckled but did not fall. Instead, he crouched, then sprang like a white panther diagonally forward, his hands outstretched. What was he doing! Then Jason knew. The assassin gripped the edge of the huge, silver screen, ripping it from its metal bracket in the ceiling, pulling it downwards with all his weight and strength.
It floated down above Bourne, filling his vision, blocking everything else from his mind. He screamed as the shimmering silver descended over him, suddenly more frightened of it than of Carlos, or of any other human being on the earth. It terrified him, infuriated him, splitting his mind in fragments; images flashed across his eyes and angry voices shouted in his ears. He aimed his gun and fired at the terrible shroud. As he slashed his band against it wildly, pushing the rough, silver cloth away, he understood. He had fired his last shot, his last. Like a legend named Cain Carlos knew by sight and by sound every weapon on earth; he had counted the gunshots.
The assassin loomed above him, the automatic in his hand aimed at Jason's head. 'Your execution, Delta. On the day scheduled. For everything you've done."
Bourne arched his back, rolling furiously to his right; at least he would die in motion! Gunshots filled the shimmering room, hot needles slicing across his neck, piercing his legs, cutting up to his waist. Roll, roll]
Suddenly the gunshots stopped, and in the distance he could hear repeated sounds of hammering, the smashing of wood and steel, growing louder, more insistent. There was a final deafening crash from the dark corridor outside the library, followed by men shouting, running and, beyond them somewhere in the unseen, outside world, the insistent whine of sirens.
'In here! He's in here!' screamed Carlos.
It was insane! The assassin was directing the invaders directly towards him, to him! Reason was madness, nothing on earth made sense!
The door was crashed open by a tall man in a black overcoat; someone was with him, but Jason could not see. The mists were filling his eyes, shapes and sounds becoming obscured, blurred. He was rolling in space. Away... away.
But then he saw the one thing he did not want to see. Rigid shoulders that floated above a tapered waist raced out of the room and down the dimly-lit corridor. Carlos. His screams had sprung the trap open! He had reversed it! In the chaos, he had trapped the stalker. He war escaping!
'Carlos...' Bourne knew he could not be heard; what emerged from his bleeding throat was a whisper. He tried again, forcing the sound from his stomach. 'It's him. It's... Carlos!'
There was confusion, commands shouted futilely, orders swallowed in consternation. And then a figure came into focus. A man was limping towards him, a cripple who had tried to kill him in a cemetery outside Paris. There was nothing left! Jason lurched, crawling towards the sizzling, blinding flare. He grabbed it and held it as though it were a weapon, aiming it at the killer with a cane.
'Come on! Come on! Closer, you bastard] I'll burn your eyes out! You think you'll kill me, you won't! I'll kill you! I'll burn your eyes!'
'You don't understand,' said the trembling voice of the limping killer. 'It's me, Delta. It's Conklin. I was wrong.'
The flare singed his hands, his eyes!... Madness. The explosions were all around him now, blinding, deafening, punctuated by ear-splitting screeches from the jungle that erupted with each detonation.
The jungle! Tarn Quan! The wet, hot stench was everywhere, but they had reached it! The base camp was theirs!
An explosion to his left; he could see it! High above the ground, suspended between two trees, the spikes of a bamboo cage. The figure inside was moving. He was alive! Get to him, reach him!
A cry came from his right. Breathing, coughing in the smoke, a man was limping towards the dense underbrush, a rifle in his hand. It was him, the blond hair caught in the light, a foot broken from a parachute jump. The bastard! A piece of filth who had trained with them, studied the maps with them, flown north with them... all the time springing a trap on them! A traitor with a radio who told the enemy exactly where to look in that impenetrable jungle that was Tarn Quan.
It was Bourne! Jason Bourne. Traitor, garbage!
Get him! Don't let him reach the others! Kill him! Kill Jason Bourne! He is your enemy! Fire!
He did not fall! The head that had been blown apart was still there. Coming towards him! What was happening? Madness. Tarn Quan...
'Come with us,' said the limping figure, walking out of the jungle into what remained of an elegant room. That room. 'We're not your enemies. Come with us."
'Get away from me!' Bourne lunged again, now back to the fallen screen. It was his sanctuary, his shroud of death, the blanket thrown over a man at birth, a lining for his coffin. 'You are my enemy! I'll take you all! I don't care, it doesn't matter I Can't you understand!? I'm Delta! Cain is for Charlie and Delta is for Cain! What more do you want from me! I was and I was not! I am and I am not! Bastards, bastards! Come on! Closed!
Another voice was heard, a deeper voice, calmer, less insistent. 'Get her. Bring her in.'
Somewhere in the distance the sirens reached a crescendo, and then they stopped. Darkness came and the waves carried Jason up to the night sky, only to hurl him down again, crashing him into an abyss of watery violence. He was entering an eternity of weightless... memory. An explosion filled the night sky now, a fiery diadem rose above black waters. And then he heard the words, spoken from the clouds, filling the earth.
'Jason, my love. My only love. Take my hand. Hold it. Tightly, Jason. Tightly, my darling.'
Peace came with the darkness.
Epilogue
Brigadier-General Crawford put the folder down on the couch beside him. 'I don't need this,' he said to Marie St Jacques, who sat opposite him in a straight-backed chair. 'I've gone over it and over it, trying to find out where we went wrong."
'You presumed where no one should,' said the only other person in the hotel suite. He was Dr Morris Panov, psychiatrist; he stood by the window, the morning sun streaming in, putting his expressionless face in shadow. 'I allowed you to presume, and I'll live with it for the rest of my life.'
'It's nearly two weeks now,' said Marie impatiently. 'I'd like some details. I think I'm entitled to them.'
'You are. It was an insanity called clearance.'
'Insanity,' agreed Panov.
'Protection, also,' added Crawford. 'I subscribe to that part. It has to continue for a very long time."
'Protection?' Marie frowned.
'We'll get to it,' said the general, glancing at Panov. 'From everyone's point of view, it's vital. I trust we all accept that'
"Please! Jason. Who is he?'
'His name is David Webb. He was a career foreign service officer, a specialist in Far Eastern affairs, until his separation from the government five years ago.'
'Separation?'
'Resignation by mutual agreement His work in Medusa precluded any sustained career in the State Department "Delta" was infamous and too many knew he was Webb. Such men are rarely welcome at the diplomatic conference tables. I'm not sure they should be, visceral wounds are reopened too easily with their presence.'
'He was everything they say? In Medusa?" 'Yes. I was there. He was everything they say.' 'It's hard to believe,' said Marie.
'He'd lost something very special to him and couldn't come to grips with it. He could only strike out.' 'What was that?'
'His family. His wife was a Thai; they had two children, a boy and a girl. He was stationed in Phnom-Penh, his house near the Mekong River. One Sunday afternoon while his wife and children were down at their dock, a stray aircraft circled and dived, dropping two bombs and strafing the area. By the time he reached the river the dock was blown away, his wife and children floating in the water, their bodies riddled.'
'Oh, God,' whispered Marie. 'Who did the plane belong to?' 'It was never identified. Hanoi disclaimed it; Saigon said it wasn't ours. Remember, Cambodia was neutral; no one wanted to be responsible. Webb had to strike out; he headed for Saigon and trained for Medusa. He brought a specialist's intellect to a very brutal operation. He became Delta.' 'Was that when he met d'Anjou?'
'Later on, yes. Delta was notorious by then. North Vietnamese intelligence had put an extraordinary price on his head, and it's no secret that among our own people a number hoped they'd succeed. Then Hanoi found out that Webb's younger brother was an army officer in Saigon and, having studied Delta -knowing the brothers were close – decided to mount a trap; they had nothing to lose. They kidnapped Lieutenant Gordon Webb and took him north, sending back a Cong informant with word that he was being held in the Tarn Quan sector. Delta bit; along with the informer – a double agent – he formed a team of Medusans who knew the area and picked a night when no aircraft should have left the ground to fly north. D'Anjou was in the unit. So was another man Webb didn't know about; a white man who'd been bought by Hanoi, an expert in communications who could assemble the electronic components of a high frequency radio in the dark. Which is exactly what he did, betraying his unit's position. Webb broke through the trap and found his brother. He also found the double agent and the white man. The Vietnamese escaped in the jungle; the white man didn't. Delta executed him on the spot.'
'And that man?" Marie's eyes were riveted on Crawford.
'Jason Bourne. A Medusan from Sydney, Australia, a runner of guns, narcotics and slaves throughout all South-east Asia; a violent man with a criminal record, who was nevertheless highly effective – if the price were high enough. It was in Medusa's interests to bury the circumstances of his death; he became an M.I.A. from a specialized unit Years later, when Treadstone was being formed and Webb called back, it was Webb himself who took the name of Bourne. It fitted the requirements of authenticity, traceability. He took the name of the man who'd betrayed him, the man he had killed in Tarn Quan.'
'Where was he when he was called back for Treadstone?' asked Marie. 'What was he doing?'
Teaching in a small college in New Hampshire. Living an isolated life, some said destructive. For him.' Crawford picked up the folder. Those are the essential facts, Miss St Jacques. Other areas will be covered by Dr Panov, who's made it clear that my presence is not required. There is, however, one remaining detail which must be thoroughly understood. It's a direct order from the White House.'
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