Robert Ludlum - Bourne 2 - Bourne Supremecy

by The Bourne Supremacy [lit]

  'Hey, a Landsman! That song also dates you, pal. Some of those oldies are goldies, right? Say, are you with the group?'

  'Which group is that?'

  'Honeywell-Porter,' answered the man, naming a New York advertising agency Jason recognized as having branches worldwide.

  'No, I'm afraid not.'

  'I didn't think so. There're only about thirty of us, counting the Aussies, and I thought I pretty much knew everybody. Where are you from? My name's Ted Mather. I'm from HP's LA office.'

  'My name's Jim Cruett. No office, I teach, but I'm from Boston.'

  'Beanburg! Let me show you your Landsmann, or is it Stadtsmannl Jim, meet "Beantown Bernie".' Mather bowed again, this time to a man slumped back in the seat by the window, his mouth open, his eyes closed. He was obviously drunk and wore a Red Sox baseball cap. 'Don't bother to speak, he can't hear. Bernard the brain is from our Boston office. You should have seen him three hours ago. J. Press suit, striped tie, pointer in his hand and a dozen charts only he could understand. But I'll say this for him - he kept us awake. I think that's why we all had a few... him too many. What the hell, it's our last night.'

  'Heading back tomorrow?'

  'Late evening flight. Gives us time to recover.'

  'Why Macao?'

  'A mass itch for the tables. You, too?'

  'I thought I'd give them a whirl. Christ, that cap makes me homesick! The Red Sox may take the pennant and until this trip I hadn't missed a game!'

  'And Bernie won't miss his hat!' The advertising man laughed, leaning over and yanking the baseball cap off Bernard-the-Brain's head. 'Here, Jim, you wear it. You deserve it!'

  The hydrofoil docked. Bourne got off and went through immigration with the boys from Honeywell-Porter as one of them. As they descended the steep cement staircase down into the poster-lined terminal, Jason with the visor of his Red Sox cap angled down and his walk unsteady, he spotted a man by the left wall studying the new arrivals. In the man's hand was a photograph, and Bourne knew the face on the photograph was his. He laughed at one of Ted Mather's remarks as he held on to the weaving Beantown Bernie's arm.

  Opportunities will present themselves. Recognize them, act on them.

  The streets of Macao are almost as garishly lit as those of Hong Kong; what is lacking is the sense of too much humanity in too little space. And what is different - different and anachronistic - are the many buildings on which are fixed blazing modern signs with pulsating Chinese characters. The architecture of these buildings is very old Spanish -Portuguese to be accurate - but textbook Spanish, Mediterranean in character. It is as if an initial culture had surrendered to the sweeping incursion of another but refused to yield its first imprimatur, proclaiming the strength of its stone over the gaudy impermanence of coloured tubes of glass. History is purposely denied; the empty churches and the ruins of a burnt-out cathedral exist in a strange harmony with overflowing casinos where the dealers and croupiers speak Cantonese and the descendants of the conquerors were rarely seen. It is all fascinating and not a little ominous. It is Macao.

  Jason slipped away from the Honeywell-Porter group and found a taxi whose driver must have trained by watching the annual Macao Grand Prix. He was taken to the Kam Pek casino - over the driver's objections.

  'Lisboa for you, not Kam Pek! Kam Pek for Chinee! Dai Sui! Fan Tan!'

  'Kam Pek, Cheng net,' said Bourne, adding the Cantonese please, but saying no more.

  The casino was dark. The air was humid and foul and the curling smoke that spiralled around the shaded lights above the tables sweet and full and pungent. There was a bar set back away from the games; he went to it and sat down on a stool, lowering his body to lessen his height. He spoke in Chinese, the baseball cap throwing a shadow across his face which was probably unnecessary as he could barely read the labels of the bottles on the counter. He ordered a drink, and when it came he gave the bartender a generous tip in Hong Kong money.

  'Mgoi,' said the aproned man, thanking him.

  'Hou,' said Jason, waving his hand.

  Establish a benign contact as soon as you can. Especially in an unfamiliar place where there could be hostility. That contact could give you the opportunity or the time you need. Was it Medusa or was it Treadstone? It did not matter that he could not remember.

  He turned slowly on the stool and looked at the tables; he found the dangling placard with the Chinese character for 'Five'. He turned back to the bar and took out his notebook and ballpoint pen. He then tore off a page and wrote out the telephone number of a Macao hotel he had memorized from the Voyager magazine provided to passengers on the hydrofoil. He printed a name he would recall only if it was necessary and added the following: No friend of Carlos.

  He lowered his glass below the bar counter, spilled the drink and held up his hand for another. With its appearance, he was more generous than before.

  'Mgoi saai' said the bartender, bowing.

  'Msa,' said Bourne, again waving his hand, then suddenly holding it steady, a signal for the bartender to remain where he was. 'Would you do me a small favour? he continued in the man's language. 'It would take you no more than ten seconds.'

  'What is it, sir?

  'Give this note to the dealer at Table Five. He's an old friend and I want him to know I'm here.' Jason folded the note and held it up. 'I'll pay you for the favour.'

  'It is my heavenly privilege, sir.'

  Bourne watched. The dealer took the note, opened it briefly as the bartender walked away, and shoved it beneath the table. The waiting began.

  It was interminable, so long that the bartender was relieved for the night. The dealer was moved to another table, and two hours later he was also replaced. And two hours after that still another dealer took over Table Five. The floor beneath him now damp with whisky, Jason logically ordered coffee and settled for tea; it was ten minutes past two in the morning. Another hour and he would go to the hotel whose number he had written down and, if he had to buy shares in its stock, get a room. He was fading.

  The fading stopped. It was happening! A Chinese woman in the slit-skirted dress of a prostitute walked up to Table Five. She sidestepped her way around the players to the right corner and spoke quickly to the dealer, who reached under the counter and unobtrusively gave her the folded note. She nodded and left, heading for the door of the casino.

  He does not appear himself, of course. He uses whores from the street.

  Bourne left the bar and followed the woman. Out in the dark street, which had a number of people in it but was deserted by Hong Kong standards, he stayed roughly fifty feet behind her, stopping every now and then to look into the lighted store windows, then hurrying ahead so as not to lose her.

  Don't accept the first relay. They think as well as you do. The first could be an indigent looking for a few dollars and know nothing. Even the second or the third. You'll recognize the contact. He'll be different.

  A stooped old man approached the whore. Their bodies brushed, and she shrieked at him while passing him the note. Jason feigned drunkenness and turned around, taking up the second relay.

  It happened four blocks away, and the man was different. He was a small, well-dressed Chinese, his compact body with its broad shoulders and narrow waist exuding strength. The quickness of his gestures as he paid the seedy old man and began walking rapidly across the street was a warning to any adversary. For Bourne it was an irresistible invitation; this was a contact with authority, a fink to the Frenchman.

  Jason dashed to the other side; he was close to fifty yards behind the man and losing ground. There was no point in being subtle any longer; he broke into a run. Seconds later he was directly behind the contact, the soles of his sneakers having dulled the sound of his racing feet. Ahead was an alleyway that cut between what looked like two office buildings; the windows were dark. He had to move quickly, but move in a way that would not cause a commotion, not give the night strollers a reason to shout or call for the police. In this, the odds were with him; most o
f the people wandering around were more drunk or drugged than sober, the rest weary labourers having finished their working hours, anxious to get home. The contact approached the opening of the alley. Now.

  Bourne rushed ahead to the man's right side. The Frenchman^ he said in Chinese. 'I have news from the Frenchman! Hurry/' He spun into the alley, and the contact, stunned, his eyes bulging, had no choice but to walk like a bewildered zombie into the mouth of the alleyway. Now!

  Lunging from the shadows, Jason grabbed the man's left ear, yanking it, twisting it, propelling the contact forward, bringing his knee up into the base of the man's spine, his other hand on the man's neck. He threw him down into the bowels of the dark alley, racing with him, crashing his sneaker into the back of the contact's knee; the man fell, spinning in the fall, and stared up at Bourne.

  ' You! It is you!.' Then the contact winced in the dim light. 'No,' he said, suddenly calm, deliberate. 'You are not him.'

  Without a warning move, the Chinese lashed his right leg out, shoving his body off the pavement like a speeding trajectory in reverse. He caught the muscles of Jason's left thigh, following the blow with his left foot, pummelling it into Bourne's abdomen as he leaped to his feet, hands extended and rigid, his muscular body moving fluidly, even gracefully, in a semicircle and in anticipation.

  What followed was a battle of animals, two trained executioners, each move made in intense premeditation, each blow lethal if it landed with full impact. One fought for his life, the other for survival and deliverance... and the woman he could not live without, would not live without. Finally, height and weight and a motive beyond life itself made the difference, giving victory to one and defeat to the other.

  Entwined against the wall, both sweating and bruised, blood trickling from mouths and eyes, Bourne hammer-locked the contact's neck from behind, his left knee jammed into the small of the man's back, his right leg wrapped around the contact's ankles, clamping them.

  'You know what happens next!' he whispered, breathlessly spacing the Chinese words for final emphasis. 'One snap and your spine goes. It's not a pleasant way to die. And you don't have to die. You can live with more money than the Frenchman would ever pay you. Take my word for it, the Frenchman and his killer won't be around much longer. Take your choice. Now!' Jason strained; the veins in the man's throat were distended to the point of bursting.

  ' Yes-yes!' cried the contact. 'I live, not die!'

  They sat in the dark alleyway, their backs against the wall, smoking cigarettes. It was established that the man spoke English fluently, which he had learned from the nuns in a Portuguese Catholic school.

  'You're very good, you know,' said Bourne, wiping the blood from his lips.

  'I am the champion of Macao. It is why the Frenchman pays me. But you bested me. I am dishonoured, no matter what happens.'

  'No you're not. It's just that I know a few more dirty tricks than you do. They're not taught where you were trained, and they never should be. Besides, no one will ever know.'

  'But I am young! You are old.'

  'I wouldn't go that far. And I stay in pretty good shape, thanks to a crazy doctor who tells me what to do. How old do you think I am?'

  'You are over thirty?

  'Agreed.'

  'Old!'

  Thanks.'

  'You are also very strong, very heavy - but it is more than that. I am a sane man. You are not]'

  'Perhaps.' Jason crushed out his cigarette on the pavement. 'Let's talk sensibly,' he said, pulling money from his pocket. 'I meant what I said, I'll pay you well... Where's the Frenchman?'

  'Everything is not in balance.'

  'What do you mean?'

  'Balance is important.'

  'I know that, but I don't understand you.'

  There is a lack of harmony, and the Frenchman is angry. How much will you pay me?'

  'How much can you tell me?'

  'Where the Frenchman and his assassin will be tomorrow night.'

  Ten thousand American dollars.'

  'Aiya!'

  'But only if you take me there.'

  'It is across the border?

  'I have a visa for Shenzhen. It's good for another three days.'

  'It may help, but it is not legal for the Guangdong border.'

  Then you figure it out. Ten thousand dollars, American.'

  'I will figure it out.' The contact paused, his eyes on the money held out by the American. 'May I have what I believe you call an instalment?'

  'Five hundred dollars, that's all.'

  'Negotiations at the border will cost much more.'

  'Call me. I'll bring you the money.'

  'Call you where?'

  'Get me a hotel room here in Macao. I'll put my money in its vault.'

  The Lisboa.'

  'No, not the Lisboa. I can't go there. Somewhere else.'

  'There is no problem. Help me to my feet... No! It would be better for my dignity if I did not need help.'

  'So be it,' said Jason Bourne.

  Catherine Staples sat at her desk, the disconnected telephone still in her hand; absently she looked at it and hung up. The conversation she had just concluded astonished her. As there was no Canadian Intelligence Force currently operating in Hong Kong, foreign service officers cultivated their own sources within the Hong Kong police for those times when accurate information was needed. These occasions were invariably in the interests of Canadian citizens residing in or travelling through the colony. The problems ranged from those arrested to those assaulted, from Canadians who were swindled to those doing the swindling. Then, too, there were deeper concerns, matters of security and espionage, the former covering visits of senior government officials, the latter involving means of protection against electronic surveillance and the gaining of sensitive information through acts of blackmail against consulate personnel. It was quiet but common knowledge that agents from the Eastern bloc and fanatically religious Middle East regimes used drugs and prostitutes of both sexes for whatever the preferences of both sexes in a never-ending pursuit of a hostile government's classified data. Hong Kong was a needle and meat market. And it was in this area that Staples had done some of her best work in the territory. She had saved the careers of two attaches in her own consulate, as well as those of an American and three British. Photographs of personnel in compromising acts had been destroyed along with the corresponding negatives, the extortionists banished from the colony with threats not simply of exposure but of physical harm. In one instance, an Iranian consular official, yelling in high dudgeon, from his quarters at the Gammon House, accused her of meddling in affairs far above her station. She had listened to the ass for as long as she could tolerate the nasal twang, then terminated the call with a short statement. 'Didn't you know? Khomeini likes little boys.'

  All of this had been made possible through her relationship with a late middle-aged English widower who after his retirement from Scotland Yard had opted to become chief of Crown Colonial Affairs in Hong Kong. At 65, Ian Ballantyne had accepted the fact that his tenure at the Yard was over, but not the use of his professional skills. He was willingly posted to the Far East, where he shook up the intelligence division of the colony's police and in his quiet way shaped an aggressively efficient organization that knew more about Hong Kong's shadow world than did any of the other agencies in the territory, including MI6, Special Branch. Catherine and Ian had met at one of those bureaucratically dull dinners demanded by consular protocol, and after prolonged conversation laced with wit and appraisal of his table partner, Ballantyne had leaned over and said simply: 'Do you think we can still do it, old girl?'

  'Let's try,' she had replied.

  They had. They enjoyed it, and Ian became a fixture in Staples's life, no strings or commitments attached. They liked each other; that was enough.

  And Ian Ballantyne had just given the lie to everything undersecretary of state Edward McAllister told Marie Webb and her husband in Maine. There was no taipan in Hong Kong named Yao Ming, and
his impeccable sources - read very well paid - in Macao assured him there had been no double murder involving a taipan's wife and a drug runner at the Lisboa Hotel. There had been no such killings since the departure of the Japanese occupation forces in 1945. There had been numerous stabbings and gunshot wounds around the tables in the casino, and quite a few deaths in the rooms attributed to overdoses of narcotics, but no such incident as described by Staples's informer.

  'It's a fabric of lies, Cathy old girl,' Ian had said. 'For what purpose, I can't fathom.'

  'My source is legitimate, old darling. What do you smell?'

  'Rancid odours, my dear. Someone is taking a great risk for a sizeable objective. He's covering himself, of course - one can buy anything over here, including silence - but the whole damn thing's fiction. Do you want to tell me more?'