Robert Ludlum - Bourne 2 - Bourne Supremecy

by The Bourne Supremacy [lit]

  One call from the Lisboa to the taipan in Hong Kong and Marie was dead. The taipan had not merely threatened -threats were too often a meaningless ploy - he had used a far more lethal expedient. After shouting and crashing his large hand on the arm of the fragile chair, he had quietly given his word: Marie would die. It was a promise made by a man who kept his promises, kept his word.

  Yet for all that, David Webb sensed something he could not define. There was about the huge taipan something a bit larger than life, too operatic, that had nothing to do with his size. It was as if he had used his immense girth to advantage in a way that large men rarely do, preferring to let only their sheer size do the impressing. Who was the taipan? The answer was at the Lisboa Hotel, and since he dared not go there himself, d'Anjou's skills could serve him. He had told the Frenchman very little; he would tell him more now. He would describe a brutal double killing, the weapon an Uzi, and say that one of the victims was a powerful taipan's wife. D'Anjou would ask the questions he could not ask, and if there were answers he would take another step towards Marie.

  Play the scenario. Alexander Conklin.

  Whose scenario! David Webb.

  You're wasting time Jason Bourne. Find the impostor. Take him!

  Quiet footsteps in the outside hallway. Jason spun away from the window and raced silently to the wall, pressing his back against it, the gun levelled at the door where the swinging panel would conceal him. A key was cautiously, quietly inserted. The door swung slowly open.

  Bourne crashed it back into the intruder, spinning around and grabbing the stunned figure in the frame. He yanked him inside and kicked the door shut, the weapon aimed at the head of the fallen man, who had dropped a suitcase and a very large package. It was d'Anjou.

  That's one way to get your head blown off, Echo!'

  'Sacre bleu! It is also the last time I will ever be considerate of you! You don't see yourself, Delta. You look as you did in Tarn Quan, without sleep for days. I thought you might be resting.'

  Another memory briefly flashed. 'In Tarn Quan,' said Jason, 'you told me I had to sleep, didn't you? We hid in the brush and you formed a circle around me and damn near gave me an order to get some rest.'

  'It was purely a self-enlightened request. We couldn't get ourselves out of there, only you could.'

  'You said something to me then. What was it? I listened.'

  'I explained that rest was as much a weapon as any blunt instrument or firing mechanism man had ever devised.'

  'I used a variation later. It became an axiom for me.'

  'I'm so glad you had the intelligence to listen to your elders. May I please rise? Will you please lower that damned gun?'

  'Oh, sorry.'

  'We have no time,' said d'Anjou, getting up and leaving the suitcase on the floor. He tore the brown paper off his package. Inside were pressed khaki clothes, two belted holsters and two visored hats; he threw them all on a chair. 'These are uniforms. I have the proper identifications in my pocket. I am afraid I outrank you, Delta, but then age has its privileges.'

  'They're uniforms of the Hong Kong police.'

  'Kowloon, to be precise. We may have our chance, Delta! It's why I was so long getting back. Kai Tak Airport! The security is enormous, just what the impostor wants in order to show he's better than you ever were! There's no guarantee, of course, but I'd stake my life on it - it's the classic challenge for an obsessed maniac. "Mount your forces, I'll break through them!" With one kill like that he re-establishes the legend of his utter invincibility. It's him, I'm sure of it!'

  'Start from the beginning,' ordered Bourne.

  'As we dress, yes,' agreed the Frenchman, removing his shirt and unbuckling his trousers. 'Hurry! I have a motor launch across the road. Four hundred horsepower. We can be in Kowloon in forty-five minutes. Here! This is yours! Man Dieu, the money I've spent makes me want to vomit!'

  'The PRC patrols,' said Jason, peeling off his clothes and reaching for the uniform. 'They'll shoot us out of the water!'

  'Idiot, certain known boats are negotiated with by radio in code. There is, after all, honour among us. How do you think we run our merchandise? How do you think we survive? We meet in coves at the Chinese islands of Teh Sa Wei and payments are made. Hurry?

  'What about the airport? Why are you so sure it's him?'

  'The Crown Governor. Assassination.'

  'What?' shouted Bourne, stunned.

  'I walked from the Peninsula to the Star Ferry with your suitcase. It's only a short distance and the ferry is far quicker than a taxi through the tunnel. As I passed the Kowloon Police Hill on Salisbury Road, I saw seven patrol cars drive out at emergency speed, one behind the other, all turning left, which is not to the godown. It struck me as odd - yes, two or three for a local eruption, but seven! It was good joss, as these people say. I called my contact on the Hill and he was cooperative - it was also not much of an internal secret any longer. He said if I stayed around I'd see another ten cars, twenty vans, all heading out to Kai Tak within the next two hours. Those I saw were the advance search teams. They had received word through their underground sources that an attempt was to be made on the Governor's life.'

  'Specifics!' commanded Bourne harshly, buckling his trousers and reaching for the long khaki shirt that served as a jacket under the bullet-laden holster belt.

  'The Governor is flying in from Beijing tonight with his own entourage from the Foreign Office, as well as another Chinese negotiating delegation. There will be newspaper people, television crews, everyone. Both governments want full coverage. There is to be a joint meeting tomorrow between all the negotiators and leaders of the financial sector.'

  The ninety-seven treaty?'

  'Yet another round in the endless verbosity about the Accords. But for all our sakes just pray they keep talking pleasantly.'

  'The scenario? said Jason softly, stopping all movement. 'What scenario?'

  The one you yourself brought up, the scenario that had the wires burning between Peking and Government House. Kill a Governor for the murder of a Vice-Premier? Then perhaps a Foreign Secretary for a ranking member of the Central Committee - a Prime Minister for a Chairman? How far does it go? How many selected killings before the breaking point is reached. How long before the parent refuses to tolerate a disobedient child and marches into Hong Kong? Christ it could happen. Someone wants it to happen!'

  D'Anjou stood motionless, holding the wide belt of the holster with its ominous strand of brass-capped shells. 'What I suggested was no more than speculation based on the random violence caused by an obsessed killer who accepts his contracts without discrimination. There's enough greed and political corruption on both sides to justify that speculation. But what you're suggesting, Delta is quite different. You're saying it's a plan, an organized plan to disrupt Hong Kong to the point that the Mainland takes over.'

  The scenario,' repeated Jason Bourne. The more complicated it gets, the simpler it appears.'

  The rooftops of Kai Tak Airport were swarming with police, as were the gates and the tunnels, the immigration counters and the luggage areas. Outside, on the immense field of black tarmac, powerful floodlights were joined by roving, sharper searchlights probing every moving vehicle, every inch of visible ground. Television crews uncoiled cables under watching eyes, while interviewers standing behind sound trucks practised pronunciation in a dozen languages. Reporters and photographers were kept beyond the gates as airport personnel shouted through the amplifiers that roped-off sections on the field would soon be available for all legitimate journalists with proper passes issued by the Kai Tak management. It was madness. And then the totally unexpected happened as a sudden rainstorm swept over the colony from the darkness of the western horizon. It was yet another autumn deluge.

  The impostor has good luck - good joss - as they say, doesn't he?' said d'Anjou as he and Bourne in their uniforms marched with a phalanx of police through a covered walkway made of corrugated tin to one of the huge repair hangars. The hammering
of the rain was deafening.

  'Luck had nothing to do with it,' replied Jason. 'He studied the weather reports from as far away as Szechwan. Every airport has them. He spotted it yesterday, if not two days ago. Weather's a weapon, too, Echo.'

  'Still, he could not dictate the arrival of the Crown Governor on a Chinese aircraft. They are often hours late, usually hours late.'

  'But not days, not usually. When did the Kowloon police get word of the attempt?'

  'I asked specifically,' said the Frenchman. 'Around eleven-thirty this morning.'

  'And the plane from Peking was scheduled to arrive sometime this evening?'

  'Yes, I told you that. The newspaper and the television people were ordered to be here by nine o'clock.'

  'He studied the weather reports. Opportunities present themselves. You grab them.'

  'And this is what you must do, Delta! Think like him, be him! It is our chance!'

  'What do you think I'm doing?... When we get to the hangar I want to break away. Can your ersatz identification make it possible?'

  'I am a British Sector Commander from the Mongkok Divisional Police.'

  'What does that mean?'

  'I really don't know but it was the best I could do.'

  'You don't sound British.'

  'Who would know that out here at Kai Tak, old chap?'

  The British.'

  'I'll avoid them. My Chinese is better than yours. The Zhongguo ren will respect it. You'll be free to roam.'

  'I have to,' said Jason Bourne. 'If it's your commando, I want him before anyone else spots him! Here. Now!

  Roped stanchions were moved out of the high-domed hangar by maintenance personnel in glossy yellow rain slickers. Then a truckload of the yellow coats arrived for the police contingents; men caught them as they were thrown out of the rear of the van. Putting them on, the police then formed several groups to receive instructions from their superiors. Order was rapidly emerging from the confusion compounded by the newly arrived bewildered troops and the problems caused by the sudden downpour. It was the sort of order Bourne distrusted. It was too smooth, too conventional for the job they faced. Ranks of brightly dressed soldiers marching forward were in the wrong place with the wrong tactics when seeking out guerrillas - even one man trained in guerrilla warfare. Each policeman in his yellow slicker was both a warning and a target - and he was also something else. A pawn. Each could be replaced by another dressed the same way, by a killer who knew how to assume the look of his enemy.

  Yet the strategy of infiltration for the purpose of a kill was suicidal, and Jason knew there was no such commitment on the part of his impostor. Unless... unless the weapon to be used had a sound level so low the rain would eliminate it... but even then the target's reaction could not be instantaneous. A cordon would immediately be erected around the killing ground at the first sign of the Governor's collapse, every exit blocked, everyone in the vicinity ordered under guns to remain in place. A delayed reaction? A tiny air dart whose impact was no greater than a pinprick, a minor annoyance to be swatted away like a bothersome fly as the lethal drop of poison entered the bloodstream to cause death slowly but inevitably, time not a consideration. It was a possibility, but again there were too many obstacles to surmount, too much accuracy demanded beyond the limits of an air-compressed weapon. The Governor would undoubtedly be wearing a protective vest, and targeting the face was out. Facial nerves exaggerated pain and any foreign object making contact so close to the eyes produced an immediate and dramatic reaction. That left the hands and the throat; the first were too small and conceivably could be moving too fast, the second was simply too limited an area. A high-powered rifle on a rooftop? A rifle of unquestioned accuracy with an infra-red telescopic sight? Another possibility - an all too familiar yellow slicker replaced by one worn by an assassin. But again, it was suicidal, for such a weapon would produce an isolated explosion, and to mount a silencer would reduce the accuracy of the rifle to the point where it could not be trusted. The odds were against a killer on a rooftop. The kill would be too obvious.

  And the kill was everything. Bourne understood that, especially under the circumstances. D'Anjou was right. All the factors were in place for a spectacular assassination.

  Carlos the Jackal could not ask for more - nor could Jason Bourne, reflected David Webb. To pull it off in spite of the extraordinary security would crown the new 'Bourne' king of his sickening profession. Then how! Which option would he use"? And after the decision was made what avenue of escape was most effective, most possible?

  One of the television trucks with its complicated equipment was too obvious a target for an escape. The incoming aircraft's maintenance crews were checked and double and triple checked; an outsider would be spotted instantly. All the journalists would pass through electronic gates which picked up anything in excess of ten milligrams of metal. And the rooftops were out. How then?

  'You're cleared!' said d'Anjou, suddenly appearing at his side, holding a piece of paper in his hand. This is signed by the prefect of the Kai Tak police.'

  'What did you tell him?'

  That you were a Jew trained by the Mossad in anti-terrorist activities and posted to us in an exchange programme. The word will be spread.'

  'Good God, I don't speak Hebrew]'

  'Who here does? Shrug and continue in your tolerable French - which is spoken here but very badly. You'll get away with it.'

  'You're impossible, you know that, don't you?'

  'I know that Delta, when he was our leader in Medusa, told Command Saigon that he would not go out in the field without "old Echo".'

  'I must have been out of my mind.'

  'You were less in command of it then, I'll grant you that.'

  Thanks a lot, Echo. Wish me luck.'

  'You don't need luck,' said the Frenchman. 'You are Delta. You will always be Delta.'

  Removing the bright yellow rain slicker and the visored hat, Bourne walked outside and showed his clearance to the guards by the hangar doors. In the distance, the press was being herded through the electronic gates towards the roped stanchions. Microphones had been placed on the edge of the runway, while police vans were joined by motorcycle patrols forming a tight semicircle around the press conference area. The preparations were almost complete, all the security forces in place, the media equipment in working order. The plane from Peking had obviously begun its descent in the downpour. It would land in a matter of minutes, minutes Jason wished could be extended. There were so many things to look for and so little time to search. Where! What! Everything was both possible and impossible. Which option would the killer use? What vantage point would he zero in on for the perfect kill? And how would he most logically escape from the killing ground alive?

  Bourne had considered every option he could think of and ruled each out. Think again! And again. Only minutes left. Walk around and start at the beginning... the beginning. The premise: the assassination of the Governor. Conditions: seemingly airtight, with security police training guns from rooftops, blocking every entrance, every exit, every staircase and escalator, all in radio contact. The odds were overwhelmingly against. Suicide... Yet it was these same heavily negative odds that the impostor-killer found irresistible. D'Anjou had been right again: with one spectacular kill under these conditions an assassin's supremacy would be established - or re-established. What had the Frenchman said? With one kill like that he re-establishes the legend to its full invincibility.

  'Who? Where? How? Think! Look!

  The downpour drenched his Kowloon police uniform. He continuously wiped the water from his face as he moved about peering at everyone and everything. Nothing] And then the muted roar of the jet engines could be heard in the distance. The jet from Peking was making its final approach at the far end of the runway. It was landing.

  Jason studied the crowd standing inside the roped stanchions. An accommodating Hong Kong government, in deference to Peking and in the desire for 'full coverage', had supplied ponchos and squar
es of canvas and cheap pocket raincoats for all who wanted them. The Kai Tak personnel countered the media's demands for an inside conference by stating simply - and wisely without explanation - that it was not in the interests of security. The statements would be short, an aggregate of no more than five or six minutes. Certainly the fine members of the journalistic establishment could tolerate a little rain for such an important event.

  The photographers? Metal Cameras were passed through the gates but not all 'cameras' took pictures. A relatively simple device could be inserted and locked into a mount, a powerful firing mechanism that released a bullet - or a dart -with the assistance of a telescopic viewfinder. Was that the way? Had the assassin taken that option, expecting to smash the 'camera' under his feet and take another from his pocket as he moved swiftly to the outskirts of the crowd, his credentials as authentic as d'Anjou's and the 'anti-terrorist' from the Mossad? It was possible.