Something was wrong! What was it? Bourne had returned to the filthy hotel room and stood at the foot of the bed watching his prisoner whose twitch was more pronounced now, his stretched body spastically reacting to each nervous movement. What was it? Why did the conversation with the Hong Kong operator bother him so? She was courteous and helpful; she even tolerated his abuse. Then what was it... Suddenly, words from a long forgotten past came to him. Words spoken years ago to an unknown operator without a face, with only an irritable voice.
I asked you for the number of the Iranian consulate.
It is in the telephone book. Our switchboards are full and we have no time for such inquiries. Click. Line dead.
That was it! The operators in Hong Kong - with justification - were among the most peremptory in the world. They wasted no time, no matter how persistent the customer. The workload in this congested, frenetic financial megalopolis would not permit it. Yet the second operator was the soul of tolerance... / would not know about other numbers. If you have them I will gladly check for you... If you will give me your address... Unless you care to give me your address... The address! And without really considering the question he had instinctively answered. No, I don't think HI do that. From deep within him an alarm had gone off.
A trace! They had bounced him around, keeping him on the line long enough to put an electronic trace on his call! Pay phones were the most difficult to track down. The vicinity was determined first; next the location or premises, and finally the specific instrument, but it was only a matter of minutes and fractions of minutes between the first step and the last. Had he stayed on long enough? And if so, to what degree of progress? The vicinity? The hotel? The pay phone itself? Jason tried to reconstruct his conversation with the operator - the second operator when the trace would have begun. Maddeningly, frantically, but with all the precision he could summon, he tried to recapture the rhythm of their words, their voices, realizing that when he had accelerated she had slowed down. It will take me some time... Actually, I do not, sir. The laws of confidentiality are most strict in Hong Kong - a lecture! Oh, sir, please wait. You were correct...my screen now shows - a mollifying explanation, taking up time. Time! How could he have allowed it? How long...?
Ninety seconds - two minutes at the outside. Timing was an instinct for him, rhythms remembered. Say two minutes. Enough to determine a vicinity, conceivably to pinpoint a location, but given the hundreds of thousands of miles of trunk lines probably inadequate to pick up a specific phone. For some elusive reason images of Paris came to him, then the blurred outlines of telephone booths as he and Marie raced from one to another through the blinding Paris streets, making blind, untraceable calls, hoping to unravel the enigma that was Jason Bourne. Four minutes. It takes that long, but we have to get out of the area! They've got that by now!
The taipan's men - if there was a huge, obese taipan to begin with - might have traced the hotel, but it was unlikely they would have tracked the pay phone or the floor. And there was another time span to be considered, one that could work for him if he in turn worked quickly. If the trace had been made and the hotel unearthed, it would take the hunters some time to reach the southern Mongkok, presuming they were in Hong Kong, which the telephone prefix indicated. The key at the moment was speed. Quickly.
The blindfold stays, Major, but you're moving,' he said to the assassin, as he swiftly undid the gag and the knots on the mattress springs, coiling the three nylon ropes and stuffing them into the commando's jacket.
'What? What did you say?'
That's better yet,' said Bourne, raising his voice. 'Get up. We're going for a walk.' Jason grabbed his knapsack, opened the door and checked the hallway. A drunk staggered into a room on the left and slammed the door. The right corridor was clear, all the way up to the pay phone and the fire exit beyond it. 'Move,' ordered Bourne, shoving his prisoner.
The fire escape would have been rejected by underwriters at a glance. The metal was corroded and the railings bent under pressure. If one was escaping a fire, a smoke-filled staircase might have been preferable. Still, if it descended in the darkness without collapsing that was all that mattered. Jason grabbed the commando's lapel, leading him down the creaking metal steps until they reached the first landing. Beneath there was a broken ladder extended in its track half way to the alley below. The drop to the pavement was no more than six or seven feet, easily negotiated going down and - more important - coming back up.
'Sleep well,' said Bourne, taking aim in the dim light and crashing his knuckles into the base of the commando's skull. The assassin collapsed on the staircase as Bourne whipped out the cords and secured the killer to the steps and the railing, at the last yanking down the pillowcase, covering the impostor's mouth and tying the cloth tighter. The nocturnal sounds of Hong Kong's Yau Ma Ti and the nearby Mongkok would easily cover whatever cries Allcott-Price might manage - if he awoke before Jason awakened him, which was doubtful.
Bourne climbed down the ladder, dropping into the narrow alleyway only seconds before three young men appeared, running around the corner from the busy street. Out of breath, they huddled in the shadows of a doorway as Jason remained on his knees - he hoped out of sight. Beyond the alley's entrance another group of youths raced by in pursuit, shouting angrily. The three young men lurched from the darkened doorway and ran out, heading in the opposite direction, away from their pursuers. Bourne got up and walked quickly to the mouth of the alley, looking back up at the fire escape. The impostor could not be seen.
He collided simultaneously with two running bodies.
Bouncing off them and into the wall, he could only assume that the young men were part of the crowd chasing the previous three who had hidden in the doorway. One of these, however, held a knife menacingly in his hand. Jason did not need this confrontation, he could not permit it! Before the youth realized what had happened, Bourne lashed out and gripped the young man's wrist, twisting it clockwise until the blade fell from the youngster's hand while he screamed in pain.
'Get out of here!' shouted Jason in harsh Cantonese. 'Your gang is no match for your elders and betters! If we see any of you around here, your mothers will get corpses for their labours. Get out!'
'Aiya!'
'We look for thieves! For eye-eyes from the north! They steal, they-'
"Out!'
The young men fled from the alleyway, disappearing into the busy street in the Yau Ma Ti. Bourne shook his hand, the hand the assassin had tried to crush in the hotel doorframe. In his anxiety he had forgotten about the pain; it was the best way to tolerate it.
He looked up at the sound - sounds. Two dark sedans came racing down Shek Lung Street and stopped in front of the hotel. Both vehicles had official written all over them. Jason watched in anguish as men climbed out of each car, two from the first, three from the one behind it.
Oh, God, Marie! We're going to lose! I've killed us - oh, Christ, re killed us!
He fully expected the five men to rush into the hotel, question the desk clerk, take up positions and make their moves. They would learn that the occupants of Room 301 had not been seen leaving the premises; therefore presumably they were still upstairs. The room would be broken into in less than a minute, the fire escape discovered seconds later! Could he do it? Could he climb back up, cut loose the killer, get him down into the alley and escape! He had to! He took a last look before racing back to the ladder.
Then he stopped. Something was wrong - something unexpected, totally unexpected. The first man from the lead car had removed his suit coat - his official dress code - and unloosened his tie. He ran his hand through his hair, dishevelling it, and walked - unsteadily? - towards the entrance of the run-down hotel. His four companions were spreading out away from the cars, looking up at the windows, two over to the right, two to the left, towards the alleyway -towards him. What was happening! These men were not acting officially. They were behaving like criminals, like Mafiosi closing in on a kill they could not be associated with, a tr
ap laid for others, not themselves. Good God, had Alex Conklin been wrong back at Dulles Airport in Washington?
Play the scenario. It's deep down and it's there. Play it out. You can do if,' Delta]
No time. There was no time to think any longer. There were no precious instants to lose thinking about the existence or the non-existence of a huge, obese taipan, too operatic to be real. The two men heading towards him had spotted the alleyway. They began running - towards the alley, towards the 'merchandise', towards the destruction and death of everything Jason held dear in this rotten world he would gladly leave but for Marie.
The seconds were ticked off in milliseconds of premeditated violence, at once accepted and reviled. David Webb was silenced, as Jason Bourne again assumed complete command. Get away from me! This is all we've got left!
The first man fell, his ribcage shattered, his voice stilled by the force of a blow to his throat. The second man was accorded preferential treatment. It was vital that he remain cognizant, even alert, for what followed. He dragged both men into the deepest shadows of the alley, ripping their clothes with his knife, binding their feet, their arms and their mouths with strips of their own clothing.
His arms pinned beneath Jason's knees, the blade of the knife breaking the flesh around the socket of his left eye, the second man received Bourne's ultimatum. 'My wife] Where is she? Now] Or lose your eye, then the other one! I'll carve you up, junggwo, believe me!' He ripped the gag from the man's mouth.
'We are not your enemy, Zhangfu!' cried the Oriental in English, using the Cantonese word for husband. 'We have been trying to find her! We hunt everywhere!'
Jason stared down at the man, the knife trembling in his hand, his temples throbbing, his personal galaxy about to explode, the heavens to rain down fire and pain beyond his imagination. 'Marie!' he screamed in agony. 'What have you done with her? I was given a guarantee] I bring out the merchandise and my wife is returned to me! I was to hear her voice on the phone but the phone doesn't work! Instead, a trace is put on me and suddenly you're here but my wife isn't! Where is she?'
'If we knew, she would be here with us.'
'Liar!' cried Bourne, drawing out the word.
'I'm not lying to you, sir, nor should I be killed for not lying to you. She escaped from the hospital-'
"The hospital?
'She was ill. The doctor insisted. I was there, outside her room, watching over her! She was weak but she got away-'
'Oh, Christ! Sick? Weak! Alone in Hong Kong! My God, you've killed her.'
'No, sir! Our orders were to see to her comfort-'
'Your orders,' said Jason Bourne, his voice flat and cold. 'But not your taipan's. He followed other orders, orders given before in Zurich and Paris and on Seventy-first Street in New York. I've been there - we've been there. And now you've killed her. You used me, as you used me before and when you thought it was over you took her away from me. What's the "death of one more daughter"? Silence is everything.' Jason suddenly gripped the man's face with his left hand, the knife poised in his right. 'Who's the fat man? Tell me, or the blade goes in! Who's the taipan?'
'He's not a taipan! He is British schooled and trained, an officer much respected in the territory. He works with your countrymen, the Americans. He's with the intelligence service.'
'I'm sure he is... From the beginning it was the same. Only this time it wasn't the Jackal but me. I was moved around the chessboard until I had no choice but to hunt myself - an extension of myself, a man called Bourne. When he brings him in, kill him. Kill her. They know too much.'
'No!' cried the Oriental, perspiring, his eyes wide, staring at the blade pressing into his flesh. 'We are told very little but I have heard nothing like that!'
'What are you doing here then? asked Jason harshly.
'Surveillance, I swear it! That's all!'
'Until the guns move in? said Bourne icily. 'So your three-piece suits can stay clean, no blood on your shirts, no traces back to those nameless, faceless people you work for.'
'You're wrong! We are not like that, our superiors are not like that!'
'I told you, I've been there. You're like that, believe me... Now you're going to tell me something. Whatever this is, it's down and dirty and totally secure. Nobody runs an operation like that without a camouflaged base. Where is it?'
T don't understand you.'
'Headquarters or Base Camp One, a sterile house or a coded Command Centre - whatever the hell you want to call it. Where is it?'
'Please, I cannot-'
'You can. You will. If you don't you're blind, your eyes cut out of your head. Now!'
'I have a wife, children?
'So did I. Both counts. I'm losing patience.' Jason stopped, only slightly reducing the pressure of the blade. 'Besides, if you're so sure you're right - that your superiors aren't what I say they are, where's the harm? Accommodations can be reached.'
'Fes!' yelled the frightened man. 'Accommodations! They are good men. They won't harm you!'
They won't have a chance,' whispered Bourne.
'What, sir?'
'Nothing. Where is it? Where's this oh-so-quiet headquarters? Now!'
'Victoria Peak!' said the petrified intelligence subordinate. The twelfth house down on the right, with high walls...'
Bourne listened to the description of a sterile house, a quiet, patrolled estate among other estates in a wealthy district. He heard what he had to hear; there was nothing else he needed. He smashed the heavy bone handle of the knife into the man's skull, replaced the gag and rose to his feet. He looked up at the fire escape, at the barely discernible outline of the impostor's body.
They wanted Jason Bourne and were willing to kill for him. They would get two Jason Bournes and die for their lies.
31
Ambassador Havilland confronted Conklin in the hospital corridor outside the police emergency room. The diplomat's decision to speak to the CIA man in the busy, white-walled hallway was predicated on the fact that it was busy - nurses and ancillaries, doctors and specialists, roamed the halls conferring and answering phones that seemed to ring continuously. Under the circumstances Conklin would be unlikely to indulge in a loud, heated argument. Their discussion might be charged, but it would be quiet; the ambassador could make his case better under those conditions.
'Bourne's made contact,' said Havilland.
'Let's go outside,' said Conklin.
'We can't,' replied the diplomat. 'Lin is in grave danger but we may be able to see him any minute. We can't miss that opportunity and the doctor knows we're here.'
'Then let's go back inside.'
'There are five other people in the emergency room. You don't want them overhearing us any more than I do.'
'Christ, you cover your ass, don't you?
'I have to think of all of us. Not one or two or three of us, but all of us.'
'What do you want from me?'
The woman, of course. You know that.'
'I know that - of course. What are you prepared to offer?
'My God, Jason Bourne?
'I want David Webb. I want Marie's husband. I want to know that he's alive and well in Hong Kong. I want to see him with my own eyes.' 'That's impossible.' 'Then you'd better tell me why.'
'Before he shows himself he expects to speak with his wife within thirty seconds of contact. That's the agreement.' 'But you just said he made contact!' 'He did. We didn't. We couldn't afford to without having Marie Webb near the phone.' 'You've lost me!' said Conklin angrily. 'He had his own conditions, not unlike yours, which is certainly understandable. You were both-' 'What were they?' broke in the CIA man. 'If he made the call, it meant that he had the impostor - it was the bilateral agreement.' 'Jesus! "Bilateral" 'Both sides agreed to it.' 'I know what it means! You just send me into space, that's all.' 'Keep your voice down... His condition was that if we did not produce his wife within thirty seconds, whoever was on the phone would hear a gunshot, meaning that the assassin was dead, that Bourne had ki
lled him.'
'Good old Delta.' Conklin's lips formed a thin, half-smile. 'He never missed a trick. And I suspect he had a follow-up, right?
'Yes,' said Havilland grimly. 'A point of exchange is to be mutually agreed upon-'
'Not bilaterally?'
'Shut up!... He'll be able to see his wife walking alone, under her own power. When he's satisfied, he'll come out with his prisoner, under a gun we presume, and the exchange will be made. From the initial contact to the switch, everything is to take place in a matter of minutes, certainly no more than half an hour.'
Robert Ludlum - Bourne 2 - Bourne Supremecy Page 62
