'Double time with no one orchestrating any extraneous moves.' Conklin nodded. 'But if you didn't respond, how do you know he made contact?'
'Lin put a flag on the telephone number with a second relay to Victoria Peak. Bourne was told that the line was temporarily out of service, and when he tried to get a verification - which under the circumstances he had to do -he was relayed to the Peak. We kept him on the line long enough to trace the location of the pay phone he was using. We know where he is. Our people are on the way there now with orders to stay out of sight. If he smells or sees anything, he'll kill our man.'
'A trace? Alex studied the diplomat's face, not kindly. 'He let you keep him talking long enough for that?'
'He's in a state of extreme anxiety, we counted on it.'
'Webb, maybe,' said Conklin. 'Not Delta. Not when he thinks about it.'
'He'll keep calling,' insisted Havilland. 'He has no choice.'
'Maybe, maybe not. How long has it been since his last call?
Twelve minutes,' answered the ambassador looking at his watch.
'And the first one?'
'About a half hour.'
'And every time he calls you know about it?
'Yes. The information's relayed to McAllister.'
'Phone him and see if Bourne's tried again.'
'Why?
'Because, as you put it, he's in a state of extreme anxiety and will keep calling. He can't help himself.'
'What are you trying to say?'
That you may have made a mistake.'
'Where? How?
'I don't know, but I do know Delta.'
'What could he do without reaching us?
'Kill,' said Alex, simply.
Havilland turned, looked down the busy hallway, and started walking towards the floor's reception desk. He spoke briefly to a nurse; she nodded and he picked up a telephone. He talked for a moment and hung up. He returned to Conklin, frowning. 'It's odd,' he remarked. 'McAllister feels the way you do. Edward expected Bourne to call every five minutes, if he waited that long.'
'Oh?
'He was led to believe that telephone service might be restored at any moment.' The ambassador shook his head, as if dismissing the improbable. 'We're all too tense. There could be a number of explanations, from coins for a pay phone to unsettled bowels.'
The emergency room door opened and the British doctor appeared. 'Mr Ambassador?'
'Lin?'
'A remarkable man. What he's been through would kill a horse but then they're about the same size and a horse can't manifest a will to live.'
'Can we see him?'
'There'd be no point, he's still unconscious - stirring now and then but nowhere near coherent. Every minute he rests without a reversal is encouraging.'
'You understand how urgent it is that we talk to him, don't you?'
'Yes, Mr Havilland, I do. Perhaps more than you realize. You know that I was the one responsible for the woman's escape-'
'I do know,' said the diplomat. 'I was also told that if she could fool you she could probably fool the best specialist at the Mayo Clinic.'
'That's dubious, but I like to think I'm competent. Instead, I feel like an idiot. I'll do everything in my power to help you and my good friend, Major Lin. The judgement was medical and mine, the error mine, not his. If he makes it through the next hour or so, I believe he has a chance to live. If that happens, I'll bring him to and you can question him as long as you keep your questions brief and simple. If I think a reversal is too severe and that he's slipping away, I'll also call you.'
'That's fair, Doctor. Thank you.'
'I could do no less. It's what Wenzu would want. I'll go back to him now.'
The waiting began. Havilland and Alex Conklin reached their own bi-lateral agreement. When Bourne next tried to reach the number for Snake Lady, he was to be told that the line would be clear in twenty minutes. During that time Conklin would be driven to the sterile house on Victoria Peak, prepared to take the call. He would set up the exchange, telling David that Marie was safe and with Morris Panov. The two men returned to the police emergency room and sat in opposite chairs, each silent minute compounding the strain.
The minutes, however, stretched into quarter hours and these into over an hour. Three times the ambassador called the Peak to learn if there was any word from Jason Bourne. There was none. Twice the English doctor came out to report on Wenzu's condition. It was unchanged, a fact that allowed for hope rather than diminishing it. Once the emergency room telephone rang, as both Havilland and Conklin snapped their heads towards it, their eyes riveted on the nurse who calmly answered. The call was not for the ambassador. The tension mounted between the two men, as every now and then they looked at each other, the same message in their eyes. Something was wrong. Something had gone off the wire. A Chinese doctor came out and approached two people in the back of the room, a young woman and a priest; he spoke quietly. The woman screamed, then sobbed and fell into the enveloping arms of the priest. A new police widow had been created. She was led away to say a last good-bye to her husband.
Silence.
The telephone rang again, and again the diplomat and the CIA man stared at the counter.
'Mr Ambassador,' said the nurse, 'it's for you. The gentleman says it's most urgent.' Havilland got up and strode to the desk, nodding his thanks, and he took the phone.
Whatever it was, it had happened. Conklin watched, never thinking he would see what he saw now. The consummate diplomat's face became suddenly ashen; his thin, usually tight lips were now parted, his dark brows arched, his eyes wide and hollow. He turned and spoke to Alex, his voice barely audible; it was the whisper of fear.
'Bourne's gone. The impostor's gone. Two of the men were found bound and severely injured.' He returned to the phone, his eyes narrowing as he listened. 'Oh, my God!' he cried, turning back to Conklin. The CIA man was not there.
David Webb had disappeared, only Jason Bourne remained. Yet he was both more and less than the hunter of Carlos the Jackal. He was Delta, the predator, the animal wanting only vengeance for a priceless part of his life that had been taken from him once again. And as an avenging predator, he went through the motions - the instinctive logistics - in a trancelike state, each decision precise, each movement deadly. His eye was on the kill, and his human brain had become an animal. He wandered the squalid streets of the Yau Ma Ti, his prisoner in tow, wrists still in traction, finding what he wanted to find, paying thousands of dollars for items worth a fraction of the amounts paid. Word spread up into the Mongkok about the strange man and his even stranger silent companion, who was bound and feared for his life. Other doors were opened to him, doors reserved for the runners of contraband - drugs, exported whores, jewels, gold and materials of destruction, deception, death - and exaggerated warnings accompanied the word about this obsessed man carrying thousands on his person.
He is a maniac and he is white and he will kill quickly. It is said two throats were slit by those dishonest to him. It is heard that a Zhongguo ren was shot to death because he cheated on a delivery. He is mad. Give him what he wants. He pays hard cash. Who cares? It is not our problem. Let him come. Let him go. Just take his money.
By midnight Delta had the tools of his lethal trade. And success was uppermost in the Medusan's mind. He had to succeed. The kill was everything.
Where was Echo? He needed Echo. Old Echo was his good luck charm!
Echo was dead, slain by a madman with a ceremonial sword in a peaceful forest of birds. Memories.
Echo.
Marie.
I'll kill them for what they did to you!
He stopped a dilapidated taxi in the Mongkok and, showing money, asked the driver to step outside.
'Yes, what is, sir? asked the man in broken English.
'What's your car worth? said Delta.
'I not understand.'
'How much! Money! For your car!'
'Youfeng kuangl'
'Bul' shouted Delta, telling
the driver he was not unbalanced. 'How much will you take for your car? he continued in Chinese. Tomorrow morning you can say it was stolen. The police will find it.'
'It's my only source of livelihood and I have a large family! You are crazy!'
'How's four thousand, American?'
'Aiya. Take it!'
''Kuair said Jason, telling the man to hurry. 'Help me with this diseased one. He has the shaking sickness and must be tied down so he can't hurt himself.'
The owner of the taxi, his eyes on the large bills in Bourne's hand, helped Jason throw the assassin into the back seat, holding the killer down as the man from Medusa whipped the nylon ropes around the commando's ankles, knees and elbows, once again gagging and blindfolding him with the strips of cloth ripped from the cheap hotel's pillowcase. Unable to understand what was being said - shouted in Chinese - the prisoner could only passively resist. It was not merely the punishment inflicted on his wrists with each protesting movement, it was something he saw as he stared at his captor. There was a change in the original Jason Bourne; he had gone into another world, a far darker world. The kill was in the Medusa's extended periods of silence. It was in his eyes.
As he drove through the congested tunnel from Kowloon to the island of Hong Kong, Delta primed himself for the assault, imagining the obstacles that would face him, conjuring up the counter measures he would employ. All were overstated and excessive, thus preparing himself for the worst.
He had done the same in the jungles of Tarn Quan. There was nothing he had not considered and he had brought them out - all of them but one. Apiece of garbage, a man who had no soul but the want of gold, a traitor who would sell the lives of his comrades for small advantage. It was where it had all begun. In the jungles of Tarn Quan. Delta had executed the piece of garbage, blown his temple out with a bullet, as this garbage was on a radio relaying their position to the Cong. The garbage was a man from Medusa named Jason Bourne, left to rot in the jungles of Tarn Quan. He was the beginning of the madness. Yet Delta had brought them all out, including a brother he could not remember. He had brought them out through two hundred miles of enemy territory because he had studied the probabilities and imagined the improbabilities - the latter far more important to their escape, for they had happened, and his mind was prepared for the unexpected. It was the same now. There was nothing a sterile house in Victoria Peak could mount that he could not surmount. Death would be answered with death.
He saw the high walls of the estate and drove casually past them. Slowly, as a guest or a tourist might, unsure of his way down the stately road. He spotted the glass of the concealed searchlights, noted the barbed wire coiled above the wall. He zeroed in on the two guards in back of the enormous gate. They were in shadows, but the cloth of their marine field jackets reflected what light there was - bad form; the cloth should have been dulled or replaced by less military apparel. The high wall ended at the front; it was the corner; the stone stretched to the right as far as the eye could see. The sterile house was obvious to the trained eye. To the innocent it was clearly the residence of an important diplomat, an ambassador, perhaps, who required protection because of the dangerous times. Terrorism was everywhere; hostages were prized, deterrents the order of the day. Cocktails were served at sundown amid the quiet laughter of the elite who moved governments, but outside the guns were ready, cocked with the darkness, ready to fire. Delta understood. It was why he carried his bulging knapsack.
He drove the battered car off the side of the road. There
was no need to conceal it; he would not be coming back. He did not care to come back. Marie was gone and it was over. Whatever lives he had led were finished. David Webb. Delta. Jason Bourne. They were the past. He wanted only peace. The pain had exceeded the limits of his endurance. Peace. But first he must kill. His enemies, Marie's enemies, all the enemies of the men and women everywhere who were driven by the nameless, faceless manipulators would be taught a lesson. A minor lesson, of course, for sanitized explanations would come from the experts, made plausible by complicated words and distorted half-truths. Lies. Stave off doubts, eliminate the questions, be as outraged as the people themselves and march to the drums of consensus. The objective is everything, the insignificant players nothing but necessary digits in the deadly equations. Use them, drain them, kill them if you must, just get the jobs done because we say so. We see things others cannot see. Do not question us. You have no access to our knowledge.
Jason climbed out of the car, opened the rear door, and with his knife sliced the ropes away from the assassin's ankles and knees. He then removed the blindfold, keeping the gag in place. He grabbed his prisoner by the shoulder and-
The blow was paralysing! The killer spun in place, crashing his right knee up into Bourne's left kidney, swinging his clasped bound hands up into Jason's throat as Delta buckled over. A second knee caught Bourne's rib cage; he fell to the ground as the commando raced into the road. No. It can't happen! I need his gun, his fire power. It's part of the strategy! Delta rose to his feet, his chest and side bursting with pain, and plunged after the running figure in the road. In seconds the killer would be enveloped in darkness! The man from Medusa ran faster, the pain forgotten, concentrating only on the assassin in the part of his mind that still functioned. Faster ,faster! Suddenly headlights shot up from the bottom of the hill, catching the assassin in their beams. The commando lurched to the side of the road to avoid the light. Bourne stayed on the right side of the pavement until the last instant, knowing he was gaining precious yards as the car raced past. His arms useless, the impostor stumbled on the soft shoulder of the road; he crawled quickly, awkwardly back to the asphalt, getting to his feet and began to run again. It was too late. Delta hurled his shoulder into the base of his prisoner's spine; both men went down. The commando's guttural roars were the sounds of an animal in fury. Jason turned the assassin over and jammed his knee brutally into his prisoner's stomach.
'You listen to me, scum? he said breathlessly, the sweat rolling down his face. 'Whether you die or not makes no difference to me. A few minutes from now you won't concern me any longer, but until then you're part of the plan, my plan! And whether or not you die then will be up to you, not me. I'm giving you a chance, which is more than you ever did for a target. Now, get up! Do everything I tell you or your one chance will be blown away with your head - which is exactly what I promised them.'
They stopped back at the car. Delta picked up his knapsack and removed a gun he had taken in Beijing, showing it to the commando. 'You begged me for a weapon at the airport in Jinan, remember?' The assassin nodded, his eyes wide, his mouth stretched under the tension of the cloth gag. 'It's yours,' continued Jason Bourne, his voice flat, without emotion. 'Once we're over that wall up there - you in front of me - I'll hand it to you.' The killer frowned, his eyes narrowing. 'I forgot,' said Delta. 'You couldn't see it. There's a sterile house about five hundred feet up the road. We're going in. I'm staying, taking out everyone I can. You? You've got nine shells and I'll give you a bonus. One "bubble".' The Medusan lifted a packet of plastique from the Mongkok out of the knapsack and showed it to his prisoner. 'As I read it, you'd never get back over the wall; they'd cut you down. So your only way out is through the gate; it'll be somewhere diagonally to the right. To get there you'll have to kill your way through. The timer on the plastic can be set as low as ten seconds. Handle it any way you like, I don't care. Capisce?'
The assassin raised his bound hands, then gestured at the gag. The sounds from this throat indicated that Jason should free his arms and remove the cloth.
'At the wall,' said Delta. 'When I'm ready, I'll cut the ropes.
But when I do, if you try to take the gag off before I tell you, there goes your chance.' The killer stared at him and nodded once.
Jason Bourne and the lethal pretender walked up the road on Victoria Peak towards the sterile house.
Conklin limped down the hospital steps as rapidly as he could, holding on to the centre rail, look
ing frantically for a taxi in the drive below. There was none; instead a uniformed nurse stood alone reading the South China Times in the glow of the outdoor lights. Every now and then she glanced up towards the parking lot entrance.
'Excuse me, Miss,' said Alex, out of breath. 'Do you speak English?'
'A little,' replied the woman, obviously noticing his limp and his agitated voice. 'You are with difficulty?'
'Much difficulty. I have to find a taxi. I have to reach someone right away and I can't do it by phone.'
They will call one for you at the desk. They call for me every night when I leave.'
'You're waiting.. ?
'Here it comes,' said the woman as approaching headlights shone through the parking lot entrance.
'Miss!' cried Conklin. 'This is urgent. A man is dying and another may die if I don't reach him! Please. May I-'
'Bie zhaoji? exclaimed the nurse, telling him to calm down. 'You have urgency, I have none. Take my taxi. I will ask for another.'
Robert Ludlum - Bourne 2 - Bourne Supremecy Page 63
