The Bourne Identity jb-1

by Robert Ludlum

  There was a marble counter against the wall, a clerk behind it checking pages of yellow paper with a pencil held like a paintbrush. Cablegrams. In front of the counter were two people, an obese elderly man and a woman in a dark red dress, the rich color of the silk complementing her long, titian hair … Auburn hair. It was the woman in the elevator who had joked about Caesar’s taxes and the Punic wars, the doctor who had stood beside him at the hotel desk, asking for the cable she knew was there.

  Bourne looked behind him. The killers were using the crowds well, excusing themselves politely but firmly through, one on the right, one on the left, closing in like two prongs of a pincer attack.

  As long as they kept him in sight, they could force him to keep running blindly, without direction, not knowing which path he took might lead to a dead end where he could run no longer. And then the muted spits would come, pockets blackened by powder burns…

  Kept him in sight?

  The back row then… We can sleep. He uses a slide projector, it’ll be dark.

  Jason turned again and looked at the auburn-haired woman. She had completed her cable and was thanking the clerk, removing a pair of tinted, horn-rimmed glasses from her face, placing them into her purse. She was not more than eight feet away.

  Bertinelli is speaking, to little effect, I suggest.

  There was no time for anything but instinctive decisions. Bourne shifted his suitcase to his left hand, walked rapidly over to the woman at the marble counter, and touched her elbow, gently, with as little alarm as possible.

  “Doctor? …”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You are Doctor? …” He released her, a bewildered man.

  “St. Jacques,” she completed, using the French pronunciation of Saint. “You’re the one in the elevator.”

  “I didn’t realize it was you,” he said. “I was told you’d know where this Bertinelli is speaking.”

  “It’s right on the board. Suite Seven.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know where it is. Would you mind showing me? I’m late and I’ve got to take notes on his talk.”

  “On Bertinelli? Why? Are you with a Marxist newspaper?”

  “A neutral pool,” said Jason, wondering where the phrases came from. “I’m covering for a number of people. They don’t think he’s worth it.”

  “Perhaps not, but he should be heard. There are a few brutal truths in what he says.”

  “I lost, so I’ve got to find him. Maybe you can point him out.”

  “I’m afraid not. I’ll show you the room, but I’ve a phone call to make.” She snapped her purse shut.

  “Please. Hurry!”

  “What?” She looked at him, not kindly.

  “Sorry, but I am in a hurry.” He glanced to his right; the two men were no more than twenty feet away.

  “You’re also rude,” said the St. Jacques woman coldly.

  “Please.” He restrained his desire to propel her forward, away from the moving trap that was closing in.

  “It’s this way.” She started across the floor toward a wide corridor carved out of the left rear wall.

  The crowds were thinner, prominence less apparent in the back regions of the lobby. They reached what looked like a velvet-covered tunnel of deep red, doors on opposite sides, lighted signs above them identifying Conference Room One, Conference Room Two. At the end of the hallway were double doors, the gold letters to the right proclaiming them to be the entrance to Suite Seven.

  “There you are,” said Marie St. Jacques. “Be careful when you go in; it’s probably dark. Bertinelli lectures with slides.”

  “Like a movie,” commented Bourne, looking behind him at the crowds at the far end of the corridor. He was there; the man with gold-rimmed spectacles was excusing himself past an animated trio in the lobby. He was walking into the hallway, his companion right behind him.

  “… a considerable difference. He sits below the stage and pontificates.” The St. Jacques woman had said something and was now leaving him.

  “What did you say? A stage?”

  “Well, a raised platform. For exhibits usually.”

  “They have to be brought in,” he said.

  “What does?”

  “Exhibits. Is there an exit in there? Another door?”

  “I have no idea, and I really must make my call. Enjoy the professore.” She turned away.

  He dropped the suitcase and took her arm. At the touch, she glared at him. “Take your hand off me, please.”

  “I don’t want to frighten you, but I have no choice.” He spoke quietly, his eyes over her shoulder, the killers had slowed their pace, the trap sure, about to close. “You have to come with me.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous!”

  He viced the grip around her arm, moving her in front of him. Then he pulled the gun out of his pocket, making sure her body concealed it from the men thirty feet away. “I don’t want to use this. I don’t want to hurt you, but I’ll do both if I have to.”

  “My God …”

  “Be quiet. Just do as I say and you’ll be fine. I have to get out of this hotel and you’re going to help me. Once I’m out, I’ll let you go. But not until then. Come on. We’re going in there.”

  “You can’t …”

  “Yes, I can.” He pushed the barrel of the gun into her stomach, into the dark silk that creased under the force of his thrust. She was terrified into silence, into submission. “Let’s go.” He stepped to her left, his hand still gripping her arm, the pistol held across his chest inches from her own. Her eyes were riveted on it, her lips parted, her breath erratic. Bourne opened the door, propelling her through it in front of him. He could hear a single word shouted from the corridor.

  “Schnell!”

  They were in darkness, but it was brief; a shaft of white light shot across the room, over the rows of chairs, illuminating the heads of the audience. The projection on the faraway screen on the stage was that of a graph, the grids marked numerically, a heavy black line starting at the left, extending in a jagged pattern through the lines to the right. A heavily accented voice was speaking, amplified by a loudspeaker.

  “You will note that during the years of seventy and seventy-one, when specific restraints in production were self-imposed—I repeat, self-imposed—by these leaders of industry, the resulting economic recession was far less severe than in—slide twelve, please—the so-called paternalistic regulation of the marketplace by government interventionists. The next slide, please.” The room went dark again. There was a problem with the projector; no second shaft of light replaced the first.

  “Slide twelve, please!”

  Jason pushed the woman forward, in front of the figures standing by the back wall, behind the last row of chairs. He tried to judge the size of the lecture hall, looking for a red light that could mean escape. He saw it! A faint reddish glow in the distance. On the stage, behind the screen. There were no other exits, no other doors but the entrance to Suite Seven. He had to reach it; he had to get them to that exit. On that stage.

  “Marie—par ici!” The whisper came from their left, from a seat in the back row.

  “Non, chérie. Reste avec moi.” The second whisper was delivered by the shadowed figure of a man standing directly in front of Marie St. Jacques. He had stepped away from the wall, intercepting her.

  “On nous a séparé. I’l n’y a plus de chaises.”

  Bourne pressed the gun firmly into the woman’s rib cage, its message unmistakable. She whispered without breathing, Jason grateful that her face could not be seen clearly. “Please, let us by,” she said in French. “Please.”

  “What’s this? Is he your cablegram, my dear?”

  “An old friend,” whispered Bourne.

  A shout rose over the increasingly louder hum from the audience. “May I please have slide twelve! Per favore!”

  “We have to see someone at the end of the row,” continued Jason, looking behind him. The right-hand door of the entrance opened; i
n the middle of a shadowed face, a pair of gold-rimmed glasses reflected the dim light of the corridor. Bourne edged the girl past her bewildered friend, forcing him back into the wall, whispering an apology.

  “Sorry, but we’re in a hurry!”

  “You’re damn rude, too!”

  “Yes, I know.”

  “Slide twelve! Ma che infamia!”

  The beam of light shot out from the projector; it vibrated under the nervous hand of the operator. Another graph appeared on the screen as Jason and the woman reached the far wall, the start of the narrow aisle that led down the length of the hall to the stage. He pushed her into the corner, pressing his body against hers, his face against her face.

  “I’ll scream,” she whispered.

  “I’ll shoot,” he said. He peered around the figures leaning against the wall; the killers were both inside, both squinting, shifting their heads like alarmed rodents, trying to spot their target among the rows of faces.

  The voice of the lecturer rose like the ringing of a cracked bell, his diatribe brief but strident.

  “Ecco! For the skeptics I address here this evening—and that is most of you—here is statistical proof! Identical in substance to a hundred other analyses I have prepared. Leave the marketplace to those who live there. Minor excesses can always be found. They are a small price to pay for the general good.”

  There was a scattering of applause, the approval of a definite minority. Bertinelli resumed a normal tone and droned on, his long pointer stabbing at the screen, emphasizing the obvious—his obvious. Jason leaned back again; the gold spectacles glistened in the harsh glare of the projector’s side light, the killer who wore them touching his companion’s arm, nodding to his left, ordering his subordinate to continue the search on the left side of the room; he would take the right. He began, the gold rims growing brighter as he sidestepped his way in front of those standing, studying each face. He would reach the corner, reach them, in a matter of seconds. Stopping the killer with a gunshot was all that was left; and if someone along the row of those standing moved, or if the woman he had pressed against the wall went into panic and shoved him … or if he missed the killer for any number of reasons, he was trapped. And even if he hit the man, there was another killer across the room, certainly a marksman.

  “Slide thirteen, if you please.”

  That was it. Now!

  The shaft of light went out. In the blackout, Bourne pulled the woman from the wall, spun her in her place, his face against hers. “If you make a sound, I’ll kill you!”

  “I believe you,” she whispered, terrified. “You’re a maniac.”

  “Let’s go!” He pushed her down the narrow aisle that led to the stage fifty feet away. The projector’s light went on again; he grabbed the girl’s neck, forcing her down into a kneeling position as he, too, knelt down behind her. They were concealed from the killers by the rows of bodies sitting in the chairs. He pressed her flesh with his fingers; it was his signal to keep moving, crawling… slowly, keeping down, but moving. She understood; she started forward on her knees, trembling.

  “The conclusions of this phase are irrefutable,” cried the lecturer. “The profit motive is inseparable from productivity incentive, but the adversary roles can never be equal. As Socrates understood, the inequality of values is constant. Gold simply is not brass or iron; who among you can deny it? Slide fourteen, if you please!”

  The darkness again. Now.

  He yanked the woman up, pushing her forward, toward the stage. They were within three feet of the edge.

  “Cosa succede? What is the matter, please? Slide fourteen!” It had happened! The projector was jammed again; the darkness was extended again. And there on the stage in front of them, above them, was the red glow of the exit sign. Jason gripped the girl’s arm viciously. “Get up on that stage and run to the exit! I’m right behind you; you stop or cry out, I’ll shoot.”

  “For God’s sake, let me go!”

  “Not yet.” He meant it; there was another exit somewhere, men waiting outside for the target from Marseilles. “Go on! Now.”

  The St. Jacques woman got to her feet and ran to the stage. Bourne lifted her off the floor, over the edge, leaping up as he did so, pulling her to her feet again.

  The blinding light of the projector shot out, flooding the screen, washing the stage. Cries of surprise and derision came from the audience at the sight of two figures, the shouts of the indignant Bertinelli heard over the din.

  “È insoffribile! Ci sono comunisti qui!”

  And there were other sounds—three—lethal, sharp, sudden. Cracks of a muted weapon—weapons; wood splintered on the molding of the proscenium arch. Jason hammered the girl down and lunged toward the shadows of the narrow wing space, pulling her behind him.

  “Da ist er! Da oben!”

  “Schnell! Der projektor!”

  A scream came from the center aisle of the hall as the light of the projector swung to the right, spilling into the wings—but not completely. Its beam was intercepted by receding upright flats that masked the offstage area; light, shadow, light, shadow. And at the end of the flats, at the rear of the stage, was the exit. A high, wide metal door with a crashbar against it.

  Glass shattered; the red light exploded, a marksman’s bullet blew out the sign above the door. It did not matter; he could see the gleaming brass of the crashbar clearly.

  The lecture hall had broken out in pandemonium. Bourne grabbed the woman by the cloth of her blouse, yanking her beyond the flats toward the door. For an instant she resisted; he slapped her across the face and dragged her beside him until the crashbar was above their heads.

  Bullets spat into the wall to their right; the killers were racing down the aisles for accurate sightlines. They would reach them in seconds, and in seconds other bullets, or a single bullet, would find its mark. There were enough shells left, he knew that. He had no idea how or why he knew, but he knew. By sound he could visualize the weapons, extract the clips, count the shells.

  He smashed his forearm into the crashbar of the exit door. It flew open and he lunged through the opening, dragging the kicking St. Jacques woman with him.

  “Stop it!” she screamed. “I won’t go any farther! You’re insane! Those were gunshots!”

  Jason slammed the large metal door shut with his foot. “Get up!”

  “No!”

  He lashed the back of his hand across her face. “Sorry, but you’re coming with me. Get up! Once we’re outside, you have my word. I’ll let you go.” But where was he going now? They were in another tunnel, but there was no carpet, no polished doors with lighted signs above them. They were in some sort of deserted loading area; the floor was concrete, and there were two pipe-framed freight dollies next to him against the wall. He had been right: exhibits used on the stage of Suite Seven had to be trucked in, the exit door high enough and wide enough to accommodate large displays.

  The door! He had to block the door! Marie St. Jacques was on her feet; he held her as he grabbed the first dolly, pulling it by its frame in front of the exit door, slamming it with his shoulder and knee until it was lodged against the metal. He looked down; beneath the thick wooden base were footlocks on the wheels. He jammed his heel down on the front lever lock, and then the back one.

  The girl spun, trying to break his grip as he stretched his leg to the end of the dolly; he slid his hand down her arm, gripped her wrist, and twisted it inward. She screamed, tears in her eyes, her lips trembling. He pulled her alongside him, forcing her to the left, breaking into a run, assuming the direction was toward the rear of the Carillon du Lac, hoping he’d find the exit. For there and only there he might need the woman; a brief few seconds when a couple emerged, not a lone man running.

  There was a series of loud crashes; the killers were trying to force the stage door open, but the locked freight dolly was too heavy a barrier.

  He yanked the girl along the cement floor; she tried to pull away, kicking again, twisting her body aga
in from one side to the other; she was over the edge of hysteria He had no choice; he gripped her elbow, his thumb on the inner flesh, and pressed as hard as he could. She gasped, the pain sudden and excruciating; she sobbed, expelling breath, allowing him to propel her forward.

  They reached a cement staircase, the four steps edged in steel, leading to a pair of metal doors below. It was the loading dock; beyond the doors was the Carillon du Lac’s rear parking area. He was almost there. It was only a question of appearances now.

  “Listen to me,” he said to the rigid, frightened woman. “Do you want me to let you go?”

  “Oh God, yes! Please!”

  “Then you do exactly as I say. We’re going to walk down these steps and out that door like two perfectly normal people at the end of a normal day’s work. You’re going to link your arm in mine and we’re going to walk slowly, talking quietly, to the cars at the far end of the parking lot. And we’re both going to laugh—not loudly, just casually—as if we were remembering funny things that happened during the day. Have you got that?”

  “Nothing funny at all has happened to me during the past fifteen minutes,” she answered in a barely audible monotone.

  “Pretend that it has. I may be trapped; if I am I don’t care. Do you understand?”

  “I think my wrist is broken.”

  “It’s not.”

  “My left arm, my shoulder. I can’t move them; they’re throbbing.”

  “A nerve ending was depressed; it’ll pass in a matter of minutes. You’ll be fine.”

  “You’re an animal.”

  “I want to live,” he said. “Come on. Remember, when I open the door, look at me and smile, tilt your head back, laugh a little.”

  “It will be the most difficult thing I’ve ever done.”

  “It’s easier than dying.”

  She put her injured hand under his arm and they walked down the short flight of steps to the platform door. He opened it and they went outside, his hand in his topcoat pocket gripping the Frenchman’s pistol, his eyes scanning the loading dock. There was a single bulb encased in wire mesh above the door, its spill defining the concrete steps to the left that led to the pavement below; he led his hostage toward them.