The Bourne Identity jb-1

by Robert Ludlum

  Take as much money as you want from me and grab the first plane to Canada. It’s easier to deny long-distance.”

  She looked at him in silence, then nodded. “That’s very tempting.”

  “It’s very logical.”

  She continued to stare at him a moment longer, the tension inside her building, conveyed by her eyes. She turned away and walked to the window, looking out at the earliest rays of the morning sun. He watched her, feeling the intensity, knowing its roots, seeing her face in the pale orange glow of dawn. There was nothing he could do; she had done what she felt she had to do because she had been released from terror. From a kind of terrible degradation no man could really understand.

  From death. And in doing what she did, she had broken all the rules. She whipped her head toward him, her eyes glaring.

  “Who are you?”

  “You heard what they said.”

  “I know what I saw! What I feel!”

  “Don’t try to justify what you did. You simply did it, that’s all. Let it be.”

  Let it be. Oh, God, you could have let me be. And there would have been peace. But now you have given part of my life back to me, and I’ve got to struggle again, face it again.

  Suddenly she was standing at the foot of the bed, the gun in her hand. She pointed it at him and her voice trembled. “Should I undo it then? Should I call the police and tell them to come and take you?”

  “A few hours ago I would have said go ahead. I can’t bring myself to say it now.”

  “Then who are you?”

  ‘”They say my name is Bourne. Jason Charles Bourne.”

  “What does that mean? ‘They say’?”

  He stared at the gun, at the dark circle of its barrel There was nothing left but the truth—as he knew the truth. “What does it mean?” he repeated. “You know almost as much as I do, Doctor.”

  “What?”

  “You might as well hear it. Maybe it’ll make you feel better. Or worse, I don’t know. But you may as well, because I don’t know what else to tell you.”

  She lowered the gun. “Tell me what?”

  “My life began five months ago on a small island in the Mediterranean called Ile de Port Noir…” The sun had risen to the midpoint of the surrounding trees, its rays filtered by windblown branches, streaming through the windows and mottling the walls with irregular shapes of light.

  Bourne lay back on the pillow, exhausted. He had finished; there was nothing more to say.

  Marie sat across the room in a leather armchair, her legs curled up under her, cigarettes and the gun on a table to her left. She had barely moved, her gaze fixed on his face; even when she smoked, her eyes never wavered, never left his. She was a technical analyst, evaluating data, filtering facts as the trees filtered the sunlight.

  “You kept saying it,” she said softly, spacing out her next words. “‘I don’t know.’ … ‘I wish I knew.’ You’d stare at something, and I was frightened. I’d ask you, what was it? What were you going to do? And you’d say it again, ‘I wish I knew.’ My God, what you’ve been through… What you’re going through.”

  “After what I’ve done to you, you can even think about what’s happened to me?”

  “They’re two separate lines of occurrence,” she said absently, frowning in thought.

  “Separate—”

  “Related in origin, developed independently; that’s economics nonsense… And then on the Löwenstrasse, just before we went up to Chernak’s flat, I begged you not to make me go with you. I was convinced that if I heard any more you’d kill me. That’s when you said the strangest thing of all.

  You said, ‘What you heard makes no more sense to me than it does to you. Perhaps less …’ I thought you were insane.”

  “What I’ve got is a form of insanity. A sane person remembers. I don’t.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me Chernak tried to kill you?”

  “There wasn’t time and I didn’t think it mattered.”

  “It didn’t at that moment—to you. It did to me.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I was holding on to an outside hope that you wouldn’t fire your gun at someone who hadn’t tried to kill you first.”

  “But he did. I was wounded.”

  “I didn’t know the sequence; you didn’t tell me.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Marie lit a cigarette. “It’s hard to explain, but during all the time you kept me hostage, even when you hit me, and dragged me and pressed the gun into my stomach and held it against my head—God knows, I was terrified—but I thought I saw something in your eyes. Call it reluctance. It’s the best I can come up with.”

  “It’ll do. What’s your point?”

  “I’m not sure. Perhaps, it goes back to something else you said in the booth at the Drei Alpenhäuser. That fat man was coming over and you told me to stay against the wall, cover my face with my hand. ‘For your own good,’ you said. ‘There’s no point in his being able to identify you.’”

  “There wasn’t.”

  “‘For your own good.’ That’s not the reasoning of a pathological killer. I think I held on to that—for my own sanity, maybe—that and the look in your eyes.”

  “I still don’t get the point.”

  “The man with the gold-rimmed glasses who convinced me he was the police said you were a brutal killer, who had to be stopped before he killed again. Had it not been for Chernak I wouldn’t have believed him. On either point. The police don’t behave like that; they don’t use guns in dark, crowded places. And you were a man running for your life—are running for your life—but you’re not a killer.”

  Bourne held up his hand. “Forgive me, but that strikes me as a judgment based on false gratitude.

  You say you have a respect for facts—then look at them. I repeat: you heard what they said—regardless of what you think you saw and feel—you heard the words. Boiled down, envelopes were filled with money and delivered to me to fulfill certain obligations. I’d say those obligations were pretty clear, and I accepted them. I had a numbered account at the Gemeinschaft Bank totaling about five million dollars. Where did I get it? Where does a man like me—with the obvious skills I have—get that kind of money?” Jason stared at the ceiling. The pain was returning, the sense of futility also. “Those are the facts, Dr. St. Jacques. It’s time you left.” Marie rose from the chair and crushed out her cigarette. Then she picked up the gun and walked toward the bed. “You’re very anxious to condemn yourself, aren’t you?”

  “I respect facts.”

  “Then if what you say is true, I have an obligation, too, don’t I? As a law-abiding member of the social order I must call the Zurich police and tell them where you are.” She raised the gun.

  Bourne looked at her. “I thought—”

  “Why not?” she broke in. “You’re a condemned man who wants to get it over with, aren’t you?

  You lie there talking with such finality—with, if you’ll forgive me, not a little self-pity, expecting to appeal to my … what was it? False gratitude? Well, I think you’d better understand something. I’m not a fool; if I thought for a minute you’re what they say you are, I wouldn’t be here and neither would you. Facts that cannot be documented aren’t facts at all. You don’t have facts, you have conclusions, your own conclusions based on statements made by men you know are garbage.”

  “And an unexplained bank account with five million dollars in it. Don’t forget that.”

  “How could I? I’m supposed to be a financial whiz. That account may not be explained in ways that you’d like, but there’s a proviso attached that lends a considerable degree of legitimacy to it. It can be inspected—probably invaded—by any certified director of a corporation called something-or-other Seventy-One. That’s hardly an affiliation for a hired killer.”

  “The corporation may be named; it isn’t listed.”

  “In a telephone book? You are naive. But let’s get back to you. Right now. Sha
ll I really call the police?”

  “You know my answer. I can’t stop you, but I don’t want you to.” Marie lowered the gun. “And I won’t. For the same reason you don’t want me to. I don’t believe what they say you are any more than you do.”

  “Then what do you believe?”

  “I told you, I’m not sure. All I really know is that seven hours ago I was underneath an animal, his mouth all over me, his hands clawing me … and I knew I was going to die. And then a man came back for me—a man who could have kept running—but who came back for me and offered to die in my place. I guess I believe in him.”

  “Suppose you’re wrong?”

  “Then I’ll have made a terrible mistake.”

  “Thank you. Where’s the money?”

  “On the bureau. In your passport case and billfold. Also the name of the doctor and the receipt for the room.”

  “May I have the passport, please? That’s the Swiss currency.”

  “I know.” Marie brought them to him. “I gave the concierge three hundred francs for the room and two hundred for the name of the doctor. The doctor’s services came to four hundred and fifty, to which I added another hundred and fifty for his cooperation. Altogether I paid out eleven hundred francs.”

  “You don’t have to give me an accounting,” he said.

  “You should know. What are you going to do?”

  “Give you money so you can get back to Canada.”

  “I mean afterwards.”

  “See how I feel later on. Probably pay the concierge to buy me some clothes. Ask him a few questions. I’ll be all right.” He took out a number of large bills and held them out for her.

  “That’s over fifty thousand francs.”

  “I’ve put you through a great deal.”

  Marie St. Jacques looked at the money, then down at the gun in her left hand. “I don’t want your money,” she said, placing the weapon on the bedside table.

  “What do you mean?”

  She turned and walked back to the armchair, turning again to look at him as she sat down. “I think I want to help you.”

  “Now wait a minute—”

  “Please,” she interrupted. “Please don’t ask me any questions. Don’t say anything for a while.”

  BOOK II

  10

  Neither of them knew when it happened, or, in truth, whether it had happened. Or, if it had, to what lengths either would go to preserve it, or deepen it. There was no essential drama, no conflicts to overcome or barriers to surmount. All that was required was communication, by words and looks, and, perhaps as vital as either of these, the frequent accompaniment of quiet laughter.

  Their living arrangements in the room at the village inn were as clinical as they might have been in the hospital ward it replaced. During the daylight hours Marie took care of various practical matters such as clothes, meals, maps, and newspapers. On her own she had driven the stolen car ten miles south to the town of Reinach where she had abandoned it, taking a taxi back to Lenzburg.

  When she was out Bourne concentrated on rest and mobility. From somewhere in his forgotten past he understood that recovery depended upon both and he applied rigid discipline to both; he had been there before … before Port Noir.

  When they were together they talked, at first awkwardly, the thrusts and parries of strangers thrown together and surviving the shock waves of cataclysm. They tried to insert normalcy where none could exist, but it was easier when they both accepted the essential abnormality: there was nothing to say not related to what had happened. And if there was, it would begin to appear only during those moments when the probing of what-had-happened was temporarily exhausted, the silences springboards to relief, to other words and thoughts.

  It was during such moments that Jason learned the salient facts about the woman who had saved his life. He protested that she knew as much about him as he did, but he knew nothing about her.

  Where had she sprung from? Why was an attractive woman with dark red hair and skin obviously nurtured on a farm somewhere pretending to be a doctor of economics?

  “Because she was sick of the farm,” Marie replied.

  “No kidding? A farm, really?”

  “Well, a small ranch would be more like it. Small in comparison to the king-sized ones in Alberta.

  In my father’s time, when a Canuck went west to buy land, there were unwritten restrictions. Don’t compete in size with your betters. He often said that if he’d used the name St. James rather than St. Jacques, he’d be a far wealthier man today.”

  “He was a rancher?”

  Marie had laughed. “No, he was an accountant who became a rancher by way of a Vickers bomber in the war. He was a pilot in the Royal Canadian Air Force. I guess once he saw all that sky, an accounting office seemed a little dull.”

  “That takes a lot of nerve.”

  “More than you know. He sold cattle he didn’t own on land he didn’t have before he bought the ranch. French to the core, people said.”

  “I think I’d like him.”

  “You would.”

  She had lived in Calgary with her parents and two brothers until she was eighteen, when she went to McGill University in Montreal and the beginnings of a life she had never contemplated. An indifferent student who preferred racing over the fields on the back of a horse to the structured boredom of a convent school in Alberta discovered the excitement of using her mind.

  “It was really as simple as that,” she told him. “I’d looked at books as natural enemies, and suddenly, here I was in a place surrounded by people who were caught up in them, having a marvelous time. Everything was talk. Talk all day, talk all night—in classrooms and seminars, in crowded booths over pitchers of beer; I think it was the talk that turned me on. Does that make sense to you?”

  “I can’t remember, but I can understand,” Bourne said. “I have no memories of college or friends like that, but I’m pretty sure I was there.” He smiled. “Talking over pitchers of beer is a pretty strong impression.”

  She smiled back. “And I was pretty impressive in that department. A strapping girl from Calgary with two older brothers to compete with could drink more beer than half the university boys in Montreal.”

  “You must have been resented.”

  “No, just envied.”

  A new world had been presented to Marie St. Jacques; she never returned to her old one. Except for proscribed midterm holidays, prolonged trips to Calgary grew less and less frequent. Her circles in Montreal expanded, the summers taken up with jobs in and outside the university. She gravitated first to history, then reasoned that most of history was shaped by economic forces—power and significance had to be paid for—and so she tested the theories of economics. And was consumed.

  She remained at McGill for five years, receiving her masters degree and a Canadian government fellowship to Oxford.

  “That was a day, I can tell you. I thought my father would have apoplexy. He left his precious cattle to my brothers long enough to fly east to talk me out of it.”

  “Talk you out of it? Why? He was an accountant; you were going after a doctorate in economics.”

  “Don’t make that mistake,” Marie exclaimed. “Accountants and economists are natural enemies.

  One views trees, the other forests, and the visions are usually at odds, as they, should be. Besides, my father’s not simply Canadian, he’s French-Canadian. I think he saw me as a traitor to Versailles.

  But he was mollified when I told him that a condition of the fellowship was a commitment to work for the government for a minimum of three years. He said I could ‘serve the cause better from within.’ Vive Québec libre—vive la France!”

  They both laughed.

  The three-year commitment to Ottawa was extended for all the logical reasons: whenever she thought of leaving, she was promoted a grade, given a large office and an expanded staff.

  “Power corrupts, of course”—she smiled—“and no one knows it better than a ranki
ng bureaucrat whom banks and corporations pursue for a recommendation. But I think Napoleon said it better. ‘Give me enough medals and I’ll win you any war.’ So I stayed. I enjoy my work immensely. But then it’s work I’m good at and that helps.”

  Jason watched her as she talked. Beneath the controlled exterior there was an exuberant, childlike quality about her. She was an enthusiast, reining in her enthusiasm whenever she felt it becoming too pronounced. Of course she was good at what she did; he suspected she never did anything with less than her fullest application. “I’m sure you are—good, I mean—but it doesn’t leave much time for other things, does it?”

  “What other things?”

  “Oh, the usual. Husband, family, house with the picket fence.”

  “They may come one day; I don’t rule them out.”

  “But they haven’t.”

  “No. There were a couple of close calls, but no brass ring. Or diamond, either.”

  “Who’s Peter?”

  The smile faded. “I’d forgotten. You read the cable.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. We’ve covered that… Peter? I adore Peter. We lived together for nearly two years, but it didn’t work out.”

  “Apparently he doesn’t hold any grudges.”

  “He’d better not!” She laughed again. “He’s director of the section, hopes for a cabinet appointment soon. If he doesn’t behave himself, I’ll tell the Treasury Board what he doesn’t know and he’ll be back as an SX-Two”

  “He said he was going to pick you up at the airport on the twenty-sixth. You’d better cable him.”

  “Yes, I know.”

  Her leaving was what they had not talked about; they had avoided the subject as though it were a distant eventuality. It was not related to what-had-happened; it was something that was going to be.

  Marie had said she wanted to help him; he had accepted, assuming she was driven by false gratitude into staying with him for a day or so—and he was grateful for that. But anything else was unthinkable.

  Which was why they did not talk about it. Words and looks had passed between them, quiet laughter evoked, comfort established. At odd moments there were tentative rushes of warmth and they both understood and backed away. Anything else was unthinkable.