“You see that, do you not, monsieur? Carlos should be told that you see it. Perhaps … only perhaps … he might have sympathy for your losses if he were convinced you saw your error.”
“That’s your compromise?” said Bourne flatly, struggling to find a line of thought.
“Anything is possible. No good can come from your threats, I can tell you that. For any of us, and I’m frank enough to include myself. There would be only pointless killing; and Cain would stand back laughing. You would lose not once, but twice.”
“If that’s true …” Jason swallowed, nearly choking as dry air filled the vacuum in his dry throat, “then I’ll have to explain to my people why we … chose … the … wrong man.” Stop it! Finish the statement. Control yourself. “Tell me everything you know about Cain.”
“To what purpose?” Lavier put her fingers on the table, her bright red nail polish ten points of a weapon.
“If we chose the wrong man, then we had the wrong information.”
“You heard he was the equal of Carlos, no? That his fees were more reasonable, his apparatus more contained, and because fewer intermediaries were involved there was no possibility of a contract being traced. Is this not so?”
“Maybe.”
“Of course it’s so. It’s what everyone’s been told and it’s all a lie. Carlos’ strength is in his far-reaching sources of information—infallible information. In his elaborate system of reaching the right person at precisely the right moment prior to a kill.”
“Sounds like too many people. There were too many people in Zurich, too many here in Paris.”
“All blind, monsieur. Every one.”
“Blind?”
“To put it plainly, I’ve been part of the operation for a number of years, meeting in one way or another dozens who have played their minor roles—none is major. I have yet to meet a single person who has ever spoken to Carlos, much less has any idea who he is.”
“That’s Carlos. I want to know about Cain. What you know about Cain.” Stay controlled. You cannot turn away. Look at her. Look at her!
“Where shall I begin?”
“With whatever comes to mind first. Where did he come from?” Do not look away!
“Southeast Asia, of course.”
“Of course …” Oh, God.
“From the American Medusa, we know that …”
Medusa! The winds, the darkness, the flashes of light, the pain… The pain ripped through his skull now; he was not where he was, but where he had been. A world away in distance and time. The pain. Oh, Jesus. The pain …
Tao!
Che-sah!
Tam Quan! Alpha, Bravo, Cain … Delta.
Delta … Cain!
Cain is for Charlie.
Delta is for Cain.
“What is it?” The woman looked frightened; she was studying his face, her eyes roving, boring into his. “You’re perspiring. Your hands are shaking. Are you having an attack?”
“It passes quickly.” Jason pried his hand away from his wrist and reached for a napkin to wipe his forehead.
“It comes with the pressures, no?”
“With the pressures, yes. Go on. There isn’t much time; people have to be reached, decisions made. Your life is probably one of them. Back to Cain: You say he came from the American … Medusa.”
“Les mercenaires du diable,” said Lavier. “It was the nickname given Medusa by the Indochina colonials—what was left of them. Quite appropriate, don’t you think?”
“It doesn’t make any difference what I think. Or what I know. I want to hear what you think, what you know about Cain.”
“Your attack makes you rude.”
“My impatience makes me impatient. You say we chose the wrong man; if we did we had the wrong information. Les mercenaires du diable. Are you implying that Cain is French?”
“Not at all, you test me poorly. I mentioned that only to indicate how deeply we penetrated Medusa.”
“‘We’ being the people who work for Carlos.”
“You could say that.”
“I will say that. If Cain’s not French, what is he?”
“Undoubtedly American.”
Oh, God! “Why?”
“Everything he does has the ring of American audacity. He pushes and shoves with little or no finesse, taking credit where none is his, claiming kills when he had nothing to do with them. He had studied Carlos’ methods and connections like no other man alive. Were told he recites them with total recall to potential clients, more often than not putting himself in Carlos’ place, convincing fools that it was he, not Carlos, who accepted and fulfilled the contracts.” Lavier paused. “I’ve struck a chord, no? He did the same with you—your people—yes?”
“Perhaps.” Jason reached for his own wrist again, as the statements came back to him.
Statements made in response to clues in a dreadful game.
Stuttgart. Regensburg. Munich. Two kills and a kidnapping, Baader accreditation. Fees from U. S. sources…
Teheran? Eight kills. Divided accreditation—Khomeini and PLO. Fee, two million. Southwest Soviet sector.
Paris … All contracts will be processed through Paris.
Whose contracts?
Sanchez … Carlos.
“… always such a transparent device.”
The Lavier woman had spoken; he had not heard her. “What did you say?”
“You were remembering, yes? He used the same device with you—your people. It’s how he gets his assignments.”
“Assignments?” Bourne tensed the muscles in his stomach until the pain brought him back to the table in the candelabraed dining room in Argenteuil. “He gets assignments, then,” he said pointlessly.
“And carries them out with considerable expertise; no one denies him that. His record of kills is impressive. In many ways, he is second to Carlos—not his equal, but far above the ranks of les guérilleros. He’s a man of immense skill, extremely inventive, a trained lethal weapon out of Medusa. But it is his arrogance, his lies at the expense of Carlos that will bring him down.”
“And that makes him American? Or is it your bias? I have an idea you like American money, but that’s about all they export that you do like.” Immense skill; extremely inventive, a trained lethal weapon… Port Noir, La Ciotat, Marseilles, Zurich, Paris.
“It is beyond prejudice, monsieur. The identification is positive.”
“How did you get it?”
Lavier touched the stem of her wineglass, her red-tipped index finger curling around it. “A discontented man was bought in Washington.”
“Washington?”
“The Americans also look for Cain—with an intensity approaching Carlos’, I suspect. Medusa has never been made public, and Cain might prove to be an extraordinary embarrassment. This discontented man was in a position to give us a great deal of information, including the Medusa records. It was a simple matter to match the names with those in Zurich. Simple for Carlos, not for anyone else.”
Too simple, thought Jason, not knowing why the thought struck him. “I see,” he said.
“And you? How did you find him? Not Cain, of course, but Bourne.” Through the mists of anxiety, Jason recalled another statement. Not his, but one spoken by Marie. “Far simpler,” he said. “We paid the money to him by means of a shortfall deposit into one account, the surplus diverted blindly into another. The numbers could be traced; it’s a tax device.”
“Cain permitted it?”
“He didn’t know it. The numbers were paid for … as you paid for different numbers—telephone numbers—on a fiche.”
“I commend you.”
“It’s not required, but everything you know about Cain is. All you’ve done so far is explain an identification. Now, go on. Everything you know about this man Bourne, everything you’ve been told.” Be careful. Take the tension from your voice. You are merely … evaluating data. Marie, you said that. Dear, dear Marie. Thank God you’re not here.
“What w
e know about him is incomplete. He’s managed to remove most of the vital records, a lesson he undoubtedly learned from Carlos. But not all; we’ve pieced together a sketch. Before he was recruited into Medusa, he supposedly was a French-speaking businessman living in Singapore, representing a collective of American importers from New York to California. The truth is he had been dismissed by the collective, which then tried to have him extradited back to the States for prosecution; he had stolen hundreds of thousands from it. He was known in Singapore as a reclusive figure, very powerful in contraband operations, and extraordinarily ruthless.”
“Before that,” interrupted Jason, feeling again the perspiration breaking out on his hairline.
“Before Singapore. Where did he come from?” Be careful! The images! He could see the streets of Singapore.
Prince Edward Road, Kim Chuan, Boon Tat Street, Maxwell, Cuscaden.
“Those are the records no one can find. There are only rumors, and they are meaningless. For example, it was said that he was a defrocked Jesuit, gone mad; another speculation was that he had been a young, aggressive investment banker caught embezzling funds in concert with several Singapore banks. There’s nothing concrete, nothing that can be traced. Before Singapore, nothing.”
You’re wrong, there was a great deal. But none of that is part of it… There is a void, and it must be filled, and you can’t help me. Perhaps no one can; perhaps no one should.
“So far, you haven’t told me anything startling,” said Bourne, “nothing relative to the information I’m interested in.”
“Then I don’t know what you want! You ask me questions, press for details, and when I offer you answers you reject them as immaterial. What do you want?”
“What do you know about Cain’s … work? Since you’re looking for a compromise, give me a reason for it. If our information differs, it would be over what he’s done, wouldn’t it? When did he first come to your attention? Carlos’ attention? Quickly!”
“Two years ago,” said Mme. Lavier, disconcerted by Jason’s impatience, annoyed, frightened.
“Word came out of Asia of a white man offering a service astonishingly similar to the one provided by Carlos. He was swiftly becoming an industry. An ambassador was assassinated in Moulmein; two days later a highly regarded Japanese politician was killed in Tokyo prior to a debate in the Diet. A week after that a newspaper editor was blown out of his car in Hong Kong, and in less than forty-eight hours a banker was shot on a street in Calcutta. Behind each one, Cain. Always Cain.” The woman stopped, appraising Bourne’s reaction. He gave none. “Don’t you see? He was everywhere. He raced from one kill to another, accepting contracts with such rapidity that he had to be indiscriminate. He was a man in an enormous hurry, building his reputation so quickly that he shocked even the most jaded professionals. And no one doubted that he was a professional, least of all Carlos. Instructions were sent: find out about this man, learn all you can. You see, Carlos understood what none of us did, and in less than twelve months he was proven correct. Reports came from informers in Manila, Osaka, Hong Kong and Tokyo. Cain was moving to Europe, they said; he would make Paris itself his base of operations. The challenge was clear, the gauntlet thrown.
Cain was out to destroy Carlos. He would become the new Carlos, his services the services required by those who sought them. As you sought them, monsieur.”
“Moulmein, Tokyo, Calcutta …” Jason heard the names coming from his lips, whispered from his throat. Again they were floating, suspended in the perfumed air, shadows of a past forgotten.
“Manila, Hong Kong …” He stopped, trying to clear the mists, peering at the outlines of strange shapes that kept racing across his mind’s eye.
“These places and many others,” continued Lavier. “That was Cain’s error, his error still. Carlos may be many things to many people, but among those who have benefited from his trust and generosity, there is loyalty. His informers and hirelings are not so readily for sale, although Cain has tried time and again. It is said that Carlos is swift to make harsh judgments, but, as they also say, better a Satan one knows than a successor one doesn’t. What Cain did not realize—does not realize now—is that Carlos’ network is a vast one. When Cain moved to Europe, he did not know that his activities were uncovered in Berlin, Lisbon, Amsterdam … as far away as Oman.”
“Oman,” said Bourne involuntarily. “Sheik Mustafa Kalig,” he whispered, as if to himself.
“Never proven!” interjected the Lavier woman defiantly. “A deliberate smokescreen of confusion, the contract itself fiction. He took credit for an internal murder; no one could penetrate that security. A lie!”
“A lie,” repeated Jason.
“So many lies,” added Mme. Lavier contemptuously. “He’s no fool, however; he lies quietly, dropping a hint here and there, knowing that they will be exaggerated in the telling into substance.
He provokes Carlos at every turn, promoting himself at the expense of the man he would replace.
But he’s no match for Carlos; he takes contracts he cannot fulfill. You are only one example; we hear there have been several others. It’s said that’s why he stayed away for months, avoiding people like yourselves.”
“Avoiding people …” Jason reached for his wrist; the trembling had begun again, the sound of distant thunder vibrating in far regions of his skull. “You’re … sure of that?”
“Very much so. He wasn’t dead; he was in hiding. Cain botched more than one assignment; it was inevitable. He accepted too many in too short a time. Yet whenever he did, he followed an abortive kill with a spectacular, unsolicited one, to uphold his stature. He would select a prominent figure and blow him away, the assassination a shock to everyone, and unmistakably Cain’s. The ambassador traveling in Moulmein was an example; no one had called for his death. There were two others that we know of—a Russian commissar in Shanghai and more recently a banker in Madrid …” The words came from the bright red lips working feverishly in the lower part of the powdered mask facing him. He heard them; he had heard them before. He had lived them before. They were no longer shadows, but remembrances of that forgotten past. Images and reality were fused. She began no sentence he could not finish, nor could she mention a name or a city or an incident with which he was not instinctively familiar.
She was talking about … him.
Alpha, Bravo, Cain, Delta …
Cain is for Charlie, and Delta is for Cain.
Jason Bourne was the assassin called Cain.
There was a final question, his brief reprieve from darkness two nights ago at the Sorbonne. Marseilles. August 23.
“What happened in Marseilles?” he asked.
“Marseilles?” the Lavier woman recoiled. “How could you? What lies were you told? What other lies?”
“Just tell me what happened.”
“You refer to Leland, of course. The ubiquitous ambassador whose death was called for—paid for, the contract accepted by Carlos.”
“What if I told you that there are those who think Cain was responsible?”
“It’s what he wanted everyone to think! It was the ultimate insult to Carlos—to steal the kill from him. Payment was irrelevant to Cain; he only wanted to show the world—our world—that he could get there first and do the job for which Carlos had been paid. But he didn’t, you know. He had nothing to do with the Leland kill.”
“He was there.”
“He was trapped. At least, he never showed up. Some said he’d been killed, but since there was no corpse, Carlos didn’t believe it.”
“How was Cain supposedly killed?”
Madame Lavier retreated, shaking her head in short, rapid movements. “Two men on the waterfront tried to take credit, tried to get paid for it. One was never seen again; it can be presumed Cain killed him, if it was Cain. They were dock garbage.”
“What was the trap?”
The alleged trap, monsieur. They claimed to have gotten word that Cain was to meet someone in the rue Sarrasin a
night or so before the assassination. They say they left appropriately obscure messages in the street and lured the man they were convinced was Cain down to the piers, to a fishing boat. Neither trawler nor skipper were seen again, so they may have been right—but as I say, there was no proof. Not even an adequate description of Cain to match against the man led away from the Sarrasin. At any rate, that’s where it ends.”
You’re wrong. That’s where it began. For me.
“I see,” said Bourne, trying again to infuse naturalness into his voice. “Our information’s different naturally. We made a choice on what we thought we knew.”
“The wrong choice, monsieur. What I’ve told you is the truth.”
“Yes, I know.”
“Do we have our compromise, then?”
“Why not?”
“Bien.” Relieved, the woman lifted the wineglass to her lips. “You’ll see, it will be better for everyone.”
“It … doesn’t really matter now.” He could barely be heard, and he knew it. What did he say?
What had he just said? Why did he say it? … The mists were closing in again, the thunder getting louder; the pain had returned to his temples. “I mean … I mean, as you say, it’s better for everyone.” He could feel—see—Lavier’s eyes on him, studying him. “It’s a reasonable solution.”
“Of course it is. You are not feeling well?”
“I said it was nothing; it’ll pass.”
“I’m relieved. Now, would you excuse me for a moment?”
“No.” Jason grabbed her arm.
“Je vous prie, monsieur. The powder room, that is all. If you care to, stand outside the door.”
“We’ll leave. You can stop on the way.” Bourne signaled the waiter for a check.
“As you wish,” she said, watching him.
He stood in the darkened corridor between the spills of light that came from recessed lamps in the ceiling. Across the way was the ladies’ room, denoted by small, uncapitalized letters of gold that read FEMMES. Beautiful people—stunning women, handsome men—kept passing by; the orbit was similar to that of Les Classiques. Jacqueline Lavier was at home.
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