The Bourne Identity jb-1

by Robert Ludlum

  “Were they in your car?”

  “No. My wife called a taxi.”

  “I’m going out there,” said Jason.

  “I thought you might,” said Villiers. “I looked up the address of the church.”

  Bourne dropped a fifty-franc note over the back of the front seat. The driver grabbed it. “It’s important to me to reach Neuilly-sur-Seine as fast as possible. The Church of the Blessed Sacrament. Do you know where it is?”

  “But of course, monsieur. It is the most beautiful parish in the district.”

  “Get there quickly and there’ll be another fifty francs.”

  “We shall fly on the wings of blessed angels, monsieur!”

  They flew, the flight plan jeopardizing most of the traffic in their path.

  “There are the spires of the Blessed Sacrament, monsieur,” said the victorious driver, twelve minutes later, pointing at three soaring towers of stone through the windshield. “Another minute, perhaps two if the idiots who should be taken off the street will permit…”

  “Slow down,” interrupted Bourne, his attention not on the spires of the church but on an automobile several cars ahead. They had taken a corner and he had seen it during the turn; it was a gray Citroën, two men in the front seat.

  They came to a traffic light; the cars stopped Jason dropped the second fifty-franc note over the seat and opened the door. “I’ll be right back. If the light changes, drive forward slowly and I’ll jump in.” Bourne got out, keeping his body low, and rushed between the cars until he saw the letters. NYR; the numbers following were 768, but for the moment they were inconsequential. The taxi driver had earned his money.

  The light changed and the row of automobiles lurched forward like one elongated insect pulling its shelled parts together. The taxi drew alongside; Jason opened the door and climbed in. “You do good work,” he said to the driver.

  “I’m not sure I know the work I am doing.”

  “An affair of the heart. One must catch the betrayer in the act.”

  “In church, monsieur? The world moves too swiftly for me.”

  “Not in traffic,” said Bourne. They approached the final corner before the Church of the Blessed Sacrament. The Citroën made the turn, a single car between it and a taxi, the passengers indistinguishable. Something bothered Jason. The surveillance on the part of the two men was too open, far too obvious. It was as if Carlos’ soldiers wanted someone in that taxi to know they were there.

  Of course! Villiers’ wife was in that cab. With Jacqueline Lavier. And the two men in the Citroën wanted Villiers’ wife to know they were behind her.

  “There is the Blessed Sacrament,” said the driver, entering the street where the church rose in minor medieval splendor in the center of a manicured lawn, crisscrossed by stone paths and dotted with statuary. “What shall I do, monsieur?”

  “Pull into that space,” ordered Jason, gesturing at a break in the line of parked cars. The taxi with Villiers’ wife and the Lavier woman stopped in front of a path guarded by a concrete saint. Villiers’ stunning wife got out first, extending her hand for Jacqueline Lavier, who emerged, ashen, on the pavement. She wore large, orange-rimmed sunglasses and carried a white purse, but she was no longer elegant. Her crown of silver-streaked hair fell in straight, disassociated lines down the sides of her death-white mask of a face, and her stockings were torn. She was at least three hundred feet away, but Bourne felt he could almost hear the erratic gasping for breath that accompanied the hesitant movements of the once regal figure stepping forward in the sunlight.

  The Citroën had proceeded beyond the taxi and was now pulling to the curb. Neither man got out, but a thin metal rod, reflecting the glare of the sun, began rising out of the trunk. The radio antenna was being activated, codes sent over a guarded frequency. Jason was mesmerized, not by the sight and the knowledge of what was being done, but by something else. Words came to him, from where he did not know, but they were there.

  Delta to Almanac, Delta to Almanac. We will not respond. Repeat, negative, brother.

  Almanac to Delta. You will respond as ordered. Abandon, abandon. That is final.

  Delta to Almanac. You’re final, brother. Go fuck yourself. Delta out, equipment damaged.

  Suddenly the darkness was all around him, the sunlight gone. There were no soaring towers of a church reaching for the sky; instead there were black shapes of irregular foliage shivering beneath the light of iridescent clouds. Everything was moving, everything was moving; he had to move with the movement. To remain immobile was to die. Move! For Christ’s sake, move!

  And take them out. One by one. Crawl in closer, overcome the fear—the terrible fear—and reduce the numbers. That was all there was to it. Reduce the numbers. The Monk had made that clear.

  Knife, wire, knee, thumb; you know the points of damage. Of death.

  Death is a statistic for the computers. For you it is survival.

  The Monk.

  The Monk?

  The sunlight came again, blinding him for a moment, his foot on the pavement, his gaze on the gray Citroën a hundred yards away. But it was difficult to see; why was it so difficult? Haze, mist … not darkness now but impenetrable mist. He was hot; no, he was cold. Cold! He jerked his head up, suddenly aware of where he was and what he was doing. His face had been pressed against the window; his breath had fogged the glass.

  “I’m getting out for a few minutes,” said Bourne. “Stay here.”

  “All day, if you wish, monsieur.”

  Jason pulled up the lapels of his topcoat, pushed his hat forward and put on the tortoise-shell glasses. He walked alongside a couple toward a religious sidewalk bazaar, breaking away to stand behind a mother and child at the counter. He had a clear view of the Citroën, the taxi which had been summoned to Parc Monceau was no longer there, dismissed by Villiers’ wife. It was a curious decision on her part, thought Bourne; cabs were not that available.

  Three minutes later the reason was clear … and disturbing. Villiers’ wife came striding out of the church, walking rapidly, her tall, statuesque figure drawing admiring glances from strollers. She went directly to the Citroën, spoke to the men in front, then opened the rear door.

  The purse. A white purse! Villiers’ wife was carrying the purse that only minutes before had been clutched in the hands of Jacqueline Lavier. She climbed into the Citroën’s back seat and pulled the door shut. The sedan’s motor was switched on and gunned, prelude to a quick and sudden departure. As the car rolled away, the shiny metal rod that was the vehicle’s antenna became shorter and shorter, retracting into its base.

  Where was Jacqueline Lavier? Why had she given her purse to Villiers’ wife? Bourne started to move, then stopped, instinct warning him. A trap? If Lavier was followed, those following her might also be trailed—and not by him.

  He looked up and down the street, studying the pedestrians on the sidewalk, then each car, each driver and passenger, watching for a face that did not belong, as Villiers had said of the two men in the Citroën had not belonged in Parc Monceau.

  There were no breaks in the parade, no darting eyes or hands concealed in outsized pockets. He was being overly cautious; Neuilly-sur-Seine was not a trap for him. He moved away from the counter and started for the church.

  He stopped, his feet suddenly clamped to the pavement. A priest was coming out of the church, a priest in a black suit, a starched white collar and a black hat that partially covered his face. He had seen him before. Not long ago, not in a forgotten past, but recently. Very recently. Weeks, days … hours, perhaps. Where was it? Where? He knew him! It was in the walk, in the tilt of his head, in the wide shoulders that seemed to glide in place above the fluid movement of his body. He was a man with a gun! Where was it?

  Zurich? The Carillon du Lac? Two men breaking through the crowds, converging, brokering death. One wore gold-rimmed glasses; it was not he. That man was dead. Was it that other man in the Carillon du Lac? Or in the Guisan Quai? An animal, grunting,
wild-eyed in rape. Was it he? Or someone else. A dark-coated man in the corridor at the Auberge du Coin where the lights had been shorted out, the spill from the staircase illuminating the trap. A reverse trap where that man had fired his weapon in darkness at shapes he thought were human. Was it that man?

  Bourne did not know, he only knew that he had seen the priest before, but not as a priest. As a man with a gun.

  The killer in the priestly dark suit reached the end of the stone path and turned right at the base of the concrete saint, his face briefly caught in the sunlight. Jason froze; the skin. The killer’s skin was dark, not tanned by the sun, but by birth. A Latin skin, its hue tempered generations ago by ancestors living in or around the Mediterranean. Forebears who migrated across the globe … across the seas.

  Bourne stood paralyzed by the shock of his own certainty. He was looking at Ilich Ramirez Sanchez.

  Get Carlos. Trap Carlos. Cain is for Charlie and Delta is for Cain.

  Jason tore at the front of his coat, his right hand grasping the handle of the gun in his belt. He started running on the pavement, colliding with the backs and chests of strollers, shouldering a sidewalk vendor out of his way, lurching past a beggar digging into a wire trash—The beggar! The beggar’s hand surged into his pocket; Bourne spun around in time to see the barrel of an automatic emerge from the threadbare coat, the sun’s rays bouncing off the metal. The beggar had a gun! His gaunt hand raised it, weapon and eyes steady. Jason lunged into the street, careening off the side of a small car. He heard the spits of the bullets above him and around him, piercing the air with sickening finality. Screams, shrill and in pain, came from unseen people on the sidewalk. Bourne ducked between two automobiles and raced through the traffic to the other side of the street. The beggar was running away; an old man with eyes of steel was racing into the crowds, into oblivion.

  Get Carlos. Trap Carlos. Cain is …!

  Jason spun again and lurched again, propelling himself forward, throwing everything in his path out of his way, racing in the direction of the assassin. He stopped, breathless, confusion and anger welling in his chest, sharp bolts of pain returning to his temples. Where was he? Where was Carlos!

  And then he saw him; the killer had climbed behind the wheel of a large black sedan. Bourne ran back into the traffic, slamming hoods and trunks as he threaded his way insanely toward the assassin. Suddenly he was blocked by two cars that had collided. He spread his hands on a glistening chrome grille and leaped sideways over the impacted bumpers. He stopped again, his eyes searing with pain at what he saw, knowing it was pointless to go on. He was too late. The large black sedan had found a break in the traffic, and Ilich Ramirez Sanchez sped away.

  Jason crossed back to the far pavement as the shrieking of police whistles turned heads everywhere. Pedestrians had been grazed or wounded or killed; a beggar with a gun had shot them.

  Lavier! Bourne broke into a run again, back toward the Church of the Blessed Sacrament. He reached the stone path under the eye of the concrete saint and spun left, racing toward the arched, sculptured doors and the marble steps. He ran up and entered the Gothic church, facing racks of flickering candles, fused rays of colored light streaming down from the stained-glass windows high in the dark stone walls. He walked down the center aisle, staring at the worshipers, looking for streaked silver hair and a mask of a face laminated in white.

  The Lavier woman was nowhere to be seen, yet she had not left; she was somewhere in the church. Jason turned, glancing up the aisle; there was a tall priest walking casually past the rack of candles. Bourne sidestepped his way through a cushioned row, emerged on the far right aisle and intercepted him.

  “Excuse me, Father,” he said. “I’m afraid I’ve lost someone.”

  “No one is lost in the house of God, sir,” replied the cleric, smiling.

  “She may not be lost in spirit, but if I don’t find the rest of her, shell be very upset. There’s an emergency at her place of business. Have you been here long, Father?”

  “I greet those of our flock who seek assistance, yes. I’ve been here for the better part of an hour.”

  “Two women came in a few minutes ago. One was extremely tall, quite striking, wearing a light-colored coat, and I think a dark kerchief over her hair. The other was an older lady, not as tall, and obviously not in good health. Did you by any chance see them?” The priest nodded. “Yes. There was sorrow in the older woman’s face, she was pale and grieving.”

  “Do you know where she went? I gather her younger friend left.”

  “A devoted friend, may I say. She escorted the poor dear to confession, helping her inside the booth. The cleansing of the soul gives us all strength during the desperate times.”

  “To confession?”

  “Yes—the second booth from the right. She has a compassionate father confessor, I might add. A visiting priest from the archdiocese of Barcelona. A remarkable man, too; I’m sorry to say this is his last day. He returns to Spain …” The tall priest frowned. “Isn’t that odd? A few moments ago I thought I saw Father Manuel leave. I imagine he was replaced for a while. No matter, the dear lady is in good hands.”

  “I’m sure of it,” said Bourne. “Thank you, Father. I’ll wait for her.” Jason walked down the aisle toward the row of confessional booths, his eyes on the second, where a small strip of white fabric proclaimed occupancy; a soul was being cleansed. He sat down in the front row, then knelt forward, angling his head slowly around so he could see the rear of the church. The tall priest stood at the entrance, his attention on the disturbance in the street. Outside, sirens could be heard wailing in the distance, drawing closer.

  Bourne got up and walked to the second booth. He parted the curtain and looked inside, seeing what he expected to see. Only the method had remained in question.

  Jacqueline Lavier was dead, her body slumped forward, rolled to the side, supported by the prayer stall, her mask of a face upturned, her eyes wide, staring in death at the ceiling. Her coat was open, the cloth of her dress drenched in blood. The weapon was a long, thin, letter opener, plunged in above her left breast. Her fingers were curled around the handle, her lacquered nails the color of her blood.

  At her feet was a purse—not the white purse she had clutched in her hands ten minutes earlier, but a fashionable Yves St. Laurent, the precocious initials stamped on the fabric, an escutcheon of the haute couture. The reason for it was clear to Jason. Inside were papers identifying this tragic suicide, this overwrought woman so burdened with grief she took her own life while seeking absolution in the eyes of God. Carlos was thorough, brilliantly thorough.

  Bourne closed the curtain and stepped away from the booth. From somewhere high in a tower, the bells of the morning Angelus rang splendidly.

  The taxi wandered aimlessly through the streets of Neuilly-sur-Seine, Jason in the back seat, his mind racing.

  It was pointless to wait, perhaps deadly to do so. Strategies changed as conditions changed, and they had taken a deadly turn. Jacqueline Lavier had been followed, her death inevitable but out of sequence. Too soon; she was still valuable. Then Bourne understood. She had not been killed because she had been disloyal to Carlos, rather because she had disobeyed him. She had gone to Parc Monceau—that was her indefensible error.

  There was another known relay at Les Classiques, a gray-haired switchboard operator named Philippe d’Anjou, whose face evoked images of violence and darkness, and shattering flashes of light and sound. He had been in Bourne’s past, of that Jason was certain, and because of that, the hunted had to be cautious; he could not know what that man meant to him. But he was a relay, and he, too, would be watched, as Lavier had been watched, additional bait for another trap, dispatch demanded when the trap closed.

  Were these the only two? Were there others? An obscure, faceless clerk, perhaps, who was not a clerk at all but someone else? A supplier who spent hours in Saint-Honoré legitimately pursuing the cause of haute couture, but with another cause far more vital to him.
Or her. Or the muscular designer, René Bergeron, whose movements were so quick and … fluid.

  Bourne suddenly stiffened, his neck pressed back against the seat, a recent memory triggered.

  Bergeron. The darkly tanned skin, the wide shoulders accentuated by tightly rolled-up sleeves … shoulders that floated in place above a tapered waist, beneath which strong legs moved swiftly, like an animal’s, a cat’s.

  Was it possible? Were the other conjectures merely phantoms, compounded fragments of familiar images he had convinced himself might be Carlos? Was the assassin—unknown to his relays—deep inside his own apparatus, controlling and shaping every move? Was it Bergeron?

  He had to get to a telephone right away. Every minute he lost was a minute removed from the answer, and too many meant there would be no answer at all. But he could not make the call himself; the sequence of events had been too rapid, he had to hold back, store his own information.

  “The first telephone booth you see, pull over,” he said to the driver, who was still shaken by the chaos at the Church of the Blessed Sacrament.

  “As you wish, monsieur. But if monsieur will please try to understand, it is past the time when I should report to the fleet garage. Way past the time.”

  “I understand.”

  “There’s a telephone.”

  “Good. Pull over.”

  The red telephone booth, its quaint panes of glass glistening in the sunlight, looked like a large dollhouse from the outside and smelled of urine on the inside. Bourne dialed the Terrasse, inserted the coins and asked for room 420. Marie answered.

  “What happened?”

  “I haven’t time to explain. I want you to call Les Classiques and ask for René Bergeron. D’Anjou will probably be on the switchboard; make up a name and tell him you’ve been trying to reach Bergeron on Lavier’s private line for the past hour or so. Say it’s urgent, you’ve got to talk to him.”

  “When he gets on, what do I say?”