The Bourne Identity jb-1

by Robert Ludlum

  There it was! It was there, the morning sun bouncing off the black enameled door and the shiny brass hardware, penetrating the thick, lead-paned windows that rose like a wide column of glistening, purplish blue, emphasizing the ornamental splendor of the glass, but not its resistance to the impacts of high-powered rifles and heavy-calibered automatic weapons. He was here, and for reasons—emotions—he could not define, his eyes began to tear and there was a swelling in his throat. He had the incredible feeling that he had come hack to a place that was as much a part of him as his body or what was left of his mind. Not a home; there was no comfort, no serenity found in looking at that elegant East Side residence. But there was something else—an overpowering sensation of—return.

  He was back at the beginning, the beginning, at both departure and creation, black night and bursting dawn. Something was happening to him; he gripped his wrist harder, desperately trying to control the almost uncontrollable impulse to jump out of the taxi and race across the street to that monstrous, silent structure of jagged stone and deep blue glass. He wanted to leap up the steps and hammer his fist against the heavy black door.

  Let me in! I am here! You must let me in! Can’t you understand?

  I AM INSIDE!

  Images welled up in front of his eyes; jarring sounds assaulted his ears. A jolting, throbbing pain kept exploding at his temples. He was inside a dark room—that room—staring at a screen, at other, inner images that kept flashing on and off in rapid, blinding succession.

  Who is he? Quickly. You’re too late! You’re a dead man. Where is this street? What does it mean to you? Whom did you meet there? What? Good. Keep it simple; say as little as possible. Here’s a list: eight names. Which are contacts? Quickly! Here’s another. Methods of matching kills. Which are yours? … No, no, no! Delta might do that, not Cain! You are not Delta, you are not you! You are Cain. You are a man named Bourne. Jason Bourne! You slipped back. Try again. Concentrate! Obliterate everything else. Wipe away the past. It does not exist for you. You are only what you are here, became here!

  Oh, God. Marie had said it.

  Maybe you just know what you’ve been told… Over and over and over again. Until there was nothing else… Things you’ve been told … but you can’t relive … because they’re not you.

  The sweat rolled down his face, stinging his eyes, as he dug his fingers into his wrist, trying to push the pain and the sounds and the flashes of light out of his mind. He had written Carlos that he was coming back for hidden documents that were his … “final protection.” At that time, the phrase had struck him as weak; he had nearly crossed it out, wanting a stronger reason for flying to New York. Yet instinct had told him to let it stand; it was a part of his past … somehow. Now he understood. His identity was inside that house. His identity. And whether Carlos came after him or not, he had to find it. He had to!

  It was suddenly insane! He shook his head violently back and forth trying to suppress the compulsion, to still the screams that were all around him—screams that were his screams, his voice.

  Forget Carlos. Forget the trap. Get inside that house! It was there, it was the beginning! Stop it!

  The irony was macabre. There was no final protection in that house, only a final explanation for himself. And it was meaningless without Carlos. Those who hunted him knew it and disregarded it; they wanted him dead because of it. But he was so close … he had to find it. It was there.

  Bourne glanced up; the longhaired driver was watching him in the rearview mirror. “Migraine,” said Jason curtly. “Drive around the block. To this block again. I’m early for my appointment. I’ll tell you where to let me off.”

  “It’s your wallet, mister.”

  The brownstone was behind them now, passed quickly in a sudden, brief break in the traffic.

  Bourne swung around in the seat and looked at it through the rear window. The seizure was receding, the sights and sound of personal panic fading; only the pain remained, but it too would diminish, he knew that. It had been an extraordinary few minutes. Priorities had become twisted; compulsion had replaced reason, the pull of the unknown had been so strong that for a moment or two he had nearly lost control. He could not let it happen again; the trap itself was everything. He had to see that house again; he had to study it again. He had all day to work, to refine his strategy, his tactics for the night, but a second, calmer appraisal was in order now. Others would come during the day, closer appraisals. The chameleon in him would be put to work.

  Sixteen minutes later it was obvious that whatever he intended to study no longer mattered.

  Suddenly, everything was different, everything had changed. The line of traffic in the block was slower, another hazard added to the street. A moving van had parked in front of the brownstone; men in coveralls stood smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee, putting off that moment when work was to commence. The heavy black door was open and a man in a green jacket, the moving company’s emblem above the left pocket, stood in the foyer, a clipboard in his hand. Treadstone was being dismantled! In a few hours it could be gutted, a shell! It couldn’t be! They had to stop!

  Jason leaned forward, money in his hand, the pain gone from his head; all was movement now.

  He had to reach Conklin in Washington. Not later—not when the chess pieces were in place—but right now! Conklin had to tell them to stop! His entire strategy was based on darkness … always darkness. The beam of a flashlight shooting out of first one alleyway, then another, then against dark walls and up to darkened windows. Orchestrated properly, swiftly, darting from one position to another. An assassin would be drawn to a stone building at night. At night. It would happen at night! Not now! He got out.

  “Hey, mister!” yelled the driver through the open window.

  Jason bent down. “What is it?”

  “I just wanted to say thanks. This makes my—”

  A spit. Over his shoulder! Followed by a cough that was the start of a scream. Bourne stared at the driver, at the stream of blood that had erupted over the man’s left ear. The man was dead, killed by a bullet meant for his fare, fired from a window somewhere in that street.

  Jason dropped to the ground, then sprang to his left spinning toward the curb. Two more spits came in rapid succession, the first imbedded in the side of the taxi, the second exploding the asphalt.

  It was unbelievable! He was marked before the hunt had begun! Carlos was there. In position! He or one of his men had taken the high ground, a window or a rooftop from which the entire street could be observed. Yet the possibility of indiscriminate death caused by a killer in a window or on a rooftop was crazy; the police would come, the street blocked off, even a reverse trap aborted. And Carlos was not crazy! It did not make sense. Nor did Bourne have the time to speculate; he had to get out of the trap … the reverse trap. He had to get to that phone. Carlos was here! At the doors of Treadstone! He had brought him back. He had actually brought him back! It was his proof!

  He got to his feet and began running, weaving in and out of the groups of pedestrians. He reached the corner and turned right—the booth was twenty feet away, but it was also a target. He could not use it.

  Across the street was a delicatessen, a small rectangular sign above the door: TELEPHONE. He stepped off the curb and started running again, dodging the lurching automobiles. One of them might do the job Carlos had reserved for himself. That irony, too, was macabre.

  “The Central Intelligence Agency, sir, is fundamentally a fact-finding organization,” said the man on the line condescendingly. “The sort of activities you describe are the rarest part of our work, and frankly blown out of proportion by films and misinformed writers.”

  “Goddamn it, listen to me!” said Jason, cupping the mouthpiece in the crowded delicatessen. “Just tell me where Conklin is. It’s an emergency!”

  “His office already told you, sir. Mr. Conklin left yesterday afternoon and is expected back at the end of the week. Since you say you know Mr. Conklin, you’re aware o
f his service-related injury. He often goes for physical therapy—”

  “Will you stop it! I saw him in Paris—outside of Paris—two nights ago. He flew over from Washington to meet me.”

  “As to that,” interrupted the man in Langley, “when you were transferred to this office, we’d already checked. There’s no record of Mr. Conklin having left the country in over a year.”

  “Then it’s buried! He was there! You’re looking for codes,” said Bourne desperately. “I don’t have them. But someone working with Conklin will recognize the words. Medusa, Delta, Cain … Treadstone! Someone has to!”

  “No one does. You were told that.”

  “By someone who doesn’t. There are those who do. Believe me!”

  “I’m sorry. I really—”

  “Don’t hang up!” There was another way; one he did not care to use, but there was nothing else.

  “Five or six minutes ago, I got out of a taxi on Seventy-first Street. I was spotted and someone tried to take me out.”

  “Take … you out?”

  “Yes. The driver spoke to me and I bent down to listen. That movement saved my life, but the driver’s dead, a bullet in his skull. That’s the truth, and I know you have ways of checking. There are probably half a dozen police cars on the scene by now. Check it out. That’s the strongest advice I can give you.”

  There was a brief silence from Washington. “Since you asked for Mr. Conklin—at least used his name—I’ll follow this up. Where can I reach you?”

  “I’ll stay on. This call’s on an international credit card. French issue, name of Chamford.”

  “Chamford? You said—”

  “Please.”

  “I’ll be back.”

  The waiting was intolerable, made worse by a stern Hassid glaring at him, fingering coins in one hand, a roll in another, and crumbs in his stringy, unkempt beard. A minute later the man in Langley was on the line, anger replacing compromise.

  “I think this conversation has come to an end, Mr. Bourne or Chamford, or whatever you call yourself. The New York police were reached; there’s no such incident as you described on Seventy-first Street. And you were right. We do have ways of checking. I advise you that there are laws about such calls as this, strict penalties involved. Good day, sir.” There was a click; the line went dead. Bourne stared at the dial in disbelief. For months the men in Washington had searched for him, wanted to kill him for the silence they could not understand.

  Now, when he presented himself—presented them with the sole objective of his three-year agreement—he was dismissed. They still would not listen! But that man had listened! And he had come back on the line denying a death that had taken place only minutes ago. It could not be … it was insane. It had happened.

  Jason put the phone back on the hook, tempted to bolt from the crowded delicatessen. Instead, he walked calmly toward the door, excusing himself through the rows of people lined up at the counter, his eyes on the glass front, scanning the crowds on the sidewalk. Outside, he removed his topcoat, carrying it over his arm, and replaced the sunglasses with his tortoise-shells. Minor alterations, but he would not be where he was going long enough for them to be a major mistake.

  He hurried across the intersection toward Seventy-first Street.

  At the far corner he fell in with a group of pedestrians waiting for the light. He turned his head to the left, his chin pressed down into his collarbone. The traffic was moving but the taxi was gone. It had been removed from the scene with surgical precision, a diseased, ugly organ cut from the body, the vital functions in normal process. It showed the precision of a master assassin, who knew precisely when to go in swiftly with a knife.

  Bourne turned quickly, reversing his direction, and began walking south. He had to find a store; he had to change his outer skin. The chameleon could not wait.

  Marie St. Jacques was angry as she held her place across the room from Brigadier General Irwin Arthur Crawford in the suite at the Pierre Hotel. “You wouldn’t listen!” she accused. “None of you would listen. Have you any idea what you’ve done to him?”

  “All too well,” replied the officer, the apology in his acknowledgment, not his voice. “I can only repeat what I’ve told you. We didn’t know what to listen for. The differences between the appearance and the reality were beyond our understanding, obviously beyond his own. And if beyond his, why not ours?”

  “He’s been trying to reconcile the appearance and reality, as you call it, for seven months! And all you could do was send out men to kill him! He tried to tell you. What kind of people are you?”

  “Flawed, Miss St. Jacques. Flawed but decent, I think. It’s why I’m here. The time span’s begun and I want to save him if I can, if we can.”

  “God, you make me sick!” Marie stopped, she shook her head and continued softly. “I’ll do whatever you ask, you know that. Can you reach this Conklin?”

  “I’m sure I can. I’ll stand on the steps of that house until he has no choice but to reach me. He may not be our concern, however.”

  “Carlos?”

  “Perhaps others.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’ll explain on the way. Our main concern now—our only concern now—is to reach Delta.”

  “Jason?”

  “Yes. The man you call Jason Bourne.”

  “And he’s been one of you from the beginning,” said Marie. “There were no slates to clean, no payments or pardons bargained for?”

  “None. You’ll be told everything in time, but this is not the time. I’ve made arrangements for you to be in an unmarked government car diagonally across from the house. We have binoculars for you; you know him better than anyone now. Perhaps you’ll spot him. I pray to God you do.” Marie went quickly to the closet and got her coat. “He said to me one night that he was a chameleon …”

  “He remembered?” interrupted Crawford.

  “Remembered what?”

  “Nothing. He had a talent for moving in and out of difficult situations without being seen. That’s all I meant.”

  “Wait a minute.” Marie approached the army man, her eyes suddenly riveted on his again. “You say we have to reach Jason, but there’s a better way. Let him come to us. To me. Put me on the steps of that house. He’ll see me, get word to me!”

  “Giving whoever’s out there two targets?”

  “You don’t know your own man, General. I said ‘get word to me.’ He’ll send someone, pay a man or a woman on the street to give me a message. I know him. He’ll do it. It’s the surest way.”

  “I can’t permit it.”

  “Why not? You’ve done everything else stupidly! Blindly! Do one thing intelligently!”

  “I can’t. It might even solve problems you’re not aware of, but I can’t do it.”

  “Give me a reason.”

  “If Delta’s right, if Carlos has come after him and is in the street, the risk is too great. Carlos knows you from photographs. He’ll kill you.”

  “I’m willing to take that risk.”

  “I’m not. I’d like to think I’m speaking for my government when I say that.”

  “I don’t think you are, frankly.”

  “Leave it to others. May we go, please?”

  “General Service Administration,” intoned a disinterested switchboard operator.

  “Mr. J. Petrocelli, please,” said Alexander Conklin, his voice tense, his fingers wiping the sweat from his forehead as he stood by the window, the telephone in his hand. “Quickly, please!”

  “Everybody’s in a hurry—” The words were shorted out, replaced by the hum of a ring.

  “Petrocelli, Reclamation Invoice Division.”

  “What are you people doing?” exploded the CIA man, the shock calculated, a weapon.

  The pause was brief. “Right now, listening to some nut ask a stupid question.”

  “Well, listen further. My name’s Conklin, Central Intelligence Agency, Four-Zero clearance. You do know what that m
eans?”

  “I haven’t understood anything you people’ve said in the past ten years.”

  “You’d better understand this. It took me damn near an hour, but I just reached the dispatcher for a moving company up here in New York. He said he had an invoice signed by you to remove all the furniture from a brownstone on Seventy-first Street—139, to be exact.”

  “Yeah, I remember that one. What about it?”

  “Who gave you the order? That’s our territory. We removed our equipment last week, but we did not—repeat, did not—request any further activity.”

  “Just hold it,” said the bureaucrat. “I saw that invoice. I mean, I read it before I signed it; you guys make me curious. The order came directly from Langley on a priority sheet.”

  “Who in Langley?”

  “Give me a moment and I’ll tell you. I’ve got a copy in my out file; it’s here on my desk.” The crackling of paper could be heard on the line. It stopped and Petrocelli returned. “Here it is, Conklin. Take up your beef with your own people in Administrative Controls.”

  “They didn’t know what they were doing. Cancel the order. Call up the moving company and tell them to clear out! Now!”

  “Blow smoke, spook.”

  “What?”

  “Get a written priority requisition on my desk before three o’clock this afternoon; and it may—just may—get processed tomorrow. Then we’ll put everything back.”

  “Put everything back?”

  “That’s right. You tell us to take it out, we take it out. You tell us to put it back, we put it back. We have methods and procedures to follow just like you.”

  “That equipment—everything—was on loan! It wasn’t—isn’t—an Agency operation.”