The Bourne Identity jb-1

by Robert Ludlum

  Now. He shoved the door open six inches and hurled the flares inside. A long staccato burst from a Sten gun echoed throughout the room, throughout the entire house, a thousand dead sounds forming a running chord beneath, as sprays of bullets imbedded in a lead shield backed by a steel plate in the door.

  The firing stopped, a final clip expended. Now. Bourne whipped his hand back to the trigger, crashed his shoulder into the door and lunged inside, firing in circles as he rolled on the floor, swinging his legs counterclockwise. Gunshots were returned wildly as Jason honed his weapon toward the source. A roar of fury burst from blindness across the room; it accompanied Bourne’s realization that the drapes had been drawn, blocking out the sunlight from the french doors. Then why was there so much light … magnified light beyond the sizzling blindness of the flares? It was overpowering, causing explosions in his head, sharp bolts of agony at his temples.

  The screen! The huge screen was pulled down from its bulging recess in the ceiling, drawn taut to the floor, the wide expanse of glistening silver a white-hot shield of ice-cold fire. He plunged behind the large hatch table to the protection of a copper dry bar; he rose and jammed the trigger back, in another burst—a final burst. The last clip had run out. He hurled the weapon by its rod-stock across the room at the figure in white overalls and a white silk scarf that had fallen below his face.

  The face! He knew it! He had seen it before! Where … where? Was it Marseilles? Yes … not Zurich? Paris? Yes and no! Then it struck him at that instant in the blinding, vibrating light, that the face across the room was known to many, not just him. But from where? Where? As so much else, he knew it and did not know it. But he did know it! It was, only the name he could not find!

  He spiraled back off his feet, behind the heavy copper dry bar. Gunshots came, two … three, the second bullet tearing the flesh of his left forearm. He pulled his automatic from his belt; he had three shots left. One of them had to find its mark—Carlos. There was a debt to pay in Paris, and a contract to fulfill, his love far safer with the assassin’s death. He took the plastic lighter from his pocket, ignited it and held it beneath a bar rag suspended from a hook. The cloth caught fire; he grabbed it and threw it to his right, as he dove to his left. Carlos fined at the flaming rag, as Bourne spun to his knees, leveling his gun, pulling the trigger twice.

  The figure buckled but did not fall. Instead, he crouched, then sprang like a white panther diagonally forward, his hands outstretched. What was he doing? Then Jason knew. The assassin gripped the edge of the huge silver screen, ripping it from its metal bracket in the ceiling, pulling it downward with all his weight and strength.

  It floated down above Bourne, filling his vision, blocking everything else from his mind. He screamed as the shimmering silver descended over him, suddenly more frightened of it than of Carlos or of any other human being on the earth. It terrified him, infuriated him, splitting his mind in fragments; images flashed across his eyes and angry voices shouted in his ears. He aimed his gun and fired at the terrible shroud. As he slashed his hand against it wildly, pushing the rough silver cloth away, he understood. He had fired his last shot, his last. As a legend named Cain, Carlos knew by sight and by sound every weapon on earth; he had counted the gunshots.

  The assassin loomed above him, the automatic in his hand aimed at Jason’s head. “Your execution, Delta. On the day scheduled. For everything you’ve done.” Bourne arched his back, rolling furiously to his right; at least he would die in motion! Gunshots filled the shimmering room, hot needles slicing across his neck, piercing his legs, cutting up to his waist. Roll, roll!

  Suddenly the gunshots stopped, and in the distance he could hear repeated sounds of hammering, the smashing of wood and steel, growing louder, more insistent. There was a final deafening crash from the dark corridor outside the library, followed by men shouting, running, and beyond them somewhere in the unseen, outside world, the insistent whine of sirens.

  “In here! He’s in here!” screamed Carlos.

  It was insane! The assassin was directing the invaders directly toward him, to him! Reason was madness, nothing on earth made sense!

  The door was crashed open by a tall man in a black overcoat; someone was with him, but Jason could not see. The mists were filling his eyes, shapes and sounds becoming obscured, blurred. He was rolling in space. Away … away.

  But then he saw the one thing he did not want to see. Rigid shoulders that floated above a tapered waist raced out of the room and down the dimly lit corridor. Carlos. His screams had sprung the trap open! He had reversed it! In the chaos he had trapped the stalkers. He was escaping!

  “Carlos …” Bourne knew he could not be heard; what emerged from his bleeding throat was a whisper. He tried again, forcing the sound from his stomach. “It’s him. It’s … Carlos!” There was confusion, commands shouted futilely, orders swallowed in consternation. And then a figure came into focus. A man was limping toward him, a cripple who had tried to kill him in a cemetery outside of Paris. There was nothing left! Jason lurched, crawling toward the sizzling, blinding flare. He grabbed it and held it as though it were a weapon, aiming it at the killer with a cane.

  “Come on! Come on! Closer, you bastard! I’ll burn your eyes out! You think you’ll kill me, you won’t! I’ll kill you! I’ll burn your eyes!”

  “You don’t understand,” said the trembling voice of the limping killer. “It’s me, Delta. It’s Conklin. I was wrong.”

  The flare singed his hands, his eyes! … Madness. The explosions were all around him now, blinding, deafening, punctuated by ear-splitting screeches from the jungle that erupted with each detonation.

  The jungle! Tam Quan! The wet, hot stench was everywhere, but they had reached it! The base camp was theirs!

  An explosion to his left; he could see it! High above the ground, suspended between two trees, the spikes of a bamboo cage. The figure inside was moving. He was alive! Get to him, reach him!

  A cry came from his right. Breathing, coughing in the smoke, a man was limping toward the dense underbrush, a rifle in his hand. It was him, the blond hair caught in the light, a foot broken from a parachute jump. The bastard! A piece of filth who had trained with them, studied the maps with them, flown north with them … all the time springing a trap on them! A traitor with a radio who told the enemy exactly where to look in that impenetrable jungle that was Tam Quan.

  It was Bourne! Jason Bourne. Traitor, garbage!

  Get him! Don’t let him reach others! Kill him! Kill Jason Bourne! He is your enemy! Fire!

  He did not fall! The head that had been blown apart was still there. Coming toward him! What was happening?

  Madness. Tam Quan …

  “Come with us,” said the limping figure, walking out of the jungle into what remained of an elegant room. That room. “We’re not your enemies. Come with us.”

  “Get away from me!” Bourne lunged again, now back to the fallen screen. It was his sanctuary, his shroud of death, the blanket thrown over a man at birth, a lining for his coffin. “You are my enemy! I’ll take you all! I don’t care, it doesn’t matter! Can’t you understand!? I’m Delta! Cain is for Charlie and Delta is for Cain! What more do you want from me? I was and I was not! I am and I am not!

  Bastards, bastards! Come on! Closer!”

  Another voice was heard, a deeper voice, calmer, less insistent. “Get her. Bring her in.”

  Somewhere in the distance the sirens reached a crescendo, and then they stopped. Darkness came and the waves carried Jason up to the night sky, only to hurl him down again, crashing him into an abyss of watery violence. He was entering an eternity of weightless … memory. An explosion filled the night sky now, a fiery diadem rose above black waters. And then he heard the words, spoken from the clouds, filling the earth.

  “Jason, my love. My only love. Take my hand. Hold it. Tightly, Jason. Tightly, my darling.”

  Peace came with the darkness.

  EPILOGUE

  Brigadier General Crawfo
rd put the file folder down on the couch beside him. “I don’t need this,” he said to Marie St. Jacques, who sat across from him in a straight-back chair. “I’ve gone over it and over it, trying to find out where we missed.”

  “You presumed where no one should,” said the only other person in the hotel suite. He was Dr. Morris Panov, psychiatrist; he stood by the window, the morning sun streaming in, putting his expressionless face in shadow. “I allowed you to presume, and I’ll live with it for the rest of my life.”

  “It’s nearly two weeks now,” said Marie impatiently. “I’d like specifics. I think I’m entitled to them.”

  “You are. It was an insanity called clearance.”

  “Insanity,” agreed Panov.

  “Protection, also,” added Crawford. “I subscribe to that part. It has to continue for a very long time.”

  “Protection?” Marie frowned.

  “We’ll get to it,” said the general, glancing at Panov. “From everyone’s point of view, it’s vital. I trust we all accept that.”

  “Please! Jason—who is he?”

  “His name is David Webb. He was a career foreign service officer, a specialist in Far Eastern affairs, until his separation from the government five years ago.”

  “Separation?”

  “Resignation by mutual agreement. His work in Medusa precluded any sustained career in the State Department. ‘Delta’ was infamous and too many knew he was Webb. Such men are rarely welcome at the diplomatic conference tables. I’m not sure they should be. Visceral wounds are reopened too easily with their presence.”

  “He was everything they say? In Medusa?”

  “Yes. I was there. He was everything they say.”

  “It’s hard to believe,” said Marie.

  “He’d lost something very special to him and couldn’t come to grips with it. He could only strike out.”

  “What was that?”

  “His family. His wife was a Thai; they had two children, a boy and a girl. He was stationed in Phnom Penh, his house on the outskirts, near the Mekong River. One Sunday afternoon while his wife and children were down at their dock, a stray aircraft circled and dove, dropping two bombs and strafing the area. By the time he reached the river the dock was blown away, his wife and children floating in the water, their bodies riddled.”

  “Oh, God,” whispered Marie. “Whom did the plane belong to?”

  “It was never identified. Hanoi disclaimed it; Saigon said it wasn’t ours. Remember, Cambodia was neutral; no one wanted to be responsible. Webb had to strike out; he headed for Saigon and trained for Medusa. He brought a specialist’s intellect to a very brutal operation. He became Delta.”

  “Was that when he met d’Anjou?”

  “Later on, yes. Delta was notorious by then. North Vietnamese Intelligence had put an extraordinary price on his head, and it’s no secret that among our own people a number hoped they’d succeed. Then Hanoi found out that Webb’s younger brother was an army officer in Saigon, and having studied Delta—knowing the brothers were close—decided to mount a trap; they had nothing to lose. They kidnapped Lieutenant Gordon Webb and took him north, sending back a Cong informant with word that he was being held in the Tam Quan sector. Delta bit; along with the informer—a double agent—he formed a team of Medusans who knew the area and picked a night when no aircraft should have left the ground to fly north. D’Anjou was in the unit. So was another man Webb didn’t know about; a white man who’d been bought by Hanoi, an expert in communications who could assemble the electronic components of a high-frequency radio in the dark. Which is exactly what he did, betraying the unit’s position. Webb broke through the trap and found his brother. He also found the double agent and the white man. The Vietnamese escaped in the jungle; the white man didn’t. Delta executed him on the spot.”

  “And that man?” Marie’s eyes were riveted on Crawford.

  “Jason Bourne. A Medusan from Sydney. Australia; a runner of guns, narcotics and slaves throughout all Southeast Asia; a violent man with a criminal record who was nevertheless highly effective—if the price were high enough. It was in Medusa’s interests to bury the circumstances of his death; he became an MIA from a specialized unit. Years later, when Treadstone was being formed and Webb called back, it was Webb himself who took the name of Bourne. It fit the requirements of authenticity, traceability. He took the name of the man who’d betrayed him, the man he had killed in Tam Quan.”

  “Where was he when he was called back for Treadstone?” asked Marie. “What was he doing?”

  “Teaching in a small college in New Hampshire. Living an isolated life, some said destructive. For him.” Crawford picked up the file folder. “Those are the essential facts, Miss St. Jacques. Other areas will be covered by Dr. Panov, who’s made it clear that my presence is not required. There is, however, one remaining detail which must be thoroughly understood. It’s a direct order from the White House.”

  “The protection,” said Marie, her words a statement.

  “Yes. Wherever he goes, regardless of the identity he assumes or the success of his cover, he’ll be guarded around the clock. For as long as it takes—even if it never happens.”

  “Please explain that.”

  “He’s the only man alive who’s ever seen Carlos. As Carlos. He knows his identity, but it’s locked away in his mind, part of an unremembered past. We understand from what he says that Carlos is someone known to many people—a visible figure in a government somewhere, or in the media, or international banking or society. It fits with a prevalent theory. The point is one day that identity may come into focus for Webb. We realize you’ve had several discussions with Dr. Panov. I believe he’ll confirm what I’ve said.”

  Marie turned to the psychiatrist. “Is it true, Mo?”

  “It’s possible,” said Panov.

  Crawford left and Marie poured coffee for the two of them. Panov went to the couch where the brigadier had been sitting.

  “It’s still warm,” he said, smiling. “Crawford was sweating right down to his famous backsides. He has every right to, they all do.”

  “What’s going to happen?”

  “Nothing. Absolutely nothing until I tell them they can go ahead. And that may not be for months, a couple of years for all I know. Not until he’s ready.”

  “For what?”

  “The questions. And photographs—volumes of them. They’re compiling a photographic encyclopedia based on the loose description he gave them. Don’t get me wrong; one day he’ll have to begin. He’ll want to; we’ll all want him to. Carlos has to be caught, and it’s not my intention to blackmail them into doing nothing. Too many people have given too much; he’s given too much. But right now he comes first. His head comes first.”

  “That’s what I mean. What’s going to happen to him?”

  Panov put down his coffee. “I’m not sure yet. I’ve too much respect for the human mind to deal you chicken soup psychology; there’s too damn much of it floating around in the wrong hands. I’ve been in on all the conferences—I insisted upon that—and I’ve talked to the other shrinks and the neurosurgeons. Its true we can go in with a knife and reach the storm centers, reduce the anxieties, bring a kind of peace to him. Even bring him back to what he was, perhaps. But it’s not the kind of peace he wants … and there’s a far more dangerous risk. We might wipe away too much, take away the things he has found—will continue to find. With care. With time.”

  “Time?”

  “I believe it, yes. Because the pattern’s been established. There’s growth, the pain of recognition and the excitement of discovery. Does that tell you something?” Marie looked into Panov’s dark, weary eyes; there was a light in them. “All of us,” she said.

  “That’s right. In a way, he’s a functioning microcosm of us all. I mean, we’re all trying to find out who the hell we are, aren’t we?”

  Marie went to the front window in the cottage on the waterfront, with the rising dunes behind it, the fenced-off grounds
surrounding it. And guards. Every fifty feet a man with a gun. She could see him several hundred yards down the beach; he was scaling shells over the water, watching them bounce across the waves that gently lapped into the shore. The weeks had been good to him, for him. His body was scarred but whole again, firm again. The nightmares were still there, and moments of anguish kept coming back during the daylight hours, but somehow it was all less terrifying. He was beginning to cope; he was beginning to laugh again. Panov had been right. Things were happening to him; images were becoming clearer, meaning found where there had been no meaning before.

  Something had happened now! Oh, God, what was it? He had thrown himself into the water and was thrashing around, shouting. Then, suddenly, he sprang out, leaping over the waves onto the beach. In the distance, by the barbed-wire fence, a guard spun around, a rifle whipped up under an arm, a hand-held radio pulled from a belt.

  He began racing across the wet sand toward the house, his body lurching, swaying, his feet digging furiously into the soft surface, sending up sprays of water and sand behind him. What was it? Marie froze, prepared for the moment they knew might come one day, prepared for the sound of gunfire.

  He burst through the door, chest heaving, gasping for breath. He stared at her, his eyes as clear as she had ever seen them. He spoke softly, so softly she could barely hear him. But she did hear him.

  “My name is David …”

  She walked slowly toward him.

  “Hello, David,” she said.

  END.

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