The Bourne Ultimatum jb-3

by Robert Ludlum

  "Do you remember the tinamou and an American somewhat younger than he is now who made things a little simpler for you?"

  "Ah, the tinamou, the bird with hidden wings and ferocious legs! They were such better days, younger days. And if the somewhat older American was at the time given the status of a saint, I shall never forget him."

  "Don't now, I need you."

  "It is you, Alexander?"

  "It is and I've got a problem with D. Bureau."

  "It is solved."

  And it was, but the weather was insoluble. The storm that had battered the central Leeward Islands two nights before was only a prelude to the torrential rain and winds that swept up from the Grenadines, with another storm behind it. The islands were entering the hurricane season, so the weather was not astonishing, it was merely a delaying factor. Finally, when clearance for takeoff was around the chronological corner, it was discovered that there was a malfunction in the far starboard engine; no one argued while the problem was traced, found and repaired. The elapsed time, however, was an additional three hours.

  Except for the churning of his mind, the flight itself was uneventful for Jason; only his guilt interfered with his thoughts of what was before him-Paris, Argenteuil, a café with the pro vocative name of Le Coeur du Soldat, The Soldier's Heart. The guilt was most painful on the short flight from Montserrat to Martinique when they passed over Guadeloupe and the island of Basse-Terre. He knew that only a few thousand feet below were Marie and his children, preparing to fly back to Tranquility Isle, to the husband and father who would not be there. His infant daughter, Alison, would, of course, know nothing, but Jamie would; his wide eyes would grow larger and cloud over as words tumbled out about fishing and swimming ... and Marie-Christ, I can't think about her! It hurts too much!

  She'd think he had betrayed her, run away to seek a violent confrontation with an enemy from long ago in another far-off life that was no longer their life. She would think like old Fontaine, who had tried to persuade him to take his family thousands of miles away from where the Jackal prowled, but neither of them understood. The aging Carlos might die, but on his deathbed he would leave a legacy, a bequest that would hinge on the mandatory death of Jason Bourne-David Webb and his family. I'm right, Marie! Try to understand me. I have to find him, I have to kill him! We can't live in our personal prison for the rest of our lives!

  "Monsieur Simon?" said the stoutish well-tailored Frenchman, an older man with a close-cropped white chin beard, pronouncing the name Seemohn.

  "That's right," replied Bourne, shaking the hand extended to him in a narrow deserted hallway somewhere in Orly Airport.

  "I am Bernardine, François Bernardine, an old colleague of our mutual friend, Alexander the Saint."

  "Alex mentioned you," said Jason, smiling tentatively. "Not by name, of course, but he told me you might bring up his sainthood. It was how I'd know you were-his colleague."

  "How is he? We hear stories, of course." Bernardine shrugged. "Banal gossip, by and large. Wounded in the futile Vietnam, alcohol, dismissed, disgraced, brought back a hero of the Agency, so many contradictory things."

  "Most of them true; he's not afraid to admit that. He's a cripple now, and he doesn't drink, and he was a hero. I know."

  "I see. Again stories, rumors, who can believe what? Flights of fancy out of Beijing, Hong Kong-some concerning a man named Jason Bourne."

  "I've heard them."

  "Yes, of course. ... But now Paris. Our saint said you would need lodgings, clothes purchased en scène, as it were, French to the core."

  "A small but varied closet," agreed Jason. "I know where to go, what to buy, and I have sufficient money."

  "Then we are concerned with lodgings. A hotel of your choice? La Trémoille? George Cinq? Plaza-Athénée?"

  "Smaller, much smaller and far less expensive."

  "Money is a problem, then?"

  "Not at all. Only appearances. I'll tell you what, I know Montmartre. I'll find a place myself. What I will need is a car-registered under another name, preferably a name that's a dead end."

  "Which means a dead man. It's been arranged; it is in the underground garage on the Capucines, near the Place Vendôme." Bernardine reached into his pocket, pulled out a set of keys, and handed them to Jason. "An older Peugeot in Section E. There are thousands like them in Paris and the license number is on the tab."

  "Alex told you I'm traveling deep?"

  "He didn't really have to. I believe our saint scoured the cemeteries for useful names when he worked here."

  "I probably learned it from him."

  "We all learned things from that extraordinary mind, the finest in our profession, yet so self-effacing, so ... je ne sais quoi ... so 'why not try it,' yes?"

  "Yes, why not try it."

  "I must tell you, though," said Bernardine, laughing. "He once chose a name, admittedly from a tombstone, that drove the Sûreté fou-crazy! It was the alias of an ax murderer the authorities had been hunting for months!"

  "That is funny," agreed Bourne, chuckling.

  "Yes, very. He told me later that he found it in Rambouillet-in a cemetery on the outskirts of Rambouillet."

  Rambouillet! The cemetery where Alex had tried to kill him thirteen years ago. All traces of a smile left Jason's lips as he stared at Alex's friend from the Deuxième Bureau. "You know who I am, don't you?" he asked softly.

  "Yes," answered Bernardine. "It was not so difficult to piece together, not with the rumors and the gossip out of the Far East. After all, it was here in Paris where you made your mark on Europe, Mr. Bourne."

  "Does anyone else know?"

  "Mon Dieu, non! Nor will they. I must explain, I owe my life to Alexander Conklin, our modest saint of les opérations noires-the black assignments in your language."

  "That's not necessary, I speak French fluently ... or didn't Alex tell you that?"

  "Oh, my God, you doubt me," said the Deuxième man, his gray eyebrows arched. "Take into account, young man-younger man-that I am in my seventieth year, and if I have lapses of language and try to correct them, it is because I mean to be kind, not subreptice."

  "D'accord. Je regrette. I mean that."

  "Bien. Alex is several years younger than I am, but I wonder how he's handling it. The age, that is."

  "Same as you. Badly."

  "There was an English poet-a Welsh poet, to be exact-who wrote, 'Do not go gently into that good night.' Do you remember it?"

  "Yes. His name was Dylan Thomas and he died in his mid-thirties. He was saying fight like a son of a bitch. Don't give in."

  "I mean to do that." Bernardine again reached into a pocket and pulled out a card. "Here is my office-merely consultant status, you understand-and on the back I've written down my home phone; it is a special telephone, actually unique. Call me; whatever you need will be provided. Remember, I am the only friend you have in Paris. No one else knows you are here."

  "May I ask you a question?"

  "Mais certainement."

  "How can you do the things you're doing for me when for all intents and purposes you've been put out to pasture?"

  "Ah," exclaimed the consultant to the Deuxième Bureau. "The younger man grows older! Like Alex, I carry my credentials in my head. I know the secrets. How is it otherwise?"

  "You could be taken out, neutralized-have an accident."

  "Stupide, young man! What is in both our heads we say is written down, locked away, to be revealed should such unnatural acts occur. ... Of course, it's all nonsense, for what do we really know that could not be denied, labeled as the ramblings of old men, but they do not know that. Fear, monsieur. It is the most potent weapon in our profession. Second, of course, is embarrassment, but that is usually reserved for the Soviet KGB and your Federal Bureau of Investigation, both of which fear embarrassment more than their nations' enemies."

  "You and Conklin come from the same street, don't you?"

  "But of course. To the best of my knowledge, neither of us has a
wife or a family, only sporadic lovers to fill our beds, and loud, annoying nephews and nieces to fill our flats on certain holidays; no really close friends except now and then an enemy we respect, who, for all we know and in spite of our truce, might shoot us or poison us with a drink. We must live alone, you see, for we are the professionals-we have nothing to do with the normal world; we merely use it as a couverture-as we slink around in dark alleys, paying or compromising people for secrets that mean nothing where summit conferences are concerned."

  "Then why do you do it? Why not walk away if it's so useless?"

  "It's in the blood rushing through our veins. We've been trained. Beat the enemy in the deadly game-he takes you or you take him, and it is better that you take him."

  "That's dumb."

  "But of course. It's all dumb. So why does Jason Bourne go after the Jackal here in Paris? Why doesn't he walk away and say Enough. Complete protection is yours for the asking."

  "So's prison. Can you get me out of here and into the city? I'll find a hotel and be in touch with you."

  "Before you are in touch with me, reach Alex."

  "What?"

  "Alex wants you to call him. Something happened."

  "Where's a phone?"

  "Not now. Two o'clock, Washington time; you have well over an hour. He won't be back before then."

  "Did he say what it was?"

  "I think he's trying to find out. He was very upset."

  The room at the Pont-Royal on the rue Montalembert was small and in a secluded corner of the hotel, reached by taking the slow, noisy brass elevator to the top floor and walking down two narrow intersecting hallways, all of which was satisfactory to Bourne. It reminded him of a mountain cave, remote and secure.

  To chew up the minutes before calling Alex, he walked along the nearby boulevard Saint-Germain, making necessary purchases. Various toiletries joined several articles of clothing; casual denims called for summer shirts and a lightweight safari jacket; dark socks required tennis shoes, to be scuffed and soiled. Whatever he could supply himself now would save time later. Fortunately, there was no need to press old Bernardine for a weapon. During the drive into Paris from Orly, the Frenchman had opened the glove compartment of his car in silence, withdrawn a taped brown box and handed it to Jason. Inside was an automatic with two boxes of shells. Underneath, neatly layered, were thirty thousand francs, in varying denominations, roughly five thousand dollars, American.

  "Tomorrow I will arrange a method for you to obtain funds whenever necessary. Within limits, of course."

  "No limits," Bourne had contradicted. "I'll have Conklin wire you a hundred thousand, and then another hundred after that, if it's necessary. You just tell him where."

  "Of contingency funds?"

  "No. Mine. Thanks for the gun."

  With both his hands holding the looped strings of shopping bags, he headed back to Montalembert and the hotel. In a few minutes it would be two in the afternoon in Washington, eight at night in Paris. As he walked rapidly down the street he tried not to think about Alex's news-an impossible demand on himself. If anything had happened to Marie and the children, he'd go out of his mind! Yet what could have happened? They were back on Tranquility by now, and there was no safer place for them. There was not! He was sure of that. As he entered the old elevator and lowered the bags in his right hand so as to push the number of his floor and remove the hotel key from his pocket, there was a stinging sensation in his neck; he gasped-he had moved too fast, stretched the gut of a suture perhaps. He felt no warm trickle of blood; it was merely a warning this time. He rushed down the two narrow corridors to his room, unlocked the door, threw the shopping bags on the bed, and rapidly took the three necessary steps to the desk and the telephone. Conklin was true to his word; the phone in Vienna, Virginia, was picked up on the first ring.

  "Alex, it's me. What happened? Marie ... ?"

  "No," interrupted Conklin curtly. "I spoke to her around noon. She and the kids are back at the inn and she's ready to kill me. She doesn't believe a word I told her and I'm going to erase the tape. I haven't heard that kind of language since the Mekong Delta."

  "She's upset-"

  "So am I," broke in Alex, not bothering to make light of Bourne's understatement. "Mo's disappeared."

  "What?"

  "You heard me. Panov's gone, vanished."

  "My God, how? He was guarded every minute!"

  "We're trying to piece it together; that's where I was, over at the hospital."

  "Hospital?"

  "Walter Reed. He was in a psych session with a military this morning, and when it was over he never came out to his detail. They waited twenty minutes or so, then went in to find him and his escort because he was on a tight schedule. They were told he left."

  "That's crazy!"

  "It gets crazier and scarier. The head floor nurse said an army doctor, a surgeon, came to the desk, showed his ID, and instructed her to tell Dr. Panov that there was a change of routing for him, that he was to use the east-wing exit because of an expected protest march at the main entrance. The east wing has a different hallway to the psych area than the one to the main lobby, yet the army surgeon used the main doors."

  "Come again?"

  "He walked right past our escort in the hallway."

  "And obviously out the same way and around to the east-wing hall. Nothing on-scene unusual. A doctor with clearance in a restricted area, in and out, and while he's in, he delivers false instructions. ... But, Christ, Alex, who? Carlos was on his way back here, to Paris! Whatever he wanted in Washington he got. He found me, he found us. He didn't need any more!"

  "DeSole," said Conklin quietly. "DeSole knew about me and Mo Panov. I threatened the Agency with both of us, and DeSole was there in the conference room."

  "I'm not with you. What are you telling me?"

  "DeSole, Brussels ... Medusa."

  "All right, I'm slow."

  "It's not he, David, it's they. DeSole was taken out, our connection removed. It's Medusa."

  "To hell with them! They're on my back burner!"

  "You're not on theirs. You cracked their shell. They want you."

  "I couldn't care less. I told you yesterday, I've only got one priority and he's in Paris, square one in Argenteuil."

  "Then I haven't been clear," said Alex, his voice faint, the tone defeated. "Last night I had dinner with Mo. I told him everything. Tranquility, your flying to Paris, Bernardine ... everything!"

  A former judge of the first circuit court, residing in Boston, Massachusetts, United States of America, stood among the small gathering of mourners on the flat surface of the highest hill on Tranquility Isle. The cemetery was the final resting place-in voce verbatim via amicus curiae, as he legally explained to the authorities on Montserrat. Brendan Patrick Pierre Prefontaine watched as the two splendid coffins provided by the generous owner of Tranquility Inn were lowered into the ground along with the absolutely incomprehensible blessings of the native priest, who no doubt usually had the neck of a dead chicken in his mouth while intoning his benediction in voodoo language. "Jean Pierre Fontaine" and his wife were at peace.

  Nevertheless, barbarism notwithstanding, Brendan, the quasi-alcoholic street lawyer of Harvard Square, had found a cause. A cause beyond his own survival, and that in itself was remarkable. Randolph Gates, Lord Randolph of Gates, Dandy Randy of the Courts of the Elite, was in reality a scumball, a conduit of death in the Caribbean. And the outlines of a scheme were forming in Prefontaine's progressively clearer mind, clearer because, among other inhumane deprivations, he had suddenly decided to do without his four shots of vodka upon waking up in the morning. Gates had provided the essential information that led the would-be killers of the Webb family to Tranquility Isle. Why? ... That was basically, even legally, irrelevant; the fact that he had supplied their whereabouts to known killers, with prior knowledge that they were killers, was not. That was accomplice to murder, multiple murder. Dandy Randy's testicles were in a vise, and as
the plates closed, he would-he had to-reveal information that would assist the Webbs, especially the glorious auburn-headed woman he wished to almighty God he had met fifty years ago.

  Prefontaine was flying back to Boston in the morning, but he had asked John St. Jacques if he might return one day. Perhaps not with a prepaid reservation.

  "Judge, my house is your house" was the reply.

  "I might even earn that courtesy."

  Albert Armbruster, chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, got out of his limousine and stood on the pavement before the steep steps of his town house in Georgetown. "Check with the office in the morning," he said to the chauffeur, holding the rear door. "As you know, I'm not a well man."

  "Yes, sir." The driver closed the door. "Would you like assistance, sir?"

  "Hell, no. Get out of here."

  "Yes, sir." The government chauffeur climbed into the front seat; the sudden roar of his engine was not meant as a courteous exit as he sped down the street.

  Armbruster climbed the stone staircase, his stomach and chest heaving with each step, cursing under his breath at the sight of his wife's silhouette beyond the glass door of their Victorian entrance. "Shit-kicking yapper," he said to himself as he neared the top, gripping the railing before facing his adversary of thirty years.

  A spit exploded out of the darkness from somewhere within the grounds of the property next door. Armbruster's arms flew up, his wrists bent as if trying to locate the bodily chaos; it was too late. The chairman of the Federal Trade Commission tumbled back down the stone staircase, his thumping dead weight landing grotesquely on the pavement below.