The Bourne Ultimatum jb-3

by Robert Ludlum

  The Chameleon walked out of the Bois de Boulogne to the nearest taxi station. Within minutes an ecstatic cabdriver accepted a hundred francs to remain in place at the end of the three-vehicle line, his passenger slumped in the rear seat waiting to hear the words.

  "The nun comes out, monsieur!" cried the driver. "She enters the first taxi!"

  "Follow it," said Jason, sitting up.

  On the avenue Victor Hugo, Lavier's taxi slowed down and pulled up in front of one of Paris's few exceptions to tradition-an open plastic-domed public telephone. "Stop here," ordered Bourne, who climbed out the instant the driver swung into the curb. Limping, the Chameleon walked swiftly, silently, to the telephone directly behind and unseen by the frantic nun under the plastic dome. He was not seen, but he could hear clearly as he stood several feet behind her.

  "The Meurice!" she shouted into the phone. "The name is Brielle. He'll be there at noon. ... Yes, yes, I'll stop at my flat, change clothes, and be there in an hour." Lavier hung up and turned, gasping at the sight of Jason. "No!" she screamed.

  "Yes, I'm afraid," said Bourne. "Shall we take my taxi or yours? ... 'He's old and gray-faced'-those were your words, Dominique. Pretty goddamned descriptive for someone who never met Carlos."

  A furious Bernardine walked out of the Pont-Royal with the doorman, who had summoned him. "This is preposterous!" he shouted as he approached the taxi. "No, it's not," he amended, looking inside. "It's merely insane."

  "Get in," said Jason on the far side of the woman dressed in the habit of a nun. Francois did so, staring at the black clothes, the white pointed hat and the pale face of the religious female between them. "Meet one of the Jackal's more talented performers," added Bourne. "She could make a fortune in your cinéma-vérité, take my word for it."

  "I'm not a particularly religious man, but I trust you have not made a mistake. ... I did-or should I say we did-with that pig of a baker."

  "Why?"

  "He's a baker, that's all he is! I damn near put a grenade in his ovens, but no one but a French baker could plead the way he did!"

  "It fits," said Jason. "The illogical logic of Carlos-I can't remember who said that, probably me." The taxi made a U-turn and entered the rue du Bac. "We're going to the Meurice," added Bourne.

  "I'm sure there's a reason," stated Bernardine, still looking at the enigmatically passive face of Dominique Lavier. "I mean, this sweet old lady says nothing."

  "I'm not old!" cried the woman vehemently.

  "Of course not, my dear," agreed the Deuxième veteran. "Only more desirable in your mature years."

  "Boy, did you hit it!"

  "Why the Meurice?" asked Bernardine.

  "It's the Jackal's final trap for me," answered Bourne. "Courtesy of our persuasive Magdalen Sister of Charity here. He expects me to be there and I'll be there."

  "I'll call in the Deuxième. Thanks to a frightened bureaucrat, they'll do anything I ask. Don't endanger yourself, my friend."

  "I don't mean to insult you, Francois, but you yourself told me you didn't know all of the people in the Bureau these days. I can't take the chance of a leak. One man could send out an alarm."

  "Let me help." The low soft-spoken voice of Dominique Lavier broke the hum of the outside traffic like the initial burr of a chain saw. "I can help."

  "I listened to your help before, lady, and it was leading me to my own execution. No thanks."

  "That was before, not now. As must be obvious to you, my position now is truly hopeless."

  "Didn't I hear those words recently?"

  "No, you did not. I just added the word 'now.' ... For God's sake, put yourself in my place. I can't pretend to understand, but this ancient boulevardier beside me casually mentions that he'll call in the Deuxième-the Deuxième, Monsieur Bourne! For some that is no less than France's Gestapo! Even if I survived, I'm marked by that infamous branch of the government. I'd no doubt be sent to some horrible penal colony halfway across the world-oh, I've heard the stories of the Deuxième!"

  "Really?" said Bernardine. "I haven't. Sounds positively marvelous. How wonderful."

  "Besides," continued Lavier, looking hard at Jason as she yanked the pointed white hat off her head, a gesture that caused the driver, seeing it in the rearview mirror, to raise his eyebrows. "Without me, without my presence in decidedly different clothing at the Meurice, Carlos won't come near the rue de Rivoli." Bernardine tapped the woman's shoulder, bringing his index finger to his lips and nodding toward the front seat. Dominique quickly added, "The man you wish to confer with will not be there."

  "She's got a point," said Bourne, leaning forward and looking past Lavier at the Deuxième veteran. "She's also got an apartment on the Montaigne, where she's supposed to change clothes, and neither of us can go in with her."

  "That poses a dilemma, doesn't it?" responded Bernardine. "There's no way we can monitor the telephone from outside in the street, is there?"

  "You fools! ... I have no choice but to cooperate with you, and if you can't see that you should be led around by trained dogs! This old, old man here will have my name in the Deuxième files the first chance he gets, and as the notorious Jason Bourne knows if he has even a nodding acquaintance with the Deuxième, several profound questions are raised-once raised by my sister, Jacqueline, incidentally. Who is this Bourne? Is he real or unreal? Is he the assassin of Asia or is he a fraud, a plant? She phoned me herself one night in Nice after too many brandies-a night perhaps you recall, Monsieur le Caméléon-a terribly expensive restaurant outside Paris. You threatened her ... in the name of powerful, unnamed people you threatened her! You demanded that she reveal what she knew about a certain acquaintance of hers-who it was at the time I had no idea-but you frightened her. She said you appeared deranged, that your eyes became glazed and you uttered words in a language she could not understand."

  "I remember," interrupted Bourne icily. "We had dinner and I threatened her and she was frightened. She went to the ladies' room, paid someone to make a phone call, and I had to get out of there."

  "And now the Deuxième is allied with those powerful unnamed people?" Dominique Lavier shook her head repeatedly and lowered her voice. "No, messieurs, I am a survivor and I do not fight against such odds. One knows when to pass the shoe in baccarat."

  After a short period of silence, Bernardine spoke. "What's your address on the avenue Montaigne? I'll give it to the driver, but before I do, understand me, madame. If your words prove false, all the true horrors of the Deuxième will be visited upon you."

  Marie sat at the room-service table in her small suite at the Meurice reading the newspapers. Her attention constantly strayed; concentration was out of the question. Her anxiety had kept her awake after she returned to the hotel shortly past midnight, having made the rounds of five cafés she and David had frequented so many years ago in Paris. Finally by four-something in the morning, exhaustion had short-circuited her tossing and turning; she fell asleep with the bedside lamp switched on, and was awakened by the same light nearly six hours later. It was the longest she had slept since that first night on Tranquility Isle, itself a distant memory now except for the very real pain of not seeing and hearing the children. Don't think about them, it hurts too much. Think about David. ... No, think about Jason Bourne! Where? Concentrate!

  She put down the Paris Tribune and poured herself a third cup of black coffee, glancing over at the French doors that led to a small balcony overlooking the rue de Rivoli. It disturbed her that the once bright morning had turned into a dismal gray day. Soon the rain would come, making her search in the streets even more difficult. Resigned, she sipped her coffee and replaced the elegant cup in the elegant saucer, annoyed that it was not one of the simple pottery mugs favored by David and her in their rustic country kitchen in Maine. Oh, God, would they ever be back there again? Don't think about such things! Concentrate! Out of the question.

  She picked up the Tribune, aimlessly scanning the pages, seeing only isolated words, no sentences or paragr
aphs, no continuity of thought or meaning, merely words. Then one stood out at the bottom of a meaningless column, a single meaningless line bracketed at the bottom of a meaningless page.

  The word was Memom, followed by a telephone number; and despite the fact that the Tribune was printed in English, the French in her switchable French-thinking brain absently translated the word as Maymohm. She was about to turn the page when a signal from another part of her brain screamed Stop!

  Memom ... mommy-turned around by a child struggling with his earliest attempts at language. Meemom! Jamie-their Jamie! The funny inverted name he had called her for several weeks! David had joked about it while she, frightened, had wondered if their son had dyslexia.

  "He could also just be confused, memom," David had laughed.

  David! She snapped up the page; it was the financial section of the paper, the section she instinctively gravitated to every morning over coffee. David was sending her a message! She pushed back her chair, crashing it to the floor as she grabbed the paper and rushed to the telephone on the desk. Her hands trembling, she dialed the number. There was no answer, and thinking that in her panic she had made an error or had not used the local Paris digit, she dialed again, now slowly, precisely.

  No answer. But it was David, she felt it, she knew it! He had been looking for her at the Trocadéro and now he was using a briefly employed nickname only the two of them would know! My love, my love, I've found you! ... She also knew she could not stay in the confining quarters of the small hotel suite, pacing up and down and dialing every other minute, driving herself crazy with every unanswered ring. When you're stressed out and spinning until you think you'll blow apart, find someplace where you can keep moving without being noticed. Keep moving! That's vital. You can't let your head explode. One of the lessons from Jason Bourne. Her head spinning, Marie dressed more rapidly than she had ever done in her life. She tore out the message from the Tribune and left the oppressive suite, trying not to run to the bank of elevators but needing the crowds of the Paris streets, where she could keep moving without being noticed. From one telephone kiosk to another.

  The ride down to the lobby was both interminable and insufferable, the latter because of an American couple-he laden with camera equipment, she with purple eyelids and a peroxide bouffant apparently set in concrete-who kept complaining that not enough people in Paris, France, spoke English. The elevator doors thankfully opened and Marie walked out rapidly into the crowded Meurice lobby.

  As she crossed the marble floor toward the large glass doors of the ornate filigreed entrance, she suddenly, involuntarily stopped as an elderly man in a dark pin-striped suit gasped, his slender body lurching forward in a heavy leather chair below on her right. The old man stared at her, his thin lips parted in astonishment, his eyes in shock.

  "Marie St. Jacques!" he whispered. "My God, get out of here!"

  "I beg your ... What?"

  The aged Frenchman quickly, with difficulty, rose to his feet, his head subtly, swiftly, jerking in short movements as he scanned the lobby. "You cannot be seen here, Mrs. Webb," he said, his voice still a whisper but no less harsh and commanding. "Don't look at me! Look at your watch. Keep your head down." The Deuxième veteran glanced away, nodding aimlessly at several people in nearby chairs as he continued, his lips barely moving. "Go out the door on the far left, the one used for luggage. Hurry!"

  "No!" replied Marie, her head down, her eyes on her watch. "You know me but I don't know you! Who are you?"

  "A friend of your husband."

  "My God, is he here?"

  "The question is why are you here?"

  "I stayed at this hotel once before. I thought he might remember it."

  "He did but in the wrong context, I'm afraid. Mon Dieu, he never would have chosen it otherwise. Now, leave."

  "I won't! I have to find him. Where is he?"

  "You will leave or you may find only his corpse. There's a message for you in the Paris Tribune-"

  "It's in my purse. The financial page. 'Memom-' "

  "Call in several hours."

  "You can't do this to me."

  "You cannot do this to him. You'll kill him! Get out of here. Now!"

  Her eyes half blinded with fury and fear and tears, Marie started toward the left side of the lobby, desperately wanting to look back, but just as desperately knowing she could not do so. She reached the narrow set of glass double doors, colliding with a uniformed bellhop carrying suitcases inside.

  "Pardon, madame!"

  "Moi aussi," she stammered, maneuvering again blindly around the luggage and out to the pavement. What could she do-what should she do? David was somewhere in the hotel-in the hotel! And a strange man recognized her and warned her and told her to get out-get away! What was happening? ... My God, someone's trying to kill David! The old Frenchman had said as much-who was it... who were they? Where were they?

  Help me! For God's sake, Jason, tell me what to do. Jason? ... Yes, Jason ... help me! She stood, frozen, as taxis and limousines broke off from the noonday traffic and pulled up to the Meurice's curb, where a gold-braided doorman under the huge canopy greeted newcomers and old faces and sent bellboys scurrying in all directions. A large black limousine with a small discreet religious insignia on its passenger door, the cruciform standard of some high office of the Church, inched its way to the canopied area. Marie stared at the small emblem; it was circular and no more than six inches in diameter, a globe of royal purple surrounding an elongated crucifix of gold. She winced and held her breath; her panic now had a disturbing new dimension. She had seen that insignia before, and all she remembered was that it had filled her with horror.

  The limousine stopped; both curbside doors were opened by the smiling, bowing doorman as five priests emerged, one from the front seat, four from the spacious rear section. Those from the back immediately, oddly, threaded their way into the noonday crowds of strollers on the pavement, two forward in front of the vehicle, two behind it, one of the priests whipping past Marie, his black coat making contact with her, his face so close she could see the blazing unpriestly eyes of a man who was no part of a religious order. ... Then the association with the emblem, the religious insignia, came back to her!

  Years ago, when David-when Jason-was in maximum therapy with Panov, Mo had him sketch, draw, doodle whatever images came to him. Time and again that terrible circle with the thin crucifix appeared ... invariably torn apart or stabbed repeatedly with the pencil point. The Jackal!

  Suddenly, Marie's eyes were drawn to a figure crossing the rue de Rivoli. It was a tall man in dark clothes-a dark sweater and trousers-and he was limping, dodging the traffic, a hand shielding his face from the drizzle that soon would turn into rain. The limp was false! The leg straightened if only for an instant and the swing of the shoulder that compensated was a defiant gesture she knew only too well. It was David!

  Another, no more than eight feet from her, also saw what she saw. A miniature radio was instantly brought to the man's lips. Marie rushed forward, her extended hands the claws of a tigress as she lunged at the killer in priest's clothing.

  "David!" she screamed, drawing blood from the face of the Jackal's man.

  Gunshots filled the rue de Rivoli. The crowds panicked, many running into the hotel, many more racing away from the canopied entrance, all shrieking, yelling, seeking safety from the murderous insanity that had suddenly exploded in the civilized street. In the violent struggle with the man who would kill her husband, the strong Canadian ranch girl ripped the automatic out of his belt and fired it into his head; blood and membranes were blown into the air.

  "Jason!" she screamed again as the killer fell, instantly realizing that she stood alone with only the corpse beneath her-she was a target! Then from certain death there was the sudden possibility of life. The old aristocratic Frenchman who had recognized her in the lobby came crashing out of the front entrance, his automatic weapon on repeat fire as he sprayed the black limousine, stopping for an instant to switc
h his aim and shattering the legs of a "priest" whose weapon was leveled at him.

  "Mon ami!" roared Bernardine.

  "Here!" shouted Bourne. "Where is she?"

  "A votre droite! Auprès de-" A single gunshot exploded from the glass double doors of the Meurice. As he fell the Deuxième veteran cried out, "Les Capucines, mon ami. Les Capucines!" Bernardine slumped to the pavement; a second gunshot ended his life.

  Marie was paralyzed, she could not move! Everything was a blizzard, a hurricane of iced particles crashing with such force against her face she could neither think nor find meaning. Weeping out of control, she fell to her knees, then collapsed in the street, her screams of despair clear to the man who suddenly was above her. "My children ... oh God, my children!"

  "Our children," said Jason Bourne, his voice not the voice of David Webb. "We're getting out of here, can you understand that?"

  "Yes ... yes!" Marie awkwardly, painfully, swung her legs behind her and lurched to her feet, held by the husband she either knew or did not know. "David?"

  "Of course I'm David. Come on!"

  "You frighten me-"

  "I frighten myself. Let's go! Bernardine gave us our exit. Run with me; hold my hand!"

  They raced down the rue de Rivoli, swinging east into the boulevard St.-Michel until the Parisian strollers in their nonchalance de jour made it clear that the fugitives were safe from the horrors of the Meurice. They stopped m an alleyway and held each other.

  "Why did you do it?" asked Marie, cupping his face. "Why did you run away from us?"

  "Because I'm better without you, you know that."

  "You weren't before, David-or should I say Jason?"

  "Names don't matter, we have to move!"

  "Where to?"

  "I'm not sure. But we can move, that's the important thing. There's a way out. Bernardine gave it to us."

  "He was the old Frenchman?"

  "Let's not talk about him, okay? At least not for a while. I'm shredded enough."

  "All right, we won't talk about him. Still, he mentioned Les Capucines-what did he mean?"