The Bourne Ultimatum jb-3

by Robert Ludlum

"That's him out there, isn't it? He wants the kill all to himself-nothing else matters to him."

  Suddenly a flashlight, its powerful beam blinding, was thrown through a shattered window. Instantly, Bourne raised the MAC-10 and blew the shiny metal tube away, extinguishing the light. The damage, however, had been done; their bodies had been seen.

  "Over here!" screamed Alex, grabbing Jason and diving behind the counter as a murderous barrage came from the blurred silhouette in the window. It stopped; there was the crack of a bolt.

  "He has to reload!" whispered Bourne, with the break in the fire. "Stay here!" Jason stood up and raced to the gate doors, crashing through them, his weapon gripped in his right hand, his body prone, tense, prepared to kill-if the years would permit it. They had to permit it!

  He crawled through the gate he had opened for Marie and spun on the ground to his right, scrambling along the fence. He was Delta-of Saigon's Medusa ... he could do it! There was no friendly jungle now, but there was everything he could use-Delta could use-the darkness, the intermittent blocks of shadows from the myriad clouds intercepting the moonlight. Use everything! It was what you were trained to do ... so many years ago-so many. Forget it, forget time! Do it! The animal only yards away wants you dead-your wife dead, your children dead. Dead!

  It was the quickness born of pure fury that propelled him, obsessed him, and he knew that to win he had to win quickly, with all the speed that was in him. He crept swiftly along the fence that enclosed the airfield, and past the corner of the terminal, prepared for the instant of exposure. The lethal submachine gun was still gripped in his hand, his index finger now on the trigger. There was a cluster of wild shrubbery preceding two thick trees no more than thirty feet away; if he could reach them, the advantage was his. He would have the "high ground," the Jackal in the valley of death, if only because he was behind the assassin and unseen.

  He reached the shrubbery. And at the moment he heard a massive smashing of glass followed by yet another fusillade-this time so prolonged that the entire magazine had to have been emptied. He had not been seen; the figure by the window had backed away to reload, his concentration on that task, not on the possibility of an escape. Carlos, too, was growing old and losing his finesse, thought Jason Bourne. Where were the flares intrinsic to such an operation? Where were the alert, roving eyes that loaded weapons in total darkness?

  Darkness. A cloud cover blocked the yellow rays of the moon; there was darkness. He vaulted over the fence, concealing himself behind the shrubbery, then raced to the first of the two trees where he could stand upright, view the scene and consider his options.

  Something was wrong. There was a primitiveness he could not associate with the Jackal. The assassin had isolated the terminal, ad valorem, and the price was high, but there was an absence of the finer points of the deadly equation. The subtlety was not there; instead, there was a brute force, hardly to be denied, but not when employed against the man they called Jason Bourne who had escaped from the trap.

  The figure by the shattered window had spent his ammunition; he reeled back against the building, pulling another magazine out of his pocket. Jason raced out of the cover of the trees, his MAC-10 on automatic fire, exploding the dirt in front of the killer, then circling the bullets around his frame.

  "That's it!" he shouted, closing in on the assassin. "You're dead, Carlos, with one pull of my finger-if you are the Jackal!"

  The man by the shattered window threw down his weapon. "I am not he, Mr. Bourne," said the executioner from Larchmont, New York. "We've met before, but I am not the person you think I am."

  "Hit the ground, you son of a bitch!" The killer did so as Jason approached. "Spread your legs and your arms!" The command was obeyed. "Raise your head!"

  The man did so, and Bourne stared at the face, vaguely illuminated by the distant glow of the amber lights on the airfield's runway. "You see now?" said Mario. "I'm not who you think I am."

  "My God," whispered Jason, his incredulity all too apparent. "You were in the driveway in Manassas, Virginia. You tried to kill Cactus, then me!"

  "Contracts, Mr. Bourne, nothing more."

  "What about the tower? The air controller here in the tower!"

  "I do not kill indiscriminately. Once the plane from Poitiers was given clearance to land, I told him to leave. ... Forgive me, but your wife was also on the list. Fortunately, as she is a mother, it was beyond my abilities."

  "Who the hell are you?"

  "I just told you. A contract employee."

  "I've seen better."

  "I'm not, perhaps, in your league, but I serve my organization well."

  "Jesus, you're Medusa!"

  "I've heard the name, but that's all I can tell you. ... Let me make one thing clear, Mr. Bourne. I will not leave my wife a widow, or my children orphans for the sake of a contract. That position simply isn't viable. They mean too much to me."

  "You'll spend a hundred and fifty years in prison, and that's only if you're prosecuted in a state that doesn't have the death penalty."

  "Not with what I know, Mr. Bourne. My family and I will be well taken care of-a new name, perhaps a nice farm in the Dakotas or Wyoming. You see, I knew this moment had to come."

  "What's come now, you bastard, is that a friend of mine inside there is shot up! You did it!"

  "A truce, then?" said Mario.

  "What the hell do you mean by that?"

  "I have a very fast car a half mile away." The killer from Larchmont, New York, pulled a square instrument from his belt. "It can be here in less than a minute. I'm sure the driver knows the nearest hospital."

  "Do it!"

  "It's done, Jason Bourne," said Mario, pressing a button.

  Morris Panov had been rolled into the operating room; Louis DeFazio was still on a gurney, as it was determined that his wound was superficial. And through back-channel negotiations between Washington and Quai d'Orsay, the criminal known only as Mario was securely in the custody of the American embassy in Paris.

  A white-frocked doctor came out into the hospital's waiting room; both Conklin and Bourne got to their feet, frightened. "I will not pretend to be a bearer of glad tidings," said the physician in French, "for it would be quite wrong. Both lungs of your friend were punctured, as well as the wall of his heart. He has at best a forty-sixty chance of survival-against him, I'm afraid. Still, he is a strong-willed man who wants to live. At times that means more than all the medical negatives. What else can I tell you?"

  "Thank you, Doctor." Jason turned away.

  "I have to use a telephone," said Alex to the surgeon. "I should go to our embassy, but I haven't the time. Do I have any guarantee that I won't be tapped, overheard?"

  "I imagine you have every guarantee," replied the physician. "We wouldn't know how to do it. Use my office, please."

  "Peter?"

  "Alex!" cried Holland from Langley, Virginia. "Everything go all right? Did Marie get off?"

  "To answer your first question, no, everything did not go all right; and as far as Marie goes, you can expect a panicked phone call from her the minute she reaches Marseilles. That pilot won't touch his radio."

  "What?"

  "Tell her we're okay, that David's not hurt-"

  "What are you talking about?" broke in the director of Central Intelligence.

  "We were ambushed while waiting for the plane from Poitiers. I'm afraid Mo Panov's in bad shape, so bad I don't want to think about it right now. We're in a hospital and the doctor's not encouraging."

  "Oh, God, Alex, I'm sorry."

  "In his own way, Mo's a fighter. I'll still bet on him. Incidentally, don't tell Marie. She thinks too much."

  "Of course not. Is there anything I can do?"

  "Yes, there is, Peter. You can tell me why Medusa's here in Paris."

  "In Paris? It's not according to everything I know and I know a hell of a lot."

  "Our identification's positive. The two guns that hit us an hour ago were sent over by Medusa. We've even
got a confession of sorts."

  "I don't understand!" protested Holland. "Paris never entered into our thinking. There's no linkage in the scenario."

  "Sure, there is," contradicted the former station chief. "You said it yourself. You called it a self-fulfilling prophecy, remember? The ultimate logic that Bourne conceived as a theory. Medusa joining up with the Jackal, the target Jason Bourne."

  "That's the point, Alex. It was only a theory, hypothetically convincing, but still just a theory, the basis for a sound strategy. But it never happened."

  "It obviously did."

  "Not from this end. As far as we're concerned, Medusa's now in Moscow."

  "Moscow?" Conklin nearly dropped the phone on the doctor's desk.

  "That's right. We've concentrated on Ogilvie's law firm in New York, tapping everything that could be tapped. Somehow-and we don't know how-Ogilvie was tipped off and got out of the country. He took an Aeroflot to Moscow, and the rest of his family headed to Marrakesh."

  "Ogilvie ... ?" Alex could barely be heard; frowning, his memory peeled away the years. "From Saigon? A legal officer from Saigon?"

  "That's right. We're convinced he runs Medusa."

  "And you withheld that information from me?"

  "Only the name of the firm. I told you we had our priorities and you had yours. For us, Medusa came first."

  "You simple swab jockey!" exploded Conklin. "I know Ogilvie-more precisely, I knew him. Let me tell you what they called him in Saigon: Ice-Cold Ogilvie, the smoothest-talking legal scumball in Vietnam. With a few subpoenas and some research, I could have told you where a few of his courtroom skeletons were buried-you blew it! You could have pulled him in for fixing the army courts in a couple of killings-there are no statutes, civilian or military, on those crimes. Jesus, why didn't you tell me?"

  "In all honesty, Alex, you never asked. You simply assumed-rightly so-that I wouldn't tell you."

  "All right, all right, it's done-to hell with it. By tomorrow or the next day you'll have our two Medusans, so go to work on them. They both want to save their asses-the capo's a slime, but his sharpshooter keeps praying for his family and it's not organizational."

  "What are you going to do?" pressed Holland.

  "We're on our way to Moscow."

  "After Ogilvie?"

  "No, the Jackal. But if I see Bryce, I'll give him your regards."

  35

  Buckingham Pritchard sat next to his uniformed uncle, Cyril Sylvester Pritchard, deputy director of immigration, in the office of Sir Henry Sykes at Government House in Montserrat. Beside them, on the deputy's right, was their attorney, the finest native solicitor Sykes could persuade to advise the Pritchards in the event that the Crown brought a case against them as accessories to terrorism. Sir Henry sat behind the desk and glanced in partial shock at the lawyer, one Jonathan Lemuel, who raised his head and eyes to the ceiling, not to have the benefit of the tropic fan that stirred the humid air but to show disbelief. Lemuel was a Cambridge-educated attorney, once a "scholarship boy" from the colonies, who years ago had made his money in London and returned in the autumn of his life to his native 'Serrat to enjoy the fruits of his labors. Actually, Sir Henry had persuaded his retired black friend to give assistance to a couple of idiots who might have involved themselves in a serious international matter.

  The cause of Sir Henry's shock and Jonathan Lemuel's disbelief cum exasperation came about through the following exchange between Sykes and the deputy director of immigration.

  "Mr. Pritchard, we've established that your nephew overheard a telephone conversation between John St. Jacques and his brother-in-law, the American Mr. David Webb. Further, your nephew Buckingham Pritchard here, freely, even enthusiastically, admits calling you with certain information contained in that conversation and that you in turn emphatically stated that you had to reach Paris immediately. Is this true?"

  "It is all completely true, Sir Henry."

  "Whom did you reach in Paris? What's the telephone number?"

  "With respect, sir, I am sworn to secrecy."

  At that succinct and totally unexpected reply, Jonathan Lemuel had lifted his astonished eyes to the ceiling.

  Sykes, regaining his composure, put an end to the brief pause of amazement. "What was that, Mr. Pritchard?"

  "My nephew and I are part of an international organization involving the great leaders of the world, and we have been sworn to secrecy."

  "Good God, he believes it," muttered Sir Henry.

  "Oh, for heaven's sake," said Lemuel, lowering his head. "Our telephone service here is not the most sophisticated, especially where pay phones are concerned, which I presume you were instructed to use, but within a day or so that number can be traced. Why not simply give it to Sir Henry now. He obviously needs to know quickly, so where is the harm?"

  "The harm, sir, is to our superiors in the organization-that was made explicitly clear to me personally."

  "What's the name of this international organization?"

  "I don't know, Sir Henry. That is part of the confidensheeality, do you not see?"

  "I'm afraid you're the one who doesn't see, Mr. Pritchard," said Sykes, his voice clipped, his anger surfacing.

  "Oh, but I do, Sir Henry, and I shall prove it to you!" interrupted the deputy, looking at each man as if to draw the skeptical Sykes and the astonished attorney, as well as his adoring nephew, into his confidence. "A large sum of money was wired from a private banking institution in Switzerland directly to my own account here in Montserrat. The instructions were clear, if flexible. The funds were to be used liberally in pursuit of the assignments delegated to me. ... Transportation, entertainment, lodgings-I was told I had complete discretion, but, of course, I keep a record of all expenditures, as I do as the second highest officer of immigration. ... Who but vastly superior people would put such trust in a man they knew only by an enviable reputation and position?"

  Henry Sykes and Jonathan Lemuel again looked at each other, astonishment and disbelief now joined by total fascination. Sir Henry leaned forward over the desk. "Beyond this-shall we say-in-depth observation of John St. Jacques requiring the obvious services of your nephew, have you been given other assignments?"

  "Actually not, sir, but I'm sure that as soon as the leaders see how expeditiously I have performed, others will follow."

  Lemuel raised his hand calmly a few inches off the arm of his chair to inhibit a red-faced Sykes. "Tell me," he said quickly, gently. "This large sum of money sent from Switzerland, just how large was it? The amount doesn't matter legally, and Sir Henry can always call your bank under the laws of the Crown, so please tell us."

  "Three hundred pounds!" replied the elder Pritchard, the pride of his value in his voice.

  "Three hundred?" The solicitor's words trailed off.

  "Not exactly staggering, eh?" mumbled Sir Henry, leaning back, speechless.

  "Roughly," continued Lemuel, "what's been your expenses?"

  "Not roughly, but precisely," affirmed the deputy director of immigration, removing a small notebook from the breast pocket of his uniform.

  "My brilliant uncle is always precise," offered Buckingham Pritchard.

  "Thank you, Nephew."

  "How much?" insisted the attorney.

  "Precisely twenty-six pounds, five shillings, English, or the equivalent of one hundred thirty-two East Caribbean dollars, the EC's rounded off to the nearest double zero at the latest rate of exchange-in this case I absorbed forty-seven cents, so entered."

  "Amazing," intoned Sykes, numbed.

  "I've scrupulously kept every receipt," went on the deputy, gathering steam as he continued reading. "They're locked in a strongbox at my flat on Old Road Bay, and include the following: a total of seven dollars and eighteen cents for local calls to Tranquility-I would not use my official phone; twenty-three dollars and sixty-five cents for the long-distance call to Paris; sixty-eight dollars and eighty cents ... dinner for myself and my nephew at Vue Point, a business conference, na
turally-"

  "That will do," interrupted Jonathan Lemuel, wiping his perspiring black brow with a handkerchief, although the tropical fan was perfectly adequate for the room.

  "I am prepared to submit everything at the proper time-"

  "I said that will do, Cyril."

  "You should know that I refused a taxi driver when he offered to inflate the price of a receipt and soundly criticized him in my official position."

  "Enough!" thundered Sykes, the veins in his neck pronounced. "You both have been damn fools of the first magnitude! To have even considered John St. Jacques a criminal of any sort is preposterous!"

  "Sir Henry," broke in the younger Pritchard. "I myself saw what happened at Tranquility Inn! It was so horrible. Coffins on the dock, the chapel blown up, government boats around our peaceful isle-gunshots, sir! It will be months before we're back in full operation."

  "Exactly!" roared Sykes. "And do you believe Johnny St. Jay would willingly destroy his own property, his own business?"

  "Stranger things have happened in the outside criminal world, Sir Henry," said Cyril Sylvester Pritchard knowingly. "In my official capacity I've heard many, many stories. The incidents my nephew described are called diversionary tactics employed to create the illusion that the scoundrels are victims. It was all thoroughly explained to me."

  "Oh, it was, was it?" cried the former brigadier of the British army. "Well, let me explain something else, shall I? You've been duped by an international terrorist wanted the world over! Do you know the universal penalty for aiding and abetting such a killer? I'll make it plain, in case it's escaped your attention-in your official capacity, of course. ... It is death by firing squad or, less charitably, a public hanging! Now, what's that goddamned number in Paris?"

  "Under the circumstances," said the deputy, summoning what dignity he could despite the fact that his trembling nephew clutched his left arm and his hand shook as he reached for his notebook. "I'll write it out for you. ... One asks for a blackbird. In French, Sir Henry. I speak a few words, Sir Henry. In French-Sir Henry."

  Summoned by an armed guard dressed casually as a weekend guest in white slacks and a loose, bulky white linen jacket, John St. Jacques walked into the library of their new safe house, an estate on Chesapeake Bay. The guard, a muscular, medium-sized man with clean-cut Hispanic features, stood inside the doorway; he pointed to the telephone on the large cherry-wood desk. "It's for you, Mr. Jones. It's the director."