The Bourne Ultimatum jb-3

by Robert Ludlum

  "What's he shouting about?" asked Jason, turning to Benjamin.

  "He's trying to convince them it is-or was-an earthquake. They don't believe him; they think it's an invasion. He's telling them it couldn't be because there's been no gunfire."

  "Gunfire?"

  "That's his proof. Nobody's shooting at anybody and they sure as hell would be if there was an armed attack. No gunshots, no attack."

  "Gunshots ... ?" Bourne suddenly grabbed the young Soviet and spun him around. "Tell him to stop! For God's sake, stop him!"

  "What?"

  "He's giving the Jackal the opening he wants-he needs!"

  "Now what are you talking about?"

  "Gunfire ... gunshots, confusion!"

  "Nyet!" screamed a woman, breaking through the crowd and shouting at the officer in the center of the searchlight beams. "The explosions are bombs! They come from bombers above!"

  "You are foolish," cried the colonel, replying in Russian. "If it was an air raid, our fighter planes from Belopol would fill the sky! ... The explosions come out of the earth, the fires out of the earth, from the gases below-" These false words were the last words the Soviet officer would ever speak.

  A staccato volley of automatic gunfire burst from the shadows of the tunnel's parking area cutting the Russian down, his instantly limp, punctured body collapsing and falling off the roof of the gatehouse, plummeting to the ground out of sight at the rear. The already frantic crowd went rabid; the ranks of uniformed "American" soldiers broke, and if chaos had ruled previously, nihilistic mobocracy now reigned supreme. The narrow, fenced entrance to the tunnel was virtually stormed, racing figures colliding, pummeling, climbing over one another, rushing en masse toward the mouth of the underwater access. Jason pulled his young trainer to the side of the stampeding hordes, never for an instant taking his eyes off the darkened parking area.

  "Can you operate the tunnel's machinery?" he shouted.

  "Yes! Everyone on the senior staff can, it's part of the job!"

  "The iron gates you told me about?"

  "Of course."

  "Where are the mechanisms?"

  "The guardhouse."

  "Get in there!" yelled Bourne, taking one of the three remaining flares out of his field jacket pocket and handing it to Benjamin. "I've got two more of these and two other grenades. ... When you see one of my flares go over the crowd, lower those gates on this side-only this side, understood?"

  "What for?"

  "My rules, Ben! Do it! Then ignite this flare and throw it out the window so I'll know it's done."

  "Then what?"

  "Something you may not want to do, but you have to. ... Take the 'forty-seven' from the colonel's body and force the crowd, shoot it back into the street. Rapid fire into the ground in front of them-or above them-do whatever you have to do, even if it means wounding a few. Whatever the cost, it must be done. I have to find him, isolate him, above all, cut him off from everyone else trying to get out."

  "You're a goddamned maniac," broke in Benjamin, the veins pronounced in his forehead. "I could kill 'a few'-more than a few! You're crazy!"

  "At this moment I'm the most rational man you've ever met," interrupted Jason harshly, rapidly, as the panicked residents of Novgorod kept rushing by. "There's not a sane general in the Soviet army-the same army that retook Stalingrad-who wouldn't agree with me. ... It's called the 'calculated estimate of losses,' and there's a very good reason for that lousy verbiage. It simply means you're paying a lot less for what you're getting now than you'd pay later."

  "You're asking too much! These people are my comrades, my friends; they're Russians. Would you fire into a crowd of Americans? One recoil of my hands-an inch, two inches with a 'forty-seven'-and I could maim or kill half a dozen people! The risk's too great!"

  "You don't have a choice. If the Jackal gets by me-and I'll know it if he does-I'll throw in a grenade and kill twenty."

  "You son of a bitch!"

  "Believe it, Ben. Where Carlos is concerned I'm a son of a bitch. I can't afford him any longer, the world can't afford him. Move!"

  The trainer named Benjamin spat in Bourne's face, then turned and began fighting his way to the guardhouse and the unseen corpse of the colonel beyond. Almost unconsciously Jason wiped his face with the back of his hand, his concentration solely on the fenced parking area, his eyes darting from one pocket of shadows to another, trying to center in on the origins of the automatic gunfire, yet knowing it was pointless; the Jackal had changed position by then. He counted the other vehicles in addition to the fuel truck; there were nine parked by the fence-two station wagons, four sedans and three suburban vans, all American-made or simulated as such. Carlos was concealed beyond one of them or possibly the fuel truck, the last unlikely as it was the farthest away from the open gate in the fence that permitted access to the guardhouse and thus to the tunnel.

  Jason crouched and crawled forward; he reached the waist-high fence, the pandemonium behind him continuous, deafening. Every muscle and joint in his legs and arms pounded with pain; cramps were developing everywhere, everywhere! Don't think about them, don't acknowledge them. You're too close, David! Keep going. Jason Bourne knows what to do. Trust him!

  Aaughh! He spun his body over the fence; the handle of his sheathed bayonet embedded itself in his kidney. There is no pain! You're too close, David-Jason. Listen to Jason!

  The searchlights-someone had pressed something and they went crazy, spinning around in circles, abrupt, blinding, out of control! Where would Carlos go? Where could he hide? The beams were erratically piercing everywhere! Then, from an opening that he could not see from across the fenced-in area, two police cars raced inside, their sirens blaring. Uniformed men leaped out from every door, and contrary to anything he expected to see, each scrambled to the borders of the fence, behind the cars and the vans, one after another dashing from one vehicle to another to the open gate that led to the guardhouse and the tunnel.

  There was a break in space, in time. In men! The last four escapees from the second car were suddenly three-and only moments later did the fourth appear-but he was not the same-the uniform was not the same! There were specks of orange and red, and the visored officer's cap was laced with gold ribbing, the visor itself too prominent for the American army, the crown of the cap too pointed. What was it? ... And, suddenly, Bourne understood. Fragments of his memories spiraled back years to Madrid or Casavieja, when he was tracing the Jackal's contracts with the Falangists. It was a Spanish uniform! That was it! Carlos had infiltrated through the Spanish compound, and as his Russian was fluent, he was using the high-ranking uniform to make his escape from Novgorod.

  Jason lurched to his feet, his automatic drawn, and ran across the graveled lot, his left hand reaching into his field jacket pocket for his second-to-last flare. He pulled the release and hurled the fired stalk above the cars, beyond the fence. Benjamin would not see it from the guardhouse and mistake it for the signal to close the gates of the tunnel; that signal would come shortly-in seconds, perhaps-but at the moment it was premature, again perhaps by seconds.

  "Eto srochno!" roared one of the escaping men, spinning around and panicked at the sight of the hissing, blinding flare.

  "Skoryeye!" shouted another, passing three companions and racing toward the open section of the fence. As the whirling searchlights continued their maniacal spinning, Bourne counted the seven figures as one by one they dashed away from the last car and passed through the opening, joining the excited crowds at the mouth of the tunnel. The eighth man did not appear; the high-ranking Spanish uniform was nowhere in sight. The Jackal was trapped!

  Now! Jason whipped out his last flare, yanked the release, and threw it with all his strength over the stream of rushing men and women at the guardhouse. Do it, Ben! he screamed in silence as he removed the next-to-last grenade from the pocket of his field jacket. Do it now!

  As if in answer to his fevered plea, a thunderous roar came from the tunnel, round after round of hysteric
al protestations punctuated by screams and shrieks and wailing chaos. Two rapid, deafening bursts of automatic gunfire preceded unintelligible commands over the speakers, shouted in Russian. ... Another burst and the same voice continued, louder, even more authoritative, as the crowd momentarily but perceptibly quieted down, only to suddenly resume screaming at full volume. Bourne glanced over, astonished to see through the beams of the spinning searchlights the figure of Benjamin now standing on the roof of the concrete guardhouse. The young trainer was shouting into the microphone, exhorting the crowd to follow his instructions, whatever they were. ... And whatever they were, they were being obeyed! The multitude gradually, then gathering momentum, began reversing direction-then, as a single unit, started racing back into the street! Benjamin ignited his flare and waved it, pointing to the north. He was sending Jason his own signal. Not only was the tunnel shut down but the crowds were being dispersed without anyone being shot with the AK-47. There had been a better way.

  Bourne dropped to the ground, his eyes scanning the under sides of the stationary vehicles, the spewing flame beyond lighting up the open spaces. ... A pair of legs-in boots! Behind the third automobile on the left, no more than twenty yards from the break in the fence that led to the tunnel. Carlos was his! The end was at last in sight! No time! Do what you have to do and do it quickly! He dropped his weapon on the gravel, gripped the grenade in his right hand, pulled the pin, grabbed the .45 with his left hand and lurched off the ground, racing forward. Roughly thirty feet from the car he dived back down into the gravel, turned sideways and heaved the grenade under the automobile-only at the last instant, the small bomb having left his hand, realizing that he had made a terrible error! The legs behind the car did not move-the boots remained in place, for they were just that, boots! He lunged to his right, rolling furiously over the sharp stones, shielding his face, curling his body into the smallest mass he could manage.

  The explosion was deafening, the lethal debris joining the whirling beams of the searchlights in the night sky, fragments of metal and glass stinging Jason's back and legs. Move, move! screamed the voice in his mind's ears as he lurched to his knees, then to his feet in the smoke and fire of the burning automobile. As he did so the gravel erupted all around him; he zigzagged wildly toward the protection of the nearest vehicle, a square-shaped van. He was hit twice, in his shoulder and thigh! He spun around the wall of the van at the precise moment when the large windshield was blown away.

  "You're no match for me, Jason Bourne!" screamed Carlos the Jackal, his automatic weapon on rapid fire. "You never were! You are a pretender, a fraud!"

  "So be it," roared Bourne. "Then come and get me!" Jason raced to the driver's door, yanked it open, then ran to the back of the vehicle where he crouched, his face to the edge, his Colt .45 angled straight up next to his cheek. With a final hissing expulsion, the flare beyond the fence burned itself out as the Jackal stopped his continuous fire. Bourne understood. Carlos faced the open door, unsure, indecisive ... only seconds to go. Metal against metal; a gun barrel was rammed against the door, slamming it shut. Now!

  Jason spun around the edge of the van, his weapon exploding, firing into the Spanish uniform, blowing the gun out of the Jackal's hands. One, two, three; the shells flew in the air-and then they stopped! They stopped, the explosions replaced by a sickening, jamming click as the round in the chamber failed to eject. Carlos lurched to the ground for his weapon, his left arm limp and bleeding but his right hand still strong, clutching the gun like the claw of a crazed animal.

  Bourne whipped his bayonet out of its scabbard– and sprang forward, slicing the blade down toward the Jackal's forearm. He was too late! Carlos held the weapon! Jason lunged up, his left hand clasping the hot barrel-hold on, hold on! You can't let it go! Twist it! Clockwise! Use the bayonet-no, don't! Drop it! Use both hands! The conflicting commands clashed in his head, madness. He had no breath, no strength; his eyes could not focus-the shoulder. Like Bourne himself, the Jackal was wounded in his right shoulder!

  Hold on! Reach the shoulder but hold on! With a last, gasping final surge, Bourne shot up and crashed Carlos back into the side of the van, pummeling the wounded area. The Jackal screamed, dropping the weapon, then kicked it under the vehicle.

  Where the blow came from, Jason at first did not know; he only knew that the left side of his skull seemed suddenly split in two. Then he realized that he had done it to himself! He had slipped on the blood-covered gravel, and had crashed into the metal grille of the van. It did not matter-nothing mattered!

  Carlos the Jackal was racing away! With the rampant confusion everywhere, there were a hundred ways he could get out of Novgorod. It had all been for nothing!

  Still, there was his last grenade. Why not? Bourne removed it, pulled the pin, and threw it over the van into the center of the parking area. The explosion followed and Jason got to his feet; perhaps the grenade would tell Benjamin something, warn him to keep his eyes on the area.

  Staggering and barely able to walk, Jason started for the break in the fence that led to the guardhouse and the tunnel." Oh, God, Marie, I failed! I'm so sorry. Nothing! It was for nothing! And then, as if all Novgorod were having a final laugh at his expense, he saw that someone had opened the iron gates to the tunnel, giving the Jackal his invitation to freedom.

  "Archie ... ?" Benjamin's astonished voice floated over the sounds of the river, followed by the sight of the young Soviet running out of the guardhouse toward Bourne. "Christ almighty, I thought you were dead!"

  "So you opened the gates and let my executioner walk away," yelled Jason weakly. "Why didn't you send a limousine for him?"

  "I suggest you look again, Professor," replied a breathless Benjamin as he stopped in front of Bourne, studying Jason's battered face and bloodstained clothing. "Old age has withered your eyesight."

  "What?"

  "You want gates, you'll have gates." The trainer shouted an order toward the guardhouse in Russian. Seconds later the huge iron gates descended, covering the mouth of the tunnel. But something was strange. Bourne had not actually seen the lowered gates before, yet these were not like anything he might have imagined. They appeared to be ... swollen somehow, distorted perhaps. "Glass," said Benjamin.

  "Glass?" asked a bewildered Jason.

  "At each end of the tunnel, five-inch-thick walls of glass, locked and sealed."

  "What are you talking about?" It was not necessary for the young Russian to explain. Suddenly, like a series of gigantic waves crashing against the walls of a huge aquarium, the tunnel was being filled with the waters of the Volkhov River. Then within the violence of the growing, swirling liquid mass, there was an object ... a thing, a form, a body! Bourne stared in shock, his eyes bulging, his mouth gaped, frozen in place, unable to disgorge the cry that was in him. He summoned what strength he had left, running unsteadily, twice falling to his knees, but gathering speed with each stride, and raced to the massive wall of glass that sealed the entrance beyond it. Breathlessly, his chest heaving, he placed his hands against the glass wall and leaned into it, bearing witness to the macabre scene barely inches in front of him. The grotesquely uniformed corpse of Carlos the Jackal kept crashing back and forth into the steel bars of the gate, his dark features twisted in hate, his eyes two glass orbs reviling death as it overtook him.

  The cold eyes of Jason Bourne watched in satisfaction, his mouth taut, rigid, the face of a killer, a killer among killers, who had won. Briefly, however, the softer eyes of David Webb intruded, his lips parted, forming the face of a man for whom the weight of a world he loathed had been removed.

  "He's gone, Archie," observed Benjamin at Jason's side. "That bastard can't come back."

  "You flooded the tunnel," said Bourne simply. "How did you know it was him?"

  "You didn't have an automatic weapon, but he did. Frankly, I thought Krupkin's prophecy was-shall we say-borne out? You were dead, and the man who killed you would take the quickest way out. This was it and the uniform confirmed it
. Everything suddenly made sense from the 'Spanish' compound down."

  "How did you get that crowd away?"

  "I told them barges were being sent to take them across the river-about two miles north. ... Speaking of Krupkin, I've got to get you out of here. Now. Come on, the helicopter pad's about a half a mile away. We'll use the jeep. Hurry up, for God's sake!"

  "Krupkin's instructions?"

  "Choked from his hospital bed, in as much anger as in shock."

  "What do you mean?"

  "You might as well know. Someone up in the rarefied circle-Krupkin doesn't know who-issued the order that you weren't to leave here under any conditions. Put plainly, it was unthinkable, but then no one ever thought that the whole goddamned Novgorod would go up in flames, either, and that's our cover."

  "Ours?"

  "I'm not your executioner, somebody else is. The word never reached me and in this mess it won't now."

  "Wait a minute! Where's the chopper taking me?"

  "Cross your fingers, Professor, and hope Krupkin and your American friend know what they're doing. The helicopter takes you to Yelsk, and from there a plane to Zomosc across the Polish border, where an ungrateful satellite has apparently permitted a CIA listening post."

  "Christ, I'll still be in Soviet bloc territory!"

  "The implication was that your people are ready for you. Good luck."

  "Ben," said Jason, studying the young man. "Why are you doing this? You're disobeying a direct order-"

  "I received no order!" broke in the Russian. "And even if I had, I'm no unthinking robot. You had an arrangement and you fulfilled your end. ... Also, if there's a chance for my mother-"