Then I repeat, sir. I have not been near my desk for well over an hour, nor have I seen any such directive as you describe. However, in co-operation with your unseen credentials, I will tell you that all car rental arrangements would have to be made through my First Assistant, a man, quite frankly, I have found quite compromising in many areas. '
'But you are here?
'How many guests at the Mandarin have late business in Bonham Strand East, sir? Accept the coincidence. '
'Your eyes smile at me, Zhongguo ren. '
'Without laughter, sir. I will proceed. The damage is minor. '
'I don't give a damn if you and your people have to stay there all night,' said Ambassador Havilland. 'It's the only crack we've got. The way you've described it she'll return the car and then pick up her own. Goddamn it, there's a Canadian-American strategy conference at four o'clock tomorrow afternoon. She has to be back! Stay with it! Stay with all the posts! Just bring her in to me!'
'She will claim harassment. We will be breaking the laws of international diplomacy. '
Then break them! Just get her here, in Cleopatra's carpet, if you have to! I haven't any time to waste – not a minute!
Held firmly in check by two agents, a furious Catherine Staples was led into the room in the house on Victoria Peak.
Wenzu had opened the door; he now closed it as Staples faced Ambassador Raymond Havilland and Undersecretary of State Edward McAllister. It was 11:35 in the morning, the sun streaming through the large bay window overlooking the garden.
'You've gone too far, Havilland,' said Catherine, her throaty voice ice-like in its flat delivery.
'I haven't gone far enough where you're concerned, Mrs. Staples. You actively compromised a member of the American legation. You engaged in extortion to the grave disservice of my government. '
'You can't prove that because there's no evidence, no photographs-'
'I don't have to prove it. At precisely seven o'clock last night the young man drove up here and told us everything. A sordid little chapter, isn't it?'
'Damn fool! He's blameless, but you're not! And since you bring up the word "sordid", there's nothing he's done that could match the filth of your own actions. ' Without missing a verbal beat, Catherine looked at the undersecretary of state. 'I presume this is the liar called McAllister. '
'You're very trying,' said the undersecretary.
'And you're an unprincipled lackey who does another man's dirty work. I heard it all and it's all disgusting! But every thread was woven-' Staples snapped her head towards Havilland, 'by an expert. Who gave you the right to play God! Any of you? Do you know what you've done to those two people out there? Do you know what you've asked of them?'
'We know,' said the ambassador simply. 'I know. '
'She knows, too, in spite of the fact that I didn't have the heart to give her the final confirmation. You, McAllister! When I learned it was you up here, I wasn't sure she could handle it. Not at the moment. But I intend to tell her. You and your lies! A taipan's wife murdered in Macao – oh, the symmetry of it all, what an excuse to take another man's wife! Lies. I have my sources and it never happened. Well, get this straight. I'm bringing her in to the consulate under the full protection of my government. And if I were you, Havilland,
I'd be damned careful about throwing around alleged illegalities. You and your goddamned people have lied to and manipulated a Canadian citizen into a life-threatening operation – whatever the hell it is this time. Your arrogance is simply beyond belief I But I assure you it's coming to a stop. Whether my government likes it or not I'm going to expose you, all of you! You're no better than the barbarians in the KGB. Well, the American juggernaut of covert operations is going to be handed a bloody setback! I'm sick of you, the world is sick of you!'
'My dear woman!' shouted-the ambassador, losing the last vestiges of control in his sudden anger. 'Make all the threats you like, but you will hear me out! And if after you've heard what I have to say you wish to declare war, you go right ahead. As the song says, my days are dwindling down, but not millions of others! I'd like to do what I can to prolong those other lives. But you may disagree, so declare your war, dear lady! And, by Christ, you live with the consequences!'
19
Leaning forward in the chair, Bourne snapped the trigger housing out of its recess and checked the weapon's bore under the light of the floor-lamp above him. It was a repetitive, pointless exercise; the bore was spotless. During the past four hours he had cleaned d'Anjou's gun three times, dismantling it three times and each time oiling each mechanism until each part of the dark metal glistened. The process occupied his time. He had studied d'Anjou's arsenal of weapons and explosives, but since most of the equipment was in sealed boxes, conceivably tripped against theft, he let them be and concentrated on the single gun. There was only so much pacing one could do in the Frenchman's flat on the Rua das Lorchas overlooking Macao's Porto Interiore – or Inner Harbour – and they had agreed he was not to go outside in daylight. Inside, he was as safe as he could be anywhere in Macao. D'Anjou, who changed residences at will and whim, had rented the waterfront apartment less than two weeks before, using a false name and a lawyer he had never met, who in turn employed a'rentor' to sign the lease which the attorney sent by messenger to his unknown client by way of the checkroom at the crowded Floating Casino. Such were the ways of Philippe d'Anjou, formerly Echo of Medusa.
Jason reassembled the weapon, depressed the shells in the magazine and cracked it up through the handle. He got out of the chair and walked to the window, the gun in his hand.
Across the expanse of water was the People's Republic, so accessible for anyone who knew the procedures arising from simple human greed. There was nothing new under the sun since the time of the pharaohs where borders were concerned. They were erected to be crossed one way or another.
He looked at his watch. It was close to five o'clock; the afternoon sun was descending. D'Anjou had called him from Hong Kong at noon. The Frenchman had gone to the Peninsula with Bourne's room key, packed his suitcase without checking out, and was taking the one o'clock jetfoil back to Macao. Where was he? The trip took barely an hour, and from the Macao pier to the Rua das Lorchas was no more than ten minutes by cab. But then predictability was not Echo's strong suit.
Fragments of the Medusa memories came back to Jason, triggered by the presence of d'Anjou. Although painful and frightening, certain impressions provided a certain comfort, again thanks to the Frenchman. Not only was d'Anjou a consummate liar when it counted most and an opportunist of the first rank, but he was extraordinarily resourceful. Above all, the Frenchman was a pragmatist. He had proved that in Paris and those memories were clear. If he was delayed, there was a good reason. If he did not appear, he was dead. And this last was unacceptable to Bourne. D'Anjou was in a position to do something Jason wanted above all to do himself but dared not risk Marie's life in doing it. It was risk enough that the trail of the impostor assassin had brought him to Macao in the first place, but as long as he stayed away from the Lisboa Hotel he trusted his instincts. He would remain hidden from those looking for him – looking for someone who even vaguely resembled him in height, or build or colouring. Someone asking questions in the Lisboa Hotel.
One call from the Lisboa to the taipan in Hong Kong and Marie was dead. The taipan had not merely threatened -threats were too often a meaningless ploy – he had used a far more lethal expedient. After shouting and crashing his large hand on the arm of the fragile chair, he had quietly given his word: Marie would die. It was a promise made by a man who kept his promises, kept his word.
Yet for all that, David Webb sensed something he could not define. There was about the huge taipan something a bit larger than life, too operatic, that had nothing to do with his size. It was as if he had used his immense girth to advantage in a way that large men rarely do, preferring to let only their sheer size do the impressing. Who was the taipan? The answer was at the Lisboa Hotel, and since he dared not
go there himself, d'Anjou's skills could serve him. He had told the Frenchman very little; he would tell him more now. He would describe a brutal double killing, the weapon an Uzi, and say that one of the victims was a powerful taipan's wife. D'Anjou would ask the questions he could not ask, and if there were answers he would take another step towards Marie.
Play the scenario. Alexander Conklin.
Whose scenario! David Webb.
You're wasting time Jason Bourne. Find the impostor. Take him!
Quiet footsteps in the outside hallway. Jason spun away from the window and raced silently to the wall, pressing his back against it, the gun levelled at the door where the swinging panel would conceal him. A key was cautiously, quietly inserted. The door swung slowly open.
Bourne crashed it back into the intruder, spinning around and grabbing the stunned figure in the frame. He yanked him inside and kicked the door shut, the weapon aimed at the head of the fallen man, who had dropped a suitcase and a very large package. It was d'Anjou.
That's one way to get your head blown off, Echo!'
'Sacre bleu! It is also the last time I will ever be considerate of you! You don't see yourself, Delta. You look as you did in Tarn Quan, without sleep for days. I thought you might be resting. '
Another memory briefly flashed. 'In Tarn Quan,' said Jason, 'you told me I had to sleep, didn't you? We hid in the brush and you formed a circle around me and damn near gave me an order to get some rest. '
'It was purely a self-enlightened request. We couldn't get ourselves out of there, only you could. '
'You said something to me then. What was it? I listened. '
'I explained that rest was as much a weapon as any blunt instrument or firing mechanism man had ever devised. '
'I used a variation later. It became an axiom for me. '
'I'm so glad you had the intelligence to listen to your elders. May I please rise? Will you please lower that damned gun?'
'Oh, sorry. '
'We have no time,' said d'Anjou, getting up and leaving the suitcase on the floor. He tore the brown paper off his package. Inside were pressed khaki clothes, two belted holsters and two visored hats; he threw them all on a chair. 'These are uniforms. I have the proper identifications in my pocket. I am afraid I outrank you, Delta, but then age has its privileges. '
'They're uniforms of the Hong Kong police. '
'Kowloon, to be precise. We may have our chance, Delta! It's why I was so long getting back. Kai Tak Airport! The security is enormous, just what the impostor wants in order to show he's better than you ever were! There's no guarantee, of course, but I'd stake my life on it – it's the classic challenge for an obsessed maniac. "Mount your forces, I'll break through them!" With one kill like that he re-establishes the legend of his utter invincibility. It's him, I'm sure of it!'
'Start from the beginning,' ordered Bourne.
'As we dress, yes,' agreed the Frenchman, removing his shirt and unbuckling his trousers. 'Hurry! I have a motor launch across the road. Four hundred horsepower. We can be in Kowloon in forty-five minutes. Here! This is yours! Man Dieu, the money I've spent makes me want to vomit!'
'The PRC patrols,' said Jason, peeling off his clothes and reaching for the uniform. 'They'll shoot us out of the water!'
'Idiot, certain known boats are negotiated with by radio in code. There is, after all, honour among us. How do you think we run our merchandise? How do you think we survive? We meet in coves at the Chinese islands of Teh Sa Wei and payments are made. Hurry?
'What about the airport? Why are you so sure it's him?'
'The Crown Governor. Assassination. '
'What?' shouted Bourne, stunned.
'I walked from the Peninsula to the Star Ferry with your suitcase. It's only a short distance and the ferry is far quicker than a taxi through the tunnel. As I passed the Kowloon Police Hill on Salisbury Road, I saw seven patrol cars drive out at emergency speed, one behind the other, all turning left, which is not to the godown. It struck me as odd – yes, two or three for a local eruption, but seven! It was good joss, as these people say. I called my contact on the Hill and he was cooperative – it was also not much of an internal secret any longer. He said if I stayed around I'd see another ten cars, twenty vans, all heading out to Kai Tak within the next two hours. Those I saw were the advance search teams. They had received word through their underground sources that an attempt was to be made on the Governor's life. '
'Specifics!' commanded Bourne harshly, buckling his trousers and reaching for the long khaki shirt that served as a jacket under the bullet-laden holster belt.
'The Governor is flying in from Beijing tonight with his own entourage from the Foreign Office, as well as another Chinese negotiating delegation. There will be newspaper people, television crews, everyone. Both governments want full coverage. There is to be a joint meeting tomorrow between all the negotiators and leaders of the financial sector. '
The ninety-seven treaty?'
'Yet another round in the endless verbosity about the Accords. But for all our sakes just pray they keep talking pleasantly. '
'The scenario? said Jason softly, stopping all movement . 'What scenario?'
The one you yourself brought up, the scenario that had the wires burning between Peking and Government House. Kill a Governor for the murder of a Vice-Premier? Then perhaps a Foreign Secretary for a ranking member of the Central Committee – a Prime Minister for a Chairman? How far does it go? How many selected killings before the breaking point is reached. How long before the parent refuses to tolerate a disobedient child and marches into Hong Kong? Christ it could happen. Someone wants it to happen!'
D'Anjou stood motionless, holding the wide belt of the holster with its ominous strand of brass-capped shells. 'What I suggested was no more than speculation based on the random violence caused by an obsessed killer who accepts his contracts without discrimination. There's enough greed and political corruption on both sides to justify that speculation. But what you're suggesting, Delta is quite different. You're saying it's a plan, an organized plan to disrupt Hong Kong to the point that the Mainland takes over. '
The scenario,' repeated Jason Bourne. The more complicated it gets, the simpler it appears. '
The rooftops of Kai Tak Airport were swarming with police, as were the gates and the tunnels, the immigration counters and the luggage areas. Outside, on the immense field of black tarmac, powerful floodlights were joined by roving, sharper searchlights probing every moving vehicle, every inch of visible ground. Television crews uncoiled cables under watching eyes, while interviewers standing behind sound trucks practised pronunciation in a dozen languages. Reporters and photographers were kept beyond the gates as airport personnel shouted through the amplifiers that roped-off sections on the field would soon be available for all legitimate journalists with proper passes issued by the Kai Tak management. It was madness. And then the totally unexpected happened as a sudden rainstorm swept over the colony from the darkness of the western horizon. It was yet another autumn deluge.
The impostor has good luck – good joss – as they say, doesn't he?' said d'Anjou as he and Bourne in their uniforms marched with a phalanx of police through a covered walkway made of corrugated tin to one of the huge repair hangars. The hammering of the rain was deafening.
'Luck had nothing to do with it,' replied Jason. 'He studied the weather reports from as far away as Szechwan. Every airport has them. He spotted it yesterday, if not two days ago. Weather's a weapon, too, Echo. '
'Still, he could not dictate the arrival of the Crown Governor on a Chinese aircraft. They are often hours late, usually hours late. '
'But not days, not usually. When did the Kowloon police get word of the attempt?'
'I asked specifically,' said the Frenchman. 'Around eleven-thirty this morning. '
'And the plane from Peking was scheduled to arrive sometime this evening?'
'Yes, I told you that. The newspaper and the television people were ordered to be he
re by nine o'clock. '
'He studied the weather reports. Opportunities present themselves. You grab them. '
'And this is what you must do, Delta! Think like him, be him! It is our chance!'
'What do you think I'm doing?... When we get to the hangar I want to break away. Can your ersatz identification make it possible?'
'I am a British Sector Commander from the Mongkok Divisional Police. '
'What does that mean?'
'I really don't know but it was the best I could do. '
'You don't sound British. '
'Who would know that out here at Kai Tak, old chap?'
The British. '
'I'll avoid them. My Chinese is better than yours. The Zhongguo ren will respect it. You'll be free to roam. '
'I have to,' said Jason Bourne. 'If it's your commando, I want him before anyone else spots him! Here. Now!
Roped stanchions were moved out of the high-domed hangar by maintenance personnel in glossy yellow rain slickers. Then a truckload of the yellow coats arrived for the police contingents; men caught them as they were thrown out of the rear of the van. Putting them on, the police then formed several groups to receive instructions from their superiors. Order was rapidly emerging from the confusion compounded by the newly arrived bewildered troops and the problems caused by the sudden downpour. It was the sort of order Bourne distrusted. It was too smooth, too conventional for the job they faced. Ranks of brightly dressed soldiers marching forward were in the wrong place with the wrong tactics when seeking out guerrillas – even one man trained in guerrilla warfare. Each policeman in his yellow slicker was both a warning and a target – and he was also something else. A pawn. Each could be replaced by another dressed the same way, by a killer who knew how to assume the look of his enemy.
Yet the strategy of infiltration for the purpose of a kill was suicidal, and Jason knew there was no such commitment on the part of his impostor. Unless... unless the weapon to be used had a sound level so low the rain would eliminate it... but even then the target's reaction could not be instantaneous. A cordon would immediately be erected around the killing ground at the first sign of the Governor's collapse, every exit blocked, everyone in the vicinity ordered under guns to remain in place. A delayed reaction? A tiny air dart whose impact was no greater than a pinprick, a minor annoyance to be swatted away like a bothersome fly as the lethal drop of poison entered the bloodstream to cause death slowly but inevitably, time not a consideration. It was a possibility, but again there were too many obstacles to surmount, too much accuracy demanded beyond the limits of an air-compressed weapon. The Governor would undoubtedly be wearing a protective vest, and targeting the face was out. Facial nerves exaggerated pain and any foreign object making contact so close to the eyes produced an immediate and dramatic reaction. That left the hands and the throat; the first were too small and conceivably could be moving too fast, the second was simply too limited an area. A high-powered rifle on a rooftop? A rifle of unquestioned accuracy with an infra-red telescopic sight? Another possibility – an all too familiar yellow slicker replaced by one worn by an assassin. But again, it was suicidal, for such a weapon would produce an isolated explosion, and to mount a silencer would reduce the accuracy of the rifle to the point where it could not be trusted. The odds were against a killer on a rooftop. The kill would be too obvious.
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