The fire escape would have been rejected by underwriters at a glance. The metal was corroded and the railings bent under pressure. If one was escaping a fire, a smoke-filled staircase might have been preferable. Still, if it descended in the darkness without collapsing that was all that mattered. Jason grabbed the commando's lapel, leading him down the creaking metal steps until they reached the first landing. Beneath there was a broken ladder extended in its track half way to the alley below. The drop to the pavement was no more than six or seven feet, easily negotiated going down and – more important – coming back up.
'Sleep well,' said Bourne, taking aim in the dim light and crashing his knuckles into the base of the commando's skull. The assassin collapsed on the staircase as Bourne whipped out the cords and secured the killer to the steps and the railing, at the last yanking down the pillowcase, covering the impostor's mouth and tying the cloth tighter. The nocturnal sounds of Hong Kong's Yau Ma Ti and the nearby Mongkok would easily cover whatever cries Allcott-Price might manage – if he awoke before Jason awakened him, which was doubtful.
Bourne climbed down the ladder, dropping into the narrow alleyway only seconds before three young men appeared, running around the corner from the busy street. Out of breath, they huddled in the shadows of a doorway as Jason remained on his knees – he hoped out of sight. Beyond the alley's entrance another group of youths raced by in pursuit, shouting angrily. The three young men lurched from the darkened doorway and ran out, heading in the opposite direction, away from their pursuers. Bourne got up and walked quickly to the mouth of the alley, looking back up at the fire escape. The impostor could not be seen.
He collided simultaneously with two running bodies.
Bouncing off them and into the wall, he could only assume that the young men were part of the crowd chasing the previous three who had hidden in the doorway. One of these, however, held a knife menacingly in his hand. Jason did not need this confrontation, he could not permit it! Before the youth realized what had happened, Bourne lashed out and gripped the young man's wrist, twisting it clockwise until the blade fell from the youngster's hand while he screamed in pain.
'Get out of here!' shouted Jason in harsh Cantonese. 'Your gang is no match for your elders and betters! If we see any of you around here, your mothers will get corpses for their labours. Get out!'
'Aiya!'
'We look for thieves! For eye-eyes from the north! They steal, they-'
"Out!'
The young men fled from the alleyway, disappearing into the busy street in the Yau Ma Ti. Bourne shook his hand, the hand the assassin had tried to crush in the hotel doorframe. In his anxiety he had forgotten about the pain; it was the best way to tolerate it.
He looked up at the sound – sounds. Two dark sedans came racing down Shek Lung Street and stopped in front of the hotel. Both vehicles had official written all over them. Jason watched in anguish as men climbed out of each car, two from the first, three from the one behind it.
Oh, God, Marie! We're going to lose! I've killed us – oh, Christ, re killed us!
He fully expected the five men to rush into the hotel, question the desk clerk, take up positions and make their moves. They would learn that the occupants of Room 301 had not been seen leaving the premises; therefore presumably they were still upstairs. The room would be broken into in less than a minute, the fire escape discovered seconds later! Could he do it? Could he climb back up, cut loose the killer, get him down into the alley and escape! He had to! He took a last look before racing back to the ladder.
Then he stopped. Something was wrong – something unexpected, totally unexpected. The first man from the lead car had removed his suit coat – his official dress code – and unloosened his tie. He ran his hand through his hair, dishevelling it, and walked – unsteadily? – towards the entrance of the run-down hotel. His four companions were spreading out away from the cars, looking up at the windows, two over to the right, two to the left, towards the alleyway -towards him. What was happening! These men were not acting officially. They were behaving like criminals, like Mafiosi closing in on a kill they could not be associated with, a trap laid for others, not themselves. Good God, had Alex Conklin been wrong back at Dulles Airport in Washington?
Play the scenario. It's deep down and it's there. Play it out. You can do it, Delta.
No time. There was no time to think any longer. There were no precious instants to lose thinking about the existence or the non-existence of a huge, obese taipan, too operatic to be real. The two men heading towards him had spotted the alleyway. They began running – towards the alley, towards the 'merchandise', towards the destruction and death of everything Jason held dear in this rotten world he would gladly leave but for Marie.
The seconds were ticked off in milliseconds of premeditated violence, at once accepted and reviled. David Webb was silenced, as Jason Bourne again assumed complete command. Get away from me! This is all we've got left!
The first man fell, his ribcage shattered, his voice stilled by the force of a blow to his throat. The second man was accorded preferential treatment. It was vital that he remain cognizant, even alert, for what followed. He dragged both men into the deepest shadows of the alley, ripping their clothes with his knife, binding their feet, their arms and their mouths with strips of their own clothing.
His arms pinned beneath Jason's knees, the blade of the knife breaking the flesh around the socket of his left eye, the second man received Bourne's ultimatum. 'My wife! Where is she? Now! Or lose your eye, then the other one! I'll carve you up, junggwo, believe me!' He ripped the gag from the man's mouth.
'We are not your enemy, Zhangfu!' cried the Oriental in English, using the Cantonese word for husband. 'We have been trying to find her! We hunt everywhere!'
Jason stared down at the man, the knife trembling in his hand, his temples throbbing, his personal galaxy about to explode, the heavens to rain down fire and pain beyond his imagination. 'Marie!' he screamed in agony. 'What have you done with her? I was given a guarantee! I bring out the merchandise and my wife is returned to me! I was to hear her voice on the phone but the phone doesn't work! Instead, a trace is put on me and suddenly you're here but my wife isn't! Where is she?'
'If we knew, she would be here with us. '
'Liar!' cried Bourne, drawing out the word.
'I'm not lying to you, sir, nor should I be killed for not lying to you. She escaped from the hospital-'
"The hospital?
'She was ill. The doctor insisted. I was there, outside her room, watching over her! She was weak but she got away-'
'Oh, Christ! Sick? Weak! Alone in Hong Kong! My God, you've killed her. '
'No, sir! Our orders were to see to her comfort-'
'Your orders,' said Jason Bourne, his voice flat and cold. 'But not your taipan's. He followed other orders, orders given before in Zurich and Paris and on Seventy-first Street in New York. I've been there – we've been there. And now you've killed her. You used me, as you used me before and when you thought it was over you took her away from me. What's the "death of one more daughter"? Silence is everything. ' Jason suddenly gripped the man's face with his left hand, the knife poised in his right . 'Who's the fat man? Tell me, or the blade goes in! Who's the taipan?'
'He's not a taipan! He is British schooled and trained, an officer much respected in the territory. He works with your countrymen, the Americans. He's with the intelligence service. '
'I'm sure he is... From the beginning it was the same. Only this time it wasn't the Jackal but me. I was moved around the chessboard until I had no choice but to hunt myself – an extension of myself, a man called Bourne. When he brings him in, kill him. Kill her. They know too much. '
'No!' cried the Oriental, perspiring, his eyes wide, staring at the blade pressing into his flesh. 'We are told very little but I have heard nothing like that!'
'What are you doing here then? asked Jason harshly.
'Surveillance, I swear it! That's all!'
'Until
the guns move in? said Bourne icily. 'So your three-piece suits can stay clean, no blood on your shirts, no traces back to those nameless, faceless people you work for. '
'You're wrong! We are not like that, our superiors are not like that!'
'I told you, I've been there. You're like that, believe me... Now you're going to tell me something. Whatever this is, it's down and dirty and totally secure. Nobody runs an operation like that without a camouflaged base. Where is it?'
T don't understand you. '
'Headquarters or Base Camp One, a sterile house or a coded Command Centre – whatever the hell you want to call it. Where is it?'
'Please, I cannot-'
'You can. You will. If you don't you're blind, your eyes cut out of your head. Now!'
'I have a wife, children?
'So did I. Both counts. I'm losing patience. ' Jason stopped, only slightly reducing the pressure of the blade. 'Besides, if you're so sure you're right – that your superiors aren't what I say they are, where's the harm? Accommodations can be reached. '
'Fes!' yelled the frightened man. 'Accommodations! They are good men. They won't harm you!'
They won't have a chance,' whispered Bourne.
'What, sir?'
'Nothing. Where is it? Where's this oh-so-quiet headquarters? Now!'
'Victoria Peak!' said the petrified intelligence subordinate. The twelfth house down on the right, with high walls... '
Bourne listened to the description of a sterile house, a quiet, patrolled estate among other estates in a wealthy district. He heard what he had to hear; there was nothing else he needed. He smashed the heavy bone handle of the knife into the man's skull, replaced the gag and rose to his feet. He looked up at the fire escape, at the barely discernible outline of the impostor's body.
They wanted Jason Bourne and were willing to kill for him. They would get two Jason Bournes and die for their lies.
31
Ambassador Havilland confronted Conklin in the hospital corridor outside the police emergency room. The diplomat's decision to speak to the CIA man in the busy, white-walled hallway was predicated on the fact that it was busy – nurses and ancillaries, doctors and specialists, roamed the halls conferring and answering phones that seemed to ring continuously. Under the circumstances Conklin would be unlikely to indulge in a loud, heated argument. Their discussion might be charged, but it would be quiet; the ambassador could make his case better under those conditions.
'Bourne's made contact,' said Havilland.
'Let's go outside,' said Conklin.
'We can't,' replied the diplomat . 'Lin is in grave danger but we may be able to see him any minute. We can't miss that opportunity and the doctor knows we're here. '
'Then let's go back inside. '
'There are five other people in the emergency room. You don't want them overhearing us any more than I do. '
'Christ, you cover your ass, don't you?
'I have to think of all of us. Not one or two or three of us, but all of us. '
'What do you want from me?'
The woman, of course. You know that. '
'I know that – of course. What are you prepared to offer?
'My God, Jason Bourne?
'I want David Webb. I want Marie's husband. I want to know that he's alive and well in Hong Kong. I want to see him with my own eyes. ' 'That's impossible. ' 'Then you'd better tell me why. '
'Before he shows himself he expects to speak with his wife within thirty seconds of contact. That's the agreement. ' 'But you just said he made contact!' 'He did. We didn't. We couldn't afford to without having Marie Webb near the phone. ' 'You've lost me!' said Conklin angrily. 'He had his own conditions, not unlike yours, which is certainly understandable. You were both-' 'What were they?' broke in the CIA man. 'If he made the call, it meant that he had the impostor – it was the bilateral agreement. ' 'Jesus! "Bilateral" 'Both sides agreed to it. ' 'I know what it means! You just send me into space, that's all. ' 'Keep your voice down... His condition was that if we did not produce his wife within thirty seconds, whoever was on the phone would hear a gunshot, meaning that the assassin was dead, that Bourne had killed him. '
'Good old Delta. ' Conklin's lips formed a thin, half-smile. 'He never missed a trick. And I suspect he had a follow-up, right?
'Yes,' said Havilland grimly. 'A point of exchange is to be mutually agreed upon-'
'Not bilaterally?'
'Shut up! ... He'll be able to see his wife walking alone, under her own power. When he's satisfied, he'll come out with his prisoner, under a gun we presume, and the exchange will be made. From the initial contact to the switch, everything is to take place in a matter of minutes, certainly no more than half an hour. '
'Double time with no one orchestrating any extraneous moves. ' Conklin nodded. 'But if you didn't respond, how do you know he made contact?'
'Lin put a flag on the telephone number with a second relay to Victoria Peak. Bourne was told that the line was temporarily out of service, and when he tried to get a verification – which under the circumstances he had to do -he was relayed to the Peak. We kept him on the line long enough to trace the location of the pay phone he was using. We know where he is. Our people are on the way there now with orders to stay out of sight. If he smells or sees anything, he'll kill our man. '
'A trace? Alex studied the diplomat's face, not kindly. 'He let you keep him talking long enough for that?'
'He's in a state of extreme anxiety, we counted on it. '
'Webb, maybe,' said Conklin. 'Not Delta. Not when he thinks about it. '
'He'll keep calling,' insisted Havilland. 'He has no choice. '
'Maybe, maybe not. How long has it been since his last call?
Twelve minutes,' answered the ambassador looking at his watch.
'And the first one?'
'About a half hour. '
'And every time he calls you know about it?
'Yes. The information's relayed to McAllister. '
'Phone him and see if Bourne's tried again. '
'Why?
'Because, as you put it, he's in a state of extreme anxiety and will keep calling. He can't help himself. '
'What are you trying to say?'
That you may have made a mistake. '
'Where? How?
'I don't know, but I do know Delta. '
'What could he do without reaching us?
'Kill,' said Alex, simply.
Havilland turned, looked down the busy hallway, and started walking towards the floor's reception desk. He spoke briefly to a nurse; she nodded and he picked up a telephone. He talked for a moment and hung up. He returned to Conklin, frowning. 'It's odd,' he remarked. 'McAllister feels the way you do. Edward expected Bourne to call every five minutes, if he waited that long. '
'Oh?
'He was led to believe that telephone service might be restored at any moment. ' The ambassador shook his head, as if dismissing the improbable. 'We're all too tense. There could be a number of explanations, from coins for a pay phone to unsettled bowels. '
The emergency room door opened and the British doctor appeared. 'Mr Ambassador?'
'Lin?'
'A remarkable man. What he's been through would kill a horse but then they're about the same size and a horse can't manifest a will to live. '
'Can we see him?'
'There'd be no point, he's still unconscious – stirring now and then but nowhere near coherent. Every minute he rests without a reversal is encouraging. '
'You understand how urgent it is that we talk to him, don't you?'
'Yes, Mr Havilland, I do. Perhaps more than you realize. You know that I was the one responsible for the woman's escape-'
'I do know,' said the diplomat . 'I was also told that if she could fool you she could probably fool the best specialist at the Mayo Clinic. '
'That's dubious, but I like to think I'm competent. Instead, I feel like an idiot. I'll do everything in my power to help you and my good fri
end, Major Lin. The judgement was medical and mine, the error mine, not his. If he makes it through the next hour or so, I believe he has a chance to live. If that happens, I'll bring him to and you can question him as long as you keep your questions brief and simple. If I think a reversal is too severe and that he's slipping away, I'll also call you. '
'That's fair, Doctor. Thank you. '
'I could do no less. It's what Wenzu would want. I'll go back to him now. '
The waiting began. Havilland and Alex Conklin reached their own bi-lateral agreement. When Bourne next tried to reach the number for Snake Lady, he was to be told that the line would be clear in twenty minutes. During that time Conklin would be driven to the sterile house on Victoria Peak, prepared to take the call. He would set up the exchange, telling David that Marie was safe and with Morris Panov. The two men returned to the police emergency room and sat in opposite chairs, each silent minute compounding the strain.
The minutes, however, stretched into quarter hours and these into over an hour. Three times the ambassador called the Peak to learn if there was any word from Jason Bourne. There was none. Twice the English doctor came out to report on Wenzu's condition. It was unchanged, a fact that allowed for hope rather than diminishing it. Once the emergency room telephone rang, as both Havilland and Conklin snapped their heads towards it, their eyes riveted on the nurse who calmly answered. The call was not for the ambassador. The tension mounted between the two men, as every now and then they looked at each other, the same message in their eyes. Something was wrong. Something had gone off the wire. A Chinese doctor came out and approached two people in the back of the room, a young woman and a priest; he spoke quietly. The woman screamed, then sobbed and fell into the enveloping arms of the priest. A new police widow had been created. She was led away to say a last good-bye to her husband.
Silence.
The telephone rang again, and again the diplomat and the CIA man stared at the counter.
'Mr Ambassador,' said the nurse, 'it's for you. The gentleman says it's most urgent. ' Havilland got up and strode to the desk, nodding his thanks, and he took the phone.
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