The Bourne Ultimatum

by Robert Ludlum

  “How are you at changing a nasty diaper?”

  “I don’t even want to think about it,” said St. Jacques, fleeing.

  Now, however, she heard his voice through the shutters outside. She also knew that she was meant to hear it; he was enticing her son, Jamie, into a race in the pool and speaking so loudly he could be heard on the big island of Montserrat. Marie literally crawled out of bed, headed for the bathroom, and four minutes later, ablutions completed, her auburn hair brushed and, wearing a bathrobe, walked out through the shuttered door to the patio overlooking the pool.

  “Well, hi there, Mare!” shouted her tanned, dark-haired, handsome younger brother beside her son in the water. “I hope we didn’t wake you up. We just wanted to take a swim.”

  “So you decided to let the British coastal patrols in Plymouth know about it.”

  “Hey, come on, it’s almost nine o’clock. That’s late in the islands.”

  “Hello, Mommy. Uncle John’s been showing me how to scare off sharks with a stick!”

  “Your uncle is full of terribly important information that I hope to God you’ll never use.”

  “There’s a pot of coffee on the table, Mare. And Mrs. Cooper will make you whatever you like for breakfast.”

  “Coffee’s fine, Johnny. The telephone rang last night—was it David?”

  “Himself,” replied the brother. “And you and I are going to talk.… Come on, Jamie, up we go. Grip the ladder.”

  “What about the sharks?”

  “You got ’em all, buddy. Go get yourself a drink.”

  “Johnny!”

  “Orange juice, there’s a pitcher in the kitchen.” John St. Jacques walked around the rim of the pool and up the steps to the bedroom patio as his nephew raced into the house.

  Marie watched her brother approach, noting the similarities between him and her husband. Both were tall and muscular; both had in their strides an absence of compromise, but where David usually won, Johnny more often than not lost, and she did not know why. Or why David had such trust in his younger brother-in-law when the two older St. Jacques sons would appear to be more responsible. David—or was it Jason Bourne?—never discussed the question in depth; he simply laughed it off and said Johnny had a streak in him that appealed to David—or was it Bourne?

  “Let’s level,” said the youngest St. Jacques sitting down, the water dripping off his body onto the patio. “What kind of trouble is David in? He couldn’t talk on the phone and you were in no shape last night for an extended chat. What’s happened?”

  “The Jackal.… The Jackal’s what’s happened.”

  “Christ!” exploded the brother. “After all these years?”

  “After all these years,” repeated Marie, her voice drifting off.

  “How far has that bastard gotten?”

  “David’s in Washington trying to find out. All we know for certain is that he dug up Alex Conklin and Mo Panov from the horrors of Hong Kong and Kowloon.” She told him about the false telegrams and the trap at the amusement park in Baltimore.

  “I presume Alex has them all under protection or whatever they call it.”

  “Around the clock, I’m sure. Outside of ourselves and McAllister, Alex and Mo are the only two people still alive who know that David was—oh, Jesus, I can’t even say the name!” Marie slammed the coffee mug down on the patio table.

  “Easy, Sis.” St. Jacques reached for her hand, placing his on top of hers. “Conklin knows what he’s doing. David told me that Alex was the best—‘field man,’ he called him—that ever worked for the Americans.”

  “You don’t understand, Johnny!” cried Marie, trying to control her voice and emotions, her wide eyes denying the attempt. “David never said that, David Webb never knew that! Jason Bourne said it, and he’s back!… That ice-cold calculating monster they created is back in David’s head. You don’t know what it’s like. With a look in those unfocused eyes that see things I can’t see—or with a tone of voice, a quiet freezing voice I don’t know—and I’m suddenly with a stranger.”

  St. Jacques held up his free hand telling her to stop. “Come on,” he said softly.

  “The children? Jamie …?” She looked frantically around.

  “No, you. What do you expect David to do? Crawl inside a Wing or Ming dynasty vase and pretend his wife and children aren’t in danger—that only he is? Whether you ladies like it or not, we boys still think it’s up to us to keep the big cats from the cave. We honestly believe we’re more equipped. We revert to those strengths, the ugliest of them, of course, because we have to. That’s what David’s doing.”

  “When did little brother get so philosophical?” asked Marie, studying John St. Jacques’s face.

  “That ain’t philosophy, girl, I just know it. Most men do—apologies to the feminist crowd.”

  “Don’t apologize; most of us wouldn’t have it any other way. Would you believe that your big scholarly sister who called a lot of economic shots in Ottawa still yells like hell when she sees a mouse in our country kitchen, and goes into panic if it’s a rat?”

  “Certain bright women are more honest than others.”

  “I’ll accept what you say, Johnny, but you’re missing my point. David’s been doing so well these last five years, every month just a little bit better than the last. He’ll never be totally cured, we all know that—he was damaged too severely—but the furies, his own personal furies, have almost disappeared. The solitary walks in the woods when he’d come back with hands bruised from attacking tree trunks; the quiet, stifled tears in his study late at night when he couldn’t remember what he was or what he’d done, thinking the worst of himself—they were gone, Johnny! There was real sunlight, do you know what I mean?”

  “Yes, I do,” said the brother solemnly.

  “What’s happening now could bring them all back, that’s what’s frightening me so!”

  “Then let’s hope it’s over quickly.”

  Marie stopped, once again studying her brother. “Hold it, little bro, I know you too well. You’re pulling back.”

  “Not a bit.”

  “Yes, you are.… You and David—I never understood. Our two older brothers, so solid, so on top of everything, perhaps not intellectually but certainly pragmatically. Yet he turned to you. Why, Johnny?”

  “Let’s not go into it,” said St. Jacques curtly, removing his hand from his sister’s.

  “But I have to. This is my life, he’s my life! There can’t be any more secrets where he’s concerned—I can’t stand any more!… Why you?”

  St. Jacques leaned back in the patio chair, his stretched fingers now covering his forehead. He raised his eyes, an unspoken plea in them. “All right, I know where you’re coming from. Do you remember six or seven years ago I left our ranch saying I wanted to try things on my own?”

  “Certainly. I think you broke both Mom’s and Dad’s hearts. Let’s face it, you were always kind of the favorite—”

  “I was always the kid!” interrupted the youngest St. Jacques. “Playing out some moronic Bonanza where my thirty-year-old brothers were blindly taking orders from a pontificating, bigoted French Canadian father whose only smarts came with his money and his land.”

  “There was more to him than that, but I won’t argue—from a ‘kid’s’ viewpoint.”

  “You couldn’t, Mare. You did the same thing, and sometimes you didn’t come home for over a year.”

  “I was busy.”

  “So was I.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I killed two men. Two animals who’d killed a friend of mine—raped her and killed her.”

  “What?”

  “Keep your voice down—”

  “My God, what happened?”

  “I didn’t want to call home, so I reached your husband … my friend, David, who didn’t treat me like a brain-damaged kid. At the time it seemed like a logical thing to do and it was the best decision I could have made. He was owed favors by his government, and
a quiet team of bright people from Washington and Ottawa flew up to James Bay and I was acquitted. Self-defense, and it was just that.”

  “He never said a word to me—”

  “I begged him not to.”

  “So that’s why.… But I still don’t understand!”

  “It’s not difficult, Mare. A part of him knows I can kill, will kill, if I think it’s necessary.”

  A telephone rang inside the house as Marie stared at her younger brother. Before she could get her voice back, an elderly black woman emerged from the door to the kitchen. “It’s for you, Mr. John. It’s that pilot over on the big island. He says it’s real important, mon.”

  “Thanks, Mrs. Cooper,” said St. Jacques, getting out of the chair and walking rapidly down to an extension phone by the pool. He spoke for several moments, looked up at Marie, slammed down the telephone and rushed back up to his sister. “Pack up. You’re getting out of here!”

  “Why? Was that the man who flew us—”

  “He’s back from Martinique and just learned that someone was asking questions at the airport last night. About a woman and two small children. None of the crews said anything, but that may not last. Quickly.”

  “My God, where will we go?”

  “Over to the inn until we think of something else. There’s only one road and my own Tonton Macoute patrols it. No one gets in or out. Mrs. Cooper will help you with Alison. Hurry!”

  The telephone started ringing again as Marie dashed through the bedroom door. St. Jacques raced down the steps to the pool extension, reaching it as Mrs. Cooper once more stepped out of the kitchen. “It’s Government House over in ’Serrat, Mr. John.”

  “What the hell do they want …?”

  “Shall I ask them?”

  “Never mind, I’ll get it. Help my sister with the kids and pack everything they brought with them into the Rover. They’re leaving right away!”

  “Oh, a bad time pity, mon. I was just getting to know the little babies.”

  “ ‘Bad time pity’ is right,” mumbled St. Jacques, picking up the telephone. “Yes?”

  “Hello, John?” said the chief aide to the Crown governor, a man who had befriended the Canadian developer and helped him through the maze of the colony’s Territorial Regulations.

  “Can I call you back, Henry? I’m kind of harried at the moment.”

  “I’m afraid there’s no time, chap. This is straight from the Foreign Office. They want our immediate cooperation, and it won’t do you any harm, either.”

  “Oh?”

  “It seems there’s an old fellow and his wife arriving on Air France’s connecting flight from Antigua at ten-thirty and Whitehall wants the red-carpet treatment. Apparently the old boy had a splendid war, with a slew of decorations, and worked with a lot of our chaps across the Channel.”

  “Henry, I’m really in a hurry. What’s any of this got to do with me?”

  “Well, I rather assumed you might have more of an idea about that than we do. Probably one of your rich Canadian guests, perhaps a Frenchie from Montreal who came out of the Résistance and who thought of you—”

  “Insults will only get you a bottle of superior French Canadian wine. What do you want?”

  “Put up our hero and his lady in the finest accommodations you’ve got, with a room for the French-speaking nurse we’ve assigned to them.”

  “On an hour’s notice?”

  “Well, chap, our buns could be in a collective sling, if you know what I mean—and your so vital but erratic telephone service does depend on a degree of Crown intervention, if you also know what I mean.”

  “Henry, you’re a terrific negotiator. You so politely kick a person so accurately where it hurts. What’s our hero’s name? Quickly, please!”

  “Our names are Jean Pierre and Regine Fontaine, Monsieur le Directeur, and here are our passports,” said the soft-spoken old man inside the immigration officer’s glass-enclosed office, the chief aide of the Crown governor at his side. “My wife can be seen over there,” he added, pointing through the window. “She is talking with the mademoiselle in the white uniform.”

  “Please, Monsieur Fontaine,” protested the stocky black immigration official in a pronounced British accent. “This is merely an informal formality, a stamping procedure, if you like. Also to remove you from the inconvenience of so many admirers. Rumors have gone throughout the airport that a great man has arrived.”

  “Really?” Fontaine smiled; it was a pleasant smile.

  “Oh, but not to be concerned, sir. The press has been barred. We know you want complete privacy, and you shall have it.”

  “Really?” The old man’s smile faded. “I was to meet someone here, an associate, you might say, I must consult with confidentially. I hope your most considerate arrangements do not prevent him from reaching me.”

  “A small, select group with proper standing and credentials will greet you in Blackburne’s honored-guest corridor, Monsieur Fontaine,” said the Crown governor’s chief aide. “May we proceed? The reception line will be swift, I assure you.”

  “Really? That swift?”

  It was, less than five minutes actually, but five seconds would have been enough. The first person the Jackal’s courier-killer met was the beribboned Crown governor himself. As the Queen’s royal representative embraced the hero in Gallic style, he whispered into Jean Pierre Fontaine’s ear. “We’ve learned where the woman and her children were taken. We are sending you there. The nurse has your instructions.”

  The rest was somewhat anticlimactic for the old man, especially the absence of the press. He had never had his picture in the newspapers except as a felon.

  Morris Panov, M. D., was a very angry man, and he always tried to control his very angry moments because they never helped him or his patients. At the moment, however, sitting at his office desk, he was having difficulty curbing his emotions. He had not heard from David Webb. He had to hear from him, he had to talk to him. What was happening could negate thirteen years of therapy, couldn’t they understand that?… No, of course they couldn’t; it was not what interested them; they had other priorities and did not care to be burdened by problems beyond their purview. But he had to care. The damaged mind was so fragile, so given to setbacks, the horrors of the past were so capable of taking over the present. It could not happen with David! He was so close to being as normal as he would ever be (and who the hell was “normal” in this fucked-up world). He could function wonderfully as a teacher; he had near-total recall where his scholarly expertise was called upon, and he was remembering more and more as each year progressed. But it could all blow apart with a single act of violence, for violence was the way of life for Jason Bourne. Damn!

  It was crippling enough that they even permitted David to stay around; he had tried to explain the potential damage to Alex, but Conklin had an irrefutable reply: We can’t stop him. At least this way we can watch him, protect him. Perhaps so. “They” did not stint where protection was involved—the guards down the hall from his office and on the roof of the building, to say nothing of a temporary receptionist bearing arms as well as a strange computer, attested to their concern. Still it would be so much better for David if he was simply sedated and flown down to his island retreat, leaving the hunt for the Jackal to the professionals.… Panov suddenly caught himself as the realization swept over him: there was no one more professional than Jason Bourne.

  The doctor’s thoughts were interrupted by the telephone, the telephone he could not pick up until all the security procedures were activated. A trace was placed on the incoming call; a scanner determined whether there were intercepts on the line, and finally the identity of the caller was approved by Panov himself. His intercom buzzed; he flipped the switch on his console. “Yes?”

  “All systems are cleared, sir,” announced the temporary receptionist, who was the only one in the office who would know. “The man on the line said his name was Treadstone, Mr. D. Treadstone.”

  “I’ll t
ake it,” said Mo Panov firmly. “And you can remove whatever other ‘systems’ you’ve got on that machine out there. This is doctor-patient confidentiality.”

  “Yes, sir. Monitor is terminated.”

  “It’s what?… Never mind.” The psychiatrist picked up the phone and was barely able to keep from shouting. “Why didn’t you call me before this, you son of a bitch!”

  “I didn’t want to give you cardiac arrest, is that sufficient?”

  “Where are you and what are you doing?”

  “At the moment?”

  “That’ll suffice.”

  “Let’s see, I rented a car and right now I’m a half a block from a town house in Georgetown owned by the chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, talking to you on a pay phone.”

  “For Christ’s sake, why?”

  “Alex will fill you in, but what I want you to do is call Marie on the island. I’ve tried a couple of times since leaving the hotel but I can’t get through. Tell her I’m fine, that I’m perfectly fine, and not to worry. Have you got that?”

  “I’ve got it, but I don’t buy it. You don’t even sound like yourself.”

  “You can’t tell her that, Doctor. If you’re my friend, you can’t tell her anything like that.”

  “Stop it, David. This Jekyll-and-Hyde crap doesn’t wash anymore.”

  “Don’t tell her that, not if you’re my friend.”

  “You’re spiraling, David. Don’t let it happen. Come to me, talk to me.”

  “No time, Mo. The fat cat’s limousine is parking in front of his house. I’ve got to go to work.”

  “Jason!”

  The line went dead.

  Brendan Patrick Pierre Prefontaine walked down the jet’s metal steps into the hot Caribbean sun of Montserrat’s Blackburne Airport. It was shortly past three o’clock in the afternoon, and were it not for the many thousands of dollars on his person he might have felt lost. It was remarkable how a supply of hundred-dollar bills in various pockets made one feel so secure. In truth, he had to keep reminding himself that his loose change—fifties, twenties and tens—were in his right front trousers pocket so as not to make a mistake and either appear ostentatious or be a mark for some unprincipled hustler. Above all, it was vital for him to keep a low profile to the point of insignificance. He had to insignificantly ask significant questions around the airport regarding a woman and two small children who had arrived on a private aircraft the previous afternoon.