The Bourne Ultimatum, Page 47

  An hour later he finished his espresso, taking a sip of the cognac and spilling the rest on the pavement under the usual soiled red tablecloth. He left the café and the rue d’Alésia, turning right and walking slowly, as a far older man might walk, toward the boulevard Lefebvre. The closer he came to the last corner, the more he became aware of the undulating, erratic sounds from apparently different directions. Sirens! The two-note sirens of the Paris police! What had happened? What was happening? Jason abandoned his elderly gait and ran to the edge of the building fronting the Lefebvre and the row of old stone houses. Instantly, he was in shock, fury and astonishment joining together in panic. What were they doing?

  Five patrol cars converged on the row of stone houses, each successively screeching to a halt in front of the structure on the right. Then a large black police van appeared, swinging directly around to face the two entrances of the building, its searchlight shooting out as a squad of black-uniformed men with automatic weapons leaped into the street and took up crouching attack positions only partially concealed by the patrol cars—an assault was in the making!

  Fools. Goddamned fools! To give Carlos a warning was to lose the Jackal! Killing was his profession; escape, his obsession. Thirteen years ago Bourne had been told that Carlos’s huge retreat in the village hills of Vitry-sur-Seine outside Paris had more false walls and concealed staircases than a nobleman’s Loire château in the time of Louis XIV. The fact that no one had ever determined which estate it was, or whom it was assigned to, did not vitiate the all too acceptable rumors. And with three supposedly separated structures on the boulevard Lefebvre, it was also all too acceptable to presuppose hidden underground tunnels linking each to the others.

  For Christ’s sake, who had done this? Had a terrible error been made? Had he and Bernardine been so obtuse as to think the Deuxième or Peter Holland’s Paris station of the CIA had overlooked tapping into his Pont-Royal telephone or bribed or enlisted the various relays of operators on the hotel’s switchboard? If so, that obtuseness was rooted in an absolute: it was next to impossible to tap a phone on short notice in a relatively small hotel without being detected. Technology required a stranger on the premises, and bribe money spread around was countered with larger bribes by the subject under surveillance. Santos? Bugs placed in the room by a chambermaid or a bellman? Not likely. The huge conduit to the Jackal, especially if he had reneged on their contract, would not expose the Jackal. Who? How? The questions burned into Jason’s imagination as he watched in horror and dismay the scene taking place on the boulevard Lefebvre.

  “On police authority, all residents will evacuate the building.” The orders over the loudspeaker metallically echoed throughout the street. “You have one minute before we take aggressive procedures.”

  What aggressive procedures? screamed Bourne into the silent void of his mind. You’ve lost him. I’ve lost him. Insanity! Who? Why?

  The door at the top of the brick steps on the left side of the building opened first. A petrified man, short, obese, in an undershirt, his trousers held up by suspenders, cautiously walked out into the flood of the searchlight, spreading his hands in front of his face and turning his head away from the blinding beam. “What is it, messieurs?” he cried, his voice tremulous. “I am merely a baker—a good baker—but I know nothing about this street except that the rent is cheap! Is that a crime to the police?”

  “Our concerns are not with you, monsieur,” continued the amplified voice.

  “Not with me, you say? You arrive here like an army, frightening my wife and children into thinking it is their last minutes on earth, and yet you say we don’t concern you? What kind of reasoning is that? We live among fascists?”

  Hurry up! thought Jason. For God’s sake, hurry! Every second is a minute in escape time, an hour for the Jackal!

  The door above the flight of brick steps on the right now opened, and a nun in the full flowing black robe of a religious habit appeared. She stood defiantly in the frame, no fear whatsoever in her almost operatic voice. “How dare you?” she roared. “These are the hours of vespers and you intrude. Better you should be asking forgiveness for your sins than interrupting those who plead with God for theirs!”

  “Nicely said, Sister,” intoned the unimpressed police officer over the loudspeaker. “But we have other information and we respectfully insist on searching your house. If you refuse, we shall disrespectfully carry out our orders.”

  “We are the Magdalen Sisters of Charity!” exclaimed the nun. “These are the sacrosanct quarters of women devoted to Christ!”

  “We respect your position, Sister, but we are still coming inside. If what you say is so, I’m sure the authorities will make a generous contribution to your cause.”

  You’re wasting time! screamed Bourne to himself. He’s getting away!

  “Then may your souls be damned for transgression, but come ahead and invade this holy ground!”

  “Really, Sister?” asked another official over the loudspeaker. “I don’t believe there’s anything in the canons that gives you the right to condemn souls to hell on such a flimsy excuse.… Go ahead, Monsieur Inspector. Under the habit, you may find lingerie more suited to the Faubourg.”

  He knew that voice! It was Bernardine! What had happened? Was Bernardine no friend after all? Was it all an act, the smooth talk of a traitor? If so, there would be another death that night!

  The black-uniformed squad of antiterrorists, their automatic weapons bolted into firing mode, raced to the base of the brick steps as the gendarmes blocked off the boulevard Lefebvre, north and south, while the red and blue lights of the patrol cars incessantly blinked their bright warnings to all beyond the area: Stay away.

  “May I go inside?” screamed the baker. No one replied, so the obese man ran through his door clutching his trousers.

  An official in civilian clothes, the obvious leader of the assault, joined his invading unit on the pavement below the steps. With a nod of his head, he and his men raced up the brick stair-case through the door held open by the defiant nun.

  Jason held his place at the edge of the building, his body pressed against the stone, the sweat pouring from his hairline and his neck, his eyes on the incomprehensible scene being played out on the Lefebvre. He knew the who now, but why? Was it true? Was the man most trusted by Alex Conklin and himself in reality another pair of eyes and ears for the Jackal? Christ, he did not want to believe it!

  Twelve minutes passed, and with the reemergence of Paris’s version of a SWAT team and its leader, several members bowing and kissing the hand of the real or would-be abbess, Bourne understood that his and Conklin’s instincts had been on true course.

  “Bernardine!” screamed the official approaching the first patrol car. “You are finished! Out! Never are you to talk to the lowest recruit in the Deuxième, even the man who cleans the toilets! You are ostracized!… If I had my way, you’d be shot!… International murder in the boulevard Lefebvre! A friend of the Bureau! An agent we must protect!… A fucking nunnery, you miserable son of a bitch! Shit! A nunnery!… Get out of my car, you smelly pig. Get out before a weapon goes off by mistake and your stomach’s on the street, where it belongs!”

  Bernardine lurched out of the patrol car, his old unsteady legs barely able to maintain balance, twice falling into the street. Jason waited, wanting to rush to his friend, but knowing he had to wait. The patrol cars and the van raced away; still Bourne had to wait, his eyes alternately watching Bernardine and the front entrance of the Jackal’s house. And it was the Jackal’s house, the nun proved it. Carlos could never let go of his lost faith; he consistently used it as a viable cover, but it was much more than that. Much more.

  Bernardine staggered into the shadows of a long-abandoned storefront across from the house on the boulevard Lefebvre. Jason breached the corner and ran down the pavement, racing into the recess and grabbing the Deuxième veteran as he leaned against a long glass window, breathing heavily.

  “For God’s sake, wha
t happened?” cried Bourne, supporting Bernardine by both shoulders.

  “Easy, mon ami,” choked Bernardine. “The pig I sat next to—a politician, no doubt, looking for an issue—punched me in the chest before he threw me out of the car.… I told you, I don’t know all the new people who attach themselves to the Bureau these days. You have the same problems in America, so, please, do not give me a lecture.”

  “It’s the last thing I’m about to do.… This is the house, Bernardine. Right here, right in front of us!”

  “This is also a trap.”

  “What?”

  “Alex and I confirmed it. The telephone numbers were different. I gather you did not make your call to Carlos, as he instructed you to.”

  “No. I had the address and I wanted him stretched. What’s the difference? This is the house!”

  “Oh, this is where your Mr. Simon was to go, and if he was truly Mr. Simon, he would be taken to another rendezvous. But if he was not Monsieur Simon but someone else, then he would be shot—proof—another corpse in search of the Jackal.”

  “You’re wrong!” insisted Jason, shaking his head and speaking quietly, rapidly. “This may be a detour, but Carlos is still on the switch. He’s not going to allow anyone to waste me but himself. That’s his commandment.”

  “As yours is regarding him?”

  “Yes. I have a family; he has a borderline legend. Mine is complete for me, but his is a vacuum—without any real meaning for him any longer. He’s gone as far as he can go. The only way he can go further is to move into my territory—David Webb’s territory—and eliminate Jason Bourne.”

  “Webb? David Webb? Who in the name of almighty God is that?”

  “Me,” replied Bourne, smiling forlornly and leaning beside Bernardine against the window. “It’s nuts, isn’t it?”

  “Nuts!” cried the former Deuxième. “It is fou! Insane, not to be beliéved!”

  “Believe it.”

  “You are a family man with children and you do this work?”

  “Alex never told you?”

  “If he did so, I passed it off as a cover—one goes along with anything.” Shaking his head, the older man looked up at his taller companion. “You really have a family whom you do not wish to escape from?”

  “On the contrary, I want to get back to them as soon as I can. They’re the only people on earth I really care about.”

  “But you are Jason Bourne, the killer Chameleon! The deepest recesses of the criminal world tremble at your name!”

  “Oh, come on, that’s a bit much, even from you.”

  “Not for an instant! You are Bourne, second only to the Jackal—”

  “No!” shouted the suddenly forgotten David Webb. “He’s no match for me! I’ll take him! I’ll kill him!”

  “Very well, very well, mon ami,” said Bernardine calmly, reassuringly, staring at the man he could not understand. “What do you want me to do?”

  Jason Bourne turned and breathed heavily against the glass window for several moments—and then through the mists of indecision the Chameleon’s strategy became clear. He swung around and looked across the dark street at the stone building on the right. “The police are gone,” he said quietly.

  “Of course, I realize that.”

  “Did you also realize that no one from the other two buildings came outside? Yet there are lights on in a number of the windows.”

  “I was preoccupied, what can I say? I did not notice.” Bernardine raised his eyebrows in sudden recollection. “But there were faces at the windows, several faces, I saw them.”

  “Yet no one came outside.”

  “Very understandable. The police … men with weapons racing around. Best to barricade oneself, no?”

  “Even after the police and the weapons and the patrol cars have left? They all just go back to their television sets as if nothing had happened? No one comes out to check with the neighbors? That’s not natural, François; it’s not even unnaturally natural. It’s been orchestrated.”

  “What do you mean? How?”

  “One man walks out on the porch and shouts into a search-light. Attention is drawn to him and precious seconds of a minute’s warning evaporate. Then a nun emerges on the other side draping herself in holy indignation—more seconds lost, more hours for Carlos. The assault’s mounted and the Deuxième comes up with zero.… And when it’s all over, everything’s back to normal—an abnormal normalcy. A job was done according to a predesigned plan, so there’s no call for really normal curiosity—no gathering in the street, no excitement, not even a collective postcrisis indignation. Simply people inside undoubtedly checking with one another. Doesn’t it all tell you something?”

  Bernardine nodded. “A prearranged strategy carried out by professionals,” said the veteran field officer.

  “That’s what I think, too.”

  “It’s what you saw and I did not,” countered Bernardine. “Stop being kind, Jason. I’ve been too long away from the cold. Too soft, too old, too unimaginative.”

  “So have I,” said Bourne. “It’s just that the stakes are so high for me that I have to force myself into thinking like a man I wanted to forget.”

  “This is Monsieur Webb speaking?”

  “I guess it is.”

  “So where does that leave us?”

  “With an irate baker and an angry nun, and if they prove to be ciphers, several faces in various windows. At this juncture the pickings are ours but that won’t last long, I doubt through the morning.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Carlos will close up shop here and he’ll do it quickly. He hasn’t got a choice now. Someone in his Praetorian guard gave someone else the location of his Paris headquarters, and you can bet your pension—if you’ve still got one—that he’s climbing the walls trying to figure out who betrayed him—”

  “Get back!” cried Bernardine, interrupting and grabbing Jason by the cloth of his black jacket, yanking him into the farthest recess of the dark storefront. “Get out of sight! Flat on the pavement!”

  Both men threw themselves down, lying prone on the broken concrete, Bourne’s face against the short wall below the glass, his head angled to see the street. A second dark van appeared from the right, but it was not police equipment. Instead, it was shinier and smaller, somehow thicker, lower to the ground and more powerful. The one glaring, blinding similarity it had to the police van was the searchlight.… No, not one, but two searchlights, one on either side of the windshield, both beams swinging back and forth scanning the vehicle’s flanks. Jason reached for the weapon in his belt—the gun he had borrowed from Bernardine—knowing that his companion already had his backup automatic out of his pocket. The beam of the left searchlight shot over their bodies as Bourne whispered, “Good work, but how did you spot it?”

  “The moving reflections of the lamps on the side windows,” replied old François. “I thought for a moment it was my former colleague returning to finish the job he had contemplated. Namely, my stomach in the street.… My God, look!”

  The van swept past the first two buildings, then suddenly swerved into the curb and stopped in front of the last structure, nearly two hundred feet from the storefront, the building farthest from the Jackal’s telephone. The instant the vehicle came to a halt the rear door opened and four men jumped out, automatic weapons in their hands, two running to the street side, one racing down the pavement to the front, the last guard standing menacingly by the open doors, his MAC-10 ready to fire. A dull wash of yellow light appeared at the top of the brick steps; the door had been opened and a man in a black raincoat came outside. He stood for a moment looking up and down the boulevard Lefebvre.

  “Is that him?” whispered François.

  “No, not unless he’s wearing high heels and a wig,” answered Jason, reaching into his jacket pocket. “I’ll know him when I see him—because I see him every day of my life!” Bourne took out one of the grenades he had also borrowed from Bernardine. He checked the release,
laying down his gun and gripping the pockmarked steel oval, tugging at the pin to make certain it was free of corrosion.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” asked the old Deuxième veteran.

  “That man up there is a decoy,” replied Jason, his soft voice suspended in a cold monotone. “In moments another will take his place, run down the steps and get into the van, either in the front seat or through the rear doors—I hope the latter, but it won’t make much difference.”

  “You’re mad! You’ll be killed! What good is a corpse to that family of yours?”

  “You’re not thinking, François. The guards will run back and climb up through the rear doors because there’s no room in front. There’s a lot of difference between climbing into a truck and jumping out of it. For starters, it’s a slower sequence.… By the time the last man gets in and reaches out to close those wide doors, I’ll have a primed grenade inside that van.… And I have no intention of becoming a corpse. Stay here!”

  Before Bernardine could object further, Medusa’s Delta crawled out into the dark boulevard, dark but for the harsh stationary beams of the searchlights, which were now angled on the flanks, thus actually enhancing Bourne’s concealment. The hot white light around the vehicle obscured the darkness beyond; his only extreme risk was the guard posted by the open doors. Hugging the shadows of the successive storefronts as though he were threading his way through the high grass of the Mekong Delta toward a floodlit prisoner compound, Jason crept slowly forward with each wayward glance of the rear guard, his eyes darting continuously up to the man by the door above the brick steps.

  Suddenly another figure emerged; it was a woman carrying a small suitcase in one hand, a large purse in the other. She spoke to the man in the black raincoat as the guard’s attention was drawn to both of them. Bourne scrambled, his elbows and knees silently pounding the hard pavement, until he reached that point nearest the van where he could observe the scene on the staircase with minimum risk of being spotted. He was relieved to see that the two guards in the street continuously winced and blinked under the beam of the searchlight. His status was as clean as it could be under the tenuous circumstances. Everything now was timing, precision, and all the expertise he could summon from times too often unremembered or too vague or too long ago. He had to remember now; instinct had to propel him through his personal mists. Now. The end of the nightmare was at hand.