The Bourne Identity (38 page)

"You
won't
take him. He'll disappear again! Can't you
see
that? He's in Paris and a network of people he cannot know are looking for him. He may have escaped once, twice; but not a third time! He's trapped now. We've trapped him!"

"We don't want you to trap him. That's not in our interests." It was almost the moment, thought Bourne. Almost, but not quite; her fear had to match her anger. She had to be detonated into revealing the truth.

"Here's our ultimatum, and we're holding you responsible for conveying it--otherwise you'll join Koenig and d'Amacourt. Call off your hunt tonight If you don't we'll move first thing in the morning; we'll start shouting. Les Classiques'll be the most popular store in Saint-Honore, but I don't think it'll be the right people."

The powdered face cracked. "You wouldn't dare! How dare you? Who are you to say this?!"

He paused, then struck. "A group of people who don't care much for your Carlos."

The Lavier woman froze, her eyes wide, stretching the taut skin into scar tissue. "You
do
know," she whispered. "And you think you can oppose him? You think you're a match for Carlos?"

"In a word, yes."

"You're
insane
. You don't give ultimatums to Carlos."

"I just did."

"Then you're dead. You raise your voice to
anyone
and you won't last the day. He has men everywhere; they'll cut you down in the street."

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"They might if they knew whom to cut down," said Jason. "You forget. No one does. But they know who you are. And Koenig, and d'Amacourt. The minute we expose you, you'd be eliminated. Carlos couldn't afford you any longer. But no one knows me."

"You forget, monsieur. I do."

"The least of my worries. Find me ... after the damage is done and before the decision is made regarding your own future. It won't be long."

"This is madness. You come out of nowhere and talk like a madman. You cannot do this!"

"Are you suggesting a compromise?"

"It's conceivable," said Jacqueline Lavier. "Anything is possible."

"Are you in a position to negotiate it?"

"I'm in a position to convey it ... far better than I can an ultimatum. Others will relay it to the one who decides."

"What you're saying is what I said a few minutes ago: we can talk."

"We can talk, monsieur," agreed Mme. Lavier, her eyes fighting for her life.

"Then let's start with the obvious."

"Which is?"

Now. The truth.

"What's Bourne to Carlos? Why does he want him?"

"What's
Bourne
--" The woman stopped, venom and fear replaced by an expression of absolute shock. "
You
can ask
that?"

"I'll ask it again," said Jason, hearing the pounding echoes in his chest. "What's Bourne to Carlos?"

"He's Cain! You know it as well as we do. He was your error, your choice! You chose the wrong man!"

Cain
. He heard the name and the echoes erupted into cracks of deafening thunder. And with each crack, pain jolted him, bolts searing one after another through his head, his mind and body recoiling under the onslaught of the name. Cain. Cain. The mists were there again. The darkness, the wind, the explosions.

Alpha, Bravo, Cain, Delta, Echo, Foxtrot. ... Cain, Delta. Delta, Cain. Delta ...
Cain.
Cain
is for
Charlie
.

Delta
is for
Cain!

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"What is it? What's wrong with you?"

"Nothing." Bourne had slipped his right hand over his left wrist, gripping it, his fingers pressed into his flesh with such pressure he thought his skin might break. He had to do
something
; he had to stop the trembling, lessen the noise, repulse the pain. He had to
clear his mind
. The eyes of the truth were staring at him; he could not look away. He was there, he was home, and the cold made him shiver. "Go on," he said, imposing a control on his voice that resulted in a whisper; he could not help himself.

"Are you ill? You're very pale and you're--"

"I'm fine," he interrupted curtly. "I said, go
on
."

"What's there to tell you?"

"Say it all. I want to hear it from you."

"Why? There's nothing you don't know. You chose Cain. You dismissed Carlos; you think you can dismiss him now. You were wrong then and you are wrong now."

I will kill you. I will grab your throat and choke the breath out of you. Tell me! For Christ's sake,
tell me! At the end, there is only my beginning! I must know it.

"That doesn't matter," he said. "If you are looking for a compromise--if only to save your life--tell me why we should listen. Why is Carlos so adamant ... so paranoid ... about Bourne? Explain it to me as if I hadn't heard it before. If you don't, those names that shouldn't be mentioned will be spread all over Paris, and you'll be dead by the afternoon."

Lavier was rigid, her alabaster mask set. "Carlos will follow Cain to the ends of the earth and kill him."

"We know that. We want to know why."

"He has to. Look to yourself. To people like you."

"That's meaningless. You don't know who we are."

"I don't have to. I know what you've done."

"Spell it out!"

"I did. You picked Cain over Carlos--that was your error. You chose the wrong man. You paid the wrong assassin."

"The wrong ... assassin."

"You were not the first, but you will be the last. The arrogant pretender will be killed here in Paris, whether there is a compromise or not."

"We picked the wrong assassin ..." The words floated in the elegant, perfumed air of the restaurant. The deafening thunder receded, angry still but far away in the storm clouds; the mists were clearing, circles of vapor swirling around him. He began to see, and what he saw was the outlines of a monster. Not a myth,
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but a monster. Another monster. There were two.

"Can you doubt it?" asked the woman. "Don't interfere with Carlos. Let him take Cain; let him have his revenge." She paused, both hands slightly off the table; Mother Rat. "I promise nothing, but I
will
speak for you, for the loss your people have sustained. It's possible ... only possible, you understand ... that your contract might be honored by the one you should have chosen in the first place."

"The one we should have chosen. ... Because we chose the wrong one."

"You see that, do you not, monsieur? Carlos should be
told
that you, see it. Perhaps ... only perhaps ... he might have sympathy for your losses if he were convinced you saw your error."

"That's your compromise?" said Bourne flatly, struggling to find a line of thought.

"Anything is possible. No good can come from your threats, I can tell you that. For any of us, and I'm frank enough to include myself. There would be only pointless killing; and Cain would stand back laughing. You would lose not once, but twice."

"If that's true ..." Jason swallowed, nearly choking as dry air filled the vacuum in his dry throat, "then I'll have to explain to my people why we ... chose ... the ... wrong man."
Stop it! Finish the statement.
Control yourself
. "Tell me everything you know about Cain."

"To what purpose?" Lavier put her fingers on the table, her bright red nail polish ten points of a weapon.

"If we chose the wrong man, then we had the wrong information."

"You heard he was the equal of Carlos, no? That his fees were more reasonable, his apparatus more contained, and because fewer intermediaries were involved there was no possibility of a contract being traced. Is this not so?"

"Maybe."

"Of course it's so. It's what everyone's been told and it's all a lie. Carlos' strength is in his far-reaching sources of information--
infallible
information. In his elaborate system of reaching the right person at precisely the right moment prior to a kill."

"Sounds like too many people. There were too many people in Zurich, too many here in Paris."

"All blind, monsieur. Every one."

"Blind?"

"To put it plainly, I've been part of the operation for a number of years, meeting in one way or another dozens who have played their minor roles--none is major. I have yet to meet a single person who has ever spoken to Carlos, much less has any idea who he is."

"That's Carlos. I want to know about Cain. What you know about Cain."
Stay controlled. You cannot
turn away. Look at her. Look at her!

"Where shall I begin?"

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"With whatever comes to mind first. Where did he come from?"
Do not look away!

"Southeast Asia, of course."

"Of course ..."
Oh, God.

"From the American Medusa, we know that ..."

Medusa! The winds, the darkness, the flashes of light, the pain. ... The pain ripped through his
skull now; he was not where he was, but where he had been. A world away in distance and time.
The pain. Oh, Jesus. The pain ...

Tao!

Che-sah!

Tam Quan! Alpha, Bravo, Cain ... Delta.

Delta ... Cain!

Cain is for Charlie.

Delta is for Cain.

"What is it?" The woman looked frightened; she was studying his face, her eyes roving, boring into his.

"You're perspiring. Your hands are shaking. Are you having an attack?"

"It passes quickly." Jason pried his hand away from his wrist and reached for a napkin to wipe his forehead.

"It comes with the pressures, no?"

"With the pressures, yes. Go on. There isn't much time; people have to be reached, decisions made. Your life is probably one of them. Back to Cain: You say he came from the American ... Medusa."

"Les mercenaires du diable,"
said Lavier. "It was the nickname given Medusa by the Indochina colonials--what was left of them. Quite appropriate, don't you think?"

"It doesn't make any difference what I think. Or what I know. I want to hear what
you
think, what
you
know about Cain."

"Your attack makes you rude."

"My impatience makes me impatient. You say we chose the wrong man; if we did we had the wrong information.
Les mercenaires du diable
. Are you implying that Cain is French?"

"Not at all, you test me poorly. I mentioned that only to indicate how deeply we penetrated Medusa."

" 'We' being the people who work for Carlos."

"You could say that."

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"I will say that. If Cain's not French, what is he?"

"Undoubtedly American."

Oh, God!
"Why?"

"Everything he does has the ring of American audacity. He pushes and shoves with little or no finesse, taking credit where none is his, claiming kills when he had nothing to do with them. He had studied Carlos' methods and connections like no other man alive. Were told he recites them with total recall to potential clients, more often than not putting himself in Carlos' place, convincing fools that it was
he
, not Carlos, who accepted and fulfilled the contracts." Lavier paused. "I've struck a chord, no? He did the same with you--your people--yes?"

"Perhaps." Jason reached for his own wrist again, as the statements came back to him. Statements made in response to clues in a dreadful game.

Stuttgart. Regensburg. Munich. Two kills and a kidnapping, Baader accreditation. Fees from U.
S. sources. ...

Teheran? Eight kills. Divided accreditation--Khomeini and PLO. Fee, two million. Southwest
Soviet sector.

Paris ... All contracts will be processed through Paris.

Whose contracts?

Sanchez ... Carlos.

"... always such a transparent device."

The Lavier woman had spoken; he had not heard her. "What did you say?"

"You were remembering, yes? He used the same device with you--your people. It's how he gets his assignments."

"Assignments?" Bourne tensed the muscles in his stomach until the pain brought him back to the table in the candelabraed dining room in Argenteuil. "He gets assignments, then," he said pointlessly.

"And carries them out with considerable expertise; no one denies him that. His record of kills is impressive. In many ways, he is second to Carlos--not his equal, but far above the ranks of
les
guerilleros
. He's a man of immense skill, extremely inventive, a trained lethal weapon out of Medusa. But it is his arrogance, his lies at the expense of Carlos that will bring him down."

"And that makes him American? Or is it your bias? I have an idea you like American money, but that's about all they export that you do like."
Immense skill; extremely inventive, a trained lethal weapon.

... Port Noir, La Ciotat, Marseilles, Zurich, Paris.

"It is beyond prejudice, monsieur. The identification is positive."

"How did you get it?"

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Lavier touched the stem of her wineglass, her red-tipped index finger curling around it. "A discontented man was bought in Washington."

"Washington?"

"The Americans also look for Cain--with an intensity approaching Carlos', I suspect. Medusa has never been made public, and Cain might prove to be an extraordinary embarrassment. This discontented man was in a position to give us a great deal of information, including the Medusa records. It was a simple matter to match the names with those in Zurich. Simple for Carlos, not for anyone else."