The Bourne Identity (76 page)

"I love it, Joey. You a regular dictionary."

Bourne walked up the reddish brown steps past the descending movers to the door. He stepped inside and saw the winding staircase on the right, and the long narrow corridor in front of him that led to another door thirty feet away. He had climbed those steps a thousand times, walked up and down that corridor thousands more. He had come back, and an overpowering sense of dread swept through him. He started down the dark, narrow corridor; he could see shafts of sunlight bursting through a pair of French doors in the distance. He was approaching the room where Cain was born.
That
room. He gripped the straps on his shoulder and tried to stop the trembling.

Marie leaned forward in the back seat of the armor-plated government sedan, the binoculars in place. Something had happened; she was not sure what it was, but she could guess. A short, stocky man had passed by the steps of the brownstone a few minutes ago, slowing his pace as he approached the general, obviously saying something to him. The man had then continued down the block and seconds later Crawford had followed him.

Conklin had been found.

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It was a small step if what the general said was true. Hired gunmen, unknown to their employer, he unknown to them. Hired to kill a man ... for all the wrong reasons! Oh, God, she loathed them all!

Mindless, stupid men. Playing with the lives of other men, knowing so little, thinking they knew so much. They had not listened! They never listened until it was too late, and then only with stern forbearance and strong reminders of what might have been--had things been as they were perceived to be, which they were not. The corruption came from blindness, the lies from obstinacy and embarrassment. Do not embarrass the powerful; the napalm said it all.

Marie focused the binoculars. A Belkins man was approaching the steps, blankets and straps over his shoulder, walking behind an elderly couple, obviously residents of the block out for a stroll. The man in the field jacket and the black knit hat stopped; he began talking to two other movers carrying a triangular-shaped object out the door.

What was it? There was something ... something odd. She could not see the man's face; it was hidden from view, but there was something about the neck, the angle of the head ... what was it? The man started up the steps, a blunt man, weary of his day before it had begun ... a slovenly man. Marie removed the binoculars; she was too anxious, too ready to see things that were not there.
Oh, God, my love, my Jason. Where are you? Come to me. Let me find you. Do not leave me for
these blind, mindless men. Do not let them take you from me.
Where was Crawford? He had promised to keep her informed of every move, everything. She had been blunt. She did not trust him, any of them; she did not trust their intelligence, that word spelled with a lower-case
i
. He had promised ... where
was
he?

She spoke to the driver. "Will you put down the window, please. It's stifling in here."

"Sorry, miss," replied the civilian-clothed army man. "I'll turn on the air conditioning for you, though."

The windows and doors were controlled by buttons only the driver could reach. She was in a glass and metal tomb in a sun-drenched, tree-lined street.

"I don't believe a word of it!" said Conklin, limping angrily across the room back to the window. He leaned against the sill, looking out, his left hand pulled up to his face, his teeth against the knuckle of his index finger. "Not a goddamned word!"

You don't want to believe it, Alex," countered Crawford. "The solution is so much easier. It's in place, and so much simpler."

"You didn't hear that tape. You didn't hear Villiers!"

"I've heard the woman; she's all I have to hear. She said we didn't listen ... you didn't listen."

"Then she's lying!" Awkwardly Conklin spun around. "Christ, of course she's lying! Why wouldn't she?

She's his woman. She'll do anything to get him off the meathook."

"You're wrong and you know it. The fact that he's here proves you're wrong, proves I was wrong to accept what you said."

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Conklin was breathing heavily, his right hand trembling as he gripped his cane. "Maybe ... maybe we, maybe ..." He did not finish; instead he looked at Crawford helplessly.

"We ought to let the solution stand?" asked the officer quietly. "You're tired, Alex. You haven't slept for several days; you're exhausted. I don't think I heard that."

"No." The CIA man shook his head, his eyes closed, his face reflecting his disgust. "No, you didn't hear it and I didn't say it. I just wish I knew where the hell to begin."

"I do," said Crawford, going to the door and opening it. "Come in, please."

The stocky man walked in, his eyes darting to the rifle leaning against the wall. He looked at the two men, appraisal in his expression. "What is it?"

"The exercise has been called off," Crawford said. "I think you must have gathered that."

"What exercise? I was hired to protect him." The gunman looked at Alex. "You mean you don't need protection anymore, sir?"

"You know exactly what we mean," broke in Conklin. "All signals are off, all stipulations."

"What stipulations? I don't know about any stipulations. The terms of my employment are very clear. I'm protecting you, sir."

"Good, fine," said Crawford "Now what we have to know is who else out there is protecting him."

"Who else where?"

"Outside this room, this apartment. In other rooms, on the street, in cars, perhaps. We have to
know
."

The stocky man walked over to the rifle and picked it up. "I'm afraid you gentlemen have misunderstood. I was hired on an individual basis. If others were employed, I'm not aware of them."

"You
do
know them!" shouted Conklin. "Who
are
they?
Where
are they?"

"I haven't any idea ... sir." The courteous gunman held the rifle in his right arm, the barrel angled down toward the floor. He raised it perhaps two inches, no more than that, the movement barely perceptible.

"If my services are no longer required, I'll be leaving."

"Can you
reach
them?" interrupted the brigadier. "We'll pay generously."

"I've already been paid generously, sir. It would be wrong to accept money for a service I can't perform. And pointless for this to continue."

"A man's life is at stake out there!" shouted Conklin.

"So's mine," said the gunman, walking to the door, the weapon raised higher. "Goodbye, gentlemen."

He let himself out.

"Jesus!"
roared Alex, swinging back to the window, his cane clattering against a radiator. "What do we
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do?"

"To start with, get rid of that moving company. I don't know what part it played in your strategy, but it's only a complication now."

"I can't. I tried. I didn't have anything to do with it. Agency Controls picked up our sheets when we had the equipment taken out. They saw that a store was being closed up and told GSA to get us the hell out of there."

"With all deliberate speed," said Crawford, nodding. "The Monk covered that equipment by signature; his statement absolves the Agency. It's in his files."

"That'd be fine if we had twenty-four hours. We don't even know if we've got twenty-four minutes."

"We'll still need it. There'll be a Senate inquiry. Closed, I hope. ... Rope off the street."

"What?"

"You heard me--rope off the street! Call in the police, tell them to rope everything off!"

"Through the Agency? This is domestic."

"Then
I
will. Through the Pentagon, from the Joint Chiefs, if I have to. We're standing around making excuses, when it's right in front of our eyes! Clear the street, rope it off, bring in a truck with a public address system. Put
her
in it, put her on a
microphone!
Let her say anything she likes, let her scream her head off. She was right. He'll come to
her!"

"Do you know what you're saying?" asked Conklin. "There'll be questions. Newspapers, television, radio. Everything will be exposed. Publicly."

"I'm aware of that," said the brigadier. "I'm also aware that she'll do it for us if this goes down. She may do it anyway, no matter what happens, but I'd rather try to save a man I didn't like, didn't approve of. But I respected him once, and I think I respect him more now."

"What about another man? If Carlos is really out there, you're opening the gates for him. You're handing him his escape."

"We didn't create Carlos. We created Cain and we abused him. We took his mind and his memory. We owe him. Go down and get the woman. I'll use the phone."

Bourne walked into the large library with the sunlight streaming through the wide, elegant french doors at the far end of the room. Beyond the panes of glass were the high walls of the garden ... all around him objects too painful to look at; he. knew them and did not know them. They were fragments of dreams--but solid, to be touched, to be felt, to be used--not ephemeral at all. A long hatch table where whiskey was poured, leather armchairs where men sat and talked, bookshelves that housed books and other things--concealed things--that appeared with the touch of buttons. It was a room where a myth was born, a myth that had raced through Southeast Asia and exploded in Europe. He saw the long, tubular bulge in the ceiling and the darkness came, followed by flashes of light and
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images on a screen and voices shouting in his ears.

Who is he? Quick. You're too late! You're a dead man! Where is this street? What does it mean to
you? Whom did you meet there? ... Methods of kills. Which are yours? No! ... You are not Delta,
you are not you! ... You are only what you are here, became here!

"Hey! Who the hell are
you?"
The question was shouted by a large, red-faced man seated in an armchair by the door, a clipboard on his knees. Jason had walked right past him.

"You D
oo
gan?" Bourne asked.

"Yeah."

"Schumach sent me. Said you needed another man."

"What for? I got five already, and this fuckin' place has hallways so tight you can't hardly get through

'em. They're climbing asses now."

"I don't know. Schumach sent me, that's all I know. He told me to bring this stuff." Bourne let the blankets and the straps fall to the floor.

"Murray sends new junk? I mean, that's new."

"I don't."

"I know, I
know!
Schumach sent you. Ask Schumach." "You can't. He said to tell you he was heading out to Sheepshead. Be back this afternoon."

"Oh, that's great! He goes fishing and leaves me with the shit. ... You're new. You a crumbball from the shape-up?"

"Yeah."

"That Murray's a beaut. All I need's another crumbball. Two wiseass stiffs and now four crumbballs."

"You want me to start in here? I can start in here."

"No, asshole! Crumbballs start at the top, you ain't heard? It's further away,
capisce?"

"Yeah, I
capisce
." Jason bent down for the blankets and the straps.

"Leave that junk here--you don't need it. Get upstairs, top floor, and start with the single wood units. As heavy as you can carry, and don't give me no union bullshit."

Bourne circled the landing on the second floor and climbed the narrow staircase to the third, as if drawn by a magnetic force beyond his understanding. He was being pulled to another room high up in the brownstone, a room that held both the comfort of solitude and the frustration of loneliness. The landing above was dark, no lights on, no sunlight bursting through windows anywhere. He reached the top and stood for a moment in silence. Which room was it? There were three doors, two on the left side of the hallway, one on the right. He started walking slowly toward the second door on the left, barely seen in the shadows. That was it; it was where thoughts came in the darkness ... memories that haunted him,
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pained him. Sunlight and the stench of the river and the jungle ... screaming machines in the sky, screaming down from the sky.
Oh, God, it hurt!

He put his hand on the knob, twisted it and opened the door. Darkness, but not complete. There was a small window at the far end of the room, a black shade pulled down, covering it, but not completely. He could see a thin line of sunlight, so narrow it barely broke through, where the shade met the sill. He walked toward it, toward that thin, tiny shaft of sunlight.

A scratch! A scratch in the darkness! He spun, terrified at the tricks being played on his mind. But it was not a trick! There was a diamondlike flash in the air, light bouncing off steel. A knife was slashing up at his face.

"I would willingly see you die for what you've done," said Marie, staring at Conklin. "And that realization revolts me."

"Then there's nothing I can say to you," replied the CIA man, limping across the room toward the general. "Other decisions could have been made--by him and by you."

"Could they? Where was he to start? When that man tried to kill him in Marseilles? In the rue Sarrasin?

When they hunted him in Zurich? When they shot at him in Paris? And all the while he didn't know why. What was he to do?"

"Come out! Goddamn it, come out!"

"He did. And when he did, you tried to kill him."

"You were there! You were with him. You had a memory."

"Assuming I knew whom to go to, would you have listened to me?"

Conklin returned her gaze. "I don't know," he answered, breaking the contact between them and turning to Crawford. "What's happening?"