The Bourne Identity (78 page)

Never. Not now. Not at the end. Cain is for Carlos and Delta is for Cain. Trap Carlos. Kill
Carlos!

Bourne rose to his feet, his back pressed against the wall, the flare in his left hand, the exploding weapon in his right. He plunged down into the carpeted underbrush, kicking the door in front of him open, shattering silver frames and trophies that flew off tables and shelves into the air. Into the trees. He stopped; there was no one in that quiet, soundproof, elegant room. No one in the jungle path. He spun around and lurched back into the hallway, puncturing the walls with a prolonged burst of gunfire. No one.

The door at the end of the narrow, dark corridor. Beyond was the room where Cain was born. Where Cain would die, but not alone.

He held his fire, shifting the flare to his right hand beneath the weapon, reaching into his pocket for the second flare. He pulled it out, and again uncoiled the fuse and brought it to his teeth, severing the cord, now millimeters from its point of contact with the gelatinous incendiary. He shoved the first flare to it; the
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explosion of light was so bright it pained his eyes. Awkwardly, he held both flares in his left hand and, squinting, his legs and arms losing the battle for balance, approached the door. It was open, the narrow crack extending from top to bottom on the lock side. The assassin was accommodating, but as he looked at that door, Jason instinctively knew one thing about it that Carlos did not know. It was a part of his past, a part of the room where Cain was born. He reached down with his right hand, bracing the weapon between his forearm and his hip, and gripped the knob.
Now
. He shoved the door open six inches and hurled the flares inside. A long staccato burst from a Sten gun echoed throughout the room, throughout the entire house, a thousand dead sounds forming a running chord beneath, as sprays of bullets imbedded in a lead shield backed by a steel plate in the door. The firing stopped, a final clip expended.
Now
. Bourne whipped his hand back to the trigger, crashed his shoulder into the door and lunged inside, firing in circles as he rolled on the floor, swinging his legs counterclockwise. Gunshots were returned wildly as Jason honed his weapon toward the source. A roar of fury burst from blindness across the room; it accompanied Bourne's realization that the drapes had been drawn, blocking out the sunlight from the french doors. Then why was there so much light ... magnified light beyond the sizzling blindness of the flares? It was overpowering, causing explosions in his head, sharp bolts of agony at his temples.

The
screen!
The huge screen was pulled down from its bulging recess in the ceiling, drawn taut to the floor, the wide expanse of glistening silver a white-hot shield of ice-cold fire. He plunged behind the large hatch table to the protection of a copper dry bar; he rose and jammed the trigger back, in another burst--a final burst. The last clip had run out. He hurled the weapon by its rod-stock across the room at the figure in white overalls and a white silk scarf that had fallen below his face. The
face!
He knew it! He had seen it before! Where ... where? Was it Marseilles? Yes ... not Zurich?

Paris? Yes
and
no! Then it struck him at that instant in the blinding, vibrating light, that the face across the room was known to many, not just him. But from where?
Where?
As so much else, he knew it and did not know it. But he
did
know it! It was, only the name he could not find!

He spiraled back off his feet, behind the heavy copper dry bar. Gunshots came, two ... three, the second bullet tearing the flesh of his left forearm. He pulled his automatic from his belt; he had three shots left. One of them had to find its mark--Carlos. There was a debt to pay in Paris, and a contract to fulfill, his love far safer with the assassin's death. He took the plastic lighter from his pocket, ignited it and held it beneath a bar rag suspended from a hook. The cloth caught fire; he grabbed it and threw it to his right, as he dove to his left. Carlos fined at the flaming rag, as Bourne spun to his knees, leveling his gun, pulling the trigger twice.

The figure buckled but did not fall. Instead, he crouched, then sprang like a white panther diagonally forward, his hands outstretched. What was he
doing?
Then Jason knew. The assassin gripped the edge of the huge silver screen, ripping it from its metal bracket in the ceiling, pulling it downward with all his weight and strength.

It floated down above Bourne, filling his vision, blocking everything else from his mind. He screamed as the shimmering silver descended over him, suddenly more frightened of it than of Carlos or of any other human being on the earth. It terrified him, infuriated him, splitting his mind in fragments; images flashed across his eyes and angry voices shouted in his ears. He aimed his gun and fired at the terrible shroud. As he slashed his hand against it wildly, pushing the rough silver cloth away, he understood. He had fired his last shot, his
last
. As a legend named Cain, Carlos knew by sight and by sound every weapon on earth; he had counted the gunshots.

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The assassin loomed above him, the automatic in his hand aimed at Jason's head. "Your execution, Delta. On the day scheduled. For everything you've done."

Bourne arched his back, rolling furiously to his right; at least he would die in motion! Gunshots filled the shimmering room, hot needles slicing across his neck, piercing his legs, cutting up to his waist. Roll,
roll!

Suddenly the gunshots stopped, and in the distance he could hear repeated sounds of hammering, the smashing of wood and steel, growing louder, more insistent. There was a final deafening crash from the dark corridor outside the library, followed by men shouting, running, and beyond them somewhere in the unseen, outside world, the insistent whine of sirens.

"In here! He's in
here!"
screamed Carlos.

It was insane! The assassin was directing the invaders directly toward him,
to
him! Reason was madness, nothing on earth made sense!

The door was crashed open by a tall man in a black overcoat; someone was with him, but Jason could not see. The mists were filling his eyes, shapes and sounds becoming obscured, blurred. He was rolling in space. Away ... away.

But then he saw the one thing he did not want to see. Rigid shoulders that floated above a tapered waist raced out of the room and down the dimly lit corridor. Carlos. His screams had sprung the trap open! He had
reversed
it! In the chaos he had trapped the stalkers. He was
escaping!

"Carlos ..." Bourne knew he could not be heard; what emerged from his bleeding throat was a whisper. He tried again, forcing the sound from his stomach. "It's
him
. It's ...
Carlos!"

There was confusion, commands shouted futilely, orders swallowed in consternation. And then a figure came into focus. A man was limping toward him, a cripple who had tried to kill him in a cemetery outside of Paris. There was nothing left! Jason lurched, crawling toward the sizzling, blinding flare. He grabbed it and held it as though it were a weapon, aiming it at the killer with a cane.

"Come on! Come
on!
Closer, you bastard! I'll burn your eyes out! You think you'll kill me, you
won't!

I'll kill you! I'll burn your eyes!"

"You don't understand," said the trembling voice of the limping killer. "It's me, Delta. It's Conklin. I was wrong."

The flare singed his hands, his eyes! ...
Madness. The explosions were all around him now, blinding,
deafening, punctuated by ear-splitting screeches from the jungle that erupted with each
detonation.

The jungle! Tam Quan! The wet, hot stench was everywhere, but they had reached it! The base
camp was theirs! An explosion to his left; he could see it! High above the ground, suspended
between two trees, the spikes of a bamboo cage. The figure inside was moving. He was alive! Get
to him, reach him!

A cry came from his right. Breathing, coughing in the smoke, a man was limping toward the
dense underbrush, a rifle in his hand. It was him, the blond hair caught in the light, a foot broken
from a parachute jump. The bastard! A piece of filth who had trained with them, studied the maps
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with them, flown north with them ... all the time springing a trap on them! A traitor with a radio
who told the enemy exactly where to look in that impenetrable jungle that was Tam Quan.
It was Bourne! Jason Bourne. Traitor, garbage!

Get him! Don't let him reach others! Kill him! Kill Jason Bourne! He is your enemy! Fire!

He did not fall! The head that had been blown apart was still there. Coming toward him! What
was happening? Madness. Tam Quan ...

"Come with us," said the limping figure, walking out of the jungle into what remained of an elegant room.
That
room. "We're not your enemies. Come with us."

"Get
away
from me!" Bourne lunged again, now back to the fallen screen. It was his sanctuary, his shroud of death, the blanket thrown over a man at birth, a lining for his coffin. "You are my enemy! I'll take you all! I don't care, it doesn't matter! Can't you understand!? I'm
Delta!
Cain is for Charlie and Delta is for Cain! What more do you want from me? I was and I
was
not! I am and I
am
not! Bastards,
bastards!
Come on! Closer!"

Another voice was heard, a deeper voice, calmer, less insistent. "Get her. Bring her in."

Somewhere in the distance the sirens reached a crescendo, and then they stopped. Darkness came and the waves carried Jason up to the night sky, only to hurl him down again, crashing him into an abyss of watery violence. He was entering an eternity of weightless ... memory. An explosion filled the night sky now, a fiery diadem rose above black waters. And then he heard the words, spoken from the clouds, filling the earth.

"Jason, my love. My only love. Take my hand. Hold it. Tightly, Jason. Tightly, my darling."

Peace came with the darkness.

EPILOGUE

Brigadier General Crawford put the file folder down on the couch beside him. "I don't need this," he said to Marie St. Jacques, who sat across from him in a straight-back chair. "I've gone over it and over it, trying to find out where we missed."

"You presumed where no one should," said the only other person in the hotel suite. He was Dr. Morris Panov, psychiatrist; he stood by the window, the morning sun streaming in, putting his expressionless face in shadow. "I allowed you to presume, and I'll live with it for the rest of my life."

"It's nearly two weeks now," said Marie impatiently. "I'd like specifics. I think I'm entitled to them."

"You are. It was an insanity called clearance."

"Insanity," agreed Panov.

"Protection, also," added Crawford. "I subscribe to that part. It has to continue for a very long time."

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"Protection?" Marie frowned.

"We'll get to it," said the general, glancing at Panov. "From everyone's point of view, it's vital. I trust we all accept that."

"Please! Jason--who is he?"

"His name is David Webb. He was a career foreign service officer, a specialist in Far Eastern affairs, until his separation from the government five years ago."

"Separation?"

"Resignation by mutual agreement. His work in Medusa precluded any sustained career in the State Department. 'Delta' was infamous and too many knew he was Webb. Such men are rarely welcome at the diplomatic conference tables. I'm not sure they should be. Visceral wounds are reopened too easily with their presence."

"He was everything they say? In Medusa?"

"Yes. I was there. He was everything they say."

"It's hard to believe," said Marie.

"He'd lost something very special to him and couldn't come to grips with it. He could only strike out."

"What was that?"

"His family. His wife was a Thai; they had two children, a boy and a girl. He was stationed in Phnom Penh, his house on the outskirts, near the Mekong River. One Sunday afternoon while his wife and children were down at their dock, a stray aircraft circled and dove, dropping two bombs and strafing the area. By the time he reached the river the dock was blown away, his wife and children floating in the water, their bodies riddled."

"Oh, God," whispered Marie. "Whom did the plane belong to?"

"It was never identified. Hanoi disclaimed it; Saigon said it wasn't ours. Remember, Cambodia was neutral; no one wanted to be responsible. Webb had to strike out; he headed for Saigon and trained for Medusa. He brought a specialist's intellect to a very brutal operation. He became Delta."

"Was that when he met d'Anjou?"

"Later on, yes. Delta was notorious by then. North Vietnamese Intelligence had put an extraordinary price on his head, and it's no secret that among our own people a number hoped they'd succeed. Then Hanoi found out that Webb's younger brother was an army officer in Saigon, and having studied Delta--knowing the brothers were close--decided to mount a trap; they had nothing to lose. They kidnapped Lieutenant Gordon Webb and took him north, sending back a Cong informant with word that he was being held in the Tam Quan sector. Delta bit; along with the informer--a double agent--he formed a team of Medusans who knew the area and picked a night when no aircraft should have left the ground to fly north. D'Anjou was in the unit. So was another man Webb didn't know about; a white man who'd been bought by Hanoi, an expert in communications who could assemble the electronic components of a high-frequency radio in the dark. Which is exactly what he did, betraying the unit's
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