The Bourne Identity (54 page)

"Age hasn't dulled your sense of maneuver, old friend. It's why I called upon you."

"Or perhaps," continued the beggar, "he really has turned. It's happened."

"I don't think so, but it doesn't matter. Washington thinks he has. The Monk is dead, they're all dead at Treadstone. Cain is established as the killer."

"The Monk?" said the beggar. "A name from the past; he was active in Berlin, in Vienna We knew him well, healthier for it from a distance. There's your answer, Carlos. It was always the Monk's style to reduce the numbers to as few as possible. He operated on the theory that his circles were infiltrated, compromised. He must have ordered Cain to report only to him. It would explain Washington's confusion, the months of silence."

"Would it explain ours? For months there was no word, no activity."

"A score of possibilities. Illness, exhaustion, brought back for new training. Even to spread confusion to the enemy. The Monk had a cathedralful of tricks."

"Yet before he died he said to an associate that he did
not
know what had happened. That he wasn't even certain the man
was
Cain."

"Who was the associate?"

"A man named Gillette. He was our man, but Abbott couldn't have known it."

"Another possible explanation. The Monk had an instinct about such men. It was said in Vienna that David Abbott would distrust Christ on the mountain and look for a bakery."

"It's possible. Your words are comforting; you look for things others do not look for."

"I've had far more experience; I was once a man of stature. Unfortunately I pissed away the money."

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"You still do."

"A profligate--what can I tell you?"

"Obviously something else."

"You're perceptive, Carlos. We should have known each other in the old days."

"Now you're presumptuous."

"Always. You know that I know you can swat my life away at any moment you choose, so I must be of value. And not merely with words that come from experience."

"What have you got to tell me?"

"This may not be of great value, but it is something. I put on respectable clothes and spent the day at the Auberge du Coin. There was a man, an obese man--questioned and dismissed by the Surete--whose eyes were too unsteady. And he perspired too much. I had a chat with him, showing him an official NATO identification I had made in the early fifties. It seems he negotiated the rental of an automobile at three o'clock yesterday morning. To a blond man in the company of a woman. The description fits the photograph from Argenteuil."

"A rental?"

"Supposedly. The car was to be returned within a day or so by the woman."

"It will never happen."

"Of course not, but it raises a question, doesn't it? Why would Cain go to the trouble of obtaining an automobile in such a fashion?"

"To get as far away as possible as rapidly as possible."

"In which case the information
has
no value," said the beggar. "But then there are so many ways to travel faster less conspicuously. And Bourne could hardly trust an avaricious night clerk, he might easily look for a reward from the Surete. Or anyone else."

"What's your point?"

"I suggest that Bourne could have obtained that car for the sole purpose of following someone here in Paris. No loitering in public where he might be spotted, no rented cars that could be traced, no frantic searches for elusive taxis. Instead, a simple exchange of license plates and a nondescript black Renault in the crowded streets. Where would one begin to look?"

The silhouette turned. "The Lavier woman," said the assassin softly. "And everyone else he suspects at Les Classiques. It's the only place he has to start. They'll be watched, and within days--hours perhaps--a nondescript black Renault will be seen and he'll be found. Do you have a full description of the car?"

"Down to three dents in the left rear fender."

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"Good. Spread the word to the old men. Comb the streets, the garages, the parking lots. The one who finds it will never have to look for work again."

"Speaking of such matters ..."

An envelope was slipped between the taut edge of the curtain and the blue felt of the frame. "If your theory proves right, consider this a token"

"I
am
right, Carlos."

"Why are you so convinced?"

"Because Cain does what you would do, what I would have done--in the old days. He must be respected."

"He must be killed," said the assassin. "There's symmetry in the timing. In a few days it will be the twenty-fifth of March. On March 25, 1968, Jason Bourne was executed in the jungles of Tam Quan. Now, years later--nearly to the day--another Jason Bourne is hunted, the Americans as anxious as we are to see him killed. I wonder which of us will pull the trigger this time."

"Does it matter?"

"
I
want him," whispered the silhouette. "He was never real, and that's his crime against me. Tell the old men that if any find him, get word to Parc Monceau but do nothing. Keep him in sight, but do
nothing!
I want him alive on the twenty-fifth of March. On March 25 I'll execute him myself and deliver his body to the Americans."

"The word will go out immediately."

"Angelus Domini, child of God."

"Angelus Domini," said the beggar.

26

The old soldier walked in silence beside the younger man down the moonlit path in the Bois de Boulogne. Neither spoke, for too much had already been said--admitted, challenged, denied and reaffirmed. Villiers had to reflect and analyze, to accept or violently reject what he had heard. His life would be far more bearable if he could strike back in anger, attack the lie and find his sanity again. But he could not do that with impunity; he was a soldier and to turn away was not in him. There was too much truth in the younger man. It was in his eyes, in his voice, in his every gesture that asked for understanding. The man without a name was not lying. The ultimate treason was in Villiers'

house. It explained so many things he had not dared to question before. An old man wanted to weep. For the man without a memory there was little to change or invent; the chameleon was not called upon. His story was convincing because the most vital part was based in the truth. He had to find Carlos, learn what the assassin knew; there would be no life for him if he failed. Beyond this he would say nothing. There was no mention of Marie St. Jacques, or the Ile de Port Noir, or a message being sent by person or persons unknown, or a walking hollow shell that might or might not be someone he was or was
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not--who could not even be sure that the fragments of memories he possessed were really his own. None of this was spoken of.

Instead, he recounted everything he knew about the assassin called Carlos. That knowledge was so vast that during the telling Villiers stared at him in astonishment, recognizing information he knew to be highly classified, shocked at new and startling data that was in concert with a dozen existing theories, but to his ears never before put forth with such clarity. Because of his son, the general had been given access to his country's most secret files on Carlos, and nothing in those records matched the younger man's array of facts.

"This woman you spoke with in Argenteuil, the one who calls my house, who admitted being a courier to you ..."

"Her name is Lavier," Bourne interrupted.

The general paused. "Thank you. She saw through you; she had your photograph taken."

"Yes." "They had no photograph before?"

"No."

"So as you hunt Carlos, he in turn hunts you. But you have no photograph; you only know two couriers, one of which was at my house."

"Yes."

"Speaking with my wife."

"Yes."

The old man turned away. The period of silence had begun.

They came to the end of the path, where there was a miniature lake. It was bordered with white gravel, benches spaced every ten to fifteen feet, circling the water like a guard of honor surrounding a grave of black marble. They walked to the second bench. Villiers broke his silence.

"I should like to sit down," he said. "With age there comes a paucity of stamina. It often embarrasses me."

"It shouldn't," said Bourne, sitting down beside him.

"It shouldn't," agreed the general, "but it does." He paused for a moment, adding quietly, "Frequently in the company of my wife."

"That's not necessary," said Jason.

"You mistake me." The old man turned to the younger, "I'm not referring to the bed. There are simply times when I find it necessary to curtail activities--leave a dinner party early, absent myself on weekends to the Mediterranean, or decline a few days on the slopes in Gstaad."

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"I'm not sure I understand."

"My wife and I are often apart. In many ways we live quite separate lives, taking pleasure, of course, in each other's pursuits."

"I still don't understand."

"Must I embarrass myself further?" said Villiers. "When an old man finds a stunning young woman anxious to share his life, certain things are understood, others not so readily. There is, of course, financial security and in my case a degree of public exposure. Creature comforts, entry into the great houses, easy friendship with the celebrated; it's all very understandable. In exchange for these things, one brings a beautiful companion into his home, shows her off among his peers--a form of continuing virility, as it were. But there are always doubts." The old soldier stopped for several moments; what he had to say was not easy for him. "Will she take a lover?" he continued softly. "Does she long for a younger, firmer body, one more in tune with her own? If she does, one can accept it--even be relieved, I imagine--hoping to God she has the sense to be discreet. A cuckolded statesman loses his constituency faster than a sporadic drunk; it means he's fully lost his grip. There are other worries. Will she abuse his name? Publicly condemn an adversary whom one is trying to convince? These are the inclinations of the young; they are manageable, part of the risks in the exchange. But there is one underlying doubt that if proved justified cannot be tolerated. And that is if she is part of a design. From the beginning."

"You've felt it then?" asked Jason quietly.

"Feelings are not reality!" shot back the old soldier vehemently. "They have no place in observing the field."

"Then why are you telling me this?"

Villiers' head arched back, then fell forward, his eyes on the water. "There could be a simple explanation for what we both saw tonight. I pray there is, and I shall give her every opportunity to provide it." The old man paused again. "But in my heart I know there isn't. I knew it the moment you told me about Les Classiques. I looked across the street, at the door of my house, and suddenly a number of things fell painfully into place. For the past two hours I have played the devil's advocate; there is no point in continuing. There was my son before there was this woman."

"But you said you trusted her judgment. That she was a great help to you."

"True. You see, I wanted to trust her, desperately wanted to trust her. The easiest thing in the world is to convince yourself that you're right. As one grows old it is easier still."

"What fell into place for you?"

"The very help she gave me, the very trust I placed in her." Villiers turned and looked at Jason. "You have extraordinary knowledge about Carlos. I've studied those files as closely as any man alive, for I would give more than any man alive to see him caught and executed, I alone the firing squad. And as swollen as they are, those files do not approach what you know. Yet your concentration is solely on his kills, his methods of assassination. You've overlooked the other side of Carlos. He not only sells his gun, he sells a country's secrets."

"I know that," Bourne said. "It's not the side--"

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"For example," continued the general, as if he had not heard Jason. "I have access to classified documents dealing with France's military and nuclear security. Perhaps five other men--all above suspicion--share that access. Yet with damning regularity we find that Moscow has learned this, Washington that, Peking something else."

"You discussed those things with your wife?" asked Bourne, surprised.

"Of course not. Whenever I bring such papers home, they are placed in a vault in my office. No one may enter that room except in my presence. There is only one other person who has a key, one other person who knows the whereabouts of the alarm switch. My wife."

"I'd think that would be as dangerous as discussing the material. Both could be forced from her."

"There was a reason. I'm at the age when the unexpected is a daily occurrence; I commend you to the obituary pages. If anything happened to me she is instructed to telephone the Conseiller Militaire, go down to my office, and stay by that vault until the security personnel arrive."

"Couldn't she simply stay by the door?"

"Men of my years have been known to pass away at their desks." Villiers closed his eyes. "All along it was she. The one house, the one place, no one believed possible."

"Are you sure?"

"More than I dare admit to myself. She was the one who insisted on the marriage. I repeatedly brought up the disparity of our ages, but she would have none of it. It was the years together, she claimed, not those that separated our birth dates. She offered to sign an agreement renouncing any claims to the Villiers estate and, of course, I would have none of that, for it was proof of her commitment to me. The adage is quite right: The old fool is the complete fool. Yet there were always the doubts; they came with the trips, with the unexpected separations."