The Bourne Identity (68 page)

"The private phone's in his office. It's three in the morning. He's probably--"

"He's on! General? Is that you?" Jason had to ask; the voice on the line was oddly quiet, but not the quiet of interrupted sleep.

"Yes, it is I, my young friend. I apologize for the delay. I've been upstairs with my wife."

"That's whom I'm calling about. We've got to move.
Now
. Alert French Intelligence, Interpol and the American Embassy but tell them not to interfere until I've seen her, talked to her. We have to talk."

"I don't think so, Mr. Bourne. ... Yes, I know your name, my friend. As for your talking to my wife, however, I'm afraid that's not possible. You see, I've killed her."

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33

Jason stared at the hotel room wall, at the flock paper with the faded designs that spiraled into one another in meaningless contortions of worn fabric. "Why?" he said quietly into the phone. "I thought you understood."

"I tried, my friend," said Villiers, his voice beyond anger or sorrow. "The saints know I tried, but I could not help myself. I kept looking at her ... seeing the son she did not bear behind her, killed by the pig animal that was her mentor. My whore was someone else's whore ... the animal's whore. It could not be otherwise, and as I learned, it was not. I think she saw the outrage in my eyes, heaven knows it was there." The general paused, the memory painful now. "She not only saw the outrage, but the truth. She saw that I knew. What she was, what she had been during the years we'd spent together. At the end, I gave her the chance I told you I would give her."

"To kill you?"

"Yes. It wasn't difficult. Between our beds is a nightstand with a weapon in the drawer. She lay on her bed, Goya's Maja, splendid in her arrogance, dismissing me with her private thoughts, as I was consumed by my own. I opened the drawer for a book of matches and walked back to my chair and my pipe, leaving the drawer open, the handle of the gun very much in evidence.

"It was my silence, I imagine, and the fact that I could not take my eyes off her that forced her to acknowledge me, then concentrate on me. The tension between us had grown to the point where very little had to be said to burst the floodgates, and--God help me--I said it. I heard myself asking, 'Why did you do it?' Then the accusation became complete. I called her my whore, the whore that killed my son.

"She stared at me for several moments, her eyes breaking away once to glance at the open drawer and the gun ... and the telephone. I stood up, the embers in my pipe glowing, loose ...
chauffe au rouge
. She spun her legs off the bed, put both hands into that open drawer and took out the gun. I did not stop her, instead I had to hear the words, from her own lips, hear my own indictment of myself as well as hers. What I heard will go to my grave with me, for there will be honor left by my person and the person of my son. We will not be scorned by those who've given less than us. Never."

"General ..." Bourne shook his head, unable to think clearly, knowing he had to find the seconds in order to find his thoughts. "General, what happened? She gave you my name. How? You've got to tell me that.
Please
."

"Willingly. She said you were an insignificant gunman who wished to step into the shoes of a giant. That you were a thief out of Zurich, a man your own people disowned."

"Did she say who those people were?"

"If she did I didn't hear. I was blind, deaf, my rage uncontrolled. But you have nothing to fear from me. The chapter is closed, my life over with a telephone call."

"No!"
Jason shouted. "Don't do that! Not now."

"I must."

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"Please. Don't settle for Carlos' whore. Get Carlos! Trap Carlos!"

"Reaping scorn on my name by lying with that whore? Manipulated by the animal's slut?"

"Goddamn you--what about your
son?
Five sticks of dynamite on rue du Bac!"

"Leave him in peace. Leave me in peace. It's over."

"It's
not
over! Listen to me! Give a moment, that's all I ask." The images in Jason's mind raced furiously across his eyes, clashing, supplanting one another. But these images had meaning. Purpose. He could feel Marie's hand on his arm, gripping him firmly, somehow anchoring his body to a mooring of reality. "Did anyone hear the gunshot?"

"There was no gunshot. The
coup de grace
is misunderstood in these times. I prefer its original intent. To still the suffering of a wounded comrade or a respected enemy. It is not used for a whore."

"What do you mean? You said you killed her."

"I strangled her, forcing her eyes to look into mine as the breath went out of her body."

"She had your gun on you ..."

"Ineffective when one's eyes are burning from the loose embers of a pipe. It's immaterial now; she might have won."

"She
did
win if you let it stop here! Can't you see that? Carlos wins! She broke you! And you didn't have the brains to do anything but choke her to death! You talk about
scorn?
You're buying it all; there's nothing left but scorn!"

"Why do you persist, Monsieur Bourne?" asked Villiers wearily. "I expect no charity from you, nor from anyone. Simply leave me alone. I accept what is. You accomplish nothing."

"I will if I can get you to listen to me! Get Carlos, trap Carlos! How many times do I have to say it?

He's the one you want! He squares it all for you! And he's the one I need! Without him I'm dead.
We're
dead. For God's sake,
listen to me!"

"I would like to help you, but there's no way I can. Or will, if you like."

"There is." The images came into focus. He knew where he was, where he was going. The meaning and the purpose came together. "Reverse the trap. Walk away from it untouched, with everything you've got in place."

"I don't understand. How is that possible?"

"You didn't kill your wife.
I
did!"

"Jason!"
Marie screamed, clutching his arm.

"I know what I'm doing," said Bourne. "For the first time, I really know what I'm doing. It's funny, but I think I've known it from the beginning."

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Parc Monceau was quiet, the street deserted, a few porch lights shimmering in the cold, mistlike rain, all the windows along the row of neat, expensive houses dark, except for the residence of Andre Francois Villiers, legend of Saint-Cyr and Normandy, member of France's National Assembly ... wife killer. The front windows above and to the left of the porch glowed dimly. It was the bedroom wherein the master of the house had killed the mistress of the house, where a memory-ridden old soldier had choked the life out of an assassin's whore.

Villiers had agreed to nothing; he had been too stunned to answer. But Jason had driven home his theme, hammered the message with such repeated emphasis that the words had echoed over the telephone. Get Carlos! Don't settle for the killer's whore! Get the man who killed your son! The man who put five sticks of dynamite in a car on rue du Bac and took the last of the Villiers line. He's the one you want. Get him!

Get Carlos. Trap Carlos. Cain is for Charlie and Delta is for Cain
. It was so clear to him. There was no other way. At the end, it was the beginning--as the beginning had been revealed to him. To survive he had to bring in the assassin; if he failed, he was a dead man. And there would be no life for Marie St. Jacques. She would be destroyed, imprisoned, perhaps killed, for an act of faith that became an act of love. Cain's mark was on her, embarrassment avoided with her removal. She was a vial of nitroglycerine balanced on a highwire in the center of an unknown ammunition depot. Use a net. Remove her. A bullet in the head neutralizes the explosives in her mind. She cannot be heard!

There was so much Villiers had to understand, and so little time to explain, the explanation itself limited both by a memory that did not exist and the current state of the old soldier's mind. A delicate balance had to be found in the telling, parameters established as to time and the general's immediate contributions. Jason understood; he was asking a man who held his honor above all things to lie to the world. For Villiers to do that, the objective had to be monumentally honorable.
Get Carlos!

There was a second, ground floor entrance to the general's home, to the right of the steps, beyond a gate, where deliveries were made to the downstairs kitchen. Villiers had agreed to leave the gate and the door unlatched. Bourne had not bothered to tell the old soldier that it did not matter; that he would get inside in any event, a degree of damage intrinsic to his strategy. But first there was the risk that Villiers'

house was being watched, there being good reasons for Carlos to do so, and equally good reasons not to do so. All things considered, the assassin might decide to stay as far away from Angelique Villiers as possible, taking no chance that one of his men could be picked up, thus proving his connection, the Parc Monceau connection. On the other hand, the dead Angelique was his cousin and lover ...
the only
person on earth he cares about
. Philippe d'Anjou.

D'Anjou! Of course there'd be someone watching--or two or ten! If d'Anjou had gotten out of France, Carlos could assume the worst; if the man from Medusa had not, the assassin would know the worst. The colonial would be broken, every word exchanged with Cain revealed. Where? Where were Carlos'

men? Strangely enough, thought Jason, if there was no one posted in Parc Monceau on this particular night, his entire strategy was worthless.

It was not; they were there. In a sedan--the same sedan that had raced through the gates of the Louvre twelve hours ago, the same two men--killers who were the backups of killers. The car was fifty feet down the street on the left-hand side, with a clear view of Villiers' house. But were those two men slumped down in the seat, their eyes awake and alert, all that were there? Bourne could not tell;
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automobiles lined the curbs on both sides of the street. He crouched in the shadows of the corner building, diagonally across from the two men in the stationary sedan. He knew what had to be done, but he was not sure how to do it. He needed a diversion, alarming enough to attract Carlos' soldiers, visible enough to flush out any others who might be concealed in the street or on a rooftop, or behind a darkened window.

Fire. Out of nowhere. Sudden, away from Villiers' how. yet close enough and startling enough to send vibrations throughout the quiet, deserted, tree-lined street. Vibrations ... sirens; explosive ... explosions. It could be done. It was merely a question of equipment.

Bourne crept back behind the corner building into the intersecting street and ran silently to the nearest doorway, where he stopped and removed his jacket and topcoat. Then he took off his shirt, ripping the cloth from collar to waist; he put both coats on again, pulling up the lapels, buttoning the topcoat, the shirt under his arm. He peered into the night rain, scanning the automobiles in the street. He needed gasoline, but this was Paris and most fuel tanks would be locked. Most, but not all; there had to be an unsecured top among the line of cars at the curb.

And then he saw what he wanted to see directly up ahead on the pavement, chained to an iron gate. It was a motorbike, larger than a street scooter, smaller than a cycle, its gas tank a metal bubble between handlebars and seat. The top would have a chain attached, but it was unlikely to have a lock. Eight liters of fuel was not forty; the risk of any theft had to be balanced against the proceeds, and two gallons of gas was hardly worth a 500 franc fine.

Jason approached the bike. He looked up and down the street; there was no one, no sounds other than the quiet spattering of the rain. He put his hand on the gas tank top and turned it; it unscrewed easily. Better yet, the opening was relatively wide, the gas level nearly full. He replaced the top; he was not yet ready to douse his shirt. Another piece of equipment was needed. He found it at the next corner, by a sewer drain: A partially dislodged cobblestone, forced from its recess by a decade of careless drivers jumping the curb. He pried it loose by kicking his heel into the slice that separated it from its jagged wall. He picked it up along with a smaller fragment and started back toward the motorbike, the fragment in his pocket, the large brick in his hand. He tested its weight ... tested his arm. It would do; both would do.

Three minutes later he pulled the drenched shirt slowly out of the gas tank, the fumes mingling with the rain, the residue of oil covering his hands. He wrapped the cloth around the cobblestone, twisting and crisscrossing the sleeves, tying them firmly together, holding his missile in place. He was ready. He crept back to the edge of the building at the corner of Villiers' street. The two men in the sedan were still low in the front seat, their concentration still on Villiers' house. Behind the sedan were three other cars, a small Mercedes, a dark brown limousine and a Bentley. Directly across from Jason, beyond the Bentley, was a white stone building, its windows outlined in black enamel. An inside hallway light spilled over to the casement bay windows on either side of the staircase, the left, was obviously a dining room; he could see chairs and a long table in the additional light of a rococo sideboard mirror. The windows of that dining room with their splendid view of the quaint, rich Parisian street would do. Bourne reached into his pocket and pulled out the rock; it was barely one-fourth the size of the gas-drenched brick, but it would serve the purpose. He inched around the corner of the building, cocked his arm and threw the stone as far as he could above and beyond the sedan. The crash echoed throughout the quiet street. It was followed by a series of cracks as the rock clattered
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