The Bourne ultimatum (91 page)

“What is it?” asked Bourne.

“He reached an armory.” Alex saw the frown of confusion on Jason’s face. “Over here armories are a hell of a lot more than enclosed parade grounds for legionnaires and reservists. They’re serious training quarters and warehouses for weapons.”

“He wasn’t heading for Odintsovo,” broke in Krupkin. “The armory’s farther south, on the outskirts of the town, another four or five kilometers. He’s been there before.”

“Those places must have tight security,” said Bourne. “He can’t just walk inside.”

“He already has,” corrected the KGB officer from Paris.

“I mean into restricted areas—like storerooms filled with weapons.”

“That’s what concerns me,” went on Krupkin, fingering the microphone in his hand. “Since he’s been there before—and he obviously has—what does he know about the installation ...
who
does he know?”

“Get on a radio patch, call the place and have him stopped, held!” insisted Jason.

“Suppose I reach the wrong person, or suppose he already has weapons and we set him off? With one phone call, one hostile confrontation or even the appearance of a strange automobile, there could be wholesale slaughter of several dozen men and women. We saw what he did at the Metropole, in the Vavilova. He’s lost all control; he’s utterly mad.”

“
Dimitri
,” came the metallic Soviet voice over the radio speaking Russian. “Something’s happening. The man just came out of a side door with a burlap sack and is heading for the car. ... Comrade, I’m not sure it’s the
same
man. It probably is, but there’s something different about him.”

“What do you mean? The clothes?”

“No, he’s wearing a dark suit and his right arm is in a black sling as before ... yet he’s moving more rapidly, his pace firmer, his posture erect.”

“You’re saying he does not appear to be wounded, yes?”

“I guess that’s what I’m saying, yes.”

“He could be faking it,” said Conklin. “That son of a bitch could be taking his last breath and convince you he’s ready for a marathon.”

“For what purpose, Aleksei? Why any pretense at all?”

“I don’t know, but if your man in that car can see him, he can see the car. Maybe he’s just in a hell of a hurry.”

“What’s going on?” asked Bourne angrily.

“Someone’s come outside with a bagful of goodies and going to the car,” said Conklin in English.

“For Christ’s sake,
stop
him!”

“We’re not sure it’s the Jackal,” interrupted Krupkin. “The clothes are the same, even to the arm sling, but there are physical differences—”

“Then he wants you to think it isn’t him!” said Jason emphatically.

“
Shto
? ... What?”

“He’s putting himself in your place, thinking like you’re thinking now and by doing that
outthinking
you. He may or may not know that he’s been spotted, the car picked up, but he has to assume the worst and act accordingly. How long before we get there?”

“The way my outrageously reckless young comrade is driving, I’d say three or four minutes.”

“
Krupkin
!” The voice burst from the radio speaker. “Four other people have come outside—three men and a woman. They’re running to the car!”

“What did he say?” asked Bourne. Alex translated and Jason frowned. “Hostages?” he said quietly, as if to himself. “He just
blew
it!” Medusa’s Delta leaned forward and touched Krupkin’s shoulder. “Tell your man to get out of there the moment that car takes off and he knows where it’s heading. Tell him to be obvious, to blow the hell out of his horn while he passes the armory, which he
must
pass from one way or the other.”

“My
dear
fellow!” exploded the Soviet intelligence officer. “Would you mind telling
me
why I should issue such an order?”

“Because your colleague was right and I was wrong. The man in the sling isn’t Carlos. The Jackal’s inside, waiting for the cavalry to pass the fort so he can get away in another car—if there
is
a cavalry.”

“In the name of our revered Karl Marx,
do
explain how you reached this contradictory conclusion!”

“Simple. He made a mistake. ... Even if you could, you wouldn’t shoot up that car on the road, would you?”

“Agreed. There are four other people inside, all no doubt innocent Soviet citizens forced to appear otherwise.”

“Hostages?”

“Yes, of course.”

“When was the last time you heard of people running like hell into a situation where they could
become
hostages? Even if they were under a gun from a doorway, one or two, if not all of them, would try to race behind other cars for protection.”

“My
word
—”

“But you were right about one thing. Carlos has a contact inside that armory—the man in the sling. He may only be an innocent Russian with a brother or a sister living in Paris, but the Jackal owns him.”

“
Dimitri
!” shouted the metallic voice in Russian. “The car is speeding out of the parking lot!”

Krupkin pressed the button on his microphone and gave his instructions. Essentially, they were to follow that automobile to the borders of Finland if necessary, but to take it without violence, calling in the police if they had to. The last order was to pass the armory, blowing his horn repeatedly. In the Russian vernacular, the agent named Orlov asked, “What the fuck for?”

“Because I’ve had a vision from St. Nickolai the Good! Also, I’m your charitable superior.
Do
it!”

“You’re not well, Dimitri.”

“Do you wish a superb service report or one that will send you to Tashkent?”

“I’m on my way, comrade.”

Krupkin replaced the microphone in the dashboard receptacle. “Everything proceeds,” he said haltingly, partially over his shoulder. “If I’m to go down with either a crazed assassin or a convoluted lunatic who displays certain decencies, I imagine it’s best to choose the latter. Contrary to the most enlightened skeptics, there might be a God, after all. ... Would you care to buy a house on the lake in Geneva, Aleksei?”

“
I
might,” answered Bourne. “If I live through the day and do what I have to do, give me a price. I won’t quibble.”

“Hey, David,” interjected Conklin. “Marie made that money,
you
didn’t.”

“She’ll listen to me. To him.”

“What now, whoever you are?” asked Krupkin.

“Give me all the firepower I need from this trunk of yours and let me off in the grass just before the armory. Give me a couple of minutes to get in place, then pull into the parking lot and obviously—very obviously—see that the car is missing and get out of there fast, gunning your engine.”

“And leave you
alone
?” cried Alex.

“It’s the only way I can take him. The only way he can be taken.”

“
Lunacy
!” spat out Krupkin, his jowls vibrating.

“No, Kruppie, reality,” said Jason Bourne simply. “It’s the same as it was in the beginning. One on one, it’s the only way.”

“
That
is sophomoric heroics!” roared the Russian, slamming his hand down on the back of the seat. “Worse, it’s ridiculous strategy. If you’re right, I can surround the armory with a thousand troops!”

“Which is exactly what he’d want—what
I’d
want, if I were Carlos. Don’t you see? He could get away in the confusion, in the sheer numbers—that’s not a problem for either of us, we’ve both done it too many times before. Crowds and anxiety are our protection—they’re child’s play. A knife in a uniform, the uniform ours; toss a grenade into the troops, and after the explosion we’re one of the staggering victims—that’s amateur night for paid killers. Believe me, I know—I became one in spite of myself.”

“So what do you think you can do by yourself,
Batman
?” asked Conklin, furiously massaging his useless leg.

“Stalk the killer who wants to kill me—and I’ll take him.”

“You’re a fucking megalomaniac!”

“You’re absolutely right. It’s the only way to be in the killing game. It’s the only edge you’ve got.”

“
Insanity
!” yelled Krupkin.

“So allow me; I’m entitled to a little craziness. If I thought the entire Russian army would ensure my survival, I’d scream for it. But it wouldn’t—it couldn’t. There’s only this way. ... Stop the car and let me choose the weapons.”

The dark green KGB sedan rounded the final curve in the sloping road cut out of the countryside. The descent had been gradual. The ground below was flat and summer-green with fields of wild grass bordering the approach to the massive brown building that was the Kubinka Armory. It seemed to rise out of the earth, a huge boxlike intrusion on the pastoral scene, an ugly man-made interruption of heavy brown wood and miserly windows reaching three stories high and covering two acres of land. Like the structure itself, the front entrance was large, square and unadorned except for the dull bas-relief profiles above the door of three Soviet soldiers rushing into the deadly winds of battle, their rifles at port arms, about to blow one another’s heads off.

Armed with an authentic Russian AK-47 and five standard thirty-round magazine clips, Bourne jumped out the far side of the silent coasting government car, using the bulk of the rolling vehicle to conceal himself in the grass directly across the road from the entrance. The armory’s huge dirt parking area was to the right of the long building; a single row of unkempt shrubbery fronted the entrance lawn, in the center of which stood a tall white pole, the Soviet flag hanging limp in the breezeless morning air. Jason ran across the road, his body low, and crouched by the hedgerow; he had only moments to peer through the bushes and ascertain the existence or nonexistence of the armory’s security procedures. At best, they appeared lax to the point of being informal, if not irrelevant. There was a glass window in the right wall of the entrance similar to that of a theater’s box office; behind it sat a uniformed guard reading a magazine, and alongside him, less visible but seen clearly enough, was another, his head on the counter, asleep. Two other soldiers emerged from the immense armory door—double doors—both casual, unconcerned, as one glanced at his watch and the other lighted a cigarette.

So much for Kubinka’s security; no sudden assault was anticipated nor had one taken place, at least none that had set off alarms reaching the front patrols, usually the first to be alerted. It was eerie, unnatural, beyond the unexpected. The Jackal was inside this military installation, yet there was no sign that he had penetrated it, no indication that somewhere within the complex he was controlling a minimum of five personnel—a man impersonating him, three other men and a woman.

The parking area itself? He had not understood the exchanges between Alex, Krupkin and the voice over the radio, but now it was clear to him that when they had spoken of people coming outside and running to the stolen car, they were
not
referring to the front entrance! There had to be an exit on the parking area!
Christ
, he had only seconds before the driver of the Komitet car started up the engine and roared into the huge dirt lot, circling it and racing out, both actions announcing the government vehicle’s arrival and swift, calamitous departure. If Carlos was going to make his break, it would be then! After waiting for the standard radio backup, every moment of distance he put between himself and the armory would make it more difficult to pick up his trail. And
he
, the efficient killing machine from Medusa, was in the wrong
place
! Further, the sight of a civilian running across a lawn or down a road carrying an automatic weapon within a military compound was to invite disaster. It was a small, stupid omission! Three or four additional words translated
and
a less arrogant, more probing listener would have avoided the error. It was always the little things, the seemingly insignificant that crippled gray to black operations.
Goddamn
it!

Five hundred feet away the KGB sedan suddenly thundered as it swerved into the dirt parking area raising clouds of dry dust while crushing and spitting out pieces of rock from its spinning tires. There was no time to think, time only to act. Bourne held the AK-47 against his right leg, concealing it as much as possible as he rose to his feet, his left hand skimming the top of the low hedgerow—a gardener, perhaps, surveying an anticipated assignment, or an indolent stroller aimlessly touching the roadside shrubbery, nothing remotely threatening, just a sign of the commonplace; to the casual observer, he might have been walking down that road for several minutes without being noticed.

He glanced over at the armory’s entrance. The two soldiers were laughing quietly, the one without a cigarette again looking at his watch. Then the object of their minor conspiracy came out of the left front door, an attractive dark-haired girl, barely in her twenties. She humorously clapped both her hands over her ears, made a grotesque face and walked rapidly to the time-conscious man in uniform, kissing him on the lips. The threesome linked arms, the woman in the center, and started to their right, away from the entrance.

A crash
! Metal colliding with metal, glass shattering glass, the loud harsh sound coming from the distant parking area. Something had happened to the Komitet car with Alex and Krupkin; the young driver from the assault squad had either smashed or skidded into another vehicle in the dry dirt of the lot. Using the sound as an excuse, Jason started down the road, the image of Conklin coming instantly to his mind, producing a limp in his own rapid strides the better to keep his weapon in minimum view. He turned his head, expecting to see the two soldiers and the woman running down the armory path toward the accident, only to realize that the three of them were running the
other
way, removing themselves from any involvement. Obviously, precious breaks in a military schedule were jealously protected.

Bourne abandoned the limp, crashed through the hedgerow and raced to the concrete path that stretched to the corner of the huge building, gathering speed and breathing heavily with increasing frequency. Jason’s weapon was now in plain sight, slashing the air as he gripped it in the hand of his swinging right arm. He reached the end of the path, his chest heaving, the veins in his neck seemingly prepared to burst as the sweat ran down his skin, drenching his face, his collar and his shirt. Gasping, he steadied the AK-47, his back pressed against the wall of the building, then spun around the corner into the parking area, stunned by what he saw. His pounding feet, coupled with the anxiety that caused his hair-soaked temples to throb, had blocked out all sound up ahead. What he observed now, what sickened him now, he knew had to be the result of multiple gunshots muted by a weapon equipped with a silencer. Dispassionately, Medusa’s Delta understood; he had been there many times many years before. There were circumstances under which kills had to be made quietly—utter silence was the unreachable goal, but at least minimal noise was crucial.