The Bourne Identity (10 page)

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

execution in Marseilles.

The first police car reached the scene as the man in the gold-rimmed spectacles removed his raincoat, shoving it through the open window of the Peugeot. He nodded to the driver, who climbed in behind the wheel and started the engine. The killer took off his delicate glasses and did the most unexpected thing Jason could imagine. He walked rapidly back toward the glass doors of the bank, joining the police who were racing inside.

Bourne watched as the Peugeot swung away from the curb and sped off down the Bahnhofstrasse. The crowd in the storefront began to disperse, many edging their way toward the glass doors, craning their necks around one another, rising on the balls of their feet, peering inside. A police officer came out, waving the curious back, demanding that a path be cleared to the curb. As he shouted, an ambulance careened around the northwest corner, its horn joining the sharp, piercing notes from its roof, warning all to get out of its way; the driver nosed his outsized vehicle to a stop in the space created by the departed Peugeot. Jason could watch no longer. He had to get to the Carillon du Lac, gather his things, and get out of Zurich, out of Switzerland. To Paris.

Why Paris? Why had he insisted that the funds be transferred to
Paris
? It had not occurred to him before he sat in Walther Apfel's office, stunned by the extraordinary figures presented him. They had been beyond anything in his imagination--so much so that he could only react numbly, instinctively. And instinct had evoked the city of Paris. As though it were somehow vital.
Why?

Again, no time ... He saw the ambulance crew carry a stretcher through the doors of the bank. On it was a body, the head covered, signifying death. The significance was not lost on Bourne; save for skills he could not relate to anything he understood, he was the dead man on that stretcher. He saw an empty taxi at the corner and ran toward it. He had to get out of Zurich; a message had been sent from Marseilles, yet the dead man was alive. Jason Bourne was alive. Kill him. Kill Jason Bourne!

God in heaven,
why?

He was hoping to see the Carillon du Lac's assistant manager behind the front desk, but he was not there. Then he realized that a short note to the man--what was his name--Stossel? Yes, Stossel--would be sufficient. An explanation for his sudden departure was not required and five hundred francs would easily take care of the few hours he had accepted from the Carillon du Lac--and the favor he would ask of Herr Stossel.

In his room, he threw his shaving equipment into his unpacked suitcase, checked the pistol he had taken from the Frenchman, leaving it in his topcoat pocket, and sat down at the desk; he wrote out the note for Herr Stossel, Asst. Mgr. In it he included a sentence that came easily--almost too easily.

... I may be in contact with you shortly relative to messages I expect will have been sent to me. I
trust it will be convenient for you to keep an eye out for them, and accept them on my behalf.
If any communication came from the elusive Treadstone Seventy-One, he wanted to know about it. This was Zurich; he would.

He put a five hundred franc note between the folded stationery and sealed the envelope. Then he picked up his suitcase, walked out of the room, and went down the hallway to the bank of elevators. There were
Page 49

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

four; he touched a button and looked behind him, remembering the Gemeinschaft. There was no one there; a bell pinged and the red light above the third elevator flashed on. He had caught a descending machine. Fine. He had to get to the airport just as fast as he could; he had to get out of Zurich, out of Switzerland. A message had been delivered.

The elevator doors opened. Two men stood on either side of an auburn-haired woman; they interrupted their conversation, nodded at the newcomer--noting the suitcase and moving to the side--then resumed talking as the doors closed. They were in their mid-thirties and spoke French softly, rapidly, the woman glancing alternately at both men, alternately smiling and looking pensive. Decisions of no great import were being made. Laughter intermingled with semi-serious interrogation.

"You'll be going home then after the summations tomorrow?" asked the man on the left.

"I'm not sure. I'm waiting for word from Ottawa," the woman replied. "I have relations in Lyon; it would be good to see them."

"It's impossible," said the man on the right, "for the steering committee to find ten people willing to summarize this Godforsaken conference in a single day. We'll all be here another week."

"Brussels will not approve," said the first man grinning. "The hotel's too expensive."

"Then by all means move to another," said the second with a leer at the woman. "We've been waiting for you to do just that, haven't we?"

"You're a lunatic," said the woman. "You're both lunatics, and that's
my
summation."

"You're not, Marie," interjected the first. "A lunatic, I mean. Your presentation yesterday was brilliant."

"It was nothing of the sort," she said. "It was routine and quite dull."

"No, no!" disagreed the second. "It was superb; it had to be. I didn't understand a word. But then I have other talents."

"Lunatic ..."

The elevator was braking; the first man spoke again. "Let's sit in the back row of the hall. We're late anyway and Bertinelli is speaking--to little effect, I suggest. His theories of enforced cyclical fluctuations went out with the finances of the Borgias."

"Before then," said the auburn-haired woman, laughing. "Caesar's taxes." She paused, then added, "If not the Punic wars."

"The back row then," said the second man, offering his arm to the woman. "We can sleep. He uses a slide projector; it'll be dark."

"No, you two go ahead, I'll join you in a few minutes. I really must send off some cables and I don't trust the telephone operators to get them right."

The doors opened and the threesome walked out of the elevator. The two men started diagonally across the lobby together, the woman toward the front desk. Bourne fell in step behind her, absently reading a sign on a triangular stand several feet away.

Page 50

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

WELCOME TO:

ECONOMIC CONFERENCE

TODAY'S SCHEDULE:

1:00 P.M.: THE HON. JAMES FRAZIER,

M.P. UNITED KINGDOM.

6:00 P.M.: DR EUGENIO BERTINELLI,

UNIV. OF MILAN, ITALY.

9:00 P.M.: CHAIRMAN'S FAREWELL DINNER.

"Room 507. The operator said there was a cablegram for me."

English. The auburn-haired woman now beside him at the counter spoke English But then she had said she was "waiting for word from Ottawa." A Canadian.

The desk clerk checked the slots and returned with the cable. "Dr. St. Jacques?" he asked, holding out the envelope.

"Yes. Thanks very much."

The woman turned away, opening the cable, as the clerk moved in front of Bourne. "Yes, sir?"

"I'd like to leave this note for Herr Stossel." He placed the Carillon du Lac envelope on the counter.

"Herr Stossel will not return until six o'clock in the morning, sir. In the afternoons, he leaves at four. Might I be of service?"

"No, thanks. Just make sure he gets it, please." Then Jason remembered: this was Zurich. "It's nothing urgent," he added, "but I need an answer. I'll. check with him in the morning."

Page 51

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

"Of course, sir."

Bourne picked up his suitcase and started across the lobby toward the hotel's entrance, a row of wide glass doors that led to a circular drive fronting the lake. He could see several taxis waiting in line under the floodlights of the canopy; the sun had gone down; it was night in Zurich. Still, there were flights to all points of Europe until well past midnight ...

He stopped walking, his breath suspended, a form of paralysis sweeping over him. His eyes did not believe what else he saw beyond the glass doors. A brown Peugeot pulled up in the circular drive in front of the first taxi. Its door opened and a man stepped out--a killer in a black raincoat, wearing thin, gold-rimmed spectacles. Then from the other door another figure emerged, but it was not the driver who had been at the curb on the Bahnhofstrasse, waiting for a target he did not recognize. Instead, it was another killer, in another raincoat, its wide pockets recessed for powerful weapons. It was the man who had sat in the reception room on the second floor of the Gemeinschaft Bank, the same man who had pulled a .38 caliber pistol from a holster beneath his coat. A pistol with a perforated cylinder on its barrel that silenced two bullets meant for the skull of the quarry he had followed into an elevator. How? How could they have found him? ... Then he remembered and felt sick. It had been so innocuous, so casual!

Are you enjoying your stay in Zurich?
Walther Apfel had asked while they were waiting for a minion to leave and be alone again.

Very much. My room overlooks the lake. It's a nice view, very peaceful, quiet.
Koenig! Koenig had heard him say his room looked over the lake. How many hotels had rooms overlooking the lake? Especially hotels a man with a three-zero account might frequent. Two? Three? ... From unremembered memory names came to him:
Carillon du Lac, Baur au Lac, Eden au Lac
. Were there others? No further names came. How easy it must have been to narrow them down! How easy it had been for him to say the words. How stupid!

No time. Too late. He could see through the row of glass doors; so, too, could the killers. The second man had spotted him. Words were exchanged over the hood of the Peugeot, gold-rimmed spectacles adjusted, hands placed in outsized pockets, unseen weapons gripped. The two men converged on the entrance, separating at the last moment, one on either end of the row of clear glass panels. The flanks were covered, the trap set; he could not race outside.

Did they think they could walk into a crowded hotel lobby and simply
kill
a man?

Of course they could, The crowds and the noise were their cover. Two, three, four muted gunshots fired at close range would be as effective as an ambush in a crowded square in daylight, escape easily found in the resulting chaos.

He could not let them get near him! He backed away, thoughts racing through his mind, outrage paramount. How
dared
they? What made them think he would not run for protection, scream for the police? And then the answer was clear, as numbing as the question itself. The killers knew with certainty that which he could only surmise: he could not seek that kind of protection--he could not seek the police. For Jason Bourne, all the authorities had to be avoided. ... Why? Were they seeking
him?

Jesus Christ, why?

Page 52

Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv
erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html

The two opposing doors were opened by outstretched hands, other hands hidden, around steel. Bourne turned; there were elevators, doorways, corridors--a roof and cellars; there had to be a dozen ways out of the hotel.

Or were there? Did the killers now threading their way through the crowds know something else he could only surmise? Did the Carillon du Lac have only two or three exits? Easily covered by men outside, easily used as traps themselves to cut down the lone figure of a running man. A lone man; a lone man was an obvious target. But suppose he were not alone? Suppose someone was with him? Two people were not one, but for one alone an extra person was camouflage--especially in crowds, especially at night, and it
was
night. Determined killers avoided taking the wrong life, not from compassion but for practicality; in any ensuing panic the real target might escape. He felt the weight of the gun in his pocket, but there was not much comfort in knowing it was there. As at the bank, to use it--to even display it--was to mark him. Still, it was there. He started back toward the center of the lobby, then turned to his right where there was a greater concentration of people. It was the pre-evening hour during an international conference, a thousand tentative plans being made, rank and courtesan separated by glances of approval and rebuke, odd groupings everywhere. There was a marble counter against the wall, a clerk behind it checking pages of yellow paper with a pencil held like a paintbrush.
Cablegrams
. In front of the counter were two people, an obese elderly man and a woman in a dark red dress, the rich color of the silk complementing her long, titian hair ... Auburn hair. It was the woman in the elevator who had joked about Caesar's taxes and the Punic wars, the doctor who had stood beside him at the hotel desk, asking for the cable she knew was there. Bourne looked behind him. The killers were using the crowds well, excusing themselves politely but firmly through, one on the right, one on-the left, closing in like two prongs of a pincer attack. As long as they kept him in sight, they could force him to keep running blindly, without direction, not knowing which path he took might lead to a dead end where he could run no longer. And then the muted spits would come, pockets blackened by powder burns. ...

Kept him in sight?

The back row then. ... We can sleep. He uses a slide projector, it'll be dark.
Jason turned again and looked at the auburn-haired woman. She had completed her cable and was thanking the clerk, removing a pair of tinted, horn-rimmed glasses from her face, placing them into her purse. She was not more than eight feet away.

Bertinelli is speaking, to little effect, I suggest.

There was no time for anything but instinctive decisions. Bourne shifted his suitcase to his left hand, walked rapidly over to the woman at the marble counter, and touched her elbow, gently, with as little alarm as possible.