The Bourne Identity Page 7

  “Thank you. Now, I’m afraid I’ve got to transfer a great deal of this money and I’ll need your help.”

  “Again, my privilege. Whatever assistance or advice I can render, I shall be happy to do so.”

  Bourne reached for the glass of Perrier.

  The steel door of Apfel’s office closed behind him; within seconds he would walk out of the tasteful anteroom cell, into the reception room and over to the elevators. Within minutes he would be on the Bahnhofstrasse with a name, a great deal of money, and little else but fear and confusion.

  He had done it. Dr. Geoffrey Washburn had been paid far in excess of the value of the life he had saved. A teletype transfer in the amount of 1,500,000 Swiss francs had been sent to a bank in Marseilles, deposited to a coded account that would find its way to Ile de Port Noir’s only doctor, without Washburn’s name ever being used or revealed. All Washburn had to do was to get to Marseilles, recite the codes, and the money was his. Bourne smiled to himself, picturing the expression on Washburn’s face when the account was turned over to him. The eccentric, alcoholic doctor would have been overjoyed with ten or fifteen thousand pounds; he had more than a million dollars. It would either ensure his recovery or his destruction; that was his choice, his problem.

  A second transfer of 4,500,000 francs was sent to a bank in Paris on the rue Madeleine, deposited in the name of Jason C. Bourne. The transfer was expedited by the Gemeinschaft’s twice-weekly pouch to Paris, signature cards in triplicate sent with the documents. Herr Koenig had assured both his superior and the client that the papers would reach Paris in three days.

  The final transaction was minor by comparison. One hundred thousand francs in large bills were brought to Apfel’s office, the withdrawal slip signed in the account holder’s numerical signature.

  Remaining on deposit in the Gemeinschaft Bank were 1,400,000 Swiss francs, a not inconsequential sum by any standard.

  How? Why? From where?

  The entire business had taken an hour and twenty minutes, only one discordant note intruding on the smooth proceedings. In character, it had been delivered by Koenig, his expression a mixture of solemnity and minor triumph. He had rung Apfel, was admitted, and had brought a small, black-bordered envelope to his superior.

  “Une fiche,” he had said in French.

  The banker had opened the envelope, removed a card, studied the contents, and had returned both to Koenig. “Procedures will be followed,” he had said.

  Koenig had left.

  “Did that concern me?” Bourne had asked.

  “Only in terms of releasing such large amounts. Merely house policy.” The banker had smiled reassuringly.

  The lock clicked. Bourne opened the frosted glass door and walked out into Herr Koenig’s personal fiefdom. Two other men had arrived, seated at opposite ends of the reception room. Since they were not in separate cells behind opaque glass windows, Bourne presumed that neither had a three-zero account. He wondered if they had signed names or written out a series of numbers, but he stopped wondering the instant he reached the elevator and pressed the button.

  Out of the corner of his eye he perceived movement; Koenig had shifted his head, nodding at both men. They rose as the elevator door opened. Bourne turned; the man on the right had taken a small radio out of his overcoat pocket; he spoke into it—briefly, quickly.

  The man on the left had his right hand concealed beneath the cloth of his raincoat. When he pulled it out he was holding a gun, a black .38 caliber automatic pistol with a perforated cylinder attached to the barrel. A silencer.

  Both men converged on Bourne as he backed into the deserted elevator.

  The madness began.

  5

  The elevator doors started to close; the man with the hand-held radio was already inside, the shoulders of his armed companion angling between the moving panels, the weapon aimed at Bourne’s head.

  Jason leaned to his right—a sudden gesture of fear—then abruptly, without warning, swept his left foot off the floor, pivoting, his heel plunging into the armed man’s hand, sending the gun upward, reeling the man backward out of the enclosure. Two muted gunshots preceded the closing of the doors, the bullets embedding themselves in the thick wood of the ceiling. Bourne completed his pivot, his shoulder crashing into the second man’s stomach, his right hand surging into the chest, his left pinning the hand with the radio. He hurled the man into the wall. The radio flew across the elevator; as it fell, words came out of its speaker.

  “Henri? Ça va? Qu’es-ce qui se passe?”

  The image of another Frenchman came to Jason’s mind. A man on the edge of hysteria, disbelief in his eyes; a would-be killer who had raced out of Le Bouc de Mer into the shadows of the rue Sarrasin less than twenty-four hours ago. That man had wasted no time sending his message to Zurich; the one they thought was dead was alive. Very much alive. Kill him!

  Bourne grabbed the Frenchman in front of him now, his left arm around the man’s throat, his right hand tearing at the man’s left ear. “How many?” he asked in French. “How many are there down there? Where are they?”

  “Find out, pig!”

  The elevator was halfway to the first floor lobby.

  Jason angled the man’s face down, ripping the ear half out of its roots, smashing the man’s head into the wall. The Frenchman screamed, sinking to the floor. Bourne rammed his knee into the man’s chest; he could feel the holster. He yanked the overcoat open, reached in, and pulled out a short-barreled revolver. For an instant it occurred to him that someone had deactivated the scanning machinery in the elevator. Koenig. He would remember; there’d be no amnesia where Herr Koenig was concerned. He jammed the gun into the Frenchman’s open mouth.

  “Tell me or I’ll blow the back of your skull off!” The man expunged a throated wail; the weapon was withdrawn, the barrel now pressed into his cheek.

  “Two. One by the elevators, one outside on the pavement, by the car.”

  “What kind of car?”

  “Peugeot.”

  “Color?” The elevator was slowing down, coming to a stop.

  “Brown.”

  “The man in the lobby. What’s he wearing?”

  “I don’t know …”

  Jason cracked the gun across the man’s temple. “You’d better remember!”

  “A black coat!”

  The elevator stopped; Bourne pulled the Frenchman to his feet; the doors opened. To the left, a man in a dark raincoat, and wearing an odd-looking pair of gold-rimmed spectacles, stepped forward. The eyes beyond the lenses recognized the circumstances; blood was trickling down across the Frenchman’s cheek. He raised his unseen hand, concealed by the wide pocket of his raincoat, another silenced automatic leveled at the target from Marseilles.

  Jason propelled the Frenchman in front of him through the doors. Three rapid spits were heard; the Frenchman shouted, his arms raised in a final, guttural protest. He arched his back and fell to the marble floor. A woman to the right of the man with the gold-rimmed spectacles screamed, joined by several men who called to no one and everyone for Hilfe! for the Polizei!

  Bourne knew he could not use the revolver he had taken from the Frenchman. It had no silencer; the sound of a gunshot would mark him. He shoved it into his topcoat pocket, sidestepped the screaming woman and grabbed the uniformed shoulders of the elevator starter, whipping the bewildered man around, throwing him into the figure of the killer in the dark raincoat.

  The panic in the lobby mounted as Jason ran toward the glass doors of the entrance. The boutonnièred greeter who had mistaken his language an hour and a half ago was shouting into a wall telephone, a uniformed guard at his side, weapon drawn, barricading the exit, eyes riveted on the chaos, riveted suddenly on him. Getting out was instantly a problem. Bourne avoided the guard’s eyes, directing his words to the guard’s associate on the telephone.

  “The man wearing gold-rimmed glasses!” he shouted. “He’s the one! I saw him!”

  “What? Who are you?�
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  “I’m a friend of Walther Apfel! Listen to me! The man wearing gold-rimmed glasses, in a black raincoat. Over there!”

  Bureaucratic mentality had not changed in several millenniums. At the mention of a superior officer’s name, one followed orders.

  “Herr Apfel!” The Gemeinschaft greeter turned to the guard. “You heard him! The man wearing glasses. Gold-rimmed glasses!”

  “Yes, sir!” The guard raced forward.

  Jason edged past the greeter to the glass doors. He shoved the door on the right open, glancing behind him, knowing he had to run again but not knowing if a man outside on the pavement, waiting by a brown Peugeot, would recognize him and fire a bullet into his head.

  The guard had run past a man in a black raincoat, a man walking more slowly than the panicked figures around him, a man wearing no glasses at all. He accelerated his pace toward the entrance, toward Bourne.

  Out on the sidewalk, the growing chaos was Jason’s protection. Word had gone out of the bank; wailing sirens grew louder as police cars raced up the Bahnhofstrasse. He walked several yards to the right, flanked by pedestrians, then suddenly ran, wedging his way into a curious crowd taking refuge in a storefront, his attention on the automobiles at the curb. He saw the Peugeot, saw the man standing beside it, his hand ominously in his overcoat pocket. In less than fifteen seconds, the driver of the Peugeot was joined by the man in the black raincoat, now replacing his gold-rimmed glasses, adjusting his eyes to his restored vision. The two men conferred rapidly, their eyes scanning the Bahnhofstrasse.

  Bourne understood their confusion. He had walked with an absence of panic out of the Gemeinschaft’s glass doors into the crowd. He had been prepared to run, but he had not run, for fear of being stopped until he was reasonably clear of the entrance. No one else had been permitted to do so—and the driver of the Peugeot had not made the connection. He had not recognized the target identified and marked for 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 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.

&
nbsp; WELCOME TO:

  MEMBERS OF THE SIXTH WORLD

  ECONOMIC CONFERENCE

  TODAY’S SCHEDULE:

  1:00 P.M.: THE HON. JAMES FRAZIER,

  M.P. UNITED KINGDOM.

  SUITE 12

  6:00 P.M.: DR EUGENIO BERTINELLI,

  UNIV. OF MILAN, ITALY.

  SUITE 7

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

  HOSPITALITY SUITE

  “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.”

  “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.