Bourne passed the looming misshapen hulk of the old barn, the other smaller outbuildings—utility facilities, storage sheds and the like. Then the main house was in sight. It stood within stands of tall pines, clumps of birch and blue cedars, old wood that had been here for close to sixty years, predating the stone house by a decade. The estate had belonged to a now-deceased army general who had been deeply involved in clandestine and rather unsavory activities. As a result, the manor house—the entire estate, actually—was honeycombed with underground tunnels, entrances and egresses. Bourne imagined it amused Conklin to live in a place filled with so many secrets.
As he pulled up, he saw not only Conklin’s BMW 7-series but Mo Panov’s Jaguar parked side by side. As he walked across the bluestone gravel, his heart felt suddenly lighter. The two best friends he had in the world—both in their own ways the keepers of his past—were inside. Together, they would solve this mystery as they had all the others before. He climbed onto the front portico, rang the bell. There was no answer. Pressing his ear to the polished teak door, he could hear voices from within. He tried the handle, found the door unlocked.
An alarm went off inside his head and, for a moment, he stood behind the half-open door, listening to everything inside the house. No matter that he was out here in the countryside where crime was practically unheard of—old habits never died. Conklin’s overactive sense of security would dictate locking the front door whether or not he was home. Opening the switchblade, he entered, all too aware that an attacker—one of a termination team sent to kill him—could be lurking inside.
The chandeliered foyer gave out onto a wide sweep of polished wood stairs leading up to an open gallery that ran the width of the foyer. To the right was the formal living room, to the left the denlike media room with its wet bar and deep, masculine leather sofas. Just beyond there was a smaller, more intimate room that Alex had made into his study.
Bourne followed the sound of the voice into the media room. On the large-screen TV a telegenic CNN commentator was standing outside the front of the Oskjuhlid Hotel. A superimposed graphic indicated that he was on location in Reykjavík, Iceland. “…the tenuous nature of the upcoming terrorism summit is on everyone’s mind here.”
No one was in the room, but there were two old-fashioned glasses on the cocktail table. Bourne picked one up, sniffed. Speyside single-malt, aged in sherry casks. The complex aroma of Conklin’s favorite Scotch disoriented him, brought back a memory, a vision of Paris. It was autumn, fiery horse-chestnut leaves tumbling down the Champs-Elysées. He was looking out the window from an office. He struggled with this vision, which was so strong he seemed to be pulled out of himself, to actually be in Paris, but, he reminded himself grimly, he was in Manassas, Virginia, at Alex Conklin’s house, and all was not well. He struggled, trying to maintain his vigilance, his focus, but the memory, triggered by the scent of the single-malt, was overpowering, and he so yearned to know, to fill in the gaping holes in his memory. And so he found himself in the Paris office. Whose? Not Conklin’s—Alex had never had an office in Paris. That smell, someone in the office with him. He turned, saw for the briefest instant the flash of a half-remembered face.
He tore himself away. Even though it was maddening to have a life you remembered only in fitful bursts, with all that had happened and things here feeling just slightly off-kilter, he couldn’t afford to get sidetracked. What had Mo said about these triggers? They could come from a sight, a sound, a smell, even the touch of something, that once the memory was triggered he could tease it out by repeating the stimulus that had provoked it in the first place. But not now. He needed to find Alex and Mo.
He looked down, saw a small notepad on the table and picked it up. It seemed blank; the top leaf had been ripped off. But when he turned it slightly, he could see faint indentations. Someone—presumably Conklin—had written “NX20.” He pocketed the pad.
“So, the countdown has begun. In five days’ time, the world will know whether a new day, a new world order will emerge, whether the law-abiding peoples of the world will be able to live in peace and harmony.” The anchor continued to drone on, segueing into a commercial.
Bourne switched off the TV with the remote and silence descended. It was possible that Conklin and Mo were out walking, a favorite way for Panov to let off steam while in conversation, and he, no doubt, would want the old man to get his exercise. But there was the anomaly of the unlocked door.
Bourne retraced his steps, reentering the foyer and going up the stairs two at a time. Both guest bedrooms were empty, devoid of any sign of recent habitation, as were their en suite bathrooms. Down the hall, he went into Conklin’s master suite, a Spartan space befitting an old soldier. The bed was small and hard, not much more than a pallet. It was unmade, clear that Alex had slept there last night. But as befitted a master of secrets, there was very little in the way of his past on display. Bourne picked up a silver-framed snapshot of a woman with long wavy hair, light eyes and a gently mocking smile. He recognized the regal stone lions of the fountain at Saint-Sulpice in the background. Paris. Bourne put the photo down, checked the bath. Nothing there of interest.
Back downstairs, two chimes sounded the hour on the clock in Conklin’s study. It was an antique ship’s clock, its note bell-like, musical. But for Bourne the sound had unaccountably taken on an ominous cast. It seemed to him as if the tolling of the bell was rushing through the house like a black wave, and his heart beat fast.
He went down the hallway, past the kitchen into whose doorway he momentarily poked his head. A teakettle was on the stove, but the stainless-steel counters were spotlessly clean. Inside the refrigerator, the ice machine ground out cubes. And then he saw it—Conklin’s walking stick, polished ash with the turned silver knob at its top. Alex had a bum leg, the result of a particularly violent encounter overseas; he would never have gone out on the grounds without the stick.
The study was around to the left, a comfortable wood-paneled room in a corner of the house that looked out onto a tree-shaded lawn, a flagstone terrace in the middle of which was sunk a lap-pool and, beyond, the beginning of the pine and hardwood forest that ran for most of the property. With a mounting sense of urgency, Bourne headed for the study. The moment he entered, he froze.
He was never so aware of the dichotomy inside himself, for part of him had become detached, an objective observer. This purely analytic section of his brain noted that Alex Conklin and Mo Panov lay on the richly dyed Persian carpet. Blood had flowed out of their head wounds, soaked into the carpet, in some places overflowing it, pooling on the polished wood floor. Fresh blood, still glistening. Conklin was staring up at the ceiling, his eyes filmed over. His face was flushed and angry, as if all the bile he had been holding deep inside had been forced to the surface. Mo’s head was turned as if he had been trying to look behind him when he was felled. An unmistakable expression of fear was etched on his face. In the last instant, he had seen his death coming.
Alex! Mo! Jesus! Jesus! All at once, the emotional dam burst and Bourne was on his knees, his mind reeling with shock and horror. His entire world was shaken to its core. Alex and Mo dead—even with the grisly evidence before him it was hard to believe. Never to speak to them again, never to have access to their expertise. A jumble of images paraded before him, remembrances of Alex and Mo, times they had spent together, tense times filled with danger and sudden death, and then, in the aftermath, the ease and comfort of an intimacy that could only come from shared peril. Two lives taken by force, leaving behind nothing but anger and fear. With a stunning finality, the door onto his past slammed shut. Both Bourne and Webb were mourning. Bourne struggled to gather himself, swept aside Webb’s hysterical emotionalism, willed himself not to weep. Mourning was an indulgence he could not afford. He had to think.
Bourne got busy absorbing the murder scene, fixing details in his mind, trying to work out what had happened. He moved closer, careful not to step in the blood or to otherwise disturb the scene. Alex a
nd Mo had been shot to death, apparently with the gun lying on the carpet between them. They had received one shot each. This was a professional hit, not an intruder break-in. Bourne’s eye caught the glint of the cell phone gripped in Alex’s hand. It appeared as if he had been speaking to someone when he was shot. Had it been when Bourne was trying to get through to him earlier? Quite possibly. By the look of the blood, the lividity of the bodies, the lack of rigor mortis in the fingers, it was clear the murders had happened within the hour.
A faint sound in the distance began to intrude on his thoughts. Sirens! Bourne left the study and raced to the front-facing window. A fleet of Virginia State Police cruisers was careening down the driveway, lights flashing. Bourne was caught in a house with the bodies of two murdered men, and no plausible alibi. He had been set up. All at once, he felt the prongs of a clever trap closing around him.
Chapter Two
The pieces came together in his mind. The expert shots fired at him on campus had not been meant to kill him but to herd him, to force him to come to Conklin. But Conklin and Mo had already been killed. Someone was still here, watching and waiting to call the police as soon as Bourne had shown up. The man who’d shot at him on campus?
Without a second thought, Bourne grabbed Alex’s cell phone, ran into the kitchen, opened a narrow door onto a steep flight of stairs down into the basement and peered down into pitch blackness. He could hear the crackling of the police radios, the crunch of gravel, the pounding on the front door. Querulous voices raised.
Bourne went to the kitchen drawers, scrabbled around until he found Conklin’s flashlight, then went through the basement door; for a moment he was in utter darkness. The concentrated beam of light illuminated the steps as he descended quickly, silently. He could smell the scents of concrete, old wood, lacquer and oil from the furnace. He found the hatch underneath the stairs, pulled it out. Once, on a cold and snowy winter’s afternoon, Conklin had shown him the underground entrance the general had used to get to the private heliport near the stables. Bourne could hear the boards creaking above his head. The cops were inside the house. Possibly they had already found the bodies. Three cars, two dead men. It would not be long before they traced the license tags to his car.
Ducking down, he entered the low passageway, fitted the hatch back into place. Too late he thought of the old-fashioned glass he had picked up. When the forensics people dust, they’ll find my prints. Those, along with my car parked in the driveway…
No good thinking about that now, he had to move! Bent over, he made his way along the cramped passageway. Within ten feet it opened up so that he was able to walk normally. There was a new dampness in the air; from somewhere close at hand he could hear the slow drip of water seeping. He determined that he had gone beyond the foundation of the house. Bourne quickened his pace and, not three minutes later, came upon another set of stairs. These were of metal, military in nature. He mounted them and, at the top, pushed up with his shoulder. Another hatch opened. Fresh air, the hushed and tranquil light at the end of the day, the droning of insects washed over him. He was at the edge of the general’s heliport.
The tarmac was littered with twigs and bits of dead branches. At some point, a family of raccoons had made their way into the small ramshackle shingle-roofed shed at the edge of the tarmac. The place bore the unmistakable air of abandonment. The heliport was not, however, his objective. He turned his back on it and plunged into the thick pine forest.
His goal was to make a long sweeping curve away from the house, the entire estate, eventually ending up on the highway far enough away from any cordon the police threw around the estate. However, his immediate objective was the stream that ran more or less diagonally through the property. It would not be long, he knew, before the police brought in dogs. He could do very little about leaving his scent on dry land, but in the moving water even the dogs would lose his trail.
Snaking through the thorny snarl of underbrush, he crested a small ridge, stood between two cedars, listening intently. It was vital to catalog all the normal sounds of this specific environment so that he would instantly be alerted to the sound of an intruder. He was keenly aware that an enemy was in all likelihood somewhere close by. The murderer of his friends, of the moorings of his old life. The desire to stalk that enemy was weighed against the necessity of escaping from the police. As much as he wanted to track down the killer, Bourne knew it was crucial for him to be outside the radius of the police cordon before it was fully set up.
The moment Khan had entered the dense pine and hardwood forest on Alexander Conklin’s estate he felt as if he had come home. The deep green vault closed over his head, plunging him into a premature twilight. Overhead, he could see sunlight filtering through the topmost branches, but here all was murk and gloom, the better for him to stalk his prey. He had followed Webb from the university campus to Conklin’s house. During the course of his career, he had heard of Alexander Conklin, knew him for the legendary spymaster he had been. What puzzled him was why David Webb should come here? Why would he even know Conklin? And how was it that so many police had shown up at the estate mere minutes after Webb himself?
In the distance, he could hear baying, and he knew the police must have let loose their tracking dogs. Up ahead, he saw Webb moving through the forest as if he knew it well. Another question without an obvious answer. Khan picked up his pace, wondering where Webb was headed. Then he heard the sound of a stream and he knew precisely what his quarry had on his mind.
Khan hurried on, reaching the stream before Webb. He knew his prey would head downstream, away from the direction in which the hounds were headed. That was when he saw the huge willow and a grin captured his face. A sturdy tree with a network of spreading branches was just what he needed.
The ruddy sunlight of early evening threaded itself like needles of fire through the trees, and Bourne’s eye was caught by the splotches of crimson that fired the edge of the leaves.
On the far side of the ridge, the land fell away rather steeply, and the way became more rocky. He could pick out the soft burbling sound of the nearby stream, and he headed for it as quickly as he could. The winter’s snowpack had combined with the early spring rains to leave the stream swollen. Without hesitation, he stepped into the chill water, wading downstream. The longer he stayed in the water the better, as the dogs would lose all scent of him and become confused, and the farther away he emerged, the harder it would be for them to pick up his scent again.
Safe for the moment, he began thinking of his wife, Marie. He needed to contact her. Going home was out of the question now; doing so would put them in immediate jeopardy. But he had to contact Marie, warn her. The Agency was sure to come looking for him at home, and not finding him there, they were certain to detain Marie, interrogate her, assuming she would know his whereabouts. And there was the even more chilling possibility that whoever had set him up would now try to get to him through his family. In a sudden sweat of anxiety, he pulled out Conklin’s cell phone, dialed Marie’s cell phone, input a text message. It was one word only: Diamond. This was the code word he and Marie had previously agreed upon, to be used only in dire emergencies. It was a directive for her to take the kids and leave immediately for their safe house. They were to stay there, incommunicado, secure, until Bourne gave Marie the “all clear” signal. Alex’s phone rang and Bourne saw Marie’s text: Repeat please. This was not the prescribed response. Then he realized why she was confused. He had contacted her on Alex’s cell phone, not his. He repeated the message: DIAMOND, this time typing it in all capital letters. He waited, breathless, and then Marie’s response came: HOURGLASS. Bourne exhaled in relief. Marie had acknowledged; he knew the message was real. Even now, she would be gathering up the kids, bundling them into the station wagon, driving off, leaving everything behind.
Still, he was left with a feeling of anxiety. He would feel a whole lot better once he heard her voice, once he could explain to her what had happened, that he was fine. But he was
n’t fine. The man she knew—David Webb—had already been subsumed again by Bourne. Marie hated and feared Jason Bourne. And why shouldn’t she? It was possible that one day Bourne would be all that was left of the personality in David Webb’s body. And whose doing would that be? Alexander Conklin’s.
It seemed astonishing and altogether improbable to him that he could both love and loathe this man. How mysterious the human mind that it could simultaneously contain such extreme contradictory emotions, that it could rationalize away those evil qualities it knew were there in order to feel affection for someone. But, Bourne knew, the need to love and be loved was a human imperative.
He continued this train of thought as he followed the stream, which, for all its bright sparkle, was exceptionally clear. Small fish darted this way and that, terrified by his advance. Once or twice he glimpsed a trout in a silvery flash, bony mouth slightly open as if seeking something. He had come to a bend in which a large willow, its roots greedy for moisture, overhung the streambed. Alert to any noise, any sign that his pursuers were drawing near, Bourne detected nothing but the rushing of the stream itself.
The attack came from above. He heard nothing, but he felt the shift in the light, then a weight pressing down on him in the instant before he was driven into the water. He felt the crushing pressure of the body on his midsection and lungs. As he struggled to breathe, his attacker slammed his head on the slick rocks of the streambed. A fist drove into his kidney and all the breath went out of him.