The Bourne Ultimatum (Jason Bourne 3)

He didn’t, concluded Alex as the outer limits of his imagination explored an old territory—Be skeptical of the apparent. The celebrated attorney was no more part of Carlos than he was of Medusa. He was the aberration, the flaw in the lens, an otherwise honorable man with a single weakness that had been uncovered by two disparate parties both with extraordinary resources. It was common knowledge that the Jackal could reach into the Sûreté and Interpol, and it took no clairvoyance to assume that Medusa could penetrate the army’s G-2. It was the only possible explanation, for Gates had been too controversial, too powerful for too long to function as spectacularly as he did in the courts if his vulnerability was easily uncovered. No, it would take predators like the Jackal and the men of Medusa to bore deep enough to dredge up a secret so devastating as to turn Randolph Gates into a valuable pawn. Clearly, Carlos had gotten to him first.

Conklin reflected on a truth that was forever reconfirmed: the world of global corrupters was in reality a small multilayered neighborhood, geometric in design, the irregular avenues of corruption leading into one another. How could it be otherwise? The residents of those lethal streets had services to offer, their clients were a specific breed—the desperate dregs of humanity. Extort, compromise, kill. The Jackal and the men of Medusa belonged to the same fraternal order. The Brotherhood of I Must Have Mine.

Breakthrough. But it was a breakthrough Jason Bourne could handle—not David Webb—and Webb was still too much a part of Bourne. Especially since both parts of the same man were over a thousand miles away from Montserrat, the coordinates of death determined by Carlos. Montserrat?… Johnny St. Jacques! The “little brother” who had proved himself in a backwater town in the northern regions of Canada, proved himself beyond the knowledge and the understanding of his family, especially his beloved sister. A man who could kill in anger—who had killed in fury—and who would kill again if the sister he adored and her children were under the Jackal’s gun. David believed in him—Jason Bourne believed in him, which was far more to the point.

Alex looked over at the telephone console, then quickly got out of the chair. He rushed to the desk, sat down, and touched the buttons that rewound the current tape, adjusting it to the spot where he wanted to pick it up. He went forward and back until he heard Gates’s panicked voice.

“… Good Christ, I paid fifteen thousand—”

No, not there, thought Conklin. Later.

“… I can show you the bank withdrawals—”

Later!

“… I hired a former judge who has contacts—”

That’s it. A judge.

“… They flew to the island of Montserrat—”

Alex opened the drawer where he kept a sheet of paper with each number he had called during the past two days on the assumption that he might need specific ones quickly. He saw the number in the Caribbean for Tranquility Inn, picked up the phone and dialed. After more rings than seemed necessary, a voice thick with sleep answered.

“Tranquility—”

“This is an emergency,” broke in Conklin. “It’s urgent that I speak with John St. Jacques. Quickly, please.”

“I’m sorry, sir, Mr. St. Jacques isn’t here.”

“I’ve got to find him. I repeat, it’s urgent. Where is he?”

“On the big island—”

“Montserrat?”

“Yes—”

“Where?… My name’s Conklin. He wants to talk to me—he has to talk to me. Please!”

“A big wind came up from Basse-Terre and all flights are canceled until morning.”

“A what?”

“A tropical depression—”

“Oh, a storm.”

“We prefer a TD, sir. Mr. St. Jacques left a telephone number in Plymouth.”

“What’s your name?” interrupted Alex suddenly. The clerk replied Pritchard and Conklin continued: “I’m going to ask you a very delicate question, Mr. Pritchard. It’s important that you have the right answer, but if it’s the wrong one you must do as I tell you. Mr. St. Jacques will confirm everything I say when I reach him; however, I can’t waste time now. Do you understand me?”

“What is your question?” asked the clerk with dignity. “I’m not a child, mon.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

“The question, Mr. Conklin. You’re in a hurry.”

“Yes, of course.… Mr. St. Jacques’s sister and her children, are they in a safe place? Did Mr. St. Jacques take certain precautions?”

“Such as armed guards about the villa and our usual men down on the beach?” said the clerk. “The answer is yes.”

“It’s the right answer.” Alex took a deep breath, his breathing still erratic. “Now, what’s the number where I can reach Mr. St. Jacques?”

The clerk gave it to Conklin, then added, “Many phones are out, sir. It might be well if you left a number here. The wind is still strong, but Mr. Saint Jay will no doubt come over with the first light if he can.”

“Certainly.” Alex rattled off the number of the sterile telephone in the Vienna apartment and had the man in Montserrat repeat it. “That’s it,” said Conklin. “I’ll try Plymouth now.”

“The spelling of your name, please. It is C-o-n-c-h—”

“C-o-n-k,” broke in Alex, snapping off the line and instantly dialing the number in the town of Plymouth, the capital of Montserrat. Once again a startled, drowsy voice answered; it was a barely coherent greeting. “Who’s this?” asked Conklin impatiently.

“Who the hell is this—are you?” replied an angry Englishman.

“I’m trying to reach John St. Jacques. It’s an emergency, and I was given this number by the desk at Tranquility Inn.”

“Good Lord, their phones are intact …?”

“Obviously. Please, is John there?”

“Yes, yes, of course. He’s across the hall, I’ll fetch him. Who shall I say—”

“ ‘Alex’ is good enough.”

“Just ‘Alex’?”

“Hurry, please!” Twenty seconds later the voice of John St. Jacques filled the line.

“Conklin? Is that you?”

“Listen to me. They know Marie and the children flew into Montserrat.”

“We heard that someone was asking questions over at the airport about a woman and two kids—”

“Then that’s why you moved them from the house to the inn.”

“That’s right.”

“Who was asking questions?”

“We don’t know. It was done by telephone.… I didn’t want to leave them, even for a few hours, but I had a command appearance at Government House, and by the time that son-of-a-bitch Crown governor showed up, the storm hit.”

“I know. I talked to the desk and got this number.”

“That’s one consolation; the phones are still working. In weather like this they usually don’t, which is why we suck up to the Crown.”

“I understand you’ve got guards—”

“You’re goddamned right!” cried St. Jacques. “The trouble is I don’t know what to look for except strangers in boats or on the beach, and if they don’t stop and identify themselves satisfactorily, my orders are to shoot!”

“I may be able to help—”

“Go ahead!”

“We got a break—don’t ask how; it’s from outer space but that doesn’t matter, it’s real. The man who traced Marie to Montserrat used a judge who had contacts, presumably in the islands.”

“A judge?” exploded the owner of Tranquility Inn. “My God, he’s there! Christ, he’s there! I’ll kill that scum bastard—”

“Stop it, Johnny! Get hold of yourself—who’s there?”

“A judge, and he insisted on using a different name! I didn’t think anything about it—a couple of whack-a-doo old men with similar names—”

“Old men?… Slow down, Johnny, this is important. What two old men?”

“The one you’re talking about is from Boston—”

“Yes!” co

nfirmed Alex emphatically.

“The other flew in from Paris—”

“Paris? Jesus Christ! The old men of Paris!”

“What …?”

“The Jackal! Carlos has his old men in place!”

“Now, you slow down, Alex,” said St. Jacques, his breathing audible. “Now you be clearer.”

“There’s no time, Johnny. Carlos has an army—his army—of old men who’ll die for him, kill for him. There won’t be any strangers on the beach, they’re already there! Can you get back to the island?”

“Somehow, yes! I’ll call my people over there. Both those pieces of garbage will be thrown into the cisterns!”

“Hurry, John!”

* * *

St. Jacques pressed down the small bar of the old telephone, released it, and heard the forever-pulsating dial tone. He spun the numbers for the inn on Tranquility Isle.

“We are sorry,” said the recorded voice. “Due to weather conditions the lines are down to the area you are calling. Government is working very hard to restore communications. Please try your call later. Have a good day.”

John St. Jacques slammed the phone down with such force that he broke it in two. “A boat!” he screamed. “Get me a drug boat!”

“You’re crazy,” objected the aide to the Crown governor across the room. “In these swells?”

“A sea streak, Henry!” said the devoted brother, reaching into his belt and slowly pulling out an automatic. “Or I’ll be forced to do something I don’t even want to think about, but I’ll get a boat.”

“I simply can’t believe this, chap.”

“Neither can I, Henry.… I mean it, though.”

Jean Pierre Fontaine’s nurse sat at her dressing table in front of the mirror and adjusted her tightly knotted blond hair under the black rain hat. She looked at her watch, recalling every word of the most unusual telephone call she had received several hours ago from Argenteuil in France, from the great man who made all things possible.

“There is an American attorney who calls himself a judge staying near you.”

“I know of no such person, monseigneur.”

“He is there, nevertheless. Our hero rightfully complains of his presence, and a call to his home in the city of Boston confirms that it is he.”

“His presence here is not desirable, then?”

“His presence there is abominable to me. He pretends to be in my debt—an enormous debt, an event that could destroy him—yet his actions tell me that he’s ungrateful, that he intends to cancel his debt by betraying me, and by betraying me he betrays you.”

“He’s dead.”

“Exactly. In the past he’s been valuable to me, but the past is over. Find him, kill him. Make his death appear to be a tragic accident.… Finally, since we will not speak until you are back on Martinique, are preparations complete for your last act on my behalf?”

“They are, monseigneur. The two syringes were prepared by the surgeon at the hospital in Fort-de-France. He sends you his devotion.”

“He should. He’s alive, as opposed to several dozen of his patients.”

“They know nothing of his other life in Martinique.”

“I’m aware of that.… Administer the doses in forty-eight hours, when the chaos has begun to subside. Knowing that the hero was my invention—which I’ll make sure they know—will put a chameleon to shame.”

“All will be done. You’ll be here soon?”

“In time for the shock waves. I’m leaving within the hour and will reach Antigua before it’s noon in Montserrat tomorrow. All things being on schedule, I’ll arrive in time to observe the exquisite anguish of Jason Bourne before I leave my signature, a bullet in his throat. The Americans will then know who has won. Adieu.”

The nurse, like an ecstatic suppliant, arched her neck in front of the mirror remembering the mystical words of her omniscient lord. It was nearly time, she thought, opening the dresser drawer and picking out a diamond-clustered wire garrote from among her necklaces, a gift from her mentor. It would be so simple. She had easily learned who the judge was and where he was staying—the old, painfully thin man three villas away. Everything now was precision, the “tragic accident” merely a prelude to the horror that would take place at Villa Twenty in less than an hour. For all of Tranquility’s villas had kerosene lamps in the event of electricity loss and generator malfunction. A panicked old man with loose bowels, or in plain fear, living through such a storm as they were experiencing, might well attempt to light a lamp for additional comfort. How tragic that his upper body would fall into the flowing spilled kerosene, his neck scorched into black tissue, the neck that had been garroted. Do it, insisted the echoing voices of her imagination. You must obey. Without Carlos you would have been a headless corpse in Algeria.

She would do it—she would do it now.

The harsh downpour of the rain on the roof and the windows, and the whistling, roaring wind outside were interrupted by a blinding streak of lightning followed by a deafening crack of thunder.

“Jean Pierre Fontaine” wept silently as he knelt beside the bed, his face inches from his woman’s, his tears falling on the cold flesh of her arm. She was dead, and the note by her white rigid hand said it all: Maintenant nous deux sommes libres, mon amour.

They were both free. She from the terrible pain, he from the price demanded by the monseigneur, a price he had not described to her, but one she knew was too horrible to pay. He had known for months that his woman had ready access to pills that would end her life quickly if her living became unendurable; he had frequently, at times frantically, searched for them but he had never found them. Now he knew why as he stared at the small tin of her favorite pastilles, the harmless droplets of licorice she had popped laughingly into her mouth for years.

“Be thankful, mon cher, they might be caviar or those expensive drugs the rich indulge in!” They were not caviar but they were drugs, lethal drugs.

Footsteps. The nurse! She had come out of her room, but she could not see his woman! Fontaine pushed himself up from the bed, wiped his eyes as best he could, and hurried to the door. He opened it, stunned by the sight of the woman; she stood directly in front of him, her arm raised, the knuckles of her hand arcing forward to knock.

“Monsieur!… You startled me.”

“I believe we startled each other.” Jean Pierre slipped out, rapidly closing the door behind him. “Regine is finally asleep,” he whispered, bringing his forefinger to his lips. “This terrible storm has kept her up most of the night.”

“But it is sent from heaven for us—for you—isn’t it? There are times when I think the monseigneur can order such things.”

“Then I doubt they come from heaven. It’s not the source of his influence.”

“To business,” interrupted the nurse, not amused and walking away from the door. “Are you prepared?”

“I will be in a matter of minutes,” replied Fontaine, heading for the table where his killing equipment lay in the locked drawer. He reached into his pocket and took out the key. “Do you want to go over the procedure?” he asked, turning. “For my benefit, of course. At this age, details are often blurred.”

“Yes, I do, because there is a slight change.”

“Oh?” The old Frenchman arched his brows. “Also at my age sudden changes are not welcome.”

“It’s only a question of timing, no more than a quarter of an hour, perhaps much less.”

“An eternity in this business,” said Fontaine as yet another streak of lightning, separated only milliseconds from its crash of thunder, interrupted the pounding rain on the windows and the roof. “It’s dangerous enough to be outside; that bolt was too near for safety.”

“If you believe that, think how the guards feel.”

“The ‘slight change,’ please? Also an explanation.”

“I’ll give you no explanation except to say that it is an order from Argenteuil and you were responsible.”

“The judge

?”

“Draw your own conclusions.”

“Then he was not sent to—”

“I’ll say no more. The change is as follows. Rather than running up the path from here to the guards at Villa Twenty and demanding emergency assistance for your ill wife, I will say I was returning from the front desk where I was complaining about the telephone and saw a fire in Villa Fourteen, three away from ours. There’ll no doubt be a great deal of confusion, what with the storm and everyone yelling and calling for help. That will be your signal. Use the confusion; get through and take out whoever remains at the woman’s villa—make sure your silencer is secure. Then go inside and do the work you have sworn to do.”

“So I wait for the fire, for the guards and for you to return to Number Eleven.”

“Exactly. Stay on the porch with the door closed, of course.”

“Of course.”

“It may take me five minutes or perhaps even twenty, but stay there.”

“Naturally.… May I ask, madame—or perhaps mademoiselle, although I see no evidence—”

“What is it?”

“It will take you five or twenty minutes to do what?”

“You’re a fool, old man. What must be done.”

“Of course.”

The nurse pulled her raincoat around her, looped the belt and walked to the front door of the villa. “Get your equipment together and be out here in three minutes,” she commanded.

“Of course.” The door swung back with the wind as the woman opened it; she went outside into the torrential rain, pulling it shut behind her. Astonished and confused, the old Frenchman stood motionless, trying to make sense out of the inexplicable. Things were happening too fast for him, blurred in the agony of his woman’s death. There was no time to mourn, no time to feel.… Only think and think quickly. Revelation came hard upon revelation, leaving unanswered questions that had to be answered so the whole could be understood—so that Montserrat itself made sense!

The nurse was more than a conduit for instructions from Argenteuil; the angel of mercy was herself an angel of death, a killer in her own right. So why was he sent thousands of miles to do the work another could do just as well and without the elaborate charade of his auspicious arrival? An old hero of France, indeed … it was all so unnecessary. And speaking of age, there was another—another old man who was no killer at all. Perhaps, thought the false Jean Pierre Fontaine, he had made a terrible mistake. Perhaps, instead of coming to kill him, the other “old man” had come to warn him!