THE BOURNE IDENTITY


         For Glynis
   A very special light we all adore.
   With our love and deep respect.


PREFACE
   
  The New York Times
   Friday, July 11, 1975
   FRONT PAGE
 
   DIPLOMATS SAID TO BE LINKED WITH FUGITIVE TERRORIST KNOWN AS CARLOS
   PARIS, July 10--France expelled three high-ranking Cuban diplomats today in connection with the worldwide search for a man called Carlos, who is believed to be an important link in an international terrorist network.
   The suspect, whose real name is thought to be Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, is being sought in the killing of two French counterintelligence agents and a Lebanese informer at a Latin Quarter apartment on June 27.
   The three killings have led the police here and in Britain to what they feel is the trail of a major network of international terrorist agents. In the search for Carlos after the killings, French and British policemen discovered large arms caches that linked Carlos to major terrorism in West Germany and led them to suspect a connection between many terrorist acts throughout Europe.
   Reported Seen in London
   Since then Carlos has been reported seen in London and in Beirut, Lebanon. ...
 
   Associated Press
   Monday, July 7, 1975
   syndicated dispatch
 
   A DRAGNET FOR ASSASSIN
   LONDON,(AP)--Guns and girls, grenades and good suits, a fat billfold, airline tickets to romantic places and nice apartments in a half dozen world capitals. This is the portrait emerging of a jet age assassin being sought in an international manhunt.
   The hunt began when the man answered his doorbell in Paris and shot dead two French intelligence agents and a Lebanese informer. It has put four women into custody in two capitals, accused of offenses in his wake. The assassin himself has vanished--perhaps in Lebanon, the French police believe.
   In the past few days in London, those acquainted with him have described him to reporters as good looking, courteous, well educated, wealthy and fashionably dressed.
   But his associates are men and women who have been called the most dangerous in the world. He is said to be linked with the Japanese Red Army, the Organization for the Armed Arab Struggle, the West German Baader-Meinhof gang, the Quebec Liberation Front, the Turkish Popular Liberation Front, separatists in France and Spain, and the Provisional wing of the Irish Republican Army.
   When the assassin traveled--to Paris, to the Hague, to West Berlin--bombs went off; guns cracked and there were kidnappings.
   A breakthrough occurred in Paris when a Lebanese terrorist broke under questioning and led two intelligence men to the assassin’s door in Paris on June 27. He shot all three to death and escaped. Police found his guns and notebooks containing “death lists” of prominent people.
   Yesterday the London Observer said police were hunting for the son of a Venezuelan Communist lawyer for questioning in the triple slaying. Scotland Yard said, “We are not denying the report,” but added there was no charge against him and he was wanted only for questioning.
   The Observer identified the hunted man as Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, of Caracas. It said his name was on one of the four passports found by French police when they raided the Paris apartment where the slayings took place.
   The newspaper said Ilich was named after Vladimir Ilych Lenin, founder of the Soviet state, and was educated in Moscow and speaks fluent Russian.
   In Caracas, a spokesman for the Venezuelan Communist Party said Ilich is the son of a 70-year-old Marxist lawyer living 450 miles west of Caracas, but “neither father nor son belong to our party.”
   He told reporters he did not know where Ilich was now.

BOOK I

1
   The trawler plunged into the angry swells of the dark, furious sea like an awkward animal trying desperately to break out of an impenetrable swamp. The waves rose to goliathan heights, crashing into the hull with the power of raw tonnage; the white sprays caught in the night sky cascaded downward over the deck under the force of the night wind. Everywhere there were the sounds of inanimate pain, wood straining against wood, ropes twisting, stretched to the breaking point. The animal was dying.
   Two abrupt explosions pierced the sounds of the sea and the wind and the vessel’s pain. They came from the dimly lit cabin that rose and fell with its host body. A man lunged out of the door grasping the railing with one hand, holding his stomach with the other.
   A second man followed, the pursuit cautious, his intent violent. He stood bracing himself in the cabin door; he raised a gun and fired again. And again.
   The man at the railing whipped both his hands up to his head, arching backward under the impact of the fourth bullet. The trawler’s bow dipped suddenly into the valley of two giant waves, lifting the wounded man off his feet; he twisted to his left unable to take his hands away from his head. The boat surged upward, bow and midships more out of the water than in it, sweeping the figure in the doorway back into the cabin, a fifth gunshot fired wildly. The wounded man screamed, his hands now lashing out at anything he could grasp, his eyes blinded by blood and the unceasing spray of the sea. There was nothing he could grab, so he grabbed at nothing; his legs buckled as his body lurched forward. The boat rolled violently leeward and the man whose skull was ripped open plunged over the side into the madness of the darkness below.
   He felt rushing cold water envelop him, swallowing him, sucking him under, and twisting him in circles, then propelling him up to the surface--only to gasp a single breath of air. A gasp and he was under again.
   And there was heat, a strange moist heat at his temple that seared through the freezing water that kept swallowing him, a fire where no fire should burn. There was ice, too; an icelike throbbing in his stomach and his legs and his chest, oddly warmed by the cold sea around him. He felt these things,
   acknowledging his own panic as he felt them. He could see his own body turning and twisting, arms and feet working frantically against the pressures of the whirlpool. He could feel, think, see, perceive panic and struggle--yet strangely there was peace. It was the calm of the observer, the uninvolved observer, separated from the events, knowing of them but not essentially involved.
   Then another form of panic spread through him, surging through the heat and the ice and the uninvolved recognition. He could not submit to peace! Not yet! It would happen any second now; he was not sure what it was, but it would happen. He had to bethere!
   He kicked furiously, clawing at the heavy walls of water above, his chest burning. He broke surface, thrashing to stay on top of the black swells. Climb up! Climb up!
   A monstrous rolling wave accommodated; he was on the crest, surrounded by pockets of foam and darkness. Nothing. Turn! Turn!
   It happened. The explosion was massive; he could hear it through the clashing waters and the wind, the sight and the sound somehow his doorway to peace. The sky lit up like a fiery diadem and within that crown of fire, objects of all shapes and sizes were blown through the light into the outer shadows.
   He had won. Whatever it was, he had won.
   Suddenly he was plummeting downward again, into an abyss again. He could feel the rushing waters crash over his shoulders, cooling the white-hot heat at his temple, warming the ice-cold incisions in his stomach and his legs and. ...
   His chest. His chest was in agony! He had been struck--the blow crushing, the impact sudden and intolerable. It happened again! Let me alone. Give me peace.
   And again!
   And he clawed again, and kicked again ... until he felt it. A thick, oily object that moved only with the movements of the sea. He could not tell what it was, but it was there and he could feel it, hold it.
   Hold it! It will ride you to peace. To the silence of darkness ... and peace.
 
   The rays of the early sun broke through the mists of the eastern sky, lending glitter to the calm waters of the Mediterranean. The skipper of the small fishing boat, his eyes bloodshot, his hands marked with rope burns, sat on the stern gunnel smoking a Gauloise, grateful for the sight of the smooth sea. He glanced over at the open wheelhouse; his younger brother was easing the throttle forward to make better time, the single other crewman checking a net several feet away. They were laughing at something and that was good; there had been nothing to laugh about last night. Where had the storm come from? The weather reports from Marseilles had indicated nothing; if they had he would have stayed in the shelter of the coastline. He wanted to reach the fishing grounds eighty kilometers south of La Seyne-sur-Mer by daybreak, but not at the expense of costly repairs, and what repairs were not costly these days?
   Or at the expense of his life, and there were moments last night when that was a distinct consideration.
   “Tu es fatigué, hein, mon frère?”his brother shouted, grinning at him. “Va te coucher maintenant. Laisse-moi faire.”
   “D’accord,”the brother answered, throwing his cigarette over the side and sliding down to the deck on top of a net “A little sleep won’t hurt.”
   It was good to have a brother at the wheel. A member of the family should always be the pilot on a family boat; the eyes were sharper. Even a brother who spoke with the smooth tongue of a literate man as opposed to his own coarse words. Crazy! One year at the university and his brother wished to start a compagnie. With a single boat that had seen better days many years ago. Crazy. What good did his books do last night? When his compagniewas about to capsize.
   He closed his eyes, letting his hands soak in the rolling water on the deck. The salt of the sea would be good for the rope burns. Burns received while lashing equipment that did not care to stay put in the storm.
   “Look! Over there!”
   It was his brother; apparently sleep was to be denied by sharp family eyes.
   “What is it?” he yelled.
   “Port bow! There’s a man in the water! He’s holding on to something! A piece of debris, a plank of some sort.”
 
   The skipper took the wheel, angling the boat to the right of the figure in the water, cutting the engines to reduce the wake. The man looked as though the slightest motion would send him sliding off the fragment of wood he clung to; his hands were white, gripped around the edge like claws, but the rest of his body was limp--as limp as a man fully drowned, passed from this world.
   “Loop the ropes!” yelled the skipper to his brother and the crewman. “Submerge them around his legs. Easy now! Move them up to his waist. Pull gently.”
   “His hands won’t let go of the plank!”
   “Reach down! Pry them up! It may be the death lock.”
   “No. He’s alive ... but barely, I think. His lips move, but there’s no sound. His eyes also, though I doubt he sees us.”
   “The hands are free!”
   “Lift him up. Grab his shoulders and pull him over. Easy, now!”
   “Mother of God, look at his head!” yelled the crewman. “It’s split open.”
   “He must have crashed it against the plank in the storm,” said the brother.
   “No,” disagreed the skipper, staring at the wound. “It’s a clean slice, razorlike. Caused by a bullet; he was shot.”
   “You can’t be sure of that.”
   “In more than one place,” added the skipper, his eyes roving over the body. “We’ll head for Ile de Port Noir; it’s the nearest island. There’s a doctor on the waterfront.”
   “The Englishman?”
   “He practices.”
   “When he can,” said the skipper’s brother. “When the wine lets him. He has more success with his patients’ animals than with his patients.”
   “It won’t matter. This will be a corpse by the time we get there. If by chance he lives, I’ll bill him for the extra petrol and whatever catch we miss. Get the kit; we’ll bind his head for all the good it will do.”
   “Look!” cried the crewman. “Look at his eyes.”
   “What about them?” asked the brother.
   “A moment ago they were gray--as gray as steel cables. Now they’re blue!”
   “The sun’s brighter,” said the skipper, shrugging. “Or it’s playing tricks with your own eyes. No matter, there’s no color in the grave.”
 
   Intermittent whistles of fishing boats clashed with the incessant screeching of the gulls; together they formed the universal sounds of the waterfront. It was late afternoon, the sun a fireball in the west, the air still and too damp, too hot. Above the piers and facing the harbor was a cobblestone street and several blemished white houses, separated by overgrown grass shooting up from dried earth and sand. What remained of the verandas were patched latticework and crumbling stucco supported by hastily implanted pilings. The residences had seen better days a number of decades ago when the residents mistakenly believed Ile de Port Noir might become another Mediterranean playground. It never did.
   All the houses had paths to the street, but the last house in the row had a path obviously more trampled than the others. It belonged to an Englishman who had come to Port Noir eight years before under circumstances no one understood or cared to; he was a doctor and the waterfront had need of a doctor. Hooks, needles and knives were at once means of livelihood as well as instruments of incapacitation. If one saw le docteuron a good day, the sutures were not too bad. On the other hand, if the stench of wine or whiskey was too pronounced, one took one’s chances.

Tant pis!He was better than no one.
   But not today; no one used the path today. It was Sunday and it was common knowledge that on any Saturday night the doctor was roaring drunk in the village, ending the evening with whatever whore was available. Of course, it was also granted that during the past few Saturdays the doctor’s routine had altered; he had not been seen in the village. But nothing ever changed that much; bottles of scotch were sent to the doctor on a regular basis. He was simply staying in his house; he had been doing so since the fishing boat from La Ciotat had brought in the unknown man who was more corpse than man.

   Dr. Geoffrey Washburn awoke with a start, his chin settled into his collarbone causing the odor of his mouth to invade his nostrils; it was not pleasant. He blinked, orienting himself, and glanced at the open bedroom door. Had his nap been interrupted by another incoherent monologue from his patient? No; there was no sound. Even the gulls outside were mercifully quiet; it was Ile de Port Noir’s holy day, no boats coming in to taunt the birds with their catches.

   Washburn looked at the empty glass and the half-empty bottle of whiskey on the table beside his chair. It was an improvement. On a normal Sunday both would be empty by now, the pain of the previous night having been spiraled out by the scotch. He smiled to himself, once again blessing an older sister in Coventry who made the scotch possible with her monthly stipend. She was a good girl, Bess was, and God knew she could afford a hell of a lot more than she sent him, but he was grateful she did what she did. And one day she would stop, the money would stop, and then the oblivions would be achieved with the cheapest wine until there was no pain at all. Ever.

   He had come to accept that eventuality ... until three weeks and five days ago when the half-dead stranger had been dragged from the sea and brought to his door by fishermen who did not care to identify themselves. Their errand was one of mercy, not involvement. God would understand; the man had been shot.
   What the fishermen had not known was that far more than bullets had invaded the man’s body.
   And mind.
   The doctor pushed his gaunt frame out of the chair and walked unsteadily to the window overlooking the harbor. He lowered the blind, closing his eyes to block out the sun, then squinted between the slats to observe the activity in the street below, specifically the reason for the clatter. It was a horse-drawn cart, a fisherman’s family out for a Sunday drive. Where the hell else could one see such a sight? And then he remembered the carriages and the finely groomed geldings that threaded through London’s Regent Park with tourists during the summer months; he laughed out loud at the comparison. But his laughter was short-lived, replaced by something unthinkable three weeks ago. He had given up all hope of seeing England again. It was possible that might be changed now. The stranger could change it.
   Unless his prognosis was wrong, it would happen any day, any hour or minute. The wounds to the legs, stomach, and chest were deep and severe, quite possibly fatal were it not for the fact the bullets had remained where they had lodged, self-cauterized and continuously cleansed by the sea.
   Extracting them was nowhere near as dangerous as it might have been, the tissue primed, softened, sterilized, ready for an immediate knife. The cranial wound was the real problem; not only was the penetration subcutaneous, but it appeared to have bruised the thalamus and hippocampus fibrous regions. Had the bullet entered millimeters away on either side the vital functions would have ceased; they had not been impeded, and Washburn had made a decision. He went dry for thirty-six hours, eating as much starch and drinking as much water as was humanly possible. Then he performed the most delicate piece of work he had attempted since his dismissal from Macleans Hospital in London. Millimeter by agonizing millimeter he had brush-washed the fibrous areas, then stretched and sutured the skin over the cranial wound, knowing that the slightest error with brush, needle, or clamp would cause the patient’s death.
   He had not wanted this unknown patient to die for any number of reasons. But especially one.
   When it was over and the vital signs had remained constant, Dr. Geoffrey Washburn went back to his chemical and psychological appendage. His bottle. He had gotten drunk and he had remained drunk, but he had not gone over the edge. He knew exactly where he was and what he was doing at all times. Definitely an improvement.
   Any day now, any hour perhaps, the stranger would focus his eyes and intelligible words would emerge from his lips.
   Even any moment.

   The words came first. They floated in the air as the early morning breeze off the sea cooled the room.
   “Who’s there? Who’s in this room?”
   Washburn sat up in the cot, moved his legs quietly over the side, and rose slowly to his feet. It was important to make no jarring note, no sudden noise or physical movement that might frighten the patient into a psychological regression. The next few minutes would be as delicate as the surgical
   procedures he had performed; the doctor in him was prepared for the moment.
   “A friend,” he said softly.
   “Friend?”
   “You speak English. I thought you would. American or Canadian is what I suspected. Your dental work didn’t come from the UK or Paris. How do you feel?”
   “I’m not sure.”
   “It will take awhile. Do you need to relieve your bowels?”
   “What?”
   “Take a crapper, old man. That’s what the pan’s for beside you. The white one on your left.
   When we make it in time, of course.”
   “I’m sorry.”
   “Don’t be. Perfectly normal function. I’m a doctor, your doctor. My name is Geoffrey Washburn. What’s yours?”
   “What?”
   “I asked you what your name was.”
   The stranger moved his head and stared at the white wall streaked with shafts of morning light.
   Then he turned back, his blue eyes leveled at the doctor. “I don’t know.”
   “Oh, my God.”

   “I’ve told you over and over again. It will take time. The more you fight it, the more you crucify yourself, the worse it will be.”
   “You’re drunk.”
   “Generally. It’s not pertinent. But I can give you clues, if you’ll listen.”
   “I’ve listened”
   “No, you don’t; you turn away. You lie in your cocoon and pull the cover over your mind. Hear me again.”
   “I’m listening.”
   “In your coma--your prolonged coma--you spoke in three different languages. English, French and some goddamned twangy thing I presume is Oriental. That means you’re multilingual; you’re at home in various parts of the world. Think geographically. What’s most comfortable for you?”
   “Obviously English.”
   “We’ve agreed to that. So what’s most uncomfortable?”
   “I don’t know.”
   “Your eyes are round, not sloped. I’d say obviously the Oriental.”
   “Obviously.”
   “Then why do you speak it? Now, think in terms of association. I’ve written down words; listen to them. I’ll say them phonetically. Ma-kwa. Tam-kwon. Kee-sah.Say the first thing that comes to mind.”
   “Nothing.”
   “Good show.”
   “What the hell do you want?”
   “Something. Anything.”
   “You’re drunk.”
   “We’ve agreed to that. Consistently. I also saved your bloody life. Drunk or not, I am a doctor. I was once a very good one.”
   “What happened?”
   “The patient questions the doctor?”
   “Why not?”
   Washburn paused, looking out the window at the waterfront. “I was drunk,” he said. “They said I killed two patients on the operating table because I was drunk. I could have gotten away with one.
   Not two. They see a pattern very quickly, God bless them. Don’t ever give a man like me a knife and cloak it in respectability.”
   “Was it necessary?”
   “Was what necessary?”
   “The bottle.”
   “Yes, damn you,” said Washburn softly, turning from the window. “It was and it is. And the patient is not permitted to make judgments where the physician is concerned.”
   “Sorry.”
   “You also have an annoying habit of apologizing. It’s an overworked protestation and not at all natural. I don’t for a minute believe you’re an apologetic person.”
   “Then you know something I don’t know.”
   “About you, yes. A great deal. And very little of it makes sense.” The man sat forward in the chair. His open shirt fell away from his taut frame, exposing the bandages on his chest and stomach. He folded his hands in front of him, the veins in his slender, muscular arms pronounced. “Other than the things we’ve talked about?”
   “Yes.”
   “Things I said while in coma?”
   “No, not really. We’ve discussed most of that gibberish. The languages, your knowledge of geography--cities I’ve never or barely heard of--your obsession for avoiding the use of names, names you want to say but won’t; your propensity for confrontation--attack, recoil, hide, run--all rather violent, I might add. I frequently strapped your arms down, to protect the wounds. But we’ve covered all that. There are other things.”
   “What do you mean? What are they? Why haven’t you told me?”
   “Because they’re physical. The outer shell, as it were. I wasn’t sure you were ready to hear. I’m not sure now.”
   The man leaned back in the chair, dark eyebrows below the dark brown hair joined in irritation.
   “Now it’s the physician’s judgment that isn’t called for. I’m ready. What are you talking about?”
   “Shall we begin with that rather acceptable looking head of yours? The face, in particular.”
   “What about it?”
   “It’s not the one you were born with.”
   “What do you mean?”
   “Under a thick glass, surgery always leaves its mark. You’ve been altered, old man.”
   “Altered?”
   “You have a pronounced chin; I daresay there was a cleft in it. It’s been removed. Your upper left cheekbone--your cheekbones are also pronounced, conceivably Slavic generations ago--has minute traces of a surgical scar. I would venture to say a mole was eliminated. Your nose is an English nose,
   at one time slightly more prominent than it is now. It was thinned ever so subtly. Your very sharp features have been softened, the character submerged. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
   “No.”
   “You’re a reasonably attractive man but your face is more distinguished by the category it falls into than by the face itself.”
   “Category?”
   “Yes. You’re the prototype of the white Anglo-Saxon people see every day on the better cricket fields, or the tennis court. Or the bar at Mirabel’s. Those faces become almost indistinguishable from one another, don’t they? The features properly in place, the teeth straight, the ears flat against the head--nothing out of balance, everything in position and just a little bit soft.”
   “Soft?”
   “Well, ‘spoiled’ is perhaps a better word. Definitely self-assured, even arrogant, used to having your own way.”
   “I’m still not sure what you’re trying to say.”
   “Try this then. Change the color of your hair, you change the face. Yes, there are traces of discoloration, brittleness, dye. Wear glasses and a mustache, you’re a different man. I’d guess you were in your middle to late thirties, but you could be ten years older, or five younger.” Washburn paused, watching the man’s reactions, as if wondering whether or not to proceed. “And speaking of glasses, do you remember those exercises, the tests we ran a week ago?”
   “Of course.”
   “Your eyesight’s perfectly normal; you have no need of glasses.”
   “I didn’t think I did.”
   “Then why is there evidence of prolonged use of contact lenses about your retinas and lids?”
   “I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense.”
   “May I suggest a possible explanation?”
   “I’d like to hear it.”
   “You may not.” The doctor returned to the window and peered absently outside. “Certain types of contact lenses are designed to change the color of the eyes. And certain types of eyes lend themselves more readily than others to the device. Usually those that have a gray or bluish hue; yours are a cross. Hazel-gray in one light, blue in another. Nature favored you in this regard; no altering was either possible or required.”
   “Required for what?”
   “For changing your appearance. Very professionally, I’d say. Visas, passport, driver’s licenses-– switched at will. Hair: brown, blond, auburn. Eyes--can’t tamper with the eyes--green, gray, blue?
   The possibilities are far-ranging, wouldn’t you say? All within that recognizable category in which the
   faces are blurred with repetition.”
   The man got out of the chair with difficulty, pushing himself up with his arms, holding his breath as he rose. “It’s also possible that you’re reaching. You could be way out of line.”
   “The traces are there, the markings. That’s evidence.”
   “Interpreted by you, with a heavy dose of cynicism thrown in. Suppose I had an accident and was patched up? That would explain the surgery.”
   “Not the kind you had. Dyed hair and the removal of clefts and moles aren’t part of a restoration process.”
   “You don’t knowthat!” said the unknown man angrily. “There are different kinds of accidents, different procedures. You weren’t there; you can’t be certain.”
   “Good! Get furious with me. You don’t do it half often enough. And while you’re mad, think.
   What wereyou? What areyou?”
   “A salesman ... an executive with an international company, specializing in the Far East. That could be it. Or a teacher ... of languages. In a university somewhere. That’s possible, too.”
   “Fine. Choose one. Now!”
   “I ... I can’t.” The man’s eyes were on the edge of helplessness.
   “Because you don’t believe either one.”
   The man shook his head. “No. Do you?”
   “No,” said Washburn. “For a specific reason. Those occupations are relatively sedentary and you have the body of a man who’s been subjected to physical stress. Oh, I don’t mean a trained athlete or anything like that; you’re no jock, as they say. But your muscle tone’s firm, your arms and hands used to strain and quite strong. Under other circumstances, I might judge you to be a laborer, accustomed to carrying heavy objects, or a fisherman, conditioned by hauling in nets all day long.
   But your range of knowledge, I daresay your intellect, rules out such things.”
   “Why do I get the idea that you’re leading up to something? Something else.”
   “Because we’ve worked together, closely and under pressure, for several weeks now. You spot a pattern.”
   “I’m right then?”
   “Yes. I had to see how you’d accept what I’ve just told you. The previous surgery, the hair, the contact lenses.”
   “Did I pass?”
   “With infuriating equilibrium. It’s time now; there’s no point in putting it off any longer. Frankly, I haven’t the patience. Come with me.” Washburn preceded the man through the living room to the door in the rear wall that led to the dispensary. Inside, he went to the corner and picked up an antiquated projector, the shell of its thick round lens rusted and cracked. “I had this brought in with the supplies from Marseilles,” he said, placing it on the small desk and inserting the plug into the wall socket. “It’s hardly the best equipment, but it serves the purpose. Pull the blinds, will you?” The man with no name or memory went to the window and lowered the blind; the room was dark. Washburn snapped on the projector’s light; a bright square appeared on the white wall. He then inserted a small piece of celluloid behind the lens.
   The square was abruptly filled with magnified letters.

   GEMEINSCHAFT BANK
   BAHNHOFSTRASSE. ZURICH.
   ZERO-SEVEN-SEVENTEEN-TWELVE-ZERO
   FOURTEEN-TWENTY-SIX-ZERO

   “What is it?” asked the nameless man.
   “Look at it. Study it. Think.”
   “It’s a bank account of some kind.”
   “Exactly. The printed letterhead and address is the bank, the handwritten numbers take the place of a name, but insofar as they arewritten out, they constitute the signature of the account holder. Standard procedure.”
   “Where did you get it?”
   “From you. This is a very small negative, my guess would be half the size of a thirty-five millimeter film. It was implanted--surgically implanted--beneath the skin above your right hip. The numbers are in your handwriting; it’s your signature. With it you can open a vault in Zurich.”

2
   They chose the name Jean-Pierre. It neither startled nor offended anyone, a name as common to Port Noir as any other.
   And books came from Marseilles, six of them in varying sizes and thicknesses, four in English, two in French. They were medical texts, volumes that dealt with injuries to the head and mind.
   There were cross-sections of the brain, hundreds of unfamiliar words to absorb and try to understand. Lobus occipitalesand temporalis, the cortexand the connecting fibers of the corpus callosum; the limbic system–-specifically the hippocampusand mammillary bodiesthat together with the fornexwere indispensable to memory and recall. Damaged, there was amnesia.
   There were psychological studies of emotional stress that produced stagnate hysteriaand mental aphasia, conditions which also resulted in partial or total loss of memory. Amnesia.
   Amnesia.
   “There are no rules,” said the dark-haired man, rubbing his eyes in the inadequate light of the table lamp. “It’s a geometric puzzle; it can happen in any combination of ways. Physically or psychologically--or a little of both. It can be permanent or temporary, all or part. No rules!”
   “Agreed,” said Washburn, sipping his whiskey in a chair across the room. “But I think we’re getting closer to what happened. What I think happened.”
   “Which was?” asked the man apprehensively.
   “You just said it: ‘a little of both.’ Although the word ‘little’ should be changed to ‘massive.’
   Massive shocks.”
   “Massive shocks to what?”
   “The physical and the psychological. They were related, interwoven--two strands of experience, or stimulae, that became knotted.”
   “How much sauce ha ve you had?”
   “Less than you think; it’s irrelevant.” The doctor picked up a clipboard filled with pages. “This is your history--your new history--begun the day you were brought here. Let me summarize. The physical wounds tell us that the situation in which you found yourself was packed with psychological
   stress, the subsequent hysteria brought on by at least nine hours in the water, which served to solidify the psychological damage. The darkness, the violent movement, the lungs barely getting air; these were the instruments of hysteria. Everything that preceded it--the hysteria--had to be erased so you could cope, survive. Are you with me?”
   “I think so. The head was protecting itself.”
   “Not the head, the mind. Make the distinction; it’s important. We’ll get back to the head, but we’ll give it a label. The brain.”
   “All right. Mind, not head ... which is really the brain.”
   “Good.” Washburn flipped his thumb through the pages on the clipboard. “These are filled with several hundred observations. There are the normal medicinal inserts--dosage, time, reaction, that sort of thing--but in the main they deal with you, the man himself. The words you use, the words you react to; the phrases you employ--when I can write them down--both rationally and when you talk in your sleep and when you were in coma. Even the way you walk, the way you talk or tense your body when startled or seeing something that interests you. You appear to be a mass of contradictions; there’s a subsurface violence almost always in control, but very much alive. There’s also a pensiveness that seems painful for you, yet you rarely give vent to the anger that pain must provoke.”
   “You’re provoking it now,” interrupted the man. “We’ve gone over the words and the phrases time and time again--“ “And we’ll continue to do so,” broke in Washburn, “as long as there’s progress.”
   “I wasn’t aware any progress had been made.”
   “Not in terms of an identity or an occupation. But we are finding out what’s most comfortable for you, what you deal with best. It’s a little frightening.”
   “In what way?”
   “Let me give you an example.” The doctor put the clipboard down and got out of the chair. He walked to a primitive cupboard against the wall, opened a drawer, and took out a large automatic handgun. The man with no memory tensed in his chair; Washburn was aware of the reaction. “I’ve never used this, not sure I’d know how to, but I do live on the waterfront.” He smiled, then suddenly, without warning, threw it to the man. The weapon was caught in midair, the catch clean, swift, and confident. “Break it down; I believe that’s the phrase.”
   “What?”
   “Break it down. Now.”
   The man looked at the gun. And then, in silence, his hands and fingers moved expertly over the weapon. In less than thirty seconds it was completely dismantled. He looked up at the doctor.
   “See what I mean?” said Washburn. “Among your skills is an extraordinary knowledge of firearms.”
   “Army?” asked the man, his voice intense, once more apprehensive.
   “Extremely unlikely,” replied the doctor. “When you first came out of coma, I mentioned your dental work. I assure you it’s not military. And, of course, the surgery, I’d say, would totally rule out any military association.”
   “Then what?”
   “Let’s not dwell on it now; let’s go back to what happened. We were dealing with the mind, remember? The psychological stress, the hysteria. Not the physical brain, but the mental pressures.
   Am I being clear?”
   “Go on.”
   “As the shock recedes, so do the pressures, until there’s no fundamental need to protect the psyche. As this process takes place, your skills and talents will come back to you. You’ll remember certain behavior patterns; you may live them out quite naturally, your surface reactions instinctive.
   But there’s a gap and everything in those pages tell me it’s irreversible.” Washburn stopped and went back to his chair and his glass. He sat down and drank, closing his eyes in weariness.
   “Go on,” whispered the man.
   The doctor opened his eyes, leveling them at his patient. “We return to the head, which we’ve labeled the brain. The physical brain with its millions upon millions of cells and interacting components. You’ve read the books; the fornix and the limbic system, the hippocampus fibers and the thalamus; the callosum and especially the lobotomic surgical techniques. The slightest alteration can cause dramatic changes. That’s what happened to you. The damage was physical. It’s as though blocks were rearranged, the physical structure no longer what it was.” Again Washburn stopped.
   “And,” pressed the man.
   “The recessed psychological pressures will allow--are allowing--your skills and talents to come back to you. But I don’t think you’ll ever be able to relate them to anything in your past.”
   “Why? Why not?”
   “Because the physical conduits that permit and transmit those memories have been altered.
   Physically rearranged to the point where they no longer function as they once did. For all intents and purposes, they’ve been destroyed.”
   The man sat motionless. “The answer’s in Zurich,” he said.
   “Not yet. You’re not ready; you’re not strong enough.”
   “I will be.”
   “Yes, you will.”
   The weeks passed; the verbal exercises continued as the pages grew and the man’s strength returned. It was midmorning of the nineteenth week, the day bright, the Mediterranean calm and glistening. As was the man’s habit he had run for the past hour along the waterfront and up into the hills; he had stretched the distance to something over twelve miles daily, the pace increasing daily, the rests less frequent. He sat in the chair by the bedroom window, breathing heavily, sweat drenching his undershirt. He had come in through the back door, entering the bedroom from the dark hallway that passed the living room. It was simply easier; the living room served as Washburn’s waiting area and there were still a few patients with cuts and gashes to be repaired. They were sitting in chairs looking frightened, wondering what le docteur’s condition would be that morning. Actually, it wasn’t bad. Geoffrey Washburn still drank like a mad Cossack, but these days he stayed on his horse. It was as if a reserve of hope had been found in the recesses of his own destructive fatalism.
   And the man with no memory understood; that hope was tied to a bank in Zurich’s Bahnhofstrasse.
   Why did the street come so easily to mind?
   The bedroom door opened and the doctor burst in, grinning, his white coat stained with his patient’s blood.
   “I did it!” he said, more triumph in his words than clarification. “I should open my own hiring hall and live on commissions. It’d be steadier.”
   “What are you talking about?”
   “As we agreed, it’s what you need. You’ve got to function on the outside, and as of two minutes ago Monsieur Jean-Pierre No-Name is gainfully employed! At least for a week.”
   “How did you do that? I thought there weren’t any openings.”
   “What was about to be opened was Claude Lamouche’s infected leg. I explained that my supply of local anesthetic was very, very limited. We negotiated; you were the bartered coin.”
   “A week?”
   “If you’re any good, he may keep you on.” Washburn paused. “Although that’s not terribly important, is it?”
   “I’m not sure any of this is. A month ago, maybe, but not now. I told you. I’m ready to leave. I’d think you’d want me to. I have an appointment in Zurich.”
   “And I’d prefer you function the very best you can at that appointment. My interests are extremely selfish, no remissions permitted.”
   “I’m ready.”
   “On the surface, yes. But take my word for it, it’s vital that you spend prolonged periods of time on the water, some of it at night. Not under controlled conditions, not as a passenger, but subjected to reasonably harsh conditions--the harsher the better, in fact.”
   “Another test?”
   “Every single one I can devise in this primitive Menningers of Port Noir. If I could conjure up a storm and a minor shipwreck for you, I would. On the other hand, Lamouche is something of a storm himself; he’s a difficult man. The swelling in his leg will go down and he’ll resent you. So will others; you’ll have to replace someone.”
   “Thanks a lot.”
   “Don’t mention it. We’re combining two stresses. At least one or two nights on the water, if Lamouche keeps to schedule--that’s the hostile environment which contributed to your hysteria-– and exposure to resentment and suspicion from men around you--symbolic of the initial stress situation.”
   “Thanks again. Suppose they decide to throw me overboard? That’d be your ultimate test, I suppose, but I don’t know how much good it would do if I drowned.”
   “Oh, there’ll be nothing like that,” said Washburn, scoffing.
   “I’m glad you’re so confident. I wish I were.”
   “You can be. You have the protection of my presence. I may not be Christiaan Barnard or Michael De Bakey, but I’m all these people have. They need me; they won’t risk losing me.”
   “But you want to leave. I’m your passport out.”
   “In ways unfathomable, my dear patient. Come on, now. Lamouche wants you down at the dock so you can familiarize yourself with his equipment. You’ll be starting out at four o’clock tomorrow morning. Consider how beneficial a week at sea will be. Think of it as a cruise.” There had never been a cruise like it. The skipper of the filthy, oil-soaked fishing boat was a foul-mouthed rendering of an insignificant Captain Bligh; the crew a quartet of misfits who were undoubtedly the only men in Port Noir willing to put up with Claude Lamouche. The regular fifth member was a brother of the chief netman, a fact impressed on the man called Jean-Pierre within minutes after leaving the harbor at four o’clock in the morning.
   “You take food from my brother’s table!” whispered the netman angrily between rapid puffs on an immobile cigarette. “From the stomachs of his children!”
   “It’s only for a week,” protested Jean-Pierre. It would have been easier--far easier--to offer to reimburse the unemployed brother from Washburn’s monthly stipend, but the doctor and his patient had agreed to refrain from such compromises.
   “I hope you’re good with the nets!”
   He was not.
   There were moments during the next seventy-two hours when the man called Jean-Pierre thought the alternative of financial appeasement was warranted. The harassment never stopped, even at night--especially at night. It was as though eyes were trained on him as he lay on the infested deck mattress, waiting for him to reach the brink of sleep.
   “You! Take the watch! The mate is sick. You fill in.”
   “Get up! Philippe is writing his memoirs! He can’t be disturbed.”
   “On your feet! You tore a net this afternoon. We won’t pay for your stupidity. We’ve all agreed.
   Fix it now!”
   The nets.
   If two men were required for one flank, his two arms took the place of four. If he worked beside one man, there were abrupt hauls and releases that left him with the full weight, a sudden blow from an adjacent, shoulder sending him crashing into the gunnel and nearly over the side.
   And Lamouche. A limping maniac who measured each kilometer of water by the fish he had lost.
   His voice was a grating, static-prone bullhorn. He addressed no one without an obscenity preceding his name, a habit the patient found increasingly maddening. But Lamouche did not touch Washburn’s patient; he was merely sending the doctor a message: Don’t ever do this to me again. Not
   where my boat and my fish are concerned.
   Lamouche’s schedule called for a return to Port Noir at sundown on the third day, the fish to be unloaded, the crew given until four the next morning to sleep, fornicate, get drunk, or, with luck, all three. As they came within sight of land, it happened.
   The nets were being doused and folded at midships by the netman and his first assistant. The unwelcomed crewman they cursed as “Jean-Pierre Sangsue” (“the Leech”) scrubbed down the deck with a long-handled brush. The two remaining crew heaved buckets of sea water in front of the brush, more often than not drenching the Leech with truer aim than the deck.
   A bucketful was thrown too high, momentarily blinding Washburn’s patient, causing him to lose his balance. The heavy brush with its metal-like bristles flew out of his hands, its head upended, the sharp bristles making contact with the kneeling netman’s thigh.
   “Merde alors!”
   “Désolé,” said the offender casually, shaking the water from his eyes.
   “The hell you say!” shouted the netman.
   “I said I was sorry,” replied the man called Jean-Pierre. “Tell your friends to wet the deck, not me.”
   “My friends don’t make me the object, of their stupidity!”
   “They were the cause of mine just now.”
   The netman grabbed the handle of the brush, got to his feet, and held it out like a bayonet. “You want to play, Leech?”
   “Come on, give it to me.”
   “With pleasure, Leech. Here!” The netman shoved the brush forward, downward, the bristles scraping the patient’s chest and stomach, penetrating the cloth of his shirt.
   Whether it was the contact with the scars that covered his previous wounds, or the frustration and anger resulting from three days of harassment, the man would never know. He only knew he had to respond. And his response was as alarming to him as anything he could imagine.
   He gripped the handle with his right hand, jamming it back into the netman’s stomach pulling it forward at the instant of impact; simultaneously, he shot his left foot high off the deck, ramming it into the man’s throat.
   “Tao!” The guttural whisper came from his lips involuntarily; he did not know what it meant.
   Before he could understand, he had pivoted, his right foot now surging forward like a battering ram, crashing into the netman’s left kidney.
   “Che-sah!” he whispered.
   The netman recoiled, then lunged toward him in pain and fury, his hands outstretched like claws.
   “Pig!”
   The patient crouched, shooting his right hand up to grip the netman’s left forearm, yanking it downward, then rising, pushing his victim’s arm up, twisting it at its highest arc clockwise, yanking again, finally releasing it while jamming his heel into the small of the netman’s back. The Frenchman
   sprawled forward over the nets, his head smashing into the wall of the gunnel.
   “Mee-sah!” Again he did not know the meaning of his silent cry.
   A crewman grabbed his neck from the rear. The patient crashed his left fist into the pelvic area behind him, then bent forward, gripping the elbow to the right of his throat. He lurched to his left; his assailant was lifted off the ground, his legs spiraling in the air as he was thrown across the deck, his face and neck impaled between the wheels of a winch.
   The two remaining men were on him, fists and knees pummeling him, as the captain of the fishing boat repeatedly screamed his warnings.
   “Le docteur! Rappelons le docteur! Va doucement!”
   The words were as misplaced as the captain’s appraisal of what he saw. The patient gripped the wrist of one man, bending it downward, twisting it counterclockwise in one violent movement; the man roared in agony. The wrist was broken.
   Washburn’s patient viced the fingers of his hands together, swinging his arms upward like a sledgehammer, catching the crewman with the broken wrist at the midpoint of his throat. The man somersaulted off his feet and collapsed on the deck.
   “Kwa-sah!” The whisper echoed in the patient’s ears.
   The fourth man backed away, staring at the maniac who simply looked at him.
   It was over. Three of Lamouche’s crew were unconscious, severely punished for what they had done. It was doubtful that any would be capable of coming down to the docks at four o’clock in the morning.
   Lamouche’s words were uttered in equal parts, astonishment and contempt “Where you come from I don’t know, but you will get off this boat.”
   The man with no memory understood the unintentional irony of the captain’s words. I don’t know where I came from, either.
   “You can’t stay here now,” said Geoffrey Washburn, coming into the darkened bedroom. “I honestly believed I could prevent any serious assault on you. But I can’t protect you when you’ve done the damage.”
   “It was provoked.”
   “To the extent it was inflicted? A broken wrist and lacerations requiring sutures on a man’s throat and face, and another’s skull. A severe concussion, and an undetermined injury to a kidney? To say nothing of a blow to the groin that’s caused a swelling of the testicles? I believe the word is overkill.”
   “It would have been just plain ‘kill,’ and I would have been the dead man, if it’d happened any other way.” The patient paused, but spoke again before the doctor could interrupt. “I think we should talk. Several things happened; other words came to me. We should talk.”
   “We should, but we can’t. There isn’t time. You’ve got to leave now. I’ve made arrangements.”
   “Now?”
   “Yes. I told them you went into the village, probably to get drunk. The families will go looking for you. Every able-bodied brother, cousin, and in-law. They’ll have knives, hooks, perhaps a gun or two. When they can’t find you, they’ll come back here. They won’t stop until they do find you.”
   “Because of a fight I didn’t start?”
   “Because you’ve injured three men who will lose at least a month’s wages between them. And something else that’s infinitely more important.”
   “What’s that?”
   “The insult. An off-islander proved himself more than a match for not one, but three respected fishermen of Port Noir.”
   “Respected?”
   “In the physical sense. Lamouche’s crew is considered the roughest on the waterfront.”
   “That’s ridiculous.”
   “Not to them. It’s their honor. ... Now hurry--get your things together. There’s a boat in from Marseilles; the captain’s agreed to stow you, and drop you a half-mile offshore north of La Ciotat.” The man with no memory held his breath. “Then it’s time,” he said quietly.
   “It’s time,” replied Washburn. “I think I know what’s going through your mind. A sense of helplessness, of drifting without a rudder to put you on a course. I’ve been your rudder, and I won’t be with you; there’s nothing I can do about that. But believe me when I tell you, you are not helpless. You will find your way.”
   “To Zurich,” added the patient.
   “To Zurich,” agreed the doctor. “Here. I’ve wrapped some things together for you in this oilcloth. Strap it around your waist.”
   “What is it?”
   “All the money I have, some two thousand francs. It’s not much, but it will help you get started.
   And my passport, for whatever good it will do. We’re about the same age and it’s eight years old; people change. Don’t let anyone study it. It’s merely an official paper.”
   “What will you do?”
   “I won’t ever need it if I don’t hear from you.”
   “You’re a decent man.”
   “I think you are, too. ... As I’ve known you. But then I didn’t know you before. So I can’t vouch for that man. I wish I could, but there’s no way I can.”
   The man leaned against the railing, watching the lights of Ile de Port Noir recede in the distance.
   The fishing boat was heading into darkness, as he had plunged into darkness nearly five months ago.
   As he was plunging into another darkness now.

3
   There were no lights on the coast of France; only the wash of the dying moon outlined the rocky shore. They were two hundred yards from land, the fishing boat bobbing gently in the crosscurrents of the inlet. The captain pointed over the side.
   “There’s a small stretch of beach between those two clusters of rock. It’s not much, but you’ll reach it if you swim to the right. We can drift in another thirty, forty feet, no more than that. Only a minute or two.”
   “You’re doing more than I expected. I thank you for that.”
   “No need to. I pay my debts.”
   “And I’m one?”
   “Very much so. The doctor in Port Noir sewed up three of my crew after that madness five months ago. You weren’t the only one brought in, you know.”
   “The storm? You know me?”
   “You were chalk white on the table, but I don’t know you and I don’t want to know you. I had no money then, no catch; the doctor said I could pay when my circumstances were better. You’re my payment.”
   “I need papers,” said the man, sensing a source of help. “I need a passport altered.”
   “Why speak to me?” asked the captain. “I said I would put a package over the side north of La Ciotat. That’s all I said.”
   “You wouldn’t have said that if you weren’t capable of other things.”
   “I will not take you into Marseilles. I will not risk the patrol boats. The Sûreté has squadrons all over the harbor; the narcotics teams are maniacs. You pay them or you pay twenty years in a cell.”
   “Which means I can get papers in Marseilles. And you can help me.”
   “I did not say that.”
   “Yes, you did. I need a service and that service can be found in a place where you won’t take me--still the service is there. You said it.”
   “Said what?”
   “That you’ll talk to me in Marseilles--if I can get there without you. Just tell me where.” The skipper of the fishing boat studied the patient’s face; the decision was not made lightly, but it was made. “There’s a café on rue Sarrasin, south of Old Harbor--Le Bouc de Mer. I’ll be there tonight between nine and eleven. You’ll need money, some of it in advance.”
   “How much?”
   “That’s between you and the man you speak with.”
   “I’ve got to have an idea.”
   “It’s cheaper if you have a document to work with; otherwise one has to be stolen.”
   “I told you. I’ve got one.”
   The captain shrugged. “Fifteen hundred, two thousand francs. Are we wasting time?” The patient thought of the oilcloth packet strapped to his waist. Bankruptcy lay in Marseilles, but so did an altered passport, a passport to Zurich. “I’ll handle it,” he said, not knowing why he sounded so confident. “Tonight, then.”
   The captain peered at the dimly lit shoreline. “This is as far as we can drift. You’re on your own now. Remember, if we don’t meet in Marseilles, you’ve never seen me and I’ve never seen you.
   None of my crew has seen you, either.”
   “I’ll be there. Le Bouc de Mer, rue Sarrasin, south of Old Harbor.”
   “In God’s hands,” said the skipper, signaling a crewman at the wheel; the engines rumbled beneath the boat. “By the way, the clientele at Le Bouc are not used to the Parisian dialect. I’d rough it up if I were you.”
   “Thanks for the advice,” said the patient as he swung his legs over the gunnel and lowered himself into the water. He held his knapsack above the surface, legs scissoring to stay afloat. “See you tonight,” he added in a louder voice, looking up at the black hull of the fishing boat.
   There was no one there; the captain had left the railing. The only sounds were the slapping of the waves against the wood and the muffled acceleration of the engines.
   You’re on your own now.
   He shivered and spun in the cold water, angling his body toward the shore, remembering to sidestroke to his right, to head for a cluster of rocks on the right. If the captain knew what he was talking about, the current would take him into the unseen beach.
   It did; he could feel the undertow pulling his bare feet into the sand, making the last thirty yards the most difficult to cross. But the canvas knapsack was relatively dry, still held above the breaking waves.
   Minutes later he was sitting on a dune of wild grass, the tall reeds bending with the offshore breezes, the first rays of morning intruding on the night sky. The sun would be up in an hour; he would have to move with it.
   He opened the knapsack and took out a pair of boots and heavy socks along with rolled-up trousers and a coarse denim shirt. Somewhere in his past he had learned to pack with an economy of space; the knapsack contained far more than an observer might think. Where had he learned that?
   Why? The questions never stopped.
   He got up and took off the British walking shorts he had accepted from Washburn. He stretched them across the reeds of grass to dry; he could discard nothing. He removed his undershirt and did the same.
   Standing there naked on the dune, he felt an odd sense of exhilaration mingled with a hollow pain in the middle of his stomach. The pain was fear, he knew that. He understood the exhilaration, too.
   He had passed his first test. He had trusted an instinct--perhaps a compulsion--and had known what to say and how to respond. An hour ago he was without an immediate destination, knowing only that Zurich was his objective, but knowing, too, that there were borders to cross, official eyes to satisfy. The eight-year-old passport was so obviously not his own that even the dullest immigration clerk would spot the fact. And even if he managed to cross into Switzerland with it, he had to get out; with each move the odds of his being detained were multiplied. He could not permit that. Not now; not until he knew more. The answers were in Zurich, he had to travel freely, and he had honed in on a captain of a fishing boat to make that possible.
   You are not helpless. You will find your way.
   Before the day was over he would make a connection to have Washburn’s passport altered by a professional, transformed into a license to travel. It was the first concrete step, but before it was taken there was the consideration of money. The two thousand francs the doctor had given him were inadequate; they might not even be enough for the passport itself. What good was a license to travel without the means to do so? Money. He had to get money. He had to think about that.
   He shook out the clothes he had taken from the knapsack, put them on, and shoved his feet into the boots. Then he lay down on the sand, staring at the sky, which progressively grew brighter. The day was being born, and so was he.
   He walked the narrow stone streets of La Ciotat, going into the shops as much to converse with the clerks as anything else. It was an odd sensation to be part of the human traffic, not an unknown derelict, dragged from the sea. He remembered the captain’s advice and gutturalized his French, allowing him to be accepted as an unremarkable stranger passing through town.
   Money.
   There was a section of La Ciotat that apparently catered to a wealthy clientele. The shops were cleaner and the merchandise more expensive, the fish fresher and the meat several cuts above that in the main shopping area. Even the vegetables glistened; many exotic, imported from North Africa and the Mid East. The area held a touch of Paris or Nice set down on the fringes of a routinely middle-class coastal community. A small café, its entrance at the end of a flagstone path, stood separated from the shops on either side by a manicured lawn.
   Money.
   He walked into a butcher shop, aware that the owner’s appraisal of him was not positive, nor the glance friendly. The man was waiting on a middle-aged couple, who from their speech and manner were domestics at an outlying estate. They were precise, curt, and demanding.
   “The veal last week was barely passable,” said the woman. “Do better this time, or I’ll be forced to order from Marseilles.”
   “And the other evening,” added the man, “the marquis mentioned to me that the chops of lamb were much too thin. I repeat, a full inch and a quarter.”
   The owner sighed and shrugged, uttering obsequious phrases of apology and assurance. The woman turned to her escort, her voice no less commanding than it was to the butcher.
   “Wait for the packages and put them in the car. I’ll be at the grocer’s; meet me there.”
   “Of course, my dear.”
   The woman left, a pigeon in search of further seeds of conflict. The moment she was out the door her husband turned to the shopowner, his demeanor entirely different. Gone was the arrogance; a grin appeared.
   “Just your average day, eh, Marcel?” he said, taking a pack of cigarettes from his pocket.
   “Seen better, seen worse. Were the chops really too thin?”
   “My God, no. When was he last able to tell? But she feels better if I complain, you know that.”
   “Where is the Marquis of the Dungheap now?”
   “Drunk next door, waiting for the whore from Toulon. I’ll come down later this afternoon, pick him up, and sneak him past the marquise into the stables. He won’t be able to drive his car by then.
   He uses Jean-Pierre’s room above the kitchen, you know.”
   “I’ve heard.”
   At the mention of the name Jean-Pierre, Washburn’s patient turned from the display case of poultry. It was an automatic reflex, but the movement only served to remind the butcher of his presence.
   “What is it? What do you want?”
   It was time to degutturalize his French. “You were recommended by friends in Nice,” said the patient, his accent more befitting the Quai d’Orsay than Le Bouc de Mer.
   “Oh?” The shopowner made an immediate reappraisal. Among his clientele, especially the younger ones, there were those who preferred to dress in opposition to their status. The common Basque shirt was even fashionable these days. “You’re new here, sir?”
   “My boat’s in for repairs; we won’t be able to reach Marseilles this afternoon.”
   “May I be of service?”
   The patient laughed. “You may be to the chef; I wouldn’t dare presume. He’ll be around later and I do have some influence.”
   The butcher and his friend laughed. “I would think so, sir,” said the shopowner.
   “I’ll need a dozen ducklings and, say, eighteen chateaubriands.”
   “Of course.”
   “Good. I’ll send our master of the galley directly to you.” The patient turned to the middle-aged man. “By the way, I couldn’t help overhearing ... no, please don’t be concerned. The marquis wouldn’t be that jackass d’Ambois, would he? I think someone told me he lived around here.”
   “Oh no, sir,” replied the servant. “I don’t know the Marquis d’Ambois. I was referring to the Marquis de Chamford. A fine gentleman, sir, but he has problems. A difficult marriage, sir. Very difficult; it’s no secret.”
   “Chamford? Yes, I think we’ve met. Rather short fellow, isn’t he?”
   “No, sir. Quite tall, actually. About your size, I’d say.”
   “Really?”
   The patient learned the various entrances and inside staircases of the two-story café quickly--a produce delivery man from Roquevaire unsure of his new route. There were two sets of steps that led to the second floor, one from the kitchen, the other just beyond the front entrance in the small foyer; this was the staircase used by patrons going to the upstairs washrooms. There was also a window through which an interested party outside could see anyone who used this particular staircase, and the patient was sure that if he waited long enough he would see two people doing so.
   They would undoubtedly go up separately, neither heading for a washroom but, instead, to a bedroom above the kitchen. The patient wondered which of the expensive automobiles parked on the quiet street belonged to the Marquis de Chamford. Whichever, the middle-aged manservant in the butcher shop did not have to be concerned; his employer would not be driving it.
   Money.
   The woman arrived shortly before one o’clock. She was a windswept blonde, her large breasts stretching the blue silk of her blouse, her long legs tanned, striding gracefully above spiked heels, thighs and fluid hips outlined beneath the tight-fitting white skirt. Chamford might have problems but he also had taste.
   Twenty minutes later he could see the white skirt through the window; the girl was heading upstairs. Less than sixty seconds later another figure filled the window-frame; dark trousers and a blazer beneath a white face cautiously lurched up the staircase. The patient counted off the minutes; he hoped the Marquis de Chamford owned a watch.
   Carrying his canvas knapsack as unobtrusively as possible by the straps, the patient walked down the flagstone path to the entrance of the restaurant. Inside, he turned left in the foyer, excusing himself past an elderly man trudging up the staircase, reached the second floor and turned left again down a long corridor that led toward the rear of the building, above the kitchen. He passed the washrooms and came to a closed door at the end of the narrow hallway where he stood motionless, his back pressed into the wall. He turned his head and waited for the elderly man to reach the washroom door and push it open while unzipping his trousers.
   The patient--instinctively, without thinking, really--raised the soft knapsack and placed it against the center of the door panel. He held it securely in place with his outstretched arms, stepped back, and in one swift movement, crashed his left shoulder into the canvas, dropping his right hand as the door sprang open, gripping the edge before the door could smash into a wall. No one below in the restaurant could have heard the muted forced entry.
   “Nom de Dieu!” she shrieked. “Qui est-ce! ...”
   “Silence!”
   The Marquis de Chamford spun off the naked body of the blond woman, sprawling over the edge of the bed onto the floor. He was a sight from a comic opera, still wearing his starched shirt, the tie knotted in place, and on his feet black silk, knee-length socks; but that was all he wore. The woman grabbed the covers, doing her best to lessen the indelicacy of the moment.
   The patient issued his commands swiftly. “Don’t raise your voices. No one will be hurt if you do exactly as I say.”
   “My wife hired you!” cried Chamford, his words slurred, his eyes barely in focus. “I’ll pay you more!”
   “That’s a beginning,” answered Dr. Washburn’s patient. “Take off your shirt and tie. Also the socks.” He saw the glistening gold band around the marquis’ wrist. “And the watch.” Several minutes later the transformation was complete. The marquis’ clothes were not a perfect fit, but no one could deny the quality of the cloth or the original tailoring. Too, the watch was a Girard Perregaux, and Chamford’s billfold contained over thirteen thousand francs. The car keys were also impressive; they were set in monogrammed heads of sterling silver.
   “For the love of God, give me your clothes!” said the marquis, the implausibility of his predicament penetrating the haze of alcohol.
   “I’m sorry, but I can’t do that,” replied the intruder, gathering up both his own clothes and those of the blond woman.
   “You can’t take mine!” she yelled.
   “I told you to keep your voice down.”
   “All right, all right,” she continued, “but you can’t ...”
   “Yes, I can.” The patient looked around the room; there was a telephone on a desk by a window.
   He crossed to it and yanked the cord out of the socket. “Now no one will disturb you,” he added, picking up the knapsack.
   “You won’t go free, you know!” snapped Chamford. “You won’t get away with this! The police will find you!”
   “The police?” asked the intruder. “Do you really think you should call the police? A formal report will have to be made, the circumstances described. I’m not so sure that’s such a good idea. I think you’d be better off waiting for that fellow to pick you up later this afternoon. I heard him say he was going to get you past the marquise into the stables. All things considered, I honestly believe that’s what you should do. I’m sure you can come up with a better story than what really happened here. I won’t contradict you.”
   The unknown thief left the room, closing the damaged door behind him.
   You are not helpless. You will find your way.
   So far he had and it was a little frightening. What had Washburn said? That his skills and talents would come back ... but I don’t think you’ll ever be able to relate them to anything in your past. The past. What kind of past was it that produced the skills he had displayed during the past twenty-four hours?
   Where had he learned to maim and cripple with lunging feet, and fingers entwined into hammers?
   How did he know precisely where to deliver the blows? Who had taught him to play upon the criminal mind, provoking and evoking a reluctant commitment? How did he zero in so quickly on mere implications, convinced beyond doubt that his instincts were right? Where had he learned to discern instant extortion in a casual conversation overheard in a butcher shop? More to the point, perhaps, was the simple decision to carry out the crime. My God, how could he?
   The more you fight it, the more you crucify yourself, the worse it will be.
   He concentrated on the road and on the mahogany dashboard of the Marquis de Chamford’s Jaguar. The array of instruments was not familiar; his past did not include extensive experience with such cars. He supposed that told him something.
   In less than an hour he crossed a bridge over a wide canal and knew he had reached Marseilles.
   Small square houses of stone, angling like blocks up from the water; narrow streets and walls everywhere--the outskirts of the old harbor. He knew it all, and yet he did not know it. High in the distance, silhouetted on one of the surrounding hills, were the outlines of a cathedral, a statue of the Virgin seen clearly atop its steeple. Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde. The name came to him; he had seen it before--and yet he had not seen it.
   Oh, Christ! Stop it!
   Within minutes he was in the pulsing center of the city, driving along the crowded Canebière, with its proliferation of expensive shops, the rays of the afternoon sun bouncing off expanses of tinted glass on either side, and on either side enormous sidewalk cafés. He turned left, toward the harbor, passing warehouses and small factories and fenced off lots that contained automobiles prepared for transport north to the showrooms of Saint-Etienne, Lyons and Paris. And to points south across the Mediterranean.
   Instinct. Follow instinct. For nothing could be disregarded. Every resource had an immediate use; there was value in a rock if it could be thrown, or a vehicle if someone wanted it. He chose a lot where the cars were both new and used, but all expensive; he parked at the curb and got out.
   Beyond the fence was a small cavern of a garage, mechanics in overalls laconically wandering about carrying tools. He walked casually around inside until he spotted a man in a thin, pin-striped suit whom instinct told him to approach.
   It took less than ten minutes, explanations kept to a minimum, a Jaguar’s disappearance to North Africa guaranteed with the filing of engine numbers.
   The silver monogrammed keys were exchanged for six thousand francs, roughly one-fifth the value of Chamford’s automobile. Then Dr. Washburn’s patient found a taxi, and asked to be taken to a pawnbroker--but not an establishment that asked too many questions. The message was clear; this was Marseilles. And a half hour later the gold Girard Perregaux was no longer on his wrist, having been replaced by a Seiko chronograph and eight hundred francs. Everything had a value in relationship to its practicality; the chronograph was shockproof.
   The next stop was a medium-sized department store in the southeast section of La Canebière.
   Clothes were chosen off the racks and shelves, paid for and worn out of the fitting rooms, an ill-fitting dark blazer and trousers left behind.
   From a display on the floor, he selected a soft leather suitcase, additional garments placed inside with the knapsack. The patient glanced at his new watch; it was nearly five o’clock, time to find a comfortable hotel. He had not really slept for several days; he needed to rest before his appointment in the rue Sarrasin, at a café called Le Bouc de Mer, where arrangements could be made for a more important appointment in Zurich.
   He lay back on the bed and stared at the ceiling, the wash of the streetlamps below causing irregular patterns of light to dance across the smooth white surface. Night had come rapidly to Marseilles, and with its arrival a certain sense of freedom came to the patient. It was as if the darkness were a gigantic blanket, blocking out the harsh glare of daylight that revealed too much too quickly. He was learning something else about himself: he was more comfortable in the night. Like a half-starved cat, he would forage better in the darkness. Yet there was a contradiction, and he recognized that, too. During the months in Ile de Port Noir, he had craved the sunlight, hungered for it, waited for it each da wn, wishing only for the darkness to go away.
   Things were happening to him; he was changing.
   Things had happened. Events that gave a certain lie to the concept of foraging more successfully at night. Twelve hours ago he was on a fishing boat in the Mediterranean, an objective in mind and two thousand francs strapped to his waist. Two thousand francs, something less than five hundred American dollars according to the daily rate of exchange posted in the hotel lobby. Now he was outfitted with several sets of acceptable clothing and lying on a bed in a reasonably expensive hotel with something over twenty-three thousand francs in a Louis Vuitton billfold belonging to the Marquis de Chamford. Twenty-three-thousand francs ... nearly six thousand American dollars.
   Where had he come from that he was able to do the things he did?
   Stop it!

   The rue Sarrasin was so ancient that in another city it might have been designated as a landmark thoroughfare, a wide brick alley connecting streets built centuries later. But this was Marseilles; ancient coexisted with old, both uncomfortable with the new. The rue Sarrasin was no more than two hundred feet long, frozen in time between the stone walls of waterfront buildings, devoid of streetlights, trapping the mists that rolled off the harbor. It was a backstreet conducive to brief meetings between men who did not care for their conferences to be observed.
   The only light and sound came from Le Bouc de Mer. The café was situated roughly in the center of the wide alley, its premises once a nineteenth-century office building. A number of cubicles had been taken down to allow for a large barroom and tables; an equal number were left standing for less public appointments. These were the waterfront’s answer to those private rooms found at restaurants along La Canebière, and, as befitting their status, there were curtains, but no doors.
   The patient made his way between the crowded tables, cutting his way through the layers of smoke, excusing himself past lurching fishermen and drunken soldiers and red-faced whores looking for beds to rest in as well as new francs. He peered into a succession of cubicles, a crewman looking for his companions--until he found the captain of the fishing boat. There was another man at the table. Thin, pale faced, narrow eyes peering up like a curious ferret’s.
   “Sit down,” said the dour skipper. “I thought you’d be here before this.”
   “You said between nine and eleven. It’s quarter to eleven.”
   “You stretch the time, you can pay for the whiskey.”
   “Be glad to. Order something decent if they’ve got it.”
   The thin, pale-faced man smiled. Things were going to be all right.
   They were. The passport in question was, naturally, one of the most difficult in the world to tamper with, but with great care, equipment, and artistry, it could be done.
   “How much?”
   “These skills--and equipment--do not come cheap. Twenty-five hundred francs.”
   “When can I have it?”
   “The care, the artistry, they take time. Three or four days. And that’s putting the artist under great pressure; he’ll scream at me.”
   “There’s an additional one thousand francs if I can have it tomorrow.”
   “By ten in the morning,” said the pale-faced man quickly. “I’ll take the abuse.”
   “And the thousand,” interrupted the scowling captain. “What did you bring out of Port Noir?
   Diamonds?”
   “Talent,” answered the patient, meaning it but not understanding it.
   “I’ll need a photograph,” said the connection.
   “I stopped at an arcade and had this made,” replied the patient, taking a small square photograph out of his shirt pocket. “With all that expensive equipment I’m sure you can sharpen it up.”
   “Nice clothes,” said the captain, passing the print to the pale-faced man.
   “Well tailored,” agreed the patient.
   The location of the morning rendezvous was agreed upon, the drinks paid for, and the captain slipped five hundred francs under the table. The conference was over; the buyer left the cubicle and started across the crowded, raucous, smoke-layered barroom toward the door.
   It happened so rapidly, so suddenly, so completely unexpectedly, there was no time to think.
   Only react.
   The collision was abrupt, casual, but the eyes that stared at him were not casual; they seemed to burst out of their sockets, widening in disbelief, on the edge of hysteria.
   “No! Oh my God, no! It cannot--“ The man spun in the crowd; the patient lurched forward, clamping his hand down on the man’s shoulder.
   “Wait a minute!”
   The man spun again, thrusting the V of his outstretched thumb and fingers up into the patient’s wrist, forcing the hand away. “You! You’re dead! You could not have lived!”
   “I lived. What do you know?”
   The face was now contorted, a mass of twisted fury, the eyes squinting, the mouth open, sucking air, baring yellow teeth that took on the appearance of animals’ teeth. Suddenly the man pulled out a knife, the snap of its recessed blade heard through the surrounding din. The arm shot forward, the blade an extension of the hand that gripped it, both surging in toward the patient’s stomach. “I know I’ll finish it!” whispered the man.
   The patient swung his right forearm down, a pendulum sweeping aside all objects in front of it.
   He pivoted, lashing his left foot up, his heel plunging into his attacker’s pelvic bone.
   “Che-sah.” The echo in his ears was deafening.
   The man lurched backward into a trio of drinkers as the knife fell to the floor. The weapon was seen; shouts followed, men converged, fists and hands separating the combatants.
   “Get out of here!”
   “Take your argument somewhere else!”
   “We don’t want the police in here, you drunken bastards!”
   The angry coarse dialects of Marseilles rose over the cacophonous sounds of Le Bouc de Mer.
   The patient was hemmed in; he watched as his would-be killer threaded his way through the crowd, holding his groin, forcing a path to the entrance. The heavy door swung open; the man raced into the darkness of rue Sarrasin.
   Someone who thought he was dead--wanted him dead--knew he was alive.

4
   The economy class section of Air France’s Caravelle to Zurich was filled to capacity, the narrow seats made more uncomfortable by the turbulence that buffeted the plane. A baby was screaming in its mother’s arms; other children whimpered, swallowing cries of fear as parents smiled with
   tentative reassurances they did not feel. Most of the remaining passengers were silent, a few drinking their whiskey more rapidly than obviously was normal. Fewer still were forcing laughter from tight throats, false bravados that emphasized their insecurity rather than disguising it. A terrible flight was many things to many people, but none escape the essential thoughts of terror. When man encased himself in a metal tube thirty thousand feet above the ground, he was vulnerable. With one elongated, screaming dive he could be plummeting downward into the earth. And there were fundamental questions that accompanied the essential terror. What thoughts would go through one’s mind at such a time? How would one react?
   The patient tried to find out; it was important to him. He sat next to the window, his eyes on the aircraft’s wing, watching the broad expanse of metal bend and vibrate under the brutalizing impact of the winds. The currents were clashing against one another, pounding the manmade tube into a kind of submission, warning the microscopic pretenders that they were no match for the vast infirmities of nature. One ounce of pressure beyond the flex tolerance and the wing would crack, the lift-sustaining limb torn from its tubular body, shredded into the winds; one burst of rivets and there would be an explosion, the screaming plunge to follow.
   What would he do? What would he think? Other than the uncontrollable fear of dying and oblivion, would there be anything else? That’s what he had to concentrate on; that was the projection Washburn kept emphasizing in Port Noir. The doctor’s words came back to him.
   Whenever you observe a stress situation--and you have the time--do your damndest to project yourself into it.
   Associate as freely as you can; let words and images fill your mind. In them you may find clues.
   The patient continued to stare out the window, consciously trying to raise his unconscious, fixing his eyes on the natural violence beyond the glass, distilling the movement, silently doing his “damndest” to let his reactions give rise to words and images.
   They came--slowly. There was the darkness again, and the sound of rushing wind, ear-shattering, continuous, growing in volume until he thought his head would burst. His head. ... The winds were lashing the left side of his head and face, burning his skin, forcing him to raise his left shoulder for protection. ... Left shoulder. Left arm. His arm was raised, the gloved fingers of his left hand gripping a straight edge of metal, his right holding a ... a strap; he was holding on to a strap, waiting for something. A signal ... a flashing light or a tap on the shoulder, or both. A signal. It came. He plunged. Into the darkness, into the void, his body tumbling, twisting, swept away into the night sky.
   He had ... parachuted!
   “Etes-vous malade?”
   His insane reverie was broken; the nervous passenger next to him had touched his left arm-– which was raised, the fingers of his hand spread, as if resisting, rigid in their locked position. Across his chest his right forearm was pressed into the cloth of his jacket, his right hand gripping the lapel, bunching the fabric. And on his forehead were rivulets of sweat; it had happened. The something-else had come briefly--insanely--into focus.
   “Pardon,” he said, lowering his arms. “Un mauvais rêve,” he added meaninglessly.
   There was a break in the weather; the Caravelle stabilized. The smiles on the harried stewardesses’ faces became genuine again; full service was resumed as embarrassed passengers glanced at one another.
   The patient observed his surroundings but reached no conclusions. He was consumed by the images and the sounds that had been so clearly defined in his mind’s eye and ear. He had hurled himself from a plane ... at night ... signals and metal and straps intrinsic to his leap. He had parachuted. Where? Why?
   Stop crucifying yourself!
   If for no other reason than to take his thoughts away from the madness, he reached into his breast pocket, pulled out the altered passport, and opened it. As might be expected, the name Washburn had been retained; it was common enough and its owner had explained that there were no flags out for it. The Geoffrey R., however, had been changed to, George P., the eliminations and spaceline blockage expertly accomplished. The photographic insertion was expert, too; it no longer resembled a cheap print from a machine in an amusement arcade.
   The identification numbers, of course, were entirely different, guaranteed not to cause an alarm in an immigration computer. At least, up until the moment the bearer submitted the passport for its first inspection; from that time on it was the buyer’s responsibility. One paid as much for this guarantee as he did for the artistry and the equipment, for it required connections within Interpol and the immigration clearing houses. Customs officials, computer specialists, and clerks throughout the European border networks were paid on a regular basis for this vital information; they rarely made mistakes. If and when they did, the loss of an eye or an arm was not out of the question-– such were the brokers of false papers.
   George P. Washburn. He was not comfortable with the name; the owner of the unaltered original
   had instructed him too well in the basics of projection and association. George P. was a sidestep from
   Geoffrey R., a man who had been eaten away by a compulsion that had its roots in escape--escape from identity. That was the last thing the patient wanted; he wanted more than his life to know who he was.
   Or did he?
   No matter. The answer was in Zurich. In Zurich there was ...
   “Mesdames et messieurs. Nous commençons notre descente pour l’aéroport de Zurich.” He knew the name of the hotel: Carillon du Lac. He had given it to the taxi driver without thinking. Had he read it somewhere? Had the name been one of those listed in the Welcome-to-Zurich folders placed in the elasticized pockets in front of his seat in, the plane?
   No. He knew the lobby; the heavy, dark, polished wood was familiar ... somehow. And the huge plate-glass windows that looked out over Lake Zurich. He had been here before; he had stood where he was standing now--in front of the marble-topped counter--a long time ago.
   It was all confirmed by the words spoken by the clerk behind the desk. They had the impact of an explosion.
   “It’s good to see you again, sir. It’s been quite a while since your last visit.”
   Has it? How long? Why don’t you call me by my name? For God’s sake. I don’t know you! I don’t know me!
   Help me! Please, help me!
   “I guess it has,” he said. “Do me a favor, will you? I sprained my hand; it’s difficult to write.
   Could you fill in the registration and I’ll do my damndest to sign it?” The patient held his breath.
   Suppose the polite man behind the counter asked him to repeat his name, or the spelling of his name?
   “Of course.” The clerk turned the card around and wrote. “Would you care to see the hotel doctor?”
   “Later, perhaps. Not now.” The clerk continued writing, then lifted up the card, reversing it for the guest’s signature.
   Mr. J. Bourne. New York, N.Y. U.S.A.
   He stared at it, transfixed, mesmerized by the letters. He had a name--part of a name. And a country as well as a city of residence.
   J. Bourne. John? James? Joseph? What did the J stand for?
   “Is something wrong, Herr Bourne?” asked the clerk.
   “Wrong? No, not at all.” He picked up the pen, remembering to feign discomfort. Would he be expected to write out a first name? No; he would sign exactly as the clerk had printed.
   Mr. J. Bourne.
   He wrote the name as naturally as he could, letting his mind fall free, allowing whatever thoughts or images that might be triggered come through. None did; he was merely signing an unfamiliar name. He felt nothing.
   “You had me worried, mein Herr,” said the clerk. “I thought perhaps I’d made a mistake. It’s been a busy week, a busier day. But then, I was quite certain.” And if he had? Made a mistake? Mr. J. Bourne of New York City, U.S.A., did not care to think about the possibility. “It never occurred to me to question your memory ... Herr Stossel,” replied the patient, glancing up at the On-Duty sign on the left wall of the counter; the man behind the desk was the Carillon du Lac’s assistant manager.
   “You’re most kind.” The assistant manager leaned forward. “I assume you’ll require the usual conditions of your stay with us?”
   “Some may have changed,” said J. Bourne. “How did you understand them before?”
   “Whoever telephones or inquires at the desk is to be told you’re out of the hotel, whereupon you’re to be informed immediately. The only exception is your firm in New York. The Treadstone Seventy-One Corporation, if I remember correctly.”
   Another name! One he could trace with an overseas call. Fragmentary shapes were falling into place. The
   exhilaration began to return.
   “That’ll do. I won’t forget your efficiency.”
   “This is Zurich,” replied the polite man, shrugging. “You’ve always been exceedingly generous, Herr Bourne. Page--hierher, bitte!”
   As the patient followed the page into the elevator, several things were clearer. He had a name and he understood why that name came so quickly to the Carillon du Lac’s assistant manager. He had a country and a city and a firm that employed him--had employed him, at any rate. And whenever he
   came to Zurich, certain precautions were implemented to protect him from unexpected, or unwanted, visitors. That was what he could not understand. One either protected oneself thoroughly or one did not bother to protect oneself at all. Where was any real advantage in a screening process
   that was so loose; so vulnerable to penetration? It struck him as second-rate, without value, as if a small child were playing hide-and-seek. Where am I? Try and find me. I’ll say something out loud and give you a hint.
   It was not professional, and if he had learned anything about himself during the past forty-eight hours it was that he was a professional. Of what he had no idea, but the status was not debatable.

   The voice of the New York operator faded sporadically over the line. Her conclusion, however, was irritatingly clear. And final.
   “There’s no listing for any such company, sir. I’ve checked the latest directories as well as the private telephones and there’s no Treadstone Corporation--and nothing even resembling Treadstone with numbers following the name.”
   “Perhaps they were dropped to shorten ...”
   “There’s no firm or company with that name, sir. I repeat, if you have a first or second name, or the type of business the firm’s engaged in, I might be of further help.”
   “I don’t. Only the name, Treadstone Seventy-One, New York City.”
   “It’s an odd name, sir. I’m sure if there were a listing it would be a simple matter to find it. I’m sorry.”
   “Thanks very much for your trouble,” said J. Bourne, replacing the phone. It was pointless to go on; the name was a code of some sort, words relayed by a caller that gained him access to a hotel guest not so readily accessible. And the words could be used by anyone regardless of where he had placed the call; therefore the location of New York might well be meaningless. According to an operator five thousand miles away it was.
   The patient walked to the bureau where he had placed the Louis Vuitton billfold and the Seiko chronograph. He put the billfold in his pocket and the watch on his wrist; he looked in the mirror and spoke quietly.
   “You are J. Bourne, citizen of the United States, resident of New York City, and it’s entirely possible that the numbers ‘zero-seven--seventeen-twelve--zero-fourteen--twenty-six-zero’ are the most important things in your life.”

   The sun was bright, filtering through the trees along the elegant Bahnhofstrasse, bouncing off the windows of the shops, and creating blocks of shadows where the great banks intruded on its rays. It was a street where solidity and money, security and arrogance, determination and a touch of frivolity all coexisted; and Dr. Washburn’s patient had walked along its pavements before.
   He strolled into the Burkli Platz, the square that overlooked the Zurichsee, with its numerous quays along the waterfront, bordered by gardens that in the heat of summer became circles of bursting flowers. He could picture them in his mind’s eye; images were coming to him. But no thoughts, no memories.
   He doubled back into the Bahnhofstrasse, instinctively knowing that the Gemeinschaft Bank was a nearby building of off-white stone; it had been on the opposite side of the street on which he had just walked; he had passed it deliberately. He approached the heavy glass doors and pushed the center plate forward. The right-hand door swung open easily and he was standing on a floor of brown marble; he had stood on it before, but the image was not as strong as others. He had the uncomfortable feeling that the Gemeinschaft was to be avoided.
   It was not to be avoided now.
   “Bonjour, monsieur. Vous désirez ...?” The man asking the question was dressed in a cutaway, the red
   boutonnière his symbol of authority. The use of French was explained by the client’s clothes; even the subordinate gnomes of Zurich were observant.
   “I have personal and confidential business to discuss,” replied J. Bourne in English, once again mildly startled by the words he spoke so naturally. The reason for the English was twofold: he wanted to watch the gnome’s expression at his error, and he wanted no possible misinterpretation of anything said during the next hour.
   “Pardon, sir,” said the man, his eyebrows arched slightly, studying the client’s topcoat. “The elevator to your left, second floor. The receptionist will assist you.” The receptionist referred to was a middle-aged man with close-cropped hair and tortoise-shell glasses; his expression was set, his eyes rigidly curious. “Do you currently have personal and confidential business with us, sir?” he asked, repeating the new arrival’s words.
   “I do.”
   “Your signature, please,” said the official, holding out a sheet of Gemeinschaft stationery with two blank lines centered in the middle of the page.
   The client understood; no name was required. The handwritten numbers take the place of a name ... they
   constitute the signature of the account holder. Standard procedure. Washburn.
   The patient wrote out the numbers, relaxing his hand so the writing would be free. He handed the stationery back to the receptionist, who studied it, rose from the chair, and gestured to a row of narrow doors with frosted glass panels. “If you’ll wait in the fourth room, sir, someone will be with you shortly.”
   “The fourth room?”
   “The fourth door from the left. It will lock automatically.”
   “Is that necessary?”
   The receptionist glanced at him, startled. “It is in line with your own request, sir,” he said politely, an undertone of surprise beneath his courtesy. “This is a three-zero account. It’s customary at the Gemeinschaft for holders of such accounts to telephone in advance so that a private entrance can be made available.”
   “I know that,” lied Washburn’s patient with a casualness he did not feel. “It’s just that I’m in a hurry.”
   “I’ll convey that to Verifications, sir.”
   “Verifications?” Mr. J. Bourne of New York City, U.S.A., could not help himself; the word had the sound of an alarm.
   “Signature Verifications, sir.” The man adjusted his glasses; the movement covered his taking a step nearer his desk, his lower hand inches from a console. “I suggest you wait in Room Four, sir.” The suggestion was not a request; it was an order, the command in the praetorian’s eyes.
   “Why not? Just tell them to hurry, will you?” The patient crossed to the fourth door, opened it and walked inside. The door closed automatically; he could hear the click of the lock. J. Bourne looked at the frosted panel; it was no simple pane of glass, for there was a network of thin wires webbed beneath the surface. Undoubtedly if cracked, an alarm would be triggered; he was in a cell, waiting to be summoned.
   The rest of the small room was paneled and furnished tastefully, two leather armchairs next to one another, across from a miniature couch flanked by antique tables. At the opposite end was a second door, startling in its contrast; it was made of gray steel. Up-to-date magazines and newspapers in three languages were on the tables. The patient sat down and picked up the Paris edition of the Herald-Tribune. He read the printed words but absorbed nothing. The summons would come any moment now; his mind was consumed by thoughts of maneuver. Maneuver without memory, only by instinct.
   Finally, the steel door opened, revealing a tall, slender man with aquiline features and meticulously groomed gray hair. His face was patrician, eager to serve an equal who needed his expertise. He extended his hand, his English refined, mellifluous under his Swiss intonation.
   “So very pleased to meet you. Forgive the delay; it was rather humorous, in fact.”
   “In what way?”
   “I’m afraid you rather startled Herr Koenig. It’s not often a three-zero account arrives without prior notice. He’s quite set in his ways, you know; the unusual ruins his day. On the other hand, it generally makes mine more pleasant. I’m Walther Apfel. Please, come in.” The bank officer released the patient’s hand and gestured toward the steel door. The room beyond was a V-shaped extension of the cell. Dark paneling, heavy comfortable furniture and a wide desk that stood in front of a wider window overlooking the Bahnhofstrasse.
   “I’m sorry I upset him,” said J. Bourne. “It’s just that I have very little time.”
   “Yes, he relayed that.” Apfel walked around the desk, nodding at the leather armchair in front.
   “Do sit down. One or two formalities and we can discuss the business at hand.” Both men sat; the instant they did so the bank officer picked up a white clipboard and leaned across his desk, handing it to the Gemeinschaft client. Secured in place was another sheet of stationery, but instead of two blank lines there were ten, starting below the letterhead and extending to within an inch of the bottom border. “Your signature, please. A minimum of five will be sufficient.”
   “I don’t understand. I just did this.”
   “And very successfully. Verification confirmed it.”
   “Then why again?”
   “A signature can be practiced to the point where a single rendition is acceptable. However, successive repetitions will result in flaws if it’s not authentic. A graphological scanner will pick them up instantly; but then I’m sure that’s no concern of yours.” Apfel smiled as he placed a pen at the edge of the desk. “Nor of mine, frankly, but Koenig insists.”
   “He’s a cautious man,” said the patient, taking the pen and starting to write. He had begun the fourth set when the banker stopped him.
   “That will do; the rest really is a waste of time.” Apfel held out his hand for the clipboard.
   “Verifications said you weren’t even a borderline case. Upon receipt of this, the account will be delivered.” He inserted the sheet of paper into the slot of a metal case on the right side of his desk and pressed a button; a shaft of bright light flared and then went out. “This transmits the signatures directly to the scanner,” continued the banker. “Which, of course, is programmed. Again, frankly, it’s all a bit foolish. No one forewarned of our precautions would consent to the additional signatures if he were an imposter.”
   “Why not? As long as he’d gone this far, why not chance it?”
   “There is only one entrance to this office, conversely one exit. I’m sure you heard the lock snap shut in the waiting room.”
   “And saw the wire mesh in the glass,” added the patient.
   “Then you understand. A certified imposter would be trapped.”
   “Suppose he had a gun?”
   “You don’t.”
   “No one searched me.”
   “The elevator did. From four different angles. If you had been armed, the machinery would have stopped between the first and second floors.”
   “You’re all cautious.”
   “We try to be of service.” The telephone rang. Apfel answered. “Yes? ... Come in.” The banker glanced at his client. “Your account file’s here.”
   “That was quick.”
   “Herr Koenig signed for it several minutes ago; he was merely waiting for the scanner release.” Apfel opened a drawer and took out a ring of keys. “I’m sure he’s disappointed. He was quite certain something was amiss.”
   The steel door opened and the receptionist entered carrying a black metal container, which he placed on the desk next to a tray that held a bottle of Perrier and two glasses.
   “Are you enjoying your stay in Zurich?” asked the banker, obviously to fill in the silence.
   “Very much so. My room overlooks the lake. It’s a nice view, very peaceful, quiet.”
   “Splendid,” said Apfel, pouring a glass of Perrier for his client. Herr Koenig left; the door was closed and the banker returned to business.
   “Your account, sir,” he said, selecting a key from the ring. “May I unlock the case or would you prefer doing so yourself?”
   “Go ahead. Open it.”
   The banker looked up. “I said unlock, not open. That’s not my privilege, nor would I care for the responsibility.”
   “Why not?”
   “In the event your identity is listed, it’s not my position to be aware of it.”
   “Suppose I wanted business transacted? Money transferred, sent to someone else?”
   “It could be accomplished with your numerical, signature on a withdrawal form.”
   “Or sent to another bank --outside of Switzerland? For me.”
   “Then a name would be required. Under those circumstances an identity would be both my responsibility and my privilege.”
   “Open it.”
   The bank officer did so. Dr. Washburn’s patient held his breath, a sharp pain forming in the pit of his stomach. Apfel took out a sheaf of statements held together by an outsized paperclip. His banker’s eyes strayed to the right-hand column of the top pages, his banker’s expression unchanged, but not totally. His lower lip stretched ever so slightly, creasing the corner of his mouth; he leaned forward and handed the pages to their owner.
   Beneath the Gemeinschaft letterhead the typewritten words were in English, the obvious language of the client:

   Account: Zero--Seven--Seventeen--Twelve--Zero--Fourteen--Twenty-six--Zero
   Name. Restricted to Legal Instructions and Owner
   Access: Sealed Under Separate Cover
   Current Funds on Deposit: 7,500,000 Francs

   The patient exhaled slowly, staring at the figure. Whatever he thought he was prepared for, nothing prepared him for this. It was as frightening as anything he had experienced during the past five months. Roughly calculated the amount was over five million American dollars.
   $5,000,000!
   How? Why?
   Controlling the start of a tremble in his hand, he leafed through the statements of entry. They were numerous, the sums extraordinary, none less than 300,000 francs, the deposits spaced every five to eight weeks apart, going back twenty-three months. He reached the bottom statement, the first It was a transfer from a bank in Singapore and the largest single entry. Two million, seven hundred thousand Malaysian dollars converted into 5,175,000 Swiss francs.
   Beneath the statement he could feel the outline of a separate envelope, far shorter than the page itself. He lifted up the paper, the envelope was rimmed with a black border, typewritten words on the front.

   Identity: Owner Access
   Legal Restrictions: Access-Registered Officer, Treadstone Seventy-One Corporation, Bearer Will Produce Written
   Instructions From Owner. Subject To Verifications.

   “I’d like to check this,” said the client.
   “It’s your property,” replied Apfel. “I can assure you it has remained intact.” The patient removed the envelope and turned it over. A Gemeinschaft seal was pressed over the borders of the flap; none of the raised letters had been disturbed. He tore the flap open, took out the card, and read:

   Owner: Jason Charles Bourne
   Address: Unlisted
   Citizenship: U.S.A.
   Jason Charles Bourne.
   Jason.

   The J was for Jason! His name was Jason Bourne. The Bourne had meant nothing, the J. Bourne still meaningless, but in the combination Jason and Bourne, obscure tumblers locked into place. He could accept it; he did accept it. He was Jason Charles Bourne, American. Yet he could feel his chest
   pounding; the vibration in his ears was deafening, the pain in his stomach more acute. What was it? Why did he have the feeling that he was plunging into the darkness again, into the black waters again?
   “Is something wrong?” asked Walther Apfel.
   Is something wrong, Herr Bourne?
   “No. Everything’s fine. My name’s Bourne. Jason Bourne.”
   Was he shouting? Whispering? He could not tell.
   “My privilege to know you, Mr. Bourne. Your identity will remain confidential. You have the word of an officer of the Bank Gemeinschaft.”
   “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. Thatman 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 arethey?”
   “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?”
   “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.

   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.
   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?
   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.
   “Doctor? ...”
   “I beg your pardon?”
   “You are Doctor? ...” He released her, a bewildered man.
   “St. Jacques,” she completed, using the French pronunciation of Saint. “You’re the one in the elevator.”
   “I didn’t realize it was you,” he said. “I was told you’d know where this Bertinelli is speaking.”
   “It’s right on the board. Suite Seven.”
   “I’m afraid I don’t know where it is. Would you mind showing me? I’m late and I’ve got to take notes on his talk.”
   “On Bertinelli? Why? Are you with a Marxist newspaper?”
   “A neutral pool,” said Jason, wondering where the phrases came from. “I’m covering for a number of people. They don’t think he’s worth it.”
   “Perhaps not, but he should be heard. There are a few brutal truths in what he says.”
   “I lost, so I’ve got to find him. Maybe you can point him out.”
   “I’m afraid not. I’ll show you the room, but I’ve a phone call to make.” She snapped her purse shut.
   “Please. Hurry!”
   “What?” She looked at him, not kindly.
   “Sorry, but I am in a hurry.” He glanced to his right; the two men were no more than twenty feet away.
   “You’re also rude,” said the St. Jacques woman coldly.
   “Please.” He restrained his desire to propel her forward, away from the moving trap that was closing in.
   “It’s this way.” She started across the floor toward a wide corridor carved out of the left rear wall.
   The crowds were thinner, prominence less apparent in the back regions of the lobby. They reached what looked like a velvet-covered tunnel of deep red, doors on opposite sides, lighted signs above them identifying Conference Room One, Conference Room Two. At the end of the hallway were double doors, the gold letters to the right proclaiming them to be the entrance to Suite Seven.
   “There you are,” said Marie St. Jacques. “Be careful when you go in; it’s probably dark. Bertinelli lectures with slides.”
   “Like a movie,” commented Bourne, looking behind him at the crowds at the far end of the corridor. He was there; the man with gold-rimmed spectacles was excusing himself past an animated trio in the lobby. He was walking into the hallway, his companion right behind him.
   “... a considerable difference. He sits below the stage and pontificates.” The St. Jacques woman had said something and was now leaving him.
   “What did you say? A stage?”
   “Well, a raised platform. For exhibits usually.”
   “They have to be brought in,” he said.
   “What does?”
   “Exhibits. Is there an exit in there? Another door?”
   “I have no idea, and I really must make my call. Enjoy the professore.” She turned away.
   He dropped the suitcase and took her arm. At the touch, she glared at him. “Take your hand off me, please.”
   “I don’t want to frighten you, but I have no choice.” He spoke quietly, his eyes over her shoulder, the killers had slowed their pace, the trap sure, about to close. “You have to come with me.”
   “Don’t be ridiculous!”
   He viced the grip around her arm, moving her in front of him. Then he pulled the gun out of his pocket, making sure her body concealed it from the men thirty feet away. “I don’t want to use this. I don’t want to hurt you, but I’ll do both if I have to.”
   “My God ...”
   “Be quiet. Just do as I say and you’ll be fine. I have to get out of this hotel and you’re going to help me. Once I’m out, I’ll let you go. But not until then. Come on. We’re going in there.”
   “You can’t ...”
   “Yes, I can.” He pushed the barrel of the gun into her stomach, into the dark silk that creased under the force of his thrust. She was terrified into silence, into submission. “Let’s go.” He stepped to her left, his hand still gripping her arm, the pistol held across his chest inches from her own. Her eyes were riveted on it, her lips parted, her breath erratic. Bourne opened the door, propelling her through it in front of him. He could hear a single word shouted from the corridor.
   “Schnell!”
   They were in darkness, but it was brief; a shaft of white light shot across the room, over the rows of chairs, illuminating the heads of the audience. The projection on the faraway screen on the stage was that of a graph, the grids marked numerically, a heavy black line starting at the left, extending in
   a jagged pattern through the lines to the right. A heavily accented voice was speaking, amplified by a loudspeaker.
   “You will note that during the years of seventy and seventy-one, when specific restraints in production were self-imposed--I repeat, self-imposed--by these leaders of industry, the resulting economic recession was far less severe than in--slide twelve, please--the so-called paternalistic regulation of the marketplace by government interventionists. The next slide, please.” The room went dark again. There was a problem with the projector; no second shaft of light replaced the first.
   “Slide twelve, please!”
   Jason pushed the woman forward, in front of the figures standing by the back wall, behind the last row of chairs. He tried to judge the size of the lecture hall, looking for a red light that could mean escape. He saw it! A faint reddish glow in the distance. On the stage, behind the screen. There were no other exits, no other doors but the entrance to Suite Seven. He had to reach it; he had to get them to that exit. On that stage.
   “Marie--par ici!” The whisper came from their left, from a seat in the back row.
   “Non, chérie. Reste avec moi.” The second whisper was delivered by the shadowed figure of a man standing directly in front of Marie St. Jacques. He had stepped away from the wall, intercepting her.
   “On nous a séparé. I’l n’y a plus de chaises.”
   Bourne pressed the gun firmly into the woman’s rib cage, its message unmistakable. She
   whispered without breathing, Jason grateful that her face could not be seen clearly. “Please, let us
   by,” she said in French. “Please.”
   “What’s this? Is he your cablegram, my dear?”
   “An old friend,” whispered Bourne.
   A shout rose over the increasingly louder hum from the audience. “May I please have slide twelve!
   Per favore!”
   “We have to see someone at the end of the row,” continued Jason, looking behind him. The right-hand door of the entrance opened; in the middle of a shadowed face, a pair of gold-rimmed glasses reflected the dim light of the corridor. Bourne edged the girl past her bewildered friend, forcing him back into the wall, whispering an apology.
   “Sorry, but we’re in a hurry!”
   “You’re damn rude, too!”
   “Yes, I know.”
   “Slide twelve! Ma che infamia!”
   The beam of light shot out from the projector; it vibrated under the nervous hand of the operator. Another graph appeared on the screen as Jason and the woman reached the far wall, the start of the narrow aisle that led down the length of the hall to the stage. He pushed her into the corner, pressing his body against hers, his face against her face.
   “I’ll scream,” she whispered.
   “I’ll shoot,” he said. He peered around the figures leaning against the wall; the killers were both inside, both squinting, shifting their heads like alarmed rodents, trying to spot their target among the rows of faces.
   The voice of the lecturer rose like the ringing of a cracked bell, his diatribe brief but strident.
   “Ecco! For the skeptics I address here this evening--and that is most of you--here is statistical proof! Identical in substance to a hundred other analyses I have prepared. Leave the marketplace to those who live there. Minor excesses can always be found. They are a small price to pay for the general good.”
   There was a scattering of applause, the approval of a definite minority. Bertinelli resumed a normal tone and droned on, his long pointer stabbing at the screen, emphasizing the obvious--his obvious. Jason leaned back again; the gold spectacles glistened in the harsh glare of the projector’s side light, the killer who wore them touching his companion’s arm, nodding to his left, ordering his subordinate to continue the search on the left side of the room; he would take the right. He began, the gold rims growing brighter as he sidestepped his way in front of those standing, studying each face. He would reach the corner, reach them, in a matter of seconds. Stopping the killer with a gunshot was all that was left; and if someone along the row of those standing moved, or if the woman he had pressed against the wall went into panic and shoved him ... or if he missed the killer for any number of reasons, he was trapped. And even if he hit the man, there was another killer across the room, certainly a marksman.
   “Slide thirteen, if you please.”
   That was it. Now!
   The shaft of light went out. In the blackout, Bourne pulled the woman from the wall, spun her in her place, his face against hers. “If you make a sound, I’ll kill you!”
   “I believe you,” she whispered, terrified. “You’re a maniac.”
   “Let’s go!” He pushed her down the narrow aisle that led to the stage fifty feet away. The projector’s light went on again; he grabbed the girl’s neck, forcing her down into a kneeling position as he, too, knelt down behind her. They were concealed from the killers by the rows of bodies sitting in the chairs. He pressed her flesh with his fingers; it was his signal to keep moving, crawling ...
   slowly, keeping down, but moving. She understood; she started forward on her knees, trembling.
   “The conclusions of this phase are irrefutable,” cried the lecturer. “The profit motive is inseparable from productivity incentive, but the adversary roles can never be equal. As Socrates understood, the inequality of values is constant. Gold simply is not brass or iron; who among you can deny it? Slide fourteen, if you please!”
   The darkness again. Now.
   He yanked the woman up, pushing her forward, toward the stage. They were within three feet of the edge.
   “Cosa succede? What is the matter, please? Slide fourteen!” It had happened! The projector was jammed again; the darkness was extended again. And there on the stage in front of them, above them, was the red glow of the exit sign. Jason gripped the girl’s arm viciously. “Get up on that stage and run to the exit! I’m right behind you; you stop or cry out, I’ll shoot.”
   “For God’s sake, let me go!”
   “Not yet.” He meant it; there was another exit somewhere, men waiting outside for the target from Marseilles. “Go on! Now.”
   The St. Jacques woman got to her feet and ran to the stage. Bourne lifted her off the floor, over the edge, leaping up as he did so, pulling her to her feet again.
   The blinding light of the projector shot out, flooding the screen, washing the stage. Cries of surprise and derision came from the audience at the sight of two figures, the shouts of the indignant Bertinelli heard over the din.
   “È insoffribile! Ci sono comunisti qui!”
   And there were other sounds--three--lethal, sharp, sudden. Cracks of a muted weapon-– weapons; wood splintered on the molding of the proscenium arch. Jason hammered the girl down and lunged toward the shadows of the narrow wing space, pulling her behind him.
   “Da ist er! Da oben!”
   “Schnell! Der projektor!”
   A scream came from the center aisle of the hall as the light of the projector swung to the right, spilling into the wings--but not completely. Its beam was intercepted by receding upright flats that masked the offstage area; light, shadow, light, shadow. And at the end of the flats, at the rear of the stage, was the exit. A high, wide metal door with a crashbar against it.
   Glass shattered; the red light exploded, a marksman’s bullet blew out the sign above the door. It did not matter; he could see the gleaming brass of the crashbar clearly.
   The lecture hall had broken out in pandemonium. Bourne grabbed the woman by the cloth of her blouse, yanking her beyond the flats toward the door. For an instant she resisted; he slapped her across the face and dragged her beside him until the crashbar was above their heads.
   Bullets spat into the wall to their right; the killers were racing down the aisles for accurate sightlines. They would reach them in seconds, and in seconds other bullets, or a single bullet, would find its mark. There were enough shells left, he knew that. He had no idea how or why he knew, but he knew. By sound he could visualize the weapons, extract the clips, count the shells.
   He smashed his forearm into the crashbar of the exit door. It flew open and he lunged through the opening, dragging the kicking St. Jacques woman with him.
   “Stop it!” she screamed. “I won’t go any farther! You’re insane! Those were gunshots!”
   Jason slammed the large metal door shut with his foot. “Get up!”
   “No!”
   He lashed the back of his hand across her face. “Sorry, but you’re coming with me. Get up! Once we’re outside, you have my word. I’ll let you go.” But where was he going now? They were in another tunnel, but there was no carpet, no polished doors with lighted signs above them. They were in some sort of deserted loading area; the floor was concrete, and there were two pipe-framed freight dollies next to him against the wall. He had been right: exhibits used on the stage of Suite Seven had to be trucked in, the exit door high enough and wide enough to accommodate large displays.
   The door! He had to block the door! Marie St. Jacques was on her feet; he held her as he grabbed the first dolly, pulling it by its frame in front of the exit door, slamming it with his shoulder and knee until it was lodged against the metal. He looked down; beneath the thick wooden base were footlocks on the wheels. He jammed his heel down on the front lever lock, and then the back one.
   The girl spun, trying to break his grip as he stretched his leg to the end of the dolly; he slid his hand down her arm, gripped her wrist, and twisted it inward. She screamed, tears in her eyes, her lips trembling. He pulled her alongside him, forcing her to the left, breaking into a run, assuming the direction was toward the rear of the Carillon du Lac, hoping he’d find the exit. For there and only there he might need the woman; a brief few seconds when a couple emerged, not a lone man running.
   There was a series of loud crashes; the killers were trying to force the stage door open, but the locked freight dolly was too heavy a barrier.
   He yanked the girl along the cement floor; she tried to pull away, kicking again, twisting her body again from one side to the other; she was over the edge of hysteria He had no choice; he gripped her elbow, his thumb on the inner flesh, and pressed as hard as he could. She gasped, the pain sudden and excruciating; she sobbed, expelling breath, allowing him to propel her forward.
   They reached a cement staircase, the four steps edged in steel, leading to a pair of metal doors below. It was the loading dock; beyond the doors was the Carillon du Lac’s rear parking area. He was almost there. It was only a question of appearances now.
   “Listen to me,” he said to the rigid, frightened woman. “Do you want me to let you go?”
   “Oh God, yes! Please!”
   “Then you do exactly as I say. We’re going to walk down these steps and out that door like two perfectly normal people at the end of a normal day’s work. You’re going to link your arm in mine and we’re going to walk slowly, talking quietly, to the cars at the far end of the parking lot. And we’re both going to laugh--not loudly, just casually--as if we were remembering funny things that happened during the day. Have you got that?”
   “Nothing funny at all has happened to me during the past fifteen minutes,” she answered in a barely audible monotone.
   “Pretend that it has. I may be trapped; if I am I don’t care. Do you understand?”
   “I think my wrist is broken.”
   “It’s not.”
   “My left arm, my shoulder. I can’t move them; they’re throbbing.”
   “A nerve ending was depressed; it’ll pass in a matter of minutes. You’ll be fine.”
   “You’re an animal.”
   “I want to live,” he said. “Come on. Remember, when I open the door, look at me and smile, tilt your head back, laugh a little.”
   “It will be the most difficult thing I’ve ever done.”
   “It’s easier than dying.”
   She put her injured hand under his arm and they walked down the short flight of steps to the platform door. He opened it and they went outside, his hand in his topcoat pocket gripping the Frenchman’s pistol, his eyes scanning the loading dock. There was a single bulb encased in wire mesh above the door, its spill defining the concrete steps to the left that led to the pavement below; he led his hostage toward them.
   She performed as he had ordered, the effect macabre. As they walked down the steps, her face was turned to his, her terrified features caught in the light. Her generous lips were parted, stretched over her white teeth in a false, tense smile; her wide eyes were two dark orbs, reflecting primordial fear, her tear-stained skin taut and pale, marred by the reddish splotches where he had hit her. He was looking at a face of chiseled stone, a mask framed by dark red hair that cascaded over her shoulders, swept back by the night breezes--moving, the only living thing about the mask.
   Choked laughter came from her throat, the veins in her long neck pronounced. She was not far from collapsing, but he could not think about that. He had to concentrate on the space around them, at whatever movement--however slight--he might discern in the shadows of the large parking lot. It was obvious that these back, unlit regions-were used by the Carillon du Lac’s employees; it was nearly 6:30, the night shift well immersed in its duties. Everything was still, a smooth black field broken up by rows of silent automobiles, ranks of huge insects, the dull glass of the headlamps, a hundred eyes staring at nothing.
   A scratch. Metal had scraped against metal. It came from the right, from one of the cars in a nearby row. Which row? Which car? He tilted his head back as if responding to a joke made by his companion, letting his eyes roam across the windows of the cars nearest to them. Nothing.
   Something? It was there but it was so small, barely seen ... so bewildering. A tiny circle of green, an infinitesimal glow of green light. It moved ... as they moved.
   Green. Small ... light? Suddenly, from somewhere in a forgotten past the image of crosshairs burst
   across his eyes. His eyes were looking at two thin intersecting lines! Crosshairs! A scope ... an infrared
   scope of a rifle.
   How did the killers know? Any number of answers. A hand-held radio had been used at the Gemeinschaft; one could be in use now. He wore a topcoat; his hostage wore a thin silk dress and the night was cool. No woman would go out like that.
   He swung to his left, crouching, lunging into Marie St. Jacques, his shoulder crashing into her stomach, sending her reeling back toward the steps. The muffled cracks came in staccato repetition; stone and asphalt exploded all around them. He dove to his right, rolling over and over again the instant he made contact with the pavement, yanking the pistol from his topcoat pocket. Then he sprang again, now straight forward, his left hand steadying his right wrist, the gun centered, aimed at the window with the rifle. He fired three shots.
   A scream came from the dark open space of the stationary car, it was drawn out into a cry, then a gasp, and then nothing. Bourne lay motionless, waiting, listening, watching, prepared to fire again.
   Silence. He started to get up ... but he could not. Something had happened. He could barely move.
   Then the pain spread through his chest, the pounding so violent he bent over, supporting himself with both hands, shaking his head, trying to focus his eyes, trying to reject the agony. His left shoulder, his lower chest--below the ribs ... his left thigh--above the knee, below the hip; the locations of his previous wounds, where dozens of stitches had been removed over a month ago. He had damaged the weakened areas, stretching tendons and muscles not yet fully restored. Oh, Christ!
   He had to get up; he had to reach the would-be killer’s car, pull the killer from it, and get away.
   He whipped his head up, grimacing with the pain, and looked over at Marie St. Jacques. She was getting slowly to her feet, first on one knee, then on one foot, supporting herself on the outside wall of the hotel. In a moment she would be standing, then running. Away.
   He could not let her go! She would race screaming into the Carillon du Lac; men would come, some to take him ... some to kill him. He had to stop her!
   He let his body fall forward and started rolling to his left, spinning like a wildly out-of-control manikin, until he was within four feet of the wall, four feet from her. He raised his gun, aiming at her head.
   “Help me up,” he said, hearing the strain in his voice.
   “What?”
   “You heard me! Help me up.”
   “You said I could go! You gave me your word!”
   “I have to take it back.”
   “No, please.”
   “This gun is aimed directly at your face, Doctor. You come here and help me get up or I’ll blow it off.”

   He pulled the dead man from the car and ordered her to get behind the wheel. Then he opened the rear door and crawled into the back seat out of sight.
   “Drive,” he said. “Drive where I tell you.”

6
   Whenever you’re in a stress situation yourself--and there’s time, of course--do exactly as you would do when you project yourself into one you’re observing. Let your mind fall free, let whatever thoughts and images that surface come cleanly. Try not to exercise any mental discipline. Be a sponge, concentrate on everything and nothing. Specifics may come to you, certain repressed conduits electrically prodded into functioning.
   Bourne thought of Washburn’s words as he adjusted his body into the corner of the seat, trying to restore some control. He massaged his chest, gently rubbing the bruised muscles around his previous wound; the pain was still there, but not as acute as it had been minutes ago.
   “You can’t just tell me to drive!” cried the St. Jacques woman. “I don’t know where I’m going!”
   “Neither do I,” said Jason. He had told her to stay on the lakeshore drive; it was dark and he had to have time to think. If only to be a sponge.
   “People will be looking for me,” she exclaimed.
   “They’re looking for me, too.”
   “You’ve taken me against my will. You struck me. Repeatedly.” She spoke more softly now, imposing a control on herself. “That’s kidnapping, assault ... those are serious crimes. You’re out of the hotel; that’s what you said you wanted. Let me go and I won’t say anything. I promise you!”
   “You mean you’ll give me your word?”
   “Yes!”
   “I gave you mine and took it back. So could you.”
   “You’re different. I won’t. No one’s trying to kill met Oh God! Please!”
   “Keep driving.”
   One thing was clear to him. The killers had seen him drop his suitcase and leave it behind in his race for escape. That suitcase told them the obvious: he was getting out of Zurich, undoubtedly out of Switzerland. The airport and the train station would be watched. And the car he had taken from the man he had killed--who had tried to kill him--would be the object of a search.
   He could not go to the airport or to the train station; he had to get rid of the car and find another. Yet he was not without resources. He was carrying 100,000 Swiss francs, and more than 16,000 French francs, the Swiss currency in his passport case, the French in the billfold he had stolen from the Marquis de Chamford. It was more than enough to buy him secretly to Paris.
   Why Paris? It was as though the city were a magnet, pulling him to her without explanation.
   You are not helpless. You will find your way. ... Follow your instincts, reasonably, of course.
   To Paris.
   “Have you been to Zurich before?” he asked his hostage.
   “Never.”
   “You wouldn’t lie to me, would you?”
   “I’ve no reason to! Please. Let me stop. Let me go!”
   “How long have you been here?”
   “A week. The conference was for a week.”
   “Then you’ve had time to get around, do some sightseeing.”
   “I barely left the hotel. There wasn’t time.”
   “The schedule I saw on the board didn’t seem very crowded. Only two lectures for the entire day.”
   “They were guest speakers; there were never more than two a day. The majority of our work was done in conference ... small conferences. Ten to fifteen people from different countries, different interests.”
   “You’re from Canada?”
   “I work for the Canadian government Treasury Board, Department of National Revenue.”
   “The ‘doctor’s’ not medical then.”
   “Economics. McGill University. Pembroke College, Oxford.”
   “I’m impressed.”
   Suddenly, with controlled stridency, she added, “My superiors expect me to be in contact with them. Tonight. If they don’t hear from me, they’ll be alarmed. They’ll make inquiries; they’ll call the Zurich police.”
   “I see,” he said. “That’s something to think about, isn’t it?” It occurred to Bourne that throughout the shock and the violence of the last half hour, the St. Jacques woman had not let her purse out of her hand. He leaned forward, wincing as he did so, the pain in his chest suddenly acute again. “Give me your purse.”
   “What?” She moved her hand quickly from the wheel, grabbing the purse in a futile attempt to keep it from him.
   He thrust his right hand over the seat, his fingers grasping the leather. “Just drive, Doctor,” he said as he lifted the purse off the seat and leaned back again.
   “You have no right ...” She stopped, the foolishness of her remark apparent.
   “I know that,” he replied, opening the purse, turning on the sedan’s reading lamp, moving the handbag into its spill. As befitted the owner, the purse was well organized. Passport, wallet, a change purse, keys, and assorted notes and messages in the rear pockets. He looked for a specific message; it
   was in a yellow envelope given her by the clerk at the Carillon du Lac’s front desk. He found it, lifted the flap, and took out the folded paper. It was a cablegram from Ottawa.
   DAILY REPORTS FIRST RATE. LEAVE GRANTED. WILL MEET YOU AT AIRPORT WEDNESDAY 26. CALL OR CABLE FLIGHT. IN LYON DO NOT MISS BELLE MEUNIERE. CUISINE SUPERB. LOVE PETER
   Jason put the cable back in the purse. He saw a small book of matches, the cover a glossy white, scroll writing on the front. He picked it out and read the name. Kronenhalle. A restaurant ... A restaurant. Something bothered him; he did not know what it was, but it, was there. Something about a restaurant. He kept the matches, closed the purse, and leaned forward, dropping it on the front seat. “That’s all I wanted to see,” he said, settling back into the corner, staring at the matches.
   “I seem to remember your saying something about ‘word from Ottawa.’ You got it; the twenty-sixth is over a week away.”
   “Please ...”
   The supplication was a cry for help; he heard it for what it was but could not respond. For the next hour or so he needed this woman, needed her as a lame man needed a crutch, or more aptly, as one who could not function behind a wheel needed a driver. But not in this car.
   “Turn around,” he ordered. “Head back to the Carillon.”
   “To the ... hotel?”
   “Yes,” he said, his eyes on the matches, turning them over and over in his hand under the light of the reading lamp. “We need another car.”
   “We? No, you can’t! I won’t go any--“ Again she stopped before the statement was made, before the thought was completed. Another thought had obviously struck her, she was abruptly silent as she swung the wheel until the sedan was facing the opposite direction on the dark lakeshore road.
   She pressed the accelerator down with such force that the car bolted; the tires spun under the sudden burst of speed. She depressed the pedal instantly, gripping the wheel, trying to control herself.
   Bourne looked up from the matches at the back of her head, at the long dark red hair that shone in the light. He took the gun from his pocket and once more leaned forward directly behind her. He raised the weapon, moving his hand over her shoulder, turning the barrel and pressing it against her cheek.
   “Understand me clearly. You’re going to do exactly as I tell you. You’re going to be right at my side and this gun will be in my pocket. It will be aimed at your stomach, just as its aimed at your head right now. As you’ve seen, I’m running for my life, and I won’t hesitate to pull the trigger. I want you to understand.”
   “I understand.” Her reply was a whisper. She breathed through her parted lips, her terror complete. Jason removed the barrel of the gun from her cheek; he was satisfied.
   Satisfied and revolted.
   Let your mind fall free. ... The matches. What was it about the matches? But it was not the matches, it was the restaurant--not the Kronenhalle, but a restaurant. Heavy beams, candlelight, black ...
   triangles on the outside. White stone and black triangles. Three? ... Three black triangles.
   Someone was there ... at a restaurant with three triangles in front. The image was so clear, so vivid ... so disturbing. What was it? Did such a place even exist?
   Specifics may come to you ... certain repressed conduits ... prodded into functioning.
   Was it happening now? Oh, Christ, I can’t stand it!
   He could see the lights of the Carillon du Lac several hundred yards down the road. He had not fully thought out his moves, but was operating on two assumptions. The first was that the killers had not remained on the premises. On the other hand, Bourne was not about to walk into a trap of his own making. He knew two of the killers; he would not recognize others if they had been left behind.
   The main parking area was beyond the circular drive, on the left side of the hotel. “Slow down,” Jason ordered. “Turn into the first drive on the left.”
   “It’s an exit,” protested the woman, her voice strained. “We’re going the wrong way.”
   “No one’s coming out. Go on! Drive into the parking lot, past the lights.”
   The scene at the hotel’s canopied entrance explained why no one paid attention to them. There were four police cars lined up in the circular drive, their roof lights revolving, conveying the aura of emergency. He could see uniformed police, tuxedoed hotel clerks at their sides, among the crowds
   of excited hotel guests; they were asking questions as well as answering them, checking off names of those leaving in automobiles.
   Marie St. Jacques drove across the parking area beyond the floodlights and into an open space on the right. She turned off the engine and sat motionless, staring straight ahead.
   “Be very careful,” said Bourne, rolling down his window. “And move slowly. Open your door and get out, then stand by mine and help me. Remember, the window’s open and the gun’s in my hand. You’re only two or three feet in front of me; there’s no way I could miss if I fired.” She did as she was told, a terrified automaton. Jason supported himself on the frame of the window and pulled himself to the pavement. He shifted his weight from one foot to another; mobility was returning. He could walk. Not well, and with a limp, but he could walk.
   “What are you going to do?” asked the St. Jacques woman, as if she were afraid to hear his answer.
   “Wait. Sooner or later someone will drive a car back here and park it. No matter what happened in there, it’s still dinnertime. Reservations were made, parties arranged, a lot of it business; those people won’t change their plans.”
   “And when a car does come, how will you take it?” She paused, then answered her own question.
   “Oh, my God, you’re going to kill whoever’s driving it.”
   He gripped her arm, her frightened chalk-white face inches away. He had to control her by fear, but not to the point where she might slip into hysterics. “If I have to I will, but I don’t think it’ll be necessary. Parking attendants bring the cars back here. Keys are usually left on the dashboard or under the seats. It’s just easier.”
   Headlight beams shot out from the fork in the circular drive; a small coupé entered the lot, accelerating once into it, the mark of an attendant driver. The car came directly toward them, alarming Bourne until he saw the empty space nearby. But they were in the path of the headlights; they had been seen.
   Reservations for the dining room. ... A restaurant. Jason made his decision; he would use the moment. The attendant got out of the coupé and placed the keys under the seat. As he walked to the rear of the car, he nodded at them, not without curiosity. Bourne spoke in French.
   “Hey, young fellow! Maybe you can help us.”
   “Sir?” The attendant approached them haltingly, cautiously, the events in the hotel obviously on his mind.
   “I’m not feeling so well, too much of your excellent Swiss wine.”
   “It will happen, sir.” The young man smiled, relieved.
   “My wife thought it would be a good idea to get some air before we left for town.”
   “A good idea, sir.”
   “Is everything still crazy inside? I didn’t think the police officer would let us out until he saw that I might be sick all over his uniform.”
   “Crazy, sir. They’re everywhere. ... We’ve been told not to discuss it.”
   “Of course. But we’ve got a problem. An associate flew in this afternoon and we agreed to meet at a restaurant, only I’ve forgotten the name. I’ve been there but I just can’t remember where it is or what it’s called. I do remember that on the front there were three odd shapes ... a design of some sort, I think. Triangles. I believe.”
   “That’s the Drei Alpenhäuser, sir. The ... Three Chalets. It’s in a sidestreet off the Falkenstrasse.”
   “Yes, of course, that’s it! And to get there from here we ...” Bourne trailed off the words, a man with too much wine trying to concentrate.
   “Just turn left out of the exit, sir. Stay on the Uto Quai for about one hundred meters, until you reach a large pier, then turn right. It will take you into the Falkenstrasse. Once you pass Seefeld, you can’t miss the street or the restaurant. There’s a sign on the corner.”
   “Thank you. Will you be here a few hours from now, when we return?”
   “I’m on duty until two this morning, sir.”
   “Good. I’ll look for you and express my gratitude more concretely.”
   “Thank you, sir. May I get your car for you?”
   “You’ve done enough, thanks. A little more walking is required.” The attendant saluted and started for the front of the hotel. Jason led Marie St Jacques toward the coupé, limping beside her.
   “Hurry up. The keys are under the seat.”
   “If they stop us, what will you do? That attendant will see the car go out; he’ll know you’ve stolen it.”
   “I doubt it. Not if we leave right away, the minute he’s back in that crowd.”
   “Suppose he does?”
   “Then I hope you’re a fast driver,” said Bourne pushing her toward the door. “Get in.” The attendant had turned the corner and suddenly hurried his pace. Jason took out the gun and limped rapidly around the hood of the coupé, supporting himself on it while pointing the pistol at the windshield. He opened the passenger door and climbed in beside her. “Goddamn it--I said get the keys!”
   “All right ... I can’t think.”
   “Try harder!”
   “Oh, God ...” She reached below the seat, stabbing her hand around the carpet until she found the small leather case.

   “Start the motor, but wait until I tell you to back out.” He watched for headlight beams to shine into the area from the circular drive; it would be a reason for the attendant to have suddenly broken into a near run; a car to be parked. They did not come; the reason could be something else. Two unknown people in the parking lot. “Go ahead. Quickly. I want to get out of here.” She threw the gear into reverse; seconds later they approached the exit into the lakeshore drive. “Slow down,” he commanded. A taxi was swinging into the curve in front of them.
   Bourne held his breath and looked through the opposite window at the Carillon du Lads entrance; the scene under the canopy explained the attendant’s sudden decision to hurry. An argument had broken out between the police and a group of hotel guests. A line had formed, names checked off for those leaving the hotel, the resulting delays angering the innocent.
   “Let’s go,” said Jason, wincing again, the pain shooting through his chest. “We’re clear.”
   It was a numbing sensation, eerie and uncanny. The three triangles were as he had pictured them:
   thick dark wood raised in bas-relief on white stone. Three equal triangles, abstract renditions of chalet roofs in a valley of snow so deep the lower stories were obscured. Above the three points was the restaurant’s name in Germanic letters: DREI ALPENHAUSER. Below the baseline of the center triangles was the entrance, double doors that together formed a cathedral arch, the hardware massive rings of iron common to an Alpine château.
   The surrounding buildings on both sides of the narrow brick street were restored structures of a Zurich and a Europe long past. It was not a street for automobiles; instead one pictured elaborate coaches drawn by horses, drivers sitting high in mufflers and top hats, and gas lamps everywhere. It was a street filled with the sights and sounds of forgotten memories, thought the man who had no memory to forget.
   Yet he had had one, vivid and disturbing. Three dark triangles, heavy beams and candlelight. He had been right; it was a memory of Zurich. But in another life.
   “We’re here,” said the woman.
   “I know.”
   “Tell me what to do!” she cried. “We’re going past it.”
   “Go to the next corner and turn left. Go around the block, then drive back through here.”
   “Why?”
   “I wish I knew.”
   “What?”
   “Because I said so.” Someone was there ... at that restaurant. Why didn’t other images come? Another image.
   A face.
   They drove down the street past the restaurant twice more. Two separate couples and a foursome went inside; a single man came out, heading for the Falkenstrasse. To judge from the cars parked on the curb, there was a medium-sized crowd at the Drei Alpenhäuser. It would grow in number as the next two hours passed, most of Zurich preferring its evening meal nearer ten-thirty than eight. There was no point in delaying any longer; nothing further came to Bourne. He could only sit and watch and hope something would come. Something. For something had; a book of matches had evoked an image of reality. Within that reality there was a truth he had to discover.
   “Pull over to your right, in front of the last car. We’ll walk back.” Silently, without comment or protest, the St. Jacques woman did as she was told. Jason looked at her, her reaction was too docile, inconsistent with her previous behavior. He understood. A lesson had to be taught. Regardless of what might happen inside the Drei Alpenhäuser, he needed her for a final contribution. She had to drive him out of Zurich.
   The car came to a stop, tires scraping the curb. She turned off the motor and began to remove the keys, her movement slow, too slow. He reached over and held her wrist; she stared at him in the shadows without breathing. He slid his fingers over her hand until he felt the key case.
   “I’ll take those,” he said.
   “Naturally,” she replied, her left hand unnaturally at her side, poised by the panel of the door.
   “Now get out and stand by the hood,” he continued. “Don’t do anything foolish.”
   “Why should I? You’d kill me.”
   “Good.” He reached for the handle of the door, exaggerating the difficulty. The back of his head was to her; he snapped the handle down.
   The rustle of fabric was sudden, the rush of air more sudden still; her door crashed open, the woman half out into the street. But Bourne was ready; a lesson had to be taught. He spun around, his left arm an uncoiling spring, his hand a claw, gripping the silk of her dress between her shoulder blades. He pulled her back into the seat, and, grabbing her by the hair, yanked her head toward him until her neck was stretched, her face against his.
   “I won’t do it again!” she cried, tears welling at her eyes. “I swear to you I won’t!” He reached across and pulled the door shut, then looked at her closely, trying to understand something in himself. Thirty minutes ago in another car he had experienced a degree of nausea when he had pressed the barrel of the gun into her cheek, threatening to take her life if she disobeyed him.
   There was no such revulsion now; with one overt action she had crossed over into another territory.
   She had become an enemy, a threat; he could kill her if he had to, kill her without emotion because it
   was the practical thing to do.
   “Say something!” she whispered. Her body went into a brief spasm, her breasts pressing against the dark silk of her dress, rising and falling with the agitated movement. She gripped her own wrist in an attempt to control herself; she partially succeeded. She spoke again, the whisper replaced by a monotone. “I said I wouldn’t do it again and I won’t.”
   “You’ll try,” he replied quietly. “There’ll come a moment when you think you can make it, and you’ll try. Believe me when I tell you you can’t, but if you try again I will have to kill you. I don’t want to do that, there’s no reason for it, no reason at all. Unless you become a threat to me, and in running away before I let you go you do just that. I can’t allow it.”
   He had spoken the truth as he understood the truth. The simplicity of the decision was as astonishing to him as the
   decision itself. Killing was a practical matter, nothing else.
   “You say you’ll let me go,” she said. “When?”
   “When I’m safe,” he answered. “When it doesn’t make any difference what you say or do.”
   “When will that be?”
   “An hour or so from now. When we’re out of Zurich and I’m on my way to someplace else. You won’t know where or how.”
   “Why should I believe you?”
   “I don’t care whether you do or not.” He released her. “Pull yourself together. Dry your eyes and comb your hair. We’re going inside.”
   “What’s in there?”
   “I wish I knew,” he said, glancing through the rear window at the door of the Drei Alpenhäuser.
   “You said that before.”
   He looked at her, at the wide brown eyes that were searching his. Searching in fear, in bewilderment. “I know. Hurry up.”

   There were thick beams running across the high Alpine ceiling, tables and chairs of heavy wood, deep booths and candlelight everywhere. An accordion player moved through the crowd, muted strains of Bavarian music coming from his instrument.
   He had seen the large room before, the beams and the candlelight printed somewhere in his mind, the sounds recorded also. He had come here in another life. They stood in the shallow foyer in front of the maître d’s station; the tuxedoed man greeted them.
   “Haben Sie einen Tisch schon reserviert, mein Herr?”
   “If you mean reservations, I’m afraid not. But you were highly recommended. I hope you can fit us in. A booth, if possible.”
   “Certainly, sir. It’s the early sitting; we’re not yet crowded. This way, please.”
   They were taken to a booth in the nearest corner, a flickering candle in the center of the table.
   Bourne’s limp and the fact that he held on to the woman, dictated the closest available location.
   Jason nodded to Marie St Jacques; she sat down and he slid into the booth opposite her.
   “Move against the wall,” he said, after the maitre d’ had left. “Remember, the gun’s in my pocket and all I have to do is raise my foot and you’re trapped.”
   “I said I wouldn’t try”
   “I hope you don’t. Order a drink; there’s no time to eat.”
   “I couldn’t eat.” She gripped her wrist again, her hands visibly trembling. “Why isn’t there time?
   What are you waiting for?”
   “I don’t know.”
   “Why do you keep saying that? ‘I don’t know.’ ‘I wish I knew.’ Why did you come here?”
   “Because I’ve been here before.”
   “That’s no answer!”
   “There’s no reason for me to give you one.”
   A waiter approached. The St. Jacques woman asked for wine; Bourne ordered scotch, needing the stronger drink. He looked around the restaurant, trying to concentrate on everything and nothing. A sponge. But there was only nothing. No images filled his mind; no thoughts intruded on his absence of thought. Nothing.
   And then he saw the face across the room. It was a large face set in a large head, above an obese body pressed against the wall of an end booth, next to a closed door. The fat man stayed in the shadows of his observation point as if they were his protection, the unlit section of the floor his sanctuary. His eyes were riveted on Jason, equal parts fear and disbelief in his stare. Bourne did not know the face, but the face knew him. The man brought his fingers to his lips and wiped the corners of his mouth, then shifted his eyes, taking in each diner at every table. Only then did he begin what was obviously a painful journey around the room toward their booth.
   “A man’s coming over here,” Jason said over the flame of the candle. “A fat man, and he’s afraid.
   Don’t say anything. No matter what he says, keep your mouth shut. And don’t look at him; raise your hand, rest your head on your elbow casually. Look at the wall, not him” The woman frowned, bringing her right hand to her face; her fingers trembled. Her lips formed a question, but no words came. Jason answered the unspoken.
   “For your own good,” he said. “There’s no point in his being able to identify you.” The fat man edged around the corner of the booth. Bourne blew out the candle, throwing the table into relative darkness. The man stared him down and spoke in a low, strained voice.
   “Du lieber Gott! Why did you come here? What have I done that you should do this to me?”
   “I enjoy the food, you know that.”
   “Have you no feelings? I have a family, a wife and children. I did only as I was told. I gave you the envelope, I did not look inside, I know nothing!”
   “But you were paid, weren’t you?” asked Jason instinctively.
   “Yes, but I said nothing. We never met, I never described you. I spoke to no one!”
   Then why are you afraid? I’m just an ordinary patron about to order dinner.”
   “I beg you. Leave.”
   “Now I’m angry. You’d better tell me why.”
   The fat man brought his hand to his face, his fingers again wiping the moisture that had formed around his mouth. He angled his head, glancing at the door, then turned back to Bourne. “Others may have spoken, others may know who you are. I’ve had my share of trouble with the police, they would come directly to me.”
   The St. Jacques woman lost control; she looked at Jason, the words escaping. “The police. ...
   They were the police.”
   Bourne glared at her, then turned back to the nervous fat man. “Are you saying the police would harm your wife and children?”
   “Not in themselves--as you well know. But their interest would lead others to me. To my family.
   How many are there that look for you, mein Herr? And what are they that do? You need no answer from me; they stop at nothing--the death of a wife or a child is nothing. Please. On my life. I’ve said nothing. Leave.”
   “You’re exaggerating.” Jason brought the drink to his lips, a prelude to dismissal.
   “In the name of Christ, don’t do this!” The man leaned over, gripping the edge of the table. “You wish proof of my silence, I give it to you. Word was spread throughout the Verbrecherwelt. Anyone with any information whatsoever should call a number set up by the Zurich police. Everything would be kept in the strictest confidence; they would not lie in the Verbrecherwelt about that. Rewards were ample, the police in several countries sending funds through Interpol. Past misunderstandings might be seen in new judicial lights.” The conspirator stood up, wiping his mouth again, his large bulk hovering above the wood. “A man like myself could profit from a kinder relationship with the police. Yet I did nothing. In spite of the guarantee of confidentiality, I did nothing at all!”
   “Did anyone else? Tell me the truth; I’ll know if you’re lying.”
   “I know only Chernak. He’s the only one I’ve ever spoken with who admits having even seen you. But you know that; the envelope was passed through him to me. He’d never say anything.”
   “Where’s Chernak now?”
   “Where he always is. In his flat on the Löwenstrasse.”
   “I’ve never been there. What’s the number?”
   “You’ve never been? ...” The fat man paused, his lips pressed together, alarm in his eyes. “Are you testing me?”
   “Answer the question.”
   “Number 37. You know it as well as I do.”
   “Then I’m testing you. Who gave the envelope to Chernak?” The man stood motionless, his dubious integrity challenged. “I have no way of knowing. Nor would I ever inquire.”
   “You weren’t even curious?”
   “Of course not. A goat does not willingly enter the wolfs cave.”
   “Goats are surefooted; they’ve got an accurate sense of smell.”
   “And they are cautious, mein Herr. Because the wolf is faster, infinitely more aggressive. There would be only one chase. The goat’s last.”
   “What was in the envelope?”
   “I told you, I did not open it.”
   “But you know what was in it.”
   “Money, I presume.”
   “You presume?”
   “Very well. Money. A great deal of money. If there was any discrepancy, it had nothing to do with me. Now please, I beg you. Get out of here!”
   “One last question.”
   “Anything. Just leave!”
   “What was the money for?”
   The obese man stared down at Bourne, his breathing audible, sweat glistening on his chin. “You put me on the rack, mein Herr, but I will not turn away from you. Call it the courage of an insignificant goat who has survived. Every day I read the newspapers. In three languages. Six months ago a man was killed. His death was reported on the front page of each of those papers.”

7
   They circled the block, emerging on the Falkenstrasse, then turned right on the Limmat Quai toward the cathedral of Grossmünster. The Löwenstrasse was across the river, on the west side of the city.
   The quickest way to reach it was to cross the Munster Bridge to the Bahnhofstrasse, then to the Nüschelerstrasse; the streets intersected, according to a couple who had been about to enter the Drei Alpenhäuser.
   Marie St. Jacques was silent, holding onto the wheel as she had gripped the straps of her handbag during the madness at the Carillon, somehow her connection with sanity. Bourne glanced at her and understood.
   ... a man was killed, his death reported on the front pages of each of those papers.
   Jason Bourne had been paid to kill, and the police in several countries had sent funds through Interpol to convert reluctant informers, to broaden the base of his capture. Which meant that other men had been killed. ...
   How many are there that look for you, mein Herr? And what are they that do? ... They stop at nothing--the death of a wife or a child is nothing!
   Not the police. Others.
   The twin bell towers of the Grossmünster church rose in the night sky, floodlights creating eerie shadows. Jason stared at the ancient structure; as so much else he knew it but did not know it. He had seen it before, yet he was seeing it now for the first time.
   I know only Chernak. ... The envelope was passed through him to me. ... Löwenstrasse. Number 37. You know it as well as I do.
   Did he? Would he?
   They drove over the bridge into the traffic of the newer city. The streets were crowded, automobiles and pedestrians vying for supremacy at every intersection, the red and green signals erratic and interminable. Bourne tried to concentrate on nothing ... and everything. The outlines of the truth were being presented to him, shape by enigmatic shape, each more startling than the last.
   He was not at all sure he was capable--mentally capable--of absorbing a great deal more.
   “Halt! Die Dame da! Die Scheinwerfer sind aus und Sie haben links signaliziert. Das ist eine Einbahnstrasse!”
   Jason looked up, a hollow pain knotting his stomach. A patrol car was beside them, a policeman shouting through his open window. Everything was suddenly clear ... clear and infuriating. The St.
   Jacques woman had seen the police car in the sideview mirror, she had extinguished the headlights and slipped her hand down to the directional signal, flipping it for a left turn. A left turn into a one-way street whose arrows at the intersection clearly defined the traffic heading right. And turning left by bolting in front of the police car would result in several violations: the absence of headlights, perhaps even a premeditated collision; they would be stopped, the woman free to scream.
   Bourne snapped the headlights on, then leaned across the girl, one hand disengaging the directional signal, the other gripping her arm where he had gripped it before.
   “I’ll kill you, Doctor,” he said quietly, then shouted through the window at the police officer.
   “Sorry! We’re a little confused! Tourists! We want the next block!” The policeman was barely two feet away from Marie St. Jacques, his eyes on her face, evidently puzzled by her lack of reaction.
   The light changed. “Ease forward. Don’t do anything stupid,” said Jason. He waved at the police officer through the glass. “Sorry again!” he yelled. The policeman shrugged, turning to his partner to resume a previous conversation.
   “I wasconfused,” said the girl, her soft voice trembling. “There’s so much traffic. ... Oh, God, you’ve broken my arm! ... You bastard.”
   Bourne released her, disturbed by her anger; he preferred fear. “You don’t expect me to believe you, do you?”
   “My arm?”
   “Your confusion.”
   “You said we were going to turn left soon; that’s all I was thinking about.”
   “Next time look at the traffic.” He moved away from her but did not take his eyes off her face.
   “You are an animal,” she whispered, briefly closing her eyes, opening them in fear; it had come back.
   They reached the Löwenstrasse, a wide avenue where low buildings of brick and heavy wood stood sandwiched between modern examples of smooth concrete and glass. The character of nineteenth-century flats competed against the utilitarianism of contemporary neuterness; they did not lose. Jason watched the numbers; they were descending from the middle eighties, with each block the old houses more in evidence than the high-rise apartments, until the street had returned in time to that other era. There was a row of neat four-story flats, roofs and windows framed in wood, stone steps and railings leading up to recessed doorways washed in the light of carriage lamps.
   Bourne recognized the unremembered; the fact that he did so was not startling, but something else was. The row of houses evoked another image, a very strong image of another row of flats, similar in outlines, but oddly different. Weathered, older, nowhere near as neat or scrubbed ... cracked
   windows, broken steps, incomplete railings--jagged ends of rusted iron. Further away, in another part of ... Zurich, yes they were in Zurich. In a small district rarely if ever visited by those who did not live there, a part of the city that was left behind, but not gracefully.
   “Steppdeckstrasse,” he said to himself, concentrating on the image in his mind. He could see a doorway, the paint a faded red, as dark as the red silk dress worn by the woman beside him. “A boardinghouse ... in the Steppdeckstrasse.”
   “What?” Marie St. Jacques was startled. The words he uttered alarmed her; she had obviously related them to herself and was terrified.
   “Nothing.” He took his eyes off the dress and looked out the window. “There’s Number 37,” he said, pointing to the fifth house in the row. “Stop the car.”
   He got out first, ordering her to slide across the seat and follow. He tested his legs and took the keys from her.
   “You can walk,” she said. “If you can walk, you can drive.”
   “I probably can.”
   “Then let me go! I’ve done everything you’ve wanted.”
   “And then some,” he added.
   “I won’t say anything, can’t you understand that? You’re the last person on earth I ever want to see again ... or have anything to do with. I don’t want to be a witness, or get involved with the police, or statements, or anything! I don’t want to be a part of what you’re a part of! I’m frightened to death ...
   that’s your protection, don’t you see? Let me go, please.”
   “I can’t.”
   “You don’t believe me.”
   “That’s not relevant. I need you.”
   “For what?”
   “For something very stupid. I don’t have a driver’s license. You can’t rent a car without a driver’s license and I’ve got to rent a car.”
   “You’ve got this car.”
   “It’s good for maybe another hour. Someone’s going to walk out of the Carillon du Lac and want it. The description will be radioed to every police car in Zurich.” She looked at him, dead fear in the glaze of her eyes. “I don’t want to go up there with you. I heard what that man said in the restaurant. If I hear any more you’ll kill me.”
   “What you heard makes no more sense to me than it does to you. Perhaps less. Come on.” He took her by the arm, and put his free hand on the railing so he could climb the steps with a minimum of pain.
   She stared at him, bewilderment and fear converged in her look.
   The name M. Chernak was under the second mail slot, a bell beneath the letters. He did not ring it, but pressed the adjacent four buttons. Within seconds a cacophony of voices sprang out of the small, dotted speakers, asking in Schweizerdeutsch who was there. But someone did not answer; he merely pressed a buzzer which released the lock. Jason opened the door, pushing Marie St. Jacques in front of him.
   He moved her against the wall and waited. From above came the sounds of doors opening, footsteps walking toward the staircase.
   “Wer ist da?”
   “Johann?”
   “Wo bist du denn?”
   Silence. Followed by words of irritation. Footsteps were heard again; doors closed.
   M. Chernak was on the second floor, Flat 2C. Bourne took the girl’s arm, limped with her to the staircase, and started the climb. She was right, of course. It would be far better if he were alone, but there was nothing he could do about that; he did need her.
   He had studied road maps during the weeks in Port Noir. Lucerne was no more than an hour away, Bern two and a half or three. He could head for either one, dropping her off in some deserted spot along the way, and then disappear. It was simply a matter of timing; he had the resources to buy a hundred connections. He needed only a conduit out of Zurich and she was it.
   But before he left Zurich he had to know; he had to talk to a man named ...
   M. Chernak. The name was to the right of the doorbell. He sidestepped away from the door, pulling the woman with him.
   “Do you speak German?” Jason asked.
   “No.”
   “Don’t lie.”
   “I’m not.”
   Bourne thought, glancing up and down the short hallway. Then: “Ring the bell. If the door opens just stand there. If someone answers from inside, say you have a message--an urgent message-– from a friend at the Drei Alpenhäuser.”
   “Suppose he--or she--says to slide it under the door?”
   Jason looked at her. “Very good.”
   “I just don’t want any more violence. I don’t want to know anything or see anything. I just want to--“ “I know,” he interrupted. “Go back to Caesar’s taxes and the Punic wars. If he--or she--says something like that, explain in a couple of words that the message is verbal and, can only be delivered to the man who was described to you.”
   “If he asks for that description?” said Marie St. Jacques icily, analysis momentarily pre-empting fear.
   “You’ve got a good mind, Doctor,” he said.
   “I’m precise. I’m frightened; I told you that. What do I do?”
   “Say to hell with them, someone else can deliver it. Then start to walk away.” She moved to the door and rang the bell. There was an odd sound from within. A scratching, growing louder, constant. Then it stopped and a deep voice was heard through the wood.
   “Ja?”
   “I’m afraid I don’t speak German.”
   “Englisch. What is it? Who are you?”
   “I have an urgent message from a friend at the Drei Alpenhäuser.”
   “Shove it under the door.”
   “I can’t do that. It isn’t written down. I have to deliver it personally to the man who was described to me.”
   “Well, that shouldn’t be difficult,” said the voice. The lock clicked and the door opened.
   Bourne stepped away from the wall, into the doorframe.
   “You’re insane!” cried a man with two stumps for legs, propped up in a wheelchair. “Get out! Get away from here!”
   “I’m tired of hearing that,” said Jason, pulling the girl inside and closing the door.
   It took no pressure to convince Marie St. Jacques to remain in a small, windowless bedroom
   while they talked; she did so willingly. The legless Chernak was close to panic, his ravaged face chalk
   white, his unkempt gray hair matted about his neck and forehead
   “What do you want from me?” he asked. “You swore the last transaction was our final one! I can do no more, I cannot take the risk. Messengers have been here. No matter how cautious, how many times removed from your sources, they have been here! If one leaves an address in the wrong surroundings, I’m a dead man!”
   “You’ve done pretty well for the risks you’ve taken,” said Bourne, standing in front of the wheelchair, his mind racing, wondering if there was a word or a phrase that could trigger a flow of information. Then he remembered the envelope. If there was any discrepancy, it had nothing to do with me.
   A fat man at the Drei Alpenhäuser.
   “Minor compared to the magnitude of those risks” Chernak shook his head; his upper chest heaved; the stumps that fell over the chair moved obscenely back and forth. “I was content before you came into my life, mein Herr, for I was minor. An old soldier who made his way to Zurich-– blown up, a cripple, worthless except for certain facts stored away that former comrades paid meagerly to keep suppressed. It was a decent life, not much, but enough. Then you found me. ...”
   “I’m touched,” broke in Jason. “Let’s talk about the envelope--the envelope you passed to our mutual friend at Drei Alpenhäuser. Who gave it to you?”
   “A messenger. Who else?”
   “Where did it come from?”
   “How would I know? It arrived in a box, just like the others. I unpacked it and sent it on. It was you who wished it so. You said you could not come here any longer.”
   “But you opened it.” A statement.
   “Never!”
   “Suppose I told you there was money missing.”
   “Then it was not paid; it was not in the envelope!” The legless man’s voice rose. “However, I don’t believe you. If that were so, you would not have accepted the assignment. But you did accept that assignment. So why are you here now?”
   Because I have to know. Because I’m going out of my mind. I see things and I hear things I do not understand. I’m a skilled, resourceful ... vegetable! Help me!
   Bourne moved away from the chair; he walked aimlessly toward a bookcase where there were several upright photographs recessed against the wall. They explained the man behind him. Groups of German soldiers, some with shepherd dogs, posing outside of barracks and by fences ... and in front of a high-wire gate with part of a name showing. DACH--
   Dachau.
   The man behind him. He was moving! Jason turned; the legless Chernak had his hand in the canvas bag strapped to his chair; his eyes were on fire, his ravaged face contorted. The hand came out swiftly, in it a short-barreled revolver, and before Bourne could reach his own, Chernak fired.
   The shots came rapidly, the icelike pain filling his left shoulder, then head--oh God! He dove to his right, spinning on the rug, shoving a heavy floor lamp toward the cripple, spinning again until he was at the far side of the wheelchair. He crouched and lunged, crashing his right shoulder into Chernak’s back, sending the legless man out of the chair as he reached into his pocket for the gun.
   “They’ll pay for your corpse!” screamed the deformed man, writhing on the floor, trying to steady his slumped body long enough to level his weapon. “You won’t put me in a coffin! I’ll see you there! Carlos will pay! By Christ, he’ll pay!”
   Jason sprang to the left and fired. Chernak’s head snapped back, his throat erupting in blood. He was dead.
   A cry came from the door of the bedroom. It grew in depth, low and hollow, an elongated wail, fear and revulsion weaved into the chord. A woman’s cry ... of course it was a woman! His hostage, his conduit out of Zurich! Oh, Jesus, he could not focus his eyes! His temple was in agony!
   He found his vision, refusing to acknowledge the pain. He saw a bathroom, the door open, towels and a sink and a ... mirrored cabinet. He ran in, pulled the mirror back with such force that it jumped its hinges, crashing to the floor, shattered. Shelves. Rolls of gauze and tape and ... they were all he could grab. He had to get out ... gunshots; gunshots were alarms. He had to get out, take his hostage, and get away! The bedroom, the bedroom. Where was it?
   The cry, the wail ... follow the cry! He reached the door and kicked it open. The woman ... his hostage--what the hell was her name?--was pressed against the wall, tears streaming down her face, her lips parted. He rushed in and grabbed her by the wrist, dragging her out.
   “My God, you killed him!” she cried. “An old man with no--“
   “Shut up!” He pushed her toward the door, opened it, and shoved her into the hallway. He could see blurred figures in open spaces, by railings, inside rooms. They began running, disappearing; he heard doors slam, people shout. He took the woman’s arm with his left hand; the grip caused shooting pains in his shoulder. He propelled her to the staircase and forced her to descend with him, using her for support, his right hand holding the gun.
   They reached the lobby and the heavy door. “Open it!” he ordered; she did. They passed the row of mailboxes to the outside entrance. He released her briefly, opening the door himself, peering out into the street, listening for sirens. There were none. “Come on!” he said, pulling her out to the stone steps and down to the pavement. He reached into his pocket, wincing, and took out the car keys. “Get in!”
   Inside the car he unraveled the gauze, bunching it against the side of his head, blotting the trickle of blood. From deep inside his consciousness, there was a strange feeling of relief. The wound was a graze; the fact that it had been his head had sent him into panic, but the bullet had not entered his skull. It had not entered; there would be no return to the agonies of Port Noir.
   “Goddamn it, start the car! Get out of here!”
   “Where? You didn’t say where.” The woman was not screaming; instead she was calm.
   Unreasonably calm. Looking at him ... was she looking at him?
   He was feeling dizzy again, losing focus again. “Steppdeckstrasse. ...” He heard the word as he spoke it, not sure the voice was his. But he could picture the doorway. Faded dark red paint, cracked glass ... rusted iron. “Steppdeckstrasse,” he repeated.
   What was wrong? Why wasn’t the motor going? Why didn’t the car move forward? Didn’t she hear him?
   His eyes were closed; he opened them. The gun. It was on his lap; he had set it down to press the bandage ... she was hitting it, hitting it! The weapon crashed to the floor; he reached down and she pushed him, sending his head against the window. Her door opened and she leaped out into the street and began running. She was running away! His hostage, his conduit was racing up the Löwenstrasse!
   He could not stay in the car; he dared not try to drive it. It was a steel trap, marking him. He put the gun in his pocket with the roll of tape and grabbed the gauze, clutching it in his left hand, ready to press it against his temple at the first recurrence of blood. He got out and limped as fast as he could down the pavement.
   Somewhere there was a corner, somewhere a taxi. Steppdeckstrasse.
   Marie St. Jacques kept running in the middle of the wide, deserted avenue, in and out of the spills of the streetlamps, waving her arms at the automobiles in the Löwenstrasse. They sped by her. She turned in the wash of headlights behind her, holding up her hands, pleading for attention; the cars accelerated and passed her by. This was Zurich, and the Löwenstrasse at night was too wide, too dark, too near the deserted park and the river Sihl.
   The men in one automobile, however, were aware of her. Its headlights were off, the driver inside having seen the woman in the distance. He spoke to his companion in Schweizerdeutsch.
   “It could be her. This Chernak lives only a block or so down the street.”
   “Stop and let her come closer. She’s supposed to be wearing a silk ... it’s her!”
   “Let’s make certain before we radio the others.”
   Both men got out of the car, the passenger moving discreetly around the trunk to join the driver.
   They wore conservative business suits, their faces pleasant, but serious, businesslike. The panicked woman approached; they walked rapidly into the middle of the street The driver called out.
   “Was ist passiert, Fräulein?”
   “Help me!” she screamed. “I ... I don’t speak German. Nicht sprechen. Call the police! The ...
   Polizei!”
   The driver’s companion spoke with authority, calming her with his voice. “We are with the police,” he said in English. “Zurich Sicherheitpolizei. We weren’t sure, miss. You are the woman from the Carillon du Lac?”
   “Yes!” she cried. “He wouldn’t let me go! He kept hitting me, threatening me with his gun! It was horrible!”
   “Where is he now?”
   “He’s hurt. He was shot I ran from the car ... he was in the car when I ran!” She pointed down the Löwenstrasse. “Over there. Two blocks, I think--in the middle of the block. A coupé, a gray coupé! He has a gun.”
   “So do we, miss,” said the driver. “Come along, get in the back of the car. You’ll be perfectly safe; we’ll be very careful. Quickly, now.”
   They approached the gray coupé, coasting, headlights extinguished. There was no one inside.
   There were, however, people talking excitedly on the pavement and up the stone steps of Number 37. The driver’s associate turned and spoke to the frightened woman pressed into the corner of the rear seat.
   “This is the residence of a man named Chernak. Did he mention him? Did he say anything about going in to see him?”
   “He did go; he made me come with him! He killed him! He killed that crippled old man!”
   “Der Sender--schnell,” said the associate to the driver, as he grabbed a microphone from the dashboard. “Wir sind zwei Strassen von da.” The car bolted forward; the woman gripped the front seat.
   “What are you doing? A man was killed back there!”
   “And we must find the killer,” said the driver. “As you say, he was wounded; he may still be in the area. This is an unmarked vehicle and we could spot him. We’ll wait, of course, to make sure the inspection team arrives, but our duties are quite separate.” The car slowed down, sliding into the curb several hundred yards from Number 37 Löwenstrasse.
   The associate had spoken into the microphone while the driver had explained their official
   position. There was static from the dashboard speaker, then the words “Wir kommen binnen zwanzig
   Minuten. Wartet.”
   “Our superior will be here shortly,” the associate said. “We’re to wait for him. He wishes to speak with you.”
   Marie St. Jacques leaned back in the seat, closing her eyes, expelling her breath. “Oh, God--I wish I had a drink!”
   The driver laughed, nodded to his companion. The associate took out a pint bottle from the glove compartment and held it up, smiling at the woman. “We’re not very chic, miss. We have no glasses or cups, but we do have brandy. For medical emergencies, of course. I think this is one now.
   Please, our compliments.”
   She smiled back and accepted the bottle. “You’re two very nice people, and you’ll never know how grateful I am. If you ever come to Canada, I’ll cook you the best French meal in the province of Ontario.”
   “Thank you, miss,” said the driver.

   Bourne studied the bandage on his shoulder, squinting at the dull reflection in the dirty, streaked mirror, adjusting his eyes to the dim light of the filthy room. He had been right about the Steppdeckstrasse, the image of the faded red doorway accurate, down to the cracked windowpanes and rusted iron railings. No questions had been asked when he rented the room, in spite of the fact that he was obviously hurt. However, a statement had been made by the building manager when Bourne paid him.
   “For something more substantial a doctor can be found who keeps his mouth shut.”
   “I’ll let you know.”
   The wound was not that severe; the tape would hold it until he found a doctor somewhat more reliable than one who practiced surreptitiously in the Steppdeckstrasse.
   If a stress situation results in injury, be aware of the fact that the damage may be as much psychological as physical. You may have a very real revulsion to pain and bodily harm. Don’t take risks, but if there’s time, give yourself a chance to adjust. Don’t panic. ...
   He had panicked; areas of his body had frozen. Although the penetration in his shoulder and the graze at his temple were real and painful, neither was serious enough to immobilize him. He could not move as fast as he might wish or with the strength he knew he had, but he could move deliberately. Messages were sent and received, brain to muscle and limb; he could function.
   He would function better after a rest. He had no conduit now; he had to be up long before daybreak and find another way out of Zurich. The building manager on the first floor liked money; he would wake up the slovenly landlord in an hour or so.
   He lowered himself onto the sagging bed and lay back on the pillow, staring at the naked lightbulb in the ceiling, trying not to hear the words so he could rest. They came anyway, filling his ears like the pounding of kettledrums.
   A man was killed. ...
   But you did accept that assignment. ...
   He turned to the wall, shutting his eyes, blocking out the words. Then other words came and he sat up, sweat breaking out on his forehead.
   They’ll pay for your corpse! ... Carlos will pay! By Christ, he’ll pay!
   Carlos.

   A large sedan pulled up in front of the coupe and parked at the curb. Behind them, at 37 Löwenstrasse, the patrol cars had arrived fifteen minutes ago, the ambulance less than five. Crowds from surrounding flats lined the pavement near the staircase, but the excitement was muted now. A death had occurred, a man killed at night in this quiet section of the Löwenstrasse. Anxiety was uppermost; what had happened at Number 37 could happen at 32 or 40 or 53. The world was going mad, and, Zurich was going with it.
   “Our superior has arrived, miss. May we take you to him, please?” The associate got out of the car and opened the door for Marie St. Jacques.
   “Certainly.” She stepped out on the pavement and felt the man’s hand on her arm; it was so much gentler than the hard grip of the animal who had held the barrel of a gun to her cheek. She shuddered at the memory. They approached the rear of the sedan and she climbed inside. She sat back in the seat and looked at the man beside her. She gasped, suddenly paralyzed, unable to breathe, the man beside her evoking a memory of terror.
   The light from the streetlamps was reflected off the thin gold rims of his spectacles.
   “You! ... You were at the hotel! You were one of them!”
   The man nodded wearily; his fatigue apparent. “That’s right. We’re a special branch of the Zurich police. And before we speak further, I must make it clear to you that at no time during the events of the Carillon du Lac were you in any danger of being harmed by us. We’re trained marksmen; no shots were fired that could have struck you. A number were withheld because you were too close to the man in our sights.”
   Her shock eased, the man’s quiet authority reassuring. “Thank you for that.”
   “It’s a minor talent,” said the official. “Now, as I understand, you last saw him in the front seat of the car back there.”
   “Yes. He was wounded.”
   “How seriously?”
   “Enough to be incoherent. He held some kind of bandage to his head, and there was blood on his shoulder--on the cloth of his coat, I mean. Who is he?”
   “Names are meaningless; he goes by many. But as you’ve seen, he’s a killer. A brutal killer, and he must be found before he kills again. We’ve been hunting him for several years. Many police from many countries. We have the opportunity now none of them has had. We know he’s in Zurich, and he’s wounded. He would not stay in this area, but how far can he go? Did he mention how he expected to get out of the city?”
   “He was going to rent a car. In my name, I gather. He. doesn’t have a driver’s license.”
   “He was lying. He travels with all manner of false papers. You were an expendable hostage. Now, from the beginning, tell me everything he said to you. Where you went, whom he met, whatever comes to mind.”
   “There’s a restaurant, Drei Alpenhäuser, and a large fat man who was frightened to death. ...” Marie St. Jacques recounted everything she could remember. From time to time the police official interrupted, questioning her about a phrase, or reaction, or a sudden decision on the part of the killer. Intermittently he removed his gold spectacles, wiping them absently, gripping the frames as if the pressure controlled his irritation. The interrogation lasted nearly twenty-five minutes; then the official made his decision. He spoke to his driver.
   “Drei Alpenhäuser. Schnell!” He turned to Marie St. Jacques. “We’ll confront that man with his own words. His incoherence was quite intentional. He knows far more than he said at the table.”
   “Incoherence. ...” She said the word softly, remembering her own use of it. “Steppdeck--
   Steppdeckstrasse. Cracked windows, rooms.”
   “What?”
   “ ‘A boardinghouse in the Steppdeckstrasse’ That’s what he said. Everything was happening so fast, but he said it. And just before I jumped out of the car, he said it again. Steppdeckstrasse.” The driver spoke. “Ich kenne diese Strasse. Früher gab es Textilfabriken da.”
   “I don’t understand,” said Marie St. Jacques.
   “It’s a rundown section that has not kept up with the times,” replied the official. “The old fabric mills used to be there. A haven for the less fortunate ... and others. Los!” he ordered.
   They drove off.

8
   A crack. Outside the room. Snaplike, echoing off into a sharp coda, the sound penetrating, diminishing in the distance. Bourne opened his eyes.
   The staircase. The staircase in the filthy hallway outside his room. Someone had been walking up the steps and had stopped, aware of the noise his weight had caused on the warped, cracked wood.
   A normal boarder at the Steppdeckstrasse rooming house would have no such concerns.
   Silence.
   Crack. Now closer. A risk was taken, timing paramount, speed the cover. Jason spun off the bed, grabbing the gun that was by his head, and lunged to the wall by the door. He crouched, hearing the footsteps--one man--the runner, no longer concerned with sound, only with reaching his destination. Bourne had no doubt what it was; he was right.
   The door crashed open; he smashed it back, then threw his full weight into the wood, pinning the intruder against the doorframe, pummeling the man’s stomach, chest, and arm into the recessed edge of the wall. He pulled the door back and lashed the toe of his right foot into the throat below him, reaching down with his left hand, grabbing blond hair and yanking the figure inside. The man’s hand went limp; the gun in it fell to the floor, a long-barreled revolver with a silencer attached.
   Jason closed the door and listened for sounds on the staircase. There were none. He looked down at the unconscious man. Thief? Killer? What was he?
   Police? Had the manager of the boardinghouse decided to overlook the code of the Steppdeckstrasse in search of a reward? Bourne rolled the intruder over and took out a billfold.
   Second nature made him remove the money, knowing it was ludicrous to do so; he had a small fortune on him. He looked at the various credit cards and the driver’s license; he smiled, but then his smile disappeared. There was nothing funny; the names on the cards were different ones, the name on the license matching none. The unconscious man was no police officer.
   He was a professional, come to kill a wounded man in the Steppdeckstrasse. Someone had hired him. Who? Who could possibly know he was there?
   The woman? Had he mentioned the Steppdeckstrasse when he had seen the row of neat houses, looking for Number 37? No, it was not she; he may have said something, but she would not have understood. And if she had, there’d be no professional killer in his room; instead, the rundown boardinghouse would be surrounded by police.
   The image of a large fat man perspiring above a table came to Bourne. That same man had wiped the sweat from his protruding lips and had spoken of the courage of an insignificant goat--who had survived. Was this an example of his survival technique? Had he known about the Steppdeckstrasse?
   Was he aware of the habits of the patron whose sight terrified him? Had he been to the filthy rooming house? Delivered an envelope there?
   Jason pressed his hand to his forehead and shut his eyes. Why can’t I remember? When will the mists
   clear? Will they ever clear?
   Don’t crucify yourself. ...
   Bourne opened his eyes, fixing them on the blond man. For the briefest of moments he nearly burst out laughing; he had been presented with his exit visa from Zurich, and instead of recognizing it, he was wasting time tormenting himself. He put the billfold in his pocket, wedging it behind the Marquis de Chamford’s, picked up the gun and shoved it into his belt, then dragged the unconscious figure over to the bed.
   A minute later the man was strapped to the sagging mattress, gagged by a torn sheet wrapped around his face. He would remain where he was for hours, and in hours Jason would be out of Zurich, compliments of a perspiring fat man.
   He had slept in his clothes. There was nothing to gather up or carry except his topcoat. He put it on, and tested his leg, somewhat after the fact, he reflected. In the heat of the past few minutes he had been unaware of the pain; it was there, as the limp was there, but neither immobilized him. The shoulder was not in as good shape. A slow paralysis was spreading; he had to get to a doctor. His head ... he did not want to think about his head.
   He walked out into the dimly lit hallway, pulled the door closed, and stood motionless, listening.
   There was a burst of laughter from above; he pressed his back against the wall, gun poised. The laughter trailed off; it was a drunk’s laughter--incoherent, pointless.
   He limped to the staircase, held on to the railing, and started down. He was on the third floor of
   the four-story building, having insisted on the highest room when the phrase high ground had come to
   him instinctively. Why had it come to him? What did it mean in terms of renting a filthy room for a single night?
   Sanctuary?
   Stop it!
   He reached the second floor landing, creaks in the wooden staircase accompanying each step. If the manager came out of his flat below to satisfy his curiosity, it would be the last thing he satisfied for several hours.
   A noise. A scratch. Soft fabric moving briefly across an abrasive surface. Cloth against wood.
   Someone was concealed in the short stretch of hallway between the end of one staircase and the beginning of another. Without breaking the rhythm of his walk, he peered into the shadows; there were three recessed doorways in the right wall, identical to the floor above. In one of them ...
   He took a step closer. Not the first; it was empty. And it would not be the last, the bordering wall forming a cul-de-sac, no room to move. It had to be the second, yes, the second doorway. From it a man could rush forward, to his left or right, or throwing a shoulder into an unsuspecting victim, send his target over the railing, plunging down the staircase.
   Bourne angled to his right, shifting the gun to his left hand and reaching into his belt for the weapon with a silencer. Two feet from the recessed door, he heaved the automatic in his left hand into the shadows as he pivoted against the wall.
   “Was ist? ...” An arm appeared; Jason fired once, blowing the hand apart. “Ahh!” The figure lurched out in shock, incapable of aiming his weapon. Bourne fired again, hitting the man in the thigh; he collapsed on the floor, writhing, cringing. Jason took a step forward and knelt, his knee pressing into the man’s chest, his gun at the man’s head. He spoke in a whisper.
   “Is there anyone else down there?”
   “Nein!” said the man, wincing in pain. “Zwei ... two of us only. We were paid.”
   “By whom?”
   “You know.”
   “A man named Carlos?”
   “I will not answer that. Kill me first.”
   “How did you know I was here?”
   “Chernak.”
   “He’s dead.”
   “Now. Not yesterday. Word reached Zurich: you were alive. We checked everyone ... everywhere.
   Chernak knew.”
   Bourne gambled. “You’re lying!” He pushed the gun into the man’s throat. “I never told Chernak about the Steppdeckstrasse.”
   The man winced again, his neck arched. “Perhaps you did not have to. The Nazi pig had informers everywhere. Why should the Steppdeckstrasse be any different? He could describe you.
   Who else could?”
   “A man at the Drei Alpenhäuser.”
   “We never heard of any such man.”
   “Who’s ‘we?’ “
   The man swallowed, his lips stretched in pain. “Businessmen ... only businessmen.”
   “And your service is killing.”
   “You’re a strange one to talk. But, nein. You were to be taken, not killed.”
   “Where?”
   “We would be told by radio. Car frequency.”
   “Terrific,” said Jason flatly. “You’re not only second-rate, you’re accommodating. Where’s your car?”
   “Outside.”
   “Give me the keys.” The radio would identify it.
   The man tried to resist; he pushed Bourne’s knee away and started to roll into the wall. “Nein!”
   “You haven’t got a choice.” Jason brought the handle of the pistol down on the man’s skull. The Swiss collapsed.
   Bourne found the keys--there were three in a leather case--took the man’s gun and put it into his pocket. It was a smaller weapon than the one he held in his hand and had no silencer, lending a degree of credence to the claim that he was to be taken, not killed. The blond man upstairs had been acting as the point, and therefore needed the protection of a silenced gunshot should wounding be required. But an unmuffled report could lead to complications; the Swiss on the second floor was a backup, his weapon to be used as a visible threat.
   Then why was he on the second floor? Why hadn’t he followed his colleague? On the staircase?
   Something was odd, but there was no accounting for tactics, nor the time to consider them. There was a car outside on the street and he had the keys for it.
   Nothing could be disregarded. The third gun.
   He got up painfully and found the revolver he had taken from the Frenchman in the elevator at the Gemeinschaft Bank. He pulled up his left trouser leg and inserted the gun under the elasticized fabric of his sock. It was secure.
   He paused to get his breath and his balance, then crossed to the staircase, aware that the pain in
   his left shoulder was suddenly more acute, the paralysis spreading more rapidly. Messages from brain
   to limb were less clear. He hoped to God he could drive.
   He reached the fifth step and abruptly stopped, listening as he had listened barely a minute ago for sounds of concealment. There was nothing; the wounded man may have been tactically deficient, but he had told the truth. Jason hurried down the staircase. He would drive out of Zurich-– somehow--and find a doctor--somewhere.
   He spotted the car easily. It was different from the other shabby automobiles on the street. An outsized, well-kept sedan, and he could see the bulge of an antenna base riveted into the trunk. He walked to the driver’s side and ran his hand around the panel and left front fender; there was no alarm device.
   He unlocked the door, then opened it, holding his breath in case he was wrong about the alarm; he was not. He climbed in behind the wheel, adjusting his position until he was as comfortable as he could be, grateful that the car had an automatic shift. The large weapon in his belt inhibited him. He placed it on the seat beside him, then reached for the ignition, assuming the key that had unlocked the door was the proper one.
   It was not. He tried the one next to it, but it, too, would not fit. For the trunk, he assumed. It was the third key.
   Or was it? He kept stabbing at the opening. The key would not enter; he tried the second again; it was blocked. Then the first. None of the keys would fit into the ignition! Or were the messages from brain to limb to fingers too garbled, his coordination too inadequate! Goddamn it! Try again!
   A powerful light came from his left, burning his eyes, blinding him. He grabbed for the gun, but a second beam shot out from the right; the door was yanked open and a heavy flashlight crashed down on his hand, another hand taking the weapon from the seat.
   “Get out!” The order came from his left, the barrel of a gun pressed into his neck.
   He climbed out, a thousand coruscating circles of white in his eyes. As vision slowly came back to him, the first thing he saw was the outline of two circles. Gold circles; the spectacles of the killer who had hunted him throughout the night. The man spoke.
   “They say in the laws of physics that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. The behavior of certain men under certain conditions is similarly predictable. For a man like you one sets up a gauntlet, each combatant told what to say if he falls. If he does not fall, you are taken. If he does, you are misled, lulled into a false sense of progress.”
   “It’s a high degree of risk,” said Jason. “For those in the gauntlet.”
   “They’re paid well. And there’s something else--no guarantee, of course, but it’s there. The enigmatic Bourne does not kill indiscriminately. Not out of compassion, naturally, but for a far more practical reason. Men remember when they’ve been spared; he infiltrates the armies of others.
   Refined guerrilla tactics applied to a sophisticated battleground. I commend you.”
   “You’re a horse’s ass.” It was all Jason could think to say. “But both your men are alive, if that’s what you want to know.”
   Another figure came into view, led from the shadows of the building by a short, stocky man. It was the woman; it was Marie St. Jacques.
   “That’s him,” she said softly, her look unwavering.
   “Oh, my God. ...” Bourne shook his head in disbelief. “How was it done, Doctor?” he asked her, raising his voice. “Was someone watching my room at the Carillon? Was the elevator timed, the others shut down? You’re very convincing. And I thought you were going to crash into a police car.”
   “As it turned out,” she replied, “it wasn’t necessary. These are the police.” Jason looked at the killer in front of him; the man was adjusting his gold spectacles. “I commend you,” he said.
   “A minor talent,” answered the killer. “The conditions were right. You provided them.”
   “What happens now? The man inside said I was to be taken, not killed.”
   “You forget. He was told what to say.” The Swiss paused. “So this is what you look like. Many of us have wondered during the past two or three years. How much speculation there’s been! How many contradictions! He’s tall, you know; no, he’s of medium height. He’s blond; no, he has dark black hair. Very light blue eyes, of course; no, quite clearly they are brown. His features are sharp; no, they’re really quite ordinary, can’t pick him out in a crowd. But nothing was ordinary. It was all extraordinary.”
   Your features have been softened, the character submerged. Change your hair, you change your face ... Certain types of contact lenses are designed to alter the color of the eyes. ... Wear glasses, you’re a different man.. Visas, passports ... switched at will.
   The design was there. Everything fit. Not all the answers, but more of the truth than he wanted to hear.
   “I’d like to get this over with,” said Marie St. Jacques, stepping forward. “I’ll sign whatever I have to sign--at your office, I imagine. But then I really must get back to the hotel. I don’t have to tell you what I’ve been through tonight.”
   The Swiss glanced at her through his gold-rimmed glasses. The stocky man who had led her out of the shadows took her arm. She stared at both men, then down at the hand that held her.
   Then at Bourne. Her breathing stopped, a terrible realization becoming clear. Her eyes grew wide.
   “Let her go,” said Jason. “She’s on her way back to Canada. You’ll never see her again.”
   “Be practical, Bourne. She’s seen us. We two are professionals; there are rules.” The man flicked his gun up under Jason’s chin, the barrel pressed once more into Bourne’s throat. He ran his left hand about his victim’s clothes, felt the weapon in Jason’s pocket and took it out. “I thought as much,” he said, and turned to the stocky man. “Take her in the other car. The Limmat.” Bourne froze. Marie St. Jacques was to be killed, her body thrown into the Limmat River.
   “Wait a minute!” Jason stepped forward; the gun was jammed into his neck, forcing him back into the hood of the car. “You’re being stupid! She works for the Canadian government. They’ll be all over Zurich.”
   “Why should that concern you? You won’t be here.”
   “Because it’s a waste!” cried Bourne. “We’re professiona ls, remember?”
   “You bore me.” The killer turned to the stocky man. “Geh! Schnell. Guisan Quai!”
   “Scream your goddamn head off!” shouted Jason. “Start yelling! Don’t stop!” She tried, the scream cut short by a paralyzing blow to her throat. She fell to the pavement as her would-be executioner dragged her toward a small nondescript black sedan.
   “That was stupid,” said the killer, peering through his gold-rimmed spectacles into Bourne’s face.
   “You only hasten the inevitable. On the other hand, it will be simpler now. I can free a man to tend to our wounded. Everything’s so military, isn’t it? It really is a battlefield.” He turned to the man with the flashlight “Signal Johann to go inside. We’ll come back for them.” The flashlight was switched on and off twice. A fourth man, who had opened the door of the small sedan for the condemned woman, nodded. Marie St. Jacques was thrown into the rear seat, the door slammed shut. The man named Johann started for the concrete steps, nodding now at the executioner.
   Jason felt sick as the engine of the small sedan was gunned and the car bolted away from the curb into the Steppdeckstrasse, the twisted chrome bumper disappearing into the shadows of the street.
   Inside that car was a woman he had never seen in his life ... before three hours ago. And he had killed her. “You don’t lack for soldiers,” he said.
   “If there were a hundred men I could trust, I’d pay them willingly. As they say, your reputation precedes you.”
   “Suppose I paid you. You were at the bank; you know I’ve got funds.”
   “Probably millions, but I wouldn’t touch a franc note.”
   “Why? Are you afraid?”
   “Most assuredly. Wealth is relative to the amount of time one has to enjoy it. I wouldn’t have five minutes.” The killer turned to his subordinate. “Put him inside. Strip him. I want photographs taken of him naked--before and after he leaves us. You’ll find a great deal of money on him; I want him holding it. I’ll drive.” He looked again at Bourne. “Carlos will get the first print. And I have no doubt that I’ll be able to sell the others quite profitably on the open market. Magazines pay outrageous prices.”
   “Why should ‘Carlos’ believe you? Why should anyone believe you? You said it: no one knows what I look like.”
   “I’ll be covered,” said the Swiss. “Sufficient unto the day. Two Zurich bankers will step forward identifying you as one Jason Bourne. The same Jason Bourne who met the excessively rigid standards set by Swiss law for the release of a numbered account. It will be enough.” He spoke to the gunman. “Hurry! I have cables to send. Debts to collect.” A powerful arm shot over Bourne’s shoulder, vicing his throat in a hammerlock. The barrel of a gun was jolted into his spine, pain spreading throughout his chest as he was dragged inside the sedan. The man holding him was a professional; even without his wounds it would have been impossible to break the grip. The gunman’s expertise, however, did not satisfy the bespectacled leader of the hunt. He climbed behind the wheel and issued another command.
   “Break his fingers,” he said.
   The armlock briefly choked off Jason’s air as the barrel of the gun crashed down repeatedly on his hand--hands. Instinctively, Bourne had swung his left hand over his right, protecting it. As the blood burst from the back of his left, he twisted his fingers, letting it flow between them until both hands were covered. He choked his screams; the grip lessened; he shouted.
   “My hands! They’re broken!”
   “Gut.”
   But they were not broken; the left was damaged to the point where it was useless; not the right.
   He moved his fingers in the shadows; his hand was intact.
   The car sped down the Steppdeckstrasse and swung into a sidestreet, heading south. Jason collapsed back in the seat, gasping. The gunman tore at his clothes, ripping his shirt, yanking at his belt. In seconds his upper body would be naked; passport, papers, cards, money no longer his, all the items intrinsic to his escape from Zurich taken from him. It was now or it was not to be. He screamed.
   “My leg! My goddamned leg!” He lurched forward, his right hand working furiously in the dark, fumbling under the cloth of his trouser leg. He felt it. The handle of the automatic.
   “Nein!” roared the professional in the front. “Watch him!” He knew; it was instinctive knowledge.
   It was also too late. Bourne held the gun in the darkness of the floor; the powerful soldier pushed him back. He fell with the blow, the revolver, now at his waist, pointed directly at his attacker’s chest.
   He fired twice; the man arched backward. Jason fired again, his aim sure, the heart punctured; the man fell over into the recessed jump seat.
   “Put it down!” yelled Bourne, swinging the revolver over the rounded edge of the front seat, pressing the barrel into the base of the driver’s skull. “Drop it!” His breathing erratic, the killer let the gun fall. “We will talk,” he said, gripping the wheel. “We are professionals. We will talk.” The large automobile lurched forward, gathering speed, the driver increasing pressure on the accelerator.
   “Slow down!”
   “What is your answer?” The car went faster. Ahead were the headlights of traffic; they were leaving the Steppdeckstrasse district, entering the busier city streets. “You want to get out of Zurich, I can get you out. Without me, you can’t. All I have to do is spin the wheel, crash into the pavement.
   I have nothing whatsoever to lose, Herr Bourne. There are police everywhere up ahead. I don’t think you want the police.”
   “We’ll talk,” lied Jason. Everything was timing, split-second timing. There were now two killers in a speeding enclosure that was in itself a trap. Neither killer was to be trusted; both knew it. One had to make use of that extra half-second the other would not take.’ Professionals. “Put on the brakes,” said Bourne.
   “Drop your gun on the seat next to mine.”
   Jason released the weapon. It fell on top of the killer’s, the ring of heavy metal proof of contact.
   “Done.”
   The killer took his foot off the accelerator, transferring it to the brake. He applied the pressure slowly, then in short stabs so that the large automobile pitched back and forth. The jabs on the pedal would become more pronounced; Bourne understood this. It was part of the driver’s strategy, balance a factor of life and death.
   The arrow on the speedometer swung left: 30 kilometers, 18 kilometers, 9 kilometers. They had nearly stopped; it was the moment for the extra half-second of effort--balance a factor, life in balance.
   Jason grabbed the man by the neck, clawing at his throat, yanking him up off the seat. Then he raised his bloody left hand and thrust it forward, smearing the area of the killer’s eyes. He released the throat. surging his right hand down toward the guns on the seat. Bourne gripped a handle, shoving the killer’s hand away; the man screamed, his vision blurred, the gun out of reach. Jason lunged across the man’s chest, pushing him down against the door, elbowing the killer’s throat with his left arm, grabbing the wheel with his bloody palm. He looked up through the windshield and turned the wheel to the right, heading the car toward a pyramid of trash on the pavement.
   The automobile plowed into the mound of debris--a huge, somnambulant insect crawling into garbage, its appearance belying the violence taking place inside its shell.
   The man beneath him lunged up, rolling on the seat. Bourne held the automatic in his hand, his fingers jabbing for the open space of the trigger. He found it. He bent his wrist and fired.
   His would-be executioner went limp, a dark red hole in his forehead.
   In the street, men came running toward what must have looked like a dangerously careless accident.. Jason shoved the dead body across the seat and climbed over behind the wheel. He pushed the gearshift into reverse; the sedan backed awkwardly out of the debris, over the curb and into the street. He rolled down his window, calling out to the would-be rescuers as they approached.
   “Sorry! Everything’s fine! Just a little too much to drink!”
   The small band of concerned citizens broke up quickly, a few making gestures of admonition, others running back to their escorts and companions. Bourne breathed deeply, trying to control the involuntary trembling that seized his entire body. He pulled the gear into drive; the car started forward. He tried to picture the streets of Zurich from a memory that would not serve him.
   He knew vaguely where he was-where he had been-and more important, he knew more clearly where the Guisan Quai was in relationship to the Limmat.
   Geh! Schnell. Guisan Quai!
   Marie St. Jacques was to be killed on the Guisan Quai, her body thrown into the river. There was only one stretch where the Guisan and the Limmat met: it was at the mouth of Lake Zurich, at the base of the western shore. Somewhere in an empty parking lot or a deserted garden overlooking the water, a short, stocky man was about to carry out an execution ordered by a dead man. Perhaps by now the gun had been fired, or a knife plunged into its mark; there was no way to know, but Jason knew he had to find out. Whoever and whatever he was, he could not walk away blindly.
   The professional in him, however, demanded that he swerve into the dark wide alley ahead.
   There were two dead men in the car; they were a risk and a burden he could not tolerate. The precious seconds it would take to remove them could avoid the danger of a traffic policeman looking through the windows and seeing death.

   Thirty-two seconds was his guess; it had taken less than a minute to pull his would-be executioners from the car. He looked at them as he limped around the hood to the door. They were curled up obscenely next to one another against a filthy brick wall. In darkness.
   He climbed behind the wheel and backed out of the alley.
   Geh! Schnell. Guisan Quai!