20
   The limousine was parked between two streetlamps, diagonally across from the heavy ornamental doors of the brownstone. In the front seat sat a uniformed chauffeur, such a driver at the wheel of such a vehicle not an uncommon sight on the tree-lined street. What was unusual, however, was the fact that two other men remained in the shadows of the deep back seat, neither making any move to get out. Instead, they watched the entrance of the brownstone, confident that they could not be picked up by the infrared beam of a scanning camera.
   One man adjusted his glasses, the eyes beyond his thick lenses owl-like, flatly suspicious of most of what they surveyed. Alfred Gillette, director of Personnel Screening and Evaluation for the National Security Council, spoke. “How gratifying to be there when arrogance collapses. How much more so to be the instrument.”
   “You really dislike him, don’t you?” said Gillette’s companion, a heavy-shouldered man in a black raincoat whose accent was derived from a Slavic language somewhere in Europe.
   “I loathe him. He stands for everything I hate in Washington. The right schools, houses in Georgetown, farms in Virginia, quiet meetings at their clubs. They’ve got their tight little world and you don’t break in--they run it all. The bastards. The superior, self-inflated gentry of Washington.
   They use other men’s intellects, other men’s work, wrapping it all into decisions bearing their imprimaturs. And if you’re on the outside, you become part of that amorphous entity, a ‘damn fine staff.’ “ “You exaggerate,” said the European, his eyes on the brownstone. “You haven’t done badly down there. We never would have contacted you otherwise.” Gillette scowled. “If I haven’t done badly, it’s because I’ve become indispensable to too many like David Abbott. I have in my head a thousand facts they couldn’t possibly recall. It’s simply easier for them to place me where the questions are, where problems need solutions. Director of Personnel Screening and Evaluation! They created that title, that post, for me. Do you know why?”
   “No, Alfred,” replied the European, looking at his watch, “I don’t know why.”
   “Because they don’t have the patience to spend hours poring over thousands of résumés and dossiers. They’d rather be dining at Sans Souci, or preening in front of Senate committees, reading from pages prepared by others--by those unseen, unnamed ‘damn fine staffs.’ “ “You’re a bitter man,” said the European.
   “More than you’ll know. A lifetime doing the work those bastards should have done for themselves. And for what? A title and an occasional lunch where my brains are picked between the shrimp and the entrée! By men like the supremely arrogant David Abbott; they’re nothing without people like me.”
   “Don’t underestimate the Monk. Carlos doesn’t.”
   “How could he? He doesn’t know what to evaluate. Everything Abbott does is shrouded in secrecy; no one knows how many mistakes he’s made. And if any come to light, men like me are blamed for them.”
   The European shifted his gaze from the window to Gillette. “You’re very emotional, Alfred,” he said coldly. “You must be careful about that.”
   The bureaucrat smiled. “It never gets in the way: I believe my contributions to Carlos bear that out. Let’s say I’m preparing myself for a confrontation I wouldn’t avoid for anything in the world.”
   “An honest statement,” said the heavy-shouldered man.
   “What about you? You found me.”
   “I knew what to look for.” The European returned to the window.
   “I mean you. The work you do. For Carlos.”
   “I have no such complicated reasoning. I come out of a country where educated men are promoted at the whim of morons who recite Marxist litany by rote. Carlos, too, knew what to look for.”
   Gillette laughed, his flat eyes close to shining. “We’re not so different after all. Change the bloodlines of our Eastern establishment for Marx and there’s a distinct parallel.”
   “Perhaps,” agreed the European, looking again at his watch. “It shouldn’t be long now. Abbott always catches the midnight shuttle, his every hour accounted for in Washington.”
   “You’re sure he’ll come out alone?”
   “He always does, and he certainly wouldn’t be seen with Elliot Stevens. Webb and Stevens will also leave separately; twenty-minute intervals is standard for those called in.”
   “How did you find Treadstone?”
   “It wasn’t so difficult. You contributed, Alfred; you were part of a damn fine staff.” The man laughed, his eyes on the brownstone. “Cain was out of Medusa, you told us that, and if Carlos’ suspicions are accurate, that meant the Monk, we knew that; it tied him to Bourne. Carlos instructed us to keep Abbott under twenty-four-hour surveillance; something had gone wrong. When the gunshots in Zurich were heard in Washington, Abbott got careless. We followed him here. It was merely a question of persistence.”
   “That led you to Canada? To the man in Ottawa?”
   “The man in Ottawa revealed himself by looking for Treadstone. When we learned who the girl was, we had the Treasury Board watched, her section watched. A call came from Paris; it was she, telling him to start a search. We don’t know why, but we suspect Bourne may be trying to blow Treadstone apart. If he’s turned, it’s one way to get out and keep the money. It doesn’t matter.
   Suddenly, this section head no one outside the Canadian government had ever heard of was transformed into a problem of the highest priority. Intelligence communiqués were burning the wires. It meant Carlos was right; you were right, Alfred. There is no Cain. He’s an invention, a trap.”
   “From the beginning,” insisted Gillette. “I told you that. Three years of false reports, sources unverified. It was all there.”
   “From the beginning,” mused the European. “Undoubtedly the Monk’s finest creation ... until something happened and the creation turned. Everything’s turning; it’s all coming apart at the seams.”
   “Stevens’ being here confirms that. The president insists on knowing.”
   “He has to. There’s a nagging suspicion in Ottawa that a section head at the Treasury Board was killed by American Intelligence.” The European turned from the window and looked at the bureaucrat. “Remember, Alfred, we simply want to know what happened. I’ve given you the facts as we’ve learned them; they’re irrefutable and Abbott cannot deny them. But they must be presented as having been obtained independently by your own sources. You’re appalled. You demand an accounting; the entire intelligence community has been duped.”
   “It has!” exclaimed Gillette. “Duped and used. No one in Washington knows about Bourne, about Treadstone. They’ve excluded everyone; it is appalling. I don’t have to pretend. Arrogant bastards!”
   “Alfred,” cautioned the European, holding up his hand in the shadows, “do remember whom you’re working for. The threat cannot be based on emotion, but in cold professional outrage. He’ll suspect you instantly; you must dispel those suspicions just as swiftly. You are the accuser, not he.”
   “I’ll remember.”
   “Good.” Headlight beams bounced through the glass. “Abbott’s taxi is here. I’ll take care of the driver.” The European reached to his right and flipped a switch beneath the armrest. “I’ll be in my car across the street, listening.” He spoke to the chauffeur. “Abbott will be coming out any moment now. You know what to do.”
   The chauffeur nodded. Both men got out of the limousine simultaneously. The driver walked around the hood as if to escort a wealthy employer to the south side of the street. Gillette watched through the rear window; the two men stayed together for several seconds, then separated, the European heading for the approaching cab, his hand held up, a bill between his fingers. The taxi would be sent away; the caller’s plans had changed. The chauffeur had raced to the north side of the street and was now concealed in the shadows of a staircase two doors away from Treadstone Seventy-One.
   Thirty seconds later Gillette’s eyes were drawn to the door of the brownstone. Light spilled through as an impatient David Abbott came outside, looking up and down the street, glancing at his watch, obviously annoyed. The taxi was late and he had a plane to catch; precise schedules had to be followed. Abbott walked down the steps, turning left on the pavement, looking for the cab, expecting it. In seconds he would pass the chauffeur. He did, both men well out of camera range.
   The interception was quick, the discussion rapid. In moments, a bewildered David Abbott climbed inside the limousine and the chauffeur walked away into the shadows.
   “You!” said the Monk, anger and disgust in his voice. “Of all people, you.”
   “I don’t think you’re in any position to be disdainful ... much less arrogant.”
   “What you’ve done! How dare you? Zurich. The Medusa records. It was you!”
   “The Medusa records, yes. Zurich, yes. But it’s not a question of what I’ve done; it’s what you’ve done. We sent our own men to Zurich, telling them what to look for. We found it. His name is Bourne, isn’t it? He’s the man you call Cain. The man you invented.” Abbott kept himself in check. “How did you find this house?”
   “Persistence. I had you followed.”
   “You had me followed? What the hell did you think you were doing?”
   “Trying to set a record straight. A record you’ve warped and lied about, keeping the truth from the rest of us. What did you think you were doing?”
   “Oh, my God, you damn fool!” Abbott inhaled deeply. “Why did you do it? Why didn’t you come to me yourself?’
   “Because you’d have done nothing. You’ve manipulated the entire intelligence community.
   Millions of dollars, untold thousands of man hours, embassies and stations fed lies and distortions about a killer that never existed. Oh, I recall your words--what a challenge to Carlos! What an irresistible trap is what it was! Only we were your pawns too, and as a responsible member of the Security Council, I resent it deeply. You’re all alike. Who elected you God so you could break the rules--no, not just the rules, the laws--and make us look like fools?”
   “There was no other way,” said the old man wearily, his face a drawn mass of crevices in the dim light. “How many know? Tell me the truth.”
   “I’ve contained it. I gave you that.”
   “It may not be enough. Oh, Christ!”
   “It may not last, period,” said the bureaucrat emphatically. “I want to know what happened.”
   “What happened?”
   “To this grand strategy of yours. It seems to be ... falling apart at the seams.”
   “Why do you say that?”
   “It’s perfectly obvious. You’ve lost Bourne; you can’t find him. Your Cain has disappeared with a fortune banked for him in Zurich.”
   Abbott was silent for a moment. “Wait a minute. What put you on to it?”
   “You,” said Gillette quickly, the prudent man rising to the baited question. “I must say I admired your control when that ass from the Pentagon spoke so knowingly of Operation Medusa ... sitting directly across from the man who created it.”
   “History.” The old man’s voice was strong now. “That wouldn’t have told you anything.”
   “Let’s say it was rather unusual for you not to say anything. I mean, who at that table knew more about Medusa than you? But you didn’t say a word, and that started me thinking. So I objected strenuously to the attention being paid this assassin, Cain. You couldn’t resist, David. You had to offer a very plausible reason to continue the search for Cain. You threw Carlos into the hunt.”
   “It was the truth,” interrupted Abbott.
   “Certainly it was; you knew when to use it and I knew when to spot it. Ingenious. A snake pulled out of Medusa’s head, groomed for a mythical title. The contender jumps into the champion’s ring to draw the champion out of his corner.”
   “It was sound, sound from the beginning.”
   “Why not? As I say, it was ingenious, even down to every move made by his own people against Cain. Who better to relay those moves to Cain but the one man on the Forty Committee who’s given reports on every covert operations conference. You used us all!” The Monk nodded. “Very well. To a point you’re right, there’ve been degrees of abuse--in my opinion, totally justified--but it’s not what you think. There are checks and balances; there always are, I wouldn’t have it any other way. Treadstone is comprised of a small group of men among the most trustworthy in the government. They range from Army G-Two to the Senate, from the CIA to Naval Intelligence, and now, frankly, the White House. Should there be any true abuse, there’s not one of them that would hesitate to put a stop to the operation. None has ever seen fit to do so, and I beg you not to do so either.”
   “Would I be made part of Treadstone?”
   “You are part of it now.”

   “I see. What happened? Where is Bourne?”
   “I wish to God we knew. We’re not even sure it is Bourne.”
   “You’re not even sure of what?”
   “I see. What happened? Where Is Bourne?”
   “I wish to God we knew. We’re not even sure it is Bourne.”
   “You’re not even sure of what?”
   The European reached for the switch on the dashboard and snapped it off. “That’s it,” he said.
   “That’s what we had to know.” He turned to the chauffeur beside him. “Quickly, now. Get beside the staircase. Remember, if one of them comes out, you have precisely three seconds before the door is closed. Work fast.”
   The uniformed man got out first; he walked up the pavement toward Treadstone Seventy-One.
   From one of the adjacent brownstones, a middle-aged couple were saying loud goodbyes to their hosts. The chauffeur slowed down, reached into his pocket for a cigarette and stopped to light it. He was now a bored driver, whiling away the hours of a tedious vigil. The European watched, then unbuttoned his raincoat and withdrew a long, thin revolver, its barrel enlarged by a silencer. He switched off the safety, shoved the weapon back into his holster, got out of the car and walked across the street toward the limousine. The mirrors had been angled properly; by staying in the blind spot there was no way either man inside could see him approach. The European paused briefly for the rear trunk, then swiftly, hand extended, lunged for the right front door, opened it and spun inside, leveling his weapon over the seat.
   Alfred Gillette gasped, his left hand surging for the door handle; the European snapped the four-way lock. David Abbott remained immobile, staring at the invader.
   “Good evening, Monk,” said the European. “Another, whom I’m told often assumes a religious habit, sends you his congratulations. Not only for Cain, but for your household personnel at Treadstone. The Yachtsman, for instance. Once a superior agent.” Gillette found his voice; it was a mixture of a scream and a whisper. “What is this? Who are you?” he cried, feigning ignorance.
   “Oh come now, old friend. That’s not necessary,” said the man with the gun. “I can see by the expression on Mr. Abbott’s face that he realizes his initial doubts about you were accurate. One should always trust one’s first instincts, shouldn’t one, Monk? You were right, of course. We found another discontented man; your system reproduces them with alarming rapidity. He, indeed, gave us the Medusa files, and they did, indeed, lead us to Bourne.”
   “What are you doing?!” screamed Gillette. “What are you saying!”
   “You’re a bore, Alfred. But you were always part of a damn fine staff. It’s too bad you didn’t know which staff to stay with; your kind never do.”
   “You! ...” Gillette rose bodily off the seat, his face contorted.
   The European fired his weapon, the cough from the barrel echoing briefly in the soft interior of the limousine. The bureaucrat slumped over, his body crumbling to the floor against the door, owl-eyes wide in death.
   “I don’t think you mourn him,” said the European.
   “I don’t,” said the Monk.
   “It is Bourne out there, you know. Cain turned; he broke. The long period of silence is over. The snake from Medusa’s head decided to strike out on his own. Or perhaps he was bought. That’s possible too, isn’t it? Carlos buys many men, the one at your feet now, for example.”
   “You’ll learn nothing from me. Don’t try.”
   “There’s nothing to learn. We know it all. Delta, Charlie ... Cain. But the names aren’t important any longer, they never were, really. All that remains is the final isolation--removing of the man-monk who makes the decisions. You. Bourne is trapped. He’s finished.”
   “There are others who make decisions. He’ll reach them.”
   “If he does, they’ll kill him on sight. There’s nothing more despicable than a man who’s turned, but in order for a man to turn, there has to be irrefutable proof that he was yours to begin with.
   Carlos has the proof; he was yours, his origins as sensitive as anything in the Medusa files.” The old man frowned; he was frightened, not for his life, but for something infinitely more indispensable. “You’re out of your mind,” he said. “There is no proof.”
   “That was the flaw, your flaw. Carlos is thorough; his tentacles reach into all manner of hidden recesses. You needed a man from Medusa, someone who had lived and disappeared. You chose a man named Bourne because the circumstances of his disappearance had been obliterated, eliminated from every existing record--or so you believed. But you didn’t consider Hanoi’s own field personnel who had infiltrated Medusa; those records exist. On March 25, 1968, Jason Bourne was executed by an American Intelligence officer in the jungles of Tam Quan.” The Monk lunged forward; there was nothing left but a final gesture, a final defiance. The European fired.

   The door of the brownstone opened. From the shadows beneath the staircase the chauffeur smiled. The White House aide was being escorted out by the old man who lived at Treadstone, the one they called the Yachtsman; the killer knew that meant the primary alarms were off. The three-second span was eliminated.
   “So good of you to drop by,” said the Yachtsman, shaking hands.
   “Thank you very much, sir.”
   Those were the last words either man spoke. The chauffeur aimed above the walled brick railing, pulling the trigger twice, the muffled reports indistinguishable from the myriad of distant sounds of the city. The Yachtsman fell back inside the White House aide clutched his upper chest, reefing into the door frame. The chauffeur spun around the brick railing and raced up the steps, catching Stevens’ body as it plummeted down. With bull-like strength, the killer lifted the White House man off his feet, hurling him back through the door into the foyer beyond the Yachtsman. Then he turned to the interior border of the heavy, steel-plated door. He knew what to look for; he found it.
   Along the upper molding, disappearing into the wall, was a thick cable, stained the color of the doorframe. He closed the door part way, raised his gun and fired into the cable. The spit was followed by an eruption of static and sparks; the security cameras were blown out, screens everywhere now dark.
   He opened the door to signal; it was not necessary. The European was walking rapidly across the quiet street. Within seconds he had climbed the steps and was inside, glancing around the foyer and the hallway--the door at the end of the hallway. Together both men lifted a rug from the foyer floor, the European closing the door on its edge, welding cloth and steel together so that a two-inch space remained, the security bolts still in place. No backup alarms could be raised.
   They stood erect in silence; both knew that if the discovery was going to be made, it would be made quickly. It came with the sound of an upstairs door opening, followed by footsteps and words that floated down the staircase in a cultured female voice.
   “Darling! I just noticed, the damn camera’s on the fritz. Would you check it, please?” There was a pause; then the woman spoke again. “On second thought why not tell David?” Again the pause, again with precise timing. “Don’t bother the Jesuit, darling. Tell David!” Two footsteps. Silence. A rustle of cloth. The European studied the stairwell. A light went out.
   David. Jesuit ... Monk!
   “Get her!” he roared at the chauffeur, spinning around, his weapon leveled at the door at the end of the hallway. The uniformed man raced up the staircase; there was a gunshot; it came from a powerful weapon--unmuffled, unsilenced. The European looked up; the chauffeur was holding his shoulder, his coat drenched with blood, his pistol held out, spitting repeatedly up the well of the stairs.
   The door at the end of the hallway was yanked open, the major standing there in shock, a file folder in his hand. The European fired twice; Gordon Webb arched backward, his throat torn open, the papers in the folder flying out behind him. The man in the raincoat raced up the steps to the chauffeur; above, over the railing, was the gray-haired woman, dead, blood spilling out of her head and neck. “Are you all right? Can you move?” asked the European.
   The chauffeur nodded. “The bitch blew half my shoulder off, but I can manage.”
   “You have to!” commanded his superior, ripping off his raincoat. “Put on my coat. I want the Monk in here! Quickly!”
   “Jesus! ...”
   “Carlos wants the Monk in here!”
   Awkwardly the wounded man put on the black raincoat and made his way down the staircase around the bodies of the Yachtsman and the White House aide. Carefully, in pain, he let himself out the door and down the front steps.
   The European watched him, holding the door, making sure the man was sufficiently mobile for the task. He was; he was a bull whose every appetite was satisfied by Carlos. The chauffeur would carry David Abbott’s corpse back into the brownstone, no doubt supporting it as though helping an aging drunk for the benefit of anyone in the street; and then he would somehow contain his bleeding long enough to drive Alfred Gillette’s body across the river, burying him in a swamp.
   Carlos’ men were capable of such things; they were all bulls. Discontented bulls who had found their own causes in a single man.
   The European turned and started down the hallway; there was work to do. The final isolation of the man called Jason Bourne.

   It was more than could be hoped for, the exposed files a gift beyond belief. Included were folders containing every code and method of communication ever used by the mythical Cain. Now not so mythical, thought the European as he gathered the papers together. The scene was set, the four corpses in position in the peaceful, elegant library. David Abbott was arched in a chair, his dead eyes
   in shock, Elliot Stevens at his feet; the Yachtsman was slumped over the hatch table, an overturned bottle of whiskey in his hand, while Gordon Webb sprawled on the floor, clutching his briefcase.
   Whatever violence had taken place, the setting indicated that it had been unexpected; conversations interrupted by abrupt gunfire.
   The European walked around in suede gloves, appraising his artistry, and it was artistry. He had dismissed the chauffeur, wiped every door handle, every knob, every gleaming surface of wood. It was time for the final touch. He walked to a table where there were brandy glasses on a silver tray, picked one up and held it to the light; as he expected, it was spotless. He put it down and took out a small, flat, plastic case from his pocket. He opened it and removed a strip of transparent tape, holding it, too, up to the light. There they were, as clear as portraits--for they were portraits, as undeniable as any photograph.
   They had been taken off a glass of Perrier, removed from an office at the Gemeinschaft Bank in Zurich. They were the fingerprints of Jason Bourne’s right hand.
   The European picked up the brandy glass and, with the patience of the artist he was, pressed the tape around the lower surface, then gently peeled it off. Again he held the glass up; the prints were seen in dull perfection against the light of the table lamp.
   He carried the glass over to a corner of the parquet floor and dropped it. He knelt down, studied the fragments, removed several, and brushed the rest under the curtain.
   They were enough.

21
   “Later,” said Bourne, throwing their suitcases on the bed. “We’ve got to get out of here.” Marie sat in the armchair. She had reread the newspaper article again, selecting phrases, repeating them. Her concentration was absolute; she was consumed, more and more confident of her analysis.
   “I’m right, Jason. Someone is sending us a message.”
   “We’ll talk about it later; we’ve stayed here too long as it is. That newspaper’ll be all over this hotel in an hour, and the morning papers may be worse. It’s no time for modesty; you stand out in a hotel lobby, and you’ve been seen in this one by too many people. Get your things.” Marie stood up, but made no other move. Instead, she held her place and forced him to look at her. “We’ll talk about several things later,” she said firmly. “You were leaving me, Jason, and I want to know why.”
   “I told you I’d tell you,” he answered without evasion, “because you have to know and I mean that. But right now I want to get out of here. Get your things, goddamn it!” She blinked, his sudden anger having its effect. “Yes, of course,” she whispered.
   They took the elevator down to the lobby. As the worn marble floor came into view, Bourne had the feeling they were in a cage, exposed and vulnerable; if the machine stopped, they would be taken. Then he understood why the feeling was so strong. Below on the left was the front desk, the concierge sitting behind it, a pile of newspapers on the counter to his right. They were copies of the same tabloid Jason had put in the attaché case Marie was now carrying. The concierge had taken one; he was reading it avidly; poking a toothpick between his teeth, oblivious to everything but the latest scandal.
   “Walk straight through,” said Jason. “Don’t stop, just go right to the door. I’ll meet you outside.”
   “Oh, my God,” she whispered, seeing the concierge.
   “I’ll pay him as quickly as I can.”
   The sound of Marie’s heels on the marble floor was a distraction Bourne did not want. The concierge looked up as Jason moved in front of him, blocking his view.
   “It’s been very pleasant,” he said in French, “but I’m in a great hurry. I have to drive to Lyon tonight. Just round out the figure to the nearest five hundred francs. I haven’t had time to leave gratuities.”
   The financial distraction accomplished its purpose. The concierge reached his totals quickly, he presented the bill. Jason paid it and bent down for the suitcases, glancing up at the sound of surprise that exploded from the concierge’s gaping mouth. The man was staring at the pile of newspapers on his right, his eyes on the photograph of Marie St. Jacques. He looked over at the glass doors of the entrance; Marie stood on the pavement. He shifted his astonished gaze to Bourne; the connection was made, the man inhibited by sudden fear.
   Jason walked rapidly toward the glass doors, angling his shoulder to push them open, glancing back at the front desk. The concierge was reaching for a telephone.
   “Let’s go!” he cried to Marie. “Look for a cab!”
   They found one on rue Lecourbe, five blocks from the hotel. Bourne feigned the role of an inexperienced American tourist, employing the inadequate French that had served him so well at the Valois Bank. He explained to the driver that he and his petite amie wanted to get out of central Paris for a day or so, someplace where they could be alone. Perhaps the driver could suggest several places and they would choose one.
   The driver could and did. “There’s a small inn outside Issy-les-Moulineaux, called La Maison Carrée,” he said. “Another in Ivry sur Seine, you might like. It’s very private, monsieur. Or perhaps the Auberge du Coin in Montrouge; it’s very discreet.”
   “Let’s take the first,” said Jason. “It’s the first that came to your mind. How long will it take?”
   “No more than fifteen, twenty minutes, monsieur.”
   “Good.” Bourne turned to Marie and spoke softly. “Change your hair.”
   “What?”
   “Change your hair. Pull it up or push it back, I don’t care, but change it. Move out of sight of his mirror. Hurry up!”
   Several moments later Marie’s long auburn hair was pulled severely back, away from her face and neck, fastened with the aid of a mirror and hairpins from her purse into a tight chignon. Jason looked at her in the dim light. “Wipe off your lipstick. All of it.” She took out a tissue and did so. “All right?”
   “Yes. Have you got an eyebrow pencil?”
   “Of course.”
   “Thicken your eyebrows; just a little bit. Extend them about a quarter of an inch; curve the ends down just a touch.”
   Again she followed his instructions. “Now?” she asked.
   “That’s better,” he replied, studying her. The changes were minor but the effect major. She had been subtly transformed from a softly elegant, striking woman into a harsher image. At the least, she was not on first sight the woman in the newspaper photograph and that was all that mattered.
   “When we reach Moulineaux,” he whispered, “get out quickly and stand up. Don’t let the driver see you.”
   “It’s a little late for that, isn’t it?”
   “Just do as I say.”
   Listen to me. I am a chameleon called Cain and I can teach you many things I do not care to teach you, but at the moment I must. I can change my color to accommodate any backdrop in the forest, I can shift with the wind by smelling it. I can find my way through the natural and the manmade jungles. Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta. ... Delta is for Charlie and Charlie is for Cain. I am Cain. I am death. And I must tell you who I am and lose you.
   “My darling, what is it?”
   “What?”
   “You’re looking at me; you’re not breathing. Are you all right?”
   “Sorry,” he said, glancing away, breathing again. “I’m figuring out our moves. I’ll know better what to do when we get there.”
   They arrived at the inn. There was a parking lot bordered by a post-and-rail fence on the right; several late diners came out of the lattice-framed entrance in front. Bourne leaned forward in the seat.
   “Let us off inside the parking area, if you don’t mind,” he ordered, offering no explanation for the odd request.
   “Certainly, monsieur,” said the driver, nodding his head, then shrugging, his movements conveying the fad that his passengers were, indeed, a cautious couple. The rain had subsided, returning to a mistlike drizzle. The taxi drove off. Bourne and Marie remained in the shadows of the foliage at the side of the inn until it disappeared. Jason put the suitcases down on the wet ground.
   “Wait here,” he said.
   “Where are you going?”
   “To phone for a taxi.”
   The second taxi took them into the Montrouge district. This driver was singularly unimpressed by the stern-faced couple who were obviously from the provinces, and probably seeking cheaper lodgings. When and if he picked up a newspaper and saw a photograph of a French-Canadiènne involved with murder and theft in Zurich, the woman in his back seat now would not come to mind.
   The Auberge du Coin did not live up to its name. It was not a quaint village inn situated in a secluded nook of the countryside. Instead, it was a large, flat, two-story structure a quarter of a mile off the highway. If anything, it was reminiscent of motels the world over that blighted the outskirts of cities; commerciality guaranteeing the anonymity of their guests. It was not hard to imagine various appointments by the scores that were best left to erroneous registrations.
   So they registered erroneously and were given a plastic room where every accessory worth over twenty francs was bolted into the floor or attached with headless screws to lacquered formica. There was, however, one positive feature to the place; an ice machine down the hall. They knew it worked because they could hear it. With the door closed.
   “All right, now. Who would be sending us a message?” asked Bourne, standing, revolving the glass of whiskey in his hand.
   “If I knew, I’d get in touch with them,” she said, sitting at the small desk, chair turned, legs crossed, watching him closely. “It could be connected with why you were running away.”
   “If it was, it was a trap.”
   “It was no trap. A man like Walther Apfel didn’t do what he did to accommodate a trap.”
   “I wouldn’t be so sure of that.” Bourne walked to the single plastic armchair and sat down.
   “Koenig did; he marked me right there in the waiting room.”
   “He was a bribed foot-soldier, not an officer of the bank. He acted alone. Apfel wouldn’t.”
   Jason looked up. “What do you mean?”
   “Apfel’s statement had to be cleared by his superiors. It was made in the name of the bank.”
   “If you’re so sure, let’s call Zurich.”
   “They don’t want that. Either they haven’t the answer or they can’t give it. Apfel’s last words were that they would have no further comment. To anyone. That, too, was part of the message.
   We’re to contact someone else.”
   Bourne drank; he needed the alcohol, for the moment was coming when he would begin the story of a killer named Cain. “Then were back to whom?” he said. “Back to the trap.”
   “You think you know who it is, don’t you?” Marie reached for her cigarettes on the desk. “It’s why you were running, isn’t it?”
   “The answer to both questions is yes.” The moment had come. The message was sent by Carlos. I am Cain and you must leave me. I must lose you. But first there is Zurich and you have to understand. “That article was planted to find me.”
   “I won’t argue with that,” she broke in, surprising him with the interruption. “I’ve had time to think; they know the evidence is false--so patently false it’s ridiculous. The Zurich police fully expect me to get in touch with the Canadian Embassy now--“ Marie stopped, the unlit cigarette in her hand. “My God, Jason, that’s what they want us to do!”
   “Who wants us to do?”
   “Whoever’s sending us the message. They know I have no choice but to call the embassy, get the protection of the Canadian government. I didn’t think of it because I’ve already spoken to the embassy, to what’s his name--Dennis Corbelier--and he had absolutely’ nothing to tell me. He only did what I asked him to do; there was nothing else. But that was yesterday, not today, not tonight.” Marie started for the telephone on the bedside table.
   Bourne rose quickly from the chair and intercepted her, holding her arm. “Don’t” he said firmly.
   “Why not?”
   “Because you’re wrong.”
   “I’m right, Jason! Let me prove it to you.”
   Bourne moved in front of her. “I think you’d better listen to what I have to say.”
   “No!” she cried, startling him. “I don’t want to hear it. Not now!”
   “An hour ago in Paris it was the only thing you wanted to hear. Hear it!”
   “No! An hour ago I was dying. You’d made up your mind to run. Without me. And I know now it will happen over and over again until it stops for you. You hear words, you see images, and fragments of things come back to you that you can’t understand, but because they’re there you condemn yourself. You always will condemn yourself until someone proves to you that whatever you were ... there are others using you, who will sacrifice you. But there’s also someone else out there who wants to help you, help us. That’s the message! I know I’m right I want to prove it to you. Let me!”
   Bourne held her arms in silence, looking at her face, her lovely face filled with pain and useless hope, her eyes pleading. The terrible ache was everywhere within him. Perhaps it was better this way; she would see for herself, and her fear would make her listen, make her understand. There was nothing for them any longer. I am Cain ... “All right, you can make the call, but its got to be done my way.” He released her and went to the telephone; he dialed the Auberge du Coin’s front desk. “This is room 341. I’ve just heard from friends in Paris; they’re coming out to join us in a while. Do you have a room down the hall for them? Fine. Their name is Briggs, an American couple. I’ll come down and pay in advance and you can let me have the key. Splendid. Thank you.”
   “What are you doing?”
   “Proving something to you,” he said. “Get me a dress,” he continued. “The longest one you’ve got.”
   “What?”
   “If you want to make your call, you’ll do as I tell you.”
   “You’re crazy.”
   “I’ve admitted that,” he said, taking trousers and a shirt from his suitcase. “The dress, please.” Fifteen minutes later, Mr. and Mrs. Briggs’ room, six doors away and across the hall from room 341, was in readiness. The clothes had been properly placed, selected lights left on, others not functioning because the bulbs had been removed.
   Jason returned to their room; Marie was standing by the telephone. “We’re set.”
   “What have you done?”
   “What I wanted to do; what I had to do. You can make the call now.”
   “It’s very late. Suppose he isn’t there?”
   “I think he will be. If not, they’ll give you his home phone. His name was in the telephone logs in Ottawa; it had to be.”
   “I suppose it was.”
   “Then he will have been reached. Have you gone over what I told you to say?”
   “Yes, but it doesn’t matter; it’s not relevant. I know I’m not wrong.”
   “We’ll see. Just say the words I told you. I’ll be right beside you listening. Go ahead.” She picked up the phone and dialed. Seven seconds after she reached the embassy switchboard, Dennis Corbelier was on the line. It was quarter past one in the morning.
   “Christ almighty, where are you?”
   “You were expecting me to call, then?”
   “I was hoping to hell you would! This place is in an uproar. I’ve been waiting here since five o’clock this afternoon.”
   “So was Alan. In Ottawa.”
   “Alan who? What are you talking about? Where the hell are you?”
   “First I want to know what you have to tell me.”
   “Tell you?”
   “You have a message for me, Dennis. What is it?”
   “What is what? What message?”
   Marie’s face went pale. “I didn’t kill anyone in Zurich. I wouldn’t ...”
   “Then for God’s sake,” interrupted the attaché, “get in here! We’ll give you all the protection we can. No one can touch you here!”
   “Dennis, listen to me! You’ve been waiting there for my call, haven’t you?”
   “Yes, of course.”
   “Someone told you to wait, isn’t that true?”
   A pause. When Corbelier spoke, his voice was subdued. “Yes, he did. They did.”
   “What did they tell you?”
   “That you need our help. Very badly.”
   Marie resumed breathing. “And they want to help us?”
   “By us,” replied Corbelier, “you’re saying he’s with you, then?”
   Bourne’s face was next to hers, his head angled to hear Corbelier’s words. He nodded.
   “Yes,” she answered. “We’re together, but he’s out for a few minutes. It’s all lies; they told you that, didn’t they?”
   “All they said was that you had to be found, protected. They do want to help you: they want to send a car for you. One of ours. Diplomatic.”
   “Who are they?”
   “I don’t know them by name; I don’t have to. I know their rank.”
   “Rank?”
   “Specialists, FS-Five. You don’t get much higher than that.”
   “You trust them?”
   “My God, yes! They reached me through Ottawa. Their orders came from Ottawa.”
   “They’re at the embassy now?”
   “No, they’re outposted.” Corbelier paused, obviously exasperated. “Jesus Christ, Marie--where are you?”
   Bourne nodded again, she spoke.
   “We’re at the Auberge du Coin in Montrouge. Under the name of Briggs.”
   “I’ll get that car to you right away.”
   “No, Dennis!” protested Marie, watching Jason, his eyes telling her to follow his instructions.
   “Send one in the morning. First thing in the morning--four hours from now, if you like.”
   “I can’t do that! For your own sake.”
   “You have to; you don’t understand. He was trapped into doing something and he’s frightened; he wants to run. If he knew I called you, he’d be running now. Give me time. I can convince him to turn himself in. Just a few more hours. He’s confused, but underneath he knows I’m right.” Marie said the words, looking at Bourne.
   “What kind of a son of a bitch is he?”
   “A terrified one,” she answered. “One who’s being manipulated. I need the time. Give it to me.”
   “Marie ...?” Corbelier stopped. “All right, first thing in the morning. Say ... six o’clock. And, Marie, they want to help you. They can help you.”
   “I know. Good night.”
   “Good night.”
   Marie hung up.
   “Now, we’ll wait,” Bourne said.
   “I don’t know what you’re proving. Of course he’ll call the FS-Fives, and of course they’ll show up here. What do you expect? He as much as admitted what he was going to do, what he thinks he has to do.”
   “And these diplomatic FS-Fives are the ones sending us the message?”
   “My guess is they’ll take us to who is. Or if those sending it are too far away, they’ll put us in touch with them. I’ve never been surer of anything in my professional life.” Bourne looked at her. “I hope you’re right, because it’s your whole life that concerns me. If the evidence against you in Zurich isn’t part of any message, if it was put there by experts to find me--if the Zurich police believe it--then I’m that terrified man you spoke about to Corbelier. No one wants you to be right more than I do. But I don’t think you are.”

   At three minutes past two, the lights in the motel corridor flickered and went out, leaving the long hallway in relative darkness, the spill from the stairwell the only source of illumination. Bourne stood by the door of their room, pistol in hand, the lights turned off, watching the corridor through a crack between the door’s edge and the frame. Marie was behind him, peering over his shoulder; neither spoke.
   The footsteps were muffled, but there. Distinct, deliberate, two sets of shoes cautiously climbing the staircase. In seconds, the figures of two men could be seen emerging our of the dim light. Marie gasped involuntarily; Jason reached. over his shoulder, his hand gripping her mouth harshly. He understood; she had recognized one of the two men, a man she had seen only once before. In Zurich’s Steppdeckstrasse, minutes before another had ordered her execution. It was the blond man they had sent up to Bourne’s room, the expendable scout brought now to Paris to spot the target he had missed. In his left hand was a small pencil light, in his right a long-barreled gun, swollen by a silencer.
   His companion was shorter, more compact, his walk not unlike an animal’s tread, shoulders and waist moving fluidly with his legs. The lapels of his topcoat were pulled up, his head covered by a narrow-brimmed hat, shading his unseen face. Bourne stared at this man; there was something familiar about him, about the figure, the walk, the way he carried his head. What was it? What was it?
   He knew him.
   But there was not time to think about it; the two men were approaching the door of the room reserved in the name of Mr. and Mrs. Briggs. The blond man held his pencil light on the numbers, then swept the beam down toward the knob and the lock.
   What followed was mesmerizing in its efficiency. The stocky man held a ring of keys in his right hand, placing it under the beam of light, his fingers selecting a specific key. In his left hand he gripped a weapon, its shape In the spill revealing an outsized silencer for a heavy-calibered automatic, not unlike the powerful Sternlicht Luger favored by the Gestapo in World War Two. It could cut through webbed steel and concrete, its sound no more than a rheumatic cough, ideal for taking enemies of the state at night in quiet neighborhoods, nearby residents unaware of any disturbance, only of disappearance in the morning.
   The shorter man inserted the key, turned it silently, then lowered the barrel of the gun to the lock. Three rapid coughs accompanied three flashes of light; the wood surrounding any bolts shattered. The door fell free; the two killers rushed inside.
   There were two beats of silence, then an eruption of muffled gunfire, spits and white flashes from the darkness. The door was slammed shut; it would not stay closed, falling back as louder sounds of thrashing and collision came from within the room. Finally a light was found; it was snapped on briefly, then shot out in fury, a lamp sent crashing to the floor, glass shattering. A cry of frenzy exploded from the throat of an infuriated man.
   The two killers rushed out, weapons leveled, prepared for a trap, bewildered that there was none.
   They reached the staircase and raced down as a door to the right of the invaded room opened. A blinking guest peered out, then shrugged and went back inside. Silence returned to the darkened hallway.
   Bourne held his place, his arm around Marie St. Jacques. She was trembling, her head pressed into his chest, sobbing quietly, hysterically, in disbelief. He let the minutes pass, until the trembling subsided and deep breaths replaced the sobs. He could not wait any longer; she had to see for herself. See completely, the impression indelible; she had to finally understand. I am Cain. I am death.
   “Come on,” he whispered.
   He led her out into the hallway, guiding her firmly toward the room that was now his ultimate proof. He pushed the broken door open and they walked inside.
   She stood motionless, both repelled and hypnotized by the sight. In an open doorway on the right was the dim silhouette of a figure, the light behind it so muted only the outline could be seen, and only then when the eyes adjusted to the strange admixture of darkness and glow. It was the figure of a woman in a long gown, the fabric moving gently in the breeze of an open window.
   Window. Straight ahead was a second figure, barely visible but there, its shape an obscure blot indistinctly outlined by the wash of light from the distant highway. Again, it seemed to move, brief, spastic flutterings of cloth--of arms.
   “Oh, God,” said Marie, frozen. “Turn on the lights, Jason.”
   “None of them work,” he replied. “Only two table lamps; they found one.” He walked across the room cautiously and reached the lamp he was looking for; it was on the floor against the wall. He knelt down and turned it on; Marie shuddered.
   Strung across the bathroom door, held in place by threads torn from a curtain, was her long dress, rippling from an unseen source of wind. It was riddled with bullet holes.
   Against the far window, Bourne’s shirt and trousers had been tacked to the frame, the panes by both sleeves smashed, the breeze rushing in, causing the fabric to move up and down. The white cloth of the shirt was punctured in a half-dozen places, a diagonal line of bullets across the chest.
   “There’s your message,” said Jason. “Now you know what it is. And now I think you’d better listen to what I have to say.”
   Marie did not answer him. Instead, she walked slowly to the dress, studying it as if not believing what she saw. Without warning, she suddenly spun around, her eyes guttering, the tears arrested.
   “No! It’s wrong! Something’s terribly wrong! Call the embassy.”
   “What?”
   “Do as I say. Now!”
   “Stop it, Marie. You’ve got to understand.”
   “No, goddamn you! You’ve got to understand! It wouldn’t happen this way. It couldn’t.”
   “It did.”
   “Call the embassy! Use that phone over there and call it now! Ask for Corbelier. Quickly, for God’s sake! If I mean anything to you, do as I ask!”
   Bourne could not deny her. Her intensity was killing both herself and him. “What do I tell him?” he asked, going to the telephone.
   “Get him first! That’s what I’m afraid of ... oh, God. I’m frightened!”
   “What’s the number?”
   She gave it to him; he dialed, holding on interminably for the switchboard to answer. When it finally did, the operator was in panic, her words rising and falling, at moments incomprehensible. In the background he could hear shouts, sharp commands voiced rapidly in English and in French.
   Within seconds he learned why.
   Dennis Corbelier, Canadian attaché, had walked down the steps of the embassy on the avenue Montaigne at 1:40 in the morning and had been shot in the throat. He was dead.
   “There’s the other part of the message, Jason,” whispered Marie, drained, staring at him. “And now I’ll listen to anything you have to say. Because there is someone out there trying to reach you, trying to help you. A message was sent, but not to us, not to me. Only to you, and only you were to understand it.”

22
   One by one the four men arrived at the crowded Hilton Hotel on Sixteenth Street in Washington, D.C. Each went to a separate elevator, taking it two or three floors above or below his destination, walking the remaining flights to the correct level. There was no time to meet outside the limits of the District of Columbia; the crisis was unparalleled. These were the men of Treadstone Seventy-One-– those that remained alive. The rest were dead, slaughtered in a massacre on a quiet, tree-lined street in New York.
   Two of the faces were familiar to the public, one more than the other. The first belonged to the aging senator from Colorado, the second was Brigadier General I. A. Crawford--Irwin Arthur, freely translated as Iron Ass--acknowledged spokesman for Army Intelligence and defender of the G-2 data ba nks. The other two men were virtually unknown except within the corridors of their own operations. One was a middle-aged naval officer, attached to information Control, 5th Naval District. The fourth and last man was a forty-six-year-old veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency, a slender, coiled spring of anger who walked with a cane. His foot had been blown off by a grenade in Southeast Asia; he had been a deep-cover agent with the Medusa operation at the time. His name was Alexander Conklin.
   There was no conference table in the room; it was an ordinary double occupancy with the standard twin beds, a couch, two armchairs, and a coffee table. It was an unlikely spot to hold a meeting of such consequence; there were no spinning computers to light up dark screens with green letters, no electronic communications equipment that would reach consoles in London or Paris or Istanbul. It was a plain hotel room, devoid of everything but four minds that held the secrets of Treadstone Seventy-One.
   The senator sat on one end of the couch, the naval officer at the other. Conklin lowered himself into an armchair, stretching his immobile limb out in front of him, the cane between his legs, while Brigadier General Crawford remained standing, his face flushed, the muscles of his jaw pulsing in anger.
   “I’ve reached the president,” said the senator, rubbing his forehead, the lack of sleep apparent in his bearing. “I had to; we’re meeting tonight. Tell me everything you can, each of you. You begin, General. What in the name of God happened?”
   “Major Webb was to meet his car at 2300 hours on the corner of Lexington and Seventy-second Street. The time was firm, but he didn’t show up. By 2330 the driver became alarmed because of the distance to the airfield in New Jersey. The sergeant remembered the address--mainly because he’d been told to forget it--drove around and went to the door. The security bolts had been jammed and the door just swung open; all the alarms had been shorted out. There was blood on the foyer floor, the dead woman on the staircase. He walked down the hallway into the operations room and found the bodies.”
   “That man deserves a very quiet promotion,” said the naval officer.
   “Why do you say that?” asked the senator.
   Crawford replied. “He had the presence of mind to call the Pentagon and insist on speaking with covert transmissions, domestic. He specified the scrambler frequency, the time and the place of reception, and said he had to speak with the sender. He didn’t say a word to anyone until he got me on the phone.”
   “Put him in the War College, Irwin,” said Conklin grimly, holding his cane. “He’s brighter than most of the clowns you’ve got over there.”
   “That’s not only unnecessary, Conklin,” admonished the senator, “but patently offensive. Go on, please, General.”
   Crawford exchanged looks with the CIA man. “I reached Colonel Paul McClaren in New York, ordered him over there, and told him to do absolutely nothing until I arrived. I then phoned Conklin and George here, and we flew up together.”
   “I called a Bureau print team in Manhattan,” added Conklin. “One we’ve used before and can trust. I didn’t tell them what we were looking for, but I told them to sweep the place and give what they found only to me.” The CIA man stopped, lifting his cane in the direction of the naval officer.
   “Then George fed them thirty-seven names, all men whose prints we knew were in the FBI files.
   They came up with the one set we didn’t expect, didn’t want ... didn’t believe.”
   “Delta’s,” said the senator.
   “Yes,” concurred the naval officer. “The na mes I submitted were those of anyone--no matter how remote--who might have learned the address of Treadstone, including, incidentally, all of us.
   The room had been wiped clean; every surface; every knob, every glass--except one. It was a broken brandy glass, only a few fragments in the corner under a curtain, but it was enough. The prints were there: third and index fingers, right hand.”
   “You’re absolutely positive?” asked the senator slowly.
   “The prints can’t lie, sir,” said the officer. “They were there, moist brandy still on the fragments.
   Outside of this room, Delta’s the only one who knows about Seventy-first Street.”
   “Can we be sure of that? The others may have said something.”
   “No possibility,” interrupted the brigadier general. “Abbott would never have revealed it, and Elliot Stevens wasn’t given the address until fifteen minutes before he got there, when he called from a phone booth. Beyond that, assuming the worst, he would hardly ask for his own execution.”
   “What about Major Webb?” pressed the senator.
   “The major,” replied Crawford, “was radioed the address solely by me after he landed at Kennedy Airport. As you know, it was a G-Two frequency and scrambled. I remind you, he also lost his life.”
   “Yes, of course.” The aging senator shook his head. “It’s unbelievable. Why?”
   “I should like to bring up a painful subject,” said Brigadier General Crawford. “At the outset I was not enthusiastic about the candidate. I understood David’s reasoning and agreed he was qualified, but if you recall, he wasn’t my choice.”
   “I wasn’t aware we had that many choices,” said the senator. “We had a man--a qualified man, as you agreed--who was willing to go in deep cover for an indeterminate length of time, risking his life every day, severing all ties with his past. How many such men exist?”
   “We might have found a more balanced one,” countered the brigadier. “I pointed that out at the time.”
   “You pointed out,” corrected Conklin, “your own definition of a balanced man, which I, at the time, pointed out was a crock.”
   “We were both in Medusa, Conklin,” said Crawford angrily yet reasonably. “You don’t have exclusive insights. Delta’s conduct in the field was continuously and overtly hostile to command. I was in a position to observe that pattern somewhat more clearly than you.”
   “Most of the time he had every right to be. If you’d spent more time in the field and less in Saigon you would have understood that. I understood it.”
   “It may surprise you,” said the brigadier, holding his hand up in a gesture of truce, “but I’m not defending the gross stupidities often rampant in Saigon--no one could. I’m trying to describe a pattern of behavior that could lead to the night before last on Seventy-first Street.” The CIA man’s eyes remained on Crawford; his hostility vanished as he nodded his head. “I know you are. Sorry. That’s the crux of it, isn’t it? It’s not easy for me; I worked with Delta in half a dozen sectors, was stationed with him in Phnom Penh before Medusa was even a gleam in the Monk’s eye. He was never the same after Phnom Penh; it’s why he went into Medusa, why he was willing to become Cain.”
   The senator leaned forward on the couch. “I’ve heard it, but tell me again. The president has to know everything.”
   “His wife and two children were killed on a pier in the Mekong River, bombed and strafed by a stray aircraft--nobody knew which side’s--the identity never uncovered. He hated that war, hated everybody in it. He snapped.” Conklin paused, looking at the brigadier. “And I think you’re right, General. He snapped again. It was in him.”
   “What was?” asked the senator sharply.
   “The explosion, I guess,” said Conklin. “The dam burst. He’d gone beyond his limits and the hate took over. It’s not hard; you have to be very careful. He killed those men, that woman, like a madman on a deliberate rampage. None of them expected it except perhaps the woman who was upstairs, and she probably heard the shouts. He’s not Delta anymore. We created a myth called Cain, only it’s not a myth any longer. It’s really him.”
   “After so many months ...” The senator leaned back, his voice trailing off. “Why did he come back? From where?”
   “From Zurich,” answered Crawford. “Webb was in Zurich, and I think he’s the only one who could have brought him back. The ‘why’ we may never know unless he expected to catch all of us there.”
   “He doesn’t know who we are,” protested the senator. “His only contacts were the Yachtsman, his wife, and David Abbott.”
   “And Webb, of course,” added the general.
   “Of course,” agreed the senator. “But not at Treadstone, not even him.”
   “It wouldn’t matter,” said Conklin, tapping the rug once with his cane. “He knows there’s a
   board; Webb might have told him we’d all be there, reasonably expecting that we would. We’ve got a
   lot of questions--six months’ worth, and now several million dollars. Delta would consider it the perfect solution. He could take us and disappear. No traces.”
   “Why are you so certain?”
   “Because, one, he was there,” replied the intelligence man, raising his voice. “We have his prints on a glass of brandy that wasn’t even finished. And, two, it’s a classic trap with a couple of hundred variations.”
   “Would you explain that?”
   “You remain silent,” broke in the general, watching Conklin, “until your enemy can’t stand it any longer and exposes himself.”
   And we’ve become the enemy? His enemy?”
   “There’s no question about it now,” said the naval officer. “For whatever reasons, Delta’s turned.
   It’s happened before--thank heaven not very often. We know what to do.”
   The senator once more leaned forward on the couch. “What will you do?”
   “His photograph has never been circulated,” explained Crawford. “We’ll circulate it now. To every station and listening post, every source and informant we have. He has to go somewhere, and he’ll start with a place he knows, if only to buy another identity. He’ll spend money; he’ll be found.
   When he is, the orders will be clear.”
   “You’ll bring him in at once?”
   “We’ll kill him,” said Conklin simply. “You don’t bring in a man like Delta, and you don’t take the risk that another government will. Not with what he knows.”
   “I can’t tell the president that. There are laws.”
   “Not for Delta,” said the agent. “He’s beyond the laws. He’s beyond salvage.”
   “Beyond--“
   “That’s right, Senator,” interrupted the general. “Beyond salvage. I think you know the meaning of the phrase. You’ll have to make the decision whether or not to define it for the president. It might be better to--“ “You’ve got to explore everything,” said the senator, cutting off the officer. “I spoke to Abbott last week. He told me a strategy was in progress to reach Delta. Zurich, the bank, the naming of Treadstone; it’s all part of it, isn’t it?”
   “It is, and it’s over,” said Crawford. “If the evidence on Seventy-first Street isn’t enough for you, that should be. Delta was given a clear signal to come in. He didn’t. What more do you want?”
   “I want to be absolutely certain.”
   “I want him dead.” Conklin’s words, though spoken softly, had the effect of a sudden, cold wind.
   “He not only broke all the rules we each set down for ourselves--no matter what--but he sunk into the pits. He reeks; he is Cain. We’ve used the name Delta so much--not even Bourne, but Delta-– that I think we’ve forgotten. Gordon Webb was his brother. Find him. Kill him.”

BOOK III

23
   It was ten minutes to three in the morning when Bourne approached the Auberge du Coin’s front desk, Marie continuing directly to the entrance. To Jason’s relief, there were no newspapers on the counter, but the late night clerk behind it was in the same mold as his predecessor in the center of Paris. He was a balding, heavy-set man with half-closed eyes, leaning back in a chair, his arms folded in front of him, the weary depression of his interminable night hanging over him. But this night, thought Bourne, would be one he’d remember for a long time to come--beyond the damage to an upstairs room, which would not be discovered until morning. A relief night clerk in Montrouge had to have transportation.
   “I’ve just called Rouen,” said Jason, his hands on the counter, an angry man, furious with uncontrollable events in his personal world. “I have to leave at once and need to rent a car.”
   “Why not?” snorted the man, getting out of the chair. “What would you prefer, monsieur? A golden chariot or a magic carpet?”
   “I beg your pardon?”
   “We rent rooms, not automobiles.”
   “I must be in Rouen before morning.”
   “Impossible. Unless you find a taxi crazy enough at this hour to take you.”
   “I don’t think you understand. I could sustain considerable losses and embarrassment if I’m not at my office by eight o’clock. I’m willing to pay generously.”
   “You have a problem, monsieur.”
   “Surely there’s someone here who would be willing to lend me his car for, say ... a thousand, fifteen hundred francs.”
   “A thousand ... fifteen hundred, monsieur?” The clerk’s half-closed eyes widened until his skin was taut. “In cash, monsieur?”
   “Naturally. My companion would return it tomorrow evening.”
   “There’s no rush, monsieur.”
   “I beg your pardon? Of course, there’s really no reason why I couldn’t hire a taxi. Confidentiality can be paid for.”
   “I wouldn’t know where to reach one,” interrupted the clerk in persuasive frenzy. “On the other hand, my Renault is not so new, perhaps, and perhaps, not the fastest machine on the road, but it is a serviceable car, even a worthy car.”
   The chameleon had changed his colors again, ha d been accepted again for someone he was not.
   But he knew now who he was and he understood.
   Daybreak. But there was no warm room at a village inn, no wallpaper mottled by the early light streaking through a window, filtered by the weaving leaves outside. Rather, the first rays of the sun spread up from the east, crowning the French countryside, defining the fields and hills of Saint-Germain-en-Laye. They sat in the small car parked off the shoulder of a deserted back road, cigarette smoke curling out through the partially open windows.
   He had begun that first narrative in Switzerland with the words My life began six months ago on a small island in the Mediterranean called Ile de Port Noir. ...
   He had begun this with a quiet declaration: I’m known as Cain.
   He had told it all, leaving out nothing he could remember, including the terrible images that had exploded in his mind when he had heard the words spoken by Jacqueline Lavier in the candlelabraed restaurant in Argenteuil. Names, incidents, cities ... assassinations.
   “Everything fit. There wasn’t anything I didn’t know, nothing that wasn’t somewhere in the back of my head, trying to get out. It was the truth.”
   “It was the truth,” repeated Marie.
   He looked closely at her. “We were wrong, don’t you see?”
   “Perhaps. But also right. You were right, and I was right.”
   “About what?”
   “You. I have to say it again, calmly and logically. You offered your life for mine before you knew me; that’s not the decision of a man you’ve described. If that man existed, he doesn’t any longer.” Marie’s eyes pleaded, while her voice remained controlled. “You said it, Jason. ‘What a man can’t remember doesn’t exist. For him.’ Maybe that’s what you’re faced with. Can you walk away from it?” Bourne nodded; the dreadful moment had come. “Yes,” he said. “But alone. Not with you.” Marie inhaled on her cigarette, watching him, her hand trembling. “I see. That’s your decision, then?”
   “It has to be.”
   “You will heroically disappear so I won’t be tainted.”
   “I have to.”
   “Thank you very much, and who the hell do you think you are?”
   “What?”
   “Who the hell do you think you are?”
   “I’m a man they call Cain. I’m wanted by governments--by the police--from Asia to Europe.
   Men in Washington want to kill me because of what they think I know about this Medusa, an assassin named Carlos wants me shot in the throat because of what I’ve done to him. Think about it for a moment. How long do you think I can keep running before someone in one of those armies out there finds me, traps me, kills me? Is that the way you want your life to end?”
   “Good God, no!” shouted Marie, something obviously very much on her analytical mind. “I intend to rot in a Swiss prison for fifty years or be hanged for things I never did in Zurich!”
   “There’s a way to take care of Zurich. I’ve thought about it; I can do it.”
   “How?” She stabbed out her cigarette in the ashtray.
   “For God’s sake, what difference does it make? A confession. Turning myself in, I don’t know yet, but I can do it! I can put your life back together. I have to put it back!”
   “Not that way.”
   “Why not?”
   Marie reached for his face, her voice now soft once more, the sudden stridency gone. “Because I’ve just proved my point again. Even the condemned man--so sure of his own guilt--should see it.
   The man called Cain would never do what you just offered to do. For anyone.”
   “I am Cain!”
   “Even if I were forced to agree that you were, you’re not now.”
   “The ultimate rehabilitation? A self-induced lobotomy? Total loss of recall? That happens to be the truth, but it won’t stop anyone who’s looking for me. It won’t stop him--them--from. pulling a trigger.”
   “That happens to be the worst, and I’m not ready to concede it.”
   “Then you’re not looking at the facts.”
   “I’m looking at two facts you seem to have disregarded. I can’t. I’ll live with them for the rest of my life because I’m responsible. Two men were killed in the same brutal way because they stood between you and a message someone was trying to send you. Through me.”
   “You saw Corbelier’s message. How many bullet holes were there? Ten, fifteen?”
   “Then he was used! You heard him on the phone and so did I. He wasn’t lying; he was trying to help us. If not you, certainly me.”
   “It’s ... possible.”
   “Anything’s possible. I have no answers, Jason, only discrepancies, things that can’t be explained--that should be explained. You haven’t once, ever, displayed a need or a drive for what you say you might have been. And without those things a man like that couldn’t be. Or you couldn’t be him.”
   “I’m him.”
   “Listen to me. You’re very dear to me, my darling, and that could blind me, I know it. But I also know something about myself. I’m no wide-eyed flower child; I’ve seen a share of this world, and I look very hard and very closely at those who attract me. Perhaps to confirm what I like to think are my values--and they are values. Mine, nobody else’s.” She stopped for a moment and moved away from him. “I’ve watched a man being tortured--by himself and by others--and he won’t cry out.
   You may have silent screams, but you won’t let them be anyone else’s burden but your own. Instead, you probe and dig and try to understand. And that, my friend, is not the mind of a cold-blooded killer, any more than what you’ve done and want to do for me. I don’t know what you were before, or what crimes you’re guilty of, but they’re not what you believe--what others want you to believe.
   Which brings me back to those values I spoke of. I know myself. I couldn’t love the man you say you are. I love the man I know you are. You just confirmed it again. No killer would make the offer you just made. And that offer, sir, is respectfully rejected.”
   “You’re a goddamn fool!” exploded Jason. “I can help you; you can’t help me! Leave me something for Christ’s sake!”
   “I won’t! Not that way ...” Suddenly Marie broke off. Her lips parted. “I think I just did,” she said, whispering.
   “Did what?” asked Bourne angrily.
   “Give us both something.” She turned back to him. “I just said it; it’s been there a long time.
   ‘What others want you to believe ...’ “
   “What the hell are you talking about?”
   “Your crimes ... what others want you to believe are your crimes.”
   “They’re there. They’re mine.”
   “Wait a minute. Suppose they were there but they weren’t yours? Suppose the evidence was planted--as expertly as it was planted against me in Zurich--but it belongs to someone else.
   Jason--you don’t know when you lost your memory.”
   “Port Noir.”
   “That’s when you began to build one, not when you lost it. Before Port Noir; it could explain so much. It could explain you, the contradiction between you and the man people think you are.”
   “You’re wrong. Nothing could explain the memories--the images--that come back to me.”
   “Maybe you just remember what you’ve been told,” said Marie. “Over and over and over again.
   Until there was nothing else. Photographs, recordings, visual and aural stimulae.”
   “You’re describing a walking, functioning vegetable who’s been brainwashed. That’s not me.” She looked at him, speaking gently. “I’m describing an intelligent, very ill man whose background conformed with what other men were looking for. Do you know how easily such a man might be found? They’re in hospitals everywhere, in private sanitoriums, in military wards.” She paused, then continued quickly. “That newspaper article told another truth. I’m reasonably proficient with computers; anyone doing what I do would be. If I were looking for a curve-example that incorporated isolated factors, I’d know how to do it. Conversely, someone looking for a man hospitalized for amnesia, whose background incorporated specific skills, languages, racial characteristics, the medical data banks could provide candidates. God knows, not many in your case; perhaps only a few, perhaps only one. But one man was all they were looking for, all they needed.” Bourne glanced at the countryside, trying to pry open the steel doors of his mind, trying to find a semblance of the hope she felt. “What you’re saying is that I’m a reproduced illusion,” he said, making the statement flatly.

“That’s the end effect, but it’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying it’s possible you’ve been manipulated. Used. It would explain so much.” She touched his hand. “You tell me there are times when things want to burst out of you--blow your head apart.”
   “Words--places, names--they trigger things.”
   “Jason, isn’t it possible they trigger the false things? The things you’ve been told over and over again, but you can’t relive. You can’t see them clearly, because they’re not you.”
   “I doubt it. I’ve seen what I can do. I’ve done them before.”
   “You could have done them for other reasons! ... Goddamn you, I’m fighting for my life! For both
   our lives! ... All right! You can think, you can feel. Think now, feel now! Look at me and tell me you’ve
   looked inside yourself, inside your thoughts and feelings, and you know without a doubt you’re an assassin called Cain! If you can do that--really do that--then bring me to Zurich, take the blame for everything, and get out of my life! But if you can’t, stay with me and let me help you. And love me, for God’s sake. Love me, Jason” Bourne took her hand, holding it firmly, as one might an angry, trembling child’s. “It’s not a question of feeling or thinking. I saw the account at the Gemeinschaft; the entries go back a long time. They correspond with all the things I’ve learned.”
   “But that account, those entries, could have been created yesterday, or last week, or six months ago. Everything you’ve heard and read about yourself could be part of a pattern designed by those who want you to take Cain’s place. You’re not Cain, but they want you to think you are, want others to think you are. But there’s someone out there who knows you’re not Cain and he’s trying to tell you. I have my proof, too. My lover’s alive, but two friends are dead because they got between you and the one who’s sending you the message, who’s trying to save your life. They were killed by the same people who want to sacrifice you to Carlos in place of Cain. You said before that everything fit. It didn’t, Jason, but this does! It explains you.”
   “A hollow shell who doesn’t even own the memories he thinks he has? With demons running around inside kicking hell out of the walls? It’s not a pleasant prospect.”
   “Those aren’t demons, my darling. They’re parts of you--angry, furious, screaming to get out because they don’t belong in the shell you’ve given them.”
   And if I blow that shell apart, what’ll I find?”
   “Many things. Some good, some bad, a great deal that’s been hurt. But Cain won’t be there, I promise you that. I believe in you, my darling. Please don’t give up.” He kept his distance, a glass wall between them. “And if we’re wrong? Finally wrong? What then?”
   “Leave me quickly. Or kill me. I don’t care.”
   “I love you.”
   “I know. That’s why I’m not afraid.”
   “I found two telephone numbers in Lavier’s office. The first was for Zurich, the other here in Paris. With any luck, they can lead me to the one number I need.”
   “New York? Treadstone?”
   “Yes. The answer’s there. If I’m not Cain, someone at that number knows who I am.”

   They drove back to Paris on the assumption that they would be far less obvious among the crowds of the city than in an isolated country inn. A blond-haired man wearing tortoise-shell glasses, and a striking but stern-faced woman, devoid of makeup, and with her hair pulled back like an intense graduate student at the Sorbonne, were not out of place in Montmartre. They took a room at the Terrasse on the rue de Maistre, registering as a married couple from Brussels.
   In the room, they stood for a moment, no words necessary for what each was seeing and feeling.
   They came together, touching, holding, closing out the abusive world that refused them peace, that kept them balancing on taut wires next to one another, high above a dark abyss; if either fell, it was the end for both.
   Bourne could not change his color for the immediate moment. It would be false, and there was no room for artifice. “We need some rest,” he said. “We’ve got to get some sleep. It’s going to be a long day.”
   They made love. Gently, completely, each with the other in the warm, rhythmic comfort of the bed. And there was a moment, a foolish moment, when adjustment of an angle was breathlessly necessary and they laughed. It was a quiet laugh, at first even an embarrassed laugh, but the observation was there, the appraisal of foolishness intrinsic to something very deep between them.
   They held each other more fiercely when the moment passed, more and more intent on sweeping away the awful sounds and the terrible sights of a dark world that kept them spinning in its winds.
   They were suddenly breaking out of that world, plunging into a much better one where sunlight and blue water replaced the darkness. They raced toward it feverishly, furiously, and then they burst through and found it.
   Spent, they fell asleep, their fingers entwined.
   Bourne woke first, aware of the horns and the engines in the Paris traffic below in the streets. He looked at his watch; it was ten past one in the afternoon. They had slept nearly five hours, probably less than they needed, but it was enough. It was going to be a long day. Doing what, he was not sure; he only knew that there were two telephone numbers that had to lead him to a third. In New York.
   He turned to Marie, breathing deeply beside him, her face--her striking, lovely face--angled down on the edge of the pillow, her lips parted, inches from his lips. He kissed her and she reached for him, her eyes still closed.
   “You’re a frog and I’ll make you a prince,” she said in a sleep-filled voice. “Or is it the other way around?”
   “As expanding as it may be, that’s not in my present frame of reference.”
   “Then you’ll have to stay a frog. Hop around, little frog. Show off for me.”
   “No temptations. I only hop when I’m fed flies.”
   “Frogs eat flies? I guess they do. Shudder; that’s awful.”
   “Come on, open your eyes. We’ve both got to start hopping. We’ve got to start hunting.”
   She blinked and looked at him. “Hunting for what?”
   “For me,” he said.

   From a telephone booth on the rue Lafayette, a collect call was placed to a number in Zurich by a Mr. Briggs. Bourne reasoned that Jacqueline Lavier would have wasted no time sending out her alarms; one had to have been flashed to Zurich.
   When he heard the ring in Switzerland, Jason stepped back and handed the phone to Marie. She knew what to say.
   She had no chance to say it. The international operator in Zurich came on the line.
   “We regret that the number you have called is no longer in service.”
   “It was the other day,” broke in Marie. “This is an emergency, operator. Do you have another number?”
   “The telephone is no longer in service, madame. There is no alternate number.”
   “I may have been given the wrong one. It’s most urgent. Could you give me the name of the party who had this number?”
   “I’m afraid that’s not possible.”
   “I told you; it’s an emergency! May I speak with your superior, please?”
   “He would not be able to help you. This number is an unpublished listing. Good afternoon, madame.”
   The connection was broken. “It’s been disconnected,” she said.
   “It took too goddamn long to find that out,” replied Bourne, looking up and down the street.
   “Let’s get out of here.”
   “You think they could have traced it here? In Paris? To a public phone?’ “Within three minutes an exchange can be determined, a district pinpointed. In four, they can narrow the blocks down to half a dozen.”
   “How do you know that?”
   “I wish I could tell you. Let’s go.”
   “Jason. Why not wait out of sight? And watch?”
   “Because I don’t know what to watch for and they do. They’ve got a photograph to go by; they could station men all over the area.”
   “I don’t look anything like the picture in the papers.”
   “Not you. Me. Let’s go!”
   They walked rapidly within the erratic ebb and flow of the crowds until they reached the boulevard Malesherbes ten blocks away, and another telephone booth, this with a different exchange from the first. This time there were no operators to go through; this was Paris. Marie stepped inside, coins in her hand and dialed; she was prepared.
   But the words that came over the line so astonished her:
   “La résidence du Général Villiers. Bonjour? ... Allô? Allô?” For a moment Marie was unable to speak. She simply stared at the telephone. “Je m’excuse,” she whispered. “Une erreur.” She hung up.
   “What’s the matter?” asked Bourne, opening the glass door. “What happened? Who was it?”
   “It doesn’t make sense,” she said. “I just reached the house of one of the most respected and powerful men in France.”

24
   “André François Villiers,” repeated Marie, lighting a cigarette. They had returned to their room at the Terrasse to sort things out, to absorb the astonishing information. “Graduate of Saint-Cyr, hero of the Second World War, a legend in the Resistance, and, until his break over Algeria, De Gaulle’s heir-apparent. Jason, to connect such a man with Carlos is simply unbelievable.”
   “The connection’s there. Believe it.”
   “It’s almost too difficult. Villiers is old-line honor-of-France, a family traced back to the seventeenth century. Today he’s one of the ranking deputies in the National Assembly--politically to the right of Charlemagne, to be sure--but very much a law-and-order army man. It’s like linking Douglas MacArthur to a Mafia hit man. It doesn’t make sense.”
   “Then let’s look for some. What was the break with De Gaulle?”
   “Algeria. In the early sixties, Villiers was part of the OAS--one of the Algerian colonels under Salan. They opposed the Evian agreements that gave independence to Algeria, believing it rightfully belonged to France.”
   “ ‘The mad colonels of Algiers,’ “ said Bourne, as with so many words and phrases, not knowing where they came from or why he said them.
   “That means something to you?”
   “It must, but I don’t know what it is.”
   “Think,” said Marie. “Why should the ‘mad colonels’ strike a chord with you? What’s the first thing that comes to your mind? Quickly!”
   Jason looked at her helplessly, then the words came. “Bombings ... infiltrations. Provocateurs. You study them; you study the mechanisms.”
   “Why?”
   “I don’t know.”
   “Are decisions based on what you learn?”
   “I guess so.”
   “What kind of decisions? You decide what?”
   “Disruptions.”
   “What does that mean to you? Disruptions.”
   “I don’t know! I can’t think!”
   “All right ... all right. We’ll go back to it some other time.”
   “There isn’t time. Let’s get back to Villiers. After Algeria, what?”
   “There was a reconciliation of sorts with De Gaulle; Villiers was never directly implicated in the terrorism, and his military record demanded it. He returned to France--was welcomed, really--a fighter for a lost but respected cause. He resumed his command, rising to the rank of general,.
   before going into politics.”
   “He’s a working politician, then?”
   “More a spokesman. An elder statesman. He’s still an entrenched militarist, still fumes over France’s reduced military stature.”
   “Howard Leland,” said Jason. “There’s your connection to Carlos.”
   “How? Why?”
   “Leland was assassinated because he interfered with the Quai D’Orsay’s arms buildups and exports. We don’t need anything more.”
   “It seems incredible, a man like that ...” Marie’s voice trailed off; she was struck by recollection.
   “His son was murdered It was a political thing, about five or six years ago.”
   “Tell me.”
   “His car was blown up on the rue du Bac. It was in all the papers everywhere. He was the working politician, like his father a conservative, opposing the socialists and Communists at every turn. He was a young member of parliament, an obstructionist where government expenditures were concerned, but actually quite popular. He was a charming aristocrat.”
   “Who killed him?”
   “The speculation was Communist fanatics. He’d managed to block some legislation or other favorable to the extreme left wing. After he was murdered, the ranks fell apart and the legislation passed. Many think that’s why Villiers left the army and stood for the National Assembly. That’s
   what’s so improbable, so contradictory. After all, his son was assassinated; you’d think the last person on earth he’d want to have anything to do with was a professional assassin.”
   “There’s also something else. You said he was welcomed back to Paris because he was never directly implicated in the terrorism.”
   “If he was,” interrupted Marie, “it was buried. They’re more tolerant of passionate causes over here where country and the bed are concerned. And he was a legitimate hero, don’t forget that.”
   “But once a terrorist, always a terrorist, don’t you forget that.”
   “I can’t agree. People change.”
   “Not about some things. No terrorist ever forgets how effective he’s been, he lives on it.”
   “How would you know that?”
   “I’m not sure I want to ask myself right now.”
   “Then don’t.”
   “But I am sure about Villiers. Pm going to reach him.” Bourne crossed to the bedside table and picked up the telephone book. “Let’s see if he’s listed or if that number’s private. I’ll need his address.”
   “You won’t get near him. If he’s Carlos’ connection, he’ll be guarded. They’ll kill you on sight; they have your photograph, remember?”
   “It won’t help them. I won’t be what they’re looking for. Here it is. Villiers, A. F. Parc Monceau.”
   “I still can’t believe it. Just knowing whom she was calling must have put the Lavier woman in shock.”
   “Or frightened her to the point where she’d do anything.”
   “Doesn’t it strike you as odd that she’d be given that number?”
   “Not under the circumstances. Carlos wants his drones to know he isn’t kidding. He wants Cain.”
   Marie stood up. “Jason? What’s a ‘drone’?”
   Bourne looked up at her. “I don’t know ... Someone who works blind for somebody else.”
   “Blind? Not seeing?”
   “Not knowing. Thinking he’s doing one thing when he’s really doing something else.”
   “I don’t understand.”
   “Let’s say I tell you to watch for a car at a certain street corner. The car never shows up, but the fact that you’re there tells someone else who’s watching for you that something else has happened.”
   “Arithmetically, an untraceable message.”
   “Yes, I guess so.”
   “That’s what happened in Zurich. Walther Apfel was a drone. He released that story about the theft not knowing what he was really saying.”
   “Which was?”
   “It’s a good guess that you were being told to reach someone you know very well.”
   “Treadstone Seventy-One,” said Jason. “We’re back to Villiers. Carlos found me in Zurich through the Gemeinschaft. That means he had to know about Treadstone; it’s a good chance that Villiers does too. If he doesn’t, there may be a way of getting him to find out for us.”
   “How?”
   “His name. If he’s everything you say he is, he thinks pretty highly of it. The honor-of-France coupled with a pig like Carlos might have an effect. I’ll threaten to go to the police, to the papers.”
   “He’d simply deny it. He’d say it’s outrageous.”
   “Let him. It isn’t. That was his number in Lavier’s office. Besides, any retraction will be on the same page as his obituary.”
   “You still have to get to him.”
   “I will. I’m part chameleon, remember?”

The tree-lined street in Parc Monceau seemed familiar somehow, but not in the sense that he had walked it before. Instead, it was the atmosphere. Two rows of well-kept stone houses, doors and windows glistening, hardware shining, staircases washed clean, the lighted rooms beyond filled with hanging plants. It was a monied street in a wealthy section of the city, and he knew he had been exposed to one like it before, and that exposure had meant something.
   It was 7:35 in the evening, the March night cold, the sky clear, and the chameleon dressed for the occasion. Bourne’s blond hair was covered by a cap, his neck concealed beneath the collar of a jacket that spelled out the name of a messenger service across his back. Slung over his shoulder was a canvas strap attached to a nearly empty satchel; it was the end of this particular messenger’s run.
   He had two or three stops to make, perhaps four or five, if he thought they were necessary; he would know momentarily. The envelopes were not really envelopes at all, but brochures advertising the pleasures of the Bateaux Mouche, picked up from a hotel lobby. He would select at random several houses near General Villiers’ residence and deposit the brochures in mail slots. His eyes would record everything they saw, one thing sought above everything else. What kind of security arrangements did Villiers have? Who guarded the general and how many were there?
   And because he had been convinced he would find either men in cars or other men walking their posts, he was startled to realize there was no one. André François Villiers, militarist, spokesman for his cause, and the prime connection to Carlos, had no external security arrangements whatsoever. If he was protected, that protection was solely within the house. Considering the enormity of his crime, Villiers was either arrogant to the point of carelessness or a damn fool.
   Jason climbed the steps of an adjacent residence, Villiers! door no more than twenty feet away.
   He deposited the brochure in the slot, glancing up at the windows of Villiers’ house, looking for a face, a figure. There was no one.
   The door twenty feet away suddenly opened. Bourne crouched, thrusting his hand beneath his jacket for his gun, thinking he was a damn fool; someone more observant than he had spotted him.
   But the words he heard told him it wasn’t so. A middle-aged couple--a uniformed maid and a dark-jacketed man--were talking in the doorway.
   “Make sure the ashtrays are clean,” said the woman. “You know how he dislikes ashtrays that are stuffed full.”
   “He drove this afternoon,” answered the man. “That means they’re full now.”
   “Clean them in the garage; you’ve got time. He won’t be down for another ten minutes. He doesn’t have to be in Nanterre until eight-thirty.”
   The man nodded, pulling up the lapels of his jacket as he started down the steps. “Ten minutes,” he said aimlessly.
   The door closed and silence returned to the quiet street. Jason stood up, his hand on the railing, watching the man hurry down the sidewalk. He was not sure where Nanterre was, only that it was a suburb of Paris. And if Villiers was driving there himself, and if he was alone, there was no point in postponing confrontation.
   Bourne shifted the strap on his shoulder and walked rapidly down the steps, turning left on the pavement. Ten minutes.

   Jason watched through the windshield as the door opened and General of the Army André François Villiers came into view. He was a medium-sized, barrel-chested man in his late sixties, perhaps early seventies. He was hatless, with close-cropped gray hair and a meticulously groomed white chin beard. His bearing was unmistakably military, imposing his body on the surrounding space, entering it by breaking it, invisible walls collapsing as he moved.
   Bourne stared at him, fascinated, wondering what insanities could have possibly driven such a man into the obscene world of Carlos. Whatever the reasons, they had to be powerful, for he was powerful. And that made him dangerous--for he was respected and had the ears of his government.
   Villiers turned, speaking to the maid and glancing at his wristwatch. The woman nodded, closing the door, as the general walked briskly down the steps and around the hood of a large sedan to the driver’s side. He opened the door and climbed in, then started the engine and rolled slowly out into the middle of the street. Jason waited until the sedan reached the corner and turned right; he eased the Renault away from the curb and accelerated, reaching the intersection in time to see Villiers turn right again a block east.
   There was a certain irony in the coincidence, an omen if one could believe in such things. The route General Villiers chose to the outlying suburb of Nanterre included a stretch of back road in the countryside nearly identical to the one in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, where twelve hours ago Marie had pleaded with Jason not to give up--his life or hers. There were stretches of pastureland, fields that fused into the gently rising hills, but instead of being crowned by early light, these were washed in the cold, white rays of the moon. It occurred to Bourne that this stretch of isolated road would be as good a spot as any on which to intercept the returning general.
   It was not difficult for Jason to follow at distances up to a quarter of a mile, which was why he was surprised to realize he had practically caught up with the old soldier. Villiers had suddenly slowed down and was turning into a graveled drive cut out of the woods, the parking lot beyond illuminated by floodlights. A sign, hanging from two chains on a high-angle post, was caught in the spill: L’ARBALÈTE. The general was meeting someone for dinner at an out-of-the-way restaurant, not in the suburb of Nanterre, but close by. In the country.
   Bourne drove past the entrance and pulled off the shoulder of the road, the right side of the car covered by foliage. He had to think things out. He had to control himself. There was a fire in his mind; it was growing, spreading. He was suddenly consumed by an extraordinary possibility.
   Considering the shattering events--the enormity of the embarrassment experienced by Carlos last night at the motel in Montrouge, it was more than likely that André Villiers had been summoned to an out-of-the-way restaurant for an emergency meeting. Perhaps even with Carlos himself. If that was the case, the premises would be guarded, and a man whose photograph had been distributed to those guards would be shot the instant he was recognized. On the other hand, the chance to observe a nucleus belonging to Carlos--or Carlos himself--was an opportunity that might never come again. He had to get inside L’Arbalète: There was a compulsion within him to take the risk. Any risk.
   It was crazy! But then he was not sane. Sane as a man with a memory was sane. Carlos. Find Carlos!
   God in heaven, why?
   He felt the gun in his belt; it was secure. He got out and put on his topcoat, covering the jacket with the lettering across the back. He picked up a narrow-brimmed hat from the seat, the cloth soft, angled down all sides; it would cover his hair. Then he tried to remember if he had been wearing the tortoise-shell glasses when the photograph was taken in Argenteuil. He had not; he had removed them at the table when successive bolts of pain had seared through his head, brought on by words that told him of a past too familiar, too frightening to face. He felt his shirt pocket; the glasses were there if he needed them. He pressed the door closed and started for the woods.
   The glare of the restaurant floodlights filtered -through the trees, growing brighter with each several yards, less foliage to block the light. Bourne reached the edge of the short patch of forest, the graveled parking lot in front of him. He was at the side of the rustic restaurant, a row of small windows running the length of the building, flickering candles beyond the glass illuminating the figures of the diners. Then his eyes were drawn to the second floor--although it did not extend the length of the building, but only halfway, the rear section an open terrace. The enclosed part, however, was similar to the first floor. A line of windows, a bit larger, perhaps, but still in a row, and again glowing with candles. Figures were milling about, but they were different from the diners below.
   They were all men. Standing, not sitting; moving casually, glasses in hands, cigarette smoke spiraling over their heads. It was impossible to tell how many--more than ten, less than twenty, perhaps.
   There he was, crossing from one group to another, the white chin beard a beacon, switching on and off as it was intermittently blocked by figures nearer the windows. General Villiers had, indeed, driven out to Nanterre for a meeting, and the odds favored a conference that dealt with the failures of the past forty-eight hours, failures that permitted a man named Cain to remain alive.
   The odds. What were the odds? Where were the guards? How many, and where were their stations? Keeping behind the edge of the woods, Bourne sidestepped his way toward the front of the restaurant, bending branches silently, his feet over the underbrush. He stood motionless, watching for men concealed in the foliage or in the shadows of the building. He saw none and retraced his path, breaking new ground until he reached the rear of the restaurant.
   A door opened, the spill of light harsh, and a man in a white jacket emerged. He stood for a moment, cupping his hands, lighting a cigarette. Bourne looked to the left, to the right, above to the terrace; no one appeared. A guard stationed in the area would have been alarmed by the sudden light ten feet below the conference. There were no guards outside. Protection found--as it had to be at Villiers’ house in Parc Monceau--within the building itself.
   Another man appeared in the doorway, also wearing a white jacket, but with the addition of a chefs hat. His voice was angry, his French laced with the guttural dialect of Gascony. “While you piss off, we sweat! The pastry cart is half empty. Fill it. Now, you bastard!” The pastry man turned and shrugged; he crushed out his cigarette and went back inside, closing the door behind him. The light vanished, only the wash of the moon remained, but it was enough to illuminate the terrace. There was no one there, no guard patrolling the wide double doors that led to the inside room.
   Carlos. Find Carlos. Trap Carlos. Cain is for Charlie, and Delta is for Cain.
   Bourne judged the distance and the obstacles. He was no more than forty feet from the rear of the building, ten or twelve below the railing that bordered the terrace. There were two vents in the exterior wall, vapor escaping from both, and next to them a drainpipe that was within reach of the railing. If he could scale the pipe and manage to get a toehold in the lower vent, he would be able to grab a rung of the railing and pull himself up to the terrace. But he could do none of this wearing the topcoat. He took it off, placing it at his feet, the soft-brimmed hat on top, and covered both with underbrush. Then he stepped to the edge of the woods and raced as quietly as possible across the gravel to the drainpipe.
   In the shadows he tugged at the fluted metal; it was strongly in place. He reached as high as he could, then sprang up, gripping the pipe, his feet pressed into the wall, peddling one on top of the other until his left foot was parallel to the first vent. Holding on, he slipped his foot into the recess and. propelled himself further up the drain. He was within eighteen inches of the railings; one surge launched from the vent and he could reach the bottom rung.
   The door crashed open beneath. him, white light shooting across the gravel into the woods. A figure plummeted out, weaving to maintain its balance, followed by the white-hatted chef, who was screaming.
   “You piss-ant! You’re drunk, that’s what you are! You’ve been drunk the whole shit-filled night!
   Pastries all over the dining room floor. Everything a mess. Get out, you’ll not get a sou!” The door was pulled shut, the sound of a bolt unmistakably final. Jason held on to the pipe, arms and ankles aching, rivulets of sweat breaking out on his forehead. The man below staggered backward, making obscene gestures repeatedly with his right hand for the benefit of the chef who was no longer there. His glazed eyes wandered up the wall, settling on Bourne’s face. Jason held his breath as their eyes met; the man stared, then blinked and stared again. He shook his head, closing his lids, then opened them wide, taking in the sight he was not entirely sure was there. He backed away, lurching into a sideslip and a forward walk, obviously deciding that the apparition halfway up the wall was the result of his pressured labors. He weaved around the corner of the building, a man more at peace with himself for having rejected the foolishness that had assaulted his eyes.
   Bourne breathed again, letting his body slump against the wall in relief. But it was only for a moment; the ache in his ankle had descended to his foot, a cramp forming. He lunged, grabbing the iron bar that was the base of the railing with his right hand, whipping his left up from the drainpipe, joining it. He pressed his knees into the shingles and pulled himself slowly up the wall until his head was over the edge of the terrace. It was deserted. He kicked his right leg up to the ledge, his right hand reaching for the wrought iron top; balanced, he swung over the railing.
   He was on a terrace used for dining in the spring and summer months, a tiled floor that could accommodate ten to fifteen tables. In the center of the wall separating the enclosed section from the terrace were the wide double doors he had seen from the woods. The figures inside were now motionless, standing still, and for an instant Jason wondered whether an alarm had been set off-– whether they were waiting for him. He stood immobile, his hand on his gun; nothing happened. He approached the wall, staying in the shadows. Once there, he pressed his back against the wood and edged his way toward the first door until his fingers touched the frame. Slowly, he inched his head to the pane of glass level with his eyes and looked inside.
   What he saw was both mesmerizing and not a little frightening. The men were in lines--three separate lines, four men to a line--facing André Villiers, who was addressing them. Thirteen men in all, twelve of them not merely standing, but standing at attention. They were old men, but not merely old men; they were old soldiers. None wore uniforms; instead in each lapel they wore ribbons, regimental colors above decorations for valor and rank. And if there was one all-pervasive note about the scene, it, too, was unmistakable. These were men used to command--used to power.
   It was in their faces, their eyes, in the way they listened--respect rendered, but not blindly, judgment ever present. Their bodies were old, but there was strength in that room. Immense strength. That was the frightening aspect. If these men belonged to Carlos, the assassin’s resources were not only far-reaching, they were extraordinarily dangerous. For these were not ordinary men; they were seasoned professional soldiers. Unless he was grossly mistaken, thought Bourne, the depth of experience and range of influence in that room was staggering.
   The mad colonels of Algiers--what was left of them? Men driven by memories of a France that no longer existed, a world that was no more, replaced by one they found weak and ineffectual. Such men could make a pact with Carlos, if only for the covert power it gave them. Strike. Attack.
   Dispatch. Decisions of life and death that were once a part of their fabric, brought back by a force that could serve causes they refused to admit were no longer viable. Once a terrorist, always a terrorist, and assassination was the raw core of terror.
   The general was raising his voice; Jason tried to hear the words through the glass. They became clearer.
   “... our presence will be felt, our purpose understood. We are together in our stand, and that stand is immovable; we shall be heard! In memory of all those who have fallen--our brothers of the tunic and the cannon--who laid down their lives for the glory of France. We shall force our beloved country to remember, and in their names to remain strong, lackey to no one! Those who oppose us will know our anger. In this, too, we are united. We pray to Almighty God that those who have gone before us have found peace, for we are still in conflict. ... Gentlemen: I give you Our Lady--our France!”
   There was a unison of muttered approvals, the old soldiers remaining rigidly at attention. And then another voice was raised, the first five words sung singly, joined at the sixth by the rest of the group.
   Allons enfants de la patrie,
   Le jour de gloire est arrivé ...
   Bourne turned away, sickened by the sight and the sounds inside that room. Lay waste in the name of glory; the death of fallen comrades perforce demands further death. It is required; and if it means a pact with Carlos, so be it.
   What disturbed him so? Why was he suddenly swept by feelings of anger and futility? What triggered the revulsion he felt so strongly? And then he knew. He hated a man like André Villiers, despised the men in that room. They were all old men who made war, stealing life from the young ... and the very young.
   Why were the mists closing in again? Why was the pain so acute? There was no time for questions, no strength to tolerate them. He had to push them out of his mind and concentrate on André François Villiers, warrior and warlord, whose causes belonged to yesterday but whose pact with an assassin called for death today.
   He would trap the general. Break him. Learn everything he knew, and probably kill him. Men like Villiers robbed life from the young and the very young. They did not deserve to live. I am in my labyrinth again, and the walls are imbedded with spikes. Oh, God, they hurt.
   Jason climbed over the railing in the darkness and lowered himself to the drainpipe, each muscle aching. Pain, too, had to be erased. He had to reach a deserted stretch of road in the moonlight and trap a broker of death.

25
   Bourne waited in the Renault, two hundred yards east of the restaurant entrance, the motor running, prepared to race ahead the instant he saw Villiers drive out. Several others had already left, all in separate cars. Conspirators did not advertise their association, and these old men were conspirators in the truest sense. They had traded whatever honors they had earned for the lethal convenience of an assassin’s gun and an assassin’s organization. Age and bias had robbed them of reason, as they had spent their lives robbing life ... from the young and the very young.
   What was it? Why won’t it leave me? Some terrible thing is deep inside me, trying to break out, trying I think to kill me.. The fear and the guilt sweep through me ... but of what and for what I do not know. Why should these withered old men provoke such feelings of fear and guilt ... and loathing?
   They were war. They were death. On the ground and from the skies. From the skies ... from the skies. Help me, Marie. For God’s sake, help me!
   There it was. The headlights swung out of the drive, the long black chassis reflecting the wash of the floodlights. Jason kept his own Lights off as he pulled out of the shadows. He accelerated down the road until he reached the first curve, where he switched on the headlights and pressed the pedal to the floor. The isolated stretch in the countryside was roughly two miles away; he had to get there quickly.
   It was ten past eleven, and as three hours before the fields swept into the hills, both bathed in the light of the March moon, now in the center of the sky. He reached the area; it was feasible. The shoulder was wide, bordering a pasture, which meant that both automobiles could be pulled off the road. The immediate objective, however, was to get Villiers to stop. The general was old but not feeble; if the tactic were suspect, he would break over the grass and race away. Everything was timing, and a totally convincing moment of the unexpected.
   Bourne swung the Renault around in a U-turn, waited until he saw the headlights in the distance, then suddenly accelerated, swinging the wheel violently back and forth. The automobile careened over the road--an out-of-control driver, incapable of finding a straight line, but nevertheless speeding.
   Villiers had no choice; he slowed down as Jason came racing insanely toward him. Then abruptly, when the two cars were no more than twenty feet from colliding, Bourne spun the wheel to the left, braking as he did so, sliding into a skid, tires screeching. He came to a stop, the window open, and raised his voice in an undefined cry. Half shout, half scream; it could have been the vocal explosion of an ill man or a drunk man, but the one thing it was not was threatening. He slapped his hand on the frame of the window and was silent, crouching in the seat, his gun on his lap.
   He heard the door of Villiers! sedan open and peered through the steering wheel. The old man was not visibly armed; he seemed to suspect nothing, relieved only that a collision had been avoided. The general walked through the beams of the headlights to the Renault’s left window, his shouts anxious, his French the interrogating commands of Saint-Cyr.
   “What’s the meaning of this? What do you think you’re doing? Are you all right?” His hands gripped the base of the window.
   “Yes, but you’re not,” replied Bourne in English, raising the gun.
   “What ...” The old man gasped, standing erect. “Who are you and wha t is this?” Jason got out of the Renault, his left hand extended above the barrel of the weapon. “I’m glad your English is fluent. Walk back to your car. Drive it off the road.”
   “And if I refuse?”
   “I’ll kill you right now. It wouldn’t take much to provoke me.”
   “Do these words come from the Red Brigades? Or the Paris branch of the Baader-Meinhof?”
   “Why? Could you countermand them if they did?”
   “I spit at them! And you!”
   “No one’s ever doubted your courage, General. Walk to your car.”
   “It’s not a matter of courage!” said Villiers without moving. “It’s a question of logic. You’ll accomplish nothing by killing me, less by kidnapping me. My orders are firm, fully understood by my staff and my family. The Israelis are absolutely right. There can be no negotiations with terrorists. Use your gun, garbage! Or get out of here!”
   Jason studied the old soldier, suddenly, profoundly uncertain, but not about to be fooled. It would be in the furious eyes that stared at him. One name soaked in filth coupled with another name heaped with the honors of his nation would cause another kind of explosion; it would be in the eyes.
   “Back at that restaurant, you said France shouldn’t be a lackey to anyone. But a general of France became someone’s lackey. General André Villiers, messenger for Carlos. Carlos’ contact, Carlos’ soldier, Carlos’ lackey.”
   The furious eyes did grow wide, but not in any way Jason expected. Fury was suddenly joined by hatred, not shock, not hysteria, but deep, uncompromising abhorrence. The back of Villiers’ hand shot up, arching from his waist, the crack against Bourne’s face sharp, accurate, painful. It was followed by a forward slap, brutal, insulting, the force of the blow reeling Jason back on his feet.
   The old man moved in, blocked by the barrel of the gun, but unafraid, undeterred by its presence, consumed only with inflicting punishment. The blows came one after another, delivered by a man possessed.
   “Pig!” screamed Villiers. “Filthy, detestable pig! Garbage!”
   “I’ll shoot! I’ll kill you! Stop it!” But Bourne could not pull the trigger. He was backed into the small car, his shoulders pressed against the roof. Still the old man attacked, his hands flying out, swinging up, crashing down.
   “Kill me--if you can--if you dare! Dirt! Filth!”
   Jason threw the gun to the ground, raising his arms to fend off Villiers! assault. He lashed his left hand out, grabbing the old man’s right wrist, then his left, gripping the left forearm that was slashing down like a broadsword. He twisted both violently, bending Villiers into him, forcing the old soldier to stand motionless, their faces inches from each other, the old man’s chest heaving.
   “Are you telling me you’re not Carlos’ man? Are you denying it?” Villiers lunged forward, trying to break Bourne’s grip, his barrel-like chest smashing into Jason. “I revile you! Animal!”
   “Goddamn you--yes or no?”
   The old man spat in Bourne’s face, the fire in his eyes now clouded, tears welling. “Carlos killed my son,” he said in a whisper. “He killed my only son on the rue du Bac. My son’s life was blown up with five sticks of dynamite on the rue du Bac!”
   Jason slowly reduced the pressure of his fingers. Breathing heavily, he spoke as calmly as he could.
   “Drive your car into the field and stay there. We have to talk, General. Something’s happened you don’t know about, and we’d both better learn what it is.”
   “Never! Impossible! It could not happen!”
   “It happened,” said Bourne, sitting with Villiers in the front seat of the sedan.
   “An incredible mistake has been made! You don’t know what you’re saying!”
   “No mistake--and I do know what I’m saying because I found the number myself. It’s not only the right number, it’s a magnificent cover. Nobody in his right mind would connect you with Carlos, especially in light of your son’s death. Is it common knowledge he was Carlos’ kill?”
   “I would prefer different language, monsieur.”
   “Sorry. I mean that.”
   “Common knowledge? Among the Sûreté, a qualified yes. Within military intelligence and Interpol, most certainly. I read the reports.”
   “What did they say?”
   “It was presumed that Carlos did a favor for his friends from his radical days. Even to the point of allowing them to appear silently responsible for the act. It was politically motivated, you know.
   My son was a sacrifice, an example to others who opposed the fanatics.”
   “Fanatics?”
   “The extremists were forming a false coalition with the socialists, making promises they had no intention of keeping. My son understood this, exposed it, and initiated legislation to block the alignment. He was killed for it.”
   “Is that why you retired from the army and stood for election?”
   “With all my heart. It is customary for the son to carry on for the father ...” The old man paused, the moonlight illuminating his haggard face. “In this matter, it was the father’s legacy to carry on for the son. He was no soldier, nor I a politician, but I am no stranger to weapons and explosives. His causes were molded by me, his philosophy reflected my own, and he was killed for these things. My decision was clear to me. I would carry on our beliefs into the political arena and let his enemies contend with me. The soldier was prepared for them.”
   “More than one soldier, I gather.”
   “What do you mean?”
   “Those men back there at the restaurant. They looked like they ran half the armies in France.”
   “They did, monsieur. They were once known as the angry young commanders of Saint-Cyr. The Republic was corrupt, the military incompetent, the Maginot a joke. Had they been heeded in their time, France would not have fallen. They became the leaders of the Resistance; they fought the Boche and Vichy all through Europe and Africa.”
   “What do they do now?”
   “Most live on pensions, many obsessed with the past. They pray to the Virgin that it will never be repeated. In too many areas, however, they see it happening. The military is reduced to a sideshow, Communists and socialists in the Assembly forever eroding the strength of the services. The Moscow apparatus runs true to form; it does not change with the decades. A free society is ripe for infiltration, and once infiltrated the changes do not stop until that society is remade into another image. Conspiracy is everywhere; it cannot go unchallenged.”
   “Some might say that sounds pretty extreme itself.”
   “For what? Survival? Strength? Honor? Are these terms too anachronistic for you?”
   “I don’t think so. But I can imagine a lot of damage being done in their names.”
   “Our philosophies differ and I don’t care to debate them. You asked me about my associates and I answered you. Now, please, this incredible misinformation of yours. It’s appalling. You don’t know what it’s like to lose a son, to have a child killed.”
   The pain comes back to me and I don’t know why. Pain and emptiness, a vacuum in the sky ... from the sky.
   Death in and from the skies. Jesus, it hurts. It. What is it?
   “I can sympathize,” said Jason, his hands gripped to stop the sudden trembling. “But it fits.”
   “Not for an instant! As you said, no one in his right mind would connect me to Carlos, least of all the killer pig himself. It’s a risk he would not take. It’s unthinkable.”
   “Exactly. Which is why you’re being used; it is unthinkable. You’re the perfect relay for final instructions.”
   “Impossible! How?”
   “Someone at your phone is in direct contact with Carlos. Codes are used, certain words spoken to get that person on the phone. Probably when you’re not there, possibly when you are. Do you answer the telephone yourself?”
   Villiers frowned. “Actually, I don’t. Not that number. There are too many people to be avoided, and I have a private line.”
   “Who does answer it?”
   “Generally the housekeeper, or her husband who serves as part butler, part chauffeur. He was my driver during my last years in the army. If not either of them, my wife, of course. Or my aide, who often works at my office at the house; he was my adjutant for twenty years.”
   “Who else?”
   “There is no one else.”
   “Maids?”
   “None permanent; if they’re needed, they’re hired for an occasion. There’s more wealth in the Villiers name than in the banks.”
   “Cleaning woman?”
   “Two. They come twice a week and not always the same two.”
   “You’d better take a closer look at your chauffeur and the adjutant.”
   “Preposterous! Their loyalty is beyond question.”
   “So was Brutus’, and Caesar outranked you.”
   “You can’t be serious.”
   “I’m goddamned serious. And you’d better believe it. Everything I’ve told you is the truth.”
   “But then you haven’t really told me very much, have you? Your name, for instance.”
   “It’s not necessary. Knowing it could only hurt you.”
   “In what way?”
   “In the very remote chance that I’m wrong about the relay--and that possibility barely exists.” The old man nodded the way old men do when repeating words that have stunned them to the point of disbelief. His lined face moved up and down in the moonlight. “An unnamed man traps me on a road at night, holds me under a gun, and makes an obscene accusation--a charge so filthy, I wish to kill him--and he expects me to accept his word. The word of a man without a name, with no face I recognize, and no credentials offered other than the statement that Carlos is hunting him.
   Tell me why should I believe this man?”
   “Because,” answered Bourne. “He’d have no reason to come to you if he didn’t believe it was the truth.”
   Villiers stared at Jason. “No, there’s a better reason. A while ago, you gave me my life. You threw down your gun, you did not fire it. You could have. Easily. You chose, instead, to plead with me to talk.”
   “I don’t think I pleaded.”
   “It was in your eyes, young man. It’s always in the eyes. And often in the voice, but one must listen carefully. Supplication can be feigned, not anger. It is either real or it’s a posture. Your anger was real ... as was mine.” The old man gestured toward the small Renault ten yards away in the field. “Follow me back to Parc Monceau. We’ll talk further in my office. I’d swear on my life that you’re wrong about both men, but then as you pointed out, Caesar was blinded by false devotion. And indeed he did outrank me.”
   “If I walk into that house and someone recognizes me, I’m dead. So are you.”
   “My aide left shortly past five o’clock this afternoon and the chauffeur, as you call him, retires no later than ten to watch his interminable television. You’ll wait outside while I go in and check. If things are normal, I’ll summon you; if they’re not, I’ll come back out and drive away. Follow me again. I’ll stop somewhere and we’ll continue.”
   Jason watched closely as Villiers spoke. “Why do you want me to go back to Parc Monceau?”
   “Where else? I believe in the shock of unexpected confrontation. One of those men is lying in bed watching television in a room on the third floor. And there’s another reason. I want my wife to hear what you have to say. She’s an old soldier’s woman and she has antennae for things that often escape the officer in the field. I’ve come to rely on her perceptions; she may recognize a pattern of behavior once she hears you.”
   Bourne had to say the words. “I trapped you by pretending one thing; you can trap me by pretending another. How do I know Parc Monceau isn’t a trap?” The old man did not waver. “You have the word of a general officer of France, and that’s all you have. If it’s not good enough for you, take your weapon and get out.”
   “It’s good enough,” said Bourne. “Not because it’s a general’s word, but because it’s the word of a man whose son was killed in the rue du Bac.”

The drive back into Paris seemed far longer to Jason than the journey out. He was fighting images again, images that caused him to break out into sweat. And pain, starting at his temples, sweeping down through his chest, forming a knot in his stomach--sharp bolts pounding until he wanted to scream.
   Death in the skies ... from the skies. Not darkness, but blinding sunlight. No winds that batter my body into further darkness, but instead silence and the stench of Jungle and ... riverbanks. Stillness followed by the screeching of birds and the screaming pitch of machines. Birds ... machines ... racing downward out of the sky in blinding sunlight. Explosions. Death. Of the young and the very young.
   Stop it! Hold the wheel! Concentrate on the road but do not think! Thought is too painful and you don’t know why.
   They entered the tree-lined street in Parc Monceau. Villiers was a hundred feet ahead, facing a problem that had not existed several hours ago: there were many more automobiles in the street now, parking at a premium.
   There was, however, one sizable space on the left, across from the general’s house; it could accommodate both their cars. Villiers thrust his hand out the window, gesturing for Jason to pull in behind him.
   And then it happened. Jason’s eyes were drawn by a light in doorway, his focus suddenly rigid on the figures in the spill; the recognition of one so startling and so out of place he found himself reaching for the gun in his belt.
   Had he been led into a trap after all? Had the word of a general officer of France been worthless?
   Villiers was maneuvering his sedan into place. Bourne spun around in the seat, looking in all directions; there was no one coming toward him, no one closing in. It was not a trap. It was something else, part of what was happening about which the old soldier knew nothing.
   For across the street and up the steps of Villiers’ house stood a youngish woman--a striking woman--in the doorway. She was talking rapidly, with small anxious gestures, to a man standing on the top step, who kept nodding as if accepting instructions. That man was the gray-haired, distinguished-looking switchboard operator from Les Classiques. The man whose face Jason knew so well, yet did not know. The face that had triggered other images ... images as violent and as painful as those which had ripped him apart during the past half hour in the Renault.
   But there was a difference. This face brought back the darkness and torrential winds in the night sky, explosions coming one after another, sounds of a staccato gunfire echoing through the myriad tunnels of a jungle.
   Bourne pulled his eyes away from the door and looked at Villiers through the windshield. The general had switched off his headlights and was about to get out of the car. Jason released the clutch and rolled forward until he made contact with the sedan’s bumper. Villiers whipped around in his seat.
   Bourne extinguished his own headlights and turned on the small inside roof light. He raised his hand--palm downward--then raised it twice again, telling the old soldier to stay where he was.
   Villiers nodded and Jason switched off the light.
   He looked back over at the doorway. The man had taken a step down, stopped by a last command from the woman. Bourne could see her clearly now. She was in her middle to late thirties, with short dark hair, stylishly cut, framing a face that was bronzed by the sun. She was a tall woman, statuesque, actually, her figure tapered, the swell of her breasts accentuated by the sheer, close-fitting fabric of a long white dress that heightened the tan of her skin. If she was part of the house, Villiers had not mentioned her, which meant she was not. She was a visitor who knew when to come to the old man’s home; it would fit the strategy of relay-removed-from-relay. And that meant she had a contact in Villiers’ house. The old man had to know her, but how well? The answer obviously was not well enough.
   The gray-haired switchboard operator gave a final nod, descended the steps and walked rapidly down the block. The door closed, the light of the carriage lamps shining on the deserted staircase and the glistening black door with the brass hardware.
   Why did those steps and that door mean something to him? Images. Reality that was not real.
   Bourne got out of the Renault, watching the windows, looking for the movement of a curtain; there was nothing. He walked quickly to Villiers’ car; the front window was rolled down, the general’s face turned up, his thick eyebrows arched in curiosity.
   “What in heaven’s name are you doing?” he asked.
   “Over there, at your house,” said Jason, crouching on the pavement. “You saw what I just saw.”
   “I believe so. And?”
   “Who was the woman? Do you know her?”
   “I would hope to God I did! She’s my wife.”
   “Your wife?” Bourne’s shock was on his face. “I thought you said ... I thought you said she was an old woman. That you wanted her to listen to me because over the years you’d learned to respect her judgment. In the field, you said. That’s what you said.”
   “Not exactly. I said she was an old soldier’s woman. And I do, indeed, respect her judgment. But she’s my second wife--my very much younger second wife--but every bit as devoted as my first, who died eight years ago.”
   “Oh, my God ...
   “Don’t let the disparity of our ages concern you. She is proud and happy to be the second Madame Villiers. She’s been a great help to me in the Assembly.”
   “I’m sorry,” whispered Bourne. “Christ, I’m sorry.”
   “What about? You mistook her for someone else? People frequently do; she’s a stunning girl. I’m quite proud of her.” Villiers opened the door as Jason stood up on the pavement. “You wait here,” said the general, “I’ll go inside and check; if everything’s normal, I’ll open the door and signal you. If it isn’t I’ll come back to the car and we’ll drive away.”
   Bourne remained motionless in front of Villiers, preventing the old man from stepping forward “General, I’ve got to ask you something. I’m not sure how, but I have to. I told you I found your number at a relay drop used by Carlos. I didn’t tell you where, only that it was confirmed by someone who admitted passing messages to and from contacts of Carlos.” Bourne took a breath, his eyes briefly on the door across the street. “Now I’ve got to ask you a question, and please think carefully before you answer. Does your wife buy clothes at a shop called Les Classiques?”
   “In Saint-Honoré?”
   “Yes.”
   “I happen to know she does not.”
   “Are you sure?”
   “Very much so. Not only have I never seen a bill from there, but she’s told me how much she dislikes its, designs. My wife is very knowledgeable in matters of fashion.”
   “Oh, Jesus.”
   “What?”
   “General, I can’t go inside that house. No matter what you find, I can’t go in there.”
   “Why not? What are you saying?”
   “The man on the steps who was talking to your wife. He’s from the drop; it’s Les Classiques.
   He’s a contact to Carlos.”
   The blood drained from André Villiers’ face. He turned and stared across the tree-lined street at his house, at the glistening black door and the brass fittings that reflected the light of the carriage lamps.

   The pockmarked beggar scratched the stubble of his beard, took off his threadbare beret and trudged through the bronze doors of the small church in Neuilly-sur-Seine.
   He walked down the far right aisle under the disapproving glances of two priests. Both clerics were upset; this was a wealthy parish and, biblical compassion notwithstanding, wealth did have its privileges. One of them was to maintain a certain status of worshiper--for the benefit of other worshipers--and this elderly, disheveled derelict hardly fit the mold.
   The beggar made a feeble attempt to genuflect, sat down in a pew in the second row, crossed himself and knelt forward, his head in prayer, his right hand pushing back the left sleeve of his overcoat. On his wrist was a watch somewhat in contradistinction to the rest of his apparel. It was an expensive digital, the numbers large and the readout bright. It was a possession he would never be foolish enough to part with, for it was a gift from Carlos. He had once been twenty-five minutes late for confession, upsetting his benefactor, and had no other excuse but the lack of an accurate timepiece. During their next appointment, Carlos had pushed it beneath the translucent scrim separating sinner from holy man.
   It was the hour and the minute. The beggar rose and walked toward the second booth on the right. He parted the curtain and went inside.
   “Angelus Domini.”
   “Angelus Domini, child of God.” The whisper from behind the black cloth was harsh. “Are your days comfortable?”
   “They are made comfortable ...”
   “Very well,” interrupted the silhouette. “What did you bring me? My patience draws to an end. I pay thousands--hundreds of thousands--for incompetence and failure. What happened in Montrouge? Who was responsible for the lies that came from the embassy in the Montaigne? Who accepted them?”
   The Auberge du Coin was a trap, yet not one for killing. It is difficult to know exactly what it was. If the attaché named Corbelier repeated lies, our people are convinced he was not aware of it.
   He was duped by the woman.”
   “He was duped by Cain! Bourne traces each source, feeding each false information, thus exposing each and confirming the exposure. But why? To whom? We know what and who he is now, but he relays nothing to Washington. He refuses to surface.”
   “To suggest an answer,” said the beggar, “I would have to go back many years, but it’s possible he wants no interference from his superiors. American Intelligence has its share of vacillating autocrats, rarely communicating fully with each other. In the days of the cold war, money was made selling information three and four times over to the same stations. Perhaps Cain waits until he thinks there is only one course of action to be taken, no differing strategies to be argued by those above.”
   “Age hasn’t dulled your sense of maneuver, old friend. It’s why I called upon you.”
   “Or perhaps,” continued the beggar, “he really has turned. It’s happened.”
   “I don’t think so, but it doesn’t matter. Washington thinks he has. The Monk is dead, they’re all dead at Treadstone. Cain is established as the killer.”
   “The Monk?” said the beggar. “A name from the past; he was active in Berlin, in Vienna We knew him well, healthier for it from a distance. There’s your answer, Carlos. It was always the Monk’s style to reduce the numbers to as few as possible. He operated on the theory that his circles were infiltrated, compromised. He must have ordered Cain to report only to him. It would explain Washington’s confusion, the months of silence.”
   “Would it explain ours? For months there was no word, no activity.”
   “A score of possibilities. Illness, exhaustion, brought back for new training. Even to spread confusion to the enemy. The Monk had a cathedralful of tricks.”
   “Yet before he died he said to an associate that he did not know what had happened. That he wasn’t even certain the man was Cain.”
   “Who was the associate?”
   “A man named Gillette. He was our man, but Abbott couldn’t have known it.”
   “Another possible explanation. The Monk had an instinct about such men. It was said in Vienna that David Abbott would distrust Christ on the mountain and look for a bakery.”
   “It’s possible. Your words are comforting; you look for things others do not look for.”
   “I’ve had far more experience; I was once a man of stature. Unfortunately I pissed away the money.”
   “You still do.”
   “A profligate--what can I tell you?”
   “Obviously something else.”
   “You’re perceptive, Carlos. We should have known each other in the old days.”
   “Now you’re presumptuous.”
   “Always. You know that I know you can swat my life away at any moment you choose, so I must be of value. And not merely with words that come from experience.”
   “What have you got to tell me?”
   “This may not be of great value, but it is something. I put on respectable clothes and spent the day at the Auberge du Coin. There was a man, an obese man--questioned and dismissed by the Sûreté--whose eyes were too unsteady. And he perspired too much. I had a chat with him, showing him an official NATO identification I had made in the early fifties. It seems he negotiated the rental of an automobile at three o’clock yesterday morning. To a blond man in the company of a woman.
   The description fits the photograph from Argenteuil.”
   “A rental?”
   “Supposedly. The car was to be returned within a day or so by the woman.”
   “It will never happen.”
   “Of course not, but it raises a question, doesn’t it? Why would Cain go to the trouble of obtaining an automobile in such a fashion?”
   “To get as far away as possible as rapidly as possible.”
   “In which case the information has no value,” said the beggar. “But then there are so many ways to travel faster less conspicuously. And Bourne could hardly trust an avaricious night clerk, he might easily look for a reward from the Sûreté. Or anyone else.”
   “What’s your point?”
   “I suggest that Bourne could have obtained that car for the sole purpose of following someone here in Paris. No loitering in public where he might be spotted, no rented cars tha t could be traced, no frantic searches for elusive taxis. Instead, a simple exchange of license plates and a nondescript black Renault in the crowded streets. Where would one begin to look?” The silhouette turned. “The Lavier woman,” said the assassin softly. “And everyone else he suspects at Les Classiques. It’s the only place he has to start. They’ll be watched, and within days-– hours perhaps--a nondescript black Renault will be seen and he’ll be found. Do you have a full description of the car?”
   “Down to three dents in the left rear fender.”
   “Good. Spread the word to the old men. Comb the streets, the garages, the parking lots. The one who finds it will never have to look for work again.”
   “Speaking of such matters ...”
   An envelope was slipped between the taut edge of the curtain and the blue felt of the frame. “If
   your theory proves right, consider this a token”
   “I am right, Carlos.”
   “Why are you so convinced?”
   “Because Cain does what you would do, what I would have done--in the old days. He must be respected.”
   “He must be killed,” said the assassin. “There’s symmetry in the timing. In a few days it will be the twenty-fifth of March. On March 25, 1968, Jason Bourne was executed in the jungles of Tam Quan. Now, years later--nearly to the day--another Jason Bourne is hunted, the Americans as anxious as we are to see him killed. I wonder which of us will pull the trigger this time.”
   “Does it matter?”
   “I want him,” whispered the silhouette. “He was never real, and that’s his crime against me. Tell the old men that if any find him, get word to Parc Monceau but do nothing. Keep him in sight, but do nothing! I want him alive on the twenty-fifth of March. On March 25 I’ll execute him myself and deliver his body to the Americans.”
   “The word will go out immediately.”
   “Angelus Domini, child of God.”
   “Angelus Domini,” said the beggar.

26
   The old soldier walked in silence beside the younger man down the moonlit path in the Bois de Boulogne. Neither spoke, for too much had already been said--admitted, challenged, denied and reaffirmed. Villiers had to reflect and analyze, to accept or violently reject what he had heard. His life would be far more bearable if he could strike back in anger, attack the lie and find his sanity again.
   But he could not do that with impunity; he was a soldier and to turn away was not in him.
   There was too much truth in the younger man. It was in his eyes, in his voice, in his every gesture that asked for understanding. The man without a name was not lying. The ultimate treason was in Villiers’ house. It explained so many things he had not dared to question before. An old man wanted to weep.
   For the man without a memory there was little to change or invent; the chameleon was not called upon. His story was convincing because the most vital part was based in the truth. He had to find Carlos, learn what the assassin knew; there would be no life for him if he failed. Beyond this he would say nothing. There was no mention of Marie St. Jacques, or the Ile de Port Noir, or a message being sent by person or persons unknown, or a walking hollow shell that might or might not be someone he was or was not--who could not even be sure that the fragments of memories he possessed were really his own. None of this was spoken of.
   Instead, he recounted everything he knew about the assassin called Carlos. That knowledge was so vast that during the telling Villiers stared at him in astonishment, recognizing information he knew to be highly classified, shocked at new and startling data that was in concert with a dozen existing theories, but to his ears never before put forth with such clarity. Because of his son, the general had been given access to his country’s most secret files on Carlos, and nothing in those records matched the younger man’s array of facts.
   “This woman you spoke with in Argenteuil, the one who calls my house, who admitted being a courier to you ...”
   “Her name is Lavier,” Bourne interrupted.
   The general paused. “Thank you. She saw through you; she had your photograph taken.”
   “Yes.”
   “They had no photograph before?”
   “No.”
   “So as you hunt Carlos, he in turn hunts you. But you have no photograph; you only know two couriers, one of which was at my house.”
   “Yes.”
   “Speaking with my wife.”
   “Yes.”
   The old man turned away. The period of silence had begun.
   They came to the end of the path, where there was a miniature lake. It was bordered with white gravel, benches spaced every ten to fifteen feet, circling the water like a guard of honor surrounding a grave of black marble. They walked to the second bench. Villiers broke his silence.
   “I should like to sit down,” he said. “With age there comes a paucity of stamina. It often embarrasses me.”
   “It shouldn’t,” said Bourne, sitting down beside him.
   “It shouldn’t,” agreed the general, “but it does.” He paused for a moment, adding quietly, “Frequently in the company of my wife.”
   “That’s not necessary,” said Jason.
   “You mistake me.” The old man turned to the younger, “I’m not referring to the bed. There are simply times when I find it necessary to curtail activities--leave a dinner party early, absent myself on weekends to the Mediterranean, or decline a few days on the slopes in Gstaad.”
   “I’m not sure I understand.”
   “My wife and I are often apart. In many ways we live quite separate lives, taking pleasure, of course, in each other’s pursuits.”
   “I still don’t understand.”
   “Must I embarrass myself further?” said Villiers. “When an old man finds a stunning young woman anxious to share his life, certain things are understood, others not so readily. There is, of course, financial security and in my case a degree of public exposure. Creature comforts, entry into the great houses, easy friendship with the celebrated; it’s all very understandable. In exchange for these things, one brings a beautiful companion into his home, shows her off among his peers--a form of continuing virility, as it were. But there are always doubts.” The old soldier stopped for several moments; what he had to say was not easy for him. “Will she take a lover?” he continued softly. “Does she long for a younger, firmer body, one more in tune with her own? If she does, one can accept it--even be relieved, I imagine--hoping to God she has the sense to be discreet. A cuckolded statesman loses his constituency faster than a sporadic drunk; it means he’s fully lost his grip. There are other worries. Will she abuse his name? Publicly condemn an adversary whom one is trying to convince? These are the inclinations of the young; they are manageable, part of the risks in the exchange. But there is one underlying doubt that if proved justified cannot be tolerated. And that is if she is part of a design. From the beginning.”
   “You’ve felt it then?” asked Jason quietly.
   “Feelings are not reality!” shot back the old soldier vehemently. “They have no place in observing the field.”
   “Then why are you telling me this?”
   Villiers’ head arched back, then fell forward, his eyes on the water. “There could be a simple explanation for what we both saw tonight. I pray there is, and I shall give her every opportunity to provide it.” The old man paused again. “But in my heart I know there isn’t. I knew it the moment you told me about Les Classiques. I looked across the street, at the door of my house, and suddenly a number of things fell painfully into place. For the past two hours I have played the devil’s advocate; there is no point in continuing. There was my son before there was this woman.”
   “But you said you trusted her judgment. That she was a great help to you.”
   “True. You see, I wanted to trust her, desperately wanted to trust her. The easiest thing in the world is to convince yourself that you’re right. As one grows old it is easier still.”
   “What fell into place for you?”
   “The very help she gave me, the very trust I placed in her.” Villiers turned and looked at Jason.
   “You have extraordinary knowledge about Carlos. I’ve studied those files as closely as any man alive,
   for I would give more than any man alive to see him caught and executed, I alone the firing squad.
   And as swollen as they are, those files do not approach what you know. Yet your concentration is solely on his kills, his methods of assassination. You’ve overlooked the other side of Carlos. He not only sells his gun, he sells a country’s secrets.”
   “I know that,” Bourne said. “It’s not the side--“
   “For example,” continued the general, as if he had not heard Jason. “I have access to classified documents dealing with France’s military and nuclear security. Perhaps five other men--all above suspicion--share that access. Yet with damning regularity we find that Moscow has learned this, Washington that, Peking something else.”
   “You discussed those things with your wife?” asked Bourne, surprised.
   “Of course not. Whenever I bring such papers home, they are placed in a vault in my office. No one may enter that room except in my presence. There is only one other person who has a key, one other person who knows the whereabouts of the alarm switch. My wife.”
   “I’d think that would be as dangerous as discussing the material. Both could be forced from her.”
   “There was a reason. I’m at the age when the unexpected is a daily occurrence; I commend you to the obituary pages. If anything happened to me she is instructed to telephone the Conseiller Militaire, go down to my office, and stay by that vault until the security personnel arrive.”
   “Couldn’t she simply stay by the door?”
   “Men of my years have been known to pass away at their desks.” Villiers closed his eyes. “All along it was she. The one house, the one place, no one believed possible.”
   “Are you sure?”
   “More than I dare admit to myself. She was the one who insisted on the marriage. I repeatedly brought up the disparity of our ages, but she would have none of it. It was the years together, she claimed, not those that separated our birth dates. She offered to sign an agreement renouncing any claims to the Villiers estate and, of course, I would have none of that, for it was proof of her commitment to me. The adage is quite right: The old fool is the complete fool. Yet there were always the doubts; they came with the trips, with the unexpected separations.”
   “Unexpected?”
   “She has many interests, forever demanding her attention. A Franco-Swiss museum in Grenoble, a fine arts gallery in Amsterdam, a monument to the Resistance in Boulogne-sur-Mer, an idiotic oceanography conference in Marseilles. We had a heated argument over that one. I needed her in Paris; there were diplomatic functions I had to attend and wanted her with me. She would not stay.
   It was as though she were being ordered to be here and there and somewhere else at a given moment.”
   Grenoble--near the Swiss border, an hour from Zurich. Amsterdam. Boulogne-sur-Mer--on the Channel, an hour from London. Marseilles ... Carlos.
   “When was the conference in Marseilles?” asked Jason.
   “Last August, I believe. Toward the latter part of the month.”
   “On August 26, at five o’clock in the afternoon, Ambassador Howard Leland was assassinated on the Marseilles waterfront.”
   “Yes, I know,” said Villiers. “You spoke of it before. I mourn the passing of the man, not his judgments.” The old soldier stopped; he looked at Bourne. “My God,” he whispered. “She had to be with him. Carlos summoned her and she came to him. She obeyed.”
   “I never went this far,” said Jason. “I swear to you I thought of her as a relay--a blind relay. I never went this far.”
   Suddenly, from the old man’s throat came a scream--deep and filled with agony and hatred. He brought his hands to his face, his head arched back once again in the moonlight; and he wept.
   Bourne did not move; there was nothing he could do. “I’m sorry,” he said.
   The general regained control. “And so am I,” he replied finally. “I apologize.”
   “No need to.”
   “I think there is. We will discuss it no further. I shall do what has to be done.”
   “Which is?”
   The soldier sat erect on the bench, his jaw firm. “You can ask that?”
   “I have to ask it.”
   “Having done what she’s done is no different from having killed the child of mine she did not bear. She pretended to hold his memory dear. Yet she was and is an accomplice to his murder. And all the while she committed a second treason against the nation I have served throughout my life.”
   “You’re going to kill her?”
   “I’m going to kill her. She will tell me the truth and she will die.”
   “She’ll deny everything you say.”
   “I doubt it.”
   “That’s crazy!”
   “Young man, I’ve spent over half a century trapping and fighting the enemies of France, even when they were Frenchmen. The truth will be heard.”
   “What do you think she’s going to do? Sit there and listen to you and calmly agree that she’s guilty?”
   “She’ll do nothing calmly. But she’ll agree; shell proclaim it.”
   “Why would she?”
   “Because when I accuse her she’ll have the opportunity to kill me. When she makes the attempt, I will have my explanation, won’t I?”
   “You’d take that risk?”
   “I must take it.”
   “Suppose she doesn’t make the attempt, doesn’t try to kill you?”
   “That would be another explanation,” Villiers said. “In that unlikely event, I should look to my flanks if I were you, monsieur.” He shook his head. “It will not happen. We both know it, I far more clearly than you.”
   “Listen to me,” insisted Jason. “You say there was your son first Think of him! Go after the killer, not the accomplice. She’s an enormous wound for you, but he’s a greater wound. Get the man who killed your son! In the end, you’ll get both. Don’t confront her; not yet. Use what you know against Carlos. Hunt him with me. No one’s ever been this close.”
   “You ask more than I can give,” said the old man.
   “Not if you think about your son. If you think of yourself, it is. But not if you think of the rue du Bac.”
   “You are excessively cruel, monsieur.”
   “I’m right and you know it.”
   A high cloud floated by in the night sky, briefly blocking the light of the moon. Darkness was complete; Jason shivered. The old soldier spoke, resignation in his voice.
   “Yes, you are right,” he said. “Excessively cruel and excessively right. It’s the killer, not the whore, who must be stopped. How do we work together? Hunt together?” Bourne closed his eyes briefly in relief. “Don’t do anything. Carlos has to be looking for me all over Paris. I’ve killed his men, uncovered a drop, found a contact. I’m too close to him. Unless we’re both mistaken, your telephone will get busier and busier. I’ll make sure of it.”
   “How?”
   “I’ll intercept a half a dozen employees of Les Classiques. Several clerks, the Lavier woman, Bergeron maybe, and certainly the man at the switchboard. They’ll talk. And so will I. That phone of yours will be busy as hell.”
   “But what of me? What do I do?”
   “Stay home. Say you’re not feeling well. And whenever that phone rings, stay near whoever else answers. Listen to the conversation, try to pick up codes, question the servants as to what was said to them. You could even listen in. If you hear something, fine, but you probably won’t. Whoever’s on the line will know you’re there. Still, you’ll frustrate the relay. And depending upon where your wife is--“
   “The whore is,” broke in the old soldier.
   “--in Carlos’ hierarchy, we might even force him to come out.”
   “Again, how?”
   “His lines of communication will be disrupted. The secure, unthinkable relay will be interfered with. He’ll demand a meeting with your wife.”
   “He would hardly announce the whereabouts.”
   “He has to tell her.” Bourne paused, another thought coming into focus. “If the disruption is severe enough, there’ll be that one phone call, or that one person you don’t know coming to the house, and shortly after, your wife will tell you she has to go somewhere. When it happens insist she leave a number where she can be reached. Be firm about it; you’re not trying to stop her from going, but you must be able to reach her. Tell her anything--use the relationship she developed. Say it’s a highly sensitive military matter you can’t talk about until you get a clearance. Then you want to discuss it with her before you render a judgment. She might jump at it.”