Owner: Jason Charles Bourne
Address: Unlisted
Citizenship: U.S.A.
Jason Charles Bourne.
Jason.
The J was for Jason! His name was Jason Bourne. The Bourne had meant nothing, the J. Bourne still meaningless, but in the combination Jason and Bourne, obscure tumblers locked into place. He could accept it; he did accept it. He was Jason Charles Bourne, American. Yet he could feel his chest pounding; the vibration in his ears was deafening, the pain in his stomach more acute. What was it? Why did he have the feeling that he was plunging into the darkness again, into the black waters again?
“Is something wrong?” asked Walther Apfel.
Is something wrong, Herr Bourne?
“No. Everything’s fine. My name’s Bourne. Jason Bourne.”
Was he shouting? Whispering? He could not tell.
“My privilege to know you, Mr. Bourne. Your identity will remain confidential. You have the word of an officer of the Bank Gemeinschaft.”
“Thank you. Now, I’m afraid I’ve got to transfer a great deal of this money and I’ll need your help.”
“Again, my privilege. Whatever assistance or advice I can render, I shall be happy to do so.”
Bourne reached for the glass of Perrier.
The steel door of Apfel’s office closed behind him; within seconds he would walk out of the tasteful anteroom cell, into the reception room and over to the elevators. Within minutes he would be on the Bahnhofstrasse with a name, a great deal of money, and little else but fear and confusion.
He had done it. Dr. Geoffrey Washburn had been paid far in excess of the value of the life he had saved. A teletype transfer in the amount of 1,500,000 Swiss francs had been sent to a bank in Marseilles, deposited to a coded account that would find its way to Ile de Port Noir’s only doctor, without Washburn’s name ever being used or revealed. All Washburn had to do was to get to Marseilles, recite the codes, and the money was his. Bourne smiled to himself, picturing the expression on Washburn’s face when the account was turned over to him. The eccentric, alcoholic doctor would have been overjoyed with ten or fifteen thousand pounds; he had more than a million dollars. It would either ensure his recovery or his destruction; that was his choice, his problem.
A second transfer of 4,500,000 francs was sent to a bank in Paris on the rue Madeleine, deposited in the name of Jason C. Bourne. The transfer was expedited by the Gemeinschaft’s twice-weekly pouch to Paris, signature cards in triplicate sent with the documents. Herr Koenig had assured both his superior and the client that the papers would reach Paris in three days.
The final transaction was minor by comparison. One hundred thousand francs in large bills were brought to Apfel’s office, the withdrawal slip signed in the account holder’s numerical signature.
Remaining on deposit in the Gemeinschaft Bank were 1,400,000 Swiss francs, a not inconsequential sum by any standard.
How? Why? From where?
The entire business had taken an hour and twenty minutes, only one discordant note intruding on the smooth proceedings. In character, it had been delivered by Koenig, his expression a mixture of solemnity and minor triumph. He had rung Apfel, was admitted, and had brought a small, black-bordered envelope to his superior.
“Une fiche,” he had said in French.
The banker had opened the envelope, removed a card, studied the contents, and had returned both to Koenig. “Procedures will be followed,” he had said.
Koenig had left.
“Did that concern me?” Bourne had asked.
“Only in terms of releasing such large amounts. Merely house policy.” The banker had smiled reassuringly.
The lock clicked. Bourne opened the frosted glass door and walked out into Herr Koenig’s personal fiefdom. Two other men had arrived, seated at opposite ends of the reception room. Since they were not in separate cells behind opaque glass windows, Bourne presumed that neither had a three-zero account. He wondered if they had signed names or written out a series of numbers, but he stopped wondering the instant he reached the elevator and pressed the button.
Out of the corner of his eye he perceived movement; Koenig had shifted his head, nodding at both men. They rose as the elevator door opened. Bourne turned; the man on the right had taken a small radio out of his overcoat pocket; he spoke into it—briefly, quickly.
The man on the left had his right hand concealed beneath the cloth of his raincoat. When he pulled it out he was holding a gun, a black .38 caliber automatic pistol with a perforated cylinder attached to the barrel. A silencer.
Both men converged on Bourne as he backed into the deserted elevator.
The madness began.
5
The elevator doors started to close; the man with the hand-held radio was already inside, the shoulders of his armed companion angling between the moving panels, the weapon aimed at Bourne’s head.
Jason leaned to his right—a sudden gesture of fear—then abruptly, without warning, swept his left foot off the floor, pivoting, his heel plunging into the armed man’s hand, sending the gun upward, reeling the man backward out of the enclosure. Two muted gunshots preceded the closing of the doors, the bullets embedding themselves in the thick wood of the ceiling. Bourne completed his pivot, his shoulder crashing into the second man’s stomach, his right hand surging into the chest, his left pinning the hand with the radio. He hurled the man into the wall. The radio flew across the elevator; as it fell, words came out of its speaker.
“Henri? Ça va? Qu’es-ce qui se passe?”
The image of another Frenchman came to Jason’s mind. A man on the edge of hysteria, disbelief in his eyes; a would-be killer who had raced out of Le Bouc de Mer into the shadows of the rue Sarrasin less than twenty-four hours ago. That man had wasted no time sending his message to Zurich; the one they thought was dead was alive. Very much alive. Kill him!
Bourne grabbed the Frenchman in front of him now, his left arm around the man’s throat, his right hand tearing at the man’s left ear. “How many?” he asked in French. “How many are there down there? Where are they?”
“Find out, pig!”
The elevator was halfway to the first floor lobby.
Jason angled the man’s face down, ripping the ear half out of its roots, smashing the man’s head into the wall. The Frenchman screamed, sinking to the floor. Bourne rammed his knee into the man’s chest; he could feel the holster. He yanked the overcoat open, reached in, and pulled out a short-barreled revolver. For an instant it occurred to him that someone had deactivated the scanning machinery in the elevator. Koenig. He would remember; there’d be no amnesia where Herr Koenig was concerned. He jammed the gun into the Frenchman’s open mouth.
“Tell me or I’ll blow the back of your skull off!” The man expunged a throated wail; the weapon was withdrawn, the barrel now pressed into his cheek.
“Two. One by the elevators, one outside on the pavement, by the car.”
“What kind of car?”
“Peugeot.”
“Color?” The elevator was slowing down, coming to a stop.
“Brown.”
“The man in the lobby. What’s he wearing?”
“I don’t know …”
Jason cracked the gun across the man’s temple. “You’d better remember!”
“A black coat!”
The elevator stopped; Bourne pulled the Frenchman to his feet; the doors opened. To the left, a man in a dark raincoat, and wearing an odd-looking pair of gold-rimmed spectacles, stepped forward. The eyes beyond the lenses recognized the circumstances; blood was trickling down across the Frenchman’s cheek. He raised his unseen hand, concealed by the wide pocket of his raincoat, another silenced automatic leveled at the target from Marseilles.
Jason propelled the Frenchman in front of him through the doors. Three rapid spits were heard; the Frenchman shouted, his arms raised in a final, guttural protest. He arched his back and fell to the marble floor. A woman to the right of the man with the gold-rimmed spectacles screamed, joined by several men who called to no one and everyone for Hilfe! for the Polizei!
Bourne knew he could not use the revolver he had taken from the Frenchman. It had no silencer; the sound of a gunshot would mark him. He shoved it into his topcoat pocket, sidestepped the screaming woman and grabbed the uniformed shoulders of the elevator starter, whipping the bewildered man around, throwing him into the figure of the killer in the dark raincoat.
The panic in the lobby mounted as Jason ran toward the glass doors of the entrance. The boutonnièred greeter who had mistaken his language an hour and a half ago was shouting into a wall telephone, a uniformed guard at his side, weapon drawn, barricading the exit, eyes riveted on the chaos, riveted suddenly on him. Getting out was instantly a problem. Bourne avoided the guard’s eyes, directing his words to the guard’s associate on the telephone.