“Just cautious.” He smiled, touching her chin. “It’s an awful lot of money. It may have to keep us for a long time.”
“I like the sound of that.”
“The money?”
“No. Us.” Marie frowned. “A safety deposit box.”
“You keep talking in non sequiturs.”
“You can’t leave negotiable certificates worth over a million dollars in a Paris hotel room. You’ve got to get a deposit box.”
“We can do it tomorrow.” He released her, turning for the door. “While I’m out, look up Les Classiques in the phone book and call the regular number. Find out how late it’s open.” He left quickly.
Bourne sat in the back seat of a stationary taxi, watching the front of the bank through the windshield. The driver was humming an unrecognizable tune, reading a newspaper, content with the fifty-franc note he had received in advance. The cab’s motor, however, was running, the passenger had insisted upon that.
The armored van loomed in the right rear window, its radio antenna shooting up from the center of the roof like a tapered bowsprit. It parked in a space reserved for authorized vehicles directly in front of Jason’s taxi. Two small red lights appeared above the circle of bulletproof glass in the rear door. The alarm system had been activated.
Bourne leaned forward, his eyes on the uniformed man who climbed out of the side door and threaded his way through the crowds on the pavement toward the entrance of the bank. He felt a sense of relief, the man was not one of the three well-dressed men who had come to the Valois yesterday.
Fifteen minutes later the courier emerged from the bank, the leather attaché case in his left hand, his right covering an unlatched holster. The jagged rip on the side of the case could be seen clearly. Jason felt the fragment of leather in his ‘shirt pocket; if nothing else it was the primitive combination that made a life beyond Paris, beyond Carlos, possible. If there was such a life and he could accept it without the terrible labyrinth from which he could find no escape.
But it was more than that. In a manmade labyrinth one kept moving, running, careening off walls, the contact itself a form of progress, if only blind. His personal labyrinth had no walls, no defined corridors through which to race. Only space, and swirling mists in the darkness that he saw so clearly when he opened his eyes at night and felt the sweat pouring down his face. Why was it always space and darkness and high winds? Why was he always plummeting through the air at night? A parachute. Why? Then other words came to him; he had no idea where they were from, but they were there and he heard them.
What’s left when your memory’s gone? And your identity, Mr. Smith?
Stop it!
The armored van swung into the traffic on rue Madeleine. Bourne tapped the driver on the shoulder. “Follow that truck, but keep at least two cars between us,” he said in French.
The driver turned, alarmed. “I think you have the wrong taxi, monsieur. Take back your money.”
“I’m with the armored-car company, you imbecile. It’s a special assignment.”
“Regrets, monsieur. We will not lose it” The driver plunged diagonally forward into the combat of traffic.
The van took the quickest route to the Seine, going down sidestreets. Turning left on the Quai de la Rapée toward the Pont Neuf. Then, within what Jason judged to be three or four blocks of the bridge, it slowed down, hugging the curb as if the courier had decided he was too early for his appointment. But, if anything, Bourne thought, he was running late. It was six minutes to three, barely enough time for the man to park and walk the one prescribed block to the bridge. Then why had the van slowed down? Slowed down? No, it had stopped; it wasn’t moving! Why? The traffic? … Good God, of course—the traffic!
“Stop here,” said Bourne to the driver. “Pull over to the curb. Quickly!”
“What is it, monsieur?”
“You’re a very fortunate man,” said Jason. “My company is willing to pay you an additional one hundred francs if you simply go to the front window of that van and say a few words to the driver.”
“What, monsieur?”
“Frankly, we’re testing him. He’s new. Do you want the hundred?”
“I just go to the window and say a few words?”
“That’s all. Five seconds at the most, then you can go back to your taxi and drive off.”
“There’s no trouble? I don’t want trouble.”
“My firm’s among the most respectable in France. You’ve seen our trucks everywhere.”
“I don’t know …”
“Forget it!” Bourne reached for the door handle. “What are the words?”
Jason held out the hundred francs. “Just these: ‘Herr Koenig. Greetings from Zurich.’ Can you remember those?”
“ ‘Koenig. Greetings from Zurich.’ What’s so difficult?”
“You? Behind me?”
“That’s right.” They walked rapidly toward the van, hugging the right side of their small alley in the traffic as cars and trucks passed them in starts and stops on their left. The van was Carlos! trap, thought Bourne. The assassin had bought his way into the ranks of the armed couriers. A single name and a rendezvous revealed over a monitored radio frequency could bring an underpaid messenger a great deal of money. Bourne. Pont Neuf. So simple. This particular courier was less concerned with being prompt. than in making sure the soldiers of Carlos reached the Pont Neuf in time. Paris traffic was notorious; anyone could be late. Jason stopped the taxi driver, holding in his hand four additional two-hundred franc notes; the man’s eyes were riveted on them.
“Monsieur?”
“My company’s going to be very generous. This man must be disciplined for gross infractions.”
“What, monsieur?”
“After you say ‘Herr Koenig. Greetings from Zurich,’ simply add, ‘The schedule’s changed. There’s a fare in my taxi who must see you.’ Have you got that?”
The driver’s eyes returned to the franc notes. “What’s difficult?” He took the money.
They edged their way along the side of the van, Jason’s back pressed against the wall of steel, his right hand concealed beneath his topcoat, gripping the gun in his belt. The driver approached the window and reached up, tapping the glass.
“You inside! Herr Koenig! Greetings from Zurich!” he yelled.
The window was rolled down, no more than an inch or two. “What is this?” a voice yelled back. “You’re supposed to be at the Pont Neuf, monsieur!”
The driver was no idiot; he was also anxious to leave as rapidly as possible. “Not me, you jackass!” he shouted through the din of the surrounding, perilously close traffic. “I’m telling you what I was told to say! The schedule’s been changed. There’s a man back there who says he has to see you!”
“Tell him to hurry,” said Jason, holding a final fifty-franc note in his hand, beyond sight of the window.
The driver glanced at the money, then back up at the courier. “Be quick about it! If you don’t see him right away you’ll lose your job!”
“Now, get out of here!” said Bourne. The driver turned and ran past Jason, grabbing the franc note as he raced back to his taxi.
Bourne held his place, suddenly alarmed by what he heard through the cacophony of pounding horns and gunning engines in the crowded street. There were voices from inside the van, not one man shouting into a radio, but two shouting at each other. The courier was not alone; there was another man with him.
“Those were the words. You heard them.”
“He was to come up to you. He was to show himself.”
“Which he will do. And present the piece of leather, which must fit exactly! Do you expect him to do that in the middle of a street filled with traffic?”
“I don’t like it!”
“You paid me to help you and your people find someone. Not to lose my job. I’m going!”
“It must be the Pont Neuf!”
“Kiss my ass!”
There was the sound of heavy footsteps on the metal floorboards. “I’m coming with you!”
The panel door opened; Jason spun behind it, his hand still under his coat. Below him a child’s face was pressed against the glass of a car window, the eyes squinting, the young features contorted into an ugly mask, fright and insult the childish intent. The swelling sound of angry horns, blaring in counterpoint, filled the street; the traffic had come to a standstill.
The courier stepped off the metal ledge, the attaché case in his left hand. Bourne was ready; the instant the courier was on the street, he slammed the panel back into the body of the second man, crashing the heavy steel into a descending kneecap and an outstretched hand. The man screamed, reeling backward inside the van. Jason shouted at the courier, the jagged scrap of leather in his free hand.