“We want no money!”
“I’m glad to know it. Who’s ‘we?’ ”
“I thought you said you knew.”
“I said we had an idea. Enough to expose a man named Koenig in Zurich; d’Amacourt here in Paris. If we decide to do that, it could prove to be a major embarrassment, couldn’t it?”
“Money? Embarrassment? These are not issues. You are consumed with stupidity, all of you! I’ll say it again. Get out of Paris. Leave this alone. It is not your concern any longer.”
“We don’t think it’s yours. Frankly, we don’t think you’re competent.”
“Competent?” repeated Lavier, as if she did not believe what she had heard.
“That’s right.”
“Have you any idea what you’re saying? Whom you’re talking about?”
“It doesn’t matter. Unless you back off, my recommendation is that we come out loud and clear. Mock up charges—not traceable to us, of course. Expose Zurich, the Valois. Call in the Sûreté, Interpol … anyone and anything to create a manhunt—a massive manhunt.”
“You are mad. And a fool.”
“Not at all. We have friends in very important positions; we’ll get the information first We’ll be waiting at the right place at the right time. We’ll take him.”
“You won’t take him. He’ll disappear again! Can’t you see that? He’s in Paris and a network of people he cannot know are looking for him. He may have escaped once, twice; but not a third time! He’s trapped now. We’ve trapped him!”
“We don’t want you to trap him. That’s not in our interests.” It was almost the moment, thought Bourne. Almost, but not quite; her fear had to match her anger. She had to be detonated into revealing the truth. “Here’s our ultimatum, and we’re holding you responsible for conveying it—otherwise you’ll join Koenig and d’Amacourt. Call off your hunt tonight If you don’t we’ll move first thing in the morning; we’ll start shouting. Les Classiques’ll be the most popular store in Saint-Honoré, but I don’t think it’ll be the right people.”
The powdered face cracked. “You wouldn’t dare! How dare you? Who are you to say this?!”
He paused, then struck. “A group of people who don’t care much for your Carlos.”
The Lavier woman froze, her eyes wide, stretching the taut skin into scar tissue. “You do know,” she whispered. “And you think you can oppose him? You think you’re a match for Carlos?”
“In a word, yes.”
“You’re insane. You don’t give ultimatums to Carlos.”
“I just did.”
“Then you’re dead. You raise your voice to anyone and you won’t last the day. He has men everywhere; they’ll cut you down in the street.”
“They might if they knew whom to cut down,” said Jason. “You forget. No one does. But they know who you are. And Koenig, and d’Amacourt. The minute we expose you, you’d be eliminated. Carlos couldn’t afford you any longer. But no one knows me.”
“You forget, monsieur. I do.”
“The least of my worries. Find me … after the damage is done and before the decision is made regarding your own future. It won’t be long.”
“This is madness. You come out of nowhere and talk like a madman. You cannot do this!”
“Are you suggesting a compromise?”
“It’s conceivable,” said Jacqueline Lavier. “Anything is possible.”
“Are you in a position to negotiate it?”
“I’m in a position to convey it … far better than I can an ultimatum. Others will relay it to the one who decides.”
“What you’re saying is what I said a few minutes ago: we can talk.”
“We can talk, monsieur,” agreed Mme. Lavier, her eyes fighting for her life.
“Then let’s start with the obvious.”
“Which is?”
Now. The truth.
“What’s Bourne to Carlos? Why does he want him?”
“What’s Bourne—” The woman stopped, venom and fear replaced by an expression of absolute shock. “You can ask that?”
“I’ll ask it again,” said Jason, hearing the pounding echoes in his chest. “What’s Bourne to Carlos?”
“He’s Cain! You know it as well as we do. He was your error, your choice! You chose the wrong man!”
Cain. He heard the name and the echoes erupted into cracks of deafening thunder. And with each crack, pain jolted him, bolts searing one after another through his head, his mind and body recoiling under the onslaught of the name. Cain. Cain. The mists were there again. The darkness, the wind, the explosions.
Alpha, Bravo, Cain, Delta, Echo, Foxtrot. … Cain, Delta. Delta, Cain. Delta … Cain.
Cain is for Charlie.
Delta is for Cain!
“What is it? What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing.” Bourne had slipped his right hand over his left wrist, gripping it, his fingers pressed into his flesh with such pressure he thought his skin might break. He had to do something; he had to stop the trembling, lessen the noise, repulse the pain. He had to clear his mind. The eyes of the truth were staring at him; he could not look away. He was there, he was home, and the cold made him shiver. “Go on,” he said, imposing a control on his voice that resulted in a whisper; he could not help himself.
“Are you ill? You’re very pale and you’re—”
“I’m fine,” he interrupted curtly. “I said, go on.”
“What’s there to tell you?”
“Say it all. I want to hear it from you.”
“Why? There’s nothing you don’t know. You chose Cain. You dismissed Carlos; you think you can dismiss him now. You were wrong then and you are wrong now.”
I will kill you. I will grab your throat and choke the breath out of you. Tell me! For Christ’s sake, tell me! At the end, there is only my beginning! I must know it.
“That doesn’t matter,” he said. “If you are looking for a compromise—if only to save your life—tell me why we should listen. Why is Carlos so adamant … so paranoid … about Bourne? Explain it to me as if I hadn’t heard it before. If you don’t, those names that shouldn’t be mentioned will be spread all over Paris, and you’ll be dead by the afternoon.”
Lavier was rigid, her alabaster mask set. “Carlos will follow Cain to the ends of the earth and kill him.”
“We know that. We want to know why.”
“He has to. Look to yourself. To people like you.”
“That’s meaningless. You don’t know who we are.”
“I don’t have to. I know what you’ve done.”
“Spell it out!”
“I did. You picked Cain over Carlos—that was your error. You chose the wrong man. You paid the wrong assassin.”
“The wrong … assassin.”
“You were not the first, but you will be the last. The arrogant pretender will be killed here in Paris, whether there is a compromise or not.”
“We picked the wrong assassin …” The words floated in the elegant, perfumed air of the restaurant. The deafening thunder receded, angry still but far away in the storm clouds; the mists were clearing, circles of vapor swirling around him. He began to see, and what he saw was the outlines of a monster. Not a myth, but a monster. Another monster. There were two.
“Can you doubt it?” asked the woman. “Don’t interfere with Carlos. Let him take Cain; let him have his revenge.” She paused, both hands slightly off the table; Mother Rat. “I promise nothing, but I will speak for you, for the loss your people have sustained. It’s possible … only possible, you understand … that your contract might be honored by the one you should have chosen in the first place.”
“The one we should have chosen. … Because we chose the wrong one.”
“You see that, do you not, monsieur? Carlos should be told that you, see it. Perhaps … only perhaps … he might have sympathy for your losses if he were convinced you saw your error.”
“That’s your compromise?” said Bourne flatly, struggling to find a line of thought.
“Anything is possible. No good can come from your threats, I can tell you that. For any of us, and I’m frank enough to include myself. There would be only pointless killing; and Cain would stand back laughing. You would lose not once, but twice.”
“If that’s true …” Jason swallowed, nearly choking as dry air filled the vacuum in his dry throat, “then I’ll have to explain to my people why we … chose … the … wrong man.” Stop it! Finish the statement. Control yourself. “Tell me everything you know about Cain.”
“To what purpose?” Lavier put her fingers on the table, her bright red nail polish ten points of a weapon.
“If we chose the wrong man, then we had the wrong information.”
“You heard he was the equal of Carlos, no? That his fees were more reasonable, his apparatus more contained, and because fewer intermediaries were involved there was no possibility of a contract being traced. Is this not so?”
“Maybe.”
“Of course it’s so. It’s what everyone’s been told and it’s all a lie. Carlos’ strength is in his far-reaching sources of information—infallible information. In his elaborate system of reaching the right person at precisely the right moment prior to a kill.”