The killer in the priestly dark suit reached the end of the stone path and turned right at the base of the concrete saint, his face briefly caught in the sunlight. Jason froze; the skin. The killer’s skin was dark, not tanned by the sun, but by birth. A Latin skin, its hue tempered generations ago by ancestors living in or around the Mediterranean. Forebears who migrated across the globe … across the seas.
Bourne stood paralyzed by the shock of his own certainty. He was looking at Ilich Ramirez Sanchez.
Get Carlos. Trap Carlos. Cain is for Charlie and Delta is for Cain.
Jason tore at the front of his coat, his right hand grasping the handle of the gun in his belt. He started running on the pavement, colliding with the backs and chests of strollers, shouldering a sidewalk vendor out of his way, lurching past a beggar digging into a wire trash—The beggar! The beggar’s hand surged into his pocket; Bourne spun around in time to see the barrel of an automatic emerge from the threadbare coat, the sun’s rays bouncing off the metal. The beggar had a gun! His gaunt hand raised it, weapon and eyes steady. Jason lunged into the street, careening off the side of a small car. He heard the spits of the bullets above him and around him, piercing the air with sickening finality. Screams, shrill and in pain, came from unseen people on the sidewalk. Bourne ducked between two automobiles and raced through the traffic to the other side of the street. The beggar was running away; an old man with eyes of steel was racing into the crowds, into oblivion.
Get Carlos. Trap Carlos. Cain is …!
Jason spun again and lurched again, propelling himself forward, throwing everything in his path out of his way, racing in the direction of the assassin. He stopped, breathless, confusion and anger welling in his chest, sharp bolts of pain returning to his temples. Where was he? Where was Carlos! And then he saw him; the killer had climbed behind the wheel of a large black sedan. Bourne ran back into the traffic, slamming hoods and trunks as he threaded his way insanely toward the assassin. Suddenly he was blocked by two cars that had collided. He spread his hands on a glistening chrome grille and leaped sideways over the impacted bumpers. He stopped again, his eyes searing with pain at what he saw, knowing it was pointless to go on. He was too late. The large black sedan had found a break in the traffic, and Ilich Ramirez Sanchez sped away.
Jason crossed back to the far pavement as the shrieking of police whistles turned heads everywhere. Pedestrians had been grazed or wounded or killed; a beggar with a gun had shot them.
Lavier! Bourne broke into a run again, back toward the Church of the Blessed Sacrament. He reached the stone path under the eye of the concrete saint and spun left, racing toward the arched, sculptured doors and the marble steps. He ran up and entered the Gothic church, facing racks of flickering candles, fused rays of colored light streaming down from the stained-glass windows high in the dark stone walls. He walked down the center aisle, staring at the worshipers, looking for streaked silver hair and a mask of a face laminated in white.
The Lavier woman was nowhere to be seen, yet she had not left; she was somewhere in the church. Jason turned, glancing up the aisle; there was a tall priest walking casually past the rack of candles. Bourne sidestepped his way through a cushioned row, emerged on the far right aisle and intercepted him.
“Excuse me, Father,” he said. “I’m afraid I’ve lost someone.”
“No one is lost in the house of God, sir,” replied the cleric, smiling.
“She may not be lost in spirit, but if I don’t find the rest of her, shell be very upset. There’s an emergency at her place of business. Have you been here long, Father?”
“I greet those of our flock who seek assistance, yes. I’ve been here for the better part of an hour.”
“Two women came in a few minutes ago. One was extremely tall, quite striking, wearing a light-colored coat, and I think a dark kerchief over her hair. The other was an older lady, not as tall, and obviously not in good health. Did you by any chance see them?”
The priest nodded. “Yes. There was sorrow in the older woman’s face, she was pale and grieving.”
“Do you know where she went? I gather her younger friend left.”
“A devoted friend, may I say. She escorted the poor dear to confession, helping her inside the booth. The cleansing of the soul gives us all strength during the desperate times.”
“To confession?”
“Yes—the second booth from the right. She has a compassionate father confessor, I might add. A visiting priest from the archdiocese of Barcelona. A remarkable man, too; I’m sorry to say this is his last day. He returns to Spain …” The tall priest frowned. “Isn’t that odd? A few moments ago I thought I saw Father Manuel leave. I imagine he was replaced for a while. No matter, the dear lady is in good hands.”
“I’m sure of it,” said Bourne. “Thank you, Father. I’ll wait for her.” Jason walked down the aisle toward the row of confessional booths, his eyes on the second, where a small strip of white fabric proclaimed occupancy; a soul was being cleansed. He sat down in the front row, then knelt forward, angling his head slowly around so he could see the rear of the church. The tall priest stood at the entrance, his attention on the disturbance in the street. Outside, sirens could be heard wailing in the distance, drawing closer.
Bourne got up and walked to the second booth. He parted the curtain and looked inside, seeing what he expected to see. Only the method had remained in question.
Jacqueline Lavier was dead, her body slumped forward, rolled to the side, supported by the prayer stall, her mask of a face upturned, her eyes wide, staring in death at the ceiling. Her coat was open, the cloth of her dress drenched in blood. The weapon was a long, thin, letter opener, plunged in above her left breast. Her fingers were curled around the handle, her lacquered nails the color of her blood.
At her feet was a purse—not the white purse she had clutched in her hands ten minutes earlier, but a fashionable Yves St. Laurent, the precocious initials stamped on the fabric, an escutcheon of the haute couture. The reason for it was clear to Jason. Inside were papers identifying this tragic suicide, this overwrought woman so burdened with grief she took her own life while seeking absolution in the eyes of God. Carlos was thorough, brilliantly thorough.
Bourne closed the curtain and stepped away from the booth. From somewhere high in a tower, the bells of the morning Angelus rang splendidly.
The taxi wandered aimlessly through the streets of Neuilly-sur-Seine, Jason in the back seat, his mind racing.
It was pointless to wait, perhaps deadly to do so. Strategies changed as conditions changed, and they had taken a deadly turn. Jacqueline Lavier had been followed, her death inevitable but out of sequence. Too soon; she was still valuable. Then Bourne understood. She had not been killed because she had been disloyal to Carlos, rather because she had disobeyed him. She had gone to Parc Monceau—that was her indefensible error.
There was another known relay at Les Classiques, a gray-haired switchboard operator named Philippe d’Anjou, whose face evoked images of violence and darkness, and shattering flashes of light and sound. He had been in Bourne’s past, of that Jason was certain, and because of that, the hunted had to be cautious; he could not know what that man meant to him. But he was a relay, and he, too, would be watched, as Lavier had been watched, additional bait for another trap, dispatch demanded when the trap closed.
Were these the only two? Were there others? An obscure, faceless clerk, perhaps, who was not a clerk at all but someone else? A supplier who spent hours in Saint-Honoré legitimately pursuing the cause of haute couture, but with another cause far more vital to him. Or her. Or the muscular designer, René Bergeron, whose movements were so quick and … fluid.
Bourne suddenly stiffened, his neck pressed back against the seat, a recent memory triggered. Bergeron. The darkly tanned skin, the wide shoulders accentuated by tightly rolled-up sleeves … shoulders that floated in place above a tapered waist, beneath which strong legs moved swiftly, like an animal’s, a cat’s.
Was it possible? Were the other conjectures merely phantoms, compounded fragments of familiar images he had convinced himself might be Carlos? Was the assassin—unknown to his relays—deep inside his own apparatus, controlling and shaping every move? Was it Bergeron?