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.