“I will talk the ears off his bald head!” added the Belgian. “No, just long enough for me to see that he’s alone,” said Bourne, “that no one else is with him or comes out after him.”
“Piece a’ cake, man.”
“We shall earn not only your francs but your respect. You have the word of a Légion corporal!”
“I’m touched. Now, get back in there.” The two inebriated men lurched down the alley, Field Jacket slapping Tank Shirt triumphantly across the shoulders. Jason pressed his back against the street-side brick inches from the edge of the building and waited. Six minutes passed, and then he heard the words he so desperately wanted to hear.
“Santos! My great and good friend Santos!”
“What are you doing here, René?”
“My young American friend was sick to his stomach but it has gone—he vomited.”
“American … ?”
“Let me introduce you, Santos. He’s about to become a great soldier.”
“There is a Children’s Crusade somewhere?” Bourne peered around the corner as the bald bartender looked at Ralph. “Good luck, baby face. Go find your war in a playground.”
“You talk French awful fast, mistuh, but I caught some of that. You’re a big mother, but I can be a mean son of a bitch!”
The bartender laughed and switched effortlessly to English. “Then you’d better be mean someplace else, baby face. We only permit peaceable gentlemen in Le Coeur du Soldat. … Now I must go.”
“Santos!” cried Maurice-René. “Lend me ten francs. I left my billfold back at my flat.”
“If you ever had a billfold, you left it back in North Africa. You know my policy. Not a sou for any of you.”
“What money I had went for your lousy fish! It made my friend vomit!”
“For your next meal, go down to Paris and dine at the Ritz. … Ah, yes! You did have a meal—but you did not pay for it.” Jason pulled quickly back as the bartender snapped his head around and looked up the alley. “Good night, René. You too, baby warrior. I have business.”
Bourne ran down the pavement toward the gates of the old factory. Santos was coming to meet him. Alone. Crossing the street into the shadows of the shut-down refinery, he stood still, moving only his hand so as to feel the hard steel and the security of his automatic. With every step Santos took the Jackal was closer! Moments later, the immense figure emerged from the alley, crossed the dimly lit street and approached the rusted gates.
“I am here, monsieur,” said Santos.
“And I am grateful.”
“I’d rather you’d keep your word first. I believe you mentioned five thousand francs in your note.”
“It’s here.” Jason reached into his pocket, removed the money, and held it out for the manager of Le Coeur du Soldat.
“Thank you,” said Santos, walking forward and accepting the bills. “Take him!” he added.
Suddenly, from behind Bourne, the old gates of the factory burst open. Two men rushed out, and before Jason could reach his weapon, a heavy blunt instrument crashed down on his skull.
23
“We’re alone,” said the voice across the dark room as Bourne opened his eyes. Santos’s huge frame minimized the size of his large armchair, and the low wattage of the single floor lamp heightened the whiteness of his immense bald head. Jason arched his neck and felt the angry swelling on top of his skull; he was angled into the corner of a sofa. “There’s no break, no blood, only what I imagine is a very painful lump,” commented the Jackal’s man.
“Your diagnosis is accurate, especially the last part.”
“The instrument was hard rubber and cushioned. The results are predictable except where concussions are concerned. At your side, on a tray, is an ice bag. It might be well to use it.”
Bourne reached down in the dim light, grabbed the bulky cold bag and brought it to his head. “You’re very considerate,” he said flatly.
“Why not? We have several things to discuss … perhaps a million, if broken down into francs.”
“It’s yours under the conditions stated.”
“Who are you?” asked Santos sharply.
“That’s not one of the conditions.”
“You’re not a young man.”
“Not that it matters, but neither are you.”
“You carried a gun and a knife. The latter is for younger men.”
“Who said so?”
“Our reflexes. … What do you know about a blackbird?”
“You might as well ask me how I knew about Le Coeur du Soldat.”
“How did you?”
“Someone told me.”
“Who?”
“Sorry, not one of the conditions. I’m a broker and that’s the way I work. My clients expect it.”
“Do they also expect you to bind your knee so as to feign an injury? As your eyes opened I pressed the area; there was no sign of pain, no sprain, no break. Also, you carry no identification but considerable amounts of money?”
“I don’t explain my methods, I only clarify my restrictions as I understand them to be. I got my message through to you, didn’t I? Since I had no telephone number, I doubt I could have done so very successfully had I arrived at your establishment in a business suit carrying an attaché case.”
Santos laughed. “You never would have gotten inside. You would have been rudely stopped in the alley and stripped.”
“The thought occurred to me. … Do we do business, say a million francs’ worth?”
The Jackal’s man shrugged. “It would seem to me that if a buyer mentions such an amount in his first offer, he will go higher. Say a million and a half. Perhaps even two.”
“But I’m not the buyer, I’m the broker. I was authorized to pay one million, which is far too much in my opinion, but time is of the essence. Take it or leave it, I have other options.”
“Do you really?”
“Certainly.”
“Not if you’re a corpse found floating in the Seine without any identification.”
“I see.” Jason looked around the darkened flat; it bore little relationship to the shabby café below. The furniture was large, as required by the oversized owner, but tastefully selected, not elegant but certainly not cheap. What was mildly astonishing were the bookshelves covering the wall between the two front windows. The academic in Bourne wished he could read the titles; they might give him a clearer picture of this strange, huge man whose speech might have been formed at the Sorbonne—a committed brute on the outside, perhaps someone else inside. His eyes returned to Santos. “Then my leaving here freely under my own power is not a given, is it?”
“No,” answered the Jackal’s conduit. “It might have been had you answered my simple questions, but you tell me that your conditions, or should I say your restrictions, forbid you to do so. … Well, I, too, have conditions and you will live or die by them.”
“That’s succinct.”
“There’s no reason not to be.”
“Of course, you’re forfeiting any chance of collecting a million francs—or, as you suggested, perhaps a great deal more.”
“Then may I also suggest,” said Santos, crossing his thick arms in front of him and absently glancing at the large tattoos on his skin, “that a man with such funds available will not only part with them in exchange for his life, but will happily deliver the information requested so as to avoid unnecessary and excruciating pain.” The Jackal’s man suddenly slammed his clenched right fist down on the armrest and shouted, “What do you know about a blackbird? Who told you about Le Coeur du Soldat? Where do you come from and who are you and who is your client?”
Bourne froze, his body rigid but his mind spinning, whirling, racing. He had to get out! He had to reach Bernardine—how many hours was his call overdue? Where was Marie? Yet what he wanted to do, had to do, could not be done by opposing the giant across the room. Santos was neither a liar nor a fool. He would and could kill his prisoner handily and without hesitation … and he would not be duped by outright false or convoluted information. The Jackal’s man was protecting two turfs—his own and his mentor’s. The Chameleon had only one option open: to expose a part of the truth so dangerous as to be credible, the ring of authenticity so plausible that the risk of rejecting it was unacceptable. Jason put the ice bag on the tray and spoke slowly from the shadows of the large couch.
“Obviously I don’t care to die for a client or be tortured to protect his information, so I’ll tell you what I know, which isn’t as much as I’d like under the present circumstances. I’ll take your points in order if I’m not too damned frightened to forget the sequence. To begin with, the funds are not available to me personally. I meet with a man in London to whom I deliver the information, and he releases an account in Bern, Switzerland, to a name and a number—any name, any number—that I give him. … We’ll skip over my life and the ‘excruciating pain’—I’ve answered both. Let’s see, what do I know about a blackbird? The Coeur du Soldat is part of that question, incidentally. … I was told that an old man—name and nationality unknown, at least to me, but I suspect French—approached a well-known public figure and told him he was the target of an assassination. Who believes a drunken old man, especially one with a long police record looking for a reward? Unfortunately the assassination took place, but fortunately an aide to the deceased was by his side when the old man warned him. Even more fortunate, the aide was and is extremely close to my client and the assassination was a welcome event to both. The aide secretly passed on the old man’s information. A blackbird is sent a message through a café known as Le Coeur du Soldat in Argenteuil. This blackbird must be an extraordinary man, and now my client wants to reach him. … As for myself, my offices are hotel rooms in various cities. I’m currently registered under the name of Simon at the Pont-Royal, where I keep my passport and other papers.” Bourne paused, his palms outstretched. “I’ve just told you the entire truth as I know it.”