The Bourne Ultimatum by Robert Ludlum

“David! David, it’s me! … Jason!”

She had collided with a tour guide leading a group of Japanese. The man was incensed; she was furious, so she furiously pummeled her way through the astonished Orientals, the majority shorter than she was, but her superior sight lines were no help. Her husband had disappeared. Where had he gone? Into the gardens? Into the street with the crowds and the traffic from the Pont d’Iéna? For Christ’s sake, where?

“Jason!” she had screamed at the top of her voice. “Jason, come back!”

People had looked at her, some with the empathetic glances of lovers burned, most simply disapproving. She had run down the never-ending steps to the street, spending—how long a time she could not recall—searching for him. Finally, in exhaustion, she had taken a taxi back to the Meurice. In a daze, she reached her room and fell on the bed, refusing to let the tears come. It was no time for tears. It was a time for a brief rest and food; energy to be restored, the lessons of Jason Bourne. Then back into the streets, the hunt to continue. And as she lay there, staring at the wall, she felt a swelling in her chest, in her lungs perhaps, and it was accompanied by a sense of passive elation. As she was looking for David, he was looking for her. Her husband had not run away, even Jason Bourne had not run away. Neither part of the same man could have seen her. There had been another unknown reason for the sudden, hurried exit from the Trocadéro, but there was only one reason for his being at the Trocadéro. He, too, was searching what memories he had of Paris thirteen years ago. He, too, understood that somewhere, someplace in those memories he would find her.

She had rested, ordered room service and two hours later gone out again into the streets.

Now, at the moment, as she drank her tea, she could not wait for the light to come. The day ahead was meant for searching.

“Bernardine!”

“Mon Dieu, it is four o’clock in the morning, so I can assume you have something vital to tell this seventy-year-old man.”

“I’ve got a problem.”

“I think you have many problems, but I suppose it’s a minor distinction. What is it?”

“I’m as close as I can be but I need an end man.”

“Please speak clearer English, or if you will, far clearer French. It must be an American term, this ‘end man.’ But then you have so many esoteric phrases. I’m sure someone sits in Langley and thinks them up.”

“Come on, I haven’t time for your bon mots.”

“You come on, my friend. I’m not trying to be clever, I’m trying to wake up. … There, my feet are on the floor and a cigarette’s in my mouth. Now, what is it?”

“My access to the Jackal expects an Englishman to fly over from London this morning with two million eight hundred thousand francs—”

“Far less than you have at your disposal, I assume,” interrupted Bernardine. “The Banque Normandie was accommodating, was it not?”

“Very. The money’s there, and that Tabouri of yours is a beaut. He tried to sell me real estate in Beirut.”

“That Tabouri is a thief—but Beirut is interesting.”

“Please.”

“Sorry. Go ahead.”

“I’m being watched, so I can’t go to the bank, and I don’t have any Englishman to bring what I can’t get to the Pont-Royal.”

“That’s your problem?”

“Yes.”

“Are you willing to part with, say, fifty thousand francs?”

“What for?”

“Tabouri.”

“I suppose so.”

“You signed papers, of course.”

“Of course.”

“Sign another paper, handwritten by you and also signed, releasing the money to— Wait a moment, I must go to my desk.” There was silence on the line as Bernardine obviously went to another room in his flat; his voice returned. “Allo?”

“I’m here.”

“Oh, this is lovely,” intoned the former Deuxième specialist. “I sank him in his sailboat off the shoals of the Costa Brava. The sharks had a feeding frenzy; he was so fat and delectable. The name is Antonio Scarzi, a Sardinian who traded drugs for information, but you know nothing about that, of course.”

“Of course.” Bourne repeated the last name, spelling it out.

“Correct. Seal the envelope, rub a pencil or a pen over your thumb and press your prints along the seal. Then give it to the concierge for Mr. Scarzi.”

“Understood. What about the Englishman? This morning? It’s only a few hours away.”

“The Englishman is not a problem. The morning is—the few hours are. It’s a simple matter to transfer funds from one bank to another—buttons are pressed, computers instantly cross-check the data, and, poof, figures are entered on paper. It’s quite another thing to collect nearly three million francs in cash, and your access certainly won’t accept pounds or dollars for fear of being caught exchanging them or depositing them. Add to this the problem of collecting notes large enough to be part of a bundle small enough to be concealed from customs inspectors. … Your access, mon ami, has to be aware of these difficulties.”

Jason looked aimlessly at the wall, his thoughts on Bernardine’s words. “You think he’s testing me?”

“He has to.”

“The money could be gotten together from the foreign departments of different banks. A small private plane could hop across the channel and land in a pasture where a car’s waiting to bring the man to Paris.”

“Bien. Of course. However, these logistics take time even for the most influential people. Don’t make it all appear too simple, that would be suspect. Keep your access informed as to the progress being made, emphasizing the secrecy, how there can be no risk of exposure, explain the delays. If there were none, he might think it’s a trap.”

“I see what you mean. It comes down to what you just said—don’t make it seem so easy because that’s not credible.”

“There’s something else, mon ami. A chameleon may be many things in daylight; still, he is safer in darkness.”

“You forgot something,” said Bourne. “What about the Englishman?”

“Tallyho, old chap,” said Bernardine.

The operation went as smoothly as any Jason had ever engineered or been witness to, perhaps thanks to the flair of a resentful talented man who had been sent to the pastures too soon. While throughout the day Bourne made progress calls to Santos, Bernardine had someone other than himself pick up the sealed instructions from the concierge and bring them to him, at which point he made his appointment with Monsieur Tabouri. Shortly after four-thirty in the afternoon, the Deuxième veteran walked into the Pont-Royal dressed in a dark pin-striped suit so obviously British that it screamed Savile Row. He went to the elevator and eventually, after two wrong turns, reached Bourne’s room.

“Here’s the money,” he said, dropping the attaché case on the floor and going straight to Jason’s hotel wet bar; he removed two miniature bottles of Tanqueray gin, snapped them open and poured the liquor into a questionably clean glass. “A votre santé,” he added, swallowing half his drink before breathing heavily through his mouth and then rapidly swallowing the rest. “I haven’t done anything like that in years.”

“You haven’t?”

“Frankly, no. I had others do such things. It’s far too dangerous. … Nevertheless, Tabouri is forever in your debt, and, frankly, he’s convinced me I should look into Beirut.”

“What?”

“Of course, I haven’t your resources, but a percentage of forty years of les fonds de contingence have found their way to Geneva on my behalf. I’m not a poor man.”

“You may be a dead man if they pick you up leaving here.”

“Oh, but I shan’t go,” said Bernardine, once again searching the small refrigerator. “I shall stay in this room until you have concluded your business.” François ripped open two additional bottles and poured them into his glass. “Now, perhaps, my old heart will beat slower,” he added as he walked to the inadequate desk, placed his drink on the blotter, and proceeded to take out two automatics and three grenades from his pockets, placing them all in a row in front of his glass. “Yes, I will relax now.”

“What the hell is that—are they?” cried Jason.

“I think you Americans call it deterrence,” replied Bernardine. “Although I frankly believe both you and the Soviets are playing with yourselves as you both put so much money into weaponry that doesn’t work. Now, I come from a different era. When you go out to do your business, you will leave the door open. If someone comes down that narrow corridor, he will see a grenade in my hand. That is not nuclear abstraction, that is deterrence.”

“I’ll buy it,” said Bourne, going to the door. “I want to get this over with.”

Out on Montalembert, Jason walked to the corner, and as he had done at the old factory in Argenteuil, leaned against the wall and lit a cigarette. He waited, his posture casual, his mind in high gear.