The Bourne identity

“We’ll still need it. There’ll be a Senate inquiry. Closed, I hope. ... Rope off the street.”

“What?”

“You heard me--rope off the street! Call in the police, tell them to rope everything off!”

“Through the Agency? This is domestic.”

“Then I will. Through the Pentagon, from the Joint Chiefs, if I have to. We’re standing around making excuses, when it’s right in front of our eyes! Clear the street, rope it off, bring in a truck with a public address system. Put her in it, put her on a microphone! Let her say anything she likes, let her scream her head off. She was right. He’ll come to her!”

“Do you know what you’re saying?” asked Conklin. “There’ll be questions. Newspapers, television, radio. Everything will be exposed. Publicly.”

“I’m aware of that,” said the brigadier. “I’m also aware that she’ll do it for us if this goes down.

She may do it anyway, no matter what happens, but I’d rather try to save a man I didn’t like, didn’t approve of. But I respected him once, and I think I respect him more now.”

“What about another man? If Carlos is really out there, you’re opening the gates for him. You’re handing him his escape.”

“We didn’t create Carlos. We created Cain and we abused him. We took his mind and his memory. We owe him. Go down and get the woman. I’ll use the phone.”

Bourne walked into the large library with the sunlight streaming through the wide, elegant french doors at the far end of the room. Beyond the panes of glass were the high walls of the garden ... all around him objects too painful to look at; he. knew them and did not know them. They were fragments of dreams--but solid, to be touched, to be felt, to be used--not ephemeral at all. A long hatch table where whiskey was poured, leather armchairs where men sat and talked, bookshelves that housed books and other things--concealed things--that appeared with the touch of buttons. It was a room where a myth was born, a myth that had raced through Southeast Asia and exploded in Europe.

He saw the long, tubular bulge in the ceiling and the darkness came, followed by flashes of light and images on a screen and voices shouting in his ears.

Who is he? Quick. You’re too late! You’re a dead man! Where is this street? What does it mean to you? Whom did you meet there? ... Methods of kills. Which are yours? No! ... You are not Delta, you are not you! ... You are only what you are here, became here!

“Hey! Who the hell are you?” The question was shouted by a large, red-faced man seated in an armchair by the door, a clipboard on his knees. Jason had walked right past him.

“You Doogan?” Bourne asked.

“Yeah.”

“Schumach sent me. Said you needed another man.”

“What for? I got five already, and this fuckin’ place has hallways so tight you can’t hardly get through ‘em. They’re climbing asses now.”

“I don’t know. Schumach sent me, that’s all I know. He told me to bring this stuff.” Bourne let the blankets and the straps fall to the floor.

“Murray sends new junk? I mean, that’s new.”

“I don’t.”

“I know, I know! Schumach sent you. Ask Schumach.”

“You can’t. He said to tell you he was heading out to Sheepshead. Be back this afternoon.”

“Oh, that’s great! He goes fishing and leaves me with the shit. ... You’re new. You a crumbball from the shape-up?”

“Yeah.”

“That Murray’s a beaut. All I need’s another crumbball. Two wiseass stiffs and now four crumbballs.”

“You want me to start in here? I can start in here.”

“No, asshole! Crumbballs start at the top, you ain’t heard? It’s further away, capisce?”

“Yeah, I capisce.” Jason bent down for the blankets and the straps.

“Leave that junk here--you don’t need it. Get upstairs, top floor, and start with the single wood units. As heavy as you can carry, and don’t give me no union bullshit.” Bourne circled the landing on the second floor and climbed the narrow staircase to the third, as if drawn by a magnetic force beyond his understanding. He was being pulled to another room high up in the brownstone, a room that held both the comfort of solitude and the frustration of loneliness.

The landing above was dark, no lights on, no sunlight bursting through windows anywhere. He reached the top and stood for a moment in silence. Which room was it? There were three doors, two on the left side of the hallway, one on the right. He started walking slowly toward the second door on the left, barely seen in the shadows. That was it; it was where thoughts came in the darkness ... memories that haunted him, pained him. Sunlight and the stench of the river and the jungle ... screaming machines in the sky, screaming down from the sky. Oh, God, it hurt!

He put his hand on the knob, twisted it and opened the door. Darkness, but not complete. There was a small window at the far end of the room, a black shade pulled down, covering it, but not completely. He could see a thin line of sunlight, so narrow it barely broke through, where the shade met the sill. He walked toward it, toward that thin, tiny shaft of sunlight.

A scratch! A scratch in the darkness! He spun, terrified at the tricks being played on his mind. But it was not a trick! There was a diamondlike flash in the air, light bouncing off steel.

A knife was slashing up at his face.

“I would willingly see you die for what you’ve done,” said Marie, staring at Conklin. “And that realization revolts me.”

“Then there’s nothing I can say to you,” replied the CIA man, limping across the room toward the general. “Other decisions could have been made--by him and by you.”

“Could they? Where was he to start? When that man tried to kill him in Marseilles? In the rue Sarrasin? When they hunted him in Zurich? When they shot at him in Paris? And all the while he didn’t know why. What was he to do?”

“Come out! Goddamn it, come out!”

“He did. And when he did, you tried to kill him.”

“You were there! You were with him. You had a memory.”

“Assuming I knew whom to go to, would you have listened to me?” Conklin returned her gaze. “I don’t know,” he answered, breaking the contact between them and turning to Crawford. “What’s happening?”

“Washington’s calling me back within ten minutes.”

“But what’s happening?”

“I’m not sure you want to hear it. Federal encroachment on state and municipal law-enforcement statutes. Clearances have to be obtained.”

“Jesus!”

“Look!” The army man suddenly bent down to the window. “The truck’s leaving.”

“Someone got through,” said Conklin.

“Who?”

“I’ll find out.” The CIA man limped to the phone; there were scraps of paper on the table, telephone numbers written hastily. He selected one and dialed. “Give me Schumach ... please ...

Schumach? This is Conklin, Central Intelligence. Who gave you the word?” The dispatcher’s voice on the line could be heard halfway across the room. “What word? Get off my back! We’re on that job and we’re going to finish it! Frankly I think you’re a whacko--“ Conklin slammed down the phone. “Christ ... oh, Christ!” His hand trembled as he gripped the instrument. He picked it up and dialed again, his eyes on another scrap of paper. “Petrocelli.

Reclamations,” he commanded. “Petrocelli? Conklin again.”

“You faded out. What happened?”

“No time. Level with me. That priority invoice from Agency Controls. Who signed it?”

“What do you mean, who signed it? The top cat who always signs them. McGivern.” Conklin’s face turned white. “That’s what I was afraid of,” he whispered, as he lowered the phone. He turned to Crawford, his head quivering as he spoke. “The order to GSA was signed by a man who retired two weeks ago.”

“Carlos ...”

“Oh, God!” screamed Marie. “The man carrying the blankets, the straps! The way he held his head, his neck. Angled to the right. It was him! When his head hurts, he favors the right. It was Jason! He went inside.”