The Bourne Supremacy

Nothing. Then finally something, and when he saw what it was, it simply did not make sense. Or did it? The man on the bicycle with a friction light on the front fender was pedalling up the road as if his life depended on a speed he could not possibly attain. As he drew closer Bourne saw that it was the watchman... on a bicycle... and a bicycle had been strapped to the roof of the car that had stopped around the bend. Had it been for the watchman? Of course not; the car would have proceeded to the gate... A second bicycle? A second watchman – arriving on a bicycle? Of course. If what he believed was true, the guard at the gate would be changed, a conspirator put in his place.

Jason had waited until the watchman's light was barely a speck in the distant darkness, then ran in the road back to his car and the tree with the notch in the bark. He now dug up the knapsack and began sorting out the articles of his trade. He removed his jacket and white shirt and put on a black turtleneck sweater; he secured the sheath of the hunting knife to the belt of his dark trousers and shoved the automatic with a single shell in it on the other side. He picked up two spools co

'I'll take him, Marie! I swear 'I'll take him and we'll have our life again. It's David and I love you so! I need you so!

Stop it! There are no people, only objectives. No emotions, only targets and kills and men to be eliminated who stand in the way. I have no use for you, Webb. You're soft and I despise you. Listen to Delta – listen to Jason Bourne!

The killer who was a killer by necessity buried the knapsack with his white shirt and tweed jacket and stood up between the pine trees. His lungs swelled at the thought of what was before him, one part of him frightened and uncertain, the other furious, ice-cold.

Jason started walking north into the curve, going from tree to tree as he had done before. He reached the car that had passed him with the bicycle strapped to its roof; parked on the side of the road, it had a large sign taped under the front window. He edged closer and read the Chinese characters, smiling to himself as he did so.

This is a disabled official vehicle of the government. Tampering with any part of the mechanism is a serious crime. Theft of this vehicle will result in the swift execution of the offender.

In the lower left-hand corner there was a column in small print

People's Printing Plant Number 72. Shanghai. Bourne wondered how many hundreds of thousands of such signs had been made by Printing Plant 72. Perhaps they took the place of a warranty, two with each vehicle.

He backed into the shadows and continued around the bend until he reached the open space in front of the floodlit gate. His eyes followed the line of the green fence. On the left it disappeared into the forest darkness. On the right it extended perhaps two hundred feet beyond the gatehouse, ru

Voices! Bourne snapped his head back towards the gate, lurching into the nearest foliage. The Chinese army officer and a new, much younger watchman – no, now definitely a guard – walked out from behind the gatehouse. The guard was wheeling a bicycle while the officer held a small radio to his ear.

They'll start arriving shortly after nine o'clock,' said the army man, lowering the radio and shoving down the ante

The truck?'

'It will be the last. '

The guard looked at his watch. 'Perhaps you should get the car then. If there's a telephone check, I know the routine. '

'A good thought,' agreed the officer clamping the radio to his belt and taking the bicycle's right handlebar. 'I have no patience with those bureaucratic females who bark like chows. '

'But you must have,' insisted the guard, laughing. 'And you must take out the lonely ones, the ugly ones, and perform at your best between their legs. Suppose you received a poor report? You could lose this heavenly job. ' 'You mean that feeble-headed peasant you relieved-' 'No, no,' broke in the guard, releasing the bicycle. They seek out the younger ones, the handsome ones, like me. From our photographs, of course. He's different; he pays them yuan from his sales of lost items. I sometimes wonder if he makes a profit. '

'I have trouble understanding you civilians. '

'Correction, if I may, Colonel. In the true China I am a captain in the Kuomintang. '

Jason was stu

It was too much to absorb, too frightening, too cataclysmic. He had to move quickly, putting all thought on hold, concentrating only on movement. He read the radium dial of his watch. It was 8:54, and he had very little time to do what had to be done. He waited until the army officer bicycled past, then made his way cautiously, silently through the foliage until he saw the fence. He approached it, taking out the penlight from his pocket, flashing it twice to judge the dimensions. They were extraordinary. Its height was no less than 12 feet, and the top angled outwards like the i

Had David Webb not been desperate, and Jason Bourne not furious, the job would not have been accomplished. The fence was no ordinary fence. The gauge of the metal was far, far stronger than that of any barricade enclosing the most violent criminals on earth. Each strand took all the strength Jason had as he manipulated the cutter back and forth until the metal snapped free. And each snap came, but only with the passing of precious minutes.

Again Bourne looked at the glowing dial of his watch. 9:06. Using his shoulder, his feet digging into the ground, he bent the barely two-foot vertical rectangle inward through the fence. He crawled inside, sweat drenching his body, and lay on the ground breathing heavily. No time. 9:08.