The Bourne Ultimatum

"Huh?" The capo supremo, mouth gaping, stared at the Italian aristocrat.

"The presence of the Soviets was both alarming and enigmatic," continued the count. "Then finally we perceived a possible co

"For Christ's sake, speak English or Italian, but with words that make sense! I didn't exactly go to Harvard City College, gumball. I didn't have to, capisce?"

"The Jackal stormed that country i

"Hey, back up, gumball!" shouted DeFazio. "This slime Bourne's a fake, a contraffazione. He never was an executioner!"

"You're quite wrong, signore," said the countess. "He may not have entered the arena with a gun, but it became his favorite instrument. Ask the Jackal."

"Fuck the Jackal!" cried DeFazio, getting up from the chair.

"Lou!"

"Shut up, Mario! This Bourne is mine, ours! We deliver the corpse, we take the pictures with me-us-standing over all three with a dozen ice picks in their bodies, their heads pulled up by the hair, so nobody can say it ain't our kills!"

"Now you're the one who's pazzo," said the Mafia count quietly, in counterpoint to the capo supremo's raucous yelling. "And please keep your voice down."

"Then don't get me excited-"

"He's trying to explain things, Lou," said DeFazio's relative, the killer. "I want to hear what the gentleman has to say because it could be vital to my approach. Sit down, Cousin." Louis sat down. "Please continue, Count."

"Thank you, Mario. You don't object to my calling you Mario."

"Not at all, sir."

"Perhaps you should visit Rome-"

"Perhaps we should get back to Paris," again choked the capo supremo.

"Very well," agreed the Roman, now dividing his attention between DeFazio and his cousin, but favoring the latter. "You might take out all three targets with a long-range rifle, but you won't get near the bodies. The Soviet guards will be indistinguishable from any other people in the area, and if they see the two of you coming in to the killing ground, they'll open fire, assuming you're from the Jackal."

"Then we must create a diversion where we can isolate the targets," said Mario, his elbows on the table, his intelligent eyes on the count. "Perhaps an emergency in the early hours of the morning. A fire in their lodgings, perhaps, that necessitates their coming outside. I've done it before; in the confusion of fire trucks and police sirens and the general panic, one can pull targets away and complete the assignments."

"It's a fine strategy, Mario, but there are still the Soviet guards."

"We take them out!" cried DeFazio.

"You are only two men," said the diplomat, "and there are at least three in Barbizon, to say nothing of the hotel in Paris where the cripple and the doctor are staying."

"So we outmatch the numbers." The capo supremo pulled the back of his hand over the sweat that had gathered on his forehead. "We hit this Barbizon first, right?"

"With only two men?" asked the countess, her cosmeticized eyes wide in surprise.

"You got men!" exclaimed DeFazio. "We'll use a few. ... I'll pay additional."

The count shook his head slowly and spoke softly. "We will not go to war with the Jackal," he said. "Those are my instructions."

"Fairy bastards!"

"An interesting comment coming from you," observed the countess, a thin insulting smile on her lips.

"Perhaps our dons are not as generous as yours," continued the diplomat. "We are willing to cooperate up to a point but no further."

"You'll never make another shipment to New York, or Philly, or Chicago!"

"We'll let our superiors debate those issues, won't we?"

There was a sudden knocking at the door, four raps in a row, harsh and intrusive. "Avanti," called out the count, instantly reaching under his jacket and ripping an automatic out of his belt; he lowered it beneath the overhang. of the red tablecloth and smiled as the manager of Tetrazzim's entered.

"Emergenza," said the grossly overweight man, walking rapidly to the well-tailored mafioso and handing him a note.

"Grazie."

"Prego," replied the manager, crossing back to the door and exiting as quickly as he had arrived.

"The anxious gods of Sicily may be smiling down on you after all," said the count, reading. "This communication is from the man following your targets. They are outside Paris and they are alone, and for reasons I ca

"Where?" cried DeFazio, leaping to his feet.

Without answering, the diplomat calmly reached for his gold lighter, ignited it, and fired the small piece of paper, lowering it into an ashtray. Mario sprang up from his chair; the man from Rome dropped the lighter on the table and swiftly retrieved the gun from his lap. "First, let us discuss the fee," he said as the note coiled into flaming black ash. "Our dons in Palermo are definitely not as generous as yours. Please talk quickly, as every minute counts."

"You motherfucking bastard!"

"My Oedipal problems are not your concern. How much, Signor DeFazio?"

"I'll go the limit," replied the capo supremo, lowering himself into the chair, staring at the charred remnants of the information. "Three hundred thousand, American. That's it."

"That's excremento," said the countess. "Try again. Seconds become minutes and you ca

"All right, all right! Double it!"

"Plus expenses," added the woman.

"What the fuck can they be?"

"Your cousin Mario is right," said the diplomat. "Please watch your language in front of my wife."

"Holy shit-"

"I warned you, signore. The expenses are an additional quarter of a million, American."

"What are you, nuts?"

"No, you're vulgar. The total is one million one hundred fifty thousand dollars, to be paid as our couriers in New York so instruct you. ... If not, you will be missed in-what is it?-Brooklyn Heights, Signor DeFazio?"

"Where are the targets?" said the beaten capo supremo, his defeat painful to him.

"At a small private airfield in Pontcarré, about forty-five minutes from Paris. They're waiting for a plane that was grounded in Poitiers because of bad weather. It can't possibly arrive for at least an hour and a quarter."

"Did you bring the equipment we requested?" asked Mario rapidly.

"It's all there," answered the countess, gesturing at the large black suitcase on a chair against the wall.

"A car, a fast car!" cried DeFazio as his executioner retrieved the suitcase.

"Outside," replied the count. "The driver will know where to take you. He's been to that field."

"Come on, cugino. Tonight we collect and you can settle a score!"

Except for a single clerk behind the counter in the small one-room terminal and an air controller hired to stay the extra hours in the radio tower, the private airport in Pontcarré was deserted. Alex Conklin and Mo Panov stayed discreetly behind as Bourne led Marie outside to the gate area fronting the field beyond a waist-high metal fence. Two strips of receding amber ground lights defined the long runway for the plane from Poitiers; they had been turned on only a short time ago.