The Bourne Ultimatum

Floor by floor he descended, following the inevitable rivulets of blood, larger now, no longer to be stemmed, for the last wound was too severe to stop by exerting pressure. Twice the Jackal had applied such pressure, once at the fifth-floor and again at the third-floor hallway doors, only to be followed by streaks of dark red, as he could not manipulate the exterior locks without the security keys.

The second floor, then the first, there were no more! Carlos was trapped! Somewhere in the shadows below was the death of the killer who would set him free! Silently, Bourne removed a book of Metropole matches from his pocket; he huddled against the concrete wall, tore out a single match and, cupping his hands, fired the packet. He threw it over the railing, the weapon in his hand ready to explode with continuous rounds of bullets at anything that moved below!

There was nothing-nothing! The cement floor was empty-there was no one there! Impossible! Jason raced down the last flight of steps and pounded on the door to the lobby.

"Shto?" yelled a Russian inside. "Kto tam?"

"I'm an American! I'm working with the KGB! Let me in!"

"Shto ... ?"

"I understand," shouted another voice. "And, please, you understand that many guns are directed at you when I open the door. It is understand?"

"Understand!" shouted Bourne, at the last second remembering to drop Carlos's weapon on the concrete floor. The door opened.

"Da!" said the Soviet police officer, instantly correcting himself as he spotted the machine pistol at Jason's feet. "Nyet!" he yelled.

"Nye za shto?" said a breathless Krupkin, urging his heavyset body forward.

"Pochemu?"

"Komitet!"

"Prekrasno." The policeman nodded obsequiously, but stayed in place.

"What are you doing?" demanded Krupkin. "The lobby is cleared and our assault squad is in place!"

"He was here!" whispered Bourne, as if his intense quiet voice further obscured his incomprehensible words.

"The Jackal?" asked Krupkin, astonished.

"He came down this staircase! He couldn't have gone out on any other floor. Every fire door is dead-bolted from the inside-only the crash bars release them."

"Skazhi," said the KGB official to the hotel guard, speaking in Russian. "Has anyone come through this door within the past ten minutes since the orders were given to seal them off?"

"No, sir!" replied the mititsiya. "Only a hysterical woman in a soiled bathrobe. In her panic, she fell in the bathroom and cut herself. We thought she might have a heart attack, she was screaming so. We escorted her immediately to the nurse's office."

Krupkin turned to Jason, switching back to English. "Only a woman came through, a woman in panic who had inured herself."

"A woman? Is he certain? ... What color was her hair?" Dimitri asked the guard; with the man's reply he again looked at Bourne. "He says it was reddish and quite curly."

"Reddish?" An image came to Jason, a very unpleasant one. "A house phone-no, the front desk! Come on, I may need your help." With Krupkin following, the barefooted Bourne ran across the lobby to a clerk at the reception counter. "Can you speak English?"

"Certainly most good, even many veniculars, mister sir."

"A room plan for the tenth floor. Quickly."

"Mister sir?"

Krupkin translated; a large loose-leaf notebook was placed on the counter, the plastic-enclosed page turned to-"This room!" said Jason, pointing at a square and doing his best not to alarm the frightened clerk. "Get it on the telephone! If the line's busy, knock off anybody on it."

Again Krupkin translated as a phone was placed in front of Bourne. He picked it up and spoke. "This is the man who came into your room a few minutes ago-"

"Oh, yes, of course, dear fellow. Thank you so much! The doctor's here and Binky's-"

"I have to know something, and I have to know it right now. ... Do you carry hairpieces, or wigs, with you when you travel?"

"I'd say that's rather impertinent-"

"Lady, I don't have time for amenities, I have to know! Do you?"

"Well, yes I do. It's no secret, actually, all my friends know it and they forgive the artifice. You see, dear boy, I have diabetes ... my gray hair is painfully thin."

"Is one of those wigs red?"

"As a matter of fact, yes. I rather fancy changing-"

Bourne slammed down the phone and looked over at Krupkin. "The son of a bitch lucked out. It was Carlos!"

"Come with me!" said Krupkin as they both raced across the empty lobby to the complex of back-room offices of the Metropole. They reached the nurse's infirmary door and went inside. They both stopped; both gasped and then winced at what they saw.

There were rolls of torn, unwound gauze and reels of tape in various widths, and broken syringes and tubes of antibiotics scattered about the examining table and the floor, as if all were somehow administered in panic. These, however, the two men barely noticed, for their eyes were riveted on the woman who had tended to her crazed patient. The Metropole's nurse was arched back in her chair, her throat surgically punctured, and over her immaculate white uniform ran a thin stream of blood. Madness!

Standing beside the living room table, Dimitri Krupkin spoke on the phone as Alex Conklin sat on the brocaded couch massaging his bootless leg and Bourne stood by the window staring out on the Marx Prospekt. Alex looked over at the KGB officer, a thin smile on his gaunt face as Krupkin nodded, his eyes on Conklin. An acknowledgment was being transmitted between the two of them. They were worthy adversaries in a never-ending, essentially futile war in which only battles were won, the philosophical conflicts never resolved.

"I have your assurance then, comrade," said Krupkin in Russian, "and, frankly, I will hold you to it. ... Of course I'm taping this conversation! Would you do otherwise? ... Good! We understand each other as well as our respective responsibilities, so let me recapitulate. The man is seriously wounded, therefore the city taxi service as well as all doctors and all hospitals in the Moscow area have been alerted. The description of the stolen automobile has been circulated and any sightings of man or vehicle are to be reported only to you. The penalty for disregarding these instructions is the Lubyanka, that must be clear. ... Good! We have a mutual understanding and I expect to hear from you the minute you have any information, yes? ... Don't have a cardiac arrest, comrade. I am well aware that you are my superior, but then this is a proletarian society, yes? Simply follow the advice of an extremely experienced subordinate. Have a pleasant day. ... No, that is not a threat, it is merely a phrase I picked up in Paris-American origin, I believe." Krupkin hung up the phone and sighed. "There's something to be said for our vanished, educated aristocracy, I'm afraid."

"Don't say it out loud," observed Conklin, nodding at the telephone. "I gather nothing's coming down."

"Nothing to act upon immediately but something rather interesting, even fascinating in a macabre sort of way."

"By which you mean it concerns Carlos, I assume."

"No one else." Krupkin shook his head as Jason looked over at him from the window. "I stopped at my office to join the assault squad and on my desk were eight large manila envelopes, only one of which had been opened. The police found them in the Vavilova and, true to form, having read the contents of only one, wanted nothing to do with them."

"What were they?" asked Alex, chuckling. "State secrets describing the entire Politburo as gay?"

"You're probably not far off the mark," interrupted Bourne. "That was the Jackal's Moscow cadre in the Vavilova. He was either showing them the dirt he had on them, or giving them the dirt on others."

"The latter in this case," said Krupkin. "A collection of the most preposterous allegations directed at the ranking heads of our major ministries."