The Bourne Ultimatum

His back once again pressed against the wall, Jason sidestepped to his left, closely observing everything he could see. Like most armories the world over, Kubinka had no windows on the first floor, at least not for the first fifteen feet from the ground; he presumed it was because the occasional wildly galloping horses and glass did not go together. He could see a window frame on what appeared to be the second floor but close enough to the slain driver to afford maximum accuracy for a silenced high-powered weapon: Another frame on ground level had a knob protruding; it was the rear exit no one had bothered to mention. The little things, the insignificant things! Goddamn!

The muted music inside swelled again, but now the swelling was different, the drums louder, the trumpets more sustained, more piercing. It was the unmistakable ending of a symphonic march, martial music at its most intense. ... That was it! The end of the event inside was at hand and the Jackal would use the emerging crowds to cover his escape. He would mingle, and when panic spread through the parking area with the sight of the dead man and the shot-up sedan, he would disappear-with whom and with what vehicle would take hours to determine.

Bourne had to get inside; he had to stop him, take him! Krupkin had worried about the lives of "several dozen men and women"-he had no idea that in reality there were several hundred! Carlos would use whatever firepower he had stolen, including grenades, to create mass hysteria so that he could escape. Lives meant nothing; if further killing was required to save his own, nothing. Abandoning caution, Delta raced to the door, gripping his AK-47 laterally in his arm, the safety unlatched, his index finger on the trigger. He grabbed the knob and twisted it-it would not turn. He fired his weapon into the plated metal around the lock, then a second fusillade into the opposing frame, and as he reached for the smoking knob, his personal world went mad!

Out of the line of vehicles a heavy truck suddenly shot forward, coming straight toward him, wildly accelerating as it approached. Simultaneously, successive bursts of automatic gunfire erupted, the bullets thumping into the wood to his right. He lunged to his left, rolling on the ground, the dust and dirt filling his eyes as he kept rolling, his body a tube spi

And then it happened! The massive explosion tore apart the door, blowing away a large section of the wall above, and through the black smoke and settling debris, he could see a figure lurching awkwardly toward the semicircle of vehicles. His killer was getting away after all, But he was alive! And the reason for it was obvious-the Jackal had made a mistake. Not in the trap, that was extraordinary; Carlos knew his enemy was with Krupkin and the KGB and so he had gone outside and waited for him. Instead, his error was in the placement of the explosives. He had wired the bomb or bombs to the top of the truck's engine, not underneath. Explosive compounds seek release through the least resistant barriers; the relatively thin hood of a vehicle is far less solid than the iron beneath it. The bomb actually blew up, it did not blow out on ground level, sending death-inducing metal fragments along the surface.

No time! Bourne struggled to his feet and staggered to the Komitet sedan, a horrible fear coming into focus. He looked through the shattered windows, his eyes suddenly drawn to the front seat as a heavily fleshed hand was raised. He yanked the door open and saw Krupkin, his large body squeezed below the seat under the dashboard, his right shoulder half torn away, bleeding flesh apparent through the fabric of his jacket.

"We are hurt," said the KGB officer weakly but calmly. "Aleksei somewhat more seriously than I am, so attend to him first, if you please."

"The crowd's coming out of the armory-"

"Here!" interrupted Krupkin, painfully reaching into his pocket and pulling out his plastic identification case. "Get to the idiot in charge and bring him to me. We must get a doctor. For Aleksei, you damn fool. Hurry!"

The two wounded men lay alongside each other on examining tables in the armory's infirmary as Bourne stood across the room, leaning against the wall, watching but not understanding what was being said. Three doctors had been dispatched by helicopter from the roof of the People's Hospital on the Serova Prospekt-two surgeons and an anesthesiologist, the last, however, proving u

"I presume you mean bullets when you speak so reverently of 'foreign objects,' " said Krupkin in high dudgeon.

"He means bullets," confirmed Alex hoarsely in Russian. The retired CIA station chief was unable to move his head because of his bandaged throat. Wide adhesive straps extended down across his collarbone and upper right shoulder.

"Thank you," said the surgeon. "You were both fortunate, especially you, our American patient for whom we must compile confidential medical records. Incidentally, give our people the name and address of your physician in the United States. You'll need attention for some weeks ahead."

"Right now he's in a hospital in Paris."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Well, whenever something's wrong with me, I tell him and he sends me to the doctor he thinks I should see."

"That's not exactly socialized medicine."

"For me it is. I'll give his name and address to a nurse. With luck he'll be back soon."

"I repeat, you were very fortunate."

"I was very fast, Doctor, and so was your comrade. We saw that son of a bitch ru

"He was an angry young man as well, Aleksei," broke in Krupkin from the other table. "Those first shots from the doorway sent him into that bus."

The door of the infirmary burst open, which was to say it was not opened so much as it was invaded, submitting to the august presence of the KGB commissar from the flat in Slavyansky. The blunt-featured, blunt-spoken Komitet officer in the disheveled uniform lived up to his appearance. "You," he said to the doctor, "I've spoken to your associates outside. You are finished here, they say."

"Not entirely, comrade. There are minor items to attend to, such as therapeutical-"

"Later," interrupted the commissar. "We talk privately. Alone."

"The Komitet speaks?" asked the surgeon, his contempt minor but evident.

"It speaks."

"Sometimes too often."

"What?"

"You heard me," replied the doctor, heading for the door. The KGB man shrugged and waited for the infirmary door to close. He then walked to the foot of both examining tables, his squinting flesh-encased eyes darting between the two wounded men, and spat out one word. "Novgorod!" he said.

"What?"

"What ... ?"

The responses were simultaneous; even Bourne snapped himself away from the wall.

"You," he added, switching to his limited English. "Understand I say?"

"If you said what I think you said, I think I do, but only the name."

"I explain good enough. We question the nine men women he locked in weapons storage. He kill two guards who do not stop him, okay? He take automobile keys from four men but uses no automobiles, okay?"

"I saw him head for the cars!"

"Which? Three other people at Kubinka shot dead, automobile papers taken. Which?"

"For Christ's sake, check with your vehicle bureau, or whatever you call it!"

"Take time. Also in Moskva, automobiles under different names, different tag plates-Leningrad, Smolensk, who knows-all to not look for automobile laws broken."