The Bourne Ultimatum

"Insanity, comrade!" shouted an officer from the gatehouse window. "Unbelievable! ... It's as if the earth went crazy! First 'Germany,' all over there are explosions and fires in the streets and buildings going up in flames. The ground trembles, and we are told it's some kind of massive earthquake. Then it happens in 'Italy'-'Rome' is torched, and in the 'Greek' sector 'Athens' and the port of 'Piraeus' are filled with fires everywhere and still the explosions continue, the streets in flames!"

"What does Capital Headquarters say?"

"They don't know what to say! The earthquake nonsense was just that-nonsense. Everyone's in panic, issuing orders and then countermanding them." Another wall phone rang inside the gatehouse; the officer of the guard picked it up and listened, then instantly screamed at the top of his lungs. "Madness, it's complete madness! Are you certain?"

"What is it?" roared Benjamin, rushing to the window.

"'Egypt!' " he screamed, his ear pressed to the telephone. "'Israel!' ... 'Cairo' and 'Tel Aviv'-fires everywhere, bombs everywhere! No one can keep up with the devastation; the trucks crash into one another in the narrow streets. The hydrants are blown up; water flows in the gutters but the streets are still in flames. ... And some idiot just got on the line and asked if the No Smoking signs were properly placed while the wooden buildings are on their way to becoming rubble! Idiots. They are all idiots!"

"Get back here!" yelled Bourne, having made the jeep lurch through the gate. "He's in here somewhere! You drive and I'll-" Jason's words were cut off by a deafening explosion up ahead in the center of "Madrid's" Paseo del Prado. It was an enormous detonation, lumber and stone arcing up into the flaming sky. Then, as if the Paseo itself were a living, throbbing immense wall of fire, the flames rolled forward, swinging to the left out of the "city" into the road that was the approach to the border gate. "Look!" shouted Bourne, reaching down out of the jeep, his hand scraping the graveled surface beneath; he brought his fingers to his face, his nostrils. "Christ," he roared. "The whole goddamned road's soaked with gasoline!" A burst of fire imploded thirty yards in front of the jeep, sending stones and dirt smashing into the metal grille, and propelling the flames forward with increasing speed. "Plastics!" said Jason to himself, then yelled at Benjamin, who was ru

"I'm going with you!" shouted the young Soviet, grabbing the edge of the door.

"Sorry, Junior," cried Bourne, gu

"What are you doing?" screamed Benjamin, his voice fading as the jeep sped across the border.

"The fuel truck, that lousy fuel truck!" whispered Jason as he raced into "Strasbourg, France."

It happened in "Paris"-where else but Paris! The huge duplicate of the Eiffel Tower blew up with such force that the earth shook. Rockets? Missiles? The Jackal had stolen missiles from the Kubinka Armory! Seconds later, starting far behind him, the explosions began as the streets burst into flames. Everywhere. All "France" was being destroyed in a way that the madman Adolf Hitler could only have envisaged in his most twisted dreams. Panicked men and women ran through the alleyways and the streets, screaming, falling, praying to gods their leaders had forsworn.

"England!" He had to get into "England" and then ultimately into "America," where all his instincts told him the end would come-one way or another. He had to find the truck that was being driven by the Jackal and destroy both. He could do it-he could do it! Carlos thought he was dead and that was the key, for the Jackal would do what he had to do, what he, Jason Bourne, would do if he were Carlos. When the holocaust he had ignited was at its zenith, the Jackal would abandon the truck and put into play his means of escape-his escape to Paris, the real Paris, where his army of old men would spread the word of their monseigneur's triumph over the ubiquitous, disbelieving Soviets. It would be somewhere near the tu

The race through "London," "Coventry" and "Portsmouth" could only be likened to the newsreel footage from World War II depicting the carnage hurled down on Great Britain by the Luftwaffe, compounded by first the screaming and then the silent terror of the V-2 and V-5 rockets. But the residents of Novgorod were not British-forbearance gave way to mass hysteria, concern for all became survival for self alone. As the impressive reproductions of Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament crashed down in flames and the aircraft factories of "Coventry" were reduced to raging fires, the streets swelled with screaming, horrified crowds racing through the roads that led to the Volkhov River and the shipyards of "Portsmouth." There, from the scaled-down piers and slips, scores threw themselves into rushing waters only to be caught in the magnesium grids where sharp, jagged bolts of electricity blazingly zigzagged through the air, leaving limp bodies floating toward the next metal traps above and below the angry surface. In paralyzed fragments, the crowds watched and turned in panic, fighting their way back into the miniaturized city of "Portsea"; the guards had abandoned their posts and chaos ruled the night.

Snapping on the jeep's searchlight, Bourne drove in sudden spurts down alleyways and the less crowded narrow streets-south, always south. He grabbed a flare from the army vehicle's floor, pulled the release string, and proceeded to thrust the spitting, hissing, blinding burst of fire into the hands and faces of the hysterical racing stragglers who tried to climb on board. The sight of the constantly pulsating flame so close to their eyes was enough; each screamed and recoiled in terror, no doubt thinking yet another explosive had detonated in his or her immediate vicinity.

A graveled road! The gates to the American compound were less than a hundred yards away. ... The graveled road? Soaked with fuel! The plastic charges had not gone off-but they would in a matter of moments, creating a wall of fire, enveloping the jeep and its driver! With the accelerator pressed to the floor, Jason raced to the gate. It was deserted-and the iron barrier was down! He slammed on the brakes, skidding to a stop, hoping beyond reasonable hope that no sparks would fly out and ignite the gravel. Placing the spewing flare on the metal floor, he swiftly removed two grenades from his pockets-grenades he was loath to part with-pulled the pins, and hurled both toward the gate. The massive explosions blew the barricade away and instantly set the graveled road on fire, the leaping flames immediate-enveloping him! He had no choice; he threw the hot flare away and sped through the tu

He had been so filled with anxiety on their way to the crossing into "Spain" that he barely recalled the diminutive replicas of the "American" cities and towns, much less the fastest routes that led to the tu

The madness had reached "America." Police cars, their sirens wailing, sped through the streets, men shouting into radios as people in various stages of dress and undress ran out of buildings and stores, screaming about the terrible earthquake that had hit this leg of the Volkhov, one even more severe than the catastrophe in Armenia. Even with the surest knowledge of devastating infiltration, the leaders of Novgorod could not reveal the truth. It was as if the seismic geologists of the world were forgotten, their discoveries unfounded. The giant forces beneath the earth did not collide and erupt in terrible swift immediacy; instead, they worked in relays, sending a series of crippling body blows from north to south. Who questions authority in the panic of survival? Everyone in "America" was being prepared, primed for what they knew not.