The Bourne Ultimatum

They found out roughly ten minutes after the destruction of a large part of the diminutive "Great Britain." Bourne reached the compressed, miniaturized outlines of "Washington, D.C." when the conflagration began. The first to plunge into flames, the sound of its detonation delayed only by milliseconds, was the wooden duplicate of the Capitol dome; it blew into the yellowed sky like the thin, hollow replica it was. Moments later-only moments-the Washington Monument, centered in its patch of grassy park, crumpled with a distant boom as if its false base had been shoveled away by a thunderous ground-moving machine. In seconds the artificial set piece that was the White House collapsed in flames, the explosions dulled both audibly and visibly, for "Pe

Bourne knew where he was now. The tu

"The tu

The screams from the excited crowds became a chant that could not physically be denied; the underground pipeline was about to be assaulted. Jason leaped out of the surrounded jeep, pocketing the remaining three flares, and propelled his way, arms and shoulders working furiously, often fruitlessly, through the crushing, crashing bodies. There was nothing else for it; he pulled out a flare and ripped the release from its recess. The spewing flame had its effect; heat and fire were catalysts. He ran through the crowd, pummeling everyone in front of him, shoving the blinding, spitting flare into terrified faces, until he reached the front and faced a cordon of guards in the uniforms of the United States Army. It was crazy, insane! The world had gone nuts!

No! There! In the fenced-off parking lot was the fuel truck! He broke through the cordon of guards, holding up his computerized release card, and ran up to the soldier with the highest-ranking insignia on his uniform, a colonel with an AK-47 strapped to his waist who was as panicked as any officer of high rank he had ever seen since Saigon.

"My identification is with the name 'Archie' and you can clear it immediately. Even now I refuse to speak our language, only English! Is that understood? Discipline is discipline!"

"Togda?" yelled the officer, questioning the moment, then instantly returning to English in a maddeningly Boston accent. "Of course, we know of you," he cried, "but what can I do? This is an uncontrollable riot!"

"Has anyone passed through the tu

"No one, absolutely, no one! Our orders are to keep the tu

"Good. ... Get on the loudspeakers and disperse the crowds. Tell them the crisis has passed and the danger with it."

"How can I? The fires are everywhere, the explosions everywhere!"

"They'll stop soon."

"How do you know that?"

"I know! Do as I say!"

"Do as he says!" roared a voice behind Bourne; it was Benjamin, his face and shirt drenched with sweat. "And I hope to hell you know what you're talking about!"

"Where did you come from?"

"Where you know; how is another question. Try scaring the shit out of Capital HQ for a chopper ordered by an apoplectic Krupkin from a hospital bed in Moscow."

" 'Apoplectic'-not bad for a Russian-"

"Who gives me such orders?" yelled the officer of the guard. "You are only a young man!"

"Check me out, buddy, but do it quick," answered Benjamin, holding out his card. "Otherwise I think I'll have you transferred to Tashkent. Nice scenery, but no private toilets. ... Move, you asshole!"

"Cal-if-fornia, here I-"

"Shut up!"

"He's here! There's the fuel truck. Over there." Jason pointed to the huge vehicle that dwarfed the scattered cars and vans in the fenced parking area.

"A fuel truck? How did you figure it out?" asked the astonished Benjamin.

"That tank's got to hold close to a hundred thousand pounds. Combined with the plastics, strategically placed, it's enough for the streets and those fake structures of old, dried wood."

"Slushaytye!" blared the myriad loudspeakers around the tu

"What earthquake?" shouted a man in the front ranks of the panicked multitude. "You say it's an earthquake and we are all told it is an earthquake but your brains are in your bowels! I've lived through an earthquake and this is no earthquake. It is an armed attack!"

"Yes, yes! An attack!"

"We are being attacked!"

"Invaded! It's an invasion!"

"Open the tu

The protesting chorus grew from all sections of the desperate crowd as the soldiers held firm, their bayonets unsheathed and affixed to their rifles. The colonel continued, his features contorted, his voice nearly matching the hysteria of his frenzied audience.

"Listen to me and ask yourselves a question!" he screamed. "I'm telling you, as I have been told, that this is an earthquake and I know it's true. Further, I will tell you how I know it's true! ... Have you heard a single gunshot? Yes, that is the question! A single gunshot! No, you have not! ... Here, as in all the compounds and in every sector of those compounds, there are police and soldiers and trainers who carry weapons. Their orders are to repel by force any unwarranted displays of violence, to say nothing of armed invaders! Yet nowhere has there been any gunfire-"

"What's he shouting about?" asked Jason, turning to Benjamin.

"He's trying to convince them it is-or was-an earthquake. They don't believe him; they think it's an invasion. He's telling them it couldn't be because there's been no gunfire."

"Gunfire?"

"That's his proof. Nobody's shooting at anybody and they sure as hell would be if there was an armed attack. No gunshots, no attack."

"Gunshots ... ?" Bourne suddenly grabbed the young Soviet and spun him around. "Tell him to stop! For God's sake, stop him!"

"What?"

"He's giving the Jackal the opening he wants-he needs!"

"Now what are you talking about?"

"Gunfire ... gunshots, confusion!"

"Nyet!" screamed a woman, breaking through the crowd and shouting at the officer in the center of the searchlight beams. "The explosions are bombs! They come from bombers above!"

"You are foolish," cried the colonel, replying in Russian. "If it was an air raid, our fighter planes from Belopol would fill the sky! ... The explosions come out of the earth, the fires out of the earth, from the gases below-" These false words were the last words the Soviet officer would ever speak.

A staccato volley of automatic gunfire burst from the shadows of the tu