The Bourne Ultimatum

The explosion was deafening, the lethal debris joining the whirling beams of the searchlights in the night sky, fragments of metal and glass stinging Jason's back and legs. Move, move! screamed the voice in his mind's ears as he lurched to his knees, then to his feet in the smoke and fire of the burning automobile. As he did so the gravel erupted all around him; he zigzagged wildly toward the protection of the nearest vehicle, a square-shaped van. He was hit twice, in his shoulder and thigh! He spun around the wall of the van at the precise moment when the large windshield was blown away.

"You're no match for me, Jason Bourne!" screamed Carlos the Jackal, his automatic weapon on rapid fire. "You never were! You are a pretender, a fraud!"

"So be it," roared Bourne. "Then come and get me!" Jason raced to the driver's door, yanked it open, then ran to the back of the vehicle where he crouched, his face to the edge, his Colt .45 angled straight up next to his cheek. With a final hissing expulsion, the flare beyond the fence burned itself out as the Jackal stopped his continuous fire. Bourne understood. Carlos faced the open door, unsure, indecisive ... only seconds to go. Metal against metal; a gun barrel was rammed against the door, slamming it shut. Now!

Jason spun around the edge of the van, his weapon exploding, firing into the Spanish uniform, blowing the gun out of the Jackal's hands. One, two, three; the shells flew in the air-and then they stopped! They stopped, the explosions replaced by a sickening, jamming click as the round in the chamber failed to eject. Carlos lurched to the ground for his weapon, his left arm limp and bleeding but his right hand still strong, clutching the gun like the claw of a crazed animal.

Bourne whipped his bayonet out of its scabbard– and sprang forward, slicing the blade down toward the Jackal's forearm. He was too late! Carlos held the weapon! Jason lunged up, his left hand clasping the hot barrel-hold on, hold on! You can't let it go! Twist it! Clockwise! Use the bayonet-no, don't! Drop it! Use both hands! The conflicting commands clashed in his head, madness. He had no breath, no strength; his eyes could not focus-the shoulder. Like Bourne himself, the Jackal was wounded in his right shoulder!

Hold on! Reach the shoulder but hold on! With a last, gasping final surge, Bourne shot up and crashed Carlos back into the side of the van, pummeling the wounded area. The Jackal screamed, dropping the weapon, then kicked it under the vehicle.

Where the blow came from, Jason at first did not know; he only knew that the left side of his skull seemed suddenly split in two. Then he realized that he had done it to himself! He had slipped on the blood-covered gravel, and had crashed into the metal grille of the van. It did not matter-nothing mattered!

Carlos the Jackal was racing away! With the rampant confusion everywhere, there were a hundred ways he could get out of Novgorod. It had all been for nothing!

Still, there was his last grenade. Why not? Bourne removed it, pulled the pin, and threw it over the van into the center of the parking area. The explosion followed and Jason got to his feet; perhaps the grenade would tell Benjamin something, warn him to keep his eyes on the area.

Staggering and barely able to walk, Jason started for the break in the fence that led to the guardhouse and the tu

"Archie ... ?" Benjamin's astonished voice floated over the sounds of the river, followed by the sight of the young Soviet ru

"So you opened the gates and let my executioner walk away," yelled Jason weakly. "Why didn't you send a limousine for him?"

"I suggest you look again, Professor," replied a breathless Benjamin as he stopped in front of Bourne, studying Jason's battered face and bloodstained clothing. "Old age has withered your eyesight."

"What?"

"You want gates, you'll have gates." The trainer shouted an order toward the guardhouse in Russian. Seconds later the huge iron gates descended, covering the mouth of the tu

"Glass?" asked a bewildered Jason.

"At each end of the tu

"What are you talking about?" It was not necessary for the young Russian to explain. Suddenly, like a series of gigantic waves crashing against the walls of a huge aquarium, the tu

The cold eyes of Jason Bourne watched in satisfaction, his mouth taut, rigid, the face of a killer, a killer among killers, who had won. Briefly, however, the softer eyes of David Webb intruded, his lips parted, forming the face of a man for whom the weight of a world he loathed had been removed.

"He's gone, Archie," observed Benjamin at Jason's side. "That bastard can't come back."

"You flooded the tu

"You didn't have an automatic weapon, but he did. Frankly, I thought Krupkin's prophecy was-shall we say-borne out? You were dead, and the man who killed you would take the quickest way out. This was it and the uniform confirmed it. Everything suddenly made sense from the 'Spanish' compound down."

"How did you get that crowd away?"

"I told them barges were being sent to take them across the river-about two miles north. ... Speaking of Krupkin, I've got to get you out of here. Now. Come on, the helicopter pad's about a half a mile away. We'll use the jeep. Hurry up, for God's sake!"

"Krupkin's instructions?"

"Choked from his hospital bed, in as much anger as in shock."

"What do you mean?"

"You might as well know. Someone up in the rarefied circle-Krupkin doesn't know who-issued the order that you weren't to leave here under any conditions. Put plainly, it was unthinkable, but then no one ever thought that the whole goddamned Novgorod would go up in flames, either, and that's our cover."

"Ours?"

"I'm not your executioner, somebody else is. The word never reached me and in this mess it won't now."

"Wait a minute! Where's the chopper taking me?"

"Cross your fingers, Professor, and hope Krupkin and your American friend know what they're doing. The helicopter takes you to Yelsk, and from there a plane to Zomosc across the Polish border, where an ungrateful satellite has apparently permitted a CIA listening post."

"Christ, I'll still be in Soviet bloc territory!"

"The implication was that your people are ready for you. Good luck."

"Ben," said Jason, studying the young man. "Why are you doing this? You're disobeying a direct order-"