The Bourne Ultimatum

There was a moment of silence as each in his and her own way thought of a man who had selflessly opposed a monolithic system that demanded the death of David Webb, who stood by the railing staring out at the darkened sea, somehow separated in mind and body from the others. It would take time, he understood that. Jason Bourne had to vanish; he had to leave him. When?

Not now! Out of the early night, the madness began again! From the sky the roar of multiple engines broke the silence like approaching sharp cracks of lightning. Three military helicopters swooped down toward the Tranquility dock, fusillades of gunfire chewing up the shoreline as a powerful bullet speedboat swung through the reefs toward the beach. St. Jacques was on his intercom. "Shore alarm!" he screamed. "Grab your weapons!"

"Christ, the Jackal's dead!" yelled Conklin.

"His goddamned disciples aren't!" shouted Jason Bourne-no trace of David Webb-as he shoved Marie to the floor and took a gun out of his belt, a weapon his wife knew nothing about. "They were told he was here!"

"It's insane!"

"That's Carlos," replied Jason, racing to the balcony railing. "He owns them! They're his for life!"

"Shit!" roared Alex as he wheeled his chair furiously and pushed Panov away from the table and the lighted candles.

Suddenly a deafening loudspeaker from the lead helicopter crackled with static, followed by the words of the pilot. "You saw what we did to the beach, mon! We'll cut you in two if you don't stop your engine! ... That's better, mon. Drift into shore-drift, no motor at all and both of you come on deck, your hands on the gunwale, leaning forward! Do it now!"

The searchlight beams of the two circling helicopters centered on the boat as the lead aircraft dropped to the beach, the rotors swirling up the sand, producing an outline of a threshold for its landing. Four men leaped out, their weapons trained on the drifting speedboat as the inhabitants of Villa Eighteen stood by the railing, staring in astonishment at the unbelievable scene below.

"Pritchard!" yelled St. Jacques. "Bring me the binoculars!"

"They're in my hands, Mr. Saint Jay-oh, there they are." The assistant manager rushed out with the powerful magnifiers and handed them to his employer. "I managed to clean the lenses, sir!"

"What do you see?" asked Bourne sharply.

"I don't know. Two men."

"Some army!" said Conklin.

"Give them to me," ordered Jason, grabbing the binoculars from his brother-in-law.

"What is it, David?" shouted Marie, seeing the shock on her husband's face.

"It's Krupkin," he said.

Dimitri Krupkin sat at the white wrought-iron table, his face pale-and it was his full face, as his chin beard had been removed-and refused to speak to anyone until he had finished his third brandy. Like Panov, Conklin and David Webb, he was clearly a hurt man, a wounded man, a man in considerable physical pain, which, like the others, he did not care to dwell upon, as what lay ahead was infinitely better than what he had left behind. His decidedly inferior clothes seemed to a

"Thank you."

Introductions were made, and the instant they were over, a barrage of questions was hurled at the Soviet. He held up both hands, as a pope might from his balcony in St. Peter's Square, and spoke. "I will not bore you or disturb you with the trivial details of my flight from Mother Russia, other than to say I'm aghast at the high price of corruption and will neither forget nor forgive the filthy accommodations I was forced to endure for the exorbitant sums of money I spent. ... That said, thank God for Credit Suisse and those lovely green coupons they issue."

"Just tell us what happened," said Marie.

"You, dear lady, are even lovelier than I had imagined. Had we met in Paris I would have whisked you away from this Dickensian ragamuffin you call a husband. My, look at your hair-glorious!"

"He probably couldn't tell you what color it is," said Marie, smiling. "You'll be the threat I hold over his peasant head."

"Still, for his age he's remarkably competent."

"That's because I feed him a lot of pills, all kinds of pills, Dimitri. Now tell us, what happened?"

"What happened? They found me out, that's what happened! They confiscated my lovely house in Geneva! It's now an adjunct to the Soviet embassy. The loss is heartbreaking!"

"I think my wife's talking about the peasant me," said Webb. "You were in the hospital in Moscow and you found out what someone intended for me-namely, my execution. Then you told Benjamin to get me out of Novgorod."

"I have sources, Jason, and errors are made in high places and I'll incriminate no one by using names. It was simply wrong. If Nuremberg taught us all nothing else, it was that obscene commands should not be obeyed. That lesson crosses borders and penetrates minds. We in Russia suffered far, far more than anyone in America during the last war. Some of us remember that, and we will not emulate that enemy."

"Well spoken," said Prefontaine, raising his glass of Perrier to the Soviet. "When everything's said and done, we're all part of the same thinking, feeling human race, aren't we?"

"Well," choked Krupkin, swallowing his fourth brandy, "beyond that very attractive if overused observation, there are divisions of commitment, Judge. Not serious, of course, but nevertheless varied. For instance, although my house on the lake in Geneva is no longer mine, my accounts in the Cayman Islands remain intensely personal. Incidentally, how far are those islands from here?"

"Roughly twelve hundred miles due west," replied St. Jacques. "A jet out of Antigua will get you there in three hours plus."

"That's what I thought," said Krupkin. "When we were in the hospital in Moscow, Alex frequently spoke of Tranquility Isle and Montserrat, so I checked the map in the hospital library. Everything seems to be on course. ... Incidentally, the man with the boat, he won't be dealt with too harshly, will he? My outrageously expensive ersatz papers are very much in order."

"His crime was in his appearance, not in bringing you over here," answered St. Jacques.

"I was in a hurry, it goes with ru

"I've already explained to Government House that you're an old friend of my brother-in-law."

"Good. Very good."

"What will you do now, Dimitri?" asked Marie.

"My options are limited, I'm afraid. Our Russian bear not only has more claws than a centipede has legs, she's also computerized with a global network. I shall have to remain buried for quite some time while I construct another existence. From birth, of course." Krupkin turned to the owner of Tranquility I

"After what you did for David and my sister, don't give it a second thought. This house is your house, Mr. Krupkin, all of it."

"How very kind. First, naturally, there'll be the trip to the Caymans, where, I'm told, there are excellent tailors; then perhaps a clever little yacht and a small charter business that can be substantiated as having been moved from Tierra del Fuego or the Malvinas, some godforsaken place where a little money can produce an identity and a highly credible if obscure past. After these are set in motion, there's a doctor in Buenos Aires who does wonders with fingerprints-quite painlessly, I'm told-and then minor cosmetic surgery-Rio has the best, you know, far better than New York-just enough to alter the profile and perhaps remove a few years. ... For the past five days and nights, I've had nothing to do but think and plan, enduring situations of passage I would not describe in front of the lovely Mrs. Webb."