The Bourne Ultimatum

"Hey, what about my car?" asked the second guard. "It ain't much but it gets me around. Me and Willie come out here in it."

"Do you have the keys?"

"Yeah, in my pocket. It's parked in the back by the ke

"Get it tomorrow."

"Why don't I get it now?"

"You'd make too much noise driving out, and my superiors will be arriving any moment. It's best that they don't see you. Take my word for it."

"Holy shit! What'd I tell you, Jim-Bob? Jest like I tole Barbie Jo. This place is weird, man!"

"Three hundred bucks ain't weird, Willie. C'mon, we'll hitch. T'ain't late and some of the boys'll be on the road. ... Hey, mister, who's go

"What about Swayne's master sergeant? He can handle them, can't he?"

"They don't like him much," offered the guard named Willie, "but they obey him. They're better with the general's wife, the horny bastards."

"What about the general?" asked Bourne.

"He pisses bright yeller at the sight of 'em," replied Jim-Bob.

"Thanks for the information. Go on now, get down the road a piece before you start hitchhiking. My superiors are coming from the other direction."

"You know," said the second guard, squinting in the moonlight at Jason, "this is the craziest fuckin' night I ever expect to see. You get in here dressed like some gawddamn terrorist, but you talk and act like a shit-kickin' army officer. You keep mentioning these 'soopeeriors' of yours; you drug the pups and pay us three hundred bucks to get out. I don't understand nothin!"

"You're not supposed to. On the other hand, if I was really a terrorist, you'd probably be dead, wouldn't you?"

"He's right, Jim-Bob. Let's get outta here!"

"What the hell are we supposed to say?"

"Tell anyone who asks you the truth. Describe what happened tonight. Also, you can add that the code name is Cobra."

"My Gawd!" yelled Willie as both men fled into the road. Bourne secured the gate and walked back to the patrol cart certain in the knowledge that whatever happened during the next hours, an appendage of Medusa had been thrown into a state of further anxiety. Questions would be asked feverishly-questions for which there were no answers. Nothing. Enigma.

He climbed into the cart, shifted gears and started for the cabin at the end of the graveled road that branched off from the immaculate circular drive.

He stood by the window peering inside, his face at the edge of the glass. The huge, overweight master sergeant was sitting in a large leather armchair, his feet on an ottoman, watching television. From the sounds penetrating the window, specifically the rapid, high-pitched speech of an a

"It's open, Rachel!" yelled the rasping voice from within.

Bourne twisted the knob and shoved the door back; it swung slowly on its hinges and made contact with the wall. He walked inside.

"Jesus Christ!" roared the master sergeant, his heavy legs plunging off the ottoman as he wriggled his massive body out of the chair. "You! ... You're a goddamned ghost! You're dead!"

"Try again," said Delta of Medusa. "The name's Fla

"You're dead!" repeated the general's aide, screaming, his eyes bulging in panic. "You bought it in Hong Kong! You were killed in Hong Kong ... four, five years ago!"

"You kept tabs-"

"We know ... I know!"

"You've got co

"You're Bourne!"

"Obviously born again, you might say."

"I don't believe this!"

"Believe, Fla

"You're the one-the one Swayne called 'Cobra'!"

"It's a snake."

"I don't get it-"

"It's confusing."

"You're one of us!"

"I was. I was also cut out. I snaked back in, as it were."

The sergeant frantically looked at the door, then the windows. "How'd you get in here? Where are the guards, the dogs? Jesus! Where are they?"

"The dogs are asleep in the ke

"You gave...? The dogs are on the grounds!"

"Not any longer. They were persuaded to rest."

"The guards-the goddamned guards!"

"They were persuaded to leave. What they think is happening here tonight is even more confusing."

"What've you done-what are you doing?"

"I thought I just mentioned it. We're going to talk, Sergeant Fla

The frightened man backed awkwardly away from the chair. "You're the maniac they called Delta before you turned and went in business for yourself!" he cried in a guttural whisper. "There was a picture, a photograph-you were laid out on a slab, bloodstains all over the sheet from the bullet wounds; your face was uncovered, your eyes wide open, holes still bleeding on your forehead and your throat. ... They asked me who you were and I said, 'He's Delta. Delta One from the illegals,' and they said, 'No, he's not, he's Jason Bourne, the killer, the assassin,' so I said, 'Then they're one and the same because that man is Delta-I knew him.' They thanked me and told me to go back and join the others."

"Who were 'they'?"

"Some people over at Langley. The one who did all the talking had a limp; he carried a cane."

"And 'the others'-they told you to go back and join?"

"About twenty-five or thirty of the old Saigon crowd."

"Command Saigon?"

"Yeah."

"Men who worked with our crowd, the 'illegals'?"

"Mostly, yeah."

"When was this?"

"For Christ's sake, I told you!" roared the panicked aide. "Four or five years ago! I saw the photograph-you were dead!"

"Only a single photograph," interrupted Bourne quietly, staring at the master sergeant. "You have a very good memory."

"You held a gun to my head. Thirty-three years, two wars and twelve combat tours, nobody ever did that to me-nobody but you. ... Yeah, I gotta good memory."

"I think I understand."

"I don't! I don't understand a goddamned thing! You were dead!"

"You've said that. But I'm not, am I? Or maybe I am. Maybe this is the nightmare that's been visited upon you after twenty years of deceit."

"What kind of crap is that? What the hell-"

"Don't move!"

"I'm not!"

Suddenly, in the distance, there was a loud report. A gunshot! Jason spun around ... then instinct commanded him to keep turning! All around! The massive general's aide was lunging at him, his huge hands like battering rams grazing off Bourne's shoulders as Delta One viciously lashed up his right foot, catching the sergeant's kidney, embedding his shoe deep into the flesh while crashing the barrel of his automatic into the base of the man's neck. Fla