Robert Ludlum: The Bourne Identity

He spiraled back off his feet, behind the heavy copper dry bar. Gunshots came, two … three, the second bullet tearing the flesh of his left forearm. He pulled his automatic from his belt; he had three shots left. One of them had to find its mark—Carlos. There was a debt to pay in Paris, and a contract to fulfill, his love far safer with the assassin’s death. He took the plastic lighter from his pocket, ignited it and held it beneath a bar rag suspended from a hook. The cloth caught fire; he grabbed it and threw it to his right, as he dove to his left. Carlos fined at the flaming rag, as Bourne spun to his knees, leveling his gun, pulling the trigger twice.

The figure buckled but did not fall. Instead, he crouched, then sprang like a white panther diagonally forward, his hands outstretched. What was he doing? Then Jason knew. The assassin gripped the edge of the huge silver screen, ripping it from its metal bracket in the ceiling, pulling it downward with all his weight and strength.

It floated down above Bourne, filling his vision, blocking everything else from his mind. He screamed as the shimmering silver descended over him, suddenly more frightened of it than of Carlos or of any other human being on the earth. It terrified him, infuriated him, splitting his mind in fragments; images flashed across his eyes and angry voices shouted in his ears. He aimed his gun and fired at the terrible shroud. As he slashed his hand against it wildly, pushing the rough silver cloth away, he understood. He had fired his last shot, his last. As a legend named Cain, Carlos knew by sight and by sound every weapon on earth; he had counted the gunshots.

The assassin loomed above him, the automatic in his hand aimed at Jason’s head. “Your execution, Delta. On the day scheduled. For everything you’ve done.” Bourne arched his back, rolling furiously to his right; at least he would die in motion! Gunshots filled the shimmering room, hot needles slicing across his neck, piercing his legs, cutting up to his waist. Roll, roll!

Suddenly the gunshots stopped, and in the distance he could hear repeated sounds of hammering, the smashing of wood and steel, growing louder, more insistent. There was a final deafening crash from the dark corridor outside the library, followed by men shouting, running, and beyond them somewhere in the unseen, outside world, the insistent whine of sirens.

“In here! He’s in here!” screamed Carlos.

It was insane! The assassin was directing the invaders directly toward him, to him! Reason was madness, nothing on earth made sense!

The door was crashed open by a tall man in a black overcoat; someone was with him, but Jason could not see. The mists were filling his eyes, shapes and sounds becoming obscured, blurred. He was rolling in space. Away … away.

But then he saw the one thing he did not want to see. Rigid shoulders that floated above a tapered waist raced out of the room and down the dimly lit corridor. Carlos. His screams had sprung the trap open! He had reversed it! In the chaos he had trapped the stalkers. He was escaping!

“Carlos …” Bourne knew he could not be heard; what emerged from his bleeding throat was a whisper. He tried again, forcing the sound from his stomach. “It’s him. It’s … Carlos!” There was confusion, commands shouted futilely, orders swallowed in consternation. And then a figure came into focus. A man was limping toward him, a cripple who had tried to kill him in a cemetery outside of Paris. There was nothing left! Jason lurched, crawling toward the sizzling, blinding flare. He grabbed it and held it as though it were a weapon, aiming it at the killer with a cane.

“Come on! Come on! Closer, you bastard! I’ll burn your eyes out! You think you’ll kill me, you won’t! I’ll kill you! I’ll burn your eyes!”

“You don’t understand,” said the trembling voice of the limping killer. “It’s me, Delta. It’s Conklin. I was wrong.”

The flare singed his hands, his eyes! … Madness. The explosions were all around him now, blinding, deafening, punctuated by ear-splitting screeches from the jungle that erupted with each detonation.

The jungle! Tam Quan! The wet, hot stench was everywhere, but they had reached it! The base camp was theirs!

An explosion to his left; he could see it! High above the ground, suspended between two trees, the spikes of a bamboo cage. The figure inside was moving. He was alive! Get to him, reach him!

A cry came from his right. Breathing, coughing in the smoke, a man was limping toward the dense underbrush, a rifle in his hand. It was him, the blond hair caught in the light, a foot broken from a parachute jump. The bastard! A piece of filth who had trained with them, studied the maps with them, flown north with them … all the time springing a trap on them! A traitor with a radio who told the enemy exactly where to look in that impenetrable jungle that was Tam Quan.

It was Bourne! Jason Bourne. Traitor, garbage!

Get him! Don’t let him reach others! Kill him! Kill Jason Bourne! He is your enemy! Fire!

He did not fall! The head that had been blown apart was still there. Coming toward him! What was happening?

Madness. Tam Quan …

“Come with us,” said the limping figure, walking out of the jungle into what remained of an elegant room. That room. “We’re not your enemies. Come with us.”

“Get away from me!” Bourne lunged again, now back to the fallen screen. It was his sanctuary, his shroud of death, the blanket thrown over a man at birth, a lining for his coffin. “You are my enemy! I’ll take you all! I don’t care, it doesn’t matter! Can’t you understand!? I’m Delta! Cain is for Charlie and Delta is for Cain! What more do you want from me? I was and I was not! I am and I am not!

Bastards, bastards! Come on! Closer!”

Another voice was heard, a deeper voice, calmer, less insistent. “Get her. Bring her in.”

Somewhere in the distance the sirens reached a crescendo, and then they stopped. Darkness came and the waves carried Jason up to the night sky, only to hurl him down again, crashing him into an abyss of watery violence. He was entering an eternity of weightless … memory. An explosion filled the night sky now, a fiery diadem rose above black waters. And then he heard the words, spoken from the clouds, filling the earth.

“Jason, my love. My only love. Take my hand. Hold it. Tightly, Jason. Tightly, my darling.”

Peace came with the darkness.

Brigadier General Crawford put the file folder down on the couch beside him. “I don’t need this,” he said to Marie St. Jacques, who sat across from him in a straight-back chair. “I’ve gone over it and over it, trying to find out where we missed.”

“You presumed where no one should,” said the only other person in the hotel suite. He was Dr. Morris Panov, psychiatrist; he stood by the window, the morning sun streaming in, putting his expressionless face in shadow. “I allowed you to presume, and I’ll live with it for the rest of my life.”

“It’s nearly two weeks now,” said Marie impatiently. “I’d like specifics. I think I’m entitled to them.”

“You are. It was an insanity called clearance.”

“Insanity,” agreed Panov.

“Protection, also,” added Crawford. “I subscribe to that part. It has to continue for a very long time.”

“Protection?” Marie frowned.

“We’ll get to it,” said the general, glancing at Panov. “From everyone’s point of view, it’s vital. I trust we all accept that.”

“Please! Jason—who is he?”

“His name is David Webb. He was a career foreign service officer, a specialist in Far Eastern affairs, until his separation from the government five years ago.”