Robert Ludlum - The Bourne Identity

“Slide twelve, please!”

Jason pushed the woman forward, in front of the figures standing by the back wall, behind the last row of chairs. He tried to judge the size of the lecture hall, looking for a red light that could mean escape. He saw it! A faint reddish glow in the distance. On the stage, behind the screen. There were no other exits, no other doors but the entrance to Suite Seven. He had to reach it; he had to get them to that exit. On that stage.

“Marie—par ici!” The whisper came from their left, from a seat in the back row.

“Non, chérie. Reste avec moi.” The second whisper was delivered by the shadowed figure of a man standing directly in front of Marie St. Jacques. He had stepped away from the wall, intercepting her.

“On nous a séparé. I’l n’y a plus de chaises.”

Bourne pressed the gun firmly into the woman’s rib cage, its message unmistakable. She whispered without breathing, Jason grateful that her face could not be seen clearly. “Please, let us by,” she said in French. “Please.”

“What’s this? Is he your cablegram, my dear?”

“An old friend,” whispered Bourne.

A shout rose over the increasingly louder hum from the audience. “May I please have slide twelve! Per favore!”

“We have to see someone at the end of the row,” continued Jason, looking behind him. The right-hand door of the entrance opened; in the middle of a shadowed face, a pair of gold-rimmed glasses reflected the dim light of the corridor. Bourne edged the girl past her bewildered friend, forcing him back into the wall, whispering an apology.

“Sorry, but we’re in a hurry!”

“You’re damn rude, too!”

“Yes, I know.”

“Slide twelve! Ma che infamia!”

The beam of light shot out from the projector; it vibrated under the nervous hand of the operator. Another graph appeared on the screen as Jason and the woman reached the far wall, the start of the narrow aisle that led down the length of the hall to the stage. He pushed her into the corner, pressing his body against hers, his face against her face.

“I’ll scream,” she whispered.

“I’ll shoot,” he said. He peered around the figures leaning against the wall; the killers were both inside, both squinting, shifting their heads like alarmed rodents, trying to spot their target among the rows of faces.

The voice of the lecturer rose like the ringing of a cracked bell, his diatribe brief but strident.

“Ecco! For the skeptics I address here this evening—and that is most of you—here is statistical proof! Identical in substance to a hundred other analyses I have prepared. Leave the marketplace to those who live there. Minor excesses can always be found. They are a small price to pay for the general good.”

There was a scattering of applause, the approval of a definite minority. Bertinelli resumed a normal tone and droned on, his long pointer stabbing at the screen, emphasizing the obvious—his obvious. Jason leaned back again; the gold spectacles glistened in the harsh glare of the projector’s side light, the killer who wore them touching his companion’s arm, nodding to his left, ordering his subordinate to continue the search on the left side of the room; he would take the right. He began, the gold rims growing brighter as he sidestepped his way in front of those standing, studying each face. He would reach the corner, reach them, in a matter of seconds. Stopping the killer with a gunshot was all that was left; and if someone along the row of those standing moved, or if the woman he had pressed against the wall went into panic and shoved him … or if he missed the killer for any number of reasons, he was trapped. And even if he hit the man, there was another killer across the room, certainly a marksman.

“Slide thirteen, if you please.”

That was it. Now!

The shaft of light went out. In the blackout, Bourne pulled the woman from the wall, spun her in her place, his face against hers. “If you make a sound, I’ll kill you!”

“I believe you,” she whispered, terrified. “You’re a maniac.”

“Let’s go!” He pushed her down the narrow aisle that led to the stage fifty feet away. The projector’s light went on again; he grabbed the girl’s neck, forcing her down into a kneeling position as he, too, knelt down behind her. They were concealed from the killers by the rows of bodies sitting in the chairs. He pressed her flesh with his fingers; it was his signal to keep moving, crawling… slowly, keeping down, but moving. She understood; she started forward on her knees, trembling.

“The conclusions of this phase are irrefutable,” cried the lecturer. “The profit motive is inseparable from productivity incentive, but the adversary roles can never be equal. As Socrates understood, the inequality of values is constant. Gold simply is not brass or iron; who among you can deny it? Slide fourteen, if you please!”

The darkness again. Now.

He yanked the woman up, pushing her forward, toward the stage. They were within three feet of the edge.

“Cosa succede? What is the matter, please? Slide fourteen!” It had happened! The projector was jammed again; the darkness was extended again. And there on the stage in front of them, above them, was the red glow of the exit sign. Jason gripped the girl’s arm viciously. “Get up on that stage and run to the exit! I’m right behind you; you stop or cry out, I’ll shoot.”

“For God’s sake, let me go!”

“Not yet.” He meant it; there was another exit somewhere, men waiting outside for the target from Marseilles. “Go on! Now.”

The St. Jacques woman got to her feet and ran to the stage. Bourne lifted her off the floor, over the edge, leaping up as he did so, pulling her to her feet again.

The blinding light of the projector shot out, flooding the screen, washing the stage. Cries of surprise and derision came from the audience at the sight of two figures, the shouts of the indignant Bertinelli heard over the din.

“È insoffribile! Ci sono comunisti qui!”

And there were other sounds—three—lethal, sharp, sudden. Cracks of a muted weapon—weapons; wood splintered on the molding of the proscenium arch. Jason hammered the girl down and lunged toward the shadows of the narrow wing space, pulling her behind him.

“Da ist er! Da oben!”

“Schnell! Der projektor!”

A scream came from the center aisle of the hall as the light of the projector swung to the right, spilling into the wings—but not completely. Its beam was intercepted by receding upright flats that masked the offstage area; light, shadow, light, shadow. And at the end of the flats, at the rear of the stage, was the exit. A high, wide metal door with a crashbar against it.

Glass shattered; the red light exploded, a marksman’s bullet blew out the sign above the door. It did not matter; he could see the gleaming brass of the crashbar clearly.

The lecture hall had broken out in pandemonium. Bourne grabbed the woman by the cloth of her blouse, yanking her beyond the flats toward the door. For an instant she resisted; he slapped her across the face and dragged her beside him until the crashbar was above their heads.

Bullets spat into the wall to their right; the killers were racing down the aisles for accurate sightlines. They would reach them in seconds, and in seconds other bullets, or a single bullet, would find its mark. There were enough shells left, he knew that. He had no idea how or why he knew, but he knew. By sound he could visualize the weapons, extract the clips, count the shells.

He smashed his forearm into the crashbar of the exit door. It flew open and he lunged through the opening, dragging the kicking St. Jacques woman with him.

“Stop it!” she screamed. “I won’t go any farther! You’re insane! Those were gunshots!”