Robert Ludlum - The Bourne Ultimatum

"Oh, things like why they happen and why they're over so quickly; how to behave-the elimination of fear, basically."

"You want us all up there, is that what you mean?"

"Yes, I do."

"That'll help Dave?"

"Yes; it will."

"Then the whole place'll be up there. I guarantee it."

"I appreciate that, but how can you?"

"I'll circulate another happy-hour notice that Angus MacPherson McLeod, chairman of All Canada Engineering, will award ten thousand dollars to whoever asks the most intelligent question. How about that, Johnny? The rich always want more for nothing, that's our profound weakness."

"I'll take your word for it," mumbled St. Jacques.

"C'mon," said McLeod to his religious friend from Toronto. "We'll circulate with tears in our eyes and spread the word. Then, you idiot colonel-that's what you were, y' bastard-in an hour or so we'll shift gears and only talk of ten thousand dollars and a free-for-all dinner. With the beach and the sun, people's attention spans are roughly two and a half minutes; in cold weather, no more than four. Believe me, I've had it calculated by computer research. ... You'll have a full party tonight, Johnny." McLeod turned and walked toward the door.

"Scotty," cried the man of faith following the fisherman. "You're going off half-cocked again! Attention spans, two minutes, four minutes, computer research-I don't believe a word of it!"

"Really?" said Angus, his hand on the knob. "You believe in ten thousand dollars, don't you?"

"I certainly do."

"You watch, that's my market research. ... That's also why I own the company. And now I intend to summon those tears to my eyes; it's another reason I own the company."

In a dark storage room on the third floor of Tranquility Inn's main complex, Bourne, who had shed the military tunic, and the old Frenchman sat on two stools in front of a window overlooking the east and west paths of the shoreline resort. The villas below extended out on both sides of the stone steps leading down to the beach and the dock. Each man held a pair of powerful binoculars to his eyes, scanning the people walking back and forth on the paths and up and down the rock staircase. A handheld radio with the hotel's private frequency was on the sill in front of Jason.

"He's near us," said Fontaine softly.

"What?" shot out Bourne, yanking the glasses from his face and turning to the old man. "Where? Tell me where!"

"He's not in our vision, monsieur, but he is near us."

"What do you mean?"

"I can feel it. Like an animal that senses the approach of distant thunder. It's inside of you; it's the fear."

"That's not very clear."

"It is to me. Perhaps you wouldn't understand. The Jackal's challenger, the man of many appearances, the Chameleon-the killer known as Jason Bourne-was not given to fear, we are told, only a great bravado that came from his strength."

Jason smiled grimly, in contradiction. "Then you were told a lie," he said softly. "A part of that man lives with a kind of raw fear few people have ever experienced."

"I find that hard to believe, monsieur-"

"Believe. I'm he."

"Are you, Mr. Webb? It's not difficult to piece things together. Do you force yourself to assume your other self because of this fear?"

David Webb stared at the old man. "For God's sake, what choice do I have?"

"You could disappear for a time, you and your family. You could live peacefully, in complete security, your government would see to it."

"He'd come after me-after us-wherever we were."

"For how long? A year? Eighteen months? Certainly less than two years. He's a sick man; all Paris-my Paris-knows it. Considering the enormous expense and complexity of the current situation-these events designed to trap you-I would suggest that it's Carlos's last attempt. Leave, monsieur. Join your wife in Basse-Terre and then fly thousands of miles away while you can. Let him go back to Paris and die in frustration. Is it not enough?"

"No. He'd come after me, after us! It's got to be settled here, now."

"I will soon join my woman, if such is to be, so I can disagree with certain people, men like you, for instance, Monsieur le Chameleon, whom I would have automatically agreed with before. I do so now. I think you can go far away. I think you know that you can put the Jackal in a side pocket and get on with your life, altered only slightly for a while, but you won't do it. Something inside stops you; you cannot permit yourself a strategic retreat, no less honorable for its avoidance of violence. Your family is safe but others may die, but even that doesn't stop you. You have to win-"

"I think that's enough psychobabble," interrupted Bourne, bringing the binoculars again to his eyes, concentrating on the scene below beyond the windows.

"That's it, isn't it?" said the Frenchman, studying Le Chameleon, his binoculars still at his side. "They trained you too well, instilled in you too completely the person you had to become. Jason Bourne against Carlos the Jackal and Bourne must win, it's imperative that he win. ... Two aging lions, each pitted against the other years ago, both with a burning hatred created by far-off strategists who had no idea what the consequences would be. How many have lost their lives because they crossed your converging paths? How many unknowing men and women have been killed-"

"Shut up!" cried Jason as flashing images of Paris, even peripherally of Hong Kong, Macao and Beijing-and most recently last night in Manassas, Virginia-assaulted his fragmented inner screen. So much death!

Suddenly, abruptly, the door of the dark storage room opened and Judge Brendan Prefontaine walked rapidly, breathlessly inside. "He's here," said the Bostonian. "One of St. Jacques's patrols, a three-man unit a mile down the east shoreline, couldn't be reached by radio. St. Jacques sent a guard to find them and he just returned-then ran away himself. All three were killed, each man with a bullet in his throat."

"The Jackal!" exclaimed the Frenchman. "It is his carte de visite-his calling card. He announces his arrival."

The midafternoon sun was suspended, immobile, burning the sky and the land, a ringed globe of fire intent only on scorching everything beneath it. And the alleged "computerized research" offered by the Canadian industrialist Angus McLeod appeared to be confirmed. Although a number of seaplanes flew in to take frightened couples away, the collective attention span of average people after a disturbing event, if certainly longer than two and a half to four minutes, was certainly not more than a few hours. A horrible thing had happened during the predawn storm, an act of terrible vengeance, as they understood it. It involved a single man with a vendetta against old enemies, a killer who had long since fled from the island. With the removal of the ugly coffins, as well as the beached, damaged speedboat, and the soothing words over the government radio along with the intermittent, unobtrusive appearances of the armed guards, a sense of normalcy returned-not total, of course, for there was a mourning figure among them, but he was out of sight and, they were told, would soon leave. And despite the depth of the horrors, as the rumors had them-naturally exaggerated out of all proportion by the hypersuperstitious island natives-the horrors were not theirs. It was an act of violence completely unrelated to them, and, after all, life had to go on. Seven couples remained at the inn.

"Christ, we're paying six hundred dollars a day-"

"No one's after us-"

"Shit, man, next week it's back to the commodities grind, so we're going to enjoy-"

"No sweat, Shirley, they're not giving out names, they promised me-"

With the burning, immobile afternoon sun, a small soiled plot of the vast Caribbean playground came back to its own particular ambience, death receding with each application of Bain de Soleil and another rum punch. Nothing was quite as it had been, but the blue-green waters lapped on the beach, enticing the few bathers to walk into them, immersing their bodies in the cool liquid rhythm of wet constancy. A progressively less tentative peace returned to Tranquility Isle.