Robert Ludlum - The Bourne Supremacy

Stop it! Control yourself. You are capable, you must be capable. You have no choice, so be what you once were. Feel ice. Be ice.

Without warning, the shell he was building around himself was shattered by the ear-splitting sound of the telephone inches from his hand on the desk. He looked at it, swallowing, wondering if he were capable of sounding remotely normal. It rang again, a terrible insistence in its ring. You have no choice.

He picked it up, gripping the receiver with such force that his knuckles turned white. He managed to get out the single word. 'Yes? ,

This is the mobile-air operator, satellite transmission-'

'Who? What did you say?"

'I have a mid-flight radio call for a Mr. Webb. Are you Mr. Webb, sir?'

'Yes. '

And then the world he knew blew up in a thousand jagged mirrors, each an image of screaming torment.

'David!'

'Marie?'

'Don't panic, darling! Do you hear me, don't panic!' Her voice came through the static; she was trying not to shout but could not help herself.

'Are you all right? The note said you were hurt – wounded!'

'I'm all right. A few scratches, that's all. '

'Where are you?

'Over the ocean, I'm sure they'll tell you that much. I don't know; I was sedated.'

'Oh, Jesus! I can't stand it! They took you away!'

'Pull yourself together, David. I know what this is doing to you, but they don't. Do you understand what I'm saying? They don't!'

She was sending him a coded message; it was not hard to decipher. He had to be the man he hated. He had to be Jason Bourne, and the assassin was alive and well and residing in the body of David Webb.

'All right. Yes, all right. I've been going out of my mind!'

'Your voice is being amplified-'

'Naturally. '

They're letting me speak to you so you'll know I'm alive. '

'Have they hurt you?"

'Not intentionally. '

'What the hell are "scratches"?

'I struggled. I fought. And I was brought up on a ranch. '

'Oh, my God-"

'David, please! Don't let them do this to you!'

To me? It's you!'

'I know, darling. I think they're testing you, can you understand that?'

Again the message. Be Jason Bourne for both their sakes, for both their lives. 'All right. Yes, all right. ' He lessened the intensity of his voice, trying to control himself. 'When did it happen?' he asked.

This morning, about an hour after you left . '

This morning"? Christ, all day! How?'

They came to the door. Two men-'

'Who?'

'I'm permitted to say they're from the Far East. Actually, I don't know any more than that. They asked me to accompany them and I refused. I ran into the kitchen and saw a knife. I stabbed one of them in the hand. '

The handprint on the door.. . '

'I don't understand. '

'It doesn't matter. '

"A man wants to talk to you, David. Listen to him, but not in anger not in a rage – can you understand that?

'All right Yes, all right. I understand. '

The man's voice came on the line. It was hesitant but precise, almost British in its delivery, someone who had been taught English by an Englishman, or by someone who had lived in the UK. Nevertheless, it was identifiably Oriental; the accent was southern China, the pitch, the short vowels and sharp consonants sounding of Cantonese.

'We do not care to harm your wife, Mr. Webb but if it is necessary, it will be unavoidable. '

'I wouldn't, if I were you,' said David coldly.

'Jason Bourne speaks?'

'He speaks. '

The acknowledgement is the first step in our understanding. '

'What understanding?

'You took something of great value from a man. '

'You've taken something of great value from me. '

'She is alive. '

'She'd better stay that way. '

'Another is dead. You killed her. '

'Are you sure about that?' Bourne would not agree readily unless it served his purpose to do so.

'We are very sure. '

'What's your proof?'

'You were seen. A tall man who stayed in the shadows and raced through the hotel corridors and across fire escapes with the movements of a mountain cat. '

'Then I wasn't really seen, was I? Nor could I have been. I was thousands of miles away. ' Bourne would always give himself an option.

'In these times of fast aircraft, what is distance?' The Oriental paused, then added sharply. 'You cancelled your duties for a period of five days two and a half weeks ago. '

'And if I told you I attended a symposium on the Sung and Yuan dynasties down in Boston – which was very much in line with my duties-'

'I am startled,' interrupted the man courteously, 'that Jason Bourne would employ such a lamentably feeble excuse. '

He had not wanted to go to Boston. That symposium was light years away from his lectures, but he had been officially asked to attend. The request came from Washington, from the Cultural Exchange Program and filtered through the university's Department of Oriental Studies. Christ! Every pawn was in place! 'Excuse for what?'

'For being where he was not. Large crowds mingling among the exhibits, certain people paid to swear you were there. '

That's ridiculous, not to say patently amateurish. I don't pay. '

' You were paid. '

'I was? How?

Through the same bank you used before. In Zurich. The Gemeinschaft in Zurich – on the Bahnhofstrasse, of course. '

'Odd I haven't received a statement,' said David, listening carefully.

'When you were Jason Bourne in Europe, you never needed one, for yours was a three-zero account – the most secret, which is very secret indeed in Switzerland. However, we found a draft-transfer made out to the Gemeinschaft among the papers of a man – a dead man, of course. '

'Of course. But not the man I supposedly killed. '

'Certainly not. But one who ordered that man killed, along with a treasured prize of my employer. '

'A prize is a trophy, isn't it?'

'Both are won, Mr. Bourne. Enough. You are you. Get to the Regent Hotel in Kowloon. Register under any name you wish but ask for Suite Six-nine-zero – say you believe arrangements were made to reserve it . '

'How convenient. My own rooms. '

'It will save time. '

'It'll also take me time to make arrangements here. '

'We are certain you will not raise alarms and will move as rapidly as you can. Be there by the end of the week. '

'Count on both. Put my wife back on the line. '

'I regret I cannot do that.'

'For Christ's sake, you can hear everything we say!'

'You will speak with her in Kowloon. '

There was an echoing click and he could hear nothing on the line but static. He replaced the phone, his grip so intense a cramp had formed between his thumb and forefinger. He removed his hand and shook it violently, his grip still intact. He was grateful that the pain allowed him to re-enter reality more gradually. He grabbed his right hand with his left, held it steady and pressed his left thumb into the cramp... and as he watched his fingers spread free, he knew what he had to do without wasting an hour on the all-important unimportant trivia. He had to reach Conklin in Washington, the gutter rat who had tried to kill him in broad daylight on New York's 71st Street. Alex, drunk or sober, made no distinction between the hours of day and night, nor did the operations he knew so well, for there was no night and day where his work was concerned. There was only the flat light of fluorescent tubes in offices that never closed. If he had to, he would press Alexander Conklin until the blood rolled out of the gutter rat's eyes; he would learn what he had to know, knowing that Conklin could get the information.

Webb rose unsteadily from the chair, walked out of his study and into the kitchen, where he poured himself a drink, grateful again that although his hand still trembled, it did so less than before.