Robert Ludlum - The Bourne Supremacy

One call from the Lisboa to the taipan in Hong Kong and Marie was dead. The taipan had not merely threatened -threats were too often a meaningless ploy – he had used a far more lethal expedient. After shouting and crashing his large hand on the arm of the fragile chair, he had quietly given his word: Marie would die. It was a promise made by a man who kept his promises, kept his word.

Yet for all that, David Webb sensed something he could not define. There was about the huge taipan something a bit larger than life, too operatic, that had nothing to do with his size. It was as if he had used his immense girth to advantage in a way that large men rarely do, preferring to let only their sheer size do the impressing. Who was the taipan? The answer was at the Lisboa Hotel, and since he dared not go there himself, d'Anjou's skills could serve him. He had told the Frenchman very little; he would tell him more now. He would describe a brutal double killing, the weapon an Uzi, and say that one of the victims was a powerful taipan's wife. D'Anjou would ask the questions he could not ask, and if there were answers he would take another step towards Marie.

Play the scenario. Alexander Conklin.

Whose scenario! David Webb.

You're wasting time Jason Bourne. Find the impostor. Take him!

Quiet footsteps in the outside hallway. Jason spun away from the window and raced silently to the wall, pressing his back against it, the gun levelled at the door where the swinging panel would conceal him. A key was cautiously, quietly inserted. The door swung slowly open.

Bourne crashed it back into the intruder, spinning around and grabbing the stunned figure in the frame. He yanked him inside and kicked the door shut, the weapon aimed at the head of the fallen man, who had dropped a suitcase and a very large package. It was d'Anjou.

That's one way to get your head blown off, Echo!'

'Sacre bleu! It is also the last time I will ever be considerate of you! You don't see yourself, Delta. You look as you did in Tarn Quan, without sleep for days. I thought you might be resting. '

Another memory briefly flashed. 'In Tarn Quan,' said Jason, 'you told me I had to sleep, didn't you? We hid in the brush and you formed a circle around me and damn near gave me an order to get some rest. '

'It was purely a self-enlightened request. We couldn't get ourselves out of there, only you could. '

'You said something to me then. What was it? I listened. '

'I explained that rest was as much a weapon as any blunt instrument or firing mechanism man had ever devised. '

'I used a variation later. It became an axiom for me. '

'I'm so glad you had the intelligence to listen to your elders. May I please rise? Will you please lower that damned gun?'

'Oh, sorry. '

'We have no time,' said d'Anjou, getting up and leaving the suitcase on the floor. He tore the brown paper off his package. Inside were pressed khaki clothes, two belted holsters and two visored hats; he threw them all on a chair. 'These are uniforms. I have the proper identifications in my pocket. I am afraid I outrank you, Delta, but then age has its privileges. '

'They're uniforms of the Hong Kong police. '

'Kowloon, to be precise. We may have our chance, Delta! It's why I was so long getting back. Kai Tak Airport! The security is enormous, just what the impostor wants in order to show he's better than you ever were! There's no guarantee, of course, but I'd stake my life on it – it's the classic challenge for an obsessed maniac. "Mount your forces, I'll break through them!" With one kill like that he re-establishes the legend of his utter invincibility. It's him, I'm sure of it!'

'Start from the beginning,' ordered Bourne.

'As we dress, yes,' agreed the Frenchman, removing his shirt and unbuckling his trousers. 'Hurry! I have a motor launch across the road. Four hundred horsepower. We can be in Kowloon in forty-five minutes. Here! This is yours! Man Dieu, the money I've spent makes me want to vomit!'

'The PRC patrols,' said Jason, peeling off his clothes and reaching for the uniform. 'They'll shoot us out of the water!'

'Idiot, certain known boats are negotiated with by radio in code. There is, after all, honour among us. How do you think we run our merchandise? How do you think we survive? We meet in coves at the Chinese islands of Teh Sa Wei and payments are made. Hurry?

'What about the airport? Why are you so sure it's him?'

'The Crown Governor. Assassination. '

'What?' shouted Bourne, stunned.

'I walked from the Peninsula to the Star Ferry with your suitcase. It's only a short distance and the ferry is far quicker than a taxi through the tunnel. As I passed the Kowloon Police Hill on Salisbury Road, I saw seven patrol cars drive out at emergency speed, one behind the other, all turning left, which is not to the godown. It struck me as odd – yes, two or three for a local eruption, but seven! It was good joss, as these people say. I called my contact on the Hill and he was cooperative – it was also not much of an internal secret any longer. He said if I stayed around I'd see another ten cars, twenty vans, all heading out to Kai Tak within the next two hours. Those I saw were the advance search teams. They had received word through their underground sources that an attempt was to be made on the Governor's life. '

'Specifics!' commanded Bourne harshly, buckling his trousers and reaching for the long khaki shirt that served as a jacket under the bullet-laden holster belt.

'The Governor is flying in from Beijing tonight with his own entourage from the Foreign Office, as well as another Chinese negotiating delegation. There will be newspaper people, television crews, everyone. Both governments want full coverage. There is to be a joint meeting tomorrow between all the negotiators and leaders of the financial sector. '

The ninety-seven treaty?'

'Yet another round in the endless verbosity about the Accords. But for all our sakes just pray they keep talking pleasantly. '

'The scenario? said Jason softly, stopping all movement . 'What scenario?'

The one you yourself brought up, the scenario that had the wires burning between Peking and Government House. Kill a Governor for the murder of a Vice-Premier? Then perhaps a Foreign Secretary for a ranking member of the Central Committee – a Prime Minister for a Chairman? How far does it go? How many selected killings before the breaking point is reached. How long before the parent refuses to tolerate a disobedient child and marches into Hong Kong? Christ it could happen. Someone wants it to happen!'

D'Anjou stood motionless, holding the wide belt of the holster with its ominous strand of brass-capped shells. 'What I suggested was no more than speculation based on the random violence caused by an obsessed killer who accepts his contracts without discrimination. There's enough greed and political corruption on both sides to justify that speculation. But what you're suggesting, Delta is quite different. You're saying it's a plan, an organized plan to disrupt Hong Kong to the point that the Mainland takes over. '

The scenario,' repeated Jason Bourne. The more complicated it gets, the simpler it appears. '

The rooftops of Kai Tak Airport were swarming with police, as were the gates and the tunnels, the immigration counters and the luggage areas. Outside, on the immense field of black tarmac, powerful floodlights were joined by roving, sharper searchlights probing every moving vehicle, every inch of visible ground. Television crews uncoiled cables under watching eyes, while interviewers standing behind sound trucks practised pronunciation in a dozen languages. Reporters and photographers were kept beyond the gates as airport personnel shouted through the amplifiers that roped-off sections on the field would soon be available for all legitimate journalists with proper passes issued by the Kai Tak management. It was madness. And then the totally unexpected happened as a sudden rainstorm swept over the colony from the darkness of the western horizon. It was yet another autumn deluge.