The Bourne Supremacy (59 page)

'Gratitude notwithstanding,' said Conklin gently. 'She was withholding information you had a right to know. Christ, after everything you and David have been through-'

'You're wrong, Alex,' interrupted Marie softly. 'I told you I thought I understood her, but I didn't finish. The cruellest thing you can do to a person who's living every hour in panic is to offer him or her a hope that turns out false. When the crash comes it's intolerable. Believe me, I've spent over a year with a man desperately looking for answers. He's found quite a few, but those he followed only to find them wrong nearly broke him. Dashed hopes are no fun for the one hoping.'

'She's right,' said Panov, nodding his head and looking at Conklin. 'And I think you know it, don't you?

T happened,' replied Alex, shrugging and looking at his watch 'At any rate, it's time for Catherine Staples.'

'She'll be watched, guarded? It was Marie who now sat forward in her chair, her expression concerned, her eyes questioning. 'They'll assume you both came over here because of me, and that you reached me and I told you about her. They'll expect you to go after her. They'll be waiting for you. If they could do what they've done so far, they could kill you!'

'No they couldn't,' said Conklin, getting up and limping towards the bedside telephone. 'They're not good enough,' he added simply.

'You're a goddamned basket case!' whispered Matthew

Richards from behind the wheel of the small car parked across the street from Catherine Staples's apartment.

'You're not very grateful, Matt,' said Alex, sitting in the shadows next to the CIA man. 'Not only did I not send in that evaluation report, but I also let you get me back under surveillance. Thank me, don't insult me.'

'Shit!'

'What did you tell them back at the office?'

'What else? I was mugged, for Christ's sake.'

'By how many?'

'At least five teenaged punks. Zhongguo ren.'

'And if you fought back, making a lot of ruckus, I might have spotted you.'

'That's the story board,' agreed Richards quietly.

'And when I called you, naturally it was one of the street people you've cultivated who saw a white man with a limp.'

'Bingo.'

'You might even get a promotion.'

'I just want to get out.'

'You'll make it.'

'Not this way.'

'So it was old Havilland himself who blew into town.'

'You didn't get that from me! It was in the papers.'

The sterile house in Victoria Peak wasn't in the papers,

Matt.'

'Hey, come on, that was a trade off! You're nice to me, I'm nice to you. No lousy report about me getting clobbered by a shoe with no foot in it and you get an address. Anyway, I'd deny it. You got it from Garden Road. It's all over the consulate, thanks to a pissed-off marine.'

'Havilland,' mused Alex out loud. 'It fits. He's tight-ass with the British, even talks like them ... My God, I should have recognized the voice!'

The voice?' asked a perplexed Richards.

'Over the phone. Another page in the scenario. It was Havilland! He wouldn't let anyone else do it! "We've lost her." Oh, Jesus, and I was sucked right in!'

'Into what?'

'Forget it.'

'Gladly.'

An automobile slowed down and stopped across the street in front of Staples's apartment house. A woman got out of the rear kerbside door, and seeing her in the wash of the streetlights, Conklin knew who it was. Catherine Staples. She nodded to the driver, turned around and walked across the pavement to the thick glass doors of the entrance.

Suddenly, an engine roaring at high pitch filled the quiet street by the park. A long black sedan swerved out of a space somewhere behind them and screeched to a stop beside Staples's car. Staccato explosions thundered from the second vehicle. Glass was shattered both in the street and across the pavement as the windows of the parked automobile were blown away along with the driver's head and the doors of the apartment house riddled, collapsing in bloody fragments as the body of Catherine Staples was nailed into the frame under the fusillade of bullets.

Tyres spinning, the black sedan raced away in the dark street, leaving the carnage behind, blood and torn flesh everywhere.

'Jesus Christ!' roared the CIA man.

'Get out of here,' ordered Conklin.

'Where? For Christ's sake, where?"

'Victoria Peak.'

'Are you out of your mind?'

'No, but somebody else is. One blue-blooded son of a bitch has been taken. He's been had. And he's going to hear it first from me. Move!

26

Bourne stopped the black Shanghai sedan on the dark, treelined, deserted stretch of road. According to the map he had passed the Eastern Gate of the Summer Palace - actually once a series of ancient royal villas set down on acres of sculptured countryside dominated by a lake known as Kunming. He had followed the shoreline north until the coloured lights of the vast pleasure ground of emperors past faded, giving way to the darkness of the country road. He extinguished the headlights, got out and carried his purchases, now in a waterproof knapsack, to the wall of trees lining the road, and dug his heel into the ground. The earth was soft, making his task easier, for the possibility that his rented car might be searched was real. He reached inside the knapsack, pulled out a pair of workman's gloves and a long-bladed hunting knife. He knelt down and dug a hole deep enough to conceal the sack; he left the top of it open, picked up the knife and cut a notch in the trunk of the nearest tree to expose the white wood beneath the bark. He replaced the knife and gloves in the knapsack, pressed it down into the earth and covered it with dirt. He returned to the car, checked the odometer, and started the engine. If the map was as accurate about distances as it was in detailing those areas in and around Beijing where it was prohibited to drive, the entrance to the Jing Shan Sanctuary was no more than three-quarters of a mile away around a long curve up ahead.

The map was accurate. Two floodlights converged on the high green metal gate beneath huge panels depicting brightly coloured birds; the gate was closed. In a small glass-enclosed structure on the right sat a single guard. At the sight of Jason's approaching headlights he sprang up and ran out. It was difficult to tell whether the man's jacket and trousers were a uniform or not; there was no evidence of a weapon.

Bourne drove the sedan up to within feet of the gate, climbed out and approached the Chinese behind it, surprised to see that the man was in his late fifties or early sixties.

'Bei long, bei long?' began Jason before the guard could speak, apologizing for disturbing him. 'I've had a terrible time,' he continued rapidly, pulling out the list of the French assigned negotiators from his inside pocket. 'I was to be here three and a half hours ago, but the car didn't arrive and I couldn't reach Minister...' He picked out the name of a textile minister from the list. 'Wang Xu, and I'm sure he's as upset as I am!'

'You speak our language,' said the bewildered guard. 'You have a car with no driver.'

'The minister cleared it. I've been to Beijing many, many times. We were going to have dinner together.'

'We are closed, and there is no restaurant here.'

'Did he leave a note for me, perhaps?'

'No one leaves anything here but lost articles. I have very nice Japanese binoculars I could sell you cheap.'

It happened. Beyond the gate, about thirty yards down the dirt road, Bourne saw a man in the shadows of a tall tree, a man wearing a long tunic - four buttons - an officer. Around his waist was a thick holster belt. A weapon.

'I'm sorry, I have no use for binoculars.'

'A present, perhaps?'

'I have few friends and my children are thieves.'

'You are a sad man. There is nothing but children and friends - and the spirits, of course.'

'Now, really, I simply want to find the minister. We are discussing renminbi in the millions!'

'The binoculars are but a few yuan.'

'All right! How much?'

'Fifty.'

'Get them for me,' said the chameleon impatiently, reaching into his pocket, his gaze casually straying beyond the green fence as the guard rushed back to the gatehouse. The Chinese officer had retreated farther into the shadows but was still watching the gate. The pounding in Jason's chest once again felt like kettledrums - as it so often had in the days of Medusa. He had turned a trick, exposed a strategy. Delta knew the Oriental mind. Secrecy. The lone figure did not, of course, confirm it, but he did not deny it either.

'Look how grand they are!' cried the guard, running back to the fence and holding out the binoculars. 'One hundred yuan.'

'You said fifty!'

'I didn't notice the lenses. Far superior. Give me the money and I'll throw them over the gate.'

'Very well,' said Bourne, about to push the money through the criss-crossing mesh of the fence. 'But under one condition, thief. If by any chance you are questioned about me, I choose not to be embarrassed.' 'Questioned? That's foolish. There's no one here but me.' Delta was right.

'But in case you are, I insist you tell the truth! I am a French businessman urgently seeking this minister of textiles because my car was unpardonably delayed. I will not be embarrassed!' 'As you wish. The money, please.' Jason shoved the yuan bills through the fence; the guard clutched them and threw the binoculars over the gate. Bourne caught them and looked pleadingly at the Chinese. 'Have you any idea where the minister might have gone?'

'Yes, and I was about to tell you without additional money. Men so grand as you and he would no doubt go to the dining house named Ting Li Guan. It is a favourite of rich foreigners and powerful men of our heavenly government.' 'Where is it?'

'In the Summer Palace. You passed it on this road. Go back fifteen, twenty kilometres, and you will see the great Dong an men gate. Enter it and the guides will direct you, but show your papers, sir. You travel in a very unusual way.'

Thank you!' yelled Jason, running to the car. 'Vive la France?

'How beautiful,' said the guard, shrugging, heading back to his post and counting his money.

The officer walked quietly up to the gatehouse and tapped on the glass. Astonished, the night watchman leaped out of his chair and opened the door.

'Oh, sir, you startled me! I see you were locked inside. Perhaps you fell asleep in one of our beautiful resting places. How unfortunate. I will open the gate at once!'

'Who was that man?' asked the officer calmly.

'A foreigner, sir. A French businessman who has had much misfortune. As I understood him, he was to meet the minister of textiles here hours ago and then proceed to dinner, but his automobile was delayed. He's very upset. He does not wish to be embarrassed.'

'What minister of textiles?'

'Minister Wang Xu, I believe he said.'

'Wait outside, please.'

'Certainly, sir. The gate?'

'In a few minutes.' The soldier picked up the telephone on the small counter and dialled. Seconds later he spoke again. 'May I have the number of a minister of textiles named Wang Xu...? Thank you.' The officer pressed down the centre bar, released it, and dialled again. 'Minister Wang Xu, please?'

'I am he,' said a somewhat disagreeable voice at the other end of the line. 'Who is this?'

'A clerk at the Trade Council Office, sir. We're doing a routine check on a French businessman who has you listed as a reference-'

'Great Christian Jesus, not that idiot Ardisson! What's he done now?'

'You know him, sir?'

'I wish I didn't! Special this, special that! He thinks that when he defecates the odour of lilacs fills the stalls.'

'Were you to have dinner with him tonight, sir?'

'Dinner? I might have said anything to keep him quiet this afternoon! Of course, he hears only what he wants to hear.

On the other hand, it's perfectly possible that he would use my name to obtain a reservation when he didn't have one. I told you, special this, special that! Give him whatever he wants. He's a lunatic but harmless enough. We'd send him back to Paris on the next plane if the fools he represents weren't paying so much for such third-rate material. He's cleared for the best illegal whores in Beijing! Just don't bother me, I'm entertaining.' The minister abruptly hung up.

His mind at ease, the army officer replaced the phone and walked outside to the night watchman. 'You were accurate,' he said.

The foreigner was most agitated, sir. And very confused.' 'I'm told both conditions are normal for him.' The army man paused for a moment, then added, 'You may open the gate now.'

'Certainly, sir.' The guard reached into his pocket and pulled out a ring of keys. He stopped, looking over at the officer. 'I see no automobile, sir. It is many kilometres to any transportation. The Summer Palace would be the first-'

'I've telephoned for a car. It should be here in ten or fifteen minutes.'

'I'm afraid / will not be here then, sir. I can see the light of my relief's bicycle down the road now. I am off duty in five minutes.'

'Perhaps I'll wait here,' said the officer, dismissing the watchman's words. 'There are clouds drifting down from the north. If they bring rain, I could use the gatehouse for shelter until my car arrives.' 'I see no clouds, sir.' 'Your eyes are not what they once were.' 'Too true.' The repeated ringing of a bicycle bell broke the outer silence. The relief guard approached the fence as the current watchman started to unlock the gate. These young ones announce themselves as though they were descending spirits from heaven.'

'I should like to say something to you,' said the officer sharply, stopping the watchman in his tracks. 'Like the foreigner, I, too, do not wish to be embarrassed for catching an hour of much needed sleep in a beautiful resting place. Do you enjoy your job?

'Very much, sir.'

'And the opportunity to sell such things as Japanese binoculars turned over to you for safekeeping?'

'Sir?'

'My hearing's acute and your shrill voice is loud.'

'Sir?'

'Say nothing about me and I will say nothing about your unethical activities, which would undoubtedly send you into a field with a pistol put to your head. Your behaviour is reprehensible.'