“What, monsieur?”
“Frankly, we’re testing him. He’s new. Do you want the hundred?”
“I just go to the window and say a few words?”
“That’s all. Five seconds at the most, then you can go back to your taxi and drive off.”
“There’s no trouble? I don’t want trouble.”
“My firm’s among the most respectable in France. You’ve seen our trucks everywhere.”
“I don’t know ...”
“Forget it!” Bourne reached for the door handle. “What are the words?” Jason held out the hundred francs. “Just these: ‘Herr Koenig. Greetings from Zurich.’ Can you remember those?”
“ ‘Koenig. Greetings from Zurich.’ What’s so difficult?”
“You? Behind me?”
“That’s right.” They walked rapidly toward the van, hugging the right side of their small alley in the traffic as cars and trucks passed them in starts and stops on their left. The van was Carlos! trap, thought Bourne. The assassin had bought his way into the ranks of the armed couriers. A single name and a rendezvous revealed over a monitored radio frequency could bring an underpaid messenger a great deal of money. Bourne. Pont Neuf. So simple. This particular courier was less concerned with being prompt. than in making sure the soldiers of Carlos reached the Pont Neuf in time. Paris traffic was notorious; anyone could be late. Jason stopped the taxi driver, holding in his hand four additional two-hundred franc notes; the man’s eyes were riveted on them.
“Monsieur?”
“My company’s going to be very generous. This man must be disciplined for gross infractions.”
“What, monsieur?”
“After you say ‘Herr Koenig. Greetings from Zurich,’ simply add, ‘The schedule’s changed.
There’s a fare in my taxi who must see you.’ Have you got that?”
The driver’s eyes returned to the franc notes. “What’s difficult?” He took the money.
They edged their way along the side of the van, Jason’s back pressed against the wall of steel, his right hand concealed beneath his topcoat, gripping the gun in his belt. The driver approached the window and reached up, tapping the glass.
“You inside! Herr Koenig! Greetings from Zurich!” he yelled.
The window was rolled down, no more than an inch or two. “What is this?” a voice yelled back.
“You’re supposed to be at the Pont Neuf, monsieur!”
The driver was no idiot; he was also anxious to leave as rapidly as possible. “Not me, you jackass!” he shouted through the din of the surrounding, perilously close traffic. “I’m telling you what I was told to say! The schedule’s been changed. There’s a man back there who says he has to see you!”
“Tell him to hurry,” said Jason, holding a final fifty-franc note in his hand, beyond sight of the window.
The driver glanced at the money, then back up at the courier. “Be quick about it! If you don’t see him right away you’ll lose your job!”
“Now, get out of here!” said Bourne. The driver turned and ran past Jason, grabbing the franc note as he raced back to his taxi.
Bourne held his place, suddenly alarmed by what he heard through the cacophony of pounding horns and gunning engines in the crowded street. There were voices from inside the van, not one man shouting into a radio, but two shouting at each other. The courier was not alone; there was another man with him.
“Those were the words. You heard them.”
“He was to come up to you. He was to show himself.”
“Which he will do. And present the piece of leather, which must fit exactly! Do you expect him to do that in the middle of a street filled with traffic?”
“I don’t like it!”
“You paid me to help you and your people find someone. Not to lose my job. I’m going!”
“It must be the Pont Neuf!”
“Kiss my ass!”
There was the sound of heavy footsteps on the metal floorboards. “I’m coming with you!” The panel door opened; Jason spun behind it, his hand still under his coat. Below him a child’s face was pressed against the glass of a car window, the eyes squinting, the young features contorted into an ugly mask, fright and insult the childish intent. The swelling sound of angry horns, blaring in counterpoint, filled the street; the traffic had come to a standstill.
The courier stepped off the metal ledge, the attaché case in his left hand. Bourne was ready; the instant the courier was on the street, he slammed the panel back into the body of the second man, crashing the heavy steel into a descending kneecap and an outstretched hand. The man screamed, reeling backward inside the van. Jason shouted at the courier, the jagged scrap of leather in his free hand.
“I’m Bourne! Here’s your fragment! And you keep that gun in its holster or you won’t just lose your job, you’ll lose your life, you son of a bitch!”
“I meant no harm, monsieur! They wanted to find you! They have no interest in your delivery, you have my word on it!”
The door crashed open; Jason slammed it again with his shoulder, then pulled it back to see the face of Carlos’ soldier, his hand on the weapon in his belt.
What he saw was the barrel of a gun, the black orifice of its opening staring him in the eyes. He spun back, aware that the split-second delay in the gunshot that followed was caused by the burst of a shrill ringing that exploded out of the armored van. The alarm had been tripped, the sound deafening, riding over the dissonance in the street; the gunshot seemed muted by comparison, the eruption of asphalt below not heard.
Once more Jason hammered the panel. He heard the impact of metal against metal; he had made contact with the gun of Carlos’ soldier. He pulled his own from his belt, dropped to his knees in the street, and pulled the door open.
He saw the face from Zurich, the killer they had called Johann, the man they had brought to Paris to recognize him. Bourne fired twice; the man arched backward, blood spreading across his forehead.
The courier! The attaché case!
Jason saw the man; he had ducked below the tailgate for protection, his weapon in his hand, screaming for help. Bourne leaped to his feet and lunged for the extended gun, gripping the barrel, twisting it out of the courier’s hand. He grabbed the attaché case and shouted.
“No harm, right? Give me that, you bastard!” He threw the man’s gun under the van, got up and plunged into the hysterical crowds on the pavement.
He ran wildly, blindly, the bodies in front of him the movable walls of his labyrinth. But there was– an essential difference between this gauntlet and one he lived in every day. There was no darkness; the afternoon sun was bright, as blinding as his race through the labyrinth.
“Everything is here,” said Marie. She had collated the certificates by denominations, the stacks and the franc notes on the desk. “I told you it would be.”
“It almost wasn’t.”
“What?”
The man they called Johann, the one from Zurich. He’s dead. I killed him.”