“Now you’re presumptuous.”
“Always. You know that I know you can swat my life away at any moment you choose, so I must be of value. And not merely with words that come from experience.”
“What have you got to tell me?”
“This may not be of great value, but it is something. I put on respectable clothes and spent the day at the Auberge du Coin. There was a man, an obese man--questioned and dismissed by the Sûreté--whose eyes were too unsteady. And he perspired too much. I had a chat with him, showing him an official NATO identification I had made in the early fifties. It seems he negotiated the rental of an automobile at three o’clock yesterday morning. To a blond man in the company of a woman.
The description fits the photograph from Argenteuil.”
“A rental?”
“Supposedly. The car was to be returned within a day or so by the woman.”
“It will never happen.”
“Of course not, but it raises a question, doesn’t it? Why would Cain go to the trouble of obtaining an automobile in such a fashion?”
“To get as far away as possible as rapidly as possible.”
“In which case the information has no value,” said the beggar. “But then there are so many ways to travel faster less conspicuously. And Bourne could hardly trust an avaricious night clerk, he might easily look for a reward from the Sûreté. Or anyone else.”
“What’s your point?”
“I suggest that Bourne could have obtained that car for the sole purpose of following someone here in Paris. No loitering in public where he might be spotted, no rented cars tha t could be traced, no frantic searches for elusive taxis. Instead, a simple exchange of license plates and a nondescript black Renault in the crowded streets. Where would one begin to look?” The silhouette turned. “The Lavier woman,” said the assassin softly. “And everyone else he suspects at Les Classiques. It’s the only place he has to start. They’ll be watched, and within days-– hours perhaps--a nondescript black Renault will be seen and he’ll be found. Do you have a full description of the car?”
“Down to three dents in the left rear fender.”
“Good. Spread the word to the old men. Comb the streets, the garages, the parking lots. The one who finds it will never have to look for work again.”
“Speaking of such matters ...”
An envelope was slipped between the taut edge of the curtain and the blue felt of the frame. “If
your theory proves right, consider this a token”
“I am right, Carlos.”
“Why are you so convinced?”
“Because Cain does what you would do, what I would have done--in the old days. He must be respected.”
“He must be killed,” said the assassin. “There’s symmetry in the timing. In a few days it will be the twenty-fifth of March. On March 25, 1968, Jason Bourne was executed in the jungles of Tam Quan. Now, years later--nearly to the day--another Jason Bourne is hunted, the Americans as anxious as we are to see him killed. I wonder which of us will pull the trigger this time.”
“Does it matter?”
“I want him,” whispered the silhouette. “He was never real, and that’s his crime against me. Tell the old men that if any find him, get word to Parc Monceau but do nothing. Keep him in sight, but do nothing! I want him alive on the twenty-fifth of March. On March 25 I’ll execute him myself and deliver his body to the Americans.”
“The word will go out immediately.”
“Angelus Domini, child of God.”
“Angelus Domini,” said the beggar.
The old soldier walked in silence beside the younger man down the moonlit path in the Bois de Boulogne. Neither spoke, for too much had already been said--admitted, challenged, denied and reaffirmed. Villiers had to reflect and analyze, to accept or violently reject what he had heard. His life would be far more bearable if he could strike back in anger, attack the lie and find his sanity again.
But he could not do that with impunity; he was a soldier and to turn away was not in him.
There was too much truth in the younger man. It was in his eyes, in his voice, in his every gesture that asked for understanding. The man without a name was not lying. The ultimate treason was in Villiers’ house. It explained so many things he had not dared to question before. An old man wanted to weep.
For the man without a memory there was little to change or invent; the chameleon was not called upon. His story was convincing because the most vital part was based in the truth. He had to find Carlos, learn what the assassin knew; there would be no life for him if he failed. Beyond this he would say nothing. There was no mention of Marie St. Jacques, or the Ile de Port Noir, or a message being sent by person or persons unknown, or a walking hollow shell that might or might not be someone he was or was not--who could not even be sure that the fragments of memories he possessed were really his own. None of this was spoken of.
Instead, he recounted everything he knew about the assassin called Carlos. That knowledge was so vast that during the telling Villiers stared at him in astonishment, recognizing information he knew to be highly classified, shocked at new and startling data that was in concert with a dozen existing theories, but to his ears never before put forth with such clarity. Because of his son, the general had been given access to his country’s most secret files on Carlos, and nothing in those records matched the younger man’s array of facts.
“This woman you spoke with in Argenteuil, the one who calls my house, who admitted being a courier to you ...”
“Her name is Lavier,” Bourne interrupted.
The general paused. “Thank you. She saw through you; she had your photograph taken.”
“Yes.”
“They had no photograph before?”
“No.”
“So as you hunt Carlos, he in turn hunts you. But you have no photograph; you only know two couriers, one of which was at my house.”
“Yes.”
“Speaking with my wife.”
“Yes.”
The old man turned away. The period of silence had begun.
They came to the end of the path, where there was a miniature lake. It was bordered with white gravel, benches spaced every ten to fifteen feet, circling the water like a guard of honor surrounding a grave of black marble. They walked to the second bench. Villiers broke his silence.
“I should like to sit down,” he said. “With age there comes a paucity of stamina. It often embarrasses me.”
“It shouldn’t,” said Bourne, sitting down beside him.
“It shouldn’t,” agreed the general, “but it does.” He paused for a moment, adding quietly, “Frequently in the company of my wife.”
“That’s not necessary,” said Jason.
“You mistake me.” The old man turned to the younger, “I’m not referring to the bed. There are simply times when I find it necessary to curtail activities--leave a dinner party early, absent myself on weekends to the Mediterranean, or decline a few days on the slopes in Gstaad.”