The Bourne Supremacy (25 page)

'You mean seriously?'

'We can't rule it out - the doctor can't rule it out. '

The doctor?'

There was no point in alarming you. I called in one of our medical staff several days ago - he's completely reliable. She wasn't eating and complained of nausea. The doctor thought it might be anxiety or depression, or even a virus, so he gave her antibiotics and mild tranquillizers. She has not improved. In fact, her condition has rapidly deteriorated. She's become listless; she has trembling seizures and her mind appears to wander. None of this is like that woman, I can assure you. '

'It certainly isn't!' said the undersecretary of state, as he blinked his eyes rapidly, his lips pursed. 'What can we do?'

The doctor thinks she should be admitted to hospital immediately for tests. '

'She can't be! Good Christ, it's out of the question!'

The Chinese intelligence officer rose from the chair and approached the desk slowly. 'Edward,' he began calmly. 'I don't know the ramifications of this operation, but I can obviously piece together several basic objectives, especially one. I'm afraid I must ask you: What happens to David Webb if his wife is seriously ill? What happens to your Jason Bourne if she dies?'

12

'I need her medical history, and I want it just as fast as you can provide it, Major. That's an order, sir, from a former lieutenant in Her Majesty's Medical Corps. '

He's the English doctor who examined me. He's very civil, but cold, and, I suspect, a terribly good physician. He's bewildered. That's fine.

'We'll get it for you; there are ways. You say she couldn't tell you the name of her doctor back in the United States?'

That's the huge Chinese who's always polite - unctuous, actually, but rather sincere. He's been nice to me, as his men have been nice to me. He's following orders - they're all following orders - but they don't know why.

'Even in her lucid moments she draws a blank, which is not encouraging. It could be a defence mechanism indicating that she was aware of a progressive illness she wants to block out. '

'She's not that sort, Doctor. She's a strong woman. '

'Psychological strength is relative, Major. Often the strongest among us are loath to accept mortality. The ego refuses it. Get me her history. I must have it. '

'A man will call Washington, and people there will make other calls. They know where she lives, her circumstances, and within minutes they'll know her neighbours. Someone will tell us. We'll find her doctor. '

'I want everything on a satellite computer print-out. We have the equipment. '

'Any transmission of information must be received at our offices. '

Then I'll go with you. Give me a few minutes. '

'You're frightened, aren't you, Doctor?'

'If it's a neurological disorder, that's always frightening, Major. If your people can work quickly, perhaps I can talk to her doctor myself. That would be optimum. '

'You found nothing in your examination?'

'Only possibilities, nothing concrete. There is pain here, and there isn't pain there. I've ordered a CAT scan in the morning. '

'You are frightened. '

'Shitless, Major. '

Oh, you're all doing exactly what I wanted you to do. Good God, I'm hungry! I'll eat for five straight hours when I get out of here - and I will get out! David, did you understand? Did you understand what I was telling you? The dark trees are maple trees; they're so common, darling, so identifiable. The single leaf is Canada. The embassy! Here in Hong Kong it's the consulate! That's what we did in Paris, my darling! It was terrible then, but it won't be terrible here. I'll know someone. Back in Ottawa I instructed so many who were being posted all over the world. Your memory is clouded, my love, but mine isn't... And you must understand, David, that the people I dealt with then are not so different from the people who are holding me now. In some ways, of course, they're robots, but they're also individuals who think and question and wonder why they are asked to do certain things. But they follow a regimen, darling, because if they don't, they get poor service reports, which is tantamount to a fate worse than dismissal - which rarely happens - because it means no advancement, limbo. They've actually been kind to me -gentle really - as if they're embarrassed by what they've been ordered to do but must carry out their assignments. They think I'm ill and they're concerned for me, genuinely concerned. They're not criminals or killers, my sweet David. They're bureaucrats in search of direction! They're bureaucrats, David! This whole incredible thing has GOVERNMENT written all over it. I know! These are the sort of people

I worked with for years. I was one of them!

Marie opened her eyes. The door was closed, the room empty, but she knew a guard was outside - she had heard the Chinese major giving instructions. No one was permitted in her room but the English doctor and two specific nurses the guard had met and who would be on duty until morning. She knew the rules, and with that knowledge she could break them.

She sat up - Jesus, I'm hungry! - and was darkly amused at the thought of their neighbours in Maine being questioned about her doctor. She barely knew her neighbours and there was no doctor. They had been in the university town less than three months, starting with the late summer session for David's preparations, and with all the problems of renting a house and learning what the new wife of a new associate-professor should do, or be, and finding the stores and the laundry and the bedding and the linen - the thousand and ten things a woman does to make a home - there simply had been no time to think about a doctor. Good Lord, they had lived with doctors for eight months, and except for Mo Panov she would have been content never to see another one.

Above all, there was David, fighting his way out of his personal tunnels, as he called them, trying so hard not to show the pain, so grateful when there was light and memory. God, how he attacked the books, overjoyed when whole stretches of history came back to him, balanced by the anguish of realizing it was only segments of his own life that eluded him. And so often at night she would feel the mattress ripple and know he was getting out of bed to be by himself with his half thoughts and haunting images. She would wait a few minutes, and then go out into the hallway and sit on the steps, listening. And once in a great while it happened: the quiet sobbing of a strong, proud man in agony. She would go to him and he would turn away; the embarrassment and the hurt were too much. She would say, 'You're not fighting this yourself, darling. We're fighting it together. Just as we fought before.' He would talk then, reluctantly at first, then expanding, the words coming faster and faster until the floodgates burst and he would find things, discover things.

Trees, David! My favourite tree, the maple tree. The maple leaf, David! The consulate, my darling! She had work to do. She reached for the cord and pressed the button for the nurse.

Two minutes later the door opened and a Chinese woman in her mid-forties entered, her nurse's uniform starched and immaculate. 'What can I do for you, my dear?' she said pleasantly, in pleasantly accented English.

'I'm dreadfully tired but I'm having a terrible time getting to sleep. May I have a pill that might help me?'

'I'll check with your doctor; he's still here. I'm sure it will be all right.' The nurse left and Marie got out of bed. She went to the door, the ill-fitting hospital gown slipping down over her left shoulder, and with the air conditioning, the slit in the back bringing a chill. She opened the door, startling the muscular young guard who sat in a chair on the right.

'Yes, Mrs... ?' The guard jumped up.

'Shhh!' ordered Marie, her index finger at her lips. 'Come in here! Quickly!'

Bewildered, the young Chinese followed her into the room. She walked rapidly to the bed and climbed on it but did not pull up the covers. She sloped her right shoulder; the gown slipped off, held barely in place by the swell of her breast.

'Come here!' she whispered. 'I don't want anyone to hear me. '

'What is it, lady?' asked the guard, his gaze avoiding Marie's exposed flesh, instead focused on her face and her long auburn hair. He took several steps forward, but still kept his distance. 'The door is closed. No one can hear you. '

'I want you to-' Her whisper fell below an audible level.

'Even I can't hear you, Mrs.' The man moved closer.

'You're the nicest of my guards. You've been very kind to me. '

There was no reason to be otherwise, lady. '

'Do you know why I'm being held?

'For your own safety,' the guard lied, his expression noncommittal.

'I see.' Marie heard the footsteps outside drawing nearer. She shifted her body; the gown travelled down, baring her legs. The door opened and the nurse entered.

'Oh?' The Chinese woman was startled. It was obvious that her eyes appraised a distasteful scene. She looked at the embarrassed guard as Marie covered herself. 'I wondered why you were not outside. '

The lady asked to speak with me,' replied the man, stepping back.

The nurse glanced quickly at Marie. 'Yes?'

'If that's what he says. '

This is foolish,' said the muscular guard, going to the door and opening it. The lady's not well,' he added. 'Her mind strays. She says foolish thing's.' He went out the door and closed it firmly behind him.

Again the nurse looked at Marie, her eyes now questioning. 'Do you feel all right? she asked.

'My mind does not stray, and I'm not the one who says foolish things. But I do as I'm told.' Marie paused, then continued. 'When that giant of a major leaves the hospital, please come and see me. I have something to tell you. '

'I'm sorry, I cannot do that. You must rest. Here, I have a sedative for you. I see you have water. '

'You're a woman,' said Marie, staring hard at the nurse.

'Yes,' agreed the Oriental flatly. She placed a tiny paper cup with a pill in it on Marie's bedside table and returned to the door. She took a last, questioning look at her patient and left.

Marie got off the bed and walked silently to the door. She put her ear to the metal panel; outside in the corridor she heard the muffled sounds of a rapid exchange, obviously in Chinese. Whatever was said and however the brief, excited conversation was resolved, she had planted the seed. Work on the visual, Jason Bourne had emphasized and re-emphasized during the hell they had gone through in Europe. It's more effective than anything else. People will draw the conclusions you want on the basis of what they see far more than from the most convincing lies you can tell them.

She went to the clothes closet and opened it. They had left the few things they had bought for her in Hong Kong at the apartment but the slacks, blouse and shoes she had worn the day they brought her to the hospital were hanging up; it had

not occurred to anyone to remove them. Why should they have? They could see for themselves that she was a very sick woman. The trembling and spasms had convinced them; they saw it all. Jason Bourne would understand. She glanced at the small white telephone on the bedside table. It was a flat, self-contained unit, the panel of touch buttons built into the instrument. She wondered, although there was no one she could think of calling. She went to the table and picked it up. It was dead, as she expected it would be. There was the signal for the nurse; it was all she needed and all she was permitted.

She walked to the window and raised the white shade, only to greet the night. The dazzling, coloured lights of Hong Kong lit up the sky, and she was closer to the sky than to the ground. As David would say - or rather, Jason: So be it. The door. The corridor.

So be it.

She crossed to the washbasin. The hospital-supplied toothbrush and toothpaste were still encased in plastic; the soap was also virginal, wrapped in the manufacturer's jacket, the words guaranteeing purity beyond the breath of angels.

Next there was the bathroom; nothing much different except a dispenser of sanitary napkins and a small sign in four languages explaining what not to do with them. She walked back into the room. What was she looking for? Whatever it was she had not found it.

Study everything. You'll find something you can use. Jason's words, not David's. Then she saw it.

On certain hospital beds - and this was one of them - there is a handle beneath the baseboard that when turned one way or the other raises or lowers the bed. This handle can be removed - and often is - when a patient is being fed intravenously, or if a physician wants him to remain in a given position, for example, in traction. A nurse can unlock and remove this handle by pressing in, turning to the left, and yanking it out as the cog-lock is released. This is frequently done during visiting hours, when visitors might succumb to a patient's wishes to change position against the doctor's wishes. Marie knew this bed and she knew this handle. When

David was recovering from the wounds he received at Treadstone 71, he was kept alive by intravenous feedings; she had watched the nurses. Her soon-to-be husband's pain was more than she could bear, and the nurses were obviously aware that in her desire to make things easier for him, she might disrupt the medical treatment. She knew how to remove the handle, and once removed, it was nothing less than a wieldy angle iron.

She removed it and climbed back into the bed, the handle beneath the covers. She waited, thinking how different her two men were - in one man. Her lover, Jason, could be so cold and patient, waiting for the moment to spring, to shock, to rely for survival upon violence. And her husband, David, so giving, so willing to listen - the scholar - avoiding violence at all costs because he had been there and he hated the pain and the anxiety - above all, the necessity to eliminate feelings to become a mere animal. And now he was called upon to be the man he detested. David, my David! Hold on to your sanity I I love you so.

Noises in the corridor. Marie looked at the clock on the bedside table. Sixteen minutes had passed. She placed both her hands above the covers as the nurse entered, lowering her eyelids as though she were drowsy.