The Bourne Supremacy (62 page)

Stop it. Watch. Know what we're dealing with.

Suspended from the limb of a tree by a rope attached to his bound wrists, his arms stretched out above him, his feet barely inches off the ground, a male prisoner writhed in panic, muted cries coming from his throat, his eyes wild and pleading above his gagged mouth.

A slender, middle-aged man dressed in a Mao jacket and trousers stood in front of the violently twisting body. His right hand was extended, clasping the jewelled hilt of an upended sword, its blade long and thin, its point resting in the earth. David Webb recognized the weapon - weapon and not a weapon. It was a ceremonial sword of a fourteenth-century warlord, a ruthless class of militarists who destroyed villages and towns and whole countrysides even suspected of opposing the will of the Yuan emperors, Mongols who left nothing but fire and death and the screams of children in their wake. The sword was also used for ceremonies far less symbolic, far more brutal than appearances at the dynasty's courts. David felt a wave of nausea and apprehension gripping him as he watched the scene below.

'Listen to me!' shouted the slender man in front of the prisoner as he turned to address his audience. His voice was highpitched but deliberate, instructive. Bourne did not know him, but his was a face that would be hard to forget. The close-cropped grey hair, the gaunt, pale features - above all, the stare. Jason could not see the eyes clearly but it was enough that the fires of the torches danced off them. They, too, were on fire. Behind him, silent, almost passive, stood the impostor. The man who looked like David - No, like

Jason Bourne.

'The nights of the great blade begin? the slender man screamed suddenly. 'And they will continue night after night until all those who would betray us are sent to helll Each of these poisonous insects has committed crimes against our holy cause, crimes we are aware of, all of which could lead to the great crime demanding the great blade.' The speaker turned to the suspended prisoner. ' You! Indicate the truth and only the truth! Do you know the Occidental?'

The prisoner shook his head, throated moans accompanying the wild movement.

'Liar!' shrieked a voice from the crowd. 'He was in the Tian

an men this afternoon!'

Again the prisoner shook his head spastically in panic. 'He spoke against the true China!' shouted another. 'I heard him in the Hua gong Park among the young people!' 'And in the coffee house on the Xidan bei!' The prisoner moved convulsively, his wide, stunned eyes fixed in shock on the crowd. Bourne began to understand. The man was hearing lies and-he did not know why, but Jason knew. A Star Chamber inquisition was in session; a troublemaker, or a man with doubts, was being eliminated in the name of a greater crime, in the remote possibility that he might have committed it. The nights of the great blade begin -night after night\ It was a reign of terror inside a small, bloody kingdom within a vast land where centuries of bloodstained warlords had prevailed.

'He did these things?' shouted the gaunt-faced orator. 'He said these things?'

A frenzied chorus of affirmatives filled the glen.

'In the Tian an men...!'

'He talked to the Occidental...!'

'He betrayed us all...!'

'He caused the trouble at the hated Mao's tomb...!'

'He would see us dead, our cause lost...!'

'He speaks against our leaders and wants them killed...!'

'To oppose our leaders,' said the orator, his voice calm but rising, 'is to vilify them, and, by so doing, to remove the care one must accord the precious gift called life. When these things occur, the gift must be taken away.'

The suspended man writhed more furiously, his cries growing louder and matching the moans of the other prisoners who were forced to kneel in front of the speaker in full view of the imminent execution. Only one kept refusing, continuously trying to rise in disobedience and disrespect, and continuously beaten down by the guard nearest him. It was Philippe d'Anjou. Echo was sending another message to Delta, but Jason Bourne could not understand it.

'...this diseased, ungrateful hypocrite, this teacher of the young who was welcomed like a brother into our dedicated ranks because we believed the words he spoke - so courageously, we thought - in opposition to our motherland's tormentors, is no more than a traitor. His words are hollow. He is a sworn companion of the treacherous winds and they would take him to our enemies, the tormentors of Mother China! In his death may he find purification!' The now shrill-voiced orator pulled the sword out of the ground. He raised it above his head.

And so that his seed may not be spread, recited the scholar David Webb to himself, recalling the words of the ancient incantation and wanting to close his eyes, but unable to, ordeted by his other self not to. We destroy the well from which the seed springs, praying to the spirits to destroy all it has entered here on earth.

The sword arced vertically down, hacking into the groin and genitalia of the screaming, twisting body.

And so that his thoughts may not be spread, diseasing the innocent and the weak, we pray to the spirits to destroy them wherever they may be, as we here destroy the well from which they spring.

The writhing body fell to the ground under a shower of blood from the severed head, which the slender man with the eyes of fire continued to abuse with the blade until there was no remnant of a human face.

The rest of the terrified prisoners filled the glen with wails of horror as they grovelled on the ground, soiling themselves, begging for mercy. Except one. D'Anjou rose to his feet and stared in silence at the messianic man with the sword. The guard approached. Hearing him, the Frenchman turned and spat in his face. The guard, mesmerized, perhaps sickened by what he had seen, backed away. What was Echo doing! What was his message!

Bourne looked back to the executioner, the man with the gaunt face and close-cropped grey hair. He was wiping the long blade of the sword with a white silk scarf as aides removed the body and what was left of the prisoner's skull. He pointed to a striking, attractive woman who was being dragged by the two guards over to the rope. Her posture was erect, defiant. Delta studied his face. Beneath the maniacal eyes, the man's thin mouth was stretched into a slit. He was smiling.

He was dead. Some time. Somewhere. Perhaps tonight. A butcher, a bloodstained, blind fanatic who would plunge the Far East into an unthinkable war - China against China, the rest of the world to follow.

Tonight!

27

This woman is a courier, one of those to whom we gave our trust,' the orator went on, gradually raising his voice like a fundamentalist minister, preaching the gospel of love while his eye is on the work of the devil. The trust was not earned but given in faith, for she is the wife of one of our own, a brave soldier, a first son of an illustrious family of the true China. A man who as I speak now risks his life by infiltrating our enemies in the south. He, too, gave her his trust... and she betrayed that trust, she betrayed that gallant husband, she betrayed us all! She is no more than a whore who sleeps with the enemy! And while her lust is satiated how many secrets has she revealed, how much deeper is her betrayal? Is she the Occidental's contact here in Beijing? Is she the one who informs on us, who tells our enemies what to look for, what to expect? How else could this terrible day have happened? Our most experienced, dedicated men set a trap for our enemies that would have cut them down, ridding ourselves of Western criminals who see only riches to be won by grovelling in front of China's tormentors. It is related that she was at the airport this morning. The airport] Where the trap was in progress] Did she give her wanton body to a dedicated man, drugging him, perhaps? Did her lover tell her what to do, what to say to our enemies! What has this harlot done?

The scene was set, thought Bourne. A case so flagrantly leap-frogging over facts and 'related' facts that even a court in Moscow would send a puppet prosecutor back to the drawing board. The reign of terror within the warlord tribe continued. Weed out the misfits among the misfits. Find the traitor. Kill anyone who might be he or she.

A subdued but angry chorus of whore!' and 'traitor!' came from the audience as the bound woman struggled with the two guards. The orator held up his hands for silence. It was immediate.

'Her lover was a despicable journalist for the Xinhua News Agency, that lying, discredited organ of the despicable regime. I say "was", for since an hour ago the loathsome creature is dead, shot through the head, his throat cut for all to know that he, too, was a traitor! I have spoken myself to this whore's husband for I accord him honour. He instructed me to do as our ancestral spirits demand. He wants nothing further to do with her-'

'Aiyaaa!' With extraordinary strength and fury, the woman ripped the tightly bound cloth from her mouth. 'Liar/' she screamed. 'Killer of killers! You killed a decent man and I have betrayed no one\ It is / who have been betrayed! I was not at the airport, and you know it! I have never seen this Occidental and you know that, too! I knew nothing of this trap for Western criminals and you can see the truth in my face! How could it

'By whoring with a dedicated servant of the cause and corrupting him, drugging him! By offering him your breasts and misused tunnel-of-corruption, withholding, withdrawing, until the herbs make him mad!'

' You're mad! You say these things, these lies, because you sent my husband south and came to me for many days, first with promises and then with threats. I was to service you. It was my duty, you said! You lay with me and I learned things-'

'Woman, you are contemptible] I came to you pleading with you to keep honour to your husband, with the cause! To abandon your lover and seek forgiveness.'

'A lie! Men came to you, taipans from the south sent by my husband, men who could not be seen near your high offices. They came secretly to the shops below my flat, the flat of a so called honourable widow - another lie you left for me and my child!'

' Whore!' shrieked the wild-eyed man with the sword.

'Liar to the depths of the northern lakes!' shouted the woman in reply. 'Like you, my husband has many women and cares nothing for me! He beats me and you tell me it is his right, for he is a great son of the true China! I carry messages from one city to another, which if found on me would bring me torture and death, and I receive only scorn, never paid for my rail fares, or the yuan withheld from my place of work, for you tell me it is my duty! How is any girl child to eat? The child your great son of China barely recognizes, for he wanted only sons!'

The spirits would not grant you sons, for they would be women, disgracing a great house of China! You are the traitor! You went to the airport and contacted our enemies, permitting a great criminal to escape! You would enslave us for a thousand years-'

'You would make us your cattle for ten thousand!'

'You don't know what freedom is, woman.'

'Freedom! From your mouth? You tell me - you tell us -you will give us back the freedoms our elders had in the true China, but what freedoms, liar! The freedom that demands blind obedience, that takes the rice from my child, a child dismissed by a father who believes only in lords - warlords, landlords, lords of the earth! Aiya!' The woman turned to the crowd, rushing forward, away from the orator. 'You!' she cried. 'All of you! I have not betrayed you, nor our cause, but I have learned many things. All was not as this great liar says! There is much pain and restriction, which we all know, but there was pain before, restriction before!... My lover was no evil man, no blind follower of the regime, but a literate man, a gentle man, and a believer in eternal China! He wanted the things we want! He asked only for time to correct the evils that had infected the old men in the committees that lead us. There will be changes, he told me. Some are showing the way. Now] ... Do not permit the liar to do this to me! Do not permit him to do it to you!'

' Whore! Traitor!' The blade came slashing through the air decapitating the woman. Her headless body lurched to the left, her head to the right, both spouting geysers of blood. The orator then swung the sword down, slicing into her remains, but the silence that had fallen on the crowd was heavy, awesome. He stopped; he had lost the moment. He regained it swiftly. 'May the sacred ancestral spirits grant her peace and purification!' he shouted, his eyes roving, stopping, staring at each member of his congregation. 'For it is not in hatred that I end her life, but in compassion for her weakness. She will find peace and forgiveness. The spirits will understand - but we must understand here in the motherland) We cannot deviate from our cause - we must be strong! We must-'

Bourne had had enough of this maniac. He was hatred incarnate. And he was dead. Some time. Somewhere. Perhaps tonight - if possible, tonight]

Delta unsheathed his knife and started to his right, crawling through the dense Medusan woods, his pulse strangely quiet, a furious core of certainty growing within him - David Webb had vanished. There were so many things he could not remember from those clouded faraway days, but there was much, too, that came back to him. The specifics were unclear but not his instincts. Impulses directed him, and he was at one with the darkness of the forest. The jungle was not an adversary; instead it was his ally for it had protected him before, saved him before in those distant, disordered memories. The trees and the vines and the underbrush were his friends; he moved through and around them like a wildcat, sure-footed and silent.

He turned to his left above the ancient glen and began his descent, focusing on the tree where the assassin stood so casually. The orator had once again altered his strategy in dealing with his congregation. He was cutting his losses in place of cutting up another woman - a sight the sons of mothers could barely accept, regardless of any earthly cause. The impassioned pleas of a dead, mutilated female prisoner had to be put out of mind. A master of his craft - his art, perhaps - the orator knew when to revert to the gospel of love, momentarily omitting Lucifer. Aides had swiftly removed the evidence of violent death and the remaining woman was summoned with a gesture of the ceremonial sword. She was no more than eighteen, if that, and a pretty girl, weeping and vomiting as she was dragged forward.