“Qu’est-ce que c’est?”
“She’s an original, let’s leave it there.”
“And you?”
“I’m taking the subway. It’s getting dark. I’ll call you after midnight.”
“Bonne chance.”
“Merci.”
Bourne left the booth knowing his next move as he limped down the Quai, the bandage around his knee forcing him to assume a damaged leg. There was a métro station by the Tuileries where he would catch a train to Havre-Caumartin and switch to the Regional Express north line past St.-Denis–Basilique to Argenteuil. Argenteuil, a town of the Dark Ages founded by Charlemagne in honor of a nunnery fourteen centuries ago, now fifteen hundred years later a city that housed the message center of a killer as brutal as any man who roamed the bloody fields with a broadsword in Charlemagne’s barbaric days, then as now celebrating and sanctifying brutality in the shadows of religiosity.
Le Coeur du Soldat was not on a street or a boulevard or an avenue. Instead, it was in a dead-end alleyway around the corner and across from a long-since-closed factory whose faded signs indicated a once flourishing metallurgical refining plant in what had to be the ugliest part of the city. Nor was the Soldat listed in the telephone directory; it was found by innocently asking strangers where it was, as the inquirer was to meet une grosse secousse at this undiscoverable pissoir. The more dilapidated the buildings and the filthier the streets, the more cogent were the directions.
Bourne stood in the dark narrow alley leaning against the aged rough brick of the opposing structure across from the bistro’s entrance. Above the thick massive door in square block letters, several missing, was a dull red sign: L C eur d Soldat. As the door was sporadically opened for entering or departing clientele, metallic martial music blared forth into the alley; and the clientele were not candidates for an haute couture cotillion. His appearance was in keeping, thought Jason, as he struck a wooden match against the brick, lighting a thin black cigar as he limped toward the door.
Except for the language and the deafening music, it might have been a waterfront bar in Sicily’s Palermo, reflected Bourne as he made his way to the crowded bar, his squinting eyes roaming, absorbing everything he could observe—briefly confused, wondering when he had been in Palermo, Sicily.
A heavyset man in a tank shirt got off a stool; Jason slid on top of it. The clawlike hand gripped his shoulder; Bourne slapped his right hand up, grabbing the wrist and twisting it clockwise, pushing the barstool away and rising to his full height. “What’s your problem?” he asked calmly in French but loud enough to be heard.
“That’s my seat, pig! I’m just taking a piss!”
“So maybe when you’re finished, I’ll take one,” said Jason, his gaze boring into the man’s eyes, the strength of his grip unmistakable—emphasized by pressing a nerve with his thumb, which had nothing to do with strength.
“Ah, you’re a fucking cripple …!” cried the man, trying not to wince. “I don’t pick on invalids.”
“I’ll tell you what,” said Bourne, releasing his thumb. “You come back, we’ll take turns, and I’ll buy you a drink each time you let me get off this bum leg of mine, okay?”
Looking up at Jason, the heavyset man slowly grinned. “Hey, you’re all right.”
“I’m not all right, but I’m certainly not looking for a fight, either. Shit, you’d hammer me to the floor.” Bourne released the muscular Tank Shirt’s arm.
“I’m not so sure of that,” said the man, now laughing and holding his wrist. “Sit, sit! I’ll take a piss and come back and buy you a drink. You don’t look like you’re loaded with francs.”
“Well, like they say, appearances are deceiving,” replied Jason, sitting down. “I’ve got different, better clothes and an old friend told me to meet him here but not to wear them.… I just got back from good money in Africa. You know, training the savages—”
Cymbals crashed in the metallic, deafening martial music as Tank Shirt’s eyes widened. “Africa?” interrupted the stranger. “I knew it! That grip—LPN.”
What remained of the Chameleon’s memory data banks expanded into the code. LPN—Legion Patria Nostra. France’s Foreign Legion, the mercenaries of the world. It was not what he had in mind, but it would certainly do. “Christ, you too?” he asked, again coarsely but innocently.
“La Légion étrangère! ‘The Legion is our Fatherland’!”
“This is crazy!”
“We don’t announce ourselves, of course. There’s great jealousy, naturally, because we were the best and we were paid for it, but still these are our people. Soldiers!”
“When did you leave the Legion?” asked Bourne, sensing a cloud that could be troublesome.
“Ah, nine years ago! They threw me out before my second conscription for overweight. They were right and they probably saved my life. I’m from Belgique, a corporal.”
“I was discharged a month ago, before my first term was over. Wounds during our incursion into Angola and the fact that they figured I was older than my papers said. They don’t pay for extended recoveries.” How easily the words came.
“Angola? We did that? What was the Quai d’Orsay thinking about.”
“I don’t know. I’m a soldier, I follow orders and don’t question those I can’t understand.”
“Sit! My kidneys are bursting. I’ll be right back. Maybe we know friends.… I never heard of any Angola operation.”
Jason leaned forward over the bulging bar and ordered une bière, grateful that the bartender was too busy and the music too loud for the man to have overheard the conversation. However, he was infinitely more grateful to Saint Alex of Conklin, whose primary advice to a field agent was to “get in bad with a mark first before you get in good,” the theory being that the reversal from hostility to amiability was far stronger for the change. Bourne swallowed the beer in relief. He had made a friend at Le Coeur du Soldat. It was an inroad, minor but vital, and perhaps not so minor.
Tank Shirt returned, his thick arm around the shoulders of a younger man in his early twenties, of medium height and with the physique of a large safe; he was wearing an American field jacket. Jason started to get off the barstool. “Sit, sit!” cried his new friend, leaning forward to be heard through the crowds and the music. “I brought us a virgin.”
“What?”
“You forgot so quickly? He’s on his way to becoming a Legion recruit.”
“Oh, that,” laughed Bourne, covering his gaffe. “I wondered in a place like this—”
“In a place like this,” broke in Tank Shirt, “half will take it or give it either way as long as it’s rough. But that’s neither here nor there. I thought he should talk to you. He’s American and his French is grotesque, but if you speak slow, he’ll catch on.”
“No need to,” said Jason in faintly accented English. “I grew up in Neufchâtel, but I spent several years in the States.”
“That’s nice to heah.” The American’s speech was distinctly Deep South, his smile genuine, his eyes wary but unafraid.
“Then let us start again,” said the Belgian in heavily accented English. “My name is … Maurice, it’s as good a name as any. My young friend here is Ralph, at least he says it is. What’s yours, my wounded hero?”
“François,” replied Jason, thinking of Bernardine and wondering briefly how he was doing at the airports. “And I’m no hero; they died too quickly.… Order your drinks, I’m paying.” They did and Bourne did, his mind racing, trying to recall the little he knew about the French Foreign Legion. “A lot has changed in nine years, Maurice.” How very easily the words came, thought the Chameleon. “Why are you enlisting, Ralph?”
“Ah figure it’s the wisest thing I can do—kinda disappear for a few years, and I understand five is the minimum.”
“If you last the first, mon ami,” interjected the Belgian.
“Maurice is right. Listen to him. The officers are tough and difficult—”
“All French!” added the Belgian. “N
inety percent, at least. Only one foreigner in perhaps three hundred reach the officer corps. Have no illusions.”
“But Ah’m a college man. An engineer.”
“So you’ll build fine latrines for the camps and design perfect shit holes in the field,” laughed Maurice. “Tell him, François. Explain how the savants are treated.”
“The educated ones must first know how to fight,” said Jason, hoping he was right.
“Always first!” exclaimed the Belgian. “For their schooling is suspicious. Will they doubt? Will they think when they are paid only to follow orders?… Oh, no, mon ami, I would not emphasize your érudition.”
“Let it come out gradually,” added Bourne. “When they need it, not when you want to offer it.”
“Bien!” cried Maurice. “He knows what he’s talking about. A true légionnaire!”
“Can you fight?” asked Jason. “Could you go after someone to kill him?”
“Ah killed mah feeancee and her two brothers and a cousin, all with a knife and my bare hands. She was fuckin’ a big banker in Nashville and they were coverin’ for her because he was payin’ all of ’em a lot of money.… Yeah, I can kill, Mr. François.”
Manhunt for Crazed Killer in Nashville
Young engineer with promising future escapes dragnet …
Bourne remembered the newspaper headlines of only weeks ago, as he stared at the face of the young American. “Go for the Legion,” he said.
“If push comes to shove, Mr. François, could I use you as a reference?”
“It wouldn’t help you, young man, it might only hurt. If you’re pressed, just tell the truth. It’s your credentials.”
“Aussi bien! He knows the Legion. They will not take maniacs if they can help it, but they—how do you say it, François?”
“Look the other way, I think.”
“Oui. They look the other way when there are—encore, François?”
“When there are extenuating circumstances.”
“See? My friend François also has brains. I wonder how he survived.”
“By not showing them, Maurice.”
A waiter wearing about the filthiest apron Jason had ever seen clapped the Belgian on the neck. “Votre table, René.”
“So?” shrugged Tank Shirt. “Just another name. Quelle différence? We eat and with good fortune we will not be poisoned.”
Two hours later, with four bottles of rough vin ordinaire consumed by Maurice and Ralph, along with suspicious fish, Le Coeur du Soldat settled in for its nightly endurance ritual. Fights occurred episodically, broken up by muscular waiters. The blaring music marshaled memories of battles won and lost, engendering arguments between old soldiers who had basically been the assault troops, cannon fodder, at once resentful and filled with the pride of survival because they had survived the blood and horror their gold-braided superiors knew nothing about. It was the collective roar of the underprivileged foot soldiers heard from the time of the Pharaoh’s legions to the grunts of Korea and Vietnam. The properly uniformed officers decreed from far behind the lines, and the foot soldiers died to preserve their superiors’ wisdom. Bourne remembered Saigon and could not fault the existence of Le Coeur du Soldat.
The head bartender, a massive bald man with steel-rimmed glasses, picked up a telephone concealed below the far end of the bar and brought it to his ear. Jason watched him between the roving figures. The man’s eyes spun around the crowded room—what he heard appeared to be important; what he saw, dismissible. He spoke briefly, plunged his hand below the bar and kept it there for several moments; he had dialed. Again, he spoke quickly, then calmly replaced the phone out of sight. It was the kind of sequence described by old Fontaine on Tranquility Isle. Message received, message relayed. And at the end of that receiving line was the Jackal.
It was all he wanted to see that evening; there were things to consider, perhaps men to hire, as he had hired men in the past. Expendable men who meant nothing to him, people who could be paid or bribed, blackmailed or threatened into doing what he wanted them to do without explanation.
“I just spotted the man I was to meet here,” he said to the barely conscious Maurice and Ralph. “He wants me to go outside.”
“You’re leaving us?” whined the Belgian.
“Hey, man, you shouldn’t do thay-at,” added the young American from the South.
“Only for tonight.” Bourne leaned over the table. “I’m working with another légionnaire, someone who’s on to something that involves a lot of money. I don’t know you, but you seem like decent men.” Bourne pulled out his roll of bills and peeled off a thousand francs, five hundred for each of his companions. “Take this, both of you—shove it in your pockets, quickly!”
“Holy shee-itt!”
“Merde!”
“It’s no guarantee, but maybe we can use you. Keep your mouths shut and get out of here ten or fifteen minutes after I leave. Also, no more wine. I want you sober tomorrow.… When does this place open, Maurice?”
“I’m not sure it closes. I myself have been here at eight o’clock in the morning. Naturally, it is not so crowded—”
“Be here around noon. But with clear heads, all right?”
“I shall be le caporal extraordinaire of La Légion. The man that I once was! Should I wear my uniform?” Maurice belched.
“Hell, no.”
“Ah’ll wear a suit and a tie. I got a suit and a tie, honest!” The American hiccupped.
“No. Both of you be like you are now, but with your heads straight. Do you understand me?”
“You sound très américain, mon ami.”
“He sure do.”
“I’m not, but then the truth’s not a commodity here, is it?”
“Ah know what he means. I learned it real well. You kinda fib with a tie on.”
“No tie, Ralph. See you tomorrow.” Bourne slid out of the booth, and suddenly a thought struck him. Instead of heading for the door, he cautiously made his way to the far end of the bar and the huge bald bartender. No seats were available, so, again cautiously, politely, he squeezed sideways between two customers, ordered a Pernod and asked for a napkin on which to write a message, ostensibly personal, to no one who might concern the establishment. On the back of the napkin’s crude coat of arms, he wrote the following with his ballpoint pen in French:
The nest of a blackbird is worth a million francs. Object: confidential business advice. If interested, be at the old factory around the corner in thirty minutes. Where is the harm? An additional 5000 F for being there alone.
Bourne palmed the napkin along with a hundred-franc note and signaled the bartender, who adjusted his steel-rimmed glasses as if the unknown patron’s gesture were an impertinence. Slowly he moved his large body forward, and leaned his thick tattooed arms on the bar. “What is it?” he asked gruffly.
“I have written out a message for you,” replied the Chameleon, his eyes steady, focused on the bartender’s glasses. “I am by myself and hope you will consider the request. I am a man who carries wounds but I am not a poor man.” Bourne quickly but gently—very gently—reached for the bartender’s hand, passing the napkin and the franc note. With a final imploring look at the astonished man, Jason turned and headed for the door, his limp pronounced.
Outside, Bourne hurried up the cracked pavement toward the alley’s entrance. He judged that his interlude at the bar had taken between eight and twelve minutes. Knowing the bartender was watching him, he had purposely not tried to see if his two companions were still at the table, but he assumed they were. Tank Shirt and Field Jacket were not at their sharpest, and in their condition minutes did not count; he could only hope five hundred francs apiece might bring about a degree of responsibility and that they would leave soon as instructed. Oddly enough, he had more faith in Maurice-René than in the young American who called himself Ralph. A former corporal in the Foreign Legion was imbued with an automatic reflex where orders were concerned; he followed them blind drunk or blind sober. J
ason hoped so; it was not mandatory, but he could use their assistance—if, if, the bartender at Le Coeur du Soldat had been sufficiently intrigued by the excessive sums of money, as well as by a solitary conversation with a cripple he could obviously kill with one tattooed arm.
Bourne waited in the street, the wash of the streetlights diminishing in the alley, fewer and fewer people going in or coming out, those arriving in better shape than those departing, all passing Jason without a glance at the derelict weaving against the brick.
Instinct prevailed. Tank Shirt pulled the much younger Field Jacket through the heavy door, and at one point after the door had swung shut, slapped the American across the face, telling him in unclear words to follow orders, for they were rich and could become much richer.
“It is better than being shot in Angola!” cried the former légionnaire, loud enough for Bourne to hear. “Why did they do that?”
Jason stopped them at the entrance to the alley, pulling both men around the edge of the brick building. “It’s me,” he said, his voice commanding.
“Sacrebleu …!”
“What the Gawdamn hell …!”
“Be quiet! You can make another five hundred francs tonight, if you want to. If not, there are twenty other men who will.”
“We are comrades!” protested Maurice-René.
“And Ah could bust your ass for scarin’ us like thay-at.… But mah buddy’s right, we’re comrades—that ain’t Commie stuff, is it, Maurice?”
“Taisez-vous!”
“That means shut up,” explained Bourne.
“Ah know thay-at. I hear it a lot—”
“Listen to me. Within the next few minutes the bartender in there may come out looking for me. He may, he also may not, I simply don’t know. He’s the large bald man wearing glasses. Do either of you know him?”
The American shrugged, but the Belgian nodded his floating head, his lips flat until he spoke. “His name is Santos and he is espagnol.”
“Spanish?”
“Or latino-américain. No one knows.”
Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, thought Jason. Carlos the Jackal, Venezuelan by birth, rejected terrorist, whom even the Soviets could not handle. Of course he would return to his own. “How well do you know him?”