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Chapter three

Trained to Kill

They followed directions to Lowenstrasse. Marie was silent now, holding the wheel tightly. Bourne watched her and understood.

A man was killed… Jason Bourne had been paid to kill. The police had offered a reward. Others would follow. How many people were looking for him? Who were they? When would this end? “There’s number 37,” he said. “Stop the car!”

Marie looked at him with fear in her eyes. “I don’t want to go in there with you. I heard what the man said in the restaurant. If I hear any more, you’ll kill me.”

Bourne pulled his aching body out of the car. “His words made no more sense to me than to you. Maybe less.” He saw the confusion on her face. “Let’s go.”

He did not press the bell below Chernak’s name - he pressed others until someone opened the door. He walked with difficulty up the stairs, holding Marie’s arm, and on his orders she knocked and then called out to the man inside.

The door opened and there, in a wheelchair, was a man with no legs.

“You’re crazy,” the man cried. “Get away from here!”

“I’m tired of hearing that,” Bourne said, and pulled Marie inside.

She willingly obeyed his orders to go to a small, windowless bedroom, and then Bourne turned back to Chernak.

“You promised that our last piece of business would be the final one,” Chernak shouted, white-faced. “This is too dangerous.”

“The envelope that you passed to our friend at the Drei Alpenhauser,” Bourne said. “Who gave it to you?”

“A messenger, like all the others. I don’t know. You were paid, so I know you accepted the job. Why are you here now?”

Because I have to know. Because I don’t understand. Help me!

He suddenly noticed Chernak’s hand moving toward a bag hanging from his chair. The hand came out quickly, pointing a gun, and before Bourne could reach his own, Chernak fired twice. Pain filled Bourne’s head and shoulder as he dived to one side, then crashed his other shoulder into Chernak’s wheelchair. The legless man fell helplessly to the floor.

“They’ll pay for your corpse,” he screamed. “Carlos will pay! I’ll see you in hell.”

Bourne fired a bullet into the man’s head.

A long, terrible cry came from the bedroom door. A woman’s cry. Bourne could hardly think for the pain. He had to take her - what was her name? and get out.

“My God, you killed him,” she screamed, as he pulled her out of the apartment. “A man with no–

Inside the car, Bourne tried to stop the blood. The head wound was only a cut, but he was feeling sick and faint from the pain in his shoulder. An address came to him. He could picture the doorway. “Steppdeckstrasse,” he ordered weakly.

The car did not move. What was she doing? Marie knocked the gun from his hand, pushed his head against the car window, then jumped out and ran.

He could not stay in the car. He cleaned off the blood as well as he could, then got out. Somewhere there would be a taxi.

No questions were asked when Bourne rented a room in the house in Steppdeckstrasse, and a doctor was found who also asked nothing. The pain in his head and shoulder was real, but the psychological damage was great. He needed to rest.

As he lay on the bed, words came to him: A man was killed… You accepted the job… And then: They’ll pay for your corpse! Carlos will pay!

He heard a sudden, sharp noise outside the room. There was someone on the stairs. Bourne jumped off his bed, seized his gun, and ran to the wall by the door. The door crashed open; he pushed it back, throwing all his weight at it, then pulled the door open and kicked up at the man’s head. Then, taking the man by the hair, he pulled him inside. A gun fell to the floor.

Bourne closed the door and listened. No sounds outside. He looked down at the unconscious man. Was he a thief? A killer? Police? Had the owner of the Steppdeckstrasse house decided to earn the reward? He searched the man’s pockets and found cards and licenses in different names. He was a killer, a professional. Someone had hired him. Who knew that Bourne was there? The woman? Had he spoken the address? He could not remember.

He took the papers, put the gun in his pocket, then tied the unconscious man to the bed. Then he walked quietly and painfully down the stairs. The next doorway, he guessed - and he was right. He turned toward it and fired, hitting the second man in the leg.

“Is there anyone else,” he asked, with his gun at the man’s head.

“No. Only two of us. We were paid.”

“Who by?”

“You know.”

“A man named Carlos?”

“I will not answer. Kill me first.”

“Give me your car keys.”

The man tried to push Bourne away. Bourne brought the end of the gun down on his head, and took his gun and keys. He hoped he would be able to drive.

He found the car and tried one key after another. Which was it? Suddenly a powerful light burned his eyes.

“Get out!” It was the man with the gold glasses. Behind him, a woman was led toward the car.

“That’s him,” Marie St Jacques said softly.

“So this is what you look like,” the Swiss man said to Bourne. “We have had so many descriptions.”

“I’m happy to help the police, but I’d like to make my statement now - whatever you need - and go back to the hotel, please,” Marie said.

The Swiss man looked up, and a second, larger man seized her arm. She stared at them, and then at Bourne, suddenly realizing.

“Let her go back to Canada,” Bourne said. “She works for the Canadian government. And you’ll never see her again.”

“She has seen us,” the Swiss man said. “There are rules.” He turned to the larger man. “Take her in the other car, to the Limmat.” Bourne froze. Marie’s corpse was going to be thrown in the Limmat River. “Scream,” he shouted.

She tried, but her scream was cut off by a blow to her neck and she was pulled, unconscious, toward a small black car. As the car drove away, Bourne felt sick. It was his fault. He had killed her.

“You were at the bank,” he said. “You know I have money. Why not take mine?”

“Money is only useful if you have time to enjoy it,” the Swiss man said. “I wouldn’t have five minutes.” He took the gun from Bourne’s pocket and brought it down hard on Bourne’s hands.

“My fingers - they’re broken,” Bourne screamed. But he had quickly covered his right hand with his left; his left hand was bloody and useless, but he could still move the fingers on his right hand.

Another gunman joined them in the car and, as they headed across the city, he searched Bourne’s clothes roughly, taking the money and documents.

“My leg,” Bourne screamed, bending down and reaching quickly inside his sock for the gun that was hidden there.

“Watch him,” cried the Swiss man, who was driving, but it was too late. Bourne had fired twice at the killer beside him and the gun was now at the head of the driver.

“Stop the car,” he shouted, but the car went faster.

“I can get you out of Zurich,” the man said. “Without me, you can’t leave. There are police looking for you everywhere. I don’t think you want the police. Or I can crash the car and kill us both. I have nothing to lose.”

“We’ll talk,” Bourne lied. “Slow down.”

“Drop your gun on the seat next to me.”

Bourne dropped his gun and the car slowed. Thirty kilometers an hour, eighteen, nine… He seized the man by the neck, then lifted his bloody left hand and spread the blood across the Swiss man’s eyes. Reaching across with his right hand, he turned the wheel to the right, into a pile of garbage. He took the gun from the seat and fired. A dark-red hole appeared in the killer’s head.

In the street, people were running toward the car. Bourne climbed into the front, pushed the corpse out, and drove away.

The Limmat. Marie would be killed in a dark, empty place near the water - or she already had been. He had to know. He could not walk away. He drove and searched, the length of the river, trying to forget the pain in his hand, the pain in his shoulder. He stopped only to push out the body from the back seat. Then, in an unlit parking area, he noticed the small black car. He stopped fifty meters away and opened his door. He heard a cry, low and frightened, from inside the car, the sound of a hand across a face, and another cry. Gun in hand, he walked slowly toward Marie and her assassin. The man was pulling off her clothes.

Filled with anger, but unable to shoot without hitting her, he broke the car window with his shoe.

“Stay inside,” he shouted to Marie, as the killer threw himself out of the car and onto the ground.

The killer fired and missed. Bourne fired and heard a cry. He had wounded the man - but not killed him.

“Who is it - What is happening,” An old man was shouting in German, holding a light in front of his face.

The killer ran to the old man and stood behind him, pulling him back. There was a shot, then the sound of running footsteps. The old man had served his purpose and was dead.

Bourne lowered himself to the ground. He could do nothing more. He did not care. Marie climbed slowly out of the car, shock in her eyes, holding her clothes to her body.

“Take the keys,” he shouted. “Get out of here. Go to the police - real ones, with uniforms, this time.”

“You saved my life,” she whispered. “You were free, but you came back for me and saved my life.”

He heard her through his pain. He felt her tying her clothes around his bleeding wounds. Then her hands were on his arms, gently pulling him up. As she helped him into the car, he could feel himself falling, falling into unconsciousness.

“Can you hear me,” Marie’s voice asked. “You’re hurt, quite badly, but a doctor has seen you and you don’t need to go to the hospital. A week’s rest will be enough.”

“Where are we?”

“In a village called Lenzberg, twenty-five kilometers from Zurich.”

“How…?”

“I decided to help you. It’s the most difficult decision that I’ve ever made. I sat and thought for half an hour, but I couldn’t go to the police after you saved me.”

“Even knowing what I am?”

“I only know what I’ve heard, and I’ve seen a different man.”

“Aren’t you afraid of me,” he asked. “Afraid of what I’ve done?”

“Of course I am, but you’re very weak and I have your gun. Also, you have no clothes. I’ve thrown them all away.”

Bourne laughed through his pain, remembering the Marquis. “Who are you,” Marie asked.

“They say my name is Jason Bourne.”

“They say? What does that mean?”

“My life began five months ago on a small island in the Mediterranean–”

As she sat by his bed, he talked through the night until there was nothing more to say.

“My God,” Marie said softly. “You know so little about yourself. You must really be suffering.”

“How can you think about my suffering after what I’ve done to you,” he answered.

“They’re separate - independent of each other. Outside Chernak’s apartment, you said something about the fat man’s words making no more sense to you than to me. I thought you were crazy, but now I understand. Why didn’t you tell me before that Chernak tried to kill you?”

“There wasn’t time before, and it didn’t matter.”

“It mattered to me. I thought you killed a defenseless man. The man with the gold glasses - the one who told me that he was a policeman - said that you were a professional assassin who must be stopped. But you were running for your life - are running for your life - and you’re not a killer.”

Bourne took her hand. “But there were envelopes filled with money, which I accepted. There were millions of dollars in a bank account. And you’ve seen my skills.” He stared at the ceiling, the pain returning. “Those are the facts, Marie. You should leave.”

“You don’t have facts,” she said. “I’m not a fool, but your facts come from the mouths of killers. And that bank account can be inspected by a company called Treadstone Seventy-one. That doesn’t sound like the employer of a hired killer. I don’t know what I believe, but I do know that I was going to die and you came to save me. I believe in you. I think I want to help you.”