The Bourne ultimatum (21 page)

Within seconds he saw something racing out of the shadows of the circular drive, rushing over the gravel of the extended road. It was a small odd-shaped vehicle, half three-wheeled motorbike, half miniature golf cart, the tires large and deeply treaded, capable of both high speed and balance. It was also, in its way, ominous, for, in addition to a high flexible antenna, thick curved Plexiglas shields shot up from all sides, bulletproof windows that protected the driver from gunfire while alerting by radio anyone inside the residences of an assault. General Norman Swayne’s “farm” took on an even stranger ambience. ... Then, abruptly, it was macabre.

A second three-wheeled cart swung out from the shadows behind the cabin—and it
was
a cabin with split logs on the exterior—and came to a stop only feet from the first vehicle on the graveled road. Both drivers’ heads swung militarily toward the small house as if they were robots in a public gallery, and then the words shot out from an unseen speaker.

“Secure the gates,” said the amplified voice, a voice in command. “Release the dogs and resume your rounds.”

As if choreographed, the vehicles swung in unison, each in the opposite direction, the drivers gunning their engines as one, the strange-looking carts racing forward into the shadows. At the mention of dogs Bourne had automatically reached into his back pocket and removed the CO
₂
gun; he then crawled laterally, rapidly, through the underbrush to within feet of the extended fence. If the dogs were in a pack, he would have no choice but to scramble up the links and spring over the coiled barbed wire to the other side. His dual-chambered dart pistol could eliminate two animals, not more; there would be no time to reload. He crouched, waiting, ready to leap up on the fence, the sightlines beneath the lower branches relatively clear.

Suddenly a black Doberman raced by on the graveled road, no hesitation in his pace, no scent picked up, the animal’s only objective apparently to reach a given place. Then another dog appeared, this a long-haired shepherd. It slowed down, awkwardly yet instinctively, as if programmed to halt at a specific area; it stopped, an obscure moving silhouette up the road. Standing motionless, Bourne understood. These were trained male attack dogs, each with its own territory, which was constantly urinated upon, forever its own turf. It was a behavioral discipline favored by Oriental peasants and small landowners who knew too well the price of feeding the animals who guarded their minuscule fiefdoms of survival. Train a few, as few as possible, to protect their separated areas from thieves, and if alarms were raised the others would converge. Oriental. Vietnam. ... Medusa. It was coming back to him! Vague, obscure outlines—
images
. A young, powerful man in uniform, driving a Jeep, stepping out, and—through the mists of Jason’s inner screen—yelling at what was left of an assault team that had returned from interdicting an ordnance route paralleling the Ho Chi Minh Trail. That
same man
, older, larger, had been in his binoculars only moments ago! And years ago that same man had promised
supplies
. Ammunition, mortars, grenades,
radios
. He had brought
nothing
! Only complaints from Command Saigon that “you fucking illegals fed us crap!” But they hadn’t. Saigon had acted too late,
reacted
too late, and twenty-six men had been killed or captured for nothing.

As if it were an hour ago, a minute ago, Bourne remembered. He had yanked his .45 out of his holster and, without warning, jabbed the barrel into the approaching noncom’s forehead.

“One more word and you’re dead, Sergeant.” The man had been a sergeant! “You bring us our requisitions by O-five-hundred tomorrow morning or I’ll get to Saigon and personally blow you into the wall of whatever whorehouse you’re frequenting. Do I make myself clear or do you care to save me a trip to publicity city? Frankly, in light of our losses, I’d rather waste you now.”

“You’ll get what you need.”

“
Très bien
!” had yelled the oldest French member of Medusa, who years later would save his life in a wildlife sanctuary in Beijing. “
Tu es formidable, mon fils
!” How right he was. And how dead he was. D’Anjou, a man legends were written about. Jason’s thoughts were abruptly shattered. The long-haired attack dog was suddenly circling in the road, its snarls growing louder, its nostrils picking up the human scent. Within seconds, as the animal found its directional bearings, a frenzy developed. The dog lunged through the foliage, its teeth bared, the snarls now the throated growls of a kill. Bourne sprang back into the fence, pulling the CO
₂
pistol out of its nylon shoulder holster with his right hand; his left arm crooked, extended, prepared for a vital counterassault that if not executed properly would cost him the night. The crazed animal leaped, a hurling mass of rage. Jason fired, first one cartridge and then the second, and as the darts were embedded, he whipped his left arm around the attack dog’s head, yanking the skull counterclockwise, slamming his right knee up into the animal’s body to ward off the lashing sharp-nailed paws. It was over in moments—moments of raging, panicked, finally disintegrating fury—without the howling sounds that might have carried across the lawn of the general’s estate. The long-haired dog, its narcotized eyes wide, fell limp in Bourne’s arms. He lowered it to the ground and once again waited, afraid to move until he knew that no converging inhuman alarms had been sent to the other animals.

There were none; there was only the constant murmuring of the forest beyond the prohibiting fence. Jason replaced the CO
₂
pistol in his holster and crept forward, back to the graveled road, beads of sweat rolling down his face and into his eyes. He
had
been away too long. Years ago such a feat as silencing an attack dog would have rolled off him—
un exercise ordinaire
, as the legend d’Anjou would have said—but it was no longer ordinary. What permeated his being was fear. Pure, unadulterated
fear
. Where was the man that was? Still, Marie and the children were out there; that man had to be summoned.
Summon
him!

Bourne stripped out the binoculars and raised them to his eyes again. The moonlight was sporadic, low-flying clouds intercepting the rays, but the yellow wash was sufficient. He focused on the shrubbery that fronted the stockade fence that bordered the road outside. Pacing back and forth on a bisecting dirt path like an angry, impatient panther was the black Doberman, stopping now and then to urinate and poke its long snout into the bushes. As he had been programmed to do, the animal roamed between the opposing closed iron gates of the enormous circular drive. At each halting checkpoint it snarled, spinning around several times as if both expecting and loathing the sharp electrical shock it would receive through its collar if it transgressed without cause. Again, the method of training went back to Vietnam; soldiers disciplined the attack dogs around ammunition and matériel depots with such remote-signaling devices. Jason focused the binoculars on the far side of the expansive front lawn. He zeroed in on a third animal, this a huge Weimaraner, gentle in appearance but lethal in attack. The hyperactive dog raced back and forth, aroused perhaps by squirrels or rabbits in the brush, but not by human scent; it did not raise a throated growl, the signal of assault.

Jason tried to analyze what he observed, for that analysis would determine his moves. He had to assume that there was a fourth or a fifth, or even a sixth animal patrolling the perimeters of Swayne’s grounds. But why this way? Why not a pack roaming at will and in unison, a far more frightening and inhibiting sight? The expense that concerned the Oriental farmer was no object. ... Then the explanation struck him; it was so basic it was obvious. He shifted the binoculars back and forth between the Weimaraner and the Doberman, the picture of the longhaired German shepherd still all too clear in his mind. Beyond the fact that these were trained attack dogs, they were also something else. They were the top of their breeds, groomed to a fare-thee-well—vicious animals posing as champion show dogs by day, violent predators at night. Of
course
. General Norman Swayne’s “farm” was not unrecorded property, not concealed real estate, but very much out in the open and undoubtedly, jealously perhaps, visited by friends, neighbors and colleagues. During the daylight hours, guests could admire these docile champions in their well-appointed kennels without realizing what they really were. Norman Swayne, Pentagon Procurements and alumnus of Medusa, was merely a dog aficionado, attested to by the quality of his animals’ bloodlines. He might very well charge stud fees, but there was nothing in the canon of military ethics that precluded the practice.

A sham. If one such aspect of the general’s “farm” was a sham, it had to follow that the estate itself was a sham, as false as the “inheritance” that made its purchase possible. Medusa.

One of the two strange three-wheeled carts appeared far across the lawn, out of the shadows of the house and down the exit road of the circular drive. Bourne focused on it, not surprised to see the Weimaraner romp over and playfully race beside the vehicle, yapping and seeking approval from the driver. The
driver
. The drivers were the handlers! The familiar scent of their bodies was calming to the dogs, reassuring them. The observation formed the analysis and the analysis determined his next tactic. He had to move, at least more freely than he was moving now, about the general’s grounds. To do so he had to be in the company of a handler. He had to take one of the roving patrols; he raced back in the cover of the pine trees to his point of penetration.

The mechanized, bulletproof vehicle stopped on the narrow path at midpoint between the two front gates nearly obscured by the shrubbery; Jason adjusted his binoculars. The black Doberman was apparently a favored dog; the driver opened the right panel as the animal sprang up, placing his huge paws on the seat. The man chucked biscuits or pieces of meat into the wide, anticipating jaws, then reached over and massaged the dog’s throat.

Bourne knew instantly that he had only moments to put his uncertain strategy together. He had to stop the cart and force the driver outside but without alarming the man, without giving him any reason whatsoever to use his radio and call for help. The
dog
? Lying in the road? No, the driver might assume it had been shot from the other side of the fence and alert the house. What could he
do
? He looked around in the near-total darkness feeling the panic of indecision, his anxiety growing as his eyes swept the area. Then, again, the obvious struck him.

The large expanse of close-cropped manicured lawn, the precisely cut shrubbery, the swept circular drive—neatness was the order of the general’s turf. Jason could almost hear Swayne commanding his groundskeepers to “police the area!”

Bourne glanced over at the cart by the Doberman; the driver was playfully pushing the dog away, about to close the shielded panel. Only seconds now! What?
How
?

He saw the outlines of a tree limb on the ground; a rotted branch had fallen from the pine above him. He crossed quickly to it and crouched, yanking it out of the dirt and debris and dragged it toward the paved asphalt. To lay it across the drive might appear too obvious a trap, but
partially
on the road—an intrusion on the pervasive neatness—would be offensive to the eye, the task of removing it better done now than later in the event the general drove out and saw it upon his return. The men in Swayne’s compound were either soldiers or ex-soldiers still under military authority; they would try to avoid reprimands, especially over the inconsequential. The odds were on Jason’s side. He gripped the base of the limb, swung it around and pushed it roughly five feet into the drive. He heard the panel of the cart slam shut; the vehicle rolled forward, gathering speed as Bourne raced back into the darkness of the pine tree.

The driver steered the vehicle around the dirt curve into the drive. As rapidly as he had accelerated, he slowed down, his single headlight beam picking up the new obstruction protruding on the road. He approached it cautiously, at minimum speed, as if he were unsure of what it was; then he realized what it was and rushed forward. Without hesitation, he opened his side door, the tall Plexiglas shield swinging forward as he stepped out on the drive and walked around the front of the cart.

“Big Rex, you’re one bad dog, buddy,” said the driver in a half-loud, very Southern voice. “What’d you drag out of there, you dumb bastard? The brass-plated asshole would shave your coat for messing up his
ee
state! ... Rex?
Rex
, you come here, you fuckin’ hound!” The man grabbed the limb and pulled it off the road under the pine tree into the shadows. “
Rex
, you hear me! You humpin’ knotholes, you horny stud?”

“Stay completely still and put your arms out in front of you,” said Jason Bourne, walking into view.

“Holy shit! Who are
you
?”

“Someone who doesn’t give a damn whether you live or die,” replied the intruder calmly.

“You got a gun! I can see it!”

“So do you. Yours is in your holster. Mine’s in my hand and it’s pointed at your head.”

“The dog! Where the hell’s the
dawg
?”

“Indisposed.”

“
What
?”

“He looks like a good dog. He could be anything a trainer wanted him to be. You don’t blame the animal, you blame the human who taught it.”

“What are you talkin’ about?”

“I guess the bottom line is that I’d rather kill the man than the animal, do I make myself clear?”

“Nothin’s clear! I jest know
this
man don’t want to get killed.”

“Then let’s talk, shall we?”

“I got words, but only one life, mister.”

“Lower your right arm and take out your gun—by the fingers,
mister
.” The guard did so, holding the weapon by his thumb and forefinger. “Lob it toward me, please.” The man obeyed. Bourne picked it up.

“What the hell’s this all
about
?” cried the guard, pleading.