'Of course, sir!'
David sat in the chair by the tinted window looking across the harbour at the island of Hong Kong. Names came to him, accompanied by images – Causeway Bay, Wanchai, Repulse Bay, Aberdeen, The Mandarin, and finally, so clear in the distance, Victoria Peak with its awesome view of the entire colony. Then he saw in his mind's eye the masses of humanity meshing through the jammed, colourful, frequently filthy streets, and the crowded hotel lobbies and lounges with their softly lit chandeliers of gold filigree where the well-dressed remnants of the empire reluctantly mingled with the emerging Chinese entrepreneurs – the old crown and the new money had to find accommodation... Alleyways? For some reason thronged and run-down alleyways came into focus. Figures raced through the narrow thoroughfares, crashing into cages of small screeching birds and writhing snakes of various sizes – wares of peddlers on the lowest rungs of the territory's ladder of commerce. Men and women of all ages, from children to ancients, were dressed in rags, and pungent, heavy smoke curled slowly upward, filling the space between the decaying buildings, diffusing the light, heightening the gloom of the dark stone walls blackened by use and misuse. He saw it all and it all had meaning for him, but he did not understand. Specifics eluded him; he had no points of reference and it was maddening.
Marie was out there. He had to find her! He sprang up from the chair in frustration, wanting to pound his head to
clear the confusion, but he knew it would not help – nothing helped, only time and he could not stand the strain of time. He had to find her, hold her, protect her – as she had once protected him by believing in him when he had not believed in himself. He passed the mirror above the bureau and looked at his haggard, pale face. One thing was clear. He had to plan and act quickly, but not as the man he saw in the glass. He had to bring into play everything he had learned and forgotten as Jason Bourne. From somewhere within him he had to summon the elusive past and trust unremembered instincts.
He had taken the first step; the connection was solid, he knew that. One way or another, Liang would provide him with something, probably the lowest level of information, but it would be a beginning – a name, a place, or a drop, an initial contact that would lead to another and still another. What he had to do was to move quickly with whatever he was given, not giving his enemy time to manoeuvre, backing whomever he reached into positions of deliver-and-survive or be-silent-and-die – and mean it. But to accomplish anything he had to be prepared. Items had to be purchased and a tour of the colony arranged. He wanted an hour or so of observing from the back seat of an automobile, dredging up whatever he could from his damaged memory.
He picked up a large red leather hotel directory, sat on the edge of the bed and opened it, thumbing through the pages rapidly. The New World Shopping Centre, a magnificent 5 storeyed open complex bringing under one roof the finest goods from the 4 corners of the earth... Hyperbole notwithstanding, the 'complex' was adjacent to the hotel; it would do for his purposes. Limousines available. From our fleet of Daimler motor cars arrangements can be made by the hour or the day for business or sightseeing. Please contact the Concierge. Dial 62. Limousines also meant experienced chauffeurs knowledgeable in the ways of the confusing streets, backstreets, roads and traffic patterns of Hong Kong, Kowloon and the New Territories, and knowledgeable in other ways, too. Such men knew the ins and outs and lower depths of the cities they served. Unless he was mistaken, and instinct told him he was not, an additional need would be covered. He had to have a gun. Finally, there was a bank in Hong Kong's Central District that had certain arrangements with a sister institution thousands of miles away in the Cayman Islands. He had to walk into that bank, sign whatever was required of him, and walk out with more money than any sane man would carry on his person in Hong Kong, or anywhere else, for that matter. He would find some place to conceal it but not in a bank where business hours restricted its availability. Jason Bourne knew: Promise a man his life and he will usually co-operate; promise him his life and a great deal of money and the cumulative effect will lead to total submission.
David reached for the message pad and pencil next to the phone on the bedside table; he started another list. The little things loomed larger with every hour that passed, and he did not have that many hours left. It was almost eleven o'clock. The harbour now glistened in the near-noon sun. He had so many things to do before 4: 30, when he intended to station himself unobtrusively somewhere near the employees' exit, or down inside the hotel garage, or wherever he learned he could follow and trap the waxen-faced Liang, his first connection.
Three minutes later his list was complete. He tore off the page, got up from the bed and reached for his jacket on the desk chair. Suddenly the telephone rang, piercing the quiet of the hotel room. He had to close his eyes, clenching every muscle in his arms and stomach so as not to leap for it, hoping beyond hope for the sound of Marie's voice, even as a captive. He must not pick up the phone. Instinct. Jason Bourne. He had no controls. If he answered the phone, he would be the one controlled. He let it ring as he walked in anguish across the room and went out the door.
It was ten minutes past noon when he returned carrying a number of thin plastic bags from various stores in the Shopping Centre. He dropped them on the bed and began removing his purchases. Among the articles were a dark lightweight raincoat and a dark canvas hat, a pair of grey sneakers, black trousers and a sweater, also black; these were the clothes he would wear at night. Then there were other items: a spool of 75-pound tested fishing line with two palm-sized eyehooks through which a three-foot section of line would be looped and secured at both ends, a 20-ounce paperweight in the shape of a miniature brass barbell, one ice pick, and a sheathed, highly sharpened, double-edged hunting knife with a narrow 4-inch blade. These were the silent weapons he would carry both night and day. One more item remained to be found; he would find it.
As he examined his purchases, his concentration narrowing down to the eyehooks and the fishing line, he became aware of a tiny, subtle blinking of light. Start, stop... start, stop. It was annoying because he could not find the source, and, as happened so often, he had to wonder if there actually was a source or whether the intrusion was simply an aberration of his mind. Then his eyes were drawn to the bedside table; sunlight streamed in the harbour windows, washing over the telephone, but the pulsating light was there in the lower left-hand corner of the instrument – barely visible, but there. It was the message signal, a small red dot that shone for a second, went dark for a second, and then resumed its signalling at those intervals. A message was not a call, he reflected. He went to the table, studied the instructions on the plastic card and picked up the phone; he pressed the appropriate button.
'Yes, Mr. Cruett?' said the operator at her computerized switchboard.
'There's a message for me?' he asked.
'Yes, sir. Mr. Liang has been trying to reach you.'
'I thought my instructions were clear,' interrupted Webb . 'There were to be no calls until I told the switchboard otherwise. '
'Yes, sir, but Mr. Liang is the assistant manager– the senior manager when his superior is not here, which is the case this morning... this afternoon. He tells us it is most urgent. He has been calling you every few minutes for the past hour. I am ringing him now, sir. '
David hung up the phone. He was not ready for Liang, or more properly put, Liang was not yet ready for him – at least, not the way David wanted him. Liang was stretched, possibly on the edge of panic, for he was the first and lowliest contact and he had failed to place the subject where he was meant to be – in a wired suite where the enemy could overhear every word. But the edge of panic was not good enough. David wanted Liang over the edge. The quickest way to provoke that state was to permit no contact, no discussion, no exculpating explanations aimed at enlisting the subject to get the offender off the hook.