The Bourne Identity - Страница 5

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“I will be.”

“Yes, you will.”

The weeks passed; the verbal exercises continued as the pages grew and the man’s strength returned. It was midmorning of the nineteenth week, the day bright, the Mediterranean calm and glistening. As was the man’s habit he had run for the past hour along the waterfront and up into the hills; he had stretched the distance to something over twelve miles daily, the pace increasing daily, the rests less frequent. He sat in the chair by the bedroom window, breathing heavily, sweat drenching his undershirt. He had come in through the back door, entering the bedroom from the dark hallway that passed the living room. It was simply easier; the living room served as Washburn’s waiting area and there were still a few patients with cuts and gashes to be repaired. They were sitting in chairs looking frightened, wondering what le docteur’s condition would be that morning. Actually, it wasn’t bad. Geoffrey Washburn still drank like a mad Cossack, but these days he stayed on his horse. It was as if a reserve of hope had been found in the recesses of his own destructive fatalism.

And the man with no memory understood; that hope was tied to a bank in Zurich’s Bahnhofstrasse.

Why did the street come so easily to mind?

The bedroom door opened and the doctor burst in, grinning, his white coat stained with his patient’s blood.

“I did it!” he said, more triumph in his words than clarification. “I should open my own hiring hall and live on commissions. It’d be steadier.”

“What are you talking about?”

“As we agreed, it’s what you need. You’ve got to function on the outside, and as of two minutes ago Monsieur Jean-Pierre No-Name is gainfully employed! At least for a week.”

“How did you do that? I thought there weren’t any openings.”

“What was about to be opened was Claude Lamouche’s infected leg. I explained that my supply of local anesthetic was very, very limited. We negotiated; you were the bartered coin.”

“A week?”

“If you’re any good, he may keep you on.” Washburn paused. “Although that’s not terribly important, is it?”

“I’m not sure any of this is. A month ago, maybe, but not now. I told you. I’m ready to leave. I’d think you’d want me to. I have an appointment in Zurich.”

“And I’d prefer you function the very best you can at that appointment. My interests are extremely selfish, no remissions permitted.”

“I’m ready.”

“On the surface, yes. But take my word for it, it’s vital that you spend prolonged periods of time on the water, some of it at night. Not under controlled conditions, not as a passenger, but subjected to reasonably harsh conditions—the harsher the better, in fact.”

“Another test?”

“Every single one I can devise in this primitive Menningers of Port Noir. If I could conjure up a storm and a minor shipwreck for you, I would. On the other hand, Lamouche is something of a storm himself; he’s a difficult man. The swelling in his leg will go down and he’ll resent you. So will others; you’ll have to replace someone.”

“Thanks a lot.”

“Don’t mention it. We’re combining two stresses. At least one or two nights on the water, if Lamouche keeps to schedule—that’s the hostile environment which contributed to your hysteria—and exposure to resentment and suspicion from men around you—symbolic of the initial stress situation.”

“Thanks again. Suppose they decide to throw me overboard? That’d be your ultimate test, I suppose, but I don’t know how much good it would do if I drowned.”

“Oh, there’ll be nothing like that,” said Washburn, scoffing.

“I’m glad you’re so confident. I wish I were.”

“You can be. You have the protection of my presence. I may not be Christiaan Barnard or Michael De Bakey, but I’m all these people have. They need me; they won’t risk losing me.”

“But you want to leave. I’m your passport out.”

“In ways unfathomable, my dear patient. Come on, now. Lamouche wants you down at the dock so you can familiarize yourself with his equipment. You’ll be starting out at four o’clock tomorrow morning. Consider how beneficial a week at sea will be. Think of it as a cruise.” There had never been a cruise like it. The skipper of the filthy, oil-soaked fishing boat was a foul-mouthed rendering of an insignificant Captain Bligh; the crew a quartet of misfits who were undoubtedly the only men in Port Noir willing to put up with Claude Lamouche. The regular fifth member was a brother of the chief netman, a fact impressed on the man called Jean-Pierre within minutes after leaving the harbor at four o’clock in the morning.

“You take food from my brother’s table!” whispered the netman angrily between rapid puffs on an immobile cigarette. “From the stomachs of his children!”

“It’s only for a week,” protested Jean-Pierre. It would have been easier—far easier—to offer to reimburse the unemployed brother from Washburn’s monthly stipend, but the doctor and his patient had agreed to refrain from such compromises.

“I hope you’re good with the nets!”

He was not.

There were moments during the next seventy-two hours when the man called Jean-Pierre thought the alternative of financial appeasement was warranted. The harassment never stopped, even at night—especially at night. It was as though eyes were trained on him as he lay on the infested deck mattress, waiting for him to reach the brink of sleep.

“You! Take the watch! The mate is sick. You fill in.”

“Get up! Philippe is writing his memoirs! He can’t be disturbed.”

“On your feet! You tore a net this afternoon. We won’t pay for your stupidity. We’ve all agreed.

Fix it now!”

The nets.

If two men were required for one flank, his two arms took the place of four. If he worked beside one man, there were abrupt hauls and releases that left him with the full weight, a sudden blow from an adjacent, shoulder sending him crashing into the gunnel and nearly over the side.

And Lamouche. A limping maniac who measured each kilometer of water by the fish he had lost.

His voice was a grating, static-prone bullhorn. He addressed no one without an obscenity preceding his name, a habit the patient found increasingly maddening. But Lamouche did not touch Washburn’s patient; he was merely sending the doctor a message: Don’t ever do this to me again. Not where my boat and my fish are concerned.

Lamouche’s schedule called for a return to Port Noir at sundown on the third day, the fish to be unloaded, the crew given until four the next morning to sleep, fornicate, get drunk, or, with luck, all three. As they came within sight of land, it happened.

The nets were being doused and folded at midships by the netman and his first assistant. The unwelcomed crewman they cursed as “Jean-Pierre Sangsue” (“the Leech”) scrubbed down the deck with a long-handled brush. The two remaining crew heaved buckets of sea water in front of the brush, more often than not drenching the Leech with truer aim than the deck.

A bucketful was thrown too high, momentarily blinding Washburn’s patient, causing him to lose his balance. The heavy brush with its metal-like bristles flew out of his hands, its head upended, the sharp bristles making contact with the kneeling netman’s thigh.

“Merde alors!”

“Désolé,” said the offender casually, shaking the water from his eyes.

“The hell you say!” shouted the netman.

“I said I was sorry,” replied the man called Jean-Pierre. “Tell your friends to wet the deck, not me.”

“My friends don’t make me the object of their stupidity!”

“They were the cause of mine just now.”

The netman grabbed the handle of the brush, got to his feet, and held it out like a bayonet. “You want to play, Leech?”

“Come on, give it to me.”

“With pleasure, Leech. Here!” The netman shoved the brush forward, downward, the bristles scraping the patient’s chest and stomach, penetrating the cloth of his shirt.

Whether it was the contact with the scars that covered his previous wounds, or the frustration and anger resulting from three days of harassment, the man would never know. He only knew he had to respond. And his response was as alarming to him as anything he could imagine.

He gripped the handle with his right hand, jamming it back into the netman’s stomach pulling it forward at the instant of impact; simultaneously, he shot his left foot high off the deck, ramming it into the man’s throat.

“Tao!” The guttural whisper came from his lips involuntarily; he did not know what it meant.

Before he could understand, he had pivoted, his right foot now surging forward like a battering ram, crashing into the netman’s left kidney.

“Che-sah!” he whispered.

The netman recoiled, then lunged toward him in pain and fury, his hands outstretched like claws.

“Pig!”

The patient crouched, shooting his right hand up to grip the netman’s left forearm, yanking it downward, then rising, pushing his victim’s arm up, twisting it at its highest arc clockwise, yanking again, finally releasing it while jamming his heel into the small of the netman’s back. The Frenchman sprawled forward over the nets, his head smashing into the wall of the gunnel.

“Mee-sah!” Again he did not know the meaning of his silent cry.