The white sheet of ocean spray burst up from the coral reef and appeared suspended, the dark blue waters of the Caribbean serving as a backdrop. It was that hour of early evening, a long sundown imminent, when Tranquility Isle was bathed in alternating hot tropical colors, pockets of shadows constantly changing with each imperceptible descent of the orange sun. The resort complex of Tranquility Inn had seemingly been cut out of three adjacent rock-strewn hills above an elongated beach sandwiched between huge natural jetties of coral. Two rows of balconied pink villas with bright red roofs of terra-cotta extended from each side of the resort’s central hub, a large circular building of heavy stone and thick glass, all the structures overlooking the water, the villas connected by a white concrete path bordered by low-cut shrubbery and lined with ground lamps. Waiters in yellow guayabera jackets wheeled room-service tables along the path, delivering bottles and ice and canapés to Tranquility’s guests, the majority of whom sat on their individual balconies savoring the end of the Caribbean day. And as the shadows became more prominent, other people unobtrusively appeared along the beach and on the long dock that extended out over the water. These were neither guests nor service employees; they were armed guards, each dressed in a dark brown tropical uniform and—again unobtrusively—with a MAC-10 machine pistol strapped to his belted waist. On the opposite side of each jacket and hooked to the cloth was a pair of Zeiss Ikon 8 × 10 binoculars continuously used to scan the darkness. The owner of Tranquility Inn was determined that it live up to its name.
On the large circular balcony of the villa nearest the main building and the attached glass-enclosed dining room, an elderly infirm woman sat in a wheelchair sipping a glass of Château Carbonnieux ’78 while drinking in the splendors of sundown. She absently touched the bangs of her imperfectly dyed red hair as she listened. She heard the voice of her man talking with the nurse inside, then the sound of his less than emphatic footsteps as he walked out to join her.
“My God,” she said in French. “I’m going to get pissed!”
“Why not?” asked the Jackal’s courier. “This is the place for it. I see everything through a haze of disbelief myself.”
“You still will not tell me why the monseigneur sent you here—us here?”
“I told you, I’m merely a messenger.”
“And I don’t believe you.”
“Believe. It’s important for him but of no consequence for us. Enjoy, my lovely.”
“You always call me that when you won’t explain.”
“Then you should learn from experience not to inquire, is it not so?”
“It is not so, my dear. I’m dying—”
“We’ll hear no more of that!”
“It’s true nevertheless; you cannot keep it from me. I don’t worry for myself, the pain will end, you see, but I worry about you. You, forever better than your circumstances, Michel—No, no, you are Jean Pierre, I must not forget that.… Still, I must concern myself. This place, these extraordinary lodgings, this attention. I think you will pay a terrible price, my dear.”
“Why do you say that?”
“It’s all so grand. Too grand. Something’s wrong.”
“You concern yourself too deeply.”
“No, you deceive yourself too easily. My brother, Claude, has always said you take too much from the monseigneur. One day the bill will be presented to you.”
“Your brother, Claude, is a sweet old man with feathers in his head. It’s why the monseigneur gives him only the most insignificant assignments. You send him out for a paper in Montparnasse he ends up in Marseilles not knowing how he got there.” The telephone inside the villa rang, interrupting the Jackal’s man. He turned. “Our new friend will get it,” he said.
“She’s a strange one,” added the old woman. “I don’t trust her.”
“She works for the monseigneur.”
“Really?”
“I haven’t had time to tell you. She will relay his instructions.”
The uniformed nurse, her light brown hair pulled severely back into a bun, appeared in the doorway. “Monsieur, it is Paris,” she said, her wide gray eyes conveying an urgency missing in her low, understated voice.
“Thank you.” The Jackal’s courier walked inside, following the nurse to the telephone. She picked it up and handed it to him. “This is Jean Pierre Fontaine.”
“Blessings upon you, child of God,” said the voice several thousand miles away. “Is everything suitable?”
“Beyond description,” answered the old man. “It is … so grand, so much more than we deserve.”
“You will earn it.”
“However I may serve you.”
“You’ll serve me by following the orders given to you by the woman. Follow them precisely with no deviation whatsoever, is that understood?”
“Certainly.”
“Blessings upon you.” There was a click and the voice was no more.
Fontaine turned to address the nurse, but she was not at his side. Instead, she was across the room, unlocking the drawer of a table. He walked over to her, his eyes drawn to the contents of the drawer. Side by side were a pair of surgical gloves, a pistol with a cylindrical silencer attached to the barrel, and a straight razor, the blade recessed.
“These are your tools,” said the woman, handing him the key, her flat, expressionless gray eyes boring into his own, “and the targets are in the last villa on this row. You are to familiarize yourself with the area by taking extended walks on the path, as old men do for circulatory purposes, and you are to kill them. You are to do this wearing the gloves and firing the gun into each skull. It must be the head. Then each throat must be slit—”
“Mother of God, the children’s?”
“Those are the orders.”
“They’re barbaric!”
“Do you wish me to convey that judgment?”
Fontaine looked over at the balcony door, at his woman in the wheelchair. “No, no, of course not.”
“I thought not.… There is a final instruction. With whosesoever blood is most convenient, you are to write on the wall the following: ‘Jason Bourne, brother of the Jackal.’ ”
“Oh, my God.… I’ll be caught, of course.”
“That’s up to you. Coordinate the executions with me and I’ll swear a great warrior of France was in this villa at the time.”
“Time?… What is the time? When is this to be done?”
“Within the next thirty-six hours.”
“Then what?”
“You may stay here until your woman dies.”
9
Brendan Patrick Pierre Prefontaine was again astonished. Though he had no reservation, the front desk of Tranquility Inn treated him like a visiting celebrity, then only moments after he had secured a villa told him that he already had a villa and asked How was the flight from Paris? Confusion descended for several minutes as the owner of Tranquility Inn could not be reached for consultation; he was not at his residence, and if he was on the premises he could not be found. Ultimately hands were thrown up in frustration and the former judge from Boston was taken to his lodgings, a lovely miniature house overlooking the Caribbean. By accident, hardly by design, he had reached into the wrong pocket and given the manager behind the desk a fifty-dollar American bill for his courtesy. Prefontaine instantly became a man to be reckoned with; fingers snapped and palms hit bells rapidly. Nothing was too splendid for the bewildering stranger who had suddenly flown in on the seaplane from Montserrat.… It was the name that had thrown everyone behind Tranquility’s front desk into confusion. Could such a coincidence be possible?… Still the Crown governor—Err on the safe side. Get the man a villa.
Once settled, his casual clothes distributed in the closet and the bureau, the craziness continued. A chilled bottle of Château Carbonnieux ’78 accompanied fresh-cut flowers, and a box of Belgian chocolates arrived, only to have a confused room-service waiter return to remove them, apologizing for the fact that they were for another villa dow
n the line—or up the line—he thought, mon.
The judge changed into Bermuda shorts, wincing at the sight of his spindly legs, and put on a subdued paisley sport shirt. White loafers and a white cloth cap completed his tropical outfit; it would be dark soon and he wanted a stroll. For several reasons.
“I know who Jean Pierre Fontaine is,” said John St. Jacques, reading the register behind the front desk, “he’s the one the CG’s office called me about, but who the hell is B. P. Prefontaine?”
“An illustrious judge from the United States,” declared the tall black assistant manager in a distinct British accent. “My uncle, the deputy director of immigration, phoned me from the airport roughly two hours ago. Unfortunately, I was upstairs when the confusion arose, but our people did the right thing.”
“A judge?” asked the owner of Tranquility Inn as the assistant manager touched St. Jacques’s elbow, gesturing for him to move away from the desk and the clerks. Both men did so. “What did your uncle say?”
“There must be total privvissy where our two distinguished guests are concerned.”
“Why wouldn’t there be? What does that mean?”
“My uncle was very discreet, but he did allow that he watched the honored judge go to the Inter-Island counter and purchase a ticket. He further permitted himself to say that he knew he had been right. The judge and the French war hero are related and wish to meet confidentially on matters of great import.”
“If that was the case, why didn’t the honored judge have a reservation?”
“There appear to be two possible explanations, sir. According to my uncle, they were originally to meet at the airport but the Crown governor’s reception line precluded it.”
“What’s the second possibility?”
“An error may have been made in the judge’s own offices in Boston, Massachusetts. According to my uncle, there was a brief discussion regarding the judge’s law clerks, how they are prone to errors and if one had been made with his passport, he’d fly them all down to apologize.”
“Then judges are paid a lot more in the States than they are in Canada. He’s damned lucky we had space.”
“It’s the summer season, sir. We usually have available space during these months.”
“Don’t remind me.… All right, so we’ve got two illustrious relatives who want to meet privately but go about it in a very complicated way. Maybe you should call the judge and tell him what villa Fontaine is in. Or Prefontaine—whichever the hell it is.”
“I suggested that courtesy to my uncle, sir, and he was most adamant. He said we should do and say absolutely nothing. According to my uncle, all great men have secrets and he would not care to have his own brilliant deduction revealed except by the parties themselves.”
“Beg your pardon?”
“If such a call were made to the judge, he would know the information could only come from my uncle, the deputy director of Montserrat’s immigration.”
“Christ, do whatever you want, I’ve got other things on my mind.… Incidentally, I’ve doubled the patrols on the road and the beach.”
“We’ll be stretched thin, sir.”
“I’ve shifted a number off the paths. I know who’s here, but I don’t know who may want to get in here.”
“Do we expect trouble, sir?”
John St. Jacques looked at the assistant manager. “Not now,” he said. “I’ve been out checking every inch of the grounds and the beach. By the way, I’ll be staying with my sister and her children in Villa Twenty.”
The hero of World War II’s Résistance known as Jean Pierre Fontaine walked slowly up the concrete path toward the last villa overlooking the sea. It was similar to the others, with walls of pink stucco and a red tiled roof, but the surrounding lawn was larger, the bordering shrubbery taller and denser. It was a place for prime ministers and presidents, foreign secretaries and secretaries of state, men and women of international stature seeking the peace of pampered isolation.
Fontaine reached the end of the path where there was a four-foot-high white stuccoed wall and beyond it the impenetrable overgrown slope of the hill leading down to the shoreline. The wall itself extended in both directions, curving around the hill below the villas’ balconies, at once demarcation and protection. The entrance to Villa Twenty was a pink wrought-iron gate bolted into the wall. Beyond the gate the old man could see a small child running about the lawn in a bathing suit. In moments a woman appeared in the frame of the open front door.
“Come on, Jamie!” she called out. “Time for dinner.”
“Has Alison eaten, Mommy?”
“Fed and asleep, darling. She won’t yell at her brother.”
“I like our house better. Why can’t we go back to our house, Mommy?”
“Because Uncle John wants us to stay here.… The boats are here, Jamie. He can take you fishing and sailing just like he did last April during the spring vacation.”
“We stayed at our house then.”
“Yes, well, Daddy was with us—”
“And we had lots of fun driving over in the truck!”
“Dinner, Jamie. Come along now.”
Mother and child went into the house and Fontaine winced thinking about his orders from the Jackal, the bloody executions he was sworn to carry out. And then the child’s words came back to him. Why can’t we go back to our house, Mommy?… We stayed at our house then. And the mother’s answers: Because Uncle John wants us to stay here.… Yes, well Daddy was with us then.
There might be any number of explanations for the brief exchange he had overheard, but Fontaine could sense warnings quicker than most men, for his life had been filled with them. He sensed one now, and for that reason an old man would take a number of walks late at night for “circulatory purposes.”
He turned from the wall and started down the concrete path so absorbed in thought that he nearly collided with a guest at least his own age wearing a foolish-looking little white cap and white shoes.
“Excuse me,” said the stranger, sidestepping out of Fontaine’s way.
“Pardon, monsieur!” exclaimed the embarrassed hero of France, unconsciously slipping into his native tongue. “Je regrette—that is to say, it is I who must be excused.”
“Oh?” At his words the stranger’s eyes briefly widened, almost as if there had been recognition that was quickly hidden. “Not at all.”
“Pardon, we have met, monsieur?”
“I don’t believe so,” replied the old man in the silly white cap. “But we’ve all heard the rumors. A great French hero is among the guests.”
“Foolishness. The accidents of war when we were all much younger. My name is Fontaine. Jean Pierre Fontaine.”
“Mine’s … Patrick. Brendan Patrick—”
“A pleasure to make your acquaintance, monsieur.” Both men shook hands. “This is a lovely place, is it not?”
“Simply beautiful.” Again the stranger seemed to be studying him, thought Fontaine, yet, oddly enough, avoiding any prolonged eye contact. “Well, I must be on my way,” added the elderly guest in the brand-new white shoes. “Doctor’s orders.”
“Moi aussi,” said Jean Pierre, purposely speaking French, which evidently had an effect on the stranger. “Toujours le médecin à notre âge, n’est-ce pas?”
“All too true,” replied the old man with the bony legs, nodding and making the gesture of a wave as he turned and walked rapidly up the path.
Fontaine stood motionless watching the receding figure, waiting, knowing it would happen. And then it did. The old man stopped and slowly turned around. From a distance their eyes locked; it was enough. Jean Pierre smiled, then proceeded down the concrete path toward his villa.
It was another warning, he mused, and a far more deadly one. For three things were apparent: first, the elderly guest in the foolish white cap spoke French; second, he knew that “Jean Pierre Fontaine” was in reality someone else—sent to Montserrat by someone else; third … he had the mark of the Jackal in h
is eyes. Mon Dieu, how like the monseigneur! Engineer the kill, make sure it is done, then remove all physical traces that could lead back to his methods of operation, in particular his private army of old men. No wonder the nurse had said that after his orders were carried out they could remain here in this paradise until his woman died, a date that was imprecise at best. The Jackal’s generosity was not so grand as it appeared; his woman’s death, as well as his own, had been scheduled.
John St. Jacques picked up the phone in his office. “Yes?”
“They have met, sir!” said the excited assistant manager at the front desk.
“Who have met?”
“The great man and his illustrious relative from Boston, Massachusetts. I would have called you at once, but there was a mix-up concerning a box of Belgian chocolates—”
“What are you talking about?”
“Several minutes ago, sir, I saw them through the windows. They were conferring on the path. My esteemed uncle, the deputy director, was right in all things!”