"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."

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 down 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."