“Sounds like he will.” Bourne got their coats. “After your call we’ll have dinner. I think we could both use a drink.”

“Let’s go past the bank on rue Madeleine. I want to see something.”

“What can you see at night?”

“A telephone booth. I hope there’s one nearby.”

There was. Diagonally across the street from the entrance.

The tall blond man wearing tortoise-shell glasses checked his watch under the afternoon sun on the rue Madeleine. The pavements were crowded, the traffic in the street unreasonable, as most traffic was in Paris. He entered the telephone booth and untangled the telephone, which had been hanging free of its cradle, the line knotted. It was a courteous sign to the next would-be user that the phone was out of commission; it reduced the chance that the booth would be occupied. It had worked.

He glanced at his watch again; the time span had begun. Marie inside the bank. She would call within the next few minutes. He took several coins from his pocket, put them on the ledge and leaned against the glass panel, his eyes on the bank across the street. A cloud diminished the sunlight and he could see his reflection in the glass. He approved of what he saw, recalling the startled reaction of a hairdresser in Montparnasse who had sequestered him in a curtained booth while performing the blond transformation. The cloud passed, the sunlight returned, and the telephone rang.

“It’s you?” asked Marie St. Jacques.

“It’s me,” said Bourne.

“Make sure you get the name and the location of the office. And rough up your French.

Mispronounce a few words so he knows you’re American. Tell him you’re not used to the telephones in Paris. Then do everything in sequence. I’ll call you back in exactly five minutes.”

“Clock’s on.”

“What?”

“Nothing. I mean, let’s go.”

“All right. ... The clock is on. Good luck.”

“Thanks.” Jason depressed the lever, released it, and dialed the number he had memorized.

“La Banque de Valois. Bonjour.”

“I need assistance,” said Bourne, continuing with the approximate words Marie had told him to use. “I recently transferred sizable funds from Switzerland on a pouch-courier basis. I’d like to know if they’ve cleared.”

“That would be our Foreign Services Department, sir. I’ll connect you.”

A click, then another female voice. “Foreign Services.”

Jason repeated his request.

“May I have your name, please?”

“I’d prefer speaking with an officer of the bank before giving it.” There was a pause on the line. “Very well, sir. I’ll switch you to the office of Vice-President d’Amacourt.”

Monsieur d’Amacourt’s secretary was less accommodating, the bank officer’s screening process activated, as Marie had predicted. So Bourne once more used Marie’s words. “I’m referring to a transfer from Zurich, from the Gemeinschaft Bank on the Bahnhofstrasse, and I’m talking in the area of seven figures. Monsieur d’Amacourt, if you please. I have very little time.” It was not a secretary’s place to be the cause of further delay. A perplexed first vice-president got on the line.

“May I help you?”

“Are you d’Amacourt?” asked Jason.

“I am Antoine d’Amacourt, yes. And who, may I ask, is calling?”

“Good! I should have been given your name in Zurich. I’ll make certain next time certainly,” said Bourne, the redundancy intended, his accent American.

“I beg your pardon? Would you be more comfortable speaking English, monsieur?”

“Yes,” replied Jason, doing so. “I’m having enough trouble with this damn phone.” He looked at his watch; he had less than two minutes. “My name’s Bourne, Jason Bourne, and eight days ago I transferred four and a half million francs from the Gemeinschaft Bank in Zurich. They assured me the transaction would be confidential.”

“All transactions are confidential, sir.”

“Fine. Good. What I want to know is, has everything cleared?”

“I should explain,” continued the bank officer, “that confidentiality excludes blanket confirmations of such transactions to unknown parties over the telephone.” Marie had been right, the logic of her trap clearer to Jason.

“I would hope so, but as I told your secretary I’m in a hurry. I’m leaving Paris in a couple of hours and I have to put everything in order.”

“Then I suggest you come to the bank.”

“I know that,” said Bourne, satisfied that the conversation was going precisely the way Marie foresaw it. “I just wanted everything ready when I got there. Where’s your office?”

“On the main floor, monsieur. At the rear, beyond the gate, center door. A receptionist is there.”

“And I’ll be dealing only with you, right?”

“If you wish, although any officer--“

“Look, mister,” exclaimed the ugly American, “we’re talking about over four million francs!”

“Only with me, Monsieur Bourne.”

“Fine. Good.” Jason put his fingers on the cradle bar. He had fifteen seconds to go. “Look, it’s 2:35 now--“ He pressed down twice on the lever, interrupting the line but not disconnecting it.

“Hello? Hello?”

“I am here, monsieur.”

“Damn phones! Listen, I’ll--“ He pressed down again, now three times in rapid succession.

“Hello? Hello?”

“Monsieur, please--if you’ll give me your telephone number.”

“Operator? Operator?”

“Monsieur Bourne, please--“

“I can’t hear you!” Four seconds, three seconds, two seconds. “Wait a minute. I’ll call you back.” He held

the lever down, breaking the connection. Three more seconds elapsed and the phone rang; he picked it up. “His name’s d’Amacourt, office on the main floor, rear, center door.”

“I’ve got it,” said Marie, hanging up.

Bourne dialed the bank again, inserted coins again. “Je parlais avec Monsieur d’Amacourt quand on m’a

coupe ...”

“Je regrette, monsieur.”

“Monsieur Bourne?”

“D’Amacourt?”

“Yes--I’m so terribly sorry you’re having such trouble. You were saying? About the time?”

“Oh, yeah. It’s a little after 2:30. I’ll get there by 3:00.”

“I look forward to meeting you, monsieur.”

Jason reknotted the phone, letting it hang free, then left the booth and walked quickly through crowds to the shade of a storefront canopy. He turned and. waited, his eyes on the bank across the way, remembering another bank in Zurich and the sound of sirens on the Bahnhofstrasse. The next twenty minutes would tell if Marie was right or not. If she was, there would be no sirens on the rue Madeleine.

The slender woman in the wide-brimmed hat that partially covered the side of her face hung up the public phone on the wall to the right of the bank’s entrance. She opened her purse, removed a compact and ostensibly checked her makeup, angling the small mirror first to the left, then to the right. Satisfied, she replaced the compact, closed her purse, and walked past the tellers’ cages toward the rear of the main floor. She stopped at a counter in the center, picked up a chained ballpoint pen, and began writing aimless numbers on a form that had been left on the marble surface. Less than ten feet away was a small, brass-framed gate, flanked by a low wooden railing that extended the width of the lobby. Beyond the gate and the railing were the desks of the lesser executives and behind them the desks of the major secretaries--five in all-in front of five doors in the rear wall.

Marie read the name printed in gold script on the center door.

M. A. R. D’Amacourt

Vice-President

Comptes a L’Étranger et Devises

It would happen any moment now--if it was going to happen, if she was right. And if she was, she had to know what Monsieur A.R. d’Amacourt looked like; he would be the man Jason could reach. Reach him and talk to him, but not in the bank.