Conflict of Legends
Chapter 3: Fruitless Searches
A weary, frustrated and greatly disappointed James Bond emerged from a bar one evening in Moscow. It had been three days since his briefing with M; three days that had been consumed in utterly fruitless search efforts. In the end, he was forced to admit to himself that he was no closer to finding Jason Bourne than he had been when he first laid eyes on the photograph in the dossier.
He had spent most of the day tracking down a particularly elusive old contact of Bourne's in Moscow. Bourne had been to Moscow earlier in the year, and Bond believed that he might find something there. After spending most of the day tracking the contact, Bond found him in a bar in a rundown section of the city.
He had bought the contact, a bearded heavy-set and short man, a glass of vodka, had placed fifty rubles in his hands, and had asked him in Russian, "I need some information about a Jason Bourne".
The name seemed to be completely meaningless to the contact. Bond however was not easily discouraged. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out one of the many photographs of Bourne available to MI6 whose copies he'd obtained before leaving London. "Do you recognize this man?" he asked.
The contact stared at the photograph for a few moments, before recognition slowly dawned on his face, "Yes, yes. I know that man. That is gospadin Kineav".
"Kineav ?" Bond asked, puzzled, but then he remembered that Foma Kineav was one of Bourne's aliases when he worked for the CIA.
"This man, he once came to me. He speaks very good Russian, but I thought he was an American", the contact said.
"Go on", urged Bond, pressing a further fifty rubles into the man's palm. Thus encouraged, the man continued, "He wanted me to provide information about the residence of Boris Krichenkov".
"And who would this Krichenkov be?" Bond asked casually.
"A very important man in the drug empires. That was all I knew. But he somehow knew that I knew something else. I knew where he lived, something few others knew, and fewer still would be willing to tell, even for a price. But gospadin Kineav was willing to pay a high price", the man paused and took a sip from his glass of vodka.
"He paid me one thousand rubles, in cash. I told him where Krichenkov was", the man said.
"And where can I find this Krichenkov?" Bond asked, feeling he was getting somewhere.
"In the cemetery, gospadin. He is dead. He was stabbed to death in his sleep two nights later. The police never found his killer. Most people think it was one of his rivals in the empires", the man said.
But Bond knew better, as he suspected the contact did, although he would never admit it. So, Bourne had killed a high-ranking Moscow drug-dealer. Perhaps, this bit of information could lead some where. He decided to probe further.
Casually slipping the contact a further fifty rubles, Bond asked, "When was this?"
"Oh, about three to four years ago, I think", the contact replied.
At that moment, a sense of intense disappointment mingled with sheer frustration overwhelmed Bond. Four years ago…four years ago, Bourne was still in the employ of the CIA; what he did then had no bearing on the search for the fugitive psychopathic killer Bond was seeking now.
"And you have not seen him since?" Bond asked, hopefully.
"No", the contact replied.
"Didn't you know he was in Moscow earlier this year…he was involved in an accident in an auto tunnel?" Bond asked.
"That was him? No, I did not know he was involved in the accident", the contact said.
And so a disappointed and frustrated Bond made his way out of the bar. It had been more or less the same story in Paris and Berlin, two other noteworthy locations from Bourne's recent and distant past. He had run into several contacts of Bourne's in Paris, all of whom knew him by various aliases, usually either 'Nicholas Lemanissier' or 'John Michael Kane'. None of them had seen him recently. He had seen the apartment where Bourne used to live when he worked for the Agency; there was nothing noteworthy there.
Berlin was even less promising. There were no old contacts of Bourne's to dig up there. The Berlin police did remember the American fugitive and CIA priority target whom they had hunted in the city earlier that year, and who had subsequently escaped, but they weren't much help. Bond was interested to know that Bourne had broken into the Breckner Hotel when he had visited the city; the same location where he had, as per M's information, supposedly assassinated Vladimir Neski years before. Why had the murderer returned to the scene of the crime? There was neither rhyme nor reason for it. Bond seriously began to wonder if Bourne was truly insane…
One thing was clear. Nothing was to be found in the past. Bourne's past. He had not approached a single contact of his, neither in the three cities Bond had covered extensively, nor in any of the other dozen European cities various MI6 undercover agents were covering at that very moment. Perhaps, he was being cautious…after all, he would have known that any or all of these contacts could conceivably be on the CIA radar. Or perhaps another vague theory about Bourne propounded by the CIA was true: that he suffered from amnesia. In which case, even he was unaware of the existence of those contacts.
But Bond was positive that it was only a matter of time before he was found: after all, even a man like him couldn't stay off the radar indefinitely; the operation MI6 had launched against him, which Bond had launched against him, was far larger than any the CIA had ever attempted; train stations, airports, roads and border exits across Europe were being watched, his description radioed to every MI6 station in the continent; the cities he had known to have been in before had been put on high alert. The moment Bourne surfaced he would be put under a surveillance so airtight that even he would never be able to escape it. Bond would be informed immediately; he would fly to that location at once; weapons, high-powered long-distance sniper rifles would be made available to him; and he would take out Bourne from a distance. Photographs of the corpse would be taken, photographs which would be relayed to M's unknown contact in the CIA, and in return, access to classified documents that implicated CIA officials in subversive activities on British soil would be given to MI6.
It was a cold, unethical deal and yet one to which there was no alternative. The killing of the reporter Simon Ross at the Waterloo station had been the subject of a national outrage and had severely embarrassed all divisions of the British security services. The truth had to be known; proven conclusively. And if the price to be paid was the life of a cold-blooded psychopathic killer, then so be it. For all he knew, Bourne himself could have been involved in Ross's death; according to eyewitnesses, he certainly had been present in the vicinity at the time; his sudden disappearance in New York occurring mere days later.
Bond's thoughts were flowing along these lines when his cellphone suddenly rang. He checked the contact's name on the screen; it was the MI6 station chief in Amsterdam. He answered the call. "Bond here", he said. "007, this is Chambers. We have reason to believe our subject passed through Amsterdam a little over two days ago", the station chief said. "Amsterdam? Why? How?" Bond asked, surprised.
"He contacted a forger in the city, actually one of our undercover moles. He wanted travel documents for Germany", replied Chambers. "Germany? He's in Germany?" Bond exclaimed, surprised. "Yes, we have reports that he purchased a second-hand car in Rotterdam. We circulated the name on his passport, along with his photographs to all the border exits to Germany. He crossed over into Essen barely a day later. We've alerted the German station".
"Good work, Chambers. I'll fly down to Berlin right away. But what is he doing in Germany? That's what I want to know", Bond replied before ending the call.
So, the elusive Jason Bourne had surfaced, as they'd known he would, sooner or later. But Germany? Why would Bourne head there specifically? Obviously, given the fact that he'd been in the city earlier in the year, it was obviously one of the first places anyone would look for him. Why pick such an obvious place to hide? Unless he was not there to hide, but had some specific objective in mind. But what was there for Bourne in Germany?
And then in a flash, Bond recalled something he'd read in Bourne's dossier. Bourne had had a lover, a German woman named Marie Helena Kreutz, who'd been killed in India by a Russian mercenary named Kirill. Could his sudden excursion to Germany have anything to do with her? Marie had relatives in Germany; she'd been born near Hanover. She'd had a stepbrother, who lived in Paris, and with whom Bourne had had contact at least once before. Bond had wanted to visit the brother in Paris, but found that he was away. Could he possibly be in Hanover? If so, could Bourne also be heading towards Hanover? But why? And then a possibility entered Bond's mind…Marie Helena Kreutz's grave, could it be in Hanover? It was very likely. He would check up with the German station. Because then, it made sense that Bourne would go to Hanover.
Either way, Bourne was now in their sights. Their nets were tightening around him. It was only a matter of time now before Bond was able to find him and finish the job.
Yes, thought Bond, the hunt begins now…