?What?s happening?? yelled Benjamin, leaping from the jeep and dropping all pretense of
Novgorod training by speaking Russian?I?m senior staff!? he added, slipping the card into the
release equipment, snapping the barrier up?Tell me!?
?Insanity, comrade!? shouted an officer from the gatehouse windowIt?s as if
the earth went crazy! First ?Germany,? all over there are explosions and fires in the streets and
buildings going up in flamesThe ground trembles, and we are told it?s some kind of massive
earthquakeThen it happens in ?Italy???Rome? is torched, and in the ?Greek? sector ?Athens? and
the port of ?Piraeus? are filled with fires everywhere and still the explosions continue, the streets in
flames!?
?What does Capital Headquarters say??
?They don?t know what to say! The earthquake nonsense was just that?nonsenseEveryone?s
in panic, issuing orders and then countermanding them Another wall phone rang inside the
gatehouse; the officer of the guard picked it up and listened, then instantly screamed at the top of
his lungs?Madness, it?s complete madness! Are you certain??
?What is it?? roared Benjamin, rushing to the window
? ?Egypt!? ? he screamed, his ear pressed to the telephone?Cairo? and ?Tel
Aviv??fires everywhere, bombs everywhere! No one can keep up with the devastation; the trucks
Robert Ludlum ?? THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM
427
crash into one another in the narrow streetsThe hydrants are blown up; water flows in the gutters
but the streets are still in flamesAnd some idiot just got on the line and asked if the No Smoking
signs were properly placed while the wooden buildings are http://www.enluxury.com/category_20_Miu-Miu_1.html" target="_blank on their way to becoming rubble! Idiots
They are all idiots!?
?Get back here!? yelled Bourne, having made the jeep lurch through the gate?He?s in here
somewhere! You drive and I?ll?? Jason?s words were cut off by a deafening explosion up ahead in
the center of ?Madrid?s? Paseo del PradoIt was an enormous detonation, lumber and stone arcing
up into the flaming skyThen, as if the Paseo itself were a living, throbbing immense wall of fire,
the flames rolled forward, swinging to the left out of the ?city? into the road that was the approach
to the border gate?Look!? shouted Bourne, reaching down out of the jeep, his hand scraping the
graveled surface beneath; he brought his fingers to his face, his nostrils?The
whole goddamned road?s soaked with gasoline!? A burst of fire imploded thirty yards in front of
the jeep, sending stones and dirt smashing into the metal grille, and propelling the flames forward
with increasing speed?Plastics!? said Jason to himself, then yelled at Benjamin, who was running
to the jeep, ?Go back there! Get everyone out of here! The son of a bitch has the place ringed with
plastics! Head for the river!?
?I?m going with you!? shouted the young Soviet, grabbing the edge of the door
?Sorry, Junior,? cried Bourne, gunning the engine and swerving the army vehicle back into the
open gate, sending Benjamin sprawling onto the gravel?This is for grown-ups
?What are you doing?? screamed Benjamin, his voice fading as the jeep sped across the border
?The fuel truck, that lousy fuel truck!? whispered Jason as he raced into ?Strasbourg, France
It happened in ?Paris??where else http://www.irluxury.com/categorys_96_Gucci-Indy-Bag_1.html" target="_blank but Paris! The huge duplicate of the Eiffel Tower blew up
with such force that the earth shookRockets? Missiles? The Jackal had stolen missiles from the
Kubinka Armory! Seconds later, starting far behind him, the explosions began as the streets burst
into flamesAll ?France? was being destroyed in a way that the madman Adolf Hitler
could only have envisaged in his most twisted dreamsPanicked men and women ran through the
alleyways and the streets, screaming, falling, praying to gods their leaders had forsworn
?England!? He had to get into ?England? and then ultimately into ?America,? where all his
instincts told him the end would come?one way or anotherHe had to find the truck that was
being driven by the Jackal and destroy bothHe could do it?he could do it! Carlos thought he was
dead and that was the key, for the Jackal would do what he had to do, what he, Jason Bourne,
would do if he were CarlosWhen the holocaust he had ignited was at its zenith, the Jackal would
abandon the truck and put into play his means of escape?his escape to Paris, the real Paris, where
his army of old men would spread the word of their monseigneur?s triumph over the ubiquitous,
disbelieving SovietsIt would be somewhere near the tunnel; that was a given
The race through ?London,? ?Coventry? and ?Portsmouth? could only be likened to the
newsreel footage from World War II depicting the carnage hurled down on Great Britain by the
Luftwaffe, compounded by first the screaming and then the silent terror of the V-2 and V-5 rockets
But the residents of Novgorod were not British?forbearance gave way to mass hysteria, http://www.irluxury.com/categorys_99_Gucci-Tote_1.html" target="_blank concern
for all became survival for self aloneAs the impressive reproductions of Big Ben and the Houses
of Parliament crashed down in flames and the aircraft factories of ?Coventry? were reduced to
raging fires, the streets swelled with screaming, horrified crowds racing through the roads that led
to the Volkhov River and the shipyards of ?Portsmouth There, from the scaled-down piers and
slips, scores threw themselves into rushing waters only to be caught in the magnesium grids where
sharp, jagged bolts of electricity blazingly zigzagged through the air, leaving limp bodies floating
toward the next metal traps above and below the angry surfaceIn paralyzed fragments, the crowds
Robert Ludlum ?? THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM
428
watched and turned in panic, fighting their way back into the miniaturized city of ?Portsea?; the
guards had abandoned their posts and chaos ruled the night
Snapping on the jeep?s searchlight, Bourne drove in sudden spurts down alleyways and the less
crowded narrow streets?south, always southHe grabbed a flare from the army vehicle?s floor,
pulled the release string, and proceeded to thrust the spitting, hissing, blinding burst of fire into the
hands and faces of the hysterical racing stragglers who tried to climb on boardThe sight of the
constantly pulsating flame so close to their eyes was enough; each screamed and recoiled in terror,
no doubt thinking yet another explosive had detonated in his or her immediate vicinity
A graveled road! The gates to the American compound were less than a hundred yards away
The graveled road? Soaked with fuel! The plastic charges had http://www.culuxury.com/categorys_89_Coco-Chanel-Jumbo-Flap-Bag_1.html" target="_blank not gone off?but they would in a
matter of moments, creating a wall of fire, enveloping the jeep and its driver! With the accelerator
pressed to the floor, Jason raced to the gateIt was deserted?and the iron barrier was down! He
slammed on the brakes, skidding to a stop, hoping beyond reasonable hope that no sparks would fly
out and ignite the gravelPlacing the spewing flare on the metal floor, he swiftly removed two
grenades from his pockets?grenades he was loath to part with?pulled the pins, and hurled both
toward the gateThe massive explosions blew the barricade away and instantly set the graveled
road on fire, the leaping flames immediate?enveloping him! He had no choice; he threw the hot
flare away and sped through the tunnel of fire into Novgorod?s final largest compoundAs he did
so the concrete guardhouse at the ?English? border exploded; glass, stone and shards of metal shot
out and up everywhere
He had been so filled with anxiety on their way to the crossing into ?Spain? that he barely
recalled the diminutive replicas of the ?American? cities and towns, much less the fastest routes
that led to the tunnelHe had merely followed young Benjamin?s harsh shouted commands, but he
did remember that the California-bred trainer kept referring to the ?coast road?like Route One,
man, up to Carmel!? It was, of course, those streets closest to the Volkhov, which in turn became,
in no order of geographical sequence, a shoreline in ?Maine,? the Potomac River of ?Washington,?
and the northern waters of Long Island Sound that housed the naval base at ?New London
The madness had reached http://www.muluxury.com/search_0_0_0_chanel black_1.html" target="_blank ?Amer