"Ludlum, Robert - Bourne 01 - The Bourne Identity" - читать интересную книгу автора (Ludlum Robert)

Die Bank Gemeinschaft

11 Bahnhofstrasse. Zurich.

Zero-seven-seventeen-twelve-zero-

fourteen-twenty-six-zero.

'What is it?' asked the nameless man.

'Look at it. Study it. Think.'

'It's a bank account of some kind.'

'Exactly. The printed letterhead and address is the bank; the handwritten numbers take the place of a name, but insofar as they are written out, they constitute the signature of the account holder. Standard procedure.'

'Where did you get it?'

'From you. This is a very small negative, my guess would be half the size of a thirty-five millimetre film. It was implanted -surgically implanted - beneath the skin above your right hip. The numbers are in your handwriting; it's your signature. With it you can open a vault in Zurich.'

They chose the name Jeao-Pierre. It neither startled nor offended anyone, a name as common to Port Noir as any other.

And books came from Marseilles, six of them in varying sizes and thicknesses, four in English, two in French. They were medical texts, volumes that dealt with the injuries to the head and mind. There were cross-sections of the brain, hundreds of unfamiliar words to absorb and try to understand. Lobes occipital and temporal, the cortex and the connecting fibres of the corpus callosum; the limbic system - specifically the hippocampus and mamillary bodies that together with thefornix were indispensable to memory and recall. Damaged, there was amnesia.

There were psychological studies of emotional stress that produced stagnate hysteria and mental aphasia, conditions which also resulted in partial or total loss of memory. Amnesia.

Amnesia.

There are no rules,' said the dark-haired man, rubbing his eyes in the inadequate light of the table lamp. 'It's a geometric puzzle; it can happen in any combination of ways. Physically or psychologically - or a little of both. It can be permanent or temporary, all or part. No rulesl'

'Agreed,! said Washburn, sipping his whisky in a chair across the room. 'But I think we're getting closer to what happened. What I think happened.'

'Which was?' asked the man apprehensively.

'You just said it: "a little of both". Although the word "little" should be changed to "massive". Massive shocks.'

'Massive shocks to what?'

'The physical and the psychological. They were related, interwoven - two strands of experience, or stimuli, that became knotted.'

'How much sauce have you had?'

'Less than you think; it's irrelevant.' The doctor picked up a clipboard filled with pages. 'This is your history - your new history - begun the day you were brought here. Let me summarize. The physical wounds tell us that the situation in which you found yourself was packed with psychological stress, the subsequent hysteria brought on by at least nine hours in the water, which served to solidify the psychological damage. The darkness, the violent movement, the lungs barely getting air; these were the instruments of hysteria. Everything that preceded it - the hysteria - had to be erased so you could cope, survive. Are you with me?'

'I think so. The head was protecting itself.'

'Not the head, the mind. Make the distinction; it's important We'll get back to the head, but we'll give it a label. The brain.'

'All right. Mind, not head ... which is really the brain.'