The Bourne Identity

Bourne returns to the hotel. He tells Marie everything. She assures him that they should be happy, but he is worried about where they go from here. He knows that, even if he can reach Treadstone, and they believe his story, he has too much information to be left alive.

Conklin receives a call from the embassy in Paris. A man called in claiming to be Bourne and using words like “Medusa.” He instructs the men to assure Bourne that someone is coming from the CIA to extract him. However, he believes that Bourne is only coming back because he has no other choice; he is no longer loyal to Treadstone. He decides that he will likely need to kill him.

Conklin arrives in Paris six hours later. He instructs the first secretary to contact Bourne. Bourne is to drive to Rambouillet, where Conklin will meet him in the cemetery.

Bourne tells Marie about the planned rendezvous. He tells her to wait in Paris and contact Villiers if she doesn’t hear from him again.

When Bourne goes to the parking garage, he spots a man watching him. He manages to apprehend him and his partner and then drives them several miles before letting them out. He learns the number they call to report him.

Bourne goes to the cemetery. He has flashbacks to when he met someone at a mausoleum in the rain. As he searches through the graves, it begins to rain again.

Nearby, a flashlight signals to someone. Bourne spots a man with a rifle overlooking the mausoleum. He silently subdues him, taking his weapon and breaking his hand. He then goes to the mausoleum where Conklin is waiting.

Bourne starts by trying to explain what happened. He insists that he lost his memory and is slowly relearning everything about Treadstone. However, Conklin refuses to listen. He accuses Bourne of killing Abbott, Webb, and the others in Manhattan. At the mention of Webb’s name, Bourne has vivid, painful memories of his brother. When he refocuses on the present, Conklin is pointing a gun at him.

Conklin claims that Bourne is now working with Carlos and that Marie is part of it. Bourne continues to try to argue but realizes that Conklin is going to shoot him. Bourne manages to disarm him, and then shots come from nearby. Bourne realizes that there is a second rifleman from another location. Spotting him, Bourne shoots and hits him. He then turns back to Conklin.

Bourne realizes that he has to kill Conklin. He will never listen to him, instead insisting that his entire story is a lie. However, as Conklin scrambles to his car, Bourne lets him go.

Back at the hotel, Bourne tells Marie what happened. He insists that he can still prove his innocence by using Villiers’s wife. He calls Villiers, who informs Bourne that he has killed his wife.

Bourne goes to Parc Monceau. He finds Villiers sitting by his wife’s body in their bed. Villiers is resigned to dying. However, Villiers finally agrees to continue to fight as Bourne reminds him that he needs to avenge his son.

Bourne writes a note for Carlos from Cain, intentionally angering Carlos over the death of his lover. He also claims that there is information in a safe in the Treadstone building in Manhattan. Bourne will use Villiers’s military contacts to get out of the country, leading Carlos to Manhattan for a final confrontation.

Lastly, Bourne calls Marie. He tells her that he is leaving. She will be going to the countryside with Villiers’s trusted aid. Although he is heartbroken to do so and knows that she is upset about it, he is certain that it is best for both of them.

At the church, the informant tells Carlos about the death of his lover, Angélique (Villiers’s wife). He tells him about the note left by Bourne. Enraged, Carlos insists that he will be waiting in New York.

After traveling all night, Conklin returns to his desk in Washington, DC. His phone is already ringing. A contact informs him that they believe Bourne got on a plane for New York City using the name “Washburn.” Conklin instructs the man to destroy anything related to the call and then hangs up.

Dr. Panov, a psychologist who treats Conklin for his post-traumatic stress disorder from the war, walks through his hospital. He receives a phone call from Conklin.

Conklin outlines a hypothetical for Panov, describing Bourne’s work over the last three years pretending to be an assassin. Panov confirms that it would likely lead to serious psychological effects for Bourne. Conklin then asks if it’s possible for Bourne to begin to believe that he is actually an assassin or even that he is both Carlos and Cain. Panov is hesitant to confirm this, insisting that it would mean some kind of schizophrenia or dissociative identity disorder. However, at Conklin’s insistence, Panov agrees that it is possible, though he urges Conklin not to make assumptions without a proper diagnosis.

Marie defies Bourne’s request for her to leave Paris. Instead, she meets with Villiers. She insists that Bourne is in danger. She knows that Bourne was lying to her on the phone. He is going to set up a “trap” for himself, leading Carlos and the men hunting him from Washington, DC, to one place. At Villiers’s request, Bourne stood before the mirror, gave Villiers a vivid description of himself, and had Villiers provide it to the police. Villiers offers to help save Bourne, so Marie tells him Bourne’s full story for the first time.

The director of consular operations sits at his desk in Washington, DC. To his surprise, the secretary of state angrily comes into his office. The secretary urges him to come up to his desk to listen to the conversation she just had with the ambassador in Paris. They are flying Marie to Washington to confirm the information because if what she says is true, a man who has no idea who he is has “more classified information in his head than ten intelligence computers” (551).

After tracing the information he has back to Medusa, the director finds a connection with Crawford. Crawford confirms that the deaths in New York were related to Treadstone and that he and Conklin oversee the operations now. Crawford explains that Bourne has turned against him and that Conklin is going to have him killed.

The director angrily interrupts Crawford. He insists that Marie was telling the truth on the phone: Bourne is suffering from memory loss. Crawford tries to argue, but the director points out that Bourne isn’t bringing himself to New York—he is luring Carlos there. Finally understanding, Crawford urges the director to bring Marie when Conklin meets with Bourne. He explains that, even with pictures, “the chameleon” will become identifiable. He knows that Marie is one of the only people who can identify him and possibly “save” him.

As Bourne rides in a taxi to Manhattan, he considers the inevitability of his own death. Either he will die, Carlos will, or they both will. At the airport, he wrote out everything he could remember since waking up in Washburn’s office. He then mailed it to Villiers, positive that he would do what is best for Marie.

When Bourne sees the brownstone, he is overwhelmed with memories and pain. He sees flashbacks to himself in a chair, watching as a projector flips through images. The Monk yells at him to memorizes the names and faces. He urges Bourne to “wipe away the past” (562).

Bourne has the driver take him back by the brownstone. However, he sees a moving van out front. Afraid that they’re dismantling the Treadstone headquarters, Bourne tells the driver to pull over. He gets out of the car to pay him, but when he bends over, a bullet kills the driver. As Bourne flees down the street, several more bullets are fired. He realizes that Carlos has beaten him there and is already trying to kill him.

Meanwhile, Marie argues with Crawford. She insists that he failed Bourne by not listening to him before. Crawford is adamant that she wait nearby in a car with binoculars to identify Bourne.

Conklin calls the Reclamation Department and learns that the CIA instructed them to remove the furniture from the brownstone. Conklin tries to get them to stop, but the man is insistent that he needs new paperwork. As Conklin looks out the window, he sees Crawford arrive on the steps of the brownstone and hangs up.

After Bourne changes his appearance, Bourne calls the moving agency. He gets the name of the supervisor on the job. He then purchases items from a nearby store and carries them to the brownstone. Following an unexplained instinct, he also buys several flairs. He joins the two men there, pretending that he was sent by their supervisor to help.

Marie watches through binoculars in an armored van. She sees the man enter the brownstone; he briefly reminds her of someone, but she dismisses it.

As Conklin initially refuses to listen to Crawford, Crawford insists that he believed Marie’s phone call. Eventually, Conklin relents. Crawford makes it clear that he is no longer concerned with catching Carlos.

In the brownstone, Bourne ascends the staircase, fighting off memories. His intuition guides him to a room. Inside, it is dark, with only a shaft of light from the shades. He hears a noise and then sees a “flash,” realizing just in time that a knife is coming toward him.

Conklin and Crawford return to Marie. She angrily scolds them for endangering Bourne, arguing with them when they insist that Bourne could have done things differently. Conklin calls the Reclamation Department and learns that the man who ordered the furniture removed retired two weeks ago. At the same moment, Marie realizes that the man who went into the building was Bourne.

Bourne manages to stop the knife from killing him, but it slices his chin. He recognizes the skin color of his attacker and knows that Carlos is attacking him, despite the darkness of the room. Bourne disarms him, but Carlos then pulls a gun. Bourne is shot in the shoulder. Carlos flees from the room. Bourne starts to pursue him, but instinct tells him to stop. Just then, several bullets are fired into the door. Bourne avoids them and then shoots back. He hears Carlos flee down the stairs.

As Bourne races into the hallway, he hears several more gunshots. He deduces that three men were killed. Bourne realizes that the people who were sent to the supervisor to help move were part of Carlos’s team. He frantically searches for a way out, trapped by the men downstairs.

Bourne moves to one of the upstairs rooms. He makes a loud crashing sound, drawing gunfire from below. He then cries out, pretending to be hit. He waits by the door and then kills the man who appears at the top of the stairs. He picks up his automatic machine gun and then continues down to the second floor. He sees that Carlos has shut all the doors on the second floor, forcing Bourne to choose a direction. Even though he knows he will likely die, the blood loss beginning to overwhelm him, Bourne pushes forward, determined to kill Carlos.

Bourne fires the machine gun into the stairs and the doors below. He lights one of the flares, realizing that they remind him of Tam Quan. As he does so, he has vivid flashbacks to Vietnam, and he perceives the “stench of death and the jungle” around him in the brownstone (588).

Bourne is left with one door. He approaches it with the machine gun and lights another flare. He knows that Carlos is inside. Because Cain was “born” here, he also knows something that Carlos doesn’t: The door is reinforced with armor. Bourne opens it, tosses the flares inside, and then shuts it as gunshots ring out. The bullets hit the door and are stopped. Bourne then bursts into the room, shooting his own gun and being shot at. He sees Carlos and a large white screen, pulled down from the ceiling and reflecting light. He rolls behind a bar as the gunfire stops.

Hiding behind the bar, Bourne is certain that he knows who Carlos is, yet he can’t think of his name. He instinctively believes that he is well-known by many people, hiding “Carlos” behind that identity. He also realizes that he has only three shots left.

Bourne takes a rag from behind the bar and lights it on fire. He tosses it one way and then rolls the other. Carlos shoots at the rag and then turns on Bourne. Bourne shoots twice, unsure if he has hit him. Carlos then tears the screen from the ceiling, throwing it at Bourne and causing him to fire his last shot. Carlos stands over Bourne with his weapon, knowing that he has no bullets left. Bourne rolls desperately away, causing Carlos to miss several shots.

In the hallway, Bourne hears commotion as a door is broken down. He hears footsteps, and then Carlos yells to them, signaling where they are. Carlos then runs out the door.

Delirious and confused, Bourne sees Conklin come into the room. He desperately backs away, holding up the flare and ignoring Conklin’s protests that he is there to help Bourne. Bourne is overwhelmed by memories of being in the jungle. He fights off Conklin. However, as he sees Marie come into the room calling him his “love,” everything goes dark.

Two weeks later, Crawford, Marie, and Dr. Panov discuss Bourne. Panov emphasizes the “presumption” that Conklin made regarding Bourne’s mental state and the damage that it did to their operations. Marie expresses her desire to know the truth about Bourne’s past, and Crawford finally relents.

Bourne was born David Webb. During the Vietnam War, he was stationed in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, where he lived with his wife and two children. A military plane bombed the area, killing Webb’s family. It was never discovered which side the plane belonged to. Webb then went to Saigon, South Vietnam, to train with Medusa under the name “Delta.” Fearing Webb’s skill, North Vietnam kidnapped his brother, Gordon Webb, and held him captive in Tam Quan. Webb went north with d’Anjou and several others, dropping into the forest and rescuing his brother. However, he also discovered that one of their own, a man named Jason Bourne, was feeding information to the enemy; Webb executed him on the spot but kept it hidden. Years later, Webb was teaching college in New Hampshire when Abbott recruited him for Treadstone. He took the name “Bourne” because it was linked to Medusa, yet Bourne’s fate was secret.

When he finishes, Crawford tells Marie that Bourne will be protected indefinitely—no matter what life he chooses to live now. He is the only living person who has seen Carlos. Even though the information is “locked away” in Bourne’s mind, Panov believes it could one day resurface.

After Crawford leaves, Panov tells Marie that he is going to move forward with Bourne’s best interests in mind. The government is pushing him to give them access to Bourne. They want more details and descriptions of the events to catch Carlos. Panov believes Bourne will want that, too, but he needs to be certain that Bourne has recovered first.

A while later, Marie watches Bourne on the beach. She thinks of how he has begun to heal, the memories slowly coming back to him. As she watches, Bourne plunges into the water and then reemerges, running up the beach. When he gets to Marie, “his eyes as clear as she ha[s] ever seen them” (599), he tells her that he remembers that his name is David.