The Bourne Identity Chapter 4 Summary

How It All Goes Down

  • On a plane to Zurich, anonymous dude tries to become one with the stress of flying and see if he can knock loose any memories. He remembers parachuting in his former life.
  • Anonymous dude goes from the plane to the hotel Carillon du Lac, where the clerk recognizes him. Anonymous dude bluffs his way through the registration process, and in the process finds out that his name is "J. Bourne," that he's from New York City, and that he works for something called the Treadstone Corporation.
  • Bourne (anonymous dude no longer) tries to track down Treadstone by calling New York…but he has no luck (the book would be over way too quickly otherwise).
  • So we're finally on our way to the Zurich bank, where Bourne jousts with secretaries and bank functionaries (not really: no real horses or jousting in the bank vaults, unfortunately).
  • Our no-longer-anonymous dude is passed through security by a secretary named Herr Koenig, who turns out to not be all that trustworthy, and another official named Apfel.
  • Bourne gets a container from the bank and finds out that he's got more than $5 million American dollars in an account. As you'd imagine, this is a surprise.
  • Bourne also discovers that his full name is Jason Bourne.
  • Bourne removes 100,000 francs and has the rest transferred to Paris. During the process, Herr Koenig comes back in and says something about a "fiche."
  • All seems well…but when he leaves and goes to the lobby, Bourne sees Koenig nod to a couple of men.
  • The men come after Bourne. At least one of them has a gun; the other has a radio. Bourne tries to get away from them in the elevator.