The Bourne Ultimatum jb-3 Page 6

  "Ilich Ramirez Sanchez," supplied Conklin softly. "Carlos the Jackal. And what follows is equally impossible: Somehow-only God knows how-word gets out calling for a meeting between the two interested parties. That is to say, interested in a joint assassination, the parties of the first part unable to participate actively, due to the sensitive nature of their high official positions, is that about it?"

  "Just about, except that these same powerful men in Washington can gain access to the identity and the whereabouts of this much desired corpse-to-be."

  "Naturally," agreed Alex, nodding in disbelief. "They simply wave a wand and all the restrictions applicable to maximum-classified files are lifted and they're given the information."

  "Exactly," said David firmly. "Because whoever meets with Carlos's emissaries has to be so high up, so authentic, that the Jackal has no choice but to accept him or them. He can't have any doubts, all thoughts of a trap gone with their coming forward."

  "Would you also like me to make baby roses bloom during a January blizzard in Montana?"

  "Close to it. Everything's got to happen within the next day or two while Carlos is still stinging from what happened at the Smithsonian."

  "Impossible! ... Oh, hell, I'll try. I'll set up shop here and have Langley send me what I need. Four Zero security, of course. ... I hate like hell to lose whoever it is at the Mayflower."

  "We may not," said Webb. "Whoever it is won't fold so fast. It's not like the Jackal to leave an obvious hole like that."

  "The Jackal? You think it's Carlos himself?"

  "Not him, of course, but someone on his payroll, someone so unlikely he could carry a sign around his neck with the Jackal's name on it and we wouldn't believe him."

  "Chinese?"

  "Maybe. He might play that out and then he might not. He's geometric; whatever he does is logical, even his logic seems illogical."

  "I hear a man from the past, a man who never was."

  "Oh, he was, Alex. He was indeed. And now he's back."

  Conklin looked toward the door of the apartment, David's words suddenly provoking another thought. "Where's your suitcase?" he asked. "You brought some clothes, didn't you?"

  "No clothes, and these will be dropped in a Washington sewer once I have others. But first I have to see another old friend of mine, another genius who lives in the wrong section of town."

  "Let me guess," said the retired agent. "An elderly black man with the improbable name of Cactus, a genius where false papers such as passports and driver's licenses and credit cards are concerned."

  "That's about it. Him."

  "The Agency could do it all."

  "Not as well and too bureaucratically. I want nothing traceable, even with Four Zero security. This is solo."

  "Okay. Then what?"

  "You get to work, field man. By tomorrow morning I want a lot of people in this town shaken up."

  "Tomorrow morning…? That is impossible!"

  "Not for you. Not for Saint Alex, the prince of dark operations?"

  "Say whatever the hell you like, I'm not even in training."

  "It comes back quickly, like sex and riding a bicycle."

  "What about you? What are you going to do?"

  "After I consult with Cactus, I'll get a room at the Mayflower hotel," answered Jason Bourne.

  Culver Parnell, hotel magnate from Atlanta whose twenty-year reign in the hostelry business had led to his appointment as chief of protocol for the White House, angrily hung up his office phone as he scribbled a sixth obscenity on a legal pad. With the election and now the turnover of White House personnel, he had replaced the previous administration's well-born female who knew nothing about the political ramifications of 1600's invitation list. Then, to his profound irritation, he found himself at war with his own first assistant, another middle-aged female, also from one of the ass-elegant Eastern colleges, and, to make it worse, a popular Washington socialite who contributed her salary to some la-di-da dance company whose members pranced around in their underwear when they wore any.

  "Hog damn!" fumed Culver, running his hand through his fringed gray hair; he picked up the telephone and poked four digits on his console. "Gimme the Redhead, you sweet thing," he intoned, exaggerating his already pronounced Georgia accent.

  "Yes, sir," said the flattered secretary. "He's on another line but I'll interrupt. Just hold on a sec, Mr. Parnell."

  "You're the loveliest of the peaches, lovely child."

  "Oh, golly, thank you! Now just hold on."

  It never failed, mused Culver. A little soft oil from the magnolia worked a hell of a lot better than the bark of a gnarled oak. That bitch of a first assistant of his might take a lesson from her Southern superiors; she talked like some Yankee dentist had bonded her fucking teeth together with permanent cement.

  "That you, Cull?" came the voice of Redhead over the line, intruding on Parnell's thoughts as he wrote a seventh obscenity on the legal pad.

  "You're momma-letchin' right, boy, and we got a problem! The fricassee bitch is doin' it again. I got our Wall Streeters inked in for a table at the reception on the twenty-fifth, the one for the new French ambassador and she says we gotta bump 'em for some core-dee-ballet fruitcakes-she says she and the First Lady feel mighty strong about it. Shee-it! Those money boys gotta lot of French interests goin' for them, and this White House bash could put 'em on top. Every frog on the Bourse will think they got the ears of the whole town here!"

  "Forget it, Cull," broke in the anxious Redhead, "We may have a bigger problem, and I don't know what it means."

  "What's that?"

  "When we were back in Saigon, did you ever hear of something or someone called Snake Lady?"

  "I heard a hell of a lot about snake eyes," chuckled Parnell, "but no Snake Lady. Why?"

  "The fellow I was just talking to-he's going to call back in five minutes-sounded as though he was threatening me. I mean actually threatening me, Cull! He mentioned Saigon and implied that something terrible happened back then and repeated the name Snake Lady several times as if I should have run for cover."

  "You leave that son of a bitch to me!" roared Parnell, interrupting. "I know exactly what that bastard's talking about! This is that snotty bitch first assistant of mine-that's the fuckin' Snake Lady! You give that slug worm my number and tell him I know all about his horseshit!"

  "Will you please tell me, Cull?"

  "What the hell, you were there, Redhead. ... So we had a few games going, even a few mini casinos, and some clowns lost a couple of shirts, but there was nothin' soldiers haven't done since they threw craps for Christ's clothes! ... We just put it on a higher plane and maybe tossed in a few broads who'd have been walkin' the streets anyway. ... No, Redhead, that elegant-ass, so-called assistant thinks she's got somethin' on me-that's why she's goin' through you, 'cause everybody knows we're buddies. ... You tell that slime to call me and I'll settle his grits along with that bitch's twat! Oh, boy, she made a wrong move! My Wall Streeters are in and her pansies are out!"

  "Okay, Cull, I'll simply refer him to you," said the Redhead, otherwise known as the vice president of the United States, as he hung up the phone.

  It rang four minutes later and the words were spat out at Parnell. "Snake Lady, Culver, and we're all in trouble!"

  "No, you listen to me, Divot Head, and I'll tell you who's in trouble! She's no lady, she's a bitch! One of her thirty or forty eunuch husbands may have thrown a few snake eyes in Saigon and lost some of her well-advertised come-and-take-me cash, but nobody gave a shit then and nobody gives a shit now. Especially a marine colonel who liked a sharp game of poker every once in a while, and that man is sitting in the Oval Office at this moment. And furthermore, you ball-less scrotum, when he learns that she's trying to further defame the brave boys who wanted only a little relaxation while fighting a thankless war-"

  In Vienna, Virginia, Alexander Conklin replaced the phone. Misfire One and Misfire Two ... and he had never heard of Culver Parnell.


  The chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, Albert Armbruster, swore out loud as he turned off the shower at the sound of his wife's shrieking voice in the steam-filled bathroom. "What the hell is it, Mamie? I can't take a shower without you yammering?"

  "It could be the White House, Al! You know how they talk, so low and quiet and always saying it's urgent."

  "Shit!" yelled the chairman, opening the glass door and walking naked to the phone on the wall. "This is Armbruster. What is it?"

  "There's a crisis that requires your immediate attention."

  "Is this 1600?"

  "No, and we hope it never goes up there."

  "Then who the hell are you?"

  "Someone as concerned as you're going to be. After all these years-oh, Christ!"

  "Concerned about what? What are you talking about?"

  "Snake Lady, Mr. Chairman."

  "Oh, my God!" Armbruster's hushed voice was a sudden involuntary cry of panic. Instantly, he controlled himself but it was too late. Mark One. "I have no idea what you're talking about. ... What's a snake whatever-it-is? Never heard of it."

  "Well, hear it now, Mr. Medusa. Somebody's got it all, everything. Dates, diversions of materiel, banks in Geneva and Zurich-even the names of a half-dozen couriers routed out of Saigon-and worse. ... Jesus, the worst! Other names-MIAs established as never having been in combat ... eight investigating personnel from the inspector general's office. Everything."

  "You're not making sense! You're talking gibberish!"

  "And you're on the list, Mr. Chairman. That man must have spent fifteen years putting it together, and now he wants payment for all those years of work or he blows it open-everything, everyone."

  "Who? Who is he, for Christ's sake?"

  "We're centering in. All we know is that he's been in the protection program for over a decade, and no one gets rich in those circumstances. He must have been cut out of the action in Saigon and now he's making up for lost time. Stay tight. We'll be back in touch." There was a click and the line went dead.

  Despite the steam and the heat of the bathroom, the naked Albert Armbruster, chairman of the Federal Trade Commission, shivered as the sweat rolled down his face. He hung up the phone, his eyes straying to the small, ugly tattoo on the underside of his forearm.

  Over in Vienna, Virginia, Alex Conklin looked at the telephone.

  Mark One.

  General Norman Swayne, chief of Pentagon procurements, stepped back from the tee satisfied with his long straight drive down the fairway. The ball would roll to an optimum position for a decent five-iron approach shot to the seventeenth green. "That ought to do it," he said, turning to address his golfing partner.

  "Certainly ought to, Norm," replied the youngish senior vice president of Calco Technologies. "You're taking my butt for a ride this afternoon. I'm going to end up owing you close to three hundred clams. At twenty a hole, I've only gotten four so far."

  "It's your hook, young fella. You ought to work on it."

  "That's certainly the truth, Norm," agreed the Calco executive in charge of marketing as he approached the tee. Suddenly, there was the high grating sound of a golf cart's horn as a three-wheeled vehicle appeared over the incline from the sixteenth fairway going as fast as it could go. "That's your driver, General," said the armaments marketer, immediately wishing he had not used his partner's formal title.

  "So it is. That's odd; he never interrupts my golf game." Swayne walked toward the rapidly approaching cart, meeting it thirty feet away from the tee. "What is it?" he asked a large, middle-aged beribboned master sergeant who had been his driver for over fifteen years.

  "My guess is that it's rotten," answered the noncommissioned officer gruffly while he gripped the wheel.

  "That's pretty blunt-"

  "So was the son of a bitch who called. I had to take it inside, on a pay phone. I told him I wouldn't break into your game, and he said I goddamned well better if I knew what was good for me. Naturally, I asked him who he was and what rank and all the rest of the bullshit but he cut me off, more scared than anything else. 'Just tell the general I'm calling about Saigon and some reptiles crawling around the city damn near twenty years ago.' Those were his exact words-"

  "Jesus Christ!" cried Swayne, interrupting. "Snake...?"

  "He said he'd call back in a half hour-that's eighteen minutes now. Get in, Norman. I'm part of this, remember?"

  Bewildered and frightened, the general mumbled. "I ... I have to make excuses. I can't just walk away, drive away."

  "Make it quick. And, Norman, you've got on a short-sleeved shirt, you goddamned idiot! Bend your arm."

  Swayne, his eyes wide, stared at the small tattoo on his flesh, instantly crooking his arm to his chest in British brigadier fashion as he walked unsteadily back to the tee, summoning a casualness he could not feel. "Damn, young fella, the army calls."

  "Well, damn also, Norm, but I've got to pay you. I insist!"

  The general, half in a daze, accepted the debt from his partner, not counting the bills, not realizing that it was several hundred dollars more than he was owed. Proffering confused thanks, Swayne walked swiftly back to the golf cart and climbed in beside his master sergeant.

  "So much for my hook, soldier boy," said the armaments executive to himself, addressing the tee and swinging his club, sending the little pocked white ball straight down the fairway far beyond the general's and with a much better lie. "Four hundred million's worth, you brass-plated bastard."

  Mark Two.

  "What in heaven's name are you talking about?" asked the senator, laughing as he spoke into the phone. "Or should I say, what's Al Armbruster trying to pull? He doesn't need my sup port on the new bill and he wouldn't get it if he did. He was a jackass in Saigon and he's a jackass now, but he's got the majority vote."

  "We're not talking about votes, Senator. We're talking about Snake Lady!"

  "The only snakes I knew in Saigon were jerks like Alby who crawled around the city pretending to know all the answers when there weren't any. ... Who the hell are you anyway?" In Vienna, Virginia, Alex Conklin replaced the telephone.

  Misfire Three.

  Phillip Atkinson, ambassador to the Court of St. James's, picked up his phone in London, assuming that the unnamed caller, code "courier D.C." was bearing an exceptionally confidential instruction from the State Department and automatically; as was the order, Atkinson snapped the switch on his rarely used scrambler. It would create an eruption of static on British intelligence's intercepts and later he would smile benignly at good friends in the Connaught bar who asked him if there was anything new out of Washington, knowing that this one or that one had "relatives" in MI-Five.

  "Yes, Courier District?"

  "Mr. Ambassador, I assume we can't be picked up," said the low, strained voice from Washington.

  "Your assumption's correct unless they've come up with a new type of Enigma, which is unlikely."

  "Good. ... I want to take you back to Saigon, to a certain operation no one talks about-"

  "Who is this?" broke in Atkinson, bolting forward in his chair.

  "The men in that outfit never used names, Mr. Ambassador, and we didn't exactly advertise our commitments, did we?"

  "Goddamn you, who are you? I know you?"

  "No way, Phil, although I'm surprised you don't recognize my voice."

  Atkinson's eyes widened as they roamed rapidly about his office, seeing nothing, only trying to remember, trying desperately to put a voice with a face. "Is that you, Jack-believe me, we're on a scrambler!"

  "Close, Phil-"

  "The Sixth Fleet, Jack. A simple reverse Morse. Then bigger things, much bigger. It's you, isn't it?"

  "Let's say it's a possible, but it's also irrelevant. The point is we're in heavy weather, very heavy-"

  "It is you!"

  "Shut up. Just listen. A bastard frigate got loose from its moorings and is crashing around, hitting too many shoals."

  "Jack, I was ground, not sea. I can't under
stand you."

  "Some swab jockey must have been cut out of the action back in Saigon, and from what I've learned he was put in protection for something or other and now he's got it all put together. He's got it all, Phil. Everything."

  "Holy Christ!"

  "He's ready to launch-"

  "Stop him!"

  "That's the problem. We're not sure who he is. The whole thing's being kept very close over in Langley."

  "Good God, man, in your position you can give them the order to back off! Say it's a DOD dead file that was never completed-that it was designed to spread disinformation! It's all false!"

  "That could be walking into a salvo-"

  "Have you called Jimmy T over in Brussels?" interrupted the ambassador. "He's tight with the top max at Langley."

  "At the moment I don't want anything to go any further. Not until I do some missionary work."

  "Whatever you say, Jack. You're running the show."

  "Keep your halyards taut, Phil."

  "If that means keep my mouth shut, don't you worry about it!" said Atkinson, crooking his elbow, wondering who in London could remove an ugly tattoo on his forearm.

  Across the Atlantic in Vienna, Virginia, Alex Conklin hung up the telephone and leaned back in his chair a frightened man. He had been following his instincts as he had done in the field for over twenty years, words leading to other words, phrases to phrases, innuendos snatched out of the air to support suppositions, even conclusions. It was a chess game of instant invention and he knew he was a skilled professional-sometimes too skilled. There were things that should remain in their black holes, undetected cancers buried in history, and what he had just learned might well fit that category.

  Marks Three, Four and Five.

  Phillip Atkinson, ambassador to Great Britain. James Teagarten, supreme commander of NATO. Jonathan "Jack" Burton, former admiral of the Sixth Fleet, currently chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

  Snake Lady. Medusa.

  A network.

  5

  It was as if nothing had changed, thought Jason Bourne, knowing that his other self, the self-called David Webb, was receding. The taxi had brought him out to the once elegant, now run-down neighborhood in northeast Washington, and, as happened five years ago, the driver refused to wait. He walked up the overgrown flagstone path to the old house, thinking as he did the first time that it was too old and too fragile and too much in need of repair; he rang the bell, wondering if Cactus was even alive. He was; the thin old black man with the gentle face and warm eyes stood in the doorframe exactly as he had stood five years before, squinting beneath a green eyeshade. Even Cactus's first words were a minor variation of those he had used five years ago.