Robert Ludlum - Bourne 2 - Bourne Supremecy

by The Bourne Supremacy [lit]

  Yes, of course, you're right. I mean -yes, all right. But we must find that woman, Mr Nelson. I've been instructed to tell you that if you can help us it would be greatly to your advantage.

  I want to help in any event, sir. If she reaches me, I'll try to set up a meeting somewhere and call you. I knew I was right to do what I did, to say what I did.

  We'll wait for your call.

  Catherine was on target, thought John Nelson, there was one hell of a connection. So much of a connection that he did not dare use his consulate phone to call Staples. But when he did reach her, he would ask her some very hard questions. He trusted Catherine, but the photographs and their consequences notwithstanding, he was not for sale. He got up from his desk and headed for the door of his office. A suddenly remembered dental appointment would suffice. As he walked down the corridor towards the reception room his thoughts returned to Catherine Staples. Catherine was one of the strongest people he had ever met, but the look in her eyes last night had conveyed not strength, but a kind of desperate fear. It was a Catherine he had never seen before.

  'He diverted your questions to his own ends,' said Havilland, coming through the door, the immense Lin Wenzu behind him. 'Do you agree, Major?'

  'Yes, and that means he anticipated the questions. He was primed for them.'

  'Which means someone primed him!'

  'We never should have called him,' said McAllister quietly, sitting behind the desk, his nervous fingers once again massaging his right temple. 'Nearly everything he brought up was meant to provoke a response from me.'

  'We had to call him,' insisted Havilland, 'if only to learn that.'

  'He stayed in control. I lost it.'

  'You could not have behaved differently, Edward,' said Lin. 'To react other than you did would have been to question his motives. In essence, you would have threatened him.'

  'And at the moment, we don't want him to feel threatened,' agreed Havilland. 'He's getting information for someone, and we've got to find out who it is.'

  'And that means Webb's wife did reach someone she knew and told that person everything.' McAllister leaned forward, his elbows on the desk, his hands tightly clasped.

  'You were right, after all,' said the Ambassador, looking down at the undersecretary of state. 'A street with her favourite maple trees. Paris. The inevitable repetition. It's quite clear. Nelson is working for someone in the Canadian consulate - and whoever it is, is in touch with Webb's wife.'

  McAllister looked up. Then Nelson's either a damn fool or a bigger damn fool. By his own admission he knows - at least he assumes - that he's dealing with highly sensitive information involving an adviser to presidents. Dismissal aside, he could be sent to prison for conspiring against the government.'

  'He's not a fool, I can assure you,' said Lin.

  'Then either someone is forcing him to do this against his win - blackmail most likely - or he's being paid to find out if

  there's a connection between Marie St Jacques and this house in Victoria Peak. It can't be anything else.' Frowning, Havilland sat down in the chair in front of the desk.

  'Give me a day,' continued the major from MI6. 'Perhaps I can find out. If I can, we'll pick up whoever it is in the consulate.'

  'No,' said the diplomat whose expertise lay in covert operations. 'You have until eight o'clock tonight. We can't afford that, but if we can avoid a confrontation and any possible fallout, we must try. Containment is everything. Try, Lin. For God's sake, try.'

  'And after eight o'clock, Mr Ambassador? What then?'

  Then, Major, we pull in our clever and evasive attach‚ and break him. I'd much prefer to use him without his knowing it, without risking alarms, but the woman comes first. Eight o'clock, Major Lin.'

  'I'll do everything I can.'

  'And if we're wrong,' went on Havilland, as if Lin Wenzu had not spoken, 'if this Nelson has been set up as a blind and knows nothing, I want all the rules broken. I don't care how you do it or how much it costs in bribes or the garbage you have to employ to get it done. I want cameras, telephone taps, electronic surveillance - whatever you can manage - on every single person in that consulate. Someone there knows where she is. Someone there is hiding her.'

  'Catherine, it's John,' said Nelson into the pay phone on Albert Road.

  'How good of you to call,' answered Staples quickly. 'It's been a trying afternoon, but do let's have drinks one of these days. It'll be so good to see you after all these months, and you can tell me about Canberra. But do tell me one thing now. Was I right in what I told you?'

  'I have to see you, Catherine.'

  'Not even a hint?'

  'I have to see you. Are you free?'

  'I have a meeting in forty-five minutes.'

  Then later, around five. There's a place called the Monkey Tree in the Wanchai, on Gloucester-'

  'I know it. I'll be there.'

  John Nelson hung up. There was nothing else to do but go back to the office. He could not stay away for three hours, not after his conversation with Undersecretary of State Edward McAllister; appearances precluded such an absence. He had heard about McAllister; the undersecretary had spent seven years in Hong Kong, leaving only months before Nelson had arrived. Why had he returned? Why was there a sterile house in Victoria Peak with Ambassador Havilland suddenly in residence? Above all, why was Catherine Staples so frightened? He owed Catherine his career, but he had to have a few answers. He had a decision to make.

  Lin Wenzu had all but exhausted his sources. Only one gave him pause for thought. Inspector Ian Ballantyne, as he usually did, answered questions with other questions rather than delivering concise answers himself. It was maddening, for one never knew whether the man from Scotland Yard knew something or not about a given subject, in this case an American attach‚ named John Nelson.

  'Met the chap several times,' Ballantyne had said. 'Bright sort. Speaks your lingo, did you know that?'

  'My "lingo", Inspector?'

  'Well, damn few of us did, even during the Opium Wars. Interesting period of history, wasn't it, Major?'

  'The Opium Wars? I was talking about the attache, John Nelson.'

  'Oh, is there a connection?'

  'With what, Inspector?'

  'The Opium Wars.'

  'If there is, he's a hundred and fifty years old and his dossier says thirty-two.'

  'Really? That young.

  But Ballantyne had employed several pauses too many to satisfy Lin. If the old warhorse did know something he was not going to reveal it. Everyone else, from the Hong Kong and Kowloon police to the 'specialists' who worked the American consulate gathering information for payment gave Nelson as clean a bill of health as was respectable in the territory. If Nelson had a vulnerable side, it was in his extensive and not too discriminate search for sex, but insofar as it was heterosexual, and he was single, it was to be applauded, not condemned. One 'specialist' told Lin that he heard Nelson had been warned to have himself medically checked on a fairly regular basis. No crime; the attache was a cocksman. Ask him to dinner.

  The telephone rang; Lin grabbed it. 'Yes?'

  'Our subject walked to the Peak Tram and took a taxi to the Wanchai. He is in a cafe called the Monkey Tree. I am with him. I can see him.'

  'It's out of the way and very crowded,' said the major. 'Has anyone joined him?'

  'No, but he asked for a table for two.'

  'I'll be there as soon as I can. If you have to leave, I'll contact you by radio. You're driving Vehicle Seven, are you not?'

  'Vehicle Seven, sir... Wait! A woman is walking towards his table. He's getting up.'

  'Do you recognize her?'

  'It's too dark here. No.'

  'Pay the waiter. Disrupt the service. But not obviously, only for a few minutes. I'll use our ambulance and the siren until I'm a block away.'

  'Catherine, I owe you so much, and I want to help you in any way I can, but I have to know more than what you've told me.'

  There's a connection, isn't
there? Havilland and Marie St Jacques.'

  'I won't confirm that - I can't confirm it - because I haven't spoken to Havilland. I did, however, speak to another man, a man I've heard a lot about who used to be stationed here -one hell of a brain - and he sounded as desperate as you did last night.'

  'I seemed that way to you last night?' said Staples, smoothing her grey-streaked hair. 'I wasn't aware of it.'

  'Hey, come on. Not in your words, maybe, but in the way you talked. The stridency was just below the surface. You sounded like me when you gave me the photographs. Believe me, I can identify.'

  'Johnny, believe me. We may be dealing with something neither of us should get near, something way up in the clouds on which we - /- don't have the knowledge to make a proper decision.'

  'I have to make a decision, Catherine.' Nelson looked up for the waiter. 'Where are those goddamned drinks?'

  I'm not panting.'

  'I am. I owe you everything and I like you and I know you wouldn't use the photographs against me, which makes it all worse-'

  'I gave you all there were, and we burned the negatives together.'

  'So my debt's real, don't you see that? Jesus, the kid was what - twelve years old!

  'You didn't know that. You were drugged.'

  'My passport to oblivion. No secretary of state in my future, only secretary of kiddie-porn. One hell of a trip!'

  'It's over and you're being melodramatic. I just want you to tell me if there's a connection between Havilland and Marie St Jacques - which I think you can do. Why is that so difficult? I will know what to do then.'

  'Because if I do, I have to tell Havilland that I told you.'

  'Then give me an hour.'

  'Why?'

  'Because I do have several photographs in my vault at the consulate,' lied Catherine Staples.

  Nelson shot back in his chair, stunned. 'Oh, God. I don't believe this!'

  'Try to understand, Johnny. We all play hardball now and then because it's in the best interests of our employers - our individual countries, if you like. Marie St Jacques was a friend of mine - is a friend of mine - and her life became nothing in the eyes of self-important men who ran a covert operation that didn't give a holy damn about her and her husband. They used them both and then tried to kill them both! Let me tell you something, Johnny. I detest your Central Intelligence Agency and your State Department's so-grandly named Consular Operations. It's not that they re bastards, it's that they're such stupid bastards. And if I sense that an operation is being mounted, again using these two people who've been through so much pain, I intend to find out why and act accordingly. There can be no more blank cheques with their lives. I'm experienced and they're not and I'm angry enough - no, furious enough - to demand answers.'

  'Oh, Christ-

  The waiter arrived with their drinks, and as Staples looked up to signify thanks, her eyes were drawn to a man by a telephone booth in the crowded outside corridor watching them. She looked away.

  'What's it going to be, Johnny?' she continued. 'Confirm or deny?'

  'Confirmed,' whispered Nelson, reaching for his glass.

  'The house in Victoria Peak?'

  'Yes.'

  'Who was the man you spoke with, the one who had been stationed here?'

  'McAllister. Undersecretary of State McAllister.'

  'Good Lord?

  There was excessive movement in the outside corridor. Catherine shielded her eyes and turned her head slightly, which widened her peripheral vision. A large man entered and walked towards the telephone against the wall. There was only one man like him in all of Hong Kong. It was Lin Wenzu, MI6, Special Branch! The Americans had enlisted the best, but it could be the worst for Marie and her husband.

  'You've done nothing wrong, Johnny,' said Staples, rising from her chair. 'We'll talk further, but right now I'm going to the ladies' room.'

  'Catherine?'

  'What?'

  'Hard ball?'

  'Very hard, my darling.'

  Staples walked past a shrinking Wenzu who turned away. She went into the ladies' room, waited several seconds then walked out with two other women and broke away, continuing down the corridor and into the Monkey Tree's kitchen. Without saying a word to the startled waiters and cooks, she found the exit and went outside. She ran up the alley into Gloucester Road; she turned left, her stride quickening until she found a phone booth. Inserting a coin she dialled.

  'Hello?'

  'Marie, get out of the flat! My car's in a garage a block to your right as you leave the building. It's called Ming's; the sign's in red. Get there as quickly as you can! I'll meet you. Hurry

  Catherine Staples hailed a taxi.

  'The woman's name is Staples, Catherine Staples? said Lin Wenzu sharply into the phone on the corridor wall of the Monkey Tree, raising his voice to be heard over the din. 'Insert the consulate disk and search it through the computer. Quickly! I want her address and make damn-damn sure it's current!' The muscles of the major's jaw worked furiously as he waited, listening. The answer was delivered, and he issued another order. 'If one of our team's vehicles is in the area, get on the radio and tell him to head over there. If not, dispatch one immediately.' Lin paused, again listening. 'The American woman,' he said quietly into the phone. They're to watch for her. If she's spotted, close in and take her. We're on our way.'

  'Vehicle Five, respond? repeated the radio operator, speaking into a microphone, his hand on a switch in the lower right-hand corner of the console in front of him. The room was white and without windows, the hum of the air conditioning low but constant, the whir of the filtering system even quieter. On three walls there were banks of sophisticated radio and computer equipment above spotless white counters made of the smoothest Formica. There was an antiseptic quality about the room; hardness was everywhere. It might have been an electronics laboratory in a well-endowed medical centre, but it was not. It was another kind of centre. The communications centre of MI6, Special Branch, Hong Kong. 'Vehicle Five responding? shouted an out-of-breath voice over the speaker. 'I received your signal, but I was a street away covering the Thai. We were right. Drugs.'

  'Go on scrambler!' ordered the operator, throwing the switch. There was a whistling sound that stopped as abruptly as it had started. 'You're off the Thai,' continued the radioman. 'You're nearest. Get over to Arbuthnot Road, the Botanical Gardens entrance is the quickest way.' He gave the address of Catherine Staples's building and ended with a final command. 'The American woman. Watch for her. Take her.'

  'Aiya,' whispered the breathless agent from Special Branch.

  Marie tried not to panic, imposing a control over herself she did not feel. The situation was ludicrous. It was also deadly serious. She was dressed in Catherine's ill-fitting robe, having taken a long hot bath and, far worse, having washed her clothes in Staples's kitchen sink. They were hanging over the plastic chairs on Catherine's small balcony and were still wet. It had seemed so natural, so logical, to wash away the heat and the dirt of Hong Kong from herself as well as from the stranger's clothes. And the cheap sandals had raised blisters on the soles of her feet; she had broken an ugly one with a needle and walking was difficult. But she dared not walk, she had to run.

  What had happened? Catherine was not the sort of person to issue peremptory commands. Any more than she herself was, especially with David. People like Catherine avoided the imperative approach because it only clouded a victim's thinking - and her friend Marie St Jacques was a victim now, not to the degree that poor David was, but a victim nevertheless. Move! How often had Jason said that in Zurich and Paris? So frequently she still tensed at the word.

  She dressed, the wet clothes clinging to her body, and rummaged through Catherine's closet for a pair of slippers. They were uncomfortable but softer than the sandals. She could run; she had to run.

  Her hair! Oh, Christ, the hair! She ran to the bathroom, where Catherine kept a porcelain jar filled with hairpins and clasps. In seconds, she secured her hair on the top
of her head, walked rapidly back into the flat's tiny living room, found her foolish hat, and jammed it on.

  The wait for the elevator was interminable! According to the lighted numbers above the panels, both elevators jogged between floors 1,3, and 7, neither venturing above to the 9th floor. Preceding residents going out for the evening had programmed the vertical monsters, delaying her descent.

  Avoid elevators whenever you can. They're traps. Jason Bourne. Zurich.

  Marie looked up and down the hallway. She saw the fire exit staircase door and ran to it.

  Out of breath, she lunged into the short lobby, composing herself as best she could to deflect the glances directed at her by five or six tenants, some entering, some leaving. She did not count; she could barely see; she had to get out!