The Bourne Ultimatum jb-3

by Robert Ludlum

  "You got hubcaps on your car, Jason?"

  "No car and no cab; it wouldn't stay."

  "Musta heard all those scurrilous rumors circulated by the fascist press. Me, I got howitzers in the windows just to impress this neighborly turf of my friendly persuasion. Come on in, I think of you a lot. Why didn't you phone this old boy?"

  "Your number's not listed, Cactus."

  "Musta been an oversight." Bourne walked into the hallway as the old man closed the door. "You got a few streaks of gray in your hair, Br'er Rabbit," added Cactus, studying his friend. "Other than that you ain't changed much. Maybe a line or six in your face, but it adds character."

  "I've also got a wife and two kids, Uncle Remus. A boy and a girl."

  "I know that. Mo Panov keeps me up on things even though he can't tell me where you are-which I don't care to know, Jason."

  Bourne blinked while slowly shaking his head. "I still forget things, Cactus. I'm sorry. I forgot you and Mo are friends."

  "Oh, the good doctor calls me at least once a month and says, 'Cactus, you rascal, put on your Pierre Cardin suit and your Gucci shoes and let's have lunch.' So I say to him, 'Where's this old nigger gonna get such threads?' and he says to me, 'You probably own a shopping center in the best part of town.' ... Now that's an exaggeration, s' help me. I do have bits and pieces of decent white real estate but I never go near them."

  As both men laughed, Jason stared at the dark face and warm black eyes in front of him. "Something else I just remembered. Thirteen years ago in that hospital in Virginia ... you came to see me. Outside of Marie and those government bastards you were the only one."

  "Panov understood, Br'er Rabbit. When in my very unofficial status I worked on you for Europe, I told Morris that you don't study a man's face in a lens without learning things about that face, that man. I wanted you to talk about the things I found missing in that lens and Morris thought it might not be a bad idea. ... And now that confessional hour is over, I gotta say that it's really good to see you, Jason, but to tell you the truth I'm not happy to see you, if you catch my meaning."

  "I need your help, Cactus."

  "That's the root of my unhappiness. You've been through enough and you wouldn't be here unless you were itching for more, and in my professional, lens-peering opinion, that ain't healthy for the face I'm lookin' at."

  "You've got to help me."

  "Then you'd better have a damn good reason that passes muster for the good doctor. 'Cause I ain't gonna mess around with anything that could mess you up further. ... I met your lovely lady with the dark red hair a few times in the hospital-she's somethin' special, Br'er, and your kids have got to be outstanding, so you see I can't mess around with anything that might hurt them. Forgive me, but you're all like kinfolk from a distance, from a time we don't talk about, but it's on my mind."

  "They're why I need your help."

  "Be clearer, Jason."

  "The Jackal's closing in. He found us in Hong Kong and he's zeroing in on me and my family, on my wife and my children. Please, help me."

  The old man's eyes grew wide under the green shade, a moral fury in his expanded pupils. "Does the good doctor know about this?"

  "He's part of it. He may not approve of what I'm doing, but if he's honest with himself, he knows that the bottom line is the Jackal and me. Help me, Cactus."

  The aged black studied his pleading client in the hallway, in the afternoon shadows. "You in good shape, Br'er Rabbit?" he asked. "You still got juices?"

  "I run six miles every morning and I press weights at least twice a week in the university gym-"

  "I didn't hear that. I don't want to know anything about colleges or universities."

  "Then you didn't hear it."

  " 'Course I didn't. You look in pretty fair condition, I'll say that."

  "It's deliberate, Cactus," said Jason quietly. "Sometimes it's just a telephone suddenly ringing, or Marie's late or out with the kids and I can't reach her ... or someone I don't know stops me in the street to ask directions, and it comes back-he comes back. The Jackal. As long as there's a possibility that he's alive, I have to be ready for him because he won't stop looking for me. The awful irony is that his hunt is based on a supposition that may not be true. He thinks I can identify him, but I'm not sure I could. Nothing's really in focus yet."

  "Have you considered sending that message to him?"

  "With his assets maybe I'll take an ad out in the Wall Street Journal. 'Dear Old Buddy Carlos: Boy, have I got news for you.' "

  "Don't chortle, Jason, it's not inconceivable. Your friend Alex could find a way. His gimp doesn't affect that head of his. I believe the fancy word is serpentine."

  "Which is why if he hasn't tried it there's a reason."

  "I guess I can't argue with that. ... So let's go to work, Br'er Rabbit. What did you have in mind?" Cactus led the way through a wide archway toward a door at the rear of a worn out living room replete with ancient furniture and yellowed antimacassars. "My studio isn't as elegant as it was but all the equipment's there. You see, I'm sort of semi-retired. My financial planners worked out a hell of a retirement program with great tax advantages, so the pressure's not so great."

  "You're only incredible," said Bourne.

  "I imagine some people might say that, the ones not doin' time. What did you have in mind?"

  "Pretty much myself. Not Europe or Hong Kong, of course. Just papers, actually."

  "So the Chameleon retreats to another disguise. Himself."

  Jason stopped as they approached the door. "That was something else I forgot. They used to call me that, didn't they?"

  "Chameleon? ... They sure did and not without cause, as they say. Six people could come face-to-face with our boy Bourne and there'd be six different descriptions. Without a jar of makeup, incidentally."

  "It's all coming back, Cactus."

  "I wish to almighty God that it didn't have to, but if it does, you make damn sure it's all back. ... Come on into the magic room."

  Three hours and twenty minutes later the magic was completed. David Webb, Oriental scholar and for three years Jason Bourne, assassin, had two additional aliases with passports, driver's licenses and voter registration cards to confirm the identities. And since no cabs would travel out to Cactus's "turf," an unemployed neighbor wearing several heavy gold chains around his neck and wrists drove Cactus's client into the heart of Washington in his new Cadillac Allante.

  Jason found a pay phone in Garfinkel's department store and called Alex in Virginia, giving him both aliases and selecting one for the Mayflower hotel. Conklin would officially secure a room through the management in the event that summer reservations were tight. Further, Langley would activate a Four Zero imperative and do its best to furnish Bourne with the material he needed, delivering it to his room as soon as possible. The estimate was a minimum of an additional three hours, no guarantees as to the time or authenticity. Regardless, thought Jason, as Alex reconfirmed the information on a second direct line to the CIA, he needed at least two of those three hours before going to the hotel. He had a small wardrobe to put together; the Chameleon was reverting to type.

  "Steve DeSole tells me he'll start spinning the disks, crosschecking ours with the army data banks and naval intelligence," said Conklin, returning to the line. "Peter Holland can make it happen; he's the president's crony."

  "Crony? That's an odd word coming from you."

  "Like in crony appointment."

  "Oh? ... Thanks, Alex. How about you? Any progress?"

  Conklin paused, and when he answered his quiet voice conveyed his fear; it was controlled but the fear was there. "Let's put it this way. ... I'm not equipped for what I've learned. I've been away too long. I'm afraid, Jason-sorry ... David."

  "You're right the first time. Have you discussed-"

  "Nothing by name," broke in the retired intelligence officer quickly, firmly.

  "I see."

  "You couldn't," contradicted Alex. "I couldn't. I'
ll be in touch." With these cryptic words Conklin abruptly hung up.

  Slowly Bourne did the same, frowning in concern. Alex was the one now sounding melodramatic, and it was not like him to think that way or act that way. Control was his byword, understatement his persona. Whatever he had learned profoundly disturbed him ... so much so as to make it seem to Bourne that he no longer trusted the procedures he himself had set up, or even the people he was working with. Otherwise he would have been clearer, more forthcoming; instead, for reasons Jason could not fathom, Alexander Conklin did not want to talk about Medusa or whatever he had learned in peeling away twenty years of deceit. ... Was it possible?

  No time! No use, not now, considered Bourne, looking around the huge department store. Alex was not only as good as his word, he lived by it, as long as one was not an enemy. Ruefully, suppressing a short throated laugh, Jason remembered Paris thirteen years ago. He knew that side of Alex, too. But for the cover of gravestones in a cemetery on the outskirts of Rambouillet, his closest friend would have killed him. That was then, not now. Conklin said he'd "be in touch." He would. Until then the Chameleon had to build several covers. From the inside to the outside, from underwear to outerwear and everything in between. No chance of a laundry or a cleaning mark coming to light, no microscopic chemical evidence of a regionally distributed detergent or fluid-nothing. He had given too much. If he had to kill for David's family ... oh, my God! For my family! ... he refused to live with the consequences of that killing or those killings. Where he was going there were no rules; the innocent might well die in the cross fire. So be it. David Webb would violently object, but Jason Bourne didn't give a goddamn. He'd been there before; he knew the statistics, Webb knew nothing.

  Marie, I'll stop him! I promise you I'll rip him out of your lives. I'll take the Jackal and leave a dead man. He'll never be able to touch you again-you'll be free.

  Oh, Christ, who am I? Mo, help me! ... No, Mo, don't! I am what I have to be. I am cold and I'm getting colder. Soon I'll be ice ... clear, transparent ice, ice so cold and pure it can move anywhere without being seen. Can't you understand, Mo-you, too, Marie-I have to! David has to go. I can't have him around any longer.

  Forgive me, Marie, and you forgive me, Doctor, but I'm thinking the truth. A truth that has to be faced right now. I'm not a fool, nor do I fool myself. You both want me to let Jason Bourne get out of my life, release him to some infinity, but the reverse is what I have to do now. David has to leave, at least for a while.

  Don't bother me with such considerations! I have work to do.

  Where the hell is the men's department? When he was finished making his purchases, all paid for in cash with as many different clerks as possible, he would find a men's room where he would replace every stitch of clothing on his body. After that he would walk the streets of Washington until he found a hidden sewer grate. The Chameleon, too, was back.

  It was 7:35 in the evening when Bourne put down the single-edged razor blade. He had removed all the labels from the assortment of new clothes, hanging up each item in the closet when he had finished except for the shirts; these he steamed in the bathroom to remove the odor of newness. He crossed to the table, where room service had placed a bottle of Scotch whisky, club soda and a bucket of ice. As he passed the desk with the telephone he stopped; he wanted so terribly to call Marie on the island but knew he could not, not from the hotel room. That she and the children had arrived safely was all that mattered and they had; he had reached John St. Jacques from another pay phone in Garfinkel's.

  "Hey, Davey, they're bushed! They had to hang around the big island for damn near four hours until the weather cleared. I'll wake Sis if you want me to, but after she fed Alison she just crashed."

  "Never mind, I'll call later. Tell her I'm fine and take care of them, Johnny."

  "Will do, fella. Now you tell me. Are you okay?"

  "I said I'm fine."

  "Sure, you can say it and she can say it, but Marie's not just my only sister, she's my favorite sister, and I know when that lady's shook up."

  "That's why you're going to take care of her."

  "I'm also going to have a talk with her."

  "Go easy, Johnny."

  For a few moments he had been David Webb again, mused Jason, pouring himself a drink. He did not like it; it felt wrong. An hour later, however, Jason Bourne was back. He had spoken to the clerk at the Mayflower about his reservation; the night manager had been summoned.

  "Ah, yes, Mr. Simon," the man had greeted him enthusiastically. "We understand you're here to argue against those terrible tax restrictions on business travel and entertainment. Godspeed, as they say. These politicians will ruin us all! ... There were no double rooms, so we took the liberty of providing you with a suite, no additional charge, of course."

  All that had taken place over two hours ago, and since then he had removed the labels, steamed the shirts and scuffed the rubber-soled shoes on the hotel's window ledge. Drink in hand, Bourne sat in a chair staring blankly at the wall; there was nothing to do but wait and think.

  A quiet tapping at the door ended the waiting in a matter of minutes. Jason walked rapidly across the room, opened the door and admitted the driver who had met him at the airport. The CIA man carried an attaché case; he handed it to Bourne.

  "Everything's there, including a weapon and a box of shells."

  "Thanks."

  "Do you want to check it out?"

  "I'll be doing that all night."

  "It's almost eight o'clock," said the agent. "Your control will reach you around eleven. That'll give you time to get started."

  "My control ... ?"

  "That's who he is, isn't he?"

  "Yes, of course," replied Jason softly. "I'd forgotten. Thanks again."

  The man left and Bourne hurried to the desk with the attaché case. He opened it, removing first the automatic and the box of ammunition, then picking up what had to be several hundred computer printouts secured in file folders. Somewhere in those myriad pages was a name that linked a man or a woman to Carlos the Jackal. For these were the informational printouts of every guest currently at the hotel, including those who had checked out within the past twenty-four hours. Each printout was supplemented by whatever additional information was found in the data banks of the CIA, Army G-2 and naval intelligence. There could be a score of reasons why it might all be useless, but it was a place to start. The hunt had begun.

  Five hundred miles north, in another hotel suite, this on the third floor of Boston's Ritz-Carlton, there was another tapping on another hotel door. Inside, an immensely tall man, whose well-tailored pin-striped suit made him appear even larger than his nearly six feet five inches of height, came rushing out of the bedroom. His bald head, fringed by perfectly groomed gray hair above his temples, was like the skull of an anointed éminence grise of some royal court where kings, princes and pretenders deferred to his wisdom, delivered no doubt with the eyes of an eagle and the soaring voice of a prophet. Although his rushing figure revealed a vulnerable anxiety, even that did not diminish his image of dominance. He was important and powerful and he knew it. All this was in contrast to the older man he admitted through the door. There was little that was distinguished about this short, gaunt, elderly visitor; instead, he conveyed the look of defeat.

  "Come in. Quickly! Did you bring the information?"

  "Oh, yes, yes, indeed," answered the gray-faced man whose rumpled suit and ill-fitting collar had both seen better days perhaps a decade ago. "How grand you look, Randolph," he continued in a thin voice while studying his host and glancing around at the opulent suite. "And how grand a place this is, so proper for such a distinguished professor."

  "The information, please," insisted Dr. Randolph Gates of Harvard, expert in antitrust law and highly paid consultant to numerous industries.

  "Oh, give me a moment, my old friend. It's been a long time since I've been near a hotel suite, much less stayed in one. ... Oh, how things have changed for us over the
years. I read about you frequently and I've watched you on television. You're so-erudite, Randolph, that's the word, but it's not enough. It's what I said before-'grand,' that's what you are, grand and erudite. So tall and imperious."

  "You might have been in the same position, you know," broke in the impatient Gates. "Unfortunately, you looked for shortcuts where there weren't any."

  "Oh, there were lots of them. I just chose the wrong ones."

  "I gather things haven't gone well for you-"

  "You don't 'gather,' Randy, you know. If your spies didn't inform you, certainly you can tell."

  "I was simply trying to find you."

  "Yes, that's what you said on the phone, what a number of people said to me in the street-people who had been asked a number of questions having nothing to do with my residence, such as it is."

  "I had to know if you were capable. You can't fault me for that."

  "Good heavens, no. Not considering what you had me do, what I think you had me do."

  "Merely act as a confidential messenger, that's all. You certainly can't object to the money."

  "Object?" said the visitor, with a high-pitched and tremulous laugh. "Let me tell you something, Randy. You can be disbarred at thirty or thirty-five and still get by, but when you're disbarred at fifty and your trial is given national press along with a jail sentence, you'd be shocked at how your options disappear-even for a learned man. You become an untouchable, and I was never much good at selling anything but my wits. I proved that, too, over the last twenty-odd years, incidentally. Alger Hiss did better with greeting cards."