"What did he tell you?" The unidentified associate of the chairman, a short stocky man with penetrating dark eyes and dark eyebrows beneath dark hair, looked at DeSole. "Be precise," he added.
"Now, just a minute," protested the analyst defensively but firmly. "I'm precise in everything I say, and, frankly, whoever you are, I don't like the tone of your voice one bit."
"He's upset," said Armbruster, as if his associate was dismissible. "He's a spaghetti head from New York and doesn't trust anybody."
"Who's to trust in New York?" asked the short, dark man, laughing and poking his elbow into the wide girth of Albert Armbruster. "You WASPs are the worst, you got the banks, amico!"
"Let's keep it that way and out of the courts. ... The description, please?" The chairman looked at DeSole.
"It's incomplete, but there is a long-ago tie-in with Medusa that I'll describe-precisely."
"Go ahead, pal," said the man from New York.
"He's rather large-tall, that is-and in his late forties or early fifties and-"
"Has he got some gray around his temples?" asked Armbruster, interrupting.
"Well, yes, I think the gardener said something to that effect-graying, or gray in his hair, or something like that. It's obviously why he judged him to be in his forties or fifties."
"It's Simon," said Armbruster, looking at the New Yorker.
"Who?" DeSole stopped, as the other two stopped and looked at him.
"He called himself Simon, and he knew all about you, Mr. CIA," said the chairman. "About you and Brussels and our whole thing."
"What are you talking about?"
"For starters, your goddamn fax machine exclusively between you and that fruitcake in Brussels."
"It's a buried, dedicated line! It's locked up!"
"Someone found the key, Mr. Precision," said the New Yorker, not smiling.
"Oh, my God, that's terrible! What should I do?"
"Make up a story between you and Teagarten, but do it from public phones," continued the mafioso. "One of you will come up with something."
"You know about ... Brussels?"
"There's very little I don't know."
"That son of a bitch conned me into thinking he was one of us and he had me by the balls!" said Armbruster angrily, continuing to walk along the edge of the parking lot, the other two joining him, DeSole hesitantly, apprehensively. "He seemed to know everything, but when I think back, he only brought up bits and pieces-damned big bits and pieces like Burton and you and Brussels-and I, like a fucking idiot, filled in a hell of a lot more. Shit!"
"Now, just wait a minute!" cried the CIA analyst, once again forcing the others to stop. "I don't understand-I'm a strategist, and I don't understand. What was David Webb Jason Bourne, if he is Jason Bourne-doing at Swayne's place the other night?"
"Who the hell is Jason Bourne?" roared the chairman of the Federal Trade Commission.
"He's the tie-in with Saigon's Medusa that I just mentioned. Thirteen years ago the Agency gave him the name Jason Bourne, the original Bourne a dead man by then, and sent him out in deep cover on a Four Zero assignment-a termination with extreme prejudice, if you like-"
"A hit, if you want to speak English, paisan."
"Yes, yes, that's what it was. ... But things went wrong; he had a loss of memory and the operation collapsed. It collapsed, but he survived."
"Holy Christ, what a bunch of zucchinis!"
"What can you tell us about this Webb ... or Bourne-this Simon or the 'Cobra'? Jesus, he's a walking vaudeville act!"
"Apparently that's what he did before. He assumed different names, different appearances, different personalities. He was trained to do that when he was sent out to challenge the assassin called the Jackal-to draw him out and kill him."
"The Jackal?" asked the astonished capo supremo of the Cosa Nostra. "Like in the movie?"
"No, not the movie or the book, you idiot-"
"Hey, easy, amico."
"Oh, shut up. ... Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, otherwise known as Carlos the Jackal, is a living person, a professional killer the international authorities have been hunting for over a quarter of a century. Outside of scores of confirmed hits, many think he was the puff of smoke on the grassy knoll in Dallas, the true killer of John Kennedy."
"You're shittin' me."
"I can assure you, I am not shitting you. The word we got at the Agency at the highest secure levels was that after all these years Carlos had tracked down the only man alive who could identify him, Jason Bourne-or, as I'm firmly convinced, David Webb."
"That word had to come from somebody!" exploded Albert Armbruster. "Who was it?"
"Oh, yes. Everything's so sudden, so bewildering. ... He's a retired field agent with a crippled leg, a man named Conklin, Alexander Conklin. He and a psychiatrist-Panov, Morris Panov-are close friends of Webb ... or Jason Bourne."
"Where are they?" asked the capo supremo grimly.
"Oh, you couldn't reach either one, talk to either of them. They're both under maximum security."
"I didn't ask for the rules of engagement, paisan, I asked where they were."
"Well, Conklin's at a condominium in Vienna, a proprietary of ours no one could penetrate, and Panov's apartment and office are both under round-the-clock surveillance."
"You'll give me the addresses, won't you?"
"Certainly, but I guarantee they won't talk to you."
"Oh, that would be a pity. We're just looking for a guy with a dozen names, asking questions, offering assistance."
"They won't buy it."
"Maybe I can sell it."
"Goddamn it, why?" spouted Armbruster, then immediately lowered his voice. "Why was this Webb or Bourne or whoever the hell he is at Swayne's?"
"It's a gap I can't fill," said DeSole.
"A what?"
"That's an Agency term for no answer."
"No wonder the country's up shit's creek."
"That's not true-"
"Now you shut up!" ordered the man from New York, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a small notepad and a ballpoint pen. "Write out the addresses of this retired spook and the yid shrink. Now!"
"It's difficult to see," said DeSole, writing, angling the small pad of paper toward the neon lights of the closed gas station. "There. The apartment number may be wrong but it's close, and Panov's name will be on the mailbox. But I tell you again, he won't talk to you."
"Then we'll just have to apologize for interrupting him."
"Yes, you probably will. I gather he's very dedicated where his patients are concerned."
"Oh? Like that telephone line into your fax machine."
"No, no, that's a technical term. Number Three wire, to be precise."
"And you're always precise, aren't you, paisan?"
"And you're very irritating-"
"We've got to go," broke in Armbruster, watching the New Yorker take back the pad and the ballpoint pen. "Stay calm, Steven," he added, obviously suppressing his anger and heading back to the limousine. "Remember, there's nothing we can't handle. When you talk to Jimmy T in Brussels, see if you two can come up with a reasonable explanation, okay? If not, don't worry, we'll figure it out upstairs."
"Of course, Mr. Armbruster. But if I may ask? Is my account in Bern ready for immediate release-in case ... well, you understand ... in case-"
"Of course it is, Steven. All you have to do is fly over and write out the numbers of your account in your own handwriting. That's your signature, the one on file, remember?"
"Yes, yes, I do."
"It must be over two million by now."
"Thank you. Thank you ... sir."
"You've earned it, Steven. Good night."
The two men settled back in the rear seat of the limousine, but there was no lack of tension. Armbruster glanced at the mafioso as the chauffeur, beyond the glass partition, turned on the ignition. "Where's the other car?"
The Italian switched on the reading light and looked at his watch. "By now he'
s parked less than a mile down the road from the gas station. He'll pick up DeSole on his way back and stay with him until the circumstances are right."
"Your man knows exactly what to do?"
"Come on, a virgin he's not. He's got a searchlight mounted on that car so powerful it can be seen in Miami. He comes alongside, switches it on high, and wiggles the handle. Your two million-dollar flunky is blinded and out of business, and we're only charging a quarter of that amount for the job. It's your day, Alby."
The chairman of the Federal Trade Commission sat back in the shadows of the left rear seat and stared out the window at the dark, rushing images beyond the smoked glass. "You know," he said quietly, "if anyone had ever told me twenty years ago that I'd be sitting in this car with someone like you, saying what I'm saying, I would've told him it was impossible."
"Oh, that's what we like about you class-act characters. You look down your noses and drip your snot on us until you need us. Then all of a sudden we're 'associates.' Live and be well, Alby, we're eliminating another problem for you. Go back to your big federal commission and decide which companies are clean and which aren't-decisions not necessarily based on soap, right?"
"Shut up!" roared Armbruster, pounding his hand on the armrest. "This Simon-this Webb! Where's he coming from? What's he on our case for? What's he want?"
"Something to do with that Jackal character maybe."
"That doesn't make sense. We don't have anything to do with the Jackal."
"Why should you?" asked the mafioso, grinning. "You got us, right?"
"It's a very loose association and don't you forget it. ... Webb-Simon, goddamn it, whoever he is, we've got to find him! With what he already knew, plus what I told him, he's a fucking menace!"
"He's a real major item, isn't he?"
"A major item," agreed the chairman, again staring out the window, his right fist clenched, the fingers of his left hand drumming furiously on the armrest.
"You want to negotiate?"
"What?" snapped Armbruster, turning and looking at the calm Sicilian face of his companion.
"You heard me, only I used the wrong word and I apologize for that. I'll give you a nonnegotiable figure and you can either accept it or reject it."
"A ... contract? On Simon-Webb?"
"No," replied the mafioso, slowly shaking his head. "On a character named Jason Bourne. It's cleaner to kill someone who's already dead, isn't it? ... Since we just saved you one and a half mill, the price of the contract is five."
"Five million?"
"The cost of eliminating problems in the category of major items is high. Menaces are even higher. Five million, Alby, half on acceptance within the usual twenty-four hours."
"That's outrageous!"
"Then turn me down. You come back, it's seven-fifty; and if you come back again, it's double that. Fifteen million."
"What guarantee do we have that you can even find him? You heard DeSole. He's Four Zero, which means he's out of reach, buried."
"Oh, we'll dig him up just so we can replant him."
"How? Two and a half million is a lot to pay on your word. How?"
Again smiling, the Mafia supremo reached into his pocket and pulled out the small notebook Steven DeSole had returned to him. "Close friends are the best sources, Alby. Ask the sleazes who write all those gossip books. I got two addresses."
"You won't get near them."
"Hey, come on. You think you're dealing with old Chicago and the animals? With Mad Dog Capone and Nitti, the nervous finger. We got sophisticated people on the payroll these days. Geniuses. Scientists, electronics whiz kids-doctors. By the time we get finished with the spook and the yid, they won't know what happened. But we'll have Jason Bourne, the character who doesn't exist because he's already dead."
Albert Armbruster nodded once and turned to the window in silence.
"I'll close up for six months, change the name, then start a promotional campaign in the magazines before reopening," said John St. Jacques, standing by the window as the doctor worked on his brother-in-law.
"There's no one left?" asked Bourne, wincing as he sat in a chair dressed in a bathrobe, the last suture on his neck being pincered.
"Sure, there is. Seven crazy Canadian couples, including my old buddy, who's needlepointing your throat at the moment. Would you believe they wanted to start up a brigade, Renfrews of the Mounties, after the evil people."
"That was Scotty's idea," interrupted the doctor softly, concentrating on the wound. "Count me out. I'm too old."
"So's he but he doesn't know it. Then he wanted to advertise a reward to the tune of a hundred thousand for information leading to the et cetera! I finally convinced him that the less said the better."
"Nothing said is the best," added Jason. "That's the way it's got to be."
"That's a little tough, David," said St. Jacques, misunderstanding the sharp glance Bourne leveled at him. "I'm sorry, but it is. We're deflecting most of the local inquiries with an ersatz story about a massive propane-gas leak, but not too many people are buying it. Of course, to the world outside, an earthquake down here wouldn't rate six lines buried in the last pages of the want ads, but rumors are flying around the Leewards."
"You said local inquiries ... what about that world outside? Has there been anything from it?"
"There will be but not about here, not about Tranquility. Montserrat, yes, and the news will get a column in the London Times and maybe an inch in the New York and Washington papers, but I don't think it'll touch us."
"Stop being so cryptic."
"We'll talk later."
"Say whatever you like, John," broke in the doctor. "I'm just about finished, so I'm not paying much attention, and even if I heard you, I'm entitled to."
"I'll make it brief," said St. Jacques, walking to the right of the chair. "The Crown governor," he continued. "You were right, at least I have to assume you were right."
"Why?"
"The news came in while you were getting cleaned up. The CG's boat was found smashed on one of the nastier reefs off Antigua, halfway to Barbuda. There was no sign of survivors. Plymouth assumes it was one of those whipsaw squalls that can come out of south Nevis, but it's hard to swallow. Not a squall necessarily, but the circumstances."
"Which were?"
"His usual two crewmen weren't with him. He dismissed them at the yacht club, saying he wanted to take the boat out by himself, yet he told Henry he was going out for the running big fish-"
"Which means he would've had to have a crew," interrupted the Canadian physician. "Oh, sorry."
"Yes, he would've," agreed the owner of Tranquility Inn. "You can't fish the big fellas and skipper a boat at the same time-at least the CG couldn't. He was afraid to take his eyes off the charts."
"But he could read them, couldn't he?" asked Jason. "The charts?"
"As a navigator, he was no Captain Bligh sailing by the Pacific stars, but he was good enough to stay out of trouble."
"He was told to go out alone," said Bourne. "Ordered to rendezvous with a boat in waters that called for him to really keep his eyes on the charts." Jason suddenly realized that the doctor's nimble fingers were no longer touching his neck; instead, there was the constricting bandage and the physician was standing beside him looking down. "How are we doing?" asked Bourne, looking up, an appreciative smile creasing his lips.
"We're done," said the Canadian.
"Well ... then I think we'd better meet later, for a drink, all right?"
"Good heavens, you're just getting to the good part."
"It's not good, Doctor, it's not good at all, and I'd be a very ungrateful patient-which I'm not-if I even unwittingly let you hear things I don't think you should hear."
The elderly Canadian locked his eyes with Jason's. "You mean that, don't you? In spite of everything that's happened, you really don't want to involve me any further. And you're not playing melodramatic games, secrecy for secrecy's sake-an old dodge for inferior doctors, incident
ally-but you're really concerned, aren't you?"
"I guess I am."
"Considering what's happened to you, and I don't just mean these past few hours, which I've been a part of, but what the scars on your body tell me you've been through before, it's rather remarkable that you can be concerned for anyone but yourself. You're a strange man, Mr. Webb. At times you even sound like two different people."
"I'm not strange, Doctor," said Jason Bourne, momentarily closing his eyes, his lids briefly tight. "I don't want to be strange or different or anything exotic at all. I want to be as normal and ordinary as the next fellow, no games at all. I'm just a teacher, and that's all I want to be. But in the present circumstances, I have to do things my way."
"Which means I leave for my own benefit?"
"Yes, it does."
"And if I ever learn all the facts, I'll realize that your instructions were very educational."
"I hope so."
"I'll bet you're one hell of a teacher, Mr. Webb."
"Doctor Webb," interjected John St. Jacques spontaneously, as if the clarification were mandatory. "My brother-in-law's a doctor, too. Like my sister, he's got a Ph.D.; he speaks a couple of Oriental languages and is a full professor. Places like Harvard, McGill and Yale have been after him for years, but he won't budge-"
"Will you please be quiet," said Bourne, close to laughing, albeit kindly, at his wife's brother. "My entrepreneurial young friend is impressed with any alphabet after a name despite the fact that left to my own resources I couldn't afford one of these villas for more than a couple of days."
"That's a crock."
"I said my own resources."
"You've got a point."
"I've got a rich wife. ... Forgive us, Doctor, it's an old family argument."
"Not only a good teacher," the physician repeated, "but under the grim exterior I suspect a very engaging one." The Canadian walked to the door; he turned and added, "I'll take you up on that drink later, I'd really like that."
"Thanks," said Jason. "Thanks for everything." The doctor nodded and left, closing the door firmly behind him. Bourne turned to his brother-in-law. "He's a good friend, Johnny."
"Actually, he's a cold fish but a hell of a doctor. That's the most human I've ever seen him. ... So you figure the Jackal had the Crown governor meet him somewhere off the Antigua coast, got the CG's information, killed him, and fed him to the sharks."
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