'I don't have the specifics about Tam Quan, but others did,' said David in quiet anger. 'I had to get nine men out of there, there wasn't room for a tenth who could have slowed us down or bolted, giving away our position. '
'Good! Your rules. You're inventive, so find a parallel here and for Christ's sake pull the trigger like you did with him, our bona fide Jason Bourne! I told you in Paris to do it!' Breathing hard, Conklin paused and leveled his bloodshot eyes at Webb; he spoke in a plaintive whisper. 'I told you then and I tell you now. Put me out of it. I don't have the guts. '
'We were friends, Alex!' shouted David. 'You came to our house! You ate with us and played with the kids! You swam with them in the river... ' Oh my God lit was all coming back. The images, the faces... Oh, Christ, the faces... The bodies floating in circles of water arid blood... Control yourself! Reject them! Reject! Only now. Now!
'That was in another country, David. And besides – I don't think you want me to complete the line. '
'"Besides the wench is dead. " No, I'd prefer you didn't repeat the line. '
'No matter what,' said Conklin hoarsely, swallowing most of his whisky. 'We were both erudite, weren't we?... I can't help you. '
'Yes, you can. You will'
'Get off it, soldier. There's no way. '
'Debts are owed you. Call them in. I'm calling yours. '
'Sorry. You can pull that trigger any time you want, but if you don't, I'm not putting myself beyond-salvage or blowing everything that's coming to me – legitimately coming to me. If I'm allowed to go to pasture, I intend to graze well. They took enough. I want some back. ' The CIA officer got up from the couch and awkwardly walked across the room towards the copper bar. His limp was more pronounced than Webb ever remembered it, his right foot no more serviceable than an encased stump dragged at an angle across the floor, the effort painfully obvious.
'The leg's worse, isn't it?' asked David curtly.
'I'll live with it . '
'You'll die with it, too,' said Webb, raising his automatic . 'Because I can't live without my wife and you don't give a goddamn. Do you know what that makes you, Alex? After everything you did to us, all the lies, the traps, the scum you used to nail us with-'
'You!' interrupted Conklin, filling his glass and staring at the gun. 'Not her. '
'Kill one of us, you kill us both, but you wouldn't understand that . '
'I never had the luxury. '
'Your lousy self-pity wouldn't let you! You just want to wallow in it all by yourself and let the booze do the thinking. "There but for a fucking land mine goes the Director, or the Monk or the Grey Fox – the Angleton of the eighties. " You're pathetic. You've got your life, your mind-'
'Jesus, take them away! Shoot! Pull the goddamn trigger but leave me something? Conklin suddenly swallowed his entire drink; an extended, rolling, retching cough followed. After the spasm, he looked at David, his eyes watery, the red veins pronounced. 'You think I wouldn't try to help if I could, you son of a bitch?' he whispered huskily. 'You think I like all that "thinking" I indulge myself in? You're the one who's dense, the one who's stubborn, David. You don't understand, do you? The CIA man held the glass in front of him with two fingers and let it drop to the hard wood floor; it shattered, fragments flying in all directions. Then he spoke, his voice a high-pitched singsong, as a sad smile crept across his lips beneath the rheumy eyes. 'I can't stand another failure, old friend. And I'd fail, believe me. I'd kill you both and I just don't think I could live with that . '
Webb lowered the gun. 'Not with what you've got in your head, not with what you've learned. Anyway, I'll take my chances; my options are limited and I choose you. To be honest, I don't know anyone else. Also, I've several ideas, maybe even a plan, but it's got to be set up at high speed. '
'Oh? Conklin held on to the bar to steady himself.
'May I make some coffee, Alex?'
7
Black coffee had a sobering effect on Conklin but nowhere near the effect of David's confidence in him. The former Jason Bourne respected the talents of his past most deadly enemy and let him know it. They talked until four in the morning, refining the blurred outlines of a strategy, basing it on reality but carrying it much further. And as the alcohol diminished, Conklin began to function. He began to give shape to what David had formulated only vaguely. He perceived the basic soundness of Webb's approach and found the words.
'You're describing a spreading crisis situation mounted in the face of Marie's abduction, then sending it off the wire with lies. But as you said, it's got to be set off at high speed, hitting them hard and fast, with no let up. '
'Use the complete truth first,' interrupted Webb, speaking rapidly. 'I broke in here threatening to kill you. I made accusations based on everything that's happened – from McAllister's scenario to Babcock's statement that they'd send out an execution team to find me... to that Anglicized voice of dry ice who told me to cease-and-desist with Medusa or they'd call me insane and put me back in a mental stockade. None of it can be denied. It did happen and I'm threatening to expose everything including Medusa . '
'Then we spiral off into the big lie,' said Conklin, pouring more coffee. 'A breakaway so out of sight that it throws everything and everybody into a corkscrew turn. '
'Such as?'
'I don't know yet. We'll have to think about it. It's got to be something totally unexpected, something that will unbalance the strategists, whoever they are – because every instinct tells me that somewhere they lost control. If I'm right, one of them will have to make contact . '
Then get out your notebooks,' insisted David. 'Start going back and reach five or six people who are logical contenders. '
'That could take hours, even days,' objected the CIA officer. 'The barricades are up and I'd have to get around them. We don't have the time – you don't have the time.'
'There has to be time! Start moving. '
'There's a better way,' countered Alex. 'Panov gave it to you. '
'Mo?'
'Yes. The logs at State, the official logs. '
'The logs... ?' Webb had momentarily forgotten; Conklin had not . 'In what way?'
'It's where they started to build the new file on you. I'll reach Internal Security with another version, at least a variation that will call for answers from someone – if I'm right, if it's gone off the wire. Those logs are only an instrument, they record, they don't confirm accuracy. But the security personnel responsible for them will send up rockets if they think the system's been tampered with. They'll do our work for us... Still, we need the lie. '
'Alex,' said David, leaning forward in his chair opposite the long worn couch. 'A few moments ago you used the term "breakaway"-'
'It simply means a disruption in the scenario, a break in the pattern. '
'I know what it means, but how about using it here literally. Not breakaway, but "broke away". They're calling me pathological, a schizophrenic – that means I fantasize: I sometimes tell the truth and sometimes not, and I'm not supposed to be able to tell the difference. '
'It's what they're saying,' agreed Conklin. 'Some of them may even believe it. So?'
'Why don't we take this way up, really out of sight? We'll say that Marie broke away. She reached me and I'm on my way to meet her. '
Alex frowned, then gradually widened his eyes, the creases disappearing. 'It's perfect,' he said quietly. 'My God, it's perfect. ' The confusion will spread like a brushfire. In any operation this deep only two or three men know all the details. The others are kept in the dark. Jesus, can you imagine? An officially sanctioned kidnapping! A few at the core might actually panic and collide with each other trying to save their asses. Very good, 'Mr. Bourne. '
Oddly enough, Webb did not resent the name, he merely accepted it without thinking. 'Listen,' he said, getting to his feet . 'We're both exhausted. We know where we're heading so let's get a couple of hours' sleep and go over everything in the morning. You and I learned years ago the difference betwee
n a scratch of sleep and none at all. '
'Are you going back to the hotel?' asked Conklin.
'No way,' replied David, looking down at the pale, drawn face of the CIA man. 'Just get me a blanket. I'm staying right here in front of the bar. '
'You also should have learned when not to worry about some things,' said Alex, rising from the couch and limping towards a closet near the small foyer. 'If this is going to be my last hurrah – one way or the other – I'll give it my best. It might even sort things out for me. ' Conklin turned, having taken a blanket and a pillow from the closet shelf. 'I guess you could call it some kind of weird precognition, but do you know what I did last night after work?'
'Sure, I do. Among other clues there's a broken glass on the floor. '
'No, I mean before that . '
'What?
'I stopped off at the supermarket and bought a ton of food. Steak, eggs, milk – even that glue they call oatmeal. I mean, I never do that . '
'You were ready for a ton of food. It happens. '
'When it does I go to a restaurant . '
'What's your point?
'You sleep; the couch is big enough. I'm going to eat. I want to think some more. I'm going to cook a steak, maybe some eggs, too. '
'You need sleep. '
'Two, two and a half hours'll be fine. Then I'll probably have some of that goddamned oatmeal. '
Alexander Conklin walked down the corridor of the State Department's 4th floor, his limp lessened through sheer determination, the pain more so because of it. He knew what was happening to him: There was a job facing him that he wanted very much to do well – even brilliantly, if that term had any relevance for him any longer. Alex realized that months of abusing the blood and the body could not be overcome in a matter of hours, but something within him could be summoned. It was a sense of authority, laced with righteous anger. Jesus, the irony! A year ago he had wanted to destroy the man they called Jason Bourne; now it was a sudden, growing obsession to help David Webb – because he had wrongfully tried to kill Jason Bourne. It could place him beyond salvage, he understood that, but it was right that the risk was his. Perhaps conscience did not always produce cowards. Sometimes it made a man feel better about himself.
And look better, he considered. He had forced himself to walk many more blocks than he should have, letting the cold autumn wind in the streets bring a colour to his face that had not been there in years. Combined with a clean shave and a pressed pinstripe suit he had not worn in months, he bore little resemblance to the man Webb found last night. The rest was performance, he knew that, too, as he approached the sacrosanct double doors of the State Department's Chief of Internal Security.
Little time was spent on formalities, even less on informal conversation. At Conklin's request – read Agency demand -an aide left the room, and he faced the rugged former brigadier general from the Army's G-2 who now headed State's Internal Security. Alex intended to take command with his first words.
'I'm not here on an inter-agency diplomatic mission,
General – it is General, isn't it?
'I'm still called that, yes. '
'So I don't give a damn about being diplomatic, do you understand me?
'I'm beginning not to like you. I understand that . '
'That,' said Conklin, 'is the least of my concerns. What does concern me, however, is a man named David Webb . '
'What about him?
'Him? The fact that you recognize the name so readily isn't very reassuring. What's going on, General?'
'Do you want a megaphone, spook? said the ex-soldier curtly.
'I want answers, Corporal – that's what you and this office are to us. '
'Back off, Conklin! When you called me with your so-called emergency and switchboard verification, I did a little verifying myself. That big reputation of yours is a little wobbly these days, and I use the term on good advice. You're a lush, spook, and no secret's been made about it. So you've got less than a minute to say what you want to say before I throw you out. Take your choice – the elevator or the window. '
Alex had calculated the probability that his drinking would be telegraphed. He stared at the Chief of Internal Security and spoke evenly, even sympathetically. 'General, I'll answer that accusation with one sentence, and if it ever reaches anyone else, I'll know where it came from and so will the Agency. ' Conklin paused, his eyes clear and penetrating. 'Our profiles are often what we want them to be for reasons we can't talk about. I'm sure you understand what I mean. '
The State Department man received Alex's gaze with a reluctantly sympathetic one of his own. 'Oh, Christ, ' I he said softly. 'We used to give dishonourables to men we were sending out in Berlin. '
'Often at our suggestion,' agreed Conklin, nodding. 'And it's all we'll say on the subject . '
'Okay, okay. I was out of line, but I can tell you the profile's working. I was told by one of your deputy directors that I'd pass out at your breath with you halfway across the room. '
'I don't even want to know who he is, General, because I might laugh in his face. As it happens, I don't drink. ' Alex had a childhood compulsion to cross his fingers somewhere out of sight, or his legs, or his toes, but no method came to him. 'Let's get back to David Webb,' he added sharply, no quarter in his voice.
'What's your beef?'
'My beef! My goddamned life, soldier. Something's going on and I want to know what it is! That son of a bitch broke into my apartment last night and threatened to kill me. He made some pretty wild accusations naming men on your payroll like Harry Babcock, Samuel Teasdale and William Lanier. We checked; they're in your covert division and still practising. What the hell did they do? One made it plain you'd send out an execution team after him! What kind of language is that? Another told him to go back to a hospital – he's been in two hospitals and our combined, very private clinic in Virginia – we all put him there, and he's got a clean bill! He's also got some secrets in his head none of us wants out. But that man is ready to explode because of something you idiots did, or let happen, or closed your fucking eyes to! He claims to have proof that you walked back into his life and turned it around, that you set him up and took a hell of a lot more than a pound of flesh!'
'What proof?' asked the stunned general.
'He spoke to his wife,' said Conklin in a sudden monotone.
'So?'
'She was taken from their home by two men who sedated her and put her on a private jet. She was flown to the West Coast . '
'You mean she was kidnapped?
'You've got it. And what should make you swallow hard is that she overheard the two of them talking to the pilot, and gathered that the whole dirty business had something to do with the State Department – for reasons unknown – but the name McAllister was mentioned. For your enlightenment he's one of your undersecretaries from the Fast East Section. '
This is nuts!'
'I'll tell you what's more than nuts – mine and yours in a crushed salad. She got away during a refuelling stop in San Francisco. That's when she reached Webb back in Maine. He's on his way to meet her – God knows where – but you'd better have some solid answers, unless you can establish the fact that he's a lunatic who may have killed his wife – which I hope you can – and that there was no abduction – which I sincerely hope there wasn't . '
'He's certifiable? cried the Chief of State's Internal Security. 'I read those logs! I had to – someone else called about this Webb last night. Don't ask me who. I can't tell you. '
'What the hell is going on?' demanded Conklin, leaning across the desk, his hands on the edge, as much for support as for effect.
'He's paranoid. What can I say? He makes things up and believes them!'
'That's not what the Government doctors determined,' said Conklin icily. 'I happen to know something about that . '
'I don't, damn it!'
'You probably never will,' agreed Alex. 'But as a surviving member of the Treadstone operation, I want you to reac
h someone who can say the right words and put my mind at ease. Somebody over here has opened up a can of worms we intend to keep a tight lid on. ' Conklin took out a small notebook and a ballpoint pen; he wrote down a number, tore off the page and dropped it on the desk. That's a sterile phone; a trace would only give you a false address. ' His eyes were hard, his voice firm, the slight tremble even ominous. 'It's to be used between three and four this afternoon, no other time. Have someone reach me then. I don't care who it is or how you do it. Maybe you'll have to call one of your celebrated policy conferences, but I want answers – we want answers!'
'You could be all wet, you know!'
'I hope I am. But if I'm not, you people over here are going to get strung up – hard – because you've crossed over into off-limits territory. '
David was grateful that there were so many things to do, for
without them he might plummet into a mental limbo and become paralysed by the strain of knowing both too much and too little. After Conklin left for Langley, he had returned to the hotel and started his inevitable list. Lists calmed him; they were preliminaries to necessary activity and forced him to concentrate on specific items rather than on the reasons for selecting them. Brooding over the reasons would cripple his mind as severely as a land mine had crippled Conklin's right foot. He could not think about Alex either – there were too many possibilities and impossibilities. Nor could he phone his once and former enemy. Conklin was thorough; he was the best. The ex-strategist projected each action and its subsequent reaction, and his first determination was that within minutes of his call to the State Department's Chief of Internal Security, other telephones would be used, and two specific phones undoubtedly tapped. Both his. In his apartment and at Langley. Therefore to avoid any interruptions or interceptions he did not intend to return to his office. He would meet David at the airport later, 30 minutes before Webb's flight to Hong Kong.
'You think you got here without someone following you?' he had said to Webb . 'I'm not certain of that. They're programming you and when someone punches a keyboard he keeps his eye on the constant number. '
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